XPost: uk.politics.misc   
   From: Lapp1987@NOSPAMteleworm.us   
      
   "Year in, year out, the swindle continues. One gang is given a spell of   
   government; it may be five years, it may be more. That government fails   
   miserably to grapple with the nation’s problems, and in the course of   
   time inevitably the people lose confidence in it and itch for a change.   
   And who is on hand to offer them that change? Why, the other gang--   
   controlled, if only the people knew it, by exactly the same forces! Gang   
   Two does its stint, and before too long can be seen to have made just as   
   big a mess of things as Gang One. The time has come, therefore, to wheel   
   Gang One back again. The people’s memories are short--but not quite that   
   short. Some of them may recall that Gang One, the last time it was given   
   a chance, did no better than Gang Two has done; and so something has to   
   be done to convince the people that this time things with Gang One will   
   be different. Usually this involves a revamping of the party image, with   
   a change of leader (in other words, chief puppet) included in the face-   
   lift. A big publicity exercise is launched in which a programme of   
   ‘exciting’ new policies is announced. Only to the perceptive observer who   
   is able to tell substance from shadow is it evident that these new   
   policies of tomorrow are only the old (and failed) policies of yesterday   
   dressed up in new packaging. The wheel turns full circle again and Gang   
   One is back in office, to continue the old mismanagement where it left   
   off.   
      
     Every so often of course, the natives get a little more restless than   
   usual and decline to be as enchanted as they are expected to be by this   
   game of musical chairs. They look a little further back in time and   
   recall that the two main gangs have had more than just one chance and   
   have muffed things each time. They are willing to consider that behind   
   all the talk of ‘change’ there is not really any change at all. At such   
   moments, a dangerous number of these natives are inclined to say: "A   
   plague on both your houses!"   
      
     But our puppet-masters are ready for this too, for they always have in   
   reserve a third gang--and even, if necessary, a fourth one--available to   
   parade before the people to pick up the votes that some of the latter are   
   no longer disposed, at least for the time being, to give to the first two   
   gangs. This is of course the reason why the Liberals (now called Liberal   
   Democrats), for long after they had ceased to be contenders for power in   
   their own right, were kept on ice by the establishment and accorded a   
   certain level of ‘credibility’. They provided a useful safety-valve for   
   those voters who might grow disillusioned with both Tories and Labour. By   
   courtesy of The Guardian newspaper, it was ensured that the Liberal Party   
   did not fade into total oblivion but, on the contrary, was always there   
   at election time to soak up the protest vote just in case that vote rose   
   to unmanageable proportions. This of course happened at Orpington in 1961   
   and has happened on a number of occasions since, thus corralling safely   
   into the establishment pen any maverick steers that might be so bold as   
   to break loose from the general herd.   
      
     In the 1980s, a similar device was employed by the creation of the   
   Social Democratic Party. Again, the establishment astutely judged the   
   public mood: sensing that a larger than usual number of voters and   
   members were deserting Labour, and realising that not all of these could   
   be relied upon to drift into the Liberal camp, our real rulers did   
   everything possible to encourage and nurture the infant SDP, giving it a   
   rousing send-off in the press and thereafter generously publicising the   
   daily utterances of its leaders and the pastiche of old-gang clichés that   
   it tried to pass off as ‘policies’. In consequence, the voter who had   
   grown tired of the Tory/Labour cycle of misgovernment of the previous   
   half-century now had, not one alternative, but two! Well, just for a   
   while at any rate. As is known, the Social Democrats later went out of   
   business when their main rump was swallowed up by the Liberals, leading   
   to the formation of today’s ‘Liberal Democrats’. The latter party   
   incorporates just the same flabby pot pourri of internationalism, free   
   trade, racial suicide and ‘wet’ prescriptions for social problems that   
   form the bases of the manifestos of their rivals. Whatever way the poor   
   voter tries to turn, he ends up down the same blind alley.   
      
     This is the reality of the political system under which the people are   
   deluded that they have a ‘free choice’, and under which every symptom of   
   governmental weakness and ineptitude is glossed over by the consoling cry   
   that Britons are favoured by the benign smile of providence to live in a   
   ‘democracy’. No meaningful effort to grapple with our immense national   
   problems will be possible until this ludicrous and wholly unworkable   
   system is done away with and we institute an effective system of   
   government capable of bringing to the fore a high calibre of national   
   leadership and then properly equipping that leadership with the necessary   
   powers of action."   
      
   "The Eleventh Hour" (1998) by John Tyndall   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)