The state of democracy in the modern emm... democracies

[fehu]

This has been the top selling app for some week on the italian appstore
http://www.italiannews.it/giornale/lifestyle_eng/78541/here-imussolini-duces-speeches-iphone-discussion-apple-application.htm
In the end it was pulled down only because used copyrighted material, but in italy the fascism's apology is a crime, and its a crime to sing the praises of a dictatorship that ended little more than 50 years ago and devastated italy and killed tons of italians too (yes, mussolini was hitler's best friend).
However this don't stop a lot of people, public vip and even politics from professing themself fascist.

The Mussolini's heir at the moment is Berlusconi, with a sad long list of parallelism both on the character and on the people's reaction.
Strong of his almost monopoly of information, earned of course illegally, he can stand as the champion of the family and poor people rights, a "new man" opposed to the other politician, an unrightly persecuted by magistrates, and defender of liberty from the shadow of communism.
But in reality he closed two marriage for being definitely unfaithfull and having relations with underage, he has been in politics for 20 years, changed happily some law and praised some mafia boss friend of him or partner in politic or business, and well... comunism doesn't exist no more, and now is a dispregitive for who is not completely aligned.
Do you remember the naked gun opening? when was revealed that the shadow villain was the dictator Gheddafi? Really funny, now he is the main foreign political "friend" for italy. Other "friend" (we have no partner, only friends) are/where putin and the puppy in charge at the moment, Aznar, Bush, and some other random dictator from eastern country that i not even know. It's a shame that Milosevich was taked down so early, they would been best friend.
Italy is inside the european community, but its so full of shit that the others european nations try hard to not have nothing to do with if possible, to the point that during german elections angela merkel disposed to not be filmed or photographed near berlusconi, and even if was the only usa occidental "friend", now the only relation with Obama has been when said that "he will teach something to that tanned guy, if asked".
Nonetheless Berlusconi is praised as a great politician, and redefining a previous tought about mussolini being the greatest italian politician, he proclaimed himself the greatest of the last 150 years. Why? How?
It's hard to belive, but in italy the majority of people uses only tv to stay informed, and information is shamelessly controlled only by one person, to the point that for the upcoming election, politic must be banned from tv (he tried even from sky) except that from the now loyal tg, during some phone interception was proved the political reason of this, and instead of die from a shame attack, he increased and on tv was forced the notion that he was spied, and organized a public manifestation against magistrates and polices, illegally sending invites in email and sms, and decupling the real number of partecipants.
Of course on tv was forced the notion of a great success.

Why this rant?
Yesterday I talked with some chinese clerk, they tried to be nice and started to talk about anything and even politic/liberty.
A lot embarassed I noted that actually china is ruled by an oppressive dictatorship, and they reacted as if there was a spy near us, explaining that it's a democracy and that really italy is not so different.
It schocked me a little that someone coming from china can see some resemblance with italy, because if we are no more a real democracy we for sure are not living in a real dictatorship, and schocked me that he think that all this is normal, and so it hit me.
Can it be possible that when you are inside "the system" you can't see it? That when you slowly accustomate to the change can't tell the difference?
Then I looked at the biggest democracy in the world in search for some parameter to determine the state of democracy, but again it hit me.
Can a country where the votes of about the 5% of the population allowed bush to reduce the liberty and shamelessly manipulate the public opinion through the media, shielding himself behind the patriotism, and claiming "mission accomplished", be a meter to measure the grade of liberty of another nation?
Mind you, that are almost the same things that contest to the leader in my country, and even if the parlament is trying to lock down pages and blog on internet I belive to be less oppressed and controlled than an average american.
Maybe it's a prospective problem, so I decided to try on this forum, what is your opinion about the title?

 

[digitalwanderer]

Time to move it to RPSC?

 

[Grall]

Berlusconi is a funny guy. I can't think of any other western european country where someone like him could have been elected prime minister. It's not just the corruption and his ties to organized crime surrounding him, or his media monopoly which shamelessly sings his praises constantly, or his womanizing and misogyny and infidelity, or his embarrassingly patronizing sense of "humor" (which has caused a number of international incidents over the years, not least that time when he speaking in the EU parliament invited a German politician to work as an actor in an Italian movie production - playing a Nazi concentration camp guard...), or his flirtation with extremist right-wingers, or a number of other traits of which any single one would have UTTERLY disqualified him from holding almost any office in politics in another Euro country, certainly any HIGHER office and least of all prime minister! When you put it all together however, that's when things go really bizarro.

I can only conclude it's possible to have Berlusconi as PM because Italy as a whole is broken. There's no other explanation. You've had what, 50ish governments over the last 65-odd years since end of WWII? That's got to be rather exhausting. I can only assume people vote for a clown like Berlusconi because Italian politics is ALREADY a circus.

 

[Davros]

Thankfully I dont live in a democracy

 

[fehu]

The problem is not berlusconi, he's anything that you said, but if there are people that vote for him he's legitimate to stay where is now. Sure there are the manipulated public opinion and the cheat during the election to change some vote, but not trying even to defend himself, he says that italian know how he is and that his problems came first, and if they vote for him that means that it's all ok.
Saddly i think that he's right. Of course a lot of people not voted for him, but a little more done it.
Have you read the link in the first post? a ton of italian are nostalgic of a time where you can be killed because the spy in your building said that you are hebrew or not a fascist.

What when a democracy fall down because the elector want to be ruled to death? What if it's all good and fine to renunce to liberty?

 

[Arwin]

Italy's political process has been problematic since WWII. I think Berlusconi is the first or second since then who managed to complete a term at all. However, even if he gives the appearance of being good for Italy (or better than some of his predecessors), his willingness to corrupt the legal system, and disinterest in even giving an impression of trying to avoid conflict of interest through his media empire make him a bad guy in the end anyway. The problems in Italy are deep and strongly tied to a divided country (North vs South), corruption and a rampant black and mob-economy.

Sometimes I get the feeling that the best an Italian president can do is bring in neutral, external supervision to help it sort out its problems, consisting of the top 10 least-corruptable accountants/law-men/supervisers that other countries can spare, and make every single law document open for review on the internet, and that every child from the age of 6 should get a few hours of economy, law and politics training in school so that they learn to understand why it actually benefits people in a society to work together on a scale beyond clan or family.

 

[_xxx_]

None of our systems today resembles anything like a democracy. The only country having some form of democracy is Switzerland, the rest has only big bank/energy/media oligarchies in power, with their chosen puppets playing the government for the TV.

 

[Davros]

I live in a constitutional monarchy

 

[fehu]

Until the constitutional part keep doing law, election are regular, and the monarchy stay in a side like an useless remaining of the past, i think that there's no problem to calla that a democracy

 

[_xxx_]

Yeah, unless you're in the EU-dictatorship where there are no elections at all to begin with (at european level). Quite a democracy indeed.

 

[fehu]

Any nation does local european election and send the elected to the european parlament, and europe it's not a nation by the way...

 

[Rolf N]

I live in Germany.

Calling this a "democracy" is a farce. The individual's vote has no expressive power whatsoever. If you really need things done, you round up a lobbying group in Berlin or better yet Brussels, and let them "talk" to members of parliament until they do your bidding. Good luck with that if you're not a 1000+ corporation.

If the vote actually was useful, lobbying would not even exist. Say, DTAG is really, really interested in shoving telco laws in a certain direction. They could sell that idea to their few tens of thousands employees, and inform them that voting a certain way would be good for their parent company, and in turn for them.

But that's not going to work now, is it, when votes take place every four years and have no discrenable results in the government process.

Another major gripe is the lack of accountability for government. Wasting money and time is something officials can all too freely do, and of course they do it, at some point they have to make up their end of the deal with their party buddies who lifted them into their position in the first place.

 

[rpg.314]

The only country having some form of democracy is Switzerland, the rest has only big bank/energy/media oligarchies in power, with their chosen puppets playing the government for the TV.

India: big banks-> nopes,
big energy-> nopes
big media-> nopes

It is definitely the most broken democracy possible that can still be called a "real democracy".

 

[_xxx_]

Any nation does local european election and send the elected to the european parlament, and europe it's not a nation by the way...

No, noone elects the members of the european council directly. And while it's not a nation, it supercedes national laws and is effectively our government, non-elected and not doing what the folks would like it to but rather the opposite. It is simply a dictatorship, actually illegal according to most national laws of the member countries.

 

[fehu]

democracy is choose who will defend your point of you in the parlament too
i have some difficulty with english, maybe i'm not explaining well, but you vote someone, and thatone elect someother, it's still democracy

the problem isn't that

 

[Squilliam]

I believe that every so called democracy ought to give you a vote of no confidence. That way if ever >50% of people become disillusioned with everything they can throw everybody out of office at once and then people can try something which hopefully works better. I suspect that in many places not voting = no confidence in the electoral system.

 

[fehu]

In this day in italy has been federal like election, and the actual govern almost won, and now with a default risk, pil down, occupation down, no way to reemerge, is only talking about reducing worker's rights, attacking the strike right, attacking magistrates, and making phone registration almost impossible to do and useless in a court, and everyone is happy.
I can't no more understand my land and the people that have around, but being fucked because so many want to be fucked is democracy in some way.