INSIDIOUS

"Like a bird on a wire, Like a drunk in a midnight choir, I have tried in my way to be free." Leonard Cohen

Yes, I am grateful to be living in a country where I can express my opinions more or less freely to my friends, in songs and in this blog. I can go as far as to hand out leaflets and last year I even took to the streets. I am also free to take all the opportunities open to me, without fear of discrimination, as long as I can get the requisite amount of cash behind me. In a sense, I am free, and I want the government to continue to protect these freedoms.

Yet I feel a sense of unease at all this. What can it be? Somewhere along the line, what has happened to democracy? Can I and people like me really determine the direction of the society in which we live?

Since Mr Blair and Mr Howard both believe that it is Rupert Murdoch and The Sun that will win the next election, are they then going to let his views determine their policy on Europe? (This is a rhetorical question!)

Mr Howard woos Mr Murdoch

And isn't this just one instance of a more widespread cancer in the body politic, namely that corporate elites in the arms, oil and media industries, hand-in-glove with each other, have either bought politicians or otherwise constrained their freedom of action to such an extent that they have to follow only the policies that will benefit those industries? Isn't this clear for all to see?

Welcome to 1984, This Perfect Day, Brave New World... Choose your dystopia. The future has arrived and very few people have noticed. We the people are NOT in control. The only difference between the situation in the "democratic" countries and 1984 is that dissent is tolerated, even welcomed! The corporate elites have been so terrifyingly ingenious in their assumption of power that they can now allow dissenters to sound off as much as they like, safe in the knowledge that any amount of protest will be utterly insignificant.