The Dialogue Resumes...
Yesterday I posted the first part of this note that a young friend, a former student, sent to me.
In this second part of his note he gets involved in voting and political parties...It is wonderful to witness the younger crowd getting engaged in politics and social-community affairs beyond their egocentric concern for external looks and immediate satisfactions and petty concerns...
Here my friend is raising a very tortured concept - Western Democracy...which is presented to us as a panacea for all societal-economic-political problems...
But as you realize NOTHING is solved and the difficulties and problems keep on compounding...
Read the second part of my young friend's note...
Read Kafka's The Trial and Metamorphosis
Hi Sir,………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Anyways, this next
thought is off topic but is nonetheless worrying for me. As I matured and began
to understand politics and voting, the major point after an election was always
the voter turnout and how many people actually voted. I was always perplexed by
why so many people decided to not vote, to not be heard. It was their right to
vote and it seemed as though they just didn't care and it kind of pissed me
off. With the next provincial election happening next week, this has been on my
mind a lot and I'm finally beginning to understand why people don't vote. Every
platform spends millions making TV ads saying why the other parties are bad
rather than why they are good. That's a complete waste of time and huge amounts
of money. Secondly, and more importantly for me, every single party's platform
is majorly flawed in one respect or the other.
Starting with the Liberal
party, the billions lost because of the gas plant scandal and then millions
lost trying to cover up and hide the mistakes as well as the leader being
homosexual. Being a Catholic, this isn't what I would want representing
me.
Then you have the
Conservative party with Tim Hudak and he can't do basic math for his promise of
job creation as well as the fact that one of his major promises is to take away
the 30% off tuition grant for post-secondary students. This grant was just
established a couple years ago and he now wants to take it away. They should be
encouraging education rather than taking it away like that. Sure the 30% only
amounts to something like $1700, but every penny counts for students.
Then you have the
Green party who's major party platform is to take away public funding for
Catholic schools. That's just absolutely ridiculous in my opinion and I'm
pretty speechless about whoever thought of that idea.
It's sad that
voting isn't about choosing what you believe in, but rather, if you really want
to vote, you're voting for the lesser of two evils as the saying goes.
Politicians are just acting childish now and their results should be further
proof that their childish behaviour should no longer be tolerated.
Just a thought, but
what if they used the millions of taxpayers’ dollars they use for bashing their
opponents and donated all of it to the homeless in the province? Do they know
how much power they have to help yet they choose to be selfish? They would
create more jobs by helping all the homeless than building one single factory.
This is all sad and
even more so sad that this is true in a "developed" country.
Anyways, sorry
again for not writing in so long and I hope you enjoy reading this.
Thanks,
xxxxxxxxx
Vaclav Havel and his Critique of the West
Western Democracy is flowed on several accounts.
1. Let us do a simple math... Let us assume that there are 500 ridings in Ontario... In order to win a riding a political part should score the most votes. So they have to receive at least ONE more vote than the the next party... So according to our initial assumption, they can win ALL the seats if they got 500 more votes than the party that comes second. So theoretically any party may win absolute majority with just 500 more votes.
2. Once any party secures the majority in the legislature, they may vote for anything they fancy. The population is at the mercy of that party...and the governing party's goodwill...
3. The MINORITY which together they received JUST 500 less votes, in our model, will be ignored and ridiculed and be idle... till the next election.
4. So what incentive they have to do anything useful...ABSOLUTELY NOTHING... And here the mud-slings become handy. They have to smear the governing party in preparation to the next election....
And the vicious cycle continues and the Myth of Sisyphus gains repute and meaning....
Great author....Fascinating reading...
Also, consider the situation...After the elections, we are absolutely at the mercy of the governing party. What if they renege on their promises...and RENEGE THEY DO...We have to wait till the next election to kick them out... But these guys are cynical and they have psychological analysis of the electorate...They have a phrase..."The memory of the voters is short"...People forget and then they will vote for the same party again...
My Friend has exposed the political agenda of the three parties vying for your vote...and in his young age he is dismayed that ALL THREE ARE THE SAME...and he does not have much of a choice...
- But we will have choice only if these parties are accountable and are NOT ALLOWED to renege on their promises...
- But we will have democracy...only if the minority rights (and I am not referring to visible minorities or Canadian diversity) of the opposition is respected...
- The parties involved represent different parts of the SAME ELITE...and the poor and middle classes are not represented in their vision.
This type of democracy establishes a dictatorship fr every four years... It is sad but that is the truth...They say Western Democracy is flawed, but still is the better way to control the population for the benefit of the "1%", as the "Occupy Movement" exposed few years ago...
My Dear Friend, Instead of donating the millions of the mudslinging money to the homeless and the hungry, the politicians come up with new ways to manipulate the people... Now the new fashion for them is to get together without wearing ties...Just to demonstrate that they are part of the people...
These politicians are shrewd and cynical...and we are at their mercy...That is why things need to change and that is why the Global Village needs you...and I am at a loss and I do not have a solution... and I rely on bright people like you..
***
Hey sir.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Anyway, I wish you and your family and friends the best.
"Stay golden ponyboy"
- love,
"Stay golden ponyboy"
- love,
I think the student is insinuating that I am losing my luster and I my charm...But I am very pleased that he still loves me...I am very grateful for his wishes...and I will try to "Stay golden"...
Here is The poem from Robert Frost that the student is referring to.... read and enjoy...
Robert Frost
Nothing
Gold Can Stay
By Robert Frost
Nature’s
first green is gold,
Her
hardest hue to hold,
Her
early leaf’s a flower;
But
only so an hour.
Then
leaf subsides to leaf.
So
Eden sank to grief,
So
dawn goes down to day.
Nothing
gold can stay
Robert Frost is a beautiful poet...and I love his "Mending wall"....(See below)
| Mending Wall | |
| Robert Frost (1915) | |
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
“Stay where you are until our backs are turned!”
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, “Good fences make good neighbours.”
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
“Why do they make good neighbours? Isn’t it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.” I could say “Elves” to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbours.”
|
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