15. Mai 2014

Gangster State America - Paul Craig Roberts



Honored Readers,

There are not too many to be contrary to the Mass Media, 
carry the flag, and with all their available strength confront 
the “system” wherever and how they may be able to do so. 
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, born in 1939, is one of those human 
Beings.

Awareness and knowledge are truly needed, 
and this publication conforms to that need.
With heart-felt Greetings and with Love 
Jahn J Kassl


Gangster State America

written by Paul Craig Roberts 
May 6, 2014

Where Is America’s Democracy? 

Anyone who looks carefully behind the veil of words cannot 
find democracy in America. 

For years I have been writing that the US government is 
no longer accountable to law or to the people (see, for example, 
my book, How America Was Lost). The Constitution has been 
set aside, and the executive branch is degenerating into Caesarism.

Government is used to impose agendas that result from the 
symbiotic relationship between the neoconservative ideology 
of US world hegemony and the economic interests of powerful 
private interest groups, such as Wall Street, the military/security 
complex, the Israel Lobby, agribusiness, and extractive industries 
(energy, mining, and timber). Dollar imperialism, threats, bribes, 
and wars are means by which US hegemony is extended. 
These agendas are pursued without the knowledge or approval 
of the American people and in spite of their opposition.

Professor Martin Gilens at Princeton University and Professor  
Benjamin Page of Northwestern University have examined American 
governance and have concluded that the US is an oligarchy ruled by 
powerful rich private interest groups and that the US government 
has only a superficial resemblance to a democracy. Their analysis 
is forthcoming in publication in the journal, Perspectives on Politics.
Their conclusions are striking:

“The central point that emerges from our research is that economic 
elites and organized groups representing business interests have 
substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while 
mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or 
no independent influence.”
“When a majority of citizens disagrees 
with economic elites and/or with organized interests,
they generally lose.” 
“In the United States, our findings indicate that the majority 
does not rule–at least not in the causal sense of actually 
determining policy outcomes.” 
“The preferences of the average American appear 
to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant
impact upon public policy.” 

A number of factors have contributed to the demise of democracy 
and accountable government in the US. One factor is the concentration 
of the US media in a few hands. During the last years of the Clinton 
regime, a formerly diverse media with significant independence was concentrated in five mega-corporations. The value of these corporations consists largely of their federal broadcast licenses. To insure the renewal 
of these licenses, the media avoids challenging the government on 
significant issues.

Another factor is the offshoring of US industrial and manufacturing jobs. 
This development destroyed the manufacturing and industrial unions, 
which were the backbone of the Democratic Party’s financial support. 
Now the Democrats have to appeal to the same interest groups as 
the Republicans–Wall Street, the military/security complex, and the 
polluting industries that despoil the environment. As both political 
parties are now financed by the same private interests, both political 
parties serve the same masters. There is no longer any countervailing 
power. 

The Obama regime is simply a continuation 
of the George W. Bush regime.

Two recent rulings by the Republican majority on the US Supreme 
Court are another decisive factor. The court ruled that it is merely
an exercise of free speech for oligarchs to purchase the US government 
(Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and McCutcheon v. 
Federal Election Commission). A corrupt Supreme Court has invented
a “constitutional right” for corporations and oligarchs to use their 
vast financial resources to form a government of their choosing.

Private interest groups in the US are so powerful that they can 
purchase immunity from law. On March 27 a retiring Securities and 
Exchange Commission prosecutor, James Kidney, said that his 
prosecutions of financial criminals at Goldman Sachs and other 
giant US banks were blocked by SEC political appointees who 
“were focused on getting high-paying jobs after their government 
service.”

In a recent test to ascertain the responsiveness of members 
of Congress to monied interests in comparison to voters, 
two letters were sent to congressional offices. One letter 
asked for the representative to meet with community groups 
in his district. The other letter asked for the representative to 
meet with a group of active donors. The latter letter received 
by far the most responses from members of Congress.

In the US and Europe there is constant propaganda about 
“gangster state Russia.” According to this propaganda, 
President Putin is a tool of oligarchs who use Putin to rule Russia 
and loot the people. In my opinion, this propaganda originates in 
the Washington-funded NGOs that constitute a US fifth column 
inside Russia. The purpose of the propaganda is to destroy 
Putin’s legitimacy and that of his government in hopes of bringing 
to power a Washington-compliant government in Moscow.

My impression is that the Russian government has curtailed 
activities of some of the oligarchs who used the privatization 
era to seize control of resources, but that the government’s 
actions are consistent with the rule of law. In contrast, in the 
US oligarchs control the law and use it to acquire immunity from law.

The real gangster state is the US. 
Every institution is corrupt. 

Regulators sell protection from law for well-paying jobs in the 
industries that they are supposed to regulate. The Supreme 
Court not only permits money to purchase the government but 
also sells out the Constitution to the police state. The Supreme 
Court has just refused to hear the case against indefinite detention 
of US citizens in the absence of due process. This is an unambiguous
unconstitutional law, yet the Supreme Court refuses to even hear 
the case, thus granting unchecked police power to the gangster state. 
 

Another defining characteristic of a gangster state is the 
criminalization of dissent and truth tellers. Washington has done 
everything in its power to criminalize Julian Assange and Edward 
Snowden for revealing the US government’s illegal, unconstitutional, 
and criminal actions. Washington reeks of hypocrisy. On April 26 
the State Department announced its third annual Free The Press 
campaign, a propaganda exercise directed at foreign countries 
that are not Washington’s puppets. The very same day the 
Justice Department told the Supreme Court to reject the protection 
US journalists have under the Constitution against being forced to 
reveal their confidential sources so that James Risen can be 
imprisoned for reporting a government misdeed.

In the 21st century Washington has squandered trillions of dollars 
on wars that have destroyed countries and killed, maimed, and 
displaced millions of people in seven or eight countries. 
Declaring its war crimes to be a “war on terror,” 
Washington has used the state of war that it created 
to destroy US civil liberty. 

In the 21st century it is difficult to find a significant statement 
made by Washington that is not a lie. Obamacare is a lie. 
Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction is a lie. 
Assad’s use of chemical weapons is a lie. Iranian nukes are a lie. 
Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea is a lie. No fly zones 
are a lie. Russian aggression against Georgia is a lie.  
9/11, the basis for Washington’s destruction of civil liberty 
and illegal military attacks, is itself a lie. The fantastic story 
that a few Saudi Arabians without government or intelligence 
agency backing outwitted the entire national security apparatus 
of the Western world is unbelievable. It is simply not credible 
that every institution of the national security state simultaneously 
failed. That Washington would tell such a fantastic lie shows 
that Washington has no respect for the intelligence of the 
American people and no respect for the integrity of the American 
media. It shows also that Washington has no respect for the 
intelligence and integrity of its European and Asian allies.

Washington won’t even tell the truth about little things in 
comparison–jobs, unemployment, inflation, GDP growth, 
economic recovery. Washington rigs the markets in order 
to cover up its sacrifice of the economy for the benefit of a 
few special interests. In the name of “privatization,” 
Washington hands over public assets and government 
responsibilities to rapacious private interests.

The conclusion is inescapable that the US is a gangster state. 
Indeed, the US is worse than a mere gangster state. 
The US is a shameless exploitative tyranny.

_________________________________________________

Originally published on: http://www.paulcraigroberts.org
(Hyperlink inactive because the light world 
publishing refrains from any direct links. Please copy and 
activate the link in order to access this page. Emphasis by JJK.)


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