The truth about American democracy is this:

Point one. If you want access to any real power, you must belong to one of only two political parties. Unless you have the support of one of these two parties and their machines, you have no prospect whatsoever of ever acceding to any position of real political power.

Point two. Access to any position of real power is restricted to millionaires. No-one who is not already fabulously wealthy has any prospect whatsoever of ever acceding to any position of real political power.

Point three. It costs eye-watering sums of money to conduct a campaign for election to any position of real political power – more money than even most multi-millionaires can afford. So in order to even compete for such a position, you must first sell yourself to other vested interests who are willing to fund your campaign, and who will expect payback if you are successful.

So what does that make American democracy? It makes it the right to cast a vote, every couple of years or so, for one or the other of two millionaire representatives of their party machines, who have already sold themselves to wealthy influences whose interests may well be in direct conflict with your own. If you don’t like one millionaire representative of a party machine who has sold himself to wealthy influences, then you can vote for the other millionaire representative of a party machine who has sold himself to wealthy influences.

Of course you can vote for other people too. Anybody can stand for election in America. But since no-one who is not a millionaire representative of one of the two party machines has any prospects whatsoever of ever acceding to a position of power, if you are going to vote for someone else you might as well do this: Stay at home. Write down the name of an imaginary person on a piece of paper. Mark an ‘X’ beside that name. Throw the piece of paper in the bin.

You might as well do that because it is equally pointless, but it takes less time.

I'm not sure that I would want to fight and die for that kind of democracy. But I'm certain that never would I send great armies off to a country on the other side of the world to kill large numbers of people, just so that any survivors could enjoy such an arguable privilege.

So what then? What if you still want genuine change? What if you would still like the real possibility of placing someone in a position of power who is not a millionaire representative of one of the two party machines? Well, in addition to democracy, America enjoys freedom of speech and assembly. So if you can see no way of making change happen from within the system, you can take your case to the streets.

Which is precisely what a tiny group of people tried to do in America back in 2011. The ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement tried to take its campaign for real change to the streets. But it was forcibly prevented from ever establishing a presence on the streets or public squares of New York. Instead, a few hundred demonstrators formed a camp in the privately-owned Zuccotti Park, where they stayed for several weeks. Until, on November 15th 2011, in the dark of night, their camp was invaded and destroyed by New York Police in riot gear. Many of the demonstrators were beaten with clubs and tazered.

That is how America deals with a rag-bag collection of a few hundred demonstrators in a park, who have no structured agenda for change, and who enjoy little public support. One might wonder how America would deal with tens of thousands of demonstrators erecting barricades on the streets, with a structured agenda for change, who were beginning to win the attention and possibly even the support of the public.