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How Corrupt America’s Dictators Are

How Corrupt America’s Dictators Are

Yet another poll confirms that America’s dictatorial clique take advantage of the ignorance and gullibility of the average person so that the clique’s politicians can win votes no matter how much these politicians block passage and enforcement of any proposed laws that the dictators don’t want to pass or to be enforced.

In this latest case, the owners of the insurance companies refuse to allow single-payer (i.e., tax-financed, as opposed to for-profit) health insurance, though three-quarters of the American people, in the latest poll, want it, and though past polls (which likewise were hidden from the public) also overwhelmingly indicate that the public want it.

For decades now, the owners have blocked it, though the public have overwhelmingly wanted it.

This is an excellent example of the consistent finding in the empirical political-science literature, that the U.S. is a dictatorship by the richest against the public, and not actually a democracy at all.

This particular poll-finding was a poll taken by Ipsos for the Reuters ’news’-agency and was made public by Reuters on August 23rd; and what Ipsos found, regarding this matter, was effectively kept secret by the sponsoring ’news’-organization (Reuters), by their burying it within a bad article that Reuters issued under an almost unrelated headline, “Inside the progressive movement roiling the Democratic Party”, in which report, this finding didn’t even pertain to “the progressive movement roiling the Democratic Party” (the article’s alleged topic) but instead, pertained to the entire U.S. electorate, and was merely found to be more pronounced among Democrats than it was among Republicans — as it long has been, and so that’s not even news at all.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Arming Dictators: An American Tradition

Arming Dictators: An American Tradition

Recently the Obama administration announced another military aid package for Pakistan: eight F-16 fighter jets.  Once again considerations of human rights and democratic values have been sacrificed to strategic calculations.  Recall, the robust figures for US military assistance to Pakistan: more than $20 billion in weapons, training, and other activities between FY2002 and FY2015, making Pakistan the 16th ranking recipient of US arms.  And that amount does not include drone strikes.

The contrast between Obama the engager and Obama the warrior is striking.  US arms exports to authoritarian regimes such as Pakistan’s, just one element of military aid, continue to rise even as we celebrate the President’s initiatives with Iran and Cuba.  From 2009 to 2014, I count $12.5 billion in arms exports to eight other authoritarian regimes: Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.  That figure is nearly a quarter of all US military exports in those years, which total $50.7 billion.

There is no evidence that those weapons, or military assistance as a whole, have moved authoritarian governments toward greater respect for human rights, social justice, accountable government, or environmental protection. Even their support of US policy on terrorism has been tentative, and in Pakistan’s case, two-faced, since its government accepts US drone strikes while its intelligence apparatus coddles al-Qaeda and the Taliban. On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence that military aid has abetted repression, official corruption, and strong-arm rule.  Pakistan has thumbed its nose at US aid even more, expanding its nuclear-weapon arsenal to more than 100—an arsenal that heightens tension with India and, because it now consists of tactical nukes, is especially vulnerable to theft by terrorist groups. On top of that, we now have word that Pakistan has its own drones, probably built with Chinese help, adding to South Asia’s instability.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Olduvai IV: Courage
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Olduvai II: Exodus
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