US has become a police state: Posel

The United States has turned into a “police state” where the voice of the majority has been taken away, says Susanne Posel, a political analyst.

A new study by researchers at Princeton University suggests that the US is no longer a democracy but an oligarchy because the ideas of a small number of elite individuals are far more influential than those of common people.

However, Posel, chief editor of Occupy Corporatism and the US Independent.com, says the US was intended to become a constitutional republic but “got sidetracked” into a democracy and if you “look back at” history, you can see a democracy always descends into a “police state.”

According to Posel, who made the remarks in a phone interview with Press TV on Sunday, a democracy is “where the majority rule” but since the majority’s voice has been taken away in the US, “there is no place but to descend into an oligarchy.”

“What our founding fathers wanted was a place where each citizen was sovereign, has their own rights; that state had its own rights; and that the federal government was there to just make sure that everyone else could conduct their business properly,” she said.

“There was no federal oversight, the states were able to take care of what they needed to take care of, sovereign people were able to take care of their own business and nobody was in your face, in your way telling you what to do and controlling you,” she added.

According to the Princeton University study, conducted by professors Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page, the opinions of a moneyed elite class in the United States are far more influential than those of the general public.

“The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence,” the researchers say.

AT/ISH