Maybot declares war

Well it is a bit early, although much as one has anticipated to actually meeting the next one; but the precursors to conflict are hardly going to be acknowledged and it is often in retrospect that causes of war are loosely understood yet at the same time of the precursors occurring are miss-interpretive and blindly overlooked. However the summit meeting of Salzburg in September between EU the heads of state with Maybot ended with the rush to exit from the laughter that unseeingly took place for the haranguing the Maybot dished out to them in effort to cajole the members to accept a known obviously unacceptable conditions re the “chequers plan” for the UK exist from the EU (Brexit). It was not received with any enthusiasm, highlighted when one member (French) denied any cherries picking and referred to some brexiteers as liars - lying to the people the UK in the unfolding of the referendum and propaganda hence since.

Somehow the Maybot has totally misinterpreted the direction the negotiations were heading, when it has been outstanding clear that her own ‘red lines’ and the EC stance would never meet up even leaving aside the discarding of the very important border issues. The problem with red lines is, if inevitably something crosses a red line, what the caveat reaction is (if there is one) that is not the result of blind ignorance, self deceit and wonton hubris. In this she is not alone.

It has never been so clearly laid out that the overhyped simplicity of leaving the EU club totally underestimated the implications of unravelling the close alignment on all issues, built over decades, can only end in disaster, for the UK. The EU is larger, stronger and much more integrated believing in the founding philosophy of the EU to the extent that all countries have united in maintaining the EU behind the EC negotiating. It simple cannot afford to have a declining member leave with every existing benefit that they have, wholly intact and still feed off the compact of the EU, without recognising the historic standing that underpins the whole EU/EC membership.

The assumption by England has always been that the EU needs the UK, mainly for its money into the pot of the EU, the overview security provision, its labour supply and the goods the EU countries sell into the UK but it came with resented constraining EU laws. The fact the EU is the UK's largest easy market outlet and provides a great deal of wealth was deeply undervalued against the supposed lack of sovereignty constantly spewed out by hard brexiteers. They may have a smile at the failing of the chequers plan and will no doubt be tripping out in the conservatives DU Party conference next week but this diabolic mess caused by them should not be allowed to go on, too much is at stake! 

The Maybot Downing Street statement last week, after the Salzburg meeting, was delivered castigating the treatment of her presentation and the attitude of members, was a ferociously intent repudiation of their stance and was more an attempt to pander to the brexiteers and hide the failure of any progress (yet again). In days gone by the venom expressed in that short speech and given the terror that is now existing in government of a no deal; it could well have been read as ‘this means war’. Those bloody foreigner dictating to the might of the UK, not giving the UK what it demands, need putting in their place!

Well Maybot has missed the whole point, the war, this economic war, has been lost already. The incompetence of UK’s political management with the EU over 30 years and the impoverishment of the country, that now can be readily seen, have brought the UK to this point. By any analysis; any deal will not be favourable to the UK economy. A hard and rapid exit will be unable to replace neither the loss of easy trade access, nor gain debatable new global trade deals or keep the good will of Europeans and financial markets are waiting to pounce.

When the Conservative DU Party is holding England to ransom, demanding special treatment for its own preference of leaving the EU alongside England and ignoring its own NI vote to remain, together with the Scotland vote of remaining in the EU, has all the indication of trouble. As much as the hard line brexiteers want to overlook and ignore the democratic choice of these provinces, just to pursue their long held mad wet dream; has absolutely no pain free exist. So war or not, there is unlikely to be a UK in 20 years, little old england will be of inconsequential worth on a world stage and considerable poorer but not for the rich popinjays.  

 

© Renot

249182011

Truth

Truth

It is an extremely elastic concept and at any given time in any given situation or circumstances, the truth will be dependent on the parameters of acceptability in a civilisation constrained or guided by:- laws, (if there are any) or morality, (assuming there is an understanding of believed morals) sociological behavioural conditioning, (how the herd operates) the ability to define and balance one or more elements of what may support a truth against the elements that do not (based on the availability of all factual details at a given time) and crucially the expectation that the truth is preferable, achievable and is not irreducible to in-consequence. One might assume that the truth is a binary condition; something is a truth or it is not, a lie is not the truth and the truth cannot be a lie however either condition is only permissible for so long as the information that supports one or the other is complete, to have one condition the other must also exist. There must also be a honest ‘truthful’ condition of uncertainty that can and should knowingly permeate an action process, on, say one course of action that is required but cannot be deferred, yet if necessary a choice leaning on a preference that offers the most good or least worst assessable outcomes. It may not be a wholly truthful condition or a complete falsity but will fall into the region of a “best guess”, but it should be known and open as such yet possibly amendable when better detail is available or overthrown by likely unintended consequences. In all this there should be no room for the prejudicial strictures of religious doctrines but it will never the less have, if allowed, influence in some circumstances but the inclusion of it will not necessarily lead to a truth.

In conditioning the above, it moves to the point of a question. Can one ever believe that governments tell the truth?

It might be possible to vacillate with the question, being such as it is; that it has within it a definite nuance of potentials that go beyond an extractable yes or no if one is insistent on a simplistic one syllable response. The inevitable extensive context to the question could be contained in an extracted analysis of each word use in the question and elaborate each word with the subtext of distinct meaning, so that an intrinsic meaning has to be agreed on before arriving at a position of being capable of offering a syllable response. In the ‘real’ world no one ever does this but a response may be given dependent on the experience of the recipient of the question and the empirical evidence or actual familiarity of situations relating to the subject statement of the question.  

Without offering suitable context that might aim to confine ambiguity and being very prescriptive to the question, it is likely that a visceral yes or no response will be the most probable when asked of any number of people. One might, with this subject limitation, with a western government, proffer the answer to be in all cases over the past possibly 60(?) years of qualified examples, offer a reluctant and hesitant uncertainty that could lay in a positive light; that this might not actually be representative of opinions cannot be tested now but almost certainly in the last 2/3 decades one may assume that there could well be a emphatically expressed no.

The main driver of a shift in the view held by society, is due to the eradication of supine deference to authority, the greater spread of information showing that government make mistakes, the ambiguity of responses displayed to probing challenges of state individuals and possibly the shallowness of those characters that display less ingrained ability or competence in performance of briefs.  It is more important to them to be ‘on message’ with (as an example) the UK government and whips dogma, than be representative in parliament for their constituents. A view expressed by elements of the proletariat is often heard; “there’re all in it for their own good” or “there’re all the same”, dishonourable, charlatans, hustlers. For those in any organisation, particularly governments, such lack of trust in their action is tantamount to believing that they are also liars. In some notable cases this is true but whereas businesses will do corporate and public manipulations so to game the business structure for dubious commercial advantage, those in governments do it to avoid inconvenient truths.     

In order for the truth to be recognised it has to be assumed that all relevant information, without caveats or reinterpretation or a convenient lack of relevant knowledge, is to hand and it has been taken into account to reach a conclusion that is as close to the truth as is realistically possible within the constraint of known knowledge. Such truth can only stand for as long as the bases upon which the truth is laid is factually correct supported by such relevant evidence that there is but this constructed truth has to also remain potentially open ended until such time as new evidence is incorporated into the original assessment base. The evidential constructed truth may be all that one has to go on to formulate an action and for most things, with an assessment of a balance of consequences, it will be sufficient to act upon, in a practical way. There is not much that can be done with ‘known unknowns’ other than acknowledge the gaps in information and may often still have difficult decisions to be constructed. However if any influential information is conveniently overlooked there can be no confidence in the stability of a misinformed decision.  

Governments have a difficult task given to them by an electorate and it is a task that is entirely un-instructive in its directive, solely reliant on the presentation of ‘popular’ created manifestos that are deliberately vaguely constructed so to seemingly offer a choice of political direction which are intoned to the supposed sense of popular opinion. Yet manifestos are generally indifferent to deliverance as they are not bounded by statute and are nearly always adjusted beyond the written scripts. Governments do not look to their electorate for permissions to enact policies or laws, they are reliant on a balanced tension between parties’ political members to hold the government / executive powers in check and listen to the sense of “the will of the people”, which of course effectively only happen every five years. This is hardly representative of good responsive democracy in serious unforeseen circumstances; good for government to do as they wish and for malicious ambitious members to enrich themselves via personal desires, secret lobbyist activity, paid directorships and pandering to the dogmas of their party policies which do not really, at times, have comprehensive intelligence to support them; other than it seems a good idea for the direction of government with adopted clichés, expressed often and loudly as the only proof of the truth within the ’idea’ to be considered.        

So what passes for truth in governed circles is a explanation of created ciphers of a truth, behind which will reside a huge range of material that has been modified by elastic interpretation to generate the official version of truth to support a policy consensus with an adopted public expressed dogma to guide the performance of MP’s and government officials on open platforms. If all the public has to go on is the strap line propaganda to understand what governments do in their name, without the determination to follow policy process even with investigative journalism, it is easy to see that truth is disposable.

In all large organisation there is the inevitable tendency for the main principles to adopt a separation of themselves from the everyday mundane nitty-gritty office of the organisation in which the work. They may hold themselves aloof from the small details and concentrate on the “big picture” as if this was the main point of their senior positions and is consequently to be the platform upon which they mould their policies and the way they act in driving forward with them. The amount of authority invested in them by the organisation will dictate the overall power they assume to install a leadership style that they use to trickle down their ideas and modes of operational style which will impinges on the levers of power (other players) in the organisation that are required for rolling out the policies they want to enforce. Within a very short period of time those that are not imbued with authority responsibility to influence a policy, soon become adaptive to the modes of the organisation culture of understanding and requirements of the ‘leaders’ and as they have no real ability to challenge (on the bases of superior experience/knowledge) or influence, adopt and carry out with some uncertainty the instructions under which they will be obliged to work to deliver policies. Some may adapt and do this with little discomfort, others will find it difficult knowing that what is being done is not of best practice or indeed truthful to the principles of the organisation. As their income depends on the continuance of the leaders bearing on the operational structure and the presence of the acquiescence culture within the organisation, although stressful, instructions are carried out. It should not be a surprise when thing go wrong.

Governments are made up of individuals and such individuals have no overall comprehensive ingrained knowledge. They are reliant on the long standing expertise of government servants who generally offer up experienced facts relating to any subject for the government to create association to a course of action. In doing this governments have no more honourable attachment to the attainment of whole truth any more than the rest of society. Though there has been an expectation by the trusting public of those in public service might be looked upon as trustworthy and honourable but political individuals are just a small selective example of society as a whole; in administrative roles, with some internal organisation structural obligations and limitations placed on them that are bent by their own beliefs, desires, dogma and personal opportunity.         

The observance and aspiration of truth is a useful function for the maintenance of a practical working reality. It is not necessarily the truth even if supported by irreducible specifics for the base foundation of the specifics being used often leaves out the intention, meaning, and selective interpretation of the historic information that created the apparent truth upon which a new truth might be sought. Simple everyday operation and actions are truthful in so far their usefulness but are not forever true. However to hear many prominent people, when they start extolling out “facts” to impose their view with the fervour that it is the truth, it is best to analyse their position with a stance – what is their ante in the debate, what do they have to personally risk, gain, or hide?

As ex president Obama once said in a public meeting as a response to a question “of course all governments lie” this from a man whom one might of expected a much more nuanced reply built on his experience of the complications of being in high executive office albeit without overall power, as he was stifled by the republican senate and congress. It is perhaps recognition that the truth in government regimes is a multi - faceted sword that can cut all ways but with proper scrutiny, check and balances without dictatorial power an element of an acceptable usable truth may be the basis on which to shape direction. This is assuming that there is an understanding and social requisite that truth is preferable to lies and individuals act for the best interest of the majority truthfully.

There are now in existence three excellent examples of how the endeavour to describe reality and eradicate the effective scrutiny for truth by influential forces and confound the ability of people to seek truthfulness in what they set out. The examples have all the hall marks of what could be viewed with expressions as: “efficient with the actuality”, “the fabrication of a different reality”, “economical with the truth”, “a white lie”, “create a lie or truth by omission”, “deliberate obscuration” and in some examples at worst a clear provable outright deception.

One might offer up the first prime example and needs no real explanation for we now have a person that has no obvious moral bounds and is entirely relaxed in displaying a casual relationship with truth. It is shocking to appreciate that the current president, Trump, selected by Americans can only be a reflection of the state of intellectual impoverishment that resides within the US. It is only my opinion of course but the empirical evidence underscores Obama’s tacit observation of governments’ ability to lie.

The next example is the huge exposure of Russia’s antics in the novichok chemical attack in the UK. There is good factual evidence on the people directly involved in the assassination and disregarding whether or not there was a created directive given for the assault by the Russian state, the way Putin and his PR machinery have responded to deny any veracity to the accusations has raised wide unsurprising ridicule. This is a case of living in and creating a different reality, potentially absorbed by large member of the Russian public; a situation of state fabricating misdirection deception on a large scale as one would expect of effective dictatorships.

Finally an issue that is still unfolding to some implausible beneficial conclusion but which is more important to the future of the UK is the multiple demonstrations of deviousness and deliberate obscuration to avoid any resemblance to assembling a truth; is the organisation of the members and supporters of the ERG – European Research Group. A body which aims to enforce its own view into government of a preferable no deal brexit. This is entirely for their own ends not directly related to any comprehensive understanding of the decision of the ‘will of the people’ other than in its simplistic terms of the past decisive time. At no time have this body offered any acceptable rational documented strategy comparable to existing negotiations between the UK and EC yet they engage in extensive hyperbole for a fabulous economic future to be had after brexit, unconcerned at the evidence accumulating of the negative costly impact that will be experienced into future decades. Also by implication of individual’s actions and their association of being supporters of the Vote Leave / BeLeave / Veterans for Britain group’s actions; Vote Leave broke the law on spending limits thereby gaining ability in exercising undue influence in the result of the brexit vote for leaving the EU. Not that this changes anything now but it is as a whole, actions of culpable “deliberate obscuration”.   

There are many examples were facets that support truth are very disconcerting when individuals and structures find it, initially, too alarming to admit to falsity, they have proliferated injustice. Preferring instead to pursue an unsustainable situation until forced to recognise their avoidance of the truth. Apart from the above the deniability of environmental degradation and economic malfeasance on a global scale, are both state of affairs that disguise uncomfortable truths that millions choose to overlook.

So does it really matter that truth might no longer be a demanded aspiration, primarily within governments (or indeed any organisation) and that it is common to hear constant misinterpretation, evasiveness, and indeed intentional efforts to hide a truth if it is at variance with what the organisation wants to believe, convenient lies.

One may think that it does matter very much; civil structures rely on trust and the assumption of obtainable truthfulness albeit that it might be uncomfortable. If the stage is reached when a noticeable majority of a populace do not expect truth and their lives are demonstratively affected by the lack of honesty it will not be long before the disrupter's are rampant and seen as the guide ingrained onto civilisation.  Nothing and no one will be safe.  

Veritas vos liberabit?

The true will set you free but it may also be one, one prefers not to accept!

 © Renot

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