Governments

The capitalist democracy which we all live in inherently limits the amount of good any government can do. Its takes power away from the hands of the government and places it into the hands of the people - driven by competition, societies plugged into the international economy automatically improve for the better. You can do plenty of damage by making some very wrong decisions, but you can't really do a lot of good no matter how competent you are, since a capitalist economy is by nature self sustaining if left alone. A democracy prevents any such damage from occuring, while its inability to maximize the potential of comptent individuals was quite unimportant in the first place. It greatly reduces the ability any one individual from becoming sufficently powerful to damage the system. The government nonetheless still plays a vital role in ensuring that its own industries cope wiith outside competiton. Preserve the working parts and society improves for the better.

 

And the conclusion is ......?

 

Ricky, I would tend to see the public as a kind of balance vs. the Establishment. But the balance gets weaker, is the Establishment´s control of the Press is effective. This maybe applies mainly to the USA but in Europe tendencies in this direction are similar, IMO. Take the issue of EU. (I know, Britain´s Establishment is splitted on this here because of the Special Relationship). In many countries, however, majorities are against EU´s increasing powers, but their Establishments use all tricks to go ahead anyway. What kind of democracy is this? How come, that a minority of farmers can milk the budget against the best interests of majority of people and against the environmental concerns? Give the peoples right to express their opinion and they will limit EU powers (and many policies) considerably.

But you are absolutely right, IMO, that in a relatively "establishment-free" systems the periodic elections are so populistic and any consistent policy line is not possible to follow.

 

Whoever controls the media effectively controls the public...

There was a ridiculous case of this during the BSE crisis in Britain a few years back. The policy was to cull cows that were infected or at risk of infection - basically any animal within set areas. This went ahead, with much media attention.
Then, shock horror, some little girl's 'pet' cow was due for culling. Every newspaper in the country picked up the 'save the pretty cow' campaign, and in the end the government stopped the cull, countrywide, because one little girl had a favourite cow. :roll:
Simply because the media got the public outraged at it. :angry:

(Edited my however/whoever typo - thanks Grieg! )

 

Ricky wrote:

Indeed and that is one of the biggest challenges facing democratic societies. One can scarceley overestimate the power of the news and entertainment media to influence public debate and ultimately public policy in the US. It is particularly insidious because the public(for the most part) isn't aware of the manipulation.

 

At least some european countries will held a referendum on wether or not a european constitution shall be adopted.
In France this will be on may 29th, and will show how many people favour more EU, and how many have enough of it.
For the moment it's rather close.

 

Again, an example of media control by Establishment. Who with average IQ can understand the new “Constitution”? Why is it written in such a way as to effectively repel?
How many have read it? How many have a vague idea of its content? I have heard that not many.
How then can people favor anything meaningfully? If that is democratic, then I am a nun.
Maybe I´m wrong.
My view is that EU is a project from above for the interests of business circles. The same who own the media.
I am not a communist. These are my personal views.

 

EU Constitution?
Nope, never read it.
Would not even know how to get hold of a copy, other than Google it & hope.
Maybe write to my local Euro MP, once somebody tells me who that is...
We had elections for them (with attendant campaign gunk - see the 'democracy' topic in members lounge or non-WW2 history), but nobody ever told us the result. :roll:

 

True, very few people have read it, even fewer understand much of what it says.
I am currently reading it(because of the referendum next month)850 pages of juristical text, and I freely admit not understanding the meaning of everything.

But then again it's the same in elections.
How many people really have read the party programme of the party they will vote for?
They simply listen to politicians and vote for the more convincing, or bether looking....

Actually a lot of politicians here are opposed to the constitution and try to tell people why they should reject it, while those who favour it try to have the people vote in favour of it.(Actually the biggest handicap for the pro's at the moment is probably that President Chirac is pro too....)

The EU is of course also in the interest of business, but so far business and people's interests mostly matched.(Not always but mostly).

 

Yes, I saw him on TV last night, trying to explain to the youth of France why they should vote in favour of the Costitution. Maybe something got lost in the translation, but it sure didn´t make much sense to me. :-?

 

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Then I'm not alone.
Last nights prime time show has not been the propaganda coup for the pro many had hoped for.(Altough the idea of the show, showing the president faced to young people asking inoffensive questions should have favoured him)

It's well known that Chirac is not a good debater, and most probably he will not accept to face a representant of the "No to the constitution" in a TV debate.(For the same reasons he refused a debate with Jospin and Le Pen before the 1995 and 2002 presidential elections).

But on the other hand people generally are afraid of changes and it's really difficult to convince them to accept something new.

Many people here are afraid of(or hope for)that in the referendum people will not respond to the question: Do you accept this constitution for Europe?, but to the question: Do you want President Chirac to get a bloody nose or not?

 

Originally the "European Union" (or rather its predecessor) was an economic union only, and as such, research has shown, it helped more to get Europe back on its feet after WW2 than the Marshall Plan. This kind of union I'm all in favour of; the member countries enjoy considerable trade advantages among each other, which is in the benefit of all. However, over time the "EU" has developed in the direction of a political body, and with the new members and the pending entry of Turkey into the Union it is mostly a charity organization spending huge amounts of money on the development of Eastern European countries.

Where is the profit in this for the West? Maybe in the end the newly industrialized East will provide the same economical benefits to the West that the Western countries originially provided each other with in the ECSC. Until then, however, money is flowing out of my country at an alarming speed and we are presented with a constitution no one really understands. Where did this Union go off track? I can't really see how extensive farming subsidies flowing from West to East are in the benefit of high business circles.

 

The idea is that once eastern european countries achieve a similar standard of living than western europe, they will consume more and thus of course import more goods from western europe, which again will create wealth in western europe.
That should be profitable to Europe as a whole.

The same happened when Portugal and Spain entered the union in 1986.
These two countries were back then comparable to eastern europe today.
Yet, in much less than a decade, through help of the EU, they achieved a comparable standard of living than the rest of Europe, and now buy over 10 times more goods from other european countries.

I do not know wether it's gonna work the same way with the new eastern european members, but basically that is the idea.

 

It might work well when only two countries are involved, but the whole ex-Soviet Bloc + Turkey?
Can Western Europe sustain it? Especially as the economic powerhouse of Germany is still struggling to integrate ex-Eastern Germany into the economy.
Will the Eastern turnaround happen before public opinon (and/or the media) turn against it?

We in Britain are still bombarded with 'Spanish fishermen get huge subsidies from our tax maney, then come & fish in our waters, while our fishermen are all told not to fish.'

 

Turkey is not in the EU yet, and won't be member in the 10-15 years to come.

 

Curious. Most our fishing fleet is at harbor and most fishermen unemployed because they don't get permits to use some fishing zones.
And they still waiting for compensations after the Prestige sinking.

The news you can get in your country are often the opposite of the ones fed to some other country.

 

Murphy´s law, Gents, for one.
Once EU or EF got its beaurocracy, it began to live its own fat life and grow as a cancer. The other thing is that establishments, the really powerful/wealthy (organizations, companies, persons) have a much easier job ruling the multilingual Europe where democratic elections and contact with constituency is a fiction. The peoples´of Europe are in the process of handing over their democratic systems to someone else.

The subsidies to Eastern Europe are relatively small. Much smaller than what Spain, Portugal, Greece and Ireland got. Nobody is aiming at help the east the way West Germany is helping ex-DDR. These things are absolutely incomparable.
The decision to negotiate and, pretty certainly, take Turkey in was an excellent test of the democratic nature of EU. AFAIK virtually any European citizen dislikes the idea.

 

Agreed. Here, democracy is considered by many only a system to change the guy in charge.

 

not much more, anyways, I´m afraid.

 

To an extent, that's true for the USA as well. That has long kept the voting totals well below the eligibility numbers, I'm sad to say. And it doesn't look like it's going to get any better anytime soon.