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We're going to something a little different and to try to explain what this country is fighting with itself about, what are the lines that divide us?

It's pretty obviously not the old partisan divide that the rest of us grew up with Republican versus Democrat. You figured that out now. You look over the Democratic side, you see Rashida Tlaib. You're pretty certain she's not on your side, obviously. But then the question is, is Mitch McConnell on your side? And the answer, as you well know, is, no, not really. So what divides us? What is the dividing line? And it's really simple.

The people in charge are intent on replacing our free democratic system with an authoritarian system where they don't convince you of anything. They simply make you do things and they benefit from that. There are people in this country who are opposed to that, they are anti-authoritarian. And if you look at who we book on this show, that may explain why we do it. You may have noticed we have a lot of former lefties on the show. Glenn Greenwald is the most obvious. Alex Berenson as well. And many others.

Now, we probably don't agree with these people on a lot of things. Are we on the same side on abortion? We've never asked. But one thing we know for certain is that they are totally opposed to authoritarianism. So that really is the divide. People are for an authoritarian America and those who are for a free America. It's that simple. And once you start to understand politics through that lens, you figure out what's really going on.

By the way, looking at polls, is an unusually bad way to understand what's happening in American politics? Polls are often wrong and when they are wrong, they're almost always wrong in the same directionthe last presidential election made that very clear. The polling outfit Quinnipiac, for example, which is attached to some kind of college in Connecticut, predicted that Joe Biden would win the popular vote by 11 points. It also predicted that Mitch McConnell was in tough shape in Kentucky. Pollsters even convinced a lot of Democratic Party donors that they had a real shot of winning the state of Texas. In retrospect, it's clear all of this was partisan fantasy and it had a purpose. It was all designed to make a mentally decaying senator from Delaware look like Teddy Roosevelt riding a massive wave of popular support. Of course, that was a lie.

So once you understand that once you recognize what these polls are actually designed to do. They're designed to put Democratic Party leaders in the best possible light. It is worth noting when the polls move in the opposite direction. When they start to reflect badly on the Democratic Party. That's been happening over the past several weeks. According again to Quinnipiac, a reliably Left-Wing pollster, Joe Biden's national approval rating is now 38 percent. 60 percent of independents disapprove of what Joe Biden is doing as president. A new AP poll noted that just 34 percent of Americans are pleased with the direction of the country. That's called the right track wrong track poll. And for the party in power, it is very bad news.

PSAKI GRILLED ON BIDEN'S REALLY TERRIBLE POLLS, BLAMES DELTA VARIANT, UNVACCINATED AMERICANS

This means that the very same people who just last year lied to you to your face about how popular Joe Biden was are now admitting that he is actually the least popular president in modern political history. Why are they telling you this all of a sudden? Why are these reliably Democratic pollsters telling Democratic voters that their president is unpopular? Maybe because they have no choice. Maybe there are other reasons, we're not sure. What is absolutely clear is that, according to a new poll from Pew, Democratic Party, voters understand what this means and what it means is in a free and fair democratic system, they can't win.

If we allocate power based on who's the most popular with the public and that's the basic premise of democracy, the Democratic Party is in very tough shape and they know that. And that may be why, according to polls, Democrats now overwhelmingly want the government to make their political opponents shut up. More than three-quarters of Democratic Party voters want the tech companies to "restrict false information online, even if it limits freedom of information." Think about that for a second. More than 60 percent of Democratic voters want the federal government to "control that flow of information over the internet."

So all of that contravenes the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights, which is the very core of our system of government and of our culture, it's what makes America great. And now the overwhelming majority of Democratic voters are against it.

So that's authoritarianism, there's no other word for it. And it's ironic considering for four years, prominent Democrats told us we were living through a fascist system. Donald Trump was a fascist. But of course, they were describing their own attitudes. So we're going to look at the rise of authoritarian impulses on the left and try to figure out where those came from and where they're going. Now, none of this is brand new. You'll recall that Democratic Party politicians have been pushing for censorship for a long time, certainly since Trump won in 2016. They blame that victory on Facebook. Here's Ed Markey in last October, for example, calling for more censorship.

Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass: The issue is not that the companies before us today are taking too many posts down. The issue is that theyre leaving too many dangerous posts up. In fact, amplifying harmful content so that it spreads like wildfire and torches our democracy.

Oh, they're not censoring enough because these posts, according to Ed Markey, who will literally say anything you should know, are, quote, dangerous. But Markey never explained what was dangerous about them. But you got the message they all did. A few weeks after Markey said that Big Tech effectively removed the elected president of the United States from the internet, they silenced him completely and virtually nobody said anything about it. So it didn't stop, it merely accelerated. Now, Democrats and their allies in the news media have decided to drop all pretense.

GREENWALD: FACEBOOK WHISTLEBLOWER IS BEING EMBRACED BY LIBERALS INTENT ON CONTROLLING POLITICAL DISCOURSE

Jonathan Chait writes for New York Magazine. He's considered smart on the left, one of the weirdest people practicing journalism today. He just published a deeply revealing piece in New York magazine. Here's the headline from it and we're quoting "Anybody fighting Joe Biden is helping Trump's next coup. All Republican politics is now functionally authoritarian." Right, because Republicans are calling for censorship. So that's how the Democratic Party is responding to the collapsing poll numbers of their president. They're accusing the other side of authoritarianism while practicing it themselves. Right.

So you'll recall that Joe Biden voters destroyed statues and destroyed our country's biggest cities for more than a year, and the police did nothing about it. And our media class applauded. And yet, because justice is no longer meted out equally if someone dares to dishonor the legacy of St. George Floyd, the New York Police Department Special Hate Crimes Division springs into action. Here's an actual quote, by the way, from this week on October 3rd, 2021 at approximately 10:15 a.m. in Union Square Park, a person on a skateboard threw gray paint on the face and base of a statue of George Floyd. That's the NYPD bulletin. Information, contact us!

So that's not really hypocrisy anymore, it's hierarchy. What they're telling you is that crimes against their ideas are the only crimes that matter. Well, that attitude has no popular support in this country, so you can only enforce it by force using surveillance to root out people who've got the wrong ideas. And that's exactly the basis on which the Biden administration is proceeding. That's why the administration has now given itself the authority to monitor everything that happens, for example, in your private bank account.

CNBCs Andrew Ross Sorkin: An effort that I know youre a proponent of for the IRS to collect more information and more tax dollars but more information about taxpayer bank accounts, including annual cash flows. I was curious whether you think the IRS has the wherewithal to actually do that.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen: Well of course they do. // And a simple way for the IRS to get sense of where that might be is just a few pieces of information about individuals bank accounts

Did you see that? The most interesting part of that exchange was not the Treasury secretary, she's embraced authoritarianism full-blown. It's the creepy little shill from CNBC. And the question is not does the IRS have the right to snoop into your bank account with no evidence you've done anything wrong? His question is, do they have the wherewithal, do they have the manpower? Can they actually pull it off? To what she says, of course, were the governmentwe can do anything.

WSJ EDITORIAL BOARD: THE IRS WANTS TO LOOK AT YOUR BANK ACCOUNT

So after January 6, this show reported that Bank of America "proactively" rooted through customers private financial information to find individuals who "met thresholds of interests." They spied on their own customers and then, like the good East Germans, they are, they passed those names to the FBI without telling anybody involved. The Democratic Party approves of this, and they want to make certain this kind of invasion of privacy is permanent. It's codified. And of course, they want to control your children to the center of your life. They'll destroy anyone who tries to stand in the way of this.

Bradley Keyes, for example, was a track and field coach at Pembroke Academy. He was fired because he didn't think it was good for his athletes to have to wear masks as they were playing tennis

Bradley Keyes, April 9: My goal is to get these mandates removed. And it's not just track and field. It's tennis. It is baseball. It's every outdoor sport. Masks will be worn at all times: practices and competitions. Tennis, wonderful example. Singles tennis. You go watch practices, everyone is wearing masks. Competitions, they will be wearing masks, even though they're 30 to 60 feet apart on the courts.

So we're going to tell you, we've told you a thousand times before, none of this is science. There's not a single study anywhere in the world that suggests kids benefit by wearing masks as they play sports outdoors. In fact, they are hurt by it. That's both common sense and the scientific consensus on the question. But the fact is it's happening anyway, and that's the point. They don't feel the need to justify their decisions with science, and in fact, they will punish actual scientists who object to these unnecessary medical mandates.

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Aaron Kheriaty, for example, as a physician at the University of California, he's the director of the medical ethics program at UC Irvine. Not a small job. He's just announced the university has "Put me on leave for challenging their vaccine mandates in court." Oh, so it's not a question of whether vaccine mandates help or hurt or good for public health, it's about power. And anyone who challenges it is crushed. The weak are hurt the most profoundly, as always.

Here's the story we'll be telling you a lot more about it in the coming weeks about a woman in Colorado who is facing death. She's got stage five renal failure. She's just been denied a kidney transplant. Now she has a donor, a willing donor, who has a kidney for her. Everything is ready to go. But according to the health system there, the woman and her donor have not taken the COVID shot. The donor explained that her vaccination status "does not affect any other patient on the transplant list... How can I sit here" the donor asked, "and allow them to murder my friend when I've got a perfectly good kidney and I can save her life?" That's a great question. No one the Biden administration has bothered to answer or even think about it. Instead, they're forcing anyone who raises these questions to be quiet. That's not a democratic system. That's an authoritarian system.

This article is adapted from Tucker Carlson's opening commentary on the October 8, 2021 edition of "Tucker Carlson Tonight."

More:
Tucker Carlson: The people in charge are intent on replacing democracy with authoritarianism - Fox News

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) speaks during a pen-and-pad news conference at the US Capitol on October 8, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images)

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Senator Bernie Sanders wants the public to know that the fight to pass Democrats $3.5 trillion social spending bill isnt just about meeting the needs of working-class families and combating the climate crisisits about the future of American democracy and whether oligarchs will be successful in defeating a popular agenda.

In a pen-and-pad briefing with reporters on Friday, Sanders focused on the wealthy and powerful special interests spending hundreds of millions of dollars trying to defeat the bill, urging the Capitol Hill press corps to reconsider horse-race coverage and instead think about whats really at stake.

Do you live in a democratic society? Sanders said. What kind of society are you living in, where you have three paid lobbyists for every member of the United States Congress? And you got lobbying firms led by former Democratic leaders, Republican leaders working overtime to try to defeat this legislation.

And then, he added, you have the fossil fuel industry, the health care industry, and the wealthiest people in the country spending millions to defeat it.

He continued to criticize Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona for obstructing legislation that the American people, the president, and an overwhelming majority of the Democratic caucus want. When asked if he needs to sit down in a room with Manchin and Sinema to negotiate a deal that makes everyone happy, Sanders replied, I dont know if youre a movie writerthis is not a movie.

Sanders also reiterated that he will not accept anything less than $3.5 trillion for the budget package.

President Joe Biden has floated a plan with a price tag as high as $2.3 trillion, while Manchin has said $1.5 trillion is his limita figure the Congressional Progressive Caucus has called a nonstarter. So Democratic leaders are in the process of deciding which of the countrys most vulnerable people will be thrown under the bus, as they weigh dropping or drastically cutting a range of climate and social safety net programs from their spending package to try to placate two senators. Current Issue

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To bring the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill downand that $3.5 trillion figure represents a combination of spending and tax cuts over the course of 10 yearsthe White House is trying to figure out what Democrats should slash first: billions to alleviate homelessness, universal pre-kindergarten, free community college, dental benefits for seniors, free school lunches, and so on. Some initiatives may be dropped entirely, and many of the social programs Democrats campaigned on are in danger of being means-tested into oblivion.

Manchin, a coal baron who represents one of the poorest states in the country, opposes his partys reconciliation on the pretext of avoiding an entitlement society. But his entitlement rhetoric comes as he fights to preserve tax giveaways to the oil and gas industry, an industry to which he owes much of his personal and professional wealth. The West Virginia senator is reportedly demanding that his colleagues pick just one of the top three priorities in the spending billan expanded child tax credit, paid family medical leave, or subsidies for child care. Sinema, on the other hand, has been much less transparent about the specific policies she does and does not support. But Sanders refuses to go down any further on the spending total. I think we do the programs that we have outlined and we fund them generously, he said. Thats not a choice.

Sanders, as chair of the Senate Budget Committee, first proposed a plan to spend $6 trillion over a decadea package that included much of Bidens agenda. In late March, when the Biden administration was preparing to unveil its infrastructure plan, progressives and environmental groups were calling for $10 trillion in spending over the next decade for climate action alone.

Asked if hes worried that Democrats will ultimately walk away without passing anything at all, Sanders said he hopes thats not the case, but there is a chance. Is there a possibility, a horrible possibility, which would be so terrible for this country, that because two people refuse to do what 96 percent of the caucus wants, that nothing will happen? he said. There is that possibility, I think its a minimal possibility, but that possibility exists.

Excerpt from:
Bernie Sanders on the Corporate Threat to American Democracy - The Nation

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Editors note:This must-read essay from David Corn first appeared in his new newsletter,This Land.Given the ongoing efforts by Donald Trump and his followers to undermine American democracy and Davids spot-on analysis, we wanted to make sure as many readers as possible have a chance to see it. This Land is a newsletter written by David twice a week that provides behind-the-scenes stories about politics and media; his unvarnished take on the events of the day; film, books, television, and music recommendations; interactive audience features; and more. Subscribing costs just $5 a monthbut right now you can sign up for a free 30-day trial of This Land here.

President Joe Biden, I fear, may be screwing up. Not with the infrastructure bills. The current deliberations do look messy, but theres still plenty of time to concoct a compromise that expands education, health care, and other important social welfare programs and includes climate change action. Biden, though, might be miscalculating on another critical front: saving democracy.

As I and others havenoted, the nation is undergoing a crisis, with Donald Trump and his Republican comrades attempting to undermine democratic structures and norms to rig the system in their favor. For years, Republicans have tried to implement voter suppression schemes and have relied on gerrymandering (as Democrats often do) to gain a political advantage that would allow their minority party to exert majority control. Theyve been striving to create apolitical apartheid. And Trump and his devotees have supercharged this GOP effort with the Big Lie offensive and the seditious attack on the US Capitol, aiming to subvert democratic procedures to accommodate authoritarianism. Trumps never-ending assault on US electionsclaiming they are fraudulent unless they produce the results he seeksis poisoning the political culture. He wants his followers to believe democracy doesnt work, for then he (or others) can justify resorting to other means to grab and retain power.

And theres a Plan B: If you cant delegitimize the system, take it over. Trump loyalistsincluding QAnoners and other extremistsare signing upas precinct volunteers who can help pick poll workers and members of boards that oversee elections. That is, they are burrowing into the election system at the ground level. This is a scheme championed by Steve Bannon, the Trump adviser whomTrump pardoned. (Last week, Bannon, after speaking to a GOP social club about preparing for the next Republican administration,tolda reporter, If youre going to take over the administrative state anddeconstruct it, then you have to have shock troops prepared to take it over immediately.) A number of pro-Trump election denialists are nowattemptingto win secretary of state races; this will permit them to control the election apparatus in swing states. Meanwhile, Trumpsters promoting his election fraud disinformation are still pushing for sham audits inPennsylvania,Idaho, and elsewhere. And so far legislatures in 16 states have passed measures toshift election authoritiesfrom governors and secretaries of state to the legislatures, increasing the possibility of partisan wrangling over vote tallies.

Its a war on democracy. Trump has recruited the national Republican Party, local state officials, and a wide assortment of extremists for this battle.

After the election, Trump conspired with a handful of henchmen to try to overturn the election. He pressured officials at the Justice Department to declare the results corrupt. He leaned on state officials, especially in Georgia. He recruited a conservative constitutional lawyer, John Eastman, who drafted amemocontending that Vice President Mike Pence could nullify Bidens electoral vote victory. It was essentially a blueprint for a coup. (Pence didnt agree with Eastmans argument.) Trump incited a riot that had the potential to thwart Congress certification of Bidens win. He failed in these rearguardand largely behind-the-scenesactions, though he and his lieutenants came within inches of triggering an all-out constitutional crisis.

Now Trumps assault on the political system is out in the open. He denigrates the electoral system, and he has succeeded in convincing tens of millions of Americans that it cannot be trusted. A CNN poll last month found that78 percentof Republicans believe Biden did not win, and 54 percent said there is solid evidence of that. (There is not.) Moreover, Trumps continuing status as the leader of the Republican Partyand as its top contender for the 2024 presidential nominationsignals that the encouragement of violence to achieve a political end is widely excused, if not outright accepted, within GOP ranks. Only56 percentof Republicans say it is very important to find and prosecute 1/6 riotersa drop of 13 points since Marchand 57 percent note there has been too much attention paid to the attack.

This is a dangerous moment for the nation. As news coverage obsesses on the immediatethe tussle over the infrastructure bills on Capitol Hill, the rise in undocumented immigrants at the border, the debt ceiling dustup, the collapse of police reform negotiations, and so onthe media generally have failed to cover Trumps not-too-secret effort to break American democracy in a comprehensive fashion. The bogus audits draw attention, as do Trumps ceaseless and baseless claims of election fraud. But there is no overarching narrative focused on Trumps ongoing threat to democracy. This war in plain sight is not widely recognized.

Two weeks ago, Robert Kagan, a neoconservative who was a prominent cheerleader for the disastrous Iraq invasion, published a much-discussedpiecein theWashington Postdeclaring what some of us havepreviously pointed out: Our constitutional crisis is already here. Kagan opened by starkly observing, The United States is heading into its greatest political and constitutional crisis since the Civil War, with a reasonable chance over the next three to four years of incidents of mass violence, a breakdown of federal authority, and the division of the country into warring red and blue enclaves. Trump, he correctly noted, is driving this conflict. The former guy and his Republican allies, Kagan wrote, are actively preparing to ensure his victory [in 2024] by whatever means necessary. He warned that the stage is being set for chaos and [m]ost Americans and all but a handful of politicianshave refused to take this possibility seriously enough to try to prevent it.

That may well include Biden. The president in July did deliver a passionate speech defending voting rights andderidedRepublican voter suppression and election subversion efforts. He asked the GOP, Have you no shame? And hecalledpassing legislation to protect and expand voting rights a national imperative. But that was months ago, and Biden has not yet wholly engaged in this fight to preserve democracy. He has not told the people the full story: Trump is imperiling the foundation of the American political system. He has not brought attention to the menace at hand.

Only Biden has the standingthe megaphoneto fully sound the alarm and convey this distressing narrative to a wide audience of Americans. He needs to connect the dots for the public, to clearly identify the various interlocking aspects of this struggle, and to call out Trump and the Republicans for more than their obvious voter suppression billsto name what they are doing as a treacherous assault upon the republic.

There are certainly reasons why Biden might not want to leap into all-out combat against Trump and the GOP at this moment. As a candidate, he vowed to pursue compromise with the other side and to attempt to repair the partisan wounds of the country. Blasting Republicans as a clear and present danger to the United States would not be in sync with that theme. And Biden is hoping to preserve some degree of Republican support for at least one of his infrastructure measures. Perhaps he figures there will be time to ring this bell after he pockets a few more legislative victories and before the next election.

Yet Trump and his cultists have already gained ground in this fight, as Kagan detailed. Should Biden wait much longer, it could become too late. The Republicans are further ahead in their campaign to rig the system than the Democrats are in blocking them. Texas Republicans, for instance, are well into their latestgerrymandering spreeto diminish the voting power of communities of color. Enacting measures that bring much-needed programs to the public is vital for Biden and the Democrats. Before the midterm elections next year, they must demonstrate to voters they can deliver. But there is nothing more in the self-interest of Democrats than to thwart the Republican crusade to manipulate electoral machinery for their benefit.

Without a functioning democracy, it will be impossible to do much about the pressing matters the nation faces: climate change, income inequality, racial justice, future pandemics, and much more. The top priority of the president referenced in the presidential oath of office is to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. That is his chief obligation. Biden certainly takes this charge seriously. But the 46th president has yet to publicly reveal he realizes the scope of the all-out political warfare underway and that the fate of the United States depends upon the outcome.

The rest is here:
The Democracy Crisis: Could This Be Joe Biden's Big Mistake? Mother Jones - Mother Jones

Archaeological remains, studies of ancient texts push back the origin of democracy in India a lot before Greece and Rome

The Prime Minister of India asserted at the United Nations General Assembly that he comes from the land which is known as the Mother of Democracy. His very statement triggered a debate if India actually can be considered as the mother of Democracy.

But whatever the opinion one may own, with a given amount of empirical and textual pieces of evidence, it is impossible to deny that the idea of democracy was first practiced and theorised in India.

I look to inspect every probable shred of evidence around the origin of the idea of democracy.

Athenian Democracy and India in the same period

We are told that Greek, and more precisely, Athenian Democracy was the first form of direct democracy. The latest available records say that it came under Cleisthenes around 2.528 kya (thousand years ago) in Athens.

He is referred to as "the father of Athenian democracy". Aristotle mentions in his book VI, that Athenian Democracy had the feature to randomly select ordinary citizens to fill the few existing government administrative and judicial offices. The legislative assembly consisting of all Athenian citizens too existed. We are also told that all the eligible citizens were allowed to speak and vote in the assembly that had the role to set laws of the city-state.

But there is a catch here. It is important to clarify exactly who were the Athenian citizens? The citizenship didnt include women, slaves, foreigners, and youths below the age of military service.

While all the brackets are perfect but they not considering women and slaves gives an absolute notion of how the democracy of Athens insured non-democratic nature of itself. Athenian men believed that women were less intelligent than men and therefore, similarly to barbarians and slaves of the time. They were seen incapable of effectively participating and contributing to public discourse on political issues and affairs.

Perhaps that was the reason that when Greeks came in contact with Indians they were surprised to see the non-discriminatory form of democracy in and around the period of Alexander. Arrian writes in Indika about India in the period of Alexander that:

The Indians do not even use aliens as slaves, much less a countryman of their own.

Diodorus who is said to have visited India, around two centuries after Alexander talks that a high-level democracy of Indians existed and was peculiar to the Greeks. He too saw the difference of non-existent slavery.

And of course, women had a very respectable position in society in that period and earlier. The literature proves this case quite aptly. The thirty-seventh sarg of Ayodhya Kand (Ramayan), tells us that Sita was asked to sit on the throne by Vashistha in absence of Shri Ram. Even if one wants to reject this as mythology (although it is considered as Itihasa for Bhartiya Civilisation), the case is clear that for all practical purposes women saw a respectable position in society. In the same period when Athenian Democracy saw females as barbarians, Queen Mgvat of the Vatsa Mahajanapada ( oligarchic republics) ruled as proxy while her son Udayana was held captive by a rival king. And she was very well respected in society. While there were sanctions against the participation of women in the Athenian Democracy & deprivation of rights, pastamba Sutra (probably conceived in the same period) in Bharat says the following for females:

A man is not allowed to abandon his wife (A 1.28.19).

He permits daughters to inherit (A 2.14.4).

There can be no division of property between a husband and a wife because they are linked inextricably together and have joint custody of the property (A 2.29.3).

Thus, a wife may make gifts and use the family wealth on her own when her husband is away (A 2.12.1620).

Women are upholders of traditional lore, and pastamba tells his audience that they should learn some customs from women (A 2.15.9; 2.29.11).

It becomes clear from the above argument that not only democracy (Diodorus 2.39) existed in India in the period of the Athenian Democracy, but women had a very respectable position (unlike Athens where they were not considered even Athenian) and slavery remained an alien concept.

Now before dwelling deep into the Indic idea of democracy, let us first see what the latest researches have to say about proto-democracies.

Proto-Democracies

We have pieces of evidence of "governing by assembly" in ancient Phoenicians. One such piece of evidence is the story of an Egyptian trader who travelled north to the Phoenician around 3.1 kya. The trader had got stuck in some problem and the king had got matter settled by hearing in an assembly.

According to Thorkild Jacobsen, a form of "Primitive Democracy" existed in pre-Babylonian Mesopotamia. But many scholars have denied recognising it as democracy. They see the case of Mesopotamia as a struggle where common men appear more like pawns than sovereign authority.

One such scholar is Bailkey who says that the period of Gilgamesh etc, reflects a power struggle between primitive monarchy and noblemen.

Then we find the important case of Sparta. It rose around 2.7 kya which showed the trait of the oligarchy but still, slavery existed and slaves were not part of democracy. Unlike Athens, women enjoyed a respectable position in society and one can say that this was the only place in the west around that era that had no discriminatory acts against females. We also have the case of Rome. A form of democracy existed here too around 2.52 kya. But again citizenship and hence legislative rights were only limited to the free Romans. Slaves were considered as a commodity and after being free, the rights did not come to them.

The case of India as the first land to see democracy

THOU, mighty Agni, gatherest up all that is precious for thy friend.Bring us all treasures as thou art enkindled in libation's placeAssemble, speak together: let your minds be all of one accord,As ancient Gods unanimous sit down to their appointed share.The place is common, common the assembly, common the mind, so be their thought united.A common purpose do I lay before you, and worship with your general oblation.One and the same bt your resolve, and be your minds of one accord.United be the thoughts of all that all may happily agree.

Rig Veda (10.191.1-4, was sung at beginning of the Republican Assembly in ancient India).

The arguments in the above section show us that there was no solidified form of democracy anywhere on earth before 3-2.5 kya. So, of all the empirical shreds of evidence, one of the strongest among all is the excavations that happened recently in Rakhigarhi. The team led by Dr Shinde discovered the footprints of panchayat at this site which dates back to 5.0-5.5 kya. Is it not strong enough evidence to start talking of India as being the mother of democracy?

Perhaps, it might not be convincing enough so let us look at more textual evidence. As a starter, it would be good to give an overview of few important definitions.

1. Democracy: It is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation ("direct democracy"), or to choose governing officials to do so ("representative democracy").

2. Republic: It is a form of government in which "power is held by the people and their elected representatives".

3. Gana-Sangha: The word Gana, in general, refers to any association of men formed for the attainment of the same aims. The word sangha in means association, assembly, company, or community. In general Gana-Sangha or Gana-Rajya translates to, (rule by) tribal assembly.

While the first two words dont find origin anytime before 2.5 kya, the third word Gana-Sangh/ Gana-Rajya finds the existence with the same meaning in the oldest extant Indo-European text, Rig Veda (3.26.6).

If I refer to the works of Shrikant Talageri, and try to merge them with the recent genetic discoveries of Rakhigarhi, out of India migration became evident and we find that those who came to be known as Greeks too have ancestral roots in the northern belt of India. It means that if the idea of Gana-Sangha was existing in Rig Veda, the idea must have travelled with the migrating tribes. People must have one thing clear in mind that what we see as the geographic boundary of Bharat today was not the same millennia ago. The existence of a 5.5 kya old panchayat block in Rakhigarhi further reinforces the claim that the idea of democracy was certainly brewing here and we currently do not have any evidence to nullify this claim.

Now let us look at more textual evidence for Gana-Sangha.

Pini talks of the concept as, Sanghoddhau gaa praansayo. We find the Bhishma explaining the policies of the Ganas in Shanti Parva of Mahabharat. The great Sangam literature and Silapathikaram talk about the Ganas. The Buddhist literature Mahabagga mentions an officer tracking the number of ganas and their koram in the Rajasabha. The Buddhist texts like Pali-pitaka, Majjhamnikaya, Mahabagga, Avadana Shataka talk extensively about Ganas and Sanghas. Records state that we had more than a hundred Gana-Sanghas existed in the time when Buddha lived.

As per the Kalchakra traditions, he lived at least 2.9-3.0 kya. It goes way before Mesopotamias proto-democracy too. Back then, early democratic republics were known as Gaa-rjyas, which meant "rule of the assembly". Do we find this term any different from demo-kratia?

If we again go back to Rig Veda, we find mention of words like Sabha (big assembly of people), Samiti (smaller gathering of people) & Rajan (leader). The Rig Veda (10.173) also tells us that the Rajan was elected member and chosen by the representative of the people in Samiti.

According to the Atharva veda, 3.5.6-7, the Rajan was elected by seven representatives of people known as rjakta (the kingmakers). They were representatives of fishermen, chariot-makers, black-smiths, intelligentsia, the kings of other states, charioteers and the village headmen. According to Atharva veda, 6.88.3, Samiti had the right to dethrone the Rajan. Atharva veda, 5.19.15 also observes that the Rajan was to be dethroned should he transgress the rights and privileges of a learned Brahmin. According to Atharvaveda 7.12.2; 10.8.24; 12.3.46, Sabha was a place of debate and discussions.

So all these arguments make a case very clear that an absolute and sophisticated form of democracy existed in Bharat long before Athens or Sparta etc. And at the same time, there was no notion of second-class citizenship for women as it was in Greece and slavery was a completely alien concept here.

Based on these ideas of democracy, multiple Janapads and later Mahajanpads came into existence. They were no different than what we know as the Republic today. Of all, Vajji Mahajanapada of Licchavis came to be known as one of the greatest. Right now we have very few texts available to talk about how exactly they operated. According to Cullakalinga Jtaka and the Ekapaa Jtaka, the Licchavi had 7,707 Rajas. They met annually to elect one of their members as ruler and a council of nine to assist him. They are mentioned in Arthastra (ch. XI) as a republic (gaa sangha), whose leader uses the title of rjaabdopajvinah. Mahparinibbna Suttanta, Dgha Nikya, Manusmriti (X.22), Paramatthajotik, too talk about their democracy.

The Kalpastra of Bhadravhu refers to the nine Licchavi gaarjas who along with the nine Malla gaarjas and the eighteen K-Koala gaarjas formed a league against Magadha.

There is abundant literature that can be put across in support of the existence of sophisticated democracy in ancient India lot before the Roman and Greek. And not an article but a complete book can be written for the subject.

Conclusion

With the existing bulk of shreds of evidence in the current time, it becomes clear that India, that is Bharat seems to be the mother of democracy. The archaeological remains of Rakhigarhi, genetic studies of Rakhigarhi, texts of Rig Veda, Atharva Veda, Buddhist texts, Jain text, etc, when overlapped together push back the origin of democracy in India a lot before Greece and Rome. And interestingly, even though some form of democracy existed in the West, it was not without slavery; a practice which was alien to India in words of Greek historians themselves.

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PM Modi's 'India is the Mother of Democracy' comment isn't far from the truth - Firstpost

Pachappa Camp in Riverside was a far cry from the buzzy, bustling Koreatowns we know today.

Founded in 1905 as the first Korean settlement in the United States, it was a small community of about a few hundred laborers next to a heavily used set of railroad tracks, just down the street from Chinese and Japanese settlements. There was no alcohol, fighting, gambling or drugs allowed, and everyone was encouraged to wear white.

The camp was named Dosans Republic, after the Korean independence activist Dosan Ahn Chang Ho, who was drawn to Riverside by the highly lucrative citrus trade.

Ahn founded an employment agency for Korean laborers that eventually became a highly complex and self-governed settlement. Dosans Republic had no running water or electricity, but the principles of governance honed there became the building blocks for modern South Korean democracy, according to a forthcoming paper from UC Riverside professor Edward Taehan Chang.

Dosan Ahn Chang Ho had a vision of establishing a model community. He was experimenting with it at Pachappa Camp, Chang said.

Chang encountered the previously undiscovered settlement on a 1908 insurance company map, a tiny dot labeled Korean Settlement. He found an archive of a Korean newspaper, Sinhan Minbo, which revealed aspects of life and suggested that Korean Americans at Pachappa Camp and elsewhere helped found South Korean democracy. The settlement is the subject of an exhibit at UC Riverside opening Oct. 16 called Pachappa Camp: The First Koreatown in the United States.

Dosans Republic had elected officials; taxation; a separation of powers among judiciary, executive and legislative bodies; as well as two police officers with the power to search and enter private residences.

Life in the settlement was strict. Anti-Asian sentiment was a real danger, and the camps restrictions on alcohol, gambling and drugs were an attempt to emphasize that Korean Americans could contribute to a civilized society. Many laws focused on propriety. No Korean was allowed to leave their house unless properly dressed, and Korean women were not allowed to smoke in public. Those who partook in drugs and alcohol were subject to a series of increasing fines.

At the time, Korea was under Japanese control, and Korean independence activists around the world were raising funds, organizing and lobbying for political support. South Koreas eventual democratic republic was organized in a series of meetings around the world. One of the most foundational meetings took place in Riverside, Chang said.

In 1911, the third national convention of the Korean National Assn. met in Pachappa Camp and passed 21 articles of governance that later appeared in documents central to South Korean democracy. The convention elected a central council that would oversee the various chapters of the KNA around the world and advocate for Korean independence.

The Korean National Assn., a political organization with chapters in major Korean settlements around the world, was functioning as a de facto government of Korea while it was under Japanese rule.

The KNA represented Korean Americans in international affairs and incidents. When an angry white mob chased Korean American workers from Hemet, U.S. officials reached out to Japanese consular officials to negotiate, prompting an outcry from Korean Americans. The KNA successfully lobbied Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan for Koreans in the United States to be recognized as Korean subjects, not Japanese.

After a cold spell decimated Riversides navel orange crop in 1913, the residents of Pachappa Camp left to look for work in Los Angeles and San Francisco. In 1918, the Riverside chapter of the KNA closed. In the late 1920s, Ahn was falsely accused of being a Bolshevist and deported from the United States.

Two commemorative plaques are all that remain at the site that was once called Pachappa Camp. The site is now an oil pumping station.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

Pachappa Camp was later settled by Japanese and Mexican immigrants, and in the 1950s the land was redeveloped by an oil company. Today the land is primarily occupied by a Southern California Gas Co. facility. The nearby railroad tracts have gone quiet, replaced by the muffled roar of the 91 Freeway.

Pachappa Camp existed for just over a decade. So why does it matter? Why do the histories of any immigrant enclaves matter?

To me, places like Historic Filipinotown, Pachappa Camp and Chinatown are the most powerful and tangible reminders we have of the fact that the freedoms that Asian Americans have in this country were not gifts of political benevolence. They were the hard-won spoils of a long struggle for civil rights by people of color in America. These histories of Asian American civic engagement may be buried in the archives of foreign-language newspapers, hiding in old maps or redeveloped into a gas facility, but they are there nonetheless.

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Column: The first Koreatown in America, and Riverside's role in South Korean democracy - Los Angeles Times