Democracy Doesn’t Exist – It Is Made (obligatory reading)

[aneerkoinos]

"If the official results are correct, 56 million Americans mourn and 59 million celebrate today as George W. Bush is sworn in after another election marred by shocking and well-documented irregularities. Protests are taking place around the country, with people turning their backs on the motorcade in Washington, going on a shopping strike, and holding mock funerals for the death of democracy. Meanwhile, people in the rest of the world have long ceased scratching their collective heads over the (il)logic of our electoral college and our collective complacency regarding our criminal administration and are looking at other elections – future and recent past.

While the 2004 US elections provided all the drama of the OJ Simpson and Monica Lewinsky affairs combined, the end result is likely to be much the same: millions of television viewers professing outrage and talking of nothing else until the Next Big Thing comes along and sweeps away memories of the details and irregularities, particularly of global events which happened concurrently with the big overarching dramas. While Americans were busy retallying votes in Ohio and New Mexico (a process I certainly am not arguing against), the US military was wreaking havoc on the Iraqi city of Fallujah.

2004 was notable for the diversity of elections held around the world, and a closer examination of them is warranted in order to make sense of how to move forward in a Bush-led Empire.

In Bolivia, a confusing referendum was held on the nation’s large natural gas reserves, the results of which are being contested – not just by turning their backs or refusing to spend money (a rare and privileged resource most Bolivians don’t possess) but by taking to the streets, plazas, and neighborhoods nationwide.


In Venezuela, one of two countries in the world to provide for such a thing (the other is Iceland, which has never exercised the right), a referendum was held on whether or not to recall President Hugo Chávez.


And in Iraq, a small and little-reported election was held to lay the groundwork for what is likely to be the Next Big Thing to flood American airwaves – the upcoming elections for the Iraqi National Assembly, scheduled for January 30th."




Read here:

http://www.narconews.com/Issue35/article1152.html