It is on record that none of the contributors to this blog have much time for recently elected French President Emmnuel Macron. We have dubbed the former Goldman Sachs executive a ‘grandmotherfucker’ and dismissed him as just another globalist appartchik who will do the bidding of the faceless people who run the financial cartels. However we should always give credit where it is due and, fair play to the lad, he is the first European leader to publicly utter the truth about why the problems of that dysfunctional continent, Africa, are insoluble.
Macron has been criticised for claiming Africa’s perpetual humanitarian crisis is due to ‘civilizational problems’ and women in tribal societies having “seven or eight children” hampering social and economic development in African nations.
Addressing a session of the the G20 summit, the French President was questioned by a reporter from former French colony Ivory Coast on the possibility of implementing a policy like America’s Marshall Plan for rebuilding Europe after the Second World War to kick start economic development in African nations.
“The problems Africa faces today are completely different {to those of Europe after World War Two] and are civilizational”, Mr Macron told the journalist. “What are the problems?” he went on. “Failed states, tribalism and extremely difficult demographic transitions.”
Only through by a more rigorous form of governance, a fight against corruption, a fight for rule of law, a successful demographic transition when countries today have seven or eight children per woman, can change be achieved,” Mr Macron added. “At the moment, spending billions of Euros outright would stablise nothing. So the transformation plan that we have to conduct together must be developed according to African interests by and with African leaders.”
In a far reaching reply, Mr Macron also identified issues such as Islamist terrorism, drugs and weapons trafficking and human trafficking.
He said that although France had controlled dozens of colonial territories across Africa and accepted responsibility to help with infrastructure, education and heath, a simple money transfer was not the answer. Again he is correct, billions of Dollars, Pounds, Euros, Francs, and Marks have been thrown at Africa’s problems since the end of colonialism and yet the crises only ever seem to get worse.
He is absolutely right of course, Africa’s population explosion is unsustainable. Nigeria is on course to be the world’s third most populated nation by 2050, passing Russia, Brazil, Indonesia and the USA. With a population estimated at 195million, Nigeria has seen a 200% growth in population since 1967. Ethiopia, where a famine that threatened the lives of millions of a population that stod at 40 million triggered the ‘Live Aid’ relief effort in 1985 is now over 100million. And yet there has been no agrarian or industrial revolution in Africa in that time, attempts to encourage the use of contraception have been resisted and many tribal communities simply refuse to adapt their traditional lifestyles to changing conditions.
At the time of writing, Ethiopia, with a population three times larger than last time, is facing a famine caused by prolonged drought again.
Not only is hunger an ever greater problem in some parts of Africa, with vast numbers of people dependent on aid agencies for food, there are also crises arising from shortages of drinking water in drier regions. With economic development not just stalled but propped up on bricks at the roadside because the wheels have been stolen, there is little to invest in infrastructure projects such as a water distribution grid.
To make matters worse global corporations, having no doubt bribed government officials, are privatising water supplies so in future only those who can afford to pay for water will be able to drink safely., (To do your bit about this, ask your readers to boycott Nestle products)
The excerpt of Macron’s speech published on Saturday went largely unnoticed during the G20 summit, where saw violent protests by ‘anti – capitalist’ protesters disrupted life in Hamburg and effectively distracted the media from important news. But an edited clip of his response being shared on social media has since provoked outrage, with the kind of left wing activists who set Hamburg alight accusing the French President of blaming women for poverty, being a Nazi and, inevitably, racism.
Media figures also criticised Mr Macron for referring only to “Africa”, rather than specific nations, ignoring huge differences across the world’s second largest continent. Writing for South Africa’s Daily Vox website, Mishka Wazar said: Africa is not a country. You cannot, as a world leader (or even an ordinary person on the streets with no political ambitions) conflate African nations with Africa.
Siddhartha Mitter, writing for Quartz Africa, commented: Macron’s remarks fall into a tradition of grandiloquent and condescending statements about Africa that point to every cause of the continent’s difficulties other than colonialism and its enduring trace, he wrote. £There is a long history of population panic and its use in racist ideology.”
Mr Macron called colonisation a during his election campaign called colonialism crime against humanity but has been quiet on France’s troubled legacy since his election victory.
He visited Mali, where thousands of French troops are bolstering local forces against an Islamist and separatist insurgency, during his first foreign tour in May and has restated France’s commitment to military intervention in the Sahel region.
The summer solstice is associated with Druid beliefs but celebration of the Dance of The Seasons goes back much further.
“Humankind has to get back to the rhythm of the Cosmos”
D. H. Lawrence
In midsummer’s solstice rite
light triumphs over dark.
The sun-king in his glorious prime
climbs to his highest mark.
In turn the darkness will advance,
begin another round of dance
across the celestial arc.
Within rhythm’s easy fluxion
destruction is prescribed.
All things come to reduction,
from corruption all things rise.,
To the beat of a joyous reel
the endless turning of the wheel
binds that which all things comprise.
Written in night sky the reasons
seasons must turn in their dance.
Unmaking old and making new,
few permutations left to chance.
All things have their opposite,
thus may all life procreate
and perpetuate the sequence.
Now for this cycle’s generation
consummation is the goal.
Partners move, station to station
in formation around the pole.
Every egg and seed and spore
carries within its living core
a unique segment of the whole.
The Making and Unmaking Dance is a summer solstice poem which will eventually form part of my cosmos cycle “The Eightfold Year.” I do know of certain pagan traditions which hold a ceremony called The Making and Unmaking dance but my use of it as a title here is a bit of poetic licence. I do not know if it is actually a summer solstice rite. (As a poet it is not always wise to constrict oneself within literal interpretations.) At this time of year, as the sun passes its apex and begins the decline a few minutes in any garden will confirm that pollenating is in full spate while a careless walk through a secluded stretch of woodland is likely to disturb a human couple joined in their exclusive pollenation rite. All living things want to get in on this act.
There are so many legends, parables, and folk tales attached to the summer solstice it would be futile to list any in a brief note such as this. The essence of them all is that as one cycle begins to wind down the seeds of the next are being sown.
OTHER PAGANISTIC POEMS FROM THE SAME SEQUENCE.
Fires of Love
Three Secrets
Dancing With The Dead
Equinox
Solstice Fires
Imbolc
Comments
It’s a long time since I ran around naked under the moon, and even then it wasn’t part of any ritual – I’ll rephrase that, it wasn’t part of any ancient religious ritual.
https://weoccupyearth.wordpress.com/2014/04/15/stonehenge-under-construction-1954-very-real/
LOL
Is it a joke ? But anyway: Fact is that ancient beliefs from the North American natives to the Dogon of Mali and the Bamiléké of Cameroon to the Vikings and old Germans were much closer and more respectful to nature.
That alone is enough reason to reconsider them before it’s too late. I love them….philosophical. What a difference to that blunt “god” and Jesus and Allah blather !
Bill, looks fine in Firefox. The italicised line is an introductory comment, not part of the article, The smaller type is a quotation, not part of the poem bit part of the article, the notes on the mythical inspirations are in exactly the same font as the poem.
The single line of underlined text is a headline, marking another section, links to related posts.
OK?
I took the day off, took my mom and went on a nature hike, until she had to stop. Has health issues, but she still will head out that door for fresh air, and light..Nice to know old traditions are still held in great regard all over, and by so many )0(
OK, you’ve got me hooked, I want to know more. Any chance of you posting an article?
All love surround you
And the pure light within you
Guide your way on
Incredible String Band
Janie, maybe there’s more survived than most people imagine. And Druids did keep some records, ever heard of oghams. The Druids did not write their sacred texts because they believed each god ( they had a very different concept of the divine to the Abrahamic religions) had three names, the name enemies used, the name used by followers and the holy and unspeakable name. Their belief was that if the unmentionable name became known to anyone other than druids, the god lost all powers.
When the Romans took up Christianity and decided to destroy the Druids completely,, it became necessary to have some way of recording their knowledge. So the ogham alphabet was invented.
In a strange twist it was Christian monks of monasteries in Ireland, Scotland and Wales who translated the Oghams into latin in books like The Book Of Ballymote (linked above), and The Red Book Of Hergest
So we have a bit more to work with than the mainstream would have us believe.
Age however, is a state of mind 🙂
Nihilism The Real Winner In French Election
While the mainstream media and those who relish the prospect of living in a society best represented by the image of “a military boot stamping down on a human face, forever” (George Orwell, 1984,) are celebrating the victory of the global elite’s office boy, Emmanuel Macron, in the French presidential election and proclaiming the death of nationalism, another, potentially more significant, story has emerged from the voting statistics.
Though the former Goldman Sachs executive Macron won easily in terms of the number of votes cast for each candidate, the largest number of votes, in a situation reminiscent of the movie Brewster’s Millions, a majority of French voters cast their vote for ‘none of the above,’ by declining to choose either centrist Emmanuel Macron or Front National leader Marine Le Pen in Sunday’s presidential election. They preferred to either abstaining by returning a blank voting paper or spoiling their ballots.
According to election officials the abstention rate stood at 24.52 percent — the highest since the presidential election in 1969. Additionally the interior ministry reported a record number of blank and invalid ballots, amounting to nine percent of all registered voters, compared to two percent in the first round.
“That would make a total of one French person out of three who decided not to choose between the two candidates. It’s really a lot for a presidential election,” Anne Jadot, political science professor at the University of Lorraine, told AFP.
Macron’s victory on Sunday was by a large margin, he took approximately 65 percent of the vote to Le Pen’s 35 percent, but don’t forget that is 65% of 66%. It was also the first time since the 1969 election that participation in the second round has been lower than in the first. And that does not take into account the people who simply did not register a vote at all.
“The presence of the far-right in the second round did not prompt a lot of mobilisation compared to the first round, in contrast to what happened in 2002,” Jadot said in reference to the election in which Le Pen’s father Jean-Marie saw voters of all parties unite to block him by backing his opponent Jacques Chirac.
This year, “there wasn’t the ‘shock’ effect, because (Marine Le Pen’s) presence was expected,” according to Jadot.
The large numbers of voters choosing not to participate shows that while France has rejected Le Pen as it’s president, the anti establishment pushback is far from over, add the supporters of Le Pen’s anti – EU, nationalist candidacy to the ‘none of the above’ vote and a huge majority have rejected the pro – EU, pro – immigration line of France’s political establishment.
Looks like M. Marcron is going to have a rough ride, assuming that he lasts the course.
This is a couple of days late, my previous article on the French election has been hanging around on the front page so I decided to hold off for a while
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Comments
Marine Le Pen: The French Election Was Rigged – Your News Wire – http://yournewswire.com/marine-le-pen-election-rigged
He did the same on my article “Champagne Socialists,” (an oxymoron) after failing to insult everybody in the thread with profanity strewn, irrational comments he started whining when I responded in the same vein, and accused me of ad hominem attacks on him.
When I pointed out the hypocrisy of someone who never has a point to make but simply relies in calling people ‘fucking idiot,’ bigot’ or ‘cunt’ he said, totally irrationally, that my whole article had been an ad hominem on ‘the left’.
Ad hominem means ‘at the man’, so obviously ‘Champagne Socialists’ like ‘the left’ being an abstract concept rather than an individual, we see the irrationality of his responses.
People may wonder why I respond to him. Fact is, whenever I see one of his crazy attacks on somebody who is trying to further a civilised discussion threat it makes me feel embarrassed that I, like him, am British.
It would have been interesting to see the data if Macron had faced another centrist politician with a legitimate shot at winning. Because he faced an extreme far right politician he was able to corral a large majority of the electorate. Based on the choices and polling data, it’s completely understandable that abstention was at 24.52%. I’ll never understand why someone would waste their time and submit a blank ballot.
You said Macron is going to have a rough ride, he could argue he has a mandate seeing he won 65% of the vote.
“Macron, like most elections, was simply the best choice of some really bad options.”
Not to about a third of the eligible voters who either did not vote or filed a blank ballot as a protest.
Liberté, égalité, fraternité, inshallah?
If, as now looks certain, ‘the empty suit’ Emmanel Macron, the candidate with no party, no philosophy and no policies becomes President of France when the official announcement of the result is made, what will become of those French people who do not want Islamification to continue.
Apart from his being a globalist, pro European integration, mass immigration supporting apparatchik of the banking cartel, who knows what kind of France Marcon’s government will deliver? Macron doesn’t, that’s for sure. That’s if he is able to govern effectively at all.
French investor and political pundit Charles Gave, commented when asked what Macron’s agenda would look like, said:
“Well, first, nobody knows. Because during the whole campaign, all these talks were on one hand, on the other. I’m in favor of apple pie, and motherhood, you see. Basically he has, to my knowledge, very little program. So he’s running. That is what Hollande said. That he was going to make some fundamental changes without hurting people. And so Macron is a big, empty suit. That’s what he is. You did the right curriculum vitae, he went to the right schools. And you have the feeling that the guy never had an original idea in his life. He was always a good student.”
In other circles there is a strong feeling that Macron is a kind of golem created by Hollande, a globalist, federalist mini – me forged in the hope that at least a couple of socialist fingers would remain on the helm of the French state. They knew they were going to lose the election, and that a socialist candidate would suffer a heavy defeat so they created a sort of hologram candidate (we must not forget that before quitting to form his new centre left popular movement, Macron had a senior position in the socialist government under Hollande.
The idea, according to cynics – and there are a lot of cynics in France, was Macron would run for them and prevent the pro – EU, pro – Federalism party from losing power. It appears then that, the French political system has been taken over by the the Technocratic / Managerialist class. And this Technocratic class is presenting Macron as something new but in reality he represents business as usual except that the seat of power will be even more remote and detached from the working and middle classes. The pro – EU elite have been in power for 50 years, they have not survived that long without learning a thing or to about using propaganda to manipulate public opinion.
The biggest problem, barring terrorist outrages, that Macron will faceing in the French national assembly to enable him to get laws through. As stated above, he has no party, no base of support, and in the assembly elections, due in a few weeks, the socialist party where he might have expected to find most support, is likely to suffer heavy losses. The conservatives will not support him unless they dictate policy. In a sense Le Pen has really won the day because the worst case scenario for her, that she will have to tun again in the 2022 elections, is still achievable. As for the parliamentary elections, Le Pen could reasonably expect to have anywhere between 40 to 100 MP’s if the results bear out polls as accurately as in the presidential vote, and thus could effectively ally with the conservatives to block most of Macron’s likely measures…. which would be a total disaster for the ruling class.”
In other words, assuming Macron triumphs and is president elect tomorrow, the National Front isn’t going anywhere. And its rising star Le Pen’s niece Marion, has a distinct advantage over her astringent aunt:
Marion, is very young, 28; probably too young to be a candidate in 2022. She is already an MP in the French Parliament. She’s extremely pretty, which will win the votes of French males, and she represents the family oriented values of the French Catholic Right, which is where most Republican and Socialist votes come from. 2022 is going to be interesting.
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Comments
Bit to much to expect artificial intelligence to have a sense of humour of course.
“Muslim terrorists killing people, get used to it,”
Yeah, I thought that would be the campaign killer too 🙂
As Cicero said 2000 years ago, “The welfare of the people is the paramount law.”
Some parts of European society are waking up, the technocratic and managerial classes are still totally committed to ‘the project’ however. I predict Italy will be next to leave the EU (Quitaly), France isn’t ready yet, they probably need to see a few German regiments marching through Paris before they realise France is done for.I know what you mean about AI having a sense of humour, watching TV with simultaneous subtitling on is hilarious at times.
Very good point. There will be a few breadcrumbs for the poor, but he will govern for the benefit of the super – rich.
For whatever it’s worth, the last person you’d want running a country is someone with an original idea. Desired should be someone that respects the views of others so much that he takes the very best ideas and pursues them. Speaking of there being a lot of cynics, that’s exactly how I would classify this article, cynical to a fault. Macron’s supporters obviously don’t think he’s an empty suit. If they did, he wouldn’t have won the popular vote.
Is it good or bad to be:
A Federalist?
Pro-EU?
A globalist?
A member of a political party?
It seems to me that sometimes it’s good and sometimes it’s bad. It depends, yet all this post does it make it sound like he stands on the wrong side of issues where it behooves politicians to stand on both sides on occasion.
A Federalist
Best idea. Globalist is shit and delusional. You can make business global, but not culture. And culture defines the art of business. So global business demands a hell of a lot of understanding of – cultures, if not, it won’t work.
Except when you dream about a world which is McDonalds in all areas. But that’s another stupid dream that even Rothschilds and Bilderbergs will never be able to realize.
I get the impression you understand little about French politics and even less about human nature. Because French elections are over two rounds of voting, French voters tend to vote for the candidate they prefer in the first round, and then, because France does not have a simple major party duopoly, but a highly fragmented electorate with numerous parties to choose from, many voters are forced to coalesce behind the candidate they least dislike in the second round, a run off between the two leading candidates from the first.So when I say many French voters think Macron is an “empty suit”, that might actually be the very reason he won a majority of the valid votes cast, an empty suit was seen by many as preferable to Le Pen.
I mentioned “valid votes” there Ari, a topic I will expand on in another article. Please don’t start pontificating until and unless you understand what I am referring to.
And when you read the ideas of Richard Coudenhove – Kalergi, one of the ideological founders European Union, on the abolition of nations, compulsory inter – racial marriage and the creation of a global culture, the EU will suddenly appear in a different light.
Ian
I know that. We were fooled in the Nineties by the promise of open borders, free trade and “never any war in Europe again”, whileas the original idea was to build a block ruled by the US in order to gain advantage over Russia.
I was 30 at that time and a follower of the idea. Because we didn’t know better. Only the Internet and the starting to reflect globally made us see the real purposes of those strategic moves.
Ian
No sweat. Who’s that guy in the avatar you got there ? Looks like a 70’s serial actor LOL
For me, the main event about Macron’s election is not “who is he and what is his agenda?”. More importantly, the French, like the British and the US are increasingly rejecting the status quo. Both Macron and LaPen were not mainstream candidates. Macron is just one more step along the scale towards a resurgence of nationalism and populism in the world. When you are as far left as France has been over the years, an inexperienced “empty suit” without major party affiliation is still a repudiation of the EU and open borders. I predict the next ruler beyond Macron will be an even more populist head of state.
Cue the black helicopters……..
Both Macron and LaPen were not mainstream candidates
Macron is a high finance product. Le Pen is a bourgeois product of Vive La France. Both are nil. As are Merkel or May. Forget that left-right shit. It’s all about money and the continuation of feudal structures, nowadays called corporatocracy.
George
I told you. Come to Senegal LOL
George
Good luck ! And remember: You can only be you own boss when you want it. And often it works without much money, but with experience and courage.
Stay cool, you’re a good guy. Thumbs up !
Donna
Why be small ? I am BIG. Unfortunately people haven’t noticed it yet LOL
BTW George:
You know the door is open. Gotta learn some French but after that you’ll forget Internet LOL
Stone, George and Donna…..I know how tempting it is to want to run away and hide from a situation that seemingly has every card stacked against us as average citizens. However, each of us has a choice to respond to a world increasingly controlled by corporate interests to fight, to do nothing or to run and hide.
These votes for Trump, Brexit and Macron represent an awakening by the People….regardless of whether your jaded and skeptical view of the individuals receiving these votes is correct.
One thing is certain, if enough people do nothing or run away, nothing will change.
If you are truly “run and hide” people, I encourage you to also remain silent so that you don’t unintentionally take the wind out of the sails of those of us that would like to demand more accountability from our governments.
Power to the People.
George could not agree more…….I believe our “problem” as a society in the US is too much money. Ever hear of the term “stuffed shirt”? This comes from the early 20th century when wealth was measured by the luxury of calories. Shop at any Wal Mart today and you can visibly see the effects (think stretch-pants) of too much money in the system fostering gluttony & apathy in the average American.
As our individual wealth declines in the US, we hopefully will begin paying more attention to how the place is run. I believe that is already happening in America. It will be a close race to fully awaken as a people and enact change against agents of corruption before the complete collapse of the next economic bubble…but the race is worth running nonetheless.
Taking the long view for the human race, Phoenix can also rise from the ashes (provided they are not nuclear in nature) if we fail to save the US due to the actions of those that would strip her corpse for its gold fillings.
Norton
These votes for Trump, Brexit and Macron represent an awakening by the People
Voting for Macron the Rothschild and Bilderberg puppet is not quite an awakening of the people. It rather shows how stupid they are. Even Le Pen would have been better. Wait and see…..
Ian
Forget it LOL
People forget that Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain were anti establishment parties with a socialist agenda. The UK’s Brexit vote was not a ‘right wing extremist’ vote, most people who voted leave were working class traditional Labour voters and Trump’s win in the US election was a rejection of Hillary and Washington, I realy don’t think The Donald would have been most Republican voters’ first choise for president.
It will continue to move the same way until mainstream politicians remember they are elected to serve the voters, not dictate to us.
Absolutely, and what is amusing is those who style themselves ‘the left’ and claim they hate capitalism don’t realise they are supporting the extension of corporate control when they argue for globalism.
I don’t know what the best answer would be, but the current system needs to change.
Ian
those who style themselves ‘the left’ and claim they hate capitalism don’t realise they are supporting the extension of corporate control when they argue for globalism.
Well said 🙂
It is a Constitutional issue, no doubt. Given the influence that the Super PACs have, it is doubtful the issue would ever get to the level of amending the Constitution, now that they have wield such power and influence. I am personally amazed at all of the money that circulates, billions, and yet these firms can’t pay their employees very much money. That’s amazing in itself. We could have a revolution, doubtful, or balkanize (never can figure out if it is Capitalized, and a WB favorite).
Have you heard of the Constitutional Convention scenario? IT has been discussed several times. We get together and compose a new Constitution, and the states, of course, must ratify it.
I wonder if the French electorate has “hedged” by electing Macron but giving parties on the Right a legislative majority? In the US, “that trick never works” (to quote Rocket J. Squirrel), but let’s see in France.
In the US, we have a fundamental problem that we have a large, unaccountable bureaucracy (for lack of a better term, call it “The Federal regulatory State”) but we also have legislators in the House and the Senate who do not generally have the technical knowledge to make decisions in areas like Health Care or Defense. Is Macron, a Technocrat to his bones, a possible answer to that dilemma or will he make it worse?
“The first obligation of a nation is to protect its citizens. A man who says “Muslim terrorists killing people, get used to it, we can’t protect you, we’re bringing in millions more who believe they have the right to hurt you and demand free stuff from you, you’re the one to be punished if you oppose any of this” is violating the most basic reason why governments exist and shouldn’t be allowed to be in power.”
And, despite this, he crushed Le Pen, who took the opposite track.
John
Talking about Merkel ? LOL
A chaotic, disorganized Europe due to the flood of immigrants resulting from US wars and economic exploitation of other continents has a favorable result for the US:
1) Less economic competition from the EU
2) A renewal of the links US-Europe through NATO by the never ending damnation of Russia – the final goal.
http://www.belfercenter.org/publication/strategic-engineered-migration-weapon-war
Wars can be fought without weapons……;-)
“Stone, when I tell you the idea of a single state Federal Europe has its roots in Nazi Germany you might change your mind about it being a good idea.”
In a narrow sense, but it also goes back to Napoleon and even to Rome (if you want to go back far enough).
EU really grew directly out of the European Coal and Steel Community and France’s Robert Schulman’s attempt to integrate the Germans into Europe to avoid another World War. (Sort of LBJ’s Better to have them inside the tent p!$$ing out, than outside the tent p!$$ing in,” and, in theory might be the best approach to Russia.)
Controls on campaign spending should be fixable without a new constitution however.
In what universe does that statement make sense?”Macron did not run as part of an established party, so, at least to that very limited degree, it was a break from the past. Of course, as the Who said, “Here’s the new boss/same as the old boss.”
John
attempt to integrate the Germans into Europe to avoid another World War.
Matter of perception. To me, the Germans were finally driven into war – not necessarily as bad as it cumulated, but as you know, the US always had the fear that Germany and Russia could unite in some way. Even today.
That’s the reason the EU (and NATO) was founded for. To cut them back, integrate them into a larger unit and get a block which was and is easier to control for the US.
Don’t forget that Germany is occupied up to now—
BTW: The US profited a lot by WWII. And Hitler was supported by them for a long time before it started. The Marshall plan created a lot of work on both sides…
That’s what Cheney wanted in Iraq. Flatten the thing and then get US companies to rebuild it. The system remains the same.
John
GRIN
(It’s interesting to note here guys that for all his claims of intellectual superiority over the rest of us, Mr. G does not recoginse sarcasm when it jumps out and pulls his pisser.)
“Matter of perception. To me, the Germans were finally driven into war – not necessarily as bad as it cumulated, but as you know, the US always had the fear that Germany and Russia could unite in some way. Even today.”
I think the best solution for both German AND Russia is to become part of Europe and a Europe without those two powers was always incomplete . . . .
Champagne Socialists?
I was once told by somebody who identifies herself as a supporter of the progressive left that giving dictionary definitions when a “progressive” uses a word or phrase wrongly is “something conservatives do.”
Strange, because not only I have often been corrected and told I am a typical neo – con extremist by supporters of big government, big science, big Pharma, big education and big everything, those who usually ‘identify’ as progressive, but I have never voted for a Conservative candidate in my life. Unfortunately the people who corrected me were invariably wrong because rather than looking in Webster’s or the Oxford English Dictionary they look only in Wiktionary. which at best only gives a part definition.
I happen to think dictionary definitions are important. If we humans are to communicate those who share a language must all have the same understanding of what words in that language mean. Thus when one comes across people who style themselves liberals advocating Stalinist policies of authoritarian central government, social engineering and state ownership of all enterprises one is duty bound to try to enlighten that person about political philosophy and particularly the fact that variants on Marxism like socialism, Stalinism and Maoism are the antithesis of Liberalism which is as close as any workable system can get to anarchism.
Most of the leading advocates of such “progressive” politics are left wing elitists who operate a double standard, not inflicting on their own privileged social class the privations they would visit upon the masses. There is a name for this political sub culture, Champagne Socialists.
Here, because purpose of this post is to annoy lefties a dictionary definition of Champagne Socialists may be of use to Cultural Marxists, New World Order global government supporters and all the academics, public employees, special advisers and other ‘tax eaters’ (h/t William Cobbett) who enjoy the high life at the expense of Joe the Punter.
champagne socialist n. deprecative (orig. and chiefly Brit.) a person who espouses socialist ideals but enjoys a wealthy and luxurious lifestyle.
Lefties claim there is no such thing as a champagne socialist even as the guzzle Bollinger and Lanson paid for either directly or indirectly by you and me and eat in the kind of restaurants where a main course costs the equivalent of a weeks earning for a minimum wage worker.
One of the UK’s leading left wing newspaper’s journalists recently outed herself as exactly that: a bubbly-guzzling hypocrite who, though writing about education for the privileged with a definite collectivist bias and posing for years as a chippy, radical socialist, has actually been sending her daughter to a private school, fancy uniform, straw boater hat, jolly hockey sticks and all. So how does she square that with her demands to abolish private education?
Given the views of many of her readers expressed in comment threads where they enthusiastically call for the death penalty for parents who choose private education, anyone who goes to church, and anyone who does not support same sex marriage, 1 million per cent taxes and a totalitarian global government you might expect Janet Murray’s article to be a letter of resignation – or, if she was feeling more courageous, a grovelling apology to all the private school parents who she “resented” for “buying privilege through private education”.
But it’s neither. Instead, it’s a kind of weaselish justification for being what she terms an “‘accidental’ private school parent”.
It was, she whines,just that “the local private school for under thirteens offered 8am-6pm hours and holiday care”. And what she “hadn’t appreciated was just how much the nursery was part of the school”.
Then, weirdly, it becomes a ‘J’accuse’ style diatribe, addressed to parents of children at comprehensives:
The state sector in education is full of parents buying advantage. They kid themselves that what they are doing is somehow morally superior. The truth is that every person who moves house to get into the catchment area of a better school, or suddenly develops an interest in religion to get their kids into a Church School rather than having to mix with the chavs at the local state school is using private wealth to play the system.
Needless to say, even the ‘oligarchical collectivists’ (see ‘1984’ bu George Orwell,) who are her readers have managed to spot her hypocrisy. One comment read “I don’t get it Janet. You justify your own choice by criticising others who do the kind of thing you have done,” says one. Another adds: “the writer is making lots of money and is writing this piece to justify her snobbery.”
Elitist Lefties never turn on their own however, their belief in their own moral superiority is such that they see no contradiction in their raging against conservatives doing the very things they are busy doing themselves (Ah, but we are doing it for the right reasons,” they will argue): once Janet’s colleagues have come to terms with her defection to The Dark Side, many of them will stand by her. For, as much maligned Education Secretary Michael Gove pointed out when his education policy had been savaged by an editorial in The Guardian:
“…the Guardian has been edited by privately educated men for the last 60 years. But then, many of our most prominent contemporary radical and activist writers are also privately educated, at the most exclusive schools” he said. “George Monbiot the Marxist Environmentalist commentator was at Stowe, (according to my friend Colin who was also attented the school, the model for the school in Mervyn Peake’s surreal and subversive novel Gormenghast – made into a TV series in 2001, box sets available, Seumas Milne of the leading advocate of a single European superstate run by appointed bureaucrats as a stepping stone to global government was at Winchester and perhaps the most radical new voice of all, the feminist and ‘Yooman Rites’ ranter – Laurie Penny (a nanocelebrity according to right wing magazine The Spectator – was educated at Brighton College, an exclusive girls school.
I know it’s embarrassing for Ms Murray to be caught out in her one rule for me another for the proles* hypocrisy, but at least one socialist Member Of Parliament will offer her a shoulder to cry on. Yes, little Miss “Everything is about race because I’se black” herself, Diane Abbot, after spending two decades denouncing private education as evil and (white, conservative) parents who choose private education as earthly manifestations of Enochian demons, sent her own son to private school, justifying her choice by saying the state system could not meet his needs.
Trouble is, from the illiteracy and innumeracy rates we are seeing and the levels of juvenile delinquency, state schools are not meeting very many pupils needs.
* This of course is the guiding principle of all socialist governments.
NB: this is an old article, updated somewhat, that is worth a rerun because the fragmentation of societies in the developed world is becoming extremely destructive.
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Comments
I remarked that for all his babbling about technology improving human life in every way he was trying to take us back to the Indo European proto – language which was replaced by better options about 8000 years ago.
I had some liberal / progressive telling me going visual would be a great step forward, how much smarter the Chinese and Japanese are that us, having a picture everyone can understand. And she gave as an example a picture of a window with raindrops falling outside to tell someone it is raining.
OUCH! That one landed on her toes like a brick.
Things aren’t so simple as my liberal friend imagines. Very briefly, with a link to a better description, Chinese and Japanese characters are not ideograms which use an image to convey meaning (window with raid = ‘it is / was raining’), but phonemes, like the proto – language or ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, each one representing a sound, either a whole word or syllable. Oriental scribes must learn around 3000 characters while we who use the Roman alphabet manage to convey even complex ideas with just twenty six (plus a few numerals).
So if we get past the standard liberal / progressive conviction that foreign cultures always do it better than us, I think we actually developed the best form of non auditory communication.
Now I sometimes vote Green, sometimes UKIP, and sometimes for an independent candidate. I even voted a couple of times fron The Natural Law Party, which was sponsored by The Beatles guru, The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, they might have seemed like a bunch of nutters to many people, to me they represented a home for my protest vote.
To me politics is not a binary.
My feelings on The UK Conservative Party are I know they are the party of self interest, and because they are open about that I can deal with it without having to like them. I have no time for Labour because they are such effing hypocrites, there’s nothing Labour politicians love more than sucking up to people with names like Rothschild, Barclay, Soros, Saud, Bush or Astor.
Thanks for reminding me about Brown’s pension raid.
Killing a culture is something to be alarmed about. Destroy a culture and you destroy a nation. There are people and mobs today actively trying to obliterate all vestiges of the common American culture.Let’s face it. American progressive liberals no longer have any foreign models for their utopian dreams and ambitions.There is no successful test case for these ideas anywhere. There never has been.
So liberalism-socialism today is re-inventing itself in the United States. What is it about conservatism that so angers the dominant media culture? For the Liberal, America is not a nation but a civil religion-an idea.
It’s unfortunate that what is potentially the most prosperous nation in Africa, and a nation that could with good government become Africa’s first global power should be ruined by they hypocrisy of corrupt politicians who gain power and immediately sell out to corporate interests.
And yet the left’s Social Justice Warriors are the ones who claim to be tolerant, inclusive and peace – loving.
>liberals are NOT leftists. They are pro-capitalist idiots like you.
In the US, the word “liberal” has meant “leftist” since at least the progressive era of Woodrow Wilson. True, “liberal” used to mean pro-capitalist, pro-private property, pro-gold standard, pro-rule of law, pro-limited government intervention, but the meaning of that word was changed by American leftists. See a standard history on this topic by journalist, Arthur Ekirch in his book, “The Decline of American Liberalism.” Free PDF download here:
http://www.independent.org/pdf/book_excerpts/Foreword_DeclineAMLiberal_Higgs.pdf
“The Decline of American Liberalism”
by Arthur Ekirch
If an American wants to reclaim the original intent behind the word “liberal”, he must instead use the phrase “classical liberal”, or a neologism like “libertarian”, which might capture some of the original meaning, but which is also vague in many ways, since there are people who call themselves, “Left libertarians” and “civil libertarians” and “anarcho-capitalist libertarians”, etc.
>The Democratic Party is a capitalist party
Actually, it’s a quasi-fascist party, or a neo-syndicalist party, or a crypto-corporatist party.
It’s not a “classical liberal” party. When you’ve plugged your current bout of verbal diarrhea, you can read Arthur Ekirch’s account of how “liberal” came to mean its opposite during the progressive era in the US. See link above to downloadable PDF.
>I’m not interested in your pamphlets.
I’m not interested in your lies, distortions, and overall ignorance of economics, banking, and history.
You’ve probably missed the link I posted to Arthur Ekirch’s interesting historical account of how the word “liberal” in American political discourse acquired the opposite meaning from the one it originally had. That’s understandable given that your head is stuck up your arse most of the time. Clear your orifice and click on the following link:
target=”_blank”>http://www.independent.org/pdf/book_excerpts/Foreword_DeclineAMLiberal_Higgs.pdf
“The Decline of American Liberalism”
by Arthur Ekirch
If, as you say, you are not interested in the opinions of others (and are therefore by definition a bigot, a word you throw at others freely though you obviously don’t know what it means) then why do you enter these threads where you must know you will encounter opinions that do not coincide with your own and also a quality of discussion that is obviously way above your level of intelligence.
Cheers, Ian
We blindly take “sides” and refuse to discuss, reason, and even think anymore because it is conveniently done for us by our “technology” and any “talking head” who makes us feel cozy and comfortable. Any news, information, or ideas that may be outside of our “bubbles” or comfort zone is simply deemed “fake”.
As technology increasingly makes our decisions for us, we will become less able to use our own minds to make what decisions we will have left to perform.
RE (EXPAT): CAN A FEDERAL POLICE FORCE BE FAR BEHIND?
Uh … that’s what Obama wanted before he got in the White House (although the Media avoided reporting anything about it).
Do an Internet search with terms: video obama civilian national security force
http://www.foxnews.com/story/2009/08/27/barack-obama-civilian-army.html
And from there the seeds of our social revolution in the 1960s (which was different in some important ways from America’s) were sown.
The best thing to come out of it was the collapse of the class system, people were not content to ‘know their place’ any more.
What’s so laughable about much of the nonsense we see in these threads is that the people who scream about ‘evil capitalism’ don’t realise they are supporting the global banking cartels and the corporations that want to suffocate independent businesses.
I have voted for candidate of both parties over the years, but I have never seen the likes of the Orange Buffoon.
Dictionaries aren’t noted for being particularly politically sophisticated; when it comes to those matters, history books are far more important.
This…
“Liberalism which is as close as any workable system can get to target=”_blank”>anarchism.”
…is ludicrous. Liberals are capitalists, the polar opposite of anarchists–a great example of why history is more important. Liberals advocating Stalinism, meanwhile, are like the Unicorn Division of the Orc Society (or the Alliance of Muslim Socialist Presidents of the United States)–a ridiculous, made-up thing invented to entertain certain people.
“Actually, it’s a quasi-fascist party, or a neo-syndicalist party, or a crypto-corporatist party.”
Yeah, when making up a bunch of shit, why limit oneself to only one, eh?
Early advocates of Liberalism, including John Locke, Thomas Hobbes and Adam Smith, although the ideas can be traced back to Cicero and Seneca in ancient Rome and the Athenian Philosophers in Greece. At the time the founders of modern liberalism lived and worked there was no alternative to capitalism other than a return to medieval feudalism so it is ludicrous to talk of them being capitalists unless you favour a system of oligarchical feudalism such as the one George Soros proposes.
Neoliberalism, which is what I assume to mean by liberalism, is nothing to do with classical liberalism, it is about a system developed on the collaboration of an all powerful central government and lightly regulated big business cartels. As such it is hardly deistinguishable economically from neo-Conservatism. This is not capitalism but corporatism (although it closely echoes Mussolini’s definition of fascism,) so fascists, not liberals are the polar opposite of anarchists. In favouring small government, minimal intervention and maximum tolerance of individualism and self determination, liberalism is, as I said, as close as any workable system can be to anarchism, which advocates no government at all and which, therefore, no sane person would ever suggest as a viable form of government.
In eighteenth century Britain there was a loose political group known as Whigs who advocated laissez faire economics but were socially very conservative, (the Whigs were active in the American colonies too under a different name). These people are wrongly referred to a ‘liberals’ by most school and higher education history text books, in current terminology they are referred to as neoliberals and their political stance being based on the Patrician caste of The Roman Empire is about as far from ‘neo’ as is possible. The Whigs believed they should be free to further their own interests without any restriction, they also believed in, and used their wealth and power, to obtain draconian punishments for anyone who got in their way. Hardly acceptable behaviour for liberals, but these guys were really libertines, they claimed the right to act without constraint to the extend of being able to roger servant girls and take no responsibility for resulting pregnancies.
Before you start invoking history books to justify ill informed comments you might be well advised to read a few. The world did not begin when FDR’s government passed The New Deal.
Champagne Socialist BTW is not originally mine, it’s a well used phrase in Britain for describing politicians, businessmen and media luvvies who live millionaire lifestyles while telling people on ordinary incomes they must learn to be content with less because we have a duty to help Africa.
The name that has come up most often recently in connection with this is Bono, lead singer of the band U2, with an estimated fortune of £650million. When asked how much of his wealth he is prepared to give to African projects he babbles about how much time he spends working for third world charities.
As Benjamin Franklin said, “It is the duty of ever citizen to question authority,” but as difficult questions are met with evasions, the next best thing is to ridicule authority. The Loony approach is entirely in keeping with the spirit of my last political foray when I ran as The Liberal Libations Party, campaigning on a policy of “bigger drink for everyone.”
For years after that the Labour government at the time relaxed laws covering the sale of alcohol. My policies changed Britain even though I didn’t win 🙂
By the way, the “politicians, businessmen and media luvvies who live millionaire lifestyles while telling people on ordinary incomes they must learn to be content with less because we have a duty to help Africa” sound like some of the folks here in ‘Murica, including, of course, the political class and the C-suite desk monkeys.
Jolly good show! Carry on mate!
BTW I do have several T shirts with Python catch phrases, ‘Nobody expects The Spanish Inquisition,’ ‘He’s Not The Messiah, He’s A Very Naughty Boy,’ and ‘Blessed Are The Cheesemakers.’
Wherever I go in them, they raise a few smiles.
This tells me you are either:
a) endowed with super powers
b) stark raving mad
I know which I’d be willing to bet on.
Your last comment, I mean your most recent although many people here wish it would be your last, only tells us you do not know what either capitalism or anarchism mean.
Do you really think your monomaniacal ravings impress anybody?
As for your having read enough of what I post, well why the fuck do you keep reading it then for fuck’s sake, you idiot?
You’re like a baby John, screaming until you get attention.
Threat Of Major Scandal Prompted Conservatives early UK Election move Say UKIP Leaders
Leaders of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) have made astonishing claim that Prime Minister Teresa May’s move to call an early General Election in June this year was done to preempt a series of by-elections that could be called following a police investigation into alleged electoral fraud. Accusing May and the Conservative government she leads of “putting party before country”, UKIP front man Paul Nuttall appeared to suggest an electoral fraud scandal and the ensuing disqualification of sitting members of The House of Commons could rob the government of its slender majority in parliament.
Oops, that’s Teresa May the porn star, not Teresa May the British politician
Mrs. May strongly denied she would call a snap election after being chosen, unopposed, as the Conservative leader following the resignation of David Cameron after he was humiliated when the country voted to leave the EU (Brexit). After parliament approved the invocation of the Article 50 Bill with a massive majority, with many of the unelected members of the House of Lords, along with a large section of Labour MPs, the Scottish Nationalists and Liberal Democrats along with a rebel faction in her own party promising they would prevent Brexit going ahead (in defiance of the democratic will,) The Prime minister today claimed she had “reluctantly” changed her mind.
Her U-turn also comes exactly a month after reports suggested Conservative Party figures were fearful of a series of by-elections that could be called after up to 20 of their MPs were alleged to have broken electoral law in the 2015 campaign, mostly in seats UKIP had a good chance of winning.
More than ten police forces have referred cases to the Crown Prosecution Service and lawyers are now considering whether to charge the MPs or their agents after a year long investigation.
“…The prospect of a slew of Tory-held by-elections caused by the seeming systematic breach of electoral law at the last election, predominantly in places where UKIP were pressing the Conservatives hard” could have influenced the decision to hold an election now, suggested Nuttall in a press statement.
Deputy UKIP leader Peter Whittle also said the decision was “utterly cynical”, adding: “But we’re having [a general election] now and my party is actually quite excited about it.” Speaking on the BBC’s Daily Politics, he said there was “no question” the Tories were acting in their own self-interest.
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Comments
Thanks for the photo. The cleavage displayed should be titled Silicone Valley.I believe that Mrs. May who was elected to lead Britain into the independence of Brexit, is becoming faint of heart at the thought of Scottish Nationalism.Why else call for an election in so short a period? She either wants
re-assurance from the people or an excuse to back away from the mandate she was elected to facilitate. She is proving to be a bigger coward than David Cameron.
If the result is Haggis being washed down with Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbierm the Sassenach can send the Muslims to Glasgow to clean up the barf!
UKIP are flying a kite but there is something in their claim, there are investigations of electoral fraud in progress and the Tory majority is very thin. Also I heard from a Lib Dem House of Lords skiver I’ve known for many years that but for the stupendous numbers of postal votes for Remain in inner city areas the referendum majority would have been bigger so as various groups in parliament are sworn to stop Brexit at any cost, the option that May’s move is what it says on the box, a cynical bid to get a safe majority, has to be considered.
It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
The reason we stuck with this system is because the Prime Minister is not a president and has no power of veto (The Queen has but is not allowed to use it except in extreme circumstances). Mrs May was not elected but became leader of the largest party when David Cameron resigned, so she can use that as an excuse too although it would have been more credible had she called the election before she was sworn in.
Hope that helps you understand our contribution to the current global chaos.
For whatever its worth, I think a system where the Prime Minister can call an election at any time is ridiculous. Elections should come at set times on a calendar. Even worse is that you’re stuck with a system like that, politicians should be able to change the law to their liking. *given a high enough amount of support.
As to her reason for holding a snap election, you said she’s putting party before country, but that doesn’t make any sense to me. If she believes her party will do more for the country than the party that opposes her, than by putting her party first she’s also putting her country first.
You seem to be arguing the same case as those people who are still trying to claim Hillary Clinton should be US President because she won the popular vote. The case is that love him or hate him, trump won according to the law as it stands now. End of story
There are flaws in all democratic systems, the fact that the Prime Minister can call elections at a politically advantageous to her/his party (both Conservative and Labour Prime Ministers have done the same in the past) is not the biggest flaw we have in the British system.
The result of this is many people, myself included, who do not want to vote for either of the main parties but live in one of the ‘safe seats’ are effectively disenfranchised. Will that do for starters?
As for the electoral college, that too was introduced for good reasons a long time ago. I can see merit in the arguments of both those who want to scrap it and those who want to keep it. What I can’t understand about it is why so many states apportion E. C. votes on a winner takes all basis? Surely they should be divided between candidates on a pro – rata basis.
Doing that, however, would almost certainly open several new cans of worms.
Obviously not all that many voters are disenfranchised, otherwise they would vote for someone other than Labour or Conservative candidates. No matter what country one lives, it makes logical sense for there to be two main parties. Any more than two and the two parties with the most similar ideology will split the vote, causing the other party to win.
You raise an interesting point about our Electoral College system. The reason most states award Electoral Votes on a winner-take-all basis is because they want their state to matter. To the extent the winner doesn’t take all, there will be less competition to win the state and accordingly, the less the state will matter.
There are other flaws but from your remarks I guess you are not interested in discussing them objectively. What does state governments “wanting their states to matter” have to do with Democracy. Do the votes of all the Republicans in California and New York, or all the Democrats on Texas or Illinois not matter?
I’m not sure why you’d infer that I believe Hillary should be president because she won the popular vote. I’m ecstatic over the outcome of the election and think the Electoral College system is a great way to determine POTUS. At the very least, it’s a far better system then the popular vote.
My comment to you has more to do with fixing an obviously flawed system. Our system may have flaws to some but they aren’t major. By your own admission, your system is riddled with flaws and those flaws should be fixed. Of course the law of the land should be respected, but that doesn’t mean the law can’t be fixed for the next election.
What some people in this thread don’t understand (and don’t want to understand) is that unlike the USA, where the presidency and congress are separate, in the British system the Prime Minister is the leader of the assembly.
All Is For The Best In This, The Best Of All Possible Worlds – Dr. Pangloss’ Philosophy
The title is a phrase used to sum up the philosophy of Dr. Pangloss. “Dr. who?” you might well ask because few people today are likely to be familiar with Pangloss or his philosophies. Dr. Pangloss, you see, is a fictional character, friend and mentor to the main character in Voltaire’s novel “Candide”.
Francois-Marie Arouet de Voltaire (1694 – 1778) known simply as Voltaire was destined for a career in law but found formal study “too disgusting” and gave it up to become a philosopher and man of letters among the Bohemian community of Paris’s left bank. Quickly becoming known for his wit, intelligence and decadent lifestyle he was accepted by other French radicals, writers, thinkers and political reformers.
Voltaire was a satirist best known for his religious polemic against the Roman Catholic Church, corrupt but al powerful at the time, but he did not spare the tight lipped protestants of his day from being pricked or beaten by his favourite weapons, sarcasm, ridicule and parody. Because so much of his work , particularly in early writing, targeted religion is common to dismiss him as a biter and resentful atheist, but to do so is intellectually lazy and exhibits ignorance. Discarding revelation and divine mystery, he steadily upheld the truths of natural religion, and was, in fact, a Deist. There is possibly no greater a master of stylish and polished ridicule in the literature of any language.
Through the course of his long (by the standards of his day) life Voltaire wrote ninety books and it is perhaps a measure of the man’s talent as a satirist that the best known, Candide or The Optimist is in fact a satire of philosophy, a subject he loved dearly. (Voltaire biography)
The novel tells in desultory fashion the story of Candide and his philosopher friend Dr. Pangloss as they embark on a ridiculously optimistic quest to prove the world is essentially a perfect environment and that everything in it that seems bad, brutal and evil is necessary as a stepping stone to a greater good.
Dr. Pangloss and his philosophy are the principal focus of Voltaire’s satire. Dr. Pangloss, Candide’s tutor and mentor, teaches that “in this best of all possible worlds, everything happens because no other course of events is possible and therefore everything happens for the best.” The philosophy of Pangloss parodies the ideas of Gottfried Leibniz, an Enlightenment era philosopher (the term ‘existentialist had not been coined at that point,) who posited that the world was perfect and its evil were simply a path to achieving “the greatest good of the greatest number.” A philosophy which, it may occur to you, has much in common with Barack Obama’s “hope and change” (all hold hands and sing Kumbiya to create Utopia) campaign of 2008.
Each twist in the plot, each natural disaster, disease, and misfortune that befalls Candide is intended by Voltaire to show the perpetual optimism of Pangloss’s thinking to be utterly absurd and detached from reality. Pangloss’s personal sufferings alone are unusually extreme. In regard to his own misfortune however, Pangloss convinces himself that his suffering is necessary for the greater good. The result is that the philosopher appears lost in his intellectual ramblings and thus utterly blind to his own experiences as well as the horrors endured by his friends.
At one point Pangloss contracts syphilis. Candide suggests they seek a doctor to cure the potentially deadly disease but the sufferer insists on philosophising about it to convince himself his infection is in fact “for the best in this, the best of all possible worlds.
“Oh, Pangloss!” cried Candide, “what a strange genealogy! Is not the Devil the original stock of it?”
“Not at all,” replied this great man, “it was a thing unavoidable, a necessary ingredient in the best of worlds; for if Columbus had not in an island of America caught this disease, which contaminates the source of life, frequently even hinders generation, and which is evidently opposed to the great end of nature, we should have neither chocolate nor cochineal. We are also to observe that upon our continent, this distemper is like religious controversy, confined to a particular spot. The Turks, the Indians, the Persians, the Chinese, the Siamese, the Japanese, know nothing of it; but there is a sufficient reason for believing that they will know it in their turn in a few centuries. In the meantime, it has made marvelous progress among us, especially in those great armies composed of honest hirelings, who decide the destiny of states; for we may safely affirm that when an army of thirty thousand men fights another of an equal number, there are about twenty thousand of them poxed on each side.”
Voltaire also uses Dr. Pangloss as a metaphor for what he considers useless, impractical metaphysical speculations on unknowable topics. Hence the philosopher is described as a tutor of “metaphysico-theologo-cosmolo-nigology.” Such scholars, according to Voltaire, waster their lives talking instead of doing (note that “pangloss,” derived from two Greek words, means “all-tongue”). At one point Candide is on the verge of death but rather than get him water which he is asking for, Pangloss carries on talking, analyzing the situation. Or when everyone ought be tending the garden (a metaphor for life), Pangloss instead wants everyone to talk, or rather to listen to him talking. Following the aforementioned earthquake, Pangloss also tries to reassure people by…talking. Pangloss is always so intent on talking about circumstances he is quite unable to heed good advice when it slaps him round the cheeks with a big dead fish.
In addition to his high irritant factor, Pangloss’s way of living is impractical. Completely absorbed in analyzing and theorizing, Pangloss and his student are unable to live their lives. It may have been Voltaire’s intention in ridiculing not only Pangloss’s particular philosophy that all is for the best in this, the best of all possible worlds and his obsession with philosophy in general to satirize the work of his contemporary Jean – Jaques Rousseau. Much of Rousseau’s work focused strongly on the subjectivity and introspection that has come characterized modern writing.
The Scottish philosopher, David Hume “professed no surprise when he learned that Rousseau’s books had been banned in Geneva and elsewhere” (Wikipedia). Hume wrote of Rousseau, “he has not had the precaution to throw any veil over his sentiments; and, as he scorns to dissemble his contempt for established opinions, he could not wonder that all the zealots were in arms against him. The liberty of the press is not so secured in any country… as not to render such an open attack on popular prejudice somewhat dangerous.”
Scientific research was fresh and exciting in Voltaire’s lifetime which overlapped with those of Isaac Newton, Joseph Priestly and Robert Boyle acknowledged as the founder of mordern chemistry a colleague of Isaac Newton, Christian Wolff in Germany , who revolutionised the teaching of natural sciences, Edwald von Kleist invented his Leyden (or Leiden) Jar, effectively the first capacitor and Benjamin Franklin proved lightening was electrical. In biology Anton van Leeuwenhoek used a microscope and discovered red blood cells, bacteria, and protozoa and Edward Jenner invented vaccination after discovering the relationship between cowpox and smallpox, just a few of the developments. Religious thinking however was stagnant under the dead hand of clerical bureaucracy that lay on the Catholic faith, the traditionalism of the Orthodox churches and the Bible literalism of Protestants.
Things have turned round now, with scientific triumphs in the practical field becoming harder to achieve and the dead hand of orthodoxy suffocating much original thought and experiment while those engaged in the futile quest for mathematical elegance in nature and the universe stretch their equations and torture their data in futile attempts to prove there is no more to life than mathematical formulae.
It is the scientists now who fill the shoes of Dr. Pangloss, claiming with unjustified enthusiasm that every blip in the electromagnetic radiation coming in from space is some enormously significant breakthrough in the search for alien life or every quirky and unpredicted reaction from an atom bombarded with a beam of sub atomic particles heralds the revelation by scientists of the secrets of the universe. These modern exponents of Panglossism are every bit as foolish as Voltaire’s creation, observe how they avoid addressing the problems of an ageing population, overpopulation, impending food shortages and an ongoing debt crisis while philosophising endlessly about problems that only exist in the virtual world of their mathematical models while reciting statistics to prove that ‘the truth is out there’ or that medical science can find a cure for death.
It is then, is it not, these inexhaustible enthusiasts for the science of speculation who are out of touch with reality, not the people who might believe in God, gods, nature, meditation or metaphysics but who do not let their beliefs get in the way of focusing on what must be done. Dreaming of exploring the galaxies does not grow any grain and the $billions being spent on searching for and trying to contact alien life forms when for all we know these aliens might be total bastards who want to kill us all is sheer folly.
In Voltaire’s novel Candide does eventually seem to renounce philosophy in favor of activity and work and learns the importance of staying in contact with reality, of tending our gardens (does that metaphor come from The Bible I wonder?) He takes Pangloss with him but the philosopher is never completely cured of his addiction. On the final page of the book we read:
Pangloss sometimes said to Candide:
“There is a concatenation of events in this best of all possible worlds: for if you had not been kicked out of a magnificent castle for love of Miss Cunégonde: if you had not been put into the Inquisition: if you had not walked over America: if you had not stabbéd the Baron: if you had not lost all your sheep from the fine country of El Dorado: you would not be here eating preserved citrons and pistachio-nuts.”
“All that is very well,” answered Candide, “but let us cultivate our garden.”
For references to Voltaire’s text I have used my own dog – eared and heavily annotated copy of Candide, anyone interested in the book can find free e-book versions (Kindle, epub, pdf and raw text formats at Project Gutenberg)
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Comments
‘Life changing book’ is an overused phrase but Candide is certainly one of those books that helps many people see the world more clearly.
We’re not of course, Celts came as settlers and nations did not exist then. Romans, Danes and Normans came as invaders and conquerors. And since then the immigrants who arrived have been an easily absorbed trickle.
If the ruling elites want to establish global control they need to be able to control all information the general population have access to. The idea of controlling information in order to limit the ability to think and develop ideas served Hitler, Stalin, Mao Tse Tung and many other dictators well but was completely exposed by George Orwell in the novel ‘1984’.
In recent decades the technique for controlling thoughts and ideas has been more subtle, but that has not prevented many commentators higlighting what is going on.
“If those in charge of our society – politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television – can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves.” — Howard Zinn, historian and author
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“The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western world. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity” – much less dissent. Gore Vidal
“Understand that all battles are waged on an unconscious level before they are begun on the conscious one, and this battle is no different. The power structure wishes us to believe that the only options available are those which they present to us, we know this is simply not true.” – Teresa Stover
“People in the West need to understand that if the news they receive bears on the interests of the US military/security complex, the news is scripted by the CIA. The CIA serves its interests, not the interests of the American people or the interests of peace.” – Paul Craig Roberts
In the years the USA could claim with some credibility to be the only global superpower, the elites managed to gain control of print and broadcast media throughout the developed world. Unfortunately the technology developed as a tool to to enhance the ability of the elite to control information while maintaining the illusion of freedom, The Internet, backfired on them. The General public forever despised by intellectuals and derided by the elite and the media proved to be a lot more intelligent and adaptable than ‘the controllers’ suspected.
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Comments
There will soon be a backlash against elites, particularly as the global economy implodes. The smart ones have secured land on distant islands and have made sure they have hard assets. The dumb ones, most of the elite class, continue to live with their paper wealth clueless to the fault line opening beneath them.
I might like many others die in the ultimate economic crash do big and systemic even for Central Banks to print their way out. But I will die laughing as the stock and bond market are in total freefall, real estate prices are collapsing and the Wal Marts of the world see their business drown.
If not corporations, who do you wish control the media/information? The government? A wealthy individual who is not beholden to anyone? Or perhaps you think they should all be non-profits, as that would ensure their objectivity (queue sarcasm)?
In light of the power of the internet and our many different choices to receive news and information, no single corporation can control it. And because corporations are all out to make money, you can be sure there is no conspiracy where they all decide to work together. So spare me your references to 1984, Hitler and Mao Tse Tung, the media here is the way it should be.
you may spare yourself all references I make in future by not reading my articles. Oh and BTW I think you mean ‘cue sarcasm’.
But you really let yourself down with the comment, “In light of the power of the internet and our many different choices to receive news and information, no single corporation can control it. ”
Over the past two or three years independent media has been full of reports on how collaboration between corporate entities and state security agencies can control what information web users see.
How that is done is too complex to explain in a comment thread, to learn more you will have to read my subsequent articles. Oh but then you will be exposed to my references to Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Phillip K Dick, Oscar Wilde, Shakespeare, Eric Cantona, The Frankfurt School, The Marx Brothers and anyone else I choose to mention.
“Over the past two or three years independent media has been full of reports on how collaboration between corporate entities and state security agencies can control what information web users see.”
Do tell, who is the independent media? Of course each media outlet controls what information we see, how else would you propose it work? Should the government control what information we see? Look, it’s a free country, if you don’t like what the media is showing, turn the fucking channel. Voila…problem solved.
If you are trying to be clever you are not succeeding. Who do you think the independent media are (or do you not bother thinking before hitting they keys?) Do you believe, for example that what is posted on writers beat can evade keyword filters the CIA have requested Google to put in its servers. Try this, search ‘immigrant riots in France’ on google. Now enter the same search terms on duckduckgo and observe the difference in results. Both are supposedly net neutral yet one is known to cooperate with Washington, while the other is Russian owned.
You ask should the government control what we see. How foolish do you have to be to remain unaware that the government do control what we see, in France, Germany, UK, Canada and USA you will encounter censorship of web content, aimed at suppressing criticism of certain government policies. Why do you think that while mainstream media has been screaming about chemical weapons use by Assad in Syria, you have read nothing about the US led coalition’s use in Mosul of thermobaric warheads which use fluorinated aluminium? You can learn how this” target=”_blank”>nasty stuff affects people here
For future reference, if you live in the USA you live in a fascist country controlled by the military / industrial complex, a cartel of defence contractors that through the lobby system influence policy. US President Eisenhower warned against their influence in his 1960 farewell speech (go on, look it up, don’t ask me to spoon feed you, your ignorance is not my responsibility). In 1962 John F Kennedy referred to secret” target=”_blank”>societies within the American government. A few weeks later he was dead. And as all intelligent people are aware because Kennedy was hit by two bullets fired from different directions, it was not the work of a lone shooter.You should practice what you preach, if you don’t like what you see in my threads, and you obviously don’t, do not read them. Any further contribution from you in comment threads under my posts will be deleted because you are not capable of making an intelligent comment.
They can’t control the minds of those who have strong minds. Jesus said there are two kinds of people, sheep and goats and he was for the sheep. Napoleon Bonaparte said there are two kinds of soldiers, sheep and goats, sheep are cannon fodder, goats win wars.
I’m with Bonaparte on that, Jesus can have the sheep, I hope he enjoys his lamb curry.
If the ruling elites want to establish global control they need to be able to control all information the general population have access to.
Good point. Thank goodness the ruling elites can’t control all information, which means the ruling elites don’t have global control. Phew…what a relief.
Speaking of the ruling elites, just who exactly are you pointing fingers at? The way I see it, the elite members of society don’t exactly see eye to eye on anything. So even if they wished to establish global control, there is no telling what they would do with that control. I’m sorry but I’m simply not a conspiracy theorist, thanks for the chuckle.
You’re right in saying the ruling elites (ever heard of The Bilderberg Group, The World Economic Forum? Those a just for starters) can’t control all the information …….. unless we let them. Unfortunately people who understand how the internet works know it is now much easier than in the old Soviet Union when people had to resort to Samizdat documents to spread ideas and information. but those Soviet dissidents managed to pass around novels and other banned books sometimes retyped by hand or printed using an office duplicator. Do enough people have that kind of determination now I wonder, or will the majority, like the Dr. Panloss thinkalike higher up the threat (my mentioning George Owell pisses him off so I though I’d throw in a reference to Voltaire, that should drive him crazy) convinve themselves that “All’s for the best in this, the best of all possible worlds.”
That’s no news but even without censorship and manipulation people have been so dumbed down by now that they simply wouldn’t understand a simple political discourse even less so when globally oriented.
They watch their stupid TV and read their favorite tabloids online now. That’s the only difference.
BTW: The 1% are 1% because 99% are brainwashed sheep. If not they would have taken the street and caused anarchy seeing what the world has turned into.
Vietnam protest generation and todays dumbphone selfienuts are worlds and IQ’s apart.
The way the internet (which runs on the TCP/IP protocol, a descendent of the ISO seven layer model) render it simple to suppress information by filtering keywords coupled with the very cosy relationship Google has with the US govenment should give us all cause for concern.
DON’T BE EVIL – THAT’S OUR JOB
I was aware of Google’s attempts to infiltrate government, if fact I reported last year or in 2015 of how Google execs were sitting in on Obama administration security policy meetings. I don’t know if that has continued under Trump.
Politicians have always been driven by ego, but I think the influence of corporate lobbying and corporate money has now made the corruption so blatant we have no excuse for not acting.
Comments
“Failed states, tribalism and extremely difficult demographic transitions”
What a fucking asshole. Old military colonization has been replaced by economic colonization and exploitation as it ever was. Resources.
That idiot is too stupid or too young to see that ALL presidents of francophone Africa from Senghor to Eyadema to Nguesso to Compaore to Biya are and were French bought puppet regimes.
I don’t even discuss that shit anymore.
Ask IMF/World Bank and WEF about the practices on how they plunder the continent. In Africa, every country is in fact 2 countries: Customs and government are one, the people are the other.
has restated France’s commitment to military intervention in the Sahel region
What did I say before ? The French are the same as the US or the Brits. Desperately trying to preserve power over regions they don’t have ANYTHING to do.
What can an American do when he has an intruder on his property by law ? Shoot him…
Dino
Good ideas, but Africans can NOT decide. As Europe can not decide as well. It’s the US who decides, because the US$ is still world currency and linked to oil. That’s what the intention of BRICS is: To break the $ hegemony. Before, nothing will change.
Simple as that.
HL
it looks like you own IT firms in Africa
LOL Not quite, My IT “firm” is actually an NGO, and the new company SW@XE is a consulting firm. We connect businesses from Europe to businesses in Africa. The goal is not exploitation but actively trying to help developing the local job market. But we just started really.
And I have and am living with the people not in a white luxury slum. I don’t have more money than the people I work with.
Believe it or not.
BTW: Instead of lamenting about economic refugees in Europe people should better start doing such stuff. After all, WE are responsible for that situation by simply exploiting Africa and not giving a shit about their development.
I don’t know ONE African who has left his family for other reasons than finding work in Europe and supporting his family from there.
Family and clan are holy in Africa. Nobody leaves if not absolutely neccessary.
John
Right on.
Anybody with a many brain cells as they have tits or testicles would understand the ability of a nation to support a growing population is not dependent on physical space but having the economy and infrastructure to support its population. Only somebody who has been completely brainwashed by left wing propaganda would put forward the “there’s plenty of room” argument, and as for you “economic colonialism” argument, the African tribal leaders who sold out their people for corporate money are as much to blame as any western interests.
Ian
the African tribal leaders who sold out their people for corporate money are as much to blame as any western interests.
Admitted, true. Keeps being forgotten here, or PC forbids it. On the contrary, in Africa people point that out too. They’re a lot more rational than our “free press”.
BTW: The birth rate is alarming. Why ? Because the more kids a family has the better the chance that one or two of them find a job, and in certain countries the governments pay a very modest sum for each kid. When you have 10 kids in Mali, that’s the equivalent of a monthly workers’ salary……
It’s not about religion. It’s about economy, stupid LOL
JOBS. When there would be enough, most problems would be solved.
African leaders, with very few exceptions, are not puppets, they are bought and paid for assets who don’t give a flying fuck about the people they govern because they are only interested in lining their own pockets and looking after their friends and the military they rely on to keep them in power.
And you of all people should know that because Swiss banks facilitate the corrupt deals between corporate pirates and African tyrants.
I do feel for the people of Africa who are abused and exploited by both their own leaders and the west, but a few years ago I read an essay by Dambesa Moyo, an academic from Zambia I think. She argued that before African can begin to solve its problems the addiction to western aid must be broken because ‘dead aid‘ as she called it simply does not work.
Recall how left wing activists in the west idolised Winnie Mandela in the 1980s, before it emerged that Mrs. Mandela was running organised crime networks in the townships and had known of executions by various tortures including necklacing.
Ian
African leaders, with very few exceptions, are not puppets, they are bought and paid for assets who don’t give a flying fuck about the people they govern because they are only interested in lining their own pockets and looking after their friends and the military they rely on to keep them in power.
I know. Fact. But when the West would stop to employ them…….the problem is that these countries are too poor, too little educated and too little organized to enable an effective change by people pressure.
And the well-meaning ones are killed or imprisoned. Take Sankara, Nkrumah, …. Kennedy LOL
Yeah but you’d already mentioned them 🙂
And then there are suspicions that he’d followed Saddam Hussein in accepting payment for oil in currencies other than the petrodollar.
And then there are suspicions that he’d followed Saddam Hussein in accepting payment for oil in currencies other than the petrodollar.
That’s the point, really. And it was one of the triggers for the creation of BRICS.
John
Hmm…….I missed that 😉 True, the same actually, is it not, Ian ?
Saddam and Gadhafi were killed because they wanted to sell their oil independently of the $ binding. Easy as that. And every African leader who doesn’t follow orders of their old colonial powers (NATO -> US) is potentially dead. As are European leaders as well. But here in Europe they aren’t killed, but disposed of. See Yanukovich in Ukraine as the latest example.
Some remarked that – and that was the birth of BRICS. But … I see no future for them as long as Uncle Sam is the master of Uncle Ben and Salam Aleikum.
John
You’re right, that’s only a part of it. He was forcing African unity, and his country was well organized. A brother of my wife worked in Tripoli for 2 years and he said it was a superb expericence, good pay and no problems.
On the way back to Bamako he was attacked and the robbers (probably Touaregs) took all what he had and wanted to bring back to Mali.
He died in 2007 in London of AIDS. I was with him those last weeks in Hammersmith hospital. It was cruel. He didn’t support the meds, and the skin just peeled off his whole body.
Life is shit.
Bruce Cockburn ??
I mean, sure, in the hot sun in Mali I could burn my cock easily…
BTW: Didn’t know he was so good. He should have played with Ali Farka Touré. He really can play the style.
Thanks a lot. A brother in mind.
Jeff
Fathering children earns males of Africa respect, but taking care of them is nothing they need be concerned about
It may vary in different countries, but in West Africa a woman gains status with the number of children she has. But ONLY when she’s married. When she’s got 2 kids and is not married she’ll have a hard time. But you’re right about the men not taking care of them. I can confirm that through my own adoptive family in Cameroon, where my dear friend raises 10 kids of which half of the fathers simply quit the mothers and abandoned them with the child.
Jeff
It also has an economic background. 10 kids give a better chance to have 2 kids working later than 1 or 2 kids. Education is expensive. And in some countries the government pays per child per month a very modest sum. So the calculation is:
10 kids is the equivalent of a worker’s salary for the father given he finds a job…
Yeah, starving kids is excellent socio-economic policy.
Keynes would have gladly approved . . . of course, only if the kids came from working class families. That’s why he was head of the Eugenics Society from 1937-1944 promoting the blessings of contraception as a way of keeping the numbers of the “drunken” working classes down.
Thanks for reminding the resident loony leftie of one of the left’s dirty little secrets.
I’ll try to preempt an outburst from any Trots still in the thread, by pointing out this does not exclude people on low to middle incomes from having five or six children. There are people who love family life and choose to go without a car, 60″ plasma TV, foreign holidays etc. to live a different kind of life.
There is a family in the town where my mother lives, Morecambe, where the Radford family consist of two parents and 16 (maybe 17 now) children. They’re not rich but the father runs a bakery business so they’re not dependent on benefits. And in a TV documentary (linked) featuring them, they appear very happy. The parents have made their choices for non economic reasons and that’s their right.
When people are having children for economic gain, that’s going to be a bad start for the children.
Anyone offering unmoderated comment threads is going to attract a number of bottom feeders of course, but tolerance of out and out insults, with no point relating to the thread being made, has attracted a even more unpleasant kind of vermin, those repulsive creatures that live up the bottom feeders’ bottoms. It only needs one or two of those to drive away good content and good readers.
Ian
That’s life. I don’t take that too seriously and usually comment to articles which I think have value, are personal and where I sense the person behind it. Not necessarily the subject.
Ian
I agree, although for me it’s entertainment also. No worse than watching TV. And at the same time, by being here, I could improve my English a hell of a lot in terms of “good” English but also in street “talk.” So in some ways, it has educational value for me LOL,
Jackson the racist doesn’t like the label. His comments betray him.
John G the communist hyper-inflationist doesn’t like the label. His comments betray him.
African woman generally have too many children
Women in all poor countries (that aren’t outright communist totalitarian) generally have many children. They always have fewer children as, and if, they become more affluent.
The way for Africa to quickly become more affluent is to abandon tribalism and nationalism and open its doors to foreign capital investments.
who wants to invest in an unstable economy?
Then maybe the west should help stabilize it.
I spent 2004 in East Africa as an activated Army Reservist as Part of Operation Enduring Freedom.
It is an incredibly rugged and an incredibly poor part of the World.
However, I have the strong impression that Africa will be the Asia of the 21st Century.
They have a large population that has next to nothing and needs almost everything. They are not tied to the past and not having land line phones, Cellphone use has exploded since 2000, for example, generally on a more advanced level than in the US.
There is a large population and little to employ them (yet). There are vast natural resources. the entrepreneurial potential of the Merchants can be see (albeit in a negative way) by the efforts of Nigerian scammers.
The PRC is there in a big way.
When you are in the boonies in Ethiopia, you see PRC companies employing Africans to build roads. Is it exploitation? Maybe. In Asia, the same kind of thing put the PRC & Japan & the “Dragons” at the center of world industrial production in 50 years.
There are vast problems . . . but there is also vast potential. I suspect it will be realized and I suspect that France (and the US) will be the ones left behind.
A century from now, if the PRC’s New Silk Road/One Belt-One Road idea works, I think the main beneficiary will be Africa.
“Saint George, the doors are open to foreign investments but who wants to invest in an unstable economy?”
So far, the PRC . . . .
“That idiot is too stupid or too young to see that ALL presidents of francophone Africa from Senghor to Eyadema to Nguesso to Compaore to Biya are and were French bought puppet regimes.”
The French are still there in a substantial way.
I remember seeing French junior soldiers (boule à zéro and being pushed around a bit, so I assume recruits) being sent further south in Dijbouti years ago.
“And I have and am living with the people not in a white luxury slum. I don’t have more money than the people I work with.”
Which seems in my limited experience, the only thing that really works there.
I still can’t get over the fact that people thought Macron was a left-winger and Le Pen a right-winger. Since when did immigration policy become the litmus test?
Macron is a business-friendly moderate who is capable of criticizing faulty cultures without hating people who look different. He’s a common sense guy.
Le Pen is a National Socialist. She’s an honest version of Bernie Sanders.
The Chinese are making capital investments with relatively fair terms.
The Chinese have done impressively stupid things like building “Mega Cities” that nobody wants to live in. Those are not “investments” but represent pure “consumption”. It’s no different in principle from building a million franchise restaurants that prepares food nobody wants to buy or eat. Pure consumption waste.
“The Chinese have done impressively stupid things like building “Mega Cities” that nobody wants to live in.”
I think John G is talking specifically of Africa. The PRC seems to have a longer time horizon than Western Companies, which makes it easier to invest in Africa, where everything is longer term due to the underdevelopment.
I have always wondered if those cities were pure pump-priming or if they also represent stockpiled resources that they thought might become unavailable.
AMERIKKKA FUCK YEAH!!!!!”Given the new PRC base in Djibouti and the PRC’s greater economic presence in Africa, I’m not sure AFRICOM, which is still in Europe will do much at all.
“The PRC seems to have a longer time horizon than Western Companies”
Correct, Chinese and other eastern businesses and governments appear to think generations ahead, western businesses don’t think beyond next year’s profit and loss account, governments don’t think beyond the next election cycle.
Ian
Exactly. I’ve been Swiss businesses for the last 20 years to invest in Africa, but they don’t listen. No risk, no gain – and after – complain…..
Chinese and other eastern businesses and governments appear to think generations ahead
They think one bribe ahead.
“Chinese companies in Africa are also able to offer the bribes that are usually crucial to securing large contracts in the region. By contrast, American companies are prohibited from engaging in these practices by the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.”
Bingo.
British companies and businessmen have also faced prosecution for paying the bribes demanded in order to obtain orders / contracts, not just in Africa but throughout the third world.
How many bankers went to gaol over the GFC?””And go he should, if he was the Devil himself, until he broke the law! . . . . Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!” Robert Bolt, A Man For All Seasons
The question is not “How many bankers went to gaol over the GFC.” It is should any of them have gone based on the laws existing at the time.
That is the difference between a republic, “a government of laws and not of men” and something else.
“Margaret More: Father, that man’s bad.
Sir Thomas More: There’s no law against that.
William Roper: There is: God’s law.
Sir Thomas More: Then God can arrest him.” Id