Democracy ?

A question that each and every one of us should be asking ourselves is “what has happened to democracy”. When the majority of people in supposedly democratic western societies are made to suffer to preserve a small minority then obviously a democracy isn't present. Now I know I may be sounding to idealistic, and there are a lot of other factors at play here, such as greed on an individual level and lack of democratic participation in certain western countries, there would appear to be some very important observations emerging.

Democracy works as it should most effectively in a small community. It is hard for democratic principles to work effectively in very large communities due to the obstacles of vast distances and the collection of opinion (insights) from the sheer weight of numbers in our modern nations. In order for democratic governments to remain progressively effective in the face of these obstacles, it has proven necessary to use “parties” or groups of people to supposedly represent the individual. The problem with this is that these groups of people are small and easily corrupted if all of these individuals characters aren't of a sufficiently high standard of integrity. Thus a tendency emerges for them to steer their nation toward the whims of the rich and influential few.

We have finally reached a position where these circumstances can be remedied on a technical level, with the emergence of the internet and social networking media. These tools will allow democracy to work as it truly should on a massive scale, and potentially change what has often been an historically   cumbersome if desirous ideology into a modern day juggernaut. One thing has to be stated though, this emerging democratic dynamic will appear on a global scale and amongst the middle classes of every nation of the world, for these are the people who can most easily participate and also have the time and inclination to do so. The global middle class will become the champions of this newly emerging democratic opportunity. They will all be searching for the same answers and making similar demands regardless as to where they call home. National interests will cease to have as much meaning to them as the rights of an individual and a broader vision for humanity begins to emerge.

As you are all probably aware, the Occupy Movement is an example of this already taking place. However it is vital that all vestiges of nationalism, patriotism, racism, and religious intolerance be put aside, because if they aren't then these movements will just serve to start this entire cycle over again from scratch. Our future is to become a global community based on inclusiveness and acceptance, not a global community based on a totalitarian police state ran by an exclusive minority. For this is the very real threat if we can't all resolve our differences and unite, so as to hault this damaging cycle of rising and falling civilisations that dot our very long history. We have again arrived at a pivotal point in time, where we can can make these changes if we would just take the plunge and accept the fact that our actions/inactions aren't just responsible for circumstances that occur in our immediate surrounds, they also reach far and wide to every point of the globe and its environment.

The truth is that every person on earth has a right to their own say on how Brazil's Amazon river and rainforest should be utilised or protected, how Australia's huge iron ore deposits should be distributed or preserved, and how the biodiversity of our planets oceans should be harvested and managed etc etc. The whole idea of we “own” this and they “own” that has to vanish. Nothing is ever truly owned by any seperate entity, whether they be an individual/group of individuals or a state, they are but given the privilege of utilising our precious resources for the brief length of their lifetime, in the case of an individual, or the duration of their organisation, in the case of a state or corporation. Nothing lasts forever, change is the nature of evolution. Creation is a divine gift to everyone and everything, and we all have an equal responsibility to both protect and enjoy it.
The idea of seperate nations is fast coming to the end of its usefulness. A democracy is just to susceptible to corruption and the denial of responsibility when administered through representative forms of government on the scale required to deal with the massive population size of modern nations. A truly global democracy could work effectively when based on the idea of smaller population groups, such as Counties/Shires/ Provinces and Regions etc. These populations would be of a small enough size to allow whomever had the desire to participate the chance of doing so, through such things as community steering groups that can discuss ideas and solve problems as they naturally arise, and research and development (perhaps through trade, arts/craft and science guilds).

The global reach for this democratic model would come through the internet, with all the worlds little regional communities being invited to freely participate in a global sharing of knowledge. That way new ideas, technological developments and problem solutions can be discovered and shared in a dynamic way that has the possibility of utilising humanities potential for creative thought on a massive scale. This would be far better then the current situation, which only sees new developments arise through the whims