BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE
Princeton Scientific Study: America is No Longer a Democracy; It’s Now an Oligarchy
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A scientific study done at Princeton University indicates that the United States is no longer a Democracy. The country has now morphed into an Oligarchy. That means that the nation is no longer controlled by the people. It is now controlled by a handful of wealthy and powerful puppet masters. It also means that we are no longer in a race war; we are now in a class war. Thus, the poor and middle class, of EVERY race, are now the new niggas. So wake up, America, while you still have a chance of fighting back..
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One of the biggest problems that we have in this country is that we’ve allowed malevolent factions to throw us a bone and then use our votes against us to undermine our interests. The reason we’ve allowed this to happen is because we’re so gullible that we tend to believe that any faction that supports any issue that we’re passionate about is our friend, and that tendency has repeatedly been used against us. Over the years that has repeatedly caused the American people to forge alliances with the very people who want to cut their throats.
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So it behooves poor and middle-class Black, and White people, to wake up, put our petty differences aside, and come together as a viable political force that’s ready to pitch a tooth-and-nail battle for the future of this country. If we don’t, the Tea party, the Klan, the Black Guerilla Army, and the Mexican Mafia are all going to find themselves shoulder-to-shoulder picking virtual cotton on the very same plantation.
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Ironically, many White people already recognize this fact - that’s why Barack Obama is President today. But due to our unique historic background, lack of formal education, the proliferation of urban legends disseminated by poverty pimps, and lingering suspicions and bitterness, many Black people are resistant to this reality. Some demagogues work for the enemy by purposely keeping the poor and middle-class divided:
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"When you’re trying to talk about issues that affect the people, name calling get’s in the way. Name calling is nothing but another weapon of mass distraction." - Cornel West. Hmmmmm. Think about his words, and then his behavior.
.But while it is undeniable that some White people are dogs (just like some Black people), we now also have undeniable evidence that MOST of them are good people who simply want to live and let live just like the majority of Black people. White bigots are a small minority of the White community, but they are a vicious and very loud minority (see Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Pat Robertson, etc.), and they're being amplified by the power and wealth of corporate feudalists in order to keep us divided, so their noise and power far exceed their numbers. If that were not the case, Obama wouldn’t have been elected president - twice. No, Obama’s election doesn’t mean that this is a post-racist society, but what it does say is, racism and bigotry are being maintained and perpetuated by a minority of the White community.
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Consider this - even if all Black people had been allowed to stay at home, and the vote of every Black man, woman, and child in America had been automatically posted for Obama, there still wouldn’t have been enough of us to elect him President of the United States. Black people are only 13.6 percent of the population. So if only one hundred votes were being cast to determine the presidency, and every group was given the number of votes that corresponded to their percentage of the population, Black people would only be given 14 votes. But in order for Obama to become president, he needed 51 votes. Where did those other 37 votes come from? I’ll tell you where they came from - many of them came from White people. Obama could never have been elected president without them. So that’s in direct conflict with the message that the majority of White people are racist bigots. Numbers don't lie, so while it may satisfy the anger of those who allege that to be the case, the numbers simply don't validate their claim.
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White folks are being fed the same kind of nonsense on the other side of the fence. That's how we're being kept divided, and how the rich are taking over. The current battle being fought is over class, not race, and both poor and middle-class Blacks, and Whites, had better wake up and recognize that fact, or we're ALL going to be enslaved.
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Many White people need to understand than when the GOP is targeting Social Security, they're not just targeting the Social Security of Black people, they're targeting EVERYBODY'S Social Security. And when the corporate feudalist and their GOP cronies sent our jobs overseas, they didn't just send Black jobs overseas, they sent the jobs of the White middle class out of the country as well. So again, America needs to wake up. Our true enemy is multiracial, and has very deep pockets and influence (Black folks, see Clarence Thomas).
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Pages 22 and 23 of the Princeton study says the following:
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"What do our findings say about democracy in America? They certainly constitute troubling news for advocates of "populistic" democracy, who want governments to respond primarily or exclusively to the policy preferences of their citizens. In the United States, our Politics findings indicate, the majority does not rule -- at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes. When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the U.S. political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it."
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The study goes on to say,
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"Despite the seemingly strong empirical support in previous studies for theories of majoritarian democracy, our analyses suggest that majorities of the American public actually have little influence over the policies our government adopts. Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance, such as regular elections, freedom of speech and association, and a widespread (if still contested) franchise. But we believe that if policymaking is dominated by powerful business organizations and a small number of affluent Americans, then America’s claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened."
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That’s something that every poor and middle-class American needs to think about, regardless to what color they are. Whether Black and White racists like it or not, we're on this plantation together - and the GOP is the primary overseer.
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Eric L. Wattree
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Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.