The US is an oligarchy, study concludes[W:192]

poweRob said:

By lying about it spreading democracy perhaps?

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poweRob said:

I saw this thread in another thread on this site and replied to it so I'll paste it here.

Oligarchy... Plutocracy...

In an age where the five "conservatives" on the supreme court has told us that money isn't property but is in fact speech, and that coporations are people... Oligarchy and plutocracy are just the polite way of saying fascism... hidden under the guise of elections.

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.

"Corporations Are People, My Friend" - Mitt Romney​

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24107 said:

So if the U.S. is an oligarchy and not a democracy, how could bombing and invading a foreign country on the pretext of spreading democracy be justified?

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jonny5 said:

Dumbed down by choice. Which means fundamentally we are not a oligarchy. Someone has to actually walk into a booth and vote. No corporation forces them to.

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AlbqOwl said:

You completely missed the point I was making though. It is not corporations that are the problem in keeping the oligarchy--and we ARE essentially an oligarchy--in power in Washington. It is the oligarchy itself--something recently labeled 'the permanent political class'--that has managed to use our money to bribe a substantial portion of a dumbed down electorate and/or to put the fear into enough people that they might lose the meager government benefits they are receiving. And with a media who is largely willing to help them and rarely ever significantly challenges them, that creates an electorate that will keep them in power as long as they want to be there.

Why else would those in Washington, both the left and the right, as well as the media, so demonize anybody or any group who gains any traction in preaching a doctrine that would free us from the oligarchy?

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Henry David said:

It can be justified by a public (if that's what you mean) that is thoroughly indoctrinated and willing to deny historical facts.

Lip service and propaganda is the steady diet of the American electorate.

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Grant said:

The greatest feat of the Oligarchs is to convince the electorate that they are truly representative of the people when, in fact, they are among the furthest away. The Kennedy family have been the masters of this delusion.

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Sherman123 said:

To those of you who fervently believe that the United States is a bonafide Oligarchy I have a question. When were we last a democracy? Have we ever been one?

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Henry David said:

An excellent question. It's quite possible the answer is in the negative, as to whether we have ever been one.

Certainly there have always been wealthy people. That is a natural fact.

Were we ever a democracy? I'm not certain, but it does seem that there was a time when the middle class fairly well prospered in this country.

Does a prosperous and large middle class mean that a democracy is present? I'm not certain.

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Henry David said:

An excellent question. It's quite possible the answer is in the negative, as to whether we have ever been one.

Certainly there have always been wealthy people. That is a natural fact.

Were we ever a democracy? I'm not certain, but it does seem that there was a time when the middle class fairly well prospered in this country.

Does a prosperous and large middle class mean that a democracy is present? I'm not certain.

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Sherman123 said:

Is middle class prosperity the metric we want to use for whether or not a society & government are oligarchic or not? There have been plenty of authoritarian states that have managed to ride waves of economic success (think South Korea, Singapore, Spain, Taiwan) but we wouldn't classify these as democratic states. If we are an oligarchy today have we ever been a democracy? If we haven't then does this report really matter?

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jonny5 said:

To win elections, of course. Which implies that they have to CONVINCE people of something, which indicates we arent an oligarchy. The chinese communists dont sit around trying to convince people to keep them in power. National policy is entirely controlled by the communist party leaders, and those leaders are chosen by the party elite. The people have only a far removed indirect choice in local congresses, which are basically provides by the party anyway.

THAT is a oligarchy, and shows how the US isnt.

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Henry David said:

I'm not sure the Kennedy family could be described that way, but certainly the Bush family could.

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Both families are wealthy, and of course both are made up of humans, but while the former consisted of philanderers and such that the Irish are notorious for, the latter consists for the most part of war criminals and murderers.

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Henry David said:

Maybe I'm being hopelessly romantic and optimistic, but it seems that years ago the ballot box was somewhat useful in helping the electorate control the government.

And maybe I'm just a cynical old man, but it seems that today the ballot box is absolutely useless in actually effecting government policy.

And you're right--in a cynical sense this report simply validates what many of us knew--the oligarchy exists in fact, and democracy is very much an illusion.

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Grant said:

How have the Kennedys made their money?

The Bush family came by their wealth quite honestly. The rest of your post is juvenile hyperbole

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How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power

George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.
The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.

His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.

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How the Texas governor made his millions

Bush started in the Texas oil business, after Yale University and Harvard Business School. Wealthy family friends and others invested millions with him, but with poor results. A 1985 disclosure shows Bush's track record: Investors got back only 45 cents on the dollar, but few complained.

Bush did not make his fortune in the oil fields. He made it at a major-league ball park heavily subsidized by taxpayers.

"He put $600,000 into this project and he did a little bit better than Hillary Clinton," Runzheimer said. "She only made ... $100,000 or $200,000, from her dealing in commodities. Gov. Bush has made $15 million."

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Jeb Bush’s Rush to Make Money May Be Hurdle

Mr. Bush left public office seven years ago with a net worth of $1.3 million and an unapologetic determination to expand his wealth, telling friends that his finances had suffered during his time in government.

But his efforts to capitalize on his résumé and reputation have thrust him into situations that may prove challenging to explain should he mount a Republican campaign for the White House. Records and interviews show, for example, that Mr. Bush participated in the fevered, last-ditch efforts to prop up Lehman Brothers, a Wall Street bank weighed down by toxic mortgage-backed securities. As a paid adviser to the company in the summer of 2008, he met with Carlos Slim Helú, a Mexican billionaire, as Lehman sought to persuade Mr. Slim to make a sizable investment in the firm, emails show.

Mr. Bush sat on the board of Swisher Hygiene, a soap maker, at a time when, its executives acknowledged, their financial statements were unreliable and their accounting practices inadequate. That admission contributed to a plunge in stock price that has wiped out more than three-quarters of Swisher’s value and touched off a wave of shareholder lawsuits. Several have named Mr. Bush as a defendant, accusing him and fellow board members of insufficient oversight.

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Sherman123 said:

To those of you who fervently believe that the United States is a bonafide Oligarchy I have a question. When were we last a democracy? Have we ever been one?

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Henry David said:

An excellent question. It's quite possible the answer is in the negative, as to whether we have ever been one.

Certainly there have always been wealthy people. That is a natural fact.

Were we ever a democracy? I'm not certain, but it does seem that there was a time when the middle class fairly well prospered in this country.

Does a prosperous and large middle class mean that a democracy is present? I'm not certain.

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AlbqOwl said:

An oligarchy is not necessarily a totalitarian government. You can have an effective oligarchy while imitating a democratic republic--this is true of government or organizations at all levels.

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Grant said:

How have the Kennedys made their money?

The Bush family came by their wealth quite honestly. The rest of your post is juvenile hyperbole

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Grant said:

It doesn't help that people who should know better don't bother to vote, or stay home in 'protest'.

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jonny5 said:

Prosperity has nothing to do with anything. Are you guys just making up definitions?

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Somerville said:

How anyone could call Barack Obama a "socialist" or a "committed Marxist" is simply beyond reason when one looks at the real world



2012 Democracy Index places the US in 21st place

But according to five justices on the Supreme Court bench, there is no political corruption no matter how much money is being spent to influence Congress

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