In 2015, only four democracies are enacting the Will of the People
I realise these days I’m becoming a repetitive old git, but in the midst of the media’s superficial (and generally negative) obsession with a brave attempt by intelligent Greek thinkers to bring sanity to the EU table, I thought it might be useful to restate what’s new in a historical sense, rather than what just happened on the news.
I take part in a regular but informal email discussion group among cosmopolitan Greeks and various expat/intermarried offshoots thereof. The folks involved are obviously atypical, but I have never seen any correlation at all between being ‘typical’ and creatively stimulating. The word cosmopolitan itself might indeed be the basis for an ironic Greek character called Cosmopolitopoulus, but I doubt if that jeu de mot would move the game on much.
Of late, a theme has opened up on the subject of just how many Sovereign States could ‘legitimise’ (aka justify) their soi-disant description as “democratic”….with however small a d might be involved. This delighted me, in that it offered a chance to counter the conviction of many friends, acquaintances and even good friends these days that I might have mislaid several vital marbles in my advancing dotage by becoming “a radical”.
As a democrat, I am proud to be termed a radical: because the corrosive process of destroying democracy with greed has now become so desperate, the radical approach is the only responsible one left.
Starting with the planet’s biggest self-styled democracy, this formed the basis of my input into the debate:
1. Obama was elected on the slogan “Yes we can”
2. He then found that no, he couldn’t.
3. So he didn’t, but then the next opponent turned out to be so unutterably dire, mad and wooden, the electorate decided to give Barry another chance to do nothing more than nothing.
4. Barry got re-elected – and this time, he did less than nothing about anything.
Only two things can legitimise democracy: a sane, informed electorate, and their votes empowering the legislature and executive to do that expressed will.
As I write, no such situation pertains in the following major ‘democracies’:
The US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Turkey, Israel, Portugal, Poland, Australia, Canada, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Russia, South Africa, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Egypt and Mexico.
The normal response of those with fascism in their DNA is to suggest that, ergo, democracy sucks. These same people ‘reason’ that, because current versions of financial, market, business and media regulation have failed, the best solution is to have no regulation. It’s not dissimilar to suggesting in 1938 that the – League of Nations having failed – Hitler should be deregulated.
But it’s also belied by the reality that four democracies are currently doing the bidding of their electors: Iceland, Switzerland, Hungary and – for all of three weeks – Greece.
Only Iceland has rejected IMF recommendations in favour of jailing crooked bankers. The ECB impolitely told Switzerland a month ago to GTF out of the way because Count Dragula must have his QE. Ever since Orban came to power in Hungary on a platform of no euro/no US colonialism, the US, EU and western MSM have done everything in their power to smear and generally destabilise a man whose response was simply to get reelected with an even bigger majority. Now Greece finds itself shut out of aid programmes, its liquidity withdrawn, and the subject of widespread media falsehoods, insults and misinformation.
Not that anyone needs to join up any dots, but all the dots in all the colours in all the sizes and all the countries lead to one inescapable conclusion: sovereign power has shifted away from a political process in pursuit of the Greater Good towards an axis that looks, roughly, like ‘banking-media-multinational-business-unelected-Munneeeeed-oligarchy.’
So for me – when it comes to the Ukraine, the Middle East, Jihadism and the future of the eurozone – the only position for any responsible, genuine supporter of democracy is that of radical reform of the political process, and radical changes to the citizenry’s education system.
Of those, the two most important would be the removal of ALL political Party donations via private companies or individuals; and an urgent focus on education which has, at it’s core, a desire to instill in all individuals the ability to develop their strengths, respect their neighbours – and think for themselves: to doubt, to question, to tolerate….and to tell shit from putty.
For having convictions such as these, David Cameron would have me convicted of being a non-violent extremist, or NVE. This is because (a) David Cameron is a bubble-dwelling idiot and (b) beholden to those who keep him in power.
An added bonus for CallmeDave is that the gumshield-upside-down twerp across the Commons divide from him is just so vicious, he hits him with a flower/for hour after hour. And formulaic satire aside, the Opposition Leader Ed Miliband is not – in any real sense – opposed to the oligarchy running my homeland into the ground.
You could use – as separate and equal parallels – face-offs like US Democrats v Republicans, Pasok v Nia Demokrita, PP v PS in Spain, PS v UMP in France, CDU v SPD in Germany, Labor v Liberals in Australia…etc etc, ad nauseam. The conclusion would be the same.
Such new ground as has been most recently broken in the endeavour to restore genuine democracy belongs to Syriza in Greece. It may be an imperfect beacon, but it is by a country mile the best beacon we have. It may seem radical – but it is at least empirical, creative, straightforward and inclusive. The same applies to Viktor Orban in Hungary: you may not buy into all his belief systems, but he is for the individual spirit within a mutualist community…not the arid accountancy of community-destructive neoliberal globalism.
The Slog 