Episode 77: Courting Disaster

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(This episode is part of the series The Powell Movement.)

The wealthy fund the foundations, which publish the gobbledygook and bunkum, which helps support the pressures the foundations then level against the politicians, which defeats some legislation and introduces different ones. But what to do about those laws and regulations still on the books which make it hard to continue that process? Who can remove those unprofitable rules once and for all?

Leave that to the judiciary.

In this Episode 77: Courting Disaster, I touch a bit on judicial activism, or how some have used the courts to better the lives of and improve the industrial profitability of businesses owned by the wealthy.

In this episode, I read from Jane Mayer's Dark Money once again; portions of the Buckley dissent from Justices White and Marshall; and a Wikipedia entry concerning the Federalist Society. You also heard D. L. Myers reading from Lewis Powell's memo.

Musically, KMFDM's Attack backed Justice Stevens reading a portion of his dissent to the Citizens United Not Timid decision; through the middle of the show I worked in a Metastaz tune called "Ghost & Assassin"; and I closed the show with Mistle Thrush doing "It's All Like Today."

Episode 76: The Pros And Their Cons

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(This episode is part of the series The Powell Movement.)

So far, I've shared the fortunes amassed into foundations, and the gobbledygook, bunkum and distortions that bought. At what point, though, could we say with some degree of certainty that these investments started to bear fruit? I address that question in this Episode 76: The Pros and Their Cons.

In this episode, I read from a book by Jacob S. Hacker & Paul Pierson, Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer—And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class. I also read briefly from Lewis Powell's Memo, and had further memo reading help from the pitch-perfect voice talent of D. L. Myers.

I returned musically to the soundtrack of one of my favorite video games of all time, Total Annihilation. In order of play, you hear "Desolation," "Stealth," "Brutal Battle," and "Licking Wounds." I close the show with another Total Annihilation tune, "Where Am I?", and I open with KMFDM once again backing Henry Giroux.