Keith Watanabe * NET 2.0

Two things happened on the news that I read, leading me to come up with the title to this blog.  The first was seeing how the Feds willingly and enthusiastically were (are) attempting to bail out their buds on Wall Street and the entire financial market.  The second thing was seeing the Senate pass unanimously the Pro-IP Law that obviously was endorsed (and bought by) the lobbyists of the Recording and Movie industries.  The only voting that went on were politicians receiving handshakes by their financial backers to hasten casting their ballots.

The sad part is that the US isn't the only country limited to this form of government.  Japan, too, follows this trend.  A Japanese friend from work commented that he no longer followed the politics in Japan because, "It's just the government doing nothing and companies doing everything."  Last week, just to not be outdone by America's media coverage over the financial crisis, Japan's own Prime Minister had stepped down to be replaced by a guy named "Aso."  (Appropriate, don't you think?)  Not a very popular guy with the public for his so-called outrageous comments, but a guy with a tremendous amount of support within his party.  The last Prime Minister, Fukuda, as my other friend had mentioned, "wasn't doing that bad."  So what led to Fukuda's downfall?

Honestly, I wasn't paying attention much to the political situation either.  Just as my friend said, it's the corporations running the show.  The politicians here just enforce policy, but they don't really do much for the people here.  In my opinion, the so-called houses are just gratuitous and are used to demonstrate externally that Japan's government has some facade of democracy in place.  Truthfully, the corporations (and those other guys) are the ones in charge.

The correct view of the two previously mentioned issues in America ought to have been resolved via public consensus rather than corporate lobbying.  Yet it's known that the government and corporations would not ever relinquish their power over something like this.  It's like what George Carlin mentioned on multiple occasions about the owners of the country.  You really need an impartial system to handle and properly judge things like this.  But it seems that there's no way that we can absolutely ensure in having a person in charge that the person would be incorruptible. 

Next one has to ask what's the gain from the system in place?  My feeling is that the illusion of democracy exist to placate the middle class into perpetually supporting the upper class, politicans and corporations.  The notion that an individual has some power as a right continues to justify why the system is allowed to stay in place.  But the truth is that the system is not just corrupt, but bureaucratic, bloated, flawed, fractured and stiched together with duct tape without any thoughts on modernity that only a complete collapse or revision can really save whatever remnants of democracy is left in a country like America.

How can we fix the government?

I do think that the founders were onto something when they allowed states and municiplities have control over their own regions.  The problem was getting these non-uniform pieces to somehow coexist and behave in a sensible manner was beyond their foresight.

First, I believe that large simply cannot scale in a truly democratic environment like the US.  Largeness defies the meaning of democracy because in the end it puts more emphasis on the whole than the individual.  From there you begin receiving idioms of just how small the individual is.  Such as "the cog in the machine, " "just doing my job, " etc.  I don't even know if the founding fathers envisioned how large America (as well as the world) would become.  The problem is that the number of uncertainties arise because each individual adds more complexity and randomness to the system.  Even with the best math, statistics, psychology, sociology, AI and predictability models, you just cannot account for every single scenario.  And I honestly don't think you want to nor ought to.

Second, I think that American democracy should not equate to jingoism.  That means, we should not be the enforcers of democracy in a global environment.  Sure, we should protect our workers when they go abroad.  However, the role of a democratic American government should not be that of a global police man.  At that point, you lose focus of democracy for the expansion of power for the country, as well as losing focus on domestic issues.  Naturally, foreign policy is critical in the global environment simply because we need to trade with other countries (oil, electronics and cars are obvious examples).  But you should never underemphasize your home base.

Next, I really believe that the country needs to be further divided.  Obviously, the country becoming annexed into a huge mass was for resources and general solidification of political beliefs.  However, maybe those days need to be reconsidered since the country is, plainly stated, dysfunctional.  The three division should be simple: west, east and middle.  The idealisms really fit the nature such that the three should be split in that manner.  I think continuing to have cooperation between the three is tantamount to the remaining America's survival (e.g. sharing military, continuing trade).  But certain aspects like education in school, religion, budget, etc. need to be split up.

Also, I'm a bigger believer in small communities.  Call me a true socialist from Rousseau but I just am a firm believer that smaller is better.  Just common sense dictates that smaller is easier to manage.  Things are more intimate, less random, more predictable and easier to deal with.  There's the saying "divide and conquer."  The problem is that people only seem to conquer, not divide up the problem into smaller chunks to handle.  Having worked in large organizations, the only guarantee is generally slightly more stability.  But you are more focused and have less opportunities for yourself.  Also, I tend to feel that large organizations themselves simply lose focus on what they're attempting to achieve in the name of growth, their shareholders, gaining market share and power.

America has become nothing more than a large corporation, controlled by the interest of their shareholders investing in it.  That's where the democratic power lies.  The problem is that the American people are shareholders too but Uncle Sam doesn't recognize their efforts.  With all the money we put into the system, what do we really see for our efforts?  I don't see fixed roads, cheaper electricity, better internet infrastructure, affordable housing, quality food, excellent health care, retirement packages, etc.  None of that exist despite all the money we place into the American system.  Instead, we get useless wars and bail outs for crooks because the crooks fund their friends in the government.  Funny how that works?  So I bet our Social Security will just go back into these assholes' pockets after they figure out more ways of scamming the government into stealing our money.

So what can one do if democracy is merely an illusion?

My belief: form smaller communities.

Yes, go out to some rural areas, purchase land and cheap housing, even in areas you think suck.  Forget places like Florida, New York or California.  Those places are overrated.  Get your friends and family to join you.  Make your own stores, grow your own vegetables, raise your cattle, etc.  Pay taxes so that you're legal.  But become independent.  The thing is that you can't trust the government because the government is run by the corporations.  And you never can trust corporations because they're run by a few select elite and shareholders, who only care about their short term investments.

You need people, real communities, not these online social networks.  But you need people you can trust.  You also need to be self-sufficient.  It's impossible to reinvent the entire wheel, but I think it can be done within reason.