Georgia needs
a totally new opposition, or she will sink.
ONLY A FULLY
RE-LOADED NEW PARLIAMENT WILL BE THE BEST SHOT FOR THE FUTURE OF GEORGIA
by Bryan Adrian, 2008
Georgia
needs a totally new opposition, or she will sink.
For
the Future of Georgia !! Hear me out
!
I believe Ms. Hammick, a reporter recently
writing for JANE'S DEFENSE WEEKLY, upon the upcoming election in Tbilisi , was practicing the art of, as F. Scott Fitzgerald
once said, of "the test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to
hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the
ability to function".
How so? She was evidently flipping through her
mind the several conflicting tentative dates set for the parliamentary
elections, starting back in late 2003. Since Nov. 23rd, 2003
, when President Saakashvili parachuted into his position as ruler of
Georgia , and the rarely clarified-in-the-media Georgian constitutional
amendments, made in December, 2005, most people are understandably deeply
confused and divided on basic democratic procedures here, regarding efforts
that would help the majority of people, rather than propping up some cold and
abstract ideology in its stead, helping old insiders and new “graspers,” only.
Here is a blurb from Freedom House back in mid-2005,
to refresh your memories of the jigsaw puzzle of parliamentary election
procedures here:
[First, Saakashvili and NED (the National
Endowment for Democracy), and the Liberty Institute set in train the protests
which brought him to power on 23rd November, 2003 . Thus, it can be argued,
that parliamentary elections should have been held in Nov. of 2007.]
15.06.2005 - Source: Freedom House “... the
2004 elections were somewhat free and fair; however, the level of political
pluralism had been severely reduced, as no party could compete with National Movement-Democrats
("Nations in Transit 2005") [#32929], [ID 4745]
"...the
elections of 2004 were considered generally free and fair, though voter lists
were still not fully complete. There was no harassment of the opposition.
However, the level of political pluralism was sharply reduced as the former
ruling party completely disbanded and no political group could compete with
Mikhail Saakashvili and his National Movement-Democrats.
Only one
opposition bloc of the New Rights and Industrialists was able narrowly to overcome the 7 percent threshold for party lists."
Note #1
on Georgia before you read further:
Compared
to Georgians and their 6 or 7 thousand year old fiercely loyal and family-relations-devoted
traditions, how many Americans do you know who actually continue to look after
their old parents and older grandparents and perhaps their great grandparents
too, themselves?
Perhaps in the same household? These
Georgians, all of them here, would NEVER put an older family member into a rest
home, or a Memory Care Home or into a criminally overpriced USA-style and
shamefully profitable nursing/senior/memory care home, you know -- the kind of racket
in the States backed up in large measure by HHS/MEDICARE political insiders,
working along with State and Federal congresspersons, to milk the tax systems
bone dry!
These same Georgians are trying to use this
familial passion and commitment to forge a new and democratic Parliament this
May 21st, 2008 , but the likelihood of any success is
as slender as the homeless of New Orleans to get their property back via FEMA
programs after Hurricane Katrina.
The
forces here preventing a true democracy in Georgia are the identically same
forces at work against them there in Louisiana and Mississippi and Texas .
Note #2--QUESTION:
How many Americans typically speak and read three languages and alphabets, and
who work anywhere from 10 to 25 hours a week overtime, with not even a tetri [penny]
of paid overtime, and who never complain about the total lack of labor laws
coming out of their Parliament??? Again, nearly zero.
These
Georgians here have not yet been educated by their strictly censored media, in
any shape or form, upon labor laws or labor rights, yet the USAID personnel
here and the US embassy swear this is a "beacon of light" regarding
fulfillment of democratic ideals!
A
whole new team of concerned Georgians need to take over their parliament, this
May 21st, these citizens desperately need new opposition forces deep in their
Parliament, and not only the elites and millionaire businessmen/women that they
now have as MPs, and THEY should be the 'new ones' to select a new president,
if there is to be any hope of true democracy here in Georgia any year soon.
click here http://www.osce.org/documents/odihr/2008/04/30927_en.pdf
[for a full OSCE report on the unlikelihood of a fair and
square parliamentary election in Tbilisi on May 21, 2008 [HIGHLY UNLIKELY] ]
A president such as "Misha" [short
for Saakashvili], who galloped into power overnight on the day quoted above,
would be fairly tested by the people of his new democracy, if and only if, the
people themselves gave him something like his report card grades after the last
4 long years in which he could evaluate himself too, in careful and painful self-examination.
The result of a revitalizing and invigorating new parliamentary election
process, in which a `new batch of 2008 parliamentary MPs', not in any way part
of Saakashvili's clan, nor part of the current Opposition's clan, could and
would implement fresh and vigorous legislation and programs. If only they had
been allowed to do so at the end of 2007, a global miracle would have been born
– a real beacon of light !!!
A real beacon of light, especially when one
considers the helpful and democracy-building funding from outside agencies of
the last 4 years, thanks to credits and currencies from the USAID, the EU, the
UN, SECO/ SDC, the German and Polish governments, et al, who have greatly helped
make many of the improvements the Georgians have desperately needed, after the
mayhem and ugly scenarios following the collapse of communism in this nation.
Isn't
this Parliamentary “stuffing” the nub of the conflict today, and a major cause
of the loss of public and international confidence in the current Saakashvili
government? Aren't I correct that these Georgians need to immediately reload
their Parliament?
Georgians
themselves, excluding the ever and over and twice again prospering current
Members of Parliament, the normal children of the legendary Family of Georgia
are cut off at the knees from any kind of truly democratic structures and
planks and platforms, in nearly every respect, in the current situation.
Can anyone remember how Shevardnadze
reinstated most of his Parliament after he dismissed them, more or less, can
you dig out these events from the faded memories of the past? How many key
players in Saakashvili's current clan worked at one time [for quite a long
while, indeed] on the monorail of Shevardnadze’s express train to disunity and
oblivion and hunger?
Will not the Saakashvili MPs and he as their
leader, and most of the old Opposition MPs, simply repeat the same mistakes
again and again? So we might conclude after an hour or two of productive
thought on this matter, [i.e., of a fresh and uncompromised Parliament], that the
Georgian people were indeed deprived of a timely, and legal, and in-their-favor,
parliamentary election, in November of 2007, which might have brought about the
promising guiding-light of fresh teams of Georgian MBAs and MDs and Master’s
degree winners, coming back from USA , UK and Germany
and France-- the EU, et al.
A parliament comprised of the principals and
top teachers of Tbilisi and Kutaisi and Batumi and Telavi schools, and Georgian
physician-activists for the desperately needed hospital care and health care here
fighting on the behalf of the struggling desperate people of Georgia , and
along with them also, the many passionate property rights activists fighting
the Chancellery, and the grey panthers of organized parties of disgruntled
pensioners, and the many magnificent and proud Georgians, which include among
them the displaced farmers flung from their hectares who are being replaced by
huge corporate conglomerated and automated farms, owned by many current MPs,
and more and more frequently, supplanted by Chinese imported workers, these
urgently needed new MPs who I am dreaming about here-- who might be able to
stampede into parliament as newly elected MPs if just given the chance – this
imagined truly democratic and model parliamentary election, could come into
being at the most opportune time for the natives of this land, early 2009, consisting
of the non-elite of Georgia , hopefully.
They
will have to swept out most of Misha's MPs, and along with them the bulk of old
Shevardnadze and Moscow-resonating fiddlers too, who/which are frequently and
deeply embedded in the half- dozen or more, old and very tiresome Opposition
parties here, as time rolls on like domestic tank treads on these pot-holed
streets?
Such
new MPs could rectify the hurried and hasty presidential elections of Jan. 5, 2008 , and would install their own new president. This would
improve the quality of Georgian political debates, within a newly transfigured
Parliament, MPs most probably not in tune with Misha.
They
would have to agree and/or disagree with each other in a gentlemanly or
ladylike way, until solutions are legislated and enacted. Political pluralism
will flower like the Garden of Eden, and new and friendly coalitions will
emerge [only in this scenario] and triumph from the authentic reforms of
Saakashvili's first two years. These new and unheard of freshly minted MPs will
TRULY debate issues and policies and finances, rather than the mudslinging
ejaculations and shouting spasms we see today, and these angels of democracy
will be in many aspects watered from the garden of justice, with its flowers showing
her firsts blossoms. These new MPs might have had the chance to vote in
Parliament on the issues TRULY important to THEM and to their constituents, and
not just to pocket USAID and other nation’s aid money for imported goods-laden
highways, nor toady up to the Pentagon's missile strategies for Georgia , nor
kneel to the proponents of Vladimir Putin, his inner team evidently NOT allies
of Georgia , nor would these ideal MPs support the old camaraderie business
ties to Russia that are still deeply entrenched here, but not clearly seen, and
counterproductive to a new democracy.
I am truly astonished by the bright and
hopeful and hard-working and self-sacrificing Georgians in their 20s and 30s
and 40s and 50s and 60s also, who are well educated with admirable characters
and genuine integrity, and who want to make a big difference in their country's
destiny, in a disciplined communitarian manner, women most welcome too, to join
the ranks, and they are all blocked by the current `map of democracy', by teams,
Saakashvili's team, and the motley cluster of current Opposition teams.
Typical and honest Georgians must control the
future of Georgia , and not American military
investment conglomerates nor old Russian mafia-like business networks. These
sterling Georgians mentioned directly above are the citizens who belong in
Parliament and THEY should select a president, if there is to be any hope of
true democracy here any year soon. After this "turn- around",
Presidential elections could be arranged to coincide with Parliamentary
elections, as in other nations. After such a model transition, Saakashvili
would go down in history as a fine and admired agent of transition, a team
player who saw he should enter private business after 5 years at the helm,
rather than what is in store for his legacy should he win the election this
Jan. 5th. His past achievements would quite likely be blemished beyond repair
by another term in office, and I think he senses this himself!
These new hypothetical MPs would be loyal to Georgia , and her best interests, and not to Saakashvili, as
if he were their beloved post-communism, riding-the-tiger boss, or a Godfather
in a Francis Ford Coppola film, or a mirror of Putin's firm leadership, and
these new hypothetical MPs would not and could not be loyal in any way or
manner to any tricked-out business interests of the old Opposition, one would
pray also.
Georgia needs a totally new opposition, or she
will sink. But she needs CHANGE, and now!
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THE ELECTRONIC WHIP archived online 2000: INDEX
http://web.archive.org/web/20000815064928/www.pcug.co.uk/~whip/usa/
[from The Way Back Machine] 1996
publication dates
STRIKE OUT AGAINST GLOBALISATION 1
http://web.archive.org/web/20000815233252/www.pcug.co.uk/~whip/usa/strike.htm
STRIKE OUT AGAINST GLOBALISATION 2
http://web.archive.org/web/20000815233259/www.pcug.co.uk/~whip/usa/strike1.htm
WHICH SECRET ORDER WILL DRIVE A STAKE INTO THE GOD OF WAR?
https://www.angelfire.com/de/Boiishaft/God_of_War_Merchants_of_Death.pdf
B. Traven and His Circle of Friends....click below
https://www.angelfire.com/de/Boiishaft/B-Traven-Circle.html
https://www.angelfire.com/indie/hollywoodtattler/POETRY_SLAM_TBILISI_2007.pdf
2006
https://www.angelfire.com/indie/hollywoodtattler/The_Hollywood_Tattler.pdf