Demoscleroza, prăbuşirea liberalismului şi renaşterea dictaturii de extremă-dreapta

Demoscleroza, prăbuşirea liberalismului şi renaşterea dictaturii de extremă-dreapta

Prin demoscleroză se înţelege acea stare ireversibilă şi anticipată a sistemelor democratice actuale marcate de: comunicare defectuoasă dintre Alegător şi politician, confiscarea deciziei publice de către corporaţii şi grupuri de lobby, poziţionarea proprietarilor media de partea unei grupări politice care îşi datorează puterea tocmai acestei poziţionări, utilizarea unui dublu limbaj, adică unul pentru audienţă externă şi altul pentru audienţa internă, incapacitatea unor curente ideologice de a prelua elemente din alte curente ideologice, creşterea cheltuielilor de înarmare şi securitate în dauna investiţiilor în educaţie, sănătate şi cultură.

Comunicarea defectuoasă dintre Alegător şi politician

Comunicarea publică în principal din ţările foste comuniste, foste dictaturi, foste colonii dar şi democraţii consolidate prezintă defecţiuni majore care duc la o ruptură ireversibilă dintre Alegător şi politician. Demnitarul ales nu mai are legimitate clară, democratică, nefiind ales întotdeauna în cunoştinţă de cauză şi de o majoritate.

Registrul autist în care are loc această comunicare duce la radicalizarea poziţiilor.

Confiscarea deciziei publice de către corporaţii şi grupuri de lobby

Demnitarii statului sunt tributari presiunilor exercitate de corporaţii şi grupuri de lobby. Acestea deţin averi uriaşe, pe baza unui capitalism slab reglementat. Alegătorii se simt ca o masă amorfă incapabilă de reacţie. Procesul de consultare publică nu este ingenuu, este manevrat de decidenţi în aşa fel încât punctele de vedere exprimate şi valide să fie şi cele finale.

Poziţionarea proprietarilor media de partea unor grupări politice

Grupările politice care beneficiază din plin de o notorietate pozitivă din partea trusturilor media sunt în general conservatoare, de centru-dreapta sau de extremă-dreapta.

Informaţia politică vine la pachet şi cu analiza/interpretarea ei. Consumatorului de media nu i se cere să cântărească, să judece, să caute.

Utilizarea dublului limbaj

Multe ţări zise democratice susţin pe ascuns regimuri dictatoriale sau autoritare din interese economice sau geopolitice. În schimb, pentru audienţa internă clasa conducătoare creează un discurs umanist. Intervenţiile militare sunt prezentate ca având motive umanitare.

Actele de genocid au loc sub privirile comunităţii internaţionale.

Intoleranţa ideologică

Multe regimuri democratice recente sunt marcate de infiltrarea în clasa conducătoare de agenţi reciclaţi ai dictaturilor. Problemele sociale se datorează faptului că reflexele totalitare se manifestă în lanţ. Construcţiile democratice recente sunt subminate din interior.

Drepturile omului, feminismul, ecologismul şi anarhismul de strânga sunt marginalizate în ţările ortodoxe, foste dictaturi sau foste imperii coloniale.

Creşterea cheltuielilor de înarmare şi securitate în dauna investiţiilor în educaţie, sănătate şi cultură

Grupările conservatoare, de centru-dreapta sau de extremă-dreapta susţin cheltuieli constante sau crescute pentru înarmare şi securitate în defavoarea investiţiilor în educaţie, sănătate şi cultură

Educaţia, sănătatea şi cultura sunt domenii afectate de reduceri bugetare drastice deoarece nu aduc profit material. Clasa de mijloc şi marginile societăţii sunt afectate din plin. Şomajul este compensat prin exploatarea excesivă a angajaţilor existenţi. Ţările democratice pregătesc armata şi poliţia pentru intervenţii împotriva populaţiei: cresc cheltuielile pentru materiale şi echipamente şi pentru instruirea personalului.

Info Wars: Under the pressure of the Israeli government, BBC boss Mark Thompson bans charity appeal over Gaza

Article HERE

His decision of not allowing for a charity appeal over Gaza to be broadcasted on BBC was made due to huge pressure from the Israeli government concerned on how British audience sees the massacre it inflicted over Gazan children.
Street protests have irrupted in the UK against BBC boss, asking for his resignation and for the charity appeal to be broadcasted.
He said that by broadcasting the charity appeal BBC would assume a political stance in favour of Hamas (this is implied).

Off-topic: two days long have passed since the Israeli government lifted the blocade over the access of journalists in Gaza and we still don´t have any first-hand non-Israeli news about what is really happening there. Without any fear, I must say loud and clear that I really think that Israel committed war crimes in Gaza and they do everything they can to hide this. What other reasons did they have to ban journalists´ access in Gaza? If the United Nations fails to bring Israel under court trial for war crimes in Gaza, this international organization should be immediately dissolved as it failed so many times to provide peace for Earth. If the United Nations allows Israel to get away with this unpunished, all its credibility is lost and morally speaking it should be dissolved.

What does this say about the Greek Youth Uprising?

There is no media report about any dead police officer in the clash between the protesters and the Greek police.
But there are two confirmed reports about two Greek unarmed kids being killed by the Greek police.
There is no doubt that after the death of a police officer in the clash between the Anarchists and the police, things will be totally different.
In the last days I browsed some Internet sources and it seems that the Greek Youth Uprising has no direct organizational relation with any Anarchist Group. Most sources say that the protesters are huge crowds of Greek students accusing the Conservative Government of giving them bullets instead of social and sustainable support.

Is Greece an 'ungovernable' democracy?

'Student Intifada' blows lid off Greece's bubbling tensions, putting nation near `societal collapse'

Iason Athanasiadis
SPECIAL TO THE STAR

ATHENS–The riots and sit-ins continued for a second week across Greece yesterday as protesters kept up pressure on the government to step aside and commentators described the country as being on the verge of "societal collapse."

Universities and 400 high schools are occupied by student activists as a leaked police report revealed official fears that the current crisis will fuel a recruitment drive for Greece's anarchist movement.

"Changing governments is not enough," wrote commentator Giannis Pretenderis in the Athens daily newspaper Kathimerini, "because whichever government replaces the current one – whether a better or worse one – the country will remain ungovernable."

Students are protesting the Dec. 6 police shooting of a 15-year old, Alexandros Grigoropoulos, which set off anger toward the government and the economic hardships being faced. Greece ceased being a predominantly agricultural economy and an exporter of immigrant labour in the 1980s and became a gateway into the EU for Third World economic refugees. The week-long "Student Intifada" has blown the lid off the country's bubbling social tensions.

A decade of factory closures, heavy immigration and rising agricultural costs has left one fifth of Greeks living under the poverty line. Many of the demonstrators are Greece's future white-collar workers. They know the most they can expect is a subsistence salary in a marketplace awash in nepotism.

They are massed in the student district where Grigoropoulos was shot – an area known as the unofficial headquarters of Greece's vocal anarchist movement. Itinerant immigrants, printing houses, cafes and a transient community of heroin addicts complete the makeup of Exarchia , a downtown area considered so dangerous that police officers call its station Greece's worst hardship post.

"It was a matter of time only before this generation came out onto the streets," said Afrodite Kamara, the director of Time Heritage, a cultural heritage consultancy. "There was a generation-long pause after the collapse of the dictatorship that's ending with the current wave of protests. They're eloquent, know how to criticize and posit things well, but they lack leaders who can give flesh and bones to this dissent and make specific demands."

Since violence erupted following the fatal police shooting, some 150 people have been arrested and another 70 injured, while hundreds of stores were damaged. The police officer accused of killing the teenager is charged with murder and is being held pending trial.

The government was forced to cancel municipal Christmas celebrations after protesters caused more than $200 million of damage to businesses. "The government cannot deal with this crisis," said socialist opposition leader George Papandreou, calling for early elections. "It cannot protect people – their rights or property – and it cannot identify with the anxiety felt by the younger generation."

Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, whose party has a single-seat majority, has rejected calls to resign and call early elections.

Of an estimated 100,000 demonstrators across Greece, 3,000 are deemed to be hardcore anarchists, according to the police. But many of the anarchists are related to prominent people, including judges and politicians, and so the issue of arresting them has been compromised, according to a leaked police report quoted extensively in To Kyriakatiko Vima newspaper.

Many high school students who have participated in the protests, however, have tried to distance themselves from the anarchists' violence, dressing in white and attending candlelit vigils to symbolize their peaceful intent.

They mobilize through text messages and online social networking sites. Prior to the protests, they were dubbed the "Starbucks generation" and the first Greeks to grow up in a wealthy European Union member state rather than the poverty-stricken post- World War II society of their elders.

But 28 per cent unemployment among university graduates younger than 30 is spurring disillusionment.

Other disaffected portions of Greek society have found common cause with the students. Trade unions ignored government calls to cancel a nationwide strike Wednesday and intend to continue efforts to paralyze the country's transportation and services sectors. Right-wing vigilantes have linked with business owners to perform on-the-spot identity checks and citizens' arrests. Neo-Nazi fascist groups such as the Golden Dawn militia are organizing provocative counterdemonstrations and brawling with leftists.

As Greek society is smashed by the widespread violence, prominent columnist Alexandros Papahellas suggests there is no obvious solution. "Our problem today is not whether tanks might roll in the streets," he concluded, "but that even if they did they would likely collide into each other."

HERE

My opinion on the Greek, soon widespread European, protests

If you feel represented no more by the politicians in your country, you are in position to force the removal of those politicians or to claim the removal of the political system which has made them. In order to remove your government you should use mainly peaceful, non-violent rebellion. If the government uses the police or army force against you, you must use every means necessary to protect yourself from a repressive government.
This is what happens when a democratic government loses contact with the citizens!
In my opinion, the use of army force against your own citizens is indicative of the fact that you became truly totalitarian!

I truly believe that the Greek protests signal the last breath of democracy in Europe.

In 1849, Mr. David Thoreau wrote the Civil Disobedience essay...

Against the European Union

I strongly resent the European Union as it is constructed nowdays.

I strongly resent those European countries which did not decide to call over a referendum on implementing GREAT CHANGES.

I strongly disagree with the cowardice of the so-called European democratic leaders because not all these stakeholders decided to hear the people´s voice in the matter of the Lisbon Treaty and the acceptance of the 2004 and 2007 new member states (for Romania, it was an act of mercy, I think).

When it came and it comes to taking important decisions, I think the popular vote is the most relevant option. I think that the parliamentary vote is a surrogate for the shallow European democracy.

I think that the European Union should include in the future only countries with a Christian-based dominant belief (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant et alia). I strongly disagree with Turkey, Russia and Israel entering the European Union because these countries belong to the Asian space proper. And I have nightmares thinking of the Eurasian Union (or the Asian-European Union/ Federation or the United States of Eurasia). And further more, with Russia in the European Union there will be perpetual political confruntation between the neo-Soviet Russia and those former Communist countries which mostly suffered from the military occupation inflicted by the Red Army (which, by the way, was the ruthless result of obscure agreements concluded between Stalin and the Western puppies).

I think that the European Union should have exactly the same kind of relations with the United States of America, Russia, India, China, Japan, Brazil, Nigeria. I strongly resent the idea of the Union becoming the submissive subject of a major power (´proxy agent´), let say, the United States, Russia or even China. No emergent or traditional regio-continental power should be favoured by the European Union. Same treatment for everybody.

I think that the most serious military threats for the Union might come from the frenzied East, (Russia and China particularly). I think that China and Russia, as growing economies and cultures, will look for a close geographic space to further their development. No Chinese or Russian soldier should be allowed to occupy an European Union member state. PLEASE check again the lebensraum principle.

I strongly think that by 2015 the European Union should expand deeper into the continent. Suitable candidates: Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Albania, Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova and all other really continental European countries of which unfortunately I cannot remember now.

If it were to speak of a relevant foreign policy followed by all member states, they should work together to quickly decrease the dependence on the foreign energy resources (especially on the Russian oil and gas).

And about the European Army...well...you know...I am a pacifist, BUT if you really want to do this PLEASE remeber the shameful failures of the United Nations Forces in Rwanda (1994), Srebrenica (1995), Darfur (2007) and Congo (2008).

You, Brussels bureaucrats, you cannot be serious when you speak about the European identity. There is no such thing now...There is no strong European identity without real, actual individuals feeling like this. It is totally unproductive, as far as I see, to have divided loyalties. How many, let say, Lithuanians, Irish people, Germans or Romanians think as themselves as firstly being European and then nationals/ citizens of their countries? The European identity cannot and should not be created in the Brussels dark and secretive offices.

The Irish big NO...I do not really understand why the so-called European intelligentsia considered the Irish big NO for the Lisbon Treaty as an act of stupidity. Why should someone blame the Irish people because they rejected something which they did not understand well or did not understand at all?

I cannot be an Europhone/Europhile if I do not really understand or know what happens in the Union in general.

Do not force people to think in a particular way! You can convince them, but no hypocrite, double standards propaganda, no totalitarian manipulation...

If the citizens of all member states cannot be persuaded in a reasonable way that the whole European Union idea has many advantages for everybody, all the Brussels bureaucrats should go home and the European Union should be dissolved (and the United Nations and NATO).

Do not force a country to adopt an European ideology (some would say, instead of ideology, the European positive set of values, but this is an ironically arguable point).

One reason for which I do not agree with the actual status of the Union is that I think the whole policy-making process is deadly difficult to grasp and it has little connection with the popular will. One of the problems is that there is no clear distinction between the executive and the legislative powers.

The actual structure of the Union´s policy-making process resembles a sheik with so many wives that he does not know all of them.

I may accept the idea that the actual political structure cannot be rendered clearer now, BUT improvement, transparency and efficiency is all I ask from the so-called European democratic leaders.

My warning for the European bureaucrats: do not take the Irish big NO as toilet papers for your offices, because some time in the future social protests within the Union would destroy all the good job which has been done since the defeat of the Nazi Germany in the Second World War.

Wasn´t Thoreau who said that people can use militias to overthrow a government which they do not take any longer as representative and democratic? People should resist, mainly peacefully, a government which is no longer reliable and which no longer works for the people´s best interests?

In the end, I would kindly beg you not to sell any longer weapons to support the racial killings in Africa. I am so ashamed that we, the Europeans, sold weapons for everybody who afforded and who wanted to inflict violence, hatred and suffering in Africa.

And I think it is even to much to ask for complete denuclearization and the dismantling of military and police forces, right? As long as the OTHERS do not do this why even bother, right?

The show must go on...

And the deckchairs need to be rearranged...

He said it long before!

Today I write not to gloat. Given the pain that nearly everyone is experiencing, that would be entirely inappropriate. Nor am I writing to make further predictions, as most of my forecasts in previous letters have unfolded or are in the process of unfolding. Instead, I am writing to say goodbye.

Recently, on the front page of Section C of the Wall Street Journal, a hedge fund manager who was also closing up shop (a $300 million fund), was quoted as saying, "What I have learned about the hedge fund business is that I hate it." I could not agree more with that statement. I was in this game for the money. The low hanging fruit, i.e. idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale, and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking. These people who were (often) truly not worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government. All of this behavior supporting the Aristocracy, only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other side of my trades. God bless America.

There are far too many people for me to sincerely thank for my success. However, I do not want to sound like a Hollywood actor accepting an award. The money was reward enough. Furthermore, the endless list those deserving thanks know who they are.

I will no longer manage money for other people or institutions. I have enough of my own wealth to manage. Some people, who think they have arrived at a reasonable estimate of my net worth, might be surprised that I would call it quits with such a small war chest. That is fine; I am content with my rewards. Moreover, I will let others try to amass nine, ten or eleven figure net worths. Meanwhile, their lives suck. Appointments back to back, booked solid for the next three months, they look forward to their two week vacation in January during which they will likely be glued to their Blackberries or other such devices. What is the point? They will all be forgotten in fifty years anyway. Steve Balmer, Steven Cohen, and Larry Ellison will all be forgotten. I do not understand the legacy thing. Nearly everyone will be forgotten. Give up on leaving your mark. Throw the Blackberry away and enjoy life.

So this is it. With all due respect, I am dropping out. Please do not expect any type of reply to emails or voicemails within normal time frames or at all. Andy Springer and his company will be handling the dissolution of the fund. And don't worry about my employees, they were always employed by Mr. Springer's company and only one (who has been well-rewarded) will lose his job.

I have no interest in any deals in which anyone would like me to participate. I truly do not have a strong opinion about any market right now, other than to say that things will continue to get worse for some time, probably years. I am content sitting on the sidelines and waiting. After all, sitting and waiting is how we made money from the subprime debacle. I now have time to repair my health, which was destroyed by the stress I layered onto myself over the past two years, as well as my entire life -- where I had to compete for spaces in universities and graduate schools, jobs and assets under management -- with those who had all the advantages (rich parents) that I did not. May meritocracy be part of a new form of government, which needs to be established.

On the issue of the U.S. Government, I would like to make a modest proposal. First, I point out the obvious flaws, whereby legislation was repeatedly brought forth to Congress over the past eight years, which would have reigned in the predatory lending practices of now mostly defunct institutions. These institutions regularly filled the coffers of both parties in return for voting down all of this legislation designed to protect the common citizen. This is an outrage, yet no one seems to know or care about it. Since Thomas Jefferson and Adam Smith passed, I would argue that there has been a dearth of worthy philosophers in this country, at least ones focused on improving government. Capitalism worked for two hundred years, but times change, and systems become corrupt. George Soros, a man of staggering wealth, has stated that he would like to be remembered as a philosopher. My suggestion is that this great man start and sponsor a forum for great minds to come together to create a new system of government that truly represents the common man's interest, while at the same time creating rewards great enough to attract the best and brightest minds to serve in government roles without having to rely on corruption to further their interests or lifestyles. This forum could be similar to the one used to create the operating system, Linux, which competes with Microsoft's near monopoly. I believe there is an answer, but for now the system is clearly broken.

Lastly, while I still have an audience, I would like to bring attention to an alternative food and energy source. You won't see it included in BP's, "Feel good. We are working on sustainable solutions," television commercials, nor is it mentioned in ADM's similar commercials. But hemp has been used for at least 5,000 years for cloth and food, as well as just about everything that is produced from petroleum products. Hemp is not marijuana and vice versa. Hemp is the male plant and it grows like a weed, hence the slang term. The original American flag was made of hemp fiber and our Constitution was printed on paper made of hemp. It was used as recently as World War II by the U.S. Government, and then promptly made illegal after the war was won. At a time when rhetoric is flying about becoming more self-sufficient in terms of energy, why is it illegal to grow this plant in this country? Ah, the female. The evil female plant -- marijuana. It gets you high, it makes you laugh, it does not produce a hangover. Unlike alcohol, it does not result in bar fights or wife beating. So, why is this innocuous plant illegal? Is it a gateway drug? No, that would be alcohol, which is so heavily advertised in this country. My only conclusion as to why it is illegal, is that Corporate America, which owns Congress, would rather sell you Paxil, Zoloft, Xanax and other additive drugs, than allow you to grow a plant in your home without some of the profits going into their coffers. This policy is ludicrous. It has surely contributed to our dependency on foreign energy sources. Our policies have other countries literally laughing at our stupidity, most notably Canada, as well as several European nations (both Eastern and Western). You would not know this by paying attention to U.S. media sources though, as they tend not to elaborate on who is laughing at the United States this week. Please people, let's stop the rhetoric and start thinking about how we can truly become self-sufficient.

With that I say good-bye and good luck.

All the best,

Andrew Lahde