Amidst
Washington’s Russia-Screaming, Eric London asks and answers “What is ‘our
democracy’?”
|
I
|
’m sure he
asks the question with tongue–in–cheek or whimsical exaggeration because he
knows, as do most people, that the United States of America is not — and never
has been — a democracy.
In London’s headline, I would have placed quote marks around both “our” and “democracy” because I’m never sure who the “our” comprises or what “they” who process “our” (whatever is claimed to be possessed) mean. Nor am I sure about what “they” mean by “democracy.”
The true
face of “our” “democracy”, as captured by London (part of which I’ve excerpted
below with minor edits), looks more like plutocracy, oligarchy or kleptocracy
than any democracy of any kind, anywhere.
Review
- KLEPTOCRACY is government by those mainly seeking or are vested in their own status and personal gain at the expense of the govern
- PLUTOCRACY is government by the wealthy or a controlling class of the wealthy
- OLIGARCHY is government by the few or a government in which a small group exercises control esp. for corrupt and selfish purposes
- DEMOCRACY is government by the people— the common people esp., when constituting the source of political authority and absent hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges. In a democracy or democratic government, supreme power vests in the people and is exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usu. involving periodically held FREE elections.
London
points to salient elements of the USA Brand of (non) Democracy
|
D
|
esperate Dichotomy
America’s “poorest
60 % … owns 1 percent of the wealth”; the “richest 5% owns 67 % of the wealth.”
On any American
night of the week, “554,000” people suffer homelessness.
The first
inhabitants of America, indigenous people, are “the most impoverished and
exploited.”
Debtors’ prisons (21st
century) in many US states capture and confine poor people for failure to pay
fines or debts.
Ghosts of a dark past: In 17th - 19th centuries England, colonized America and Europe, poor people unable to pay court-ordered judgments were imprisoned in places resembling locked workhouses—institutions that provided employment for paupers and sustenance for the infirm— until they had worked off their debt via labor, or secured outside funds to pay.
Ghosts of a dark past: “Breaking rocks out here on the chain gang/ committed crime… of being hungry and poor/ I heard the judge say five years on chain-gang… five years labor… /Working and working… still got so terribly far to go.” 1966 writer(s): Brown, Adderley, album “Nina Simone with Strings”
|
C
|
orporate/Government
Selective Imprisonment, without counsel, Loss of voting rights
6.8 million
US adults, 3%, “are either in jail or prison, on parole or probation.”
Immigrants are
subjected to sentencing without right of judge, jury or counsel.
A poor person’s
life is essentially over once he or she enters a US (public or private
contracted) prison system.
|
O
|
wners of Ballot and
Outcome
Corporations
in 2017 “spent roughly $3,000,000,00 lobbying [members of] the government.
Mainly corporations
and the wealthy who, under Supreme Court ruling permitting them unlimited financing
of political candidates, spent $6,000,000,000 (six thousand million) “influencing
the 2016 election.”
“Third”
political parties or any political party other than the tyrannical Democratic
and Republican parties (a singular two) are denied unrestricted access to the
ballot, denied voice, denied challenge to the domineering two in public debate forums. Even the two have abandoned actual debates.
|
C
|
orporate/Government
censor and surveillance
90 percent
of the USA’s media outlets are owned by five media companies
Google/Facebook
censor selective websites by manipulating algorithms and downgrading search
results to limit the potential audience of dissenting or differing points of
view.
Whistleblowers
and publishers such as Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, and Julian Assange are threatened,
persecuted, prosecuted, imprisoned, demonized, had their reputations ruined because
they exposed “details of US war crimes and mass surveillance.”
|
M
|
urder over
learning
More than half
the US discretionary budget funds force—“10 times more than federal housing
spending; nine times more than education spending.”
Since 2001 the
US government (on official orders and budget approvals) has spent $6,000,000,000,000
on wars (violent aggression, invasion, interference, provocation, direct and
indirect destabilization) in Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.
London
concludes
“The intense
political infighting between the factions of the ruling class over ‘Russian
interference in our democracy’ confirms that there is no constituency for
democratic rights within the ruling class. [There
is no democracy]
“Their
abandonment of democratic forms of rule poses a great danger to the working
class. The only way to defend democratic rights is through a fight against
imperialist war, inequality, and capitalism.”
|
I
|
have proposed cleaning house and insisting
upon a substantively changed ethos for the common good, for society, for the
public good.
There’s no point in crafting new slogans or slapping paint on
their faces because the diligence, sensibility, care and competence, the substantive
stewardship that is required in domestic affairs and foreign relations will
never come from the present entrenched and corrupt crop in and around Washington.
Sources
World
Socialist Web Site “What is ‘our democracy’?” Eric London July 20, 2018 http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/07/20/pers-j20.html
Wikipedia
Merriam-Webster
Britannica
Insight Beyond Today’s News, CLB - © All Rights
Reserved
No comments:
Post a Comment