THE RANTING BRUMMIE vs THE GREAT RESET

So, how to sum up 2020 then ?? Well, for one thing, looking back on it from where we probably hoped we would be way back in the year 2000, a whopping (for us GenX-ers at least) 20 years ago, we certainly haven't ended up living on the moon, wearing bacofoil suits, driving flying cars and with a robot butler.

What did happen is that we got a global pandemic, the biggest and most blatant rigging of a western democratic election in history, the usual plethora of celebrity deaths and and (at the time of writing) four years spent pithering about trying to negotiate a trade deal with an organisation more rigid and stubborn than a bull owned by Ena Sharples (by which, of course, I mean the EU).

Next year, things may get really interesting. I have been more than a little dismayed by the docile compliance among many of our fellow Brits with the capricious diktats that the government has used to freeze ancient liberties, a freezing that looks like it may be turning (in ministerial minds at least) into permafrost, permanent petrification, "for our own good."

It's amazing what evils one can perpetrate when one believes one is a secular messiah on a mission to do good for others (for some reason, Matt Hancock, every older sister's first boyfriend with a car, is popping into my mind).

But here's my speculation: yes, the ceaseless petty intrusions of the health-and-safety "nanny" state, one little step at a time, one decade after another, into the lives of a people bequeathed liberty by their heroic ancestors, has inured many of us to a life filled with a mass of irritatingly-piddling little interdictions.

But gigantically intrusive and life-altering top-down efforts like the Great Reset that the World Economic Forum has been drooling over for decades in one form or another is no petty interdiction. It's top-down totalitarianism - all "for our own good", of course.

It's the sort of thing wold have Ron Swanson taking up arms, building a barbed-wire fence around his cabin in the woods and cashing in his gold for massive amounts of tinned spam and rice pudding.

Like children, we will not be permitted to decide for ourselves what is good for us; our unelected billionaire superiors, like Bill Gates, George Soros, Ursula von der Leyen and Klaus Schwab, will do that for us. They, and their like-minded billionaire globalist "philanthropist" freinds, have decided that a reduction in the world's human population by (surreptitious) means, for example, is in "our" interests. Clearly, the WEF's "nanny" is much more like Cathy Bates's Anne Wilkes than Julie Andrew's Mary Poppins.

I was among the millions of Brits who willingly complied with the bizarre methods the government imposed on us in the early phase of 'Lockdown Normalcy'. And while the virus appears no more lethal than common flu for vulnerable populations (predominantly, those above 70 years of age with serious co-morbidities), it's no re-run of the 1918 Spanish Flu. The numbers of those of us who have moved to the Lockdown Sceptics camp as a result are increasing every day.

Now the British people have seen on their TV screens the obnoxious spectacle of anti-democratic, marxist thugs being granted free rein by our kneeling police to not only brazenly flout the social distancing rules the rest of us were required to observe, but to engage in a Black Mirror-esque` level of anarchic vandalism in our streets, attacking our history and the monuments commemorating it in the process. 

Meanwhile, these same cops showed no such grovelling servility to elderly and entirely orderly and peaceful lockdown protestors, who they manhandled brutishly. Everyone with eyes to see saw this, and saw that the police appeared to be allowing the lawless to run amok as violently as they pleased (the anarchy) while forcefully suppressing and intimidating the peaceful and law-abiding (the tyranny).

I hope that with those scenes, a little of that independent spirit that enabled ordinary people to defy the Establishment's torrential Project Fear campaign over Brexit may be starting to gather momentum. No-one likes to be manipulated. Already there are signs that a significant and growing minority of people, Left and Right, will refuse to accept the rushed vaccines and are ready to stick their fingers up when we go WTO.

But, will people - and will some of the few remaining decent MPs - really accept a national vaccination card or "immunity passport"? Will people approve of not being permitted to travel, not being permitted to enter a supermarket or department store, perhaps not being permitted to enter their workplaces, or seeing their children refused entry to schools, unless they have succumbed to government pressure to take a potentially highly dangerous vaccine, which has been conveniently early for there to be doubt that it is relatively safe?

I suspect that the prospect of such overwhelming, permanent coercion is more likely to foster intense resentment than docile compliance, and the Great Reset enthusiasts of the billionaire "citizens of the air" will ultimately see their evil plan for the good of all humanity go the way of the Tower of Babel, which it is clearly trying to emulate.

The Great Reset power grab, in other words, is, I sense, more likely to awaken people to the truth that the late Sir Roger Scruton described so beautifully: that having a life worth living is vastly more valuable than existing interminably as a timid, compliant laboratory rat.

Mind you, PETA would probably have something to say about that as well.

2020 - A YEAR IN REVIEW

January:

Happy New Year. Everything's fine. We're out of the Borg Empire / Eu, China has a cold, probably man flu or some shit.

February:

Fucking hell China, this is why we don't eat things that still have fucking plans for tomorrow. At an emergency Cobra meeting, Raab told us that the Chinese ambassador has been round to the FO several times explaining that any new virus had nothing to do with them, but that we must close our economy and shut schools indefinitely to stop the spread.

Everyone agreed that this was farcical scaremongering, and we would carry on as we did during previous bad flu seasons. It seems like the sort of thing I once picked up in Telford which was soon dealt with by a dose of penicillin and a couple of paracetamol. Best of luck to you though.

March:

It's probably not that bad. The news likes to over dramatize everything. Boris has it under control. We'll just ignore the fact he doesn't seem to know what a hairbrush is and has the IQ of a fucking chewed up crayon. We're good. Wait a sec...Where's all the bread gone?? Where's the loo roll? Whys McDonalds taped up like a murder scene from CSI?! We should wear masks now Boris? Yes?... Boris?....No?? BORIS??!

April:

Our pensioners are given 3-5 working days to live. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DORIS STAY INDOORS! Popping to your local CO-OP is a bloody death sentence so stop shuffling round 52 times a day looking for flour, THERE'S NO FUCKING FLOUR DORIS!! Erm... can I have some toilet roll please? Let's all make masks out the cups of our bras and hoard obscene amounts of bog roll like we're going to build a fucking house with it. I swear they said this Bat Flu gives you a runny nose and not a runny bum.

FUCK OFF JOE WICKS, YOU MOCKNEY PRAT, I CAN'T FEEL MY LEGS!!!

May:

April was eleventymillion and four thousand days long. We've all got beards and the fridge has an injunction against me and my 12 chins. Half of us are now Gin soaked hermits who only crawl out on a Thursday evening to clap for a few minutes. Boris says we've to go to work. But not go to work. But if we can't work we should definitely go to work. Only don't go by bus... or car.. or any public transport. LETS ALL SPROUT SOME FUCKING WINGS AND FLYYYYY!!!!

I'm rated "Piss poor and drunk" by OFSTED and the kids are surviving on custard creams and the tears of my misspent youth. Joe Exotic is elected King of the world and the entire human race trolls Carole fuckin' Baskin - killed her husband, whacked him (See TikTok for choreography).

Masks, Boris?? ... No??...

June:

All sorts of nerdy, pasty, weirdo types have been in and out of Number Ten. They are from some operation called Sage. It seems that after his near-death experience the PM is even more obsessed with prolonging the fatuous lockdown. There is a suggestion that some of these buggers are bankrolled by the Chinese. That can’t be right, surely? Shops, zoos and theme parks reopen. We spend most of this month in the queue for McDonalds with Linda and her entire extended family and the rest of the month cramming ourselves into Primark. Still can't go see our Mums... and no masks.

July:

Sir Keir Starmer, the manager of the Monster Liberal Loony Green Party, was let in through the back door for a secret meeting about the bad flu. Although the virus seems to be on the way out, he wants to lock down even harder and said he would support the Government in any way possible until the thing disappears completely.

Starmer did not impress; with his ‘speak your weight’ voice and dead eyes, he has all the charisma of a bag of used cat litter. Bars open. No one remembers anything else.. we're all fucking shitfaced and our kids are beyond feral. Masks now though yes? No? Actually... yes. Yes. But not till the 24th. Are we safe till the 24th?? Has the virus been furloughed till then Boris?!

August:

Where the actual fuck did August go? Did Boris tax it?

September:

When the schools FINALLY opened we all thought we'd be hoofing the kids over the school fence with a pocket full of Cheerios at the arse crack of dawn. But in actual fact we're gutted. And so grateful for all the extra time and memories we've made. So thanks for that Lockdown. Fair play, thank you …

Not you though Boris. You're still a fucking melt.

October:

Second lockdown, yes no? Andy Burnham stands up to Boris the cockwomble and becomes king of the North like a mad episode of ‘Game of thrones’. Winter is coming. It’ll all end in "tiers" I tell you.

November:

The PM seemed quite elated when the news of the Biden victory came through. He asked me to pester the US embassy for him to be the first to receive a call from the President elect. I had always thought that the Anglophile Trump was more our sort, but what do I know? BoJo received the call he had been waiting for from Biden. There was some initial confusion when the President tried to order a pepperoni pizza, but after intervention from his aides they had a useful discussion about their preferred face masks.

December:

BoJo can’t contain his delight at the arrival of the vaccines. I am asked to compile a list of MPs who will be publicly vaccinated ‘pour encourager les autres’. I notice that the list already contains the names Brady, Walker, Swayne and Harper. It is suggested that I add the names of older members with the largest majorities rather than new intake of zombies.

WHY THE PAST MATTERS

It's probably no understatement to say that this mad old world of ours is going through some pretty turbulent times right now, with a lot of emotions running pretty high.

We've all been stuck indoors for three months as a result of someone getting a sniffle off a bat in a far eastern poultry market, resulting in pretty much everything getting postponed, cancelled, put back or restricted to such an extent that Charlie Brooker would have rejected it as a pitch for an episode of "Black Mirror" for being too over the top.

And predictably, whilst we've been waiting to the first chance to have a pint after this whole thing blows over, it's made space for a culture war of biblical proportions to erupt, and predictably this has led to those waiting on the wings, looking for the chance to exploit the situation to advance their own cause, to open fire on and otherwise, bully, cajole, and berate and harangue honest, decent, working-class people who have done nothing more than exercise their God-given fundamental right to disagree and have different perspectives.

And predictably, rather than attempt to have a civilised conversation, the attackers have doubled down with their undeserved claims of righteousness being on their side.

Pair this with spineless media companies which are only interested turning a profit, who are more than willing to bend over backwards and capitulate to avoid being targeted by a mob mentality not seen since the Poll Tax riots of the 1980's, and the result has been absolute carnage. A frightening, total cancellation-culture free-for-all that would have Orwell spinning in his grave so hard his corpse would have burrowed it's way down to the earth's core by now.

I mean, just look at what's been happening over the past week or so. The editing, censoring and complete removal of movies, books, and TV shows which were perfectly acceptable when they were made are now considered 'problematic' because they don't measure up to the 'high standards' of today. I mean, clearly a movie made 81 years ago set in the deep south during the US Civil War should absolutely confirm to work present day extremist, left-wing cultural norms, I mean, it just makes sense, right ??

Dare to do anything, show anything, or even merely hint at anything that uses controversial language in some of its jokes ?? Yup, clearly that needs to go, especially a three-second movie clip from a film about a mermaid that shows a woman's bare bottom ?? Yep, that's right for a high quality edit with some dodgy CGI that makes it look like someone's glued Dougal from The Magic Roundabout to her lower back.

The thing is, as a fan of storytelling, and a proud speaker of the English language, and as a graduate of the the once-noble art of journalism, every single piece of entertainment we consume, from the humblest amateur film to the grandest movie blockbuster is a special, unique piece of art. It may not appeal to all sensibilities or represent the absolute pinnacle of it, but that's not the point here.

A piece of art exists, not because it must, but because it can.

People exercising their imagination and creativity and ingenuity to turn a simple idea into something timeless and memorable is the most human thing our minds are capable of doing. It's a skill and ability to be treasured and nurtured, ever since the first time our cave-dwelling ancestors learned for the first time to use tools. Yes, it's within the limitations of existence, but even then it still gives us the opportunity to break outside those limitations, and to create things that are there in our all-too short lives, that tell stories that grip our imaginations and hold us in our thrall and captivate us.

Long after we die, our culture is an expression not just of a few things, but grander and more fundamental things, we all know we might be depicting the good or the bad, the lavish or the cheapest, the power of compassion and wisdom, ether from the darkness or the light. Fact or fiction, we have wowed ourselves from the moment we created language to develop stories of courage and determination, adventure and excitement, vengeance, anger, the dangers of conflicts representing both the best and the worst of humanity.

Stories that even challenge what it means to be human.

And all these things stem from one reason and one reason only - because it's free to do so.

It's pretty boring not seeing things that are inspiring, restricted by operating in a challenging environment, and if things keep going they have, with every knee or will bent rigidly in one direction, nothing will be challenging any more.

And because we are so busy walking on eggshells for fear of a tiny minority of people getting a little bit annoyed, you can bet that it won't stay that way. Already we are seeing insidious change in the way our entertainment is being twisted from a way to allow us to escape our lives, to ramming every single kind of 'correct' opinion down our throats.

The plan has us accepting the blandness, the laziness, the pandering towards identity politics, sucking the fun and vision out of everything we produce which is being compromised by same voices calling with increasing volume and decreasing patience, to water down the things that not only do we create now, but the things that have already been created.

Instead of being preserved and respected for future generations to draw their own conclusions from, they are gradually being removed, altered via a cut scene here, a minor edit there, a change of dialogue you may not have even been aware of in the first place, all in order to present a pre-determined, pre-prescribed opinion that you 'must' arrive at in order to be seen as 'right'.

Where will it end, where will it stop ?? Ever ??

If we don't allow a diversity of opinion to have a genuine impact, then slowly but surely, the dissenting voices will spread and grow bigger, and demanding we keep trying to appease their voices, until eventually, they demand something that you won't give up. And then, armed with the weaponry of social media shaming, they will strike at the very heart of whatever it is you hold most dear, and rip it away from you, eventually leaving us with a cold, bland, sterile world, free of expression of opinion so as not so risk offending someone a little bit.

A world, not free and equal as they would believe, but constrained and shackled by fear and shame, having driven out all forms of creativity, curiosity and exploration.

But it doesn't have to be that way, we are who we were, our art also shows who we could be if we really did put our differences aside and asked ourselves 'what if ?' we could be alright if not for our fears and we will lose another little piece of ourselves if we don't have the confidence to challenge and question those who demand their agenda comes first, rather than cower and conform to avoid being labelled with something that simply isn't true.

With all this in mind, I'm going to end this with a telling quote from one of the most tragic victims of this endless, relentless, brutal and savage quest for Marxist, blanket cultural homogenisation, one Captain Jean-Luc Picard:

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored… the first thought forbidden… the first freedom denied – chains us all irrevocably. The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. I fear that today".