Corin McCarthy,

What hope is there for the world? The most important political issue, which you have completely ignored, is that the world population is increasing by 6 million people per month. All other problems, global warming, poverty, pollution, etc. are made worse by increasing population, and trying to address them without measures to stabilise population is simply pissing in the wind.

You could say that there is no need to worry, as if mankind does not address this problem it will be dealt with by the four horsemen of the apocalypse. They, of course, are WAR, FAMINE, PESTILENCE and DEATH.

I would imagine they are saddling up in the celestial stable at this very moment.

I think there is plenty of hope.

Poverty is reducing if you measure total poverty in the world.

Development economics is becoming more sophisticated, see India in particular that is doing far better than the Nehru state-ist approach.

The debt relief program is welcome for Africa but isn't the full solution. The solution to war, pestilence and poverty is generally good governance. Almost always these unwanted tradegies come hand in hand with nepostistic governments like Mobutu and Mugabe and Mao and Stalin, etc.

I spent a long period in India at the start of the year - go and see it - real poverty is mind numbing - but even within a society experiencing it there is real hope.

Look also how states like Korea and Malaysia have been transformed by good governance.

Reducing world poverty is complex and reliant in the main I would suggest on removing trade subsidies and this will grow in strength.

Africa is a 50-100 year project and more than at any other time that project is on the radar.

There sure is need for a different kind of politics. Those set in the framework of left or right seem to be concentrating on knocking each other off the perch, to the exclusion of being able to see the bigger, more fundamental, problems.
Plerdsus is realistic. Without factoring population into the occasion, we will never fix anything. As for Africa being a 50 - 100 year problem: Unless the horsemen of the Apocalypse get more active than they already are in that distressed continent, the African problem escalates no end. The present population is about 900 million.
If African nations take no steps to rein in their present rate of population increase of 2.4%, in fifty years their numbers will very nearly double. Instead of the current 900 mostly distressed people, in fifty years there will be almost 2 billion, much more distressed. And in 100 years they will be pushing towards 4 billion.
Were human beings themselves to face up to civilised means of minimising population increase it would save those horrific horsemen a lot of sweat.

PLUTO
you mentioned power..and God.. and the god we now worship..'mammon'.. quite true in many cases. Let me follow on with a report about some lives this morning.

MARY ZAMBESI.. was 22, in Zambia, married and abandoned after their baby reached 6 months. She sunk into deep depression, was hospitalized for over a month.. what next ? the usual step for those in need, totally dependant,abandoned, is the streets, prostitution.. aids etc.
What happened to Mary ? She had a vision, of Christ Elijah and Moses (sounds pretty weird huh :) she left hospital, renewed, transformed, and managed to get a job, she had another vision, a child being handed to her. After this there was a news story, of a child having been found in a box in the jungle. Jumping ahead a few steps, she was given custody of this child. (who is now 10) and raised him, but also, she founded a home (gave up her own home) for orphans. Her brother became HIV from an encounter with prostitutes. She began a ministry to prostitutes, providing for them as best she could from the income of her business. She lives now in a rented flat, the Zambian government wants her to become a government minister. But she has no desire for this.

Seldom have I ever witnessed such a glow in a persons life, such committment, such self sacrifice. She spoke in our church this morning, with boldness, confidence, and power. I don't think there was a dry eye in the place at the end.

So there we have it, our 'white racist/right wing/extremist/male chauvenist etc etc etc' church (as some would have you believe) this morning had a Black (and I mean blackkk) LADY as our preacher, and preach she surely did.

Lives were changed.

I was reminded of the comments of the religious leaders when they saw Peter speaking post resurrection,

"And they were amazed at the boldness with which Peter and John spoke .. and perceived that they had been with Jesus"

Politics, Policy, Pragmatism... all pretty useless without changed lives and renewed hearts.

I respect the writer for asking the questions that should be asked.
The problems I can see with our present democratically governed nations are:
- They’re not anywhere near as ‘democratic’ as they should be. Fair enough, we need structure & representation but why cannot a substantial number of decisions be held to direct referendum? A prime example is the proposed Oz IR changes. If Howard was interested in doing what the majority want, a referendum would take place with full information from both sides of the argument. Why in this age do we still vote with pencil & paper? If we can bank online, we certainly should be able to vote online.
- They’re largely bereft of basic human values. Our government is basically our ‘parent’ & sets the standard of the day directly through legislation & secondarily through how it conducts its own business. The ‘Constitution’ allegedly lays down the rules. I suggest a revision of this document to include basic human values & for it to be mandatorily updated by referendum at set intervals.
- Money and materialism rules. We generally couldn’t care less about politics, unless it provides us with more gain to ourselves. Our political mainstream is overloaded with gold-diggers who have no real social concerns. An obvious idea is to pay our pollies on a ‘performance basis’, to be determined by electronic referendum. The ‘values’ need to shift & we should be fully understanding of the need to be active politically. We need ‘political awareness’ as a value in our society. The way to do this is through the education system. What to do is not for me to decide.
These are good, commonsense observations & solutions. The ideas on what to do are aplenty. It's 'how to get the right people into the correct political positions' that eludes us

Dear Swiklie
I note with interest your astute observations of our political predicament.
All that you said is quite valid from what I can see.

The missing link though, is the solution.

You advocated "political awareness through the education system"

It's one thing to diagnose the illness, another to prescribe the right medication.
They key word in your post was 'should'. Things 'should' be different.
Why are they not ? you gave the answer to that. "Our god of 'mammon'"
(Money and materialism)

Your suggested solution will not work, for the same reason that in Christian circles we often refer to the mid week prayer meeting as the 'company of the committed/the faithful few' etc. in other words, the number of people who are truly interested in 'other' centered values is not by any means a large proportion of any given social group.

In our circles, I need to add, that sometimes mid week activities are more of a logistic problem than spiritual, Sunday can be quite a hoot so to speak, but the point is, that we do have lives, and it takes quite a bit to get people to step out of the busy-ness of raising/running a family/business etc.

So, I think that in general, the momentum for social change or maintaining a status quo will always be left to those who feel free enough and passionate enough to involve themselves in it. Most of us just want to get on with life without explaining it to ourselves, so we distill our political awareness down to "is this good for 'me'"

There is, in this a huge danger, that those passionately committed to ideas which would threaten our way of life, could have an impact far in excess of their numbers.

I do agree on one thing, making the process more accessable in this I.T. age + an educational initiative, supported by local groups would go a long way toward making people feel more connected and relevant.