Good news or not?

What an interesting week or two! What with the Murdochs and insensitive, crooked journalism, the saving of the Euro zone perhaps, multiple instances of man's inhumanity to man, health innovations and the rest, we have been told of so many things to catch our attention and perhaps even our concern. We have also seen the continued efforts of many people to influence their governments, usually with little real effect. There are the cruellest examples like Syria, Somalia, Libya, northern Sudan, and the nearly successful like Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco. Then there are the wonderfully Indignant people who are walking towards Madrid to try to ensure that the Spanish politicians knows what is what when it comes to running a country. Why do I mention all of these items of interest? I suppose it is because I feel that the majority of people are just not interested or, at least, interested enough in these important problems and challenges.

The biggest problem is that people have shown themselves to be too easily diverted by garbage news and lowest common denominator activities. Look, for instance, at the majority of the press, and here I talk especially of the UK press as this is where my experience is greater. The UK media, the press and TV are largely occupied in political naval gazing in which nothing is achieved except for the aggrandisement of the so-called journalists or their politician victims, or the activities of completely talentless minor 'celebrities' whose only claim to celebrity is having been called a celebrity. Shows such as Big Brother, X-Factor, Britain Has Talent, which patently on the evidence of this show it has not, and all the rest of the tawdry panoply, demonstrate continuously the brainlessness and quiescence of a population that has allowed itself to be lulled into non-thought.

I knew that, like the United States, the UK is at the end of its influence as a civilised nation when such entertainments as lap-dancing clubs and bars are permitted; when cage fighting gets on to TV and gambling becomes so rife that it is seen as a normal behaviour and pathetic health warnings about betting responsibly are inserted into advertisements.

So what do we need to do about this slide into moral decrepitude? I'm not calling for moral rearmament or anything so high minded, I think that I'm calling for more Indignation, International Indignation, and for real evidence that the self-seeking idiots who purport to rule the nations of the world suddenly realise that they aren't brighter than most of the rest of us, that they have no mandate to rule unless given by us, and even that once elected they only retain that mandate by pleasing us by governing well. I have always said that there is a limited set of objectives that a government has to concern itself with: protection of the population from external strife, protection of the population from internal strife and crime and protection from the effects of poverty and sickness which includes education. Other services and activities are only worthwhile or legitimate to the extent that they serve these principal objectives.

Of course, it is imperative that each of the principal objectives is carefully monitored so that the mechanisms that protect the people do not become threats in themselves. We have all seen how the Egyptian Army has usurped the power of the post Mubaraak democracy movement. We have seen how over the past 60 years the US military and security machine and its industrial supporters have corrupted and manipulated the political system of that country and others in the pursuit of profit. Abuses of power should be quickly recognised and dealt with. We can no longer allow such examples as J Edgar Hoover's decades long reign of blackmail and malignity to prevail. We can no longer allow such crookedness as the arms dealing Savoy Group of Denis Thatcher and friends to ride rough shod over the sensitivities of the people. We must properly educate the populace rather than allowing crooked opinionated newspapers and television pundits to sell their own notions about such issues as the Euro, management of international finance, the value of financial institutions versus that of real productive industry. This will entail proper governance of finance institutions worldwide, it will entail proper control of the processes of government, it will entail the development of democratic systems based on individual representatives rather than party machines, it will entail proper control of military and civil guardianship so that the people are never disadvantaged. Maybe an elected UN might be the organisation to ensure this?

Of course none of this will ever happen as the powers that be wish to remain the powers that be as for some unknown reason they think they are fit to rule. We will continue starving millions of people so that more profits can be made in the 'developed' world. We will continue to ignore easy solutions that will help millions ot live better lives because we are not interested enough and because greater profits can be made by selling to the rich world than to the poor. People in nice suits will continue to rule the world because we, the people, cannot be bothered to control them adequately, or because we are so brain-washed that we think they know what they are doing. Sad really!