Night at the Alfalfa Club: Oligopolitics

Every conspiracy theory about a shadow government, deep state, dark state, ruling donor class and the repression and marginalization of the unwashed masses, is vindicated in a crass display of hegemonic avarice at the Alfalfa Club. If you want to see what an oligopoly looks like, here it is. A perfect marriage of politicians with their true and only constituency. I call this Oligopolitics. Like George Carlin said: "It's a big club and you ain't in it." Now it actually has a name and faces.

• Politico 01/27/2019: POLITICO Playbook: Best lines from the Alfalfa Club dinner.
• Wikipedia: Alfalfa Club. 
• The Washington Post 01/27/2019: John Kerry and Mitt Romney hugging, and Mitch McConnell in a hospital gown? It must be the Alfalfa Club dinner. 
• CNN Politics 01/27/2019: Pence, Ivanka, Kushner no-show as Mattis gets standing ovation at elite DC dinner. 
• Salt Lake Tribune 01/28/2019: Utah Sen. Mitt Romney elected president of secret Washington group of politicians, business leaders. 

Apparently this club is a hundred years old. I think it dates back to the Teapot Dome Scandal [YouTube].

These guys are insatiable. Just look at Warren G. Harding. You were never taught this in public school history class.

Siege in the 21st Century

Venezuela is under siege by the few companies it came to depend on for many critical products. The aim is to force the people to revolt and replace the current leadership, because they attempted to nationalize and socialize their oil industry.

What companies do we depend on for most of our products?

• Cargill 
• Conagra 
• General Mills 
• Info Graphic of other corporate ownership of products 

Some suggest that these companies were behind the market manipulation that devastated small farms in the 1980's, so the corporations could snatch up their land and build huge factory farms. Luckily, Farm Aid put a stop to it and continues to help small farmers today.

• Become aware of your local food producers and sellers.

The Rich And Powerful Are Getting Into Your Head.

The Guardian

Are Gates and Rockefeller using their influence to set agenda in poor states?

Philanthropists have evolved from unconditional giving to conditional giving.

Tech Times

Philanthropy Impacted Education Policy In New York City, Says Book Author

Professor wrote a book about philanthropic influence on education

Pando.com (02/2014)

The Wolf of Sesame Street: Revealing the secret corruption inside PBS's news division

The demise of PBS was well underway long ago as underwriting congealed to only a few very large influential donors.

AAUP (2012)

When Billionaires Become Educational Experts

Did you notice more outspoken conservative professors at your college lately?

Crooked Timber

Universities are highly responsive to very rich people

When looking at collges and universities, get a list of the members of the board of trustees, and ask who the big donors are.

In These Times

Dumbing America Down

As long as Progressive professors still remain on campuses across America, the oligarchs must settle for disparaging education and intellectual achievement.

The rich and powerful may be spending a lot on politics to make the world a better place for themselves, but politics is not the only means to their end.

As the middle class alumni of colleges and universities are too far in debt to support their alma maters', colleges are relying on ever-more wealthy "philanthropists" for support.

It seems the common assumption about philanthropy is that donors find a worthy cause to support, and that's it. But it's not it. There are strings attached. More now than ever before.

Institutions of education such as museums, public television, colleges, universities are falling under increasing pressure by rich donors to modify themselves to influence their agenda. Under threat of withholding donations and grants, they influence the makeup of board members, deciding who gets hired and fired, and which professors get tenure, and which professors are relegated to part-time Adjunct work so minimal they are forced to resign.

How does one cut off such tentacles of influence? Literally?

The Pot War: How John Morgan saved Florida and possibly Ohio from a Pot Monopoly

Ring of Fire

Florida Personality Destroyed Cannabis Amendment in 2014 – Ohio Suffered The Same Fate

The story of John Morgan

Ballotpedia

Ohio Marijuana Legalization Initiative, Issue 3 (2015)

The voting results and details of the ballot measure.

The Washington Post

Big Pot rising: The marijuana industry’s first full-time lobbyist makes rounds on Capitol Hill

Michael Correia, lobbyist for the National Cannabis Industry Association (NCIA)

The Cap times

If the Koch Brothers support marijuana legalization, why not Scott Walker?

The source for the corporate take-over of Pot through restrictive legislation may be here.

The Nation

The Real Reason Pot Is Still Illegal

Opponents of marijuana-law reform insist that legalization is dangerous—but the biggest threat is to their own bottom line.

Think Progress

Reversing Course, ALEC Supports Reform Of Mandatory Minimum Sentences

Meanwhile, ALEC is working to remove Cannabis market inhibiting penalties, some which it helped create.

AmericaBlog

Smart ALEC: Dem activism moves to the states, big-time

Progressive Activists are working to repeal a lot of ALEC initiatives, but they are not building protective burms behind them.

Time Magazine

Why Legal Weed is Working in Colorado

Opponents use the same arguments that are the consequences of alcohol abuse.

The slumbering behemoth has awoken in Ohio over the issue of legalizing Cannabis.

In the first link, I found what seems to be a possible saboteur of the effort to legalize Cannabis in Ohio, but as I explored more of the sources I found something that demonstrates clearly just how much control is exerted over the so-called "free market" by the billionaires who, it seems, are now attempting to gain monopolistic control over Cannabis.

The main-stream media wrote off the defeat in Ohio as some sort of moral decision on the part of the public for the same excuses that were used to keep alcohol illegal during Prohibition.

The evidence is clear that Colorado and Washington were expected to fail in their experimental legalization, but the results have garnered the attention of billionaire oligarchs would would like nothing better than to take complete control of the Cannabis industry.

So who are the real enemies of the freedom for anyone to grow Pot? This war has many fronts: The supposed moral front who don't seem to mind alcohol which is worse than Pot but still fear Pot; the drug companies who see it as competition; the Law Enforcement Industrial Complex that sees Pot as an easy way to make money through fines, forfeitures and incarceration; and the Plutocrat billionaires who want complete control over cannabis but also want to freely distribute it without consequences.

You can bet some corporation is right now trying to patent Cannabis.

UPDATE: Bill Search Results at GovTrack.

Should the Republic be Restored, or Abandoned?

I just discovered the website www.RestoreTheRepublic.com and found hundreds, if not thousands of people struggling to bring back the idealized government created by our founders and promoted as an equitable democracy in our history books. What has been neglected in our history books is the emphasis that our founding fathers were themselves wealthy land owners, many with slaves and indentured servants. They were seeking severance from tax indebtedness to the king of England.

Now some Americans are seeking severance from tax indebtedness to whoever is in charge of their lives on U.S. soil. Who that is remains to be determined. The problem is there is no new world to which those who seek independence can travel physically, so they must endeavor to change the existing system, an insurmountable task. What is the point of fighting for a piece of rotten pie? Why not throw it out entirely and start fresh?

Restore the Republic is being used as a forum for the election of Republican Candidate Ron Paul for President of the United States. The platform is build on the following issues: Identity and privacy; public education about the U.S. Constitution; the Federal Reserve Bank; the New World Order and global power consolidation.

The driving force behind the issues here is fear of oppression by a potentially abusive and arrogant authority. The operative implication is that there is a hidden shadowy authority that operates on its own agenda despite the populist rhetoric of elected officials.

The industrial complexes at the heart of the problem with our government are those of Military, Energy, Medicine, and Finance.

End of the world as we know it.

We have given ourselves to our leaders. Why do they lead? We follow them because they appear to have everything we desire.

They have engineered our culture so that we may never have what they have. By creating and enforcing laws that prevent us from ever achieving their successes, they quietly sweep away their footprints and cover their trails behind themselves, and have made themselves gods in the eyes of the masses. Masses that believe, through their religions, that their loyalty will be rewarded.

The masters are enlisting the most oppressed among us to wage war against the rest of us. Those who were masters of the most slaves have found a bountiful resource of loyalty among the decendants of those they whipped, chained, and buried beneath the steel and concrete structure they themselves built with their own blood, sweat, and tears of their children.

The princes and dukes that solicit loyalty among the most oppressed, are themselves fearful of the consequences of their own cruelty.

Meet then, the end of Western Civilization. The fading into the shadows, of the once powerful who now cower behind the rubble of their palaces. Witness again the rotting from within the foundation, Like that of greater Sumaria, Phoenicia, Babylon, and Rome.

The Unites States of America. An Empire Dusk.