Democracy deficit

In a crisis of confidence in the American depression the ‘History Matters’ website reminds us that the “Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself”, the words of
FDR in his First Inaugural Address in the 1932 presidential election. The sun had not failed, the land was still productive but the ‘mechanics’ of the economy had collapsed in a crisis of financial and business confidence.

The (Melbourne) Age editorial in its last day of 2010, ‘Democracy deficit puts the world’s leaders on edge’, highlights the major governments around the world at loggerheads with their people, unable, in the context of many serious problems, to effectively govern – expressing a crisis of confidence in our ‘democratic’ institutions.

Fear is destructive and cruel, debasing instead of uplifting mankind to higher aspirations of cooperative achievement. We need the cooperation of courage and vision to lift us out of the fear and uncertainty caused by the evident flaws in the present modes of government.