What is “democracy?”

[hopemountain]

https://johnlaurits.com/2016/06/14/what-is-democracy/

-intro snipped-

What is “democracy?”

Democracy — that’s a word that I’ve heard a lot, having grown up in the United States of America. Like “freedom” or “justice,” it seems to me that democracy is a word that has been used so much & so often that we tend to take its meaning for granted — I think that now would, perhaps, be an excellent time to remind everyone what it really means.

The word has Greek roots — it is drawn from two different words, demos & kratos, meaning “ruled by the people” — as opposed to autocracy, which is “ruled by a single person” (like the word autonomy), or plutocracy, which is “ruled by the wealthy” (ploutos means “wealth”).

I was taught that democracy is a good thing that is worth fighting for and I was taught that the United States was a country that was founded upon the idea of democracy — or, at least, our military seems to be really fond of “spreading democracy” to other countries.

But do we live in a democracy?

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I want to bring this article back to the Greek word –“demos” — from which democracy is derived. Rule by the people — but demos doesn’t necessarily mean “people” in the general, abstract sense of the word (that’s just what the plutocrats, the “wealthy rulers” want you to believe).

Demos means an assembly of people — demos means crowd.

That is the way that the people rule — that is how democracy works. Just look at what Iceland did in April — they gathered a crowd & they forced their corrupt Prime Minister to resign

.....more at link ...

a concise overview of the state of 'democracy' in our country at this time.