{"id":49836,"date":"2019-11-27T20:50:31","date_gmt":"2019-11-28T01:50:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=49836"},"modified":"2019-11-27T20:50:35","modified_gmt":"2019-11-28T01:50:35","slug":"democracy-is-the-ideal-distraction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=49836","title":{"rendered":"Democracy Is the Ideal Distraction"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/internationalman.com\/articles\/democracy-is-the-ideal-distraction\/\">Democracy Is the Ideal Distraction<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/internationalman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/voting-.jpg\" alt=\"democracy\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>In the days of yore, there were kings. Everybody could agree to hate the king because he was rich and well-fed, when most of his minions were not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then, a more effective system was invented: democracy. Its originators had in mind a system whereby the populace could choose their leader from amongst themselves \u2013 thereby gaining a leader who understood them and represented them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In short order, those amongst the populace who wished to rule found a way to game the new system in a way that would allow them to, in effect, be kings, but to do so from behind the scenes, whilst retaining the illusion of democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The formula is to create two opposing political parties. Each is led by someone who\u2019s presented as being a \u201crepresentative of the people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You then present the two parties as having opposing views on governance. It matters little what the differences are. In fact, you can have the differences be as obscure and arbitrary as, say, gay rights or abortion, and they will work as well as any other differences. What matters is that your two parties object to each other strenuously on the declared issues, working the electorate into a lather.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once you have each group hating the other group \u201con principle,\u201d you\u2019re home free. At that point, you\u2019ve successfully completed the distraction. The electorate now believe that, whatever the trumped-up issues are, they\u2019re critical to the ethical governance of the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Most importantly, the electorate\u00a0<em>actually believe<\/em>\u00a0that their future well-being depends on the outcome of the next election \u2013 that it will decide whether their own view on the issues will prevail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Democracy Is the Ideal Distraction In the days of yore, there were kings. Everybody could agree to hate the king because he was rich and well-fed, when most of his minions were not. Then, a more effective system was invented: democracy. Its originators had in mind a system whereby the populace could choose their leader [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[204,1153,6228,11658],"class_list":["post-49836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-democracy","tag-distraction","tag-international-man","tag-jeff-thomas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49836"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49837,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49836\/revisions\/49837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}