I think that piece should be carved into one of the Stonehenge monoliths, so that it can be read in two thousand years time when, whatever is left of us, researches the collapse of civilisation in the 21st century.
Ha ha Great idea Bettina. Though I’d love to read one from 2000 years ago now. I wonder what they would have been moaning about? The price of flint? The poor quality of bison lately?
Yes, Bettina, is absolutely right the list needs to be inscribed in a huge stone placed in Parliament Square, and then, so that the kids read it, timestamped on the blockchain as well. Superb piece.
Would you believe me if I told you I was working on a song on this very same subject?
In answer to LSO what the ancient Britons would have been moaning about, it was a reference to that scene in Life of Brian where Brian is daubing the walls with 'Romans go home' and John Cleese as a centurion comes along and corrects his Latin grammar 😂
My main complaint about Mr LSO’s rant is that it’s not targeted enough. It seems to suggest that all of the woes and the government lies are coming from one place. But they are not.
As I have said many times, all Mr LSO’s complaints about wokeness are valid and I agree with them. I am positive that Starmer will rein in the woke extremes and hopeful that Harris will too. They will have to once they realise how unpopular wokeness is on both sides of the aisle. My mission is to persuade you that most folks on the left are not woke and pretending that they are is counter-productive. We need to work together on this. We should celebrate when Starmer restricts trans treatments on children for example, and not pretend that it’s just a secret ploy to make us all trans. Same with immigration.
Same with Islamic extremism. We should be able to accept that normal Muslims are our friends and neighbours while condemning the nutcases who want to impose Sharia or who want to carve out Islamist constituencies in the Midlands. We should work together.
I think we have the best shot at preventing the collapse of civilisation if we work together to eliminate the craziest excesses of those who would destroy it. It doesn't help to mix the genuine threats with party-political rants.
I never said they were all coming from one place Ragged. Lots of different people are lying to us, with lots of different agendas. It was a pot pourri of fibs.
I accept your argument that Labour will put the woke away. But I simply don’t believe it will happen. Apart from the puberty blockers thing. Which is a solid win. Dodds has said she will essentially bring in self id. I think saying I suggest there is a secret ploy to make us all trans is unfair, unless it’s just a joke, in which case fair enough.
I never said that ‘all Muslims’ are Islamic extremists. I fundamentally do not believe that. And I know lots of Muslim people. They are just people. It’s a bit like the ‘America system’ argument about the NHS. If you criticise Islamic Extremism you suddenly get accused on some level of ‘hating Muslims’. It’s simply not true. But it is the ‘argument’ they will use to introduce new blasphemy laws in the form of ‘Islamophobia’ legislation.
I have written some ‘party political’ rants. My most successful posts have been anti Tory rants, closely followed by one about Labour. But this is not party political at all. It would be hard for me to write one, since I think they are all, including Reform but maybe not the SDP, pretty crap.
It's a bit like conflating hating the extremism of the IRA with hating all Roman Catholics really. With Islam though, an awful lot of Moslems if we are to believe stats would like to see sharia law, plus all the other backward looking mores - and they are getting into local government now. It does not bode well.
Absolutely Giulia. We need to push for integrating these people andfor social cohesion. But that requires two things, at least.
We need to be proud and positive of the thing we are asking them to join, our culture and society. Which we are not. We are taught to hate ourselves.
And secondly, and perhaps in a wider ‘progressive’world more controversially, we need to say we can’t integrate this many people this quickly. So we need to limit how many of you join us. And be free to decide how many we want.
Neither seems unreasonable to me. But suggest them and you are dismissed as ‘right wing’. So it will continue fracturing and causing division and ultimately worse. It’s so unnecessary.
It is important to recognise integration and assimilation have limits: they are not a panacea. After centuries Jews remain a distinct group, with a religious and ethnic identity distinct from the natives. This is not a bad thing but elucidates a limit of integration, for what is a small group with a strong identity. WWII era Poles, by contrast, are indistinguishable apart from surnames. More recently arrived Poles will be similarly indistinguishable in a generation. That ethnically and religiously very different people, arriving at scale, can assimilate is, I fear, another lie we are being told.
The thing about Jews integrating is that they do so while remaining apart but not by insisting we take on their beliefs and rules and even their courts.
Agree on Dodds. We need to keep an eye on her and I think Starmer will. I will issue a full apology if he doesn't. The other bit was half-joke. Sorry.
> I never said that ‘all Muslims’ are Islamic extremists.
You got *me* wrong on this one. I assume that you and I are in agreement on the distinction between our lovely muslim neighbours and the folks who want to implement Sharia Law on islands in Scotland. I just reread what I wrote and it definitely says that.
You've always been very even-handed with your ranting. I was distracted by the bit about Kamala at the start this time. If you'd started your rant with some anti-tory stuff I wouldn't have focused on the anti-lefty stuff 😉.
>We should be able to accept that normal Muslims are our friends and neighbours while condemning the nutcases who want to impose Sharia or who want to carve out Islamist constituencies in the Midlands. We should work together.
> We should be able to accept that normal Muslims are our friends and neighbours
Let me stretch the Overton Window a little bit: If I have a Muslim neighbor who behaves himself of course I'm going to treat him like a neighbor. At the same time I don't want so many Muslims in my country that they form a critical mass from which Sharia parties can emerge. IOW, irrespective of what a fine man Mr. Aziz may be, if the country contains a critical mass of people just like him, we are going to see little emirates showing up in which sharia is the law. This is quite inevitable. My judgement of an individual person is an entirely different thing than my immigration policy.
BTW & FWIW I am learning a lot, discussing this stuff with you.
I am having a side argument with my two best (lefty) friends in American at the moment where I use a lot of your points as ammunition.
I am currently trying to persuade them that woke stuff (DEI, trans stuff, anti-racism, white privilege) will lose the Dems the presidency unless they rein it in a bit.
I could be proved spectacularly wrong but I think this is going to be a razor tight race by November. Those voters could well be put off by the bonkers woke stuff. Or Trump could put them
Let me answer for LSO: of course still friends. There's things that need to be hashed out in an intelligent and respectful way. Disagreement is no metric of either respect or friendship. Your posts are models of the form -- intelligent, useful, honest, open minded, probing. And as for LSO ... well, why are we here?
Is Starmer going to rein in the woke extremes when he has just allowed Bridget Phillipson to scupper the Freedom of Speech Act? The Labour Party don't care about what is popular - they are in power with only 1 in 5 of the electorate voting for them and Starmer on record as saying that Davos is more important than Westminster.
More government is never the answer to anything and political parties exist to gain power over others, not to make life 'better' in the way that you and I wish, Ragged. Yes, most of us agree about crazy excesses as you say, however the difference is that you believe the answer is MORE government. I, and many others, think that is the very opposite of what we need.
Of course he won't. The more extreme bits will be chopped to massage the message but the machine will move on. Watch the school curriculum (especially history) being rewritten. Assisted dying. Free Speech in universities. Ban on 'conversion therapy. On it will go.
I’m very worried about ‘assisted dying’. AKA killing the inconvenient. As ever they will use real, genuinely heart rending edge case examples-like with trans-to bring in universal and destructive changes.
I think Canada and Belgium totally screwed this up. They'll give you the final injection if you start walking a little slowly or if you are very sad.
At the other extreme, there are countries that would force you to dribble in pain for years on end and will send your wife to prison if she comes with you to Switzerland.
I am confident that we will find a sensible middle ground. If you have a terminal disease with less than six months to go and you are living in pain or indignity, you can say your goodbyes. You‘ll have to fill in a form ahead of time to prevent evil shenanigans by greedy relatives.
Why force someone to stay alive in agony for months on end?
Likewise. Lord Falconer is back on his hobbyhorse, an old wheezing angel of death. It will be the only way to clear the corridors in the NHS, coming to us soon.
Starmer and co were the ones that bent their knees to the BLM crooks & thugs. He will be worse than the useless Tories. Did I see over the weekend that teaching English grammar and multiplication tables in schools is to be stopped or scaled back because it makes the poor children anxious? Traditional socialists like Denis Healey, Nye Bevan, Robin Cook etc would be horrified at what passes for Government these days. ( Cook was also horrified at what Blair did).
I think Starmer did what he had to do to become Prime Minister. I also think he will be quite resolute about reining in some of the extremes of wokeism. At the first reshuffle, expect all the ministers who are still woke to be no longer ministers.
I hoped for a week or two that he might pretend to be seen to be doing so, but not sure he can even do that. I would love to be proved wrong, but don't share your optimism.
The Times says that unions are putting pressure on Ministers to stop teaching times-tables but "Ministers have indicated that basic multiplication remains a vital part of children’s education."
I would hope so. I don't have time to trawl the internet for every differing view on a given topic. Nor will I give any of my income to support a national newspaper or TV channel whose reporting on almost everything is distorted by their political credo.
I think the left is always pushing for more government Ragged. Because it believes in the collective rather than the individual, so will alway favour the committee over the family when it comes to decision making. Though the Tory Party (supposedly the ’right’) has become just as addicted to the big state.
I think the Americans had the right idea in their constitution when they limited the powers of the federal government. It didn't seem to do them much good, sadly. Maybe we'll take that on when we design our new constitution.
I'll note though that the tories centralised a lot of stuff when they took away the powers of local government. I know that you are not a big fan of the Tories, but that was a *right thing*, not a *left thing*.
I’m sort of lost to ‘left and right’ though I obviously do use it as a shorthand. The Tories were terrible and not ‘right’ enough for me. But I’ve voted for the SDP whose economic policies are to the ‘left ‘of mine by a wide margin.
Constitutions are better at the ‘start’ of a country maybe. Before vested interests take too much charge. The problem with a written constitution is who gets to write it. I’m not sure who it would be. But I know who it wouldn’t be, us.
We will never be given the opportunity to design a constitution because the only reason for a constitution is to balance the power of the state and the individual. Government is winning this power struggle by a wide and increasing margin - they will not relinquish it.
There is no 'left' and 'right' only authoritarian government v. libertarianism.
Hayek got it correct in 'The Road to Serfdom': (from Wiki) he warns of "the danger of tyranny that inevitably results from government control of economic decision-making through central planning. He further argues that the abandonment of individualism and classical liberalism inevitably leads to a loss of freedom, the creation of an oppressive society, the tyranny of a dictator, and the serfdom of the individual. Hayek challenged the view, popular among British Marxists, that fascism (including Nazism) was a capitalist reaction against socialism. He argued that fascism, Nazism, and state-socialism had common roots in central economic planning and empowering the state over the individual."
Socialists believe that Big Brother loves them; libertarians know that it does not.
So-called 'left' and 'right' is a false dichotomy, created to ensure that we are divided and do not co-operate.....we need to co-operate against the tyranny of government itself. Unless and until socialists realise that government itself is the enemy, we will be forever oppressed by an elite.
And yet there has never been a single organized society in all of history that was libertarian. Every single society that has been a better place than Somalia has had a government and that government has overseen the economy and made adjustments to it. The strange thing about libbies is that they continue to believe in something that has never existed and never will because it is a pipe dream.
Seems a few decades back some libbies decided to create a TFM paradise village in New Hampshire. It fell apart almost at once. During the first winter, the roads were not plowed because there was no central authority to get it done. There was no water, sewer, electrical or any other 'natural monopoly' services because no individual could pay for it.
I think you misunderstand libertarianism. Obviously there needs to be infrastructure and maintenance of infrastructure. It is not zero government - that would be anarchy.
Yes, we have not managed to lose our chains - yet! That does not mean we can't.
Yes. It works as an ideal maybe. But in practice people are just not like that. Socialism suffers from the same problem. Although so far it has proven a bit deadlier.
The gist is that there are two important dimensions: left vs right for economics & authoritarian vs libertarian for government control.
I just took the quiz 20 years ago and again just a few days ago and came out quite left and very libertarian as always. It's possible to be a lefty who opposes government control. I am one.
I don't think left vs right is a false dichotomy — but it's not the only dichotomy.
Yeah, there's lots of political diagrams and all of them are interesting. I myself like the diamond. Up is big, down is small, left is Left and right is Right. Thing is that at the bottom point, there is no government at all, so you can hardly call it left or right -- it's doesn't exist. At the top, where government is everything, as many have noted, there really is no difference between Left and Right because the government controls everything anyway. But in the middle you have the widest point -- government exists, but so does freedom. At that 'height on the diagram, Left and Right are real choices.
Well, I have just done the "test" and I come out slightly libertarian and a little more Left, and overall not too far from the centre. If you had asked me beforehand where I would be I would have said halfway down the libertarian axis and half way along the Right axis. ie. plonk in the middle of the libertarian Right box. So not too certain of the value of the test. PS. I am surprised that 20 years extra experience of the world has not changed your position at all.
> I think we have the best shot at preventing the collapse of civilisation if we work together to eliminate the craziest excesses of those who would destroy it.
My man. It's too easy to try to divide Them from Us. We have met the enemy and they are us ... is more like it. Anecdote: I have a lifelong friend who's now a Democrat zombie -- the world is simple: Good Democrats must defeat Bad Republicans. He can't stand my neutrality. Don't I know that I'm only helping Trump? But I don't care if the lunatics who destroy my civilization are Lefties, Righties, Greenies or Islamists -- I'm allies with anyone who's pro civilization. As you suggest, it's time for all sane people to rise up and throw out the nutbars on all sides of all isles.
Richard Hanania and Bentham's Bulldog both had recent posts about (from memory) "evidence-based centrists" (EBC). Their point was that a lot of the most partisan and extreme political advocates on both sides are largely detached from reality. The EBCs are not actually centrists or moderates on every topic — but they do deal in reality. I would vote for that party.
Sounds good to me. Choosing between two more or less equally sane parties is a luxury we don't have. I'll settle for anyone who's in touch with reality.
The problem is that the EBCs are very quiet and won’t stand up for their beliefs. When push comes to shove, they either prefer a quiet life or are really squishy liberals who don’t want to be on the losing side.
I disagree with most of your contentions here, and mostly because you are lacking the 30,000 foot view.
The agenda of those who have commandeered power in our world is depopulation and reorganization of society. While we argue points—like degrees of woke-ness, the number of bullets fired in Butler, PA., trans treatments, and the like, the Great Reset moves along with steely precision.
Your talking points are merely distractions created for you by others for that purpose. What we must be focused on is their end game: depopulation and reorganization.
We are the squawking musicians on a sinking ship. All squawk. No action.
It's absolutely not true that governments want to depopulate society. Whoever it is that is feeding me my talking points forgot to tell me that one. And if they did, they are wrong. Pretty much every government in the western world knows that a crisis is coming from populations falling and they are scheming to counter it.
Is there anything else I am missing at the 30,000ft level?
The depopulation agenda is, unfortunately, very real. There are speeches, quotes, documents, and books that proved this long ago. Most people who are adequately schooled and up to speed understand this.
Start with the Georgia Guidestones. That’s easy. Then move into UN Agenda 21. Read Thomas Malthus. Look into eugenics and Margaret Sanger. Maybe watch the video “The Depopulation Agenda” on YouTube.
And I’d keep my eye on bird flu. They learned a lot during Covid and are already ramping up the bird flu narrative.
Happy sleuthing! And, by the way, do not use Google for research. An utter waste of time. Try Yandex.com instead.
If you believe that our governments are secretly trying to kill us with their vaccination schemes, you are maybe following a corner of the internet that I don't frequent.
Also, Margaret Sanger was active 100 years before the current depopulation crisis was acknowledged. Thomas Malthus was 100 years before that. Maybe you might consult more modern informants?
I am somewhat terrified that the Europeans are back in 1997-2016 in terms of research and acceptance of certain facts.
You and I are in different worlds in our understanding of current events. I woke up in 1998 in my work as a reporter in the media. It’s been a long haul and a true education.
I’m afraid we’re not going to be able to agree on much at this point.
Ah! A conspiracy theorist! You don't think that many things happen because actors with different motives find it convenient to push certain agendas? Govts are mostly incompetent but headed by ambitious people with private interests, corporates want to make money and they know they can do this by cuddling up to govts, minority interests know the path to impose their views is via capture of the educational institutions and the media, another minority has a fanatical belief in the rightness of their world view, racial minorities know the democracies want to be fair to everyone, even at the expense of fairness to the majority ... and so these ultimately competing interests temporarily make common cause with other factions. That's where we are. A coalition of convenience which has no bedrock of permanent commonality. It will fracture at some point, but our civilisation may well be destroyed before that point is reached.
Hmmm...but there is still a point served by pointing out the egregious lies, because doing so may be the best way to undermine trust in the goons' agenda. The complexity of the real agenda is just too hard for most people to fathom, so there's mileage in keeping it simple, so if/when somebody steps onto the stage with actual integrity, they're easier to recognise.
Well, I said that I think Starmer will rein it in. I am only hopeful that Harris will. I don’t think she has a chance of winning if she doesn't. I do think she wants to win.
If you look at the surveys of Muslim opinion over the past dozen years then a substantial proportion want the imposition of Sharia Law on the country. And if you look at the teachings of the Imams, and the behaviour of Muslim youth when it has a crowd for mutual support, then you can see that indigenous Brits are the enemy. You may have a few educated Muslims as friends who are civilised but I don't see civilised behaviour coming out of the majority. They will only integrate on their terms - which means the Brits either converting or becoming (as they have) second class citizens in their own country. It is a clash of fundamentally different values, and cohabitation is not an option. It has nothing to do with Left or Right. You might think you are tolerant and broadminded and that will perhaps save you. But not from the intolerant and narrow minded.
They have always lied. From the first priest who convinced his followers to sacrifice their best goat to make the rains come, they have lied to us.
When the rains came, the priest was praised and showered with gifts. When the rains didn't come, it was because the goat wasn't good enough, or you resented giving up your best goat.
Either way, the priest got rich and fat.
They lied to us when they said that the earth was the centre of the universe, and threatened Galileo for saying it.
When Semmelweiss told doctors it might be a good idea to wash their hands between dissecting corpses and delivering babies, they forced him into a lunatic asylum.
When Snow took the handle of the street water pump and cholera spread stopped, the authorities put it back on.
When Ancel Keys cherry picked a sugar industry funded observational study to "prove" eating saturated fat, we demonised the only healthy fat to cook with for decades, and created a multi-billion dollar statin industry on the back of a lie.
LSO, there are countless examples in the past where the lie has been broadcast, and all you have to do is follow the dogma to the money to identify the reason for it. All that has changed is that the gullible (a worryingly consistent 90% plus) can now be force fed a constant stream of lies worldwide.
Fabulous LSO! And 'they', at some of our once most trusted British newspapers, The Times, The Telegraph to name but two, lie to us daily on each and every subject. You can see the rage of thousands of readers in the comments sections, clearly intelligent, informed people, many from the professions/industries which the Times/Telegraph are trying to 're-imagine and unburden'. KEEP UP THIS GREAT WORK LSO - one day you'll edit your own newspaper...I have an idea.
When and why did all this start? Is every country as mired in the dissenting as the U.K. and USA?
Of course, politicians have always been economical with the truth; it goes with the territory and to some limited extent it’s probably necessary. But there’s a world of difference between that and the bare faced whoppers that are served up to us every day now. Each one now emboldens more frequent and more outrageous gaslighting.
I don’t recall anything like this in my earlier years and I don’t think I was just naive. Was it Alistair Campbell’s dodgy dossier that set it off in the U.K.?
Hi Paul. Not sure where it started. But it is definitely getting worse.
Yes. A bit of exaggeration and politicking is to be expected. But this is, even they admit, a ‘post truth’ world. Where ‘lived experience’ trumps fact.
There a critique which claims this is all rooted in Marxism. I don’t know enough to know if that’s true. But it’s an interesting argument that does seem to hold together.
Poor Karl! He seemed to support the working class against the various parasites that fed on them -- mostly the capitalists. But now the capitalists have been joined by the woke, who are overt advocates for the parasites ... Ooops, I should say 'the Victims'. Worse, the 'capitalists' who used to do things like start industries which actually created real wealth, have now mostly been replaced by banksters, rentiers and other parasites who create nothing except market upsets -- which they engineer and then profit from. Give me back Andrew Carnegie and JP Morgan.
My issue with that is that the people at the bottom are dismissed as the ‘parasites’ ( I know you’re not saying that Ray) when all they are doing is responding rationally to an incentive system over which they have no control.
Yeah, that's a good point. 'Parasite' invokes thoughts of extermination. When the system invites people to become parasites it's hardly a crime that they take the bait. Sometimes it's the people, not the system, sometimes it's the system, not the people. Nuts, even in '08 when the banksters almost drove the bus off a cliff, they were only taking advantage of deregulation that let them do their dirty work. Hyenas will be hyenas.
If you are still at this point: “I’m not sure where it started,” or “It may be rooted in Marxism,” then I’m afraid there is much work for you to do. There are a multitude of books, podcasts and internet sites to get you up to speed.
Start on any number of events or data points: the World Wars, the assassination of JFK, the creation of the Federal Reserve, the Bilderberger Group, the Council On Foreign Relations, the Military Industrial Complex—-the list is enormous, but a deep dive into one of these topics will set you off on the right path.
Marxism, fascism, communism, technocracy, corporatocracy—does it matter? The end game is the focus: depopulation and reorganization of society.
Spectacular rant LSO! Speak the truth - live not by lies. While you still can. Unburden yourself from the recent past (being held hostage in our own countries) and focus on what can be (we no longer comply).
The enemy (and they are the enemy) have built an army of degenerate trans soldiers (as displayed before the world in Paris) and symbolically brought forth the pale horse of death to show to us all they are coming for our children as they have already sufficiently captured the adults in their mass psychosis. The same idolatry having been displayed in the buildings of their control at the European Union for years. (See Robert Malone article on Substack)
Which brings me to something I saw on Twitter(are British citizens allowed on Twitter?) I just recently started viewing, yes you have to be skeptical but isn’t that the truth in all media?
Tommy Robinson. I watched the March on July 27, only found on Twitter X by the way. I must admit it gave me some hope for England.
The crowd was mostly men, strong healthy looking men. They were upbeat and waving only British flags. Maybe I saw only what I wanted to see which was British citizens standing up for themselves.
There was also footage of the counter protesters accusing the other of being far right extremists, racist, Islamophobics etc (you know the list). What a sad pathetic crowd, the people looked weak, undernourished, their voices only seeming to repeat mantras they had unquestionably agreed to. They all carried flags from foreign countries and placards that accused the opposition of some unprovable offense that had been broadcasted from politicians, media or university professors.
I had no problem siding with the patriots.
And his documentary was posted for anyone to view. (That is the uncensored)
Wow, what an encapsulation of exactly what has been happening in the west.
I then watched his interview with Jordan Peterson. What happened to him, those children, the school is infuriating, disheartening and a crime.
What say you?
By the way google is in full throttle censorship mode, erasing all kinds of history to get through the election.
Hi Deidre. Your rant seems just as spectacular tbh. Thanks!
I’m not a fan of TR. He did some great work highlighting the grooming gangs. But I don’t really like his brand of nationalism. It plays into the hands of the left and puts off a lot of moderate people. I think we should be trying to bring people together, not blaming different groups for our ills. That’s just identity politics all over again. Like cancel culture, it’s wrong when they do it, it’s also wrong when we do it.
And no. I’m not saying all his supporters and people he appeals to are extremists.
I don’t want to get into a TR discussion here. And I know a few readers who have had positive experiences on some of those marches. But no. Not for me.
Given we are being lied to about everything, perhaps we are being lied to about TR? I suggest you listen to Jordan Peterson’s interview with TR and see if he is worth adding to your list, once you hear what he has to say, rather than what you are told he says.
It was only after JBP gave him the time of day I even considered paying attention. JBP has nothing to gain by giving him a platform if the media representation of TR is true.
Reading these comments I also share the sense that we no longer trust those in authority. We spent most of our lives assuming, often against our better judgment, that the people in charge were experienced, educated, capable and even if they made mistakes, they had our best interests at heart. Two world wars were fought on that basis. The social contract works vertically as well as horizontally and it feels frayed beyond repair. We shall miss it all the more when we notice it’s gone.
I believe covid was the final straw. We were suddenly lied to by everyone day after day on various subjects I had to check my watch every time they told us the time.
> They lied that ‘ultra processed food’ is going to kill us all.
I sorta believe that one.
Anyway what I think needs a deeper dive is who 'they' are. At the very least should we not distinguish between the established 'they' that includes big pharma, big oil, big ... big everything, and the noisy protesting 'they' exemplified by Greta?
This needs work. Focusing my mind in a certain way I can see both Greta and the CEO of Exxon as 'they' but that doesn't mean they are themselves united -- they screw us in different ways but they aren't friends. But even then there's mud in the water as, say, big silicon pays so much lip service to Greta, DEI, and wokeness in general. (BTW, did you hear, Microsoft fired their entire DEI department, lock, stock and barrel?) Anyway, Exxon lies that we have nothing to worry about when it comes to AGW, and Greta lies that we're all going to be dead in 12 years -- it's always 12 years away.
Hi Ray. Yes. At no point do I make the claim that ‘they’ are a single group. I don’t think there’s one cabal of shady people conspiring against us. Lots of different people are lying to us at different times for different reasons. And their reasons change and evolve over time.
Lots of people believe the UPF one. I find that in itself fascinating. Crappy food yes. But that’s not what is being presented here. This is something different. Sort of like ‘magic bad food which only makes poor people fat. And we need to take away their freedoms to protect them from it’. Thats what I get when I reverse engineer what they appear to be saying.
> Sort of like ‘magic bad food which only makes poor people fat.
Heck yes. Whitey again! He forces blacks to stuff themselves with junk food (that eaten in moderation probably wouldn't do much if any harm), and why? Because he wants all of them sick and diabetic and draining medicare dry. Why does he want that? Because he's part of the medical/industrial complex. Pity the taxpayer tho. But yes, as the system nears collapse perhaps Whitey will take away their sodas and their chips and their deep fried Oreos. Nice, healthy bugs only.
I agree that we need to keep our "theys" straight. Present company excepted, I think a lot of people think that all this bad stuff is being done by the same group of bad people.
A lot of US universities have done away with their DEI departments too. Many of those are because of red state politicians but a lot of independent colleges have too. On top of that, several universities no longer require DEI classes for students. Change is coming!
Sometimes one dares to hope! Just how much punishment can we absorb and still get on our feet again? Who can possibly know? You don't know civilization has collapsed until it does. In the 60's in the US they say it was worse than today -- even the BLM summer was far better than 1968. Social panics and manias happen every now and then ... and then evaporate almost overnight. Remember the Satanic Panic? One day it was just ... over. Could the woke epidemic end the same way? Could DEI just go away, silently in the night?
As usual, brilliant article, which hits the nail on the head! It's fascinating to see how all these lies are used. As well as the obvious blatant lies, we also have more subtle techniques (lies of omission, obfuscation, gaslighting, memory-holing and many others) so that you really do start to question your sanity. Btw, I clicked on some of the links you included and was absolutely gobsmacked to see an article slightly critical of mass immigration in The Guardian!
I actually used to love The Guardian and read it regularly. They lost me some years ago after an article about how sexist buildings were. Since that time, they've just become too ideological, in my opinion, that's why I was so surprised to read the (slightly) negative piece on mass immigration.
Like the Telegraph which i moan about elsewhere, it’s easy to think of these papers as monoliths rather than groups of individuals I think. I know I’m very guilty of that-I do it in the piece 🤔 But when it’s good, the Guardian can be very good. Not the Indy tho. That’s rubbish.
I've been reading The Guardian for more than 30 years. It has definitely gone downhill — especially with culture war stuff — since the previous editor moved on. But they do have a real diversity of commentators. Much more than some right-leaning papers I could name.
I like the Spectator which I heard described as a‘far right rag’ recently. But I think it’s like the M&S of conservatism. Which I know doesn’t reflect well on me!
I had a habit for a long time of subscribing to a different magazine for a while. I did the spectator for a year. It definitely has a specific point of view! The Economist was very good. On the left, The Week & The New Statesman are good.
Great list. Love it. I write about the proposal to implement an Education Tax. You might like these couple for your list. They lie about the nature of VAT, they lie about independent schools, and they lie about the precedent the only time a country tried to implement an Education Tax.
I enjoyed your rant. I hope you feel better for it. In very recent times I have been recalling Hilaire Belloc's poem, " Matilda told such dreadful lies". Here is a link to a video presentation. I suppose for Matilda one could substitute someone else's name. I tried but couldn't keep the rhyme sequence. Perhaps someone with more poetic skill could try?
A lot longer BitKoda. I just thought of those from my head. But thanks for your kind words. It’s nice to rant occasionally . But I’ll keep mixing it up. (With lots of different types of rant 🤣)
god, dinosaurs, the wars, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the cold war, Vietnam, JFK, Moon landings, fiat Money, 9/11, 7/7, Covid, the green movement, co2, Ukraine and nuclear weapons
I think that piece should be carved into one of the Stonehenge monoliths, so that it can be read in two thousand years time when, whatever is left of us, researches the collapse of civilisation in the 21st century.
Ha ha Great idea Bettina. Though I’d love to read one from 2000 years ago now. I wonder what they would have been moaning about? The price of flint? The poor quality of bison lately?
Yes, Bettina, is absolutely right the list needs to be inscribed in a huge stone placed in Parliament Square, and then, so that the kids read it, timestamped on the blockchain as well. Superb piece.
Would you believe me if I told you I was working on a song on this very same subject?
I look forward to hearing it Dominic. And thanks for the new subs!!
Dominic do you do requests? I have one I could share, it's a bit out of season "Walking in a woke wonderland".
"Romani ite domum"
Romans, they go the house?
In answer to LSO what the ancient Britons would have been moaning about, it was a reference to that scene in Life of Brian where Brian is daubing the walls with 'Romans go home' and John Cleese as a centurion comes along and corrects his Latin grammar 😂
I know, Bettina. I was trying to be funny. 🥸
That was of course a deliberate error.
My main complaint about Mr LSO’s rant is that it’s not targeted enough. It seems to suggest that all of the woes and the government lies are coming from one place. But they are not.
As I have said many times, all Mr LSO’s complaints about wokeness are valid and I agree with them. I am positive that Starmer will rein in the woke extremes and hopeful that Harris will too. They will have to once they realise how unpopular wokeness is on both sides of the aisle. My mission is to persuade you that most folks on the left are not woke and pretending that they are is counter-productive. We need to work together on this. We should celebrate when Starmer restricts trans treatments on children for example, and not pretend that it’s just a secret ploy to make us all trans. Same with immigration.
Same with Islamic extremism. We should be able to accept that normal Muslims are our friends and neighbours while condemning the nutcases who want to impose Sharia or who want to carve out Islamist constituencies in the Midlands. We should work together.
I think we have the best shot at preventing the collapse of civilisation if we work together to eliminate the craziest excesses of those who would destroy it. It doesn't help to mix the genuine threats with party-political rants.
I never said they were all coming from one place Ragged. Lots of different people are lying to us, with lots of different agendas. It was a pot pourri of fibs.
I accept your argument that Labour will put the woke away. But I simply don’t believe it will happen. Apart from the puberty blockers thing. Which is a solid win. Dodds has said she will essentially bring in self id. I think saying I suggest there is a secret ploy to make us all trans is unfair, unless it’s just a joke, in which case fair enough.
I never said that ‘all Muslims’ are Islamic extremists. I fundamentally do not believe that. And I know lots of Muslim people. They are just people. It’s a bit like the ‘America system’ argument about the NHS. If you criticise Islamic Extremism you suddenly get accused on some level of ‘hating Muslims’. It’s simply not true. But it is the ‘argument’ they will use to introduce new blasphemy laws in the form of ‘Islamophobia’ legislation.
I have written some ‘party political’ rants. My most successful posts have been anti Tory rants, closely followed by one about Labour. But this is not party political at all. It would be hard for me to write one, since I think they are all, including Reform but maybe not the SDP, pretty crap.
It's a bit like conflating hating the extremism of the IRA with hating all Roman Catholics really. With Islam though, an awful lot of Moslems if we are to believe stats would like to see sharia law, plus all the other backward looking mores - and they are getting into local government now. It does not bode well.
Absolutely Giulia. We need to push for integrating these people andfor social cohesion. But that requires two things, at least.
We need to be proud and positive of the thing we are asking them to join, our culture and society. Which we are not. We are taught to hate ourselves.
And secondly, and perhaps in a wider ‘progressive’world more controversially, we need to say we can’t integrate this many people this quickly. So we need to limit how many of you join us. And be free to decide how many we want.
Neither seems unreasonable to me. But suggest them and you are dismissed as ‘right wing’. So it will continue fracturing and causing division and ultimately worse. It’s so unnecessary.
It is important to recognise integration and assimilation have limits: they are not a panacea. After centuries Jews remain a distinct group, with a religious and ethnic identity distinct from the natives. This is not a bad thing but elucidates a limit of integration, for what is a small group with a strong identity. WWII era Poles, by contrast, are indistinguishable apart from surnames. More recently arrived Poles will be similarly indistinguishable in a generation. That ethnically and religiously very different people, arriving at scale, can assimilate is, I fear, another lie we are being told.
Absolutely Dan. The numbers coming are unprecedented. It would be hard enough assimilating them all if they were all from a broadly similar culture.
The thing about Jews integrating is that they do so while remaining apart but not by insisting we take on their beliefs and rules and even their courts.
Agree on Dodds. We need to keep an eye on her and I think Starmer will. I will issue a full apology if he doesn't. The other bit was half-joke. Sorry.
> I never said that ‘all Muslims’ are Islamic extremists.
You got *me* wrong on this one. I assume that you and I are in agreement on the distinction between our lovely muslim neighbours and the folks who want to implement Sharia Law on islands in Scotland. I just reread what I wrote and it definitely says that.
You've always been very even-handed with your ranting. I was distracted by the bit about Kamala at the start this time. If you'd started your rant with some anti-tory stuff I wouldn't have focused on the anti-lefty stuff 😉.
Still friends?
Very much Ragged.
We disagree on much.
But on this..
>We should be able to accept that normal Muslims are our friends and neighbours while condemning the nutcases who want to impose Sharia or who want to carve out Islamist constituencies in the Midlands. We should work together.
We are in 💯 agreement.
> We should be able to accept that normal Muslims are our friends and neighbours
Let me stretch the Overton Window a little bit: If I have a Muslim neighbor who behaves himself of course I'm going to treat him like a neighbor. At the same time I don't want so many Muslims in my country that they form a critical mass from which Sharia parties can emerge. IOW, irrespective of what a fine man Mr. Aziz may be, if the country contains a critical mass of people just like him, we are going to see little emirates showing up in which sharia is the law. This is quite inevitable. My judgement of an individual person is an entirely different thing than my immigration policy.
Seems fair.
BTW & FWIW I am learning a lot, discussing this stuff with you.
I am having a side argument with my two best (lefty) friends in American at the moment where I use a lot of your points as ammunition.
I am currently trying to persuade them that woke stuff (DEI, trans stuff, anti-racism, white privilege) will lose the Dems the presidency unless they rein it in a bit.
It’s a two way street Ragged.
I could be proved spectacularly wrong but I think this is going to be a razor tight race by November. Those voters could well be put off by the bonkers woke stuff. Or Trump could put them
Off even more-he certainly has it in him!
> Still friends?
Let me answer for LSO: of course still friends. There's things that need to be hashed out in an intelligent and respectful way. Disagreement is no metric of either respect or friendship. Your posts are models of the form -- intelligent, useful, honest, open minded, probing. And as for LSO ... well, why are we here?
Nicely put Ray.
How kind! Thank you, Ray!
Is Starmer going to rein in the woke extremes when he has just allowed Bridget Phillipson to scupper the Freedom of Speech Act? The Labour Party don't care about what is popular - they are in power with only 1 in 5 of the electorate voting for them and Starmer on record as saying that Davos is more important than Westminster.
More government is never the answer to anything and political parties exist to gain power over others, not to make life 'better' in the way that you and I wish, Ragged. Yes, most of us agree about crazy excesses as you say, however the difference is that you believe the answer is MORE government. I, and many others, think that is the very opposite of what we need.
I agree with you Bettina. I don’t believe they are turning their back on woke. Apart from the puberty blockers, I see nothing but acceleration.
Of course he won't. The more extreme bits will be chopped to massage the message but the machine will move on. Watch the school curriculum (especially history) being rewritten. Assisted dying. Free Speech in universities. Ban on 'conversion therapy. On it will go.
I’m very worried about ‘assisted dying’. AKA killing the inconvenient. As ever they will use real, genuinely heart rending edge case examples-like with trans-to bring in universal and destructive changes.
I think Canada and Belgium totally screwed this up. They'll give you the final injection if you start walking a little slowly or if you are very sad.
At the other extreme, there are countries that would force you to dribble in pain for years on end and will send your wife to prison if she comes with you to Switzerland.
I am confident that we will find a sensible middle ground. If you have a terminal disease with less than six months to go and you are living in pain or indignity, you can say your goodbyes. You‘ll have to fill in a form ahead of time to prevent evil shenanigans by greedy relatives.
Why force someone to stay alive in agony for months on end?
I agree wholeheartedly. But that, as ever, would just be the start of it.
I have a whole post bubbling up in my head about this and related issues. Basically. Don’t give the state the right to kill you.
> I think Canada and Belgium totally screwed this up.
A while back we had this disabled guy who was about to loose his apartment and was upset about it. The government offered him euthanasia.
The middle way never stays that way for long.
Likewise. Lord Falconer is back on his hobbyhorse, an old wheezing angel of death. It will be the only way to clear the corridors in the NHS, coming to us soon.
Starmer and co were the ones that bent their knees to the BLM crooks & thugs. He will be worse than the useless Tories. Did I see over the weekend that teaching English grammar and multiplication tables in schools is to be stopped or scaled back because it makes the poor children anxious? Traditional socialists like Denis Healey, Nye Bevan, Robin Cook etc would be horrified at what passes for Government these days. ( Cook was also horrified at what Blair did).
I think Starmer did what he had to do to become Prime Minister. I also think he will be quite resolute about reining in some of the extremes of wokeism. At the first reshuffle, expect all the ministers who are still woke to be no longer ministers.
We shall see. I don't share your enthusiasm for Two Tier Keir.
I hoped for a week or two that he might pretend to be seen to be doing so, but not sure he can even do that. I would love to be proved wrong, but don't share your optimism.
The Times says that unions are putting pressure on Ministers to stop teaching times-tables but "Ministers have indicated that basic multiplication remains a vital part of children’s education."
Perhaps I found different sources than you.
That's the press release telling us what we want to hear - I can't see ministers strongly opposing the unions here.
I would hope so. I don't have time to trawl the internet for every differing view on a given topic. Nor will I give any of my income to support a national newspaper or TV channel whose reporting on almost everything is distorted by their political credo.
I certainly don't want more government, Bettina, and I believe that our best shot at bringing that under control is to cooperate, left and right.
I think the left is always pushing for more government Ragged. Because it believes in the collective rather than the individual, so will alway favour the committee over the family when it comes to decision making. Though the Tory Party (supposedly the ’right’) has become just as addicted to the big state.
I think the Americans had the right idea in their constitution when they limited the powers of the federal government. It didn't seem to do them much good, sadly. Maybe we'll take that on when we design our new constitution.
I'll note though that the tories centralised a lot of stuff when they took away the powers of local government. I know that you are not a big fan of the Tories, but that was a *right thing*, not a *left thing*.
I’m sort of lost to ‘left and right’ though I obviously do use it as a shorthand. The Tories were terrible and not ‘right’ enough for me. But I’ve voted for the SDP whose economic policies are to the ‘left ‘of mine by a wide margin.
Constitutions are better at the ‘start’ of a country maybe. Before vested interests take too much charge. The problem with a written constitution is who gets to write it. I’m not sure who it would be. But I know who it wouldn’t be, us.
We will never be given the opportunity to design a constitution because the only reason for a constitution is to balance the power of the state and the individual. Government is winning this power struggle by a wide and increasing margin - they will not relinquish it.
There is no 'left' and 'right' only authoritarian government v. libertarianism.
Hayek got it correct in 'The Road to Serfdom': (from Wiki) he warns of "the danger of tyranny that inevitably results from government control of economic decision-making through central planning. He further argues that the abandonment of individualism and classical liberalism inevitably leads to a loss of freedom, the creation of an oppressive society, the tyranny of a dictator, and the serfdom of the individual. Hayek challenged the view, popular among British Marxists, that fascism (including Nazism) was a capitalist reaction against socialism. He argued that fascism, Nazism, and state-socialism had common roots in central economic planning and empowering the state over the individual."
Socialists believe that Big Brother loves them; libertarians know that it does not.
So-called 'left' and 'right' is a false dichotomy, created to ensure that we are divided and do not co-operate.....we need to co-operate against the tyranny of government itself. Unless and until socialists realise that government itself is the enemy, we will be forever oppressed by an elite.
Both you and Hayek are correct I think Bettina!
And yet there has never been a single organized society in all of history that was libertarian. Every single society that has been a better place than Somalia has had a government and that government has overseen the economy and made adjustments to it. The strange thing about libbies is that they continue to believe in something that has never existed and never will because it is a pipe dream.
Seems a few decades back some libbies decided to create a TFM paradise village in New Hampshire. It fell apart almost at once. During the first winter, the roads were not plowed because there was no central authority to get it done. There was no water, sewer, electrical or any other 'natural monopoly' services because no individual could pay for it.
I think you misunderstand libertarianism. Obviously there needs to be infrastructure and maintenance of infrastructure. It is not zero government - that would be anarchy.
Yes, we have not managed to lose our chains - yet! That does not mean we can't.
Yes. It works as an ideal maybe. But in practice people are just not like that. Socialism suffers from the same problem. Although so far it has proven a bit deadlier.
Are you familiar with the Political Compass, Bettina?
https://www.politicalcompass.org/analysis2
The gist is that there are two important dimensions: left vs right for economics & authoritarian vs libertarian for government control.
I just took the quiz 20 years ago and again just a few days ago and came out quite left and very libertarian as always. It's possible to be a lefty who opposes government control. I am one.
I don't think left vs right is a false dichotomy — but it's not the only dichotomy.
Yes, I think it is a neat tool to herd us sheeple into antagonistic pens 😉
Yeah, there's lots of political diagrams and all of them are interesting. I myself like the diamond. Up is big, down is small, left is Left and right is Right. Thing is that at the bottom point, there is no government at all, so you can hardly call it left or right -- it's doesn't exist. At the top, where government is everything, as many have noted, there really is no difference between Left and Right because the government controls everything anyway. But in the middle you have the widest point -- government exists, but so does freedom. At that 'height on the diagram, Left and Right are real choices.
Well, I have just done the "test" and I come out slightly libertarian and a little more Left, and overall not too far from the centre. If you had asked me beforehand where I would be I would have said halfway down the libertarian axis and half way along the Right axis. ie. plonk in the middle of the libertarian Right box. So not too certain of the value of the test. PS. I am surprised that 20 years extra experience of the world has not changed your position at all.
> you believe the answer is MORE government.
Did he say that? Please quote.
> I think we have the best shot at preventing the collapse of civilisation if we work together to eliminate the craziest excesses of those who would destroy it.
My man. It's too easy to try to divide Them from Us. We have met the enemy and they are us ... is more like it. Anecdote: I have a lifelong friend who's now a Democrat zombie -- the world is simple: Good Democrats must defeat Bad Republicans. He can't stand my neutrality. Don't I know that I'm only helping Trump? But I don't care if the lunatics who destroy my civilization are Lefties, Righties, Greenies or Islamists -- I'm allies with anyone who's pro civilization. As you suggest, it's time for all sane people to rise up and throw out the nutbars on all sides of all isles.
Richard Hanania and Bentham's Bulldog both had recent posts about (from memory) "evidence-based centrists" (EBC). Their point was that a lot of the most partisan and extreme political advocates on both sides are largely detached from reality. The EBCs are not actually centrists or moderates on every topic — but they do deal in reality. I would vote for that party.
Sounds good to me. Choosing between two more or less equally sane parties is a luxury we don't have. I'll settle for anyone who's in touch with reality.
The problem is that the EBCs are very quiet and won’t stand up for their beliefs. When push comes to shove, they either prefer a quiet life or are really squishy liberals who don’t want to be on the losing side.
I feel seen.
(To my shame)
The gist of their argument was that EBCs are exactly not that. They do argue their corner. The squishy ones are not EBCs by (their) definition.
I disagree with most of your contentions here, and mostly because you are lacking the 30,000 foot view.
The agenda of those who have commandeered power in our world is depopulation and reorganization of society. While we argue points—like degrees of woke-ness, the number of bullets fired in Butler, PA., trans treatments, and the like, the Great Reset moves along with steely precision.
Your talking points are merely distractions created for you by others for that purpose. What we must be focused on is their end game: depopulation and reorganization.
We are the squawking musicians on a sinking ship. All squawk. No action.
It's absolutely not true that governments want to depopulate society. Whoever it is that is feeding me my talking points forgot to tell me that one. And if they did, they are wrong. Pretty much every government in the western world knows that a crisis is coming from populations falling and they are scheming to counter it.
Is there anything else I am missing at the 30,000ft level?
The depopulation agenda is, unfortunately, very real. There are speeches, quotes, documents, and books that proved this long ago. Most people who are adequately schooled and up to speed understand this.
Start with the Georgia Guidestones. That’s easy. Then move into UN Agenda 21. Read Thomas Malthus. Look into eugenics and Margaret Sanger. Maybe watch the video “The Depopulation Agenda” on YouTube.
And I’d keep my eye on bird flu. They learned a lot during Covid and are already ramping up the bird flu narrative.
Happy sleuthing! And, by the way, do not use Google for research. An utter waste of time. Try Yandex.com instead.
If you believe that our governments are secretly trying to kill us with their vaccination schemes, you are maybe following a corner of the internet that I don't frequent.
Also, Margaret Sanger was active 100 years before the current depopulation crisis was acknowledged. Thomas Malthus was 100 years before that. Maybe you might consult more modern informants?
I am somewhat terrified that the Europeans are back in 1997-2016 in terms of research and acceptance of certain facts.
You and I are in different worlds in our understanding of current events. I woke up in 1998 in my work as a reporter in the media. It’s been a long haul and a true education.
I’m afraid we’re not going to be able to agree on much at this point.
Touche. 'They' might be hoping to replace whitey, but they also want infinite growth -- that keeps profits rising.
I don't see the UK government even raising the subject.
Also, Substack is your friend. Here is a good conversation happening now re: depopulation. There are brilliant people on top of this agenda.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-147128532
Ah! A conspiracy theorist! You don't think that many things happen because actors with different motives find it convenient to push certain agendas? Govts are mostly incompetent but headed by ambitious people with private interests, corporates want to make money and they know they can do this by cuddling up to govts, minority interests know the path to impose their views is via capture of the educational institutions and the media, another minority has a fanatical belief in the rightness of their world view, racial minorities know the democracies want to be fair to everyone, even at the expense of fairness to the majority ... and so these ultimately competing interests temporarily make common cause with other factions. That's where we are. A coalition of convenience which has no bedrock of permanent commonality. It will fracture at some point, but our civilisation may well be destroyed before that point is reached.
Hmmm...but there is still a point served by pointing out the egregious lies, because doing so may be the best way to undermine trust in the goons' agenda. The complexity of the real agenda is just too hard for most people to fathom, so there's mileage in keeping it simple, so if/when somebody steps onto the stage with actual integrity, they're easier to recognise.
If you think Harris will rein in “woke” then it causes me to seriously downgrade my opinion of your comment.
Well, I said that I think Starmer will rein it in. I am only hopeful that Harris will. I don’t think she has a chance of winning if she doesn't. I do think she wants to win.
If you look at the surveys of Muslim opinion over the past dozen years then a substantial proportion want the imposition of Sharia Law on the country. And if you look at the teachings of the Imams, and the behaviour of Muslim youth when it has a crowd for mutual support, then you can see that indigenous Brits are the enemy. You may have a few educated Muslims as friends who are civilised but I don't see civilised behaviour coming out of the majority. They will only integrate on their terms - which means the Brits either converting or becoming (as they have) second class citizens in their own country. It is a clash of fundamentally different values, and cohabitation is not an option. It has nothing to do with Left or Right. You might think you are tolerant and broadminded and that will perhaps save you. But not from the intolerant and narrow minded.
Or let’s creat our own guide stones in Georgia with a warning about elites.
They have always lied. From the first priest who convinced his followers to sacrifice their best goat to make the rains come, they have lied to us.
When the rains came, the priest was praised and showered with gifts. When the rains didn't come, it was because the goat wasn't good enough, or you resented giving up your best goat.
Either way, the priest got rich and fat.
They lied to us when they said that the earth was the centre of the universe, and threatened Galileo for saying it.
When Semmelweiss told doctors it might be a good idea to wash their hands between dissecting corpses and delivering babies, they forced him into a lunatic asylum.
When Snow took the handle of the street water pump and cholera spread stopped, the authorities put it back on.
When Ancel Keys cherry picked a sugar industry funded observational study to "prove" eating saturated fat, we demonised the only healthy fat to cook with for decades, and created a multi-billion dollar statin industry on the back of a lie.
LSO, there are countless examples in the past where the lie has been broadcast, and all you have to do is follow the dogma to the money to identify the reason for it. All that has changed is that the gullible (a worryingly consistent 90% plus) can now be force fed a constant stream of lies worldwide.
Some great examples there thanks Jeremy. I’ll put them
In the footnotes.
What! Follow the money, you say? Cui bono, you say?
Love this, thanks!
Fabulous LSO! And 'they', at some of our once most trusted British newspapers, The Times, The Telegraph to name but two, lie to us daily on each and every subject. You can see the rage of thousands of readers in the comments sections, clearly intelligent, informed people, many from the professions/industries which the Times/Telegraph are trying to 're-imagine and unburden'. KEEP UP THIS GREAT WORK LSO - one day you'll edit your own newspaper...I have an idea.
Thanks Mrs Bucket. The Telegraph is so schizophrenic these days. Some parts super woke, and other parts on the money. It needs to be more consistent.
And its TDS is off the charts, they hate him so much. Yeah, calm down lads, he’s not running for PM of England you know 😂
Another great piece!
When and why did all this start? Is every country as mired in the dissenting as the U.K. and USA?
Of course, politicians have always been economical with the truth; it goes with the territory and to some limited extent it’s probably necessary. But there’s a world of difference between that and the bare faced whoppers that are served up to us every day now. Each one now emboldens more frequent and more outrageous gaslighting.
I don’t recall anything like this in my earlier years and I don’t think I was just naive. Was it Alistair Campbell’s dodgy dossier that set it off in the U.K.?
Hi Paul. Not sure where it started. But it is definitely getting worse.
Yes. A bit of exaggeration and politicking is to be expected. But this is, even they admit, a ‘post truth’ world. Where ‘lived experience’ trumps fact.
There a critique which claims this is all rooted in Marxism. I don’t know enough to know if that’s true. But it’s an interesting argument that does seem to hold together.
Poor Karl! He seemed to support the working class against the various parasites that fed on them -- mostly the capitalists. But now the capitalists have been joined by the woke, who are overt advocates for the parasites ... Ooops, I should say 'the Victims'. Worse, the 'capitalists' who used to do things like start industries which actually created real wealth, have now mostly been replaced by banksters, rentiers and other parasites who create nothing except market upsets -- which they engineer and then profit from. Give me back Andrew Carnegie and JP Morgan.
My issue with that is that the people at the bottom are dismissed as the ‘parasites’ ( I know you’re not saying that Ray) when all they are doing is responding rationally to an incentive system over which they have no control.
Yeah, that's a good point. 'Parasite' invokes thoughts of extermination. When the system invites people to become parasites it's hardly a crime that they take the bait. Sometimes it's the people, not the system, sometimes it's the system, not the people. Nuts, even in '08 when the banksters almost drove the bus off a cliff, they were only taking advantage of deregulation that let them do their dirty work. Hyenas will be hyenas.
No laughing matter.
If you are still at this point: “I’m not sure where it started,” or “It may be rooted in Marxism,” then I’m afraid there is much work for you to do. There are a multitude of books, podcasts and internet sites to get you up to speed.
Start on any number of events or data points: the World Wars, the assassination of JFK, the creation of the Federal Reserve, the Bilderberger Group, the Council On Foreign Relations, the Military Industrial Complex—-the list is enormous, but a deep dive into one of these topics will set you off on the right path.
Marxism, fascism, communism, technocracy, corporatocracy—does it matter? The end game is the focus: depopulation and reorganization of society.
And Shakespeare
Shakespeare? You mean the disabled Moroccan lady? 🤣
has your medication not kicked in yet; no I mean either the Earl of Oxford or Francis Bacon... try taking more water with it or take it anally.
Er no thanks! 😐
That should say “dissembling” - damned auto”correct”.
Spectacular rant LSO! Speak the truth - live not by lies. While you still can. Unburden yourself from the recent past (being held hostage in our own countries) and focus on what can be (we no longer comply).
The enemy (and they are the enemy) have built an army of degenerate trans soldiers (as displayed before the world in Paris) and symbolically brought forth the pale horse of death to show to us all they are coming for our children as they have already sufficiently captured the adults in their mass psychosis. The same idolatry having been displayed in the buildings of their control at the European Union for years. (See Robert Malone article on Substack)
Which brings me to something I saw on Twitter(are British citizens allowed on Twitter?) I just recently started viewing, yes you have to be skeptical but isn’t that the truth in all media?
Tommy Robinson. I watched the March on July 27, only found on Twitter X by the way. I must admit it gave me some hope for England.
The crowd was mostly men, strong healthy looking men. They were upbeat and waving only British flags. Maybe I saw only what I wanted to see which was British citizens standing up for themselves.
There was also footage of the counter protesters accusing the other of being far right extremists, racist, Islamophobics etc (you know the list). What a sad pathetic crowd, the people looked weak, undernourished, their voices only seeming to repeat mantras they had unquestionably agreed to. They all carried flags from foreign countries and placards that accused the opposition of some unprovable offense that had been broadcasted from politicians, media or university professors.
I had no problem siding with the patriots.
And his documentary was posted for anyone to view. (That is the uncensored)
Wow, what an encapsulation of exactly what has been happening in the west.
I then watched his interview with Jordan Peterson. What happened to him, those children, the school is infuriating, disheartening and a crime.
What say you?
By the way google is in full throttle censorship mode, erasing all kinds of history to get through the election.
We have been invaded by pod people. Lol
The
Hi Deidre. Your rant seems just as spectacular tbh. Thanks!
I’m not a fan of TR. He did some great work highlighting the grooming gangs. But I don’t really like his brand of nationalism. It plays into the hands of the left and puts off a lot of moderate people. I think we should be trying to bring people together, not blaming different groups for our ills. That’s just identity politics all over again. Like cancel culture, it’s wrong when they do it, it’s also wrong when we do it.
And no. I’m not saying all his supporters and people he appeals to are extremists.
I don’t want to get into a TR discussion here. And I know a few readers who have had positive experiences on some of those marches. But no. Not for me.
Given we are being lied to about everything, perhaps we are being lied to about TR? I suggest you listen to Jordan Peterson’s interview with TR and see if he is worth adding to your list, once you hear what he has to say, rather than what you are told he says.
Thanks Dan. Yes. I’ve heard him interviewed. (Not that one. I’ll give it a listen) He has certainly been sinned against. But again, not for me.
It was only after JBP gave him the time of day I even considered paying attention. JBP has nothing to gain by giving him a platform if the media representation of TR is true.
MOSSAD AGENT ROBINSON
One day they will tell us something really important, and true, and no one will believe a word of it.
I know Martin. Scary right?
Reading these comments I also share the sense that we no longer trust those in authority. We spent most of our lives assuming, often against our better judgment, that the people in charge were experienced, educated, capable and even if they made mistakes, they had our best interests at heart. Two world wars were fought on that basis. The social contract works vertically as well as horizontally and it feels frayed beyond repair. We shall miss it all the more when we notice it’s gone.
I believe covid was the final straw. We were suddenly lied to by everyone day after day on various subjects I had to check my watch every time they told us the time.
Like when they tried to tell us about the aliens!
Everyone was like Meh, aliens.
A vague half way house between truth and lies, belief and doubt. It's all the same, part of the news cycke
> They lied that ‘ultra processed food’ is going to kill us all.
I sorta believe that one.
Anyway what I think needs a deeper dive is who 'they' are. At the very least should we not distinguish between the established 'they' that includes big pharma, big oil, big ... big everything, and the noisy protesting 'they' exemplified by Greta?
This needs work. Focusing my mind in a certain way I can see both Greta and the CEO of Exxon as 'they' but that doesn't mean they are themselves united -- they screw us in different ways but they aren't friends. But even then there's mud in the water as, say, big silicon pays so much lip service to Greta, DEI, and wokeness in general. (BTW, did you hear, Microsoft fired their entire DEI department, lock, stock and barrel?) Anyway, Exxon lies that we have nothing to worry about when it comes to AGW, and Greta lies that we're all going to be dead in 12 years -- it's always 12 years away.
Hi Ray. Yes. At no point do I make the claim that ‘they’ are a single group. I don’t think there’s one cabal of shady people conspiring against us. Lots of different people are lying to us at different times for different reasons. And their reasons change and evolve over time.
Lots of people believe the UPF one. I find that in itself fascinating. Crappy food yes. But that’s not what is being presented here. This is something different. Sort of like ‘magic bad food which only makes poor people fat. And we need to take away their freedoms to protect them from it’. Thats what I get when I reverse engineer what they appear to be saying.
> Sort of like ‘magic bad food which only makes poor people fat.
Heck yes. Whitey again! He forces blacks to stuff themselves with junk food (that eaten in moderation probably wouldn't do much if any harm), and why? Because he wants all of them sick and diabetic and draining medicare dry. Why does he want that? Because he's part of the medical/industrial complex. Pity the taxpayer tho. But yes, as the system nears collapse perhaps Whitey will take away their sodas and their chips and their deep fried Oreos. Nice, healthy bugs only.
Not sure why it has to come back to race Ray. But bugs. Well all be eating the bugs.
Because Whitey is responsible for all bad things, surely?
I agree that we need to keep our "theys" straight. Present company excepted, I think a lot of people think that all this bad stuff is being done by the same group of bad people.
A lot of US universities have done away with their DEI departments too. Many of those are because of red state politicians but a lot of independent colleges have too. On top of that, several universities no longer require DEI classes for students. Change is coming!
Sometimes one dares to hope! Just how much punishment can we absorb and still get on our feet again? Who can possibly know? You don't know civilization has collapsed until it does. In the 60's in the US they say it was worse than today -- even the BLM summer was far better than 1968. Social panics and manias happen every now and then ... and then evaporate almost overnight. Remember the Satanic Panic? One day it was just ... over. Could the woke epidemic end the same way? Could DEI just go away, silently in the night?
As usual, brilliant article, which hits the nail on the head! It's fascinating to see how all these lies are used. As well as the obvious blatant lies, we also have more subtle techniques (lies of omission, obfuscation, gaslighting, memory-holing and many others) so that you really do start to question your sanity. Btw, I clicked on some of the links you included and was absolutely gobsmacked to see an article slightly critical of mass immigration in The Guardian!
Thanks Through. Yes. Omission is a big one. If not the biggest one these days. Especially if you include all the memory holing in the same category!
I try to link to non echo chamber sources where I can. Also no paywall on the Guardian! The links take a long time tbh. So thanks for using them.
I actually used to love The Guardian and read it regularly. They lost me some years ago after an article about how sexist buildings were. Since that time, they've just become too ideological, in my opinion, that's why I was so surprised to read the (slightly) negative piece on mass immigration.
Like the Telegraph which i moan about elsewhere, it’s easy to think of these papers as monoliths rather than groups of individuals I think. I know I’m very guilty of that-I do it in the piece 🤔 But when it’s good, the Guardian can be very good. Not the Indy tho. That’s rubbish.
I've been reading The Guardian for more than 30 years. It has definitely gone downhill — especially with culture war stuff — since the previous editor moved on. But they do have a real diversity of commentators. Much more than some right-leaning papers I could name.
I like the Spectator which I heard described as a‘far right rag’ recently. But I think it’s like the M&S of conservatism. Which I know doesn’t reflect well on me!
I had a habit for a long time of subscribing to a different magazine for a while. I did the spectator for a year. It definitely has a specific point of view! The Economist was very good. On the left, The Week & The New Statesman are good.
Government officials lie to us all the time, yet we still look to government for solutions, even though their solutions often make things worse.
Yes Richard. The government is rubbish. I demand more government. Absurd.
I’m equally exhausted and entertained reading that. Blimey, I hope that cleared out a few pipes for you 😂.
Brilliant as always. Thank you. 🙏
Thanks Brandon. Yes. I feel unburdened.
Coffe purchased. I feel guilty being that entertained for no charge 👍🙏
Very kind. Thanks Brandon. Everyone is already saying you’re the best in the comments!
Let me pile on with the compliments. Great stuff. Happy to be a paid subscriber.
Thanks Eric. You are also the best.
Superb.
Thanks Gilgamech!
Great list. Love it. I write about the proposal to implement an Education Tax. You might like these couple for your list. They lie about the nature of VAT, they lie about independent schools, and they lie about the precedent the only time a country tried to implement an Education Tax.
https://mrchips4schools.substack.com/p/liar-liar-pants-on-fire?r=rco7z
https://mrchips4schools.substack.com/p/only-a-barrister-could-say-theres?r=rco7z
Thanks Mr Chips. I’ll read those in the sun later.
I enjoyed your rant. I hope you feel better for it. In very recent times I have been recalling Hilaire Belloc's poem, " Matilda told such dreadful lies". Here is a link to a video presentation. I suppose for Matilda one could substitute someone else's name. I tried but couldn't keep the rhyme sequence. Perhaps someone with more poetic skill could try?
https://youtu.be/2ZFj9tfDLlE?si=3XSpTXgecqtAlWrP
Thanks Seán. I enjoyed the poem.
Arguably your best piece yet. I suspect the list is even longer than you suggest. Sadly.
A lot longer BitKoda. I just thought of those from my head. But thanks for your kind words. It’s nice to rant occasionally . But I’ll keep mixing it up. (With lots of different types of rant 🤣)
.....or could it be your Michael Miles are playing up, sitting too long by the keyboard, LSO?
Wow. This took a turn…
animus risu, novatur...plus anusium acheum
god, dinosaurs, the wars, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the cold war, Vietnam, JFK, Moon landings, fiat Money, 9/11, 7/7, Covid, the green movement, co2, Ukraine and nuclear weapons
I’m popping them on the list. johnathan. Though some will be under ‘Contested’. 🤔