oligarchy

The Founders Never Meant The US To Be A Democracy

July 2, 2026 Doug Henwood, Portside. Educate! American Revolution, Democracy, Founding Fathers, oligarchy

One of the great contradictions of American life is that we think of ourselves as a democracy, a model for the world, but one with a profoundly rich elite that exercises enormous influence over politics. Although we often feel (correctly) that democracy is eroding in the United States, we shouldn’t forget that, despite our image, our state was never designed to be a democracy. Our situation, in which an insanely rich oligarchy is nudging aside the last remnants of popular power, emerges from the governmental structures that James Madison and his fellow Founders intended.

Declaring Our Collective Independence From The Sinking Ship Of US Empire

July 1, 2026 Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Founding Fathers, Fourth of July, oligarchy, Racism, White Supremacy

As with most years around the so-called Independence Day “holiday,” the Black masses and our accomplices of all races and ethnicities reflect on the sage words offered by Frederick Douglass on July 5, 1852, in Rochester, New York: What to the Slave is the 4th of July. Therein, Douglass at one point declares, “This Fourth of July is yours, not mine, You may rejoice, I must mourn.” The speech shall be heralded in the annals of U.S. history for time immeasurable with warrant, yet from the outset it contained a ubiquitous contradiction as it actually praises the white men - many of them slaveowners and some of them rapists of African women - known to this day as the “founding fathers.”

ICE Exposes Democratic Party Irrelevance

February 1, 2026 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Democratic Party, Democrats, History, ICE, oligarchy

The Trump administration focuses relentlessly on immigration enforcement as a political tool. That focus isn’t surprising considering that an important goal of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement is to Make America White Again, or rather more white than it is now. Trump is so fixated on deporting immigrants from the Global South that he even takes this rhetorical show on the road, using part of his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland to get his fellow white nations to also act against what he has referred to as an “invasion.”

To Confront Oligarchy, Build Power At The Community Level

January 25, 2025 Patrick Mazza, Resilience. Organize! Bioregions, Community organizing, Corporatocracy, oligarchy

A consistent theme through my life has been to understand our world, to assemble a comprehensive picture the best I can, respecting the world’s boggling complexity and the limits of any one mind to grasp it all. What has long been clear to me is that our world is on a systematically wrong way path. Three trends are in the foreground – the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, ecological overshoot and increasing economic disparity. Together they shape what many have called the polycrisis. From the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis with its nuclear war close call, which happened around my 10th birthday, the insanity of piling up weapons of mass destruction has recurrently come to the foreground.

Protests Erupt In Indonesia Over Attempts To Bypass Constitution

August 25, 2024 Abdul Rahman, People's Dispatch. Resist! Constitution, Elections, Indonesia, Labor Party, oligarchy

Large-scale protests erupted across Indonesia on Thursday, August 22, in response to the government’s attempt to revise the regional election (Pilkada) law. Protesters demanded that the government and the House of Representatives (DPR) immediately halt the revision process, arguing that it violates the constitution. In several instances, the police fired tear gas at the protesters, causing injuries. In central Java, students stormed the office of the Regional House of Representatives (DPRD) after the police arrested one of the protesters, Kompas reported. Protesters in Jakarta were joined by leading intellectuals, academics and celebrities, who expressed concerns about the revisions being carried out without any public consultation.

US Or China, Which Is Truly Democratic?

August 17, 2024 Simon Turner, Geopolitical Economy. Educate! Capitalism, China, Democracy, Gaza, Israel, oligarchy, Palestine, Socialism, US Imperialism, Xi Jinping

Who do we want to lead? With genocide ongoing, regional wars brewing, and climate change records breaking, who is a safe pair of hands? Today a choice exists; an alternative to the US-led international order is being built, with China at its center. A Western survey, the Edelman Trust Barometer, found China to be the country rated highest globally in terms of people’s trust in their government. China has held the top spot every year but one since 2018, with a comprehensive trust index of 79 in 2024. The US is down at a mere 46.

Nicaraguan Democracy Exposes The US Oligarchy

July 25, 2024 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Daniel Ortega, Democracy, Nicaragua, oligarchy, US Empire

There is probably no group of people more isolated from the rest of humanity than residents of the United States. Far from being the “leader of the free world” and a robust democracy where the exchange of ideas is respected, the United States is under the thumb of billionaire oligarchs who restrict what we see and hear. The corporate media play the role of servant and keep the people simultaneously uninformed and misinformed. Knowledge of the rest of the world is extremely limited and only those who are sufficiently self-motivated will venture outside of the bubble. Yet doing so is imperative.

My Thoughts On Biden Dropping Out

July 23, 2024 Chris Hedges, Scheer Post. Educate! Democrats, Donald Trump, Elections, Fascism, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, oligarchy

Joe Biden was discarded by the same billionaire class he assiduously served throughout his political career. Barely able to stumble his way through the words on a TelePrompter and not always cognizant of what is happening around him, his billionaire supporters pulled the plug. He was their creature – he has been in federal office for 47 years – from start to finish. He was used as a foil to defeat Bernie Sanders in the 2020 primaries and was anointed as the candidate in 2024 in a Soviet-style primary campaign. The billionaire class will now anoint someone else. Democratic Party voters are stage props in this political farce.

Camila Vergara’s Bold Vision For A Plebeian Constitutionalism

June 1, 2024 David Bollier. Create! Chile, oligarchy, Participatory Democracy, People's Assemblies

Systemic corruption is not about a few venal politicians who take bribes or bureaucrats who collude with wealthy corporations. It's about the systemic oligarchization of power within a general respect for the rule of law. Elites come to dominate the state political apparatus and warp the law to suit their interests and desires, betraying the promise of democracy. That's why plebeians must have explicit constitutional powers, says Vergara. In Systemic Corruption, Vergara opens up a new kind of conversation that I have never heard before in political circles or the news media. She proposes new types of constitutional power for plebeian institutions so that the interests of ordinary people will be baked into modern constitutional systems.

Gaza War Crimes Make A Mockery Of Western ‘Democracy’

November 13, 2023 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Democracy, Gaza, oligarchy, US Hegemony

The term “free world” was a mainstay of the cold war lexicon for decades. Although the United States and its NATO allies still portray themselves as paragons of free thought and action and declare anyone they don’t like as laggards in regard to human rights. They make quite a show of bragging about being democracies but their actions prove otherwise. The U.S. and Israel continue their killing spree in Gaza which now totals 11,000 fatalities of men, women, and children. While the President of the United States claimed to have seen confirmation that Hamas beheaded children, Palestinians in their sorrow display the broken bodies of their children, some of them headless or limbless as Israel bombs homes, hospitals, and ambulances.

Trump Indictment Distraction

August 20, 2023 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Donald Trump, Media, oligarchy

There are many very serious issues which demand our attention at the current moment. July 2023 was the hottest month on record, with severe and deadly heat waves in the U.S. and the world. More than 4 million medicaid recipients have lost coverage after covid emergency programs ended, despite the fact that most of them are still eligible to receive that benefit. The U.S. continues to send money into the black hole of Ukraine while residents of Maui, Hawaii struggle to survive after devastating wildfires. The Biden administration dares to brag about a one-time payment of $700 to people who are now homeless while the military industrial complex is flush with a new infusion of $200 million.

A World On The Edge Of Collapse?

August 18, 2023 Michael Klare, Tom Dispatch. Educate! climate crisis, Extinction, oligarchy, Sustainability

In his 2005 bestseller Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, geographer Jared Diamond focused on past civilizations that confronted severe climate shocks, either adapting and surviving or failing to adapt and disintegrating. Among those were the Puebloan culture of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, the ancient Mayan civilization of Mesoamerica, and the Viking settlers of Greenland. Such societies, having achieved great success, imploded when their governing elites failed to adopt new survival mechanisms to face radically changing climate conditions.

Cornel West And The Campaign To End Political Apartheid

July 17, 2023 Chris Hedges, Scheer Post. Educate! Cornel West, Corporate duopoly, Democracy, Democrats, Elections, oligarchy, Republican

The Republican and Democratic parties have no intention of allowing independents and third parties into their exclusive club. A series of arcane laws and rules governing elections make it extremely difficult for outsiders to get on the ballot, receive exposure, raise money, comply with regulations that are designed to advance the interests of Republicans and Democrats or participate in public debates. Third parties and independents are effectively disenfranchised, although 44 percent of the voting public identify as independent. This discrimination is euphemistically labeled “bipartisanship,” but the correct term, as Theresa Amato writes, is “political apartheid.”

Chris Hedges: American Poverty Is A Calamity By Design

July 15, 2023 Chris Hedges, The Real News Network. Resistance Report Class Struggle, Finance and the Economy, oligarchy, Poverty

Some 50 million people in the United States live in poverty today—and over 108 million people survive on less than $55,000 a year. Despite having the largest economy on earth, poverty in the US is often grinding and brutal. From millions who live without running water or reliable power, to countless children who experience food insecurity and homelessness. The data on poverty only becomes exacerbated when race is taken into account. In 2019, the median White household had a net worth of $188,200, compared with $24,100 for the median Black household. Matthew Desmond joins The Chris Hedges Report to discuss his new book, Poverty, by America

Should There Be A Supreme Court?

July 10, 2023 Michael Hudson, CounterPunch.org. Educate! Checks and Balances, Democracy, oligarchy, Supreme Court

Vested interests create “checks and balances” primarily to make political systems non-responsive to demands for social reform. Historically, therefore, the checks are politically unbalanced in practice. Instead of producing a happy medium, their effect often has been to check the power of the people to assert their interests at the expense of the more powerful. Real reform requires a revolution – often repeated attempts. The Roman Republic suffered five centuries of fighting to redistribute land and cancel debts, all of which failed as the oligarchy’s “checks” imposed deepening economic dependency and imbalance.

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