In Britain, An Absurdity: Persuading People They Have A Political Choice

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Sat, 30 Apr 2005 21:37:05 -0700 (PDT)

In Britain, An Absurdity: Persuading People They Have A

Political Choice

 

 

 

http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2005-04/27pilger.cfm

 

 

 

April 27, 2005

 

In Britain, An Absurdity: Persuading People They Have A Political Choice

 

A familiar, if desperate media push is under way to convince the

British people that the main political parties offer them a democratic

choice in the general election on 5 May. This demonstrable absurdity

became hilarious when Tony Blair, leader of one of the nastiest, most

violent right-wing regimes in memory, announced the existence of " a

very nasty right-wing campaign " to defeat him. If only it was that

funny. If only it was possible to read the " ah but " tributes to a

" successful " Labour government without cracking a rib. If only it was

possible to read warmongers bemoaning the " apathy " of the British

electorate without one's laughter being overtaken by the urge to throw

up. Truth can be subverted, but for millions of decent Britons the

subversion is over, and the penny has finally dropped. For that, they

have Blair to thank. On 5 May, they will silently go on strike against

a corrupt, undemocratic system, as they did at the last election,

producing the lowest turnout since the franchise, including barely a

third in some constituencies. Others will come under extraordinary

pressure to put aside considerations of basic morality and vote for

this " successful " Blair government. They - allow me to change that to

you - ought to be aware of what this will mean for your fellow human

beings. By voting for Blair, you will walk over the corpses of at

least 100,000 people, most of them innocent women and children and the

elderly, slaughtered by rapacious forces sent by Blair and Bush,

unprovoked and in defiance of international law, to a defenceless

country. That conservative estimate is the conclusion of a

peer-reviewed Anglo-American study, published in the British medical

journal the Lancet. It is the most reliable glimpse we have of the

criminal carnage caused by Blair and Bush in Iraq, and it is

suppressed in this election " campaign " . By voting for Blair, you will

be turning a deaf ear to the cries of countless Iraqi children blown

up by British cluster bombs and poisoned by toxic explosions of

depleted uranium. These unseen victims of Blair and Bush - including

Iraqi women who have developed rare " pregnancy cancer " , and children

with unexplained leukaemia - will not be your concern. According to

one of the military experts who cleaned up Kuwait after the 1991 Gulf

war, Blair and Bush have created " another Hiroshima " in parts of Iraq.

You will be voting to endorse that. By voting for Blair, you will turn

away from the tens of thousands of children left to starve in Iraq by

his and Bush's invasion. On 30 March, the United Nations Commission on

Human Rights heard that malnutrition rates among Iraqi infants under

the age of five had almost doubled since the invasion - double the

number of hungry children under Saddam Hussein. The author of the

report to the commission, Jean Ziegler, a UN specialist on hunger,

said the " coalition " was to blame. By voting for Blair, you will be

affirming that liar's triumph. Blair is a liar on such an epic scale

that even those who still protect him with parliamentary euphemisms,

like Robin Cook ( " He knew perfectly well what he was doing. I think

there was a lack of candour " ) and the Guardian and the BBC, now

struggle to finesse his perjury. Take his latest lie. On 13 March,

Jonathan Dimbleby asked Blair about the leaked memo of David Manning,

the Prime Minister's foreign policy adviser, in which Manning

confirmed to Blair in March 2002 that he had assured the Americans

" you would not budge in your support for regime change " . Blair lied to

Dimbleby that " actually he didn't say that as a matter of fact " :

Manning " [made] clear that the development of WMDs in breach of the

United Nations resolutions will no longer be tolerated " . Following are

the words Manning wrote to Blair: " I said [to Condoleezza Rice] that

you would not budge in your support for regime change but you had to

manage a press, a Parliament and a public opinion that was very

different [from] anything in the States. " There is no mention,

nothing, about United Nations resolutions, or weapons of mass

destruction. By voting for Blair, you will invite more lies about

terrorist scares in Britain so that totalitarian laws can be enacted.

" I have a horrible feeling that we are sinking into a police state, "

said George Churchill-Coleman, the former head of Scotland Yard's

anti-terrorist squad. Like the fake reasons for Blair's tanks around

Heathrow on the eve of the greatest anti-war demonstration in British

history, so anything, any scare, any arrest, any " control order " , will

be possible. By voting for Blair, you will fall for the spin, the

myth, of the social reformism and " economic achievements " of his

government. The ban on fox-hunting and the lowering of the age of gay

consent are political and media distractions that do nothing to

protect a social democracy being progressively shorn of ancient

liberties, such as those enshrined in Magna Carta. The ballyhooed

" boom " and " growth " in Britain have been booms for the rich, not for

ordinary people. With scant media attention, the Blair government has

transferred billions of pounds' worth of public services into private

hands under the private finance initiative (PFI). The " fees " , or

rake-off, for PFI projects in 2006-2007 will be in the order of 6.3bn

pounds, more than the cost of many of the projects: a historic act of

corporate piracy.

 

Neither is new Labour " supporting " the National Health Service, but

privatising it by stealth; by 2006-2007 private contracts will rise by

150 per cent. Under Treasurer Gordon Brown, Britain has the

distinction of having created more than half the world's tax havens,

so that the likes of Rupert Murdoch are able to pay minimal tax.

" Growth " has meant the rapid growth in the gap between rich and poor.

Top executives' pay has risen by 500 per cent while the average rise

in earnings is 45 per cent. Contrary to Blair's and Brown's claims,

poverty among adults of working age without children is increasing. In

2002-2003, the last year for which figures are available, 12.4 million

people, or 22 per cent of the population, were living in poverty. As

for the myth of almost full employment, this government's skill at

constantly massaging figures has, for example, allowed jobcentres to

reclassify workers as long-term sick or disabled in order to meet

targets for " reducing " unemployment.

 

There has indeed been a boom - in insecure, part-time and temporary

employment with few rights and poor conditions. Trapped in this

half-world are some 8.8 million workers, many of whom are lucky to get

a couple of days' paid work a week. For middle-class Britons who

believe they are beneficiaries of the " boom " , there is the spectre of

personal debt - which, under Labour, is rising at the rate of 15m

pounds an hour, faster than even in America. Little of this is up for

discussion. In 2005, we have an election, not politics; a media court,

not critical debate. True politics is about all of humanity, and our

responsibility for those who commit crimes in our name. No reverence

for the sanctity of a debased vote or a false choice - or the lesser

evil of a non-existent, sentimental, pre-Blair Labour Party - will

change that. We owe that truth to the people of Iraq, at least.