Politics is not about how geeky Ed Milliband is, how arrogant and smarmy Osbourne and Cameron are, how obsequious Clegg or how nutty Farage is.
Politics is about rights, freedoms, justice, fairness and the law and ethos of the land.
People died so that we all have a vote.
We have a vote so that the tyrants, despots and paranoid sociopaths who seek power can no longer tyrannise us as they have done in the past and are doing in other areas of the world.
In order for democracy to work you need the free and accurate dissemination of information through the media. You need to know what the government is doing in our name. You need to have a say. You need to have an education system that teaches you to think. You have to have religion nowhere near politics. You have to think globally. You have to prevent big business, bankers and multi-nationals controlling politicians and holding the country to ransom. You have to have politicians who have ideals and vision, passion and integrity and who cannot be bought off or controlled.
The judge of how good a system is could be whether it delivers on these things. If there is too much secrecy, fanaticism, disinformation, corruption, coercion, suppression or control then the system is fascist.
Fascism is an abomination that has been responsible for genocides all over the world from 2nd World War Germany, Rwanda to Cambodia.
Fascism comes from the Right, Left or Centre. It is when a powerful leader controls a system with black and white policies, intolerance, and oppression of minorities or opposition groups for the benefit of like-minded people. They control the media, suppress any criticism and use militaristic force to put down dissent.
Woody Guthrie had a sign on his guitar saying ‘This machine kills fascism’.
You kill fascism and fanaticism through education. Fascists are ignorant, arrogant and stupid because they do not understand the stupidity and selfish callousness of their philosophy.
Capitalism fails because of greed and selfishness.
I believe in fairness and justice. I do not think that is unreasonable. I believe that a person should be rewarded a fair amount of pay for a day’s work.
I do not think everyone should be paid the same or there should be uniform standards of living though I do believe in equality.
There are some things that seem so iniquitous that they shriek at me:
Seemingly just 85 people awn assets equivalent to the poorest half of the world. That means that 85 people, who could easily fit into a single small bar, a tube train or bus, own as much of the world as three and a half billion people! That is the equivalent number of people as the whole populations of India, China, Britain, the USA, Indonesia, Germany, Russia, France and Turkey put together!
In Britain it is not quite so bad: 71% of the country is owned by 10% of the people; or put another way 90% of the people get to live off 29% of the country’s land.
What is worrying is the way these super-rich people have accumulated their trillions. Nobody can ‘earn’ that amount of money. The idea is absurd. How could anybody work hard enough or be good enough to earn a million an hour?
Most of these people earn their money by exploiting poor people, getting them to work for a pittance and creaming off the profits. They work globally in order to reduce labour costs and avoid tax. They operate tax scams and manipulate global markets to create more profit. They strip assets from other companies, destroy the environment to get resources out as cheaply as possible, and create poverty. Poverty is necessary to have a work-force to exploit. The third world is destabilised in order to maintain markets. The only criteria is how much money can be made.
There is a whole global ball-game going on at a level beyond the ordinary person’s understanding. We only get a glimpse of the chicanery that goes on behind closed doors as politicians are bought and sold, corruption and baksheesh are everyday tools, threats, war and destabilisation are weapons to be deployed, the media is controlled by the rich with their vested interests and lobby groups control the voting. The money markets are manipulated and ordinary people are pawns in the game.
What happened at Grangemouth recently sums it up. The Billionaire Jim Ratcliffe played brinkmanship with thousands of working people’s livelihoods. He threatened to close the petrochemical works Ineos and take it abroad (where he could exploit poorer people more and scam off more profit) laying off thousands of workers.
Under this callous threat of closure Jim Ratcliffe then pulled in millions of pounds from the government (of our money) and reduced the wages of the workforce, docked their pensions and worsened their working conditions.
Having screwed everyone he promptly bought a new £130 million luxury yacht with crew that reputed costs £10,000 an hour just to sit idle, and bought himself a £5 million mansion in Hampshire, well pleased with his work.
The workers went back to work longer for less and Jim headed out to cruise round the Mediterranean.
This is not jealousy. I do not envy the lifestyle of these people. I am just appalled by the unfairness and the debris of poverty, misery and destruction they leave in their wake.
My only solution, following disillusionment with alternative political systems, such as communism, which prove equally as bad, is to suggest that we move to a more global system where universal laws and systems might prevent this blackmail, create fairness and put an end to inequality and poverty.
Surely we cannot survive much longer if we are ruled by the selfish, greedy super-rich who run the world for their own gain and do not care about people or global consequences?
This system stinks! Anyone got a better one?
We are being controlled!
It is quite apparent that we are all controlled. But we are not necessarily controlled by the institutions we think control us.
Government does not control us – the government is controlled.
The media manipulates us but the media is also manipulated.
Religion controls us and religion is used by powerful forces for their own purposes.
Behind the visible game is another much more odious and evil. The real power lies with the tiny elite who buy off the politicians, lobby to prevent or permit, manipulate our thoughts, feelings and perceptions through the media and utilise the power of religion to manipulate the population.
Our world is so controlled and we are so manipulated that it bec0omes difficult to know what to believe. We are given just enough to stop us rebelling. Every freedom and rise in our living standards had to be fought for and wrested away from the megalomaniacs who run things and want it all. Every freedom has been grudgingly given on the backs of a series of martyrs. Nothing has been achieved without a battle.
The society we live in is maintained in soporific oblivion through soap operas, game shows, sport, alcohol, drugs, Pop music and films – anything to stop us from thinking. Britain has talent – Britain has porn. Britain has the X Factor. Britain hates the French, Germans and immigrants. But I don’t hate anybody. I hate the systems that have been devised to keep us in check. I hate the cultural indoctrination that enables this shoddy, unjust system to be perpetuated. It is cruel, vicious, destructive, violent and unfair.
All I want is love, peace, respect and justice for everybody. I believe in a new positive zeitgeist. Perhaps we can find it at Opher’s World?
How to build a better world
It’s easy.
When we have identified the problem we can set about solving it. That is what human minds do best.
We can deploy education and global laws to foster the good side of human nature. We can work for peace, a good standard of life, tolerance, freedom and justice without destroying the planet.
All it takes is intelligence, cooperation, love and understanding. It is easy!
Every positive thing we do helps build a better zeitgeist.
Help Opher’s World produce a better zeitgeist by thinking positively and doing positive things.
Megalomania is a disease that can be cured!
The symptoms are poverty, inequality, disease, war, overpopulation, exploitation, religion, slavery, politics and injustice as the fall-out from the race for power.
Megalomania can be cured!
Check out Opher’s World for further solutions to all the world’s problems. We can build a better zeitgeist.
There are 85 people who own the planet but we can make it better!
Am I alone in believing that is obscene?
I do not believe that it is possible for anyone to ‘earn’ that magnitude of wealth. That amount of wealth can only be accrued through the ‘exploitation’ of other fellow human beings.
That exploitation is a matter worthy of discussion but not the main thrust of my present argument; the issue I wish to pursue is what these superrich people do with these unimaginable resources. My contention is that what they do is horrendous for all of us.
Perhaps I should extend this slightly before I get started for it is not merely 85 people that I am talking about here. There is a superrich club of thousands who between them own most of the world. That is the reality. 99% of us live off the 1% they leave us. They, and their corporations, effectively control the world and run it for their own ends. That means they set up mechanisms to keep the power for themselves so that they can control what goes on and accrue more.
So how do they achieve this?
They exploit global markets.
They exploit tax loopholes.
They control the media.
They buy off politicians.
They lobby, bribe and pressure.
They threaten.
The end result is that this tiny minority of individuals run the world for their own profit without regard for the environment, ordinary people, wildlife or the future. They are a law unto themselves.
This is surely madness!
It is manifestly a recipe for disaster!
It is my contention that many in this group instigate conflict, wars, unrest and social inequality in order to create markets and maximise profits.
War, poverty, starvation, slavery, extreme hardship, deforestation, climate change, ecological destruction and pollution are the product of their lunacy.
We are controlled and indoctrinated with the view that there is nothing that can be done about war, famine and poverty. It is human nature. It will always be with us.
I do not accept that.
Human nature has two distinct sides. There is the negative selfish, greedy, vicious, cruel and destructive side that we read about so often in the news as people and animals are attacked, robbed and sadistically tortured for amusement. But then there is the altruistic side exhibited by the majority who really care about the world, individuals, other creatures and are helpful, friendly, honest and selfless.
Over the course of time, through the invention of civilisation, human society has come a long way. The world is a safer, more pleasant place despite the efforts of the negative players and all their thoughtless cruelty, greed and selfishness.
In general societies have introduced laws that restrict the worst of their activities and these laws work to a degree.
If we manage to survive long enough we will create a better world – of that I am certain. The only problem is whether we will be able to do this in time before the greedy minority succeed in destroying the planet through their insatiable desire for profit and power.
In order to prevent them we must put a stop to this incessant mantra for more. It is my contention that there is no need for further growth and expansion; there is only a need for greater fairness.
Just imagine how beautiful the world would be if there was a virus that destroyed human ego so that nobody wanted to be more important than anybody else, own more and show off?
Imagine all the world’s resources being used intelligently and benignly to solve problems universally rather than to accrue more yachts, mansions and control?
Imagine all the energy deployed by the gangs of lawyers, lobbyists, thugs and bully-boys employed by the elite to bribe, threaten, coerce, misrepresent, obfuscate and confuse, used productively to promote global progress.
We could solve inequality, poverty, war, disease, overpopulation, pollution, and all the rest of the world’s ills. They are not insoluble as some would have us believe.
All that is required is that we find a global way of controlling the tiny exploitative minority so that they cannot mindlessly run the world for their own selfish ends.
Here is a simple 10 step plan to prevent the venomous greedy from controlling us:
1. We stop voting in politicians who are mentally ill sociopathic, psychopathic, paranoid schizophrenics (we seem to make a habit of doing this – Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Thatcher, Reagan, Bush etc..)
2. We do away with institutionalised religion. It is used as an excuse by the wealthy. We do not want pie in the sky and the poor do not always have to be with us.
3. We jettison all tribal nonsense – such as hatred for other people, nations, religions and races. We ban xenophobia and begin thinking with our brains and not our glands.
4. We discard the outdated idea of countries and nations and replace it with a global government with global powers to protect people and the environment, to tie up the loopholes and put an end to multinationals exploiting us and the absurd financial gambling that creates boom and bust. With one market and one currency we immediately remove speculation and all the stupidity that goes with it.
5. We replace the stupid outmoded markets that gamble on the world’s resources for profit and create exploitation. We reward people fairly for their efforts. A new global system should not be hard to devise with one market and one currency.
6. We enforce the United Nations charter of human rights as the basis of universal law to ensure that all men, women, children and creatures are treated fairly with rights and responsibilities and respect.
7. We create a universal tax and welfare system so that all are treated fairly, have a safety net of sick pay, pensions and unemployment benefit so that none are needy.
8. We limit our global population to 3 billion – a level that is sustainable without creating environmental mayhem.
9. We have universal laws to control pollution, conservation and environmental degradation to create a world where all life can thrive and everyone has clean air, water and food without destroying the world.
10. We unify our efforts and research to accelerate scientific advances to fight disease, solve potential global destructors posed by asteroids, viruses and volcanoes and create paradise on Earth.
All of this is perfectly feasible! I told you it was easy!
The solution to immigration
England, like many developed countries, has too large a population. It also has a very high standard of living compared to most of the world.
Many people in the third world are desperate to get to England and escape the terrible conditions in their own countries. They want a job and a better life for themselves and their children. They risk their lives to get here.
We do not want them here because we have too many people, there is not the infrastructure or facilities and we are concerned that our culture is at risk.
We can put up obstacles to prevent immigration. We can legislate to keep them out. We can fight a xenophobic war against immigrants. We can become racist and fascist.
I have a better solution.
Why don’t the super-rich capitalists refrain from creating poverty in the third world, which they exploit for profit, and enable the whole world to stabilise, educate themselves, restrict their population, develop prosperity and not need to emigrate to survive?
If there wasn’t the huge differential of wealth across the globe there would not be a problem.
Capitalism creates poverty.
Until the selfish and greedy super-rich elite develop empathy and compassion, or there are international laws to restrict their predatory sociopathic tendencies, we will have poverty, war, conflict and misery.
In the midst of plenty most still go hungry…………… It cannot be right.
Opher's World 
You are so impressive, you need to be heard more, perhaps you have been. Apologies if I have gone too far. Well said.
I’m sure there are many who think I should be heard a lot less, if at all! But you are too kind. Cheers Anna
Here I am again hanging around on your site!
This page doesn’t get a lot of comments!
Perhaps it should. So let me put a spanner in the works:
From above:
4. We discard the outdated idea of countries and nations and replace it with a global government with global powers to protect people and the environment, to tie up the loopholes and put an end to multinationals exploiting us and the absurd financial gambling that creates boom and bust. With one market and one currency we immediately remove speculation and all the stupidity that goes with it.
SORRY OPHER SOUNDS LIKE A RECIPE FOR A NIGHTMARE.
THEN:
8. We limit our global population to 3 billion – a level that is sustainable without creating environmental mayhem.
WHICH METHOD OF ELIMINATING 4 BILLION WOULD YOU PREFER OPHER!
Something to be going on with.
Trevor
Hi Trevor – I’m always keen on comments. Thanks for your input.
4. We discard the outdated idea of countries and nations and replace it with a global government with global powers to protect people and the environment, to tie up the loopholes and put an end to multinationals exploiting us and the absurd financial gambling that creates boom and bust. With one market and one currency we immediately remove speculation and all the stupidity that goes with it.
SORRY OPHER SOUNDS LIKE A RECIPE FOR A NIGHTMARE.
In what way is that a scenario for a nightmare? I would agree that we would need to put in many safeguards to prevent corruption and tyranny and a strong democratic element but it doesn’t have to be a nightmare – it can be a better, fairer, more equitable world where the capitalist nightmare of expansion and ecological destruction is curbed and controlled. That is number one for me. At present the environment is being trashed and wildlife decimated.
8. We limit our global population to 3 billion – a level that is sustainable without creating environmental mayhem.
WHICH METHOD OF ELIMINATING 4 BILLION WOULD YOU PREFER OPHER!
I’m not after eliminating 4.6 billion overnight. I would be after introducing a guaranteed level of living with pensions, welfare and support along with female education and rights plus access to child care. With suitable benefits for small families and an end to the capitalist mantra for endless growth we would see the fertility rates come down (as it is in the West). It would take time but we would end up with a sustainable level of humans which I would suggest is around 3 billion which would enable the environment to recover.
The surge of global Trumpism seems absurd at many levels. I cannot wrap myself around this “white culture is endangered.” thing. America wasn’t ‘designed” to be the sole repository of white culture (whatever that really is) an America somehow had to be ran by white people for other white people. At best, how dull. Dull food, art, and thought. Gee, we need to stand up for that mediocrity and keep “them” out. Oh, no Irish, either. Fools. LOL
I’m still reeling from the election. I still can’t believe people can be that stupid and gullible to fall for either Brexit or Johnson. But I guess they are.
This tribalism stinks. Here’s to pluralistic society!
I’ll raise a couple of glasses to a pluralist society. Cheers!! I now have to look into if Brexit will foul international telecommunications, making the UK a bad place to base the Radio Project in. Oh bloody hell.
I despair. What is the radio project Jeff?
“Radio Cascadia” will be an online “radio” station honoring the music, a lot of jazz and blues, plus a lot of other stuff, bourne and bred in the States. A tribute to America’s sagging table of indigenous music. Honoring the 4 geographical legs of the table: New Orleans, Kansas City, Chicago and New York. Station motto: “You never quite know what you’ll hear on “Radio Cascadia…” There may be a massive disruption of the Internet due to Brexit. Was going to use cloud and software, UK based, it is/was the best I could find. Will go operational end of January, 2 both 020. 24/7/365, both automated and live. Fingers very crossed. Been a real investment in time and content.
That sounds amazing Jeff. You must tell me how I tune in. What about LA and SF – I do love my Acid Rock.
Well, West Coast jazz and blues were a reflection of elsewhere. As to AR, there will be some thrown in. Remember, it honors the music. Will post links when functional and there will be phone apps for “mobile listening.” Been a lot of work, but worth it to me. More work to finish it off. *whew*
Looking forward to it. When’s it start up?
Still curating music for the project, diving deep into KC swing and early jazz. Whew, I see mid to late January 2020 for start up. This was originally conceived as content for a shortwave station in Catalonia, but that fell through due to Spanish politics. Nechevo. Still, this honors the music and those that made it.
Sounds good Jeff – I’m looking forward to it!
Will pop back and let you know when it’s up.
Cheers!
Still a ways off from going operational. Now have two websites to build and make ready. ALMOST got the music completed. Take a big delivery of Charlie Parker tomorrow that should wrap the music for now. Operative phrase: for now….
Still a ways from opening Radio Cascadia. Other volunteer efforts needing attention first, then digitizing more material as it comes in. I’m not sure if Operation Cleanup will be going this weekend like last or not. Lots of broken glass sweeping and removing graphiti needs to get done and by the people that actually care about this area. And no, don’t need back pats and thank yous for being a good citizen and neighbor. Will leave needing applause to Trumpist pigs.
America is in such turmoil – and it is just as they said on BBC news just now, as General Mathis said – Trump does not even pretend to represent all of America; he only cares about his base and despises everyone else. He divides and uses division for his own ends. I do not think any other American President or British Prime Minister has ever done that. It is to the detriment of the country and its people.
Good luck with your project Jeff. I look forward to hearing it’s up and running.