Democracy is a Myth

Democracy is a myth for the following reasons:

Stealing from Children

As explained here, we have been borrowing for decades and racking up huge debts.  These debts will be passed onto the next generation.  Euphemistically, this is referred to as "inter-generational transfer".

However, none of the people from the next generation got to vote on these policies.  They never asked us to borrow and spend like crazy.  They never agreed to pay the huge debt we are passing on to them.

In fact, some of these people that we are passing our massive debts to, are not even born yet.  In truth, we are stealing from children.  Because the next generation never got to vote on this massive stealing of wealth, we do not have democracy.

Lobbyists

Lobbyists have far too much power over government.  These lobbyists represent organizations with sufficient resources to carry out this lobbying.  Unorganized groups or the "silent majority" do not have representatives, do not lobby the government and therefore, do not have the same influence over policies.

Manufacturing Consent

Noam Chomsky wrote "Manufacturing Consent" which was made into a documentary.  In short, he claims that the media can shape and manipulate public opinion.  Therefore, those who control the media can control public opinion and manufacture consent.

Here are excerpts and radio interviews of Noam Chomsky about this.

A recent example of this, is the Iraq war.  Essentially, Washington was able to manufacture consent to invade Iraq, by brainwashing 70% of Americans into believing that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11 (poll).  The way you can do this is through spin.  The way spin works is by mixing true statements of different things, which in turn can make the listener believe something untrue.  Here is an example:

Saddam Hussein is an evil man.  The 9/11 terrorists are evil men.  Saddam Hussein horrifically killed thousands of people.  Thousands of people were killed by terrorists in horrific ways on 9/11.  We cannot let terrorist kill any more people.  Somebody must stop Saddam Hussein's killing spree.

Any of the above sentences are or can be true.  However, if you say the above in different combinations and multiple times, you can make people believe that Saddam Hussein is a terrorist involved in 9/11.

Here are some non-mainstream documentaries that explain the multitude of lies leading up to the Iraq war.

The Founding Fathers of the United States wrote into the constitution that freedom of the press shall be protected.  They stated that the purpose of the press is to investigate, criticize and censure the government, to keep it in check and ethical.  The purpose of the press is to serve the governed, not the governors.

During the Iraq War, the media, especially CNN and Fox, did not carry out its purpose as advocated by the Founding Fathers.  The media simply beat the war drums, did not investigate and acted as a broadcaster for the government.  The reason the media failed is because the media competes to the get the latest "scoop".  To do this, they need access to the highest ranking officials.  For fear of losing this access, they do not criticize their sources.  This is demonstrated by Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise in the movie "Lions for Lambs":

"...in Washington, D.C., a charismatic Republican presidential hopeful, Senator Jasper Irving (Cruise), has invited liberal TV journalist Janine Roth (Streep) to his office to announce a new war strategy in Afghanistan...The senator hopes that Roth's positive coverage will help convince the public that the plan is sound. 

Roth has her doubts and fears she is being asked to become an instrument of government propaganda. Near the end of the film, she informs her commercially-minded boss of her plans to call out the senator's new strategy for what she feels is a ploy, but is shot down. Ultimately, Irving's version of the story is run without the critical interaction." 

(Roth's boss was more interested in beating the other news channels in getting the latest scoop and did not want to risk losing access to Irving.)

A couple of years after the Iraq invasion, CNN tried to repair its image by using a new mantra:  "Keeping Them Honest".

Manufacturing Consent documentary:



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News Media's influence over Voters