Monday, January 19, 2009

[the abyss] inexorably down or rising above it


Whilst you might be on the edge of your seat awaiting the latest news of Margaret Beckett, Geoff Hoon or Lembit Opik, whilst Hazel Blears' latest missal or news of Jonathan Ross and Jade Goody might fill the gap in your day, it would seem it does not take centre stage in the minds of maybe a few million people across the UK.

These are the ones hanging over an abyss or who've already fallen into it. These are the ones about to be redundant or the unemployed, the drug addict on the street moving slowly downwards to that feral state I've seen before in a former life [not me but I was closeby], the bin pickers and corridor finders at night, the fallen - those who once occupied positions of trust and respect and who somehow lost all, those who've lost what they thought only other people lose.

These are the people needing some sort of break, some sort of hope but instead see signs on buses telling them there is no G-d and to abandon all hope.

Why so dark today? These are the days where the ship has left the spaceport and finds itself out there once again hovering over the abyss, where one systems glitch will see it spiralling down but this time without a safety net. This is reality TV.

Confession time - yes, I've been watching this series from the early 2000s called Andromeda, not the greatest series ever but sufficiently concerned with universal themes to make it morish. In researching it, its characters and actors, the same questions were asked by many - if it's not all that great as a show, then why am I still watching episode after episode?

Off topic for a moment, how could I be watching this if I have a house to shift, job interviews to attend? The answer is that if you don't take breaks, you go mad.

Back on topic. The abyss was a good name for the force of darkness from a parallel universe, a force which sucked you down a black hole which you could see no end to, a force the afficianados said [and backed up by the words of JC in the gospels] that you shouldn't mess with or even mention by name.

In the series, it was a force which was all watchful, which found its way in through little fissures in relations between people, which explored cracks in the fabric of life systems and always stressed the gloomy side, rather than the hopeful. It was concerned with death and destruction and somehow labelled this noble and romantic, as if the despair and sadness were a fine thing to inure you against hope. Black was white and white was black.

Hope was its enemy.

It got into the commonwealth and corrupted the politicians so that they even turned on their former heroes, incarcerated and tortured them. It turned people's minds so that former allies were now enemies, consumed by personal ambition and indifference to others. Whatever had been built up, whatever had been achieved after long struggle, it was perverted and corrupted and it always sought people in key positions to do that to.

You could excise it from the brain of a subject [exorcise?] but it would find another host to occupy. Where, in earlier series of the show, it was referred to obliquely, now the gloves were off and it was referred to openly as possession and the struggle, which had previously been between different worlds, different peoples, good and bad, where it had once been a secular, temporal matter, now the chaos was revealed to have had a guiding hand deep in the soul of people, on a one to one basis and the greatest joke was that people knew and yet didn't know they were even possessed.

Immediately I think here, in today's world, of the millions who are slaves to their credit cards.

The abyss seeks to kill or neutralize the whistleblowers; the naive and not so naive seekers of truth are welcomed by pretty faces, with smiles, who appear to be onside at first but who slowly reveal another agenda and in whom the paucity of good values and strange responses to mini-crises should be a warning sign for the perceptive but the perceptive can't get anyone to listen to them.

Through the series, two people on opposite sides of the galaxy might be following different agendas - one a tyrant consolidating power, another a girl who had fallen to the unforgiving street of feral once-humans but eventually, it's seen that the same force had permeated its way into their brains. Security forces who seem to be targetting the wrong people - ditto.

In the second last episode I saw, the starship captain was trapped on a derelict craft, headed towards a black hole and with him is a religious man who's now lost the way. The latter is full of doom and gloom and asks the captain what his greatest fears are, to which the captain snaps: "Those are negative thoughts. they're not going to help us out of this hole."

He gets out and others who were looking for him find him, [neither could have done it alone] ... but in the very next episode, one of the crew is infected by the abyss and nearly costs everyone's life.

And so it goes on and on ... into the starry blackness of the future. There is hope, despite appearances, but it depends whom you trust.

Off topic - I'm moving today and have an interview tomorrow and thus will be temporarily offline. Have a successful couple of days. Try this post.

16 comments:

  1. Good luck with your move, James. I’m going to post this in a couple of places in the hope you’ll see it.

    From yours of yesterday
    “It's as well to look yet again at the elite's manifesto:
    1) Abolition of all ordered governments
    2) Abolition of private property
    3) Abolition of inheritance
    4) Abolition of patriotism
    5) Abolition of the family
    6) Abolition of religion
    7) Creation of a world government

    Marriage and the family

    Pornography, the gay mafia, feminism and the predictable male backlash, along with the tame reconstructed male, domestic violence which is never explored for its true antecedents, the rise of the unsocialized young male and now female, the dumbing down of education, agendas of destructive organizations like planned parenthood and the detested CSA, the controlled MSM, a new generation which knows nothing of ordered society - all contribute to the destruction of the family unit and marriage as its binding glue.”


    It’s one of the great fun things about t’interweb to meet like-minded people, and as our posts show, we tend to agree on lots of stuff, you and I. but then, so do a lot of others, it seems.

    To put it crudely (hey, it works for me), when I read this particular post I nearly arrived.

    It also crystallized something I’ve been thinking about lately.

    Now, here’s the thing. I witter on in my own sweet way about the culture wars, taking my inspiration from House of Dumb, ambush Predator, Ranting Stan, Unenlightened Commentary, UK commentators, Archbishop Cranmer, NO itself, and the like.

    Western civilisation is down 4-1 and it’s nearly full time.

    A Gramscian Marxist is about to be inaugurated President of the United States with a torrent of media approval and with the full cultural anointment of Hollywood; the Manchurian Candidate, originally filmed as a satire of Red-baiting in the US but which also pointed out that the Communist world was indeed a foul, manipulative, and imperialist place, has been remade with the evil corporations rather than communists as the manipulative web-masters; and the Leader of the Conservative Party is not planning to cut taxes to help cure the oncoming socialist-created depression.

    (Pause to adjust jaunty angle of Bacofoil bonnet, kiss piece of True Cross, touch Enoch’s collected speeches.)

    We freedom-lovers and culture-warriors are divided. There are at least 2 1/2 freedom-loving parties of the Right intending to put up Westminster candidates against each other. The good guys in the Liberal Democrats are pretty much imprisoned by being mixed in amongst all those communitaire illiberal non-democrats, and as for the torch of freedom being upheld by patriotic Labour supporters…Well, they are out there alright, by the busload; look at Harry’s Place or, I’m guessing Cherry Pie(? sorry if I’ve read you wrongly Cherie), Steven Pollard and the rest. But mostly, such people seem to be huddled, spiritually, at Frank Field’s lighthouse whilst the Harmans and Smiths and Darlings rule the roost.

    …And then there are the hundreds of thousands of people out there who comment on the BBC CIF and Daily Mail blogs with varying chances of being published.
    Some of these may occasionally write to their MP ( -’s secretary/assistant who may or may not pass the odd letter on, or do a digest of the day’s/week’s mail, depending on just how dedicated and professional the MP is) but the MPs look at the media and other politicians’ blogs perhaps more than they pay attention to us; the poor dumb schmucks who provide their daily swill.

    So the statist Left, the militant atheists and class warriors, the Gaian fanatics, the family-haters and cultural relativists have a pretty clear run at it.

    When a proposed and much-needed road finally gets planning permission, it’s the antis who do the demonstrations, who contact the media and who are interviewed at length. If a freedom type or traditional Labour person gets interviewed, then the journalists will already have been extensively briefed by the wreckers’ incoming phone calls, emails, information packs and, of course, they’ll know where to find their Greenpeace/Marie Stopes/Amnesty/CND/Liberty website.

    Our side doesn’t get much of a look-in in the local papers, radio station phone-ins and websites because our side are off doing jobs and are already out of the information loop about local and national issues not highlighted by their own favoured information sources. There’s no single go-to place for news about vindictive bin-men and unwelcome housing developments and high local taxation, and even where such things are posted, they don’t usually link to or provide information about the national bodies and campaigning groups which are interested in such issues.

    When an MP opens his mail digest – if he gets one – he will be impressed by the high numbers, quality and clarity of the Left’s demands that he follows their viewpoint. Even if he is highly ideologically educated and resistant to Left-wing propaganda, he still wants to be re-elected, and if he gets a diet of this every day he’s going to at least consider a course change closer to port.

    And what are all those unaffiliated, floating voters; our silent majority, our moral majority to do? Who promotes their concerns to local, regional and national media?
    Where do they get the encouragement to phone councillors (whose phone numbers are where, exactly and what are their names?)
    Where can they find information packs and existing local pressure groups so they don’t needlessly duplicated effort?
    Where do churchgoers who would never, in a million years, consider themselves to be political, let alone culture warriors or Tories [heaven forfend!] or libertarians [the paedo drug-users, right?] find the people and the resources to oppose LEAs’ gay rights or other sex education indoctrination?
    Where does the Starbucks employee get to meet the rabbi when they’ve finished sweeping up the broken glass and how do they get to learn about the Zion chapel’s vandalism? Who’s going to join the dots for them – where would they even see the dots? Remember, a lot of these people are unlikely to meet each other and would normally run a mile if obliged to read a specialist website which is known to be contaminated by the dreaded Tory name, or the unforgivable ‘Right-wing.’
    Who will make up the numbers in the media wars?
    How will they ever realise that their own personal interests are a part of a shared struggle [same cultural enemies in charge of their nightmares and ours] and team up for mutual support – we’ll support your family-friendly housing development if you call Radio Castletown about the kerb-crawling down by the old railway sheds. Together we’ll team up and support the copper who’s in trouble for investigating whether those schoolgirls are going off to be married in the middle of term.

    Where’s the go-to source for information for the good guys?

    How do we, the somewhat aware, do what American conservatives and patriots of both of their main parties did from the 1950s onwards to build campaigns that would one day coalesce with Moral Majority, national security buffs and fiscal conservatives to create the Reagan coalition?

    We have so much knowledge and talent out there on our side; I don’t think we’re even a minority in our own land, but we need to get the people together because what with one thing and another, considering what the Left has been doing to us for decades, the majority of our countrymen have developed a defective gag reflex.

    The comments on your site and mine from in response to “Why We Blog” and at NO “[freedom] twilight's last blogging” have somewhat clarified my thoughts on this.

    The good news is that politics is the League, not a knockout cup competition.

    Today Devil’s Kitchen proposed a specialist version of my idea – a bogus charity site to identify and expose the insiders’ quangocrats. Take a look when you’ve moved if you like. It’s very good.

    http://fakecharities.org/


    I’m thinking of a site where people can post information about local campaigns in a readily accessible form, by town, county, or region, or by theme – womens’ rights and safety and the right to life [nice trick if you can combine the two!], justice, the welfare state benefits aristocracy, taxation, Euro-serfdom, against anti-Semitism, and so on – and about local, national or international issues that the other side are promoting.

    This should gather together the resources; campaign groups, contact details for potential listeners or publishers in the media and their audiences and readerships, plus MPs, MEPs, councillors and other decision-makers so that people can at least put it all together and put pressure on the Them to at least hear about and maybe even consider the interests of Us.

    I don’t yet know how or even whether to resolve the obvious potential problems of those who value freedom more than some other valuable thing like national security on each particular issue; libertarian versus wider conservative concerns. Perhaps it would be a good idea just post the lot and let readers’ consciences sort them out. Freedom, and all that.

    It should be non-partisan – this is our shared civilisation we need to protect; not just some Tory private estate. The Atlantic seabed is littered with merchant and RN ships enclosing the skeletons of sailors from all political persuasion who thought that Britain and the West worth fighting for.

    Call it something like “national and local citizenship information” and let battle commence.

    Any takers?

    Better yet, any givers?

    ReplyDelete
  2. North Guy,
    That's a fabulous idea and one I would support wholeheartedly.

    Your proposals are what the blogosphere should be about!

    James,
    Don't be away for too long.Good luck with the move.

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  3. I tell you one thing - I know a good blogger when I see one.

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  4. Well, thank you James ! I am most flattered.:)

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  5. *Just kidding, North Guy.
    Your comment blew me away btw.
    I hope that you really will do this!

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  6. Thank you both for the encouragement.

    Bonne voyage, James. Don't do your back in carrying furniture up stairs. It's murder, take it from me.

    I mean to try - if I can get some help from others to do some of the work, and if I can find a way to escape my employers finding out what I'm doing.

    I'm only a former untertechie too, so suggestions, offers to post, ideas to design, register, optimise, market, etc would be very welcome.

    BTW : Does
    "Citizens and Neighbours" sound better?

    www.can.org.uk?

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  7. Janes admit it: Yo find Andromeda complling viewing because Lexa Doig who plays Adndromeda is hot!

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  8. "Lexa Doig who plays Andromeda is hot!"

    Why yes, she surely is. I looked the series up out of idle curiosity - you know, nothing much happening in the news today: America's looking fine; the Middle East is fully at peace; the European Union is rich and getting richer; the Conservatives are at their highest peak of moral and intellectual strength and looking such a good option to elect after Mister Brown's put the finishing touches to perfecting our prosperous economy. I was very happy with life and planning a trip to London to thank all those clever people for their efforts on our behalf.

    And so I looked her up on Wikipedia and imdb.com and Lexa Doig is indeed very hot. So hot in fact that I dropped the range finder into my cartridge case.
    Bother.

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  9. NNW - Love the quote 2 1/2 freedom-loving parties of the Right, it is so true ;-) My friends and I have lots of chuckles about that :-)

    I am going to leave you wondering if you have read me right on my political stance, it is more fun ;-)

    I can certainly give you lots of tips on campaigning, talking to the media, engaging with the public and getting your message heard. In my experience the media always want both points of view. But if one side has told the truth, the other side will decline to comment...

    The campaigns I have been involved in are supported by both left, right and middle thinkers.

    I think you have proposed a wonderful idea, and I may be able to help you move it forward.

    I can share my experiences with campaigning and getting thoughts noticed on the internet.

    ReplyDelete
  10. CherryPie :

    Thank you.

    I mean to take you up on your kind offer of advice once some techies can persuade me that the Department of Hurt and Awful Nuisances (for which I work), won't find me out and arm me with the world's worst pistol.

    Till then, I'll be loading up other ammo.

    ...and of course try guessing which side of the oven you bake...

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  11. جبهة التهييس الشعبية

    European Jews did not send thousands of rockets onto peaceful Germany for years.

    European Jews did not take bombs into German weddings or dance halls or restaurants.

    They did not call for the Germans to be destroyed.

    They did not outnumber and surround the Germans by hundreds of millions.

    Nazis put millions of Jews into gas chambers or machine-gunned them and threw them into mass graves.

    Israel has occasionally assassinated actual terrorists and has bombed where those terrorists live and work in the civilian areas of Lebanon and Gaza which is where the terrorists cower.

    There is no Israeli holocaust of 'Palestinians' and you are an anti-Semitic liar to suggest it.
    So it's back to the moral pigsty for you,
    جبهة التهييس الشعبية ,

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  12. Interesting James -- but are the people ready for what is coming. I fear not -- your abyss could easily take over. Hope comes in many packages -- and not always ones we like.

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  13. I agree Rob, hope comes in many packages and we should recognise it and hold on to it!

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  14. Thank you all.

    Not Lexa Doig but Laura Bertram with the sunny disposition, truth be told. :)

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  15. Ah, Laura Bertram: she of the firm, capable Canadian thighs, eyes like limpid pools and a mouth you could lose yourself in.

    ReplyDelete

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