I was brought up to believe that the people of my country were tolerant people.

I was brought up to believe that there was an underlying equality and that our people were basically good people.

I was brought up to believe that one of the cornerstones of our democracy was our freedom of speech, our freedom to disagree, to debate and to voice new ideas no matter how controversial.

I was brought up to believe our country had religious freedom and tolerance and that our governing bodies were secular and non-partisan.

I was brought up to believe that justice would prevail over evil and the threat of evil.

I was brought up to believe that I was safe in my own country from those that would do me harm.

I was brought up to believe that those I entrusted with leadership represented me and my country and would uphold these fine traditions.

My favourite Californian columnist, Mark Morford bought something to my attention that I didn’t know but I assume, at least hope, is known by every American. In a piece sub-titled Is Bush a Fascist he explained to me what a ’signing statement’ is:

those little firebombs of judicial misprision wherein your mumbling president gets to reserve for himself the right to ignore any law he signs – yes, any law he desires: anti-torture, surveillance, you name it – whenever he feels like it, if he deems that law unconstitutional. Screw Congress. Screw the system of law. And screw, well, you.

Reagan apparently issued 72 signing statements during his presidency. The Senior Shrub 146 in his four years (the previous record) and Clinton 105 in his 8 years. and George? So far:

little George has slapped his colour-crayon signature on over 500 signing statements so far, reserving his right to disregard the law more times than all former American presidents combined. It is a record.

Now here comes the bit that elevates George into super-stardom:

In 2003 lawmakers attempted to rein in Bush’s abuse of signing statements by passing a bill that required the Justice Department to inform Congress whenever Bush decided to ignore a legislative provision. Bush signed the bill into law – but then immediately issued a signing statement asserting his right to ignore it.

Hard to believe isn’t it?

I am forever amazed that what passes for representation in the United Kingdom is called Democracy. Leaving aside the obvious inequality of England having no independent governing assembly, our parliamentary system, so often used as a shining example, falls a long way short of being truly democratic.

Taking the 1997 general election as an example of a ‘landslide’ win by a political party, Tony Blair’s New Labour still only secured 43.2% of the vote (of the 71.4% who actually voted). If my rusty maths are correct, that’s not actually a majority! In fact, it is hard to imagine a true democracy being possible in a party political system.

I know that I am politically disenfranchised and I should imagine that the vast majority of people are, and this leads inevitably to political apathy and scepticism. Assuming that only one of the three main parties can achieve government – and that’s a big assumption in itself – how am I supposed to cast my vote?

Let’s say, for example, that I want to take the UK out of the European Union. The honest answer is I vote for none of them but if I have to chose then it has to be Conservative. Let’s further suppose that I support higher taxes to support the underprivileged. Well, surely that’s Labour. Parliamentary reform? Liberal Democrats. The return of Capital Punishment? Well – none of the above but that’s OK because I don’t want it but many people do.

And at the end of the day, should I not be voting for the candidate and not the party to which they belong? What if I really believed that the local BNP candidate would do wonders for the constituency even though I loathe his political stance? Casting my vote for another candidate is worse than a compromise.

I used to feel that voting in a general election should be mandatory but the Blair years have washed away my political optimism and until the system is changed I am in future withholding my vote.

I have always believed that the most truly democratic tool available to government – and one that all governments seem frightened to institute – is the referendum. I will next vote in a general election for whichever political party promises referenda and subsequent binding action on the following:

• Full devolution within the United Kingdom and the creation of a parliament for England and its affairs.
• Whether to remain in the European Union.
• Parliamentary reform and the adoption of proportional representation.
• Whether we want our society to be ‘multi-cultural’.
• More or less state involvement and intrusion.
• Whether to reverse the steady erosion of our liberties over recent years.
• A complete overhaul of our outdated and often incompetent judicial system including a debate on sentencing and punishments.

There are others but that will do for starters.

I have just read a a somewhat alarming article at The Register which re-awoke my distrust of the US Bush Administration after a short Christmas break. I am actually floundering here in search of a word that means even more corrupt than totally corrupt and then some. You get my drift.

If you care about freedom, liberty – especially of the internet – then go read the article – 2005: The year the US government undermined the internet. No – this isn’t what you might think. The USA refusing to give up its ‘oversight’ pales into oblivion when compared to this Shrub ordained corruption of ICANN which has now set itself up as judge and jury and granted itself the power to hand over country domains (like, for example, .uk) to governments and government sponsored agencies. And this has:

1. Already happened. And…
2. Led quickly down the path to ICANN approved censorship.

What actually gets me every time is the way in which these arseholes use, with the connivance of the American voting public, all the shady political tricks and behaviour that the USA has traditionally fought against in the world. Long after the Shrub is just a bad memory it is still going to take them a generation to wash away the smell.

A couple of weeks back, Mike Power posted an article which included a quotation of the colourful and astute Huey Long, assassinated governor and senator of Louisiana back in the 1930’s. Whilst nobody would suggest that Long was an intellectual, he did possess political savvy and was king of the soundbite. And the particular Long quote that has such resonance in today’s America of The Shrub?

Of course we will have fascism in America but we will call it democracy!

I was reminded of this ‘prophecy’ when I read an item at Irregular Times yesterday quoting the words of a 1960’s/70’s senator from Idaho – Frank Church – who investigated abuses of government power and warned of the dangers of politicians who would use the National Security Agency without legal restraint:

That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide. If this government ever became a tyranny, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back, because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology …

I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capability that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.