“First: It's been discovered that Philip Cooney, who is currently the White House's Council on Environmental Quality, altered government reports to cast more doubt on the global warming effects of greenhouse gases than the reports themselves meant. It's no coincidence that prior to his current job, he was a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute, a trade group representing the oil industry. He has no scientific training.”
“In briefing papers given before meetings to the US under-secretary of state, Paula Dobriansky, between 2001 and 2004, the administration is found thanking Exxon executives for the company's "active involvement" in helping to determine climate change policy, and also seeking its advice on what climate change policies the company might find acceptable.”
“Even a cursory review of U.S. opinion polling leaves little doubt that America has lost faith in the notion of "government of the people, by the people and for the people." That bedrock belief has been replaced by the perception that "special interests," rather than voters, actually shape public policy. According to a CBS News/New York Times Poll in July 2004, "59% of the American people trust the federal government to do what is right only some of the time," even as 64% responded that "government is pretty much run by a few big interests looking out for themselves."
http://www.verdant.net/corp.htm
Around 17,000 lobbyists work in Washington DC, outnumbering lawmakers in US Congress by about 30 to one.
Nearly half of all US legislators who go into the private sector when they leave Congress join the lobbying industry.
Corporations and lobby groups spent nearly $13 billion influencing US Congress and federal officials from 1998 to 2004 – equivalent to the combined economic output of Cambodia and Ethiopia in 2004.
The pharmaceutical industry spent over $1 billion lobbying
in the US in 2004 alone.
http://www.infact.org/hos.html
Whitewashing the truth has become second nature to Republicans in America if not for all Americans. Differentiating between “influence” and actually “running” government is a game that corporate elitists (particularly Republicans) love to play. Suggesting that Carlyle Group doesn’t through its “influence” impact US defense policy is like suggesting that Dick Chaney isn’t involved with Haliburton and KBR.
These folk have to dismiss the notion that the United States of America is actually the United States of America INC. so that a virtually unlimited number of peculiar correlations between say the war in Iraq and U.S. foreign policies pertaining to who gets to steal Iraqi oil can be kept low on the public radar.
These are the same folk who championed Ollie and Ronny in supplying missiles to Iran…. Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powel supplying WMD to Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war…..
Between the defense industry and petroleum interest representation in Congress and the Senate, those poor poor lumbermen who’ve managed to steal billions from Canada risk being lost in the shuffle…..
Nah business doesn’t run America, the Whitehouse came up with the idea of imposing an illegal tariff on Canadian lumber on their own…..
YEAH RIGHT….
I could spend the time providing links and references, but puppets of the neo-cons participating on forums all over the Internet don’t have to prove anything they can simply dismiss and deny. The real evil that’s loose in America today is the willingness to warp the truth and re-shape reality to fit the “make-a-buck” mentality that has become America’s highest and most noble virtue.
Rampant conspicuous and unbridled consumerism and the attendant ecological destruction that follows has been and will be “pooh pooh-ed” away until there isn’t a clean drop of water to drink or a breath of clean air to breathe. These folk don’t give a shit about anything but power and money.
These folk have contorted patriotism into consumerism and Canadians should understand that as far as these folk are concerned…. “anything goes” when it comes to satisfying the American appetite and the sense of entitlement felt by the vast majority of Americans.
Water will be next after the oil runs out, but hey when you’ve built the largest military machine that’s ever existed in the history of mankind…you can do whatever you like…
Military spending in the US is one of the major “influences” through which Congress and the Senate are controlled. You should check out how much money is involved and ask yourself if you really think the decisions coming out of the Whitehouse or the Congress or the Senate are decisions made in the interests of the people of America….or are in fact, decisions made in the interests of millionaire industrialists embedded in the defense industry…..
