Mock the Weak

Lots of propaganda skirmishes joined over the last few days, but who do you believe? They say you can’t hypnotise somebody who doesn’t want to go under and it is much the same with persuasion; entrenched views are harder to shift than shit on a blanket. 

Some cultures need to be mocked out of existence - far left, far right, faddish and marginal movements and any religion intolerant enough to create people like Azhar Ahmed. But should this have ever got to court? Far better, surely, to let him say his stuff, point out his gullibility and ignorance, then point and laugh from your loftier vantage point… the British way. George Galloway was on LBC talking about freedom of speech and the limiting of such rights. But, George, where do you set those limits? 

A survey on attitudes to welfare reveals that those in work are feeling the strain of paying for those out of work, but at the same time there is an upwelling of feeling against the Atos witch-hunts, with plenty of stories of deplorable treatment at their assessment centres. Who do you believe? It wouldn't be the first time that special interest groups had rallied their supporters to flood the newspapers and radio phone-ins with sob stories. In life as in warfare we appear to have arrived at a point where no casualties are acceptable and to say otherwise is denounced as cruel. 

Talking of war, I was alerted recently to an apparently pernicious EU plot to brainwash tender young minds into becoming Euro-sheep. 

And so it goes. We are bombarded daily with a cacophony of propaganda from all the party machines with varying degrees of atrocity being forecast as the result of dissent. This is (sadly) a good thing because few people will be dissuaded from their chosen course and the UK will remain a mishmash of diverse opinion. It’s also (sadly) disastrous, because few people will be dissuaded from their chosen course, etc. 

How I long for the fictional good old days of the nineteen-sixties when, as amply demonstrated in psychological cold-war claptrap such as The Avengers (Diana Rigg could persuade me of anything!) whole audiences could be hypnotised and programmed by watching spinning discs and a tone sent over the phone could scramble an assassin before you could say 'Manchurian'. 

Whatever she said...

So, what ‘truth’ would you go for? Time to grow up, Britain and accept the cold reality that there is no free ride in life, that there is no magic sky pixie and that we each must triumph by our own endeavours. After all, even Ed Miliband appears to have embraced the notion that this doesn’t necessarily make you evil. 

Or do you want to carry on believing there is a limitless pot to satisfy every need, that every life has equal possibilities, that every soul is sacred and that we will all live happily ever after in a fluffy, happy wonderland?

Fact or fairy story; you choose.