hink of it all - of the life that is! Study your friends and foes!
Study the past! And answer this: "Are these times better than those?" The life-long quarrel, the paltry spite, the sting of your poisoned pride! No matter who fell it were better to fight as they did when the world was wide.
Corrupt Democracy
"Corruption is a word with several shades of meaning. It may mean the payment of bribes, and in that sense, as Royce Millar acknowledged in his reports, there is no hard evidence that political donations by corporations or wealthy business people are corrupt. But corruption can also refer to the buying of influence, rather than making payments in return for specific favours. And in that wider sense of the word it can only be of profound concern that, as our reports show, the corporate donors to the Victorian ALP are, overwhelmingly, in construction or other infrastructure-related areas of business. Of the 44 corporate donors to the ALP in 2006 and 2007, more than three-quarters were in these areas, or in alcohol or gaming, or had contracts with the Government. These firms, it can reasonably be surmised, gave money to the governing party because their prosperity depends on securing government contracts. To assert that they are doing anything other than what Mr Schwartz suggests — giving money because they want something in return - would be to strain credulity to breaking point.Victorian Labor is notable for the relationships it has developed with infrastructure firms because its corporate fund-raising arm, Progressive Business, has been conspicuously successful at forging such relationships. But they are not unique to the ALP, or to this state. In NSW, both major political parties have similar fund-raising affiliates, and here in Victoria the Opposition Leader, Ted Baillieu, agrees with the Premier that the present rules governing political donations - no limit on how much can be given, and disclosure required only for donations above $10,500 - should remain.
Only by redefining "healthy" can the Premier's contention that donations from government contractors or would-be contractors indicate a healthy democracy be taken seriously. When a political party receives substantial funds from companies with which it must deal when in government, those companies inevitably acquire greater influence over government decision-making than ordinary voters possess. The same, of course, could also be said about trade union donations to political parties."
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This article captures the reality, as opposed to the rhetoric, of our political and decision making system: its not run by the voters. Most political decisions are given impetus by factional power groups while the masses are kept happy by trifling television & other mass media, alcohol, and assurances that the status-quo will fill their bank accounts most rapidly allowing them to purchase more and more 'things'. Voters only become aware of aspects of reality at the last moment when things like resource prices, water and food shortages, rampant street violence and individualism, and terrorism give a loud 'wake up call' that our leaders are in fact short-sighted idiots.
Those of us who are not satisfied with an increasingly atomized Australian society based around the denial of reality that is facilitated by the mass media, drugs, and consumer culture need to band together and make ourselves known in public debate, academia, business and the arts.
The mainstream 'Left' and 'Right' don't get it. Each address only aspects of the problem while proposing measures that would make other aspects of this problem worse. For example the left is correct in that power is increasingly being centralized in the hands of some wealthy individuals and corporations who are simply interested in their own profits as opposed to the other aspects of life of a society, but they forget that this is being facilitated by the baseness and aloofness of the common 'consuming' man whom they argue should have even more influence.
The mainstreem right is correct in that talented individuals need to be recognized and rewarded above those who simply consume, leach and hang on to the processes that support society, but their conception of 'talent' is stunted and simply encapsulates 'ability/drive to make a dollar no matter what': a characteristic which turns off many intelligent, motivated but holistic minded people who are interested in more than simply excessive wealth and empires of the individual.
Leave the ideological dogmatism behind. Get onboard the worldwide Corrupt movement and give voice to a dynamic third way.