If you’ve been following the news over the past week, you can be entirely forgiven for thinking that the world has gone completely mad. I’m afraid that there’s good news and bad news on that score:
The good news is that the real world has not gone mad - well no madder than usual. The truth is still the truth, bullshit is still bullshit, and your mum still thinks you're the best thing since sliced bread.
The bad news is that the world being described in the media is a reflection of the media itself: a seething mass of corrupt politicos and frenzied hacks all trying to convince you of their own righteousness and the duplicity of the other guy…even when the brown stuff is seeping out of their ears as well as their mouths. That world is truly, madly, deeply…and indubitably…screwed.
So I’d like to start the new week with a few observations about what's really going on underneath all the noisy crap:
1. Donna Brazile, former Chair of the DNC, has revealed that the Democratic Primary process was hijacked by the Clinton campaign and rigged against Bernie Sanders – this is true. All the evidence is available in documents and emails – it’s all there in black and white
2. The Clinton faithful are claiming that Brazile has been ‘got at’ by the Russians, who were responsible for Hillary losing the election…along with two dozen other traitors which include Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, the FBI and the Pillsbury Doughboy…this is all misdirection AKA bullshit
Hillary lost the election because too many people can’t stand her; because she’s been peddling her influence in exchange for personal gain for decades; because she’s a dreadful liar; because she’s transparently self-obsessed, and because she looked like she might keel over at any point, and was lying about that too. She lost because she was an awful candidate
3. The Spanish Government have arrested a number of Catalan Government officials on public order and sedition charges. European arrest warrants have been issued for President Carles Puigdemont and a number of his colleagues currently in Brussels
The last time a Spanish government arrested a Catalonian President - Lluís Companys - was in France on the 13th August 1940. He was captured by the Gestapo, taken back to Spain, and was executed by Franco. The Catalans will not be executed this time, but in one sense at least, little has changed: political arrests are still taking place in Europe some 72 years after the end of WW2. This, in the ‘capital of Europe’, right under the noses of a group of Federalists who interfere in issues of national sovereignty whenever it suits them…but when it comes to justice, and the suppression of a people’s desire for self-determination…suddenly decide that it has nothing to do with them. They, and the media who cover them, are cowards
In summary, what this week has demonstrated is that politicians and the media increasingly operate in a world where ‘ends justify means’. The casualty of this is conscience…a word that doesn't need to be explained to those who have one, and can't be explained to those who don’t.
The media and the politicians have largely chucked theirs in the bin in service to their paymasters. The bastards are not having mine. I sincerely hope they don't get yours either.
Have a good week.
MarkGB