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A foundation for pitiful
debate
Saturday, Jan 09, 2010, Page 8
The facade of an aggressive, take-no-prisoners consumer advocacy group that the
Consumers”¦ Foundation has carefully built over the years is surely close to
collapse after the latest developments this week on the US beef controversy.
On Thursday, a petition sponsored by the foundation passed the Cabinet
Referendum Screening Committee by unanimous vote. The petition seeks to canvass
voters on whether the government should reverse its decision to accept new
categories of beef products from the US and whether the government should enter
into new negotiations with Washington on the matter.
Let”¦s sidestep the coherence of a referendum question that has no constitutional
value, no evidence to support its attacks on US beef products and involves a
subject that is rightly the responsibility of the executive and, if necessary,
the legislature.
Instead, it is worth noting the credibility of an organization that would
proceed with such a poll given that the government has already backtracked, that
the legislature has already legislated on the matter and that, inevitably, the
government will restart negotiations with the US at some point.
In short, it has none.
All of this represents another low in the misuse of the referendum process, a
delicate but vital tool that allows every citizen to directly address matters of
substance.
US beef is not one of those matters, but that is not the point. For the
Consumers”¦ Foundation, invigorated by the elevation of a former foundation
president to the Control Yuan, power and fame is the game.
Never mind that the Control Yuan continues to make a mockery of itself with
asinine probes into cooking oil at restaurants and imported tea blends, all the
while allowing several negligent top officials who contributed to the Typhoon
Morakot debacle to continue in their posts unchallenged, or that Control Yuan
President Wang Chien-shien (¤ż«Ų煊) yesterday revealed himself to be a racist oaf
when he said Aborigines were less intelligent than ethnic Chinese.
The sad truth is that if these self-titled champions of consumer affairs had a
real impact on not just the supposed malfeasance of individual government
officials, but also the antiquated processes that plague all public servants,
they would not for one second be considered for the position. That would pose a
threat to the hands that feed them.
From any balanced assessment of food safety and consumer rights, the legislative
lynching of US beef imports and the foundation”¦s quixotic campaign to render US
beef public enemy No. 1 through a plebiscite have nothing to do with protecting
consumers from dangerous imports and everything to do with political strategy
and furthering the career prospects of foundation officials.
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the biggest victim of this charade
is the quality and conduct of public debate in general. With faux consumer
advocates, mercenary legislators and grotesquely ill-informed media outlets
running the show, the truth of the matter has been squashed, not helped by
reputational intimidation and sheer cowardice among those with access to the
facts.
In the end, only the American Institute in Taiwan”¦s press release spoke the
truth on this matter with the force and exposure that it deserved, and that is
this: Science lost.
In other words, referendum or no referendum, the mischievous won.
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