No coincidence – I am holding a “white rabbit” brainstorm with a very strong slant suggesting a fundamental crisis of western Democracy – this thursday the club of Amsterdam is holding a meeting where the theme is more or less “Democracy is Dead”. The problem is that this can be argued in both (incompatible) directions, while I will paraphrase as tendentiously as I can –
(a) Democracy is dead because the electorate is composed by and large of a mix of self-centered idiots who can’t tie their own shoe-laces without a government to change their diapers – and these inbred morons constantly vote for unmitigated demagogic imbeciles whose only interested is to further their own pork or secret agendas. It doesn’t matter of it’s a Chavez or a ahmeni…ahmnidin.. the guy who runs Iran .. or a berlusconi, or a Palin. It’s all mediocre politicians who promise radical and unreasonable stuff to idiots to get elected.
respectively;
(b) Democracy is dead because the common person is unable to compete on an equal footing with corporations, special interests, lobbyists, the intelligence community, the media bombardment or just the sheer overwhelming complexity of everyday life. It is these damn elites that are to blame and they are deconstructing our freedoms from under out two feet. It doesn’t matter if it is a Facebook selling out to the Russian Mob, or Big Oil, or
Phrased in the above manner it should be clear there is considerable overlap between the two, despite the angry rhetoric of “producerists” on the one side (who I will have really pissed off if they read me correctly) and the liberals (socialists? lazy middle class intellectuals?) on the other. I am intensely curious to see if these two angles will be highlighted next Thursday, and I’ll try to be there. Felix invited me, and it’ll great fun.
I’ll argue for radical UpWing, like always. I am most certainly radically opposed to ‘Downwingers“, if can introduce such a slur. I think the single most biggest threat to this planet right now is people who will claim that it is more or less ‘business as usual’. “Conservatives” to to speak. It isn’t just the fiscal part about conservatism – it is the sheer culture of denial I hold in utter contempt. Yes, the “Denialist” word. We’ll see more of that very soon, just wait.
These neurological failures are leading the world by the nose ring towards an open grave. If Democracy is dying it is surely in large part the death of imagination, dreams and aspirations. And that precisely, is why I despise the country I have live in.
It’s a heavily sedated mausoleum of broken dreams.