We, The People, Want REAL Democracy!

Nearly two-thirds of the world's citizens believe they are not being governed by the will of the people, and fewer than half believe elections are free and fair. The new BBC/Gallup poll interviewed 52,000 people in 68 countries.

Overall, 65 per cent of respondents worldwide said they did not think they were governed by the will of the people. This rose to 75 per cent in the former Soviet Union countries. In North America it was 60 per cent...

The type of people most trusted by respondents were religious leaders, with 33 per cent saying they trusted them, while military and police leaders and journalists ranked joint second on 26 per cent. Only 13 per cent said they trusted politicians.

But asked what type of people they would like to give more power to in their country, 35 per cent of respondents chose intellectuals, putting them above every other group.

Hmmn. Compare that with this interesting guest blog at Informed Comment from a humitarian worker in New Orleans:

You tend, when you see disasters of this scale, to reflect on the existence and intentions of a Creator. For me, the subject of these disasters and any Divine intentions is a fascinating one. I tend to believe that these are the times She may be re-thinking the whole free-will deal.

And that’s because these disasters seem mostly self-inflicted, in some larger sense. I noticed that the New York Times and many other media outlets reported several human causes with Katrina’s effects: the building on and subsequent erosion of the Mississippi Delta’s natural hurricane buffer the barrier islands; the increasing temperatures of the Gulf waters and the hotter water’s very significant contribution to more and more powerful hurricanes; the repeated Federal failure to provide budget funds for levee reinforcement that everyone knew we would eventually need; the gradual sinking of New Orleans as the energy industry pumps out more water and oil and natural gas from underneath the city; the federal government’s finally giving in to developers of the outlying areas in the Delta by underwriting insurance policies for new building, which private companies had previously declined to provide; and of course the general, overall greed and stupidity of continuing to build a major coastal city below sea level without requiring elevated foundations and a flood-ready infrastructure...

Yeah, we are pretty stupid people, especially those among us who vote for this crap. Bush is now promising $200 billion in taxpayer money to rebuild New Orleans - so will it be built to withstand another Katrina, or is that too much to ask?

"Our goal is to get the work done quickly," Bush said.

And get them poll numbers back up quickly, too, no doubt.

And speaking of stupid, here's ex-FEMA head Michael Brown explaining to the NYT why he didn't order a complete evacuation or call in federal troops sooner:

... he said the storm made it hard to communicate and assess the situation.

"Until you have been there," he said, "you don't realize it is the middle of a hurricane."

You don't say, Mick? Fuggnunbleevable.

This on a day when the US Congress voted down a Hilary Clinton proposal for an independent enquiry into the Katrina disaster, instead approving another GOP-controlled whitewash. And also on a day when members of the US International Relations Committee voted along partisan lines to kill three pieces of legislation that would have required the White House to release the documents that led to the Downing Street Memo.

Crazy, isn't it? We, the people of this small blue planet, generally feel we are not represented by our governments, yet we allow them to get away with this crap again and again. We shrug our shoulders and get on with our lives, till hurricanes, tsunamis and wars come along and destroy our lives. Is that our fate, to be so stupid, to be so infinitely malleable? Are we not capable of more, given the opportunity?

The fist post I ever wrote on this blog, before I got totally obsessed with getting rid of Bush and his cronies, was this:

Who are we? Where are we going? What kind of world do we want to create?

We live in a world of "guided missiles and misguided men" (Martin Luther King). The industralised behommeth of 21st Century "Civilisation" races at full steam towards a destination most thinking people no longer wish to attain. As we hurtle blindly towards our materialistic, nuclear future, we leave behind untold wonders and riches, many never to be seen again. Who built this cursed machine? Who controls it? Should we be trying to stop it, destroy it or re-direct it? Or should we just be jumping off?!?

After centuries of disenfranchisement, subjugation and de-humanisation, the Internet promises to re-empower the individual and unite ordinary people around the globe. Personal web sites like Blogger give us a medium to make our voices heard like never before. This Blog is my voice on the Internet.

That was over two and half years ago. I would like to think that this little blog, after nearly 40,000 hits, has made at least some (albeit very, very small) difference to the world we live in. I still believe the Internet can be a key to empowering people around the globe and bringing us all closer. But every day brings fresh evidence of just how huge the task we face really is.

Whatcha gonna do? For now, I'll keep on bloggin'...