Do We Still live in a Democratic Society?

[Bullet1987]

I know we get to vote, and we're SUPPOSED to have freedom of speech (that's even debatable nowadays). But our entire economic infrastructure has become a cesspool. You could even make the argument that Wall Street owns America, and not vice versa. People are just now awakening to the real America as it becomes harder for them to maintain the lie and illusion. I've noticed Michael Moore being given much more respect this time around than he got with Sicko and definitely F9/11. Maybe it's because we're in the middle of an economic collapse and Moore is speaking on it. Maybe it's because they've finally realized this guy...this liberal...is always right. Who knows. But I find it hard to believe we live in a textbook Democracy anymore. Hell, even our elections are controlled by machines now and people have called 2000 and 2004 into question. We have something faaar from a democratic economy. Is it a plutocracy?

[invictus]

1. Modern America is a plutocracy.

The rich get richer. The poor get poorer. There is less social mobility than ever before.

[orpupilofnature57]

2. It's Controlled Anarchy.

Oxymoron yes ,but the people that vote and pay are the enemy and victims at the same time.

[timtom]

3. It's been a very, very long time since we have lived

in a democracy.

We have lived in the illusion of a democracy. Thing is, the illusion doesn't quite work anymore. The masks are coming off. Only the passionate naif allows himself to be fooled.

[evenso]

4. More people realize liberal ideas are the right ones.

[TTUBatfan2008]

5. It's not just Wall Street that owns America...

it's the rest of the financial oligarchs around the world (IMF, World Bank, HSBC, et al).

[lurky]

6. A simple test:

A: Do our representatives represent the will and serve the needs of their constituents?
B: If they fail to do so, do they face negative consequences?

Healthcare is a perfect example of our non-democracy. Something like 80% of voters support some kind of public health insurance, and have for decades, yet our representatives find it "politically impossible" to create it. Millions of their constituents are sick, dying, or facing financial ruin because of our system, yet these representatives are more interested in protecting the profits of insurance companies than the lives of their voters. Most of them have retained their seats for years despite this behavior, and most of them will continue to do so.

This is no anomaly. There are countless other issues that mirror this situation (banking reform, for example).

We may not know all the details of our government's capture: Who is clean, who is dirty, how have the wills of our leaders have been bent to the demands of private power. It does not matter, really. We don't need that to prove malfeasance, we only need to look at the actions of our government to see the pattern of corruption and misrule. It is there and it is clear.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

8. Completely agree.

No where is it more apparent then in healthcare and financial regulation or lack thereof.

[treestar]

7. We never did

The Senate is a bit anti-Democratic. Montana has as much say as California. Look at the population numbers for those two states.

[anonymous171]

13. The Senate is for the STATES, not the People.

Montana is a state, California is a state, therefore they get equal representation.

[treestar]

18. But it's anti-Democratic

to have that. We have to deal with that.

[anonymous171]

9. Nope. Back in the day, state legislatures drafted the articles of incorporation

Thereby giving the People some control over our economic well-being, which is democratic. Nowadays no one but the Capitalists themselves have any say in what they do to us.

[TheKentuckian]

17. Not true because in that day the vast majority was disenfranchised

There never was a "day" and the people are playing enough of a part in this mess for the charge to ring true. Enough of the population is complicit to at least fudge it and often it is legitimate.

I'm not saying all but it isn't tiny minority that has rubberstamped the spirit of the robber-baron in this country and not just of late but throughout our history. Shit, throughout history. Conservationism has never had a golden age but through avarice, willful ignorance, fear, or whatever it has seldom had any shortage of peon ass supporters.

No, the only "change" in the levels of Democracy have been to let more people play without expanding the power that the institution holds so now we're stuck with a population that is first split between the sane and the delusional and once you muck through that you have to deal with the varying viewpoints and approaches of those that actually want to participate.

Not to mention the rampant lack of participation. Most people can't be bothered to always vote and you can bet your ass that the percentage that goes beyond that is small. Pretending that we the people aren't playing a big part in making this mess the way it is. No question the vultures and bandits are all over us but that is by any measure only a portion of the cause. We can bust the ass of every crook and bully but if we as a society don't get serious about our government and participating in it.

If overwhelming numbers of people gave a fuck what was going on, thought of the greater good, kept it real about where they were and how they got there, voted, and bothered to tell the people they voted for to vote in their interests then either shit would more or less get done properly or it would hit the fan.

It's only going to do so much when only half of the eligible population on the high side even does the bare bones minimum. Democracy doesn't work on auto-pilot it is by definition bullshit when there is no participation.

[freddie mertz]

10. No. We live in an oligarchy.

Citizens are still needed to pull levers or poke touch-screens (If only to provide the illusion of an "election"), that is why they push slogans and promises on us every few months or years.

The illusion must be maintained, after all.

[quantass]

11. Campaign Finance Reform and Education should be the Highest Priorities

Although Health care is EXTRMELY important i think the core of America's problem is greed and the intentional dumbing of its people so that they dont become aware of the farce at hand. This would explain the republican constituents fighting against their own interest for the sake and wealfare of the corporation (wtf?).

For America to really wake up there needs to be the tools in place for it to happen...i suggest a hammer.

[harun]

12. Depends on your definition of Democracy. We have NEVER lived in the democracy

described to us as children in grade school. That has always been a myth.

We live in a Corporate Representative Republic.

[mmonk]

14. No. Not a democratic society nor plutocracy, though sort of.

It's basically a corporate dictatorship. It controls too much now including what information gets to the people in mass media. Your vote (and thus interests) can be bought by corporate lobbyists.

[ShortnFiery]

15. "It's basically a corporate dictatorship."

BINGO! :hi:

[mmonk]

16. .

:hi: