Democracy?
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It has all the makings of a soap opera.
Apart from a short intermezzo provided by Mother Nature (who doesn’t give a New
York Subway rat’s arse who wins) in the form of Hurricane Sandy – which
temporarily called Obama away from campaigning to do the job he’s paid an
obscene amount to do as President – it’s been non-stop. No-doubt the Greens
among us will chalk-up a victory as there is no conceivable way the aftermath
of Sandy cannot impact heavily on the outcome of this ‘election’. But is it
really an ‘election’ at all?
So what if it’s happening to/in the country that (if the
scientists are to be believed), via pollution and overconsumption, contributes
the lion’s share to global warming and climate change? It’s undeniably ironic
but while it’s all well and good to sit on the Eastern side of the Atlantic and
judge (not my intention at all), in reality, it’s Americans that need to ask
themselves what choice – in any real terms – has actually been offered to them?
In the aftermath of a devastating natural disaster like Sandy, it’s hard to
think objectively.
While the day-to-day tribulations of individual
New Yorkers might have little effect on a Londoner, Berliner or Muscovite, those
of us outside the USA admittedly have so much interest (obsession?) in the US
elections simply because, as the current global financial crisis has shown us,
we all have so much invested in the USA that if Uncle Sam sneezes, the rest of
the world catches a cold!
So what is the real nature of the
regime all of us have so much invested in? A significant number of erudite US-based
commentators (e.g. the late Gore Vidal) have repeatedly labelled the USA ‘a
dictatorship masquerading as a democracy’. While US citizens might struggle to
get their head around this and brand it ‘anti-American’, in a post 9/11 world, it’s
hard to ignore for anyone not encumbered with the apparently mandatory jingoism
attached to a Stars and Stripes passport.
There is a fast diminishing contingent
of Europeans who still reverently afford the USA long-obsolete credit for ‘liberating
us’ after WWII. Yet I know of far more old (Cispondian) soldiers who died
believing ‘every time we have a war in Europe, the Yanks come late and then
take the credit’.
Then there’s the new generation who
have, at least in most of the western world, enthusiastically embraced the culture of anti-intellectualism
and glorification of mediocrity that has – largely due to a clever piggy-back
on dumbed-down MacDonald’s, Coca Cola ‘rap’ culture – oozed out of US
inner cities and come to dominate youth culture worldwide. Cynics would see
Machiavellian intent. After all, a dumbed-down, inarticulate, monosyllabic
populace is SO easy to bullshit and manipulate, isn’t it?
One would be naïve to discount any
Machiavellian intent at all, however, in all fairness, I’d be more inclined to
put my money on the notion that (rightly or wrongly) the most powerful man in the
world is ‘elected’ by a population that has, in the worst case, intentionally
been kept semi-literate but in the best case, has just (since the 1830s –
remember the Alamo?) been applauded and rewarded for remaining ignorant.
Then, I apply the same yardstick to
European elections and, alas, see far too few differences…
One that I do see from the USA that would be
inconceivable in Europe for a non-violent heckler to be forcibly removed by
police during a Candidate’s speech. Far too (worryingly) reminiscent of Brown Shirts removing hecklers from Hitler’s rallies. Isn’t the right to heckling integral
(essential) to the democratic process?
African elections are much simpler:
Those who vote for the President put their votes in one black box. Those who
don’t vote for the President go into another other black box.
Like humanity, isn’t ‘democracy’ wonderful in its
diversity?
– AMB
