There is nothing confusing about the US government abandoning its own citizens in a war zone but rescuing and assisting Saudi bombers in the same war zone (“U.S. military assets had been used to rescue two Saudi pilots” McClatchy; Pentagon spokesman told McClatchy the US will be refueling Saudi bombers “every day from now on.”)

The recently conducted and largest study to date of who effects the actions of the US government, conducted by political scientists from Princeton and Northwestern, looked at about 1,800 US policies – essentially any policy one could imagine – and found:

“…economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.

“…the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”

Even back during the WWI era, politician Robert “Fighting Bob” La Follette fought to oppose “the growing dominance of corporations over the Government”. (Though he was widely hated for this stance at the time, a 1957 Senate Committee “selected La Follette as one of the five greatest U.S. Senators”.)

And Woodrow Wilson noted in his private writings:

“Since trade ignores national boundaries and the manufacturer insists on having the world as a market, the flag of his nation must follow him, and the doors of the nations which are closed against him must be battered down. Concessions obtained by financiers must be safeguarded by ministers of state, even if the sovereignty of unwilling nations be outraged in the process. Colonies must be obtained or planted, in order that no useful corner of the world may be overlooked or left unused.”

Indeed, Yale political science PhD Michael Parenti notes that the American Revolution was essentially a transfer of power from monarchy to oligarchy.  (And see this for another bit of historical context.)

Those who effect US policy have, in pursuit of their commercial and power interests, killed millions of people in the Middle East just during the last thirty years.  They continue today by (in addition to many other illegal campaigns) helping the vicious Saudi dictatorship conquer Yemen through a war of aggression and terrorism.

That the interests of most American citizens – non-elites – would have little to no impact on any of this is not only unsurprising and not confusing, but is explicitly demonstrated through meticulous study.

As many great scholars of the topic have noted, it is up to anyone who dislikes this dynamic to change it.

@_DirtyTruths

http://www.empireslayer.org