“The essence of tyranny, remember, is that it always seeks to individualise and totalise - to separate, divide and atomise, and to break down society as an organic barrier to the relationship between individual and State. And an important aspect of that mode of governance is that it should seek to prevent people from developing and expressing private - meaning, really, their own - opinions. Their opinions, such as they have, should simply be given to them from above, handed down by their betters, and should certainly not be developed organically. Opinions, like property, are presumptively best owned by the State, and to be made use of by the population as the State sees fit.” Quite so.
Or as W.S.Gilbert put it:
I always voted at my party's call,
And I never thought of thinking for myself at all.
I thought so little, they rewarded me
By making me the Ruler of the Queen's Navee. HMS Pinafore.
Not thinking for yourself has a long history and, as W.S.Gilbert noted, it is approved of and rewarded by those in power.
Is it not the case that real, beneficial change derives only from those who are not content to go with the flow, but are courageous enough to disagree and set out in new directions? I once saw graffitti scrawled on a canal bridge that proclaimed: “never drink from the main stream”. Sound advice.
Brilliant, especially with the allusion in the title to that snappy little number from 'The Producers' .
Could that film even be made nowadays ?
It cheers me greatly that there are still people like the author with the intelligence to see through the current dystopia, and who still retain a sense of humour.
Well expressed. Notably, the fear of influence is couched in the implication that foreign interference is responsible for shaping public opinion. It's the Russians, not real Brits. Therefore real Brits who vote the Russian way aren't real Brits: they are foreign agents. If anything is unhinged, it's this paranoia.
Essentially the message from the vacuous Spring is that there is only one source of truth, a la Ardern, ex-pm of NZ, and, of course, in the other Five Eyes 'club'. 'They' give themselves full rein to question what the 'little people ' are doing/ talking about, but, any questions about their activities, or the bilious lies they daily spout, is verboten.
I cannot view Spring as 'nice', because who takes a lot of dosh to disseminate lies, not decent people surely? That person becomes an integral part of the tyrannical machine, which is steamrollering over free speech and even free thought.
It seems the despots nesting in so many governments, push forward constantly smiling, 'sweet looking' ( according to taste) individuals as vessels to spread the 'truth' about their (tyrannical) policies. People look at the 'surface' and conclude that that 'lovely person' could not possibly lie to the nation.
Our world today is very much about the 'immediate visual' - a facet used by the various controlling administrations ( aka govts) to great effect, eg, during what was called the 'covid pandemic', and now for the 'global boiling' agenda. A plethora of instantaneous dramatic scenes to overwhelm the senses and stultify reason and common sense.
I expect Spring wouldn't be given the gig, 'Explore how visual imagery beamed in to homes via msm shapes opinions about 'the climate crisis'.
Years ago, in another life, I was in a refugee camp in the Balkans when Blair came to visit. As he walked through the camp, receiving the adulation of the masses, my warrant officer turned to me and said, “We are in the shit. Look at him, he absolutely bloody loves this, it’s in his eyes!” At the time I thought the mess to which he referred was Kosovo in particular, not the country in general twenty five years later.
Bravo, David. I completely agree.
What is even more amusing is that Marianna Spring probably thinks of herself as part of the elite, sitting in judgement over the plebs.
Whereas in reality she is just a nobody, to be used and discarded at will by the real elites.
Thanks for nailing the odiousness of Spring so forensically.
“The essence of tyranny, remember, is that it always seeks to individualise and totalise - to separate, divide and atomise, and to break down society as an organic barrier to the relationship between individual and State. And an important aspect of that mode of governance is that it should seek to prevent people from developing and expressing private - meaning, really, their own - opinions. Their opinions, such as they have, should simply be given to them from above, handed down by their betters, and should certainly not be developed organically. Opinions, like property, are presumptively best owned by the State, and to be made use of by the population as the State sees fit.” Quite so.
Or as W.S.Gilbert put it:
I always voted at my party's call,
And I never thought of thinking for myself at all.
I thought so little, they rewarded me
By making me the Ruler of the Queen's Navee. HMS Pinafore.
Not thinking for yourself has a long history and, as W.S.Gilbert noted, it is approved of and rewarded by those in power.
Is it not the case that real, beneficial change derives only from those who are not content to go with the flow, but are courageous enough to disagree and set out in new directions? I once saw graffitti scrawled on a canal bridge that proclaimed: “never drink from the main stream”. Sound advice.
Brilliant, especially with the allusion in the title to that snappy little number from 'The Producers' .
Could that film even be made nowadays ?
It cheers me greatly that there are still people like the author with the intelligence to see through the current dystopia, and who still retain a sense of humour.
As Roger Rabbit once said, my 'philately' is that without a sense of humour we might as well all be dead.
Well expressed. Notably, the fear of influence is couched in the implication that foreign interference is responsible for shaping public opinion. It's the Russians, not real Brits. Therefore real Brits who vote the Russian way aren't real Brits: they are foreign agents. If anything is unhinged, it's this paranoia.
Essentially the message from the vacuous Spring is that there is only one source of truth, a la Ardern, ex-pm of NZ, and, of course, in the other Five Eyes 'club'. 'They' give themselves full rein to question what the 'little people ' are doing/ talking about, but, any questions about their activities, or the bilious lies they daily spout, is verboten.
I cannot view Spring as 'nice', because who takes a lot of dosh to disseminate lies, not decent people surely? That person becomes an integral part of the tyrannical machine, which is steamrollering over free speech and even free thought.
It seems the despots nesting in so many governments, push forward constantly smiling, 'sweet looking' ( according to taste) individuals as vessels to spread the 'truth' about their (tyrannical) policies. People look at the 'surface' and conclude that that 'lovely person' could not possibly lie to the nation.
Our world today is very much about the 'immediate visual' - a facet used by the various controlling administrations ( aka govts) to great effect, eg, during what was called the 'covid pandemic', and now for the 'global boiling' agenda. A plethora of instantaneous dramatic scenes to overwhelm the senses and stultify reason and common sense.
I expect Spring wouldn't be given the gig, 'Explore how visual imagery beamed in to homes via msm shapes opinions about 'the climate crisis'.
The bought MSM getting twitchy as they band around words like disinformation and conspiracy to lure the weak
Amen, Brother
Years ago, in another life, I was in a refugee camp in the Balkans when Blair came to visit. As he walked through the camp, receiving the adulation of the masses, my warrant officer turned to me and said, “We are in the shit. Look at him, he absolutely bloody loves this, it’s in his eyes!” At the time I thought the mess to which he referred was Kosovo in particular, not the country in general twenty five years later.