The local elections are over now, most of the numbers are in, the politically correct issues have been pontificated upon, the streets pounded, the megaphones packed away, the leftover leaflets lie waiting to be recycled. Interesting that nobody really wanted to talk to me about the upcoming “austerity” cuts, the complete cock-up that is the economy, the illegal wars, or the ever-increasing corruption though, not if they can get away with it of course.
A pitiful projection of 32% turn out of the dutiful Englishmen and women (estimated 40% in Scotland) have trooped out to make their contribution, often their only one to the political discourse. The projected voter share (if we are to believe the BBC) is as follows: Labour 38%, Conservatives 31%, Lib Dems 16%, others 14%. My area in Scotland seems to be about 40.58% turnout. simplistically, we’re talking about sharing a percentage of 2/5th of the registered voters, not even counting the total of potentially ‘eligible’ but unregistered (whatever their reasons) individuals. Autonomousmind had some cold hard reality in this post, the sad truth is that in the London Mayoral election an amazing 61.9% of people did not want to engage in the voting farce. Captain Ranty also had a fantastic take on the Insanity of Politics.
So where are you on the political spectrum; are you fervently active, politically engaged, on the fence, disillusioned, disenfranchised or just plainly don’t give a fuck?
Here in Scotland Graham Hope, West Lothian’s returning officer, said:
“Elections have a huge impact on all our lives, and it’s important that as many West Lothian residents as possible take part.
It only takes a few moments, but is such an important task, which allows residents to have their say.”
The followers of the cult of personality stride hand in hand to the polls with the serial conformists who always vote for their favored party, often despite proven poor track records and for whatever reason they care to have while those other dutiful voters who don’t know any other way to express their voice. At the macro we see the party lines with broadly written divisionist, favoritist policy and their ubiquitous broken promises; while at the local micro everyone’s talking points are roughly the same; local issues broached in general terms and platitudes to appeal to the receptive. I get really concerned when all these parties only argue over lesser issues like abortion, gay marriage, proposed social programs and reforms, the critical ones like illegal wars, foreign aid, climate change, economics, misappropriation of funds, public office misconduct and malfeasance, the black pit that is the EU, ridiculous monetary policy and the list could go on and on… There is however a remarkable (and highly suspicious) consensus on all these issues, I don’t care what tosh you see on question time, judge them on what they do, not what they say. Please note , if the ‘lesser issues’ comment above offends you then too bad, if an issue does not impact on the overwhelming majority of a community it is just not that serious.
A vote for me is a vote for [insert cause here]…
Social housing is always favourite, “last year we built so many… we will pledge to build so many…” Yeah, so what, then your local authority goes and turns them over to a “Public Private Partnership.” Nice!
The good little voters, vote decisively. The dutiful voters, vote as the feel they must. Disillusioned voters are often left to choose the lesser of two evils. Individuals like me, political atheists or at the very least agnostics, feel we cannot support such a system of governance as we have come to realize it is. Then there is the disenfranchised, often the lower/working classes, ignorant and uncaring? Not hardly, enough know fine well what the script is, that the guys (supposedly) making the decisions are a bunch of lying, traitorous bastards hiding behind an increasingly thin veneer of an assumed and all too often unquestioned legitimacy. I don’t give a damn what colour their little plastic rosette is or if they seem sincere, the second they swear into public office they become part of a single homogeneous group that blessed by privilege and adored by lickspittle lackies to stroke their rapidly inflating egos. All of them eager to please, vying always for the next step on the ladder, to that they will almost inevitably step on anyone the need to in order to progress. The big league corruption and back room dealing might be reserved for the university toffs and their appointees but any reader of blogs like Enemies of the People knows that the government we get is defined by its leadership and moral principles from the top down.
Most people prefer to believe their leaders are just and fair even in the face of evidence to the contrary, because once a citizen acknowledges that the government under which they live is lying and corrupt, the citizen has to choose what he or she will do about it. To take action in the face of a corrupt government entails risks of harm to life and loved ones. To choose to do nothing is to surrender one’s self-image of standing for principles. Most people do not have the courage to face that choice. Hence, most propaganda is not designed to fool the critical thinker but only to give moral cowards an excuse not to think at all.
-Michael Rivero
So is this what you are voting for? Really?
** Please note: I do not support any political party, period. **
BNP candidate Mike Whitby standing for elected mayor of Liverpool is accused of electoral fraud three days before the election and as you see from the YouTube clip above it was a very heavy handed affair to say the least. Whatever you think of his policy, this is ridiculous, undemocratic and unlawful. “We just want to talk” indeed! Did any storm trooper turn up to beat down the doors of the lying, cheating thieves in parliament for pocketing tens upon tens upon tens of thousands of public funds in the expenses scandal? Or what about those MPs that War Criminal Blair protected from Operation Ore with those D-Notices, the Honours for cash fiasco, the dodgy dossier…
Will these allegations be founded or not, buggered if I know, but the treatment that family received for daring to ask questions is a terrifying precedent. Today it’s the BNP, we don’t care for ‘racist thugs’ so it’s no skin of our nose many will think, but tomorrow you have to wonder, will it be me or someone I care for? What then?…
Government has a presumption of legitimacy?
The common man does more to defend the system than any PR campaign; by just accepting the status quo, believing that there is some ‘right’ form of governance. That’s a whole topic in of itself and one I will write on, but not today.
There is allegedly duty, a responsibility, even one may say an obligation. The question is to who? Yourself, the government, society, your progeny, or even your ancestry?…
That last one is especially interesting to me and seems to me to be nothing than a tired old statist apologist argument; my uncle’s brother’s grandfather (once removed) fought Hitler to keep our rights intact, to maintain our freedoms from dictatorship in the war, he was marched from Germany to Poland as a prisoner of war…” Yes, bad things happened in war, long before I was born and please people forgive me for saying this but, so what? I don’t say forget them, or not learn from them and just about every family was touched by that war seventy years ago, but what does that have to do with the current system? Where does that directly affect our lives and our ‘chosen’ government? I don’t feel any king of deep-seated genetic guilt for past deaths but I do feel guilty that in my past ignorance I was not out doing more to stop unlawful wars waged on brown people by those supposedly representing OUR interests.
I.e. It is not in my interest that they dropped a £500,000 cruise missile on a yurt in some country impoverished by decades of sanctions.
Just as irrelevant, and even more ridiculous is the, “you better hope you don’t have a problem,” pitch. I guess the assumption there is that I need, not may voluntarily want, the government intruding on my everyday life. Voting they believe is the only way to have a voice, I beg to differ, if there is a form of government necessary, then it must only be as a medium to do for the collective needs of the people what the people may not conveniently or practically do for themselves. OK, lets take a reasonable look at that one; Council Tax, we are told it pays for services and yet FOIA requests have discovered 50% of this seems to subsidise public pensions, then there was the Icesave debackle, if it was for services then how was there such sizable surplus to invest outside our own economy? I’m happy to pay my way, but where did I benefit from this?
What I see is increasingly militarized police, Demos groomed professional politicians, unaccountable NGOs, blatant revolving door practice between business and governance, corporate owned media whores, corrupt judiciary in a veritable kleptocracy. I’m by no means alone in seeing before me the absolute merger of state and corporate powers:
Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.
1. often Fascism a. A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism. b. A political philosophy or movement based on or advocating such a system of government. 2. Oppressive, dictatorial control.
What few definitions will actually state is that fascism or corporatism (where the rubber meets the road) is where profits and assets are privatised while losses and costs are socialized. Remember these terms: “Too big to fail,” and “bailout.” So what I’m getting at is that if anyone still thinks that the above definition isn’t closer to the reality we actually live in, you are delusional. Every so often the ‘right’ people are elected, and we are allowed the opportunity to vote on them… Yeah! Great stuff, you get to choose the right or the left boot of governance that is upon our throats. Let’s look at it this way, we are back in a modern-day feudalism, we are tenants upon the land, seemingly owned by those that hold the right bits of paper that this system of governance recognizes.
I wonder how this world we are given to live in, with all its benefits and privileges, would look if we were able to hold those who lie to us, steal from us, abuse our misplaced trust. Be they in the government, judiciary, financial, religious, armed forces, police or any other ‘public’ office), up to the same level of scrutiny as is imposed on those who point out their lies…
Ever heard of malfeasance in public office? Sort of rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? Or here’s a good one, what about treason? I could go on, the list of their crimes are myriad and guarded too by those we also trust to protect our collective rights…
No? – But we can sure bitch about a few busted bank windows and some graffiti, bemoaning the “damage to private property” but lets not worry about the devastation wrought by banker manipulation, fraud and let’s not sugar coat it and call it anything less than financial terrorism.
You seen the heading, and I’m not going to sugar-coat this one, I’ve set aside a couple of articles I was working on to write on the upcoming invasion of Libya by the greatest destructive force for globalisation the modern world has seen…
I hadn’t intended to write up this particular rant, but I’ve been felt ready to claw my own eyes out at the monumental level of UNFIXABLE BULLSHITI’m being inundated with on my subscriptions and news feeds! So get this right now, huge problems out-with your control instil fear, panic and underlying layers of stress which ultimately weakens your resolve and cognitive ability to look for practical solutions while obsessing on those problems! And that is the point of the inundation of so much negativity, a veritable barrage of information which people are soaking in and fixating on, intelligent people for sure, but there it is. They are too busy looking way over there when we’ve got some pretty monumental battles right here to fight that we most certainly CAN get our teeth into.
One might do well to consider that a great deal of Libya’s problems come from the crooks we’ve got over here in the UK, EU or the US, they can’t do much about our crooks, there’s a few dozen bad-ass armies armed to the teeth in between. So does that not mean we should be doing something about the corrupt sons of bitches? Just a thought…
It’s going to be highly offensive to some and not my usual, not just in language as I’m not one for pointless crudity but this subject got under my skin, but also too in some rather graphic descriptions of a few realities of the barbarity of war that an ignorant Pro-War Statist and the useful idiot repeaters cannot or will not accept, those that get their entire world from purely mainstream sources when the crow about the ‘necessity’ of establishing this “no fly-zone” or “initiating regime-change” by any and “all necessary measures.” They are wilfully ignorant of the harsh reality behind these little sound-bites, but let’s not confuse ignorance of an alien understanding with a lack of intelligence because I don’t. I just call them ‘weekend warmongers’.
“Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance.”
-Albert Einstein
I shall though be using the term ‘ignorance’ a LOT, and rightly so when discussing the public at large that for the most part will be incapable of researching an opposing view objectively, mostly through no fault of their own originally. They’re easy to spot; their arsenal includes the likes of (but not restricted to) official sources and statistics, necessity, doctrine, presumption, accepted dogma, stigma, labelling, ridicule and by far the favourite… ad hominem attacks. If they struggle to debate the message they are offered on its merits and the facts, they discredit or should I say shoot the messenger instead.
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you and then you win.”
-Mahatma Gandhi
Those that understand the real horror that’s likely to unfold upon the Libyan people, but still praise all hallowed ‘necessity’ of bombing the shit out of them to HELP them, need their fucking moral compass reset to something between consistency and moral decency. It sickens me to hear this ‘we must support our troops’ pish, they willingly allow themselves to be ORDERED into situations daily that are proven to be killing children, brutalizing entire cultures and are contributing to the ongoing, needless ravaging the entire world. So don’t get on your higher than thou, spavined horse about ‘the boys’, those troops took an Oath to serve but are paid to follow orders, I care not a fig about their own personal intent, I care about their actions in following unlawful orders that filter down from morally bereft whoresons that invariably aspire to and infest the halls of power.
If you want to comment substantively feel free to disagree, in fact I encourage it, I will not be moderating anything but abuse.
Why am I ranting about this?
Watching the 10 o’clock Live Show 0n the 17th of March I was disgusted at the people on the one hand cheering a UN resolution to kill and maim a people who’ve not harmed us, that quite frankly have been used and abused as pawns (like so many others) for the better part of thirty years as this Infowars Ireland article lays out quite nicely.
1980′s: US-CIA backed National Front for the Salvation of Libya (NFSL) made multiple attempts to assassinate Qaddafi and initiate armed rebellion throughout Libya.
1990′s: Noman Benotman and the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) wage a campaign of terror against Qaddafi with Osama Bin Laden’s assistance, as well as MI6.
2005: NFSL’s Ibrahim Sahad founds the National Conference of Libyan Opposition (NCLO) in London England.
2011: Early February, the London based NCLO calls for a Libyan “Day of Rage,” beginning the “February 17th revolution.”
2011: Late February NFSL/NCLO’s Ibrahim Sahad is leading opposition rhetoric, literally in front of the White House in Washington D.C. Calls for no-fly zone in reaction to unsubstantiated accusations Qaddafi is strafing “unarmed protesters” with warplanes.
2011: Late February Senators Lieberman and McCain and UK PM David Cameron call for providing air cover for Libyan rebels as well as providing them additional arms.
2011: Early March; it is revealed UK SAS special forces are already operating inside Libya
2011: Mid-March; UN adopts no-fly zone over Libya, including air strikes.
So those fine upstanding people believe they are supporting an action to ‘save civilians’, that belief does not equate to the ‘complete’ facts on the matter despite a great deal of well educated ignorance or wishful thinking when it comes to the intent of the REAL players and powers, not the PR hype and misdirection we’re fed daily. On a side note and not one I’ll delve into greatly, I also I thought it rather telling too that the self same crowd that cheered at the prospect of death and destruction, for a ‘righteous cause’ of course, booed the leader of UKIP, Nigel Farage… Yes indeed, very telling.
I am sick to death of hearing picked audiences cheering on cue, or the tedious angst of the pathetic paid bloggers and trolls, the ignorant little repeaters in online comments (one such is where I got the blog title) who all and applaud like clockwork monkeys the selective application of force over yet another country while the politicians crowing about it, from a safe distance, with their laughably ridiculous use of TV friendly military jargon. Yet those audiences lap up like the lapdogs they are. How often must we hear that due to a “campaign of intimidation and repression” against the innocent peoples, their oppressive government, which compels the necessity that it “be met with an iron fist”, with “full spectrum dominance”, putting the “boot on the throat”, or the “boots on the ground.” What a joke, the innocent people are being oppressed and abused so we think a little MORE hi-ex is called for?…
How’s this technique been working in the middle eastern theatre or any other so far, hmm?
Intervention by way of necessity…
What a lovely turn of phrase, such an amazing assortment of images it conjures in my mind, a story1 maybe…
We have Big Dave, the resident hard man, stepping in to sort out a brawl gone ugly down the local, cracking a couple of hotheaded mates, Alfie and Baz, who’d had a wee tiff that got out of hand and dangerously sharp glints had caught the light as pent up tensions boiled over. Heads smacked, steel sheathed once more and pride smarting more than the landed blows, the shamed Alfie and Baz shake hands and have a pint at Big Dave’s behest as the red mist fades away into the shakes. Big Dave gets in a round and a packet of cheese and onion.
Hmm, not quite right, is it?
Maybe it’s more like Big Dave is the established local hard man, he’s got a clique of lads who ride in his wake, his ‘mates’, and they rule the local. The ‘mates’ hate the big mean fucker, he nips all the best birds only to treat them like shit, slaps them and his ‘mates’ about a time or two when he’s pissed because he’s fucking psychopathic, narcissistic bastard who’s never been loved and thinks fear is actually respect.
Alfie and Baz know they’re strictly small time players though and have gotten chances to shake down a few marks they’d not have been able without Big Dave’s looming shadow. Dave’s pretty free with the old tools too, he’s got connections.
But Big Dave is getting on, the belly is a tad bigger, his joints are stiffer than he remembers and he’s taken to propping up the bar because of piles that are making the bar stools absolute torture which hasn’t helped his temper none. Though it must be said that his twisted mind is still sharp so he’s holding his hard man status through reputation and his ‘mates’ backup, but he’s not getting it up so well any more, so most weekends now are ending up in a scrap.
Big Dave has noticed the young bloods getting a bit more forward, testing the ground, scenting for any weakness, getting fed up with their required tributes, favours, laughing at his shit jokes and the onerous arse kissing… But as immense as Big Dave’s pride is, he will stand no competition, and there’s more than a few young stags in the pub he’s done over in his heydays that are getting reps of their own now. Just the other night there, one in particular, Charlie, was splashing some cash and a few of the regulars were commenting that Charlie was ‘a good man’ he was ‘solid’, he’s ‘up and coming’… Big Dave had to take steps and though he had never heard of the hegelian dialectic, manipulating fears and weakness was second nature, the tried and tested method of problem, reaction, solution.
Big Dave has little trouble planting seeds of doubt and paranoia in not just Alfie and Baz, but in others too, talk of a snide remarks said in confidence, over time the tension builds and soon Big Dave is playing diplomat. Communications become strained, friendships unravel, the old hard man is now ruling with a velvet glove over his gnarled fist and soon is ready to cement his power. Carefully planted rumours filter down to both Alfie and Baz that the other is too jumpy, they MUST be up to something, so hyper-sensitive they see angst were there was none and the pent tension breaks.
Shock and awed by the very real and present danger that erupts, the punters begin to see a New Big Dave start to take shape, one to make all the hard decisions and keep the peace, New Big Dave the mediator takes on a whole new presence in his domain.
Job done.
1 Any perceived likeness to any persons living or wishfully departed is wholly intentional.
The UN resolution to undertake “All Necessary Measures”…
Wow, pretty broad remit there chaps, who are you taking on, the next Anti-Christ? Call me a cynic, but it’s a too fucking little, too bloody late, all the blighters calling for this are either State dependant groups in one way or another, the talking heads, the bastards that sold the regimes the fucking weapons or are complicit in allowing those sales, often being the ones to broker them!… Come on people, wake up and smell the bullshit, surely we’re not going to forget our illustrious PM and his “36 business leaders” getting stuck in to their commitment to the arms trade!
If you’ve the stomach for it check out Genderside Watch, ask yourself – ‘why Libya, why now? What of the massive injustices all around the globe?’ …and here’s a hint, forget the BS, it’s not JUST about the big oil reserves we’ve been told Libya has. Oil prices would stabilize a fair bit if all we did was lined up all those speculators and impressed on them in great, graphic and permanent detail just what they and this Global Banking Order has done to the 3rd world to fund their booming sub-culture of excess, greed and moral bankruptcy. See if we can’t do a little full spectrum dominating on their soft, well paid arses.
Now the shout must go out, not in my name you lying, thieving, treasonous bastards, even that toad Kelvin MacKenzie, Sun Columnist, said as much on Question Time on the 17th of March, an I never thought I’d even agree with Mr ‘GOTCHA’ himself on anything! Where are the hypocrites on the ongoing oppression of Tibet, or who many remember the Romanian Tragedy?… More modern then, Ethnic Cleansing in Georgia, genocide in Darfur, the tragedy of the Balkans, horrors in Zimbabwe, the Congo and Rwanda for fucks sake… Where were they on the genocide on the Tutsis and Hutus?
Oh yes, the writing was on the wall for that one, but the West did nothing? – WTF! – Where was the moral outrage for the poor innocents?
Background Information of Rwandan Genocide:
Rwandan Genocide was a 1994 mass execution of Central African groups called the Hutus and Tutsis.
In a period of 100 days between April 6, 1994-mid-July 1994 between 500,000 and 1,000,000 Tutsis and thousands of moderate Hutus were executed.
The mass killings were done by two Hutu extremist groups called the Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi.
This conflict dates back centuries over land ownership after the colonization of Africa.
In 1985, Paul Kagame started the Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) because he was fed up with the lack of rights the Tutsis had in Rwanda.
On October 1, 1990 the RPF invaded Rwanda and this action was seen as a threat by the Rwandan government.
On April 6, 1994 the President of Rwanda and President of Burundi were killed after there plane was shot down before landing in Kigali, Rwanda
Paul Kagame and the RPF were blamed for this event even though it has never been proved that they actually committed the crime.
In response to the assassination the Rwandan militia and Hutu militia groups began moving around and executing as many Tutsis as possible.
Then the real brutality began.
Where are the scream of moral outrage for the poor civilians there when those poor women by their thousands had their genitals mutilated and boiling water poured into them or even battery acid so they’d never breed or die long lingering deaths, AFTER being gang raped and hideously brutalized, often their breasts and buttocks cut off?
Within hours of Habyarimana’s death, Hutu began killing and raping Tutsi, with the aim of complete annihilation. With the prospects for peace extinguished, the RPF invaded Rwanda. After ensuring that nationals of Western governments had safe access out of the country, the world stood by silently and watched one of the worst massacres in human history. The genocide ended only when the RPF overthrew the Hutu regime in July 1994.
Horrific mental abuse, to “die of sadness” it was often referred to, mothers often forced to kill their own children, Tutsis ‘wives’ taken a sex slaves for days, months, years if they lived that long, at the open encouragement of the security forces. Women and girls as young as two years old were subjected to the full range of sexual atrocities, men were not exempt from this, all manner of sexual assaults that were done to men too, often in plain view and the men themselves would be left alive in their torture, horrible mutilated, strung up and displayed for all to see. Women’s bloody corpses in particular were most often spread eagled for all to see, the unique racial characteristics, small noses and long fingers, torn from their bodies – this was a supposed reflection of the rapists power.
Men were often just gunned indiscriminately, or may have had their eyes put out, or had red hot iron pokers rammed up their arses, the bowels skewered and cauterised instantly, do many of these weekend warmongers have either the intelligence or imagination to understand what a slow, lingering, excruciating death THAT would be? Probably not, nor would their stomach stand the smells. Or where would their zeal be for the the unseen images of babies swung by their ankles, heads cracked open off walls with a wet splat like a dropped melon, their pitiful cries cut short forever as the ‘heroes’ laughed. Those ‘heroes’ went home to their own families to be acclaimed and paraded! — You won’t see that on TV or on any Newscorp et al, publications.
I hope no-one misses that all of this constituted crimes against humanity. How many died? Or brought to justice? And are there still questions? No shit sherlock, but in Rwanda they all seen it coming, people WERE screaming about it, and the West did nothing!
Are we seeing any of this in Libya, even the precursors? – NO, there’s undeniable very real problems, but it is very well understood that once a Nation Leader unleashes the army on their own people, they’re days are numbered.
In fact, the campaign against Tutsi women well preceded the actual genocide. In 1990, four years before the start of the genocide, Tutsi women were frequently the centerpiece of propagandist efforts to heighten ethnic tensions and engender hatred. The Ten Command-ments of the Hutu appeared in a December issue of Kangura. Four of these “commandments” dealt specifically with women:
Every Hutu should know that a Tutsi woman, wherever she is, works for the interest of her Tutsi ethnic group. As a result, we shall consider a traitor any Hutu who: marries a Tutsi woman; befriends a Tutsi woman; employs a Tutsi woman as a secretary or a concubine.
Every Hutu should know that our Hutu daughters are more suitable and conscientious in their role as woman, wife, and mother of the family. Are they not beautiful, good secretaries and more honest?
Hutu woman, be vigilant and try to bring your husbands, brothers and sons back to reason.
The Rwandese Armed Forces should be exclusively Hutu. The experience of the October [1990] war has taught us a lesson. No member of the military shall marry a Tutsi.
I said all that about Rwanda, I could have said a lot more besides, imagine if it’d been the plight of Gaza I’d used as my example…
So is it selective human rights then?…
I imagine that maybe THOSE people tortured and mutilated didn’t have the same ‘human rights’ as we cherish, I suppose they must not… But then, are not we told of the universality of those rights?
A shame then that the spineless maggots don’t get to see the blinded, disembowelled, paralysed, shredded, CHILDREN, let alone the ones burned alive. The eugenicists are no doubt loving the rocketing increase in miscarriages and deformed and/or still births thanks to the Liberating Forces weapons. The weekend warmongers would wet their pants at the reality of what their casual apathy, ignorance and inactions bring, IF it was to be visited on there own families.
It’s not as if it’s on the weekend warmonger’s front lawns though, eh? – Out of sight, out of mind…
The ignorant dick-less fucks can just go watch the Biased-BBC, Sky, CNN, Faux News coverage all showing the pretty pictures of missiles launching, our jubilant, confident boys talking of ‘doing their duty’, telling you how you’re supposed to feel about the OUR war.
Remember, if you don’t object, you endorse.
But hey, it’s only brown people isn’t it, lot more of them, and just think! All those bombs and depleted uranium tipped shells need replacing after what’s left of Libya is as knackered as Afghanistan or Iraq… Welcome to the real world chaps, or just piss off down the pub, or jump in your flash car, or go indulge in a shopping expedition and support your representative war-criminals, they are after all, doing it ALL in your name. You can be secure in the knowledge that it’s not your head they are dropping tonnes of hi-ex.
Enter the theatrics, the battle for hearts, minds and wallets…
US President pretender Barak Obama, serving up perfectly scripted rhetoric in his announcement, is a perfect example of this hypocritical nonsense that seemingly intelligent people blindly accept.
Don’t fret too much though, there’s a ceasefire and its “IMMEDIATE”, followed by a hard line denial, feel the inevitability of it all – its necessity and everyone knows that in necessity we can dispense with common sense and go right on to expediency. With the help of the complicit corporate media-whores of course. Oh no, sorry, hold that thought because the Americans have dropped a few bombs and are “well satisfied” that they have and “effective” no-fly-zone, be still my beating heart. Gaddafi knows he’s the next Saddam, build them up and knock them down, he’s a dead man.
Ron Paul said, “a no-fly zone is a declaration of war”, unprovoked, but there’s money in it, the almighty dollar needs its fix, they’re not ready to drop it just yet. Its a WAR junkie system and its shaking real bad at the moment.
“As a result of all military actions, 48 people were killed and more than 150 injured, most of them civilians, according to Libyan authorities.”
Not a single right minded, individual with any semblance of critical thought should doubt that there will be Libyan civilian casualties, especially given our knowledge of just how shite the Western Powers ‘surgical strikes’ really have been in recent times, contrary to the spin. The current civilian losses will pale by comparison. YouTube is littered with hours of video footage, articles in their thousands festoon the web on accounts of tragedy, loss and heartache for what the Western Powers interventions have wrought upon innocents. And as always, in the pipe-stream are the preferred contractors and their black-hole budgets for reconstruction projects and war profiteering…
But this is a classic example of the patently un-democratic (not that I’m a huge fan of demockeracy as we have it), Plato’sNoble Lie, is it not. We really MUST go to war, it is for the good of these poor civilians, no you don’t need to know about the corporate and banking interests waiting in the wings to make lots of money on weapons, service contracts, private security, kickbacks, PR management, need I go on?
The financial empire needs this war, that is the lie that we live in this bubble of “free market” economics, broken window economics more like. Those ‘right-honourable-gentlemen’ in their cloak of apparent legitimacy don’t care for those poor Libyans and more than they care for you as an individual with inalienable rights granted ONLY from your creator. No, they only care about the body politic, the flock, the human resources to be managed and exploited.
This is not a conspiracy people, there really is a tiny minority of people that are putting everyone else and their grannie at each other’s throats because it suits their common purposes, wink wink. These people are in the business of governance, not Government. They are on all the boards, on the steering committees, they are the think tanks, the political charities, the hedge funds, they are the regulators, Governmental agencies, the NGO’s, the political charities with their ‘philanthropist’ corporate moguls on the boards of trustees, the foundations, the associations, etcetera etcetera, and please let’s not forget the Banking interests. The vast majority if left to their own devices won’t go to war, it’s in their own self interest not to die, duh, it’s the psychopath in the background that’s so eager for wars, not the common people.
The Governments as we know them are as George Carlin so rightly said, there to offer us the illusion of choice. That way we will produce so much more for them for their bits of paper and digital bits and bytes.
All these bodies, and more, invest heavily in WAR and governance, its good for them, they love it and they want more of it to kill off more of your children on while we scrabble for the crumbs under their management.
At every turn now I’m seeing a whole host of people from every class, creed, religion, ideology AND politic persuasions across the entire spectrum, but all with a consensus that is damn near universal.
So many ideas, so many views, all telling the corporate State, this intrusion a step too far and answer it with a resounding – I’m telling you jack diddly squat, mate! But I have noticed a distinct lack of support from those we’d say as having ‘clout’, in the eyes of the masses, those being the officials, the mainstream media and talking heads, the journalists with any integrity left, the personalities even the CELEBRITIES… (yes I know, scrapping the barrel there with that last one!) But then, it’s hardly sexy, is it, not much scope for getting on the next chat show except as the oddity, a stitch up, or just for comic relief…
Even the serial conformists are having issues with a great deal of the 2011 fiasco, not just the invasive, irrelevant questions, but the choice of Lockheed Martin as the agent for the ONS. Have we all sunk so low, are we truly become the apathetic wretches who are so cowed, so servile, that we shrink and tug a forelock to those men and women in government?
Oh I have seen a few notable exceptions, many, many great articles detailing with this subject, but few personalities were weighing in and then I had to stand corrected… In strode Janet Street Porter with her indomitable flair and typical ‘shoot from the hip’ attitude to brighten my day.
How can the simple job of gathering information about the population once every ten years, which started out in 1801 as a single sheet of paper, have morphed into this costly (£480 million and rising) exercise during a period of national financial hardship?
If we can’t afford help for carers, child day-care centres, meals on wheels and libraries, how can we bloody well afford this grandiose census? We are told it’s justified because the information allows the Government to plan grants to local authorities and to decide how much money to allocate for future health care.
The stuff about our homes helps to formulate future strategy for housing. If we tell them how we get to work, apparently it will help with the planning of transport systems and new roads.
And pigs can fly. Every time a new road, bus or rail route is planned, what happens?
There’s a fresh consultation exercise. Ditto when it comes to new housing and hospitals — there’s always a need for up-to-date information and research. More questionnaires, more information, more money spent.
I’ll leave that article with a thought, a small pondering of mine… Just who has more balls, Janet Street Porter?… Or the traitorous ConDem coalition?… Tough call, isn’t it?
The real question depends on the number of people, who either by not returning, defacing or directly challenging the applicability of census via the No Contract – Return To Sender, conditional acceptance, religious reasons, support of State terrorism, or whatever… and dealing with potential doorstep intrusions…
Even then it’s hardly an issue for even the most timid, a simple NO TRESPASS notice prominently displayed, bring it to their agents attention and close the door. Too simple? Then why did Census director Glen Watson have this to say on the subject back in July 2010:
“We have to have made contact. So quite a lot of the people that don’t return the questionnaire, our census field staff have not been able to make any contact and you cannot prosecute a house.“
Who will be prosecuted, and under what circumstances?
Of the 1.5 million families that, in whatever manner, refused to participate in the 2001 census, only 38 were successfully prosecuted, and given the lack of understanding in any number of legal ‘tricks’ to gain jurisdiction, it is a wonder to me, that there wasn’t more… Only one ended up in a prison sentence, and that was a well publicised case where a particularly obstinate man was done for contempt of court for refusing to pay the fine. The details of the criteria used can be found here.
“Prosecutions were sought on a case-by-case basis, where there was clear evidence of a refusal to return a completed Census form. The criteria for Non-Compliance Unit dropping potential cases were decided by the Legislation Project Manager, following the practise in previous censuses and taking account of more recent legal advice. The main reasons for dropping cases included:
insufficient confirmation of householder’s name (in cases, for example, where no contact had been made and evidence from other sources of information – such as the Electoral Register – was lacking);
responsibility for making a return had not been established;
possible irregularities in field procedures;
evidence of mitigating personal circumstances, such as age or infirmity of the householder or in cases of bereavement;
claims that forms had been posted back which could not be readily verified because of postal difficulties; and
cases relating to a second home or holiday accommodation.”
So will the government actually fine them, or will they be seen to be selectively prosecuting individuals which must invariably appear politically motivated?
Something to think on if you really must fill it in, deface it or whatever, please, please, consider rubbing a white candle over the ‘official use’ boxes, make these bureaucrats work for their shekels. If ‘we’ are paying so much for it, is it so much to ask that we get value for our tax-thefts?
Some may be wondering how I may be handling this, to date I haven’t had a form delivered yet, but when it does I will be sticking to the No Contract – Return To Sender route. A doorstep visit bothers me not a jot, I will be challenging that on the doorstep, no tricks, I will be stating something like:
“There is no man or woman here with any liability to, nor obligation to perform in this matter upon your request. Go tell that to your boss mate, you’re finished here, now fuck off, the sign there says “NO TRESPASS”, are you blind as well as ignorant?”
So if the defence is “everyone was doing it”, in regards to defrauding the public purse, you and me, then where oh where are the mass prosecutions? Where is the castigation of the corrupt, the flagellation of the morally bereft, where are the heroes to champion this cause, are there any left?
Exactly, none of the above forthcoming I don’t doubt.
Load of bollocks in any event, Taylor and the other lambs are but a sacrificial offering on the alter of public opinion, to keep the “feral under-class” in their illusion that there is some semblance of equality before the law… or even accountability…
So where are you on the political spectrum; are you fervently active, politically engaged, on the fence, disillusioned, disenfranchised or just plainly don’t give a fuck?
I wonder how this world we are given to live in, with all its benefits and privileges, would look if we were able to hold those who lie to us, steal from us, abuse our misplaced trust. Be they in the government, judiciary, financial, religious, armed forces, police or any other ‘public’ office), up to the same level of scrutiny as is imposed on those who point out their lies…
Ever heard of malfeasance in public office? Sort of rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? Or here’s a good one, what about treason? I could go on, the list of their crimes are myriad and guarded too by those we also trust to protect our collective rights…
No? – But we can sure bitch about a few busted bank windows and some graffiti, bemoaning the “damage to private property” but lets not worry about the devastation wrought by banker manipulation, fraud and let’s not sugar coat it and call it anything less than financial terrorism.
You seen the heading, and I’m not going to sugar-coat this one, I’ve set aside a couple of articles I was working on to write on the upcoming invasion of Libya by the greatest destructive force for globalisation the modern world has seen…
I find this absolutely wonderful…
informedminds
informedminds 