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America's Claim to Be Real Democracy for All Is Doubtful
It's difficult to attend any social function these days where the conversation doesn't lead to an unhappy tug-of-war over the social, economic and political problems our country faces.
A lot of our woes hinge on corporate scandal, economic disparity and an administration gone amok.
It's important to point out here that after the American Revolution, our founders laid the foundation for this democratic state, but the original Constitution didn't include the Bill of Rights and other amendments we now enjoy.
Written by white owning-class males, the original document not only allowed slavery and prevented women from voting, but institutionalized rights primarily for its authors.
This country didn't exactly start off as a perfect democracy and that it has taken ongoing popular struggles to ensure equality of rights.
Maybe one of the few upsides of the Bush administration is that they have made it abundantly clear that our democratic system is flawed and vulnerable to manipulation. For the record, let's go over just a few of the current attacks on our democratic society.
We've got the tax breaks for the rich, the massive cutting of government social programs, and the promotion of global trade agreements that result in the outsourcing of well-paying jobs to countries where workers get paid peanuts and wouldn't recognize a human right if it fell into their laps.
The unchecked use of violence throughout the world to gain economic and political dominance is the sad icing on the cake when it comes to our abuse of power.
I am not completely disheartened, though.
The global justice movement, as it is called, was in full swing in February 2003, when between 10 million to 30 million people worldwide demonstrated against the war in Iraq.
Yes, the war is still going on, but what we witnessed here was global organization and cooperation against domination and violence so deeply embedded in our culture and institutions.
During my lifetime, I've been led to believe that we had to choose between two types of societies: a cutthroat capitalistic system based on individualism or a communist/socialist system based on collectivism.
In the former, community concerns often take a back seat, in the latter, individual interests lose out. But a healthy alternative might be one that balances both individual and collective needs. Is that asking too much? Perhaps.
For example, take the global financial market system, if you can get your head around it.
In a recent interview with The Sun, David Korten, author of "The Great Turning Point: From Empire to Earth Community," states: "Part of what is so pernicious about publicly traded corporations is that their only real accountability is to impersonal financial markets for which the only measurement that matters is instant profits.... Human and environmental costs are totally ignored, as is any other long-term consideration."
Add to this the reality that antitrust laws, designed to prevent consolidation of corporate power, are also readily ignored.
The problem is straightforward. Greedy, mercenary behavior is richly rewarded. On the corporate level, criminals are rarely punished to the full extent of the law.
Korten suggests that even our university's economics departments' research and teaching "are grounded in the premise that humans evaluate every decision solely in terms of financial gain," thereby establishing that "unmitigated greed is the defining characteristic of humanity."
The world is, of course, full of good, well-meaning people, but all of us are subject to the manipulation of advertisers, political tyrants, religious zealots or economists telling us even on public radio stations the justifications behind worldwide avarice.
In his book, "Deep Economy," Bill McKibben lists the huge misallocation of resources in every sector of society and adds, "Too much of our wealth goes to maintaining the systems of domination and providing obscene luxuries for a tiny percentage of the population."
Let's face it, we're all, almost from birth, conditioned to buy things and aspire to attain wealth and power. Juliet Schor, author of "Born to Buy," found that the average kindergartner can identify more than 300 corporate logos.
Consumption equals happiness and money is more important than life itself.
It doesn't have to be like this. But first we must face some hard truths about our way of life. We have never been a true democracy.
Before we can set a positive example in our foreign policy and to ourselves, we must recognize that our country has too often used military force to control resources and territories, rarely to anyone else's advantage but our own.
Then and only then will we ready for change that places community above commerce.
Leigh Donaldson is a Portland writer. He can be contacted at: leighd@lycos.com
© 2003- 2007 Blethen Maine Newspapers, Inc.
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Show AllBenjamin Franklin said "It's a republic if you can keep it." He feared that the rich and powerful would convert the elected representatives of the people from representing the public interest to representing private interests creating another aristocracy not unlike the one the founding fathers fought to overthrow. He was in this respect a prophet.
We live in a democracy, but it is a liberal democracy that depends upon citizenship. This involves not just participation in government, but behaving with a respect for the public interest even when the law does not require it.
This was relatively easy for 18th century patriots, but not so easy for today's big companies that are the only participant in today's society for which government dictates an anti-social goal, pursuit if its own interest.
This mandate needs to be qualified and limited because unless it is government will continue to be unable to fulfill its purpose--protection of the public interest--whether we all vote or not.
Is there anything in the quasi-socialist movement for the rich?
How are we spreading the word outside of websites already slanted towards this attitude?
What are measuring yardsticks for progress?
Love
Zero
America is a fraud! We are an empire in search of more profits. We were born on slavery, genocide, racism and war profiteering. We are as much a Democracy as Russia is Communist. We have one political party and a whole lot of "Good Germans".
Hoa binh
The unsustainable economic and social practices of the US, along with its flawed and primitive political practices, have been able to continue for so long because the genocide of the natives allowed for centuries of expansion, and two world wars, which decimated most of the rest of the industrialized world, allowed for another century of expanding its influence.
One would be hard-pressed to find an economic/social/political system that uses more resources per person, produces more pollution per person (including DU from its elective wars), and provides less mental and physical health and well-being than that of the US.
Now the human race is in peril because this nation with those fundamentally flawed practices has the ability and desire to dominate the world by any means necessary.
As John Lee Hooker said..."The Motor City Is Burning"
or was that the MC5?
America's system of "disaster capitalism" and empire has to collapse before any true democracy could be put in its place. The American Empire must be brought to heel. Just like every other empire of history. Work must be valued above wealth. Community values must be equal to that of the individual.
Kivals is right. The American experiment is unsustainable in every realm. We all live on the same mudball. We had better start acting like it. If the US can't even be a "good" citizen in our own country, how can it be one in the world? Even birds know better than to shit in their own nest. But maybe our system is not just unsustainable. Maybe it's more like suicidal.
Very strange times we are living in.....
As Mark Twain said, rumours of the death of Socialism have been greatly exaggerated (http://www.blognow.com.au/mrpickwick/78672/Grab_the_golden_ring.html). People realise now that the fall of the Berlin Wall had as much significance for the success of capitalism as the fall of Saddam's statue did for success in the Iraq war.
"The global justice movement, as it is called, was in full swing in February 2003, when between 10 million to 30 million people worldwide demonstrated against the war in Iraq."
You forgot to mention that the majority of demonstrators were living outside of the U.S.. Others around the globe have been trying to set an example for us. Are we listening or are we still living in the U.S. "superiority" fantasy world?
"You forgot to mention that the majority of demonstrators were living outside of the U.S."
American ex-patriots sum up the above analysis in Mike Moore's movie , " Sicko " with the statement, In Europe , but France in particular , the governments fear the people ; in the USA the situation is exactly the opposite. American war-protesters like to boast of millions who have marched since the beginning of the Iraq occupation.
Compare this with the roughly three hundred thousands that crowded into the university plaza in Tallinn , Estonia to sing their national anthem in open defiance of the still-occupying Red Army . This act was a criminal offense usually punished more harshly than flag-burning in the USA .
Three hundred thousand doesn't seem like very many people until you know that the entire population of Estonia is 1.7 millions . Extrapolating with simple ratios it's easy to see Americans could be viewed as equally " feisty " as the Estonians if 50-60 millions of Americans had protested.Is it any wonder that , generally speaking , Europeans view Americans as spoiled , over-consumptive , un-caring , lazy ,gullible people who more than anything else , fear their government.
The National Initiative for Democracy would prevent extreme concentration of power.
America's Claim to Be Real Democracy for All Is Doubtful
I think the title is wrong, if it replaced the word 'for' with 'at', then the title would be more accurate. They don't use paper ballots anymore. The political parties that can be elected are indistinguishable in the policies they are willing to enact. More than half the potential electorate don't bother to vote. And finally the government has no respect for the rule of law, t'is a government of men, not laws.
You can fool some of the people some of the time …
The US was NEVER a democracy. It was a Representative Republic. Now is is a fascist corporate-controlled state; a govt for the corporations NOT for the people.
Once the Christian colonists, stuffing themselves with America's plenitude, destroyed every possible alternative society they could reach, from New England to the Pacific, they had their wish: the basis for a Christian Capitalist Labor Camp built to benefit nobody but a few white males (and that drove more "explorers" west than anything romantic). But they could not destroy the memory of the fact and idea that PROFIT ("advantage" gained via something for nothing, based on lies) is not the reason for existence---only discredit it with all their might. And when they lost Vietnam, the empire turned inward on itself (endo-colonization/downsizing) to do the same thing to workers that was done to all the others, and here we are. So go back to the beginning and find the places where people(s) were doing very well before Profit became a god by the only means that seems to make it work---violence of course....And we can begin to discover a factual basis for believing and building something else..... http://ancientgreece-earlyamerica.com .....
horrified: "The US was NEVER a democracy. It was a Representative Republic. Now is is a fascist corporate-controlled state; a govt for the corporations NOT for the people."
Gosh darn it, you beat me to it! My sentiments exactly! Regards.
Horrified and Forextrader;
Just out of curiosity, why is it that presidents like FDR and Wilson claimed that the usa was the 'arsenal of Democracy' and that you fought for democracy in ww1? were you a democracy then but not now? Or has every president since Washington been telling the world something that never was? Cuz from outside the usa, your rhetoric has always been about supporting 'democracies' and yes, I do know that you only support the 'democracies' that agree with you.
Two totally corrupt political parties, both of which suck off the same tit, control this nation. The media offers masturbatory fantasies to a populace of exhausted and frightened arrested adolescents who know only one sentence of English: "I want it; I want it." The national motto, written in invisible ink on all our paper money, is: FUCK YOU. We presently find ourselves in a cul-de-sac. We don't know how we got here and, as if in a dream, we don't know where we are or how to get out.
Skippy....read my comments. I said it was NEVER a democracy....Bush says the US was a beacon of democracy..do you believe him?
horrified;
I did read your comment, then asked a question based on the comments of other presidents. Thing is there hasn't been a 'pure' democracy since the days Athenians worshiped at the Acropolis, and even then that wasn't anything we'd think of as a democracy.
By democracy I mean that the people rule, not the rich, not corporations. Had the rich or the corporations ruled the states in the thirties, you'd not have had FDR's new deal.
So maybe I just don't understand how you think democracy is supposed to work, probably because I live in a country that still has a monarch. Although this monarchy has a democratic representative government, that tells the Queen what to do; ideally, when it's working right anyhow...
I've always been taught that democracy has much to do with the idea that those elected are 'responsible' to the people who elected them, not the monarch in whose name they run things. Conversely, we're responsible for the shit they pull, and the king gets to wear his pretty crown and funny clothes while playing with soldiers he's never allowed to command.
I would not believe bush if he told us the sky was blue...
"During my lifetime, I've been led to believe that we had to choose between two types of societies: a cutthroat capitalistic system based on individualism or a communist/socialist system based on collectivism. In the former, community concerns often take a back seat, in the latter, individual interests lose out. But a healthy alternative might be one that balances both individual and collective needs. Is that asking too much? Perhaps."
NO! DoN'T ever "think" it's asking too much!
"... the kingdom of brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of communism nor the antithesis of capitalism but in a higher synthesis. It is found in a higher synthesis that combines the truths of both."
--Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., 1967