Please consider the following on judging how the American Dream has been stolen – so a few fortunate people, already reich – could become obscenely rich:
1] “unfortunately Smith’s book {Wealth of Nations} is sometimes used, as is the Bible or the Koran, to justify a deeply held position by selectively extracting supportive quotations. In Smith’s case he is cited by some as the patron saint of laissez-faire…Smith believes in liberty. But his view is much more nuanced than “liberty is all.” Smith believed that liberty without justice is a road to serfdom under “Lord Factions” or to chaos.” [Hanley, ed.: “Adam Smith’]
2] U.K. chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks: “When everything that matters can be bought and sold, when commitments can be broken because they are no longer to our advantage, when shopping becomes salvation and advertising slogans become our litany, when our worth is measured by how much we earn and spend, then the market is destroying the very virtue on which in the long run it depends.” [Bogle: “The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism”]
3]. Lee Atwater, 1988 Republican presidential campaign manager, on the 1980 Reagan campaign: “We were able to make the establishment, insofar as it is bad, the government. In other words, big government was the enemy, not big business. If..people think the problem is..taxes are too high, and the government interferes too much, then we are doing our job. But if they get to the point where they say..the real problem is..rich people aren’t paying taxes..then the Democrats are going to be in good shape.”
4] “..Citizens United is to the expansion of corporate power what the big bang was to the singularity. It’s the whole universe. The high court took a narrow issue and, in a remarkably brazen act of judicial activism by judges who assert their disdain for judges doing more than narrowly interpreting the law, the majority gave political rights to corporations. It is crucial to appreciate what this means in terms of giving a megaphone to the richest among us to drown out competing points of view…The decision in Citizens United to allow corporations to spend unlimited sums to influence elections poses a grave threat not just to the economic wellbeing of Americans, but to the continuation of our democracy.” [D.C. Johnston: “The Fine Print”]
5] “The goal of the Madison Fund..detailed in {Charles} Murray’s 2015 book “By the People: Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission,” is to refuse voluntary compliance with federal laws so as to make it excessively costly for government to enforce them. “I want to pour sugar into the regulatory state’s gas tank,” Murray explains.” [“American Amnesia”]
6]. “Democracy is a way of life controlled by a working faith in the possibilities of human nature…This faith may be enacted in statutes, but it is only on paper unless it is put in force in the attitudes which human beings display to one another in all the incidents and relations of daily life.” [John Dewey]
7]. “..Jonathan Gruber, who had designed Romneycare, recalled: “I told them..you can either try to expand coverage or you can do something to control costs. But trying to control costs too much dooms whatever you do, because the lobbyists will kill you. That’s what happened to Hillary in 1993.” The industry will happily allow universal coverage, “because that creates more customers. What it won’t allow is cost control.” [“America’s Bitter Pill”]
[note: hopefully, any doubts YOU have about high medical care costs are eliminated]
8]. James C. Callaway, wealthy Texas oil man: “When it gets to spending money, it all goes to one thing – helping your guy win the election…It was wrong and I’m ashamed of it. I never promised anything, but I knew good and well people do not give $100,000 at a pop without expecting anything.” Asked about the claim..money buys access but not influence, he responds: “I don’t believe that for a minute.” He says people give to influence candidates.” [“Selling Out”]
9]. “..there is no way to access infinite wealth without rigging the system. No one becomes a billionaire honestly.”
[ Sarah Chayes: “On Corruption In America”]
10] Justice Noah Swayne [1874; Trist -v – Child]: “if any of the great corporations..were to hire adventurers.. to procure the passage of a general law with a view to the promotion of their private interests, the moral sense of every right-minded man would instinctively denounce the employer and employed as steeped in corruption, and the employment as infamous.” [Whitehouse: “The Scheme How The Right Wing Used Dark Money to Capture the Supreme Court’]
11] I Timothy 6: “The love of money is the root of all evil.”
With Justice For All 