Too Much Democracy? - Taibbi hits oligarch apologists
The almost incomparable (see Thomson, Hunter S.) Matt Taibbi has a fun little piece up:
In it he tears into the courtiers who now regret that democracy has allowed the unwashed chavs to spoil such a nice racket.
Imagine having pundits and professors suggest you should have your voting rights curtailed because you voted Leave. Now imagine these same people are calling voters like you "children," and castigating you for being insufficiently appreciative of, say, the joys of submitting to a European Supreme Court that claims primacy over the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights.
The overall message in every case is the same: Let us handle things.
But whatever, let's assume that the Brexit voters, like Trump voters, are wrong, ignorant, dangerous and unjustified.
Even stipulating to that, the reaction to both Brexit and Trump reveals a problem potentially more serious than either Brexit or the Trump campaign. It's become perilously fashionable all over the Western world to reach for non-democratic solutions whenever society drifts in a direction people don't like. Here in America the problem is snowballing on both the right and the left.
Whether it's Andrew Sullivan calling for Republican insiders to rig the nomination process to derail Trump's candidacy, or Democratic Party lifers like Peter Orszag arguing that Republican intransigence in Congress means we should turn more power over to "depoliticized commissions," the instinct to act by diktat surfaces quite a lot these days.
"Too much democracy" used to be an argument we reserved for foreign peoples who tried to do things like vote to demand control over their own oil supplies.
The arrogance, condescension and identity-politics attacks that are being unloaded on the Brexit voters is certainly familiar to anyone who has had the misfortune to stumble upon the various Brock-funded social media propaganda cannons with questions about Her Presumptiveness. That people who feel they have little to lose might vote for uncertainty over the status quo seems to be so alien a thought to the detached 1% and their lackey courtiers in the media, that they have openly disavowed 'democracy'.
Democracy appears to have become so denuded and corrupted in America that a generation of people has grown up without any faith in its principles.
What's particularly concerning about the reaction both to Brexit and to the rise of Trump is the way these episodes are framed as requiring exceptions to the usual democratic rule. They're called threats so monstrous that we must abrogate the democratic process to combat them.
Forget Plato, Athens, Sparta and Rome. More recent history tells us that the descent into despotism always starts in this exact same way. There is always an emergency that requires a temporary suspension of democracy.
Comments
Hillary people have been doing that exact thing to Bernie
voters for the entire year. I don't care if it was right or left that told the global bankers to shove it. Good for them.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
The EU is not a democratic organization
It's unelected commission has huge power and works for corporate interests. Yes, the motivation for many leave voters was racism, but for a lot of them it was not. A lot of people were simply of the opinion that immigration was happening at a rate that the country could not sustain. I have mixed feelings about the vote. On the one hand it complicates life for many of my friends and it removes some possibilities for me. The fact that no one thought this through and still hasn't thought it through is very worrisome. On the other hand the EU is essentially an antidemocratic body that seems to have no path to reforming itself. This Socialist Workers' Party UK piece makes the left case for leaving:
https://socialistworker.co.uk/art/42912/An+anti-racist%2C+anti-austerity...
Finally, I will admit that I take some visceral satisfaction from the fact that the pig F**ker (literallly) David Cameron and the smug neoliberal powers that be lost one. It gives me hope.
People might be finally waking up
to the certainty it's not rain that's being showered on them by their betters. Imagine 35+ years of thinking trickle down meaning one thing to the people but quite another to the PTB. Have to give them credit for the long time of maintaining an inside joke. I bet they had many great laughs at all the rubes not knowing the difference between trickle down and tinkle down.
Then I think about all the people I know and respect who are still voting for Hillary. Reality is a bitch isn't it?
"Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now..."
It has NOT
been a warm rain on the back of my neck for thirty five years, and I knew it thirty five years ago!
I don't like, nor will I support dRumpf, but the republikkkan voters have every right to stick a thumb in the eye of their leaders for not listening to them. The same with Bernie voters. Although the Berners are voting for better(imo), not just f/u. But if $hills gets the nomination, I'm thinking there is going to be a Big F/U in the general.
What galls me to no end is the Tories blaming Corbynn for the way the vote went. Sorta like the repukes telling the LGBTQ community that THEY(the 'pukes) are more on their side. Smdh!
Ya got to be a Spirit, cain't be no Ghost. . .
Explain Bldg #7. . . still waiting. . .
If you’ve ever wondered whether you would have complied in 1930’s Germany,
Now you know. . .
sign at protest march
I know the UK voted & we didn't but both countries
have working people suffering under the neoliberal regime imposed by major parties.
In the USA: (from Pew) Median income for middle class households fell by 5% between 2000 and 2014
Median wealth for this group declined by 28% following the housing collapse & Great Recession
Middle class hourly wages have risen only 6% between 1979 and 2013; very high wage earners have seen a rise of 41%
Two income households have doubled since 1970. This usually puts single parents into poverty because of low pay.
The top 1% has captured 50% of the income growth since 1993.
The top 0.1% own as much wealth as the bottom 90%
Even workers who have not had the benefit of long post secondary school education realize things are badly out of whack.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Why do you think the drumbeat of POLLS has started already
Magically, Hillary has become REALLY POPULAR because POLLS.
The sooner we start discounting the TV- and media-generated "Polling", the clearer our thinking will get. They're so full of shit. That's another way they keep us in line.
If they were really worth doing, we'd do them even when they show us something we do not want to see (see: Democratic Primary Exit Polling). And we don't.
I know that they are not completely shit
Otherwise, I'd have no access to the info re: Hillary's terrible unfavorables, nor would I have had access to all those polls that said Bernie did vastly better against Trump, and other Republicans, than Hillary.
While there are cooked polls, of course, I don't believe all of them are. And no, I don't just believe in the ones I like and disbelieve the ones I don't. I generally try to look for trends in polls, looking at many rather than just one. The two instances I list above were trends that continued over multiple polls, which the media constantly tried to downplay or argue away.
Occasionally, I'll give credence to a single poll, when it reveals something remarkable that the media then pretends isn't there: as when 47% of CNN's own poll respondents said they'd vote for a socialist for president. W/a standard 3% margin of error, and 50% saying they wouldn't. Of course, CNN's talking heads sat there talking gravely about how this poll proved Americans wouldn't vote for a socialist for president, and ignored the 2nd-most-remarkable change in presidential campaign politics in the last hundred years.
Bottom line: if there's nobody powerful willing to pay for a false result, I assume that false result won't be cooked into a rigged poll. Nobody with money and power wants people to know that half the American electorate would be willing to vote for a socialist; the only reason that poll got aired is that some idiot thought that it proved a socialist could never win the vote.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
if UKIP got 12% of the vote in the most recent election...
then how can 52% be explained away as UKIP loving racists? Eh? I want to know!!
Have been talking to a British woman who is very pro-Brexit
for a while--nice lady--
What I keep saying to her is, if you don't take care of the City boys and get them off your back somehow, Brexit will do you no good at all. Who the hell cares which set of bankers run your life? Bankers generally don't have national loyalties anyway.
Brexit won't fix it unless you get rid of those financier bastards too, whether they're homegrown or not. *Then* you can maybe start talking national sovereignty, local control, and some real representative govt. That would also be the point where people would really have to check whatever racism and xenophobia really ARE present in the Brexit movement.
But since nobody is inclined to combine a Brexit movement with a severe, rigorous checking of the power of the "British" financial sector--perhaps I should call it"British-based" rather than "British"--this ain't gonna amount to much in terms of liberating the British people. It might split Britain up though, as Scotland and Northern Ireland seem inclined to take their chances with the bankers and bureaucrats on the continent rather than those located in London. Funny thing, that.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Is it any wonder
that many people just want to say "F*ck You" to the establishment?
Brexit--Right & Left find common ground for different reasons.
I made the following comment before reading: Matt Taibi and Socialist case for Brexit
I believe these articles substantiate my thesis that Right and Left attacking Brexit is similar to Right (Trump) and Left (Bernie) attacking TPP.
I agree, in part.
Until we restore the educational system to promote critical thinking, we are lost, not doomed. How's that for another day when some watch their savings tank into the abyss. Keep the faith and keep your powder dry, an old slogan for a new day.
Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. Stephen Hawking
But we can't ever restore the educational system while
the PTB have control, simply because they don't want it restored.
Screw that!
We've been 'keeping our powder dry' for a long time now. What's the point of having dry powder if you never use it? I'm thinking quite a few things are past due for being 'blown up' (metaphorically, of course).
Ya got to be a Spirit, cain't be no Ghost. . .
Explain Bldg #7. . . still waiting. . .
If you’ve ever wondered whether you would have complied in 1930’s Germany,
Now you know. . .
sign at protest march
I find it interesting that we now use "elite"
with that same bad taste in the mouth that used to be used in the US for the word "liberal". Different voices, different targets.
even elite athletes are now looked on with suspicion of drug use, for good reason. Latest John Oliver was all over that one.
I am trying to synthesize thoughts. On Earth there are too many of us. Maybe it starts there, with overpopulation and CC added into the mix. Dump in wars, drought, mass human migration unlike ever before (think of those old films of animal migrations in Africa) and general unease. In the US, mix in under-education, missing out on details like critical thinking, TV and other media driving a Certain View aligned with political schemes. For those awake and paying attention, like those of us (here at c99, boomertown) who did get educated, these are Very Mixed Signals. Do you believe your eyes or your ears? I still have not quite gotten that down right, and one person who is liberal but not in any Elite category of importance does not matter.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
An early version of this:
Erin Burnett
Interviewing John Boehner (R-Ohio), speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives (2012):
“One final question, and this goes to sort of, I think, the frustration so many Americans feel about the political process right now. You've been doing this for 22 years, and a lot of people have talked about you wanting to have a legacy, to make a difference, to go out and have this on John Boehner’s name. Do you think that democracy is part of the problem? That in a democracy people are always going to vote for more things, they are never going to vote to take them away. Now the payroll tax is down; good luck ever having it go back to the way it was. Good luck with a lot of these things. Is democracy going to be what sends us over the cliff?”
http://www.remappingdebate.org/print?content=node/1711
Thank you, Erin Burnett and CNN, for advocating for the end of democracy.
This interview was, as I understand it, held at Pete Peterson's annual shindig. I guess Social Security is such a threat to our national fabric that we'll need to suspend democracy to protect ourselves.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver