Eye on Europe: Once Public Trust Goes, Can Democracy Be Far Behind?

[Donnachaidh]

http://newamericamedia.org/2011/08/eye-on-europe-once-public-trust-goes-can-democracy-be-far-behind.php

Is Western Democracy coming apart at the seams? A decade ago, only paranoid alarmists would have posed that question.

Today, it may be an expression of cold, brutal realism.

On both sides of the Atlantic – from the fires now raging in large stretches of London, to the political chicanery that brought the U.S. economy to its knees in early August –the institutional framework that came to define modern democracy in the 19th century is in deep trouble.

The principal organs of financial oversight and management are in tatters. Ferociously xenophobic political movements, an entire constellation of Tea Parties, now play important roles in nearly every European nation, as well as the United States.


More at the link --

[DJ13]

1. Is Western Democracy coming apart at the seams?

Yes, but its unregulated capitalism thats undermining Democracy.

Government and business interests need a firewall between them, otherwise capitalism finds ways to buy the results they want.

[hifiguy]

3. Bull's eye.

If you haven't read it yet, read Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine" to understand the machinations behind all of this. I guarantee you that book will scare the fertilizer out of you.

[xchrom]

4. +2

[lunatica]

2. At the rate we're going the Middle East will be the Mecca of Democracy

and Europe will be Fascist and the US will be a Theocracy in another generation or two. South America will be shining the beacon of Democracy in the Western Hemisphere.

[dtexdem]

5. Well, it has actually been the other way around.

The rich have so far undermined democracy that there is reason for lack of public trust.

[applegrove]

6. Order is what made the west great and stable. Deregulating the financial

industry has undone that legacy.