Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Tale of 2 hoaxes: The Seth Rich conspiracy theory and “Conceptual Penis” prank both expose a fear of women’s power

Last week the portion of the internet dedicated to a bipartisan male freakout over women’s gains in the professional sphere became caught up in not just one but two obnoxious hoaxes: a conspiracy theory accusing Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee of having a young staffer named Seth Rich murdered, and the false claim that the entire field of gender studies had been exposed as a fraud by two male scholars.

Friday, May 19, 2017

Roger Ailes Was One of the Worst Americans Ever

On the Internet today you will find thousands, perhaps even millions, of people gloating about the death of elephantine Fox News founder Roger Ailes. The happy face emojis are getting a workout on Twitter, which is also bursting with biting one-liners.

Thursday, May 18, 2017

From Fox News to ‘Breitbart’: Liars, Harassers, and Far-Right Bottom-Feeders

Back when most people, myself included, thought a Trump victory impossible, I used to worry that under a Hillary Clinton presidency, her former antagonist and debate-stage stalker would found a new far-right television network that would immediately shift the center of political gravity to the point where CNN would try even harder to mimic Fox News, even as Fox sought to position itself as the “responsible” center.