The rise of class and labor struggle throughout the United States began in the 19th century with the rise and dominance of the ‘Robber Baron’ industrialists like J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller.  The illustration above is from the 19th century.  In the upper left corner is an illustration depicting prior history of serfs laying their treasures before the king.  We could make this larger drawing a smaller subset and insert drawing showing the American people bowing before the likes of David Koch, Lloyd Blankfein, Jamie Dimon and keep the same title ” HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF”

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#1 Out of Control “Big” Government Spending

#2 “Corporations are more efficient than their government/civil service counterparts”

There is nothing that the billionaire owners like better than to have a political cliche that serves them etched into the brains of the American People.

Both of the myths listed above feed into the “privatization solution”

Thus, if you accept these two false premises as “the truth”, then it only makes sense to buy into the plutocratic notion of privatization as the solution.  As long as Americans buy into these myths and accept them as the truth, we will be more than happy to have all of our public institutions privatized and put in the control of people like David Koch.  Privatization is one of the favorite schemes of the rich–and no  wonder as they make millions from these schemes while taking the rest of us to the cleaners.  Privatization is the cornerstone of the conservative economic neo-liberal ideology that the Blue Dog and  Corporate Centrist Democrats along with the Tea Party Republicans promote.  Obama and John Kerry’s promotion of this economic ideology is hardly any different from that of John Boehner and Jim Sensenbrenner.

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Further Discussion of these two popular myths:

#1 MYTH:  BIG GOVERNMENT SPENDING

Big Government Spending is propaganda from the rich that serves the rich.

The fact is that government spending is not out of control, but rather that tax breaks for the rich are out of control.  Unlike government spending which has been on the decline for the past 30 years, tax breaks for the rich have been on the uptake for the past 30 years and are largely responsible for our current national debt.  They began their glut when Reagan, during his first term as president, implemented tax breaks for the rich that took us from being a creditor nation to the status of a debtor nation and Reagan didn’t even have a war to finance. And they have continued down through the past 30 years.

Here are questions that I’m surprised that more Americans don’t ask: If tax breaks for the rich lead to job creation, then how do you explain the fact that during the 8 years of George Bush’s tax breaks for the rich, the USA experienced ZERO Job growth?  ZERO!  Why after 10 years of George Bush’s tax cuts for the rich is the US economy stagnant?  Why would the Obama administration support their continuation for another two years?  Where is the logic in that–other than for the obvious answer that it puts more money in the pockets of the rich, which by the way includes the Obama family.

#2 MYTH:  WALL STREET CORPORATIONS ARE MORE EFFICIENT THAN PUBLICLY HELD INSTITUTIONS

To help them promote this myth we have, for one example, the typical jokes about the post office and postal workers. The truth is that sending things via the post office is cheaper, more reliable, and more efficient than sending them either by Federal Express or UPS.  That is a verifiable fact as any one who has priced the services of these three organizations (and I have) can tell you.

The Post office operates as an independent agency of the executive branch.  A small annual appropriation from Congress reimburses the USPS for free mail for the blind and absentee-ballot mailing for overseas military personnel. Otherwise, the have not received taxpayer funds to support postal operations since 1982.

The U.S. postal service is not inefficient. Ten years ago, it took 70 employees one hour to sort 35,000 letters. Today, in that same hour, two employees process that same volume of mail. Though the number of addresses in the nation has grown by nearly 18 million in the past decade, the number of employees who handle the increased delivery load has decreased by more than 200,000.

U.S. Mail is reliable. According to the Federal Trade Commission, as little as 2 percent of identity crimes occur through the mail. Theft of a wallet or purse is responsible for 5 percent — meaning your documents are safer in the mail then they are in your pocket.

The Postal Service can and does compete. Their closest competitors, UPS and FedEx, don’t threaten our business; as two of our biggest customers, they help build it. Their competition pays the U.S. postal service to deliver more than 400 million of their ground packages every year in residential areas and on Saturdays. In turn, the USPS contracts with UPS and FedEx for air transportation to take advantage of their comprehensive air networks.

It’s no secret that the Postal Service has been losing money since 2007. What are not well known are the financial demands of the Postal Reform Act of 2006 — demands not faced by the private sector. Though the USPS is self-supporting, its finances are tied to the federal budget because postal employees participate in federal retirement plans. In 2006, Congress required that the USPS prefund 80 percent of future postal retiree health benefits. This will cost more than $5 billion a year through 2016. No other federal agency or private company carries such a heavy burden.

What the plutocrats in Congress are trying to do is destroy the US postal service and put us at the mercy of private Wall Street corporations like Federal Express and UPS.  In fact, if these people have their way, they will use their Congressional influence to destroy all public institutions–including education.

The plutocrats in Congress–both Corporate Centrist Democrats as well as Tea Bag Republicans are trying to dismantle our government of the people by the people and for the people.

If we continue to accept their myths, lies and propaganda, they will succeed in dismantling our government and replacing it with Corporate serfdom controlled by the rich.  And what is even more stupid are the number of Americans who will be assisting these plutocratic shysters.