TRUTH AND LIES

It is only when you encounter the truth that you realise what has been a lie.

Well into my 50’s I was able and willing to verbalise my anger and dismay at the cynical manipulation of truth by the powers behind our media, and the loathsome ambition of career politicians.
Corporate media journalists would rather climb the greasy pole of butt-licking success than question the machinations of their media owners. Some even begin to believe their own lies, after all the big pay-checks come with super cleaned bums.
You can perhaps feel some compassion for ‘celebrities’ who chase fame and fortune at any price, and who do not give a shit so long as the spin-doctors continue to regurgitate vast streams of vomit.

These days I understand the impotence of this white-hot rage. I am getting old. I am going to die sooner rather than later and all my ranting over these many years has done nothing to change one solitary mind.
I am not naturally political. Not a socialist, nor a capitalist, not right wing, or left wing. Neither am I prone to being very moderate. Dress up a pig in satin and silk and it is still a pig. I have been wrong a million times. I used to think that Barack Obama was an honest man. That he had a backbone. Sadly, he and his psychopathic cronies still twist the truth for their own ends and those of the rich and powerful. After all, what is one more little atrocity committed in the Middle East? Just another crime against humanity, but committed on the side of God, and Justice, and Freedom.
Even my country Australia, sucks bum with ‘bi-partisan resolve’. Just when you think you have an honest politician on the opposing benches he or she lets you down by standing with the psychopathic loonies. They won’t stand on trial at the Hague, not one of them.

Over my almost 70 year lifespan I’ve seen how easy it is to create lynch-mobs. Herds of sheep. You only need three ingredients. 1) Greed. 2) Fear. 3) Stupidity.
Acting in combination it now takes no time at all to re-write history. As little as a few days is all that is required. Constant loops if video run over and over again bamboozles viewers into believing that they are seeing a much more massive conflagration. Genocides can be perpetrated and the reasons for them entirely forgotten by We The People in just a few weeks. Even knowing the horror of our actions, those who caused us to turn our needless ferocity upon innocent people cover up their crimes by convincing us that we truly were justified, and therefore, absolved of all guilt.
Then, in waves of self-disgust we vow ‘never again’, and we keep those vows for as long as it takes the psychopaths to count their shekels and pay off their Judases.

Do you know what TRUTH is? I don’t. So far as I can tell, truth is now only something that most people believe until we are told that we should no longer believe it. Friends become enemies, and enemies friends, between going to bed at night and waking in the morning.
I do not want to offer up a history lesson, but perhaps a small example is worth while. Before 1611ad there were hundreds of translations of the bible. Then along came James 1 (James V1 of Scotland.) This despicable creature personally supervised the torture of women accused of witchcraft. Some people think of him as a scholar and yes, during his reign culture and literature did flourish. He sponsored the translation of the bible (from the Latin vulgate), which became the King James Version, based on his ideas and personal views. Nowadays this version of the bible is the one that most people know the best. BUT if you think there were only ever ten commandments, you are deluded. That’s OK, you are one of millions. My point is that if you tell a lie often enough, and spread that lie through fear and finely tuned propaganda it becomes the truth.
During WW11 Paul Joseph Goebbels was a master manipulator and propagandist who easily convinced even the most moderate and ordinary of German folk that they were the master race. His success was international and today most Americans would swear on a stack of King James bibles that the USA was NOT funding and supporting Hitler’s gang of thugs. Not just major banks, but motor companies, newspaper moguls, and simple ordinary people who, like sheep followed their ‘leaders’.
Most British people would viciously attack my character and motives if I were to point out that at that time, the British too were anti-Jew. You would call me a liar if I told you that my own mother was spat at and called a ‘Jew Lover!’ by our own townsfolk in Yorkshire, England. Those who did not spit and heckle simply crossed the street and dropped their heads. My mum’s crime? She took in a Rabbi and his family to live in our home during the years after WW11. In the main though, when I grew up after the war anti-Semitism was not a noisy activity. It was something quietly brought up in the living rooms of ordinary folk. “They’re Jews you know!”

Who needs history lessons when history is so quickly and easily reconstructed and rewritten? Even old buggers like me end up doubting our own memories of things if a lie is perpetuated long enough and vociferously enough.
I was in the Middle East in the mid-sixties, but to this day I am suspicious about why we were killing youngsters my own age and younger. I was one of those sailors from HMS Phoebe on exchange with the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders in 1967. I have not viewed this piece of film and have only just found out about it’s existence. My research however suggests that we were lied to and manipulated by our own government. The men I served with were amazing, courageous people. We did as we were told, and in retrospect we were told a pack of lies by a despicable gang of politicians and military psychopaths in powerful positions.
So why should things be different now?

On a recent Sunday night an interview was aired television with our once Prime Minister John Howard. For me it was a shocking interview. In answer to a question put to him about sending Australian troops in to Iraq and in to combat he bare-faced stated that he was “embarrassed” that he already knew that there were no weapons of mass destruction. He knew! He lied and sent young men and women to their deaths. He showed no compassion or concern for the innocent people of Iraq! John Howard LIED and perpetuated that lie, only admitting now that he was ’embarrassed’. This man, and his masters in the United States and Britain CREATED the environment that has led to the ultimate horrors today. In my opinion, he and his co-conspirators are guilty of war crimes.
What have we become?

In the past few days the Palmer United Party senator Jackie Lambie not only posted a criminally racist and disgusting assassination of a brave Afghan woman policewoman’s character, but she claimed to be doing so in HONOUR of that woman. Jackie Lambie, who claims aboriginal heritage, (denied by aboriginal elders) is a bumbling racist who demanded that anyone who followed Sharia law should “get out of Australia!” When asked to define Sharia Law she fumbled and farted,

talking about terrorists and the Australian Constitution. This stupid, ignorant, half-witted evil-minded piece of excrement is a powerful reminder that just about anyone can take a seat at the table to decide how MY life should be controlled and manipulated. Her astonishingly racist, religionist views, full of uninformed hatred and fearmongering actually has wide support in the community! Her leader, the mostly affable Clive Palmer, billionaire miner and founder of the Palmer United Party has done nothing publicly to admonish this woman. He has simply disagreed. She is therefore, free to continue to spread the bile, bigotry and lies as a senator in the Australian parliament.

Last week the United States declared that they are considering supplying arms to ‘moderate rebels’ in Syria. Wait a minute… MODERATE rebels? That is not just oxy-moronic, it is plain downright moronic! What happens when you issue these remarkable people with guns and artillery? Do they remain MODERATE rebels? DOH!
John Kerry weighed in a few days ago with a speech on television. I heard that speech and was shocked. (Incidentally, Sky news misquoted him. He did not say “alleged”.) This supposedly informed ‘moderate’ and powerful man claimed that Australian police had just arrested a ‘large group of terrorists’ who had plans to ‘create mayhem’ by ‘indiscriminate beheading of civilians.’ He has not bothered to correct that statement. So was it true? No it was not. This is what in fact happened. Some reports say 600, others say 800 police officers swooped on a number of suburbs in Sydney. At first it was claimed that there were 15 people arrested. As a little time went by 14 of those 15 were released, and ONE person was arrested and charged with (as far as we know) sending an angry and threatening text message.
Of particular interest with regard to this story was the immaculate staging. TV and press all ready and waiting to grab their images and stories. Not much of a secret was it? Since last week the story has crossed the world, and gained credence. No one in authority has yet described the non-event for what it actually was. It was a great publicity stunt, and depressingly linked to other things that have since come to pass. I wonder how history will treat this. There is a great beating of drums right now. There is a movement on to greater things, one linked to another. The politics of fear is humming along nicely. It’s a great time to confiscate even more freedom and human rights. In fact, so great is the fear that many folk are volunteering away their rights and freedoms. Not me!

So what is next in this great saga of fear and loathing? The jigsaw is becoming clearer. At the same time as this ridiculous ‘raid’ in Australia happened, several other things were put in to play. There was a not so subtle change in the news reportage about Australian troops going into Iraq once more. Islamaphobia is being carefully and cynically marketed into the streets of Australia, Britain, and the USA.
Violence against Muslims, and loathsome commentary against Islam is becoming prevalent in the streets. While in Australia there has as yet been NO genuine terrorist attack, it will happen. It has been created deliberately and without conscience by government and police, by right wing groups, by fascists, and once decent people now believe that they are under attack and they are acting in fear. There is a genuine belief within the wider community that terrorist attacks have already occurred in Australia. The lies are becoming truth, and those lies are becoming more strident and outlandish.
Security agencies are being given powers that were previously unheard of, and the people are volunteering away their personal rights.
Just a day before the Big Raid in Sydney, the Prime Minister upgraded Australia’s security status. A few days later he made a speech announcing the deployment of 600 troops to Iraq. He said that there would be ‘no boots on the ground’. He spoke of ‘advisors only’, and ‘targeted air strikes in Iraq’. (Nothing then said about Syria. You will have to wait a few weeks for that.) Then, a few days later he made a speech about ‘terrorists’, saying that it was ‘against God. Against religion.’ Wow! Now that’s a new one for a secular society! And then came the words ‘combat troops’. Yes, COMBAT troops. Those troops on the way out of Australia were SAS, nothing but SAS. SAS troops do not serve in ‘advisory’ roles. They are not office workers. They are on the ground combat troops. So…’no boots on the ground’? Hmmm!
Islamaphobia, fearmongering, the building up of hatred against the world’s second largest religion, (a peaceful religion) leading to the prosecution of yet another war. Oh what sheep we are!

I am old. My rage is impotent. As we enter another era of war and desolation, history is both being repeated and re-written exponentially.
What will the truth be tomorrow?
I am Australian. Every day on the streets of our cities Muslim women are attacked, terrorised and molested because they wear the hijab. They go largely unreported. I walk the streets of our suburb, day and night without fear. I have a house tenanted by three refugee boys, all Muslims. I cannot stop what is happening, but I can say this. I am sorry. I am so sorry.

UPDATE: The one man who was arrested and charged with ‘terrorist related’ crimes has appeared in court. He was found in possession of 4 rounds of ammunition (no firearms), left over from the last time he went hunting, and a broken Taser, given to him by a friend for repair. He was given a $500 fine and a good behaviour bond. That is what it took between 600 and 800 armed and dangerous police officers to be called out for.