11 wnt. The Status of western societal cohesion
We said from childhood: “Society depends on compliance”, nothing new here, there isn’t one policeman for every criminal.
I just posted on the fragility of the French government with Macron up for snap election. One wonders what is the solidity of the western governmental façade, and its myths of freedom and democracy. The news in France, seems pretty bad, but I don't know what is true. We know societal myths are all exaggerated at their core, but just how false, we may have to find out. This is what was said:
The period ahead for France is one of chaos. Three political forces seem to be battling it out, but none of them offers any analysis of the situation. France is at a standstill.
✓It’s better to live on benefits than to work for a small salary. ✓Public debt stood at 3,101 billion euros at the end of 2023, or 110.6% of GDP. Administrations are very expensive, and deliver very poor-quality services. ✓The armed forces would not last three days against Russia. The police are outdated in the colonies of New Caledonia and Mayotte and refrain from entering certain neighborhoods even in metropolitan France. ✓The justice system takes years to judge a crime, and ✓The prisons are overcrowded, sometimes by more than 250%. ✓A very large number of students with B.A.s can decipher a text, but cannot read a book. ✓The hospital staff spends one third of their time filling out forms, and no longer have time to look after their patients. ✓Fraud, particularly in social security and tax, seems to be reaching new records. ✓Illegal drug sales play such an important economic role (around 3 billion euros) that it is included in the calculation of GDP. ✓The inequalities are such that while nearly 3 million French people (4.25% of the of the population) are millionaires in dollars. ✓Nearly a third of French people (23 million,) live on less than 100 euros on the 10th of the month.
I suppose that I could say all these things about America too, but without backing it up, there would be no new believers. Something else has to drop to change perceptions.
[I will also share this, I lived in Italy for a long time, and I often asked my Italian friend what he thought of the precarious situation, each year seemingly more wobbly. He always said the same thing with the same confidence, "We'll muddle through it somehow", no worry. WOW, for how long will that slogan hold water?]
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People seem to have something to do with their form government all over the world; in some places more or less a token, or a mere formality. They’re in different forms but every one of them is declaring some sort of democracy. So, Democracy is a useless word, from what I just said, because everyone uses it. But its meaning is some kind of participation, real or imagined.
Is there a so-called people, that wants to vote for something? Or is it just the politics of grievance, where grievance groups compete with each other to loot the resources of the State? Movements of political mobilization, are aimed to make people unhappy and resentful, so that they will follow self-appointed leaders in struggles against other groups. If you apply the discourse and assumptions of “rights” without qualification, you produce nothing but a series of alienated individuals. In the absence of any interior or exterior reference point, any tradition, ideology or fundamental values for group solidarity; society then continuously splinters into smaller and smaller fragments. In our culture of today, there are no longer any big issues. The only issue left is me!
So-called democracy has a lot of poisonous elements. The most dangerous in today’s world is that it has many “leaks” from outside interests. Borders do not prevent meddling with democracy. That makes it ideal for the world hegemony, and toxic for individual sovereignty. The leaks are through buying influence and votes with money. The longer the campaigning period, the worse the offenses. Money could be taken out of politics to some extent. Registration of foreign agents can somewhat limit outside interference. Campaign laws could be much stricter on those that are thus registered.
Actually these “leaks” are the same for internal affairs. Democracy is the form of government most prone to changing one-man, equals one-vote, to one-dollar, equals one-vote.
Another poison of “Democracy is what is it taking to win, without any group in solidarity. Instead of building solidarity through programs that solve many people’s problems, winning might just be a marginal affair where the other side looks a little bit worse that all of our faults. What is left, but to vote for the lesser of the two evils. (This is the way I have known it for all of my life in America). Therefore, the winner is declared just by a margin of “One” vote, or a very slim margin. There is no solidity holding together the government nor its policies. If it falls, nobody gives a damn, or an equal number laments and an equal number rejoices. As this progresses the solidarity becomes slimmer and slimmer, and based on more far-fetched justifications. Until there is nothing left. (I guess the country just disintegrates?)
This is Democracy as the west knows it.
There is a bit more to it, in that the west has the legacy of winning the world wars. (Yes, some of the losers got inducted into the club, that’s another story). So, there is the momentum of financial well-being from flattening the world economy, which is imputed into democracy, but it is really because of imperialism.
It fits perfectly with the politics of “ME”, since democracy is not allowed to lose MY imperial heritage of wealth. I must remain in the first nation. Is that all there is to hold people together, the momentum of a past of easy living?
I would say that what holds other nations together is a past of very difficult going and immense sacrifice. Why did they do it (I cannot answer)? But be sure that they are going to do it again. Putin announced (mostly to his own public), before the Switzerland peace meeting, and then after visiting North Korea, and Vietnam.
“NATO countries want to tear Russia apart, but we will NEVER LET THEM DO IT”. Many western strategies have been curtailed. Others, like sanctions, have backfired.
I don’t want to transform this into a war essay.
I am just commenting on a different level of government solidarity.
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They write about the divisiveness of America. Somehow they believe it is due to some toxic personality, and not that the toxic personality is due to the divisiveness that is already there. Of course the divisiveness is due to the present government (for decades); they do not cure any problems, but just create more. They do that to build more divisiveness, which serves them. It serves also to blame all "toxic personalities", their opposition.
Who would fall for that? I guess you and me, (for all of those decades)?