{"id":166826,"date":"2015-07-18T23:31:31","date_gmt":"2015-07-18T23:31:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=166826"},"modified":"2015-07-18T23:58:44","modified_gmt":"2015-07-18T23:58:44","slug":"opinion-concentrated-wealth-widespread-stupidity-end-of-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/opinion-concentrated-wealth-widespread-stupidity-end-of-democracy\/","title":{"rendered":"OPINION: Concentrated Wealth + Widespread Stupidity = End of Democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/b>Eric Zuesse<\/span><\/p>\n

Today\u2019s America is not<\/i>\u00a0a democracy:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDark Money Groups Are Funded By Dark Money Groups That Fund Dark Money\u00a0Groups That Fund\u2026”<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

That terrific investigative news report by Paul Blumenthal at Huffington Post, on 9 November 2013, penetrated beyond what the U.S. oligarchy \u2013 or more traditionally called aristocracy \u2013 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\u2019s tax-authorities). <\/span><\/p>\n

This way, Blumenthal was able to discover, for example, that a “dark-money shell game allowed the Wisconsin Club for Growth to influence\u00a0the elections with both its own ads and those of seemingly unrelated\u00a0conservative groups with different public agendas. \u2026 The trail of cash moving from dark money nonprofit to dark money nonprofit\u00a0can be traced, in part, through public records of the groups contributing it,\u201d but only<\/i> 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<\/i> 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\u2019s Greece is a more extreme case of the same thing.<\/span><\/a> Perhaps what\u2019s today in Greece will be tomorrow in America.)<\/span><\/p>\n

On 27 August 2012, the Republican commentator, Mike Lofgren, headlined in\u00a0The American Conservative<\/i>,\u00a0\u201cThe Revolt of the Rich,\u201d<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and 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\u2019t descended into being ruled by the money of billionaire psychopaths in both Parties, needs to see that testimony by this passionate (lower-case \u201cd\u201d) democrat, who “served 16 years on the Republican staff of the\u00a0House and Senate Budget Committees.\u201d That same month, his stellar book was published:\u00a0The Party Is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats\u00a0Became Useless, and\u00a0the Middle Class Got Shafted<\/i><\/span><\/a>. As one Amazon reader-review of that work accurately describes it: “Throughout the book he tells of some of his interactions\u00a0with unnamed elected officials, but primarily he focuses on\u00a0specific people in government \u2026\u00a0\u2013 Republicans like Bush, Cheney, Abramoff, Gingrich,\u00a0Bachmann, the Koch Brothers; and Democrats like\u00a0Obama, Rubin and Geithner. (Hint \u2013 you don’t want to be\u00a0mentioned in this book.)\u201d Lofgren is refreshingly, sometimes shockingly, honest.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lofgren had first gone public earlier, on 3 September 2010, about his abandonment of the Republican Party. He headlined then at truthout,\u00a0“Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult.\u201d<\/span><\/a>\u00a0This is how he explained why he had left the Party:<\/span><\/p>\n

I left because I was appalled at the headlong rush of\u00a0Republicans \u2026 to embrace policies that are\u00a0deeply damaging to this\u00a0country’s future; and contemptuous of\u00a0the feckless, craven incompetence\u00a0of Democrats in their half-hearted attempts to stop them. And, in truth,\u00a0I left as an act of\u00a0rational self-interest. Having gutted\u00a0private-sector pensions and\u00a0health benefits as a result of their embrace\u00a0of outsourcing,\u00a0union busting and “shareholder value,” the GOP now\u00a0thinks it is\u00a0only fair that public-sector workers give up their pensions\u00a0and\u00a0benefits, too. Hence the intensification of the GOP’s decades-long\u00a0campaign of scorn against government workers. Under\u00a0the circumstances,\u00a0it is simply safer to be a current retiree\u00a0rather than a prospective\u00a0one.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

If you think Paul Ryan and his Ayn Rand-worshipping\u00a0colleagues aren’t\u00a0after your Social Security and Medicare, I am\u00a0here to disabuse you of\u00a0your naivet\u00c3\u00a9.[5]\u00a0They will move heaven\u00a0and earth to force through tax cuts that will so\u00a0starve the\u00a0government of revenue that they will be “forced” to make\u00a0“hard\u00a0choices” – and that doesn’t mean repealing those very same\u00a0tax\u00a0cuts, it means cutting the benefits for which you worked.\u00a0\u2026<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

They prefer to rail against those government programs that actually help\u00a0people. And when a program is too popular to attack directly, like Medicare or Social\u00a0Security, they prefer to undermine it by feigning an agonized concern about the\u00a0deficit. That concern, as we shall see, is largely fictitious.\u00a0Undermining Americans’ belief in their own institutions of self-government\u00a0remains a prime GOP electoral strategy.\u00a0\u2026<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

As for what they really believe, the Republican Party of 2011 believes in three\u00a0principal tenets I have laid out below. The rest of their platform one may safely\u00a0dismiss as window dressing:<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

1. The GOP cares solely and exclusively about its rich contributors. The party\u00a0has built a whole catechism on the protection and further enrichment of\u00a0America’s plutocracy. Their caterwauling about deficit and debt is so much\u00a0eyewash to con the public.\u00a0\u2026<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

2. They worship at the altar of Mars.\u00a0While the me-too Democrats have set a\u00a0horrible example of keeping up with the Joneses with respect to waging wars,\u00a0they can never match GOP stalwarts such as John McCain or Lindsey Graham\u00a0in their sheer, libidinous enthusiasm for invading other countries.\u00a0\u2026<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

3. Give me that old time religion.\u00a0Pandering to fundamentalism is a full-time vocation\u00a0in the GOP.\u00a0Beginning in the 1970s, religious cranks ceased simply to be a minor\u00a0public nuisance in this country, and grew into the major element of the Republican\u00a0rank and file.\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

He lambastes today\u2019s 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 \u2018Democrat,\u2019 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<\/span><\/a>. 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\u2019s being culminated by the Clintons and now Obama. None of this would happen if millions of Americans weren\u2019t very stupid, very full of faith, not science \u2013 they\u2019re 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 \u2013 that\u2019s not what an aristocracy wants; that\u2019s what it blocks<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Not only billionaires are behind this, however. They couldn\u2019t do it if there weren\u2019t many millions of suckers who vote for their corrupt candidates, in both Parties \u2013 candidates on the take, such as Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and all Republican politicians \u2013 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<\/span><\/a>, \u201cI\u2019m not out there to go after you. I\u2019m protecting you. \u2026 I\u2019m going to shield you from public and congressional anger. \u2026 My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.\u201d He said this to the top financial executives who had overseen frauds that had collapsed America\u2019s and many of the world\u2019s economies. And he fulfilled on that promise to America\u2019s all-time-biggest crooks.<\/span><\/a> But the overt Republican, McCain, was just as much in the aristocracy\u2019s pocket as Obama was. This is what it means to live in an aristocracy, no democracy at all: it\u2019s 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\u2019t be blamed for believing his lies, because (unlike Hillary Clinton<\/span><\/a>) he didn\u2019t have enough of a public record for even intelligent people to know that he\u2019s actually a fascist<\/span><\/a>. And, so, virtually all of the fools voted in that election instead for the man who said, \u201cBomb, bomb, bomb, Iran.\u201d<\/span><\/a> (They\u2019re dangerous fools; but, in a democracy, even dangerous fools have the right to vote.)<\/span><\/p>\n

This is how democracy has died in America. The formula is simple: billionaires + their (and their many clergy\u2019s) suckers = aristocracy. The \u2018Kingdom of God on Earth\u2019 is just a front for the billionaires<\/span><\/a> behind the screen, who receive their moral acceptability from preachers of some crackpot Scripture, regardless whether it\u2019s the Bible or Ayn Rand, but preachers bought-and-paid-for all the same, who say \u201cIt\u2019s God\u2019s will,\u201d or \u201cThey earned it.\u201d 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\u2019t match his real beliefs or commitments, the voters are trapped by the aristocracy: they\u2019ve got nothing else to go on but the aristocracy\u2019s lies, and the aristocratically owned \u2018news\u2019 media\u2019s stenographic transmissions of their politicians\u2019 lies to the public.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s how the American Counter-revolution (since 1974) was done. It\u2019s how democracy ended in America.<\/span><\/p>\n

The American Revolution (1765-83<\/span><\/a>) overthrew Britain\u2019s aristocracy here. But now, the American people need to overthrow America\u2019s 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 \u2013 democracy\u2019s graveyard.<\/span><\/p>\n

Same thing in Europe.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The aristocracy is aiming to lock it in<\/span><\/a>. The situation for democrats is now<\/span> desperate<\/span><\/a><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fools think that because aristocrats compete with each other, they\u2019re not essentially united against the public. The propaganda by aristocrats is believed, as if looking behind the curtain<\/span><\/a> were some type of no-no.<\/span><\/p>\n

Anybody intentionally bringing children into a world like this has to be either an aristocrat, or a fool \u2013 or callous. (After all, an aristocrat\u2019s child might be able to be largely insulated from the hell<\/span><\/a> that\u2019s now virtually inevitable to come.)<\/span><\/p>\n

———-<\/span><\/p>\n

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/i><\/span><\/a>,<\/i> and of \u00a0<\/i>CHRIST\u2019S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity<\/i><\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse Today\u2019s America is not\u00a0a democracy: \u201cDark Money Groups Are Funded By Dark Money Groups That Fund Dark Money\u00a0Groups That Fund\u2026” That terrific investigative news report by Paul Blumenthal at Huffington Post, on 9 November 2013, penetrated beyond what the U.S. oligarchy \u2013 or more traditionally called aristocracy \u2013 requires its dark-money groups to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":166829,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461,1622],"tags":[115,30,551,535,1138,698,34,49,76],"class_list":{"0":"post-166826","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editorials","8":"category-featured","9":"tag-barack-obama","10":"tag-big-brother","11":"tag-corruption","12":"tag-global-news","13":"tag-greece","14":"tag-hillary-clinton","15":"tag-iran","16":"tag-usa-news","17":"tag-warfare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}