CN — LARRY ROMANOFF: 民主，最危险的宗教 — 11. 第11章——民主的奇异现象

November 13, 2022

Democracy, The Most Dangerous Religion
民主，最危险的宗教

11. Chapter 11 – The Chimera of Democracy
11. 第11章——民主的奇异现象

By Larry Romanoff
拉里•罗曼诺夫

翻译：珍珠

Americans often fervently and unquestioningly attribute a kind of divine origin for their treasured democracy with claims that it originated centuries ago in Greece, promoted by some of the world’s greatest thinkers like Plato and Socrates, and is the natural and permanent state of man. But once again the Americans are simply displaying their ignorance, with sound bytes taken out of context and substituted for knowledge. There is no evidence whatever that multi-party anything is natural, and even less evidence that it’s permanent, and belief in a nonsense does not make it true. A form of representative government did indeed appear in ancient Greece, but it was entirely bereft of the cloak of reverence with which Americans have since clothed it. Here is Socrates’ judgment of democracy, as reported by Plato in his ‘Republic’:

美国人经常狂热而毫无疑问地将他们珍视的民主归因于一种神圣的起源，声称它起源于几个世纪前的希腊，由柏拉图和苏格拉底等世界上最伟大的思想家推动，是人类自然和永恒的状态。但美国人再次表现出他们的无知，用断章取义的片段代替知识。没有任何证据表明多党制是自然的，更没有证据表明它是永恒的，对无稽之谈的信仰并不能使其成为现实。代议制政府确实出现在古希腊，但它完全失去了美国人后来赋予它的崇敬的外衣。这是柏拉图在他的《理想国》中报道的苏格拉底对民主的判断：

“The excess of liberty, whether in States or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery. And so, tyranny naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme form of liberty.”

“无论是国家还是个人，自由的过度似乎只会变成奴役的过度。因此，民主自然会衍生出暴政，而最极端的自由形式则会导致最严重的暴政和奴役。”

Plato wrote that democracy was not the zenith of government but only just above the nadir of complete anarchy. He wrote that democracy would inevitably degenerate into oligarchy and, finally, tyranny – a fascist police state. These identical sentiments have persisted throughout history to the present day: Willy Brandt, former German Chancellor, was quoted as saying that “Western Europe has only 20 or 30 more years of democracy left in it; after that it will slide, engineless and rudderless, under the surrounding sea of dictatorship, and whether the dictation comes from a politburo or a junta will not make that much difference.”[1]

柏拉图写道，民主不是政府的顶峰，而只是完全无政府状态的最低点之上。他写道，民主将不可避免地退化为寡头政治，最后是暴政——法西斯警察国家。这些相同的观点贯穿历史至今：德国前总理维利·勃兰特被引述说：“西欧的民主只剩下二三十年；之后，它将滑落，失去动力和方向，在周围的独裁统治海洋中，无论独裁来自政治局还是军政府，都不会有多大差别。” [1]

Contained in notes attributed to Scottish judge and historian Alexander Tytler, was the profound observation that:

苏格兰法官兼历史学家亚历山大·泰勒 (Alexander Tytler) 的笔记中包含着深刻的观察：

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can exist only until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury.“ The passage continued on to say that a democracy would always collapse from the eventual wholesale looting, always to be followed by a dictatorship. The point was that democracy is always temporary in nature and prima facie cannot exist as a permanent form of government because a democracy naturally evolves into kleptocracy, two coyotes and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. In a book on John Adams, David McCullough wrote of Adams’ deep concerns that the American electoral process would degenerate into a two-party system where each “gang” would put its interests above the interests of the American people. It is difficult to argue against the thesis that the US has already travelled most of this path. That isn’t quite the same thing as the highest form of government system, or fulfilling the yearnings of all mankind. And in fact, Socrates’ words reflect precisely the same observations and conclusions echoed much later by Tytler, that democracy as a form of government is self-terminating because it is the only system open to the kind of insidious corruption that will permit the rich and powerful, those with a lust for power, to eventually arrogate all power to themselves and usurp the throne. Both these men, and others, are saying the same thing: democracy deteriorates into a fascist dictatorship. We will see there is much evidence this is already occurring.

“民主不能作为永久形式的政府存在。它只能存在，直到大多数人发现它可以投票从国库中慷慨解囊。”文章继续说，民主总是会因为最终的大规模掠夺而崩溃，总是会随后出现独裁政权。关键是民主在本质上总是暂时的，从表面上看，它不能作为永久形式的政府存在，因为民主自然会演变成盗贼统治，两只土狼和一只小羊投票决定午餐吃什么。在约翰·亚当斯的一本书中，大卫·麦卡洛写道，亚当斯深切关注美国选举过程会退化为两党制，每个“帮派”都会将其利益置于美国人民利益之上。很难反驳美国已经走过了这条路的大部分这一论点。这与最高形式的政府制度或满足全人类的渴望并不完全相同。事实上，苏格拉底的话正好反映了泰勒后来重复的观察和结论，即民主作为一种政府形式是自我终结的，因为它是唯一一种开放给那种阴险腐败的制度，这种腐败允许富人和有权势的人，那些对权力充满欲望的人，最终将所有权力都归于自己并篡夺王位。这两个人和其他人都说了同样的话：民主会变质为法西斯独裁。我们将看到有很多证据表明这已经发生了。

Similarly, in his book ‘Sorrows of Empire’, Chalmers Johnson wrote that four sorrows were certain to be visited on the US, with the cumulative effect of destroying any semblance of ‘democracy’ and replacing it with a fascist military police state. His ‘four sorrows’ were: (1) a state of perpetual war, leading to more terrorism against Americans everywhere, (2) a loss of democracy and rights as the presidency eclipses Congress and transforms the ‘executive branch’ into a military junta (a fascist dictatorship), (3) the replacement of truth by propaganda, disinformation, and the glorification of war, and (4) bankruptcy, as the United States pours its economic resources into ever more grandiose military projects. The first three of these have already been fulfilled, while the fourth may be only a matter of time.

同样，查尔莫斯·约翰逊在他的《帝国的悲哀》一书中写道，美国肯定会遭受四种悲哀，其累积效应将摧毁任何形式的“民主”，并将其替换为法西斯军事警察国家。他的“四种悲哀”是：（1）永久战争状态，导致各地针对美国人的恐怖主义活动增加；（2）随着总统令国会黯然失色，并将“行政部门”转变为军政府（法西斯独裁），民主和权利丧失；（3）宣传、虚假信息和美化战争取代真相；（4）破产，因为美国将其经济资源投入到越来越宏大的军事项目中。前三项已经实现，而第四项可能只是时间问题。

Tytler completely dismissed optimistic, fairy-tale visions of democracy as “nothing better than a Utopian theory, a splendid chimera, descriptive of a state of society that never did, and never could exist; a republic not of men, but of angels“. And he is of course correct. The version of democracy that Americans promulgate so freely is indeed a chimera, which was originally a mythical animal with parts taken from various other animals, but today is used to mean a thing that is hoped or wished for but in fact is illusory or impossible to achieve. The concept of democracy that exists in unthinking American minds, is a fiction, a utopian delusion that quickly crumbles under examination but is never openly examined due to the existential threats such an examination would contain. In an article in USA Today, Jonathan Turley wrote, “An authoritarian nation is defined not just by the use of authoritarian powers, but by the ability to use them. If a president can take away your freedom or your life on his own authority, all rights become little more than a discretionary grant subject to executive will.” This is precisely what we have in the US today, and is precisely what we call a dictatorship.

泰勒完全否认了民主的乐观、童话般的愿景，认为“它无非是乌托邦理论，一种灿烂的幻想，描述了一种从未存在过、也不可能存在的社会状态；一个不是由人，而是由天使组成的共和国。”他当然是对的。美国人如此自由地宣扬的民主版本确实是一种幻想，它最初是一种神话动物，由其他各种动物的部分组成，但今天被用来指一种希望或愿望的东西，但实际上是虚幻的或不可能实现的。美国人不假思索地想到的民主概念是一种虚构，一种乌托邦式的妄想，在审查中很快就会崩溃，但由于这种审查会包含存在的威胁，因此从未被公开审查。在《今日美国》的一篇文章中，乔纳森·特里写道：“一个专制国家的定义不仅仅在于使用专制权力，还在于使用它们的能力。如果总统可以凭借自己的权威剥夺你的自由或生命，那么所有权利都只不过是行政意志的任意授权。”这正是我们今天在美国所拥有的，也正是我们所说的独裁。

Americans have been taught from birth that Western nations are wealthy due to their multi-party democracies but, as we have already seen, their wealth was produced by colonisation, plunder and slaughter, and unrelated to their political system. For decades, Americans boasted of the natural superiority of their multi-party political system, evidenced by the great material wealth and other successes. However, in recent decades and certainly since 2008, this evidence of superiority has largely evaporated with wealth having dissipated in inverse proportion to the rapidly increasing civil strife. We have also seen that the world has many examples, other than the major Western countries, where these ‘democracies’ have largely failed to produce anything other than chaos.

美国人从出生就被教导西方国家之所以富裕是因为他们的多党民主制，但正如我们已经看到的，他们的财富是由殖民化、掠夺和屠杀造成的，与他们的政治制度无关。几十年来，美国人吹嘘他们的多党政治制度的天然优越性，这从巨大的物质财富和其他成功中得到了证明。然而，在最近几十年里，尤其是2008年以来，这种优越性的证据在很大程度上已经消失了，财富随着迅速增加的内乱而消失了。我们还看到，除了主要的西方国家之外，世界上还有很多例子，在这些例子中，这些“民主国家”除了混乱之外，基本上没有产生任何东西。

To counter this increasingly damning evidence of the Western democratic model, and desperate to shore up the increasing body of evidence that democracies are far from a road to success, Americans are once again moving the goalposts. It is no longer ‘democracy’ that guarantees wealth, but ‘substantive‘ or ‘direct‘ or ‘liberal‘ democracies, or some other such re-categorisation, which are successful. We are therefore presented with a convenient trash bin into which we can toss all data that contradicts our premise. The failures are simply re-defined out of consideration, no longer being ‘real‘ democracies but some disfigured cousin that didn’t get it right – most likely due to an absence of American ‘values‘.

为了应对西方民主模式日益确凿的证据，并迫切地支持民主远非成功之路的越来越多的证据，美国人再次移动了球门柱。不再是“民主”保证财富，而是“实质性”或“直接”或“自由”民主，或其他一些重新分类的成功。因此，我们面临着一个方便的垃圾桶，我们可以把所有与我们的前提相矛盾的数据扔进去。失败只是出于考虑而重新定义的，不再是“真正的”民主，而是某种变形了的表亲，没有得到正确的结果——很可能是由于缺乏美国的“价值观”。

In another tribute to Bernays and his propaganda, one Jewish writer made a typical claim that “great and successful democracies emerge from a confluence of (1) an educated citizenry, (2) secular social values, (3) safeguards against the ‘tyranny of the majority’, (4) a high level of tolerance and respect for minorities and divergent opinions, (5) a dependable rule of law and, of course, (6) unlimited but undefined ‘freedoms”. He went on to write that “China is severely lacking in these categories and would therefore be a poor candidate for conversion to a Western-style multi-party system.” We could dismiss all this as childish babble if the matter were not so serious. It is a shock to the system to contemplate the despairing depth of ignorance (or, more likely, duplicity) necessary to write such words. Consider:

在另一篇向伯奈斯和他的宣传致敬的文章中，一位犹太作家提出了一个典型的主张，即“伟大而成功的民主国家来自以下因素的融合：（1）受过教育的公民，（2）世俗的社会价值观，（3）对‘多数暴政’的保障，（4）对少数群体和不同意见的高度容忍和尊重，（5）可靠的法治，当然还有（6）无限但未定义的‘自由’”。他接着写道：“中国严重缺乏这些类别，因此成为西方多党制的一个糟糕的候选人。”如果不是那么严重的话，我们可以把这一切当作幼稚的胡言乱语。思考写这些文字所必需的无知（或更可能是虚伪）的绝望深度，这对系统来说是一个震惊。考虑一下：

(1) Of all the nations in the world, the US is the outstanding leader in possessing a citizenry that is the opposite of educated, if that word is used in the sense of possessing factual knowledge and being informed. It isn’t the Chinese with a 25% illiteracy rate who believe the sun revolves around an earth that is only 6,000 years old. The level of education of China’s citizens owes no apologies in any comparison with the US.

(1) 在世界所有国家中，美国是一个拥有与受过教育相反的公民的杰出领导者，如果这个词用于拥有事实知识和知情的话。不是25%文盲率的中国相信太阳围绕地球旋转，地球只有6000年的历史。中国公民的教育水平与美国相比没有任何道歉。

(2) “Jesusland” is in America, not in China. The US compares favorably with theocracies like Saudi Arabia in having the precise opposite of ‘secular values’, the entire nation polluted beyond redemption with twisted and sacrilegious evangelical religious influences. It is China, unpolluted by Western religions, that has secular social values.

（2）“耶稣国”在美国，而不是在中国。美国与沙特阿拉伯等神权国家相比，具有完全相反的“世俗价值观”，整个国家都被扭曲和亵渎福音派的宗教影响所污染，无法挽救。正是中国，没有被西方宗教污染，才具有世俗的社会价值观。

(3) In a diligent search for safeguards against a tyranny of the majority, the only item that comes to mind is some corporate legislation pretending to protect minority shareholders of corporations, but I am aware of none in the political or social realms. The US political system is, by definition, a tyranny of the majority, as are all other democracies, claims to the contrary not sufficing as proof. In American society generally, ‘the majority rules’, with no specified or even recognised safeguards. Here, as in so many other areas, stated claims are treated as equivalent to irrefutable evidence.

（3）在努力寻找防止多数暴政的保障措施时，唯一想到的是一些假装保护公司少数股东的公司立法，但我知道在政治或社会领域没有这样的立法。美国政治制度，顾名思义，是多数暴政，其他所有民主国家也是如此，相反的声明不足以作为证据。在美国社会中，“多数规则”，没有具体规定或甚至公认的保障措施。在这里，就像在其他许多领域一样，声称的声明被视为等同于无可辩驳的证据。

(4) Similarly, for Americans to claim a high level of respect for minorities or other cultures, or tolerance for any kind of intellectual divergence, is simply insane. The US is one of the most hatefully racist nations in the world, never in its history having demonstrated tolerance or respect of any kind. Is it China that kills innocent children and refers to them as ‘bug splats’? Is it the Chinese or Americans who watch a deranged sniper movie then to a man want to pick up a gun and “kill ragheads for Jesus”? Is it China that practiced slavery for hundreds of years or exterminated 20 million of its native minorities? No. China so jealously guards and protects its minority groups, to keep them whole and prevent their assimilation and disappearance, that it created provinces as autonomous regions precisely to give its minorities an increased measure of self-rule as a matter of self-protection. It is China that demonstrates tolerance for diversity of races and attitudes, with no evidence whatever of the pathological racism infecting the US.

（4）同样，美国人声称对少数民族或其他文化的高度尊重，或对任何形式的智力分歧的宽容，简直是疯了。美国是世界上最可恨的种族主义国家之一，在其历史上从未表现出任何形式的宽容或尊重。是中国杀害无辜儿童并将他们称为“虫子”吗？是观看一部疯狂的狙击手电影然后想拿起枪“为耶稣杀死犹太人”的中国人和美国人吗？是中国实行了数百年的奴隶制，还是消灭了2000万土著少数民族？不是。中国非常谨慎地保护其少数民族群体，保持他们的完整，防止他们同化和消失，它创造了省作为自治区，正是为了给少数民族更多的自治权，作为自我保护。是中国表现出对种族和态度多样性的宽容，没有任何证据表明美国感染了病态的种族主义。

- I have addressed elsewhere at length the fictious claims about any existence of, or respect for, a rule of law.

（5）我在其他地方详细讨论了关于任何存在或尊重法治的虚构主张。

- Lastly, so-called freedoms are evaporating in America by the day, certainly including privacy, freedom of speech and of the press, and freedom of assembly. These persistent American references to“freedoms”are not only irritating but so empty of substantive documentation as to indicate yet another mass hysteria. ‘Freedom’ of course is a general word almost without limitation in meaning, a word to which few people could object in the abstract, but this unlimited generality forms the entire substance of the American argument. Americans have captured this word, appropriated it with all its meanings, and applied it to themselves alone, claiming an entirely imaginary moral superiority from possessing the highest imaginary degree of entirely imaginary freedoms. This is just clever and disingenuous marketing for the ignorant, not political science for the intelligent. And it needs to be said firmly that in almost everything that touches normal daily life, there is more ‘freedom’ in China than in the US or most other Western nations with the possible exception of Italy.
- 最后，所谓的自由正在美国一天天地消失，当然包括隐私、言论和新闻自由以及集会自由。美国人对“自由”的持续引用不仅令人恼火，而且完全没有实质性的文件，表明又一场大规模的歇斯底里。“自由”当然是一个含义几乎不受限制的通用词，很少有人会抽象地反对这个词，但这种无限的普遍性构成了美国论点的全部实质。美国人抓住了这个词，用它的所有含义来占有它，并只适用于自己，声称拥有完全虚构的最高程度的自由，从而拥有完全虚构的道德优越感。这只是对无知者的聪明而虚伪的营销，而不是对智者的政治学。需要坚定地说，在几乎所有涉及正常日常生活的事物中，中国的“自由”都比美国或大多数其他西方国家多，意大利可能除外。

John Wenders wrote an article some time back in which he wrote, “Freedom is not measured by the ability to vote. It is measured by the breadth of those things on which we do not vote. Democracy addresses how affairs in the public sector will be conducted. On the other hand, freedom is concerned with the relationship among people in the private sector.” He then added a gem of wisdom that unfortunately few will take the time to ponder, being that “Freedom must be protected from democracy.” It is this issue that requires addressing, the problem being that Americans monopolise the bully pulpit to prevent us from realising that the real issue is not ‘freedom’ in the abstract but rather how freedom is framed in relation to life, in terms of the narrative. As with education and so much else, Americans frame issues in glittering generalities and deny any voice to opposing specifics.

约翰·温德斯在一段时间前写了一篇文章，他在文中写道：“自由不是用投票能力来衡量的。它是用我们不投票的那些事情的广度来衡量的。民主解决的是公共部门事务如何进行的问题。另一方面，自由关注的是私营部门中人们之间的关系。”然后他补充了一句智慧之言，可惜很少有人会花时间思考，那就是“自由必须受到民主的保护。”正是这个问题需要解决，问题是美国人垄断了讲台，阻止我们意识到真正的问题不是抽象的“自由”，而是自由如何与生活联系起来，从叙事的角度来看。就像教育和其他很多事情一样，美国人用华丽的概括来提出问题，并拒绝任何反对具体问题的声音。

The American boastful claim of their right to ‘free speech‘ is one of these generalities that seldom permit addressing of the specifics. Aside from the clear evidence that this so-called freedom is quickly evaporating, it is important to know that Americans have never had any particular excess of freedom in this area when compared to most other nations. And in fact, nations have no constitutional protection in this area. And even within the US, Americans are generally free, as are individuals in virtually every nation, to say whatever they want – to each other, with the freedom often ending there.

美国夸口其“言论自由”的权利是这些笼统的说法之一，很少允许涉及具体细节。除了明确证据表明这种所谓的自由正在迅速蒸发之外，重要的是要知道，与其他大多数国家相比，美国人在这一领域从未有过任何特别的过度自由。事实上，国家在这方面没有宪法保护。即使在美国，美国人通常也是自由的，几乎每个国家的个人都可以随心所欲地说话——彼此之间，自由往往就此结束。

The entire picture of democracy is heavily fogged by Americans shoring up their simple multi-party political system with the inclusion of a thousand or more totally unrelated items, in what is really a pathetic attempt to enshrine in theology what would be ridiculous in political science. We have typical comments like “Democracy generally means the guaranty of a set of individual rights such as freedom of speech, rule of law, political participation …”, and of course it means no such thing. We are rewriting the dictionary here. It is pure fantasy to equate ‘democracy’ – a form of public selection of governors – with other things we call ‘freedoms’. Democracy is of course unrelated to any of these aspects.

美国人的简单多党政治体系包含了一千个或更多完全无关的项目，这种政治体系严重模糊了民主的整体图景，这是在神学中体现政治学中荒谬之处的可悲尝试。我们通常的评论是“民主通常意味着对言论自由、法治、政治参与等一系列个人权利的保障……”，当然，它并没有这样的意思。我们正在重写字典。将“民主” – 一种公共选择政府的形式 – 与我们称之为“自由”的其他事物等同起来纯粹是幻想。民主当然与这些方面无关。

Even more to the point, why do politicians in all Western countries rank so low in terms of admiration, respect, and simple trustworthiness? According to numerous polls on the opinions of Americans toward their own government, their elected Senators and Congressmen are “less popular than cockroaches, lice, root canals, colonoscopies, traffic jams, used car salesmen and Genghis Khan.” Few Western democracies would produce different results. On this particular issue, Americans seem to have two brains which are unconnected and unable to communicate with each other. With one brain, they will tell us, firmly and often vehemently, that their elected representatives are all slimy and dishonest, while the other brain simultaneously claims the US is s shining mansion on a hill and democracy is a universal value reflecting the yearnings of all mankind. Yet the two brains and their owner see no inconsistency.

更重要的是，为什么所有西方国家的政客在钦佩、尊重和简单的可信度方面排名如此之低？根据对美国人对自己政府观点的大量民意调查，他们当选的参议员和国会议员“比蟑螂、虱子、根管治疗、结肠镜检查、交通堵塞、二手车推销员和成吉思汗更不受欢迎”。很少有西方民主国家会产生不同的结果。在这个特定问题上，美国人似乎有两个互不联系且无法相互沟通的大脑。他们中的一个会坚定地、经常激烈地告诉我们，他们当选的代表都是卑鄙和不诚实的，而另一个大脑同时声称美国是一座山上的闪亮豪宅，民主是反映全人类渴望的普遍价值。然而，这两个大脑及其主人没有看到不一致之处。

A website that calls itself ‘truth-out.org‘ produced some interesting observations I will share with you here in condensed form. It began by asking, “Over the past 40 years, income inequality in the United States has exploded … What kind of democracy exists under these circumstances?” Here below is an edited composite of the answer:

一个自称“truth-out.org”的网站制作了一些有趣的观察，我将以浓缩的形式与大家分享。它首先问道：“在过去的40年里，美国的收入不平等现象已经爆发……在这种情况下，什么样的民主存在？”下面是一个编辑过的答案的组合：

“A governmental system that includes widespread voter franchise and competitive elections, but the elections are managed so that no matter what candidate(s) are elected, the elites win. The role of citizens in government is to choose between two pre-selected candidates, neither of whom will represent the people’s interests and both of whom will represent the elites’ interests. Chris Hedges refers to this as “political theater”. A low-intensity democracy that veils the rule of elites and allows citizens to think they are participating in power through contested elections that do not change the elite power structure. A government that serves the interests of transnational capital devoid of any real connection to the people of the nation. The globalized state rules through economic structures such as trade agreements, the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, World Trade Organization and through international military actions. A powerful government that partners with business interests in a security state. It is the coming of age of corporate power, maintained through a security state working in tandem with corporate propaganda that permeates influential institutions such as the media, education, popular culture and evangelical religion.”

“一种政府体制，包括广泛的选民特权和竞争性选举，但选举的管理方式是，无论选出哪个候选人，精英都会获胜。公民在政府中的作用是在两个预先选定的候选人之间做出选择，这两个候选人都不代表人民的利益，但都代表精英的利益。克里斯·赫奇斯将其称为“政治剧场”。这是一种低强度的民主，掩盖了精英的统治，并允许公民认为他们通过没有改变精英权力结构的竞争性选举参与权力。一个服务于跨国资本利益、与国家人民没有任何真正联系的政府。全球化的国家通过贸易协定、国际货币基金组织、世界银行、世界贸易组织等经济结构以及国际军事行动进行统治。一个强大的政府与安全国家的商业利益合作。这是企业权力的时代，通过安全国家与企业宣传协同工作来维持，企业宣传渗透到媒体、教育、流行文化和福音派宗教等有影响力的机构。”

It went on to describe American Capitalist Neoliberalism as follows: “The dominant economic ideology of the last three decades which insists upon an extreme separation of government and capital so that the market can operate “freely“. The market operates only in the interests of individuals without allegiance to the collective society. Government exists solely to provide basics such as standards for weights and measures, laws and courts to protect property and infrastructure for the market. Neoliberalism welcomes state intervention only when that intervention is to corporate advantage as in trade agreements, bailouts or corporate welfare. Under neoliberalism, state resources and public programs are decreasingly funded and increasingly privatized.” US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said it well when he stated, “We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”

接着，它这样描述美国资本主义新自由主义：“过去三十年占主导地位的经济意识形态，坚持政府与资本的极端分离，以便市场可以“自由”运作。市场只为了个人利益而运作，不效忠于集体社会。政府的存在只是为了提供基本服务，如度量衡标准、保护财产和基础设施的法律和法院等。新自由主义只欢迎国家干预，只要这种干预对企业有利，如贸易协定、救助或企业福利。在新自由主义下，国家资源和公共项目资金越来越少，私有化程度越来越高。”美国最高法院法官路易斯·布兰代斯说得很好：“我们可能拥有民主，也可能财富集中在少数人手中，但我们不能两者兼得。”

Someone accurately called the US a “mirage democracy”, with elections that are tightly controlled and rigged by a two-party elite and a mass media who decide outcomes in advance. Moreover, only half the US public are registered as voters, and only half of registered voters vote, so these ‘mirage elections’ provide a less than legitimate government by any standard of measure. In fact, it is widely known that more Americans vote on ‘American Idol’ than in any election. John Pilger wrote in 2008, “What struck me, living and working in the United States, was that presidential campaigns were a parody, entertaining and often grotesque. They are a ritual danse macabre of flags, balloons and bullshit, designed to camouflage a venal system based on money, power, human division and a culture of permanent war.”

有人准确地称美国为“海市蜃楼民主”，选举受到两党精英和大众媒体的严格控制和操纵，他们提前决定结果。此外，只有一半的美国公众登记为选民，只有一半的登记选民投票，因此这些“海市蜃楼选举”无论如何衡量，都提供了一个不那么合法的政府。事实上，众所周知，在美国偶像上投票的美国人比任何选举中投票的都要多。约翰·皮尔格在2008年写道：“在美国生活和工作让我感到震惊的是，总统竞选是一场模仿，娱乐性强，而且往往很荒诞。它们是旗帜、气球和废话的死亡舞蹈，旨在掩盖一个基于金钱、权力、人类分裂和永久战争文化的腐败体系。”

A House of Cards on a Foundation of Sand

沙地上的纸牌屋

David Brooks: “Americans have lost faith in the credibility of their political system, which is the one resource the entire regime is predicated upon. This loss of faith has contributed to a complex but dark national mood. The people are anxious, pessimistic, ashamed, helpless and defensive.”

大卫·布鲁克斯：“美国人对他们政治制度的可信度失去了信心，而政治制度是整个政权赖以生存的资源。这种信仰的丧失导致了一种复杂而黑暗的民族情绪。人们感到焦虑、悲观、羞愧、无助和防御。”

Americans, in their ignorance and simple-mindedness, and functioning in their rather frightening evangelical mode, have conflated their Christianity-based American Exceptionalism, racism and bigotry, and their alarming propensity for war-mongering, with their form of politics, capitalism, and every ‘freedom’ and ‘right’ imaginable, into a single disturbing theology called “democracy“. And that may have been a mistake. As David Brooks pointed out, it is “the one resource the entire regime is predicated upon”. This theology has been so over-saturated by propaganda and brainwashing that it is now at the core of what it means to be American. In effect, Americans have transfigured a badly-corrupted form of party politics into a team-sport old-time-religion, basing the entire foundation of their national psyche on its presumed overwhelming legitimacy in the eyes of God and man. But sadly, it is no such thing, as Americans are now learning, most especially those with no job, no home, and who are sleeping in tent cities and in their little cardboard boxes under the overpass. It is no wonder we have “a dark national mood”.

美国人，由于他们的无知和头脑简单，以及他们以相当可怕的福音派模式运作，将他们的基督教为基础的美国例外主义、种族主义和偏执，以及他们令人担忧的战争倾向，与他们的政治形式、资本主义和所有可以想象的“自由”和“权利”混为一谈，形成了一种令人不安的神学，称为“民主”。这可能是一个错误。正如大卫·布鲁克斯指出的那样，这是“整个政权所依赖的一种资源”。这种神学已经被宣传和洗脑过度，现在已经成为美国人身份的核心。实际上，美国人已经将一种严重腐败的政党政治转变为一种团队运动的老式宗教，将其国家心理的整个基础建立在它在上帝和人眼中被认为具有压倒性的合法性之上。但遗憾的是，正如美国人现在所了解的那样，事实并非如此，尤其是那些没有工作、没有家、睡在帐篷城市和立交桥下的小纸箱里的人。难怪我们“国家情绪黑暗”。

William John Cox: “U.S. voters appear to be increasingly powerless to fight the plutocracy which runs their government. As a result, Americans are living in an ever more repressive police state that is illegally committing acts of violent aggression around the world. The only thing that can possibly transform the U.S. government to one that cares for the voters who elect it, rather than for the plutocracy that controls it, is a unified opposition by all of the People, irrespective of their social class or political beliefs.”

威廉·约翰·考克斯：“美国选民似乎越来越无力对抗掌管政府的财阀。因此，美国人生活在一个越来越压抑的警察国家，在世界各地非法实施暴力侵略行为。唯一可能将美国政府转变为关心选民而不是控制政府的财阀的政府的事情是所有人，无论其社会阶层或政治信仰如何，都团结起来反对。”

John Adams said, “Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”

约翰·亚当斯说：“民主永远不会长久。它很快就会浪费、耗尽和谋杀自己。从来没有一个民主国家没有自杀。”

Alexander Tytler: “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can exist only until a majority of voters discover that they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury.” Democracy evolves into kleptocracy.

亚历山大·泰勒：“民主不能作为一种永久的政府形式存在。它只能存在，直到大多数选民发现他们可以从公共财政中投票给自己。”民主演变为盗贼统治。

Unknown: “Democracy is the absolute ideal of tyrannical and criminal ruling class establishments.”

未知：“民主是暴政和犯罪统治阶级的绝对理想。

“What is much more disturbing, because it is more surprising, is the extent to which it appears that the process of reconsideration must extend not only to these familiar arenas of governmental policy but also to the basic institutional framework through which governments govern. What are in doubt today are not just the economic and military policies but also the political institutions inherited from the past. Is political democracy, as it exists today, a viable form of government for the industrialized countries of Europe, North America, and Asia? In recent years, acute observers on all three continents have seen a bleak future for democratic government.” (Samuel Huntington; The Crisis of Democracy)

“更令人不安的是，因为这更令人惊讶，重新考虑的过程似乎不仅必须扩展到这些熟悉的政府政策领域，而且必须扩展到政府治理的基本制度框架。今天值得怀疑的不仅是经济和军事政策，还有从过去继承下来的政治制度。今天存在的政治民主是欧洲、北美和亚洲工业化国家的一种可行的政府形式吗？近年来，三大洲敏锐的观察者都看到了民主政府的黯淡未来。”（塞缪尔·亨廷顿；民主危机）

A national survey of 18-to 29-year-old Americans shows more than half believe US democracy has either “failed” or is “in trouble,” and a significant portion also sees the potential for civil war.[2] Of the 52% polled who said they’ve lost or are losing faith in America’s democratic system, 39% described the country as a “democracy in trouble.” Another 13% of respondents called it a “failed democracy,” according to research released on Wednesday by the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School. Of the more than 2,100 young Americans surveyed for the poll, only 7% said they believe the US is a “healthy democracy,” while another 27% consider it a “somewhat functioning democracy.”

哈佛大学肯尼迪学院政治研究所周三公布的一项全国调查显示，18至29岁的美国人中，超过一半的人认为美国民主制度“失败”或“陷入困境”，很大一部分人认为美国存在内战的可能性。[2]在52%的受访者中，他们表示已经失去或正在失去对美国民主制度的信心，39%的人将美国描述为“陷入困境的民主”。另有13%的受访者称其为“失败的民主”。在接受调查的2100多名美国年轻人中，只有7%的人表示他们认为美国是一个“健康的民主国家”，而另外27%的人认为美国是一个“一定程度上运作良好的民主国家”。

Mr. Romanoff’s writing has been translated into 32 languages and his articles posted on more than 150 foreign-language news and politics websites in more than 30 countries, as well as more than 100 English language platforms. Larry Romanoff is a retired management consultant and businessman. He has held senior executive positions in international consulting firms, and owned an international import-export business. He has been a visiting professor at Shanghai’s Fudan University, presenting case studies in international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr. Romanoff lives in Shanghai and is currently writing a series of ten books generally related to China and the West. He is one of the contributing authors to Cynthia McKinney’s new anthology ‘When China Sneezes’. (Chapt. 2 — Dealing with Demons).

罗曼诺夫先生的作品已被翻译成32种语言，他的文章发表在30多个国家的150多个外语新闻和政治网站以及100多个英语平台上。拉里·罗曼诺夫是一名退休的管理顾问和商人。他曾在国际咨询公司担任高级管理职位，并拥有国际进出口业务。他曾是上海复旦大学的客座教授，为高级EMBA课程提供国际事务案例研究。罗曼诺夫先生住在上海，目前正在写一系列十本书，通常与中国和西方有关。他是辛西娅·麦金尼的新文集《当中国打喷嚏》的撰稿人之一。(第2章——与恶魔打交道)。

His full archive can be seen at

他的完整文章库可以在以下看到：

https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/ + https://www.moonofshanghai.com/

He can be contacted at:

他的联系方式：

2186604556@qq.com

Notes

注释

[1] The Crisis Of Democracy

[1]民主的危机

https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/The-Crisis-of-Democracy.pdf

[2] H. L. Mencken. Notes on Democracy

[2] 门肯《论民主》

https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/NOTES-ON-DEMOCRACY.pdf

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