I no longer wish to derail the other thread. I figure, if I’m political now, I might as well go all the way and clarify what I see.
In America, we are not really a democracy. We are an oligarchy run by a select few elites. Now, when I say “elite” here I’m referring to Wallstreet tycoons, Silicon Valley billionaires, the Department of Homeland Security, and the CIA, mostly. I’m not using it as a codeword for some sort of New World Order, because, in my opinion, that is absurd.
I’m also not referring to elected officials. As far as I can tell, in America, whoever gets elected does so thanks to being sponsored by megacorporations and private interest groups. They’re all puppets. Most elections go to whoever spent the most money on advertising, and they almost always go to either the Democratic or Republican candidate. Both party systems are actually quite chummy behind closed doors, despite their outward charade of antagonism, and have many of the same investors; they also choose their own candidates.
So Americans don’t have a lot of control over our elected officials and the control we have doesn’t really matter because our day-to-day life is more at the mercy of our employers and local law enforcement (with local law enforcement itself often being sponsored by private interest groups, just like elected officials)
The largest issue facing America today is income inequality, also known as the growing class divide. It’s been doing nothing but getting worse for nearly a century now. Do you want to know what this severe inequality looks like?
Look to Japan’s “black companies” and the “slaves of Dubai.” Even in the US, places like Detroit, Los Angeles, and Chicago have been seen as notorious examples of this divide. It’s not pretty and it’s getting worse. Given that most billionaires came from a family of millionaires, we’re beginning to approach the ancient model where a bloodline aristocracy rules over a population of slaves, which we have seen throughout most of human history. We’re regressing back into the dystopias of the past, this time fed by an even greater gap caused by advanced technologies like unmanned drones and mass surveillance
What are the common proposed solutions to this divide? Policy changes like raising minimum wage and tax reform. Which, by the way, have been proposed for decades now and have had no real progress. Why? Because the policy makers are puppets for megacorporations, so it’s not in their interests to undermine their own power. Trying to enact policy changes to prevent class divide is like asking a serial killer nicely to not murder you. It’s not going to work. They don’t care.
What are the actual, real-world solutions to undercutting the growing power of the elite? Undermining local law enforcement, unionizing, and mutual aid structures. Of course, while we’re feeding the homeless, we might become the homeless, but this is the best route I see right now.
So why is there another recent surge of anti-gun propaganda coming from the corporate-owned media lately? It’s very simple. After the 2020 riots and the Jan 6 failed insurrection, the elites have suddenly realized that the people have more power than they thought. We terrified them. So they want to get rid of our guns. They will probably succeed, too, because the propaganda is only meant to make the general public accept their policy changes when they come, not to influence voters since our votes don’t really matter.
Don’t get me wrong; yes, getting rid of our guns will reduce mass shootings. This is incredibly short-sighted, though. There are bigger problems going on that we need our own weapons for. Once the elites have a monopoly on all of the weaponry, then we’ve already lost. There will be nothing left for us to do to prevent them from consolidating even more power, which they are already dead-set on doing.
And once America becomes a corporatocracy, the rest of Europe will follow close behind because we will take NATO down with us and our presence in other countries will essentially become a form of capitalist colonialism.
(Discussion in ‘Politics and Society‘ started by Ella S., Jun 2, 2022)
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