So let me see if I understand the 2 biggest hot button topics on DU

[JackRiddler]

224. Who said anything about a shadowy cabal?

That's your confused conception of things. You're the one mystifying it with talk of "dark powers" and "global conspiracies," which I have not mentioned. Pure projection on your part.

Corporate rule, especially by the two centers in Wall Street and the military-industrial-intelligence complex, is out in the open. You can't see their books, of course, and they have the right now to pay off politicians' campaigns in secret for services rendered (as if they were not already doing so prior to Citizens United). But the fact that they hold sway is hardly a secret, as the revolving door doesn't even exist any more - it's one big hangar where the top personnel move freely between private contractor and ostensible government job. Goldman and Co. provide the Treasury appointments, Lockheed and Co. live at the Pentagon. The thing has built an enormous shield of secrecy and lack of unaccountability around itself, with more than 2.5 million document classifications a year plus 27 million derivative classifications, but even though you're not supposed to look inside, you'd still have to close your eyes not to notice. To see it, you only need to be able to remove the blinders of the press-release version of America.

Since the Tea Party is actually bulwark of this status quo - they would like to see further deregulation and sanction hidden government by corporations spending money in secret, with no disclosure obligations - it seems to me it's a much better fit for you than for me. Since it's such a wonderful government and all, and they like you are among its supporters (albeit highly confused about terminology, so that they think their rabid support of the real Big Corporate Government is somehow a rebellion against their imaginary conception of the evil, socialist "Big Government.&quot

I also see no contradiction in saying the government was long ago captured by corporations and a corrupt ruling class, and demanding that it be otherwise, that it stop serving a useless and destructive global military empire and start serving the people with adequate funding for health care and education.

That's once again you trying to set up false dichotomies in which the only choices apparently consist in wide-eyed authoritarian endorsements of either, your limited conception of the government (which you call "Obama" but isn't just a presidency, as it has permanent drives and elements) or else the "Tea Party" (a Republican electoral campaign that already went defunct after accomplishing its mission in 2010). Perhaps you have a simplistic, black and white world view in which anyone disagreeing with you must be them, so you're trying to categorize me as them, but I certainly think you share more of their fundamental understanding of the world than I do. They certainly share a dichotomous view of the world.