By David Walsh, wsws.org
Harry Windsor on the polo grounds. The stench of privilege and decadence follows him everywhere.
“Prince Harry rounded off his hugely successful week-long tour of the U.S. today very much in his comfort zone – playing polo. … He was greeted by club founder Peter Brandt [sic] and his model wife, Stephanie Seymour. Brandt, 65, – whose wife is 44 – is an American industrialist and businessman, worth an estimated $2.7 billion.” – Daily Mail, May 15, 2013 Continue reading »
Mark Zuckerberg’s complaint box is filling up. The billionaire founder of FaceBook is behaving as destructively as other sociopaths who hoard vast riches while others starve and die for lack of medical care. And people are letting him know how they feel about it.
Zuckerberg’s new advocacy group FWD.us is running TV ads in support of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. A petition asks him to stop. The comments that people are leaving on the petition ask him to do a number of other things I won’t repeat. You’ll never guess what they’ve found that rhymes with Zuck.
Enough With the (Poisonous) Bullshit
Editor’s Note: Such is the mental and political confusion of the American people, their Olympic ignorance about class struggle, and their alienation from the government, that all sorts of theories and conspiracies (some well grounded of course, given the criminality of much of official Washington) float around attempting to explain events and processes that a basic grasp of historical materialism would clarify easily. Here the team at the Revolutionary Communists Party tackles a tale that keeps going round and round—”The Illuminati”— and which clearly issues from the heavy scent of illegitimacy that rightly surrounds the American government. In fact, people who believe the Illuminati to be a government behind the government are not far from reality. They are merely complicating an explanation that should be quite straightforward: the world is dominated and ruled by a web of plutocratic alliances currently led by the ruling class of the most powerful of all republics, the United States, the nation in charge of maintaining the global capitalist status quo. Continue reading »
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April 8, 2013 |
| THIS WEEK | |
| President Obama announced last week he’ll be turning back 5 percent of his salary, as a gesture of solidarity with furloughed federal employees. The move will cost the President $20,000 out of his $400,000 annual salary.A few days earlier, news reports revealed that Danaher CEO Larry Culp has become the latest corporate chief exec to join the $100 million club. Culp collected $106.4 million last year. He essentially made more in a day — for running a tech firm — than the President made for the entire year. Continue reading » | |
Runaway Exploitation
by MICHAEL BRENNER
SHELDON ADELSON —Net worth: Just $24.3 billion.
Adelson, a fierce Zionist, is not shy about his influence on the US political system, where he freely admits buying just about any politico he fancies. He is the majority shareholder of Las Vegas Sands, the largest casino chain in the world and a brand that has expanded from the US abroad into Macau and Singapore. Last year he made $852 million in a single deal, selling his Interface conference company and using the money for the Venetian resort in Las Vegas. He is currently the 19th richest person in the world. Scores of oligarchs like him own the American government, clearly the best democracy that money can buy.
Plutocracy literally means rule by the rich. “Rule” can have various shades of meaning: those who exercise the authority of public office are wealthy; their wealth explains why they hold that office; they exercise that authority in the interests of the rich; they have the primary influence over who holds those offices and the actions they take. These aspects of “plutocracy” are not exclusive. Government of the rich andfor the rich need not berun directly by the rich. Also, in some exceptional circumstances rich individuals who hold powerful positions may govern in the interests of the many, e.g. Franklin Roosevelt. Continue reading »
“We Don’t Have the Power to Coerce Anybody”…That’s Why They Need Government
by KEVIN CARSON
The Koch Bros: a blight on the face of the planet, and that’s not figuratively.
Were there an awards show for unintentional howlers, Charles Koch’s statement in a Forbes interview last December (“Inside the Koch Empire: How the Brothers Plan to Reshape America,” December 5, 2012) would surely be a nominee. “Most power is power to coerce somebody,” he said. “We don’t have the power to coerce anybody.” Continue reading »