>Not everybody agrees weith the glowing praise, fwiw, many democracies have seen promises about "negotiation rather than confrontation, better minority representation" and all the other slogans that convinced us to change, submerged under petty squabbling and expediency.

The difference between then and now is the availablity of high technology and connectivity. For example, what if parliments and senates could debate and converse in a medium similar to this one? Until the information age, throwing a thousand or so grown men with agendas into a single room and letting them battle it out has been a failure. Now, its different.