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The New American Order
By Tom Engelhardt1% Elections, The Privatization of the State, a Fourth Branch of Government, and the Demobilization of "We the People"
Have you ever undertaken some task you felt less than qualified for, but knew that someone needed to do? Consider this piece my version of that, and let me put what I do understand about it in a nutshell: based on developments in our post-9/11 world, we could be watching the birth of a new American political system and way of governing for which, as yet, we have no name.
And here’s what I find strange: the evidence of this, however inchoate, is all around us and yet it’s as if we can’t bear to take it in or make sense of it or even say that it might be so.
Let me make my case, however minimally, based on five areas in which at least the faint outlines of that new system seem to be emerging: political campaigns and elections; the privatization of Washington through the marriage of the corporation and the state; the de-legitimization of our traditional system of governance; the empowerment of the national security state as an untouchable fourth branch of government; and the demobilization of "we the people."
Whatever this may add up to, it seems to be based, at least in part, on the increasing concentration of wealth and power in a new plutocratic class and in that ever-expanding national security state. Certainly, something out of the ordinary is underway, and yet its birth pangs, while widely reported, are generally categorized as aspects of an exceedingly familiar American system somewhat in disarray.
Read more: http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175970/
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Last edited Mon Mar 23, 2015, 02:25 AM - Edit history (1)
It's called feudalism. Where you must pay the baron to use his road and you will bow to your betters or else be killed by those who directly benefit from strong man rule.Oh, it won't be by men on horseback in chain mail with colorful banners and clothes. More like Rand Paul bragging about his private security that makes him feel safe, while he's surrounded by 2A Solution riflemen who want to 'restore' the USA to its rightful rulers.
Same thing as the CSA wanted, only rich white men will rule, but it'll be global and not so much race based, but by wealth.
Where social mobility is a pipe dream, slavery is what some people are born to be in and they deserve it. Historically all created by the reduction of government until it is so weak it cannot enforce laws. It was the only force keeping feudalism at bay and everyone wants it gone. They embrace it with fantasies from films and fiction, reveling in the new world being created.
Grover knew cutting off funds by denying government taxes was the way and enforced the allegiance of the GOP, as the Koch brothers do now.
This is part of a cycle. There is no mystery, it's happened mny times before and by the same methods employed today. Thom Hartmann did a great analysis referring to an author who states the case plainly:
This is the era we are living in, it is our choice to let it go on by not sticking together, so please listen carefully, DU! We are going into something most aren't prepared to survive in, with little true freedom of the mind allowed. Pick your god, and beware.
