Sunday, July 31, 2005

A lesson in democracy

I've just been watching this movie[^]. I, as a prospective US citizen, choose not, at this time, to comment too much on the overall thesis. Yes, I'm being paranoid but don't forget the PATRIOT act[^] act has just been renewed. I'm still trying to decide if it was a bad idea to borrow I am Cuba[^] from the Phoenix Public Library! Great movie BTW!

One thing that really struck me in the Michael Moore movie was the section where he deals with the 'fact' that almost no one who voted for the act had actually read it. I quoted the word fact because I don't know if it's true or not; just because it's in a documentary doesn't mean I believe it. On the other hand, having tried to wade through the act as written I can well believe it.

In 1975 I became a member of Turtle Video - a government funded community video project based in Altona though they didn't take long to move to Williamstown. The title, 'Community Video Project' is a lot more grand than the reality turned out to be, as is so often the case. I know Heino's been waiting a while for me to start writing about that grand failed experiment; I've been trying to work out how to cover the whole subject.

Anyway, one Friday evening in mid 1975 Heino and I and a few others of the gang (Robin, Garry, Dave, Keith, and Graham are the ones who spring to mind) were 'participating' in a committee meeting. Again I quote the word because what we were actually doing was being in the same room as the meeting, smoking and arguing amongst ourselves. Suddenly we became aware that a vote was being conducted and, without any further thought, we voted in the affirmative.

Imagine our chagrin when we discovered that what we'd voted for was a ban on smoking during committee meetings!

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