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Independence Day, Twice Removed
Submitted by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,
(Unknown Magazine and cannonballs at Battery Rodgers, Alexandria 1863)
I hardly ever go out in the morning, the first 7-8 hours of every single day are taken up by reading and writing. But today I did, to feel the mood in the city. Not sure I got it, though. Everything’s quiet. It may not help that I’m staying smack in the middle of the Acropolis tourist area (still haven’t figured out why 90% of them are American).
Not sure if many Greeks even really understand what is going on, and who can blame them, they have every reason to be scared more than anything else.
And I’m still trying to wrap my head around the trouble just about everyone seems to have with the simplest and most basic exercise in direct democracy that’s taking place right now. The referendum here today has been called manipulative, opaque, some say there’s not enough time, others claim Tsipras is merely trying to save face in the face of defeat, courts have been called in to rule on its legality.
But this place here is where democracy started. And votes were held just like the one today, all the time. To be rid of despot rule, to let the people decide. And sure, in the beginning it wasn’t all the people, just the alleged wise men, but it was a start. So why do we now find this simplicity so hard to stomach?
Put another way: is this because for Americans the 4th of July is these days more about stuffing your faces surrounded by your equally overweight families than it is about honoring the Founding Fathers? It’s quite possible, that our troubles with processing and absorbing direct democracy are somehow linked to that.
That Americans and Europeans have precious little understanding and appreciation left of what happened that led to the US celebrating, commemorating, its Independence Day in the first place. And therefore can’t see how and why it couldn’t have been accomplished without the example set right here in Greece many many years earlier.
Maybe that’s why a thousand pundits feel free to question the very principle of democracy. Or to at least try and hang all sorts of conditions and reservations on it. But it’s not that hard really: a government asks its people what they think about a certain issue.
That’s a democratically elected government’s prerogative. It couldn’t really get any more basic than that. And of all the freedoms we have, maybe the one that makes us question the very principle those very freedoms are derived from, is not the best choice. Maybe there are better and more productive freedoms to occupy ourselves with.
And it can’t be that the unfolding Greek drama hasn’t given us enough material to hold against the light of democratic principles. The Troika machinations, culminating in the oppression of data vital to the negotiations, from those same negotiations, is just one example. A damning one, though, but still.
For democracy to function, it must first of all be allowed to function. That requires revealing all relevant information. It also requires all parties who are not party to a vote to keep their mouths shut. If you look at it from that point of view, Brussels and Berlin seem to have little understanding and respect for what democracy is. For them it seems to be something to be manipulated with impunity.
And that does matter: democracy, to function, needs to be respected. Mere lip service doesn’t cut it.
Whatever the result of the vote is today, Greece is in for more hard times. A No vote would lead the little, little people in Brussels to engage in more strong arm tactics. And I see no reason to doubt that voting Yes is tantamount to sticking one’s head in a noose.
Who would want to live at the mercy of an institution populated by little people who actively try to keep vital numbers behind in a discussion held against the backdrop of hunger, suicide and despair in a country whose interests it is supposed to serve? But that’s just me. And I don’t have a vote.
If you look through Greek history, the country could claim an entire calendar full of Independence Days. The US has just the one, and it owes it to the ancient Greeks. Maybe that’s something to ponder when waking up from those glucose-induced stupors this morning.
That like it or not, this is where the democracy was born that allowed for America to become a nation of free people. The same democracy celebrated from sea to shining sea every Fourth of July. And also the same democracy that is under threat, in Greece, in Europe as a whole, and very much in the US too.
It looks to me that we’ve all become quite far removed from what Independence Day is about, in Brussels, Berlin and Washington. And we should feel lucky if Athens today can give us back some of what has been lost in the translation and erosion of history.
Democracy is a fragile child. It needs to be fed and nurtured and caressed around the clock. Or it will wither away before our very eyes. The Greeks taught us all a valuable lesson before. Here’s hoping they can again.
And at the same time add yet another Independence Day to their long and rich calendar.
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<-- OXI
<-- NAI
<--- ass to mouth
<--- mouth to ass
this entire article is based on the premise that democracy is so great to begin with. Thats a big problem, because democracy has its downside, especially when there aren't limits placed on it. If 51% of the people agree on something, they get to enforce their will, with the guns of govt, on everyone else. Getting 51% of the morons that make up most western countries to agree on something that is actually against their interests is apprently quite easy, and this is the reason Im not a big fan of democracy. Getting a simple majority of morons to agree on something doesn't give them the moral authority to enforce their will on me.
That is why you get the government you deserve. (EBT anyone?)
The more astute the people the better gov. they get.
I need to give credit to the author as this IMHO is one of his better writings
The problem is that many don't want your government and some don't want any government. So where do you get the right to act like a common criminal and force your will onto others.
Mozi said something like if you think that something is wrong for an individual to do but is okay for a group of people to do, then you have a problem with your concept of right and wrong.
So-called 'democracy' is just the tyranny of the many over the few.
Think about how smart the average person is, then realise that half of them are more stupid than that.
Do you want those guys having power over you?
I'm sure you don't, and niether do I.
America the country was founded as a federalist republic, but it became convenient for the socialist's to turn it into a pseudo-direct democracy so as to herd the sheep in the proper direction. They've achieved their goal, but are about to discover that divide and conquer, along with a massive dumbing down and indoctrination campaign they've waged for the last few generations isn't going to work out quite the way they planned......
I'm getting tired of foreigners who don't even live here bashing America when they don't know basic history. I have news for you people, a vast majority of the public was neutral or against the American Revolution in 1776. Same as today.
Submitted by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,
Direct democracy BY VOTE is a easy way to make decisions without testing convictions. Direct democracy BY CONVICTION is the other way employed if the first option produces an unacceptable answer to enough people. You never know if the second option produced a more acceptable result to the majority until after the fact.
The only way direct democracy is a tyranny is if you artificially limit it to a clerical exercise of a simple vote and declare the results as law - no matter how absurd, unjust or wrong. Then it just becomes a PR and MSM war by the oligarchs. Notice how the first thing out of their mouths is to insist that "We're a nation of laws"?
If you take away the pitchforks and torches from the little people and prohibit any moral, sensible minority from objecting to your clerical exercise of voting for pre-selected choices, then you can control them forever.
Delcaring the lawful British colonies independent of British Rule in 1776 was an overt act of terroism by any and every measure the U.S. governement would use today.
That's because overall only about 1% of any population isn't hard-wired for enslaving themselves to government.
America was an anomaly, a concentration of individualists, and that wasn't enough to make up more one-third of the population.
Most likely to never be a similar occurrence again.
That's why the USA was founded as a republic rather than a democracy. The founding fathers were well aware of the evils of democracy (ie; mob rule).
Nonsense. You're saying that a republic can't be constituted as a direct democracy, as many others have. I'm sick as HELL of hearing that often-repeated STEAMING PILE OF BULLSHIT.
Democracy and direct democracy are not clerical exercises. The will of the people for the benefit of the people cannot be distilled to artificial either/or choices at one point in time on a piece of paper. That is a procedure, not the definition of democracy. Constituting the U.S. as a REPUBLIC describes how the matters of state are executed, not how the will of the people is determined.
"because democracy has its downside, especially when there aren't limits placed on it. If 51% of the people agree on something, they get to enforce their will, with the guns of govt, on everyone else"
And that's why we don't have a democracy in the US, we have a constitutional republic. But regardless of republic or democracy, the stupidity and/or lack of knowledge of easily propagandized voters can result in a velvet glove oligarchy as we have now. That makes any change to the status quo of anything related to the distribution of MONEY extremely difficult. I'm hoping that a Greek "no" vote will serve to restore some of my belief in the utility of representative government. A "yes" vote will only go to further reinforce my cynicism which is very close to George Carlin levels.
Democracy is a fraud perpetrated as it always has been as a tool of the ruling elite. That our democracy has ended in totalitarianism is therefore no surprise and, on the contrary, exactly what was to be expected. Had we remained a republic — i.e., a nation founded on a set of sacrosant individual rights that were not subject to a vote and thus the will of the majority — all would be well. But it was a pipe dream that a republic would in fact be maintained, having ended precisely as Ben Franklin predicted: "When the people find they can vote themselves money. ..."
That "money" is of course a key part of the problem, as it it also a tool of the ruling elite, and one need only look at the goings on in Europe today to know how true this is and how far out of control this fraud has gotten. it's the same here at home, of course, which is to say we long ago went over the cliff and are only awaiting our collective Wile E. Coyote moment — when we look down to see not only the debt abyss— http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-01/athens-potomac-it-could-never-h... — but our vastly larger unfunded liabilities — http://www.npr.org/2011/08/06/139027615/a-national-debt-of-14-trillion-try-211-trillion
Tunesia is a "democracy" now also i read.
Tunisia's president declares state of emergency after hotel attackhttp://news.yahoo.com/tunisia-declares-state-emergency-hotel-attack-stat...
Casting a vote is like buying a lottery ticket. If you do, you signify that the game is fair and that you're willing to live with the outcome, even if there's not a single winning ticket out there and if the odds, as they always are, stacked against you. From the moment you put your pen to paper, regardless of the outcome, you sign the rights away from yourself as an individual, accepting temporary privileges granted to you by the will of the majority.
By its exact definition in a democracy (power of many) an individual (one) is always a minority. Even if you happen to land on a good vote, nothing changes that simple fact. You have no rights. You get a lottery ticket - your right to freedom, you mark an X on it and put it in a black box, hoping it would come out the other end. Well, guess what? It never does.
If you vote, you comply with the fact you have no rights and that the subject in question is negotiable. I wish kids these days could understand it, but born slaves they have no trouble accepting eternal servitude as the rule of land. They've never seen a different world and they're as dumb, or dumber than their miseducated parents.
For democracy to function:
1. Get rid of the bankers.
2. Get rid of the corporations.
3. Get rid of the politicians.
4. Get rid of the lawyers.
Get rid of the idiots that support any of the above, as well.
"Government isn't the solution to our problem. Government is the problem." R. Reagan, President who cleaned up the mess left by the 2nd worst democrap president.
No other president spent moer money then Regan national debt rose 189%
Hey now SoylentGreen, you can't go around throwing out truths that don't fit with the highly held myths around here!!! Many Zeroes here have a perfect mythology of how the world should and does work in their head. Any and all facts contrary to those myths are not welcome thank you very much!
Idiotic statement. Every President since Reagan has spent more than was spent while he was in office. And, under Obamathe debt has risen by more than 200%. It doesn't matter who is preseident, spending and deficits will continue to increase until it explodes.
he also gave us "deficits don't matter", he tripled the national debt, escalated the war on drugs, increased the budget of every govt agency that he claimed to want to end, and bloated the MIC more than any previous peacetime president. Thanks a lot, ronny. some 'small govt conservative' you were
And still, to this day, idiot republicans still foist that douche up on a pedestal as though he was something to admire.
How rare...someone with a grasp on reality amongst the Zeroes. There may be hope here yet.
Well, was it 189% or tripled? Both of you are mindlessly and selectively pulling statistics out of your ass.
"R. Reagan, President who cleaned up the mess left by the 2nd worst democrap president."
Horseshit. Reagan was overrated and Carter gets a bad rap for the economy. The true villain was Nixon who decoupled the dollar from gold in August of 1971. Carter didn't have a chance. He inherited an absolute mess, an economy with no rudder and still reeling from a war that decimated it. It wouldn't have mattered who was elected in 1976 they would have been a one termer. Reagan steps in all aglow and saves the day, right? Sure, by raising taxes a dozen time despite his reputation as a tax cutter. He did no such thing. He pulled the wool over everyone's eyes with his boyish charms and leading man looks. Meanwhile, dig little deeper and you'll see enabled militarists and spymasters to create the environment we have today. For crying out loud GHW Bush was his vice president! I was no fan of Carter but no mortal man could have saved the economy during that period.
But then who will tell us how to live our lives? Who will tell us what to do with our money, where to spend it, who to give it to?
Who will lead us to the feed trough and show us how to eat?
Who will decide what belongings we can have? Who? Who? Who?
I'm scared.... Somebody please bring me a blanky. (Chatter Chatter)
Yeah, cause my neck is cold.
"Don't look now, it ain't you or me..."
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Welcome back, Croesus. Long time no hear.
Kalimera Croesus
1. Get rid of the bwankers.
FTFY,,,
;-D
+100 Isn't simplicity a beautiful thing? In a nutshell - says it all.
The South voted for Democracy, created their own flag, and got crushed by the U.S. Since then, it is easier to find examples of the U.S. crushing democratic will across the globe than it is to find the US upholding the democratic will of the people in other countries. Here in our own borders via control of the courts, democratic voters and legislatures are being overridden. The Spirit of the Founding Fathers died in 1865.
The U.S. is not a democracy and it never has been. It's a representative republic...and right now, a pretty piss poor one.
The "real" independence day is not just passed, but it is coming.
Prepare ZHers,
;-D
“It had been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience had proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.”
Alexander Hamilton June 21, 1788
We should not forget that half the people in the world have an IQ less than 100. Which means that more than half have an iq less than 110. That is a scary voting block. No, we need some minimal governance. The problem is as has always been, keeping it from getting too powerful. The only way to accomplish this is to cut off the money supply. That is the nectar that feeds it.
Anybody got any great ideas about how to do this, I'm all ears,,,
;-D
And also the same democracy that is under threat, in Greece, in Europe as a whole, and very much in the US too.
Unless you are Rip Van Winkle, you know democracy died decades ago in the land of the free. We have a Deep State running everything:
There is the visible government situated around the Mall in Washington, and then there is another, more shadowy, more indefinable government that is not explained in Civics 101 or observable to tourists at the White House or the Capitol. The former is traditional Washington partisan politics: the tip of the iceberg that a public watching C-SPAN sees daily and which is theoretically controllable via elections. The subsurface part of the iceberg I shall call the Deep State, which operates according to its own compass heading regardless of who is formally in power
http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/anatomy-of-the-deep-state/
As Snowden revealed:
The most extraordinary passage in the memo requires that the Israeli spooks “destroy upon recognition” any communication provided by the NSA “that is either to or from an official of the US government.” It goes on to spell out that this includes “officials of the Executive Branch (including the White House, Cabinet Departments, and independent agencies); the US House of Representatives and Senate (members and staff); and the US Federal Court System (including, but not limited to, the Supreme Court).”
The stunning implication of this passage is that NSA spying targets not only ordinary American citizens, but also Supreme Court justices, members of Congress and the White House itself. One could hardly ask for a more naked exposure of a police state.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/09/13/surv-s13.html
The Deep State are the spooks. In a silent coup they took control of the usa and most of the western governments converting them to fascism.
People just followed along without a clue.... as usual.
Thanks for the links. Nice...(ish).
Calling All Texans...Operation Texas www.OpTexas.org ... It Is Time, Texas! ... Once Again, Texas Will Lead The Way ... Don't Mess With Texas Or Texans ... From The Battle of Gonzales to The Alamo to San Jacinto ... Texas & Texans Will Tolerate NO MORE!
Hate to admit it but I would hesitate to sign up to your group. Seems it would be easy to set up something like this just to get names and locations of potential "problem" citizens. Apologies if you are for real. BTW, Im a direct decendant of a McNelly Ranger.
All of the founders of Operation Texas are also members of Oath Keepers. I am Life Member #140, so an original. We are definitely very real and committed. We have a very secure vetting process before accepting someone. Our membership must be committed people, as our site states. No one has to do anything more than as stated. However, if a person seeks to do more, the opportunities are available. (e.g. County Operations Manager)
The original "idea" of America, was born in Nicholas De Cusa, a man learned in Greek thought, who wanted to escape the nightmare Europe a favorite author of one Benjamin Franklin, and friend, inspirer of one Christopher Columbus as well. Interesting man and history.
"Democracy" is about more than having a vote.
Ironic folks in Greece are getting only that.
If your Country is Reall at stake then you need a debate worthy of the topic.
There is precedent: the Lincoln Douglas debates concerned the existence of Union for the "United States of America."
After that debate was over the worst War in the history of the Western Hemisphere was the result.
At least folks had access to "the issue" as it were before the "deal went down."
http://albainternazionale.blogspot.it/2015/07/no-comment-video.html
Mohammed Atta ....
The author should read more and write less.
The Founding Fathers studied BOTH ancient Rome & ancient Greece and they did not choose "democracy", they chose the rule of law. But the rule of law can be corrupted BY democracy can't it?
In a democracy you can vote for everything, from a "benevolent dictator" to enslaving or discriminating against some portion of the minority or in the case of ObamaCare, enslaving the absolute majority.
Put another way, a nation of idiots voting in a democracy doesn't resolve anything, it actually makes it worse.
You are correct... but I would like to add...
I'm not sure it's the idiots as much as electoral corruption. Many -like myself- have discovered the elections are outcome designed and rigged and no longer participate. What you end up with IS the idiots you refer to.
Well it certainly does stand to reason that when the deck is stacked against the people (the candidates are afterall chosen for you by the Deep State) neither a republic nor a democracy can stand for long.
Yes ;-)
Eh? What is the saying? Paraphrasing...
"It may not be great but it's better than all the others"?
It is not the democracy part, it is the corruption part (from publlic schooling to redistricting, ad nauseam).
Corruption = Lying, cheating, stealing, blame-shifting, credit theft and fraud.
The original Greeks were wise enough to only allow intelligent people to vote. The founding fathers also.
People should have to pass an elementary IQ test to vote
....as if voting matters.....its he who counts the fucking votes, and in 'murica', that shit show was taken over decades ago.
the dream of personal liberty and of the Republic died with the people, hence the term 'murica' used frequently. i despise that term in the sense that those who weild it themselves have let the dream die within yet they denigrate the American people for the same. if the Republic is truly lost (arguably we are there now) then freedom's last bastion on this planet is captured. if you plan to survive, rebuild and hope for a better future, do not let the idea die. defend it. 1776
It is my humble hope that Greece will find itself. There are times when the will of the majority must override the interests of a minority. In those times, the beguiling song of the siren whispers in our ear, the ends justifies the means. It is under this seduction that the most monstrous of measures are taken. It is for this reason that a republic is a better mode of government than a democracy.
Unfettered, a raw democracy very rapidly becomes a dictatorship of the majority and the guillotine is rolled out and the gulags are populated.
We need a reset not a genocide.
The problem with democracy is that it devolves into mob rule absent an informed populace. It is pretty obvoius where we would end up in the US if pure democracy were to take root. Probably exactly where we are today only the mob would just be a little larger than the 565 or so in place now.
We're getting closer as the FSA grows in numbers. Big gov loves a large poor uninformed desperate population. This has always been the impetus behind illegal immigration. Poor hungry people are easier to buy votes from.
Strangly Mr. Putin sent the occupier of the White House a congratulatory note praising our Independence.
I have a lot of respect for the Russian leader but in this matter he was wrong on all accounts.
Hopefully he had sarcasm turned on.
It was the polite thing to do and, in doing so, he showed a lot more class than Obozo...
Franklin’s warning, “a republic if you can keep it,” was swamped by a mob called democracy. Surely, the quickening strangulation of Americans by collectivists eventually putting power in the hands of a despotic court who takes it political power from a mass intent on stealing America’s heritage and redefining it into a totalitarian welfare state can be seen in the fall of America’s three branches of government by an uninformed vote.
The Founders despised democracy as a form of government because a majority of the people, or factions that join together to form a like-minded majority to vote themselves power or wealth redistribution – such as Obama’s pro-welfare constituency aided by a supportive media and corrupted political parties giving the impression that the people as a whole favor the contrived-majority policies - - could be misled to override the best interests of the common good.... and freedom.
Benjamin Franklin
Quotes by This Author
The deliberations of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 were held in strict secrecy. Consequently, anxious citizens gathered outside Independence Hall when the proceedings ended in order to learn what had been produced behind closed doors. The answer was provided immediately. A Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.” (Benjamin Franklin)
“We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writings, that ‘except the Lord build the house they labor in vain that build it.’ I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel; we shall be divided by our little partial, local interests, our projects will be confounded and we ourselves shall become a reproach and a byword down to future ages. And, what is worse, mankind may hereafter, from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing government by human wisdom and leave it to chance, war, or conquest.” (Benjamin Franklin)
“Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters. ” (Benjamin Franklin)
“Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature.” (Benjamin Franklin)
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.” (Benjamin Franklin)
“I have so much faith in the general government of the world by Providence that I can hardly conceive a transaction of such momentous importance [as the framing of the Constitution] ... should be suffered to pass without being in some degree influenced, guided, and governed by that omnipotent, omnipresent, and beneficent Ruler in whom all inferior spirits live and move and have their being.” (Benjamin Franklin)
“I think with you, that nothing is of more importance for the public weal, than to form and train up youth in wisdom and virtue. Wise and good men are in my opinion, the strength of the state; more so than riches or arms.” (Benjamin Franklin, Letter to Samuel Johnson, August 23, 1750.)
“Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.” (Benjamin Franklin, his motto.)
“The refusal of King George to allow the colonies to operate an honest money system, which freed the ordinary man from clutches of the money manipulators was probably the prime cause of the revolution.” (Benjamin Franklin)
http://www.ourrepubliconline.com/Author/2
But, as it is, History has proven once again that NO form of human government can function well, if the Masses don't get off their Uninformed, Complacent, Scared, Disorganized asses.
They had the vanity and hubris to think that they had invented a better System, that could be maintained w/o the Attributes + Relentless Efforts they made in creating it. Alas, how poorly they understood Human Nature, and the Ecosystem of Types that embody it, and seek to rise or feed off others.
Had this been so, they would have structured the Constitution, to prevent the rise of the Cartel of Private Central Banksters, Lobbyists and professional politicians, or GayBLT marriage. They also would have done a better job of front-running Unchecked Immigration, Imperialism, fiat Currency and side-bets in the stock market casino that are called Derivatives, or the rise of an Invasive Species of socio-economic predators -- whose very mention is Taboo, unless mentioned with the utmost of reverence.
The Founders forged a nation that produced the greatest economic miracle in history. And for 150 years it was the symbol of moral independence and free-enterprise character for the world. And it’s important to remember that the power and treachery, clothed in secrecy and lies that would establish the cartel, came not from the American people but from foreign bankers in connivance with banker representatives in the U.S. Congress, such as Nelson Aldrich.
It was an attack, that had superior fire power, that took over the leadership of the Congress.
It had the look of a sneak military attack and was sold to an unsuspecting Congress on the lie that it would break up the money trust when in fact it solidified the money trust.
Madison and Jefferson could have predicted as much and to put a government together to prevent this, they did as much as humanly possible; what kind of Constitution could have withstood the attacks of men such as Paul Warburg and his co-horts, wielding one-fourth of the wealth of the world that week in 1910 on Jekyll Island?
And, still, to bring this miracle down, it took a voter mob flushed out from the Third World to replace the American people and demonize America’s white European culture and the City on the Hill that they had built.
But if Jefferson were here, his answer would be that the foundations are still there, the Constitution and the hope of the people to govern themselves. And if revolution, again, is necessary, he would say, it’s time to begin. For the millions of Americans of good will who want freedom and opportunity for their progeny, the power is still there to attack these tyrants, to force the course correction that would remove the cartel, the Federal Reserve, from our shores.
Andrew Jackson was starting the revolution; it's time to pick up where he left off.
"... the greatest economic miracle in history ..." was due to Neolithic Civilization, powered up by the industrial revolution, having a fresh continent to plunder and rape. On that topic, JR, your views are too Polly-Annish for my tastes, as were almost all of the comments posted above, as well as the original article too.
There is only one political system, and that is organized crime. A democratic republic operating through the rule of law is best theoretical way to moderate the manifestations of that organized crime. However, for that to actually work would require that citizens were educated to understand that their political system was necessarily based upon organized crime. However, instead, more and more, those "citizens" have been deliberately miseducated & misinformed, so that they more and more became incompetent political idiots.
The article above, as well as almost all of the comments posted under that, PROMOTE A BACKWARD VIEW OF THE POLITICAL MECHANISMS. There is nothing but organized crime. Governments end up being the biggest forms of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals. Theoretically, the Republic ought to have citizens who are the guardians of the guardians. However, almost all of the so-called "citizens" have been thoroughly brainwashed to believe in bullshit, so that they have become Zombie Sheeple who are being fleeced to exhaustion while they are being set up to be slaughtered.
When "We the People" lost control over the public "money" supply, then they lost control over the powers of government, and that has automatically become worse, faster, at an exponential rate. None of the written or unwritten constitutions of any of the countries in the world explicitly state or allow for the currently existing systems, whereby the international bankers control their political puppets, who are voted for by enough of the muppets, inside of a FAKE "democracy" that is based on there being mostly a FAKE "education."
The biggest bullies' bullshit social stories almost totally dominate everything, to the degree that there is almost nothing but a core of organized crime, surrounded by controlled opposition groups. In that context, what you have written, JR, was a correct summary, based upon a superficial analysis of American history. However, you are not doing a deeper analysis, which would place that inside of its overall real environmental context, nor engaging in a deeper analysis which would make our understanding of politics more consistent with physics.
Human beings and civilizations operate as entropic pumps of energy flows, from their environment and back. They actually live as toroidal vortices. The social pyramid systems are actually toroidal vortices. However, to the degree that the top of the social pyramid appears to become disconnected from the bottom, we have the conditions for extremely unbalanced phenomena to develop. There is nothing wrong with the theory of a democratic republic operating through the rule of law, in order to assemble and channel the powers that everyone has to rob and to kill. However, to the degree that everyone does not understand that, especially because they do not want to understand that, then the ability of governments to assemble and channel the powers to rob and to kill more and more become effectively privatized by the best organized gangs of criminals, which can apply the methods of organized crime through the political processes.
To the degree that the best organized gangs of criminals (who were primarily the international bankers) were able to capture control over the public "money" supply, then to that degree, the so-called democratic republic operating through the rule of law became a cruel joke. The degree to which that has happened now is about 99%, which means that society is already terminally sick and insane, and has already gone beyond the event horizon into a social black hole.
That is especially so because almost all of the controlled opposition groups continue to promote BACKWARD MECHANISMS to implement their proposed "solutions" to those political problems. For instance, several comments above already stated the view that somehow the problem with "democracy" is that as Ben Franklin predicted: "When the people find they can vote themselves money. ..."
That view is totally backward to the historical devolution of the American monetary system, which started off backed by gold and silver, whose value was set by Congress, which imposed the death penalty for anyone who debased that money. There was a step by step process through which "the fish rotted from the head to the tail," as the American monetary systems more and more became factional reserve banking systems, without any material backing whatsoever. Gradually the meaning of the words "money" and "dollar" became perverted beyond any rational relationships to what those words originally meant.
The people did NOT vote themselves money. The people lost control over the public "money" supply, to the point where their voting no longer made any difference to that public "money" supply. Most of the criticisms presented in the article above, as well as in most of the comments already posted above, grossly underestimate what the problems really are, and therefore, grossly overstate what the possibly sufficient solutions could be. More importantly, the present the implementation of their bogus "solutions" through BACKWARD MECHANISMS.
Since human beings and human civilization necessarily operate as entropic pumps of energy flows, the ways that those actually operate best match the principles and methods of organized crime. Moreover, due to the degree to which civilization has been controlled by organized crime, the dominant social stories about that are all as absurdly backwards as they could possibly be. For instance, the meaning of the concept of "entropy" was inverted by inserting arbitrary minus signs into the entropy equations of thermodynamics and information theory, which is the most abstract way which indicates how and why the meaning of the word "money" and "dollar" were gradually perverted and inverted to become the opposite of what those words used to mean.
The essential issue is that money is measurement backed by murder, as the symbolic expression of private property being claims backed by coercions. Private property does not exist outside of some system of public violence. The government attempts to monopolize the powers to rob and to kill (expressed as taxation and enforcing the rule of law.) There are NO actual choices to not have some government, because there are no actual choices to not have some organized crime. There is no way to not have some form of money, because there are no ways to actually stop measurement and murder from existing.
Political systems should develop the dynamic equilibria between the different systems of organized lies operating robberies. The problems that America, and the rest of the world, faces at the present time are that those systems have become extremely unbalanced, due to the excessive successfulness of the best organized gangs of criminals having almost totally captured control over the public "money" system, which has then been leveraged up and UP to become more total control through the funding of "education" and the "information" through the mass media. We are now trapped inside of vicious runaway spirals of the feedback loops between political power and the monetary system. We have already reached the point where the public "money" supply has been about 99% privatized, while the public murder systems have already approximately become about 75% privatized.
Since those are the social facts, almost all of the content published on Zero Hedge takes the form of controlled opposition, promoting old-fashioned false fundamental dichotomies, and the related impossible ideals, which therefore promote bogus "solutions" based on superficial analysis, that misunderstand the mechanisms for their implementation in absurdly backward ways. Given that the mass media mainstream culture is way worse, in the degree to which the biggest bullies' bullshit world view continues to be taken almost completely for granted, without criticism, it is quite discouraging to recognize that on alternative news Web sites like Zero Hedge, there is almost total dominance of the content their by reactionary revolutionaries, or various forms of controlled opposition, which continue to try to "lead" people to go backwards, and to continue misunderstand their problems, and the possible solutions to the problems, in the most backward ways possible.
For all of your research, JR, I can not help but regard you as a reactionary revolutionary. While I too admire that President Jackson was the last president to be able to beat the bankers, and pay off the national debt, he only was able to do that because he almost miraculously survived the bankers' assassination attempts. The underlying mechanisms of any government are the methods of organized crime. The theory of democratic republic operating through the rule of law would require enough of the people to understand that, such as understanding that money is measurement backed by murder.
The original American constitution did that, in as much as money was based upon the measurement of gold and silver, which measurements were protected by the death penalty. However, as you correctly described the basic history, step by step, the international bankers, as the best organized gang of criminals, the banksters, were able to take over more and more control of the public "money" supply, and then leverage that up and UP, to result in almost totally dominating all branches of government, and all social institutions. However, there are NO realistic solutions that can be implemented regarding the public money supply that are not based upon understanding that money is necessarily measurement backed by murder.
Of course, at the present time, we are headed faster and faster in the opposite direction, since the runaway debt insanities are headed towards provoking death insanities. But nevertheless, the theoretically best resolutions of those problems would still be a democratic republic operating through the rule of law, so that the people were the guardians of the guardians, in order that the public money systems, backed by the public murder systems, made greater use of information, which enabled that to be done with higher levels of consciousness.
However, at the present time, we are faced with the existing situation being almost nothing but a core of covert organized crime, which is almost totally triumphant, including that it almost totally controls all of the publicly significant "opposition" groups, which is still the basic pattern that I find to be most disappointingly present in Zero Hedge, which symbolically illustrates the degree to which that provide no grounds for any rational hopes for the foreseeable future.
As a case in point, JR, your comments always display that you have done enough research to more fully appreciate the basic social facts, regarding history. However, you continue to not present deeper levels of research, which would be necessary to put that human history into the context of the physical environment. Since the human symbols such as money, have become almost totally ENFORCED FRAUDS, the human political economy has become runaway criminal insanities, psychotically out of touch with the relatively objective natural environment. In that context, I find that very few people who talk about how much better the American economy was, when the banksters did not dominate that so much, tend to disregard the degree to which that was actually due to the environmental circumstances of there being made a fresh continents upon which Neolithic Civilizations' industrial revolution could be applied.
One could roughly correlated the disappearance of the "frontier" with the demontization of silver, as the beginning of the destruction of the American way of life, which has automatically got worse, faster, since then. However, it is totally bullshit to promote any bogus "solutions" which would require going backwards, or to propose mechanisms to implement any solutions which are backwards. But nevertheless, those are always implicitly what the controlled opposition groups are doing, and therefore, those always backfire badly, and actually cause the opposite to happen in the real world.
What we should do is go through series of intellectual scientific revolutions, that would enable reconciliation between physical science and political science. HOWEVER, tragically, there are no political possible ways to communicate with enough of those citizens, so that they would come to understand more of the radical truths that they should understand. Instead, we are now already living inside of systems of debt slavery, that have already generated numbers which are debt insanities, which are going to provoke death insanities.
Dear Raul, 'Democracy' is NOT a "child", nor should it be seen as one. Let's take our Disney glasses off and look at the world and at human nature as it IS, not as you wish it to be:
1. "Democracy and Freedom are NOT for the Dumb, Uninformed, Indifferent, Lazy, Scared or Disorganized. Various forms of Totalitarianism exist for those kinds of pitiful and contemptible human specimens: Feudalism, Theocracy, Military Dictatorship, Fascism, Communism. -Kirk (C), 2014, 2015
2. "The enemies of Democracy and Freedom embody the very opposite attributes: Smart, Informed, Driven, Engaged, Organized, Relentless and Ruthless." -Kirk (C), 2014, 2015.
3. Therefore, choose the Attributes that you will embrace, 'nurture' and embody -- for they alone will determine what kind of a country and civilization you will live in.
p.s. Regarding #2 above... I rather suspect that many (not all) who fit into this category, lost empathy for the Common Man (Complacent, Uninformed, Scared, Disorganized or lacking in Perseverance). I further suspect that they lost sympathy or empathy for them, as they rose through the ranks of wealth, power and influence -- because they could relate to them and respect them less and less as they climbed the Ladder of Socio-Economic success. Call it an informed hunch.
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/the-lost-policy-of-the-american-republic-she-goes-not-abroad-in-search-of-monsters-to-destroy/?utm_source=wysija&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Mailing+List+Saturday+9+AM Lost Policy Of The American Republic: “She Goes Not Abroad In Search Of Monsters To Destroy”
And sure, in the beginning it wasn’t all the people, just the alleged wise men, but it was a start. So why do we now find this simplicity so hard to stomach?
If in the beginning it was just the "wise men", then it was better than now. In this vote there is no requirement ... and no likelihood ... that the people voting have a clue about what is going on and what to do about it. Yet they are free. They can vote.
We have the same problem here (USA). People watch the propaganda and then vote. I've always said, "polls are a measure of the effectiveness of the propaganda". You won't see a vote until the polls tell the controllers that their propaganda has taken hold.
It shouldn't be that way. We should break into small groups of maybe 50 people who we know well and who know us. From within that group we should select a representative. That representative should be paid and trusted to know the issues and to have good judgement. Propaganda shouldn't work on the representative.
That representative then becomes a part of a next "lower" group of 50. This lower level takes on issues that can't be handled at the level above it ... and "only" issues that can't be handled at the level above it. This means individuals must handle things "they" can handle themselves ... like their health care and retirement for instance.
This process of lower and lower levels of groups continues until there is one lowest group of 50. This group gets all issues that make it through this sieve ... and realistically, no issues should make it to this lowest level. And this lowest group has no more power than the groups above it ... because its members can easily be recalled by the 50 who chose them.
With just 6 such levels, 15 billion people can be "represented". The only democracy working is within groups of 50. And it works there because people know each other and the issues they are trusted to decide.
In the USA we "don't" have representative government. I and 500,000 other people elect my representative. He doesn't know me and I don't know him. And he is clueless about the issues, because he spends all his time raising money to convince these 500,000 that he should represent them.
And then we have "referendums" (should be referen dumbs) when we don't like the result. And here a huge number of clueless people (a genuine mob) claim to know what to do ... as in Greece right now.
It's just plain ridiculous ... by design. The real string pullers know they can control everything with their control of the propaganda.
They also present a false choice. Here you can choose democrat or republican. Doesn't matter. They both have the same boss. It's like rooting for the Globe Trotters or the Washington Generals.
We all need to get a clue.
The ignorant chose wisely? Universal education resulted in universal dumbing down and indoctrination. When all are trained to think alike, no one thinks at all.
Twice removed?
Read the intro and you know why :)
On paper, at least, the U.S. is a constitutional republic, not a democracy.
On paper, at least, the U.S. is a constitutional republic, not a democracy.
On Wikipedia they refer to it as "representative democracy" as opposed to "direct democracy". The etomology of "republic" they claim means "not a monarchy". Go figure.
I watched Independence Day last night. Great movie.
"That like it or not, this is where the democracy was born that allowed for America to become a nation of free people. The same democracy celebrated from sea to shining sea every Fourth of July."
The U.S. is a republic. Has he never listened to the pledge of allegiance? "...and to the REPUBLIC for which it stands..."
Has he never listened to the pledge of allegiance? "...and to the REPUBLIC for which it stands..."
That pledge didn't exist before 1892. Some say it was created as a gimmick to sell flags.
America was NOT founded as a 'democracy' but as a Constitutional Republic. Ancient Greece may have been a democracy but NOT America. Yet the MSM and Obammy all say: The US a democracy.
Sorry but the TRUTH matters.
"We must realize that our party's most powerful weapon is racial tensions. By propounding into the consciousness of the dark races that for centuries they have been oppressed by whites, we can mold them to the program of the Communist Party. In America we will aim for subtle victory. While inflaming the Negro minority against the whites, we will endeavor to instill in the whites a guilt complex for their exploitation of the Negros. We will aid the Negroes to rise in prominence in every walk of life, in the professions and in the world of sports and entertainment. With this prestige, the Negro will be able to intermarry with the whites and begin a process which will deliver America to our cause."
Israel Cohen, A Racial Program for the Twentieth Century, 1912. Also in the Congressional Record, Vol. 103, p. 8559, June 7, 1957
“First they steal your words and then they steal there meaning” George Orwell.
Democracy: government of, for and by the People.
In fascist Orwell: rule by the mob.
Fascism: government of, for and by the multinational corporate monopoly.
The franchise in Athens was limited to citizens over 18---male and debt-free (most slavery was debt-peonage).
That, and Athens was tiny. The population of Attica (metro Athens) probably never exceeded 300,000 (comparable to Iceland) in the classical period, of which the electorate was probably no higher than 30,000.
In other words, keep your nation small and people who clearly are shit at making their own life decisions from making decisions for the nation.
And vote rigging was born later in the same year.
'The result is that the more a country moves into a democracy the more unstable it becomes. And the more the tyranny of the majority prevails, De Tocqueville said. He went on to say and I quote: “Unlimited power is in itself a bad and dangerous thing. Human beings are not competent to exercise it with discretion. God alone can be omnipotent, because his wisdom and his justice are always equal to his power. There is no power on earth so worthy of honor in itself or clothed with rights so sacred that I would admit its uncontrolled and all-predominant authority. When I see that the right and the means of absolute command are conferred on any power whatever, be it called a people or a king, an aristocracy or a democracy, a monarchy or a republic, I recognize the germ of tyranny, and I journey onward to a land of more hopeful institutions. In my opinion, the main evil of the present democratic institutions of the United States does not arise, as is often asserted in Europe, from their weakness, but from their overpowering strength.”' http://www.pocketcollege.com/beta/index.php?title=The_Tyranny_of_the_Maj...
ironic that THIS country is celebrating it's independence from tyranny.......in light of recent edicts from the SUPREME BEINGS, people may want to examine the current state of their republic.
Talk your anti-democracy shit 50 years ago and the entire American population would have lined up to slap the shit out of you.
Teabaggers are ingrate Americans that associate our founding fathers with their current low life. Our Founding Fathers were well educated and great men. They did not take the opportunist stance of today and grab everything for themselves. They created a near perfect nation based on national sovereignty, individual rights and Adam Smith Free Enterprise economy.
The Declaration of Independence and our written social democratic contract defined in the Constitution guaranteeing inalienable rights was the first democratic (government of, for and by the People) social contract of its kind.
Before Teabagger ingrates came along, that take your democracy freedoms for granted, on the 4th of July Americans gave patriotic speeches on the virtue of their great Constitution of the United States and our guaranteed individual freedoms and rights.
There is no American patriotism today, Teabagger ungrateful bastards damn our founding fathers and shit on our Constitutional democracy.
The grief coming your way is what you deserve. In the next 10 years there are going to be about 50 million Americans that are going to die at the hands of the fascist (government of, for and by the multinational corporate monopoly) too bad they are not all Teabaggers that undermined our democracy.
Remember the repeal of the Glass Stiegel act; the brainwashed Teabaggers of useful idiots were all behind the repeal because they didn’t want any interference in business from the government with laws and regulations. You Koch Teabaggers are on the same agenda as the fascist that have destroyed our democracy.
I know you Teabaggers are totally brainwashed stupid and there is no hope for you; totally and irreparable warped. On behalf of our democracy and our founding father, I would like to tell you: fuck you and the fascist horse you rode in on.