The invisible revolution - by Richard... Saturday, December 31, 2011

The invisible revolution - by Richard... Saturday, December 31, 2011

As we lose faith in politicians and democracy, Dominic Sandbrook in the Daily Wail sketches out a possible scenario for 2012, relying loosely on 1932 has his historical model.

"The experience of 1932 provides a desperately valuable lesson" he writes. "As a result of the decisions taken in those 12 short months, millions of people later lost their lives". Today, he continues, "on the brink of a new year that could well prove the most frightening in living memory, we can only pray that our history takes a very different path".

The thesis thus set out is intriguing, and not dissimilar to the scenario posited by this blog, where we have been warning for several years that the necessary outcome of the decay in democratic governance would be violence.

However, at different times – but perhaps not with quite the same emphasis – we have been pointing out that we are unlikely to see mass street demonstrations, or anything approaching the revolutionary conditions that we saw in 1932.

Nevertheless, given that Sandbrook is right to draw attention to the parallels between then and now, it is worth pointing out some of the crucial differences, in an attempt to assess their potential impact.

And one of the first things one notes is the obvious but often forgotten communications revolution. In 1932, with radio in its infancy, mass television a distant dream, and the internet not even a vague concept, if you wanted to know what was going on in terms of great events, you had to go out into the streets.

In the Sandbrook piece, we see a photograph of the scene outside the New York Stock Exchange after the crash of 1929, with crowds gathering, presumably to learn more of what is going on (pictured top). Supposing we had a similar situation in 2012 – Blackberries and iPads notwithstanding – the bulk of the people would be in their offices or homes, as we were with 9/11, glued to their televisions and computer screens.

The point, of course, is that information gathering, from a communal exercise, has become a solitary task. Not as a crowd but as individuals do we seek to be informed. Then, most likely, we will share that information and discuss it not with the people physically close to us, but with those with whom we have the greatest affinity, via telephones – fixed and mobile – and the internet.

Bizarrely, we can end up with a situation where the crowd exists, but in name only as a physical entity. In reality, it is a group of individuals, each locked into their own personal communication web. Group dynamics no longer prevail. The modern crowd is a very different animal.

Another change we see is in the technology of crowd control. Although pathetically useless in dealing with the fast-moving, mobile groups which typified last summer's riots, the police have mastered the conventional mass demonstration.

Against the police in their "robocop" uniforms, with their high-tech fencing, tear gas and even water cannons – together with techniques such as kettling – groups marching on a fixed location such as parliament, are unlikely to prevail.

Then, there is the simple fact that the desperation simply does not exist. Sandbrook recalls George Orwell looking on the slag heaps of Wigan, where he saw "several hundred women" scrabbling "in the mud for hours", searching for tiny chips of coal so they could heat their homes.

Not even the worst of deprivation in this welfare state of ours could approach this level. The millions on the dole are in many ways better off than they have ever been, and are more likely to riot because they are "deprived" of their latest-model plasma TV than any perceived shortfall in the democracy of government.

These and many other changes make it unlikely that we could see a repeat of 1932, under current conditions. But there is a game changer – one word: energy. More specifically, it is electricity, or the lack of it, that could change that political and social dynamics, more or less overnight.

To a degree not fully appreciated by the public at large, and especially the political classes, we are dependent on a continuous electricity supply. A prolonged interruption, or multiple breaks, could have the country on the edge within a matter of days, bringing angry crowds into the street, which no amount of high-tech policing could deal with.

Yet, bizarrely, to safeguard against such eventualities, the excuse for a government which we currently suffer has put in charge of maintaining and developing our power system, the unreformed greenie and full-time idiot, Chris Huhne. If ever you wanted to see the political classes commit slow-motion suicide, this is it.

The widely predicted collapse of the electricity supply, however, is unlikely to happen this coming year. More likely is the collapse of the euro, with effects that are impossible to predict. Experience tells us though that their manifestations might take longer to appear than expected. Thus, a complete crash in, say, Greece, this year, might not exhibit its most destructive effects in Britain for two or three years.

On the other hand, there are more insidious pressures at work. Sandbrook talks glibly about a loss in faith in democracy, but even to this date we have never really had democracy in this country. What has kept the show on the road have been the trappings of democracy – elections, parliament, etc. – and a general belief that we are making progress towards empowering the people.

But, alongside the establishment of the European Union, where the "colleagues" are not at all shy about talking of a "post-democratic society", we have the growth of the quangocracy, and the emergence of a political class which has largely abandoned its pretence that it is here to serve the people, and is quite evidently more interesting in self-enrichment at the expense of the taxpayer.

This in turn has led to what Sandbook calls the "loss of faith". But it is not – and nor is it apathy. What we are seeing is indifference. People are retreating from politics. It is seen as an activity which has no relevance to daily life. The practitioners are seen as alien beings, and their strange electoral rituals are increasingly ignored – hence the last by-election returning an MP on 15 percent of the popular vote.

What then happens is hard to predict, but riots, revolution and the emergence of 1932-style demagogues seems unlikely. Instead, we are seeing a loss of societal cohesion, a lack of community spirit and that wholesale indifference to politics and even the government.

The result of this is, without any formal statement to that effect, a breakdown in the glue that binds the people and their governments – consent. Increasingly, the only way routine administration can be carried out is by coercion. No longer do we have the rule of law, but the rule of force, the rule of the fixed-penalty ticket and the bailiff.

Resistance then will come not in the crowds that besiege the Palace of Westminster, or tear down the gates of Downing Street. Rather, individual acts of resistance, cumulatively making this nation ungovernable, will degrade society to the extent that whole sections cease to function.

This will not be immediately obvious, and some of it is already happening, as we see basic systems becoming dysfunctional or so expensive as to be beyond reach. The effect, therefore, is a slow-motion revolution. One might even call it the "invisible revolution".

But whatever form it takes, we are not going to see crowds of millions in the streets – not just yet – or the latter-day equivalents of Hitler and Mussolini driving down the Mall.

Hannan loses it

Posted by Richard Saturday, December 31, 2011

No one ever said Hannan was thick … quite the reverse. He's a bright cookie really, although so full of himself that his lack of homework lets him down. But he remains bright enough to understand the point we have been making about Cameron's fantasy veto, and if the man is setting himself up to to project that there was a veto – which is precisely what he is doing - then he is playing games. That's what politics (and ego) does to the intellect.

In a piece originally entitled "What exactly did ~David Cameron veto, again?", thus thus attempts - as the title suggested - to explain what it was The Boy actually did in Brussels. And while such manifestations can usually be ignored, what cannot pass without comment are the intellectual contortions young Daniel is having to undergo in order to make his point.

Telling us that the "veto took place behind closed doors, and it was several days before the draft accord emerged", people, he says (including himself - making up the whole country, you will be pleased to know), were cheering the fact of a veto rather than the blocking of a specific proposal. It was enough to know that, for the first time since Margaret Thatcher secured the budget rebate in 1984, a British prime minister had said "no".

Saying "no" and a veto, of course, are not the same thing, but Hannan - presumably - seeks to argue that they are. But in his muddled piece, he acknowledges that the "colleagues" are to adopt a separate intergovernmental treaty among themselves. He also tells us that it is regarded as "transitional" and that there is a general expectation that, eventually, its provisions will be folded into the main treaty structure.

This is actually no great secret, as this is what the Merkozy were aiming for in the first place, Furthermore, the statement by the euro area heads says exactly that. Thus, we have another of those occasions when the dastardly "colleagues" are saying exactly what they mean – the swines.

In yet another non-revelation, Hannan then informs us that the eurozone countries plan to make full use of EU institutions, which is again no great secret, although The Boy briefly hinted through his underlings that the UK might seek to prevent this. As always though, this came to nothing.

But it is this that is troubling Hannan. In his terms, The Boy blocked changes to the EU treaties, which meant in theory that the "colleagues" would have to operate outside the framework of European Union, and without support from or use of the institutions.

Needless to say, the "colleagues" are ignoring such fine distinction, driving the poor little Hannan into something of a tizzy. "The use of EU structures was not part of David Cameron's veto; it was David Cameron's veto", he complains. "If we were to give in, we would have attracted all the opprobrium for nothing. Nothing".

Alarmingly, to the Hannan, if this is true, the applause from the country – which has apparently been cheering Cameron to the rooftops, "would turn out to be bogus". Sadly, that is the fate of The Boy's fantasy veto.

What, then, must be done? And here Hannan really should know better. "We should take Nicolas Sarkozy and the other federalist governments at their word", he says. "They say that Britain has opted out of European integration, electing to stay only in a free trade area. So be it".

What he says is that the core group should not go on to form their own Fiscal Union (FU!) – but oh dear! What is left outside the core is not and never has been a free trade area. It always has been a customs union, and Hannan should know that.

But, basing his nostrum on his own fantasy, we are led to believe that the way out is for the FU to become the primary vehicle for political integration. He thus asks: "Shouldn't powers pass from the EU to the FU, until the 27-state treaty is left as the simple free trade area of which Sarko speaks?"

At that point, Hannan asserts, it (the rump of the EU) might as well merge with the four EFTA members, and call itself EFTA. The core, eurozone countries would remain within that free-trade area, but would also have their FU (which by now might be Federal Union) alongside it.

Even at this point, the man is gibbering. The trading bloc is the EEA, of which EFTA is part. And all EU members are part of the EEA. The EFTA issue is a complete red herring because, if the FU did as Hannan suggested, the EEA would remain.

No fantasy begets fantasy, and which Cameron is supposed to adopt, a ploy that would raise him to the rank of statesman – and would, incidentally, guarantee him a landslide at the next election, says Hannan.

One is getting to the point here where reality is getting so distant in some quarters that it seems impossible for it to be clawed back. Commentators like Hannan are regressing, retreating into a fantasy world that is increasingly unrecognisable. The only compensation seems to be that his comments are not entirely supportive. By some, Myrtle is being recognised for what he is.

And not least of those is Your Freedom and Ours, who has tended to be more charitable than us, although no longer. Interestingly though Helen points The Sun, which has The Boy doing a "EU-turn" over the treaty, preparing to sign a "new version" of the treaty.

We will not attempt to unravel this muddle (yet). But the MSM have got themselves into a right old mess, and don't seem to know whether they are coming or going.