I'm weary of everybody finding fascism in the unlikeliest of places. I'm tired of finding little cookie duster moustaches photoshopped onto politicians that remind me of church wardens, not mail-fisted strongmen. I'm worn out from the endless denouement of every discussion on every topic, no matter how mundane, being a reference to that weird Austrian corporal.
It's a looming Weimar you're all not recognizing, not the next Fuhrer. Everybody's oblivious to the cobbling together of a miserable tottering spineless Byzantium, because they want to spot Mehmed in every passerby,when they should be fixing the chinks in the walls and looking to the horizon.
I said I was weary of it, and just look at the picture I offered. I apologize. It's not the
Hitlerjugend I read about yesterday. It seemed to me Weimar being remade, not the Third Reich. Lord knows what will come after this Weimar falls. Or perhaps,
Lord, peace be upon him is more to the point.
It was just a quotidian item, one of many such bits of squishy government minutiae you see bandied about; some little encroachment of government into things that are none of their affair, always with the eye towards finally making sure nothing is none of their affair. It wasn't even the main topic of the story out of Great Britain in the Times Online. That story is tedious enough:
People who illegally download films and music will be cut off from the internet under new legislative proposals to be unveiled next week.
Internet service providers (ISPs) will be legally required to take action against users who access pirated material, The Times has learnt.
Users suspected of wrongly downloading films or music will receive a warning e-mail for the first offence, a suspension for the second infringement and the termination of their internet contract if caught a third time, under the most likely option to emerge from discussions about the new law.
Broadband companies who fail to enforce the “three-strikes” regime would be prosecuted and suspected customers’ details could be made available to the courts. The Government has yet to decide if information on offenders should be shared between ISPs.
I am put in mind of Kissinger's mordant observation of the Iran-Iraq war of decades back. "Too bad they can't both lose." It's tiresome to listen to people justify plain stealing as somehow noble and appropriate, and it's equally tiresome to see just how venal and rapacious the entertainment industry is. The government whipsaws between freaking out over whether an ISP throttles back users downloading enormous files of purloined material, then freaking out over piracy. If any government understood the Internet it wouldn't exist anyway. They'll muck it up in stages as they figure it out.
As I said, that's garden variety foolishness. And only a proposal. Skip on down and get a load of this:
Other high-profile elements include a pledge that children will be entitled to five hours of culture a week overseen by a new youth culture trust. The pledge will give children the right to learn a musical instrument, visit art galleries and museums and even make films.
If this is Hitler, it's the Dick Shawn version in
The Producers. But anyone who can read that, and not feel that whatever elements of it wouldn't be a profoundly stupid waste of time will be profoundly bad precedent for who decides what, has lost their perspective and their individuality.
Great Britain and much of multi-culti Europe have an interesting near future. There is one element of their society, maybe two, that is always and forever immune to such Weimar style twaddle. They refuse to participate in any way, and when coerced, immediately resort to violence, so they are generally left alone by the authorities -- authorities who know they'll have an easier time harrying concave-chested disarmed law-abiding citizens about whether they've got their culture ration card on them at all times or something equally niggling.
It'll be fun -- sorta --watching suicidal Muslims fighting homicidal soccer hooligans in the ruins of the European Union in a few years.
I bet none of them play an instrument.
