BS: Who Are The D E M O C R A C I E S ?

Subject: BS: Who Are The D E M O C R A C I E S ?
From: robomatic
Date: 25 Mar 21 - 02:30 PM

Consider Tolstoy's statement: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Suppose we substitute the word 'democracies' for 'families'.

While I was thinking over starting this thread , I had on my television President Biden's first official press conference since his taking office. He just made the statement that the big political battle in the world today was the Autocracies versus the Democracies. From my point of view he hit the nail on the head.

I have long been distressed with what I feel is a global attack on Democracy from above and below. Many countries that were working democracies are no longer such.

Moreover, the United States is not functioning particularly well in this regard either. You can check out where we stand on this worlld population review ranking . Neither the US nor the UK make the top ten.

I think many of the 'strong men' who are ostensibly fronting a democratic nation actually do not believe in the concept.

I think many citizens around the world are trending that way as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are The D E M O C R A C I E S ?
From: Donuel
Date: 25 Mar 21 - 03:05 PM

The autocratic trappings are guns, cameras and mistrust. Sounds like the US to me. There are of course other differences.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are The D E M O C R A C I E S ?
From: Rain Dog
Date: 25 Mar 21 - 03:35 PM

Are they the deaf?

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are The D E M O C R A C I E S ?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Mar 21 - 07:07 PM

We have a government that has told us that we MUST stay at home. That we MUST self-isolate. That we MUST NOT meets friends and families. That we MUST NOT go into anyone else's house. That we MUST NOT travel outside our local area. That we need one of the excuses that THEY'VE decided on to get round these things.

A government that lied in its teeth to us before brexit and which illegally shut down Parliament, a government that wants to take on increased powers to restrict the right to protest. A government that wants to bring in incredibly inhumane laws in order that we don't have to carry out our humanitarian duties with regard to refugees, and which is slashing our foreign aid budget.

The trouble with all this is that it's become apparent that this government has developed a taste for this level of control over us, and that's illegitimate. We are moving closer to a far more autocratic level of governance, and we have utterly the wrong man at the helm just now. I believe that democracy is in retreat in many parts of the world, and that the trend is getting uncomfortably close to home for us in the UK.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are The D E M O C R A C I E S ?
From: robomatic
Date: 25 Mar 21 - 08:39 PM

Well, to quote House, "Everybody lies". Most democracies will stop short of shooting you for not following the shalt and shalt nots. Because of, you know, habeas corpus and such.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are The D E M O C R A C I E S ?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Mar 21 - 09:12 PM

Everybody lies, but Johnson and his crew lied their way into making us vote for brexit and lied their way into our electing them in 2019. Of course, all the other lots lied too, but the most effective liar won the day. It's when you realise what an effective liar you are that you become inclined to lie all the more. When you're in charge, and you realise that you're an effective liar, you will keep on lying. All charismatic leaders stay right where they are via their lies to the people. And that's a good step along the road to autocracy. Plenty of examples in history show us that.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are The D E M O C R A C I E S ?
From: Donuel
Date: 25 Mar 21 - 09:38 PM

The wait and see game and the resistence to lockdown is why isolation did not work for the west but did for smaller countries.

Georgia today made it legal for the govenor to over turn elections. When the bill was being signed, a black legislater wanted to witness the signing and knocked on the door but was promptly arressted for legislating while black and disrupting assembly business.
Putin would be proud of our Georgia.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are The D E M O C R A C I E S ?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Mar 21 - 05:45 PM

Georgia state troopers arrested a black state elected representative who had the nerve to knock on the governor's door while he did a signing of that bill with white men witnessing all behind closed doors in front of a painting of a slave-owning plantation. That was bad enough, but they said the state rep kicked the officers and she was charged with two felonies. The video shows no abuse except the officers arresting an elected official who simply knocked on a door in a public building.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are The D E M O C R A C I E S ?
From: Rain Dog
Date: 27 Mar 21 - 07:14 AM

Not just the government though is it?

Here in the UK the Covid Bill was extended for another 6 months by 484 votes to 76.

We are indeed living in strange and interesting times.

I will be interested in knowing how many of the covid fines end up getting paid.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are The D E M O C R A C I E S ?
From: robomatic
Date: 27 Mar 21 - 09:30 AM

I think that the prevalence of 'rule by lies' is better characterized as 'rule by fear' in that the lies that work are lies that emphasize 'them versus us' and involve conspiracy theories. They persist because what is flashy and scary gets into our brains in a way that what is logical, makes sense, or seems most probable, are, for want of a better word, boring.

Bad news is stuff we can talk about and propose alternaives on and then vote to take action about. Scary news is stuff that makes it harder to distinguish and prioritize facts and makes us choose poor alternatives at the behest of overbearing leaders posing as saviors.

Two days ago I watched President Biden's first in office press conference. He had some significant pauses and he wandered a bit, but for my money he remained focused and actually answered questions from a free press corp. But check the FOX opinionators and their chorus of followers and he is being denigrated next to Trmp, who rarely answered questions correctly or without abusing those who were persistent or called him to account.

It is likely that there are those who have made a study on how to manipulate people via information, and are both applying and experimenting with the principles they are developing. I think it is most closely related to what used to be called 'propaganda' and what in the west is called 'marketing'.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are The D E M O C R A C I E S ?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Mar 21 - 09:34 AM

"...the lies that work are lies that emphasize 'them versus us'..."

As George Orwell presciently expressed it in "1984".

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are The D E M O C R A C I E S ?
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Mar 21 - 10:27 AM

The FBI building downtown has 20 foot tall ornate antique metal doors with a 50 lb ring shaped knocker on each door. I was of course curious about what sound they would make so as I took hold of one of those knockers I was warned by an FBI agent/guard of my immediate arrest if I 'knocked'. I was too chicken to knock nor was I an elected official or black. :^o

I prefer a government wary of its citizens than citizens afraid of its government. The pendulum swings right and left between both extremes. Desperate Republicans in Georgia and other states will do desperate things but the arc of the pendulum is going left so their stupid efforts will not reverse the 'pendulun' at this stage.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are The D E M O C R A C I E S ?
From: meself
Date: 27 Mar 21 - 11:26 AM

When has the pendulum ever swung to the extreme left in the US? Your pendulum is weighted to swing much further to the right - should get that looked at.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are The D E M O C R A C I E S ?
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Mar 21 - 03:06 PM

The existing infrastructure and art in America owes a debt to FDR.
His better half may be respondisible for his better accomplishments.
Anyone can list anti left actions and inactions that were not extreme left but he was still a good guy.
The CCC did good long lasting work.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are The D E M O C R A C I E S ?
From: robomatic
Date: 27 Mar 21 - 06:59 PM

The pendulum was to the left in the 60s and 70s: Kennedy, Johnson, the Great Society, Even Nixon founded the EPA.

The language of abuse was directed to the right as it now is to the left, although I personally do not recall it being as partisan as today. But when you think of what a partisan issue the War in Vietnam was, I am probably wrong. There were major demonstrations in the United States and across the Western World. There were assassinations and instead of the neo Nazis of today we had the Baader Meinhof gang and the Red Army Faction. Mass shootings in airports, air hijackings, free trips to Cuba, etc.

I think the pendulum swing is a real phenomenon but I don't think it is related to the attack on Democracy world-wide. I think that is a multiple phenomena composed of people who believe in power and expediency and many many people who cannot be bothered.

The present Tokyo drift to the right was, I believe, founded by such as Reagan and Pat Buchanon and Newt Gingrich and their well-known radio and later internet rabble rousers and the internet's effect on perception of reality, particularly the inability of many of us to parse meaning and truth out of information.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are The D E M O C R A C I E S ?
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Mar 21 - 06:27 AM

Spot on. I regret the age of mass assasination by the desperate right (Martin Bobby and John). That did eliminate an entire swing of the pendulum cycle.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are The D E M O C R A C I E S ?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 30 Mar 21 - 06:53 AM

Your pendulum never got past middle-bottom in its attempt to go left, even in those sixties. Not as seen from here it didn't.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are The D E M O C R A C I E S ?
From: robomatic
Date: 30 Mar 21 - 08:47 AM

Must be the parallax.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are The D E M O C R A C I E S ?
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Mar 21 - 01:16 PM

Perhaps I'll post my entire thought about psychological political science and the epistomology of beliefs in Democracies but it may take some time. My wife can type at 200 words a minute but I am doing good at 20.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are The D E M O C R A C I E S ?
From: Donuel
Date: 31 Mar 21 - 07:54 AM

Real world consequences from psychological and Neuroology factors in Democracies. Great academic presentation

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are The D E M O C R A C I E S ?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Apr 21 - 11:12 AM

When it comes to extreme left and write, so far as the USA is concerned I'd class your political pendulum as swinging between slightly right of centre and relatively extreme right.

In the UK I'd put it as slightly left of centre and slightly less extreme.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are The D E M O C R A C I E S ?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Apr 21 - 12:05 PM

Kevin, I would reverse that view from here - just because the US conservative clowns make a lot of noise doesn't mean the majority votes that way. Our numbers will be easier to confirm once all of the minority party (but majority in a few state legislatures, thanks to gerrymandering) are forced to stop that kind of biased map drawing for legislative districts. Keep your eye on the US filibuster.

The UK, on the other hand, what with voting to leave the EU, sounds like the BNP really had a field day with the population.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are The D E M O C R A C I E S ?
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Apr 21 - 12:27 PM

80 years of crumbling infrastructure in the US can not be tolerated any longer. By ignoring it we have given advantage/wealth to the rich and those who grab a near criminal advantage, at the expense of feeding the resr of us with lead in our water to unsafe roads and bridges. The conservtive think tanks have devised trickery that can not be tolerated that leads to an immense loss of life. UNLESS the object is to control the population and lose half our citizens, then the conservative strategy has long range wisdom. I believe that conservtism is really about short term theiving advantage.
Our job is to make last century conservatism and enviornmental violence so small that we can drown it in a bathtub.

500 year old conservatism saw people who really believed that they were doing moral good by burning witches, it must be good "everyone else is doing it". Afterall if it wern't for those broom riding bitches we would not have this pandemic, drought and floods.

Conservatism and the anti science trickery of religion go hand in hand for real reasons. The psychological benefits from religion can join with science in real and benificial ways. But we have aa way to go.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are The D E M O C R A C I E S ?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Apr 21 - 07:51 PM

Stilly River - " I would reverse that view from here".

So you'd class Donald Trump as "slightly right of centre" and Roosevelt as "extreme left"? Interesting.

As for the UK I think it is highly unlikely that the Brexit vote would have ended with that result if it hadn't included a fair chunk of people who saw EU membership as a brake on socialist policies.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are The D E M O C R A C I E S ?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Apr 21 - 08:25 PM

What Kevin said is precisely what I thought. If we take Margaret Thatcher as a yardstick, who many Brits regard as being pretty right-wing, I can't think of a single US administration, with the possible (and only possible) exception of Jimmy Carter's, that I would regard as to the left of Thatcher, and most of them are a long way to the right of her. Even JFK. Don't tempt me to get started on that warmongering charlatan...

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are The D E M O C R A C I E S ?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Apr 21 - 08:50 PM

Not the view of Trump, but the view we are presented of the UK through news reports.