{"id":32961,"date":"2017-07-10T01:00:12","date_gmt":"2017-07-10T05:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=32961"},"modified":"2017-06-30T14:40:34","modified_gmt":"2017-06-30T18:40:34","slug":"qotd-the-illusion-of-freedom-in-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2017\/07\/10\/qotd-the-illusion-of-freedom-in-america\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: The illusion of freedom in America"},"content":{"rendered":"

Being a citizen in the American corporate state is much like playing against a stacked deck: you’re always going to lose.<\/p>\n

The game is rigged, and “we the people” keep getting dealt the same losing hand. Even so, most stay in the game, against all odds, trusting that their luck will change.<\/p>\n

The problem, of course, is that luck will not save us. As I make clear in my book, Battlefield America: The War on the American People<\/em>, the people dealing the cards — the politicians, the corporations, the judges, the prosecutors, the police, the bureaucrats, the military, the media, etc. — have only one prevailing concern, and that is to maintain their power and control over the citizenry, while milking us of our money and possessions.<\/p>\n

It really doesn’t matter what you call them — Republicans, Democrats, the 1%, the elite, the controllers, the masterminds, the shadow government, the police state, the surveillance state, the military industrial complex — so long as you understand that while they are dealing the cards, the deck will always be stacked in their favor.<\/p>\n

Incredibly, no matter how many times we see this played out, Americans continue to naively buy into the idea that politics matter, as if there really were a difference between the Republicans and Democrats (there’s not).<\/p>\n

As if Barack Obama proved to be any different from George W. Bush (he has not). As if Hillary Clinton’s values are any different from Donald Trump’s (with both of them, money talks). As if when we elect a president, we’re getting someone who truly represents “we the people” rather than the corporate state (in fact, in the oligarchy that is the American police state, an elite group of wealthy donors is calling the shots).<\/p>\n

Politics is a game, a joke, a hustle, a con, a distraction, a spectacle, a sport, and for many devout Americans, a religion.<\/p>\n

In other words, it’s a sophisticated ruse aimed at keeping us divided and fighting over two parties whose priorities are exactly the same. It’s no secret that both parties support endless war, engage in out-of-control spending, ignore the citizenry’s basic rights, have no respect for the rule of law, are bought and paid for by Big Business, care most about their own power, and have a long record of expanding government and shrinking liberty.<\/p>\n

Most of all, both parties enjoy an intimate, incestuous history with each other and with the moneyed elite that rule this country. Don’t be fooled by the smear campaigns and name-calling. They’re just useful tactics of the psychology of hate that has been proven to engage voters and increase voter turnout while keeping us at each other’s throats. <\/p>\n

John W. Whitehead, “Don’t Be Fooled by the Political Game: The Illusion of Freedom in America”, Huffington Post<\/em><\/a>, 2015-08-12.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Being a citizen in the American corporate state is much like playing against a stacked deck: you’re always going to lose. The game is rigged, and “we the people” keep getting dealt the same losing hand. Even so, most stay in the game, against all odds, trusting that their luck will change. The problem, of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,10,53,41,13],"tags":[409,727,768,517],"class_list":["post-32961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-liberty","category-politics","category-quotations","category-usa","tag-corporations","tag-cronycapitalism","tag-democrat","tag-republican"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-8zD","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32961"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32962,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32961\/revisions\/32962"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}