It was Paris that really did it for me. I had occasion to visit that city a number of times three, four, five years ago. Short trips, several days, staying with relatives of a very good friend of my wife near Metro Dupleix, fifteen minutes' stroll from the Seine. An opportunity to spend a little time with a certain excellent friend before he parted this world.
Ah, Paris. City of dreams, of romance in the spring. What a mess. It was horrible. The thing is that nobody, but nobody, seemed happy. Actually, that is not quite true. We ate once in a Turkish restaurant where the staff were pretty chirpy. But for the rest....
Paris seemed to be a city of uptight: in the streets, on the trains, everywhere. White Parisians all on edge. 'Les noirs', both immigrants and indigenous French, looked either suicidal (the introverts) or like they wanted to kill someone (the extraverts). North African and Near Eastern folk either worked to the bone and exhausted, or sulky and hostile-looking. Romanians hanging around in groups on street corners, or trying to swindle money from gullible tourists near the Eiffel Tower. They'd have been better off back in Bucharest.
What, oh what, had happened to this city? In London, things can appear passable, provided you are in that kind of mood. Maybe the outlook there is, and always has been, a little more genuinely cosmopolitan. But this? This mess? As I perceived it, nothing less than something of a human tragedy.
And amongst it all arose the question: what about the French politicians? The EU? Here we were, at the heart of the European dream; the European dream which is so convinced of its rightness that it sees fit to control, rule, regulate, interfere, in every nook and cranny of human life. Yet here, just where they are, maybe for once, actually needed, and they just stand back and do nothing. Let it all happen; let this mess simply unfold, or rather spill messily all over the floor. Something is up, though what exactly...… And that meagre portion of my soul which actually extends its reach beyond the narrow confines of my own petty interests into those of others' hearts and souls wept. Something very bad, very inhuman, was going on somewhere. The official narrative was just crap, or lies.
'Borderless' turned up just a couple of days ago. It already has over half a million views on YouTube, and this despite YouTube apparently trying to delete it. In fact, this attempt at censorship of inconvenient points of view backfired, as the 'censored' tag immediately got all kind of people interested who otherwise would never have heard of the film. Don't you just love it when 'silencing' people backfires?
'Borderless' is that rarity of rarities, a documentary which is actually based on direct, on-the-ground investigative work. Unlike the normal nonsensical collage of suspect press releases and Facebook posts from dodgy sources.
The film is Lauren Southern's documentary about immigration of the unofficial kind into Europe. It is, I submit, a courageous enterprise, and she is to be lauded. Lauren bends over backwards to simply present what she discovered to be happening on the ground, carefully avoiding theories about how and why this has all unfolded, thereby not leaving herself open to accusations of being a conspiracy nut by highly-invested parties (a caution that is not always observed here on Pale G.V.).
We all recommend this film highly - something which happens rarely hereabouts. Put aside ninety minutes and watch. It is, in the end, a documentary of compassion. And a note for those who still cling onto the 'payback time' justification for Europe taking unlimited oceans of people from other cultures: see some of the countries featured in the film which are deeply affected by the phenomenon. Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece, and a particularly poignant section on Ireland near the end of the film. These are not the big bad white European baddies of anti-Europe ideology. I never learned about the wicked Bulgarian Empire in school. I suppose you could make a case for Greece, but you need to go back to Alexander the Great, which is stretching things, even for ideological fanatics.
I include a link to Bitchute as well as YouTube, just in case the self-righteous ones have another go…..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ_fz9EW5lw
https://www.bitchute.com/video/ZQ_fz9EW5lw/
And if you find, as I've just done, that neither of the links work (probably my fault...), go to either YouTube or Bitchute and put in 'Lauren Southern Borderless'. No problem. Fred Flintstone-style always gets you there in the end.... I trust you will find it worth doing.
Monday, 27 May 2019
Tuesday, 21 May 2019
White Trash
Part One
Sadly, we inhabit a world where the version of life pumped out in the mainstream is institutionally prejudiced, chronically so. Racism, sexism, and the rest are rife. This can be amply demonstrated by the simple application of the call-and-response test:
'Proud to be black!' 'Right on, brother.'
'Proud to be woman!' 'All power to you, sister!'
'Proud to be gay!' 'So you should be. Go for it!'
'Proud to be white!' 'Racist! Supremacist! Nazi! And you're banned from Facebook from today.'
From the outset, we should note that all of this has little to do with the vast majority of people, be they black, white, purple, female, male, both, neither, or anything else. It is all to do with a certain ideological view of the world, pushed relentlessly like a drug by politicians and their partners-in-crime in the mainstream media. It is a bunch of bullshit, to quote Jim Morrison, but is aimed to befuddle and stupefy. It is a bad-smelling veil placed over the magical spontaneity of natural existence.
Two particularly curious facts stand out concerning this phenomenon. Firstly, although the hymn book states that it is all about promoting peace, harmony, equality everywhere, its effects are the opposite. It fuels resentments, stirs up strife, bad feeling, by constantly appealing to the baser sides of people's group identities, then pitting them against one another in the mould of victims and perpetrators. And secondly, this white-loathing doctrine is largely promoted by …. white people.
For myself, all this nonsense has had little effect personally; though it would be naïve to assume that will continue to be the case indefinitely. As a white English-born male who, for those keen on such labelling, comes with a middle-class background, I have my feet firmly planted at the bottom of the pile. Frankly, who cares? I get up in the morning, look at the sky and give thanks, before getting on with being who I am and doing what I do. On a social level, however, especially in the high-density urban environments which I have done my level-best to escape, it is toxic, creating social strife and doing great harm.
Having said that, there was one moment when the 'trashy white male' motif did get to me. It was back in the 1980s - the 'white European culture is bad' notion is not new - and ironically involves my time as a 'this is my passport to freedom' Buddhist. It was a meeting with a considerable number of fellow Buddhists, on a grim, grey January (?) Sunday. In Bethnal Green, East London. As well as our centres in Europe and other 'white culture' places, we had a growing number in India. Now, some of we British Buddhists didn't always come up to the mark. We - me included - tended to get despondent, ask lots of questions, have lots of doubts, take our highly complex personal psychology very seriously, and generally act miserably. We were a source of frustration for those few who really wanted to build a great Buddhist movement quickly and efficiently. A few of we western Buddhists would make the journey to India to help out. Those who went east would return with tales to tell.
So it was the thing at the time. At this particular meeting, one recent returner was regaling us all with details of his experiences. Of how, unlike we spoilt children of the western world, our Indian counterparts were always smiling, always friendly, always helpful, never getting tied up in their personal psychology. 'We' had everything while 'they' had nothing, but look at their positivity. What nobody mentioned (in fairness because they probably didn't know) was that, after a hard day's work smiling and being positive, half these Indians went home in the evening and beat up their wives.
Part Two
After you've had your centuries of exploiting us, it's our turn now. It's payback time, white boy. Such are the excuses sometimes put forward for putting the European white male at the bottom of the pile. I have heard these sentiments on many occasions. It's like a socially-fashioned karma (it's the universe that sees to karma, not humans, dummy. Whatever....). And it's not exactly white skin that's being got at - it's a particular culture, western culture, western civilisation. The root of all evil.
This is all mendacious nonsense from a number of angles. It's group identitarianism at its grossest. The idea of group karma is dodgy, reducing everybody to robotic units. I never exploited people in far-off countries, neither did my parents or anybody else on my family tree, from what I can tell.
In the USA reparation is the thing, I believe. Compensation to black people for the wrongs afforded by slavery (it might be rude to point this out, but slavery was abolished quite a long time ago). This continues to today, as a section of white American population's misplaced and irrational guilt complex seems to know no bounds. As a matter of fact, roughly 2% of white Americans of the time owned slaves. Which means a healthy 98% were stuck in the same boat as everyone else regardless of race, colour, favourite vegetable, or anything else.
Meanwhile, back here in Europe; in the UK; in Scotland. It's pretty much the same story.
Well south of where I live is found Glencoe, a great mountain cleft famed for things both light and dark. The glen eventually disgorges onto Rannoch Moor, a wide expanse of peat, bog, lochans which sparkle when the suns deigns to shine, and which ripple in the almost omnipresent wind. At the far side you encounter the enormous expanse of water that is Blackwater Reservoir. Like a long finger it extends eastwards, held in perilous check by the Blackwater dam.
The building of this astonishing piece dates to 1899 - 1900. Huge numbers of navvies were enlisted from all over, but Scotland and Ireland mainly, to carry out the work. Conditions were by all accounts appalling, with rude lodgings in the worst weather that Scotland could throw at you, and work undertaken for wages that amounted to next-to nothing. Such was the unremitting cruelty of life at the dam that a goodly number of workers perished under the conditions. There is even a graveyard to those who died, each individual marked with a rude headstone comprising a piece of local stone, which was opened up next to the reservoir to deal with the number of dead.
Follow the river flowing into the reservoir east for another short while and you arrive at the West Highland railway line. This was constructed a few years before the reservoir, in the early 1890s. It is a triumph of engineering, cutting its way through a variety of hostile environments as it snakes its way north then westwards. To cross Rannoch Moor, it is essentially floated. Like the dam, the railway was built under conditions which are, for me, unimaginable. Another hefty tally of deaths as a result of accident or mere extremeness of conditions. Further south, in Arrochar, is a graveyard to those 37 navvies who died during construction.
All of which I relate to make a simple point. All kinds of people have been treated badly - terribly - by other people at all times and all over the place. It is not a case of nasty white men having a go at nice black people, with some compensatory mechanism required. No. This is a political weapon, no more. If a generalisation is to be made, it concerns a minority of human beings behaving badly towards others in pursuit of their own ends. Whether those misused ones are black, white, or striped, is a matter of little concern.
In the dark corners of Highland history there is also the little matter of the Clearances with their forced emigration in the eighteenth century. Another example of white people behaving badly towards other white people.
Part Three
Well, it's been a bit of a rollercoaster over recent blog pieces, up hill and down dale. The pulse of energy which has connected these writings may be in the process of exhausting itself - or maybe not. Over recent times I have found myself increasingly guided by intuition. I have learnt to listen to this aspect of my being, and it invariably knows better than 'I' do what to do and what not to do. Or, more accurately, I have learnt to trust this faculty: it has always been at work, but I have been insufficiently aware of its presence, or viewed it with suspicion. It has been foremost in the writing of these bits and pieces. An inner voice has instructed me to dip into a certain pot, and here we are...
It all kicked off with freedom of speech, freedom of action, freedom to say what you think and feel. How this is the social atmosphere most conducive to spiritual gnosis, to discovering ones own uniqueness and its own unique connection with 'the divine'. Not to mention the basis of a positive human society (don't ask me to define what I mean by that...). This in turn led to the topic of censoring and shutting people up on social media, a phenomenon that has been rampant and accelerating no end over recent times. I avoid Facebook, Twitter, and similar like the plague, but many people do not. It is clear that a certain type of person is being targeted for silencing, and that a certain type of person is most zealous in this ignoble activity. Who the good guys are and who the bad has required a certain personal revision.
One element in all this is my difficulty in absorbing that some people really are nasty, and they are not necessarily the people who are portrayed as such in mainstream. To try and silence another person because you disagree with them and you think they might steal some votes which you'd like to have in upcoming elections is simply in my book downright nasty. Not acceptable in a properly human world, and one which likes to throw around words like 'democracy' and 'freedom'.
Most people who I know are decent folk, who value honesty, have a certain respect for individual differences, and are in possession of a certain integrity. So it comes as a bit of a shock that there are others who are not like that at all. Top of the list come most mainstream media, some politicians of a 'socialist' bent (noticeable in the UK: certain Labour Party members are at the forefront of this selective silencing, and they aren't even in government! Heaven help us if they win an election), some people who attract the tag 'far left', and some who consider themselves as 'social justice warriors' (SJWs to those in the know).
Somewhere in among all this I began to look into the phenomenon of Tommy Robinson, as the most reviled Britain of all by mainstream media. He and Trump are the twin horns of the mainstream media. 'Far-right racist thug' is the typical label. Nasty guy, it seems. So I decided to check him out a bit. I watched his address to the Oxford Union. I checked out his news website. I read his autobiography, 'Enemy of the State' (well, most of it). And you know what? He's not like that at all. Not really.
'Racist?' Seeing as how loads of his friends seem to be black, and he has fans and followers across the globe, not exactly. Thug? Well, by his own admission, he was a bit of a football hooligan in his day, and remains a feisty and sometimes provocative character. Yet he generally appears to act with restraint in the face of provocation on a daily basis these days. He is currently running for MEP, and is the subject of continual unpleasant harassment and attack. His condition is made worse by the people who should be protecting him, the British forces of law and disorder, who often seem to encourage rather than deter attacks on him and his supporters.
And 'far right?' I'm not sure what it means. But he has always dismissed anybody with a racist agenda from anything he has been involved with, including self-professed neo-Nazis and BNP members, who get short shrift.
More than anything, Tommy appears to be a patriot in a way that is almost quaint and old-fashioned nowadays. He thinks St Georges Day should be a public holiday, and that traditional British values are worth standing up for. Like Trump, he is not a globalist, and is prepared to put his head above the parapet to protest against things, particularly things Islamic, which he feels threaten traditional British values. It is the anti-globalist stance, along with his persistence in asking uncomfortable questions, which makes him such a reviled figure by the Establishment.
My own take on Tommy Robinson is irrelevant here. The important point is how he is portrayed and how he is 'dealt with' by a certain influential element within the edifice of power. For years, and ad nauseam, I have harped on about the mainstream media. But maybe a little aspect of me has continued to resist the inevitable: the complete and absolute discrediting of our time-honoured channels of communication. Maybe it's been too much to believe.
All this has, I suspect and hope, finally been changed. The last nail driven into the coffin of 'mainstream credibility'.
How much I may agree or disagree with what Tommy Robinson says and does is not the topic of discussion here. What is relevant is the extent to which I have seen Tommy Robinson misrepresented (a polite word for 'lied about') in the mainstream media - not just partly or a little bit, but pretty much relentlessly and absolutely in creating an image, a severely distorted image, of the guy. The lesson may have finally got through the defences of my own thick skull. It is the lesson that I have resisted learning, resisted absorbing into the core of my being: how nasty people can be, how dismissive of truth in the pursuit of their own (normally ideological) ends. And this, not in Stalin's Russia of the 1940s, but in Britain in 2019.
No more prior credibility for anything issuing from mainstream sources. Not a jot (apart from sports scores, which they probably won't get wrong). I should stop using this expression 'mainstream media' anyhow. They are on their way out, so I am told. 'Legacy media' is the more appropriate term. Or, as Styx has referred to them, 'lamestream media'. I like that.
Images: Top: A book you may or may not decide to read.
Centre: Blackwater Dam
Below: Train crosses Rannoch Moor
Sadly, we inhabit a world where the version of life pumped out in the mainstream is institutionally prejudiced, chronically so. Racism, sexism, and the rest are rife. This can be amply demonstrated by the simple application of the call-and-response test:
'Proud to be black!' 'Right on, brother.'
'Proud to be woman!' 'All power to you, sister!'
'Proud to be gay!' 'So you should be. Go for it!'
'Proud to be white!' 'Racist! Supremacist! Nazi! And you're banned from Facebook from today.'
From the outset, we should note that all of this has little to do with the vast majority of people, be they black, white, purple, female, male, both, neither, or anything else. It is all to do with a certain ideological view of the world, pushed relentlessly like a drug by politicians and their partners-in-crime in the mainstream media. It is a bunch of bullshit, to quote Jim Morrison, but is aimed to befuddle and stupefy. It is a bad-smelling veil placed over the magical spontaneity of natural existence.
Two particularly curious facts stand out concerning this phenomenon. Firstly, although the hymn book states that it is all about promoting peace, harmony, equality everywhere, its effects are the opposite. It fuels resentments, stirs up strife, bad feeling, by constantly appealing to the baser sides of people's group identities, then pitting them against one another in the mould of victims and perpetrators. And secondly, this white-loathing doctrine is largely promoted by …. white people.
For myself, all this nonsense has had little effect personally; though it would be naïve to assume that will continue to be the case indefinitely. As a white English-born male who, for those keen on such labelling, comes with a middle-class background, I have my feet firmly planted at the bottom of the pile. Frankly, who cares? I get up in the morning, look at the sky and give thanks, before getting on with being who I am and doing what I do. On a social level, however, especially in the high-density urban environments which I have done my level-best to escape, it is toxic, creating social strife and doing great harm.
Having said that, there was one moment when the 'trashy white male' motif did get to me. It was back in the 1980s - the 'white European culture is bad' notion is not new - and ironically involves my time as a 'this is my passport to freedom' Buddhist. It was a meeting with a considerable number of fellow Buddhists, on a grim, grey January (?) Sunday. In Bethnal Green, East London. As well as our centres in Europe and other 'white culture' places, we had a growing number in India. Now, some of we British Buddhists didn't always come up to the mark. We - me included - tended to get despondent, ask lots of questions, have lots of doubts, take our highly complex personal psychology very seriously, and generally act miserably. We were a source of frustration for those few who really wanted to build a great Buddhist movement quickly and efficiently. A few of we western Buddhists would make the journey to India to help out. Those who went east would return with tales to tell.
So it was the thing at the time. At this particular meeting, one recent returner was regaling us all with details of his experiences. Of how, unlike we spoilt children of the western world, our Indian counterparts were always smiling, always friendly, always helpful, never getting tied up in their personal psychology. 'We' had everything while 'they' had nothing, but look at their positivity. What nobody mentioned (in fairness because they probably didn't know) was that, after a hard day's work smiling and being positive, half these Indians went home in the evening and beat up their wives.
Part Two
After you've had your centuries of exploiting us, it's our turn now. It's payback time, white boy. Such are the excuses sometimes put forward for putting the European white male at the bottom of the pile. I have heard these sentiments on many occasions. It's like a socially-fashioned karma (it's the universe that sees to karma, not humans, dummy. Whatever....). And it's not exactly white skin that's being got at - it's a particular culture, western culture, western civilisation. The root of all evil.
This is all mendacious nonsense from a number of angles. It's group identitarianism at its grossest. The idea of group karma is dodgy, reducing everybody to robotic units. I never exploited people in far-off countries, neither did my parents or anybody else on my family tree, from what I can tell.
In the USA reparation is the thing, I believe. Compensation to black people for the wrongs afforded by slavery (it might be rude to point this out, but slavery was abolished quite a long time ago). This continues to today, as a section of white American population's misplaced and irrational guilt complex seems to know no bounds. As a matter of fact, roughly 2% of white Americans of the time owned slaves. Which means a healthy 98% were stuck in the same boat as everyone else regardless of race, colour, favourite vegetable, or anything else.
Meanwhile, back here in Europe; in the UK; in Scotland. It's pretty much the same story.
Well south of where I live is found Glencoe, a great mountain cleft famed for things both light and dark. The glen eventually disgorges onto Rannoch Moor, a wide expanse of peat, bog, lochans which sparkle when the suns deigns to shine, and which ripple in the almost omnipresent wind. At the far side you encounter the enormous expanse of water that is Blackwater Reservoir. Like a long finger it extends eastwards, held in perilous check by the Blackwater dam.
The building of this astonishing piece dates to 1899 - 1900. Huge numbers of navvies were enlisted from all over, but Scotland and Ireland mainly, to carry out the work. Conditions were by all accounts appalling, with rude lodgings in the worst weather that Scotland could throw at you, and work undertaken for wages that amounted to next-to nothing. Such was the unremitting cruelty of life at the dam that a goodly number of workers perished under the conditions. There is even a graveyard to those who died, each individual marked with a rude headstone comprising a piece of local stone, which was opened up next to the reservoir to deal with the number of dead.
Follow the river flowing into the reservoir east for another short while and you arrive at the West Highland railway line. This was constructed a few years before the reservoir, in the early 1890s. It is a triumph of engineering, cutting its way through a variety of hostile environments as it snakes its way north then westwards. To cross Rannoch Moor, it is essentially floated. Like the dam, the railway was built under conditions which are, for me, unimaginable. Another hefty tally of deaths as a result of accident or mere extremeness of conditions. Further south, in Arrochar, is a graveyard to those 37 navvies who died during construction.
All of which I relate to make a simple point. All kinds of people have been treated badly - terribly - by other people at all times and all over the place. It is not a case of nasty white men having a go at nice black people, with some compensatory mechanism required. No. This is a political weapon, no more. If a generalisation is to be made, it concerns a minority of human beings behaving badly towards others in pursuit of their own ends. Whether those misused ones are black, white, or striped, is a matter of little concern.
In the dark corners of Highland history there is also the little matter of the Clearances with their forced emigration in the eighteenth century. Another example of white people behaving badly towards other white people.
Part Three
Well, it's been a bit of a rollercoaster over recent blog pieces, up hill and down dale. The pulse of energy which has connected these writings may be in the process of exhausting itself - or maybe not. Over recent times I have found myself increasingly guided by intuition. I have learnt to listen to this aspect of my being, and it invariably knows better than 'I' do what to do and what not to do. Or, more accurately, I have learnt to trust this faculty: it has always been at work, but I have been insufficiently aware of its presence, or viewed it with suspicion. It has been foremost in the writing of these bits and pieces. An inner voice has instructed me to dip into a certain pot, and here we are...
It all kicked off with freedom of speech, freedom of action, freedom to say what you think and feel. How this is the social atmosphere most conducive to spiritual gnosis, to discovering ones own uniqueness and its own unique connection with 'the divine'. Not to mention the basis of a positive human society (don't ask me to define what I mean by that...). This in turn led to the topic of censoring and shutting people up on social media, a phenomenon that has been rampant and accelerating no end over recent times. I avoid Facebook, Twitter, and similar like the plague, but many people do not. It is clear that a certain type of person is being targeted for silencing, and that a certain type of person is most zealous in this ignoble activity. Who the good guys are and who the bad has required a certain personal revision.
One element in all this is my difficulty in absorbing that some people really are nasty, and they are not necessarily the people who are portrayed as such in mainstream. To try and silence another person because you disagree with them and you think they might steal some votes which you'd like to have in upcoming elections is simply in my book downright nasty. Not acceptable in a properly human world, and one which likes to throw around words like 'democracy' and 'freedom'.
Most people who I know are decent folk, who value honesty, have a certain respect for individual differences, and are in possession of a certain integrity. So it comes as a bit of a shock that there are others who are not like that at all. Top of the list come most mainstream media, some politicians of a 'socialist' bent (noticeable in the UK: certain Labour Party members are at the forefront of this selective silencing, and they aren't even in government! Heaven help us if they win an election), some people who attract the tag 'far left', and some who consider themselves as 'social justice warriors' (SJWs to those in the know).
Somewhere in among all this I began to look into the phenomenon of Tommy Robinson, as the most reviled Britain of all by mainstream media. He and Trump are the twin horns of the mainstream media. 'Far-right racist thug' is the typical label. Nasty guy, it seems. So I decided to check him out a bit. I watched his address to the Oxford Union. I checked out his news website. I read his autobiography, 'Enemy of the State' (well, most of it). And you know what? He's not like that at all. Not really.
'Racist?' Seeing as how loads of his friends seem to be black, and he has fans and followers across the globe, not exactly. Thug? Well, by his own admission, he was a bit of a football hooligan in his day, and remains a feisty and sometimes provocative character. Yet he generally appears to act with restraint in the face of provocation on a daily basis these days. He is currently running for MEP, and is the subject of continual unpleasant harassment and attack. His condition is made worse by the people who should be protecting him, the British forces of law and disorder, who often seem to encourage rather than deter attacks on him and his supporters.
And 'far right?' I'm not sure what it means. But he has always dismissed anybody with a racist agenda from anything he has been involved with, including self-professed neo-Nazis and BNP members, who get short shrift.
More than anything, Tommy appears to be a patriot in a way that is almost quaint and old-fashioned nowadays. He thinks St Georges Day should be a public holiday, and that traditional British values are worth standing up for. Like Trump, he is not a globalist, and is prepared to put his head above the parapet to protest against things, particularly things Islamic, which he feels threaten traditional British values. It is the anti-globalist stance, along with his persistence in asking uncomfortable questions, which makes him such a reviled figure by the Establishment.
My own take on Tommy Robinson is irrelevant here. The important point is how he is portrayed and how he is 'dealt with' by a certain influential element within the edifice of power. For years, and ad nauseam, I have harped on about the mainstream media. But maybe a little aspect of me has continued to resist the inevitable: the complete and absolute discrediting of our time-honoured channels of communication. Maybe it's been too much to believe.
All this has, I suspect and hope, finally been changed. The last nail driven into the coffin of 'mainstream credibility'.
How much I may agree or disagree with what Tommy Robinson says and does is not the topic of discussion here. What is relevant is the extent to which I have seen Tommy Robinson misrepresented (a polite word for 'lied about') in the mainstream media - not just partly or a little bit, but pretty much relentlessly and absolutely in creating an image, a severely distorted image, of the guy. The lesson may have finally got through the defences of my own thick skull. It is the lesson that I have resisted learning, resisted absorbing into the core of my being: how nasty people can be, how dismissive of truth in the pursuit of their own (normally ideological) ends. And this, not in Stalin's Russia of the 1940s, but in Britain in 2019.
No more prior credibility for anything issuing from mainstream sources. Not a jot (apart from sports scores, which they probably won't get wrong). I should stop using this expression 'mainstream media' anyhow. They are on their way out, so I am told. 'Legacy media' is the more appropriate term. Or, as Styx has referred to them, 'lamestream media'. I like that.
Images: Top: A book you may or may not decide to read.
Centre: Blackwater Dam
Below: Train crosses Rannoch Moor
Tuesday, 7 May 2019
Identity
So, identity. What is identity? It's a label, I suppose. A badge that we wear. It tells us who and what we are, and who and what we are not. It comes as a source of security in a perilous world, a fixed point in a universe where the sands are ever-shifting. It is a reference point to which we can return in times of uncertainty. It describes what we like and dislike, approve of and disapprove; what we think and how we think, what we believe and stand for. In extreme cases, it may remove the need to think for ourselves altogether: just refer to the ready-made booklet of personal identity. Take on an ideology, even better.
With our identity recognised, we can sleep certain and secure in our bed at night. Which is all absolutely fine, apart from one little thing...….
Identity is an illusion.
There may be a time in our earlier years when exploring our identity is a significant, possibly necessary, step. The moment arrives, however, when, particularly for anyone aspiring to a life beyond the pig trough, identity has to be analysed, understood, then softened, unpicked, dissolved. We have to open up - in Buddhist terms, see the impermanent as just that -, and resist the temptation to load this fantasy fabrication with too much value, too much weight. We exit the castle to enter into direct communication with the rest of the universe.
Dissolving identity, by the way, is not the same as 'dissolving the ego'. The word 'ego' is one of those infinitely problematic ones. But to the extent that it denotes a sense of self, it needs to be firm yet flexible; confident, strong. Paradoxically, it requires a strong ego to be able to safely dissolve personal identity. You need a good sense of who you are in a natural, spontaneous way before you can throw away the badges.
There is a point where even the identities which were long considered helpful and 'positive' have to go. Spiritual identity, for example. Being 'a Buddhist' was a good step (at least I think so) for quite a while, but eventually became an impediment. No such reference point needed any more.
There are people who seem extremely keen to stick an identity label on me. It is as if, without the badge, they find it difficult to know how to relate to another person at all (try - living direct, without veils). In recent times, I have been asked a number of times whether I am 'right wing'. It seems that believing in free speech and minimal government interference acts as an attractor to the 'right wing' label. No, I am not right-wing! I am not any wing. I haven't got wings at all, at least not in this dimension. I am who I am, full stop. Get over it.....
Identity, belief, ideology: three notions with much in common. All substitutes for real living. Jettison belief in order to communicate directly with Other. Chuck all ideology in the bin, and live instead from grace.
Part Two
I have in front of me a publication so slim that it barely qualifies to be called a booklet. It was produced in 1978, and is authored by my former Buddhist teacher. It is titled 'The True Individual'.
My former teacher always insisted that whatever he said could be connected back to the core, the root principles of Buddhism. In this he may or may not have been correct. Yes or no, I invariably found his most interesting, indeed 'enlightening', words to be those emanating from the more maverick side of his being.
The spiritual aspirant he likened to this true individual. This, in turn, was contrasted with the person who was merely a member of 'a group', or 'the group'. The distinguishing factor of the true individual was the emergence and cultivation of self-awareness, by means of which he or she broke free of the unconscious conditioning which bound them to the herd mentality of the group. Like the Tarot Fool, the true individual wandered free of the mass mind; the Buddha was the truest of true individuals.
To complicate matters slightly, my teacher also posited the existence of the 'positive group' (a normal group was assumed to be largely negative in nature, being unconscious and full of people who were easily manipulated as a result). The positive group existed to further the aims of developing individuals, a kind of launchpad and support system. Traditionally, a wider community of people supporting a monastic bunch of Buddhist full-timers might fit this mould. Personally, I find it all a bit questionable, but there we go.
He also elucidated upon 'love mode', which characterised the actions of individuals; and 'power mode', which was the more typical dynamic among group members. Then some smart ass began hypothesising about using 'power at the service of love', at which point the whole thing started to fall apart.
At another point during this period of Buddhist maverick teachings, my former teacher likened the Buddha - or a highly self-aware individual - to a ghost and a madman. Good images. The Buddha, the fully realised Fool, is slippery, elusive, ungraspable. There is no fixed identity to grab hold of and 'understand' (thereby imagining control over the situation). And in their unorthodox unpredictability, their transcendence of identities, they appear mad to those who are label-obsessed, those transfixed by the values of the group.
Part Three
Identitarian politics sucks. It's as simple as that. It continually reinforces folks' group allegiances, then pits them against one another in an eternal war of badges. Muslims against Christians, women against men, blacks against whites, gays against straights, fixed gender people against gender fluids, Muslims against the rest of the world. The list goes on.
It's a recipe for unending strife. Which is a bit paradoxical, since the official message is that it's all about some kind of equality, about bringing peace and harmony by making us all the same. Blacks given the same 'rights' as whites, gays the same as straights, and so on. But the result is precisely the contrary of a society of peaceful equality. People are encouraged to discover their (group) identity, nurse it, then take it as a weapon against the rest of the world. Disaster - unless, of course, your aim is to quietly encourage ferment, giving you indefinite reasons to introduce yet more controls and regulations on the unruly masses. Not that anyone would dream of implementing such a nefarious plan.
One group pitted against another. And the soup becomes still more poison since the dynamic is that of victim and perpetrator. One group of bastards behaving badly against another group of poor helpless victims. Victims: women, gay people, immigrants, blacks, transgender folk; all 'minority' groups, so the narrative goes. Perpetrators: white people and their cultures, especially white males, the big baddies in a world of otherwise lovely people.
It goes without saying that a world conceived of in terms of victimhood is not exactly character building. It frames people within a picture of personal weakness, and of being wronged. Rather than getting out of bed in the morning and taking responsibility for their own life. So we need rules, regulations, bannings, censorships, to help right these horrible wrongs. This is the substance out of which modernity with its identitarianism is wrought. Yes indeed, it sucks.
Saturday, 20 April 2019
More Words, More Words:Liberty
Part One
Here's another Penguin 'editorial note', written by one Helena Kennedy: liberty. 'Liberty is individual freedom, of which there are two forms: firstly, a sense of freedom and release from the chains of external control (negative liberty), and secondly an internal freedom of choice (positive freedom). This also entails the notion of self-determination, which leads to inequality with others. It can also involve the taking of risks, which may not lead to the desired outcome.'
Plenty to mull over there. One problem only: '...…. which leads to inequality with others.' The words 'equality' and 'inequality' are doorways to such a pandora's box, as to end up being meaningless, really. My own life is too short and precious to spend the rest of its limited span in discussion of the issues connected with these most vague and emotionally-propelled words. If we substitute 'difference' for 'inequality', we may get closer to the truth of the matter.
We can now begin to dimly perceive this strange reality: there are two distinct types of human being. There are those who see 'freedom', 'liberty', as the basis of a healthy human society, and as the axis on which human aspiration can be properly fulfilled. And there are those who see fit to control others; who are certain of their rightness, and furthermore seek to silence and otherwise disempower anyone who happens to disagree with them. We had a peek into this infernal world in the previous post.
These two types of being also manifest the broader meaning of the 'telestai/gnostics versus illuminati' dichotomy which John Lash describes, again outlined in a recent post. There are those who seek gnosis, and there are those who endeavour to lord it over others, be it out of nefariousness or self-righteousness. This is the focal division among human beings, I suggest. Not right v left, Christians v Muslims, Christians v atheists, or whatever.
Part Two
Any social/political notions which may turn up on Pale Green Vortex are a direct mirror of what, for want of a better term at the moment, I'll call my spiritual life. Not a term I feel completely happy with, but I don't want to get too nit-picky or literalistic just now.
My approach to 'spiritual life' is nowadays highly individualistic. Self-determination is the key. Actually, I've always been like that, it's only recently that I've become vividly aware of it. The individualistic flavour is only accentuated when one sees how much of 'the world' as described by official sources, by the mainstream, is a fabrication, designed to manipulate you and most likely lead you far from your own divinity. You're on your own, buddie, you're on your own.
Self-determination doesn't mean that you don't attend meditation classes, join study groups, have friends, meet and learn from like-minded people. All this may be what you need to do. But it's you, and you alone. You are unique, and any connection you may have with Buddha, God, spirit, whatever, will be unique as well.
I benefitted from a considerable period of living within a context of 'organised Buddhism', but the time came when I had to say goodbye to all that. I required the freedom to wake up in the morning and believe, feel, experience, do anything without bias, prejudgement, or preconceived notions about how life works. If I felt I needed to put pictures of Donald Trump, Teresa May or Lady Gaga all over my bedroom walls, I needed to be internally free to act without a little voice asking 'Yes, but is it Buddhism? Is it consistent with Buddhist principles?' Even the smallest voice putting the questions would have meant death to me. In all honesty, I have thrived since leaving behind any allegiance to a religion, group, movement, or what have you.
An 'aspirational soul' on its unique spiritual journey may survive, flourish even, regardless of the socio-political climate and system it turns up in: 'to gnosis' may be the destiny and purpose of that particular life, come what may. At the same time, different set-ups will encourage or squash that aspirational force to varying degrees. I haven't heard of a lot of Buddha-minds emerging from Soviet Russia.
I have done my share of trashing the shortcomings and inadequacies of modern western societies, I confess to that one. But despite their shortcomings, they remain more favourable to the individual than most others on the planet currently. Above all, there is - or has been - a recognition, at least a cursory nod of the head, in the direction of that most precious of attributes: liberty.
Part Three
It's a never-ending game, a game of cat-and-mouse. The forces that would sever us from liberty, that very simple freedom to think and say what we feel to be right; and the force of humanity trying to discover itself, to be its unique yet universal. Today, the bases of 'positive liberty' are under serious attack. With the cat out of the bag (lots of felines in this paragraph) in the form of internet spread of information, the dark controllers are desperately attempting to exert their authoritarian will and put it back in the bag.
In retrospect, it has probably been folly to go along with the incredible centralisation that has characterised the growth of internet technology. It means in effect handing over great power to a mere handful of gigantic tec organisations. This in turn makes removing an undesirable's voice all that much easier. But there we are, as Facebook, Amazon, and the rest, come down on those who refuse to play the game - which consists primarily of globalisation, counterfeit sameness, the cloak of multiculturalism, and silencing of dissent.
That a human being might wish to control another's freedom of mind, through restricting their free access to opinion and information, strikes me as ridiculous. It is one of the worst things that one can do to a fellow human being. 'Liberty' being the focal point of higher human aspiration. Conversely, it goes without saying that anybody wishing to control others will try to cut off the path to authenticity, realisation of uniqueness. We have 'climate change deniers'; we have 'holocaust deniers'; we also have 'aspiration deniers'. And they are out there in force.
Video link: Oh man, YouTube won't link to the vid. 'Video unavailable'. Must be a coincidence, folks, it's available. Go to YouTube, it's there. Search for 'Sargon of Akkad, To Honour the Dissidents.' 5 minutes, well presented, well worth it.
Here's another Penguin 'editorial note', written by one Helena Kennedy: liberty. 'Liberty is individual freedom, of which there are two forms: firstly, a sense of freedom and release from the chains of external control (negative liberty), and secondly an internal freedom of choice (positive freedom). This also entails the notion of self-determination, which leads to inequality with others. It can also involve the taking of risks, which may not lead to the desired outcome.'
Plenty to mull over there. One problem only: '...…. which leads to inequality with others.' The words 'equality' and 'inequality' are doorways to such a pandora's box, as to end up being meaningless, really. My own life is too short and precious to spend the rest of its limited span in discussion of the issues connected with these most vague and emotionally-propelled words. If we substitute 'difference' for 'inequality', we may get closer to the truth of the matter.
We can now begin to dimly perceive this strange reality: there are two distinct types of human being. There are those who see 'freedom', 'liberty', as the basis of a healthy human society, and as the axis on which human aspiration can be properly fulfilled. And there are those who see fit to control others; who are certain of their rightness, and furthermore seek to silence and otherwise disempower anyone who happens to disagree with them. We had a peek into this infernal world in the previous post.
These two types of being also manifest the broader meaning of the 'telestai/gnostics versus illuminati' dichotomy which John Lash describes, again outlined in a recent post. There are those who seek gnosis, and there are those who endeavour to lord it over others, be it out of nefariousness or self-righteousness. This is the focal division among human beings, I suggest. Not right v left, Christians v Muslims, Christians v atheists, or whatever.
Part Two
Any social/political notions which may turn up on Pale Green Vortex are a direct mirror of what, for want of a better term at the moment, I'll call my spiritual life. Not a term I feel completely happy with, but I don't want to get too nit-picky or literalistic just now.
My approach to 'spiritual life' is nowadays highly individualistic. Self-determination is the key. Actually, I've always been like that, it's only recently that I've become vividly aware of it. The individualistic flavour is only accentuated when one sees how much of 'the world' as described by official sources, by the mainstream, is a fabrication, designed to manipulate you and most likely lead you far from your own divinity. You're on your own, buddie, you're on your own.
Self-determination doesn't mean that you don't attend meditation classes, join study groups, have friends, meet and learn from like-minded people. All this may be what you need to do. But it's you, and you alone. You are unique, and any connection you may have with Buddha, God, spirit, whatever, will be unique as well.
I benefitted from a considerable period of living within a context of 'organised Buddhism', but the time came when I had to say goodbye to all that. I required the freedom to wake up in the morning and believe, feel, experience, do anything without bias, prejudgement, or preconceived notions about how life works. If I felt I needed to put pictures of Donald Trump, Teresa May or Lady Gaga all over my bedroom walls, I needed to be internally free to act without a little voice asking 'Yes, but is it Buddhism? Is it consistent with Buddhist principles?' Even the smallest voice putting the questions would have meant death to me. In all honesty, I have thrived since leaving behind any allegiance to a religion, group, movement, or what have you.
An 'aspirational soul' on its unique spiritual journey may survive, flourish even, regardless of the socio-political climate and system it turns up in: 'to gnosis' may be the destiny and purpose of that particular life, come what may. At the same time, different set-ups will encourage or squash that aspirational force to varying degrees. I haven't heard of a lot of Buddha-minds emerging from Soviet Russia.
I have done my share of trashing the shortcomings and inadequacies of modern western societies, I confess to that one. But despite their shortcomings, they remain more favourable to the individual than most others on the planet currently. Above all, there is - or has been - a recognition, at least a cursory nod of the head, in the direction of that most precious of attributes: liberty.
Part Three
It's a never-ending game, a game of cat-and-mouse. The forces that would sever us from liberty, that very simple freedom to think and say what we feel to be right; and the force of humanity trying to discover itself, to be its unique yet universal. Today, the bases of 'positive liberty' are under serious attack. With the cat out of the bag (lots of felines in this paragraph) in the form of internet spread of information, the dark controllers are desperately attempting to exert their authoritarian will and put it back in the bag.
In retrospect, it has probably been folly to go along with the incredible centralisation that has characterised the growth of internet technology. It means in effect handing over great power to a mere handful of gigantic tec organisations. This in turn makes removing an undesirable's voice all that much easier. But there we are, as Facebook, Amazon, and the rest, come down on those who refuse to play the game - which consists primarily of globalisation, counterfeit sameness, the cloak of multiculturalism, and silencing of dissent.
That a human being might wish to control another's freedom of mind, through restricting their free access to opinion and information, strikes me as ridiculous. It is one of the worst things that one can do to a fellow human being. 'Liberty' being the focal point of higher human aspiration. Conversely, it goes without saying that anybody wishing to control others will try to cut off the path to authenticity, realisation of uniqueness. We have 'climate change deniers'; we have 'holocaust deniers'; we also have 'aspiration deniers'. And they are out there in force.
Video link: Oh man, YouTube won't link to the vid. 'Video unavailable'. Must be a coincidence, folks, it's available. Go to YouTube, it's there. Search for 'Sargon of Akkad, To Honour the Dissidents.' 5 minutes, well presented, well worth it.
Tuesday, 9 April 2019
Book of Words
Part One: King Penguin
Yes, the book of words. The dictionary. An important book, I'd say.
It was one of Neil Kramer's less glorious moments. It hails from a few years back, when I listened to everything he put out, most of which was just what I needed. Anyhow, on this particular day he was in conversation with an interviewer, I've forgotten who, when the discussion turned to words and their meanings. They talked about dictionaries and their importance. It's an online resource now, they agreed, the dictionary. "Who uses a book dictionary nowadays anyway?" almost scoffed Neil, in tones usually reserved for Remainers when they 'talk' about Brexit people.
My ears perked up notably at this point. I use book dictionaries. You know, the ones that stand on the bookshelf. And I feel it is wise indeed to do so. Online resources are all very well, but they are so defined by 'now'. As meanings and nuances change, so will online definitions. Should we wish to understand a word more fully by checking its origins and former meanings, then a book is a far more durable witness to truth and reality than anything to be found online.
There are three dictionaries in our house which regularly come off the bookshelf. There is the English - French dictionary, which is just beginning to look a bit tired around the edges. There is the English - Spanish one which, due to the continued parlous state of my own Spanish-speaking abilities, has recently fallen into three pieces. And there is the New Penguin English Dictionary.
The Penguin is an interesting case. It's big, heavy, hardback. It came my way after my mother died about fifteen years ago. Printed in 2000, it is recent enough to still be current and relevant. Yet it hails from a time when people seemed more at ease to write what they actually thought and felt. The Penguin dictionary comes with a low fear factor.
A feature of this book which caught my attention is that some words are accompanied by 'usage notes' or 'editorial notes'. I came across a couple of these comments recently, which shed bright light on the implications or connotations of words highly relevant to today's human condition.
Part Two: Socialism's little problem
Penguin dictionary, Editorial note, by Professor Peter Clarke on: socialism: 'The social emphasis in socialism is shown by the fact that, in the 19th century, it was contrasted often with individualism rather than with capitalism. The democratic state apparently offered a means of achieving socialism by consent - a strategy to which social democrats adhered, despite electoral setbacks, while Communists instead opted for the shortcut of revolution and autocracy.'
The professor's note is revealing indeed. The primary aim of socialism, according to the editorial note, is the establishment of the socialist state. The means is secondary. If we need to go through this whole tiresome democratic process, so be it. But if the aim can be achieved otherwise, so much the better. The democratic process - the will, the wishes, of 'the people' - is irrelevant. This is the unresolveable paradox of socialist doctrine: that it purports to establish a collective system for the benefit of 'the people', while simultaneously regarding the wishes of those people as unimportant. I suggest that this brings to light the real aim of 'socialism', which is to implement an authoritarian system of collectivism, within which a small number of elites rule the roost over the vast mass of human insignificances.
'Socialism': we're not talking Michael Foot and Keir Hardie here. We're talking anyone who places emphasis on the collective rather than the individual. Who thinks 'Big State' as the means to achieving this end. Who thinks rules and regulations, orders and restrictions, over personal freedom, autonomy, and individual incentive. Interference and control as panaceas. We're thinking 'one-fit' politics where everybody is reduced to the same.
So we're talking about the politics of New Labour as it was, Tony Blair; Obama, Hilary Clinton; Macron, Merkel, the great wet dream of the EU; Nicola Sturgeon, Nick Clegg, now at
Facebook; centrist, 'respectable' members of the British Conservative Party. All fit neatly into this authoritarian mould. None have much respect for the individual's freedoms.
Freedom. Yes, freedom. It should be the most basic of attributes, or aims, of any decent human society. Yet freedom, and its waning mirror image, democracy, is such a fragile little flower. Hard-won, but so easily trampled on. Its erosion, and the lack of respect it gets in some quarters, are what provoke me to write about it in the first place.
Two recent-ish events stand out. Firstly, post-Brexit vote. Some 'Remainers' have shown their own true, rather ugly, colours in its wake. They haven't got their own way, and are not happy. This in itself is fair enough. But when people attempt to overturn the majority vote, or demand a re-run, or even simply dismiss all Brexit people as idiots or old fogeys, then they are playing the dark socialist game, where democracy can happily take second place to the more important end, that of staying in the EU. It is the crass arrogance of the 'socialist liberal elite', who are so certain of their superiority, that they will ride roughshod over the majority verdict if they can only find a way.
Part Three: No more words
Then, as well as Brexit, there is social media. The Thought Police, necessary for any jolly good authoritarian society, have been out in force. We knew it was going to happen. While the internet has facilitated the sharing of information and ideas in ways that were previously unimaginable, still it was inevitably going to be used to filter and shape what people receive and believe to be true. Especially once most of the world has, rather foolishly, become dependent on a small number of organisations as its source of nearly everything.
What started as a trickle has become, just recently, a Niagara. Banning, censoring, 'deplatforming' are the order of the day. The first high-profile critic of the mainstream to be taken down was Alex Jones. Tommy Robinson has followed, and there will be more. Anybody even bold enough to express support for these miscreants is at risk: Swedish independent journalist Katerina Janouch was recently suspended from Facebook after simply expressing support for Tommy Robinson's stance in an article on freedom of expression. It is ridiculous, laughable, and scary. 1984 in overkill. It's sometimes difficult to believe that this is happening right now....
This is the socialist mindset in feeding frenzy. Remember: democracy, freedom of expression, are optional; the end justifies the means. And if that means shutting people up, so be it. Nowadays people are not 'disappeared' by a knock on the door at dawn and a meeting with the firing squad: this does not bring in votes, people take exception. Instead, the authoritarian righteous ones feel fit to silence them by attempting to remove them from the public realm. Silenced, tongues cut off, those speakers of words and opinions inconvenient to the bigger programme.
Pressure from politicians and similar seems to often be behind much of this modern-day censorship. In the UK, various ne-er-do-wells from the Labour Party are especially zealous. 'Thug' (a word often used in the mainstream before Mr. Robinson's name) Tom Watson, deputy Labour leader, is one such, believing he has the right to decide for the population at large who they can listen to and who is forbidden.
Those under the cosh are invariably people of a populist, nationalist frame of mind. This is the big giveaway. People who dare to point out that the multicultural global society (read 'one-world socialism') comes with its problems. That it is not automatically for the benefit of all. Any other point of view is tolerated on mainstream social media; this is the one and only exception. It is being dealt with ruthlessly. Do you get the picture?
A particularly touchy subject is Islam. Just mention it and you will be deleted from Facebook tomorrow. It is Tommy Robinson's main crime, to criticise some aspects of Muslim religion and society. You don't do that any more. It's actually one of the weird things. Before 9/11, nobody really cared too much. Then, two apparently opposing things came into being. Firstly, we were informed that there were a whole number of terrorists attacks in and on western societies, all committed by Islamic terrorists. Simultaneously, it became increasingly bad to criticise or question anything about Islam, to the point where today it has acquired the status of a protected religion. While it is absolutely fine to have a go at Christianity, you utter a word of reservation about Islam at your peril. Can you get your head around this contradiction? It's just surreal. But people seem to get away with it.
To be yawningly clear, once more. This is not about whether Tommy Robinson is a good guy, or whether Islam is the perfect religion. It's about freedom to communicate, and by implication the dignity of the individual. There are those who consider themselves in a position to tell others what they can say, and by implication think. Which facts and opinions the public at large is permitted to hear. And there are other people who are not happy with this authoritarianism. Not at all.
And to be yawningly clear yet again: I am not suggesting that everybody who considers themselves a socialist, liberal progressive, whatever, adheres to the advancement of 1984 as I have outlined it. But it is a factor, and you can't get away from it.
That's it for now. Back with another juicy word shortly.....
Yes, the book of words. The dictionary. An important book, I'd say.
It was one of Neil Kramer's less glorious moments. It hails from a few years back, when I listened to everything he put out, most of which was just what I needed. Anyhow, on this particular day he was in conversation with an interviewer, I've forgotten who, when the discussion turned to words and their meanings. They talked about dictionaries and their importance. It's an online resource now, they agreed, the dictionary. "Who uses a book dictionary nowadays anyway?" almost scoffed Neil, in tones usually reserved for Remainers when they 'talk' about Brexit people.
My ears perked up notably at this point. I use book dictionaries. You know, the ones that stand on the bookshelf. And I feel it is wise indeed to do so. Online resources are all very well, but they are so defined by 'now'. As meanings and nuances change, so will online definitions. Should we wish to understand a word more fully by checking its origins and former meanings, then a book is a far more durable witness to truth and reality than anything to be found online.
There are three dictionaries in our house which regularly come off the bookshelf. There is the English - French dictionary, which is just beginning to look a bit tired around the edges. There is the English - Spanish one which, due to the continued parlous state of my own Spanish-speaking abilities, has recently fallen into three pieces. And there is the New Penguin English Dictionary.
The Penguin is an interesting case. It's big, heavy, hardback. It came my way after my mother died about fifteen years ago. Printed in 2000, it is recent enough to still be current and relevant. Yet it hails from a time when people seemed more at ease to write what they actually thought and felt. The Penguin dictionary comes with a low fear factor.
A feature of this book which caught my attention is that some words are accompanied by 'usage notes' or 'editorial notes'. I came across a couple of these comments recently, which shed bright light on the implications or connotations of words highly relevant to today's human condition.
Part Two: Socialism's little problem
Penguin dictionary, Editorial note, by Professor Peter Clarke on: socialism: 'The social emphasis in socialism is shown by the fact that, in the 19th century, it was contrasted often with individualism rather than with capitalism. The democratic state apparently offered a means of achieving socialism by consent - a strategy to which social democrats adhered, despite electoral setbacks, while Communists instead opted for the shortcut of revolution and autocracy.'
The professor's note is revealing indeed. The primary aim of socialism, according to the editorial note, is the establishment of the socialist state. The means is secondary. If we need to go through this whole tiresome democratic process, so be it. But if the aim can be achieved otherwise, so much the better. The democratic process - the will, the wishes, of 'the people' - is irrelevant. This is the unresolveable paradox of socialist doctrine: that it purports to establish a collective system for the benefit of 'the people', while simultaneously regarding the wishes of those people as unimportant. I suggest that this brings to light the real aim of 'socialism', which is to implement an authoritarian system of collectivism, within which a small number of elites rule the roost over the vast mass of human insignificances.
'Socialism': we're not talking Michael Foot and Keir Hardie here. We're talking anyone who places emphasis on the collective rather than the individual. Who thinks 'Big State' as the means to achieving this end. Who thinks rules and regulations, orders and restrictions, over personal freedom, autonomy, and individual incentive. Interference and control as panaceas. We're thinking 'one-fit' politics where everybody is reduced to the same.
So we're talking about the politics of New Labour as it was, Tony Blair; Obama, Hilary Clinton; Macron, Merkel, the great wet dream of the EU; Nicola Sturgeon, Nick Clegg, now at
Facebook; centrist, 'respectable' members of the British Conservative Party. All fit neatly into this authoritarian mould. None have much respect for the individual's freedoms.
Freedom. Yes, freedom. It should be the most basic of attributes, or aims, of any decent human society. Yet freedom, and its waning mirror image, democracy, is such a fragile little flower. Hard-won, but so easily trampled on. Its erosion, and the lack of respect it gets in some quarters, are what provoke me to write about it in the first place.
Two recent-ish events stand out. Firstly, post-Brexit vote. Some 'Remainers' have shown their own true, rather ugly, colours in its wake. They haven't got their own way, and are not happy. This in itself is fair enough. But when people attempt to overturn the majority vote, or demand a re-run, or even simply dismiss all Brexit people as idiots or old fogeys, then they are playing the dark socialist game, where democracy can happily take second place to the more important end, that of staying in the EU. It is the crass arrogance of the 'socialist liberal elite', who are so certain of their superiority, that they will ride roughshod over the majority verdict if they can only find a way.
Part Three: No more words
Then, as well as Brexit, there is social media. The Thought Police, necessary for any jolly good authoritarian society, have been out in force. We knew it was going to happen. While the internet has facilitated the sharing of information and ideas in ways that were previously unimaginable, still it was inevitably going to be used to filter and shape what people receive and believe to be true. Especially once most of the world has, rather foolishly, become dependent on a small number of organisations as its source of nearly everything.
What started as a trickle has become, just recently, a Niagara. Banning, censoring, 'deplatforming' are the order of the day. The first high-profile critic of the mainstream to be taken down was Alex Jones. Tommy Robinson has followed, and there will be more. Anybody even bold enough to express support for these miscreants is at risk: Swedish independent journalist Katerina Janouch was recently suspended from Facebook after simply expressing support for Tommy Robinson's stance in an article on freedom of expression. It is ridiculous, laughable, and scary. 1984 in overkill. It's sometimes difficult to believe that this is happening right now....
This is the socialist mindset in feeding frenzy. Remember: democracy, freedom of expression, are optional; the end justifies the means. And if that means shutting people up, so be it. Nowadays people are not 'disappeared' by a knock on the door at dawn and a meeting with the firing squad: this does not bring in votes, people take exception. Instead, the authoritarian righteous ones feel fit to silence them by attempting to remove them from the public realm. Silenced, tongues cut off, those speakers of words and opinions inconvenient to the bigger programme.
Pressure from politicians and similar seems to often be behind much of this modern-day censorship. In the UK, various ne-er-do-wells from the Labour Party are especially zealous. 'Thug' (a word often used in the mainstream before Mr. Robinson's name) Tom Watson, deputy Labour leader, is one such, believing he has the right to decide for the population at large who they can listen to and who is forbidden.
Those under the cosh are invariably people of a populist, nationalist frame of mind. This is the big giveaway. People who dare to point out that the multicultural global society (read 'one-world socialism') comes with its problems. That it is not automatically for the benefit of all. Any other point of view is tolerated on mainstream social media; this is the one and only exception. It is being dealt with ruthlessly. Do you get the picture?
A particularly touchy subject is Islam. Just mention it and you will be deleted from Facebook tomorrow. It is Tommy Robinson's main crime, to criticise some aspects of Muslim religion and society. You don't do that any more. It's actually one of the weird things. Before 9/11, nobody really cared too much. Then, two apparently opposing things came into being. Firstly, we were informed that there were a whole number of terrorists attacks in and on western societies, all committed by Islamic terrorists. Simultaneously, it became increasingly bad to criticise or question anything about Islam, to the point where today it has acquired the status of a protected religion. While it is absolutely fine to have a go at Christianity, you utter a word of reservation about Islam at your peril. Can you get your head around this contradiction? It's just surreal. But people seem to get away with it.
To be yawningly clear, once more. This is not about whether Tommy Robinson is a good guy, or whether Islam is the perfect religion. It's about freedom to communicate, and by implication the dignity of the individual. There are those who consider themselves in a position to tell others what they can say, and by implication think. Which facts and opinions the public at large is permitted to hear. And there are other people who are not happy with this authoritarianism. Not at all.
And to be yawningly clear yet again: I am not suggesting that everybody who considers themselves a socialist, liberal progressive, whatever, adheres to the advancement of 1984 as I have outlined it. But it is a factor, and you can't get away from it.
That's it for now. Back with another juicy word shortly.....
Friday, 5 April 2019
Get 'Im!
From time to time there appear characters who, it is deemed by the fair and wise, must be dealt with. Silenced. Obliterated from the public domain. People who speak truth, uncomfortably so; who arouse from sleep other people. Troublemakers.
One such was Jim Morrison. Unlike other icons of the age who were able to whip up a teenage frenzy, such as the Who and Rolling Stones, Morrison also came with a critique, a razor-sharp mind, when he wasn't completely out of it. He was demonised, wrongly accused of 'lewd behaviour', made to flee to Paris, where he died an ignoble death.
Timothy Leary was another. Pied Piper of psychedelia: drop out, everybody. That's not the right message; could not be tolerated. He rendered himself harmless in later years when he adopted the then-novel 'virtual realities' as his enthusiasm. Wilhelm Reich, another. Maybe his inventions were too close to the bone. He died in prison, a broken man, I suppose. You see, 'they' don't care whether you live or die; except that 'organised death' which does not appear to be caused by 'them' is preferable.
And today we have Tommy Robinson. Cut to the quick: hounded relentlessly by a bunch of authoritarian bastards. Nasty people, who preach tolerance, so long as you don't disagree with them. Shameless politicians try to get this sort of thing set up, and spineless pathetic social media corporations bow down before them. Friends, we live in dark times, in some respects at least. So much so that there will be more on this theme shortly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ny9bVn6Kf6g
One such was Jim Morrison. Unlike other icons of the age who were able to whip up a teenage frenzy, such as the Who and Rolling Stones, Morrison also came with a critique, a razor-sharp mind, when he wasn't completely out of it. He was demonised, wrongly accused of 'lewd behaviour', made to flee to Paris, where he died an ignoble death.
Timothy Leary was another. Pied Piper of psychedelia: drop out, everybody. That's not the right message; could not be tolerated. He rendered himself harmless in later years when he adopted the then-novel 'virtual realities' as his enthusiasm. Wilhelm Reich, another. Maybe his inventions were too close to the bone. He died in prison, a broken man, I suppose. You see, 'they' don't care whether you live or die; except that 'organised death' which does not appear to be caused by 'them' is preferable.
And today we have Tommy Robinson. Cut to the quick: hounded relentlessly by a bunch of authoritarian bastards. Nasty people, who preach tolerance, so long as you don't disagree with them. Shameless politicians try to get this sort of thing set up, and spineless pathetic social media corporations bow down before them. Friends, we live in dark times, in some respects at least. So much so that there will be more on this theme shortly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ny9bVn6Kf6g
Tuesday, 2 April 2019
Bad Bad Corporation
It was nine years ago, April 2nd 2010, just a few short weeks after Pale Green Vortex made its glorious entrance onto the internet. The BBC made its first most inglorious appearance on this site. I suggested that, rather than watching BBC Breakfast in the morning, you might be better off with kiddies' programmes. 'Bear Behaving Badly' was particularly recommended.
A lot can change in less than a decade, and not just ones personal perceptions. BBC Breakfast, Victoria Derbyshire, BBC 'News', Panorama, Newsnight and the rest: it is now widely recognised that nobody in their right minds will tune in to these trashy propaganda specials any more. The credibility of the BBC has plummeted, as have its 'news' and documentary ratings. Maybe there is a light at the end of the Kali Yuga after all.
I recently read a book on the topic. Yes, we seem to be doing books on Pale G.V. at present. Relatively hot off the press, it was: 'BBC: Brainwashing Britain?' by David Sedgwick. Familiar territory, I thought to myself; no sweat. It's actually quite a big tome. And with page after page after 387 pages of BBC 'news' and current affairs being inspected, dissected, analysed, I was in quite a strange mood by the end.
I knew that the BBC was bad. But I had failed to absorb just how totally, utterly, unremittingly bad it is. When it comes to 'news', that much-lauded impartiality is quietly and cunningly jettisoned. Instead it is socio-political conditioning that is remorseless and relentless, purpose-designed to wear down the critical faculties of the viewer. It's not that most of the content is fine, with just the occasional hiccup. Everything, but everything, is viewed through a particular-coloured lens: liberal elitism, cultural Marxism, socialist multiculturalism, power-addictive globalisation, call it what you will. It is there, unmistakeable, once you know how to look.
If you have ever read George Orwells' '1984', you have probably never forgotten it. If you have never read it, well, it's not too late. It's a nightmare dystopian future that Orwell conjures up. When I last read it, about five years ago, even then I found it rather exaggerated. No longer. David Sedgwick, the author, refers to '1984' frequently when describing the ideal society envisaged by BBC types, and the many underhand tactics employed in order to try and bring about their elitist authoritarian vision of society. Selection, omission, distortion, personal smear campaigns, invoking of simplistic good versus bad scenarios, careful choice of language designed to persuade and manipulate: all is everyday fayre in the impartial world of the BBC. Nothing is too low to use, provided it works. Fake news is the norm at Broadcasting House.
The author focusses on two themes to highlight the propaganda nature of BBC (mis)reporting: its ceaseless anti-Trump stance, and its equally ceaseless anti-Brexit pose. He could equally have chosen other topics, such as the BBC's 'coverage' of the themes of climate change and so-called renewable energy. It was my own dip into the realities surrounding these topics which initially alerted me to the strange interpretation of the word 'impartial' by the BBC.
None of what I have written is intended as rhetoric or exaggeration. For once, a Pale Green blogpost can be taken pretty much literally. So too the content of 'BBC: Brainwashing Britain?'. Unlike much of what comes out of Broadcasting House, it is properly researched, not depending on rumour, tweets, or press releases. The BBC is indeed a most dangerous organisation, and it is with relief that I observe how many other people are realising the same. I suppose that, in their increased desperation to perpetuate unsustainable narratives, the BBC's tactics are becoming increasingly obvious, increasingly stupid and over-the-top.
In describing so clearly the nefarious means by which the BBC tries to manipulate the UK populace, the book also provides the reader with valuable tools of discernment which can be used equally with regards to anybody else's 'news'.
So I'm going to heartily recommend this book. If every adult in the UK read it, the nation would become a wiser, better place, more aligned with honesty and reality. And Broadcasting House could be used for something constructive and useful.
As a postscript, the website of the book's author, David Sedgwick, includes his blog, which provides well-written worthwhile pieces.
A lot can change in less than a decade, and not just ones personal perceptions. BBC Breakfast, Victoria Derbyshire, BBC 'News', Panorama, Newsnight and the rest: it is now widely recognised that nobody in their right minds will tune in to these trashy propaganda specials any more. The credibility of the BBC has plummeted, as have its 'news' and documentary ratings. Maybe there is a light at the end of the Kali Yuga after all.
I recently read a book on the topic. Yes, we seem to be doing books on Pale G.V. at present. Relatively hot off the press, it was: 'BBC: Brainwashing Britain?' by David Sedgwick. Familiar territory, I thought to myself; no sweat. It's actually quite a big tome. And with page after page after 387 pages of BBC 'news' and current affairs being inspected, dissected, analysed, I was in quite a strange mood by the end.
I knew that the BBC was bad. But I had failed to absorb just how totally, utterly, unremittingly bad it is. When it comes to 'news', that much-lauded impartiality is quietly and cunningly jettisoned. Instead it is socio-political conditioning that is remorseless and relentless, purpose-designed to wear down the critical faculties of the viewer. It's not that most of the content is fine, with just the occasional hiccup. Everything, but everything, is viewed through a particular-coloured lens: liberal elitism, cultural Marxism, socialist multiculturalism, power-addictive globalisation, call it what you will. It is there, unmistakeable, once you know how to look.
If you have ever read George Orwells' '1984', you have probably never forgotten it. If you have never read it, well, it's not too late. It's a nightmare dystopian future that Orwell conjures up. When I last read it, about five years ago, even then I found it rather exaggerated. No longer. David Sedgwick, the author, refers to '1984' frequently when describing the ideal society envisaged by BBC types, and the many underhand tactics employed in order to try and bring about their elitist authoritarian vision of society. Selection, omission, distortion, personal smear campaigns, invoking of simplistic good versus bad scenarios, careful choice of language designed to persuade and manipulate: all is everyday fayre in the impartial world of the BBC. Nothing is too low to use, provided it works. Fake news is the norm at Broadcasting House.
The author focusses on two themes to highlight the propaganda nature of BBC (mis)reporting: its ceaseless anti-Trump stance, and its equally ceaseless anti-Brexit pose. He could equally have chosen other topics, such as the BBC's 'coverage' of the themes of climate change and so-called renewable energy. It was my own dip into the realities surrounding these topics which initially alerted me to the strange interpretation of the word 'impartial' by the BBC.
None of what I have written is intended as rhetoric or exaggeration. For once, a Pale Green blogpost can be taken pretty much literally. So too the content of 'BBC: Brainwashing Britain?'. Unlike much of what comes out of Broadcasting House, it is properly researched, not depending on rumour, tweets, or press releases. The BBC is indeed a most dangerous organisation, and it is with relief that I observe how many other people are realising the same. I suppose that, in their increased desperation to perpetuate unsustainable narratives, the BBC's tactics are becoming increasingly obvious, increasingly stupid and over-the-top.
In describing so clearly the nefarious means by which the BBC tries to manipulate the UK populace, the book also provides the reader with valuable tools of discernment which can be used equally with regards to anybody else's 'news'.
So I'm going to heartily recommend this book. If every adult in the UK read it, the nation would become a wiser, better place, more aligned with honesty and reality. And Broadcasting House could be used for something constructive and useful.
As a postscript, the website of the book's author, David Sedgwick, includes his blog, which provides well-written worthwhile pieces.
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