America’s Deep State Is Its ‘Elected’ Government

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Written by Eric Zuesse

Today’s U.S. ‘democracy’ is ruled by a virtually 100% neoconservative and neoliberal team, both in Congress and in the White House, which team represents the billionaires of both of the nation’s two political Parties. (The idea behind this ‘democracy’ is that because there is more than a single political party, it ‘cannot’ be a “totalitarian” Government, but is instead necessarily a ‘democratic’ Government — as-if there can’t be a multi-Party dictatorship, which is what most dictatorships now are, multiple Parties all representing different factions of the oligarchy, with corruption controlling, thereby, all of the major Parties.) It is stunningly bipartisan, both for neoconservatism (expansion of the U.S. empire to include yet more nations, such as Syria, Venezuela, Russia, China, Iran, etc., as being future U.S. ‘allies’ or vassal-nations), and for neoliberalism (enforcing accountability ONLY downward toward employees and the poor, never upward toward the billionaires or the national Government’s owners themselves, so that America has the world’s highest percentage of its population in prison, and those prisoners are far below the average national income and far below the average personal wealth too). 

America’s Deep State represents 100% both Democratic Party billionaires and Republican Party billionaires; and, therefore, on all of the issues on which all billionaires agree — such as on neoconservatism and on neoliberalism — the votes in Congress are virtually 100% in favor of a given item of proposed new legislation.

This is a nation that is ruled by and for its super-rich, in order to fool and control its public, for the benefit of those owners: the thousand-or-so people who have purchased, and who effectively own, America’s (s’elected’) rulers.

Here is how the former U.S. President, Jimmy Carter, phrased this matter, when he was asked about corruption in the U.S. Government:

It violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it’s just an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or being elected president. And the same thing applies to governors, and U.S. Senators and congress members. So, now we’ve just seen a subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect, and sometimes get, favors for themselves after the election is over. … At the present time the incumbents, Democrats and Republicans, look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves. Somebody that is already in Congress has a great deal more to sell.

There is considerable speculation about “America’s permanent government,” and about America’s “Deep State,” and especially about how, on issues of neoconservatism (America’s MIC or Military Industrial Complex, plus its intelligence agencies) and on issues of neoliberalism (holding harmless, instead of prosecuting and imprisoning or executing, the controlling owners of criminal mega-corporations), there is effectively no difference in America between the two political Parties; but there is almost no public discussion of the possible extent to which that “permanent government,” and that “Deep State,” consists actually of America’s s’elected’ rulers, and especially of the billionaires who s’elected’ all and each one of them.

If a person looks at the bills in Congress on which the votes in favor are 90% and higher, these are found consistently to be bills that the billionaires in BOTH of the political Parties want to become passed into new laws — regardless of what the nation’s public might happen to want.

By contrast, most of the public’s discussions, and of the press’s reporting, about the “permanent government,” and about the “military-industrial complex,” and about the “Deep State,” focus on anything BUT those thousand-or-so corporate owners, and on how those owners actually control the U.S. Government.

America’s Deep State is its s’elected’ government, NOT its bureaucracy (who answer ultimately to the s’elected’ government).

Here’s an example: On August 8th, America’s Associated Press bannered “One year after Afghanistan, spy agencies pivot toward China”, and reported, regarding the CIA, that “the agency’s money and resources would be increasingly shifted to focusing on China,” and so it’s “moving hundreds of officers to China-focused positions, including some who were previously working on terrorism.” “And the war in Ukraine has underscored Russia’s importance as a target.” Furthermore:

“A far greater existential threat is Russia and China” [than Al Qaeda and other terrorists], said [Jason] Crow, a Colorado Democrat who serves on the House Intelligence and Armed Services committees. Terrorist groups, he said, “will not destroy the American way of life … the way China can.”

But, actually, does the Russian Government, and does the Chinese Government, pose the “existential threat” to the U.S. Government; or does the U.S. Government, and its NATO, and its AUKUS, instead pose the “existential threat” to both the Russian Government, and the Chinese Government, and the Venezuelan Government, and the Syrian Government, and the Libyan Government, and the Iranian Government, and the North Korean Government, and … ?

Is a Government that is looking to overthrow and replace governments throughout the world, actually throwing stones from a very glass house, when alleging that other countries are endangering “the American way of life”? Who finances the careers of this s’elected’ government? Whom does it really represent?

As U.S. President Andrew Jackson said, in his Farewell Address, on 4 March 1837, warning that America’s democracy was threatened from within, by its tiny minority of “the monied interests” and “the great monied corporations,” which expect not merely toleration but accommodation by the nation’s majority: “you must remember, my fellow-citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing.” That warning was ignored: today’s America is ruled BY its “monied interests,” instead of by the majority. This certainly is not a democracy. Whatever “the American way of life” now is, it isn’t democratic, no matter what position in government a liar about it might say to the exact contrary of that reality.

It’s not for nothing that, worldwide, a higher percentage of people consider the U.S. Government to be the biggest threat to world peace than think any other nation’s Government is. It’s NOT because America is a democracy, but because it isn’t.

America suffers not from its presence of democracy, but from its absence.

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s new book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.

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