Don’t forget Clarence Thomas. He was also heavily involved at the time, in fact he played a decisive role, and he is just as obviously corrupt today as he was then. No consequences, no accountability whatsoever.

As I said, that’s true, of course, but the question is how long it will remain that way. I can hardly see any difference already, and I don’t see how things in the US are going to get better.

The only possibility, in my opinion, is for the people to rise up and overthrow this blatantly corrupt system. They still have the chance to do so at the moment, as the authoritarian regime with its secret police loyal to no one but the organge godfather (in the form of ICE with a budget that compares to the military spendings of a medium sized country) is still in the process of being fully established.

To be honest, however, I have little hope that the American people will do this - yes, there are massive protests, but there are no signs of a nationwide, organized general strike that could bring the regime to its knees. I don’t think these ruthless criminals will be impressed by anything else, because they hold all the cards.

Yes, that may be true for now, but the US regime is currently obviously working to change that - and fast.

I mean, masked fascist thugs are randomly kidnapping and even murdering people in broad daylight, and the highest law enforcement authorities are not only protecting pedophiles, but are also clearly enabling their decades of monstrous deeds in the first place. This has nothing to do with even a halfway functioning system, especially since the US government is trampling on the law as if it was beneath them - they just don’t care anymore because no one is stopping them. This is evident in the fact that even the most heinous crimes do not result in any consequences for those responsible - and this has been the case for quite some time in the US as well.

None of this is even remotely compatible with a democratic constitution.

I would say that mafia state and oligarchy are roughly synonymous.

The difference lies more in the perception of a given country: Russia is an oligarchy because all power is in the hands of a few. It is seen as a mafia state because Russia has a horrible reputation on the world stage, which is why those in power have a reputation for enriching themselves out of pure greed. Of course they do, but so do despots in other oligarchic countries - only here it is sometimes still considered legitimate state action, even if it, in fact, only benefits a powerful elite.

In contrast, a plutocracy is also an oligarchy, but a special case of it, since wealth is the main source of power for the elite who control the country.

However, now that the US elite is apparently replacing it’s sham democracy with autocratic tyranny, as in Russia, the US is also increasingly becoming an oligarchy in the sense of a dictatorship.

I think it is undisputed that both Russia and the US are led by serious criminals, by a mafia, which, however, has so far only been referred to as such in Russia.

But since the US regime apparently no longer has any scruples about openly committing the most depraved crimes and - like Putin’s crew - shamelessly enriching itself, the US’s international reputation will also rapidly deteriorate, as is already the case.

Today, you will hardly find many people in any country of the world who still believe anything the White House says, given the obvious lies coming out of there.

In short, both countries are mafia states, but the US is so powerful that the oligarchs here are much more dangerous because of their disproportionately greater influence on other countries.

Yes, Russia is an oligarchy, no question, but the country is nowhere near as powerful as the US with its excessively inflated military apparatus … hence the question: Should the US be called a super-oligarchy, now that the country’s elite, who are actually its most degenerate citizens, is obviously no longer satisfied with the plutocracy that has long been the norm there?

It’s truly open mob rule in the States … a superpower under the control of serious criminals. What do you call that, actually?

I mean, organized crime probably hasn’t existed in at least fifty years with such blatant, unpunished audacity and probably not with such an outrageous level of twisted depravity either. I’m not sure if the monsters of the world have ever been so powerful since the end of World War II.

So what would be a fitting term for today’s US?

Super-oligarchy? Orange Mega-MAGA-Mafia-Nation?

Yes, absolutely. The astronomical budget of this “agency” led to the conclusion, from the moment it was approved, that it would serve to establish a secret police force loyal exclusively to the regime. Why else would funds equivalent to the military budget of a medium-sized country be needed?

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Yes, exactly. That’s why I’m concerned about the system in my home country. However, I find it incomprehensible how anyone who is a US citizen can still believe in the illusion that the US is a democracy. It has been an oligarchy for at least thirty years and, to be honest, always has been - that is to say, a nation that is actually ruled by a few instead of by its people. This was the case long before the first term of the current, unusually criminal president. He has changed little in terms of the facts, but is simply particularly unscrupulous, thus making it obvious that the US system has long since ceased to have anything to do with democracy.

I’m sorry to have to say it so bluntly, but your comments suggests that, like many Americans, you are not really aware of what a democracy is. If there were such awareness in the US, it would not be possible, for example, for there to be no statutory health insurance, no protective rights for workers, and so on.

Is that really what democracy is about, or is that just what billionaires have made of it?

I ask because you are applying a monetary standard instead of what the citizens want. This leads me to suspect that you are a US citizen, as this system no longer has much to do with democracy at all since the fewer than twenty people who make up the Supreme Court, the highest judicial authority in the US system, ruled that there is no upper limit on “campaign donations,” that they do not have to be disclosed, and that “political consultants,” such as Musk, do not need confirmation by the people to be entrusted with powers that in any other democracy worthy of the name would naturally require the consent of the citizens.

Oh, and one more thing: the Supreme Court has also ruled that the US president is de facto above the law – which is also incompatible with any democratic constitution.

Immer gern. Ich bin inzwischen allerdings leider schon soweit, dass ich mir diese Vorgänge nicht mehr mit Inkompetenz erklären kann. Vielleicht ist es etwas verschwörungstheoretisch, aber das bitte ich zu entschuldigen - ich fürchte, ich habe inzwischen jeden Glauben an die Politik verloren.

Edit: Die Ansage der Grünen lautete allerdings tatsächlich so - das ist keine Verschwörungstheorie, sondern auch hierzulande die Realität.

Die haarsträubende Ausrede war, dass der Naturpark Schwarzwald um einige, wenige Kilometer erweitert werden soll - das habe man der CDU wacker abgerungen, hieß es … im Austausch dafür, dass grundlose und verfassungswidrige Massenüberwachung auch in Deutschland zur Realität wird und ebenso dafür, dass kein Ermittlungsverfahren gegen jene korrupten CDU-US-Assets eingeleitet wird, die bereits zuvor den besagten Palantir-Deal auf eigene Faust und unter Umgehung jedweder demokratischer Kontrollmechanismen ganz einfach abgeschlossen haben. So haben die Grünen - natürlich unter den allerschlimmsten Bauchschmerzen - die Sache ernsthaft noch als so etwas wie einen politischen Deal verkaufen wollen. Absurder könnte es wirklich nicht mehr sein, aber irgendwie mussten sie ja begründen, warum sie bereit sind, sogar noch die sensibelsten Daten direkt an offene Faschisten weiterzugeben - an den Demokratiefeind Peter Thiel ebenso wie an den organgenen Kinderschänder im weißen Haus.

In BaWü hat die Landesregierung entgegen eine Petition mit mehr als 13.000 Unterschriften (wurde frühzeitig beendet, weil unsere verehrten Politiker lieber schnell abgestimmt haben, bevor noch mehr Gegenstimmen zusammenkommen) sogar eigens das Polizeigesetz geändert, um dem bereits zuvor völlig widerrechtlich mit Palantir geschlossenen Vertrag rückwirkend noch irgendwie zumindest den Anschein von Legalität zu geben. Damit ist der Einsatz der Palantir-Massenüberwachungsanwendung “Gotham” hier beschlossene Sache, obwohl m.E. verfassungswidrig (s. Recht auf informationelle Selbstbestimmung).

Hier findest du auf der Seite des Landtags eine PDF-Datei mit den Namen aller Abgeordneten, die dafür gestimmt und damit die Bürger verraten haben - neben den üblichen Verdächtigen wie CDU und AfD haben auch die Grünen so gut wie geschlossen dafür gestimmt, was zeigt, dass auch diese Partei trotz ihrer hehren Sprüche offensichtlich so sehr vom US-Lobbyismus unterwandert ist, dass sie eklatant entgegen die Interessen der Bürger handelt.

Es ist wirklich zum Kotzen.

Indeed, in the US, prisoners are exploited as slave labor, with private companies essentially running the prisons and earning billions in the process.

On the other hand, the super-rich get away with the most heinous crimes imaginable.

I would say that it wasn’t us, the ordinary people, who created this terrible world, but we definitely allowed the worst among us to do so - and we even rewarded them for it, so that this monstrous world is now ruled by the most ruthless, like a monarchy that was believed to have been overcome. Apparently, civilizational progress is not bound to the passage of time, as I strongly suspect that we are regressing civilizational: back to absolutism with its degenerate rulers who give free rein to their perverse desires - and they can do so, because they are at the top of a society they exploit with impunity.

Has the guy finally realized he’s still a visionary? After all, you’re usually on the right track if you do the exact opposite of what this jerk says. So maybe that’s the best approach here.

I’m not a fan of this proposal, because it can only be implemented with age verification, which we all know what that entails, but if he’s against it, you almost have to be for it.

Nah, better not. The right thing to do is ignore all his pronouncements and make sure everyone finally leaves his goddamn self-aggrandizing platform - and that he spends his twilight years deservedly in prison.

In any case: Fuck this pedophile piece of shit.

Yes, unfortunately that is true, except that these “legal entities” cannot be held liable for their crimes in the same way as humans. Therefore, the people who control these companies cannot be held liable for their crimes.

This is a legal trick that illustrates that the law has nothing to do with justice, while ensuring that billionaires are “legally” above the law that applies to everyone who is not a billionaire.

Yes, that’s true. They are incredibly incompetent, but also so unscrupulous that they are still quite successful at enriching themselves. Given the lack of consequences, they seem to be completely indifferent to how obvious it is by now.

I suppose that’s what happens when you always let the worst criminals get away with their crimes.

Anyway, I think that even after the first year of his second term, the orange moron is undoubtedly the most corrupt president the country has ever had in its history.

Well, organized like the mob, you know, the old mafia connections of the father of the orange child molester - and those of Roy Cohn, his mentor…

Organized like his good friend Jeffrey and all those people…