Los due?os del pa?s: why does it always take a crisis before the gov't acts?

arturo

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Mar 14, 2002
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Ok, so we've all shed tears over the horrible fate of the innocent young mother to be. No one should have to go through what she is going through.

I've considered the so-called "due?os del pa?s" one of the top two or three dissatisfiers for living in the Dominican Republic for years. It cuts across all segments of society, whether your are rich, poor, or somewhere in the middle, a passenger or a private motorist - and even if you are a concho driver - these guys make life miserable. I've bellyached about this before here. Something should have been done long ago.

The long time obstacle, of course, has been politics. Everytime anyone has hinted at reining this guys with regulation or replacing them with fit-for-human-beings public transportation, they start to threaten the political class and the citizenry by burning tires, ad-hoc strikes, psychotic rantings on "emisoras" like Alvarito's "Gobierno de la ma?ana." The sad truth is there are too many of them and the government is basically powerless against them because they can vote as a bloc.

As always, the situation has to come to a disasterous head before there is action. An innocent woman has to suffer a horrific war zone injury before someone applies a sanity check, ignores the sophist, nonsensical claims of being "padres de familias" whose only alternative to the abusive "transportista" mafia is street crime (as if what they do on a daily basis is much different), and forces the unions to treat their customers like human beings. It shouldn't take a national tragedy for public policy makers to apply common sense measures to long term problems affecting every part of the society.

Let's face it, produce from Constanza and Cibao chickens are treated with substantially more dignity and care than the unfortunate legions of Zona Franca workers who put up with drugged out (I'm not making that up, the positive tests are public record), sweating and swerving mercernaries who call themselves drivers.


Wow, I feel much better now that I've gotten that off my chest.
 
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Lambada

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Mar 4, 2004
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Why does it take a crisis? Maybe because the Government have 'more important' :rolleyes: things to do like electioneering, or should I say 'factioneering'? Personally I find it quite obscene how the different factions of the Government party seem to devote much of their efforts to May 2008, when there is, after all, a country to govern and real problems to be addressed.
 

NALs

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Jan 20, 2003
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Why does it take a crisis? Maybe because the Government have 'more important' :rolleyes: things to do like electioneering, or should I say 'factioneering'? Personally I find it quite obscene how the different factions of the Government party seem to devote much of their efforts to May 2008, when there is, after all, a country to govern and real problems to be addressed.
That's what democracies are like a year prior to a presidential election.

Look further north and you'll see that everything is being geared to either make or break someone's victory in the presidential elections in the country with the second largest concentration of Dominicans outside the DR.

-NALs
 

arturo

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Mar 14, 2002
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I was not referring to electdion year politics, but NALS is right

I agree that election year politics have heavy impact in democratic systems. Unfortunately, however, the system that led up to the obscenely unjust violence of the guagua bombing is year round, year in, year out. It's a combination of patronage, backwardness, and oppression.

A sensible, fairly financed, and well maintained public transportation system (e.g. a surface light rail system or organized bus routes) would go a long way toward improving the quality of life of wide segments of the public. However, it would require that the majority pay their fair share of taxes and it would likely bring a period of austerity during which foreign boondoggles and lavish entertaining of celebrities and heads of state would have to be scaled back or eliminated.

Also, it would give talented people from disadvantaged backgrounds access to educational resources and work opportunities you now have to risk your life in unsafe publicos or guaguas operating along dark and dangerous roadways (students are petrified of the bus stops around UASD and businesses have to operate private commuter services to keep staff) to reach.

It's all part and parcel of a system to keep the few families on top of the rest of the country. At least you know where you stand with a street mugger.
 

Lambada

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Also, it would give talented people from disadvantaged backgrounds access to educational resources and work opportunities you now have to risk your life in unsafe publicos or guaguas operating along dark and dangerous roadways (students are petrified of the bus stops around UASD and businesses have to operate private commuter services to keep staff) to reach.

Yes it would. But could politicians here cope with the consequences? At the moment their power comes from patronage. Talented educated people might reject the current system of clientilism & patronage............and then what do we have?