My Turn: Oligarchy in America
By LISLE HEBERT
FOR THE JUNEAU EMPIRE
A recent study done by two professors at Princeton University and Northwestern University concluded that the USA is an oligarchy, not a democracy. The conclusion was reached after the researchers reviewed answers to 1,779 survey questions asked between 1981 and 2002 on public policy issues. They broke the responses down by income level, and then determined how often certain income levels, and organized interest groups, saw their policy preferences enacted.
The study found that our elected U.S. Congressmen and Senators vote in agreement with the majority of Americans only 10 percent of the time. The rest of the time, they vote for the special interests of the very rich and the major corporations which are the oligarchy that run this country.
I’ve always wondered why the actions of our government don’t match up with the avowed principles of our country and the feelings of most Americans I know.
America’s foreign policy decisions are very often in direct contradiction to the principles of our Constitution and the values of Americans. We have a long history of supporting dictators in Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia in order to protect and enhance the financial interests of Wall Street. Though the U.S. was so anti-communist during the cold war, Wall Street is now heavily invested in China, which is still a communist dictatorship. But, you don’t hear about that now because China provides cheap labor and big profits to the U.S. oligarchy and the heck with the rest. Follow the money. Forget “buy American.”