Democracy and Freedom: The Uselessness of the Current Democracies

Globalization has connected the minds of everyone across the planet. The way one thinks and lives is influenced by the way another thinks and lives from a different culture, a different continent. Just like in other aspects, the more powerful are the more influential, thus, and unfortunately, a standard or correct way of thinking and living has inevitably been formed. Democracy, a thought for which wars were raged and people killed, is in fact a term and only a term where its way of use or way it is defined, is a result of an influenced globalized world.
Ask me what democracy is and I will give only two general definitions. Democracy is either the currently non-existent situation where you, as a citizen, are in control of your relation with the state – basically a government that listens only to its people; OR the currently existent fake feeling of being represented, of thinking you have an effective say in state affairs – basically a government that runs a state by leading its people to believe their voices are heard. Unfortunately, the majority believe the current democracy is the nonexistent one, but even worse, due to the current globalized and influenced mindset, the majority believes we should have at least one of the two democracies. Current thought will label a state as a proper modern one if it is democratic, regardless of how democratic it really is.
Contrary to popular belief, democracy is not just the capability of the people to vote and elect representatives or leaders. That is just half of the true meaning of democracy. Your democratic right does not end after you cast your vote, it begins right there. True democracies exist when the people that elected their representatives can properly and effectively criticize them. There should be a proper feedback system where the government knows that it is doing what the people wants it to do and where the people know what the government is doing and can put it back on track after it does a mistake – where a mistake is when the government does something against its people’s wishes. In the US, many people give up their right to vote because they find it useless and that the politicians do not listen to them anyway. So is this truly democracy?
The bugs in the democratic system in the US and other developed countries are not as bad is in other developing and poorer countries. In many of such countries in South America, Africa and Asia, democracy was forced upon the people by powerful nations thinking that they are doing a good deed. Are they? Democracy is not that easy to achieve. It cannot be applied overnight, it needs many requirements, the society and people must be well prepared for it.
One of the main requirements for democracy to work is a politically mature society. The people, at least a majority if not all, must be well educated to be able to select good leaders. For many poor nations, the majority of the people lives in poor rural areas and has no understanding of democracy and elections. They need food, homes and other very basic necessities for life. Any rich or charismatic person can promise to provide that, thus, ends up being democratically elected (with the approval of the greater world powers) just for him to abuse the power the people entrusted him with.
A society can be not well prepared for democracy for other reasons, such as culture. Many societies are still traditional and are geared towards following a leader unquestionably. Even though to some parts of the world this mentality is horrid, it is acceptable in other parts. The cultural difference should be taken into account. Many thoughts and systems such as democracy, capitalism, socialism, communism et cetera have been generated in a certain place to serve the people of that place in accordance to their mentality and culture, therefore when it is exported to another place, it has to be customized to suit the mentality and culture of the people at its new destination or there should be a wait till the people change their mentality and culture.
Globalization has sped up the process a bit and many people have not adapted yet thus leading to multiple democracy-caused disasters. Democracy should not be forced upon people if they are not ready for it. There should be a transit state during which any progressive and positive form of rule is OK. True democracy, being an ideal form of rule, is inevitably going to be brought upon by the society when it is ready for it.

War & Society - Brainwashing Tools

You can’t wage a war by yourself. You need an army, you need people to fight, to kill, be killed and destroy. But why would people want to fight, to kill, be killed and destroy? You need to give them a reason. You need to plant that reason in their minds, to let them never forget it; you need to make them not able to forget it. You need to give them feelings and emotions that are overwhelmingly strong in their minds, strong enough to override over feelings and emotions such as love, mercy, empathy and sympathy; basically to cancel their conscious.
To have a war, you need at least one huge group of people who share a common social aspect, united with malicious intent. The most known social aspect used to unite people and give them enough reason to go to war is religion. Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. Crusades, Islamic Jihad and many other wars in the name of a so called god of a certain religion (which of course is the one and only true religion that is blessed by that so called god) are examples of when ignorant people are brainwashed by eloquent, charismatic and evil ‘men of god’ into believing that their faith is the ‘one’ and it deserves them dying and killing nonbelievers who do not want to join.
Religion is an amazing creation, for it is a very powerful tool to control the many simple minded people to go to war, for it deals with the unknown, with life after death, with nature et cetera. In the Aztec civilization, the main priest would demand a war against smaller tribes to capture humans for sacrifice to the gods for there to be rain for crops.
Poverty is also a main cause for wars. Poor people have many needs that they are not able to fulfill, from food to warmth to shelter, and when they are desperate, a promise of providing some of the most basic of those needs will make them willing to do anything, for with all honestly, they might have nothing to lose. That is for absolute poverty, but even less poor societies can be easily controlled, for they are most likely un-educated. Education makes wise people and wise people can be more difficult to control. Having said that, educated people are still prone for brainwashing, only instead of religion or poverty, scientific, economic and social beliefs can be used. Believing your economic policy is perfect or that your race is supreme et cetera, are all aspects one can use to control others and make them willing to wage war. Fanatics are lethal.

If there is no ideal that you can make enough people fanatical about, or people are becoming wiser and less easy to control, then the last tool you can use is fear. A scared person can get emotionally confused and thus an easy target to control. This tool is in high use currently, the so-called war on terror. After 9/11 and a bunch of other terrorist attacks (Madrid bombings, London tube bombings…), many people in the west have become scared and so they go to their governments for support, and currently, the US government has made the most of the situation. Scared citizens and a greedy government, it’s a recipe for destruction.
Most humans are simple minded, just trying to survive; however, there are a few humans out there who are a bit more ambitious than that and throughout history these people have created and used many tools to control the masses for their advantage, mostly to conquer and own more.

Crime and Internet: Spread the word – we’re gonna get ya!

If you turn on your computer and open up an internet browser, you can easily access all sorts of information about events, locations and news – anywhere. People are aware of many things that in previous years, they would not have, and not all of these things are good.

Everyone knows not all internet sites are good and progressive, from the most basic negative sites like porn and hate websites like www.fatpeoplearestupid.com to major hate websites like www.stormfront.org (a site dedicated to the supreme white race). Some websites are debatable, such as corporate hate sites set up by people to release their anger but ended up being very popular, such as American Express Sucks (www.Amexsux.com), Wal-Mart Blows (www.WalMart-Blows.com), Microsoft Eradication (www.MS-Eradication.org) and many more. Companies targeted view those as criminal hate sites but others as a critique site. Some websites are meant by their creators to be for releasing some steam or ranting but end up being abused by some more hateful members, such as in one anti-fat people site, a man posted a video of him beating up a fat kid, when the site was strictly for rants and was at times comical. Even YouTube had its share of violence, such as the major Teens invite a girl to their house then beat her up video which was used as evidence to arrest the teenagers. Beyond amateur hate videos, many organizations post videos and information online to spread fear and threaten. Taliban and other terrorist organizations post videos and photos of them beheading hostages or videos of their leaders’ speech. Major media channels play those videos and due to our globalized world, anyone can see it and including people who end up joining or who get influenced by the organizations. Mobs and gangs also fight for media coverage, for it is fee marketing, especially if the coverage depicts them as evil and dangerous.

The internet is also not just limited to news. Business online is booming. Shopping online is flourishing. Online banking is thriving. So is online crime. Stealing bank account information and identity theft is common. I have been a victim to credit card information theft; the culprits bought 6,000 US dollars worth of things and shipped them online. Hacking is a major crime that has been founded recently in the modern world. Computer viruses are also modern forms of crime that affect individuals and major companies alike. SPAM and fishing emails are also malicious internet creations made to trick people into giving up private and personal information, which works well with people just starting to use the internet and who do not have close friends or family members to warn them about such practices. Facebook. Who is not on it? No being on Facebook is not a crime but remember, many member post a lot of their private info on the website, or other social websites, which can be used for stalking, especially of women by sexual predators. Many young people go online and join in chats or forums et cetera and they meet people. You never know who you meet. From pedophiles, to rapists to many other sick people, many people pose online as different people than who they really are.

The internet reaches all of us, directly and indirectly, straight into our computers, in our home or office. We love our computers and we pour our heart and soul into them, problem is, computers are not only that plastic container in front of us, it is virtually, the world. In our globalized world, what happens at home does not stay at home, good or bad.