Western Democracy : an Endangered Species

In February 2013, before Pakistan's national elections held later that year in May, I wrote a blog about democracy in Pakistan, the USA and the UK. You can read it here . That blog jolted some of my readers but not sufficiently to shake their faith in USA's corrupt democracy. 

Dr Paul Craig Roberts has written an article on Western Democracy, which he says is an endangered species on its way to extinction. The article was published yesterday at his website, paulcraigroberts.org. The full article is reproduced below.

Western Democracy Is An Endangered Species On Its Way To Extinction — Paul Craig Roberts

The British Labour Party no longer represents the working class. Under UK prime minister Tony Blair, the Labour Party became a vassal of the One Percent. The result has been a rebellion in the ranks and the rise of Jeremy Corbyn, a principled Labourite intent on representing the people, a no-no in Western “democracies.” 

Corbyn is too real for the Labour Party Blairites, who hope to be rewarded with similar nest eggs as Blair for representing the capitalist One Percent. So what is the corrupted Labour Party doing to prevent Corbyn’s election?

The answer is that it is denying the vote to Corbyn supporters. You can read the story here:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/britains-labour-party-purge-is-underway-preventing-supporters-from-voting-for-jeremy-corbyn/5471194

The illegal Egyptian military dictatorship that overthrew on Washington’s orders the first democratically elected government in Egyptian history has issued an edict prohibiting journalists from contradicting the military dictatorship. In brief, the dictatorship installed by Washington has outlawed facts.

Washington rejected the government that the Egyptian people elected, because it appeared that the democratically elected government would have a foreign policy that was at least partially independent of Washington’s. Remember, according to the neocons who, together with Israel, control US foreign policy, countries with independent foreign policies, such as Iran, Russia, and China, are America’s “greatest threats.” 

The Egyptian military thugs, following Washington’s orders, have more or less eliminated all of the leadership of the political party that was democratically elected. The party was called the Muslim Brotherhood. In the presstitute Western media, the political party was described more or less as al Qaeda, and how are the ignorant, brainwashed, and propagandized Americans to know any difference? Certainly neither “their” government nor the presstitute media will ever tell them.

With the military dictatorship’s edict, independent news reporting no longer exists in Egypt. Washington is pleased and rewards the dictatorship with bags full of money paid by the hapless and helpless American taxpayers. 

Americans should keep in mind that most of the dollars that they pay in income tax are spent either spying upon themselves and the world or killing people in many countries. Without resources taken from American taxpayers millions of women, children, and village elders would still be alive in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, Ukraine, South Ossetia, and other countries. America is the greatest exporter of violence the world has ever known. So wear your patriotism on your sleeve and be proud. You are a depraved citizen of the world’s worst killer nation. Compared to the USA, Rome was a piker. 

France herself seems to be collapsing as a democracy and no longer respects her own laws. According to this report from Kumaran Ira on World Socialist Website https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/08/19/fkil-a19.html ,
“In the name of the “war on terror,” the French state is dramatically accelerating its use of clandestine operations to extra-judicially murder targeted individuals. French President François Hollande reportedly possesses a “kill list” of potential targets and constantly reviews the assassination program with high-ranking military and intelligence officers.

“This program of state murder, violating basic constitutional rights in a country where the death penalty is illegal, underscores the profound decay of French bourgeois democracy. Amid escalating imperialist wars in France’s former colonial empire and deepening political crisis at home, the state is moving towards levels of criminality associated with the war against Algerian independence and the Vichy regime of Occupied France.”

Where do you suppose the socialist president of France got his idea of an illegal and unconstitutional “kill list”? If you answer from “America’s First Black President,” you are correct. 

The French people should be outraged that “their” president is nothing more than a murderer and an agent of Washington. But they aren’t. False flag operations have made them fearful. The French like other Western peoples, have ceased to think.

Every western democracy is gone with the wind. Washed up, Finished. Every value that defined Western civilization and made it great has been flushed by power and greed and arrogance. 

Proconsuls have replaced democracy. 

I certainly do not believe that Western civilization was ever pure as snow and devoid of sins and crimes against humanity. But it is a fact that in Western civilization, despite the numerous injustices, reforms were possible that improved life for the lower classes. Reforms were possible that restricted the rapaciousness of the rich and powerful. In the US reforms made the impossible come true: ladders of upward mobility made it possible for members of the lowest economic class to become multimillionaires. And this actually happened.

The governments in Washington committed many crimes, but on occasion Washington prevented crimes. Remember President Eisenhower’s ultimatum to Washington’s British, French, and Israeli allies to remove themselves from the Suez Canal in Egypt or else.

Today Washington pushes its allies to commit crimes against humanity. That is what NATO and the National Endowment for Democracy are for. 

In my lifetime Americans have always had a good opinion of themselves. But in the 21st century this good opinion has hyper-jumped into hubris and arrogance. If you haven’t been around very long in terms of a human life, you don’t see this. But older people do. 

Just as the Roman Empire ended in the destruction of the Roman people, the American Empire will end in the destruction of the American people. Judging from histories, Roman citizens were superior to American citizens; yet, Rome failed. 

Americans shouldn’t expect any other outcome. The price to be paid for insouciance, self-satisfaction, and complicity is high.

Added 27 September 2015: Below is a follow-up by Paul Craig Roberts, published at his website on 22 September 2015. The link to this article is: Democracy Has Departed The West

Democracy Has Departed The West — Paul Craig Roberts

September 22, 2015 | Categories: Articles & Columns | Tags: |  Print This Article

Before the West spreads democracy abroad maybe it could get some for itself. The US is an oligarchy in which government is answerable to six powerful private interest groups. In Europe governments are answerable to the EU, Washington, and private bankers and not to their peoples. In the UK the military brass has declared its hold on the reins of power. 

Jeremy Corbyn is the first Labourite to lead the Labour Party in a long time. Considering the stupidity and immorality of the Tories, Corbyn could become prime minister of Britain. Should this occur, Corbyn would shift the budget priorities away from supporting Washington’s wars toward refurbishing the social welfare state that made life for ordinary Britishers more secure and less stressful.

A senior serving general of the British army said that the army would not allow the people to “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.”

In other words, a democratic outcome unacceptable to the English military will be overthrown. Just like in Egypt. 

Here we have the incongruity of Washington and London bringing democracy to others through what Vladimir Putin calls “airstrike democracy,” while tolerating a democracy deficit themselves. The safest conclusion is that democracy is a cloak for an aggressive agenda, not a value in itself to the US and UK elites, who rule and who intend to continue to rule these countries for their personal benefit.

Jonathan Cook reports that the use of “whatever means possible, fair or foul,” against Labour prime ministers who actually stood for the people rather than for the elites is not unique to Corbyn.
Labour Prime Minister Harald Wilson faced similar pressure and resigned. http://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2015-09-20/army-plots-against-british-pms-are-not-new/ 

As far as I can tell, not only has democracy departed the Western world, but also compassion, empathy for others, morality, integrity, respect for truth, justice, faithfulness, and self-respect. Western civilization has become a hollow shell. There is nothing left but greed and coercion and the threat of coercion. When I read—hopefully incorrect reports—that Russia’s President Putin desires to be a partner of the West, I wonder why such a powerful country, which has emerged into light out of darkness, wants to be Satan’s partner. I assume that the reports are untrue or that Putin is acting in the interest of humankind to defuse the dangerous situation created by Washington and its NATO sock puppets.

Russia should not forget the courageous speech that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez gave to the UN on September 20, 2006. Standing at the podium, Chavez said that on the previous day George W. Bush stood here, “Satan himself, speaking as if he owned the world. You can still smell the sulfur.” The purpose of America, Chavez said, is “to preserve the pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world.”

Chavez’s words were too much truth for US politicians. Nancy Pelosi, the multimillionaire Speaker of the US House of Representatives, said that such a speech was to be expected from an “everyday thug.” 

Elsewhere the response was different. Rafael Correa, currently President of Ecuador, said that Chavez had insulted Satan, because although Satan is evil like Washington, he is al least intelligent, and Washington is completely stupid.

The Western World is on its last legs. Unemployment is horrendous for European and American youth—primarily for the educated. Young American women, driven by student debt, advertise on Internet sites for “sugar daddies” to whom they will supply sex for financial support. The easy answer—“education is the solution”— is a lie. Ph.Ds cannot get jobs, because university budgets are cut in order to save money for wars and bank bailouts and 75% of the remaining budget is used by administrations to pay themselves large salaries and perks. NYU, for example, provides its higher administrative personnel with expensive summer homes. University presidents in America have multimillion dollar incomes, while the students drown in debt.

The Wall Street Mentality—unlimited Greed—has taken over American life, and this greed has been exported to Europe, which had achieved a sharing relationship between labor and capital. Today Europe, like the US, is an opportunity wasteland for the young. Greece has been sacrificed for the private bankers, and Italy, Spain, and Portugal are waiting in the wings. In the place of independent European countries, a fascist centralized authority is rising.

As millions of refugees from Washington and its NATO enablers’ wars seek refuge in Europe,
budgets for social welfare are further pressed.

In recent years we have witnessed that private bankers acting through the EU were able to appoint the governments of the allegedly democratic governments of Greece and Italy. 

In the Western World the aristocracy of wealth is being re-established. If Russia and China join this “partnership,” then billions of peoples will be ruled by a handful of mega-rich elites.

The world is on the knife edge. The West is lost. Russia and China could go down with the West, because both Russia and China suffered tyranny and look to the West for the paths to freedom and liberty. But Western paths lead to “domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world.” 

Will Russia and China participate in the pillage, or will they resist it, standing firm for humanity?

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts' latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West and How America Was Lost.

The Horrors of the Old Testament

It is hardly possible nowadays to surf the internet without bumping into brainwashed, ignorant people who try to humiliate Muslims by attacking Islam and the greatest man who ever walked on earth, Muhammad, the Messenger of God. Quite recently, I came across a lady twittering the praises of Christianity and belittling Islam. It was obvious that she knew little about Islam and her knowledge of Christian scriptures was limited. This blog is a riposte to such complacent people unaware of their own scriptures.

My stock response to such ignorant attacks is to provide links to three of my most popular blogs about Quran/Islam, which I did:

Translations of the Quran

Islam: back to basics

Islam: the Reality beyond time and space

The versions of the Bible that the various Christian sects follow differ widely. Generally, the version that the Protestant Christians in western Europe and North America follow is made up of two parts: The Old Testament (OT), which has 39 books, and The New Testament (NT) which has 27 books. The OT is also broadly accepted by the Jews as a part of their holy scriptures while the NT, being a collection of writings attributed to Christ's disciples and other followers, is not. 
I have set out numerous extracts from the OT below. Christians and Jews may be offended and they may see this as an attack on their religion. It is nothing of the sort. I have made similar comments about what passes for "Hadith" in Islam. My view is that God has given us a mind and power of thought, which the Quran tells us we must apply to all things. Blind belief is an insult to human intelligence.

Extracts from the Old Testament (King James version - 39 books)

Book 1 Genesis

While the Quran refers to all Messengers as exalted men of impeccable character, they come across as licentious men in the OT.

"[Lot said to his people] Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes." Gang rape is OK?

For a crude description of Lot's incest with his daughters, refer to the original. This blog is not the right place.

Abraham openly committed incest with his half-sister: "And yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife."

Jacob married two sisters. He also committed incest with his daughter-in-law. He wrestled with God most of the night:

"And he [God] said, let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me."

Jacob's son followed his father's footsteps when it came to licentiousness:

"...., that Reuben went and lay with Bilah his father's concubine: "

God slew Onan, not for incest with his brother's wife but for spilling his seed outside her!

"And Onan ..., when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother."

And the thing which he did displeased the LORD: wherefore he slew him also.

Book 2 Exodus

ARAM married his aunt (father's sister) ... "and she bare him Aaron and Moses"!

"... whosoever doth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death." Death penalty for working on "wrong" day!

Book 3 Leviticus 

"And the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death"

If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death." Death penalty for homosexuality, no gay rights!

For good measure, OT goes on to mention bestiality, resulting in the deaths of man, woman and beasts!

"And the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the whore, she profaneth her father: she shall be burnt with fire."

Death for apostasy: "Bring forth him that hath cursed [the Lord] without the camp; ... and let all the congregation stone him"

If the Lord became furious with people's disobedience: "And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat."

The Quran, by contrast, does not invoke the death penalty for any of these acts and Allah does not turn people into cannibals. The punishments of the OT are thought to have been introduced among the Muslims by Jews and Christians through the deceitful practice of infiltrating "Hadith" stories with false ones which mimic Biblical savagery.

Book 4 Numbers

Death by stoning if you work on the sabbath: "And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day. And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the Lord commanded Moses."

Was Moses as bad as Pharaoh? Or worse?

"And they warred against the Midianites, ... and they slew all the males. And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones,...

And they burnt all their cities .....

And Moses said unto them, have ye saved all the women alive?

Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.

But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves."

All this filth comes from just the first four books of the OT, which has 39 books altogether. These and other sickening topics are repeated again and again in books 5 to 39 in stark pornographic detail. For example, book 5 Deuteronomy, describes in lurid detail what happens to a bride who cannot provide bloodied tokens of her virginity the following morning: 

"Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die"

David and his sons come across as lechers, insane with blood lust. And "God" can only be described as a figure of fun, a vengeful, jealous voyeur.

The deluge of filth continues in later books of the OT

OT 10 The Book of Samuel 2 describes in sordid detail how David tortured and killed his enemies. He also hated disabled people: "And David said on that day, ..and the lame and the blind that are hated of David's soul, .."

"And David took him more concubines and wives out of Jerusalem."

Then there was Bathsheba, married to Uriah, who David first saw from the roof of the king's house as she washed herself, and was smitten by her beauty. "And David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in unto him, and he lay with her". Then, when she became pregnant with David's child Soloman, David sent her husband to "the forefront of the hottest battle, ...that he may be smitten and die". And that is exactly what happened, and left David free to marry Bathsheba!

"Thus saith the LORD, Behold, ...and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbour, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun"! What kind of beast is this "God"?

Amnon, son of David, distinguished himself by raping his own sister (refer to the original for sordid details). Another son of David, Absalom, committed incest with his father's women: ".. and Absalom went in unto his father's concubines in the sight of all Israel.

OT 11 The Book of Kings 1

Solomon was even more extreme - if you can imagine that - than his extremist father!

"But king Solomon loved many strange women ...... And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines". Wow!

OT 12 The Book of Kings 2 borders on insanity. A chariot of fire, and horses of fire, appeared and Prophet Elijah "went up by a whirlwind into heaven"! But the dead Elijah's spirit descended upon Elisha. Little children who mocked this "bald head" were cursed by him in the name of the LORD whereupon "there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children". Then Elisha brought back to life one dead child!

"Elisha prayed unto the LORD ..., smite this people, I pray thee, with blindness. And he smote them with blindness according to the word of Elisha."

"... This woman said unto me, Give thy son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow. So we boiled my son, and did eat him"!

"But Rabshakeh said unto them, hath he not sent me to the men which sit on the wall, that they may eat their own dung and drink their own piss with you?"

Does any of this sound remotely "holy"?

Inexplicably, both Solomon and David are referred to as sons of God. 

OT 13 The Book of Chronicles 1: "... Solomon thy son, he shall build my house and my courts; for I have chosen him to be my son, and I will be his father."

In OT 19 The Book of Psalms, God begets David:

".. Thou art my son; this day have I begotten thee."

Then there is OT 22 Song of Songs. The song is attributed to Solomon and describes the pleasures of unrestrained lust. Embarrassed Christians have unsuccessfully tried to have this "abomination" expunged from the Bible.

Over the remaining 17 OT books it gets worse. For example, in OT 24 The Book of Jeremiah, we have descriptions of people burning their own children alive and God-created cannibalism: "And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters." In later books the recurring themes of adultery, incest, massacres, whoredom, cannibalism continue to be mentioned in lurid, obscene terms. In addition, there are strange references to "God" practising deception, referring to some women as his, who "bare sons and daughters". Then "God" is crushed and devoured by Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, and acts like the worst sort of human tyrant by going into uncontrollable rage and committing evil deeds on people (sending famine, evil beasts, etc). Would any sane person want to worship the "God" as described in the OT?

How the evil in the OT has affected those who treat it as "holy"

A year ago the Jews of Israel mercilessly massacred over 500 children in Gaza and devastated the land and infrastructure. Altogether, over 2,200 men, women and children died, and hundreds of thousands are still homeless. Perhaps we should not be surprised. People who believe in a book like the OT are quite capable of committing such atrocities without feeling remorse at their vile actions.

What applies to Jewish believers of the Old Testament also applies to the Christian followers in western governments. Over the past decade, the number of Muslim lives that the US/NATO monster has destroyed in Iraq/Afghanistan/Syria/Libya/Pakistan exceeds 2 millions. Though a majority of population in the West professes to be agnostic or atheist, western culture is heavily influenced by Christian scriptures and traditions. 

Apart from direct assaults by their armed forces, the US/Nato/Israel monolith has spawned a number of terrorist outfits - ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Al-Nusra, Pak Taliban, etc - to wreak mayhem in the aforementioned Muslim countries and create conditions of civil war, which then serve as an excuse to intervene and take control of the countries. If the OT continues to be regarded as sacred or holy then I see little improvement in the wanton killings and destruction by US/NATO/Israel. 

The sleep-walking Muslims

Indeed, this culture of unbridled violence has become so infectious that Muslim states of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, armed to the hilt with weapons supplied by the West, have ganged up to attack Muslim Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the world. Then there is the enigma of Turkey, a Muslim country that is also a NATO member, which is being cleverly used by its fellow NATO members to serve their interests by attacking Muslims who do not conform to Turkey's majority sunni sects.

Muslims are being cleverly manipulated to commit suicide through sectarian warfare. Syria, Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan are utterly destroyed. Only Pakistan has been saved from that ignoble fate by the cohesion of its powerful armed forces.

The US/NATO governments, and their servile media, invariably use the term "terrorism" as euphemism for violent acts committed by Muslims, who are then described as "terrorists". No matter how many people are killed by a Jew or a Christian, the terms "terrorism" or "terrorist" are never applied. By means of such disgraceful psychological techniques a majority of people in the West has come to see Islam/Muslims as the arch enemies, much as the communist countries behind the "Iron Curtain" were once.

When will the Muslims wake up from their slumbers and recognise the depth of degradation to which they have sunk?

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The British General Election, 7 May 2015 : A Post-mortem

During the days leading up to Thursday, 7 May, the mainstream media bombarded the poor electorate with stark warnings of a hung Parliament and a minority government, either Tory or New Labour (Old Labour having died a painful death when the unspeakable Tony Blair made his pact with the media moguls and Big Business way back before his 1997 landslide victory). Increasingly, the hapless Ed Miliband, not accepted as genuine New Labour by BigBiz and media moguls, was emerging as a figure of fun in the media which was kinder towards Cameron. During those days Cameron's habitual poker faced expression metamorphosed into a passionate Churchillian one as he delivered speeches with arms flailing and his body language on fire. What exactly was going on, I wondered?

Having cast my vote for the Green candidate earlier in the day, I decided to take a pre-midnight nap. Shortly after the stroke of twelve I switched on the television. I stared aghast as the BBC exit poll shown on the TV screen predicted a comfortable victory for the Tories. I soon learnt that many people did not believe it. A former LibDem leader, Paddy Ashdown, declared the exit poll to be nonsensical and promised to eat his hat in public if he was proved wrong. By 3 o'clock in the early hours it was obvious that the swing to the Conservatives was too sharp and LibDems were being slaughtered, in Scotland by Nicola Sturgeon's Scottish Nationalists and in England by the Conservatives. I had had enough and I decided to go back to bed. I do not know if Paddy Ashdown publicly ate his hat as he had promised to do!

With hindsight I can see with more clarity what had happened. Thanks to Blairite manoeuvrings, the differences between the Conservatives and New Labour had largely disappeared. The position in the UK had become similar to that of the USA, where the two major political parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, both enjoy the financial support of Wall Street and giant multinationals. With the departure of Blair there was an Old Labour backlash in the Labour Party which cast doubts on Ed Miliband's loyalty to the City of London and Big Business. The mainstream media, mostly owned by the super-rich/large conglomerates, and the perfidious BBC, began a process of disparagement against Labour. The spectre of a coalition government between Labour and Scottish Nationalists, who were presented as being interested only in Scottish independence with scant regard for the rest of the Union, was kept constantly before the English electorate. Brainwashed by this constant bombardment, the voters went out and cast their vote for the Conservative Party.

It is obvious that unless the Labour Party sells its soul to the devil Blair-like it will never receive the support of mainstream media or funding from large multinationals. The dice are loaded in favour of the Tories and the game of democracy is conducted on uneven playing fields. This dishonest system is further exacerbated by the "First Past the Post" method of selecting the winning candidate in each constituency irrespective of the proportion of votes received. Thus, we have a majority Conservative government which is supported by less than a quarter of the total electorate or a little more than one-third of those who actually voted. Without a complete overhaul of the mainstream media, and the sources of funding for political parties, the elections are an exercise in dishonestly brainwashing the electorate.

David Cameron's New Government

 

Mr Austerity

Sadly, there is little new about the new government. Cameron lost no time following his victory to re-confirm his closest cronies in their old posts. "The Witch" returns to the Home Office, "Mr Austerity" marches back as the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Israeli stooge Philip Hammond stays at the Foreign Office. So what is on the horizon?

* Expect stricter surveillance by the State as the "Snoopers' Charter" becomes law, and citizens' rights are watered down

* The sufferings of ordinary people will increase as the discredited austerity bites deeper and re-distributes wealth to the financial elite

* The US/NATO/Israeli adventurism abroad will continue to lay waste foreign countries and decimate their populations

The irony is that the electorate has willingly voted for this hellish scenario because it cannot escape from the conditioning, the brainwashing that hired journalists working for the media conglomerates constantly subject it to. Unless we grasp this basic truth and try to free our minds and our lives from such mental and spiritual oppression by discarding mainstream media in favour of independent/alternative media we shall remain entrapped in a fascist state.


LATER ADDITION (13 May 2015)

I published my post-mortem on the British General Election on 10 May. The following day Global Research published "UK Election Aftermath" which sets out in stark detail what to expect from the new government over the next 5 years. The full article is re-produced below.

UK Election Aftermath: Cameron to Continue Waging War on Working People

By Colin Todhunter

Global Research, May 11, 2015

Region: Europe

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Today in the UK, people are waking up to their first week of a five-year rule under a Conservative majority government. It’s been the first time the Tories have managed to form such a government since 1992. Only 37 percent of those who bothered to vote actually voted Conservative. In fact, the current administration is in government with 24 percent of support from all those who were eligible to vote.

Under the UK’s ‘first past the post system’, the Scottish Nationalist party gained 56 seats with 4.8 percent of votes cast. The Greens gained one seat with a share of 3.8 percent. Under a system of proportional representation, the Greens would now have 25 seats in the new parliament. With the current system, a party could theoretically gain the most number of seats nationally but fail to gain a single seat. This is the nature of the ‘democratic’ voting system in the UK.

What the UK now has in store is five years of an ideologically driven administration that will push through its welfare-cutting, pro-privatisation policies wrapped up in talk of a need for austerity and presided over by a millionaire-dominated cabinet which represents the interests of the richest echelons of global capital.

Out of those who voted Tory, a good deal comprised people of relatively modest means: people who will have been led to believe that ordinary people’s interests equate with the ‘national interest’ as defined by Tory politicians. These are people who for some strange reason believe that more privatisation, more deregulation, more austerity, more inequality, more concentration of wealth and more attacks on the public sector will be good for them as individuals and good for the economy.

The acceptance of this ideology is not just down to Tory methods of persuasion but is also due to its perpetuation by the corporate mainstream media and the other main political parties, which have fully embraced neoliberalism. However, many people feel that the Tories can be best trusted to see through such things, unlike Labour (Tory-lite) or the Liberal Democrats who might mismanage, waver or may not be quite as committed to the neoliberal cause. As a party by the rich, for the rich of and of the rich, they may have a point.

What we can now expect to see is the attempted completion of a project that had begun under Thatcher in the eighties: the complete subservience of ordinary working people to the needs of powerful corporations, the tax-evading corporate dole-scrounging super rich and the neoliberal agenda they have imposed on people. And key to securing this is the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

The European Commission tries to sell TTIP by claiming that the agreement will increase GDP by one percent and will entail massive job creation. These claims are not supported even by its own studies, which predict a growth rate of just 0.01 percent GDP over the next ten years and the potential loss of jobs in several sectors. Corporations are lobbying EU-US trade negotiators to use the deal to weaken food safety and restrictions on GM food and agriculture as well as labour, health and environmental standards, among other things. Through certain regulatory and investor trade dispute stipulations, the outcome would entail the by passing of any existing democratic processes in order to push through the ultimate corporate power grab.

This proposed trade agreement (and others like it being negotiated across the world) is based on a firm belief in ‘the market’ (a euphemism for subsidies for the rich, cronyism, rigged markets and cartels) and the intense ideological dislike of state intervention and state provision of goods and services. The economic doctrine that underpins this belief attempts to convince people that they can prosper by having austerity imposed on them and by submitting to neo-liberalism and ‘free’ trade: a smokescreen the financial-corporate elites hide behind while continuing to enrich themselves.

Current negotiations over ‘free’ trade agreements have little to do with free trade. They are more concerned with loosening regulatory barriers and bypassing any current democratic processes that hinder their profits. These deals could allow large corporations to destroy competition, enforce privatisations and secure lucrative government procurement markets and siphon off wealth to the detriment of smaller, locally based firms and producers. We see this from TTIP, to the US-India Knowledge Agreement on Agriculture, CETA, TPP and beyond.

Cameron: handmaiden to the rich

Whether based in New York, London, Berlin or Delhi, the planet’s super rich and their corporations comprise a global elite whose members have to varying extents been incorporated into the Anglo-US system of trade and finance. For them, the ability to ‘do business’ (exploit labour – or automate – and make profits) is what matters, not national identity or the capacity to empathise with an ordinary working person that was born on the same land mass and who will lose their livelihood.

Notions of the ‘national interest’ that governments churn out are merely rhetorical devices to be used to rally the masses. And notions of being ‘against the national interest’ are used to curtail of destroy dissent, as we currently see happening with Greenpeace in India.

In order ‘to do business’, government machinery has been corrupted and bent to serve their ends. In turn, organisations that were intended to be ‘by’ and ‘for’ ordinary working people to challenge capital have been successfully infiltrated and dealt with.

The global takeover of agriculture by powerful agribusiness, the selling off and privatisation of assets built with public toil and money and secretive corporate-driven trade agreements represent a massive corporate heist of wealth and power across the world.

Whether it concerns rich oligarchs in the US or India’s billionaire business men, corporate profits and personal gain trump any notion of the ‘national interest’. 300,000 dead farmers in India who killed themselves or the ranks of the unemployed in Spain or Greece are regarded as mere ‘collateral damage’ in what is ultimately a war on working people and the environment itself.

Looting economies for personal gain is disguised as ‘free trade’. Austerity is sold as ‘growth’. Massive profits is ‘wealth creation’. Ecological degradation is ‘progress’. From Obama in the US to Cameron in the UK or Modi in India, their neoliberal agenda betrays them as handmaidens to the rich.

In Britain expect to see militarism, brutality and imperialism continuing to be sold under the banner of ‘humanitarianism’ and ‘democracy’. Expect more cronyism, an increasingly wider revolving door to facilitate the flow between private interests and government, more insidious lobbying by big business and a continued free for all in the corrupt City of London.

Some 11,334,000 voted Conservative in the UK last Thursday. The other 53 million in the country now face having deal with the outcome for the next five years.