The US is peculiar in its attitudes toward reality because it is one big Company Town, where the corporations actually buy and sell politicians, where a handful of them control the major media, and where basic freedoms such as public assembly for protest and petitioning (especially against corporations like those on Wall Street) have de facto been abrogated by aggressive and militarized police tactics. It has a bizarre inheritance in racial attitudes that make the public easily divided and ruled. In short, the US is peculiarly corrupt and peculiarly authoritarian among industrialized democracies, making it possible to pull the wool over a lot of peoples’ eyes. One thing wrong with the famous Lincoln quote is that it is possible and sufficient for the plutocracy to fool most of the people most of the time.

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