The United States’ government may claim liberty and justice
for all; however, in practice, it exhibits all four major characteristics of a
fascist state: a one party government, extravagant economic inequality, a
totalitarian police state at home and militarism abroad, and a strong reliance
on propaganda. Yet America’s government system
has evolved without the need for traditional hard power tactics, such as
ballot-rigging, coercion and force; it is based on soft power policies and the
illusion of choice. It requires its citizens to make a choice between
personalities, rather than genuine political alternatives. For instance, the
top three candidates for President have all inherited their political status
through family: Jeb Bush, Rand Paul and Hillary Clinton. The Bush-Clinton
families may potentially occupy the White House for a staggering 28 out of 36
years.
The United States essentially has a one-party system; and
the ruling party is the corporate party. Elections present the population with
two variants of a pre-designed policy: free-market, neoliberal capitalism. This
benefits the elite at the expense of the majority by promoting privatization of
public services, frozen wages, job losses, and reduced social benefits. Elite
American politicians, whether Democrat or Republican, choose austerity and
privatization as their flagship economic polices. Both the Republican and
Democratic factions of America’s ruling corporate party have destroyed trade
unions, while “democratically” promoting corporate welfare. The narrowing
ideological gap between the policies of major political parties reflects the
decay of the nation’s democratic system.
In America, corporations exert strong influence over the
state for the benefit of a wealthy minority. In fact, over the last few years,
the top thirty American companies spent more money on lobbying politicians than
they paid in federal taxes, according to a report from the non-partisan reform
group, called Public Campaign. The richest 400 Americans own more wealth than
the majority of 150 million Americans combined. Truth is, America has shown
that free markets and free elections simply cannot co-exist. Corporate campaign
contributions become votes; thus, the poor are politically marginalized. Money
becomes speech, muzzling the poor. How can capitalism and democracy co-exist,
if one concentrates wealth and power in the hands of few, and the other seeks
to spread power and wealth among many? Organized greed always defeats
disorganized democracy.
The media determines our language, our language shapes our
thoughts, and our thoughts determine our actions. Language is the fulcrum of a
society’s perception. Whosoever controls the public’s language, controls the
public’s perception. The corporate elites who sit on media editorial boards
control said language. In 1983, fifty companies owned ninety percent of U.S.
media. Today, only six media giants control a staggering ninety percent of what
the American public listens to, reads, and watches. Inverted democracy is where
you have freedom of speech but the administration doesn’t listen. “Think of the
press as a great keyboard on which the government can play,” once remarked
Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Germany’s Minister of Propaganda. In the Soviet Union,
citizens were aware that by reading Pravda, they were being fed government
propaganda, so they learned to tune it out. Many Americans believe that the
WSJ-New York Times-CNN outlets are credible, despite ample evidence to the
contrary. How can we forget the media reports of non-existent weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq, the undivided support for the catastrophic failure of the
intervention in Libya, and the arming of rebels in Syria, who turned out to be
ISIS, to name but a few? The beauty of the U.S. propaganda system is that it
creates the semblance of impartiality by offering diversity only on non-core
issues. When it comes to core issues affecting the privileged corporate class,
such as inequitable tax regimes and for-profit wars, the media sings in unison.
By indoctrinating “Socialism”, and “Marxism” as taboo subjects, the ruling
class has effectively outlawed any discussion on class reform and democratic
choice. As Noam Chomsky pointed out, American propaganda works by
indoctrination that is so profound, it is never perceived. Americans are
increasingly immersing themselves in reality T.V., only to lose touch with
reality.
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