Nope not some tribute to a song by R.E.M.

By ‘religion’ I mean democracy because to some of us democracy is a religion and it needs preserving and helped to thrive…..and it appears to be diminishing almost daily.

For decades there has been a slow destruction of our beloved democracy and since the early 90s that destruction has sped up until we arrive at today and the total disregard of our democracy by some.

The culprits are those oligarchs, the uber-wealthy, that are using their wallets to secure influence and drain the life out of democracy.

It doesn’t take a conspiracy to dismantle democracy — just concentrated wealth and time.

Across the globe, but especially in the United States, the ultra-wealthy have learned to bend democratic institutions not through revolution or coups d’état, but through slow but determined erosion. They don’t storm the halls of power; they sponsor those halls, sue them if they resist, and slowly discredit them if they persist. They present themselves to the public and a pliant media as hardnosed realists and pragmatists — people who know how to get things done – rational actors disillusioned with what they denounce as ‘the inefficiencies of self-rule.’ But what they’re really doing is waging a cold and relentless war on the very machinery of democratic life.

The corrosion starts subtly: A billionaire funds a lawsuit, quietly buys a newspaper, or drops millions into a political race. It initially appears to be wholesome participation (Bezos saving journalism by giving it room to breathe) — civic engagement by successful individuals. But with the benefit of time, the scale and intent reveal something else.

When Peter Thiel bankrolled the lawsuit that bankrupted Gawker Media, he wasn’t just seeking justice for a perceived personal slight. He was sending a clear message: If you cross a billionaire, we will destroy you — and we won’t need to win an argument to do it. You will not be debated; you will be swiftly liquidated.

The legal system, which in theory protects the weak from the powerful, is in practice yet another arena where wealth sets the rules. Strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPP suits) have become the favorite tool of oligarchs to intimidate journalists, whistleblowers, and activists into silence. The goal isn’t to win in court; it is to bleed critics dry with legal fees and drag them through years of debilitating litigation. In a democracy, speech should be protected; in an oligarchy, it is priced and, in that way, snuffed out.

The media, too, has been captured — not in a dramatic coup, but through purchase after purchase.

Rupert Murdoch’s sprawling empire has normalized the idea that facts are pliable, that narratives are weapons, and that partisanship isn’t a danger but a business model. Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter (now X) is a more recent version of the same impulse: Control the flow of information, and you control what people believe is real. Democracy depends on shared reality, while plutocracy, in sharp contrast, thrives and prospers in the fog.

https://thefulcrum.us/ethics-leadership/billionaire-oligarchy

The destruction is nearing completion….the tenets by which this great nation was founded are being chipped away…..what will you do to preserve the system we love?

Thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”