Did the UK Independent actually say democracy isn't working?
By Catte
Yes. It did. or at least it published a WaPo piece (by “Emily Badger”), which says exactly that, albeit in slightly more MiniTrue wording.
“Brexit reminds us some things are too important to be decided by the people…”
Let’s just look at a screen cap to make sure we aren’t imagining things…
Yup, there it is. Right there. Voting, you see, is now “messy”….
Since British voters elected to leave the European Union, signs have quickly emerged of the flaws in holding a referendum on such a messy, massive, far-reaching decision….”
She then cites an example of this “messiness” – viz. Boris Johnson’s allegedly overturned “promise” of £350 million to the NHS. Which is an odd example really, since the only obvious conclusion to draw from it is not “voting is messy” but that Boris Johnson is a liar. Are we really supposed to be blaming the electorate for believing what he said (supposing they did, I’ve yet to see any data on that)?
For Emily’s next bullet point she predictably pushes the entirely ridiculous media-created narrative of “regrexit”, which tries to make plausible the ridiculous idea that large numbers of voters only checked the Leave box out of spite or peevishness or because they left their glasses at home or something, and are now mortified because of all the terrible things that have happened since, such as…well, the market dipping quite a bit,and then going back up a bit. That story and accompanying hashtag might have sounded like a good idea in the anti-Brexit focus group at 4am on June 24, but in the cold light of day it just looks what it is – desperate and sad. As does this…
The process looks like direct democracy in its purest form, and it was celebrated as such by many Leave campaigners after the vote. But David A. Bell, a Princeton historian writing in The New Republic four years ago as Greece was preparing for a referendum on its bailout, argues that the result is much more often anti-democratic.
Ah, this is the real meat of the message. Despite all outward appearance – she tells us – having a referendum is actually more “anti-democratic” than not having a referendum. I bet you didn’t know that, right? But it’s true. David A. Bell from Princeton is very clear about it.
He divides referendums into two categories: The first implicates fundamental questions of sovereignty (should Quebec become independent, or Scotland break away from Great Britain?). These kinds of referendums are appropriate, Bell argues: “They represent instances when sovereign power, always ultimately held by the people, but mediated by constitutional structures, temporarily reverts to the people directly, so that they can modify or replace these structures….Then there are referendums about questions that would otherwise be handled by the legislatures the people have already elected…”
You see? There are two kinds of referendums. Those about “questions of sovereignty”, such as should Scotland leave the UK, which are ok, and those about other issues that the legislature should decide for themselves…such as whether the UK should leave the EU…?
Hmm…. But never mind that sort of detail. The important thing is – and we really need to get on board with this –
…however much the designers of referendums claim to be acting in the name of democratic reform, their actions usually end up undercutting democratic institutions. This tendency isn’t merely incidental—it’s unavoidable given how referendums work…
Oh. Thank you Emily. It’s so obvious now. Referendums are undemocratic because they “undercut democratic institutions.” That is to say, they allow the people to overturn decisions made by their elected leaders. Which is wrong. Because once you elect a leader you have to do whatever they tell you.
Forgive me if I don’t bother dissecting the rest of Ms Badger’s discourse, but it’s really not worth it. We can already see where this, and other such pieces, is going, can’t we. You can be pretty sure in the post-Brexit summer soirées in Islington and Hampstead the media classes are already telling each other over their chilled wine that “populism” is not the same as democracy, and that uninformed people can’t be trusted to make the right decisions, which sort of means – when you think about it the right way and have swilled back enough booze – that real democracy is only undermined at the ballot box.
These scions of the fascist pseudo-left won’t – ever – admit to themselves this is garbage, because any journalists and columnists with that much honesty and self-awareness have long since been weeded out and consigned to the alternate media or lone blogging. Those stalwarts left on Fleet Street are mostly, if not all, capable of believing anything they want to believe – and of getting behind any agenda they’re paid to endorse.
So, watch out while “progressive” columnists start labelling voting “unfair”, or “dangerous”, or even “undemocratic”. The first thing to go will be referendums – obviously, because plebiscites are the most direct and raw form of democracy possible. Once you remove those you only need to make sure – as they mostly already do – that all the candidates offered at elections are basically the same product in a different box, and you’re good. Real democracy is dead. Democracy the hashtag has taken its place.
Which is of course why as a corollary Jeremy Corbyn absolutely has to be removed before the next general election. Because he just might stand on a platform offering real alternatives for the growing majority who want off the mad NATO/EU/IMF death train before it hurtles over the approaching cliff.
Actually there is one more part of this execrable little Indy/WaPo piece worth mentioning. It even cites the totally discredited – not to say hilarious – “2nd referendum petition” without criticism or caveat:
This is the new normal of journalistic accuracy. Citing a petition that is known to have no controls over multiple posting or voter fraud, that has upwards of 50,000 combined signatories from North Korea, the Antractic and the Vatican City, as if it were something credible.
So, there we have it. Democracy is undemocratic, and factual accuracy is just boring.
It’s pathetic, Indy. You really – really – ought to feel ashamed to the very depths of your soul that this rubbish is anywhere on your pages. The fact you don’t feel shame is not something to be smug about. It tells you how absolutely you have left your ethics behind.
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Democracy has never existed. Capitalism, Communism, Socialism,etc., etc., etc., has never existed. Government has and does exist. But government can’t be called Government without calling it by it’s full name. That is Corrupted-Totalitarian-Government-By-The-Few. That has and does exist. Another ism that also has existed is and does exist is Totalitarianism. All Governments are Totalitarian. Corrupted-Totalitarian-Government-By-The-Few is the number one and main tool of the tyrant(s)! Another characteristic of Corrupted-Totalitarian-Government-By-The-Few is that it is not static. It gets more oppressive, impoverishing, and murdering as time goes on. Another characteristic of Corrupted-Totalitarian-Government-By-The-Few is that one of the main reasons that it needs to exist is a citizenry that allows it to exist. In order for humanity to have a future, Corrupted-Totalitarian-Government-By-The-Few, and it’s appendages(Personnel, Money/Monetary System, Standing Armie(s), Police), must be eradicated. This will have to be done violently by way of Guerilla Warfare in each and every country in the world, beginning with the most powerful country first. Anything less is appeasement, delaying the inevitable unless it becomes too late, ignoring the elephant-in-the-room, stupidity, magical-thinking, and a pipedream.
They do have the guns, so to speak, and will not forfeit them unless compelled to do so.
And ‘we’ have the numbers but if only ‘we’ were more awake in sufficient numbers to our collective predicament.
So we are not going to get where we need to get without first waging an ideological, or if you will, an educational battle.
If people are eventually to earnestly take up the fight in their own behalf, they need to have en masse a basic idea of what they would be fighting for and who their real opponents are.
That comes to us, I think, although not only or exclusively, from being exposed to contending arguments between, on the one hand, intellectuals aligned on the side of the popular masses, articulating in accessible language the experiences and aspirations and frustrations of ordinary people, and on the other hand, the sell-outs justifying and apologizing for the status quo and the establishment, denying the reality that ordinary people know is their own even if they cannot always clearly articulate it. In other words, by doing the sort of thing that is here being done at this blog, dissecting the propaganda of the presstitutes in terms of its logical incoherence and utter incongruity with our direct experience of what is actually being done to us, one is waging that battle.
Where you eventually end up through such efforts, I think, is with more and more people coming to inescapable conclusions about what will need to happen to bring about real progressive change. That won’t of itself be sufficient to bring about the political convulsion that needs to happen, but to mind is a necessary prerequisite for it to happen.
In all of my life, I have never heard so many speak openly of the need for open rebellion. If it does happen, ‘The Few’ will have brought it down upon themselves. And if it doesn’t happen, we continue exactly as things are and maybe things even become a whole lot worse, which only further increases the potential of a general uprising.
By the way, I disagree: capitalism most certainly does exist, unless you deny that claims of private property exist and are enforced by law and order, and that most people effectively have no such claims. Therein lies the difference between the moneyed classes who can assert their will politically and those they rule and enslave through debt and wage. But perhaps you subscribe to a different definition of capitalism.
Thanks for your reply Norman. I get the impression that many people consider Marx’s criticism of capitalism to be good, even those ‘of the right’, but like Bakunin, he seems a little underwhelming when it comes to a solution. I must admit, like a right-winger I have become very skeptical of ‘big government’, not because it is neccesarilly evil of itself, but because when our rulers are evil it makes tyranny more effective. I have looked at centre-right bloggers opinions on some things. Below the line, the commenters seemed a bit annoyed that the left perpetually accused them of being ‘Mail’ readers, saying that most leftists would be annoyed if their views were typified by the Guardian. They were believers in Adam Smith, and equally critical of capitalism ‘minus the checks and balances.’ They, too, thought the creation of monopolies was a bad thing. The globalists appear to serve ‘monopolists.’ The media monopoly, to me, is the greatest barrier to progress, even if an effective solution is found.
What are your thoughts on the Fabian society’s affect on the Labour Party? It seems to me, that it served the interests of the elite from the beginning. Bertrand Russell compared Marxism to Christianity with it’s own utopia, elect and preterite (although Calvinism in this case.) Some people believe that Communism was invented in the Jesuit reductions of South America, and that Marx merely added a secular ecclesiastic veneer, with God replaced with ‘jam tomorrow.’ From what I can tell, the surplus of the native’s production went into the Jesuit coffers. The Jesuits were the ‘Mossad’ of the Catholic Church, who some see as an extension of the Roman Empire. The Fabian society takes it’s name from the Roman General Fabius, who’s slow and stealthy tactics they claim to employ. Hitler seems to have used the Jesuit Order as a model for the S.S. The Thule Society employed the same sunburst/black sun symbolism as the Jesuits. This is partly why I consider secret societies to be more than just a decadent pastime of the elites. Churchill and JFK certainly took them seriously.
Have you looked at the reductions? Do you think an uncorrupted form of capitalism is possible, perhaps without the casino element, redistributive taxation, effective anti-monopoly legislation and all the corruption?
Hi Tezla,
“Do you think an uncorrupted form of capitalism is possible, perhaps without the casino element, redistributive taxation, effective anti-monopoly legislation and all the corruption?”
The short answer: an uncorrupted from of capitalism is impossible.
Since you seem to be intent on having a discussion with me, personally, let me refer you to a few posts, the titles of which you can enter in the ‘search box’ at my blog:
“Reading Marx: Where Does Profit Come From? (And Why The ‘Rate of Profit’ Must Fall) — Norman Pilon | Taking Sides”
In this essay, I try to set out the ‘ABCs’ of the dynamic of ‘capitalism,’ to show that “[i]t cannot but be horrendous and brutal in its consequences, in terms of the widespread misery that it must entail, just as we are made to witness day in and day out, and to which an already many centuries-long historical account does indeed attest.
“A Synopsis of Marx’s Concept of “Value” and how “Abstract Labour” Determines the Magnitude of all “Exchange-Values” in a Non-arbitrary Way – at least according to Norm”
If this essay has any value or merit, it summarizes, as I understand it, Marx’s conception of the “money form,” and points to the limiting constraint of capitalist exploitation, namely, the minimum standard of living customary to any capitalist society, and beyond that, to the bare subsistence of the working class, which the direction in which the capitalist system tends to evolve on the whole.
“What is Communism? Paul Mattick 1934 | Marxist Internet Archive”
This essay explores one option as to how what Marx analysed as the “money form” might be transformed into a ‘medium of exchange’ that would obviate ‘surplus value extraction’ or exploitation of the working class.
Of course, read these or not, but taken together, they are an elaboration of why I think an uncorrupted from of capitalism is impossible.
Regards,
–N
Really, you shouldn’t put up UK journalists as some nirvana of academic wisdom. Honestly if they were a top academic they’d be in post in Oxford, LSE or wherever.
Secondly, you shouldn’t think that academics are dispassionate voices of reason and logic. They are voices controlled by who they receive grant income from or consultancy fees from. The notion that academics aren’t salesmen is risible: the only question is whether they are ethical ones or dodgy ones.
As for Referenda ‘undermining democratic institutions’, please tell me how on earth the House of Commons is ‘democratic’. It has a voting system which is like an electronically tuned amplifier: the ‘bang for your buck’ is maximal between about 25 and 35% of the vote. You can get 25% of the vote and have < 10% of the seats (as Libdems often had), you can have 15%+ of the vote and under 0.5% of the seats (as UKIP currently has) and you can have less votes than UKIP and 60 times the number of MPs (as the SNP currently has). The FPTP is the absolute antithesis of a voting system for a ‘democratic institution’. It is a system designed to maintain a two-party oligopoly (since that is most convenient for the purchasers of power to control).
I long ago relegated journalists and national media titles to the role of verbal prostitutes. Unfortunately, I see through the falsehood of hookers for hire and, in many arenas they purport to moralise about, I am better informed than they are. Unlike them, I’ve worked in many areas of the real economy and I’ve learned my lessons at the sharp end. You don’t learn them thinking you can see through the motives of the legion of ‘contacts’ and ‘sources’ you have. That’s why journalism should be a place to enter after the age of 40, when you actually have the experience, the nous and the maturity to see through the blogging bullshit that occupies so much of social media and calls itself ‘News’.
Well, all I can say is if anyone thinks this piece, or I personally, or OffGuardian in general, “puts up UK journalists as some Nirvana of academic wisdom”, we have seriously been failing to get our message across 🙂
Democracy?
Check out the opinion of Russian “liberal” Yulia Latynina, “opposition” polemicist, journalist and Radio Station Moscow Echo commenter, who, in 2008, received the Freedom Defenders Award from the United States Department of State, which was handed over to her by Condoleezza Rice:
Poor people are capable of feats of bravery and revolution. They can storm the Bastille, overthrow the tsar or stage an Orange Revolution. But impoverished people are incapable of making sober decisions and voting responsibly in a popular election. And this, unfortunately, applies to Russia as well. In the unfair presidential election of 2000, Vladimir Putin emerged the winner.
So now you know: If the hoi-poloi is allowed to vote, people whom “liberals” do not like come into power.
See: Letting Poor People Vote Is Dangerous</ a>
I think the plan is to play dumb and hope Brexit will go away. Though careful what you wish for. What about if next time the young asks for a referendum on the exit of Britain from NATO.
No it just said that it doesn’t WANT democracy to work, that’s all. Oh yeah and they are all in on Hillary.
Thank You, Off-Guardian & Catte, for this wonderfully inciteful piece of actual honest journalism. It makes me happy to see in print what I and many others think.
Personally, I never thought I’d see the day that the british public would be so incensed as to bring forth the real possibility of open revolt against their masters – I mean, civil servants(hah! I just can’t say the latter without an involuntary laugh of irony), but if we DON’T now leave then the ramifications of such open disregard of democracy by our ‘peers'(hah!) will, I firmly believe, result in blood in the streets and won’t end until our society has been turned upside down and inside out.
It’s one thing lying to get into power – we’re used to that, but to go as far as openly denying the legitimate vote of the majority of the country..?
That’s just gonna wake up even the most devout believers in the system to a few painful truths…which will mean less people to actively oppose any revolt against the potential lack of fundamental democratic process, if nothing else.
People really should read more history. This has all happened before.
The referendum was advisory it has no legal force
It was close (what about the +/- 48% that want to remain? do they you know – move to the EU?)
large lies were told
one person was murdered – incited by the MSM
Only parliament has the authority to invoke article 50
given the closeness of the vote perhaps parliament should not (invoke article 50)
Inday/WaPo: Some pigs are more equal than others!
Catte. May I just say how much I enjoy your writing. It should be you writing for the Independent, and it should be Emily Badger writing in a small unregarded corner of the internet. But Hey Ho, at the rate the Independent is losing readers, OffGuardian will soon have the larger readership.
It does make one wonder how these columnists manage to get their jobs in the first place.
I agree, Catte and a great many others ought to be mainstream, and perhaps they are in fact more representative of the majority than we realize, only not in the capitalist press, which, backed up by all of the earth’s stolen treasure in the guise of private ownerhsip, exerts itself to create the illusion that the majority is either fascist or at happily one with the culture of bourgeois of oppression.
So really it is not to wonder how ‘these’ columnists manage to get their jobs.
There is this thing called a ‘job interview,’ to which people like Catte would never get an invitation, or if they did, would automatically exclude them from consideration for being ideologically unreliable. It’s not any more complicated than that.
Well, thank you Derek. I’m honoured.
I agree with him, Catte. Brilliant work! It’s so gratifying to see Off-Guardian reaching an ever-larger audience, and the hard work–and high quality work–of the authors here is the key reason why. Keep it up!
If Brexit is sabotaged successfully, it will be the final erasure of democracy in favour of corporatocracy. The arrant hypocrites of the so called centre-left, anywhere in the world, are conscience-less servants of the pay cheque, utterly without ideology and more than willing to do anything at all to look good in the eyes of their peers. Even the ideological stance of the far right, reprehensible as it might be, is at least an ideology; the neo-Nazis of Pravii Sektor, the Hindunazis of the Bajrang Dal, the headchoppers of ISIS – they’re gutter scum, but they are by and large willing to fight and (especially in the last instance) die for their beliefs. The “centre left liberal” has no such ideological spine. Indeed, he’s not even got a notochord. He’s a worm, squirming always in the direction of least resistance, while proclaiming himself to be the high-flying, far-seeing eagle. His contempt for the ordinary people is absolute, far more than that of the right. In the name of “globalisation”, “internationalism”, or other meaningless terms, he’s much more than willing to throw the poor under the multinational bus. These vermin are the foot soldiers of imperialism; and it’s no surprise that while actual Communist parties (like that of Ireland) welcomed the Brexit vote, it’s these “centre left liberal” types who are apoplectic with fury. If they manage to subvert the Brexit vote (rather than the much more likely method of simply letting it wither on the vine by “negotiations” which will ultimately change nothing), they’ll send a signal to their fellows across the world. The message will be, democracy and popular will are unimportant; only the self-selected, educated, affluent have a right to decide what’s good for everyone. I do hope the British people are taking note.
I really wouldn’t get too worried about it. The Indy isn’t really a newspaper at all. Since the cessation of the print edition, the Indy is just a blog these days. It’s the vanity project of the Lebedev family. Without their dodgy money to prop it up, the Indy would have gone to the wall ten years ago – not even advertisers believe circulation figures straight out of Jack & The Beanstalk. Even without the costs of having to print all those copies to throw away, the Indy’s income from advertising doesn’t begin to pay the staff costs. But wait, you say… what about the income from the paywall? Well, that would be wonderful… if anyone read it. But no-one does. And once the Lebedevs tire of presenting themselves as newspaper magnates, the whole thing will quietly fold. Even Tony Blair will eventually grow weary of reading grovelling cobblers about himself by John Rentaghoul.
Reblogged this on TheFlippinTruth.
“The issues are too important to be left to the voters”……..Henry Kissinger.
Thanks for sharing and criticizing this article from “Emily Badger”. This article made me angry. Which is not really helping as in anger I lose my ability to rationally deduce the facism that is all over this article and the disdain of the journalist to those who dared to vote Brexit. So thank you, Catte, for scrutizing this article for us who read OffGuardian.
I try to be helpfull in this comment by quoting and briefly summarizing two books that do not use the ‘fascist’ word (which kind of lost meaning as it has been used so often, and almost always without any self-critical response from the facists). The first is Plato’s book Gorgias, the second is Popper’s book the open society and its enemies. Both books, you can be sure, have been read by the so-called and self-proclaimed elites of which Emily Badger seems to be so keen of. Which gives “her” (I mean, the editors of the Independent places the article, so it’s them) no excuse to understand what this comment and Brexit is all about.
So in Gorgias (490a) you have the following discussion between Socrates and Callicles:
Socrates (to Callicles): Here is your position, then: a single clever person is almost bound to be sufficient to be superior to ten thousand fools; political power should therefore be his and they should be his subjects; and it is appropriate for someone with political power to have more than his subjects.
Callicles: Yes, that is what I mean-for an individual who is better to rule over second rate people and to have more than them.
Thus when Might enters the scene (or enters the Independent newspaper) in the person of a Nietzschean Callicles (or Emily Badger) it is not as a crowd against Reason, but as one man against the crowd. This is very clear.
Popper says the following about this in the open society and its enemies:
Most people in civilized countries nowadays admit racial superiority a myth; but even if it were an estiblished fact, it should not create special political rights, though it might create special moral responsibilities for the superior persons. Analogous demands should be made of those who are morally and educationally superior; and I cannot help feeling that the opposite claims of certain intellectuals and moralists only show how little succesful their education has been, since it failed to make them aware of their own limitations, and of their Pharisaism.
As Popper explains here (http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2016/01/karl-popper-democracy), he wrote the open society and its enemies not because he wanted to answer the ancient question: who should rule the people (which if he did, would make the open society a very short read as the answer to that question is very simple and short one if you would ask me, i.e. No one!), but how is the State constituted so that bad rulers can be get rid of without violence. Popper’s answer: with a majority vote, just as the people in Great Britain did with a 52% majority vote to leave the EU.
Some others observations and quotes:
Popper acknowledges the potential problem of ‘Mob Rule’ and the tyranny of the majority, which is bad but still better than the tyranny of the one or a few according to Popper.
Popper paraphrases Winston Churchill who once said, jokingly, that democracy is the worst form of government – with the exception of all other forms of government. I agree.
Popper also paraphrases Lord Acton who once said that all power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. This reminds me very much of the absolute power that the EU wants to have over its European citizens and would be THE reason to vote Brexit, if I were a Citizen of Great Brittain, which I am not (I am Dutch).
Finaly, Catte, your criticism on the article of Emily Badger was written with cold logic, but not cold hearted (in my opinion). Nevertheless, I do not expect a response from Emily Badger (or the Independent) since as Popper said: authoritarianism cannot consider any criticism as friendly, since every criticism of such an authority must challenge the principle of authority itself. Which sums up this whole problem that the elites have with the Brexit vote. They simply cannot handle criticism which must be answered with severe threads, as in a bad marriage where wife wants to leave (for good reasons) her tyrannical husband. This article from Emily Badger really is a blue print of domestic violence, but then on another level. Which is the reason why it made me so angry…
I would like to sum up my opinion that the Brits did a very good thing by voting Brexit. I love Great Brittain, and I love my own country, Europe and its citizens. But I despise the EU with its austerity measures, warmongering, socialism for the rich (and freemarkets for the poor), its bought journalists and newspapers who write nothing but dangerous BS, and who create an endless stream of wretched Mid-Eastern and North African refugees, and treats it as if it were cattle. And pleads for no change, as it hates change, as every closed society does.
One might follow Popper and pretend that there is not an hierarchy or distribution of intelligence, knowledge, morality etc, and pretend that humanity is equal in fitness to decide who should rule, but for one or two complicating matters. In mass societies of millions, we must have representatives, and they, as we can see now with the Blairite infestation, are prone to certain defects of character. To be precise, unscrupulousness, untrustworthiness, mendacity, hypocrisy, subservience to the real, the economic, power in society etc. Moreover the voting public are relentlessly brainwashed in the habits of greed, jingoism, downward social envy and spite, social sadism and indifference to the suffering of others etc. In other words they have been well and truly divided in order to be ruled, by the tiny rich elites that dominate all capitalist economies.
So, if there has not been a concerted effort to cultivate moral virtue, knowledge and intellectual talent in ALL voters, and if society is not deliberately divided into ‘Us and Them’, ‘Winners and Losers’, and if income, wealth and opportunity are still hugely unequal, then ‘democracy’ must fail, as it most clearly has in the West, and the ‘Open Society’ become a very sick joke indeed. In fact the Open Society’s greatest enemies are the rich and powerful, like that very advocate of Open Societies, Soros, for whom ‘Open’ means open for exploitation by the likes of himself. In other words a truly ‘Open’ society, open for all to enjoy a decent sufficiency of life’s ‘goods’ cannot be capitalist and inegalitarian.
So that was the problem, we should have had a referendum (preferendum?) to decide whether the question posed by the referendum was referendum-worthy. Now it all makes sense.
Nice piece Catte!
The Guardian have moved onto the next phase in the delusion – now discussing whether the Second Referendum should be held, with no mention of its legal standing, nor even of why a second referendum should take precedence over the first one.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/live/2016/jun/29/should-we-have-a-second-eu-referendum-live
Contributors include Tristram Hunt, and Labour MP David Lammy.
I like the idea of having a second England versus Iceland football match, too. But only so the Icelanders can flog the English again.
Another good one, Catte.
On a side note, and because you mention it in passing, Catte, does anyone know whether this take by the “Heatstreat” website has any merit (I know I’m being repetitive, and I do apologize, since I already signaled it in another comment):
“EXCLUSIVE: Brexit ‘2nd Referendum Petition’ A 4 Chan Prank: BBC Report It As Real”
https://heatst.com/uk/exclusive-brexit-2nd-referendum-petition-a-4-chan-prank-bbc-report-it-as-real/
The post itself may be a prank, but then again “4 Chan” tends to attract some pretty creative pranksters.
It strikes me as being just the sort of thing that they would undertake and pull off just for the fun of it.
As one person put it in the comment section at that website, assuming that the 2nd petition was the work of the “4 Chan-ners,” and to paraphrase, “it was so beautiful that I cried.”
Just curious . . .
Okay, as far as I can tell, after a bit of shallow excavation, the petition is, in a manner of speaking, legit, meaning that it itself was not a 4Chan offspring. However, the petition seems to have been hijacked by ‘spam bots,’ which is where 4Chan possibly comes in. But I guess the upshot is that the “petition” isn’t worth “the digital code” in which it was written. I will now lay this thing to rest, but not without one more tear of appreciation, regardless of who managed the hijacking.
Have you come across the Kalergi Plan, Norman? A random blog on it here:
https://fellowshipoftheminds.com/2015/11/12/europes-refugee-crisis-and-the-kalergi-plan-for-white-genocide/
There are quite a few sources out there, if this one is dodgy. I suppose it could be a bit of ‘Protocols of the Elders’ type stuff, but it has the ring of truth to it. Ever looked into it? If it is true, and Brexiters find themselves needing to defend their position in another referendum, this would make a good counter-arguement against those who cry ‘waythist.’ The Graun’s published two articles on one piece of racist graffitti. A few below the line have questioned the authenticity of that, too. These fuckers would rather make some sort of false flag out of the situation, rather than get off their arses and find some real racist graffitti, of which there is no doubt plenty. Times is hard. John Harris used the petrol allowance.
Ah, the ring of “truth.” How much of what is bouncing around inside this head of mine rings true but is pure delusion? I wish I only knew . . .
Have I come across the Kalergi Plan? No, I can’t say that I have. A brief look at the random blog to which you have referred me caused my eyebrows to involuntarily rise. I don’t identify as being either of this or that “race,” but as human, and since I regard all people, whatever the melanin content of their skin, the impending disappearance, if it really is impending, of pale pigmented individuals isn’t something that keeps me awake at night. But I suppose that if one were in a mood for teasing, one could get some mileage from acquainting oneself with this particular brand of hysteria and insanity. On the other hand, I fancy that I have better things to do with my time than to acquaint myself with the esoteric mysticisms of a variety of white supremacist sects. It is all I can barely muster to disabuse myself on occasion of some of my own petty confusions, let alone master those of a mindset that I clearly know to be by orders of magnitude more insane than my own.
I nevertheless thank you for your kind advice as to how I might, if I had the talent and inclination, enlarge upon my admittedly limited aptitude for irony.
Kind regards,
Norm
Norman, you are a quiet and subtle genius of wit 🙂
At first, when I read your comment, I blushed. But then it occurred to me that you are the queen of ‘tongue in cheekness.’ I then went pale . . . 😉
No tongue in cheek I promise. I mean it in all sincerity.
I did like the bit about Europe becoming populated by bestial sub-humans bred through miscegenation. Noble stuff, indeed.
All the talk about breeding is what I found disorienting.
You know, that kind of chatter tends to get my attention, and then I just can’t draw my mind away from it, so that if what I’m reading is trying to make a serious and clinical point, it just no longer stands a chance of getting through to me. (Gynecology is not a profession that I could in good conscience ethically have practiced, at least not without undergoing many expensive years of strenuous psychoanalysis, being, as I am, a man of uncouth blue collar origins.
So although I knew, as you put it, that the disquisition was reaching for truly noble heights, all that talk about ‘breeding’ completely derailed my attention, leaving my me twisting in the gutter.
That’s when I knew I had to leave that blog and go to another more germane to what had now become my more urgent concern.
I guess that means that it’s too late for me now, co-opted as obviously as I now am by the Kalergi Plan.
It looks like it’s infectious, some sort of transmissible meme, perhaps a type of ethereal prion or virus that once seen, twists your neurons into contorted tangles, and next thing you know it’s the Horst Wessel song blaring out of your ‘sound system’ and ‘Triumph of the Will’ on the DVD player. I seem to recall Dr Who being similarly infected and growing Oscar Homulka eye-brows. He ended up having to wrestle with the infectious agent inside his own brain, I think. I do hope you are spared that indignity.
Better to be a victim of the Kalergi Plan, I think, than the sort of thing that resulted from the mania for the Horst Wessel mania of the 30s and 40s.
I mean, death by miscegenation, how terrible of an experience could that really be?
Imagine the collective shock in the aftermath of the discovery of that “genocide.” How would ‘we,’ how could ‘we,’ commemorate that?
There would be no graves upon which to lay flowers, no concentration camps to visit, no novels à la Elie Wiesel, although perhaps a great many diaries to which the lurid details of the ‘extermination’ as it unfolded had been confided by a great many of the very ‘victims’ of all the “interracial” lust:
“Today, I fell in love . . . The horror, the horror!”
Hello Norman, and apologies for not replying earlier (I work long shifts.) I think it may be neccessary to clarify, including why I addressed the question to you in the first place. I am aware that ‘white genocide’ is generally the subject of right-wing extremist websites, but I originally heard it mentioned on C.i.f.
Firstly I’ll make my general politcal position clear (which I expect no one to agree with.) I am of the opinion that capitalism-checks and balances-democracy=fascism. You may agree on that. I also, however, believe that communism, which combines state control with the means of production, is merely fascism by another name, and as such am equally skeptical of the far left, and subversion at the centre from both sides. The mind control is tailored to suit. I believe that many of the globalist organisations have their indirect root in the beliefs of Cecil Rhodes. I think the whole ‘Cecil the statue’ and perhaps ‘Cecil the lion’ stories were concocted to distract people from the fact that his story should be about the future of slavery (of all races) and not the past. For me it goes: Roman Empire>British Empire>US Empire>World Empire, as monopolies accrue. I don’t expect you to agree.
Next, I’d just better clarify that I am no racial supremacist myself. Despite the user name, my original training was in biological sciences. I am now a health care assistant, working in the community, often with disabled people. I am no eugenisist, and am mistrustful of those who are, including Richard Dawkins, and, yes, Nikola Tesla (nonetheless, I consider the Tesla valve to be an invention of Zen elegance.) As it is common practice on c.i.f. to pillory people who say ‘I’m not racist, but…’ or ‘I have friends of colour,’ I can only offer my posts on this site as evidence of my position.
-I have described Fascist symbolism in US architecture and logos.
-I have questioned the idea of ‘race’ as a meaningful idea at all.
-I have pointed out that the K.K.K. and the Thule society have ‘mystery school’ structure in common.
-I have (briefly) discussed the subversion of black culture by infiltration of black rights organisations, weaponised feminism, the promotion of negative hip-hop role models and the Freemasonic Boule organisation.
-I have also suggested that there may be people behind the scenes using ‘Plato’s Republic’ as a guide to tyanny.
However, to use a ‘truther’ cliche, ‘it’s not what you think, it’s what they think.’
I suspect that the globalist cabal is quite happy to mix and match control systems derived from the different afore-mentioned systems.
There appears to be a direct link between the intelligence services and occultism. John Dee was a very influential occultist and the Queen’s spymaster. He used the code 007 in his letters. Ian Fleming, who has done much to glamorise the sociopathic spy, was a friend of Aleister Crowley (another highly influential occultist, and a spy in 3 different countries during WW2.) To many, occultism is the stuff of Dennis Wheatley pulp fiction, but he too did his research by talking to Crowley. Some have suggested that Jimmy Savile, who was very highly connected for a light entertainer, may have been in the same mold. UNESCO seems to have a one-world religion agenda (the New Age) that links back to another highly influential occultist Madame Blavatsky. Why do i mention this? Because there seems to be a transhumanist ideology within occultism (mankind approaching God status), which sits alongside eugenics. The blogger David Livingstone writes on this. As ‘conspiracy theorists’ go, he is better than most for providing references in his research. He also believes Freemasons, working for the British Empire, encouraged the development of Salafism and Wahabism to weaponise Islam.
Why do I think the ‘Kalergi Plan’ conspiracy might ‘have legs?’ Because birth rates and marriage longevity appear to be in decline in the West-possibly due to materialist society and weaponised feminism placing a strain on the family. To justify economic growth, immigration is promoted, using people as part of a Ponzi scheme. Globalist wars cause social upheaval outside of Europe, who are then welcomed by the EU through fairly porous borders. The means by which such a plan could be enacted, are in place. Given that the Brexit campaign doesn’t look like it’s going to affect immigration numbers, anyway, it would appear there is no mechanism by which an influx of people, often of a significantly different culture, and with a higher birth rate, could be slowed.
Is miscegenation always a bad thing? No. Is feminism all bad? No. Slower immigration allows for better cultural integration, but there seems to be no will to help prevent ghettoisation.
I take your point, that no concentration camps are involved in the process. With miscegantion, no-one is actually being killed. With weaponised feminism/work culture, people are merely prevented from being born, but I still think the destruction of a race, culture, religion or nationality, against the wishes or without the knowledge of the participants is problematic-especially if the goal is to make the population more controllable. Also, if I were to say ‘let’s use these methods to destroy the black race’ would that not cause pause for thought? The fact that people of the left may not be as equally concerned about white people, suggests ‘team red’ mind-control.
Now lets assume it has ‘no legs.’ ‘The Protocols’, which possibly started their evolution as far back as Napoleon, were a little more than just ‘a meme.’ They helped justify the actions of various Fascist countries during WW2, and the Kalergi plan could be used to cause war today. Is it counter-productive to even discuss it? Maybe. Is it harmful to allow the far right to discuss such things, while the left stand aloof? Maybe, also. Maybe it’s a check-mate in game theory. I really don’t know.
Why did I address the question to you?
-because you seem to take an interest in assessing self-deception.
-because you seemed to share a belief (I may be wrong) in capitalism as fascism, and therefore perhaps willing to consider the idea of globalists acting like fascists.
-because your site links to a 911 truth site, implying you’re willing to accept
that goverments can act in a psychopathic manner against its own, or allied, populations.
-because I am an autodidact in such matters, and thought you may have better information.
-because you seem open to investigating some forms of revisionist history.
I have other information that further supports a half-hidden transhumanist/eugenisist agenda, and the miscegenation tactic, but maybe I should keep it to myself. I usually find the posts here interesting, but mostly respect it’s commitment to freedom of speech and freedom of thought. Maybe I just hit my own limits, on those things.
Hi Tezla,
I’ll be straight up with you: if I was boxed into a corner and had to put a label on my socio-political viewpoint, I’d say it would be best characterized as being Marxist, albeit not an orthodox or dogmatic one, but as the mindset of someone who had read some of what Marx wrote about capitalism and who had thereupon came to the conclusion that Marx had a better sense of what man as a social creature is than anyone else he had ever read, as well as also having had a better take on the ascendant kind of oppression ( — an oppression that cuts across others implicating notions of race, gender, culture, language, and ethnicity — ) historically specific to societies we call capitalistic and that Marx would not object to calling “a class based oppression hinged upon the institution of private property in the socialized means of production.”
Under capitalism, in so far as Marx was able to make out, then, there are two primary (or most significant) social classes: on the one hand, that class of individuals that taken together claim all ownership rights in the means of production for the purpose of turning a profit for themselves; and that class of individuals who are expropriated in the means of production and are legally constrained to earn a living by working for a wage remunerated to them in what Marx called “the money form.” This is the crux of Marxism, of what it takes to be the ‘hinge’ or ‘lever’ of capitalist exploitation.
As Marx puts it in “Chapter Twenty-Six” of “Capital, Volume One:”
Quote begins,
“In themselves money and commodities are no more capital than are the means of production and of subsistence. They want transforming into capital. But this transformation itself can only take place under certain circumstances that centre in this, viz., that two very different kinds of commodity-possessors must come face to face and into contact; on the one hand, the owners of money, means of production, means of subsistence, who are eager to increase the sum of values they possess, by buying other people’s labour power; on the other hand, free labourers, the sellers of their own labour power, and therefore the sellers of labour. Free labourers, in the double sense that neither they themselves form part and parcel of the means of production, as in the case of slaves, bondsmen, &c., nor do the means of production belong to them, as in the case of peasant-proprietors; they are, therefore, free from, unencumbered by, any means of production of their own. With this polarization of the market for commodities, the fundamental conditions of capitalist production are given. The capitalist system presupposes the complete separation of the labourers from all property in the means by which they can realize their labour. As soon as capitalist production is once on its own legs, it not only maintains this separation, but reproduces it on a continually extending scale. The process, therefore, that clears the way for the capitalist system, can be none other than the process which takes away from the labourer the possession of his means of production; a process that transforms, on the one hand, the social means of subsistence and of production into capital, on the other, the immediate producers into wage labourers. The so-called primitive accumulation, therefore, is nothing else than the historical process of divorcing the producer from the means of production.”
Quote ends.
So there you have it in one paragraph, the essence of capitalist oppression according to Marx, an oppression existing independently of all the fancies and conspiracies and occultisms and mystifications of the ruling class or anyone else, that is, a reality apart from whatever “they” may think, and an oppression also existing over against all of the other admittedly real types of oppressions afflicting humanity.
Now it is this mode of oppression with which I am preoccupied above all others because I happen to believe, whether rightly or wrongly, that of all the modes of extortion and coercion afflicting men, women and children, this is the one that in our historical era causes the most suffering to the greatest number of people. And so everything else, though not unimportant, becomes for me a distraction, or rather, something lower on my list of things to which I should be paying attention.
As long as people must exist as wage slaves, as long as the vast majority of the production and distribution of goods worldwide is motivated by profit, as long as a minority by force of arms owns everything while the majority is constrained to live in a condition of arrant expropriation and often in destitution, while the whole of mankind bleeds in this way, capital is the crisis to be addressed and resolved.
So speak to me about the barbarity and insult of capital, Tezla, and how we might expunge this very real curse upon mankind, so that we can collectively one day move forward into a world less fraught with want and misery and war, and more oriented to the satisfaction of need, so that we can work far less and spend far more time collectively in leisure, where we discover and invent culture, learn from one another, or simply live as we cannot if all of the substance of our lives has to be squandered in earning a wage or being savaged by the worry of not being able to earn that wage. Otherwise, your words are just noise to me, Tezla.
You should try reading Marx for yourself. Really. You can find him online. Try the “Marxists Internet Archive.” In my opinion, your time will be better wasted there than at those other sites on which you seem to have been feeding your mind.
Best regards,
–N
spoken from the heart and based on hard cold logic and common sense. Main stream media is now a toilet full of smelly crap who pose as journalists and editors. Keep up the good work Off-Guardian. common sense is not dead yet!
Reblogged this on robert11011's Blog.
catte,
Sorry if my language offends, and I am working class after all and someone who voted out on principle as a socialist, but these people are fucking idiots and fascists. I’ll leave it there, but God they have no bloody idea and expect us Plebs to bow to them. They can bugger off as we say in Wales.
Your language most heartily approved, except that maybe it is not strong enough….