Tuesday, May 06, 2008

The Conspiraloon Manifesto

And whilst on the subject of Troof Seekers and Conspiraloonery, last week’s defeats for our governing political party gave rise to multiple threads/ discussions all over the InterTut asking just why it is the Labour Party received such a kicking




Amusingly, if you read Labour.org you'll find yourself thinking that the number one reason was the recent smoking ban. A lot of working class Labour supporters were really f**ked off about that one

Personally, I think we’re witnessing something slightly more significant than a smokers’ revolt at work here

What we’re witnessing is the expiry of a long-outdated political fairy tale which cannot even pretend to explain how the world works any more

The fairy tale in question is the nonsense that people can be roughly split into two carefully, pre-prepared political belief systems called ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ and that all the really big stuff that goes on in the world happens more or less by accident

And, sooner, or later if you do keep pretending that stuff like the price of food or botched occupations of other peoples’ countries are essentially the product of mistakes, accidents and uncontrollable forces you come to a point where you have to shrug your shoulders and admit that you understand, and therefore can do, fuck all about fuck all

Conspiraloons on the other hand, whilst not blind to the hand of the Earth Mother and stochastic forces, do believe that a fair old bit of the shit inflicted on us is either deliberate wickedness or a by-product of deliberate wickedness; usually on the part of people who have accumulated so much money and power that they are plain bonkers




The thing is, if you are a Conspiraloon who believes that the world is being deliberately moulded to serve the interests of finance capital and The Few and that threats such as terrorism and global warming are being hyped up to assist that moulding process, you can easily knock-out an enormous manifesto of positive change that could be implemented to make the world a better place for 99.99% of us

And crucially, much, if not all of that manifesto could be formulated in a way that totally ignored Left vs. Right, divide and rule bullshit

A few examples off the top of my head…
  • Cease the creation of hyper-inflationary quantities of worthless money
  • Legislate against speculators fucking around with the prices of essential commodities, especially food, by implementing a simple requirement that anyone buying food, or oil, or whatever forward is actually in the food, or oil, or whatever, business.

    (There are plenty of operators in commodity markets who are driving future prices up but who always sell-on their holdings before they have to accept physical delivery. It really would be amusing to see someone delivering 10,000 tons of grain or rice outside the head office of a London or New York based hedge fund every once in a while)
  • Withdraw forces from Iraq – the argument that we have a moral obligation to stay until things somehow get better is profoundly flawed. No-one would advocate that a wife-beater should continue living with his Mrs until they work things out. Well, no-one I know anyway
  • End private monopolies over essential utilities such as water
  • End public subsidy of private monopolies
  • Bring in legislation and a tax regime which favours creation of mutual financial institutions
  • Apply the same ludicrously low burden of proof and high sentencing to political and corporate corruption as is currently applied to terror suspects
  • Make honesty pay. Create financial incentives for the investigation and conviction of political and corporate corruption - in the same way that people who investigate low-level benefit and tax fraud are given incentives
  • Open up a few dozen new coal mines, quickly
  • Apply and grant public access to the same level of surveillance and data mining applied to politicians and corporations as is applied to ordinary, law abiding citizens. Scrap any system or law which does not apply equally to citizenry and establishment
  • Inclusion of ‘None of the Above’ as a candidate in all elections. Election of ‘NotA’ would automatically trigger a new election from which all previous candidates are barred
  • For every new law made, scrap at least two

You could carry on all day. It would practically write itself

Alternatively, you could stick with non-Loon views and keep supporting the current political paradigm and politicians who when faced with widespread public concern about crippling inflation, the gradual meltdown of our financial system, the costly consequences of pre-emptive wars of aggression and the seemingly endless erosion of civil liberties come up with this blinding solution to all those concerns…



Sounds like the mother of all election winners to me

.

25 comments:

Merkin said...

Very powerful, Stef, and far too sensible.

PS the captcha spells hlmend.
Quite apt.

Stef said...

but not as powerful as General Zod

Anonymous said...

Kneel before Zod!!

The Antagonist said...

Great stuff, Stef. Not blessed with a huge amount of time at the moment but a couple of thoughts spring to mind that are perhaps worthy of throwing out for further discussion....

A major issue with such revolutionary ideas -- revolutionary being any idea(s) that challenge the generally established Property, Power and Production paradigm -- and an issue that needs resolving is that the comparatively few who are winning the battle, through the winning of "hearts and minds" and beating and berating the life out of anyone whose "hearts and minds" are a little more in touch with what's actually good for them and everyone else, aren't going to give up and roll over for the benefit of humankind.

Not without a considerable fight anyway.

The Comparatively Few also have, in the form of the State and its corporate offshoots, bodies of armed men whose task it is to ensure that there is precious little, if any, change to the Property, Power and Production paradigm.

Cunningly, they've also legislated themselves the legal right to take property, wealth and life at will, with no comebacks.

paul said...

The coming collapse of the middle class
USA based but it shows how the great reorganisation is organised to restrict behaviour. Beautiful, if what you want is a trapped mass.

paul said...

* End private monopolies over essential utilities such as water

* End public subsidy of private monopolies


Well one part of the program, which seems to be non negotiable, is to place (for no good reasons other than ideology and graft) is to place the private sector between the public and the sector it already pays for.

A far more progressive taxation system would help as well.

Stef said...

A far more progressive taxation system would help as well.

or, as has been discussed elsewhere, a taxation system which was at least as diligent in fleecing the very wealthy as it was at squeezing the less than very wealthy

I left tax out of my list partly because it doesn't even pretend to be anything but a list of examples but also because tax is one of those issues which is used to divide the 'Left' and the 'Right' and I was trying to demonstrate that there's shed loads of reform which could be implemented with virtually zero disagreement between the vast majority of people - be they lower or slightly less than lower class

Stef said...

@paul

I've started playing that presentation you linked to

And I have to say up front, if it doesn't make extensive reference to the crucial importance of dustbin taxation in establishing a New Utopia I'm going to be really disappointed

paul said...

oh no, I've done it again
<slaps forehead/>

jon doy™ said...

good show, Stef

and to think of all those years i wasted thinking i was mad to suspect that left wings and right wings were just bollocks billowing in a stiff breeze

not any more

We'll Keep On Fighting - And We'll Win !!!™

Anonymous said...

I like all these points. A few more:

- Open up money itself to the free market. Let the bankers have their fiat pounds, we'll use gold or some other sound means of exhange decided amomgst ourselves.

- Hang Tony Blair in public - I think you'll find that will then be the last time we are forced into an illegal war in order to profit the rich.

- Let's have a thorough and no holds barred look at who owns the land in this country and why. Punitive land taxes if necessary.

Stef said...

Punitive land taxes if necessary

or just taxed at the same rate as Labour

that'd do the trick

Wolfie said...

@Paul

That was a good video, interesting find. Its interesting to see this presented in a more formal, statistically coherent format rather than sound-bite or hyperbole/political grandstanding.

Stef said...

...but sadly lacking in any hot steamy bin taxation action

:(

Merkin said...

'...hot steamy bin taxation action'
Classic.
I do some legal work for the local refuse operatives re: single status and have visions inspired by your comment.
Lovely. Made an old man happy.

Anonymous said...

I'm all for hanging Tony.

London cabbie winds down window in hope to see what's causing traffic jam. Calls out to policeman. "why the Jam?" Policeman says "There's a collection going on for Bliar"
Taxi driver asks "How much has been raised" Policeman says "400L of petrol and 14 gallons of diesel"


4 Stef: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3LdLGeOEFU
Guess u've already seen it tho!

Anonymous said...

Use of GOLD and silver as currency and edible goods (sugar, rice etc) in poor areas is the way forward. Gold is the money God prescribed. Not much point in arguing oven that one then methinks.

Actually I thought of (but didn't) writing a Manefesto on the weekend, but once again your a step ahead. This is freaking me out Stef! I must remember to wear my aluminium hat this coming weekend.

I utterly agree left vs right (or bLiars "3rd" way i.e. Right masquerading as left) is utter nuts as I mentioned earlier on one of your BlowJo posts.

paul said...

...but sadly lacking in any hot steamy bin taxation action

Perhaps you could 'mash it up' with broon's bin tax speech and a few hilarious 'Ali G' clips (Adolf Hitler is always a good stand by as well). It might then appeal to a wider audience.

As for political taxonomy, just because the supposed tribunes of the left and right have been clumsily transplanted onto the same rotting carcass, does not rob the concepts of their meaning or value. IMHO, as they say on the internet

Anonymous said...

"... a Houston federal district judge found that Sporkin had knowingly allowed a false affidavit to be filed when he was CIA General Counsel, framing Edwin Wilson"

... one for the coincidence theorists to ignore (along with Matrix Churchill, Lockerbie, etc ...).

paul said...

Maybe shift away from you are what you work?

Anonymous said...

One can inject into the argument many theories about what went wrong.

Indeed dear Evelyn, indeed.

http://tinyurl.com/4b9r5g

Stef said...

A Rothschild writes...

institutions should avoid re-appointing the friends of senior executives. Senior appointments should be continually under review. Share-holders, whether institutions or individuals, should make themselves much more alert to how appointments are made and how remunerations are set

Comedy gold!!!

Anonymous said...

Scroll down to "Is Speculation A Problem?"

....

"If speculation is a problem (and it's easy to believe that is the case), then it is caused by monetary policies worldwide that are encouraging speculation. After all, speculation fueled an enormous housing bubble, not just in the US, but worldwide.

So if one wants to stop such speculation, the[n] all one has to do is address the root cause of the problem: global monetary policies ..."

Anonymous said...

Off topic Stef, but thought you'd appreciate this scene from one of Peter Seller's better films, Being There. It's courtesy of a fellow loon who decided to add their own text, though its worth seeing the whole film to get context...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecXT1fMuEZw

Stef said...

cheers for the Being There link - one for the Conspiraloon Alliance blog methinks