Is there a democracy in this country?

[JackRiddler]

Another thread title asks, what is the biggest threat to American democracy?

Which prompts the following thought: Since when is there a democracy in this country?

The United States is a naked plutocracy at the head of a world empire in decline. In recent years it has come to rely more and more on military force and big-lie propaganda.

The institutions of a republic are still at work in many spheres (courts, property and commercial rights, individual rights of various kinds, free speech on the Internet). Wealth of a kind is still plentiful. And denial is powerful. So the social consensus to pretend it's a democracy is still maintained, after a fashion.

But it's not a democracy if democracy means one person, one vote. What we have is closer to one dollar, one vote. Lobbies, campaign funders, the various corporate-government complexes and the national security agencies create the policies (and the wars). Voters are props for legitimation purposes. The presidential elections are stage managed, the "viable" candidates are placed two years in advance by the money on the basis of their harmlessness to plutocratic rule and imperialism (they are allowed to differ within a narrow range of debate).

So I think the question misleads. The real questions are:

Is it possible to establish a democracy in the United States? How?

Can the republic and our remaining rights and liberties be preserved in the face of the forces moving to establish a total surveillance state?

[alllyingwhores]

1. No.

[JackRiddler]

3. No what?

[HCE SuiGeneris]

2. In agreement. The sun is blotted out now.

I hope to see it again within my lifetime.

[JackRiddler]

4. Now now.

Today was sunny in my part of the world! ;)

[HCE SuiGeneris]

7. My rosey specs are irreparably damaged...

when surveying the political and economic landscape these days. Physical geography, friends, and family however, are still viewed with a healthy lens.

Peace :hi:

[MedleyMisty]

5. Epic lulz at the idea of democracy

We've been fascist for probably most of my life - born in late 1980.

[Taxmyth]

6. breath of fresh air

Reality sometimes sucks but it is what it is. Thanks for pointing out the forest AND the trees.

[tom_paine]

8. No to all questions. No. No. No. No. No. n/t

[aquart]

9. Until 1914, US senators were appointed or elected by their state legislatures.

I swear I didn't know that until tonight.

I'm not sure democracy is what you have in mind. I'm thinking you're thinking plebiscite.

Democracy is a slow and annoying process in which people who disagree with you are just as important as you are unless there more of you than them. In which case, you probably win.

Right now you are bitching because it seems like people who do NOT agree with you are getting what they want and you are sure the majority actually agrees with YOU and is therefore being ripped off. Yet you offer me no actual proof of this. Just a lot of bitching.

[JackRiddler]

11. Bull.

Who writes policy and law? Who declares war? Who elected the covert operators, whose very budgets are a secret?

When did we vote for somebody who actually pursued the program they claimed to support? Republicans do, but unfortunately Democrats generally don't. This isn't representation, it's a swindle.

We are allowed to choose figureheads from out of a pre-screened group named viable two years before the election.

Apropos the period you mention - good example from that time. Wilson won the 1916 election on a promise to stay out of the Great War. Soon after he was elected, he entered it.

It's a republic, but it's not a democracy.

[Two Americas]

14. you see no corruption?

You would deny the power inherent in big money interests controlling the media, and so controlling public opinion? You are oblivious to the public licenses awarding monopoly power over the airwaves, the use of those airwaves being then sold back to political candidates?

You are unaware of the "revolving door" phenomenon, with corporate shills being rotated into positions of power in agencies that oversee and regulate those corporations and protect the public?

You have not heard about the army of corporate lobbyists controlling our elected representatives, who are now even writing the legislation, legislation that the representatives do not even read?

Or do you know of all these things, and yet still claim that anything resembling democracy could survive that?

Then how would you explain the fact that the public overwhelmingly supports New Deal left wing positions on all of the traditional issues (when they are surveyed strictly on policy areas without any association of the issues to one partisan side or the other) yet it is virtually impossible to elect leadership that will fight for those?

[JackRiddler]

19. There you go...

"Then how would you explain the fact that the public overwhelmingly supports New Deal left wing positions on all of the traditional issues (when they are surveyed strictly on policy areas without any association of the issues to one partisan side or the other) yet it is virtually impossible to elect leadership that will fight for those?"

And any of us can also confirm this anecdotally by asking people outside our own usual sets.

How is it a democracy when, in 2000 (a stolen election), the one who got in was the one who had promised less interventionism and "nation building," and who then went straight to war? (A war set before 9/11, note.)

[Selatius]

10. Anti-Populist Democratic Corporatism.

What you have is competition between various corporate interests for power and subsidies and favorable treatment from the government that is supposed to regulate them. The working class and the working poor are relegated to the netherworld in terms of representation.

American workers haven't had a president who was unabashedly in favor of helping working folks like FDR and Truman for decades now, and FDR/Truman likely only won because of the extreme circumstances surrounding the Great Depression.

History seems to provide the answer that extreme concentrations of wealth invariably threaten democratic institutions. Concentrated wealth, sooner or later, will seek to subvert government to its own ends. The result is you end up with grossly-managed economies like Mexico where many live in vast poverty while a few, such as Carlos Slim, the richest man in the world, live in tremendous luxury.

[Adsos Letter]

12. Anyone read their de Tocqueville recently?

I just finished a read through of it for a university seminar on "The American Creed"...very timely.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

13. It is a frequent visitor to my armchair...

Have not read it cover to cover for probably 10 years though.

[JackRiddler]

16. de Tocqueville describes a different world...

which was not a democracy by its own definition, or by ours. The Civil War, the workers movement, and the suffrage movement brought things closer to a formal democracy, but the robber barons had most of the power in the end. Tocqueville describes a democratic spirit and mindset, certainly, and visits a few townhalls. There's been more democracy usually at local levels, and more potential for it today. I can blame the people for the failure to use local democracy. At the federal level, however, I can blame the people only for being so willing to accept the massive deception that plays out mostly as a show on the TV.

[Adsos Letter]

21. de Tocqueville also describes the potential danger inherent

when people become so consumed with "individualism" that they separate themselves from the need to think of themselves as parts of a larger community...with all of the responsibilities that being community-minded entails. Surrender that and you get what we got.

That was essentially my point regarding de Tocquville...

[leftofthedial]

15. "one dollar, one vote"

corporate personhood and money (bribes to government officials) as free speech

guarantee it.

[bdamomma]

17. No

and I cringe when I hear the Star Spangled Banner, we are a far cry from the Land of Free and the Home of the Brave. so sad.

[JackRiddler]

18. I also cringe at the anthem...

but mainly because it's romancing war and glorifying a flag, a completely abstract symbol that can be used and abused for any purpose. The problem with a flag is that any fool can wave one and say, "follow me!"

Almost all of these national anthems are the same thing by the way: We're the greatest, our country is the prettiest, our girls are the hottest, our enemies shall drown in their own blood, wooo-hah!

[tom_paine]

26. Land of TV and Home of the Slave. THAT is what Amerika is NOW.

n/t

[GreenPartyVoter]

20. Not really. I think our election process isn't as democratic as it could be, nor is

the actual representation. I would prefer ranked voting, public funding of elections, multiple parties, and proportional representation among other changes: http://www.hostdiva.com/liberalchristians/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=116&Itemid=29&limit=1&limitstart=1

[JackRiddler]

23. Two keys ...

1) Public campaign finance, free media time

2) Proportional representation

I think these would bring the effect of a revolution to the U.S. Soon as a third party vote wasn't something you're throwing away. Soon after the 49 percent (or 65 percent) who "lose" also get representation, U.S. will turn into a social democracy and stop fighting wars for the empire.

(I don't like ranked voting for the simple reason that it's also not one person, one vote, and I'll bet it would be shot down in court on that basis. It privileges people who vote for a third-place candidate but still get to determine the winner, as opposed to voters of the first and second place candidates.)

[GreenPartyVoter]

24. It actually really is still one vote, it just gets bumped on down the line or accrued until

a true majority picks elects a candidate. (IRV still has spoiler issues, though, so I am not as enamored of that as I once was.) I feel it's no different then walking into an ice cream shoppe and finding out they didn't have your first or second choice of flavor, but they did have an acceptable third choice.

[JackRiddler]

25. I don't really agree...

It looks real fair to the voter whose vote gets bumped around until it lands on a winner, but not to the one who voted for the winner (or the 2nd place) in the first place. This is a formal objection, nothing against the spirit of it.

Proportional representation - or real runoffs - would fulfill the same function. PR for legislatures and a prime minister as chief executive. Or at least a runoff for president.

President shouldn't be the almighty, anyway, which is what we have. Requiring that all expenditures are open to the public (end of black budgets) and putting the warmaking power back in the Congress would do wonders!

The problem is the Constitutional Convention that likely would be required for a change of this magnitude. How the hell wouldn't the whole show be bought, paid and sponsored by the corporations? (Lewis Lapham had a funny column about this once.) More likely we'd emerge with a Senate consisting of the CEOs of the 100 largest corporations, a House chosen by American Idol-type vote, and a President appointed directly by the CFR. As for the Bill of Rights, every American would have a right to their own blog if they pay a per-reader fee for the bandwidth...

Oh, wait... that's sort of what we have now...

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

22. No. It's just a pleasant facade painted on a corrupt system.

Fortunately, the politicians are busily peeling off the remaining bits red, white, and blue paint.

[JackRiddler]

27. The Spitzer Memorial Kick

[JackRiddler]

28. & a morning kick!