The time has come to tear up and throw away all the markers on the political landscape that I grew up with. Socialism, Conservatism, Communism; left-wing, right-wing: all are now obsolete, and irrelevant to current conditions - in the UK for sure, and most likely for the rest of the western world. The political arena of today is defined very simply: Control System versus the Rest. It is a stark dualism of which even the Gnostics would have been proud, apart from the fact that it is based on pragmatic factors rather than ontology.
The collapse of the old distinctions could have been predicted long ago, when Labour, traditionally defender of the poor and down-at-heel, became New Labour and, under the dark magic of the Blairite grin, started hobnobbing with the rich and famous, while the rest of us just plodded on. New Labour happily oversaw and encouraged the emerging celebritocracy, along with related get-rich-quickers of the banking and big business worlds. Eventually Blair took his smirk off elsewhere, leaving Brown to fiddle while the fantasy banking world that he had helped to create started to burn all around him.
Control System versus the Rest: an elegant forces-of-darkness against bringers-of-light scenario. Even a year ago, I didn't see things much like that at all. Two visitors from Germany told me matter-of-factly that democracy doesn't exist, which I took as a bit of a blanket statement, and one which puzzled me. It was only when I began to dig more deeply that things started to click. I suppose that sufficient passion for a given subject is required before the time and effort necessary is devoted to getting beneath the skin of what the television headlines tell you. In my case, the invasion of the windfarms and UK drug policy were the triggers for the collapse of my old world view. What I began to discover was that reality was completely at odds with the 'information' dished out for public consumption by politicians and most of the mainstream media. The variance could not be put down simply to personal and reasonable differences of opinion, either; reality really was totally different. There was either a great deal of wilful ignorance going on, and/or a hidden agenda of some sort. Slowly, bits of the jigsaw puzzle began to fit together, until a picture of active collusion, if not exactly organised conspiracy, started to emerge. A collusion between politicians, the media, the world of big business and finance, maybe others: those whose aim is to maintain power, wealth, and control for themselves and themselves alone; who feel the right to dominate. Welcome to the Control System.
Uppermost in my mind of late has been the invasion of the wind turbines, following Mega-Disaster Minister of Energy Chris Huhne's pronouncement that we shall be seeing more of them soon. This is the real environmental catastrophe confronting us, not the various chimera rolled out by the not-very-Liberal and not-at-all-Democratic Huhne. Interestingly, in these days when the Anthropogenic Global Warming camp are having a bit of a hard time - even Guardian readers are expressing some doubts - he played down the 'save the planet with a turbine' line, instead mumbling something about safeguarding national energy supply. Total nonsense, since the one way that can't be done is through a source of energy that is intermittent, and completely unpredictable and unreliable.
I have written already, in 'Manna from a hot heaven', about the lack of credibility to the invasion of the wind farms. It has no reasonable justification whatsoever. It serves two unspoken purposes, however. Firstly, lots of money for Control System bigwigs through indirect subsidies and high energy prices. Secondly, the menace of Anthropogenic Global Warming provides a good excuse for fear-mongering, an excellent weapon in the fight to increase control over people's lives, and a reason to circumvent the fragile vestiges of democracy in the name of 'saving the planet for our grandchildren.'
Various internet sites rail ferociously against this stuff. References to 'Green Stalinism', and even more talk of 'eco-fascism'. Strong terms but on reflection, and after consulting a dictionary, I find them not greatly exaggerated. On orwelltoday, Green Stalinism is defined as 'a planned economy in the name of environmentalism.' 'The consequences are the familiar Soviet ones: centralised decision-making and localised devastation.' That is it precisely. And these 'familiar Soviet consequences' are exactly what our Control System emissaries have in mind, be it Huhne, Second-in-Command Corporal Clegg (whose wife, by pure coincidence, works for a wind farm company.....), partners-in-crime the Millibands, or the Not-so-Green Party's Caroline Lucas.
Control System gets full backup from its various organs of miscommunication and spreading of lies to the rest of us. Two deserve special mention. First off, the BBC. I am fed up with hearing the refrain (thankfully less common in recent times) that the BBC is somehow superior and more trustworthy because it doesn't depend on courting advertisers, and is therefore more independent. It is NOT independent! It depends on licence payers' money, which in turn depends on continued consent from the government. Which more-or-less defines what the BBC's agenda is. Take UK drug policy as an example. It is completely untenable, and could be destroyed with ease in next-to no time, should the BBC decide to do so. Strangely, our national broadcasters have thus far failed to rise to the challenge. Instead, when the opportunity arose, around the time of the Professor Nutt fiasco, they dealt with the good man's impeccable logic in perfunctory and derisory fashion. Hidden agenda of complicity with the government is clear for all with eyes to see. It has been left to Channel Four to dish the dirt in a hard-hitting three-part documentary on the 'war on drugs', starting this week. And, back on the wind, read for yourself James Delingpole's blog on 'BBC; official voice of Ecofascism.' By the way, ever wonder why the once-ubiquitous David Bellamy no longer does his much-loved nature programmes on BBC? He dared to disagree with Central Control belief system on global warming: made into a pariah because of his inconvenient views. Yes, the BBC: Control System propaganda machine par excellence.
The other Control System stooges I would like to highlight are resident at the Met Office. A look at the 'climate change' section on their website shows it to be a hotbed of lies, half-truths, deception, and opinion expressed as fact. Example: Question: 'Are you sure there's a link between temperature rise and CO2?' Answer: 'Yes. Temperature and CO2 are linked. Studies of polar ice layers show that in the past, rises in temperature have been followed by an increase in CO2. Now, it is a rise in CO2 that is causing the temperature to rise.' Er, excuse me, but the logic of this would baffle even a demented walrus. Go to your GP and tell him or her: Eating cheese was followed by my having migraines. Now, my migraines are causing me to eat hunks of cheddar. You will be told to stop wasting limited NHS resources, or sent to see a shrink.
All this would be laughable, except that it is nonsense churned out as propaganda in a shameless attempt to dupe the public in what are serious matters. In the meantime, protesters on the Lammermuir Hills in southern Scotland made a giant heart from stones on the hills as an expression of their love for the places they say will be devastated by a proposed wind farm. Ah yes, love! How quaint! How cute! How often do our pseudo-environmental Control System advocates speak of love, and of beauty? Caroline Lucas, Brave New Green World MP for Brighton, speaks of targets, not love and beauty. Such talk makes Control System people distinctly uneasy; it's not in their ball park. 'Green' is now a mental abstraction, an ideology used to justify all manner of terrible thing, and to manipulate people by playing on their fears. Certainly not a matter for the heart and the soul.
It's weird: leap outside the Control System box, and you find yourself in unlikely company. A seemingly disparate bunch of alternative culture people, disaffected Tories, conspiracy theorists, real liberals, psychedelic people, and the rest. All have in common a sense of being marginalised by the diktats of the Control System. I'm not the only person to feel a trifle confused: in an interview on Red Ice Radio, Peter Taylor talks of how he used to feel that he was 'left', but now finds himself agreeing more with what some people 'on the right' are saying. And the best thing I can find to read in mainstream media is James Delingpole's Daily Telegraph blog!
In the meantime, it befalls us to act, however clumsily or imperfectly. As James Hillman, in his 'time capsule for the year 2100' reminds us (see youtube), we are in part political animals: political, not in the debased dominator sense, but in its true, noble meaning, as being related to public affairs. Our soul is not ultimately separate, but is connected to and part of the world around us. To repress its horror and sense of injustice at what goes on outside the shell of our individual body is the same as to repress any other constituents of our mind. To be fully human means to act in defence of the true and beautiful in the world of which we are part. Brothers and sisters, take up your hearts, souls, and pitchforks! The world needs you......
The collapse of the old distinctions could have been predicted long ago, when Labour, traditionally defender of the poor and down-at-heel, became New Labour and, under the dark magic of the Blairite grin, started hobnobbing with the rich and famous, while the rest of us just plodded on. New Labour happily oversaw and encouraged the emerging celebritocracy, along with related get-rich-quickers of the banking and big business worlds. Eventually Blair took his smirk off elsewhere, leaving Brown to fiddle while the fantasy banking world that he had helped to create started to burn all around him.
Control System versus the Rest: an elegant forces-of-darkness against bringers-of-light scenario. Even a year ago, I didn't see things much like that at all. Two visitors from Germany told me matter-of-factly that democracy doesn't exist, which I took as a bit of a blanket statement, and one which puzzled me. It was only when I began to dig more deeply that things started to click. I suppose that sufficient passion for a given subject is required before the time and effort necessary is devoted to getting beneath the skin of what the television headlines tell you. In my case, the invasion of the windfarms and UK drug policy were the triggers for the collapse of my old world view. What I began to discover was that reality was completely at odds with the 'information' dished out for public consumption by politicians and most of the mainstream media. The variance could not be put down simply to personal and reasonable differences of opinion, either; reality really was totally different. There was either a great deal of wilful ignorance going on, and/or a hidden agenda of some sort. Slowly, bits of the jigsaw puzzle began to fit together, until a picture of active collusion, if not exactly organised conspiracy, started to emerge. A collusion between politicians, the media, the world of big business and finance, maybe others: those whose aim is to maintain power, wealth, and control for themselves and themselves alone; who feel the right to dominate. Welcome to the Control System.
Uppermost in my mind of late has been the invasion of the wind turbines, following Mega-Disaster Minister of Energy Chris Huhne's pronouncement that we shall be seeing more of them soon. This is the real environmental catastrophe confronting us, not the various chimera rolled out by the not-very-Liberal and not-at-all-Democratic Huhne. Interestingly, in these days when the Anthropogenic Global Warming camp are having a bit of a hard time - even Guardian readers are expressing some doubts - he played down the 'save the planet with a turbine' line, instead mumbling something about safeguarding national energy supply. Total nonsense, since the one way that can't be done is through a source of energy that is intermittent, and completely unpredictable and unreliable.
I have written already, in 'Manna from a hot heaven', about the lack of credibility to the invasion of the wind farms. It has no reasonable justification whatsoever. It serves two unspoken purposes, however. Firstly, lots of money for Control System bigwigs through indirect subsidies and high energy prices. Secondly, the menace of Anthropogenic Global Warming provides a good excuse for fear-mongering, an excellent weapon in the fight to increase control over people's lives, and a reason to circumvent the fragile vestiges of democracy in the name of 'saving the planet for our grandchildren.'
Various internet sites rail ferociously against this stuff. References to 'Green Stalinism', and even more talk of 'eco-fascism'. Strong terms but on reflection, and after consulting a dictionary, I find them not greatly exaggerated. On orwelltoday, Green Stalinism is defined as 'a planned economy in the name of environmentalism.' 'The consequences are the familiar Soviet ones: centralised decision-making and localised devastation.' That is it precisely. And these 'familiar Soviet consequences' are exactly what our Control System emissaries have in mind, be it Huhne, Second-in-Command Corporal Clegg (whose wife, by pure coincidence, works for a wind farm company.....), partners-in-crime the Millibands, or the Not-so-Green Party's Caroline Lucas.
Control System gets full backup from its various organs of miscommunication and spreading of lies to the rest of us. Two deserve special mention. First off, the BBC. I am fed up with hearing the refrain (thankfully less common in recent times) that the BBC is somehow superior and more trustworthy because it doesn't depend on courting advertisers, and is therefore more independent. It is NOT independent! It depends on licence payers' money, which in turn depends on continued consent from the government. Which more-or-less defines what the BBC's agenda is. Take UK drug policy as an example. It is completely untenable, and could be destroyed with ease in next-to no time, should the BBC decide to do so. Strangely, our national broadcasters have thus far failed to rise to the challenge. Instead, when the opportunity arose, around the time of the Professor Nutt fiasco, they dealt with the good man's impeccable logic in perfunctory and derisory fashion. Hidden agenda of complicity with the government is clear for all with eyes to see. It has been left to Channel Four to dish the dirt in a hard-hitting three-part documentary on the 'war on drugs', starting this week. And, back on the wind, read for yourself James Delingpole's blog on 'BBC; official voice of Ecofascism.' By the way, ever wonder why the once-ubiquitous David Bellamy no longer does his much-loved nature programmes on BBC? He dared to disagree with Central Control belief system on global warming: made into a pariah because of his inconvenient views. Yes, the BBC: Control System propaganda machine par excellence.
The other Control System stooges I would like to highlight are resident at the Met Office. A look at the 'climate change' section on their website shows it to be a hotbed of lies, half-truths, deception, and opinion expressed as fact. Example: Question: 'Are you sure there's a link between temperature rise and CO2?' Answer: 'Yes. Temperature and CO2 are linked. Studies of polar ice layers show that in the past, rises in temperature have been followed by an increase in CO2. Now, it is a rise in CO2 that is causing the temperature to rise.' Er, excuse me, but the logic of this would baffle even a demented walrus. Go to your GP and tell him or her: Eating cheese was followed by my having migraines. Now, my migraines are causing me to eat hunks of cheddar. You will be told to stop wasting limited NHS resources, or sent to see a shrink.
All this would be laughable, except that it is nonsense churned out as propaganda in a shameless attempt to dupe the public in what are serious matters. In the meantime, protesters on the Lammermuir Hills in southern Scotland made a giant heart from stones on the hills as an expression of their love for the places they say will be devastated by a proposed wind farm. Ah yes, love! How quaint! How cute! How often do our pseudo-environmental Control System advocates speak of love, and of beauty? Caroline Lucas, Brave New Green World MP for Brighton, speaks of targets, not love and beauty. Such talk makes Control System people distinctly uneasy; it's not in their ball park. 'Green' is now a mental abstraction, an ideology used to justify all manner of terrible thing, and to manipulate people by playing on their fears. Certainly not a matter for the heart and the soul.
It's weird: leap outside the Control System box, and you find yourself in unlikely company. A seemingly disparate bunch of alternative culture people, disaffected Tories, conspiracy theorists, real liberals, psychedelic people, and the rest. All have in common a sense of being marginalised by the diktats of the Control System. I'm not the only person to feel a trifle confused: in an interview on Red Ice Radio, Peter Taylor talks of how he used to feel that he was 'left', but now finds himself agreeing more with what some people 'on the right' are saying. And the best thing I can find to read in mainstream media is James Delingpole's Daily Telegraph blog!
In the meantime, it befalls us to act, however clumsily or imperfectly. As James Hillman, in his 'time capsule for the year 2100' reminds us (see youtube), we are in part political animals: political, not in the debased dominator sense, but in its true, noble meaning, as being related to public affairs. Our soul is not ultimately separate, but is connected to and part of the world around us. To repress its horror and sense of injustice at what goes on outside the shell of our individual body is the same as to repress any other constituents of our mind. To be fully human means to act in defence of the true and beautiful in the world of which we are part. Brothers and sisters, take up your hearts, souls, and pitchforks! The world needs you......
