OK, one more long-winded, far too serious, post and then I'll devote myself to finding more pictures of rocks shaped liked tadgers and other, more 'surfer-friendly', material …
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I'm still pondering upon a comment made on one of my posts yesterday. Because of a certain negative posture I was assuming, the guy making the comment assumed that I was a consumer of the Right Wing newspapers.
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Like countless millions of people out there the guy is labouring under the mistaken delusion that such concepts as Right and Left wing politics still exist in the World.
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Baaarrrrrr. Wrong.
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In the good old days you could pretty much know what position an individual would take on any issue, based on their stated political beliefs.
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It's not so easy these days is it?
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Take the Iraq War for instance. Is a pro war stance consistent with Left Wing or Right Wing politics?
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Or the adoption of a single currency for Europe? This policy has been embraced by some Left Wing politicians but others see it, rightly, as paving the way for further globalisation; enabling exploitation of workers and populations by facilitating the easy movement of capital.
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Or compulsory identity cards in the UK? Surely Right Wingers would love them? Nope, many British Conservatives see them as a threat to individual liberties. As do many Lefties.
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GM Food? Nope, many UK Conservatives reject that as well. As do many Lefties.
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And so on. And so on. Individuals who would previously have been described as Right and Left Wing have acres of common ground and share opinions on a wide range of issues. In many ways, the old distinctions are virtually meaningless.
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The real political battle of the future is between globalised corporate power and individuals and their communities. Does a few pence on the rate of income tax, up or down, and redistribution of a little national wealth to the poorest income groups really mean very much when stacked up against questions of globalisation, the environment or the freedom of the individual? Not really.
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The social changes that are now taking place across the World benefit only a tiny number of people. To pull it off, they have the con the rest of us on a gigantic scale. And, so far, they're doing a really excellent job.
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The ultimate goal is to breed a readily manipulated population of consumers and workers; only just smart enough to operate their television remote controls, use a credit card and nothing else. One day, one bright glorious day, we will all be forged into a single, homogenous, slab of material, the properties of which will be known to the highest precision; like cast iron, or bubblegum.
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That is why we have witnessed onslaughts on organised religion, family life and social institutions, and a dumbing down of education and the media. Diversity, True diversity, must also be suppressed. It's easy enough to identify the institutions and belief systems that have been smashed or discredited over the last fifty years, but it is much, much more difficult to identify any benevolent institutions or frameworks that have been put in their place.
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F*ck it. I endured Catholic schools for 13 years and, even after that, I'd choose the Vatican over Accenture, or Halliburton, or Nike, or The New Labour Party, any day. If you're dealing with priests rather than corporate types, there's at least a small chance that one of them isn't a bastard.
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The techniques employed are numerous and diverse. A little bit of fear; Commies one year, Fundamentalists the next. A vision of liberation from past inequalities. The chance to own some toys.
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But life doesn't get any better. Not really. We consume much more but we're no happier. The fear never goes away. The toys are out of date almost straight away and the liberation of women seems a hollow victory when you consider that households now need two incomes in societies where, in the past, one income would do. The kids don’t see their parents much.
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And that's why the developed World is gobbling increasing amounts of Prozac every year.
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Marx didn’t really have much to say about anything like this.
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I was watching a film about the evacuation of Dunkirk yesterday. What struck me most was the underlying theme of social cohesion that came across. I'm not about to glamorise past inequalities or pretend that the past was perfect, but the plain fact was that British people shared common ownership of certain beliefs and institutions.
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What do we share now? A lot of us shop at Tesco's and watch Big Brother but that's about it. Our society is now extremely fragmented and I do not believe that we are better off as a result. Do many of us now believe that there are any ideas or institutions worth risking our lives for? Breaking a finger nail for?
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I read an academic paper a few weeks ago that drew a connection between social cohesion and welfare systems. America has a high proportion of minority groups, something like a third of its population, and consequently has a poorly developed welfare state. Sweden is full of Swedes and has a famously generous welfare system. The conclusion of the paper was that populations will support a welfare system, through taxation, as long as they believe 'people like them' are drawing from it in times of need. The paper estimated that this consensus would break down if 25-30% of a population is composed of alien groups. The authors of the paper have a left-wing, liberal background.
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The ethnic minority population of London is now somewhere just above 40%. I know of nowhere else in the World that has so many people, from so many different places, all thrown together in such a short space of time. We're talking less than ten years here.
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While I buy into the general thrust of the social cohesion argument, I don't think it is something that can be readily quantified. Decent people will readily see people as 'being like them', regardless of their race, creed or sex, provided they share common values. London could be composed of 100% ethnic minorities and still work fine; provided those communities occupied enough common ground to feel that they all shared fairly in supporting and being supported by common institutions.
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Hands up any Londoners (real Londoners) who think that's going on in London right now?
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Different communities in London share little common ground. Strong, self-reliant, faith-bound communities feel under threat, either from the Government or the 'progressive' media, and many of those in work and paying taxes, whatever their race, think they're being ripped-off to support a growing population of spongers.
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The fact that everyone shops in Tesco's and watches Big Brother is not enough to keep it all together in the long term. Shared values? The multitude of different communities represented, say, in my part of London don’t even talk to each other. There also seem to be a lot of people here just long enough to pick up some tax free cash earnings and free medical treatment, paid for by those of us who have declared their earnings, before buggering off back to wherever they came from.
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And I really can't blame them. Uniquely amongst developed countries, British society is permeated with a self-loathing for its institutions, history and indigenous culture that I find hard to believe or stomach. We've been taught to be embarrassed by own flag, our past, our system of government and our laws. National pride is associated with xenophobia and racism. If that sounds extreme, pick up a Britsh newspaper, watch a British current affairs program or listen to a British politician and listen to what they are saying. Why should anyone settling in this country buy into that?
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Personally, I love the vision of a common community composed of individual vibrant, self-confident ethnic groups, all covered by and buying into a shared umbrella of traditional British values of justice, tolerance and compassion. We were on track for something like that 10 or 15 years ago. What we're working on now is a huge, resentful, insecure mush. The big companies and politicians must be loving it.
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So. Left Wing or Right Wing? I know a lot of people who feel extremely nervous discussing these matters for fear of being labelled a racist. Am I being racist? If so which race have I criticised? All races? Particular races? If so which ones?
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