Be carefull what we are wishing for here because if memory serve us right 1965 didn't bring anything but a unstable country which could be vulnerable and easily taken away from us. Instead i think we should start spreading the word about those candidates who could soon become our polititians and make sure the public knows who they are selecting. citizens Self resposability is the best gov that any country could have so i guess we can start by asking our self when was the last time we voted in a election and if we did is the person we picked doing what we want because if not next time around we have to make sure we don't pick him or her and let everybody we know why they should not pick that candidate. I started a Web project a while ago and hopefully will be done by the end of the year which if succeful will help alot the Dominicans in general inside and outside. Here in this forum we all have great wishes for our country but we fail at executing them. So gov alone is the problem because they are only there because we have choosen them or because we stayed quiet while somebody else made our choice for us. We should look inside our selves and ask have i been the best citizen for my country or not. There is no maybe in this simple questions. I leave you with this great words from a old saying i found online.

"We can't prepare and prevent a war at the same time."

Please tell us what happened to the Deputy Mayor or Bieging? (sorry - I am not a speller)

google him

Yet when that thief is a party chair or high official he cannot be prosectuted nor executed because he will have leverage.

You are very wrong. Find out what happened to the CEO's of factories that poisened children products

google it.

They take this stuff seriously!

The death penalty is applicable to around 68 offences in the Chinese criminal law, including several violent crimes, such as robbery, rape and murder. It is also applicable to some non-violent crimes such as economic crimes (e.g. tax fraud and embezzlement) and drug offences where the circumstances are ‘serious’. Prisoners are executed by shooting, usually to the back of the head, and increasingly lethal injection.

Let me clarify:

When I say CIVIL I mean 'unarmed', pacifist, non-violent revolution like those successfully carried out in Bosnia and Montenegro, Ukraine, Georga, Argentina, etc.
Just so we are clear.

http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=7983
In recent times cases have emerged across the country. In 2005, 115,000 party members received disciplinary punishment. Among them, 11,071 were expelled, 7,279 of which were transferred to the judicial authorities for criminal investigations. (PB)


So yes a few guys are killed but what about the other 114,999 of them????

I understand what you are saying, but Like in every gov't you pay off the right people and you'll go free.

Yet that brings up an interesting point, how much corruption should, yes should, a government punish to be considered just?

For example as in your china case, they are corrupt, there is no doubt, but because a few are tried many will consider the gov't just and righteous (not just you willy, others too)

In DR we are light years behind china, for lack of political will, for being in too deep, and for the potential profits that can be gainned if no one does nothing.

But Rosa more than a peaceful protest, you need men in power who care for her island and for her people and for the ideals that we live by to enact real change. Yet i will concede that with these movements many agents of change are born and are stured within people, perhaps these same people can then go on and run for office and bring about true change. Yet they will face a monumental task to even be allowed to run by party (PRD and PLD) officials. Yet something does have to be done.

Both a governmental and cultural (not in the same vein of THE Cultural Revolution) revolution.

And really I don't like throwing the idea of revolution around but a big change (not obama change) has to occur.

In 1948 the labor government took over key industries in the uK and controlled the press. This was so that for example coal was not sold to he highest bidder but went to brickyards to produce billions of bricks so 100's of thousands houses could be built. Steel - ditto, bank of england ditto, railways ditto, road transport, farmland for houses ditto, docks, airlines ditto.
This gave the UK the best chance of pulling out of a miserable situation.
Now The Bolivian Revolution is spreading and this experience becomes vital.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8307234.stm
S.

In 1948 the UK went completely down the drain as the labour party spent all their Marshall Plan money on foolish socialist ideas the UK was eating bundles for Britain well into the 50s you know canned Spam and the like .....Meanwhile West Germany and France spent theirs on renewing capitalism and sped past the UK wallowing in Labor party misery and it was not really until the great Maggie Thatcher the so called Iron Lady came along to sort them out did the UK actually get back on her feet with US assistance as usual ...and now we have come around again to the labour party Preparing themselves for a good thrashing and many years in the wilderness again ....

Four million UK houses were destroyed in WW2. How many did the US build for the UK postwar?
Zilch
Are we stupid today?
Countries like Bolivia, Venez, DR need massive programs.
St one time UK built 400,000 house a year.
You ant an expensive government built house?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/4444731.stm
Then there was Fascist pig thatcher ruining lives.
No on this forum we have toads.........
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8307000/8307333.stm
S.

Cuba Moving in the Opposite Direction


As the US government takes steps like government controls of major industries and attempting to hijack 1/5th of the economy via health care reform, another country is moving in quite the opposite direction during this global recession.

Cuba’s workplace cafeterias are closing, President Raúl Castro keeps saying the well-off shouldn’t get the same subsidies as the poor, and now there are rumblings that one of the stalwart vestiges of the revolution — the ration booklet — has outlived its usefulness.

As the Cuban government struggles through a deep recession, its leaders have begun picking away at socialism in order to save it. But experts say the latest buzz by the Cuban government is simply another desperate fix to stem the slide of a failed economy that buckled long ago.


Since he took office early last year, Raúl Castro has been saying that the country’s severely battered economy needs fixing. In a widely quoted August speech, Castro said Cuba was spending more than it made.

"Nobody, no individual nor country, can indefinitely spend more than she or he earns. Two plus two always adds up to four, never five," he said. "Within the conditions of our imperfect socialism, due to our own shortcomings, two plus two often adds up to three."

In the 18 months since he took office, Castro restructured the nation’s agricultural system to give idle land to farmers, hoping they would revive a deeply troubled state-run agricultural industry plagued by inefficiency. He also allowed taxi drivers to have private licenses; many were working illegally anyway.

How do you get farmers to do more farming? Create an incentive to do so, like a profit motive, long reviled by liberals and one of the reasons they believe health insurance needs reform. Socialism costs more than the benefits to society.

Hugo Chavez was, no doubt, convinced that the oil profits he absconded with would pay for his socialist paradise, but that very socialism chases away the people he soaks off of. Combined with the global recession, food shortages continue in Venezuela’s "paradise".

The profit motive gives people an incentive to put their own time & money at risk to provide a service to those who need it. If not enough folks need it, it’s not subsidized by the government (or shouldn’t be); it folds. If it is useful to enough people, it prospers, and, rightfully, so does the owner who bore the risk. Wealth is created in this system, not simply "spread around", as Obama infamously said to Joe the Plumber.

Wealth was spread around in Venezuela, Cuba, and even Sweden, and now the piper must be paid. In the latter two, changes are being made in a more capitalist direction. Let’s hope Venezuelans learn that lesson.

Heck, let’s hope American Democrats learn it.