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Thursday, August 06, 2009

Two Kinds of People

There are two kinds of people in this world - the strong and the weak. Democracy, the brainchild of the Athenians, was conceived as a way for the latter to keep the former in order.
How is it working out? It’s not.

Our media is full of the struggles of minorities for justice, or even a real hearing. This is the constant story, throughout the whole spectrum of society, both national and international. Examples are legion.
Take economics. In 2006 Nouriel Roubini was contemptuously labelled Dr. Doom for predicting in detail the process which resulted in the global financial crisis. He is now (for a brief time) famous, with David Hirst (The Age 6/8) noting his Australian visit ‘from Cassandra to super star’. His fame will, no doubt, soon be brushed aside by the ‘wisdom’ of the gung-ho ‘experts’, whose hubris caused the problem in the first place.

The work of Jimmy Carter in easing US relations with North Korea was wrecked by the aggressive George Bush, resulting in the acute nuclear weapons stand-off, which was behind the arrest of two US journalists. Now we see Bill Clinton, after a ‘soft’ independent visit to North Korea, returning with both of them.

A very real issue is that party governments of all kinds are practically impervious to the wisdom of the people amongst whom are very often those who can see the imminent danger, but live with the frustration (and helpless fury?) of being steadfastly ignored. (The policies on ‘water’ and climate change come immediately to mind.) Meanwhile the juggernaut of partisan government rolls on, arrogant, tone deaf, too weak to do what is necessary, but strong enough to juggle experimental responses to vital issues, afraid to listen.

The Godwin Grech affair is another casualty of our partisan style power structure. As a public servant, his responsibility was unquestionably to serve the new government, but the length of stay of the coalition government made him a Liberal convert with an attitude which should have disqualified him as a public servant.
(That Turnbull was willing to take advantage of his inappropriate illegal loyalties casts a long shadow over his democratic character.) None of this would have been remotely possible within a ballot parliament.

The home-birth issue is another case of threatening government dismissal of the importance of minority values. It maybe that the risks to mother and child are too great to accept. But where is the forum for all sides to be adequately heard. For a minority to lose the argument can be accepted if the process fully and fairly canvasses all the facts, without government or other dominance, and the process will permit a rerun of the issue, after an interval, if fresh facts indicate that it should be.

As I write, i have a visit from a builder. He tells me of nine months delay to get the building permits from the Council for three verandah roofs (for which he already has the deposits).

The point is that minorities make a lot of noise because they fear that without that they will never be heard. Then governments resist with more or less force out of fear.


Nothing can really be final in the affairs of the nation, other than declaring war – in which case a very large percentage free vote (90%?) ) in parliament would be essential.

We are not children, or sheep. We are not ignorant, we can think, although, by having the opportunity available to take part in active participation, we could think better and more deeply.

When will we learn that pure democracy is needed to dissipate all this fear, frustration, and anger. In view of government resistance to reasonable change, many are convinced that we should have a ‘bill of rights’ to let the courts have the government on a leash. But control could be, and should be, by the people - not the courts. Rights merely set the people against government, whereas government should be in a realistic way answerable to a confident people, with a confident voice.

Without this advance (to non-partisan government (via the ballot in parliaments), there is no chance of a successful world government. If we don’t wake up to the absolute need for change, Armageddon is a very real possibility. We are the best people to get this ball rolling, if we will only believe - and take appropriate action. Join the Secret Ballot Party - for free.
basilsmith@sfastmail.fm

1 comment:

Berge said...

a lot of what u say is on
the money