Liberal democracy ,and even republican self-governance, have always depended on beliefs and civic virtues which the liberal state itself is constitutionally unable to nourish or enforce -- and which big-corporate employment and consumer marketing, quite as much big-government social engineering, does a lot to undermine.
Entire Issue. Article titles: UN & Civil Society; Civil Society & Media Freedom; Religion in it's Place; Women, Civil Society, & NGOs in Post-Soviet Azerbaijan; Lazarus Rising: Civil Society & Sierra Leone's Rise from the Grave; Framing Democracy: Civil Society & Civic Movements in Eastern Europe; American Creed: Philanthropy & Rise of Civil Society (1700-1865), etc.
"It is by now commonplace to observe that democracy is in a weakened state in the United States. But could it be that the U.S. is no longer a democracy at all, if it ever truly was?"
What happens now that democracy's institutions have all metastasized into something dangerous? <<>> What happens now that democracy + free market have fused into a single predatory organism?
"The government, and the politicians who pretend to represent ordinary Americans, are a wholly owned and operated subsidiary of the corporate state. "
Corporations, as they endlessly scheme for complete control over the planet's finite resources, will order the planet's social order into whatever structure is necessary to insure corporate dominance over the individual. Orwell recognized the corporate entities driven ambition to abolish represenative government in favor of corporate oligarchy.
For anyone who isn't blind it's easy to recognize that representative democracy in the U.S. has been cast aside
Victoria Collier, you're the daughter and niece of James and Kenneth Collier, authors of the book Votescam: The Stealing of America , a chronicle of their 25-year investigation into how elections are rigged by computerized voting machines. Victoria is the editor of www.votescam.org. I've run across a number of your most recent op ed pieces including What To Do When They "Let" Us Win Elections and Why Americans Viciously Protect Their Hub Caps But Not Their Ballots: A Thoughtful Exploration of Modern Democracy.
As of mid-August 2009, there were six (6) lobbyists per single (1) member of House and Senate (Bloomberg News). That's 6:1, folks. Just for healthcare reform. For financial industry reform, there are 2,400 lobbyists in play. The Chamber of Commerce spent $26.2 million--in the first 2 quarters (6 months) of 2009. Clearly, private industries and their foot soldiers on K Street/Capitol Hill influence/dictate American policymaking. No matter who's 'voted in,' it's the influence machine that rules Washington. Worse, there's a good chance that the Supreme Court will grant corporations (as 'fictive persons') to spend unlimited dollars in funding electoral campaigns. Is there hope that this country will be a democracy one day? Or is it doomed to become increasingly, irrevocably plutocratic?
The litany of war crimes in the name of "liberation", "ridding the country of tyrants", spreading "democracy", has become the language of blackest satire.
Bolivia's enthusiastic commitment to participatory democracy may well prove the summit's most important contribution … the end result was the most transformative and radical vision so far.