My last letter spoke of recent bank failures and asked why our government broke its promise to regulate them. Since then, First Republic Bank has failed and several more look sick.

Our inability to control the banks illustrates the “acquisition of unwarranted influence,” which President Eisenhower warned us about. This influence arises from the crisis of growing wealth inequality. Since the banks and corporate lobby are beyond our command, it follows that NATO (which serves and protects Western capitalism) is also beyond control.

Neither voters nor our Constitution are in control of this government. It’s spending billions of tax dollars to subvert and capture countries like Venezuela and Ukraine that never posed any threat to U.S. citizens. Instead, these places became targets for acquisition and exploitation by the corrupting influence of Western capitalism.

There’s another lobby with even more power. It’s the reason we deny U.S. aid and support for the occupied Palestinians. Five U.S. presidents and our State Department have counseled Israel to accept the two-state plan contained in UN Resolution 181, but Israel ignores us. Israel is obligated to withdraw from all territory it occupied in 1967. We’ve lost credibility because we protect Israel while we demand Russia must withdraw from occupied Ukraine. It’s a double standard.

American media claims Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was unprovoked. That’s a lie. We provoked Russia when we overthrew the pro-Russian president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovich, in 2014. We instigated a coup to replace him with a leader of our choice. Phone taps show U.S. diplomat Victoria Nuland was directly involved. It was a foolish strategy to take control of Ukraine and place NATO weapons on Russia’s border. We tried a similar stunt in Venezuela.

We don’t support occupied Ukraine out of any sense of justice. Ditto for our invasion of Iraq, our intervention in Syria, and our attempted coup in Venezuela. We do it for profit and plunder. We behave this way because of the disastrous rise of misplaced power in the councils of government.

It’s the same old story of corruption. Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.

Bruce Vandiver

Lula