No, I am not making this up. Martial law in the Congress means that bills are debated on the floor and voted on without any time for committee deliberation or even reading the bills. Massive things, full of fine print and spaghetti legalisms, hundreds of pages long, with nothing more than a “Vote for this!” to recommend it to the legislators.

That’s rubber-stamp legislation, plain and simple. Both Republicans and Democrats resort to it, so it’s not a partisan issue. It’s wholesale failure of democratic principles, that’s what it is. The people that wrote the massive bills – the rich men and women and corporations that can afford to hire enough lawyers and make enough campaign contributions to make them happen – do not want what’s in those bills to be read. It would spoil their system of spoils.

No matter what appearances you think you might see to indicate to the contrary, America is an increasingly authoritarian plutocracy. The rich run this place, and they use both the Democrats and Republicans at their beck and call to expand their power, increase their wealth, and all the while impoverishing and oppressing us that aren’t rich. This is why discussions about Romney and Obama tire me: neither man will make a difference when it comes to reducing the power of our unelected tyrants.