Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

Restoring an America That Has Lost its Way
BillMoyers | author | 10/07/14

Three years ago, reporter and former New York Times columnist Bob Herbert took to the road and traveled across the United States, chronicling in his new book, Losing Our Way, the stories of brave, hard-working men and women battered by the economic downturn. He found an America in which jobs have disappeared, infrastructure is falling apart and the "virtuous cycle" of well-paid workers spending their wages to power the economy has been broken by greed and the gap between the very rich and everyone else.

He tells Bill: "[W]e've established a power structure in which the great corporations and the big banks have allied themselves with the national government and, in many cases, local government to pursue corporate interests and financial interests as opposed to those things that would be in the best interests of ordinary working people… Once you do that, you lose the dynamic that America is supposed to be. It's supposed to be an egalitarian society, a society of rising standards of living, a society of a vast and thriving middle class. And we are getting farther and farther away from that ideal."

As for solutions, Herbert says, "People need to start voting against the excessive power of the great moneyed interests. But more than that, we need a movement, a grass-roots movement that will fight for the interests of ordinary men and women…" Read more

End Of The Empire
ZeroHedge | author | 10/08/14

If the top 1/100th of 1% crowding airports with their private jets isn't afraid of impoverished, disenchanted debt-serfs with pitchforks, they should be.

By End of the Empire I refer not to the collapse of American Imperial power but to the excesses and anxieties that characterize the decay of Empire. I have covered the dynamics of Imperial decay before: How Empires Fall (April 17, 2013): The imperial tree falls not because the challenges are too great but because the core of the tree has been weakened by the gradual loss of surplus, purpose, institutional effectiveness, intellectual vigor and productive investment.

... The top 1/10th of 1% has never been wealthier, the top 1% has never been wealthier, the top 5% have never been wealthier, and the top 10% have never been wealthier. People wonder why they're "poor" despite earning $250,000 a year, and yet they seem unaware of where their earnings go because they're entitled to all the goodies: by golly, we worked hard and we deserve it. ... Read more

U.S. Orders Agents To Monitor Travelers For Ebola
AP & HP | Alicia A. Caldwell | 10/08/14

The government plans to begin taking the temperatures of travelers from West Africa arriving at five U.S. airports as part of a stepped-up response to the Ebola epidemic.

At the White House, spokesman Josh Earnest said an additional layer of screening would begin at New York's JFK International and the international airports in Newark, Washington Dulles, Chicago and Atlanta. He did not give many details, but another official said separately that the new steps would include taking temperatures and would begin Saturday at JFK. ... Read more

Photos From Ebola Ground Zero In Liberia by John Moore

Inside the Bizarre Right-Wing Panic over Ebola Virus Coming to the US
AlterNet | Amanda Marcotte | 10/07/14

Of all the issues that you would think would by non-partisan, ebola should be at the top of the list. The disease is just a mindless germ that doesn't check your race, gender, social class, sexual orientation or party identification before it strikes, suggesting both liberals and conservatives have a stake in treating people exposed to the disease with compassion and care. And yet, to flip on Fox News or turn on any conservative media at all, you'd think that ebola was some kind of plague designed by the Democratic party in order to wipe out Republicans.

Blowing the threat of ebola out of proportion and trying to link it to Obama has been a constant theme on the right in recent days. Elisabeth Hasselbeck of Fox News literally demanded that we put the country on lockdown, banning all travel in and out. In a bit of race-baiting, Andrea Tantaros of Fox suggested that people who travel to the country and show symptoms of ebola will "seek treatment from a witch doctor" instead of go to the hospital. Fox host Steve Doocy suggested the CDC is lying about ebola because they're "part of the administration". Fox also promoted a conspiracy theorist who is trying to claim the CDC is lying when they caution people not to panic. ... Read more