Democracy-government by the people. yay!

A very kind, and politically conscious, friend of mine bought me John Pilger's documentary film The War On Democracy a while back, and I've finally got round to watching it. It's an exceptionally good film, that, without being excessive, hits the real threat the USA is, and has been for half a century, to genuine democracy.
The documentary shows how the USA has for fifty years now been conducting secret wars against Latin American countries and their democratically elected socialist governments. One after another has been removed in coups funded by the United States; in fact often trained and actively participated in by them too (usually through the CIA). The myth is that these are defences of democracy, and national security; they rarely are. They are anything but, and are more to do with the maintenance of US political and economic power in countries in which they have no sovereignty. The list is very long: Guatemala, Cuba, Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Venezuela,...... the list goes on.Most of the regimes the US helped to install were not democratic, and in cases (Pinochet in Chile notably) they were openly fascist military dictatorships.Arguably the most "stable" (meaning free from direct US interference)country in South America is Brazil, and Brazil operates a capitalist "democracy" on the terms the USA likes, ie a wide poverty gap, reliance on America, and free from such distressing ideas as egalitarianism.
Of course the other reason for US interference in these regions, other than the basic ones of political and economic power over their policies, is the fact that a successful socialist country (or even a social democratic one) in Latin America would be a powerful precedent and example to its own disenfranchised minorities. I can't pretend to be utterly anti-American; i love too many American bands, writers, films, and various other products to declare that i am. but most of these cultural products are very much within the oppositional sphere of American culture. They are not the folks in government, in business, they are not the ones with political power. Mind you, not that i have much need to state this. I love sixteenth century English poetry, but I'm not remotely fond of its political system. But, to some unfortunately, to like some aspects of a culture equals tacit approval of its politics. it plainly doesn't.

Democracy for most people in this age seems roughly equatable to a vote every few years. Now I'm not the man to get into a debate on the varieties of democracy and their problems; this isn't the place, and I'm not good enough to do it anyway. But democracy is not just about a vote. it is about the people of the country having control of its government. it is about power, and equality of power. it is about one man/woman having one vote in the wider sense of the word. How powerful is your influence? How powerful is your bosses influence? Are you as politically powerful as the man who owns a local business? Are you as politically powerful as the great Satan Rupert Murdoch himself?
The answer, naturally, is no; its arguable that Murdoch is the most powerful man in Britain, and he doesn't even live here. But he has such financial clout, and media power that his "vote" is worth several million of your own. Not just him, but many many others have this excessive power. A power that corrupts any so-called democracy from day one. so i guess by this reasoning I'm declaring we don't live in a proper democracy? Well, I'd say no, we don't. It has many aspects, but not enough.

The USA (and us by implication, we behave similarly, if not so extreme) is conducting the modern form of what Pilger (and me, for that matter) calls Imperialism. the wielding of economic and political (and cultural) power in a country in which they have no right to interfere. They are distorting what democracy exists in their favour, and for their economic benefit. The current fear is about China and the power it increasingly wields; little mention is made that the USA has held a much greater level of power than China currently has, since the second world war, and with a malign influence almost everywhere they've interfered. Some of the US establishment is open about this: for them Might is Right (just like the playground bully); others hide behind a facade of "democratising" and "progressing" these countries. It isn't new, we did it in Africa and Asia in the 18th and 19th centuries, under the banner of Christianity and progress. what it reality means is the exploitation of others resources for our own benefit. The terms have changed, the motive and outcome has not.
Of course large parts of the USA don't understand this animosity towards them; mainly because the ideology runs so deep in America, the ideology of a specific form of harsh free market capitalism, that to question it is to question your own parentage.

Anyway, i just recommend you watch Pilger's documentary, and you take an opportunity to read about the new forms of democracy being tried in Latin America with Chavez in Venezuela, and Morales in Bolivia. I don't know where they'll lead, or whether they'll prove the genuine emancipation they seem at present. But if the US media opposes them and tells you they are awful, then they're almost certainly doing something good.

i hope you'll take the time to think and read about these things ,and most importantly question who's telling you what and why. Cheers