Many have asked why recent protests such as the Occupy Wall Street movement have targeted financial centers. Wall Street is the home of the New York Stock Exchange, Taipei 101 that of the Taiwan Stock Exchange. Why not occupy political centers?
Actually, they have. In the US, Washington has also been targeted and Taiwanese activists plan to take their protests to Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei, where political demonstrations have traditionally been focused. Similar “occupations” are being held in many cities around the world.
If we want to identify the source of this anger, then we need look no further than the corruption inherent in a system that ensures finance and power are joined at the hip.
How did it get to a point where just 1 percent of the US population controls 50 percent of the wealth? That’s because the practice of political donations has facilitated the development of a system in which the relationship between politics and business has become far too close.
When an election is over, donors turn to the politicians they have in their pockets when they face a tricky situation, such as having to deal with angry consumers or exploited workers. Those politicians see to it that the problem goes away.
There are plenty of examples of this to be found in Taiwan, too.
The case of Want Want Group’s bid to acquire cable TV operator China Network Systems Co, an acquisition that concerns media monopoly and press freedom, is a case in point.
According to media reports, two Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators, Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) and Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞), have twice tried to persuade the National Communications Commission to allow the deal to go through.
Hsieh insisted the deal was in the public interest and that this was just a simple coordination meeting. He has since sued the Newtalk Web site and journalist Lin Chao-i (林朝億) for NT$5 million (US$166,000) in a civil lawsuit, accusing Lin of slander.
Then there was the case in which KMT spokesperson and Central Standing Committee member Lai Su-ju (賴素如) was accused of abusing her position as a Taipei city councilor to intervene in a case involving an illegal extension on a building at a Beitou hot spring premises.
Lai was incensed by suggestions posted on the online PTT bulletin board system that she had engaged in illegal lobbying and responded by bringing the full force of the police and the justice system to bear on the hapless teenagers who left the comments, forcing them to apologize and desist from discussing the affair. She, too, used the excuse of acting in the interest of the electorate and of merely being involved in coordination meetings.
This raises two legal questions. First, did these legislators and city councilor stand to benefit from any quid pro quo arrangements, either transparent or under the table, for arranging “coordination meetings” between officials and businesspeople?
In this context it is worth noting that many civic groups seeking the support of legislators often find themselves blocked by the legislative office on technicalities involving the Lobby Act (遊說法).
Members of the public are occasionally forced to move because of illegal factories in their areas and reports to the authorities go unheard for years without anything being done. Companies, meanwhile, seem to have the ear of legislators. So, the other legal question raised is, how can it be that these companies are not violating the Lobby Act, whereas the civic groups are?
Essentially, it would appear that many politicians do not regard 99 percent of the public as the electorate they are supposed to be representing: They are far more interested in representing investors and big business.
The anti-globalization movement of recent years has produced the successful documentary film The Corporation, released with Chinese subtitles by the Wild At Heart Legal Defense Association. The film drives home the fact that, although a corporation, as a legal, or juridical, person, is not the same thing as a natural person, it enjoys the same rights as a natural person, but without the associated responsibilities.
This is one of the structural imperatives that has allowed the rich to get richer and grow ever more greedy. Another animated short, Minzhu De Gushi (民主的故事, the History of Democracy), has been quite popular, and explores US-style democracy and how US corporations buy politicians through the unlimited donations they are legally allowed to make.
The anger of the overwhelming majority of the population could yet create an inferno that will bring this facade of greed and influence crashing down. In the run-up to the presidential election in January we need to “occupy politics” and pull down this edifice of political influence that serves a mere 1 percent of us.
Pan Han-shen is the spokesman of the Taiwan Green Party.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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