As some of you know, I'm pretty well versed in the goings on of our country's corrupt political system. I found a nice little video I figured I'd share with you, in particular a history lesson in part of it. This video is non partisan and the particular parts I'm linking are simply historical facts so I hope if a conversation continues with this thread that it stays peaceful. ;-) While I don't agree with some of the sensationalism in this video, it does a good job of presenting the historical precedence established by past and recent Supreme Court rulings. I've included the exact time stamp, but if the timestamp link does not work watch from 5:30 to about 8:40 in the video. If you watch the whole video, I congratulate you for caring about our democracy. Note, I am not affiliated with this organization and while I do have further comments on the subject, I'll save it for if people are interested in discussing this topic. Link to specific timestamp
On a sidenote: I remember reading an article at some point about a report (So a secondary source of information, for all you academic types), and it was talking about how the American political system is now more in line with an Oligarchy, rather than a Democracy. For those not in the know, and Oligarchy is a political system where the majority of the power rests with a small amount of people. In the study, they looked at something like several hundred of the last bills/acts/whatevs passed by the government, and found that the majority of them granted better situations for corporations, rather than the people. I kinda realise some of you are going to say "Well, duh", but the point is more that there's a general loss of democracy, rather than giving a name to your political system.
Yup, couldn't have said it better myself. We have a fake democracy, not something a lot of people even realize.
It's good to see that people taking interest in the real state of politics in the USA. We need to awaken more people to the fact that a President can only do so much. The power for real change in the USA is in who we vote into Congress and Senate, as much as who we vote for president.
Although I would agree that the current US system of government is more an Oligarchy than democracy, the fact is it was never intended to be either. At it's founding, the US was to be a Republic. It was all about the individual trumping the majority (democracy) or the political/corporate elites (oligarchy). The rights of the individual were to be supreme. When asked what kind of government the founders gave us, Ben Franklin quipped, "A Republic, if you can keep it." Obviously, we know the answer to that question. Democracy is one of the worst forms of government. Being ruled by the knumbskull and easily manipulated masses that form the majority is scary.