Sunday, July 05, 2009
The tyranny of the institutions
Buzzwords and talking points is pretty much all I hear nowadays from the regional right, what is comical is seeing them shift from the echo chamber that they deem most pressing, it is not that they really believe in the things they claim, just that they naively believe that if they repeat it long enough and more often than not they will actually convince a single impartial soul.
In the 80's the buzzword was democracy, the left claimed that even though democracy was a positive ideal, the right was coercing democracy to install and cement their ideology. Knowing full well that whenever democracy overstayed its welcome they would change their priorities, the right no longer cares about democracy, Francisco, Daniel, Miguel they care about "institutions".
The new threat to the right is not armed resistance, but the charismatic populist, that is why term limits exist in every rightwing constitution. So in order to defeat the individual they seek groups of people that can be more easily coerced, therefore the institution is the cause celebre of today. Screw the will of the people, screw human rights,
The army is an institution (unless it is controlled by a populist) ergo it can shoot people at point blank in an airport.
The judiciary is an institution (unless it was selected by a congress elected with the aid of a populist) ergo it can depose the president without an excuse
The electoral body is an institution (unless they use machines, or in the case of Iran paper ballots) ergo it can negate the will of the people by not recounting the mexican election.
Now this is to educate them once and for all, institutions are no more or no less democratic than a populist, it is power hungry like a populist, it is biased like an ideologue, and it is as evil as any human being.
The people are the only institution that matters, because either you believe in the people or you do not. They are not perfect, but that is the true nature of democracy, not 9 fat cats in robes.
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In the 80's the buzzword was democracy, the left claimed that even though democracy was a positive ideal, the right was coercing democracy to install and cement their ideology. Knowing full well that whenever democracy overstayed its welcome they would change their priorities, the right no longer cares about democracy, Francisco, Daniel, Miguel they care about "institutions".
The new threat to the right is not armed resistance, but the charismatic populist, that is why term limits exist in every rightwing constitution. So in order to defeat the individual they seek groups of people that can be more easily coerced, therefore the institution is the cause celebre of today. Screw the will of the people, screw human rights,
The army is an institution (unless it is controlled by a populist) ergo it can shoot people at point blank in an airport.
The judiciary is an institution (unless it was selected by a congress elected with the aid of a populist) ergo it can depose the president without an excuse
The electoral body is an institution (unless they use machines, or in the case of Iran paper ballots) ergo it can negate the will of the people by not recounting the mexican election.
Now this is to educate them once and for all, institutions are no more or no less democratic than a populist, it is power hungry like a populist, it is biased like an ideologue, and it is as evil as any human being.
The people are the only institution that matters, because either you believe in the people or you do not. They are not perfect, but that is the true nature of democracy, not 9 fat cats in robes.
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