XPost: uk.politics.misc   
   From: me@privacy.net   
      
   On Fri, 10 Mar 2017 17:43:04 +0000, Joe Bloggs    
   wrote:   
      
   >On 10-Mar-17 4:41 PM, Lapp1987 wrote:   
   >> "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   
   >>   
   >   
   >A great man, and very sadly missed.   
      
   By goose-steppers everywhere.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)