Day 176: Will the Elite Manipulate the Public to Push for Privatization in EMC?

For context, please read:

Strike to hit SAA on eve of Afcon
http://www.iol.co.za/business/business-news/strike-to-hit-saa-on-eve-of-afcon-1.1454062#.UPmk0PJBmSo

(SAA = South African Airways)
(Afcon = African Cup of Nations - Soccer)

The Problem

"The company dismissed claims that it was planning retrenchments, saying these statements were merely meant to cause harm.

SAA tried to avert the strike last week by reaching an interim agreement with the union, even though it recognised only Satawu as a majority union. When SAA acting chief executive Vuyisile Kona met NTM on January 11, he promised to resolve the dispute.

However, SAA backtracked on this commitment and the acting chairwoman, Lindi Nkosi-Thomas, said Kona had acted outside his mandate.

The union said this conflicting communication from SAA showed that the board chairwoman was “undermining her chief executive”.

Two weeks ago the government rescued SAA with a R550 million emergency loan to cover fuel costs, averting the grounding of its planes. Last year the National Treasury and the Department of Public Enterprises signed off a R5 billion guarantee to help the company with its financial troubles.

SAA has undergone drastic leadership changes in the past few months. Siza Mzimela bailed out as chief executive in October last year and several executives followed her. The board was also overhauled. This occurred while SAA was in the middle of exploring new aircraft deals to replace its ageing fleet and modifying its routes to focus more on Africa."

What is busy happening here is an example of how the elite is manipulating the public to ask for privatization. The Public Image is being destroyed through ineffective management. You can watch the documentary 'Catastroika' and 'La lluvia tambien' to see how the same techniques have been used in other countries. The idea is to prove that the public sector will always be inefficient and therefore as many companies as possible require to be privatized. Once the privatization happens, prices sky-rocket and the services and goods that were once agreed to belong to the public, will now be reserved to a much smaller group of people who can afford to pay the higher prices.

The Solution

Goods and Services that are a Basic Human Right cannot be put up for auction where only the highest bidders can access them. Within EMC - basic human rights will be provided to each one and will be provided by government, funded by taxes. The inefficiency of public companies is firstly often orchestrated to get the public to demand privatization, having the population play right into the hands of the elite - and, secondly, corruption plays a major role. Within EMC - privatization of basic human rights will not be permissible by law as it violates the Constitutional Principle of Equality. In terms of corruption, politics within EMC will be far more transparent than what it is now and politicians will have a much smaller role to play. You can read up on these points at www.equalmoney.org/wiki/Politics.

The Rewards

Obviously - everyone benefits from having their basic human rights met. When we have money, we don't realize or consider what it means to live in lack of the simple commodities and services such as having a decent house, having good healthcare, receiving proper education, clean water and so on. The simple truth is that without these things life is not worth living; it becomes a struggle - and I'm sure everyone would agree that life as a struggle is not what one would wish for oneself. Consider the changes this simple guarantee would bring about:
No more stress about having an unstable income and not being able to make ends meet
No more feeling guilty for not being able to afford proper education for your child
No more prostitution as a means of survival
No more vultures trying to take away what belongs to you

Related articles

• Strike to hit SAA on eve of Afcon
• Day 167: Harmony and Equilibrium within Equal Money Capitalism
• Day 170: Companies and Industries in EMC
• Day 163: Equal Money Capitalism - Redefining Profit
• The Future of Integrity with Equal Money Capitalism
• Day 137: Greece: The Birth and Death of Democracy
• Day 166: Corporate Social Responsibility in Equal Money Capitalism
• Day 171: Life-Force and Expression in Equal Money Capitalism
• Day 169: Equal Living within Equal Money Capitalism
• Day 165: Equal Profit Share and Equal Money Capitalism

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Day 142: Presidents under Fire

Shit is hitting the fan in many countries these days - several conflicts pertaining to the abuse of power of Presidents.

In South Africa, a vote of no confidence will be debated against President Zuma. One of the accusations is that the president used taxpayers' money to fund the construction of his R200 million residence.

In Thailand, 10 000 protesters gathered to demonstrate against Yingluck Shinawatra's government. She is accused of corruption and of being a puppet of her brother, Thaksin Shinawatra.

In Egypt, judges and prosecutors are strkking in Alexandria in protest of President Mohammed Mursi's decree that places him above the law. In what he says to be an attempt to protect the revolution, he issued an order that prevents any court from overturning his decisions - which makes it so he can rule unchecked until the new constitution is drafted. He claims the courts were about to disband the assembly that is writing the Egyptian constitution and wanted to prevent it. However, Egyptians fear the real agenda is not about protecting the revolution or new constitution, but to simply increase the president's powers.

It is becoming more and more clear that representative democracy never actually is representative and leads to catastroika. During campaigns people's perceptions and feelings about the candidates are manipulated in the candidates' favours - yet, when it comes to actual ruling - the reality of the situation is revealed: they never actually cared about the country or the people, they only cared about their own position, status and bank accounts.

Democracy today is far removed from what it was at its onset in the Greek citystates where the democratic form of government was direct democracy. In direct democracy there is no middle-man - no 'guy at the top' that is supposedly protecting the interests of millions. People rule directly. It is claimed that today it would be unpractical to have direct democracy - that the size of the countries is too big, that people don't have the time to go and debate policy-issues. However, considering the technology available today, these objetions are meaningless. If any time was a good time to have a successful form of direct democracy, it is now. We have phones, faxes - and most importantly: internet. Millions can cast their vote on an issue without a problem. We do it every day on sites such as YouTube and Facebook where we share what we like and what we don't like - there is no reason similar technology can be applied for more meaningful activities, such as participating in political life - activities which actually affect people's lives instead of just provide entertainment.

This is why the Equal Money System suggests the implementation of direct democracy so as to remove the need for people to rise up on the streets in protest of their governments where they are met by police, tear gas and rubber (at least if they're lucky) bullets. Direct democracy removes the need to place trust in another only for it to be betrayed afterwards - where it is truly the people who are ruling themselves.

Related articles

• Direct Democracy Ireland
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• Thailand anti-government protests quelled by riot police
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Day 141: Even the Rain: Water Politics - Catastroika

This blog is in line with:
Day 137: Greece: The Birth and Death of Democracy
Day 139: The Time is Ripe for Water Privatization - Catastroika

In line with the documentaries I've been watching like Catastroika, I now watched the movie 'Even the Rain' (También la lluvia). The movie follows a film crew that are busy making a movie on Colombus' conquest. The filming of the movie takes place in Bolivia, where they are also hiring Bolivians from native decent to play within the movie. As the movie shows you how they are making a movie, another storyline emerges on the side of the Bolivians, who are faced with the privatization of water.

The movie is very well done, showing actual scenes of the Colombus movie they are making, and how the natives were exploited for profit -- while at the same time, the story is repeating itself in the present, where the Bolivians are fighting a struggle of exploitation against major corporations (like Suez - side branch of the World Bank, which was also mentioned in the Catrastroika documentary). The law even prohibited peasants from constructing collection tanks to gather water from the rain (hence "Even the Rain"). Water rates under privatization become really high for the sake of profit, and in a poverty stricken land like Bolivia: the people cannot afford it.

People have to survive on about 2 dollars a day, while they have to pay $450 annually, for water -- how the hell are they supposed to manage that?

Everybody needs water to survive -- privatizing natural resource of a country in an attempt to alleviate an unjust debt-burden is just complete insanity.


A famous slogan of the World Bank, is "Our dream, a world free of poverty." Yet the World Bank keeps imposing policies on countries which are supposed to be democratic, but yet have no say on an important matter such as the privatization of water.

It is clear that currently in our world, Money gets valued over Life.
Our whole Banking System is a Criminal System, and because of its inherent dysfunctional nature, real people have to give up life sustaining resources for a system that is made-up of illusions (Suggest to read: Day 71: The Money Supply - Part 1, Day 94: How is Money Created, and the educational film: Money as Debt - to gain a better understanding on the illusionary nature of Money and Banking within this world. This is a very important subject to understand, as this is one of the points laying at the foundation of our broken system, responsible for major suffering and dismay).

I mean, how brainwashed must we be, to accept this type of outrageous policy making and perceive it to be 'normal'.

It is not okay for some own resources while others have to pay with it with their Life. Earth was here long before the people that are alive today and those that are hogging the Earth's resources as a very profitable business venture. What authority, granted some the right to have while others are excluded?

At some point in the 'Even the Rain Movie', a scene is being filmed, where the character playing Padre Antonia Montesions says: "Are these not men? Do they not have rational souls? Are you not obliged to love them as yourselves?’"
As the character is saying the words, the camera moves around to the poor natives helping out with the movie, and the message is clear: Why are we still not treating everybody as Equals?

This is the ONE point, the ONE point that creates so much suffering, the egomaniacal idea that one person's life is worth more than another's.

We need to set this world straight, because what we are doing is plainly disgusting. Throughout history, we have heard many promote the message of Equality, but we have never applied it. Without Equality, Life on Earth is a disgrace.

Visit the Equal Money Website, and see how we can create a system that supports All LIFE.

Related articles

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• Day 137: What are Natural Disasters Teaching us?

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Day 139: The Time is Ripe for Water Privatization - Catastroika

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/11/19-3

Professionals in the water industry, representing privately owned businesses and public utilities have published a survey indicating that now would be a good time to start privatizing on water – as water is getting scares, more capitalizing can be done!

Our system knows no scruples – hand it water scarcity and all it sees is $$$MONEY$$$.

The Earth provides resources for free: there’s water, there’s air, there’s land – it’s all just here, and we’re all here – why should it belong to some and not to others?

If Capitalism is all about “working hard for your money” and “being rewarded for your hard work and talent” – isn’t taking money from the Earth’s resources, that the EARTH produced: cheating?

Where’s Earth’s share in all of this? Earth provided all of these resources, she did all the work – wouldn’t it then make sense that we give something back for all her hard work? Where’s Earth’s share of all the profits in the world? Without Earth – there would be no profit.

Water is a basic necessity for all life forms – you can’t just privatize it and restrict its access and within that decide who gets to access a life sustaining matter and who doesn’t – that’s short for murder. If water is getting scarce, we shouldn’t privatize and ‘ride the wave’ for the sake of profit – only psychopaths would take such a route -- it’s in essence a move to ‘privatize life’. We should rather look at why water is scarce and what we can do to resolve this problem.

As we can see in the documentary Catastroika, water privatization does not work – it only works for those owning the companies who can capitalize on the water until the whole project goes to ruin and then gets handed back to the public who are left with repairing and upgrading to make it work for the people.

Privatizing on water is an infringement on the Right to Life

Support Life, visit: www.equalmoney.org

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Day 137: Greece: The Birth and Death of Democracy

Today I watched an interesting documentary, called ‘Catastroika’ [see bottom for embedded video].

It was made in response to the financial crisis which has been taking place in Greece, and investigates the effects of Privatization.

It walks you through several countries, starting with Russia after the collapse of the Soviets – which had been used as a ‘neo-liberal laboratory’, where liberalists wanted to test mass privatization. It takes a look at France, where in Paris where big companies (along with EU authorities) wanted to privatize the water – were successful in this until the new mayorship took it back. During the time that the water was privatized, the quality of service went down while the consumers experienced massive price increases (260%) – without any form of justification (economic or technological), it was just a price rise thus, in the name of profit.

When the total privatization in Paris failed, the big guys turned their focus to Italy.

Here, again, the point of privatization was pushed. A referendum was held (a referendum is a vote by the public where they indicate their stance towards a particular policy issue – everyone has to vote and the results are binding, this is the best method currently to find out what public opinion is on a particular point) – and it turned out that 97% of the people, were against privatisation of the water.

When it was inquired whether the water was going to be privatised, the government said it couldn’t – as per the referendum.

So you’d think “Game Over” right? Nope – they simply put people in place like some executive guy or ex-banker (can’t remember the specifics, you’ll just have to watch the documentary lol), who then completes the point, against popular vote.

Where does this leave democracy? I mean, that was like a completely unconstitutional move.

Another example that is walked through, was the privatization of the Railways in England, and yes you can guess it: catastrophic. And even though the past, as the UKs history with the privatization with the Railways was disastrous, the point was still pushed within Greece.

This time, instead of putting people in place to just ‘make it happen’ – another approach was taken: media manipulation. Within the media, the public railway system was severely slandered and degraded, over and over – so that the public would agree, that maybe privatization could be an answer.

This documentary is very interesting to watch. Often, when there is talk about ‘virtual democracies’ – where ‘everything on the outside looks like it’s democratic’ but on the inside the very opposite happens – everyone’s attention goes to Third World countries elsewhere, like Africa – “out there” and criticise the people’s conduct their for their failure of democratic consolidation.

In the meanwhile, corruption and anti-democratic actions are taken the whole time, in the West, in Europe, in Greece: the very cradle of democracy.

It definitely proves one point: democracy is dead.

Private interests as the big multinational companies have taken precedence of what the majority of the people want – and it’s happening everywhere, all the time. (Little in between rant: It's funny because, in economics, the point of 'the private must be protected from the public' is emphasised ALL THE TIME, where if you allow the public to take over, they will infringe on YOUR freedoms, and you will not be able to 'realise yourself' and 'pursue your own personal good as you see fit'. I mean, that's just so much BULLSHIT -- and just plain propaganda to justify where the corporate world can take over and make insane profits at the expense of the majority, in the name of "Freedom" and "Self-Realization" -- because somehow, if that gets taken away it also imposes SERIOUS problems on your own personal freedom -- I mean, Really???)

Several economists were interviewed (some professors at universities such as London), and states that private enterprises do not necessarily do better than public ones – and that they can perform at the same level. Liberal economics would NOT agree with this, so it’s cool that this is coming to the fore.

Just in Greece with the financial crisis going on now for 2 years, the suicide rate has gone up by 20%.
The situation we’re in, worldwide – is seriously fucked up.

Though, it is not too late. The documentary also points out, that most of these problems are Political in nature, and that thus through participating within Politics, we can reverse this type of destructive policies which serve no-one but the few at the top of the private companies.

This is a crucial point, because the whole thing of ‘Let’s revolt’ and ‘Let’s demonstrate’ like the Occupy movement, are really pointless. You have to change the system, from the inside out, through popular support – not by attacking it.

Investigate Equal Money – we can change this.

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