Cidersomerset
14th April 2014, 20:13
Everyone in the alternate media knows the US has not been a democracy for 50 years
maybe more. With the gradual influence of lobby groups and the major take over
by corporate America. The 4th Reich as some researchers have been telling us for
decades, since 'Paper Clip' to the all encompassing mil ind complex the Pentagon
and Capitol hill seem to have broken away from the rest of the population, and the
Washington elites are increasingly getting out of touch with their ground routes.
Most of the power families are related and although it was always a phallucy the
US was the land of the Free. It has been manipulated by groups who's only interest
is power and greed. The Bundy incident and other events shows more people
are waking up , but very few mainstream politicians and media have reported
the bare minimum their owner/masters will let them openly discuss about the
true state of the world.
Everything is focused on Ukraine, Iran, Syria and other hotspots sponsored by the black
budgets and intel agencies . The UK has woken up to a degree with the vote in
Parliament not to intervene in Syria.Though the public was against the Iraq war
and we know how Blair lied about that. It seems like the conservatives will
get us involved if there is an escalation in the Ukraine whether we want to or
not.
We rightly highlight the neo-cons and their puppets still in power in the US, but
there are others around the world.....
https://truthaholics.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/war-criminals-bush-cheney-blair-canada.jpg
Same old warmongering lies from swivel-eyed Tony Blair -- this time it's against Iran
TXgg_IhsWlc
Uploaded on 27 Jan 2011
Not content with having colluded in the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis,
Tony Blair is now advocating an attack on Iran which would result in the same mass
slaughter. It's scandalous that someone who is culpable in the worst war crimes this
century is given free reign by the media for these warmongering rants, as if the Iraq
war never happened.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday 14th April 2014 at 04:30 By David Icke
https://store.globalresearch.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/logo_store.png
The U.S. Is Not a Democracy, It Is an Oligarchy
http://www.davidicke.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/oligarchy-400x248.jpg
‘A study, to appear in the Fall 2014 issue of the academic journal Perspectives on
Politics, finds that the U.S. is no democracy, but instead an oligarchy, meaning
profoundly corrupt, so that the answer to the study’s opening question, “Who governs?
Who really rules?” in this country, is:
“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, …” and then they go on to say, it’s not true, and that, “America’s claims to being a
democratic society are seriously threatened” by the findings in this, the first-ever
comprehensive scientific study of the subject, which shows that there is instead “the
nearly total failure of ‘median voter’ and other Majoritarian Electoral Democracy theories
[of America]. When the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized
interest groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average American appear to
have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”
To put it short: The United States is no democracy, but actually an oligarchy.’
The authors of this historically important study are Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page,
and their article is titled “Testing Theories of American Politics.” The authors clarify that
the data available are probably under-representing the actual extent of control of the
U.S. by the super-rich:
“Economic Elite Domination theories do rather well in our analysis, even though our
findings probably understate the political influence of elites. Our measure of the
preferences of wealthy or elite Americans – though useful, and the best we could
generate for a large set of policy cases – is probably less consistent with the relevant
preferences than are our measures of the views of ordinary citizens or the alignments of
engaged interest groups. Yet we found substantial estimated effects even when using
this imperfect measure. The real-world impact of elites upon public policy may be still
greater.”
Nonetheless, this is the first-ever scientific study of the question of whether the U.S. is
a democracy. “Until recently it has not been possible to test these contrasting
theoretical predictions [that U.S. policymaking operates as a democracy, versus as an
oligarchy, versus as some mixture of the two] against each other within a single
statistical model. This paper reports on an effort to do so, using a unique data set that
includes measures of the key variables for 1,779 policy issues.” That’s an enormous
number of policy-issues studied.
What the authors are able to find, despite the deficiencies of the data, is important: the
first-ever scientific analysis of whether the U.S. is a democracy, or is instead an
oligarchy, or some combination of the two. The clear finding is that the U.S. is an
oligarchy, no democratic country, at all. American democracy is a sham, no matter how
much it’s pumped by the oligarchs who run the country (and who control the
nation’s “news” media). The U.S., in other words, is basically similar to Russia or most
other dubious “electoral” “democratic” countries. We weren’t formerly, but we clearly
are now. Today, after this exhaustive analysis of the data, “the preferences of the
average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-
significant impact upon public policy.” That’s it, in a nutshell.
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even
Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010,and of CHRIST’S
VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
Read more: The U.S. Is Not a Democracy, It Is an Oligarchy
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-u-s-is-not-a-democracy-it-is-an-oligarchy/5377765
http://www.davidicke.com/headlines/
maybe more. With the gradual influence of lobby groups and the major take over
by corporate America. The 4th Reich as some researchers have been telling us for
decades, since 'Paper Clip' to the all encompassing mil ind complex the Pentagon
and Capitol hill seem to have broken away from the rest of the population, and the
Washington elites are increasingly getting out of touch with their ground routes.
Most of the power families are related and although it was always a phallucy the
US was the land of the Free. It has been manipulated by groups who's only interest
is power and greed. The Bundy incident and other events shows more people
are waking up , but very few mainstream politicians and media have reported
the bare minimum their owner/masters will let them openly discuss about the
true state of the world.
Everything is focused on Ukraine, Iran, Syria and other hotspots sponsored by the black
budgets and intel agencies . The UK has woken up to a degree with the vote in
Parliament not to intervene in Syria.Though the public was against the Iraq war
and we know how Blair lied about that. It seems like the conservatives will
get us involved if there is an escalation in the Ukraine whether we want to or
not.
We rightly highlight the neo-cons and their puppets still in power in the US, but
there are others around the world.....
https://truthaholics.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/war-criminals-bush-cheney-blair-canada.jpg
Same old warmongering lies from swivel-eyed Tony Blair -- this time it's against Iran
TXgg_IhsWlc
Uploaded on 27 Jan 2011
Not content with having colluded in the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis,
Tony Blair is now advocating an attack on Iran which would result in the same mass
slaughter. It's scandalous that someone who is culpable in the worst war crimes this
century is given free reign by the media for these warmongering rants, as if the Iraq
war never happened.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday 14th April 2014 at 04:30 By David Icke
https://store.globalresearch.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/logo_store.png
The U.S. Is Not a Democracy, It Is an Oligarchy
http://www.davidicke.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/oligarchy-400x248.jpg
‘A study, to appear in the Fall 2014 issue of the academic journal Perspectives on
Politics, finds that the U.S. is no democracy, but instead an oligarchy, meaning
profoundly corrupt, so that the answer to the study’s opening question, “Who governs?
Who really rules?” in this country, is:
“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, …” and then they go on to say, it’s not true, and that, “America’s claims to being a
democratic society are seriously threatened” by the findings in this, the first-ever
comprehensive scientific study of the subject, which shows that there is instead “the
nearly total failure of ‘median voter’ and other Majoritarian Electoral Democracy theories
[of America]. When the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized
interest groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average American appear to
have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”
To put it short: The United States is no democracy, but actually an oligarchy.’
The authors of this historically important study are Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page,
and their article is titled “Testing Theories of American Politics.” The authors clarify that
the data available are probably under-representing the actual extent of control of the
U.S. by the super-rich:
“Economic Elite Domination theories do rather well in our analysis, even though our
findings probably understate the political influence of elites. Our measure of the
preferences of wealthy or elite Americans – though useful, and the best we could
generate for a large set of policy cases – is probably less consistent with the relevant
preferences than are our measures of the views of ordinary citizens or the alignments of
engaged interest groups. Yet we found substantial estimated effects even when using
this imperfect measure. The real-world impact of elites upon public policy may be still
greater.”
Nonetheless, this is the first-ever scientific study of the question of whether the U.S. is
a democracy. “Until recently it has not been possible to test these contrasting
theoretical predictions [that U.S. policymaking operates as a democracy, versus as an
oligarchy, versus as some mixture of the two] against each other within a single
statistical model. This paper reports on an effort to do so, using a unique data set that
includes measures of the key variables for 1,779 policy issues.” That’s an enormous
number of policy-issues studied.
What the authors are able to find, despite the deficiencies of the data, is important: the
first-ever scientific analysis of whether the U.S. is a democracy, or is instead an
oligarchy, or some combination of the two. The clear finding is that the U.S. is an
oligarchy, no democratic country, at all. American democracy is a sham, no matter how
much it’s pumped by the oligarchs who run the country (and who control the
nation’s “news” media). The U.S., in other words, is basically similar to Russia or most
other dubious “electoral” “democratic” countries. We weren’t formerly, but we clearly
are now. Today, after this exhaustive analysis of the data, “the preferences of the
average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-
significant impact upon public policy.” That’s it, in a nutshell.
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even
Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010,and of CHRIST’S
VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
Read more: The U.S. Is Not a Democracy, It Is an Oligarchy
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-u-s-is-not-a-democracy-it-is-an-oligarchy/5377765
http://www.davidicke.com/headlines/