Most Popular
1. Banking Crisis is Stocks Bull Market Buying Opportunity - Nadeem_Walayat
2.The Crypto Signal for the Precious Metals Market - P_Radomski_CFA
3. One Possible Outcome to a New World Order - Raymond_Matison
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
5. Apple AAPL Stock Trend and Earnings Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
6.AI, Stocks, and Gold Stocks – Connected After All - P_Radomski_CFA
7.Stock Market CHEAT SHEET - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.US Debt Ceiling Crisis Smoke and Mirrors Circus - Nadeem_Walayat
9.Silver Price May Explode - Avi_Gilburt
10.More US Banks Could Collapse -- A Lot More- EWI
Last 7 days
Stock Market Volatility (VIX) - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Investor Sentiment - 25th Mar 24
The Federal Reserve Didn't Do Anything But It Had Plenty to Say - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Breadth - 24th Mar 24
Stock Market Margin Debt Indicator - 24th Mar 24
It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - 24th Mar 24
Stocks: What to Make of All This Insider Selling- 24th Mar 24
Money Supply Continues To Fall, Economy Worsens – Investors Don’t Care - 24th Mar 24
Get an Edge in the Crypto Market with Order Flow - 24th Mar 24
US Presidential Election Cycle and Recessions - 18th Mar 24
US Recession Already Happened in 2022! - 18th Mar 24
AI can now remember everything you say - 18th Mar 24
Bitcoin Crypto Mania 2024 - MicroStrategy MSTR Blow off Top! - 14th Mar 24
Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - 11th Mar 24
Gold and the Long-Term Inflation Cycle - 11th Mar 24
Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - 11th Mar 24
Two Reasons The Fed Manipulates Interest Rates - 11th Mar 24
US Dollar Trend 2024 - 9th Mar 2024
The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - 9th Mar 2024
Investors Don’t Believe the Gold Rally, Still Prefer General Stocks - 9th Mar 2024
Paper Gold Vs. Real Gold: It's Important to Know the Difference - 9th Mar 2024
Stocks: What This "Record Extreme" Indicator May Be Signaling - 9th Mar 2024
My 3 Favorite Trade Setups - Elliott Wave Course - 9th Mar 2024
Bitcoin Crypto Bubble Mania! - 4th Mar 2024
US Interest Rates - When WIll the Fed Pivot - 1st Mar 2024
S&P Stock Market Real Earnings Yield - 29th Feb 2024
US Unemployment is a Fake Statistic - 29th Feb 2024
U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - 29th Feb 2024
What a Breakdown in Silver Mining Stocks! What an Opportunity! - 29th Feb 2024
Why AI will Soon become SA - Synthetic Intelligence - The Machine Learning Megatrend - 29th Feb 2024
Keep Calm and Carry on Buying Quantum AI Tech Stocks - 19th Feb 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

The Depth of Corruption of Theft of Public Money by Members of Parliament

Politics / US Politics May 28, 2009 - 12:32 PM GMT

By: LewRockwell

Politics

Best Financial Markets Analysis ArticleJohn Pilger writes: The theft of public money by Members of Parliament, including government ministers, has given Britons a rare glimpse inside the tent of power and privilege. It is rare because not one political reporter or commentator, those who fill tombstones of column inches and dominate broadcast journalism, revealed a shred of this scandal. It was left to a public relations man to sell the "leak." Why?


The answer lies in a deeper corruption which tales of tax evasion and phantom mortgages touch upon but also conceal. Since Margaret Thatcher, British parliamentary democracy has been progressively destroyed as the two main parties have converged into a single-ideology business state, each with almost identical social, economic and foreign policies. This "project" was completed by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, inspired by the political monoculture of the United States. That Labour and Tory politicians are now revealed as personally crooked is no more than a metaphor for the antidemocratic system they have forged together.

Their accomplices have been Westminster "lobby" (parliamentary) journalists and their editors who have "played the game," wilfully, and deluded the public (and sometimes themselves) that vital, democratic differences exist between the parties. Media-designed opinion polls based on absurdly small samplings, along with a tsunami of comment on political personalities and their specious crises, have reduced the "national conversation" to a series of media events, in which the withdrawal of popular consent – as the historically low electoral turnouts under Blair demonstrated – has been abused as apathy.

Having fixed the boundaries of political debate and possibility and vocabulary, self-important paladins, especially liberals, promoted the naked emperor Blair as "mystical" and championed his "values" that would allow "the mind [to] range in search of a better Britain." And when the bloodstains showed, they ran for cover. It has all been, as Larry David once described an erstwhile crony, "a babbling brook of bullshit."

How contrite their former heroes now seem. On 17 May, the leader of the House of Commons, Harriet Harman, who is alleged to have spent £10,000 of taxpayers’ money on "media training," called on MPs to "rebuild cross party trust." The unintended irony of her words recalls one of her first acts as Blair’s Social Security Secretary more than a decade ago – cutting the benefits of single mothers. This was spun and reported as if there was a "revolt" among Labour backbenchers, which was false. None of Blair’s new female MPs, who had been elected "to end male-dominated, Conservatives policies," spoke up against this attack on the poorest of poor women. All voted for it.

The same was true of the lawless attack on Iraq in 2003, behind which the cross-party establishment and the political media rallied. The famous BBC man Andrew Marr stood in Downing Street and excitedly told his viewers that Blair "said they would be able to take Baghdad without a bloodbath, and in the end the Iraqis would be celebrating. And on both those points he has been proved conclusively right." When Blair’s army finally retreated from Basra last month, they left behind, according to scholarly estimate, more than a million people dead, a majority of stricken, sick children, a contaminated water supply, a crippled energy grid and four million refugees. As for the "celebrating" Iraqis, the vast majority, say Whitehall’s own surveys, want the invader out. And when Blair finally departed the House of Commons, MPs gave him a standing ovation – they who had refused to hold a vote on his criminal invasion or even to set up an inquiry into its lies, which almost three-quarters of the British population wanted.

Such corruption goes beyond avarice.

Normalizing the unthinkable, Edward Herman’s memorable phrase from his essay, The Banality of Evil, about the division of labour in state crime, is applicable here. On 18 May, the Guardian devoted the top of one page to a report headlined, "Blair awarded $1 million prize for international relations work." Announced in Israel soon after the Gaza massacre, the prize was for Blair’s "cultural and social impact on the world." You looked in vain for evidence of a spoof or some recognition of the truth. Instead, there was his "optimism about the chance of bringing peace …" and his work "designed to forge peace."

This was the same Blair who committed the same crime – deliberately planning and invading a country, "the supreme international crime" – for which Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Nazi foreign minister, was hanged at Nuremberg, after proof of his guilt was located in German cabinet documents. Last February, Britain’s "Justice" Minister Jack Straw blocked publication of crucial cabinet minutes in March 2003 about the planning of the invasion of Iraq, even though the Information Commissioner Richard Thomas has ordered their release. For Blair, the unthinkable is both normalized and celebrated.

"How our corrupt MPs are playing into the hands of extremists," said the cover of last week’s New Statesman. But is not their support for the epic crime in Iraq already extremism? And for the murderous imperial adventure in Afghanistan? And for the government’s collusion with torture?

It is as if our public language is now Orwellian. Using totalitarian laws approved by a majority of MPs, the police have set up secretive units to combat democratic dissent they call "extremism." Their effective partners are "security" journalists, a recent breed of state or "lobby" propagandist. On 9 April, the BBC’s Newsnight program promoted the guilt of twelve "terrorists" arrested in a contrived media drama orchestrated by the prime minister himself. All were subsequently released without charge.

Something is changing in Britain. The British people have never been more political aware and prepared to clear out decrepit myths and other rubbish while angrily stepping over the babbling brook of bulls**t.

John Pilger was born and educated in Sydney, Australia. He has been a war correspondent, filmmaker and playwright. Based in London, he has written from many countries and has twice won British journalism's highest award, that of "Journalist of the Year," for his work in Vietnam and Cambodia. His new book, Tell Me No Lies: Investigative Journalism and Its Triumphs, will be published by Jonathan Cape in June.

Copyright © John Pilger 2009

    http://www.lewrockwell.com

    © 2009 Copyright LewRockwell.com - All Rights Reserved
    Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors.


© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Comments

Anon
28 May 09, 16:36
MP's

It is quite stunning to hear these MPs on TV basically claiming 'the system is at fault, it allowed us to rob from you'. Will they be prosecuted, will they bollocks.

Rise up British people, show us you are a thinking nation.

But we all know it will just be replaced by a different set of criminals.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in