{"id":958,"date":"2014-11-01T08:47:29","date_gmt":"2014-11-01T12:47:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=958"},"modified":"2014-11-01T08:47:29","modified_gmt":"2014-11-01T12:47:29","slug":"dysfunctional-america-paul-craig-roberts-paulcraigroberts-org","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=958","title":{"rendered":"Dysfunctional America &#8212; Paul Craig Roberts &#8211; PaulCraigRoberts.org"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.paulcraigroberts.org\/2014\/10\/31\/dysfunctional-america-paul-craig-roberts\/\">Dysfunctional America &#8212; Paul Craig Roberts &#8211; PaulCraigRoberts.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px 0px; border: 0px initial initial;\">If you require more evidence that the United States is a dysfunctional society, observe American elections. Election season is slander season. Each party\u2019s attack teams focus on misrepresenting, defaming, and ridiculing the opposing party\u2019s candidates. Attack ads have replaced debates and any discussion of what the issues are, or should be, and how candidates perceive the public\u2019s interest. Each attack team tells lies designed to enrage various voters about the other team\u2019s candidate.<\/p>\n<p style=\"outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px 0px; border: 0px initial initial;\">Whoever is elected is indebted not to voters but to the special interests that provided the campaign money. Once elected the official serves the private interest groups that put the official in office. In America the government can be bought and sold just like everything else. In its Citizens United ruling, a Republican Supreme Court put its stamp of approval on the right of corporations to purchase the US government.<\/p>\n<p style=\"outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px 0px; border: 0px initial initial;\">Each state has its own dominant interest groups that win every election. In Florida real estate developers routinely defeat the environment and local communities. Developers have even been known to form organizations that pose as conservation supporters in order to misrepresent and defeat conservation measures.<\/p>\n<p style=\"outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px 0px; border: 0px initial initial;\">&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dysfunctional America &#8212; Paul Craig Roberts &#8211; PaulCraigRoberts.org. If you require more evidence that the United States is a dysfunctional society, observe American elections. Election season is slander season. Each party\u2019s attack teams focus on misrepresenting, defaming, and ridiculing the opposing party\u2019s candidates. Attack ads have replaced debates and any discussion of what the issues [&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":[204,253,379,834],"class_list":["post-958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-democracy","tag-elections","tag-government","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958","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=958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}