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In reply to the discussion: Know your BFEE: John Roberts earned his Sgt. Pepper stripes as an Iran-Contra cover-up artiste. [View all]Octafish
(55,745 posts)18. That's exactly why they keep scumbags like Roberts and Alito and Scalia in power.
It pays the right people:
The Origins of the Overclass
By Steve Kangas
The wealthy have always used many methods to accumulate wealth, but it was not until the mid-1970s that these methods coalesced into a superbly organized, cohesive and efficient machine. After 1975, it became greater than the sum of its parts, a smooth flowing organization of advocacy groups, lobbyists, think tanks, conservative foundations, and PR firms that hurtled the richest 1 percent into the stratosphere.
The origins of this machine, interestingly enough, can be traced back to the CIA. This is not to say the machine is a formal CIA operation, complete with code name and signed documents. (Although such evidence may yet surface and previously unthinkable domestic operations such as MK-ULTRA, CHAOS and MOCKINGBIRD show this to be a distinct possibility.) But what we do know already indicts the CIA strongly enough. Its principle creators were Irving Kristol, Paul Weyrich, William Simon, Richard Mellon Scaife, Frank Shakespeare, William F. Buckley, Jr., the Rockefeller family, and more. Almost all the machine's creators had CIA backgrounds.
During the 1970s, these men would take the propaganda and operational techniques they had learned in the Cold War and apply them to the Class War. Therefore it is no surprise that the American version of the machine bears an uncanny resemblance to the foreign versions designed to fight communism. The CIA's expert and comprehensive organization of the business class would succeed beyond their wildest dreams. In 1975, the richest 1 percent owned 22 percent of Americas wealth. By 1992, they would nearly double that, to 42 percent the highest level of inequality in the 20th century.
How did this alliance start? The CIA has always recruited the nations elite: millionaire businessmen, Wall Street brokers, members of the national news media, and Ivy League scholars. During World War II, General "Wild Bill" Donovan became chief of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA. Donovan recruited so exclusively from the nations rich and powerful that members eventually came to joke that "OSS" stood for "Oh, so social!"
Another early elite was Allen Dulles, who served as Director of the CIA from 1953 to 1961. Dulles was a senior partner at the Wall Street firm of Sullivan and Cromwell, which represented the Rockefeller empire and other mammoth trusts, corporations and cartels. He was also a board member of the J. Henry Schroeder Bank, with offices in Wall Street, London, Zurich and Hamburg. His financial interests across the world would become a conflict of interest when he became head of the CIA. Like Donavan, he would recruit exclusively from societys elite.
CONTINUED...
They don't call 'em "Capitalism's Invisible Army" for nothing. It takes money to buy people willing to sell their integrity.
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Know your BFEE: John Roberts earned his Sgt. Pepper stripes as an Iran-Contra cover-up artiste. [View all]
Octafish
Feb 2012
OP
Prof. Alexander delivers Truth regarding the racist and fascist natures of the War on Drugs.
Octafish
Feb 2012
#6
His means to occupying the Oval Office was to ensure there would be no ''October Surprise.''
Octafish
Feb 2012
#7
The BFEE - the world's ultimate I'll-scratch-your-back-if-you-scratch mine club.
Initech
Feb 2012
#3
Indeed. Indeed. Indeed. Theirs is a line of toadies in service to warmongers going back generations.
Octafish
Feb 2012
#10
That's exactly why they keep scumbags like Roberts and Alito and Scalia in power.
Octafish
Feb 2012
#18
No surprise. Almost all of W's people can be found somewhere in the the criminal ranks of the past.
jwirr
Feb 2012
#5
On a side note, Lawrence Walsh celebrated his 100th birthday last month.
Guy Whitey Corngood
Feb 2012
#9
Thank you for your effort and dedication in pulling this together so we can see the full picture
suffragette
Feb 2012
#15
You are most welcome, suffragette! The guy's friends with the likes of Clarence Thomas...
Octafish
Feb 2012
#37
And both he and Thomas clearly view rights as something for the privileged class and corporations,
suffragette
Feb 2012
#39
Understand, completely. My own Mrs. Octafish says, ''I am so glad I don't know what you know.''
Octafish
Feb 2012
#38
"Just because I look drunk and stoned in the photo doesn't mean I am." - Bush (R)
Miqqyy
Feb 2012
#19