The Truth About "Power to the People"

Trinbagoviews · Postby **Trinbagoviews** » August 12th, 2014, 9:58 am

Deconstructing The Constitution Amendment Bill

The state circus surrounding the "Power to the People" campaign only serves to dupe the masses into acquiescing to greater political exploitation by offering false, inconsequential political choice.

Amendment 1: Term Limits for the Office of Prime Minister

"With this amendment, the President shall not appoint as Prime Minister a person who has previously served in that office for two full terms or for an aggregate of at least ten years and six months."

A mere distraction to appear self righteous and sacrificial, while at the same time transferring the power of appointing the Prime Minister to political party leadership and financiers.

Amendment 2: The Right of Recall for Members of Parliament

"To be successful, a recall petition must be initiated by at least 10% of the people whose names were on the voters' list and signed by two-thirds of the registered voters in the constituency who were eligible to vote at the Election in which the Member was elected. The Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) will be required to verify the authenticity of the petition and signatories and only then will a report be given to the Speaker. A vacancy can only be enforced after a Member has been in office for three years, and cannot be enforced after any Parliament enters its fourth year."

This proposed amendment is farcical as it attempts to give the public the impression that they will be granted the liberty to remove MPs when warranted; however in reality the amendment is a dead letter i.e. legislation that is in reality unlikely to be used, irrelevant and inapplicable because of bureaucracy, red tape and the narrow time window through which it can actually be applied.

In addition the petition which must be "verified" can and will be used to identify dissenters who will be vulnerable to victimization. Note also that the ultimate arbitrators of this process are supposedly "independent" branches of government itself namely the EBC and the speaker.

Amendment 3: Second Ballot Run-Off Voting

"To implement a run-off election in any constituency where none of the candidates in a general election receives more than 50 per cent of the votes cast. In any constituency where this is the case, a second run-off election will be held between the two candidates who received the most votes two weeks after the first ballot. The winner will then receive a majority of the votes and an effective mandate from the voters in their constituency to govern."

The true intent of this amendment is to further entrench a two party political system where alternative political views, parties or movements are automatically deemed irrelevant. This approach offers another way in which obedience, political tyranny and exploitation is engineered -by offering a false choice.

Conclusions

Once the population subscribes to this political gimmickry they will have even less grounds to complain about poor governance as after all; they were given the chance to choose.

Anyone who acknowledges that government is not a group of selfless crusaders for the public good but rather a blunt instrument by which opportunistic individuals exploit the masses can easily deconstruct government actions for what they really are -in most cases ploys to consolidate or expand power and control.

Trinbagoviews

TRAE · Postby **TRAE** » August 12th, 2014, 11:38 am

Propaganda
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Propaganda is information that is not impartial and used primarily to influence an audience and further an agenda, often by presenting facts selectively (thus possibly lying by omission) to encourage a particular synthesis, or using loaded messages to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented. Propaganda can be used as a form of ideological or commercial warfare.

While the term propaganda has acquired a strongly negative connotation by association with its most manipulative and jingoistic examples (e.g. Nazi propaganda used to justify the Holocaust), propaganda in its original sense was neutral, and could refer to uses that were generally positive, such as public health recommendations, signs encouraging citizens to participate in a census or election, or messages encouraging persons to report crimes to law enforcement, among others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda

in Trini Terms--- you're aiding it by conveying your opinion to it----- instead of bringing up your points separate from the terms of the bill