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It's time that we face the truth - or to utterly abandon the "noble experiment" that Lincoln highlighted nearly a century and a half ago.
We are living in a Kabuki Democracy, being played like marionettes at the whim of the same sort of people that have always pulled the strings. Be it Akhetaton's fight against temple domination, the oligarchs vs. the democrats during the Peloponnesian War, the populars against the boni with Caesar, Octavian, Pompey and Cassius... or Erasmus, Luther and the Papacy... or Wat Tyler vs. Richard III, the Jacquerie, 1776, 1917 or whenever - Marx was essentially right in one thing, it's the have's vs. the have-nots.
Democracy grew out of the Age of Enlightenment and one of the reasons for the popularity of democracy amongs the elite that ultimately enabled it was a sort of hagiography of classical history. Democracy was associated with the Golden Age of Athens - and with the pristine Roman Republic so ably portrayed by Polybius. Our founding fathers new their Plutarch and especially their Polybius - and created a symbiotic system that assuaged numerous fears and aspirations based on ancient (and prevailing and continuing) prejudices and ideals.
Our founding fathers selected a mixed system understanding Polybius' observations on anacyclosis - or the inevitable evolution of extreme political systems. In a nutshell, Polybius saw that autarchies devolved into tyrannies, tyrannies were overthrown by aristocracies, aristocracies devolved into oligarchies, oligarchies were overthrown by democracies, democracies devolved into mob-rule, mob-rules were overthrown by autarchies... ad nauseum. Polybius interpreted the Roman system as a vaccine against anacyclosis because its inarticulated "constitution" contemplated each and every evolutionary step, plus checks and balances to ensure that none of the component parts of the body politic would prevail
The Roman Republic had a bicephalous executive with two "consuls", an oligarchal legislature in the form of the Senate, and a democratic input in the form of elections. Further checks and balances existed in the form of institutionalized religion and elective priesthoods and the tribunship of the plebs that gave the populace (and not the executive) to "veto" laws that would otherwise abuse the general population. "Senatus Populesque Romanorum" (SPQR - the Senate and the People of Rome) outlived this ideal balance of powers, aspirations and balance and special interests learned how to manipulate the electorate....leading to collapse. Ironically the principate (autarchy) achieved power through the support of - and in the name of - the population, against special interests.
History teaches us many lessons. Our founding fathers, as I noted above, knew their Plutarch and Polybius - and consciously tried to create a system that would counterbalance the different "estates" as they were known at the time. Being pre-Marxian, contemporaries of Adam Smith and Burke, (and largely Deists!) they did not and could not conceive the socioeconomic aspects of anacyclosis. Only Hamilton and Jefferson intimated the socioeconomic (in their primitive ways) and respectively propounded oligarchy and autarky (self sufficiency) as economic alternatives to the shortcomings of the otherwise excellent Constitution. At no time however did the Constitutionalists reconcile their work with the Declaration of Independence - and the Bill of Rights was an afterthought rife with conflict between the affluent and the rest.
All these historical footnotes have a reason. They are important in interpreting our current status, just as it is imperitive that one recognizes where one comes from in order to find the best path to where one wants to go.
Democracy was NOT the outcome of our Revolution. Few people remember that universal suffrage is a relatively new concept even in the US, that the "Australian" ballot is also relatively recent, that American politics were notorious for electoral corruption ("vote right and often") until even more recently. Around the world the key date is not 1776 not 1789 (US and French revolutions) but a year that is almost ignored by mainstream American education - 1848.
That year marked the first multinational revolution. Multinational is a key word here - because not only did the populist revolutions of that year occur in many countries, many of said revolutions combined the desire for popular government with nationalistic aspirations. The revolutions of 1848 were smashed by the Ancienne Regime and Metternicht's "international system" prevailed - but itst impact was felt then as it was later and continues to be felt now. 1848 marked the begining of the end of imperialism, of aristocratic rule without appeasement of popular will and self-determination, and above all showed that power (aka special interests, etc.) would more easily forego "national interests" in order to support what was virtually a case of "class interests" (ancienne regime vs. democracy/mob rule/nationalism/etc.).
1848 was a critical moment in Western history. It made Britain's Chartist movement viable, its success inevitable - and it turned the developed world towards democracy far more than 1776 and 1798 did. Yet the "democracy" that came from the post 1848 settlements and accomodations was "negotiated" - and the "parties" (special interests) that preexisted 1848 were not emasculated. Far from disappearing they saw the writing on the wall and turned to populism in order to perpetuate their control.
Nowadays we see thinktanks as being influential. In the 19th century British conservatives took the lead with such organizations as the Primrose League - consciously designed to placate and divert working class revindications through the exercise of jingoistic nationalism. Contemporary with the expansion of democracy was the expansion of manipulation, just as the ancients saw when they dismissed mob rule as an evil. The War of Jenkin's Ear, Crimea, the Boers, the Spanish-American War, the repression of the Philippinos - were only possible because of the subjection of popular needs to popular emotions. The same can be said of the Korean War, Vietnam and Iraq.
As I noted, the ancients knew of the dangers of mob rule, as did our founding fathers. The founding fathers knew of the Mytilene Debate and probably modelled part of their isolationism on such a danger even more than against the potential human and monetary costs of foreign intervention. Waiving the flag, like waving the bloody shirt - is a surefire way of perverting democracy and making tyranny possible.
Our founding fathers initially eschewed party politics. They were reponsible folk that realized that their ultimately traitorous victory over the British was only possible through propaganda, manipulation and terror - and that if such tactics remained their hold on power would be short-lived. Shay's Rebellion (and others) prove this.
Yet party politics grew out of the competition between special interests. As suffrage became more universal, parties learned that demagoguery and manipulation were the tools for success. Politics in the Gilded Age combined "Remember the Maine" with corruption - and with only a few exceptions, this has been the leit motiff of American politics.
Now we have two parties that coincide more than they diverge. Their economic policies are virtually the same. Their foreign policies are virtually the same. They differ in the tone of their rhetoric, the identity and potential efficiency of the managers that they would have rule us, and capitalize on a number of utterly tangential concepts such as guns, abortion, school prayer and the like. Both parties are run for and even by corporate interests as if Hamilton had been successful in creating an American aristocracy. Arguably we are worse off now than we were under George III.
Democracy was shown to be a sham with Disraeli and Rutherford. Yet reality tends to come up and bite us in the ass - in the form of world wars, economic disasters and the like. Remarkably, true democracy comes to the forefront in such moments - when our oligarchal leadership shows itself to be incompetent the people rise up and elect a trust-busting Teddy or a New Deal. The rest of the time the electorate is apathetic or disaffected, answering only to a series of well-researched emotional buttons that provide a bait-and-switch to obfuscate the issues that really matter.
Today's political discourse is perhaps the poorest in recorded democratic history. The distance between the DNC and the GOP is so small as to be virtually invisible (outside the selected emotional buttons noted above). Both parties supported the invasion of Iraq, both support neoliberal economics, both have a long history of mendacious manipulation. The other major difference between the parties is the sentiments aroused by their respective rhetoric - this WOULD be important if said rhetoric had any influence on actual policy. As it stands we have two parties that represent virtually the same constituency - and said constituency is not the majority of American citizens.
We are now at a crux. There is a generational shift in both parties - neither of which remember the Depression or WWII, the previous democratically-promoting crisis'. The current generation remembers Vietnam and Watergate and are substantially cynical in response.
It is time that the moral and intellectual elite take a stand - 'cos with today's manipulation one cannot talk of popular sovereignty. The alternative is the amoral and self-interested elite that made all the dangerous "-isms" popular in the 1930's- you know, the type that justifies wars of aggression, discount international law, and above all--- forget the lessons of history.
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