Wednesday, July 11, 2007

"a rotting fish that shines by moonlight"

Dalrymple at the SAU blog on Elliott and Atkinson's Fantasy Island.

I'm always saying this to people on both Left and Right who, for different reasons, saw Tony Blair as the source of all evil and of all our problems. He's a symptom, not a cause. He's the magic mirror man. Whoever you are, he'll show you a comforting reflection.

"But we cannot blame our leaders entirely for our situation, for two reasons: the first is that we elected them, albeit without much enthusiasm, and second because, though you can take a man to the bank, you can't make him borrow. Improvident government does not by itself make a people improvident, though it may encourage, sanction and even sanctify improvidence. Nowadays, we have representational government not only in the sense that we all elect our representatives to parliament, but in the sense that the faults and shortcomings of our representatives and leaders are our own faults and shortcomings, from sentimentality to imprudence, from improvidence to untruthfulness. Mr Blair, whom the authors believe to be shallow and lacking in seriousness (though not in earnestness, which is quite another thing), did not arrive in Britain from outer space. Mr Blair is us."

You said it.

"Taking advantage of protectionism requires some degree of integrity both on the part of the government and the industries that are granted temporary respite from foreign competition. And integrity, or a sense of purpose beyond advantage in the most immediate future, is precisely the quality that is so conspicuously lacking in British life today."

Yup.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Look at this:
51 year old Britain woman marries 29 year old son of OBL.
Link

-
I don't agree that Blair is only the symptom, the New Labour project is much more than that. Some people just say 'oh its all our own fault anyway' just to avoid accepting that we are under attack.

'We' did not elect Tony Blair, the L3 have been importing new voters for over a generation.
And besides in the current political system there are only 2.5 choices and they're all bad.

Anonymous said...

The British are "pussy-whipped" and that is why Thatcher had them taking their cod-liver oil. In the absence of another woman to keep them in line they went or an effeminate man who could get them to emote and play to the histrionic.

The whole Diana Death Syndrome allowed dysfunctional and neurotic women all over Britain to empathise and be proud of their anorexia, bulimia, and how misunderstood they all were. I know of one woman who videoed the funeral and watched it repeatedly - if that isn't sick .....

Hitler did the same with the Germans - his ranting, rasping speeches in estuary German worked the crowds.....

What Blair did was simply what Alfred Huegenberg and his Ufa media business did in 1930s Germany - play the troubled sentimentalism of a dislocated public for all it was worth

Thatcher was 'strict nanny' and Blair was 'caring nanny'

Larry Teabag said...

Certainly, regarding his predipsosition to slaughter huge numbers of Muslims without feeling the slightest guilt, "Mr Blair is us" is an appropriate slogan for the commentariat at this place.

Anonymous said...

It's strange that when someone mentions Muslim terrorists, the likes of Larry Teabag are quick to scream out we mustn't lump all Muslims together, but when Al Qaeda et al are killed in Iraq suddenly the the same people lose the ability to distinguish between Muslims.

Anonymous said...

Larry, youre quite right we shouldnt be in the ME killing muslims (though muslims kill most of the muslims killed in Iraq).

Nor, however, should muslims be living here.

Glad we are all agreed on that.

Anonymous said...

Oh and also Larry part of our problem in killing muslims ironically is that we just dont kill enough. If our troops are attacked we should raze their village to the ground etc Collective punishment, you know the drill.

If we really want to control Iraq we should oust the existing population and colonise. In the end thats the only way.

Of course we are not going to do that, so whats the point in being there at all.

Instead we just wind them up by just killing a few and then pussyfooting around apologising, it just makes us look weak and capricious.

Whats laughable about your belief that we slaughter large numbers of muslims is that when you look at our military capabilities you can see we really could slaughter them in demographically significant quantities but we dont.

Do you not realise what the bomb load of the B52 or B1 is or the capabilities of fuel-air weapons? Lets not even consider nukes. We could go out and kill 100,000s of muslims in a few hours. But we dont.

In a similar way its kind of ironic that people think the Israelis slaughter muslims. They just dont seem to realise the Israelis are holding back. The day they stop doing that - watch out!

Muslims on the other hand have no compunction about indescriminate killing, they just dont have the resources to do it effectively. Due to low IQ, poor cooperation etc They wouldnt fanny about the way we do. Luckily for us they cant manage it.

Anonymous said...

"..suddenly the the same people lose the ability to distinguish between Muslims..."

No, they don't lose that ability. They never had it in the first place....

Squander Two said...

It makes sense to judge people's beliefs based on the common factors of their various actions.

Blair has helped to launch two major wars: the current Iraq affair and the Kosovo thing. In the latter case, the enemies were the Christians who were slaughtering Muslims and the allies were Muslim; in the former, both the enemy and some of the allies are Muslim. If Blair really does have a predisposition to slaughter huge numbers of Muslims, he's acting on it rather oddly.

Anonymous said...

In the latter case, the enemies were the Christians who were slaughtering Muslims

Where are these slaughtered Muslims ? Did they ever find the KLA claims to be true ?

Anonymous said...

"Where are these slaughtered Muslims ? Did they ever find the KLA claims to be true ? "

The actual death figures for Kosovo (i.e. Serbs, Albanians, accidental, etc) are c.1000 for the year before the invasion. The 1/5 million claim was sold by the KLA and bought by Clinton, who was having a spot of bother with Monica at the time. Blair took the opportunity to be the white knight on a shining horse.

Anonymous said...

I believe Larry is referring to the alleged Basra badger threat:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6295138.stm