Opinion Makers are preparing a “National Assembly” (whole 0.3%) to flash out ideas of how we should mark our future after the horrific failure in our past.
At first look this appears to be a grand idea, Democracy at Work, – finally.
The selection process has been trumpeted as random sample out of the National Registry, i.e “having no definite aim or purpose; not sent or guided in a particular direction; made, done, occurring, etc., without method or conscious choice; haphazard”.
To start off, large sections of people have opted out of being included in ‘samples’ of any kind and the rest just don’t bother or have no knowledge of the possibility. People of foreign nationality although legible to vote in local elections automatically drop out, a primitive ‘random’ record collector is used, and there are many more limitations on the ‘randomness’.
Then there is the simple question of the organizers, who are they (Chamber of Commerce?), and the question who decided on those, who are the specially preselected representatives of special interests, and who decided on the general framework of the meting (consumer panels)?
So we are back to the “Propaganda model”, Agenda Setting by Predetermine, Select, Shape, Control and Restrict by: Selection of Topics, Distribution of Concerns, Emphasis, Framing of Issues, Filtering of Information and Bounding of Debate