Ever get the feeling you’re being conned? You know – people are telling you one thing when they mean the exact opposite. Using words like ‘freedom’ – when what they really mean is more restrictions. And ‘choice’ – but only if you can afford it. It’s a bit like that with the right wing. They pretend they are all for less regulation and more individualism, when in reality the biggest regulator of freedom and individualism is the amount of available income one has and, as I’m sure most of us are aware, there is definitely not as much cash left for most to make any real choices at all.
I think it was George Orwell who warned that the first sure sign of dictatorship is when the meaning of words suddenly change.
The right has no greater advocate of this backwards thinking than the current Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove. He preaches the democratic right to choose as though he is quoting directly from the Bible and yet he uses increasingly right wing rhetoric to denounce anyone who dares to voice an opinion that differs from his hard line.
Just this week he attacked the critics of the Academy Schools policy by claiming they are ‘happy with failure’, when all that they were really stating was the reality, which is that so-called academies are no different than any other schools besides the fact they have less Local Authority control and are therefore less transparent to scrutiny.
The people who criticise education policy are not the ones hooked on failure, far from it. In fact they are the ones trying to make the people realise that it is the politicians who are hard-wired into a system that is not fit for purpose and things need to change.
So we need to stop falling for the right wing rhetoric and start listening to what dictatorial politicians like Gove really mean; i.e. he is saying put up and shut – and you don’t get any more undemocratic that.
Read more: http://www.economicvoice.com/the-michael-gove-dictatorship/50027033#ixzz1illhP6C2