A Legit Question

[J-thehookaholic]

The question I want to pose is do we even have democracy in this country anymore or just the illusion of it? And how free can we really be with 6 companies controlling the media and a private bank (the Fed Reserve) printing (or if you like, conterfieting) money and controling the money supply of this country with little or no over sight?

now...discuss

[jayson]

We do have a republic, in that people really do decide elections. That's my take.

But that's where the niceties stop. This election should be a perfect example... and it's especially noticeable on the Republican side this time around.

Case in point: all throughout the last year, several frontrunners were annointed by the MSM. If you notice, it was (loooong time ago) Newt Gingrich, then McCain, then Romney, then Giuliani, then Thompson, then Huckabee and finally back to McCain.

I find it interesting that 3 weeks before the Iowa caucases, Huckabee was considered third-tier. He was going nowhere. Then, "polls" started coming out that his numbers were "jumping exponentially" out of thin air. Sorry, but third-tier candidates' numbers don't jump leaps and bounds out of nowhere. He ended up taking Iowa.

More interesting, though, is McCain. Back in July of '07, the man was considered dead. He couldn't pay his staff, he wasn't recognized by the media (at they time they were busy hyping up Giuliani and Thompson)... And then New Hampshire comes. Literally three days before NH, I remember listening to the radio. The "polls" said Romney was going to take NH easily because of its proximity to Mssachussetts. The next day Fox and CNN came out with polls saying McCain had "shot up to 1st". OVERNIGHT. I find this a bit fishy that polls basically got flipped upside down, and now McCain, with no money and no support, is in first.

And that's what started the snowball. On Super Tuesday McCain had about 40% in a lot of states, despite the fact that he is adamantly against a lot of things the GOP base stands for (border security, no amnesty, against McCain-Feingold and McCain-Kennedy, etc.)

The problem we have is that people look at elections like Football pools. They want to hedge their bets and vote for the guy who will "win", even if he doesn't agree with them at all. They want the satisfaction knowing that they backed a winner.

And that's why we are in the shit. Our Republic was meant to operate by people voting on principle, not "electability" or "chances of winning".

[AKammenzind]

The problem we have is that people look at elections like Football pools. They want to hedge their bets and vote for the guy who will "win", even if he doesn't agree with them at all. They want the satisfaction knowing that they backed a winner.

And that's why we are in the shit. Our Republic was meant to operate by people voting on principle, not "electability" or "chances of winning".

Agreed, that is one of many flaws within our system. Really though it doesn't seem to matter, the elections we have are no-win situations... not just our govt. has been controlled; our entire society has been hijacked. We see on the news what we are meant to see, we read in the papers what we are meant to read, and we are meant to act accordingly. The horrid voting of our people is really just an effect of this.

We don't have anything close to a good government. What we have is a man behind us with a knife in our ribs and stick half a meter up our asses, and people with candy all around who tell us that he's there for our own protection. On top of this, there are TV screens every where you look and they have only one message: Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

[J-thehookaholic]

I agree with you that people vote based on electability and its the wrong way to do things. and i think that is in large part due to the media hammering away on that topic. In NH there were reports of the electronic voting machines being hacked which could account for McCain comming out on top and some of the other shinnanigans. I think we have the illusion of democracy, the press isn't exactly free anymore, and I think anyone that gets the nominations serves the interest of the wealthy bankers that own The Fed and the military industrial complex. They've been dumbing down this country for years and getting us involved in shit we have no business in, we meddle in the internal affiars of other nations, fund and both sides of virtually every conflict which result in us getting sucked into these small wars (panama, greneda, lebennon, haiti, THE ENTIRE MIDDLE EAST, the balkans.....) and these small wars have and will always have potential to become very big wars.

The point is I think we have the illusion of democracy and not actual democracy.

[J-thehookaholic]

dude, well said. and it very much has a wizard of oz quality to it in that way.

[trizkit]

Our republc also lends itsself to corruption relatively easily.

a) delegates can choose to give their electoral votes to whomever they wish, regardless of voting. For example, if everyone in Minnesota votes for candidate A, the delegates that represent that state can still choose to disregard this and give their electoral votes to candidate B. This would be political suicide for those delegates, but as a last resort fight for their party, it would be well within the rules of the law. Votes merely influence electors, they do not have to count.

The electoral college system allows a lot of influence to be obtained by swaying (honestly or dishonestly) only a few votes. For example, in a true democracy, if someone wanted to fake winning an election with the use of fake votes, they would have to fake every vote that their opponent has over theirs. With the electoral college, a relatively smaller number of votes in a divided state could give him/ her all of the electoral votes needed to win the election dishonestly Edited February 28, 2008 by trizkit

[trizkit]

the smiley w/ sunglasses was supposed to be a b followed by a )

ha

[J-thehookaholic]

Our republic does lend itself to corruption easily. Thats why it may not be a republic much longer. Every empire through out history has fallen under its own weight due continually military interventionism, we are not imune to this. We can't cantinue down this path by continually printing more money to pay for our military adventurism and welfare state, simply printing more money does nothing to solve the problem in fact it makes it worse, it creates economic bubbles, and when those bubbles pop as they enevitiably do, the reprecussions of our montary policy (making more money out of thin air) will make the day these bills come due horrendous..... and when I say that you should be thinking Germany post WWI before Hilter came to power, when their currency was worthless.... kinda like our currency is swirling around the shitter and going down mighty quick.

[HarryTheHookaMaster]

its all smoke and mirrors.... this country is being run (into the ground) by big business. The rest is an illusion! Your vote don't mean shit, the media picks who the President is. If that President goes against the Powers That Be then he is destroyed by scandel or a bullet...

Just a sick twisted thought...

[gaia.plateau]

There are certainly levels and degrees of democracy... free and fair elections are just one part of that, but let's start there.

More people voted for Al Gore in 2000, yet George W. Bush won. This is talked about outside of America, from Britain to Central America to Canada, as being an undemocratic indication of political status. We saw unjust voting practices as well, authorized and condoned in the highest offices, such as easily manipulated electronic voting in important colleges like Florida, and broken down, almost impossible to use machines in poor, largely black-populated areas like Harlem.

The fact that the judiciary, specifically the supreme court is appointed by partisan leaders instead of election, is also undemocratic.

There is no objective news coming out of the US... you have Fox/Post on the right and MSNBC/NYT on the left, while CNN does its best to not matter. That's an indication of pluralism; in an ideally democratic country, you would see news representation from multiple parties, and there would be at least a few non-partisan media sources. Speaking of parties, having only two major parties in a country is restrictive of pluralism. Pluralism is probably more important, in fact, than elections. Pakistan ostensibly has elections, but the practically one party government controls all media. Iran's ayatollah can disqualify politicians from running in elections, yet in Iran there is objective journalism. Iran is more democratic than Pakistan.

The patriot act takes away the right to privacy, and the suspension of habeus corpus and the military commission act make every American vulnerable to detention and torture without trial. We see that there is significant governmental control over the media in that there has been practically no journalism done in Iraq. There is freedom of speech in the US, but to a degree. Recently, for example, the town council of Berkely was fined 2 million dollars for protesting recruitment methods by the marines. People are getting tasered for increasingly alarming reasons, like being Muslim, questioning a police officer's judgment, or asking John Kerry too many questions. The extreme right wing, including the current administration, has long stopped making cohesive arguments for its policy, instead using the tactic of stating something, and treating that statement as fact. See the punditry of O'Reilly and Hannity for good examples.

Democracy means "rule by the people", so the underlying and overarching question you are asking is, are the United States still ruled by the people? Do you feel like you have political power, or does it feel like nothing you can do could affect the system? From the clear, unbiased objectivity and nondualism of an outsider's perspective, America seems more and more of recent days to be "rule by the dollar". Corporations, through lobbyists, seem to command more political power than the executive, and in an ideally democratic country they should have none at all.

So to answer your question, the USA is still a democracy, but it is clearly not as democratic as it was even 10 years ago. I would say that it is more democratic than, for example, Pakistan, Cuba or Iran, but probably less democratic than even countries like Venezuela or Mexico.

[gaia.plateau]

Yeah I've asked for that to be changed send Mush a pm!

the smiley w/ sunglasses was supposed to be a b followed by a )

ha

[J-thehookaholic]

The Judicary (Spreme Court) was never meant to have to face elections nor should they, this would further politize that branch. And given the intial ground swell of support for going to war in Iraq, the last thing we need is a mob mentality when deciding what the law actually is. I do think however things need to change with it. 1) being able to serve for life, has go without a doubt. Should be a term say 5 years, no justice may serve more than 3 terms. 2) When your term is up the senate should be able to look at your voting record and act accordingly on whether you have acted in the spirit of the constitution. 3) No one should be serving past a certain age. 4) I'd like to see those pricks drug tested randomly and regularly.... while I feel its unconstitutional, if we're going to be subjected to it so should they.

I hate to say it but, we're no longer a democracy, we are an oligarchy with the illusion of democracy. And yes if you go against it you will ruined with scandal or a bullet.

[gaia.plateau]

Not election by the people, but election by the courts. Serving a 5-year term would be catastrophic under the current system of appointment; it would give nearly every single president the ability to fill the entire supreme court with like minded judges. You'd have an undeniably fascist police state in 2 weeks.

[J-thehookaholic]

First off I was using the 5 year thing as an example. and if you stagger the terms so that they're not up for review all at once, then that really shouldn't be a problem.

What is more of a problem and more of a threat is congress being completely unwilling to do their constitutional duty with regards to presidential power and the fed. the constitution clearly states that congrees has the war powers not the president. It also is supposed to control the money and printing of money not the fed. Btw the mere fact that Bush has abused the hell out of that office makes Nixon and Grant's presidencies look like Mother Thersa was in office, I'm shocked and appalled that entire administration has not been locked up in jail for life.... hey lets send them all to the club fed at abu grab. Edited February 29, 2008 by J-thehookaholic

[gaia.plateau]

First off I was using the 5 year thing as an example. and if you stagger the terms so that they're not up for review all at once, then that really shouldn't be a problem.

It would then have to be at least a 10 year term... and in the case of Reagan/Reagan/Bush, for example, where 3 terms of presidents shared values like "abortions and gays bad, fear and war good", you would see some very fucked up choices for supreme justice. It's already bad enough when 2+ justices need to be replaced in the term of one administration.

Anyway of the dozen-or-so points I made about what constitutes a democracy, the choosing of the judiciary was probably the least important. Edited February 29, 2008 by gaia.plateau

[HarryTheHookaMaster]

I think term limits for ALL of those elected would be a step in the right direction. Our so-called "leaders" have better pension plans then the rest of us. And their Social Security bennies are ALOT different then ours. These assholes need to stop thinking that they are entitled to whatever they want and continue to screw the rest of us!

PAC's and lobbysts HAVE TO GO!

Bottom line, there HAS to be change. We, as a people, cannot afford to keep this up....

[J-thehookaholic]

Anyway of the dozen-or-so points I made about what constitutes a democracy, the choosing of the judiciary was probably the least important.
[/quote]

Of the dozen or so points you made, that was the one that I kinda disagree with, I don't think making supreme court judges go through elections is going to solve the problem, b/c people are retarded and vote strictly along party lines, or who has more presidential hair, or "electibility". If you have them go through elections its going to be the same crap we have now with the presidency. And the reasons that our founding fathers had for isolating that branch of the government from the whims of a mob mentality in the public and media bears some merit, I'm not saying its flawless, I'm not saying my idea is flawless, it could end up being worse... it could also end up being better.

Given the state of our government now I hardly think it would matter if they're elected or not, the only ones that would get any coverage during a campaign are those that would support the ruling interest of the current oligarchy. Edited February 29, 2008 by J-thehookaholic

[gaia.plateau]

I don't think making supreme court judges go through elections is going to solve the problem, b/c people are retarded and vote strictly along party lines, or who has more presidential hair, or "electibility". If you have them go through elections its going to be the same crap we have now with the presidency.

And the reasons that our founding fathers had for isolating that branch of the government from the whims of a mob mentality in the public and media bears some merit, I'm not saying its flawless, I'm not saying my idea is flawless, it could end up being worse... it could also end up being better.

Given the state of our government now I hardly think it would matter if they're elected or not, the only ones that would get any coverage during a campaign are those that would support the ruling interest of the current oligarchy.

But don't you think that the current trend of presidential appointments have been just as partisan?

I mean, for fuck's sake, look at Harriet Myers.

[J-thehookaholic]

As I stated previously in another forum:

"Its not just a problem of who gets elected its the fact that this country has a collection of private banks (the fed reserve) that prints and controls the money supply. they have don't have any real oversight. the fed is part of a international central banking system that has the IMF as the head of it all. The only way to save this country and our freedoms is to get rid of the Fed Reserve. They have taken the worlds largest manufacturer and turned it into a nation of consumers, which just means we're all their bitch. All candindates that get with in sniffing distance of a nomination are approved of by these people. Its why people like Ron Paul and anyone else who talks about the consitution and what the fed is really doing to this country get marginalized and recieve no coverage. It's because they're a threat to the elite of this country and their status quo. Obama isn't bad, but his ideas are socialist, so is McCain and Hillary and lets not be fooled by labels. Really look at what they stand for and are pushing for. If people are going to vote for socialism they should know that thats what they're voting for and not be distracted by a global war on "terror" and a Fed Reseerve induced credit crisis. Its just a shame to get you to perpetuate a welfare state and move us closer to a one world gov't where we're the equilavent of serfs working for a few wealthy bankers."

on top of that I just saw some add about getting on members of congress to support some terrorist survalance program thats about to expire...... don't buy into in the least, its not about the terrorist, it's another way for them to fuck us and take away what little maybe left of our privacy. I survived 9/11, and the real terrorists are the ones out there every day fear mongering and war mongering, I'm not saying Bin Laden is a nice guy and we should do lunch. But people need to take the blinders off, they don't hate us b/c we're free and prosperous they hate us b/c we're over there screwing with them, dictating to them what they should do. They hate us b/c we're there propping up regimes that they don't want. If we're so in a favor of democracy, lets get out and let them be, let them decide for themselves. Edited February 29, 2008 by J-thehookaholic

[trizkit]

We can't cantinue down this path by continually printing more money to pay for our military adventurism and welfare state, simply printing more money does nothing to solve the problem

technically we're not just "printing more money"

We're borrowing money from other countries, primarily China. The really f'ed up thing about it is that these countries effectively own part of whatever we as a country make. And we will have to pay our debt back with interest. So the gross amount of money that we've spent is actaully deceptively low compared to what it will actually cost us to repay it. Its prety much bad decision making and policy in every possible way.

[J-thehookaholic]

technically we're not just "printing more money"

We're borrowing money from other countries, primarily China. The really f'ed up thing about it is that these countries effectively own part of whatever we as a country make. And we will have to pay our debt back with interest. So the gross amount of money that we've spent is actaully deceptively low compared to what it will actually cost us to repay it. Its prety much bad decision making and policy in every possible way.

You're right we do borrow money, and right now we are the largest debtor nation.
The fed also keeps cutting interest rates, and the only way to artificially lower interest rates is to... print more money. Its exactly what the Germans did after WWI they could afford to pay the debt they owed the allies after the war so they printed more money. Btw we're not that far off from the ratio of income to debt that we were when the great depression happened.

[Scheetz]

No we are not a democracy.


We are a Republic Sovereign.


If we fall to socializing everything. We will become a Socialist country.

[gaia.plateau]

de·moc·ra·cy, n

1. government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.

2. a state having such a form of government: The United States and Canada are democracies.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/democracy

re·pub·lic, n

1. a state in which the supreme power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by representatives chosen directly or indirectly by them.

2. any body of persons viewed as a commonwealth.

3. a state in which the head of government is not a monarch or other hereditary head of state.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/republic

You're both.

No we are not a democracy.


We are a Republic Sovereign.


If we fall to socializing everything. We will become a Socialist country.

Edited February 29, 2008 by gaia.plateau

[AKammenzind]

I think he meant that we're not a pure democracy, as we have representatives and don't operate simply on majority rule.

Regardless of what you consider us, we're all just SOL and JWF. As a nation we're lied to, driven into debt, intimidated, and ultimately controlled by a corrupt and unjust government.

[J-thehookaholic]

I wouldn't be so sure about the whole "soveriegn" thing either, we've been giving a good bit of that up over the years to the U.N., World Court, Central Banks, and WTO.

On a side note, I'm tired of hearing Presidential candidates talk about preserving "American" interest in the Middle East and around the world. I sure as hell don't have an interest in funding Isreal and Arabs, I don't have an interest in a "war on drugs", I don't have an interest in have troops guard the DMZ in Korea or providing for Japan's Defense or subsidizing NATO. It all takes money out of my poket and I don't get any benefit from it. Let everyone take care of themselves and buy there own damn weapons. People that want to do drugs... are going to do drugs, a "waar on drugs" is code for we feel like screwing around in central america and forcing them to do our biding.