In this free market dominated world we live in, everything is measured by its market value. As a result, if you are unable to participate in the market economy you are of no value. Free market economics reduces everything to a commodity. Most commodities (and in the neo-liberal universe that includes rights, law and obligations) have a price, which is also a cost, but some commodities have no exchange value in the market and are only a cost. So, in market terms they have no value, they are useless. Someone who cannot work, for whatever reason, is useless and valueless; they are a cost, and costs must be minimised and if possible eliminated. The neo-liberal commodifies health, education, welfare and people, and wages constant war on our rights which are persistently attacked and branded as unnecessary and overburdening costs. Examples of these are pensions, holidays, overtime, holiday pay and night shift allowances. But the biggest targets of the neo-liberal are the benefits system and health, and the rights embedded within these institutions. The only intrinsic value in the free market is economic, with the result that Britain has developed to the point that society has no values other than economic. The only “right” that matters and that must be protected, is the right to make profits and to accumulate wealth. People have no value in themselves outwith their capacity for production and use value in the “market”. As a result, the elderly, the unemployed, the disabled and the sick are all seen as costs and worthless other than as units of consumption, and they are not very valuable even then, as their purchasing power is minimal.
This has produced a culture within which the elderly are regarded as non-producers and are a burden. Their only significance is as consumers, but even then most of them have paid off their mortgages for example, and have therefore limited value. In some areas, such as travel and holidays they have a high profile as significant consumers, but when it comes to areas such as health and social care they are regarded as a significant liability. What is most held against them is the fact that they are pensioners and therefore a huge financial burden on the Treasury and on 'hardworking taxpayers' which completely ignores the fact that such people have spent their entire adult life contributing to the tax and insurance systems. For most of the adult life of today's average working class pensioners, they paid thirty-nine pence in the pound in income tax, a far higher proportion of their income than anyone does today. In addition they contributed significantly to national insurance throughout their working life, with many paying additional contributions to an employee's pension fund. However, in today's gutter tabloids, encouraged by the Tories, they are portrayed as being of the something for nothing society, scroungers, a burden and a drain on the nations wealth, they are in fact a nuisance.
I will refer to all elderly relatives as grandparents for convenience, and I have come to the conclusion that were it not for grandparents the British economy would grind to a halt. I travel quite widely throughout the UK and am struck by certain commonalities in most areas. My conclusions are based on my observations and experience and so are not at all scientific but I have personally estimated that of all persons delivering to and collecting children from nursery and school every day, 30 to 40 percent of them are grandparents. It is significant that during school holidays, children playing on the beach, playing in parks and activity centres or simply spending time in shopping malls and areas are accompanied by grandparents in about the same ratio of 30 to 40 percent.
The Legal and General Insurance Company regularly analyse the average value of non-working mothers in Britain in a survey they call "The Value of a Mum", and in today's values the unpaid work of the average British mother is estimated at £29,535. In Scotland she is valued at £29, 628. This is work that mothers carry out on a daily basis that enables the family to function and allows the male in the family to leave the home to earn a living. Without this input, Legal and General argue that the economy would suffer considerably. So, if that is the case, and it is a very good case, then working on my assumption of 30 to 40 percent activity in child care and family activity, allowing parents to work and contribute to economic wealth creation, the unpaid input of grandparents must be worth about ten to twelve thousand pounds per annum. In other words, if you wish to take a free market approach to such social problems, then rather than being a burden and a drain on the economy, the elderly are of significant economic benefit, and that is only in the area of child care.
I use this example with respect to the elderly to highlight the barbarity and stupidity of modern economics. It also highlights the barbarity and intellectual sterility that permeates the pigsty. It finds its most repellant expression in the tabloid press. Modern Britain is indeed a nasty uncharitable midden, populated by people who hate and resent others who they deem worthless and of no value. This is of course a generality, but it is general enough to support and encourage a set of politicians who are exercising what Ken Loach, the esteemed filmmaker calls conscious cruelty towards the unfortunate and disadvantaged. This is why Scotland must become independent. You have been warned.
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
Friday 28 October 2016
Thursday 27 October 2016
Labour in Scotland don't do politics
As I have written here before, the Labour Party no longer seems to have any particular reason for being. It does not even appear to have a central direction or ideological basis, but if things are bad in the Labour Party, they are even worse in Scotland. It may seem rather odd to label the Scottish Labour Party as extremist, but that is what they have become. It may also seem odd to say that they have ceased to practice politics, but that has also happened. The Scottish Labour Party have ceased behaving like a normal political party and become something else, like a small sectarian sect, whose whole purpose appears, not as an opposition, but as simply to exist to oppose everything that the SNP says or does. They have absolutely nothing positive to offer the Scottish people, and like all extremists they live in a wee make believe world of their own construction, a world where ideological purity is virtuous and necessary and compromise is a dirty word, indeed a betrayal. Like all extremists they are dogmatic and therefore blind, not only to reality but to their own best interests. Unlike normal politicians, they seem incapable of understanding that politics is the art of the possible, the art of successfully applying compromise to maximise your long-term interests. Most importantly, in common with purists and extremists of all persuasions, they seem incapable of learning from their own mistakes, and continually demonstrate that they are in complete denial over the reasons for their own misfortunes.
Scottish Labour, unlike a proper political party, are not characterised by what they stand for or represent, but what they don’t stand for. For example, they claim to represent working people but stand bemused and seemingly helpless as those same working people abandon them in droves; at a complete loss as to why. They claim to stand for remaining within the EU but are completely ineffective in its defence and of Scotland’s place within it. During the EU referendum they simply disgraced themselves by their lukewarm fence-sitting and inaction, and by taking their cues from a London leadership that clearly wanted to campaign for Leave but were afraid to do so. They claim to stand for the Union, but that badge has been successfully monopolised by the Tories, who are at least honest enough to show us that submitting to the concept of a United Kingdom is in reality submitting to a political system that has adopted the mantle of English nationalism, and that the interests of the English electorate are, by definition, the interests of the whole nation, a fictitious entity that exists only in the fevered imaginations of the London-centric elite. As a result, Scottish Labour neither stand for, nor represent, the political and economic interests of the Scottish people.
Labour are the architects of their own misfortunes. Their demise is classic hubris as they have been brought low by their own overweening arrogance. They took the Scottish electorate for granted at both national and local level for decades, whilst treating them with contempt as evidenced by their lies and mendacious propaganda during the 2014 referendum and by supporting a Tory Party who have demonstrated, not only their complete indifference, but their hostility, to the interests of the Scottish nation for the past fifty years. But rather than honestly appraising their own conduct and making an apology, which the electorate would respect, they continue to wallow in their own delusional narrative. In addition, rather than being driven by principle and persuasive policy, they are driven by hate and an outdated and sterile ideology, applying a persistent and tedious knee-jerk reaction to anything that remotely appears to emanate from the SNP regardless of its merits.
All governments need a vigorous and healthy opposition. I am sorry to say that Jeremy Corbyn has turned out to be almost completely useless. He is devoid of any kind of leadership qualities and as Labour's fortunes recede we are in danger of becoming a one-party Tory state, governed by incompetent imbeciles and class warriors. A similar scenario is developing in Scotland where the Scottish party is failing to bring even a semblance of effective opposition to the Scottish government. Despite supporting the SNP, I am acutely aware that they display many failings and are needing to be held to account on several fronts, particularly health and education. There is no use looking to the Scottish Tories who are, if anything, even more swivel eyed than their London counterparts.
The realities of Scottish politics demonstrate that Scottish Labour should divorce their national party and become a genuine Scottish Labour Party. They should also seek some form of accommodation with the SNP to protect Scotland’s interests from the destructive results that must surely result from Brexit and from continuing Westminster austerity. In doing so they may begin to forge a discreet and authentic identity and soothe the open sores of their present toxicity. However, I am afraid I do not share much hope that they have either the courage or the intelligence to take such a path. You have been warned
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
Scottish Labour, unlike a proper political party, are not characterised by what they stand for or represent, but what they don’t stand for. For example, they claim to represent working people but stand bemused and seemingly helpless as those same working people abandon them in droves; at a complete loss as to why. They claim to stand for remaining within the EU but are completely ineffective in its defence and of Scotland’s place within it. During the EU referendum they simply disgraced themselves by their lukewarm fence-sitting and inaction, and by taking their cues from a London leadership that clearly wanted to campaign for Leave but were afraid to do so. They claim to stand for the Union, but that badge has been successfully monopolised by the Tories, who are at least honest enough to show us that submitting to the concept of a United Kingdom is in reality submitting to a political system that has adopted the mantle of English nationalism, and that the interests of the English electorate are, by definition, the interests of the whole nation, a fictitious entity that exists only in the fevered imaginations of the London-centric elite. As a result, Scottish Labour neither stand for, nor represent, the political and economic interests of the Scottish people.
Labour are the architects of their own misfortunes. Their demise is classic hubris as they have been brought low by their own overweening arrogance. They took the Scottish electorate for granted at both national and local level for decades, whilst treating them with contempt as evidenced by their lies and mendacious propaganda during the 2014 referendum and by supporting a Tory Party who have demonstrated, not only their complete indifference, but their hostility, to the interests of the Scottish nation for the past fifty years. But rather than honestly appraising their own conduct and making an apology, which the electorate would respect, they continue to wallow in their own delusional narrative. In addition, rather than being driven by principle and persuasive policy, they are driven by hate and an outdated and sterile ideology, applying a persistent and tedious knee-jerk reaction to anything that remotely appears to emanate from the SNP regardless of its merits.
All governments need a vigorous and healthy opposition. I am sorry to say that Jeremy Corbyn has turned out to be almost completely useless. He is devoid of any kind of leadership qualities and as Labour's fortunes recede we are in danger of becoming a one-party Tory state, governed by incompetent imbeciles and class warriors. A similar scenario is developing in Scotland where the Scottish party is failing to bring even a semblance of effective opposition to the Scottish government. Despite supporting the SNP, I am acutely aware that they display many failings and are needing to be held to account on several fronts, particularly health and education. There is no use looking to the Scottish Tories who are, if anything, even more swivel eyed than their London counterparts.
The realities of Scottish politics demonstrate that Scottish Labour should divorce their national party and become a genuine Scottish Labour Party. They should also seek some form of accommodation with the SNP to protect Scotland’s interests from the destructive results that must surely result from Brexit and from continuing Westminster austerity. In doing so they may begin to forge a discreet and authentic identity and soothe the open sores of their present toxicity. However, I am afraid I do not share much hope that they have either the courage or the intelligence to take such a path. You have been warned
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
Sunday 23 October 2016
The free market individual is breeding fascism
The free market is dead along with its political bedfellow, individualism, but people simply cannot bring themselves to see that. I have been following the American election and have watched numerous programmes highlighting the industrial devastation that defiles large swathes of the United States, with whole townships in serious disrepair and what appears to be the entire American working class, if not unemployed, then verging on penury whether they are working or not. We in Britain are suffering the same phenomenon, and, as with the USA, it is almost entirely self-inflicted. For the past half century our populations have been listening to, and applauding, the siren voices of unscrupulous politicians singing the praises of the free market, of private enterprise, of the sanctity of the individual, whilst damning the state, collectivism, the public sector, trades unions and whatever they want to discredit as socialism. It has worked and they have been very successful and in the course of winning the war of ideas they have destroyed our respective societies, destroyed our peoples and are on course to destroy the world. We have a national newspaper in Britain with an editorial discussing why Britain has become so mean spirited and narrow minded. Britain has become a nasty and unpleasant place. It notes how political debate in this country is now characterised by 'racism, bigotry and hatred'. Those are not Kommirat's words, it is a leading article in the Observer. Why? Well I have been trying to discuss this on this blog for some years now and I am at least grateful that the Observer is catching up.
Any rational look at the problems besetting our world point to one common denominator, the dominant free market neoliberal ideology. What we are suffering from is the great theme of so many successful Hollywood movies, an alien invasion. The human being is a social animal and its individuality can only be seen within its natural milieu. I have written this so often here. The anti-social, aggressive individualism of the free market narrative is alien to the human animal and destructive to its environment, a serious virus that has attacked and has succeeded in damaging, perhaps terminally, the body politic. But the British people suffer from a similar malaise to the American, they have an exaggerated opinion of their own importance. The appellation Great Britain was originally meant to signify size, it referred to an expanded Britain when it became four nations under one rule. The British then came to believe that it meant they were great, superior to other people. As a result, they are always right, their problems cannot be self-inflicted they must be someone else's fault. Enter the classic scapegoat mentality and the demonization of the EU, the immigrant and foreigners in general and a whole class of disgusting and unscrupulous politicians who are perfectly happy to exploit such a scenario.
Whether they are conscious of it or not, the victims of this poison have set their sights on the authors of their woes, the political elites. They are right to do so, but the most serious problem in both societies is that they have been so successfully poisoned against what could be utilised as solutions that they refuse to even countenance them. In Britain, Brexit, and in the US, support for Trump, is fundamentally a working class phenomenon. The people's instincts are correct, it's their imagined solutions that are wrong. It is painful and deeply sad how the British believe that people who are so responsible for their plight can be the answer to their problems. There can be no solution if we turn to people who are still wedded to the dominant ideology, an ideology that is fundamentally hostile, not only to possible solutions, but to the people who are calling for such solutions. Westminster politicians and the political elite in the US, and that includes Trump, detest the people, they both hate and fear them. My last post used a quote from Adam Smith who told us that such people do not even regard us as their fellow creatures. I have been berating you for some time as to the dubious intellect of the people in this country I call well-schooled but poorly educated. On Question Time on Thursday, Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek Finance Minister called our Department for Brexit, 'Pythonesque', and staffed by people of a very low IQ. This is exactly what I have been saying for a long time now. It is a continual source of wonder to me how anyone can think that we can be adequately served by Boris the Spider, a demonstrable clown, and his henchmen, David Davies and Liam Fox. If it were possible to combine the intellects of these three gentlemen you would still be unable to produce a halfwit. If you then add into this toxic mix the Trump, you do not add to the intellectual mix, you subtract from it. I understand the American anger, I fail to understand how they can see this person as offering anything other than division, hatred and bigotry.
I am reminded of the poet Michael Rosen who warns us that fascism does not spring up out of nowhere and grab you. Fascism appears as your friend, who will help you get a job and a nice home, who will clean up the neighbourhood and get rid of the undesirables, protect your wife and children and keep law and order. It doesn't advertise its violence, its camps, its militias and paramilitary
nature. But it does pinpoint the cause of your problems, the others, the foreigners, the unions, socialism, the Jews and Muslims, the disabled and the useless, the untermenschen etc. As with the neoliberal free market, it appeals to your lowest and ugliest instincts, and, as with the neoliberal free market, it is simply wrong. The neoliberal free market does not promote fascism, but that is where it is leading, the unintended consequence of intentional human action. You have been warned
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
Any rational look at the problems besetting our world point to one common denominator, the dominant free market neoliberal ideology. What we are suffering from is the great theme of so many successful Hollywood movies, an alien invasion. The human being is a social animal and its individuality can only be seen within its natural milieu. I have written this so often here. The anti-social, aggressive individualism of the free market narrative is alien to the human animal and destructive to its environment, a serious virus that has attacked and has succeeded in damaging, perhaps terminally, the body politic. But the British people suffer from a similar malaise to the American, they have an exaggerated opinion of their own importance. The appellation Great Britain was originally meant to signify size, it referred to an expanded Britain when it became four nations under one rule. The British then came to believe that it meant they were great, superior to other people. As a result, they are always right, their problems cannot be self-inflicted they must be someone else's fault. Enter the classic scapegoat mentality and the demonization of the EU, the immigrant and foreigners in general and a whole class of disgusting and unscrupulous politicians who are perfectly happy to exploit such a scenario.
Whether they are conscious of it or not, the victims of this poison have set their sights on the authors of their woes, the political elites. They are right to do so, but the most serious problem in both societies is that they have been so successfully poisoned against what could be utilised as solutions that they refuse to even countenance them. In Britain, Brexit, and in the US, support for Trump, is fundamentally a working class phenomenon. The people's instincts are correct, it's their imagined solutions that are wrong. It is painful and deeply sad how the British believe that people who are so responsible for their plight can be the answer to their problems. There can be no solution if we turn to people who are still wedded to the dominant ideology, an ideology that is fundamentally hostile, not only to possible solutions, but to the people who are calling for such solutions. Westminster politicians and the political elite in the US, and that includes Trump, detest the people, they both hate and fear them. My last post used a quote from Adam Smith who told us that such people do not even regard us as their fellow creatures. I have been berating you for some time as to the dubious intellect of the people in this country I call well-schooled but poorly educated. On Question Time on Thursday, Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek Finance Minister called our Department for Brexit, 'Pythonesque', and staffed by people of a very low IQ. This is exactly what I have been saying for a long time now. It is a continual source of wonder to me how anyone can think that we can be adequately served by Boris the Spider, a demonstrable clown, and his henchmen, David Davies and Liam Fox. If it were possible to combine the intellects of these three gentlemen you would still be unable to produce a halfwit. If you then add into this toxic mix the Trump, you do not add to the intellectual mix, you subtract from it. I understand the American anger, I fail to understand how they can see this person as offering anything other than division, hatred and bigotry.
I am reminded of the poet Michael Rosen who warns us that fascism does not spring up out of nowhere and grab you. Fascism appears as your friend, who will help you get a job and a nice home, who will clean up the neighbourhood and get rid of the undesirables, protect your wife and children and keep law and order. It doesn't advertise its violence, its camps, its militias and paramilitary
nature. But it does pinpoint the cause of your problems, the others, the foreigners, the unions, socialism, the Jews and Muslims, the disabled and the useless, the untermenschen etc. As with the neoliberal free market, it appeals to your lowest and ugliest instincts, and, as with the neoliberal free market, it is simply wrong. The neoliberal free market does not promote fascism, but that is where it is leading, the unintended consequence of intentional human action. You have been warned
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
Thursday 20 October 2016
The great never look upon their inferiors as their fellow-creatures
The title of this post is a quote from Adam Smith, and perfectly sums up the British elite. I do not suppose that the British are any more guilty of this than their counterparts from any other nation, but it explains so much about the British system of government and British culture. Adam Smith mixed with the great of his day and was feted by them despite being uninterested in their flattery, preferring the relative obscurity of Scotland to the grand salons of London and Europe, so was speaking from experience. My guess is that such people disgusted him, as he cautions us
"Are you in earnest resolved never to barter your liberty for the lordly servitude of a court, but to live free, fearless and independent? There seems to be one way to continue in that virtuous resolution; and perhaps but one. Never enter the place from whence so few have been able to return; never come within the circle of ambition; nor ever bring yourself into comparison with those masters of the earth who have already engrossed the attention of half mankind before you."
A truly great man, and I urge anyone visiting Scotland to visit his grave in the Canongate cemetery in Edinburgh and then visit the grave of David Hume, from whom I have learned so much, in Old Calton cemetery just five minutes walk from the Canongate. I raise this because we, in the UK, are treated everyday to graphic examples of this dismissive and inhumane attitude from our betters. I have said here before that those people in the UK who consider themselves as upper or upper middle class live in a completely different society from me. We share the same space, but do not share the same language, culture, ideology or value system, the things that identify our humanity. I do not believe that things have changed one jot with respect to such things since the British Prime Minister, Disraeli, described Britain as two nations whose populations have nothing whatever in common with each other. For example, I was watching a programme on food when a meal was presented for their judgment to three very bourgeois London centric judges and before he had even tasted the food one of the judges damned it because he said it was served on the wrong plate. Now, I may be missing something very crucial, but how on earth can you have a right and a wrong plate? How completely stupid can a class of people be that they can be offended by a plate? That's like saying you have the wrong fork or colour of hair. Half the world's population eat with their fingers, so they must be committing a grievous crime in the eyes of the British bourgeoisie. I mean, really, what does it matter?
You will probably have read of the imbecile from the pigsty who is demanding that we carry out dental checks to ascertain the age of immigrants to ensure that they are not cheating. How morally bereft have we become as a nation to descend to such barbarity. This is a person who is so consumed with hate for immigrants and foreigners in general that he cannot simply accept that we should (and here I confess to talking like a Tory) do the right thing. We have government ministers describing immigrants as bargaining chips, my loathsome friend Liam Fox describing them as cards that we can use ' for negotiating purposes'. These are people who simply do not see other human beings, they see untermenschen, the subhuman, because they are 'not like us.' I await them rolling out the nose and forehead profiles to determine their Aryan credentials. Am I the only person who sees parallels with the Third Reich in this British government? Remember, this is the government who described the immigrants fleeing the horrors of Syria as 'swarms' likening them to insects. Throughout the American election process we have been treated to the spectacle of Donald Trump behaving exactly the same way with respect to Mexicans, Muslims, African-Americans, Hispanics, immigrants in general and of course the female 51% of the world's population, and being greeted with thunderous applause. Smith summed up the grovelling cap doffing attitude of the British when he wrote
"This disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition, though necessary both to establish and to maintain the distinction of ranks and the order of society, is, at the same time, the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments. That wealth and greatness are often regarded with the respect and admiration which are due only to wisdom and virtue; and that the contempt, of which vice and folly are the only proper objects, is often most unjustly bestowed upon poverty and weakness, has been the complaint of moralists in all ages."
There, written in 1776, we have the explanation for Brexit and Trump. We think we are so enlightened, so superior, when we are in effect descending once again into the barbarity that almost ended civilisation in the last century. I leave you with another quote from Smith that neatly sums up this malignant class and racial deference that is slowly destroying us as a society and as a civilised nation.
"A stranger to human nature, who saw the indifference of men about the misery of their inferiors, and the regret and indignation which they feel for the misfortunes and sufferings of those above them, would be apt to imagine, that pain must be more agonising, and the convulsions of death more terrible to persons of higher rank, than to those of meaner stations."
This is Doktor Kommirat's Adam Smith, this is not the Adam Smith of Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher. That Adam Smith is a fiction and never existed. Kommirat's Adam Smith was a true Scot who would have rejected such people's company. My Adam Smith would have joined me in a gin and tonic, and treated me as an equal. You have been warned
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
"Are you in earnest resolved never to barter your liberty for the lordly servitude of a court, but to live free, fearless and independent? There seems to be one way to continue in that virtuous resolution; and perhaps but one. Never enter the place from whence so few have been able to return; never come within the circle of ambition; nor ever bring yourself into comparison with those masters of the earth who have already engrossed the attention of half mankind before you."
A truly great man, and I urge anyone visiting Scotland to visit his grave in the Canongate cemetery in Edinburgh and then visit the grave of David Hume, from whom I have learned so much, in Old Calton cemetery just five minutes walk from the Canongate. I raise this because we, in the UK, are treated everyday to graphic examples of this dismissive and inhumane attitude from our betters. I have said here before that those people in the UK who consider themselves as upper or upper middle class live in a completely different society from me. We share the same space, but do not share the same language, culture, ideology or value system, the things that identify our humanity. I do not believe that things have changed one jot with respect to such things since the British Prime Minister, Disraeli, described Britain as two nations whose populations have nothing whatever in common with each other. For example, I was watching a programme on food when a meal was presented for their judgment to three very bourgeois London centric judges and before he had even tasted the food one of the judges damned it because he said it was served on the wrong plate. Now, I may be missing something very crucial, but how on earth can you have a right and a wrong plate? How completely stupid can a class of people be that they can be offended by a plate? That's like saying you have the wrong fork or colour of hair. Half the world's population eat with their fingers, so they must be committing a grievous crime in the eyes of the British bourgeoisie. I mean, really, what does it matter?
You will probably have read of the imbecile from the pigsty who is demanding that we carry out dental checks to ascertain the age of immigrants to ensure that they are not cheating. How morally bereft have we become as a nation to descend to such barbarity. This is a person who is so consumed with hate for immigrants and foreigners in general that he cannot simply accept that we should (and here I confess to talking like a Tory) do the right thing. We have government ministers describing immigrants as bargaining chips, my loathsome friend Liam Fox describing them as cards that we can use ' for negotiating purposes'. These are people who simply do not see other human beings, they see untermenschen, the subhuman, because they are 'not like us.' I await them rolling out the nose and forehead profiles to determine their Aryan credentials. Am I the only person who sees parallels with the Third Reich in this British government? Remember, this is the government who described the immigrants fleeing the horrors of Syria as 'swarms' likening them to insects. Throughout the American election process we have been treated to the spectacle of Donald Trump behaving exactly the same way with respect to Mexicans, Muslims, African-Americans, Hispanics, immigrants in general and of course the female 51% of the world's population, and being greeted with thunderous applause. Smith summed up the grovelling cap doffing attitude of the British when he wrote
"This disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition, though necessary both to establish and to maintain the distinction of ranks and the order of society, is, at the same time, the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments. That wealth and greatness are often regarded with the respect and admiration which are due only to wisdom and virtue; and that the contempt, of which vice and folly are the only proper objects, is often most unjustly bestowed upon poverty and weakness, has been the complaint of moralists in all ages."
There, written in 1776, we have the explanation for Brexit and Trump. We think we are so enlightened, so superior, when we are in effect descending once again into the barbarity that almost ended civilisation in the last century. I leave you with another quote from Smith that neatly sums up this malignant class and racial deference that is slowly destroying us as a society and as a civilised nation.
"A stranger to human nature, who saw the indifference of men about the misery of their inferiors, and the regret and indignation which they feel for the misfortunes and sufferings of those above them, would be apt to imagine, that pain must be more agonising, and the convulsions of death more terrible to persons of higher rank, than to those of meaner stations."
This is Doktor Kommirat's Adam Smith, this is not the Adam Smith of Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher. That Adam Smith is a fiction and never existed. Kommirat's Adam Smith was a true Scot who would have rejected such people's company. My Adam Smith would have joined me in a gin and tonic, and treated me as an equal. You have been warned
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
Tuesday 18 October 2016
I think I've lost the plot
I think I am losing touch with reality because either our political system is going progressively mad or I am. I am simply no longer able to relate to modern British politicians. I have to say British because although I would exempt the majority of Scotland's political class, there are still enough Tory and Labour imbeciles defiling the Scottish political scene to deepen my despair for the future. One merely need consider the plight of Scottish Labour to realise that here we have a group of people who wish to be regarded as a party of government but are quite incapable of learning from their mistakes or from displaying an even tenuous grasp of reality. However, every time I conclude that I must be genuinely quite mad, up pops another genuine loony to make me think that I am still on the plus side of sanity compared with our average politician. A conservative councillor in Guildford, Surrey, ironically named Christian Holliday, has placed a petition on the Westminster pigsty website demanding that the 1848 Treason Felony Act be updated to include what he considers as treasonous offences. In this person's fevered imagination it would be a treasonous offence “To imagine, devise, promote, work, or encourage others, to support UK becoming a member of the European Union." and “To conspire with foreign powers to make the UK, or part of the UK, become a member of the EU.” Now, is that not one of the most deliciously insane things you have read for some time? This guy even makes Trump look like a statesman. Now, note his reference to 'part of the UK', because this is a clear reference to the Scottish Government who are pledged to do everything possible to keep Scotland within the EU regardless of what the rest of the UK does. Now, this is no run of the mill Tory party member, this is an elected public official. The people of Guildford have actually gone to the trouble to elect this nutter to represent them and their interests on their local council. His petition is so mad even the Tories have baulked at it and he has been suspended from the party. That of course is window dressing and he will be readmitted as soon as the dust settles, told to be a good boy and placed in a safe seat at the next pigsty election, because he is so barking that he will be the perfect lobby fodder for the whips. This is an extreme example, but it is not too far off the general narrative that is dominant in the UK just now. If you ever read the Mail or the Express you will be aware of the utter hatred that the English bourgeoisie harbour for anyone who thinks that leaving the EU is a mistake. As you know I am one of these people and firmly believe that Brexit will be an utter disaster. However, I am not complaining because I will enjoy seeing these people suffer the consequences of their stupidity. I know that sounds rather cruel, but the English electorate will not come to their senses until they genuinely reap what they have sown. Our loony friend Christian is well-named, as he has decided that if you are opposed to Brexit, as 48% of the British electorate are, then you must be a traitor and should be locked up. And people take me to task when I argue that the English are becoming increasingly fascist!
If you read this blog you will know that I consider Brexit, Christian Holliday and people like him, the visceral hatred of foreigners and immigrants, the unceasing war against the unemployed, the disabled, and people on benefits, the demands for Scottish independence etc. to be the logical conclusion of Thatcherism. I have written of this since I started this blog. You will be aware that I consider Thatcher a genuinely wicked person. The British Historical Writers Association has just published a survey it conducted amongst its members on their views of the nineteen prime ministers that Britain has had since 1916, that is, over the last 100 years, and they named Thatcher as the worst, ahead of The Camoron who was second. In third place they put Neville Chamberlain. Therefore in the opinion of Britain's historians the worst three prime ministers of the last century in British politics were all Tories. Unsurprisingly Mad Tony was next. It was said of Thatcher
“She destroyed too many good things in society, and created too many bad ones, then left a social and moral vacuum in which the selfishly rich and unimaginatively fortunate could too easily destroy still more of what they don’t need and can’t see that everyone else does need” and “Thatcher made the idea of society, in the sense of a community that cares for all its members and accepts the premise that people need support and should not be stigmatised for it, an anathema. It is easy to demonise politicians and resort to ad hominem rather than policy attacks, but Thatcher encouraged the worst behaviour across all aspects of society and we are still reaping her poisoned harvest.”
I must confess that it is gratifying to have my opinions confirmed by a group such as the Historical Association. I have written a book that explains why I reach such conclusions, but cannot get it published, I wonder why? Thatcher was a fraud and a dangerous ideologue and her 'ism' is now coming to the conclusion I always predicted it would. That gives me no comfort because I have to live in the nation that is suffering from her consequences. What does worry me is that the bulk of the population cannot bring themselves to admit what is staring them in the face. You have been warned.
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
If you read this blog you will know that I consider Brexit, Christian Holliday and people like him, the visceral hatred of foreigners and immigrants, the unceasing war against the unemployed, the disabled, and people on benefits, the demands for Scottish independence etc. to be the logical conclusion of Thatcherism. I have written of this since I started this blog. You will be aware that I consider Thatcher a genuinely wicked person. The British Historical Writers Association has just published a survey it conducted amongst its members on their views of the nineteen prime ministers that Britain has had since 1916, that is, over the last 100 years, and they named Thatcher as the worst, ahead of The Camoron who was second. In third place they put Neville Chamberlain. Therefore in the opinion of Britain's historians the worst three prime ministers of the last century in British politics were all Tories. Unsurprisingly Mad Tony was next. It was said of Thatcher
“She destroyed too many good things in society, and created too many bad ones, then left a social and moral vacuum in which the selfishly rich and unimaginatively fortunate could too easily destroy still more of what they don’t need and can’t see that everyone else does need” and “Thatcher made the idea of society, in the sense of a community that cares for all its members and accepts the premise that people need support and should not be stigmatised for it, an anathema. It is easy to demonise politicians and resort to ad hominem rather than policy attacks, but Thatcher encouraged the worst behaviour across all aspects of society and we are still reaping her poisoned harvest.”
I must confess that it is gratifying to have my opinions confirmed by a group such as the Historical Association. I have written a book that explains why I reach such conclusions, but cannot get it published, I wonder why? Thatcher was a fraud and a dangerous ideologue and her 'ism' is now coming to the conclusion I always predicted it would. That gives me no comfort because I have to live in the nation that is suffering from her consequences. What does worry me is that the bulk of the population cannot bring themselves to admit what is staring them in the face. You have been warned.
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
Wednesday 12 October 2016
We cannot accept that the end always justifies the means
It never ceases to amaze me how absolutely hopeless British politicians are, and they are getting worse. Today, Boris the Spider, who is our Foreign Secretary, outlined Britain's foreign policy in the Middle East and has concluded that our policy should be to mount large scale demonstrations outside the Russian Embassy in London. I am not kidding here, that is what he told the pigsty today. It is difficult to imagine a more stupid and irresponsible response from what is one of the highest political offices in the land. What he is doing is giving the green light to any nation in the world to organise demonstrations against the UK for any reason, and Britain will be powerless to complain. This is the imbecile who bought several water cannons for use against people who dared to demonstrate in London whilst he was the mayor, but then never used them because the more sane voices within his administration managed to convince him of his insanity, the man who spearheaded the Brexit campaign but ran away in fright about what he had done, the day after his campaign of lies, racism and intolerance confronted him with its implications. His water cannon have since all been sold. If I had any authority in London he would have been given the bill and told to pay it as it was a complete waste of taxpayers money. But what am I saying? Boris is a complete waste of taxpayers money, a genuine halfwit but a dangerous halfwit, who will not tolerate any dissension from his world view and will use water cannons etc. to suppress such dissent, whilst encouraging widespread civil disorder with respect to anything he disagrees with. Boris's demonstrations are good and righteous, anyone else's are evil and must be suppressed as forcefully as is necessary. But the really alarming thing is that this is the craven imbecile in charge of Britain's foreign policy. The Russians must be scratching their heads in total disbelief that we could appoint anyone even half as stupid as this revolting clown. The tragedy is that we have the cheek to criticise the Trump when we have appointed someone just as bad and don't seem to realise it. I wonder what Putin will say when the British turn up, cap in hand, in Moscow, begging for a post-Brexit trade deal?
As you know, I am reluctant to criticise Russia because I am convinced that most of what we are told in this right-wing racist midden that is modern Britain is so one-sided and prejudiced that it is quite useless knowledge ( midden is a Scottish word signifying a communal garbage disposable area). However, the empirical evidence that exists indicates that what the Russians are encouraging in Syria is quite indefensible. My reluctance to criticise the Russians stems from my understanding of what Russia contributed to the Second World War, and to my conviction that most of what I was told about the Soviet Union in my youth was simply propagandist rubbish. I have never accepted, and still refuse to accept, that Russia poses a threat to me or the British people. That must not be interpreted as an endorsement of the Soviet system or of Stalinism, because, as I trust anyone who reads this blog will acknowledge, I am opposed to all forms of totalitarian, authoritarian, or oppressive systems. As I have said before, in my opinion Hitler lost WW2 on June 22nd 1941 when he launched Operation Barbarossa. The turning point was of course Stalingrad and I cannot help comparing the devastation that characterised Stalingrad to what we are seeing in modern Allepo, and I wonder how our Russian friends can, in all conscience, visit such carnage on another people given what they themselves have experienced. I am perhaps being naïve, but I cannot accept that because your enemy utilises a hospital as a base to cover their activities, that gives you a right to blow that hospital off the face of the earth along with all of its patients, and the targeting of aid convoys is quite inexplicable and inexcusable. Such is the mark of inhumanity and nations can become inhuman as well as individuals. That must be the lesson of the twentieth century, a lesson that all nations vowed never to repeat, but seem to have forgotten. Someone must stand up and say enough is enough and in Syria's case that can only be President Putin. You do not defeat inhumanity and terror by becoming inhuman and a terrorist. My dismay is that just when the world needs courageous and principled leadership, people with vision and integrity, we in the West have Boris, Trump, Obama the useless, and someone who is on course to becoming the worst Prime Minister on record. There you have the least principled and most immoral collection imaginable. No wonder Putin takes no notice of us. You have been warned.
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
As you know, I am reluctant to criticise Russia because I am convinced that most of what we are told in this right-wing racist midden that is modern Britain is so one-sided and prejudiced that it is quite useless knowledge ( midden is a Scottish word signifying a communal garbage disposable area). However, the empirical evidence that exists indicates that what the Russians are encouraging in Syria is quite indefensible. My reluctance to criticise the Russians stems from my understanding of what Russia contributed to the Second World War, and to my conviction that most of what I was told about the Soviet Union in my youth was simply propagandist rubbish. I have never accepted, and still refuse to accept, that Russia poses a threat to me or the British people. That must not be interpreted as an endorsement of the Soviet system or of Stalinism, because, as I trust anyone who reads this blog will acknowledge, I am opposed to all forms of totalitarian, authoritarian, or oppressive systems. As I have said before, in my opinion Hitler lost WW2 on June 22nd 1941 when he launched Operation Barbarossa. The turning point was of course Stalingrad and I cannot help comparing the devastation that characterised Stalingrad to what we are seeing in modern Allepo, and I wonder how our Russian friends can, in all conscience, visit such carnage on another people given what they themselves have experienced. I am perhaps being naïve, but I cannot accept that because your enemy utilises a hospital as a base to cover their activities, that gives you a right to blow that hospital off the face of the earth along with all of its patients, and the targeting of aid convoys is quite inexplicable and inexcusable. Such is the mark of inhumanity and nations can become inhuman as well as individuals. That must be the lesson of the twentieth century, a lesson that all nations vowed never to repeat, but seem to have forgotten. Someone must stand up and say enough is enough and in Syria's case that can only be President Putin. You do not defeat inhumanity and terror by becoming inhuman and a terrorist. My dismay is that just when the world needs courageous and principled leadership, people with vision and integrity, we in the West have Boris, Trump, Obama the useless, and someone who is on course to becoming the worst Prime Minister on record. There you have the least principled and most immoral collection imaginable. No wonder Putin takes no notice of us. You have been warned.
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
Friday 7 October 2016
People who are citizens of the world are citizens of nowhere- wow, that's profound!
I have always agreed with Samuel Johnson that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. I was brought up to be patriotic before I learned some sense and able to see the corrosive effects of such a misplaced concept. I raise this because I had a good chuckle at the mouthings of our Prime Minister at the Tory Party conference. I told you before that I suspected that Ms May was a bit of a thicko and I am no longer in any doubt. She was making the case for her vision of a 'great' Britain and was very dismissive of people who do not share her vision and her supposed love of country when she delivered the classic line that "people who are citizens of the world are citizens of nowhere". I wonder how long it took some cretinous Eton educated clown to think that one up? However, I immediately dug out my copy of 'The Republic' to remind myself of Socrates statement that he did not consider himself a citizen of either Athens or Greece, but as a citizen of the world. So, that's it, Socrates must forever now be regarded as a stateless and rootless refugee and if he turned up at Heathrow airport he would be immediately sent packing because he would be an unnecessary burden on the British taxpayer. I mean he was only one of the greatest minds in history, he wasn't even a plumber, so he would be of no earthly use in a neoliberal free market patriotic Britain. I mean is such a world outlook not enough to make you weep with despair? This is the latest propaganda from Tory Central Office, if you consider yourself as a European or a brother/sister of all of the human race, and reject the Tories narrow racist nationalism, you are unpatriotic. Well I've a confession, I've been unpatriotic most of my life by the standards of British nationalism. I find it difficult to give my allegiance to a society riddled with class, a country that spends most of its energies excluding people from realising their potential, a country that hates and oppresses the disabled and the unfortunate, a country that demonises working people and condemns hundreds of thousands of its own people to rely on foodbanks, a country that refuses to take a few thousand homeless and parentless children out of despair and misery and a country that blames all of its woes and misfortunes on foreigners, that wallows in a scapegoat mentality to hide its own cruelty and incompetence.
However, despite my dismissal of patriotism, the great American jurist Clarence Darrow tells me that I am what he calls a true patriot because he tells us that "True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anything else." Now, as I have written here before, Clarence Darrow has been an inspiration to me, so perhaps I should consider myself a patriot, because this is the man who risked, not only his reputation, but his life, when he defended John Scopes in the famous 'Monkey Trial'. This gives me pause to consider that there are now different perspectives as to the nature of patriotism, because I have always looked to another great American, Mark Twain, who perfectly describes the nature of the Westminster politician when he told us that a patriot is the person who can shout the loudest without knowing what he/she is shouting about, and that adequately sums up Prime Minister May.
Utilising Darrow's definition of patriotism, I charge all the denizens of the pigsty as being unpatriotic because they have institutionalised injustice and display an indifference to, and a hatred towards, their fellow citizens who are less fortunate than them. I would consider it an insult to be categorised as being a citizen of the nation that they identify with. It is not that they are indifferent to injustice, it is the fact that they positively revel in it and promote it as public policy. I fear that Britain has lost its soul, its decency and self-respect. As I said before, I refuse to consider myself British because I feel that Britishness is a shameful thing that signifies greed, selfishness, indifference to others and is categorised, not by charity and concern, but by hate. You have been warned.
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
However, despite my dismissal of patriotism, the great American jurist Clarence Darrow tells me that I am what he calls a true patriot because he tells us that "True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anything else." Now, as I have written here before, Clarence Darrow has been an inspiration to me, so perhaps I should consider myself a patriot, because this is the man who risked, not only his reputation, but his life, when he defended John Scopes in the famous 'Monkey Trial'. This gives me pause to consider that there are now different perspectives as to the nature of patriotism, because I have always looked to another great American, Mark Twain, who perfectly describes the nature of the Westminster politician when he told us that a patriot is the person who can shout the loudest without knowing what he/she is shouting about, and that adequately sums up Prime Minister May.
Utilising Darrow's definition of patriotism, I charge all the denizens of the pigsty as being unpatriotic because they have institutionalised injustice and display an indifference to, and a hatred towards, their fellow citizens who are less fortunate than them. I would consider it an insult to be categorised as being a citizen of the nation that they identify with. It is not that they are indifferent to injustice, it is the fact that they positively revel in it and promote it as public policy. I fear that Britain has lost its soul, its decency and self-respect. As I said before, I refuse to consider myself British because I feel that Britishness is a shameful thing that signifies greed, selfishness, indifference to others and is categorised, not by charity and concern, but by hate. You have been warned.
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
Monday 3 October 2016
The British expect to have their cake and eat it, it is their right!
Theresa May the British Prime Minister told the Tory Party Conference yesterday that she will prioritise control of immigration over staying in the EU Single Market. Thus, in bowing to the huge undercurrent of racism in the UK she is prepared to turn Britain's back on a market of some 500 million people and free trade arrangements with over 21 million businesses. That is the strength of the Tories, and middle England's, hatred of foreigners. The objections to immigration are racism pure and simple and no amount of furious denial will be able to hide that. The English don't want any more foreigners, and the non Anglo-Saxon populace who live in England can be every bit as guilty of racism as their white Anglo-Saxon neighbours. As I will never get fed up reminding you, this is the governing party who were re-elected after refusing to take 3,000 homeless and parentless refugee children from Syria. No-one with any intelligence can seriously blame immigration for the problems we face with regards to housing, health services, care, transport, education etc. Of course an increased population will put pressure on such services, but the core source of the problems in those areas come from a deliberate starvation of finance and investment in such services, and it is deliberate. Take housing for example, one in four members of the Westminster pigsty are landlords who earn a significant income from renting housing stock, and they include both David Cameron and George Osborne who until recently were Prime Minister and Chancellor, and the present Chancellor Phillip Hammond. Another landlord is the Minister for Housing, Brandon Lewis. These are the people in whose interest it is to keep housing stock at crisis level in order that they can exploit it and grow wealthier than they already are. It is quite disgusting, but the English are happy to be fed lies. But who did Cameron and Osborne continually blame for the housing crisis? that's right, immigrants.
The English want access to the EU single market, but The European Union Single Market is not a free market. The EU is a free trade zone, but its internal markets are constrained by law and regulation, they are not in any sense free. EU freedoms are enshrined in the various Treaties that constitute the structural composition of the EU and the freedoms related to goods, services and people, are safeguarded and controlled by law and regulation. Thus, is you wish access to the single market you must comply with the various regulations. England wants to be different. The English are being exposed for their arrogance and the sense of entitlement that is bred into the British elite and that filters down into the general populace. What the English want is to scrap one of the cornerstones of the EU's structural foundations but be allowed to keep the rest, as I continually remind you, British politicians have no capacity for shame. I always warn you that Britain has some of the most appalling politicians on the planet, and I would ask you to check some of the rantings that emit from Liam Fox. To my shame I have to admit that this imbecile is a Scot, but he is a British Scot and as you know I am not. What is so appalling and sad is that I am convinced that this person actually believes what he says, because no one with a shred of dignity could say the things he does in public otherwise. What is so scary is that, along with Boris the Spider, he is one of the key negotiators on Brexit. What is certain is that once the Europeans get around the table with this parcel of rogues and liars they will throw us out without any negotiations, and who could blame them? One of the Tories elder statesmen and holder of numerous government posts in his career, Kenneth Clarke, told us recently that the Spider was simply a nicer version of Donald Trump. I wonder what he's got against Trump? What is certain is that although they both like to be seen as clowns, neither of them are remotely funny.
If I may digress, by following the American presidential campaign, I have been struck by how despised Hilary Clinton is by many Americans. I am constrained in my information by a media that not only hates Trump with a passion, but fears him with an equal passion, and so I do not get to hear what animates such a hatred of Hilary because they do not report such things here. But I am beginning to suspect that the quality of American politicians may not be any higher than the garbage we suffer from in this sorry country. You have been warned
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
The English want access to the EU single market, but The European Union Single Market is not a free market. The EU is a free trade zone, but its internal markets are constrained by law and regulation, they are not in any sense free. EU freedoms are enshrined in the various Treaties that constitute the structural composition of the EU and the freedoms related to goods, services and people, are safeguarded and controlled by law and regulation. Thus, is you wish access to the single market you must comply with the various regulations. England wants to be different. The English are being exposed for their arrogance and the sense of entitlement that is bred into the British elite and that filters down into the general populace. What the English want is to scrap one of the cornerstones of the EU's structural foundations but be allowed to keep the rest, as I continually remind you, British politicians have no capacity for shame. I always warn you that Britain has some of the most appalling politicians on the planet, and I would ask you to check some of the rantings that emit from Liam Fox. To my shame I have to admit that this imbecile is a Scot, but he is a British Scot and as you know I am not. What is so appalling and sad is that I am convinced that this person actually believes what he says, because no one with a shred of dignity could say the things he does in public otherwise. What is so scary is that, along with Boris the Spider, he is one of the key negotiators on Brexit. What is certain is that once the Europeans get around the table with this parcel of rogues and liars they will throw us out without any negotiations, and who could blame them? One of the Tories elder statesmen and holder of numerous government posts in his career, Kenneth Clarke, told us recently that the Spider was simply a nicer version of Donald Trump. I wonder what he's got against Trump? What is certain is that although they both like to be seen as clowns, neither of them are remotely funny.
If I may digress, by following the American presidential campaign, I have been struck by how despised Hilary Clinton is by many Americans. I am constrained in my information by a media that not only hates Trump with a passion, but fears him with an equal passion, and so I do not get to hear what animates such a hatred of Hilary because they do not report such things here. But I am beginning to suspect that the quality of American politicians may not be any higher than the garbage we suffer from in this sorry country. You have been warned
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)