Democracy in the country that gave birth to democracy

[gregkavarnos]

Yes Ron, George Washington loved and respected American Indians and wanted to have their children too.
http://www.greatdreams.com/lies.htm

[Karma Dondrup Tashi]

... a change in structural componant heirarchy may be the answer ... Perhpa a real democracy in which everyone votes on everything on say a weekly basis removing the politician and diluting the special interest to a meaningless role would be another reasonable alternative.
There are many alternatives to these democracies that are not democratic.

Like when a majority votes to eliminate a minority?

Even more fundamentally than that however - who enforces the votes? As long as someone has control of the guns, prisons and armies all you've done is replace one superstructure with another. It doesn't matter who is in control of that enforcement mechanism - the god-kings, the aristocrats, the church, the proletariat, the bourgeousie, the banks, the mafia, the left, the right - all you've done is substitute one form of exploitation with another.

All parasites need one thing - to prey on the host. We don't need to replace the superstructure - we need to eliminate it.

[gregkavarnos]

I will also take a stab in the dark and guess that white Americans did not learn about democracy from the American Indians.

We didn't learn about from Greeks either (especially since Greek preferred Tyranny to Democracy anyway).

N

Preferred? And here was me thinking that Tyranny is normally imposed.

[LastLegend]

From who did Caucasians learn democracy from and at the same time drafted people as slaves? Haha.

If there is tyranny, naturally democracy will arise.

[Sönam]

As it turns to day in our societies of spectacle, democracy is only the dictature of the majority, and never a majority in history has constructed change for good (or better), only minorities are able to do it. Democracy is the worse system for our countries. It can be useful for a while, for countries getting out of a dictature, but for us, american, europeans and some others, it is exactely the way to reintroduce "democraticely" the domination of peoples of power ... Goebels would love it! and right wings peoples know it, they do not need to install a dictature anymore, democracy is now enough for them. Tea Party (and firnds) is doing the job!



Sönam

[gregkavarnos]

I will also take a stab in the dark and guess that white Americans did not learn about democracy from the American Indians.

We didn't learn about from Greeks either (especially since Greek preferred Tyranny to Democracy anyway).

N

PS Ancient Greek Democracy and Early American Democracy are actually quite similar as both were based on the ownership and exploitation of a slave class with no democratic rights!

[ronnewmexico]

kdt....I would suggest a pure democracy has to be, as I mention a bit, accompanied by a structural change in the democratic heirarchy..in that a judiciary would have to assume a predominate role in the overseeing of the means to this end and of what is acceptable and unacceptable to be voted upon.

A judiciary can be corrupted sometimes overtly sometimes corrupted covertly...but as contrasted to politicians it appears less corruptable, if means are employed. selection review censure things of that sort are applied unequivically and fairly there is less tendency to corruption, especially of the overt kind.

In america for instance, I can point to a 100 or so corrupted poliiticians at the varying levels for each judiciary member corrupted at their respective level.
A bad argument at the present time considering the constituancy or the american supreme court...but nevertheless in a overall historic context.

LL ande GK...american indians had slaves as well(other captured tribe indians) and it was present virtually in all geographic areas and integrated into the societal culture. Few inidans were ever kept as slaves by the americans, which may speak a bit to their status in things.
IN the spanish americas some but not many indians were kept as slaves.
The application of slavery...hard to say in american context where the ideology came from..purvailant and prelevent in native america it certainly was.

American indian tribes speaking of themselves as being human and others not... speaks to the underlying ideology of their slaveries context. That way of thinking provided the basis....I assume.

Literally translated the names of tribes in their languages means, the peoples that constitutes a particular tribe ...human, quite often.

[LastLegend]

Ron,

Slavery was big part of history of United States. Can you shed some lights on its effects in present days in terms of race relations in United States.

I have been told that most whites don't see non-whites as equals. Can you discuss or shed some lights on this?

[ronnewmexico]

Your tag says Wash DC so that seems a bit curious..please explain.

I'd say that thinking is going to gone...but that's just my experience.

[Malcolm]

I will also take a stab in the dark and guess that white Americans did not learn about democracy from the American Indians.

We didn't learn about from Greeks either (especially since Greek preferred Tyranny to Democracy anyway).

N

Preferred? And here was me thinking that Tyranny is normally imposed.

"Greek tyranny in the main grew out of the struggle of the popular classes against the aristocracy or against priest-kings where archaic traditions and mythology sanctioned hereditary and/or traditional rights to rule. Popular coups generally installed tyrants, who often became or remained popular rulers, at least in the early part of their reigns. For instance, the popular imagination remembered Peisistratus for an episode - related by (pseudonymous) Aristotle, but possibly fictional - in which he exempted a farmer from taxation because of the particular barrenness of his plot."

More or less an archaic version of dictatorship of the prols.

N

[Malcolm]

Ron,

Slavery was big part of history of United States. Can you shed some lights on its effects in present days in terms of race relations in United States.

I have been told that most whites don't see non-whites as equals. Can you discuss or shed some lights on this?

Equality in the US, as in every other nation comes from $$$.

People with more money are more equal than others.

N

[Malcolm]

Few inidans were ever kept as slaves by the americans, which may speak a bit to their status in things.

Not true, many Indians were sold into slavery.

As far as slavery among North American Indians

"Many Native American tribes did practice some form of slavery before the European introduction of African slavery into North America; but none exploited slave labor on a large scale.[1]
Native American groups frequently enslaved war captives whom they primarily used for small-scale labor.[1] Some, however, were used in ritual sacrifice.[1] Although not much is known about them, there is little evidence that these slaves were considered racially inferior to the Native Americans who held power over them.[1] Nor did Native Americans buy and sell captives in the pre-colonial era, although they sometimes exchanged enslaved individuals with other tribes in peace gestures or in exchange for their own members.[1] In fact, the word "slave" may not even accurately apply to these captive people.[1] Most of these so-called Native American slaves tended to live on the fringes of Native American society and were slowly integrated into the tribe.[1]
Until European settlers arrived, these slaves were other tribesmen.[1] The situation of these enslaved Native Americans varied among the tribes. In many cases, enslaved captives were adopted into the new tribes to replace warriors killed during a raid.[1] Enslaved warriors sometimes endured mutilation or torture that could end in death as part of a grief ritual for relatives slain in battle.[1] Some Native Americans would cut off one foot of their captives to keep them from running away. Others allowed enslaved captives to marry the widows of slain husbands.[1] The Creek, who engaged in this practice, treated children born of slaves and tribal members as full members of the tribe rather than as enslaved offspring.[1] Several tribes held captives as hostages for payment.[1] Various tribes also practiced debt slavery or imposed slavery on tribal members who had committed crimes; full tribal status would be restored as the enslaved worked off their obligations to the tribal society.[1] Other such slave-owning tribes of North America included Comanche of Texas, Creek of Georgia, the fishing societies, such as the Yurok, that lived along the coast from what is now Alaska to California, the Pawnee, and Klamath.[2]
When the Europeans “discovered” the Native Americans they began to participate in the slave trade.[3] Native Americans, in their initial encounters with the Europeans, attempted to use their captives from other tribes as a “method of playing one tribe against another” in an unsuccessful game of divide and conquer.[3]
The Haida and Tlingit who lived along southeast Alaska's coast were traditionally known as fierce warriors and slave-traders, raiding as far as California.[4][5] In their society, slavery was hereditary after slaves were taken as prisoners of war.[4][5] Among some Pacific Northwest tribes, as many as one-fourth of the population were slaves.[4][5]"


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_am ... ted_States

[LastLegend]

Your tag says Wash DC so that seems a bit curious..please explain.

I'd say that thinking is going to gone...but that's just my experience.

I would like to hear your understanding of race relations in United States as a white man.

[gregkavarnos]

"Greek tyranny in the main grew out of the struggle of the popular classes against the aristocracy or against priest-kings where archaic traditions and mythology sanctioned hereditary and/or traditional rights to rule. Popular coups generally installed tyrants, who often became or remained popular rulers, at least in the early part of their reigns. For instance, the popular imagination remembered Peisistratus for an episode - related by (pseudonymous) Aristotle, but possibly fictional - in which he exempted a farmer from taxation because of the particular barrenness of his plot."

More or less an archaic version of dictatorship of the prols.

N

Election by spear club and sword instead of ballot?

[Karma Dondrup Tashi]

... a judiciary would have to assume a predominate role in the overseeing of the means to this end and of what is acceptable and unacceptable to be voted upon.

Kind of like Plato's philosopher kings?

Will these "judges" also control the police, prisons and armies? If not, who?



If the answer to the question "who watches the watchmen" is "the dictatorship of the proletariat" I'm not buying.

[ronnewmexico]

Sorry no..I disagree....on slavery.

The north american status of the indian as political power as Iinked in the american french indian war(seven year war) attests to that.
Both sides used american indians in their political struggle as powers...to keep such overtly in slavery, in other than rare occasional instances would prevent such useage and align the indians against the other powers on this basis. So it was not generally done. Ocassional individual groups of settlers acting on their own were know to do many strange things such as burning innocents but that speaks not to the issue.

There seems to be some crossovers in that article..For instance the severing of one foot of all male members of a tribe was most famously known to have been performed by one spanish conquistadore Don Juan Onate to the Acoma tribe in response to the killing of one soldier. That early early on in american history. Did the spanish imitate the indian or the indian then imitate the spanish....that speaks to the basis of this argument..we know not where actually did democracy arise in the americas...from here or there. Scalp taking also has some question as to its inception. A scalp at one point being used as proof for bounty as one would produce a beever hide and get paid, by americans...on the other side natives did that and would take the scalps of americans .... so who copied who...I can't say.


As to large scale slavery in the american certainly the aztecas and incas participated in both heavily.
While large scale slavery existed certainly in other contexts throughout the world then(and still does) did the finding of one in one place act as aid to its implementation in that place.....well we really can't say. Ideology wise such things work that way sometimes.

[ronnewmexico]

TDK....those respective groups are now controlled by various arms of government....Police local government military....a composite of state and federal.
I would not suggest a consolidation of such groups by authority, would be benefical to people rule, rather more probably a dilusion of authority would more consistantly serve that aim.

LL...we are getting a bit personal here, you still have not answered my question on Wash and why you don't know these things.
As my picture attests I am called by you white. My family is all native american however with the exception of one by birth brother and one Sri Lankan.
AS I spend much of my free time in this culture and out on places like the reservations, which is about the only place I go nowadays...I really can't answer as you may intend. Other places I go I find no bias amongst peoples in new mexico for the most part. It is perhaps a unusual place in composite.
Those you call white are in the minority last I checked I dimly recall.

The places I go often, I am the only light colored person. HOwever I am a bit strange looking so perhaps they don't react to me as they would a other light colored person..I don't know. But anyway I have a very hard time speaking in my personal context on "white" opinions on things. I look and am strange and personally consider myself part of no group. I model my appearence to elaborate on that of a local serial killer who killed one police officer and wounded another some years back. In the main so I will not be involved in violence, though this snakes appearance resembles only that with venom..

[LastLegend]

Ron,

I was not asking for the answer. But I was asking for your perspective which you have given. So we are fine now.

Unless those who feel comfortable can jump in. Not an easy subject.

[Karma Dondrup Tashi]

I would not suggest a consolidation of such groups by authority, would be benefical to people rule, rather more probably a dilusion of authority would more consistantly serve that aim.

Now yer talkin.

[Sönam]

... a judiciary would have to assume a predominate role in the overseeing of the means to this end and of what is acceptable and unacceptable to be voted upon.

Kind of like Plato's philosopher kings?

Will these "judges" also control the police, prisons and armies? If not, who?



If the answer to the question "who watches the watchmen" is "the dictatorship of the proletariat" I'm not buying.

There is no need of an external government, harmony, consciousness and wisdom is the way ... in the mean time organization in little units is an avenue worth exploring. There is some models to take in Proudhon's theories ...

Sönam