None of the Above: The Liars' Last Chance

There's a definite whiff in the air of something rather great and good for the residents of this country, all brewing hither and thither in various parts of the UK blog world. Slowly but surely bloggers are starting to piece together the various bits of the puzzle about which they have been vociferously and angrily writing for a good long time, finally beginning to get some semblance of idea about the full and true nature of the picture from which each one of the individual fragments were cut.

The fragments are many. Here are a selection of the finest:

• The Civil Contingencies Act (formerly an interestingly numbered Bill);
• Rolling 'anti-terrorist' legislation and all its associated propaganda;
• Twenty percent of the world's CCTV coverage that, 9 months after the start of Ian Blair's 'largest criminal inquiry in English history' has failed to produce a single image of the alleged perpetrators - the 'photoshop four' - actually in London (oh, and - surprise, surprise - the video is a crock too);
  
• 28 (ho ho ho and everyone was all excited about 90) days detention, without charge or trial, or 10 years and counting of the same if your name happens to be Harry Maurice Roberts;
• Nationwide Automatic Number Plate Recognition;
• Executing innocent members of the public.
  
• National Identification Cards, and
  
• Last but not least, the masterstroke - wait for it - the abolition of Parliament.

One might conclude that if the organs of State have themselves decided they no longer have any requirement for consort with Parliament, then it logically follows that neither do the other 60 million of us. In one fell swoop, by an Act of the State itself - even the illusion of Parliamentary Democracy, and its trappings, is finally removed. When this happens (even if it doesn't, the Civil Contingencies Act and various bits of 'anti-terrorist' legislation have all the bases covered anyway) the true nature of the beast is further exposed.

Meanwhile, life on Pirate Ship Britain continues, unbelievably in the face of all of the above, with some local elections scheduled for May 4th. As the date approaches various strategies are being discussed to ensure that the New Labour murder machine is stopped in its tracks.

Some of these discussions revolve around tactical voting to reduce the government's strangehold. Of course, tactical voting brings with it the danger that the other tired old nag in the country's two-horse (show-boat) race that masquerades as the 'democracy' brown people the world over should envy as The State bombs them into submission, is given greater power than it already has.

Historically, that's how it has always worked. For far too long. And, by definition, the Conservatives are more right-wing than New Labour, even though anyone living under the Blair/Brown Big-Brother Private Power and Profit tyranny - itself perfectly in keeping with Mussolini's notion that Fascism should more correctly be labelled 'Corporatism', being as it was is the seamless merging of State and Corporate Power - would perhaps find the concept of 'more right wing than New Labour' almost unimaginable without some apocalyptic vision of a future Britain where The State was so afear'd of the people that it passed laws to criminalise everyone and their every activity. But then that's the country in which UK residents already live.

As well as tactical voting there are other options available and some of these are being discussed too. One of these options is not voting at all, as espoused on Stumbling and Mumbling. The problem with this is that nobody counts those who don't submit a ballot paper and the lack of turnout at elections is generally smugly presupposed by the ruling classes to be some bizarre form of tacit mass-approval of their hideous actions.

Yet another option, justified rather well by Justin of Chicken Yoghurt, is the notion of spoiling your ballot and letting the powers that be know that not only are you not happy with any of them, but that you can actually be bothered to go down the road and deface one of their ballot papers to let them know it! Of the available voting options, this is by far the finest. As Justin says:

"Don’t vote Labour. Or anybody else. Tell them that until they listen to us, give us real democracy and reform their corrupt, evasive, unaccountable, money-grabbing, expense-exploiting, primus inter pares contempt for us, their paymasters and employers, we want none of them."

Source: Chicken Yoghurt

There's even talk of coordinating the ballot-spoiling efforts around the country, just to really let them know we're all onto their little scam once and for all, standing united against them, with a rubber stamp which declares, 'None of the above'.

In reality though, you don't need an eleven quid rubber stamp to spoil their ballot papers, you can spoil them with the implements provided at your local polling booth - a ballot paper and a pen. This is all rather good news as recent anti-terrorist legislation is as likely to deem a rubber stamp an offensive weapon as it is the slogan 'None of the above' as being 'information likely to be useful to a terrorist'. No, you don't need a rubber stamp, you can write, 'None of the above' on their ballot papers all by yourself or, alternatively, get a little inventive and let them have a unique message of your own. Or even both if you're feeling particularly enraged!

When it's all over, if the various combinations of tactical voting, not voting at all, and spoiling ballots doesn't have the desired effect, which it won't or this sort of thing wouldn't even be an option, the residents of Britain will know that they are left with just one solution, the only solution that is available to any inhabitants of any country when The State gets out of control.

Abraham Lincoln said what had to be said about America some time ago but his words seem to ring truer now, in and about Britain, right here and right now:

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." - Abraham Lincoln