The new prophet

Mr Brumby said: "I am categorically in the business of making the right decisions now to secure the long-term future of the state." Good on you, Mr. Brumby. I won't ask you what's your secret, you must have the rare gift of looking into the future.

In the past, a distant past, those claiming to know the future where usually burned, much to the amusement of the community, nowadays soothsayers go into politics. Or maybe Mr. Brumby's perception of right differs from a common sense approach. Or maybe he simply mistakes decisions providing his friends and himself with a permanent revenue stream of OPM (other people's money, also called tax) with "the state".

Of course, one could call a statement like Mr. Brumby's, aired when asked to justify a decision clearly targeted against Public transport, preposterous, mindless or plain stupid. But maybe it's just visionary. It certainly secures a lot of party contributions, individual spending money for a bunch of advisors and consultants, lots of overtime for the police dealing with protest against this tunnel.

An elected politician can't be that stupid - he wouldn't be selected otherwise, right? He must belong to that special breed of people who simply know it better, otherwise he wouldn't be in the business of making the right decisions for the long-term future, right?

Representative democracy might be just another name for feudalism. A real democracy could afford it ask its citizens about vital decisions. A society on the way to some real democracy would make its decisionmaker responsible for their decision, and not grant them with lifelong pensions for helping their networks or plainly doing nothing.

But that's the magic of words. Call a nation democratic, and hardly anyone suspects it to be corporatism (a neologism for fascism, in case you didn't know). Call a soothsayer politician, and then you don't need to burn them for using witchcraft in public.

Maybe next time you read or hear in the mass media about "what the public thinks", you can be brave enough to think for yourself, instead following sheeplike a statement that just turn into a public opinion by idiots believing in the benevolence and superiority and authority of those wanting more for themselves as the deserve in a just society.

In case you didn't know, even the mafia calls protection rackets "contribution to the community". If you expect politicians to admit that they are part of a criminal organisation, and believe their public statements that they act in the interest of society, you might as well believe in Santa Claus. Just never underestimate the power of fairy tales, but don't be surprised if you wake up some day in a full blown fascist society.