rainheart

If you mean the seed of democracy in the Mid East and such, well, I wouldn't be so quick to jump to that conclusion. To be honest I think that whole book, "The Case for Goliath" works out more as an attempt to rationalize away all the terrible negative effects of a war economy. We believe for example that democracy is a good thing, but in the context of how the system works in the United States, not many people would agree.

The problem I think is also that we assume there is a real democracy in the works across North America right now. But as far as I can tell, it's a very limited democracy and we fail to recognize it for it's problems. Realistically it seems effectively more like a hegemony than a democracy. In the U.S. and Canada alike, there is an indirect democracy where representatives are elected by the masses based on how the masses perceive those representatives. The problem is that once they are elected it is hard to get them out of office once their term expires, and they are not effectively bound to act as the electors wish for them to act. Instead, they are swayed by the people who help shape how the public perceives them, and who pay their expenses to allow them to step into office- and those are the people who run profitable businesses.

The businesses of course expect the legislators they have helped bring into office to help them make their businesses more profitable. On it's own this sounds harmless, but it can be deadly. Furthermore this type of democracy undermines the real point behind democracy, the very original definition which means "the common people rule". In reality it becomes "the elite rule". It can become, and I believe in many ways has become, the same crappy governments the common people have had to deal with for centuries.

Now, would you wish this upon every person in the world? Where do we get our balls telling the middle east to adopt our policies? It's effectively the same thing, but it fools their public into believing that it's better than it really is. Many of them understand this however, so many of them are not so quick to welcome "democracy" with open arms.

I'm not saying their hostage taking and terrorism and insurgencies are righteous, far from it. Terrorism is a threat to every person on earth and we need to unify in solidarity to stop it. But as they say, if you want to make the world a better place for all to live in, you have to start with the person in the mirror.