The United States of America is not a democracy

[peregrinus]

It is a criminal racket. We are watching the mechanisms of the United States of America criminal enterprise cover for one of its members. It happened with Nixon and Watergate, Reagan and Iran-Contra affair, W Bush and the WMD illegal invasion of Iraq and now Trump and his Coup d’etat. One might even say it was covered when the Southern Politicians and Generals weren’t hung after Appomattox.

[Irish_Dem]

1. The most talented sociopaths don't break the law, they make it.

Last edited Mon Nov 25, 2024, 06:39 PM - Edit history (1)

And finally it happened.

Psychopaths formed a crime syndicate to take over the country.
It will be the biggest crime spree in US history.

[erronis]

5. It has happened in the past also. The mobsters of the southern states to force slavery on the rest of the country.

And the collusion (how many ways can we say conspiracy/etc.) of the mega-capitalists of the late 19th and early 20th century.

All such which bring turmoil and destruction to the normal people but hardly cause a ripple under the large yachts.

[Irish_Dem]

6. The crime spree will be on a scale never seen before.

The US government and half the American people are looking forward to it.

[NJCher]

25. could I get a tighter definition on this?

The US government and half the American people are looking forward to it

With "US government", are you saying the federal bureaucracy, the civil service employees, the politicians (including Democrats)? The judiciary is made up of government employees, so are you saying them, too? So you are saying all those people are looking forward to the crime spree? Or are you trying to say trump and his "cabinet," so to speak, are looking forward to the crime spree?

In terms of "half the American people," why "half" the American people? How will half the American people benefit from a crime spree?

Just curious where you're coming from. I obviously do not understand your comment.

[Irish_Dem]

27. The half of the US government who is part of the Trump cult.

When Trump accuses the Dems of having a deep state, he is confessing his deep ties across the federal
bureaucracy and military.

Trump did not manage to get the entire judiciary, congress to back down all by himself.
He had help, a lot of it.

Look at the J6 insurrectionists, many of them connected to state or federal governments.
Look at no one coming to help the Capital police and congress that day.
No nearby counties, states, national guard, military or even back up DC police.
No one stepped on foot on the property to help them.
This was no accident.

Look at all the red state governments who will do anything for Trump.

By half the American people, I mean those who voted for Trump and those
who did not care enough to stop a vicious psychopath from being our Dear Leader.
They are culpable as well.

These are just a few examples.

[NJCher]

31. thanks for the specifics

I want to answer/comment on this but I have to work tonight. In short, though, I agree with the gist of what you're saying but I think you are attributing too broadly especially in the area of trump getting the judiciary and Congress to back down. The other area is "half the American people," which while you don't say it specifically, has to include the registered voters who didn't vote, which is 39%.

I would like to discuss this further but have limitations on my time I can spend on discussion boards at the moment. Hopefully some time will open up tomorrow.

Again, thanks for elaborating on your thoughts.

[Blue Full Moon]

22. We need to get them in fighting

Their egos and selfishness will bring it down. Pride goeth before the fall. We have to figure out how to get them to fight each other then they will leave us alone.

[Irish_Dem]

23. They will always go where the money and power is located.

US Treasury and American taxpayer and voter.

[erronis]

2. Agree with: "when the Southern Politicians and Generals weren't hung after Appomattox."

And continues with every time the real perpetrator skates while the underlings are punished.

Prime examples in the corporate/capitalist world: when bad stuff happens, the C-suite and shareholders move on; a few poor suckers are made to pay (sometimes.)

[cachukis]

3. The country we dreamed of becoming is on

life support.
We are now in the emergency room where those in charge are only interested in billing us.

[Wuddles440]

34. And the last rites...

will be administered on January 20, 2025.

[brush]

4. Oh, baby. You couldn't be more correct. Your last sentence about the confederate rebels not being...

is the most visible and historic evidence of it beginning to crumble.

Spot on post.

[Cirsium]

21. Rutherford B. Hayes

In March, 1862, Hayes said he was "gradually drifting to the opinion that this Rebellion can only be crushed finally by either the execution of all the traitors or the abolition of slavery. Crushed, I mean, so as to remove all danger of its breaking out again in the future."

In the election of 1876, Hayes reached the White House as a result of a deal struck with southern politicians.

The racial decency — and irony — of Rutherford Hayes
excerpt -

He had lost the popular vote to Democrat Samuel Tilden, who would have had no qualms about pulling the plug on Reconstruction. Following a long and contentious dispute in Congress, Hayes wound up with a one-vote margin in the Electoral College. In exchange for accepting that result, Democrats demanded that the last remaining federal troops in the South be removed — and since they controlled the House of Representatives, they were able to back up their demand by blocking the appropriation needed to fund those troops.

Meanwhile Northern voters, weary of the long-drawn postwar occupation, no longer had the stomach for military intrusion in the South. Hayes was left with no viable option. The best he could do was extract a solemn, but worthless, promise from Southern Democratic leaders that the civil rights of freedmen would be guaranteed. Over the next decade, all the progress that had been made in Black civil rights was rolled back. In its place rose a regime of Jim Crow apartheid that would last until the 1960s.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/02/15/opinion/racial-decency-irony-rutherford-hayes/

[Charging Triceratops]

7. THIS!!

The whole wretched red, white and blue shitshow is pure myth. I can't burn enough flags now.

[City Lights]

8. It never really was. IMO, the EC negates it being a democracy, at least where voting for POTUS is concerned.

It does keep getting worse though.

[Blasphemer]

26. Precisely... this is by design

And everyone outside of the U.S. knows it. A friend from Iceland once said to me (dead serious, not a joke), “I’m from a country that’s a real democracy.” Most Americans have no clue what they’ve inherited.

[stillcool]

9. 'we the people'

never included people like me. Having had no say in the matter, i am nonetheless, ignorantly grateful to have been born here. The truth of the matter of Democracy is that there is no truth to the matter. Plutocracy, Oligarchy, whatever...

[S/V Loner]

10. It is a criminal racket and every important decision...

is based on profit and maintaining that profit. Throw in a few crumbs to keep the people from taking over the streets and that is it.

[Initech]

11. After this election, we'll be more like Saudi Arabia or UAE or Qatar.

A large amount of concentrated, obscene wealth in the hands of a very privileged few. They get the whole pie, and the next several that come off the bakery, we get to fight for what's left of the scraps.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

17. It was either rigged (election fraud, not voter fraud), or national suicide egged on by oligarchs.

We're conditioned to reject any possibility of problems with the election count, so there will be no comparison of paper to electronics. I will always believe that the propaganda alone was not quite enough to push the count over the top.

[Initech]

28. TV is but one outlet.

It's not just TV. It's radio. It's podcasts. It's social media. It's churches and megachurches. There are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of right wing podcasts, radio shows, internet shows, and TV shows and they are all selling the EXACT SAME PRODUCT. And it doesn't matter if you're in Anchorage, Alaska or Boise, Idaho, or Bakersfield, California, or Mobile, Alabama, or Nashville, Tennessee, or Miami, Florida, or Albany, New York. Right wing bullshit is exactly the same everywhere you go. People glued to this shit are zombies whose minds cannot be changed.

It's a perfectly competitive industry. You can even get your talking points custom tailored to the level of racism and sexism you're willing to tolerate. The propaganda is but one problem we need to tackle. And it's a huge one.

[Evolve Dammit]

12. I think you nailed it. Now we have a new "civil war." PS. Welcome

[AverageOldGuy]

13. Two things happened on Nov 5

1. Trump was elected POTUS,

2. The South won the Civil War.

[cer7711]

14. The Rule of the Plutocratic Oligarchs . . .

Last edited Thu Dec 5, 2024, 02:42 PM - Edit history (1)

. . . must come to an end ASAP.

But it won't, of course. The tipping point was reached long ago and there is no going back now.

The "Citizens United" decision legalized bribery of our politicians, and the millionaires in Congress who serve the billionaire donor class couldn't give a damn about the 50% of America who can't weather a $400 expense w/o undue stress and financial hardship.

You know why?

Because they think to themselves: "Fuck these peasants. They're all too ignorant, stupid, lazy or unlucky to merit my empathy or help. I got mine. Too bad; so sad that the working class is mired in misery."

PS. Thomas Piketty pointed out in his book CAPITAL that there will be no clawing back of funds and benefits from the monied class now. Far too much power has accrued in the hands of far too few, for far too long.

REVOLUTION IS COMING! I used to say.

Not any longer.

Revolution is here.

(Sadly, it turned out to be a reactionary, neo-fascist revolution. As was all too predictable from the warnings of 20th century history. And there is no FDR on the scene now to save capitalism from itself.)

[markodochartaigh]

15. What is a racket?

Here is a free short ebook written almost a century ago by one of the most decorated Marines, Major General Butler. (He also probably saved US democracy, but that is for another day.)

https://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html

[ReRe]

20. That's right!

I tried to think of Smedley Butler, but all my mind would turn up was "Winston"!! Thank you for linking this.

[Jacson6]

16. It's a constitutional republic.

[dwayneb]

30. And it's also a representative democracy.

[Cirsium]

18. Hey, come on now!

Next you'll be telling us that the emperor is not wearing any clothes!

[ReRe]

19. K&R

Every single word you said!!! The United Racket(s) of America. I've always wondered, in the back of my mind, WTF was going on when we stumbled and didn't look to see what the heck we stumbled on. Things just seem to blow over and disappear into thin air. One cannot call this synopsis a conspiracy, because its right there in front of our eyes down through history. It literally cannot be denied. Laws shmaws. Is this a nation of laws or not? This society is broke.

[Bluethroughu]

24. Exactly!!!!

[dwayneb]

29. The Trump Administration will be patterned after the Mafia

I've always thought he was far more similar to gangsters like John Gotti than Hitler. In fact he had a lot of ties and friendships with the Mob when he was in New York. Plus his greatest influence was mob lawyer Roy Cohn, this is where he learned his tactics.

These loyalists that he is placing in the cabinet are a lot more like under-bosses and capos that they are civil servants.

[usonian]

32. They want minority rule? Import the folks who love apartheid.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100219696928
The shadow of apartheid South Africa in America.

https://archive.is/Y1Uz9

Elon Musk lived in apartheid South Africa until he was 17. David Sacks, the venture capitalist who has become a fundraiser for Donald Trump and a troll of Ukraine, left aged five, and grew up in a South African diaspora family in Tennessee. Peter Thiel spent years of childhood in South Africa and Namibia, where his father was involved in uranium mining as part of the apartheid regime’s clandestine drive to acquire nuclear weapons. And Paul Furber, an obscure South African software developer and tech journalist living near Johannesburg, has been identified by two teams of forensic linguists as the originator of the QAnon conspiracy, which helped shape Trump’s Maga movement. (Furber denies being “Q”.)

...

So what connects these men’s southern African backgrounds with Maga today? Southern Africa under apartheid offered an extreme version of some of the main themes of American life today. First, there was tremendous inequality. The mine where Thiel’s father worked was “known for conditions not far removed from indentured servitude”, writes Thiel’s biographer Max Chafkin. “White managers, like the Thiels, had access to a brand-new medical and dental centre in Swakopmund and membership in the company country club.” The mine’s black migrant workers lived in work camps.

To whites of a certain mindset, this inequality wasn’t due to apartheid. They thought it was inscribed in nature. Certain people were equipped to succeed in capitalism, while others weren’t. That was simply the way it was, and it was pointless to try to mess with nature. Two of Thiel’s contemporaries at Stanford in the 1980s recall him telling them that apartheid “works” and was “economically sound”. His spokesman has denied that he ever supported apartheid.

The white South African nightmare in the 1980s, hanging over everything, was that one day Black people would rise up and massacre (minority) whites. Like the US, South Africa was a violent society and becoming more violent in the 80s. Musk’s teenage recollections of seeing murders on trains may not be entirely factual, but do evoke the atmosphere of the era. He warned in 2023 about potential “genocide of white people in South Africa”. Trump’s recent claim about “American girls being raped and sodomised and murdered by savage criminal aliens” preyed on similar white fears.

[kimbutgar]

33. USA 1776 to 2025 RIP

My country no longer is my country of the home of the free and brave. We are idiocracy in real time now.

Watching the Ronan Farrow movie surveillance movie now and we are done like burnt toast in this country!

Today hearing all the cases dismissed against the orange monster is the final nail in the coffin of the USA !The rule of law is no longer in this country if you’re a rich white repuke man!