Disenfranchisement is is Not Specific or Unique to the Middle East Region

Disenfranchisement is an incrementally escalating socioeconomic trend which exist as a global geopolitical occurrence and is not specific or unique to the Middle East region.

Disenfranchisement is an Incrementally Escalating
Socioeconomic Trend which Exist as a
Global Geopolitical Occurrence and is Not Specific
Or Unique to the Middle East Region

At this point in time, observation of the global community allows one to safely conclude God has ordained diversity in systems of thought and government. All religion has central themes. Sacred text of ancient scripture includes a story about how human civilization tried to collectively build a tower to reach the heavens. The aforementioned tower is referred to as the Tower of Babel.

According to the story of the Tower of Babel, God smote human civilization and confused the language of all the people who tried to build a tower to the heavens. Powerful modern telecommunications may once more allow human civilization to build a network metaphorically similar to a Tower of Babel.

Free and democratic societies may facilitate construction of a network like the Tower of Babel. Free and democratic societies are sometimes referred to as a melting pot of various cultures and ideas.

Powerful modern telecommunications technology is a tool that may be used to shape public opinion and dramatically alter belief systems. In wealthy developed free democratic societies a new social illness known as the digital divide is emerging.

The sociological illness of the digital divide can contribute to unfair representation. Due to the extremely high cost of powerful telecommunications computer equipment only select wealthy individuals have access to advance telecommunications technology.

When only select powerful wealthy individuals have access to advance technology a select group of wealthy individuals can rapidly network to make bureaucratic decisions that may be harmful to individual(s) that may have a different interpretation or view of socioeconomic political events. In a free democratic society an astronomical number of bureaucratic decisions can be made on a daily basis that can potentially disrupt the lives of responsible citizens outside the political power structure. Many of the aforementioned bureaucratic decisions are fine details that may never be on the public agenda for open debate.

The digital divide may contribute to large numbers of the population residing in nations all over the globe, including within the United States, feeling disenfranchised. Given the growing socioeconomic illness of the digital divide, it should not be surprising that a huge sector of Arab citizenry may feel alienated and disenfranchised from the developed world.

If only people who possess financial capital allowing them to own powerful modern telecommunications computer equipment shape law and public policy than democracy is increasingly becoming more autocratic. The difference between an autocratic socialist society and a strict authoritarian ultra conservative fundamentalist religious monarchy is gradually becoming increasingly mute.

Democracy is becoming increasing dependent upon public access to an array of information systems. An array of information systems can allow ordinary citizenry to participate in public policy decisions. Unfortunately, public access to an array of information system resources is decreasing due to the digital divide.

Recent massive public peace protest may have been partly organized by major players involved in shaping public opinion on the internet. The motive of the major players may have been to divert public attention away from utilization of internet resources to participate in public policy decisions.

The major players who shape public policy want to stay in control. Massive numbers of people who carry signs in public rallies are harmless. Individuals who attempt to harness internet computer resources to fully participate in public policy decisions may become serious competition to the socioeconomic political power structure within a free market economy.

The very nature of democracy implies freedom of a people to choose the form of government that best meets the need of their collective society. The Middle East primarily consists of strict fundamentalist ultra conservative authoritarian Islamic Muslim monarchies.

The rule of law is a political government concept that may be considered a counterpart to a variable degree to the ultra conservative religious monarchies of the Middle East. Gods law and morality is not a matter of public debate. Gods law and morality is not something that can be decided by a public poll.

Many of the strict fundamentalist ultra conservative religious authoritarian monarchs may be good people who know what is best for citizens of their nation. People can live in serenity without modems, mice, wires, high-fidelity stereos, computers, televisions, etc. Almost 90 percent of the tangled mess is used for commercial applications anyhow.

All people on earth should have plenty of food and adequate shelter from the elements. No person on earth should be beaten, tortured, starved, etc. if they dissent from government policy.

The rural Arab populations are deeply religious spiritual people whose strong faith in Allah has sustained them as a people for centuries in an extremely harsh dessert environment. The strong faith in Allah found in the Arab region is a form of spirituality that is not dependent upon multimedia presentations, cable network broadcast of religious services, hookups of amplifiers, presentations of polished speeches, music box speakers, wires, connections, and all the like. The strong faith in Allah is a simple pure form of spirituality that has sustained Arabs in the Middle East for generation after generation.

Given the current U.S.-led military intervention in Iraq, the question of rather or not our system of thought and government in the United States can be imposed upon societies found in various regions of the world needs to be closely scrutinized and examined.

A huge majority of the rural Arab population may not be able to relate to or understand life outside the Middle East due to the fact powerful modern telecommunications technology is inaccessible. Most strict fundamentalist religious rural Muslim Bedouin citizens may not have assess to a computer.

The limited access to modern technology in Arab societies may be due to the nature of the crude oil production business. The crude oil production business generates tremendous wealth for oil producing Middle East Nations.

The production of crude oil requires a huge investment in monstrous expensive bulk oil production manufacturing equipment. The necessity to purchase and deploy extremely expensive large bulk equipment to produce crude oil limits the number of people involved in the oil production business on all levels to a relatively small subset of the Arab population.

The inherent nature of the crude oil production business concentrates wealth of Arab Nations primarily into the hands of the governing ultra conservative religious monarchies. And this may be okay, in and of itself.

As long as leaders of all nations representing all forms of government are respectful of each other and are committed to basic human rights of all citizens than different forms of government should be able to peacefully coincide and engage in mutually beneficial business relationships.

It is sometimes difficult to understand the great display of hatred of some Arab groups toward the United States and other developed countries. The hatred may be analogous to perpetuation of stereotypes of black population of the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Simple words and catch phrases can be used to effectively propagate stereotypes leading toward escalating prejudice and dehumanization of people. For example, the term infidel is reminiscent of invading armies of crusaders that tried to conquer the Middle East centuries ago.

The world has changed greatly since the days of the crusades. Today, Middle East Arab Nations engage in mutually beneficial business relationship with Europe, Asia, and the United States.

Understandably, Arab leaders may fear negative adverse western influence upon Middle East Islamic culture. The rightful just fear of Arab leaders may be rooted in Arab leaders witness of an ever increasing powerful telecommunications technology endowing certain groups found in free democratic societies with an incredibly swift organizational developmental power.

The fear of Arab leaders may be justified. History has demonstrated that no human institution exist, either religious or secular, that is totally invincible and immune from introduction of dangerous memes of power and control.

Arab leaders, who have a rightful just fear of free democratic societies, may deliberately allow perpetuation of outdated antiquated stereotypes, such as the term infidel, to maintain hatred of vast numbers of Arab citizenry toward free democratic societies found in Western, European, and Asian culture. Arab leaders may be using the angry public sentiment of Arab masses as a buffer to protect strict Islamic fundamentalist society from negative adverse effects of democratization.

The great Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn suggested that the motherland of the old Soviet Union return to a rural agrarian society. In a simple rural agrarian society people can live more harmoniously in tune with the land.

American society has moved from a rural agrarian agriculture based society to a highly complex industrial society. A highly complex industrial society is energy hungry.

It seems deeply illogical to despise the mutually beneficial business relationships that occur between Middle East Nations and developed Industrial Nations. If the billions of American dollars spent on oil consumption in the Middle East is not valued or appreciated perhaps we should completely withdraw from the Middle East and return to a simple rural agrarian agriculture society. Of course, this may create dire economic hardship for Middle East Nations. American culture may be better off.

Industrialization has spawned disillusionment and false hope. Also, industrialization has been an assault on the basic building block of society the family unit.

Young Upperly Mobile Professionals (YUPPIES) have been tricked into moving hundreds of miles away from home. Yuppies have moved hundreds of miles from home with false hope of landing a secure high paying job. Now industrial corporate America has downsized jobs and embezzled pensions of the work force during corporate Accounting Scandals.

As a people, we should have continued on a course of a rural agrarian society. We, as a people should have encouraged mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, grandchildren, and great grandchildren to stay together. We should have encouraged extended families to remain near each other residing in separate homes arranged on a mini-farm setting.

The extended family can provide emotionally healthy supportive mutually beneficial interdependent relationships. Now, that industrial society has chosen to destroy the family unit we have high rates of divorce and single parent homes contributing to stressed out overworked people who become emotionally dysfunctional psychological cripples society must care for. And now, we are cutting the social service programs designed to help the drug and alcohol addicted psychological cripples industrial society created.

Industrialists have taken advantage of the wonder-lust of youth to convince young people to move many miles from home. Industrialist know that a weak family unit eventually leads to a sell-off of real estate at below fair market value. Many of these economic influences are foreign in nature, as many huge corporate international conglomerates are deeply rooted in the power structure of foreign nations.

Author byline and Bio: Mark Gaffney is a contributing freelance writer. Mark has earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology with a concentration of coursework in physiology, biology, and computer science. Mark is in the process of trying to start a new Not-for-Profit Foundation entitled, Wonderful Life Foundation. Mark plans to submit his online work as a thesis project to earn his Doctorate (PhD.) degree and officially become a Nanotechnology Sociologist. Bookmark this page now and click here to review preliminary plans for organizational development of Wonderful Life Foundation currently published on www.ServeNet.org. ServeNet.org, Idealist.org, and Network-for-Good.org are associated with the government web site portal, www.freedomcorp.gov, an initiative of President George W. Bush to promote volunteerism and provide services to help Not-for-Profit organizations.

Sales Partners - Agents, Distributors, Licensing and Franchises

When I'm speaking with clients who are looking for ways to expand their business the conversation often comes around to the possibilities of using agents, distributors, licensing arrangements or a franchise.

These sales partners have a lot to offer. But it's important to understand what each type of partner means for your business (equally so for online enterprises).

The term 'franchise' has become a common way of describing a business relationship where the franchisor allows other people to sell their products or operate the same type of business under the same name, usually within a designated area. But there is more to it than that. Much more. Legal obligations, management control, customer service and pricing are involved. And often 'franchise' is not the correct term for the relationship being offered.

Let's Have Some Definitions...
Agent: A representative for your company who will find buyers and sell your products. Paid by commission on sales achieved. Stock is not usually held by an agent.

Distributor: An enterprise whose business is to buy merchandise for resale, usually to retailers or other industrial and commercial users.

License: A formal permission or authority to do, or not to do, something which otherwise would be a legal wrong. Often used when dealing with merchandise or procedures protected by trademarks and patents.

Franchise: A privilege granted by one organisation (the franchisor) to another (the franchisee) to sell, produce or use its products. Different types of franchises include:
* A product franchise - which acts as an outlet for a particular product.
* A system franchise (usually called a business format franchise) - which is authorised to conduct business according to a system developed by the franchisor.
* A process or manufacture franchise - for which the franchisor supplies a critical ingredient or the know-how for a production process.

According to the Franchise Council of Australia the most common franchise method is the business format franchise, with 708 different systems being offered in Australia.

Typically each type of sales partner is subject to geographic restrictions of some kind, such as a pre-defined territory. Depending upon the situation this may be part of a metropolitan area, a state, or an entire country. Ideally the size of the territory should be based on sales and/or profitability benchmarks. This is sometimes tough to calculate for new products and services.

At times the definitions may overlap. For example a 'manufacture franchise' may be the same as a 'license' for a manufacturer to produce certain items. The legal boundaries can be quite puzzling and expert assistance should always be sought.

Of particular importance is the requirement of a business format franchise to offer comprehensive training, support, business management procedures and marketing programs. This all-inclusiveness is a hallmark of a true business format franchise.

It takes a long time to develop the systems and knowledge required to create a business format franchise that conforms to the Franchising Code of Conduct and that will be of interest to serious franchisees.

If you find that your products do not require the intensity of support required by a business format franchise then the other sales partner options may be more suitable.

From a simple commission-based arrangement with an industry sales agent (or broker) to a more formalised licensing deal that may offer exclusive territory and advertising support, there are opportunities to get your partners working for you to increase your overall sales.

Don't Just Leave It To Your Partner...
However, it's not simply a case of thinking, "Let's sign a deal and let them worry about getting the sales". No matter which option you choose there will be ongoing communication and support required from you if you want your sales partner to get the best results.

And there are always potential pitfalls in any relationship. Remember, the less committed your sales partner is to you, the lower your products or services will appear on their priority list.
So here are a few things to keep an eye on if you want to stay on track for success:
* Agents - Stay in regular contact. Sell them on your products. Get them excited. Make sure your commission is competitive. Do you have an exclusive arrangement with them? Try to avoid agents who also represent competitive products, as they may have a conflict of interest.

* Distributors - Be aware of how your products fit with their ranging policies. Train their sales team. Help them to promote your products by way of co-operative advertising and sales incentives. Stay on top of any seasonal or dated stock. You don't want your distributor overstocked with old merchandise (because they will think twice before ordering current stock!).

* Licensees - Make sure your legal documentation is sound. Gain a thorough understanding of your licensees business so you know how your product/service is being used. Are they committed to you for a period of time, number of units, or value of sales? Limit the license to their specific use so you are free to deal with other licensees.

* Franchisees - Use a franchise consultant to help develop your package. Remember your selection of new franchisees will be of paramount importance - people make the business! Have procedures to measure customer service levels and operating standards (use random checks, mystery shoppers, contests etc). Gain co-operation and 'buy-in' from franchisees, rather than confrontation.

Sales Partners Online...
It's no news to online businesses that they should use productive partnerships to increase their chance of success. For example:
* An affiliate program can be compared to a sales agent.
* Syndicating content can be compared to licensing (of the information).
* Patented code/software is commonly used under license.

Always do your sums and make sure your choice of sales partner presents the best outcome for you. Look for commitment, synergy, innovation and growth potential in prospective partners - your future depends on it.

Stuart Ayling is an experienced freelance marketer. He has worked with businesses across many industries to develop intelligent, cost-effective sales and marketing solutions. You can reach Stuart at mailto:info@marketingnous.com.au or online at http://www.marketingnous.com.au