OFF: Re: Foot & Mouth

[Paul Mather]

On Thu, 22 Mar 2001, Carl Edlund Anderson wrote:

=> Unfortunately, UK poltics seems to be headed down exactly the same
=> road.  Labour are pretty hopeless, but the Tories are probably worse,
=> and who knows what the Lib Dems will do?  Like in the States, any
=> real choice has been lost in a mire of career politicians playing
=> one-upsmanship party-politics games. Meanwhile, there aren't any
=> teachers, trains, hospitals, sheep, etc.

Don't forget the morass of dodgy campaign contributions, either!  I'm
pretty much convinced after the last US election that US politics isn't
about winning per se, but about making sure the other guy loses.  I
don't recall seeing a single campaign ad that told me what a candidate
was for; they just spent all the time saying what a crummy lot the other
guy is, and how all your Hawkwind albums would burst into flames come
election day if you voted for him.  Some of the Virginia senate ads were
masterful examples of high propaganda.  I still don't know what the
issues were on which that George Allen (and his irritating perma-smile)
ascended to victory, other than *this time* he didn't campaign on the
platform of "my daddy coached the Washington Redskins..." :-)

=> On the other hand, being a dodgy foreign national, I don't get a say
=> in who wastes my taxes, though I can vote for American politicians
=> who will waste someone else's taxes. Go figure ...

Just because you cannot legally vote does not mean you can't be involved
in politics and have a say in who wastes your taxes.  There is nothing
stopping you speaking out and influencing those who can vote, or even
affecting those doing the taxes wasting.  This is especially true in
this day and age of excessive reliance on opinion polls.

Cheers,

Paul.

e-mail: paul at gromit.dlib.vt.edu

"Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production
 deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid."
        --- Frank Vincent Zappa