To have a democracy there has to be a fair structure. All people about an agreed age should have a vote. They should have free access to all the information necessary to decide who to vote for. They should have a range of political parties to choose from. The system should be free of coercion, rigging or corruption.
Clearly this is not the case. The establishment has organised things to ensure their power and wealth is not reduced by ‘common people’ wanting a fairer share.
The establishment consists of a loose confederation of the aristocracy, politicians, big business, media, police, chosen celebrities and wealthy individuals. Politicians freely move between the worlds of media and big business to walk into incredibly lucrative deals for doing advisory work or TV and radio shows. There is a lot of money to be made cosying up to the establishment. The whole business of who gets selected, promoted or appointed is controlled by an ‘Old Boy’ network. Deals are struck, contracts allocated through secretive ‘behind the scene’ networks such as the Masons.
Without an unbiased media the population is starved of real information. Everything they receive is subject to spin. The newspapers and much of the TV news is controlled by wealthy tycoons who put their own views above the truth. Through smear, innuendo and lies they undermine parties and individuals and direct the views of large numbers of people. Their campaigns have been so powerful that they have successfully been responsible for the election of governments (the Major government, Cameron’s and Tony Blaire’s are three examples – smears on people like Kinnock and Clegg were orchestrated and effective). Presently we have seen the smearing of Ed Milliband.
In Britain we feel that at least the BBC is unbiased but unfortunately even that is not the case. During the Miner’s Strike I saw events at the Orgreave Coke Plant that was what appeared to be a deliberate, politically motivated, misrepresentation of events that seemed fashioned to discredit the miners. There appeared to be no other interpretation.
On the BBC News we were shown extensive scenes of angry picketing miners rioting and hurling bricks are the line of police in violent fury. We saw the police lines open and mounted police coming through to disperse the rioting miners.
Months later a Channel 4 programme used uncut footage taken at distance (for the purpose of long-shots) which showed that BBC representation was what appeared to be incorrect. The events had been edited to reverse events and create a different scenario to apparently deceive the public. It had to be an editorial decision.
It was a hot day. The miners were sitting in the large field. Every time a lorry came they would pour out into the road to picket it. Some lorries turned back. Some went through. At lunch-time they were sitting on the grass peacefully having lunch. The police lines opened, mounted police charged through and into the peaceful miners clubbing and trampling them. The miners tried to escape. They had seen their friends battered, bloody and trampled. They were furious. Grabbing rocks and whatever they could get their hands on they hurled themselves at the police.
Why would the BBC reverse the events to create a different impression?
How can we trust the information we receive in order to make the judgements necessary to elect a government? If the media is biased, owned by the establishment, and directly affecting the views of the electorate we do not have a democracy.
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