What price democracy?

Dear Colleagues

I have never been in awe if the big people that inhabit Whitehall, Washington and the other centers of government around the world. Work in Africa and other parts of the developing world taught me a lot about the sale of favors by government people at all levels absolutely appalled me.

I have seen enough of what is going on in Washington over the past 20 or 30 years to realize that the vitality of democracy is at risk. In the last three years the efforts by the banking lobby, the health lobby specifically and the broader anti-consumer lobby pro-business lobby have been sickening. I am not amused.

My agenda is for the public to be well informed ... and the disinformation that is funded by these groups is a disgrace.

There is a big space for informed dialog ... but one way misinformation and propaganda has no place in a healthy democracy.

The vote ought to be an important part of democracy ... but it is diminished when (1) the vote is when advertising misinforms ... and when elected officials are then further subverted by a lobbying industry that has an almost unlimited budget. This is not a system to be proud of any more! Sad!

Peter Burgess