PLUTOCRACY

In the United States, we do not have a democracy. We have a plutocracy. Like marionettes, we are controlled by a few very wealthy families and the government officals they influence and/or purchase.

Individuals addicted to money and power have been labeled "triple-A self-aggrandizers" by archaeologist Brian Hayden. Hayden describes triple-As as arrogant, aggressive, acquisitive, alarming and ambitious about getting their way.1

A professor at British Columbia's Simon Fraser University, Hayden realized the rich and the powerful, the triple-As, bent laws, exploited neighbors and seized every little advantage.2

Hayden concluded that "triple-A self-agrandizers have created the world as we know it. But in their other lives as pirates, these same people have caused 90% of the world's problems." In their greed, they "ruin the lives of others, erode society and culture and degrade the environment."3

America's history is rife with triple-As. Economics professor, Robert Heilbroner, stated that America's 19th century robber barons used "deception, violence, kidnapping and extraordinary dishonesty to gain economic power and industrial supremacy. Robber barons bore such names as Astor, Carnegie, Ford, Morgan, Rockefeller and Vanderbilt.

Former President George W. Bush is fourth generation wealth created from the sale of munitions and oil dating back to World War I. As CIA director, vice president and president, one of George H.W. Bush's priorities was U.S. weapons trade and secret arms deals with Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the moujahedeen of Afghanistan. The Bushes' oil interests are heavily invested in the Middle East.

In 1991, as George H.W. Bush's Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney orchestrated the bombing of Iraq in Operation Desert Storm. Many believe this action was aimed at securing U.S. oil interests in the Persian Gulf.

In 1995, Chaney became CEO of the Halliburton Company. After leaving that position, Cheney continued to own shares in the conglomerate and its financial interests in the Balkans, Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea.

In 2005, the U.S. Justice Department made allegations that Halliburton unlawfully received special treatment for work contracts, often no-bid contracts, in Iraq, Kuwait and the Balkans. An example of such favoritism includes Halliburton's $18 billion worth of contracts in Iraq, $7 billion of which went into the building of oil-infrastructures. I doubt that the run-of-the-mill American taxpayer received much benefit from the latter $7 billion.

In 2000, Cheney also sat on the board of Lockheed Martin, the world's largest military contractor and the world's largest arms exporter. No doubt, Cheney had less than altruistic motives for being on the Lockheed board.

No matter the cost in human lives and the viability of the environment and the planet, oil and war are big bucks for the world's triple-A self-aggrandizers.

We have seen the Democratic Clinton administration's federal surplus dissolve into the Republican George W. Bush administration's multi-trillion dollar deficits. To achieve this deficit, Bush gave himself and his cronies tax cuts, engaged the United States in two wars, Iraq and Afghanistan, and deregulated banks, Wall Street and other businesses, which resulted in "The Recession" of 2008.

Now, with ultimate gall, these same Republicans, who supported George W. and Cheney, are bouncing up and down about our nation's debt, which they created, and are demanding huge cuts in the federal budget, especially targeting health care, education, Social Security, Medicare and the needs of lower income mothers and children.

On the state level, these Republicans are on a rampage to destroy the collective bargaining power of state unions and to squeeze the middle class into non-existence.

Where do these people get off? Do they have a conscience? Apparently, they do not. Such are the triple-As and the plutocratic governments they spawn.

1. Smithsonian, Blame the Rich, 12/07, 102-109.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.