"Democracy is Teetering"

That is the headline of a rather thorough report/analysis in today's The Guardian about how extremist Republicans are trying to undermine democratic institutions and elections in Arizona, as just an example of a more widespread practice in the USA nowadays.

But it could be coming from within too, when a government - the French, i.c. - is undermining democratic procedures by abusing an old constitutional article - the infamous article 49.3 - to sideline parliamentary vote, knowing they wouldn't have a majority and despite the fact that a majority of the population is against those measures pushed through without vote. This has been done 23 times in less than two years.

Clearly, countries of "the West" don't need the be invaded anymore by aggressive other countries to see their democracies undermined and/or threatened. They're doing it from within. Where are we going? What can we do?

 

I don't think it is just Americans who feel uneasy.

 

Hi,

I really don't know, and I think that we're going to know even less. So there was a primary here in WA and only about a third of all the voters bothered showing up or scratching a piece of paper. The disconnect is too much, though the local paper thought that it was because people were "forced" to designate their affiliation to a Democratic or Republican group, and it is believed that a lot of people that did not wish to explain and had more independent feelings, decided to not bother with that determination. Thus the "small" turn out! (less than 33%), But this is something that many unsavory states do to make it look like they are being more with it and looking more attentive than otherwise. Instead, they shoo people away .... just what Dr. T ordered!

It's the scariest of things, though ... and a writer once said that the place that has the most freedoms, is the one that uses them the least! And here it is ... and in some states, it has a 35% of certain folks, but they only get elected like 10% of the time if that ... it's like they don't have a voice at all ... hard to believe these days in America!

I think what bothers me more is the cynicism around it all ... when folks here don't realize that in more than half, maybe even two thirds, you can't even vote for your local representative. 

The whole matrix is really scary but I am inclined to believe that the proliferation of the riches in the country to pay less taxes and get richer is one of the biggest problems ... and many of them are going around saying ... let them eat cake and then buy everything so they look like the biggest and richest around ... and in the end, they are no different than ... the show that gave us a really poor example of a boss that only had one redeeming factor ... he could say "you're fired" louder than all of us! AND ... the craziest thing? We thought it was cool!