In December 2004, protesters forced a rethink by those who had run the Ukrainian Presidential election according to Stalin's dictum, "The people who vote do not have the power. The people who count the votes have the power."
In the same month, protesters in Cleveleys, Lancashire, persuaded their local council not to close down the children's rides on the Promenade for redevelopment.
It is good to see people power in action, and I am glad to live where it is less likely to lead to intervention by the armed forces.
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Below are a few of my messages to other nations in the online game, Nationstates.
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Stealth Aircraft.
Our Defence Office has just spent billions on the prototype of the nationstates' most advanced stealth aircraft, with onboard artificial intelligence and active camouflace systems. If anyone finds it, could they let us know?
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Karaoke: an Apology.
The Constitutional Evil Wizardom of Fargon apologises to the people of Britain for our Ambassador's dreadful out of tune singing of "Rhinestone Cowboy", or "Nine Stone Cowboy" as he sang, and "24 Hours from Tulsa" at unarmed civilians.
He has not been replaced because he partially vindicated himself by rocking out to Weird Al Yankovitz's "Dirty Deeds Done With Sheep" and "Hi Ho, Silver Lining". He topped this with an uninhibited performance of "Timewarp".
He has promised to remember that he has a rock voice, not a crooner's.
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Camouflace.
Camouflace is a material developed by our defence industry scientists.
It is great at hiding things, but when it can be seen, it looks really pretty. This prompts attackers to hesitate to admire it or think "That would go well with my dining room curtains", creating a vital few seconds for a counter-attack.
Available from you local arms dealer or all good soft furnishings shops.
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Reality.
Our great nation receives TV broadcasts from the UK. We were recently treated to the sight of a beautiful, intelligent woman in a bikini reduced to tears at the prospect of going into a transparent tank full of water, crustacians and snakes. She climbed in and lay there in terror.
Then an extravagantly effeminate man lay down in a tank of water and fish guts. Finally, a second woman in a bikini lay down in tank of water and rats.
These are not the ravings of a madman, but a description of Five's "Back to Reality". Each of the "celebrities" earned £2000 for charity and kept themselves on telly. Great entertainment, but well beyond satire. But we'll try anyway.
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Camouflace Products.
Equip your armed forces with new Camouflace products. Now available: Camouflace jackets, trousers, shirts, T-shirts, sweat bands, knickers, socks, hats, spats, bandoliers, rucksacks, sporrans, kilts, handbags, couture dresses, shopping bags, sarongs, bikinis, posing pouches and off the roll.
Available from your local arms dealer or from all good boutiques, ladies' and gentlemen's outfitters, haberdashers and milliners.
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Free Press.
Now that our state is heading towards democracy, we have something resembling a free press, so we can forget the serious political stuff and concentrate on the trivial affairs of the rich and famous.
A report from the magazine, "Hell? Oh.":
Model, actress and "it" girl, Kazakstella, was sentenced to appear on "I'm a Celebrity, Get Me out of This Maze Full of Scary Animals and Booby Traps" for being annoying and having artificial bosoms.
Fargon the Wizard laughed so much when her boobies became trapped that he commuted her sentence to appearing on the show, "I'm a Celebrity, Watch Me Morris Dancing in a Fancy Waistcoat and Hiking Boots".
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X-Ray Peeping Toms.
Following Rontgen's Nobel Prize for Physics in 1901, there was some concern about x-rays and their use by Peeping Toms. X-ray proof knickers were advertised.
We are boosting our nuclear generation, so we have opened a factory to manufacture a variety of x-ray proof clothing, which will be available throughout the region.
Available in Camouflace and non-Camouflace versions.
Elf Service.
Do not be fooled into setting up a National Elf Service. We did so, and now our people are dying from easily preventable diseases and fools with bows and arrows and pointed ears are running about all over the country.
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Radiation-proof Knickers.
You might have noticed that many of our citizens are behaving strangely. This is because radiation-proof knickers have become fashionable. They make walking difficult, sitting down impossible, and going to the toilet a bit of an ordeal. But they should protect us a bit when non-UN nations start throwing nuclear bombs around.
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Facilities.
Okay, our seat of government, Castle Covet, has extensive dungeons, but they were built by Fargon's predecessors for law and order purposes.
The dungeons are now a tourist attraction and contain a television studio, home of "I'm a Celebrity in Pain, but At Least I'm on the Telly".
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Dress Code.
In response th numerous queries, in the daytime sections of the show, they wear special Morris Dancing trousers, with bells and ribbons. In the evening sections, it is just the fancy waistcoats and the hiking boots.
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Reputation.
Following model, actress and "it" girl, Kazakstella's recent extensive appearances on our media, we took the trouble to look her up on the internet.
We were shocked and appalled to discover that her activities are nothing less than disgraceful.
She is now in every newspaper and on every telly show of our free media, and will be until we are all sick of the sight of her. And after that as well, probably.
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Politically Correct.
Some of our hellspawn appear to have learnt how to read and have discovered some progressive ideas. A faction of them have started a petition for our nation to be called "The Constitutional Morally Challenged Wizardom of Fargon", hellspawn to be called "troops" and hellhorde to be called "armed forces".
We would not insult the troops and armed forces of other nations by such changes, and our name is long enough already, so we will stick with tradition for the time being.
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Morris Dancing.
Yes, our Celebrity Morris Dancing show does get more viewers in daytime than in the evening.
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Elections.
Our recent fake elections were supposed to have been won by the Fargon Is Best party, but instead were won by the Sentient Creatures Against Brutality party. Someone has fixed our fake elections.
Now Brunhilde, Dowager Sex Object of Fargon the First, is our Prime Minister.
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Blackpool Indian Woman.
One of our favourite towns is Blackpool, so when we read that the film, "Legend of Walks Far Woman" was about a "Blackpool Indian Woman", we bought it to show on FTV26-Movies!
Watching this load of old tosh, we realised that she was supposed to be a Blackfoot Indian Woman.
If our FTV head of Film Acquisition turns up in your nationstate, please return her to us for rehabilitation.
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Celebrities Disfigured.
One of our TV producers wanted to steal an idea from the UK's Channel 4 called "Celebrities Disfigured".
We thought, evil as we are, and desperate as they are, we can't do that to them. But it turned out that all it involved was making them up to look as if they had serious scarring or birthmarks on their faces and filming other people's reaction to them with hidden cameras.
Stupid idea.
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Celebrity Renaissance.
Violent Carson, who played Ena Scalpels in the hit serial drama, "Coronation Flagseller" is back from the dead.
"It's great what modern medical science can achieve," she said. "Apart from an urgent desire to eat living human flesh, I'm back to my old self again."
She is allegedly trying to revive Minnie Coldwell and Albert Tatdock for a three-in-a-crypt zombie romp, but they remain stubbornly dead.
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Celebrity Death Match.
We have been receiving a foreign TV programme, Celebrity Death Match. This is a cartoon using claymation figures, but of course it prompted some of our FTV producers to create a version using real, live celebriteis.
We have found a useful way of culling them, because only the most desperate and talentless are willing to risk a 50-50 chance of death to appear on telly.
There is a long waiting list to appear on the show.
1 comment:
This comment is to the post regarding people power.
Constructive Sovereignty is an emerging theory intended to address globalization's increasing onslaught against state sovereignty. The theory maintains that states are not the primary actors, their constituents are. Therefore, their preferences are not fixed. Since states merely represent the preferences of their constituents, they will only adhere to and ultimately embed those international norms that their respective constituencies will accept. Rather than push for larger and more powerful international organizations that will impose global norms from the outside in, the theory of Constructive Sovereignty posits that ultimately change must come from the inside out. That is to say, from each state's own constituency. As each state's constituents become more and more international, they will become more receptive to international norms and they will voice their acceptance of these norms both politically and (especially) as consumers.
It is therefore a central pillar of the theory that privatization is not only the driving force behind globalization, but also that private enterprise possesses the incentive to implement those international norms reflected in the preferences of consumers (profit). Private enterprise is also the primary consumer of proprietary data used to measure the preferences of consumers, and as such remains the most up-to-date source of changing consumer preferences. As private enterprise meets the increasingly international demands of consumers, it will itself become more international in scope. The cycle is self-perpetuating. In this way international norms are embedded and viewed with legitimacy by each state's constituency, while state sovereignty is maintained and respected.
The theory of Constructive Sovereignty ties in nicely with a diplomatic model for combating terrororism. The model asserts that terrorism, regardless of its causes, is ultimately only possible with sufficient popular support. Consequently, only once we find a way to eliminate popular support for terrorism will we be able to eliminate terrorism itself. While some minimal definition is necessary to identify terrorism in a uniform manner, knowing what causes terrorism and collecting data on individual acts of terrorism is not as important as knowing how to stop it. When putting out a fire, while it is important to know what type of fire it is before attempting to put it out (e.g. applying water to an oil fire will have the same effect as using a flame thrower), firefighters understand that the key to putting out any fire is to remove its source of oxygen. This knowledge affords them a standard plan of action that varies only in detail (what kind of fire is it, and what is needed to remove the source of oxygen). Likewise, terrorism depends on popular support to sustain itself. Without popular support, the majority of funding, recruits and overall acceptance will disappear. Therefore, similar to putting out a fire, the primary goal for eliminating terrorism is to eliminate the sources of popular support.
Measuring popular support for terrorism also affords us a method of measuring and predicting 1) the potential for terrorism in any given society, 2) the direction that acts of terrorism tend to be moving in (e.g. westward, eastward, or remaining static), and 3) broad trends in the support for terrorism, such as whether popular support is increasing among moderates, Westerners, etc...
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