thefleshbarrier (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} thefleshbarrier) wrote,@ 2006-04-23 01:37:00 |
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"When You Don't Control Your Government, People Want To Kill You", Anti-Flag
The song, "When You Don't Control Your Government, People Want To Kill You" is aptly named. Although I do not believe these words mean that politicians are sitting in rooms planning how they are going to put a knife in your back, I still stick to my original support for the phrase. As things stand, even when politicians do want to do what is good for the people, they must first have an accurate, unbiased picture of the whole reality of millions of people. This is the first dangerous source of error in trying to help someone through politics. The next step is even harder... When an elected leader of a constiuent of civilians wishes to make some change, they must begin an all out war on the perceptions of hundreds of other individually motivated politicians. To actually change a law, there must be a vote in the Canadian house of commons, which has approximately 300 members. Most votes wind up based on the official viewpoints of the party leader, and the ability to make simple, helpful changes to the system become bartering tactics of bickering politicians.
Even when every politician legitimately wants and tries to help solve the problems of their countrymen, half-hearted rhetoric in some fancy parliament building does little to satisfy the people, and it is no wonder why. We pay taxes, but the only say we get on how any of it is spent is based on an election of teammates from four or five parties every two or three years. Truly, our government is already fairer than most, but to make it the fairest would require a lot of work. So very much work, in fact, that it would take the effort of every citizen of Canada.
As things stand at this moment, the people who are dissatisfied with our government (a considerable percentage) do have the right to complain, since they aren't technically responsible for the actions of our leaders. Despite a few notable cases of single votes winning elections, we all know that one vote doesn't really count. Every vote is in a constituency of residents with local representatives from the governmental parties who "advertize" proposed legislation that will get faught over in parliament. The people give up the responsibility of the government's actions when they are only a part of the decision making problem once every few years or so. I guess everyone forgot that problems don't happen to a country every two or three years, they happen 24/7, 365.25. Of course, when Canada began, there was so much unconquered land and such an incredible difficulty in communication that our country could act much more efficiently with just a few elected leaders, but times have changed and news networks broadcast on the hour, every hour... It's not so hard any more to keep the population informed about the various happenings around our country; we are bombarded with media all day long, and you can buy cell phones that have television news broadcasts in them. So, now anyone who is interested in what's happening to our country can hear about all the decisions they have no part in every hour, on the hour.
There is a sense of being cheated when you, and every other citizen of the province you live in vote for one party, but must live under the rule of another, who advertize exclusively for the benefit of the residents from two out of ten provinces. There is also a sense of being cheated when you hear about all of the misappropriated funds and other "scandals" in parliament. There is certainly a sense of being cheated when you put half of everything you earned in an envelope, send it to whichever appointed politician who is responsible for taking your money, and then just hope that some of it actually trickles through the system to your life. All of this cheating has but one unarguable fact: It makes life harder. The whole idea of the word cheating is that you must give more than you must just to break even. When your government cheats you financially or legally, your life gets needlessly more difficult because you are not getting what is fair. But who decides what is fair?
As things stand, politicians decide what's fair in terms of our country's decision making, but in real life there is more than just politics that defines what each individual believes to be fair. On an individual level, each person's defition of fair varies with that person's beliefs. Beliefs are based on knowledge, and we get that knowledge from the people and things around us. We can only understand what we know, and we can only know what we can see. (Or hear, or taste...) With the advent of technology, the mental connection between people across the country has come to include audio and visually information sharing at near-instantaneous speeds. If we wish to know how a friend is doing two provinces away, we can just pick up the phone and find out. If we want to tell everyone about what happened at the sick party we were at last night, we can post it to our livejournal. If we feel sad or alone, we can watch home movies of the past. If we are curious about what happened around the city or the country, we turn the television on to the news...
Yes, there are many people who get their news from more reliable sources than the local television broadcast, but most people get a very large portion of their daily news from television. When it comes to deciding what is fair, the only voice that has been heard by most every citizen of Canada is the voice of television. The radio companies and almost all mass media in Canada are owned and operated by a few corporations, and although these companies are bound by censorship laws, there is very little care about the quality of messages delivered to couch potatoes all across this country. Then, when two strangers are arguing about what is fair, the most likely shared source of common knowledge is what has been learned from television. This means that the information on television easily becomes the most influential voice heard by every Canadian. Which makes it very unfortunate that television is a source of entertainment, and not fairness. Fucked-up fantastic fairytale fictions and dramatizations depicting the depths of depravity are what sells these days. The business of television is to accumulate playlists of programs that generate the highest ratings, and sell advertising time to the highest-paying companies. That's how they make money, and that is what determines the survival of the fittest broadcasting companies: ratings, and money. Not fairness.
You may argue that "ratings" must influence the programming in some fair way, but the final choice of Canada's viewing material is up to the edittors in control; editors who get paid more if they generate greater profits. This is similar to how our government pools to power of the people into the hands of the few, except we can't even choose to fire the television officials once every two or three years. People feel cheated by "behind-closed-doors" discussions and dealings in parliament because they have no real control over a system that they make up 1/33,000,000 of. Statisticians may want to say that such a number is approximately zero anyway, but I say that if it is different, it makes a difference. Although 1/33,000,000 is a very small number, it happens to be 100% as much control as any other average person has. But how can each and every person meet on a regular basis and come up with decisions that must please everyone?
...Work In Progress... (It's done elsewhere, but I am weary and I work in the morning)
The song, "When You Don't Control Your Government, People Want To Kill You" is aptly named. Although I do not believe these words mean that politicians are sitting in rooms planning how they are going to put a knife in your back, I still stick to my original support for the phrase. As things stand, even when politicians do want to do what is good for the people, they must first have an accurate, unbiased picture of the whole reality of millions of people. This is the first dangerous source of error in trying to help someone through politics. The next step is even harder... When an elected leader of a constiuent of civilians wishes to make some change, they must begin an all out war on the perceptions of hundreds of other individually motivated politicians. To actually change a law, there must be a vote in the Canadian house of commons, which has approximately 300 members. Most votes wind up based on the official viewpoints of the party leader, and the ability to make simple, helpful changes to the system become bartering tactics of bickering politicians.
Even when every politician legitimately wants and tries to help solve the problems of their countrymen, half-hearted rhetoric in some fancy parliament building does little to satisfy the people, and it is no wonder why. We pay taxes, but the only say we get on how any of it is spent is based on an election of teammates from four or five parties every two or three years. Truly, our government is already fairer than most, but to make it the fairest would require a lot of work. So very much work, in fact, that it would take the effort of every citizen of Canada.
As things stand at this moment, the people who are dissatisfied with our government (a considerable percentage) do have the right to complain, since they aren't technically responsible for the actions of our leaders. Despite a few notable cases of single votes winning elections, we all know that one vote doesn't really count. Every vote is in a constituency of residents with local representatives from the governmental parties who "advertize" proposed legislation that will get faught over in parliament. The people give up the responsibility of the government's actions when they are only a part of the decision making problem once every few years or so. I guess everyone forgot that problems don't happen to a country every two or three years, they happen 24/7, 365.25. Of course, when Canada began, there was so much unconquered land and such an incredible difficulty in communication that our country could act much more efficiently with just a few elected leaders, but times have changed and news networks broadcast on the hour, every hour... It's not so hard any more to keep the population informed about the various happenings around our country; we are bombarded with media all day long, and you can buy cell phones that have television news broadcasts in them. So, now anyone who is interested in what's happening to our country can hear about all the decisions they have no part in every hour, on the hour.
There is a sense of being cheated when you, and every other citizen of the province you live in vote for one party, but must live under the rule of another, who advertize exclusively for the benefit of the residents from two out of ten provinces. There is also a sense of being cheated when you hear about all of the misappropriated funds and other "scandals" in parliament. There is certainly a sense of being cheated when you put half of everything you earned in an envelope, send it to whichever appointed politician who is responsible for taking your money, and then just hope that some of it actually trickles through the system to your life. All of this cheating has but one unarguable fact: It makes life harder. The whole idea of the word cheating is that you must give more than you must just to break even. When your government cheats you financially or legally, your life gets needlessly more difficult because you are not getting what is fair. But who decides what is fair?
As things stand, politicians decide what's fair in terms of our country's decision making, but in real life there is more than just politics that defines what each individual believes to be fair. On an individual level, each person's defition of fair varies with that person's beliefs. Beliefs are based on knowledge, and we get that knowledge from the people and things around us. We can only understand what we know, and we can only know what we can see. (Or hear, or taste...) With the advent of technology, the mental connection between people across the country has come to include audio and visually information sharing at near-instantaneous speeds. If we wish to know how a friend is doing two provinces away, we can just pick up the phone and find out. If we want to tell everyone about what happened at the sick party we were at last night, we can post it to our livejournal. If we feel sad or alone, we can watch home movies of the past. If we are curious about what happened around the city or the country, we turn the television on to the news...
Yes, there are many people who get their news from more reliable sources than the local television broadcast, but most people get a very large portion of their daily news from television. When it comes to deciding what is fair, the only voice that has been heard by most every citizen of Canada is the voice of television. The radio companies and almost all mass media in Canada are owned and operated by a few corporations, and although these companies are bound by censorship laws, there is very little care about the quality of messages delivered to couch potatoes all across this country. Then, when two strangers are arguing about what is fair, the most likely shared source of common knowledge is what has been learned from television. This means that the information on television easily becomes the most influential voice heard by every Canadian. Which makes it very unfortunate that television is a source of entertainment, and not fairness. Fucked-up fantastic fairytale fictions and dramatizations depicting the depths of depravity are what sells these days. The business of television is to accumulate playlists of programs that generate the highest ratings, and sell advertising time to the highest-paying companies. That's how they make money, and that is what determines the survival of the fittest broadcasting companies: ratings, and money. Not fairness.
You may argue that "ratings" must influence the programming in some fair way, but the final choice of Canada's viewing material is up to the edittors in control; editors who get paid more if they generate greater profits. This is similar to how our government pools to power of the people into the hands of the few, except we can't even choose to fire the television officials once every two or three years. People feel cheated by "behind-closed-doors" discussions and dealings in parliament because they have no real control over a system that they make up 1/33,000,000 of. Statisticians may want to say that such a number is approximately zero anyway, but I say that if it is different, it makes a difference. Although 1/33,000,000 is a very small number, it happens to be 100% as much control as any other average person has. But how can each and every person meet on a regular basis and come up with decisions that must please everyone?
...Work In Progress... (It's done elsewhere, but I am weary and I work in the morning)
