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Originally Posted by nhvoter
So basically it's not 'being involved in the political process' unless people decide to get on one side of the line or another which has been drawn by O'Reilly on one and Michael Moore on the other? What about people who don't think it's as simple as left and right? You clearly haven't heard of the 'silent majority.' The people who end up deciding who wins in elections aren't the extremists, sure the right and the left division exists but at the end of the day they need to win the support of cooler heads than theirs. Unfortunately, it seems that you have this arrogant view that these 'cooler heads' are just ignorant shoppers. Please go outside. edit...wow man, you've been here for almost over 3 years now with 9,000 posts and it's somehow the rest of society which is insular.
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Im looking for the MLKs or the Ghandi's, or the Emily Murphy's. Apparently you think these people are extremists. And that the issues they fought for were just simple left and right issues. Your silent majority is uninformed, dispassionate, and the constant subject of advertising and cheap photo-ops and soundbytes from politicians and corporations who have become masters at deception and fraud.
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And you come to this conclusion based on what? For god's sake, don't talk to anyone else about 'inaction,' we're talking through an internet forum which can't seriously be labelled 'participation' even by your standards. If this is 'participation' well I guess China must be a democracy.
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I come to this conclusion based on observation, experience, polls, voting stats, and just plain old reality. Actually i do think that the internet is a revolutionary forum for political action and information. If anybody paid attention to the the efforts of corporations and governments to limit and control the internet
(essentially to stop it from being a force for fundamental political change, and make it a force mainly for consumption of entertainment and products) we could preserve the unique potential of the internet for a truly democratic movement.
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Consumerism drives economic growth, we live in a capitalist society, what's your point? You seem to think that the existence of this automatically means that because people have to worry about their personal finances that they are insular and don't care about shit. Seriously, maybe when you grow older and have to work and pay your own bills you might realize why not everybody can spend all day on a computer and talk about the news item that popped up 3 minutes ago.
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wow, whats with the cheap personal attacks. My point, apparently i have to spell it out for you, is that we have completely saturated our animal instincts, dumbed ourselves down, and so we don't have either the motivation or the desire to enact change via political movements. You know, the kind of movements that brought us democracy in the first place, that expanded human rights to people of color and the female gender. The one that you dismiss as the acts of extremists and simple minded left/right thinking.
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So? People loved George Washington during the war but when he was president, the people didn't trust him then and called him a traitor over the Jay Treaty. Distrust of politicians is NOT by any means evidence of a failing democracy, it's evidence of a skeptical democracy and skepticism is a feature of that.
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Its evidence of cynicism, indifference, and procrastination. And i never said democracy is failing (although it may be in economically and industrially developed societies). Im more concerned that democracy in our culture is stagnant.
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Bush-Clinton-Bush, who cares? You act like this is a requirement to run for president. And the process isn't 'limited to the elite' either. In the last 4 elections, the poorer candidate won 3 of them. Ross Perot was rich as hell and lost. Huckabee is the poorest Republican and he's #1 in Iowa right now. I think the cynicism which you accuse people of having is coming from you too.
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Democracy in our culture is elitist. That is undeniable. Are you saying that George Bush is poorer than the Gores or the Kerrys? lol... yes im sure the Bush family is not elite...
WTF are you talking about? Poor Ross Perot is just a man of the poeple, able to identify with americans.... gimme a break.
And yes, im totally cynical about politics in this world. Only an idiot would pretend these people have our interests at heart.
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Again, if you don't believe people are excercising their individual rights in the past 6 and a half years you're fucking blind. There's no nicer way to put it really. Not a day goes by where I don't hear something about why America sucks or Bush sucks or democracy sucks or Iran and the third world kick ass and here you are in the abyss of cyberspace complaining about people being silent and inactive.
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Id like to see some evidence of the informed voter making informed choices about the direction of society. The last six years have been a joke. Even when the democrats were able to get enough people to vote for them they have refused to do what they were voted in to do. Its pathetic. And as a response to this fraud and cynicism the people do nothing except spend billions of dollars on garbage at thanksgiving, only to do the same at christmas, perhaps with some "reality" TV in between. Yeah...thats some democracy we got...
Its a joke.
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Yes I did, and you did that in this thread saying that people in general are 'ignorant consumers' when there is no factual basis for which you can use to say that 'people in general' are anything when you're referring to a group of 300 million people, by the way and not all of those are eligible to vote yet incase you didn't know. It looks like you're in denial, not me.
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Majorities of Bush supporters incorrectly assumed that Bush favors including labor and environmental standards in trade agreements (84%), and the US being part of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (69%), the International Criminal Court (66%), the treaty banning land mines (72%), and the Kyoto Treaty on global warming (51%). They were divided between those who knew that Bush favors building a new missile defense system now (44%) and those who incorrectly believe he wishes to do more research until its capabilities are proven (41%). However, majorities were correct that Bush favors increased defense spending (57%) and wants the US, not the UN, to take the stronger role in developing Iraq’s new government (70%).
http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/Pr...w_9_29_04.html
Yep, it hardly gets more ignorant than that. Can you imagine, 51% of Bush supporters actually thought he favored Kyoto. That is pretty fucking stupid.
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Okay, so here we have two views from you:
One, that 110 million people voting, political movies put into the mainstream, regular complaining and protests and lobbying etc of politicians is a 'lack of political participation' and 'consumer ignorance'
Two, democracy is 'just fine' in Venezuela despite its groups armed with baseball bats and pistols beating the piss out of each other and the government shutting down media stations critical of it. You've got it mixed up, and I can just imagine the posts you'd make if these two things happened in our own country..
Just admit it, you were wrong.
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Democracy in the US and Canada is stagnant and sick. Absolutely.
Democracy in Venezuela is vibrant, maturing, and it is marked by strong participation at all levels of society. There is no doubt about that.
The only thing i will admit is that you appear to be one of the mindless consumers that spends most of their time in fantasy land. You have done nothing but display the exact ignorance im railing against. Thank you for being my prop.
Andrew