June 26, 2020 - 10:56am
It’s hard to believe but June 2020 is still not over yet. To me, it’s felt like the first time in my adult life that I’m living through history; strangely, even 9/11 and its aftermath didn’t feel quite so portentous, nor the whole Brexit saga.
But the major emotion I feel is one of unreality, not helped by the fact that I’ve met a total of about five adults over the past three months. It feels unreal, and rather like I’m living in one of these medieval periods of crisis when everyone started whipping themselves or spontaneously dancing.
Although I’m a pessimist, I never would have expected the institutional response to the Black Lives Matters protest as it happened; on the one side, support, on the other, cowered silence. It felt, again, unreal, a black pill moment.
After weeks of being careful and avoiding social contact, and very soon after the outrage about Dominic Cummings because he wanted his child looked after by relatives if he got sick, thousands were allowed and even encouraged to congregate in our major cities. Almost no one objected. I’m sure some Left-of-centre commentators criticised the protests on health grounds; on my Twitter feed I could see only Sunny Hundal taking the principled and authentically liberal stand that, even if the cause was worthy, it was a risk. Maybe there are others, and I just didn’t notice them.
Even among medical professionals, hundreds in the US publicly stated that racism was a public health issue even more dangerous than the coronavirus. Only a few weeks earlier lockdown sceptics were mocked for their failure to conceptualise how a virus was a different sort of threat.
Everyone laughed then. But again, now there was largely silence because it all comes down to who’s side you are on. Science, as we now all know, is trumped by faith.
It’s not just that I think the other side are wrong on this issue; it feels like we’re inhabiting two entirely separate realities now. In the American Tablet Jacob Siegel wrote that:
When someone says it’s okay to risk further spreading a deadly disease “because racism is a bigger issue” I feel like there is nothing left to argue anymore. If you believe that inequality of outcomes is a priori proof of racism, and that racism is this learned prejudice that can be eradicated, you will do whatever it takes, and anyone who disagrees with you is a barbarian.
You will seek to remove those people from public life, clear them out of institutions, and do everything to stop their ideas being transmitted.
And this has been what’s happening, gradually until in 2020 suddenly; all the developing trends of the past few years suddenly accelerated, in particular the decline of the idea that there is some neutral ‘truth’ we all share. There has always been a disconnect between what I hear on Radio 4 on the one hand, and what I see on my Right-leaning Twitter feed, but over June 2020 they have been describing two completely different realities. On the one hand, sad laments of our guilt and ‘largely peaceful’ protests about injustice; on the other, footage of a near-warzone.
So far we’ve been lucky in that there were no super-spreader events at the BLM protests. But I fear that in the long term, black pill June will prove fatal to a shared idea of truth, one that admittedly had underlying conditions.
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SubscribeIt certainly has been a confusing time for me too but I now realise that underlying Progressivism is the norm of Inequality.
As such, I certainly agree we ought to be living in a Society of Equals but the Progressive norms of Inequality contradict that hence why black lives matter is a specifically Progressive neo Marxist ideology that rejects pluralism and Equality in favour of Progressive Inequality and Progressive systems of reverse and inverted racism.
Proponents of Progressive norms of Inequality might favour positive discrimination and affirmative action but these too are actions of Inequality and need to be deeply scrutinised for unintended consequences.
The majority of people in Britain want a Society of Equals, not a Progressive Society of Unequals where democratic pluralism is denounced as white bigotry and white fragility.
All Lives Matter reflects a Society of Equals whereas the Progressive Neo Marxist cult of Black Lives Matter reflects a Society of Unequals where freedom of expression and beliefs is curtailed if you don’t have the right opinions and thoughts.
Equality between all Beings of Nature is the goal and Equality between all Human Beings of Nature is the sub goal. Eradicating the Progressive norms of Inequality is very much part of that endeavour.
I now know which side I am on, I am on the side of Equality and a Society of Equals.
I would say positive discrimination and affirmative action are actions to compensate for existing inequality driven by prejudice and lack of opportunity. Women in parliament has only increased as much as it has through positive actions such as all-women shortlists. All policies should be deeply scrutinised for unintended consequences, but not just rejected out of hand as being from an opposing ideology.
The majority of people in Britain want a society of equals and agree with BLM positions such as that we should not have statues celebrating slave traders in our town squares.
A society of equals is a childish dream; a society where everyone has equal rights and opportunities and considered equally by the law is possible but “equality” in the current debate is much more. If you consider the social history of this country many white tribes and social classes did not have equal rights – the Normans took away the Anglo Saxon Baronial lands and the serfs were indentured slaves often taxed to death. More recently the welfare state developed to give poor working class whites ( and many immigrants BAME and white) equal rights to health, education, a home and benefits. Many poor white people who suffered “wealth inequality” worked hard to pull themselves up from council estates. Now we have many BAME immigrants and poor whites wanting “equality” without that hard work. Unfortunately we have had an influx of young male immigrants from the ME and North Africa which has coincided with a massive increase in knife crime due to gang and drug warfare with many innocent young people killed. Why? Society as a whole has undermined the family unit and the value of good parenting
Chinese and Indian children immigrant children seem to have a much higher success rate of pulling themselves up the ladder through hard than the black African/carribean community and the latter has a much higher level of Father Absence. Is it not time we had some debate about the impact of this issue why equal opportunity does = equality of wealth
Which statues represent slave traders, do you actually know? Which were traders? Which owners? Which were investors in companies that operated with slave labour? Which were philanthropists who worked to eradicate near slave conditions in English factories, but could also have been any of the above? What about the men who worked hard to abolish slavery in all its forms, even though they paid compensation to slave owners to make abolition possible? Do we pull down statues of people who said something unfashionable 20 years ago? 50, 100, 200, 1000? How do we remember the sins of the past if we pretend the sinners didn’t exist?
The response of the government and police has been inadequate. Further they have been undermined by the other parts of the establishment especially the bbc. We need to get back to the place where we recognise that the blm movement, extinction rebellion and trans women are marxist anarchist groups that want to destroy our way of life and this needs to be stopped and normality returned where we can address actual grievances as a society.
The struggle between good and evil can be seen as a fight between truth and lies. It is no accident that the Devil is called “the father of lies”, and his work in sowing confusion is called “Diabolical disorientation”.
But “post-truth” is hardly a novel phenomenon. The war on truth goes back to the beginning of time itself. And didn’t Pontius Pilate ask Christ the rhetorical question: “What is Truth”?
Oh, well said, Mr Embery. In the last few weeks I have indeed sensed the start of a fight-back by what used to be called ‘The Silent Majority’ but with Social Media and the conventional Media (BBC etc) in the hands of the Woke Liberal Elite, it’s going to be an uphill struggle. Keep up the good work!
In the past there was a common language of politics and ethics that despite differences united opposing views. That has gone now. I cannot talk any more to those who refuse to accept reality. 2 + 2 must always equal 4.
There remain only two alternatives. One is chaos and war the end of which cannot be foreseen. The other is some form of separation within a nation state . That too will involve chaos but with a possible outcome that will provide some stability for both sides. For a while perhaps. This is not about BLM but the struggle between those who think they can remake reality to fit their desires and the rest of us who do not.
If you view progressiveness as a religion it’s easy to see why argument is not tolerated. Aside from being not possible it’s pointless trying to argue on any form of rational or logical basis with religious zealots.
Tragically, it is already too late to do anything about it. The lunatics have taken over and as long as brainwashing begins on day 1 of kindergarten their numbers will grow and grow and they will never be shaken loose. If I walked downtown today with a t-shirt that said “White Lives Matter”, or even the completely innocuous “All Lives Matter”, I’m certain I would be physically assaulted, likely even beaten to death, by tolerant people who are “on the right side of history”. The civilized world I was born into is gone forever and nearly forgotten.
I am reposting this comment because its relevant here. I like this article and am desperate to get this type of debate on mainstream television. It seems like this odd crowd mixture of anarchic, angry, all rights not responsibilities woke young and not so young, left liberal intelligentsia will shout down and trample anyone who stands in the way even if they are trying to stop the “crowd” push society over the cliff.
I would hazard a guess that most people in this country are NOT racist; that despite Mr BASUs inflammatory statement racism is not “in the fabric” of our society. We have a great tradition of welcoming immigrants and our record on slavery is history. Our free health, education, housing and benefits system is open to white and BAME alike.
Clearly racism does exist here but we have done a lot over my lifetime of 59 years to cut it out as we have with discrimination against women and others. Our Government has a precisely equal representation of the population of BAME MPs. We offer equal opportunities; love your children and let them work hard, behave in a. civilised manner and break out as many poor whites have done over the last 100 years. Many BAME people are successful.
Injustice is not the sole property of the BAME population it exists everywhere – Harry Dunn?
So why do we have a social media driven “pandemic” of woke and PC gone mad views that are increasingly producing stupid/crazy decisions/reactions -like the 18 month old Dog Fouling Matters campaign in a small town being derailed as racist? There is no balance in this debate – the lockdown hasn’t helped with Government incompetency leaving many frustrated and others unnecessarily bereft of caring family members. It is the limpness of councillors and CEOs who don’t defend/ hold the middle ground that will be our undoing – if no-one defends the balanced position the extremes rise…..
BLM has offered a general release valve for any kind of grudge and, emboldened by this and the social media videos of US behaviour and statue toppling, rebellion takes to the streets with illegal raves.
The government could release the valve by letting young people go back to organised outdoor sport, unlocking furlough and getting people back to work.
Mr Khan should resign his behaviour is insidious – give me Shaun Bailey any day
However we all need to stand firm against the brainwashing where silence is seen as assertive racism and most white middle aged men are judged as guilty until proven innocent
All lives matter is the correct response to BLM
Does anyone care about harmony? Isn’t that just too boring? We’re in “The Great Reset” and all previous values and understandings are up for grabs – including what it means to be a human being.
The following ominous example of a kind of thinking that deserves to be called ‘demonic’ was written decades ago. It’s not science fiction …
“We must take care to prevent …[a] … single-sided analysis of the complex characteristics of one type of systems materials; namely human beings.
What is needed is an inventory of the manner in which human beings can be controlled and a description of some of the instruments that will help us achieve that control.
If this provides us with sufficient handles on human materials so that we can think of them as metal parts, or chemical reactions, then we will have succeeded in placing human materials on the same footing as any other materials and can begin with our problems of system design”. [Robert Boguslaw, computer systems engineer. A peculiarly apt surname, I think].
I wonder which “us” he is referring to – some new breed of “controllers”?
Are pandemics such as COV-19 one of those useful “instruments”?
Superb as usual Douglas. We, the normals, are heart sick of the grievance elite holding us hostage for being proud of our own skins. How Cambridge can be proud to host and promote a clear racist like Gopal is a sad indictment of Academia today.
Good article. We need to start a push back against the woke minority who are marxist anarchist thugs and are only interested in damaging and destroying our democratic society. The police and government need to be engaged and energised to push back and deal with criminality and social media bullying. The bbc and other bodies need to be reminded they are there to support the ordinary people not just the left wing woke.
I am at a total loss in understanding the disrupting influences of these so-called ‘progressives’. That they have set back race relations in this country for years, maybe forever, does not seem to be in their power of equation.
We have never been a racist country and just because a neo-Marxist brigade of thugs are set on disrupting our way of life, as well as our past and future, that does not mean it should be tolerated just because they decide to bring race into the equation.
We have to stand up for who we are, and what this country represents, and not allow a political movement to erase parts of our history and culture, they unfortunately, disagree with.
Yeah, broadly agree with that, our intolerance of a plurality of views is an ugly trend. However, there is no free lunch here, while the blogosphere exhibits total intolerance we simultaneously have a media (notably the BBC) which champions the practise that every view must afforded equal air time, no matter how ridiculous the view is. I must also speak up for “silence is violence”. Historically, too often, turning away with a resigned shrug has been a license for evil doers to continue their dark deeds, and I cite as exhibit ‘A’ the Catholic church. Silence has most certainly been violence there.
“we simultaneously have a media (notably the BBC) which champions the
practise that every view must afforded equal air time, no matter how
ridiculous the view is.”
We have?
Of course. And in the U.S., we have the NYT, CNN, and NPR, which present all points of view equally, without bias.
Not.
Youre kidding..”The bbc champions the practise that every etc…”
With the aid of massive editing and biased commentary ..
A classic case of the kettle calling the pot black, I think, don’t you?
Sorry – confused about your view of the BBC as a champion of inclusiveness of all views. It certainly is not.
I’d argue the BBC represents 2 views of most things – so it takes only polarised or political orthodoxy – a mildly sceptical climate scientist with nuance say will not get on but a Telegraph writer who is against and prattles about Southern Sea ice shelves is.
In politics and economics this means often two wrong views. The Govt’s and mostly the opposition which bar a brief time with Corbyn and his Socialism (whatever that is) mostly some technocratic nonsense economic position that is nearly as bad or worse.
Good article. Cambridge needs to be reminded it is a public university reliant at least in part on public funding and that their support for low grade academic performance will not be accepted. There is no justification for the banishment of the likes of Peterson or Carl and they should be ask to render their services again.
Can’t this guy sue people for calling him racist? The police already made it clear that he did not do anything wrong and I think there are some serious libel laws in the UK?
I’d support him.
Maybe you haven’t noticed that pop cult has over the last 50 yrs become so vulgarized and sex so trivialized (because commercialized) that this kind of Tipper Gore screed just rings old-fashioned.
Ron Jeremy is a producer and director of pornography as well as an actor. Perhaps he was just auditioning the women for parts in his films. In one of the cases the accuser was bent over naked to receive male porn stars when Jeremy inserted himself into the action. Surely the women must have signed some kind of waiver that participation in the filming was consensual.
Meanwhile, the woman pictured with this article thinks going topless is a good way to protest porn. I think she’s a bit confused.
Why have all the earlier comments disappeared? Has Unherd fallen victim to exactly what the essay author went to great lengths to rail against.
Good question, mine have all been deleted………..
The Creep of ”Thought Crime” anything that differs from what the illieral ”Liberals” or Marxist orthodoxy tells over last 30 years, To educate,To inform BBC Reithian mantra, has over the last 30 years to ‘Brainwash’ and Focus on perceived enemies in media and Press…however there is a fightback, the three deaths in Reading by a ”Terrorist” and todays Murder in Glasgow, ”Isnt going to wash as isolated incidents..Police Commissioners which encouraged clapping (NHS recently) and taking the knee are reaping the Whirlwind. Conservatives are equally to blame, with commercial Correctness, look at their Attempts to destroyL ondons high streets by tax,Congestion charges,VAT hikes which in the midlands, Tories in Particular building on Leicestershire green belt, Lutterworth,Hinckley,Great Bowden,Burnmill, A6 by northampton Road….Like Mc carthyism whhich was 1948-55 Wokeism should not survive another 3 years..Science is meant to challenge there is nO settled science,look at what happens when fake science of ”climate change” is proved falacious!!
Hummm. To be honest I
gave up reading it half way down.
Nothing personal about Ms Ditum, whose feelings I don’t want to hurt. But there isn’t really a story there. Which is probably a good thing.
I probably should not admit that I rather enjoyed it – no doubt for all the wrong reasons. The Black Cocks Matter line tickled my sense of humour and kept me chuckling to the end. As far as Sarah’s question: why don’t the woke object about porn? Sarah clearly does not understand what wokeism is all about. It is about virtue signalling and bullying people who aren’t racist, homophobic, transphobic or whatever other label gets slapped on them for not being totally on message. What would be the point of calling someone with a swastika tattooed on his cheek racist scum – he would probably take it as a compliment.
I do wonder though whether there is a case for porn given the issues Mary raises in her Incels and vikings article.
So it wasnt a silly thing to do, it was a courageous attempt to counter the madness that’s happing. An avoidable situation that most of the media are complicit in.
The media have a special responsibility to get this right because what they say is amplified to sometimes millions of people. As individuals we can protest or otherwise without much consequence but media reporting and analysis tends to lend credibility in most people’s view and the standard of care required of the journo is exponentially higher which should include calling out the problem where there is one irrespective of perceived public opinion.
It was the shortfall of this duty being applied by the media and the relative powerlessness of the rest of us mortals which caused this ‘silly’ stunt.
There will always be an army of defenders I’m sure but the fact that porn is not on the woke radar at all, is another chink in its armour which needs to be exploited…
What I don’t understand is that UK is unique in the world for having anti discriminatory laws. These laws of course we’re carefully drafted and have been successfully applied to protect the minority group. And although I don’t have them I know there are stats which show that on balance these laws over protect the claimant and therefore penalise the majority.
On this basis I find it difficult to believe that this protest is concerned with equality at all either with or without over compensation.
All the signs are that there is a driving force within it which aims simply to destroy everything. If so, and if they proceed, then the universities are already redundant.
Like all revolutions, the only equality that matters is that of wealth. I’m not a protester but I would have to accept that there is massive inequality and there is no law against it! We’ve had 650 overpaid lawyers legislating like it’s going out of fashion and they’ve missed the most important subject….
Just registered twith UnHerd and it is heartening to read articles such as this that generate actual dicussion rathar than ‘bleets’. A lot of the words used in the article and discussion are new to me but I get the overall gist of the discussion and very much agree with “The majority of people in Britain want a Society of Equals, not a Progressive Society of Unequals where democratic pluralism is denounced as white bigotry and white fragility.”
Looking at the other social media platforms and the MSM I would get the impression that young people today follow the whims of social media but I don’t believe that is true. I think there is a significant and probable majority that are looking on and do not support breaking “lockdown” for any reason. Not statistically significant but my two young guys have educated me in the last few weeks on Wokism and they are very well informed on what’s actually happening in the world.
Something I don’t read much about in the MSM is a lack of information on the long term effects of Coronovirus infection. I hope there are no long term effects but I have read that there may be. Something to ponder.
Thanks, a great article.
No, Hepple’s banner was neither stupid nor puerile. He wanted publicity; he got it. What he has done is to waken the majority of the native British people to just what exactly is going on in their country.
After Wokingham council announced they could not support BLM because it was anti police there was the predictable outcry, so the BBC interviewed a coloured lady who claimed she would travel to Reading or London to shop because Wokingham was so racist that people cross the road to avoid her and sneer at her because of the colour of her skin. Why do we pay a licence fee? This is worse than the deluded Greta Thunberg seeing CO2.
This morning (and against my better judgment) I posted a comment on facebook regarding the current debate on white/black/yellow lives matter …… I quickly received a vicious reply, accompanied by a few select ad-hominems. After replying with a good-mannered apology, the same person replied (quickly again) In a manner so accommodating and friendly that we could have been long-lost brothers. There are possibly a few lessons to be learned from this encounter.
a) avoid making political comments on facebook.
b) remember that humans are guided by emotion rather than logic.
c) remember that humans are guided by opinion rather than fact.
d) we should resist the temptation to stereotype, life is so much bigger.
e) clear thinking and independent thinkers will always be a minority.
f) the herd is always wrong, easily confused and easily led.
So where do we go from here?
I am going to go into massive speculation mode, I don’t want to be alarmist but I think we need to be aware of where this genuinely could go.
There is a ludicrous double standard shown by pretty much all the institutions of this country and corporations across the globe (which clearly indicates we are in New World order territory or whatever) that effectively in Britain’s case is saying that the white indigenous people are second class citizens. Now reading the racist Gopal’s tweet she is effectively saying as a white person our only hope is mixing with other skin colours or something like that, which is all well and good and actually I have nothing against mixed anything but you know in my day there was individual choice.
There is a subtext here which I believe is something like, this is Asia’s century whether we like it or not and this is the plan that is devised like it or lump it and if you don’t like it and elect people we don’t like we will impoverish you even more than we plan to already. At which point there are few options, either you do what gandhi did in India (yes I get the fact of the bad blood and the similarity to the caste system) or you get what the IRA did in Northern Ireland. Now this is an awful future that the British establishment seem pointlessly and totally complicit in. Perhaps the great and the good have a game changer where they can genetically enhance themselves and avoid any threat, or force us all to stay at home and never interact with anyone again I guess anything is possible at this point.
If no game changer though and there are no democratic means then what you will get is at best Gandhi, followed by an IRA situation and if with all the new technology they can thwart that organised resistance, well then Islamic terrorists have amply demonstrated what can be done with cars and knives.
As I say I don’t want to be alarmist and I hate the thought of that future but surely the British Establishment and or western leaders can see this is a real and increasing possibility.
I feel you protest too much. All that time spent in front of Porn Hub purely for “educational” purposes is not ringing terribly true. If it is not for your own stimulation then don’t watch it. I don’t subscribe to Twitter, or Porn Hub for that matter, because I have no intention of setting myself up as bait for a bunch of misanthropic freaks. Those that abuse others sexually for their own gratification or enrichment deserve punishment but banning sex or even its trade will makes things much worse,
I never watch porn not interrested I use the internet to meet rent boys,my favourite is Berlin fuggerstr 3 gay bars “boys for men” 2 hotels lft or rt hire room 4 1 hr halcyon days romanians spanish germans poles czechs
It’s too late to hem in porn — it would be like canceling television at this point. It’s now a firmly established part of the culture, and it would be very hard to dislodge it — not only because of the industry’s economic heft, but because, privately, many people would be unsupportive of banning porn. The culture, on that level, is simply gone in a very different direction, and it’s too late to change that without some kind of very undesirable “reset” event.
Well said. What I don’t understand is the petty criticisms from those I would have thought would have given you their support. So what if you thought Hepple was oafish? That was at best a side issue. I thought it was the Left who were so adept at eating themselves. It looks like there are elements on the Right who indulge in the same internecine behaviour!
I was thinking just the same thing. Jumping on minutiae and missing the point… and sounding similarly and fretfully affronted as the ‘woke’
Very thoughtful piece. It feels like there has been a kind of perfect storm for all these events to crystallize in a short space of time and it has left many spinning and feeling confused. For me it appears too easy and lazy to pin everything on white privilege, rather than address the much more complex factors and privileges crossing all sorts of areas. So much easier for people to direct their anger and frustration toward one collectively guilty party (an easy target, if you will), rather than address the variable inequalities that many ‘experts’ and politicians (especially progressives) choose to ignore. In the name of equality there seems to be a growing, insidious intolerance that is brutal.
Why? Because men like it.
I would hazard a guess that most people in this country are NOT racist; that despite Mr BASUs inflammatory statement racism is not “in the fabric” of our society. We have a great tradition of welcoming immigrants and our record on slavery is history. Our free health, education, housing and benefits system is open to white and BAME alike.
Clearly racism does exist here but we have done a lot over my lifetime of 59 years to cut it out as we have with discrimination against women and others. Our Government has a precisely equal representation of the population of BAME MPs. We offer equal opportunities; love your children and let them work hard, behave in a. civilised manner and break out as many poor whites have done over the last 100 years. Many BAME people are successful.
Injustice is not the sole property of the BAME population it exists everywhere – Harry Dunn?
So why do we have a social media driven “pandemic” of woke and PC gone mad views that are increasingly producing stupid/crazy decisions/reactions -like the 18 month old Dog Fouling Matters campaign in a small town being derailed as racist? There is no balance in this debate – the lockdown hasn’t helped with Government incompetency leaving many frustrated and others unnecessarily bereft of caring family members. It is the limpness of councillors and CEOs who don’t defend/ hold the middle ground that will be our undoing – if no-one defends the balanced position the extremes rise…..
BLM has offered a general release valve for any kind of grudge and emboldened by this and the social media videos of US behaviour and statue toppling rebellion takes to the streets with illegal raves.
The government could release the valve by letting young people go back to organised outdoor sport, unlocking furlough and getting people back to work.
Mr Khan should resign his behaviour is insidious – give me Shaun Bailey any day
However we all need to stand firm against the brainwashing where silence is seen as assertive racism and most white middle aged men are judged as guilty until proven innocent
All lives matter is the correct response
To be honest I do find ‘White Lives Matter’ an incoherent tone deaf reply myself and a reply that’s not needed – it’s kind of implicit in Black Lives Matter which implies a “Too” on the end. However it as a natural response and not in and of itself bigoted. At most one could say Hepple is insensitive and saying BLM don’t have a legitimate viewpoint.
BLM in the UK is nebulous position so far. Nevertheless companies and other bodies with token representation and recruitment pretend to support it. The actual demands and views are not discussed just a mass group hug of how wonderful we are. The absurdity of Liverpool players who wore Saurez T shirts not so long ago taking a knee – some players even represent totalitarian countries who oppress minorities – what T shirt we wearing tomorrow politics.
Thus the debate does not happen and this serves no one except corporate PR and certainly not Back people or White people or anyone. No one’s concerns are discussed as everyone who is allowed to speak just agrees without discussion or thought.
‘White Lives Don’t Matter’… Isn’t this what victims of grooming gangs were told?
This cultural revolution is attempting to prevent debate by destroying language. It does this by claiming that commonly used words have a different meaning from what is widely understood to be their meaning. For instance, the cultural revolution claims that ‘All Lives Matter’ actually means ‘Black Lives Don’t Matter’ and consequently deems the statement ‘All Lives Matter’ to be unspeakable. Similarly, the demand to ‘Defund the Police’ is portrayed as actually meaning ‘Reform the Police’, so that people who support police reform can be forced into supporting a policy of dismantling the police force.
Surely the biggest difference is that Cummings was part of the government setting the rules, he suspected he was infected and his travels were during the peak of the pandemic. The protests took place 2 months later, with lower infection levels and were ordinary members of the public, not government members. Also the post seems to conflate the protest and violence (not necessarily involving the same people) and the different scale and trajectories in the US and the UK.
So muddled and inaccurate, I really don’t know what to say, but i’ll try…
– Cummings broke the spirit of the rules, and endangered no-one. 2 weeks later (not 2 months, as you inaccurately state above) thousands of people in several different cities in the UK broke all the rules, and endangered the whole of the country.
– The protests preceded the violence, the violence was carried out by the protesters. How is this conflating the protests and the violence?
– The US and UK do indeed have different virus trajectories. See US news as to where the spikes in viral activity currently are, and you will see that they are in the same cities as the protests a couple of weeks ago.
Seriously mate, if you’re gonna comment, have a think first about what you are saying..something like “am I just making this up ‘cos it feels right” or “do I know anything about what i’m writing” that kind of thing.
I have always found sense checking a comment before posting very worthwhile.
Hang on…you can’t criticise Cummings for not following the rules, then let others off for doing the same.
The issue with Cummings was that he should have followed the rules, with the subtext that he individually abrogated responsibility as he was part of government, making it more serious for him.
It doesn’t therefore follow that people are absolved of all responsibility as they aren’t government members.
And no the same people causing the violence are not all the same people as who were protesting. But the people causing the violence are part of the larger wider groups in the protest. They are not mutually exclusive groups, so the article is not incorrect.
Tried his best to keep to the rules, while prioritizing child-care. He’s important to government management in a time of crisis, so tried to get back to work as soon as possible. The hysteria over all of this was somthing to behold. & that’s before getting to the naked contradiction a few days later.
I agree that the post conflates the protest and the violence. When I used to protest (as a late teen, early twentysomething) I was amazed at seeing full on Jihadists cheek by jowl with Marxists (whom the Jihadists despised), not to mention black flag anarchists, drunk punks, kids out on the nick, and nice middle class families out for a day in the sunshine.
Protests and riots are generally a mixed bag of people, some protests more than others.
However governments are the same. I suspect that D. Cummings did not set the policy on this one, and may even have been virulently against it. He’s too much of a self-declared maverick for levelling charges of hypocricy against him.
I agree that the post conflates the protest and the violence. When I used to protest (as a late teen, early twentysomething) I was amazed at seeing full on Jihadists cheek by jowl with Marxists (whom they despised).
Protests and riots are generally a mixed bag of people, some more than others.
However governments are the same. I suspect that D. Cummings did not set the policy on this one, and may even have been virulently against it. He’s too much of a self-declared maverick for levelling charges of hypocricy against him.
How many protestors were doing so to protect an autistic four year-old?