Big Brother, Little Brother
Last night I had I had a phone call advising that I switch over to channel 4 to their Dispatches program, as it was a documentary on New Labour’s recent election campaign. I immediately turned over and began watching through grainy camera work what was happening behind the scenes of New Labour’s victorious campaign, and I wasn’t shocked. Instead I felt vindicated in my distrust of New Labour and in particular Tony Blair. Most people know that political parties use any tactics to gain votes, and that ‘dirty’ tactics are generally accepted as simply part of politics. However, I feel that few people are aware of the extent of dirty tactics used by New Labour, simply because New Labour have turned propaganda into an art form. New Labour – like any modern organisation – places its roots firmly in the lessons learnt from the past, and New Labour have modelled themselves very firmly on the emerging dictatorships of the 1930’s. The 1930’s was an era when ‘propaganda became part of the air, something that everybody breathed in’, and so it is again today. When Tony Blair first came to power in 1997 senior civil servants in Whitehall were shocked at the swift centralisation of power, and the introduction of press officers at almost every level – dictating what could and could not be said, and by whom. Blair detached himself from the party and instead surrounded himself by a trusted ‘elite’ with whom he discussed policy, and directed the country, thus the majority of Labour MP’s were merely nodding stooges – often uncertain as to why they nodded.
Tony Blair’s centralisation of power, his creation of an elite few within the party – including elite spin-doctors – made New Labour concerned more with propaganda than progress. The arrogance of New Labour stems from the traditional belief that, quite simply, when it comes to politics: the public do not have the right to know. What they have instead is a system of indoctrination, and although this has always been the case, New Labour have become zealous and righteous in their production of propaganda and control of the media. Tony Blair exemplifies this attitude; he is forever preaching his morals - and using his ‘higher purpose’ - as an excuse to create a totalitarian state – in which we do live. The press has ashamedly failed to comment enough (if at all) on just how far from reality New Labour’s preaching’s are. If we analysis Tony Blair’s main discussion points:
· His promotion of human rights
· His dedication to ‘doing the right thing’ through military intervention
· His pride over the Kosovo conflict
· His pride over Iraq
· His dedication to the ‘War on Terror’
· His creation of a better Britain
As we can see very little actually relates to Britain, Tony Blair for all his promises on changing Britain dramatically, has in fact wasted 8 years with targets and attempted easy fixes. What Britain needed was a serious assessment and real change to develop as a nation, and New Labour in its third term should surely be completing its program. However, instead Tony Blair and his elite circle have turned their back on Britain in favour of supporting America’s global agenda, which consists principally of: military intervention outside of international law; and a rabid pursuit of global trade liberalisation. Both of these pursuits only aid the government in long-term strategic power goals, and corporations (the elite) in gaining more power and wealth. If you look at the above bullet points it becomes clear that Tony Blair is consistently lying not just to his electorate, but also to himself. That he can even mutter the phrase ‘human rights’ beggars belief. This is a man that leads Britain, the worlds second largest arms exporter, a nation that has consistently imported arms into countries that the UN has expressly requested arms embargos to be enforced. This is a man who has formed close relationships with Vladimir Putin and Ariel Sharon, men responsible for invasion of other countries, countless deaths, whilst Tony Blair sympathises with their battle against ‘terrorists’. Tony Blair also gives his support through arms exports, military training, and diplomatic assistance to many extreme regimes across the globe, all of which view human rights abuse as policy. Tony Blair’s illegal wars in Kosovo and Iraq – supposedly carried out to protect human rights – have in fact been humanitarian disasters; yet he still believes he did the ‘right thing’.
Tony Blair’s only attention to Britain seems to be tightening security, issuing threats of terrorism and spreading fear to ensure that he can pass more Orwellian legislation designed at quelling dissenters. Throughout all of this Tony Blair still tries to portray himself as a peoples man, a politician who listens to the public, and works for them. Subsequently channel 4’s documentary attempts to shed the reality of how New Labour successfully produces propaganda to create this false perception amongst the electorate. New Labour are not for the people, but their propaganda is – and it works. New Labour – and other parties - fought the election with a continued influence of American strategies, and confirmed the UK as simply little brother to big brother: America. America is - as the UK is - imitating the dictators of the 1930’s, producing fear through propaganda, and conflict through doctrine. Neo-Conservatives are imitating Nazi’s, whilst New Labour are imitating the Italian Fascists, Tony Blair is Mussolini to George Bush’s Hitler.