The Political Thread

[The Legendary Shark]

Systems change all throughout history - usually with lots of fire and sharp implements. The advantage we have today (if we can harness it before they lock it down and bury it with bullshit) is the internet.
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Iceland's people built a new constitution over the internet - an open-source constitution; how cool is that?
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It's still a Big Ask, I know, but we have to start thinking about how we're going to fix this. I'm not particularly subtle or clever so the best I can do is try to throw a spanner in the works. Try to shake things up a bit and ask some difficult questions.

[Frank]

A consequence of this system is that every penny borrowed gets the world deeper and deeper into this imaginary debt and it's killing us. The world is falling apart under this ludicrous system, it is seriously and actually killing people, and I've had enough.

I hold the same views

I don't see how anyone who's been paying attention for the last six years, or who lived through the other three occasions during my lifetime when exactly the same thing has happened, could think any differently. Any system which is predicated upon constantly getting a little bit more from somewhere else - robbing Peter to pay Paul - is ultimately unsustainable, but no matter how many times that's made apparent everyone just agrees to carry on as if nothing happened.

The problem's one that can be illustrated by a story Slavoj Zizek tells about quantum physics genius Nils Bohr. A guest invited to Bohr's house expressed surprise on seeing a lucky horseshoe over the doorway. "It's nonsense, of course", replied Bohr, "but I heard it works even if you don't believe in it". Which is the problem with the current system; hundreds of millions of folk can point to the title deeds of their homes and the photographs of their three foreign holidays per year, and legitimately say that their grandparents could only have dreamed of that kind of life when they were young.

Even though they know it's a crock, the system's worked for them in the short term. The problem with that is that the remarkable increase in living standards for ordinary citizens of Western liberal democracies has only been possible by taking that little bit more from somewhere else. In previous centuries, that meant serfdom, then slavery/colonialism, then the current informal system of global Western hegemony, where the cost differentials of labour and materiel between the developed and developing world turns the latter into serfs and the former into credit/welfare dependents.

The wheels are coming off this latest cycle of taking a little bit more from somewhere else because we're running out of folk worse off than ourselves to exploit, as more populous and younger nations such as China, India, Nigeria and Turkey are undertaking the same remarkably rapid process of becoming middle class and educated (which took our immediate forebears centuries) in just a couple of decades or less. Point that out to someone and the best you'll get is a shrug and the information that communism was tried and failed - as if capitalism and communism are the only available alternatives.

[ZenArcade]

Hear, hear. We are in danger of entering an age of invisible hand control the like of which may last in perpetuity. Government and private interest are crafting a new world order where the possibility of a liberal 'free' existence is ever more at risk.  Will we degenerate to a world of panem et cirences for the mass of people and totaql control for the elite. Z

[The Legendary Shark]

Brilliant.
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I am in awe.
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[The Legendary Shark]

My mate just dropped 'round with the DVD of what he filmed from outside - very Pythonesque! Blokes in suits and ties talking to a letterbox.
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At one point, the council guy tells the letterbox, "things are now out of your control." A pause and then my voice calls back, "no they aren't."

[Proudhuff]

well done sharkie, I would have lost the rag and thrown in the towel ages ago, best of luck for round two!!

[Ancient Otter]

Yes, Recrewt - the bailiff himself seemed flummoxed. He started to say at one point "but I've served hun...(dreds of these things?)" but trailed off. Could it be that he'd never considered the validity of the warrants he's been happily serving for God knows how long? Could he possibly have failed to notice the difference between a signed one and an unsigned one? He genuinely didn't seem to know what to do and even admitted that he saw my point.
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I mean, if I didn't have a point, why did they all go away?

You've fended them for now and forced a Council robot to it question it's programming. Nice start TLS.

[TordelBack]

Shark, it's a great privilege to be able to read your witty account of what must be a very difficult stand to take, no matter how close you hold your principles.  Congrats on your success so far, and fingers crossed you continue to frustrate and bewilder in equal measure.  But do take care of yourself, mate.

[Hawkmumbler]

Yeah. We might have had disagreements in the past, Sharky, but I agree with your ideology (though lack the teneditu to follow suit) and can only hope things pull through. Next time we are at a con together im buying you a pint of the best!

[The Legendary Shark]

Thank you all again for your concern and your support. I know I keep saying that and I hope the repetition doesn't lessen my sincerity in your eyes. (It feels obsequious to keep saying 'thank you' and ungrateful not to - what's the netiquette here???)
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I'm sat here strategizing. Tsun Tsunami, or somebody similar (maybe Sonny Bono), said "the highest realisation of warfare is to attack plans."
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I wonder what they plan to do next...?

[JayzusB.Christ]

JBC - the overwhelming majority of money that a government spends is borrowed from the central banking system. The central banking system creates the money lent to governments out of nothing - just by filling in a few cells on a spreadsheet.
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The government then takes this invented money and dishes it out on all sorts of things from bombing people to paying my rent.
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That invented money then needs to be paid back. On top of the original loan, however, interest has been accruing. In essence, the central banking system wants more back than it "lent" - but as the central banks only created the original money and no more there simply doesn't exist the surplus to service the interest.
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Because of this, every penny in taxes paid goes towards servicing this unserviceable debt - because don't forget that all the (official) money in existence was created in the same way.
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This is why taxes continue to rise and cuts continue to increase. It's like lubricating an engine with borrowed oil: for every litre poured in the oil dealer wants 1.01 litres back. For a while you can keep draining a litre and a bit out whilst topping up with litres but eventually you're going to start needing to borrow 1.1 litres and draining 1.025 litres out to pay it back. You have to keep borrowing more and more oil to keep the engine running.
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A consequence of this system is that every penny borrowed gets the world deeper and deeper into this imaginary debt and it's killing us. The world is falling apart under this ludicrous system, it is seriously and actually killing people, and I've had enough.
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I'm as dischuffed as buggery and I'm not going to take it any more.

Fair enough, Sharky, you make a lot of sense and I respect and admire your principles on that one.  I suppose I take the Judge Beeny approach:  Work within the crappy system you're stuck with, in the hope that you can  shape it even a fraction.  Probably very naive but there you go, that's me.  I suppose I've struggled hard to set up my own small business;and I always try to treat  my clients and (occasional) staff as fairly and generously as possible. At the very least I'm not a wage-slave (as Noam Chomsky would put it) to any of the planet-destroying multinationals.
 
But as I say I fully respect your approach. You're a far more ethical and principled man than I am; and I hope you eventually come up smiling despite these difficulties.

[The Legendary Shark]

JBC, thank you. I try to live up to the simple tenets of Common Law upon which all subsequent laws and legislations both stand and depend;
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Cause loss harm or damage to nobody, honour your lawful contracts, pay your lawful bills and be honest in your dealings.
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Easier to say than do - but I try!

[The Legendary Shark]

Congratulations on running your own business, by the way, I am in no way anti-business and admire those who try to walk that ethical line in a deeply unethical world. Kudos to you for that.
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I also want to say that what I'm doing is what I'm doing and I don't expect anyone to copy it. I once coined the expression "freedom virus" to describe what I'm trying to do. If we take the "vampire squid" analogy to describe The System then it does seem too big for one person, or even a group of people, to handle. A mob is cut out like a cancer, a movement is anaesthetised like a fracture and honest discourse is soothed away with placebos. The only way to kill something that big is with a virus, and I am an individual virus.
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If every individual found just one thing to say 'no' to, whatever that one thing might be, that would be some virus, I think, some virus indeed...

[JayzusB.Christ]

Congratulations on running your own business, by the way, I am in no way anti-business and admire those who try to walk that ethical line in a deeply unethical world. Kudos to you for that.

Thanks, mate.  It's a very very small business, and when I say I have staff I mean people who I call when I'm swamped myself.

Cause loss harm or damage to nobody, honour your lawful contracts, pay your lawful bills and be honest in your dealings.

Yep, can't say fairer than that.

[Fragminion]

I dunno if it applies to this thread...but I gotta admit... My fave Dredd writer. Alan Grant!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rScec2duH30