Glass Darkly

The most difficult condition of awareness can often be when you are immersed in a situation. You may not be consciously aware of external references to compare to your condition.

Democracy has a life cycle.

Adoption of Democracy is inaugurated with lofty ideals of the promise of greater inclusion. It starts with a homogeneous group. In America it was the landed aristocracy and Gentry. Democracy typically goes through a period of expanding inclusion before it plateaus and becomes the exclusive province of the select. The speed with which it plateaus and heads towards greater exclusion, is in direct portion, to the quickness in which a faction gains control of the system.

Democracy, as a political system, over time becomes the captive of a single special interest. It happens all the time when you look externally to other Democracies or participative governments. Japan had a single party, the LPD, in power for decades after World War II. Mexico has just bought back the PRI that ran the country for decades. Perhaps you would like to point to America as being “exceptional”, and maybe the British and the French. The party control dominated by an identifiable powerful faction seems to vacillate.

That vacillation and populism is an illusion. In America today the richest 1% controls all the means of government and ancillary things such as the media. Fathom any piece of legislation or major judicial decision. Determine who is the real beneficiary. It is always the investment class. Any election is an increased power grab. We are merely the obtuse and willing enablers. The pawns cementing one party in perpetual power.

When the life cycle of Democracy reaches this point of inequity, it is not in a nation's interest or the general populous. It creates an impossible economic and social divide. The condition is apparent, but we are blinded by our prejudices. It is called "the second world".