This is Not a Democracy

Caroline Lucas inadvertently destroys the case for us being #BetterTogether. The case for a new Scotland (not discussed here) is, as I'm sure most will agree, fundamentally about democracy. This is where we need to look at ourselves and ask what a democracy really is.

http://youtu.be/YdEriGO3r8U

We have been told that America is the world's greatest democracy. = WRONG!
We have been told that Iraq has been given democracy. = WRONG!
We are still being encouraged to think of Britland as a democracy. = WRONG!

In a democracy there is a democratically elected chamber of ministers. Between the chamber and the public realm there is a lobby where representatives of industry can meet with ministers in order to influence them prior to making decisions that will affect those industries. This is called 'lobbying'. It doesn't always happen in the lobby but the ministers have the final word based on the mandate they were elected upon.

A corporatocracy is when the interests of the bankers, financiers and large multinational corporations have been allowed to bypass the earlier democratic process and have taken up a controlling position from within the state structure.

In this instance there is nothing that the voter can do to affect change as they are only able to select different actors to play the various roles of what can only be called a corporate charade.

This is not 'just the way it is' and there are various examples of democracies in operation all around us who do what the big money men hate the most. They give power to people who don't have money. Finland is one of the first countries that comes into my mind as its local democracy is one of the closest to the people in the world and entire healthcare systems have been altered to overturn serious societal health problems within the year based on community action. Iceland was the first country in the whole world to solve the so called 'crisis', wrote themselves a constitution and their GDP per capita is now virtually the same as the UK. There is a great deal of wealth in the UK but the state is designed to retain as much of it as possible at the top and has done for centuries. 31% of British children live below the poverty line. That is disgusting and should be challenged any time anyone advocates the continuation of this elitist structure.

Scotland is in a unique position to start from the position of democracy and write into our new constitution barriers and restraints to corporate interests. We will decide what you get to do within our economy and you will be expected to pay your fair share of the tax. This is no utopian fantasy or idealism, this is real but those who have their vested interests in the corporate sector are behind much of the misinformation for the very reason that this means that there may well be another economy out of the control of the multinationals. We have so much to protect and so much we can do that we mustn't allow weak mindedness and cowardice to hand control of our wealth - that can lift our children from poverty to opportunity and see our society flourish with confidence and positivity - to the narrow interests of the most greedy and some would say evil in our world.

It's time to take the power back and we can only do that with a YES vote in 2014.