Our Sham Democracy Or The Majority Vote Racket (1946) by James Guthrie. Introduction to 1977 version by Eric D. Butler

"Jame Guthrie's book on the truths concerning the relationship of the individual to government is more appropriate than ever."

https://samisdat.info/books/our-sham-democracy-or-the-majority-vote-racket-1946

"Unless the people can protect themselves from a group of men who have captured the law-making machinery then they are not living in a democratic country."

"... except in small electorates, few candidates can afford the time and the money required to organise a campaign as an independent
candidate."

"The determined
policy of both parties has been to deprive individuals of any chance of establishing their independence
and to force them to be dependent on the charity of
the State as administered by the party boss and his henchmen."

"One of the means by which both parties have
destroyed the independence of the people has been
their failure to reduce prices and taxation, or rather
their encouragement of high prices and high taxes."

"Out of the confusion of thought and opinions on things political one thing is clear: the party
system is too costly a 'luxury" even for the wealthiest country."

"Parliament is used merely to give legal formality to decisions made by a few men, in just the
same way as elections are used' to give legal status
to candidates nominated by the party. All that is
left of our political democracy is the legal formalities."

"No one,
who has not come into contact with the arrogance
and ruthlessness with which this power was used,
can imagine just what dangers are facing the whole civilised world to-day."

"The divine
right of the king has become the divine right of
the "State"-the State being those who by various
means have captured the machinery for manufacturing laws and regulations, and who, by control of
the armed forces, are able to enforce obedience to
those laws."

"In other words, in practice we are witnessing governments using the technique of the
manipulated mass-vote to disfranchise successive
minorities, and transfer their rights to the manipulated."

"The whole legal-or illegal-system on which a government bases its right to penalise minorities must be dragged out into the light of day,
and examined in the light of political realities."

"We find, too,
the one-time opposition, when in power, does exactly
the same things on account of which it had bitterly
attacked the previous gov for doing. In
fact, the same speeches would do for both parties-
all that is required is to change the name of the
speaker and date."

"It seems, therefore, that the two names conservative and labour
are all part and parcel of the great game of politics ;
they are used merely to deceive."

"If the word democratic has any real meaning then a democratic country must mean a country in
which people can control the actions of their
gov, but it has come to mean a country in
which the gov has obtained power by collecting a majority vote. Do you notice the distinction?"

"govs in office take a peculiar view of their powers; they not only claim
the right of kings & emperors of old, they claim
more rights, & because, by low cunning & subterfuge, they acquired a
majority vote, they say they are exercising tyrannical rights of kings democratically."

"... it only proves that national emergencies are a godsend to those who lust after power. And it
suggests that we make some detailed inquiries as to
who starts national emergencies. "

"For a good many years now it has been fairly obvious that the contents of the bills rushed through parliament have been little read and hardly understood by members of parliament, and that even the
Ministers themselves appeared hazy about their contents."

HIM AGAIN! Rothschild's economic hitman between the wars. "Then we find that
when OTTO NIEMEYER came to Australia to advise
us to have a depression..." Lot of name dropping. Wonder if Haldane is a relative of that Bank of England talking head today?

So this part of the book starts to get really interesting with names named and so on, from p.18, so recommend reading, I'm finishing tweets here.