The Decline of Democracy and Capitalism in Britain Advances

Britain is not a democracy any more. The Government is now bowing down to a few extremely powerful organisations that funds their very existence.

Extremism is also coming from within. The military has just affirmed its intentions by stating that the wrong selection by popular citizen vote will mean tanks rolling down the streets of London. Referring to Jeremy Corbyn, a senior British army general declared; “Put a maverick in charge of the country’s security – the Army just wouldn’t stand for it and would use whatever means possible, fair or foul, to prevent that.” This unnamed general, who, threatening mutiny of Britain’s armed forces has not been identified by one colleague, politician or newspaper mogul who printed the story and has not been arrested by the authorities for an act of treason. Clearly, they must all concur.

Lord Ashcroft’s recent revelations exposes how the rich and powerful have to be obeyed. David Cameron’s leadership record is torn apart by a former defence chief, Tory grandees and White House officials, for he did not toe the line.

Jeremy Corbyn’s dramatic rise to power is the result of the shortsighted, self serving, deranged and fatuous that stalk the corridors of power. Immorality and greed, being the current centre of neoliberal policy has turned the population of Britain into a war weary and austerity exhausted nation, depressed and discontented with the dismal failure of an economic recovery that has the characteristics of an optical illusion more than reality.

Corbyn will transfer government expenditure away from war and wealthy tax dodging corporations and individuals towards reconstruction of the welfare state. The millions of disaffected, alienated and disengaged will probably vote for the first time in years if Corbyn makes it to the next election. He probably won’t when the oligarchy funded campaign gets into high gear. They own 80% of the printed media business, 90% of internet service providers and 100% of Tories – you don’t think he has much of a chance do you?

The hugely destructive nature of neoliberal aggression in the UK is camouflaged by what some would call democracy. This democracy is centred around a flawed and corrupt voting system and three quarters of the electorate now know it. The current incumbents in Downing Street knew this, offered an alternative to get there then withdrew it. Of course.

The electoral process under our current system is effectively “rigged“. It is an outdated and corrupt electoral system. Why do you think Britain is the only country in Europe that has such a system?

If there had been a fairer, proportional voting system, we would have never had the stand-alone, single-party governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major and, never had “New” Labour and the disposing of socialism under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. We also wouldn’t have David Cameron, no longer a prime minister but more a public relations executive for corporate interests, or Jeremy Corbyn, a cry for help from the masses.

We would have had governments unable to attack Iraq and cause a million civilian deaths, or be heavily involved in the bombing of nations across the middle east now causing a tidal wave of traumatised war torn refugees to descend upon our shores.

We would not have had Thatchers ‘right-to-buy’ that saw an unprecedented 4.1 million council homes sold off, 40% of which ended up in the hands of private landlords raking in ever higher revenues in what is now a rentier society of have’s and have-nots, now defined simplistically as a ‘housing crisis’.

We would not have had the repealing of strong financial safeguards that protected us against rapacious and mindless out of control testosterone driven morons that bankrupted entire nations – ours included.

We might have experienced a thriving democracy with an electorate fully engaged. Now we just have one desperate social crisis after another. Increasing poverty and homelessness, an expanding housing crisis, more ill health, increased suicide – the list of profit taking through austerity and privatisation goes on.

We might have had a more prosperous economy with the foresight of rebuilding our shattered industrial heartlands – instead we off-shored our real wealth and power to places like China and India in the ad-hoc pursuit of profit and dividends. How very American.

As these defeated and wanting economic scams evaporate, new, even more abhorrent rackets of extortion are invented.  Now we have TTIP – a secret trade agreement under secret negotiation that will have a profound impact upon our democracy, one that won’t be so secret when international disputes turn into defective relations and end in conflict. This, a story that has not been covered by the media barons, for their own favourable reasons and warped logic – for fear of being uncovered.

As China’s economic wet dream of exploiting farmers in workhouse factories to make your shoes, (once made in Northampton) grinds to a standstill, the profits of off-shoring is crashing and with it international bourses across the world.

The destructive economic and political enterprise that attempted to construct citizen management around the edicts of the global marketplace has not just failed to mature it has comprehensively miscarried. The long assured expansion of wealth and prosperity that was to have raised the living standards of everyone through so-called “trickle-down economics” has been uncovered as nothing more than the globalised deception it really is.

As a result, we now live in times where nothing and no-one can be trusted. Not our political leaders, nor our financial or corporate leaders or religious leaders. The recent VW scandal has only amplified the global corporate lawlessness of today. All of them have abandoned the very people and principles that put them there. All of them are either raping us or raping us a different way!

What we are witnessing now is this same tightly organised oligarchy amassing unparalleled wealth as corrupt governments and officials abdicate responsibility and restore unrestricted exploitation and plundering of people and resources at the alter of profit and greed. Thatcher, Blair and Cameron have their DNA assembled around this detrimental and deadly business model.

Anti-union proposals by the Tories is merely the launch of the biggest crackdown on trade unions for 30 years. The Tories are out to fundamentally shift the balance of power towards government and employers. Under the last parliament workers suffered the longest squeeze on living standards for generations.

This is all about profit. But no-one is being allowed to share it. You don’t really think that the 40 hour working week, pensions, protective terms and conditions, maternity rights and so forth all came from the benevolence of paternalistic employers do you? No, they came from the very people who are now being attacked by ‘democracy’ and ‘capitalism’.

These moves by the government are anti-democratic, undermine a basic right to organise and show the lengths the rich and powerful will go to make ordinary people pay the price (of austerity) that was and still is largely derived by their reckless, anti-social and negligent behaviour. These are not the traits of functioning capitalism either.

In the meantime, a hydra-like evil emerges from the middle east in the guise of ISIS that invokes a terrifying fear at home that the government augments and exploits to strip citizens of privacy and rights.

We now have a panopticon surveillance system corresponding to a modern day secret police state designed to inhibit citizen activism and dissent. Citizen groups are being harassed and police tactics are emerging worthy of the East German Stazi.

Arbitrary detention and the targeting of whistleblowers, attacks on free speech and withdrawal from Human Rights are the hallmarks of an authoritarian state. There is a pernicious veil of secrecy descending upon Britain with trade deals such as TTIP where 97% of citizens are averse but governments advance. There is an egregious and unwarrented use of terror laws and sweeping attacks on democratic rights and legal norms.

The Habeas Corpus Act of 1679, was passed during the reign of the restored monarchy of Charles II after the English Civil War. Centuries old laws such as these, desecrated in an instant with no debate, such as extra-judicial assassinations undertaken by a small elite of politicians and military personnel with no legal justification to do so. This is effectively the suspension of the rule of law and does not represent democracy as we know it.

Our Prime Minister no longer feels he needs parliamentary permission to bomb other sovereign nations and seeks no legal counsel for assassinating its own citizens. Government agencies, the police and state funded organisations use terror laws for collecting unpaid fines. Corporations are given the green light to expand employee exploitation. Unprecedented state surveillance, targeting of whistleblowers, withdrawal from Human Rights protections. Rigged voting systems, enlargement of wealth inequality and a failed monetary system – where will this all lead to?

In the end, the dismantling of democracy and destruction of ordered capitalism leads to extremism one way or the other, which is exactly the direction Britain is heading.

Graham Vanbergen – TruePublica

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