The Origin of Sheople®_1983

Submitted on August 23, 2007 - 9:59am.

Subtitle: a Freudian slip?

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Keywords:

hypocrisy[1],
deceit,lying[2],
moral hazard[3].

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I'll start with a little humour: Just what is it, that ladies want? (i.e. Does size matter? - Haw!)

OK. (Some might'a had a laugh); now down to 'business.'

Generalising from the part (ladies) to the whole (sheople), Q: What do they(we) want?

A: A loving partner; 2.3 obedient, smiling (straight teeth; no cavities) children, a passable house (Emoh Ruo) with a white picket fence, an 'olden in the drive-way (not new perhaps, but not yet rusted right through.)

Oh, yeah; a 'real' job (9-5) whereby one a) feels as if one has achieved something before four-fifty-one rolls around, and b) a 'boss' who's (middlin') fair. And c) a pay packet that doesn't go instantly empty.

Not too much; and who gives a s**t about who's up who for what rent in a) the local shire, b) the (wicked) state capital and c) "Canberra," wherever the hell that may be? (Exactly; but a) no kulcha® and b) they all go to bed at or before 9PM.) All this para. referring to "Ay ort'a," aka any and all gummint®.

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a) This morning, on the (steam-powered radio) program I just love to hate, the (viciously right-wing biased bag - err, 'lover-ly hostess') had a 'guest' from local government. He explained that all across our vast wide-brown, local government had been starved of funds, especially in the last 11(!) years - or so. Funding had been fixed to the CPI (or some-such crooked measure), but as a direct consequence, funding had fallen from appr. 1.5% to 0.7% (heading for 0.6%; figures from recall) of GDP. Well, wha'd'ya know?

b) The same fella mentioned that the states now had a 'growth-tax,' namely the GST. But that's more than just a 'slight' inaccuracy (IMHO!); it was 'promised' (non-core!) as a state's tax - but wha'd'ya know? Costello a) controls the GST with a miser-like grip and b) only dribbles it out to the states, as if getting any $s out'a him is like pulling teeth.

c) The federal government - and here, one can't distinguish because they all sing from the same, single-page song-sheet, talk about 'tax-cuts.' Well, wha'd'ya know? - and this time, blow me down - but the sheople's share of the pie has measurably, demonstrably fallen in the last 11(!) years.

But you don't have take my word for this last, see John Pratt on May 17, 2007 - 6:53am:

«According to the national accounts, between 1996 and 2006 the wages share of gross domestic product fell from 56 per cent to 54 per cent, while corporate profits rose from 23 per cent to 28 per cent. That is equal to about $40 a week if wages had maintained their mid-1990s share of national income.

But, worse for the battlers, the federal tax burden has increased from 23.3 to 25 per cent of GDP in the same period.»

[Original:Kenneth Davidson/Smoke and mirrors hide funding facts]

If the wages share is falling and the tax-take is rising, either the sheople are not getting enough pay rises (see adjustment à la CPI-type scam above), or the government is taking more; possibly a bit'a both. Any talk of an effective tax-cut - as shown by these figures - is misleading at best, if not a toadal®, outright lie. (Keywords: hypocrisy[1], deceit/lies[2]; say one thing whilst doing another, and telling filthy lies all the way.)

So. What else is new?

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This is where we come to the sheople. It's not a particularly flattering term, but I don't flinch from deploying it: my idea, from direct observation (no, not of all but of some, and I claim of enough), is that the sheople, on the whole, rush home from their job (note: not 'career position,' not so much any more; now it could be 'hamburger flipper'), or school or whatever, and 1st in the door turns on the (flat-panel?) TV, and last to bed (if they don't all go comatose 'watching') turns the boob-tube off. During their more lucid moments, this audience soaks up all possible perversions portrayed by Hollywood-style 'entertainment' interspersed by raucous ads. Oh, yeah; and 'news' which is basically more often than not pushed-paradigm propaganda.

There is a more scientific way to describe what's occurring, it's called "manufactured desire/consent." And now, here's my 'new' bit:

«It is Edward Bernays who fine-tuned the art of public relations in the 20th century. Using many of the psychoanalytic theories put forward by his uncle Sigmund Freud, he developed a mastery of public manipulation, suggesting that such manipulation was essential to democracy itself. Bernays strongly believed that people are simply "stupid" and in need of being told how to behave, what to believe, what to eat, what to wear, and how to vote. The outcomes of such an experiment reverberate to this day.

Some historians credit Bernays's efforts in the 1920s and 1930s for turning the modern citizen into a modern consumer. ...

It was only natural that such tactics would soon become politicized. ...»

[Ramzy Baroud/The Art of War, Democracy and Public Relations]

Any more questions?

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Basically, no. But of course and as usual, I'd like to say a bit more. The current Federal government, run (for the want of a better word) by Howard, has raised this sheople-bamboozling to new and dizzying heights. On the one hand it may not matter; if the sheople themselves feel content (relaxed and comfortable?) - then "She's Jake!"

But. Rabbits will sit only so long in the headlights, before - WHAM! - they're road-kill (Ami-speak?! Spit!)

The 'accident' is upon us, multiply so. Thanks largely to Costello's halving of the CGT, house price affordability has gone to ruin - for a very large slice of 'the aspirationals.'

(We know that 'aspirational' is a 'good' word since it is a Howard all-time favourite. Watch out, bunnies!)

No accident - not on your Nelly; Howard&Co lied us into an illegal war, morphed now into a brutal occupation, all based on the eventual theft of Iraq's oil: aka (mass!)murder for spoil. This is where the keyword moral hazard[3] comes in; Howard&Co are our putative representatives, despite the anti-war cries of "No war!" and "Not in our name!" - what they, Howard&Co have done / are doing sadly is in our name, to our enduring shame[4].

There are two more (non!)accidents, one is oil prices. Murdoch (spit!) claimed that if nothing else, the Iraq war would bring us lower oil prices. Utter BS, as is most'a the stuff he publishes.

The other (non!)accident is the run-away CO2 greedastrophe®, more on-the-way than merely mooted (see WHAM! discussion above); the one that Howard&Co are fooling around doing SFA effective about - to all our perils.

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Ref(s):

[1] hypocrisy n. (pl. -ies) 1 false claim to virtue; insincerity, pretence. 2 instance of this. [Greek, = acting, feigning] [POD]

[2] lie2 —n. 1 intentionally false statement (tell a lie). 2 something that deceives. —v. (lies, lied, lying) 1 tell a lie or lies. 2 (of a thing) be deceptive.  give the lie to show the falsity of (a supposition etc.). [Old English] [ibid.]

[3] Moral hazard ...

«.. refers to the chance, or hazard, that a party in a transaction with more information about his intentions or actions behaves in a way that a party with less information would consider inappropriate, or in the extreme, "immoral". It arises because an individual or institution in a transaction does not bear the full consequences of its actions.

Moral hazard is related to asymmetric information, a situation one party in a transaction has more information than another. A special case of moral hazard is called a principal-agent problem, where one party, called an agent, acts on behalf of another party, called the principal. The agent may have an incentive or tendency to act in an inappropriate way in the view of the principal, if the interests of the agent and the principal are not aligned. The agent usually has more information about his actions or intentions than the principal does, because the principal usually can not perfectly monitor the agent.»

[wiki]

[4] Anglo/Christian CoW®'s 'finest hour:'

«... So Bush's confident strut, his incessant upbeat pronouncements about the war, his complacent smirks, his callous indifference to the unspeakable horror he has unleashed in Iraq – these are not the hallmarks of self-delusion, or willful ignorance, or a disassociation from reality. He and his accomplices know full well what the reality is – and they like it.»

[Chris Floyd/Claiming the Prize: Bush Surge Aimed at Securing Iraqi Oil]