FROM DEMOCRACY TO AN OLIGARCHY

Chaitanya Davé

Majority of Americans want “Single Payer Healthcare System” or free healthcare but our elected representatives won’t go for it.

Most Americans want stricter gun control laws. But our politicians controlled by The National Rifle Association and other die-hard gun lovers, won’t allow it to happen.

Fair minded and decent, most Americans prefer minimum wages raised to a living wage, but our powerful corporations and their Republican friends in Washington DC do not want to do it.

According to Forbes.com (March 19, 2015) report, unionized workforce in the private sector was 35% in the 1950s. But now it has fallen to 11.3% of all workers and 6.6% in private sectors. American corporations have successfully gotten rid of unions and have reduced their labor costs since 1980. Weren’t the unions who were fighting for the American workers’ rights? Now there is nobody to protect them except a small percentage of these unions. The American workers’ livelihood is at the whim and mood of their corporate bosses today.

Bribed with huge political donations by the powerful Aerospace and Armament Industries’ lobbyists, our politicians unnecessarily keep squandering billions of dollars on the so called “defense” budget, constantly inventing and building more efficient weapons to dominate other nations.

Majority of us would rather prefer our government to spend less on our gloated defense budget, and spend those billions saved on public services for American people.

Vast majority of Americans would love to have lower drug prices like other developed countries but our government, succumbing to Pharmaceutical Industries’ largesse, refuses to negotiate lower drug prices for us Americans.

Most of us prefer and need free school and college education for our kids like they have in most developed countries of Europe and Scandinavia but our elected representatives don’t listen to us.

Majority of our working women need and would prefer to have paid maternity leave like they have in the Scandinavian countries but our corporate controlled politicians could care less for this.

Most Americans prefer to have our president, the most important office in our land, to be elected by a simple majority vote but our legislators knowingly won’t do away with our screwed up Electoral College.

Every four years, we vote for our president even though we don’t like either party candidate often but vote for one of them anyway because we dislike the other only party candidate more. Often we have a choice between a bad and a worst candidate. Our corporate controlled media won’t allow a third or a forth party candidate even to a national debate. They are intentionally deprived of much coverage by our mainstream news-media. Why? Because these 3^rd or 4^thparty candidates often challenge corporate rule who control our news-media. Is this a genuine democracy? Why can’t we have more choices in such an important election?

Besides voting for our president and our Senators and Congressmen every few years, do we Americans have any say in how our country is run?

Whenever America goes to war, or invades or bombs another country (which happens quite often), do we Americans have any say in these major decisions? Because these immoral wars would likely result in thousands of deaths of innocent civilians abroad and many of our young soldiers would be killed, not to mention billions of dollars of our tax-payer money that will be squandered. Are we consulted?

Warren Buffett is so right when he said: “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

According to Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ), as of March, 2016, $2.4 trillion are stashed away abroad in safe haven countries by US multinationals to avoid American taxes totaling $695 billion. Who are the losers? American people, as the government is deprived of these billions that could be used by our government for public projects benefiting average Americans. Our politicians of both parties are aware of these loop holes in our tax-codes but they knowingly allow them because they are paid by the same corporations in donations for their re-elections and they dare not offend them.

No surprise, a study conducted by Princeton and Northwestern University in April, 2014 confirmed America being an oligarchy. It concluded: “When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose.”

The “Occupy Wall Street” movement of 2011 was a 99% against the 1% movement. It was crushed with force. Why? Because it challenged the corporate and the Wall Street power.

In the 1950s, we had a thriving democracy. The middle-class was robust. The unions were strong and consisted of 35% of the workforce. But since then, the super-rich wielding enormous influence on our politicians have managed to steer many laws in their favor. The middle-class is decimated. Majority of workers have nobody to fight for their rights.

To an astute observer unaffected by corporate controlled media propaganda, it is obvious: Our democracy is hijacked by the corporate super-rich CEOs and other economic elites.

What we have today in America is not a democracy, but rather an oligarchy: A small group or class of super-rich and powerful people who exert total control over the general population.