On the phrase "Corporate Overlords":

[Brigid]

The term "corporate overlords" is used occasionally around DU. To some, iT may smack of leftie paranoia. But for the rest of us, we use it to express the grim reality of what has happened to this country and who really holds power. It is certainly not the people; and anyone who believes otherwise is poor, blind, and naked -- in other words, seriously deluded.

Just ask yourself: When was the last time the monied interests in this country didn't get their way? The health care debate resulted in a Frankenstein's monster of a law with neither a single-payer system nor a public option, thanks to the insurance lobby and its six lobbyists for every member of Congress. Unions, beginning with public employee unions, are under direct assault, with public employees themselves treated by the corporate-sponsored right wing of the GOP as if they don't have real jobs. WTF? Driving a city bus isn't a real job? Teaching isn't a real job? Being a cop or firefighter isn't a real job? Since when?

This is why I am loving the hell out of what is happening in WI. The protesters know what this battle is really all about: as Rachel Maddow put it, it's those who cash paychecks versus those who sign those paychecks. At least they're going after the right target.

If this post seems to ramble, perhaps it's because I'm confused: Where is today's FDR to tell our corporate overlords that their hatred is welcome?

[AKDavy]

1. You are supposed to be confused

The last thing the corporate overlords and their political toadies want is for a critical mass to figure out what's going on.

[SpiralHawk]

2. I for one do not welcome our self-annointed filthy rich corporate overlords (R)

[midnight]

3. Rachel is right about Wisconsin understanding the lie being told.

[notesdev]

4. I for one welcome our corporate overlords

[Kennah]

5. Our Alien Overlords will kick their corporate asses

[Newest Reality]

6. Your thought crime is appreciated!

The Overlords have been smashing us in the face with a boot for what seems like forever. However, they seem to be rather self-assured and their slip keeps showing more. The pomp and pride that inflates their gin-blossomed jowls is starting to attract more attention as they move to finalize the last phases of the Corporate Occupation.

At some point, a reaction was bound to emerge. What else can you do when you are sitting in an old chair in the desert of the real?

[Octafish]

7. Origins of the Overclass

The late Steve Kangas coined the phrase and described it to a "T"...

Origins of the Overclass

The wealthy have always used many methods to accumulate wealth, but it was not until the mid-1970s that these methods coalesced into a superbly organized, cohesive and efficient machine. After 1975, it became greater than the sum of its parts, a smooth flowing organization of advocacy groups, lobbyists, think tanks, conservative foundations, and PR firms that hurtled the richest 1 percent into the stratosphere.

The origins of this machine, interestingly enough, can be traced back to the CIA. This is not to say the machine is a formal CIA operation, complete with code name and signed documents. (Although such evidence may yet surface — and previously unthinkable domestic operations such as MK-ULTRA, CHAOS and MOCKINGBIRD show this to be a distinct possibility.) But what we do know already indicts the CIA strongly enough. Its principle creators were Irving Kristol, Paul Weyrich, William Simon, Richard Mellon Scaife, Frank Shakespeare, William F. Buckley, Jr., the Rockefeller family, and more. Almost all the machine's creators had CIA backgrounds.

During the 1970s, these men would take the propaganda and operational techniques they had learned in the Cold War and apply them to the Class War. Therefore it is no surprise that the American version of the machine bears an uncanny resemblance to the foreign versions designed to fight communism. The CIA's expert and comprehensive organization of the business class would succeed beyond their wildest dreams. In 1975, the richest 1 percent owned 22 percent of America’s wealth. By 1992, they would nearly double that, to 42 percent — the highest level of inequality in the 20th century.

How did this alliance start? The CIA has always recruited the nation’s elite: millionaire businessmen, Wall Street brokers, members of the national news media, and Ivy League scholars. During World War II, General "Wild Bill" Donovan became chief of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA. Donovan recruited so exclusively from the nation’s rich and powerful that members eventually came to joke that "OSS" stood for "Oh, so social!"

Another early elite was Allen Dulles, who served as Director of the CIA from 1953 to 1961. Dulles was a senior partner at the Wall Street firm of Sullivan and Cromwell, which represented the Rockefeller empire and other mammoth trusts, corporations and cartels. He was also a board member of the J. Henry Schroeder Bank, with offices in Wall Street, London, Zurich and Hamburg. His financial interests across the world would become a conflict of interest when he became head of the CIA. Like Donavan, he would recruit exclusively from society’s elite.

CONTINUED...

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-overclass.html

[Raksha]

8. Thank you for this document, Octafish--very informative.

I'm going to save it and print it out.