Our faith in democracy and the media has declined significantly in my lifetime. The first essential of democracy is the necessity of government to work for “the common good.” When a party wins the popular vote, it is expected to govern for all voters in an impartial manner. Yet if one voter block votes for one of its own, irrespective of the ability and views of the candidate, then democracy is compromised. If black vote for black and hispanic vote for hispanic and women vote for Hillary because she is a ‘woman’, then democracy fails and the society becomes embitered and divided.
I can challenge to USA/UK citizens that, they can not pass any resolution as per their wish even its 60% support.
The Barnabus Fund reports:
Muslim gangs in UK jails are forcing prisoners to convert to Islam with threats and beatings, according to a new Ministry of Justice report.
“The tactic they use is to befriend someone when they come in. If they don’t convert, they will then start spreading rumours about them, that the person is a snitch (informer), so that they will be ostracised. Then the beatings follow,” said a non-Muslim inmate.
https://barnabasfund.org/en/news/muslim-gangs-in-uk-jails-beating-prisoners-until-they-convert-to-islam
Our democratic system is failing to protect the environment from problems like habitat destruction and biodiversity loss.
What we are witnessing is the political capture of decision-makers by special interests such as big business and industry lobbies. And what is troublesome is that they are are doing this within the rules. I regularly state that:
When you have one lobbyist in a nation, that lobbyist has more power than all the voters put together.
In America, income has become concentrated in fewer hands. Around one quarter of the total income generated in the United States is in the hands of the top one percent of Americans. This wealth allows them to bias political decisions in their direction. They tend to be top executives of big corporations, Wall Street executives, and hedge-fund managers. They have ‘corporate clout’. They fund candidates throughout the nation. This is why some call the politicians “puppets”. Democracy is up for sale. Buy a candidate or two. Spend millions on advertising. What would anyone do with more money than they can spend? ‘Sponsor’ a politician or two. They pay through anonymous channels. The Federal Election Commission says only thirty-two percent of groups paying for election adverts are disclosing donor’s names. They might as well deposit sacks of cash under the desks of ‘friendly’ legislators. How can we ever know who is bribing who. Under ‘Philosophy of Jesus’, we expect a level of honesty and integrity, but, when Christian principles are rejected as the tend to be by those that Jesus referred to as the Pharisees, we can expect the failure of democracy. Democracy works with honourable citizens, but not with the dishonest. Unfortunately, the good nature of Christians does not prepare them to expect the dishonest.
America pretends to be the world’s greatest democracy defending the ‘free world’. In reality, it bombs the hell out of any nation declared to have an ‘evil’ leader. Ghadafi = evil. Smash Libya. Saddam = evil. Rain terror on its people. Vietnamese communists = evil. Kill the people. The Constitution is very clear about war powers: only Congress has the right to declare war. But an executive usurped that power. This is supported by a corporate media machine that is gushing of the war’s godly aims and humanitarianism. We are good because the media tells us that it is good to shoot others for the good of others. We now have a ‘military-industrial complex’ with direct links to government, lobbyists, and support in the form of political ‘advisors’. This ‘ military-industrial complex’ is far more advanced than the one described in Dwight Eisnhower’s departing speech:
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implication. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted, only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
He talks of a: “disastrous rise of misplaced power”. War has become big business. Alcohol prohibition created the FBI which effectively became a secret police force. The CIA made a good start by influencing the Italian elections of 1948. This CIA soon created a worldwide network skilled in the intervention in democratic elections, assassination, and the overthrow of governments. It operates outside of democratic control in a cloud of secrecy working beyond the rule of law. We must ponder whether the CIA is a rogue agency. Truman voiced it this way:
Truman shared his concerns in a public letter:
For some time I have been disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government….I never had any thought that when I set up the CIA that it would be injected into peacetime cloak and dagger operations. Some of the complications and embarrassment I think we have experienced are in part attributable to the fact that this quiet intelligence arm of the President has been so removed from its intended role that it is being interpreted as a symbol of sinister and mysterious foreign intrigue….
There are now numerous secret police agencies and they dable in policy issue of government. They have the power to intervene even in U.S. national elections. They are at ease suppressing free speech and spy on American citizens.
America has entered an era of a permanent state of war. The strangely named ‘War on Terror’ ushered in the concept that the Bush administration had ‘executive authority’ to detain American citizens cleverly sold with the bizarre Bush logic of: “either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists!” In reality, his “war on terrorism” is merely an ideology promoting fear and repression that tends to create enemies and an increase in violence. It fails to curb acts of terror and increases the need for security. The spread of the campaign to the rest of the world has often been used as an excuse for governments to repress citizens and discard civil liberties. In reality, this US “war on terror” should be redirected to relief, rebuilding, and the ending of hardship. Resources should be on the side of reconstruction, rather than the ‘military industrial complex’ propensity for destruction. The US government willingly spends $12billion each month to eliminate a few thousand people who it deems to be enemies even when there is almost no evidence that the ‘War on Terror’ strategy is giving a fruitful outcome. How about a ‘War on Poverty’ or a ‘War on Lobbyists’ or a ‘War on the Military Industrial Complex’! The bandits the have commondeered Western governments are not keen on helping people live but are skilfull at ensuring that many are killed. And its own media complex tells us the propaganda that it is ok to kill. We need a war on the ‘War on Terror’.
Simply put: War is always undemocratic. The bombs are not going to stop al-Qaeda, whoever the mysterious al-Qaeda is!
The president does not have the authority to detain a U.S. citizen as an enemy combatant. The rule of law should not be suspended when dealing with a suspected terrorist. They have developed an idiotic situation where the government declares that those that protest against incarceration of protesters are themselves ‘low level terrorists’. And our doubtful media supports this idiotic stand.
We now have a precedent for large scale arbitrary detention of American citizens. This is somewhat like the detention of persons of Japanese descent in the last big war. The 2012 ‘National Defense Authorization Act’ of 2012 allows government agents to indefinitely detain any American citizen.
Whenever you read or watch mainstream media, never forget you are being given biased and distorted information that suits the goals of those who produce it …
Doc Jazz
