enlightened freedom (AusBC + lies = betrayal)

 .. the Mushroom Club ...

   .. kept in the dark ...

     .. fed on bullshit

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[updated 090712 - image added below]

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Thesis: That we the sheople have been betrayed[1], and continue to be betrayed.

Lemma[2]: That there is no such thing as a 'justified' lie[3]; that any and all lies are designed to deceive, i.e. are deployed in an attempt to disguise some negative - to our enduring disadvantage.

Aim: Justice via truth; to live in peace with honour, and similarly to let all others so live. In short:

  "Fair go, ya mug!"

What & why: Our world is not merely non-optimal; we are immersed in crimes (often murdering to thieve crimes), and that's to our distinct disadvantage. A day-to-day illustration is the oil price; last year up to $US147, then down to $US33 earlier this year and now back up to $US70 or so. There is no *valid* (i.e. free market supply & demand) reason - the actual reason is price-manipulation by, among others, feckless and destructive speculators. It means that these speculators (some of the more foolish excepted) - obviously having excess money with which to gamble, are already rich possibly beyond avarice, aka obscenely rich. Yet they clearly want ever more. That's nothing other than sheer and utterly pointless greed - to our disadvantage, since we are forced to pay the manipulated excess prices - or walk, sit in the dark and/or freeze - depending on the oil-application.

I've mentioned 'murdering to thieve crimes;' there are non-capital crimes of scarcely lesser impact on us, as 'collateral' victims. Here I refer to the resource sector, mostly mining including hydrocarbons (i.e. fuels.) In 'cost-plus' accounting, something mined would be sold for what it cost to dig up, plus a (fair!) profit. When the realised price exceeds cost-plus, the amount by which it exceeds is generally termed economic- or specifically, resource-rent, also called "super" or "un-earned" profit. This is the rule rather than the exception - and it *seriously* rips-off the sovereign resource owners, namely mostly us, we the sheople. Mechanisms for recovery of the sovereign owners' due return could be by appropriate fair royalties, or by direct resource-rent tax; both also remarked by their near-total, effective absence.

A further and worse tending worst disadvantage that could mean the reverse of enduring is the still and ever more threatening excess-CO2 caused climate-change catastrophe; no, insufficient or the outright wrong response could mean a mass-extinction event - impacting not merely our once jewel-like planet's ecosphere, but directly upon us, we the sheople. Thus, the importance of truth.

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Discussion: Q: IF betrayed, THEN how?

A: In at least these three ways;

1. Truth: Take, for example, our so-called 'democracy.' There is an implied covenant (of the people, by the people, for the people); in the Anglo/Judaic so-called 'representative' democracies, (a) voters *must* be fully and honestly informed, (b) there should be a fair selection of candidates (very difficult to nigh on impossible), leading to (c) representatives who *must* honestly represent the electorate. Note on the last: any so-called 'bipartisan' action is suspect; one which neglects a majority option (think: NO WAR!) is deeply undemocratic. Note then further, that 'under' both Howard & Rudd, 'our boys' are sent off to invade Afghanistan, Iraq, almost Pakistan and projected Iran. Returning to (a) and logically seen, a single lie pushed at the public is sufficient to destroy 'truth in politics;' when it's an avalanche of lies, we the sheople have no hope of any rational choice.

2. Justice:

Eight hours to work,
Eight hours to play,
Eight hours to sleep,
 - Eight bob a day!

No one can equitably maintain that "life was meant to be easy," nor that there's any such thing as a "free lunch." If we consider the field of human endeavour, we can do a few 'binary splits;' (a) into necessities (wardah, say) vs. luxuries (iPods) and (b) into capital vs. workers, as being here of interest. Amongst workers there're managers, artisans, slaves and bludgers - and public servants, say - the list is long and varied.

This section is to do with justice, what justice is *NOT* is inequitable prices, distributions and/or salary/wages; (a) when capital takes an unfair 'share' vs. what the workers get, (b) when some 'managers' or other predators tickle the till to the tune of squillions - when both (a) & (b) are happening to extremes - as we see that they are (especially notable at the moment in banks), then we know there's a problem. It would not be unrealistic for necessities to be provided *at cost*, and luxuries to be loaded with a rationing mechanism; what we need is fair pricing vs. what we've got, namely rip-offs right up to whatever the market will bear.

The excuse we get is "Well, profit drives entrepreneurialism;" (fairly obviously quite some truth to it), but it's also pointed out that most business 'sharks' do it mainly for the thrill; they'd hardly notice if a fair and progressive tax took most of it away.

What we *must* move to is sustainability.

3. Humanity: Reagan made it easy to sneer at any less fortunate; it's become a minor industry to identify victims & accentuate the sneering. In Aus, we've always had targets; council workers leaning on their proverbial shovels, dole-bludgers & single mothers etc.. It's part of the confected buy-off; instead of egalitarianism, we've been pushed into fake exceptionalism. It's actually a hate-crime; those who despise the less fortunate reduce themselves, and the less fortunate are driven deeper into despair. This discrimination comes as part-and-parcel with neoliberalism, as does the privatisation of necessary utilities & medicine for profit. Both these and other neoliberal mechanisms act to increase prices or decrease services or both, those on or below the poverty line must, perforce, miss out on something; think soup-kitchens, think homeless, think avoidable illnesses - or possible premature death. How humane is that?

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Proof: "We hold these truths to be self-evident" should suffice, but we are considering our involuntary membership in the Mushroom Club ...

The 'best' (actually, of course, the absolute worst) example, is that of so-called 'modern' Israel. It is a should never have been allowed, monstrously unjust crime against the erstwhile legal owners and occupiers of Palestine. It doesn't take a genius to see that driving people out of their own houses, off their own land, at the point of a gun or worse, mass-slaughtering the poor, hapless Palestinians was a massive, genocidal crime of murder and theft. That it happened, and continues down to this very day, 61+ bloody years with no end of Palestinian suffering anywhere in sight, is a massive indictment of all those who did it, all those who support it, or all those who 'merely' fail to try everything to stop it.

The only reason that this massive crime continues is that it is continuously camouflaged - by our so-called leaders on the one hand (and recall bipartisan = deeply undemocratic), but more importantly on the other, the (quite obviously corrupt & venal) MSM - including big bits of the AusBC.

(I have listed often and elsewhere (one could try "wash your mouth out, Aunty!" as an example) - some 'objections' against AusBC reporting, one either 'believes' that the AusBC is an 'honest broker' - or not. IF the AusBC were to unfairly favour one party over another OR generally obfuscate OR report obvious untruths THEN certainly not. So Q: How do you plead, Aunty? A: ...)

Basically, all else is commentary. The exceptionalism of the Zionists ("Some g*d promised it to us!") together with the exceptionalism of the US ("Truth, justice and the American way!") - are all pure bullshit; the proof is what we see, namely murder for land and water in Palestine, murder for oil in Iraq, murder for pipelines - or 'just' for the US Empire in Afghanistan, increasingly in Pakistan and threatened for Iran; "All options!" These are the capital crimes, against which some AusBC reporting is to be measured; result: fail.

After the capital crimes come the neoliberal crimes, themselves preceded by and mixed in with the "Washington Consensus" (World Bank, IMF, WTO etc.) and colonial crimes of resource-rip-offs; the US with 5% of the world's population consumes 25% of the world's resources, some of the rip-offs are occurring here across our own wide-brown resource sectors (see Perkins' "Economic Hit Man"). These are the non-capital crimes, against which some AusBC reporting is to be measured; result: fail.

Q: Why 'fail?' A: Simply because these things have happened, 'hidden' in plain sight; the Israeli rip-off of Palestine, the US rip-off of the world, the capitalist rip-off of the workers - and I had to discover all these filthy crimes essentially for myself - because the AusBC either failed to report on these crimes, or reported in such a way so as to disguise them.

To end this section on proof, this: "Look over there! A living (actually, dying) example!" - I mean, of course, the US, and the mostly poor (getting ever poorer) denizens therein. Employment dropping precipitously; industry mostly outsourced, remaining manufacturing stuttering to a stand-still and health (actually sickness) insurance as good as unaffordable. House prices through the roof (as here too) and theirs now crashing, as is their until recently fabled consumption. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the Earthly paradise those rabid rioters were burning the streets in Iran to join; since Aus does an awful lot of "Monkey see, monkey do," it could be us in Aus, in a few years/weeks/days ...

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Fazit: And sooo, our democracy is fatally crippled; the sheople dumbed-down, misinformed - and the AusBC up to their bottom lip in it.

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PS Q: What's about "enlightened freedom?" A: Well, I was 'brought up' not to lie or cheat; theft and murder were considered sooo bad as to be literally unthinkable - yet there they are, the US as so-called 'leader' of the free world, and its illegitimate side-kick Israel, murdering and stealing for all to see. That's a contravention of all that's good, all that's moral - in other words, a contravention of The Enlightenment itself. You know, Liberté, égalité, fraternité - that sort of stuff? Also, quite recently, we had what may have amounted to an undisciplined rabble - if not insurrectionist sore-losers rioting in Iran. The AusBC, following the 'Western MSM' sided with the rabble, invoking 'freedom!' IF the insurrection was even partly a result of US covert operations, designed to undermine Iran (and on the balance of the evidence I've seen, it was), THEN the Iranian government had every right to defend its sovereignty. The AusBC should present proof that their reporting was unbiased and truthful - if it were able; I think not.

There are many possible lies, but only single truths, per event. As so-called professionals, the AusBC should be able to sort that out - one would think.

The AusBC could apply this principle:

  IF you can't say something true, THEN better say nothing at all.

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Ref(s):

[1] betray v. 1 be disloyal or treacherous to (a friend, one's country, a person's trust, etc.). 2 reveal involuntarily or treacherously; be evidence of. 3 lead astray.  betrayal n. [from *be-, obsolete tray from Latin trado hand over] [POD]

[2] lemma
noun (PL. lemmas or lemmata )
1 a subsidiary or intermediate theorem in an argument or proof. [Oxford Pop-up]

[3] lie2 —n. 1 intentionally false statement (tell a lie). 2 something that deceives. —v. (lies, lied, lying) 1 tell a lie or lies. 2 (of a thing) be deceptive.  give the lie to show the falsity of (a supposition etc.). [Old English] [POD]

[Update - image added; see comment Jul 12, 2009 2:11:00 AM]