Friday, 31 March 2017

I detect a frisson of schadenfreude

I must confess that I am guilty of adopting an attitude that I normally condemn in other people. I am considering if my attitudes are unworthy, because I am intellectually quite excited about the prospects of Brexit for all the wrong reasons. I have been trying to fight it,  but I am afraid I have been experiencing  the negative satisfaction of shadenfreude, a condition I normally disapprove of. My reason for this is my conviction that the people who live and vote in England and Wales (I will call them the English for convenience) are going to suffer quite serious disruption and hardship, which I'm afraid will be quite necessary, before they are able to accept the consequences of their own stupidity and shortsightedness. They will have to have their noses rubbed in their own mess before they waken up to realise that the situation they find themselves in was not the result of the EU, Muslims, immigrants, foreigners, the disabled and people on benefits, but the result of their own making, as they discover that, rather than leaving the EU bringing universal prosperity, happiness and unbridled self-determination, they are in reality facing a disaster for which there are no longer any excuses nor scapegoats. As I continually tell you, you get what you vote for.

Now, I may of course be completely wrong, but I cannot see any positive future resulting from a situation that has been the result of a campaign by the most vile people in the nation spouting the most vile form of propaganda and lies. The worst part about it is that now that the whole Brexit campaign has been exposed as one huge lie, and patently obvious that the people who led that campaign have not the foggiest idea what to do next, the English seem quite happy to find themselves the victim of one of the greatest projects in the art of blatant mendacity since the Second World War. Thus, I can only conclude that they wanted to be lied to and are quite indifferent to the fact that they voted for an illusion. They will now reap what they have sown and I find it quite impossible to have any sympathy with them. I have carefully followed as many interviews conducted around the country with people who voted to leave the EU as I can, and I find it quite astonishing that mature adults can spout such arrant nonsense. I have repeatedly listened to mature adults who still spout the lie that we have been dictated to by faceless and unelected bureaucrats for the past 45 years. All legislation that emerges from the EU is the result of the deliberations of two elected chambers, the Council of Ministers, and the European Parliament, and Britain is represented on both. It never ceases to amaze me that such people never take into account that British legislation must gain the approval of the House Of Lords, the largest unelected and unrepresentative forum in the world. In addition, an average of 24 of these persons serve in some capacity in British Government at any one time.

As a result of my guilt over my experience of schadenfreude, I engaged in a little research and discovered that the London School of Economics had published the fact that in the fifteen years between 1999 and March 2016, the British had been outvoted in the Council of Ministers 57 times. They had abstained 70 times, and had voted with the rest of the Council 2,474 times. Thus, the LSE has concluded that the British voted in favour of 95% the EU's legislative proposals. Now I told you I was speaking to a very nice English couple last week who were quite successful business people and I asked the gentleman if he agreed with 95% of the decisions made within his company that affected him and his clients. Of course not he laughed, but you wouldn't expect to, it doesn't work like that. So why would you bridle when your nation has a higher success rate than you reasonable would expect I asked him? He took the point. But that is the way with the British, they expect to get their own way all of the time.

Another fact I would share with you relates to how we have been constantly told that the EU is a huge bloated bureaucracy that siphons up a large portion of its finance. The Office of National Statistics records that in March 2016, the EU civil service numbered 42,500 people. The British civil service numbered 418,343. We therefore have 42,500 civil servants catering to the needs of 508 million people, whilst in Britain we have 418,343 to cater to the needs of 65,112,000. I definitely must be missing something. But as they say, why spoil a good narrative with facts. I leave you with the thought that there are lies, damned lies, and Tories. The consequences of their hubris is looming. You have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

Wednesday, 29 March 2017

There are no positives in either American or British government

I have mentioned before that the dominant ideology motivating the political elites in both Britain and the United States is Ayn Rand’s Objectivist philosophy. I hesitate to call it a philosophy as it is quite insane, and I mean that, it is not rhetoric. It is classic nihilism but is also deeply psychotic. It is a revolutionary belief system that seeks to destroy rather than conserve a society’s institutions and culture, and it is explicitly undemocratic. That is one of the reasons I never refer to the Tories as Conservatives, as, starting with the Blessed Margaret, the dominant Tories who have hijacked the Conservative Party seek to conserve nothing and destroy everything that identifies the British for who they are. Similarly in America, these same people have taken over the Republican Party and turned it into a wrecking machine that wishes to destroy the American system and remodel it in their own image. I read an interesting article by an American journalist, Lindy West, who told us that

 I don’t know that America has ever seen a political party so divested of care. Since Trump took office, Republicans have proposed legislation to destroy unions, the healthcare system, the education system and the Environmental Protection Agency; to defund the reproductive health charity Planned Parenthood and restrict abortion; to stifle public protest and decimate arts funding; to increase the risk of violence against trans people and roll back anti-discrimination laws; and to funnel more and more wealth from the poorest to the richest. Every executive order and piece of GOP legislation is destructive, aimed at dismantling something else, never creating anything new, never in the service of improving the care of the nation. She then quoted a Republican Representative Tom Rooney who said
“I’ve been in this job eight years and I’m racking my brain to think of one thing our party has done that’s been something positive, that’s been something other than stopping something else from happening. We need to start having victories as a party. And if we can’t, then it’s hard to justify why we should be back here.”

What these two people are responding to is the nihilistic policy agenda that is dictating American politics, and we are experiencing the same phenomenon in the UK. It is predicated on a belief that there is nothing of any real intrinsic value, so it is quite permissible to attack, discredit, and destroy traditional institutions and culture. It's the political manifestation of the doctrines of Ayn Rand. Remember, I told you before, when he was standing as candidate for the Vice-Presidency, the American Catholic Church issued a nationwide article dissociating itself from the policy agenda of Paul Ryan, a prominent Roman Catholic. That is another worrying thing about American politics, the apparent necessity for all politicians to parade their Christian credentials as if this is self-evidently a good and desirable thing. However, the Catholic Church explicitly condemned Ryan's association with Ayn Rand's philosophy and his policy agenda that is based on that philosophy. I understand he is now Speaker of the House, and an avowed opponent of healthcare for the poor. Not surprising as Rand told us that if you cannot afford health care you should just be allowed to die, it is your own fault. This is also the source of the Tories hatred of the British NHS.

As a result of this trend towards destruction and negativity we have been saddled by the most appalling political leadership on both sides of the Atlantic it is possible to imagine. I genuinely do not wish to insult or irritate my American friends, but it is now beyond debate that their president is quite insane. He is a classic psychopath who is quite indifferent to the effects of his language and policies and is quite incapable of admitting to a mistake or being wrong on anything. But in classic psychotic style, he seeks to destroy anyone who challenges him or seeks to oppose whatever he wants to do. I ask my American friends, have you ever known any politician who has been the subject of such ridicule and scorn? and he has only been in the job for less than three months. He is a quite ferocious bully. What is truly demonstrable is that he knows nothing about politics, either conceptual or practical, and does not seem to even wish to know. In his ignorance of politics and how politics operates, he lashes out at people who he perceives as enemies. That is a hallmark of the psychopath and political ignoramus; they never see an opponent, only an enemy, as in their minds opposition is not a recognisable or legitimate concept. However, what is becoming clearer is that he is now posing a threat to the Republican agenda and is likely to be removed from office before he can cause irreparable damage to their electoral fortunes.

In this country we are not so fortunate to be able to get rid of a demonstrably stupid incompetent. Theresa May is not psychotic, she is simply thick, a quite stupid woman. But like Trump she is a bully who must get her own way. It will become glaringly obvious just how incompetent May is as the serious negotiations into Britain’s exit from the European Union get under way. I trust you accept that my definition of May as a stupid person is neither personal nor sarcastic, it is an observation. May is another example of a nihilistic approach as she now threatens to achieve what both Hitler and the IRA singularly failed to achieve, the destruction of the United Kingdom and the separation from the UK of both Scotland and Northern Ireland. Thus, the real enemies of both the American and British peoples are their own representatives, the Republicans and the Tories. I apologise for the length of this post as I am actually just getting started, but hope that this is enough to give you pause for thought whether you agree with it or hate it. However, you have been warned and I remain

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat


 

Monday, 27 March 2017

I fear the UK is finished

I apologise for not posting for a week but I have been away visiting family and was unavailable. I have been warning you for these past years about how the Tories agenda is the establishment of an authoritarian society, bordering on the totalitarian, leaving Britain in essence a one-party state. This creeping authoritarianism permeates everything they do and underpins all their policy-making. I give you two pieces from today's news, one from the Independent and one from the Guardian. The Independent told us today that

"The Ministry of Defence’s former cyber security chief has accused the Government of trying to "use" the devastating Westminster attack to grab unnecessary and intrusive surveillance powers.
Major General Jonathan Shaw said ministers were attempting to "use the moment" to push for security services having more control, despite there being only a weak case for it".

whilst the Guardian told us that

"The white paper due on Thursday will set out how the government intends to repeal the 1972 European Communities Act and transplant laws that have force because of the UK’s membership of the EU into domestic law. It is expected that this will involve extensive use of “Henry VIII powers” – laws allowing ministers to change primary legislation (government bills) using secondary legislation (orders that go through parliament with little or no scrutiny)".

With reference to the second piece, I have been keeping you up to date on how the Tories have been bending all their efforts to bypassing Parliament in almost everything they do and denying our elected representatives meaningful debate and input into the process governing our exit from the European Union. They have triggered Article 50 that begins the process and have still to formally inform the devolved parliaments of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland that they are doing it. Britain's major political flaws lie the absence of a meaningful constitution to hold the executive to account and a seriously flawed electoral system. As I have said before, the British political system depends heavily on trust, that the powerful respect, not only the rights of the people, but also the law, because there are no mechanisms in this country to prevent governments doing exactly as they please, especially in the absence of a genuinely representative press, and the Tories are determined to do exactly as they please.

People in other parts of the world seem to have this completely unreal view of Britain that was portrayed by Roger Miller in his song 'England Swings'. I have just spent the past week in England and I can assure you that there are no bobbies on bicycles any more and Westminster Abbey and the Tower of Big Ben are more and more resembling the Reich Chancellery than a democratic society. I trust you will believe me when I tell you that I had a very interesting discussion in my hotel for over two hours with a very nice and charming, but very bourgeois, couple from Oxford. This couple were successful business people and displayed an ignorance of the real world that was worrying. What emerged was the lack of relevant information that they were getting from the media. They considered themselves informed, but showed a quite graphic ignorance about Scotland and Northern Ireland. Now, I freely admit, this was only one couple, but, as I said, they considered themselves well informed and spent most of the conversation saying "really?" to what I was telling them, and assuring me that they were getting no news about things like that where they lived, either in the press or the media. The British establishment appear to be directing the information flow in England to present the Scottish and Northern Irish dimension in their own terms. For example, the Sun newspaper is very anti-Europe, anti-Scots and anti-immigrant, whilst its Scottish edition is pro-independence. It is in essence two different papers. It is to the credit of people from Liverpool that they refuse to buy this disgusting rag.

Britain is becoming more divisive by the day and both the Tories and their lackeys in the press are stoking an ever greater climate of hatred and fear. I will keep you up to date as I can, but ask you to follow events rather than take my word for it. If you think I am misleading you, then please tell me. I value your input. This post has been quite general but I fear the United Kingdom is in its death throes as it no longer deserves to survive in its present form. It has passed it's sell by date. Who's fault is it? The Blessed Margaret of course. You have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

Monday, 20 March 2017

Salvation is imminent, the Broon bawbag is back

I have been heartened in the pursuit of independence from the pigsty because Daphne Broon has re-emerged from the shadows to lead the recalcitrant and politically stupid Scots back to the path of unionist righteousness. We are to be guided back to the light of Westminster's beneficial paternalism by the most discredited Prime Minister in history after Mad Tony. He was of course, Mad Tony's right hand man and the man credited with ushering in the worst financial crisis in British history. He is also the man who disgraced himself by comprehensively lying through his teeth during the Scottish independence referendum and was the author of the infamous vow, a statement of betrayal that will resonate throughout our history. He was also one of the principal authors of Scottish Labour's defenestration and subsequent demise as a serious political force. The Bible warns us to call no man fool, but I struggle to find another appropriate description for this pathetic excuse for a human being. What is remarkable is that he has the audacity to once again emerge into daylight and actually think that anyone with even one brain cell will listen to him. What is even worse is that he offered his wisdom in Kirkcaldy, birthplace and home of Adam Smith, a real Scot. I trust the good people of Kirkcaldy will suitably tar and feather this imposter and charlatan.

It is testament to the state of British politics that under the last four Prime Ministers, the British economy has crashed, we have the worst poverty and widest inequalities of any advanced economy. We have embraced racism and a hatred of immigrants. We have moved sharply to a xenophobic right and have been taken out of the single largest market in the world to face a completely uncertain future because the Westminster gang have quite happily admitted that they have no idea what is coming next. The Labour Party has reached a state of terminal decline. The British state is almost certain to break up in the near future. The Tory Party have gone from a membership of three million to less than 100,000. It is not a joke to say that Manchester United have almost as many season ticket holders as the Tories have members. We have a dogmatic and intolerant Prime Minister who no-one outside of the parliamentary Tory Party has voted for and who persistently lectures the Scottish people about democracy. We are in genuine crisis. Westminster has quite genuinely, and quite deliberately reduced the United Kingdom to a state of terminal decline and political insanity. I mean it, British politics makes no sense whatsoever, and, at the risk of being repetitive, this is the real legacy of the Blessed Margaret. It is the logical conclusion to Thatcher's vicious and hate filled agenda. Remember Adam Smith's warning to us that "the great never look upon their inferiors as their fellow-creatures" and contemplate that the British elite think that they are the great, and indeed are taught to think like that in their exclusive education system. It should not come as a surprise that the British hate foreigners and the working class who they consider their inferiors, and in the eyes of the Westminster elite there are none more inferior than the Celts, whether they are Scots or Irish.

Again remember Smith's maxim that "all for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind" and consider that Thatcher's principal policy that has been followed slavishly since 1979 has been the systematic transfer of wealth from the bottom upwards. What else are the Tories policies of austerity, which have been characterised by a persistent diminution of income and wealth for those at the bottom whilst those at the top have seen obscene increases in wealth, bonuses, tax breaks etc., but a deliberate and systematic policy of looting the national treasury. As I keep saying, this situation is the result of an ideology that has dominated western society since the 1970's, an ideology of elitism, exclusivity and entitlement, an ideology that breeds greed and hate. If I can leave you to ponder a couple of Smith's other observations I ask you to consider them in light of the government's attitudes towards the poor and disadvantaged and with respect to the pigsty's attitudes towards Scotland and the majority of the UK that lies outside of London and the South-East of England

"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....
What chiefly enrages us against the man who injures and insults us, is the little account which he seems to make of us, the unreasonable preference which he gives to himself above us, and that absurd self-love, by which he seems to imagine, that other people may be sacrificed at any time, to his convenience or his humour."


That's what the pigsty does, it hurts and injures, creates animosity and resentment by the violence of its discordant affections, injures and insults the Scots, the working class, the poor etc. and gives certain groups and regions unreasonable preference. Finally, the majority of the British people are being sacrificed to their convenience and humour. Can anyone seriously deny that the bands of British society are being broken asunder? All that is self-evident. Why is it that the people who persistently quote Adam Smith and invoke his authority for their hideous policies never read him? You have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
 

Sunday, 19 March 2017

Its Official the Conservative Party is a criminal organisation

Again the Kommirat has been vindicated. I have repeatedly told you the Tories were liars and gangsters and now we have the evidence. The Electoral Commission has just fined the Conservative Party £70,000 for electoral fraud and has reported twelve constituency party organisations to the police. The Commission spoke of their regret that this was the limit they could go to under existing powers as they would have liked to have been able to apply even more swingeing penalties. The Commissions findings and its recommendations now has the potential to involve police investigations into twenty-one MPs as several of the constituencies boast more than one MP. We could therefore be facing several election results being declared void with the possibility of Tories going to jail. I won't be holding my breath though as the legal system is a class system in this country and therefore corrupt and it is likely that although criminality has taken place, no-one will be held responsible except for the collective penalty of the fine. The Electoral Commission sent a separate file to the police on the Tories former Treasurer Stephen Day for possible criminal offences relating to electoral fraud. However, true to form, the Prime Minister, who is becoming more and more ridiculous every day, appeared on national television telling us that the Tories had cooperated fully with the Electoral Commission in its investigations after the Commission delivered a damning report into how the Tories had sought to evade cooperating with it at every turn, delaying and refusing requests for information and data and forcing them to seek a court order requiring the Tories to comply with their own laws. Now, I remind you, this is the government seeking to avoid admitting their criminality. May is increasingly making Trump appear truthful and competent.

The Tories excuse when they were finally cornered would be funny were it not so serious. Everyone does it, they whined, not even trying to deny it any more. Now this becomes serious when you consider that these people are the lawmakers, the legislators who insist that people must be punished if they break the law and that there is never any excuse for breaking the law. As you know I am not one who subscribes to the notion that you must always obey the law, but I do subscribe to the idea that if you break the law you must take the consequences if you are caught. Laws are social artefacts that are simply a reflection of the people who have the power to sanction behaviour they disapprove of and in this class ridden society it is the most disagreeable and loathsome elements who normally exercise this power. However, this is not a case of someone caught in a wrongful act, this is corporate crime, a deliberate breach of the legislation that is designed to protect society from the illegal and dangerous violation of trust and the democratic processes by the powerful, by the very institution whose position in society is to protect us from such acts against the people. I am reminded of Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, writing in 1928 that "If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law. It invites every man to become a law unto himself. It invites anarchy." As Pliny the Younger wrote in the first century AD "The Prince is not over the law, but the law is over the Prince." As a result, the Tories have undermined trust and respect for both government and the law.

If a law is outdated, change it. If it is proven to be bad legislation, amend it. The government cannot simply act as if the law is for other people. In the United states, Russia, and now the UK, we have leaders who act as if they are the law. They seem to think that because they are in their position they can do whatever they like irrespective of law, constitutions, common decency or accountability. I have been warning you for many years now of the creeping authoritarianism we are facing throughout our several societies. As importantly we are led by people who are largely incompetent and lacking in intelligence. They compensate for their stupidity and mismanagement by bullying and persistent lying. Do not ever assume that because someone rises to the top they are there on merit or that they know what they are doing. In Britain they get there because of the class system and privilege. I would never get to the top because I am working class, did not attend a private school, Oxford or Cambridge. That is the criteria, it has nothing to do with ability or merit. I ask you, in what other decent and respectable society would Boris the Spider gain prominence? The man is a demonstrable imbecile, but he has the right pedigree, and, like Trump, genuinely thinks his background and position gives him the right to insult people, act like a thug, and we should all tug our forelock regardless of his behaviour. Why do the Scots want their independence? It is self-evident. You have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

Monday, 13 March 2017

The pigsty has just demonstrated why I call it a pigsty

The Scottish First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, announced the start of the process for a referendum on Scottish Independence today. If people in the rest of the world wonder why the Scots are taking this step so soon after the last referendum they should consider what else happened in Westminster  today. First, the pigsty refused to guarantee the rights of residence and protection for the three million EU citizens that live and work here. This is the same decision-making forum who stopped allowing child refugees a safe haven. This is a graphic example of the complete lack of humanity that characterises the British political class, and demonstrates that I do not exaggerate in my posts. Next they refused to allow Parliament what was termed 'a meaningful vote' on the results of the Brexit negotiations. In other words they refused to give themselves that meaningful vote. I stress, this was not them refusing someone else a vote, they refused themselves. The following is the terms of the amendment they voted against

The prime minister may not conclude an agreement with the European Union under article 50(2) of the treaty on European Union, on the terms of the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union, without the approval of both Houses of Parliament.

Now consider that. The House of Commons has just voted to refuse themselves a vote on the results of the biggest foreign policy decision they have been faced with since the Second World War. They have just given the government permission to withdraw from the EU on whatever terms they wish without their approval. For twenty years, anti-EU fanatics called for us to leave the EU in order to restore parliamentary sovereignty, and the pigsty, under the relentless pressure of those same Brexiteers, has just refused to grant themselves that same sovereignty and to leave the entire decision-making process in the hands of a government that has been exposed as authoritarian and staggeringly incompetent. This genuinely beggars belief and takes us into a political system that resembles Alice in Wonderland, but, more importantly they have just voted for what the Germans call the Fuehrer principle and the Commons has just abandoned its representative role.

Nicola Sturgeon told the nation today that all attempts at negotiation with this government have hit a brick wall. There is not even the smallest intention of compromise from this government and the Tories have signalled in the clearest terms possible that they do not care what the Scots think. The Scottish Parliament gave Westminster detailed plans for meaningful negotiations between themselves and Westminster on the Brexit question in December and the Tories have not even replied to them. Now, the Tories persistent cry is that anyone seeking to have any meaningful discussion on the terms of Brexit is 'seeking to undermine the will of the people'. If I can remind you, the vote to leave the EU was 51.89% of a 72.21% turnout which means that the leave vote was 37.46% of the electorate. Now it is not the leave campaign's fault that 27.79% of the British did not vote, but it is not the Remain side's either. So, it is a bit rich to claim that your 52% of the vote represents the will of the people. However, this government is determined to prevent any form of discussion or debate on the matter of Brexit. Is it any wonder many Scots are saying enough is enough and we want away from this farce that has become the British political system. There is a stench about the United Kingdom now and it can only get worse. I personally doubt that an independence referendum will be successful at this time, but it has a long way to go. I trust, not only that common sense will prevail, but humanity and self-respect and we can proclaim a Tory free zone in Scotland. You have been warned

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

Sunday, 12 March 2017

Local Democracy is essential, and America is proving that.

As you know I am reluctant to comment on the politics of other nations, but sometimes people take actions and say things that have a universal application and I feel it right to comment on them. The cities of Santa Fe and Philadelphia boast two elected mayors in Javier Gonzales and James Kenney respectively who appear to be beacons of sanity and decency in a nation that is currently experiencing significant trauma on fundamental issues of humanity and democracy, and refusing to submit to bullying by a quite aggressive governmental administration. Both messrs Gonzales and Kenney have taken a stance against the White House policy towards immigrants and its travel ban, with both describing the President as a bully. Mr Gonzales publicly stated that “We cannot submit to the will of a bully. When you do it once, you agree to be bullied every step of the way,” and Mr Kenney concurred adding that “If you participate in enabling the bully and give them support to be a bigger bully than they already are, then you are a bully too,” I would add that if you participate in enabling a liar and give them support to be a bigger liar than they already are then you are a liar too. The same could be said for those who support and enable the persecution of immigrants, minorities and the disadvantaged. Mayor Gonzales added that “Just being able to have a city people can feel proud of, that is under threat because of the president’s efforts to expand the role of Ice and disrupt and demonize many immigrants and their families in a way that’s very harmful to our cities. We know that having welcoming, inclusive societies in our communities is the key formula for having a higher quality of life and more productivity when it comes to the economy.”

This is exactly the sort of argument that the Scots are making with respect to the pigsty's plans for Brexit and the restrictions on immigration. Like the people of Santa Fe and Philadelphia, Scottish people want to have a country that they can feel proud of and at the moment they are deeply ashamed of the country by which they are identified, a United Kingdom that is actively disrupting and demonising many immigrants and their families in a way that is very harmful to Scotland. The Tories are, as I am sure you are aware, ferocious bullies. In addition they are ferocious liars. Just this week they have broken two of their core election promises and have spent the week pathetically attempting to deny that they have done what they have done.

This is an abiding characteristic of modern politicians and their lackeys. In the US we have the cringingly embarrassing Mr Spicer and the quite appalling Kellyanne Conway making complete fools of themselves on an international stage by shamelessly attempting to defend the indefensible and justifying outrageous lies. We have similar loathsome individuals in this nation as well. It is one thing to prostitute yourself and earn a living by selling your body if that is your choice and you are not under any form of coercion. It is quite something else to prostitute your intellect, to sell your mind and your soul. The first form of prostitution allows a person to be in control of their own humanity and their own destiny, but the second is an example of someone voluntarily selling their humanity. One can be a prostitute and retain their dignity and self-respect, the other loses all self-respect and dignity, indeed their humanity. Which is the most immoral, which is the most despised by right-thinking people? It is self-evident. An intellectual prostitute is a truly despicable person, the kind of person who will happily torture a complete stranger in order to curry favour with their master. The sort who staffs and runs Guantanamo Bay, Auschwitz etc. The Farages and Trumps of the world are truly vile people who are shameless and pathological liars, but the people who we should really worry about are those who know full well what they are, but still follow them willingly. In Britain we have the Spider, a truly loathsome creature, but the real foulness of the Tories is embodied in the Prime Minister, a person who knows what she and her cohorts are doing, knows full well the damage they are doing, but does it anyway because she has the power to do so. Just as Santa Fe and Philadelphia must never submit to the bullying and dictates of the Trump administration, so must the Scots resist the bullying and dictates of the pigsty. There is hope, you have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat   

Wednesday, 8 March 2017

Whit's a Bawbag? It's obvious, it's a Trump

I am departing from my usual posting and hope that you will find this, if not interesting, at least mildly amusing. I was asked by an English friend on one of my visits south what a 'bawbag' was as he had been watching people in Scotland being interviewed about Donald Trump and was mystified to hear the Donald being described by several people as a bawbag. The term bawbag refers to the bag of skin that houses the male testicles and is, of course, very derogatory and displays contempt for the person being described as such. It also carries the connotation of an unpleasant and undesirable person. I'm afraid the Donald's presence in the Aberdeen area has been significantly negative.

In Scotland, and particularly the West, Southwest and Central belt working class regions, the normal way of speaking can be quite incomprehensible to outsiders and is heavily leavened by slang and colloquialisms. It is the way I speak and can be quite guttural. For example, when speaking in our normal everyday to each other, we leave out some of the lettering in a word, as in ball. We normally leave out the letter L when we refer to a ball and pronounce it baw, thus a ball bag becomes a bawbag. If I want someone to give me something, instead of asking them to 'give me' I would say 'gie's' and so if I was playing a ball game and wanted someone to give me the ball I would simply say 'gie's the baw'. Similarly, we miss out the t's in butter and water and say bu-er and wa-er, and call becomes ca', away becomes awa', and know becomes ken etc. If I was planning to visit Edinburgh, I would tell people I was going to Embra. Similarly Glasgow becomes Glesga.  Were I to refer to the Duke of Edinburgh, it would sound like 'rachookyembra'. As a result of this, I am making the claim on behalf of my kin that the Scots invented text language one thousand years before mobile phones.
Now I am of course perfectly able to speak received English and was obliged to in my job. But in my everyday life I don't, as received English is actually quite unnatural to me and even though I used it on a daily basis, often made mistakes and slipped back into my natural vernacular. Indeed, I don't know why I should because my language is part of my identity and I am unashamed of being Scots, working class and not English. Although I cannot speak a word of Gaelic I strongly support its preservation and cultivation. Gaelic was never spoken in my part of the world but that doesn't lessen my support for its recognition in my nation's cultural and historical heritage.

This blending of the old and traditional with the new and alien is the result of English being imposed as the official language in Scotland and being grafted onto what is known as Braid (broad) Scots. The best example of Braid Scots is to be found in Burns poetry, and is why we call him Rabbie as opposed to Robert. I live twelve miles from Alloway, Burn's birthplace and the site of his Cottage, and so grew up in that cultural environment. Old (or Braid) Scots was an actual language and examples can still be found in old historical documents dating from before the Union of the Crowns. It is also often forgotten that Burns published over one hundred pieces of literature in received English and so his normal use of his Scots language was a conscious choice as it better expressed what he wanted to say. In working class areas people continued to speak in their normal colloquial manner despite being formally taught English in school and this has developed into modern Scots slang, for example bawbag. It is also a stigma due to the class snobbery that exists in Britain and so working class Scots like me suffer the same social stigmas that associate with language and accents in English regions like the Geordies, the Scousers, the Brummies etc. Geordies are from Newcastle, Scousers from Liverpool and Brummies from Birmingham. Geordies get their name from the original Geordie lamp carried underground by miners and so bourgeois people from the North West would be horrified to be called a Geordie. In north Scotland, men are known as loons and women as quines (a derivative of queen).

If you ever fly into Prestwick Airport in Ayrshire, you will be greeted with signs telling you that Prestwick is 'Pure Dead Brilliant' which makes little sense to most people as it appears to be completely contradictory, how can something be pure, dead, and brilliant? In English that makes no sense, but it makes pure dead brilliant sense to a Scot. This is of course a huge topic, but I trust I have given you a flavour of the diversity that exists in Britain and why, when the Prime Minister comes up to Scotland as she did last week and told a Tory conference that although we are four nations we are one people she is talking utter drivel. We are not one people, I have as much in common with someone in Beijing as I have with Theresa May. I have a different history, a different culture and a different language and so my message to Theresa May is 'awa n bile yer heid ya bam'.
I trust you have not been confused by my inane drivel, I remain

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat  

Monday, 6 March 2017

In both the USA and Britain, our biggests threats are from within

This may seem a bit over the top but I cannot become reconciled to the complete moral bankruptcy of the political class in todays modern world. I know that is a generalisation, but it is general enough to be a truism. What I mean is that there is an almost total absence of integrity, decency and self-respect within any politician of note. This situation is compounded by the morons who speak for them, and I mean morons because we have the repeated spectacle of politicians and their spokespeople debasing themselves and disgracing themselves on behalf of people who pay them to lie outrageously on their behalf. This scenario is common in both this country and the US. Donald Trump has openly attacked and defamed the judiciary, the press, the security services, the FBI and now the office of the president itself. He is systematically destroying the reputations of, and therefore attempting to destroy the people's confidence in, all of the principal reference points in the American political system. What he is producing is a widespread national situation of what sociology calls anomie, a state of normlessness. Such a situation is a precursor to an authoritarian state as an anomic populace will turn to a strongman to provide the security that has been systematically removed from them. Ironically, if they turn to Trump, they will seek such security from the person responsible for removing it in the first place.

Similarly, in Britain we have witnessed the systematic demonisation of the EU and the widespread political tactic of scapegoating to deflect the blame for the crisis we find ourselves in onto the institutions of the EU, immigrants, and increasingly the Scots. It never seems to occur to a gullible British public that the refugee crisis is our fault and our blind loyalty to the pigsty who helped create it. In Scotland we are witnessing the start of a ferocious propaganda campaign being launched against the possibility of a new independence campaign in the wake of the Brexit disaster. The neo-Nazi press is in full force at the moment, and I fear that it will probably work in the absence of an alternative major voice. Any lie will do as such people have voluntarily sold their soul, their dignity and their self-respect in an orgy of hatred. The repeated lies that we had to regain our country, that we had to control our borders, that we were being dictated to by a soulless and unelected bureaucracy etc. produced a similar sense of normlessness, that we were no longer Great Britain that we no longer knew who we were etc and so we turned to the real authors of our misfortunes to seek solutions because the decent people left in the country would not stoop to the level of the filth to combat their lying racist propaganda. In both Britain and the US we are seeing a deliberate and systemic assault on our human rights, both governments are poisoning our diplomatic relations with other nations and both are threatening our health and our future with their imbecilic denials of climate change. In classic anomic style, people no longer know what to believe and live in a constant climate of fear and uncertainty, governed by a moral and ethical vacuum.

The end product of this is authoritarianism as I have been warning about for the past five years. British government exhibits utter contempt for its own Parliament, and hatred towards its own people, particularly the Scots. American government appears to display utter contempt for everyone and everything. Both governments are led by compulsive and shameless liars and staffed by mindless morons who have sold their souls, prepared to publicly prostitute their minds, their intelligence and their dignity. Sexual prostitutes at least sell a form of pleasure and provide a service. Political prostitutes sell the electorate and the nation's integrity, wealth and resources, indeed its future, for their own perverted ends. You have been warned.   

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

Wednesday, 1 March 2017

Welcome to the Dark Side

I have just watched an interview on British television with the son of Muhammad Ali who was detained, along with his mother, at an American airport by customs officials who repeatedly questioned him about his name and his religion. This man is a member of what must be without doubt the most famous family in the world. His father was without doubt the most famous person on earth and probably the most loved person on earth. I doubt even the Chinese or the Koreans would have difficulty accepting his son and his wife without question, and yet, here we have an American citizen being subjected to interrogation in his own country because he is black and has an Islamic name. There can be no doubt that the people interrogating him had any doubt as to who he was, and yet he still had to suffer this indignity. Welcome to Donald Trump's America.

The British press are meanwhile reporting on a gentleman who has had both legs amputated but had his benefits stopped by the Department of Work and Pensions on the grounds that he was fit for work because he still had arms and therefore had nothing to stop his using his arms to climb stairs. I have not made that up. These same people also ruled another gentleman fit for work who is completely paralysed down his left side. Both these gentlemen won an appeal, but only after having their cases taken up by legal experts and the press. Welcome to Tory Britain. Theirs are only two of a number of such cases I could cite that we read in our press almost every day. It must be difficult for people from outside of Britain to grasp the utter depravity of our Tory government.

On the same news bulletin, I watched a lengthy report from the United Nations on the brutality and complete inhumanity of the Syrian conflict. Both Russia, Syria and the rebels came under utter condemnation for crimes against humanity. As I have written before, I have a great admiration for the Russian people and fail to understand how the people who suffered so appallingly in Leningrad and Stalingrad, not to mention the rest of the USSR during World War Two, can allow their government to be party to bombing hospitals and dropping chemical bombs on the Syrian people. Surely Russia should be a moderating and civilising voice in that region?     

The point of this post is the general barbarism that is growing rapidly throughout the world. I am reminded of the conquests of Tamerlain when he built mounds of the severed heads of his enemies when his troops conquered a city or region. We have not come any farther since then when we read of the atrocities that are occurring in so many diverse places, and of the behaviour of ordinary people in nations that are supposed to be civilised and peaceful. When we read of the behaviour of the US customs officials and the UK benefits officials, can we really argue that the Gestapo or the Cheka could not happen here as well? The Tories, for example, demonstrate a visceral hatred of their own people and go out of their way to demonise and impoverish them. When we read the Daily Mail or the Express, or listen to Breitbart news, we are consuming a never ending diet of hatred and lies. We cannot be complacent and allow such things to fester and develop. Despite my conviction that the people who live in Scotland of all racial and ethnic origins are far more compassionate and civilised people than the rest of the UK, I still never forget that it was persons of Scots origins who founded the Ku Klux Klan and how we are still blighted by racism and religious bigotry. Scotland still harbours elements of that mentality. As Edmund Burke told us (even though he was a Tory) all it requires for evil to prosper is for good men to do nothing. You can rest assured that when The Donald contaminates the soil of Scotland the Kommirat will be there telling him he is not welcome. The Tories already know that. You have been warned

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat