{"id":375,"date":"2014-11-29T23:00:48","date_gmt":"2014-11-29T23:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/?p=375"},"modified":"2014-11-29T23:58:27","modified_gmt":"2014-11-29T23:58:27","slug":"arrogant-uk-public-didnt-buy-in-enough-secret-expertise-to-understand-ttip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2014\/11\/arrogant-uk-public-didnt-buy-in-enough-secret-expertise-to-understand-ttip.html","title":{"rendered":"“Arrogant” UK public didn’t “buy in” enough secret expertise to understand TTIP?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pour savoir qui r\u00e8gne sur vous, tout simplement savoir qui vous n’\u00eates pas autoris\u00e9 \u00e0 critiquer.<\/em><\/p>\n

To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.<\/p>\n

Voltaire<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

One issue I would like to take the time to talk about more is the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) deal. I already mentioned the TTIP in an earlier post in which I affirmed that I signed a 38 Degrees petition<\/a> against the negotiations, but I would like to bring this subject\u00a0up again.<\/p>\n

Given the concerns about the privatisation of the NHS that have been raised by activists, I, like many other members of the public,\u00a0believe\u00a0the deal is far too important to be based on closed-doors decisions. Government secrecy or stifling of debate are\u00a0inimical to democracy<\/a>. Wherever a government has\u00a0closed the doors, there is something not in the public interest.<\/p>\n

Listen: tough guy @Adrian_Bailey<\/a> shouting to @38_degrees<\/a> @davidbabbs<\/a> that he isn’t privileged to understand #TTIP<\/a> https:\/\/t.co\/vs986eIXDu<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Harry J. Bentham (@hjbentham) November 26, 2014<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

My attention was drawn to this issue again by the outrageous remarks made by MPs towards 38 Degrees activists. MPs denounced\u00a0the public\u00a0itself\u00a0as “arrogant” simply for distrusting the secret “expertise” that has been “bought in” by the government. The recording can be listened via my embedded tweet above, and I encourage\u00a0all the support that can be mustered to help 38 Degrees expose and stop the TTIP before it creates more opportunities for private companies to inflict\u00a0public harm. This issue isn’t even necessarily about the details in the TTIP deal, which I have not actually studied for myself. It’s about MPs who have lost the trust of the public, shouting their critics\u00a0down in the name of secret privileges and “expertise” about the TTIP that haven’t been disclosed to the public. This sounds rather familiar to me – it’s the same “intelligence” and “secret evidence” fallacy that is used to justify criminal wars, repression, mass surveillance and violations of civil rights. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that this fallacy of secrecy is being recycled to call the public “arrogant” when we\u00a0try\u00a0to influence the decisions most affecting our\u00a0very safety and security. Rather than presenting an argument to reassure the public, lawmakers\u00a0and their apologists simply call the public\u00a0“arrogant” or “naiive” and say we lack enough access to their secret information to criticise them. The fact these hooligans are making their decisions based on “secrets” is exactly why their decisions have no legitimacy. No-one should ever be impressed by secret “intelligence”\u00a0or high-brow economic “expertise” on an issue that is going to hit society hard. Where the public\u00a0is at risk, the public\u00a0should be consulted before all other actors and its interests and concerns (even if they are unfounded) must be sacrosanct. The concerned public cannot be called “arrogant”; only the politicians can.<\/p>\n

Well over 50 MPs have come by so far to collect #saveournhs<\/a> petitions signed by @38_degrees<\/a> members! \u2014 38 Degrees (@38_degrees) November 21, 2014<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The outsourcing of work of\u00a0great social responsibility, traditionally the domain of the state, to private entities, is a source of great public harm. Whether it is the outsourcing of what should be\u00a0Jobcentre\u00a0work to so-called work program providers, or the privatisation of the NHS , the outsourcing of any job of social significance to private entities – in whole or in part – harms vulnerable people. Giving the responsibility for helping vulnerable people to vulturous and evil profit-driven corporations\u00a0drives people to despair, even suicide. A\u00a0recent disallowance\u00a0of incapacity benefit\u00a0to a poor disabled woman by a private company tasked with assessing her case resulted in one such suicide, and it is my fear that more will come. Privatising any part of the NHS or even outsourcing a single\u00a0NHS job will only worsen the potential for that kind of abuse and inevitable death. Such privatisation, like\u00a0defunding the public services tasked with protecting vulnerable people,\u00a0is murder.<\/p>\n

10,600 ill & disabled UK citizens passed away within six weeks of their sickness benefit being stopped in 2012. http:\/\/t.co\/mD5gqtpQEV<\/a> #ATOS<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Dr. Chris Jones (@dr_chris_jones) November 29, 2014<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Letting the NHS privatise, even to the extent that the\u00a0Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) has outsourced\u00a0certain tasks, would be a disaster. Private entities battle not for welfare but\u00a0for profit only, and cannot be expected to adhere to the same ethics as public-owned entities. While civil servants are required to be nonpartisan and adhere to a strict code of ethics and respect for confidentiality, private employees are not civil servants, and do not operate under the kind of ethics expected of civil servants. Private employees can be\u00a0blatantly politically partisan, unfeeling for the public, intrusive and dismissive of privacy, arrogant, and selfish, and they can get away with it. This is why so much abuse happens when any task about helping the public is outsourced to a private firm. All have no reason to protect the public, and every reason to protect themselves and take advantage of\u00a0members of the public like parasites. These companies know who they are, without me naming them. They\u00a0will even neglect or murder vulnerable people, to fulfill their contracts and get their money off the government.<\/p>\n

I regret the lack of time to write a more thorough or analytical\u00a0post here. However, I will soon have a larger analysis\u00a0on some major international subject, such as the Ferguson unrest in the United States<\/a>, on my column at Press TV<\/a>, at the start of December.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am also working on a new fiction story collection. It will belong to the Search Beyond<\/em> series.<\/a>\u00a0Try searching those words at\u00a0Amazon, for all the science-fiction titles belonging to the series.<\/p>\n

\n

By Harry J. Bentham <\/a> \"HJB<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pour savoir qui r\u00e8gne sur vous, tout simplement savoir qui vous n’\u00eates pas autoris\u00e9 \u00e0 critiquer. To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize. Voltaire One issue I would like to take the time to talk about more is the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) deal.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":577,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,8,153,66,16,56,89],"tags":[261,251,254,258,253,260,259,255,256,252,257,160,91],"class_list":["post-375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alter-globalization","category-antistatism","category-lordre-2","category-politics-2","category-press-tv","category-uk","category-wikileaks","tag-cameronmustgo","tag-38-degrees","tag-democracy","tag-government-secrecy","tag-nhs","tag-privatisation","tag-privatisation-of-the-nhs","tag-save-our-nhs","tag-saveournhs","tag-stop-the-ttip","tag-transatlantic-trade-and-investment-partnership","tag-ttip","tag-wikileaks-2"],"yoast_head":"\n"Arrogant" UK public didn't "buy in" enough secret expertise to understand TTIP? - L'Ordre<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2014\/11\/arrogant-uk-public-didnt-buy-in-enough-secret-expertise-to-understand-ttip.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""Arrogant" UK public didn't "buy in" enough secret expertise to understand TTIP? - L'Ordre\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Pour savoir qui r\u00e8gne sur vous, tout simplement savoir qui vous n’\u00eates pas autoris\u00e9 \u00e0 critiquer. 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