We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
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Samizdata quote of the day “COP26, not as an event but as the beginning of a process, has the potential to provoke revolution. Not certainly and not in the immediate future; but the unfolding future of climate totalitarianism, already fairly clearly delineated in the plans of governments, is the one phenomenon that anyone with an historian’s insight will identify as a conceivable long-term cause of revolution. What shape such a revolution might take, whether purely political or violent, would probably vary according to the culture of any society in which it occurred. If politicians do not heed the warning signs that will eventually proliferate, future historians may compare the assembling of COP26 to the convening of the Estates General in France, in 1789.”
– Gerald Warner
Read the whole thing. If you are from Glasgow, please don’t take offence.
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Let me know when they change the calendar, that will be the time to….
Net Nihilism.
And first time I have seen, outside science blogs, that 95% of so-called greenhouse effect is water vapour.
I suppose net zero water would be a tough sell.
Firstly it is nothing to do with C02 emissions – if it was to do with C02 emissions the conference would be on-line, they would not be jetting 30 thousand (yes – 30 thousand) people into Glasgow – by the way the Covid regulations have been waved (just as they have been for the illegal immigrants, many of whom are violent criminals, that Mr Biden is helping into the United States). Also the main business of the conference, if it was about C02 emissions, would be reducing the C02 emissions of the People’s Republic of CHINA – by far the biggest emitter of C02, not reducing the C02 emissions of China at some distant time, but reducing Chinese C02 emissions RIGHT NOW – after all it is supposed to be a “Climate Change Emergency”.
As the event is clearly NOT about C02 emissions (see the proceeding paragraph), what is it about? What the event is about is – power and control. That is the basic point of “Stakeholder Capitalism” (i.e. the control of all aspects of life by vast government and allied Corporations, Corporate State Fascism, with free competition, and all basic liberties, crushed) – and of Agenda 21, Agenda 2030, “Sustainable Development”. It is not about C02 emissions (it never was – remember the book “Stakeholder Capitalism” came out in 1971, many years BEFORE the human C02 emissions are causing terrible Global Warming theory), it is about power-and-control.
Ironically the vision of the international establishment, vast cities where everything is artificial and every aspect of life is controlled by government and allied giant Corporations (with free competition, indeed all basic liberties, crushed), is just about the opposite of what ordinary “Greens” want – their movement is being USED.
Just as Covid (real – I am not a “Covid denier”) was also USED – for a long pre existing agenda – the-same-agenda, the agenda of the World Economic Forum, the World Health Organisation, United Nations, and all other international bodies (governmental and corporate). There is no “conspiracy” – they have been quite open about their totalitarian aims for many years, it is perfectly natural for them to use every horrible thing (such as Covid – which, I repeat, is quite real) as an excuse to push their pre existing agenda of power and control.
He refers to “climate totalitarianism”, but most of the people who will be running the impoverishment of humanity are elected. No doubt they will continue to be elected even after the lights start to dim.
Is it really totalitarianism? Or is it just mass stupidity?
The French Revolution of 1789 was financed by the Duke of Orleans – the richest man in France. He had been trying to undermine the King (his cousin) for years, and thought that backing various Revolutionary types (even protecting them from being arrested – as no policeman or other such would dare enter the property of the Duke of Orleans, at least not under the Ancient Regime). He wanted power for himself – and the King was in his way. And, perhaps, the Duke of Orleans even believed in some of the ravings of the late Rousseau and others himself (without understanding what such ravings meant in practice).
His friends the Revolutionaries rewarded “Citizen Equality” (the Duke of Orleans – who had even voted for the murder of his cousin the King, a man whose only crime was WEAKNESS), by robbing and murdering him.
As Oscar Wilde is supposed to have said about the death scene of “Little Nell” in Dickens, “you would have to have a heart of stone – not to LAUGH”. Or as “Stalin” is supposed to have said – “gratitude is an emotion felt by dogs”. Revolutionaries do not feel gratitude – they are happy to rob and murder the very people who have helped them.
It would be interesting if history were to repeat itself in relation to the very rich men who are backing world totalitarianism now.
It does not seem to occur to them that “you will own nothing” might be applied to THEM.
bobby b
By totalitarianism is meant the total state (the term was invented by the veteran socialist Mussolini) – a state that controls life, from the cradle to the grave, with (in the case of Mussolini or Klaus Schwab) the help of Corporations. The Corporations not being puppet masters of the state (as orthodox Marxists mistakenly claim) – but very much the other way round, the Corporations being servants of the state (in return for regulations that will, de facto, end real competition).
Elections – yes massive propaganda (starting at the most early years at school) can “manufacture consent” (to use the term of Noam Chomsky – a person who was guilty of “projection”, i.e. accusing the right of what the left, including himself, does), but only to some extent.
When the economy really starts to fall apart even the most conditioned (brainwashed) people might start to have doubts – that is why it is vital for the Collectivists to control the options in an election.
Why do you think that so many Collectivists (such as the “Lincoln Project” – who are ardent Collectivists, when they can spare the time from raping boys), remain within the Republican Party?
It is because their aim (indeed the aim of the international establishment in general) is NOT to get rid of elections – but to control the options in the election.
“You can vote Republican, of course you can, but the Republicans must be responsible – follow the necessary policies in all vital matters”.
This is what has happened in many other countries bobby b – including the one I am in.
The international establishment (the Economist magazine types – “liberals” as they falsely call themselves) do NOT want to abolish the Republican Party or the British Conservative Party – they just want to make sure they are “responsible” and, if elected, “follow the necessary policies in vital matters”.
Then elections can proceed – and the elections not even be rigged, as the 2020 American Presidential Election was rigged. After all if, for example, Liz Cheney had been the “Republican” candidate for President – there would have been no need to rig the election.
Bobby B,
My standard reply would be that people are used to politicians talking, and won’t revolt until they feel the pain economically. So far, the harm caused by the government’s energy policy (/climate policy) has for most people not been obvious – it’s easy to see if you look but most people don’t. If that changes, maybe there will be protests (a la the poll tax riots). (I’m hoping that the government overplays it’s hand and we do have those riots, but more likely they’ll moderate their message just enough to keep the masses happy.)
But now, seeing how people responded to Covid maybe the government will get away with it (‘replace your boiler with a heat pump or the world will explode!’)
I didn’t get to read the whole article yet, though I’ll get to it. What I know is that my family is complaining that half of Glasgow is shut down, and, apparently, all Covid restrictions have been suspended for participants — but who would be surprised about that.
What struck me is that photo at the top of the article with some young lady holding up a sign saying “One Last Chance”. I seem to remember seeing that “One Last Chance” pretty much every year for the past twenty years. I seem to remember “if we don’t do something in the next 18 months we will be past the point of no return”, and I’ve been hearing that for twenty years too.
So doesn’t that mean we are past the point of no return? Haven’t we had our one last chance and we failed to act? If that is true, what is all the fuss about? If we are all going to burn up in a crisp in a couple of weeks, shouldn’t we all be making the most of it? I mean really, if the world is coming to an end do you really think I’m going to care if my SUV has a low gas mileage, or whether the tasty cows I’m going to stuff my face with have been farting a lot?
I seem to remember a story about a boy who cried wolf.
Fraser Orr – it has been a lot longer than 20 years. James Hanson and the other establishment types have predicting impending Climate Disaster since at least 1988. Tony Heller (realclimatescience.com) keeps a record of establishment predictions – and also establishment changes to the historic data (yes they CHANGE THE DATA to fit the theory). He also shows that “extreme weather events” (floods, droughts and so on) are not more common now than they were in the past – contrary to what the media (and the general establishment) claim.
Of course, if this was really about C02 emissions there would be an international campaign for nuclear power (instead there is a campaign AGAINST nuclear power), and the People’s Republic of CHINA (which produces vastly more C02 than anyone else) would have a massive protest campaign against it – rather than being, essentially, ignored.
Covid – yes the 30 thousand people (mostly JETTED in – so much for C02 emissions) can not catch or spread Covid, because they are special people (indeed Angels from Heaven) – did you not know?
Jon Eds – riots only work if the establishment are in support of the message of the rioters (if not riots are crushed – and the media will either be hostile to the rioters, or not report the riots at all).
And elections only work if there is a CHOICE.
The international establishment do not want to get rid of elections – ensuring the political parties follow the same basic policies (whilst shouting abuse at each other – to entertain “the masses”) will do just as well.
“Vote X and get Climate Change Emergency policies – vote Y and you ALSO get Climate Change Emergency policies”.
After all British politicians (even at local level) get endless education on the Climate Change Emergency, and on “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion”, and on all other basic matters. And it is not party based – it is all party. It is much the same in many other countries.
It is not an accident that, in many countries, however people vote they, on the really important matters, get much the same policies – it takes a lot of education (of politicians of all parties) to ensure that.
To be fair, there does seem to be some real democracy in the United States – in SOME States. With some State Governors, for example, rejecting “lockdowns”. So the education process has not yet become total.
The late Maurice Cowling (Cambridge) used to argue that “liberals”, at least of the J.S. Mill sort, have always been like this – screaming for “democracy” whilst ensuring that however people voted, much the same policies would be followed. Cowling was an arch cynic – but there may have been a grain of truth in what he argued. Look, for example, at the frothing hatred the Economist magazine has for the democratic governments of such nations as Hungary and Poland – whose “crime” is to follow the policies the people voted for (rather than the policies the international “liberal” establishment insist upon).
Again – the international establishment do not want to abolish elections, they just want to ensure that however people vote, the same basic policies are followed.
“What I know is that my family is complaining that half of Glasgow is shut down”
I haven’t noticed anything yet, other than Soviet-esque propaganda banners lining Great Western Road. Which isn’t all that unusual, actually; the Glasgow Cooncil hasn’t met an array of Soviet-esque banners it didn’t like.
Although, that said, the place was already shut down thanks to… you know, the other thing. I haven’t been in the centre of town for months, despite living barely more than twenty minutes’ walk away. They could bulldoze the Central Station (I honestly can’t remember the last time I was down that way; sometime in 2019?) and I wouldn’t know about it. For a day or two, anyway.
Don’t count on me to be the reporter on the spot, is what I’m saying. I have one friend who’s marshalling the
controlled oppositionprotests, and another who’s a copper, so we’ll see if any interesting stories reach me…I don’t even live in Glasgow but I have been in Glasgow centre several times this year – let me relieve your concern by assuring you that Central Station is still there. 🙂
However, like every Scot I know (regardless of their opinion on AGW), I plan to avoid going anywhere near the place for the next two weeks – so, like you, I will not be Samizdata’s reporter on the spot. I am told that Glasgow hospitals are cancelling/deferring appointments, in anticipation of a ChiComCold surge from all the conference mingling and/or a terrorist incident (because the delegates are not promising enough, or whatever) and/or the anticipated traffic jams disorganising their functioning, etc.
If the secret propaganda aim in the run-up to this was to persuade ordinary Glaswegians (and Scots in general) to give the place a wide berth (to ease conference security’s job – or to avoid a genuinely-feared traffic snarl-up) then it has been a triumphant success. If it was to make Glasgow council or the Scottish executive look competent, then perhaps not so much – unless, by managing our expectations, to make the next two weeks looks good by comparison with the rumour-predicted snafu instead of bad by comparison with actual competence. 🙂
I have never been to Glasgow – even though I lived in Bolton for a year (which is on the railway line that leads up there), my father once had a shop there, but how he could have done that (when living in the south) I do not know.
In the past it was a great city of engineering and manufacturing – and had no Poor Law tax till the Act of 1845, their being a lot of voluntary giving for people who really could not work and had no families to support them.
I am told it has changed a lot – the culture more than anything else. An interesting refutation of racialism – showing that culture is not genetic (or environmental for that matter) – but is a matter of ideas.
“Provoke Revolution”?
Now there’s a time-honoured political gambit!
Anyone else remember the key slogan of China’s “Cultural Revolution”?
“Let a million flowers bloom”. The unspoken codicil was:
“Then we lop off their heads”.
Again, it teems to be successful, EVERY time it is played. “Farmers” culling out the “smart-looking” livestock to maintain a manageable herd.
Bruce (October 28, 2021 at 11:58 pm), there is an interesting study of “the method of provocation” in Hannah Arendt (IIRC in both ‘On Revolution’ and ‘The Origins of Totalitarianism’) as regards Russian and Chinese communist (and other) revolutionaries. Summarising:
– Marxist and similar revolutionaries first practice the idea before they are in power, by acts that aim to provoke the authorities into brutal retaliation that will radicalise the public. The overt aim is not the whole story – a certain kind of revolutionary activist feels a strong attraction to doing nasty (even if, at first glance, counter-productive) things “for the cause” – but the overt aim is believed in. If the revolutionaries come to power, it is taken to have been a good idea – even if the actual way they come to power could suggest otherwise. The assassination of the Tsar who had abolished serfdom by left-wing revolutionaries was so meaningless to Russia’s peasantry that many peasants assumed the killers were working for angry nobles – but in general it did the cause of left-wing revolution in Russia no good (except, it can be argued, in prompting Tsardom to create the Okhrana). In 1916, Lenin believed revolution would not come in his lifetime, which was why 1917 saw the unprepared proletarian leader soliciting the aid of the German General Staff to get him to where he could do some leading.
– After they are in power, the revolutionary state uses the same method. Periods of (pretend, and very relative) liberalisation are used to lure naive people into revealing themselves. The subsequent inevitable repression teaches the danger of yielding to such temptations. The aim is to create a population of young people, who have not yet learned to disbelieve all official propaganda, and old people, who know too well this other kind of propaganda, so (the regime hopes) the public will remain quiet even in a moment of genuine regime weakness, since they will not trust it.
The ‘method of provocation’ is only one such area. Leftist pre- and post-power revolutionaries have a similar relationship with agent-provocateur methods. Here’s a modern example. It was several times suggested – with reason – that AntifaBLM (i.e. people acting as pre-power revolutionaries) were at the capitol on the 6th, but this long and detailed consideration of suspected undercover Fed assets focusses on direct use of agent provocateurs by enemies of freedom who were very much in power, even though, at that moment, still formally under the ultimate authority of the very man they were acting against. (This is not so unusual of course – see my remark above about the Okhrana. Very early after its formation, a loyal servant of the Tsar warned that, “In time, the Okhrana will tell the Tsar only what it wishes.”)
However, Bruce, let me assure you that neither of these works “EVERY time it is played”.
Of course, the elephant in the corner of COP26, conspicuous by its absence, is China.
Coincidently, and according to JoNova
etc
The Worm in the Rose, by Gwythian Prins
https://www.netzerowatch.com/the-worm-in-the-rose/
The security threats of Net Zero: One of 36 Stratagems to defeat the enemy
https://joannenova.com.au/2021/10/the-security-threats-of-net-zero-one-of-36-stratagems-to-defeat-the-enemy/
GWPF have published a provocative piece by Professor Gwythian Prins, which I highly recommend. One chapter in particular captures the fragile moment around which global affairs is orbiting. The West, comfortable and corrupted, is only just starting to become aware of the duplicity and hostile intent of the Chinese Communist Party.
Excerpts from Chapter 3 below.
The Worm in the Rose
Gwythian Prins
https://www.netzerowatch.com/the-worm-in-the-rose/
Paul Marks,
Do you have a source for this please? Book or URL? I would be very interested to read more.
The really strange part is how few people seem to have noticed. They think it was always like this. I recently found a copy of the Glasgow Herald from the year of my birth, 1971. In it, one of their columnists writes about his first impressions of the city on arriving from London a couple of years earlier. He said that the hardest thing to get used to was the lack of a pub culture. I’ve had long arguments with people when I tell them. They simply don’t believe it.
But it’s true. Yes, there were pubs, of course there were. And there were hard drinkers. It was an industrial town. But that’s precisely the point the bloke was making: Glasgow pubs were for men who took their drinking seriously, and nobody else. Both my grandfathers were “working class”, and I seriously doubt either ever set foot in a pub in his life. There wasn’t the culture with the local at the centre of community life, as there was in England. There is now – to some extent – but there certainly wasn’t fifty years ago.
All of which strays somewhat from what we’re talking about here, but I find it a fascinating illustration of the way a culture can change drastically without people even realising that it’s happened, to the point that they’ll actually deny it was ever any different. And it is just an illustration; it’s true of the aspects of our culture you’re talking about too. I wonder how many Glaswegians realise that the city’s hospitals were “free at the point of use” long before the NHS was ever thought of, for example.
An insight as to how Plod in Glasgie view Cop26………….
“Ah’m pure f**kin’ burst wi’ aw thah hours ah put en an iss jiss gonnae get wursh durin aw thess coap twenteh six pish.
Juss thah othah day thah Sarge caws us aw doon tae Wethaspunns tae gie us a in depth breefen aboot et.
“Right lissen up ya f**kin’ fuds, thess is seerius,” he says. “Ah’m pure layin’ doon some ground rules fer thah next couplae weechs. Thah eyes ae thah werrurld are oan thess city an ah dinnae want peeple tae get thah impresshun that polismen in Gleska are jist a bunchae fat, lazy, fool moothed drongos whit’s mair intarashted en twittah an’ chups than applyen thah rool ae law.”
So he sterts up wi’ aw sortsae pish. A three pint limmet at lunch times. Efternoon naps in thah empty cells limmated tae nae mair than wan an’ a hoff oors. Nae threatanen tae arresht folk fer no lettin yeez tae thah frontae thah line at Maccies. Nae taserin’ thah pure f**k ootae c**ts jiss cos yer sick ae their pish. Nae turnen a blind eye tae junkie hoors hawkin’ their mutton ootside sentral shtashion coas they gie yeez a wee sookie fer free en thah backae tha polis van.
Ah awmost choked oan mah mexed grill.
“Ah feel thah assenshal spirret ae polisin’ thess city es bein pure eroded by aw these pishy new rules Sarge,” ah says. “Iss thah thin end ae thah wedge as fer as ah’m consherned.”
“Wrap yer pish ya fat c**t,” he says. “Ah dinnae like thess ony mair than yeez dae. Thess comes straight fae that cheef coanstabul c**t so if yeez want tae greet aboot et dae it tae him.”
So thah hale hing’s gonnae be pure s**te. Thah ainly wan thass happy aboot et es wee Kenny thah prubashunah. He’s matched up wi’ some Sweedesh burd oan tindah whit’s comin’ tae Gleska tae go oan some f**kin’ protesht aginst thah weathah an is apparuntly wantn’ pumpin efterwards. He’s no seen a pickshah ae her yet but he reckuns she’s bound tae be a propah ride coas aw thah Sweedesh burds he’s seen in porno fillums er pure stunnahs.”
H/T DH
S.M.
No – I do not have a source to hand, I thought it was well known that the Duke of Orleans (the richest man in France) backed the Revolutionaries – financially and in other ways ways (for example enemies of the Crown used to meet on his property – where, under the Ancient Regime, no policeman or other such would dare go).
Doyle wrote the standard works on the French Revolution (back in 1989 – for the 200th anniversary), but I can not remember if he goes into detail on the activities of “Citizen Equality”.
I can not think of a biography of the Duke of Orleans – but there must be one.
But then I assumed there must be an English language biography of J.B. Say – only to find out that there was not.
France is our nearest neighbour – but we do seem to neglect their history. For example how many people know that Louis X outlawed slavery and broke the back of serfdom?
In the end, with the exception of natural events (such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and, yes, pandemics) history is just what individual people CHOOSE to do.
Even the little that is taught on France in British schools is wrong.
For example, the French Revolution did not abolish torture (“putting the question” in Roman law), as Louis XVI has abolished it years before, ditto restrictions on Protestants and Jews (apart from in Alsace – where his powers were limited).
I was also taught that the Revolution got rid of guild restrictions on August the 4th 1789 – for many years I believed that (and wrote it myself). But I was quite mistaken – as this did not happen till 1791.
Sadly the regime did not just get rid of guild restrictions – it abolished these fraternal organisations (as it did charitable trusts as well – especially religious ones). Compulsory guilds are indeed a bad thing (restricting competition and holding back progress) – but there is nothing wrong with a voluntary mutual aid organisation.
I am reminded of the “separation of church and state” in France as recently as 1905 – due to the influence of radicals (yes including Free Masonry, as in the days of the Duke of Orleans, – a very different thing in France as opposed to Britain) this “separation” was actually a take over of church property by the state.
To this day many churches in France are owned by the state – an odd form of “separation” of church and state – and close to the utterly vile “Civil Constitution of the Clergy” pushed in (if memory serves) 1790.
By the way, for American readers (and others), there is a big difference between a State Church and an Established Church – an Established Church is a church that is recognised by the government as having a special place in the life of the nation, a State Church is a church that is CONTROLLED by the state.
What the Duke of Orleans and the others created in 1790 was not an Established Church (France already had that) – it was a State Church.
That may not seem important today (when, for example, Pope Francis says he agrees with Martin Luther on Justification – which either means the Gentleman has no idea what Dr Luther held on theology, or has decided that he, Pope Francis, does not agree with Catholic teaching – but he has not formally changed it, so the whole matter is now utterly confused), but at that time theology was very important to vast numbers of people – they were prepared to die (indeed be killed in horrible sadistic ways) rather than have the state (and its pet intellectuals) decide the doctrines of the Church.
“Let us all sing together – when we are singing, we are unified” would not have worked in the 1790s, very many people cared about clear principles (including in theology) then.
Even today a One World (“Globalist”) religion, with a very unclear theology (which turns out to be far more about POLITICS than anything else), does put some (some) people in mind of the Book of Revelation. But that does seem to be the way the “mainstream” churches (most certainly not just the Catholic Church) are going – and have been going for a very long time. Clear theology OUT – and lots of “Social Justice” one world tyranny IN.
Of course we have very rich people today who are playing the role that the Duke of Orleans once played.