http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article3596.html

Western Democracies Have Evolved Into Tyrannical Governments

Feb 04, 2008

By: Joel S. Hirschhorn

Perhaps a global political apocalypse has already arrived.

Activists and dissidents should understand that evil forces and
tyrannical governments have evolved. Just as human knowledge and
science expand, so do the strategies and instruments used by rulers,
elites and plutocrats. By learning from history and using new
technology they have smarter tools of tyranny. The best ones prevent
uprisings, revolutions and political reforms. Rather than violently
destroy rebellious movements, they let them survive as marginalized
and ineffective efforts that divert and sap the energy of
nonconformist and rebellious thinkers. Real revolution remains an
energy-draining dream, as evil forces thrive.

Most corrupt and legally sanctioned forms of tyranny hide in plain
sight as democracies with free elections. The toughest lesson is that
ALL elections are distractions. Nothing conceals tyranny better than
elections. Few Americans accept that their government has become a
two-party plutocracy run by a rich and powerful ruling class. The
steady erosion of the rule of law is masked by everyday consumer
freedoms.

Because people want to be happy and hopeful, we have an epidemic of
denial, especially in the present presidential campaign. But to
believe that any change-selling politician or shift in party control
will overturn the ruling class is the epitome of self-delusion and
false hope. In the end, such wishful thinking perpetuates plutocracy.
Proof is that plutocracy has flourished despite repeated change
agents, promises of reform and partisan shifts.

The tools of real rebellion are weak.

Activists and dissidents look back and see successful rebellions and
revolutions and think that when today´s victims of tyranny experience
enough pain and see enough political stink they too will revolt. This
is wrong. They think that the Internet spreads information and
inspiration to the masses, motivating them to revolt. This is wrong.
They await catastrophic economic or environmental collapse to spur
rebellion. This too is wrong.

Why are these beliefs wrong? Power elites have an arsenal of weapons
to control and manipulate social, political and economic systems
globally: corruption of public officials that make elections a sham;
corporate mainstream media that turn news into propaganda;
manipulation of financial markets that create fear for the public and
profits for the privileged; false free trade globalization that
destroys the middle class; rising economic inequality that keep the
masses time-poor and financially insecure; intense marketing of
pharmaceuticals that keep people passive; and addictive consumerism,
entertainment and gambling that keep people distracted and pacified.

The biggest challenge for dissidents and rebels is to avoid feel-good
therapeutic activism having virtually no chance of removing evil and
tyranny. Idealism without practicality tactics without lofty goals,
and symbolic protests pose no threat to power elites. Anger and
outrage require great strategic thinking from leaders seeking
revolution, not mere change. And social entrepreneurs that use
business and management skills to tackle genuine social problems do
nothing to achieve political reforms. To the extent they achieve
results they end up removing interest in overthrowing political
establishments that have allowed the problems to fester.

What is the new tool of tyranny?

Technological connectivity achieved through advanced communications
and computer systems, especially the rise of wireless connectivity.
The global message to the masses is simple: Buy electronic products to
stay plugged in. Connectivity may give pleasure, but it gives even
more power to elites, rulers and plutocrats. It allows them to
coordinate their efforts through invisible cabals, to closely monitor
everything that ordinary people and dissidents do, and to
cooperatively and clandestinely adjust social, financial and political
systems to maintain stability and dominance.

In this dystopian world all systems are integrated to serve upper
class elites and the corporate state, not ordinary people. When
ordinary people spend their money to be more shackled to connectivity
products, they become unwitting victims of largely invisible
governmental and corporate oppressive forces. They are oblivious that
their technological seduction exacerbates their political and economic
exploitation. Though some 70 percent believe the country is on the
wrong track, they fail to see the deeper causes of the trend. And if
Americans were really happy and content with their consumer culture,
then why are they stuffing themselves with so many antidepressants,
sleeping pills and totally unhealthy foods?

In truth, the vast majority of people are in denial about the rotten
system they are trapped in (aka The Matrix). They are manipulated to
keep hope alive through voting, despite the inability of past
elections to stop the slide into economic serfdom.

Increasingly, the little-discussed phenomenon of economic apartheid
ensures that elites live their lavish lives safely in physically
separated ways. Concurrently, economic inequality rises, as the rich
extract unusually high fractions of global wealth. When the rich get
richer, the powerful get stronger. Does some economic prosperity
trickles down to the poorest people? Perversely, the middle class is
moved into the lower class. In this new physics of evil, wealth
transfer is not from the rich to the poor, but from the middle class
in wealthier countries to the poor in developing nations, where a few
new billionaires join the global plutocracy.

Some data on economic inequality: The after-tax income of the top 1
percent of Americans rose 228 percent from 1979 through 2005, while
middle class income remained flat over the last 4 decades. The richest
0.01 percent of earners made 5.1 percent of all income in 2005, up
more than 300 percent from just 1.2 percent in 1960. Bad economic
times like the present just exacerbate inequality. Even as most Wall
Street companies lost billions in the sub-prime mortgage debacle after
they had already made billions, they gave obscene bonuses to their
employees: the average topped $180,000 for 2007, tripling the $61,000
in 2002. Scholars used to predict that high levels of economic
inequality like we have today would lead to rebellion. But there are
now insufficient tools and paths for rebellion, because the plutocracy
has eliminated them. Instead, citizens are offered elections whose
outcomes can be controlled and subverted by the ruling class.

The New World Order is getting what it wants: a stable two-class
system, with the lower class serving the elitist upper class. The
paradox is that along with rising economic inequality and apartheid is
mounting consumerism and materialism that is used to pacify, distract
and control the masses. That´s where easy credit and cheap products
from low-wage nations are critical. The poor can have cell phones,
24-7 Internet access and increasingly cars, while the bejeweled upper
class travel in private jets and yachts, vacation on private islands,
and have several gated mansions maintained by servants and guarded by
private police. We have a technologically advanced form of medieval
society. It is working in the US and China and most other places.

Elections just mask economic tyranny and slavery.

The ruling class knows how to maintain stability. Keep the masses
distracted, fearful, brainwashed, insecure, and dependent on
government and business sectors for survival. Train people to see
themselves as relatively free consumers. Maintain the myth that
ordinary people can become wealthy and join the ruling class, which
theoretically is not impossible, but of no statistical significance
for the masses.

There are no easy paths to restore power to the people. But here are
three strategies worth considering.

First, the real power of the masses is as consumers, not as voters,
workers, activists, or Internet users. Weakened unions, globalization,
technology, and illegal immigration have sapped the power of workers.
National economies, especially the US, depend on consumers.
Suspensions in discretionary consumer spending used as a political
weapon could force reforms. But curbing personal spending and saving
money has become a rare form of civil disobedience. Consumers buy
stuff when they want it, not when they can afford it. Rulers have
replaced chains with debt and no political leader in a very long time
has championed economic rebellion.

Second, because they are more a tool of tyranny than rebellion, the
masses should stop giving credibility and legitimacy to faux
democracies by boycotting elections. Plutocrats cleverly equate
patriotism and good citizenship with voting while at the same time
ensuring that no genuine change agents can succeed even if elected.
All election results can be subverted by the forces of corruption.
Those promising change, like Barack Obama, do not pose a lethal threat
to forces of evil and corruption. Sadly, refusing to vote in corrupt
political systems is another worthy but unpopular form of civil
disobedience. The compulsion to vote is a political narcotic that
sustains democratic tyranny.

Third, people must seek forms of direct democracy that give them
political power. National ballot measures and initiatives are needed
to make laws, impose spending mandates and recall elected officials. A
most important tool is constitutional conventions outside the control
of status quo preservationists to obtain systemic reforms that
governments will never provide, as explained for the US at
www.foavc.org. No greater example of ruling class power exists than
the absence of massive public demands for using what the Founders gave
Americans in Article V: the convention option to circumvent and fix
the federal government that, amazingly , has never been used, and
that no presidential candidate has supported, including constitutional
champion Ron Raul.