The Republicans have created a govt within a govt...a military within the military...

Read about "Blackwater" on the only TV news channels where they'll report the real news: LINK-TV & Free Speech TV.

"Our Mercenaries in Iraq: Blackwater Inc and Bush's Undeclared Surge

On Tuesday, five employees of the private security firm Blackwater USA were killed in a violent Baghdad neighborhood. Hours later, President Bush used his State of the Union address to call on what some are calling an undeclared surge of private mercenaries in Iraq. We speak with Jeremy Scahill, author of the forthcoming “Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army.”

http://www.democracynow.....pl?sid=07/01/26/1559232

BD, you know what black water is, don't you ?

(hint, if you refine it, it powers the Internal Combustion engine)

FL: The Big Corporate Republican Party stole 2 elections, and are privatizing all they can in these 8 years. What if they succeeded in privatizing social security, what would've happened?

GOP = Corporate America = privatizing public sector = no more public "say" in anything...get as much out of the public sector as you can, in the 8 years of 2 stolen Bushco elections. Bush is a puppet for Corporate America, and the CMSM is the mouthpiece of it all.

From that Democracy NOW! link above, an excerpt:

"""And what’s really frightening is that you have a man in Erik Prince, who is a neo-crusader, a Christian supremacist, who has been given over a half a billion dollars in federal contracts, and that's not to mention his black contracts, his secret contracts, his contracts with foreign friendly governments like Jordan. This is a man who espouses Christian supremacy, and he has been given, essentially, allowed to create a private army to defend Christendom around the world against secularists and Muslims and others, and has really been brought into the fold. He refers to Blackwater as the sort of FedEx of the Pentagon. He says if you really want a package to get somewhere, do you go with the postal service or do you go with FedEx? This is how these people view themselves. And it embodies everything that President Eisenhower prophesied would happen with the rise of an unchecked military-industrial complex. You have it all in Blackwater. """

The only REAL news on TV is LINK-TV and Free Speech TV. NO CORPORATE $$$, NO GOVT $$$, NO MONEY FROM DISH!!! They are doing the important job of informing us citizens, with stories like "Blackwater" above.

YOU WON'T SEE THIS ON THE NETWORK NEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Do Cheney's no-bid contracts to Halliburton and Blackwater make sense now? Half a billion of our tax money, Cheney funnelled to Blackwater!!! No-bid!!! Is it too late to stop the runaway govt Bushco has created? And the parallel military of Blackwater? What happens to Blackwater, if there's a Democrat president? These guys are all CGOP (corporate GOP). Will all these guys have their personal military even AFTER they're out of office?????????

With our tax money! Bushco & the CGOP pulled off the greatest scam of all time: they funnelled billions/trillions of our tax money to their "private unaccountable ventures"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On your 'good' points BD, that is why I put that link for the book 'Internal Combustion' up there, it's a past look, in part of the same thing about the take over of Government projects by private corporations, and how it happened in the 20th century.
Remember the (local Government owned) street cars disappearing in the '50s and busses showing up all over the country ?, it was colusion with big oil, General Motors and tire companies being the major players
After the infrastructure was built up, the tracks buried and the streetcars burnt, the shadow corp that they made to fuck the taxpayer over filed bankruptcy and the local
governments had to pay big to take the new system over to keep mass transit up and running
I guess they tried like hell for years to get that scam rolling, but FDR was wise to it, not until he died could they pull it off

Just so we see that it's not a new deal, as long as there is opportunists (read crooks) around like the thief-in-chief et al, it will never stop without 'the peoples' oversight

Yeah
I thought it was ILLEGAL to have a private army in the USA. HMMMM................
And like I've said before our tax dollars are paying these GOP mercenaries, how come their numbers aren't included in the troop estimates?

If you watch Robert Greenwald's documentary:

Iraq For Sale: The War Profiteers

You get to hear our own soldiers talk about how demoralizing it is to have these GOP mercenaries making 4 and 5 times as much money as them, and our ripped off soldiers have trained them to do their jobs to boot! Plus the fact that these GOP mercenaries are not held accountable under our military rules of engagement. Reciepe for the nightmare the poor Iraqi citizens have had to endure. Hmmm... wonder why they won't do what we tell them to do?

Ancient: The thing that frost me, is they are personal GOP mercenaries!!!

And the GOP TRICKED all these conservative idiots into thinking they are conservatives, and Limbaugh and Hannity, always saying, "We conservatives are against the liberals, right?" They ARE NOT conservatives, and conservatives are STUPID for falling for it! The GOP, Limbaugh, Hannity, FOX are

********** CORPORATE AMERICA **********

WAKE UP, CONSERVATIVES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Democracy NOW! TV news is the only TV news telling us important stories like this! And the INN Report, and Liberty News. Non-corporate television channels LINK-TV and Free Speech TV, on DISH 9410 & 9415.

Right BD, and do you realize that korporate amerika has been at this centralization of power since the 60's with the Round Table Talks? A quiet machiavellian take over for 40-50 years now!

Ancient: Do you agree, Limbaugh and Hannity are corporate America mouthpieces, and are NOT conservatives? And O'Reilly, Coulter, Malkin, all of them? And they ALL say they're conservatives?

I have no choice but to say that conservatives are IDIOTS for falling for this!

If these same creeps said, "Hey, us liberals are for the Iraq War, right?"

We'd say, "Hey! YOU'RE not liberal!!!!!!!!! You're full of SHIT!!!!!!!"

They are Corporate America, and they are presented to the public as a Ron Popeil "info-mercial". Hannity says, "You know what the Democrats did today? You know what Hagel did today?" And then comes the "info-mercial": shills calling, and saying, "You're a great American, Sean, and I am a conservative, like you, and I agree."

CORPORATE AMERICA INFO-MERCIAL FOR CONSERVATIVE IDIOTS!!! THE LIMBAUGH & HANNITY SHOWS GET THEIR TALKING POINTS FROM CORPORATE AMERICA, NOT CONSERVATIVES!!!!!!! WAKE UP CONSERVATIVES!!!!!!!!

The news may not be televised . . .

http://cbs5.com/topstori...ies_story_027091630.html

EXXON - $340 Billion revenues and $36 Billion profit (2005)

United States $13 trillion GDP(1 rank according to CIA 2006)
Iran $610 Billion (19)
Ukraine $355 Billion (29)
Bangladesh $330 Billion (30)
Venezuela $176 Billion (50)
Israel $166 Billion (53)
Iraq $94 Billion (61)
Latvia $35 Billion (95)
El Salvador $33 Billion (96)

Some perspective on the power of Exxon. Think about the military and spy agencies funded by countries producing far less than Exxon.

Consider that to increase profits by 10%, generally the minimum to keep Wall Street happy, Exxon would need to match its performance from last year plus create an additional $34 Billion (assuming the same ratio of revenues to profits), roughly the total revenues of Microsoft or the GDP of Latvia.

With this in mind, it would be shocking if Congress were not being bribed, anti-global warming campaigns were not being funded and elections were not being stolen considering the size of Exxon and the tens of billions of dollars in profit at stake.

At this point, Exxon is a self-sustaining monster which probably can only be stopped by drastic anti-trust measures by Congress beginning with undoing the 1999 merger with Mobil. There was a reason why Standard Oil was broken up in the first place.

Don't hold your breath. As one might expect, Exxon's tentacles reach deep into government (from '98 to 2003 Exxon spent $56 million lobbying Congress), education and other policy influencing groups like think tanks. And the reward has been a windfall of taxpayer subsidies to the tune of more than $5 billion over the last 10 years. Not to mention right wing media outlets like Fox News.
If Congress doesn't act, which is a safe bet, pray for a Great Depression or a discovery of a feul alternative. And even if found, Exxon would immediately declare war and do everything in its power to prevent it from seeing the light of day.

I have news for you JOJ; on the radio today, I heard on their "on-the-hour" breakins, "Thousands protest in Washington" (not TENS-OF-THOUSANDS, do you think they'd DARE say TENS-of-thousands?).

What did they also make sure to say? "Also, there were THOUSANDS of people PROTESTING THE PROTESTORS"!!! How much you wanna bet the protestors outnumbers the "people protesting the protestors" OH...say 10,000-to-1???

But, for "fake balance", they lead everyone to believe there were as many anti-protestors as there were protestors (propoganda).

AND...they said "Jane Fonda was there"...AND they INTERVIEWED not an anti-war protestor, but an ANTI-JANE FONDA RIGHTWINGER! Saying that Jane Fonda was a traitor!

So what did they do? They spun it into giving more legitimacy to the anti-protestors and interviewed NOT A PROTESTOR, but someone protesting Jane Fonda! I heard it with my own ears on the radio earlier today. The syndicated on-the-hour radio news updates. Who does those??? Ever wonder???

JOJ: THAT'S the coverage you hear on the "on-the-hour" corporate media break-ins.

I know exactly how it works...ever pay attention to those "on-the-hour" condensed major news headlines on the radio? They're full of shit!

Let's see on Monday, on Democracy NOW!, how they cover the exact same protest!

Hotpotatomash: Do you think the corporate mainstream media is the umbrella that allows all this to happen unexamined? When is Corporate America going to get Bushco to bomb Democracy NOW! ????????? Anyone know the answer to this question???????

i'm not sure i understand your question. but i think much of the problem is built in to the system. most journalists do the best they can. but, ultimately good corporate governance REQUIRES that managers do what is best for the bottom line. and when you get an administration like the current one that intentionally games the system by punishing those it perceives as enemies and rewarding friends, it's pretty clear which is the better approach for the bottom line.

but then you add to the mix the fox news, talk radio, think tank punditry media whose sole constituency is corporate america (exxon, fox, halliburton, etc.) and you end up with a monster sized problem. essentially, the right wing propaganda machine is concerned with increasing revenues and profits for corporate america and has little use for fairness and journalistic ethics. in fact, this part of the media doesn't even care about the bottom line of their individual media outlets but rather the bottom lines of corporate america in general.

which is why the $2 milllion the weekly standard loses a year is a bargain for all the money it makes murdoch and corporations in general. for instance, the weekly standard (barnes, kristol and kagan) played a huge role in planning and backing the troop surge and buying more time in iraq. And every day in iraq is another, what, $200 million, most of which makes its way back to corporate america.

thus, part of the problem with the MSM (at least on the right) is that people still think of it as media. iraq is the clearest example of the folly in this belief. the biggest proponents for the war and escalation have been fox, kristol, weekly standard and the american enterprise institute. fed kagan, who wrote the surge plan is a scholar at AEI. lynn cheney also works there. so does newt gingrich, richard perle, LEE RAYMOND of EXXON fame, John Yoo of torture fame. Alumni include DICK EVIL CHENEY, KEN LAY, ANTONIN SCALIA. because think tanks are treated as 501(c)(3)'s - irs code for charitable organizations - super rich people like the Scaife's and the Coor's funding of AEI is tax deductible. So they save money and pay the salaries for the people who write the research papers and go on tv to support their policies. and corporations give plenty as well which, for some odd reason, does not have to be made public. i kid you not. source watch states that EXXON gave at least $250,000 in 2005 to AEI alone.

i wonder if any conflicts of interest exist in all that. thus, we end up with a system that is not a democracy as brad has shown time and again. this is also supported by the laws passed by congress which universally favor corporations at the expense of the people. Check out the Drum Major Institute for tons of information on this fact of life. and Fox and the rest of them play a major role in all of this. they basically preach the policy that AEI comes up with which is determined by cheney and raymond and the like. but the worse part is that the monster these people created needs to be constantly fed. wall street wants a 10% improvement year after year and it's all about future earnings. so you need the $5 billion tax break congress gave you last year and another one to boot. but instead, congress took away the tax breaks. and gas prices are down too which is going to hurt. how will you make up that lost revenue and profit?

invade iran.

and Fox, kristol and AEI will be out there telling us why it was necessary, blah, blah, blah. and let's say the world doesn't implode afterwards. what will you do next year to improve upon iran?

as for Democracy Now, why do they care. it's great but its import is limited. the republican congressional servants of the corporations and their masters may well live to regret the day they failed to take care of net neutrality though. amazingly short sighted on their part and a ray of hope for the rest of us and the country.

probably more than you bargained for and i'm sure i failed to answer the queston.

Here is an interesting article (by Helen Caldicott) about the historical background of the corporatism we are seeing.

We can't compromise with or accomodate corporatism, it should be obvious by now.

As Hotpotatomash says, we need aggressive antitrust action. It was a centerpiece of old Progressive movement. Who is talking about it now? It's important even if a good alternative energy source is developed because corporatism will still be burying America and trying to get sole control of the source.

Time for the public to stop the corporate mafia. Hope it doesn't take a Great Depression to open eyes, but I'd welcome it too if it saved America from a miserable fascist future. (Not that it doesn't have its own dangers --- see Smedley Butler and so on.)

I like that one Arry, all the wing-nuts should read this and be embarassed...they've been had
(oh thats right, they don't read, they just accept corporate propaganda at face value, never mind)

This paragraph should be enough to do it,

"In 1975, the Advertising Council therefore launched another "economic education" campaign on the U.S. public. Two years later, Fortune described the council's continuing campaign as "a study in gigantism." By 1978, according to a congressional inquiry, U.S. business was spending $ 1 billion a year of tax deductible money for "education," to convince people that big government was bad for them. (The truth is that government regulation is bad for corporations. It is amazing how corporate advertising can turn truth on its head.) The campaign was once again successful, and public support for the proposition that government is bad rose from 42 percent in 1975 to 60 percent in 1980. On the coattails of this vastly expensive propaganda exercise was elected the doyen and figurehead of right-wing corporate America-Ronald Reagan. What an incredibly successful campaign! I remember it well. In 1975, the concept of big government was not a topic of discussion; by 1979, TV reporters would ask me, "But isn't big government bad?" I had no idea from where this concept had come. Now I know!"

Excellent stuff

HotPototo: You say, "as for Democracy Now, why do they care. it's great but its import is limited."

But it's the ONLY thing on TV news that isn't corporate controlled. What's your opinion on non-corporate-controlled TV channels like LINK & FSTV?

I think the only way to defeat the corporate media is exactly what they're doing on LINK and FSTV. Channels have to start up that have ZERO corporate $$$, and that happened with LINK & FSTV.

What we need, is something to combat the 24×7 CNN & FOX. We need a non-corporate controlled real-time 24×7 news, at least just for the fact that something will exist as an alternative to CNN & FOX. That's the key, CNN & FOX. You go into a coffee shop, for example, and FOX or CNN is blaring on several TV's.

For the nightly's, change your habits from ABC/NBC/CBS to Democracy NOW! But what do you do for an alternative to the 24×7's???

I think whoever's running this country behind the scenes, saw the power of CNN, and thought, "we need a FOX-type propoganda 24×7"...hence, FOX news. I'll bet that if there was a study done, CNN went further and further Corporate View from the day FOX began and forward.

The other day, I asked the question, "why is Kristol, Gingrich, Santorum, etc...GOP'ers who aren't even in office, always on TV???" And people we actually ELECTED: Bernie Sanders, etc...are NEVER on TV?

You answered my question.

Even Ted Kennedy. He gives a rousing speech, he's a living legend, and agree or not it's a great speech because he's a great speaker...the only place I saw it was on Free Speech TV.

I think you might be underestimating what LINK & FSTV are going to become... And don't underestimate the tenacious Amy Goodman. And checkout the "2007 Media Reform Conference"...people are realizing what's going on with the CMSM.

Check out Bernie Sander's speech, and then tell me there isn't some kind of media revolution occurring. And I agree with you about net neutrality.

EVERYONE PLEASE WATCH THE BELOW BERNIE SANDERS SPEECH, IT'S LIKE 5 MINUTES, IF YOU CAN'T WATCH IT, THEN YOU JUST DON'T CARE...

http://play.rbn.com/?url...oto=rtsp&start=11:40

Limbaugh was bashing Vermont and Bernie Sanders on Friday. I listen to Flush Limbaugh and Sean PropogHannity, because I LOVE to analyze how corporate America sends their talking points through them. It tells me who they're scared of, and on Friday, it was Vermont and Bernie Sanders.

Bernie Sanders is now my favorite present politician. You can watch Democracy NOW! to ever catch a glimpse of him, or watch Kristol on ANBCBSNNX. Just switch.

If you are reading this, and you can't find 5 minutes to click on Bernie Sander's speech above and listen to it, well then that's exactly why what's going on...IS GOING ON!

I use Limbaugh and Hannity to actually HELP me. If they're bashing someone, like now they're smearing Sanders and Obama, that tells me they are good, because they're receiving their "marching orders" to smear them.

Bernie says that every issue in this country is controlled by the corporate mainstream media.

....ummmmmmmmm......anyone think that's important???

Some good stuff there, Potatoe (Dan Quail's spelling).

From Arry's link:

Propaganda is "the organized spreading of ideas, information or rumour designed to promote or damage an institution, movement or person,"

Big Dan. I agree with Bernie Sanders (and share your admiration of him). The CMSM is the heart of the whole propaganda structure (it's how they push their junk), so it is the most important thing to be working on. All that historical corporatism takeover of America in the link I gave is on steroids now that there is no Fairness Doctrine and media consolidation has been allowed. It's the same thing but exponentially strengthened and more dangerous.

I also agree about Democracy Now. It is hugely important right now and helps keep the ultimate fascist/corporate state at bay. Can you imagine the the media without it now? Not a pretty picture.

BTW, it's no coincidence that the Fairness Doctrine ended under the doyen and figurehead of right-wing corporate America-Ronald Reagan. Kind of a cap on the big campaign of 1975-80.

big dan:

I sure hope Amy Goodman puts Tim Robbin's entire speech at the big Washington rally on. It was the best one of the day.

I love everything Bernie Sanders says, but he was on Tom Hartmann one day and is definitely squeamish about the voting machine issue. He doesn't seem willing to touch it unless it becomes big news. Amy Goodman is no different. I hate even bringing it up because of the overwhelmingly superior newscasting she does, but it's aggravating.

Yeah, that joke on Fox and Friends was a real knee slapper. Maybe that guy can get a show on the comedy channel right after Colbert.

Of course I hope Amy also plays the speech of my favorite home town mayor Rocky Anderson. It's hard to find anything that makes the news which makes Utah look good, but that was a great speech!