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Author Topic: World Parliament anyone?
Red Partisan
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Babbler # 13860

posted 23 April 2007 08:43 PM      Profile for Red Partisan        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
George Monbiot wrote a good article entitled:

The best way to give the poor a real voice is through a world parliament

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2063921,00.html

I have to believe that more democracy tends to mean better government for the people.

I can see the Right fighting against this concept tooth and nail, as I could see the closing up of many loopholes and tax havens.


From: Toronto | Registered: Feb 2007  |  IP: Logged
a lonely worker
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posted 23 April 2007 08:49 PM      Profile for a lonely worker     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The General Assembly could effectively fill this role as a start. As Monbiot correctly states, the problems are with the Security Council, the World Bank and IMF to name just 3 organisations the elites control.
From: Anywhere that annoys neo-lib tools | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
500_Apples
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posted 23 April 2007 09:11 PM      Profile for 500_Apples   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
And what would this world parliament do? Would it legislate on figurehead duties or would it decide planetary-wide laws on issues such as abortion, gay marriage, euthanasia, state sponsorship of religion, et cetera? Sorry, but this is a bit of a pipe dream. We still live in a very diverse world where people can have very different values from country to country. I'd rather see individual countries take more control.
From: Montreal, Quebec | Registered: Jun 2006  |  IP: Logged
Red Partisan
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posted 23 April 2007 09:23 PM      Profile for Red Partisan        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Individual countries have already given up sovereignity to multi-national organizations such as the WTO and the World Bank.

We are experiencing the projection of globalized corporate power which has more potential than any nation state, including the USA.

In order for the people of the world to exercise some semblance of power, they must have democratic control over world institutions.

[ 23 April 2007: Message edited by: Red Partisan ]


From: Toronto | Registered: Feb 2007  |  IP: Logged
trippie
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posted 23 April 2007 09:23 PM      Profile for trippie        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
how about we start with aworld workers party... That way we are ahead of the game.... And if it is an effective party then there won't be aneed for a parlement... Unless it's funkadelic....
From: essex county | Registered: Feb 2006  |  IP: Logged
500_Apples
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posted 23 April 2007 09:28 PM      Profile for 500_Apples   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Red Partisan,

Do you dislike the WTO? What about the UN Human Rights tribunal? Personally, I like them both. I wish countries would respect them more though.

It's all part of the same package.


From: Montreal, Quebec | Registered: Jun 2006  |  IP: Logged
Red Partisan
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posted 23 April 2007 09:44 PM      Profile for Red Partisan        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Well, if "individual countries take more control", why should they "like" the WTO or any other global institution?

The WTO seems to be engineered to maximize returns for big-money shareholder capital, despite social and environmental concerns which we hope to mitigate on a national level through national laws.

With no democratic control over world institutions, organizations like the WTO can run roughshod over areas which do not have organized governments like we do, and do great damage to indigeneous cultures and environments.

As you were asking, one of the first things a world parliament could do is issue global business licenses and establish rules for the conduct of global business with respect to said social and environmental concerns.

There may indeed be aspects of climate change which may only be handled by a democratic world government.

The problem is, these existing world organizations have no legitimacy, as they are not democratically controlled.


From: Toronto | Registered: Feb 2007  |  IP: Logged
Wilf Day
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posted 23 April 2007 10:40 PM      Profile for Wilf Day     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
The parliamentary assembly it proposes would initially consist of members of national parliaments. If someone proposed that our national parliament be composed of a delegated committee of local councillors we would be horrified.

We would? The role of the local MP four centuries ago was more like that of the Mayor that the role of today's MP. Many upper houses still have delegates of states or even municipal governments. And a country as huge as China still has a congress of delegates from lower levels, for the same reason as the suggested first stage of a world parliament: scale.
quote:
Global democracy has a special problem - the scale on which it must operate. The bigger the electorate, the less democratic a parliamentary body will be. It would gradually move towards direct representation.

And then we would have to consider what PR model to use. Today's China would not approve -- they don't even have direct democracy nationally -- but Indonesia, Brazil, Russia, Japan (sort of), Mexico, Germany, etc. have PR. With a 5% threshold, Germany would need 20 MWPs. Assuming representation by population, your World Parliament has about 1,600 MWPs.

Special scale problems, indeed.

I suppose Canada's eight MWPs would be Stephen Harper, Stephane Dion, Jack Layton, Gilles Duceppe, Peter MacKay, Michael Ignatieff, Scott Brison, and . . . Rona Ambrose?

[ 28 April 2007: Message edited by: Wilf Day ]


From: Port Hope, Ontario | Registered: Oct 2002  |  IP: Logged
N.Beltov
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posted 23 April 2007 10:58 PM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Move the U.N. away from the U.S., abolish the veto privilege of the permanent members of the Security Council, and find a new home for the U.N. in the global "south". Long before the creation of the UN, Latin American [and global] hero Simon Bolivar elaborated a vision of democratic world institutions that would serve the common people.
From: Vancouver Island | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
Steppenwolf Allende
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posted 23 April 2007 11:48 PM      Profile for Steppenwolf Allende     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Do you dislike the WTO? What about the UN Human Rights tribunal? Personally, I like them both. I wish countries would respect them more though.

It's all part of the same package.


Nope. Not even remotely.

The UN Human Rights tribunal is an open and transparent organization that investigates and promotes human and democratic rights based on the traditional interpretations of natural justice as expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, and is part of the public UN structure.

The WTO is a secretive totalitarian-like elite bureaucracy set up by a closed group of trade and investment lawyers from the G-8 regimes and 104 multi-national corporate CEOs and bankers in 1989. It has no direct ties to the UN, OECD or any open international public body.

It is, for all intents and purposes, a self-governing undemocratic structure that acts as its own judge and jury over trade, investment, finance and public policy via secret tribunals made up of life-time appointed trade bureaucrats, with only federal governments and pre-approved multi-national corporate executives allowed to make presentations, with no accountability to anyone.

Public interest organizations, labour unions, cooperatives, local and provincial or state governments, small business organizations, consumer and ecology groups, human rights, individuals, etc, and all that makes for anything remotely democratic have no access to these tribunals or WTO governing bodies, even though they all can be charged and tried in abstentia (the only parties that can lay charges and defenses are member federal governments and pre-designated multi-national corporate CEOs).

It is the perfect machine inspired in part by the Reagan/Bush Sr. regime's (and other major powers) plan for the New World Order and the Project for a New American Century, an undemocratic totalitarian world order controlling money, information, political agendas and the militaries in order to keep everyone down to maintain global capitalism and its various institutions for as long as possible.

That most public interest organizations and social and labour movements, as well as many governments, oppose this is for damn good reason.

The WTO should be resisted, defamed, exposed and attacked until it is fundamentally democratized, reformed and given a social democratic basis, or scrapped altogether.


From: goes far, flies near, to the stars away from here | Registered: Aug 2006  |  IP: Logged

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