[B]asic anti-democratic elements have still been preserved. First is the Senate, where states with small populations are as well represented as those with large numbers. Next is the Supreme Court, whose judges still serve for life. More serious perhaps is the maintenance of state boundaries unchanged from colonial times, usually irrelevant to any conception of local governance or administrative efficiency. And of course there is always the corrupting effect of large cash donations to parties and politicians.
Reforms designed to curb the influence of big businesses never went far enough, and important elements of the educational system remain to this day in the hands of often reactionary and ignorant religious sects. Thus control of most public information --- education and media -- remained in the hands of corporatists and of those allied with them. And from this base, and from the massive resistance to the integration of former slaves and their descendants into society comes the modern power of political reaction.
...Like the Vietnam mess before it, the war in Iraq and especially the stout-hearted resistance to colonialization by many people there has glaringly exposed all of these contradictions to our own people and to all the world. Neither war ever could have happened in a country with a truly educated mass. Neither war ever could have happened without a conniving and utterly corrupted and lying journalism. Media which is actually subsidiary to the very men and corporations poised to profit from war and conquest.
...This is why in the face of the supreme test of war, only two men, identical in their pro-war and sharing many anti-democratic attitudes will face one another in what will be at best, compared with world standards, a very defective election process. This rickety and antique system must pass away as utterly as has that of the former USSR before we can look for much change in the USA.
This is why I continue to warn Venezuelans and others in target states to consult their own defense.
Not to look for relief within the US political process.
There is only harassment, attack and threats for you here...
Reforms designed to curb the influence of big businesses never went far enough, and important elements of the educational system remain to this day in the hands of often reactionary and ignorant religious sects. Thus control of most public information --- education and media -- remained in the hands of corporatists and of those allied with them. And from this base, and from the massive resistance to the integration of former slaves and their descendants into society comes the modern power of political reaction.
...Like the Vietnam mess before it, the war in Iraq and especially the stout-hearted resistance to colonialization by many people there has glaringly exposed all of these contradictions to our own people and to all the world. Neither war ever could have happened in a country with a truly educated mass. Neither war ever could have happened without a conniving and utterly corrupted and lying journalism. Media which is actually subsidiary to the very men and corporations poised to profit from war and conquest.
...This is why in the face of the supreme test of war, only two men, identical in their pro-war and sharing many anti-democratic attitudes will face one another in what will be at best, compared with world standards, a very defective election process. This rickety and antique system must pass away as utterly as has that of the former USSR before we can look for much change in the USA.
This is why I continue to warn Venezuelans and others in target states to consult their own defense.
Not to look for relief within the US political process.
There is only harassment, attack and threats for you here...
