22 June 2012
Who are the oligarchs?
I'm going to assume anyone reading has read George Orwell's 1984.
The oligarchs in that story are a cabal of party members, and that doesn't really fit today's situation, because there is no one dominant party.
What we do have, however, is a dominant culture, and it almost seems like the culture itself has become a conscious entity, because the oligarchy clearly exists, whether it's seen from Germany, Greece, New Zealand, USA or UK.
USA has its PATRIOT Act, but the latest proposals in UK, where all forms of communication will be recorded in case someone needs to find out what you're been saying or which websites you've been searching, are astonishing.
For almost 1000 years, Britain has led the way, abolishing slavery, enshrining human rights, creating democracy itself, and leading the defence of the free world. It was Britain that gave us George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Bertrand Russell and Richard Dawkins. The same Britain that created the Magna Carta, habeus corpus and being innocent until proven guilty.
So, how on earth is it possible that this very same Britain is now so covered by CCTV cameras that it is impossible to be both off-camera and inside the limits of any town? Not only that, Westminster passed a swathe of laws outlawing assembly in various parts of London, with barely a trace of resistance.
The latest plan, which looks almost certain to pass through Parliament, will give a variety of government agencies the ability to access all of citizens' communications. The Home Secretary, Theresa May, whose department is responsible for this atrocity, claims that the power will not be abused.
Really?
It was another famous Briton who wrote that "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." in his letter to Bishop Creighton in 1887.
Lord Acton, the writer, was a little more streetwise than Theresa May.
I find it fascinating that this is all happening with virtually no organised resistance.
I note that other governments are watching closely to see if this is something they should be instituting. This brings me back to wondering about why all these diverse countries, with only democratic capitalism in common, are treading the same path of Orwellian control and monitoring of their populations.
The funny thing is, we are the oligarchs ourselves.
We have created a society - in the western world - based on materialism, and what we refer to as "democracy". Given that democracy means a choice between a range of almost-identical doctrines, the path we walk is pretty well pre-determined.
If you think, and you most likely will if you're a lunatic Greenmunist, that political parties are not essentially the same, you are simply wrong. The divergence of policies between any "right-wing" party and any given Green one is only on very minor points. The Greens don't seek to change the method of power, they just want to create a nanny state where they are in charge and everyone hugs trees. Businesses, public entities, transport and life would still continue in exactly the same way it does right now.
Changes would be entirely cosmetic, and there would be more people wearing hemp sandals. BFD.
Change of doctrine would require a vote for Communism, Fascism or anarchy*. A few disaffected voters have voted for "extreme" right-wing parties in Europe that are mis-labelled as fascist, but it no longer exists outside of small enclaves of nutters with guns; the only form of party which would bring true change are the Communists. As a general guide, the number of people who vote Communist in general elections in the western world is particularly low. I can't even find a candidate for Communism in the last election, but I see that in 1996, they scored 99 votes out of 2,000,000, which is lower than all the joke parties, except for World Socialist Party, which only got 27.
Changing the world one step at a time, those guys!
There is one other means of change, and this is being exploited extremely well by the islamic world: create a theocracy and run your lives according to a book written by a 7th-century paedophile who based his philosophy on the demented writing of a bunch of Jews a few thousand years earlier.
Having never experienced materialist democracy, the islamists have hit paydirt, but I don't think the west is going to fall for it.
Ergo: get used to it.
Our lives will be more and more watched, we will have fewer personal freedoms and will be living our Winston Smith lives.
Orwell even got the super-states almost right, only missing islam, which replaces Eurasia.
* a vote for anarchy would be the smashing of all polling booths prior to the election and killing everyone involved in the mechanics of power.
Copyright © Alan Charman