> Andy F wrote:
>>
>> Wasn't the invasion pretty popular -- quite a margin more than 50%?
>
> Not relevant. What is relevant to Yoshie's argument is whether a
> democracy (rule of the demos, not merely a formal structure) would have
> on its own decided to invade a nation thousands of miles away.
======================
Who can know? "Hopefully" is the most I'd say. Your confidence is strictly
faith-based because the proposition has never been tested - at least not in
an advanced capitalist society like the US.
So far, the record hasn't been encouraging - maybe because, as the Trotskyists and others have it, the "demos" hasn't ruled in an advanced capitalist society. Where it has ostensibly "ruled" - in little left-wing sects right up to mighty "workers" or "people's" states (USSR, China) - the ranks have rarely judged events and policies critically and independently of their leaders. Some did, of course, but they met the typical fate of "dissidents" - isolation and worse. On the rare occasions when those from below acted against their leaders, as when the Soviet Union collapsed, it turned out they didn't make the best choice expected of them by the international left. As for the anti-capitalist masses' refusal to participate in unjust wars against "fraternal" societies, why didn't the Chinese masses, to cite a notable example, rise up and prevent the PRC military invasion of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, which had just concluded an horrifically destructive and exhausting war against US imperialism?