Friday [5]

There are some core principles we really must consider before proceeding.  In no particular order:

The self-satisfied friend versus the intense dissident ranter

The first chappie I'm thinking of would be a friend of mine, a type if you like, whom I was friendly with in my early blogging days but who has largely shunned me since over wild, unsubstantiated conspiracy theories and equally wild ways of putting them.  We're just not respectable at N.O. dontchaknow, no one sane would be seen anywhere near us.

Now that events are overtaking such worldly-wise chaps, they're in a bit of a pickle because the new events must be shoe-horned into the old, calm world view.  They still believe in global trade, they still check the charts daily, they read all the ravings on this blog and really - only 15% of our sources are worth anything they say, things like Daily Expose we can bin straight away.  James and readers are to be humoured, it's all happened before in history and will happen again.  No chappie urbane and good natured could think otherwise.

There are, though, other people of 'questionable' qualifications according to this natural friend of mine from days of yore - questionable people like Doctors Malone,  Malcolm Kendrick, Mike Yeadon, there's Judy Mikovits and others and as for nutters like Archibishop Vigano - well he's Catholic, isn't he?  People like Ann Barnhardt and him are crazy bible bashing Papists.  So the line of thinking goes.

And thus our urbane, educated, very British chappy is sleepwalking into what's coming. 

You see, there are the known destroyers everyone is agreed upon - the Taliban, Antifa, BLM, those easy to identify and oppose, the Chinese communists, our home grown Momentum, Krankie, people like Straw and Mandelson, Sutherland who's dead, all those at the WEF getting into the spirit of the thing, those at Chatham House, the Round Tablers, Demos, ghastly people such as Harbag and female governors in the States - all those are known-knowns and are gone in the soul. No argument.

The 'carriers' of the disease though are the college kids [cartoon yesterday], the well-meaning left liberals, the LibDem types, wouldn't hurt a fly - they like to quote 'love thy neighbour', neighbours such as fighting age invaders on the coast of Britain every day, now the Afghans - and these fine chappies and chapesses, who might describe themselves as One Nation Conservatives or across the pond - GOP stalwarts such as Romney and McCain, the National Review - not for them is anything from the awful WND to Vox Day.

So the demarcation lines are set, even within our sphere of 'the right', of 'the conservatives'.  We are split due to one simple fact.

There is a Global War for hearts and minds going on, no longer a Cold War

Even between those of us recognising what is happening and realising that Johnson/Gove and the soon to be Puppet Pres Heels-Up are very much in thrall to Pergamon Obama and Moosh - even between us, there is a divide, very much along the lines of Vigano types such as me and those rationalist readers who won't have a bar of any of that claptrap.

There is deep polarisation on every issue, not just shades of opinion. We are at a quite different stage to the old bumbling-along days and you saw that yesterday with Plod getting into enforcement of child vaxxing - with those parents doing it utterly convinced that they are doing right, despite the latest science and that we are criminal monsters for opposing them.  Archbish Vigano refers to Science versus Scientism.  The narrative has sucked a huge number in.

Rationality has gone clear out of any debate.

There is a two-pronged attack - the macro and the micro

The macro is easy to spot - just look at DR's and Steve's material, plus your concerns, readers, the weighty issues of the world we tackle here.

Then there are world issues translated into localised - Julia's posts are very much on such things, Richard Wellings on HS2, Nigel on the boat people, court judgments at micro level.

Then there is a much more insidious attack because it's so subtle and over a much longer time frame - a sapping of the spirit, the loss of ethics. It relies on all the small losses since the 50s, the twisting of whole generations and the deep captcha of 'celebs', turning hem into carriers rather than example setters.  Not only that, I'd bet there'd be readers who'd not buy in the least what I'm about to write, nor are they remotely interested.  

And the worst part is - it's orchestrated. All right, here it is. 

At this very moment now, 11:26 a.m. BST, there is a major game going on downunder - a last ditch attempt by a nobbled Cats team to salvage their place in the finals where they were riding high, not unlike the way the Donald was just prior to the usurpation.  I'm not suggesting any usurpation here and if the other team wins, well done to them.

I'm saying there have been moves behind the scenes, including something involving the Daily Mail. Where the community from Geelong town should be concentrating on the last chance game and the 333rd record game by the skipper, instead, the whole of Australia, thanks to the press, the MSM, is concentrating on something quite different today:

I tried to explain it to a friend overseas, tough ask.

This one will take some explaining.  You know about Geelong, city and team.  Ok, in the golden era, one champ player was Jimmy Bartel.  This clip also shows his wife Nadia at the start [in the stands]:

https://youtu.be/eUMmlLAHEuU

Ok, you get the idea he was a golden boy, also did some modelling.  Best not to go into the lives of footballers but he was one of the cleaner ones by reputation.  There was a celeb wedding.

https://www.realweddings.com.au/rw/blog/nadia-bartel-and-james-bartel-wedding-baie-wines/

They bought a mega property in Geelong but she wanted the big city:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-9074299/Nadia-Bartel-admits-difficult-time-selling-4million-marital-home.html

So it was all glam glam glam.  Suddenly, all the news stories were that he had ratted on his wife with another  woman and the wife was devastated etc.  On national TV, every pundit grilled him.  He said it was private, he privately said that people don’t know the whole story. True.

The whole country was behind the jilted mother of two [at that stage].  I always thought the whole thing was too glam, she’s a ‘fashion designer’ in her own words but what did she actually design?  Still, not my area.  If they were in a happy marriage, three lovely kids, then ok for me.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-9938475/Nadia-Bartels-dignified-response-ex-husband-Jimmy-splits-girlfriend-Lauren-Mand.html

The two females look similar to me.  Now we get close to the end of it.

https://www.thebharatexpressnews.com/jimmy-bartel-breaks-up-with-girlfriend-lauren-mand-as-he-finalizes-divorce-from-ex-nadia-bartel/

If you go down to the bottom of that article, to the right, it shows something about sniffing.

That is what just broke half an hour ago when the subs email came here.  So there, in the Geelong district paper, was a picture of the wife, Nadia, sniffing cocaine at a party, in public.  

A druggy with three kids.

Who knows what the story is, I don’t want to know, I deleted it straight away.  What appalled me was those photos led the front page and it was sent direct to my email, also with an ad inviting me to celebrate gay pride, with a photo of two women hard at it - that and the Daily Mail can be seen by kids, plus their own friends are phoning about their mother.  That’s what is nauseating.

Was Bartel himself into those things?  Who knows?  This Lauren Rand?  Who knows?  The thing is - the net effect when this goes on the whole time, never stops, is one gets jittery about others, esp. those presented as wholesome, esp. among so-called celebs.

The whole of Australia is today looking at that plate of powder handed to Nadia Bartel and her sniffing it.  That’s what is done by the media.  

And the timing of it, that's the main thing.  The Mail admitted the file photo could be months old.  So why release it, syndicated to all news outlets, the very day before the big final?  Are you catching my drift?  What of the team?

He's not a current player, he's retired, yet he's an icon at that place. Just going to check scores near halftime:

Cats 25 ... Giants 16

I notice the media are hard at it at the same time:

Bartel breaks silence over damning video

Nadia Bartel has broken her silence over a video of her snorting a white powder, apologising to health officials and vowing to “make better choices” in future.

And here we have instant polarisation again.  Forget the actual snorting for the moment, think of the fallout.  On one side - the 'weeelll, haven't you ever done something wrong' type and the answer from me is - very much so, yes I have done, even last evening I was having to explain myself, I've been accused of cheating by a youngish female who shall remain nameless, I'm in no position to admonish Nadia Bartel for her ego-driven stupidity.

And as a result of my own troubles last evening, I failed to put the Vigano letter up quickly enough.  Classic cascade effect, hence I slept through until 8:30 or whatever this morning.

What I'm suggesting is that the damage will only be partial and temporary for that woman, ditto for her estranged hubby, the damage will be more significant for the three boys, huge for the Geelong community but the worst damage is far more subtle than that. 

It's damage to the spirit, both personally and in the society. And that brings me right back to Archbishop Vigano.

If people continue to cut corners and not adhere to what were generally accepted societal norms, then a hyena press is going to latch onto any failing whatever and blow it up into a family breaker.  There will be a Sodom and Gomorrah situation where one half of us will be dismayed at all these things, the sheer malevolence of the press as well ... the other half of us will just say go for it, nothing wrong whatever in that.  One side of me says one thing, the other side says the other.

Speaking politically, and remember I'm first and foremost a political animal, not a religious, the damage to the institutions in society should be our core focus right now - that's how the society is falling.  Whether it's the Bartels or the Giggses here or Clarkson and his injunctions - the whole thing is indicative of the last days of Rome.

There must be some sort of code we all agree on - not draconian, not laissez-faire, something fair and reasonable, liveable, and when we agree on it and we fall away, who is going to help us, personally, to stick to our guns when all seems lost? Whence courage and fortitude?  I leave that as the last question for now.

Final result at 13:32 BST:

Cats: 103 ... Giants 68