NBC News: "CIA Prepping for Possible Cyber Strike Against Russia"

[John Knoble]

Political point scoring is not only permitted but encouraged because it helps to bolster the fairy story that the US is an exceptional democracy.

It's not entirely a fairy story. It must make quite an impression to those living in most of the rest of the world that ordinary citizens can engage in personal attacks on high level politicians without being jailed or dispossessed.

I think you're right about the "deep state," though, and having an election dominated by highly personal allegations involving both sides leaves the deep state unencumbered when it tackles issues like how 20 trillion dollars of debt will get serviced when interest rates rise or how privacy issues are handled in an age where every citizen has a long digital file.

The truth, however, is quite different - and was glimpsed in last year's Princeton study that concluded the US is, today, an oligarchy

It always has been, and in many ways it is a fairer oligarchy than it used to be because it is possible for clever people with middle class backgrounds or religious and ethnic minorities to join the elect. There's no uproar, though, about the clever taking advantage of the less clever...maybe that's the next frontier for the civil rights movement. A good example is endless deficit spending, which politicians love because it pleases everyone, but one way or another will disadvantage those with ordinary bank accounts over sophisticated investors who understand macroeconomics and cycles. Complexity in regulation and fine print creates moats of various species that keeps money flowing flowing to the institutions where the MBAs and lawyers from the ranked schools are employed, and there is an unchallenged sense that it is earned and deserved. Paradoxically, the removal of barriers to Jews, Catholics, women (and others with a learned sensitivity to the plight of the marginalized) to play the game at the highest levels has left a shortage of talented people to champion the little guy.

The media never directly questions the entitlement of aptitude, or the excesses of the clever. One reason for that is the editors and writers at the top media outlets self-rationalize their positions as deserved and their opinions more equal than others for the same reasons.

Even "elite," a perfect word to describe the group in question, has been pushed out of the proper lexicon by the opinion makers...............

For example, name me any president who has ever openly and publicly stated the central aims of the so called Wolfowitz Doctrine - which largely remains the guiding foreign policy goal of the US?

We're at the tail end of the post World War II growth model, where the United States Dollar is the pillar on which all major currencies rests. It gives us an advantage over many other countries in that we can borrow virtually unlimited amounts in our own currency. U.S. debt (and more recently that of its western allies) has been the major engine of world growth for a long time, and China and Japan have been eager to purchase it to keep their currency devalued and their exports flowing.

We're trapped in this paradigm, and it is going to take a lot of imagination to reverse or segue to a new scheme that keeps us prosperous. The emergence of a major rival, alliance or challenge to the dollar in the meantime will limit our options. Were not that bad as empires go...the benefits to the world from American culture, values, technology that has lapsed into the public domain and a generally fair business climate policed by our military don't show up on the balance sheet.

The observable consequence of this is that you have a political shadow play in operation every moment of every day that says one thing but usually does another. The idea is to keep the American public fast asleep.

None of us should have a problem with that on issues where there are legitimate national security purposes. I do think there needs to be scrutiny with teeth to protect the interests of the middle class when it comes to major economic policy decisions given the close relationship between what you term the deep state and Wall Street. I think there is a real risk of the middle class disappearing if the above-described crisis is handled the wrong way, and if that happens the system will morph one way or another into an Argentinian model (albeit it a dressed-up one, sugar coated with deceit) where the wealthy live in gated neighborhoods and the rest struggle to get by. We're halfway there already, but if the dollar loses its reserve status while the paradigm adjusts, the deals at Target and Wal-Mart aren't going to be very good any more, and Marge Simpson isn't going to be able to buy Moroccan clementines at the local grocery in January.