The Imperial Press

I've always thought we had a more or less free press, until I saw the MSM treatment of: Bradley Manning--and taxes!

Let's start with taxes. In the alarmist rhetoric of the "fiscal cliff" commentators, taxes on dividends are treated as if everyone earns them; if their tax rates go up to the same rates as earned income(!), then the bottom will fall out of the stock market; middle class people with 401K's will suffer along with billionaires. After all, they'll have to pay those higher taxes too.

But owners of 401Ks don't pay taxes on dividends their funds earn, although the funds do, so their investments might earn slightly less. But, the big losers, if taxes on dividends went up, would be the people paying the restored 39% rate. They'd pay it on their dividends, too, which is why, if capital gains were treated the same way, their tax rates would go up not from 35 to 39%, but from an effective tax rate of 15% or less, to one more comparable to what 'ordinary' people pay.

That's the idea. It not only would help pay off the deficits; it would lower income inequality. But the Media doesn't want ordinary Joe Blow to know that. Commentators want you to think these higher taxes will hit you 'ordinary' people especially hard.

The fiscal cliff was really an invention of the Tea Party Republicans to force government to shrink, favoring the wealthy. Obama, that 'poor' negotiator, locked them into a closet: to get out, they'll have to concede on higher taxes for the wealthy to avoid being tarred with raising taxes for everyone.

If Republicans want to protect their favorite charity--the military--they could be pressured to give up even more, like those favored tax-rates on dividends and capital gains, even Romney's carried interest.

Are there enough progressive Democrats to push that far, especially given the MSM's conservative corporatist bias on tax issues?

Another media bias is harder to see: it often is carried out by an absence of coverage, as in Bradley Manning, Wikileaks, et al. Here is a whistleblower with global impact, and he's treated like a terrorist and held incommunicado for almost two years, before he's allowed to speak. And then the media hardly covers him, or Assange, or Wikileaks, which revealed more embarrassing state secrets, and gave newspapers more issues to write/pontificate about for months than any other source. It showed how petty and conniving most governments are--especially the United States.

That's not terrorism. Was the boy who yelled: "The Emperor has no clothes!" a terrorist, or a truth teller?

A free press? We have a press dedicated to maintaining the American Empire and its prime supporters--and beneficiaries--the very wealthy. In Fifth Century Rome, the Emperor and Roman Senators had panegyrists, too.

Romney and a Two-Class Society

In Fifth Century Rome, there were two sets of laws: one for honestiores and the other for humiliores. As you might guess from the words, the former were Senators and a few others: not slaves or serfs; the latter were slaves, serfs, non-citizens and everyone else.

It seems that we are now developing a similar system: Romney may well have committed multiple felonies (on taxes and SEC filings), yet no charges have been filed, and probably won't be. Further, even if he did not commit felonies, it's startlingly obvious that the "carried interest" loophole, which allows him to file his income as if it were capital gains (15% instead of 35%), is comparable to the kinds of privileges enjoyed by the honestiores--and he has enjoyed many others.

Even more egregious, it's clear from the LIBOR scandal, as well as the robo-signing scandals and other bank and corporate misdeeds, that huge thefts were carried out by banksters, CEO's, etc. Yet, so far, no one has even been charged, let alone gone to jail, except for people like Bernie Madoff, who didn't play by the rules, and didn't get away with his multimillion-dollar thefts. The LIBOR, EURIBOR and other rate-thefts, may amount to hundreds of billions of dollars, since they affected interest rates on an estimated $10-600 trillions worth of transactions. Since those thefts affected other elite institutions (banks, municipalities, corporations, even countries), it is more likely that there could be huge civil penalties incurred, but I'll bet practically no one goes to jail.

Yet, consider how easy it is for a young black or Hispanic male to be jailed. All they have to do is walk down a street in NYC with a little bit of pot in their pockets and have a little bad luck. The US now has by far the largest per-capita prison population on the planet, which is saying something, since we're competing with the likes of Russia and Communist China.

Also, consider that police departments in the US have been militarized: equipped with high tech weaponry, and even armored personnel carriers and tanks. This weaponry is not targeted against the Romney's of this world, our honestiores. But it's already been used against the Occupy movement in Oakland, and we'll see it out in force for the political conventions. It could be used against any popular revulsion to elite rule. The same is true of the rapidly increasing surveillance programs.

Attorney General Holder aggressively raids and prosecutes medical marijuana dispensaries and whistleblowers (he wants to catch Julian Assange, too), but he and Treasury Secretary Geithner (both with strong links to Wall Street), have been extremely forgiving of banks and other large corporations--and their leaders.

If Romney and Republicans win control, this pattern will be consummated, but even if Obama and Democrats win, the US will be well along its way towards the two-class society found in Fifth Century Rome.