Are today's Western nations democracies? While I have yet to find an affirmation of this, I am compelled to rant about this topic today. Thank you to Bobbi Jo, for inspiring me. While I am not an American or Indian citizen, my choice of including them in this rant is because leaders of both nations claim they live in a democracy. Though I am not convinced their governments are run like a democracy, I only use them as examples. Hopefully my rhetoric will inspire others to question their government and their lip service to democracy.
In my opinion, America and India think they have a democracy when in actual fact, only the bill of rights and privileges potential grant citizens of both countries the rights and freedoms of democracy.
Yet the minute they exercise their right to protest injustice, the radical right arises to suppress them and take away those rights by force, and force their own privileges on everyone else who is excluded by them i.e. visible minorities, the poor, and the mentally challenged.
These rights and freedoms are slowly taken away from us at home, in public education, and at work. By the time some of us make it to university, we learn that our rights and freedoms are invoilable and still remaion, despite oppression and everyday suppression we exert to protect our lives.
In any given country, it is true that some people (the upper class) have more rights than the underprivileged. If a person from the middle class does not abide by the status quo, then he or she may be bullied into accepting it by force.
If a person tries ot exercises his rights, then he treads a rocky road because, despite free legal aid, the lawyer usually sides with his oppressor.
For example, when corruption such as sexual slavery is exposed, the whistleblower is usually forced into a psychiatric ward and given medication. Later, the nation's scions will send their representative to force him to abandon his just cause and their collaborators in mass media will tarnish his name, forcing him to abandon his legal career. Then he will retire in the country to tend an orchard on his hobby farm with the money he accumulated whilst defending the poor and underprivileged, who were mainly prostitutes, drug addicts and the poor.
America is a sick society that presents its citizens with the illusion of democracy. When the smoke and mirrors are exposed, rather than admitting the truth ("government is not a democracy but a plutocracy with lip service paid 24/7 through mass media"), the majority will attack the whistle-blower rather than face the truth.
What then is truth and justice when the American way is based on a sickness in society that never goes away but worsens by the day?
Mass media perpetuates this sickness, sometimes making a parody of it to entertain the masses, and sometimes exposing their version of the truth so as to profit from it whilst a scapegoat is chosen in a feeble attempt to absolve themselves of their participation in a new round of smoke and mirrors.
Whereas in the Americas, democracy at the grassroots level often meets imprisonment for their activism, in Asia and in Africa, there appears to be a handful of nations which are either dictatorships or run as classical democracies where the majority rules, and the large number of the poor live in abject poverty. Corruption exists because most people of the middle class realize that bribery smooths the wheel of progress and hush money is often paid to repair the honor of the privileged when they err.
Muslim martyrdom falls into this part of my rant, because blood money usually prevents the surviving family from legally challenging the injustice. If anyone objects, then the radical right will harass them and bribe the legal system so that if anyone dares to confront corruption, off to prison they go.
In other nations, particularly in Africa, the native Africans are militantly confrontative towards Asians (Indians), the Chinese and other "visible" minorities who are usually the majority back in their ancestral homelands (China, India, Pakistan, and sometimes South-East Asians).
It is delusion to declare that free-market capitalism empowers democratic rights. If this were true, then why did the US government bailout mortgage banks? If capitalism helps grease the wheels of democracy, then why did not the Mexican government closely scrutinize HSBC Mexico to ensure transparency to prevent money laundering? Perhaps it is because HSBC Mexico is a legal person, and thus has more privacy rights than the poor in Mexico.
I wish I could rant longer, but I must prepare for work soon. Were I to devote time to asking these questions which rarely are answered by the government, I'd be one of the "lazy poor" rather than a merely the "working poor."
In conclusion, I like to thank the people who act to discover the answers to my questions. We are all in this together. Peace to you all.
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