Why do people keep saying that America is a democracy?

[9th Engineer]

Oh don't get into that working class vs wealthy class bullshit. Anyone with the desire can move up the class ladder here, there is no 'machine' keeping people down.

I'm talking about who has been running the show... it is true anyone can get up there, after a few generations.

[Flint]

Originally Posted by 9th Engineer

...there is no 'machine' keeping people down.

I agree, it's not a cartoonish conspiracy of evil robot overlords, but that doesn't change the simple fact that people with more financial resources have the leverage to influence conditions in society to be beneficial to themselves. It's a simple feedback loop, IE "the rich get richer"

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by 9th Engineer

Oh don't get into that working class vs wealthy class bullshit. Anyone with the desire can move up the class ladder here, there is no 'machine' keeping people down.

Actually the next line is:
"There you go, bringing class into it again."

But you got the gist of it.

[Pangloss62]

Within the context of capitalism, I think it's becoming a oligopoly. Pepsico (KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut). Yey for us!

9th likes the bootstrap-pulling idea, but he should at least acknowledge structural impediments. Capitalism is not "fair" in any sense, otherwise there would be no such thing as profit. But should it be "fair?" That is the question.

[vrai_rennx]

George Bush has a kind of rugged individualism thing going on- Let the rich get richer, and it'll sieve down into the poorer classes.

Sorry honey, but it didn't work for Herbert Hoover and it won't work for you.

Trickle down poor get poorer is what it is. Thanks Mr. Regan.

[wolf]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

You lost me, Wolf. How does Gramsci figure into, getting it wrong since the mid 60s?

Free-Will Slaves

"Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, a classic study of modern totalitarianism, contains a line that epitomizes the concept that Gramsci tried to convey to his party comrades: "A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude." While it is improbable that Huxley was familiar with Gramsci's theories, the idea he conveys of free persons marching willingly into bondage is nevertheless precisely what Gramsci had in mind.

"Gramsci believed that if Communism achieved "mastery of human consciousness," then labor camps and mass murder would be unnecessary. How does an ideology gain such mastery over patterns of thought inculcated by cultures for hundreds of years? Mastery over the consciousness of the great mass of people would be attained, Gramsci contended, if Communists or their sympathizers gained control of the organs of culture--churches, education, newspapers, magazines, the electronic media, serious literature, music, the visual arts, and so on. By winning "cultural hegemony," to use Gramsci's own term, Communism would control the deepest wellsprings of human thought and imagination. One need not even control all of the information itself if one can gain control over the minds that assimilate that information. Under such conditions, serious opposition disappears since men are no longer capable of grasping the arguments of Marxism's opponents. Men will indeed "love their servitude," and will not even realize that it is servitude."

[xoxoxoBruce]

That's what they have been teaching in High Schools since the mid 60s?
I got out just in time.

[9th Engineer]

9th likes the bootstrap-pulling idea, but he should at least acknowledge structural impediments. Capitalism is not "fair" in any sense, otherwise there would be no such thing as profit. But should it be "fair?" That is the question.

I'll admit to that, and I certainly will acknowledge the existence of structural impediments. I wrote a pretty long piece on the whole thing here.

[Shawnee123]

Originally Posted by rkzenrage

Trickle down poor get poorer is what it is. Thanks Mr. Regan.

We are, as I've said before, losing our middle class. A society without a middle class cannot sustain itself.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by wolf

Free-Will Slaves

"Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, a classic study of modern totalitarianism, contains a line that epitomizes the concept that Gramsci tried to convey to his party comrades: "A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude." While it is improbable that Huxley was familiar with Gramsci's theories, the idea he conveys of free persons marching willingly into bondage is nevertheless precisely what Gramsci had in mind.

"Gramsci believed that if Communism achieved "mastery of human consciousness," then labor camps and mass murder would be unnecessary. How does an ideology gain such mastery over patterns of thought inculcated by cultures for hundreds of years? Mastery over the consciousness of the great mass of people would be attained, Gramsci contended, if Communists or their sympathizers gained control of the organs of culture--churches, education, newspapers, magazines, the electronic media, serious literature, music, the visual arts, and so on. By winning "cultural hegemony," to use Gramsci's own term, Communism would control the deepest wellsprings of human thought and imagination. One need not even control all of the information itself if one can gain control over the minds that assimilate that information. Under such conditions, serious opposition disappears since men are no longer capable of grasping the arguments of Marxism's opponents. Men will indeed "love their servitude," and will not even realize that it is servitude."

You mean like getting a populace to want more "stuff", so they work harder to get it, ignoring personal wellbeing and interpersonal relationships to get it. They'll get into overwhelming debt just to have a cool car, big house, and all the latest gizmos and gadgets. And they'll willingly work their asses off to pay for it all - work like slaves!

If they don't participate in the materialism thing, there's always slaving away so you can tythe your way to heaven. Then there's world threats to slave to protect the country from. Slave your way against terrorism!

GWB sure slaved his whole life, didn't he?

You want to get looked at like a ten-armed bug? Talk about not wanting more stuff, being happy with what you have, just wanting to spend time with your family, meditating, and not being a Christian all in the same sentence while at a corporate lunch with VPs and AVPs.
I think my allergies must have kicked-in in a weird way or something...
My boss gave me a talking-to also... "What were you thinking?"
You would have thought I had grown tentacles out of my ears or turned purple or something.

Kinda' like the response I get when telling people we are not, nor have ever been, a democracy & what a terrible thing that would be.

[headsplice]

Actually, the Roman and Greek democracies worked extraordinarily well, as I recall. That whole foundation for Western civilization bit definitely has them in the running.
Of course, both societies were limited democracies with slavery underpinning the economic fabric of life, but whatever.

Many Roman senators wanted to eliminate slavery.