The Tyranny of Class in the Anglo-American Empire

Money, money, money. Lots of it. Can't get enough. Makes the world go around. Keep your grubby hands off my pile.

Familiar words? They should be. These are the sentiments at the heart of the Anglo-American Empire. Those with the cash rig the rules of the political game so they can make as much as they can with as little interference from the unwashed masses as possible.

But deep down they are running scared. They still haven't gotten over the fact that a French-speaking mob lopped off the heads of 20,000 of their kind and that their Russian cousins met a similar fate.

So, they decided to give us the vote, knowing that this would be enough since having the vote is not nearly as important as establishing the rules of how campaigns are to be financed and how the votes are to be counted.

Moreover, they propagate the myth that the regime is democratic. In the United States where corporations can spend without limits in support of their favored candidates, it is hard to imagine that a corporate elite would not dominate the political process. In other words, the wealthy few dominate the many.

In a similar vein, in the UK there is soon to be a referendum on the choice of a voting system where the choices are between two majoritarian systems in which in either case majorities are created by eliminating the voices of minority groups. In the case of First-Past-The-Post, the voices of the minorities are systemically reduced or eliminated altogether from Parliament. With the alternative vote, the supporters of smaller parties are supposed to find consolation after their political preferences are denied representation with the fact that their second or third choices might make a difference in the electoral result.

In both instances, there is a steadfast refusal to give equal treatment to the entire electorate. As a result, a general election is not a democratic exercise to form a government of, for, and by the people. Instead, it is a show of force. To the winner go the spoils of victory, the transfer of the political power of the majority to the privileged minority.

Never mind the tyranny of the majority. What the populations of Anglo-American empires are subjected to is the tyranny of a minority. The super rich have gained an institutional lock on the political process and will continue to exploit this advantage to their benefit and to the detriment of the population at large.