There was one short thirty-second piece on Hart Aber Fair's public forum show last night which has been on my mind.
At some point in the German forum show....the environmentalist/activist (young gal) spoke up and said what we really needed now.....was a 'social council'. Reason? She says that Democratically-elected politicians....don't support the 'will' of the people.
At first, I thought, with my lousy German.....she meant some something like real leaders stepping forward. Well....no, she means that besides the Chancellor, the Bundestag, the state governments, the city councils, the mayors.....there would be something created which was a 'social-contract' group....who supported the will of the people.
Where would the social council come from? Unknown.
How would they fit with the Chancellor? Unknown.
How would they cooperate or mingle with the Constitutional Court? Unknown.
How would they equate to the police or legal process? Unknown.
How would regular citizens 'talk' to the social council? Unknown.
How would you put down the social council if they turned into some authoritarian-like and harsh reality group? Unknown.
I'll just say this....shortly after she mentions this 'brilliant' idea.....the panel members kinda 'blinked' and you got the idea that this was plain crazy.
So I went looking for what was really meant by 'social council'. The Last Generation web page? Well....it talks to this idea:
"The council will bring together people from all walks of life in Germany and, with the help of experts in politics, business, science and civil society, will draw up binding proposals on how we can proceed."
"Vegans and car lovers can come together to discuss solutions, because even they have a common cause: Protecting life on this planet and shaping the way to achieve this in a socially just manner."
"The government wrote the following into its coalition agreement: "We will establish and organize a citizens' council on specific issues through the Federal Parliament."
I paused over this. The council seems to be something that would involve talking, agreeing and then handing down mandates. I thought for a minute....what the hell is the German state system, and the Bundestag/Chancellor thing in Berlin for?
If the social council could not reach an agreement? Well....then it'd seem that you'd have to create a greater social council.....to resolve what the regular social council could not accomplish.
At the end of the 1700s in France....things fell apart, and the king/queen were executed. What came to replace them? More or less....a committee or social council. In the next ten years....they became a problem for French society. As crappy as the monarchy had become in it's final decade.....the committee/social council became an even bigger failure.
For some reason, I don't see this social council thing being accepted anyone much in German society. If you can't vote them in, or out....what use are they?
4 comments:
"I paused over this. The council seems to be something that would involve talking, agreeing and then handing down mandates. I thought for a minute....what the hell is the German state system, and the Bundestag/Chancellor thing in Berlin for?"
Lobbyists.
I mean, track back through all the promises the CDU made over 16 years of governance... all the talk sounded great. They just didn't actually do any of it. It's a classic conservative trick. Look at Australia, look at the UK, the words they speak don't translate to how they actually vote when they're in Government. No governments have curtailed human rights and freedom of speech (not for them obviously, but for everyone else) than the recent batch of conservatives. It's as though they know their time is up, and that with the boomers passing on, they wont get another shot at things. So they plan to salt the earth for the following governments to pretend that they have solutions.
The German political system is crappy for promises...because you have to invent a coalition situation. So of the 100-odd promises you did make....in the end, you probably get 30 of them on the table...in some watered-down marginal mess. It is the same with the SPD, Greens, FDP, AfD, and Linke Party, if you think about it.
After the start of the Stutgart-21 episode....things got turned upside down, and the Greens said lets hold an election and we're fix this. Weeks later...city election is held and the Greens win. All these changes are written out in stone, and folks start to say...let's make this a public 'up-or-down' vote. That was done...failed. The public wanted the original intent of the Stutgart-21 plan to go 'as-is'.
You could run the BREXIT vote twelve times over a year, and the odds are that six of them would go 'leave' and six would go 'remain'. It's a shift of 5-percent in reality...swing-votes on a day by day basis. Just your gut feeling....go this way on Monday, and go this way on Friday.
Actually I'll contest the Brexit scenario... If it was run as a legitimate referendum then the result would have been declared void due to the illegal financing. It's only because it was run as a 'non-binding' referendum that those rules (transparency of campaign funding) didn't apply, otherwise there would have been jail time for various individuals.
It's like when they prorogued parliament. They said it was perfectly legal, lied to the Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, but when they were asked to sign a document declaring it was legal, they all ran away. They knew they'd be on trial for perjury if they signed it.
I think the youtube channel "A Different Bias" presents the data quite well in a recent video if the topic interests you.
I lost the pro-EU enthusiasm around 8 years ago, when the EU couldn't find much to screw with, and decided that eliminating the 3,000 watt tea kettle was a hot priority. Same with the vacuum and toaster business.
It's like the US congress...both (US/EU) need a hundred days a year to conduct business, and just stop getting into the 'we will fix this' gimmicks.
Shortly, I expect the EU to step into this German 49-Euro Bahn ticket situation and say it's not within EU guidelines and halt it. Their fix will likely flip into a 100-Euro monthly ticket instead....angering a fair amount of people.
Post a Comment