The news today that our blessed MPs still have £14 million of unexplained expenses should surprise no-one. Our ruling elite treat us, the common herd, with disdain and frequently contempt. Having climbed the slippery ladder, most of our leaders jump into bed with non-elected, unaccountable corporations and high financiers.
Not convinced? Consider the evidence.
Vodaphone is an example of a company who owed £6 billion pounds in unpaid taxes. They struck a deal with the Revenue which means they will pay £1.5 billion - over several years! The net loss to the treasury would fund many, many, students through higher education.
Vodaphone are not alone. Many companies and wealthy individuals pay very bright accountants to find loophole after loophole to squirrel away vast sums of loot. They enjoy our roads, infrastructure, security and general health and welfare but do not pay their share. They also have the nerve to lecture us about managing our finances!
Bankers Bonuses? There will be token changes but beneath the surface nothing will change. Bankers will continue to take huge gambles knowing they will be bailed out if it all goes tits up.
They are allowed to do this by all of the governments in the Western Democracies. Oh they huff and puff but in reality they do very little. MPs, Cabinet Ministers and their foreign equivalents buy into the status quo. They cosy up to wealth and thereby acquire it themselves.
Consider that most slimy of individuals, Geoff Hoon. He managed to build a property empire worth several million pounds using tax payers’ money whilst acting as MP for one of the poorest constituencies in the country. Although he stood down at the last election, he was caught in a sting offering to buy access to Ministers and senior officials. Has he been arrested for corruption? Has he hell as like. He received a five-year ban from Parliament. Big Deal. Where is the outrage in the media? Where are the demands that he be locked up? Why was he on the BBC pontificating about defence matters without there being a rider listing his ‘crimes’?
It gets worse. The John Pilger programme last night exposed the collusion by most of the Western Media with the lies, half-truths and jingoistic guff that poured forth from the Pentagon propaganda machine. Dan Rather, an experienced and respected American journalist said that if the US media had done their job properly, the Iraq War would not have happened. Several eminent journalists admitted to feelings of shame and embarrassment at the way they were hoodwinked or gullible. An ‘Embedded Journalist’ is not worthy of the description ‘independent.’ They are stooges for the machine. And their reports should be treated with at best scepticism and at worst derision.
They lied about the Iraq War. They continue to lie about Afghanistan. At the War Memorial in Staffordshire it is clear that we have been in a state of almost continuous warfare since the end of the 2nd World War. Eisenhower warned as he stepped down from the Presidency in the 50‘s that, “We should beware the arms-industrial complex.” And so it has come to pass that in the name of making vast sums of money for a handful of evil individuals, wars are fought in some of the poorest parts of the world. Brave men and women die in foreign fields to keep the money rolling in. Atrocities are committed in our name - and then promptly covered up, with the collusion of ‘embedded journalists.’
Any sane person would agree with the ‘hearts and minds’ approach publicly vaunted by our forces. However the reality on the ground is very different. Entire villages are blown to smithereens, often by unmanned drones, with many child casualties. Every death spawns many jihadist recruits. At first glance it comes across as shocking incompetence. But it isn’t. This deliberate, willful, approach guarantees years of conflict. And the masters of war rub their hands.
To break this vested interest cartel across the democracies will not be easy. One country acting alone will be dismissed and undermined. It will take concerted co-operative action across most, if not all, western democracies. Wikileaks is a start. The reaction from the elite gives the game away. It is also revealing to see how toadying journalists react too. The ‘establishment’ do not like the revelations from Wikileaks. It shows them up for what they are. Shallow, nasty, scheming, devious, hypocritical, untrustworthy and dishonourable individuals who patronise their electorate whilst building their private fortunes.
Journalism at its best involves telling truth to power. With a few honourable exceptions it has degenerated into telling lies to the powerless.
Something has got to change.
Quickly.
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