Inverted Totalitarianism

 

Representative institutions no longer represent voters. Instead, they have been short-circuited, steadily corrupted by an institutionalized system of bribery that renders them responsive to powerful interest groups whose constituencies are the major corporations and wealthiest Americans. The courts, in turn, when they are not increasingly handmaidens of corporate power, are consistently deferential to the claims of national security. Elections have become heavily subsidized non-events that typically attract at best merely half of an electorate whose information about foreign and domestic politics is filtered through corporate-dominated media. Citizens are manipulated into a nervous state by the media’s reports of rampant crime and terrorist networks, by thinly veiled threats of the Attorney General and by their own fears about unemployment. What is crucially important here is not only the expansion of governmental power but the inevitable discrediting of constitutional limitations and institutional processes that discourages the citizenry and leaves them politically apathetic.

 

What this quote means?

Representatives who are supposed to represent voters are caught up into a system of bribery. Those who are of the wealthiest are in control of the government system. Elections have become one of the parts of government that is receiving a lot of financial support and that has grown in power. Many people don’t even notice how powerful the government is getting because the only source of information they receive is through the media. We citizens are being manipulated through the media because they pick and choose what they should cover. They mostly report outrageous crimes, terrorist attacks, and their own fears on unemployment. At the end of this quote it talks about not only is the expansion of government important but also the limits that people were given through the constitution is limited so it leaves them not interested in politics.

 

Why I picked this quote?

The reason why I picked this quote because it makes me think about the American government. This land that’s supposed to be considered the land of the free but in all reality we are not. The only way my poor communities will experience change is through representatives that I vote for. This quote talks about how they are also manipulated through this system of bribery and controlled by the wealthiest and major corporation. For my communities, many people don’t go to school so they miss out on being educated on what’s going on around them. Instead they are subjected to the entertainment of the media. To show the communities how bad our communities are because of our criminals. When in all reality the real criminals are those in office. For those who want to overthrow and fight the government because in our constitution it was built on that idea, we have also been limited to that right. So it leaves me with this question what can I do?