Democracy (rule by the people) is a Greek word. Developed several thousand years ago, it was a brilliant system that enabled the citizens of a country to vote by scratching on a piece of broken pottery and have a say in where their country was going.
The main difference between democracy as it was then in ancient Greece and now is in the numbers. A "country" in ancient Greece was not much more than a large city or an island. The populations of Troy, Sparta, Athens were only a few thousand.
So, your vote, out of a few thousand people, had some meaning. One vote out of 300,000,000 people is a grain of sand on the beach. And 3,000 years ago, there was no TV, and there were no newspapers or any other media.
The media is so controlled these days. What appears on the news is so carefully selected and edited and, as far as possible, without losing the appearance of democracy, dissenting opinions discouraged, that those who control the media, decide which way people will vote.
A good example is the recent illegal Iraq "war." There were HUGE demonstrations against it, all over the world. But many of them went unreported. In spite of MASSIVE objections, the invasion of Iraq went ahead.
This is why I voted "no." Honestly, I think democracy with a free press and real freedom of speech and no "lobbying" allowed would be the best form of government. But what we have today is a sham controlled by vested interests.
It cannot be called a democracy.
