How to Kill Democracy
tips to fascists, dictators, corporatists, militarists, imperialists, neocons, right wingers, theocrats, theofascists and terrorists.
1- Kill the strongest opposition candidate and then pretend that elections should go on as normal, without allowing the opposition party to reorganize.
Examples:
Benazir Bhutto-- strategy-- hamstring security abilities to the extent that the candidate actually writes a letter accusing the government leadership of intentional sabotage of security.
Paul Wellstone-- rush through a replacement candidate and politicize the funeral. Get the mainstream media "partners" to portray the funeral as despicably political to eliminate sympathy for the new candidate. (Expect something like this with the candidate who replaces Bhutto
2- Steal elections using e-voting with non-public software code, no paper ballot records, purges from lists of eligible voters, phone-bank jamming, fraudulent registration drives, where you throw away the registrations of opposition party registrants. Multiple examples in US-- Florida and Ohio, particularly.
Essential-- this only works with weak, cowardly candidates who fail to aggressively work to prevent these actions and then fail to challenge questionable outcomes. This has been relatively easy, since even when candidates do get tough in response to rigged elections, there are plenty of weak, compromised legislators who will enable the election theft. Clint Curtis's campaign is a good example. The Dems in congress allowed the theft.
3-Erode constitutional rights. Violate laws and treaties. Make excuses that there are immanent threats to national security, or that the treaties will hurt the nation's economy. Take the most horrific of these and get the media to boost hysteria and fear, then get the most fascist members of the legislature to push through laws retroactively making the vioilations of the law legal. The majority of sold out legislators will work with your lobbyists and avoid your media mockery and pass the legislation or approve appointees who allow or refuse to not condemn the assaults upon the constitution and international law.
Example-- Mukasey approval, FISA approval, continuation of Iraq war, started on lies.
4-Gradually destroy the economy-- engage in Shock Doctrine Disaster capitalism-- so the nation's citizen's are more worried about survival than maintaining democracy. Naomi Klein has documented how fascist neocon Milton Friedman economists have used this tried and true approach to destruction of democracy in dozen of nations-- usually with the help of the USA's CIA. See Naomi Klein's book, Shock Doctrine for detailed examples.
5- Corporatize the nation- Maximize laws that give corporations human rights as persons. Allow corporations to pollute the election process, so their money is the primary factor in determing the ability of candidates to reach voters, as is the law and policy in the US. Have legislators you own create bogus, chimera laws that look like and call themselves election reform, that are really so full of loopholes that they actually improve the power of corporations while taking away the power of citizens. See US policy for excellent examples.
6- Deregulate the media so a handful of corporate owners control most of the message. Then filter the news so viewers/readers/listeners are turned off to paying attention. Do this by using the same footage over and over again, and numb the viewers' minds with focus on coverage of morally impaired and stupid celebrities, tabloid news- like wierd surgeries, kidnappings, horrific mass murders, strange diseases, detachment of siamese twins... And when you do cover real news, mock the most serious defenders of democracy. Attempt to embarass them, to get viewers and readers to think of them as fools and kooks. Especially, use this mockery approach to sabotage and attack any candidates who are not "with the program" who are surging in polls.
7-Infiltrate alternative media. Hijack comment threads with negative, cynical remarks, or distract commenters from staying on focus. Provoke incivility among regular readers of pro-democracy media.
8-widen class differences. Keep as many people as possible hungry, without health care, worried about where they will get the money to pay for housing, clothing, education, food, medicine.
9- Take advantage of natural disasters to weaken democratic factors-- allow floods, hurricanes, fires to "cleanse" unwanted voters in selected regions. Replace them with high end real estate and corporate assets. Use the disasters as opportunities to spend taxpayer money to reward political allies.
10- Pretend that everything you do is the patriotic support of Democracy, even if it is directly opposed to democracy. Attack the pro-democracy party and organizations as being communist, socialist, fringe, kook, even dangerous to democracy. Depend upon anti-democracy mainstream media ech chamber allies to help pound this message so the fools produced by the dumbed down, "most children left behind" educational system buy these messages. Use talk radio to nail this down. See US education laws and policies for examples. This is already working quite effectively in the US as low international scores indicate.
11- Allow candidates to run repeatedly, without term limits. Eventually, candidates who do not tow the anti-democracy line in all parties will burn out or run out of funding. That will leave, even in the supposed liberal parties, reliable legislators who will keep the anti-democracy program going. Eventually, they will get themselves into key leadership positions, either at the top of the party or just below the top.
Consider Chuck Schumer, Stenny Hoyer, Rahm Emanuel as excellent examples.
12- Build fear into the culture. Say you are fighting terrorism, but engage in international policies that foment and encourage terrorism, helping terrorists to massively expand recruitment and even training of operatives. See Iraq for Islamic terrorists. See the US for anti-abortion Christian terrorists.
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