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DamianTV
08-28-2013, 02:49 PM
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/27/real-threat-terrorist-politicians-national-security


The real threat to our way of life? Not terrorists or faraway dictators, but our own politicians and securocrats



What is Britain's national security? At a time when the country once again ponders war, the arguments used should be precise and the language clear. This is seldom the case. The division of the world into good guys and bad guys, democrats and dictators, terrorists and counter-terrorists, not only insults peaceful diplomacy and promotes war. It pollutes the domestic rule of law and civil rights.

The controversial detention of David Miranda at Heathrow earlier this month was explained by the home secretary, Theresa May, and the Commons security committee chief, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, on the grounds that Miranda was carrying material that "could aid terrorism". This mere possibility would, they said, constitute a "threat to national security".

Time and again in the course of the Iraq and Afghan wars, the threat of terrorism was used to justify draconian anti-terrorist powers in Britain. Tony Blair said the powers were needed to "defend western values". Gordon Brown told British troops in Helmand that their role was domestic, "to make Britain's streets safe from terror". Should Britain start bombing Syria, some murky agency will use this as justification to step up terrorist attacks on Britain, with a consequent twist in the ratchet of surveillance and detention by the British authorities.

Terrorism and national security are wholly distinct concepts. Terrorism involves a violent incident, a crime with usually facile political intent. It merely kills people and wrecks buildings. It acquires power only by generating an exaggerated response, and is countered by good policing and not overreacting. When the Brighton hotel was bombed in 1984, the police told Margaret Thatcher to cancel her conference and return to London. She rightly replied: "What, and let the terrorists win!"

Not even IRA terror, more systematic than anything spawned by al-Qaida, threatened national security – that is, the integrity of the British state or its institutions. To confuse terrorism with such security is to play the terrorist's game. Those who do so lack faith in the robustness of the British constitution. They are what Lenin would have called terror's "useful idiots".

In Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Iran, designated by western democracies as posing threats that might justify military action, the threat they posed (and still pose) was customarily described as "undermining western democracy and values". In no western state are these values remotely at risk from outside. Yet the sense of threat escalates. The enemy has become a miasma of despotism, cruelty to innocents, suppression of dissent and crises whose publicity "demands that something be done".

Projecting violence on to foreign peoples is no different from treating citizens and visitors as enemy combatants at home. The normal freedoms are suspended in the cause of "national security". Any act that can be construed as aiding terrorism is elevated to the plane of treason. The result has been devastatingly counter-productive: 9/11 won al-Qaida the instant and horrified opposition of most Muslim states, and might have doomed it for ever. That opposition was stifled by the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, enabling al-Qaida to recover. Subsequent conflicts have been justified, at least in London and Washington, as part of a resulting, supposedly global "war on terror".

Dozens, if not hundreds, of civilians are now being killed in drone attacks in this cause, in addition to those declared by the Pentagon or CIA as "guilty". At a different level, in Britain some 60,000 travellers have reportedly been stopped on suspicion of links to terrorism. The impact on the security of western states has been trivial. The chief change has been to render them far more vulnerable to domestic attack – witness the embattled streets of central Westminster.

I once had sympathy for the old neocon vision of a developing world that might one day be converted to "modernity" through the spread of capitalism, liberty and democracy. I disagreed with the pessimism of those such as the philosopher John Gray who saw al-Qaida and others not as primitive fanatics but as sophisticated mafiosi with a compelling hold on the Muslim imagination in a quite cultural environment.

Gray's seemed a counsel of despair. I now see how the west's reaction to events in the Muslim world plays to Gray's argument. While we may not see counter-terrorism as equal and opposite to Muslim fanaticism, many Muslims do. The west is almost starting to behave with similar fanaticism. Listening to the debate on the Snowden surveillance revelations has been like watching the American Republican primaries last year, with their chorus of demands to "bomb Iran". Blind public faith in the secret cyber-military complex parallels a blind hatred of the Muslim world. Each feeds off the other.

British foreign policy at present mimics America's in being jumpy and amoral. It reacts to the world's evils as if it is orchestrated by an army of special interests, spies, soldiers, cyber-warriors and defence contractors. All have a vested interest in paranoia towards the Muslim world, as they did against Soviet Russia. This paranoia goes far beyond democracy's ability to curb it with common sense.

In his commentary on Conrad's The Secret Agent, Kieron O'Hara pondered a modern state in which terrorist and counter-terrorist live in a swirl of threat exaggeration and self-absorption, leaving "no confidence in their moral fabric". Defenders, fixated by multitudinous threats, ignore the "cost to the society they nominally defend". They need regularly to deliver the world "a jolly good scare". Their paranoia is no aid to democracy or humanity, only nihilism.

ClydeCoulter
08-28-2013, 03:08 PM
Yep.

enhanced_deficit
08-28-2013, 03:15 PM
Politicians are a reflection of the masses.

In the end, all fingers point to "us".

DamianTV
08-28-2013, 03:20 PM
That would be true in a Representative Govt. Our Politicians represent the Special Interests, Lobbyists, Corporations, and Banks. They do NOT represent the view of the People.

91% of the People polled oppose a War with Syria. But our Govt is banging the War Drums against Syria, and the voice of the People is merely an afterthought.

heavenlyboy34
08-28-2013, 03:27 PM
Politicians are a reflection of the masses.

In the end, all fingers point to "us".
LOL :D A beautiful delusion, indeed.

enhanced_deficit
08-28-2013, 03:28 PM
Agree, gov actions are not always representative and political system is rigged to favor the money baggers.
Utilmate responsibility in the end falls on the people to hold the politicians they elect accountable.

Seraphim
08-28-2013, 03:39 PM
Yes, this.

Democracy is a bad, bad idea. The US is more of a democracy then a Constitutional Republic since the Amendment to have Senators be voted in through Popular Vote.

Since Americans oppose outright Communism, the only way politicians can grant the hand-outs that the people vote for is through Corporate Fascism.

It's obviously out of control wihich is why more and more people are waking up...but like it or not, the MAJORITY have wanted these programs for a long time.

Yay democracy.


Politicians are a reflection of the masses.

In the end, all fingers point to "us".

GunnyFreedom
08-28-2013, 03:48 PM
That would be true in a Representative Govt. Our Politicians represent the Special Interests, Lobbyists, Corporations, and Banks. They do NOT represent the view of the People.

91% of the People polled oppose a War with Syria. But our Govt is banging the War Drums against Syria, and the voice of the People is merely an afterthought.

Manufacturing consent. In 2.5 weeks that number will be 51% and WHAM we will have ourselves one "kinetic martial action."

noneedtoaggress
08-28-2013, 03:50 PM
Agree, gov actions are not always representative and political system is rigged to favor the money baggers.
Utilmate responsibility in the end falls on the people to hold the politicians they elect accountable.

http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/street/pl38/vote.htm


Why does voting in a democracy seem futile?

An explanation

Do you ever get the feeling that your vote is futile? Well, read the following paragraph to get an insight into why it seems that way and, perhaps, why you don't bother too much.

" consider someone making two decisions--what car to buy and what politician to vote for. In either case, the person can improve his decision (make it more likely that he acts in his own interest) by investing time and effort in studying the alternatives. In the case of the car, his decision determines with certainty which car he gets. In the case of the politician, his decision (whom to vote for) changes by one ten-millionth the probability that the candidate he votes for will win. If the candidate would be elected without his vote, he is wasting his time; if the candidate would lose even with his vote, he is also wasting his time. He will rationally choose to invest much more time in the decision of which car to buy--the payoff to him is enormously greater. We expect voting to be characterized by rational ignorance; it is rational to be ignorant when the information costs more than it is worth." (David Friedman, 1991)

Does that clarify it? Basically you don't pay much attention because, whilst you accept that political power greatly affects you - you don't seem to have much affect on it. Not only that but it seems that 'all those other' voters must want higher and higher taxes and more and more interference. But do they really want that for themselves? Are they perhaps being short sighted? Lets use so called 'progressive' taxation as an example.

Investment companies often charge a proportion of your returns to manage your portfolio. Really good ones will charge you for the service of managing the portfolio but not skim off the investment itself. If another company charged based upon investment returns, and charged a greater proportion the more your investment makes, would you invest with them? Probably not. They don't have any good reason to charge a greater percentage just because your fund did better, they would probably lose to competitors.

Yet this is exactly the same as so called 'progressive income tax' which expropriates a larger proportion the more you make. If individuals are not choosing progressive charges on personal investment plans are they choosing it when it comes to income tax, on what is supposedly an investment in the 'community'? Probably not for themselves, as we'll see later.

Would you send your child to a school where the more qualifications he or she gains the more he or she must 'give away' to children who didn't get as many so as to 'make it fair'? Would children in such schools be motivated to try their best? The answers are likely to be no and no! Yet we then send those self same children into an political system where precisely the same mechanism exists and wonder why so many young people appear unmotivated and jaded.

I think you're getting the picture. You aren't personally making decisions which intend to leave you worse off in some way yet somehow the result of our democracy always seems to be more taxes and restrictions on the things you wouldn't think to restrict for yourself and your loved ones. What's going on?

Perhaps it is because when people do vote they hope to gain more than they lose. High earners are in the minority and so you might think that voting for extra taxes on those people will mean that you personally have to pay less for a given service. A bit like coercing a passer by into paying £8k of a £10k car you intend to use.

This, indeed, is the special trick of the special interest groups. Basically they have a lot to gain and you have a little to lose, but you'll lose it again and again until it hurts! Imagine a group (almost any pressure or special interest group) that wants a handout of £10million. That's a lot of money. Would you try hard to get hold of that kind of money? Well they do, they badger MPs, market themselves as having these needs, attack competitors for the resources and so on. They are loud, purport to carry public support and can do a good 'embarrass them, shame them' media extravaganza if denied. So politicians often give in, afraid of a bad press and keen on 'looking good' to the general public. Actually, part of 'looking good' is to imply a promise that one day they'll be able to do you a similar favour, and so hope you'll vote for them on that basis in part.

Lets clarify with this example:

"To see whether we can expect the outcome of this market to be efficient, let us consider a simple example. A legislator proposes a bill that inefficiently transfers income from one interest group to another; it imposes costs of $10 each on a thousand individuals (total cost $10,000) and grants benefits of $500 each to ten individuals (total benefit $5,000). What will be "bid" for and against the law?

The total cost to the losers is $10,000, but the maximum amount they will be willing to offer to a politician to oppose the law is very much less than that. Why? Because of the public-good problem. Any individual who contributes to a campaign fund to defeat the bill is providing a public good for all thousand members of the group. The larger the public, the lower the fraction of the value of the good that can be raised to pay for it.

The benefit provided to the winners is also a public good, but it goes to a much smaller public--ten individuals instead of a thousand. A smaller public can more easily organize, perhaps through conditional contracts ("I will contribute if and only if you do"), to fund a public good. Even though the benefit to the small group is smaller than the cost to the large one, the amount the small group is able to offer politicians to support the bill will be more than the amount the large group will offer to oppose it.

The effect is reinforced by a second consideration--information costs. Assume that information about the effect of legislation on any individual can be obtained, but only at some cost in time and money. For the individual who suspects that the bill may injure him by $10, it is not worth obtaining the information unless it is very inexpensive. His possible loss is small and so is the effect of any actions he is likely to take on the probability that the bill will pass. The member of the dispersed interest chooses (rationally) to be worse informed than the member of the concentrated interest. This is rational ignorance; it is rational to be ignorant if the cost of information is greater than its value." (David Friedman, 1991)

This process is played over again and again until you are eventually losing your precious resources to thousands of government departments and interest groups whom you would never support in person.

So next time you wonder why taxes keep going up here are two reasons (yes there are even more!). 1) A majority vote heavier taxes onto a higher earning minority in the hope of gaining more than they lose. 2) Special interests and government departments can extract billions of your tax money with each programme's costs being so thinly spread its hard for you to keep track.

When you hear 'voter apathy' in the media do think of this.

&


Imagine buying cars the way we buy governments. Ten thousand people would get together and agree to vote, each for the car he preferred. Whichever car won, each of the ten thousand would have to buy it. It would not pay any of us to make any serious effort to find out which car is best; whatever I decide, my car is being picked for me by the other members of the group. Under such institutions, the quality of cars would quickly decline.

GunnyFreedom
08-28-2013, 03:54 PM
http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/street/pl38/vote.htm



&

Thank you, First-Past-The-Post. :(

DamianTV
08-28-2013, 03:54 PM
Who are we kidding? We DONT have a Democracy in this country! We have a merger between the Corpratists (including Banks) and Govt, which is essencially what Facism is. Govt enforces Corporate Law. Hell, our so called "Representatives" not only dont READ the Bills proposed as Laws, they dont even WRITE those Bills either, the Lobbyists do! So how is that in any way shape or form a Democracy?

What you are seeing is the Illusion of Democracy. Rarely if ever will you hear any elected official refer to the United States as what it is: A Constitutional Republic with TRACES of Democracy. Those days are long gone. You are given the ILLUSION of Choice. We all know damn well that with most if not all Major Elections (not all Presidential), your Candidates are hand picked and sponsored by the Corporations. So vote for Coke or vote for Pepsi, they'll both make you Rot from the inside out.

enhanced_deficit
08-28-2013, 03:59 PM
http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/street/pl38/vote.htm



&

There are many ways governments are held accountable, voting is one method for performance review when system is fair.

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/2189/thumbs/s-BUSHMUSH-large.jpg (http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=musharraf%20bush&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=QA5afPvTFlz2_M&tbnid=jh2-f4DuxoR3CM:&ved=0CAUQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2F2007%2F1 1%2F21%2Fbush-now-praises-musharra_n_73650.html&ei=YHUeUrquPJDy8ASCrIGoCw&bvm=bv.51156542,d.cWc&psig=AFQjCNE8_Wm7x_iovU2NRSONCBUtGu8xeA&ust=1377814193419974)http://www.aaj.tv/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/PArvez-Musharraf-sent-to-jail-215x169.jpg (http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=musharraf%20prison&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=ckdVsz_LNhwvIM&tbnid=xGH3kf7zwPIM8M:&ved=0CAUQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aaj.tv%2Flatest%2Fpage%2F23%2 F&ei=B3UeUrXdMJLC9QTBhIC4Ag&bvm=bv.51156542,d.cWc&psig=AFQjCNELF_cQsiUI5nS6HEHTct5w3lnEug&ust=1377814036442158)


http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2009/08/18/obamamubarak460.jpg (http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=mubarak%20obama&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=xj3h-KBfPKe6PM&tbnid=CSQxYIDCYdbYUM:&ved=0CAUQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2F200 9%2Faug%2F18%2Fmubarak-obama-israel-palestine&ei=AXYeUrrbGIag9QSb-4DwBw&bvm=bv.51156542,d.cWc&psig=AFQjCNFkzL1VBioMonxKOeHOehP_XN5QHA&ust=1377813745228289)http://im.rediff.com/news/2011/aug/03sld1.jpg (http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=mubarak%20cage&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=-qq6AGbVzFLrLM&tbnid=CtcJaHc6rSzYqM:&ved=0CAUQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rediff.com%2Fnews%2Fslide-show%2Fslide-show-1-in-a-cage-mubarak-faces-trial-for-murder%2F20110803.htm&ei=LHYeUqLoKZHe8wTiwIDYCg&bvm=bv.51156542,d.cWc&psig=AFQjCNGuPlJZHC2l088dYMwzFykh2pkDNQ&ust=1377814430311642)

heavenlyboy34
08-28-2013, 04:00 PM
Who are we kidding? We DONT have a Democracy in this country! We have a merger between the Corpratists (including Banks) and Govt, which is essencially what Facism is. Govt enforces Corporate Law. Hell, our so called "Representatives" not only dont READ the Bills proposed as Laws, they dont even WRITE those Bills either, the Lobbyists do! So how is that in any way shape or form a Democracy?

What you are seeing is the Illusion of Democracy. Rarely if ever will you hear any elected official refer to the United States as what it is: A Constitutional Republic with TRACES of Democracy. Those days are long gone. You are given the ILLUSION of Choice. We all know damn well that with most if not all Major Elections (not all Presidential), your Candidates are hand picked and sponsored by the Corporations. So vote for Coke or vote for Pepsi, they'll both make you Rot from the inside out.
+rep! Cue George Carlin, plz...

noneedtoaggress
08-28-2013, 04:10 PM
There are many ways governments are held accountabl, voting is method for performance review when system is fair.

That's what it's supposed to be in the high school civics class concept of government and it's "checks and balances". It would necessitate well-informed voters and a wide range of choices.

In practice it's a method of exploiting the rational ignorance of the masses to pick establishment cronies willing to expand state power for political favors.

heavenlyboy34
08-28-2013, 04:26 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwmnMR0RbXU