Oligarchy: A form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique;government by the few. –dictionary.reference.com
Nancy Pelosi, has called for a federal investigation into the foreclosure mess. That’s interesting, because it was the federal government that set the old rules aside, told the regulators to take a long lunch and then sat by and watched while the greed-driven system fell to pieces as members of the Senate and House continued taking millions in campaign contributions (bribes) from the banking and financial industry.
Who’s kidding who?
And now comes word that the banks were using something called the Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, or “MERS.” The Washington Post reports MERS gave financial institutions the ability “to trade mortgages at lightning speed while largely bypassing local property laws throughout the country that required new forms and filing fees each time a loan changed hands.”
As a consequence, there is a question as to whether foreclosures on properties that went through the MERS system are legal, because the institutions that held the mortgages lacked clear title to the properties in question. A lawyer in Kentucky has filed a federal civil racketeering class-action suit. We could be talking about tens of thousands of questionable mortgages. Tens of thousands. It’s mind boggling.
But it gets even better.
Nancy Pelosi wants an investigation? Then why did she and her colleagues in the House quietly pass a bill that would force the courts to accept documents that were notarized out of state, making it more difficult for homeowners to challenge foreclosures? It passed the house in April and then quietly moved through the Senate and is now headed for Mr. Obama’s signature. And Pelosi wants an investigation? What’s she gonna do, investigate herself? The Administration tells the Huffington Post, that “the White House has concerns about the bill.” If this weren’t so sad, it would be laughable.
Money talks, people, and it’s turned us into an oligarchy. Public campaign financing may be a way to fix it. Something has got to be done to stop the millions in bribe money big business keeps pumping into the House and Senate.
However, that door is apparently no longer open, following the decision by our right-wing Supreme Court to give corporations the same rights as citizens — allowing them to use their nearly unlimited amounts of money to support or defeat any given candidate.
What nonsense. Corporations are business entities, people are people. This decision by the high court, overruling two precedents, degrades the value of U.S. citizenship while elevating corporations to human entities, even though their interest lies with multi-national profitability for a privileged few and not necessarily with what’s best for the American people. Where’s the humanity in that?
But it’s not limited to U.S. based corporations.
MoveOn.org, has asked the Department of Justice to investigate whether the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is illegally soliciting money from foreign interests for use in political advertising in the United States.
“On behalf of the more than five million members of MoveOn.org Political Action across the nation, I am writing to request that the Department [of Justice] initiate an immediate criminal investigation into the use by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce of contributions by foreign nationals to pay for advertising advocating the election or defeat of candidates for federal office.” -Justin Ruben, Exec. Dir., MoveOn.org
The Chamber, denies any wrongdoing.
Beyond that, the question of our political process having been purchased by business interests is central to the future of the Republic.
What do you prefer? A Democracy or an Oligarchy?
It continues to be the elephant in the middle of the room. So why do nearly all the pundits and so much of what’s left of the news media continue to ignore it? Could it be because big business owns the pundits and the news media?
Oh wait. Nancy Pelosi has called for an investigation. Maybe that’ll fix it…
Yeah, right.
The only thing worse than what we’ve got right now, would be to cede power back to John Boehner and those other “free trader, let the market sort it all out” Republicans who were initially responsible for getting us into this economic mess.
Some are suggesting that what’s happening is nothing short of a “bloodless coup” by an international financial oligarchy.
“It seems the world’s bankers have executed a bloodless coup and now represent all of the people in the world. . . . President Obama agreed at the G20 meeting in London to create an international board with authority to intervene in U.S. corporations by dictating executive compensation and approving or disapproving business management decisions. Under the new Financial Stability Board, the United States has only one vote. In other words, the group will be largely controlled by European central bankers. My guess is, they will represent themselves, not you and not me and certainly not America.” –Marilyn Barnwall*
Some years ago I was covering a protest at a gas station here in Los Angeles. The congressman representing the district had called out about a dozen of his constituents to put up a picket line to protest high gas prices. I asked the congressman’s aide why they were bothering to picket this one little service station, when clearly it would have no impact at all on the giant oil company responsible for setting prices. I’ll never forget what he whispered in my ear. “It’s important for them to feel like they have a role in the process” he said.
(*Marilyn Barnewall, has consulted for banks of all sizes in America and other countries. In June 1992, Forbes called her “the dean of American private banking.”)