*#Sad_things_about #DEMOCRACY*
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In the old days, public opinion could be mobilised over issues such as nuclear disarmament. But not any longer. Twitter has lent legitimacy to populism of the irresponsible type. New media that spreads populism is loyal only to its profit motive.
It is strange that democracy can offer such contrasting scenarios. That anomaly must have been one reason for Winston churchill's remark that "democracy is the worst form of Government, except for all the others that have been tried". A generation after Churchill, even backhandled compliments seem out of place. The ground has been shifting unnoticed by the general public, but recorded by vigilant scholars.
Two books with remarkably similar titles paint a picture of democracy that should make us sad. How democracy ends by David Runciman, who teaches politics at Cambridge University and How Democracies Die, co-authored by two Harvard professors Stephen Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, came out last year.
A possible tactic, he elaborates, is strategic election manipulation. That is, unseen powers will avoid outright tampering of elections, but will use just enough manipulation to get the results they want. Does this sound like a report on Indian elections 2019?
The Harvard professors move along similar lines of analysis and argument as they watch the dying of democracies. They show how democracy can be subverted even if those who do it are elected leaders and they are using majority decisions of Parliament; it happened in Hungary, Turkey, Poland, Sri Lanka, Philippines. (Our finance minister pushing through some self-serving laws as "money bills" when they were not money bills. But then, he is not an elected leader, so why not?
However, the professors share American notion that socialism and Stalinist communism are synonyms, indicating the end of the world. They picture Salvador Allende as an autocrat under whom Chile saw an "erosion of Democratic norms" which finally led to the "military seizing power" and ruling the country for 17 years. How easily they skip such as Allende's attempt to introduce socialism in child Chile. Nixon's America going berserk over "communism's attempt to conquer South America, Henry Kissinger arranging a coup that killed Allende and Chile going under the dictatorship of one of the cruellest autocrats of the 20th century, Augusto Pinochet. Well, the danger of socialism was avoided.
*Moral: Down with moral, up with money.*
-TJS George
#KSRPostings
28-05-2020
It is strange that democracy can offer such contrasting scenarios. That anomaly must have been one reason for Winston churchill's remark that "democracy is the worst form of Government, except for all the others that have been tried". A generation after Churchill, even backhandled compliments seem out of place. The ground has been shifting unnoticed by the general public, but recorded by vigilant scholars.
Two books with remarkably similar titles paint a picture of democracy that should make us sad. How democracy ends by David Runciman, who teaches politics at Cambridge University and How Democracies Die, co-authored by two Harvard professors Stephen Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, came out last year.
A possible tactic, he elaborates, is strategic election manipulation. That is, unseen powers will avoid outright tampering of elections, but will use just enough manipulation to get the results they want. Does this sound like a report on Indian elections 2019?
The Harvard professors move along similar lines of analysis and argument as they watch the dying of democracies. They show how democracy can be subverted even if those who do it are elected leaders and they are using majority decisions of Parliament; it happened in Hungary, Turkey, Poland, Sri Lanka, Philippines. (Our finance minister pushing through some self-serving laws as "money bills" when they were not money bills. But then, he is not an elected leader, so why not?
However, the professors share American notion that socialism and Stalinist communism are synonyms, indicating the end of the world. They picture Salvador Allende as an autocrat under whom Chile saw an "erosion of Democratic norms" which finally led to the "military seizing power" and ruling the country for 17 years. How easily they skip such as Allende's attempt to introduce socialism in child Chile. Nixon's America going berserk over "communism's attempt to conquer South America, Henry Kissinger arranging a coup that killed Allende and Chile going under the dictatorship of one of the cruellest autocrats of the 20th century, Augusto Pinochet. Well, the danger of socialism was avoided.
*Moral: Down with moral, up with money.*
-TJS George
#KSRPostings
28-05-2020
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