If you want to understand why we wind up with such terrible candidates every cycle get involved with the local party. You will get to see first hand what a farce it all is. Voting is irrelevant, it comes to late in the process to make a difference. The real way to make change in the USA is to gain power within the party and not get corrupted in the process. Good luck with that.
Remember Howard Dean? that's how the Sanders campaign is going to end up.
There are minor parties that are more represented at the state and municipal level, I tend to vote Green Party and you've got a Socialist to thank for Seattle's $15 an hour minimum wage.
these are not big issues when compared to millions of people getting killed only for oil and money. real issues are more basic stuff like food availability, poverty, war, disease etc.
keep in mind that gay rights are good, but they are not only here today out of the goodness of the heart's of the presidents. its strategic politics to stimulate the economy since the LGBT population is also part of the economic farm that we live in. money is the bigger influence here than basic humanity. its the same reason why sometimes a big corporation would publicly support LGBT even though majority of their CEO's or shareholders hates LGBT. it has very little to do with fairness, humanity or equality and a lot to do with economics, profit and power like everything else.
these rights would have come eventually from any party. it doesnt really matter who comes to power, Trump or no Trump. these fake politics and fake democracy is meaningless and pointless in the bigger scope of things that really matter.
I also don't agree with the economic reasoning behind gay LGBT. There has been a noticeable groundswell behind it, and a gradual acceptance that has matches political attitudes. Its not a conspiracy it's just an example of the way society drifts.
I also don't agree with the economic reasoning behind gay LGBT. There has been a noticeable groundswell behind it, and a gradual acceptance that has matches political attitudes. Its not a conspiracy it's just an example of the way society drifts.
Yeah, suggesting it's not important or a conspiracy to distract from "real" issues spits in the face of 46+ years of steady fighting by activists.
Yeah, suggesting it's not important or a conspiracy to distract from "real" issues spits in the face of 46+ years of steady fighting by activists.
hi Justin, when exactly did i say they are not important ? please be careful when you make such comments.
i just said that they are not AS important as life or death issues all around( mostly developing 3rd world countries) the world that is a direct result of the politics of US, UK, China, Euro, Saudi, etc.
if you are just caring about the issues of privileged people (which includes all of us) in the 1st world country then yes, they are the most important since everything else is already solved or solving gradually.
these 1st world issues give you the illusion of making a choice, while the real power keeps playing with human lives all around the world.
my opinion comes from comparing bigger issues all around the world, but may be this thread/forum is not the place for that.
i still remember telling people that Obama was no different than Bush before Obama got elected. when it comes to matters like war, poverty, economics, etc. it doesnt really matter who the president is.
just remember this day 10-15 years from now and we will see what happens.
in the mean time please feel free to ignore me as a tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorist as usual.
i still remember telling people that Obama was no different than Bush before Obama got elected. when it comes to matters like war, poverty, economics, etc. it doesnt really matter who the president is.
:poly121:
Republicans in congress are going to vote against the Iran deal and Obama is going to veto it, McCain and Romney are against it. So there is an effect on international politics. We also have a normalization of relations with Cuba and hopefully a lifting of the embargo.
Obama also put the breaks on the Republican austerity hawks as much as he could, our slow recovery would have been a lot slower with McCain or Romney in office.
So he's no different than Bush except a list of things doesn't really equal an "I told you so".
I used to think it didn't matter either, 16 years later I've realized otherwise.
So the "be careful of thinking in a black and white mentality" post is being completely ignored..
If you imagine the "opponent" to simply want to destroy and harm people/slow down economic progress/etc etc for no reason, you may want to be a little more open to viewpoints
Republicans in congress are going to vote against the Iran deal and Obama is going to veto it, McCain and Romney are against it. So there is an effect on international politics. We also have a normalization of relations with Cuba and hopefully a lifting of the embargo.
Obama also put the breaks on the Republican austerity hawks as much as he could, our slow recovery would have been a lot slower with McCain or Romney in office.
dont buy into the drama that you are shown on tv. iran deal is a compromise that would have happened either way. it also as no such big international impact like say bombing a 1000 people out of their homes in the middle of the night.
do you honestly think if Romney/McCain was president he would just go start a war against Iran ?
economic recovery has very little to do with Obama and a lot to do with time.
have you forgotten what has happened under democratic power in the last 16 years. lets recap some of it:
international:
* afganistan war (100s of thousands died and even more made homeless)
* libya (country mostly destroyed with thousands of civilian deaths and countless homeless)
* bombings around the world in pakistan, yemen and some other place i cant remember leaving many many dead and homeless.
national:
* NDAA
* Patriot act renewal
* TSA on acid
* turned broken health care system to an un-affordable one with ACA (affordable my ass)
it doesn't work like that. we don't live in a black and white world. everything is in shades of grey.
wars don't get started because someone like Romney hates someone like Ahmadinejad.
actually in modern world, there are no real wars. a real war is where one country exclusively fight the forces of another country.
now days there are just assisted invasions and by assisted i mean there are people within the invaded country that assist in the invasion. iraq, afgan, libya and everywhere there have been local troops\officials who assisted NATO forces throughout the entire process.
the purpose is to make money by insider trading or betting, making billion dollar defense contracts and securing oil deals and resources and establishing international military bases to further expand our military presence around the world.
economic recovery has very little to do with Obama and a lot to do with time.
I disagree, but more to the point, our recovery, in Michigan, began when Obama did the auto bailout (which he was much criticized for, and Romney opposed).
When our economic decline started, Bush did nothing, but push forward his war agendas. It took him way to long to even acknowledge we were in a recession. Not to mention, he deregulated banks (and student loans, which leads to the out of control loans we have now).
have you forgotten what has happened under democratic power in the last 16 years. lets recap some of it:
international:
* afganistan war (100s of thousands died and even more made homeless)
* libya (country mostly destroyed with thousands of civilian deaths and countless homeless)
* bombings around the world in pakistan, yemen and some other place i cant remember leaving many many dead and homeless.
national:
* NDAA
* Patriot act renewal
* TSA on acid
* turned broken health care system to an un-affordable one with ACA (affordable my ass)
Afghanistan - Bush sent us there, and the Republican controlled congress approved it.
Bombings around the world - both parties
Patriot act RENEWAL ... when was it created? When Republicans had control
TSA .. again, created by Bush and the Republican party
ACA - curious why you think it's not affordable. My insurance did not go up, for the first time in probably 10 years, and my friends, who are don't get it through an employer, said it was very affordable, and they are glad to finally be insured.
Honestly, I don't support either party, but let's not make shit up here.
when did i say they were all started by dems. dems just continued them and made them even stronger which is exactly my point. there is no fundamental difference when it comes to serious matters like wars.
fyi, under ACA it is only beneficial for a certain income range i guess. once you make good money you actually end up saving very little as compared to when you were making less money as you end up paying too high a premium. ACA has good things and bad thing but mostly bad thing. once again ACA was inspired by republicans as far as i know and then started by dems. but that is whole another topic.
I also don't agree with the economic reasoning behind gay LGBT. There has been a noticeable groundswell behind it, and a gradual acceptance that has matches political attitudes. Its not a conspiracy it's just an example of the way society drifts.
You don't have to agree or disagree with it.
A peer reviewed economic study from Princeton University proved it pretty much as fact.
This mean every major body of Sociology, Economy, and Political Sciences pretty much unanimously agree with it as fact. So your personal opinions are going up against the overwhelming socio/economic/political consensus that you are wrong.
The reason LGBT are able to get more rights, is because in some way shape or form the 0.001% of the wealthy elite are able to profit from it.
actually in modern world, there are no real wars. a real war is where one country exclusively fight the forces of another country.
now days there are just assisted invasions and by assisted i mean there are people within the invaded country that assist in the invasion. iraq, afgan, libya and everywhere there have been local troops\officials who assisted NATO forces throughout the entire process.
the purpose is to make money by insider trading or betting, making billion dollar defense contracts and securing oil deals and resources and establishing international military bases to further expand our military presence around the world.
This is pretty much how it has *always* been, this isn't a new thing. From the Aechaemenids to the Romans, the Caliphates and the British Empire, there are plenty of instances of 'assisted invasions' as you call them, but also puppetry and numerous variations of insider trading. The only thing that has really changed is the technology associated with it.
dont buy into the drama that you are shown on tv. iran deal is a compromise that would have happened either way. it also as no such big international impact like say bombing a 1000 people out of their homes in the middle of the night.
do you honestly think if Romney/McCain was president he would just go start a war against Iran ?
You assumed I watch tv news, I don't have cable or recieve over the air transmission. No I don't buy into the hyperbole that Romney or McCain would go to war with Iran, it would just have been another round of negotiations that went nowehere like countless ones before that.
I do believe the chances of going to war with Syria in 2013 would have been far greater under McCain or Romney. Would that have made the Isis situation worse, I think so but regardless, a full on war with Syria would have resulted in countless loss of life.
The reason LGBT are able to get more rights, is because in some way shape or form the 0.001% of the wealthy elite are able to profit from it.
Do you have a basic understanding of how the government of the US is structured? Because that sounds like a really long con to run with how the Judical branch operates and how Supreme Court judges are appointed.
Being published in a peer reviewed Journal does not mean it's a universal truth, in fact there's been a lot of controversy lately over attention grabbing journals and the way the media sensationalizes them. I guess I'll have to buy the report myself but what I'm reading online, bloggers and Journalist have declared America an Oligarchy, not the paper. That's the big flaw with popular media reporting on any of the Sciences, maybe is always reported as 100% truth.
ACA - curious why you think it's not affordable. My insurance did not go up, for the first time in probably 10 years, and my friends, who are don't get it through an employer, said it was very affordable, and they are glad to finally be insured.
Yes, I'm confused about that too. The few people I know that complain about it were just operating on the "don't get sick" insurance plan. So going from $0 a month for no insurance to being required to, yes that's more money but also ridiculous, they were one illness away from total financial ruin.
Do you have a basic understanding of how the government of the US is structured? Because that sounds like a really long con to run with how the Judical branch operates and how Supreme Court judges are appointed.
Being published in a peer reviewed Journal does not mean it's a universal truth, in fact there's been a lot of controversy lately over attention grabbing journals and the way the media sensationalizes them. I guess I'll have to buy the report myself but what I'm reading online, bloggers and Journalist have declared America an Oligarchy, not the paper. That's the big flaw with popular media reporting on any of the Sciences, maybe is always reported as 100% truth.
Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism.
So maybe the paper never uses the term "Oligarchy" per se, but it just pretty much defined as such right there in the abstract.
(Usually these papers are filled with indisputable empirical data from the multitude of studies, so probably not even worth the public to read as its paper).
BBC and Al Jazeera have both reported on it as such, which are neutral non-attention seeking new sources.
If you want to refute that the US is NOT an Oligarchy, you will now need to write a socio-economic paper that is heavily researched with years of data, and approved by a governing body of each of those disciplines.
If you want to refute that the US is NOT an Oligarchy
At least it's not Putin or Communist Party style oligarchy.
Putin style = if you don't follow his command you die or he'll invade your country
Communist Party style = allows for communist party bosses and family member to be super rich while disregarding factory workers living and commuting long hours from mega sized cities with 1 park for one million residents. They'll only shut down air polluting factories if there's a state military parade.
America style = you don't have to be born royalty to join 1 per cent, just work your butt off, make right connections, and not mess with the feds. Examples, billionaires Mark Cuban, Ophrah Winfrey, Elon Musk wasnt even born in the USA.
Bernie Sanders himself said in several occasions suggesting USA is an oligarchy so why are we even debating this now ?
this is how both Bush and Obama got into power with lot of $$$ from big corporations and most like this is how Hillary will get into power. at the end the person selected for the potus will be the person who is the most loyal and obedient to the corporations.
Yuri was right about Sanders having no chance, and even if he got elected somehow, he would fail miserably.
how can you expect change when supreme court judges are influenced by people like the Koch brothers.
when corporations basically have more rights than a living human being, how can you expect real democracy to work.
on a positive note, i am very optimistic that neither Trump or Ted Cruz would ever be the potus. Trump is basically a clown and Ted is not even a full american.
A peer reviewed economic study from Princeton University proved it pretty much as fact.
This mean every major body of Sociology, Economy, and Political Sciences pretty much unanimously agree with it as fact. So your personal opinions are going up against the overwhelming socio/economic/political consensus that you are wrong.
The reason LGBT are able to get more rights, is because in some way shape or form the 0.001% of the wealthy elite are able to profit from it.
Jacque you're kind of beating people over the head with this study and I'm not sure it says what you think it says, i.e. that the US is an oligarchy, that part you appear to be taking from the editorialization of the articles. And then suggesting that people shouldn't even read it to form their own conclusion I think is very wrong headed: "Usually these papers are filled with indisputable empirical data from the multitude of studies, so probably not even worth the public to read as its paper"
Just to be a little pedantic, an Oligarchy is the rule of the few. A plutocracy is rule by the wealthy.
Anyways, It even says right in the paper, quoting here:
"It turns out, in fact, that the preferences of average citizens are positively and fairly highly correlated, across issues, with the preferences of economic elites (see Table 2.)"
So checking out table 2, the correlation is 78%, thats pretty high for saying we live in an oligarchy (a plutocracy).
So the reason they don't say oligarchy is because thats not what they are trying to say. They're trying to say that in issues where the 'elite' are divided from the general population, the elite tend to win their way more often than not, but far and away in general their interests align with the general population.
Beyond that, why do their interests align with the general population? There is no correlary given in the research, so its impossible to say if they are influencing the general population, or the general population is influencing them. Add to that that the statistical analysis of the paper shows that while 'elites' win their way often, they don't affect policy more towards their interests than the general population.
Also, you might already be aware of this, but statistical analysis in political science is notoriously unreliable. This paper even says itself near the end that there is an issue of measurement error, given that the data used is from public surveys, which have been proven to contain a significant amount of bias itself. Political science is not hard science the way you might be thinking it is, so while the paper is concerning, its far from a definitive view of actual reality.
It does suggest some alarming things I totally agree and thank you for linking it, but I think you're buying in to the editorilizations made by the articles you read about it a little too far. Beyond that, dont confuse social science and other soft science like political science, with hard science, because the two aren't even close.
This paper though should be a wakeup call to a lot of people, totally agree there, but taking it as gospel or some hard science rundown of actuality is silly given the reasons listed.
If you think the only reason LGBTQ rights are increasing is because it's profitable, that's a super cynical world view, and beside the point. It's fantastic these changes are happening, regardless of the reason, certainly.
And MM, you mention situations that are "life or death" are more important, but for a lot of LGBTQ youths (and adults), it really can be a situation of life and death. Depression rates are much higher among those groups, and suicide isn't uncommon, for fear of not being accepted. Erasing these taboos is absolutely life or death.
I think Justin Meisse and ysalex are spot on about just about everything they've said.
But I really think most of the 'progress' comes from religion simply losing its power and control over the masses... and yes religion was a huge business.
Ysalex I think I'm totally aligned with most of your views, but I tend to take these papers as hard facts. Because when you pseudo-fy important papers, you really are discrediting the entire thing, without doing the necessary peer-reviewed research to actually nullify these arguments.
The abstract really points to all the information you need, and the data is simply there to support the abstract.
You can draw different conclusions, but they're not in agreeance with the overwhelming governing bodies of all adjacent entities.
Peer review isn't about attacking the spelling, and correcting the grammar.
It means they can verify the integrity of the data collected, and the theories proven through further extrapolation (possibly not in the main version of the paper.. which likely includes the decades of audits). It means they had to defend them with all relevant and necessary information including how the information itself was gathered.
The governing bodyin field of Economics believe there is irrefutable correlation that the wealthy elite control the nation, and has verified and backed up all the data to support this claim after an extensive cross examination and defense.
The way it works is; you want to contradict the abstract, you now have to back it up with significant data, and decades of audits, that is verified and peer reviewed that refutes this.
Yuri, if you want to be a little pedantic then you should know that plutocracy is a subset of oligarchy, it is a form of oligarchy. they are not mutually exclusive so i have no idea what you are trying to say here.
also table 2 is fine but you should be focusing on figure1 in page 10 which is about Predicted probability of policy adoption.
anyways, if you need a research paper to see US is a oligarchy/plutocracy then you have somehow missed all that has happened in the last 3 decades. it should be a matter of common sense by now.
@Joopson - i find it very difficult to see any situation when you can even come close to comparing any LGBT issue to someone getting their entire family blown away in the middle of the night by a drone bombing campaign.
"you don't have to be born royalty to join 1 per cent, just work your butt off"
Working hard has very little to do with actual success now a days. Its more about taking advantage of the system in place. Person A can work his ass off being a carpenter and never go far in life. Person B can know someone who hook him up with a high paying job and invest in something and hit it big while never really working a day in his life.
i am curious to know what would it take for people to believe that USA is an oligarchy/plutocracy and not really a democracy ?
*since citizens united ruling, corporations have 1st amendment right
*money is now a freedom of speech
*people like Jimmy Carter and Bernie Sanders explicitly says USA is an oligarchy
*a research done by highly educated independent entities suggest USA is an oligarchy
all of these are somehow conspiracy, so what would it take
Imo, there's a lot of doublethink. People generally realize it's an oligarchy, even if they don't know the name for it, but when it comes time to vote it's suddenly a democracy.
First, I think this country is full of patriots. Meaning, people who don't like to admit when their country has done something wrong, or that they're anything other than a perfect democracy.
Second, I don't think it's a proper oligarchy, as such. I think it's basically a democracy, but where the rich have completely unfair amounts of pull. So you could maybe call it an unofficial Oligarchy, or something. Personally, I'd just say it's heavily influenced by rich people and corporations.
MM, both warfare and social injustice are big problems. Warfare is easier to stop, yet, somehow, we never do stop. But, you can stop warfare and encourage social justice at the same time. And just because we won't stop our wars doesn't mean we shouldn't at least improve the livability of our country for groups that are treated unfairly.
MM, both warfare and social injustice are big problems. Warfare is easier to stop, yet, somehow, we never do stop. But, you can stop warfare and encourage social justice at the same time. And just because we won't stop our wars doesn't mean we shouldn't at least improve the livability of our country for groups that are treated unfairly.
do you think that social injustice is not a direct result of plutocracy or oligarchy ?
it is, because if social politics were up to the majority of citizens then we would have had far better equal rights in a wider spectrum because believe it or not majority of people are good and kind and and want what is fair and equal.
i bring up warfare because they are the devices by which the rich maintain oligarchy and in that sense warfare is a bigger issue since stopping the warfare damages oligarchy and the power of the rich which will as a result shift power back to the majority of citizens and bring social equality among other equally important things.
but if you keep yourself too busy with social inequality and other smaller issues which the political parties spread out for you to fight over them and create an illusion on democracy, you will never succeed in getting to the root of the problem which created social inequality to begin with.
but if you keep yourself too busy with social inequality and other smaller issues which the political parties spread out for you to fight over them and create an illusion on democracy, you will never succeed in getting to the root of the problem which created social inequality to begin with.
I agree with this. It disturbs me the biggest talk is social issues that lie on the surface. The worst of it is how shady some of that topic is.
People will believe what they want, we're living in tribalistic times. You can think Obama is a lizard king and 1,000 other people on the internet will completely agree with you, facts don't matter. I saw a bumper sticker on a SUV the other day saying "Don't trust the LIBERAL media", and I thought, gee he must really believe that. How ironic then that on Labor day weekend, no news station is bringing up the meaning of labor day.
Replies
Remember Howard Dean? that's how the Sanders campaign is going to end up.
MM speaks 100% truth.
Princeton Uni published a Peer-Reviewed study about how the US is actually an Oligarchy:
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746
http://www.businessinsider.com/major-study-finds-that-the-us-is-an-oligarchy-2014-4
It's an illusion of Democracy.
MM is a very smart guy but his post is an example false equivilance.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence
I also don't agree with the economic reasoning behind gay LGBT. There has been a noticeable groundswell behind it, and a gradual acceptance that has matches political attitudes. Its not a conspiracy it's just an example of the way society drifts.
Yeah, suggesting it's not important or a conspiracy to distract from "real" issues spits in the face of 46+ years of steady fighting by activists.
hi Justin, when exactly did i say they are not important ? please be careful when you make such comments.
i just said that they are not AS important as life or death issues all around( mostly developing 3rd world countries) the world that is a direct result of the politics of US, UK, China, Euro, Saudi, etc.
if you are just caring about the issues of privileged people (which includes all of us) in the 1st world country then yes, they are the most important since everything else is already solved or solving gradually.
these 1st world issues give you the illusion of making a choice, while the real power keeps playing with human lives all around the world.
my opinion comes from comparing bigger issues all around the world, but may be this thread/forum is not the place for that.
i still remember telling people that Obama was no different than Bush before Obama got elected. when it comes to matters like war, poverty, economics, etc. it doesnt really matter who the president is.
just remember this day 10-15 years from now and we will see what happens.
in the mean time please feel free to ignore me as a tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorist as usual.
:poly121:
Republicans in congress are going to vote against the Iran deal and Obama is going to veto it, McCain and Romney are against it. So there is an effect on international politics. We also have a normalization of relations with Cuba and hopefully a lifting of the embargo.
Obama also put the breaks on the Republican austerity hawks as much as he could, our slow recovery would have been a lot slower with McCain or Romney in office.
So he's no different than Bush except a list of things doesn't really equal an "I told you so".
I used to think it didn't matter either, 16 years later I've realized otherwise.
If you imagine the "opponent" to simply want to destroy and harm people/slow down economic progress/etc etc for no reason, you may want to be a little more open to viewpoints
dont buy into the drama that you are shown on tv. iran deal is a compromise that would have happened either way. it also as no such big international impact like say bombing a 1000 people out of their homes in the middle of the night.
do you honestly think if Romney/McCain was president he would just go start a war against Iran ?
economic recovery has very little to do with Obama and a lot to do with time.
have you forgotten what has happened under democratic power in the last 16 years. lets recap some of it:
international:
* afganistan war (100s of thousands died and even more made homeless)
* libya (country mostly destroyed with thousands of civilian deaths and countless homeless)
* bombings around the world in pakistan, yemen and some other place i cant remember leaving many many dead and homeless.
national:
* NDAA
* Patriot act renewal
* TSA on acid
* turned broken health care system to an un-affordable one with ACA (affordable my ass)
I'd be far from surprised.
wars don't get started because someone like Romney hates someone like Ahmadinejad.
actually in modern world, there are no real wars. a real war is where one country exclusively fight the forces of another country.
now days there are just assisted invasions and by assisted i mean there are people within the invaded country that assist in the invasion. iraq, afgan, libya and everywhere there have been local troops\officials who assisted NATO forces throughout the entire process.
the purpose is to make money by insider trading or betting, making billion dollar defense contracts and securing oil deals and resources and establishing international military bases to further expand our military presence around the world.
When our economic decline started, Bush did nothing, but push forward his war agendas. It took him way to long to even acknowledge we were in a recession. Not to mention, he deregulated banks (and student loans, which leads to the out of control loans we have now).
Afghanistan - Bush sent us there, and the Republican controlled congress approved it.
Bombings around the world - both parties
Patriot act RENEWAL ... when was it created? When Republicans had control
TSA .. again, created by Bush and the Republican party
ACA - curious why you think it's not affordable. My insurance did not go up, for the first time in probably 10 years, and my friends, who are don't get it through an employer, said it was very affordable, and they are glad to finally be insured.
Honestly, I don't support either party, but let's not make shit up here.
fyi, under ACA it is only beneficial for a certain income range i guess. once you make good money you actually end up saving very little as compared to when you were making less money as you end up paying too high a premium. ACA has good things and bad thing but mostly bad thing. once again ACA was inspired by republicans as far as i know and then started by dems. but that is whole another topic.
You don't have to agree or disagree with it.
A peer reviewed economic study from Princeton University proved it pretty much as fact.
This mean every major body of Sociology, Economy, and Political Sciences pretty much unanimously agree with it as fact. So your personal opinions are going up against the overwhelming socio/economic/political consensus that you are wrong.
The reason LGBT are able to get more rights, is because in some way shape or form the 0.001% of the wealthy elite are able to profit from it.
This is pretty much how it has *always* been, this isn't a new thing. From the Aechaemenids to the Romans, the Caliphates and the British Empire, there are plenty of instances of 'assisted invasions' as you call them, but also puppetry and numerous variations of insider trading. The only thing that has really changed is the technology associated with it.
You assumed I watch tv news, I don't have cable or recieve over the air transmission. No I don't buy into the hyperbole that Romney or McCain would go to war with Iran, it would just have been another round of negotiations that went nowehere like countless ones before that.
I do believe the chances of going to war with Syria in 2013 would have been far greater under McCain or Romney. Would that have made the Isis situation worse, I think so but regardless, a full on war with Syria would have resulted in countless loss of life.
Do you have a basic understanding of how the government of the US is structured? Because that sounds like a really long con to run with how the Judical branch operates and how Supreme Court judges are appointed.
Being published in a peer reviewed Journal does not mean it's a universal truth, in fact there's been a lot of controversy lately over attention grabbing journals and the way the media sensationalizes them. I guess I'll have to buy the report myself but what I'm reading online, bloggers and Journalist have declared America an Oligarchy, not the paper. That's the big flaw with popular media reporting on any of the Sciences, maybe is always reported as 100% truth.
Yes, I'm confused about that too. The few people I know that complain about it were just operating on the "don't get sick" insurance plan. So going from $0 a month for no insurance to being required to, yes that's more money but also ridiculous, they were one illness away from total financial ruin.
OK, well here's the excerpt from the abstract:
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9354310
So maybe the paper never uses the term "Oligarchy" per se, but it just pretty much defined as such right there in the abstract.
(Usually these papers are filled with indisputable empirical data from the multitude of studies, so probably not even worth the public to read as its paper).
BBC and Al Jazeera have both reported on it as such, which are neutral non-attention seeking new sources.
If you want to refute that the US is NOT an Oligarchy, you will now need to write a socio-economic paper that is heavily researched with years of data, and approved by a governing body of each of those disciplines.
At least it's not Putin or Communist Party style oligarchy.
Putin style = if you don't follow his command you die or he'll invade your country
Communist Party style = allows for communist party bosses and family member to be super rich while disregarding factory workers living and commuting long hours from mega sized cities with 1 park for one million residents. They'll only shut down air polluting factories if there's a state military parade.
America style = you don't have to be born royalty to join 1 per cent, just work your butt off, make right connections, and not mess with the feds. Examples, billionaires Mark Cuban, Ophrah Winfrey, Elon Musk wasnt even born in the USA.
Bernie Sanders himself said in several occasions suggesting USA is an oligarchy so why are we even debating this now ?
this is how both Bush and Obama got into power with lot of $$$ from big corporations and most like this is how Hillary will get into power. at the end the person selected for the potus will be the person who is the most loyal and obedient to the corporations.
Yuri was right about Sanders having no chance, and even if he got elected somehow, he would fail miserably.
how can you expect change when supreme court judges are influenced by people like the Koch brothers.
when corporations basically have more rights than a living human being, how can you expect real democracy to work.
on a positive note, i am very optimistic that neither Trump or Ted Cruz would ever be the potus. Trump is basically a clown and Ted is not even a full american.
Jacque you're kind of beating people over the head with this study and I'm not sure it says what you think it says, i.e. that the US is an oligarchy, that part you appear to be taking from the editorialization of the articles. And then suggesting that people shouldn't even read it to form their own conclusion I think is very wrong headed: "Usually these papers are filled with indisputable empirical data from the multitude of studies, so probably not even worth the public to read as its paper"
Just to be a little pedantic, an Oligarchy is the rule of the few. A plutocracy is rule by the wealthy.
Anyways, It even says right in the paper, quoting here:
"It turns out, in fact, that the preferences of average citizens are positively and fairly highly correlated, across issues, with the preferences of economic elites (see Table 2.)"
So checking out table 2, the correlation is 78%, thats pretty high for saying we live in an oligarchy (a plutocracy).
So the reason they don't say oligarchy is because thats not what they are trying to say. They're trying to say that in issues where the 'elite' are divided from the general population, the elite tend to win their way more often than not, but far and away in general their interests align with the general population.
Beyond that, why do their interests align with the general population? There is no correlary given in the research, so its impossible to say if they are influencing the general population, or the general population is influencing them. Add to that that the statistical analysis of the paper shows that while 'elites' win their way often, they don't affect policy more towards their interests than the general population.
Also, you might already be aware of this, but statistical analysis in political science is notoriously unreliable. This paper even says itself near the end that there is an issue of measurement error, given that the data used is from public surveys, which have been proven to contain a significant amount of bias itself. Political science is not hard science the way you might be thinking it is, so while the paper is concerning, its far from a definitive view of actual reality.
It does suggest some alarming things I totally agree and thank you for linking it, but I think you're buying in to the editorilizations made by the articles you read about it a little too far. Beyond that, dont confuse social science and other soft science like political science, with hard science, because the two aren't even close.
This paper though should be a wakeup call to a lot of people, totally agree there, but taking it as gospel or some hard science rundown of actuality is silly given the reasons listed.
And MM, you mention situations that are "life or death" are more important, but for a lot of LGBTQ youths (and adults), it really can be a situation of life and death. Depression rates are much higher among those groups, and suicide isn't uncommon, for fear of not being accepted. Erasing these taboos is absolutely life or death.
I think Justin Meisse and ysalex are spot on about just about everything they've said.
But I really think most of the 'progress' comes from religion simply losing its power and control over the masses... and yes religion was a huge business.
Ysalex I think I'm totally aligned with most of your views, but I tend to take these papers as hard facts. Because when you pseudo-fy important papers, you really are discrediting the entire thing, without doing the necessary peer-reviewed research to actually nullify these arguments.
The abstract really points to all the information you need, and the data is simply there to support the abstract.
You can draw different conclusions, but they're not in agreeance with the overwhelming governing bodies of all adjacent entities.
Peer review isn't about attacking the spelling, and correcting the grammar.
It means they can verify the integrity of the data collected, and the theories proven through further extrapolation (possibly not in the main version of the paper.. which likely includes the decades of audits). It means they had to defend them with all relevant and necessary information including how the information itself was gathered.
The governing bodyin field of Economics believe there is irrefutable correlation that the wealthy elite control the nation, and has verified and backed up all the data to support this claim after an extensive cross examination and defense.
The way it works is; you want to contradict the abstract, you now have to back it up with significant data, and decades of audits, that is verified and peer reviewed that refutes this.
also table 2 is fine but you should be focusing on figure1 in page 10 which is about Predicted probability of policy adoption.
anyways, if you need a research paper to see US is a oligarchy/plutocracy then you have somehow missed all that has happened in the last 3 decades. it should be a matter of common sense by now.
@Joopson - i find it very difficult to see any situation when you can even come close to comparing any LGBT issue to someone getting their entire family blown away in the middle of the night by a drone bombing campaign.
Working hard has very little to do with actual success now a days. Its more about taking advantage of the system in place. Person A can work his ass off being a carpenter and never go far in life. Person B can know someone who hook him up with a high paying job and invest in something and hit it big while never really working a day in his life.
*since citizens united ruling, corporations have 1st amendment right
*money is now a freedom of speech
*people like Jimmy Carter and Bernie Sanders explicitly says USA is an oligarchy
*a research done by highly educated independent entities suggest USA is an oligarchy
all of these are somehow conspiracy, so what would it take
Second, I don't think it's a proper oligarchy, as such. I think it's basically a democracy, but where the rich have completely unfair amounts of pull. So you could maybe call it an unofficial Oligarchy, or something. Personally, I'd just say it's heavily influenced by rich people and corporations.
MM, both warfare and social injustice are big problems. Warfare is easier to stop, yet, somehow, we never do stop. But, you can stop warfare and encourage social justice at the same time. And just because we won't stop our wars doesn't mean we shouldn't at least improve the livability of our country for groups that are treated unfairly.
do you think that social injustice is not a direct result of plutocracy or oligarchy ?
it is, because if social politics were up to the majority of citizens then we would have had far better equal rights in a wider spectrum because believe it or not majority of people are good and kind and and want what is fair and equal.
i bring up warfare because they are the devices by which the rich maintain oligarchy and in that sense warfare is a bigger issue since stopping the warfare damages oligarchy and the power of the rich which will as a result shift power back to the majority of citizens and bring social equality among other equally important things.
but if you keep yourself too busy with social inequality and other smaller issues which the political parties spread out for you to fight over them and create an illusion on democracy, you will never succeed in getting to the root of the problem which created social inequality to begin with.
I agree with this. It disturbs me the biggest talk is social issues that lie on the surface. The worst of it is how shady some of that topic is.
97% of Scientists believe that humans are causing global warming.
Think about how crazy this REALLY is.
We are literally destroying the planet, and will not stop until clean energy becomes more profitable (which likely won't happen).