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Will we ever see true Governance?

2»

Comments

  • #32
    KyussBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,797 ✭✭✭KyussBishop


    seamus wrote: »
    Of course, "true" governance is a philosophical question in itself. What is "true" governance? How would you measure it and define it and decide that it's "true"?

    The theoretical purest and fairest form of society is of course an anarchistic one, where every person is in control of their own destiny. But unfortunately the nature of the animal and of existence is that this can never work in the way it's imagined.

    The EU, for all its bloatedness, appears to me to be the closest thing we have to a good form of governance. Many of the major improvements to the lives of individuals in this country over the last 30 years have been down to the EU dragging Irish governments kicking and screaming into the modern era. The focus of the EU is largely on the preservation of the union and the improvement of the lives of the citizens therein. This is probably because the EU rarely has to get bogged down in the specifics of fixing the potholes or making sure that Jimmy Mac who runs the concrete plant is happy, so they can make much more general changes with less resistance.

    The technocratic nature of the EU is not a bad thing. In reality, we should have experts making decisions and directions on things they know about. Otherwise you get idiots like Sherlock creating laws that are completely moronic and outside the scope of reality, because they're making decision they're unqualified to make.
    Technocracy however obviously has some drawbacks (groupthink) and is as open to abuse any other form of governance. So a techno/demo-cratic hybrid seems like an improvement on a pure democracy.
    That's an interesting viewpoint that I haven't considered before, but I have to disagree with attributing credit to technocracy: I think if we had a purely democratic Europe (would require a federal state), that we'd get the same benefits, and that technocracy hasn't got anything to do with it.

    Right now technocracy is damaging us enormously, because the technocrats in charge of managing and guiding the development/practice of economics in Europe, have landed us in a currency union that has greatly worsened the current crisis, and has deadlocked our ability to get out of this crisis as well.


    The EU is definitely, in many ways, pulling us in a progressive way into the 21st century, but we are at risk of getting trapped in a downward spiral we can't get out of, due to the Euro and potential for recurring economic crisis - and this can be exploited as a means of dismantling democracy across all European nations, by permanently removing citizens ability to vote on their economic future (since no one/single democratic entity, can decide this, and multiple governments trying to decide this, leads to a deadlock).

    How a country is managed economically - especially its monetary system - significantly determines (through purse strings) how a country is managed politically and societally; if we accept a loss of democratic control over our economic/monetary system, in deference to technocracy (which is what we have done already with the Euro and ECB), then it's pretty easy for those technocrats to erode our remaining democratic control over politics/society (nevermind the rest of the economy).


  • #33
    KyussBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,797 ✭✭✭KyussBishop


    Harmony Old-fashioned Verdict wrote: »
    Marxism has failed. Dictatorship throughout history have failed. The totally free market model of the USA certianly fails a huge portion of its citezins. A technocratic overlord certainly has it's failings but the form exhibited by the EU is far from a failure. Perhaps a monarchy would be more to your liking. Oh no, that would allow privilege and status to determine your fate. I honestly don't know what form of oversight you would prefer.
    The Euro is increasingly regarded as a gigantic mistake - even by its creators:
    Euro flawed from start says main creator
    Jacques Delors, one of the architects of single currency, says his plans for economic co-ordination were never followed.

    One of the main architects of the euro has said the eurozone was "flawed from the very beginning".

    Jacques Delors, who headed the European Commission from 1985 to 1995 in an interview with Britain's Daily Telegraph, said "over-optimism shown by the euro's creators meant the current debt crisis was inevitable".

    Delors blamed the crisis on "a fault in execution" by politicians during the currency's early days, particularly their refusal to acknowledge the threat caused by imbalances in the economies of member states.

    "Everyone must examine their consciences," said the former French politician.

    "The finance ministers did not want to see anything disagreeable which they would be forced to deal with," he added.

    The comments come amid growing doubts over the viability of the eurozone.

    Delors, who was a key player in creating the framework for the euro's 1999 launch, singled out Germany as the
    biggest stumbling block in finding a swift solution to the crisis.

    "A combination of the stubbornness of the Germanic idea of monetary control and the absence of a clear vision from all the other countries" was responsible for the ongoing situation, he argued.

    The former commissioner also accepted that "Anglo-Saxon" politicians and economists "had a point" when they warned that a single currency and central bank could not bring economic stability to a union of nations.

    Delors also accused current European leaders of amplifying the crisis by doing "too little, too late", in his first
    interview with a British newspaper for almost a decade.
    http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2011/12/201112313753755193.html

    The Euro is pretty much one of the worst mistakes in modern European history, causing enormous (ongoing) economic damage (and human suffering/deaths as a result, due to the effects of high unemployment and worsening public services) - and it's one of the defining features of the EU.


  • #34
    KyussBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,797 ✭✭✭KyussBishop


    bluewolf wrote: »
    You what? With the govt stepping in to prop up companies,
    "Increasing home ownership has been the goal of several presidents including Roosevelt, Reagan, Clinton and George W. Bush." and stuff like this
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act
    is a United States federal law designed to encourage commercial banks and savings associations to help meet the needs of borrowers in all segments of their communities, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods./I]
    Hello sub prime
    The Community Reinvestment Act is a straw-man used to try and shift the blame for reckless bank lending, away from banks who put out reckless and often fraudulent loans, and put that blame onto the US government - instead of acknowledging the role played on all sides.

    Here are two fed economists picking apart the CRA claim:
    As the current financial crisis has unfolded, an argument that the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) is at its root has gained a foothold. This argument draws on the fact that the CRA encourages commercial banks and savings institutions (collectively known as banking institutions) to help meet the credit needs of lower-income borrowers and borrowers in lower-income neighborhoods.1/ Critics of the CRA contend that the law pushed banking institutions to undertake high-risk mortgage lending.

    This article discusses key features of the CRA and presents results from our analysis of several data sources regarding the volume and performance of CRA-related mortgage lending. On balance, the evidence runs counter to the contention that the CRA lies at the root of the current mortgage crisis.
    ...
    http://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications_papers/pub_display.cfm?id=4136


  • #35
    KyussBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,797 ✭✭✭KyussBishop


    lufties wrote: »
    I'm talking about 1912/13 actually, before the federal reserve in america was privatised and banks took control. How is it irrelevant to us? Didn't our great noble mary harney say we're closer to boston than berlin.
    While many of the facts surrounding the feds history are interesting/noteworthy, and while you're looking in the right area of what there is to be concerned about, it's actually a bad thing to focus on the feds history because it is prone to conspiracy theories, and there is actually a much bigger more immediate problem, that is far easier to show problems with in its own right:

    Private banks (nevermind the fed) have the power to create money, and are effectively in control of money creation (and you can easily find reputable economists like Martin Wolf/Sir Mervyn King to back this) - which is a huge amount of undemocratic power, that they often exercise in extremely irresponsible ways.

    It's better to focus on that (it's bad enough in its own right, to not need embellishment with less consequential things like who owns the fed), and learning about it and what it means about economics, than who owns the fed, or the feds history: It gets to the core of what is actually wrong with all of the banking/monetary systems all over the world, and precisely why they are harmful to democracy (through putting extremely great powers, of money creation, into private hands - creating a large amount of undemocratic power, which are usable to influence/shape the course of politics/business/society in huge ways).


  • #36
    lufties
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,507 ✭✭✭lufties


    KyussBishop wrote: »
    While many of the facts surrounding the feds history are interesting/noteworthy, and while you're looking in the right area of what there is to be concerned about, it's actually a bad thing to focus on the feds history because it is prone to conspiracy theories, and there is actually a much bigger more immediate problem, that is far easier to show problems with in its own right:

    Private banks (nevermind the fed) have the power to create money, and are effectively in control of money creation (and you can easily find reputable economists like Martin Wolf/Sir Mervyn King to back this) - which is a huge amount of undemocratic power, that they often exercise in extremely irresponsible ways.

    It's better to focus on that (it's bad enough in its own right, to not need embellishment with less consequential things like who owns the fed), and learning about it and what it means about economics, than who owns the fed, or the feds history: It gets to the core of what is actually wrong with all of the banking/monetary systems all over the world, and precisely why they are harmful to democracy (through putting extremely great powers, of money creation, into private hands - creating a large amount of undemocratic power, which are usable to influence/shape the course of politics/business/society in huge ways).

    Yes therein lies the biggest problem, I think though regarding the fed that it is one of(if not the biggest) private bank on the planet. If it was shut then the rest would follow suit, the U.S being the biggest economy and all. Hence my mention of the fed.


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  • #37
    Bog Standard User
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 847 ✭✭✭Bog Standard User


    lufties wrote: »
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_state

    so the usa is a police state too by that definition


  • #38
    lufties
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,507 ✭✭✭lufties


    Bog Standard User wrote: »
    so the usa is a police state too by that definition

    Well yes, Perhaps I should have chosen my words better and said that it is heading that direction with regard to government control, security and lack of privacy.


  • #39
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 12,694 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    The question is do we want it to be different and how many people as a percentage of the population really truly care how we are governed.

    As far as I can see people moan, they are asking for change, but their main concern is that what ever governance is there make It possible for them to pay less tax! followed by wanting a system that stops the rich from, what they perceive as getting away with it!

    There is very little real appetite for change other than he above.

    The reason for this is that in Ireland, the rest of Europe and the US, life is alright for the majority nobody is starving or in fear of being randomly shot at on the behest of a corrupt state.

    Of course there are those who lose out as well but for the vast majority that is not the case.

    People know how governance is working on their lives they can see the contradiction in the system they just make adjustment for it and get on with their lives.


  • #40
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 12,694 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    The vast majority know about CCT cameras every where, the amount of information that is stored about them, they know and can discern the bias in the media none of it is hidden, there is no conspiracy to keep the population ignorant al la Noam Chomsky, the sad truth is the vast majority don't care, some do care but not enough to be noticeable.


  • #41
    KyussBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,797 ✭✭✭KyussBishop


    lufties wrote: »
    Yes therein lies the biggest problem, I think though regarding the fed that it is one of(if not the biggest) private bank on the planet. If it was shut then the rest would follow suit, the U.S being the biggest economy and all. Hence my mention of the fed.
    The Fed isn't like a private bank though, it's a central bank; the ownership of it and all, is interesting in its implications on who has influence over the fed, but it's not really of great consequence - the major thing of consequence, is how the private banks (not the fed) are pretty much able to create money through lending (as can be backed by Martin Wolf/Mervyn King etc.).

    It's not the banking institutions that matter, it's the how the banking/monetary system work is what matters - and it works the same all over the world, so it's a massive problem of undemocratic power, that spans the world, and isn't limited to just the fed.


    The problem is though, on a topic like this, is that how the monetary system works is complicated and often hard to understand/explain, especially the implications of how it works, so it's really easy for people to get distracted by easier-to-see but less consequential things, like the ownership of the fed - that's missing the real problem, by a really long way, and because that topic surrounding the fed is surrounded with conspiracy theories, it allows those views to be easily smeared/discredited.

    Better to forget about fed ownership and stuff (it's interesting and worth exploring though, granted), and start by focusing discussion on how the monetary system actually lets banks create money, and the unjust/undemocratic power this grants them.


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  • #42
    KyussBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,797 ✭✭✭KyussBishop


    mariaalice wrote: »
    The vast majority know about CCT cameras every where, the amount of information that is stored about them, they know and can discern the bias in the media none of it is hidden, there is no conspiracy to keep the population ignorant al la Noam Chomsky, the sad truth is the vast majority don't care, some do care but not enough to be noticeable.
    There's no conspiracy, it's done in plain sight - it's pretty easy to pick out the propagandising in the news and online, there are entire industries of think-tanks dedicated to producing (often anti-science/anti-intellectual, the latter being the very definition of spreading ignorance) propaganda.


  • #43
    hatrickpatrick
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,798 ✭✭✭✭hatrickpatrick


    Nemeses wrote: »
    Yet again - How is the UK a Police State?

    Government sponsored internet censorship, detainment of journalists under terrorism laws, deep packet inspection by intelligence (and proposed future DPI by ordinary police) recording everything UK internet users do, tyrannical restrictions on free speech, unaccountable police (remember that innocent Brazilian lad who was murdered on the London Underground, was anyone ever actually charged with that?), apparently universal use of stop and frisk powers against certain demographics... Need I go on? The place is an absolute shambles when it comes to freedom.


  • #44
    hatrickpatrick
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,798 ✭✭✭✭hatrickpatrick


    Harmony Old-fashioned Verdict wrote: »
    A technocratic overlord certainly has it's failings but the form exhibited by the EU is far from a failure.

    The EU is pandering to the financial system at the expense of ordinary people, and stripping away national sovereignty one treaty at a time.
    How you define failure is up to you, but if we're talking in terms of citizen autonomy and rule by the people for the people, the EU has been an absolute disaster.


  • #45
    KyussBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,797 ✭✭✭KyussBishop


    An interesting article I saw elsewhere earlier as well, pointing out how the EU may be in breach of certain human rights terms due to austerity - and particularly noteworthy, is a part of the article mentioning how the ECB has gone beyond its democratic mandate, and has become an even more undemocratic institution (meshes well, with my description of how the way the monetary system is managed, is undemocratic):
    http://euobserver.com/social/122899


  • #46
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 3,773 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    hatrickpatrick wrote: »
    Government sponsored internet censorship, detainment of journalists under terrorism laws, deep packet inspection by intelligence (and proposed future DPI by ordinary police) recording everything UK internet users do, tyrannical restrictions on free speech, unaccountable police (remember that innocent Brazilian lad who was murdered on the London Underground, was anyone ever actually charged with that?), apparently universal use of stop and frisk powers against certain demographics... Need I go on? The place is an absolute shambles when it comes to freedom.

    Tyrannical restrictions on free speech.

    This is the country of Abu Hamza and Nick Griffin.

    Free speech, although under some restrictions, is arguably better protected than almost any country in the world that I can think of.


  • #47
    hatrickpatrick
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,798 ✭✭✭✭hatrickpatrick


    [Deleted User] wrote: »
    Tyrannical restrictions on free speech.

    This is the country of Abu Hamza and Nick Griffin.

    Free speech, although under some restrictions, is arguably better protected than almost any country in the world that I can think of.

    http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120328/04254118274/uk-they-jail-people-being-obnoxious-jerks-twitter.shtml

    Can't see something like that happening here.


  • #48
    lufties
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,507 ✭✭✭lufties


    KyussBishop wrote: »
    The Fed isn't like a private bank though, it's a central bank; the ownership of it and all, is interesting in its implications on who has influence over the fed, but it's not really of great consequence - the major thing of consequence, is how the private banks (not the fed) are pretty much able to create money through lending (as can be backed by Martin Wolf/Mervyn King etc.).

    It's not the banking institutions that matter, it's the how the banking/monetary system work is what matters - and it works the same all over the world, so it's a massive problem of undemocratic power, that spans the world, and isn't limited to just the fed.


    The problem is though, on a topic like this, is that how the monetary system works is complicated and often hard to understand/explain, especially the implications of how it works, so it's really easy for people to get distracted by easier-to-see but less consequential things, like the ownership of the fed - that's missing the real problem, by a really long way, and because that topic surrounding the fed is surrounded with conspiracy theories, it allows those views to be easily smeared/discredited.

    Better to forget about fed ownership and stuff (it's interesting and worth exploring though, granted), and start by focusing discussion on how the monetary system actually lets banks create money, and the unjust/undemocratic power this grants them.

    Its a bank owned by Elitest bankers, not the U.S government. The income tax that Americans pay is to pay interest on debt(I.E Fed loaned money). So I ask why is this. Why can't the U.S government kick this cartel out and make the Fed truly state owned, like JFK tried to do.

    I agree with you that the monetary system is complicated and if you start going on about conspiracy theories you will be labelled a paranoid looney. From what I've seen happen in this world over the last 5 years, with regard to greed and distribution of wealth leaves me very skeptical.

    I don't disagree with capitalism, It is better than the alternative. The thing is though the nature of capitalism is that if you gamble and lose, you do just that. What we have seen with regard to speculators and bankers being bailed out by governments at the expense of the taxpayer is not capitalism, but something very sinister.


  • #49
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 3,773 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    hatrickpatrick wrote: »
    http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120328/04254118274/uk-they-jail-people-being-obnoxious-jerks-twitter.shtml

    Can't see something like that happening here.

    Hmm, that's an interesting one alright. As quite rightly stated in the link, there is something chilling about somebody being thrown in jail for Twitter comments. I don't think he was about to round up a mob with pitchforks, and therefore I think his tweets, though idiotic, did not warrant being thrown in jail.

    However, I'm quite confident that the UK will develop a more sane approach to tweets like this. Or be consistent at least.


  • #50
    Days 298
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,301 ✭✭✭Days 298


    I miss FF. Everyone cheered their budgets..........


  • #51
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 12,694 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    KyussBishop wrote: »
    There's no conspiracy, it's done in plain sight - it's pretty easy to pick out the propagandising in the news and online, there are entire industries of think-tanks dedicated to producing (often anti-science/anti-intellectual, the latter being the very definition of spreading ignorance) propaganda.

    That may well be true, but you have to answer the question why do people both buy in to and not challenge the system, information is freely there for everyone in the days of the internet, and yet a large minority will believe the anti science anti intellectual why is that.

    Why don't the vast majority want change what is stopping them.


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  • #52
    ScumLord
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 28,787 ✭✭✭✭ScumLord


    KyussBishop wrote: »
    The Euro is increasingly regarded as a gigantic mistake
    It's handy when you go on holiday though.

    I like the euro in principle, if it needs to be fixed, fix it. I don't want to go back to having different money for different countries.


  • #53
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 3,773 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    ScumLord wrote: »
    It's handy when you go on holiday though.

    I like the euro in principle, if it needs to be fixed, fix it. I don't want to go back to having different money for different countries.

    There are only 2 ways to fix the Euro:

    1) Get rid of it
    2) The EU can cut to the chase, disband all national governments, and we become the United States of Deutschland.

    Neither of those is going to happen anytime soon, and hence the Euro crisis is not over by a long shot. Right now I think we're in the eye of the storm, but it will kick off again in the next few years, I'm convinced of it.


  • #54
    gocompare346
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 3 ✭gocompare346


    seamus wrote: »
    Of course, "true" governance is a philosophical question in itself. What is "true" governance? How would you measure it and define it and decide that it's "true"?

    The theoretical purest and fairest form of society is of course an anarchistic one, where every person is in control of their own destiny. But unfortunately the nature of the animal and of existence is that this can never work in the way it's imagined.

    The EU, for all its bloatedness, appears to me to be the closest thing we have to a good form of governance. Many of the major improvements to the lives of individuals in this country over the last 30 years have been down to the EU dragging Irish governments kicking and screaming into the modern era. The focus of the EU is largely on the preservation of the union and the improvement of the lives of the citizens therein. This is probably because the EU rarely has to get bogged down in the specifics of fixing the potholes or making sure that Jimmy Mac who runs the concrete plant is happy, so they can make much more general changes with less resistance.

    The technocratic nature of the EU is not a bad thing. In reality, we should have experts making decisions and directions on things they know about. Otherwise you get idiots like Sherlock creating laws that are completely moronic and outside the scope of reality, because they're making decision they're unqualified to make.
    Technocracy however obviously has some drawbacks (groupthink) and is as open to abuse any other form of governance. So a techno/demo-cratic hybrid seems like an improvement on a pure democracy.

    Where is your evidence to back these unsubstantiated claims? This is pure hearsay and quite misleading.


  • #55
    gocompare346
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 3 ✭gocompare346


    seamus wrote: »
    I mean, really? "Land of the free"?
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_States

    Anyone who thinks that the United States was ever a democratic utopia is living in fantasy land. The US has for most of its life governed with social conservatism and economic liberalism.

    Most people really want the opposite.

    Cherry picking a single piece of evidence to support your claim, while ignoring basic Documents, like the US Constitution, to reach your conclusion, is illogical. Read the US Consitution, in particular, the United States Bill of Rights. Their Consitution derives from the English Bill of Rights and the Magna Carta in 1215, where John of England lost absolute control over his subjects, a monumental step in individual liberty, much to the dismay of crying eyed Liberals in the EU, who want to control every facet of your life, unlike the US.

    What other countries, in particular, European, allow their citizens to bear arms, or speak freely their convictions, which expressed in Ireland or the UK, would land you in Jail? Where is your evidence, good Sir?


  • #56
    KyussBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,797 ✭✭✭KyussBishop


    lufties wrote: »
    Its a bank owned by Elitest bankers, not the U.S government. The income tax that Americans pay is to pay interest on debt(I.E Fed loaned money). So I ask why is this. Why can't the U.S government kick this cartel out and make the Fed truly state owned, like JFK tried to do.

    I agree with you that the monetary system is complicated and if you start going on about conspiracy theories you will be labelled a paranoid looney. From what I've seen happen in this world over the last 5 years, with regard to greed and distribution of wealth leaves me very skeptical.

    I don't disagree with capitalism, It is better than the alternative. The thing is though the nature of capitalism is that if you gamble and lose, you do just that. What we have seen with regard to speculators and bankers being bailed out by governments at the expense of the taxpayer is not capitalism, but something very sinister.
    I agree with you on the fed - I support it being merged with the US Treasury (effectively the same as making it state-owned), as a part of wider-ranging monetary reform.

    I agree with most of that really, though just usually have the different focus, of looking at how money creation works in practice - which is very closely connected to all of that.


  • #57
    KyussBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,797 ✭✭✭KyussBishop


    mariaalice wrote: »
    That may well be true, but you have to answer the question why do people both buy in to and not challenge the system, information is freely there for everyone in the days of the internet, and yet a large minority will believe the anti science anti intellectual why is that.

    Why don't the vast majority want change what is stopping them.
    Most people actually don't have a good picture of the scale of the propaganda, and are not able to find good sources of information (which can be found online, but is hard to find all the same), so people:
    1: Find it hard to tell truth from bullshít, because they don't have an 'antidote' (better source) than the outlets putting out propaganda/semi-propagandized news

    2: Get distracted by less consequential issues that are put out using 'divide and conquer' tactics, such as public vs private issues, rich vs poor, male vs female, pro-choice vs pro-life, etc. etc., instead of focusing on the more important issues of undemocratic power vs democratically-accountable power.

    None of those issues are unimportant, but they demand more attention from people because they are less complicated - I suspect (though admit this is CT-worthy) that probably this is why some seemingly obvious social wrongs like anti-abortion/drug-criminalization/female-discrimination take so long to resolve: it is politically useful to keep them as distractions.


    3: People don't have the time, either to figure out the full scale of the propaganda, or to figure out what to do about it, or to even spend any time doing something about it (such as protesting and being politically active).
    People have high-working-hour jobs, and a social life, and many other time-constraints which prevent them really being active on any of this (they may also be cash-strapped, in a way that limits such activity as well).

    I've put a lot of time into understanding these issues over the last couple of years (mainly on economics), and as much as I've learned (pretty much how to solve the economic crisis at this stage), I'll be decades learning still, because there's a hell of a lot to learn to get a proper grip on it all; given the large learning curve and time/intellectual investment, not many among the public will learn this stuff.

    4: There are many attitudes instilled in our society, that promote deference to authority, a "mind your own business" attitude towards criminality/fraud/corruption, a "stop making a fuss" or "what are they on about?" or "shure it's always been like that, and it's always going to be - your wasting your time" attitude to protesting, the view that politics and economics are 'boring' subjects (not all wrong really...), among many other things, which help deter any real political challenge to power or corruption - this is hard to overcome.


    There's a lot more I could add to that, but the basic point is that the propaganda on these topics is so wide-ranging, without any antidote or good source of adversarial journalism that really points out the real problems in politics/economics today - the conditions are so much like that, that the propaganda and muffling of important information is perfectly successful enough to keep the vast majority of the public placid and inactive.

    This is all a part of why a lot of people generally really aren't interested in trying to be politically active and make a difference - and why the political movements (and parties) needed to foster this, don't seem to exist.

    I'd like to see that change (be involved with it myself even), though it's hard to see how it would get started and build up momentum - I don't see any political parties/movements even remotely compatible with this (though many fringe ones which seem to have a habit of discrediting themselves), and am not sure how one would be started.


  • #58
    KyussBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,797 ✭✭✭KyussBishop


    ScumLord wrote: »
    It's handy when you go on holiday though.

    I like the euro in principle, if it needs to be fixed, fix it. I don't want to go back to having different money for different countries.
    It's certainly possible to fix the Euro, and Yanis Varoufakis has an excellent proposal for doing that, but it looks like countries such as Germany will pretty much never agree to it - so Europe is deadlocked politically, and I've pretty much given up all hope of that ever being resolved.


  • #59
    MRnotlob606
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,642 ✭✭✭MRnotlob606


    Why do people keep talking about how bad the government is ?


  • #60
    KyussBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,797 ✭✭✭KyussBishop


    Deleted User wrote: »
    There are only 2 ways to fix the Euro:

    1) Get rid of it
    2) The EU can cut to the chase, disband all national governments, and we become the United States of Deutschland.

    Neither of those is going to happen anytime soon, and hence the Euro crisis is not over by a long shot. Right now I think we're in the eye of the storm, but it will kick off again in the next few years, I'm convinced of it.
    There are some solutions in-between those two, such as the modest proposal I posted above, and ways of expanding local spending without Europe, such as Tax Anticipation Notes (our best bet, in my view - we can do this completely on our own, without consulting Europe or anybody), but yes - they are not permanent solutions, and we are almost certain to be facing more economic crisis before the end of the decade, because pretty much nothing has been reformed, to prevent another crisis (hell...the same uninvestigated fraudsters/criminals are still in place, at most of the banking/financial institutions that caused this crisis).


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