Economy
Related: About this forumThe Lies That Will Kill America
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/10/25-12"The problem: ideology and self-interest trump the facts or even caring about the facts, whether its banking, Obamacare or global warming."
The Lies That Will Kill America
by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship
Published on Friday, October 25, 2013 by Common Dreams
Here in Manhattan the other day, you couldnt miss it the big bold headline across the front page of the tabloid New York Post, screaming one of those sick, slick lies that are a trademark of Rupert Murdochs right-wing media empire. There was Uncle Sam, brandishing a revolver and wearing a burglars mask. UNCLE SCAM, the headline shouted. US robs bank of $13 billion.
Say what? Pure whitewash, and Murdochs minions know it. That $13 billion dollars is the settlement JPMorgan Chase, the countrys biggest bank, is negotiating with the government to settle its own rip-off of American homeowners and investors those shady practices that five years ago helped trigger the financial meltdown, including manipulating mortgages and sending millions of Americans into bankruptcy or foreclosure. If anybodys been robbed its not JPMorgan Chase, which can absorb the loss and probably take a tax write-off for at least part of it. No, its the American public. In addition to financial heartache we still have been denied the satisfaction of seeing jail time for any of the banksters who put our feet in cement and pushed us off the cliff.
This isnt the only scandal JPMorgan Chase is juggling. A $6 billion settlement with institutional investors is in the works and criminal charges may still be filed in California. The bank is under investigation on so many fronts its hard to keep them sorted out everything from deceptive sales in its credit card unit to Bernie Madoffs Ponzi scheme to the criminal manipulation of energy markets and bribing Chinese officials by offering jobs to their kids.
Nor is JPMorgan Chase the only culprit under scrutiny. Bank of America was found guilty just this week of civil fraud, and a gaggle of other banks is being investigated by the government for mortgage fraud. No wonder the camp followers at Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, CNBC and other cheerleaders have ganged up to whitewash the banks. If justice is somehow served, this could be the biggest egg yet across the smug face of unfettered, unchecked, unaccountable capitalism.
adirondacker
(2,921 posts)fasttense
(17,301 posts)How else to explain the massive witch hunts that murdered so many women that several German towns were left with no females at all. Or the Inquisition, or Christopher Columbus's attempt to turn the Americas into one massive sex slave operation, or the Trail of tears, or the Koch brothers.
adirondacker
(2,921 posts)but the mass seems to be suspended in a rightward vacuum for far too long to be able to compare politics and policy with gravitational force.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)that will trump all the rest of them. That train is headed off the cliff, almost certainly in our lifetime, and there's no stopping it now. By the time enough people actually acknowledge that, it will be far, far too late to do anything.
CrispyQ
(36,509 posts)& going to party till it crashes. The 1% definitely know it's coming & that's why they are grabbing everything they can - to cushion the fall, cuz it's gonna be a doozy.
Taitertots
(7,745 posts)Read 1984 as a child and thought "How could the populace be so stupid that they everyone doesn't immediately detect Winston's newspaper edits. What is the point in editing newspapers when everyone knows you edit the newspapers."
Now as an adult, I have seen the people who would read Winston's edited newspapers. There are herds of people who listen to everything Fox News says regardless of it's internal contradictions and obvious lies.