Has the 1 percent committed treason?
A small group of extremely wealthy people are systematically destroying the US government
BY ROBERT REICH
ROBERT REICH
Former United States Secretary of Labor
Robert Bernard Reich is an American political economist, professor, author, and political commentator. He was born: June 24, 1946 Scranton PA and holds degrees from Dartmouth 1968 and Yale Law School
Permit me an impertinent question (or three).
Suppose a small group of extremely wealthy people sought to systematically destroy the U.S. government by
(1) finding and bankrolling new candidates pledged to shrinking and dismembering it;
(2) intimidating or bribing many current senators and representatives to block all proposed legislation, prevent the appointment of presidential nominees, eliminate funds to implement and enforce laws, and threaten to default on the nation’s debt;
(3) taking over state governments in order to redistrict, gerrymander, require voter IDs, purge voter rolls, and otherwise suppress the votes of the majority in federal elections;
(4) running a vast PR campaign designed to convince the American public of certain big lies, such as climate change is a hoax, and
(5) buying up the media so the public cannot know the truth.
Would you call this treason?
If not, what would you call it?
And what would you do about it?
Robert Reich, one of the nation’s leading experts on work and the economy, is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley.
He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton.
Time Magazine has named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written 13 books, including his latest best-seller, “Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future;” “The Work of Nations,” which has been translated into 22 languages; and his newest, an e-book, “Beyond Outrage.”
His syndicated columns, television appearances, and public radio commentaries reach millions of people each week. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, and Chairman of the citizen’s group Common Cause.
His widely-read blog can be found at www.robertreich.org.MORE ROBERT REICH.