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U.S., UK, and EU, Are Now Dictatorships

by Eric Zuesse


How can it be that in virtually all of the U.S. Presidential-candidate head-to-head Democratic versus Republican polling that was done of both Democratic and Republican candidates during the primaries, the preferred Democratic candidate against any one of the Republican candidates was Bernie Sanders, but he almost certainly won’t be that Party’s nominee (and there’s more on that here); and the preferred Republican candidate against either one of the Democratic candidates was John Kasich, but he certainly won’t be the Republican nominee? Sanders and Kasich also scored the highest in his respective Party for net favorability rating, but almost certainly neither candidate will even be on the ballot for voters on November 8th. What kind of ‘democracy’ is this?
How can it be that in UK, the ‘Labour’ Prime Minister Tony Blair served as George W. Bush’s lap-dog on the invasion of Iraq in 2003 to eliminate “Saddam’s WMD” (which didn’t even exist) — it wasn’t a Conservative Prime Minister who did that extremely conservative (i.e., aggressive, invasion, especially on the basis of lies) thing? What kind of ‘democracy’ is that?
And how can it be that throughout the EU, the public are against GMOs, toxic chemicals such as Roundup or glyphosate, and toxic ‘trade’ treaties such as TTIP, but the political leaders are pushing as hard as they can for all of those things? That’s the way to stay in public office? Not in a democracy.
A dictatorship is a national government that rules the public, instead of being ruled by the public. There are various types of this, such as communist (‘workers’ dictatorship), fascist (corporate dictatorship), etc., but those are merely terminological fine points on basically the same terrible beast, and all variants of the beast have two classes of people: the aristocracy, who rule, and the public, who are ruled. No dictatorship has equality-of-rights before the law, because any type of dictatorship treats the aristocracy as being above the law, and legally unaccountable to the public when violating the law, and it treats the public as being arbitrarily (depending upon whether cooperative with the aristocrats, or not) fully accountable to the government (the aristocracy), for any violation of the law. (E.g.: the homeless go to jail, while banksters get bailed out.)
The rulers are unseen in many dictatorships; those rulers are behind-the-scenes, unofficial, but the nominal rulers then are representatives of the aristocracy, they’re not actually representing the public. Unseen rulers (actually mainly the personal representatives of unseen rulers) meet in international conclaves like the Bilderberg conferences, and Trilateralist conferences, instead of in national legislatures. Unseen rulers tend to be very discreet, the opposite of ostentatious — hardly the “political” type — not braggarts at all. They don’t need to impress anybody. They want only to be obeyed.
On May 17th, Craig Murray, British Ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and Rector of the University of Dundee from 2007 to 2010, who is that rare thing a fully committed democrat who also happens to have been a member of his country’s foreign-affairs establishment, headlined at his terrific blog, “The Conservatives Will Be Protected From Their Election Fraud”, and he documented that there is “blatant state propaganda manipulation” and that “in this country, electoral law is not enforced against those in power.” Power-holders in UK can violate the law with impunity, even where the violation is clearly documented — he showed that.
In the United States, the only scientific study of whether the U.S. is a democracy found it’s not. It examined 1,779 separate pieces of proposed national legislation since the year 1980, and found that only the concerns of rich people (“oligarchs”) affected a bill’s fate; the concerns of the public (as had been reflected in public-opinion polls regarding the given matter) did not.
Consequently, though the democratic nations (plus importantly the communist dictatorship USSR) defeated fascism in 1945, the democratic nations are no longer democracies; they’re all “oligarchies” ruled by some sort of aristocracy or another.
The capstone to this development would be the passage-into-law of U.S. President Barack Obama’s proposed international ‘trade’ treaties, TTIP, TPP, and/or TISA, to transfer national sovereignty (regardless of whether or not of a democratic kind) to an international corporate dictatorship, which will prohibit increases in regulations of food-safety, product-safety, workers’ rights, and of global warming and other environmental matters, and will transfer the power over those to the top stockholders in international corporations.
The question at the present time is whether democracies have already been so severely compromised, so that treaties such as these that Obama is pushing, can be approved by ‘democratic’ governments. If the answer to that question is yes, then we’re already in the Brave New World of fascist international victory — though it’s post-WW-II, the fascists will finally have won, not just maybe, but clearly, and decisively, throughout all of the foreseeable future — perhaps even permanently, because international treaties, especially ones that entail many nations, are virtually impossible to end. (A good example of that permanency is NATO: its very raison d’etre terminated when the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact military alliance ended in 1991; but, yet, it continues even today, and threatens now to bring about WW III, which would be its culmination.)
If the idea that we live in a dictatorship seems far-fetched because we’re surrounded by propaganda to the contrary, then there is still the inspiration of the central character Winston Smith in the allegorical novel about fascism, 1984 — he soured on the propaganda that he was editing, but finally switched back, and saw the light: Big Brother was his savior, after all. The former U.S. Senator Gary Hart wrote recently from the standpoint of the earlier, disillusioned, Winston Smith, but, perhaps, even people such as he will also see the light, and stop saying such things as, “Measured against the standards established for republics from ancient times, the American Republic is massively corrupt.” Perhaps everyone has his price, and, once it’s paid, he’ll see the light, too. But, even if he won’t, he has provided there a remarkably accurate description of the reality that Orwell’s book had merely allegorized — way back in 1948. Winston Smith would have been shocked at such a kindred spirit, writing not in 1984 but 2015.
Orwell, in his own time, struggled over what year his novel should be set in. Likely, we’re still not yet quite there. After all, it was set after the nuclear war. The international agreements — the alliances — seem to have been already in place, for some time. Maybe Orwell’s novel should have been instead called something like “2025”. Just a few more years; we can hardly wait (if we’ll be among the survivors).
Such are the ways of the international aristocracy. If we’ll tolerate them. But if we won’t, what then? Nothing is more powerful than they. But is that the end of the story? Are they a terminal plague? Can NATO be ended without its culminating? Or, is there some other way?


Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

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John
John
Jun 5, 2016 10:26 AM

Britain – it has been claimed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elective_dictatorship) – is an “elective dictatorship”.
We are now learning that the current governing party – the Conservatives – unlawfully overspent at the 2015 election.
They may yet face prosecution and the loss of power through the law court’ system.
Voters have one day when real democracy rules, i.e. the one day we get to vote for the party of government.
After that, the party of government can spend the next 4 or 5 years ignoring the electorate, if it wishes to.
If they make a reasonable job of running the country they may be able to look forward to re-election .
If – on the other hand – they make a hash of running the country, they will probably be kicked out at the next election.
In all of this, mass media interests massively affect and massage public opinion of the performance of parties.
Ultimately, Churchill’s claim “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” still applies.
After all, we are talking not about purely mechanical systems but about human-inspired and designed ones.
Systems which have all the flaws but also the inspirations that human beings can bring to them.
Anyone expecting perfection in anything related to human beings or their systems is fantasizing.

mohandeer
mohandeer
Jun 5, 2016 4:15 AM

Reblogged this on Worldtruth.

robert11011
robert11011
Jun 4, 2016 12:00 PM

Reblogged this on robert11011's Blog.

Frank
Frank
Jun 4, 2016 11:32 AM

”Power-holders in UK can violate the law with impunity, even where the violation is clearly documented — he (Blair) showed that.” It is questionable whether or not the UK was ever a true democracy. Consider that the UK has a non-elected head of state (H.M. Queen Elizabeth); a non-elected second chamber (The House of Lords); an unwritten constitution which is tantamount to saying no constitution at all; a legislature which, due to the party system in the UK, acts simply a rubber stamp for the executive; a first-past-the-post electoral system which guarantees a two-party cartel which has resulted in minority governments since 1935; a Presidential system masquerading as a Prime Ministerial system.
This is a semi-feudal set-up and quite how it is still intact in the 21st century must rank as the 8th wonder of the world.

labrebisgalloise
labrebisgalloise
Jun 4, 2016 10:49 AM

Would you mind correcting this vis a vis Craig Murray as I would like to share it. Thanks.

Dave Hansell
Dave Hansell
Jun 4, 2016 10:39 AM

Just one point, Craig Murray is not and never has been a member of the British Patliament/legislature. He was a diplomat who was removed from his post by the British Establishment for first questioning and then whistle blowing on the tacit support of the UK superstate for the systematic torture (including boiling people alive) and human rights abuses in the Asian State where he was posted as a diplomat. He subsequently published a book on the subject “Murder in Samerkand.”
His Web site, which is always worth a visit despite the presence of a number of obvious professional trolls to be found in the BTL comments, can be found here:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/

Catte
Catte
Jun 4, 2016 10:56 AM
Reply to  Dave Hansell

Thanks – I’ve amended the piece pending author approval.

Catte
Catte
Jun 4, 2016 11:44 AM
Reply to  Catte

The piece has now been corrected by the author.

Mark Birbeck
Mark Birbeck
Jun 4, 2016 10:31 AM

Interesting article, but weakened by an inaccuracy. As I understand it Craig Murray, although he has stood in parliamentary elections and lost, is not an MP, but an ex diplomat and activist.

shatnersrug
shatnersrug
Jun 4, 2016 12:47 PM
Reply to  Mark Birbeck

It’s interesting but whilst totally understandably frustrating, we don’t live in a dictatorship anymore that we live in a principality – the terminology is wrong Oligarchy could be correct, but a dictatorship by definition has to have a dictator – an autocratic leader who issued orders from the top that must be obeyed and a quasi religious devotion to his ideas. One thing you can say about any dictatorship is that you know the name of the man at the top – Hitler, Mussolini, Pinocet, kim jong un – these are dictatorships, although with North Korea you do wonder just how much power he does have.
What we live in is best defined by Sheldon Woley – inverted totalitarianism with a managed democracy – what has happen in the last few years is that, it’s ceasing to become inverted and increasingly becoming a full blown version. The TTIP etc deals may well tip us over into a full blown police state, however we aren’t there yet and we ought to be doing all we can to save our freedoms rather that hand wringing about mythical dictatorships (sometimes I wonder if Rupert Murdoch is the dictator – but he has little grasp in the EU)
To quote Alice walker:
The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.
We have the power to stop this,

shatnersrug
shatnersrug
Jun 4, 2016 12:49 PM
Reply to  shatnersrug
Frank
Frank
Jun 4, 2016 8:13 PM
Reply to  shatnersrug

Agree with your assessment. What we have is a new political configuration which has the form of democracy, but not the substance. I would characterise this as ‘soft’ totalitarianism. We are no longer active citizens with a genuine say in how the social and political order is to be run and whose priorities are given consideration, we are instead political consumers or spectators, outside of the policy making arena. Our opinions and interests are of no account, except when come election time we are pandered to and patornised by the political elites, who are just after our votes. All sort of things are promised but nothing delivered. Post-election its back to business as usual. The high politics of economic issues and geopolitics are of course completely beyond the pale of any discussion, our leaders are presumed to know best.
I would also agree that in Europe at least we are the restive provinces of the US empire which is the only real sovereign nation. Europe to the United States has become like the Vichy regime was to France in the 1940s. Western Europe has been absorbed into the US without any discussion of policies or the legality of that process, it has been, quite aptly I think, described as an invisible annexation.
None of this could of occured without the active collusion of the mainstream media. They have become – without exception – neo-liberal and neo-con shills in this respect, even the putatively ‘liberal and centre-left media like the The Guardian, Le Figaro and the New York Times. There is this strange theory that since these publications are not state institutions, like the BBC, the west has a free press. ‘Sleepers Awake’ State propaganda has simply been outsourced to these publications and an internal or internalised self-censorship takes place. As Trotsky once said: ”Every bourgeois journalist has a gendarme sitting in his head, so that the external one is un-necessary.”
As for those hysterical states, Poland and the Baltics, having been habituated to being Soviet satellites, they jumped into the US orbit with alacrity and now form virtual colonies of the US, and future launch pads of a NATO war against Russia. They are openly baying for war against Russia without seeming to realise that they will be completely decimated in such a conflict.
Strange times, strange and dangerous.

shatnersrug
shatnersrug
Jun 4, 2016 9:56 PM
Reply to  Frank

I’m not sure it’s new, I just think we have a clearer way to see through the lies now, what surprises me about the Internet is hoe it was allowed to ever happen in the first place.
Having just read on VT that the US is up to its neck in afgani opium doesn’t surprise me one jot, but we’d have never known about it, only the most scolarly news junkies would have ever heard of of the CIA assisting contra rebels to sell crack in the US to fund arms payments.
These days you can read about it on at least 10 alternative media sites. Now is this a sign of a new freedom or an Empire so craven that it doesn’t care anymore?
Interestingly enough I read this on the intercept
https://theintercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/

Seamus Padraig
Seamus Padraig
Jun 5, 2016 7:48 PM
Reply to  shatnersrug

Enjoy the internet while you can, because even as we speak, the neo-cons are plotting to take it over and subvert it just like the MSM:
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2014/12/02/the-war-against-the-trolls/
http://theduran.com/1984-eu-unveils-online-code-conduct-fight-censor-hate-speech/