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01278: Re: [WDDM] ATD 200705-02 - Albano

From: Antonio Rossin <rossin(at)tin.it>
Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 06:54:56 +0200
Subject: Re: [WDDM] ATD 200705-02 - Albano

Albano,

I can't stay at your first point.
The main problem of democracy, IMHO, is not about the officials
(say, representatives) who have been chosen to implement policies.
Rather, it is about the policies to be implemented. If the policies to
be implemented in a given territory were originated bottom-up by
that territory inhabitants (and the representatives - now really become
people's servants - are under control by the people they serve) there
is democracy

Vice versa, if the policies to be implemented had been chosen-decided
top-down by the representatives, there is no democracy.

Clearly, in order to be able to originate policies in a given territory,
those inhabitants must perform a sufficient amount of critical thinking
and participating-mindedness, first of all...


antonio - jumping in



Albano ha scritto:
Well, we can stay at this point. But I must say that, in fact, it is
not only the great amount of of informed, thinking and
participating-minded citizens that is necessary but also some
conditions of receptiveness of this people.They must be free of
choosing other activities than politics. Therefore giving confidence
to others... so reducing poltical acitivity to the choice of these
representatives.
Secondly, you talk about a "democratic system of governance". The word
"governance" means that there is not certainty in the results of
aspecified politics. You touch some factors you think that they
levers, but you are not sure. It is true that if we believe that
politics imaginated by political representatives can have the waited
results, we are in a totalitarian system. The democracy is nearer to
the "black box" (you act at the entrance but nobody knows what comes
out) than to the situation imaginated in a totalitarian system
Albano


lpc1998 a écrit :
Hi Albano,

Thank you for your reply.

You are right that, democracy requires a substantial majority of
informed, thinking and participating citizens to be viable, and
unfortunately the common people like us are too bogged down with the
demands of work, family and private lives. Therefore, a democratic
system of governance to be relevant to the ordinary people must take
this into account.

Eric Lim (lpc1998)



*/Albano <cordei(at)ccr.jussieu.fr>/* wrote:

I'll like to reply as it will be, but these days I have not so
much time
to, and I'm sorry, because it could be an occasion to develop ideas
concerning democracy.
Jean Paul Sartre said once that "Liberty doesn't existe, what is
existing is the fight to Liberty". Liberty exists by the fact we
fight
for. And it is "inside" this fight that Liberty can exist. But by
itself
it is not existing.
So it goes with democracy. It appears "behind" the fight for it.
But we
can perfect the "real existing democracy" (as un famous east german
economist said about "real existing socialism").
Nowadays the main menace coming the new right wing tendencies in
some of
the developped countries and "democratic dictatorships" in the South
countries is that they are trying (and they believe it could be
possible), by differents means of "opinion building" to ensure
systematic success in elections.
In almost all societies ringt wing opinion is in structurally in
majority, but the difference is not a wide one. Some 5 to 10% people
makes the difference. And this people can be influenced by
controlled
mass media. The mass media, controlled by great economic interests,
has the possibility of shifting 5 to 10% of the electors.
This works because the all-around the world electoral system is
representative. The electoral dispute, as some colleagues said in
this
list of discussion, is a dispute among elites in competition for
taking
power of all-nation decisions.The power of decision must be
shared. Part
for representative democracy, but in a function of a referee. The
deliberatory process would be
the function of participatory democracy....but you must have a large
amount of politized citizens able to judge about collective
affairs...
Albano C.

lpc1998 a écrit :
> Dear PVR, Mark, Filia, Annette & Albano,
>
> Annette, many thanks for your kind words.
>
> It is good you are conversant with the ways of the power
elites. It
> will come in handy when we discuss the strategies in dealing with
> them. For the time being, let us look into the WDDM itself and see
> whether we could find a way to enhance its contribution to true
democracy.
>
> Albano, your cautioning is timely. I have appended it below for
the
> convenience of readers since it was written in another email.
>
> Yes, as far as we know there has never been a true democracy,
except,
> perhaps, the one in Athens 2,600 years, but this does not mean
we have
> to surrender to false democracy. We are only a part of the
continuum
> of people who have been inspired by the spirit of democracy
since its
> Athenian birth.
>
> You are also right that we should not go for perfect true
democracy.
> After all, very little things in the real world are perfect.
>
> However, it is important that we do not confuse imperfect true
> democracy with false democracy, with the latter brimming with
> cheating, oppression, deceits, dishonesty, lies or half or
distorted
> truths while with the former, democracy is operating under less
than
> ideal conditions.
>
> The so-called "Representative Democracy" as we know it is false
> democracy because as you have said elsewhere it is not
democratic or
> ever meant to be. Moreover, while the representatives, when in
> offfice, are representatives who rule in the name of the people,
they
> are often the representatives of somebody else, and are seldom the
> representatives of the people who have supposedly elected them
to office.
>
> What do you think is the first step we in WDDM could now take in
the
> directon of true democracy?
>
> Eric Lim (lpc1998)
>
>
> =============================================
>
>
> I continue to be surprised. Let's be simply realistic. In the
world UN
> counted some 40 or 50% of the countries ruled by democracies.
But no
> one
> is a true democracy and a true democracy never existed. There
are only
> false democracies or, if you prefer, imperfect democracies .But
> imperfect democracy is the one that is possible. Talking about
"true
> democracy" is supposing it is possible to achieve an
organisation of
> the
> society where citizens use the sovereign powers and arrive at
solutions
> acceptable for all. We must avoid that. There must be
confrontation and
> regulated conflits, and the result is not harmony. Let's only
create
> the
> conditions for peace and justice (fair sharing of richness) and
....
> long life to dissensus.
>
> Democracy is not only proceedings but also a list of values. These
> values are not "harmonious". In fact ther must be couples of
> contradictory values, the defenders of one term of a couple of
values
> contest the defenders of the second term. The regulation is to
> maintain civic ways of debate.
> Albano Cordeiro



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