Is The US an Operating Democracy Any More?

http://agonist.org/ian_welsh/20070822/is_the_us_an_operating_democracy_any_more

Is The US an Operating Democracy Any More?

From Slashdot, (hat tip MediaGirl):



So yeah. Internal passports (along with exit visas) are the very mark of the beast. At the point where you have to show internal papers you are no longer living in the land of the free.

I find this all very interesting because there are majorities for universal healthcare and for abortion on demand, and have been for ages - yet there has been no action on either of these things. There is a majority for getting out of Iraq yet every nominee who stands a chance of being the President with the exception of Richardson won't rule out "residual forces" - just as American legislators won't do what the majority wants, yet there seesm to be this bipartisan consensus for spying on Americans (there was no public outcry for the FISA changes); for torture; for ending habeas corpus; and for internal passports and a computer system which will tell you if you can work or not and which you won't be able to fully appeal the damages of false positives to the court system (this restriction of the courts right to try cases is becoming more and more common.)

The only conclusion one can come to anymore is that the US is no longer a functioning democracy. The elites in the country are doing what they want to do no matter what the majority opinion. If the opinion is far too far against them, well, they will use propaganda (the 70% of Americans who believed Iraq was behind 9/11) and they expect (indeed, they know from repeated experience) that the media will propagate their propaganda and not challenge it. Indeed, when 5 media conglomerates control about 80% of all media, it would be surprising if it were otherwise.

The US is an oligarchy and it acts like one. Hourly wages for non supervisory employees haven't gone up in 30 years but the proportion of national income for the top 1% has soared. The majority of all gains from the last expansion went to the rich. Bonuses on Wall Street last year were equal to the raises of 80 million ordinary Americans. When the housing bubble started crashing last year there was no bailout, but when hedge fund millionaires started hurting the Fed rushed in (might not work, but they're at least trying).

There was a class war in the US. The rich won it and their employees in government are working for the people who pay them (when you have to raise $10,000 a week as a House Representative, who do you think gives it to you? Think they're doing it out of the goodness of their hearts? Don't make me puke.)

However, the forms still remain. Despite thumbs on the scale, and despite some electoral problems, it is still possible for Americans to toss the bums out. Failure to do so will reap the entirely predictable and expected result of a continuation of the trend until a Depression hits. Then... you might get FDR... or you may get someone much nastier, and with it lose even the pretense of Democracy.

We haven't been a democracy for a long time now. The bosses have decided to stop hiding that fact for some reason, though.

Very stupid, in my mind. The fiction that we were some sort of shining light in the world was very useful. I was fooled for a long time, and being fooled, I would have supported what they were doing had it the correct window dressing.

Now that I know the score, you can't make me help them.

AS LONG AS the results agree 95% plus with what the oligarchy of corporate citizens and military planners wanted to do anyway.

That is the subatomic and galactic structure of things today.

What we have, and have had, is only a democracy in the respect that Chop Suey is Chinese food.

A species of nation that can never be for long, that hybrid consists Liberty of Old America and Tyranny of New Bushmerika.

We cannot know what the final shape of Bushevism is, though as it becomes clearer it sure looks more and more like Fahreneheit 451, the book by Bradbury.

So the answer is "1/2 No and 1/2 Yes."

But beyond the nuance, the answer to that question is NO, becuase half freedom is no freedom at all, in the end.

The last time I checked, that word was not to be found in the Constitution of the United States. All that is guaranteed in the Constitution is a Republican form of Government (Article IV section 4).

Never a more compelling argument for public financing of campaigns to replace this obscene bribocracy created by the concepts of "corporate personhood" and "money equals free speech" foist upon us by batshit crazy courts nearly a hundred years apart.

My favorite quote on the subject is from, of all people, Bob Dole, back in 1983 before he became the crown prince of corporate largesse in his role as Senate Majority Leader. Back then, Bob actually said, "When these PACs (political action committees) give money, they expect something in return other than good government."

That should be a trailer emblazoned in red letters tracking across the top of the screen in every single candidate or issue-oriented TV spot, except for those candidates who have refused corporate payola.


wp