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Some might not think much of this, but this is another nail in the coffin of US democracy. When the government is using unchecked power to enforce an arbitrary petty grievance against a major corporation aiming to destroy its client base, that is as close to autocracy as you can get. Luckily for Harvard, it has deep pockets and lots of friends in high places, but this skirmish will only embolden and sharpen the administration's talons for its next victims who might not be so lucky (e.g. individuals who don't have billion dollar endowments, hordes of lawyers or friends in the right places). To say "Caveat emptor" seems underwhelming and a bit late.
A lot of non-Americans are upset at ordinary Americans (99+% of all of them) because of US foreign policy, military and CIA involvement in just about every corner of this Earth (with a few small exceptions). So, let me start by clarifying that ordinary Americans have exactly ZERO say in those matters. At most they are pawns used to pull the trigger while the mastermind puppet masters are counting their blood stained gold bars, sipping martinis on their megayachts or at some posh galas or hunting big game on some Safari.
The US Democratic process (I.e. elections, consultations, town halls, sausage making) is a mere rubber stamp on preselected candidates by the moneyed elites, candidates that push their sponsors agenda every single time when the rubber hits the road, and that holds from US president down to the state level representatives.
How can I say this with certainty? It’s easy: follow the money that sponsor those candidates and the laws and decisions they make after election. Let’s talk about the main parties who managed to split public opinion into the lesser of two evils false dichotomy (since they are both corrupt in different ways):
* DEMOCRATS: They talk a good game but ever since 1992 at least, they are just GOP-lite that plays the good cop in this ridiculous game. Their economic justice accomplishments since 1992:
** raise the minimum wage (for some people only) to a level of subsistence, and
** Obamacare (which merely takes money from middle/upper middle class to pay for a risible healthcare insurance scheme for the poor).
On everything else of substance (corporate largesse, immigration, tough on crime, military industrial complex, foreign interference, global wars, crass human rights violations at home and abroad) they are almost indistinguishable from the GOP which brings us to:
* REPUBLICANS (aka GOP, a Reagan cult after 1980, a Tea Party cult bolted on top after 1994, and an additional cryptofascist Gilead-like MAGA cult since 2016): They are the bad cop and all the above plus: autocratic, xenophobic, overt union busting, overtly racist and misogynistic, they wrap themselves in the flag and thump the Bible. They care more about the right to own arsenals of assault automatic rifles and pistols than their own kids lives, will cut their nose to spite their face, rich people bootlickers, give two shits about the bottom 99% economically (despite having a strong support of around 40% of the voting adults), so their entire base is built on cultural overblown divisive issues since their entire fiscal policy is a dumpster fire of selfcontradictions that flares up whenever the US fed govt’s borrowing limit needs raised again over the very loud and mostly performative protests of its Tea Party roots and long-gone fiscal conservatism.
There have been numerous studies that show how US has been busy
* downgrading its social net on every front (economic, pensions, universal and financially-reasonable access to healthcare, universal and state sponsored education, legal protections for minorities, individual rights, freedom of association, protection from moneyed interests and its own govt’s propaganda )
* shifting into a plutocratic oligarchy and
* the chances of its transition into an autocratic state are higher every year as the oligarchs are capturing more and more the levers of power (political, judicial, executive, media corporate consolidation) and keep pushing their self-destructing “Let them eat cake” nationalist agenda.
The US Democratic process (I.e. elections, consultations, town halls, sausage making) is a mere rubber stamp on preselected candidates by the moneyed elites, candidates that push their sponsors agenda every single time when the rubber hits the road, and that holds from US president down to the state level representatives.
How can I say this with certainty? It’s easy: follow the money that sponsor those candidates and the laws and decisions they make after election. Let’s talk about the main parties who managed to split public opinion into the lesser of two evils false dichotomy (since they are both corrupt in different ways):
* DEMOCRATS: They talk a good game but ever since 1992 at least, they are just GOP-lite that plays the good cop in this ridiculous game. Their economic justice accomplishments since 1992:
** raise the minimum wage (for some people only) to a level of subsistence, and
** Obamacare (which merely takes money from middle/upper middle class to pay for a risible healthcare insurance scheme for the poor).
On everything else of substance (corporate largesse, immigration, tough on crime, military industrial complex, foreign interference, global wars, crass human rights violations at home and abroad) they are almost indistinguishable from the GOP which brings us to:
* REPUBLICANS (aka GOP, a Reagan cult after 1980, a Tea Party cult bolted on top after 1994, and an additional cryptofascist Gilead-like MAGA cult since 2016): They are the bad cop and all the above plus: autocratic, xenophobic, overt union busting, overtly racist and misogynistic, they wrap themselves in the flag and thump the Bible. They care more about the right to own arsenals of assault automatic rifles and pistols than their own kids lives, will cut their nose to spite their face, rich people bootlickers, give two shits about the bottom 99% economically (despite having a strong support of around 40% of the voting adults), so their entire base is built on cultural overblown divisive issues since their entire fiscal policy is a dumpster fire of selfcontradictions that flares up whenever the US fed govt’s borrowing limit needs raised again over the very loud and mostly performative protests of its Tea Party roots and long-gone fiscal conservatism.
There have been numerous studies that show how US has been busy
* downgrading its social net on every front (economic, pensions, universal and financially-reasonable access to healthcare, universal and state sponsored education, legal protections for minorities, individual rights, freedom of association, protection from moneyed interests and its own govt’s propaganda )
* shifting into a plutocratic oligarchy and
* the chances of its transition into an autocratic state are higher every year as the oligarchs are capturing more and more the levers of power (political, judicial, executive, media corporate consolidation) and keep pushing their self-destructing “Let them eat cake” nationalist agenda.
Yesterday, Trump declared at Turning Point, FL, that if he gets elected, this is the last time people will need to vote in a US election (shortly before admitting to a Christian audience that he is not a Christian). What's sad is the contortions the CNN interviewee went through to explain away the cynicism and absolute darkness of that "promise".
