is democracy an illusion?

victor8600

begbysback wrote: »

There are better alternatives, one such would be meritocracy

It is not, even though it might have benefited myself personally. The stable system of government should appear to distribute rights and privileges to all people, regardless of how useful they are. Otherwise your meritocracy will either descent into a dictatorship, or will be overthrown.

Suckit

Wasn't it proven years ago that Democracy doesn't work, but there is no real alternative. It doesn't work mathematically - Arrow's impossibility theorem.

ftbman

Democracy is a concept from the times when political correctness didn't exist. The term "demos" (the people) had an exclusive meaning and didn't include all the people. It only included the affluent people. So the struggle for "democracy", as we understand it, continued from ancient Greece all the way to the Roman empire and peaked with the period known as the "Conflict of the orders" between 500 BC and 287 BC. Our democracy is an evolution of that, so clearly, it isn't perfect and suffers periods of more obvious political inequality and less obvious political inequality. It's a primitive system held together by lies and culture, like any other system currently practiced on Earth.

The problem with democracy isn't democracy itself. It is more of a "spiritual" problem. For as long as we act ignorantly, there will have to be a centralized power barking orders at us to keep us from destroying the system that works well enough in most countries that use it. If everyone were able to understand we're all in this life together to experience it for the sake of experiencing it, and that the best way of doing that is cooperation under respectful and peaceful circumstances, the term "democracy" would become obsolete and irrelevant. It would be true freedom with all the potential of our existence ready to be realized.

To sum it up, democracy is the best we could agree upon on a mass scale. It is riddled with problems, but unless we all become "enlightened" to understand the universal entitlement of all living things to dignity, so that we don't need authorities, celebrities, courts, laws and religions to help us tell right from wrong, democracy will continue to be the best socio-political concept.

ftbman

Suckit wrote: »

It doesn't work mathematically -

And it never will. Humans aren't numbers.

YFlyer

the purple tin wrote: »

The UN told them to hold their horses. They told the UN to feck off.

Blair is going grey still believing in WMD. W Bush is playing the idiot.

begbysback

victor8600 wrote: »

It is not, even though it might have benefited myself personally. The stable system of government should appear to distribute rights and privileges to all people, regardless of how useful they are. Otherwise your meritocracy will either descent into a dictatorship, or will be overthrown.

In a meritocracy those in power can be replaced peacefully with others of merit.

Democracy is built on two fundamental flaws, the election process is basically a popularity contest, if you are most popular then you win and obtain power, the complete opposite of merit. Also, the idea that that one man should have one vote greatly underestimates the incompetence of one man.

ClosedAccountFuzzy

The election process is about a choice between candidates based on their pitch. It’s a mixture of factors - policy, personality, track record etc

Not all elections are purely about personality. That’s more populist presidential systems, like the one that elected Trump.

We’ve added layers of deliberative democracy. We’ve had extremely nuanced debates about complex issues out to referendum too.

In a solid democratic culture it works pretty well.

The meritocracy you’re talking about still requires some arbitrary set of criteria to analyse and rank merit and someone to make those decisions.

The outcome is likely to be some kind of corporate authoritarian state like China or the old USSR, an absolute monarchy with a court or a military dictatorship with a very meritorious general. Or it could end up as an extreme class system.

Would you actually be comfortable to live in a state like that? There are many examples.

ftbman

begbysback wrote: »

In a meritocracy those in power can be replaced peacefully with others of merit.

Until they start arguing about what constitutes merit.

guy2231

FuzzyThinking wrote: »

The election process is about a choice between candidates based on their pitch. It’s a mixture of factors - policy, personality, track record etc

Not all elections are purely about personality. That’s more populist presidential systems, like the one that elected Trump.

We’ve added layers of deliberative democracy. We’ve had extremely nuanced debates about complex issues out to referendum too.

In a solid democratic culture it works pretty well.

The meritocracy you’re talking about still requires some arbitrary set of criteria to analyse and rank merit and someone to make those decisions.

The outcome is likely to be some kind of corporate authoritarian state like China or the old USSR, an absolute monarchy with a court or a military dictatorship with a very meritorious general. Or it could end up as an extreme class system.

Would you actually be comfortable to live in a state like that? There are many examples.

"We've had extremely nuanced debates"

About what exactly? Which is better coke or pepsi? Fanta or club?

You seem to be missing the point people are making that the established institutions (not just political parties) are in control and under democracy are unlikely to ever lose that control.

ClosedAccountFuzzy

ftbman wrote: »

Until they start arguing about what constitutes merit.

He or she who wins and the meritocracy war can be deemed most meritorious. What could possibly go wrong?

hot buttered scones

It appears to be an illusion when your guy doesn't get elected.

guy2231

hot buttered scones wrote: »

It appears to be an illusion when your guy doesn't get elected.

The point is your guy or the other guy it doesn't matter it is like asking which hand do you want, left or right?

Can't you see both hands belong to the same person.

Biden or Trump? It's just like reality TV, some people might not want Trump to represent America but whoever you vote for it doesn't matter at the end of the day, everything in the background remains the same.

ClosedAccountFuzzy

guy2231 wrote: »

"We've had extremely nuanced debates"

About what exactly? Which is better coke or pepsi? Fanta or club?

You seem to be missing the point people are making that the established institutions (not just political parties) are in control and under democracy are unlikely to ever lose that control.

And what exactly are you proposing? We just abolish the centre/centre right because they’re “establishment”, even though that’s where a very large % of the population sits politically?

Rather unsurprisingly, a large number of centre right / centre and centre left parties exist across Europe because that’s also largely what people seem to prefer.

In Ireland, Fianna Fáil has melted away. FG has maybe 30-35% or so and Irish governments are inevitably coalitions. You’re seeing the Irish centre move more towards the liberal side on social policies and in more recent years is possibly moving back towards a more social democratic economic outlook, having drifted into quite neoliberal territory for a while.

That movement very much followed political opinion of the public.

We don’t live in a 2 party democracy. You’re drawing conclusions based on a very flawed US model that managed to install an internet troll as president.

We also don’t have any scenario where one person runs the show like an elected king for 4 years, complete with sovereign immunity.

Democracy comes in a lot of flavours and versions and they’re not all the same in terms of mechanics of the systems or the political culture around them.

The One Doctor

guy2231 wrote: »

Do the people really decide on anything?

As long as you have “wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, you cannot have real democracy. But this concentration of power has always been there, so real democracy cannot exist and has never existed. So, this shadow-of-a-thing we call democracy, which does exist, which we do have, poses no real threat to the TOTALITARIAN system. If it did, democracy wouldn’t be so popular. So, democracy is more like a cartoon the kids watch to keep them busy and ignorant of the true workings behind the scenes.

When concentration of wealth is controlled by a few it is very easy to control how people vote and to discredit any real threat to the system and without the support of the "few" you have no chance of ever bringing change apart from revolutionary circumstances.

The scientific name is 'elected oligarchy' and the generic name is 'democracy'.

Of course we don't have true democracy. Only Switzerland has that.

ClosedAccountFuzzy

We actually rank ahead of Switzerland on the democracy index, which is one of the few objective comparisons of democratic systems.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index

victor8600

Personally, I am for the "random people" democracy. Do not elect politicians, most of them are only good for pushing themselves up a dung pile. Instead, elect representatives through a lottery system, with all adult population participating. A random person in general is more honest and caring than a career politician. Just my 2c, you may think that politicians are great.

ClosedAccountFuzzy

We do that for the citizens assemblies.

The downside is that random people don’t necessarily want to do what politicians do.

We elect representatives to do all that stuff on our behalf.

Many, probably most, people would end up seeing something like that as being as annoying as jury duty and you’d end up with very poor governance by disinterested people.

Not that but you’d have no ability to actually develop knowledge of how systems work or any skills.

They may also have poor ability to represent anything and would have no connection to a constituency or any accountability.

Why would you assume they wouldn’t make self interested decisions? They’d have no particular need to be elected or to serve any constituency.

So basically you would end up with a government by the civil service with very, very weak public reps.

You’re also assuming that the only reason people go into politics is for self aggrandisement. That doesn’t stand up against reality at all. Most people end up in politics due to community involvement and get into local government and then end up standing as for the Dail etc.

You get a few who are just power hungry, but the majority don’t seem to fit that description.

gary550

victor8600 wrote: »

Personally, I am for the "random people" democracy. Do not elect politicians, most of them are only good for pushing themselves up a dung pile. Instead, elect representatives through a lottery system, with all adult population participating. A random person in general is more honest and caring than a career politician. Just my 2c, you may think that politicians are great.

Awful Idea

To quote George Carlin - “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”

I don't think I want becky or tanya from clondalkin as minister for finance anytime soon

guy2231

gary550 wrote: »

Awful Idea

To quote George Carlin - “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”

I don't think I want becky or tanya from clondalkin as minister for finance anytime soon

Those jobs sound a lot more complicated than they actually are.

A LOT MORE.

victor8600

gary550 wrote: »

Awful Idea

To quote George Carlin - “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”

I don't think I want becky or tanya from clondalkin as minister for finance anytime soon

You do realise that a government minister is not required to hold a degree in any relevant field? Sinead from Tallaght would have a full professional department at her disposal to formulate strategies and provide her with options; she only needs to chose between giving more money to a Child Hospital or spend it on better roads.

Besides, this issue can be easily overcome by abolishing ministerial posts. Each department can be led by a citizen's assembly.

victor8600

FuzzyThinking wrote: »

We do that for the citizens assemblies.

The downside is that random people don’t necessarily want to do what politicians do...

How is that a downside? That is exactly the upside. Random people have principles and their own needs. Any random person, knowing that she or he has a single chance to push for an issue that is dearly important to them, would fight for it, and not sell their principles for a cushy ministerial post.

ClosedAccountFuzzy

The downside is they’ll be like “oh ***** I’ve just been called to be the Minster for Health. I’ll just make a total arse or it so I’m never called again!”

There’s a limit to what people want to do. Most of us are quite happy to have an elected rep deal with the minutiae of the the Road Traffic Pedestrian Crossing Standards Amendment Bill rather than having to actually engage with it ourselves.

victor8600

FuzzyThinking wrote: »

The downside is they’ll be like “oh ***** I’ve just been called to be the Minster for Health. I’ll just make a total arse or it so I’m never called again!”

How about the €200K salary which comes with the post?

victor8600

FuzzyThinking wrote: »

T.... Most of us are quite happy to have an elected rep deal with the minutiae of the the Road Traffic Pedestrian Crossing Standards Amendment Bill rather than having to actually engage with it ourselves.

Is that what Eamon Ryan, the Minister for Transport does with his time? Really?

ClosedAccountFuzzy

And what accountability will this person have?

Let’s assume they take the €200k and then a nice lady called Jill from Evil Mega Corp comes along and offers Citizen X another €200k if they just implement the odd policy for them here and there?

As it stands the minister is answerable to the Oireachtas and its members are generally answerable to a constituency and the TDs are up against colleagues in multi seat constituencies too.

If Minister Citizen X, is just some random person what do we know about them? No track record at all. No accountability etc etc

It doesn’t make sense.

The Citizens Assembly used a representative sample formula and basically works like a focus group to bring in new ideas discuss things that are then presented to the elected reps in the form of a report.

It’s easy to just be hostile to all politics and just assume all politicians are malevolent (which they really aren’t) but the alternatives are basically dictatorships or authoritarianism or total pie in the sky stuff that isn’t going to work with real humans.

ednwireland

‘Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…’

Winston S Churchill, 11 November 1947

victor8600

FuzzyThinking wrote: »

And what accountability will this person have?

Let’s assume they take the €200k and then a nice lady called Jill from Evil Mega Corp comes along and offers Citizen X another €200k if they just implement the odd policy for them here and there?

There are laws already in place to prevent corrupt practices. Who would be easier to prosecute for taking a bribe -- a random person who had a ministerial post for 1-2 years, or a career politician who can pull strings to avoid the responsibility?

Anyway, I can tell you that "my" idea will not work for the simple reason that any change like that, that is taking apart the old system and putting a new one, is extremely damaging to the society.

Using citizen assemblies to discuss ideas that politicians cannot reasonably solve is a good step forward though. How about the housing issue?

ClosedAccountFuzzy

Politicians are ultimately the representatives of their constituents and have a responsibility to an electorate.

These random appointees wouldn’t need to respond to anyone at all. They wouldn’t need to have any known manifesto, political outlook, policy framework or anything else.

I could arrive in health and my main priority might be to abolish hospitals or perhaps be entirely focused on getting them painted with artistic murals.

What would people do if they wanted to get something done or changed. Who would represent them?

I suppose if you wanted to get a random Government to listen you’d probably have to resort to street protests to get heard as there’d be no democracy or representation.

So that would eventually lead to civil unrest and riots and before long complete chaos.

Governments have legitimacy based on electoral mandate.

Where would these randomly selected people get their mandate? It’s certainly not from the people.

You can see where this would go?!

guy2231

FuzzyThinking wrote: »

The downside is they’ll be like “oh ***** I’ve just been called to be the Minster for Health. I’ll just make a total arse or it so I’m never called again!”

There’s a limit to what people want to do. Most of us are quite happy to have an elected rep deal with the minutiae of the the Road Traffic Pedestrian Crossing Standards Amendment Bill rather than having to actually engage with it ourselves.

I'm sure most people would be chuffed with being asked to do that, it's not like it would be hard work.

guy2231

victor8600 wrote: »

There are laws already in place to prevent corrupt practices. Who would be easier to prosecute for taking a bribe -- a random person who had a ministerial post for 1-2 years, or a career politician who can pull strings to avoid the responsibility?

Anyway, I can tell you that "my" idea will not work for the simple reason that any change like that, that is taking apart the old system and putting a new one, is extremely damaging to the society.

Using citizen assemblies to discuss ideas that politicians cannot reasonably solve is a good step forward though. How about the housing issue?

I watched an american documentary on Youtube recently it showed how the political parties of Ireland in the 70s, 80s, 90s, were living a lavish lifestyle completely unexplainable by their salaries.

A quote from the video "they make the mafia look like chumps".

Despite this constant institutionalised corruption these parties never had any opposition and were able to easily remain in power.

The corruption went on well into the 2000s as we all know despite this and all of what brought the recession on they still remain in power this is pretty much proof that democracy is a joke.

It takes serious money, power and influence to challenge these already established democratic parties, SF only managed to do this through their power and influence they got through the IRA and their massive electoral success in the North.

I'll find and link the video if anyone is interested in watching it.

Mimon

FuzzyThinking wrote: »

Politicians are ultimately the representatives of their constituents and have a responsibility to an electorate.

These random appointees wouldn’t need to respond to anyone at all. They wouldn’t need to have any known manifesto, political outlook, policy framework or anything else.

I could arrive in health and my main priority might be to abolish hospitals or perhaps be entirely focused on getting them painted with artistic murals.

What would people do if they wanted to get something done or changed. Who would represent them?

I suppose if you wanted to get a random Government to listen you’d probably have to resort to street protests to get heard as there’d be no democracy or representation.

So that would eventually lead to civil unrest and riots and before long complete chaos.

Governments have legitimacy based on electoral mandate.

Where would these randomly selected people get their mandate? It’s certainly not from the people.

You can see where this would go?!

The weakness of the Irish form of democracy is that politicians will not do anything to lose popularity. They try to be all things to all people i.e they try to appeal to as broad a range of the population as possible.

It's why we have so many parties in and around the centre. Reckon there is a niche for a party that would appeal to the squeezed middle private sector tax payer.No one is brave enough to move into this space.

For example- they would have the twitterati, facebookers at their necks for trying to take on the health service unions to achieve real reform in the health service but I think it would gain them a core support to rely on come voting time.

gormdubhgorm

guy2231 wrote: »

Do the people really decide on anything?

As long as you have “wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, you cannot have real democracy. But this concentration of power has always been there, so real democracy cannot exist and has never existed. So, this shadow-of-a-thing we call democracy, which does exist, which we do have, poses no real threat to the TOTALITARIAN system. If it did, democracy wouldn’t be so popular. So, democracy is more like a cartoon the kids watch to keep them busy and ignorant of the true workings behind the scenes.

When concentration of wealth is controlled by a few it is very easy to control how people vote and to discredit any real threat to the system and without the support of the "few" you have no chance of ever bringing change apart from revolutionary circumstances.

It depends on what you define democracy as, when can one country be described as more democratic than another?

Is mandatory voting a sign of a more democratic country or an infringement on civil liberties. Number of competitive political parties etc

Personally I would have no problem living in a non-democratic country, or less democratic country. If I had the basics of food and shelter, steady employment.

I likely would not rock the boat. Plus I realise there are aspects of non- democratic countries that are better than democracies. Less red tape in a dictatorship for example and things are done at a much faster rate.

You need only have to look at the HSE in Ireland and where all those layers of management and bureaucracy have led to over the years.

As the global wealth thing. That is just the nature of capitalism. The wealthy create jobs for those further down the pyramid. The ones with the most money fund the lobby groups and interest groups

https://cdnext.credit-suisse.com/about-us-news/en/articles/news-and-expertise/global-wealth-pyramid-decreased-base-201801/_jcr_content/content/image/image.revampimg.1920.medium.png/global-wealth-pyramid-decreased-base-graph-1.png

And those lower down the pyramid aspire to climb it.
In those street demonstrations/protests you constantly hear about the 1%, It does have a truth to it. And is a nice soundbite. But you rarely hear about the two layers below that level. The new potential movers and shakers.

ClosedAccountFuzzy

The HSE isn’t a democracy. It’s a government agency that operates at arms length.

Layers of management and bureaucratic structures are a feature of administration systems in all kinds of governments.

Mimon

FuzzyThinking wrote: »

The HSE isn’t a democracy. It’s a government agency that operates at arms length.

Layers of management and bureaucratic structures are a feature of administration systems in all kinds of governments.

Democracy is blocking reform of it though. No politician has the balls to follow through with real reform of it.

If we had a benevolent dictator they could ban the public service unions, cut down on the the bureaucracy and make it run primarily for the benefit of the patients.

ClosedAccountFuzzy

You could also argue that the issue is lack of accountability and not enough democracy and transparency in how it operates.

guy2231

gary550 wrote: »

Awful Idea

To quote George Carlin - “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”

I don't think I want becky or tanya from clondalkin as minister for finance anytime soon

Why wouldn't you want someone who has a far closer understanding of what the vast majority of people in this country are going through and the problems that they face rather than a bunch of spoile brats who were born into the top 2% of society who have no idea what the average person has to go through.

The only explanation I can think of is that you are under the illusion the job is far more complicated than it actually is, it's an easy job, a simple job that requires no qualifications.

The poilticians here in Ireland have put you and most people under an illusion with their fancy accents and suits that their job is really complicated when it is anything but.

mikhail

victor8600 wrote: »

Personally, I am for the "random people" democracy. Do not elect politicians, most of them are only good for pushing themselves up a dung pile. Instead, elect representatives through a lottery system, with all adult population participating. A random person in general is more honest and caring than a career politician. Just my 2c, you may think that politicians are great.

I know so many people who want to get out of jury duty. I can only speculate as to how they'd react to being asked to be in government for four years.

mikhail

gormdubhgorm wrote: »

Plus I realise there are aspects of non- democratic countries that are better than democracies. Less red tape in a dictatorship for example and things are done at a much faster rate.

I've lived in China. More paperwork than here. ****ing reams of paperwork.

Out and out dictatorships usually have more graft than paperwork though. Fine, you don't have to fill out a form to get something done. You just have to pay for it. Non-democratic countries are almost always poorer and have worse wealth inequality. People here have no idea what a really **** government looks like, the kind that gets run out of the country but don't care because 20% of the budget for the past decade is in their Swiss bank accounts.

guy2231

guy2231 wrote: »

I watched an american documentary on Youtube recently it showed how the political parties of Ireland in the 70s, 80s, 90s, were living a lavish lifestyle completely unexplainable by their salaries.

A quote from the video "they make the mafia look like chumps".

Despite this constant institutionalised corruption these parties never had any opposition and were able to easily remain in power.

The corruption went on well into the 2000s as we all know despite this and all of what brought the recession on they still remain in power this is pretty much proof that democracy is a joke.

It takes serious money, power and influence to challenge these already established democratic parties, SF only managed to do this through their power and influence they got through the IRA and their massive electoral success in the North.

I'll find and link the video if anyone is interested in watching it.

Do that.

The interesting thing about corruption is that if you take a brown paper bag to a politician to personally enrich him, it’s corruption. If you fund his, or his party’s campaign, its democracy. American democracy pretty much runs like that.

Either way money talks.

mikhail

mikhail wrote: »

I've lived in China. More paperwork than here. ****ing reams of paperwork.

Out and out dictatorships usually have more graft than paperwork though. Fine, you don't have to fill out a form to get something done. You just have to pay for it. Non-democratic countries are almost always poorer and have worse wealth inequality. People here have no idea what a really **** government looks like, the kind that gets run out of the country but don't care because 20% of the budget for the past decade is in their Swiss bank accounts.

Do you think China is badly run? I’ve visited but never lived there.

guy2231

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Do that.

The interesting thing about corruption is that if you take a brown paper bag to a politician to personally enrich him, it’s corruption. If you fund his, or his party’s campaign, its democracy. American democracy pretty much runs like that.

Either way money talks.

I don't know what you're getting at here, the documentary was showing how the politicians of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael were living like mob bosses living luxurious lifestyles completely unexplainable by their salaries.

victor8600

mikhail wrote: »

I know so many people who want to get out of jury duty. I can only speculate as to how they'd react to being asked to be in government for four years.

Nobody would be forced to be in the government. If you don't want to get your TD salary and expenses paid by the state, with a chance of making a real difference, then fine, other candidates can be drawn from the hat. Simples.

guy2231

guy2231 wrote: »

I'm sure most people would be chuffed with being asked to do that, it's not like it would be hard work.

I wouldn't, as far as I can see most of political work is thankless grinding ****. I'll stick to my own work thanks.

guy2231

guy2231 wrote: »

I don't know what you're getting at here, the documentary was showing how the politicians of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael were living like mob bosses living luxurious lifestyles completely unexplainable by their salaries.

Didn’t deny that. The rest of my sentence was fairly simple.

jimmycrackcorm

Mac_Lad71 wrote: »

Democracy is derived from the Greek words 'demos' and 'cratis' which roughly translated means mob rule.

Ireland is only one of two countries in the world (Malta being the other) to use the PRSTV electoral system which is acknowledged as giving the truest representation of votes in a parliament.

The problem with PRSTV is that it nearly always results in coalition government, in essence we vote for candidates and mandate them to form a government.

FF got 22.2% of first preference votes in the last election and MM is Taoiseach, SD is Health Minister etc. in a coalition where FG won 20.9 % and the Greens got 7.1%

SF got 24.5%, which was the largest share of first preference votes in 2020 and they are in opposition.

In that sense democracy is an illusion (btw I have no affiliation to any political party).

PRSTV democracy is no better than other versions. Basically, you end up with the least common denominator when it comes to making effective decisions to benefit all of society.

jimmycrackcorm

mikhail wrote: »

I've lived in China. More paperwork than here. ****ing reams of paperwork.

Out and out dictatorships usually have more graft than paperwork though. Fine, you don't have to fill out a form to get something done. You just have to pay for it. Non-democratic countries are almost always poorer and have worse wealth inequality. People here have no idea what a really **** government looks like, the kind that gets run out of the country but don't care because 20% of the budget for the past decade is in their Swiss bank accounts.

China has built more high-speed rail within the space of ten years than the rest of the world put together. They get **** done.

Singapore is a form of democratic authoritarianism: 80% of people live in public housing, mixed developments with rich and poor.

mikhail

fvp4 wrote: »

Do you think China is badly run? I’ve visited but never lived there.

Depends on what you want. The public prosecutors have something like a 99% win rate, the air resembles the inside of a tar boiler as often as not, most of the groundwater is contaminated, I've had multiple Chinese friends on route to beach holidays tell me they don't swim in the sea because their coastal waters are too polluted, and let's not get into the human rights issues. But, as someone else noted, they build a lot of trains, so that's nice. They've done a lot right, dragging a huge population out of abject poverty (probably 1/4 of their population) but where we had ghost estates, they have ghost cities. They built a modern marvel in the 3 gorges damn, but displaced millions of people in doing it, and side effects have included silt build-up, drought/flooding disruption to agriculture downstream, and even earthquakes (maybe; that was a theorised link last I read).

The short version is that it's complicated. That's politics.

ShatterAlan

fvp4 wrote: »

It’s mostly fake but better than the alternative.

What's the alternative?

ShatterAlan

Allinall wrote: »

Don't know about anyone else, but nobody ever controlled how I vote.

Maybe not but they can control the chances of success or failure for whomever you vote.

ShatterAlan

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Good quality media is there but it needs to be paid for and that's the issue. Traditional newspapers are dying and while much of that's very much for the better, unaccountable cranks on social media are no improvement.

I don't think that there's a shadowy cabal which holds the real power. I think in many countries that corporate media just blows up meaningless cultural issues to distract people from the fact that corporations are raking it in while paying virtually nothing in tax. People could end this tomorrow but they'd rather not bother voting and then wonder why they get ignored.

You might want to dig a bit deeper. AIPAC and the Israeli Lobby holds massive sway over US politics. Try and find a documentary called "The Lobby" if you can. It's worth a look.


The NRA is another one. 70% of Americans support tighter gun control, financial regulation, addressing the climate change issue, an end to foreign wars and a variety of other social issues like reduced education fees and a higher minimum wage yet neither party addresses any of the above.


It's akin to their choice being Coca-Cola or Pepsi when most people want milk, tea, orange juice, etc.