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The Conspiracy Too Big for Glenn Beck to See.

( Or does see but is a part thereof? )

No one seems to love a good conspiracy more than Glenn Beck. In order to have a clear view of any conspiracy you need to have a vantage point outside of that very conspiracy which is why I think Beck is missing the grandest of them all...he has wittingly or unwittingly become an integral part of this one.

There are major conspiracy theories about the global take over of the world. New World Order is a famous version. Players are claimed to include the Free Masons, the Illuminati, the Bilderberg Group, Skull and Bones and the list goes on.

As grand as all this may seem and as exciting the prospects for the next big movie full of intrigue and international plots may be, I believe the real conspiracy is both larger and simpler than these well endorsed theories. I think the plans are currently aimed more at the United States and specifically at the middle class. I also think that the “famous” conspiracy theories are smoke screens encouraged to hide what is taking place under our noses and with our full, if ignorant cooperation.

I don't believe our government is behind this. I do believe that some individuals in Congress are even if they have been co-opted by greed and a desire for power that over rides their patriotism and ethical values. Both parties are infected though I think the most serious level of infection is present in the Republican party. Some may be listening to a small constituency contrived for their consumption in order to conceal the real agenda they are manipulated into serving. The most recent contrive constituency appears to be the Tea Party followers. Few in this faux grass roots movement are aware of the huge influence and financial and political input of some very wealthy individuals such as the Koch brothers, Charles and David, tied in 9^th place as America's richest men.

Two of the more famous backers for the Tea Party movement have been FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity. Both of these organizations include among their founders David Koch who is a Libertarian. It is impossible to define any political “party” as grass roots with the backing of some of the wealthiest men in the world behind it. FreedomWorks in particular has been identified as the single most influential group involved in launching the Tea Party Movement. It was the result of a merger of Citizens for a Sound Economy which was founded by Kock Industry ( oil giant) interests that included major US Corporations including GE, Citbank, Amoco among others. These same founders have consistently meddled in Congress to enact laws friendly to their own business agendas that were detrimental to the typical American Citizen.

I bring up the Tea Party only as an example of the extent to which our major corporations are in the “business” of manipulating Americans in order to gain political power. Few if any of their followers would knowingly contribute to their own undoing if they fully realized the extent to which they are being “used” for a darker purpose that does not include the best interest of the future of most Americans. Glenn Beck has either been seduced or, because of his multi-millionaire status, combined with his celebrity status on conservative Fox cable, has been promised a seat at the table. Likewise for Rush Limbaugh who seems adept at playing their game for them on air.

While momentarily on the subject of Fox cable ( I refuse to call it news ), that is owned by News Corp under Rupert Murdock, another very wealthy individual. The largest single voting shareholder outside of the Murdock family happens to be one of the wealthiest investors in Saudi Arabia. A Muslim Saudi Prince by the name of Alwaleed bin Talal who has also been linked to payments to families of Palestinian suicide bombers. This same man is also a major player in Citibank which recently accepted TARP bail out funds after the Bush recession and economic collapse brought on by a deregulated Wall Street.

Now we come to the members of Congress, Republicans in particular. It should come as no secret that the GOP is the party of big business. Their cover story is “free market” fixes everything. There intentions are to reduce or eliminate any form of governmental oversight over business, leaving them to exercise free reign over our economy. When they wrap all this up in the flag and the constitution it paints a rosy picture for many of the “lesser people” as former Senator Alan Simpson describes the middle class. These people are masters of manipulation and could have their own grandmothers voting to euthanize the elderly to eliminate Social Security!

A totally “free” anything has a definition. It is called anarchy. What the GOP really wants is not “freedom” for American citizens but unfettered and unregulated freedom for big business. The result of such corporate anarchy is fewer freedoms and very few protections from abuse available to the average person. As a citizen you must keep in mind that corporations do not grant you any rights and they are not obligated to follow our Constitution. Any protections “We the People” receive depend on the government standing between it's people and those who would oppress us including government itself. A totally free market is incompatible with a free society. Cuba is an example of a “totally free market system” without regulations that its citizens cannot participate in. Whether “business” is in the hands of government or the government is in the hands of business, the result for the citizen remains the same. Loss of individual freedom and protection from abuse. We do best with private business with some necessary regulations for our protection.

Let me divert your attention momentarily to the GOP political agenda, at least the public version.

• Eliminate or privatize Social Security, the rich have so much it does not matter to them.

• Eliminate health care reforms that protect the middle class. The rich can afford any care they need.

• Renew tax breaks for the very rich and pay for them by eliminating services the middle class.

• Further deregulate all business including Wall Street, Banks, Insurance and so on.

• Eliminate unemployment insurance the middle class pays for. The rich don't need it.

• Return to the same economic policies of 2008 that led to our present recession.

If you are starting to get the over riding picture of corporations always coming out on top at the expense of 98% of the American citizens I am doing my job.

Since the Bush recession began in earnest in 2008, though it's seeds go much farther back, our multi national corporations profits have increased by 43% even as the middle class lost trillions in its over all combined wealth.

Some people lost most or all of their pensions, saved over a life time of working. ( This would have been the fate of privatized Social Security accounts. ) We taxpayers helped fund these profits with tax breaks that permitted these corporations to incorporate off-shore to avoid paying taxes in the United States while also exporting our jobs.

Despite complaints from the right about runaway “welfare”, major corporations receive far more welfare from the taxpayers than the middle class and poor receive. Even the new health care bill included welfare for insurance companies in the form of 30 million new customers. Add to that the “welfare” of the Bush tax breaks that the rich have enjoyed for 10 years, and you see who really gets the financial aid...and it is not middle class Americans. If the GOP succeeds in renewing these tax breaks, they will average about $100,000 each for very rich people. After ten years what have those breaks gotten us? Lost jobs and a bigger deficit. Chalk up one more for big business.

In today's world of politics, campaigns are very expensive to run and candidates must either be very wealthy or have very wealthy backers. The biggest source of funding for the Republicans has always been big corporations. Democrats also take this money though to a lesser extent because they are the party who prefer to throttle back excesses of corporate profit in order to provide the average Americans a fighting chance.

Election finance is the single biggest source of corruption in government. I do not refer to the direct campaign contributions given to candidates by companies or individuals. This is pretty restricted and documented and above the table. The mischief arises in the disguise of those nasty PACs and non-profits who work independent of but in support of the candidates or issues. With the recent disastrous pro-corporate decision from the conservative side of the Supreme Court, corporations are now considered “persons” under our constitution and can spend freely to influence our elections. These allow anonymous manipulation of our government through financing of political ads including attacks against specific candidates. There is no oversight to assure these ads are even truthful, many of which are not. With outfits like Fox and Citibank making contributions, and with some of their ownership in the hands of foreign nationals, one can't know how much, for instance, Saudi Muslims may be manipulating our elections, thus our Congress. Another point to remember.

Do you see a pattern in all of this yet?

If you are tempted to ask why a “good American company” would allow this to happen or, heaven forbid, assist in this destruction I refer you back to the profit motive each has. History has and continues to show them that the real money is no longer here in the USA, it is in third world and developing nations. It is not really that they are going to give up on the US, but for our nation to regain their profit driven interest we need to be more “profitable” for them. We need to become more like a third world nation for them to come home.

When Americans are desperate and willing to “settle” for what ever bone is thrown our way, big corporations will start coming back to take advantage of us just as they have done in other parts of the world. Included in this is lower wages, few or no benefits, no safety regulations, little or no vacation time. Longer work hours. No deductions for “silly” things like our retirement, Social Security or Medicare. When we “become” China, corporations will come back home. Our middle class gone. Note this too.

The great Recession of '08. Leading up to this were a number of diabolical practices by Wall Street and mortgage lenders. I'll not try to get into explaining credit default swaps, but the simple version is that they used private pension funds and other investments that belonged to you and me and municipalities and union retirement accounts and so on, as “collateral” to bet on those same products. Then they helped things along with easy credit to bury the all-to-willing middle class. Then the housing bubble burst due in part to the mortgage games. Enter foreclosures...now who owns millions of properties and was at the same time bailed out of their own mess by us the taxpayers? We are left holding the bag and while they march on with even more of the middle class wealth moved upstream to the rich. They knew this would happen. They knew we would bail them out and that we would get nothing in return. It was what should have been a criminal scheme to steal from the middle class to give to the rich...and we fell for it, suckers that we are for shiny baubles and easy credit. Oh...lest I forget to mention it they are already raking in record profits again and nothing has been done to prevent them from doing it to us again thanks to GOP obstruction in Congress.

Let's ,move back to politics again. Specifically the methods politicians, parties and movements employ to get the votes to take power in an election. Depending on the current status in America there are two approaches. The first in good times is to promise even more prosperity. If the people are not particularly angry with either party, elections often come down to who can sell themselves best and who can dig the best dirt on the opponent. In tougher times when it is possible to for one party to point an accusing finger at the other, such underhanded schemes as employing hate and fear come into play by the least favored party. These days it is the GOP playing the hate/fear/racism/xenophobia card. None of the issues being drawn out today are new and they won't go away after elections, and nothing is ever intended as a real solution. When party that is out of power has no platform or solutions or qualified candidates, the tactic turns to smoke screens to keep people from looking too closely at how little is being offered.

Big business has a vested interest in seeing Republicans in power because they know they have more power over them when elected. Their agenda is better served by the conservatives who have always “had the back” of corporate interests in Washington. This is why the GOP is able to pull in the donations both directly and through the above mentioned PACs and non-profit political groups. Remember who is funding these groups including the Tea Party is some of these same mega-rich corporations and their owners.

Let's start to pull these thoughts together to form the final conspiracy by asking a few questions.

• Who has the most money to influence elections to get the candidates and parties they want in power? Mega Corporations.

• Who has the money to create, manipulate and motivate faux-grass roots organizations to support right wing candidates? Mega Corporations.

• Who do these right wing candidates favor with deregulations when in power? Mega Corporations.

• Who most benefits from anarchy in business, corporations or the middle class workers? Mega Corporations.

• If you were a corporation how much would you love to see an America populated with cheap desperate labor who have no choice but to accept your pay because they no longer have any social safety nets?

• If you were a corporation how much would you like to pay few if any taxes including Social Security or income tax?

• If you were a major corporation how much would the elimination of the American middle class help your bottom line if it meant depressed wages, no benefits, no sick pay, no vacation pay, no withholding and so on?

• If you were a corporation how much would it increase your profits if you never had to worry about regulations to protect your workers, or the environment, or against shoddy or down right dangerous or defective products?

• If you were a corporation how much would you like your menial work force to be poorly educated so they no longer have the intellectual skills to challenge their lot in life?

How would mega corporations go about designing what, for them, is the perfect country for profits?

Elimination of the Middle Class as a viable force in politics.

Elimination of regulations. Strong direct control over government. A free hand to do as they wish when they wish without fear of government intervention on behalf of the people. They know that by removing government from business as usual they also remove any legal protections formerly enjoyed by us today.

Now watch as it unfolds. The GOP funded by major corporations and with the unwitting help of the very middle class is seeking to create a corporate state in America. One in which corporations, not the people, run our government. Sure...we still have a constitution on paper. We may still be needed a few days a year to vote but we will have no real choice on who we are voting for. We have very little now. Even this November we see corporate leaders using personal fortunes to buy themselves a seat in Congress.

These parties with funding from the 2% richest in the nation, will manipulate voters with false issues of hate and fear. There ultimate goal is not to resolve any of those false issues with the voters. In the end it is all to serve one purpose, to gain power for themselves and their corporate buddies. The American people will, themselves, be the ones who hand their future and the future of their children and grandchildren over to the control of America Incorporated...but don't bother trying to buy stock because that too, will be reserved for the rich. You will be their property and you will be selling yourself into their slavery for whatever they feel like paying you.

Conservatives will get their ultimate wish..to “Take America Back” to a time before we had freedom, to a time when only wealthy white male land owners ruled and everyone else was in virtual servitude in one form or another. There will be no more American Dream. Upward mobility will be a thing of the past. The only persons at the top in America, Inc. will be those born there.

Glenn Beck ($32 million a year income) is helping this along by pushing the right wing agenda on the middle class in the hopes he will survive and have his own seat at the table. He will laugh at us all the way to the bank.

Perhaps I am wrong...perhaps Mr. Beck has been equally hoodwinked by persons to whom his not inconsiderable wealth is mere pocket change. To them he is expendable as well. I really don't think Sara Palin has a clue, she is just a puppet.

As Beck often says himself, “I fear for America”. But my fear comes at me from the same side he is pitching for. A vote November is a vote against the middle class.