Opinion:Western Democracy represents special interests;money dictates the pecking ord

Is Western Democracy Real or a Facade?

By Paul Craig Roberts on February 14, 2012 at 7:23pm

The United States government and its NATO puppets have been killing Muslim men, women and children for a decade in the name of bringing them democracy. But is the West itself a democracy?

Skeptics point out that President George W. Bush was put in office by the Supreme Court and that a number of other elections have been decided by electronic voting machines that leave no paper trail. Others note that elected officials represent the special interests that fund their campaigns and not the voters. The bailout of the banks arranged by Bush’s Treasury Secretary and former Goldman Sachs chairman, Henry Paulson, and Washington’s failure to indict any banksters for the fraud that contributed to the financial crisis, are evidence in support of the view that the US government represents money and not the voters.

Recent events in Greece and Italy have created more skepticism of the West’s claim to be democratic. Two elected European prime ministers, George Papandreou of Greece and Silvio Berlusconi of Italy, were forced to resign over the sovereign debt issue. Not even Berlusconi, a billionaire who continues to lead the largest Italian political party, could stand up to the pressure brought by private bankers and unelected European Union officials.

Papandreou lasted only 10 days after announcing on October 31, 2011, that he would let the Greek voters decide in a referendum whether or not to accept the austerity being imposed on the Greek people from the outside. Austerity is the price charged by the EU for lending the Greek government the money to pay to the banks. In other words, the question was austerity or default. However, the question was decided without the participation of the Greek people.

Consequently, Greeks have taken to the streets. The conditions accompanying the latest tranche of the bailout have again brought large numbers of Greeks into the streets of Athens and other cities. Citizens are protesting a 20% cut both in the minimum wage and in pensions larger than 12,000 euros ($15,800) annually and more cuts in public sector jobs. Greek taxes were raised 2.3 billion euros last year and are scheduled to rise another 3.4 billion euros in 2013. The austerity is being imposed despite Greece’s unemployment rate of 21% overall and 48% for those under the age of 25.

One interpretation is that the banks, which were careless in their loans to governments, are forcing the people to save the banks from the consequences of their bad decisions.

Another interpretation is that the European Union is using the sovereign debt crisis to extend its power and control over the individual member states of the EU.

Some say that the EU is using the banks for the EU’s agenda, and others say the banks are using the EU for the banks’ agenda.

Indeed, they may be using each other. Regardless, democracy is not part of the process.

Greece’s appointed--not elected--prime minister is Lucas Papademos, He is a former governor of the Bank of Greece, a member of Rockefeller’s Trilateral Commission, and former vice president of the European Central Bank. In other words, he is a banker appointed to represent the banks.

On February 12 the appointed prime minister, whose job is to deliver Greece to the banks or to Brussels, failed to see the irony in his statement that “violence has no place in a democracy.” Neither did he see any irony in the fact that 40 elected representatives in the Greek parliament who rejected the bailout terms were expelled by the ruling coalition parties. Violence begets violence. Violence in the streets is a response to the economic violence being committed against the Greek people.

Italy has formed a second democratic government devoid of democracy. The appointed prime minister, Mario Monti, doesn’t have to face an election until April 2013. Moreover, according to news reports, his “technocratic cabinet” does not include a single elected politician. The banks are taking no chances: Monti is both prime minister and minister of economics and finance.

Monti’s background indicates that he represents both the EU and the banks. He is former European advisor to Goldman Sachs, European chairman of the Trilateral Commission, a member of the Bilderberg Group, a former EU Commissioner, and a founding member of the Spinelli Group, an organization launched in September 2010 to facilitate integration within the EU, that is, to advance central power over the member states.

There is little doubt that European governments, like Washington, have been financially improvident, living beyond their means and building up debt burdens on citizens. Something needed to be done. However, what is being done is extra-democratic. This is an indication that Western elites--the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, Bilderberg Group, the EU, transnational corporations, oversized banks, and the mega-rich--no longer believe in democracy.

Perhaps future historians will conclude that democracy once served the interests of money in order to break free of the power of kings, aristocracy, and government predations, but as money established control over governments, democracy became a liability. Historians will speak of the transition from the divine right of kings to the divine right of money.

http://www.vdare.com/articles/is-western-democracy-real-or-a-facade

 

I would argue democracy itself represents special interests, but then again, so does every government.

The criticisms mentioned here against Western democracy are valid, but similar ones could be levied against any state.

The only thing that really matters ultimately in terms of government is how much recourse the people have when the government does something wrong to them.

By this measure, Western democracy still fares better than most other systems.

 

How much do the current Democratic forms have in common with the direct Democracy of classical Greece, where citizens gathered in assemblies to directly elect officials and vote for policies? Today it seems many top politicians who chart key policies are not even elected. Regarding political campaigns and campaign contributions, even Clinton said back in 96 or 97these things have become too big, the process got out of control, and politicians have essentially become addicted to interest money which gets them elected. But then once in office they have to repay their debt back to special interests. So do these elected officials really represent the voters or the special interests who financed their campaigns?

 

Your criticisms of the European union arent a criticism of western democracy. European Union is a surrendering of a nations democracy to the European union.

 

Well, even if you overlook the impact of campaign contributions, how much power has been surrendered in the United States to the unelected Supreme Court? In Michigan or Illinois last year, the state courts there ruled they have the right to overturn any new legislation passed by elected bodies, if these courts feel these legislation don't meet with their standards.

 

Systemically, classical Greece was probably closer to the ideal.

However, the glaring flaw in their system was that voting was limited to landowning men. That's the way our system started out, but we thankfully evolved past that.

Then again, direct democracy isn't necessarily a good thing when it comes to minority rights. It's a good thing that segregation wasn't put to a referendum. If it took one to end that, it wouldn't have ended until decades later.

So, the will of the people has to be tempered by things like civil rights.

Another example of why direct democracy doesn't work well for everything is California's referendum system for budgeting. Anytime a new tax is proposed, it requires a referendum to pass. The same is true of bonds, but the problem is that the funding for bonds aren't tied to referendums that propose the spending, so the people apparently are too stupid to vote in favor of funding the same thing they voted in favor of spending money on.

For the most part, direct democracy is only good for one thing -- electing officials.

 

Assuming there are examples such as referendums of how direct democracy is enacted in the current system, then how come there are never any referendums on the really key issues, such as the bank bailout?

 

The bailout was a federal decision. It's not often that America has national referendums. Honestly, I'm not sure if we ever have.

I'm just saying that California's own focus on direct democracy seems to be dysfunctional at best.

 

So the only other viable alternative seems to be a political/legislative process chartered by politicians elected by special interest money who then act on their behalf, and checked by a judicial veto. So for an average voter considering the trends in campaign process, at least in some states, the motto should be, don't write to your Congressman, but rather write to your judge?

 

There is a way around our lobbyist issues, but ever since the Citizens United ruling, it probably would require a Constitutional Amendment.

What Canada and a few other countries do is restrict campaigning to public funds. That would prevent special interests from swaying candidates as much, and it would prevent people from buying elections.

 

Odd response to my statement above. And the courts have always had that power and their "standards" are the state and US Constitutions. Just sometimes they make more dumb decisions than others.

 

Ok, I thought there were divisions in the gov't: legislative, judicial etc. Now there's a jurisdictional overlap given the 'unelected' judges have a veto power in some states over legislation passed by 'elected' state representatives. Considering the unclear interests the 'elected' officials too often represent, do you think it's a good thing, a bad thing, you think you or someone else should take advantage of this arrangement, or do you think an average voter is left out of the game since in neither way his opinion can be represented?

 

In Europe you have the banking interests which are disproportionately represented in administrations by elected or unelected officials, in the States it's the Wall Street. So I suppose equal parallels apply.

 

You are confused. Judges have always had that power since the Marbury v Madison decision in 1803

 

Should there be a limit to election campaign funds? That way, we could reduce the influence of corporate lobbying for elections?

 

Sure, the Supreme Court judges, but not the state-level judges.

 

It does not matter about the label .
The point is , Who is winning , what's the score and when does the final whistle go?

 

Applies to all judges einstein.

 

Well, what ever. I thought before you only had the Supreme court within the federal system which had the power to review and veto legislation. Now the state courts are becoming 'federalized' and granted similar powers over state legislators, so the Supreme Court does not even need to get involved and 'mettle' in state affairs. It may be a good or a bad thing for you. In any case, I just wanted to point out how before traditionally you would look up to elected vs non-elected officials to represent your interests, but now this line has blurred. You don't need to look as far as Europe to examine power struggles, but definitely over there similar analogy applies: elected national representatives vs non-elected Brussels officials and their franchise puppets.

And thanks for ruining my punchline.

 

As long as campaign funding is private, lobbyists will find a way around it.

The current campaign finance laws seem to restrict individual donations very strictly, but "bundling" is still allowed with relatively few limits.

Also, the rules on Super PACs are laughably easy to dodge. Colbert and Stewart did a rather funny sketch on that.

 

There is no constitutional mechanism for national referendums.

 

I guess not. Then again, I'm not suggesting that we should have them either.

 

That's why the best way to fight the super PACS is just to ease up on the individual contribution limits to the actual campaigns. If donors had a choice, they would much rather directly contribute to the campaign than do an end run around the campaign by contributing to a political action committee.

Just get rid of the campaign limits, have total transparency on who is contributing to the campaigns, and presto, you don't have to repeal the first amendment to have campaign finance reform.

 

I guess that could work too.

 

All in all, as an outsider but also an anti-immigration enthusiast, I'm at odds why Arizona would not follow Mitchigan's lead and take advantage of this? I mean, if Arizona's representative politicians are not yet utterly corrupted by the money, and provided they have state judges on their side, then why wouldn't they let their state judges veto the Supreme Court's legislational consorship over their state?