tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16874434821459022412024-02-21T11:25:29.246+00:00Mac 'The Mouth'Politics, history, philosophy, entertainment... and periodically, downright silliness.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07076569934619669616noreply@blogger.comBlogger90125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1687443482145902241.post-87596380547819554442018-12-31T01:16:00.001+00:002018-12-31T01:16:29.561+00:00"BREXIT MEANS REVERSAL TO A REGRETTABLE CHANGE OF POLICY IN THE 1960s." (PEACE.)<script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDEw3cZz9oaMNcrcLFlolKpRIGYEpdmTLKYy1XbP-g-I59A6OTDVTu3IaespWis_Ot3dEK5vcbgF62HWaAwIbR-5lFy5nNiR72g1iHwwzdproXvYBm3BKP8R9GDYRoWPOU2koXSvdki6C2/s1600/Gavin+Williamson.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="785" data-original-width="1182" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDEw3cZz9oaMNcrcLFlolKpRIGYEpdmTLKYy1XbP-g-I59A6OTDVTu3IaespWis_Ot3dEK5vcbgF62HWaAwIbR-5lFy5nNiR72g1iHwwzdproXvYBm3BKP8R9GDYRoWPOU2koXSvdki6C2/s640/Gavin+Williamson.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><i>"This is our moment to be that true global player once more – and I think the armed forces play a really important role as part of that.” Mr Williamson said that Brexit would allow the UK to change the 1960s policy of withdrawal from regions “east of Suez”.</i></b></blockquote>
<br />
From the horse's mouth, so to speak, in <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-uk-military-bases-caribbean-far-east-eu-global-player-a8703816.html" target="_blank">today's <i>Independent</i></a>.<br />
<br />
That's right folks. Behold the true mindset behind Brexit. Real life <i>Bond villain</i> Gavin Williamson, the former Tory whip, now Defence Secretary, who keeps a tarantula named Cronus on his desk to scare people, who <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLr-jfbX0zM" target="_blank">told Russia to "shut-up and go away"</a>, wants to return to the glory days of the British Empire and somehow "re-write" the calamity of Suez Canal.<br />
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en-gb">
<div dir="ltr" lang="en">
Only thing you need to know about Gavin Williamson MP, the chief whip. He keeps a tarantula in his desk <a href="https://twitter.com/KateEMcCann?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@KateEMcCann</a> <a href="https://t.co/YnXL5D90zx">pic.twitter.com/YnXL5D90zx</a></div>
— Christopher Hope (@christopherhope) <a href="https://twitter.com/christopherhope/status/800394593598603269?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">20 November 2016</a></blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
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If you don't quite know what that means, the catastrophe of Suez in 1956 was essentially a geopolitical turning point: when it finally became proven Britain was no longer boss in the world.<br />
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It's a little known truth that the first ever United Nations peace-keeping force was dispatched not to monitor some far-off Middle Eastern/African butcher in a war zone, but to rein in the actions of the British. See, Britain has a bit of a history of disliking being told it CAN'T do what it likes: particularly when it comes to war and conquest, and fleecing its own people. (And if you need the relevance of Brexit explaining at this point, there's little hope for you.)<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyZS8iUAoqr3wA77VKn1lvTPUNWgm_XrwhrrW0R6bGvnPtbPaBjsy46uWUmDyLSMD-N_o41Fd0pz_szVtk3wxdD6MgWWZhrRc080i1K1TXhrWMJNW15elr-fxVJai-z9I2CID1cBJwnIeo/s1600/Suez+Crisis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="774" data-original-width="1600" height="307" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyZS8iUAoqr3wA77VKn1lvTPUNWgm_XrwhrrW0R6bGvnPtbPaBjsy46uWUmDyLSMD-N_o41Fd0pz_szVtk3wxdD6MgWWZhrRc080i1K1TXhrWMJNW15elr-fxVJai-z9I2CID1cBJwnIeo/s640/Suez+Crisis.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/cabinet-office-100/the-suez-crisis/<br />
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</tbody></table>
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In 1956 Britain almost started another World War. Britain, France and Israel tried to invade the Suez Canal in Egypt: but were forced to stop, and withdraw - due to pressure from the international community, the U.N, and ironically, pressure from then US President Dwight Eisenhower. But arguably more importantly, back in Britain, it created a major backlash against right-wing mindsets and warmongering Tory governments: paving the way for all the "love and peace" vibes of the 1960s. It was virtually the birth of modern liberalism in Britain - an ethos it's taken the Tories until 2016 to almost reverse entirely. Little over half a century for the Tories to get the "rank & file" back to detesting foreigners, and clamouring for confrontation.<br />
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More info <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/mar/14/past.education1" target="_blank">here</a>, for anyone interested.<br />
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<h3>
All ancient history, right? </h3>
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Wrong. 1956 was only 63 years ago, in living memory. Take a moment also to consider how relatively soon this was after WWII, ending in 1945. Eleven years. Which countries were first to show they'd learned nothing from the human catastrophes of WWII?? Britain, France, and Israel: still trying to play at Imperialism. And it's definitely not "history" for some: it's unfinished business.<br />
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Brexit is part of that unfinished business. And these are the people who want it most: deplorable specimens who exhibit all that's wrong with humankind - people like Gavin Williamson. People who view the point in history Britain was told it couldn't just invade foreign countries any more, as a <i>"regrettable change of policy in the 1960s"</i>.<br />
<br />
Hope you're all looking forward to the prospect of conscription for our children, in the future Tory vision of Brexit Britain.<br />
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Where do you think people like Williamson plan on getting their ground troops from, to enable this "reemergence of empire"? And how do you make conscription/service in the Armed Forces (eg: throwing your life away as a dispensable pawn in someone else's chess game) seem like a good thing, or at very least, "not so bad"? How do you rejuvenate the ranks of "meat shield" infantry, when natural human instinct is for freedom and to avoid needless death? When Western notions of valour/basic humanity have spent the past 70+ years selling the idea war is a bad thing?<br />
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ANSWER: You make life for average civilians so shit, mundane and deprived, by comparison, military service seems an attractive option - and the only feasible avenue for betterment. Eg: the way it worked for thousands of years.<br />
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Eg: Kinda what Brexit may realistically do in Britain.<br />
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It's all part of a giant puzzle. Give populaces too much freedom and choice, and they'll no longer be willing to needlessly fight and die for you. Brexit is one step in reversing that.<br />
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It's like an onion with never-ending layers, each one making you weep.<br />
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#StopBrexitAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07076569934619669616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1687443482145902241.post-5238761701738567312018-09-14T15:29:00.002+01:002018-09-14T16:52:28.000+01:00POST-BREXIT HOUSING PRICE CRASH? IT'S ALL PART OF THE DISASTER CAPITALIST PLAN<script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
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<br />
I winced considerably at Mark Carney's offering of a "<a href="https://news.sky.com/story/mark-carney-no-deal-brexit-could-see-house-prices-crash-by-a-third-11496950" target="_blank">worst case scenario</a>" yesterday, warning that a No-Deal Brexit could result in UK house prices collapsing by as much as a third. Not only as a homeowner myself, enslaved to a sizeable mortgage I'll be paying off for the next twenty plus years (regardless of whether my home becomes worth less than plywood). But also because I literally visualised the thousands of people who'd greet the news with untold joy, and even smug satisfaction.<br />
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<div>
To those who desperately want to get onto the property ladder, but can't currently afford to, it must seem like a tantalising proposition. Contrary to <i>bad</i> news, a price crash would be a cause for their celebration: an end to justify the means in some cases. Worse still, to my mind, it will likely confirm (or reignite) for some the idea that this Brexit calamity is a <i>good</i> thing.</div>
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It's really not, and I'd like to try and debunk that particular theory. </div>
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<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">
Fake carrots for would-be home owners </span></h3>
<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">
(a real stick for existing ones)</span></h3>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<div>
A housing price crash is very much a symbiotic part of the "Disaster Capitalist" plan: a term now widely recognised, and virtually coined/alluded to by author and activist <a href="http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine" target="_blank">Naomi Klein in her book 'The Shock Doctrine'</a>.<br />
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All a crash will do is drag the middle class - arguably the bedrock of a healthy economy - down to the status of being impoverished too. And that "middle class" wealth... where does it go? Well, it's transferred to the coffers of the financial elite. That's quite literally the whole point. The poor won't get squat. </div>
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<div>
In other words, the one group I virtually guarantee will <i>not</i> benefit in the slightest, are the poor and fiscally unstable. The cold harsh reality is if you haven't got a decent job and can't afford a sizeable enough deposit to purchase a home <i>now</i>, mortgage lenders are not going to suddenly be hurling mortgages at people absent that collateral, even if they are considerably cheaper.<br />
<br />
But the poor will be somewhat placated, as they'll see all the middle class people around them falling like dominoes. They won't see or care how the gap between rich and poor has been vastly increased overall, because it won't have affected <i>them.</i> A neat ruse.</div>
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<div>
Owning a home is not simply "slightly" out of reach for millions in difficulty - it's nigh on a pipe dream. Even a price crash won't change that; it's other economic issues and priorities that need to be addressed, such as wage and job security, wages rising with inflation, lending criteria and priorities for banks, lower interest rates, day-to-day living costs for exorbitantly priced services... there's a whole load of things we could look at before just demolishing the housing market, and ruining millions of people.</div>
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A surprisingly courteous conversation on Twitter revealed to me all too clearly that some folks simply don't get HOW a simple price crash can, and will, ruin average people. And that curious little financial trap, unnoticed by any other than those who've borrowed to purchase a home or business, is the lynch-pin of the Disaster Capitalist's plan.</div>
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This was the argument presented to me:<br />
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><b>"People with mortgages were going to have to pay back that loan amount any way, so it makes no difference - and their next home will be incrementally cheaper too. Meanwhile, the young and first time buyers will be able to get on the ladder."</b></i></blockquote>
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That overlooks so many technicalities, it's unreal.<br />
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<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">
Bricks and Mortar</span></h3>
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<div>
The first thing to understand, the <i>most</i> fundamental thing, is the ONLY homeowners who get screwed by a housing crash are those who owe considerable amounts, and have mortgages on them. People who've bought into, and relied upon the financial system. The truly rich, the super-rich and elite percentile everyone's always referring to, <i>don't need mortgages.</i> </div>
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If you buy a home for cash outright, exclusively to rent out, and it plummets in value... no, it <i>doesn't</i> matter all that much, as your yield will likely be unchanged. You just ride it out, making as much as you can in the process. If you hold on to it long enough, it will - eventually - return the monies paid out. And if you simply bought it as a holiday/alternate home, again, it makes no difference. It was money you could afford to splash out, after all.</div>
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The super-rich deal in cold hard cash. Whereas you or I might buy a home, or even a property investment to let if we're so fortunate, the super-rich property mogul buys up whole portfolios and estates... sometimes whole housing projects. It's arguably the best place for hordes of money, and will always provide a return from rental. "People will always need bricks and mortar" is the saying: no other investment pays for itself in quite the same way, and is usually also worth vastly more after decades of bringing in a reliable, stable yield.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1ADKeRwQOkAmtEI0rNnCNfuHYb-R57DfCTO80x-iesc_maX6fIabbyAT8kObFVB1Mj09jdBlFWEvpOndBZPDOhawegz1XolpijQzf-jbnqNtbffQyqcX-sN__4C46p7cPjiv58QTAG7Rk/s1600/money+in+bricks.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="829" data-original-width="805" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1ADKeRwQOkAmtEI0rNnCNfuHYb-R57DfCTO80x-iesc_maX6fIabbyAT8kObFVB1Mj09jdBlFWEvpOndBZPDOhawegz1XolpijQzf-jbnqNtbffQyqcX-sN__4C46p7cPjiv58QTAG7Rk/s320/money+in+bricks.PNG" width="309" /></a></div>
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Middle class people with mortgages live in perpetual fear of losing their jobs, and possibly as a consequence, their homes. Whereas the super-rich are <i>also</i> the only ones shielded from a tempestuous, faltering economy. You don't have to worry about your job, or physically being given a mortgage by a bank if you already have more money than average people would earn in several lifetimes. It's simple maths. </div>
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<div>
And that element of physically being "given" the mortgage, is where it all gets messy - and the Disaster Capitalism really kicks in.<br />
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<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">
Number Crunching</span></h3>
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<br />
The actual value of a property matters little to a bank in the long run. If prices are lower universally, they can always offset that hit to their profits, by raising the interest rate for borrowers. Yes prices seem lower, but customers may well pay around the same. Simply a greater portion goes to the "Disaster Capitalists" - the banks, who are the middlemen rubbing their hands with glee.<br />
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<ul>
<li>A £250K loan over 20 years at 1.99% pays the lender <u>£53,246</u> in interest. Total cost to borrower: £303,246. (Not including product fees, legals etc.)</li>
<li>A smaller loan of £150K over 20 years, but at 5.99% for example, is <u>£107,708</u> in interest. Total cost to borrower: £257,708.</li>
</ul>
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What's happened there? The buyer saved less than £50K on a property that seemed <i>much</i> cheaper, the banks take over <i>double</i> in interest charges, and the only person who loses out is the poor schmuck who bought it at £300K, and has lost all equity. Yes you got your house a bit cheaper, but at what expense... and who do you think is laughing?<br />
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Nobody thinks so much about that bit, as after all... a price drop from £300K to £200K seems far more significant than a couple of percentiles being shifted in favour of the banks.<br />
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I always wistfully smirk at discussion of interest rates, and Bank of England adjustments etc. I'm no qualified economist, and would not proclaim to be so - merely an interested civilian. But my general and admittedly simplified take on interest rates is <i>"who shall we tip the scales in favour of today?"</i> Low rates are in favour of borrowers, people with loans/mortgages etc, who need credit to survive. Higher rates are in favour of those who lend the money, who are sitting on pots of it, and the wealthier segments of society who have it tied up everywhere from high street banks to the Cayman Islands.<br />
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<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">The Scourge of Negative Equity</span></h3>
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<br />
The banks will literally take your home or business if you can't pay your mortgage, and they're also the ones who decide whether you get that mortgage renewed in the future. What a neat set up, eh?<br />
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Most deals have to be renewed and swapped over several times during the course of a lifetime mortgage, otherwise they roll over onto extortionate rates <i>nobody</i> can afford. ('Wonga' territory.)<br />
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So when your house you owe £250K on is suddenly only worth £200K, new lenders are going to say "no". Simple as that. The borrower is stuck with whatever terms and interest rates the existing lender has decreed: usually a "variable rate" (eg: the Wonga rate) vastly higher than they paid when they had a good deal, and their property wasn't in negative equity. The unfortunate borrower then either has to pay those exorbitantly hiked interest charges, interminably, or sell the home and possibly lose everything - including the equity they spent years accruing.<br />
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That "Loan To Value" category a borrower falls into is critical, eg: the more equity you own, the lower interest rate you'll pay. So even those who escape negative equity and financial ruin will still have that share reduced in the event of a price crash, and will be paying substantially more interest to the banks too. (Would you look at that? <i>They win again.</i>)<br />
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<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">The Fattened Calf</span></h3>
<i><br /></i>
<i><br /></i>When those homes and businesses are repossessed, who hoovers them up? Who do the banks sell them to, to recoup? Is it the poor first-time buyer, desperate to get on the ladder, who needs a loan? Or the super-rich guy and property mogul with a cheque book potent enough to buy a Caribbean island? (Who just happens to be mates with the bank manager.)<br />
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<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_5ypsAWXmyJ1-vCea0msnoPyS2cqTWWQkTeEuqv0lXrC5Z1wkA-n35ubwuJCHCh7QecBF2ERjyFMWUEoUoA873mBz4-9O70oSOLDD1UH86DoxTzywa7od2_z6hVZNuX9Eg_Dnc13xBf5l/s1600/bull-calves-TS.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="507" data-original-width="900" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_5ypsAWXmyJ1-vCea0msnoPyS2cqTWWQkTeEuqv0lXrC5Z1wkA-n35ubwuJCHCh7QecBF2ERjyFMWUEoUoA873mBz4-9O70oSOLDD1UH86DoxTzywa7od2_z6hVZNuX9Eg_Dnc13xBf5l/s400/bull-calves-TS.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />
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<br />
<br />
That <i>is </i>the mantra of Disaster Capitalism. The idea that when economic disaster hits - or rather, is engineered - those with the most resources and wealth close ranks, and are able to take advantage ruthlessly. Thousands, if not millions of people are ruined, and the super-rich take their assets at cut-price. The Disaster Capitalists' wealth and position, their very inherent and overt superiority is assured for yet another generation.<br />
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Then they "fatten up the calf" all over again, for a decade or two. They build a strong economy, pay well, and feed an emergent and wealthy middle-class. Until another disaster/financial crash hits, and the cycle repeats. It's quite literally a sowing and harvesting process that's occurred continuously in Western societies, whether "coincidental" or not, ever since the birth of Twentieth Century Capitalism. Let's just say the "Great Depression" of 1929-39 wasn't so depressing for the wealthy Wall Street types, banks, and landowners of America.<br />
<br />
On the contrary, as it always is for a small minority, a time of housing price crash and economic collapse is "party time".<br />
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Just as Brexit will be for the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg, Crispin Odey, and probably anyone loosely connected to the ERG. (For any who don't know, that's the '<a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/brexit/erg-brexit-group-members-jacob-rees-mogg-explained/" target="_blank">European Research Group</a>'. Eg: the hand up the puppet of Brexit, and this Tory government.)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtZIs-xeKKO2EFWWIR1VOMlcfoaYkBB-skRU4f_-GzwuF5Ruv3vizZI7QSCzZdXDICTApPJTqMxJHUIIFaQodEkxH5ov5CHxGVxao3TDNy8cE2FYiO81EmjpsLpGX2imC5bQQZaEQGm4jS/s1600/crispin.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1121" data-original-width="746" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtZIs-xeKKO2EFWWIR1VOMlcfoaYkBB-skRU4f_-GzwuF5Ruv3vizZI7QSCzZdXDICTApPJTqMxJHUIIFaQodEkxH5ov5CHxGVxao3TDNy8cE2FYiO81EmjpsLpGX2imC5bQQZaEQGm4jS/s640/crispin.PNG" width="424" /></a><br />
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<br />
And what nobody seems to want to mention, conveniently, is that a housing crash is usually precipitated by an economic slump. And if the entire UK economy has fallen off a cliff, nobody but the very richest will have the money to buy property any way.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07076569934619669616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1687443482145902241.post-14071059971899051662018-08-29T11:52:00.001+01:002018-08-30T13:27:09.015+01:00BREXIT "DIVIDEND": FISHING BOAT SKIRMISH REIGNITES HUNDRED YEARS WAR<script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
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<br />
<br />
Ah yes... isn't it funny?!? Hilarious! A Monty Python-like skirmish between French and English fishermen in the English Channel. The French probably shouted that the English mothers were hamsters, and their fathers stank of elderberries.<br />
<br />
Actually... no. It's NOT funny. This is the first warning sign, regarding the brave new world we're headed into.<br />
<br />
To those of us who've opposed Brexit with every fibre of our being, among the countless economic reasons why it's the most colossal self-harm a nation's ever inflicted upon itself, there's also the small matter of the cohesion of Europe. That tiny, almost insignificant detail, eg: that the European Union was specifically set up in the wake of WWII to ensure the powers of Europe were forever tied together and bonded as one community - exactly so such calamity could never happen again. That larger picture was almost more important than anything else.<br />
<br />
Hey, but that's just "libtard", "remainer" whinging, isn't it?<br />
<br />
Actually, again... no. Say what you want, the fragmentation of that ethic and union is a human catastrophe. A complete disaster for the peoples of Europe. You only need to look at history to know, almost with certainty, that it's only a matter of time now before countries in Europe turn on one another once again. More so, impoverishment, economic shocks and hardship, and the "resentment" of foreign neighbours generally precipitates wars, in the same way taking a hit on a bong precipitates the munchies.<br />
<br />
I used to think the emergent gammon of Britain didn't get it; or simply didn't believe the significance. Whereas now I think I realise the truth. Which is that aggressive nationalism in Britain is breeding an active <i>desire</i> for confrontation. Those regressed human beings adore violence: it's part of their DNA. And again make no mistake, Brextremists will <i>love</i> this. It's the actual first visualisation of the "war" they've had in their heads this whole time.<br />
<br />
No, not all Brexit voters are "gammon", but certainly, all "gammon" voted for Brexit. (I know some abhor use of the term, which is almost exclusively why I like to use it.)<br />
<br />
Of course, some will shout that "the French started it". That may be true, though I'm loathed to trust our media's reporting of it alone. Either way, the key detail here is that the British have always enjoyed preferential treatment and specifically tailored/negotiated arrangements with the EU: we literally WERE allowed to have our cake and eat it too, to some degree. We had the best of both worlds, and <i>still</i> that wasn't enough for some.<br />
<br />
Yes, it seems the British fishers were abiding by those previously agreed rules. But in case anyone hasn't noticed, we've said "bollocks" to those agreements. And it seems some French fishermen have, as a consequence, said "bollocks" to those rules and the existing British monopoly. Who could blame them? You reap what you sow, and all that.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Dangerous Melting Pot</h3>
<br />
Nowhere else in the world is quite like Europe; nowhere else are there so many rich, successful and proud, competing nations - all with so much history, different cultures and languages, living side by side and on top of one another. Which makes it a particularly dangerous melting pot for war and hostility, unless they are bound together somehow. Not to mention, larger continents outside Europe are essentially the descendants of Europeans: colonialism may have ended, but its legacy endures, which is why what happens in Europe affects the entire world. It always has.<br />
<br />
FUN FACT: To this day, England and France were at war with one another, longer and more continuously than pretty much <i>any</i> other adversaries in world history. The famous 'Hundred Years War' was actually rounding down, didn't give account of stops and starts, and was even before Napoleon reared his head centuries later! You're a fool if you think that sort of cultural enmity entirely disappears. (Stop by at a few pubs in Glasgow, and ask locals whether they're still cross about stuff the English did centuries ago.)<br />
<br />
This "skirmish" is the beginning. A cynic might say, it's pretty much the first dead canary in the coal mine.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07076569934619669616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1687443482145902241.post-79931343783126220852018-08-08T21:45:00.000+01:002018-08-08T21:48:21.508+01:00A MERE 100 YEARS SINCE THE BATTLE OF AMIENS, AND ALREADY WE'VE ABANDONED THE CONCORD <script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
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<br />
<br />
I'm 39 years old; next year I will turn 40.<br />
<br />
I don't quite know how that happened, as I still feel like a big kid who's really only just left home, and moved out into the big wide world to seek his fortune. The years have whizzed by in a heartbeat. It's a cliche, but it's true.<br />
<br />
But what blows my mind even more, thinking about it, is if you go back to the year of my birth, 1979, and then go back before that "another me" (eg: 39 years), this country was in the middle of World War II. When I was young, and was taught about the World Wars etc, they always seemed this far-off and distant event from history, and I genuinely grew up believing such things could never happen again.<br />
<br />
Today we commemorate 100 years since the Battle of Amiens in World War I. And the truth is, it's not so long ago: it's not some distant event from another time. And the events of World War II, even less so. My own mum was born in 1939, the year it started, and my grandfather, William McNamara, was a doctor in the Armed Forces.<br />
<br />
Which is why (surplus to the added dimension of Britain being cast back economically to Victorian Times), for any student of history, Brexit is such an utter tragedy. We are quite literally in the process of dismantling the organisations/treaties and bonds specifically set up to prevent such horrors taking place, ever, ever again.<br />
<br />
To deny that the European Union itself was the lynch-pin in that, or to glibly assume that countries in Europe could and never would return to hostilities, is ignorance and naivety off the scale. And simply put, there is nothing in this world that was worth risking that, not for our children's futures.<br />
<br />
NOTHING.<br />
<br />
#CentenaryBattleOfAmiensAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07076569934619669616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1687443482145902241.post-81189098532160509782018-08-08T18:10:00.002+01:002018-08-09T13:41:56.610+01:00BORIS JOHNSON'S "BURKA-GATE" WAS A TRAP... AND BRITAIN FELL RIGHT INTO IT.<script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
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<br />
<br />
Oh God. It's one of those moments I'm going to dare to argue something that overtly seems to contradict the values I normally espouse. It causes me physical pain to agree with right-wing pundits over anything, even loosely, but if nothing else I guess it shows I dare to think for myself, and refuse to bow to tribalism.<br />
<br />
<i>I f**king detest Boris Johnson, and everything he stands for.</i><br />
<br />
Indeed, anyone who follows my blog would know I oppose these Tories and 'Brextremists' virulently, with every fibre of my being. But of all the incomprehensibly stupid and offensive stuff he's said, saying <i>"no burkas shouldn't be banned, but they look ridiculous, it makes them look like bank robbers... it's like talking to a letter-box"</i>?<br />
<br />
Well... it's remarkably small-fry. And people getting so up-in-arms is EXACTLY what the far-right want. And it's EXACTLY why he did it.<br />
<br />
Why? Because the brouhaha <u>IS</u> oppressing free speech; no two ways about it. It may have been a distasteful comment that someone in his position shouldn't have made, and it may well have been used to rile up those who <i>are</i> prejudiced. But an observational comparison with an inanimate piece of clothing, is not in any way racist. It's just not.<br />
<br />
What all these "offended" people are doing, is actually giving credence and legitimacy to arguments the right-wing would have us believe are the reason they feel the way they do. (Which is bollocks, they're mostly just racist and hateful.) We're <i>giving them</i> moral justification and high-ground. In fact, Johnson's comments were most likely deliberately cooked up by him and Bannon as a deliberate ploy, exactly to 'split the chamber'. To divide the left (yet again) between moral do-gooders clinging to a virtue-signalling bandwagon, and more reasonable types who'll dare to say "hang on a minute."<br />
<br />
EG: it was another trap to fuel right-wing support, and the liberal-leaning/well-intending British public, as usual, fell right into it.<br />
<br />
The end goal? We've just made Boris even more of a flaming hero, to some. Check the <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/sky-data-poll-comparing-women-who-wear-burkas-to-bank-robbers-not-racist-11465688" target="_blank">Sky News data polls</a> if in any doubt, support for him has come out of the woodwork, from every corner. We've made him relevant again, and given him a new slogan - one with painfully reminiscent overtones of what put Trump where he is today. It's all a calculated chess game, and we just handed him greater control of the board.<br />
<br />
Like the whole debacle with Tommy Robinson, and countless fascist/populist rabble-rousers before him, allowing them the opportunity to play on the whole "being censored" thing, is a grave mistake.<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
Is Johnson a dangerous liar and hypocrite? <i>Yes.</i> Was it an inappropriate thing for a statesman to say? <i>Yes.</i><br />
<br />
Is Johnson most likely a racist, cut from the same cloth as Steve Bannon and Trump etc? <i>Yes.</i> Should we be terrified he's in cahoots with them? <i>Yes. </i>Was this a dog-whistle to racists, Tommy Robinson supporters, and general scumbags? <i>YES.</i><br />
<br />
But the comment itself was about a piece of clothing. When we start censoring observational humour and free speech to such degree, it's a slippery slope. I wouldn't think twice about joking that a Catholic/Orthodox priest or Jewish Rabbi looks like some kind of dodgy wizard, and I'm no racist. (Just an atheist/agnostic, who finds all religion ridiculous.)<br />
<br />
So while I agree Johnson undoubtedly did this for nefarious reasons, I'm most concerned that free speech and observational humour - the likes of which we hear from people like Frankie Boyle and Jimmy Carr all the time - should not get caught in the crossfire. That is definitely not cool. I defy <i>anyone</i> to say what should or shouldn't be considered funny. You just have to reap the consequences if it's not, and run the risk of being considered a hateful bigot if your jokes go<i> too</i> far. (Which used to be a deterrent in itself.)<br />
<br />
I've been all over this globe, and truly believe the cultural differences between men and women, and between people from different parts of the world... the stereotypes and funny quirks, endearing and not-so endearing traits etc: our ability to laugh and joke about them is what makes us free. When we can't, <i>we're not. </i><br />
<br />
True equality, <i>true</i> liberalism, is saying <i>"you can believe in whatever you want, be whatever you want to be, dress however you want to dress etc - just as it's equally my right to take the piss and say you're talking nonsense, or to say you look ridiculous."</i><br />
<br />
We cannot... we MUST NOT lose that.<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07076569934619669616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1687443482145902241.post-394220251073276412018-07-30T14:52:00.003+01:002018-07-30T22:15:36.749+01:00BRITAIN'S CHOICE: HUMBLE PIE AND INEVITABLE TANTRUMS... OR POTENTIAL ECONOMIC DISASTER?<script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
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<br />
Sometimes, I do try to pause to take a breath, and <i>chill.</i> <i>Honest</i>.<br />
<br />
I genuinely do try to tell myself that <i>maybe</i> it won't be as bad as some of us fear, that <i>maybe</i> Britain will somehow come out of this alright. That my family won't be doomed to live in a needlessly impoverished nation, ruled by the worst kind of bullies. But then... facts kick in. See, that's the problem, isn't it? Some of us simply cannot "compartmentalise" facts, or fail to look at the reality of the situation. We just can't.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-deal-chequers-theresa-may-single-market-eea-uk-eu-remain-a8466356.html" target="_blank">Chequers is dead</a>. It's taken the Tory government more than two years to work out their plans to have all the cake and eat it too, are doomed. Britain now simply <i>has</i> to acknowledge facts. That starts with accepting the EU is not going to play ball, and/or just roll over. They never had any reason to, but erstwhile had hundreds to remain firm and protect the integrity of their union.<br />
<br />
Eg: exactly what "remoaners" have been saying from Day One.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Home Truths</h3>
<br />
FACT:<br />
A country that was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/11/world/europe/britain-politics-theresa-may.html" target="_blank">until recently considered one of the most stable in the world</a> to be a resident of, is now divided and hateful, and for WHATEVER reason, is now talking about <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/no-deal-brexit-blood-medicine-stockpile-nhs-health-secretary-matt-hancock-a8462531.html" target="_blank">rationing and stockpiling</a>... in peace time. (Quite a jump from "Best for Britain".)<br />
<br />
FACT:<br />
Economists/politicians and journalists the world over are saying <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/may/29/brexit-disaster-economic-data-uk-eu" target="_blank">Britain could be headed for the most extraordinary crash</a>. In terms of services, jobs, investment, not least that most of our food and medical supplies have come from our European neighbours next door, for decades.<br />
<br />
FACT:<br />
We already have spiralling poverty in the UK, and <a href="https://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/scale-economic-inequality-uk" target="_blank">one of the grossest wealth inequalities in the Western world</a>, comparable to the USA. (Quite a feat, considering the difference in population size.) And that's before any of this even happens in March 2019. We already have <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/food-banks-uk-how-many-people-adults-poverty-a8386811.html" target="_blank">millions relying on food-banks</a>, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/tory-austerity-deaths-study-report-people-die-social-care-government-policy-a8057306.html" target="_blank">disabled people being left to rot</a>, people in work being homeless etc. How much worse it could get post Brexit, is just unthinkable.<br />
<br />
FACT:<br />
If Brexit goes ahead, the <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/brexit/2018/03/extreme-brexit-could-break-uk-and-conservatives-me-are-horrified" target="_blank">United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is highly likely to disintegrate</a>. Not only have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jul/11/vehicles-torched-amid-tension-over-loyalist-bonfires-in-northern-ireland" target="_blank">tensions and troubles already returned to the border in Ireland</a>, troubles that were virtually consigned to history, but we might even face a hard border in Britain between Scotland and England, if the Scots demand independence.<br />
<br />
FACT:<br />
If Brexit goes ahead, Britain WILL be <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/13/britain-donald-trump-europe-uk-brexit" target="_blank">behest to Trump's America</a>. Subject to the whims of a madman who contradicts himself from minute to minute.<br />
<br />
Brexiters seem to think that the "ambiguity" of these quandaries, or the chance they're exaggerated and/or may not turn out to be quite as bad, is a justification to go ahead with it any way. Almost as a point of principle.<br />
<br />
No... no it's definitely not.<br />
<br />
Naive, unrealistic people languishing in fairy-tales have zero right to risk OUR families, OUR happiness, OUR prosperity, OUR careers, all in the name of a nationalist experiment. Even if there <i>is </i>a small chance it "might" not be Armageddon! If you stand in the middle of the M25, you might just survive it, but that doesn't mean it's a risk most of us would deem acceptable.<br />
<br />
And of course, that's not even touching on all the corruption and illegal activity which by itself <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/fraud-unravels-everything-brexit/" target="_blank">should have rendered the referendum void</a>.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Things made simpler</h3>
<br />
We have a stark choice now. None of this needs to happen. So we either upset the Gammon... doing the sensible thing and reversing the whole process, though admittedly risking some sort of epic right-wing tantrum, OR, all but the richest among us get tipped into potential economic catastrophe.<br />
<br />
I know what any sensible person would choose.<br />
<br />
The funny thing is, leading Brexiters do too. That's why they're <a href="http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/investing/article-5824697/Brexiteer-Odey-bets-500m-AGAINST-British-businesses.html" target="_blank">betting AGAINST the UK economy</a>, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/6c16ccbe-7aec-11e8-8e67-1e1a0846c475" target="_blank">moving their companies</a>, and <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nigel-lawson-brexit-france-residency-apply-eu-vote-leave-french-visa-a8377346.html" target="_blank">applying for EU resident status</a>. So <i>they're</i> alright, while the rest of us burn.<br />
<br />
#ExitFromBrexitAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07076569934619669616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1687443482145902241.post-55238859124625158652018-07-14T19:29:00.002+01:002018-07-16T10:18:46.834+01:00THE 'WHATABOUTERY' OF THOSE IN THE UK SUPPORTING TRUMP, IS A NATIONAL EMBARRASSMENT<script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
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<br />
I was pretty much glued to the television yesterday. Trump's visit to the UK was, of course, the categorical circus one might have expected.<br />
<br />
From insulting our Prime Minister, then denying it and calling it "fake news" the very next day, leading a ludicrous press conference singing the praises of Britain's biggest buffoon Boris Johnson, to keeping our 92 year old Queen waiting in baking sun for nearly fifteen minutes. (She was wearing layers for God's sake.)<br />
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The Queen has now been waiting more than 10 minutes. <a href="https://t.co/qVGi4PlxCr">pic.twitter.com/qVGi4PlxCr</a></div>
— Mark Di Stefano 🤙🏻 (@MarkDiStef) <a href="https://twitter.com/MarkDiStef/status/1017800400399929344?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">13 July 2018</a></blockquote>
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But then the clown prince of America compounded that, turning his back on her...even walking ahead of her. Hell, I'm no royalist, but even I found myself seething at Donald Trump's typically blissfully ignorant lack of awareness. So obtuse was he, he literally made our Queen dance around him.<br />
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Just who the hell is arrogant enough to keep the Queen of England waiting, live on national TV any way?<br />
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<h3>
That's just 'who Donald Trump is', right?</h3>
<br />
That's what groups in the UK now supporting this ludicrous man would have us believe. People and political groups, factions and media publications, who just over two years ago were as appalled by the notion of Donald Trump being President of the United States as the rest of us, now try to argue why he's a great guy doing a great job. Even though he has the lowest approval rating of any American President in history, both domestically within the US, and internationally.<br />
<br />
It takes the term 'fickle' to a whole new level.<br />
<br />
Genuinely take a moment to briefly recall how ridiculous the proposition of Trump's presidency once seemed. Remember how absolutely <i>anyone</i> even vaguely masquerading as a decent human being used to decry the very idea. Even newspapers like <i>The Sun</i> and <i>Daily Express</i> were jovial and lighthearted regarding what once seemed a big joke, to <i>all </i>of us. As for high-brow right-wing publications like <i>The Times</i> and <i>Telegraph</i> - though they share many of his values - they too looked down on his embarrassing lack of intelligence, and vaunted egotism. He was <i>beneath</i> them.<br />
<br />
As he should be all of us.<br />
<br />
There's no better example than Boris Johnson, our very own insidious chameleon of British politics. The former Foreign Secretary vocally opposed Trump to the hilt back when he thought it made him popular, back when he was Mayor of London. He even openly referred to Trump as "out of his mind", and<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><b>"betraying a quite stupefying ignorance that makes him frankly unfit to hold the office of President of the United States".</b></i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: right;">
-Boris Johnson on Trump, in 2015 </blockquote>
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Yet look at the weasel now... openly betraying his leader, and shamelessly humping Trump's leg on the world stage. Only occasionally 'beaten to the hump' by Nigel Farage (another villain who at least <i>used</i> to be openly recognised as a villain).<br />
<br />
Happily for Johnson, Trump - like the benevolent kennel-master he is (as long as you don't bark) - now publicly pats his good doggie on the head at any given opportunity. Doing it on his official state visit? That'll have buoyed Boris to a degree that made me feel nauseous. He's back writing for <i>The Telegraph </i>on Monday by the way. Boris wasted no time returning to his megaphone, where he can whip up a frenzy absent any real responsibility, and how I bet he can't wait to crow.<br />
<br />
Honestly, I didn't know it was physically possible for me to feel sorry for Theresa May. But watching her stand there on live television, while the tangerine hell-beast aside her postured about the talents of Boris Johnson and how he'd make a "great Prime Minister", after the week she'd already had - directly as a result of the very same louse? Wow. You can't really languish in the schadenfreude of someone unpleasant's fall from grace, if it's to facilitate someone even worse. (Well... you can, but it's pretty senseless.)<br />
<br />
Ironically, that was the speech where Trump was trying to make Theresa look <i>good</i>. Not the one the night before, when he <i>deliberately</i> trashed her.<br />
<br />
The subjugation of our leader was just painful - even for someone who opposes her on most, if not all things. She's still our Prime Minister, and she was reduced to a laughing stock on social media, and around the world. Strangely, the British commentators complaining about the "embarrassment" of the Trump balloon, didn't seem to mind too much about May's humiliation.<br />
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One of the most extraordinary satirical images I saw expressing this, among the memes of loving gazes and hand-holding, was this visceral parody of 'The Handmaid's Tale':<br />
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<br />
Brutal... just brutal, and deservedly so.<br />
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No genuine 'patriot' could be pleased to see Britain's status mocked in such a way. I almost chuckle to think of the fundamental quandary it'll have caused for British Nationalists. The Queen, and the respectability of our country are usually top of the 'gammon list of favourite things', yet here was their poster child insulting and disrespecting both.<br />
<br />
But on the whole, they're taking the side of the US President. Tell me, who are the "traitors" again?<br />
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<br />
<h3>
The 250,000 "Rent-a-Leftie mob"</h3>
<br />
I can honestly say I feel considerable pride at the vast number of people who showed up to demonstrate against Trump yesterday, Friday 13th July 2018. A number now reported to be in the region of a quarter of a million people:<br />
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To a degree, the turnout restored my faith in Britain to distinguish right from wrong. Without wanting to stir any still overly raw emotions, it gave me endlessly more pride in my country than winning <i>ten World Cups.</i><br />
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But again, according to the insidious forces relentlessly trying to force Britain down this road of isolationism and fascism, all the marvellous people fighting for decency yesterday were nothing but "Corbyn's rent-a-Leftie mob", and the "worst of Britain":<br />
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<br />
Countless among those 250,000 people won't have been Corbyn supporters, or even necessarily left-wing. Just decent. Even many Conservative politicians and supporters recognise the danger this man represents to our world, it's not exclusive to socialists.<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>The Daily Mail </i>are simply once again trying to divide our society - creating an entirely absolutist, black and white, 'us and them' situation. Because <i>The Daily Mail</i> still adhere to their mantra that simply by saying something, they can <i>make it so</i>. It's like they're trying to actively persuade the UK populace that supporting Trump is now more than <i>acceptable</i> - it's desirable, and eminently patriotic.<br />
<br />
The same was true on <i>Sky News</i> on the day, with Kay Burley relentlessly hammering statistics allegedly proving roundabout half of Britain are now on board with Trump, believe him trustworthy, and that we should form closer ties with him in a post-Brexit world. <i>Which I don't believe for a second.</i> I generally favour what I see with my own eyes, like 250,000 people on the march - not what overtly biased factions 'tell me' is the case.<br />
<br />
And what was it that made those marching "the worst of Britain" any way? The significantly large demonstration through London was marked by joy, music, and peaceful protest. Democratically voiced and indignant opposition to values we should all abhor: different people were there for a variety of reasons (there's a glorious pick'n'mix to choose from with Trump). There was none of the violence and venom we've come to expect from <i>his</i> rallies, and the Tommy Robinson rallies etc. In fact, the only pockets of conflict on the day were apparently caused by Trump supporters determined to stir anger, and cause a ruckus.<br />
<br />
You only need eyes to see their entire attitude and body language are different:<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTYIkfwUbJOK29rCjgKVSxiVMs41a0XrMo9NmrpzkaX-OqUiDFr17ormT4595S0oRK30BBO7nUlCFwoTZrYet7yg6X9mBNg1hmsRWHfXOn1PDl0Ak2RqedMSuiPLfD4CtkXXkTgrrFKPi-/s1600/trump+supporter.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="560" data-original-width="925" height="385" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTYIkfwUbJOK29rCjgKVSxiVMs41a0XrMo9NmrpzkaX-OqUiDFr17ormT4595S0oRK30BBO7nUlCFwoTZrYet7yg6X9mBNg1hmsRWHfXOn1PDl0Ak2RqedMSuiPLfD4CtkXXkTgrrFKPi-/s640/trump+supporter.PNG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Trump supporters goad demonstrators in London, photo c/o Rex Features.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br />
And if you want more proof, check out what happened when the "Welcome Trump" mob joined forces with the Tommy Robinson mob on the day, <u><a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/donald-trump-london-march-live-and-tommy-robinson-protest-latest-news-as-thousands-take-to-streets-a3887231.html" target="_blank">here</a></u>.<br />
<br />
On the contrary, rather than feeling embarrassed, I am thankful peaceful protest is alive and well in Britain. Because what comes next, if and when that fails, does not bear thinking about. (As Nigel Farage and Brextremists continuously warn us, albeit with more relish, and conscious belief some kind of civil war is justified and desirable.)<br />
<br />
That is what people really mean when they say we "cannot abandon Brexit", begrudgingly or otherwise; when they say "the damage to our democracy would be catastrophic". What they mean is that Farage, Rees-Mogg, Johnson, and their assorted goons will orchestrate some kind of civil war and widespread insurrection that'll turn Britain into the premise of a dystopic action film.<br />
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<br />
<h3>
The 'Whataboutery' is embarrassing</h3>
<br />
What truly amazes me is the sheer number of groups in Britain who now try to argue in favour of Donald Trump, even though doing so flies in the face of values and ethics they (at least ostensibly) cling to. After all, nobody's surprised to hear the openly racist and 'gammon' appropriated members of our society doing so, but when it's people who try to appear as virtuous, informed and rational, it's an equation that doesn't quite balance out.<br />
<br />
The one argument I heard over and over again on news reports and social media, even from those who'd have once been considered responsible journalists and politicians, was "why weren't they out there protesting Obama? He enforced similar policies." And "why aren't they out there protesting against dictators in China, Russia, and Iran?"<br />
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'Whatboutery' at its absolute finest. "It's ok for me to steal that kid's money, because that other guy who did it didn't get into trouble." <i>Pathetic.</i><br />
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But if right-wing journalists and commentators <i>really</i> need it explaining, please allow me to. It's because no other Western leader has ever openly fed and encouraged racism... misogyny... xenophobia... violence... prejudice... dishonour... lies... or downright stupidity. Not in the same unapologetic and shameless way as Donald Trump, and not in recent times. He's legitimised pond-life everywhere, and changed the world for every one of us. The man's launched a wrecking ball at former values of our society; laid waste to notions of 'manners', 'honour', and 'mutual respect'.<br />
<br />
In short, he <i>must </i>be challenged, because there's never <i>been</i> anyone quite like Trump in a post WWII western democracy. No one so deserving of demonstration.<br />
<br />
It's also exactly because America was supposed to stand for something better. Generations in the West have grown up with the idea America is the peace-keeper of the world; that it's the 'land of the free, and the home of the brave'. The Statue of Liberty - the iconic symbol of America itself - was specifically supposed to be an everlasting testament to its welcoming of all peoples, and the nation's desire to be free of tyranny.<br />
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<br />
Britain too was once supposed to stand for inherent 'nobility', and decency. (At least post-empire, when it required a new marketing slogan.)<br />
<br />
Dear friends in government and right-wing media: it's exactly when the greatest among us falls openly to corruption and nefarious intent, and no longer even tries to disguise it, that we're<i> all </i>in real trouble. Something beautiful besmirched, is more tragic than something already broken.<br />
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<br />
<h3>
Respecting the Office</h3>
<br />
The other chestnut, paraded from the likes of Nick Ferrari to Nigel Farage, from Brendan O'Neill to Piers Morgan, was "whether we like it or not, he's the President of the United States: an office that must be respected." That's apparently why demonstrating was such an awful faux pas.<br />
<br />
No. Having respect for someone's office doesn't mean disassociating from <i>who</i> is in that office and/or what they do, giving them a 'free pass'. That way lies the road to ruin, and dictatorship. A road Trump's well and truly galloping down, even <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/donald-trump-nepotism-ivanka-trump-g20-summit-a7832116.html" target="_blank">managing to have brought back nepotism</a> (something most of us thought consigned to history).<br />
<br />
Certainly, the<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5934241/The-orange-Trump-baby-balloon-pathetic-stunt-makes-Britain-look-small-minded.html" target="_blank"> outrage concerning the Trump balloon was laughable</a>. It seems the Trumpeters and Tommy Robinson supporters are all for 'free speech' - unless it happens to be a considerable amount of people disagreeing with <i>them.</i><br />
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en-gb">
<div dir="ltr" lang="en">
The best thing about the ridiculous Trump balloon isn't the protest itself, its how much its pissing off the right people. The same people who routinely say people are too offended these days, are losing their shit, over a floating bag of air.</div>
— TechnicallyRon (@TechnicallyRon) <a href="https://twitter.com/TechnicallyRon/status/1017701121442361344?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">13 July 2018</a></blockquote>
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I'm not one of those arguing Trump shouldn't have been allowed to come. That's simply not pragmatic. He <i>is</i> the POTUS after all, however bizarre that fact is. A level of diplomacy must of course be observed. Even with tyrants. So by all means, <i>come here Donald</i>. Exactly so we can tell you exactly how much we despise you; so we can show you our disappointment at how you've defiled one of the greatest nations on Earth.<br />
<i><br />THAT </i>is the very essence of democratic protest, and thereby, democracy. We demonstrated it beautifully.<br />
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Let's face it... I think deep down, most in Britain acknowledge Trump is a dangerous, babbling moron. It's just that for Brexit-supporting factions, the moron happens to be babbling rationale in their favour. It doesn't matter how much odious stuff or gobbledegook he comes out with, or how much damage filling the Brexit vacuum with subjugation to America will cause our NHS, our health and safety standards, our worker rights, our media, our food and medicine standards, or <i>anything</i> in fact. As long as Brexiters can argue it somehow pivotal to the whole 'escape from Brussels'.<br />
<br />
But to those among us still sane? We see only too clearly that to jump ship from a union of mutually respectful nations of equals - where we were valued and afforded numerous privileges - into being a very junior partner at the whims of a boastful egotist who contradicts himself from moment to moment, is clearly madness off the scale.<br />
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Anyone who's spent any considerable length of time in America (at anything less than diplomat tier hotels, any way) will tell you, we definitely don't want their general food/medicine produce taking over, over here. For me personally, as someone who toured the US extensively for many years, the idea my shelves at home will soon be emptied of fine European and Mediterranean produce, instead to be stocked with the simply awful stuff I encountered in America, makes me feel truly depressed. As for medicine, and health supplements etc? Christ. In America, you could probably sell reconstituted cat's teeth as medicine if you bought off the right people, and put enough small print on the bottle.<br />
<br />
Not to mention, it looks like the <a href="https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/breaking-sky-takeover-bid-rupert-12904361" target="_blank">Tories have finally allowed Rupert Murdoch to take over <i>British Sky Broadcasting</i></a>, something he's been trying to do for decades. So we can also look forward to the equivalent of <i>Fox News </i>over here sometime soon, as part of the 'Great American Subjugation' (unless something is done). Thought Britain was dumb and spoon-fed already? <i>Just wait.</i><br />
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If anything ever proved how much we need to remain united with our neighbours in Europe, it was the pantomime of Trump's state visit. And how much Brexiters are actually the ones willing to 'betray' their country - only too happy to see us vassal to an untrustworthy tyrant and liar, rather than admit they made a mistake.<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07076569934619669616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1687443482145902241.post-61436305304506947822018-07-04T15:59:00.001+01:002018-07-13T12:17:38.571+01:00ENDING BRITAIN'S UNWINNABLE WAR ON SEX & DRUGS: FLIPPING A FUTILE CRUSADE INTO FISCAL SALVATION<script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
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<br />
The UK government today announced it is conducting a debate into the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-44685056" target="_blank">banning of escort websites</a>.<br />
<br />
Good to see they’ve got the important things in hand.<br />
<br />
Good grief. When are governments going to realise that outlawing and prohibiting practices that cater to generic human desires, such as drugs and prostitution, forcing those who provide them into 'criminality', is a simply massive own goal?? (Pardon the World Cup-related pun.)<br />
<br />
You'd think governments who've based their entire ethos on 'free market capitalism' would appreciate the power of 'market driven commodities'. Meanwhile, western rulers have spent decades fighting an unwinnable war to stamp out supposedly carnal desires from the human psyche: something that will never never EVER be achievable. You may as well yell at the sky for being blue.<br />
<br />
But only <i>certain</i> carnal desires, and for <i>certain</i> people.<br />
<br />
Hell, I can take a trip to Africa and go shoot a giraffe, if I pay enough. I can invest my money in companies that finance cluster bombs and military coups, and somehow be considered a pillar of my local community. I can spend my life through a haze of alcohol fuelled idiocy, as long as I don't hurt anyone else in the process. But apparently, according to Western values, wanting to have sex with someone beautiful (easing the hideous futility of life for a few brief passing moments) or being one of those beautiful people and wanting to use my God-given charms for fiscal advantage, is worse than wanting to murder and maim.<br />
<br />
Not in my book.<br />
<br />
Similarly, wanting to take a drug to ease the mundaneness of existence, or to stifle the emotional agony that often comes with the turf? Well that’s OK in the West, even actively encouraged: as long as it's the <i>right </i>drugs, that fund the <i>right</i> people.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Mobster rule</h3>
<br />
Ergo, all prohibition does is force otherwise law-abiding citizens under the umbrella of being supposed 'criminals'. And if they get caught and go to prison, what happens then? Not only do they then mix with other 'real' criminals, guilty of far more nefarious crimes, but their future prospects are so hampered by the black mark on their record, that the need for them to resort to criminal enterprise in the future is multiplied by almost infinite amount. It's a senseless cycle, and again, it’s unwinnable.<br />
<br />
By making these commodities illegal, by definition that creates the need for a 'criminal underworld'. Eg: genuinely immoral and nefarious types creating order out of chaos, usually using violence and intimidation to enforce their status quo. Criminal king-pins who then in turn corrupt politicians and police by paying them off, to turn a blind eye. It's just another form of cliquey elitism, underneath the layers of onion.<br />
<br />
When the U.S briefly tried the same prohibition with alcohol (eg: the white man's drug of choice), it gave rise to one of the most powerful criminal underworlds in modern history: that of Al Capone. Not a coincidence. The Americans quickly worked out it was a bad idea. And a bit before that, they trifled with Puritanism (which surprisingly also turned out to be a rather big no-no too).<br />
<br />
Whereas, look what happens if you legalise drugs and prostitution.<br />
<br />
Criminal underworld? What criminal underworld. Wiped out in a heart beat. There's no need for it. Sex workers would be protected, have rights. The quality of drugs and their strength could be regulated, and monitored. No more dirty hovels, dirty needles, no more exploitation, no more pimps and trafficking, no drugs gangs. It would protect people: people who are gonna do what they want any way. And instead of funding criminals, the proceeds of industries we all know are there (and thrive in every single country of the world) could then be taxed and streamed back into our public services. It would create countless jobs. It could literally revolutionise the funding of our society, and change countless lives for the better. It's nothing short of a win/win proposition.<br />
<br />
And just imagine how much more effective our police would be, if their time was freed up from petty offences, and they were able to solely pursue serious criminals? (A notion I have no doubt many in the police would agree with.) It would be a force motivated by ethics and protecting society, rather than meeting targets and numbers.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Refilling Britain’s coffers</h3>
<br />
I'll be bold enough to say (not that I think a Tory government would ever do anything so wise and non-judgemental), if this Brexsh*t malarkey goes ahead, and our country plummets into economic isolation and greater poverty... for those absent trust funds any way... legalisation and regulation of the cannabis industry could well be one of the few things that'd save our asses.<br />
<br />
Not only will millions of people probably and justifiably need the stress relief, trapped on the island of Little England, but a thriving and regulated 'coffee shop' scene (like that of the Netherlands and in Canada etc) would undoubtedly fill the UK government's coffers faster than you could say "pass me the bong".<br />
<br />
“How deplorable!” some will cry. “What a totally unethical way to raise revenue.” No… no it’s not. And certainly far less so than a nation clinging to fiscal solvency by selling weapons to brutal murderous regimes in Saudi Arabia and Israel. Guff.<br />
<br />
It’s amusing how supposed 'decent types' look down their nose at demographics who might smoke a joint, or visit/be an escort etc, affecting nobody really but themselves - but are happy hobnobbing with those who support political groups starving and marginalising vulnerable people. Groups that quite literally take money from the poorest among us, our children, and the disabled. But lo and behold, when it comes to matters such as prohibited drugs or the sex trade etc, watch them jump upon their moral high horse with the vim of a Frankish crusader. It's laughable hypocrisy. (Like Trump arguing he wants to “protect the children of Syria” by dropping bombs on them, and concurrently putting the unwanted Mexican ones in cages.)<br />
<br />
<h3>
“Chill Winston!”</h3>
<br />
One final thought. If half the rowdy drinkers in Britain switched to cannabis instead, I don't think it can be overstated how much of a ridiculously calmer and less volatile place Britain would be. Anyone who’s visited Amsterdam will tell you that. The only rowdy people in Amsterdam are generally the British lager louts in the bars. Prior to them getting stoned and/or laid.<br />
<br />
OK, it’d arguably be a less productive place maybe, or slower paced. But only if you think the yobs I’m talking about are out there curing cancer. And/or that everyone in Britain is gonna start magically taking a drug overnight just because they can. (By that logic, I could potentially become a Viagra addict tomorrow! *Cough, splutter... I don’t need it of course.)<br />
<br />
Or how’s about the fact that many don’t drink alcohol, even though it’s available in every crevice of Britain and the western world?<br />
<br />
Kinda smashes the argument in one fell swoop.<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07076569934619669616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1687443482145902241.post-11010321623989991752018-04-30T14:39:00.001+01:002018-05-27T12:08:42.375+01:00CHEERING THE ROYAL WEDDING (LIKE AN OBEDIENT CULT MEMBER)<script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWP_HfRD5FIXxaF5tH4d0R1jYWpjZ0nTt9U7EaiEZKlsXg75hnk0B7sf6oS_sJKRoGlJGzD_GKatdPdvVtXmFA8IjtP4DLblHFrRvTPov3htxkzffOQzmIf8-qmXZ5qg0_c18sou49hQjO/s1600/cult+wedding.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="653" data-original-width="1114" height="374" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWP_HfRD5FIXxaF5tH4d0R1jYWpjZ0nTt9U7EaiEZKlsXg75hnk0B7sf6oS_sJKRoGlJGzD_GKatdPdvVtXmFA8IjtP4DLblHFrRvTPov3htxkzffOQzmIf8-qmXZ5qg0_c18sou49hQjO/s640/cult+wedding.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
ANOTHER ROYAL WEDDING, sprayed at us from every possible angle. Jammed down our throats. Average citizens blindly applauding and eating it up are, in my opinion, pretty much like a cult. Why? Because generally only in a cult do people readily accept being slaves, and actually applaud and revere the leaders who've persuaded them their being held hostage and/or committing ritual suicide is a desirable state of affairs. At very least, it's arguably a form of <i>Stockholm Syndrome</i>.<br />
<br />
The same could be said of Tory voters who lack a property portfolio, a six figure salary, and/or an offshore bank account in the Cayman Islands: they're turkeys applauding Christmas.<br />
<br />
I swear the biggest success (and arguable genius) of neo-liberal capitalism, the heir of colonialism, is that in countries like the UK and US, average struggling people actively vote for and support the individuals/groups who've actively taken all the resources <i>from</i> them. If you look at it objectively, it's sheer madness. But quite a feat on their part, no doubt.<br />
<br />
Somehow the upper echelons have successfully propagated the idea that only the super-rich and established political classes can, and should, govern. That huge portions of society's wealth should belong to them alone, cordoned off. That 'order' and colonial notions of 'propriety' are a worthy pursuit over and above the common good, decency, or even basic humanity.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Millionaires-in-waiting</h3>
<br />
Indeed, financially disadvantaged Brits and Americans don't see themselves as 'poor': they see themselves as millionaires-in-waiting: just a promotion, a reality show or lottery win away from being part of the club themselves. It's as if the very existence of super-rich elites who exploit society are a beacon of <i>inspiration</i> for them. That is what they want for themselves and their families: the big mansion house with gates to keep all the little people out. They care far less for the happiness and concerns of wider society, only the aspirations of their OWN elevation. It's every man and woman for himself: that was Thatcher's 'gift' to us.<br />
<br />
Millions of people live and die dreaming of wealth and comfort just around the corner, never realising they deserved a bigger piece of the pie any way: just by merit of being born into free societies and wealthy economies. They live and die never realising, if they'd actually stood alongside the 'little people' they were so desperate to avoid identifying with, due to a warped sense of egotism, they may very well have led a happier and more comfortable existence. Instead, they lived as fodder for their 'betters'. In the interim, while millions continue voting for these bastards and continue the dog-eat-dog mentality, demonising socialism and 'freeloader' types (thinking themselves so much 'better'), our society and welfare state is being <i>firebombed</i>. The rights of average people, <i>are being firebombed.</i> Our jobs and industries are disappearing one by one, going online and becoming automated, and soon, certainly in decades ahead, unemployment will spiral out of control. Little people will have nothing left.<br />
<br />
A society in which <i>everyone</i> is better off, with more disposable income - especially those at the more vulnerable end of the scale - would make for a much happier nation. A far less angry, hostile, bitter and resentful nation. It would be a better residence for every last one of us. There will always be rich and poor, that is the way of things, but the gap between the two, and the disproportion in volume, has become far too wide. That simply has to be addressed, before it explodes like the ticking time bomb it is. Either society will <i>have</i> to eventually move to a model of Universal Basic Income (UBI) for all, or those of means will <i>have</i> to adopt increasingly hostile and totalitarian methods to keep an ever increasing starving majority at bay. You don't need to be Nostradamus to look down the road and see that isn't going to end well, or that extreme measures will eventually be resorted to. It's an equation that simply has to balance out, one way or another, sooner or later.<br />
<br />
Harry Windsor seems a decent enough bloke, and Meghan Markle seems alright too. But I for one cannot celebrate the vaunted wealth/superiority of princes and TV stars; certainly not while growing numbers of homeless people in the UK are veritably rounded up in skips, just to make way for their idyllic day. Not while we sit beneath the boot of a government corrupt to the core, isolating our country and forcing our economy down the toilet. (I <i>almost</i> got through a whole article without mentioning Brexit!) And not while our society and amenities crumble to dust, and Nationalism rises before our very eyes.<br />
<br />
Sort all that out: then I'll cheer the bloody royal wedding. Otherwise, I'll view it as the paltry and rather insulting distraction it is.<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07076569934619669616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1687443482145902241.post-67542828732318689392018-04-16T13:52:00.000+01:002018-04-17T13:10:04.552+01:00RUSSIA: HOW (SOME) REMAINERS WHO STOOD AGAINST PREJUDICE, NOW EMBRACE IT TO SUIT THEIR CAUSE<script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbLiSH-_JVZ0PXub5nPh3zfJbxnfp4wG0JM2f1DOevABB5p3NWrm8OR9UAe6f8f-kV-gJwetkUHAxBtlNFmvSQZMhpCABD58G8d8Zbh7Ed0FmlwKjTAiFLgMMHrGM0UWY0G3IxbyuJzD8E/s1600/remainer+prejudice.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="670" data-original-width="1205" height="354" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbLiSH-_JVZ0PXub5nPh3zfJbxnfp4wG0JM2f1DOevABB5p3NWrm8OR9UAe6f8f-kV-gJwetkUHAxBtlNFmvSQZMhpCABD58G8d8Zbh7Ed0FmlwKjTAiFLgMMHrGM0UWY0G3IxbyuJzD8E/s640/remainer+prejudice.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
I truly despair. Objectivity is dead; people only see what they want to see in news stories - the version that fits their 'team'. As a species, I think we're lost. And maybe, just maybe, this was the final master-stroke and checkmate move the right-wing in Britain and America needed.<br />
<br />
I've never <i>ever</i> been intimidated and insulted by Remainers before. On the contrary, I have pages and pages of messages from them thanking me for my efforts; they're the only team I've really 100% identified with since this whole shit-storm began. And for nearly two years I've flown our flag; it's fair to say it was that disastrous referendum that tipped me into writing. I've ranted and raved against it since the day it happened. But now, because I refuse to accept that Russia and Syria are the international bogeymen, that they're guilty of every crime, because I smell a rat the size of Tower Hamlets, and because I know full well the UK and US governments in office at present are as corrupt as any? Well, I'm apparently now a traitor to the Remain cause... and am "dumb", and "naive", and I am Putin's "useful idiot".<br />
<br />
Apparently daring to speak inconvenient details and/or arguing on behalf of a party being accused, is "playing into Putin's and the Brexiter's hands". What a pity so many Remainers are too short-sighted to recognise the right are unmoved in support of their despots, and it's actually the left/centre and Remain camps that have been split by this little bombing. They don't seem to notice they're now coincidentally championing and arguing in favour of Theresa May and Boris Johnson: the leaders who until recently were their adversaries "dragging Britain to ruin". And just before local council elections no less. How very neat.<br />
<br />
Not only that, I've even heard Remainers - the group who proudly stood against xenophobia, glibly coming out with comments like "never trust a Russian". Substitute that with 'Muslims', Jews', 'Indians' etc, and anyone else with a clear head might call that racial prejudice.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Becoming that which you despise</h3>
<br />
In short, Remainers are now mostly being as pig-headed and as absolutist as the Brexiters ever were. We're ignoring common sense, and blindly following any corroborating tit-bit thrown at us by the news... exactly like Brexiters did. The critical analysis skills we formerly demonstrated have flown out the window, and the 'propaganda machines' we continuously called out (like the BBC) are now apparently absolute beacons of journalistic integrity - but only because they're telling us what we want to hear.<br />
<br />
We pedantically quote theories like 'Occam's Razor' (eg: the simplest answer is usually the right one), apparently oblivious to the fact that very theory suggests a nation wouldn't do the one and only categorical thing inviting the wrath of the West, reopening a war they'd only just won. As I retorted to one such person, perhaps <i>they</i> need to look up the concept of 'Confirmation Bias', and the idea of 'Cui Bono' as a basis for criminal investigation.<br />
<br />
The poisoning? Just as a cute analogy, imagine this was a gun crime, for instance. Assuming Russian guilt because of the agent used, is like assuming a perpetrator's guilt because the gun was registered in their name, but incontrovertibly ignoring the fact there are no gun residues or bullet holes in the right places at the scene of the alleged crime, and the alleged perpetrator lacked an entirely feasible reason to do it. Not smart, or prudent. The initial assumption isn't necessarily wrong, but you have a duty of care to at least consider the alternative.<br />
<br />
Not only that, there is clearly confusion surrounding chemical reports and deliberately ambiguous phrasing by the Spiez lab, who <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/skripals-skripal-russia-nerve-agent-bz-novichok-poison-salisbury-attack-latest-update-a8304841.html" target="_blank">Sergei Lavrov quoted</a>. Again, everyone is <i>soooo</i> quick to assume Russia are either f**king stupid, or evil incarnate! Why the hell would Russia say to the world's media "the Spiez lab have said it's not Novachok, it's BZ", if that can be refuted in seconds, and dismissed as nonsense by both the international community and the lab itself?? (<a href="https://twitter.com/SpiezLab/status/985442344311902208" target="_blank">As it was, only a day later.</a>) They look either idiots, or categorical liars! Not exactly helping their cause, is it? Yes, they may in fact be just that, but again, you absolutely HAVE to consider the possibility they're being set up to look like chumps.<br />
<br />
Not to mention, we the British (eg: Boris Johnson) categorically lied when it suited us too. That's an incontrovertible fact. So at very best, it's one strike a piece.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Convenient Scapegoating</h3>
<br />
Russian interference in elections? <i>Newsflash.</i> The UK and US didn't vote for Brexit and Trump because of Russian meddling: they did so because they're thick as mince, and fell for the crap our <i>own</i> right wing medias were feeding us. The same right wing medias all the liberals and leftists now demonising Russia are inadvertently supporting. (Another 'coincidence' no doubt.) They didn't need any help from Russia.<br />
<br />
In fact, it was (and is) the Russian owned <i>Independent</i> newspaper in Britain that was one of the very few to include pro-Remain viewpoints and assertions, while Murdoch and Dacre etc were (and are) busy talking us off a cliff. How does that one tally up in this absurdly absolutist scenario?<br />
<br />
Why in the name of God are people so quick to assume everything is black and white?? That there is only right and wrong, goodies and baddies... that their team alone are morally superior and righteous?? To me, it is the most simplistic and rudimentary mistake one can make when examining such situations. At what point do we acknowledge the lines sometimes become blurry?<br />
<br />
I abhor Russia, its politics, and its treatment of dissenters and the LGBT community etc. Truly. But you don't defeat lies with lies. People who've already decided the outcome of an unfolding investigation have no moral authority over those willing to keep an open mind, and hear both sides of an argument. You don't turn your face away from evidence and inconvenient details just because it happens to suit your cause, and those you ally with. You don't switch off common sense and pursuit of truth just because it's to your benefit. You don't risk incorrectly vilifying others, because it helps you out. You don't just assume a group or person is guilty because they've committed other crimes or offences. That <i>is</i> prejudice. And if you do, you are just as corrupt as any you'd claim to oppose. #TruthBomb<br />
<br />
At the same time, I just got accused of 'helping Theresa May' myself on a Labour Party forum, for refusing to accept there is ANY evidence at all implicating Russia, or that there's any possibility Russia are anything other than entirely innocent. Having dared to go out on a limb, and getting slagged off from all corners for daring to say something is wrong with this, the other team harangue me too, because I won't categorically say they're unequivocally right either.<br />
<br />
They're all as bad as each other. Tribalism has taken over.<br />
<br />
We really are f**ked.<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07076569934619669616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1687443482145902241.post-26905947281646680762018-04-14T17:42:00.001+01:002018-05-01T09:34:08.262+01:00YOU WICKED, EVIL WOMAN: HOW DARE YOU DO THIS?<script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAuGTYsEqn5ZZWk5rJTAmexF0Nc-hm0iT5tz0-U0_P3FfgqVVWFO93UctkGdNihyphenhyphenywTUEv7grNHbW96VFLUIHRVDVA-KhY6PT9aZfM5sCOYySZcG31VH-E4pGgwGKzjMJhXwGpCZteIfcT/s1600/Theresa+Syria+%25232.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="490" data-original-width="780" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAuGTYsEqn5ZZWk5rJTAmexF0Nc-hm0iT5tz0-U0_P3FfgqVVWFO93UctkGdNihyphenhyphenywTUEv7grNHbW96VFLUIHRVDVA-KhY6PT9aZfM5sCOYySZcG31VH-E4pGgwGKzjMJhXwGpCZteIfcT/s640/Theresa+Syria+%25232.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Theresa May, looking as happy & relaxed as she's been since she came to office.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<b>You wicked, evil woman. How dare you do this.</b><br />
<br />
The most <a href="https://www.facebook.com/PeterStefanovicJuniorDoctors/posts/581058358943457" target="_blank">greedy and corrupt</a> government/Prime Minister in UK history: a government with no majority, propped up by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/oct/26/tory-dup-1bn-deal-crowdfunded-challenge-reaches-high-court" target="_blank">bribery and illegal over-spending</a>, now side-stepping our constitution to act unlawfully, again, and risking WWIII. Hand in hand with the most dangerous and insentient lunatic to occupy the White House, ever.<br />
<br />
It didn't even occur to Theresa May to ask the British people and parliament. No, she turned to Donald Trump. (A sentence that if you'd uttered aloud even a couple of years ago, would probably have got you sectioned.)<br />
<br />
Democracy is officially dead folks. It ain't even a Plutocracy so much any more, as much as a straight up dictatorship.<br />
<br />
God damn you Theresa, and your whole cabal. And God damn every naive, blind fool who believes for a minute that Donald J. Trump and his vassals give the least of shits about kids attacked with chemical weapons. Their <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/News/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-death-penalty-executions-capital-punishment-six-killed-one-day-outcry-a7834726.html" target="_blank">allies in Saudi Arabia do just as bad and worse</a>, all the time. You've got their best bud Duterte in the Philippines, openly <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/02/philippines-president-duterte-drugs-war-death-squads" target="_blank">using police as assassination squads</a>. You've got atrocities like this going on routinely in Africa, and in <a href="https://www.investigaction.net/en/yemen-a-western-sponsored-genocide/" target="_blank">Yemen, genocides</a> and <a href="https://www.enca.com/africa/gang-raped-13-year-old-girl-pregnant-with-twins" target="_blank">mass rapes</a>, and the West doesn't so much as blink. They're in Syria for profit and geopolitical manoeuvring, that is all, and they've been planning it for a long time.<br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="315" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fmartynhdawson%2Fvideos%2F10160137304710507%2F&show_text=0&width=560" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
<br />
Even if you know nothing else of the situation, the proxy wars, or the murky background of the <a href="http://21stcenturywire.com/2017/12/02/white-helmets-local-councils-uk-fco-financing-terrorism-syria-taxpayer-funds/" target="_blank">UK funded 'White Helmets' </a>- those angels of mercy who show up every time there's an atrocity with video cameras rolling... the same White Helmets who've literally been <a href="https://twitter.com/BBassem7/status/983677065844019200" target="_blank">filmed rehearsing and staging similar 'attacks'</a>.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="twitter-video" data-lang="en-gb">
<div dir="ltr" lang="en">
This video from “rebels’” held area in Syria is one of the reasons why you don’t rush into war based on YouTube videos <a href="https://t.co/OB2aGXQP4y">pic.twitter.com/OB2aGXQP4y</a></div>
— Bassem (@BBassem7) <a href="https://twitter.com/BBassem7/status/983677065844019200?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">10 April 2018</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en-gb">
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<blockquote class="twitter-video" data-lang="en-gb">
<div dir="ltr" lang="en">
Let’s also not forget the White Helmets Mannequin Challenge, they won an oscar for it <a href="https://t.co/k92LjmxaHf">pic.twitter.com/k92LjmxaHf</a></div>
— Bassem (@BBassem7) <a href="https://twitter.com/BBassem7/status/984145665302282240?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">11 April 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
<br />
<br />
Even if you didn't know that <a href="https://soundcloud.com/geopoliticsandempire/edward-curtin-false-flag-operations-will-start-new-war-075" target="_blank">academics and anti-war campaigners have literally been warning and predicting exactly this would happen</a>, down to the letter. How exactly does that happen by the way?<br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allow="autoplay" frameborder="no" height="300" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/418844384&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true" width="100%"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
This one, from academic and former resident of Iraq, Sam Ramidani, is even older... from 2012:<br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ns-wuZhCZ2Q" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
<br />
Even if you weren't alive/aware when this happened before with Iraq, almost identically:<br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lsKwHSglAMU" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
<br />
Even if you don't know any of the back-story and history, one only needs to look at everything that's happened in the past two years: the UK and US governments unravelling, the catastrophe of Brexit, the constant slew of bullshit from 'MSM' reporting, unrivalled lies and corruption, the much overlooked detail of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/05/donald-trump-jerusalem-capital-israel-catastrophe-us-embassy" target="_blank">Trump naming Jerusalem capital of Israel</a>, the antisemitism rubbish, the crackpot stories about assassination attempts that are full of holes and make no pragmatic sense, <a href="https://twitter.com/Channel4News/status/981519884889874432" target="_blank">Tories categorically lying about evidence</a> (no doubt a soon to be forgotten detail), and now <a href="https://www.facebook.com/635665643269297/videos/896976370471555/?hc_ref=ARTRsc7hpjdUXX5WGn_Mmo4DUYMCCBLpBlrY9547Wb7eFdAvmmL99SORJWSxiIboOss" target="_blank">convenient chemical weapon attacks that reopen a war Russia and Syria had only recently won</a>.<br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="315" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2F635665643269297%2Fvideos%2F896976370471555%2F&show_text=0&width=560" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" width="560"></iframe>
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<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/13/chemical-weapons-inspectors-to-investigate-syria-attack-site" target="_blank">Or even just the fact official investigators had not even yet got in to Douma to clarify the evidence, and were due to in only a few day's time.</a> And honestly? You'd have to be a straight up idiot to not smell a rat, or question what we're being told. I'm sorry, I don't care who that offends.<br />
<br />
<b>How do you distract an entire country, and blind them to all the other crap you're doing and messing up behind the scenes? How do you dilute growing public dissent and discourse? How do you make a populace fearful and in need of 'authoritative' government? You start a war. A political ruse as old as civilisation itself.</b><br />
<br />
Our media manages to convince half the people of this country that Jeremy Corbyn, the most ethical man in UK politics, is a communist spy/traitor/antisemite, a threat to democracy/misogynist/dictator etc. That's a guy who's literally in our faces and on our screens all the time, who everybody knows, who always behaves decently and is 100% reasonable. Yet STILL he is misquoted and demonised to suit right wing agenda - to the point of it being ridiculous. They spin bullshit out of thin air.<br />
<br />
Yes, well now imagine how much easier it is to do with a leader half a continent away, in a controlled media environment and war-torn country, who speaks a different language and nobody in Britain knows, when the British people don't get to hear their account of things. It would be a whitewash.<br />
<br />
One last interesting aspect to this is, as usual, it will mostly divide the political left and centre. The right: the supporters of May and Trump? They love a war with anyone, and will march blindly behind them into oblivion. But the left and centre is where 'moral outrage' at the alleged behaviour of Bashar al-Assad will split the chamber entirely. It's after all a natural reaction to be appalled by crimes against humanity: exactly the reason western governments know they're the only thing that'll get us behind war. Some on the left and centre will question these events, others will not, or cannot. In other words, the whole thing will also create a clear divide between those who've finally come to realise our mainstream media cannot be trusted, and those who simply can't let go or accept the notion they would lie to us in such a potentially catastrophic manner.<br />
<br />
Divide and conquer: rinse, and repeat.<br />
<br />
NB: A final side-note, Russia's the only country I've ever been, and worked in, that I really did <i>not</i> like: it felt a very hostile and cold place, and their hatred of westerners was obvious. (And that was back in 2013.) I am no fan of Russia, or Vladimir Putin. But being able and willing to stand up for those you don't like and/or disagree with, acknowledging when they make a fair point, is what distinguishes ACTUAL truth and justice from mere tribalism.<br />
<br />
We will be incredibly lucky if this doesn't spiral out of control. I doubt anyone will be talking about Brexit for a while, mind.<br />
<br />
#Syria<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07076569934619669616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1687443482145902241.post-20908234311963686662018-03-27T12:19:00.000+01:002018-05-27T12:23:31.795+01:00DELETING FACEBOOK? THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT THOSE WHO SUBVERT DEMOCRACY WANT<script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
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<br />
<br />
The worst thing about the past few years, in some respects, is that the colossal sh*t-storm we're currently experiencing was quite literally foreseen.<br />
<br />
Some of us noticed the marked shift in political rhetoric and media bias that began to occur shortly after the Tories returned to government in 2010. We saw how they immediately began to cheat, smear and spin; stoking division and the values of prejudice, turning society against itself. We saw how gutter tabloids formerly considered fairly harmless, like <i>The Sun</i> and <i>Daily Mail</i>, fast became bibles for the bigoted and puerile. We watched with horror as the BBC - a much loved and revered British institution - laid waste to a mantle claimed over generations for being one of the world's most fair and reliable news sources (whereas now, it's arguably a propaganda tool Goebbels would be proud of).<br />
<br />
Yes. Some of us truly felt the rumblings of these insidious attitudes and manipulations beneath the surface of British society many, <i>many</i> years ago. Attitudes which have, since 2016, onset with the gusto of a freight train. We saw it happening, as if in slow motion. And what did we do?<br />
<br />
We turned to Facebook.<br />
<br />
See, before <i>The Canary</i> and <i>Another Angry Voice</i>, well before the <i>Media Guidos</i> and <i>Westmonsters, </i>and certainly well before every single Tom, Dick &Harry started mouthing off on social media regarding often ill-informed political views, turning the medium into a damned war-zone, some of us attempted to use Facebook to <i>communicate truth</i>. Some of us were doing it 'before it was cool'. In fact, it's arguably all our fault.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The original 'keyboard warriors'</h3>
<br />
We actively tried to steer conversation away from the banal and 'stupidifying' media we saw transforming our countrymen and women into vacuous idiots. We attempted to draw our friends' attention to the apparently small detail that they were being fed complete horse sh*t under the pretence of it being pertinent fact. That supposed 'views of the nation' were actually 'views fed to the nation', mostly fitting the agenda of an increasingly brazen Conservative party.<br />
<br />
In short, Facebook became the one place alternative voices could be heard. The one and only political arena which a handful of billionaire tax-dodgers couldn't control, deciding both the narrative of world events, and which facts were revealed. An online sanctuary where often smart, informed and attentive people started to debunk myths, build followings and credibility, based on less biased interpretations and more reasoned assessments. Truth has a way of burning brightly when it's told. And suddenly, politicians became more publicly accountable for their words and actions; they became subject to the scrutiny of average citizens - not just the paid employees of media barons with greasy palms.<br />
<br />
Later, many of us then saw something in Jeremy Corbyn, elected Labour leader in 2015. For the first time in recent British political history, we saw a politician who was humble, ethical and decent - who talked sense and voiced the same conclusions many of us had already come to. A man who would seemingly put average people first; not the ludicrously wealthy.<br />
<br />
It was a beacon of hope, and as a result, we fought even harder. It was when the 'Alt-left' really began: a movement of which I'd consider myself a very small part. No doubt, Corbyn would have been toast without it. By the gods, we almost collectively upset the apple-cart at the General Election! A <i>David and Goliath</i> contest between independent online bloggers and news media, versus government and business backed mainstream media, and though we didn't quite win the battle, there was little doubt we'd shown <a href="https://www.facebook.com/MacsMouth/posts/10155432153253420?pnref=story" target="_blank">their power and unchallenged influence was waning</a>.<br />
<br />
Ergo, a backlash was inevitable. I've been waiting earnestly, quite curious to see what form it would take.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Drowning out the voices</h3>
<br />
In hindsight, I suppose it was also inevitable the medium would become noisy - though early on, we who discussed politics on Facebook were the anomalies. We stood out rather like sore thumbs for being the minority <i>not</i> sharing videos of pets, and/or a relentless torrent of selfies in absolutely every bloody situation conceivable. But soon the loudmouth bullies and bigots soon caught on that discussing geopolitical matters in a public arena was the new avenue for asserting dominance, and the medium changed drastically. It soon became the realm of people like Paul Joseph Watson, Katie Hopkins, and Tommy Robinson. A catalyst for Brexit and Trump, looming obscurely in the distance.<br />
<br />
But in the wake of Trump and Brexit, eg: now the sh*t has hit the proverbial fan, pesky socialists, <i>libtards</i> and <i>remoaners</i> are fighting back... like all lives depend on it. (Because newsflash, they may very well.) We were gaining ground. And when the aforementioned apple-cart was nearly upset at GE2017, well... the backlash really kicked into overdrive.<br />
<br />
I for one <i>knew</i> this Conservative Party wouldn't let it stand. Exactly in the same way they've attempted to <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/boundary-review-changes-political-seats-labour-tories-change-results-general-election-we-need-a7254716.html" target="_blank">shift constituency boundaries</a> and shrink the number of MPs to give themselves unfair advantage, overspending and embezzling in countless campaigns, leaving the mainstream press to discuss ridiculous smokescreens, like whether Jeremy Corbyn is a Czech spy/Kremlin stooge/antisemite etc. I knew full well they'd find a way to shut down people who debate and challenge public perceptions. Having been a writer for both <i>The Canary </i>and <i>Evolve Politics</i>, I also know by far the lion's share of such organisations' organic traffic comes through <i>Facebook</i>. Twitter and other mediums are negligible. And there's a reason for that.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Social media for cavemen</h3>
<br />
Without wanting to sound like a old man lamenting the passing of the CD for the MP3, Facebook <i>at least </i>was a social media tool allowing users to express themselves fully. A forum for open discussion and debate. You could write as much or as little as you wanted... post photos or videos, links and articles... choose your audience and who you want to see your posts interact with who you wanted... play games, follow news... limitless options really! An avenue for expression, fun, and articulation.<br />
<br />
Twitter dumbed that down. In the 21st century 'Age of Inattentiveness', actually having to read sh*t is too much like a pain in the arse. You gotta condense that stuff down to two lines and words of three syllables, so that Barry down the bookies can vaguely follow what the f**k you're talking about.<br />
<br />
Yes, some people get around it with 'threads' that go on for ever, but what really is the point in that?? In my mind it's actually quite patronising - as if reading one body of text would be just too much for my delicate mind to absorb. Not to mention, most sentient discussion on Twitter usually gives way to outright slagging matches... a truly vile place nowadays. A forum for confrontation, and/or celebrities/wannabe celebrities to mouth off, revelling in their virtual cult of followers. (A crime I guess I can't exactly deny I've been guilty of too.)<br />
<br />
Then came Instagram, and Snapchat. Don't even get me started on those.<i> </i>They're the literal regression of humankind: the modern day equivalent of cave-people drawing on rocks to communicate. The death of language. Vacuous egotism to simply mind-numbing, torturous degree. <i>"I don't know any words, or have any thoughts. But I look pretty, and have a great life/car/house/kid/pet/career... LOOK AT ME. AREN'T I GREAT AND POPULAR?" </i><br />
<br />
Sweet Jesus... it's a big step towards Charlie Brooker's recent <i>Black Mirror </i>premise, of a world where social media interaction and approval decides quality of life - relying exactly on users being vacuous, unobtrusive, unquestioning. Overly committed to a public conception of being successful, likeable, and upstanding.<br />
<br />
By the way, if that horrific idea seems a bit far-fetched, be warned... they're already <a href="https://www.facebook.com/trtworld/videos/2070957729841039/?hc_ref=ARS5bNOpPefPsom3gYvYLIqj5-CfYV_GqUj27wSg3ByUNNZCZoBRO1OichWFOjkkEkA&pnref=story" target="_blank">trying it out in China</a>.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The 'Whipping Boy'</h3>
<br />
It's therefore no surprise that <i>Facebook</i> is the one they're looking to take out<i> </i>of the equation, and subtly (or <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/25/facebook-logs-texts-and-calls-users-find-as-they-delete-accounts-cambridge-analytica" target="_blank">not so subtly</a>) suggest we should abandon. It's the one that's done the powers-that-be the most damage. It's popular with older and more sentient generations of internet users. <i>Don't be fooled. </i>They've known what Facebook and corporations like Cambridge Analytica were doing for<i> </i>donkey's years. <i>I think we all did.</i> We all knew when we shared those apps and games, made our posts public etc, that someone <i>somewhere</i> would be watching, and gathering data. We just didn't care. Politicians and business have ALWAYS tried to influence and manipulate voters: what's important is that counter-argument and truth are available to the populace as well.<br />
<br />
And now, because that medium is the only remaining resistance to mainstream spin, they earnestly want us to go back to using social media as the distraction initially intended... taking selfies and sharing cat videos. A stupid, uninformed and self-involved populace is a pliable populace, impotent to stand in their way. (Evidence of which is all around us.)<br />
<br />
I have literally written numerous pieces in the past couple of years <a href="http://macs-mouth.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/here-cometh-purge-is-facebook-clean-up.html" target="_blank">warning that a time of censorship</a> was coming, one way or another. Clues and depressing tit-bits from from Theresa May have shown the way for starters; she's hinted several times at the 'need to control the internet'. You don't only censor something by outlawing it - you can do so just as easily by making sure no one sees it, or bothers to pay it heed. I thought Zuckerberg deciding what we'd see in our news feeds was bad enough: this move is far more ambitious, and insidious. It's certainly not coincidence.<br />
<br />
Don't worry about Zuckerberg - he'll be fine. But think twice before you delete Facebook, closing the door on political ideas and activism; on 'alternative' voices and opinions. They may very well be trying to tell you truths you won't hear elsewhere.<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07076569934619669616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1687443482145902241.post-83307954238377664592018-03-21T12:24:00.000+00:002018-03-21T14:16:50.297+00:00DON'T LIKE THE IDEA OF 'COLD WAR PT II', OR QUESTION THE VALIDITY?? "YOU'RE A TINFOIL HAT."<script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWLgXHcvXcf9COnVVROGQTYN21iFYuN5DfwbpQKkKpawljoxR-YeHi7anvScuaWEmydKReWgEOpaPzMRTwQK2dh1g6XKan8cWXHG9oUVVKGlhwQ8G1wdjmjcWWarTSmm6vX8VsGQbWOMBd/s1600/tinfoil-history.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="645" data-original-width="1179" height="350" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWLgXHcvXcf9COnVVROGQTYN21iFYuN5DfwbpQKkKpawljoxR-YeHi7anvScuaWEmydKReWgEOpaPzMRTwQK2dh1g6XKan8cWXHG9oUVVKGlhwQ8G1wdjmjcWWarTSmm6vX8VsGQbWOMBd/s640/tinfoil-history.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<br />
I can't take it. We're just flaming idiots.<br />
<br />
Only in Britain in 2018 could you get called a 'tinfoil hat' and get slagged off simply for daring to urge caution, discourage mob justice by pitchfork, or suggest we should keep an open mind as to who's behind an international assassination attempt.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5AVA0-dHqsEiF_mt6eaT5lx1twlRhFhbYzi_ahpsfofU2KiTfQHSesHq8YD3h9YPQzjfuqoq8rXBy0RbqNnKvEM9njtjTTVmoDWRxhFm7335rZpIXlyIYkJL8U6IbBZlK_t7iCsUaqhIR/s1600/tinfoil+hat.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="831" data-original-width="844" height="392" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5AVA0-dHqsEiF_mt6eaT5lx1twlRhFhbYzi_ahpsfofU2KiTfQHSesHq8YD3h9YPQzjfuqoq8rXBy0RbqNnKvEM9njtjTTVmoDWRxhFm7335rZpIXlyIYkJL8U6IbBZlK_t7iCsUaqhIR/s400/tinfoil+hat.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Indeed, you apparently require sectioning for suggesting we shouldn't unilaterally ramp up for 'Cold War: Pt II'. That is where we are right now.<br />
<br />
I replied to this person on Twitter, pressing them for their reasoning. This was their response:<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
Yep. So apparently, the <i>assumption</i> that a group or persons are responsible for a crime is enough to merit their unequivocal condemnation. (Even when it could potentially mean us all getting nuked back to the stone age. Never mind eh.)<br />
<br />
I sure hope that chap doesn't work for the police.<br />
<br />
In fact, even a writer I follow and tend to agree with about most things, who I quote all the time, started referring to me as 'infantile', 'narcissistic', and 'ignorant' etc - simply for questioning his analysis. It's a horrid state of affairs. The writer then went on to call me a 'Putin apologist', suggesting that questioning Russia's responsibility was akin to questioning Jimmy Savile's guilt. Pretty shocking.<br />
<br />
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<br />
<h3>
The definition of idiocy</h3>
<br />
The definition of idiocy, some say, is to do the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.<br />
<br />
Even ignoring the concourse of the 20th century, eg: the world wars, NATO, the EU, the fall of the Soviet Union etc, and all the history that led us to this stand-off today, we actually have a shining and unequivocal example of our western governments and media falsely manufacturing/propagating a narrative to justify going to war, in living bloody memory!!!! Erm... hello?? Iraq?? Saddam Hussein, the international bogeyman with his arsenal of WMDs?? (And look at the hornet's nest that opened up.) DO WE EVER F**KING LEARN????<br />
<br />
I seem to recall, even back then, those who suggested all was not as it seemed with the Iraq incursion were labelled lunatics, traitors, and 'conspiracy theorists' etc. And of course, that was before social media mobilised roaming gangs with pitchforks in the way they exist today. However, similar ramping up for confrontation on the basis of as yet unsubstantiated claims, but this time against one of the world's most hostile nuclear superpowers? Madness off the bloody scale.<br />
<br />
<i>Cui bono?</i> Are Russia the only country that benefited from this alleged assassination attempt? No is the answer. And actually, there are other groups that benefit from the unfolding international fallout and backlash <i>more</i>. That detail alone merits at very least further investigation, scrutiny, and a level of scepticism.<br />
<br />
The saddest aspect for me, is that <i>Remainers</i> - eg: pretty much the only 'team' I've identified with since 2016: they seem to be the <i>most </i>eager and unquestioning in their demonisation of all things Russia. The very same team I'd normally have credited with greater overall intelligence and analytical skills!! The reason? They're flocking to a beam of hope that, given this period of US intransigence, fear of Russia will prevent Brexit. Their desire for that outcome is outweighing any and all sense of pragmatism and impartiality. (Such as our friend, Lord Andrew Adonis. A man I previously thought incredibly brave, and smart, is now beating a metaphoric drum for war as much as any Brexiter ever did, because it suits his cause.)<br />
<br />
The irony of all this is, I long for nothing more than Brexit to be prevented. And Russia is the one country I've ever been where I didn't feel comfortable, welcome, and didn't generally like the people or atmosphere. I'm no 'friend' of Russia, I <i>do</i> fear them, <i>and</i> think Putin is a monster. I despise his regime's treatment of journalists, LGBT people, opposition politicians etc. I just... as usual... seem to be one of the few willing to acknowledge life is not black/white-goodies/baddies, who doesn't accept the most obvious and immediate explanation. Someone who steps back to look at a larger picture without pre-disposition, attempting to be fair and unbiased.<br />
<br />
These days, that apparently makes me a madman.<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07076569934619669616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1687443482145902241.post-51905855561541905562018-03-10T16:21:00.000+00:002018-06-04T12:12:57.766+01:00HOW THE ABUSE OF FLO & JOAN REPRESENTS A WAR FOR WESTERN VALUES (AND WE SHOULD MAYBE CANCEL THE INTERNET)<script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
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<br />
<br />
I did it myself. I made a couple of joke/glib comments that Nationwide's Flo and Joan are actually the famous eyebrow wiggling Cadbury Dairy Milk kids grown up, after a career hiatus. Considering one of the 'wigglers' was a boy, my implied joke was obviously that one of the ditty-singing sisters had undergone a sex change. A fairly crass joke admittedly, not to all tastes, but perfectly innocent.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi25d-BA6FTdNTuTK9eRnoO-oJW62kRWtsdFGdu1E2k8IzXSXZ1ZuUilaVh-cfEH7_euWUYeJD5uWaRI45CKVcxyQ8fIifEqUBAwHzHG3R-aDx3YUAzjwY5s-4dLpRPwM3mkU6CO-AgO3FL/s1600/flo+and+joan.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1026" data-original-width="759" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi25d-BA6FTdNTuTK9eRnoO-oJW62kRWtsdFGdu1E2k8IzXSXZ1ZuUilaVh-cfEH7_euWUYeJD5uWaRI45CKVcxyQ8fIifEqUBAwHzHG3R-aDx3YUAzjwY5s-4dLpRPwM3mkU6CO-AgO3FL/s400/flo+and+joan.PNG" width="295" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Because that's all it was: a<i> joke.</i> My sense of humour. I don't actually think either of them has had a sex change, or is remotely masculine. The <i>actual</i> truth is I think they seem like very sweet ladies. I quite enjoy their sibling rivalry set to music, and I also enjoy the interlude of notably organic and humble musical performances - amid all the mass over-produced bullshit and vaunted egos we see in popular music today.<br />
<br />
Granted, I'm not sure it has much to do with banking, but hey, that's just marketing in the 21st century. <i>Blame Nationwide, if you will.</i> The idea of genuinely wishing these girls any harm or ill-will, I find truly appalling. I'm sure I'm not alone in having difficulty accepting we now live in a world where two girls singing ditties on TV, receive horrific online abuse.<br />
<br />
Social media is quite literally a battlefield today: a war for the soul and heart of western values.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Death of Observational Comedy</h3>
<br />
In fairness, there's probably an element of sensationalism for the purposes of a story. I don't think many probably <i>really</i> intended for their comments to be perceived as 'death threats'. If I say I'd like to <i>"harpoon James Corden" </i>and/or<i> "launch him into outer space"</i>, I don't actually mean it. I wouldn't pull the trigger on the harpoon gun given the choice. (Maybe just a taser.)<br />
<br />
Again, it's just my humour: linguistic license. Colourful language is something this country is very famous for, the most obvious example being Bill Shakespeare. I'm a fan of the bard, having studied his works for more of my school career than I'd care to admit, and I'd like to think if he was writing today, my analogy of the harpoon gun or rocket launch might be the sort of visual image he'd paint on a page too.<br />
<br />
But here's the point: in today's environment, there's now so many people spewing those kinds of sentiments (and far baser ones) with genuine malice and intention of harm, it's often difficult to tell. And for the first time really, it occurred to me that some might even have read things <i>I've </i>said, and thought me malicious or somehow spiteful. I find that excruciating. The truth is I'm honestly the furthest thing from it. On the whole, I'm <i>Snowflake Central </i>(in fact, my very being troubled by the notion of thought unpleasant, almost certainly confirms it).<br />
<br />
It's infuriating. Not only have moral values and decency been a casualty of this 'right-wing backlash' of recent times, but even the somewhat sacred medium of comedy is now under threat too. From do-gooders on the right, as well as just about the <i>entire</i> left. Somehow, I find the idea that we shouldn't laugh at jokes almost as offensive as anything else, and certainly a <i>very</i> dangerous progression.<br />
<br />
<h3>
'Crying Wolf'</h3>
<br />
Most people can tell the difference between a joke, gentle-ribbing or observational comedy, and bullying. Some of the funniest things in this world are ways that human beings differ, according to interests/background/geography/sex/race/ethnicity/religion etc. I don't want to live in a world where we can't acknowledge them in a lighthearted manner, for fear we'll be condemned 'oppressive'. That's going way too far. I've experienced <i>actual</i> bullying in my life; it's fair to say it's made me who I am. Both back at school, and more recently, in my musical career. I know how truly destructive it is, and I would never bully <i>anyone</i>.<br />
<br />
However, I'd also argue that to push back verbally against those who'd bully you and/or others, is <u>not</u> bullying. It's the former of a 'fight or flight' mentality, and for me personally, it's the very reason I write at all.<br />
<br />
There's a very different intention behind 'bullying' to simple observational humour; and most can usually tell them apart. Bullies just like to <i>pretend</i> it's 'joking'. However, considering the hatred and venom unleashed in our society in recent years, I do understand the hyper-sensitivity. The level of insentient malice now lurking out there like a turd in the bath water, needs to be addressed. The abuse of Flo and Joan might very well be the straw that breaks the camel's back. <i>They are young girls, singing songs. </i>They're not politicians actively hampering the lives of people around them, who deserve to be scrutinised and/or held accountable. Nor are they 'celebrities' who'd vaunt their lifestyle/opinions/wealth etc in our faces. Love 'em or loathe 'em, the kind of criticism and misogynistic abuse they've received just for singing songs with a plinky-plonk keyboard, is beyond abhorrent.<br />
<br />
I don't know quite how we restore that balance, but by the gods, we have to try.<br />
<br />
Right now the cries of 'abuse' for absolutely positively anything and everything - the 'crying wolf' - has had a disastrous double-edged effect. Not only did such hyper-sensitivity arguably precipitate the right-wing backlash we're experiencing, but now, a good many are so utterly fed up with all the political polarisation and bickering, they've switched off. They've had enough.<br />
<br />
Which in turn has allowed prejudice and bigotry to run rampant unchecked, certainly on social media. It's now <i>their</i> turf.<br />
<br />
People fighting for decency who've hung on, are likewise demonised as 'boring', 'too political', 'Corbynistas', 'conspiracy theorists' etc. Those who shout loudly from the left tend to end up ostracised by the very friends and people whose rights they're shouting for. Worse still, daring to speak out also has major repercussions for employment prospects nowadays (as I myself found out once, the hard way). Socialist and left-wing views are now seen as opposition to enterprise: a potential headache for employers - as if someone who simply believes in fairness might well prove a fly in the ointment later down the line.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Double-edged Sword</h3>
<br />
But speaking out really <i>does</i> have a purpose. The whole point is that social media HAS made politicians and businesses accountable in ways they weren't before. It's just that at the same time, the whole sphere has also become very unpleasant and noisy; often taken over by polarised morons. <i>Swings and roundabouts.</i><br />
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en-gb">
<div dir="ltr" lang="en">
Though Twitter (and social media generally) can be a pain, it's worth reflecting that before the Internet, <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Mueller?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Mueller</a> could have been sacked and the whole thing buried. That said, without Twitter & Facebook, Trump would still be a game show host ranking corporate psychopaths</div>
— Will Black (@WillBlackWriter) <a href="https://twitter.com/WillBlackWriter/status/970804259150270464?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">5 March 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
<br />
<br />
Yes... social media! The bane of so <i>soooo</i> many lives, in so many ways. An invention that has quite literally laid waste to many aspects of our social structures; even our very existence as human beings. Some scientists argue it's irreversibly changed us as a species (I've heard the term 'Homo-Interneticus' coined to describe this change). It's made the world cold, distant, and unaccountable - hiding from behind a computer screen. Combined with massive geopolitical events like Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, eg: the normalisation of oppressive and nationalist attitudes, it's opened a Pandora's Box I think we'll struggle to get shut again now.<br />
<br />
What am I suggesting?? For us to ditch mobile phones? Scrap the internet? Outlaw interactive social media? I don't know. But the latter idea, however draconian it might at first seem, might force human beings to be respectful to one another once again. And/or actually interact like human beings again. For the first time, I'm genuinely wondering whether perhaps social commentary <i>should</i> again be reserved for vocational writers, those who actually have a sense of responsibility, and/or know what they're talking about.<br />
<br />
I don't know how the hell we'd police that without allowing huge propensity for abuse - it's quite literally how we've ended up in this mess (eg: only a handful of billionaires controlling what half the population think), but all the hatred out there is becoming intolerable.<br />
<br />
For the sake of my daughter, and the world her generation shall inherit, I think we perhaps need to rein back in social media now. Somehow.<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07076569934619669616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1687443482145902241.post-27249504323166339902018-02-21T14:03:00.000+00:002018-03-05T13:13:42.958+00:00“DON’T WORRY FOLKS, POST-BREXIT BRITAIN WON’T BE A MAD MAX-STYLE DYSTOPIA.” (MORE LIKE ‘BLADE-RUNNER’.)<script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzaQtyhLjEy1weXA7ogk9ha-k68GKRGgQagFkbeW_hJIA-uPMeSzJH4PmZKw29LRQmrgSeoScrOg2cldsVQkqx-vfN5uD9V2sV3TdDfjPQSJ-kuzR2OSngCchdM8fQvRcS_tEL5pOgTt-i/s1600/Mad+Max+Brexit.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="647" data-original-width="1269" height="326" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzaQtyhLjEy1weXA7ogk9ha-k68GKRGgQagFkbeW_hJIA-uPMeSzJH4PmZKw29LRQmrgSeoScrOg2cldsVQkqx-vfN5uD9V2sV3TdDfjPQSJ-kuzR2OSngCchdM8fQvRcS_tEL5pOgTt-i/s640/Mad+Max+Brexit.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
My God, there's just no end to the rabbit-hole in sight. These days I have to pinch myself, just to check I'm not imagining the unthinkable things I'm reading and hearing. Though hard to conceive, this catastrophe is actually turning out <i>worse</i> than expected.<br />
<br />
I couldn't believe it when Brexiter extremists of this country turned on charities, like Oxfam. The idea that the misdemeanours of employed workers should somehow eradicate the purpose and nobility of a worldwide charity, to me, is just nuts. (But then again,<i> they are</i>.) Can we assume other multi-national corporations and organisations are therefore squeaky-clean, employing only Godly and moral people who never do anything wrong? <i>Like hell we can</i>. Let's be honest, it's really just another excuse not to give anything to those 'orrible brown and black skinned people from other countries, albeit under the guise of supposed moral superiority.<br />
<br />
Bad enough, but this morning I saw Katie Nutkins and her assorted right-wing cronies now unbelievably attacking the <i>school kids who only narrowly managed to avoid getting shot a few days ago in Florida.</i> All because they're daring to challenge President Frump and the NRA. Even for her, that's a new low. On some level, the woman genuinely amazes me. There seems absolutely no end to the malice and venom seeping out of her every pore: she's a walking summary of every negative, selfish, insular and vapid trait our society has embraced. <i>I hope one day they stuff her and put her in a museum. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv7eAKcwhnz-WvL_KiPxQL4QkTcleURUk1NPYWuRNQ9PiXnT6bNxJ8qs9qIRWbssfYF92dbHPM-_qOwEIXeYn2wEjh5RRcqSg-kZBTZBfottJHITFBvQsvnO67y-xtH4kOuJi8rGBugzC7/s1600/Hopkins+shooting.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="589" data-original-width="795" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv7eAKcwhnz-WvL_KiPxQL4QkTcleURUk1NPYWuRNQ9PiXnT6bNxJ8qs9qIRWbssfYF92dbHPM-_qOwEIXeYn2wEjh5RRcqSg-kZBTZBfottJHITFBvQsvnO67y-xtH4kOuJi8rGBugzC7/s400/Hopkins+shooting.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><br /></i>
<br />
But more than anything, I genuinely cannot believe the discussions now occurring regarding Northern Ireland. That abhorrent, deplorable, downright <i>evil</i> politicians like Nigel Farage, Daniel Hannan and Kate Hoey etc are now gunning for the Good Friday Agreement - something that brought peace and harmony after generations of violence - simply because it stands in the way of their nationalist coup. An agreement that was treasured and valued by millions, an agreement that saved lives, with not a bad word said about it until now. An agreement the <i>Brextremists</i> mocked us for being concerned about when this nonsense started, along with many other issues. (At one time, we were mocked for suggesting Brexit would mean abandoning the EU single market. Ahem... Daniel Hannan.)<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
<div dir="ltr" lang="en">
Daniel Hannan: “Absolutely nobody is talking about threatening our place in the single market.” <a href="https://t.co/KQlBaIwHPk">https://t.co/KQlBaIwHPk</a></div>
— Ian Dunt (@IanDunt) <a href="https://twitter.com/IanDunt/status/799282286185222145?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 17, 2016</a></blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
<br />
<br />
But now, according to <i>Fuhrage</i>, the <b><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/feb/16/nigel-farage-called-northern-ireland-peace-process-utterly-loathsome" target="_blank">Northern Ireland peace process is “utterly loathsome</a>”</b>.<br />
<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyAaO1vU0mMyxp4JksO_N7IOHvGlQj0a84oWVz2YHuWI8GPoJQGSDST4XDUMEU2tEP30oy8TtKCVK2Vxpkva8SmcGT2t5vRRMk9sQ1B1e9tvhPeku7Aws9u4Dw0x9PaqhUYYbi1KUNDq-c/s1600/NI+peace+utterly+loathsome.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="848" data-original-width="962" height="352" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyAaO1vU0mMyxp4JksO_N7IOHvGlQj0a84oWVz2YHuWI8GPoJQGSDST4XDUMEU2tEP30oy8TtKCVK2Vxpkva8SmcGT2t5vRRMk9sQ1B1e9tvhPeku7Aws9u4Dw0x9PaqhUYYbi1KUNDq-c/s400/NI+peace+utterly+loathsome.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibp4dNvTGVmJ1ATT3HKedI2zpzPnMk-MCaiwMX433D8vbS3Moh4CG1R0U1meDt_U861JJZj-_-M76NIyQhYRm4_UPTc7wLgFiDm5n327wpgxTy5pTjtwucs0IIT-6WW0OUaNRrk6g-Ric3/s1600/Omagh+bombing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="560" data-original-width="885" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibp4dNvTGVmJ1ATT3HKedI2zpzPnMk-MCaiwMX433D8vbS3Moh4CG1R0U1meDt_U861JJZj-_-M76NIyQhYRm4_UPTc7wLgFiDm5n327wpgxTy5pTjtwucs0IIT-6WW0OUaNRrk6g-Ric3/s400/Omagh+bombing.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The IRA bombing of Omagh Town centre only twenty years ago, in 1998.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
There is quite literally nothing and no-one these politicians won't sacrifice, blame, or put on the line to ensure their elitist and feudal overlordship of Britain continues. For those of us who lived through the years of violence, when Northern Ireland was considered pretty much a war-zone and no-go area, the idea that anyone would risk flaring all that up again is just unconscionable. Beyond the f**king pail. (And if my deliberate use of an expletive offends you dear reader, but the potential breakdown of peace in Ireland doesn't, you too are arguably a complete **** with very warped priorities.)<br />
<br />
I really do want to know now, just exactly what will it take to persuade Brexit supporters that the whole thing was a terrible idea? Categorical evidence of lies? Paper trails of financial interests? (Because newsflash, we already have those.) A complete economic breakdown, comparable to the Great Depression? Anarchy and violence? A break down of government? Erosion of civil liberties? Food shortages? Lynch-mobs? A war?<br />
<br />
I’d of course argue we shouldn’t allow even the tiniest possibility of such things becoming plausible, but regardless of <i>my</i> pesky sensibilities, what would it genuinely take for Brexiters to hold their hands up and say: "you know what, Britain was more prosperous and safer as part of a united European community"?<br />
<br />
Answers on the back of a post-card.<br />
<br />
Or perhaps, as I fear, there’s literally <i>nothing</i>. That in fact, our country has become an island of fantasists and fanatics who ardently <i>desire</i> conflict. I can’t quite put my finger on exactly when it happened, when that balance of sanity shifted, but the proof is really in the pudding.<br />
<br />
Nothing could sum it all up better than the words of our very own minister for Brexit, David Davis. Even if you take the incompetent/bumbling man at his word (not something generally advisable with politicians), when he glibly crows: <i>“it won’t end in a Mad Max-style dystopia”,</i> that hardly sells it?!? Not when this nonsense was sold as good for Britain?!?<br />
<br />
Also not to mention, it would probably be more like <i>Blade Runner</i>. The weather and all.<br />
<br />
One can’t help but feel expectations have been lowered somewhat. And that perhaps if <i>that</i> had been the slogan on the Brexit bus, maybe this country wouldn’t have shoved a loaded gun in its mouth.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1WXibRQIHMMamZVizT_BjWu8EGpO-qFvLDKUdRtTGkfFKaqH15uZvH_MZMcO-ZMZ39KTb6fe6JdGwzCshyphenhyphens6JoJagtBVCStKzlhiZBa7dHy2zM8s4FbFBNvCWgvaIqS3wA4LOPGh0YfGU/s1600/Alternate+Brexit+Bus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="1000" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1WXibRQIHMMamZVizT_BjWu8EGpO-qFvLDKUdRtTGkfFKaqH15uZvH_MZMcO-ZMZ39KTb6fe6JdGwzCshyphenhyphens6JoJagtBVCStKzlhiZBa7dHy2zM8s4FbFBNvCWgvaIqS3wA4LOPGh0YfGU/s400/Alternate+Brexit+Bus.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
For me personally, risking the security and peace of our brothers and sisters in Northern Ireland is a step too far. In the name of God, someone stop this madness... <i>please</i>.<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07076569934619669616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1687443482145902241.post-69617044928010096792018-02-17T16:13:00.001+00:002018-02-28T15:02:28.361+00:00NOW EARTHQUAKES TOO?? LET'S FACE IT, ALL BRITAIN NEEDS NOW IS A PLAGUE OF LOCUSTS.<script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9b2JSf8eT-KTpnitlMTsZz4A6JJSbLKCg7WJj5ttlLX-kZvZTqVVeLUjxNReNQ5HcUdwIQ2L3ARwj8t4MCmUjuu1kNr0PRwKiWoxjGLVUcTXxhUvSL-4Gzxu6u2RbKyE8CIEAuU3i8Wcv/s1600/swansea+earthquake.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="773" data-original-width="1006" height="490" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9b2JSf8eT-KTpnitlMTsZz4A6JJSbLKCg7WJj5ttlLX-kZvZTqVVeLUjxNReNQ5HcUdwIQ2L3ARwj8t4MCmUjuu1kNr0PRwKiWoxjGLVUcTXxhUvSL-4Gzxu6u2RbKyE8CIEAuU3i8Wcv/s640/swansea+earthquake.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Now a 4.2 magnitude earthquake in Britain. <b><a href="https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/earthquake-in-wales-felt-across-14303161?service=responsive" target="_blank">Felt from the southwest to the Northwest, and all throughout Wales.</a></b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrB71-3fjSlLSkR8FUTxJnejXDhS3eGbjqEkv4-tSLb_yPvRWL5k-O7fWImp9MsnhPmWePK45hfrrFbvWbb-mThnz_L9NXdvSQS6GzAnmpVCe1UNg__ZnyPX-OsUSx06Xdc8yE5t6HO6jK/s1600/uk+tremors.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="583" data-original-width="753" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrB71-3fjSlLSkR8FUTxJnejXDhS3eGbjqEkv4-tSLb_yPvRWL5k-O7fWImp9MsnhPmWePK45hfrrFbvWbb-mThnz_L9NXdvSQS6GzAnmpVCe1UNg__ZnyPX-OsUSx06Xdc8yE5t6HO6jK/s400/uk+tremors.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
I think it's clearly fair to say, as far as omens and their timings are concerned, things ain't looking so hot right now for Britain. In fact, I don't think the universe could honestly be giving us more of a wake-up call, if the sky was literally on fire with the four horseman of the apocalypse pegging across it in a transit van. Or if the sky was raining a pick'n'mix of locusts, cats, and Celebrity Love Island contestants.<br />
<br />
I don't generally believe in that kind of crap, but honestly... you couldn't write this stuff.<br />
<b><br /></b>
In fact, perhaps the poster for Brexit should just be a picture of the British Isles going up in flames under a mushroom cloud. But at that precise moment when all flesh has been ripped from our bones: and we're standing there momentarily looking like Skeletor, before milliseconds later being reduced to ash.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><br /></b>
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<br />
<br />
<i>And would you also look at that.</i><br />
<br />
This, only a few months after the Tory government <b><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/fracking-begin-in-weeks-shale-gas-uk-third-energy-north-yorkshire-a7985711.html" target="_blank">allowed fracking to begin across the UK. </a></b><br />
<br />
Strangely enough, I can't find much online to determine whether fracking has <i>actually</i> begun in the UK, but there are plenty of articles stating "fracking due to begin within weeks" dated from October of last year, and other pieces such as an <b><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/dec/25/fracking-start-2018-shale-gas-uk-industry-protests" target="_blank">article for The Guardian with this headline</a></b>:<br />
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<br />
<br />
Weeks later, a 4.2 magnitude earthquake. Maybe coincidence? Maybe not. Earthquakes have occurred in the British Isles historically, to be fair.<br />
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<br />
<br />
But you know what? I sure as hell don't want to find out. We're not some massive sprawling land mass/continent with vast uninhabited areas, we're a fragile little island floating off the north coast of Europe. (A detail of relevance in various other circumstances too.)<br />
<br />
Ergo if greedy rich bastards who care nothing for anyone or anything other than their profits somehow cave in the very ground beneath our feet, we quite literally have nowhere else to go.<br />
<br />
And like everything else... all driven by greed. Shameful.<br />
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<br />
<br />
In the mean time, I suggest we all invest in underground bunkers with Netflix and Wifi.<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07076569934619669616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1687443482145902241.post-56432136834164142862018-02-04T13:33:00.000+00:002018-02-07T09:20:19.294+00:00THE REES-MOGG SCUFFLE: PAVING THE WAY FOR POLITICAL SHIFT IN THE UK?<script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
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<br />
<br />
It seems the whole of Britain was watching a puppet show. I fell for it myself, and feel rather stupid.<br />
<br />
It turns out, it was a Rees-Mogg supporter who technically precipitated actual physicality/violence: quite deliberately by the look of it.<br />
<blockquote class="twitter-video" data-lang="en">
<div dir="ltr" lang="en">
How many times do the hard-right & far-right have to watch this before grasping that a Jacob Rees-Mogg supporter, enraged by dissent, hit a young woman in the face. The ensuing scuffle was to prevent HIM from battering her again or harming other people <a href="https://t.co/BMkOd87J3P">pic.twitter.com/BMkOd87J3P</a></div>
— Will Black (@WillBlackWriter) <a href="https://twitter.com/WillBlackWriter/status/959618755671330816?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 3, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
<br />
And would you look at that... it turns out <b><a href="http://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/02/02/watch-violent-alt-left-antifa-extremists-try-shut-jacob-rees-mogg-speech/" target="_blank">a reporter named Ben Kew</a></b>, employed by <b><a href="http://macs-mouth.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/bannon-and-rees-mogg-correlation.html" target="_blank">Rees-Mogg's new Nazi friends at <i>Breitbart</i></a></b>, was quite literally ready and waiting with the camera rolling.<br />
<br />
American-owned <i>Breitbart News</i>, at a minor and niche UK university talk. <i>No, nothing fishy there. </i><br />
<br />
My initial reaction, like everyone else, was to condemn the apparently violent protesters, and somewhat begrudgingly praise JRM's dealing with the situation. However, when I first saw the footage of him striding up the auditorium (as if on horseback) to reprimand the young hoodlums, standing there trying to reason with them, I did also chuckle to myself that he looked <i>like a fish out of water</i>. Extremely uncomfortable, to say the least. And I honestly couldn't help but wonder why he threw himself in apparent harm's way on that <i>specific</i> occasion.<br />
<br />
Ah... the <i>Breitbart</i> reporter. That'd be it. NOW it makes sense.<br />
<br />
And would you <i>also</i> look at that. This rather pathetic and virtually manufactured scuffle also seemingly made the BBC and wider press entirely <i>forget</i> about tens of thousands of people marching through London on behalf of the NHS yesterday. An issue of far more importance to this country, and a catastrophic failure that doesn't make the BBC's paymasters look very good.<br />
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<br />
Meanwhile, the right-wing now flounce around pretending that Corbyn, Momentum, and left-wing politics are the cause of all thuggery, dissent and violence in Britain:<br />
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<br />
Except they all conveniently seem to forget. The only ACTUAL murder and serious act of violence against a politician in this country in recent times, was the far-right fanatic who killed MP Jo Cox shortly before the EU referendum. A barbaric and heinous crime that pretty much served as the starter pistol for this whole mess.<br />
<br />
<b><a href="http://macs-mouth.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/the-martyrdom-of-jo-cox-wake-up-call.html" target="_blank">Back then, I dared to hope that Jo's murder would assure success for the remain campaign</a></b>: I thought there was no possible way the majority of Britain would want to associate with those kinds of people - or even be on the same 'team'. That maybe... just <i>maybe</i> a sizeable share of the UK populace would start to appreciate the insidious ideologies at the heart of all this, and what they would be <i>enabling</i>. I was wrong. And today, as a result, Britain is a very different place.<br />
<br />
Leftist aggression takes place as a symbiotic reaction to unbridled far-right influence. It springs up only when oppressors overstep their bounds. It's as simple as that. Like most things, there is a cause, and a reaction. And while the reaction may be misguided or excessive, the fact it is a <i>reaction</i> must be considered. (Part of the reason we have a judiciary system.) A violent campaigner for human rights may be misguided, but to lump them as somehow 'the same' as a violent thug campaigning for segregation and ethnic profiling/subjugation is just warped.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Ergo we today have an elitist gang of ideologists, mostly relying on the support of thugs, trying to tell us that anyone who opposes them, are thugs. And people are lapping it up.</b><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
<div dir="ltr" lang="en">
He bounced up there and stuck his chin out. He was hoping for a smack. You see the word is out to discredit any left wing protests. A violent reaction would be perfect. When nobody popped Mogg the second attempt was to clip the woman and get a retaliation. Done.</div>
— Franqs1ight (@howkoolizdiss) <a href="https://twitter.com/howkoolizdiss/status/959789968116862981?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 3, 2018</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
<div dir="ltr" lang="en">
Funny how Mogg meets Bannon. Has dinner with a Nazi then this half baked Antifa style incident happens. Looks dodgy to me</div>
— LINDA (@lindajedwards) <a href="https://twitter.com/lindajedwards/status/959803803867467776?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 3, 2018</a></blockquote>
<br />
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<br />
If all concerned were <i>actually</i> angling for Rees-Mogg to get a thump (which let's face it, seems unlikely, but would have been their joyous Brexit equivalent of communists supposedly burning down the Reichstag), it would certainly explain why he looked so bloody nervous - yet<i> still</i> put himself right in the middle of the fray.<br />
<br />
Either way, this<i> is</i> media manipulation and propaganda in action, make no mistake. The footage aired by the BBC etc did not show the full story at all, eg: the bully in the white shirt smacking Andreea Dumitrache, a protesting Romanian student in the face, or mention a couple of key details. <i>Like a Breitbart reporter sitting there earnestly waiting.</i><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
<div dir="ltr" lang="en">
Hi <a href="https://twitter.com/Jacob_Rees_Mogg?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Jacob_Rees_Mogg</a>, you know how you say you dont know <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/whiteShirtMan?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#whiteShirtMan</a>, who hit the young woman at your <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/UWE?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#UWE</a> event? Hate to tell you this but he seems to be following you around. It's almost like he thinks he's your bodyguard and on your team. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/HesBehindYou?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#HesBehindYou</a> <a href="https://t.co/6lH6b2DXfK">pic.twitter.com/6lH6b2DXfK</a></div>
— Will Black (@WillBlackWriter) <a href="https://twitter.com/WillBlackWriter/status/960152456951975937?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2018</a></blockquote>
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<br />
<h3>
'England prevails'</h3>
<br />
The more I think about this and read about this, the more I look at the footage and consider the larger political picture, what else is going on and where; the way that so many are cooing how Laura Kuenssberg and the <b><a href="https://twitter.com/IanDunt/status/959502989588344833" target="_blank">BBC are taking a 'tougher line' of questioning with Theresa May</a></b> - but coincidentally just as Jacob Rees-Mogg is now splashed everywhere portrayed like the 21st century equivalent of Sir Lancelot... and truly, it smells bad to me. Like the way is being subliminally paved for a political shift of some sort, in the Conservative party at least.<br />
<br />
Concurrently, we also seem to be partaking in a society-wide overreaction and crusade of piety/moral judgement, often packaged as 'feminism', against things like pretty girls who like to make a living from dressing up and looking nice, adding glitz and glam to otherwise mind-numbingly dull affairs like Motorsport. Witch-hunts that people like 'devout Christian' Jacob Ress-Mogg would no doubt be on board with, and use as a populist sideshow to bridge support bases, and distract from all the unspeakable stuff he's doing behind the scenes. A very worrying combination. Puritanism, until recently, was generally considered a <i>bad</i> thing.<br />
<br />
In recent times, I've slightly gulped to acknowledge eerie similarities between Jacob Rees-Mogg and the character 'Chancellor Sutler', in <i>V for Vendetta</i>. (As the film itself points out, "artists use lies to tell the truth".) JRM is a bit more softly spoken and charming than John Hurt's slightly OTT depiction, but no doubt the two of them would get on very well at dinner. And now could quite feasibly be the part of the film when Sutler breaks away from the Conservative party, and starts something <i>new</i>. Or re-brands it as 'Norsefire'.<br />
<br />
"England prevails." Sound familiar?<br />
<br />
<h3>
Bite-size chunks</h3>
<br />
My fear has long been that right-wing fascism and totalitarianism seem to be approaching in bite-sized palatable chunks, that the populace don't seem to notice they're swallowing. Orwell word-for-word predicted it:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><i>"The people will not revolt. They will not look up from their screens long enough to notice what's happening."</i></b></blockquote>
<i>Each time it gets just a little worse. </i>Cameron and Osborne now seem like positive libertarians next to May and her <i>Hammer Horror</i> montage of cabinet members, but ramping up to a Tory party led by the likes of Rees-Mogg, Johnson and Gove? It would be yet another right shift incrementally, all over again.<br />
<br />
It's amazing how poor, oppressed and justifiably angry people are now back to being the baddies. Those pesky sorts fed up with being marginalised, fed up with being burned alive in tower blocks, fed up with wars in their name, being priced out of homes, fed up with racism and bigotry casually defended and propagated, fed up with corporate exploitation, abuse of both human and animal rights - well, they are again the enemy. Yep, we're all ANTIFA now. <i>How neat.</i><br />
<br />
As someone who literally worked in the theatre, I can't help but feel it all has a tang of feeling slightly staged, or at least manipulated. And I do say that fully and <i>acutely</i> aware that even by thinking or suggesting such a thing, I immediately sound like a nutcase to some.<br />
<br />
The suspicion lingers, regardless. And the fact I sound like a nutcase is quite unequivocally the best (and likely only) defence to discredit it.<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07076569934619669616noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1687443482145902241.post-29980133772221285522018-01-30T17:24:00.002+00:002018-01-30T22:29:04.925+00:00THOUGHT BREXIT WAS BAD NEWS? IT MAY ALSO BRING WITH IT AN APOCALYPTIC TIME-BOMB...<script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
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<br />
<br />
I came across an article from <i>The Guardian</i> this morning that, unbelievably, still managed to make my jaw hit the deck - even amid a world regularly fringing on lunacy. You can check it out <b><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/oct/13/can-never-eat-chicken-again-antibiotic-resistance?CMP=fb_gu%3F" target="_blank">here</a>.</b> The rest of what I have to say will make a lot more sense if you do.<br />
<br />
The piece by Maryn McKenna is from last year, but as I say, I've only just encountered it. Which possibly says something in itself: as <i>everybody</i> should probably know about this. I'm pretty sure they don't. They're likely to know Ant and Dec won best presenters at the recent National Television Awards for the seventeenth time, but not that Brexit could potentially bring with it chickens that wipe out humanity.<br />
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Holy shit. And I thought chicken was the 'healthy option'.<br />
<br />
I didn't know any of this. Yes, I knew American food was generally bland, stodgy, and pumped full of chemicals to make it mutant-sized; I've spent a fair bit of time in the U.S, and even if we put aside the veritable horror stories that are our Yankee cousins' notion of things like bread and chocolate (I have never tasted anything as disgusting in my life as Hershey's), I also remember the first time I encountered their bizarre, warped 'puffy' fruit. I remember chowing down on an apple the size of a very large male adult fist, which somehow didn't feel particularly healthy to be eating, even to someone who generally eats crap back here at home in the UK. As for the bananas, they looked like they could possibly be used to bludgeon someone.<br />
<br />
So much of the food I encountered in the U.S didn't 'feel right'. A problem I never really encountered in Europe, or elsewhere in the world. However, the rabbit hole goes far deeper.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>The biggest threat to humankind's existence other than climate change, is antibiotic resistance. </b>And apparently it is literally being invited through mass produced food. More specifically, in America, chicken. It's a ticking time bomb (or rather, a clucking one). And now developing nations are hopping aboard the drugged-chicken-gravy-train too.<br />
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As for the fact this is being done in America to a mass-produced food that is... how can I put this delicately... stereotyped as being quite popular with the poor and certain oppressed ethnicities? Ethnicities that America doesn't have a great history of looking after so well? However you spin it, the bottom line is that people/groups who've been overexposed to antibiotics in cheap mass produced food will be the first wiped out, if and when a super-bug arrives.<br />
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Doesn't look good, does it?<br />
<br />
In fairness, it should probably be mentioned, some U.S companies <i>have</i> bowed to pressure from consumer watch groups, <b><a href="http://progressillinois.com/quick-hits/content/2016/08/02/mcdonalds-curbs-antibiotics-chicken-groups-urge-kfc-follow-suit" target="_blank">agreeing to stop using antibiotics in their chicken, like McDonalds</a>. </b>KFC and other larger fast food chains are also following suit. However, domestic food sold in supermarkets is not quite as under the microscope.<br />
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<h3>
Knock-off goods</h3>
<br />
Also note the American author starts off the whole piece by comparing these U.S 'mutant' chickens to those found on a French market place.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><i><br /></i></b><b><i>"I had eaten chicken all my life: in my grandmother’s kitchen in Brooklyn, in my parents’ house in Houston, in a college dining hall, friends’ apartments, restaurants and fast food places, trendy bars in cities and old-school joints on back roads in the south. I thought I roasted a chicken pretty well myself. But none of them were ever like this, mineral and lush and direct."</i></b></blockquote>
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McKenna speaks of what real, authentic, chemically un-enhanced chicken tastes like by comparison, and how she finally enjoyed flavours denied to her in her native America: land of the mass-produced. You see, the E.U do things a little differently to the U.S - they generally try to protect their citizens. They look out for them. For example, they don't unethically poison them (or risk wiping out humanity) just to increase the profits and turnover of large greedy corporations.<br />
<br />
Ah, you've gotta love capitalism.<br />
<br />
So basically, <i>rich</i> Americans are selling mostly <i>poor</i> Americans stuff that could eventually kill us all. And then are using the exuberant proceeds they've earned from doing so to live the life of Riley. (And, one would imagine, to buy posher food <i>not</i> laced with chemicals.) If it was someone selling cheap knock-off Rolexes en mass, and using the proceeds to buy proper ones for themselves, no doubt the law would intercede; but when it concerns the future of the whole human race, well... it's apparently not worth the time and effort.<br />
<br />
Today's capitalists care <i>nothing </i>for the future of humanity. That seems to be the era we're in. Like they've done a deal with the devil, and simply decided: "the whole world is screwed, we're on borrowed time, so WE might as well all get as rich and fleece it while we can, fuck everyone else". And really, no group or government in any modern Western society represents that attitude as much as Trump's America, or indeed Brexit Britain under the Tories.<br />
<br />
What a wondrous tag-team they are.<br />
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<h3>
Brexit means breakfast (a really bad one)</h3>
<br />
There are so many aspects of Britain's departure from the E.U that sadden me; the list is endless. But as a man who enjoys his food, who was born and grew up in a Britain that enjoyed easy and cost effective access to fresh produce from across the European continent for nearly forty years, this aspect of what Brexit will do to our availability/price of staple foods <i>really</i> depresses me. And even worse, that Britain seems desperate to plug that trade gap of 40+ years with closer U.S trade. Eg: the one country in the world with lower food standards than just about anywhere, where any Martin Shkreli dip-shit can pump it full of turpentine if he's greased the right people in congress.<br />
<br />
Britain is selling its soul for corporate greed. (Ironically, the one thing Brexit was supposedly an antidote to.) Swapping European pragmatism and cooperation to become the 51st state: under a mad orange orangutan who'd <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-fundraising/trump-campaign-website-offers-to-flash-donors-names-during-speech-idUSKBN1FJ0AE" target="_blank"><b>sell his own Nan to the highest bidder</b></a>. It just makes no sense to me.<br />
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I've teased my American friends about their crap, bland food for many years; joked how eating too much of it might cause one to 'grow gills', or maybe just additional nipples. Well, thanks to Brexit, British families might soon get to put my theory to the test. <br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07076569934619669616noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1687443482145902241.post-50366015885258478952018-01-29T13:23:00.000+00:002018-02-01T21:33:58.927+00:00ONE OF BRITAIN'S MOST INFLUENTIAL RAPPERS JUST SMASHED THE ENTIRE ANTI-CORBYN ARGUMENT IN SECONDS (2017)<script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
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<h3 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 18.72px;">(Written for Evolve Politics, May 9th 2017, going viral to near half a million people: also referenced by <i>Buzzfeed</i> and <i>The Independent</i> as example of online/left-wing news outperforming mainstream news. Since removed from the former <a href="https://evolvepolitics.com/one-britains-influential-rappers-just-smashed-entire-anti-corbyn-argument-seconds/" target="_blank">link</a>.)</span></h3>
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British rapper Akala is well known for his political activism, as much so as his music and his equally famous sister, Ms Dynamite. The man affectionately dubbed ‘the black Shakespeare’ has appeared on countless debate and news-related programmes over the years, including both BBC flagship political shows, <i>Newsnight</i> and <i>Question Time</i>. Many of those speeches and discussions have gone on to become viral hits, as well as his frank analysis of racism on Frankie Boyle’s <i>Election Autopsy</i> in 2015. Perhaps most memorable was his much publicised verbal annihilation of EDL leader Tommy Robinson – a rare occasion when the hateful and ill-mannered man was left momentarily stopped in his tracks.<br />
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Akala could quite feasibly be described as a modern philosopher. His intelligence, his factual knowledge, and obvious powers of persuasive rhetoric leave most opponents dwarfed. There is simply no substitute, or defence, against an individual whose arguments are based on true understanding and thorough research. Which is of course exactly the reason the far-right are so persecuting of the educated, and demonise supposed ‘liberal elites’. But Akala is living proof that born wealth and ‘liberal elitism’ are nothing to do with it. And as much as educational opportunities do play a vital role in producing informed/sentient members of society, to a certain degree, it’s also the choice of any individual as to whether they educate themselves. This man certainly has.<br />
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In a post today on his Facebook page, Akala explained why – for the first time in his life – he is actively going to defy his inherent beliefs and vote for an ‘establishment’ political party:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>“I will be voting in a general election for the first time on June the 8th and I will – I am shocked to be typing this myself – be voting Labour. I am not a Labour supporter; I do not share the romanticism of many that the Labour Party was ever as radical an alternative as some would like to think. Labour – despite building the welfare state/NHS – has been an imperialist party from Attlee to Wilson to Blair, thus for a ‘third world’ internationalist such as myself I have never been able to cast a vote for them.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>In truth my politics are closer at present to the Green Party, of the options available. Regardless, in the years since I have been an adult, neo-liberal New Labour has basically been a Tory Party anyway, so I, by virtue of my age, missed any point in history where Labour could have even been argued to have been any sort of real political alternative.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>So why will I be voting now? The answer will surprise none of you, Jeremy Corbyn.”</b></blockquote>
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What I, and hopefully others too should find fairly remarkable about Akala’s post, is that it dares to be nuanced; to read between the lines. He is not bound by tribal allegiances to one faction or another, he thinks for himself, and dares to acknowledge that Corbyn is not perfect – that he has short-comings too:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b> “It’s not that I am naive enough to believe that one man (who is of course powerless without the people that support him) can fundamentally alter the nature of British politics, or that I think that if he/Labour win that the UK will suddenly reflect his personal political convictions, or even that I believe that the Prime Minister actually runs the country.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>I also recognise that Mr. Corbyn is a human and as such is an imperfect ‘leader’. He was abysmal during the Brexit campaign for example and this whole sense that a left wing exit from the EU was possible via a campaign led by anti-immigrant fervour is to my mind ridiculous.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>It seems around this issue Corbyn was more committed to an ideology than reality and how that reality would affect real people. He is a politician, he will make more mistakes, or at least what I deem to be mistakes."</b></blockquote>
<br />
In fact, in some ways Akala seems quite sceptical of Corbyn – describing him as not having an “electric personality”. And even more sceptical of the power he’d physically wield as Prime Minister, when so many members of his party (not to mention parliament) are opposed to the fundamental re-balancing of equality in Britain Corbyn seeks. However, the rapper goes on to succinctly explain why it doesn’t matter; how there is simply far more at stake here than ‘business as usual’ party politics:<br />
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In a sense, he smashes every single anti-Corbyn and Abbott-related arithmetical smear in a matter of seconds:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
<b>“We do not need perfect politicians, because we are not perfect people ourselves. However for the first time in my adult life and perhaps for the first time in British history someone I would consider to be a fundamentally decent human being – that is, someone who does not want to kill the poor and does not routinely make a habit of rationalising the bombing and invasion of other people’s countries under the rubric of humanitarianism – has a chance of being elected."</b></blockquote>
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Akala goes on at length, and points out how Jeremy Corbyn has championed equality, social justice and peaceful resolution his entire career. He was one of only thirteen MPs who voted against the disastrous military intervention in Libya in 2011, which undeniably initiated the humanitarian crisis of refugees crossing the Mediterranean, and unleashed the new emboldened ‘war against terror’. When it comes to issues of inherent freedom and moral decency, Corbyn has always been on the right side of history, and has warned countless times where all this aggression will lead.<br />
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Akala also goes on to communicate his deep concerns regarding the current Conservative government’s war-like stance and militaristic rhetoric. Controversially, he even suggests that denying the “Trump worshipping Tories” and Theresa May the keys to Number 10 should be an easier decision than US voters faced, deciding between Trump or Clinton:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><br /></b>
<b>“I simply think we cannot afford, in this very particular set of circumstances, to not vote. Our brothers and sisters in America were not given an alternative, their options were one war-mongering lunatic vs. another and many of them (almost half the US electorate did not vote at all), quite understandably could not bring themselves to vote for Hilary Clinton, despite the threat of Mr. Trump. Were I an American I must confess I would have done the same. We, however, do have a chance for the first time to vote for the lesser of two evils.”</b></blockquote>
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He warns with specific examples of other countries such as Jamaica and India, and how if they came up against the mighty nationalist will of the US or UK respectively, public opinion could quickly be swung to make them the enemy. Just as the Murdoch/Rothermere/Desmond press now do with EU nations. It doesn’t make for comfortable reading – but that is the point. That’s the world into which Trump and May, and other right-wing politicians are dragging us.<br />
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<h3>
On the NHS</h3>
<br />
The Kentish Town born rapper also speaks of what should be the key ingredient in this General Election (sadly too often saturated by bickering, nationalistic nonsense and talk of ‘saboteurs’ etc), eg: the NHS. His words are both powerful and poignant:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>“There are a great many other progressive policies that make Corbyn a genuinely different candidate from what we have seen before but another very key area – of literally life and death – is the NHS. If you want to see what privatised healthcare looks like just ask any poor American. There are countless American families mired in a lifetime of debt for basic healthcare that citizens of every other industrial country (and Cuba) receive as standard from public money. When I was five I got the measles and nearly died, if I was an American child born into a similarly poor family I would either likely be dead now or my family still paying off the bill.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>When I was 10 my mum got cancer, same story. The idea and reality of an NHS is one of the most democratic ideas ever invented, it must be protected at all costs, the Tories have made their intentions in this area quite plain – as has Corbyn. If you are so busy hating those pesky ‘immigrants’ (you know the same darkies and foreign nationals that overwhelmingly staff your NHS) that you can’t see that the Trump worshipping Tories are callous enough to condemn millions of ‘their own’ people to slow and early death because they are poor and because it’s profitable, (as the Republicans just have) then you are unlikely to be reading this anyway. But if you have such people in your family (as I do) please try and talk some sense into them, for their own good.”</b></blockquote>
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Everyone should hear Akala’s thoughts and reasoning on this matter. He, like many, is simply incredulous that a Conservative party so demonstrably keen to deprive its citizens of fundamental human rights can be apparently ‘sweeping to victory’. Voters are not asking themselves the right questions – they’re too caught up in the polarised issue of EU membership to notice we’re actually on the brink of losing far far more, by virtue of this new ‘Anglo-American convergence’.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><br /></b><b>"The simple fact is, if enough people vote for Corbyn/Labour they will win. In fact there are enough people that did not vote at all in the last election to tip the scales decidedly. A Britain led by the SNP and Corbyn’s Labour would be drastically different – though still far from utopian, whatever that means – to what the Tories have in mind and have clearly told us they intend."</b></blockquote>
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It really is that simple. ‘To be anti-Corbyn at this precise moment in time, is to effectively stand for something far worse’.<br />
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I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m beginning to think Akala should perhaps run for office himself. Few politicians communicate with his clarity. But in the mean time, this remarkably talented and eloquent activist makes it only too clear where he believes votes should go on June 8th. And that is to Jeremy Corbyn.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07076569934619669616noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1687443482145902241.post-91565288121157204642018-01-19T10:24:00.001+00:002018-01-29T15:36:14.582+00:00NUKES, BRIDGES AND WALLS... COULD ELABORATE LEGO-SETS BE THE ANSWER? <script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
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<br />
So Kim Jong-un wants to build nukes. Donald Trump wants to build a wall. And now Boris wants to build another bridge.<br />
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Anyone else think we just need to get these idiots some Lego?<br />
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The fact Johnson has ALREADY got a failed bridge project to his name, and in very recent times (the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/aug/14/london-garden-bridge-project-scrapped-sadiq-khan" target="_blank">cancelled 'Garden Bridge' project</a> and vast £37m wastage of taxpayer money), just proves the man is a straight-up buffoon who refuses to learn from his mistakes, with zero concern for what people in Britain actually need.<br />
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(As if more proof were required.)<br />
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It just fries my brain. The country is falling apart, our NHS is crumbling, we have the <a href="https://www.oecd.org/els/soc/cope-divide-europe-2017-background-report.pdf" target="_blank">highest inequality in Europe</a>, a social care crisis, people in work relying on foodbanks, our schools can't afford sodding books, and now Boris f**king Johnson wants to build a new 22 mile bridge across the Channel we don't even need.<br />
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<br />
<br />
<i>Okay Boris.</i> Because we didn't need a bridge (in addition to a tunnel) for all the decades of free-movement between the UK and France. But now that's gonna end, now it's gonna be a right pain in the keester and require border/passport checks for Brits to travel in Europe (and vice versa), yes... <i>obviously</i> an extra bridge will be needed. Just for the sheer volume of Brits rushing across for Euro-breaks; especially with our economy tanking and GBP worth less than toilet paper. Likewise, I'm sure Europeans are just dying to visit Little England in their droves, now they know they're about as welcome as syphilis.<br />
<br />
Not to mention, I imagine putting 22 miles of concrete across one of the world's busiest shipping lanes might cause a few issues.<br />
<br />
Honestly... what a <i>dick</i>.<br />
<br />
These idiot boys with their toys are a liability. Please <i>please</i> can somebody put the adults back in charge now??<br />
<br />
It's so hard to accept the state of the world today; it feels like it should all be a very bizarre dream, or some kind of wind-up.<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07076569934619669616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1687443482145902241.post-49907696758333292142018-01-13T18:25:00.000+00:002018-01-13T18:54:03.326+00:00HERE COMETH THE PURGE: IS THE FACEBOOK 'CLEAN-UP' CAUSE FOR CELEBRATION, OR CONCERN?<script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
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<br />
<br />
News just moves so damned fast nowadays.<br />
<br />
In the UK we've had a cabinet reshuffle (after half of them quit), the resignation of Toby Young, an NHS crumbling before our eyes, Farage's suggestion of a second Brexit referendum, and in the U.S, a book about Trump, conflict with Bannon, natural disasters, 'stable genius-gate', and now the president just called every non-white country a shit-hole.<br />
<br />
That was just the past few days.<br />
<br />
Brexit, Trump, collusion with Russia, war with Korea, sanctions on Iran, ISIS, war in Syria, war in Yemen, war in Ukraine, travel bans, migrants, far-right rallies, fake news, mass shootings, social cleansing, institutionalised sexism, paedophile rings, the homelessness crisis, the NHS crisis, a looming financial crisis... it's all getting a bit much, isn't it?<br />
<br />
It's hardly surprising many just want to close their eyes and ears to it - just to 'switch off'. But sadly, it's exactly when populaces do <i>that</i>, that the worst things are liable to be done in their name.<br />
<br />
Has the world always been so frantic? Or does it just seem so because of the advance of social media technology, and the fact it's so much more in our faces? Are we just more acutely aware of what was always happening any way? The answer to the that is complex. Yes, probably... to a degree. Politics have always been toxic: it's just now we can all see it. But at the same time, only someone with their head truly buried in the sand could ever suggest there aren't major geopolitical changes taking place at present, or that things don't seem to be turning a little pear-shaped.<br />
<br />
All the political division and bitter discourse of recent times has understandably caused many everyday people to resent politics, and more so, those 'political types' who insist on dragging misery into their 'perfect' social media worlds - where only shiny happy pictures are permitted, and boasts of all the wonderful things they're doing with their lives. In other words, those who are happy and secure in their lives (who need not worry about beastly 'politics') are fed up with being tainted by the unhappiness and frustrations of angry people, those less fortunate, and those demanding justice. <i>Boo hoo. </i><br />
<br />
It seems Mark Zuckerberg agrees. Recent news reports slipped in among all the chaos state that Facebook is planning to do a major clamp-down on 'media and business posts', and to re-structure people's newsfeeds so they hear mostly from 'friends and family'. But amid talk of making the platform more 'friendly' and accessible, less noisy, there's a whispered undercurrent as to what this is all <i>really</i> about: the battle against 'fake news'.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The rise of the 'political celebrity'</h3>
<br />
Facebook has admittedly become quite an unpleasant place - but no more than Twitter I'd argue. Whereas Instagram is probably okay, as it seems a platform mostly designed for shallow grunting cave-people, who like to communicate with pictures.<br />
<br />
Ironically, I daresay even the political ranters get very tired of so much ranting on Facebook. <i>Becoming a 'political voice' is the new, more inclusive X-Factor: anyone can have a go.</i><br />
<br />
It's a pattern that's dogged me my entire life to be fair, much to my frustration. I wanted to be a singer and musician when it was a fairly specialised vocation, next came reality TV, then everyone and their dog started thinking themselves a singer. I've watched the industry devolve into a saturated, shameless and vacuous mug's game as a result. Similarly, I've been writing and talking about politics on social media for ten years plus now while everyone else I knew was sharing cat videos; in the past two years I've seen more political blogs and political 'celebrities' spring up, commanding vast swathes of sycophants, than in the entirety of my time on social media before that.<br />
<br />
Katie Hopkins, Paul Joseph Watson, Tommy Robinson, Milo Yiannopoulos... and dozens more.<br />
<br />
Strangely, I personally moaned for years that nowhere near enough people were paying attention, that more people should take an interest in politics. <i>Careful what you wish for. </i>Now I can't help but think too many cooks spoil the broth. And actually, now <i>everybody</i> is shouting, it was possibly better when the medium of political discussion was niche, unofficially reserved for those who genuinely closely follow current events (not just sound bites) and know what they're talking about. <i>Look at the carnage that widespread ignorance has caused.</i><br />
<h3>
<br />Baby out with the bath water</h3>
<br />
Objectively, that is what we'd hope Zuckerberg is trying to counteract. But there's a very real danger that the 'baby will be thrown out with the bath-water'. Our freedoms, particularly our internet freedoms and freedom of speech are incredibly fragile - and once they've been taken away, not only will they be incredibly hard to win back, but we've pretty much sealed our own fate.<br />
<br />
One problem is that 'fake news', to most people any way, will be an entirely subjective concept. Ask anyone mainstream or on the right in the UK, and they'd point you in the direction of publications like <i>The Canary. </i>Ask anyone on the left, and they'd point out that publications like <i>The Canary</i> sprung up exactly to counteract right-wing propaganda and spin.<br />
<br />
And it's exactly the ambiguity of the blanket term 'fake news' that's so frightening. It can literally mean absolutely anything the people in charge want it to describe. Those in charge of Facebook, the police, the government... THEY get to decide. Words can't really stress how dangerous that is, not least given the authoritarian turn our societies seem to be taking. We all gasp and jeer at leaders like Erdogan silencing the press and civil dissent in Turkey, but really, the same thing is happening in Britain - just more gradually, more subversively. Small piece at a time. Only a few days ago, I saw a Facebook user video showing a van load of UK police attending a union sanctioned strike, blocking and man-handling protesters. <i>We ain't got Bobbies to police the streets, or to stem knife crime and acid attacks, but God forbid large companies in league with the government should lose out on profits. </i>Meanwhile at the same time, they're proposing rounding up homeless people in Windsor to avoid unsightliness at the next royal wedding, and new scratchcards to gift the Queen a yacht.<br />
<br />
The police in the UK and America are gradually becoming enforcers of corporatism, not the rule of law. A privatised police force, as prolific authors like Orwell predicted. If those same principles are applied to social media now (more so than they already are), we're in real trouble.<br />
<h3>
<br />Upsetting the apple cart</h3>
<br />
What this is <i>really</i> about is that left-wing voices and ideologies are now heard. For a while, a good long while, the powers-that-be were unable to silence them. Political discourse and journalism were no longer merely the realm of cold, distant and passionless words - of facts and figures voiced by a disassociated clique, to whom small matters like poverty, starvation, war and injustice are just words in a conversation. Referenced as flippantly as anyone else might 'tea & cake'.<br />
<br />
Emotions, passion, righteous anger... these are things most distasteful to the privileged and moneyed classes, who really just wish the plebs would shut-up.<br />
<br />
The independent online journalism 'epidemic' really started with left-wing blogs and activists, mostly since 2010: when openly hard-line Conservative politics again took root in Britain. The left-wing started to fight-back. The wide availability of information meant that those who paid attention started recognising lies, and asking questions. They gained traction. Skip forward five years, we had a genuinely socialist leader of the Labour party in Jeremy Corbyn. Then, despite every effort of the right-wing and mainstream press to destroy him, the activists and independent left-wing press who championed him (of which I'd consider myself a very small part) almost upset the apple cart at the 2017 General Election.<br />
<br />
The 'noise' has only ramped up in the last few years because the right-wing caught up. The likes of <i>The Daily Mail, The Sun</i> and <i>The Express we</i>re losing their grip, so the same factions started making their presence felt on social media - perhaps even more effectively. The left and centre weren't at all ready for the level of callous dishonesty and unashamed manipulation they'd employ, which is how we ended up with Brexit, and Trump. The angry clash between the two parties on both sides of the Atlantic has been making one helluva din ever since, and social media insanely toxic.<br />
<br />
<h3>
'Woke' populations</h3>
<br />
It's hardly surprising that 'woke' populations, aware of the corruption rife among those supposedly governing in their interests, go hand in hand with civil unrest.<i> </i>It's a legitimate and justifiable response. It's also how humankind and civil rights made progress, mostly in the twentieth century - when rich men and dictators robbed millions of everyday people of their lives, in a grandiose game of chess. The free press and freedom of information played a big part in that progress, which in turn is now amplified beyond imagination by social media.<br />
<br />
However, <i>now </i>the suggestion and general feeling is that instead of embracing truth and justice like we did in the past, being informed is actually a <i>bad</i> thing. No, we all need to go back to being 'ambivalent'. Eg: instead of visibly addressing widespread malcontent, the establishment's answer is to forcibly shut our eyes, and tell us not to care. <i>To let them get on with it. </i><br />
<br />
Nor is it coincidence that it's happening precisely as we concurrently see the beginnings of assault on education and learning in Britain. Smart, well informed people rock the boat. (The French Revolution began in universities, after all.)<br />
<br />
<h3>
The real target</h3>
<br />
Social media news has certainly engaged younger generations in ways that newspapers always struggled. They generally only appealed to 'boring elites' in suits, and people looking for gossip and/or tits on page three. That youth engagement is <i>incredibly</i> dangerous to an establishment that actively relies on little people just accepting their lot in life, and not paying much attention.<br />
<br />
If the wide availability of news and information on Facebook is shut-down, or at very least severely hamstrung, the right-wing press will <i>survive</i>. Rupert Murdoch will <i>survive.</i> Those who've always controlled the flow of information will <i>survive</i>. The large corporations who profit on misery will <i>survive</i>. Left-wing causes may not. It's a very deliberate step to silence the likes of <i>The Canary, Evolve Politics, Sqwawk Box, Another Angry Voice</i>, and also more 'respected' left-wing varieties like the <i>Huffington Post, The Independent, </i>and <i>The New European. </i>Not to mention little old blogs like mine too. Eg: those who rely on social media circulation.<i> </i><br />
<br />
Yes a few publications like <i>Westmonster</i> and <i>Media Guido</i> might get taken down with us, but there's more than enough bile and spin to take their place. The BBC alone have probably got it covered. Social media news allows the populace to decide what's important and what's not: it interrupts the intended news cycle of what we're supposed to forget, or simply not notice. (Grenfell survivors, for example, would have been long forgotten without the advent of social media activism. And Toby Young would now be in office. <i>Two drops in an ocean.</i>)<br />
<br />
So as much as many of us would prefer to rewind the clock, back to before the world chose insanity, and no-one cared too much for politics...back to when Facebook was just for funny videos and pictures of cats, please friends don't be <i>too</i> quick to condemn us to the potential darkness of ignorance and easy manipulation. The only 'clamp-down' should be upon those who disseminate false, unverified, and unsubstantiated material.<br />
<br />
Because of course, the simply <i>huge</i> elephant in the room, is the only people who get political updates on Facebook any way, are those who've actively <i>chosen</i> to see them. Anyone who wants to clean up their timeline and/or bury their head in the sand, can already do so very easily.<br />
<br />
What Zuckerberg, or those pulling his strings seem to be removing, is that very ability to choose. I'm not sure I can celebrate that.<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07076569934619669616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1687443482145902241.post-50291579910741499422018-01-11T18:54:00.002+00:002018-01-11T19:49:23.857+00:00PLEASE STOP HARPING ON ABOUT LIB DEM "BETRAYAL". BLAME THE ORGAN GRINDER, NOT THE MONKEY.<script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
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<br />
<br />
I just don't get it. It's infuriating. The same old lines about "betrayal", and how Lib Dems must never be trusted again. It's so absolutist, and so tiresome.<br />
<br />
Let me break it down simply.<br />
<br />
Dave and Nick rent a house together. Dave pays dramatically more of the rent than Nick and has a much higher regular income, but Nick has the initial lump sum to pay the deposit. Without Dave's greater income, never could Nick afford to live in that house, but without Nick, Dave can't quite get the house either. They both need it to get to work easily. So they do a deal.<br />
<br />
Yes they play friendly and try to get along initially, compromise where possible, but the imbalance becomes very obvious very quickly. Nick later finds out Dave is a right bastard. Which one of them do you think gets final say in the house? Will Nick get any say in anything at all really, when Dave takes very obvious pleasure in pointing out<i> he </i>has all the money, and <i>he</i> pays all the bills?<br />
<br />
No is the answer.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>“The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mould. The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbour creates a war betwixt princes.”</b><b>― Michel de Montaigne</b></blockquote>
<br />
What I'm trying to say, is the analogy of an everyday situation like a 'house share' possibly isn't as daft as it might first appear.<br />
<br />
If you don't like that analogy, how about the Bible? Where does it say that if a party/person or organisation makes a mistake, they can categorically never be trusted again? Or their words should cease to carry any worth at all?<br />
<br />
On the contrary, in the words of Jesus Christ, our (alleged) Lord and saviour:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><br />"Let he without sin cast the first muthaf**king stone."</b></blockquote>
<br />
Okay, I may be paraphrasing slightly, but you get the point.<br />
<br />
I refuse to bow to this idea we must all follow one party and/or leader blindly, rather than judging by the policies they propose and what physically comes out their mouths. That is tribalism, plain and simple.<br />
<br />
Am I a fan of Tony Blair? <i>No.</i> Did I agree with his role in the Iraq war, or somehow condone it? <i>Not in the slightest.</i> Do I think he was virtually a Tory in disguise? <i>Yes.</i> (But hey, at least he was that now sorely missed breed of Tory who merely pursued wealth as the end-goal, as opposed to these hard-right ideological Tories we now face.)<br />
<br />
However, do I also think he's saying some sensible things about Brexit, and the future of this country? <i>Yes, yes I do. </i>And I do sorely miss the days when a British statesman of gravitas could put Nigel Farage in his place, like this:<br />
<blockquote class="twitter-video" data-lang="en">
<div dir="ltr" lang="en">
I know some people hate Blair, but I came across this of him giving Farage a good talking to in EU Parliament.<br />
<br />
“You sit with our country’s flag. You do not represent our country’s interests. This is the year 2005, not 1945! We’re not fighting each other anymore”<br />
<br />
Then came DC. <a href="https://t.co/wHToTsEyk6">pic.twitter.com/wHToTsEyk6</a></div>
— Damon Evans (@damocrat) <a href="https://twitter.com/damocrat/status/950771268558688261?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 9, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
<br />
<br />
As much as I support Corbyn in many regards, certainly his ethics, I shall not be sucked into refusing to acknowledge what other reasonable and pragmatic people have to say, labelling them "scum" and "traitors" etc on account of mistakes made by former leaders, back before Brexit was even an issue. It's senseless.<br />
<br />
Though in fairness, Lib-Dem supporters and many ardent remainers are just as rude and dismissive about Corbyn too. It's just such a bloody mess, and <i>very</i> depressing.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile the Brexiters and far-right are cackling, rolling around in the spoils of our demise.<i> </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<br />
<h3>
Suing the doorman</h3>
<i><br /></i>
<i>It's just so bizarre. </i>Some Labour supporters apparently hate the Lib Dems and resent them <i>so </i>much, and vice versa, they're both effectively willing to give a free pass to the party that physically caused all the woes! <i>Like suing the doorman, rather than the owner of the company that screwed you.</i><br />
<br />
It seems to me that reasonable western populaces needs to wake up sharpish, and remember the meaning of 'compromise'. To take stock of the fact that sometimes those we disagree with, or even oppose, might have a point and be right about <i>some</i> things. We need to stay talking, acknowledging shades of grey; not become polarised into two teams of mortal enemies on single principles alone. That way lies ruin.<br />
<br />
The minute you stop listening to someone on account of who they are or something they once did, as opposed to the merit of what they say, you're in very shady and prejudiced territory. Prejudice never benefits an informed or rational analysis. <i>Ever.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07076569934619669616noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1687443482145902241.post-63339270210649744412018-01-11T13:12:00.000+00:002018-01-11T13:22:24.215+00:00DEAR LUVVIE FRIENDS WORKING IN MUSICAL THEATRE, PLEASE LIGHTEN UP A TAD? <div class="tr_bq">
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<br />
<br />
I must admit to being slightly amused by various friends and former colleagues in Musical Theatre being up-in-arms about <b><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/10/les-miserables-without-the-music-i-dreamed-a-dream-and-it-came-true" target="_blank">an article in <i>The Guardian</i></a> </b>yesterday, where writer Stuart Heritage lays into the genre in admittedly, quite brutal fashion:<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
It's probably no coincidence that I really liked it! The success of Frankie Boyle's writing for <i>The Guardian</i> has obviously rubbed off here. And I say bravo.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>"Maybe we’ll get to see a musicless version of Cats, where some cats introduce themselves and then nothing else happens."</b></blockquote>
That genuinely made me laugh out loud.<br />
<br />
Luvvie friends, <i>please</i>. It's clearly a comic article, pitched in the most insulting way possible for comic effect. A style I'm rather partial to myself. Please <i>please</i> ditch the outrage.<br />
<br />
A lot of people hate musicals,<i> deal with it</i>. For those who do, this piece is undeniably rather funny. Similarly, anyone who <i>likes</i> musicals is not going to stop going to see them or suddenly start hating them as a result of this chap sharing his opinion. Are former colleagues really suggesting that a writer shouldn't be free to take the mick, or publish his/her thoughts on a very much Marmite art-form? <i>Really?</i> And on account of what...their sense of personal offence?<br />
<br />
Dare I say, the overreaction seems a tad 'snowflakey'.<br />
<br />
Whereas that's normally a jeer by the soulless right-wing to describe anyone with the vaguest sense of compassion or decency, in this instance, I'd have to say it does actually demonstrate the derisory 'limp and weak' qualities they mock. I don't think it helps the perceived 'liberal' cause or credibility, being brutally honest.<br />
<br />
On a personal note, even my partner Lucy and I - who both trained in Musical Theatre at one of the country's top drama schools and even knew perhaps fifty percent of the supporting cast - could not sit through the <i>Les Miserables</i> film. Sorry guys.<br />
<br />
The truth is, we turned it off after twenty minutes. It was genuinely traumatic; the equivalent of audio-visual self-harm. Director Tom Hooper's decision to have the cast over-act like they were on stage, and glower down the camera lens singing, was truly one of the most horrific things I've ever witnessed on celluloid.<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>"Do you hear the people sing?" </i>Yes. In fact I still have nightmares about it.<br />
<br />
<i><br /></i>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07076569934619669616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1687443482145902241.post-20680912427108145182018-01-10T11:43:00.001+00:002018-03-19T09:35:40.024+00:00MY PLEA TO VINCE CABLE & THE LIB DEMS: "DITCH THE SMEAR, AND KNOW YOUR ENEMY".<script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
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<br />
Dear Vince Cable, and the Liberal Democrats.<br />
<br />
This morning, I encountered this video from you on social media:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="655" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Flibdems%2Fvideos%2F10156088285638270%2F&show_text=1&width=476" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" width="476"></iframe>
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<br />
I have a few things to say about it, and hope someone from the party might pay them heed.<br />
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I am a swing Labour/Lib Dem voter. And I've also written for two of the publications that unequivocally helped Corbyn garner support in the UK against considerable odds - those supposedly odious and untrustworthy publications <i>The Canary</i>, and <i>Evolve Politics</i>. I eventually parted company with them for a number of reasons, but partially because of my inclination for the centre ground, the Lib Dems, and my preference for more moderate centre-ground politics. (Not to mention I follow policies, not a cult of celebrity.)<br />
<br />
I've written pieces that defended the Lib Dems, and Nick Clegg specifically, that have often literally alienated me from Labour supporters, and <b><a href="http://macs-mouth.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/the-knighthood-of-nick-clegg-ill-fated.html" target="_blank">one even got me blocked by Momentum</a></b> members.<br />
<br />
So please believe me when I say, as someone who supports you, this sort of social media campaigning is remarkably lack-lustre, and simply won't cut it in modern day political discourse. Not in Britain in 2018. You need to be fighting a battle for the soul of this country. There is a war for hearts and minds occurring, in case you hadn't noticed! A cutesy little piano 'Maple Leaf Rag' and a demeaning pic of the opposition leader, with a list of supposedly awful things he did, is really quite a shocking effort.<br />
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In short... ditch the smear, and know your enemy??<br />
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For God's sake, please focus on what the Tories have done wrong, the countless ways they've ravaged our country, and the things you'd do to save our necks. You need to realise that Corbyn now, bizarrely, really<i> is</i> like Obi-Wan Kenobi... the more you try to strike him down, the more powerful he will become.<br />
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I think you also may need some 'big-guns' willing to help you properly engage in this social media war. Someone not afraid to cut to the nub of issues in fairly frank fashion, to tug on heart-strings. (Someone like me, and I'm available by the way.) People may want gentler, more humanist politics in the UK, but they're getting increasingly angry about their absence, and sometimes you need to fight for decency. Scoring points that are small-fry, the politics of inter-party bickering:...the British people are bored of it, it's not what they want to hear. The Tories too were snooty about independent online/grass-roots journalism and its effects, and it nearly cost them the election in 2017. Now they've wised up, and are getting in on the act too. The Lib Dems need to as well, if they are to have any hope to survive.<br />
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I've been a Lib Dem voter all of my life; only in recent times have I swung and supported Labour. I support most of Corbyn's policies in truth, other than his position on Europe and defence, but more than anything, I recognise he is a good man. That is why your smear tactics will inevitably fail. (As did Murdoch's and Dacre's.) I also recognise Labour are in an impossible situation: if they come out clearly against Brexit, we WILL have a Tory Brexit, of that there is no doubt. Corbyn walks a precarious path. While there is ambiguity, both remainers and leavers have a reason to vote for Corbyn: opposition to the Tories. They are forced to judge on factors other than Brexit. Take that away, and sit back and watch support for the Tories spike beyond recognition, and maybe even the return of UKIP.<br />
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You guys really need to stop scoring points, and start making allies of one another. Along with the Greens, the SNP, and Plaid Cymru... anyone and anything to stop this Tory coup of Britain. SO many people are praying for it to happen; I wish the Lib Dems and Labour would see it.<br />
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Yours faithfully,<br />
<br />
Alex McNamara<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07076569934619669616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1687443482145902241.post-60957942860481834832018-01-09T13:22:00.001+00:002018-01-09T21:12:32.792+00:00MUSIC TODAY: ROCK STARS SUING POP STARS FOR PLAGIARISING SONGS THEY PLAGIARISED<script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
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<br />
It's nice to talk about something other than politics occasionally.<br />
<br />
Although I suppose, if one were intent on being a real pedant, everything we talk about and discuss are 'politics' of some variety. Even the porn industry doubtlessly has its politics. Though admittedly, you're less likely to find them discussed in <i>The Sunday Times</i>.<br />
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<h3>
Rock star sues pop star</h3>
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I read this morning that <i>Radiohead</i> are suing Lana Del Ray for ripping off their song 'Creep': a song I happen to know rather well, and loved dearly as a kid. Apparently Ms Ray's song 'Get Free' was more than a bit reminiscent of the Oxford-born misery-peddlers' original masterpiece. But that's not something we're unaccustomed to today, is it?<br />
<br />
As a man approaching thirty-nine, I can safely say the ageing process brings with it select joys, such as nasal hair, random strands sprouting from your ears, aching joints, and the inability to walk up stairs without farting. But also a keen ear for popular music that's been ripped off by whippersnappers.<br />
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Musical plagiarism is something I'm torn about. I trained as a musician for the entirety of my childhood education and beyond; I'd also say my musical tastes are pretty eclectic by anyone's standards. And as any self-respecting music fan would probably have to acknowledge,<i> nearly everyone has borrowed something from someone else.</i> I remember the day I discovered one of Andrew Lloyd Webber's most iconic theme tunes - 'The Phantom of the Opera' motif - was nicked pretty much directly from <i>Pink Floyd</i>'s 'Echoes': it was quite a revelation, and one I hadn't expected.<br />
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But listening to other musicians is how budding musicians develop and grow. Hell, it's how most things develop! It's called progress. Houses and buildings constructed today are built upon the architecture of previous generations. Cars today are based on older ones that originated in the early Twentieth Century. It's a very natural order for things. The saying "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" holds true in many situations, not least in music. And I'd generally hate to think that any musician or author should hold rights to a good chord progression simply because they got there first; there's only so many physically possible for a start.<br />
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<h3>
'Self determined'</h3>
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The other thing is, not all musicians are songwriters - some don't possess that gift, and/or instead follow careers as performers, performing the work of others. For some reason this is perfectly acceptable if you're a classical or jazz musician, performing the works of Bach or Miles Davis, but if you choose more recent popular music... still in living memory, there's often a peculiar snobbery about it. Especially in the UK. <i>I know. </i>I sang in the number-one 'tribute band' in the world for five years, selling out arenas and theatres worldwide...outselling even 'legitimate' bands I loved growing up - something that often astounded me. But there was still always that stigma of being 'cheap knock-offs' in Britain - where we as a population are generally spoiled, self-entitled, overly hostile, critical of those with talents far exceeding our own, and keen to put down anyone and everyone we can.<br />
<br />
Sorry. What I mean to say is, we're 'self determined'.<br />
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The point is, I'm not averse to musical ideas being re-formed and rebranded. In fact I rather enjoy it - in fact I possibly feel slightly smarter for being able to recognise the influences! So I was certainly rather shocked to read <i>Radiohead</i> are demanding 100% of the royalties from Lana Del Ray's song, 'Get Free'. That seemed a bit extreme. If Ed Sheeran can get away with re-writing/releasing <i>TLC</i>'s 'No Scrubs' under the name 'The Shape Of You' - and be on top of the charts for a whole frickin' year - how badly could Lana have ripped off 'Creep'?<br />
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Then I listened on Spotify. <i>Wow</i>. Fair play. As shameless plagiarism as it comes. <i>Bad Lana</i>.<br />
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It's one thing to borrow an element of a well known song... a motif, a rhythm, a chord progression, even a lyric.... quite another to literally 'borrow' the exact same chord progression for the entirety of the song and the same structure, not acknowledge the theft, then pass it off as entirely your own. Lana's vocal line in 'Get Free' is very different, but it's unmistakably 'Creep' underneath.<br />
<i><br /></i><i>Very bad Lana</i>. Or so I thought.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Taking the piss</h3>
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Keen to share positively <i>anything</i> worth discussing on social media that's NOT politics related these days (I'm keen to hold on to the few remaining friends I have), and knowing a fairly plentiful pool of musicians, I thought it was worth a sardonic post.<br />
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Lo and behold... literally moments later, a couple of friends corrected me - pretty much schooling my own musical knowledge. Musical education never ends; it's a beautiful thing.<br />
<br />
It turns out that 'Creep' by <i>Radiohead</i> itself was an incredibly blatant plagiarism of <i>another</i> famous, older song. A song that somehow, until now, had escaped me - called 'The Air That I Breathe' (no, not the <i>Simply Red</i> version) by <i>The Hollies</i>. <b><a href="http://entertainment.time.com/2013/08/22/11-suspiciously-sound-alike-songs/slide/the-hollies-the-air-that-i-breathe-1974-vs-radiohead-creep-1992/" target="_blank">And that <i>Radiohead</i> themselves were apparently sued for exactly the same thing</a></b> by the song's composers Albert Hammond and Mike Hazlewood!<br />
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Again, I had a listen. (From the consumer point of view, admit it, <i>Spotify is great</i>.)<br />
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If anything, the plagiarism is even <i>more</i> striking. Lana, or her production team, nicked the chords and wrote her own soulful vocal tune to go over the top. <i>Radiohead</i> nicked the chords <i>and</i> the vocal melody!<br />
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That makes the whole situation entirely ridiculous. You can't sue someone for plagiarising what you've obviously already plagiarised?! That's like doing a caricature of the <i>Mona Lisa</i>, then complaining someone else has done their own.<br />
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<br />
I do have admiration for <i>Radiohead. </i>No one paints musical despair and angst quite like those chaps, and it's often quite beautiful. A healthy respect for them too, given their support of <b><a href="http://macs-mouth.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/seeking-justice-for-scott-five-years-on.html" target="_blank">the fight for justice for Scott Johnson</a>:</b> the drum technician tragically killed in Canada in 2012. But come on guys... haranguing a young pop star for nicking a song you already nicked is frankly taking the piss. Take it as a compliment and move on. <i>You're rich enough, you're still making money from music today, and hypocrisy is a truly ugly trait.</i><br />
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They could have even been <i>really </i>cool, and offered to do some kind of mash-up.<br />
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One can't help but think of all the problems the world is facing at present, the vast fortunes both <i>Radiohead</i> and Lana Del Ray have amassed. The people struggling even to eat, or keep a roof over their heads. The doubtlessly exorbitant court costs and lawyer's fees incurred by the law suit, or the resources it will occupy instead of worthy causes and situations crying out for justice. And it leaves rather a sour taste.<br />
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On a lighter note, I now understand why every generation typically grumbles about the music of those later, complaining "it's all been done before".<br />
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It really has.<br />
<i><br /></i>
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