I am afraid that the result of Norwich North by-election has severely dented my appetite for blogging. When I put my views to the electorate and asked for their support, I could hardly have been more comprehensively rejected. I was convinced we could get a respectable vote of 7% in Norwich North and have something to build on.
I am not interested in the smug self-satisfaction of believing I have access to a knowledge or analysis denied to the “ordinary” people. Nor do I think that people in the UK have lost their capacity for sensible judgement, or that political discourse needs to be dumbed down to try to achieve a wide appeal. The fact is that Norwich North showed that no significant minority of the general populace has any interest in what I have to say.
So the urge to give comment and information on the sick farce of the Afghan elections, the extraordinary and cynical charade over the Lockerbie “bomber”, or even the hope destroyed in University admissions this year, has been nullified by an awareness that what I think is of no account.
It is not a case of feeling sorry for myself. It is a long overdue hit of realism. I have frequently complained, for example, that the damning evidence I gave on the British government’s complicity in torture was almost totally ignored by the mainstream media. The reason is that the media is not manipulative, it is merely making a shrewd and correct commercial decision that almost nobody cares.
There are moments that change lives. I was fairly stoic at the Norwich North count. I was then struck by a catharsis. After the declaration of results, the candidates made their speeches from the platform. When it came to my turn, Chloe Smith walked off the platform and stood in front of me and the media pack noisily formed around her. The officials started chatting among themselves about what they were doing at the weekend. I was left in the position of having to make the customary comments to a noisy room in which most backs were turned on me and only a very few were politely pretending to listen.
I cannot get out of my head the idea that my blogging is but the virtual equivalent.
I just spent a somewhat dispiriting evening yesterday attending a party at the Edinburgh International Book Festival thrown by the ‘London Review of Books’, a magazine which, in my opinion, would be better entitled, ‘The Review of London Books’. Somehow, I’d got onto their e-mailing list and of course am always grateful for invitations. But whenever I go to these things (not often, and now, this morning, I remember just why that is), it makes me realise just how impossible it would be for someone like me even for a moment to break over the consciousness of those people and their institutions. To them, my voice is no more than that of a barking dog in a distant street.
But I’d rather be a barking dog in the street than a silent mouse in the house.
Don’t let the bastards get you down, Craig. It is an unending struggle. There is no victory, there are only measured losses and tempered gains. Keep on pushing. Remember the last paragraph of ‘Middlemarch’. You scatter seeds, you don’t know where they might lead. We have no idea, really, what consciousness is and the universe is mostly dark matter. Everything we do is absurd. So fuck it – and them – and keep on fighting! That’s what I do, every day. That’s what we all do, every day. You are not alone.
I was interested in subrosa’s referring to many a mickle makes a muckle.
It reminded me of another one: where there’s muck there’s brass.
You are wading through the muck and exposing the brass. Keep it up.
I know I am claiming a bit of poetic licence here, but you know what I mean.
why on eaqrth do you think you have some unique right to be listened to?
Not only do you lack any sort of mandate, having been thumped in 2 elections, your status as a sacked diplomat has gone stale and your personal life is far from edifiying.
Get a life.
Sushayl Saadi wrote
“It is an unending struggle. There is no victory, there are only measured losses and tempered gains.”
Very true. No permanent or complete victory is possible but there’s no permanent or complete defeat either. There’s always hope, it’s a bigger struggle than any one of us, it was going on in other forms before any of us were born and it’ll continue in new ones long after we’re all dead.
Much of what Tony opmoc says i agree with, but i draw the line at his suggestion that you dress up in drag like David Shayler.
I beg you not to cease blogging. You provide information and insight, some of which is not available elsewhere. I do hope that your revelations will ultimately lead to change; what other practical alternatives are there to your provision of education.
Screw the voters of Norwich.
People will eventually wake up.
I look forward to you and honest people such as you to provide us with the leadership which is now otherwise so lacking.
I beg you not to cease blogging. You provide information and insight, some of which is not available elsewhere. I do hope that your revelations will ultimately lead to change; what other practical alternatives are there to your provision of education.
Screw the voters of Norwich.
People will eventually wake up.
I look forward to you and honest people such as you to provide us with the leadership which is now otherwise so lacking.
As, in the electoral sense, a non-supporter, my comment might be of limited interest.
Nonetheless, you should continue blogging. You have a degree of cachet on issues relating to Central Asia and torture that there is no point squandering. You should continue to campaign on this issue in the way you clearly believe it is right to do so.
There is however almost nothing in that making you a likely electoral performer. Good on Central Asia does not, I’m afraid, really mean much in terms of being a good MP- foreign policy is largely not a legaslative matter.
Of course, you can have another go if you want to. But there is little reason to expect a performance improvement to something approaching winning. You don’t seem to find fighting to lose satisfying campaiging, nor does it appear you have the constitution to handle defeat. So its probably the case that electoral politics is not for you.
I’m a member of a political party and have, for quarter of a century, been involved in many elections as candidate, election agent and campaigner/supporter. What you feel now is par for the course and only points up what political activists often forget; we’re so fired up about issues that we lose track of the fact that we’re simple human beings who feel bad when we’re rejected.
So what you need to know now is ….
When I joined all those years ago we were regarded as a radical protest group which couldn’t attract any positive media coverage. Now we’re in government and our aspirations are shared by a large part of the population. Changing people’s thinking isn’t about elections. For every thousand words you utter only half a dozen will stick in most minds. 500,000 words from now, they’ll start to feel that you’re familiar. When they feel you’re familiar, they’ll ask what you stand for. The trick, if you want to be elected, is not to kill them where they stand.
What you’re doing is important and will, eventually, result in change.
I support your decision to give up blogging. This makes life much easier for me.
My Uncle Frank was part of the army that liberated Belsen in 1945. Forty-odd years ago he told me what it was like and ended his remarks by saying “It’s terrible what those foreigners do to each other”. I think that pretty much sums up Uzbekistan or whatever it’s called.
Expecting folk to vote for you on the basis of nasty things in nasty countries is asking a bit much, anyway, but you add carpetbagging to the mix. What earthly connection did you have to Norwich? Far better I would have thought to have picked a constituency and worked it on the basis of a mix of policies, some local some national.
Craig’s expertise goes far beyond foreign affairs, to domestic and economic policy. His performance at the hustings was an education in how to answer questions directly, honestly and powerfully.
Before you reach a firm opinion on a political development, visit this blog to check whether Craig has lifted the lid on it and exposed the media spin. It’s often a revelation. There’s nowhere else to seek this level of honesty, insight and sobering fact. Occasionally, some comments posted by visitors amount to pure genius (if you can wade through the crap and the waffle). Overall, this is an inspiring web resource. And when we talk to other people about what we’ve read here, word spreads. The influence ultimately isn’t quantifiable, but it does make a difference in the bigger picture.
A friend commented “I saw the results; he did well”. Indeed. For an independent candidate with a fairly low media profile and no history of political activity in the constituency, that was an exceptional result. Maybe a quick spell in the Total Perspective Vortex would help to restore the flagging mood.
Chin up, chaps! One day we’ll look back and see the difference he made, even if we missed the transformation.
I see little connection between the value of your blog and your showing in Norwich. There are many obvious reasons why your election result was disappointing, one being that of those familiar with you political beliefs, many may disagree. I for one do and have mentioned a reason for doing so on my own page.
More fundamentally, perhaps, your message is too radical for ordinary, busy, not particularly well educated people to believe. For years New Labor, with the full amplification of the media, has been saying that Britain is at war in Afghanistan because they attacked us on 9/11 or because they will attack us if we don’t attack them, etc., etc., whereas you say Blair, Brown, Straw et al. are war criminals guilty of lying Britain into a war of aggression and of being complicit in torture, and so on. Undoubtedly you are right and the fact that most people cannot understand that clearly shows what a dangerous form of government prevails in the West.
All the leadership needs do to establish a despotism is convince about 30% of the dimmest members of the electorate of some ridiculous rubbish. They can then ignore the majority of reasonably well informed and thoughtful people.
This is a truly evil form of government against which knowledge, reason and truth will not readily prevail. But what else can be brought to bear against it? And if the best commentators we have give up the struggle to break the hold of a corrupt political class and the lying media the prospect of any change becomes dim indeed.
There is no doubt that your blog is among the best informed, most incisive and most enjoyable to read that I am aware of. I understand that one has to make a living a therefore one must decide where to expend one’s energy. But I very much hope your commentary on the Web long continues.
It is near midnight here and I have not read all 72 of the preceding comments. If I merely reiterate what has already been said, my apologies.
Alfred Burdett
Did you ever answer the allegations made by Iain Dale during the NN BE. Maybe that’s the answer
Craig, have you examined the visitor stats for this blog? If not, you might want to ask your service provider to compile some for you.
At the very least, stats from the webserver logs would show how many people have read each post, and where they are geographically. I suspect the numbers are larger than 953 or even 13,591.
Your opposition to torture has been heroic. Someone has to do it. Truth is not decided by a majority vote.
Besides, I visit your blog regularly for provocation, entertainment, becoming a little bit more informed about the world… I would sorely miss it if you stopped.
Don’t give up – please!
Never mind about Parliament, Craig. What you have been exposing over the past few years is much more important.
I’m sure many of us who purchased “Murder in Samarkand” were only then made aware of the unholy liaison between the US government and the Taliban in the late 1990, via the discredited Enron. It looks like the link between Afghanistan and oil was made at around that time, and explains why a case was made to invade that country after 9/11 and stay in there to present day.
You clearly have more information than most about dealings between the Taliban and “oil lords”, and would do well to devote more of your time to the extent of the corruption that you started to unveil through your blog and Murder in Samarkand.
The war in Afghanistan is now such a controversial issue that radio 4 “Any Answers” completely blanked it yesterday, despite this topic providing the most stirring debate on “Any Questions”. Even US public opinion has swung against continuing that conflict.
Your energies would certainly be usefully deployed promoting the “troops out” demonstration scheduled for Saturday 24th October. As large a turnout as possible is needed on that day.
PLEASE don’t give up on us Craig.
This is your site profile on Google Ad Planner.
https://www.google.com/adplanner/site_profile#siteDetails?identifier=craigmurray.org.uk&geo=GB&trait_type=1
Look at Ron Paul in the US. He talks absolute sense and yet is constantly ridiculed by the media on the few occasions he appears.He is a little known Republican that speaks for the people but they would not vote for him!
Dirty dealings on Pinochet’s behalf by Chloe’s erstwhile employers are exposed in this article.
‘A one-time representative of Deloitte & Touche, Richard Evans, is alleged by the Brilac report to have acted in connection with Ashburton Trust, which was created by Riggs and whose beneficiaries included Pinochet’s five children, who each had a 20 per cent share. Mr Evans was also listed by Brilac as a director of Althorp Investment Trust, another repository for Pinochet family funds. It said he
was active in promoting businesses in Argentina and was being investigated for money-laundering.
Deloitte spokesman Ignacio Tena said: “Deloitte & Touche Corporate Services was contracted by Riggs Bank and Trust Company (Bahamas) to render administrative services for Riggs and some of its clients. Riggs did the due diligence, and gave all the information related to its clients, in accordance with the usual commercial practice and the Bahamas’ law.”‘
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/pinochets-lost-millions-the-uk-connection-1776180.html
Craig,
I care deeply about what you have to say. In fact whenever some major world event occurs I find myself turning to your site to see whether you have some new insight on it or some angle that I may have missed. Maybe over-educated, intellectual, socially engaged people like me are a minority but we do exist. We might not be the best basis for a political party seeking to win a majority in a first past the post system, however you do have a very real constituency here on this blog.
I myself would be deeply saddened if you stopped blogging.
Bear up Craig, good man! Your blogging is precious and essential. Your insights and special knowledge are sterling. For heaven’s sake don’t get lost in the deepest pits of depression.
What you went through in Norwich was a deeply soul-bruising assault, by the massed forces of authoritarian anti-democracy. You’re in no way to blame for their villainy.
Nor is it true that we, the commons, don’t care about what people like you have to say. It’s just that most of us never get to hear such honest, humanely-principled, real-world commentary, or even to know that it exists, outside the pernicious deceits of the corporate media (very much including the BBC) and the wholly-owned pocket-pols and commentariatchiks.
There’s also the fact that an awful lot of us obscure commoners are ahead of you on one matter, Craig. Remember that you’ve just begun to disinvest yourself of the doctrinal and ideological baggage that you had to take on board long ago as you made a career in the orthodox diplomatic ‘service’.
Tearing your mind away from a deeply-injected worldview of half a lifetime, and taking on board the new, real-world truths (which are often ultimately bleak and horrifying to newcomers) is no small undertaking, and leads pretty inevitably to some serious emotional/spiritual upheavals.
Please don’t repine, good man! If we of the AAPA commons [‘awake-and-paying-attention] don’t have people like you to turn to for insider-informed and intelligent commentary on what’s really happening behind the Permanent Bullshit Blizzard, who are we going to turn to?
And remember: informed discussions and information exchanging are the absolutely-essential precursor to intelligent revolutionary political mass-action.
That’s going to come back into fashion with a bang from now on, and the reason why isn’t hard to see, once you clear your mind of the orthodoxy clutter:
What we’re experiencing now isn’t a recession, nor even a depression, but a fundamental shift from an old expansionist era which is now foundering — for ever — on the Limits To Growth to a new era of increasing scarcities, and the shrinkage — sic, sic, sic! — of just about all the measures which we’ve all been trained from childhood on to expect to grow inexorably for ever.
At the very least, this new era is going to shake things up. And there are going to be an awful lot of very pissed off people, especially amongst us of the Pampered Twenty Percent of humankind, who are discovering that our pampered lifestyles have gone away and won’t be coming back.
In such a time, populations are prone to slide one of two ways: towards sober renewal of our ideas about what we now need to do to deal with the changed reality; or towards demagogue-driven fascist lunacy.
Eloquent, knowledgable, and above all decently-humane souls such as you, Craig, are absolutely vital as way-finders — and way-pointers — towards the former option.
But Craig — you really do need to cure yourself of the illusion that Britain is, or has ever been, a genuine, functioning democracy. A very sophisticated fake, to prevent the real thing ever happening? Sure! But the real thing? Absolutely not.
Don’t waste any more time setting yourself up for these savage beatings-up of your spirit by trying to work the system as if it means what it says on the ‘democracy’ packet. That’s just part of the con-trick which fools enough of the people enough of the time.
What we have to have is REAL democracy, urgently, as a prophylactic against the fascism risk. And we’re not going to get that without fighting — in some way — the gics [‘gangsters-in-charge’] who are the self-perpetuating real power-holders in our polity, and who will never volunteer to give up that power without first being thoroughly beaten into submission.
Despite my belligerent language here, I believe that to have the best chance of succeeding in this great quest, we — the massed commons — have to do it strictly non-violently, but in irresistible numbers, just as Norman Finkelstein and others are organising right now to break the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza, at the turn of this year.
In such stirring times, the understandings and commentary of people such as you, Craig, are absolutely vital. Feeling like shit, and going into spiritual hiding, is the last thing you should do, friend. The enemies of truth, democracy and justice, and their sucker-puppets (such as Chloe), want you to feel like that, and to become ineffectual as a result.
The best way to off them is to refuse to repine, and to keep on doing the VITAL stuff that you do so well. It IS vital, Craig. Never succumb to the deliberately-induced delusion that it’s worthless.
Be true to yourself Craig and you should have no regrets. The problem here Craig is that we need a cultural change and it will only happen over time. People are conditioned by the media into believing we do not have other choices. We should be campaigning for awareness in people to vote for the ‘best’ candidate to represent them in elections not the ‘party’ candidate. (Some ‘party’ candidates are good people). Once people realise that we can perhaps get people who represent people and not themselves. Carry on blogging!
Dear Craig
whilst I might not agree with everything you say – the fact the you obviously make the effort to be accurate and fair sets you apart.
It will be a great loss to public debate if you decide to throw in the towel even though Cassandra might appear to be something of a role model…..
Please carry on your fight against the dark side.
As for the media – if you haven’t already – please acquaint yourself with Nick Davies Flat Earth News.
http://www.flatearthnews.net/
Blogging is a powerful tool – Sir Michael White et al would not expend as much energy as they do attacking it if it weren’t. They’re terrified of it.
Where is William Cobbett though when you need him?
Bear up Craig, good man! Your blogging is precious and essential. Your insights and special knowledge are sterling. For heaven’s sake don’t get lost in the deepest pits of depression.
What you went through in Norwich was a deeply soul-bruising assault, by the massed forces of authoritarian anti-democracy. You’re in no way to blame for their villainy.
Nor is it true that we, the commons, don’t care about what people like you have to say. It’s just that most of us never get to hear such honest, humanely-principled, real-world commentary, or even to know that it exists, outside the pernicious deceits of the corporate media (very much including the BBC) and the wholly-owned pocket-pols and commentariatchiks.
There’s also the fact that an awful lot of us obscure commoners are ahead of you on one matter, Craig. Remember that you’ve just begun to disinvest yourself of the doctrinal and ideological baggage that you had to take on board long ago as you made a career in the orthodox diplomatic ‘service’.
Tearing your mind away from a deeply-injected worldview of half a lifetime, and taking on board the new, real-world truths (which are often ultimately bleak and horrifying to newcomers) is no small undertaking, and leads pretty inevitably to some serious emotional/spiritual upheavals.
But a lot of us obscure commoners have already made that journey of the spirit, and simply don’t have anything to do with the wretched modern British ‘democracy’ game. (You’re aware of the abstention levels, even in General Elections, of course)
Please don’t repine, good man! If we of the AAPA commons [‘awake-and-paying-attention] don’t have people like you to turn to for insider-informed and intelligent commentary on what’s really happening behind the Permanent Bullshit Blizzard, who are we going to turn to?
And remember: informed discussions and information exchanging are the absolutely-essential precursor to intelligent revolutionary political mass-action.
That’s going to come back into fashion with a bang from now on, and the reason why isn’t hard to see, once you clear your mind of the orthodoxy clutter:
What we’re experiencing now isn’t a recession, nor even a depression, but a fundamental shift from an old expansionist era which is now foundering — for ever — on the Limits To Growth, to a new era of increasing scarcities and the shrinkage — sic, sic, sic! — of just about all the measures which we’ve all been trained from childhood to expect to grow inexorably for ever.
At the very least this new era is going to shake things up. And there are going to be an awful lot of very pissed-off people, especially amongst us of the Pampered Twenty Percent of humankind, who are discovering right now that our pampered lifestyles are going away unstoppably, and won’t be coming back.
In such a time, populations are prone to slide one of two ways: towards sober renewal of our ideas about what we now need to do to deal with the changed reality; or towards demagogue-driven fascist lunacy; always a disaster, this time like to be terminal.
Eloquent, knowledgable, and above all decently-humane souls such as you, Craig, are absolutely vital as way-finders — and way-pointers — towards the former option.
But Craig — you really do need to cure yourself of the illusion that Britain is, or has ever been, a genuine, functioning democracy. A very sophisticated fake, to prevent the real thing ever happening? Sure! But the real thing? Absolutely not.
Don’t waste any more time setting yourself up for these savage beatings-up of your spirit by trying to work the system as if it means what it says on the ‘democracy’ packet. That’s just part of the con-trick which is maintained so elaborately to fool enough of the people enough of the time.
What we have to have is REAL democracy, urgently, as a prophylactic against the fascism risk and against the even greater risk of the meltdown of our planetary life-support systems.
And we’re not going to get that without fighting — in some way — the gics [‘gangsters-in-charge’] who are the real, self-perpetuating power-holders in our polity, and who will never volunteer to give up that power without first being thoroughly beaten into submission.
Despite my belligerent language here, I believe that to have the best chance of succeeding in this great quest, we — the massed commons — have to do it strictly non-violently, but in irresistible numbers, in just the same way that Norman Finkelstein and others are organising right now to break the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza, at the turn of this year, with practical mass-Satyagraha. (I’m aiming to be there myself, if I can haul my nearly-seventy-year-old carcase out there)
In such stirring times, the understandings and commentary of people such as you, Craig, are absolutely vital. Feeling like shit, and going into spiritual hiding, is the last thing you should do, friend. The enemies of truth, democracy and justice, and their sucker-puppets (such as Chloe), want you to feel like that, and to become ineffectual as a result.
The best way to off them is to refuse to repine, and to keep on doing the VITAL stuff that you do so well. It IS vital, Craig. Never succumb to the deliberately-induced delusion that it’s worthless.
Bear up Craig, good man! Your blogging is precious and essential. Your insights and special knowledge are sterling. For heaven’s sake don’t get lost in the deepest pits of depression.
What you went through in Norwich was a deeply soul-bruising assault, by the massed forces of authoritarian anti-democracy. You’re in no way to blame for their villainy.
Nor is it true that we, the commons, don’t care about what people like you have to say. It’s just that most of us never get to hear such honest, humanely-principled, real-world commentary, or even to know that it exists, outside the pernicious deceits of the corporate media (very much including the BBC) and the wholly-owned pocket-pols and commentariatchiks.
There’s also the fact that an awful lot of us obscure commoners are ahead of you on one matter, Craig. Remember that you’ve just begun to disinvest yourself of the doctrinal and ideological baggage that you had to take on board long ago as you made a career in the orthodox diplomatic ‘service’.
Tearing your mind away from a deeply-injected worldview of half a lifetime, and taking on board the new, real-world truths (which are often ultimately bleak and horrifying to newcomers) is no small undertaking, and leads pretty inevitably to some serious emotional/spiritual upheavals.
But a lot of us obscure commoners have already made that journey of the spirit, and simply don’t have anything to do with the wretched modern British ‘democracy’ game. (You’re aware of the abstention levels, even in General Elections, of course)
Please don’t repine, good man! If we of the AAPA commons [‘awake-and-paying-attention] don’t have people like you to turn to for insider-informed and intelligent commentary on what’s really happening behind the Permanent Bullshit Blizzard, who are we going to turn to?
And remember: informed discussions and information exchanging are the absolutely-essential precursor to intelligent revolutionary political mass-action.
That’s going to come back into fashion with a bang from now on, and the reason why isn’t hard to see, once you clear your mind of the orthodoxy clutter:
What we’re experiencing now isn’t a recession, nor even a depression, but a fundamental shift from an old expansionist era which is now foundering — for ever — on the Limits To Growth, to a new era of increasing scarcities and the shrinkage — sic, sic, sic! — of just about all the measures which we’ve all been trained from childhood to expect to grow inexorably for ever.
At the very least this new era is going to shake things up. And there are going to be an awful lot of very pissed-off people, especially amongst us of the Pampered Twenty Percent of humankind, who are discovering right now that our pampered lifestyles are going away unstoppably, and won’t be coming back.
In such a time, populations are prone to slide one of two ways: towards sober renewal of our ideas about what we now need to do to deal with the changed reality; or towards demagogue-driven fascist lunacy; always a disaster, this time like to be terminal.
Eloquent, knowledgable, and above all decently-humane souls such as you, Craig, are absolutely vital as way-finders — and way-pointers — towards the former option.
But Craig — you really do need to cure yourself of the illusion that Britain is, or has ever been, a genuine, functioning democracy. A very sophisticated fake, to prevent the real thing ever happening? Sure! But the real thing? Absolutely not.
Don’t waste any more time setting yourself up for these savage beatings-up of your spirit by trying to work the system as if it means what it says on the ‘democracy’ packet. That’s just part of the con-trick which is maintained so elaborately to fool enough of the people enough of the time.
What we have to have is REAL democracy, urgently, as a prophylactic against the fascism risk and against the even greater risk of the meltdown of our planetary life-support systems.
And we’re not going to get that without fighting — in some way — the gics [‘gangsters-in-charge’] who are the real, self-perpetuating power-holders in our polity, and who will never volunteer to give up that power without first being thoroughly beaten into submission.
Despite my belligerent language here, I believe that to have the best chance of succeeding in this great quest, we — the massed commons — have to do it strictly non-violently, but in irresistible numbers, in just the same way that Norman Finkelstein and others are organising right now to break the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza, at the turn of this year, with practical mass-Satyagraha. (I’m aiming to be there myself, if I can haul my nearly-seventy-year-old carcase out there)
In such stirring times, the understandings and commentary of people such as you, Craig, are absolutely vital. Feeling like shit, and going into spiritual hiding, is the last thing you should do, friend. The enemies of truth, democracy and justice, and their sucker-puppets (such as Chloe), want you to feel like that, and to become ineffectual as a result.
The best way to off them is to refuse to repine, and to keep on doing the VITAL stuff that you do so well. It IS vital, Craig. Never succumb to the deliberately-induced delusion that it’s worthless.
Bear up Craig, good man! Your blogging is precious and essential. Your insights and special knowledge are sterling. For heaven’s sake don’t get lost in the deepest pits of depression.
What you went through in Norwich was a deeply soul-bruising assault, by the massed forces of authoritarian anti-democracy. You’re in no way to blame for their villainy.
Nor is it true that we, the commons, don’t care about what people like you have to say. It’s just that most of us never get to hear such honest, humanely-principled, real-world commentary, or even to know that it exists, outside the pernicious deceits of the corporate media (very much including the BBC) and the wholly-owned pocket-pols and commentariatchiks.
There’s also the fact that an awful lot of us obscure commoners are ahead of you on one matter, Craig. Remember that you’ve just begun to disinvest yourself of the doctrinal and ideological baggage that you had to take on board long ago as you made a career in the orthodox diplomatic ‘service’.
Tearing your mind away from a deeply-injected worldview of half a lifetime, and taking on board the new, real-world truths (which are often ultimately bleak and horrifying to newcomers) is no small undertaking, and leads pretty inevitably to some serious emotional/spiritual upheavals.
But a lot of us obscure commoners have already made that journey of the spirit, and simply don’t have anything to do with the wretched modern British ‘democracy’ game. (You’re aware of the abstention levels, even in General Elections, of course)
Please don’t repine, good man! If we of the AAPA commons [‘awake-and-paying-attention] don’t have people like you to turn to for insider-informed and intelligent commentary on what’s really happening behind the Permanent Bullshit Blizzard, who are we going to turn to?
And remember: informed discussions and information exchanging are the absolutely-essential precursor to intelligent revolutionary political mass-action.
That’s going to come back into fashion with a bang from now on, and the reason why isn’t hard to see, once you clear your mind of the orthodoxy clutter:
What we’re experiencing now isn’t a recession, nor even a depression, but a fundamental shift from an old expansionist era which is now foundering — for ever — on the Limits To Growth, to a new era of increasing scarcities and the shrinkage — sic, sic, sic! — of just about all the measures which we’ve all been trained from childhood to expect to grow inexorably for ever.
At the very least this new era is going to shake things up. And there are going to be an awful lot of very pissed-off people, especially amongst us of the Pampered Twenty Percent of humankind, who are discovering right now that our pampered lifestyles are going away unstoppably, and won’t be coming back.
In such a time, populations are prone to slide one of two ways: towards sober renewal of our ideas about what we now need to do to deal with the changed reality; or towards demagogue-driven fascist lunacy; always a disaster, this time like to be terminal.
Eloquent, knowledgable, and above all decently-humane souls such as you, Craig, are absolutely vital as way-finders — and way-pointers — towards the former option.
But Craig — you really do need to cure yourself of the illusion that Britain is, or has ever been, a genuine, functioning democracy. A very sophisticated fake, to prevent the real thing ever happening? Sure! But the real thing? Absolutely not.
Don’t waste any more time setting yourself up for these savage beatings-up of your spirit by trying to work the system as if it means what it says on the ‘democracy’ packet. That’s just part of the con-trick which is maintained so elaborately to fool enough of the people enough of the time.
What we have to have is REAL democracy, urgently, as a prophylactic against the fascism risk and against the even greater risk of the meltdown of our planetary life-support systems.
And we’re not going to get that without fighting — in some way — the gics [‘gangsters-in-charge’] who are the real, self-perpetuating power-holders in our polity, and who will never volunteer to give up that power without first being thoroughly beaten into submission.
Despite my belligerent language here, I believe that to have the best chance of succeeding in this great quest, we — the massed commons — have to do it strictly non-violently, but in irresistible numbers, in just the same way that Norman Finkelstein and others are organising right now to break the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza, at the turn of this year, with practical mass-Satyagraha. (I’m aiming to be there myself, if I can haul my nearly-seventy-year-old carcase out there)
In such stirring times, the understandings and commentary of people such as you, Craig, are absolutely vital. Feeling like shit, and going into spiritual hiding, is the last thing you should do, friend. The enemies of truth, democracy and justice, and their sucker-puppets (such as Chloe), want you to feel like that, and to become ineffectual as a result.
The best way to off them is to refuse to repine, and to keep on doing the VITAL stuff that you do so well. It IS vital, Craig. Never succumb to the deliberately-induced delusion that it’s worthless.
Craig,
When you’ve done whatever you need to do today on the home front, could you please give us your views on “the sick farce of the Afghan elections” and “the extraordinary and cynical charade over the Lockerbie ‘bomber'”?
I’m just watching them discussing today’s papers on Sky News and throwing my eyes to heaven, as usual.
I’d really love to have your input.
Another victim of depression, Stephen Fry, also disappeared from public view during period of self doubt a few years ago. I hope you get back on the horse, too.