Classics Without All the Class discussion

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Hi

Just to let you know that the book 'Dictatorship to Democracy' will be FREE on Amazon for Kindle/PC download from Wednesday 22nd March to Saturday 25th March 2017. Please fell free to pass this on to your friends.
First published in 'Corpalism'.

A smorgasbord of a book portraying many facets of modern British life. The Independents are a new force in politics; free of any lobby group, party bias, or corporate interest, they are determined to change the face of the political scene. This puts them on a headlong collision course with the Establishment.

Combine this with a terror plot, the exploits of a young dysfunctional couple, the struggles of a mature family living with change and you have the ingredients of an all-round good read.

Extract below:

The Independents - What price democracy?


The meeting organiser approached the rostrum, he paused and waited for the cheering to stop, and then he spoke, “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this, the very first meeting of the Independent candidates. It’s wonderful to see so many of you here in one place. We’ve selected a few people to speak with you today from the hundreds of offers we had …for those of you disappointed this time, we have a list for our next meeting and gradually we hope to give everyone who wants to speak a platform.”

The applause rose again as he gestured to a slightly built, sandy-haired man standing to the side. “Now, please give a rousing welcome to the man who started it all, our inspirational mentor and guide… Colin Carpenter.”

The delegates rose as one and cheered and clapped as the man moved confidently to the centre of the stage and took up position behind the rostrum. As he did so a single file of people walked on stage and sat in the row of chairs behind him.

“Thank you, Chris, for that introduction.” Colin said, beaming, the lights glinting off his glasses, “It’s been a long hard struggle but now we’re here, a visible force to be reckoned with, so…” There were more cheers from the hall. “WELCOME,” he shouted raising both arms, “today is the day we begin to change everything. Today we lay down the marker whereby we reclaim our country, reclaim our world, today is the day we start the new era of real rule of the people, by the people and for the people.”

There were more cheers and scatterings of delegates stood to applaud him; then more followed until the whole assembly was on its feet.

“No longer will we tolerate a corrupt, locked in party system; no longer will we tolerate their machinations, their duplicity, their constant deceptions, and their fake party divisions. We know they’re all the same, that they represent the same hidden wealthy few who own this country, we know they all rub shoulders with this clique of scoundrels and that they pander to their every whim. We will resist, we will stand against these corrupt servants of the rich and we will win.”

There were shouts of ‘win’ from the floor. Colin gestured that they should sit as he prepared to begin his speech proper. He waited a few moments until all were seated and the hall was quiet.

“I set out on this trail barely a year ago, not knowing where it would lead. Like many of you, I watched the Occupy movement in its struggle to take back control from those who hold us in thrall. I admit it, I watched rather than joined them; I supported them in spirit.” He paused, “I tried to make a stand by myself. I tried to keep my business going; I was trading on fumes. I cut costs and used inferior materials, I streamlined processes until there was no slack, I had to lay off staff who’d been with me for years and make the ones I kept work a 3 day week. We missed deadlines and our quality dropped – in the end I closed it down. Rather than be associated with what we were being forced to produce, rather than re-locate to China and do what my competitors had done – take advantage of slave labour in the East, rather than sacrifice my principles, I closed down the business I had started from scratch 10 years ago.”

He stopped talking, leaving a gap as if mourning a lost dream then he spoke again, quietly but with deep passion, “I was deeply unhappy and desperate to do something to make these rogues realise and stop what they were doing; it was something that seared into me until I could stand it no longer. I spent hours thinking about what I could do; without a revolution I couldn’t see anything changing. Then it hit me – I could ‘occupy’ the Political Space! I could stand on an ethical platform as an independent at the next general election.”

He looked slowly round the hall, making eye contact where he could. “I am a loyal Briton, my lineage reaches into all corners of these great islands of ours and I have always loved this country and all it has stood for. I love its people and our culture. I can no longer sit idly by whilst the greedy rich dismantle it, whilst they remove all investment from the UK and place that investment in areas of the world where they use slave labour, I will not tolerate it.”

There were shouts of support from the floor and again people were standing in their excitement.

“It is intolerable that the uncontrolled greed of the few should impact so heavily on the many. It is unacceptable that the political jackals should spin their concoction of lies to justify their plans to run down the state of Britain. It is deplorable that they should think themselves free to consign workers of the west to destitution whilst enslaving the workers of the 3rd world. It is unacceptable that they seek to return us to the same conditions as existed in the Middle Ages, a time when the rich elite was served by destitute serfs. They must think we don’t have a thought in our heads.” There was a rapturous round of applause. Colin grinned and added, “They must think we’re STUPID!”

The applause continued, accompanied now by excitable foot stamping.

“They clearly believe that the years of watching junk TV, of listening to their constant lies about the economy, about economics, the GDP, the unions, the balance of payments, the national debt, the so called ‘scrounging poor’, the so called ‘benefit cheats’, the communists, the NHS, the welfare state, state run education, Muslims, world terrorism, our lack of productivity and competitiveness, has shrivelled our brains and blinded us to the real truth, the reality behind all this.” He paused, took a breath then thundered out, “We, the masses, are being sold out by rich greedy psychopaths.”

More clapping from the floor.

“There is a precedent for all this but they hope we’re too stupid to see it, that we have no knowledge of history, that we’re so wrapped up in ‘reality’ TV that we miss what is happening, miss the correlation with the past.”

He poured some water from the jug on the table before him, allowing a few moments for his words to sink in, “The Roman Empire which for centuries was the dominant power, had legions that controlled vast territories of the known world, and then we’re told, all of a sudden, Rome collapses.”

He paused, then raised his voice slightly, “I say to you, Rome didn’t collapse, Rome did not fall – the wealthy and powerful families of Rome took advantage of prevailing winds and reorganised.”

He glanced out across the hall, checking the attention of the audience, “They recognised that maintaining legions to hold territories was costly, and they had a new weapon in their arsenal - religion. Caesar became the Pope, the leading families entered religion, the Roman Empire transitioned into the Roman Catholic Church collecting more revenues than a thousand legions could gather. That’s what happened to the Roman Empire, that’s what happened to Rome.”

He banged the table abruptly, startling a few people in the front rows, “But what happened to the ordinary people of Rome, to the plebeians, the out of work soldiers? They were reduced to penury as the Rome they knew disappeared from the map. As they starved, these legions that had made Rome great, the wealthy Romans, the patricians, the upper classes became richer than ever and the Pope found he was able to control the whole world with a few monks and threats of excommunication, of burning in hell for all eternity.”

He paused and took a quick sip of water, he knew that making the link was vital and these concepts were new to most of his audience.

“And that is what is happening to us…though it’s not belief in God that’s the new export, the new method of raising gold for the new aristocracy, the new export is a new religion altogether, and is called ‘consumerism’ or the ‘market’. The rich have exported our jobs to the 3rd world where wages are minimal, where land costs are minimal, where there are autocratic leaders and armies willing to crush the workers who ask for more, where there are billions of potential economic slaves to serve them and gain them even greater wealth.”
Someone in the crowd called out ‘Apple’ and a couple of others picked it up.

He nodded, “A good example, thank you” he said quietly, then raising his voice continued, “There’re one million people employed in sweat shop factories in China producing Apple products…think about it, one million jobs that could’ve been situated in the West but for the fact of having to pay minimum wage and provide decent working conditions.”

He stopped and stared out at the crowded hall, his eyes burning, “Wealth, that’s what this is all about, it’s what it’s always been about, the creation of wealth for the very few, for the greedy psychopaths who want to own everything and drive the masses into the gutters so that they can lord it over them; in order to feel rich they have to have the poor.”

Colin studied his audience, “So what of the British worker? What of the US worker? What is intended for us? In the recent past we had service industry jobs, easily accessed credit and the creation of massive debt, all this was done to ensure a smooth transition from production and purchase from the West to the East. It was no accident; it’s part of a plan and exactly what they intended and so far they have been successful. They have managed to transfer most of production from the West to the East and during that time the Western worker had artificial service industry jobs to ensure that there was still a market for products being made in the East. However, we have reached an end of the first phase - the credit bubble in the West has burst, the western worker is no longer able to provide the buying power required to maintain supply and demand so the wealthy few and their economic and political servants are looking to provide easier credit to the worker in the East, where there is a potential new market for debt.” ...................

Happy reading, hope you have a good week.

Cheers

Arun

Amazon .co.uk
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Democracy-Di...
Amazon.com
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