US Democracy Is Evolving into “Money-Mastered Democracy”

On May 25, in response to the United States’ “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2011,” China’s Information Office of the State Council released “The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2011.” The report claimed that the capitalization of U.S. democracy continues to worsen as time progresses and that under such an influence, U.S. democracy is evolving into money-mastered democracy.

Based on data published by the U.S. Center for Responsive Politics in November 2011, the report showed that 46 percent of the members of the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives have more than $1 million of assets; therefore, the U.S. government’s plan to impose higher taxes on the rich whose annual income is above $1 million has been blocked in Congress. Some commentaries pointed out that in the American political system money has become the electoral trump card. The Supreme Court agreed that corporations could use their strong economic power to support candidates and policies that are favorable to their businesses and resist candidates and policies that might compromise their commercial interests.

Quoted from the relevant reports, the “The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2011” stated that during the 2010 U.S. Congressional Election, donations from the U.S. financial industry made up two-thirds of the total number of contributions for the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. A senior Democratic Party member who served as the chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture between 2007 and 2010, saw a 711 percent increase in donations from the corporations under the jurisdiction of his committee while – during that same period — the total number of donations he received only increased by 274 percent. According to a report from The Washington Post on Aug. 10, 2011, nearly 80 percent of Americans were dissatisfied with the way that the U.S. political system is being operated and 45 percent of them expressed great disappointment.

In addition, the report said that the U.S. government continues to abuse American citizens’ freedom rights in the name of boosting national security levels. The U.S. Electronic Frontier Foundation released a report in 2011 called “Patterns of Misconduct: FBI Intelligence Violations from 2011-2008.” The findings disclosed that the U.S. political intelligence agencies led by the FBI continued to violate American citizens’ civil rights: From 2001 to 2008, the number of violations of American law and executive orders when pursuing intelligence investigations reached 40,000. Out of a total of over 200,000 investigative requests issued by the FBI, at least 60 percent were requests for investigation of U.S. citizens and legal residents.

“The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2011” said, according to a Washington Post commentary dated Jan. 14, 2012, that without probable cause, the U.S. Government can use “National Security Letters” to demand that organizations turn over information on citizens’ finance, communications, and associations, and to order searches on other sources ranging from business documents to library records. The U.S. government can, without securing any court orders or judicial reviews, use the Global Positioning System (GPS) to monitor every movement of a targeted citizen.