Spalpeen

The British National Party’s membership list got leaked. For people not familiar with the Party, it’s an extreme-right wing group that is based around racist policies (they only allow whites as members, and want to kick everyone of any other ethnicity out of the country). You can download the BNP Membership list over at Wikileaks.org.

I’ve been poking around the list, and found some interesting figures about the members. At a brief count, there are the following numbers of people in “important professions” on the list.

-1 currently employed Police Officer.

-1 currently employed NHS Doctor.

-17 former or retired Policemen, including one detective, one inspector, and one who claims to be a “human rights lecturer” which I don’t quite understand.

-15 people currently employed as full or part-time teachers, or with teacher qualifications, including secondary school teachers in subjects like Maths, English, and Physics.

-12 former or retired teachers.

-114 ex-servicemen. Army, Navy, RAF, Intelligence, MoD Police. 

-18 current servicemen. Army, RAF.

Check the Google Maps mash-up of the BNP membership.

I support Obama for President (the opponent would be a disaster for America and the world), but this video the campaign aired recently is essentially propagandist drivel. Who would in their right mind sit through a 30 minute commercial?! I expect that it’ll come off cheesy for uncertain voters, and probably patronising for most supporters of Obama. The only group I can see actually sitting through it are hardcore fanatics of Obama, but they would have watched this if it had been published solely online. Seems like a waste of money to broadcast this on the networks. Then again, most of this $1 Billion “race” to the White House comes off as a waste sitting from all the way over in the U.K.

I’ve always hated it when politicians refer to “evil”. It sends shivers up my spine when the people that have/could potentially have a degree of influence over the actions of the state use the word evil to justify their beliefs or actions. The reason for my trepediation whenever a politician brings up evil can be traced back to when I attended a lecture by the shadow home secretary, David Davis. He referred to the detainees at Guantanamo as “evil” individuals. David Davis certainly isn’t the first person to say this: Blair has said it, and Bush has said it repeatedly. In fact, I blame Bush entirely for the increase in popularity of this simplistic word. Search any of his speeches, and you’ll find multiple mentions of “evil” this, “axis of evil” that. Frankly, I think it’s probably one of the most worrying linguistic trends in politics for a while. Rejecting the concept of right to a fair trial and using some arbitrary idea of “evil” to justify your stance is dead wrong.

Anyway, this rant was inspired by Randall.

This is one of the primary reasons that I believe representative-based politics isn’t the right system to run Governments by. Why should $500 million need to be spent to find the next president, why should any money be spent finding a leader? That money could and should be used on actually improving the lives of people in America. OK, so some will argue that the money will improve America by supporting a worthy candidate, although I’d be willing to argue that the majority of that money is about garnering influence over the representative. Each presidential candidate will be hosting events where you’re expected to pay money to attend, and the pay off is an audience with the candidate, and therefore the potential to influence policy.

It’s the same situation with lobby groups. The same group of rich people have an unfair influence over the process of running a Government. Why should money be the yardstick by which a country’s agenda (via powerful and well funded lobby groups) is set, and the barrier to entry to a politician hearing what you need to say (via rich donors)? The answer is that it shouldn’t.

Strict deliberative democracy doesn’t have representatives. Even a mild form of deliberative democracy that exists within a representative liberal democracy could have the effect of reducing the influence of money over the process of Government.