Relative to Russian interpretations of democracy you're idealism towards the current state of the US, where democracy is a market, you are probably somewhat accurate. In Russia it's "something you will get, eventually, if you learn to behave as I direct". In the US it's "something citizens are daily told they have, but ought to avoid questioning its omnipresence by ever looking for examples of it".
Relative to early Greek thinkers, especially Socratic, and the Maga Carta demonstrators for democracy (the initial version, not the later modified one) the US version of democracy is one more sad commentary on corruption of the human condition. If you'd like we can compare examples, but lets avoid those tired ones put out by Wall Street traders to quite public anger while the stakes of the Faustian Tragedy grow.
My simple reading of the Federalist Papers is that the US was designed as an elite economic hierarchy where only some would be allowed to participate in governance. This would be restricted to the intelligent, defined by wealth, sex, race and religion. To keep down revolt they promised a safety clause in a "fair" judicial system where the economically disenfranchised could devote a good share of their life to gain redress of the worst sins of the system, but only if it was really, really important. Now that judicial system owned and managed by the same non-democratic economic system and used as one more resource to further the sense of royalty management via traditional feudal ideologies.
Yesterday's Supreme Court decision is a third nail in the coffin of democracy via an anti-democratic judiciary. The first nail was the explicit approval of the a b solute power of the elite to make use of eminent domain for economic, not public interest, concerns. The second was the very strange idea that corporations have all the rights of a person, but none of the responsibilities of citizenship, nor would face any punishments for being humanly irresponsible.
Funny how neatly things can be worked out for yourself, when you get to privately define the laws as well as manage their enforcement for your private interests.
I think the code phrase has long been: "Its the fight against shit. That's what its all about." The risk during the fight is that you may get a lot on you.
from David Hawk |