On Mar 19, 2007, at 12:49 PM, Jim Devine wrote:
does the problem arise from representative democracy? after all, here
in California, as part of "progressive" reforms, we moved away from
representative democracy by bringing in recalls (moving to delegatory
democracy) and direct voter initiatives, along with nonpartisan
elections in many places. But these have all been used and abused by
corporate ne'er-do-wells and nut-cases such as the prop. 13 crowd.
doesn't the problem arise much more from capitalism, institutions of
ethnic supremacy, and the like, rather than from representative
democracy?
I would say "yes" and "no". The recall and initiative processes
exist within the framework of representative democracy, not instead
of it. The main reason ne'er do wells and the like have been able to
abscond with those processes is because corporations (including the
mass media) have been granted personhood, and as such are the
capitalist bullies on the democracy block.
When the English colonists tossed the tea into Boston Harbor, their
ire was directed as much at the East India Company as it was at the
King. The king and the corporation had colluded (conspired?) to dump
the tea on the colonies and raise a tax. Today's King George poses as
a representative of the people and Halliburton, etal, pose as
"persons" with all the rights of the "people" but none of the
humanity or responsibilities real people have.
Capitalism is a technique for gathering stuff and corporations and
representative democracy are tools for facilitating that technique,
methinks.
I'm thinking/hoping that "crowdsourcing" may help to link real people
together in an ad-hoc, non-representative democracy so that fake
people (corporations and their representative democracy placeholders
and media operatives) can be confronted and then ignored.
Dan Scanlan
