SUMMARY
When you see:
- Intellectually bankrupt international political leadership and your political representatives voting themselves privileges and benefits that the rest of the people don’t get
- Your media in private corporate hands driving their own agendas
- Increasing violence by, and the militarisation of, your police force
- A proliferation of frivolous new laws and the privatisation of the penal system.
- The suspension of habeas corpus and increased police powers to demand your ID, detain indefinitely, take your DNA and/or search without charge or a warrant
- A massive increase in the apparatus of state surveillance
- The loss of your freedoms and rights, usually under the pretext that your government is concerned for your security and welfare
- The criminalization of the whistleblowers and the demonization, dehumanizing and/or scapegoating of other nationalities, communities or groups
- Tax cuts for the rich and the corporations but increased fines, fees and taxes on the people
- Protection of avarice corporate profits and markets by government and the court system
- The concentration of the nation’s real wealth into the hands of the very few
These are the hallmarks of plutocratic and oligarch rule and when you see these things you as a community of free citizens have already lost. And if you’re not seeing these things – well, you’re just not looking.