Somebody says:

We in America made the transition to Oligarchy back in the early 1900’s when the robber barons became so rich that they could buy any politician, lawyer, publisher, minister, dean or judge that they wanted.

Could and did.

The establishment of the Federal Reserve gave them permanent power over the economic system and the ability to milk the public at will. It also guaranteed that nobody would ever out-bid them for the services of the above-mentioned professions.

The establishment of the Fed makes a convenient milestone to mark the point in our history at which the government become mostly a tool for exploiting the people rather than one for protecting them.

The basic problem was that the people expected to receive something for free that others were willing to pay for. In a free market, goods always go to those who are able and willing to pay. The goods, in this case, was representation. In theory, as a citizen of the US, you have a right to representation. For free. But the robber barons were willing to pay. So they got representation. The common man had to make due with the illusion of representation. This was greatly facilitated by the general dumbing-down wrought by the “progressive” education agenda promoted by you-know-who. — but that’s a side story.

So, how do you fix it?

One answer could be direct self representation at the federal level. This could range from making every adult citizen a member of the (so called) house of representatives. This option would differ from direct democracy due to the Senate, Courts and Presidency remaining in the hands of the oligarchy. These last-mentioned institutions would suddenly recall the value of protecting property rights and limiting government (for the sake of the oligarchs). This would restore a nice and real system of checks and balances. The rich would be in perpetual terror that the masses would want to rip them off. (They would.) They would have no recourse but to become (as they once were) successful advocates of limited government.

Another option could be that you actually hire your representative and he casts a vote in the house weighted by the number of people that he actually and contractually (as opposed to hypothetically) represents. No winner takes all. You can always have the representative you want even if you are in the minority. If he does not vote as you wish, he stops being your rep. Simple as that. Yes, the math would be more complicated but I’m sure we could work it out.

For those citizens who are of a more traditionalist mind-set I offer the compromise position of returning the ratio of representatives to citizens in the US house of representatives to what it was in the late 1700’s and fixing it there by law.

So the problem is that US citizens now have no real representation.* The solution is probably to get some.

Oh, and somehow educate the US citizen that he in fact needs it rather than has it.

* Interesting quote from the late 1800’s:

“You have been in politics long enough to know that no man in public office owes the public anything” — Mark Hanna (later “boss” of the Republican Party)

bobbo, laws do make a difference says:

I don’t think “the corporations” like the Trust Busting activities of Teddy Roosevelt. They don’t like transparency/limitations on their risk taking/exec compensation/profit retentions/stock issuance either===but all are subject to law as is lobbying, political contributions etc.

ALL SUBJECT TO LAW.

Corporations are not “citizens” they are “persons” for most but not all legal issues all as defined by law.

A few simple rule changes could have huge effects, if the voters would VOTE ALL INCUMBENTS OUT OF OFFICE until the bought and paid for legislatures understood the only way to keep office was to reign in the corps.

Start with this: all work has dignity. That is not reflected by corporations paying minimum wage to many and 500x to the CEO. Make the CEO salary a multiple of the average corporate wage and actually SHOW that working people have something to do with a corporations success?

And so forth. Will everyone like it?==No. Pro’s and Con’s to every approach taken BUT forcing more CEO’s to be motivated to pay the work force well and get some payment from the goodwill derived therefrom can’t be all bad can it?

Cursor_ says:

The United States is an oligarchy. It was never anything BUT an oligarchy.

The rules we are governed by were determined and signed by an elite group of people, placing themselves into those positions.

The result was that few common men could ever have a place at the table of government.

After the Industrial Revolution and the rise of the corporate moguls it became less and less likely. Until today there is no method that ANY common man could hold office in the federal government. Only the plutocrats can have those seats and all of them are plutocrats.

The government is broken. There is no way to fix it. The call to vote out incumbents is useless as voting within a broken system is worthless. When you get out one plutocrat, they will replace with another plutocrat.

The government needs to be removed, the constitution scrapped and a new republic based upon current reality. We need a government based on representation by socio-economics and not by ideology, which no one clearly understands.

A representative body that is the voice of the Upper, the Middle and the Lower class is needed in this consumer nation. That form of government will establish checks and balances that now are mere words.

I will tell you, anything that keeps ideology based in french revolutionary politics, agrarian and post-industrial ideals; will fail. Eventually this nation will fall and end in turmoil that will bring us a totalitarian state.

There is no reason and much precedence to re-writing a new constitution for a nation. We need to do just that. The old one is no longer effective to govern our modern society and has not since 1920.

We must have courage and admit that we cannot continue as we are.

Cursor_

LibertyLover says:

#30,You miss the point.

The point is if you don’t have the majority you aren’t able to impose your views.

I believe that was the point . . .

The majority can do just about whatever it wants to the minority.

ArianeB says:

The author of this pieces decision to establish a non-historical, non-realistic spectrum from anarchy to dictatorship is very disingenuous.

Fascism and dictatorships do belong on the right wing because they are the ultimate result of uncontrolled conservatism.

By putting all dictatorships on the left the author is implying that the more left we move, the more likely we become an oligarchy, and that is simply not true. The way the political spectrum SHOULD look is:

LEFT WING OLIGARCHY – REPUBLIC – RIGHT WING OLIGARCHY

The United States is currently far closer to becoming a right wing oligarchy, ruled by church and corporate leaders interested solely in profit for themselves, than we are a left wing oligarchy like Cuba and North Korea. Even the Democratic party has proven they are friendly to corporate interests.

I suggest this article on this topic.

J says:

#24 brm

“Well, is there a more accurate description?”

Yes.

“Or is it so complicated that it defies abstraction?”

Nope.

KneeJerk Optimist says:

Thank you for the TV sound bite poli-sci lesson, however flawed it may be. But, I think what really makes a society manageable within itself is that the people themselves must develop a habit of getting along relatively well (i.e. less fear and mistrust of _each other as individuals and/or groups_).

If you don’t have this, all those governmental configurations will eventually tank.

joaoPT says:

Also funny to see the faces of the oligarchy:
Hitler, ho-chi mihn (?), Stalin, Napoleon, Mussolini, CHURCHILL (!!!), Lenin, Cesar???, Trotsky (?), ?!?!?, Mao zedong, Fidel Castro, Saddam, Kruschev, Henry the 8th, Brezhnev.
Next page
?, Putin?, ??, Kim Il sung?, Ceausescu, ??, Khadafi, Mugabe, Kim jong il, ??, Marcos?, Fidel (again), ??, ??, Saudi prince?, ??.

Here’s a mix match of people that have not so much in common… Some are dictators, some are revolutionaries and one was an appointed prime minister of the oldest Democracy (yes, the UK is a democracy but it’s not a Republic) in the world.
WTF!

ECA says:

AND the problem??

How many of the idiots we HIRE to represent us, Accually were BORN and raised in the states they represent? LESS THEN HALF..
Take a look.

How many of them PRACTICE what they preach?? Being religious when they RUN, and using those principles in their legislation..?

How many fight for the PEOPLE of this nation, to KEEP BALANCE and control in the PEOPLES HANDS??

How many POPPED UP in an area to run for a position??

FoolontheHill says:

Well like i tried to tell earlier….
I think #37 Cursor_ said it best

“The United States is an oligarchy. It was never anything BUT an oligarchy.”

I personally think the American constitution was never written for “the people” but for the big boys i.o.w. cooperations..Just like the Magna Carta was not written for the people but for the barons (Fools) The ideal republic described in the video has never existed and if it has, only for a short period.

There maybe sugar coating of history in the video and it is probably propaganda.(For the republican party?) That doesn’t take away the fact that it shows the correct way of thinking about the political spectrum. Not left/right Democrat/Republican or whatever you want to put on the two sides but Liberty/Tyranny!!
And that a Republic has THE best chance on surviving and not self-destruct. If of course the people are well informed and keep well informed on these and other political and socio/economic facts.

@#46 joaoPT, Great-Britain and its commonwealth lands are not a democracy they are a Democratic Monarchy where they pretend the queen is just a posterbody, which is a complete facade.

@#36 Uncle Patso,
Yes it is non correct latin, but with a reason…
In this way it has multiple meanings.
Just like those BIG BOULDERS on the moon…..WINK 😉
BTW love your monkey video!!!!
My personal view on politicians: “Politicians are a bunch of monkeys in a cage all fighting over one banana.”

Probably the only way to understand what this video entails. Is to forget everything you have ever learned about politics, then read or re-read Plato’s Republic and all the old Greek myths, and then when you watch the video always keep in mind that the republic that is described is not the one that America has right now, and probably never had.

The gardening baron fool on the only hill in an otherwise green fielded flat land greets you all.

Mr. Fusion says:

#51, Foolonthehill,

Good post and fairly accurate.

I disagree with:
Great-Britain and its commonwealth lands are not a democracy they are a Democratic Monarchy where they pretend the queen is just a posterbody, which is a complete facade.

Most of the British Commonwealth are Constitutional Monarchies as is most of Western Europe.

The UK itself is governed by the Magna Carta, Bill of Rights, and the Act of Settlement (1701).

Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa cut their formal ties with the UK under the Statute of Westminster (1931).

Australia also has the Statute of Westminster (1942) and the Australia Act (1986) to act as their Constitution.

Canada wrote their own Constitution in 1982.

South Africa wrote their Constitution in 1996.

Some Commonwealth members, such as Bermuda, are independent in most aspects. The UK still determines Foreign Affairs and the Supreme Court (House of Lords) as well as provides the Governor General.

The Queen is the Head of State. Her authority is still considerable though mostly symbolic. If she were to exert the authority she does have, those opposed would scream loudly for her removal. Therefore her power is not used other than as a figurehead.

LibertyLover says:

#48,

Anyone suggesting America is a Republic and not a Democracy just doesn’t know what they are talking about.

I guess the founding fathers didn’t know what they were talking about?

Or do you agree we need to get back to our roots?

Article IV – The States
[…]
Section 4 – Republican government

That’s my fear talking 🙂

soundwash says:

-this is [truly] an exquisitely produced piece of revisionist
history propaganda. The use of subliminal [subconscious] symbolism is quite apparent throughout.

-kudos to the republicorp propaganda machine. [sic]

[I as a Greek, take some [minor] offense to it as well. -even though
i am by no means, a scholar of history]

————————–

-further, this propaganda clip has produced some genuinely *good* discussion, (a rarity in DU threads) -yet the obvious conclusion was rarely even noted..

-the easiest way we could have prevented the now imminent downfall of the U.S. would have been to make sure the “true history* of the world and how it relates in American history was a required class that ran through the entire school year from grade seven all the way through the end of college or trade school, if taken.

-Most important would be to teach the
[inter-relational] ramifications of the phrase:

“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it”

-Had we as a country, been constantly taught about our true history, the true history of Humanity and how it relates to the rise and fall of other great empires, -the odds are good that we would be in far better shape than we are now.

(that is, -if we ever came to exist at all. -if this type of history course was a constant throughout all of the teachings of history, there would have never been any need [or want] for the creation of a God, religion or an America.

-for the seeds of deception would have most assuredly, never have been able to take root in the first place.

-s

(please excuse some of my minor grammar “infractions”)

Mr. Fusion says:

#55, Loser,

#48,

I guess the founding fathers didn’t know what they were talking about?

No, YOU don’t know what YOU are talking about. The alternative to a Republic, where the representatives and Head of State were chosen democratically, was a MONARCHY. As the new nation was very fearful of once again falling under s despot King. I am also quite sure they never envisioned the likes of King George Bush the Worst.

A Republic does not need to be a Democracy to exist. Nor does a Democracy need to be a Republic to exist. The two concepts are as mutually exclusive as apples and lettuce.

Really, do you honestly believe because we are a Republic, we can not be a Democracy? Why not say, hey because you are a man, you can not be blond or because Police Cars are mass produced they can’t go fast. Really, you need to start thinking through your arguments on this one.

The definition of Liebertarian is “I got mine Jack, fuck you”.

That’s your fear talking again.

No. That is the example put out there by Liebertarians. They don’t want the governments to spend any money EXCEPT when they benefit.

Liebertarians pick and chose which parts of the Constitution they like. The parts they do pick they start adding new meanings to. The parts they don’t like they start screaming belie the intent of the Constitution.

That makes them selfish bastards in my book.

Mr. Fusion says:

#60, SL,

“Liebertarians pick and chose which parts of the Constitution they like. The parts they do pick they start adding new meanings to.”

Well, that’s the pot calling the kettle black.

Nope. It’s calling the Liebertarians for what they do.