Oligarchy in America

Guest Post by Dominic Green

oligarchy

The fog of the Trump wars is lifting, the road from COVID-19 rising before us, the outlines of the 21st-century American system emerging. Like the bankruptcy in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, the change has happened ‘Gradually, then suddenly.’ The age of the democratic republic is over, the age of the American oligarchy beginning.

Oligarchy is the ‘rule of the oligos’, the few: the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a self-sustaining elite. It sounds quaint, classical even, as though it couldn’t happen here because it already happened there. But it has, in fact, already happened here. Augustus Caesar, who made himself Rome’s first emperor in 27 BC, would recognize the symptoms of our American novelties. The cult of the founding fathers and the cult of entertainment. The elites divided by violent factionalism and united by naked venality. The decay of republican virtues. The widening of the wealth gap and the rise of the populares, the members of the ruling class who rebel in the name of values already overthrown. And then, when all seems lost, the rise of the imperial oligarchy that offers to restore law and order, but installs a different law and a new order.

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Mike Krieger: “The Whole System Is Breaking Down Under Its Own Weight”

Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

We find ourselves at a moment where the financial and political systems that have dominated for decades are failing in a spectacular and irredeemable fashion. Those who pull the levers are (as usual) attempting to take advantage of the situation by rapaciously snatching and consolidating more wealth and power, while leaving the general public to rot. When faced with such a historic moment, one should assume a certain degree of responsibility to make sure the next paradigm ends up better than the one we’re leaving. If we fail to think deeply about an improved vision and framework for the future, someone else will do it for us.

From my perspective, humanity remains stuck within antiquated paradigms that generally function via predatory and authoritarian structures. We’ve been taught — and have largely accepted — that the really important decisions must be handled in a centralized manner by small groups of technocrats and oligarchs. As a result, we basically live within feudal constructs cleverly surrounded by entrenched myths of democracy and self-government. We’d prefer to be lazy rather than take any responsibility for the state of the world.

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QUOTES OF THE DAY

“…we had come to the stage where for our people what was needed was a real democracy; and of all forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of a plutocracy.”

Theodore Roosevelt, Autobiography

“A few thousand people with families, kids and so on, who are real rulers who concentrate economic and political power. Executive power. They control ruling party, administration of president, and they control main part of wealth of Russia. Seventy percent of Russian wealth is concentrated in the hands of less than one percent of population…

And key resources in the hands of a few families, one hundred, two hundred families. So, the problem is that they have common interests, but they have clans, like in, I don’t know, court of Louis XIV or XV in France, different clans of aristocracy fighting between themselves. But generally speaking, it is one power, one strata of aristocrats who has power.”

Alexander Buzgalin, Is Putin’s Rule a Dictatorship?

““Political decisions helped to create the super-elite in the first place, and as the economic might of the super-elite class grows, so does its political muscle. Surging income inequality is such a strong violation of our expectations that most of us don’t realize it is happening…

Somebody ought to sit down and think about this, because your corporate types are soon going to be a stateless superclass, people who live for deals and golf dates and care a lot more about where you got your MBA than the country you were raised in. It’s the Middle Ages all over again, these little unaffiliated duchies and fiefdoms, flying their own flags and ready to take in any vassal who will pledge his life to the manor…

They are becoming a transglobal community of peers who have more in common with one another than with their countrymen back home. Whether they maintain primary residences in New York or Hong Kong, Moscow or Mumbai, today’s super-rich are increasingly a nation unto themselves.”

Chrystia Freeland, Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else

“Trump represents the latest iteration of a very particular sort of global plutocrat. These super-wealthy elites have a penchant for nationalism, and often xenophobia. They boast authoritarian streaks, and exhibit total shamelessness about mixing business and politics. You often can’t tell where one form of power ends and another begins…

Such government-run self-enrichment schemes are classic Putin, too. The economic chaos that followed the Soviet Union’s fall created a market ruled by feudalistic Russian business elites. Putin took advantage to install himself as Russia’s permanent leader, enriching himself and his compatriots along the way. “

Jeff Spross, The New Global Plutocracy

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QUOTES OF THE DAY

“You demagogues are like the fishers for eels; in still waters they catch nothing, but if they thoroughly stir up the slime, their fishing is good; in the same way it’s only in troubled times that you line your pockets.”

Aristophanes, The Knights

“They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective, toward which all their deceit is directed, is to capture political power, so that using the power of the State and the power of the market simultaneously they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.

American fascism will not be really dangerous until there is a purposeful coalition among the cartelists [Big Money], the deliberate poisoners of public information, and those who stand for the K.K.K. type of demagoguery.”

Henry A. Wallace, former Vice President of the US

“It [Citizens United] violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it’s just an oligarchy, with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or to elect the president.”

Jimmy Carter, former President of the US

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The Anti-Trump Protesters Are Tools of the Oligarchy

Guest Post by Paul Craig Roberts

“Reform always provokes rage on the part of those who profit by the old order.” – Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Crisis of the Old Order

Who are the anti-Trump protesters besmirching the name of progressives by pretending to be progressives and by refusing to accept the outcome of the presidential election? They look like, and are acting worse than, the “white trash” that they are denouncing.

I think I know who they are. They are thugs for hire and are paid by the Oligarchy to delegitimize Trump’s presidency in the way that Washington and the German Marshall Fund paid students in Kiev to protest the democratically elected Ukrainian government in order to prepare the way for a coup.

The organization, change.org, which claims to be a progressive group, but might be a front, along with other progressive groups, for the Oligarchy, is destroying the reputation of all progressives by circulating a petition that directs the electors of the Electoral Collage to annul the election by casting their votes for Hillary. Remember how upset progressives were when Trump said he might not accept the election result if there was evidence that the vote was rigged? Now progressives are doing what they damned Trump for saying he might do under certain conditions.

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QUOTES OF THE DAY

“History is made up of the bad actions of extraordinary men and woman. All the most noted destroyers and deceivers of our species, all the founders of arbitrary governments and false religions have been extraordinary people; and nine tenths of the calamities that have befallen the human race had no other origin than the union of high intelligence with low desires.”

Thomas Babington Macaulay

“The hypocrite’s crime is that he bears false witness against himself. What makes it so plausible to assume that hypocrisy is the vice of vices is that integrity can indeed exist under the cover of all other vices except this one. Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core.”

Hannah Arendt

“Those who are able to climb up the ladder will find ways to pull it up after them, or selectively lower it down to allow their friends, allies, and kin to scramble up. In other words: ‘who says meritocracy says oligarchy.'”

Chris Hayes


YOU ARE HERE

“The next Fourth Turning is due to begin shortly after the new millennium, midway through the Oh-Oh decade. Around the year 2005, a sudden spark will catalyze a Crisis mood. Remnants of the old social order will disintegrate. Political and economic trust will implode. Real hardship will beset the land, with severe distress that could involve questions of class, race, nation and empire. The very survival of the nation will feel at stake. Sometime before the year 2025, America will pass through a great gate in history, commensurate with the American Revolution, Civil War, and twin emergencies of the Great Depression and World War II.” – Strauss & Howe The Fourth Turning 

The chart below was posted by Jesse a few weeks ago. It accompanied a post titled Gathering Storm. He doesn’t specifically refer to the chart, but his words reflect the ominous view of the future depicted in the chart.

“When gold and silver finally are able, through price action, to have their say about the state of Western fiscal and monetary policy actions, it may break a few ear drums and shatter a more than a few illusions about the wisdom and honesty of the money masters. Slowly, but surely, a reckoning is coming. And what has been hidden will be revealed.”

The title of the post and the chart both grabbed my attention and provide a glimpse into the reality of our present situation. The Gathering Storm was the title of Winston Churchill’s volume one history of World War II. Churchill documents the tumultuous twenty years leading up to World War II in The Gathering Storm. The years following World War I, through the Great Depression and the rise of Hitler were abysmal, but only a prelude to the approaching horror of 65 million deaths over the next six years. What appeared to be dark days in the 1930’s were only storm clouds gathering before a once in a lifetime tempest. In my view we stand at an equally perilous point in history today.

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Jobs Report Huge Miss at 38,000 Jobs Added, Shrinking Workweek, Stagnant Real Wages

 Guest Post by Jesse

“This election was lost four and five and six years ago and not this year. They didn’t start thinking of the poor old common fellow until they started out on the election tour.

The money was all appropriated for the top in the hopes that it would trickle down to the needy. Mr. Hoover was an engineer. He knew that water trickled down. Put it uphill and let it go and it will reach the driest little spot.

But he didn’t know that money trickled up. Give it to the people at the bottom and the people at the top will have it before night anyhow. But it will at least have passed through some poor fellow’s hands.

They saved the big banks, but the little ones went up the flue.”

Will Rogers, 5 December 1932

I said yesterday that ‘I have a hunch that gold and silver are being capped here for a reason.  Maybe.  It’s hard to tell with the non-linear Fed.’

And today I think that things are becoming clearer, as suspected.  The Fed needs to raise rates to cool down the economy, in a pig’s eye.  They want to raise rates for their own policy purposes, so they can lower them again when their latest paper asset bubble fails.

The common person may not understand all this, and the lessons from history.  But the ‘experts’ most certainly should understand them, and quite frankly they do.   They may not say so, they may never admit it, they may let themselves be convinced, and even convince themselves and quiet the nagging doubts, but at the end of the day they know exactly what they are doing, what they are abiding, what they are enabling if only by their silent acquiescence.

Is it Government or Oligarchs?

Guest Post by Martin Armstrong

I think what you have to understand is our structure of government being a “republic” rather than a democracy, invites oligarchy. There has never been a single “republic” that has ever proven to work. The admixture or money and power always becomes lethal. This is why I blame government, not the oligarchs. They could not buy politicians if they were non (1) career, and (2) all powerful. Taxes and regulation become the incentive for the oligarchs to buy government. If we eliminate taxes and career politicians, we will solve not ALL, but most of the problem. We then must eliminate “socialism” which at its core is predicated upon the foundation of Marxism which advocated government power by insisting that it was all powerful and COULD alter society by regulation. This serves as a fundamental pillar for taxation.

Philadelphia is trying to introduce a 3 cent tax per ounce of soda. The excuse is that “sugar” is bad for you so they have only the best interests in mind for society. They expect to get almost $100 million annually. The city is dead broke and has a 22.5% tax on parking and 8.5% tax on hotels. They have chased everyone out because anyone even having a conference there they was income tax for money earned in the city. This latest “soda tax” means a 2-liter bottle of soda typically costs $1.50, but the tax would amount to $2.04, more than the cost of the actual bottle. The cost of a 12-pack of soda would nearly double to more than $8. This is the same thing with all this global warming. They use this as the excuse to tax you for your own good. The money does nothing but line the pockets of politicians. In the case of Philadelphia, they will shop in the suburbs to avoid the tax. To appease the oligarchs, the Feds created carbon-credits which can then be sold to others who do pollute. Its all just about the money.

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The Defense Of The Oligarchs: MoveOn.org’s “Simple & Utter Brutishness”

Submitted by Thad Beversdorf via FirstRebuttal.com,

Kids these days…  So the Trump rally in Chicago was successfully disrupted by mostly young and socio-economic despondent protestors who have, unknowingly, been turned into pre-programmed anti-Trump warriors by the Oligarchs they claim to hate (yes MoveOn.org is fully funded by the Oligarchs, look it up).  The very same mentality that naively fell hook-line-and-sinker into Obama’s message of “Change, Yes We Can”.  Now many of these protestors today are simply too young to remember the 2008 Obama campaign for what it really was; the greatest fraud in the history of American politics (and wow is that saying something).

However, this time around there are millions of Americans who do have the benefit of recent history still burned into their hearts.  Millions of previously naive, young voters devastated by the deceit of politics, leaving them scorned are now ready to fight the Oligarchs and the bought and paid for Executive and Legislative branches of government.  Citizen soldiers are a key component of any revolution.

Remember, Trump supporters are not die hard fans of Trump per se, they are themselves warriors ready take back their nation.  And I expect if push comes to shove, which apparently MoveOn.org is dead set on making happen, Trump supporters will respond in kind.  And so perhaps the violent revolution begins.  The unwavering wave of support against the establishment is not a light hearted movement.

And while a group of young, angry protestors, organized by those who will discard them without so much as a deep breath beforehand, appear steadfast they will soon find out what it means to be on the wrong side of right.  While they are rightly ready to fight, they are wrongly allowing themselves to be manipulated in believing their fight is with Trump.  For Trump and Sanders are the same movement anthropomorphized in different bodies.  And through Trump and Sanders the bloodshed need be directed at the oligarchs.

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WE LIVE IN A CORPORATOCRACY

They write the laws. They decide which politicians you will vote for. They ship your jobs overseas. They demand bailouts with your money when they blow up the financial system. They pay themselves obscene amounts of compensation. They have kept your wages below inflation since 1989. Their arrogance and hubris know no bounds. They eat at the best NYC restaurants. They fly on private jets. They spend their summers in the Hamptons. They rule this country. The incestuous relationships of these whores is there for all to see.

Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist
By Jeff Desjardins

Conspiracy theorists allege that the world’s most rich and powerful people have secret meetings at places like Bilderberg or Bohemian Grove, or that one can find rooms on Wall Street or in DC where world-changing deals go down amidst a cloud of cigar smoke.

While there is still debate as to the true extent of the above claims, even the most skeptical of us can agree that the most powerful executives between Wall Street and the biggest corporations in America are intimately connected. Government officials are also in that web, but that’s a project for another day.

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American Oligarchy – 400 Families Represent 50% of Money Raised by 2016 Presidential Candidates Thus Far

Guest Post by Michael Krieger 

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Ever since I started this website in 2012, one of my primary objectives was to convince readers that the American system of government is nothing like what we are told in school and via the oligarch-owned mainstream media. That the country has become so captured and corrupted by sociopathic oligarchs, that a neo-feudal modern serfdom was emerging where the opportunities to enjoy rising standards of living for the vast majority of people was rapidly becoming a pipe dream.

I think many readers appreciated my warnings, but it wasn’t until an academic study from Princeton and Northwestern came out and factually proved it, that it become undeniable to many people. Here’s a brief excerpt from that post titled, New Report from Princeton and Northwestern Proves It: The U.S. is an Oligarchy:

Despite the seemingly strong empirical support in previous studies for theories of majoritarian democracy, our analyses suggest that majorities of the American public actually have little influence over the policies our government adopts. Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance, such as regular elections, freedom of speech and association, and a widespread (if still contested) franchise. But we believe that if policymaking is dominated by powerful business organizations and a small number of affluent Americans, then America’s claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened.

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Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter Sounds Off on America – “It’s Just an Oligarchy”

Guest Post by Michael Krieger 

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It violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it’s just an oligarchy, with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or to elect the president. And the same thing applies to governors and U.S. senators and congress members. So now we’ve just seen a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect and sometimes get favors for themselves after the election’s over. … The incumbents, Democrats and Republicans, look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves. Somebody’s who’s already in Congress has a lot more to sell to an avid contributor than somebody who’s just a challenger.

– Jimmy Carter, 39th President of these United States

You know it’s really, really bad when a former U.S. President feels the need to come out and publicly admit the above. While it’s completely accurate and needs to be said, it’s a truly sad moment, and provides further evidence of the Banana Republic America has become.

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Charting American Oligarchy: How The 0.01% Contributes 42% Of All Campaign Cash

Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

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This is an economic fight, but this is also a political fight. The biggest financial institutions aren’t just big – they wield enormous political power. Last December, Citibank lobbyists wrote an amendment to Dodd-Frank and persuaded their friends in Washington to attach it to a bill that had to pass or the government would have been shut down. And when there was pushback over the amendment, the CEO of JPMorgan, Jamie Dimon, personally got on the phone with Members of Congress to secure their votes. How many individuals who are looking for a mortgage or a credit card could make that call? How many small banks could have their lobbyists write an amendment and threaten to shut down the US government if they didn’t get it? None. Keep in mind that the big banks aren’t trying to make the market more competitive; they just want rules that create more advantages for themselves. The system is rigged and those who rigged it want to keep it that way.

 

– From Senator Elizabeth Warren’s excellent speech: “The Unfinished Business of Financial Reform”

This is probably one of the most important posts I’ll write all year. The reason is because in order to displace the current paradigm, the public needs to deeply and intellectually understand exactly where the real cancer resides.

I never liked the saying: “We are the 99%.” While admittedly catchy and effective as a slogan, I think it is ultimately divisive and counterproductive. The reason I say this is because the statement itself alienates much needed allies for no good reason.

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Hillary Clinton Exposed Part 1 – How She Aggressively Lobbied for Mega Corporations as Secretary of State

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That approach, which Mrs. Clinton called “economic statecraft,” emerged in discussions with Robert Hormats, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. investment banker who has worked in Democratic and Republican administrations and became an undersecretary of state. “One of the very first items was, how do we strengthen the role of the State Department in economic policy?” he says.

Early in Mrs. Clinton’s tenure, according to Mr. Hormats, Microsoft’s then Chief Research Officer Craig Mundie asked the State Department to send a ranking official to a fourth annual meeting of U.S. software executives and Chinese government officials about piracy and Internet freedom. Mr. Hormats joined the December 2009 meeting in Beijing.

Mr. Hormats says there was no relation between Microsoft’s donations and the State Department’s participation in the China conference.

Before every overseas trip, says Mr. Hormats, the former undersecretary of state, he helped prepare a list of U.S. corporate interests for Mrs. Clinton to advocate while abroad. 

– From the Wall Street Journal article: Hillary Clinton’s Complex Corporate Ties

If you can’t beat em, mock em. That’s essentially my motto going into the imperial spectacle known as the 2016 American Presidential election. With another Bush and another Clinton likely on the ballot, there’s basically only one candidate running, and I plan on proving this in no uncertain terms over the next couple of years.

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POWER, STATUS & WEALTH

The US Government Explained In One Chart

Tyler Durden's picture

The oligarchic pilfering and capital misallocating and squandering network of insiders known as “government” truly deserves a picture rather than 1000 words.

 

 

Still, here are a few words via Bill Bonner from Acting Man blog, who explains that…

Government’s primary concern is not to protect its citizens or their economy. Instead, it aims to transfer more power, status, and wealth to the elite who control it (the oligarchs).

And to do that, it must keep the masses (the poligarchs) sedated. As Charles Hugh Smith, chief writer at OfTwoMinds.com, explains:

The State has two core mandates: enforce quasi-monopolies and cartels for private capital, and satisfy enough of the citizenry’s demands for more benefits to maintain social stability. If the State fails to maintain monopolistic cartels, profit margins plummet and capital is unable to maintain its spending on investment and labor. Simply put, the economy tanks as profits, investment and growth all stagnate. If the State fails to satisfy enough of the citizenry’s demands, it risks social instability.”

The feds will be the borrowers of last resort. But the money won’t be invested in a brighter future. It will be pilfered and squandered.

And then what?