Now think ahead a few weeks to our imminent general election and try to imagine the things politicians would try to persuade us to vote for. No ‘B’ word, don’t forget. Only humdrum matters that are raised at every election time – just as they were last time. Words like NHS, education, police, democracy, - but at all other times placed on the back burner, simmering, unfulfilled and unresolved, ready to be promised again at the next election. Truly, it was well said by someone who understood these things: “If voting made any difference, they wouldn’t let you do it.”
“We fall under the illusion of freedom when we consent to be governed. We believe we live in a fair and democratic society yet we fail to grasp the true meaning of words such as democratic, republic, inalienable, and consent. When we decipher the words, we find that we live in a reality of inequity; a ‘world for the taking’ by a few at the expense of the many. Only when we know who we are— a spiritual being having a human experience— will the system of slavery be changed.” – Rosanne Lindsay.
Do we yet know who we are?
It is a truth that politicians will say almost anything to win your vote. And you don’t even have to vote for the individual candidate. A vote for the Party will do very nicely, thank you. Once the votes have been collected and counted you can go away to do more or less whatever else you like, until the next time the illusion of democracy and/or freedom is played out. (I say ‘and/or’ because they aren’t the same, even if you think they are).
Don’t ever overlook the fact that ‘the Party’ exists to maintain the existence of the Party, preferably in authority. It doesn’t exist for your benefit or mine. In this respect the willing but generally unsuspecting PPC (Prospective Parliamentary Candidate) is just as much a victim as you are. Woe betides the party member who fails to comply with party rules. The Whips will devour him/her and spit him out. Or the NEC will have him for breakfast. How free is THAT?
(I recall an instance a few years ago when I urged some younger work colleagues to vote at an imminent general election even though none had ever voted before. A day or so later one young person came back to tell me that, because of what I had said, she had decided to vote this time. I congratulated her but that wasn’t enough. She wanted me to know for WHO it was she intended to vote.
Even though I protested that it was none of my business – it is a matter between her and the ballot box – she insisted.
“I’m going to vote for Tony Blair”, she said triumphantly. Picture her face, if you can, when I replied: “You cannot vote for Tony Blair!” Confusion and hurt rolled into one. “Tony Blair is the PPC for the Labour Party in Sedgefield, County Durham. You don’t live in Sedgefield so you cannot vote for him. You can only vote within your own constituency.”) It turned out she had chosen Tony Blair because ‘he seems a nice man’. Weep because this story is true. It also turned out that she didn’t know who her local candidates were!
Despite all that I’ve written here none of us can truly ignore that the ‘B’ word follows us around everywhere – has done for three years - and there are brand new parties on the scene that weren’t on the scene at the last election. How bad is that?
‘The System’ works after a fashion when there are only two contestants – and the First Past The Post (FPTP) winner takes all. It means that whichever party has the most votes, wins, regardless. Even if fewer than 50% of the electorate voted! The other party becomes Her Majesty’s virtually powerless, supposedly loyal, Opposition. Additional parties, if there are any, become the ‘also rans’. And I haven’t even mentioned the probability of fraudulent postal voting.
Under no terms could anybody describe that as evidence of democracy. Evidence of suffrage – yes, but not evidence of democracy. The opposite of democracy is autocracy, communism, fascism and tyranny. And if it isn’t democracy or freedom, why do we consent to it? Why do we accept the limitations placed upon us by the party system and their preferred FPTP? Why?
Our consent binds us into the master/slave system. Withholding our consent restores our natural freedom. Without this change we fall under the illusion of freedom which, years ago, could be summed up with “I’m free, white and over 21.” It was a lie then and it is still a lie today. (Over 18 today unless one particular party leader can persuade us to agree to the lower age of 16). Heaven forbid.
What to do?
1. If our comfortable, mostly docile population would awake to the political dangers surrounding us and gather, constituency by constituency, to select from among their number, independent candidates (not representing a party) to represent them, we will have begun the change.
2. If election to parliament is limited to a 12 months period and then subjected to annual satisfactory performance review (satisfactory to the voting constituents), just like any other employee would expect, we could virtually do away with general elections AND career politicians at the same time!
3. Sovereignty would be seen to be restored to the people and not claimed unlawfully by parties and parliamentarians.
4. The rights bestowed on the people by Magna Carta 1215 would be restored, as could the restoration of Common Law courts Trial by Jury and Jury Nullification of bad laws. (Restoration isn’t revolution).
5. The Monarch would again be able to appoint a Prime Minister (and any other Secretary/Minister of State), instead of the self-interested Party Members of Parliament doing so. Magna Carta 1215 has already determined that the people may lawfully contest the Monarch’s decisions, if the need arises.
To quote the late visionary, George Orwell: “In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics.’ All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.”
We, the People, are no more puritans than are they, the politicians. People tell lies, too. But if We, the People, don’t change (ourselves, the things to which we consent, and our ways) it seems to me that there is not likely to be a future in which to live worth voting upon.
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