January 20, 2011
-
The New Politics
I am, as usual, fascinated by the political scene - both here in Florida and in Washington.
Florida saw fit to elect a political newcomer - no previous governmental experience of any kind - as governor.
Rick Scott's main claim to fame was his having dodged a prosecution as the company he founded was indicted for having defrauded Medicare of almost three Billion dollars or something like that. He did spend over seventy million dollars of his own money to win the governorship over a well-qualified democrat.
During the campaign he refused to meet with editorials board of news media - who almost all recommended his opponent.
He seems confused by the idea of "Public" office and has attempted to keep solid control of all news from his office.
Florida has currently a $3.5 billion budget deficit - which, according FL law must be resolved, but our new governor just announced that he will cut taxes. Florida is one of the few states without an income tax, which means government revenue is often very difficult to measure - if the tourists don't come or we stop consumer spending, tax collection is way off .
Scott campaigned on "Let's get back to work" - FL has an 11% unemployment rate - but has not come up with any suggestions, except attracting new industry by cutting controls and requirements in such areas as environmental protection. Visiting sunny Florida may become a thing of the past.
On the other hand, last week we were the only state without snow (Even Hawaii had snow on the volcanos).
Comments (9)
It seems to me that no matter where you go ...politics are always the equivalent of a soap opera. Lots of stories and very little content.
Dick,
What i always find strange of US society with respect to Italian one, is how it can be possible that an investiment of money is enough for one candidate to win elections.
Uhm... please don't eat this like a criticism to USA. As Italian, nowadays, i am the last person that can make any criticism to a foreign system. But, to explain my uncomprehension i try to make a comparison.
Unfortunately in Italy we have a major misfortune which has a proper first and last name: Silvio Berlusconi.
He obtained the power a lot of time ago with illegal and immoral use and abuse of propaganda. He started making money with (at now still not proved) connection with mafia and other criminal organization, corruption and nice things like this. Then he founded one of the two main TV network (the other is run by the state, and so controled by the government). Then he used the power of TV to make political propaganda, and at the end he found a political party and won the elections, allied with other corrupted marry parties from the extreme fascist right (Alleanza Nazionale) to the xenophobic racist guys (Lega Nord).
Stupid italian people are very sensitive to propaganda which closed their eyes at those elections and all the next election till nowadays. If Berlusconi is good in something, that is the ability to use propaganda to hide his illegal things - justifying them as cospiracies of the "communist magistracy" against him - and show how bad are all the others opponents.
Plus consider that he has on his side some "strong powers" as the Catholic Church, and that the guys that now are in opposition demonstrate daily their uncapability to provide Italians a serious alternative (clearly they are satisfied to sit on the opposition chairs).
Berlusconi brought to the top the natural Italian predisposition to corruption and acceptance to other people's corruption.
And obviously he had (and ofcourse he still have) a good chance to do that, legally or illegally, thanks to his money that he, legally or illegaly owns and owned.
But he didn't do that simply spending money for an electoral campaign. He did do that by mean of questionable behavior - and that's why i am still surprised that Italians can bear such a mean clown. But i cannot imagine somebody in Italy that with legal action build a legal campaign to get the power.
What do they do with those money in America? Do they really give notes in the baseball matches? Do they organize parties where the candidates shake hands and kiss kids?
Really, I cannot imagine a campaign that can really convince people with only money.
@italian_culture -
Dario is right, of course.
Money alone won't buy you an election - it's what you use it for. Unfortunately in the U.S. the way you get your message out is through a very expensive media campaign. Scott's money bought him a lot of TV spots which his employees used to bombard Floridians with a very simple message "Lets get back to work" while at the same time posting many untrue negative ads against his opponent. Blaming her for government decisions she was opposed to, for example.
He took advantage of a split in the vote (a very popular ex-governor ran as a third party candidate) and the popularity of a conservative sweep of the national election - this sweep resulting in large losses of the Democratic party - Scott is, of course, a Republican.
yeah, it's all about personal wealthy over here. The media caters to their interests. I think it would be better if we had a monarchy, honestly. I don't watch politics. I briefly monitor heads, but that's about it.
@Colorsofthenight -
The problem of having a monarchy is that politics become even more Upper Class (rich people) oriented and unless it's a parliamentary monarchy, the king's subjects can do nothing about it.
Churchill (Who after all, was always the subject of a monarch and was a member of one of England's most upper of upper class families is supposed to have said:
"Democracies are the worst of all possible forms of government. That is, until you consider all the other possible forms of government".
I believe that constitutional monarchy (the one of UK, for example) is nothing different from other democracies. Yes, the King or the Queen are not elected on democratic basis, as it happens in Republics. But the power of the monarch usually is only formal. The real power is run (in UK) by the prime minister, which is "democratically" elected.
Here my doubt of the actual democracy principle in Democratic governments. Usually a democratic election give power to who obtains more votes. Which makes so that the power is decided by a majority, and the minority could possibly remain unrepresented (while, instead, one of the main task of politics is to protect minorities). Moreover, in order to give political stability to the nation, there are systems (Majoritarian, for example, or simplification of counting, excluding the parties that do not obtain a certain minimum amount of vote - in italy nowadays it is 4 percent, which means that 4 percent of population - a lot! - cannot have any voice till the next elections). Anyway, the first goal of Democracy - the government of the People (All the people, and not only a part of it!) is failed. Also thanks to propaganda, which is essencial a lot of money spent in an electorian campaign as it happens in the USA.
Electoral campaign has some weight (although in different ways) also in Italy. I remember for example the primary elections for the Democrat mayor of Milan (i didn't vote for it because i am in another municipality, but being that Milan is a big town the election is a big deal). Sacerdoti, my favorite one, obtain only 700 votes (nothing compared to Milan population), just because he didn't want to spend big moneys in useless things like publicity (he just printed some informations about him and his program on recycled paper and went himself to give those papers to people).
I wonder if a more strict regulation on electoral campaigns would help to give more clear informations to the electors - and so, better the democracy principles
@italian_culture -
Democratic governments generally take two forms: Parliamentary and Divided Federal (for want of a better term).
In parliamentary democracy, such as Italy and England have, the legislative body is supreme and all national government flows from there - The majority party, or coalition of parties which insures a parliamentary majority, selects the prime minister or whatever the administrative head of government is called, and that person forms the executive branch of government and rules as long as his party maintains its majority and wants him. Sometimes there isa requirement for new parliamentary elections every so often, but often a vote of " no confidence" changes the power of government. In the Divided Federal form, best exemplified by the U.S., the legislature (Congress) is elected separately from the Executive (President) and power is shared by these branches, overseen by a Supreme Court which rules on theConstitutionality of laws and how they are implemented.
Most Parliamentary governments have multiple political parties - every special interest group can start their own. In The U.S. the division of government and delimited terms in office has led to the development of only two (or occasionally three) "big tent" political parties. Because in the U.S. most elections are an "either - or" contest, political parties and special interest groups connected to them spend a lot of money advertising. Attempts to fund elections through government spending and thus move away from the largest spender winning have so far been unsuccessful. Recent Supreme Court decisions regarding Free Speech and the application of this right to corporations has made elections even more expensive.
Parliamentary countries such England may limit the amount of time spent on elections, which are all local anyway, thus giving smaller parties a chance to elect delegates.
Dick, thanks for the answer.
In italy the parliament is the body of power, and i believe that, in theory, this is the best possible type of political form of a state. Being that in my opinion it is the way the Utopia of Democracy is better implemented in the real world.
The parliament is elected by popular elections, every 5 years, where everybody (over 18 for Chamber of Deputies and over 21 for Senate) can vote.
The prime minister is not elected by the parliament, but named by the President of Republic. The president of Republic is elected by the parliament every 7 years. Once the Prime Minister is named by the President of Republic he has to obtain the... mmmh... comfidence(?!?) by the parliament, because every decision that the Council of the Ministers takes must be voted by the Parliament, so it makes no sense that the Parliament does not trust the Prime Minister itself. So, the President of Republic, in this task, has only a "formal" duty, because, although he's the one that say who's the prime minister, the one that really decide is the Parliament.
The Prime Minister, then, names the ministers of the Council, and when the Council is formed, it must be approved again by the Parliament.
What i like in this mechanism is that the real Person that govern the country is the Parliament, which is elected by the citizens. But the parliament is not one person, which makes it risky of unrespect of the will of the people. (In theory!!!).
And it is not a bounch of people all allied in the same goals (which opens to the respect of the will of only the majority - in the best case - or one minority - in the worse). But any faction of the parliament is proportional to the number of deputee and senators that agrees with a certain ideal. Which numbers are proportional to the numbers of electors that vote for those deputee/senators. In other words one ideal has more strenght in the parliament as bigger number of citizens support that ideal. Which is the best expression of democracy in my opinion. And the Parliament strictly condition the decisions of the government. At the end the government makes decisions in base of ideals mediated proportionally of the individual wills of any citizen.
In Italy the system unfortunately doesn't work like that anymore, although the form of organization of the state is like that. Mainly for a shitty electoral law. That had been changed... mmmh... about 10 years ago, after which Mr. Calderoli itself (the one that made that law) defined it "porcheria" (pig stuff). And it never changed because, although it doesn't work, it makes the best for the two main parties (PdL and PD).
The first and worst ugly thing of this electoral law is that the deputees and senators are not elected by the people in the sense that the citizens choose them during the elections. People can only vote for a party, which, in their hierarchy, name the deputee/senators. So that, if i am a supporter of PD, for example, but i don't like D'Alema, i have to vote for some other party or i have to accept that D'Alema is elected in parliament - against my will. This makes so that, although the alliances in the parliament are decided among parties, the people theirselves that sit on those chairs would agree on basis that are not necessarily belonging to the will of the ones that voted for them.
The second thing i don't like is that, although the President of Republic is the one that names the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister is suggested to him by the parties (in alliances) before the elections. For example, in the last elections, the right-ish parties suggested Berlusconi, while the left-ish parties suggested Veltroni. The right won the elections so that the President of Republic had to name Berlusconi as prime minister (otherwise the majority of the parilament would have never given the confidence - if he named somebody else). In other words the citizens didn't really vote for some ideals or programs supported by parties, but they voted for an alliance that supported one man. So, some people voted for one man although he represented ideals far from people, some other people voted for ideals although those ideals were not represented by the man.
The third (last but not least) thing that i don't like of this system is that there are mechanisms (barreers and majority prizes...) that make so that small parties are excluded to the parliament although they have enough votes to obtain few people elected. This is made in name of stability. Obviously it's more easy for a council of ministers to govern if the parliament is as more homogeneous as possible, because the approval of its decision doesn't have to be discussed among a lot of different heads. But that means that where those discussion would have taken place, the voice of minorities is not heard (so not listened). In other words who wants to say something different from the main ideas has no voice. This point is made worse again by the majoritarian election. The number assigned to every party/deputees/senators is not proportional to the number of votes of the citizens, but proportional to the number of electoral colleges where the parties/deputees/senators win. In other words, simplifying, if in my college there are 2 candidates (X and Y) and 51 percent of citizens vote for one (X, for example), that means that X obtains the victory in one college. Summing the whole votes of colleges obtains a number that decide who, between X and Y, wins the seat in the parliament. This leads to a situation in which also minorities could obtain more votes that majority, and so the distribution of seat in the parliament has nothing to do with the will of the citizens.
So, nowadays, when that dichy mouth of Berlusconi shouts loud that he represents the majority of italians, well that is a lie. Atleast it is a relative majority (a minority larger than the other minorities), but i believe that no one in italy agrees that Berlusconi is a honest bugger, that he works for the good of Italy and not for his night parties based on prostitution, cocaine and abuse of underaged girls instead of thinking to economy and how to give jobs to unemployed poor people. And that with the taxes paied by everybody of us.
In other words, this government doesn't represent the people that elected it. Which is the right opposite of democracy.
Dick, thanks to the comment you left on my blog. I tried to give an answer to what you wrote.
@italian_culture -
Dario gives a neat summary of the pecular problems of the Italian version of parliamentary democracy. As I remember, the rather stiff checks on parliamentary power turnover were placed on because of the very rapid and continual changes in parliamentary leadership during the turbulent years after the ousting of Mussolini and the rejection of the Italian monarchy. Many small political parties tried to combine and share power but internal arguments and fear of a takeover by the communist party led them to revise the rules under which political parties select their parliamentary deputies. As in present-day Israel, voters must vote for their party - not for the individual. This tends to increase party power while at the same time decreasing the number of different political parties. Whether or not this increases democracy is open to philosophic debate - it does force the electorate to combine and compromise and to follow the majority within the various parties - which, when they meet in parliament must again agree to abide by the democratic decisions of the majority. This does result in a number of disaffected minorities who may feel left out on several levels.
In the U.S., the rise of the Tea Party movement is a pretty good example of such a disaffected minority which is now attempting the takeover of one of the two major parties. Their immediate rise to political power is stymied by the U.S. divided power governmental organization. they must win power in the House of Representatives,then the Senate, than the Presidency - an almost impossible task for a group with a specific agenda that is unpopular with the majority of voters.