toby@fritz.UUCP (Toby Gottfried) (02/19/86)
The U.S. government is always promoting "free and fair elections" in countries around the world. It always seems to me that a prerequisite for such elections is an informed populace, which is not always to be found. However, a recent experience shows that these are fewer and farther between than I thought. While doing voter registration, it is a sometime occurrence to be asked, when asking the prospective voter for his choice of political party, to be asked in return: "Which party is Reagan ?" This should be posted to net.jokes. Unfortunately, it is true, which makes it sad. Given the complexity of issues facing the electorate today, it would seem that anyone who doesn't know even the party of the president could not have the vaguest idea of what is going on and who supports what. Well, they say a country gets the government it deserves. This may be true. -- Toby Gottfried FileNet Corp {ucbvax,ihnp4,decvax}!trwrb!felix!toby Costa Mesa, CA
kludge@gitpyr.UUCP (03/02/86)
In article <193@fritz.UUCP> toby@fritz.UUCP (Toby Gottfried) writes: >The U.S. government is always promoting "free >and fair elections" in countries around the world. I don't suppose that anyone remembers Mondale's congratulating the Phillipine government for an "excellent example to show that democracy can work in smaller nations." When this quote was reported, I was in the Phillipines, where I had been asked by the Minister of Telecommunications for a stereo equalizer in exchange for a ham radio license. The entire American community there laughed out loud, as did many of the Filipinos. But it was more appropriate to cry. Somehow I am reminded of Emperor Maximillian of Mexico.... ------- Disclaimer: Everything I say is probably a trademark of someone. But don't worry, I probably don't know what I'm talking about. Scott Dorsey Kaptain_kludge ICS Programming Lab, Rich 110, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332 ...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!kludge USnail: Box 36681, Atlanta GA. 30332