The War on Democracy -- Can We Fight It?

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I ask you, what can we do about these horrors? How can we respond to what our nation, our leaders have done in Guatemala, in Chile, what we did in Iraq and what we will soon do in Iran? In the entire War on Democracy?

I answer – I ask you and myself, and hope your answer is better than mine. We can do nothing so definitive as we should be able to. There is no revolution that can succeed. Any effort within the system is either minimal and illusory, like the difference between Democrats and Republicans, or is put into the wings, branded too mad or too weak, like Ron Paul and Ralph Nader. Any outside the system is either quelled before it can begin, quietly or violently, or is taken and moved to within the system before it can change anything. The Tea Party is a lie.

No, revolution is now impossible. The world is too well regulated to permit actual, important change. A Democratic administration is no better than a Republican one. We may prefer it for its social progress, which is something they do actually aim to do, at least for their image. But its other progresses are purely illusory. If you want any other sort of change, genuine change on a n economic, international, militaristic, class-based scale, not simply equalizing the races/sexes/sexualities and so forth? The Democrats only tell bigger lies than the Republicans. The Republicans are actually better liars, because they tell some of the truth.

No proper change can occur. So what can we do? We can only rebel individually. Speaking out loudly will soon not even be an option, and actually fighting already is not. To organize would be to condemn ourselves to revolution, which that famous cloudy They, who are not a shadow government or any of the other standard things, would condemn in turn.

This is not an active conspiracy. There are no world leaders meeting in smoky rooms and declaring “this is what we shall do.” They are just acting as they always have. They are the new imperialists. The conspiracy is not the new world order, it is not the Illuminati, and the freemasons are only there the way members of any fraternity are. This is only the way this political age of the world works.

Liberty is lost, but we still retain our freedom. We are allowed to disagree, so long as we do it quietly and without breaking anything. It seems to me that Joe Stack surely realized this, understood it, and could not accept it. So he chose to become a monster. But if we want to live, and remain human, if we want to have a chance at building a truly better world someday, we must accept it. We must limit ourselves, if we are lucky, to treatises and novels, do discussions, and if we are very lucky, to support groups. If we are not lucky at all, we will have to limit ourselves to thought, to sketching half-fish in the dust to know each other, and sympathise with each other and do no more than this, to shake our heads sadly for those who cannot control themselves until the time of the monsters has passed.

We will be remembered as the silent ones, rather than as the dead ones.

We must take the only option available to us: Not to submit, but not to broadcast our refusal to submit.

I hope someone has a better idea than this. But knowing what I do about the world, it seems the only way.


(I may have put this in the wrong forum. I tried my best to pick the one where it fit, though.)

No, revolution is now impossible. The world is too well regulated to permit actual, important change.

This is one of the most erudite comments ever posted on ATS, I think.

And you're correct there is no conscious ideation of "conspiracy" or - as you say - no "active conspiracy." Everything is now moving like clockwork, there are no smoke filled rooms; the people who wound the clock passed on long ago.

People need to learn to live in the world that has been created for them. Resistance is not an option and will cause only individualized cases of mental torment and anguish.

If you're being raped, and have no chance to flee, why not lay back and enjoy it?

There is a book, translated a few years ago from the original Italian, written in 1961 that lays out the correct mindset to which the enlightened individual will retreat during this age of decline. The title isn't worth mentioning as the contents will be lost on many of the message board heroes here.

reply to post by zenser


I am interested in reading this book. What is the title?

Originally posted by Solasis
reply to post by zenser

 

I am interested in reading this book. What is the title?

Ride the Tiger by the Baron Julius Evola

Regrettably Evola's words have mostly been co-opted, warped and appropriated by neo-Nazis, white supremacists and the anti-Semetic so trying to read any contemporary or second-hand sources on Evola is a futile exercise; only his original writing is of any use at all.

Further, you'll probably be offended if you are unwavering in your support of the notion of popular democracy and unwilling to consider the possible legitimacy of divine authoritarianism.

I have a question for the OP do you think America was founded with a democratic viewpoint? And do you believe in the constitution?

[edit on 28-2-2010 by Subjective Truth]

reply to post by Subjective Truth


The U.S. was founded with a semi-democratic viewpoint. It was more republican (as in, representative of the public) than democratic, but it was (save a few major flaws, such as the 3/5ths rule and the neglect of non-land-owners and so forth which were all fixed in the document's lifetime) a fair republic. I believe in the constitution in that I hold to most of its ideals, but I am uncertain as to whether the nation was ever properly run by the constitution. I think it probably was, and certainly is on the face of things now, but in actuality the document has been subverted and such.

Thank you Zenser for the link and the quick defense of your man against those who have co-opted him; had I looked into him elsewhere, I probably would have dismissed him out of hand, and since I reject anything as "divine" I suspect I will reject him in the end too, but I will look into his book, since I've not heard of him before.

reply to post by Solasis


I know I'm going to be the bad guy on this one but our republican system of government was the fundamental flaw and the road to eventual decline of the U.S. Republics are simply not tenable in the long run.

When Col. Newburgh was attempting to convince George Washington to declare himself King of America, he correctly wrote:

I own I am not that violent an admirer of a republican form of government that numbers in this country are; this is not owing to caprice, but reason and experience. Let us consider the fate of all the modern republics of any note, without running into antiquity. The republics of later days, worth our notice, may be reduced to three: Venice, Genoa and Holland. These have, each in their turns, shone with great brightness, but their luster has been of short duration, and as it were only a blaze.



[edit on 28-2-2010 by zenser]

Plato, speaking through Socrates, tells us that while democratic societies make for the best standard of living, they collapse into third world economies dominated by invisible and greedy oligarchs; the cosmopolitan rich ruling over masses of stupid, tractable grey cultureless peons. A tour of failed democracies reveals this to be accurate. So why oppose democracy, when it brings us a good standard of living?

The first recognition is that democracy is not the only system that brings about such a standard of living. Any organized society which does not act according to a principle of hyper-equality, or not rewarding those who are more competent with a better material standard of living, will achieve a quality of life unless its leaders become corrupt. Democracy initially offers this option, but it nurtures corruption in its leaders by the psychological symbolism and pressures it exerts on the population.

Democracy encourages a shallow individualism based on material self-interest. Since the system as a whole is not steered toward any rational direction by its reliance on the popularity of ideas and not their accuracy, individuals practice shrugging and doing what they can to make their own lot in life better. The problem with this is that often individual self-interest conflicts with the needs of the whole, or with what would be an intelligent course of action, so democracies are rife with "socialized costs" or acts that in enriching individuals create costs or wasted time for the rest. In a democracy, every action or object has a price tag on it because it is necessary or will be necessary for someone's material self-interest. Democracies tend to invent capitalism of the most unregulated kind for this reason, because individual self-interest likes the idea of no confining rules interrupting the pursuit of wealth and a comfortable (although insignificant, psychologically) lifestyle. For this reason, democracies "work" when populations are small, but populations inevitably expand, bringing with them the modern lament "I'm surrounded by morons" as simplistic people succeed and breed out legions of new simplistic people. The individualism of democracy results in the comfortable standard of living mentioned by Plato, but this comfortable standard of living is not assigned to the best, but to the mass, and so the undifferentiated masses grow while competent people are beaten down for being out of step.

Democracy creates a morality of parasitism: since it is founded on the idea that each individual is free to pursue self-interest, any action that denies any person self-interest is "bad," even if that action results in much higher socialized costs. This means that parasitic people cannot be checked from doing destructive things because as long as their actions are passive, or in self-interest but not violating visible taboos of murder or rape, these actions are accepted. Democracies cannot curb large corporations from their abuses because democracy encourages such abuses on a psychological level, and this tendency is intensified by growing frustration with democracy. As a result, democracies are stuffed with wealthy parasites whose descendents lack any of the abilities that made the parasites succeed, furthering the degeneration of population into insignificance.

Finally, democracy creates a schizoid dualism between public perception and reality that engenders a covert, tacit and non-conspiratorial system of oligarchy. When power is achieved by convincing the voters that something is good, those with printing presses or television stations rule the society, but are best served by not taking power themselves. Instead, they support those who benefit their self-interest, regardless of the cost to society as a whole (socialized cost), and through legal forms like lobbying, donations, and supportive media portrayals they get these candidates into office. Eventually, the system of oligarchy becomes so entrenched that political candidates solicit various oligarchs for approval in order to get into office, and then are beholden to them in decisions they make. For this reason, democracies generate a massive amount of debate over trivial issues -- abortion, gay marriage, drug legalization and banning hip-hop music -- while ignoring the deeply-seated problems from whose atmosphere of lawlessness oligarchs benefit. Oligarchs usually do not act outside the law, although their legal and passive actions result in higher costs for us all.

Democracies are slow to react to anything but blatant crisis and allow internal decay to overcome them. When popularity of ideas becomes more important than how realistic or intelligent they are, illusion and denial are sure to follow. Popularity is the opposite of logicality: most people prefer pleasant illusions to the more difficult truths, as well as preferring immediate reward to long-term betterment.

America is a Republic. The founding fathers warned against a Democracy in the following quotes..


Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Papers: We are a Republican Government, Real liberty is never found in despotism or in the extremes of democracy...it has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.

John Adams: Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.

Thomas Jefferson: A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51% of the people may take away the rights of the other 49%.

James Madison: Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death.

John Quincy Adams: The experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived.

The principles that America was founded upon never meant for us to establish or fight for Democracy. Here is the definition of both.

Democracy: a government of the masses. Authority derived thru mass meeting or any other form of direct expression. Results in Mobacracy. Attitude toward property is communist - negating property rights. Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it be based upon deliberation or governed by passion. prejudice and impulse without restraint or regard to consequences. Results in demogogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy.

Republic: Authority is derived thru the election by the people of public officials best fitted to represent them. Attitude toward law is the administration of justice in accord with fixed principles and established evidence, with a strict regard to consequences. A greater number of citizens and extent of territory may be brought within its compass. Avoids the dangerous extreme of either tyranny or mobacracy. Results in statesmanship, liberty, reason, justice, contentment and progress. Is the standard form of government throughout the world.

reply to post by kennylee


With all due respect, these are poor and non-academic definitions, though - admittedly - they've recently been popularized in the United States and now hold the mantle of an accepted fiction on message boards and talk radio.

A monarchy is a state in which the transfer of executive power is either hereditary, or, non-hereditary but limited to members of an ennobled class, such as the Uradel, etc.

A republic is any form of state other than a monarchy.

Democracy doesn't describe a state at all but the method used to impose control and that may be present, to varying degrees - some limited, some unlimited - in either a monarchy or a republic.

- The United States is a democratic republic.
- Rome was an aristocratic republic.
- Vietnam is a socialist republic.
- The United Kingdom is a democratic (colloquially "constitutional") monarchy.
- Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy.


[edit on 28-2-2010 by zenser]

reply to post by Solasis


I think you may be looking into what the founders had in mind wrong. You say they wanted a semi-democratic system you are wrong. The knew democracy is flawed that is why we have a republic ruled by law.

reply to post by Subjective Truth


All states that aren't monarchies are republics.

"Democracy" is not a state descriptor, it's a control descriptor.

reply to post by Subjective Truth


You may be right, but I think more that I just expressed myself wrongly Their ideas of a republic contain all the most important parts of the free and fair society that I was thinking of when I said "Democracy" without thinking of its actual meaning. Thank you very much for your correction of me!

The fight for democracy and a true Constitutional republic ended in 1913. So the short answer is NO! As long as you have a monetary system that allows private banks and private interests to control our money supply we will always be under controll of banks and corporations. The government that is supposed to be run by the people for the people will and is run by the banks and for the banks. This is why we have a national debt and this is why we will always be in debt to the bankers. I mean Americans need to pull their head out of their arse.......Jefferson was warning about banks way before the creation of the Fed. America never won the real revolutionary war. The banks did.

Give me control of a nation's money supply and I care not who makes its laws!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Come on people.......look at just about every person in government right now. They are throw backs to these banks...and financial institutions. America was bought and paid for 100 years ago and the good men and patriot heroes championing against this monied take over are all long gone and dead. Jefferson, Jackson, Lindbergh,!!!!!!!!!!! Ron Paul is part right about ending the fed. But having a gold backed currency is not correct.

We need to Constitutionalize the power to create money in the US. Put it under the power of the people. END THE FED! Money is simply a form of abstract law...........and America is a nation of laws. We are enslaved by a private banks and it has to stop.

We LOST the Revolutionary war!

The idea of producing money independent of the powerful Usurers, and Fractional Reserve Bankers, is nothing new.

Back in the 1700's the American Colonies were doing rather better than was expected for a backwoods land. No one paid income tax, yet prices remained stable with no inflation. There was not a single unemployed man, no poor and no vagabonds. When Benjamin Franklin was asked how he could account for all this new found prosperity he replied:

"That is simple. In the Colonies we issue our own money. It is called Colonial Script. We issue it in proper proportion to the demands of trade and industry to make the products pass easily from the producers to the consumers.

In this manner, creating for ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power, and we have no interest to pay to no one."

Breaking all the modern conventions of economics, the Colonies continued to prosper producing their own unbacked interest free money, until the production of Colonial Script was made illegal by the Currency Act of 1764. 1

This was an act pressed into law by the Bank of England fearing the production of Colonial Script would put them out of business.

This act forced the Colonies to pay taxes in the form of gold and silver to the British Central Bank and, as a result, the Colonies effectively handed back control of their economy to old world interests who, for the most part, would never see the new world as anything more than an entry on a balance sheet.

The effect of losing the Colonial Script on the Colonies was disastrous, bringing a rapid end to their prosperity as economic depression set in.


1. The Currency Act of 1764, British Parliament - 1764