What Is True Democracy

If your idea of democracy stops at majority rule it is not true democracy. If your idea of democracy allows the majority to oppress minorities it is not true democracy. If your idea of democracy provides political power based on income and wealth it is not true democracy.

Yes true democracy includes free elections based on one person one vote but it is much more than that. The electoral system must not be unduly influenced by money and it must elect a legislature that represents all philosophical/political viewpoints of it’s citizens, preferably through some form of proportional representation.

True democracy must balance majority rule with minority rights and it must balance individual rights with collective rights.

True democracy must include some aspics of libertarianism as well as many aspects of socialism.

From libertarianism we discard the extreme individualism but keep individual freedom of thought, belief, conscience and freedom of expression, including freedom of the press/media. We also add, though not usually considered libertarian but certainly philosophically libertarian, the right to be ones self, particularly regarding sexual orientation and gender identity.

From socialism we include collective and economic rights including freedom of association and collective bargaining, freedom of peaceful assembly, the right to employment and access to affordable housing, publicly funded education and health care, as well as economic security provided via a guaranteed annual income or universal basic income, as well as a progressive tax system that reduces economic inequality.

You cannot have political equality and thus a true democracy in a country that has massive economic inequality.

True democracy also includes individual responsibilities, such as being politically aware and active and caring for and helping your fellow citizens.

Diversity also strengthens a true democracy.

True democracy is not electing a dictator every four to five years.

Cryptocurrency and War – Cousins in Absurdity – Challenged by AI

Cryptocurrency – a way to supposedly create wealth by wasting massive amounts of water and energy to do meaningless computer calculations that solve no actual real life problems or serve any useful purpose but somehow create economic wealth for a few select people.

And War – a way to stimulate the economy supposedly creating economic growth, not by creating anything but by destroying infrastructure and killing people, while creating wealth for a few select people.

Both are absurdities of capitalism recently being challenged by so-called Artificial Intelligence (AI) which also wastes massive amounts of water and energy to create gibberish and wealth for a few select people.

Ain’t capitalism grand.

On The Record

Having accepted the evidence, without reciting it all here, The Fifth Column is going On The Record as recognizing that, among other things, Israel is committing genocide in Palestine.

How to Build an Intelligent Online Answer Machine

Ever since Facebook and Amazon people have become lazier, or perhaps more accurately addicted to convenience over all else, including ethics or accuracy.

When it comes to information we used to search out reliable sources and read information in detail to find answers to our questions Now people just seek to ask so-called “chatbots” the question and accept whatever it gives them based on so called artificial intelligence (AI) which has nothing to do with intelligence or even accurate knowledge, being based on Large Language Models (LLMs) which probe the depths of the Internet to try to guess at what type of answer a real person would give based on all the garbage ever posted on the Internet, ignoring the Garbage In Garbage Out (GIGO) principal.

If people insist on not doing their own research there must be a better way for an “Online Answer Machine” to do it for them.

First you need a decent search engine that can handle AND, OR, NOT and “quotation marks for exact phrase searches” Boolean operators. Google Advanced Search at it’s prime before enshitification would be ideal.

You also need a sophisticated algorithm (some people might call this AI) that can translate natural language questions into Boolean search terms and identify the subject of the question.

The next part is the key to the whole process. You need a human curated database of accurate, reliable and authoritative information sources (web sites or other online sources) indexed by subject matter.

When a question is asked the algorithm would translate it into search terms, determine the subject and search the appropriate sources for that subject to extract an answer for the user, along with citations and links to the sources the answer was taken from.

This certainly will not be as good as doing your own research choosing your own sources but this would not be built for people who want to, or know how to, do their own research.

Historical Mythology – WWII: The Anti-Fascist War

As we watch the direction the American Trump regime is taking today we are seeing a lot of commentary and memes referencing how the allies went to war against German facism in the Second World War.

While it is true that Hitler’s Nazi Regime was fascist, that is not why the allied countries went to war with Germany. If they opposed fascism they would have acted against the fascist regime in Spain rather than calling those of the anti-fascist International Brigades dangerous communists and worst. They would have opposed Germany when it went fascist.

As to opposing German antisemitism, there was enough antisemitism to go around including within the allies, some of whom sent away Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany during the war. Also it is likely that some, if not most, of the western support for the creation of the State of Israel was to avoid Jewish immigration. The war only became about saving the Jews during the war, particularly when the allies discovered that Germany’s concentration camps were not work camps but extermination camps. It should be noted that the United States and Canada had internment camps of their own for undesirable “foreigners” of the wrong race, that included Canadian and American citizens.

The Second World war was not about fascism but about German expansionism. If Hitler had stopped at The Sudetenland there likely would have not have been World War II.

But post-war, the mythology became useful as a way to portray the western countries as places where fascism or genocide would never be tolerated even as we watch the history currently unfolding before us today.

Black and White Photo Versions of an Industrial Site

I was reviewing my Portugal Bike tour photos for PC wallpaper suitable photos and noticed this industrial shot that I thought might look better in black and white. So I opened it up in Franzis Black and White Projects to see what it would look like. Franzis Black and White Projects allows for a multitude of different black and white variations of the photo and in this case it did not disappoint, probably providing more variation than editing the photo as colour photo would. In this case some of the variations had subtle differences and some of the effects were more strikingly different.

I am presenting these photos in a slideshow, the first being the original unedited colour photo from my Panasonic Lumix FZ300 camera, followed by the black and white variations and ending with a colour version edited with Franzis HDR (high dynamic range) Projects.

 

 Recommend Viewing Slideshow Fullscreen

I’m Supposed to Write a Blog Post Today

When I rebooted this blog in the fall of 2018 I made a commitment to post at least once a month and so far I have kept that promise to myself. However I have not posted yet this month and it has been over a month since my last post. But what to write about.

Our neighbours to the south in the United States seem to be going deeper into the abyss day by day. People blame Trump, people blame the system, people blame the voters. But what more can be said that has not been said before.

In the Middle East a brutal genocide is being carried on against the Palestinian people by a governing regime of a state that was founded by holocaust survivors. Whatever can one say about that.

And what can we say about the British Labour party going off the ideological rails.

In Canada the people united to keep the Maple MAGA Conservative Party out of power by electing a Liberal government led by a small c conservative who has been called a climate activist. And this government thinks the key to our future is in becoming a fossil fuel superpower. How does one react to that.

I am at a loss for words about what to say about these things so there is no blog today,

Portugal Bike Tour Slideshows

These photos were taken during the excellent Pedal and Sea Adventures  Portugal’s Blue Coast Cycling Tour featuring excellent guides and lovely accommodations. There was a lot of climbing and some wonderful descents, but at 75 I was fortunate to be on an e-bike as I would not have managed on an ordinary bicycle.

Map of Route

 

Altitude Profile

 

Lisbon Before Portugal Bike Tour Slideshow

 

Portugal Bike Tour, Day 1 on the bus Slideshow

 

Portugal Bike Tour, Riding Day 1 (Sesimbra to Setúbal) Slideshow

Portugal Bike Tour, Riding Day 2 (Setúbal to Santiago do Cacém) Slideshow

Portugal Bike Tour, Riding Day 3 (Santiago do Cacém to Vila Nova do Milfontes) Slideshow 

 

 Portugal Bike Tour, Riding Day 4 (V.N. Milfontes to Alejezur) Slideshow

 

 

Portugal Bike Tour, Riding Day 5 (Alejezur to Lagos) Slideshow

Portugal Bike Tour, Final Day at the Hotel Slideshow

Vienna After Portugal Bike Tour Slideshow

 

The Non-Profit Small Business Model

The non-profit small business model provides interest free start-up loans to individuals or groups who apply to start a non-profit business. The application must include a business plan with a timeline to pay off the loan. The business plan must commit the non-profit small business to pay employees (including a designated manager) a living wage with appropriate benefits and pensions. The business plan must also commit the business to meet designated health and safety and environmental standards.

Any excess of revenues over expenses may be used to pay down the loan sooner or expand the business, or it shall be paid equally in bonuses to all employees.

I do not know if the non-profit small business model exists anywhere, but it should.

The Next Four Years: An Opportunity for the New Democratic Party

The last election may have been an electoral disaster for the NDP but it is also an opportunity that should not be passed by.

Indeed the NDP should not be rushing into a leadership campaign but rather let the Parliamentary leader act as party leader until the party has a chance to rebuild itself.

The parliamentary party’s role for the next four years should be to, not play games, but support the government in it’s war on Trump’s tariffs and annexation talk and Maple MAGA’s efforts to Americanize Canada.

Meanwhile the broader party should start a process (preferably in collaboration with the Green Party and Canada’s social movements) similar to the 1961 founding of the New Party, which became The New Democratic Party, to build a true Social Democratic Party of Canada. It needs to abandon it’s experiment with left wing populism and build a party built on principles and philosophy. Some would call this ideology but the NDP is at it’s best when it is ideological. It is time for an NDP rebirth.

I would propose a two year time frame to do this purposefully and carefully including the election of a party leader for the new Social Democratic Party of Canada at the end.

This should be followed by two years to rebuild the membership and solidify links with Canada’s social movements and for the parliamentary caucus of the new Social Democratic Party of Canada to press for democratic reforms and in particular electoral reform, either through a Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) or  Ranked Ballot Voting system so that Canadians can elect a truly representative government in the next election without the possibility of the least desired party having one hundred percent of the power in the House of Commons.

Hopefully during this time the true conservatives in the Conservative Party will see the error of throwing their lot in with the Canadian Alliance and Reform Party and rebuild the former Progressive Conservative Party and exile the extremists to the right wing fringe so-called Peoples Party.