People and Democracy (628 words; 2 – 4 min. read) [Note: Content Warning - human rights abuses, evil]

As I mentioned here, I’ve been reading about the worst of the worst in historian  Nancy  MacLean’s “Democracy in Chains: the deep history of the radical right's stealth plan for America” (Amazon), which reveals the stealth attacks on democracy of evil  wealth supremacists such as John C Calhoun, James McGill Buchanan, and Charles Koch - the 1% of the 1%, as I termed it.

They planned a very long-term, widespread and HIDDEN campaign to destroy democracy – and it is having a major effect. This is the campaign that was behind evils such as neoliberalism and former POTUS45.

But … okay, so that’s what they did: what do we do to defend and promote democracy?

Well, quite a bit is being done now as it is. From my post mentioned at the start of this post:

“for now, it seems like the informative writings of people like John  Pilger, Michael  West, Greg  Jericho, Alan  Kohler, and Michael Pascoe, the calls to stand up and be accountable for our society and democracy made by people like Robert  Reich, George  Monbiot and others is the way to go. We have to find the courage and make the decisions that avoid lifestyle vulnerabilities to enable to us to be ethical and stand up against wrong doing wherever we find it - whether in right wing extremists, workplace autocrats, or community organisations.”

The book “Democracy in Chains” is itself doing the sort of work I touched on in “Know Thy Oppressor - and reveal them”.

There are also activist groups such as “Get Up” (although I left them some years ago over concerns about their tactics), and protest events seem to be organised fairly frequently (effective vents, using social media for communication but also decades of lessons).

However, what I consider is missing is a way for uncontroversial, little known, “everyday” people to have as quiet and persistent impact as the wealth supremacists have been having. (They’re not allies, as they are a part of democracy.)

What I have in mind is an informal, largely social media organised group with an informal “branch” in every town aimed at enabling the uncontroversial, little known, “everyday” people to articulate arguments for democracy, human rights, and equity and counter the arguments of the elites in the letters to the editors columns of small town and large conservative newspapers all over Australia.

Imagine that every time a conservative person has a rant of hate that is reported in a conservative paper there are one or maybe a few short, polite rebuttals in that paper.

A broader example of that can be found here.

This won’t change the offenders, but it will start letting current and future politicians know that there is, in fact, a quiet groundswell in support of democracy, human rights, and equity, and that there will be an accounting in future elections.

To widen the appeal, I would see this group not engaging in running arguments with the haters aka the evil / dupes of evil  – they’re not the targets. The targets are the politicians and those quiet voters who put conservatives into power, and the campaign will have to run for probably three election cycles after is adequately established, so there is no point rushing.

As I think more on this, I may add more to this - especially the essential aspect of protecting minority and other human rights.

The biggest problem would be finding an adequate group of people to get this happening – I’m too worn out and ill; there are brilliant activists around, but I don’t know if they are prepared to plan and implement a long campaign.

One thing they would hopefully do is come up with a natty name: for now, for convenience, I’ll just go with “People and Democracy” (PaD). 

 

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Finally, remember: we need to be more human being rather than human doing.