Seattle in Australia

Joe R. Golowka joeg at ieee.org
Sun Sep 17 11:38:13 PDT 2000


----- Original Message ----- From: "Reese" <reeza at flex.com>
> >>Disrupting conventions is hogwash, change the politicians to bring
about
> >>real change.
> >
> >Not sure about this, Reese. We've all sorts of politicians in our
> >parliament, but they're all pretty well saying the same thing (parroting
> >the glib aphorisms of Davos Man, natch).
>
> That's exactly my point. They practically become interchangeable after a
> while, so the whole batch ought to be thrown out and replaced with fresh
> faces.

Those fresh faces will be just as corrupt. We should be trying to get rid of politicians and building real democracy, not hoping that the elites will somehow become benevolant and throw us a few crumbs.


> Periodic expulsions should be the norm, "career politician" is a
> euphemism for professional crook, in my book.
>
> > The reason the media are suddenly
> >talking about the problems inherent in contemporary globalisation (as
> >opposed to the myriad other forms it could take) is that they're there
to
> >reflect demonstrably held views. And the good thing about large
> >demonstrations is that they demonstrably reflect demonstrably widespread
> >views. Thus, if we're lucky (and if we learn to counter Hill & Knowlton
> >with some good mutually reinforcing soundbites of our own), the media
> >actually spread the word. When that begins to happen (and these things
> >originate only, it seems, outside the clammy paternalistic clutches of
our
> >institutions), well, then maybe a union or two might contribute some
> >weight. Maybe a church or two. And then, and only then, might a
political
> >party notice. And then you get a whole heap of politicians all at once.
>
> I see where you are coming from, and yes, that works, after a fashion.
> My point is, if it takes such as all of that to get the politician to
> alter HisOrHer position on a topic, then that politician isn't really
> attuned to the constituency anyway, and should be replaced.

Politicians are rarely attuned to the needs of their constituency. That's the whole problem with Republics. Sure, every 4 years they have to tell you what you want to hear, but once they're elected they aren't terribly responsive to the voters. They're more responsive to wealth and special interest groups.


> Re: the corporate types, they gotta operate within the framework of the
> law,

No they don't. All they have to do is call the WTO and they can kill whatever law they don't like. Even without the WTO they could just withdraw all their capital from countries with laws they don't like forcing that country to either repeal the law or face an economic downturn. We are rapidly moving into an era where government elites are totally subordinate to buisness elites. Strategies based on government elites will fail under such circumstances.


> so it all comes back to the politician who would take the "campaign
> contributions" and look the other way, rather than placing the
constituency
> first and foremost (which is what the pol. was elected to do in the first
> place).

Joe R. Golowka JoeG at ieee.org

"I am for socialism, because I am for humanity." - Eugene V. Debs



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