As with all despotic regimes everything on the surface looks calm and untroubled but like a duck swimmng on a lake there is massive energy being consumed beneath the waterline. so with this situation we feel our selves in. The despotic regimes of Europe, in fact the regimes of most countries world wide are calmly telling their populaces lie after lie to ensure that everybody remains in a state of fear with their only hope the multi-layered and totally false idea that it is the vaccination programme allotted to their subjects that is the way out of misery, poor health and eventual death. In fact the programme only facilitates death and neither improves health or misery but does destroy individual immune systems.
But the surface of this calmness appears to have rippled slightly. The governmental lies are being uncovered. People are starting to realise this programme is not what it says on the side of its can. Cellular structures are being consructed nation wide, continental wide, in fact world wide. Stories are coming out from independent agencies around the world that things are not what they seem for the privileged and naturally despotic.
As with Ireland at the turn of the 20th Century everything looked rosy. The middle class were economically secure after the land war question had been solved. The tenant farmer was at last his own boss. Independence, that had been talked about for years, was on the horizon but still a while off and the nouveau riche were pacified although there was a lot of economic grumbling from the lower classes. Always when the upper class comforts the middle class, the middle class turn on the ones below them. Always when you climb the ladder be careful of the man below you who is himself trying to improve his status. Never stand on his head.
In this quasi period of Irish history, conditions were ripe for challenge. In this period the IRB was formed. The Irish Republican Brotherhood was a secret, cellular organisation whose only thought was to rid Ireland of the English yoke. Nobody knew it existed, certainly 99% of Ireland and certainly 100% of England thought everything was fine but underneath the surface the IRB legs were paddling at a tremendous rate. Its beauty being in its structure and having its representatives in all forms of known society. Its secretive nature came to a head in 1916 and was eventually to lead to fruition in 1922. If not for this quiet revolution and even though the Third Home Rule Bill was around but never realised, I doubt if the English government would have given up Ireland for another 25 years when it became obvious to Westminster and the world that empires and racial raping was not a good idea. In the long run this ideal situation did not help Ireland who were about to enter another 40 0r 50 years of poverty but that is another story and is about the way the gullible Irish allowed itself to be consumed by another brand of despotism that was DeValeraism. That is one lesson the new world order, and by that I mean the new world we create after the New World Order has been vanquished, commits itself to the good of the majority of people.
Take another example of despotic rule ie., the rule of Nazism on the compliant people in France from 1940 until 1944. During its blooming years everything again looked rosy. The French farmer was enjoying a wonderful time supplying their goods to the voracious appetites of Nazi held Europe whilst blinding themselves to the horror of what Hitler and his friends were doing and saying. The majority of French women were really enjoying having their thighs massaged by strong hard teutonic muscle. The French middle class were enjoying the kind of freedom the intellectual German machine was allowing them. The majority of France certainly cow-towed to the German order. The instability of 19th Century Europe certainly paved the way for this modern state of Nazism or as it is now called Common Marketism.
But in France in 1941 a new cellular structure was born, that of resistance, the Maquis, given its name from the shrubby, certainly evergreen and hardy vegetation of its southern shores. The Maquis, although starting off in isolated pockets all over occupied France but with a little help from De Gaulle’s Free French forces in London and Churchill’s obvious glee in putting a pea under 40 matresses of Germanic power in France, soon became a force to be reckoned with and in fact soothed the problems the invading forces in Normandy had to contend with in 1944.
So be it with the despotism we are all suffering in this modern world. The vast majority are enjoying the protected life they think they are all having, with shots and boosters being handed out like confetti and being allowed not to have to work and still get paid and to wear a mask at all times to show their solidarity with those in temporary charge. However there is a feeling, a philosophy that this is all wrong. There are too many lies being found out. There is too much back-tracking by those in temporary power. There is too much nonsense being spouted by too many governmental gobs for any of it to make sense. In fact there is a cellular awakening amongst the decent thinking folk of the world which is slowly coming together in brave minds. We are being laughed at at the moment by the majority who have not let a simple thought cloud their minds in decades. But I can feel a breath of fresh air blowing across the faces of the unwashed. Similar cell systems are growing in all sorts of places. All it needs is a master mind to connect these units. Where is the IRB, the maquis in us all. We will succeed and hopefully those that have led so many to their deaths will get their just deserves. Let the Nuremberg principle apply.
Also ensure that we do not fall into another despotic trap that De Valera and the Catholic Church set for Ireland in the 1930s.
I’ll leave aside the vaccine aspect of this, because we won’t agree, and look instead at the broader picture. If I understand your post correctly, you don’t like despots, i.e. those who have almost unconstrained power. I’m not sure that we have any of those in Europe, but they do exist in places like China or Saudi Arabia. In countries like ours, i.e. countries that pretend to be democracies, power is constrained to a considerable extent by the desire of those in power not to be thrown out of office at the next election. Some western politicians may be incompetent fools – Boris Johnson is a fine example – but they can not reasonably be called despots.
I’m not even sure that despotism is always a bad thing. Iraq under Saddam Hussein was well governed, until the country got involved in a war with Iran. Mr. Saddam himself did a lot to promote women’s rights, for example. People were free to do more or less as they wanted – provided they kept out of politics.
It’s complicated. Concentration of power does not always yield bad results. Diffusing power more widely does not always yield good results; just look at the mess that is the USA at the moment.
The danger of concentration of power is that undiluted power is hard to handle. Few people can do it well. Lord Acton’s dictum is too well known to need repeating here, but he wasn’t the first to make the point, though he phrased it more elegantly than most. By coincidence, earlier this evening I was reading a passage where Tacitus made a very similar point: “cum Tiberius post tantum rerum experientiam vi dominationis convulsus et mutatus sit …” (Annals 6: 48).
I’m not unsympathetic to many of the views you express in your post (except for those directly related to vaccines) but where we differ, I think, is that I had to struggle with the complexities of the real world throughout my business career, and I know that “getting things done” is a lot harder than it may appear. Often you have to compromise if you want to achieve anything at all. Sometimes you have to settle for second best. You can rarely do things in a way that keeps everybody happy. So perhaps I’m less inclined than you to criticise the state of the world or those who are (or pretend to be) running it. I’m not sure that I would do any better than them. I do know what an ideal world would look like. I just don’t know how to get there from here.
Linda,
I love the way you use my simple thoughts as a sounding board for your intellectual clap trap thought up in your Arcadian rabbit hole where nobody is troubled yet by Klaus Schwab and his brand of modern despotism. If population reduction by covert means is not despotism, what is.
Paul,
If you want to redefine the word “despotism” to mean “population reduction by covert means” I doubt that anyone will try to stop you. But to most people it means “the use of very concentrated or absolute power”. Used in that sense, the term isn’t really applicable to anything that affects your life or mine, and I don’t think that its use even in a metaphorical sense is particularly helpful here.
I didn’t know who Klaus Schwab was until 5 minutes ago. Thank you for compelling me to educate myself. I did know about the WEF (and have known for about 40 years), I don’t agree with much of their agenda, but I fail completely to see the link betwen them and this pandemic. They didn’t cause it, I expect their members are dying at about the same rate as everyone else (or even at a higher rate, since they tend to be older), I very much doubt that they have any agenda concerning it, and I’m sure they will be as glad as the rest of us to see it end.
If you suppose that Arcadia, and Greece in general, has not been affected by the excesses of globalism, you haven’t been paying attention. Greece was very badly affected by the financial crisis of 2008, it has not recovered yet, and it will not recover this side of 2050.
My general point about your original article is that, as is often the case, you are seeing issues in black and white where I tend to see shades of grey. (I talked around the subject as I hoped that might help get the point across.) We have more common ground than you might imagine, but I often feel alienated by your overly simplistic take on what is a complicated and messy world.
I think I shall redefine the word “despotism” to mean “a curious mix of good insight with utter nonsense, expressed in lively prose”. Would you regard it as a compliment if I said that you write very good despotism?
Linda
PS, there are no rabbit holes in Arcadia, or anywhere in southern Greece, as there are no (wild) rabbits. I live in a traditional Greek mouse hole.
Linda,
Thank you for replying to my rather rude declamation of yourcold critique. When writing anything I would rather have my romantic heart felt words than your clear precise vocabulary.
You can see no link between schwab and this New WorldOrder that makes all the modern decisions for politicians to follow. Well more fool you if you cannot connect the dots.
You talk about black and white. I am a simple man who was simply educated. I talk in simple sentences that people can understand. You talk of Shades of Grey which make me wonder. Things get complicated and messy by people who are in it to satisfy their own psychotic tendencies.
My definition of despotism is mine. I write my own thoughts which again are mine. You should try writing your own crystal clear endeavours instead of bouncing off me. But at the very least I still love you dearly.You keep steadying me on the right path which again is mine.
Interesting arguments here Paul.
I tend to side with Linda over vaccines, the background for both of us when at the Alma Mater was sciences. As for the more philosophical arguments regarding dictatorships, my knowledge is somewhat limited, so I’ll pass.
Also a bit of bad news, the passing of an Old Bedian, Brian Lefley, aged 72. He corresponded with you a number of times, even though I lived within half a mile of him (he in Prestwich, myself in the adjacent Whitefield), I never actually met him, in his correspondence, he certainly had a sense of humour.
There was a report of someone dying at a property in nearby Prestwich, possibly as a result of boiler fumes, around Xmas 2021. It was only when looking up the article, that Brian’s name was actually mentioned, with such a distinctive surname, it must surely be the same person. So far, as I know, the actual cause of death hasn’t been confirmed.
BTW, the Bury South constituency, where I abode, has currently enjoyed its 15 minutes of fame, with the defection of Tory MP Christian Wakeford to Labour this week. He won the seat in December 2019 with a majority of 400, helped to a large extent by the former Labour MP Ivan Lewis, who had been kicked out of the Labour Party over disciplinary matters, standing as an independent and winning 1300 votes. Time for a by election? Possibly not.
Hope you’re keeping well…