LittleSis is a project of Public Accountability Initiative, a nonprofit nonpartisan research and educational organization focused on government and corporate accountability.This is a must-read article for anyone who is not yet thoroughly convinced that the US is governed by a plutocracy, a ruling class whose basis of power is the private control and ownership of socially produced wealth, also known as capitalism.
Much of the public has come to view the Obama Administration as the latest round in a quickening game of musical chairs, played by the same old politicians who owe their fortunes or their careers to the same financial institutions that destroyed the economy, each round further consolidating their unaccountable power, each round bringing fresh disillusionment.In this article the author provides an abundance of information to show how the ruling class uses corporate funded advisory groups and think tanks associated with elite educational institutions to provide legitimate cover for their policies, and how they move their key decision makers in and out of government.
Corporate-friendly proposals that arise organically from discussions between government and business elites brought together within old institutions [associated with elite academic institutions, primarily Harvard] funded by a long list of corporate and wealthy individual donors are much more politically viable than those coming directly from a bank lobbyist, an oil company, or a group closely affiliated with one. Corporations don’t dictate specific views, they nurture hundreds of views within a safely constrained spectrum and run with what works best.
Not that anything has changed from the inception of the US. The country was founded by America's first capitalists who engineered the revolution from Great Britain because the latter's ruling class imposed too many restrictions on them. This embryonic capitalist class in American colonies saw the huge potential for the plunder of the continent's resources and saw only "savages" standing in their way if they could only separate from the mother country.
They employed people like Thomas Paine, Patrick Henry, and the conflicted Thomas Jefferson to espouse the philosophies of the Enlightenment that challenged the rule of aristocracies and feudalism and affirmed the "natural rights of man". These ideas were enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and had a strong influence on farmers and artisans, who otherwise were lukewarm to separation, to support the revolution.
After the revolution succeeded, the new ruling capitalist class did everything they could to contain these democratic influences. They clearly feared the people and designed the Constitution to act as a bulwark against popular power. (Read Charles Beard's books entitled, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, and Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy, Woody Holton's Unruly Americans.)
What we see today is the near final victory of this globalized class over working people nearly everywhere in the world. Thus they engage less in the pretend games of "democracy", human and civil rights, and enforce the rule of (their) law almost exclusively against working people that is taking on the appearance of fascism.
Whether the people succumb to their rule remains to be seen. What is certain is that their system is on a collision course with the Earth's ecosystem and resource limits. If we fail to stop it, the result will be the disappearance of human and other life forms.