5/4 The GOP Billionaires: Just How They've Gotten This Far

Ooops. 5/4? Frequent visitors here know all about how "chatty" MeanMesa can become once something gets the "dander up." This billionaire business is nasty. 

The "Tactical Mechanisms"
of the Plutocrats' Coup d'etat

To control the United States in the way they want, they must control the democracy.  While out right and immediate control through, perhaps, force of arms is still out of reach in these ambitions, other avenues are disturbingly available to these oligarchs.  We can easily discern just a few of the primary avenues.

1. Through Corrupted Politics

The oligarchs are astonishingly cynical.  They are convinced that when enough money is made available to a political campaign, the character and qualifications of such a candidate mean almost nothing.  Because an interested, educated electorate -- as envisioned by the country's founders -- would make this approach unworkable, the plutocrats began to target the populations' education and interest levels directly -- with some remarkable success.

The candidates that they manage to elect are necessarily subservient to them.  They were hoisted into office on the false premise that their campaigns were financed by constituents when the cash actually came to them from rather demanding billionaires through their Super PACs,

These candidates, once in office, fully realize that the same subversion of the democratic system which placed them there can be made instantly available to a more dependable and obedient replacement.  The investment required from a billionaire to elect a Congressman represents almost nothing.

The Koch brothers, for instance, have a personal wealth of $39 Bn -- 39,000 million.  A "campaign contribution" of one or two million dollars, while able to totally submerge most election opponents, amounts to almost nothing to them.

2. Through the Media

While Murdoch's FOX News Corp is the most obvious among the sold out media, the largest five "non-FOX" networks [CBS, ABC, NBC, PBS and MSNBC] are held -- and managed -- by six massive corporations.  Although MeanMesa visitors are likely to look to the internet for their information, the majority of American voters rely on these network "news" outlets.

The main propaganda work is accomplished through syntactic nuance.  For

Everything's just fine. (image)

example, the President doesn't actually ever "do" things, he "tries to do" things; when there is little validity to one side of a conflict or argument, the "news" reports two equally valid sides; and, when a "rebuttal" is to be aired as "news," the time allocated always favors the Republicans.  There are plenty of examples.

Why would we expect otherwise from wholly owned, dutiful servants working  under direct "editorial" orders from their owners?

3. Through Managed Education

Most billionaires could not possibly care less about public education, but, it turns out, they are not at all pleased with the now rare cases of educational products which are successful.  They were also "born to hate teachers' unions" and "love the interest payments" they get from financing unaffordable college degrees.

These same billionaires hate a public acceptance of climate change, any growing interest in renewable energy, negotiated international relations instead of war or any reasonably objective teaching of history or science.  Because these billionaires are within striking distance of owning most of the real estate in the country, they naturally hate the property taxes which fund public education.

While they have absolutely no interest in wide spread, high educational outcomes, they are organically attracted to social failures such as home schooling, religious colleges [Regent University et al.], high drop out rates, dumbed down textbooks [the Texas Board of Education] and so on.  All these alternatives to actual, functional education not only produce future voters without any bothersome critical thinking skills, but they are also cheaper -- easier on the tax fund and the tax rates -- which makes them an irresistible target for the plutocrats' political manipulation.

4. Through Incendiary Social Culture

Any public issue -- abortion, gun ownership, gay marriage, health care, jobs programs and so on -- offers the billionaires a ready made target for their political schemes.  As mentioned before, the oligarchs have essentially no ideals or personal interest in any other these superficial incitements, but they are quite willing to invest heavily in maintaining the inflamed hysteria among the easily manipulated, poorly educated, low information base voters upon whom they periodically rely to elect their puppet politicians.

The amount of corporate money required to sustain these artificial incitements in between political elections amounts to chicken feed -- and it's a remarkably good investment.

A Not Too Promising Future

The billionaires in the long term want a "plantation society" to replace the democracy -- an unavoidable explanation of why their reactionary social engineering schemes are so popular in the economically failed Southern US states.

However, in the shorter term, the interests of the anti-democracy types are "closer to home."  The billionaires cannot avoid being fixated on some aspects of the American economy.  They literally salivate every time they see the abbreviation "Tn."

The Social Security Trust currently holds $2 Tn in cash reserves, the health maintenance industry in the US represents $6 Tn annually, the Department of Defense budget runs around $700 Bn annually [over $1 Tn when all the "doo-dads" are added], the US stock exchange holds around $16 Tn [Until the next time the oligarchs empty the cash register as they did in 2008.  It went down to around $9-10 Tn after the Bush W. cronies were through with it.  The tax payers pumped in around $2 Tn to prop it back up on its feet.]

Every subtle bit of mind bending propaganda -- on any issue -- billowing forth from these self-proclaimed "masters of the universe," their obedient politicians, their sold out media or even from the mouths of oblivious hill billies in their voter base targets precisely these reservoirs of someone else's wealth.

Watch out.