This is all hypothetical of course.
But when actually you think about it, it sounds realistic. Many corporations operate like organized crime.
Brits: Let's allow MPs to work as lavishly paid lawyers for water companies
Brits: Let's allow House of Lords members to work as lobbyists.
Brits: Let's have a political system where a single party gets an absolute majority
Brits: What could possibly go wrong?
It's the politics. Show me the political institutions of a country. I'll show you the dysfunctional outcomes. You guys have the worst political institutions of any western country outside the United States.
Britain allows MPs to work as lavishly paid consultants/lawyers for multinationals. It's completely illegal in many countries. In Britain, for some reason I don't understand, it's legal.
Several House of Lords MPs are professional lobbyists. They enjoy lifetime access to parliament and they sell that access. That's exactly what Peter Mandelson did.
The UK voting system is also designed to be unrepresentative.
With the Dutch voting system, here what would actually happen.
Greens would say: "You don't have any majority. You can't form a government. We will support you if you tax SUVs and nationalize water companies".
Reform would say: "You don't have any majority. We will support you if you reduce immigration by 50% and ban cousin marriage".
Lib-Dems would say: "You don't have any majority. We will support you if you ban gambling ads and switch computers to Linux. Do we have a deal?".
That's how it works in a healthy system.
In the UK system, with 40% of votes, Labour has an absolute majority. Starmer and his buddies do whatever they want. Just like the Tories did whatever the hell they wanted.
I genuinely believe that with proportional representative and a ban on MPs having second jobs, private water companies would have been nationalized.
People focus on the outcome. But they should focus on the process
As a non-brit, one of the most hilarious - or sad - thing is how easy British political elites can get away with breaching rules.
In France, there is now an independent agency, the authority for ethics and transparency (HATPV) in charge of ensuring politicians respect ethics rules. And if they breach rules, they can face very heavy fines and even jail.
HATPV isn't joking. They have prosecuted dozens of french politicians.
In Britain, you have a bunch of toothless watchdogs that say "The honorable gentleman did not act honorably"
Acoba is JOKE. Their enforcement mechanism is a strongly worded letter 🤦 🤦 🤦
Seriously guys, this is just embarrassing.
She is right. I don't use a smartphone anymore. I now use a dumbphone. It helps me focus and reduce stress. Turns out you don't need the internet with you 24/7. If someone really needs me, he can call.
- Customer: My iPhone cable doesn't work. It's strange because I bought it recently 😢
- Apple: Have you considered buying a new cable ? It's only 22.99 euros 🙂
Apple is a corporation that makes 30% operating margins.
https://companiesmarketcap.com/apple/operating-margin/
That means that on average, for any product sold $1000, they make $300.
Apple also hates open source software. They use their proprietary operating system to jail users. They force developers to pay huge fees. This is total abuse. Imagine if Microsoft suddenly banned Windows users from installing software outside Microsoft. Imagine if Microsoft required developers to pay them 20% on all software sales
FUCK APPLE
Populists tend to reject political pluralism.
They claim they are the ONLY ONES representing the people™. The danger is they can start attacking the media, judges... claiming that the people™ are on their side.
Uncontrolled populism can lead to dictatorship. Even left-wing populism. Look at Venezuela.
Step 1. People are angry
Step 2. Some weirdo gets elected President
Step 3. He starts threatening judges who rule against him, urging his supporters to harass them
Step 4. He starts suing newspapers and journalists, calling them fake news
Step 5 Tells his supporters that black people eat pets and are part of a global plot to replace Tunisians
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/02/23/tunisia-kais-saied-racism-migrants-black-tunisians/
Step 6. Calls the opposition is the enemy from within. Says the opposition supports terrorists and must be stopped/jailed
Step 7 . One night, he sends thugs to surround parliament and arrest the opposition
Step 8. His supporters are happy and defend him
Step 9. Dictatorship
Welcome to Tunisia.
Americans are at step 6. They just don't know it. They are deers in the headlights.
Let's hope Trump is too dumb to successfully pull that off.
Hamas has prisoners, it’s the propaganda that calls them hostages. If you want to call them hostages, you should call the prisoners that Israel has hostages as well.
Actually, propaganda is what you are doing.
A hostage is someone :
1. That isn't sentenced for anything.
2. That can not be precisely located anywhere.
3. That doesn't know if he will be released or killed by his captors.
For instance, Nelson Mandela wasn't a hostage. He was a political prisoner.
(A political prisoner is still a prisoner)
I lived in Canada for a while. Quebec to be precise.
I would argue the biggest interference in the country is perhaps the United States.
All these newspapers belong to Post Media, a company owned by americans living in New Jersey.
One of the biggest lobbying organization in Canada is actually american. Microsoft Canada very aggressively lobbies the federal government, provinces and even the small cities. Because they want them to keep buying expensive Microsoft Office licenses and expensive Microsoft Windows licenses. They don't want Canadian institutions to use Linux or LibreOffice.
This is actually bad news.
Don't get me wrong. Joseph Kabila was a vicious kleptocrat who ruled Congo for too long.
But what makes him a truly extraordinary figure is that after mass protests and international pressure, he said he was ready to voluntarily resign. Most African leaders would rather burn their country to the ground rather than resign.
The international community and his successor promised Joseph Kabila that would not be prosecuted. So Kabila decided to leave office. There was an incredibly peaceful transition of power. No one imagined it would be possible in Africa.
There is one law that all political scientists agree about : Monarchies are the political systems the most likely to transition to democracies.
Why ? Because a powerful monarch like King Abdullah of Jordan can give up political power. He will keep his bodyguards, his big salary, his cars, his palaces. He will see no changes to his lifestyle.
Presidents like Vladimir Putin or Abdelfattah Sisi can't do that. If they give up power, it's over 💀
If dictators know that leaving power means their death, they will fight to death rather than resign.
Iran is a country with remarkably smart people.
But it's not the smart people who are in charge. It's the dumb ones.
About 40% of the Iranian population is dumb as a fucking rock. They are absolutely TERRIFIED of women who don't wear a veil. They have spent billions on militias slaughtering Syrians. They think old Mullahs are the most pure humans on earth. They hate homosexuals. They hate atheists. They banned dog walking (yeah really).
And it's these 40% idiots who are ruling the country.
Never let religious people in charge of a major country. It can only end badly.
(This is exactly what americans are doing right now by the way. The super religious crazies from the Southern States won power with Donald Trump. Now he is slashing science budgets to make them happy)
What exactly is Russia ? Russia is a gas station with nukes.
Luckily, they can count on millions of car-addicts and millions of plastic bottle addicts around the world.
If we reduced car dependency and encouraged people to use glass bottles, the price of oil would crash and Russia would feel pain.