O say can you see, the U. S. Oligarchy?

The U. S. is on sale. Buy it while it’s hot.

O say can you see,
by the dawn's early light,
what so proudly we hailed
we now proudly renounce.
democracy

http://blog.ted.com/2008/09/17/the_real_differ/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-14SllPPLxY

Plato theorized that democracies, as they matured, evolved into oligarchies or plutocracies. We are witnessing exactly that.

When the new political election funding laws came into effect, the U. S. democratic system became an oligarchy or plutocracy. Billionaires are now buying political candidates and are in fact buying the leadership of the nation. They are now the power behind the throne and control the government and thus the people. Now, instead of working 9 to 5, Americans are working 24/7.

When did the U. S. devolve from the leading democracy of the West, to a tyranny up for sale?

Regards
DL

Psh. Plato is so 2000-lame.

The only thing relatively new is 3 more signficant digits in the net worth of those with the most direct power.

Ya but everybody is gonna have IPads!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

The US national anthem sucks. Yeah, I said it. The Star Spangled Banner was awesome as a spoken-word poem as originally intended, but in order to sing it properly, you need a one and a half octave range, which is incredibility hard. Anytime an non-professional singer attempts it, it sounds terribad. You go to a baseball game and we all sound like morons trying to stumble through singing it.

Agreed.


All hail Diogenes!

So which golden period do we look back to where the wealthy didn't dominate?

for most guys, as long as you start it at the proper pitch, or roughly about as low as a decaying bus picking up speed on the highway, you should be good to go

I'll save 150 posts of trying to nail libertarians down on naming a better era than now and just say 1999 seems to be the loose consensus for best time ever.

If this is happening it would seem small or limited government wouldn't allow the puppets any power. Hmm what side is always pushing for that...

Lords and Dukes

You just need to think outside the box

Why do you hate American exceptionalism?

RIP Whitney.

This is kind of jumbled.

Plato's Republic

Aristocracy>Minarchy>Oligarchy>Democracy>Tyranny

I might be missing one somewhere in there. Plato would consider an oligarchy preferable to a democracy.

Level one thinking though. Corporations also control those media entities that also call for moah guberment.

This leads to the impasse that suits them so well.

Why do you think every mainstream political meme/idea is in essence now a conservative one e.g. a reiteration of a previous argument, no new arguments and certainly no radical ones.

Conservatives want to conserve or maintain ideas from the 1860s and Democrats want to conserve/maintain ideas from the 1960s. The point is we are having the same debate year in year out and there are no signs of that debate changing in any significant way or really meaningful way.

A façade of choice has to be maintained but the outcome of the debate in terms of who you vote for makes no difference to teh rich and powerful.

copernicus!!!!!!!!111

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apple

Any stock tips?

Think about the laws we've passed in the past 100 years or so wrt suffrage.

I am gonna go out on a limb here and say we are more democratic than ever except maybe certain periods immediately after and during civil rights movement

Despite some of the great progresses we have made over the last century, it is a legitimate worry. Some people think we can find an effective way to set limits on the influence of the wealthiest among us, thus broadening the base of people who really matter to campaigning politicians. Others think that more transparency will help us make better choices, and that's all we need. I still don't know how I feel about the legal reasoning of Citizens United, but the effective result of the decision is that we have the worst of both worlds.

I can't imagine it being any better as a spoken word poem. Unless maybe William Shatner is the one reciting it.

Yes. They are in the land of the free--er.

One man one vote plus all the votes you can buy.

Regards
DL

1848 in France. The U. S., I don't know.

As a Christian nation, trained by the church not to question, possibly never regardless of what the leadership named the governmental system.

Regards
DL

Lies.
Just kidding.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDMvfAq7QPw

Regards
DL

Our form based on $$$$$ perhaps but not his which was ruled by philosophy.
A land of laws, not where $$$$$$$$ bought the law.

Regards
DL