Dissecting Jimmy Dore’s Book ‘Your Country Is Just Not That Into You’

Comedian and author Jimmy Dore has the uncanny ability to zero in on America’s chief political and economic problems with humorous precision. This ability is fully showcased in this uncensored interview, in which he expands on the hilariously biting commentary contained in his book Your Country Is Just Not That Into You.

When asked about the current state of political choices Americans have, Dore cites his view on the country’s clear class system.

“I like to talk in the book about the ‘owner class’ of America, that’s who George Carlin referred to. Because we think the people who run the country are politicians, but they’re not. They are the people who own them, is who I like to refer to as the owner class. And they’re the people who make us feel like we have a choice.”

He says Americans have been robbed of the right to choose their leaders without influence from corporate America. “The choice we’re going to end up with is whatever the corporations want – that’s the choice we get in this day and age.”

He cites a clear example of the poor political choices available from the last presidential campaign. “Last election it was Mitt Romney vs. Barack Obama. Now that was really important because if Mitt Romney had won, we would have gotten Romneycare, but Barack Obama won, so we got Romneycare. So that’s a good example of the phony choice we get in America these days.”

In his book, he calls out “the fake choices” in todays politics. “Barack Obama is not a liberal Democrat, he’s a moderate Republican. If you look at his positions, he’s a little bit right of Bob Dole, where he was in 1996.”

Dore said he also believes that Democrats have gotten way off track and not longer stand up for their base, of which a big part is unions and workers.

“It used to be that the news media used to be the watchdogs – so it was the corporations always trying to buy the politicians,” he said of the state of the media. “And we had the watchdog in the media making sure they were working in our interest and that things didn’t get corrupted.”

But he says what happened was that the corporations eventually got smart and decided to just buy the watchdogs “and now the criminals own everybody.”

The result of this has caused economic disaster for most of America, according to Dore. “Corporations are making record profits, and with the biggest income disparity since the Gilded Age.”

He also breaks down the major corporate players in the media. “It used to be, in 1980, 50 giant corporations owned all the media in the United States – and those were big companies. Now, as of 2011, we have six companies own the same amount of media.”

As an example, he points out the wide reach of Australian billionaire Rupert Murdoch, who owns countless media properties across all forms of media in the United States and abroad.

“He also bought the Dow Jones, which I didn’t even know you could do. You can buy the stock market? How much money does that guy have?”

He said this wealth and power conjures up a cinema-esque image of Murdoch. “I just picture Rupert Murdoch sitting in his office on his dolphin skin chair, stroking a Persian cat with a diamond-studded necklace, and then he presses a button that burns a barrel of oil just for kicks.”

Dore also discusses the reasons for the great disparity of wealth in the United States and why people at the middle and lower ends of the income scale have not successfully risen up for change.

“Our culture thinks that you can all be a millionaire someday if you just keep working hard enough. Well, that’s no longer true, right? Because Americans’ productivity has gone up – tripled, quadrupled – gone way up since 1980, but their pay hasn’t.”

Despite some of the recent rosy reports about improving economic conditions in the U.S., Dore says the reality is that only the rich are getting richer.

“It’s actually being funneled upward into the hands of a few people. And concentrated wealth stagnates economies, which is what we’re living in right now.”

Watch the full interview for more of Dore’s musings about other topics of the day – including his thoughts on ISIS, Jimmy Fallon, Brian Williams.