After Democracy

After Democracy

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Ratings: 7.81/10 from 31 users.

After DemocracyCan democracy still be saved? Can we address the shortcomings of representative democracy - failing political parties, increasing distrust of government - within the current system or are we set to embark on a journey across a border where nobody ever dared to go?

Should we explore a new political model in order to overcome the current multicrises?

In After Democracy this urgent question is addressed by Fareed Zakaria, John Keane, Hilary Wainwright, William Dobson and Cheng Li.

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time - Sir Winston Churchill.

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Saundra Lawry
Saundra Lawry
4 years ago

An attention-grabbing discussion is price comment. I believe that you should write extra on this subject, it won't be a taboo subject but typically persons are not enough to talk on such topics. To the next. Cheers

ALOHA!!!!!!!

anenome11
anenome11
12 years ago

We were brought up to believe the United States was a “Democracy.” That we were supposedly a “pluralistic society” or (a belief in power). We were taught the “working class” had a say-so in elections and that power was widely distributed. This, however, is a myth. The fact is, power is held by only a few (an oligarchy). The elites in this oligarchy hold the power in big business and government offices and are not for the interest of the common people or “working class” whether it be health care, a good education, enough to eat, affordable housing etc…these elites or “owning class” are out for profit and will use the “working class” by paying low wages, outsourcing, cutting benefits, anything to make profits soar.
These elites are not necessarily the rich alone. It is made up of what C.W. Mills coined the “Military-Industrial Complex” where there are three different groups of cooperating elites:
The Corporate or Business Elites – Which comprise of rich people with connections to corporations, CEOs, stockholders, people with big salaries. People like Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Nike founder Phil Knight.
Next are the Political Elites – President, Congress, Senators, Speaker of the House and Governors (who decide what government does on a more local basis).
Then there are the Military Elites – Joint Chiefs of Staff, Generals, and Heads of Services, basically, the “Brass of the Military”.
All of these elites are connected to one another. The corporate elites lobby for the political elites to gain clout, change or make forced government decisions through lobbying and giving large amounts of money to political parties. And the military elites cooperate with corporate and political elites to gain prestige and hopefully be gainfully employed or somehow very well compensated once their term in the military is up. They sometimes act as spokesmen for corporate elites and/or gain seats in government administrations.
These elites have control over the “working class”. The government can make the decisions that effect the working class’ lives and corporations can make the calls that effect the lives of the working class such as set wages, outsource, pink slips etc…And the common person which is what I will refer to as the “working class” from here on, are in no position to take on these corporate capitalists. Sure, in a pluralistic society it is possible to start an organization, but the common person doesn’t have the means to start these organizations (the money or the time) and most of them are kept so uninformed throughout their lives, they wouldn’t believe the truth about our politico-economic system if you told them.
Corporations on the other hand, are able to take and keep control of the common person because they have the means of doing so. They have the money and control over the common persons’ lives. If threatened they can fire or outsource and if they want big changes in tax breaks etc…they can always lobby and threaten the government with outsourcing or whatever it takes to get the changes they want.
Individuals don’t count for much in the political sense and don’t try to organize interest groups to defeat the elites or are just to naïve to the fact that our government is basically an oligarchy on the side of big business. Thus, most of the common people cannot distinguish between those who own the wealth and those who must work for a living. As long as they get their three meals a day, a roof over their heads and a six-pack to drink while watching the corporate evening news, they don’t realize they’re being kept ignorant of what’s really going on in the world.
In the meantime, these corporate capitalist elites say they are “putting their money to work” when in all reality, they are pushing more production out of these uninformed couch potatoes and paying less wages while they kick back and watch their profits soar.
At the same time, between housing costs, medical costs, the cost of food and less wages, the common person is almost worse off than they had been since the great depression.
In the Communist-Manifesto, Karl Marx says that the state appears to be nothing but an “executive committee (excomm) of the bourgeoisie.” The government is nothing but an executive committee; it may look like a government but it’s just a committee that manages the country for the bourgeoisie (the middle class, a social group opposed to the proletariat in the class struggle; the capitalist class). The capitalists are elites or they work for them. In 19th & 20th century, Western Europe’s working conditions were horrible. In the Sadler reports on working conditions, ‘they must form unions, strike and/or use violence if they had to in order to keep conditions tolerable’. But the government tried to crush these unions. The government was their enemy. In every case, the enemy of the worker was the government. The state creates an “appearance” that makes it seem to be open and democratic, but in “essence”, the state is class dominated by the elites. There is a definite contradiction between “appearance” and “essence”.
What do you do about it? Under excomm, or Classical Marxism, the executive committee leads to smash state, which leads to bureaucracy; which leads to hierarchy; which leads to oligarchy, which ultimately makes up fascism. Under excomm, the only way to do away with the power elites was through a bloody revolution to overthrow the government. Classical Marxists believe the state is a tool of class under which the capitalists use to control the people.
Neo-Marxists, however, found the excomm concept flawed. They found that the capitalist class is not inevitable. They believe in a revolution through the ballot box. That you can organize and have working class parties: pass laws and policies to change society towards socialism. The Neo-Marxists believe the state isn’t capitalist, but is dominated by the capitalist class because they have the money and resources to do so. They believe the capitalists win because they are more organized and have more money to spend than the working class. They believe the state is not the executive committee, that it isn’t necessarily a tool of class. They also believe that not everything people do in society is determined by the economy. An example would be the rich as well as the poor can listen to and enjoy opera and classical music. Therefore, they believe there is “Relative Autonomy” of class and culture. That there are correlations between class positions but not necessarily determinations.
Neo-Marxists believe in “False Consciousness”, to be aware of one’s self, and in order to get there, a person must not let the capitalists control the way we see the world.
We cannot allow the ruling class to manipulate the way we see the world. Now, through control with consent, the elites can control you through education, the media etc…without our even knowing it. They purposely keep specific information about the government and history out of our lives just so they can control us…that the barrier to class is lack of consciousness. Which, in today’s day and age, is very true. But this can be changed by the working class by being more aware of what’s going on in the world, and not through news outlets like FOX News….total deception. Do the homework involved; read many different sources, preferably outside the United States or if you must, at least get your news from public radio…self supported and not corporately owned and operated. It’s a good start.

ruthslater
ruthslater
12 years ago

I found some real distortions here , they talk about how the countries need to understand that they need youth to support the aged , WELL IN FACT IF THE POLITICANS HAD NOT USED THE SS MONEY PUT AWAY FOR THE AGED THEY PAID INTO THEY WOULD BE SELF SUSTAINING . secondley , they talkabout how the eudcation budget has increased 400% !! well that is because you have brought in the third worlds poor and illiterate in their own culture to do the work as cheap labor for the corporations . I did not think this video was honest and forthwrite and most certainly needed counterpoints to these intellectuals opinions. I think this video had a unified agenda and that is one world thinking and governeing, what is good for one is good for all. I think they disgused it well but there .They basically got up there and tooted their own horns with no chance for rebuttal.With no debate there is no honesty.

KsDevil
KsDevil
12 years ago

Democracy, like many other person-based forms of government, works well for small temporary groups of people striving for a singe short term goal. Anything more than that and human diversity takes over to create the hanvs and have nots.
A representative republic is a better for larger more long-term groups. Still, even that system can get bogged down by a flood of representative groups.
I believe the next form of governance is something like a Representative Federation. A republic of republics. Such a system attempts to cut down the number or represented groups in a republic to a more managable size.
This would work as a world government but unfortunatly, we are not on that path. Creeping Corporatocracy seems to have taken a lead role.

Cas
Cas
12 years ago

The critical flaw of democracy can easily be observed in what is currently happening in the U.S: Basically, an ideal democratic system is one where the candidates running for position:

1) State their objectives clearly and HONESTLY.

2) State their objectives to all those who are going to vote.

3)Then the electorate chooses the right candidate as easily as shooting a sitting duck. That simple.

However, the flaws are equally simple:

1) Politicians study the electorate distribution and stitch their positions on key issues so they can get the job, it is not about principles rather they do/say anything to get into the office.

2) The use of the first amendment "freedom of speech" to deceive/lie/twist facts in a tribal side taking as seen very clearly in media outlets like Fox News. So a significant fraction of the population are openly deceived.

3) Money determines how many voters are going to hear your message regardless of its truthfulness.

4) Might I add -- With points 1 to 3 above, the population itself is not of equal intelligence/education...so Joe might have an expert to do his heart surgery ..or fly in a plane flown by expert pilot.......but beer drinking "Joe Six Pack" as Palin put it, has an equal vote as an economic professor as to which candidate has the best economic policy.

Democracy looks good on paper just like communism, but democracy is really NOT what is taking place in U.S politics ....and the west did not win the cold war because of democratic values ...but rather what even China adopted out of pragmatic/non-dogmatic approach: CAPITALISM ...it is palatable to human behavior. I believe China now has the most efficient political body and the reason why NO DOUBT it will overtake the U.S style of politics.

Abdul
Somalia

Cas
Cas
12 years ago

The critical flaw of democracy can easily be observed in what is currently happening in the U.S: Basically, an ideal democratic system is one where the candidates running for position:

1) State their objectives clearly and HONESTLY.

2) State their objectives to all those who are going to vote.

3)Then the electorate chooses the right candidate as easily as shooting a sitting duck. That simple.

However, the flaws are equally simple:

1) Politicians study the electorate distribution and stitch their positions on key issues so they can get the job, it is not about principles rather they do/say anything to get into the office.

2) The use of the first amendment "freedom of speech" to deceive/lie/twist facts in a tribal side taking as seen very clearly in media outlets like Fox News. So a significant fraction of the population are openly deceived.

3) Money determines how many voters are going to hear your message regardless of its truthfulness.

Democracy looks good on paper just like communism, but democracy is really NOT what is taking place in U.S politics ....and the west did not win the cold war because of democratic values ...but rather what even China latter adopted out of pragmatic/non-dogmatic approach: CAPITALISM ...it is palatable to human behavior. I believe China now has the most efficient political body (not equal to right!) and the reason why NO DOUBT it will overtake the west in every relevant metrics.

Abdul
Somalia

mic59
mic59
12 years ago

we reap what we sow

mic59
mic59
12 years ago

we reap what we sow

William Drew
William Drew
12 years ago

This site has been an overall positive influence on my life, and it makes me sad to see when people ignore knowledge in favour of ignorance...

what I mean to say is this site is brilliant and so is everyone who enjoys it

Trev whit
Trev whit
12 years ago

at 33 mins Fareed Zakaria talks about his beliefs on democracy, what he is talking about has nothing to do with democracy, that is pure nonsense. when you give power to people who do not live in the same society, they will destroy your hard earned democracy. I bet he wishes he could take back all he said in this interview. Easy to see now why his beliefs are wrong.

bluetortilla
bluetortilla
12 years ago

These analysts keep talking about democracy (one guy talks about whether we should have 'more' or 'less' democracy!), but humanity has never seen the sun shine on democracy. The closest we have ever come, which is to say nowhere near, is the republic. That's what we have now, kind of, and don't be fooled by the term democracy. Democracy is literally a kingdom of the people, direct rule by the people, a society in which every human being is a leader. It does not allow for any despotism, aristocracy, or representation whatsoever.
Hey, don't hang the messenger- I'm just saying that this doc has it's terms all screwed up, I'm not advocating a solution, just asking for straight turkey. The term 'representational democracy' does not mean democracy at all. It means 'republic.'
I think it was Monroe that said, "A republic my dear, if it lasts."

chonewit
chonewit
12 years ago

If you read as mark twain has written democracy is not the answer yet the allowing government that gives way to endless scrutiny to which it needs as an ever evolving system to respect all wishes and fight against unfairness it is not a system yet a place for us to build ours again and again and again/......... Humanity will never know absolute peace and systematic accuracy it needs constant attention or it will fall back into the hands of the dark ages

Jermaine Knight
Jermaine Knight
12 years ago

Kenny!!!!!!! No, Not Kenny you bastards.... WHY!!!!!

thetruth2000
thetruth2000
12 years ago

I like what Fareed Zakaria said around the 15 minute mark about special interests:

"They care much more about this issue than society at large so they will hammer the system....the system overweighs the negative efforts of these special interests and underweighs the importance of society in general."

This comment highlights what I believe is the most critical problem we are experiencing in our democratic society, that being apathy. Our democratically elected governments wouldn't always give the interests of say, big business, priority over the interests of society at large if society at large weren't so apathetic. After all politicians, probably even more than the rest of us, are driven by self-interest. Their popularity will suffer far more by wronging a special interest group than if they wrong the disinterested public at large.

Our democracy could achieve so much good if we had an engaged, informed, citizenry who would defend it's own interests. Which begs the question, is such a thing even possible?

WTC7
WTC7
12 years ago

It's a nice documentary, but I don't think it either asks or gives answers to, in my opinion, essential questions.

Why has democracy failed? Or has it failed? Democracy (or better, liberal democracy) as organizational principle of a society has not failed in its ideological or organizational aspect. What's wrong with people electing their representatives in state institutions periodically? Is there anything wrong in constitutional protection and guaranties of liberties and rights for all of us? Because that is what liberal democracy basically means.

But one should not mix democratic principles with economics of capitalism, especially free-market or corporate capitalism, where the big fish is allowed to devour the weak one. Darwinism in modern human environment at play. Equal opportunities? Does my little grocery shop have any chance against a big super-market chain? Ha!

But I am still entitled to vote! The democratic principle is not at fault, it's the Darwinian mentality we are made think we still have not overgrown and the economics at work force us to behave in such a manner. But we have overgrown it - the principle of democracy, respect for other human being we enshrine in our constitutions, proves we are beyond that kind of mentality.

Unfortunately, democracy is being used by certain elites to further enrich (and empower) themselves by funding politicians, who later on, when elected, are obliged to respond in kind to their "benefactors" and think less of those who elected them. In such a way, the whole idea of democracy is being distorted and misused. Still, I maintain that the democratic principle in itself is the best we have, at the moment anyway.

Look at Norway. A poor country until they discovered oil in their seas. But then, they used it wisely. They reached a certain level of economic independency through oil revenues, and created a state where, indeed, taxes are high, industries/corporations are kept in check by the state, but their labour laws are primarily there to protect workers, and their social services are working as a Swiss watch. I am not claiming their economy is without problems, I am saying that there are ways for a state to fulfill its primary role - to provide security - economic as well as physical - to its citizens and still remain a democracy.

Matt Kukowski
Matt Kukowski
12 years ago

VERY interesting political Doc. not your typical overly emphasis conspiracy stuff.. but not too diluted and boring to not ask brave questions.

A must see for good information without hype, just information.

Rocky Racoon
Rocky Racoon
12 years ago

"Xinhua reports that technology giant FoxConn, which manufactures products for Apple and other computer companies, is working to reduce labor costs by replacing a portion of their workforce with robots, with a goal of having one million robots in place in their factories within three years."

So without living labour to create suplus value and new value there will be nothing to exploit or appropriate those robots won't be buying ipods and consumer demand in the West HA! Our unemployment is more like 30% if you consider under employed and part-time who want full-time...what are we going to do fire up the ovens or share the wealth?

I think these guys have it backwards...we need to expand democracy and supercede capitalism not supercede democracy and allow capitalism to continue...of course being successful petty bourgeois totally wedded to and benefiting from capitalist social relations this seems beyond the pale for these folks to contemplate for some reason. We cannot go back to fuedalism which the entire West is trying to turn us into -serfs- while they seem to think they can keep the system going buying luxury goods for themselves. China's expansion and little experiment with economic free zones, I think they will be more like Norway for their people and are creating good win win relations in Africa they are doing a good job of it not like us-the US will probably go fascist start a war over mid east oil and end the world in a nuclear holocaust rather than share power with the people. I am sure this deficit ceiling baloney is making people realize that they have to organize and fight harder and neither party is on their side.
RR

wald0
wald0
12 years ago

@ Princeton

I have no desire to have this discussion with you again Princeton, we obviously disagree about it, we never seem to reach any common ground on it, and we've done it several times. But don't tell me I am merely hung up on the vilification of the word, as if I am some brain washed f00l that can't think for himself. I have done a lot of research into all forms of government, anarchy included, it was required in my western civics course and political science, and its something I enjoy reading about. History is on my side. Anytime we have had to simply rely on people to do the right thing, they didn't. Anyway, my point is, that my opinion is both informed and well thought out, whether you agree with it or not. I am sure yours is to, but we will have to agree to disagree, because mine isn't going to change on this subject.

The two things that our economy needs to prosper, and any economist will tell you this is fact, is stability and predictability. Without them people don't hire, people don't invest. Anarchy will never provide stability and predictability, it never has and it never will, the whole point of it is freedom to do as you please. People will always "please" to do what ever is best for them right at the moment, which is not always whats best for everyone else. I like the way it sounds, I would love having no po po man chasing me around, but it isn't going to happen and in the long run that's probably for the best. But hey, that's the beauty of our country, if you can convince enough other people, the right people, it doesn't matter what I think.

P.S. You need to chill man, you are going on the defensive immediately, before the debate even gets going. I was referring to the people that would be maintaining infrastructure that we don't pay for directly when I asked what would bring them to work. I suppose your suggestion is that we pay private companies for the roads we drive on, the sanitation system we use, air traffic regulation, communications infrastructure, etc. I guarantee you that would cost us more than the taxes we pay now. Besides, you will never get enough people to just volunteer to pay for these services. What are you going to set up toll bridges and roads, pay toilets, pay phones, pay this pay that everywhere you look? No one would want that, it would be unimaginably inefficient and aggravating. So what, you charge a flat rate to gain access to all infrastructure, well how is that any different than taxes? Or each community gets together and pools there money to pay for a new road, what do they do about the people that couldn't pay or just didn't pay? Are they not able to use the road, who is going to stop them, no laws you know? If they are able to use it without paying, no one will pay, why would they if they can use it for free? Out of a since of doing the right thing? the kindness of their heart? a sense of responsibility? The public as a whole has none of these things right now, if they did we wouldn't be where we are?

TheKlingonFarmer
TheKlingonFarmer
12 years ago

Where's the user "Azilda" with her useless input?

dave.eggermont
dave.eggermont
12 years ago

I've been thinking about a lot of the topics discussed below, so don't think I'm just saying something random here. If you want I could tell you why I think it might work and it's fairly "simple", but there are a lot of implications that would have to be kept in mind.

Limits to personal wealth.

Just think about it. Let it marinate a bit. Try thinking long term.

Guest
Guest
12 years ago

I don't believe we even live in a democracy. The United States has never been democratic nor will it ever be.

wald0
wald0
12 years ago

@ SONNYCORBI

Thanks for your compliments and concern. That sounds like great advise, not just for me but for anyone interested. There are many people on this site that write exceptionally well, some are more creative/poetic and others are more technical. We should all probably check into your suggestions. I know I am going to, I need all the income I can get.

I wrote technical how to type material for a computer support call center for about five years, the trainers used it to train people with no previous experience how to trouble shoot issues and walk people through fixing them via the telephone. I designed training manuals for Dell, Gateway, Sony, and Motorola products, as well as for internal procedures at the call center itself. When they closed down I never pursued that type of work any further, except for volunteer work I have done on political campaigns, writing email scripting and robo-call scripts. Anyway thanks for the advise, I will check into it.

Joe
Joe
12 years ago

Well done in scratching the surface. Democracy is for grown-up's, but many times politicians act like children aka the debt ceiling debate. It made very good points about the European model, and how EU can tell countries to get their house in order. It also hit the nail on the head about China, no govt model works better than it at the time in doing what is needed for the economy. It didn't bring up what I feel is the most pressing issue we face in the world, population growth. When I was born, there were about a little more than 2.1 billion people in the whole earth, today we it is about to hit 7 billion. It is hard to get that many people to agree to any one thing at any time. I can't give one solution for a fix of the problems, but we need to respect all POV's in any problem and work together for the solution, if not we will only have ourselves to blame when we fail. Isn't that what democracy is?

SONNYCORBI
SONNYCORBI
12 years ago

@princeton I was being very serious my friend when i said, tell us how to fix it. Anybody who stays half way informed understands the systems are waked. princeton it takes a long long long time to write a new manifesto and even longer to implement one. "taxation is the problem", surly you jest! Now if you think your going to get the job done with a few pattens and some new company's well good luck on that one. I mean even if we attempted to itemize the various problems under different headings in order to get a handle on things, you know what i am trying to say here princeton? And i might take a look at those doc.s you have asked me to look at, but not tonight. back at you later.

DonDon1
DonDon1
12 years ago

I agree with aspects of what princeton, waldo and Oz said are happening and that these are indeed dangerous things that somehow need to be reined in. We know that these things are being perpetrated. The only way to resolve them is one by one. The same way they are infiltrating aspects of our government's and corporations and affecting us day to day.

Ideally the best way to achieve this is to elect a person or persons(or run yourself) into the position(s) necessary to make the necessary changes. And make sure you are electing people that are trying to achieve this as high priority in their mandate.

Some of first priorities to be addressed have all been said before. But we haven't elected people to get it done:
- Laws passed banning all lobbying from corporations, foreign governments, evreyone.
- laws limiting how are tax dollars where tax dollars can be spent on
-laws limiting engagement of conflict in foreign lands
- laws guaranteeing certain privacy and civil liberties that can't be trumped.
-laws limiting profits of corporations especially in certain areas of mandatory requirements eg. banking,insurance, energy etc,

I think this will be difficult to achieve with anyone who is connected to any of the existing main parties in government in any of our countries(Canada Here) since there is such a culture of patronage prevalent. And all of these people have been steeped and seasoned to the ways of this culture. Otherwise they aren't able to achieve approval and power/status within that party. And as seen before would likely get ostracised.

Corruption due to patronage politics is clearly one of the fundamental problems in my opinion. We are all susceptable to it to a lesser or greater degree. It is in our very nature.

A person to affect change would have to have a deep understanding of patronage and how it influences us to be able to cut through it and get the job done.

Do you know people like this?
Make a party. Or flood an existing smaller one with these people. Educate others.

I admire what Waldo said about getting more engaged in whats going on instead of being lulled to a state of sheepleness :)

princeton
princeton
12 years ago

lol... another FAIL documentary trying to identify the problem with governments.... whilst ignoring the gun in the room...

why does everyone work so hard to dance around the fact that when u give any entity the right to initiate force in order to achieve its goals without social recourse, you've opened the pandora's box of corruption.

"it's the corporations.. markets.. freedom.. blah blah " Hush it..

until walmart can shoot dissenters and kidnap debtors...
until walmart can send you their choice of groceries when they decide, send u the bill at the end of the year and kidnap u if u dont pay....

u're all foolin yourselves..

democracy, communism .. whatever.. all means nothing if the "protected and served" are forced to pay for said services at gun point and threat of kidnapping.

taxation is the problem!

until government funding is voluntary, criminals and psycopaths will inevitably rise to power in order to control the billions of stolen money.

what they do with it from that point is simply to maintain power.. and appease certain lobbying groups.

this is all we see worldwide regardless the structure of gvernment.

y all this nonsense about "deregulatiuon" or "democracy"...

i know.. its not new.. typical banter from those who want to control the guns themselves.
i can hear it already...
" if i had all that blood money.. this is how id do things... id help the poor and end corruption"

well.. its NOT your money.... charity is meaningless when done with stolen money.

epic FAIL again...
keep ignoring the gun at ur own perril... go on pretending theres no barrel aiming str8 at us... go bac and graze sheeple

dakealo
dakealo
12 years ago

Western democracy is an intellectually bankrupt concept in its current state. What we have today is regulatory democracy, an environment in which money power's corporate interests feed off the State and thus a mercantilist economy engulfs us all. Politicians are nothing more than talking mouthpieces for the elite, they are there to protect money power's interests – using force if necessary.

Fareed Zakaria is just one of the many money/power elite's controlled shills who employ the Hegelian Dialectic as a strategy for controlling society.

Irishkev
Irishkev
12 years ago

We're all FOOKED!

wald0
wald0
12 years ago

@ superregfrancis

I hope you are right, but I hear a lot about how the government and the elite are working overtime trying to figure out how to police and control the internet, just like they do every other medium. What I am afraid of is they will manage to get legislation passed by just keeping things hush hush, not letting us know what they are doing until it's too late. Or that some tragedy like 9/11 will happen, or if you prefer be purposely perpetrated, and they will use it to get the legislation they want.

I place my hopes in the public staying a few steps ahead technologically, that we monitor our courts and congress enough that we would see it happening in time to do something about it, and that the internet is global and would take global agreement and action to be policed or controlled. Some times I think I should learn to hack, out of a sense of civil responsibility if for no other reason. (LOL)

soros soria
soros soria
12 years ago

The worse our economies get, the more authoritarianism will we tolerate. As for the cement that held political groups together, ideology is no longer as attractive as it once was. Stalin made sure of that; as did Hitler and Mao. Practicality is the future. We will go with whatever works. We will surrender more of our personal freedoms for the sake of security and predictability.

The moral of the story is get into government; make sure you're one of the elite; don't end up near the bottom.

CapnCanard
CapnCanard
12 years ago

What democracy? We don't have a steenking democracy!!! We live in an plutocratic oligarchy. The most threatening thing to democracy is WEALTH if our so called democracy fails then it is the fault of our WEALTHY leadership. And revolts are successful because it is usually a revolt of the people and not of WEALTH. Hang on this is going to be a rough ride. Is this film Dutch? Belgian? South African? I like what Wainwirght had to say re the distance of the ruling class to the people.

marcosanthonytoledo
marcosanthonytoledo
12 years ago

The problem is we are witnessing a odd political phenomenon the fall of a Democratic Republic and Empire simultaneously for the first time in history. The USA is caught in a theological ideological straitjacket in which the ruling elites seem desperate to turn back the clock to a late 18teeth century society of slavery and genocide and maybe trying to bring on Ragnarok since they are losing their grip on the world. The Republican state governors a running their states like the dictatorships they supported around the world for centuries. They seem hell bent on total destruction of all life they worship death.

Bill
Bill
12 years ago

Any political system is a good system in theory. They would all work if you can find a way to remove the one thing that ruins them all.....the human element. We create the systems then corrupt them to the point where the system itself becomes the corrupting agent. Thats what I believe has happened to our republic, it once belonged to the people, it now belongs to the highest bidder. The best government money can buy. That used to be a joke.

DaveJay
DaveJay
12 years ago

Everybody on this comment page stop and think. The world was believed to be flat and you fell off the end. The in word is democracy. I think somebody could make a PhD out of this. WE MUST NOT GET LOCKED INTO OUR LINGUISTIC HISTORIC THOUGHTS. lateral thinking maybe!? Just an idea

melloyeyo
melloyeyo
12 years ago

Very nice doc as an introduction and get interested in the subject.

dave.eggermont
dave.eggermont
12 years ago

You know, this is a very interesting subject to me personally because I'm Belgian. We have had more than 400 days now without forming an official government. We have 3 main flemish parties and 3 main waloon parties. This seemingly small amount of diversity makes it very difficult to come to any decisive agreements that the debate is never ending. We have become very sceptical towards any notion of real democraty and really don't care a lot either. I mean, we do have a lot of disagreements, as it shows we still have no official government, you don't see us going on the streets blowing eachother's heads off (yet). Should we worry? Or should we just don't care anymore? I got some theories but I don't want to bore you. :p One thing you should still keep in mind.. we're still a kingdom. xD

Guest
Guest
12 years ago

"The game of American Democracy now more than ever subjugates the will and good of the people to the power of corporations, on either side; it's an increasingly dangerous travesty of its original intent, presided over by a conclave of devils in some hidden corner of hell."

anuragawasthi
anuragawasthi
12 years ago

Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses.

0zyxcba1
0zyxcba1
12 years ago

The route and form it will take I cannot see.

But ever increasing demand upon depleted resources coupled with run-away population growth must lead, not to War, Inc., which now so oppresses us but, rather, to an all-out, not-for-profit, for-bare-survival, war-without-end of no victors, but of only the vanquished.

'Democracy' will be the least of anyone's problems.

0z

Nick Pwnsauce
Nick Pwnsauce
12 years ago

"Democracy" is a U.S. code word for regime change.

Until you realize that you will never fully understand American diplomacy.

Nick Pwnsauce
Nick Pwnsauce
12 years ago

I don't want a democracy. Fascism / mob rule of the rich over the many.

Sound familiar? heh

Give me a Republic.