39

America is one-dollar-one-vote, not one-person-one vote

Eric Zuesse

The only comprehensive and scientific study which has ever been done of whether the U.S. is a democracy or instead a dictatorship, was published in 2014. It studied the period during 1981 through 2002, and it found that

In the United States, our findings indicate, the majority does not rule — at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes.”

And this is quoting now directly from the study itself:

The preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”

A study published two years later (in 2016) reviewed the entire relevant scientific literature and found that “responsiveness [to the American public’s preferences] seems to have declined during the late twentieth century” and might be getting worse yet than that:

The picture appears to be even more ominous — that is, opinion and policy are negatively related — on highly salient issues that attract media attention.”

Consequently: the more media-attention, the less that the Government’s policy will reflect the public’s preferences on the given issue. This is indirect proof that the media which the public are being exposed to are controlled by the aristocracy and thus focus on and propagandize for, whatever the aristocracy most want to fool the public about.

This scientific report stated, in its “Conclusions,” that, “the trends seem to be moving in the wrong direction from the standpoint of democratic theory — that is, people seem less and less likely to get what they say they want from government.” This, if it is true, proves the aristocracy’s success, against the public. It proves that the aristocracy are still in control and therefore are increasingly getting their way, against the public — that America is increasingly an aristocracy (sometimes called instead an “oligarchy” but meaning the same thing: the billionaires rule) and not a democracy.

The basic problem in America, therefore, isn’t Democratic versus Republican; it is instead democracy versus dictatorship. And this problem exists within each Party: each Party is controlled by its billionaires, not by its voting-public.

The best videos that I’ve seen explaining how, in local politics, the aristocracy controls America, are the following two:

  • 1: http://archive.is/Aq3Mf which is actually a series of three video reports on corruption in Georgia.
  • 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtv0GuiDtvo where Nomi Konst explains N.Y. politics via big-money control — the aristocracy’s control via corruption — against and over the public.
  • Here is a libertarian arguing for this corrupt control by the aristocracy to continue and to increase:

    The libertarian presentation reflects refusal to see, or understand, systemic issues — the very issues that the operation by the aristocracy are being hired and paid to master. Consequently: libertarianism is the aristocracy’s ideology to fool the public into submission. In effect: it’s the aristocratic religion, the aristocratic faith, and so it is funded massively by the aristocracy.

    The best video explaining the study which proved that corruption rules America, is:

    To call a country like that a ‘democracy’ is to insult democracy. Any honest libertarian despises democracy. (Dishonest ones try to deceive the public to think that libertarianism supports democracy. But that’s merely adding deception to deception, as if the dishonest ideology isn’t already bad enough.)

    Incidentally: If billionaires (and perhaps a few of the centi-millionaires) have almost entirely been controlling the U.S. Government, then they should be almost entirely funding (by their taxes and fees) the U.S. Government. If the rest of the public haven’t had any significant control of the Government, then the rest of the public shouldn’t pay any signficiant percentage of the Government’s costs. And any of the federal debt that has been engendered and accumulated, should likewise be charged proportionately — and not charged, to any sigificant extent, against the public. This would certainly be the democratic solution to the federal debt.

    This article is being submitted to all U.S. news-media, and may be freely published by any of them — and will presumably be published by any of them that want the U.S. public to have access to the information and documentation that are provided in it. Of course, any that wish to hide this information and documentation will not publish it, even though they may freely do so — they would rather pay their hirees and selected contributors, instead.

    Freedom of the press (at least in the United States) means freedom of the owners of the press — it has nothing to do with democracy, which concerns freedom of the public, against any type of dictatorship (including aristocracy or “oligarchy”).

    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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    vexarb
    vexarb
    Jul 6, 2018 8:53 AM

    Chucked this in for fun. Robot-Face-book’s Artificial Intelligence filter; it flagged the US Declaration of Independence as Hate Speech. Someone is now desperately seeking a Human Intelligence on Robot-Face book to discuss the matter.

    https://www.lewrockwell.com/2018/07/mac-slavo/facebook-algorithm-flags-the-declaration-of-independence-as-hate-speech/

    Mulga Mumblebrain
    Mulga Mumblebrain
    Jul 6, 2018 9:57 AM
    Reply to  vexarb

    As Chomsky observed when Raygun declared the Contra butchers to be ‘…the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers’, he was inadvertently quite correct.

    vexarb
    vexarb
    Jul 5, 2018 5:31 PM

    Where the dollar goes. BTL the Saker:

    RATM on July 05, 2018 · at 9:42 am EST/EDT

    “Russia […] succeeded in developing a military which, for a small fraction of the US military budget, successfully developed armed forces which are in reality far more capable than the US forces.”

    case in point (from https://thesaker.is/preliminary-peace/#comment-536735):

    “in 2016 the Russian intervention in Syria costed about $500 millions
    in the same year, the US army costs for marching bands was $1 billion”

    Mulga Mumblebrain
    Mulga Mumblebrain
    Jul 5, 2018 11:38 PM
    Reply to  vexarb

    The US MIC budgets are mostly corruption-$50,000 toilet seats etc.. The recipients, Lockheed, Boeing, Raytheon etc, use the loot to but political prostitutes, ie Congressmen, and to pay for propaganda tanks in dependencies like Austfailure.

    Harry Stotle
    Harry Stotle
    Jul 3, 2018 12:00 PM

    Its a joke really – only people in complete denial of reality would argue that our corrupt kleptocracies are even remotely connected to meaningful democracy.

    Of course manipulating the public mood is an essential ingredient in maintaining the democratic facade and this is where motor mouthed apologists like Steven Crowder come in – Crowder is a latter day Squealer.

    “‘Comrades!’ Squealer cried. ‘You do not imagine, I hope, that we pigs are doing this in a spirit of selfishness and privilege? Many of us actually dislike milk and apples. I dislike them myself. Our sole object in taking these things is to preserve our health. Milk and apples (this has been proved by Science, comrades) contain substances absolutely necessary to the well-being of a pig. We pigs are brain-workers. The whole management and organization of this farm depend on us. Day and night we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples.'”

    Frankly Speaking
    Frankly Speaking
    Jul 3, 2018 4:18 AM

    It appears that the author is either misrepresenting libetarianism or misunderstandings it, or else if focusing upon people claiming to be when they are patently not libertarians.

    If Ron Paul and his ilk had the opportunity to be in charge then the chances of the MIC being brought to heel would have been the highest of any President and wasteful government would have been cut. Conversely local government and services and democracy would be far stronger. Syria and Libya would be a different story as would the millions of unfortunate migrants.

    Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a Libertarian, I’m more traditional Labour, of the non-Trotskyist and non Blairist type, believing in work ethic and core traditional and family values and caring for our citizens in the Swiss or Scandinavian models.

    However, as crazy as some Libertarians seem many are true democrats and respect and care for the people.

    The article does well elsewhere to focus on the utter corruption of politics and broken democracy of the US and in my personal view we are already seeing this now occurring in Britain through Brexit which is mischievously dressed up as being for the people when it’s in fact a neoliberal coup by a small number of very dangerous idiots who want to push us into the hands of the US elite.

    axisofoil
    axisofoil
    Jul 3, 2018 4:41 AM

    The libertarian ideal is well meaning as I see it. We all must compromise. Those at the top will not have to relinquish that much. Those at the bottom want only peace and the freedom to plant their fields, enjoy their families and live in peace. They could easily take care of themselves as they have for thousands of years, but for manifest destiny, which has the awareness of a Lemming and the values of a pimp.

    Mulga Mumblebrain
    Mulga Mumblebrain
    Jul 3, 2018 7:40 AM
    Reply to  axisofoil

    The ‘libertarian’ concept has two poles. The Left end of the spectrum is where as great personal freedom as possible is the ideal, but evenly distributed among all people, not dependent on birth, religion or wealth, and does not interfere with the freedoms of others. Rightist ‘Libertarianism’ in contrast is psychopathy in action, and there greed is boundless, egotism hypertrophied and other people are seen as nothing but prey or enemies.

    axisofoil
    axisofoil
    Jul 3, 2018 8:35 AM

    Bipolar. I believe we have several drugs for that too.

    Harry Stotle
    Harry Stotle
    Jul 3, 2018 1:30 PM

    “we are already seeing this now occurring in Britain through Brexit which is mischievously dressed up as being for the people when it’s in fact a neoliberal coup by a small number of very dangerous idiots who want to push us into the hands of the US elite.” – there is definitely something to this, although what complicates it is that there is a Bennite argument (to which Corbyn subscribes) that the EU is remote and undemocractic.

    Mark Blyth has already talked about the way the EU put the banks before impoverished Greeks.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwK0jeJ8wxg

    Mulga Mumblebrain
    Mulga Mumblebrain
    Jul 4, 2018 7:22 AM
    Reply to  Harry Stotle

    ‘Heads the neo-liberal parasites win-tails everybody else loses’. It’s ‘Western Moral Values’ at their finest.

    wardropper
    wardropper
    Jul 3, 2018 4:16 PM

    Ron Paul was an impossibility, just as Scottish Independence was an impossibility at that time, and for the same reason:
    Firstly, Paul, a man of lively wit and intelligence, who deplored the waste of US money on endless war and probably REALLY would have tried to stop it, could never have stood practically alone against the combined might of the Pentagon, the media and the staggeringly wealthy people who want that perpetual war.
    Secondly, with all due respect to a remarkably diligent monarch, losing Scotland simply could not be on the cards. Her Majesty’s personal shame, as well as the shame of those still hanging on to the very foundations of the old British establishment, could never be allowed to go into the annals of British history.
    Literally everything would be done, and probably was done, to prevent either scenario from becoming reality.
    That’s how bad things have become.
    The media successfully ridiculed Paul, and the Scottish referendum, like any election, was not immune to fixing.
    Common sense no longer has access to government unless something, somewhere, drastically changes, and that will never happen voluntarily.

    Antonyl
    Antonyl
    Jul 3, 2018 3:30 AM

    Nice theory but doesn’t add up: the last US election was won by Donald Trump of dubious financial health, not by US cash & (Russian) Uranium One enriched Hillary Clinton.
    Also was Obama that rich at his start out?
    https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2016-presidential-campaign-fundraising/
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/uranium-one-is-a-curious-case-1518564360

    Donald Trump beat US deep state / deep pockets – shocking and utterly unexpected by all – including Putin.

    Ignoring Trump is as strong here as in the MSN.

    axisofoil
    axisofoil
    Jul 3, 2018 5:41 PM
    Reply to  Antonyl

    “In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way”. Franklin D. Roosevelt

    Eric Zuesse
    Eric Zuesse
    Jul 3, 2018 10:37 PM
    Reply to  Antonyl

    The scientific studies that are referenced in my article don’t have anything to do with how wealthy U.S. Presidents and politicians are. Antonyl’s comment is not relevant. Though it currently has three up-votes and no down-votes, it merits only down-votes, because of its total irrelevancy to the article that it purports to be commenting upon.

    axisofoil
    axisofoil
    Jul 4, 2018 12:45 AM
    Reply to  Eric Zuesse

    It seems to me a shame that one would even have to resort to scientific articles to validate a point which is so available to our common sense. What on earth has happened to us?

    Antonyl
    Antonyl
    Jul 4, 2018 3:03 AM
    Reply to  Eric Zuesse

    I reacted to what YOU wrote.
    Now from your first quoted study: “The central point that emerges from our research is
    that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest
    groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.”
    “Economic elites” = billionaires, those who CAN pay 1 $ / vote.

    Still Trump won, with much less campaign money & hostile press = theory falsified. The Joe Sixpacks came through, thanks to fear of HRC.

    I agree that US deep state has dominated since at least president Johnson, but in the last US election they fouled up; overconfidence?

    Also US military and intelligence elite play crucial roles in US deep state, not only business interests. They got rid of JFK and Trump might be next.

    Gary Weglarz
    Gary Weglarz
    Jul 4, 2018 3:44 AM
    Reply to  Antonyl

    Trump won with the support of approximately 5 billion in free MSM media coverage, in part because Hillary’s brain trust asked their media lackeys to promote him, thinking he’d be easy to beat. Outlets covered an empty podium Trump was to speak at, rather than a huge Bernie Sanders rally and speech. Trump also won with the massive financial support of Sheldon Anderson and other wealthy Zionists. To pretend Trump is anything but a representative of U.S. oligarchy and financial power requires some rather serious denial of reality.

    axisofoil
    axisofoil
    Jul 2, 2018 7:58 PM

    The message in this article is the elephant in the room. Our acceptance of lawlessness has conditioned us to no longer recognize lawlessness. Our values have been manipulated. Our dialog is spoon fed us. Our responses are now the result of conditioning imposed by the mandatory participation in a paradigm polarized by design. Objective options are dismissed as nonproductive. We have been herded as children, indoctrinated as youths, separated and corralled as adults, then let out to pasture in a controlled environment that we are told is freedom. For most, cognitive dissonance guarantees we will not recall the wake of carnage as our fascist representatives plowed through one democracy after another. If the stench of death becomes bothersome to our conscience, there is a smorgasbord of pills available or support groups to address your concerns. You will be absorbed and rendered harmless either way.
    The effective progression of propaganda has been transparent, yet we will never see that we made a choice to wear a butcher’s apron or wield a mop. We were complicit none the less. We vote for which face will mask the machine. It is all so shallow. I have simplified it for myself with one statement which I no longer try to defend, but will, as I see it being purely logical……..voting is treason.

    Mulga Mumblebrain
    Mulga Mumblebrain
    Jul 2, 2018 11:09 PM
    Reply to  axisofoil

    In contrast, and utterly unknown to brainwashed Western publics, who are fed only negative messages concerning China, in China public policy is produced by mass consultation, opinion polling and various experiments at city and provincial level, before they become national policy. When polled by local and foreign groups, the great majority of Chinese describe their country as a democracy. In my opinion China is vastly more democratic, in any meaningful sense, than any Western kakistocratic oligarchy, with its sham ‘elections’.

    axisofoil
    axisofoil
    Jul 2, 2018 11:20 PM

    I also believe that Muammar Gaddafi had in place such a system. Look at his fate. In any event, attempting to distance oneself from the petro dollar has consequences.

    Antonyl
    Antonyl
    Jul 3, 2018 5:57 AM

    Are you by any chance a supporter of Andrew Robb?

    Though the $880,000 yearly payment from Landbridge to Mr Robb – beginning shortly after he left parliament in 2016 – was revealed by Fairfax Media and Four Corners in June, the full details in the letter to Mr Robb were only recently leaked by a source with concerns about the nature of the deal.

    One government official described it as a “disgraceful” look for a former cabinet minister.

    Billionaire Ye Cheng is the owner of Landbridge, which controversially acquired the 99-year lease for the Port of Darwin in 2015. He is also a member of the national Chinese People’s Consultative Committee, an advisory body that President Xi Jinping has directed to “uphold the CPC [Chinese Communist Party] leadership without wavering”.

    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/andrew-robbs-secret-china-contract-money-for-nothing-20171205-gzzaq5.html

    Mulga Mumblebrain
    Mulga Mumblebrain
    Jul 3, 2018 7:44 AM
    Reply to  Antonyl

    Racist, Sinophobic, garbage. Robb, as he stated on radio today, has a number of post-political business jobs, but only those involving China get condemnation from anti-Chinese racists. The ‘White Man’s Burden’ weighing you down, is it?

    Antonyl
    Antonyl
    Jul 3, 2018 8:09 AM

    Racist? Are all Chinese of one race?

    rilme
    rilme
    Jul 3, 2018 10:44 AM
    Reply to  Antonyl

    Why should they be one race? The racist “israelis”, for example, despise various races. Whether they despise them equally is also irrelevant.

    Mulga Mumblebrain
    Mulga Mumblebrain
    Jul 4, 2018 7:29 AM
    Reply to  rilme

    The Zionist elite despise all non-Jews, AND non-Ashkenazi Jews to boot.

    Mulga Mumblebrain
    Mulga Mumblebrain
    Jul 4, 2018 7:27 AM
    Reply to  Antonyl

    In the minds of the xenophobes they certainly are. Besides 90% plus are Han Chinese.

    Antonyl
    Antonyl
    Jul 4, 2018 7:38 AM

    92 % Han Chinese = 1,267,760,000 : what happened to multiculturalism?
    Tiny Israel for example has “only” 75 % Je_s = 6,350,000.

    Mulga Mumblebrain
    Mulga Mumblebrain
    Jul 4, 2018 10:35 PM
    Reply to  Antonyl

    What a moronic, and racist, comment. China has scores of minorities, all of which were not covered by the one-child policy, for example. China has been overwhelmingly Han for centuries.

    Antonyl
    Antonyl
    Jul 5, 2018 3:13 AM

    Who were living around the Shang dynasty long ago? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty#/media/File:Shang_dynasty.svg

    Not the Han.

    By the way on racism; try as a black person living in China (or Russia), then you will know what this much abused word actually means.

    Mulga Mumblebrain
    Mulga Mumblebrain
    Jul 5, 2018 11:42 PM
    Reply to  Antonyl

    Yes-you are a really vile racist, as I smelled right away. Keep on digging that hole, amigo. Your comment about the people of the Shang period not being ‘Han’ is a monument of ignorant stupidity.

    Antonyl
    Antonyl
    Jul 6, 2018 3:30 AM
    Reply to  Antonyl

    the Han Chinese expats I meet frequently do not use the smear “racist” at all – too polite, nice people. You have been out of station too long. Even the Tibetans I encounter daily don’t speak like this, although they could.
    “racist” is the last resort of a scoundrel.

    Mulga Mumblebrain
    Mulga Mumblebrain
    Jul 6, 2018 10:02 AM
    Reply to  Antonyl

    No, Antonyl-it’s just a description of what you plainly are.

    Gary Weglarz
    Gary Weglarz
    Jul 2, 2018 5:37 PM

    Thinly contrived identity politics themes are the only things differentiating the two major U.S. political parties at this time. The choice of policy alternatives available to the U.S. voter is thus relegated to one of the two following options:

    “does the voter prefer their illegal invasions, torture, jihadist facilitated regime change wars, drone killings, economic warfare and illegal destabilization of foreign governments (all violations of international law) — “WITH” –or —“WITHOUT” — gender specific bathrooms?”

    Schlüter
    Schlüter
    Jul 2, 2018 5:19 PM
    Post-deception
    Post-deception
    Jul 2, 2018 4:34 PM

    Now, it shows clearly what happens when $700 billion a year is spent to keep destabilising this planet, day and night.

    Plus, forcing many other nations to spend more to fuel this Anglo-Zio-Saxon madness.

    Mulga Mumblebrain
    Mulga Mumblebrain
    Jul 2, 2018 11:25 PM
    Reply to  Post-deception

    The influence of Zionist money power cannot be understated. For a political life in the West today, you MUST be a total stooge of the Israel First, Last and Always Lobby, which immediately culls all decent, self-respecting, morally sane types from politics. And the degree of groveling obeisance and complete obedience being DEMANDED by the ‘Gods Upon the Earth’, simply grows and grows-just ask Jeremy Corbyn.

    Antonyl
    Antonyl
    Jul 3, 2018 2:28 PM

    Can’t argue with you, due to cens_rship alas.

    vierotchka
    vierotchka
    Jul 2, 2018 1:49 PM

    Excellent.