2016 Theme #2: The Hollow Shell Of Democracy
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
This week I am addressing themes I see playing out in 2016.
A number of systemic, structural forces are intersecting in 2016. One is the hollowing out of democracy globally.
Democracy has three distinct states of being: formal, in actual practice and informal. Nations that claim the mantle of democracy typically mix features of all three varieties.
Formal democracy is the machinery of legislation and elections. Actual practice is how the machinery functions in the real world. Informal democracy is advocacy via direct action--protests, local movements and spontaneous mass expressions of outrage/disavowal of the status quo.
Formal democracies are being hollowed out. Within the hollow shell of formal democracy, wealthy elites purchase influence and lobbyists so regulation and legislation either actively advance their interests or imposes limits that are easily bypassed or negated in actual practice
For example, the formal machinery of democracy generates tax statutes, but in actual practice, super-wealthy individuals and entities are laws unto themselves: The Oligarch Tax Bracket: How The Tax Rate For The Wealthiest 400 Americans Plunged From 27% To 17% (Zero Hedge)
For the Wealthiest, a Private Tax System That Saves Them Billions (New York Times)
With inequality at its highest levels in nearly a century and public debate rising over whether the government should respond to it through higher taxes on the wealthy, the very richest Americans have financed a sophisticated and astonishingly effective apparatus for shielding their fortunes. Some call it the “income defense industry,” consisting of a high-priced phalanx of lawyers, estate planners, lobbyists and anti-tax activists who exploit and defend a dizzying array of tax maneuvers, virtually none of them available to taxpayers of more modest means.
In recent years, this apparatus has become one of the most powerful avenues of influence for wealthy Americans of all political stripes
Each of the top 400 earners took home, on average, about $336 million in 2012, the latest year for which data is available. If the bulk of that money had been paid out as salary or wages, as it is for the typical American, the tax obligations of those wealthy taxpayers could have more than doubled.
Instead, much of their income came from convoluted partnerships and high-end investment funds. Other earnings accrued in opaque family trusts and foreign shell corporations, beyond the reach of the tax authorities.
The combination of cost and complexity has had a profound effect, tax experts said. Whatever tax rates Congress sets, the actual rates paid by the ultra-wealthy tend to fall over time as they exploit their numerous advantages.
Charting the American Oligarchy – How 0.01% of the Population Contributes 42% of All Campaign Cash (Mike Krieger)

The problem is not limited to the U.S.A.: concentrated wealth is buying political power in every formal democracy.

The hollow shell of formal democracy is being filled with an informal but very real authoritarianism. The citizenry of the hollowed-out democracies have not formally approved an authoritarian state, but the government on every level (national, regional and local) is imposing an unaccountable authoritarianism on the powerless citizenry.
This informal authoritarianism has many manifestations. First and foremost, no formal democratic approval of the authoritarian measures have been approved.
For example, the voters of California did not directly approve the state's predatory, Orwellian policy of illegal seizure with a formal vote. The state of California simply adopted this authoritarian policy of first we seize your money and then you can beg us to give some of it back to you--maybe:
Welcome to the Predatory State of California--Even If You Don't Live There
This is part and parcel of government's authoritarian policy of civil seizure: Pay Our Pensions Or We'll Throw You in Jail: the Legalization of Looting (March 19, 2014)
Another example is imposing high administrative fees for wrongdoing that is not adjucated in a court of law. The state bureaucracy decides the citizen didn't meet some administrative standard and imposes a huge fee. In real practice, the appeal process is absurdly complex and slow, meaning most people have neither the time nor inclination to redress administrative wrongs.
The third form of democracy is informal gatherings of outraged/oppressed citizens: spontaneous demonstrations, workers protesting the plant closing without paying wages due, etc.
Governments quickly grasp the risk that such informal street democracy will reveal the truth--that the nation's formal democracy is nothing but a hollow shell--and so the state either hurries to buy off the protesters with promises, or it sends in the storm-troopers (police, National Guard, civilian thugs hired by local government or its private-sector cronies) to bash heads and herd the protesters into gulags.
Democracy is now a travesty of a mockery of a sham, a hollow shell of PR and propaganda designed to confuse and distract the citizenry--the citizenry that is being crushed beneath the authoritarian rule that has expanded to fill the hollow shell of formal democracy.
* * *
My new book is #6 in Amazon's Kindle ebooks > Business & Money > International Economics: A Radically Beneficial World: Automation, Technology and Creating Jobs for All. The Kindle edition is $$9.95 and the print edition is currently discounted to $21.60.
- Login or register to post comments
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -



Constitutional Republic
Democracy
Socialism
Fascism
Anarchy
Rinse and Repeat
I'll have some of that French 1789 action, please.
You will until a friend of yours points his boney finger at you and volunteers your head as a basket filler and that is exactly how it plays out. No one walks away clean.
Yep. Once society collapses it will be ugly as hell.
It'll take a Fascist to reinstate the Republic.
Enter the Donald.......
Guys, we have this amazing thing called an Internet. So how do we stop it? These war-mongering criminals will have to be stopped, before or after wide-spread gulag and torture, your choice.
So.......there are no French left in the world?
The best social democracies are constitutional republics. Don't confuse marxist socialism with SD.
Love the down votes, from people with IQs closer to Sudan than Sweden. Social what? You fucking commie!!!!
Narco Ponzi Casino Crony Capitalism ain't effin' fucking democracy.
No, we are somewhere between step 3 and step 4 above.
'effin fucking?
Yes, 'effin fucking' adds an emotional tone to the comment so that the reader understands that the writer is aware that the issue is emotionally tinged, somewhat.
+100 or +200 on the close today?
"The hollow shell of formal democracy is being filled with an informal but very real authoritarianism."
A democracy is nothing more than an authoritarian state ruled by the mob, which is why the U.S was founded as a republic. I wish to God that just one contributor could understand this concept.
perhaps instead,
you and others would stop the word games
and recognize that a representative government can still be a democracy.
Your desire (expectation?) to be one of the elite rulers over your disdained "mob" is hardly concealed.
You sir are a buffoon and know nothing about my desires nor of my loathing for those who seek power.
WRONG. Tyler please, there is so much misunderstanding about this a thread about Republic vs. democracy is long overdue. Democracy can only end in chaos. Watch and learn:https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Qszo8u1m9ZQ
I can see Doc that at least three are unilluminated...
a constitutional republic, whose duties are to protect the rights of the ulttimate minority... the individual. a democracy (no matter how loosly defind) can not accomplish this.
Democracy? We don't need no stink'in democracy.
We were supposed to have a Republic ... ya know, state sovereignty, national union. We did not keep it.
The creepy satanic/phaeroic bankers decided that they could not let a good thing be. They needed to own it and pervert it.
All is good though as long as we do not let it corrupt our spiritual development... for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear (and are not blinded by the lies). That which does not destroy us makes us stronger.
Trying to return to the Garden of Eden (with mansions, yachts and jets) the elite want to know: How do you rid the world of the overpopulated, mass polluting, climate changing, diseased, unclean, ignorant, criminal, believing, resource draining, voting, costly masses without destroying the planet and us with it?
The proper way to speak of these circumstances is the "Imperialism of Capital." It was pointed out in the 1889 book The Great Red Dragon, and we've (ordinary folks) continue to feed the dragon unknowingly until it has almost reached its goal "to own the earth in fee-simple." Every financial sociopath's wet dream.
"Democracy is now a travesty of a mockery of a sham, a hollow shell of PR and propaganda designed to confuse and distract the citizenry"
Another term for this is fraud.
And there are a lot of criminals participating in it that need to be rounded up charged and tried for their crimes.
Democracy — as a manner of govering — is the problem. Democracy is just a method of selecting who administers the law. What has been tragically lost is the rule of law.
U.S. judge orders deposition of Cosby's wife kept under seal
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-people-cosby-idUSKBN0UJ1FP20160105
A U.S. magistrate judge has ordered that a deposition of Bill Cosby's wife in connection with sexual assault allegations against the comedian should be kept under seal.
The order, entered by Magistrate Judge David Hennessy late on Monday in U.S. District Court in Springfield, Massachusetts, follows a request by Cosby family attorneys to delay the interview of Camille Cosby, the entertainer's spouse of almost 52 years and business manager. She is scheduled to be deposed on Wednesday.
The Massachusetts civil suit is one of a series of legal actions Cosby, 78, is facing over claims by more than 50 women that the actor sexually assaulted them after plying them with drugs and alcohol, in alleged instances that played out over decades.
Cosby's lawyers had argued that the intimate nature of the questions Camille Cosby could face in the deposition could cause her embarrassment if they were released publicly.
People magazine on Tuesday reported that Camille remained firm in her support of her husband, citing an unnamed source the magazine said was close to the family.
"They remain steadfast and resolute about working through this together," People quoted the source as saying.
A spokesman for Cosby did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.
========
This is from earlier this year...
SOUTH AFRICA: HILLARY CLINTON AND BILL COSBY VISIT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4XJtXtoOVM
Published on Jul 21, 2015
English/Nat
South African President, Nelson Mandela played tour guide Thursday at his former prison island to U-S First Lady, Hillary Clinton and American comedian, Bill Cosby.
They really are going all out to get Cosby here. For one thing, his sealed testimony was unsealed. He probably thought that was impossible. Then his wife is forced to testify against him (different case I guess but the same mess.) I thought they could not force someone to testify against their spouse.
Suddenly I guess the rules are all being interpreted against Cosby.
Actually, if your cause is the advancement of man’s condition, a focus on democracy is quite irrelevant.
For, real freedom stems from a principle of law based on original English law, or “law of the contract”.
This was the basis of original American law.
Take, for example, one: the right of consent and its logical consequent, two, the right to withhold taxes until government redresses grievances.
One: American Founders repeatedly declared that “no man is obligated to obey any law or pay any tax unless he has given consent to it”. Did they mean this literally? Of course they did. From the first English settlement to the Revolution this was how affairs of the colonies were managed. Every “law” and every “tax” had its origin in contracts between colonial assemblies and those who petitioned for redress of grievances. The terms of the contract were sometimes referred to as “laws” of the contract while its money payments were treated as “taxes”. And only petitioners were obligated to obey such “laws” and pay such “taxes”. When redress was completed, related “laws” and “taxes” expired.
This right of consent has powerful implications today: it means that only those who petition (submit proposed legislation to Congress) are obligated to obey terms (“laws”) and needed money payments “(taxes)” related to such petition.
Two: In 1774, the Continental Congress issued the “Appeal to the Inhabitants of Quebec”. Its purpose was to encourage Canadians to join the American Revolution. This Appeal, listed three grand rights Americans intended to win with the Revolution: a) consent, b) redress before taxes and c) due process of law. Americans have heard of one and three and, of course, have no or little understanding of either. As to the second right, “redress before taxes”, it has almost been completely erased from our history and law books.
The most comprehensive treatment of this right of “redress before taxes” is contained in my book, The Lost Right, edition 3.5.
There, in four paragraphs I conveyed to you more real history than you learned in 12 years of elementary and high schools, and 4-6 years of university indoctrination. You won’t learn this and other lessons from professors, or judges, or lawyers; the first two depend on continued grievances for their pensions, the third never learned such history, or law.
Democracy is mob rule
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner
Democracy is 51% of the people forcing their ideas on what is right on the other 49%.
Democracy collapses when the masses discover they can vote themselves other peoples money (sound familiar?).
Democracy requires intelligent people with real world life experience to vote not always in their own personal best interest.
A democracy will destroy itself in short order due to simple human nature.
This is why the USA was founded as a Republic - NOT a democracy.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/05/a-look-inside-manhattans-first-medical-marijuana-dispensary.html
"Nicholas Vita, a former Goldman Sachs investment banker, runs Columbia Care."
THE UNITED STATES OF WALL STREET!
GET THE FUCK OUT OF OUR LIVES CRIMINAL POLITICAL SCUMBAGS!
Sir, What have you give us? "A Republic if you can keep it"
And we didn't. We lost it with the 17th Amendment in 1913. Do you think there is any coincidence with that date?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGL8CiUtXF0
Only a Republic has any chance of standing, all others turn into an oligarchy.
I REPEAT
my view:
The American democratic republic and its rule of law was destroyed long ago! Step by step, the international bankers recaptured control over the American monetary system. WHEN "We the People" lost control over the public money supply, THEN democracy was destroyed. Although there were some historical reversals (most notably under President Andrew Jackson in the 1830s), for more than a Century, after the milestone of the Federal Reserve Board and the Income Tax, in 1913, everything since then has merely been the rigor mortis of an already dead democracy.
Since then, Americans, and most of the rest of the world, particularly all NATO countries, have become increasingly bankster controlled governments, which have more and more become Wonderland Matrix Bizarro Worlds, where everything appears to be absurdly backwards, so that all the political labels that the bankster controlled government threaten with, and apply to others, actually apply most of all to those banksters, and the political puppets that they control, as well as enough of the masses of muppets that vote for those puppets.
The basic social facts about how civilization developed:
The oldest and best developed form of social science and social engineering was warfare. Economics developed inside the context of warfare. Since successful warfare was based upon backing up deceits with destruction, successful finance became based upon enforcing frauds. The only things that actually exist are the dynamic equilibria between different systems of organized lies operating robberies. The currently established systems, namely bankster controlled governments, are EXTREMELY SUCCESSFUL at what those were actually designed to do, in the sense that the banksters' frauds are SYMBOLIC ROBBERIES, which have transferred trillions upon trillions of the tokens of wealth and claims over ownership from the many to the few.
The social FACTS that a tiny minority own more than the vast majority demonstrates that "economics" IS "scientific." However, economics is scientific social engineering in the same ways as warfare was scientific social engineering. The successfulness of being the victors through warfare became the successfulness of being the victors in economics. That the social pyramid systems have gotten bigger and BIGGER, while also getting steeper and STEEPER, are due to economics being systems of organized lies operating robberies, which were being done better and BETTER, from the point of view of those who were the best at operating those systems.
Those who judge economic and political theories on the superficial basis of what the professional hypocrites promoting those theories are asserting their theories are supposed to do tend to deliberately ignore what those theories actually do! There is ONLY ONE theory that corresponds to all the social facts, and that is civilization operates according to the principles and methods of organized crime. Bankster controlled governments have become extremely successful forms of organized lies operating robberies, in the sense that those doing that have become almost unimaginably more wealthy, in the sense of more politically powerful. The basic problems with respect to most people not understanding that, and not wanting to understand that, are that they have become way too brainwashed to believe in bullshit about "economics," and "politics." Therefore, they tend to take for granted thinking about everything in the most absurdly backward ways possible. Indeed, it is practically impossible to exaggerate the degree to which almost everyone thinks about "economics" and "politics" in the most bullshit-based ways possible, which is how and why so many of them end up falsely concluding that economics is somehow not scientific, when economics is actually fantastically successful social engineering, since real political economy actually operates as organized crime, through integrated systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, and MUST necessarily do so!
The established sociopolitical systems were quite paradoxically driven by natural selection pressures through the history of successful warfare based on backing up deceits with destruction, morphing to become successful finance based on enforcing frauds, to become systems of artificial selection which deliberately ignore and/or misunderstand natural evolutionary ecologies, due to those sociopolitical systems NOT wanting to admit and address what they are really doing, since their social successfulness has depended upon a long history of becoming as dishonest as possible about doing that, while those lies were backed by violence, so that those bullshit social stories became the biggest bullies' bullshit, which dominated all sociopolitical systems, and therefore, all of those systems continue being operated by the best available professional hypocrites.
Human beings operate their artificial selection systems in the most deliberately dishonest ways possible, and that applies to BOTH the core groups of organized crime (currently the bankster controlled governments) AND the various layers of controlled opposition groups that surround that core of organized crime resulting in an increasingly oxymoronic SCIENTIFIC DICTATORSHIP. A more genuinely scientific society, contrary to an oxymoronic scientific dictatorship, would better understand the relationships of artificial selection systems inside natural selection systems. However, the currently existing kinds of scientific dictatorship continue to be as deliberately unscientific about themselves as possible, since their social successfulness depends upon the vast majority of people not understanding themselves any better, and moreover, feeling like they do not want to understand themselves any better. For all those reasons, our current kinds of technological civilization is rushing toward self-destruction, (to the degree that it seems practically pointless to bother to try to explain that to people who do not want to understand that!)
In order for technological civilization to survive, Neolithic Civilization must become Translithic Civilization, which requires that the currently existing, oxymoronic scientific dictatorship be transformed into being a genuinely more scientific society, that uses more information, enabling higher consciousness, in order to operate its death control systems. The artificial selection systems should become better reconciled with the natural selection systems. The human evolutionary ecologies ought to be better done, within a more scientific society. However, the first and foremost developments of the actually existing artificial selection systems were actually driven by the principles and methods of organized crime, operating on larger and larger scales, pumped up and UP by progress in physical science, while political science continued to be so totally dominated by the biggest bullies' bullshit world views, that the philosophy of science was more forced to compromise with the biggest bullies' bullshit, rather than the progress in physical science was able to change the degree of sociopolitical domination done by the best available professional hypocrites, operating through their relative social successfulness based upon backing up lies with violence, gradually becoming the currently existing systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence.
That situation is trillions of times worse now than it ever was before in human history. All of the established systems were built on the basis of presuming endless exponential growth, which could strip-mine the natural resources of a fresh planet, using the newly developed technologies generated by the industrial revolutions. "ECONOMIC GROWTH" IS THE GOAL, which never comes within light years of the need for series of intellectual scientific revolutions and profound paradigm shifts regarding the limits to growth, or how to cope with the strip-mining of the planet's natural resources reaching those limits in the form of diminishing returns, which limits end up having paradoxically counter-intuitive results, since those are being channeled through fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting systems.
Meanwhile, that situation makes it appear to now be politically impossible to stop VICIOUS SPIRALS OF POLITICAL FUNDING ENFORCING FRAUDS automatically getting worse, faster ... so that the most probable futures are psychotic breakdowns, crazy collapses into chaos, and severe series of social storms blowing through, due to the natural selection pressures building up and UP inside artificial selection systems which adamantly refuse to admit and address those issues in any other ways than even bigger lies, backed by more violence, despite that having become globalized electronic frauds, backed by the threat of force from atomic bombs!
That situation, of electronic monkey money frauds, backed by the threat of force from apes with atomic bombs, was originally made and maintained by the banksters. However, they no longer can fully understand nor control those systems. The banksters are not rightly thought of as the "elite" because the only things that they were good at were backing up lies with violence, which only required them to be more competent at doing that than those they previously were able to control.
Collectively, human beings have lost control over systems of electronic frauds backed by atomic bombs. While most people like to still think that the world is the same now as when it was paper frauds backed by gunpowder weapons, actually, since electronic frauds backed by atomic bombs are trillions of times GREATER, that world is radically different. But nevertheless, since the first generation that was born into that developing situation is still alive today, almost everyone continues to think in ridiculously old-fashioned ways.
One can not fully imagine the degree to which the ruling classes have becoming increasingly psychotic psychopaths, while the matching developments have been the degree to which those ruled over have become impotent, incompetent political idiots. Democracy and the rule of law DIED to the degree that the people lost control over the public money supplies, while the international bankers gained that control. Collectively, the international bankers became a group of trillionaire mass murderers. Since their control over the public "money" supplies has been about 99% achieved already, "democracy and the rule of law" is already about 99% DEAD.
It is politically impossible to have any rational public debates based upon evidence and logical arguments! Since all of the established sociopolitical systems are actually based upon public governments enforcing frauds by private banks, all of those sociopolitical systems are dominated by the best available professional hypocrites, whose most well developed skills are to deliberately ignore and remain willfully blind toward the basic social facts, which bullshit they can continue to get away with spouting because those frauds are enforced, despite that enforcing frauds never stops those frauds from still being false!
MANY OF THE PREVIOUS COMMENTS, ALREADY POSTED ABOVE, PROMOTED VARIOUS SUPERFICIAL "ISMS" WHICH ARE ALL BULLSHIT. Civilization has always necessary operated as manifestations of the principles and methods of organized crime, because the death controls were always central to everything, and MUST necessarily be! The most extreme forms of those were the human murder systems, which were most socially successful when done through the maximum possible deceits and treacheries. Around that developed layers of controlled opposition groups, which operated INSIDE the biggest bullies' bullshit frame of reference regarding the death control issues, due to the history of the most successful murder systems being done in the most deceitful ways, which sets of social facts became the vicious spirals that enabled governments to become operated by the best available professional hypocrites.
A democratic republic operating through the rule of law only makes some relative sense IF "We the People" are directing the murder systems that back up the monetary systems. Since the vast majority of the so-called "citizens" do not understand that, and do not want to understand, they have effectively become incompetent political idiots. In my opinion, ALL the various "isms" and "ocracies" are based upon BULLSHIT, due to the degree that the biggest bullies have been able to dominate society, so that the dominate natural languages, as well as even the philosophy of science, so totally take that BULLSHIT for granted.
Ironically, most of the articles and comments published on Zero Hedge continue being superficially correct analyses. Any genuine democratic republic, or constitutional monarchy, etc., working through its rule of law, could only possibly achieve some better dynamic equilibria between the different systems of organized lies operating robberies, because the central issues are necessarily the death controls in general, and murder systems in particular. The presently established sociopolitical systems are operated by the best available professional hypocrites, whose death controls, that back up the debt controls, are based on the maximum possible deceits and frauds, which they especially continue to publicly get away with to the degree that the vast majority people do not understand, because they feel like they do not want to understand, the ways that artificial selection systems necessarily developed inside natural selection systems.
ALL of the publicly significant "isms" and "ocracies" are based upon taking for granted the dualities of false fundamental dichotomies and the related impossible ideals. However, when one develops the use of more unitary mechanisms to perceive human beings and civilization, then it is revealed that ALL those "isms" and "ocracies" have become ways that professional hypocrites are able to have their systems of organized lies engage in robberies, with murders being the most extreme form of those robberies, since money is measurement backed by murder.
As soon as we perceive and define human beings as separate from their environment and each other, then they necessarily live as gangs of robbers, by being entropic pumps of environmental energy flows. However, that fundamental set of social facts, that civilization operates according to the principles and methods of organized crime, has been driven to develop intense paradoxes, as sets of consistent contradictions, due to the biggest and best organized gangs of criminals being able to spout their kind of BULLSHIT.
Any government is necessarily the biggest form of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gang of criminals. There can NEVER be no government, because there can NEVER be NO organized crime. The degree to which the vast majority of "citizens" do not understand that, because they do not want to understand that, is the degree to which they have become incompetent political idiots, that lost control over their country.
While I agreed with the statements of social facts outlined in the article above, which appear to me to established beyond any reasonable doubt that those ARE the social facts, there is NOT presented enough of deeper analysis to more effectively be able to respond to those runaway political problems. Indeed, at the present time, since all of the so-called "free and democratic societies operating through the rule of law" are actually already more than 99% BULLSHIT ... it appears politically impossible for anything else than that those political problems will continue to get worse, faster, for the foreseeable future ...
Would you prefer to be ruled by the oligarchs who amass the most money, or the flimflammers who amass the most votes? I'd rather the former, thank you. Cf. C.S. Lewis:
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
Democracy = dictatorship of the proletariat cockroaches because they have the majority votes that control election outcomes.
Result is
more than 70% of government spending is for entitlement programs to buy the proletariat votes,
crushing taxes on the competent & motivated people who actually work and earn their own, especially entrepreneurs,
unlimited invasion by the poverty of latin america,
enthronment of the obomination & allies,
soon to enthrown the hillary witch
etc, etc
Conclusion = democracy is pure evil oppression of the individual, end it NOW
<-- Demoncracy : Vox Cronie , Vox Dei
-----
Vox Caballah , Vox dei
Vox Bankster, Vox dei
Vox corporate , Vox dei
Vox Judah , Vox dei
Vox Israel, Vox dei
-----
btw who are you , common person
let me see your wallet.....
2016 will be a continuation of degradation of individual right and more control grid...the shit will even get worse if USA lost its battle for gun. Don't fall for this cult tricks to make you thinking the government care about your death by this bad gun shooters.
If democracy actually worked for the people it would be outlawed.