our republic for the sake of SHAREHOLDER PROFITS.
This began with the US Chamber of Commerce. All through the 1950s and 1960s, corporate executives and board members had grown increasingly concerned at the effect the Civil Rights, Anti-War and Women's movements could potentially have on their PROFITS, and when Ralph Nader published Unsafe at Any Speed and Detroit was subsequently FORCED to put seatbelts in their cars (gasp, it affected PROFITS!), they had had enough of liberal democracy.
They asked Lewis Powell, the Nixon Supreme Court pick, if he would draft a plan they could all follow to amass political power in our republic, and so protect their PROFITS.
Powell wrote a memorandum that laid out the entire corporate takeover plan, which became knows as the Powell Manifesto.
https://medium.com/volans/how-the-powell-memorandum-changed-capitalism-and-what-we-can-learn-from-it-today-d2ce10234f82
Then, when Reagan allowed the old Fairness Doctrine to die in 1987, it opened the way for a well-funded corporate takeover of the news media. Under the Fairness Doctrine (which was passed post WWII by Congress to prevent the US falling prey to a demagogue), each community had to have locally owned TV and radio stations that were obligated to broadcast one hour of news per day, half hour local, and half hour national. They were confined to the facts, because if they started getting into opinion, the law required them to give equal time to the opposing viewpoint.
With that gone, Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the right-wing radio grifters built their AM empire and brainwashed a large segment of working people, who listened to talk radio all day during the workday. We also had the rise of Fox, and now Newsmax. (I like the term 'treason weasels!).
Why do they pound these wedges? They are on the gravy train with stratospheric PROFITS.
They have gotten Congress to give them tax cut after tax cut, and bribed Congress members (through campaign contributions, and now super-pacs) to enact legislation that protects PROFITS, and pound wedges between us because IF WE HATE EACH OTHER THEN WE WON'T NOTICE THEM PICKING OUR POCKETS.
Instead of a government of, by and for the people, thanks to Lewis Powell and others like him (Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Lee Atwater and many more), we now have a government of, by and for CORPORATE PROFITS, and billionaire parasites.
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