The United States holds itself out as the world’s greatest democracy. I’m just watching election coverage on CNN and am struck by the footage of long snaking lineups at polling stations. I’m sure that voter turnout levels are pretty similar in Canada and the US yet I have never had to wait for more than 5 or 10 minutes to vote in Canada.
It seems to me that voting is the single most important factor in assessing the quality of a democracy. Why then is it so difficult to exercise one’s democratic right in the United States, the world’s greatest democracy? It seems that once again rhetoric trumps reality.
My band has released our first video. It’s for our new single “Machine Guns and Jesus Christ” which is available for sale on our website: A Sheep at the Wheel. Partial proceeds will be donated to Amnesty International.
To view this video at YouTube and to post comments/ratings click here.
After weeks and weeks of posturing, today the opposition parties put forward a bill that will finally bring down the minority government. Meanwhile the Liberals have been busy spreading their holiday cheer with new announcements of funding for this or that. Things seem to be hitting a boiling point. The Conservatives appear to be getting extremely frustrated with the situation. Finally, they have been able to get enough votes from the other 2 opposition parties to end this parliament and get one step closer to forming the government themselves. A word of warning to the Liberals, Conservatives, BQ and NDP don’t get too nasty this election or Santa won’t bring you any votes this Christmas.
The Evolution-Creation debate has been making headlines again lately. Today the news reported the latest move in this on-going battle: a Kansas University is offering a new course in creation mythology. Part of this course looks at “Intelligent Design” as a modern-day creation myth.
Not suprisingly, there are those who are unhappy about the word “myth” being used to describe “Intelligent Design” and the Biblical Creation story it defends. After all, the word “myth” is used commonly to describe something that is not true or even misleading. In the context of religion, however, the word “myth” has little to do with truth or untruth. Rather, a myth is a story that tells a deeper meaning of some kind; it is a narrative with some kind of metaphysical, instructive or explanatory aspect.
The problem with the debate between “Intelligent Design” and Evolutionary Theory is that there really is no debate to be had. They are not competing theories at all. Evolution is a theory in that it is a testable, revisable way of explaining biological activities. It is not a perfect explanation but it is useful. “Intelligent Design”, however, is not a theory. It cannot be tested and is not particularly useful for explaining what we see under a microscope.
What “Intelligent Design” can do is describe matters of a metaphysical nature (Evolution can’t do this for us). But like any myth, we cannot test whether it is true or untrue. For this reason it does not make sense to include it in the science classroom even though it may indeed have something to teach us.
I have a small confession to make. I enjoy talk radio. When driving around in my car the stereo is pumping out the low-fidelity sounds of AM radio.
Where I live, CKNW is the major on-air forum for discussing news-related issues. Since Corus Entertainment added this station to its bulging portfolio of media stations, CKNW has been making some unfortunate changes: the ideological shift is on.
The first major warning flag was when popular talk show host, Rafe Mair was given a pink slip–apparently because it matched the colour of his political leanings. Then there are the short segments sprinkled throughout the day’s programming. One features local music industry manager Bruce Allen frothing at the mouth about his latest pet peeve. Topics I’ve heard include Allen’s complaints about a sports program for poor people and his hearty endorsement of Florida’s new shoot-first-ask-questions-later gun law.
Another one of these mini-segments gives economist and brother of Premier Gordon Campbell a chance to give his two cents. Recently Michael Campbell didn’t let common sense get in the way of his point when he triumphantly sang the praises of the free market and its ability to reduce the sales of SUVs.
Charles Adler’s daily show “Adler Online” does an excellent job of making me listen to more CBC. From what I can tell Adler’s show is aimed at people who enjoy meaningless yelling–which to my mind would be quite a small demographic. One thing is for sure, nobody would ever accuse Adler of being ambivalent; just don’t call in if you disagree with his ideology-informed opinions.
Even the news reported on CKNW is intended to shape your opinions. Just yesterday the “news to the bottom of the hour” reported that the federal NDP’s attempts to convince the government to curb the privatization of health services was flawed. Since when does an opinion discrediting the motives of a political party constitute news?
I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised to see these changes at CKNW. After all, this is just another example of media consolidation shifting the political leanings of television, radio and print news. This is a disturbing trend that is leading to a loss of diversity of viewpoints–a diversity that is necessary for the health of our society. It is all our interests that we encourage CKNW and other purveyors of news and opinion that diversity must be allowed to flourish.
Yesterday was the big launch of my latest website. It’s called DearAnyone.com. It’s basically a combination of HotorNot.com and an advice column. I put it together with a friend of mine from law school. Check it out.
At long last my band’s first CD, Blend, is now here. To go with this I have redesigned our website. It now matches the look and feel of the CD artwork. Check it out. You can listen to the tracks on the jukebox and buy the CD online.
My band has just finished everything for our new CD. This includes recording, mastering and artwork design. The only thing left to do is actually get the thing duplicated. Tomorrow is the day I send it all off. After that I will be spending the next week or so waiting eagerly for the courier to come with a big box of CDs.
To see a sneak peak of the cover of this CD and for updates on when it’s ready go to the web site for my rock band.
Does nobody see the blatant conflict of interest in having the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio being in charge of the elections in that state?! It seems that conflict of interest doesn’t bother the American electorate that much. The media doesn’t seem to be interested in raising questions about these matters. Why don’t we hear more about how various elected officials are profiting from their positions of power?
Here in BC, premiers have gone down over conflict of interest scandals several times in recent history. Most recently, Glen Clark stepped down over charges that he helped a neighbour get a casino license after the neighbour put a deck on the Premier’s house. A free deck is enough to end Clark’s career, but it would appear that conflicts of interest are rewarded in U.S. federal politics: Bush and friends got another four years.
Recounts are all the rage these days. There’s the disputed and still ongoing race for the governorship of the state of Washington, an effort to recount presidential ballots in Ohio, and controversy over write-in votes for the mayor of San Diego.
Democracy is front page news beyond the borders of the United States as well. The Ukraine supreme court recently called for a do-over of their presidential election, and the deadline for a vote in Iraq is approaching quickly.
With the democractic process being such a hot topic lately, it makes me wonder how much we can even trust the results of any given election. In the Ukraine, hundreds of thousands of people protested in Kiev because the election was rigged. How do we know that this doesn’t happen elsewhere?
Here’s the problem: when you submit your vote, you have no way of knowing whether it has actually been counted. What is there to stop somebody who is dishonest from miscounting or not counting your vote? The potential for fraud is only increased when it comes to electronic voting. Who is going to be able to stop the creators of voting software from programming in a “glitch” that miscounts votes?
In the recent U.S. election, there have been scattered reports of these very problems. Here are four things we do know: 1) there was a computer “glitch” in Ohio that gave more votes to Bush in a particular precinct than there were residents in that precinct; 2) the man who runs the company that supplied Ohio’s voting machines is a staunch Republican supporter; 3) there is evidence that points towards an intent by the GOP to use illegal and dishonest techniques to win elections (this week a Republican campaign manager was indicted for hiring a company to jam democratic party “get-out-the-vote” phone lines in a 2002 mid-term election); 4) the exit polls, which are usually very good indicators of the final vote count, were not only off by quite a margin, but off in a statistically unlikely number of state (more about this).
Based only on these four points–and there are many other similar examples–we have reason to be skeptical of election results. More generally, there seem to be few effective mechanisms, and little public will to prevent voter fraud. Until either is present, opportunistic and unscrupolous political players are relatively unconstrained as they take advantage of the trust, patriotism and apathy of the electorate. As the old saying goes, “In a democracy, citizens get the government they deserve.” Unfortunately we cannot be sure that citizens get the government they voted for.
