who knows? who cares?

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Thu Jun 22 10:09:23 PDT 2000


At 12:03 PM 6/22/00 -0400, Doug wrote:
>What the U.S. public knows about the stands of Bush & Gore on various
>issues: <http://www.vanishingvoter.org/data/cand-knowledge.shtml>.
>Don't know is the winner.
>
>The liberal thing to do would be to denounce this as evidence of
>appalling disengagement, but maybe the radical thing is to say that
>the public doesn't know because it doesn't matter - these wankers
>will do whatever they want to, and what the public thinks counts for
>nothing.

The politicians only want to get to the office by various means, the point is however, that the public should be able to remove them from there at any time.

In other words, it does not matter how you select politicians, what matters is whether you can remove them form office as soon as they become too arrogant. European parliamentary democracies can do that (coalition government), but for all practical purposes there is no such mechanism in Amerika.

That is why Amerikun elections, like in good ole' USSR, are a Potemkin village, a storefront for public relations, and a participatory ritual to make people feel good and being in charge.

wojtek



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