Free Speech

Are we having fun yet?

Death of Democracy trimmed

Here we are. Now what? After an expectedly tumultuous 2017, when various civil liberties and protections have been spirited away, stolen in the night, brazenly ripped from our freedom clutching fingers, who are we and where do we go from here? This post simultaneously represents the end of the “Death of Democracy” series and the turn from explicit descriptions of socio-political situations toward explorations of intra-personal, psycho-social elements that form our experience of EveryDayLife. (more…)

What is Democracy?

Death of Democracy

Part IV: What is Democracy

Demacracy is a Fraud.PNGClasos/CON/Getty

What is this thing we call “democracy”.  Just as once there was some general consensus about the nature of truth—facts in the public sphere—we once believed we shared a relatively common meaning of the word “democracy”.  One of the reasons we (both in the U.S. and internationally) do not agree on how our governments should operate is that while we might call our form of government “democratic”, that is, reflecting the basic principles of democracy, we do not necessarily agree on the set of principles that constitute such an idea.  When we use the phrase “death of democracy”, we might not be talking about the demise of actual “democracy” at all.  In fact, we might be talking about something considerably more pervasive, profound and, if lost, catastrophic for American society.

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Death of the Internet

FCC Building - credit FCC.jpg

It seems we are surrounded by death these days.  In addition to the various deadly attacks by men who seemed to think killing is some kind of answer to some questions to which most of us find more peaceful solutions, in addition to the genocidal enforcement of government policies and perspectives not shared by the populace in some international communities, in addition to the apparently cavalier, race-related violence perpetrated in the U.S. by law enforcement and others and in addition to the topic presented here for several weeks, namely, the death of democracy itself—in addition to all of that, so it seems, the Internet as we know it is about to die. (more…)