American Democratic Regulation Operation Educational
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The US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton stated not so long ago that the Chinese government is “scared” of the Arab Spring. They’re worried, and they are attempting to stop history which is a fool’s errand.”[1]. Shouldn’t we also, for the same reason, be worried and affrighted of uprising of our own people demanding a just and reasonable societal system? It is time to have a severe look into the reality of our undemocratic circumstance and difficulties facing our technical society in order to find a way to rescue our bothered scheme and move toward a democratic economy and to it is matching social order. The more we look into the history of American Revolution and the formation of it is constitutional government, the more we become astonished regarding the depth of knowledge, dedication, and sincerity of the few men who led this nation from colonialism to independence and beyond. The Federalist Papers alone are indicatory of vast wealth of knowledge, wisdom, an intelligence of those who laid down, so cautiously and so wisely, such a radically liberal foundation for the political scheme of this country. It is further astonishing how, after over 200 years of advancement, leaders with the caliber and philosophical influence of the founding fathers have disappeared from our society and narrow-minded specialists and uncivilized, socio-politically ignorant business executives and bureaucrats have taken their place. Those person rights and liberties for which the founders so persistently preached and violently fought for, have been eclipsed today by authoritarian and undemocratic economic processes and capitalistic norms enforced by monopolies and oligopolies of the economic elite. However, there is a consolation. What the revolutionaries did fight for has not been banished but only suppressed. It is at the foundation of American society, at the grassroots, that we find honestness and integrity still strong and prevalent. It has been harassed but not destroyed. Erosion and corruption have moved in and with resolute determination established themselves primarily in the upper echelon of our society, fostered by unethical norms taken root by what is variously known as “corporate state,” or “military-industrial complex.” Our representatives and leading bureaucrats are largely a share of, or to a great extent influenced by this cooperative power of financial giants, industry and military. None of these dominating economic constituents existed in the early years of our independence, nor were they imaginable to this extraordinary dominant extent until after the World War Two. President Eisenhower was the primary president to warn the American people, in his farewell address, of the dangers of the military-industrial complex to our society. The result has been the suppression of person rights and freedoms, in particular since 1960s, and extraordinary privileges granted to big business, and effective control of our socio-economic and political system by this very little privileged economic group consisting of only 0.4 of one percent of American household.[2] From all the investment assets, 1% is owned by the $5,000-$9,999 income group, 7% by the $10,000-$24,999 group, 11% by the $25.000-$49,000 group, 15% by the 50,000-$99,999, or 34% in all. The rest, 66% is controlled by a little elite.[3] Another study shows that in 2007, of all personally kept sum totals the top 1% owned 34.6%, the next 19% owned 50.55% and the bottom 80% owned only 15.05%. Even worse and more disturbing, from all financial wealth owned by the American households, the symmetry was 42.7%, 50.3% and for the bottom 80% it was only 7.05% In 2009, the bottom 60% of American income earners received only 4% of the total subsidies while the top 20% received 84% of the $400 billion subsidies. And in 2005, the top 1% salaried 27.7 of tax portion while receiving 45% of the subsidies. These facts, with no doubt illustrate that there is much that is defective with American democracy. The events of the past four decades have demonstrated the enormity and potpourri of the difficultnesses that plague this society and it is economy. These difficultnesses take dissimilar forms for dissimilar people. Some humans suffer much more than others and no one remains unaffected. Corruption, hypocrisy, suppression, alienation, racism, crime, destruction of the environment, waste, exploitation of our natural resources, alien wars, and extreme brutality toward other people are just a few of our major problems. They are the result of our neglect and lack of interest in manufacturing a just social and political system, in contrast to our keenness and drive in devising our economic system and accumulation of person wealth. Thus, we have invented an imbalanced society – highly devised scientifically and economically, remaining rather backward and outmoded socially and politically.[3] The combined effect has been not only to oppress a outstanding a great deal of persons at home and abroad, but to generate a widespread sense of anxiety amid those who do not understand themselves to be oppressed. America outside it is borders is sensed to be a democratic society, and because of this sensing it is admired and desired by numerous foreigners. American citizens, a majority of them, also think of the scheme as being democratic. But the reality is that what both foreigners and Americans see is a facade of democracy. The foreigners have no prospect to comprehend the real autocratic operation of the scheme behind this facade, and what the citizens see, they are conditioned to think so by continuous propaganda supported and orchestrated by the capitalist elite and being conditioned and indoctrinated as such from the childhood. American democracy has been cautiously designed, in an evolutionary procedure of a lot of 200 years, by the economic elite, to satisfy, provide for, maintain and protect the capitalist needs for an stable, delicately but with resolute determination controlled, and economically procreative society. In this regard, the American society has three basic, complex and perplexing components, rather difficult to be understood by standard citizens or outsiders except for a good deal of experts in the fields of social sciences. These three elements are individuals, private organizations, and public originations within a highly materialistic society. Individual As an individual, an American has two standards: idealisti and real. He believes in equality of chance for everyone, with unbelievable 90%, but closely always desires to be considered more equivalent than others. It seems that this reality is the result of keen contest for materialistic success which is the basic ingredient of the American daily life. In reality, everything is evaluated in terms of dollars and cents. The other important but non-material distinct features of life become marginal in this procedure of evaluation. This sentiment is oftentimes so intense that it becomes difficult for an American to stop, genuinely relax and take pleasure in the life. In general, an American works very hard not only to achieve economic security but to pile up wealth. As a result of this strained modus vivendi he encounters all kinds of dangerous ailments, ulcers, heart problems, blood pressure, depression and other mental illnesses. In his drive for a better life and accumulation of wealth an American never stops. He always think of enjoying life sometime in the future, a dream which seldom materializes. Then one day he has a stroke or heart attack and dies. The strange observation in American psychology is that those who take over the accumulated wealth don’t learn the lesson but follow precisely the same course of action of the deceased from whom they had inherited the wealth. This seems to be the main characteristic of the lower middle class, middle and upper middle class Americans which constitute some 70% of the population. The bottom 30% who suffer at the expense of the rest, sincerely believe in equality of chance but find closely all the doors shut on their face. The elite considers them as social rubbish yet amidst these we may find the best “humane” Americans. There is always a growing discontent amidst this group as well as the lower middle class work force. The worsening circumstance is conservatively watched by the elite elements. When it approaches the point of uprising and violence then sure welfare legislation is passed to stabilize the situation. Individualism is another idealisti faith of ordinary Americans, yet, each day more and more they want the government to take care of the social and economic ills and discomforts. As a result of this demand the United States has, gradually, become an expanded welfare state spending hundreds of billions of dollars in an array of welfare programs. The cash for these exuberant expenditures, does not come from the rich elite class but through revenues received by to a great extent taxing the middle class. So, in America the middle class, constituting the majority, furnishes expert psychological result of perception learning and reasoning and technology to the elite through the production procedure and pay to quiet the lower class in order to stabilize the environs for steady production and maximization of profits. Consequently, the American capitalism has persisted in it is dynamic operation because of special arrangements by the elite, when necessary, through the passage of particular welfare legislation tending to stabilize the society. A third peculiar characteristic of the Americans is their idealisti thoughts in regards to democracy on the one hand, and their lack of interest in putting it into effect by a democratic procedure on the other. It might be rather surprising to outsiders, who have a rosy picture of the American democracy, and a great galore Americans themselves, that only a little over 50% of entitled Americans participate in presidential elections; 30 to 40% participate in congressional elections which is the major policy-making body of the nation; and 10 to 20% vote in local elections where most of the regulatings affecting their each day life are decided. Thus, ideally, Americans strongly favor political equality, freedom of political expression, and democratic electoral process, yet overall, the majority of them do not bother to vote nor actively participate in democratization of highly corrupt and maltreated electoral system. Americans believe in free market economy, yet, they strongly resent it is aftermaths such as the concentration of wealth and power in a few corporations ruled by the super rich elite and the huge amount of profits made by them. Overwhelmingly believing in equality of opportunity, they witness the rich getting richer while the poor getting poorer. They want both equality of prospect and capitalistic successfulness in spite of the tensions and incompatibilities that subsist amid these two concepts. Capitalistic chances lead to unequal economic rewards causing ever expanding class stratification. Economic rewards and resources collected by the wealthy are then converted into political resources creating political disparities damaging of democratic electoral procedure and unrivaled prospect to shape public policies. However, there is one strong positive factor in favor of the person and American public as a whole. Social consciousness regarding the basic idealisti of equality of chance carries comparatively heavier weight than the public sensing of the capitalistic economy and resulting social and political inequalities. But capitalistic indoctrination through childhood education and continuing blitz of propaganda has left very few unaffected in keeping their social consciousness and the idealisti of equality of opportunity. There are, however, indications of a slow but steady increase in their number. Private organizations Let’s now carry on with contemplation of the private organizations and the public institutions, the other two constituents of our society. Economic organizations are the subject of our main consideration. This is where the heart of problem rests as far as it relates to democracy and equality of opportunity. Under the domain of monopoly and oligopoly capitalism, which is the main feature of American economy, as concluded by one dependable study, a few thousand super rich (a little over 7,000) control or at least highly influence not only the economy of the country but likewise it is necessary political and social originations such as the media, education, and health care. Control of data scheme is critical to the economic elite in order to control or influence public attitude in regards to justification of capitalism as well as major domestic and alien policies. Freedom of thought and speech is necessary to a democratic system. There ought to be a free expression and contest of ideas and symbols. This necessary freedom is guaranteed to Americans by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In progressed society the interchange of info and expression of ideas is to be achieved through the mass media. The American mass media constitutes of regarding 19,000 radio and television stations, 1,700 each and everyday newspapers, 7,000 other newspapers, 9,000 periodicals, over 4,300 film makers and distributors, and 1,300 publishing companies.[4] But, the elite, through a few business and financial firms controls the three major television and radio networks – ABC, NBC, CBS – and 34 subsidiary stations, 201 cable television systems, 62 major radio stations, 59 magazines, including Newsweek and Times, 58 major newspapers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The Los Angeles Times, and 41 publishing companies. 75% of the stocks of the three major television networks, where the American public receives most of it is information, are owned by five major banks. According to another study, in the long run, the mass media cater to elite humans and elite foundations upholding their activenesses and policies. Besides the data system, the elite group, consisting only of 0.4% of one percent of households, controls the economy and government This control is effectuated through the top one-fifth of the population who are the supporters of the elite family and it is beneficiaries. Consequently, the richest one-fifth of the population owns in regards to 77% of all personally kept wealth and have control over 97% of privately owned corporate stocks. Thus, the richest one-fifth has three times as much wealth as the remaining 80% of the population and full control of all major business and economic institutions. Through the control of the governmental procedure the elite rips off the American taxpayers by the means of government subsidies and subsidy-like aid, much of it concealed or disguised. The cost of tax subsidies alone to big business in 2010 was $363billion The government’s outstanding loans to private business- direct, guaranteed, and insured- came to when it comes to $250 billion in 1973, and $713.4 billion in 2010, six times the outstanding credit progressed to business by all mercantile banks. The figures may go much higher at the present. The big business gets the big bite for the most part away from public attention. The exploitive gains appropriated by the economic elite amounts to with regards to $380 billion a year or an annual rip-off of $1,700 from each man, woman and child in the country. Many rich people, thanks to laws passed to protect their income, either don’t recompense any tax or compensate a very nominal amount equated to the size of their annual income. To show just an example, according to an Internal Revenue Service report, of 529,460 couples and persons who reported total annual income above $200,000 on their tax returns, 595 remunerated no taxes while their income averaged $600,000 and two out of each three had capital gains averaging 490,000. Another 33,805 having incomes over $200,000 salaried only 15% tax, specifically less than a middle class family, and 3,000 salaried less than 10%.. Public Institutions The third element of a democratic society is it is public institutions. The United States is praised and admired by the foreigners as well as most of it is citizens for it is political democracy. This sensing is not the result of a unfeigned representative democracy but the effect of propaganda and conditioning of Americans through the mass media and instructional systems influenced and controlled by the elite. A few who are expert in American political system and routine and have impartially studied the scheme would find this assert of democracy far from the truth. They will attest that there is no democracy in the United States consciously supported by the majority of the voting population. The so called “democracy” a facade, a pretentious routine developed by the elite to sustain it is status as well as the stability for it is authoritarian capitalistic operation and maximization of profits. To elaborated on this statement we may start, first, with the two major political parties which control all the national and state governments. Both parties are strong supporters of capitalism and are controlled by the capitalist elite. Apparent deviations are only cosmetic. Through the control of state governments both parties together have been capable to establish harsh conditions for development and success of any third party; and by institution of single, rather than proportional, representation districts, they have been competent to monopolize the electoral scheme excluding any hope of success for any minor third party. In any case that these protective gimmicks do not work, the parties uniting their governmental authority act to outlaw the upcoming third party and officially demolish it. This is what precisely happened in the1920s when the Socialist Party fabricating strong, was competent to capture the government of a great deal of cities and gain representation in state legislatures. The party was declared illegal, it is leaders were arrested, it is offices were destroyed and it is funds in banks were frozen. It was not until the 1970s that beneath the Freedom of Information Act the party had access to government archives, sued the government and was granted damages. Second, primarily because of the control of the two major parties by the elite and their dedication to the capitalistic economic system, people have moved away from these parties ever increasing the size of independent voters, doubling it is size for the duration of the last 30 years. Presently, more than one-third of the entitled voters consider themselves as independent and the electoral success of any of the two major parties depends on each party’s capacity to attract more independent voter. Neither of the two parties has a long range goal to be attained and philosophically both are strongly capitalistic oriented. For this reason there is no ideological commitment to the party, only 5% of the membership take active portion in party operation, and members of one party voting for the nominee of another for the duration of dissimilar elections in not unusual. Third, whether a party fellow member or not, masses of voters do not bother to participate in the elections. The result has become the takeover of the electoral system and ensuing governmental functions by the elite and major interest groups supporting it. In actual sense, in the United States we do not have majority representation either at the national or state level. Candidates are chosen by a little minority of the entitled voters. For example, if a presidential campaigner received 54% of popular vote, when only 52% of the entitled voters genuinely voted, he becomes elected by only 28.6% of the total entitled voters. He represents a little minority and not the majority of the voting population. For example, in 1980 Reagan received 51.6 % of the general vote where only 54% of the entitled population voted. It was proper to assume that he received only 27% votes of the total entitled voters. For his second term, he received 59% of the ordinary vote amounting only to 29% of the total voting population. For the same token, in the 1988 election Bush received 54% or 27% of the total voting population. In 2000 and 2004 elections Bush received 25% and 26% of the total entitled voters respectively. The circumstance is more tragic in the case of congressional members and local officials. Fourth, constitutionally, states have control over the electoral routine including those pertaining to the national offices. Therefore, states are where all antidemocratic activenesses rest. Financing the elections, in particular the venture disbursements by the campaigners is mainly controlled by the elite through direct or institutional contributions. In ordinary this is handled by each party in a way that normally over 95% of the House representatives and 86% of senators are continually reelected. Nearly all of them serve the elite family. At the time of any social unrest this Congress passes suitable welfare legislation by which a few billion dollars is propagated among the poor and lower working class or little farm operators in order to quiet down the circumstance and maintain stability for the proper operation of the elite institutions. Another severe problem relates to the procedure of voter registration which is more or less and at times highly corrupt in favor of one party or the other. The cash for such programs, presently amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars, does not come out from the elite pocket but principally from those of the middle and working class in the form of further and added taxation. Another severe electoral problem relates to the procedure of voter registration in each state which is regularly maltreated in a great deal of states and manipulated in favor of one party or another. During a presidential elections this abuse is approximated to be in excess of two million votes. For example, the studies show that in 2000 presidential elections in Florida alone, tens of thousands of Afro-American voters, 90% of them expected to vote Democrat, were deprived from voting through registration abuses. With all these factual observations, one may effortlessly conclude that there is no real democracy in the United States, at the national level in particular. The effect of such lack of democracy has placed the nation in over thirteen trillion dollars in debt the major beneficiary of which has been as always the economic elite, for which over $250 billion a year is paid in interest by taxpayers money. Realistically speaking, the U.S. President and Congress are both strong supporters and protectors of the economic elite and major interest groups which bestow to their electoral campaigns. The U.S. alien policies are not based on international law or mutual respect to sovereignty of other nations, but to protect the U.S. capitalistic interests abroad. Any system not sympathetic to capitalistic values is not considered democratic. Such countries are considered not friendly to American policies, therefore, subject to pressure and change. For example, U.S. seceded Panama territory from Colombia in 1903 to build the Canal because of the Colombian government’s rejection of the project. It has controlled the politics and economy of the country since. When General Noriega disobeyed, Panama was invaded in December 1989 and an “appropriate” obedient government was installed. Noriega, the head of a alien country was captured, brought to the United States, tried, convicted and jailed. Granada was invaded in October 1983 to oust a Marxist oriented socialist government. An adequate for the purpose government was established under the U.S. occupation. Dominican Republic was invaded in April 1965. It was also occupied from 1916 to 1924. Troops were sent to Mexico in April 1914 to block arms shipments to Mexican revolutionaries. They stayed in Mexico for eight months. Haiti was invaded in 1915 and it remained under occupation til 1934. U.S. Marines were sent to Nicaragua in 1912 to protect the friendly government. Some Marines stayed there for 13 years. They were sent again in 1927 and stayed till 1933 when Samosa was established as the ruler. The Samosa family ruled until the Sandinista revolution in1979. U.S. troops landed in Honduras in three discerned occasion, among 1912 and 1926, to protect American business interests. Starting in 1980 U.S. troops were regularly stationed in Honduras in order to protect Contra rebellion forces and impose pressure on Nicaraguan Sandinista government. Between 1898 and 1921 Marines were landed in Cuba on four occasions and remained there for a total of 12 years. U.S. traditionalisti it is present naval base at Guantanamo Bay in 1903. In early 1970s Chile democratically elected a Marxist government and chose Dr. Allende as President. This tended to ruin the U.S. government’s theory of associating Marxism with dictatorship which was the basis of the Cold War policies. The Chilean government had to be overthrown. It was done by the CIA and millions of American taxpayers money. This is just a territorial example. The U.S. alien policy has followed the same lawless, often perfectly brutal and detrimental of thousands of lives and properties, through overt and covert actions, in other parts of the world exceptionally in the Far East and the Middle East, anytime the American elite has shown a significant economic or ideological interest. For example, the U.S. government efforts, in 1960s, to alter the Marxist oriented socialist government of Indonesia, ruled since 1945 by Sukarno, and establish a new friendly scheme beneath the rule of Suharto caused a genocide by the new government of over 800,000 for the most part innocent lives of men women and children. In just a few months in 1965 more than 200,000 people allegedly related with Communist Party were slaughtered.[5] Since 2001, tens of thousands have passed away in Afghanistan War and, in Iraq, a little country with a population of with regards to 30 million, according to new estimates, over one million have been killed as a result of war, over 95% innocent men, women and children, and 4.5 million have been displaced one half of them escaping to the neighboring countries and the rest getting refugees in their own land. Some decades ago in April 25, 1935, in the Journal of Philosophy, the outstanding American Philosopher John Dewey, talking about the future of liberalim,, described the American system as follows: “the reactionaries are in possession of force, in not only the army and police, but in the press and the schools. The only reason they do not advocate the use of strength is the fact that they are already in possession of it, so their policy is to cover up it is insistence with idealistic phrases- of which their present use of person initiative and liberty is a striking example…. It is ludicrous to conceive liberty as that of the business enterpriser and ignore the imminent regimentation to which laborers are subjugated, intellectual as well as manual workers.”, The American political democracy is not a unfeigned one. It is employed cautiously and skillfully as a facade to cover the ills of capitalism and actual control of the scheme by a very little elite. In reality, as evidenced by the facts staged aboveand a good deal of other scolarly writings, it is a cloaked brutal dictatorship, —————————————————————————————————————————————————- REFERENCES: [1]. Newsweek, May 23, 2011, p.68. [2]. Richard Edwards, et al, The Capitalist System, 1972, p.173 -174.. [ 3]. Edwin knoll, et al. American Militarism, 1969, p. 2. [ 4]. James Burns, et al. Government by the People, 14th ed., 1990, p.279.and 302. [5} World Book, 2001, vol. 10,p. 238. For full documentation of this article see www.democracywhere.com |
