Siegfried Ramler, a German gentleman we should all take note of.

As you know I make no significant difference or distinction between the political culture and events occurring in the USA and in the UK. The only difference is of degree and intensity. We have the same basic mentality prevailing in both countries amongst the ruling elites, and I am afraid, too many of the electorate. With respect to the scandal of the children being separated from their parents, the UK has been doing similar things for many years now, so we are in no position to adopt a moral superiority. Recent events with respect to the conduct of both the White House and the British government, enthusiastically aided and abetted by the appalling personnel that compose the upper reaches of the British civil service, led me to recall the thoughts of  a gentleman called Siegfried Ramler, who was an Interpreter at the Nuremberg War Trials. He noted that the legacy and lessons of that momentous year were “extremely important”, personally and globally, and he wrote that, "Over the decades a question recurs. How it is possible that these things happened in a country that produced musicians, a Goethe, a Schiller, how was it possible that a culture like this could sink into the abyss into which they had fallen under the Nazis?” and he concluded that “I attempt a response, that when you live in a society with no checks on behaviour, no acceptance of any rule of law, no respect for rules of procedure, then those things can happen in any country. It’s not only a German problem, it’s a human problem.”

I have been watching numerous programmes from American networks and a continuous theme from many different commentators is that the the American system of government, namely both Houses of Congress, are doing absolutely nothing to check the Know Nothings behaviour, no one is holding his language to account and indeed significant sections of the American political system, including influential news and media outlets are actively encouraging him. Numerous political commentators have noted that there is no longer a party called the Republicans, it has been replaced by the Know Nothings Party (as you know I refuse to use his name as I am afraid it may pollute my laptop so badly that it will simply cease to function). Another commonality American commentators frequently point to is Know Nothing's refusal to respect the rule of law or the rules of procedure that govern the American political system. Again, we have the same problem is the UK and the only difference is with respect to degree and intensity. The Tories are much more subtle, but no less sinister. That is their Eton and Oxbridge training. Since Know Nothing's inauguration the Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has claimed ignorance of events and situations ninety-nine times as of last Wednesday when questioned about the behaviour and language of the Know Nothing and his inner circle, according to CNN. This is the same Paul Ryan who forced the American Catholic Church to issue a letter denouncing him in 2012.

We in this country get the same kind of response from Tories all the time. Lies and refusal to answer questions are their trademark. Inhumanity and cruelty are becoming common public policy with a disregard for law, rules of procedure, decency and human dignity. So, all of the benchmarks for a slide into fascism identified by Siegfried Ramler are alive and well on both sides of the Atlantic. You have been warned

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

The Know-Nothing and the Tories must be stopped before it is too late

There can no longer be any debate over the question of whether the US and the UK are descending into a new era of barbarism under the dominant right-wing political class in each country. As I keep telling you, the political variant of free market neoliberalism is now openly flexing its authoritarianism and establishing it as the norm. In the United States the Know-Nothing has crossed the line of sane political discourse and is implementing policies that have been described as Hitlerian and by religious leaders as 'pure evil'. His admiration for tyrants and dictators is now expressed openly and he is waging war against all of the traditional institutions of American democracy with his particular venom directed at any sector of the media that has the temerity to challenge him or seek to hold him to account. His capacity for bare-faced lying knows no bounds and he is now openly persecuting children and immigrants whilst dehumanising them through openly fascist style public policy. What sane and rational person approves of locking children in steel cages with aluminium sheets for cover? This only demonstrates that significant sections of the American population and their political representatives are neither sane nor rational as it is obvious that there are a significant amount of personnel quite happy to implement such evil on the Know-Nothing's behalf and others to defend it. If I were an American I would be genuinely scared.

In this sorry nation, the ruling elite have completely lost sight of the meaning and purpose of politics and are in utter contempt of democracy (indeed they are doing their best to kill it off), and of the electorate. Their contempt for the Scots is now open and evident. We actually have the spectacle of the government refusing to give Parliament any input into the Brexit process. With respect to Brexit, the government could not have made their contempt for Scotland any more evident when they set aside a miserable fifteen minutes for a debate on Scotland's fate under the Brexit proposals and allowed the entire fifteen minutes to be taken up by a government minister thus ensuring that not one Scottish MP, not even a Scottish Tory MP, had any input into the decision making process determining Scotland's economic, social and political future. In this process the Tories have the full support of Labour in denying, not only the SNP, but their own Scottish Labour MPs, any input into the debate as both the Tories and Labour sent a clear signal that they are not prepared to defend Scotland, its electorate, or its principal institutions, from the Tories assault on the Scottish Parliament and the devolution settlement. Westminster has now become a danger to the democratic process, and in their own quiet way, although they do not indulge in the hyperbole of the Know-Nothing, they are pursuing an authoritarian agenda just as surely as he is and their attacks on those they perceive as enemies of the people are just as sinister, and remember, the Tories have already branded the judiciary as the enemies of the people because they upheld the law. Both US and British governments have signalled that they have no intention of allowing themselves to be constrained, regulated, or to be required to adhere to traditional norms and values in pursuit of their respective goals and agendas. Their political free market is now as dangerous as their economic and just as destructive. It is essential that we have a national debate to establish some first principles and return to the foundations of political philosophy. We are living in deeply unjust times and as Adam Smith warned us,

"Society, however, cannot subsist among those who are at all times ready to hurt and injure one another. The moment that injury begins, the moment that mutual resentment and animosity take place, all the bands of it are broke asunder, and the different members of which it consisted are, as it were, dissipated and scattered abroad by the violence and opposition of their discordant affections..... the prevalence of injustice must utterly destroy it."

Remember, government is derivative and derives from a purpose, and the whole purpose of government is to provide a stable, peaceful, and ordered society that will enable people to pursue their own interests. Smith here is talking about society and we must never lose sight of the empirical reality that both government and the state are part of society, not the other way round. I hope people will begin to understand now when I write about the significance of Thatcher's mantra that there is no such thing as society. She wanted to set both government and the state above and separate from society, so that neither government or the state could be held accountable to a wider society that of course does not exist. That is why I persistently tell you that her agenda was sinister and that her purpose was quite evil. This ideological construct is now regarded as holy writ by free marketeers and explains much about the approach of the Tories and Know-Nothing.

The purpose of government is not to make people good or to preach to them. Government is therefore functional and must not be ideological. Its function is the preservation of peace and order whilst allowing people as much freedom to pursue their own interests as is possible without harming any others. The state then, those institutions that governments utilise for their own ideological ends, only exists for the peace, well-being and security of its members. It is not the tool or handmaiden of ideologically motivated politicians or parties. That however is what it has become and this must stop.

This post is getting too big but I wish to make the point that if you believe in democracy and representative government, then ultimate power must always reside with the people. The people of any nation possess natural rights that exist prior to government, and any exercise of state power that threatens such rights is by definition illegitimate. Power is therefore constrained by such moral rights and laws and subject to both constitutional and traditional conventions that have existed historically, and is why both our governments refuse to recognise or honour such political necessities, as they are fundamental constraints on their behaviour. In addition, in a representative democracy, the executive must always be subordinate to the legislature. In both the UK and the USA the opposite is the case and is one of the principal reasons we are losing our democratic rights and controls. You have been warned, because too many of you seem to be quite complacent about the whole thing.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

The Day I Met Pele

With the World Cup upon us I was reflecting on a day in 1966 that not only seems like I lived in a completely different world back then, but was in reality a completely different world. I was out cycling on a lovely early summer's day and was in a small Scottish seaside town called Troon, famous for its golf courses, one of which frequently hosts the British Open Golf Tournament. It was a Sunday. Troon boasts a small non-league football club named Troon Juniors who play in a small ground that would probably struggle to hold more than a couple of thousand people. However, as I was passing Troon's football park I heard music and saw some activity which drew my attention because it was the close season. My curiosity made me cycle up to the park, which is called Portland Park, and I stopped in disbelief because the first thing I saw standing at the front gate was Pele, the greatest footballer ever, and at that time probably the most famous man on the planet. My first reaction was that my eyes were deceiving me but I approached the main gate and saw that it was indeed Pele. I was fortunate enough to shake his hand and welcome him, although I am sure he did not understand me, but he smiled, shook my hand and said something, which I assume was a greeting. As I entered Portland Park I saw the entire Brazilian national team training, and the source of the music was because the Brazilians really did train to samba music as they had several large ghetto blasters placed around the ground playing music to different groups of players. I watched the Brazilians train for about an hour and during that time Pele remained at the gate and took no part in the training as he was giving interviews and conducting very effective public relations with locals, children and the media. Brazil were in Scotland to play the Scottish national team at Hampden Park the following Wednesday in a warm up game for the World Cup that was being held in England that year, a game I was fortunate to attend, and were staying at one of Troon's famous hotels.

The purpose of this post is that I carried my bike into Portland Park and sat for an hour on the grass watching the most famous football team in the world with the most famous players and not a soul asked me who I was or what I was doing there. I mean, there was I sitting watching Garrincha, Jairzinho, Tostao, Gerson, Zito etc. pure legends, and there was one Scottish bobby in attendance as I recall and he stayed at the gate, presumably watching Pele as well. Can you imagine that? Brazil were the World Cup holders at that time having won the previous two World Cups, and that team was probably, still to this day, the best football team ever. There was, quite literally, no security, and the point I wish to make is that there was no need for any.

So, what has brought us to the situation we are in today when a team like that would have motor cycle escorts, armed guards, where security has become an obsession and unfortunately very necessary? You will not be surprised when I tell you that the one common denominator underpinning the collapse of civilisation and our descent into barbarism is a dominant ideology, a twisted, divisive, poisonous, violent and dehumanising ideology - free market neoliberalism. 1966 was BT, before Thatcher. This was an age before the official adoption of greed, class and racist warfare, the cult of the individual and an open and vicious assault on all of our rights. This was before the official launch of the policies that were designed to reduce working people throughout the world to a modern state of slavery and deny them pensions, health care, employment rights etc. etc. this was indeed the end of an era.

In historical terms, our descent into this quasi-dystopian anti-social mess we call British society has been breathtakingly rapid, it is less than fifty years. I was reminded of H.L. Mencken's famous observation that

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” 

That was written in 1920, but it was not a serious prospect until the Presidency of Ronald Reagan and his adoption of the Blessed Margaret's vision of the world that has inevitably led us to the Know Nothing and the descent of American government into madness. Not that British government is any healthier as we are governed by the most feral elite imaginable who are both incompetent and stupid. What do our nations have in common as well as an unbelievably insane political class? An addiction to free market ideology! I remind you, just as surely as neoliberalism has destroyed the economic institutional structures of our respective nations, so it is just as surely destroying the political as well. Imagine the future after the Know Nothing and Brexit? Even HG Wells would have struggled with what we are facing. That is the legacy of the Blessed Margaret and her free market experiment.

I reflect that I now live in a different world to the one I grew up in and now inhabit a world that has shed all norms of decency and rule based conduct. It begins at the top and permeates right down throughout society. It has not happened by accident and today's norms of conduct and human behaviour, particularly in the political and public spheres, have been quite deliberately debased and corrupted. I fear today that if I met Pele and tried to shake his hand I may well be arrested for terrorism. Thank you very much Margaret, you did indeed shape society as a reflection of your own character. You have been warned

Your Servant

Doktor Kommirat

Destitution by Design - The Kommirat has been telling you this for years

Since the very start of this blog I have been warning you that the ultimate policy goal of the Tories is to reduce the bulk of the British population to a state of modern slavery. I have been accused of hyperbole and other forms of exaggeration (although never by any of the readers of this blog, who are, by definition, the more intelligent and thoughtful arm of the populations of their respective countries), but today, once again, the Kommirat has been vindicated.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, in partnership with Heriot Watt University (which is of course a Scottish institution and therefore much more trustworthy and honourable than any of its Southern counterparts) has produced a Report cataloguing the manner by which the Tories are quite deliberately producing what they term 'destitution by design.' In other words, the impoverishment of large parts of the British population is official Tory government policy with the goal of quite deliberately reducing whole sections of the seventh richest nation on earth to a state of destitution. At this time the Report claims that there are over one and a half million people in a state of destitution in the UK, 360,000 of whom are children. The Report is produced within the strict definition of destitution endorsed by the general public which accepts that people are destitute if they have lacked two or more of these six essentials over the past month, because they cannot afford them:
 shelter (have slept rough for one or more nights)
 food (have had fewer than two meals a day for two or more days)
 heating their home (have been unable to do this for five or more days)
 lighting their home (have been unable to do this for five or more days)
 clothing and footwear (appropriate for weather)
 basic toiletries (soap, shampoo, toothpaste, toothbrush).

Campbell Robb, chief executive of the Joseph Rountree Foundation, said: “Many of us rely on public services such as social security when hit with unexpected circumstances like job loss, relationship breakdown or ill health....Yet actions by government, local authorities and utility companies are leading to ‘destitution by design’: forcing people into a corner when they are penniless and have nowhere to turn. This is shameful,” 

The same day that this Report was published, research conducted for the Independent newspaper revealed that there are now over four million people in the UK relying on foodbanks. Should anyone wish to consult this Report it is available online at the Rountree Foundation website and so I will not go into it in any more detail. What I want to impress on you is the continuing cruelty and callousness of the British Conservative Party and their fundamentally fascist nature. They are a group of heartless barbarians driven by hatred. Their hatreds are too numerous to mention but include, workers, immigrants, the poor, the unemployed, the disabled and foreigners. 

However, the Tories are not alone in this, they are only the worst. This is a Westminster problem and has been developing for a long time by a group of unimaginative intellectual imbeciles who are shackled to the vile poison that is the free market. We have just witnessed the Tories, and indeed Westminster's, complete indifference to the plight of those who were the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire. A year after Grenfell hardly any of its survivors have been rehoused and the inquiry has only just begun following the Tories stubborn refusal to listen to the survivors pleas for justice. That the pigsty is racist to its very core is borne out by its treatment of these poor people and has been further demonstrated by what we in the UK call the Windrush scandal. If you have been following this scandal you will know that on the subject of racism and hatred of immigrants, the Tories and the Labour Party are now without excuse. Add to that the Brexit nightmare and the catalogue of cruelty and inhumanity shown to people on benefits and we can have no doubts whatever as to the real nature of the majority of the British people. As I said earlier, those personnel who work in the Home Office and in Britain's Department of Work and Pensions would be just as happy working to make sure that Eichmann's trains ran on time. An aggressive, heartless, inhuman, and barbarian dominant ideology, promoted and supported by an aggressive, heartless, inhuman political class of barbarians, is indeed producing an aggressive, heartless, inhuman population of barbarians. 

But at least some people are beginning to catch up with Doktor Kommirat. I have been reading an article by David Marquand, Principal of Mansfield College Oxford University who tells us that Britain's problem is not with Europe, it is with England. The English are going through a very reactionary nationalistic phase fuelled by the xenophobia created by the Brexiteers. The Leavers are impenetrable, like the followers of the Know Nothing they are impervious to facts and to reason, indeed they remind me of Bertrand Russell's observation that

“The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.”

The British are going to have to suffer trial and tribulation before they are ready to admit that they have been conned by a set of unscrupulous gangsters. You get what you vote for. Hopefully Scotland will be independent by that time, but if we are not, then we will also get what we deserve. You have been warned 

Your Servant

Doktor Kommirat