the anachronism is one explanation why financial reform is unlikely in England
It's the dark heart of Britain, the place where democracy goes to die, immensely powerful, equally unaccountable. But I doubt that one in 10 British people has any idea of what the Corporation of the City of London is and how it works. This could be about to change. Alongside the Church of England, the Corporation is seeking to evict the protesters camped outside St Paul's cathedral. The protesters, in turn, have demanded that it submit to national oversight and control.
What is this thing? Ostensibly it's the equivalent of a local council, responsible for a small area of London known as the Square Mile. But, as its website boasts, "among local authorities the City of London is unique". You bet it is. There are 25 electoral wards in the Square Mile. In four of them, the 9,000 people who live within its boundaries are permitted to vote. In the remaining 21, the votes are controlled by corporations, mostly banks and other financial companies. The bigger the business, the bigger the vote: a company with 10 workers gets two votes, the biggest employers, 79. It's not the workers who decide how the votes are cast, but the bosses, who "appoint" the voters. Plutocracy, pure and simple.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...-city-medievalAs Nicholas Shaxson explains in his fascinating book Treasure Islands, the Corporation exists outside many of the laws and democratic controls which govern the rest of the United Kingdom. The City of London is the only part of Britain over which parliament has no authority. In one respect at least the Corporation acts as the superior body: it imposes on the House of Commons a figure called the remembrancer: an official lobbyist who sits behind the Speaker's chair and ensures that, whatever our elected representatives might think, the City's rights and privileges are protected. The mayor of London's mandate stops at the boundaries of the Square Mile. There are, as if in a novel by China Miéville, two cities, one of which must unsee the other.
Funny how these guys from this autonomous part of London and that autonomous part of Rome are the source of almost all the super Illuminati-type conspiracy theories. They should meet up with the guys from southern Manhattan and then they might actually have something going...
The financial sector in UK is as rigged and beyond the reach of the law and citizenry as it is in USA.
what makes you think they haven't... ;-)
Where there's smoke there's fire.
And the likelihood of real financial reform is no more likely in the U.S. than it is in the U.K.
totally agree. we're in an period of open oligarchy. capital is reconsolidating.
and the political process, if not already suborned by the donor class, may well soon be.
In contradistinction to boutons, I'd estimate we aren't quite properly ed yet. Just wait.
the evidence is overwhelming that America is ed.
but yes, when the Repugs get control of Congress and WH to match VRWC control of SCOTUS, the 99% will be mopped up. The Wealthy Class War is over.
what evidence, and America in what sense or senses?
"America is ed" at first flush is not an empirically verifiable hypothesis; it's a value judgement.
waving at an more or less undifferentiated sea of previously posted "evidence" doesn't get you over the finish line. it just means you like to draw the finish line wherever your argument collapsed.
where's your evidence that America is NOT ed, and is NOT un able.
lol boutons.
lol burden of truth logical fallacy
lol idealogue.
TBnothing to say
You run like a when I do.
lol facile coward.
TB
Ive said plenty.TBIt's just not what you want to hear.
lol coward.
oddly enough, the question of whether people are motivated to participate civically or not (i.e., social mood) is not inconsequential.
oddly enough, our resident jeremiah of radically progressive email forwarders, boutons_deux, counsels ah it, in despair. he thinks we should assume we're all gonna lose because the powers that be are mighty.
that.
Last edited by Winehole23; 04-05-2014 at 02:39 AM.
"participate civically"
If the doesn't include voting, then it's useless. Voting and electing is ALL that counts.
And if you can't vote in politicians at state and federal level to reverse the govt policies that are ing America, then your "participate civically" is nothing but a feel-good, kumbaya pastime.
I don't say "(I/we) it". I say we are ed and un able. I/we are not the ers, we are the ees.
And I/we, esp a progressive person in a retrograde, re ed, insanely gerrymandered, corporatocratic red state like oily/gassy Texas, are completely disenfranchised, so flaming federal assholes like Cruz get into the Senate.
Same is true in all the hard-core red states that have elected enough hired assholes in Congress, not even a majority, but enough to block solutions (but their real objective in obstructionism: maintain the status quo of protecting/enriching the 1% and screwing the 99%).
Rampant vote suppression in Repug-controlled purple states, thanks to THEIR SCOTUS JINO puppets, will probably flip the purples fully red, sooner or later, and give them the Senate, along with the House. Then we'll see some even more serious, deeper America- ing.
and eg, PA Repugs, are playing with changing their electoral votes so they disenfranchise blue Pittsburgh and Philadelphia in presidentail elections with the more numerous rural red districts (similar situation in TX)
"particpate civically"
Last edited by boutons_deux; 04-05-2014 at 10:46 AM.
boutons
the everlasting triumph of the 1% makes him cackle with glee. boutons hates us.
You Lie
you're a hater
what do I hate?
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