The Republic Is Dead
Jun. 1st, 2016 10:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nebrisThe delusion that most Americans share is that The Republic can be saved. I'm a fat old man and I support Bernie because he could make the last few decades of my life moderately comfortable, whereas the other two will make it a living hell. But beyond that, The Republic is doomed. What shall follow I cannot say.
It is doomed due to a confluence of social, economic and technological factors that are more or less irreversible. Many of our citizens are 'surplus' to economic requirements and more are becoming so every day. That trend is not going to be changed and it *will* lead to social collapse. Catastrophic Climate Change is already upon us. We'll survive it as a species [we're like fucking cockroaches] but it will be 'a very rough transition' and Capitalism will be crushed in that as it will be rightly seen as the primary cause of that catastrophe.
Truth is, The Republic has been effectively dead for a while now. We're an Empire and have been since the end of WW2. The Republic began to die with the passage of the National Security Act in 1947. The Republic's Obituary was written two years ago:
"The US is dominated by a rich and powerful elite.
So concludes a recent study by Princeton University Prof Martin Gilens and Northwestern University Prof Benjamin I Page.
This is not news, you say.
Perhaps, but the two professors have conducted exhaustive research to try to present data-driven support for this conclusion. Here's how they explain it:
Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.
In English: the wealthy few move policy, while the average American has little power." http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746
In essence most Americans are now debating over the division of table scraps.
It is doomed due to a confluence of social, economic and technological factors that are more or less irreversible. Many of our citizens are 'surplus' to economic requirements and more are becoming so every day. That trend is not going to be changed and it *will* lead to social collapse. Catastrophic Climate Change is already upon us. We'll survive it as a species [we're like fucking cockroaches] but it will be 'a very rough transition' and Capitalism will be crushed in that as it will be rightly seen as the primary cause of that catastrophe.
Truth is, The Republic has been effectively dead for a while now. We're an Empire and have been since the end of WW2. The Republic began to die with the passage of the National Security Act in 1947. The Republic's Obituary was written two years ago:
"The US is dominated by a rich and powerful elite.
So concludes a recent study by Princeton University Prof Martin Gilens and Northwestern University Prof Benjamin I Page.
This is not news, you say.
Perhaps, but the two professors have conducted exhaustive research to try to present data-driven support for this conclusion. Here's how they explain it:
Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.
In English: the wealthy few move policy, while the average American has little power." http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746
In essence most Americans are now debating over the division of table scraps.
