In my first post of this series on #weaponsofcontrol, I looked at accounting tricks that are handy for businesses but sinister business for governments (https://steemit.com/truth/@cwparkes/weapons-of-government-control-accounting)
Today, I wish to focus on what is perhaps a less obvious weapon that governments use, namely the infamous "election cycle". One of the reasons this is a less obvious weapon is that elected officials often publicly lament the realities of the election cycle and describe it as a disadvantage for them. While we do not disagree on this point, it is also painfully clear that they take every advantage of this reality to control the population. I use mostly examples that are local to me but they are available all over the democratized world. Today in Ontario, we learned that the province is going to fund a much needed subway expansion in the city of Toronto. (https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2018/05/03/relief-line-yonge-north-subway-and-waterfront-lrt-to-get-provincial-funds.html) There is only one catch. The politicians making this announcement are desperately clinging to power and hoping to somehow get re-elected on June 7th. Now this particular initiative might survive regardless of the election outcome but it still illustrates two dangerous aspects of riding from one election cycle to the next, namely:
This type of move clearly signals to the people that they must lend their support to a political party in order to get something accomplished. If the party had announced this funding two years ago, they would then now be judged on the merits of this decision and how well it had been implemented. Instead, they essentially hold the populous hostage. They are saying: We will give you this, if you vote for us. It should be the opposite. They should do good for the people for an entire elected term because they were given a mandate to do so.
This behavior and out tacit acceptance of it perpetuates the notion that it is ok to use election cycles as an excuse for not getting things done the rest of the time. It's bad enough that election campaigns are used as an excuse for allowing politicians to work even less than they otherwise would. But this problem is made infinitely worse when we accept the notion that certain matters will not get dealt with until election cycle time because of the politically advantageous strategy that the elected officials employ of giving out supposed goodies when trying to get re-elected. They are literally prone to withhold an expenditure (of your money) until a point when this expenditure (of your money) is most likely to get you to vote them back into office.
None of the above sound quite as bad if you just spin the reality into the notion that: Elections are a necessary evil of democracy and we all find campaigns annoying but what are you going to do? The thing is, there is a lot that could be done. Annual appropriations increased could be capped in years in which an election occurs. Campaigns could be shortened. Campaign finances could actually be reformed in a meaningful way that prevented circus-style proceedings. Restrictions could be placed on how close to an election a budget or appropriations bill could be tabled.
Whatever we could do to promote less government control and more government GOVERNANCE, we really should be doing it. The weapons we are talking about in this series subtle and in some cases do not look like weapons at all but make no mistake, the control being exercised over people by politicians includes some subtler tactics and the election cycle is one of their key quiet weapons.
CW