Tony: <I dont believe democracy will work at all. it doesn't even work on our planet, let alone a whole lot of them. I believe it will just follow our earth political systems or a pseudo democracy, but really an oligarchical system.>

<g> what's that saying about the only good thing you can say about modern democracy is that it's better than anything else that's been tried?

and: <Another facet or revolutions, is that almost in every occasion, the replacing system is just as oppressive or holds the same political results or practises in some way. So, people under the federation would have just ended up as before.>

and Natasa answered: <What are you suggesting then, that nothing could be changed and that Blake shouldn't have fought at all?>

Certainly, the fall of the Federation is not going to usher in an immediate modern democracy with all the trappings ... it's going to be a long road getting the idea of even basic human rights back again. But they have to start somewhere ... given what we see of the Federation's abuses even *before* the last-gasp ugliness of the Pylene program, the chances that it will get better - slowly, possibly painfully, but significantly - are really rather good IMO.

<As for Blake himself, I don't think he'd want any share of power in the post-Federation government.>

Absolutely agreed. He'd do it *if he had to* (he was always prepared to do what he saw as his own duty), but [a] I don't believe he would have supported any new centralised government anyway, would have opposed it very strongly IMO, and [b] autocratic though he is, he doesn't actually show any desire for power or political reward (Pressure Point, Voice).

PS - is it my faulty memory, or have the few people we've had on this Lyst *from* the ex-Soviet bloc, like Natasa and Hellen, *all* been Blake fans? :-)

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