And now today – on the basis of this proposed Irish “deal” – there in no longer much faith in the Prime Minister to deliver the clean Brexit Leavers desire.
As I first suspected some five weeks ago, the Prime Minister has no real grasp of just how far apart Brexiteers and Brussels are in their definitions of ‘a clean break’ between the Disunited Kingdom and the European Bunion.
While the leaking of proposals given to Dublin are haphazard (and suffused with the usual EU dismissal of every proposal in it) one thing is abundantly clear: Team Boris is getting nowhere substantially beyond tinkering with the Irish question – ceding yet more ground – and is giving few if any signals that the 35 or more elephant traps in the May Withdrawal Agreementare being even studied, let alone rejected.
— Real-Estate Land Development Limited (@RealEstateLand3) March 5, 2023
JACOB
A country that is clear with its past is, according to journalist Géraldine Schwarz, less susceptible to populism.
If you want to learn from history, you must dare to look her in the eye – for Géraldine Schwarz, documentary maker and writer of the bestseller Les Amnésiques (The Memoryless) that is no empty words. Her German grandparents belonged to the so-called Mitläufer in the Nazi era: no war criminals or fervent National Socialists, but people who let it all happen. They also benefited from the expropriation of a Jewish business partner.“With the rise of populism in Europe, you also see revisionism returning, the manipulation of history for ideological use. Are we doomed to make the same mistakes after three generations? Indifference enables a regime to consolidate. The Third Reich was not there overnight, Hitler constantly looked how far he could go. The first deportation in Mannheim was a test. Some welcomed it, but most people shrugged and acted like nothing really happened. If the vast majority of the population does not consist of hangmen but of followers, what can we learn about them afterwards? That there are always ways to make a counter-noise being heard, even without your life being in immediate danger. And that you can also prevent certain developments, so that you ultimately do not have to choose. I think that we are in such a situation in Europe at the moment. Realize that you are not an unwilling bystander, that you can play a role in history as an individual. Often enough you have a choice. You just have to choose on time.”The Holocaust and fascism eventually made the Germans aware of the importance of their responsibility, individually and collectively, for a democracy. I see consciousness of the past not so much as a moral duty but as an instrument to protect what we have. Pluralism is the basis of a democracy. Among contemporary populist parties you have moderate and more extreme parties, but what they have in common is that they speak from an idea of “the people”. Anyone who falls outside of it is not regarded as a citizen in a democracy, but as someone who does not belong. The principle of pluralism is denied. I regard that idea of “the people” as offensive, because it is mostly about people at the bottom of society. People talk about them as if they only have one vote – that of hatred. ”Most populist politicians say that they are very democratic. “They use strategies already described in 1885 by the French sociologist Gustave Le Bon in The Psychology of the Masses, a book that has been eagerly read by Mussolini and Goebbels, and perhaps by Hitler. If you want to play the masses, he wrote, you have to make use of the fact that the way people experience things is usually not in line with reality. So: calling that our beautiful country will break, our beautiful civilization is in ruins. Creating the impression that Europe is hopelessly weak and decadent. That the catastrophe of the “population” awaits us. It is not a real point of view, the figures do not confirm that picture. “Second, according to Le Bon, you have to exploit people’s fears. We are currently in an identity crisis. That is not strange, given the globalization. Where do I come from, who am I, what role does my language, my culture, my race, my ideas play? Then the simple answer is: national identity. Then you don’t have to ask yourself further questions. The other form of identity, the more European version, is that you can decide who and what you are. As a counterforce that is difficult, because you say: I don’t give you identity, I give you the freedom to choose one yourself. ”“A hundred years ago Fascism and Communism tried to impose a single identity on everyone. Now you see the same attempt at manipulation, the freedom of people must be limited to one identity. We must be alert to parties in Europe who are going to tell us who we are. What Le Bon also writes is that in order to play to the masses you have to give people the feeling that they belong to a chosen group. A hundred years ago it was the Volksgemeinschaft. You see that now with the alt-right movement, then you are very special if you are white, heterosexual and Christian. And finally you have to blur the line between lie and truth. When people no longer believe in anything, distrust everything, they are easy to manipulate. That all sounds pretty up to date, right? ” This is what Britain looks like today.
Do you understand that desire for a good feeling? To a past with which one can identify positively, a feeling of being at home? “People need that emotion. At a European level, this bonding is difficult to evoke because the people are so different. People often have a special bond with their immediate environment, which can be very specific, their place of birth, their language, and their food. We should not be so frenetic about it. But that can very well go together with an idealistic project such as a united Europe, the need to cross the borders of our small world. We need both emotions. ”Without acknowledgment of mistakes, you cannot have peace with the past, with the victims, nor with the enemies of yore. That is a basic psychological fact. A mature democracy must be able to face the past. It is such an outdated idea that when you evoke demons from the past, you can only become less. Only using the past to make yourself feel good, to be able to glorify, really, that is something from the nineteenth century. ”Let us hope Britain will choose a path of history our future generations can be proud of.
JACOB
Roger G Lewis November 5, 2019 at 8:58 am # #ConquestofDough #NaziPug #AlisonChabloz #FreeSpeech #FreeTommyGiven that Britain’s 8th Eton-educated Tory PM gave birth to Brexit, whilst his classmate and 9th Eton-educated Tory PM is now expected to magically ‘deliver it’, Some still find it hard to believe that this all was somehow a political accident.Let me try to explain.Not a past event or future prospect, Brexit is better viewed a process of ongoing disruption of established political institutions, norms and procedures. Communicating via social media whilst shunning press conferences is one of them. Shutting down parliament is another one. Brexit is an idea and tactic, continuously testing the limits of what is constitutionally possible, demolishing established institutions and conventions along the way. The only relevant questions are: Is it legal? Can we get away with it? This is the new philosophy of government. This philosophy, which also guides Trump, Orbán and many others, does resemble the psychopath mindset of private equity asset strippers, who destruct to fill their pockets. In this sense, Brexit represents the total victory of a contract-based hyper-financialized world order. Although Brexiteers present themselves as challengers to the established order, adopting a democratic righteousness packaged as ‘the will of people’, behind the populist rhetoric are incumbent political forces at work – like those Eton classmates – set to break liberal democracy. Where decades of neoliberalism effectively put up the world for sale, giving rise to trillion-dollar companies and a billionaire class who have steadily corroded liberal democracy and the public interest, Brexit now signals the leveraged billionaire buyout of government itself. Hence, Brexit is Britain’s crowbar used to break down the core institutional framework within which neoliberalism was born, with all kinds of checks, balances and rights defining liberal democracy under threat by ‘lawfare’ waged by coopted strengthening executive power for sale. Think of Johnson’s prorogation of Parliament, which effectively switches off the legislative branch of government to create (extra-) executive leeway to deliver Brexit. Similar attacks on separations of powers and wider checks on absolute rule are visible across the west. Besides efforts to subject independent judiciaries and the rule of law to power-hungry executives, larger societal counter powers such as independent academia and media are subject to political intrusion, alongside a range of basic, constitutional and/or fundamental rights. Again, these processes are mainstreaming across the west. It does not signal the end of neoliberalism, but seeks to anchor preceding rounds of neoliberalization with political illiberalization, functioning as a protective coating to shield billionaire-class corporate capitalism. Taken together, this constitutes a profound geopolitical shift: in short, where the ‘illiberal’ non-west was once expected to adopt western liberal democracy following their embrace of capitalism, Brexit suggests that the west is now illiberalizing in the image of the non-west.If you include places like Hong Kong into the western basket case, you have another neoliberal city state par excellence resisting political illiberalization, in this case coming from the mainland. Five years ago, Britain and the US would not have looked away – now they do. Mind you, the non-west is illiberalizing rapidly too. Besides Xi and Putin having tightened their grip, states that more or less embraced liberal democracy over the latter decades – think of Turkey, Brazil, India, and many others – have recently taken decisively illiberal turns. In this sense, Brexit might be seen as (neo-)colonialism or imperialism coming home. The question is whether we could still label this emergent world ‘neoliberal’. I don’t think so. As argued elsewhere, Brexit heralds a global age of neo-illiberalism.Exactly. Once this is over, and we all look back, we might realize that #Brexit (understood as the nationalization of EU rules, which often functioned as templates for global standards) was about global corporate integration, travelling on the back of a faux nationalist project.In a few months the elite will have created the “isle of jersey” of the coast of europe.From Modi in India to Bolsonaro in Brasil, from Xi and Putin to Trump and Johnson, Right Wing nationalists worldwide are the political supporters of the global embedding of “surveillance capitalism.” The relationship is deeply symbiotic.Boris Johnson now rules out a Scottish independence referendum deal. This is Classic Johnson, to reduce the essence of democracy to an (ill-defined, non-binding, fraudulent) Brexit referendum, and then deny those operating logic elsewhere.
JACOB
What is your plan Roger G Lewis? Try to be as precise and accurate as possible.
I would advise you to look closer at what you are witnessing ….– ‘’ I would only say that the EU has led the charge and as such Remain or Leave are two sides of the same coin ‘’‘’Figuring out why has become a core part of Philippon’s academic research, and he offers his answer in a fascinating new book, “The Great Reversal: How America Gave Up on Free Markets.” In one industry after another, he writes, a few companies have grown so large that they have the power to keep prices high and wages low. It’s great for those corporations — and bad for almost everyone else. The European economy certainly has its problems, but antitrust policy isn’t one of them. The European Union has kept competition alive by blocking mergers and insisting that established companies make room for new entrants. In telecommunications, smaller companies often have the right to use infrastructure built by the giants.’’https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/10/opinion/big-business-consumer-prices.html– WEB 3 and P2P computing offers an unrivalled and further opportunity to raise awareness of the choices in the world. For my own part, I deal with what is connected to me and nearest and dearest and work outwards from my own centre which I try to keep grounded and truthful. On specifics, the Pen is mightier than the sword and HTML and JAVA Script with some love will conquer all.Our freedom will be systematically removed.“During my session I was asked about the biggest threat to the future of global liberal democracy. My answer was Narendra Modi” https://twitter.com/FT/status/1193846621269872640
Desktop journalism.. Author visits Bangluru, meets likes of @Ram_Guha decides that India is a Illiberal democracy based on assertion that @narendramodi would have ordered a riot if Ayodhya verdict were different, none of the 140m Muslims feels safe. And @FT publish the nonsense
Right now there is a very important effort to avoid Brino this comment is very insightful I think
Jan
November 14, 2019 at 9:00 pm
John the European super state was never meant to be a democracy. Look at the founding fathers in the Paneuropean Union the oldest European unification movement and the root of the EU. Count Richard Von Coudenhove-Kalergi, Crown Prince Otto von Habsburg and other names that are listed in the Almanach de Gotha. Their aim was/is the restoration of the old imperial structures in the form of a federal Europe, hence the creation of a toothless European parliament. The Paneuropean movement had the support of people like Charles de Gaulle and Winston Churchill who lauded the movement’s work for a unified Europe in his 1946 Zurich speech. In 1947 a group around Churchill, Duncan Sandys and Evard Benes split and the European Movement International was established. This movement rivals the Paneuropean Union which is more of a Christian Democratic nature but in essence has the same aims. In 2004 by the way the daughter of Otto Von Hapsburg, Walburga Habsburg Douglas married to a member of the Clan Douglas, Count Archibald Douglas became honorary President of the Intl. Paneuropean Union. So as this bit of history makes clear it was never the case of just walking away from Europe. The structure has gone up and the U.k. is part of it. A referendum was granted because of a miscalculation by the Bourgeois Boheme and now we are left in a muddle and none to vote for. We have now Tories 1 under Johnson and Tories 2 und Farage. The most likely outcome is remain outright or in stages. First Northern Ireland next Scotland and perhaps Wales and in the end England hoisting the white flag. Maybe I am wrong but I think Farage pulled the rug from under the Brexit movement.
Best regards
Jan https://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2019/11/14/the-people-cannot-win-this-general-election-but-they-can-triumph-in-broxtowe/?unapproved=846259&moderation-hash=21a025f17b69f0a78cc5b569d9d91cf8#comment-846259
(Among executive authorities, read sub-divisional magistrates and additional district magistrates – all famed for their independence and bursting with good faith and good intent, as every Indian knows). The Bar Council of Delhi goes on to term the transfer of judicial powers to the executive as “dangerous and a blunder.” And notes its impact on the legal profession: “It will substantially damage district courts in particular and uproot the lawyers.”
An interview with #Chrystia Freeland starts at 0750. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07k88qx
How will Brexit impact Britain’s ability to trade internationally? Chrystia Freeland is Canada’s trade minister.
For a great many of us in the industrialised countries, especially the relatively affluent and comfortable middle class, death and our mortality are something we have pushed to the margins of our lives. We are not used to the idea that death could come and get us.
When my kids were little we used to play a silly game. I taught them what Carpe diem (seize the day) meant. I would call out “‘Carpe diem’ boys” and they would reply, “because ‘tempus fugit’ dad!” (Time flies). We still do it when we see each other. It was silly then but less so now.
Now they are home from university slightly worried about their elder brother who has not made it home and about me and their mum and our elderly neighbour, Min. The very small worries of the affluent and safe.
On the news and in the papers we talk about the world changing but in reality it is only the world for a very few of us that is changing. For most of humanity, death never went away. The value of human life is not different in different countries, only its fragility. Perhaps remembering how fragile life can be will be a humbling lesson amongst all the grief.
KAVY
I’m finding these videos by Professor Donald Hoffman interesting. Professor Hoffman believes that space and time are created by our minds. The mind creates all physical matter, including our brains. No one can figure out how the brain creates an image: how does the physical matter in our brain generate an image that we can see? A recent article I read said that the brain was nothing like a computer.The universe seems to have consciousness built into it, and Donald Hoffman believes that is where our consciousness is coming from. He also believes that some sort of consciousness survives death. His theories use a lot of maths, which I find interesting. Evolution can be proven mathematical, and Dr Hoffman’s theories stand up in the maths too. It’s all purely academic, I agree.The Case Against Realityhttps://youtu.be/dd6CQCbk2roThis later one is even weirder.Is there an Infinite Mind? | Donald Hoffman Ph.D. | Waking Cosmoshttps://youtu.be/Az18Onc0e58
Kavy,
thank you for the links. I shall watch with interest. There is growing dissatisfaction with the narrower reductionism that insists the brain is a computer, and consciousness does not really exist. An intellectual rebellion I find invigorating.
Hi Dave – it’s been a while.Finding having more time at home than usual, been able to get a few things done that had been left on the back burner. See here https://blocl.uk/books
Are you okay with: ‘Radicals’ digest, exquisitely named so by the author of The Debt Generation?Keep safe, Joe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKxeyOveas4return of de faeries – kelfin oberon – avalonhttps://megalommatis.wordpress.com/2018/12/Hi Kavi, I recoomend this Last Druid Film and looking into the Pelagian Controversy which ties back in turn the WHat Kelfin lyrically brings out in Return of de faeries which is not a point on identity or gender politics.
megalommatis’s work is interesting but I have only started studying it, Suffi Mystisim, Jewish Mystisism and Metaphysics were known to Kant, https://notthegrubstreetjournal.com/2019/01/30/anawakening-links-from-the-memoryhole-a-journey-pt-2/
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION, 1781
Human reason, in one sphere of its cognition, is called upon to consider questions, which it cannot decline, as they are presented by its own nature, but which it cannot answer, as they transcend every faculty of the mind.It falls into this difficulty without any fault of its own. It begins with principles, which cannot be dispensed with in the field of experience, and the truth and sufficiency of which are, at the same time, insured by experience. With these principles it rises, in obedience to the laws of its own nature, to ever higher and more remote conditions. But it quickly discovers that, in this way, its labours must remain ever incomplete, because new questions never cease to present themselves; and thus it finds itself compelled to have recourse to principles which transcend the region of experience, while they are regarded by common sense without distrust. It thus falls into confusion and contradictions, from which it conjectures the presence of latent errors, which, however, it is unable to discover, because the principles it employs, transcending the limits of experience, cannot be tested by that criterion. The arena of these endless contests is called Metaphysic.Time was, when she was the queen of all the sciences; and, if we take the will for the deed, she certainly deserves, so far as regards the high importance of her object-matter, this title of honour. Now, it is the fashion of the time to heap contempt and scorn upon her; and the matron mourns, forlorn and forsaken, like Hecuba:Modo maxima rerum,
Tot generis, natisque potens…
Nunc trahor exul, inops.Ovid, Metamorphoses.
[xiii, “But late on the pinnacle of fame,
strong in my many sons.
now exiled, penniless.”]
The Last Druid – Documentary on Ben McBrady of The Old Gaelic Order
Documentary describing the life of the late Irish druid, Ben McBrady.
Ben McBrady, known as Brady of the Name and Herenach of the Two Kilmores, was Aircinneac and Herenach of a pre-Druid Megalithic Order called “The Old Gaelic Order,” often referred to simply as “The Order.” Ben McBrady is believed to have been the last member of “The Old Gaelic Order.” Because of this he was called “The Last Druid.” He passed away in January of 1996. Ben McBrady was a descendant of Lugar MacLugair (Lughaid mac Loeguire), who was Chief Druid of Ireland and Druid to the High King Leary and the Kings of Leinster. Lugar MacLugair was also believed to have been a member of “The Old Gaelic Order.” https://www.bitchute.com/video/sCnrS01wNres/
KavyFollowed him & his work a while ago – fascinating stuff & it appears to make sense to me that early man only needed limited desktop icons in order to survive, which is backed up by Penrose in his assertion that physicists, mathematicians etc would not have lasted very long without forms of civilisation.
Why not check out Rudolf Steiner – he makes the most sense of anybody when it comes to explaining life and death, and much more besides. https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/
We need to talk about A.I.
The creation of a Super Intelligence is becoming more and more likely every day and, should it come to pass, would be the single biggest threat to humanity that has ever existed.
The lockdowners have had surprising success in convincing people of their wild views. You only need to believe that virus avoidance is the only goal for everyone in society, and then spin out the implications from there. Before you know it, you have joined a new totalitarian cult. The lockdowns are looking less like a gigantic error and more like the unfolding of a fanatical political ideology and policy experiment that attacks core postulates of civilization at their very root. It’s time we take it seriously and combat it with the same fervor with which a free people resisted all the other evil ideologies that sought to strip humanity of dignity and replace freedom with the terrifying dreams of intellectuals and their government sock puppets. Lockdown: The New Totalitarianism Essay by Jeffrey A. Tucker, Editorial Director of American Institute for Economic Research https://www.aier.org/article/lockdown… In collaboration with The Very Opinionated Kate Wand Show Artistic Team: K. Wand & W.G. Gervais Audiovisual / Editing / Producer: W.G. Gervais https://very-opinionated.com Books and articles by Jeffrey A. Tucker: https://www.aier.org/staffs/jeffrey-t… Visit our website: https://aier.org/ Facebook: https://facebook.com/aierdotorg/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/aier Instagram: https://instagram.com/aierdotorg/#Lockdowns#COVID19#GreatBarringtonDeclaration Get ‘Liberty or Lockdown’ on Amazon, here: https://aier.site/LibertyLockdown Read and sign the Great Barrington Declaration at https://www.gbdeclaration.org.
“People and events presented by the media as Good are always, in reality, bad; and people or events presented by the media as bad are usually (but not always) Good – and when bad people or events are not presented as Good, then they are condemned as bad for the wrong reasons.
Also, if genuinely Good things happen to be presented as Good by the Mass Media; then it will invariably be the case that they also are said to be Good for the wrong reasons.
Thus, the major output of the modern international Mass Media consists of only four categories:
Good presented as bad
Bad presented as Good
(That is to say simple inversion)
Good presented as Good for a bad reason
Bad presented as bad for a bad reason
(That is to say explanatory inversion)
These four categories, which can be summarized as either simple or explanatory inversion, account for all sustained and high impact modern major Mass Media stories without any exceptions.
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