Feb 10 2008

Video – Despotism and Democracy

BenFranklinoval2 lett

“A Republic – if you can keep it” – Ben Franklin

“This is a 1946 educational video made by Encyclopedia Brittanica, teaching us what Despotism is. In a mere 10 minutes, this video will open your eyes if they’ve been shut. It explains how societies and nations can be measured by the degree that power is concentrated and respect for the individual is restricted. It’s stunning how well it portrays the current world, in it’s simple and somewhat corny style. If anybody is in doubt about where we are heading, or even where we have come since WW2, this is the video they should be seeing.”

Thanks to Aswin at http://aswin.stumbleupon.com/

I look forward to your comments, below.  

6 comments

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    • Tigana on February 10, 2008 at 03:22
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    cheshire cat

  2. and have no real control over lawmaking, their community rates low on a power scale…

    …and despotism stands a good chance.”

    • Tigana on February 10, 2008 at 06:32
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    Barney-WH 20040908

  4. Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes. And armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended. Its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war…and in the degeneracy of manners and morals, engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

    — James Madison

    The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power…  American fascism will not be really dangerous until there is a purposeful coalition among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public information, and those who stand for the K.K.K. type of demagoguery.

    — Vice President Henry Wallace, 1944

    The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society… the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.

    — Albert Einstein, May 1949

    • Tigana on February 10, 2008 at 17:37
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    In accordance with the Constitution, it is up to us to restore our rights and the rule of law!  

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