{"id":7152,"date":"2015-04-07T06:48:48","date_gmt":"2015-04-07T11:48:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=7152"},"modified":"2015-04-07T06:48:48","modified_gmt":"2015-04-07T11:48:48","slug":"how-america-became-an-oligarchy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=7152","title":{"rendered":"How America Became an Oligarchy"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><a title=\"How America Became an\u00a0Oligarchy\" href=\"http:\/\/ellenbrown.com\/2015\/04\/06\/how-america-became-an-oligarchy\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">How America Became an\u00a0Oligarchy<\/a><\/h3>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don\u2019t. . . . You have owners. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u2014 George Carlin,\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q\">The American Dream<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>According to\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/livewire\/princeton-experts-say-us-no-longer-democracy\">a new study from Princeton University<\/a>, American democracy no longer exists. Using data from over 1,800 policy initiatives from 1981 to 2002,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/journals.cambridge.org\/action\/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&amp;aid=9354310\">researchers Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page concluded<\/a>\u00a0that rich, well-connected individuals on the political scene now steer the direction of the country, regardless of \u2013 or even against \u2013 the will of the majority of voters. America\u2019s political system has transformed from a democracy into an oligarchy, where power is wielded by wealthy elites.<span id=\"more-9308\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u201cMaking the world safe for democracy\u201d was President Woodrow Wilson\u2019s rationale for World War I, and it has been used to justify American military intervention ever since. Can we justify sending troops into other countries to spread a political system we cannot maintain at home?<\/p>\n<p>The Magna Carta, considered the first Bill of Rights in the Western world, established the rights of nobles as against the king. But the doctrine that \u201c<em>all<\/em>\u00a0men are created equal\u201d \u2013 that all people have \u201ccertain inalienable rights,\u201d including \u201clife, liberty and the pursuit of happiness\u201d \u2013 is an American original. And those rights, supposedly insured by the Bill of Rights, have the right to vote at their core. We have the right to vote but the voters\u2019 collective will no longer prevails.<\/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 America Became an\u00a0Oligarchy &nbsp; The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don\u2019t. . . . You have owners. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 [&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":[204,2382,1092,637,827,4673],"class_list":["post-7152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-democracy","tag-magna-carta","tag-oligarchy","tag-politics","tag-united-states","tag-us-bill-of-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7152","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=7152"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7153,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7152\/revisions\/7153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}