Saturday 10 May 2008

Quote of the day

“ If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

Joseph Goebbels


What’s the point of petitioning the UK PM?

The state was petitioned to withdraw from the European Union (EU) on the grounds that it is of no benefit to the UK any longer, being a gross waste of money that should not be funded by the taxpayer any longer. That it was an unelected, bureaucratic bloc constantly infringing national sovereignty. It attracted several thousand signatures and is by no means the only petition making similar points.

The State’s response demonstrates a certain contempt for the signatory’s ability to detect bullshit. They say:

“Membership of the European Union has brought significant benefits to the UK, in terms of wealth, jobs, peace and security.”

But fail to actually back this claim with any facts whatsoever.

Security - We are expected to believe that it was the presence of the EU and not, to pluck a random example out of thin air, say... N.A.T.O. that has guaranteed the peace in Western Europe since WWII? Very amusing…

They go on:
”Through the EU, we belong to the world's biggest trading bloc. Over half of British trade is with Europe. An estimated three and a half million British jobs are linked to exports to the EU,

They fail to mention that prior to this through the Commonwealth we belonged to the world’s biggest trading bloc. Much of our trade was with its members and staggeringly huge numbers of British jobs were linked to exports to it. As were countless jobs throughout the Commonwealth. We shall not dwell on the detrimental impact the effective dismantling of much of this trade had, or how much persists to this day

They witter on…
“..and our membership allows us to live, work and travel across Europe and to receive free medical care if we fall sick on holiday.”

Of course Brits were never allowed to travel to Europe or live there before this – Not.

Curiously enough many British people went to live and work in other commonwealth countries and similarly nationals of those countries did as well, Brits to Canada and the antipodes, Aussies to the UK, Canada, etc. etc.

As for free medical care if you do travel to Europe you would be a fool not to have travel insurance - including medical cover.

They continue ”Improved maternity pay, strengthening of rights to paid holidays and now the reduction in mobile phone calls when abroad are just some of the practical benefits the EU has helped deliver. And as part of the EU, the UK is better able to deal with global issues like environment and world trade, and tackle problems like crime, illegal immigration and terrorism.”

Phone calls! Get real… Maternity right, paid holidays.. Get real. The fact is being in the EC massively limits our options to improve things because either we gave up the power or it would be trading on euro toes.

Finally the stench of bovine faeces becomes almost overwhelming…”T he question of whether we should remain in the (then) EEC was put to a referendum in 1975, which passed convincingly. The government sees no case for a referendum on the UK's membership of the EU today.”

They fail to point out that this was spun at the time as a trading partnership and noting more. No Superstate ruled by unelected commissioners were mentioned then, not EU ambassadors or embassies. That vote was on something else, the British public were conned with false information.. It is a probability approaching certainty that if they had so much of an inkling of what they were actually voting for at the time they would have rejected utterly.


”It is clear that by working together with other European countries, we can achieve much more in terms of promoting peace and stability, economic prosperity, environmental protection and a range of other important issues than we could achieve by ourselves.” an entirely unsupported set of claims here…

They go on to inform us disingenuously that: ”Successive opinion polls show that public support for a total withdrawal from the EU is relatively low. An ICM poll in August showed that - showed that approximately 21% of respondents favoured a total withdrawal from the EU.”

They fail to point out that the vast majority wish to halt any further integration and claw thing back to pre EU, EEC levels.

They also fail to mention that New-Labour are currently badly governing the UK on the basis of the support of a mere 22% of the British electorate at the 2005 general Election. Based upon the results of the recent local elections we may suppose it is now considerably more precarious than that…

On that basis it is easy to argue that public support for New-Labour is little greater than it is for total withdrawal from the EU

So is there a point to the government’s petition website? Or bothering to post, or sign the petitions? Not much by the look of it…