Etienne Chouard. — Part II (Lyon Conference) Mars 2012 - "Is Democracy a trap ? " Roots of our political impotency.

PARTIE II : Putting words back in place.
Our political actords, the greater good and the interest of the banks. - 1% and 99% - Elections - Democracy ? - Democracy or representative government. - Designating masters. - The constitution: the problem and the solution. - Shame. - 1789, bishop Sieyès. - Henri Guillemin. - Look for the root of causes.

Etienne Chouard, independant researcher.
Conference in Lyon, on March 9th 2012. MJC St Just.
"Is Democracy a trap, an illusion ?"

Cadre & montage : Matthieu Wadoux — [e-mail]
English translation : Dorian Faucon - [e-mail]

So if we take things by starting with what is real, starting with what we have nowadays to see how to ingrave

this constitutional work into reality. What we should need, before even discussing it,

is to put some works back in their place. Almost all words, in matters of politics,

have been put upside down. So if we observe reality... Right now, it's easier because

it's almost a joke. What we see right now is that our political actors,

by pretending, crying out, pretending to serve the greater good...

Our political actords today - and you can see this more in Greece than in France,

but we'll have it coming to our doorstep in France soon enough - Our political actors serve

in top priority the interest of banks before the interest of people. When it comes to us,

money is never available, but for the banks you just manage to have enormous quantities, thousands of billions

for the banks; and not even millions for normal people. By that I mean everyone!

The 99%. So up to now, I was saying "the rich" and "the poor" and that poses a problem because

you never put yourself in the shoes of a rich or a poor. We don't want to be a rich,

we don't wnt to ... And it's true, you'll always be richer than someone else, but when I say "rich",

I'm thinking of the ultra-rich, the 1%. The 1% is a better way of pointing what I mean. When you hear me say "rich",

go ahead and think 1%. It's clearer that way. And that's because a very very small part

of the population is aimed at when I say the "rich". And when I say "the poor",

I'm talking about us. And of course, we don't want to call ourselves the poor because that poses a problem as

a word. It says what it means but there is something

that is awkard about it. So if I say 99%, we understand better.

When I say 99%, I mean us. Us all. So what I'm observing almost as a sad joke,

and I won't develop because there are enough examples for you to agree with me, but if you find

that I'm wrong or exagerating, we can talk about it. But it seems to me that

the governments, the political actors of today, follow as top priority the interest of the 1%

rather than that of the 99%. It's said nicely but I could say it with a lot more anger. How come we have this situation?

And still, we are told, and repeatidly every day, that we are in Democracy... I'm going to start with words here.

We are told every day that we live in a democracy. I'm not exagerating. I've been told,

as you have, since I was a child, a very small child, that: "Election = Democracy, my child"

"Democracy = Election. Repeat after me. Election = Democracy, Democracy = Election". Then, at school

I learn: "Democracy equals election, election equals democracy". In high school as in university

in Law as well, I learn that Democracy = Election, Election = Democracy. On TV, I hear

of democracy, therefore election. Election therefore democracy, in the newspaper, in books.

At home, I must have about 400 or 500 books on democracy. 90% or 95% of them

don't talk of democracy. They talk about representative governments, so they talk

about our actual regime: so-called representative government. That is the real name

of our government. It's not at all a democracy.

So, Democracy... 200 years ago, every one knew what it was.

And for over 2500 years, everyone knew very well what a democracy was.

Demos Kratos (NT: Greek), it's the power of the people. It's the people themselves who vote their own laws.

Democracy is a regime, and it's not not necessarily the best. For now, I'm just doing vocabulary

to put words back in place. If a word is upside down, it poses a real problem

to actually find a solution. This is imporant. So democracy, demos kratos,

is a political regime in which the people write the rules to which they will submit.

The people wields the power that it accepts. It has existed in the world, but it has existed

at only one give moment in Human History, that I know of. There might be small exceptions,

and I'm open to hearing from others, I'm interested in them, but there has been one large period

in the life of men as we know it where men have organised themselves

to produce their own law under which to submit. It's Athens. Athens 2500 years ago.

Those people used for 200 years the random draw.

- Every day and every morning, they randomnly drew people - and we must go into the details to understand

how this is possible. Since we weren't taught this in school and we can't count on

our elected representatives to teach us this system, because it would put them out of work. They don't like it at all,

They say: "You're a populist, you're... stop it, you're pulling my ear."

So they just won't listen and you can't expect journalists or parlementarians

to defend this idea that I'm defending. We must talk amongst ourselves.

When we talk between us, we who have submitted to power, and we who don't want to rule at all,

we understand and listen. Democracy should be demos kratos.

The power to the people. Citizen should be member of an autonomous democracy,

that autonomous person that produces himself the law to which he submits. We're not autonomous, if we are

heteronomous, that is that we are force fed the law

written by someone else. And that's precisely our situation today.

I'm not exagerating. I'm sure you could say the same that I am declaring,

there's no difficulty here. What is the regime ? What are the powers that the humans

- and I'm not talking about voters, citizens-, that the human beings in the actual regime wrongly called democracy have?

What powers are left to us? We have the right, every five years, to designate

political masters who are going to decide instead of us for five years.

They'll decide everything for us. I'm not exagerating. When is the last time you voted a law?

They are the ones voting the laws, not you. So every five years, we designate political masters

amongst people we haven't even chosen. I see clearly around me people

that I don't fear and that I beleive more valourous, who'd be much better at writting laws, but it's not them

that I'm allowed to choose. The choice I have is people that I have clearly not chosen.

This is typically a false choice to let me choose between two dreadful people. At least, two persons

that I haven't chosen. And for these five years...
Alright, they don't have to be dreadful,

they can be good people, but I have absolutly no garantee.

So for five years where these masters decide everything for me, I have absolutly no resort if,

in a purely theoretical case, but that could be a true possibility,

where they abuse of their power, where they lie, where they betray their promises.

It's something that can happen. We've seen it that people get elected on promises

that they don't respect, or even do the opposite of what they first promised.

It's not only theoretical, it's a plausible reality. And in the case where it happens,

we have, and I choose my words, and I'm going slowly because this is a strong point,

we have no institutional means of resisting against this abuse of power for five years.

We're kindly asked to be happy with the fact that our only resort, poor children, is to not re-elect these awful people

who lied to us for five years. Lied or betrayed. Talk about a punishment! And in the end, after five years,

you'll kick out those you're unhappy about because they betrayed you, but now you have the choice between

him or the traitor of five years back that you kicked out because he betrayed you five years ago,

and you just have to take him again because you have no choice but those two ! Am I really exagerating or not ?

I don't think I am, I beleive we are in this case.

There can be outsiders who could normally, if we weren't foolish,

save us. It's our fault in the end: we vote for those dreadful people,

always the same ones! It's true isn't it ? The fact is that for over 200 years, because it's been 200 years

that representative gouvernment exists, since the French Revolution of 1789.

1776 concerning the United States, so it's approximately two centuries of "Universal Suffrage" practicing.

This "universal suffrage" is what I've been talking about. We have the right to designate

masters amongst people that we have not chosen and with no way to resist

when they don't do what they promised to do or what was expected of them. "Rats! We got the wrong one!"

Well you got it wrong, too bad, you'll just have to take the abuse for five years. And there are no means

of resistance. So "Universal suffrage"...I imagined something else. If it had sense, universal suffrage would have us here...

Here, we're in Lyon and we are in the fifth district. We would be the assembly

of the fifth district of Lyon and we would vote our laws. So people are randomnly picked and they get to prepare

the laws on the topics of the agenda. We know about it because the agenda is available, so we are a little prepared for it.

We're 6000. We're not going to debate anything with 6000, but we prepared the subject and we'll vote.

We don't debate during the Assembly, but we vote. We'll say "I agree on this; I don't agree on that part".

And that Universal Suffrage... or at least that's what real universal suffrage

in a real democracy should be. So sometimes I'll talk about "Universal Suffrage"

with quotation marks: that's the one we have today. Same goes for "Democracy" with quotation marks: the one of today.

And when I'll talk about real democracy, I'll talk about democracy

and universal suffrage, but the ones that are worthy of the name. Today, we see governments

who don't serve the greater good, who serve the interests of a small cast. A tiny cast,

ultra-rich. We see that we can't resist and that actually, rather than democracy,

we have almost no other power than that of choosing our masters. You'll agree with me that it's

not even the minimum we could ask for. We are very far from the meaning of the word democracy.

All this isn't a divine law, it's not inevitable. Yes, that's how it is

all around the world, that's true. There's worst, mind you, there are dictatorships: that's worse.

I know that. But don't tell me we get to choose between an awful dictatorship,

a military one where we throw people in jail, we torture them; and a representative government

where banks sentence us to hard labor. There are other alternatives.

There are other possibilities, truely! And still, in every country in the world,

and this for the last 200 years, the Constitutions are the texts in which are programmed

our impotency. So it's not fallen from the sky, our impotency is written somewhere.

The fact that we can elect masters between people that we haven't chosen and against whom

we can't do anything if we're unhappy -that's our actual situation- is written somewhere.

It's written somewhere. In a text, highly important, and no one cares about it.

We have here the probem and the solution at the same time. The day we stop not caring about it,

it will change everything. For multiple reasons. We'll talk more about it later when we'll talk of

solutions, but for multiple reasons.

There are many reasons why we can be optimistic about it.

It will even gather us. Right now, we're split up. This is something simple for which

we have to fight fo. I'll talk more about it at the end. So why is it

that in all the Constitutions of the World, we see this impotency of the people programmed, give or take small exceptions?

In Switzerland, they're not as politically impotent. They still have elections with false choices

but they have a weapon we don't have and that exists in a couple other countries as well. We should know about it,

and it's called "Citizens' initiative referendum". No everyone knows what this is,

and still, the words say it all. Citizens' initiative referendum.

I'll give you an example. You'll understand quickly with it. Last year,

our parlementarians started to destroy our pensions. There are other debats

on another subject. Here, we're talking about democracy but there is a conference about debt and financing the economy.

And financing the economy and it's relation to pensions. In that conference, I go into the details about it all.

Tonight, I don't have the time, unless you have questions on it of course, in

which case we'll talk about it. So last year, our parlementarians, people who represent us,

people we elected, our masters... It rings more clearly when we say our masters instead of our elected representatives

Our masters started destroying our pension system, expanding the

retirement age to 62, but you know the objective is 70, 72, 74. They started

and went to 62. What could we do to resist? We all marched out on the streets, we were millions.

And they don't care! That's clear, they really don't care. Before we had political actors

who had a bit of shame. It's important, the word "shame". I'm leaving

my thread again, sorry, but "shame" is a real important word. A word

that I have rediscovered. We all know what shame is, more or less...

and there is a small book "Democracy" by Bruno Bernardi, really good,

and light too so you can always keep it in your pocket, in which I have found... let me read it to you.

I'll just read an extract: "Shame, it's the importance

that we give to other peoples' opinion." So there are people who have shame, who are bothered

when others have a reproving stare on them. There are people who want to give their best

for the greater good when there is a thankful and encouraging environment to carry them.

Those people know shame. It's good for the people, it's good for us to be able to live together. On the other hand, those who have no shame

those who attach no importance to opinions of others, who don't care

that we become angry, that we reprove their action. They really don't care.

They know no shame. You can be grateful or ungrateful, it doesn't matter,

it's not their problem. That's not driving them, it's something else. So I'll tell you what Plato

explained in the "Protagoras". And this is Zeus doing the talking: "And Zeus answered..."

Let me skip that. We'd have to read it whole but I'll just read the part that I'm interested in.

"That we put to death like a plague of the city, the man who shows himself incapable of taking part

to shame and justice." I'll give you that they were a bit brutal back then, we don't have to do the same

today. But we can at least be careful in our choice of people who represent us

or the people we listen to. We should learn this in school. First, develop

our shame, that is giving importance to the opinion of others and then use this criteria

- does he have shame or doesn't he? Does he know empathy or not? Is he capable

of putting himself in some elses' shoes?- in our evaluation of people. Right now,

I don't know if you noticed, but to do politics and to become President of the Republic,

you don't need anything, no diploma either. There are no exams, nothing.

We haven't checked anything. We just checked that he is the best liar, the toughest, the best

backstabber, the traitor who is capable to kill off his friends to become leader of the party

who'll bring him to power. Finally, this system of filters in our parties, it works as if

it was giving us the worst. It's an impression. I won't talk more about it because I don't want to seem like I beleive in a conspiracy or I am paranoid.

How do they say it? Conspirationist. Anyhow. I was talking about shame.

When I leave my thread, I just loose it. I was talking about the Swiss, the retirement,

Ah yes! Thank you! I'm lucky to have you as audience. So our elected representatives, our masters, who had rigoursly no shame

when just a year before, they said "We won't touch the pensions". Our President of the Republic (NT: Nicolas Sarkozy)

a year before said "No, it's out of the question to touch the retirement pensions,

you hear me? It's out of the question, you didn't elect me to,

so I won't touch it." The year after that, he just busts it all wide open.

He puts retirement age at 62 years and it's growing worse.

What can we do against it? Nothing! We go in the streets and protest, talk, debate and nothing happens. It's not a democracy.

It's a representative government, or at least so called representative...

I'm on strike against the word democracy. Let me quote

Sieyès, because I'll soon hear: "It's just that it got worse; It was a democracy at start,

and then, slowly, we had problems, and we couldn't keep it up. We couldn't keep up

the quality of the regime." I'm looking for my document to quote Sieyès.

It's just not true. It was never a democracy to start with. Not at all.

Really quite the contrary. At the begining, they all knew it was a democracy. Sieyès knew it well.

Sieyes was a bishop in 1789 and is one of the greatest thinkers of the French Revolution.

One how wrote: "What is the Estates of the realm" (NT: the commoners)?

Back then, there was the king, then the nobles who were forbidden to work.

So they didn't work at all, never. There was the clergy and they

didn't work either. They prayed. Those people had power and had all the priveleges,

and there were the others. So that's the Estates of the realm.

He never really talked about the Estates of the realm, but of the 1% inside of the commoners. It's entirely different.

To understand the French Revolution, you need to see that it was created by 1% of the commoners.

So very rich people who were fed up of seeing the king, the nobles

and the clergy hold all the power when they didn't even have money. They were poor

by comparison. When they were becore more and more rich and they wanted power.

And so they organised famines and that's what they called the wheat wars, the flour wars,

two or three years before the French Revolution. This was to push the people

so that they couldn't bare it and say "Enough". That they reject and rise against the old powers

to take their place. That's what happened and Sieyès who was a thinker, not a representative, but who talked

in the name of the people... As Talleyrand, scoundrel, said: "Agitate the folk

before using them." I'm leaving my thread again. I say that scoundrel

because I'm listening to Guillemin, Henri Guillemin. You need to write the name down.

You need to discover Henri Guillemin. Look on Internet, it's easy.

Look for "Henri Guillemin - Napoléon" or "Henri Guillemin - The Commune" or "Henri Guillemin - 1914 - 1918"

or "Henri Guillemin - 1939 - 1945". It's almost like a

documentary. It's an old man, who was French I beleive

but who lived in Switzerland. You'll love it. It's a man

of loyaulty, of honesty, of kindness. A perfect man.

A worker too, he knows what he talks about and defends the caryatid. Caryatid, that's us, the people,

the people who work, the 99% who carry it all. Caryatids are the statues who carry

and who carry all the others, the nobles, the clergy, the prince and then the 1% who took the power in 1789.

He explains in short TV conferences of

30 minutes. You can listen to it in your car if you download them.

You don't have to watch, you can just listen. So in the car, it's a good deal

to listen to conferences. I recommend it. It's slightly difficult to download and to put it on a machine

and to plug it all. You have to invest a bit for it all to work, but it's worth it,

because it turns a 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours drives

into nothing. It's a wonder. So listen to Guillemin and he'll explain

the creation of the representative government. That is the regime we are living in today.

He'll explain how Napoleon Bonaparte murders the French Revolution and kills all the hopes of the people

born in the time of Robespierre. During 1792-1794, two short years where the people were defended

And then it's over and it's the start of the counter-revolution with the bourgeois republic (NT: aristocratic)

The Republic of the rich for the rich. It almost sounds like a marxist slogan

or anarchist. I'm using the name tags, the infamous name tags that are

used to say: "They're all the same!" I know how it sounds but listen to Guillemin, you'll see.

He's not marxist at all, he's a christian, not a marxist. And he gives

a thousand of examples that can't be proven wrong and let you understand who's been ruling for the last 200 years

of this so-called democracy that isn't at all a democracy. With Guillemin, you'll see that there

is almost no exception. For 200 years, it has always been the rich

who make it rain or shine, even wars.

And when we went to get killed off, or when our parents got butchered, it wasn't

to defend land and country, not at all, far from it. It was for banks and business.

So just a quotation, and you'll see, it's worth it. And every day, I won't repeart it enough, all the books

remind you that today, we are in a democracy. That's twisting the word upside down.

They took the word "Democracy"; a beautiful word, an important word. In Athens for 200 years

by random draw, they lived in democracy. For 200 years, the 99% ruled

and the 1% never, not once, ruled! For 200 years in Athens,

in a real democracy. I'm not talking to make you loose your time with something that's not worth it.

There's a real stake here. Today, we are ruled by the 1% because we are Not in a democracy. And we accept

to call democracy a regime that's the root of the problem. If you use the solutions' name instead of the problems' name,

you stop yourself from expressing the solution. To even conceive it. We forbid ourselves of seeing the solution.

You see? It's really important this work on words. And today, they've managed the feat of putting democracy upside down.

To make us call democracy something that at start isn't a democracy at all.

It's important that I give you the weapons you'll need in discussions.

You'll see that when you leave here, they all beleive

that we are in a democracy. They strongly beleive it. It's only normal, for the last 50 years, they've been bashing us with:

"Democracy = Election. Election = Democracy"

"Here, that country left a tyranny and is now going into a democracy".

We are constantly reminded of it over the last decades. This leaves a deep mark on us.

You'll see that you need quite a while to desintoxicate yourselves. I honestly beleive

that this quote is worth a thick penny for your thoughts. So this is Sieyès speaking,

one of the great thinkers of French Revolution, and who won by ending it,

assassinating Robespierre, and putting a government for the rich afterwards

with the help of that scoundrel of Benjamin Constant,

that rascal of Talleyrand and that cuning thief of Napoleon. So what did Sieyès say?

This is what is written in the speach of 1789, so in plain sight and very very clearly,

as said by Bishop Sieyès: "France is not a democracy and shouldn't be..."

Wait, I got the wrong quote. Mind you, it's still a good one:

"The vast majority of our citizens have neither the education nor the leisure

to want to take care of the laws that must govern France directly. Their opinion is therefore

to nominate representatives." It's a good quote but I have a better one yet. Where did I put it?

So, Chouard, where did you put your quote now? I can't find it... But you'll see...

You'll just have to wait a little, but you'll see...

Doesn't it feel good when he stops ?

So it's another quote of Sieyès because he just expressed this idea in every possible way.

It's a refrain that varies... Here we go: "The citizens

who vote for representatives, who nominated themselves in the position of representative, renounce

and must renounce to make laws themselves. They have no particular will to impose laws." He's talking about the others here

because he knows that he is elected and that he is going to be writting the laws. "If the citizens dictated

their will, France would no longer be a representative state but it would be a democratic state.

The people, I repeat", this is still Sieyès talking, I promise, "in a country that is not

a democracy (and France shall not be one)", he can't say this more plainly, "the people cannot express,

cannot act, other than through their representatives."
At least, he's honest about it. Do you see how clear this is?

So basicly, when we are told that we are in a democracy, we are being mocked!

Elected representatives have put in place a system where we elect representatives : themselves.

They put in place a system that put them and no other in power. So we have futur elected

representatives, people who see themselves in the futur and who beleive they will be candidates

and will probably be elected, because at the time, the vast majority of France

is illeterate and there weren't that many candidates. So of course, they chose at the time

to go with elections. You can understand it partially

because at the time, since education wasn't what it is today,

there weren't many alternatives. You had to choose amongst a small elite that weren't many

at the time. We can understand that. If you see and listen to Guillemin,

you'll see that they put in place a system, but not right from start and only after Napoleon & the Restauration,

it was because they couldn't do it otherwise. They wanted to have the cake and eat it.

We're talking about millions, millions of the currency at the time. Huge sums

that needed to be taken from the cariatide (NT: the people). So how come, because this is just the example of France, that in

all the countries around the world, the Constitutions programm the weakness of the people?

-Almost everywhere. - Almost everywhere, yes. It's true, thanks.

It's not a conspiracy... it can't be a world wide conspiracy, at ever period over the last 200 years.

So no, it's not that, it must be something else. You must look for the reason and understand it.

If you understand the reason... You konw that indentifing a problem is already solving it half-way. If we find

the real reason, we're on the right path to solving our problems. It's even better than that.

Let me give you a method. I didn't invent it, I just nicked it from a great person. This person

was Hippocrates, so 2500 years ago. I think it was at the same time as Athens. Hippocrates,

a doctor, left us a smal sentence that I think, not important, but

extremely important and useful. A sentence that is now part of my mechanisms.

It's part of my intellectual thought process. This sentence of Hippocrates, who was a doctor,

this advice he left us was: "Look for the root of the causes". I will soon write in my office

aphorisms, great sentences, the ones who count. The really strong ones,

the most important ones. I discovered that Montaigne used to do this and I think it's a great idea.

If you put in your living room "No democracy without a random draw". The next time

you'll have guests over, they'll see the poster just above an aquarelle

with: "No democracy without a random draw". The next time you'll have friends over,

you'll see that you'll talk less about a recipe, of wine, of soccer, of people, of...

what they talk about on TV but we don't care about. "Why did you write that, there ?"

And you'll have a topic for a conversation that will be interesting.

So with the aphorisms that I'll put up, I think that amongst

the first, I'll but: "Look for the root of causes."