This is a reprint from an old post that I think readers of this blog might find interesting.
Whatever the merits of democracy, I’m more curious about its evangelical preachers.
Democracy is a vague term, like “Christendom”, “Islamic World”, or “the West”. Besides the democratic banner, the political landscapes of the USA, Afghanistan, Iraq, Japan, India. . . don’t share many common features. In the end, I suspect Democracy could be fantastic for some, at some point in time, and disastrous for others, under different circumstances. Any system, like its human inventors, would age, turn insufferable, then die one day. Some reincarnate, others don’t.
The brute force and passion with which democracies export their faith is bewildering, reminiscent of colonial missionaries. Is the missionary complex simply a hangover from the religious past? Could there be an element of altruism in their uncontrollable urge to share a great social discovery with the rest of humanity? But. . . come on, these are ruthless invaders, operators of 21st Century torture camps and lynching drones so. . .
What about more pragmatic motives such as security? If everyone adopted the same social values, some say earnestly, there’ll be no more conflicts. Universal peace man. However, Nazi Germany was democratic and Christian, just like the allies. History is full of similar examples.
It seems to me the only “party” with a material interest in globalising Democracy is the money powers that rule the “West” behind the scene. Opportunistic politicians and the noble free press are merely executives and marketing managers that can be bought and sold, hired and fired. Occasionally, they even get bumped off. The poor and unemployed, brainwashed and patriotic, are cannon fodder, as usual.
When an “undemocratic” regime has lost popular support, it risks revolt. China, portrayed as politically “conservative and backward” by the Democratic missionaries, has seen a few dozen dynasties in just as many centuries, making it rather revolutionary if one goes by track record rather than “Western” opinion columns. Just in the past few years, it has made a lot more substantial changes than Obama, who, ha! campaigned to change.
On the other hand, in a matured democracy, the true powers that be have been consolidating for generations, while politicians bicker over trivialities and vain principles. By now, whoever wins the election ends up working for the invisible emperor. There is no option in practice. An elected individual, sitting in his monumental office, is pitifully impotent in front of the mega powers with a death grip on money, economy, natural resources, education, mass media, military industry. . . everything. Imagine, the American people don’t even control their country’s currency. Congress can’t audit the Federal Reserve — don’t dare to mention it in fact. Need one say more?
In a sophisticated network of Mafia politics, a politician with integrity won’t get past the municipal level. Even if he did by miracle, he won’t have the financial means to run for presidency. And even if he did, so what? Any fundamental change in a vastly complex system like the US would take consistent long-term commitment and painful compromises by all the President’s Bosses, not something that can be achieved in four years minus campaign time and endless politicking.
A matured democracy seems to me a boisterous dead-end (perhaps with the exception of some culturally homogeneous countries with a small population). It’s impervious to change, except in theory. Sure, stand up and be counted. You’re one in a hundred million. People Power! But once power has been divided into meaningless fragments, distributed among the masses in the form of ballots, people can only fight each other rather than the invisible Emperor — the guy sniggering backstage. Fed up with the Democrats, vote Republican. No good? Oh dear, do the opposite next time. Still the same? Hmm…
Revolution is nearly impossible. Who could the angry masses behead? There’s the Rule of Law too you know, designed by lobbyists, stamped by elected representatives, backed by guns. So, people, the only option is to wait — wait for the next promise of change, and exercise your sacred democratic rights.
Change is just another empty slogan in democratic reality. But slogans are important in keeping the masses stupefied. Democracy is now a belief, succeeding Christianity.
If the entire world gets sucked into the democratic black-hole, the hidden Emperor may dream of effectively ruling it with fake money, on everlasting terms. Could this be the reason why they spread the Good News of Democracy with such uncanny fervour, often through the unwitting arms of poor American crusaders?
(Originally posted in www.guo-du.blogspot.com in Feb 2011)
Allen says
Theoretically the idea that democracies are peaceful is pure b.s. It comes from the notion that people don’t want war, know it’s not in their interests to have wars, and that the only reason wars have existed is because societies are hijacked by a powerful few who start wars.
But the truth is that all wars – for them to be effective instead of be just stillborn – requires the support of the populace. All major wars are carried out with the support of the people. So democracy per se would not have changed the trajectory of any of these wars…
AS for evidence, let’s do a thought experiment: do people really think that Germans did not want a war in WWII with the end WWI ended? Do people really think that Japan – had it been democratic in early 20th century – would not have invaded Korea and then China and rest of Asia given its technological and military superiority? Do people really think that Israel today is at peace? Hasn’t the U.S. been causing wars (low-grade wars, you might say, but that’s because of it’s overwhelming dominance today) throughout the world today?
Also – this idea that the West has been / is democratic needs to be examined. Was France and U.K. democratic before losing their colonies? I’d say no. Just like the U.S. was not democratic when only land owners could vote, so too are these nations not democratic when only Frenchmen or British subjects could vote, but not the vast number of people in the colonies.
Similarly, the U.S. doesn’t become a democracy after blacks are given the right to vote (in reality, that didn’t come to pass till maybe 1960s – ask the people in Ferguson…), women are given the right to vote in 1920 (Chinese were not even given the right to be U.S. citizens till WWII, and not permitted to marry white until Supreme Court said that was unconstitutional in Loving v. Virginia in 1967). When most of the land the U.S. possesses are on stolen land, of people exterminated, the U.S. look more like colonial France and U.K. than anything else.
People talk about the U.S. a beacon of freedom, but which people? Europeans are welcomed to immigrate to populate land of Native Americans, to drive them out, to exterminate them … and through the process, to enable most lasting political control over these lands. Sure they were “free” to do all that … but is that democracy … to kill one group of people within your borders and replace it with another group? Remember that cry “no taxes without representation”? If the U.S. even just permitted white landowners slaughtering white laborers and slaves, the U.S. wouldn’t be considered a democracy … but it’s considered one when one ethnic group is permitted to slaughter another … especially one that has lived on the land for thousands of years?
Even today, the U.s. is more like U.K. and France of the colonial era. The U.S. doesn’t possess colonies per se, but through military coercion around the world, has created a world order that serves American interests at the expense of so many others’ interests (why do you think so many hate America around the world? Are they all mad and uncivilized? This is like the former colonial powers talking about how the rest of the world is so uncivilized…). When the U.S. cannot be what it is without imposing on the rest of the world, without leaching from the rest of the world, is the U.S. really a democracy? A democracy is about projecting power only over those who projects power of it. In the case of the U.S., it has always exerted power over many who are directly oppressed by it, who cannot ever project any power back – be it within its borders (e.g. native Americans) or without (most of the rest of the world today). The verdict may still be out. We’ll let future historians decide.
Of course, even if we just focus on what are “citizens” of the U.S., it’s not clear the U.S. is a democracy, as this recent study titled “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens” shows.
Guo Du says
@Allen
“Democracy” is just a propaganda banner. It goes hand in hand with the universal looting rights of a few American families though. With “Democracy” and capitalism installed the the untouchable holy dual, politics can be fully controlled by those who can print money out of thin air. I’ll post another piece “Why fight currency wars” here later.