WAS anyone really surprised when the Conservative Party
declared what The Daily Telegraph referred to as a "war on the countryside" in
which property developers will be given pretty much free rein and effectively
be subsidised by the state?
Did anyone really believe that this political party is
steered by a set of values, amongst which is the protection of the environment?
Did anyone believe, for that matter, that when the Labour Party came to power six
years before the invasion of Iraq
it was really committed to pursuing an “ethical foreign policy”?
Anyone who has paying the slightest bit of attention can see
that the “principles” which these parties flaunt when they are fighting
election campaigns are nothing but empty lies.
And yet the media, and therefore a certain part of the
population, continue to treat their representatives as they are genuinely
involved in some great battle of ideas, as if they are truly motivated by the slick
reasons and excuses they present to the public.
The BBC for instance, will often say that the government
“believes” such and such to be the correct solution, or that the prime minister
“believes” he was right to act in a certain way.
What they are really reporting is that the government or
prime minister says they believe something, but by missing out that
all-important division between the politician’s statement and the BBC’s
reporting of it, they are endorsing that statement and telling us that our
authority figures can always be assumed to be telling the truth. The trust that
the public (for some reason!) has in the BBC is therefore projected, subtly,
on to the government or minister.
In fact, politicians are rarely truthful about their actual
beliefs, if indeed they have any. Naked greed, self-interest and power-lust,
bolstered by bribery, flattery and blackmail, are their only values and
principles. We are living under a reign of corruption, where the most venal and
ruthless hold all the wealth and the power that it commands.
We do not live in a democracy. We live in a plutocracy which
disguises itself as a democracy in order to keep the population pacified.
The disease which we term capitalism has only one aim, and
that is to continue to grow and spread. It is not based on principles or values
or judgements, and neither are the politicians, journalists and cops who serve
it.
It does not care about the countryside or the environment,
or the future of life on the planet. It does not care about people’s health or
wellbeing. It is happy to preside over war, torture, slavery, pollution –
anything that is necessary to maintain its own cancerous growth.
It cannot be reasoned with. It cannot be reformed. It has to
be destroyed.
