hifiguy
hifiguy's JournalA modernized version of feudalism
has always been the endgame for the plutocracy, going all the way back to the Gilded Age. In the US it has been given an especially nasty twist - in its American variant, feudalism imposes no responsibilities whatsoever on the "aristocracy" to protect any peasants, even their own.
In historical feudalism the lord of the manor had an obligation to protect "his" peasants from the depradations of rivals or maurauding bands on masterless knights. The same went for the antebellum south. If a plantation-owning slaveholder wanted to realize any profit from his plantation he had to at least keep his slaves fed and fit to work the fields lest the cotton rot.
It may go too far to say that the plutocracy has found a way to improve on feudalism or the antebellum "way" but it may not. The plutocracy wants all of the "advantages" of feudalism or the antebellum South with none of the reciprocal obligations, such as they were, to the lower classes.
The plutocracy wants a system where the unruly masses can be (1) culled; (2) virtually enslaved; (3) forced to procreate enough to keep enough serfs around to be exploited as labor and especially as cannon fodder so that the imperial goal of world domination can be realized, or at the least, attempted. Yet they do not want to spend even a penny to "care" for their slaves.
Great piece, Mr. S., as always.
In a post-Citizens United world, every election is rigged.
Not necessarily by funny business with voting machines, which I am sure exists and will continue to exist, especially in very close elections, but by money.
The fascist plutocrats are willing to spend however many billions it takes to catapult the lies and propaganda. Given the percentage of the electorate that is very low-information or just plain to-the-bone bigoted and/or stupid, it is, for the most part, easier to manipulate these sorry sheeple than to rig the mechanisms of voting themselves and lower risk. It is merely a cost of doing business, which will be handily recouped many times over once they have complete control and can finish their looting the 99%.
What can be done to reverse or stop this? As far as I can see at this moment, not one thing, for when money is speech, the rich can easily drown out everyone else and when there is such a significant uninvolved/imbecile segment of the electorate more than willing to be led to their own slaughter and resistant to any form of facts the tool of reason is a very small slingshot indeed.
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