Hi All: Ed W rightly encourages protesters to participate in the political process. I do too! However, the ususal political process, even through the political party system, has become an excercise in futility. The failure of the political process at the local "community" level has it's consequences in the violence at Queens Park, Seattle, etc.. How that occurred is in my letter below. An example of the extent to which the corporate community writes legislation favourable to itself can be found in the first chapter of Peter C Newman's book "Titans" especially Pp. 130 - 160) where he details how the BCNI wrote The Competiton Act, which was passed by parliament without amendment. Regards Ed G Ed W, I am aware of your past Gov. experience and that gives you a different perception set than those of us without that experience. May we all learn from each others experience. I've found that life has a way of grinding away at the lens of our mind's eye. ============================= To the Editor Of the Toronto Star. May 1st, 2001. Pub May 2nd, 2001 Published May 2nd under the headline "Who's Watching The Watchers" Re Thomas Walcom's "Politicians Misusing Their Power" 2001/05/01 Mr Walkom correctly identifies the misuse of power as the cause of the electorate's prevailing contempt for the electoral process. However, he fails to identify the reason for the contempt. The short answer is that the media are equally but inadvertently culpable. With the advent of TV as an expensive mass media in the 60's, TV's major source of advertising revenue had to become the major corporations. As a mass media, their news focus was consequently national. The print media, deprived of major corporate revenue to finance the news gathering, also shifterd their news forcus nationally, thus severing and abdicating their historic function of facilitating the communications link between the elector and the person elected. The result was a power shift from the elected representatives (a la Trudeau's "nobodies") to the political party hierarchies. That shift of power, when translated into majority electoral success, also shifted the party power into the cabinet from the party caucus. That shift also shifted the power, that should have been vested in the commons, into the cabinet, not only depriving the electors of a forum within which to resolve differences but also their function as a check on the very misuse of power Mr Walkom identifies. Deprived of a commons, the electorate must increasingly resort to events like Seattle and Quebec to obtain not only a discussion of their concerns. Ed Goertzen: Oshawa 905-576-6699 > >
