signalmankenneth
Verified User
I'm a fervent believer in democracy, but this bullshit we have going on in this country now doesn't feel like democracy.
With billions of hard-to-trace dollars spent to advance candidates, with our mail boxes and our TV screens jam-full of expensively produced campaign propaganda used mostly to obfuscate, we've corrupted the very idea of government by, of, and for the people. With so many Americans willing to support anti-democratic forces, have we shown ourselves to no longer be capable of self-governance?
With so many billions of dollars being used to blow smoke up our collective ass, how is it even possible for the truth to become general? If, by chance, a little useful information does leak out from that cloud of smoke and that hall of mirrors created largely by donations from corporations and the very, very rich, it is usually negated or nullified by denials, or lies, or scurrilous counterattacks.
It is so wasteful. If you set out to create a system that would intentionally sow cynicism, disdain, and irritation with the process, you could hardly do better than doing democracy the way we are doing it now. If the "will of the people" can yield a man like Donald Trump or a political party like the GOP, is it any wonder that democracy is under threat throughout the world.
If the idea is for a democracy to give voice to the will of the people, how can all this money spent on obfuscation be helpful in pursuit of that goal? What do we learn from all these fliers, and what is gained by these interminable election seasons that are treated like TV entertainment by most of the reporting across the spectrum of opinion?
The right wingers are always invoking and evoking the "founding fathers," but even with the contradictions and hypocrisies found in the motivations and the hearts of some of those men, I cannot believe that they intended a democracy to look like this.
Sure, they would have probably been ok with the voter suppression efforts, especially where minorities and women were concerned. And they wouldn't have been at all ready for that statue in New York harbor welcoming immigrants from places that didn't even have names yet. The founders were far from perfect people, and neither are we. But we sure as hell ought to be better than we are now.
Why are so many of us so crabbed, so mean, so profoundly ignorant? Why are races so tight, with so many votes being cast for people who are so transparently corrupt, incompetent, dishonest, bigoted, venal, and greedy?
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread...t-do-we-want-democracy-when-do-we-want-it-now
With billions of hard-to-trace dollars spent to advance candidates, with our mail boxes and our TV screens jam-full of expensively produced campaign propaganda used mostly to obfuscate, we've corrupted the very idea of government by, of, and for the people. With so many Americans willing to support anti-democratic forces, have we shown ourselves to no longer be capable of self-governance?
With so many billions of dollars being used to blow smoke up our collective ass, how is it even possible for the truth to become general? If, by chance, a little useful information does leak out from that cloud of smoke and that hall of mirrors created largely by donations from corporations and the very, very rich, it is usually negated or nullified by denials, or lies, or scurrilous counterattacks.
It is so wasteful. If you set out to create a system that would intentionally sow cynicism, disdain, and irritation with the process, you could hardly do better than doing democracy the way we are doing it now. If the "will of the people" can yield a man like Donald Trump or a political party like the GOP, is it any wonder that democracy is under threat throughout the world.
If the idea is for a democracy to give voice to the will of the people, how can all this money spent on obfuscation be helpful in pursuit of that goal? What do we learn from all these fliers, and what is gained by these interminable election seasons that are treated like TV entertainment by most of the reporting across the spectrum of opinion?
The right wingers are always invoking and evoking the "founding fathers," but even with the contradictions and hypocrisies found in the motivations and the hearts of some of those men, I cannot believe that they intended a democracy to look like this.
Sure, they would have probably been ok with the voter suppression efforts, especially where minorities and women were concerned. And they wouldn't have been at all ready for that statue in New York harbor welcoming immigrants from places that didn't even have names yet. The founders were far from perfect people, and neither are we. But we sure as hell ought to be better than we are now.
Why are so many of us so crabbed, so mean, so profoundly ignorant? Why are races so tight, with so many votes being cast for people who are so transparently corrupt, incompetent, dishonest, bigoted, venal, and greedy?
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread...t-do-we-want-democracy-when-do-we-want-it-now
