In neoliberalism, the state doesn’t disappear. It switches sides. Instead of helping, protecting and supporting the citizens, it turns against them. The state no longer derives its legitimacy from the citizens and doesn’t need to be nice to them anymore. It now begins aggressively to dispossess the citizens and its main function becomes to keep them beaten down enough so that they don’t rebel.
6 responses to “Switching Sides”
-
“state doesn’t disappear. It switches sides”
not immediately, that’s a further stage (the UK is further along the neoliberal death spiral than just about any other country).
An intermediate stage is the state no longer protecting citizens but being indifferent to them as, for example, the police turn their efforts from preventing and/or stopping crime to keeping a lid on intergroup tensions. It’s when that doesn’t work that the state turns actively hostile toward citizens.
-
The UK is simply lost.
I wonder whether this is because in order to suppress the native English element – a bit frayed at the edges but still quite robust and lively well into the Nineteen Eighties – such a bizarre effort was made to create that hybrid monster called “British culture” so that differences could be smoothed out and non-natives would feel “included” and all the rest of that BS.
I used non-natives on purpose, since I’ve noticed that the word foreigner is hardly ever used in British public life nowadays, and whenever I use it people wince. Mind you, I’ve noticed the same phenomenon in Italy and Spain, so it must be generational rather than geographical, cultural at any rate. Neoliberal culture to be totally explicit.
Still: trying to be nice to everyone, bending over backwards to accommodate alien cultures customs habits ideas even when they go against everything you’ve fought for in over one thousand years of history in the end doesn’t pay: you end up losing your own culture while everybody else keeps their own and then they’ll want to stuff it down your throat whether you like it or not.
There’s something to be said for being firm to the point of rudeness. It was the niceness that killed my lovely English people, that unparallelled paragon of valour, courtesy and intelligence the like of which we will probably never see again for a long time to come.
-
So yea speaking of Britain, my stars this last weekend was nutty. Multiple new protests, arrests, injuries, paid anti protesters being escorted by “police forces to oppose the protesters.
And then to cap it all off two new well three including the one talked about above policies being put in place.
The one in the article that Clarissa brought up, another new policy holding Pub owners accountable for the opinions of those in the pub. Yes the pub owners can be fined for wrong think of the guys drinking in their pubs.
And lastly the one that is most troublesome or worrisome. The UK Online Safely Act. Which was passed to “protect the children.” But within 12 hours of passing was censoring any alt news site or anyone who was not mainstream media. Except not censoring because they would never. No you can read the alt news sites. Its just that to do so you have to face verify, or provide information like a passport, drivers license, banking info.
Any website available in the UK that does not comply is facing massive fines. I would also like to note that none of those websites were set up with the security features to protect this sort of data, which is why before 24 hours had even passed google was desperately trying to shut down massive leaks of people in the UK’s drivers licenses that were being shown on google images after being stolen.
I would further like to point out two more things. First this atrocity showed up right as Starmer looked to be forced out of office, and second he and his government stated publicly it was to protect the children. Which is truly hypocritical of him considering his government is importing rapist in large numbers and then defending them against the natives. Going so far as to let those who were caught red handed out of jail in a matter of months rather than hanging them as they should.
Oh and Starmer lied to Pres Trump’s face end of last week or over the weekend when he said to the President, we are dealing with the small boats. They have done nothing of the sort.
England I suspect is about to explode in violence.
- – William
-
-
“Can Brits save themselves?”
Not by following rules set by a government that despises them. Some analysts say that it is the very early stages of a de facto civil war. How bad it gets depends a lot on just how much the British government hates its citizens (I think…. a lot).
And I would not trust the current monarch to stand with the people, so that soap opera might not survive.
-
Yea, that is one thing that really bothers me about the Brits who are protesting. You can see a clear split between the generations.
The elderly (Boomers and some gen X) keep thinking that talking or silently protesting will make their point. That somehow the government that hates them will willingly stop what they are doing.
The younger (Millennials, Gen Z, and some Gen X) have come to understand that the people in government hate them and will come for them in the dark. And if they are going to do that you might as well give them something to grab you for. *Post Note 1
This is why when you watch these protest, those who are hitting the vehicles and speaking with rage are the young. Those who are willing to protest but not do anything are the elderly. One is more effective than the other.
Take the police for instance. For the English Police it must be miserable. They have a job that pays ok (which is rare in England) so they don’t want to quit. However the upper command is blatantly anti-English, which means if they want to keep their job they have to stand against their neighbors.
This leaves them in between a rock and a hard place. Their leaders hate them, but the actions they are ordered to do make their neighbors hate them, but they can’t quit because where else can they find a decently paying job.
Now the thing is there are stages to everything. And we are at the end of peaceful protests. So if I was in England I would be advising the protesters to take pics of the officers protecting the foreigners and anti protesters in order to find out who they were, then simply show up at their houses and stand there watching them. Not to do anything to them mind you. Simply show them that they cannot vanish into the city when they take their uniforms off.
This will cause many of them to quit out of fear for their lives and families without the protesters having to lift a finger. This drains the number of traitors that the government can call upon.
Sadly I don’t think anyone has thought of that so instead we are likely to start seeing cars being burnt as the next stage, likely with bigger and more rowdy protests.
As for the line. I think the reason its taking so long is due to demographics. Right now like the US, most of the English are elderly with a much smaller portion of youth. The young are more likely to explode violently, where as the elderly are just not. (Though maybe that’s just the Boomers.) So looking at the protests for every youth there are five or six elderly. This puts pressure on those more likely to explode to keep it in.
Post Note 1 – One of the tactics the British Government has been using is to have the police basically form lines and then sit there and ignore the protesters peaceful or not. Then that evening once its dark out, officers will hit the houses of people who were protesting who were not hiding their faces, breaking down the doors and then tossing them into jail. Its extremely effective fear tactic, but its a tactic that the protesters need to shut down quickly as it drains supporters do to jail and fear of disappearing in the dark.
- – W
-
-
A conservative literary critic and college professor
Clarissa's Blog 
Leave a comment