Monday, September 29, 2008

Democracy combined with technology can be a disaster

So the 700 billion dollar bail out proposal for the US economy got rejected and I learnt that it was mostly republican candidates who voted against it in the House. I was wondering why and I thought it must've been because the republicans need popular votes to win the upcoming elections. I guessed popular sentiment would be against this proposal because the stupid short-sighted media was talking about it in terms of taxes and stealing from the poor to feed the rich. But then, I figured, that couldn't really have made the candidates turn their back on a proposal that was initiated by their own party representatives! But I just read a BBC report where they state that thousands of individuals wrote emails to their own members of congress angrily demanding that they reject a scheme which is universally perceived here as a bail-out of Wall Street bankers.

May be technology isn't such a good thing after all. It gives too much power into the hands of ignorant people. Most congressmen i'm sure have a better grasp on the situation than the stupid average american public, and if they didn't get thousands of emails giving them an alarming reminder of the upcoming elections, they might've made a sensible decision after all.

When I read the flash news of the bail out in my lab, I turned to my American friend and told him in excited tones, "The bail-out proposal just got rejected!!" and he replied without even turning his face from the monitor, "Yeah." I said, "So you just read that?" He said,"No!" I: "Then how do you know?" He: "Because it was expected." I replied a little stunned, "What?!?! How?" He said, "Because we the people don't like it!"

*sigh*

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