Posted by john on April 26, 2002 at 17:29:03:
In Reply to: Re: John, did you see Curitiba post above? posted by kat on April 24, 2002 at 00:16:59:
Well I resisted posting to this for a whole 5 minutes... pretty good for me, I think.
: Seriously, I agree that there are very successful societies in the world beside the US.
This confuses "society", with "nation", partially my fault for not clarifying in my original post, but even the Brazillian nation doesn't measure up in my mind, I was refering to the specific instance of Curitiba. And that is most likely not the paradise it is touted as, but from the biased information we recieved it appears to be better than many places. (No offense here, but everything is biased)
But, you do realize that the apathetic nature of the US citizens thamselves are mostly to blame for the corrupt state our country is in. If the people would take their government seriously and be involved in the democratic process you have to admit we would have the most ideal of societies. No?
no. i emphatically disagree. Our society has fundamental flaws, it will always be an oligarchy. It was created as such. Designed to give the people enough voice to make them feel like they count, but reserving the real power for the ones who know how to use it. Truly a Machiavellian masterpiece, but hardly my idea of a fair and just society. And what's worse, of late it has become increasingly controlled by special interest groups that, though they represent a large number are not a majority... but of course he who controls the media controls the universe. for example, how much of your news comes from a true source? All of it is filtered through the opinion of the TV producer or the paper editor, you have no idea if you are getting the real story or someone's interpretation. Listen to the little propaganda comments the news anchors throw into their intro's and seguays that provide just enough spin to influence the viewer's opinion.
: What sickens ME is the fact that people complain about the way things are and then don't even vote, or if they do it's 'eeny, meeny, miny, mo'.
But I am not represented in any vote. True democracy says that my vote represents my choice. In our system we vote to align ourselves with someone else's agenda. Well none of those agendas represent my position, so my vote becomes nothing more than a digit in the lesser-of-two-evil's score card. Don't you see, my opinion only counts if it matches the candidate's predefined platform. Therefore I refuse to participate. This is civil disobedience.
: I don't want to start anything but I do appreciate what the founding fathers were trying create, and I also appreciate thefact that nobody has bombed my house because I am a Christian, too.
I too truly appreciate what the founding fathers tried to do. But they came so close and backed away because they were afraid of the masses. That is why they built in things like the electoral college, to safeguard against charismatics that might excite the people to their own ends. The Patriots fought for true political freedom. But what they fought for has been slowly wheedled away into this convoluted mess that only pretends to be the same thing. This nation has become the thing it rebelled against... an empire that caters to the powerful and rich.
But then, i think all modern nations are so flawed...remember, i'm not a nationalist ;)