With "Friends" Like These.....

...we don't need enemies.

The Real News Project (Russ Baker) has an intensive, in-depth report about 25 so-called Democratic political consultants and how they make their money. Quite frankly, when you take a close look at these machers (Yiddish for "big shots"), they don't appear to be much different from Republican machers. All you have to do is follow the money. Big PHARMA, tobacco, war profiteers (essentially the corporate military world), and all the other usual suspects employ them for a vast variety of promotional and public relations purposes. And they are paid really well.

So the same guys and gals who advise Democrats - liberals, progressives and moderates alike -- on how to win on issues like reforming the corporatocracy, reforming the electoral process, social justice and human rights, are the same guys and gals who work the other side of all these issues on behalf of big money. One perfect example is described by Baker this way:

At the very least, it’s tricky to be the strategy adviser to a Democratic candidate who supports publicly-funded universal health insurance when one has spent years working for insurance interests that vehemently oppose any changes.

But these kinds of conflicts have never stopped the movers and shakers of the world of politics. The presence of conscience or honor is never at issue.

The full story is well worth reading. It describes, in detail, the craven behavior of 25 pretty well known Democratic Party consultants.

Although I did not agree with Ralph Nader that there was no difference between Al Gore and George Bush in 2000, or between John Kerry and George Bush in 2004, it's becoming increasingly more difficult to make that argument the more the two parties and their constituent hacks blend into what Russ Baker calls "indentured servants of corporate America."