I posted this thread on Twitter this morning:
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[…] had already written the thread I have just posted on whether we have a legitimate government by the time I saw this. Now I think we can safely provide an […]
Very good. I’m even tempted to join Twitter in support. Seriously.
This morning on the radio on the way to work, they were talking to a bloke in London who’d had an air source heat pump installed to update his heating and hot water.
It cost him £15K.
And the Govt grant is what……£5K!!?
What a bunch of numpties they are at No. 10 and 11. I mean really……….
This is absolutely correct and Timothy Snyder’s book The Road to Unfreedom is a shocking expose of exactly this process and where the ideology is coming from. And yes, it really is the Russians. Their democracy really is a sham. Their kleptocratic model is what they are trying to impose on us and the the US, and if they can they want to destroy the EU. What they believe (a dominant Eurasian empire without law or accountability for the oligarchs) is no less fantasian than what people like Johnson & Rees-Mogg (inspired by his father’s writing) believe. It’s national narcissism gone mad but it’s now playing out in real time here in the UK. The only question is whether people here will wake up in time and find the spine to do anything about it…
The phrase used in Russia to describe their current form of government fits our government well: Demautocracy.
Ah yes, another hallmark of fascism, identify an enemy and blame them. There is a serious delusion of western elites (mainly UK and US) that the Russians are out to get us. I suspect this is arranged by the arms companies who use the indignation to milk the public purse. The fact of the intertwinement of government and such corporates being another hallmark. Richard is quite right to identify it’s Boris we need protecting from. The Russians are way down the list somewhere between sea level rise and asteroid impact.
One way to change the system to get decent representative government is through a revolution by the people for the people. Things will have to get a lot worse before that happens. Obviously revolutions themselves tend to make things worse before they get better. A difficult 30 years ahead.
The other way is for the citizens of this country to energise themselves and each other and use the existing system to bring about the change they want to see in our world. Obviously the preferable route but who is going to make it happen? Credit where credit is due, the last man to make a decent attempt was Tony Blair but he ended up as an actual war criminal by committing the crime of invading Iraq. The Boris route to criminality is much more insidious and destructive of our democracy.
What a charmingly out of date view of the threat from Russia. As someone who grew up on the front line defending our side of the iron curtain I can tell you this isn’t about tanks and missiles, it’s about influence, ideology and dark money. The Russians know full well they could not possibly win a military conflict with either the EU or US (let alone China) but what they can do is destabilise our democratic institutions and weaken our economies. They have through their system of ex-pat oligarchs and direct initiatives from Moscow penetrated deep into the UK Conservative party and its attendant media (and SM). The tory party is now almost entirely funded by Russian dark money accompanied by extreme fascist ideology from the likes of Ivan Ilyin etc. They need to do this because they know they are weak.
If what you claim is true it would suggest that we are weak and Russia is smarter than us. Putin is a judo expert so I wouldn’t rule out your thesis completely. It would add to Richard’s point if the tories really are that treasonous. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Fortunately the evidence shows that Russia has ample natural resources and a diminished population and has no aggressive designs westward. it wants to sell us gas and we want to buy it. That may change, Asia could take all their output which would be disastrous for Western Europe. Russia bristles with modern technologically advanced defensive arms to prevent NATO pushing right up to its borders and destabilising its country. If we leave them alone they will leave us alone. We need their resources and access to Asian markets across the new silk routes. We’ll just have to play nice and pay the going rate.
That may not go down well with assorted neo imperialists but that is the real politik of the position we are now in.
I have to say Peter there is a lot legs in your analysis, having read Snyder too and Burgis and Belton for that matter.
All I would attempt to qualify is the Tory position.
There is something honest about Russian ‘democracy’ – it does not pretend to be anything other than it is.
What is it?
Nothing but rule by the mega rich. But the mega rich rulers have to be Russian or former Russians of course. No foreigners getting their hands on our assets say the Russians – if anyone is going to get rich from Russia, it will be a Russian. Contrast that with how we exist where any Tom, Dick and Harry can come along and run or run down strategically important parts of the national economy.
We in the West have been pretending for some time that our democracy is better when in fact it too is all about money. We’ve been lying to ourselves all this time.
The Russians saw us for what we really have become after 70 years of neo-liberal bullshit. They learnt all about that when the Berlin Wall came down BTW.
And now it will be the Tories who are bringing Russian/KGB style capitalism and democracy to the UK. Not the Russians.
“Britannia Unchained”
– where the ideas for the future of the UK should have been ground to dust.
Unfortunately the politico-economic environment has changed, but the plans haven’t. I’m still ploughing through parts of it online (not being willing to boost their coffers), but it seems to my untutored eye that every assumption they made has been trashed, yet the work goes on to capitalise (used advisedly) a population and the State that no longer exists.
This seems to link quite well to the theme and is seriously concerning.
https://davidallengreen.com/2021/10/lord-chancellor-here-is-already-a-mechanism-for-the-law-to-be-changed-it-is-called-parliament/