Eric Zuesse – The Lies behind Democracy’s Demise + Here’s How Democratic your Country is

The Lies behind Democracy’s Demise

On November 1st, Christopher Black, who is one of the world’s leading international lawyers, headlined The Collapse of International Law and made his case that (and how) it was destroyed by the increasing hypocrisy that exists throughout The West and that is actually being applied by The West (though pervasively being ignored in The West, but not ignored elsewhere, much noticed there). The blatancy of that lie by The West has now become so clear that there is public discussion in some countries regarding whether the United Nations itself has run its course, and that nations which don’t agree with its decisions should simply resign their membership in it. (A Czech official had argued that because only 13 other nations had voted in favor of Israel on a certain matter, Czechia, and maybe all US allies, ought to leave the UN) The case that Black lays out is incontestably true, and he analogizes today’s UN to the post WWI League of Nations, which similarly had been produced by victor’s ‘justice’ in the wake of a World War which degenerated into yet more wars between contending empires such as had caused WWI, and then, again, it caused WWII, which was ‘justified’, in both instances (I and II), as being something more than a reshuffling between empires, which is what the post WWII international order and its United Nations, like the earlier League of Nations, turned out actually to have been (treating powerful aggressors as if they weren’t aggressors at all).

This is not at all to deny the fact that the German Government’s share in the guilt for WWII was far higher than was the case in WWI, nor is it to say that the UN that was supposed to prevent there being any future World War was designed for that purpose as poorly as had been the League of Nations that likewise was supposed to prevent there being any future Word War. And, now, the UN could go the way of the League of Nations.

In fact, though the intensely anti imperialist FDR had invented, initially conceived, and even named, the United Nations in August 1941, even prior to America’s entrance into WWII, and he did so on the conviction that WWI had been caused by contending imperialisms and so imperialism itself must terminate and become replaced by a global federal republic of all nations in order to prevent a WWIII, which global democracy of nations he then worked on designing the UN to be, he died on 12 April 1945, just weeks before the 25 April 1945 till 26 June 1945 global San Francisco Conference that was to start the UN by drafting its constitution or “Charter.” FDR’s successor, Harry Truman, became the organization’s chief designer, but many features in it were already unstoppable because of FDR’s work on it; and, so, the UN that exists today operates under a Charter that is a combination of the anti imperialist FDR and the pro US imperialist Truman, who, on 5 January 1946, wrote to his right hand man, James Byrnes, At San Francisco no agreements or compromises were ever agreed to without my approval. Today’s UN was Truman’s creation, more than anyone else’s:,Truman’s was the guiding hand that wrote all of it. It’s not 100% his; he compromised where he had to, but he was the document’s ultimate editor. Everything that’s in it was acceptable to him. The Conference’s attendees had far less power over the final document than he did. Everything that’s in it had received hisapproval.” And, then, during the Potsdam (Germany) Conference, which was to be the new President’s introduction to other world leaders, he became convinced mainly by his hero, the pro US imperialist General Dwight Eisenhower, but also by the pro English imperialist of specifically the Rhodesist type, Winston Churchill, that if the United States would not come to rule over the entire world, then the Soviet Union would, and so Truman finally decided, on 25 July 1945, that this was the case, and that the US must therefore win control over the entire planet. It meant that FDR’s plan, for his UN to be designed to be the global democratic federal republic of all nations, and to be the source and the power to produce and to enforce all international laws and no national laws — that there would be no authority or power for the UN over domestic or “national” (i.e., intra national) laws, never was able to come to fruition. (On 25 July 1945, Truman not only decided that a US versus USSR war must follow after the Allies’ anti fascist war, but he demanded from Stalin that America must have a say so in what domestic laws would be in the countries that the Soviet Union had conquered from Nazi German control; and, Stalin, of course, said no to that.) (If course, likewise, if Stalin had demanded that the countries which America had conquered from Hiter become Marxist, then Truman would have said no to that, but Truman was so small minded that he never thought of this crucial fact. This was typica of him.) The ONLY influence that (according to FDR’s plan) the UN would have regarding NATIONAL laws would be the international community’s free speech right to comment about those, but nothing mandatory, ONLY advisory, regarding intra national matters. Truman’s UN is what we instead have; and, as Black’s recent commentary makes clear, it’s dying, if not already (in fact) dead. The US and its allies have long been violating international laws; and, as Black points out, always did it with absolute impunity. So: in what sense can this even possibly be international justice, or even international law? Or any kind of international democracy of nations? It’s none of that.

This explains (as Black makes clear) not only Israel’s actions regarding the Palestinians; but, also, America’s actions regarding Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, Russia, China, Libya, Syria, and others. Regime change here there and everywhere, except in the US empire itself. However, because Western media suppress, if not totally block, such information (the illegality of those US actions: coups, invasions, and illegal sanctions) (and they even penalize publishers, such as Julian Assange, that report, instead of hide, this illegality), the US and its allies are able to get away with calling themselves “democracy” (which is clearly a lie). Censorship is the handmaiden to any dictatorship, and the killer of any democracy.

If there doesn’t exist a democratic federal republic of all nations regarding international laws and their adjudication and enforcement, then any nation’s being any sort of democracy (other than a rhetorical one) is and remains impossible. Where international dictatorship (i.e., empire) exists (and this is the system that Truman imposed and which has grown since), then democracy isn’t even possible. FDR was working on a solution to that problem, but it got terminated on 25 July 1945 by Truman. Subsequently, that Trumanism became called “neo conservatism,” and it is pervasive on both sides of the aisle in Congress, but it’s really a support for the US Government to win control over the entire world. FDR had the opposite aim: to outlaw ANY empire.

What Christopher Black is denouncing is Trumanism = neoconservatism = Rhodesism.

https://theduran.com/the-lies-behind-democracys-demise/

Here’s How Democratic your Country is

When a nation’s head of state has more than half of its residents who choose either “Approve” or “Disapprove” of that leader choose “Approve” and thereofore fewer than half of them choose “Disapprove” for that leader, then this suggests majority approval of that person’s leadership of the Government; and this generally indicates that the given country’s Government reflects the majority of its residents, which means that it is a democracy.

When a nation’s head of state has fewer than half of its residents who choose either “Approve” or “Disapprove” of that leader choose “Approve” and thereofore more than half of them choose “Disapprove” for that leader, then this suggests majority disapproval of that person’s leadership of the Government; and this generally indicates that the given country’s Government doesn’t reflect the majority of its residents, which means that it is not a democracy but instead some type of dictatorship.

The Morning Consult international polling organization every week samples public opinion in each of the following 22 countries regarding Approve and Disapprove percentages pertaining to each nation’s head of state, so as to determine the Approve | Disapprove percentages for each nation’s leader as rated by that country’s residents.

Australia
Austria
Belgium
Brazil
Canada
Czechia
France
Germany
India
Ireland
Italy
Japan
Mexico
The Netherlands
Norway
Poland
South Korea
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
UK
US

They do not sample in any of the countries that the US Government is trying to regime change, in other words, to conquer by means of invasion or coup or sanctions or subversion. Therefore: China and Russia are not included in their pollings. However, there exist other polls that basically answer this question for each of those two nations, and that information will also be provided here, especially because the main excuse that the US and its allies give for trying to regime change a given country is that that targeted country is being alleged by them to be less democratic than the country that is trying to conquer it is, the would-be conquering nations call it ‘autocratic‘, or a ‘dictatorship‘.

For any given leader in the Morning Consult polls, there tends to be remarkable stability:  the rank order of leaders tends to change little, if at all, from one week to the next, and even from one month to the next; so, these findings aren’t merely ephemera, but instead say something important about the leader and about that person’s relationship with his or her compatriots.

Here are the Actual Ratings as of 2 November 2023

LEADER | APPROVE | DISAPPROVE

(1) Narendra Modi (India) 79% 17%
(2) Andrés Manuel López Obrador (Mexico) 64% 32%
(3) Alain Berset (Switzerland) 64% 27%
(4) Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Brazil) 50% 43%
(5) Anthony Albanese (Australia) 45% 44%
(6) Pedro Sánchez (Spain) 42% 53%
(7) Giorgia Meloni (Italy) 41% 54%
(8) Joe Biden (U.S.) 38% 55%
(9) Leo Varadkar (Ireland) 38% 54%
(10) Alexander De Croo (Belgium) 37% 49%
(11) Justin Trudeau (Canada) 32% 63%
(12) Ulf Kristersson (Sweden) 31% 58%
(13) Mateusz Morawiecki (Poland) 31% 61%
(14) Rishi Sunak (UK) 28% 63%
(15) Jonas Gahr Støre (Norway) 26% 65%
(16) Olaf Scholz (Germany) 26% 68%
(17) Mark Rutte (Netherlands) 26% 68%
(18) Emmanuel Macron (France) 25% 70%
(19) Karl Nehammer (Austria) 23% 71%
(20) Yoon Seok Youl (South Korea) 21% 72%
(21) Fumio Kishida (Japan) 18% 70%
(22) Petr Fiala (Czech Republic) 18% 76%

Probably the 4 countries on this list that are the least controlled by the US Government are N° 1 through N° 4 on it: India, Mexico, Switzerland, and Brazil. The N° 5 country is Australia, which is in the democratic category by only 1%: 45% democratic, versus 44% dictatorial.

All of the other 17 countries on this list of 22 are clearly controlled by (or vasal nations, or colonies, or ‘allies’), of the United States; those 17 are clearly member-nations in the US empire.

Regarding China and Russia, I posted, on 3 July 2023, at Dissident Voice, the following information about those two countries (and it shows that according to this measure, those two countries are even more democratic than is India, which is the highest rated in the 22 Morning Consult polls):

Just as, in the US, the Gallup polling organization is the standard one that has tracked approve | disapprove for US Presidents over decades; in Russia, the Levada polling organization has done the same, and it has periodically polled Russians about Putin. Ever since he became Russia’s leader on 1 January 2000, his average Approve is 70% and Disapprove is 25% for a net +35% over that 23 year period, but recently it is instead 80% Approve and 15% Disapprove, for a net +70%, which is even higher than Modi’s +58% in India [at that time, 3 July 2023; but in their latest poll, 2 November 2023, it is 79% – 17%=+62%.

I’ve not found any polling results on China’s President Xi, but two polls are relevant: On 22 August 2022, I headlined NATO Affiliated Poll in 53 Countries Finds Chinese the Most Think Their Country Is a Democracy” and reported that, “A poll in 53 countries by the NATO affiliatedAlliance of Democracies” found that 83% of Chinese think that China is a democracy. That’s the highest percentage amongst all of the 53 countries surveyed.” And, the “US was worse than average, and was tied at N° 40 and N° 41, out of the 53 nations, with Colombia, at 49%” , barely less than half of Americans think they live in a democracy. Furthermore the Edelman Trust Barometer polls in 28 countries, and some of its questions are likewise relevant. On 24 March 2023, I headlined “How Nations’ Citizens Rate Their Own Government” and reported that of all 28 nations surveyed by the Edelman organization, the trust in the Government was the highest in China, at 91%, while only 39% of Americans trust their Government. Only 37% of Russians do, and Russians have distrusted their Government ever since there has been polling on that, the disparity between how Russians rate their Government versus how they rate Putin is enormous and has no parallel in any other country that I know of. Perhaps local governments are lousy there. It’s a disparity that ought to be examined scientifically. But, also, US President Biden’s saying, of Putin, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power” is plain evil, just like his calling Xi a “dictator” is. For Biden, with a net job approval of -13%, to be saying such things about national leaders who have served their nations vastly better than Biden has been serving his, is hateful, closed minded, petty, and extremely dangerous both to his own country and to all countries; it is despicable, and clearly marks him as a leader who needs to be regime changed as soon as possible (but not replaced by anyone in his Administration, since he has surrounded himself with individuals who are just as dangerous as he himself is).

Anyhow: the way that America’s super rich, who provide most of the funding to US political campaigns, keep supplying the country with abysmal Presidents virtually nonstop ever since the end of WWII (and, so, ever since 1945, the US Government has perpetrated 297 invasions and at least 60 coups) is by selecting to fund in each Party only politicians who will serve their bidding and not the public’s needs. It’s the same in all US and allied countries.

Just look at the “Global Leader Approval Rating Tracker” to see how it has been playing out in each one of the 17 US and allied countries. None of them is a democracy (one person, one vote), each of them is an aristocracy (one dollar, one vote, just like a corporation is). Each one of them is pay to play. And that is why each of these nations is a game that the public always loses.

So: in the US and allied world, the publics constantly hear and read that their own country is a “democracy” but that China and Russia are “dictatorships,” and this hate machine is non stop. It’s an upside down ‘reality’, which produces “manufactured consent” (but NOT democracy). It produces wars. It produces invasions, coups, and sanctions. And profits for the owners.

IMPORTANT UPDATE [on July 3rd]

This was called to the attention of the reporter (me) after I wrote the above, but it is highly relevant even though it’s “old news” that I had not previously known of. On 9 July 2020, the Harvard Gazette headlined “Taking China’s Pulse”. That reported on a Harvard study, “Understanding CCP Resilence: Surveying Chinese Public Opinion Through Time”, which contained the findings from their team’s surveys which had been conducted in eight waves from 2003 through 2016, from 32,000 scientifically sampled residents in China, and which found that, as the “policy briefitself put it, “Chinese citizen satisfaction with government has increased virtually across the board. From the impact of broad national policies to the conduct of local town officials, Chinese citizens rate the government as more capable and effective than ever before. Interestingly, more marginalized groups in poorer, inland regions are actually comparatively more likely to report increases in satisfaction. Second, the attitudes of Chinese citizens appear to respond (both positively and negatively) to real changes in their material well being, which suggests that support could be undermined by the twin challenges of declining economic growth and a deteriorating natural environment.” This statement suggests that this “policy brief” was done for the US Government in order to find ways to “undermine” China’s Government. (It was here implicitly recommending for the US Government to do what it can to produce in China “declining economic growth and a deteriorating natural environment.”) In fact, the document’s ”Introduction: On Authoritarian Resilience” states: “The goal of this research brief, and of the longitudinal survey that informs it, is to address the question of government legitimacy in China using the most objective and quantitative methods currently available.” But, anyway, what it found was that the legitimacy of China’s Governemt was actually higher than of American’s Government: “Even in 2003, the central government received a strong level of satisfaction, with 86.1% expressing approval and 8.9% disapproving. This high level of satisfaction increased even further by 2016, but such increases were minimal because public satisfaction was already high to begin with. By contrast, in 2003, township-level governments had quite negative satisfaction rates, with 44% expressing approval and 52% disapproving. However, by 2016, these numbers had flipped with 70% approving and only 26% disapproving.” So the Chinese Government’s possessing higher legitimacy than any other in the world goes back at least as far as 2003 (or 2016 as regards local government) and has been increasing ever since. As “Taking China’s Pulse” phrased the matter: “The survey team found that compared to public opinion patterns in the US, in China there was very high satisfaction with the central government. In 2016, the last year the survey was conducted, 95.5 percent of respondents were either ‘relatively satisfied’ or ‘highly satisfied’ with Beijing. In contrast to these findings, Gallup reported in January of this year that their latest polling on US citizen satisfaction with the American federal government revealed only 38 percent of respondents were satisfied with the federal government.” Though Harvard knew they were working for a Government that was far more “Authoritarian” or a dictatorship than was China’s, they wrote using the term “Authoritarian” for China, but not for America. To place that Harvard study into the perspective of the present article’s headline, “How the Billionaires Control US and Allied Governments”: Wikipedia says that “The Harvard University endowment (valued at $53.2 billion as of June 2021) [1] is the largest academic endowment in the world. [2] [3]

https://theduran.com/heres-how-democratic-your-country-is/

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s new book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to US and allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’, duping the public.
Eric Zuesse blogs at https://theduran.com/author/eric-zuesse/)

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