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In Reply to: Re: The U.S. vs. John Lennon posted by townsend on March 30, 2007 at 13:26:45:
Democracy as we know it is always referred back to ancient Greece, where the citizens came to the forum to debate and decide.
Whilst women stayed home and slaves did the work.
What do you mean, it doesn't work?
All these thousands of years later and it's still selling well...
Follow Ups:
When I say it doesn't work, then I need to provide some explanation, or at least qualification . . . I recognize that these debates probably rage on the "outside" board, but I've only been there once.Duilawyer pointed out that it can be hijacked. Well, if it is hijacked often and effectively, then how can it work? In between the hijackings? Then what is the dominant drift? Democracy between hijackings, or the hijackings themselves?
Yes, I've read a little Chomsky, but I'm certainly not a Chomsky-ite (I've read one of his books, and miscellaneous online posts). He was the one who first pointed out what I often felt--there is an enormous gap between public policy and public opinion.
Democracy might be a great theoretical system, but if it is working so well in the U.S., how do you explain the wide gulf between public policy and public opinion?
While examples are legion, the current situation in Iraq is a signal example. No reason to rehash how the administration fabricated information to justify the war. A hijacking?
And this is just the current situation. Same thing happened years ago in Vietnam--the boogeyman then was Communism, now it is militant Islam.
Is ". . . government the shadow cast on society by big business" (Dewey)?
Neither Republicans or Democrats represent the average U.S. citizen. Instead, they represent those with an agenda backed by money. Public policy is often determine by a select powerful small group, and not by "the rule of the people."
The facade of democratic governments is cracking, in my opinion.
One factor is perhaps that, to use the USA as an example, 300 million people do not have AN opinion. In smaller groups, agreement is easier to come to.
Communism was, as you say, the bogeyman, represented as being totalitarian and not acting in the interests of the masses. Capitalist democracy replaces the state with the massed corporations, but otherwise seems to act in a (un)fairly equivalent manner.
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