Julian Assange
618 weeks of deprivation of liberty for telling the truth
618 weeks of deprivation of liberty for telling the truth
- Did you get your iodine tablets?
- Oh yeah… that’s right, it had slipped my mind. But there is no risk, no, calm!
- Why would they distribute pellets then?
- Yeah, you’re not wrong there. So they prefer to take the risk of the apocalypse?
- You’ve got it all figured out. The money, the money, the money, there is only that!
The spectacular governmental measure of distributing iodine tablets throughout Belgium is the very example, pushed to its extreme, of the secondary aspect that the people have for the « rulers ». Scandalous in that it reveals who they are and what they think we are, but has it been digested?
While most of them get rich in their boards of directors and other functions, which are the only screens used to hide their mafia practices(1). the new scandal making us forget the previous one, all the measures they take have only one objective: that they are not bothered, and therefore that we re-elect them at the next elections. The others? Exceptions. Work, consume, read the mass media, watch TV and take your iodine tablets, they will leave you alone and convince you that you are free.(2)
Mastering communication is therefore essential for them. Their media servants are there for that(3), the case of the company Zalando, an online clothing store, « which unfortunately did not set up in Belgium », recently testified to this. The media announcing us » Wallonia misses out on the contract of the century with Zalando « , is emblematic. The event illustrates in turn the control of information and thought and their formidable propaganda technique, taking up the litany of employment, which reminds us of this odious reflection of the socialist union, while the parliamentary discussions were at the time on the need to sell weapons to Libya(4) : » We will experience a drop in activity from 2011 with the loss of 52 CDDs from October (FGTB). The Libyan order could have compensated for this drop in activity (…) The Libyan order was a contract that would have offered work to 400 people intermittently for 4 to 5 years.(5) But back to the Zalando case: while 221 billion euros did not pass through the Belgian state coffers in 2016, money that alone would have financed essential services, we get lost in considerations about » higher wage costs » or » the relaxation of the rules on night work « . Not linking the two is no accident. Start talking about tax evasion before any consideration, otherwise talk about nothing.
- « You need to be more flexible! »
- « More flexible? And the 221 billion, what’s their flexibility rate? »
What is the link between this competitive context of countries that compress workers and turn them into vulgar productive instruments, nuclear power and its iodine pills, tax evasion …? The spectacular gesticulations of politicians always obscure the essential, those questions that a well-informed population should ask itself massively and on which it would have the capacity to decide. To this, those who govern definitely prefer the headlong rush and the choice of the worst. In the factories, we would like the workers to wear themselves out at night for the day’s wages. They will be tired, stressed, under medication, depressed, their couple and their family will not resist it. Is it serious? The sleeping pills they take to sleep on nights when they are not working and the anxiolytics they ingest during the day will enrich the pharmaceutical multinationals; lawyers specialized in divorce cases will make their money on the separation of the couple; the school dropout of the kids will direct them early towards professional fields, to later go and fill the ranks of the exploited, who will have interest in shutting up and doing the night shifts that their parents had refused to do All this to produce over-consumed clothing. Meanwhile, brothers and sisters in Bangladesh and elsewhere will die. Far away.
Work, consume, read the mass media, watch TV and take your iodine tablets, they will leave you alone and convince you that you are free
The question of the necessity of all this will never be asked. The motivation of the least cost determines the political maneuvers. So we would like everything to continue as before, to the point of preparing us for the worst in order to make us accept it (let’s remember the simulated blackouts during each newscast, or the frightening headlines like on August 9, 2012 on RTBF, the report being titled « Plus de lumière sans nucléaire »), while two reactors were shut down. Nothing is too much for growth. Let the average person die to produce our clothes, let nature be destroyed for our purchasing power. Nuclear power is the perfect metaphor for this system, because a risk with a probability of even 0.000000001 would justify the immediate shutdown of all reactors. It is, however, much higher.
So, too afraid as we are, who still think that these ectoplasms that « we » have elected are going to get us out of the doldrums, when will we decide to go out en masse into the streets, even if it means rethinking the use of streetlights for all these criminals and mafiosi, politicians and captains of industry?
The cup is full.
Alexandre Penasse
