Sir Vivor,

Well, yes they do. If they remain silent it's usually due to apathy,cynicism or plain stupidity. Your presence on this site is QED to that proposition,we are indeed politicians' political masters, if we choose. We also have the inalienable right to be ignored completely by our fellow citizens or treated as total ratbags,even if the course of history proves us right.

relda,

Yes we are aren't we, I'll say that I find your writing style sometimes ambiguous, it seemed to me you were implying a "Jewish Israel", point taken.However,I'd still like to make a comment- I suspect that we have, in reality, that type of state. The indulgent attitude of the Israeli government towards the "settlers" is indicative of a divergence from those principles you pointed out.(I'm not sure I'd survive in a state guided by the principles of what I would call "Old Testament prophets" since they favoured genocide, slavery and the subjugation of women).See the problem with religiously based ethics. I'd be interested in the comments of non Jews resident in Israel. I've already indicated I don't dispute Israel's right to exist, but not at its neighbours' expense.

I certainly do not need Plato in this ,since there is no proof at all of the existence of any "metaphysical" world. Supernatural sanctions for our moral code are not required, belief that they are is a fallacy. Now that you have expanded on your previous "microphone" comments, I understand and agree.

Mac, you say that.

"Your presence on this site is QED to that proposition, we are indeed politicians' political masters, if we choose."

(QED - quod erat demonstrandum; a term usually applied to the remorseless logic of mathematical proofs).

But I don't see your case as proven. My participation here about as meaningful as that of a German (or other nation’s) conscript in the trenches during the Great War. How many had an audible voice concerning the flow of historical events, besides Hitler?
Your argument is similar to the assertion that anyone born in the USA can become its president, a dream revivified by the recent inauguration of BHO. But yours is not a logical argument.

I allow the possibility that we are like flowers in a vase: unaware of the hands that placed them there (unless flowers are conscious of florists). We are conscious of each other (unlike, I assume, the flowers in a vase), but are not necessarily aware or willing to allow the possibility of what Omar Khayyam expressed:

"We are no other than a moving row
Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go
Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held
In Midnight by the Master of the Show"

(Fifth ed. Quatrain 68).
Not quite as in Plato’s cave, but read this excerpt from Noam Chomsky’s Media Control:

"Woodrow Wilson was elected [US] President in 1916 on the platform "Peace Without Victory." That was right in the middle of the World War I. The population was extremely pacifistic and saw no reason to become involved in a European war. The Wilson administration was actually committed to war and had to do something about it. They established a government propaganda commission, called the Creel Commission, which succeeded, within six months, in turning a pacifist population into a hysterical, war-mongering population which wanted to destroy everything German, tear the Germans limb from limb, go to war and save the world.”
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Chomsky/MediaControl_excerpts.html

The lantern of the mass media is still “manufacturing consent”. That helps me put my democratic "voice" in perspective.

Sir Vivor,

You can't compare your capacity to influence the political process with that of a WW1 conscript, he was constrained by military discipline to conform, you really are drawing a longbow. As I said before, your fellow citizens are not obliged to take you seriously or provide a platform, that's not a restriction of your liberties. Yes, anyone born in the USA can become president, the chances for the majority of the population is vanishingly small, but not zero. The point is that the voters don't want just anyone, there's nothing necessarily sinister.

Omar Khayyam was musing on the meaning of life and Plato was speculating on the limits of human perception in regard to an imagined metaphysical realm. Neither of these texts are relevant to our discussion, unless you regard politicians as existing in another world.

I can't comment on Chomsky as I know practically nothing about US history, apart from Hollywood's version which I doubt is reliable. On the face of it his claims seem overblown.

I don't have any problems in accepting your suggestion that the media is "manufacturing consent",especially where it can feed on prejudices as in the attack on the Gazans, however you are exaggerating its effects, this is where your argument falters.
Consider Lincoln's famous aphorism in regard to "fooling the people", modern media has not invalidated his very wise advice.

Mac,

It's true, as Lincoln said, "you can't fool all the people all of the time."

My opinion is that the mainstream media can fool enough of the people enough of the time, and thus "manufacture consent".

Further along in the excerpt at
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Chomsky/MediaControl_excerpts.html
Chomsky notes that:

"Among those who participated actively and enthusiastically in Wilson's war were the progressive intellectuals, people of the John Dewey circle, who took great pride, as you can see from their own writings at the time, in having shown that what they called the "more intelligent members of the community," namely, themselves, were able to drive a reluctant population into a war by terrifying them and eliciting jingoist fanaticism. … Much of [the propaganda] was invented by the British propaganda ministry, [who hoped] "to direct the thought of most of the world." But more crucially they wanted to control the thought of the more intelligent members of the community in the United States … . That worked. It worked very well. And it taught a lesson: State propaganda, when supported by the educated classes and when no deviation is permitted from it, can have a big effect. It was a lesson learned by Hitler and many others, and it has been pursued to this day."

To this very day, in Israel and elsewhere. See
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/27/israel-palestinians-gaza-children
where Neve Gordon and Yigal Bronner note that "Hatred is the great winner in this war".

As for my comparison of myself with a WWI conscript, it is the inconsequentiality (with rare exceptions) of such a person that strikes me as germane. Perhaps I should have identified as an ANZAC volunteer, in the opposing trenches. What would I have believed of the Germans?

As for national leadership candidates , they receive the publicity due to champions of corporate interests. Which team you barrack for is a matter of personal taste, and largely academic. Hitler, Rudd, Obama, the upcoming Israeli PM: Short-listed and promoted by “opinion leaders”. I am not so much complaining of sinister process as about criminal outcomes, eg selling "ethical warfare".

Sir Vivor,

Thanks for the link,unfortunately the Guardian article reinforces conclusions I came to long ago. The Israeli predator has always posed as a victim, Israel is not alone of course, the Japanese have also tried this ploy, however, unlike Israel, few people believe them, no reason to "manufacture consent" in their case perhaps.

I like the Lincoln quote, and even in America, the people are no longer fooled by chants of anti-Semitism, whenever the Zionist extremists that head up the Tel Aviv regime and their war crimes are under scrutiny (http://www.btselem.org/English/Statistics/Index.asp).

Repeat after me, there are WMDs in eye-Raq, not so!

What is the case is that the land grab continues ...

Interestingly, some predators, like sharks, crocs and snakes do get protected, until they bite a human, much like the Zionist tail has been wagging the American dog. Pity the surfer ...

Let's not forget that courtesy of the invaders, Palestinian children have been at the receiving end of violence for over 60 years (
http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/oPt.html)!

In the run up to the latest Israeli election, apparently a third of over 1400 killed in Gaza, were children.

Prior to 1948 the Holy Land was largely Arab (http://files.splinder.com/fc1dd247c944ea92040e8ef41705551b.jpeg), now they are crammed into the Gaza ghetto, or pieces of the West Bank surrounded by Zionist settlements, if not in camps in the region ...
One must admire the Arab spirit of resistance though. Even after 60 years of getting whacked, they still have not given up their right or dream of return.

Why was the Tel Aviv apartheid regime allowed to come to Davos? Time for a boycott in the diplomatic world, business, education, ... after all, if is was appropriate during the Cold War, against South Africa, ...