Notes on Democracy

Download Notes on Democracy PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Good Press
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 112 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (596 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Notes on Democracy by : H. L. Mencken

Download or read book Notes on Democracy written by H. L. Mencken and published by Good Press. This book was released on 2023-12-23 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Notes on Democracy is a critique of democracy. The book places political leaders into two categories: the demagogue, who "preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots" and the demaslave, "who listens to what these idiots have to say and then pretends that he believes it himself." Mencken depicts politicians as "men who have sold their honor for their jobs."

Notes on Democracy

Download Notes on Democracy PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 212 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Notes on Democracy by : Henry Louis Mencken

Download or read book Notes on Democracy written by Henry Louis Mencken and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: [Democracy] [i]is, perhaps, the most charming form of government ever devised by man... It is based on propositions that are palpably not trueand what is not true, as everyone knows, is always immensely more fascinating and satisfying to the vast majori

Notes on Democracy

Download Notes on Democracy PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 232 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Notes on Democracy by : Henry Louis Mencken

Download or read book Notes on Democracy written by Henry Louis Mencken and published by . This book was released on 1926 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

We Need to Build

Download We Need to Build PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Beacon Press
ISBN 13 : 0807024066
Total Pages : 226 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (7 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis We Need to Build by : Eboo Patel

Download or read book We Need to Build written by Eboo Patel and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2022-05-10 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the former faith adviser to President Obama comes an inspirational guide for those who seek to promote positive social change and build a more diverse and just democracy The goal of social change work is not a more ferocious revolution; it is a more beautiful social order. It is harder to organize a fair trial than it is to fire up a crowd, more challenging to build a good school than it is to tell others they are doing education all wrong. But every decent society requires fair trials and good schools, and that’s just the beginning of the list of institutions and structures that need to be efficiently created and effectively run in large-scale diverse democracy. We Need to Build is a call to create those institutions and a guide for how to run them well. In his youth, Eboo Patel was inspired by love-based activists like John Lewis, Martin Luther King Jr., Badshah Khan, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Dorothy Day, Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Thich Nhat Hanh. Their example, and a timely challenge to build the change he wanted to see, led to a life engaged in the particulars of building, nourishing, and sustaining an institution that seeks to promote positive social change—Interfaith America. Now, drawing on his twenty years of experience, Patel tells the stories of what he’s learned and how, in the process, he came to construct as much as critique and collaborate more than oppose. His challenge to us is clear: those of us committed to refounding America as a just and inclusive democracy need to defeat the things we don’t like by building the things we do.

Forward

Download Forward PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Crown
ISBN 13 : 0593238672
Total Pages : 369 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (932 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Forward by : Andrew Yang

Download or read book Forward written by Andrew Yang and published by Crown. This book was released on 2022-10-04 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A lively and bold blueprint for moving beyond the “era of institutional failure” by transforming our outmoded political and economic systems to be resilient to twenty-first-century problems, from the popular entrepreneur, bestselling author, and political truth-teller “A vitally important book.”—Mark Cuban Despite being written off by the media, Andrew Yang’s shoestring 2020 presidential campaign—powered by his proposal for a universal basic income of $1,000 a month for all Americans—jolted the political establishment, growing into a massive, diverse movement. In Forward, Yang reveals that UBI and the threat of job automation are only the beginning, diagnosing how a series of cascading problems within our antiquated systems keeps us stuck in the past—imperiling our democracy at every level. With America’s stagnant institutions failing to keep pace with technological change, we grow more polarized as tech platforms supplant our will while feasting on our data. Yang introduces us to the various “priests of the decline” of America, including politicians whose incentives have become divorced from the people they supposedly serve. The machinery of American democracy is failing, Yang argues, and we need bold new ideas to rewire it for twenty-first-century problems. Inspired by his experience running for office and as an entrepreneur, and by ideas drawn from leading thinkers, Yang offers a series of solutions, including data rights, ranked-choice voting, and fact-based governance empowered by modern technology, writing that “there is no cavalry”—it’s up to us. This is a powerful and urgent warning that we must step back from the brink and plot a new way forward for our democracy.

The Life and Death of Democracy

Download The Life and Death of Democracy PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1847377602
Total Pages : 717 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (473 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Life and Death of Democracy by : John Keane

Download or read book The Life and Death of Democracy written by John Keane and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-06-01 with total page 717 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Keane's The Life and Death of Democracy will inspire and shock its readers. Presenting the first grand history of democracy for well over a century, it poses along the way some tough and timely questions: can we really be sure that democracy had its origins in ancient Greece? How did democratic ideals and institutions come to have the shape they do today? Given all the recent fanfare about democracy promotion, why are many people now gripped by the feeling that a bad moon is rising over all the world's democracies? Do they indeed have a future? Or is perhaps democracy fated to melt away, along with our polar ice caps? The work of one of Britain's leading political writers, this is no mere antiquarian history. Stylishly written, this superb book confronts its readers with an entirely fresh and irreverent look at the past, present and future of democracy. It unearths the beginnings of such precious institutions and ideals as government by public assembly, votes for women, the secret ballot, trial by jury and press freedom. It tracks the changing, hotly disputed meanings of democracy and describes quite a few of the extraordinary characters, many of them long forgotten, who dedicated their lives to building or defending democracy. And it explains why democracy is still potentially the best form of government on earth -- and why democracies everywhere are sleepwalking their way into deep trouble.

Fragile Democracy

Download Fragile Democracy PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : UNC Press Books
ISBN 13 : 1469660407
Total Pages : 191 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (696 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Fragile Democracy by : James L. Leloudis

Download or read book Fragile Democracy written by James L. Leloudis and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2020-08-06 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America is at war with itself over the right to vote, or, more precisely, over the question of who gets to exercise that right and under what circumstances. Conservatives speak in ominous tones of voter fraud so widespread that it threatens public trust in elected government. Progressives counter that fraud is rare and that calls for reforms such as voter ID are part of a campaign to shrink the electorate and exclude some citizens from the political life of the nation. North Carolina is a battleground for this debate, and its history can help us understand why--a century and a half after ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment--we remain a nation divided over the right to vote. In Fragile Democracy, James L. Leloudis and Robert R. Korstad tell the story of race and voting rights, from the end of the Civil War until the present day. They show that battles over the franchise have played out through cycles of emancipatory politics and conservative retrenchment. When race has been used as an instrument of exclusion from political life, the result has been a society in which vast numbers of Americans are denied the elements of meaningful freedom: a good job, a good education, good health, and a good home. That history points to the need for a bold new vision of what democracy looks like.

Democracy's Meanings

Download Democracy's Meanings PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Michigan Press
ISBN 13 : 0472220381
Total Pages : 255 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (722 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Democracy's Meanings by : Nicholas T. Davis

Download or read book Democracy's Meanings written by Nicholas T. Davis and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2022-08-30 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Democracy’s Meanings challenges conventional wisdom regarding how the public thinks about and evaluates democracy. Mining both political theory and more than 75 years of public opinion data, the book argues that Americans think about democracy in ways that go beyond voting or elected representation. Instead, citizens have rich and substantive views about the material conditions that democracy should produce, which draw from their beliefs about equality, fairness, and justice. The authors construct a typology of views about democracy. Procedural views of democracy take a minimalistic quality. While voting and fair treatment are important to this vision of democracy, ideas about equality are mostly limited to civil liberties. In contrast, social views of democracy incorporate both civil and economic equality; according to people with these views, democracy ought to meet the basic social and material needs of citizens. Complementing these two groups are moderate and indifferent views about democracy. While moderate views sit somewhere in between procedural and social perspectives regarding the role of democracy in producing social and economic equality, indifferent views of democracy involve disaffection toward it. For a small group of apathetic citizens, democracy is an ambiguous and ill-defined concept.

The Encyclopaedia Britannica

Download The Encyclopaedia Britannica PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 1016 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Encyclopaedia Britannica by : Hugh Chisholm

Download or read book The Encyclopaedia Britannica written by Hugh Chisholm and published by . This book was released on 1911 with total page 1016 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Notes on Democracy

Download Notes on Democracy PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (883 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Notes on Democracy by : Professor H L Mencken

Download or read book Notes on Democracy written by Professor H L Mencken and published by . This book was released on 2023-01-09 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Notes on Democracy is a 1926 book by American journalist, satirist, cultural critic H. L. Mencken. Notes on Democracy is a critique of democracy. The book places political leaders into two categories: the demagogue, who "preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots" and the demaslave, "who listens to what these idiots have to say and then pretends that he believes it himself." Mencken depicts politicians as "men who have sold their honor for their jobs." Writing for The Saturday Review of Literature Walter Lippmann described the book as a "tremendous polemic" which "destroy[s] by rendering it ridiculous and unfashionable, the democratic tradition of the American pioneers" and likens Notes on Democracy to The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, but Lippmann also criticizes Mencken by saying "The chief weakness of the book, as a book of ideas, arises out of this naive contrast in Mr. Mencken's mind between the sordid reality he knows and the splendid society he imagines.". (wikipedia.org)

Democracy Unchained

Download Democracy Unchained PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : The New Press
ISBN 13 : 1620975149
Total Pages : 481 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (29 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Democracy Unchained by : David Orr

Download or read book Democracy Unchained written by David Orr and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2020-03-03 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A stellar group of America's leading political thinkers explore how to reboot our democracy The presidential election of 2016 highlighted some long-standing flaws in American democracy and added a few new ones. Across the political spectrum, most Americans do not believe that democracy is delivering on its promises of fairness, justice, shared prosperity, or security in a changing world. The nation cannot even begin to address climate change and economic justice if it remains paralyzed by political gridlock. Democracy Unchained is about making American democracy work to solve problems that have long impaired our system of governance. The book is the collective work of thirty of the most perceptive writers, practitioners, scientists, educators, and journalists writing today, who are committed to moving the political conversation from the present anger and angst to the positive and constructive change necessary to achieve the full promise of a durable democracy that works for everyone and protects our common future. Including essays by Yasha Mounk on populism, Chisun Lee on money and politics, Ras Baraka on building democracy from the ground up, and Bill McKibben on climate, Democracy Unchained is the articulation of faith in democracy and will be required reading for all who are working to make democracy a reality. Table of Contents Foreword Introduction David W. Orr Part I. The Crisis of Democracy Populism and Democracy Yascha Mounk Reconstructing Our Constitutional Democracy K. Sabeel Rahman Restoring Healthy Party Competition Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson When Democracy Becomes Something Else: The Problem of Elections and What to Do About It Andrew Gumbel The Best Answer to Money in Politics After Citizens United: Public Campaign Financing in the Empire State and Beyond Chisun Lee Remaking the Presidency After Trump Jeremi Suri The Problem of Presidentialism Stephen Skowronek Part II. Foundations of Democracy Renewing the American Democratic Faith Steven C. Rockefeller American Land, American Democracy Eric Freyfogle Race and Democracy: The Kennedys, Obama, Trump, and Us Michael Eric Dyson Liberty and Justice for All: Latina Activist Efforts to Strengthen Democracy in 2018 Maria Hinojosa What Black Women Teach Us About Democracy Andra Gillespie and Nadia E. Brown Engines of Democracy: Racial Justice and Cultural Power Rashad Robinson Civic and Environmental Education: Protecting the Planet and Our Democracy Judy Braus The Supreme Court's Legitimacy Crisis and Constitutional Democracy’s Future Dawn Johnsen Part III. Policy Challenges Can Democracy Survive the Internet? David Hickton The New New Deal: How to Reregulate Capitalism Robert Kuttner First Understand Why They're Winning: How to Save Democracy from the Anti-Immigrant Far Right Sasha Polakow-Suransky No Time Left: How the System Is Failing to Address Our Ultimate Crisis Bill McKibben Powering Democracy Through Clean Energy Denise G. Fairchild The Long Crisis: American Foreign Policy Before and After Trump Jessica Tuchman Mathews Part IV. Who Acts, and How? The Case for Strong Government William S. Becker The States Nick Rathod Democracy in a Struggling Swing State Amy Hanauer Can Independent Voters Save American Democracy? Why 42 Percent of American Voters Are Independent and How They Can Transform Our Political System Jaqueline Salit and Thom Reilly Philanthropy and Democracy Stephen B. Heintz Keeping the Republic Dan Moulthrop The Future of Democracy Mayor Ras Baraka Building a University Where All People Matter Michael M. Crow, William B. Dabars, and Derrick M. Anderson Biophilia and Direct Democracy Timothy Beatley Purpose-Driven Capitalism Mindy Lubber Restoring Democracy: Nature's Trust, Human Survival, and Constitutional Fiduciary Governance 397 Mary Christina Wood Conclusion Ganesh Sitaraman

Listening to Grasshoppers

Download Listening to Grasshoppers PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Penguin UK
ISBN 13 : 0141044098
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (41 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Listening to Grasshoppers by : Arundhati Roy

Download or read book Listening to Grasshoppers written by Arundhati Roy and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2010 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This series of essays examines the dark side of democracy in contemporary India. It looks closely at how religious majoritarianism, cultural nationalism and neo-fascism simmer just under the surface of a country that projects itself as the world's largest democracy. Beginning with the state-backed pogrom against Muslims in Gujarat in 2002, Arundhati Roy writes about how the combination of Hindu Nationalism and India's Neo-liberal economic reforms which began their journey together in the early 1990s are now turning India into a police state. She describes the systematic marginalization of religious and ethnic minorities � Muslim, Christian, Adivasi and Dalit, the rise of terrorism and the massive scale of displacement and dispossession of the poor by predatory corporations. The collection ends with an account of the of the August 2008 uprising of the people of Kashmir against India's military occupation and an analysis of the November 2008 attacks on Mumbai. The Dark Side of Democracy tracks the fault-lines that threaten to destroy India's precarious democracy and send shockwaves through the region and beyond.

Stealth Democracy

Download Stealth Democracy PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780521009867
Total Pages : 308 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (98 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Stealth Democracy by : John R. Hibbing

Download or read book Stealth Democracy written by John R. Hibbing and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-08-29 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Americans often complain about the operation of their government, but scholars have never developed a complete picture of people s preferred type of government. In this provocative and timely book, Hibbing and Theiss-Morse, employing an original national survey and focus groups, report the governmental procedures Americans desire. Contrary to the prevailing view that people want greater involvement in politics, most citizens do not care about most policies and therefore are content to turn over decision-making authority to someone else. People s wish for the political system is that decision makers be empathetic and, especially, non-self-interested, not that they be responsive and accountable to the people s largely nonexistent policy preferences or, even worse, that the people be obligated to participate directly in decision making. Hibbing and Theiss-Morse conclude by cautioning communitarians, direct democrats, social capitalists, deliberation theorists, and all those who think that greater citizen involvement is the solution to society s problems.

Democracy and Political Ignorance

Download Democracy and Political Ignorance PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Stanford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0804789312
Total Pages : 277 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (47 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Democracy and Political Ignorance by : Ilya Somin

Download or read book Democracy and Political Ignorance written by Ilya Somin and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-02 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the biggest problems with modern democracy is that most of the public is usually ignorant of politics and government. Often, many people understand that their votes are unlikely to change the outcome of an election and don't see the point in learning much about politics. This may be rational, but it creates a nation of people with little political knowledge and little ability to objectively evaluate what they do know. In Democracy and Political Ignorance, Ilya Somin mines the depths of ignorance in America and reveals the extent to which it is a major problem for democracy. Somin weighs various options for solving this problem, arguing that political ignorance is best mitigated and its effects lessened by decentralizing and limiting government. Somin provocatively argues that people make better decisions when they choose what to purchase in the market or which state or local government to live under, than when they vote at the ballot box, because they have stronger incentives to acquire relevant information and to use it wisely.

Democracy in America?

Download Democracy in America? PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022672994X
Total Pages : 400 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (267 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Democracy in America? by : Benjamin I. Page

Download or read book Democracy in America? written by Benjamin I. Page and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2020-04-02 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Important and riveting . . . The solution isn’t to redistribute wealth from the have-mores to the have-lesses. It’s to redistribute political power to everyone.” —Robert B. Reich America faces daunting problems—stagnant wages, high health care costs, neglected schools, deteriorating public services. How did we get here? Through decades of dysfunctional government. In Democracy in America? veteran political observers Benjamin I. Page and Martin Gilens marshal an unprecedented array of evidence to show that while other countries have responded to a rapidly changing economy by helping people who’ve been left behind, the United States has failed to do so. Instead, we have actually exacerbated inequality, enriching corporations and the wealthy while leaving ordinary citizens to fend for themselves. What’s the solution? More democracy. More opportunities for citizens to shape what their government does. To repair our democracy, Page and Gilens argue, we must change the way we choose candidates and conduct our elections, reform our governing institutions, and curb the power of money in politics. By doing so, we can reduce polarization and gridlock, address pressing challenges, and enact policies that truly reflect the interests of average Americans. Updated with new information, this book lays out a set of proposals that would boost citizen participation, curb the power of money, and democratize the House and Senate. “Brilliant, indispensable, and highly accessible.” —New York Journal of Books

Not for Profit

Download Not for Profit PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 069117332X
Total Pages : 200 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Not for Profit by : Martha C. Nussbaum

Download or read book Not for Profit written by Martha C. Nussbaum and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2016-11-08 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this short and powerful book, celebrated philosopher Martha Nussbaum makes a passionate case for the importance of the liberal arts at all levels of education. Historically, the humanities have been central to education because they have been seen as essential for creating competent democratic citizens. But recently, Nussbaum argues, thinking about the aims of education has gone disturbingly awry in the United States and abroad. We increasingly treat education as though its primary goal were to teach students to be economically productive rather than to think critically and become knowledgeable, productive, and empathetic individuals. This shortsighted focus on profitable skills has eroded our ability to criticize authority, reduced our sympathy with the marginalized and different, and damaged our competence to deal with complex global problems. And the loss of these basic capacities jeopardizes the health of democracies and the hope of a decent world. In response to this dire situation, Nussbaum argues that we must resist efforts to reduce education to a tool of the gross national product. Rather, we must work to reconnect education to the humanities in order to give students the capacity to be true democratic citizens of their countries and the world. In a new preface, Nussbaum explores the current state of humanistic education globally and shows why the crisis of the humanities has far from abated. Translated into over twenty languages, Not for Profit draws on the stories of troubling—and hopeful—global educational developments. Nussbaum offers a manifesto that should be a rallying cry for anyone who cares about the deepest purposes of education.

Agony of Hercules Or a Farewell to Democracy (Notes of a Stranger)

Download Agony of Hercules Or a Farewell to Democracy (Notes of a Stranger) PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Xlibris Au
ISBN 13 : 9781514444023
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (44 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Agony of Hercules Or a Farewell to Democracy (Notes of a Stranger) by : Alexander Maistrovoy

Download or read book Agony of Hercules Or a Farewell to Democracy (Notes of a Stranger) written by Alexander Maistrovoy and published by Xlibris Au. This book was released on 2016-01-05 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Democracy: From Triumph to Suicide What type of society most corresponds to the ideals of justice and rule of law? The answer seemed obvious: democracy. Today it seems a paradox, but ancient thought, humanism, as well as rational thinking with undisguised skepticism are related to democracy. They knew how easy and quickly it transformed into ochlocracy. However, founding fathers of Liberal Democracy, like de Tocqueville, thought that rationalism, combined with a compulsory educational system, improvement of living standards, and an advanced legal system, would become a guarantee of democratic development. Unfortunately, these supporting columns are fatally destroyed today. The idea of equal opportunities was changed by unrestrained craving for consumption and hedonism. We see people completely disconnected from their culture, their own country, or the world. The Principle of "the art of goodness and fairness" by Celsus the Younger, the Principle of "pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety" of The Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776, and the Principle of Utility by Bentham and Mill have been perverted and emasculated to the extent that they have just stopped working. The growing "Red-Green-Brown Alliance" threatens not only Democracy, but states of the West. But the most sinister metamorphosis has occurred to the concept of "human rights." Human rights organizations have become the "new church," following own ideological orientation and financial interests. It canonizes "human rights," but despises the "human" as a creature that is creative, intelligent, and responsible for its own destiny. It has a distinct racist odor and shows contempt toward minorities--religious and sexual. Astonishingly, having lost its internal stability, democracy seeks for an unrestrained expansion. We observe the silliness worthy of new Moliere's pen: "democratic elections" between tribes practicing a ritual cannibalism, as in Papua New Guinea; between tribal clans like in Pakistan; between religious zealots, as this happened in Egypt. Wasn't it a cruel mockery of History that the EU that was on the verge of collapse virtually awarded itself the Nobel Peace Prize, as it was done by senile Soviet leaders; that the President of USA got the same prize just for empty slogans, like Leonid Brezhnev? As it often happens in History, the most pure and noble idea degenerates into its opposite, turning into a parody of itself.