{"id":28528,"date":"2017-12-03T11:17:05","date_gmt":"2017-12-03T16:17:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=28528"},"modified":"2017-12-03T11:17:23","modified_gmt":"2017-12-03T16:17:23","slug":"how-the-u-s-dictatorship-works","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=28528","title":{"rendered":"How the U.S. Dictatorship Works"},"content":{"rendered":"<header><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"img-responsive\" title=\"How the U.S. Dictatorship Works\" src=\"https:\/\/www.strategic-culture.org\/images\/news\/2017\/12\/03\/or-40002.jpg\" alt=\"How the U.S. Dictatorship Works\" \/><\/p>\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/www.strategic-culture.org\/news\/2017\/12\/03\/how-us-dictatorship-works.html\">How the U.S. Dictatorship Works<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n<p>A recent article in the\u00a0<em>Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0described how the current US tax-\u2018reform\u2019 bill is being shaped; and it describes, basically (at least as far as tax-law changes are concerned), the operation of a US\u00a0dictatorship\u00a0by the super-rich.<\/p>\n<p>First of all, however: there is no longer any realistic question as regards whether the US in recent decades has been a\u00a0dictatorship, or instead a democracy. According to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/scholar.princeton.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/mgilens\/files\/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-cke-saved-href=\"https:\/\/scholar.princeton.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/mgilens\/files\/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf\">the only scientific analysis of the relevant data<\/a>, that has been done in order to determine whether the US is a\u00a0dictatorship\u00a0or a democracy, the US is definitely a\u00a0dictatorship\u00a0that\u2019s perpetrated by the extremely richest, against the public-at-large; in other words: the US Government functions as an aristocracy, otherwise referred-to as an oligarchy, or a plutocracy, or a kleptocracy; but, in any case, and by whatever name, it\u2019s ruled by a tiny number of the extremely wealthiest and their agents, on behalf of those few super-rich, against the concerns and interests and needs of the public (everyone else). So: instead of being rule by the public (the \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/en.oxforddictionaries.com\/definition\/demos\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-cke-saved-href=\"https:\/\/en.oxforddictionaries.com\/definition\/demos\">demos<\/a>\u201d is the Greek term for it), it\u2019s rule on behalf of a tiny dictatorial class, of extreme wealth \u2014 by whatever name we might happen to label this ruling class.<\/p>\n<p><u><a href=\"https:\/\/scholar.princeton.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/mgilens\/files\/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-cke-saved-href=\"https:\/\/scholar.princeton.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/mgilens\/files\/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf\">That study<\/a><\/u>, by professors Gilens and Page, explained that it examined \u201c1,779 instances between 1981 and 2002 in which a national survey of the general public asked a favor\/oppose question about a proposed policy change,\u201d and it compared those public-policy preferences, by the public, versus the public-policy preferences regarding those same issues, by the super-wealthiest; and, it found that only the public-policy preferences by the super-wealthiest and their paid agents, made any discernible difference, at all, in the likelihood that a given public policy ultimately became enacted into law, in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How the U.S. Dictatorship Works A recent article in the\u00a0Washington Post\u00a0described how the current US tax-\u2018reform\u2019 bill is being shaped; and it describes, basically (at least as far as tax-law changes are concerned), the operation of a US\u00a0dictatorship\u00a0by the super-rich. First of all, however: there is no longer any realistic question as regards whether the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4394,8203,827,17325,843,865,5228],"class_list":["post-28528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-eric-zuesse","tag-strategic-culture-foundation","tag-united-states","tag-us-dictatorship","tag-us-government","tag-washington","tag-washington-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28528"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28529,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28528\/revisions\/28529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}