Witnessing The Nearing End Of The Modern Experiment In Democracy

As I wrote previously, a democratic society - whether breathing through a parliamentary system or a republic one - can only bring about and sustain the commonwealth of its citizens so long as said citizens remain knowledgeable, respectful and protective of their civil rights as entrenched in the constitution of their democratic society.

To this effect, history shows us what happens to such societies when citizens abandon their responsibilities and roles as guardians of their own democracies and civil rights because they have fallen in the grip of complacency, search for quick/instantaneous self-gratification, acceptance of greed/war-driven imperialism, fear and the need to feel "safe" - all to the advantage of the wealthy and power-hungry.

The first known democracy, at least as recorded by history, developed around 500 BCE in Athens, Greece. Known as the "Athenian democracy", it constituted a type of direct democracy where the people did not elect representatives to vote on their behalf, but rather voted on legislation and executive bills in their own right - that is, regardless of economic class, although only adult males that had completed military training were recognized as citizens and thus allowed to participate/vote in Assemblies, as well as electing a leader. However, usually low participation rates (less than a sixth of the recognized citizens) plagued the Athenian-style democracy, because of inherent problems that ring all-too-familiar to us nowadays (emphasis added):

Athens was an intellectual center, but only a few there were interested in advancing their worldly knowledge, and these were mostly young men of leisure from wealthy families. Self-interest remained stronger than community interest, and in the city's market place one could see poverty, slave drivers, loud peddlers and those who cheated their customers.

Not every Athenian believed that democracy was best. Some wealthy Athenians grumbled about the vulgarity of democratic politics. Among them was the playwright Aristophanes, who disliked seeing men attempt to create a following by promising rewards and playing on superstitions. Some men of wealth felt exploited for the sake of what they saw as the ignorant, disorderly mob. And some found democratic government too slow in making judgments and getting things done.

At any rate, despite democracy having added to the military power of Athens, democracy was destined not to last. It was still an age of war and conquest, and these would eventually destroy it.

Indeed (emphasis added):

During their war against Persia, a spirit of unity and brotherhood had arisen among those Greek cities opposed to the Persians, a unity served by their common language, common customs and common religious beliefs. But their spirit of unity proved superficial, and the Greek city-states drifted back to seeing themselves as different from each other.

(...) Problem was, as the leader of Delian League the Athenians were arrogant. Athens arrogated to itself the role of policeman within its alliance. According to the Athenian journalist Thucydides, the Athenians were heavy handed in pressuring allies who were "neither accustomed nor willing to undertake protracted toil." Athens forced back into its alliance a city that had broken its oath to remain in the league. It suppressed petty wars within the league and intervened in disputes within member cities, favoring those who supported democracy.

The Athenians were creating an empire. Seeing themselves as superior to other Greeks, some Athenians argued that empire was the natural order of things, that if they did not have the strength to dominate others they would soon be dominated. Some saw empire as a remedy to over-population. Some landless Athenians favored the confiscation of lands abroad as an opportunity to become landowners. Some wealthy Athenians saw in imperialism an opportunity to gain more land. Those Athenians making money from trade supported empire believing that it would benefit them commercially. Some believed that imperialism would provide them jobs, such as jobs on ships that policed the seas, and jobs on the docks that serviced those ships. Some supported empire also because it appeared to guarantee supplies of grain. Many Athenians saw benefit in their city receiving tribute from those city-states that Athens dominated, taxes they would otherwise have to pay.

This of course lead to the Great Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE). And the inevitable ensued (emphasis added):

The following year, 430, plague made an appearance in Athens, made worse by the overcrowding that had come with people entering the city from the countryside. The plague killed Pericles (then elected leader of the city), and Athenian passions influenced their choice of a new leader, a man named Cleon, a merchant tanner by trade who was more excitable than had been Pericles. Cleon's desire for vengeance and punishing the enemy matched theirs.

There was always someone who did not go along with public passions, and among the Athenians one of them was the playwright Aristophanes. Befitting a playwright's responsibility to be above common opinion, he depicted Cleon as a demagogue and a rogue. And, in his dislike for democracy, he expressed his wish that leaders of Athens be chosen by less excitable, more moderate-minded men rather than the public.

Numerous acts of repression were consequently committed by Cleon the Hard-Liner, with Athenian citizens cheering him on, against those cities that rebelled against Athens' supremacy (forget about winning heats and minds, right?). These campaigns, along with the rest of the war, left Athens financially exhausted. Yet, after a brief calm in the war, Athens returned to its aggressive and repressive imperialistic ways - and ended up being roundly defeated. From there, what followed was again predictable (emphasis added):

For Athens, defeat abroad led to turmoil at home. In 411, while the Athenian navy was in the eastern Aegean, a group in Athens opposed to democracy launched a coup and set up an oligarchy called the Four Hundred. They created a constitution based on nostalgia for ancestral custom, and they began a rule of terror and totalitarianism. The Athenian fleet would have liked to return to Athens to drive the Four Hundred from power, but they believed they were needed where they were to defend the empire. The Four Hundred sought help from those with whom they shared a disdain for democracy: the Spartans. But before help could arrive from Sparta, the Four Hundred were driven from power by those who called themselves the Five Thousand, and the following year democracy returned to Athens.

With Persian financial resources behind them and a new fleet, Sparta and its allies won a series of military successes, including a great victory over the Athenian main fleet. This left Athens surrounded by enemy forces on land and sea and cut off from sources of food. Through the winter of 405-04 Athens starved. In the spring season -- twenty-seven years after the glorious cause had first begun -- Athens surrendered. The Great Peloponnesian War had finally ended.

Thereafter came the rise of Macedonia and the eager acceptance by the citizens of democratic Athens to ally themselves with the rising power - for the sake of security and greed. Yet, ironically, Athens would suffer what the city-state itself perpetrated during the Peloponnesian War, but with this time the price being the end of Athenian democracy (emphasis added):

(...) after the death of Alexander the Great, the Athenians joined other Greek states in an unsuccessful revolt against Macedonian rule. The Macedonians retaliated in 322 by placing a garrison in Attica. An oligarchy was imposed, with the franchise restricted to the rich.

The lesson here is quite simple:

Athens would have fared better had it been less imperial. It would have fared better had it pursued trade by mutual agreement and maintained membership in alliances based on equality (...). With all of the heroism, sacrifice, speech about glory and communications with the gods, the Greeks had failed to elevate themselves in their well-being.

Let us now look at another civilization of note in ancient history with at least some democratic underpinnings, the Roman Republic (emphasis added):

In 509 BCE, a group of Roman nobles drove the Etruscan king, Tarquin, from power. Without a king, Rome had become a republic. Power passed to Rome's aristocratic council of elders, the Senate.

From there, some democracy was achieved gradually (emphasis added):

In various societies, during the long gap between Athenian and modern democracy, the people acquire some elements of democratic power without achieving the ultimate control implicit in the ballot box.

The Roman republic is a good example. Early in the 5th century the (male) citizens of Rome, by a programme of passive disobedience, win the right to elect their own officials - the tribunes. Two centuries later, in 287 BCE, the decisions of the people's assembly are technically given the status of law. But in this oligarchic society, the votes of the people are mainly important as an expression of the power of their elected tribunes - who themselves become key figures within the oligarchy.

The votes of the Roman people (males only), or plebs, are registered not individually but as the decision of a tribe. Every Roman (male) citizen is a member of a tribe (he is allotted to one, if not a citizen by birth). By the 3rd century BCE the number of tribes grows to thirty-five, as more are added to enrol an urban population of new citizens.

When an assembly is called, any (male) citizen may attend. The area of the assembly is divided by ropes into a section for each tribe, and a walkway leads from each section to the presiding magistrate's platform. The tribes have their own officials to count the votes.

Until 139 BCE (male) citizens vote orally, giving their answer to a teller. Thereafter they mark a tablet and place it in an urn, constituting a secret ballot. When each tribe's returns have been counted, the result is taken to the magistrate as a single vote.

It is the beginning of the kind of voting system needed in any democracy larger than an ancient Greek city (similar methods are now used for elections in many representative democracies).

However, the same old problems occurred as in Athens - including the obvious denial of the right to vote for women and the already pervasive use of slaves (emphasis added):

A problem for Rome was the conflict between its aristocrat rulers and commoners. Rome's aristocrats liked warring. They were horsemen, and cavalry was their basic fighting unit. Wars gave them prestige and helped them to maintain their claim of leadership over the other Romans (...) The increased importance of the common man in combat had encouraged democracy in Athens, and now it was increasing the self-confidence of Rome's commoner-soldiers, who were also small farmers.

Economic distress exacerbated conflict between aristocrats (patricians) and commoners (plebeians). Involved in this conflict was the rise of debt slavery. When a small farmer was seized for non-payment of his debts, other commoners, mainly farmer-soldiers, might attempt to rescue him by force.

(...) The farmer-soldiers were encouraged by the increase in their participation in government. It gave them more of a sense that in war they were fighting for their own interests, and this enhanced their morale and strengthened Rome as a military power.

(...) Rome used its power and prestige to regulate relations among various Italian cities. It made alliances. It created colonies, giving land in these colonies to common Romans and other Latins. The grant of land was accepted with the obligation of military service, the colony serving as Rome's keeper of peace in its area.

(...) While Rome had been expanding on the Italian mainland, it had made an agreement with Carthage, acknowledging that Carthage was the dominant power in Sicily. Carthage, in turn, promised Rome that it would stay off the Italian mainland. Rome abided by its treaty during its wars for the domination of Italy (...) Respecting its treaty with Carthage, Rome's Senate chose not to send help to (the city of) Messana. But one of Rome's two consuls was eager for action that would give him distinction. He spoke of reluctance to send help to Messana as weakness. He aroused the people of Rome, who had been filled with pride over Rome's success in dominating Italy. The Senate gave in to the aroused emotions of the public, and it sent a force to Messana. The world was turning -- as it would in the twentieth century -- on demagoguery and the passions and vanity of common people (...) Carthage asked that Rome withdraw its troops. But proud Romans called on their city to stand up to Carthage. Some claimed that Carthage's control over the strait between Italy and Sicily was a danger to Rome's security. And, as with the Athenians at the outbreak of the Great Peloponnesian war, there was little reluctance and caution about going to war, including among the civilian farmer-soldiers who would fight the war. With this swagger and willingness to war, a new era was beginning. Rome chose war, and it brought a number of Italian allies into the war on its side. And shortly into the war, Rome extended its war goals beyond securing the strait between Italy and Sicily -- the "mission creep" that would be common through history. The contest against Carthage became a war for plunder. Then it became a war for driving Carthage out of Sicily, and then a war for all of Sicily. And Rome's enlarged goals would create a war that was to last twenty-three years, to 241 BCE (...) Despite the heavy losses in treasure and life that they had suffered, Romans fantasized that they had won a great victory against Carthage. Many were pleased by the additional prestige their city had gained. And for many Romans victory confirmed that their city had been called on by the gods for a special destiny (...) Romans emerged from this first Punic War with an enhanced concern for national security and Roman strategists saw added security in winning control over Corsica and Sardinia. It was another step in creating empire.

And we all know what happened next: Rome "secured" its northern border, then expanded its "security zone" eastward, then westard, and then warred against Carthage again (although not as aggressor). Hence, the die was cast (emphasis added):

The war against Carthage changed Rome. The Senate had gained more power and prestige during the wars, and people's assemblies, the Comitias Plebus, had declined in influence. The Romans had emerged from the Punic wars with the widespread understanding that ultimate authority over the military lay with the Senate, that it was the Senate's job to know, advise and guide, and the Senate's job to decide the question of war or peace and other foreign policy matters.

Rome's second war against Carthage reduced the number of people in the Italian countryside. Men had gone off to war. People had died and people had moved to the cities to escape war. Some people had left the countryside to work in the arms industry, and some went to Rome looking for subsistence (...) Newcomers developed a preference for the city over the life of drudgery they had known working on farms. And after the war ended, many veterans from farming families preferred settling in cities, especially Rome, rather than return to the countryside. Cities in Italy became overcrowded (...) As a result of the war, much farmland in Italy could be bought cheaply. Those with wealth began buying this farmland, some landowners expanding their holdings and some businessmen from the cities looking for a secure investment and a source of social respectability. With the accelerated trend toward larger farms came a greater use of slaves (...) Many small farmers found themselves unable to compete with the larger farms and their more numerous slaves (...) Many of Rome's small farmers, who had been the backbone of the Roman Republic, had become city-dwellers living off welfare -- free bread and circuses.

(...) Men of wealth in Greece sent representatives to Rome's Senate where they appealed for help. Some Romans wanted their city to avoid entanglements in Greece in order to avoid contacts with philosophies they believed would corrupt their fellow Romans. Some believed that rather than go to Greece it would be better to focus on recovery from the war against Hannibal and other problems in Italy and at home. Some others wanted their city to use its power to serve what they described as its interests abroad. A few sought to advance or acquire military reputations. And some believed that Roman military strength backed by their virtues and the power of their gods could improve the world beyond Italy. They saw Romans as the most blessed, capable, wise and honorable of people. They argued for selective intervention beyond Italy as a duty and as a service to humankind and spoke of Rome's destiny and triumphs yet to come.

Thus came the era of Roman interventionism and forced alliances with repression - at any price at that (emphasis added):

Roman diplomacy had been growing devious and self-serving. Rome favored oligarchies against democrats, its Senate never having approved of the authority of the masses. And Rome had begun to create borders abroad that served its interests by being ill-defined -- borders that kept various powers at odds with each other and wanting to maintain Rome's favor.

When the people of Sardinia and Corsica rose against Rome in an attempt to re-establish their independence, Rome sent armies against them. Rome did not wish to tolerate any example of defiance.

(...) With cooperation from wealthy Greeks, Rome moved to extend its authority over Greece. Roman sympathizers among the Greeks gave the Romans reports as to who was anti-Roman, and the Romans deported the denounced people in great number. In helping conservative politicians in one city, Roman soldiers invaded an assembly and murdered five hundred office holders who had been reported to be anti-Roman.

(...) In 157, a Roman senator, Cato, visited North Africa and became aware that prosperity had returned to Carthage. This led him to complain that Carthage continued to be a menace to Rome. He began ending his speeches in the Senate with the words "Carthago delenda est" - "Carthage must be destroyed" (...) Believing that war against Rome was hopeless, a delegation that Carthage sent to Rome offered surrender in the form of a commitment to "the faith of Rome" -- understood to mean that Rome could take possession of Carthage but that the lives of the people of Carthage would be spared and that they would not be taken as slaves. Rome's Senate responded by granting Carthage self-rule and the right of the city and its people to keep all their possessions on condition that Carthage send to Rome three hundred of its leading citizens as hostages. Hoping to save their city from destruction, amid much grieving, the Carthaginians sent their leading citizens to Rome as hostages. Rome had already decided to wipe Carthage from the map. Rome demanded that Carthage surrender all its weapons, and Carthage did so, including two hundred thousands suits of mail and two thousand catapults. Then Rome demanded that the people of Carthage surrender their city and move ten miles inland. For the Carthaginians this means leaving behind their homes, their docks and quays and their ability to carry on their sea-going trade. The people of Carthage preferred war and refused. Rome responded as it had planned, with military operations, which began in the year 149 (...) In the spring of 146, Roman soldiers were finally able to penetrate Carthage's walls. They swarmed into the city and began fighting street by street. First Carthage's harbor area fell to the Romans, then the market area, and finally the citadel in the city-center. Amid suicides and carnage, the Romans demolished and burned the city. They carried off survivors, selling the women and children into slavery and throwing the men into prison, where they were to perish. Then the Romans spread salt across what had been Carthage's farmlands, and Carthage was no more.

(...) In Greece, Rome dissolved the Achaean league and had its leaders put to death. Rome's governor to Macedonia became governor also of the entire Greek peninsula. Rome would now allow only internal rule of Greek cities -- by wealthy elites.

In short: the making of Empire was underway, with the population revelling in their own self-perceived glory while abandoning their responsibilities in keeping their Senate in check.

The rest, of course, is history (emphasis added):

How did the Republic of Rome fall?

It can be argued that what truly heralded the coming, final end of the Roman republic, and the subsequent birth of the Roman empire, was when Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon to enter Rome, in utter defiance of the prevailing laws and customs of the time - and from that moment on, because of this action, everything would go downhill with regards to the old Roman republic, including civil wars which would culminate with the corronation of Octavian (Caesar's nephew and adopted son) as Augustus, first Roman emperor.

Of course, there had been already an ongoing gradual series of changes in Roman laws prior to Caesar, each internal crisis or external threat (real or perceived) validating arguments within the republic for the necessity of strong and powerful leaders being vested with vast powers, in order to ensure the safety and security of Rome. Thus the slow but ever-forward erosion of the laws and principles of representative republicanism in favor of a king-like one-man rule - the title and office of "Commander Imperitor" (from which the English word emperor is derived).

With the obvious consequence being this, as exemplified by the Romans of old (emphasis added):

But the change from republic to empire, in the 1st century BC, brings an end to any further democratic developments. Roman citizens are subsequently appeased with bread and circuses rather than votes.

Of course, there are other examples of democracies and/or republics failing for the exact same reasons the Athenian and Roman ones did. Just consider the French republic: cries for the need of a strong and powerful leader in times of crisis lead to the corronation of Napoléon the First as Emperor of the French. The price for having embraced such dreams of Empire, the typical folly, tallied too many human lives that were destroyed or lost. That the French republic eventually recovered should in no way blind us to the obvious lessons of history - including the truism that every empire, ancient or modern, regardless of size, scope and longevity, has inevitably fallen.

Why? Because the dynamic is the same:

1) Citizens in a democratic-based society do not care to inform themselves, to learn new knowledge, but would rather seek instant gratification, cling to their superstitious beliefs and be serviced an opinion;

2) Citizens therefore leave themselves quite susceptible to propaganda meant to stroke their ego, such as how they belong to a glorious people with a (God/Heaven-approved) destiny, how they are superior and better than all other peoples, how they are exceptional;

3) In the meantime, the wealthy always seek to secure legislative, judiciary, policy-making and executive power by any and all means underhanded or overt - right under the collective noses of uncaring, and/or complacent, and/or self-absorbed, and/or self-serving subservient, and/or willingly uninformed, and/or willingly under-educated citizens;

4) With the lack of a 4th estate, or worse with the proddings from a subservient media, citizens eagerly embrace dreams of Empire, all the while continually falling prey to demagogues and fearmongers;

5) Power- and greed-hungry elected representatives and juges openly get in bed with the wealthy in order to rule for the wealthy, caring less and less for their own citizens which are becoming poorer and poorer;

6) With the wealthy always wanting more, they indirectly or directly spur governments, and the citizenry, into interventionism - if not outright imperialism;

7) Militarism increases, along with the reverence for all things military;

8) Seemingly faced with "enemies without" and/or "enemies within", thanks to unrelenting propaganda, fear-driven citizens eagerly accept any and all erosions of their rights in order to feel secure, as well as the insane economic costs required to support successive/undending military campaigns and ever-growing security agencies - even actually yearning for a strong Emperor-like Leader;

9) Democracy ends, to be replaced by some form of Authoritarian (Corporate, Military, Surveillance Security) Empire;

10) The incredible economic strains of expanding/maintaining Empire (usually via military campaigns of repression and/or conquest) inevitably leads to collapse and chaos.

Think about it: everything outlined herein with regards to Athens and Rome - could there still be someone who fails to see the obvious parallels with what has occurred over the last 60 years? With what has occurred in the last 10 years?

With what is still occurring before our very eyes?

Allow me to give you but a small sample:

US-led troops abduct Afghan journalist;

Rendition, and the CIA's Italian Job;

CIA gave waterboarders $5M legal shield;

The Emperor Wears No Clothes;

Slouching Off Towards Tyranny - Indeed;

White House drafts executive order for indefinite detention;

Death Squad Eyed in Terror Strategy;

"These Are Not The Criminals You Are Looking For";

DC Metro Bag Searches: Random Inspections To Begin;

Supreme Court becoming a tool for corporate interests;

This Is How The End Of Democracy Is Hastened;

Reloaded: This Is How The End Of Democracy Is Hastened;

CNN Asks “Do we need a free press”?

The End of Democracy? Ask Joe Lieberman And The US State Department;

G20 protesters ran into secret law;

Harper government constructs a national security state;

Welcome To Your Authoritarian Corporatocratic Security Surveillance State Of North America;

US government ‘creating vast domestic snooping machine’;

Monitoring North America;

The Cost Of Fear: Losing Ourselves Beyond Redemption;

A trillion-dollar catastrophe. Yes, Iraq was a headline war;

Afghanistan Now Officially a Forever War;

Corporate Media Ignores US Hypocrisy on War Crimes;

Here Is Your Authoritarian Corporatocracy At Work;

Constitution, Rights, Rule Of Law: Who Gives A F*ck?

Is Harper systematically ‘snuffing’ out democracy in Senate?

Reloaded: The Holy United States Of America;

US Bases Around The World: How Long Can The Empire last?

We must not forget the following equation:

Fear + need for security + erosion of the rule of Law + religious fundamentalism + militarism + intolerance for opposing/dissenting opinions and beliefs + calls for a strong and powerful leader = a democracy facing possible overthrow in favor of despotism.

Or, to put it another way:

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy;
2. Create a gulag;
3. Develop a thug caste;
4. Set up an internal surveillance system;
5. Harass citizens' groups;
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release;
7. Target key individuals;
8. Control the press;
9. Dissent equals treason;
and 10. Suspend the rule of law.

Hence - more than ever as this first decade of the 21st achieves its course, what we are witnessing right now is the nearing of the end of our modern experiment in democracy.

I wonder what historians will think of us in centuries hence?

Probably something like this:

Western-style parliamentary and republican democracies would have fared better had they been less arrogant, less interventionist, less imperial. They would have likewise fared better had they relentlessly driven for a high education of their populations, to ensure a continual renewal of innovation and maintenance of critical thinking and reasoning. They would also have endured by pursuing trade through mutual agreements meant for the common good of their citizens, not wealthy individuals. Furthermore, they would have achieved global stability peacefully by pursuing memberships in alliances based on equality and commonwealth, all the while guarding vigilantly against the encroachement of self-serving corporate influences into their governing bodies. However, with their glorification of military heroism and sacrifice, as well as speeches about glory and communications with God, the Western-style democracies simply failed to elevate themselves in their well-being, in the end.

What's that old saying, again?

Ah, yes:

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

This is where we are, now.

Hence why my previous question "everything outlined herein with regards to Athens and Rome - could there still be someone who fails to see the obvious parallels with what has occurred over the last 60 years? With what has occurred in the last 10 years? With what is still occurring before our very eyes?" constitutes nothing more than a naïve, hope-filled and empty rhetorical one.

Alas.