Coke and Pepsi Democracies and a Big Slovenian But

 

       Since I studied Central and Eastern European history and politics while in Eastern and Western Europe in the mid-2000's (and before, earlier than that), I was aware of Slavoj Žižek for awhile. One comment he made on Democracy Now 3 years ago bothered me a bit. I called it a big hanging "but" that went nowhere. One of the languages I studied I remembered people sometimes say but, but then do not actually change, dispute, or clarify what the but is for, and just go on and on. I do not think that was the case in the comment below which I am quoting, but he really did not expand upon why or what his big BUT was for. His "whatever" was really bigger than his but, and that says a lot, though in qualifying what his non-point "diversion" was really all about. Whatever...

SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK: ... So, you see, this is the danger of this ideology of choice, because, you know, this is, in one sense, a central category today. There is an old Marxist card, which is played again and again, of we are only offered false choices, not real choices, like Pepsi or Coke, whatever, instead of the real choices. OK, there is a truth in it. But there is also another problem of ideology of choice, that often we are bombarded by choices — you really are free to choose — without being given the proper background to make a reasonable choice. John Gray, the British cynical skeptic, whom I otherwise admire, wrote very nicely that we are today more and more forced to act as if we are free. And this causes a lot of anxiety and so on. You know, one should be very specific apropos of choices. I’m all for the freedom of choice. I would just like to see the small — those, you know, in the footnote, the small print, what are the precise conditions of choice, and so on and so on.

        It was not just that he was contradicting, minimizing, or just plain blowing off as irrelevant the kinds of arguments I put out in my own Coke and Pepsi thing from 2005 which I will repost here now that bothered me. Anyone who studied the region like he presumably had where he lived and worked or works when not doing talk shows, is that elections with non-choices and phoney "opposition" parties were the norm under Soviet "democracies." Whether the "choices" were actually that, different groups with real different directions, or economic or social alternative platforms or plans that compete with (are in opposition to) each other is necessary for anything other than sham democracies. I was reminded of his "big but" today by a very insightful comment I will post below by someone who does get it, in that unless voters are offered real choices, with different and opposing policies, how is a two or more party "democracy" any different than a 1 party "democracy?" Or none? 

This comment below was to an article called 'Report Cites US as Example of World's Failing Democracies' on Commondreams.org.

Dccph • 17 hours ago: I'm interested in reading this UN report, but something tells me it won't come anywhere close to sufficiently describing the sorry state of "democracy" in the USA.

Any critique of this system must start with the recognition that it is set up to establish two political parties -- the Democratic Party and the Republican Party -- as the only two official parties sanctioned by the state. Other parties are officially discouraged from competing by being routinely denied ballot access (by partisan election authorities), being denied access to public debate forums (by partisan election authorities), being denied access to media (by partisan media executives) and being denied access to campaign funding (by corrupt oligarchs).

All of the obstacles to independent parties have created a woefully unbalanced playing field for election stakeholders, in violation of U.S. international obligations as spelled out by the International Covenant on Civil Political Rights and the 1990 OSCE Copenhagen Document, both of which the United States has subscribed to.

Anyway, starting from that unbalanced playing field in which the two main parties have merged with the state and independent parties are thoroughly shut out of the process, the electoral system degenerates even further. Even those candidates who attempt to operate within the framework of the two-party system are systematically marginalized if they do not tow the state-party line. Think of Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich. Despite having an early lead in most indicators such as fundraising and grassroots support, Ron Paul was immediately shut out of the media and even barred from some GOP debates because he refused to stick to the party line, because he spoke about ending the wars and restoring civil liberties, etc. Dennis Kucinich was even stripped of his House seat due to partisan redistricting (gerrymandering) which flies in the face of international standards on elections.

So, even forgetting for a moment all of the above structural deficiencies in the U.S. system, and accepting the extremely limited choices we are given, we can't ignore the fact the remaining contenders still cheat and rig electoral outcomes. Look at what is going on now with voter suppression, not to mention the vast sums of anonymous money spreading falsehoods in the media. U.S. states are purging voter rolls of eligible voters, imposing new voter registration restrictions, new voter ID requirements, all in an obvious attempt to disenfranchise entire segments of the electorate.

There is nothing about this system that is democratic. It is rigged from the top-down to ensure certain electoral outcomes, to limit choices and to make impossible anything resembling real change.

Could you imagine if they ran professional sports leagues like this? Imagine if the NBA was rigged so that only two teams, say the Lakers and the Celtics, were allowed to compete on anything like a level playing field. All other teams were handicapped, and none were ever shown on TV. Only the Lakers and Celtics were covered by the media, and only these two teams ever got to play in the championship. (And then of course, these two teams routinely cheat against each other and play dirty, disrespecting the rules of the game, buying off the referees, etc.)

You know what would happen? People would either riot over the unfairness of it all, or they would completely tune out (except for those living in LA or Boston). Tuning out, of course, is what most Americans have done with politics. The biggest voting bloc is the non-voter, which I'm considering joining this year for the first time. I've really had it with their rigged game.

     I really did not want to rehash the weaknesses of the political process in the US yet again. I did that pretty well I think in previous posts here, 'Democracy DOA,' 'Pulling the Trigger on the Anti-Democracy Gun,' and 'More Roadblocks to More Verifiable and Honest Elections'. But this post above was a lot more clear on recognizing that unless you are offered real "ALTERNATIVES," what you call an election becomes as farcical as the ones I am sure Slavoj Žižek should be able to remember from his own region's history given his noted reputation as an "expert."



     Anyway, on to the repost... (and following that, Assitwo/Asisfour's big butt showoff recap just because: 
1) I finally got around to covering the "birth" of Assistwo at the 5D blog (Calling Time: 2D 3D 4D 5D Thinking Begins, Super Bonus Days 43, 44, and 45) and I finally get to leave July 2003 after being stuck there for years. I have been having to reread that story for weeks now to prepare for that post. And 
2) but, but, but... w h a t e v e r!)


(This I wrote in December 2005. I thought people might had been wondering what my politics or political leanings were. I thought it was time myself to sum up what I thought and had learned. I had thought a lot then about where it looked like things were headed, democracy-wise, in the United States, Russia, and Europe, and I wrote this not for any class or any particular reason. Maybe today things are different there. Things are not better here unfortunately. The world is always changing. Someplaces or sometimes, maybe even for the better.)

Free Choice: Coke or Pepsi, Slavery or Dictatorship

The Devolution of the 2nd World and the Affliction of the Rest

        Freedom of choice is a powerful concept. Yet power means the opposite of freedom, the ability to remove choice or options from others to corral them into behaving how those with power wish them to behave.

        We all want freedom of choice: freedom to think what we wish to think; freedom to choose what leaders, policies, or programs which will guide our societies; freedom to choose  to marry whom we wish; freedom to choose which jobs we will spend most of our days time in the servitude of; freedom to speak out or work for the causes which we believe in; freedom to live where we wish to live; freedom to try to work for increasing the freedom we have.  

        But as stated above, power is the ability to limit freedom to your own acceptable guidelines, freedom within only certain bounds. You can think what you wish but not something which your society might find sick or extremely distasteful.

        You can work for politicians and policies but not ones so radical they might be negative to the most wealthy or powerful of your society. You are free to marry either anyone among a few choices your parents select or approve of in some societies, to anyone except whom your government prohibits you from marrying in others.

        Freedom of occupation is non-existent without a multitude (or even more than one) of jobs all willing to hire you, and many cannot find any job and would starve or are starving without one.

        The freedom to speak out and work for the causes which one believes in are often limited by law to what one is allowed to speak or work towards, not radical politics, "incendiary" speeches, or publications promoting something the largest or most influential of a society find distasteful or threatening to their power-base or culture which will result in jail time, beatings, or death.

        Freedom to live where you wish is a nice concept but available in fact only for the wealthy. Others are limited by lack of money, tied to where only they can find work, and by borders which often mean they may starve or be hunted down like dogs on one side of the line and far less likely to die immediately on the other. Yet the obstacles to reach the other side are by design meant to be insurmountable while citizenship and being considered property are nearly synonymous.

        These listed thus far are the big freedom of choices, yet for many they are not thought of because their society does not wish for people to try to improve them further than they are established already, or because people believe whatever limits there currently are on them in these matters are acceptable.

        But they are also blinded to even thinking about them due to another type of freedom which they are easily convinced supercedes all of the others and can make even the most oppressive thought-controlling dictatorship not so bad, even great: the freedom of choice in cars, fashionable clothes, jewelry, electronic goods, household appliances, nice furniture, fancy hairstyles, artwork or photos, music, video games, boats or sporting equipment, mobile phones/personal devices, anything which can distract one from the notion that they might be losing freedom in everything else or never had it and never will in the first place: Economic freedom.

        There is nothing bad with economic freedom. The more choices in anything except maybe torture and other bad things, the better off all members of a society are. It is just we have begun to lose sight that this one aspect of freedom of choice is not the be-all-end-all of freedom and has been used as a panacea for any real achievement in China, Russia, and Eastern Europe.

        Even in the West, it is used to keep people occupied while generations of achievements in real freedom are lost. It is almost as if you offered a single small device that they could make calls on, control all the appliances and lights in their house with, get email on, watch video on, play games on, listen to music with, stimulate their genitals with, diagnose their blood pressure, temperature, and heartrate with, clean their teeth with, style their hair with, and warm their coffee by, then they probably would be completely oblivious to anything horrible their societies may be doing to others or their rights and consider themselves the greatest society on Earth for letting them buy such marvelous devices.

        Undoubtedly their society would be the new pinnacle of human civilization! It used to be they only had to make available illegal drugs in large enough quantities to keep everyone happy. (Similarly, many laughed when a professor recently mentioned that based upon the statistics alone, the Dutch had a statistically aberrational level of overall satisfaction seemingly unexplainable.)

        For such nations, undoubtedly these technological advancements are advancements when they are developed economically, have no unemployment or social problems, have a high degree of legitimately democratic institutions, good protection of rights, and the right to work for ANY causes they wish without police harassment, then they can possibly succumb without much harsh consequences to a culture based on "stuff", having stuff, getting more stuff, showing off your stuff, and playing with your stuff. For the rest of the world, and undoubtedly we all are in one degree or another in that category, it is the classic bait and switch. Look,  Shiny...  New...  Cool...  Wham!

        No region of the world I think exemplifies this more than the former Communist countries of Eastern Europe and Russia. Give a PDA ['smart phone' is a 2012 equivalent term] or a mobile phone to illiterate farmers in some impoverished region of the world where they already have nothing and undoubtedly you are doing a good thing because they are already going nowhere anyway, and they might amuse them or distract them from that fact for awhile how horrible their lives will always be. And maybe they might be able to use it to figure out how to improve their lives if the powers that be where they live will let them.

        The so-called "Second-World" countries (former Communist states) were told they were giving up their economic benefits, their standard of living, guaranteed jobs and housing, free medical care, retirement benefits, all in exchange for real freedom of choice, but instead they merely got a culture of "stuff" with many unable to afford "stuff" and others doing anything in the world to screw them out of what little "stuff" they had left.

        Between 20% and 40% of the people having lost everything, becoming destitute or homeless, impoverished as much or worse than those in any Third-World country, turned into countries of beggars, prostitutes, petty thieves, crime syndicates, corrupt police, corrupt courts and parliaments, and the only real freedom they got other than the freedom to complain about it, was the freedom to buy "stuff" if ever they could figure out how to screw each other over enough to be able to get some of it for themselves.

        Sure, they lost all hope for knowing for sure they would be able to survive for more than a few weeks into the future, but they got lots of electrical gadgets, games, phones, and videos to amuse themselves with before many of them starve so others can get their stuff after they do. Pretty much a huge section of their retired people were wiped out of life due to lack of benefits, inability to survive without help, and if you were old and fortunate enough to have a nice big apartment in a major city like Moscow and no children to have to worry about, you were pretty much guaranteed an all-expenses paid vacation at the bottom of a lake.

        In what used to be literate well-educated societies, many individuals within them have progressed, their lives substantially improved, and have only benefited from the transition. Many many many more have not only been inconvenienced, their lives have been endangered, their suffering beyond imagination, and overall their societies are rapidly losing the stability, cohesion, and general civility and level of civilization they had before under what was undoubtedly a more repressive and inhumane system.

        And ironically, one could say it was all deserved because they were so dazzled by economic freedom, the hope of having all that "stuff" that they were willing to be taken advantage of not only by con-men, but by politicians now all richer than millionaires, who one could say were the most talented con-artists of all.

        Political choice can be a hollow or non-existent choice. When all the political parties offer pretty much the same economic programs, the same cultural policies, the same foreign or trade policies, basically all affecting an individual's life within that society the same ways, it is a smokescreen, a sham.

        When all the different arms, the parties, are all controlled by the same head, the corporations or oligarchs, it really does not matter who you vote for. When it does not matter who you vote for if none of them will improve your life in any way above the interests of smaller groups which control what laws will be passed, what the rules of the game will be, what the economic policies and benefits to others will be, you may as well be living under a dictatorship. In fact, you probably are and just don't think of it that way.

        The United Russia Party in Russia is best at playing this "multiple arms connected to the same head" game, at least within the context of a single party. Western countries at least name their different arms of the same beast as different parties. With the Nashi (Us) semi-fascist (by their tactics, targeting opposition parties as "fascists" and labeled as such or similar by their critics) state-sponsored or endorsed anti-fascist youth group, if you are a semi-fascist, you can join an organization that will help you feel at home and promote the United Russia party.

        Now with the new Kremilin favored youth group, the Young Guard, a more genuine reaction against growing fascism (claims to actively work against growing anti-semitism, racism, etc.), if you are bothered by fascism you can join this new and also well-funded rival youth group which of course also supports and works for the benefit of the United Russia party. They are also working on a left wing of the party so pretty much whatever rival opinion or ideology you have that hates the others part of United Russia, United Russia agrees with you too. Just don't try to ask how it agrees with every conflicting opinion or why all those well-funded supposedly rival youth groups of different beliefs all support the same party, beyond just another shell game to win another election.

        At least in Western democracies, they have the decency to call all these sub-categories which all in the end support the same policies, they call them different political party names. They used to have different economic agendas to go with the different names, but like in Russia, our elites thought this amount of choice would be too confusing for most people.

        Thus in Russia where you have extreme liberals, less extreme liberals, and liberals lite, in the West there are extreme Neo-conservatives, moderate conservatives, and conservatives lite, the Social Democrats. While some social democratic parties may indeed be a whisker beyond the center to the left, in general the left is considered to be a cliff which has only rocks and no means for politicians to get their daily infusion of cash needed to survive another day or another election.

        From the British Labour Party, the American Democrats, to the Social Democrats in Germany, corporations simply have hedged their bets and bought "shares" of influence in these "corporations" as well. On economic policies, political parties have become in effect wholly owned subsidiaries of different rival corporations. And as with the oil industry, the rivalry there too is questionably real.

        By constantly moving the major "left" parties within their countries to the center, they have far more effectively padded their pockets than simply funding the "friendly to business" parties by throwing the whole political spectrum in their preferred direction. The Social Democrats in Germany only confirmed that by admitting that they have more in common with the major right wing party than to wish to form a similar coalition with a left-of-center party.

        What have some called the "End of History", the now universal all over the world acceptance of "business friendly" parties (read the party businesses like the most should always win) and systems of government based around only what its wealthiest members wishes or permits, it also (if this were to be true) would mean the end of real democracy, where all choices are different arms connected to the same head's wishes as the United Russia-Nashi-Young Guard-whatever else megalith monolith.

        And the dilution of choices is not toward a center but toward where the wealthiest few wish to take it to establish where the new center will be. Whatever they can get away with, whatever the people can be drugged out to accept whether by actual drugs, manipulations, political structures and rigged elections designed to make irrelevant the opinions of the majorities, constant propaganda, the culture of ever new technological stuff to keep people busy and distracted, however much they can squeeze the dumbest into greater poverty, more desperate destitution, they will have earned the right to do so because in the end, people want to be treated as dumber than stumps and make it so endlessly easy.

        The best example I saw of "going too far", not that it will be extreme for long and far worse will one day make it look like being overly nice, was a US corporation being sold exclusive rights to provide all the drinking water in a village in Bolivia. All wells, even the rain that fell from the sky legally belonged to this corporation.

        They could now charge whatever they wished and raised rates to levels that would have made people starve, 1/3 their income just for drinking water, because the people had no other choice. Imagine China having been allowed to control the rights to all drinking water sold in New York City and being allowed to charge New Yorkers whatever they thought they could get away with, that maximum profit which could be made compared to what would cause too many to die off and thus lose that future earning potential.

        Even in the glitter is gold world of Hollywood, advertising, PR, fashion, gadgets, and consumer cornucopia of the most superfluous irrelevance people can be made to want to waste their time and money on, there is a drive there to make sure all the arms connect to the same head.

        Many choices of newspapers and television stations exist, yet all are controlled by the same few "parent" companies and those companies in turn are controlled by other companies whose interests decide what is and is not newsworthy in accordance with how the public's opinions on issues affect their various industries. This is not the kind of "bad censorship" Western democracies have a problem with.

        This "good censorship", that the wealthiest groups of a society should be able to dump as much out of their piggy banks as it takes to buy up the media so they can influence or control what people see, hear, read, and think just as much as they wish. Journalistic truth and editing belong after all to the highest bidder and "public" broadcasting is just Communism in disguise.

        As child I was taught that free market capitalism is the greatest amount of competition possible which would result in the lowest prices possible. We are about as far from that definition in our corporatist age as the USSR was in having achieved a workers paradise, and we are moving further away every day from freedom for small businesses being allowed to compete equally in all markets.

        Freedom of corporations to put anyone who gets in their way out of business with their greater resources is what they and their "owned" governments seek. The consolidation by corporations to be able to own and control whatever industries they choose, treating news, public resources like drinking water, public utilities, even farming and food, as just other commodities to be traded between themselves, this has made them so powerful, even politicians and governments are just commodities to them now to be bought, sold, and monopolized at whim or whimsy.

        We have choices, but they are all by design made to be irrelevant. All arms connect to the same head, all choices made available to us are forever intended to water down true choices for freedom, to new brands of stuff we can pay for by getting more and more others to starve to death to free up more resources for us for new gadgets and games we will no doubt continue to be dazzled with.

        Talking robots, people selling their organs for food, 3D computer displays, people choosing to be sold into slavery so they can eat another day no matter what they are forced to do, 700 horsepower cars with satellite TV's inside. Look,  Shiny...  New...  Cool...  Wham!



 And now, yet another Inventory/Assistwo clip show...


           "Damn lawyers!!! Stupid ****in' homeless person!! If you weren't so thin, malnourished, and diseased, I ought to grind you into burgers and serve you up for dinner to us who work for a living, at least then you would be contributing something to society for a change!" Assistwo screamed as venomently as he could manage.
 
           "That was a little over the top, don't you think?" Inventor corrected.
 
           "Yes, but I am supposed to be evil, but all I am allowed to do now is berate your poverty and throw things at you, but I could not find anything under 5 kilos. Wait a minute, I did not see that toaster."
 
           Whap!
 
           "Feel better now?" Inventor asked.
 
           "I don't know, did it hurt?" Assistwo asked.
 
           "Yes."
 
           "Ok then, I feel a little better. What I don't understand about this gravity world is practically everything but you can start on my body."
 
           "Remember our contract," Inventor warned.
 
           "No, I mean I don't understand it. Why are these arm thingies so stiff and only bend in a few places?"

           "You may not realize it because your body has grown in this environment, but it takes a lot of work to keep upright and from sinking into a big blob of mush on the ground. Your stiffer frame minimizes the amount of work needed to keep your body upright off the ground," Inventor explained.
 
           "Ok, what about that?" Assistwo asked. "Why is my head always so far away from the ground. What if I fall over?"
 
           "I don't know why you want to keep your head so far away from the ground. Why not go into the alley where I have to sleep at night and put your face closer to the ground? You might find out," Inventor suggested.
 
           "Why is my butt so big? It seems there is a lot of unnecessary fat there which serves no purpose whatsoever. It isn't even aesthetically pleasing and it serves no function," Assistwo asked inquiringly.
 
           "I don't know, you could try going on a diet. Be thankful you don't have a desk job," Inventor joked.
 
           Assistwo searched frantically for something under 5 kilos.  "Where did that toaster go?" he asked. ...

 2D 3D 4D 5D Thinking Made Simple

 Section 7.2: Bouncing off of Evil Inventor (July 2005)

 (Assistwo's Alternate Evil 2D Perpendicular Universe Dream)

           He stopped and raised a hypersphere shaped knocker on one of the double doors, also coincidentally shaped as what Einstein believed the Universe was made out of, only his were not brass like these balls were. 
 
           The solid brass hypersphere knocker came down on the 4D door causing such a nasty noise that its occupant, Big Ass, had to cover his ears while walking to the door. There was definitely gravity in this Universe, as well as hangovers. 
 
           "Are you Big Ass?" Upholsterer asked. 
 
           "You've heard of me?" Big Ass inquired back. 
 
           "No, it says so on this invoice. I am here to repair the damage on one of your bosses expensive leather couches from your party last week at this office without permission."
 
           "It says all of that on the invoice?" Big Ass asked while shielding his eyes from the light of the hyperspheric sun. 
 
           "No, but me and your boss talked a little while ago and I was told to ask for "Big Ass." I am guessing there is not many who would like to be called that. Actually, I was told to bill it to a Mr. Assistant Morefour. I assume that is you, Big Ass."
 
           "Ok, you can quit with the "Big Ass" now. Only my friends get to call me that. To my boss and most people, they call me Asisfour. That was my boss's idea of a joke. Come on in."

 2D 3D 4D 5D Thinking Made Simple

 Section 8.0: Infinity Zero Realm: After an eternity of bad jokes, we finally start in 4th gear

(Infinities Overlapping: Two to One to Two, Jareddubois.com, June 14, 2007)