I keep hearing "our democracy" on TV, and I ask myself "Whose democracy are they talking about?" Are they talking about the one-dollar-one-vote political process we have today where all the major issues are bought up before we even vote? Are they talking about the electoral college voting system where a majority of the American people can vote for a candidate and still lose the election, or are we talking about an electoral college voting system where we the people do not elect our president except by the good graces of our betters? Are we talking about an economic system where democracy ends at the workplace door and more than eighty percent of all the wealth and income in the United States goes to the top twenty percent of the population? Or are we talking about a society that claims to be a meritocracy but has the lowest levels of social mobility of any developed country in the world except the United Kingdom and Italy that are close behind us? Or are we talking about the "democracy" that the corporate media glorifies when, in the service of its bottom line, it turns all our sacred values into commodities to be bought and sold to special interest groups and their customer base?
This can't be the democracy that we are talking about because if the word, "democracy" does not ring true; and, in fact, we only have a democracy in name only or it only serves a minority of the population, and we couple this with economic deprivation, we throw open the doors to fascism and a sadomasochistic perversion of manhood that feeds off the innocent and the vulnerable and rules with terror and death. When we corrupt the meaning of the word, democracy, we create a fertile soil for the partnership of fascism and the corporate state and the ushering in a New Dark Ages of global corporate feudalism with Fortress America being its castle keep. Or, in other word, we destroy everything we ever believed and fought for.
If we are going to defeat the rise of fascism in America "our democracy" has to become a true political and economic democracy of the People, by the People, and for the People, and that democracy is worth fighting for. It is the dream that we have fought for throughout our history, and it is a dream that's time has come. Otherwise, I'm reminded of a quote from Robert Nesbit's book Quest for Community. "The genius of totalitarian leaders lies in its profound awareness that personalities can't tolerate morale isolation, and absolute and relentless power will be acceptable only where it comes to be seen as the only available form of community and membership."
"Democracy is a revolution that has never been won." - Marcello Tino
Author's Note - I have made Learn or Die: The New American Revolution available to you through Smashwords in a Freedom for Free Edition where you can pay what you want for the book or nothing at all. It is free. I'm doing this because after 50 years of research and study I believe I have found the way for all of us.
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