Could the world have done better than democracy?

[Nacchinarkiniyan]

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Voting rights in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955–1968)

Disfranchisement. When white Democrats regained power, they passed laws that made voter registration more inaccessible to blacks. Black voters were forced off the voting rolls. The number of African American voters dropped dramatically, and they no longer were able to elect representatives. From 1890 to 1908, Southern states of the former Confederacy created constitutions with provisions that disfranchised most African Americans and tens of thousands of poor white Americans.

This still continues to a lesser extent. I remember the t during the presidential campaign of Obama in some of the states , one of the main job was to get Blacks to register.

http://www.blackcommentator.com/107/107_cover_election.html



Note: The first URL does not come out correctly.

 

[Nara]

....I don't understand your statement about in the USA, registering to vote is required. No sir, one does not need to register. One should just prove that they live in the jurisdiction by producing a valid domicile document - a license, a bill like utility bill etc.

Dear Shri KRS, AFAIK, to be able to vote in the U.S. one has to first register. The rules for registering vary from state to state. Some states make it easy by offering it at the time a young person applies for driving license. Some states allow same-day registration.

Cheers!

 

[Nara]

...I am sorry, Professor Nara Ji. Your emotional argument is not convincing.

Dear brother KRS, do I smell a whiff of condescension here?

We will never agree on this issue, so I will just leave it with just this observation, it is a well documented fact that (i) rich businessmen, with the collusion of politicians, brutally suppressed workers (the May-day celebrated world over is in commemoration of one such brutal suppression in Chicago), (ii) it was union that facilitated the workers to stand up to the brutality, and (iii) it was union that secured decent middle-class living for hardworking Americans.

Solidarity!!!

Cheers!

 

[Nara]

Dear Shri Nacchinarkiniyan,

...By the people meant. One man one vote. Universal Suffrage. .....The U.S democracy does not follow this principle. By introducing the process of registration of voters, they took away the right of millions of poor and suppressed people to vote.

The reality is more complex and even more troubling. When it all began only men with property could vote. For the purpose of determining proportional representation for the lower house slaves were counted as 3/5th of a person. President was elected by electors appointed by state governments. It took a long time for people to have a voice in selecting the electors who then elect the President and VP. This is the system being followed even now.

Due to the equal representation in the senate regardless of population, the number of electors for a given state is not strictly proportional to the population size. Therefore, one-man-one-vote system never existed in the U.S. except in a technical sense. One man's one vote count more than another one man's one vote from a different state. So, even if there was no voter suppression of any kind, we still won't have a true one-voter-one-vote system.

During the era of segregation in the south, the states enacted many laws with the express purpose of preventing black-Americans from voting. This trend continues till this day. Among many techniques the Republicans use to suppress black vote is something called voter-caging, a method to prevent certain groups, mainly minorities, from voting, or preventing those votes from getting counted.

So, one-man-one-vote never existed in the U.S., it is only a pretend one-man-one-vote.

Now For the people: The old saying of "What is good for General Motors is Good for the United States of America." is how the U.S democracy works.

The situation is even worse than this. Sometime ago Illinois (thanks Shri KRS for pointing out the mistake) Senator Dick Durban said the banks own congress. He should know, he is the chairman of the Senate Banking committee. Also, the US supreme court recently ruled that any person, which BTW includes corporations in the U.S., can spend any amount of money on any election without having to disclose anything, a recipe for corruption.

We still continue to believe that we have a democracy. This is what I would term as Superstition or Blind faith.

Ha, ha, here you go again, bringing that S word again. Believing in democracy in spite of all its shortcomings is because there is no other system that is better. This is not blind-faith, this is not superstition. Believing in untested, unverified accounts of supernatural powers is blind-faith, superstition. One is a problem of good idea getting misused by greedy people, and the other is, paraphrasing Mark Twain, believing what you know ain't so.

Cheers!

 

[KRS]

Dear Sri Nacchinarkiniyan Ji and Professor Nara Ji,

I erred by saying that one need not register to vote in the US. Professor Nara Ji is correct - one needs to be a registered voter.

What I was trying to convey was that they have made it so easy to vote - especially with early voting nowadays. Here in Texas, you can vote without your registration card as long as you have the following:

a driver's license or personal identification card issued to you by the Department of Public Safety or a similar document issued to you by an agency of another state, regardless of whether the license or card has expired;
a form of identification containing your photograph that establishes your identity;
a birth certificate or other document confirming birth that is admissible in a court of law and establishes your identity;
United States citizenship papers issued to you;
a United States passport issued to you;
official mail addressed to you, by name, from a governmental entity;
a copy of a current utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck, or other government document that shows your name and address.

Regards,
KRS

 

[KRS]

Dear Professor Nara Ji,

You have said this above in your response to Sri Nacchinarkiniyan JI: "The situation is even worse than this. Sometime ago Michigan Senator Dick Durban said the banks own congress. He should know, he is the chairman of the Senate Banking committee. Also, the US supreme court recently ruled that any person, which BTW includes corporations in the U.S., can spend any amount of money on any election without having to disclose anything, a recipe for corruption."

Firstly Dick Durbin is from Illinois. I agree with you - he knows more about banks owning congress - his predecessor, the democratic Senator from Connecticut, Mr. Dodd decided not to run again for Congress as the sweet heart mortgage deal he got from Countrywide Mortgage.

Secondly, the Corporations and the Unions are not still allowed to contribute directly to a candidate. But there is no limit on them on advertising. What happened in the last election? Not many ads funded by Corporations directly - as I have said, they have to be careful, as the information to bankroll for a view supporting a candidate in advertisement when it comes out and it surely will, it would damage the image of that Corporation. Did the Unions have such a concern? Nope. They openly advertised supporting the democratic party candidates. Yes, in this sense, it is corruption.

Regards,
KRS

 

[KRS]

Dear brother Professor Nara Ji,

Condescension? No, not at all.

I fully support the existence of the Unions against Private companies, which did lots of shameful things in the past. But today the picture is different. We have to compete against the likes of China and India. Unions not being flexible is one of the reasons the manufacturing jobs among others have been walking out of this country. There comes a time when the USA will not be able to minimize this effect by productivity improvements alone.

I still do not understand why the govt. Unions need to exist. Do not understand the logic. Even President FDR thought so. He said "“All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations.”

I am not against all unionism. I am against certain operational mechanisms of the Unions against the existence of govt. unions (at state level - because at the Federal level there is no collective bargaining on wages) and the corrupt relationship between one political party (democrats) and the unions.

Regards,
KRS

Dear brother KRS, do I smell a whiff of condescension here?

We will never agree on this issue, so I will just leave it with just this observation, it is a well documented fact that (i) rich businessmen, with the collusion of politicians, brutally suppressed workers (the May-day celebrated world over is in commemoration of one such brutal suppression in Chicago), (ii) it was union that facilitated the workers to stand up to the brutality, and (iii) it was union that secured decent middle-class living for hardworking Americans.

Solidarity!!!

Cheers!

 

[Nara]

.... Even President FDR thought so.

Yes Shri KRS, he did say this, but that was a different time when unions had considerable influence and the public sector workers were treated with respect. The story is different now. Unions have the least influence now since unions came into existence. Yet, union remains the bogey man for Republicans.

Anyway, workers are workers, irrespective of who the employer is, whether private party or government. From my vantage point as a state employee, I know how the state treats us. I live in a so-called right-to-work state and our union is very weak and consequently, the state just doesn't care.

We have administrators, state employees themselves, with seemingly unlimited expense account, they have private jets, for what I know not. What is the need for a university president to have private jet? But, budget cut is put on the backs of the least among us, the janitors and maintenance workers. We have such workers making $8 an hour after 10 years of service. These are public employees. Nobody cares, because we are a right-to-work state. This is the fate the Wisconsin teachers are desperately trying to avoid.

I think all this pales in comparison with the treatment being meted out by the federal government to Bradley Manning, the alleged source to WikiLeaks. I realize this is a distraction and many in this forum may not be interested. But, this something everyone must know. This travesty is happening in the U.S. of A, the great beacon of freedom, bright shining city on a hill, an exceptional nation.

Whatever one's politics may be, whether or not you think Bradley Manning is guilty or not, how he is being treated by the Obama administration is unconscionable. Bradley Manning is not convicted of anything, yet he is on 23 hour solitary confinement, forced to stand naked every morning while his cell is searched, and a range of punitive treatment he is subjected to. Read about it here.

Not many will be interested in this young man, who, whether you agree with what he was alleged to have done or not, was motivated not by money, not by ego, but only upon what he thought was the right thing to do. If he broke any law, then he should be prosecuted in a lawful court, and if convicted, must be punished according to law. But, to subject him to extremely punitive treatment, a treatment that any moral person will see as torture, is shameful.

This can't happen with Obama not knowing about it. Silence from one who has the power to put a stop to it is culpability. In my books, Obama, and the state he heads is guilty of torture, and must be held to account. This is a matter of shame to all Americans.

Cheers!