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Posted on 8-6-09 Sacking Democracy
By Alan Marston, 8 June 2009
About 3 years ago I did a PTV program called `Whose Got Democracy' (online
at http://www.pl.net/Ntv/roysar.htm) for which the main thesis was that
democracy and the internationalism which it supports was, still is, a
luxury demanded by a middle-class during prosperous times. At all other
times and where there is no substantial middle-class the political
structure of choice is narrowed down to no-choice, dictatorship and
national chauvinism, whether of left or right is of little interest except
to the opportunists who invested in a defeated pretender to the throne.
We are now in unprosperous times. The ranting patriots of dictatorship if
not already in place will be so ensconced in the near future. My heart
would like to offer a hopeful refrain along the lines of `if we do this or
if we do that then democracy can be saved' but an historically conditioned
head knows better, and I'm a head-man. Democracy and internationalism are
on the short list for a painful sacking.
A thesis always brings out the anti-thesis, which will demand evidence.
Well, any reading of history is evidence enough and pontificating on the
future is not evidence. So let's look at the very recent past.
Those with the longest history available in books, the Europeans, are
again leading the way to dictatorship and nationalism, viz. the latest
elections to the European Parliament.
At a local level, Auckland as a sort of EEU-NZ is rapidly becoming the
Nationalist Kingdom of Auckland with its `Dear Father' owing allegiance to
none other than the Knights of the Round Table.
The fig-leaf that has always been democracy in the USA has never looked
better yet even it is failing to cover the dictatorship of the uber-rich
that America has always been and will continue to be for the foreseeable
future. After all, the US middle-class or Middle-America as it is called
as if America invented it, is being sacked and Chapter 11'd into oblivion
where the fig-leaf will soon enough follow.
What can one do? Stock the floor, stand by the door, vote for the poor,
ignore the whore, wait for the thaw.
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