No Longer

The situation is much like that from Iceland to Greece: Governments no longer represent the people. They represent predatory financial interests that are impoverishing the economy. This is not democracy. It is financial oligarchy. And oligarchies do not give their victims a voice.

So the great question is, where do we go from here? There’s no solvable path within the way that the economy and the political system is structured these days. Any attempt to come up with a neat “fix-it” plan can only be suggesting bandages for what looks like a fatal political-economic wound.
~ from Obama’s New Populist Fakery by Michael Hudson ~

We Americans, Australians, Kiwis, and Europeans (to name a few) like to think that we live in full-fledged democracies, but what we really have are small "d" democracies. We are allowed democracy (freedom) to some extent in our personal lives. We have a multiplicity of choices when it comes to bread, toothpaste, movies, vehicles, friends and lovers, but, in the big ticket items of life, our choices artificially are limited or they don't exist at all.

In many ways, we live under dictatorship -- not the kind of authoritarianism symbolized by an iron boot, but a more insidious form that we don't even realize exists.

This is what is fueling the Occupy Wall Street and associated movements. The common people are waking up to the reality that much of what goes on in the world around us is being orchestrated by an elite minority that has no interest -- in fact, detests -- democracy.

These are some thoughts swirling around in my head. I will write more on this topic as some of these random thoughts congeal.