Democracy is a failed experiment

[ChineseTiger1986]

Your dimness is shining through like a beacon. My computer was made in China.
Can you stick to the thread young man and not go off at a tangent. Many thanks

He talked about the invention, not the fabrication.

 

[lem34]

because they have been hijakced by wall street capitalists and their allied dictators who transfer their money straight to wall street and swiss bank accounts.

yes but its all done with the facade of democracy because they define democracy

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Whatever. I'm fine with what they did, in my opinion they did far more good than bad.

had to laugh at that

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They looted India. Did the same in most of the empire, unless of course the residents were white. Its good to see the mentality people like 888jamie888 have. It just reconfirms the mindset these people have

They didnt loot india they were civilising india lol

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The inventions/discoveries we made make up for all of that. You can thank us for the computer sitting in front of you.

None of those inventions could have been discoverd without the number system and I think when that was discoverd london was full of cavemen

 

[888jamie888]

Even so if there 80,000 a year...What happens to the majority?

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I thought they were tough enough actually

Yeh I thought they did okay, they could have gone OTT with water cannons, rubber bullets etc.

 

[888jamie888]

Your dimness is shining through like a beacon. My computer was made in China.
Can you stick to the thread young man and not go off at a tangent. Many thanks

We invented the computer. Read Empire by Niall Ferguson, he makes a good case for the empire.
But yes this is a bit off topic.

 

[huzihaidao12]

We invented the computer. Read Empire by Niall Ferguson, he makes a good case for the empire.
But yes this is a bit off topic.

Every civilization has contributed to human, sir, but this is not the end of history, I imagine there will be more contributions to Chinese civilization of mankind, but that is not an excuse for the bloody atrocities.

 

[888jamie888]

Every civilization has contributed to human, sir, but this is not the end of history, I imagine there will be more contributions to Chinese civilization of mankind, but that is not an excuse for the bloody atrocities.

I know. But some countries have contributed more than others. The debate over whether the empire was good or bad could take up another 10 threads.

 

[huzihaidao12]

Even so if there 80,000 a year...What happens to the majority?

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Yeh I thought they did okay, they could have gone OTT with water cannons, rubber bullets etc.

China has a huge population, please remember this fact.

 

[888jamie888]

China has a huge population, please remember this fact.

Very true. I suppose if you are happy with the current system you have then there is no need for democracy.

 

[fd24]

I know. But some countries have contributed more than others. The debate over whether the empire was good or bad could take up another 10 threads.

and yet again this is not the thread to bring this up.Why dont you start your own thread about the issue.that perhaps will help you so you wont be off topic

 

[huzihaidao12]

I know. But some countries have contributed more than others. The debate over whether the empire was good or bad could take up another 10 threads.

You still do not understand, this is another matter, it is best not to involve contributions to human civilization and landscaping atrocities, sir, do you think China is a third-world countries crying? If the Chinese people have the same values​​, that more should be worried is the United Kingdom.

 

[888jamie888]

and yet again this is not the thread to bring this up.Why dont you start your own thread about the issue.that perhaps will help you so you wont be off topic

Well people keep mentioning it...

 

[huzihaidao12]

Very true. I suppose if you are happy with the current system you have then there is no need for democracy.

1, all see the reality and needs, China has some of the great need in a democratic, but still can not afford other things.

2, What is democracy, if you mean Western democracy, it is not good enough and I hope China has a higher demand in democracy.

 

[ashokdeiva]

Democracy!! a failed experiment? I would like to know "What is the best concept?" from who say that its a failed concept.
Come on man, There are some flaws like people not directly participating in the democratic process because of bariers between the ruling elite and the people but this is getting narrowed, is it not? people question the Government motives, Democracy is evolving. If any one of you say that its failed, then there might be a problem with the people you live along with or you yourself might be the problem.
1) Either you like to be the one who wishes to dictate others(i.e., you do not wish to listen to others)
2) It might be due to the reason that people arround you are pushing you and you can not do anything about it.
3) Or people around you are illetrate that they wish to be ruled rather than be the force of the ruling
4) or you yourself are illetrate to understand what democracy is.
5) if you are in a democratic country, you might feel let down by the ruling elite
6) if you are in a religious country where you wish that the religion be above human values, then you might argue that Democracy is failed. etc

Like this there can be n number of excuse for people who say Democracy is failed

 

[huzihaidao12]

Do you think China is absolutely no democracy? We used to have, including elections.

CHINA SHAKES THE WORLD，

First Edition，1949 JACK BELDEN

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS， NEW YORK

?


But what a strange thing this "new democracy" is! The backward peasant is ill equipped to cope with this instrument that has suddenly been thrust into his hands. Formal, stilted, sometimes even farcical are his village elections. Yet they are going on everywhere in rural areas under Communist control.

　　When the Communists take over a village from the Kuomintang, they do not immediately start elections and generally do not disturb the village chiefs. But shortly after the land reform and as soon as conditions have settled down, every villager is registered and examined on his right to vote. Any man or woman over eighteen, not insane and not a traitor during the Japanese war, is qualified to vote. The list of all those registered is placed on the bulletin board on the village street. The names of qualified voters are written in black; those unqualified, in red.

　　An election committee then divides the village into sections according to the points of the compass and each section elects a set of candidates and one or two reserves. The week before election is utilized for campaigning. Candidates generally do not campaign on party platforms, but on individual platforms.
　 　　During the Japanese war a typical candidate's plank ran something like this:

1. I promise to lead you in the fight against the Japanese and get revenge against our village.

2. I shall lead you in production so that we will be well fed and clothed.

3. I promise to make your children healthy.

4. I will organize the militia and guarantee public, safety.

　　Today in the civil war, a campaign promise goes like this:

1. I will protect the results of the overturning movement.
2. I will help us fight effectively against Chiang Kai-shek.

3. I will establish good winter schools.


　　Pre-election speeches often reflect a struggle between the rich and the poor in the villages.

　　"If our man is elected," said an old woman in a Shantung village, "there will be more equal distribution of the burden of the village. Our man will maintain public safety, get education for the children and get us profits from production."

　　A supporter of an ex-landlord, however, spoke in this manner.

　　"Although our candidate was a landlord, he is a good man. In the past he lent you money at low interest. If he is elected, he will do even better."

　　Campaign speakers used hand megaphones to draw crowds, went from house to house soliciting votes and published favorable comments on their candidate on the village bulletin board. Although they had few soap box orators, sometimes villagers mounted rollers on the threshing grounds so that everyone could see and hear them. The campaign meetings were not violent, but there were arguments in which words like the following might be distinguished: "Your candidate is no good." "You are a running dog of the landlords." "You are a loafer." And so on.

　 　　When the day of election came, the people gathered in the voting place, usually in the schoolhouse or the local temple. The methods of casting votes, due to the inability of many voters to write, were varied and numerous.

　　One method was to use bowls of different colors, each bowl representing a candidate. Into the bowl representing his choice, the voter put a bean given him by the election committee. In this kind of election, all voters were warned not to bring their own beans. There was a variation of the bow1 voting which was more secret. In this type the voter was handed a number of different colored beans, which he placed one by one under overturned bowls set before each candidate. Only one of the beans - say the red one however - counted as a vote. The candidate with the most red beans won.

　　Another method was to put large pieces of paper on a wall with one candidate's name on each paper. The voter, armed with a burning incense stick, approached the papers and, like someone aiming a dart at a target, burned a hole in the paper bearing the name of the candidate of his choice. The candidate with the most holes won in this kind of election.

　　In another system, all the candidates' names were put on one huge piece of paper and the voters came and drew a circle under their choice.
　　There was also voting by ballot. One type of ballot was merely a blank piece of paper with the seal of The village office chopped on it. The voter wrote his candidate's name on this ballot and put it in a box. The other kind of ballot gave all names and the voter put a mark beside the one of his choice.




　　 　　As soon as the voting is finished, votes are counted by an election committee. The result is declared orally at once. Then the list of the successful candidates is put on the wall.

　　When a village head is elected, the villagers present him with a wreath of red paper flowers. A troop with gongs and drums serenades him at home. When he steps out of doors to greet his well-wishers, he is often placed on a bamboo pole and carried around the town. This pole is known as the Solitary Dragon Pole, signifying that the candidate is the only dragon, or the big noise, in the village now.

　　The establishment of village democracy was not at all as simple and easy as it sounds. Because communications were poor it took some time to get around to all the villages and institute popular elections. There was little trouble in getting the people to vote, for it was something new in the drab life of the Chinese farmers. At first, everyone was so interested in elections that generally So to 90 per cent of a village voted in the first election. Later, when the novelty wore off, some people were apt to begrudge the time they spent in voting as so much labor time lost from their fields.

　　Because villagers had no long traditions of democracy, they often thought their duty finished when the election was over, and didn't supervise their officials. Also, the lack of trained personnel was a handicap in carrying on local government, for the majority of those governing the Border Region had no past experience in administrative affairs. The officials could only learn through doing.

　　In a district of Shansi a magistrate wanted to arouse, the people to carry on land reform, but did not know just how to go about it. So he called a meeting of all his staff members and ordered one to take the part of a landlord, another the part of a middle class farmer, another a usurer, another a poor farmer and so on. Then they held an informal play and carried on an experiment on how to get in touch with the people.

　　New officials also had little experience in writing official letters or documents. For example, according to old Chinese official practice, it is customary to address a superior in one way and an inferior in another. Some officials turned these around and wrote to their subordinates: "My exalted Sir," and to their superiors: "I order you."

　　These were some of the minor everyday difficulties in establishing democracy in a country that has known little of it. But there were more serious problems, too.

　　Just as in American cities, the villages in the Liberated Areas were sometimes plagued with bosses. Most of these bosses were a hangover from China's feudal society. During the Japanese war, the Communist party did not divide the land and as a consequence the landlords, retaining the economic power in the villages, also retained the political power. Thus in a small village of four hundred people the village chief would continue to be a landlord, while in a larger village of one thousand people he might either be a landlord or one of his agents.

　
　　When the elections were first introduced into the villages, the landlords got themselves voted into office merely by threatening to foreclose on peasants' land or threatening to drive sharecroppers from their estates. As the farmers grew more conscious, the landlords used more subtle methods, employing village bullies to scare the voters, placing their agents in strategic vote-counting positions or stuffing the bowls of their candidates with beans.

　　Such malpractices are described in much detail by Chao Hsu-li, the most popular writer in the Liberated Areas, in his novel the Ballads of Li Yu-tsai. The hero of the novel, Li Yu-tsai, is an old shepherd who for years has amused himself and his cronies by making up ballads about the people in his village. When the 8th Route Army announces to the people in Li's village that they have democracy now and should elect their own officers, the village landlord, Yen Heng-yuan, is immediately elected village chief. Every year there is an election, but every year Yen is voted into office. To lampoon these conditions, the Shepherd Li makes up the following verse:

Hooray for Yen, our village chief,

who towers all above us;

By all the years you've been our boss,

it's plain to see you love us,

Ten autumns now,

the polling place has seen the folk in action:

And each election proves once more

that Yen's the big attraction.

Yet times are getting harder now

and labor we'ld be saving,

So I suggest we have your name

cut on a wood engraving.

Each voter then,

instead of writing out the famous name,

Can simply use the chop

and the results will be the same.

Then Yen, who's always first,

can take the damn thing home and save it.

For it will be a hundred years

before we re-engrave it.

　　Embarrassed by Li's ballads, the landlord gives up office, but manages to have one of his own henchmen elected. Thus things continue as before, for the new village chief is at the beck and call of the old. To portray these new conditions the shepherd again makes up another ballad about the landlord and his stooge, the village chief.

　　Gleefully, the village poor begin to recite Li's ballads. Fearing the shepherd's influence the landlord directs the village chief to exile him from the village. Li is forced to take up an abode in the mountains, but his songs remain in the hearts of the people and eventually they throw the landlord out of office and vote their own man in. Li Yu-tsai comes back to the village and commemorates the victorious election with another ballad.

　　A simple story? Yes. Propaganda? To be sure. But it is a critical propaganda, propaganda for a noble purpose; for in telling how one village fought against the suppression of democracy, Chao Hsu-li has shown other villages how they, too, can fight off their oppressors and gain democracy. And more - he shows the people how they must fight for equality with their own weapons; they can't just take democracy as a gift from the Communists or the 8th Route Army.

　 　　It would be idle to suppose that a perfect form of government exists in Liberated Area. villages. And it would be both presumptuous and untrue to think that either the 8th Route Army or the Communist party could come in overnight and found on the ruins of feudalism, a democratic form of government equal to that known in western Europe or America. A low level of culture and a primitive economy must doom the country to backward political forms for a long time to come. However, the lack of experience cannot excuse the Communists for many things they have done in local elections. In many cases, they rode rough shod over elections, with little deference to the wishes of the people. By elevating those who were most active in the land-reform campaigns, they also gave ambitious hooligans the chance to take power. The very fact that in some villages the various planks of all candidates contain a resolution to "Support the Communist party and follow Mao Tze-tung" illustrates clearly enough that the Communists are trying to establish not so much a utopian democracy as a support for themselves. To expect them to do otherwise, in the midst of a war and revolution, however, would be ridiculous.

　　Most of the Communists I talked to on this point were quite frank about their need to create a firm base of support. The so-called liberal and intellectual supporters of the Communists, however, always took great pains to assure me that every village was ruled by the men the people wanted. Such statements are ridiculous. I found not a few villages where the people hated their local officials. I met a farm girl who was very much in love with the Communist party because the party saw to it that women got freedom of marriage and equal rights with men. But this same girl, unlike many who rush to the new power, told me: "I wouldn't marry a cadre. They're all too ambitious. They don't care about the people." You could, of course, find just as many girls on the other side of the fence.

　　But no matter how distant they may be from a perfect democracy, no matter how exaggerated have been the claims of their misguided friends, the Communists have taken a gigantic step forward awakening millions of Chinese peasants to their rights to elect the men who shall govern them. And surely when a village of five hundred people is governed by the edicts of 150 men and women in the Farmers Association instead of by the whim of one powerful landlord, it must be considered to have taken a mighty progressive step. Despite all the rumors that were circulated about their society, certainly, as far as I saw, the villages in the Liberated Areas had achieved a form of government so far superior to that practiced in Kuomintang areas that there was no comparison.

　　The Kuomintang and Chiang Kai-shek always insisted that the people of China were not ready for democracy and that they must undergo a period of tutelage. Leaders in the Liberated Areas scoffed at that theory.

　　"It is utterly useless to train people for democracy beforehand," Jung Wu-sheng, vice-chairman of the Border Region government, told me. "If the people lead a democratic life, their habits will naturally be transformed. Only through the practice of democracy can you learn democracy."

 

[Subramanian]

we know nothing about china but the chinese govt only tells us what it wants to.