Wednesday 18 April 2018

Paranoid Victimhood


The number of right-wing, nationalist parties springing up in Europe is truly disturbing - there are literally dozens of them. When you speak to some of the individuals they maintain it's the liberal policies of the EU that's driving them to become nationalist. That's a bit like a violent husband blaming his domestic abuse on  his wife.


The liberal concept of freedom of the individual seems to be anathema to them. They want to control people; liberals, homosexuals, other races, other religions, other nationalities, etc. It's a fear of 'the other'. They go on about democracy, but democracy is exactly what they don't like - they want a fascist dictatorship, using the pretext of democracy to achieve it.

Another thing I've personally noticed is that the majority of far-right people I've encountered are ver angry and bitter ex squaddies.  Perhaps they just love order and control. They do seem to have a nostalgic penchant for red, black and white (or silver). Interestingly enough, Jackson Pollock had a painting (if that is the right term for a Pollock work) called Red, Black and Silver.


All this kerfuffle about Facebook - I personally couldn't give a toss about who has my email address or can see my Facebook pages. I know at least half a dozen people who have recently deleted Facebook from their lives as a result of the Cambridge Analytica debacle. I'm perhaps not so paranoid because I consider myself immune to advertising. Scraping my Facebook data with Data Selfie confirms to confirm that. Nor do I believe everything I read on Facebook - I treat everything on social media with a high degree of scepticism and am an inveterate fact checker. Facebook is a massive source of ill-informed opinion masquerading as fact. It's like reading Viz.

Whatsapp I find to be a pain in the arse - all I get is the same old suspects bombarding me with ridiculous memes that aren't even funny - some of them are just plain offensive. I hardly use it myself, except when the person I'm contacting doesn't happen to use Facebook Messenger.


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