PLUTOCRATIC POWER

MARGARET KIMBERLEY—The US billionaire class has grown at unprecedented speed during the pandemic and economic crises, increasing their wealth by over a trillion dollars and adding 46 new oligarchs to their numbers, according to a report by the Institute for Policy Studies. Never has the world seen wealth accumulation at such a scale, said Omar Ocampo, a researcher for the study. “We need to create an economic system that does not allow for wealth to be (so) extremely concentrated,” said Ocampo. “ This could be done by “growing the labor movement” and instituting “workplace democracy and worker ownership.” [Better still, by doing away with capitalism once and for all, and buildng socialism.—Ed]

ERIC ZUESSE—When the U.S. invades a foreign country, or issues sanctions against a foreign country, it benefits some American investors, not only in corporations such as Lockheed Martin and ExxonMobil, but even in some foreign-headquartered corporations. America’s spending around half of the entire world’s military expenses gives an enormous competitive boost to America’s billionaires, which is paid for by all U.S. taxpayers. It takes away money that would otherwise go toward the rest of the U.S. population — people who might even become crippled or killed by their military service for the benefit of America’s billionaires. Marketing this military service to the public, as “national defense” (actually international aggression) — even at a time when no nation has invaded or even threatened to invade America after 1945 — is good PR for America’s wealthiest families, regardless of whether it’s of any benefit whatsoever to other Americans.

DIANA JOHNSTONE—“authoritarian white supremacy” and “radical Marxist socialism” while offering absolutely nothing in terms of coherent public policy of benefit to the American people and the world. The politicians cling to ineffective office, while the future is being planned elsewhere.

Policy will be designed by the Global Governors, for instance at the next meeting in Davos of the World Economic Forum which, according to its founder and chairman Klaus Schwab, will lay out the “Great Reset” agenda for the Fourth Industrial Revolution that is destined to reshape all our lives. Nicolas Berggruen will be there with his ideas.  So will other billionaires. 

FINIAN CUNNINGHAM—The basic problem is that the United States has devolved into a hyper militarized oligarchic state. The vast, growing social inequality in the nation, and its grotesque waste of economic resources on militarism are but two manifestations of this state. That is the outcome of decades of US corporate capitalism. All Western states tend to share similar deformities, but the American version of the disease is at its most virulent and moribund.

PAUL STREET—Damaged young men and adolescents like the Kenosha street-shooter Kyle Rittenhouse, a Trump fan and police devotee (his social media account is filled with “Blue Lives Matter” posts) are being sparked into a fascistic frenzy by a fascist president, a white-nationalist (Republican) party, and neofascist media outlets who tell them that the Great White Fatherland is under existential assault from Communist totalitarians masquerading as civil and human rights advocates and allied with the other leading national party – the supposedly “radical Left” Democrats.