The Lion's Den

The Failure of Democracy

I have been thinking a lot about the Democratic system of free elections recently, mostly wondering how a self-serving individual like George W. Bush managed to become president of our nation, and what it will take to replace him with someone that demonstrates some degree of decency. If you believe the line that '$87 Billion is required to rebuild Iraq' then you are simply not paying a lot of attention. Those $87 Billion are pure pork barrel funds for Halliburton, Bush and Cheney's little conglomerate of cronies. I guess I can see how this level of corruption can fly, the whole system is corrupt and beyond most people's reach, however there is another gross failure of democracy happening this week that defies comprehension: California is going into a governor recall vote and Arnold Schwarzenegger is the leading candidate.

Stop and think about that for a minute, I mean really think about what is wrong with this. Arnold has refused all but one debate invitations (the one he accepted was formatted so the candidates received a questions list days ahead of time) because he knows that he is too ignorant and incompetent to be able to intelligently answer any campaign questions. Arnold has no political experience, and in the few public appearances he has made he has demonstrated a lack of political understanding. He has shown over many occasions that he is a misogynist with little regard for anyone who is not part of the white male ruling elite. The campaign manager for Arnold's campaign is the one who managed Pete Wilson's campaign (if you do not know Pete Wilson's history go do a search on his name, he is one of the scariest human beings elected to office in recent history). It is not hard to realize that Arnold is little more than a puppet-spoke person for some rather scary conservative individuals who would rather stay behind the scenes and pull his strings. So I ask again, why is he the most popular candidate? The answer is: Because he is charismatic, has made some fun and exciting movies and the voting masses are too damned ignorant and easily manipulated. Do any of the people who have said they will vote for him really believe he will make a good governor? I seriously doubt it. People's votes are determined more by how attractive they find a candidate than by the candidate's abilities or aptitude for the job. As the Disposable Heroes of Hiphopracy said in the song 'Satanic Reverses' this is a world where "straight teeth in your mouth are more important than the words that come out of it".

So I am left with the question: Does the democratic system work? Is the concept of letting the masses vote for the individual that most appeal to them flawed by nature or is it a solid concept that is not well implemented? How good a system of governance do we really have that allows an outrage like this to happen? We will have to wait until October Fifth to see what the outcome of the California recall vote is, but no matter what happens the results of the last presidential election an the current state of the California recall vote have significantly shaken my trust of democracy.