We buy and sell democracy on a global scale.  As proprietors of the biggest market on this product we lose control and sight of what goes on in the micro-markets across the world.  Our ineffable leader has taken the lead in praising fledgling efforts in marginal countries and does not quite know how to handle the big ones that we deal with as “equals”?, every day.  In fact, the democracy practiced here in the U.S.A. is not quite what the founding fathers thought it should be. We are still arguing about details.  We confound and distress many large components for we are but human with human frailties and are susceptible to nepotism, cronyism, and outright criminal practices. What we are selling is often fake.

Well, says the bemused spectator of these shenanigans, nobody’s perfect and this is the way of the world.  But, it is easy if you really think about it to get the way things work against democracy even if it is in its name.  I think about the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that sits on a pool of oil it has said is not infinite.  This is true.  But this is the reason for holding us up at gunpoint at the refueling station.  Saudi Arabia is claimed by our prescient President that it is one of our “democratic” allies when it clearly is a monarchy with few freedoms granted its citizens while it has to find work for its super abundant Princes and their large families.  The Saudis are fake but all too real in financing non-democratic movements in the world.

The election results in Venezuela and Russia show that at least elections are held in these countries.  In both instances, the changes wanted by their “elected” rulers are to make them virtual dictators with rule for life in the offing.  The Russians approved Putin while the Venezuelans had the good sense to not approve the socialist and dictator predilections of the “loudmouth” Chavez – but not by a huge margin. In the instance of Russia, claims are that the elections were fake.

Being “democratic” despite fears that the two imperialistic wars we are waging, is putting our grandchildren into debt to the tune of more than two Trillion dollars and growing.  Democracy does not always assume Capitalism will bring about equality and that is a truism that escapes most.  In fact, Socialism is supposed to bring about both ECONOMIC and political equality but this has been repudiated many times here in America and now in oil rich Venezuela.

The ideas about Democracy going back to the Greeks, who had equality for citizens but not for slaves and foreigners, are still in the process of evolving.  We have visitors here on our shores who came to get a slice of the pie that looks so inviting.  But, ideas about Democracy are spurious and are under dispute even in this time of election.  We ought to know the difference between what is fake and what is real.