Quote Of The Day #87

As our lords and masters love a (spurious) comparison with Nazi Germany, I thought I’d provide a two-for-one special in the wake of the defeat of Donald ‘Adolf’ Trump.

First, the Fuehrer himself…

“[T]hey proceeded on the sound principle that the magnitude of the lie always contains a certain factor of credulity, since the great masses of the people in the very bottom of their hearts tend to be corrupted rather than consciously and purposefully evil, and that, therefore, in view of the primitive simplicity of their minds they more easily fall a victim to a big lie than a little one, since they themselves lie in little things, but would be ashamed of lies that were too big. Such a falsehood will never enter their heads and they will not be able to believe in the possibility of such monstrous effrontery and infamous misrepresentation in others: yes, even when enlightened on a subject, they will long doubt and waver, and continue to accept at least one of these causes as true.” From Mein Kampf Chapter 10, page 231

Now his chief propagandist…

“The cleverest trick used in propaganda against Germany during the [First World] War was to accuse Germany of what our enemies themselves were doing.” Speech at Nuremberg, 1934

For the past four or five years, we have been treated to the pitiful spectacle of people whose ‘knowledge’ of the past begins and ends with Nazi Germany comparing Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler. I have no time for Trump and his antics since the election have proved that he is unfit for the hold the high office to which he was elected in 2016 (I wrote this opinion as early as February 2017). But the hilarious and over-the-top coverage of Joe Biden as someone who is going to affect meaningful change is simply not credible. This is a person who was twice (1988 and 2008) rejected by his own party, who has been in Washington since 1972 and who is so bereft of ideas that he once plagiarised a speech by Neil Kinnock. Biden is 78(!) and clearly suffering a decline in his mental faculties. I very much hope that he can bridge the divides in the USA and move on from the divisiveness of the Trump era but I’m not holding my breath. In short, he’s not the messiah, he’s a very Establishment boy.

One does not have to be a hardcore Trumpist to believe that much of the mainstream media and those who control social media have been extraordinarily pro-Biden and anti-Trump during this election. And the Twitterification(!!) of politics is a real problem. Twitter does not represent real life. Apparently, of the 22% of American adults who have Twitter accounts, 10% are responsible for 90%+ of all Tweets. There are about 255millions adults in the USA so 56million are on Twitter and of these people, 5.6million are responsible for the vast majority of traffic. Therefore, the most vocal and prolific Twitter users represent about 2.2% of the adult American population. But the media obsess over Twitter and the garbage there on. Why?

John Harris, one of the few real journalists left at Guardian Towers, wrote an interesting piece about the pollsters’ failures in this election. This has become a pattern in recent years and if anyone in a real job was as bad at it as these pollsters, they would have been fired years ago. Harris makes the point that politicians are completely divorced from the people they claim to represent…

“If a country has so lost the ability to comprehend itself that its best minds have to depend on mere surveys, it clearly has a problem… People and places are now estranged from each other to the point of mutual bafflement that teeters into fury.”

He makes the observation that…

“Among big chunks of different electorates there is a sense that orthodox politicians and the media are one and the same, and know far too little about people’s lives.”

A perfect description of our ‘technocratic’ rulers.

During the Covid19 crisis, I’ve noticed an old ‘quote’ from the repellant Michael Gove (a person I have even less time for than Trumpy) being recycled to dismiss anyone who so much as raises an eyebrow about the latest restrictions. During the Brexit referendum, Gove allegedly said…

“People in this country have had enough of experts.”

Proof that Gove and all the people supporting Brexit were mindless cretins. Except he didn’t say it. What he actually said was…

“I think that the people of Great Britain have had enough of so-called experts with organisations from acronyms saying – from organisations with acronyms – saying that they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong, because these people – these people – are the same ones who got consistently wrong.”

The ‘technocrats’ and ‘experts’ who brought you the Iraq war , the financial crash of 2008-9 and endless austerity are the same ones who predicted the Biden ‘blue wave’ in 2020.

I noticed the use of selective quotations in the response to the savage murder of Samuel Paty and the deaths of three worshippers at a Catholic Church in Nice. Numerous people shared this ‘quote’ from the Koran…

“Whoever kills a person… it shall be as if he had killed all mankind.”

Marvellous sentiments I’m sure you will agree. Except for the fact that the Koran actually says…

“Because of that, We decreed upon the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul unless for a soul or for corruption [done] in the land – it is as if he had slain mankind entirely. And whoever saves one – it is as if he had saved mankind entirely. And our messengers had certainly come to them with clear proofs. Then indeed many of them, [even] after that, throughout the land, were transgressors.” Koran 5:32 [My emphases]

Again, a somewhat different meaning when you see the whole quote. And vaguer ‘crime’ than “Corruption done in the land” is hard to imagine. Here’s the very next verse which puts the whole idea into a somewhat different light…

“Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive upon earth [to cause] corruption is none but that they be killed or crucified or that their hands and feet be cut off from opposite sides or that they be exiled from the land. That is for them a disgrace in this world; and for them in the Hereafter is a great punishment.” Koran 5:33

But then, your average ‘Woke’ fascist is absolutely brilliant at accusing others of what they themselves are guilty of. The worst accusations are thrown at and the worst motives attributed to those whom ‘Woke’ fascists label as racist, sexist/misogynist, homophobic. ‘Islamophobic,’ etc, etc. But those people of colour who dare to ‘step out of their lane’ and vote for Trump are abused as ‘Uncle Toms,’ ‘white supremacists’ or even ‘coons.’ Any woman who dares speak out in favour of female sex-based rights is routinely subjected to vile threats of rape or murder. The most vociferous opponents of ‘Islamophobia’ are often deeply anti-Semitic. Projection much?

I don’t know what the solution to these problems is but I’m sure breaking the power of the Twitterati and the privately-educated media elite would be a good place to start. At least then some real people might get a look in. Failing that, sortition.

On a lighter note, I heard my first Christmas song this week so it must be time for my annual threat to fly back to the UK to punch Noddy Holder in the face. A much better song: Video of the Day #27