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Concentrated Wealth + Widespread Stupidity = End Of Democracy
Authored by Eric Zuesse, author of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
Today’s America is not a democracy:
That terrific investigative news report by Paul Blumenthal at Huffington Post, on 9 November 2013, penetrated beyond what the U.S. oligarchy — or more traditionally called aristocracy — requires its dark-money groups to disclose to the Federal Election Commission; and so Blumenthal researched also into what dark-money groups are required to report to the IRS (America’s tax-authorities).
This way, Blumenthal was able to discover, for example, that a "dark-money shell game allowed the Wisconsin Club for Growth to influence the elections with both its own ads and those of seemingly unrelated conservative groups with different public agendas. … The trail of cash moving from dark money nonprofit to dark money nonprofit can be traced, in part, through public records of the groups contributing it,” but only by accessing both FEC and IRS public records. And, even then, the picture was incomplete, because the 5-Republican bare majority, on the infamous pro-aristocracy 2010 U.S. Supreme Court Citizens United decision, by five traitors to the U.S. Constitution (which all judges are sworn to protect), prohibits public access to a complete picture of how (like in that Wisconsin election) a few psychopathic billionaires, plus millions of faith-driven fools they sucker with myth-affirming lies, can destroy government of the people, by the people, for the people, and turn it instead into government of the people, by the aristocracy, for the aristocracy. Blumenthal also showed the same billionaires+suckers system replacing democracy in other states. (Today’s Greece is a more extreme case of the same thing. Perhaps what’s today in Greece will betomorrow in America.)
On 27 August 2012, the Republican commentator, Mike Lofgren, headlined in The American Conservative, “The Revolt of the Rich,” and he dumped upon his fellow conservatives for being now traitors to democracy in America. Anyone who thinks that America is still a democracy, and that the U.S. hasn’t descended into being ruled by the money of billionaire psychopaths in both Parties, needs to see that testimony by this passionate (lower-case “d”) democrat, who "served 16 years on the Republican staff of the House and Senate Budget Committees.” That same month, his stellar book was published: The Party Is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted. As one Amazon reader-review of that work accurately describes it: "Throughout the book he tells of some of his interactions with unnamed elected officials, but primarily he focuses on specific people in government … — Republicans like Bush, Cheney, Abramoff, Gingrich, Bachmann, the Koch Brothers; and Democrats like Obama, Rubin and Geithner. (Hint — you don't want to be mentioned in this book.)” Lofgren is refreshingly, sometimes shockingly, honest.
Lofgren had first gone public earlier, on 3 September 2010, about his abandonment of the Republican Party. He headlined then at truthout, "Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult.” This is how he explained why he had left the Party:
I left because I was appalled at the headlong rush of Republicans … to embrace policies that are deeply damaging to this country's future; and contemptuous of the feckless, craven incompetence of Democrats in their half-hearted attempts to stop them. And, in truth, I left as an act of rational self-interest. Having gutted private-sector pensions and health benefits as a result of their embrace of outsourcing, union busting and "shareholder value," the GOP now thinks it is only fair that public-sector workers give up their pensions and benefits, too. Hence the intensification of the GOP's decades-long campaign of scorn against government workers. Under the circumstances, it is simply safer to be a current retiree rather than a prospective one.
If you think Paul Ryan and his Ayn Rand-worshipping colleagues aren't after your Social Security and Medicare, I am here to disabuse you of your naiveté.[5] They will move heaven and earth to force through tax cuts that will so starve the government of revenue that they will be "forced" to make "hard choices" - and that doesn't mean repealing those very same tax cuts, it means cutting the benefits for which you worked. …
They prefer to rail against those government programs that actually help people. And when a program is too popular to attack directly, like Medicare or Social Security, they prefer to undermine it by feigning an agonized concern about the deficit. That concern, as we shall see, is largely fictitious. Undermining Americans' belief in their own institutions of self-government remains a prime GOP electoral strategy. …
As for what they really believe, the Republican Party of 2011 believes in three principal tenets I have laid out below. The rest of their platform one may safely dismiss as window dressing:
1. The GOP cares solely and exclusively about its rich contributors. The party has built a whole catechism on the protection and further enrichment of America's plutocracy. Their caterwauling about deficit and debt is so much eyewash to con the public. …
2. They worship at the altar of Mars. While the me-too Democrats have set a horrible example of keeping up with the Joneses with respect to waging wars, they can never match GOP stalwarts such as John McCain or Lindsey Graham in their sheer, libidinous enthusiasm for invading other countries. …
3. Give me that old time religion. Pandering to fundamentalism is a full-time vocation in the GOP. Beginning in the 1970s, religious cranks ceased simply to be a minor public nuisance in this country, and grew into the major element of the Republican rank and file.
He lambastes today’s Democratic Party for its constant me-tooism. Just consider that the most Republican, pro-aristocratic, international-trade bills ever, are the three, TPP, TTIP, and TISA, that the ‘Democrat,’ Barack Obama, is ramming through into U.S. law, with almost solid Republican support in both the House and the Senate, and with only a minority but just enough Democrats to get them over the line. They will be the worst legislative acts in world history, and they are profoundly anti-democratic and pro-aristocratic (and are being rammed through under an unConstitutional Republican-pushed and aristocratic Democrat-passed 1974 law. But there is no new American Revolution, to throw out those traitors, to end the American Counter-Revolution that started with Richard Nixon (his Trade Act of 1974) and that’s being culminated by the Clintons and now Obama. None of this would happen if millions of Americans weren’t very stupid, very full of faith, not science — they’re accepting a Government that will actually produce hell for their own children, and for all future generations. All of this being done to enrich billionaires today. And, to lock in rule by billionaires in the future. Forget equal opportunity — that’s not what an aristocracy wants; that’s what it blocks.
Not only billionaires are behind this, however. They couldn’t do it if there weren’t many millions of suckers who vote for their corrupt candidates, in both Parties — candidates on the take, such as Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and all Republican politicians — candidates who speak truth only in private to their sponsors, like Obama did on 27 March 2009 when he told Wall Streeters cloistered in the White House, “I’m not out there to go after you. I’m protecting you. … I’m going to shield you from public and congressional anger. … My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.” He said this to the top financial executives who had overseen frauds that had collapsed America’s and many of the world’s economies. And he fulfilled on that promise to America’s all-time-biggest crooks. But the overt Republican, McCain, was just as much in the aristocracy’s pocket as Obama was. This is what it means to live in an aristocracy, no democracy at all: it’s a type of dictatorship, a dictatorship not only by the richest, but by deception. In that Presidential contest (2008), there was no anti-aristocracy candidate in the general election, and almost all intelligent people voted for Obama because of his lies to the public; they couldn’t be blamed for believing his lies, because (unlike Hillary Clinton) he didn’t have enough of a public record for even intelligent people to know that he’s actually a fascist. And, so, virtually all of the fools voted in that election instead for the man who said, “Bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran.” (They’re dangerous fools; but, in a democracy, even dangerous fools have the right to vote.)
This is how democracy has died in America. The formula is simple: billionaires + their (and their many clergy’s) suckers = aristocracy. The ‘Kingdom of God on Earth’ is just a front for the billionaires behind the screen, who receive their moral acceptability from preachers of some crackpot Scripture, regardless whether it’s the Bible or Ayn Rand, but preachers bought-and-paid-for all the same, who say “It’s God’s will,” or “They earned it.” The result is, in any case, an aristocratic dictatorship, no sort of authentic democracy whatsoever. And, when even the Democratic candidate has gotten there by a string of lies and no substantive record on which voters can know that his assertions don’t match his real beliefs or commitments, the voters are trapped by the aristocracy: they’ve got nothing else to go on but the aristocracy’s lies, and the aristocratically owned ‘news’ media’s stenographic transmissions of their politicians’ lies to the public.
That’s how the American Counter-revolution (since 1974) was done. It’s how democracy ended in America.
The American Revolution (1765-83) overthrew Britain’s aristocracy here. But now, the American people need to overthrow America’s own aristocracy, or else simply accept fascism (rule by an aristocracy). If America, under that condition, will be peaceful, then it can only be the peace of the graveyard — democracy’s graveyard.
The aristocracy is aiming to lock it in. The situation for democrats is now desperate.
Fools think that because aristocrats compete with each other, they’re not essentially united against the public. The propaganda by aristocrats is believed, as if looking behind the curtain were some type of no-no.
Anybody intentionally bringing children into a world like this has to be either an aristocrat, or a fool — or callous. (After all, an aristocrat’s child might be able to be largely insulated from the hell that’s now virtually inevitable to come.)
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Today’s America is not a democracy
Democracy has been dead in the land of the free for decades now.
The Deep State runs everything in America since at least Nov 22, 1963. The NSA spies on the Supreme Court, Congress and the White House and you. All this pushing back talk is worthless as you have no privacy or real freedoms.
The most extraordinary passage in the memo requires that the Israeli spooks “destroy upon recognition” any communication provided by the NSA “that is either to or from an official of the US government.” It goes on to spell out that this includes “officials of the Executive Branch (including the White House, Cabinet Departments, and independent agencies); the US House of Representatives and Senate (members and staff); and the US Federal Court System (including, but not limited to, the Supreme Court).”
The stunning implication of this passage is that NSA spying targets not only ordinary American citizens, but also Supreme Court justices, members of Congress and the White House itself. One could hardly ask for a more naked exposure of a police state.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/09/13/surv-s13.html
Essay: Anatomy of the Deep State
There is the visible government situated around the Mall in Washington, and then there is another, more shadowy, more indefinable government that is not explained in Civics 101 or observable to tourists at the White House or the Capitol. The former is traditional Washington partisan politics: the tip of the iceberg that a public watching C-SPAN sees daily and which is theoretically controllable via elections. The subsurface part of the iceberg I shall call the Deep State, which operates according to its own compass heading regardless of who is formally in power.
http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/anatomy-of-the-deep-state/
When does the new season of DWTS begin? I could care less about this kind of shit .... /s
Hah, as if the pyramid the article talks about is not by design....
For those who may doubt ORI's assertion here's John Taylor Gatto:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UadPqGscfI
Yes Ignatius, him and Charlotte Iserbet really lay the edumacation thrust bare.
My personal six-string edumacation...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxkHQXb5nDc
" . . . a few psychopathic billionaires, plus millions of faith-driven fools they sucker with myth-affirming lies, can destroy government of the people, by the people, for the people, and turn it instead into government of the people, by the aristocracy, for the aristocracy . . ."
Exactly.
And BTW - here is another great piece by Mike Lofgren; well worth reading.
Essay: Anatomy of the Deep State http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/anatomy-of-the-deep-state/The Sucker’s Rally of the Millennium ---> Coming to a market near you in 2015
From the article, "Today’s America is not a democracy" It was never intended to be anything but a Constitutional Republic. Benjamin Franklin (purportedly) opined, "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote."
At least the Bread and Circuses must still...um...sorta...compete for your eyeballs.
Gummint has all the guns. It can force you to do whatever the fuck it pleases. Time allows for the necessary conditioning.
Next.
Totaltarian Democracy:
Talmon's 1952 book The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy discusses the transformation of a state in which traditional values and articles of faith shape the role of government into one in which social utility takes absolute precedence. His work is a criticism of the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a Swiss philosopher whose ideas influenced the French Revolution. In The Social Contract, Rousseau contends that the interests of the individual and the state are one and the same, and it is the state's responsibility to implement the "general will".
The political neologism "messianic democracy" also derives from Talmon's introduction to this work:
In a similar vein, Herbert Marcuse, in his 1964 book One-Dimensional Man, describes a society in which, in his words, "…liberty can be made into a powerful instrument of domination. … Free election of masters does not abolish the masters or the slaves..."[6]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totalitarian_democracy
Thanks and kudos for the reference. Power grows in informed numbers ...
Right--Talmon and "repressive tolerance" Marcuse as support for your argument. Good luck with that. Your comment, like the article itself, are obfuscations of the ethnic angle--the angle represented by Talmon, Matcuse, etc.
Right--Talmon and "repressive tolerance" Marcuse as support for your argument. Good luck with that. Your comment, like the article itself, are obfuscations of the ethnic angle--the angle represented by Talmon, Matcuse, etc.
Good book
Rich people who pay rich people to tell middle-class people to blame poor people.
if this is democracy....
This is how democracy has died in America.
Can we at least start to think differently about this? This is how "democracy" ended in America. You can call any small group of individuals in charge of a larger group of individuals anything you want. The names turn out to not matter when it comes to the end result. You can call any system of "government" what you want to but in the end they always tend to end up on George Orwell's Animal Farm - That beautiful and perfect allegory for ANY government that has ever existed in human history. The ideas do not matter and the ideals do not matter...eventually with humans involved, it always devolves to the same place. If you have antigravity technology you can (hopefully) escape it.
Democracy is alive and well and functioning as intended. That's not a good thing; it's the republic that's dead.
They're both dead, Jim.
Indeed. Republic still relies on democratic principles. Even worse, it creates an empowered class, under the guise of representation. Repewblik begets Demockracy, begets Socialism.
How did Demockracy die in Greece 1.0?
yup.
and there are no opponents. if some sheep try to be shepards.... off to heaven.
the problem with all this fake talk of revolt, is that it sets up innocent guys who have now been upset and try to do something, and get killed.
so, how about stopping with the whole zh fake rebellion.
“Sooner or later one has to take sides. If one is to remain human.” - G. Greene
Paul Bloominturd? Huffungton Post?
Someone shove a "hand grenade up my ass".
I thought Trump was relegated to the "Funny Section" with Mc Insane?
"Concentrated Wealth + Widespread Stupidity = End Of Democracy"
The American country and people created the United States nation, government, with the contract that is the Constitution. The banksters, via Lincoln and cohort, killed the republic in 1861, and wiped their asses with the Constitution and installed democracy over the American country. The Zionists then, in 1913, purchased the US nation, government, and set about colonizing the underlying American country and people.
The problems of the American country reside in our being colonized and exploited by Zion, and the tyranny of their criminal governors, and occupiers, the DC US government.
The problem does not reside int those that produce wealth becoming wealthy, but in those that plunder becoming wealthy.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission.
Daily Taste of Zion:
"In a May 27 article, Larry Klayman, former chairman of the non-profit law firm Judicial Watch, wrote, “The three main actors in the burgeoning IRS scandal, Doug Shulman, the former IRS commissioner, Steven Miller, former acting IRS commissioner, and Lois Lerner, former director of exempt organizations, are all Jewish.”
http://americanfreepress.net/?p=11147
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXFWVFzDdvM
Widespread stupidity is a requirement of Demockracy. Gruber confirmed.
If people are so stupid, what is the logic behind allowing all stupid people to vote, thus endowing a subset of all stupid people the monopoly right to plan the lives of millions of stupid people?
Most people (politicians and voters alike) are too stupid to realize that they are stupid.
A conspiracy prevented me from getting my homework in on time.
I weep nightly for my children and the children they may have, for the hell that the oligarchs have wrought, and for the cowardly, bleating sheep, who haven't cared enough or have been slumbering away to have let this happen.
I am mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!
Hey, there's always that .000000001% chance that your children will grow up to be oligarchs. And then everything will be good. So there's that.....
This guy needs to back up a tanker load of lithium and start huffing.
You best listen to us serfs, Obama has already profiled your voting detailed electronic vote for Hillary.
/sarc
It's amazing that with literally thousands of examples of failures to choose from in history, the central planners get to creating the same brittle system of collective organization over and over and over again, only imagining that it's different this time because of their religion or political philosophy or technological substratum.
Sponsor an Executive
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qDC0qcf0kzE
Why would they want it to be different any time? They're getting exactly what they intend, wealth stripping the planet with every cycle.
Keep buying bonds so the equities market implode.
The stupidity is trust in the elected. Why replace the British aristocracy with our un-elected bureaucracy? What stupidity to trust some self-proclaimed caring individuals to take from us and give to others. What are our neo-classes? The worker/producers; the needy; and the self anointed masters who take from the producers to give to the needy.
What virtue is there in taking from others and giving to the the needy? What god created guilt requiring giving to others to enable faux elite them to redistribute to the needy? Who, or what god, created the redistribution dogma?
Is stealing from Peter to give to Paul a virtue? What god decreed that dogma?
Boston Tea Party. Ring a bell?
NIGHT WATCHMAN
Once upon a time the government had a vast scrap yard in the middle of a desert.
Congress said, "Someone may steal from it at Night."
So they created a night watchman position and hired a person for the
job.
Then Congress said, "How does the watchman do his job without instruction?"
So they created a planning department and hired two people, one person to write the instructions, and one person to do time studies.
Then Congress said, "How will we know the night watchman is doing the tasks correctly?"
So they created a Quality Control department and hired two people. One was to do the studies and one was to write the reports.
Then Congress said, "How are these people going to get paid?"
So they created two positions: a time keeper and a payroll officer then hired two people.
Then Congress said, "Who will be accountable for all of these people?"
So they created an administrative section and hired three people, an Administrative Officer, Assistant Administrative Officer, and a Legal Secretary.
Then Congress said, "We have had this command in operation for one year and we are $918,000 over budget, we must cut back."
So they laid-off the night watchman.
NOW slowly, let it sink in.
That's one of the best damn stories I've ever heard. Thank you!
Yes, well done. I think it stands out because we can relate to the night watchman as our brother and the scrap yard as a place we feel at home. A cluster fuck of shitheads then come along and kill our brother and close our playground.
good story, but that is socialism in it's dumbest form
a more apt story, particularly in the context of this article, would start with an "entrepreneur" that is also the darling of bankers, fuelled by an IPO and a ever-raising stock market to hire a mercenary to do the same job, then get into financial problems because the vast scrap yard in the middle of the desert does not produce anything, and then getting bailed out by Congress
and at the end, it would have costed three times more then in your original story, of course
Speaking of wealth:
Anger as Saudi king takes over entire French beachhttp://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/anger-as-saudi-king-takes-over-entir...
I wonder if this is the same shithead rag-wearing Saudi who used to close an entire ski slope when he skied in Aspen?
Corporations are people. Money is speech. Only directly provable quid pro quo bribes are prohibited. Repeat. Now find a candidate who can compete against that. Maybe Bernie Sanders. But not Obama, and not Hillary, and none of the Repuglicans even think there is anything wrong with this system. The Repugs with their partisan court ("of law") have won.
Nixon treasonous blocking of Vietnam peace deal; Reagan treasonous arrangements with Iranian hostage-takers; W Bush elected by 5 partisan Supreme Court justices (what kind of banana republic can't do a recount? what kind of President nominates people like Scalia, Alito, Thomas and Roberts?), Bush elected by Diebold in Ohio over Kerry. Go back earlier and find millions upon millions of people not even allowed to vote (blacks, women, immigrantts).
The Repugs are masters at voter suppression.
Elections run on a county-by-county basis by partisan officials.
Systemic barriers to new political parties developing and becoming competitive.
There is nothing remotely new about the lack of democracy in the USA and there is no mystery which political party most destroyed it, and must continue destroying it because their base is shrinking every day.
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America has never had a democracy since day 1.
It's all an Illusion of Democracy. People think by putting a X on a piece of Paper gives them power and a democracy because it's their choice.
There are so many Presidents and other Politicians, Infamous people that were linked to secret societies either stone mason, freemasons or what ever you want to call them. They weren't there by chance or random acts of kindness, it was all planned that way for succession.
And people keep the succession alive by keep voting for the same people and expecting different results each time.
It was not built to be a democracy. Read a fucking book. Our founding fathers' worst fear was the state would devolve into a 'mob-acracy' and our parents voted it in like eager sheep waiting to be reamed in the backdoor.
It was not built to be a democracy. Read a fucking book. Our founding fathers' worst fear was the state would devolve into a 'mob-acracy' and our parents voted it in like eager sheep waiting to be reamed in the backdoor.
Democracy only works with hard working, well-educated citizens who understand the importance of deferring immediate self gratification for the future welfare of themselves and society in general. Free-for-all vulture capitalism does not apply, nor does me-first socialism. In ancient Greece, "democracy" worked because 60% of the population were slaves. Democracy always collapses because everybody wants a bigger slice of the pie than they paid for, and everybody is allowed to vote.
THis reply did not place properly.
Me-first socialism is an oxymoron. It doesn't exist except in the minds of deluded right wing-nuts.
Socialism is a reward system for lying about opponents and making up fake challenges. It rewrds double talk and deception and failure.
Witness the exaltation of promises to "end the bush tax rates", and the silence that has followed since they were never rescinded.
60% of gummint spending is for ENTITLEMENT PROGRAMS - this is SOCIALISM RUN AMOK !
WAKE UP YOU STUPID SOCIALIST IDIOT !
I'll be happy to take all your titles for you; the title to your house, the title to your cars, the title to your business property, etc. The Aristocracy has done jam up Orwellian job of changing the meaning of entitle. That way they can steal the Proles pensions and safety nets while pretending to do a good thing by ending all those evil entitlements. And all the while; they’re avoiding taxes and sending your children to resource wars based on false casus belli.
I'll even bet you think the 1%ers are going to let you in the club. Why, it’s the American dream the TV told you about.
you win the "Most Incomprehensible Moronic Post" award
a reflection of the post-er, ie YOU - your parents must be hiding in shame
It is frightening how little America knows about Democracy, the most unstable form of gov't, cheered by Lenin, promoted by communists, exposed 2400 years ago as terrible by Polybius:
"By which means when, in their senseless mania for reputation, they have made the populace ready and greedy to receive bribes, the virtue of democracy is destroyed, and it is transformed into a government of violence and the strong hand." - Polybius
We HAVE TO return to being a republic, folks, only republics have exhibited stability: Rome, Carthage, Sparta and the US prior to 1913 are 4 of the longest lasting nations with representative government. All had appointed senators, which was abolished in 1913.
These best practices are all explained in "Atlas Shouts".
http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Shouts-Modern-Patriot-Action-ebook/dp/B00OLR...
The article makes some decent points but overall its a misguided screed. By the way, on the 'concentrated money' issue...Wasn't the idea of allowing a minor amount of one's social security to go into the stock market or various other investments roundly defated by the then Democratic congress?
If for the poor this idea of market investment being 'just too risky' - then it can be assumed the 'concentration of money' will become (ah-hum) less concentrated during the next crash.
Congress with its refusal to allow individuals the freedom of this social security maket investment sent a loud-and-clear message that markets (and, oh my, maybe even business itself) is too risky for the lowly dependent individual. "Real life is too risky. Let us make life safe for you. (but you'll have to vote for us to make sure it happens.)"
Everyone is waiting for someone, else, to do it. It won't happen.
If they cut Social Security and Medicare, seniors will starve. For those who care, please, email your senators and represenative at senate.gov and house.gov
Just for using this fantasy word "democracy" shows the writer lives in a fantasy word. There never been "democracy", anywhere. No need to waste time reading bullshit written by idiots.
Indeed. I stopped reading after the first deployment of the word "democracy".
It's better to have a constitution than to be without one. But a constitution must always be enforced by an informed and civilized public; not some corrupt court. Rule by consent of an informed and civilized public is democracy, and it bestows general prosperity and freedom. Rule by court is republicanism, which always evolves into fascism. The corrupt judges will always throw a few paltry bones to mistreated minorities. But, for example, black people are slaves on plantations all over again, except that the plantations are now called "prisons." Of course, the ruling judges eventually give nearly everything away to their super-rich ruling elite partners, the only minority that really matters to them.
We have had a republic, which quite predictably has transformed into a fascist police state, and everybody knows it.
Certain people have known since at least the French Revolution that what we have been taught are elections are completely unworkable because of the spoiler effect, which enforces a futile two-party system. Our present useless single-selection system could easily be repaired by adopting the simplest form of score voting, which can be completely described in one short simple sentence: Give no vote at all, or from one to ten votes to any number of candidates you wish (up to some reasonable limit, say 20 candidates), and then simply add all the votes up. That's it.
One could say that simple score eliminates 90% of the spoiler effect. To illustrate: if a voter gives 10 votes to Nader and 9 votes to Gore, and no vote at all to Bush, it is simply obvious that, if Nader does not win, the voter has only sacrificed exactly 10% of their voting power. Not 100% as they would have had they been forced to use the usual single-selection voting method. Also, the voters must be informed that they should always vote artfully (aka strategically), not artlessly or heroically (aka "honestly" or "sincerely").
Just this simple reform could return freedom, prosperity, and justice again to our ruined nation.
The death of Democracy ... my arse.
This is Democracy reaching its natural fruition.
You vote because you want to impose your personal preferences upon your neighbours, using force. That is the whole of it.
I welcome the day when YOU cannot "vote yourself" MY stuff.
"Death of fucking democracy ... " mutter, mutter.
I wish I could up vote you a million times
mob rule
Misguided.
"accept fascism (rule by an aristocracy)"
That is not what this word stands for, but rather:
"Fascism is a form of radical authoritarian nationalism"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
Now, I do understand that this site is putin regime propaganda asset that have main agenda to discredit west and it's values such as democracy, rule of law, human rights, etc. and praise putin regime aggresion as only light force against evil banksters with pyramids on their heads, but please - have some respect to meaning of words and definition. Don't make such a fool out of your self.
Thank you!
Descriptions of fascism on Wiki are just one person's view and there are plenty of them.
For most of my life MSM, political pundits, the educational establishment and everybody else and their sister have all described it as "far right". The BBC never mention any fascist group without prefacing it with "far right". Clearly there was a simplistic decision taken to use that tag and it was almost certainly the Left who peddled it, to distance themselves from their own comrades who were sick of the failings of democracy and had taken decisive actions to deal with it...Hitler etc.
In the modern era, it was Mussolini who invented the label and he was a lifelong socialist. He described it as the merger of the political state and corporate sector. That is what we see today, where revolving doors and bank bail-outs are the order of the day. None of that has anything to do with free market capitalism.
When you have a capitalist economic system taken over and controlled by socialists, then you have Fascism. Slowly at first, then it gathers momentum as failure appears. Eventually, they have to wear jackboots to enforce their madness. That is what happened under Musso, Hitler and today, the US and Britain/Europe.
As some historians have said, it isn't much different to Marxism.
I am not the only one who finds it incredible that after spending 70 years fighting communism, the West is now taking its place. That by itself confirms what Edward Griffin has said for years: the battle we saw between Stalin & Hitler and then between the West & USSR were not really between ideologies, but simply to decide "which" despot took No.1 position.
smacker, that phrase is out of context
for the Italian Fascists and Mussolini, corporations are to be understood in the medieval sense. Like the City of London Corporation. like guilds
in "modern talk", he would have written: "the merger of the state with the economic groups, be them incorporated companies or interest groups or trade unions"
note that Mussolini's "merger" was best seen in the "trade talks" he organized: the Fascist Party, the employers and the employees
you are too steeped in this strange "as long as I uphold anti-socialism, I'm the good guy" to even understand Churchill, imho
if not, explain to me how it came that Churchill was first among the conservatives, then crossed the floor to the liberals and then crossed back to the conservatives
I bet you can't
because for you, there are only two political directions: socialism and anti-socialism. hence Churcill was... stationary, in his political stance, eh?
socialism is bad, and whatever is not socialism or fights every shred of socialism is good, period. hence fascism must be socialism, and Hitler vs Stalin must be two socialists battling for their brand of oppression
and this makes you completely blind to any kind of liberal oppression or conservative oppression, aka neo-liberalism and neo-conservativism, or make you wonder if "it's socialism in it"
I don't think your modern day interpretation of Mussolini's merger really makes much difference. In both cases, it results in The State taking over control of "everything" supposedly in the best interests of ...erm The State ...which by his definition was "everything". He was a Statist thru and thru. All socialists are without exception.
I can easily explain Churchill crossing the chamber and back. Britain has a far longer history than most countries of running a corrupt and manipulated system of politics which purports to have multiple parties but which in many aspects are little different. They could all be described as "different heads of the socialist snake" because they all support ever more big government. One could argue that British Tories try to achieve it at lower cost, but that's bye-the-bye.
We see this very much today, where Cameron has abandoned the historical roots of conservatism (even more so than his recent predecessors) and moved leftwards to become a left of centre liberal conservative. Traitor for short.
Britain does not have one single party that advocates a proper written constitution, drafted and owned by the people. That tells you all you need to know, that what we have are different flavors of The State.
As you know, in my view there is virtually nothing about any aspect of socialism that makes it good for people. It is always about power and control and the relegation of people to serfs.
well, a mother suckling a babe is the most primitive of all socialist actions, followed by the simple act of pity for a stranger followed by an act of charity
in both cases, there is no accountant telling you that it's not in the straight of your own personal interests (except if it's embedded in the tax code)
socialism is equalitarianism, too. like in it's basic "everybody is equal in front of the law". the "the rich get one "out of prison" monopoly game card" is less so
read your comment, and note that you insist that liberalism and conservativism are the same, or at least "the same enough" in the face of dreaded socialism
conservativism is about a strong nation state, with emphasis on the nation, to be served by the state
liberalism is all about a small state, still a servant, but not of the nation, no, for the individual
a typical conflict between liberals and conservatives, for example, is to be about reserves of the state, or the size of the army and navy
typical conservatives often preferred to have higher taxes and a balanced budget next to an adequate military power
typical liberals often preferred to have lower taxes and a deficit budget with a shrinking military power, relying on mercenary forces if really needed
I am describing the history of your island, with this. strongly simplified, but nevertheless
your categorical "anti-state" stance is not conservative. it belongs to the liberal family of thought, where you also find the libertarians
conservatives, for example, often nationalized industries, while liberals often privatized industries
No Ghordius. Socialism exists where monarchs existed. It is the forlorn hope for a Benevolent Dictator.
and the conservative vision of it is therefore socialist?
we are there again: from the pure "anti-statist" point of view, conservatives are wannabe dictators, socialists too, and liberals are traitors
it's useful for criticism, this extreme individualistic point of view, but it is hopelessly on the losing side when others band together into groups
be them into a crew of pirates, a gang of mafia soldiers, a "Germans for a Great German Fleet" or an "Association for the Glory of the British Empire"
humans form groups, and those groups follow their group's interests, their collective interests
there is an English Nation, there is a German Nation, there are Medical Doctors Associations and there are Law Professionals lobbyist groups
there are people who fight for nature preservation, there are such things as Greenpeace, or religious churches, or charity associations
tell me how do you plan to prevent people from forming groups... without touching their individual right to form such groups
"...well, a mother suckling a babe is the most primitive of all socialist action"
I have always contended that women by and large are more socialist than men, even those who claim to be Conservative. The example you give confirms it. Where women go wrong IMO is that they carry the mother/child relationship over into politics and advocate nannyism and interference into everybody's lives. Most of the women in HRH Tony Blair's governments were exactly like that: interferring busybodies peddling womenism. Some were so interferring and prescriptive as to make them revolting. They sometimes justify it by claiming that men never grow up and need ordering about all their lives.
"socialism is equalitarianism"
Only on paper. In practice it's very very different. It's all about being in power and control and ring-fencing privilage for themselves. See HRH Tony Blair & cronies.
"...note that you insist that liberalism and conservativism are the same, or at least "the same enough" in the face of dreaded socialism"
I am an old traditional Liberal as previously said. But today, the word has a different meaning which is best described as intellectual socialists, (if that's not a contradiction in terms!). IOW Labour Party members who saw the solid mindless dorkism in the Party and moved out. See Nick Clegg. At heart they are moderate socialists.
Nick Clegg quote:
My country has a very long history of fascism going back centuries to the days of rule by despotic monarchs. But it wasn't called fascism in those days. That label came along with Musso. It was rule by unelected monarchs who claimed the right to govern the masses.
"they will be "forced" to make "hard choices" - and that doesn't mean repealing those very same tax cuts, it means cutting the benefits for which you worked. …"
If those programs are underfunded then, by definition, those prospective payees haven't worked enough for those benefits.
A scam involving paying off money to old investors with new investors' money. Eventally the last group of people paying into the scam never get their money back. Bill: Hey Will, what's this line on my paycheck that says "Social security"?
Will: It's the government's ponzi scheme. You'll never see that money again. by Pseu D. Onym October 09, 2010
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ponzi+scheme#video-5267970
How about encouraging the wealthy to engage in fair competition and the survival of the fittest?
The wealthy may tell you they have succeeded on their own merit and are in favour of the survival of the fittest, but their policies indicate they know they need the wealth of their parents to help them take every step.
A meritocracy gives everyone equal opportunity to compete on a level playing field and is necessary for Darwinism.
What does a meritocracy look like?
1) Everyone succeeds on their own merit
2) There is no un-earned wealth or power, e.g inheritance, trust funds, hereditary titles
3) There is a uniform schools system for everyone with no private schools or universities.
The wealthy are only too aware their future generations are unlikely to make it on their own merit and actively support the mechanisms that circumvent Darwinism.
Don't forget to include lottery winners, and the lucky few who took their inventions to the USPTO first. The down voters will include rich children (even if in their 80's or 90's), and the deluded believers in Ayn Rand nonsense.
Political economy teaches and economic history proves that capitalism and democracy by their very natures are absolutely incompatible.
Modern democracy was born on March 5, 1946, in a small college in Fulton, Missouri
and died at Malta Summit at the meeting between U.S. President George H. W. Bush and U.S.S.R. leader Mikhail Gorbachev, taking place between December 2-3, 1989
Modern democracy was not just being temporary tolerated by capitalism in those years -
it was an essential and necessary "evil" of the Cold War and died with the end of that war
The RICH are the mortal enemy of the American People. It's them or us.
The American Revolution overthrew the British aristocracy here.
Now there's a Foundational Myth if ever I saw one.
The Founding Fathers were the British aristocracy, or if they weren't, they wanted to be.
And don't you think that, with the Constitution, they brought their ship home?
i would rather live under fascism rather than under oligarch-jews and "multicultural" 3rd wolrd muslim immigrants. the positive of fascism outnumbers any jew-ruled democracy in quality and quantity by today of 2015
ps
have fun to prevent your 9 years old daughter from being fuc.ked by 11 years old abdul bin hussein bin muhammad in swedens school toilet
The Austrian school of economics was dreamt up by Austrian aristocrats working in their own self-interest.
They may talk of hard work and efficiency but most of their wealth was inherited.
They support individualism as this leaves the many weak and unable to stand up against a small greedy elite who work collectively.
Their freedom is the freedom of the rich man to spend his money how he chooses. The poor Russians were given this freedom and chose Putin, what is the point of this freedom to the poor man?
The Chicago School and supply side economics can only have been sponsored by billionaires and corporate interests.
There is no trickle down in a Capitalist system, it only trickles up:
a) Those with excess capital invest it and collect interest, dividends and rent.
b) Those with insufficient capital borrow money and pay interest and rent.
But if you pay economists enough they can come up with trickledown to lower billionaire taxes.
Once the rich had a set of ideas that worked in their own self-interest all they had to do was implement them.
The UK was the home of the industrial revolution and workers were employed in atrocious conditions. Only when they discovered their collective power did conditions improve.
Greedy elites were over-thrown by the masses working collectively in Russia and France.
The threat of revolution and Communism kept the wealthy thinking about showing how Capitalism worked for all.
With the fall of the Berlin wall things have got back to Capitalism without competition.
A massively profitable company like Apple has searched the world to find somewhere with worker regulations so lax they have suicide nets around their factories.
It is essential for the masses to think of themselves as individuals, if they band together the 1% are no match for the 99%.
The problem with these arguments is the terms have not been defined, for what we witness is not capitalism in any shape or form...perhaps only an empty shell. When people's liberties are restricted (freedom is a delusion by definition) by so many laws and regulations; it strangles human ingenuity. Then we get what amounts to stagnation of what it is to be human. I would add to that the "gate-keeper" phenomenon where "certifications & credentials" are deemed necessary in order to do a job. A good example would be a person trained in the military to do a specialized skill and comes into the civilian world and cannot get a job in what they specialized in because they do not have the "degree" or the "certification" as required by "law", which was created by the "gate-keepers". Also, internships and apprenticeships have become so bureaucratic that many companies do not offer these programs and again it is the "gate keeper" phenomenon that suppresses.
------------------
*"It is unthinkable what the future holds in a society that is going to litigate itself to death without a moral standard by which to determine what is right. Are we going to be sentencing people to prison for killing birds and let them run free who kill children?
Where is our culture going? What kind of value system, what kind of morality, what kind of standard are we establishing to shade the next generation? Are we planting anything? Or are we leaving them totally exposed?"
(That was from 1990; we now know the answer)
*an excerpt from "Shade for Our Children" www.gty.org
Wide spread stupidity is sufficient to kill democracy. If you allow cretins to vote, everything else follows.
And, if you don't have the Universal Franchise ... then how is it democracy?
Voting sucks ... however you slice it.
When you accede to voting, you embrace the notion that every "oik" has an equal say in the disposition of your property. Right there and then, you have given up your "property rights".
If we vote for the lessor of the two evils, then we still are voting for evil. I quit voting at the State and National level because I vote on a fixed moral basis to which no candidate comes close. If Ben Carson were to gain traction and was on the 2016 ballot, then I would vote. Since I believe we are given only two choices and one is "selected", I do not think voting actually matters. It is like Congress; an illusion that there is a Constitution and the delusion that freedom ever existed..look at the definition...no one has ever had freedom; no one.
----------------
From heavens perspective I know it doesn't matter. If we really cared about our nation and our children's future, then we would recognize ourselves for the wretched and vile sinners that we are and repent before the Creator of the world, Jesus the Christ, and confess our sins and those of our nation and ask for mercy and then we would be healed. Can't see that happening on a large scale, but as it is written: as evil grows worse and worse, grace abounds all the more and I'm am very thankful and comforted in that knowledge.
Wickedness, as it is the shame of human nature, so it is the ruin of human society. Take away conscience and the fear of God, and men become beasts and devils to one another, like the fishes of the sea, where the greater devour the less. Sin fills the earth with violence, and so turns the world into a wilderness, into a cock-pit.
~matthew henry, "The Days of Noah"
http://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/mhc/Gen/Gen_006.cfm?a=6006
Aristocracy is not the same as Fascism.
Plato is turning in his grave.
Plato is actually being tormented in hell; his body has long been returned to the dust in the ground. I digress.
America was never a Democracy, but the point is understood and comes as no shock as a "two-party" system acting in one accord is in effect a "one-party" system designed to divide and conquer by all means necessary...nothing new under the sun as one very wise king stated.
I too don't like democracies that take people's property or vote for holy wars. But what else do you do?
Newsflash:
the kids are already screwed
Part 2:
Even those older types who have productive even "secure" jobs or own businesses are going to get thrown in the drink after these murederous thugs you refer to as "aristocrats" have their way.
Keep going along to get along though. It is the mindless AmeroEuro way. If you are from the turd world good luck to you - corruption is a way of life. If you are from Asia and put up with this crap, you actually know better.
over the years fox news has become so obviously captured it is impossible to watch or listen to..all MSM is worthless propaganda..so vote - become the rush informed voter by reading and watching the media..idiotcracy. my motto is avoid all .gov when possible, look like the normal citizen. .gov in the end is always the enemy to us all. shun them all.
I could make the opposite case, here: that FOX news is so much uncaptured and commercial that it just says what it's core viewership wants to hear
don't forget that most people don't want to be informed, they just want to get their prejudices pandered and substantiated
"kids, look at the TV, and realize that it's a dangerous world full of violence, so be careful out there, don't touch drugs, don't talk to strangers and keep on the narrow and straight of things"
gov. is not the enemy of the citizen. it's like saying that a corporation is the enemy of it's shareholders. yes, they both can be the enemies of their... owners
but that is a question of policy and governance
ghordius, fox news does not promote what the viewers want..it dictates what they want, good example is mccain and trump ..most conservates loathe mccain yet fox promotes him as above any criticism..you are wrong.
overmed, conservatives... or FOX viewers? I happen to know a few of them that love McCain, and even his former choice of VP candidate
The KGB files should be released of McCain's interrogation in Vietnam
fascinating this loathsome little swines
Taxation = theft
if you thought the government was going to steal from the rich and share it with you, you are an idiot. No thief steals with the mighty force of the state because he cares about the down trodden.
You could know the easiest way was to take your social security and medicare. In fact it is already gone.
This has nothing to do with Ayn Rand worship who always said the state are a bunch of plunderers. Her book Atlas Shrugged describes the dystopia perfectly. The socialist nightmare has arrived. Greece leads the way.
and don't forget always blame capitalism and too much freedom for the failure of central planning and socialism. That's how we move the masses over the cliff.
Benjamin Frankilin would probably be shocked things held together this long:
"...Sir, I agree to this Constitution with all its faults...and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other."
-Benjamin Franklin, Monday, September 17, 1787
That is an amazing quote. Such gifted foresight.
I have always contended that the American Constitution is excellent, it's probably the best constitution ever written for any country.
Where the founding fathers and drafters erred was not to put in place a strong supervisory process to ensure and enforce its compliance by anybody, most notably governments. That has allowed successive governments to trample all over it with impunity, whereas they should have been arrested and prosecuted for the serious offence of breaching it and spent a few years in the slammer.
Every kid should leave school with his/her own lifetime copy.
US is Socialist Republic, where else does the employer pay all the health costs ? Only State employees get that perk in Europe. It insures mortgages with Fannie and Freddie. It has a military budget that funds 234 golf courses around the world and 4 generals who have private jets !!!
Socialism is for The Elite in the USA and the middle class get to pay for it.
The US is run for Interest Groups and is a continual fraud on the American Citizen which is paying for an Aristocracy
Eric Zuesse = certified kook, although interesting story.
Let them eat cake.
Rage against the 1% is simply the liberal side of the same coin as is the anger directed against the welfare state by the conservative side. In reality, Schumpeter was correct - Capitalisms success has breed an intelligentsia that is driving it into Socialism. As Pogo said, "We have met the enemy and he is us."
If there is a way out, which is doubtful, it requires a balanced budget amendment reinforced by a gold standard along with restrictions on govt regulation. Good luck with that.
calling zionazis aristocracy is disgusting. they are craven animals with a perpetually unsatisfied blood lust.
Any truly representative government that makes policy choices that are actually in the best interests of its citizens requires at least two essential conditions:
1. A government that actually does the bidding of the people when those wishes are in conflict with the wishes of powerful vested interests (aka, the oligarchy).
2. A citizenry that is extremely well informed on innumerable highly complex topics so they can make the proper choices and submit informed votes.
Since #2 cannot possibly exist for a number of completely intractable reasons, the citizenry then trusts the government to make the proper decisions for them in which case condition #1 is easily violated because the citizenry isn't paying attention and/or has a simplistic or no real understanding of the complex issues at hand and can therefore be swayed by simplistic or propagandist reporting to vote in line with the wishes of the oligarchy.
So, even though I'm not an anarchist, I'll quote one because I mostly agree with the quote: "If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal." - Emma Goldman.
Where she is wrong is in cases where the voting is on issues that don't require changes to the status quo of taxpayer fund distribution or government favors to the oligarchy's concerns. In those cases (ex., guns, gays, god, flags, etc.), the oligarchy doesn't really care about the results because, as I said, they don't involve large changes to the money-related status quo, and as a result, the citizens are allowed to have their way, thus perpetuating their illusion or, at least, their hope of some actual control. "Change you can believe in." Uh-huh...
What I've just said is exactly in agreement with the findings of this 2014 study by Princeton University. It simply confirms what I've long believed.:
Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens
http://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_an...
Excerpts:
A great deal of empirical research speaks to the policy influence of one or another set of actors, but until recently it has not been possible to test these contrasting theoretical predictions against each other within a single statistical model. We report on an effort to do so, using a unique data set that includes measures of the key variables for 1,779 policy issues.
Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism.
In the United States, our findings indicate, the majority does not rule—at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes. When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites or with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the U.S. political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it.
...the preferences of economic elites (as measured by our proxy, the preferences of “affluent” citizens) have far more independent impact upon policy change than the preferences of average citizens do. To be sure, this does not mean that ordinary citizens always lose out; they fairly often get the policies they favor, but only because those policies happen also to be preferred by the economically-elite citizens who wield the actual influence.
Two important characteristics of a functioning
"democracy" include
1) an informed public
[which is now prevented by corporate secrecy, government secrecy,
and a servile, bought-and-controlled mainstream media which is also kept uninformed].
2) a public which has input to determine policies
[ nowadays non-existent because of the already mentioned secrecy including in the corrupted political/policymaking process.
No input also because of disenfranchisement and the stifling of free speech. The drug war, for example disenfranchises via prisons and disallowing felons to vote. Both corporations and government repress free speech, organizing opposition, and whistle- blowing with laws and lawsuits.]
Those who represent the mere act of voting as complete "democracy" either exhibit a very shallow understanding of democracy, or are being deliberately deceptive.
"...They will move heaven and earth to force through tax cuts that will so starve the government of revenue that they will be "forced" to make "hard choices" - and that doesn't mean repealing those very same tax cuts, it means cutting the benefits for which you worked. …"
Riiiight...because smaller government and less wealth distribution at the point of a gun is bad for democracy!
"The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize
they can bribe the people with their own money."
- Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)