democracy

In the Greek period of Homerus, Socrates and other wise men (men and women!), there was democracy. But what kind of democracy. One had to belong to a certain class to raise their voice. Later the Roman empire was an oligarchy. The old empire was ruled by a few men and their family in their own interest.

In the western world we still live in an oligarchy. According to some this is the irow law of Oligarchy. This theory was formulated in 1911 and says that democracies develop into oligarchies. The reason behind this can be found on wikipedia.


What happens in Iran looks to me as a reaction on the suppression of the Iranian theocratic government. But suppressed people will always find a way out I was told. So, where are their votes?!

According to the International Programs Center, U.S. Census Bureau, the total population of the World is 6,788,007,610 06/21/09 at 12:33 GMT (EST+5) Only a few worldleaders decide the faith of the world. Isn't that tragic?

update: watch and hear the news updates about the G8-meeting in Italy. They want to reduce pollution and stop climate change. Their goal is world average temperature not to increase with 2 degrees Celsius.
I say this because I don't feel myself involved in this decision making process. It's an example of the oligarchy on a world scale.

How can we fight that oligarchy? It's not how to fight oligarchy but how to become active instead of being passive. A passive population is one of the reasons why an oligarchy can exist.
Have a look at Russia. In Russia is no real opposition. Medvedev and Putin have a carte blanche ruling Russia.

The best example of an European oligarchy is Italy of Berlusconi. He's is a person a lot of Italians hate. They just do nothing because the majority doesn't matter him to be in power. He´s chosen but that doesn´t make him no oligarch. Some people say that he is a delay on Italy's development.

Do I undestand that oligarch´s collect power. Do they in order to preserve their power don´t want change in their Kingdom?

Yes, the Kingdom of the Netherlands is a veiled oligarchy. And a lot of countries are.

running

I ran today. I don't know how long, but it felt better than last time. I ran quite a long distance along the canal, crossing 2 bridges. Maybe I should do this more often. My legs hurt momentarily; Running and cycling are different muscle groups.

The advantage of running is that it's cheap and you don't need so much time to waste energy compared to cycling. It's what I call a recession proof sport.

4th of June

Election Day in the Netherlands and Great Britain.

It was a day to vote for the EU parliament.
The silly thing is we got to vote nationally.
That means that for the appr. 730 seats thousands of would be European parliamentarians are on the list. In my country we can only choose 25.

And the most stupid thing is that head president of the EU, at the moment Portuguese mr. Barroso, will be chosen behind the curtains of talks between heads of the member states. There isn't any transparency. This is no democracy.

So world, even in Europe there isn't real democracy.

I voted on a party that is in favour of the EU but doesn't want to expand for a while. The party lost half of it's previous seats. My party I vote for nationally gained in the EU elections. They doubled their seats.