The state of American democracy - 1 hour video

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Re: The state of American democracy - 1 hour video

Post by mr.WHO » Fri, 28. Jan 22, 17:54

Chips wrote:
Fri, 28. Jan 22, 17:10
Okay, but afraid I don't understand what you're posting about relative to the question asked.

CBJ seems to have provided precisely the info/viewpoint on the perception of democracy dying/dead/at threat though (obviously the at threat, not the other two - any indication of those?).
I don't know if that's what the video was about, or whether it was what you're on about. Didn't manage to understand (if you were making a point?) regarding the "tiktok thot attention span" relevance to "death of democracy" though.
Umh, the very fact that we discust about democracy on digital forum is in your face proof of mass media impact on condition of democracy (or percieved impact).

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Re: The state of American democracy - 1 hour video

Post by Vertigo 7 » Fri, 28. Jan 22, 17:58

lol... so before the internet was a thing, no one discussed democracy at all? The American Revolution just happened on a whim?
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Re: The state of American democracy - 1 hour video

Post by clakclak » Fri, 28. Jan 22, 18:00

mr.WHO wrote:
Thu, 27. Jan 22, 08:32
Chips wrote:
Wed, 26. Jan 22, 22:59
K, not remotely addressed the question posed. The bit you highlight isn't even relevant to the questions asked :roll:
[...]
Once you live through 3-5 election cycles and read a few dozen history books you will be able to figure it out by yourself, but it takes time and effort.
BTW I mean history books, not political commentary books, these age very badly (e.g. Fukuyama "End of History" - it was very famous back in the days, now it looks like a brainlet of naive child).
The comment about history books amuses me, because as someone who has read a lot of history books and papers, as that is my field of study at university, I have not a single clue what you are trying to get at.

History is always political and always a reflection of the current society, at least that is the consesus in German historical didactics (see for example the works of Michele Barricelli, Jörn Rüsen, Martin Lücke and Johannes Meyer-Hamme).

That there is constant change in the field of history becomes apparent when you look at works like those of David Olusoga who is a Professor of Public History at the University of Manchester. A book like "Black and British: A Forgotten History" would most likely not have been published in the UK of the 60s, yet in 2016 it was and also was well recieved. Similarly Johannes Fried's "Karl Der Große. Gewalt und Glaube", which has been gathering dust on my shelf since I last needed it, is very different in its description of Charlemagne's life, than works from ealier centuries even though, like them it also heavily relies on Einhard's Vita Karoli Magni and parts of the Annales Regni Francorum.
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Re: The state of American democracy - 1 hour video

Post by Alan Phipps » Fri, 28. Jan 22, 18:41

There may be a telling factor in 'choice' of history too. Those with closed minds and/or entrenched agendas will most likely avidly read and quote books and 'histories' from sources and authors with which they agree - or wish to be seen to agree. Whilst they might not go out making bonfires of books and histories with other views and styles, they probably won't openly admit to their peer group of actively reading or considering them.
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Re: The state of American democracy - 1 hour video

Post by mr.WHO » Fri, 28. Jan 22, 19:32

Vertigo 7 wrote:
Fri, 28. Jan 22, 17:58
lol... so before the internet was a thing, no one discussed democracy at all? The American Revolution just happened on a whim?
Well, 20 years ago nobody was screaming the end of democeacy is near 24/7 and media were doing actual journalism, instead trying to outcompete the internet with clickbait outrage.
Journalism was always described as 4th piece of power balance of healthy democracy.
The things goes sour because media are equalizing down to lowest common denominator, cutting cost and quality, trying to compete with THE Internet.

Think whatever you want, but when Joe Rogan or PewDiePie has much greater audience and impact than any main stream news service, this show something is not right (and all news services are bleding audience worldwide, no matter if lean left or right). You can hate those two as much as you want, but if a dude with camera can outcompete multi-bilion company with thousands of empoyess and decades of experince, then it's pure incompetence.

All that in last 2 years was pumped by media was:
- COVID
- Climate Change
- X<insert Trump/Biden analog in any country> is evil and soonTM takeover

Now we have ocasional bunny with Ukraine, but unless shots are fired, this topic it be gone in like 3 weeks from now.

This is literally a crazy "end is near" cult that put an end date and once it passed it just say "I misintepreted the God/sings, here is the next date".

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Re: The state of American democracy - 1 hour video

Post by mr.WHO » Fri, 28. Jan 22, 19:41

clakclak wrote:
Fri, 28. Jan 22, 18:00
History is always political and always a reflection of the current society, at least that is the consesus in German historical didactics (see for example the works of Michele Barricelli, Jörn Rüsen, Martin Lücke and Johannes Meyer-Hamme).
This one will make me drift OT again, but you're correct.
That's why I prefer the older books and stories, because they are more likely to be reviewed, checked and cross referenced with multiple sources, to filter of political bias.
Even if we see the burning of Cathage from mostly Rome perspective, there will be still some non-Roman sources left to check.
Recently ,I was cleaning my bookshelf and commented than many books didn't aged well, often because they were biased.


Even then, I don't think it was waste of time reading them, coz now after years I can verify them and learn from the experience to be more critical on current political noise.

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Re: The state of American democracy - 1 hour video

Post by Vertigo 7 » Sat, 29. Jan 22, 10:49

mr.WHO wrote:
Fri, 28. Jan 22, 19:32
Vertigo 7 wrote:
Fri, 28. Jan 22, 17:58
lol... so before the internet was a thing, no one discussed democracy at all? The American Revolution just happened on a whim?
Well, 20 years ago nobody was screaming the end of democeacy is near 24/7 and media were doing actual journalism, instead trying to outcompete the internet with clickbait outrage.
Journalism was always described as 4th piece of power balance of healthy democracy.
The things goes sour because media are equalizing down to lowest common denominator, cutting cost and quality, trying to compete with THE Internet.

Think whatever you want, but when Joe Rogan or PewDiePie has much greater audience and impact than any main stream news service, this show something is not right (and all news services are bleding audience worldwide, no matter if lean left or right). You can hate those two as much as you want, but if a dude with camera can outcompete multi-bilion company with thousands of empoyess and decades of experince, then it's pure incompetence.

All that in last 2 years was pumped by media was:
- COVID
- Climate Change
- X<insert Trump/Biden analog in any country> is evil and soonTM takeover

Now we have ocasional bunny with Ukraine, but unless shots are fired, this topic it be gone in like 3 weeks from now.

This is literally a crazy "end is near" cult that put an end date and once it passed it just say "I misintepreted the God/sings, here is the next date".
orly? Since I've walked this planet, every time a democrat gets elected to the oval office, rwnj's from Texas start ranting about secession and printing their own currency. They didn't need the internet to be morons.

Your problem is twofold. You're mad at the method of information conveyance and not the message. And two, you're ignoring current events because of your misplaced anger.

What does it matter who you hear things from so long as what you hear is factual and accurate?
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Re: The state of American democracy - 1 hour video

Post by mr.WHO » Sat, 29. Jan 22, 13:30

Vertigo 7 wrote:
Sat, 29. Jan 22, 10:49
orly? Since I've walked this planet, every time a democrat gets elected to the oval office, rwnj's from Texas start ranting about secession and printing their own currency. They didn't need the internet to be morons.

Your problem is twofold. You're mad at the method of information conveyance and not the message. And two, you're ignoring current events because of your misplaced anger.

What does it matter who you hear things from so long as what you hear is factual and accurate?
We already had this discussion in the past, so I doubt talking about it again will change anything.
The only difference is that now it's clear for me that both left & right media narrative is just a mirror image of eachother.
Factual? Accurate? Left will pick their 'factual/accurale' piece of the pie and right will pick their 'factual/accurate' piece of the pie. Both will be true.
Then they will simply drown it in digital ocean of same half-truths, tunnel vision, narrow minded ideology and short sighted greed - the only difference is opposite vector.

It's true it was always like that for ages, but the recent difference is that now, you have completely new medium of social media, that twist this somewhat 'normal' state to the extreme.
We are living in time, where single Tweet could have power of a tactical nuke and we have hundreds or even milions of madmen not just pressing the big red button, but bashing their head into it 24/7.
Plus hordes of Chineses and Russian bots sowing the discord much better and cheaper than any nuke.

Remember China Opium War?
It's not far fetched to say that currently there is ongoing US digital opium war.
Censorship will not solve the problem, as it will end up with preferenctial treatment, loss of freedom of speech and destroy the little remaining bastions of actual journalism.

That doesn't mean you can point out the problem and warn people about it.

Again I think alcohol is good analog - prohibition won't work, but 99% of people know you should drink responsibly and you have drinking-age limit as well.

That's why I'm calm, that despite that current media narrative is a nuthouse, eventually people will learn to keep healthy ballance (as more an more people are aware how social medial algoryms works).

Democracy will heal itself fine.

...unless there will be hyperinflation and/or war, but this is a diffrent topic.

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Re: The state of American democracy - 1 hour video

Post by Vertigo 7 » Sat, 29. Jan 22, 13:56

mmmkay. And you're still not separating the message from the mode of information. Whether its digital, in print, or in sky writing, that has 0 bearing on the context and factual nature of the information. If it's a dude on a microphone, a news reporter, or your mom, again, that has 0 bearing on the factual nature of the information.

If you, as an individual, can't hear or read something and vet what's being told (assuming it's important to you), then you are part of the problem, not just the person who lied to you in the first place or whether they used twitter to do it or not.
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Re: The state of American democracy - 1 hour video

Post by mr.WHO » Sat, 29. Jan 22, 16:01

Vertigo 7 wrote:
Sat, 29. Jan 22, 13:56
mmmkay. And you're still not separating the message from the mode of information. Whether its digital, in print, or in sky writing, that has 0 bearing on the context and factual nature of the information. If it's a dude on a microphone, a news reporter, or your mom, again, that has 0 bearing on the factual nature of the information.

The problem is that human perception is highly subjective and has limited capacity (I don't mean that the people are dumb, but that they can ingest only a limited amount of information per timeframe, till they become sensory overload).
It's like saying the nature of warfare is still the same, but regiments of dudes with muskets is replaced by the AI controlled drone with a minigun.
Now, more than ever in human history we are under hail of information bullets.

Information can be factually correct, but still misconstrued, often simply due to need to fit that 30 second news flash, 90 second TikTok video or 4 minute interview.
Hell, now we're at the point where most of Youtubers become strange as they are literally talk to the algorytm, rather than to the audience.

Vertigo 7 wrote:
Sat, 29. Jan 22, 13:56
If you, as an individual, can't hear or read something and vet what's being told (assuming it's important to you), then you are part of the problem, not just the person who lied to you in the first place or whether they used twitter to do it or not.
I share the sentiment, but now we are getting closer and closer to an equivalent of saying to the dude in WW1 trench, that if you cannot avoid machinegun fire, you're a part of the problem.
The digitally induced depression is a real thing, would you be so keen to tell those people "you're the part of the problem"? Or rather at least try to show them the way out?

This reminds me our discussion about freedom of speech and my point about exposure to both truth and lie. Most people will be able to handle it, but it doesn't mean there won't be people who will be draged down into the toxic hole and scarred for life. We don't keep children locked down under constant control, despite the fact that there are cases of children headbutt into shallow water and breaking the neck.


Altogether I'm mildly optimistic, it seem that with COVID lockdowns most of people have been overexposed to the doom & gloom media, culture cycle and are getting tired of it.
CNN, Fox, BBC, all news across the board are losing viewers, digital platforms like Netflix are now loosing subscribers. After the lockdowns most of people will want to get back to physical contact over digital one.
This should bring back some sanity and get the democracy back to the right direction - aka talking to eachother rather than throwing shit at eachother via social media.

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Re: The state of American democracy - 1 hour video

Post by Alan Phipps » Sat, 29. Jan 22, 16:59

It's of some idle interest to me as to how you might consider this particular forum then. I see it as a place where people who share at least one common interest (and perhaps sometimes *only* the one) get to question and debate various topical issues. Isn't that a sort of social media? Certainly I found this forum to be a useful distraction and even sometimes an inspiration over lockdowns.

Sometimes issues here are debated heatedly or contested at extreme length and level of detail and, yes, sometimes there are posts with content or posting style that make my toes curl. However, even then, I still tend to ask myself whether they may have points that could be valid and question any related preconceptions that I may hold. If I didn't think about it and just flamed them because it didn't agree with my personal comfort zone beliefs, then I could indeed be 'part of the problem'. Hence I don't think that you can divorce the media, the content and the consumer base and just pick and choose which aspect to blame in the main.

Hmm, now how was that supposed to be about American democracy? :D
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Re: The state of American democracy - 1 hour video

Post by matthewfarmery » Thu, 10. Feb 22, 14:33

I had to post this, as it sheds new light into the depths that Trump has gone to to seize the 2020 election.

first off, Trump torn up multiple pages of documents that he didn't want to hand over to the national archives, as well as shredding (by hand) any documents that he claimed was too sensitive to keep. (confirmed by various sources)

Also on top of that, he has bunged the WH loo with even more pages of sensitive documents, when Trump's aids kept on bringing back torn pages that were taped up.

And now, even worse, Trump took with him 15 boxes of highly sensitive documents to his home. (those boxes have been handed over, and now in the hands of the 6/1 committee.

Some of those documents shed new light in what Trump was planning to overturn the election. Trying to seize voting machines, using lawyers to claim that the election was rigged and so on.

The above is illegal, and this was enforced into law after Nixon tried to hide records.

Still, this madman, still walks free. But as new light is coming out about his time in the WH, it really shows how bad things got there. And why he should never be president again.

More on this story.

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/10/poli ... index.html

This is a true test of American democracy. And if America will continue to have one. If this happens again, America will not have a democracy to speak of. As a dictator will rule instead. The problem is the republican party. As they helped enable Trump, even those like Mitch McConnell are now saying they no longer want Trump, but they still need Trump's MAGA base / cult. And that is wht they are now classed as, a cult. And they have a strong voice.

In that respect, the republicans are powerless to remove Trump, unless they anger this base, but if they don't do something, another Trump will happen. and the democrats will have failed to do something while they still had time.

The real question is, will anyone have the balls to go after Trump? I don't know, even though there are multiple investigations, but if they have the balls to bring down this powerful and corrupt figure remains to be seen.

And the clock is very much against them.
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Re: The state of American democracy - 1 hour video

Post by felter » Thu, 10. Feb 22, 15:56

I haven't watched the OP's video or been following this thread, so I don't know if this has already been said or not.

You do all know that America isn't even classed as a full Democracy any more, it is called a flawed Democracy and has held that title since Trump took over as president. By the way that is just coincidence, even if he hadn't become President, America would still have become a flawed Democracy, he just didn't help matters. Also, to show you the kind of reasons why they have become a flawed Democracy when one of the countries Politicians was asked about the concern that America was no longer classed as a Full Democracy, the idiot replied that's because we are a Republic not a democracy.

The UK itself is still classed as full Democracy, but guess what currently due to the happenings over the past few years, since Bozo the Clown took office the UK is now also on the verge of also becoming a flawed Democracy, as its Democratic score has gone from 8.54 last year to it currently sitting at 8.10. This means that countries Taiwan, Uruguay, Mauritius and Costa Rica have a higher Democratic classification than the UK currently has. The difference between the US and the UK is that at the end of the day, the current UK classification is down to one person, and that's Boris (Bozo) Johnson.
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Re: The state of American democracy - 1 hour video

Post by matthewfarmery » Fri, 11. Feb 22, 12:58

Barbara Walter, a University of California professor and an expert on civil conflicts, recently wrote about the political volatility in the U.S. since the Jan. 6 insurrection, which dropped the country into the anocracy zone, and she told CNN the riot had made the deadly risks from Donald Trump's lies "impossible to deny and ignore."

"Anocracies are neither fully democratic nor fully autocratic; their citizens enjoy some elements of democratic rule (e.g., elections), while other rights (e.g., due process or freedom of the press) suffer," Walter wrote for the Washington Post. "In the last weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency, the respected Center for Systemic Peace (CSP) calculated that, for the first time in more than two centuries, the United States no longer qualified as a democracy. It had, over the preceding five years, become an anocracy."
I posted that on page 2, the link to the main article is also there. So yes, the US democracy has fallen a few rankings, but judging from the above response, its not even a democracy any more. (failed or otherwise) With one party wanting total power, and willing to turn a blind eye to a madman. His cult been strong, and this party can't ignore them, or get rid of them, as this party fears the repercussions if they did.

But yes, America can no longer pride itself on its democracy. And your probably right about the UK as well. without the bozo, there are very few options on who will replace him. And if the UK goes into a general election, I doubt Labour will win. as for the other parties, not a chance. So we are also stuck with this bozo. Not a good time.
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Re: The state of American democracy - 1 hour video

Post by humility925 » Tue, 15. Mar 22, 06:05

democracy are highly vulnerable to corruption, person could speaking as false promise, very charming, but secret oppression or not act on promise or meaning difference than what people/voter think, I myself live in American, and I don't trust Democracy, but any government form as well because based of humankind/men are often self interest and not for people's interest even calm to be. Right now, it's so many law, policy, fee, tax, living cost is high while wage is not reasonable to covered living cost like used to be long time ago (Min wage could afford new house and new car in 1950 (but not those day). Democracy keep saying yet nothing changed (in good way, improved way, not worse or bad change) for long time.

Unfortunately, people are so easy deceived by those person who seek higher rank of career, speaking gave what they want to heard but not action on solution for many years, even few or some throw money on problem but not fix problem that cause (like law, policy that drive people to homeless in first place, ect in all while milk common citizen/people's time and money dry while deceived or one are not deceived but powerless to do anything. If anything Democracy is very threat to people, especially rich, charming, seem like smart and clever but heart is rotten and too corruption that people didn't know or noticed it at all.

Don't get me wrong, all other form of government are corruption too, it's just democracy is more and higher vulnerable to corruption in long terms. Problem is that it's who and what kind of people running in the power like government and corporation.
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Re: The state of American democracy - 1 hour video

Post by Falcrack » Tue, 15. Mar 22, 16:05

A democracy is only as good as its citizens. That is both the main strength, and the main weakness, of democracy.

That said, I would not have it any other way.

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Re: The state of American democracy - 1 hour video

Post by matthewfarmery » Tue, 15. Mar 22, 17:06

This I think is the biggest problem facing America, some parts of the country seem to want a downfall of democracy. Also some of the new channels like Fox news isn't helping matters.

Right now, I feel that American democracy is at a knifes edge and it could very easy fail. How much of Americas still wants a democracy really depends on American citizens themselves. But if they allow that two timed impeached president back in, then democracy will fail. As he wanting the ability to fire any excitative branch official if he comes back into power. He certainly been touting he might run for office. But then he might also be breaking some laws as well, (mainly funding)

At the end of the day, I still hope America doesn't fall down in that deep hole, once there, it will be impossible for it to climb out of.

And with heightened tensions else where in the world, that is the last thing this planet needs is a failed democracy from a western world.

I guess time will tell.
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