Tag: Influence

How do we make Politics truly representative of everyone?

If we really want Politics to be truly or genuinely representative of everyone, everyone must feel they are being represented genuinely and that their own truth is the place where the journey to the creation, review and change of public policy begins.

Anyone who pours scorn on the idea that you can or even should involve everyone in politics in some way beyond programming people or telling them what to do, is part of the problem we are moving away from.

They will not accept the validity or functionality of The Way of Awakened Politics for Good Government as a worthy or legitimate cause.

For The Way of Awakened Politics for Good Government to work effectively and as it should, it is essential that the people effected by decisions are able to access and interact with the people making the policy decisions.

In the limited cases where policy decisions being made affect people at an inter or intra community level (Regional, National etc.), those same people or others just like them should always have been directly involved in appointing the politicians upon whose shoulders that collective responsibility will be shoulders and the decisions made.

This Blog is part of the e-book ‘The Way of Awakened Politics for Good Government’. Please do download a copy for your Kindle from Amazon, or alternatively, read the whole book FREE online once it is available at www.awakenedpolitics.com

Advertisement

Awakened Politics & Good Government cannot exist where other influences are at work

For Politics and Government to be fully Awake, it is absolutely essential that the sanctity of the relationship between Voters and Public Representatives is uncorrupted and remains incorruptible.

The greatest travesty that exists within our so-called democracies today is the role and influence of Big Business, ‘The Markets’, Banks and ‘The Financial Sector’.

It has become very clear through the chronology of political events in the UK during the Autumn of 2022 alone, that our Politicians are actively prioritising ‘what the markets want’, above doing whatever is in the best interests of everyone else.

The reality that this action effectively rubbishes or gives the lie to The UK being a democratic Country aside, this evidence does in itself spell out that care and consideration for the impact of decisions are only being made on purely a financial or rather monetary policy basis.

Government decisions are not being made on a public policy basis. This means that issues created by the very real ‘cost of living crisis’ are being treated as nothing more than an afterthought at best, if they are really being thought about by Politicians in any meaningful way at all.

Awakened Politics isn’t fully Conscious or Enlightened if any bias or subjective influence is present or at work, either for the individual Politician, for any Political Group or Grouping to which they may belong, or indeed within the Council, Parliament or Assembly of whatever kind it might be, to which each and every elected Politician once elected belongs.

The relationship between Voter and Public Representative (Politician) will always be ultimately based upon trust. But that doesn’t mean we cannot or shouldn’t have a political and electoral system that reduces the instances where corruption of any kind cannot be limited to a point where it will not be easy to hide and where it can be readily detected or seen.

Power, position, wealth & influence are no insulation against complete stupidity

Anyone can be as clever or as intelligent as they like or as the world considers them to be. But if they don’t care about anyone but themselves at the end of the day, the outcome of their actions will always end with consequences that we might expect if we were to knowingly place the worlds greatest fools in the very same roles and handed them the same power, influence and ability to control.

These people at the top, across governments, business and the financial worlds today, cannot and will not be able to continue to ‘reign’ over the world or any country, IF we all stop believing that running the world and our country is only something that these people – who we don’t even know – can do.

Levelling Level | Stop the talk, stop the problem

Many of the societal problems that we have today exist in the way or at the level that they do, because of the way that the media focuses on sensationalism (bad news for somebody else).

The whole model functions on a strange kind of vicarious state of being. One that provides people with an instant high when they are able to witness someone else’s pain (All the time being thankful that it’s not them in the frame).

Problems in life, such as crimes will always exist – even if they are thankfully very few. But the way media has been working has been to expand stories of every kind that aren’t a threat or in any way likely to become real for any of us to a disproportionate and overwhelming level where they take over real life – simply because dishonest media has been abusing the trust we have in them and pumping nonsense straight into our front rooms.

People are far more tolerant and understanding of anything and anyone else, when the story they encounter is one that has only come to them as a part of their own journey through normal life, and they are literally ‘looking it in the eye’.

For a genuinely healthy society to exist, we need only to have exposure to news that is based on what is or what has been, and NOT what could or someone else believes should be.

Levelling Level | The role of the Media in our new world

Whilst many question the validity of the mainstream media today, very few really question or analyse what our mainstream news mediums really do and how they actually work.

As with the case with money, or the new unit(s) of exchange as we go forward, the great correction will define that media sources with influence must tell the truth and therefore be a medium that the public can trust.

We are already at saturation point when it comes to other people’s narratives, and we are desperate to hear leaders and influencers speaking the truth, demonstrating that they are sources that we can trust.

Levelling Level | Common Sense and the lightest touch of Law and Regulation

Whilst I have made a big thing of the need to both regulate and monitor the ethical conduct of any industry or service that provides any goods, services or has an influence on the factors which are essential to a Basic Living Standard, we must in general terms step back from the culture of having laws for laws sake.

A basic framework for everyone’s conduct is of course essential. But the laws and regulations that do exist must only be there because they are essential for good order and good conduct to exist. Not because weak minded leaders are attempting to control.

People must be treated as the adults that they actually are. People must be allowed to live freely and able to exercise common sense in as many areas of their lives as possible.

The principle that we should all be guided by is that:

We should always be free to exist, to do, be and think as we may want, provided that our actions and influence to not impinge the right of any other person to be exactly the same.

Levelling Level | The role and voice of Young People in Politics & Government

The often-unrecognised strand and dynamic of top-down politics is the reality that the people we currently have at the top are usually at the end of their career (or beyond), and that those even in the lower stages of this perverse hierarchy are themselves in or approaching middle age.

Yes, there are exceptions as there are in anything. But when you have a system that maintains itself and functions by using the same thinking continuously – and that thinking reflects only the selfish wants and needs and outlooks of the older people who are at the top, it stands to reason that there is a massive gap not only in policy, but also within the messaging that makes sense to or can be identified with by the young.

The issue of life experience and the impractical idealism of the young will always run contrary to policies and practical solutions that consider everything and work as they should for all. But that doesn’t mean that the outcomes and aims that Younger People have in mind shouldn’t be heard, or indeed incorporated into wider policies that reflect practical reality and therefore become solutions that can and do actually work.

Just as power must be restored to the level of government and decision making that is most relevant to the collective voice, Young People must be considered within that process too, with youth or young people’s councils meeting as part of and feeding into each tier of government and being used as an effective tool to influence and inform.

Levelling Level | Your influence is yours to give to Politicians and is for Politicians to answer to

We cannot all be politicians. In fact, very few of us would even want to be politicians. But that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be accessible to us, especially when they are making the decision on our behalf that affect us all.

We all have an equal stake in society. In our communities. In our Country at large.

Contrary to what those who benefit from us thinking otherwise may believe, money, wealth and power do not make anyone more worthy than anyone else, and they certainly should not have access to more power or control.

Levelling Level | Political decisions should always be taken at the level where they will achieve the most good

Contrary to what our political masters would like us all to believe, we do not have people leading us from London who have a better understanding of how life works, or how we see, experience and feel about the lives that we live.

Yet the way that government works and the way that the public services and structures that support our lives operate, would suggest that people not only in London, but in a range of different public sector organisations do actually know better than we do when it comes to everything that we deal with and face each and every day.

Whilst there will always be decisions that not only need to be but also must be made at the relative collective level – for example, our National Defence, the reality is that far more of the decisions that affect our daily lives are made further away from us than they either should, or actually need to be.

Defence is of course a subject that we hope to never have to think about, and it is certainly not one that we expect to face in daily life (unless of course we are employed by or within the military, or there is a base of some kind located close to where we live)

And this is very much the point. It is only decisions that don’t touch us – or more importantly any of those like us – at the relevant level of our community or what it is we have in common – that should rest in the hands of anyone beyond.

Levelling Level | The ongoing power-grab from useless and controlling UK Politicians

We have been conditioned historically to give what is an assumed deference to anyone who we consider to be in a position of influence or power.

No matter how ridiculous the people we find ourselves showing that deference to may seem be, the fact that they are in those positions of influence or power, somehow and for some reason unknown makes us willfully blind to quite how stupid such people can be. It certainly obscures the reality that underpins how self-serving and focused upon themselves they actually are.

Yes, we have had some great leaders and great people in positions of influence across society in the past.

But as time has gone on, more and more have them have been all about themselves. It naturally follows that when you have that many insecure people with power who simply shouldn’t have it, they will work together to consolidate that position and stay exactly where they are.

The easiest way to consolidate the power that poor leaders have when they are the top, is to bring more and more of that power towards the centre and to them – or what is in reality the top. They deliberately take it away from the people who they condescendingly believe aren’t equipped to handle that responsibility properly, but in reality, they see as a distinct threat to their power, their control and to themselves.

Essential Services to the Public

As discussed earlier, public services have become a political football and plaything for politicians, public sector workers and those with a financial interest in them alike.

Man cannot have two masters, just as you cannot put two saddles on the same horse. Services that are provided for the benefit of the public must have the benefit to the public as their primary aim and their overriding priority. As soon as private interests are involved, profit is the master, so public services must always be in public or community hands.

In order for everyone to have unfettered, affordable and reliable access to services that should be accessible in the same way for everyone, no matter where they live, it is essential that certain public services that are currently ‘owned’ and managed by ‘private’ and therefore ‘profit making’ interests are returned to public – or rather community hands.

The caveat is that legislation enabling unions to influence working practices at any level within public services of any kind must be rescinded.

Any responsibility for complaints relating to public sector employment practices not covered elsewhere by the Levelling Level proposal must be addressed by a third-party body, that cannot influence day-to-day operations and public service provision in any way.

Nobody has the right to make a profit

Nobody has the right to make a profit. They certainly do not have the right to make a profit by exploiting others, or by forcing them into arrangements that they simply cannot afford.

Yet this is the situation that exists in this Country today, simply because our MPs and Politicians – the people we have trusted to look after us – are not doing and are not up to the job.

Prices are at the highs that they are and are now rising all the time, because it is in the interests of others for them to do so.

The prices that we are being asked to pay, simply do not reflect the real – and much lower costs.

Self-interest is a powerful influence, because those who are driven to do everything that benefits themselves are more than happy to bring others into their plans so that one becomes just a few who benefit from the result.

The abuse of power

The behavior of our MPs, the political class, the establishment that sits behind it and activist movements such as unions are the key or common components of all the problems that we now face.

Some will choose to see the last two years of our political history as the only contributing factor in terms of all the problems that are set to come.

But the uncomfortable truth for many, is that the kinds of problems that society faces today are born of a rich tapestry of poor decision after poor decision, made by the wrong people being in positions of power and influence for all the wrong reasons.

Rather like the whole being greater than the sum of the parts, together all of these bad decisions have had a cumulative effect. We are now in the early stages of experiencing the related disaster unfold.

To overlook the causes of problems, or to pursue policy of any kind because of bias or influence – even because it’s the way politicians think or because of what politicians believe – rather than making decisions simply because those decisions are right for people they represent – are a massive abuse of power. It is as if a totalitarian dictatorship had been formed.

Our politicians may actually believe that they are doing the right things. But if they are not aware of themselves and their own thinking to a level where they can see where what’s good for people starts and where their self-interest ends, we are, as a Country, as communities and as individuals, pretty much damned.

And that, I am afraid to say, is where the UK finds itself today.

Our Broken System of Governance

At some point in the very distant and historic past, somebody somewhere recognised the need for some kind of service to be provided for everyone in the community, on our collective behalf.

Through a process that probably began under the control of those with money, power and influence, the pathway of civilisation brought us to a place where instead of there being services that everyone needed that were maintained under the control of specific or vested interests, services like sewage and waste management, the provision of water, looking after our roads and even our policing came under public control in the form of elected bodies that were there to represent the interests of us all.

Whilst it is staggering to know this, it is only within the past one hundred years or so that we finally reached the point where services that everyone needed every day or that everyone needed access to in the very same universal way, became fully under ‘public control’. In no small part due to the impact from and because we had to fight the Second World War.

Yes, the NHS was only born and created as a universal public health service just after WW2. An act that probably saw the zenith of public service provision, in terms of our system of government having full control over all of the public services.

It ensured that everyone had the same access, opportunities and support available to them both as individuals, but also in terms of anything -such as looking after infrastructure, where our collective interests were involved.

With a public services system or ‘public sector’ that had by this stage become so big, it was perhaps inevitable that it would take on a meaning or persona of its own.

That was of course, before politics became involved.

The control of money is where the true power lies – but only because of the way we think

When we have reached the point where money is the only thing that is important, it naturally follows that whoever controls money, the rules that govern money and the supply of money itself, will be the person or the people who are ultimately in charge of EVERYTHING – right down to what we do, think and say.

Because we revere money and wealth in the ways that we do today, the very democratic system that we believe to be in place to serve our best interests, doesn’t really exist.

Contrary to conspiracists talk and views, there is not some hidden world power that lies at the heart of everything and all public policy decision making, with someone sat in a bunker on a mountainside pulling every world leader’s strings.

Yes, a simple look at the way money rules everything, does make it seem logical that such a power exists. But the real power and influence that now lies in the hands of others who have or control money, and therefore have control over us all comes down to the way that we ALL think about money.

It is the way we think about money that surrenders our own power and control over life and everything else.

Neoliberalism: The intoxicating lies of the powerful

Regrettably, our Politicians are too stupid to understand what the ideas underpinning neoliberalism are really all about.

Neoliberalism and free markets are all about bringing more wealth to those who are wealthy already and nothing more.

Neoliberalism when adopted at state level is a tool to sanitise and legitimise selfishness at the highest level.

Neoliberalist thinking has helped make it ok to do anything that is legal, even when that legality exists because it has been created only by and for those who benefit from it.

The end result is that others suffer at incalculable number of levels or degrees of separation. Because ethics have been replaced by the idea that you should do things because you can and not because you should.

Neoliberalism is basically a philosophy of creating misery and exploiting others so that those who are able, can benefit from that choice.

Neoliberalism is the modern form of mass slavery, where oppression and suppression has been sold to everyone as freedom and choice.

The woke have an impractical and idealistic view of the world based on idealism and inexperience. Treat them as enemies now and they won’t learn empathy or understanding, but they will believe it is right to hate

Trying desperately hard to make headlines that will distract from the self-inflicted Partygate chaos that the Prime Minister has created, each day, the Conservative Party Chairman announced yesterday that the Tories now have the woke and woke culture, well and truly within their sights.

Instead of defining themselves as the thinkers, the leaders, the pioneers of our times; those who understand how the changing world and its ability to influence thinking works, our Politicians have also become victims of the way we are all being influenced.

Their solution is not to start thinking. They just want to tackle the problem they perceive head-on. And do so without any thought for the very subtle processes and nuances of reality that are actually involved.

Our perception is everything, until we decide that it is not

By focusing upon and defining our problems and fears, we make them worse. Some might say that this is how we actually make them real and that the devil really lies in the detail of it all.

The focus may not be voluntary. In fact, as we have allowed all forms of media and information technology to enter just about every part of life, we have unwittingly made ourselves highly vulnerable to every form of external influence from which problems with the way we think – and yes, issues with our mental health, are made.

We have so much information coming at us from these different streams, that the messages we are receiving take on their own reality, just as if we are being exposed to them in real life.

Issues that are very small – if indeed they are real at all – seem very BIG. And the life story, experience or events surrounding just one person easily translate to being something that is either happening or could happen to us all.

To many of us, this is reality. Its how reality works, and when we find ourselves experiencing fears or ways of thinking that have come to us this way, we don’t begin to question its relevance or relativity to us. We just accept that this is the way it is.

We are what we think. Our thoughts become things.

So, when you have enough people accepting what arrives in their heads as read, we find ourselves in a rather strange place where the thinking or the views of just a few are not only accepted as real, it also becomes the collective truth – no matter how wrong, flawed or misplaced that initial thinking might actually be.

The problem for society – and by that, I mean everyone – is when decision makers, people with real-life influence and power, and those whose roles have implications for the general public, don’t possess the understanding of how the world has changed around them. They fall into the trap of seeing what is in front of them on a screen not only as their own truth, but the truth of us all.

Wokery, close relative of the social justice movement and political correctness that still exist and came before, are the problem that they are and are as dangerous as they are today, not because they have any real value. But because of the way that their voices are heard and then perceived and accepted by the unthinking as the majority view.

Oddly enough, the people who we should be able expect to understand the myth and mechanics of how wokery works and influences us, then take appropriate and considered steps to show us all how unreal and unrealistic it actually all is, are our politicians.

Yet they don’t.

Wokery is at best is just a phase in life based on youthful inexperience and idealism.

At its worst, wokery is the voice of the angry. Of life’s victims who don’t deal with the issues they face and instead look to project the blame for everything that happens away from where it should actually lie. Pushing it outwards to anyone and anything they can find fault with and make guilty, therefore highlighting the innocence they see within themselves.

The reason we don’t ignore or dismiss this kind of thinking and the way the people experiencing it behave – as we would do if we were to be touched by it ‘in normal life’, is because its voice has become multiplied many times over by our media culture. It has as such taken on the false appearance of being ridiculously strong.

Until we see wokery as the foolishness that it really is and stop giving oxygen to the dangers it both poses and has already posed to real people going about their real lives, it will continue to grow. It will have very perverse influences on life for us all.

Politicians should literally be putting up a hand to say stop to anyone who wants to make emotion without experience real. They should be telling them to get a grip. They should be working to create an environment that values the experience of all others above academia, think tanks and media messaging – prioritising the real world and real life above all miscreated thoughts that nothing more than perception is allowing to become things

As examples of people who were once very woke or social justice warriors show, most of the young people who are led by this idealism begin to wake up as the depth and understanding that only comes from life experience deals its inevitable blows.

They deal with them and move on, and in time learn to respect the reality that we all see and experience life differently, and that there is nothing right about having alternative ways of thinking about life imposed.

The danger is that in their desire to knee jerk their way out of trouble today, our feckless politicians are about to make the reality that the woke believe in even stronger. All at a time when the last thing we need from the voices that have a stranglehold on influence is for them to believe the establishment has now legitimised their hate.

The unethical rich control and are raising the prices of everything a struggling public needs

Those with the money either own the businesses that provide the things that we need or have significant if not disproportional influence upon them and how they work.

In a world now dominated by an obsession with wealth and profit, the motives that drive the businesses which have defining control over the way that industry and the markets work are solely focused on the bottom line. They drive the increase of net profit margins at every turn.

Man cannot have two masters. And any business that has lost sight of why it exists, whether it be to produce the best goods, the best food, the best services or the best experience, it will always be looking to make ways to improve those margins to keep feeding the greed and ambition of the people at the top or those on their way there.

In circumstances where commercial self-interest has consistently pushed an agenda of deregulation and so-called ‘freedom of the markets’, we find ourselves in a financial and economic maelstrom where companies at the top of any marketplace can charge and do what they want. Not because its morally right. But because the laws they have influenced into being, to be amended or to be removed tell them that they can.

The whole downward spiral is presented in the form of a narrative that tells the public at large that the markets will always look after everything if the reach of government is kept to the absolute minimum that it can be.

Yet this narrative fails to tell the same trusting public that it pushes power further and further into the hands and control of the very few who are at the top of this twisted money tree. And that the process of unhindered deregulation only leads to price rises and misery for the people at the bottom whilst the bank accounts swell and gift even more opportunities for control at the very top.

This system is based on the economic theory or philosophy called Neoliberalism. Ironically, even many of those speaking out against the way that Governments are working today, do not understand the realities of what giving control of the system to the bankers and the industrialists actually does.

The only saving grace – if you can call it that, is that the spiral downwards (which the neoliberals believe heads the other way for as long as they are in profit and making money) inevitably leads only to one place: A systemic collapse. Because you cannot break one end of a completely unbalanced society and think for even one minute that the other end of it can maintain its very questionable and unbalanced place.