Sick Of Politics As Usual

After 2016 is over I'll probably turn my back on politics for a while, as has been a lifetime trend of mine, feeling that the glimpses of political light that permeated my antipathy towards world affairs throughout my life were enough to point me away in helpless, self-imposed ignorance.

I'm ready to re-assume that position after 2 years of full engagement on my part. I've been sober in every sense of the word, eschewing fun, comedy and mirth in my life in order that I be primed, and of a serious mind, to understand the complexities of geopolitics.

I craved logic, sound, internally consistent arguments; I've read books and consumed media in the same manner as many others have. I've pontificated and tried to pass myself off as someone in possession of the facts. And like many of you who have waded into the murky waters of the body politic, I'm ready to get out, dry off and lay down for a while. I'm exhausted. Who was I kidding? Who was anyone kidding? All this certitude around us. We haven't got a clue.

Thomas Sowell says "politics is the choice between an endless assortment of bad alternatives", so why do I feel so let down? After all, I wanted Brexit and begrudgingly opted for Trump over Hillary as the lesser of two evils. I knew what I was asking for.

There are no heroes in politics, only villains, either awake or dormently waiting to become arseholes.

There are no perfect scenarios where even a majority-backed decision is implemented in such ways it was desired during conception that it could please that same slim majority.

A friend said to me recently..

"Fair enough. I feel the same to be honest. It's tiring work sorting out the bulllshit from the facts. And it's a kind of activity which loses you friends without winning you any new ones."

I'm tired of feeling the shackles of unspoken tribalism in social situations. I'm tired of my own tacit judgement of other people's choices and arguments. I'm tired of trying to convince my mum I haven't gone mad. People can lose their lives to politics, fighting the good fight all to just lose friends and upset those around them.

It's bollocks. So, fuck you politics. Fuck you mainstream media. To a certain extent, fuck you alternative media. I'm taking a break.

Time for some fun.

Here's a video of political pundits talking about 2016 you probably won't watch. It won't do you much good either way.

Hack Harassment: Just another scheme to sever you from your own good sense in the name of the 'greater good'.

It's so obvious by now that free speech online is being slowly dismantled piece-by-piece (and sold back to us as somehow 'for our own greater good') that denying it seems self-delusional at this point. The promise of shielding us from awful 'hate speech', harassment' and the 'trolls' of the Internet seems on its face a very desirable option, right? 

After all, who wants to hear and read things that are personally offensive or threatening? Well, I do. I like debate. But, for more and more pliable Internet consumers and agenda-driven ideologues, the notion that the Internet can be controlled to weed out the 'undesirables' and purged of all it's ugliness (and complexity) has become the new cause celebre. It seems a small sacrifice for big gains. If only someone would supply this demand.

Just yesterday, the latest multilateral push by a cohort of tech companies to heed consumer unrest was unveiled in the form of 'Hack Harassment'. What is Hack Harassment? Well....

"Hack Harassment is a cooperative initiative among interested companies that want to take a stand against online harassment. While the companies are partners in this initiative, Hack Harassment is not a joint venture or legal partnership. Hack Harassment does not guarantee the world will be free from online harassment, but we hope to bring us all closer to that goal together. If you are interested in joining the initiative, join us to #HackHarassment."


Another white-guilt laden, pro-diversity, anti-free speech, money-burning initiative to promote the virtue of it's architects whilst curtailing the hard-won freedoms of expression intrinsic to Democracy as we know it on the basis of spurious statistics... then.

All you have to do is dig a little deeper to realize that this line of rhetoric is just going to be used to distort the perception of our real best interests again. We all think these people are speaking right at us, caring for us and intuiting our deepest wants and desires. We think government, especially ones found in the freest societies on earth have somehow worked passed the Hobbesian growing pains of old and are now proofed from such vagaries. 'Nineteen Eighty Four' is just a book, right? But, truthfully this is an old bait-and-switch that has surely passed into historical cliché by now, but only to experience a modern resurgence (albeit in another, more modern, form).

We all know and outwardly express the understanding that those in power always want to consolidate their positions any way they can, right? They go too far sometimes. They need shielding from self-interest. Power corrupts (yawn), absolute power etc etc (double-yawn). But, those cliches are there for a reason. We need checks-and-balances and the constitutional division of power as safeguards against naked ambition and corruption, right? These are not radical notions (yet). They are common sense. We have learned our lessons from our History. But, right now, people are sleepwalking blindly into the trap of forgetting them without even the slightest grip of these realities in tow. How are we forgetting these essential tenets?

Think about it: we are living in a post-Snowden/NSA world. A post-Snoopers Charter world. A UN Women anti-online bullying council on so-called 'Cyber Violence' promising 'safe spaces' (if you just hand over the reigns of control to faceless technocratic elites) is the last thing we need. And so is Hack Harassment. Why do we keep buying this bullshit?

These battles are being waged and won/lost right now. They are really scary viewing. And, it's not just that these people are trading off our freedoms in such a Faustian manner, it's also the political impetus that drives them that should worry you.

Look at how the police and media censored telling us what happened in Cologne on NYE. It took 4 days, in a world of 24-hour news cycles to learn of something that happened in full-view of the public, in a major European city centre, with thousands of witnesses, to be reported on with anything approaching broad honesty.

These journalists omitting truth are eschewing journalistic vigour in the name of serving the agenda passed down from the top of the pyramid. But the biggest way that cultural embedded behaviour is controlled is through the threat of censorship. Be it self-censorship, soft, censorship, corporate censorship, it all trickles down from those in power.

Yes, it is Political Correctness at play. Yes, it is 'Progressive Media' bias. Yes, it is 'narrative over facts' thinking, time and time again. But, not only is it enforced by the threat of career-shortening accusation, but, also, within the context of a society that has allowed big tech companies the room to dictate and control what we are and aren't allowed to say online.

Even Reddit was shadow-banning posts talking about Cologne before the story fully broke through. I mean, this isn't even novel stuff. The whole #GamerGate ordeal of 2014/15 was spurred on by these kinds of top-down controls. Discussion on open platforms is being chipped away by moderators. But, who is pulling their strings?

Mark Zuckerberg was recently found with his hand in the cookie jar in September promising Angela Merkel (on a 'hot mic') he would acquiesce to dealing with 'online racism' and 'xenophobic comments' criticizing her woeful policies in dealing with the Syrian refugee crisis. The Internet was awash with justifiable outrage at her misstep in handling the crises. Yet, the German version of Facebook was ready and willing to scrub any dissenting opinion found on their platform from History. The higher purpose reasoning and use of thought-terminating buzz-words was on full display:

“We are committed to working closely with the German government on this important issue,” Facebook spokeswoman Debbie Frost told Bloomberg. “We think the best solutions to dealing with people who make racist and xenophobic comments can be found when service providers, government and civil society all work together to address this common challenge.”

From the Daily Mail:

"Merkel previously pointed to Zuckerberg's firm in relation to the tension and violence.

She told the Rheinische Post earlier this month, 'When people stir up sedition on social networks using their real name, it's not only the state that has to act, but also Facebook as a company should do something against these paroles'."

This isn't 'nothing'. This is a big 'something'. This is the CEO of Facebook undermining free speech with a direct link to political coercion as its basis. You want a smoking gun? Well, this is it.

This seemingly innocuous exchange may seem like small fry. But, given the context it is huge.

You want the Internet to be like shopping in Waitrose don't you? Breezy aisles? No riff-raff? Polite company? There for your convenience alone? Everything is 'good for you' and helps save the environment (to borrow South Parks analogy with Whole Foods)?

Well, congratulations! The most powerful tool against tyranny (and the power to question it) has been entirely sterilized to suit the constrictive preferences of a private agenda. The Internet isn't Marks And Sparks. It isn't Disney Land. It's where ideas live and die. It's the Wild West, as Mister Metokur (formerly Internet Aristocrat) would say. And, it's why we like it. It's why it's the best thing for our Liberal Democracies health.

But, who really controls it? Well, if you can't speak freely, do you think it's you? "But, what if they only take away the speech I have no use for?" "As long as it's someone else's speech, who cares, right?" - Wrong! By pandering to the lowest common denominator of subjective offence, you give government a blank check to include almost anything it subjectively, self-servingly regards as 'transgressive' or from outside the boundaries of legalised speech. You make them unaccountable for their actions by removing every avenue in which to complain or feedback opinion countervailing their wrongdoing.

Ceding all your own autonomy to decide for yourself what does and doesn't constitute 'harassment', 'racism' or even what is best for you, to the entangled self-interests of social media corporations like Google, Apple and Microsoft and government committees in cahoots is tantamount to mass seppuku. But, that's happening. People don't seem to care as long as they have their 'safe space'. This isn't just a metaphor for conformity. It is conformity.

Twitter is censoring. Facebook is censoring. Right now! They may be views you don't agree with. They may be ones you do. But, Voltaire and his philosophies on this issue are not just quotes in memes or RT's any more - they are foundational pillars of our basic freedom. They are in our Democratic DNA. We'd do well to remind ourselves and others just what we lose in prostrating to big companies auctioning convenience for our freedom.

'Hack Harassment' is just the latest one. Whether they know it or not.

Islam: And The Future Of Tolerance

So, I read this in a few sittings over Christmas and thoroughly enjoyed it. If you are not familiar with Sam Harris and Maajid Nawaz, getting acquainted via this small tome wouldn't hurt you in the long run.

Proof that dialectics can move entrenched sides forward if both sides are willing to put aside transient differences and focus on common desires and goals, this book is all about getting smarter and better informed. 

The robust, yet conversational style of questions, rebuttal and raising acquisition of knowledge (especially for non-Muslims) above all other concerns is appealingly effective on the page. Uniquely, placing the more Western reader in the vicarious hands of Sam Harris, playing a kind of curious intellectual seeking a deeper understanding of 'Political Islam' (whilst also interjecting and flagging up any concerns to his teacher - Maajid Nawaz), the book rides along with a sense of being in safe hands. 

Yet, Sam is not backwards about coming forwards and doesn't let anything pass him by unchecked.

Interestingly, I expected Sam might overwhelm Maajid, being that I already have a healthy respect for his work. Yet, one thing that quickly becomes apparent is how much Maajid is Sams intellectual equivalent. This is crucial, of course. Sam Harris and Maajid Nawaz are clearly adept writers and communicators, which only serves to spur the depth to which the mutual knowledge can be gleaned from reading this. Most usefully, the distinctions between 'Cultural Muslims', 'Conservative Muslims', 'Jihadis' and 'Revolutionary Islamists' left even Sam feeling rewarded for his association in talking to Maajid. Maajid clearly knows his stuff.

Although some cultural differences are seemingly insurmountable before reading this book, often framed, polarisingly in the phrase, 'The Clash Of Civilizations', this book explains from a very academic, political and cultural angle, possible pathways in to which there is room to expand and reform Islam to fit within a Pluralistic, Liberal Democracy.

This isn't to say, after reading this that I'm suddenly relaxed about criticising Islam as an umbrella or set of of precepts and ideas. Some texts in the Quran and Hadith are easily abused by competing agendas as examples of either confirming the 'bronze age barbarism',or, used as incitement to recruit by both critics and Islamist extremist groups alike (simultaneously ignoring the more moderate interpretations), yet other verses are still left objectively and intrinsically in need of reform beyond semantic departures from literalism.

These pathways to reform soon reveal a pattern though, that, Islam cannot be solely reformed from within.

Sam says: *"The doors leading out of the prison of scriptural literalism simply do not open from the inside".*

This quote, perhaps, stood out the most indelibly than any other I read in this book. It's well crafted, sure, but it highlights how reformation of Islam cannot be magicked, or gerrymandered out of the raw material in scripture. The scripture is too prescriptive, descriptive and inflexible that, for instance, one could not fashion a whole new, more Liberal religion out of it that somehow allowed the consumption of pork or alcohol, for instance. No amount of internal reshuffling could overcome the mountain of work that is needed to precipitate Islam's own 'Reformation Of The Church', short of an equivalent 'New Testament', one has to imagine.

So, if Islam is to become more complimentary to Liberal Democracy, it has to receive our culture and contradict its own to some greater or lesser extent.

It also hints at how little many political commentators in the West actually know of Islam, in all it's myriad permutations, complexity and historical evolution. I myself, though a self-confessed theological novice, suddenly feel (re) struck by the total lack of nuance the MSM proliferates in talking about Islam. It seems to repeat the mantra 'Islam is a religion of peace' without any real depth of substance behind it, repeating it no matter what horror is on the current agenda.

As a native UK resident and European, a lot of careful and considered decisions need to be made around certain 'hot button topics' over the next few years. The state of our nation, so to speak, the EU and immigration as a bargaining chip with which to sway our membership in said EU, whether to opt out in a Brexit, (the possible eventual collapse of the EU) are all high on that list.

Most of all, how much do we think unfettered cultural change will be tolerated by ourselves as receiving hosts,or, by arriving Islam, ghettoised in huge blocks of diaspora and unable (or unwilling) to integrate into the parent culture? The rise of the Right-Wing in Europe is coming. Any sober projection of the coming decades leaves me worrying how much I myself will be forced to defend my culture and values by the mismanagement of our governing institutions holding us to ransom over our perceived 'racism' and 'bigotry' in the name of 'multiculturalism'.

This book definitely grants a feeling of being better equipped and has sparked an urge in myself to learn more about Islam. The 'Future Of Tolerance' as a hopeful concept doesn't look great though, if I'm honest. Maybe, that's cause to read more of Maajid Nawaz.

Anyway, it's a short and enlightening read. One I fully recommend. Go get it.