misnomer: Representative Democracy

October 18, 2000

Representative Democracy

Kendall Clark: Presidential Debates, Town Halls, and the Corporate Assault on American Democracy.

The radically asymmetrical access to political representation afforded corporate persons and ordinary human persons is the single most harmful trend in American politics today. It daily erodes whatever lingering measure of authenticity may have remained in the decaying corpse of American representative democracy as few as 30 years ago.

George Woodcock (a Canadian intellectual with an unfortunate name) once remarked that it is truly unfortunate that representative democracy and direct democracy are called by the same name, as they are different in every way. Except he said it more eloquently.

I couldn't agree more.

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About

Misnomer is a weblog about the politics of new and old media, foreign policy, tech, culture, philosophy, and photography. It is maintained by Dru Oja Jay, who edits a newspaper called the Dominion. He lives in Mile End, a neighbourhood of Montréal, Québec, which is, in some ways, a part of Canada, which in turn subsists on occupied native land to which Canada doesn't actually hold the title. He also travels a lot.

The Dominion

The Dominion is a newspaper with the aim of promoting decent journalism, annoying the overwhelmingly right wing Canadian press, and being non-profit and democratically accountable. All at once. This newspaper also has its own weblog, where I post often.

Others

Some other folks who contribute to misnomer from time to time include Kendall Clark, John Haney, Amanda Jernigan, Ola Mork, and Sylvia Nickerson.

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