Friday, February 03, 2006
A Bunch of School Yard Kids...
Have you ever noticed how the current political environment in this country resembles the same-old school pranks that we endured as kids? Name-calling, cliques, peer-pressure, popularity contests, bullying...I mean, are not we supposed to act like adults, having learned that these tactics only spread disunity and anger? Where's the VERY adult-like ideas of compassion, constructive criticism, cooperation, and open debate? Yeah, it's pretty sad that I have to see those that are supposed to lead, acting like a bunch of spoiled babies!
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Conservative Canada?
Well, as the papers would like you to believe that our neighbors up North are now in cahoots with our Conservative Coalition down here, I'm here to remind everyone that Canada is a far different type of governmental entity than the kind of pseudo-democratic entity that we have here.
First-off, Canada is a parliamentary government that is ruled by percentages, not majorities. By this I mean, that when the Canadians vote for their government, they vote based upon percentages, not majority takes all...like here.
So, yes the conservatives did win more seats than the liberals, but there are more than just TWO POLITICAL PARTIES in Canadian politics, and that being said, the Conservatives did not win the majority of the seats in their HOUSE OF COMMONS, therefore, they must form a COALITION government with all the others parties elected in order to get any of their ideas passed into law.
This promotes the idea of COMPROMISE...a term that should be applied to politics in this country. Unfortunately, in our winner-takes-all mentality there is a greed-like mentality that clearly creates disenfranchisement and apathy towards everything political in this country. I would tend to think that if the common American voter felt that their vote was not going to waste but was being used to elect a percentage of like-minded individuals to government, then we would see less of the corruption and us-against-them mentality that permeates our politics. Now, this is not to say that Canada has it better...all governments, whether they be Parliamentary or not, tend to have their problems...but to simply lump Canada into the mold of the U.S. is unfair to their governmental system and is a sign of shoddy journalism.
Oh, I almost forgot...Canada does not have an ALL-POWERFUL EXECUTIVE branch, who tends to muck up things and create divisive actions against the other political bodies within its government. Yes, they have a Prime Minister that is a SYMBOLIC representation of the majority parties power, but even they can be sacked by their own party if they aren't doing their job!
So, yes Canada voted Conservative, but they are far from becoming the lap-dogs to our current crazy system of government.
UNFAIR VERDICTS?
Today...I came across two articles in the paper that demonstrated the wonderful affects of our current social trends:
-Article One: The Jury, in the military trail of Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer Jr. (convicted of NEGLIGENT HOMICIDE in the death of an Iraqi General in his captivity...which he fully admits to causing his death by suffocation), is given NO JAIL TIME! Ramifications of prejudicial conduct on the jury...as they, a all military jury, feels that the life of another human being, though they be of a different nationality and on an opposing side, is not worth wasting the military career of an officer who has to worry about is impending retirement! This really disgusts me...it is this same mentality that brought about the Abdu Grab prison scandal and continues to paint our society as unjust and unfair when it comes to the handling of other cultures and peoples.
-Article Two: A peace activist is given 6 MONTHS IN PRISON (not jail...which is less ominous than state prison) for "splattering his own blood at a military recruiting station to protest the war in Iraq." Okay...no one injured (cept the peace activist), nobody killed, no contamination of anyone from any possible HIV stuff...yet STATE PRISON for a guy who used himself as a form of protest against what the military and its people, like Mr. Welshofer, are doing in Iraq: actually spilling the blood of insurgents, themselves and, of course, the occasional peaceful, law-abiding innocent civilian!
Where's the justice in this...I know both cases are different because of the courtroom environments (military vs civilian), but what the fuck is a man who did NO HARM, except to himself, getting 6 MONTHS in STATE PRISON while another, who admits to causing the death of another human being, gets off with a pat on the back and a job well-done. Do we as a nation want to be sending these messages to the Muslims around the world? We have enough problems already with what the current administration is doing to this country's ability to project itself as a "FAIR AND BALANCED" nation of level-minded individuals. This kind of crap is just the tip of the iceberg, the beginning of the slippery-slope that leads to a caustic and very dangerous future for our society...I can only hope that in some way, the Universe keeps a tally sheet and rights these wrongs before the karma collector comes a-calling at our door again!
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