For Those Who are Disillusioned…

[Junkdrawer]

The Government of the United States has never, ever gone out of its way to represent the interests of “The Average Citizen”. That was always propaganda. Oh, and the Easter Bunny? That was your parents putting out candy after you went to sleep.

Now that we have that out of the way, something very profound has indeed happened over the last 20 to 30 years. Most of the good, high paying factory jobs have been exported. And what that means is that the number of power brokers in this country has been greatly reduced and the few power brokers that remain have become increasingly interested in projecting US military power abroad.

You see how that works? When the US Government had to make a large number of diverse economic interests happy, it appeared as if we lived in a functioning representative democracy because a consistent set of rules (what used to be called Laws) had to be applied in a relatively uniform fashion. Now that the Powers-That-Be are greatly concentrated into a small class, well let’s just say that the job of the government has been greatly eased.

So, once again:

Wealth distributed over a moderately large number of people = Something approaching representative democracy.

Wealth in the hands of a few = Something approaching fascism.

[RainDog]

1. ergo

From Reagan economics till now = something approaching fascism.

From New Deal, Great Society, European Social Democratic policies till now = something approaching representative democracy.

[Junkdrawer]

2. No (Upper) Middle Class, no "Democracy"...

And when the Dollar crashes and our poor are made to live like the poor in other Second World countries......

[Hydra]

3. When you say money

you really mean power

"The few who understand the system, will either be so interested in its profits, or so dependent on its favors that there will be no opposition from that class, while on the other hand, the great body of people, mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantages...will bear its burden without complaint, and perhaps without suspecting that the system is inimical to their best interests."

Rothschild Brothers of London communiqué to associates in New York June 25, 1863

[Junkdrawer]

4. The America of most Boomers youth was the anomoly....

A large Upper Middle Class...
A large Middle Class...
A large Lower Middle Class...

Enviable, but hard to maintain - especially in an atmosphere that encouraged individualism and eschewed class consciousness and political unity.

[Junkdrawer]

5. The Magna Carta wasn't written to protect the Common Man...

that was a fortunate side effect. The Rule of Law is meaningful when there's a large, diverse ruling class.

The obscene concentration of wealth we are living through is the DIRECT cause of the fascism that becomes more pronounced with each passing day.