earlier today i ran into an amusing link (conspiracy flavor) espousing some inherently contradictory theories about who secretly runs america. after i was done laughing, it made me think - how would BOTF regulars answer that question?

Please pick from the choices below. Add supporting evidence if you think your pick will be dissed by others. Vote honestly - we're a diverse and mature group here. I will tabulate the results tomorrow

Who runs america?

A - "The Trilateral Commission"

B - "Jews"

C - "The Media"

D - "Jews AND the Media"

E - Congress and the President

F - Wall Street

G - The CIA

H - The Freemasons (or just "the masons")

I - George Soros

J - Rush Limbaugh

K - Michael Moore

L - Hollywood's elites

M - Pointed headed university professors

N - Ben Bernanke & Timothy Geithner

O - Rahm Emmanual

P - Unions

Q - Big Oil

R - unelected government bureaucrats

(I tried to make this go all the way through "Z", but ran out of suspects previousy called out in Fray rants . .. )

This is a serious poll. If you honestly think Wall Street is calling the shots, vote your conscience, and say why.

to get the ball rolling, i'll cast my own vote (and the reason why:

"R" - unelected bureaucrats. - my reasoning - they don't control it 100%, but they have the power to drag their feet and interefere with presidential and congressional policies they disagree with. And by "bureaucrats" I don't mean just cabinet members. There are zillions of lawyers, pentagon colonels, wonks, former lobbyists, etc. on the government payroll, and they aren't "neutral". Why do you think we aren't winning in Afghanistan? Why are children still being left behind? Why does the stimulus money not get distributed? How come drug addiction doesn't get fixed? Why do social security and welfare beneficiaries get lost in a maze of uncaring complexity? Why does it take 13 years (on average) for the FDA to clear a new medicine for use? Why do illegal aliens who can't speak english all have drivers licenses (but not car insurance)? Why do loser firms on wall street and in detroit get billions of taxpayer bailout money? on and on . . .

Would be my first thought. Though you make a good case for the permanent bureaucracy. They never wane, and wax relentlessly. Like Kudzu. In the end, they always conquer.

If you've ever seen Yes, Minister, this truism is wickedly portrayed. The Baroness Thatcher's favorite programme.

I fugure it depends on the administration and the background of the president and his most intimate advisors [not necessarily the known advisors]. Sometimes there is a tight little business cabal [this past Bush Administration] and sometimes it's just an affiliation of outright wingnuts with a joint mission [the socialists working with Obama].

Regardless of which president is in office and his [generally hidden] agenda, money and power talks . . . and so in that respect powerful business interests always make their presence [behind the scenes] felt one way or the other.

Elite business interests. It's self-evident.

(Christ, does this mean I am agreeing with Gatewood?)

Big money. From all sectors. As long as money is free speech, it will never change either.

In 2008 all 5 of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve bank were Jewish, that's a clue for you. Were they the best people for the job? Well that would seem unlikely bearing in mind the financial mess the USA is in.

Mathematically, if mere chance, it would mean odds of over 300,000 to one

<link>

Question is who "ran" america into the ground and F would be a start but P truly priced us out of the market and caused F to be a crapshoot.L supported the likes of jfk/lbj who have now cost us over 40 trillion ..

Lobbysits with great gobs of access, influence and money.

Dig a little deeper here.

Agree, in the main, with Cicero/Gatewood but would expand the 'powerul business interests" to specify Rich "Old" White Men. (Some of whom are as young as late 30s, early 40s, especially on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley.) MicroSoft, Apple, Oracle and the venture capitalists who fund them and their 'ilk.'

Look also to the many official associations of these various businesses, such as the American Bankers Association, the group of hospital owners & administrators, and the American Petroleum Insitute, which is currently stinking up the airwavs with several lie-filled ads, and posing thmselves as 'energycitizens.org.' Laughable! But some will fall for it.

Unions? Hardly! Don't they wish?

I'd add the AMA, the ABA and all its many members, so many of whom are more lobbyists than actual practicing attorneys, Big Media (WSJ, Bloomberg, Mort Zuckerman's empire & Murdoch's , etc., the TV networks, Big Cable)...and of course, BIG PHARMA.

Kudos to ba for an excellent Top Post. (Truly, the BEST of the Fray!)

S, T, U, V & H who are also Prince hall & Eastern Star and Scottish Rites Masons

S= heirarchial Law Firm International American Bar Association(founded by U.M Rose(Gerry) heirarchial oligarch partners on lifetime TRUST Fees

T American Bankers Assocation Hierarchial Oligarth founding members crossovers to Law Firm partner Associations

U. Brown Brothers Harriman founding partners living Trust oligarths

V. Democratic party Founding Rev Tom Jefferson(mason)/ and Dutch Royal Petroleum clan of Rosenvelts aka Roosevelts and their Republican party founding father Law partner--IOLTA Trust Fund Escrows in 50 States redistribution tax Free Associations

W. American Humane Association founded by Potus T.R's Commissioner Wm McFarland .Sherman Anti Trust proof no jury juvenile courts merged and ASPCA and SPCC and pvt bankers asset mergers as a Congressional formed self dealing no warrant licensed marshalls overseeing its Bed & Board Divorce courts of secret no jury appointed judges whose financial porfoilios relfexs its perks through self dealing Orphan Train Blk Potato Famine Barristers turned Squires aa esquires of the Crown Lloyds of London RBS over seer insurers of the American Government social Services System and juvenile camps --

X. By INTL Agreements on record(see yael's(yael East & West Indies Trading Company Chit merchant masons )Avalon Project) with Spain, Dutch(Rosenvelts), France, UK who funded the new world government chatteling its citizens as working class Debtor Deadbeats fore any National Debt Defaults(which we have twrice)

Not Enough Women.

As to why do illegal aliens who can't speak English all have drivers' licenses? That's easy. There are Spanish-speaking (and probably Chinese- and other minority-language-speaking) intermediaries who are bilingual, are U.S. citizens, know the ropes, know the right lawyers and pay off the right officials. We had a big bust here a few years right inside the Denver (County) Motor Vehicle Bureau offices of precisely that. The illegals pay a fee to the fixer, the fixer pays off the low-level bureaucrat(s) who can make it happen & the phony papers are provided to the applicant. Now, we even have Spanish-speaking clerks at the drivers license offices who assist our new residents -- if the papers LOOK clean enough, they won't be suspected. Enough legal immigrants (at least here) need the language assistance, that the illegals can sneak through. Add to that, not enough staff, not enough auditors (or whoever) who can check for authenticity, the temptation for good bureaucrats to 'go bad' because they need the extra money, and there you go.

As to 'but not car insurance,' simple: not enough enforcement officers, not enough cross-checking. In many areas, when you are registering a car, you don't have to supply the actual papers showing that you have insurance, you just have to check off the box attesting that you do. And the State (at least ours) trusts you. ASK FOR THE PAPERWORK, right? ASK FOR THE INSURANCE CARD, right? How simple is that? But no -- you can just show up and register your car, checking off the box. Same with our emissions testing procedure. Talk about idiotic! With all the computers the states & counties have, how hard could a cross-check be? Then the poor cops & highway patrol officers have to deal with the mess of the untrained drivers who don't know the states' laws and rules, messing up the roads, hitting other drivers and sometimes, causing deaths.

There's a (sad) joke around here that if you're stuck behind a car, and it's an old four-door sedan usually Japanese, and there's four young men in construction clothes crammed in to it, and they're doing ten miles under the speed limit ... well, you can guess. They've learned to take the red, yellow and green bumper stickers that 'loudly' proclaim Chihuahua and Guadalajara OFF the cars, too.
They're not dumb, after all -- they're just illegal and not good in English, yet. I just wish we had a guest worker program and an amnesty program, too. They're bright guys and I would love to see them be able to make a real -- legal -- contribution to our society. Those who have become entrepreneurs here have done strikingly well & I admire them, hugely. We need a larger, more comprehensive, fairer solution to this issue & I hope that Pres. Obama will be able to turn his attention to this critical issue, once he's past the health care thing and can FOCUS on other issues. They're an asset to our society, ba -- but I'd like to see them paying taxes, buying health insurance, buying homes legally and all the rest of it. (Not just payroll taxes, I mean)

I can't even figure out who "runs" USA's thing in Afghanistan.

One thing where USA is united is Social Security. Nobody "runs" that unity, but it looks like Hannity and many Repubs want it killed.

On money-matters, I'd say that TLC calls the shots, plus the real-estate industry.

A better question would be "rank these in order of power."

There, TLC is tops -- and TLC's parent -- the Rockefeller banks and companies -- like Chase and Mobil.

We Jews have no real unity -- besides staying alive. The Irish hang together far more effectively to back up their own people.

Universities like Columbia and Harvard have enormous binding power for alumni.

The Fed can and does print money. But at whose behest?

Sometimes you could swear that it must be spacemen.

Interesting post. Funny line about the spacemen.

Some questions for you: Don't the Italians similarly 'hang together far more effectively to back up their own people?" Don't the Koreans, for another example (Think of their economic/retail structure in USA and their highly effective mutual assistance societies/banks.) As to having 'no real unity," I think I see what you're getting at and how one might take offense at ba's list ...but ...What about entities like the various Jewish Family Assistance org's and the JCC's? Both are very active here in Denver metro & raise large amounts of money for all kinds of good causes. Doesn't that show some 'real unity?' (And I know the similar organizations in San Francisco, I have one Jewish gf who works for the JCC there & one goy gf who works for their Family Assistance org.) Everyone here benefits from the JCC's open-membership athletic facilities, wonderful theatre programs, art gallery, concert programs, etc.

So I followed your MBTU & read some of your exchanges with Michael09 on religious law/courts. I'm picking up a distinct anti-Irish (American) tone from the posts I've read. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

Two questions, I'm curious:

1.) Do you live in Boston or another city of similar ethnic composition/history?

2.) Can you give us some examples, other than the Kennedy's, of 'wealthy Irish" getting off in U.S. courts ??

That's not a biased question, I do want to know. And last, I am not Irish-American, although I married a WASP who is half Scotch-Irish & I bear an Irish surname, as does our son. I also have (close) Jewish relatives by marriage and am quite sensitized to comments like "Do the Jews run America?" just fyi. And I'm sure ba was being ironic, there.

Thanks. SN/t.