. . Subject: Re: Fall of the Republic . . . . . . > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... You might be making the following mistake: you assume that a nation is the same as its leaders under a capitalist and semi-democratic system, hence you think that these corrupt and inept bosses represent those nations. But they represent a layer of top scum, top corruption. These corrupt groups in the top will fight excessively with each other, while often times this is against the interest of the people in all these fighting nations. You're thinking, perhaps, that you're dealing with a number of unruly children, so that they should unite and be pacified through hierarchy and opression from a single head. But any single child is not one child, but millions upon millions of people, and those in the top tend to represent not quite the best and most moral but rather a substandard strata because that is how capitalism works: it is abusive, thus to be boss in it is to be abusive or condone abuses. There is something you can not do with children, which is re-arranging the child its cells, so that it would end up being ruled by a more peaceful set. We do not control people that way (and neither should we). But when it comes to nations: we do control how they are arranged. They are arranged through their polity, which tends to be written down into a Constitution. This polity is human work, it can be changed and it is our job to affect it positively. Hence one of the possible avenues to get improvements is to look into the policy and economic system to see if something can be improved. The fact of the matter is that - fortunately perhaps - the polities and economic systems of all nations seem dysfunctional. Through investment of capital the entire economy becomes dominated by dictatorial corporations, who affect negatively an already almost untenable and unstable state polity. Given that reality, it may be both superfluous to create a one world (or continental) sovereingty, and dangerous, because the layer of scum that is now in the top of nations will migrate to the top of the super-empire, only to wreak even more misery on the world, with that much creater and more exclusive power. Everyone agrees that dictatorship means corruption and abuse, while democracy is better. The state democracies of all nations are mostly a parody on true democracy, most nations do not even feature a binding Referendum, most top Government can essentially do as they please whether the people agree with the choices or not. The economy is wholly shot through with tiranny, and the greatest power in the world which is in money is privately manipulated and owned, and ruthlessly positioned against the interests of the people in any nation and in all nations. The task then seems clear: to device better national polities, and to address the economic question on the corporation level, to adress the issue of money. Having adressed these issues exhaustively, the problems may have melted away, and nations may find their top Governments join hands in brotherly care, as good children around a camp fire; united but free. By ignoring this national and production-group (company/corporation) challange, overstepping to international unity, all that is wrong will only be replicated and become more overwhelming and pressing, because you will create it (it will create itself) out of that which is already wrong. Essentially, by asking for international unity you are sidestepping the challange. Don't side-step it, but address it; it is a lot of work, hence we should start with it asap. * By the way, you mentioned an internet decision mechanism, as it happens I wrote such a system: http://www.socialism.nl/~joshb/sede This was published internationally, and tested to satisfaction with an actual political party on a small scale. Your idea is about a global democracy with this system. But many issues are local, city wide or regional, the amount of international problems is very small and they too can be adressed nationally. It is the corruption in the top which has caused an amount of international "inter-dependence" through their scheming and the automatic logic of the economic laws. We can worry about our dikes here, then others worry about their problems. If there are international issues it may be amuzing to organize a planet-wide vote, to be conducted one per nation; however such would occur rarely if ever. Organizational unity is not required to make that happen either. Like I tried to compute: there is a limit to how much people can be policed by one police organization inspected at the top. Make it too large then you can not install a top Government with sufficient control over the civil servants of all kinds, to combat corruption at the behest of the voters. The international arena will work if Governments which are created out of the best polity a particular nation can have, have independence and their own sovereingty; bad examples and good examples will inspire other nations in their decisions. They can talk and make decisions, which is also the way of democracy. To unite is not the way of democracy, but it is the way of subjugation under a third boss, it is the way of tyranny, imho. -- ,,,,,,, ,,, http://www.socialism.nl ___/_/////////_//////,. \\\\ \\\\\\\\\ \\\` The Good Feather ASCII Ribbon campaign for ```````` ` decent Usenet discourse & etiquette.