Bourgeois-democratic prejudice in the Republican Movement

Its a sad fact that Irish Republicans are still living under the delusion that representational democracy equals democracy, full stop. Do we analyse this belief? No, we just accept it like mother's milk. In that case, it's not the belief of a rational person, but a prejudice.

Our unthinking reverence to this prejudice, or superstition, is such, that when we are taunted by the enemy with having no "mandate" or not having enough support to have members of parliament, we are actually embarrased, and try to find reasons why this is so. When, in fact, we should be asking ourselves: What is the nature of representation and parliamentary democracy? How is it that in every state ruled by parlimentary democracy a tiny group owns and controls the land and capital, and the great majority are without land or capital? If elections are fair, and everyone has an equal vote, how could it be that the vast bulk of the population vote for their own dispossession and subjugation?

Could it be that representational democracy is a massive fraud? An infamous trick, to not only subjugate whole populations and disspossess them, but to get them to "consent" to their own oppression? To get normally intelligent people to proudly claim that they are "democrats," because they accept, and willingly lie down under, the black oppression that results from parliamentary democracy. And to get normally intelligent people to condemn those who refuse to lie down under such vile oppression as "undemocratic," "lacking in madate," and "terrorists."

It seems to me to be well past the time when the Republican Movement purged the very mention of "representation" and "parlimentary democracy," from their documents as filty words, unfit for any rational human being. And where we had superstitiously spoken about representation, to now speak only of Direct Democracy. Where we had spoken superstitiously of parliaments, to now speak of Federal Assemblies of recallible Delegates.

Before we can dispel the prejudices of the most backward elements of the population, and their unthinking reverence for parliamentary democracy, and the lying, thieving, spivs they almost always elect, we must clean out our own minds and mouths.

As Albert Einstein put it in his essay "Why Socialism?"

"Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights."

Direct Democracy develops the citizen as a legislator for his/her people. Such a citizen will be brought up from early childhood to think for themselves and take responsibility for their own actions. This is in complete contrast to the bourgeois democratic system, where people are trained to be mindless consumers, not citizens, and are trained from infancy to defer to their "betters" and accept the commands of their "betters." Washing out the vile influence of bourgeois democracy would take at least one generation to complete, as a new generation of children would have to come on the earth, who were not schooled in fear and ignorance. But even so, right from the start, putting legislative power in the hands of the citizen will immediately transform his/her attitude from slavish apathy, to responsible activity.

Please see this link for an explanation of Direct Democracy:

http://aia.mahost.org/dec_directdemocracy.html