'$hAdOw ElItE': DiD tHe $uPrEmE CoUrT TrA$h DeMoCrAcY aNd ThE FrEe MaRkEt???

Thursday, January 28, 2010 - Thanks goes out to "The Senator" for this link ;)

By Janine R. Wedel - Author of "Shadow Elite"

In a much-debated 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court voted to strike down regulations that stretch well back into the last century (as well as a portion of the 2002 McCain-Feingold act) prohibiting corporations from using their general treasuries, without monetary limits, to finance ads that explicitly call for the victory or defeat of a candidate.

The vote, the balance of which was tipped by the court's conservative majority, has been touted by some as a victory for principles of freedom. Far from it. The decision is poised to aid and abet the further intertwining of state and private power--the quintessence not of a "free market" but of a communist state. And the decision offers the shadow elite even more opportunities, sans government oversight or public input, to skew public policies to their own agendas. Through direct campaign contributions they are now more empowered than ever to use their corporate affiliations for greater leverage elsewhere.

The justices have laid the groundwork for an even stronger "Government Incorporated" Most of the work of the federal government today is performed not by government bureaucrats but by a vast off-the-books "shadow government"--the consulting firms, companies, nongovernmental organizations, and "Beltway Bandits" that occupy entire high-rise bastions in the Washington suburbs. Many contractors work solely or primarily for the government. For instance, the consulting giant Booz Allen Hamilton, with more than 13,000 employees in the Washington area alone and whose clients include the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, the Internal Revenue Service, and the Department of Health and Human Services, acquires the bulk of its $4.5 billion in annual revenue from government contracts. And more than 90 percent of the business of the now infamous Blackwater (renamed Xe), the private security contractor whose questionable activities in Iraq have done severe damage to America's reputation, is in government contracts. Contractors, of course, are not subject to the same rules as civil servants; contractor executives, unlike government leaders, are seldom dragged before congressional committees for hostile questioning when their activities come under fire.

By allowing companies to spend without limit on their pet candidates, the court's decision promises to further embed such contractors, enhance the entrenched culture of dependency, and make already cozy arrangements completely incestuous.

The shadow government knows little competition--the embodiment of a market system--but is instead born and bred on government largesse. The shadow labor force, which has grown dramatically in the last two decades, now comprises three-quarters of the people who work for the federal government. It has also grown up from supplying things like food service, printing, and landscaping to also routinely performing core government functions. Contractors today draft official documents, choose and oversee other contractors, run intelligence operations, control homeland security databases, execute military and occupying operations, and manage federal taxpayer monies doled out under stimulus plans and bailouts.

Competition in the free-market sense--adherence to the " Discipline Of The Market"--is not what drives the companies of the shadow government. Far-reaching legislative and policy changes instituted since the Clinton years have transformed contracting rules to make government contracting less "burdened" by competition and government oversight while also less transparent. The companies promote themselves through networking and politicking to "win" not-always-competed contracts and keep the largesse coming. It helps to enlist former government executives.

Thus Booz Allen Hamilton, which a former CIA deputy director dubbed "the shadow intelligence community," has employed at least three vice presidents who previously served as intelligence agency directors and has hired, or had on its board, a number of former defense and intelligence officials. Such efforts are richly rewarded. In the Pentagon alone, for instance, The Center for Public Integrity found that, over a period of six fiscal years, no-bid contracts accounted for more than 40 percent of its contracting--with $362 billion going to companies without competitive bidding. Some companies are, in fact, the only game in town and have no competitors. Today one firm has acquired a virtual monopoly on electronic voting machines.

In the "blended" workforce of the shadow government, new forms of governance are being created that fuse the power of the state with the agendas of "private" companies. The public is familiar with the excesses of Xe (Blackwater), but companies such as Booz Allen, Accenture, Lockheed Martin, and Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) that daily stand in for government and influence policy may be far more insidious (communism turned on its head). Many public priorities and decisions are driven by private companies instead of government officials and agencies that must answer to citizens, with officials only signing on the dotted line. In numerous reports, government investigators (such as the Government Accountability Office, the watchdog agency of Congress, and inspectors general of government agencies) have asked whether government has the information, expertise, institutional memory and personnel to manage contractors--or is it the other way around?

===snipped===>"And Ye Shall Know The Truth and The Truth Will Set You Free"

WAKE UP AMERICA.....IT(s) OUR COUNTRY!!!

Love "Light" and Energy

_Don

References: [Clearstream Banking]

''Shadow Elite'' - Criminals in Washington

[Lawyers, Guns & Money; How Criminals Funnel Ca$h into the U$.]

[Shelby's Blanket Hold Puts Spotlight On Defense Contractor Ties]

[How Corporation Secretly Move Millions To Fund Political Ads]

[Corporations Selling Surveillance Tools to China]

[Do You Know Whose Agenda You're Being Sold?]

[Corporations Are Citizens - What Are We?]

[Corporation files to run for Congress]

[The Ominous Parallels Cover Letter] 07.03.07

[The Ominous Parallels Report] 07.03.07

[News Since The Reports Release] 10.30.07