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Re: Re: A new political party
John BUNZL
Saturday, 31 May 2003 23:30:12 +0200
Marie-France d'ABOVILLE wrote:
> Why give the conceptual benefit of the simultaneous policy to the political > parties which do not satisfy us. They had only to imagine it themselves. It > is much simpler to create what appears right to us, with the means which > appear right to us, rather than to wait until they * are resigned * to adopt > it. Let us make known our idea in the large reservoir of * the silent > majority *. > > Marie-France >
Dear Marie-France, Alanna, Friedrich, Friends,
Please forgive me, Marie-France, but I think you may be misunderstanding the Simultaneous Policy (SP) concept.
Firstly, SP is a range of policies which WE will design and decide upon - not politicians, nor business interests nor international institutions: it's OUR policy, not theirs. Also, please note that "adopting SP" means that anyone who does so pledges to vote in future elections for ANY existing political party - within reason - that also adopts SP.
Secondly, and as Troy Davis himself freely admits, the chances of a World Citizen Party being elected are extremely small because the number of supporters you would need would have to be greater than the support that existing main parties already have or, at least, very substantial. Furthermore, such a party would have to be elected to power in virtually all countries of the world before it could implement a World Parliament - since all nations would have to agree. With SP on the other hand, I suggest we have a much more effective tool and let me use the example of the last U.S. Presidential Election as an example to explain why.
You will recall that George W. Bush was effectively elected President in 2000 by a majority of about 2000 votes in Florida. In other words, the entire US Presidential election was hanging on a tiny number of votes. If you now imagine that we had had at that time say about 5000 adopters of SP in Florida (and a similar critical number in the other key US states) and that the US SP Organisation had made clear immediately prior to the election that all SP adopters will be voting for WHICHEVER of the Republicans or the Democrats adopts SP first, we would have created an entirely new situation. We would effectively be saying: "We don't care which of you adopts SP but whichever of you is first to adopt gets all our votes".
In these knife-edge circumstances, therefore, both main candidates will know that if they FAIL to adopt SP before their opponent, they will have almost certainly lost the Presidency. But if they DO adopt SP, they risk nothing because SP is to be implemented only when all or sufficient nations have also adopted it. If you were the sitting President faced with that situation, what would you do?
So, my point is that we have with SP a tool which requires a relatively small number of 'adopters' to force existing political parties and candidates to adopt the SP programme which, as I have pointed out, could include provisions for the establishment of a WP. Indeed, in the above-outlined circumstances, there would be a good chance that BOTH Republican and Democrat candidates would adopt SP: the ideal situation! But that's not all.
Alanna Hartzok suggested the Green Parties around the world and asked why we should attempt to re-invent the wheel. But the problem of the Greens is the same as Troy's World Citizen Party because even if a Green Party were elected to government in a single country it would have to jettison or water down all its policies for fear of capital and corporate flight, job losses, and economic uncompetitiveness.
Indeed this is why political parties have today become so unpopular: because under the circumstances of the free movement of capital, they are forced to adopt a largely neo-liberal agenda in order to keep their countries competitive. And make no mistake, a Green Party or a World Citizen Party or any other kind of party - however laudable its pre-election manifesto - would be no different. So to think that party politics is still an appropriate way of seeking fundamental change is, I suggest, to be thinking entirely 'inside the box'.
Instead of playing that largely futile game, using our votes in the novel SP way to bring all existing parties into stiff competition with one another to adopt SP is not only more logical, it would, I respectfully suggest, offer the chance of success with far fewer people as I have explained in the US example. (Please also note, however, that although I have given the example of US politics, we have slightly different methods for countries with proportional representation electoral systems.)
with best wishes John Bunzl
WP21 Alliance Forum on a World Parliament for the 21st Century
E-mail : world-parl@forums.alliance21.org
Fax 1 717 264 5036
Information, inscriptions, désinscriptions: germa@alliance21.org
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