Transparency

Since the beginning of ‘leadership’, those in charge have omitted or warped information. The reasonings are many, but one consistent is that they do it to preserve their own power. Especially in this day and age, knowledge and information are power. So when this power is stripped, we are left defenseless and at the mercy of those who wield it.

Just recently, a TSA leak revealed that only a very small percent of airline flights actually have U.S. Air Marshals on board. In response to this fact, the TSA launched an internal investigation to find the source of the leak. They might say the reasoning is that letting terrorists know that air flights are not as secure as we would like them to think.

In truth, there are likely a few more non-philanthropic reasonings behind the cover-up. Lying about the number of Air Marshals in the air allows them to not spend the money to actually hire them, saving the company (as even government is a company these days) money, and profiting the people at the top who manage the books. As long as the people believe they are safe, they are less prone to probe into the workings of the agency as well.

That is not to say there are certain instances were privacy and with-holding information are completely invalid. The exact identities of those marshals should not be revealed. Having detailed reports on spies and undercover officers would put them into harm’s way. However, the government has no right to suppress that they are paying for a thousand air marshals, when only a hundred are being employed, or that they are giving millions of taxpayer money to support a new bill, and hiding how it is spent and where it goes. It is bad enough to manipulate the power of money, but they compound their offense to the people they are meant to serve by manipulating information as well.

Government should be mandated to reveal all internal workings to the public, with very specific cases being allowed to be masked when safety for specific individuals is at risk. It is heinous that they hide from us, and then chide the idea of true democracy as foolish since people will make incorrect decisions, which is a certainty if the agencies serving the public hide information. They continue to take money and information, take the power of the people, increasing their own and lie to our faces and say it is for our own good. Of course government could always get worse, and it is a popular idea to not fix something that isn’t ‘broke’, but not searching for a way to make things better is complacency and foolish.

- Justin

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

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