Breaking Democracy’s Chains

We question what “democracy” really means when choices feel filtered and money shapes outcomes more than voters do. We unpack Metin Perkin’s argument that party politics captures democratic institutions and explore a bold blueprint for reform that starts with everyday citizens. 
• democracy defined as power resting with the people 
• three layers of gatekeeping through candidate filtering, policy drafting and party whips 
• “ballot vs wallet” and how big money bends incentives 
• media consolidation and narrative control reinforcing factional identity 
• why founders’ anti-party warnings still matter 
• a no-party democracy model with independent representatives and issue-based coalitions 
• limits of multi-party coalitions and disproportionate minority influence 
• linking democratic capture to proxy wars, extraction and humanitarian crises 
• reasons for hope through grassroots organizing and voting independent 
• a “democracy tax” on massive political donations to curb influence buying 
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If you know somebody that's turning their actions into impact, I want to know about it. Send me an email at Rotarianpod at gmail.com. 

Transcript

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Welcome And The Big Democracy Question

0:00

Hi there everyone, I'm Gwen Jones, and welcome once again to the Action The Impact Show. The weekly show where I introduce you to those amazing people from all over the world turning their actions into impact. Well, I have a question for you this week. Do you live in a democracy? That's right. A democracy. Very flappy word. And what is your democracy? And is your country's democracy better than another person's democracy? Do you consider another country living in democracy if it's not like your democracy? Well, we're gonna talk about, you guessed it, democracy, with my new friend McKay, who's just written an interesting book. An interesting book. Calling it the breaking of democracy. That's right. Matton Perkin is with me, and he's an offer, and he's gonna talk about I'm gonna repeat myself. Breaking democracy. Your democracy. My democracy. Do we have democracy? Are you interested? Good. Let's get the conversation started. Thank you again for joining us. Welcome back to the show, everybody. I am off to Doncaster, UK to talk to author Mettin Picken this afternoon. Well, to me, it's afternoon. For him, it's evening. So that's six to that's six or so hours ahead. And we're gonna talk about he's an author, and we're gonna talk about his book, but I really want you guys to be intrigued right off the bat because his book is about democracy. And anywhere, not just me here in the United States or Metin in the UK, but all over the world, the word democracy is being used all over the place. And he has a new book called Breaking Democracy's Chains, which just should probably intrigue you right there. And I'll let him do the subtitle because I think chains should link together, and we get the cliche of the strongest link in the chain. But he's gonna explain it to me and we're gonna talk about democracy.

What “Breaking Democracy’s Chains” Means

2:20

Why the heck not? Matton, thank you so much for joining me on the show. It's an honor to meet you. It's a pleasure and it's an honor for me to be on the show. Thank you so much. Okay, so let's give the whole title, including the other title, because I know people are already listening, going, I'm with Gwen. We don't want to break democracy, we want to firm up democracy, we want to make it bigger and better and flashier and sequined and all that stuff. Absolutely. Democracy, before I go on to the title, democracy is a noble idea. Okay. It's it it absent of democracy. You have one form of another form of dictatorship, oppression. Correct. Correct. So that's why it's such a noble idea. It allows different views to live together in a harmonious way. Hence it's a noble idea. Now, the title of the book is Breaking Democracy's Chains, freeing and fortifying democracy against hidden capture. As the name implies, right? I in the book argue that the democracy is and has been hallowed out. It is democracy in name, but it's not democracy in substance. Wow. Okay. That's that's for us in the Western mature democracies, let alone other people that claim they've got democracy, places like Russia, third world countries, Turkeys, and and you you Turkey, you name it. So we'll come on to those, and and you do a commendable work of helping people who suffer all over the world. And I thank you for that, and thank you for your organization for that. So, my views, we've got to look at it in two parts. We've got to have a look at the developed world, and maybe a lesser developed world, lesser developed countries, and the third world countries where they have more problems. Not that we haven't got problems in our Western societies. Oh no, we're perfect. We wish, yes, but our problems are a bit more of a first world problem, I suppose, than than than than bombs falling onto us or going hungry without shelter, without food. And this is where you guys do most uh commendable work again. I want to underline that. Uh and without you guys, a lot of people will suffer a lot more. Oh, well, thank you. But I I I wanna I want to break down this word democracy, and then I want to get into the book it itself. But is democracy for no better word in the eye of the beholder? Because I'm here in the United States, and I think talking to my viewer and my listenership in the here in the United States, we would say we have a democracy. As this is being recorded, July is right around the corner where we will be celebrating our quote 250th birthday of our democracy. Yet in our democracy, I will speak for myself to say that I feel our democracy is kind of in the eye of the beholder because I think we've got some real problems. As a woman, as a woman as a part of the LGBTQ community, I would say that my democracy may be different than a wealthy white male in this supposed democracy. So is democracy kind of the eye of the beholder? Does that kind of well? Let's try to elaborate on that rather than trying to squeeze it into one state. Perfect. Love it here, here in in well, let's uh I'm reasonably familiar with the US system as well. Yes, I we didn't we didn't bring you on the show to say that you are democracy of all countries, like you have this pay PhD of all democracies everywhere. So, no, I agree,

The Three Gatekeepers Of Modern Voting

6:57

yeah. But we we we yeah, so uh democracy is this in its simplest form, in its simplest terms, it means the power rests with the people. Okay. Now, when we look at the democracy in US, in Western world, okay, you know, in a wider context, we have an illusion of choice because there is three tiers of gatekeeping in our democracies. The first tier is when we go to the ballot box, we don't really have a true selection of representatives, candidates, to choose from. They have been filtered. Right. So Democratic Party puts a candidate forward, Republican Party puts a candidate forward, but it's not a full choice, it's a curated choice. It is like you're going into a restaurant and saying you've got a full menu, full choice, but the restaurant is a fish restaurant, it just serves fish, and that's it. You know, you go to McDonald's, you just get burgers. Now, look, I I want something different. At the end of the day, the choice is filtered, and that's why to back that up with data, that's why the re-election of the incumbents is 90% plus. They're there for life, and you can't challenge them. But let's kind of not digress. When you get on to the next tier, the legislation is not written by our representatives, it is written by the think tanks that have been funded by the entrenched elite billionaires with deep pockets that draft or special interests of some kind. Special interests, very much so, absolutely correct. And these people draft policies with the loopholes, like when it comes to campaign donations and whatever it is, and that legislation comes before our representatives to vote on it for it to become law. So just a recap, we had filtering of the candidates, right? Legislation written by thinking through filters, yeah, right, through filters, another another filter, yeah. And then finally, there is a whip system to toe the party line. If you do not tow the party line, if you do not vote as a representative in the legislature, if you do not vote in line with your party, your career is almost certain to come to an end. Because without the party, you're going to become nobody. In United Kingdom, it's even more explicit. If you we have a three-tier whip system, and we had it during Brexit, you know, when Britain left the United Kingdom. Boris Johnson, our Prime Minister, has basically got rid of or withdrew the whip from 21 conservative MPs because they did not vote along the party lines because Boris Johnson wanted us out of EU, European Union. Correct. And those 21 MPs said that's going to be a disaster. On this occasion, I'm not going to vote with the party. I said, fine, you don't belong to the party. So almost brought their careers to an end. I mean, they, yes, they could stand as independent MPs on the next general election, but more or less no more political life for them. So this is what I mean by democracy exists in name, but not so much in substance. Yes, we're still democratic compared to places like China, compared to places like Russia, North Korea. I mean, these these people, they also, I mean, places like Iran and Russia would use democracy as a way of silencing their populations. Right. Because power ultimately lies with the people. So they've got to give people some form of ritual to say they contribute in this in this kind of a governance, they have a say in it. And this is why if we kind of focus mainly on two separate categories, the Western democracies, and then the democracies in the third world or what we will call non-democratic states separately, we will we will see it. So in the Western Mitchell democracies, what I what I suggest in the book is that a no-party democracy will keep the constitution and the democratic institutions intact. But it removes this party checkpoint, it removes this party checkpoint, like an army checkpoint, right, between the voter and their representative, between the voters and the representatives. Because parties have inserted themselves between the voters and the representatives. Now, let me give you an example. You might say, okay, let's assume for a second, role play, you are a Democrat and I am a Republican. Okay. A voter. Right. Now, as a Republican, let's say I'm not happy with the Republican Party for whatever reason. Right. They promised me no wars, and yet they're in another war. Correct. I'm not happy with the Democratic Party. In my constituency, I'm not gonna vote for my registered party, let's say. Well, right. Party or my representative for that constituency. Gotcha. But the risk is I'm gonna be letting in other party, your party. Right. So I'm choosing almost lesser of two evils because parties, and and you're gonna do the same because if you don't want, if if you're not happy with your Democratic Party, you really have no choice but to vote for your party still, despite how bad they are, because you run the risk of letting Republicans in. I have to say that that's I have to say I've made that vote before. Yeah, I I I think everybody who's listening or looking at us right now has made that vote before. Where I mean, the I think the expression on here is you plug your nose and you hit the button. Yeah, yeah, right. I plug the nose and hit the button because I know that guy isn't gonna put me in a war, or that guy may be a little old, but at least I know he's not a lunatic or whatever, whatever. Exactly. So here it's got to be kind of made clear for your viewers. Parties, political parties, are not integrated. Democracies are part of democracies, yeah. They're not democracies, yeah. They're not part of the constitution either in any democracy. So you've earlier said we are gonna be celebrating 250 years of American democracy soon. Correct. That that's the I would say that's the tagline, those are the words I use. But if you look around the United States right now, that we're about to participate in Memorial Day, so it's like the beginning of summer, and there's flags everywhere, and a lot of those flags loving that those men and women that gave their blood for democracy, yeah, and then they are already advertising for July, which is not that far away, that's saying, come celebrate our democracy. So that D word is from the grocery store shelves to right down the street in the USA right now, yeah, everywhere. And rightly so, and we should celebrate that. Even I'm not an American citizen, we should celebrate democracy all over the world, correct? So uh absolutely right.

Founders’ Warnings About Party Factions

15:39

But uh going back to the American founding fathers, they lived in a very different era, like they owned people, kind of era, correct? Yeah, yeah, also the information was not available. We did not have internet, we did not have television, we did not have radio, we didn't even have the newspapers, there was pumplets and whatever it is. The press machines were very we didn't have the cars, you know, it was horse and a cart, right? So one if by land, two if by sea kind of stuff. Yeah, we had nothing, right? Exactly. It was a different era altogether, and yet American founding fathers were so visionary that they were all anti-faction, anti-party. I think it was George Abraham that said, if I was to go not go to heaven, but with party, I will choose not to go to heaven. Wow, okay. So in its farewell address, one of the founders again, you know, whether whether it was George Washington thing said, There's nothing that I dread more than Republic being split into two political parties because they will subvert the will of the people. Now imagine those statements being said 250 years ago, but those they'd be radical now. Yeah, absolutely. They were prophecies, they almost saw what would happen in two, you know, in in hundreds, two hundred years after their time into the future. They were there were prophecies. So my point in the book is this guys. Let's debate whether we need political parties to provide representative democracy. Do we need one for the other? Yes, but democracy is like I said, democracy is precious, it's the second most precious thing in life after subsistence, after life, after food and drink. Is your freedom? Is your democracy right? Absolutely. Without democracy, we don't we even risk having the first thing, the food and drink and shelter. Correct. Absolutely. So so democracy is a must, but parties are subverting the will of the people as the founding fathers had predicted. Now, what's happened? Well, parties are machines, they're the institutions, they need loads of money. Oh, yeah. We all get pinged at least once a month going, hey, knock, knock, knock. Donations, loads of money. They need money. Okay, so the question is this who decides who governs us? Who decides that? What decides the governance? Is it the ballot or is it the wallet? Well, and you and I I I can already hear that my email is gonna be busy because that's that's probably the question of the day. And I don't know. First of all, I don't know in a in a half hour to 45 minute podcast are we ever gonna figure that out. But let me give you some data. Okay, one donut, 300 plus million into uh Trump campaign. People who these people are not doing this for the same purposes as you do to get polio vaccine out there, they're doing that for influence, and it's been admitted as much. Okay, so again, we don't have the time to to go to the evidence, but people can on can can go online and and google stuff and and then we'll see what happens there. Now we want to have democracy here in Western world, correct, and also in countries that democracy has not yet taken root or being ruled by dictatorships or or oppressions and and systems of of that sort in Western democracies. I think we still have I think we still have our vote as a very powerful tool. And we have got to sit back and say, how am I going to use this tool? How am I gonna use my vote? When you cast your vote, your viewers, when they cast their votes, they've got to kind of stop for a moment and think this through and say, Is patriotism loyalty to a party, whether it's democ Democratic Party or the Republican, independent, Green Party, anything green or whatever it is, or whether patriotism is loyalty to the country. So the patriotism is loyalty to the country, not to one any particular party. Right. But the problem is this because once the parties have their control over the levers of the government, they then pass laws, they then create this environment, they decide on taxation, they decide on public services, they decide on wars, and so on and so forth. So what we had is that media. Landscape has been shaped by the parties. Six corporations now own all of the mainstream media, all of the visual media and press media, or 90 plus percent of it in the United States. And these people are part of the same elite, part of the same club. So they now dictate narrative. They decide what is being debated and what's not being debated by pushing headlines out there. They express and ascend different views. And they work with different parties. So the Fox News will work with Republican Party, CNN may work with Democratic Party, but they're all part of the elite because both sides need that funding. And that's why the elite had captured both parties. So for the elite, it doesn't matter which side wins, because the wars continue under Bush, Obama, Clinton, Trump, everybody. The surveillance has increased under every single one of them. So poor has been getting poorer, and rich has been getting richer. So this is all created by this party system, party democracy, that American founding fathers had dreaded. So we need to put this on the table and say, do we really need parties? And we don't. And we don't. Because you know, you're you know, it's it's like you've said that now twice, and I'm sure there's some people that have steered off the road a little bit, like we don't need parties, but we can't just in some cases, if I don't have a party, I cannot vote. Uh well, the and if nobody in in in power in in history, whether they were kings, queens, sultans, stars, yeah, right. Nobody had let go of power voluntarily, and now we've got this elite, we've got this billionaire elite class that basically runs our countries, our democracies, and we are performing a ritual. So, yes, we do not need political parties, and I will keep it brief for you.

A No-Party Democracy Blueprint

24:30

The system I propose in breaking democracies' chains is this people elect independent representatives. Okay, we'll talk about the technicalities in a bit, but let's just kind of uh deal with the top line stuff. Okay, so there's no R or D by somebody's name. They put they put if I become senator or governor of your state or whatever, here's what I plan to do. No D, no R, no I by my name. Exactly. Okay, like that just like the Ten Commandments, you will have 10 pledges, and okay, I will do this, I will do this, your top 10 pledges to the voters, to your community. Okay, so people elect independent representatives, too. These representatives, then shortlist to leadership candidates with the broadest sport among the elected representatives. So instead of parties deciding, oh, this is going to be our candidate, Kamala Harris is going to be our candidate, and Donald Trump is going to be our candidate, Republican candidate, and Democrat candidate, the 435 independent legislators that we have voted in, right, will shortlist two candidates for the national leadership through a round of voting, and the two final candidates would be the ones with the broadest sport from our representatives. Okay, so stage three is a national election. The public decides who they want to be the leader, the winner becomes the president, and the runner-up becomes the opposition leader. So much like the UK in in your house, you have a you have a you have uh you know the lords and the commonwealth, and whoever is not in charge, like right now it's a minority leader, I believe, is what we're doing. Correct. Minority leader. So you can call it minority leader, opposition leader, or whatever that may entail. But right the the the important bit is public mandates the opposition leader or the minority leader. So okay. We're taking politics and party politics out of the equation. We now have a house full of independent representatives that is accountable to the voters, not to the parties, right? And the winning the leadership forms with his running mate, they will form the executive, and then the runner-up assumes the minority leader role mandated by the people. Then a legislation comes before our representatives, they will build coalitions on issue-based issues. So the government or the or the executive will say, we want this legislation, for argument's sake, it's about gun control. The minority leader will also set up his or her cabinet or team to scrutinize and propose alternatives so that independent representatives can see all sides of the story and then use their judgment, their knowledge to vote on each legislation. If it commands broad sport, then it passes and becomes law. If it doesn't, it needs to be amended and debated again. So now we are working in the best interest of the people, not in the best interest of the ruling elite. Well, that all sounds nice. This now replaces this now replaces the party structure or the claim that parties provide a structure in the in the democracies. Well, this structure will be much stronger. It'll be much stronger because we wouldn't have government lockdowns, because it's not political, it's not parties. Right. We have been part of the ticks with a finger pointing in a way. Exactly. It takes with a finger pointing. You can't say those democrats are doing that thing, so therefore we cannot do our thing. And now we can get back into our tribalism again of aren't those people awful? They, them over there, they're a problem. Exactly. Well, look, I mean, I'm afraid we're a little bit more civilized, maybe, but we are still replicating the tribalism that we see in Sudan. We just don't fight each other as with guns. We see it in in other countries that are in civil conflict. There's a there's a a civil war going on in in some of these countries. So my point is that parties have fueled and deliberately fueled this division. There

Tribal Politics, Turnout, And False Choice

30:08

is a great book by Liliana Mason called Uncivil Agreement. Yes, and there she explains that how political parties had fused cultural identities with the political identities and created two mega identities, left and right, or Republicans and Democrats. So parties have every incentive to pit us against one another to shoot. Make money to keep the apparatus going. Exactly. And and that's how they motivate their base to come and vote. But when you look at the turnout, it's 50% of the votes, it's 55, 60 at best. Right. And when you consider that the winning party, uh you know, secures a small margin, one or two percent, is 52 to 48 or 51 to 49. So 50 percent, but even if it's 60 turnout, 50 percent of the vote that gets party in power or selects a president, you've only got mandate from 30 percent of the people. Wow. So this is the problem that we have in our democracies, but if we move towards no party democracy, because parties bundle together so many issues, and people don't always stand behind everything a party stands for. They like some things in the Democratic Party, and they like other things in the Republican Party, and they dislike some of the things in both parties, right? So it's not a true choice. We chose we have a we're between a hard and a rock, a hard place and a rock and hard place, yeah. Right, rock and hard place, yeah, exactly. Absolutely. So let me let me ask you some. I've got I've got a couple questions that I think are very interesting. I brought up that saying is democracy in the eye of the beholder. Yeah, and democracy, and right now we've been talking about where you are in the UK and where I am here in the United States, but democracy itself is really different country to country. The the the democracy in Finland is definitely different than the democracy in France, yes, the quote unquote democracy in Indonesia is definitely different than what is trying to be a democracy in the Congo, yes. So it we have this like umbrella term democracy, yes, and when I go back to the eye of the beholder, do we in our democracy do we become a little bit arrogant for no better word to say our democracy, even when it with its ups and downs and good and bad, well, at least we're not that so-called democracy. So is that also kind of the the the problem with democracy? Is that we don't really have a you gave us you gave us its power to the people, you gave us what democracy means, yeah. But is there really a problem with what democracy means or feels like or looks like? Well, democracy varies from culture to country to to to historic evolvement, and head of state here is still King Charles the Third, correct? We still have the monarchy as a symbolic institution, if you like, but our democracy is in the parliament and house of lords. But the essence of the democracy in United Kingdom, in France, in Germany, in the United States, it's the same, it's public. People vote and decide who they want to govern them. We choose our prime minister, you choose your president and your senators and and and your uh representatives and your governors. So regardless of the variations in the democracies across the Western world, the ultimate ultimate objective characteristics of the democracy is that people decide who governs them. Yes, our methods will vary, but the ultimate or the or the final con you know final product is democracy. We have chosen our leaders in four years' time, five years' time, whatever the terms are, we can in theory get rid of them if we don't like the way they govern us. Right. But but that is in theory, in practice, in practice, it's a little bit more difficult than that. Because regardless of which party wins in the United States, whether it is Republicans or Democrats, the wars continue. And these wars do not benefit American people, and there is a problem because, like we've earlier said, the wallet speaks louder than the ballot. Because as far as the entrenched elite is concerned, whichever party wins, they've they've they've hedged their bets. Whichever party wins, they win, and the wider public loses because they're funding both parties. Now, some people say, Well, we need more parties. Well, no, you don't need more parties because we have full experience of more parties. If you look at the Netherlands, there's about 20 parties. There's about 20 parties, yeah. The Netherlands, they've got it all. Of course, a lot of people would argue that they're one of the quote-unquote freest, most democracy heavy areas. Yeah, but the problem is they could not form a government for seven months nearly because of the coalitions. So you look at the multi-party system, the minority partner, because nobody wins the overall majority. Correct, the minority party that forms the coalition has disproportionate influence, power. Right. You see that you see that in Israel. The minority party in Israel are holding Netanyahu to over the barrel, and they're getting them to pass all these laws and so on and so forth. And Netanyahu is scared of allowing this government to collapse. Because without that party, the government will dissolve and there'll be new general elections, and then he's got to look after his own interests, he's gonna be prosecuted X, Y, and Z. But without digressing, the problem is we do not need parties. American founding fathers said we don't need parties, but it was a necessary evil at the time in a low information era. Communication is now instant. In those days, it was not. So parties were necessary evil then. We need to open this up to a debate. But this runs deeper, not just for Western democracies. When we started, we've mentioned that we need to look at it in terms of Western democracies and countries where democracy has not taken root yet. Correct. Yeah.

Proxy Wars And The Roots Of Collapse

38:12

And in those countries, we have people like Yemen, we have Sudan, and there's devastating humanitarian, humanitarian crisis there. This is we we should look deeper into this, and we should sit back and say, Okay, we've got all these good people like Gwen and Red Cross and Red Crescent and and other institutions that are trying humanitarian aid organizations that are trying to get vaccinations out to these people, get trying to get food into these people. But what we fail to do is question the root causes. You're going to fight an unwinnable war by just dealing with the symptoms. Okay. We need to deal with the root causes as well. And the root causes are this. Yes, we will have famines, yes, we will have natural disasters, but America can cope with a natural disaster much better than Yemen could. Right. So these countries are poor and they don't have a democratic system. They are in forever wars, in factional wars, in tribal wars. And these wars have become proxy wars. Right. Saudi Arabia will sport one faction, Iran will sport another faction, they'll fund them, they'll give them weapons, and they will try to get, you know, sport the faction that serves their own interests. Iran It's kind of like, and excuse me for for interrupting you, but it's very much like you just described our quote-unquote democracy. You said we had Republicans, we have Democrats. So isn't as much as easy to say we have this left-leaning faction, we have this right-leaning faction, and these two factions are represented by this group of people and this group of people in this country or in this side. So it's it's all kind of the same structure, isn't it? When it comes to when it comes to quote unquote democracy. And that is such an air quote word now, because do we have democracy or do we have factions that agree that instead of agreeing to disagreeing and still work for the greater good, we have factions that are tribal, be it Republicans, Democrats, Tories, or whatever, or Muslims, Christians, we have a faction. Exactly. So the as the founding fathers had feared, factionalism was the biggest threat to democracy. And it is so in our western democracies. And universally, it's a universal universally, yeah, absolutely. So if we look at if we look at the no party system, it will provide a much healthier democratic framework for these deeply divided societies. So instead of one militia or one tribe or one religious faction claiming to speak for everyone, the power then will be spread across independently elected representatives from every community. So and I and I I love this idea, I do, but we have here comes the proverbial butt. That's that that's the best part of being the interviewer, right? Is I get to I get to throw in the butts. We've got the infrastructure. So, in other words, your plan of taking away the R's and the D's and the I's of the independent Democrat, you know, etc. Green. Let's not, you know, we have an infrastructure. Like, I don't know if we could go to some of these other countries and say, I know you don't have this infrastructure, but we have this great idea. You know, and you have some countries that are run by that there are much different royal families than say King Charles. Yeah. Okay. You know, you have Morocco, that's that's a that's that's run by a king. Correct. Without a doubt. Now it's a beautiful place, yeah. You know, but also Muslim question, yes, yeah. Uh that that's a very valid question, and it needs to be addressed properly. So without the institutions, how would system will take root? Right. Well, the we we cannot look at things in isolation. Okay, and I will come to that. I do not want to come across like a politician that evades questions. But let me let me but let me evade the question for just a second, and then I'll get back to the question. Yeah, you just posited. That's good. Let me try to give a bit of a background. The Problem is that we need to look at the system globally. Take Syria, take Libya as Western powers. We have NATO has gone in and bombed Libya and got rid of Gaddafi. That was a country, not a democratic country, but it was a very affluent country, and they had institutions and they had systems, and we did not have all these Libyan refugees flooding to safety. And one would say about that about Haiti, and one could say that about parts of you know of India after the U after Victoria went, okay, we're out of here now. Yeah. You know, there's a whole bunch of places. Parts of parts of Africa we got up and moved. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. So when we look at this democracy and say, how can it take root? Well the global picture is this. We wanted to, or the West wanted to in inverted commerce West. Because if you take one country, it'll be easier for your viewers to follow. If you take Syria, it was all geopolitical. We did not bring democracy to Iraq. We toppled a dictator on a false premise. According to some estimates, million people have died, and thousands of American sons and daughters have died in that war. Yet we achieved nothing after trillions being spent, all these lives lost. If we take Syria, the guy who is now president of Syria was welcomed by Donald Trump in White House. He as much openly said that he put him in that place, he's put him into the presidency. He was a most wanted terrorist, one of the most wanted terrorists on the CIA list, American wanted list. Yeah, he was. And we say to those leaders, do not interfere in these countries, because you are working on behalf of the entrenched elite. These are military-industrial complex that wants to sell all the weapons and arms and make money for their shareholders for them. These are fossil fuel companies that want security of Syrian oil, Iraqi oil, Venezuelan oil, and you name it. So those are not in the best interest of the American people because those dollars are not going into our pockets. It is actually going into the these corporations. And if we have true democracy, we hold those people to account. And we have democracy, don't get me wrong. We have democracy. We have a type of democracy. Absolutely. Because I'm sure people are going to go, but we have democracy here. We do. We have a type of democracy here. I think we're both in agreement. Absolutely. Yeah. We need a system upgrade. We need a system upgrade. We need a reboot. Absolutely. And we need to go back to the basics where founding fathers had said people should be in charge, not corporations, not factions. All right. So then here's the question. Yeah. Is and I know I'm I'm I because are those factions or that elite or whatever the names we want to use for them, if the power is in the hands of the people, and we've had days and we've had evidence of this, if the power is in the hands of the people, like the you know, like the de falling of the Berlin Wall, like the uprisings in China and Tiananmen Square, like even though some of them are crushed, is the power to the people just too terrifying for countries to have democracy? Are we always gonna have dictators because the power of the people, we just can't trust them? Well, don't be misled, but don't be misled by what the media is the narrative being created by media. Okay, we need critical thinking. Let's just not have a big party, right? Power is most dangerous when it's concentrated, when it's dispersed, it is not dangerous. I have not answered your first question, I would like to deal with that point, if I may, absolutely. That's right, because you were you were saying you were you were postponing the question like a good politician, but you're back on it now. But I'm ready. So take a place like Syria where there is Alevis, Sunnis as a sectarian problem, there is uh there is Arabs, there is Druze, there is different factions, different people, different sects of religions, and what have you. Correct. Now under Assad, Bashar al-Assad, the minority was dominating, if you like, the rest of the population. Correct. And now we've got the other way around. Correct. But under no party democracy, if we have a a legislature being filled by every group, every faction, every people that are represented in that legislature, they have a say. Now these people will set up their institutions. Now they will not be in war because one's not trying to rule over the other. They are cooperating and respecting one another. They both have a say in their own governance, or they all have a say in their governance, and universally accepted democratic norms and institutions would apply globally so that nobody can be unfairly treated, everybody will be equal in the eyes of the law and so on and so forth, and they'll have a an independent judiciary, and and and you name it. But if we have all these people have a say in the governance and in their on their feature, then what we don't have is these different groups, these different armed forces, these different sectarian violences, because they're all representative. And guess what? Now the proxy war becomes much more difficult. Gotcha. Okay. So, yes, institutions will come because American institutions, British institutions did not happen before democracy. Democracy has got to come, and these institutions and constitution needs to be written equally. Everybody have a participation and say in how they are governed and how their features are determined. So now we can come back to your latter questions now that we've dealt with the lesser developed countries. Right, we did the homework, yeah. Yes, yes. So democracy is universal and it will apply to any and every country, respecting cultural differences, okay, but putting power back with the people, and this is how we are going to prevent major human catastrophes. Because what's in Libya, what's in Syria, what's in Sudan, these are not natural disasters, these are not hurricanes or flooding, these are man-made geopolitical disasters. Disasters, exactly. And you guys are running up and down the world to trying to reach everybody as much as you can, right, to try to minimize impact on civilian livelihoods. But we're not going to the source of the problem, which is another thing you had brought up. So we're buckshot, kind of splattering ourselves all over the place to try and make the world a better place. And yet I always talk about here on the show that when all is said and done, people want food, shelter, clothing, and to know their family is safe. If you ask, if we really boil down to it, you know, and then we can throw in human dignity and we can throw, but they want food, shelter, clothing, and their family to be safe. That is what everybody needs. Absolutely correct. And the picture we're seeing today has not happened in vacuum. We had colonialism. Right. The riches have been extracted from these countries by the colonial rule. Belgium in Congo, you name it France in Algeria, Britain, all the way across the India. But the system, colonial system may have come to an end, but exploitation hasn't. Right. The footprint is still there. Correct. But the the yeah, and and colonialism ended, but exploitation is done by China as well, is done by Russia as well, by these superpowers. So it's it's just exploitation and taking extractions out. I mean, DCR is not a poor country, they're very resource-rich country. Libya is not a poor country, they've got all that fuel. They were Venezuela is not a poor country. Absolutely. So we need to go to the root causes and deal with the root causes, otherwise, good people like yourself will just stress yourselves out and become depressed because you're not going to be able to cope with the problems. Yeah, and and and just a couple more questions for you because you kind of nailed it on the head right there, because you hit the nail on the head. Because I know there's people that are that are watching and listening to this and saying, okay, but you you've pointed out the problem, but you know, you're also talking about freeing those chains of democracy. And we have this blueprint, this taking away the the Democrat, Republican, the Muslim, Christian, the Jew, the fraction, all that kind of stuff. Is there hope in this book?

Grassroots Hope And A Democracy Tax

56:31

I mean, is there a way that after we read this book that you know the fans of the show are not gonna sit there and go, well, here's how we could fix it, but is that just a type dream? Is that just pixie dust and unicorns to even attempt to do something like this? What I would like to say on that point is that women have only got their voting rights in 1920. Yeah. American democracy is 250 years old. It came over two century and a half later. And for that 150 years, people were saying, well, that's a dream for women to have now, they should be in the house and uh uh look after the house, look after the kids. Cooking, cleaning, taking care of the kids, don't think you shouldn't own any property, right? Correct. So what seems as a dream or unrealistic is only in perception. In reality, it is possible, and I'm hopeful that it is possible within our lifetimes. All we need to do is get the message across to the masses and say to these people, guys, let's just have a look at this. Forget our divisions, forget that a Republican or a Democrat is an existential threat. No, this is artificial, this is made by the media, this is fueled by the parties. We are not different, not that different. We want the best for our countries, we want the best for the humanity. So let's set aside our differences. Have you watched the series called Squid Game? No, but it's on my South Korean series. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So they in that series they point finger at each other, but not to the people who pull the strings. So, as Democrats and Republicans, which is by the way, in the minority in America, right? It is 45% of the American adults don't identify with either party, Democrats or the Republicans, they're independent. So those people need to use their vote carefully, they need to not legitimize the parties, they need to vote for independent. We gotta come from the grassroots. If the message spreads, there's all these super PACs that flood money into politics and basically makes candidates viable or not viable in primaries. If we set up a super PAC, democracy super PAC, people super PAC, and we start getting few independents into the legislature, that will tilt the balance because the margin is so small between the two parties. Then we will have a real say, then we'll open this up to a debate, but it's people we've got to take our heads out of the sand and try to take action now, action to impact, like you said, as individuals we have a responsibility. That is the reason I've written the book. That's why that's one of the questions you've asked me earlier as to why. Yeah, why why would you why would you want to write a book on democracy? Yeah. I've been fortunate enough to be successful in business. I've done well enough for myself and my family. I did not need to, but I have a conscience, and I want people to have a fair chance in life. I came from a working background, so I want everybody to have a fair chance to become the best of what they can become. And I want a fairer society, a fairer world, and that's why we've done it. But the power lies with the people. People had brought down kingdoms, people had brought down Berlin Wall, as wall, as you've said. Yeah. So people can upgrade our democracy to a truly representative democracy and take money out of politics a little bit. There is uh another suggestion that I've put in the book that we should have a democracy tax. Ooh, that's a good way to end the show. What is a democracy tax? Because I can already tell people are going, oh no way, no way. So you're gonna tax my democracy? Well, quite the opposite. Democracy is critical infrastructure, it's precious. It's like our railroads, it's like our airports, our bridges, our everything. Absolutely, it's a critical infrastructure. We cannot allow the democracy to be hijacked. So when people inject millions into this, into this political sway, into this political buying favors, that's not participation. You donate $100, I donate $500, somebody else donates $5,000. That is participation in the democracy. But when it goes into millions, that's not participation, that's buying influence. So we should tax that donations, that big money going into politics. And we should tax it progressively. If you are donating 1 million pounds, let's say it's taxed at 30%. But if it goes to 10 million, let's do it not at 30, do it at 40. If it goes to 100 million, let's do it at 50 percent, and use that money to level the playing field so we've got genuine representatives that can come and represent us properly. Whoa, okay, now that's that I'm sure is gonna make people think because that's just crazy enough that it might be a damn good idea.

Final Warning And Listener Calls To Act

1:03:09

Met and Perkin, wow, the book everybody is called Breaking Democracy's Chains. Go out and get it wherever you get your books. And uh I I do believe there is peace through democracy. I do not believe it is much like our justice system, it ain't perfect. But I I, you know, I don't I don't need a guillotine like the French had to go through, and we don't need, you know, the British monarchy had their issues. And so far, all we've had pretty much is a is a 9-11 and a January 6th and a civil war. So, in the grand scheme of things in 250 years, we've done okay, but uh we have our own scars and bruises too. Meton, thank you so much for being on the show. It has been an honor, such a great conversation. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. The honor is all mine, and one final word. Please, please, please do not take democracy for granted. Like you've said, people, founding fathers, and people before them had paid for this freedom with their lives. They paid the ultimate price. The least we can do is to protect it and advance it and make sure it functions correctly. Amen, my friend. Amen. Thank you so, so much. So, I'm gonna ask you the same questions that I asked when I put this up on YouTube this week. Did you like what you heard? Did you not like what you heard? Did it make you happy and inspired? Did it piss you off? Yeah, that's right, my words. I hope it did all that. Because it did me. I found a lot of what Matt said really fascinating. I also found in the back of my head going, yeah, right. Like that's never gonna get happening. Money out of politics. We'll vote for everybody. Come on! But you know what? I love the idea. Love the idea. What it happened? Why not? And and why not start with just the conversation? Which is what this book is all about. Hey, I'll throw out that title for you one more time. Breaking Democracy. Look at that. Matt Parkin is the author. I think he's got some really interesting ideas. Politics can be beautiful, politics can bring down walls and unite north and south, and politics can rip us apart. But when all is said and done, we have the right to decide which way are politics way. From monarchy to dictatorships to presidential elections, it can and should be in our hands. Well, as always, I want to thank you for tuning in to the Action to Impact Show. Please tell a friend about the show, subscribe, and of course check us out on YouTube. And if you know somebody that's turning their actions into impact, I want to know about it. Send me an email at Rotarianpod at gmail.com. Also, don't be afraid to check out some of the other podcasts in our Rotary World. Rotary Voices is produced by Rotary International, and they put on a pretty darn good show too. Last but not least, the action impact show hits the road, and we are able to go just about anywhere. Rotary andor people turning their actions into impact or. So again, that same email, RotarianPod at gmail.com. If you'd like the Action Impact Show to show up in your neighborhood, shoot me an email. Let's talk about it. Until next week, take care of yourself and the world around you, and we'll hear you next time on the Action Impact Show with me, Wendy. Have a great week, everybody. We'll talk to you soon.