Does Cameron Aim At A Dictatorship?

Three years ago the question as to whether Cameron is aiming at dictatorship would have been laughable. Today the question couldn't be answered with any degree of certainty. The facts speak for themselves. Everything that has stood in the way of even his most outrageous policies have been swept away, laws have changed, no lie is too low or dirty to use, no life too important not to sacrifice, no sense of decency so basic that it can't be ignored, no demonstration so large it can't be discounted. Have no doubt, as the DWP's own statistics prove beyond doubt, the Tories are literally killing people to save on their personal tax bills. Of those disabled who have had their sickness benefit stopped by the DWP 10,600 have died within six weeks. Meanwhile the death rate amongst the elderly poor has rocketed since 2010 and is expected to climb even higher this winter after the Tories scrapped the Warm Home initiative. There are hundreds of thousand now living in this country who, without the charity of food banks, would be dead from starvation. In Britain, in the 21st century. Now, they would have us believe, Britain must withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights so we can extradite foreign criminals. In other words every man and woman and child in the country has to forego the protection afforded by the Convention simply to save the Tories time and effort when they want to throw someone out of the country. The majority must suffer so that a tiny number of foreign criminals can be more easily dealt with. The truth is, of course, that the Convention stands in the way of the Tories and some of their more nasty fantasies, especially when it comes to employment law. This is disturbing enough in itself but we now hear that UKIP is poised to replace the Tories as the repository for all the nasty, self-centred and greedy right-wingers in the country. The question is what part of our democracy, if not all of it, will the Tories remove to prevent this? They are already talking in terms of another coalition with the two-faced Lib Dems, Tories by any other name, in order to extend their undemocratic grip on power beyond 2015 with or without a mandate. If that is not the definition of dictatorship what is?

The End Of Democracy.

John Adams, the second President of the United States, once observed "Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide." He was probably thinking of the first democracy, ancient Athens, where democracy descended into a spiteful witch-hunt of the "undeserving" within the span of a single generation and culminated with the judicious murder of Socrates. The democracy of the west has done a little better than that and has seen off some very determined enemies along the way. What it can't survive, however, is the enemy within. So who is this enemy exactly? Some dark demonic Machiavelli ruthlessly determined to grab power just for the sake of it? Well, yes - though in a modern developed democracy this is rarely achieved by the simple expedient of seizing power by force. Even Hitler knew that, though he gave it a try in 1923 during the Munich putsch when he reasoned that democracy in Germany was anything but developed. No, democracies are all too often overthrown by those who have the largest stake in it - the electorate. The path to this destruction, as the history of ancient Athens illustrates all too well, lies through the demagogue. The man who twists the truth for his own ends and persuades millions that he is righteous and that, for their own good, they must vote away their rights. Men like David Cameron, George Osborne and Nick Clegg whose coalition provides the necessary democratic veneer for some very anti-democratic policies. The collapse of the world economy in 2008 because of the criminal behaviour of the financial industry was a wake up call. Instead, it has proven to be the means to put us all to sleep. The system did not work except in the interests of a small minority but, when it went bad, it was bailed out by the majority who had gained little advantage from it. How was this confidence trick achieved? By scapegoating, by pointing the finger at the "undeserving", by dividing society into opposing camps whose disunity would allow the criminals who caused it all to get away with it. In this sense we are all Socrates - condemned to a slow agonising death by economic poison to divert attention away from those who are really guilty and have no real interest in you, me or democracy.

The Limits Of Democracy.

Democracy, like all forms of government, has limits. No one has an absolute right to do what they want and so absolute freedom has to be curtailed by law. These laws are made by those we vote into power to represent us and they are expected to frame laws that are both fair and acceptable to the majority. So much for the theory - the reality, as we are coming to know to our cost, is very different. In Greece that reality has made a mockery of the democratic process as that unhappy country is forced to destroy itself by outsiders whose only aim is to protect their money. Today a Greek journalist, Kostas Vaxevanis, has been arrested for daring to publish a list of rich and influential Greek businessmen and politicians who are avoiding paying their taxes. He has been arrested for an invasion of privacy while the influential businessmen and politicans are innocent of any crime. They are only innocent, of course, because the laws of Greece have been framed by those same influential businessmen and politicians. In Britain we would not go so far and tax avoiders are regularly "outed" by the press. Unfortunately our laws, too, are framed by the wealthy and influential and tax avoiders are likewise regarded as innocent of any crime. Worse yet our government regularly takes "donations" from rich supporters who hope, often with good cause, that they can "influence" the framing of our laws. So the question we have to ask ourselves is this - how can our elected representatives represent us when they are being paid to represent someone else? Democracy? It would be a good idea.

China Owns Your Breakfast.

Having exported millions of jobs from the west to China, put us all in debt to them forever and allowed the balance of power to shift from the nominally democratic nations to a pitiless tyranny, we have capped it all by flogging them our breakfast. While the Chinese authorities persecute a blind man for telling the truth about them, our leaders are beating a path to their door begging for investment. Why? Is it because that, after all, humans are more productive if controlled by a centralised authority with no interest in human rights? Is it because democracy is, despite all its achievements, a weak system that cannot survive? No. It's because our political leaders are incompetent morons who wouldn't know a good idea if it bit them on the ass. Since the American Revolution in 1776 there has been a steady and rising tide of democracy across the world. It has survived wars of frightful intensity and emerged triumphant, it has survived economic depressions and then bounced back. It hasn't been a tale of unfettered progress, there have been problems with much soul-searching and terrible injustices that have taken far too long to address. So what is different this time? 1979 was a watershed year. It was the year that the stupid, the greedy and smugly self-satisfied were allowed to push their way to the front. Since then its been downhill all the way. We in the west have gone from a civilization that put a man on the moon, to a civilization that cannot even control its own bankers. What went wrong? Neoliberalism economics which has elevated the basest instincts to the level of policy and in which a man is now measured by the tickness of his wallet and not by the contents of his character. We live in a period of the Right Rampant, the lunacy that has somehow managed to persuade us all that widening disparity of income is a good idea - indeed the only idea. We have to sweep this nonsense aside before its too late and China gets its hands not only on Weetabix but on our Corn Flakes as well.