comment39

Issue #44

Last Update March 2, 2006

Commentary June 11, 2004 This magazine has long prided itself on its ability to make important issues in finance and technology understandable to the lay reader. In this current issue, we begin the process of describing, for our readers, several important documents that will impact their lives, and which are currently under consideration for adoption, alteration or reauthorization. These are the draft consitiution for the European Union, and the Patriot Act, which the President wants renewed and extended. Other topics will be added to this series from time to time.

The EU constitution, which, if eventually passed, will govern the lives of our most important trading partners and closest cultural kin, will be dealt with in series of three articles, the first of which appears today. The rejection of this text by the French and Dutch must be understood; any changes made to allow eventual passage must be viewed in the light of the current, rejected, text. The Patriot Act will be described in two articles, the first, again, appearing today. This law, passed hastily following 9/11, holds great dangers for our democracy as it stands, and proposed changes only increase these perils. For us as citizens to have a voice in this matter, we must first know what this Act says.

Our news media have opted to substitute short and punchy for informative. As a result, very few citizens actually know the content of the issues facing us as a country and as an electorate. Reading a lengthy and involved government document (constitution, law or budget) is hard work. While this information is readily available on the internet, few have the time or energy to wade through the verbiage and extract the nuggets of fact that are truly important. New York Stringer Magazine will attempt to help by actually reading and summarizing the documents in question.

In the future, we intend to do the same for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a far-reaching law that opponents say stifles creativity and undermines the intent of the Constitutional clauses regarding patents and intellectual property monopoly. We invite our readers to submit suggestions for other documents to digest. Unless we actually know what a law, regulation or budget contains, we are unable to make our way through the fog of propaganda and misinformation put out by its proponents and passed along without questioning by our media. In an era in which language more and more resembles the “doublespeak” of 1984, and titles convey a meaning opposite to that of the contents they caption, the task of being adequately and accurately informed is probably the most important one we can undertake.