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Is Democracy dead in America?

By Ibrahim Turner

Some quotes...

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.” - Bertrand Russell
“Democracy is the process by which people choose the man who’ll get the blame.” - Bertrand Russell

“The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.” - Winston Churchill.

From chapter eight

‘In Search of the Miraculous’, by P.D.Ouspensky.

“The two usual, that is, the lowest states of consciousness are first, sleep, in other words a passive state in which man spends a third and very often a half of his life. And second, the state in which men spend the other part of their lives, in which they walk the streets, write books, talk about lofty subjects, take part in politics, kill one another, which they regard as active and call ‘clear consciousness’ or ‘waking state of consciousness.’ The term ‘clear consciousness’ seems to have been given in jest, especially when you realize what clear consciousness ought in reality to be and what the state in which man lives and acts really is. (My emphasis).

Question: do you think that Bush runs America using a democratic system?

Does Putin in Russia?

What about the European leaders like Blair/Brown, Merkel and Sarkozy?

Saudi Arabia? Ahmadinejad and the Mullahs in Iran?

What about communist/capitalist China? Japan or North Korea?

Some define democracy as government by the people, for the people.

Some more questions: Given the popular conception of the Russian revolution, do you think that the imperial Tsar family rule was better than what replaced it, i.e. Stalin and the KGB?

Has there ever been a demonstration of successful socialism anywhere in any part of the world?

Has there ever been a successful democracy in any part of the world, at any time? What would you define as a successful democracy?

Given that people talk about western democracy and especially democratic freedom as being government by the people for the people, why do you think that some people of ‘influence’ are ‘up in arms’ about the socialist revolution gaining support in Venezuela and other countries in South America?

Could it be that the famous ‘they hate us for our freedoms’ is not true?

Surely  Ahmadinejad is a tyrant and so is the ruling elites in Saudi Arabia, North Korea, everywhere you look, there is a pretence of democracy or an out and out tyranny of ‘the people’.

Democracy is a fraud and it is never been seen so obviously as in present day America. People on the Internet openly talk about ‘the lesser of two evils’ vote, ‘the one party’ politics of America, corporate power over the media to ‘advance their agenda’ for the bottom line. Some are even of the opinion that the ‘agenda’ to destroy American democracy is well under way, turning America into a fascist regime, governed by dictatorial powers stealthily passed into law, so that whoever gains the reins of power can continue the race to the bottom, of serfdom and robber barons.

Democracy, when you analyse what it means is at best a fragile thing. Chavez’s referendum on changing things for the betterment of the common people of Venezuela ran into a road block of vested capitalist interests, frightened of losing their comfortable lifestyles, and he lost by a mere 1.5 percent, and 40 percent of eligible voters did not vote. So what does this say about democracy, even though Chavez was generous in defeat, since the vested interests owns all the media outlets and ran a campaign of lies and distortions – so what’s new in that? And what about the responsibility of those who did not go to the poles? What part of ‘democracy’ did they not get? I believe in Australia the law states that you have to vote or be fined. Does that mean democracy is flourishing in Australia or do power elites still control the message and hence the outcome of elections?

The problem with democracy is that it is open to abuse, by socialists or capitalists. There is no democracy free from corruption of one sort or another in the world.

In my navy days there was a saying, ‘I would rather work for a Bas***d, because at least you know where you stand. With a flip flopper, you can wake up one day to a big shock’. Which brings me to the quote above from P.D.Ouspensky who was student of G.I.Gurdjieff.

Since, according to Gurdjieff, people are asleep, what ‘democracy’ can a sleeping people have? Writers on the blogs often complain that there are very few of them who ‘know what’s going on’ and consistently fail to ‘wake up’ the people of America, hoping that some threshold of Bush’s crimes will tip the balance and people will rise up to overthrow the government and install a new democracy.

Would the ‘Shock Doctrine’ of Chicago, take advantage of this chaos on a national scale to implement even more draconian measures a la Stalin, of which New Orleans was only a precursor? When whole populations, as Gurdjieff claims, are asleep, believing everything that they are told to believe, a little chaos, would usher in everything the bloggers are hoping for but should be afraid of.

On the news (EuroNews) currently there is a strike in Italy of truckers (lorry drivers) and there is no petrol to be found in the gas stations, and the supermarket shelves are almost devoid of produce. The veil of civilization is indeed very thin and fragile. How many packets of spaghetti will I buy to ‘stock up’ with since the manufacturers are complaining of an 8 percent rise in the cost of the wheat? Are the shortages of wheat and subsequent price rises due to the fuel for transport being ‘grown’ now instead of being dug up? A small, local example of chaos in the supply chains of food and other commodities - will you fight your neighbour for water or petrol when it gets scarce? One of the reasons not explained in the Main Stream Media is that America is pre-emptively fighting a war for resources in the Middle East, ahead of others who know about Peak Oil coming down the line. You can almost forget about Global Warming as the collapse of petroleum civilization goes into meltdown and the resulting chaos kills millions. Burning fossil fuels to produce electricity will also be curtailed with the loss of cheap transportation fuels. If a few truckers can bring Northern Italy to its knees in a few days, what chance is there for ‘civilization’ to continue as it is, with no means of getting food to the shops? The cities will become wastelands just as you see in the movies after nuclear war, or other catastrophic scenarios.

Question: Why has ‘democracy’ failed in America so spectacularly? Is it that for years the Military/Industrial complex has ruled America, that Eisenhower warned about? Is it the modern day colonialism of the ruling elites, seeking resources and power anywhere they can find it? Just like other colonial powers in recent history? What about Napoleon or Alexander the great? Do you think they did not have advisors and political agendas?

Once you open your eyes, a euphemism for ‘waking up,’ man sees reality as it is.

“The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.” Winston Churchill.

What opinions and information have you been stuffed with? Are you the product of the consumerism age or do you have real independent thoughts? Do you read approvingly articles that tend to agree with your opinion and get outraged at statements and articles that you don’t agree with and even fight on comments blogs with right wing/left wing* bigots? *Choose one. Are you sure that you can see past the outrageous lies and spin to the real motives of the power elites – in every country? If you have strong opinions about Bush and the Neocons outrageous agenda, are you able to convince your friends and families about what you see? Are you prepared for the chaos of the ‘Shock Doctrine’ of Chicago? How will this chaos impact trade worldwide? Will it affect other countries’ ‘democracy’ so that they will collapse as well? What about Russia and China, will their economies collapse or only stagger from the world wide meltdown starting with the banks and financial institutions that we see beginning already? Would the best thing to do, be to get out of the city and go and live in the woods, away from ‘civilization’ growing your own food, a la the 60’s hippies? Who knows?

The bottom line is that democracy is a fraud as practiced, because it is so easy to manipulate a ‘sleeping’ people by people with an agenda, who are also, nevertheless, asleep.

If a whole, conscious, spiritual, person would walk the earth now, and claim to be a ‘returned’ Jesus, someone would shoot him, just like they shot Kennedy and John Lennon, and the fascist, religious right would denounce him and his message as ‘dangerous’ and call for his assassination, just like some have for Chavez, who would probably be the first to admit, that he is not Jesus.

Welcome to the ‘twilight zone – sleep well.

More from Chapter eight…

“For most people, even for educated and thinking people, the chief obstacle in the way of acquiring self-consciousness consists in the fact that they think they possess it, that is, that they possess self-consciousness and everything connected with it; individuality in the sense of permanent and unchanging I, will, ability to do, and so on. It is evident that a man will not be interested if you tell him that he can acquire by long and difficult work something, which in his opinion, he already has. On the contrary he will think either that you are mad or that you want to deceive him with a view to personal gain.

“Let us take some event in the life of humanity. For instance, war. There is a war going on at the present moment.(1916?) What does it signify? It signifies that several million sleeping people are trying to destroy several million other sleeping people. They would not do this, of course, if they were to wake up. Everything that takes place is owing to this sleep.

“How many times have I been asked here whether wars can be stopped? Certainly they can. For this it is only necessary that people should awaken. It seems a small thing. It is, however, the most difficult thing there can be because this sleep is induced and maintained by the whole of surrounding life, by all surrounding conditions.(my emphasis)

“How can one awaken? How can one escape this sleep? These questions are the most important; the most vital that can ever confront a man. But before this it is necessary to be convinced of the very fact of sleep. But it is possible to be convinced of this only by trying to awaken. When a man understands that he does not remember himself and to remember himself means to awaken to some extent, and when at the same time he sees by experience how difficult it is to remember himself, he will understand that he cannot awaken simply by having the desire to do so.

“It is possible to think for a thousand years, it is possible to write whole libraries of books, to create theories by the million, and all this in sleep; without any possibility of awakening. On the contrary, these books and these theories, written and created in sleep, will merely send other people to sleep, and so on.

Authors Bio:
A well traveled and slightly worse for wear 72 year old Englishman; widower, several children and grandchildren and a penchant for wondering 'what is the hidden agenda' in almost everything I read. A keen interest in American culture (an oxymoron?) (JOKE!) and politics and an international world view, except where I haven't got first hand experience of the parts of the world I have not visited. Editor of some books about the Qur'an and Islam. Teacher of English in little known countries like Mauritania, Istanbul, Turkey and Morocco.