by Eric Zuesse, The Duran:
This has never happened before: Throughout the U.S., Americans are turning against ‘their’ Government — not against just the Democratic Party, and not just against just the Republican Party, but against the Government itself, which is supposed to be “their” Government (that represents the public) but increasing percentages of the American people are recognizing that it represents instead ONLY the billionaires — the thousand-or-so people whose donations to those Parties account for around 50% of ALL of the political donations that fuel the political campaigns which select all of the elected officcials of the Government; and, so, those political campaigns merely pit the candidates of Republican billionaires against the candidates of Democratic billionaires — but virtually ALL of the winners represent ONLY billionaires, the individuals who have effectively purchased them.
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
This doesn’t mean that every one of those winning candidates necessarily knows that he/she was bought by his/her megadonors, but ONLY that each of them was SELECTED by the candidate’s megadonors to fund because those megadonors LIKED that person’s policies. In other words, some of the elected Government officials actually believe that their policies would be good for the society-at-large and as Government officials are therefore sincere advocates for those policies; but, regardless of sincerity or not, the reason they occupy public office is that a few extremely rich people wanted those policies to BE the Government’s policies. That is how the Government is bought — REGARDLESS of whether an office-holder is sincere. This is how the system operates in an electoral ‘democracy’, such as the United States.
An example here will be the war in Gaza. On April 8th, Pew headlined “How Americans view Israel and the Israel-Hamas war at the start of Trump’s second term”, and reported that whereas 31% of adult Americans thought that Trump was “Favoring Israelis too much,” 3% thought he was “Favoring Palestinians too much” (29% said he was “Striking the right balance” and 37% said “Not Sure”; so, this wasn’t a high-priority issue for most Americans). That ratio, among Americans who really CARED about the issue, of 10-to-1 (31/3) opposition to Trump’s policies on Gaza, is extraordinarily high. It was SO high that even amongst Republicans, the ratio AGAINST Trump’s policies on this was remarkably high: 13% against (i.e., “Favoring Israelis too much”) versus only 3% for (i.e., “Favoring Palestinians too much”). 51% of Republicans said “Striking the right balance,” and 33% were “Not sure.” So, even in Trump’s OWN Party, the individuals who felt strongly about the issue were 4.33-to-1 OPPOSED to Trump’s Gaza-policies.
Trump’s third-biggest donor in the 2014 campaign was the Israeli-American (dual citizen) Miriam Adelson, at $106 million, whose personal fortune was $32.1 billion, and who is a thorough-going neoconservative and Zionist.
This is a good example of the top priorities of the billionaires versus the top priorities of the public.
And to probe a bit deeper into it: Stephen Bryen, who is retired from a long career of very high appointed positions in the U.S. Government and having headed one of the top-ten U.S. armaments-manufacturers selling to the U.S. Government, issued an article on April 19th, “Chinese Satellites and Arms Support the Houthis and target American and Allied Military Ships (including aircraft carriers)”, presenting a case that Yemen’s Houthis are now being supported by China in their efforts to hamstring America’s efforts assisting Israel’s war against ‘Hamas’ (i.e., against the 2.3 million Gazans) and might even blow up America’s aircraft carriers there in the eastern Mediterranean. He clearly opposes Yemen and China, and supports what Biden-Trump have been doing in the war between the Israelis and the Gazans. However, look at the reader-comments there — from people who regularly read his articles, and so who are, if anything, interested in and supportive of his viewpoints — and they are uniformly opposed, and some are clearly against the U.S. Government and favorable toward the Houthis, and favorable toward China, so that this audience, one which is inclined to support him, is expressing a position in international relations OPPOSED to ‘their own’ Government and supportive of Yemen and perhaps also of China AGAINST the U.S. Government.
