Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Changing the Culture of Wall Street Requires Ending Continuity Government in Washington

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Thursday, November 3, 2016

Changing the Culture of Wall Street Requires Ending Continuity Government in Washington

Click here to access article by Pam Martens and Russ Martens from Wall Street on Parade.

It’s more than a coincidence that at a time when the two leading candidates for the highest office in the United States are considered untrustworthy by tens of millions of their fellow citizens, the industry that has perpetually attempted to stack the political deck in Washington has also lost the trust of a majority of Americans.

This feels to many like having Wall Street’s one percent at the rudder for the past two decades has finally steered the ship of state into a toxic sink hole that is devouring the credibility of the United States at home and abroad.

These watchdogs of the ever evolving corruption of government by the tiny ruling capitalist class don't realize the major significance of this growth of corruption. They are wildly underestimating what it would take to change the "culture of Wall Street" by ending "continuity government in Washington". (This last phrase is not to be confused with "Continuity of Government"--see this, this, and this.)

The Martens are essentially describing the current rule of the capitalist class whose rule has evolved into what it is today. Although the DNA of capitalism was firmly installed by our "Founding Fathers", the gross symptoms of this barbarous system started appearing since the great fortunes were made by a relatively few people during the Gilded Age. This concentration of wealth easily translated into control of the American nation. Since then the capitalist class has consolidated their control over the nation with the Federal Reserve Act, the growing ownership and concentration of corporate media, and their installations of secret agencies such as the FBI, CIA, and NSA. Only a well organized revolutionary movement can dislodge this tiny, but powerful class from power.