- by Stephen Lendman
6/25/07
In 1984 (a year of Orwellian significance), activist and media and social critic Edward Herman wrote one of his many important books titled "Demonstration Elections." In it, he analyzed the US-staged elections in the 1960s in the Dominican Republic and Vietnam and the 1982 one in El Salvador. In the book's Orwellian glossary of terms, he defined the process as "A circus held in a client state to assure the population of the home country that their intrusion is well received. The results are guaranteed by an adequate supply of bullets provided in advance (and freely used as necessary to achieve the desired outcome)."
This writer calls this ugly business "democracy-engineering, American-style" backed by force to win approval of a rigged process people would never accept another way. Noam Chomsky refers to the notion of "Keeping the Rabble in Line," the title of one of his many books. It can be through soft or hard methods to assure the public goes along with what governments want imposed.
Herman's main theme was that "elections held under conditions of military occupation and extensive pre-election 'pacification' " aren't free at all but aim to get an occupying force's puppet choice accepted by the people it's installed to rule with influence wielded more by bullets than ballots to create "stability." Herman defines that term, too, as "a political arrangement free of open warfare and satisfactory to our interests." By that he means the "rabble" is cowed, induced or pummeled into submission…
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