Paid Democracy – Moon of Alabama

April 5, 2007

Paid Democracy

The contest for president, presidential candidate or other voted-on jobs in the U.S. seems to be concentrated on who is the most bribable gal/guy in the crowd.

As more bribes are taken in, the better are his/her chances. When more money is raised by someone than the competitor managed to do, additional points supporting that candidate are given by the media – traditional and blogsphere alike.

Now some who don’t like such bribe comparisons say that such folks, when elected with the help of these bribes, are good people and will choose the best way to go forward independently anyhow.

But if you do so, you actually acknowledge that they are just lying to get the money and then go off to do whatever they want to do.

Why is such a system depicted as Democracy?

Posted by b on April 5, 2007 at 19:04 UTC | Permalink

Comments

uhm, “paid,” I think.
but, money is speech here in the good ol u.s.a.
it’s a “market democracy.”
bummer

Posted by: slothrop | Apr 5 2007 19:16 utc | 1

thanks for the correction slothrop – changed the title (payed-paid) – I was told English is easy to learn – 30 years later, irregular verbs are still catching up on me – is there a language that doesn’t need such …

Posted by: b | Apr 5 2007 19:38 utc | 2

b
mandarin. & the sami language of the aborigines of sweden

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Apr 5 2007 19:48 utc | 3

“Why is such system depicted as Democracy?”
Because plutocracy doesn’t sound as good. Or you could say that democracy is the theory, while plutocracy is the actuality.

Posted by: Dick Durata | Apr 5 2007 20:32 utc | 4

it is what it is. an oligarchy. with a whole landscape of servant, slaves, valets, vassals & puppets
i think of the united states as the burma(myanmar) of the americas

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Apr 5 2007 20:43 utc | 5

Why is such system depicted as Democracy?
it’s part war propaganda, part free-market theological proselytization

Posted by: b real | Apr 5 2007 21:53 utc | 6

Actually the US constitution does not shape a democracy but creates a Republic that is a mixture of monarchy(the Presidency) an aristocracy(the Senate) and a Democracy ( the House of Representatives. The frictions between these organs are adjudicated by the Judicial system. The severe problem that I can detect is the lack of definition for the financial field. Finance is a problem but within the constitution it lacks structure, that is why the power of money is considered very easily as an anomaly, but the movement of money underlies all the other motions, be they executive, legislative or judicial. The Federal Reserve is the manifestation of that power but it is not equal in legal standing to the other powers, it is like a mistress in relation to the legitimate wife.

Posted by: jlcg | Apr 5 2007 23:00 utc | 7

I have for years tried to entice others into a 28th Amendment to remedy this, the fundamental problem of American politics. As I see it anyway.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Apr 6 2007 0:34 utc | 8

Why is such system depicted as Democracy?
It’s close enough for government work.

Posted by: harv | Apr 6 2007 0:34 utc | 9

JFL,
what would stop them from having a seperate organisation running both fundraising and campaign? Concerned citizens for candidate X…

Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Apr 6 2007 2:56 utc | 10

30 years later, irregular verbs are still catching up on me – is there a language that doesn’t need such

Esperanto. Of course, your chance of running into a fellow Esperanto speaker are said to be roughly equivalent to that of a Norwegian encountering another Norwegian while on vacation in Mexico.

Japanese only has one irregular verb — する (“suru”, for those whose browsers don’t have support for kana), “to do”, which is so common in constructions that you become familiar with it as a matter of course. There are a limited number of regular verb forms, too, and everything can be written phonetically using hiragana and katakana, which together have 90 characters (45 in each; the sounds are identical — not too different from upper and lower case in that respect, except that there are 45 symbols instead of 26).

Of course, if you want to be able to read and write anything other than phonetic (and therefore ambiguous) text, you must learn kanji as well. A Japanese sixth-grader will know at least the 1006 basic kanji, and probably also an additional 300 or so which are considered essential because they appear in surnames. (And in case you’re curious about how much further one could go: my copy of Kodansha’s Compact Kanji Guide, which is aimed at students and business travelers, lists nearly two thousand of them; my Kanji Dictionary (from Tuttle) gives over seven thousand!)

We now return you to your regularly scheduled discussion.

Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Apr 6 2007 5:28 utc | 11

asod :

Section 7. No funds shall be accepted, solicited, or disbursed in pursuit of an elected office of the United States except as specified in this article, and any and all such funds left undisbursed after the election is decided shall be added to the general fund of the United States Treasury.

Th idea is that all funds have to accounted for and the candidate herself is held responsible for them.
Always open to suggestions.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Apr 6 2007 5:30 utc | 12

It’s “the best democracy money can buy” as Palast wrote. I also think the veneer of democracy has been instrumental in building whatever facade of legitimacy that the conquests of the USA have enjoyed over the years. Good PR.

Posted by: PeeDee | Apr 6 2007 6:11 utc | 13

Market democracy! Ha ha, nice turn of phrase. But really, it is just medieval, with those who own a lot of capital having power per se, and those who can attract gifts and donations against promises of advancing illegitimate, unpopular, war-like, or hopefully hugely lucrative ventures, gathering influence and power. Even the mafia has stricter hierarchical rules (ie. corporate structure) and criteria based on ability, past performance, etc. *!*
Now mind you, I’m not saying things are better in other Republics, though one could.
The US certainly takes the prize for crassness, corruption, and inefficiency, thru its particular structure, as jlcg pointed out.
30 years later, irregular verbs are still catching up on me – is there a language that doesn’t need such
Chinese. Verb root core is invariable time and aspect (action accomplished or not, etc.) are indicated with semantic bits, separate meanings (not like inflexions on the verb eg latin) which are also invariable. So it is plain sailing…

Posted by: Noirette | Apr 6 2007 18:03 utc | 14

Back to Main