Iain W wrote, amongst other good things: <Another indication of imperfect drugging is the public address announcement: "President to answer questions on population control". So clearly there are people questioning authority and public announcements about it - so even the fact that people question authority is not hidden. This implies that the administration needs some sort of popular support. Is it possible that there are elections to some positions within the administration? So Blake may be fighting a democracy (albeit a pretty dodgy one).>

Possibly not. Oh they could have 'elections' (I would imagine that the 'right' candidate wins, however, even assuming there's more than one.)

Two little points here: firstly, the Federation does strike me - at least before the War - as interested in *appearing* to have the interests of its subjects at heart (among other things, the fact that prisoners *are* shipped off to prison planets is IMO a pretence of 'clemency', life instead of death). This is not that unusual in dictatorships, which often put a heavy emphasis on appearing to be benevolent and wonderful on one hand, and ruthlessly stifling dissent with the other. (For instance, both the Soviet and Nazi secret service acted almost in a PR situation, expending much time and effort to try and find out what ordinary people *genuinely* thought - a task not made easier by their other task of suppressing any such genuine thought that tended to be critical). I can see the same sort of thing in the Federation (remember the work-over Blake got, to make him publicly recant. And this would quite likely be more focused in the centre of their power base, Earth, than in the Outer Worlds.

Secondly, <g> though it is good for the image to have the President appear alert and open to people's concerns, and ready to address them, we don't hear what *kind* of questions he is going to answer, do we?

"Dear Mr President, would you like to tell your loyal subjects what wonderful successes we have had over the last few months in this vital area, all due to your foresight and brilliant planning, and how everyone listening can do their part in the next all-important step towards the great and orderly future you and your loyal council have nobly dedicated your lives to giving us?"

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