from the foreword to Billionaires & Ballot Bandits
Friday, October 26, 2012
American democracy is under assault. 
In one super-PAC alone, Karl Rove and the Enron grifter Ed Gillespie [His family owned the little convenience store across the street from where my mother-in-law lived, and I watched him grow up . I guess he's forgotten from where he came. ~J], have assembled $200 million from big polluters and Wall Street moguls to buy the 2012 election.
Two of the Koch Brothers, Charles and David, pledged $130 million to elect candidates who favor unrestrained corporate profiteering.
The senators and congressmen they fund and elect are not representing the United States—they are representing Koch and its oil industry cronies, Big Pharma, and the Wall Street banksters currently mounting a hostile takeover of our government.
I have no problem characterizing these corporate-centric super-PACs as treasonous. We are now in a free fall toward old-fashioned oligarchy; noxious, thieving and tyrannical.
The most corporate-friendly Supreme Court since the Gilded Age had declared in its notorious Citizens United decision that corporations are people and that money is speech. Those who have the most money now have the loudest voices in our democracy while poor Americans are mute.
And the money is talking; in 97 percent of federal elections over the past two decades, the best-funded candidates were victorious.
America, the world’s proud template for democracy and a robust middle class, is now listing toward oligarchy and corporate kleptocracy.
America today is looking more and more like a colonial economy, with a system increasingly tilted toward enriching the wealthy 1 percent and serving the mercantile needs of multinational corporations with little allegiance to our country.
These radical forces already dominate the national press, with Fox News and talk radio snugly in the pocket of the corporate Right.
This is the first time in American history that corporate and media interests have been so clearly and so perilously aligned.
With the media in their hands, and unlimited money, the final strategy of Rove, Koch, the Chamber of Commerce, and others of that ilk is to permanently cripple representative democracy by stopping Americans from voting.
A boatload of new Jim Crow laws target Democrats by erecting impediments that deter poor and minority communities, senior citizens, and students from exercising their franchise.
Voter suppression is a crime.
In Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, Greg Palast details each of these devious scams for disenfranchising vulnerable voters . . . but also, crucially, Palast here follows the money that powers the machinery of democracy’s destruction.
This is not a partisan issue. Clearly the GOP agenda is to suppress votes, as Karl Rove has repeatedly and unashamedly signaled. But Billionaires & Ballot Bandits exposes the vote-count blindness, biases, venality, and ballot gaming by Democrats as well. I don’t believe there are Republican children or Democratic children.
Every American citizen ought to have the right to vote and everybody ought to have the right to clean air and clean water, to integrity and transparency in the marketplace, and to a functioning democracy.
Palast is the last of the great, old-fashioned muckraking investigative reporters. He’s an “outlier,” unafraid of corporate tyrants. Together, we have been investigating and exposing voter suppression for years. In 2008, we co-wrote a story for Rolling Stone warning of the ugly future of a new Jim Crow operation.
Now, it’s here.
Voter suppression is real. And it’s happening to YOU. But there is something that you can do to prevent it. That is the message of Palast’s book.
Remember, this is YOUR democracy. You can do all the campaigning you want, but if your vote isn’t counted, you’re going to lose the presidency—and our democracy.
* * * * Read our book Billionaires & Ballot Bandits. Pass on the link www.BallotBandits.org and download the 7 Ways to Beat the Ballot Bandits. And get the word out! There’s still time to steal back your vote.
Read Kennedy’s entire A Hostile Takeover of our Country in Billionaires & Ballot Bandits: How to Steal and Election in 9 Easy Steps by Greg Palast. The New York Times bestseller includes a 48-page comic book insert by artist Ted Rall.
Palast’s brand new NYT bestseller Billionaires & Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps, is available from Barnes & Noble, Amazon or Indie Bound and on the NOOK and Kindle. Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, Armed Madhouse and Vultures’ Picnic.
Author’s proceeds from the book go to the not-for-profit Palast Investigative Fund for reporting on voter protection issues.
Or donate and can get a signed copy of the book or make a contribution of any amount to support our work.
Related articles
- Tales From the Crypt of Democracy by New York Times-bestselling authors Greg Palast and Ted Rall (graphicpolicy.com)
- Robert Kennedy Jr. and Greg Palast (seniorsforademocraticsociety.wordpress.com)
Dear onwentsya, it is generally acknowledged in martial aet/energy work circles that “energy follows thought”. In other words, whenever you focus your attention upon something, within seconds, energy begins to follow and manifest itself in the direction of your attention…and intention.
If you spend half an hour a day bemoaning (or insert any word you choose) the Cabal, Obama or Romney, etc;, you atre energetically ‘reinforcing’ whatever you perceive them to represent !
It is in this way (and why many insuist) that “you create your reality”.
To demonstrzate this, Wittgenstein once said ; “The world of a happy man is not the same world as that of an unhappy man.”
More recently (28th March 2012) Darryl Anka channelled ‘Bashar’ :
Once we have innerstood, contrary to our historic conditioning, that there is not ONE objective reality but as many parallel, interlacing realities as there are perceivers, our “personal” responsability can no longer be hidden behind the convenient old chestnuts like : “What can I alone do ?”, or “There are bad people out there.” etc. For it is “you” who have created the reality that you describe…and today you have created amosoulder to play a part in it !
For there is no “inner and outer focus” – just “focus”… in itSelf
I cannot watch youtube videos my computer is too old;-/ but thank you for sharing it. Thank you for the reminder about energy following attention. I spend a lot more time focusing on the things I do want to happen, but it feels like an impossible task, a guilt inducing stress creator to hear that when I listen to friends, or read what they have written about their experiences, or try to help them in the real world that *I* am personally creating their suffering.
It feels like complete nausea and despair in my heart when I read that. What I think when I feel this and read this is that either some philosophy has misinterpreted reality, or I must be incredibly slow/stupid or defective to not be able to find my way out of this gordian knot.;-(
Do I ignore those I care about to avoid thinking of the things I don’t want to create?
I feel like focusing positive intentions and attention on the positive outcomes we want is good, but trying to avoid ever thinking or speaking, writing about, exposing and working to alter the rotten stuff is some sort of either puzzle or trick.
Even if I could completely ignore those I care about, refuse them the support and listening that feels loving and good to give them in order to avoid the horrors of things like the tar sands I would still have to learn to ignore my own experiences, or form some sort of bizarre mental contortion to avoid being aware of them and yet still address them (I live about 1 block from a multiple toxic waste emitting thing, when it starts emitting airborne stuff I have to shut windows or get sicker-can’t leave windows shut or will suffocate and be sick from heat so have to check periodically to see if toxic waste emitter has shut down for a while-just one super obvious instance but I have loads more like the physical adaptations I have to make that vary and have to be thought about in order to be implemented)
I don’t *theoretically* disagree, in fact I would love to do what you suggest and see the effects. Unfortunately, either it has not worked for me, or else I am somehow not good enough at it, not developed enough or whatever to make it work that way.
My mental adaptation to avoid the despair I am feeling when I think of it this way, is to attempt to balance the inner focus-such as believing that my intentions and attention have that much power, and thus being really obsessed with making them perfect, with the outer focus that says just the opposite that my inner focus and intentions are minimally effective unless I put them out into the world using ACTIONS.
So I do the best I can to focus on the positive outcomes, to work on my inner growth so that I may eventually be able to do that amazing balancing act of running about holding my breath shutting windows while not noticing that I am breathing toxic waste and having an asthma attack and feeling total unconditional love for all that is; with also taking concrete actions in the physical world to change the conditions I do not want to focus on lest I create more of them.
I am open to the idea that either half of my beliefs here, or even my perception that these two beliefs can be combined into a middle path, could be completely in error. I am willing and indeed trying to get to a place where the inner focus could work as well as people say it does or should but since I am apparently not there yet, I am working with what I have.
I have always been a very positive outcome focused person-even to being called a pollyanna quite a bit, but I have not experienced my focus or attention having the large effect in the world very often. I have experienced that keeping my focus on the positive as much as possible makes me *feel* happier, helps me adjust better etc
Being obsessed with it, as if my working to right wrongs in the physical world is making them happen feels wrong to me, feels like a manipulation and a control tactic inserted into a philosophy in order to paralyze people who are experiencing unpleasant conditions who want to change them.
Even my hero the Dalai Lama has said that the suffering of the people hurts his heart and he has to spend time in meditation and prayer to bring himself back to a better state. He is the human incarnation of the God of Compassion-if even he cannot help thinking and feeling in relation to those who are suffering how can I expect to do better? How can you expect me to do better?
I am not sure if you, I or both of us are missing something important, I only know that the feeling I get from the conversation is a tightness and pain in my heart not an opening or uplifting feeling.
I think perhaps the effect on the larger world is predicated upon the focus of MANY not just one as the Intention Experiment showed. The science does not support an individual being obsessively focused creating change without physical action, but it has shown effects from the concentrated focus of many together.
(and it has shown even more effect from the concerted actions being combined with the concerted focus;which is the middle path I am personally following and proposing as an alternative)
Wilhelm Reich wrote a couple of books The Function of the Orgasm and The Mass Psychology of Fascism. In these books Reich explains how the church and states control people. One method is exactly like this conversation-you give people an instruction that is impossible to fulfill and then tell them that not fulfilling it will have terrible consequences.
The church used repression of sex but repression of thoughts or attention toward unwanted circumstances or occurrences is almost exactly the same.Tho in this case it can serve a double function for the fascists-not only causing despair and confusion in the subject, but also in preventing many subjects from taking exactly the actions they need to take in order to remove fascism.
I am sure that is not your intent, but I am not so sure about those who originated this philosophy that is so widely accepted in the new age movement. It seems rather convenient for the powers that were, doesn’t it?
O, I think what you are referring to is a propensity for certain kinds of New Age thinkers to deny their dark side, or that it even exists. I went to a Science of Mind church and left it because of that. It’s my belief and also a result of my personal healing experience that unless we are willing to look at the dark, all of it – both ours and others, as well, it will never be conquered. I think many people believe the energy will simply die away if we continue to keep it at bay. I have found this is never true. That’s too easy, and the result is we are always at the dark’s mercy, because we never understand it, and we remain disempowered by it.
I’ve watched people in their attempts to keep their pain at bay, who can never be still, can never stop, can never go into the beautiful, wonderful quiet that exists, waiting for us. The reason is that as soon as they are still, the dark will show up. Also, because of the way energy works, life will always bring us experiences, that trigger our own dark side, so we can heal it. Until we are perfectly conscious of our own issues, of what triggers us, and how to deal with them when we are triggered, I believe we can never really find the peace and inner freedom that we need to make the deep profound connection to our hearts – and this is the key to our connecting to the Source.
I see people whom I love dearly running to all kinds of healers, doing all kinds of ‘things’ that if we really want to solve our issues are to me totally unnecessary. Unfortunately, as I see it, there is only one way: we need to look our fears, even our terrors in the eye, get to know them well, befriend them, if you will, and eventually when we are triggered, we get to the point where we say something like, “Oh, you again. Please, go away!” Can/should we try to do this alone? I don’t think so; we need help and support, a guide who is healthy enough not to relate symbiotically. The business of healing in isolation it seems to me is a result of our sickness as a result of living in a false matrix. Humanity is, after all, all ONE. Many of us have never been permitted boundaries, so we do not understand that a good therapist will accept our saying no – to whatever it is that makes us uncomfortable. Many of us have been separated from our ‘self’ to the point where we don’t trust our inner voices when they tell us what we should do in a given situation. A healthy guide will help us to understand these things – and support us as we learn to use these tools – and many others, which we may never have learned before, simply because our families were utterly dysfunctional.
My experience has been that eventually, I am no longer even triggered. Recently, because my life is expanding and developing in some very wonderful ways, I am having to deal with some deeper triggers/issues that had I not welcomed this positive change might never have caused me a problem. I like what is happening to me, so I made the conscious decision I was going to walk through these issues, too – and I will. Even though it has caused me pain and some difficulty, I am also experiencing greater freedom and happiness in my interactions with others. I am growing and healing, and that side of the coin feels very good to me . In time, from past experience, the darker side of the coin will gradually fade away. . .
So, perhaps my thoughts can help you as you work through and try to discover your own belief system and what works for you . . .
Love and hugs,
~Jean
Thank you Jean!! As always the wisdom of my elders heals my heart and returns common sense;-)
I thought I had my belief system pretty well understood, but the problem for me is that instead of defending ego, I take everything anyone says to heart, and examine it, examine myself, seek to learn from it and not miss anything.
Getting rid of the box of pre-set views is useful for freedom but hard on the feelings sometimes!
This conversation here, with your reply, seems to be showing me that as always it seems, what my Mom told me is what I should have acted on.
I knew in myself all that you wrote above-felt it as true but what I didn’t have were boundaries, or a sense of how to delineate what I really *know* from that deep inner knowing, from what is ego and needs questioning, changing and often healing.
I think this might be what Lucia Rene was talking about before about standing in our truth and standing in our power as women-to realize that sometimes we really do already *know* something thru our connection to our higher self, our deep gut instinct that tells us true from false; and that we should stand in that knowing and not do the culturally conditioned woman thing of always always always questioning everything we know, everything about ourselves.
I was feeling kinda down after that earlier and trying to sort it out tonight. After reading your wisdom I feel like the point was to gently get that message that I’ve been trying to get for a while-getting rid of ego doesn’t mean getting rid of my own “IAM”, it means allowing it to flow thru me from a higher/deeper level of reality and having the courage to trust that flow.
I just wrote a post on my own blog about this the other night, about how we have to learn to love the dark within us and within the world, not deny it, or ignore it but contain it, become it and heal it and allow it as part of the flowing balance in all that is.
I loved Ursula LeGuin’s stories of Earthsea and Geb learning to embrace his Shadow, when I was a child. She taught it so beautifully, and I never forgot it-not sure why I still question myself so harshly!
I guess it is that I do not wish to deny anyone else’s perspective but when they seem to want to force me to accept it, I can’t find a path out of that very well. (back to Lucia Rene’s stand in your truth here!;-)
Thank you Jean for clearing up my confusion, and both of you for helping me to learn this important lesson without having to go thru actual harm or distress!
It feels weird to have spent so long “processing” and working on “issues” to be at a place where it seems a new journey is to begin, a new way of moving forward that is solid, rooted, centered but at the same time flowing and open.
I love you all! It is so beautiful to have a community to grow into this new world with, to be able to converse and get others perspectives and understandings as things keep changing so quickly. It is so much easier this way!
“Do I ignore those I care about to avoid thinking of the things I don’t want to create? ”
, and never thinking of unpleasant nourishment.
On the contrary ! But think of those you care about, visualize them always, in terms of how you would like them to be, how life would be positive for them.
I presume that when you become aware of personal hunger, you automatically find yourself “thinking” of some delicious (for you) food (chocolate cake ?
Learn how to apply the same principle to your “thinking” of friends in particulmar and of “your reality” in general. And as “energy follows thought”, you shall gradually begin to construct a reality that is based upon wholesome ingrediends.
If and when ‘negative’ thoughts (etc.) come to mind or (so-called, because actually there are none!) ‘accidents’ or ‘illnesses’ occur in your reality, try asking yourself “Why have I given myself this to consider ?”…and then re-read Jean’s comment below !
The Kennedy’s have always come out against the cabal, which is what got so many of them killed. The fact is the ruling elites are not one single homegenous group, and the families with money and power who have always been on the side of morals and care for the regular people have always fought the truly evil ones.
At one time rule by elites was taken for granted as “normal” but not all elites thought of their position the same way. At one time the rule of the king was made by marriage to the land, the leader was in fact serving the people, his very life subject to their wellbeing. Some of the ancient families remembered and kept that oath, that ideal alive thru centuries of being on the losing side of the battle.
Many were killed off completely, or pushed into the poorer classes, with resulting loss of influence to affect events, but those who have some ability to fight still do: this man’s cousin was murdered quietly a few years back for, just like this one, continuing the fight their fathers began, against the corporate control of our country and the world.
I agree that the strain is showing on the cabal tho-they appear to be pulling out all the stops and going for broke. Using every dirty trick they have just in the last few months bespeaks a panic in the face of their imminent defeat.
I am looking forward to the celebration we will have over the whole world when their power to use those dirty tricks has finally been completely removed.
Why wait, my friend ?
Start celebrating your empowerment as of now. Without your continued conivance/support, the Cabal is powerless.
If you desire to change the world you need to change yourself
Have been changing myself the whole time, but inner work and outer results don’t seem to correlate very immediately. The cabal has never had my support but they still managed to murder several people I love:-( (along with loads of people I never met and most of the forests on Earth)
I celebrate empowerment, and work to empower myself and others but I have a real results based focus-I like to see results in the real physical world as well as my inner world. It feels wrong to me to celebrate my own inner work as paramount when I see clearcuts and tar sands, belo monte, james bay, people starving and being blown up etc.
It feels like I’m pretending to be blind in one eye-perhaps if I wasn’t friends with people who are affected by these things, and hadn’t spent most of my life working to stop the cabal and their destruction it would be easier to somehow ignore it but at least for me it feels at a deep level very wrong and fragmented.
I think we need both inner and outer focus because either one alone is only a fragment. Inner only focus easily becomes narcissism or solipsism, and outer focus alone can quickly lead to despair. It seems that YMMV certainly applies here since so many obviously CAN do it, it just doesn’t work for me.
It’s almost comical for me as I have friends and read things in both “camps” so I have one group telling me to just change myself and be satisfied with inner focus and another telling me all this inner focus stuff is selfish nonsense and I should be out doing treesits and guerrilla gardening the ghetto, and getting out the vote.
Luckily I’m pretty well grounded so I don’t have mental tennis ball syndrome:-)
Reblogged this on 2012 Spirit In Action and commented:
Please share this widely! People need to know the truth about who and waht have been running our country and our world from behind the scenes. I don’t think anyone, no matter what party or philosophy they embrace will put up with this rampant corruption and greed based nonsense once the truth is out.
The Kennedy Family was once a part of our nation’s ruling elite until they were murdered out of office and off the face of the Earth. To have this man come out at this late stage against the Cabal is an indication that the Cabal’s seemingly steel grip on “the management” is coming apart at the seams. The game of “Financing through Funny-money” is over. [read: Poofness]