In the Spectator, Heli-Liis Võrno draws parallels between her upbringing in Soviet-era Estonia and contemporary British society, noting that Britain is beginning to evoke memories of the system she thought she had left behind for good. Here’s an excerpt:
When the Soviet system fell in my native Estonia I was 17 years old. I’d spent the entirety of those years mastering the main rule for surviving the USSR: you needed two separate identities. One was for home and those you trusted, the other for public places: We knew that in front of outsiders or certain relatives, you simply didn’t speak about some topics. If you followed the rules and kept the two identities apart, you could survive and even prosper. But if you mixed the two worlds up, woe betide you. …
I came to U.K. in 2011 after a decade in Asia, fully confident I was entering another free society. I could, within reason, say whatever I wanted to whomever I wanted. Holding different opinions, post-Soviet, from someone else hadn’t been a problem: We’d argue and end with compromise or simply agree to disagree.
Yet increasingly, Britain has started to remind me of the system I thought I’d left behind forever. Of course, it isn’t called communism this time, but various names like ‘Diversity’, ‘Equality’, ‘Inclusion’, ‘Multiculturalism’. Just like communism, it takes the ideals of the brotherhood of man but then adds on others from Western individualist tradition – LGBTQ rights, open borders, MeToo (a full pantheon is getting ever more complex, potentially wrong-footing you at every turn). Like communism, it presents many ideals which, on the face of it, are hard to disagree with: Equality of the sexes and of different races, for example – and then constructs a kind of secular religion out of them. …
Just as in the USSR, there is the issue with language and the reality it hides. ‘Democracy’ in the USSR was often the obligation to vote for one single candidate chosen for you by the Party. ‘Rule of the Proletariat’ meant rule by a small group of high-ranking Party workers. Likewise, in the Newspeak of the West, ‘inclusivity’ means making sure anyone who disagrees is not included. ‘Diversity’ spells a deadening uniformity of thought. And ‘equality’ frequently means shamelessly privileging one group over another.
Worth reading in full.
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The scarier number are the ones that still believe a word that comes out of the Establishment. I think that is probably the more naive of the two groups. Can she not see it with her own eyes, or is it okay because ‘alt-right’, ‘incels’ etc etc…
Couldn’t agree more. Anyone who doesn’t now look at what TPTB/msm tell us and then believe the exact opposite is a massive, naive pillock. And anyone who can’t tell a malicious hit-piece when they see it is an abject idiot. You don’t even need to be a RB fan here to see what this is about and that the whole thing has more holes in it than a Leerdammer factory.
Totally agree. On Twitter,. I responded to Sam Leith’s “proud” posting of his mocking article:
“You could conclude .. that the MSM really is all in it together, and are working to suppress the truth-telling enemies of the establishment.”
You mock this possibility despite the MSM’s role in the reporting of Jan 6 and in relation to Covid lockdowns and vaccines.
It’s almost like the “What have the Romans ever done for us?” scene from Monty Python’s Life of Brian. “Apart from Jan 6, lockdowns, vaccines, climate change, Ukraine … when has the MSM all acted together to suppress the truth?”
So – we’re supposed to believe the paper-thin and legally questionable smears put forward by women who only decided to make public their concerns after they were approached by media outlets with clearly defined paymasters and agendas, rather than going to the police? Against a famous chap who has made no secret of his previous sexual proclivities and addiction but who has in recent years, gone against those very agendas those media outlets seek to defend? OK, will do. /sarc
My thoughts exactly ! Crucify RB but ignore the Elephant in The Room !!… Even if he has been involved in sexual antics which I’m sure have been exaggerated ! the Covid Farce & Jabs Trump all !! 🤯
Very interesting that this article is very much in line with a similar one yesterday from Telegraph reporter Guy Kelly…
….both of them mange to get all the ‘key words’ in there…far right, the Matrix, Lizards, Paedos, BigPharma etc….while at the same time mentioning Trump, Andrew Tate, Lawrence Fox, Dan Wooton, Jordan Peterson, Alex Jones..etc
You know..all the ‘far right loons’…..who they necessarily have to bunch together with Brand to show how they are all tarred with the same ‘conspiracy theory’ brush by association….and therefore bad….
“If nothing the mainstream media says can be trusted by virtue of its being the mainstream media (and serving as one the agenda of the World Economic Forum, or the paedo-lizards, or Big Pharma, or the Neoliberal Establishment, or the Postmodern Marxist Deep State, or what have you), you are adrift in an entirely post-truth environment. You don’t know more than the ‘sheeple’ who watch the news and read newspapers: you know less. You’ll pick your guru, ‘do your own research’ down a YouTube rabbit-hole algorithmically serving you ever more conspiratorial content, and you’ll lose touch with the boring, fastidious, fact-based-and-needing-to-be-careful-not-to-be-sued work of professional reporters that might help you back to reality.”
(Super-fuc***g LOL..there’s someone who knows his lying, misinforming agenda-driven days are coming to an end!!)
So don’t question, don’t do your own research..trust us, we are telling you the one and only truth…LOL..and then they wonder why the MSM are dying on their feet….??
It used to be entirely mainstream to speculate about Murdoch’s influence on British politics. Was there hard evidence? No. But it wasn’t called a conspiracy theory. Why? Because the right kind of people were doing the speculating, not the “ordinary people” that Leith appears to distrust.
How about the ‘cynical nihilism’ of Russell Brand’s hasty would-be executioners?’ It’s funny because the upshot of Russell Brand’s videos is to tell people to question everything. Find out for ourselves what’s going on. People actually watching Russell Brand’s shows know he doesn’t tell you what to think.
Essentially, the mainstream press – en masse – have accused Brand of numerous dreadful offences, but prejudiced any possibility of a fair trial. So the police will investigate, but any attempt to prosecute will be chucked out on the grounds that a balanced view is impossible. So Brand will stand accused in a legal vacuum, treated as guilty, unable to have his day in court unless he bankrupts himself taking on the entire media establishment. The next step is to go after people who support him: the ‘alt-right’, which is a smear, the ‘far right’, which now a catch-all for anyone to the right of Ken Livingstone, and any commentators who might speak up for him on conservative sites – Ben Shapiro, for instance.
A few years back, a lesser-known commentator called Stefan Molyneaux had this sort of cancellation happen. He runs a small, one-man philosophy discussion channel called Freedomain. It was heavily based on anti-postmodern, pro-Enlightenment thinking, belief in objective reality and the like. Molyneaux was friendly with the likes of Nathaniel Branden – arguably the ‘father’ of Objectivism, if Ayn Rand was the ‘mother.’ Branden effectively created the self-help industry, but there was far more intellectual depth to his work than most of the modern gurus.
The left went after Molyneaux. Initially, using the left’s favourite disinformation tool – Wikipedia – they accused him of running Freedomain as a cult. The main ‘gotcha’ was when he told someone who wasn’t getting along with his family (I’m talking a serious breach and there was no chance of healing it) to walk away, get on with his life and not have anything to do with them. He was accused of using cult practices to separate people from their families. The biggie, though, was when he made a comment on school exam systems in the USA, and that they reference – among other things – the different average IQ levels of different races when setting exam questions. This is true, but he was accused of being a ‘white supremacist’ for that. The label stuck and was trotted out by every pseudo-academic on every website imaginable. Even the SyFy channel’s website wrote articles dropping his name in as a ‘white supremacist’. A ‘concern troll’ on Twitter even found out his internet service provider, told them he was promoting ‘hate speech’ and they immediately cut off his account. Subsequently, he was thrown off YouTube. He’s still around on Rumble, Odyssee and the like, but his main way fo talking to people, which had over a million subscribers, is gone.
So this has been going on for a long time. There’s a definite move in the mainstream media, in collaboration with governments and supranational organisations, to shut down anyone not of the old established press who questions current orthodoxies. In one sense, the Marxists were right: the capitalist system has produced winner monopolies. Once they’ve won, they’ve sought to corrupt and shut down capitalism to protect their position against a once-free market where competitors can emerge.
I wonder what will happen to this site when Labour get in and Toby no longer has his links with the Tory Party as a buffer. I can imagine a press and internet regulation bill will be swiftly brought in by Labour. God help us all!
I wonder what this Sam Leith twit means by “ordinary people”. Gammons? People not as clever and well-connected as him? There is now a scarily large mass of pseudo-educated pseudo-intellectuals who are too afraid or corrupt or stupid to speak out about the ills afflicting our dying civilisation.
I’ve read some stupid nonsense before, but this takes the biscuit. Utter misandric clap-trap…
You took one for the team then, I wasn’t going to go there! lol
‘Incels’ are a manufactured bogeyman. Macho guys have been attacked using the ‘toxic masculinity’ slur, and shy guys are called ‘incels’. It’s misandry.
Eat steak and save the planet I find it a bit hard to believe that not eating meat will save the planet. Are you trying to tell me that wild animals like buffalo, bison or even deer never fart methane. Anyway, livestock are often used in conservation to keep the vedgetation less course, and prevent it reverting to scrub and then woodland. The rarer plant species get out competed by the commoner species, and things like sand lizard need bare sand. Conservation organisations will use livestock from local farmers to do this. In addition ploughing grassland releases the carbon from the grassland, plus they tend to chop down the hedges. Yes- they didn’t mention that did they- grassland contains a lot of carbon!
Way back, HUGE herds of ruminants wandered the planet.
Think Buffalo.
If methane were a problem, it would already have happened.
And sauropods. When the climate was warmer, CO2 levels higher and life abundant.
No wonder they keep on with their preoccupation ( and non-veiled threats ) of more scamdemics to come. And people aren’t playing along because they aren’t dumb enough to be scared into getting further jabs, which is why Moderna and Pfizer shares are dropping.
”Did You Know?
14 of The 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals Include Vaccination!
And Yes They Want To Make Them Mandatory…”
https://twitter.com/Spiro_Ghost/status/1703778402212151510
Now here is a graph that is going the right way! Time to invent some new bogeymen viruses then..
”Denton told a J.P. Morgan healthcare conference that Pfizer expects a 24% vaccination rate in the U.S. this year, which equates to about 82 million injections.
Moderna has estimated a range of 50 million to 100 million.
Denton added that the COVID-19 vaccine rate prediction is about half of that of the flu, so “we haircut that pretty significantly for the year.” He noted that the company will “see how that plays out as we look at the trends in the coming weeks in the U.S. and globally from that perspective.”
Demand for COVID-19 shots has plunged as the pandemic waned and after millions had already been vaccinated. Last month, Denton noted that if COVID-19 vaccine sales were less than Pfizer assumed, “we are prepared to launch an enterprise-wide cost improvement program aligned with the longer-term revenue projections for our business.”
https://www.investopedia.com/shares-of-covid-19-vaccine-makers-fall-after-pfizer-cfo-warns-of-outlook-haircut-7971184
Where are they going to dump all the unwanted and unused vaccines?
Also watch out for more animal “viruses” needing pharma jabs or maybe they will incorporate the “medicines” in the feed.
Didn’t realise you could vaccinate for clean water, better housing and sanitation, greater food security, improved access to education – you know, all those things that actually improve public health, not global elitist profit margins. Silly me.
The latest Lefty bollocks coming out of Germany. Who woke up one day and decided giving homework to kids is oppressive?? Show me the data reporting psychological damage done to children from the age-old practice of giving them homework vs closing schools and depriving kids of face to face learning. And I suppose making kids wear masks in school is *not* ”oppressive” then? Imbeciles!
”Germany’s hard Left Die Linke party has called for the complete abolition of homework in schools, much to the delight of nine-year-olds across the country.
The party has outlined the change in a written proposal detailing sweeping reforms to the country’s primary and secondary schooling system. The group said the plan as likely to cost the state €100 billion.
According to a report by the German Press Agency (DPA), the document heavily criticises Germany’s current education system as cementing social inequality, arguing that students should not be expected to do homework.
The practice of grading children on their performance is also described as being oppressive and the DPA added that abolishing such systems would allow children to participate in “learning without pressure and fear”.
“Homework and grades should be abolished,” it reportedly reads, adding that all school practising and revision “has to happen during school time”.
https://brusselssignal.eu/2023/09/german-left-calls-for-the-abolition-of-homework/
Die Linke opposed some lockdown measures and the centralisation of lockdown powers taken my Merkel. I’d be surprised if they supported the closure of schools and face masks. I agree the homework ban idea is bonkers.
“Doctors admit they can’t tell Covid apart from allergies or the common cold anymore”….but a fair proportion of “common colds” ARE Covid, aren’t they? Always have been, unless they are just short handing Covid-19 in the Mail. Don’t forget that the name “coronavirus” was invented by the Common Cold Unit, decades ago.
I stopped playing the ‘I’ve got covid’ game with people very early on: if someone comes out with the phrase when they have a runny nose, I just referred to it as a cold. Unless they are actually bedridden, in which case it’s probably flu. It often causes a double-take and a moment’s pause, but no one as yet has tried to argue the toss!
The concept of “covid” has been much misused anyway. It was initially supposed to be used to describe a number of specific symptoms and signs denoting a certain level of illness, but quickly became used by anyone and everyone who had a bit of a runny nose and could produce the required positive test.
Neil Oliver axed from Edinburgh Royal Society for “incompatible views”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYxhjqKm4OY&ab_channel=GBNews
Given what he says in that segment about how ERS is bad for his ‘brand’, perhaps it should read ‘Neil Oliver axes Edinburgh Royal Society for cult-speak’ 😁 Good on him!
Not quite. Neil Oliver ditched the Edinburgh Royal Society and good for him.
..this is so weird to listen to (along with a million other things, I know) … but just who do these imbeciles think they are serving? Who do they think they speak for?
Their echo chambers must be so I portent to them….
I love that Neil says dropped them..as the great Groucho said…I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member!! LOL!
Important
In case anyone feels it’s worthwhile
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/643533
Pause the Energy Bill and hold a public referendum before proceedingWe want the Government to pause the Energy Bill, and hold a public referendum to determine whether this legislation should go ahead. To inform the referendum, the Government should send information leaflets to every household explaining the Bill, and the impacts its passage will have.
In the interests of democracy, fairness, equality and equity it’s vitally important people get to decide whether they want this Bill to become law, based on clear information about the Bill and the impacts its passage will have.
Would you give it to your kids?
Fluenz Tetra, live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV) AstraZeneca licensed from 2 years to under 18 years of age. In the UK and Scotland…..
Flu can be serious. Even healthy children can become seriously ill from flu. That’s why children aged 2-5 (and not yet in school) are being offered the flu vaccine. It’s quick, painless and feels like a tickle in their nose.
Fluenz Tetra Side Effects:
Very common
(more than 1 in 10 people):
> runny or stuffy nose
> reduced appetite
> weakness
Common
(up to 1 in 10 people):
> fever
> muscle aches
> headache
Uncommon
up to 1 in 100 people):
> rash
> nose bleed
> allergic reaction
”tickle in their nose”…..!! …and don’t these sound like flu symptoms?
According to Statista in England and Wales in 2021 five children under 9 died with influenza as an underlying cause on their death certificate…
I had a flu vaccine on a Saturday morning in the mid 2010s. On the Monday morning, I got on the Tube and began to sweat… and sweat… and sweat. By the time I got to work an hour later, I was soaked to the skin, my hair matted. The guy I was working for took one look at me and asked if I’d run a marathon! I went to the bathroom and wrung out my shirt. I was still damp when I finished work nine hours later. And I was so tired. I got home, threw my clothes in the wash, showered and went to bed, shivering uncontrollably.
I was lacking in energy for a couple of years. I had gone to the gym next door regularly for several years and I ended up cancelling my membership. I’m certain that vaccine gave me a form of post-viral syndrome. Suffice to say I’ve never had another one and treat all mass-produced drugs with suspicion now. I certainly never had the COVID-19 ‘vaccines’.
…quite right..old Mr Gum had a couple (this was before we woke up, plus he had been seriously ill..which is when they hit you with this shite)…and felt so ill afterwards he refused anymore…..
We are both much wiser…
Excellent article from Eugyppius, as usual…..
Indeed it shows Lauterbach having his ‘booster’ to try and encourage the proles no doubt…but at least I was thinking we have been spared the ‘look at me having a jab Governmental ghouls’ in the UK….
Apparently – only 2.1% of the population in the EU got a ‘third booster’ (only 4.2% above aged 80) anyway….
“This, then, is how it ends. All the Very Important Science People have been wrong about everything, which means that none of them can pull the plug on this farce. They’ll continue their doubtful performances, selling slightly updated versions of failed pharmaceutical products and making claims well in excess of the evidence to an ever shrinking audience of virus enthusiasts”
Amen to that!!
“Doctors admit they can’t tell Covid apart from allergies or the common cold anymore”
They never really could, could they, in most cases – unless they stuck a stick up your nose. Otherwise, why the need for the sticks in the first place?!
What we can say about “The ‘naive cynicism’ of Russell Brand’s hasty defenders” – is that Sam Leith should keep his nose out of news and stick to being the literary editor of The Spectator.
Stick to fiction Sam – which is what you know about as this article by you demonstrates in spades.
How out of touch can any journalist be with the fact that he is part of the media circus which publishes misinformation and disinformation all the time.
The bare-faced effrontery of the man – who writes about people who do not believe the published bleatings of him and his colleagues that they will “lose touch with the boring, fastidious, fact-based-and-needing-to-be-careful-not-to-be-sued work of professional reporters that might help you back to reality.”
It is arrant nonsense. Sam – your literary fiction will not help anyone with anything other than believing in fiction – not reality. If you are going to write fiction as if it is properly informed factual comment then you deserve all you get.
There is a mass of great information on the internet published by people who take the trouble to cite their sources fastidiously.
Thankfully, we can trust what they say a lot more because none of them are ‘professional journalists’ – and as Peter Hitchens once told me – there is no such thing – [ie. journalists are not professionals].
Frankly Sam, I did not see you citing your sources fastidiously – there is nothing to back up your bonkers views of reality.
Print media journalists along with broadcast media and especially the BBC – with the likes of Marianna Spring telling huge porkies in her CV to get a job – are constantly bombarding us with misinformation and disinformation – indeed it is Marianna Spring’s job – she is the BBC’s “disinformation specialist”.
“lose touch with the boring, fastidious, fact-based-and-needing-to-be-careful-not-to-be-sued work of professional reporters that might help you back to reality.”
What a tool this man is. Yeah mate, lot of fact based stuff printed regarding covid by your lot. Thanks for holding the tyrants and liars to account.
“Doctors admit they can’t tell Covid apart from allergies or the common cold anymore” – Doctors say Covid patients are becoming harder to distinguish from those suffering from allergies or the common cold, reports the Mail.”
Occam’s Razor would say that’s because now Covid IS just another common cold.
The GMC does not represent doctors.
It is just another captured bureaucracy.