Feudalism With A Smiling Face

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from OurFuture.org:



Feudalism With A Smiling Face
By Tom Sullivan

May 18th, 2009 - 12:59am ET


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The rich and powerful live in a different world from average men. They consider themselves privileged. Entitled. Untouchable. Better than the rest of us.

Los Angeles Dodgers slugger Manny Ramirez drew a 50-game suspension for using a banned substance. He failed his drug test. Listen to the play-by-play on the Manny Ramirez suspension. Sports columnists and commentators wonder why a marquee player like Ramirez would risk taking any medication not pre-approved beforehand. They concoct explanations for Ramirez’s positive test that no one believes. Seattle radio personality “New York” Vinnie Richie on Air America radio’s The Ron Reagan Show took a more jaundiced view :

“Athletes don’t live in the same world that we live in … They live in the world where the same rules don’t apply to them as apply to everybody else … When you grow up in that world, I think you develop a feeling that you can skirt the law, that you’re kind of immune to it, that you can go around things.”

Athletes. Vinnie was speaking of athletes.

Elsewhere, high officials in the Bush administration authorized a regime of torture for suspected terrorists in prisons spread across the globe. They and their “enhanced interrogation” defenders are circling the wagons trying to stave off investigations and criminal charges. Wall Street crashed after creating the largest Ponzi scheme the world has ever known. Now President Obama is looking to crack down on their offshore tax havens. The health insurance industry is cozying up to his administration. They hope to crowd out the single-payer option preferred by six in ten Americans. ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2009052118/feudalism-smiling-face