The US/West Election Styles: “It’s Overly-Discussed and “Porn”-like Spectator Sport
To draw an analogy (to another overly-discussed deed): You wait forever for it. You have little choices. “Creativity” makes you weird and perverse in the eyes of others.
And when you are done, you feel disappointed, exhausted, and wondering “That was it?!”
And like the other overly-discussed deed, the only people who are really excited to talk about it that much are the ones who are not doing it. ”
(1) Western Democracy, be it US-style or EU-parliamentarian style, are more and more catering and pandering to the populous. In a way, the elections are like drunken frat parties, held by multiple fraternities, each inviting its alums and donors to come and get drunk, loudly proclaiming how great their own frat organization is, and how terrible the other rival frat are.
As 1 writer recently wrote in the West, political candidates do not get elected if they tell hard truths or bad news. (last one was Jimmy Carter, who did not get reelected).
Instead, if there are problems, national or social problems, the blame is invariably pointed elsewhere, i.e. foreign nations, foreigners, illegal immigrants, or other minorities, who do not have enough votes to matter.
Little wonder then, the recent US election spent more than $54 million on ads blaming China for trade, when economy is the #1 issue. It’s now a full opportunity to fan the flame of nationalism in elections, because real solutions are so elusive.
Elections now are parades of vague nationalism, (with perhaps minor differences of which version of nationalism or “American values”) with no rational discussions.
I noted a little while back how silly a Western media compared China to Fascism. So we should note how US compare to Fascism.
Fascism, with all of its variations, promise only a vague “National Unity”, as a mean to strengthen the nation. In that sense, both Democrats and Republicans are guilty of promising such Fascist style “National Unity” to solve the problems of US.
Democrats want some kind of uniformed “multi-cultural diversity” and broad “human rights”, and Republicans want some kind of “traditional values” and “less government” selfish individualist state.
Neither are that tolerant of things that diverge from their core ideological sense of “Unity” that they each stridently strive toward.
This is why US is so fundamentally split now, right down the core. More both sides talk “Unity”, the more they fall further from each other.
And that is the problem with Fascism: the unilateral talk of Unity causes more splits, and actually less unity, because the idea of UNITY is so vague and usually designed to favor 1 group at the expense of all others.
Such “unity” is actually most superficial. Votes settle nothing, only goads on the parties to bicker even harder for the next election.
(2) In contrast, China’s 1-party system, with its several near polar opposite factions, has “unity” on the surface, but is far more capable of reaching compromises between the factions to resolve policy issues.
Compromise is actually self-reinforcing the superficial notion of Unity of 1-party system, because Compromises produce Agreements of policies, which is Unity and Harmony in practical product.
At the end of the day, China has “unity”/harmony, because its many factions in the CCP can reach compromises for policies, with end result of 5- year plans, legal reforms, change, etc.
I think the key in China’s system is use of the 1-party system as a conduit of internal debate, but keeping the populous out of the factional debates (or partisan debates, which are often the most contentious).
In terms of more Democracy, I am in favor of more freedom for the People.
That said, I must say that I’m AGAINST having popular participation in partisan politics/debates. That is, political debates of ideologies as solutions.
To me, the People should discuss general problems. But the general problems are pretty standard in most societies: Taxes too high, economy bad, not enough jobs, education funds, retirements, national security, etc.
These are all the things every one wants. The contentious part is when the People start to debate the solutions and the ideologies.
I believe the ordinary People, who have no professional trainings in laws and economics, should not participate in the debates of solutions and ideologies, simply because they are not qualified, and they would be prone to be brainwashed by silly irrational notions. (which is why US gets so many brainless politicians who can’t even make logical statements: Sarah Palin’s seeing Russia, and Gingrich’s Moonbase.)
China should avoid the Democratic process as defined today in the Western world, because they are nothing more $2 billion wasted in brainwashing the populous, and enriching only the lobby groups.
By RV
From chineseperspectives@hiddenharmonies.org