Well I've been busy with school and haven't had much of an opportunity to post on this blog.
However I am compelled to post because I have just finished an interesting book called the world without us by Alan Wiesman. It's an interesting premise, the idea being to explore what would be the legacy of the human race, if everyone disappeared tomorrow. Not through war or through a catastrophic event, but simple vanished.
The scariest chapters for me had to be the one on nuclear reactors, and also the one which describes the inability of nature to break down and biodegrade plastic. Every piece of plastic created by us since the 1950s is still with us. This coupled with the fact that much of it ends up in the oceans is quite disturbing.
Another chapter highlights the chemical complex that produces many of our everyday household products, the oil refinery complex in Houston. This chapter was just plain interesting, the way that different types of fuels and inputs for plastic making are separated and how the refineries are so connected and linked together.
It's definitely worth reading, although towards the end it gets a bit odd, and sticks less to its main theme.
October 27, 2007
September 29, 2007
Vote for MMP
There are clear advantages to a proportional system. I think the one proposed by the Ontario citizens group that we here in Ontario are voting on, in a few weeks is one I think it better than the current system. They are proposing Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) representation.
It stops the practice of strategic voting and stops the wasted votes. It is it truly democratic to have someone who received 35% of the vote receiving 100% of the representation? If you have a 4 way race it may even be less than that.
Now I don't think anyone would suggest removing the directly elected MPs and system that are the hallmark of the First past the post system(FPTP). The MMP system merely tops this number up with MPs who come off party lists, in order to make the end result more equal to how voters actually voted.
Now you can vote for your local MP and vote his party, or even vote for the green party and have that vote count and matter.
Now you don't have to worry that voting for the NDP will lead to a conservative government. The system is designed to fix some elements of the FPTP that lead to small changes in voting leading to huge impacts on the results.
In the current system a small change of say 5% in the vote can lead to ridiculous swings in results.
Under MMP you also would be able to have representation from MPs you might not get under the current system. For example even though the Liberals have a stronghold in Toronto, under MMP you might be able to elect a conservative from TO. Or if taken federally, an NDP MP from Alberta (ok maybe it's a long shot).
Anyways I think putting together a new system is worth it. The entrance of new parties would have a refreshing impact on the political system, and hopefully on voter turnout.
Oh and that canard about having more MPs is wasteful, we're talking about making important decisions that affect all of us here, we shouldn't base our decision on how many MPs there are, but on which produces the best decisions.
It stops the practice of strategic voting and stops the wasted votes. It is it truly democratic to have someone who received 35% of the vote receiving 100% of the representation? If you have a 4 way race it may even be less than that.
Now I don't think anyone would suggest removing the directly elected MPs and system that are the hallmark of the First past the post system(FPTP). The MMP system merely tops this number up with MPs who come off party lists, in order to make the end result more equal to how voters actually voted.
Now you can vote for your local MP and vote his party, or even vote for the green party and have that vote count and matter.
Now you don't have to worry that voting for the NDP will lead to a conservative government. The system is designed to fix some elements of the FPTP that lead to small changes in voting leading to huge impacts on the results.
In the current system a small change of say 5% in the vote can lead to ridiculous swings in results.
Under MMP you also would be able to have representation from MPs you might not get under the current system. For example even though the Liberals have a stronghold in Toronto, under MMP you might be able to elect a conservative from TO. Or if taken federally, an NDP MP from Alberta (ok maybe it's a long shot).
Anyways I think putting together a new system is worth it. The entrance of new parties would have a refreshing impact on the political system, and hopefully on voter turnout.
Oh and that canard about having more MPs is wasteful, we're talking about making important decisions that affect all of us here, we shouldn't base our decision on how many MPs there are, but on which produces the best decisions.
September 09, 2007
More Naomi Klein
What an interesting book, it makes the explicit link between economic violence and actual violence, mostly at least to start in Latin America. It's well researched and I think shows that she has matured as a writer and as a critic of corporate power and modern capitalism (or as she and others have pointed out it's closer to corporatism.
Anyways it was with an eye to the her explosion of the idea that there is a direct and simple link between economic freedom and democracy, or the free market and democracy.
There are many many people who have taken issue with this tautology. It's funny how deep it seems to run in American discourse over the last 25 years. Anyways I saw another blatant example taken from Thomas Friedman's column today in the NYtimes.
"One way a country develops the software of liberty, Mr. Mandelbaum says, is by nurturing a free market. Kurdistan has one. The economy in the rest of Iraq remains a mess. “A market economy,” he argues, “gives people a stake in peace, as well as a constructive way of dealing with people who are strangers. Free markets teach the basic democratic practices of compromise and trust.”
What a bunch of crap. I can't believe anyone would actually believe this. The big elephant in the room of course is the example of China. Political repression exists and continues to exist, while the economic free market has taken hold since it's opening up in the 1970s.
I am shocked that anyone would continue to assert those kind of things in the face of such obvious evidence. There seem to be people who often complain about human rights in China and also speak about the economic miracle and the threat of Chinese growth, who cannot recognize the incompatibility of saying these things while mouthing the platitude "Free markets teach the basic democratic principles of compromise and trust".
This is what Naomi Klein explicitly links her in new book The Shock Doctrine. The anti-democratic nature (despite the rhetoric) of many of the interventions supported and promoted by the proponents of Friedmanism and Reganomics. I really do believe that this is the best contribution her thoroughly researched book provides.
Now I haven't finished the book but I am impressed, it's a pretty gruesome and disturbing portrait she paints. I am also curious to see what the reaction will be by her opponents. If it's anything like what i heard on the radio earlier this week, she has nothing to worry about.
Anyways it was with an eye to the her explosion of the idea that there is a direct and simple link between economic freedom and democracy, or the free market and democracy.
There are many many people who have taken issue with this tautology. It's funny how deep it seems to run in American discourse over the last 25 years. Anyways I saw another blatant example taken from Thomas Friedman's column today in the NYtimes.
"One way a country develops the software of liberty, Mr. Mandelbaum says, is by nurturing a free market. Kurdistan has one. The economy in the rest of Iraq remains a mess. “A market economy,” he argues, “gives people a stake in peace, as well as a constructive way of dealing with people who are strangers. Free markets teach the basic democratic practices of compromise and trust.”
What a bunch of crap. I can't believe anyone would actually believe this. The big elephant in the room of course is the example of China. Political repression exists and continues to exist, while the economic free market has taken hold since it's opening up in the 1970s.
I am shocked that anyone would continue to assert those kind of things in the face of such obvious evidence. There seem to be people who often complain about human rights in China and also speak about the economic miracle and the threat of Chinese growth, who cannot recognize the incompatibility of saying these things while mouthing the platitude "Free markets teach the basic democratic principles of compromise and trust".
This is what Naomi Klein explicitly links her in new book The Shock Doctrine. The anti-democratic nature (despite the rhetoric) of many of the interventions supported and promoted by the proponents of Friedmanism and Reganomics. I really do believe that this is the best contribution her thoroughly researched book provides.
Now I haven't finished the book but I am impressed, it's a pretty gruesome and disturbing portrait she paints. I am also curious to see what the reaction will be by her opponents. If it's anything like what i heard on the radio earlier this week, she has nothing to worry about.
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