1…2…3…democracy!

I’ve heard plenty of times that a one-party state isn’t a democracy, yet I wonder how a two or three party state is more democratic. How can one believe that the idea of millions of people can be summed up to two or three programs? It seems ridiculous to me.

Best example is the United States. You have the democrats and the republicans. Both are right-winged parties, yet democrats group an extensive board of beliefs and people. We can just look at the ideas of Mr. Obama, opposed to those of Mrs Clinton. At least the primaries gave a bit of a choice regarding the candidate, hence the beliefs and hopes the population wish to see carried to the White House.

Regardless, true Socialists, green, communists of the United States can’t really agree with the whole ideas of those candidates. While other parties exist, they just don’t matter enough to be elected, unable to reach a large portion of the population. In fact, it’s important to note that until this year, California had a law allowing employers to fire their employees for taking part or being part in the communist party.

In my opinion, the only way to reach a true democracy is to either have tons of political parties, or none. The reason is simple: you either have enough choices to join a party that truly represents you fully, or you get involved yourself. In Cuba for example, there are political parties but they are of no importance. The people elect those they believe in the most, who get involved in the community, who helps them. They choose the person who will truly mean to help them, not only an ideal that won’t lead anywhere in the end. I hear that in Venezuela, it’s a dominant-party system yet either way, it resumes in the population choosing and that’s what matters most. Their democratic system is way more advance than ours in North America.

Another thing that causes problem within the current way of doing things is the financing of political parties. In the U.S., there is no limit to the amount of money a party can get, and in fact, the state will even give money to the candidates if they didn’t raise enough (there’s a limit of 245 millions, if I’m not mistaken) That’s…a lot of money! It’s also hard to believe that a company that makes a donation of let’s say…3 millions to a candidate during the campaign, won’t expect a little something later on. The financing of the elections should be kept as low as possible, for both the tax-payers’, and democracy’s well-being. Also, there should be more regulations regarding how much can be given to a political party. In Quebec, I know that the limit as donation to a political party is of $3000 per person.

On a final note, I’d say that no matter the number of party involved, if the population doesn’t get involved fully in the process and this, from the start: there is no chance that democracy will truly be reached. It will remain nothing more than an illusion cherished by those who still believe in it…

Canada and GMO… a love match

On May 7^th 2008, the Harper government denied once again a bill (C-517) that would support mandatory labelling of genetically engineered food. Defeated 156 against 101 in the House of Commons, the conservatives are once again blamed for protecting Monsanto (leader in the GMO industry) instead of the well-being of Canadians.

For those of you who don’t know, Monsanto used to give in the pesticides and other chemicals before moving onto GMOs. That multi-national is now the leader of the industry with 90% of all the GMOs being produced there. Obviously, the company is protected by  the conservatives and liberals, to no surprise.

As defined in the bill: “ “genetically modified”, with respect to a food or one of its components, means that the genetic make-up of the food or component has been modified by a technique that combines DNA fragments of the food or component with DNA fragments from another source in a way that could not occur without the use of modern technology. “

It is to be noted that ONLY between 80% and 90% of Canadians in recent studies, have voiced concerns about GE food and wanted to see clear identification of the GMO products. Proof once again that representative democracy doesn’t work well in order to defend even the interests of the population’s majority.

Most people don’t trust GE food, and if they knew how many products are being manipulated partly or in their totality, it’s obvious that it would hurt the GMO industries along with the farmer who decided to go for those seeds. Yet they prefer to let the population unaware of what they are eating, rather than let us choose.

What I find funny here is that we still follow the United States in their process. While there’s about 40 countries that have forced the labelling of GMO products, Canada and the U.S. remain the only ones in the Western culture to still sit behind on that. Also interesting to note that in other countries such as France, Hungary, Germany, etc… the debate is either done or going, about the use of GMO in crop within the countries and importation of products GE banned.

The debate is now lying in the hands of provincial governments. They are the only ones able to respect the will of the citizens and force the labelling. The government of Quebec under Prim Minister Charest has been promising that since 2003 and obviously, nothing has been done still. We are the retarded children of the industrial world when it comes to this, when will we wake up?

- Sabbi

A Redefiniton of Government and its Purpose

This should be a fairly simple article in scope. I simply wish to redefine what a government’s purpose is and should be. Several governments today have taken the liberty of overextending the powers given to them by the people, and scaring the people into allowing this to happen. The first step in fixing this problem is to define what exactly a government should be doing, and limit them to this role.

Purposes of a Government:

1. Protection of the people from outside control, including from the governmental body itself.
2. Protection of the people’s right to exist, including all things the people might need to exist.
3. Protection of the people’s right to free thought, expression, and education.

These things summarize most succinctly what a government’s purpose is. Anything further, including attempts to protect the government body from dissolution, is outside the right of the government as given by the people. When the government begins to act as an entity outside the control of the people, it has corrupted its purpose and should either be reformed or replaced.

I would be glad to hear arguments about further roles the government should fill, but at this time this is all I think they should be striving to achieve.

As always, think for yourself.

-Justin

A socialist conspiracy of 400 km2!

This is it. The communists disembark on the Wilkins ice field to establish their strategy! Bearing only their hammers and sickles, the communists still managed to win over a very large portion of the ice field, about 400 square kilometres (4%), just as big as Montreal Island. Wilkins being way too large: about the size of Ontario, the communists preferred to choose a task they could actually finish. After all, they were only three! (If we believe some right-winged irrelevant sources: Mao, Stalin and Pol-Pot).

When the communists will be done refining their strategy for global warming, it will mean that they will also have managed to melt down Wilkins in its totality. In order to cut the huge ice bloc of 400 square kilometres, they figured out that the best method was still the good old hair dryer! So they traded their hammers and sickles for these hair dryers. When they will be done with the totality of the ice field, the oceans all around the world will have gained more than 70 meters, no less!

Therefore, the communists will win over capitalism, again with those devious plans meant to kill as many people as possible, hundreds of millions, and why not milliards! The authors of the “black book” on communism will then have all the freedom, on floating embarkations of course, to write the follow up of their incontestable apocalyptic master piece.

Next month hot topics: “The communists try to lure the moon from the skies so it hits the Earth.”, “The communists dive in the gulf stream with their tuba and bottles of liquid nitrogen to refresh the important flow.”, “The communists get drunk in the fields to then pee in them, just to make them acid enough to aggravate the world-wide famine.”

(Harper, Bush and Howard (ex prim-minister of Australia) all said on various occasions that global warming was a socialist scheme. These three individuals, partisans of the oil industry, spit on science as they accuse it of being nothing more than a SOCIALIST conspiracy.)

Written by Sylvain Guillemette

Translated from French by Sabbi

Young people, beware.

Let it be known that no more will we tolerate your disgusting habits of gathering and discussing anywhere. As you are all a threat to the Empire with your dreams of true liberty and revolts, we will no more allow you to gather freely. In fact, we don’t want to see you anywhere close our businesses, our train stations, our so precious establishments.

It’s well-known; you young people are nothing more than troublemakers who can’t satisfy themselves with what we are ready to offer you. You want more, but you don’t take into consideration the market laws!

We tried using the police force to teach you lessons, it didn’t work. We tried teaching you our values from your very first moments on Earth, but it wasn’t enough. Why can’t you just do like us and listen, and execute without questioning. Pshaw!

You’ve been looking for it. Now watch out for your ears because that’s what we’ll attack from now on. Obviously, every other senses we attacked weren’t enough. More and more, you will find it hard to stand in train stations, close to stores, banks, eventually in the streets. We will conceal you to where we want you to be. Don’t even think of approaching your school after the opening hours because that won’t be acceptable either.

We found the perfect system; it was invented in Europe not so long ago. At first it was used to keep away mosquitoes and animals, but now we’ve reached the perfect audible level it touches you, who are still growing up. Us, adults who have learned how the system must work and how to preserve it, unlike you: ignorants.

If you’ve never heard of it, it’s called Mosquito and more and more enterprises and public services are starting to use it to protect the properties you crave to destroy and mark by your identity crisis. It produces a noise of about 17 000 and 18 000 hertz, strong enough to be an aggravating annoyance to those of less than 25 years old. In fact, you should test it out. Prepare yourself for our ultimate attack because you won’t be done with it anytime soon. Our influence is spreading throughout the world. Not all countries are as idiotic as Belgium, to ban the sale of our saviour. Dare you claim it’s against human rights! Humans have decided they have way too many rights to start with; it’s time to put a stop to this non-sense!

Come…come…we’ll be ready for you.

http://www.trianglerouge.be/mosquito/ressources.php

- Sabbi

The Illusion of the Outdated Representative Democracy

While my interest in communism, socialism, and economics in general is relatively new, I have always had an enthusiasm for governmental and legislative methods. Since an early age, I have held issue with representative democracy (specifically concerning legislation) and the illusion of democratic process it gives to the people. The initial reasoning behind the process is quite understandable: people were simply unable to devote the time to debate and vote on every issue when a journey to town might take half a day, and as landowners tended to be farmers they needed to work in order to subsist; however, today people have advanced transportation, communication, and access to information. Implementing a true democracy would take only an easily identifiable application of the technologies at hand.

Representative democracy’s placing of law making into the hands of the few results in a skewed representation of the people’s wishes. For example, in the United States the bicameral legislature consists of 100 senators (2 per state) and 435 representatives (a varying number, but at least one per state). Therefore, the ideas and opinions of over 300 million people concerning laws are decided by roughly .0000017% of the population. While executive and judicial matters are understandably concentrated in few hands, having the legislative process so limited is an outrage. Combined with voting systems that have skewed the people’s vote (3 instances of the US President elected without the popular vote), there is little reason to accept representative democracy as ‘democracy’.

The representatives do however play a crucial role, even if they should not be the sole voters on legislation and are elected poorly. By having people focused on the debate between different viewpoints, it would be key in a true democracy for these debates to be presented to the population as information to help the average person make an informed decision. A normal person might not understand why increasing the tax on a certain item .1% is good or bad, but the ‘legislative branch’ should focus on presenting the pros and cons of the issue to the voters. Essentially, in my ideal world, the legislation plays the role of debaters, and the voting populace the judges (if you are familiar with debate).

After defining the role of the legislative branch and giving the vote back to the people, several questions arise. How are the representatives elected? How and when do people vote on these laws? Won’t the legislative process slow to a crawl? Is it even possible to count this many votes consistently? While I won’t try to answer the questions concerning voter fraud since that is not something I feel qualified to discuss, I will answer the latter questions first. After having the legislative branch debate on a law, once the sides have presented their case, the law should be opened for voting. After this, permanent voting centers that are open all days and hours would accept votes for a specific interval. This spreads the voting congestion, and allows people to find a suitable time to vote, thereby encouraging turnout. All information concerning the issue should be available online and at the voting site. Once the bill has finished its voting time, the law would pass or fail, and be implemented as outlined in the bill. Americans will note this removes the Presidential veto, which would be unnecessary in a system that truly followed the will of the people

As for election of these officials, the current methodology is flawed. While speed of travel and communication made organizing districts to appoint national officials the best answer at the time, it is now unnecessary in elections that concern a national body. Term length and time of election are not in the scope of this article, but the method would involve deciding upon a reasonable number of debaters, and having candidates present their ideals to the populace. The voters would then place their support, and the candidates would be elected if they rank within the number of debaters needed. While this could lead to skewed debater representation, since the ability to put the laws into place is in the hands of the people it is not as much of a concern.

When taking my view into consideration, keep in mind that this assumes several conventions of the American governmental model, including a ‘constitution’ as a guideline and paper guaranteeing certain rights, and a judicial branch who can check the legislative branch with said constitution. It also specifically addresses national legislative branch elections, and not elections on any other scale or for other offices. It simply coincides with my ideal that the laws a population must live by should be decided on by the population, and not an insignificant minority elected through faulty systems. I will gladly accept thoughtful criticism in the comments section.

Always keep an open mind.

-Justin

Cowardice and Commitment, Part I

Keep in mind as you read this I am not attempting to profess that I adhere to this completely. I felt the urge to write this from looking at myself and realizing the tendencies I had when faced with situations that called me to stand for what I believe in, in the face of overwhelming peer pressure and closed-mindedness demanding I repress my views and succumbing to it. Hiding under the guise of not wishing to stir a conflict, I close my mouth and let others run over my ideals without defending myself, so this is as much a guide for me as it is for others.

Obviously while forming and creating opinions and shifting away from the views instilled in me by the great American public education system, insecurities about my position when confronted arise. In order to avert this, the first step must be education to a near obsessive point about the beliefs you wish to stand for. The number one enemy of a closed mind is information. Possessing it, and not manufacturing it for the moment, is key. Having a dear friend who, despite being quite convictional about his beliefs, frequently creates information to suit his argument at the time never convinced me of anything. An argument is a battle where your knowledge is the sword, and it must be sharpened to be effective. Since you should be arguing within yourself as well to validate, the better you can argue, the more the information sharpens your thoughts.

Now, you must seek out a fire to forge your thoughts in and refine them. It is easy enough to find an argument, but it is important to seek out the right type and for the right reasons. Arguments for the sake of being right are one of my worst habits, and I am sure every person has various reasons for doing so. It is best to find someone fairly who has ideals similar to yours, and search for differences to discuss and refine. Being able to stand up for your beliefs among your like-minded peers is the first step in truly acting as you believe, and even being the first step can be extremely difficult.

This is the stage I am at now personally, and while I have ideas and plans on how to continue, I wish to progress before I talk further. Until then, keep an open mind.

- Justin

The U.S. Totalitarianism

Ironic behaviour or predetermined procedure, it seems that U.S. has understood the paranoia of Stalin himself. As most of you probably know, Totalitarianism is a term commonly used in order to define Communism or Fascism, yet more often referred to Stalin’s 5 years plan in URSS.

The term itself made its first appearance in early 20^th century, to define Italia fascism but on the contrary to today’s use of the word, it was positive propaganda. By definition, the totalitarian rule is a concept used to describe any political system where a state regulates every aspect of public and private life. There are four basic pillars to that regime and once they are implanted, it seems to be rather hard to get rid of it, yet not impossible (see how Gorbatchev destroyed totalitarianism because he was too…”Communist” to use the terms of Martin Malia in an anonymous article published in 1990…ironic…) .

One unique political party that controls the state

The United States have two official parties. They have the Green party and a few others but like in most Western Representative Democracy, very few manage to be known or heard of. (See control of State controlled Mass Media). So we have the democrats, and the republicans. Both parties standing in the right wing, Republicans are conservatives while the democrats are considered liberal. Both stand for Capitalism and make sure the U.S. remain to the political right wing. The well-known Elections of 2000 or even 2004, prove that even if the population choose one candidate, there are easy ways for the administration to ignore those facts in order to maintain their people in power.

State controlled Mass Media

The most watched cabled news channel in the U.S. is Fox News. I can’t blame the population for falling for that sort of propaganda because disinformation easy to understand, presented in eye-catching graphics and offering a show before anything else. (For those of Quebec, it’s pretty much like TQS news, enhanced 10 times). Fox News was created in 1996 by Rupert Murdoch who strongly believed that the information presented to the public was strongly democrat-influenced. As such, he declared his station as “fair and balanced” and to those who might not have noticed: strongly supports the republicans. By using the slogan “fair and balanced” it gives the idea to the population that they are being fed real information from both sides while everything presented to them has been dictated by the Headquarters, to represent a single point of view. Reporters and Interviewers don’t have a problem with interrupting their guest or telling them to “shut up” (Best example being the well-known O’Reilly) if they attempt to talk of matters that could be annoying to the Republican Party. Studies have also proven that the people, who watch Fox News, take positions on the republican side on various topics with a strong majority, compared to those watching CBS or other stations. It is clearly a manipulation from the state, in order to spread lies, terror and propaganda. Also, on all major news channels, you won’t hear about the communist party or the green party. When you do, it will be really short segments due to something major.

Centralisation of the Economy

Some will think that I will shoot myself in the foot by saying this but…the U.S. Economy is centralised. While not run by the government, it is held with a firm grasp by the private bankers. Also in most totalitarian states it’s the government who has full power, in the U.S.; it’s the bankers. The government is also a puppet to that small group of economic elites who decide the faith and future of the country. Nonetheless, it’s interesting to notice that the government support an anti-constitutional tax on income ruled by the IRS, while there is no law forcing a citizen to declare his incomes to the government. Yet, if a citizen doesn’t, he will have the IRS forcing his way into his life, terrorising his family until he pays or loses everything. Many have their houses sized or end in prison because they haven’t filled their form, or don’t manage to pay their taxes. The IRS even attempts to declare that the Supreme Court of the United States means nothing when it declares that the 16 amendment considers incomes as a profit or gain of a company, not an individual. Hence, companies can be taxed, not citizens. Interestingly enough, taxing the population brings nearly 5 times more incomes to the Government than taxing the companies. In order to have citizens compel to this unknown and unwritten law, the free country’s government will stand behind the IRS code of hundreds of pages to read, while the constitution and everything related to the rights of citizens stand on a few pages. Believing bluntly what they are told, they will look into the code and give up, instead of looking through their rights. If you ask people around you, they will tell you that you need to pay tax on incomes for education, roads or other services, yet there are so many taxes on everything already that there is no need for this tax at all. Education is paid with house taxes, roads with gas taxes, etc. The Government knows exactly how much you earn, and with new technologies, start to know exactly what you are buying as well.

Mass Surveillance

From the CIA to the FBI, adding up with the Patriot act and other powers presidents have given themselves, the terror propaganda of 2001 did a wonderful job in order to ease their investigations of the U.S. people. Families have accepted that the states might listen on their phone calls, on their Internet communications or historic of navigation on the web. They are also accepting to have secret FBI agents in their kitchen meetings unknowingly, even if it’s only to talk about peace and eat cookies.

This isn’t a brand new behaviour of the government, quite the opposite. In the 50’s until the 80’s, various groups of investigations were created to infiltrate small organizations of those fighting for freedom. As such, the Weather men later called Weather Underground were on constant monitoring, just like the Black Panthers, the Communists, or other left-winged groups. “Fred” who was charismatic leader of the Black Panthers was murdered by the FBI during his sleep, because he was a “threat to national security”. From 1947 to 1953, Joseph McCarthy declared a war on the “red” which was called the “Red Scare”. This was clearly an attempt to silence the freedom of speech of the population and people were strongly advised to report anyone expressing political or social opinions considered wrong to his (McCarthy’s) perception. It was also the birth of the Hollywood Ten, constituted of producers, authors, etc, who were taken by the House Un-American Activities Committee, to answer questions. They refused to say if they had been, were or not part of the Communist Party, claiming their right (1^st amendment of the U.S. Constitution) which earned them years in prison and a ban of the cinema industry. All of them had a really hard time finding work and the fact that they weren’t able to get food on their tables forced some to revise their position. For example, Edward Dmytryk gave to the HUAC the name of 66 personalities approving either by membership or ideals, the communist party. Right after that, he got employed again in Hollywood studios yet it’s obvious that it was an enormous failure for the freedom of the citizens of the U.S.

Also, more recently, a family in Florida accepted to have a chip implanted in their body which act like small GPS. Those idiots think they will be more secure that way, yet of course, they seem to forget that their every actions are now monitored by the state, and those chips will soon be implanted in passports, driving license and other items that are carried around. Unknowingly for most, they will see their freedom going away in no time as the states will be able to tell everything that they do (chips), say (spies and recording of phone calls, adding to other methods mentioned). There will be only their thoughts left and then, I doubt anyone will be able to do anything to know if anyone agrees with them or not, by fear of being punished by the state’s agents.

————————————————————–

The U.S. has become exactly what they have fought against and I doubt it’s a simple irony. In fact, my theory is that the elite have been impressed by the power, the control, and the influence of totalitarianism. They have fought it because it was in the hand of the left wing, to better apply it to the right wing. Considering that Capitalism has failed and will keep failing, the only way to maintain people in the ignorance, and control a possible revolution, is now to push their philosophy further by apply those principles.

Like everywhere else where the Western representative democracy applies, the population has been put asleep and if they don’t wake up anytime soon, it will be too late to do anything about it. We keep waiting for things to get worse, or hoping for better with a change of leadership but the fact remains that our very structure isn’t working. As long as the population won’t take its responsibility as a group, for the future of humanity, there will be nothing else than slavery gradually heading back toward all rights to the masters, no right to the slaves.

Private life is a right, not a privilege. Defend it.

- Sabbi

The Long Lost

Crushed hopes for a better life while sitting on the black couch of ignorance. Images reflection in a box, of a pitiful existence passed waiting for the end. Alone, isolated and scared, she sits in her corner away from others. Her days spent in cage, located next to thousands of similar structures holding just as many per, makes her feel secure. In the streets she walks, afraid to look up in case she would come across someone actually trying to make eye contact. People are so insane, she might get attacked at any moment, she knows. Sitting in the bus, she hears a baby cry and while it reminds her about how having a family would be an interesting idea, that noise bugs her. Why can’t he just shut up? Why isn’t his mother doing something about it? She just raises the volume of her ipod and closes her eyes. The music takes the pain away, yet the lyrics of her favourite song drift her in deep thoughts… ”what is it I’m after, searching for desaster, watching my own life flash in front of my eyes…we’ve been given answers, through walking cancers, dressed up as life…”

A single tear falls down her cheek to crash into nothingness on her jacket, as she forces her eyes to remain closed, hiding away the pain. It can’t be the way it is supposed to be. Yet how could one wish for more. More while looking around to find people, acting exactly like the other yet so isolated from one another.

A single number among billiards of different, yet identical beings. Why would one, actually change something to the equation, she wonders. Holding on the thought that she does matter at work, that she is essential when she is not, unacknowledged agreement between her thoughts and reality…she keeps going. But where, where should she be heading now. Why should the path, or even the arrival point matter. It does not. Depressed, like all those clones, she can’t see, she doesn’t want to understand.

On the way home, an Illuminate screams for unity passed their differences. Injustices being listed as things that can actually change, she hurts. Why can’t he just shut up? Our lives aren’t complicated enough yet? Within the crowd, she hears her name. Looking to the ground, she wonders if she is not only hallucinating voices within the masses. A large hand sits on her shoulder as she steps back immediately. A friend, apparently. Startled, easy talk goes and quickly ends. Does he really care? He doesn’t. Nor does anyone. Does she even care? She highly doubts it.

The Illuminate’s voice suddenly catches her attention as the words “pain” “we all suffer” “This is not how it is supposed to be. This can’t be life.” “What if he was right?” “Why does he think what I think?”, she mumbles. Nothing more but a flash of light just as rapidly gone because obviously, he must be another of those charlatans trying to gain from those still having hope for changes. He states various possibilities and the group surrounding him applauds and rejoices as if there was no tomorrow. As the speech finally ends, the group suddenly return to random individuals, walking away their lonely path back to their own cage. A ray of sunlight in their life if nothing else, but at least she knows that she won’t be disappointed as she did not listen more than required.

Painful way to the cage as individuals unable to own one, beg for help. Why should they deserve any while she does not manage to obtain any? Her own existence falling to piece should earn others the right to ask for more than what she has? Be they called miserable; those who dare begging those who worked hard for what they have, as if they could have it any easier than the rest of them.

Knowledge taken away from birth by others, while kept away by her own will, as she grew up. Is there a solution to such lack of evolution in the human nature? Why does she want friends, feel this incomparable need to talk to someone, while she wouldn’t even care if someone decided to talk to her about his life. It is divided that they stand, looking for gains instead of their happiness, because no more is there any belief of true happiness within poverty. Values as she heard of as a child are long lost and will never come back. When you are born for less, you cannot earn more than what is ready to be distributed your way. Desperate, it is by the window that she watches her life walk away on its own, she knows.

- Sabbi