MUM'S THE WORD
By Graham Strachan
October 22, 2002
NewsWithViews.comThere used to be an expression, "Mum’s the word," which meant "Don’t say anything about (a particular matter)." While the expression itself seems to have gone out of fashion, the practice certainly hasn’t, reaching epidemic proportions in the halls of power, academia, the media and the Establishment generally, where it takes the form of codes of silence.
Take the American Congress, for example. This once-great symbol to the world of freedom and democracy went lame early in the Clinton presidency. Since then it has lacked the moral fortitude to sack a president who was disgracing his office; it has relinquished to the current president powers over trade agreements; it has let the White House prevent it from holding a thorough investigation into the greatest terrorist attack on American soil; and it has now virtually granted the president the power to declare war on any nation he likes whenever he likes. Something has rendered the American Congress impotent and hundreds of congressmen and women know what it is. But apart from a couple of exceptions, nobody is saying anything. Mum’s the word.
Many unresolved questions still surround the 911 terrorist attacks: why so many people were late for work at the World Trade Centre that day; why there appeared to be an absence of plane wreckage at the Pentagon crash site; rumours that the FBI knew in advance of the impending terrorist attacks, but did nothing to stop them; why fighters at Andrews Airforce Base weren’t scrambled to intercept the hijacked planes. Thousands of people who survived the attacks at the Trade Centre by not being there, and who work at the Pentagon, the FBI and Andrews AFB know something, but mum’s the word.
Members of successive Australian governments since 1983 solemnly swore oaths to represent the Australian people, then systematically set about handing over the country, the ownership of its economic assets and its political sovereignty to institutions of global governance. The Australian government is now nothing but a poorly disguised branch office of the Bush administration, the parliament displaying the same impotence as the American Congress. The ‘opposition’ spends most of its time trying to appear like an opposition without actually opposing anything. Something has the Australian government in its grip, and hundreds of Australian politicians know what it is. But mum’s the word.
In defence of it all, one might argue that there is no forum in which whistleblowers can be heard, that if they tried to reveal what is going on the major media wouldn’t print their revelations. But there again, one encounters the code. Thousands of journalists go daily to the corporate media newsrooms knowing they are going to suppress, distort and ‘spin’ information to manipulate public opinion to support whatever it is their globalist bosses want to do next. Apart from a few brave renegades - generally reviled by their colleagues in the ‘profession’ - the guardians of the public’s ‘right to know’ are content to feed the public no more than it needs to know, and as to the rest, mum’s the word.
Academia has elevated the code to an artform. When South Africa had Apartheid, the Western intelligentsia raged with politically correct moral indignation. Now that whites are being butchered and disposessed of their land, with children among those being raped and murdered, the same intelligentsia has its collective chin on its chest and its eyes averted. When whites make blacks live separately and apart, it’s time for protests and sanctions; when blacks rape and murder whites en masse, mum’s the word.
The legal profession too has recognised the benefits of staying mum when it suits. Serious questions surround Australia’s Port Arthur massacre, which bears all the marks of a terrorist attack rather than the work of one intellectually impaired man, untrained in high powered weaponry, acting alone. Hundreds of people within the Australian justice system and law enforcement agencies know something about Port Arthur, but apart from a few brave lay people prepared to risk their lives for a principle, mum’s the word.
In Enron and the other corporate giants caught engaging in fraud, one could understand CEOs, bribed with obscene salary packages, turning a blind eye to the dishonesty going on. But thousands of other employees also knew, and apparently said nothing. As more and more better-paid jobs come under the control of corporations, the aspiring corporate executive must learn to see no evil, hear no evil, and when it comes down to it, raise no objection to evil; and definitely to recognise when, and in regard to what, mum’s the word.
With the world’s lone superpower now seemingly determined to crush ruthlessly any national government that resists its will, the institutions of society that should be providing a balancing force have been rendered impotent by the moral dereliction and cowardice hiding behind the code of silence. The only course left for people worldwide who place value on truth and justice is to declare themselves individually and make a stand. To paraphrase Edmund Burke, all it takes for evil to prevail, is that good people do nothing. It’s time to do something, good people, and mum’s definitely not the word.
© 2002 Graham Strachan - All Rights Reserved
Graham Strachan is a lawyer, author and international speaker on globalization and world affairs based in Brisbane, Australia. His website is: www.grahamstrachan.com.