Power in the Darkness

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This week we saw the biggest benefit scrounging family in the land have another baby, a huge % of the population revealed as morons, a massive Al Qaida breakout, and FINALLY conclusive proof of God’s existence.

So, lots of BIG news.

But if you find your self just undermined at a fundamental psychological level by the grovelling insipid wrap-around deference of celebrity feudalism, remember these truths:

a) You are not alone. Most people know this is just shit. As Gore Vidal put it:”The mass media attempts to create environments and attitudes which make dissent look futile and pointless don’t actually work.”

b) Most people know the reality is that the British State is one of the most secretive, centralised and undemocratic in existence. We are ruled by an unelected hereditary monarch, our land ownership is feudal, our second chamber is unelected and our executive has unlimited powers with a largely passive powerless and ceremonial House of Commons, in which politicians with very little difference between them shout at each other in a weekly pantomime.

Everybody kind of knows this.

c) Despite it all we have a chance to change things and if you think that a Yes vote won’t utterly shake up  the British State your not paying attention.

Living through this revived obsession with the monarchy and watching it being further embedded into British society is just an intolerable and wrong way to operate. As Seamus Milne has written:

As things now stand, Britain (along with 15 other former island colonies and white settler states) has now chosen its next three heads of state – or rather, they have been selected by accident of aristocratic birth. The descendants of warlords, robber barons, invaders and German princelings – so long as they aren’t Catholics – have automatic pride of place at the pinnacle of Britain’s constitution.

Far from uniting the country, the monarchy’s role is seen as illegitimate and offensive by millions of its citizens, and entrenches hereditary privilege at the heart of public life. While British governments preach democracy around the world, they preside over an undemocratic system at home with an unelected head of state and an appointed second chamber at the core of it.

I wish the new wee baby all the best but it represents a future that I  and hundreds of thousands of people (in England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland) don’t want anything to do with.

Comments (20)

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  1. Fay Kennedy says:

    It’s an insult to all the poor children who will never even have the basics for a decent life. And here in Oz the grovelling is on a level I’ve never seen before. The media should be sued for this abuse they are inflicting and my poor old dad a WW11 veteran is not dealing with it very well at all.

  2. Albalha says:

    Calling people, who fall for the well orchestrated hype, morons, seems rather harsh.

    I don’t care one iota and, in the event of a YES vote, look forward to a future Republic of Scotland but there are many YES voters, like my mum’s generation, who can’t see past the Royals. Of course after the current incumbent is no more even that group will have a change of heart, hopefully.

    But to get over the line next year we’ll need folk who support that family to vote YES.

    1. balgayboy says:

      I disagree, also not sure which generation your mum is in and with all due respect, the article is spot on. This is the 21st century and the people of this world including the people of Scotland are moving on from the accepted cringing adoration or kowtowing to false or elitism fabricated supreme beings by which the ordinary people have been deliberately forced fed by the establishment media and the state for centuries. Times are changing and the monarchy, media and the BBC will need to get onboard. There are to many other really important issues to address rather than flag waving the birth of an silver spoon offspring paid for by the poor of this country.

    2. bellacaledonia says:

      I know what you mean, but disagree, people need to take responsibility for their own views

      1. balgayboy says:

        Understand, and was not making a personal point at Albalha, the point I was trying to make was that the days of “For King or Queen” we will give our lives are over, regardless of what the establishment and media continue to spew, wether in military, sport or public life. None of it is genuine and they do not give a monkey’s about whoever among the plebs are sacrificing whatever in their name.

      2. Albalha says:

        I’m not a fan of calling anyone a moron, other than Gordon I suppose.

        And BalgayBoy my mum is circa 80, will be voting YES but still likes the Queen.

        If it’s all so last century why is the SNP so clear about saying they’ll retain the monarchy? Votes, surely and that was my point.

        I don’t really care how we get over the line we just need to get over it and then the real discussions can take place.

        And BC, S Milne, a Winchester/Oxbridge educated son of former BBC DG is okay if he says the right things?

      3. Albalha says:

        BalgayBoy I think BC was replying to me and fwiw I didn’t take your comment at all personally. It seems the replies build up under each other.

  3. George Gunn says:

    The gloss of the monarchy will fade rapidly when Prince Charles sits on the throne. I predict Charless III will become more like George III with the accumulative habits of The Mob,

  4. Your so-called “biggest benefit scrounging family” are actually employees of the state, paid to open things, do “good deeds” for charity and generally have every aspect of their lives pre-planned and open to public scrutiny (even if it tends to verge on sycophantic admiration, at least in some parts of the population). Somewhat bizarre, I know, but it could be worse.

  5. Douglas says:

    Paul, how could it be worse in a modern democracy?

    a) You didn’t vote for them.
    b) You can’t eject them from office.
    c) They are vastly overpaid compared to other monarchs.
    d) They meddle in politics and we don’t know the details, as often as on a weekly basis.
    e) They are exempt from inheritance tax.
    f) They own vast amounts of Scottish land through their trust funds, which is unheard of among employees of the state, to use your quaint phrase. I’d say Mike Small’s is much more accurate.
    g) They personify the snobbery and elitism of a political culture locked in a time warp and the class ridden society we live in. They are the symbol of it.
    h) They enfeeble the minds of the nation thanks to the BBC and the brainless acolytes of the mainstream press, they divert attention from important things such as, for example why men born in parts of Glasgow have a life expectancy under 60 and why Britain is one of the most unequal countries in the world.

    And don’t give me the toursim /charity claptrap. People who do charity work don’t get paid vast amounts of money for it, that’s the whole point of charity work.

    Viva la Republica!!!

  6. bellacaledonia says:

    Seamus Milne, as is usually the way is very good on the last few days:

    “As in the case of every other royal event, the birth of a son to the heir but one to the throne has been reported in tones that wouldn’t be out of place in a one party state. Newsreaders adopt regulation rictus grins. The BBC’s flagship Today programme held a debate to mark the event between two royalists who fell over each other to laud the “stability”, continuity” and “mystery” of the House of Windsor. The press is full of talk of “fairytales” and a “joyful nation”.

    But ignoring it leaves a festering anti-democratic dynasticism at the heart of our political system. As things now stand, Britain (along with 15 other former island colonies and white settler states) has now chosen its next three heads of state – or rather, they have been selected by accident of aristocratic birth. The descendants of warlords, robber barons, invaders and German princelings – so long as they aren’t Catholics – have automatic pride of place at the pinnacle of Britain’s constitution.

    Far from uniting the country, the monarchy’s role is seen as illegitimate and offensive by millions of its citizens, and entrenches hereditary privilege at the heart of public life. While British governments preach democracy around the world, they preside over an undemocratic system at home with an unelected head of state and an appointed second chamber at the core of it.

    Meanwhile celebrity culture and a relentless public relations machine have given a new lease of life to a dysfunctional family institution, as the X Factor meets the pre-modern. But instead of rising above class as a symbol of the nation, as its champions protest, the monarchy embodies social inequality at birth and fosters a phonily apolitical conservatism.

    If the royal family were simply the decorative constitutional adornment its supporters claim, punctuating the lives of grateful subjects with pageantry and street parties, its deferential culture and invented traditions might be less corrosive. But contrary to what is routinely insisted, the monarchy retains significant unaccountable powers and influence. In extreme circumstances, they could still be decisive.

    Several key crown prerogative powers, exercised by ministers without reference to parliament on behalf of the monarchy, have now been put on a statutory footing. But the monarch retains the right to appoint the prime minister and dissolve parliament. By convention, these powers are only exercised on the advice of government or party leaders. But it’s not impossible to imagine, as constitutional experts concede, such conventions being overridden in a social and political crisis – for instance where parties were fracturing and alternative parliamentary majorities could be formed.

    The British establishment are past masters at such constitutional sleights of hand – and the judges, police and armed forces pledge allegiance to the Crown, not parliament. The left-leaning Australian Labor leader Gough Whitlam was infamously sacked by the Queen’s representative, the governor-general, in 1975. Less dramatically the Queen in effect chose Harold Macmillan as prime minister over Rab Butler in the late 1950s – and then Alec Douglas-Home over Butler in 1963.

    More significant in current circumstances is the monarchy’s continual covert influence on government, from the Queen’s weekly audiences with the prime minister and Prince Charles’s avowed “meddling” to lesser known arm’s-length interventions.

    This month the high court rejected an attempt by the Guardian to force the publication of Charles’s “particularly frank” letters to ministers which they feared would “forfeit his position of political neutrality”. The evidence from the controversy around London’s Chelsea barracks site development to the tax treatment of the Crown and Duchy of Lancaster estates suggests such interventions are often effective.

  7. balgayboy says:

    Yes, it could be a lot worse, try being one of the UK’s unfortunate’s who are born into poverty with no pre-planned opportunity to better themselves in one the world’s richest country’s which is also recognised as the world’s 4th most unequal country for distribution of wealth?
    Nothing bizarre about it, it’s just an organised unequal society decided by the rich establishment for centuries and blindly accepted by idiotic flag waving morons who have no realisation or are too lazy to empower themselves with the fact that they are capable to think and decide without establishment & media direction.
    https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2013/05/30/distribution-of-wealth-in-the-4th-most-unequal-country-in-the-world/

  8. Voting Yes to independence is greatest honour I can be given as a Scot. Being part of saving all the people of the UK by breaking the back of an 800 year system that has forgotten their objective – to serve – not be served as they believe. Well done for raising awareness of how those power hungry red, white and blue meanies slither their way into the house of chumps. Get in Scotland!

  9. atypicalscot says:

    Testing, testing, come back post, come back.

  10. Rod Mac says:

    I truly believe that George will never become King of Scots , indeed I doubt there will be a William of Scots.
    Post Independence there will be a completely new attitude and feel in Scotland.
    The passing of HM Queen (a wonderful lady) will I believe be a watershed in the Independent Scotland.
    I think at that moment the Republican Movement in Scotland will take hold.
    There will of course be resistance by RUK sympathisers and Old Unionists.
    shot of Westminster ,the House of Lords and Royal baubles I feel will help the natural progression to a Scottish Republic.

  11. Fay Kennedy says:

    Why do people call this woman the Queen a wonderful lady? I must be missing something for I just don’t get it. The delusions that people persist with just about drives me to despair until I recall all the great folk not just Scots that have given so much to the human race. I just hope even though I wonder if that is a waste that the Scottish people see through the smoke and mirrors and vote a resounding Yes although that probably shows how deluded I am.

  12. pfburke says:

    @Rod Mac, “The passing of HM Queen (a wonderful lady)”
    Ah ha! Ha! Ha! No doubt that was in Diana’s mind when she hit the wall. How grotesque is it that her son, who must, at least be somewhat curious about her self prophesied demise should be so eager to take up the same stained reigns? Is he so certain that his wife will meet with Royal approval? I wouldn’t stake mine on it, and mine’s not worth shit!

  13. pfburke says:

    “If there is any anger, it is well-hidden in the words of a politically astute young man who is clearly determined not to risk his own dynastic ambitions. Blood, it would seem, is not always thicker than water.”
    How fortunate! I take this from, Mary Queen of Scots, an article in this self same publication referring to James VI.
    I must say, by my casual reading of it, this is a curious publication, on one hand keen to take up the cudgel of revolution but on the other, afraid of wielding it.
    Might I advise the editors, on this peculiar fence, sitting on it will just give you a sore arse.

  14. pfburke says:

    That was meant to be, ‘My life,’ I wouldn’t stake on it and not read as, ‘My wife’…who’s just skelped ma lug…Sorry doll, it’s that cheap bevy an’ at. See that asda n’at!

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