Can American Democracy Survive Against Rising Political Corruption and Privatization?

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/can-american-democracy-survive-against-rising-political-corruption-and

In 1932, on the eve of FDR’s presidency, Benito Mussolini proclaimed, “The liberal state is destined to perish.” He added, all too accurately, “All the political experiments of our day are anti-liberal.”

The democracies were doomed, Il Duce declared, because they could not solve crucial problems. Unlike the dictatorships, which were willing to forcefully use a strong state, the democracies could not fix their broken economies. Parliamentary systems were hamstrung politically. The democracies were also war-weary, conflict-averse, and ill-prepared to fight. The fascists, unlike the democracies, had solved the problem of who was part of the community.

Mussolini’s ally, Adolf Hitler, was further contemptuous of “mongrelization” in American democracy. Who was an American? How did immigrants fit in? What about Negroes? The fascist states, by contrast, rallied their citizens to a common vision and a common purpose. Hitler was quite confident that he knew who was a German and who was not. To prove it, he fashioned the Nuremberg laws; he annexed German-speaking regions of his neighbors. As Hitler infamously put it, Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuehrer.

[merrily]

1. If by democracy, one means the right to vote for pols, yes, it will survive. However, we have been

all but controlled by corporate interests and their representatives for some time.

[mmonk]

2. It's already gone in my state.

The US House of Representatives is unreachable for over a decade most likely for the rest of America.

[Orrex]

3. I assume that this article was published in the mid 70s?

Last edited Wed Mar 18, 2015, 07:28 AM - Edit history (1)

Because at this point the answer should be an obvious and resounding "NO!"

[Triana]

4. Did American Democracy Survive Against Rising Political Corruption and Privatization?

No.

[Katashi_itto]

5. This a trick question?

[deutsey]

6. The 2000 election was the death blow for American democracy

It was obvious that a lot of shady things were done by a lot of powerful people to ensure that Bush "won" the election, and the fixers still had to rely on their cronies on the Supreme Court to nullify the election results.

But they got away with it.

Even when the people rally and roundly reject the right-wing agenda as we did in 2008, the political game is rigged so that who ever wins can't do anything that isn't already sanctioned by the oligarchs in charge.