Minutus

From where I sit the US looks like a (not so benevolent) dictatorship already. The words used are those of democracy, but, like in Orwell's 1984, have been stripped of their meaning and now mean the exact opposite. I don't think I would want the 'freedom' of George Bush and his mates. Hopefully there will be a return to real freedom at some stage, not only for the Americans, but for all the countries that are now being 'liberated' by the US Forces.
In my opinion there is a real dilemma. There is a tension between the economic freedom of multi-national companies and the limitation of real freedom for everyone else by these same companies. Society as a whole has to set limits to the freedom for a few to gather as much wealth as possible for themselves, while severly limiting basic freedom for the rest of the population.
On the other hand you need some room for people to be able to better their situation, otherwise you end up with a failing system like the former communist regimes.
Unfortunately the benign dictator usually ends up with his fingers in the till and killing and imprisoning people if they try to stop that.
There is only one way as I see it, and that is, to use the slogan from the Australian Democrats "Keep the Bastards honest".
(Unfortunately even the Democrats turned into 'Bastards' when they got a whiff of the power).
Keep exposing the 'bastards'. talk to as many people as possible about the problems and be politically active.

Jon van Hoffen

Books just wanna be FREE! See what I mean at:
http://bookcrossing.com/friend/dolphin-au
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Yes, John and Julian,

i spoke of the concept of benevolent dictatorship in a critical and sarcastic way--there
is no such thing! Democracy can only survive is 'the' people stay vigilant and active.
many wonderful quotes are passed around the internet these days trying to motivate
people into action.

i am reminded of the french about 2 years ago when the people got lax and didnt
turn out to vote. the assumption was that the socialist candidate was a shoe-in.
they almost wound up with a scarey bigoted reactionary. in the run off they turned
out in full force to deal witht he threat but since their chosen candidate had lost they
could only support a conservative type person who was better that the neo-nazi that
almost came to power.

one of the problems in the usa is the power of the fourth estate, the mass media. its
primary role is to help manage public opinion. a poll taken about 3 months ago indicated
that people in this country who get their news from fox tv and cnn have the strongest
support of the iraqi war AND are the most misinformed. to the contrary, those who
received their news from alternative/independent sources were the most informed and the
most strongly against the war. others ran the range of opinion based on what combination
of sources they used for information. the film i mentioned by this irish film crew that, by
chance, wound up in venezuela at the time of the coup against chavez, portrayed the
power of the media to manipulate the public very clearly.

i know it is hard to imagine that people are really so sinister and evil; ie, disrespectful of
human life and dignity. the posts on this list indicate this difficulty. but it is very real
that those large corporations that run this country and their interests are not democratic.
that is why i say we are run by a corporate oligarchy and are a democracy in name only.
it is the mythology that has been fed to people from childhood and it is accepted like
blind faith, despite what is presented before their very eyes.

sorry for going on like this on this off-topic but it is so important in these times. and it
does affect homeopathy. the corporate media includes the pharmaceutical industry and the
medical profession. as you know, their interests are opposed to the work that we do and support.
the EU, being control by these interests and their money passed legislation limiting the
sale of herbs and other otc natural supplements. these pharmaceutical companies are
waging a current battle against herbs that have ephedra in them, making a major todo
because a handfull f people died that had used ephedra products. but we dont know
anything about their use or abuse of the product, or whether they had health problems
and the ephedra was peripheral to their conditions. and of course their is no mention of
the numerous allopathic medicines that caused the deaths of 106,000 people in hospitals
last year. the fourth estate is alive and participatory in the public misinformation campaign
designed to scare people from leaving the control of the allopathic medical profession.

perhaps people may want to reporatize the mental condition of the public that accepts such
domineering control and abuse with amazing blind faith. and what of the limiting fear that
results in people accepting treatment that is so toxic. or the masochistic self-abuse that
allows people to stay in co-dependent relationships with their doctors even when they themselves
say that they are being harmed and not helped.

tanya