Re: [ga] RE: Consensus on consensus?

[Sotiris Sotiropoulos <sotiris@worldatlarge.org>]

William S. Lovell wrote:

> David Johnson, I might add, does understand what "consensus" means:
> "It's not about empowering a new regulatory structure. It's about talking
> (hopefully, mostly, online) until we can figure out what most of those
> involved DO agree upon. It's about... consensus."

"Consensus" is about gang rule: the most organized gangs rule [period]. 
 Anyone dreaming that "consensus" is a viable and valid form of decision 
making is either deluding him/herself or trying to delude others.  

Sincerely,

Sotiris Sotiropoulos
        Toronto, Canada

-- 
Decision-making on major issues is now vested in international institutions which are so remote from public influence, that the public has no idea what's going on. I mean, in the case of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), incidentally the Labor Advisory Committee report was never reported in the press, right, I'd be surprised if any of you know about it, here's a case where the government radically violated the law, demonstrated utter contempt for the democratic process, rammed through a secret executive agreement of enormous influence, wouldn't even let the one popular group that is supposed to see it by law, the labor- based group, even look at it, they write the report, and then the press censors it. All right, here we have the ultimate in the destruction of democracy, the ideal that everybody's been dreaming of. Not only is the rabble excluded, they don't influence policy, but they don't know what's in policy, and finally they don't know that they don't know. Virtually nobody knows that they don't know what is going on. Well, you know, now we've reached the ultimate. That's the ultimate possibility in the destruction of democracy.

-Noam Chomsky, "Old Wine, New Bottles: Free Trade, Global Markets and Military Adventures"
the above article in its thoroughly engrossing entirety can be found at: http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/talks/9302-uva.html

****



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