Friday, September 30, 2016

Xinhua — Absurd presidential debate underlines deep-rooted problems facing US


A view from China. "Absurd." The wonders of democracy.

Xinhua
Absurd presidential debate underlines deep-rooted problems facing US
Chu Lei and Qi Zijian

6 comments:

Richard said...

Unlike PRC, at least we have public debates.

Unknown said...

https://www.ted.com/talks/eric_x_li_a_tale_of_two_political_systems
China may be more democratic than America.

Ryan Harris said...

Leaked audio in the hacked emails.... Clinton considers Herself in the "center-right".

"On the other side, there’s just a deep desire to believe that we can have free college, free healthcare, that what we’ve done hasn’t gone far enough, and that we just need to, you know, go as far as, you know, Scandinavia, whatever that means, and half the people don’t know what that means, but it’s something that they deeply feel. So as a friend of mine said the other day, I am occupying from the center-left to the center-right. And I don’t have much company there. Because it is difficult when you’re running to be president, and you understand how hard the job is — I don’t want to overpromise. I don’t want to tell people things that I know we cannot do"

Really good piece. Worth a read, to see how the candidate grapples with being out of touch with the electorate and how she sees us from the ivory tower of elite privilege and wealth. She seems to have convinced herself a lot of things are "impossible."

https://theintercept.com/2016/09/30/hillary-clinton-center-right/


When candidates think simple goals are impossible, they've been in Washington too long.

Peter Pan said...

Hillary and Obama: two peas in a center-right pod.

Richard said...

Gary,

"China may be more democratic than America"

A democracy may be of two general forms - direct or representative. China has neither.

In the video, Mr. Li did not offer any really dissenting opinions or criticize the ruling order for not allowing dissenting opinions. Why? - We can only guess, but in any case he would definitely be suffering if he were politically incorrect.

The US is insufficiently democratic because votes for our representatives are bought with campaign donations by wealthy individuals and organizations. This influence is amplified by the the aid of our corporate owned and controlled monopoly media.

We need more representatives and more citizen participation. The federal government could give each voting citizen a money voucher to level the playing field. The voucher would enable citizens to donate to their preferred candidates. A reasonable contribution limit would lessen the influence of the super wealthy.

Tom Hickey said...

Daniel A. Bell, The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of DemocracyThe China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy (2115)

Westerners tend to divide the political world into "good" democracies and "bad" authoritarian regimes. But the Chinese political model does not fit neatly in either category. Over the past three decades, China has evolved a political system that can best be described as "political meritocracy." The China Model seeks to understand the ideals and the reality of this unique political system. How do the ideals of political meritocracy set the standard for evaluating political progress (and regress) in China? How can China avoid the disadvantages of political meritocracy? And how can political meritocracy best be combined with democracy? Daniel Bell answers these questions and more.

Opening with a critique of "one person, one vote" as a way of choosing top leaders, Bell argues that Chinese-style political meritocracy can help to remedy the key flaws of electoral democracy. He discusses the advantages and pitfalls of political meritocracy, distinguishes between different ways of combining meritocracy and democracy, and argues that China has evolved a model of democratic meritocracy that is morally desirable and politically stable. Bell summarizes and evaluates the "China model"--meritocracy at the top, experimentation in the middle, and democracy at the bottom--and its implications for the rest of the world.

A timely and original book that will stir up interest and debate, The China Model looks at a political system that not only has had a long history in China, but could prove to be the most important political development of the twenty-first century.


China is not a Western liberal democracy. China is fundamentally a Confucian society that traditionally has been based on meritocracy.

It is unlikely that China will ever become a Western liberal democracy in the way that the West desires and expects, especially given the performance of Western liberal democracy, which anyone trained in Marxist analysis can readily recognize as bourgeois liberalism in which workers have only an illusion of having a real voice.