![\"Thoreau\"](\"http:\/\/jacothenorth.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Thoreau.png\")
<\/a>rejecting new technology entirely and going live in a cave, but I will in future be drastically reducing the time I spend on my computer. My Twitter account will be closed soon, and so will my Facebook page (which I never could see the value of). As for my blog, I shall keep it open but resort to it less. Maybe a weekly or bi-weekly post, supplemented by \u2018specials\u2019 if I think I have something worth saying. For while I believe some of my postings have had an effect, particularly those dealing with the Third Sector and other obvious forms of mismanagement or corruption, at the end of the day, blogging could be viewed as a cheap form of vanity publishing.<\/p>\n\u2018Why now?\u2019 you might ask. Well, there comes a point when you realise you\u2019re repeating yourself. Largely because the stupidly of politicians, and the perfidy of those who manipulate them, is unchanging. As is the gullibility of\u00a0 <\/span>too many Welsh voters. Only the characters and the circumstances change. One Third Sector scandal is much like another. And when a blogger finds himself referring back to his own earlier posts then he should realise that he\u2019s said it all before. Such is the situation with me.<\/p>\n In addition, my mother has just died, a milestone in any man\u2019s life. So now seems the right time to make my return to the real world. Before finishing, I\u2019d like to thank you all for reading my blog, both at its original home with Google Blogger, and more recently here, courtesy of Gwilym ab Ioan of S C Cambria<\/a>. Thank you also for your support and comments over the years. What follows may be my last post for a while, in it I try to give my honest assessment of the situation in Wales today, and how we got here.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n IN THE BEGINNING<\/strong><\/p>\n When I joined the nationalist movement in the mid-\u02bc60s I joined something vibrant and exciting, there was a \u2018We\u2019re not taking this shit any more!\u2019 attitude, and a belief that change would be brought about by pressure from below, by activists like us. And for a while we had the system worried. But by 1975, the high-water mark had been reached, and Welsh nationalism was in retreat. For by now the British Establishment understood what it was dealing with. It knew how far Welsh nationalism was prepared to go, what barriers it wouldn\u2019t cross; it had worked out who could be bought, or intimidated; and it understood that by guiding a nationalist movement without mass support into politics that that movement was never going to threaten the status quo.<\/p>\n And so it proved. After Plaid Cymru<\/a> won Carmarthen in 1966, Meirionnydd and Caernarfon in 1974, after seventeen years of Cymdeithas yr Iaith<\/a> Gymraeg, after the Free Wales Army (FWA)<\/a>, Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru (MAC)<\/a> and countless other manifestations of Welsh nationalism, on St. David\u2019s Day 1979 just 20.26% of us voted for a Welsh Assembly. That the devolution referendum of 1997 was won was due to Margaret Thatcher and eighteen years of Conservative rule. It had nothing to do with Plaid Cymru. Even then, many Labour voters argued that we didn\u2019t need devolution \u2013 Labour was back in power! (A good example of the mentality of the \u2018Donkey Labour\u2019 voter; rejecting devolution because it\u2019s only needed when the Tories are in power but unable to work out that the Tories will never give Wales devolution!)<\/p>\n DOWNHILL<\/strong><\/p>\n By the early 1970s the English Establishment had worked out the following facts. Plaid Cymru was essentially a linguistic and cultural movement which, once the initial excitement had worn off, would have little appeal to the anglophone majority. Many of the language activists were simply after their own niche in the English system, some proving themselves to be ruthlessly ambitious<\/a>. While the most sincere and selfless element of Welsh nationalism, those who resorted to direct action, were not prepared to take a human life. Just to be sure, the English Establishment put it place a colonisation strategy to encourage English settlers into Wales, using agencies as diverse as higher education and tourism, plus quangos such as the Development Board for Rural Wales.<\/p>\n It was downhill from there. Apart from the Meibion Glynd\u0175r<\/a> campaign and groups such as the Welsh Socialist Republican Movement<\/a>, Cofiwn<\/a>, Cyfamodwyr<\/a>, Wales was quiescent. Plaid Cymru went through various colour changes \u2013 red, green, pink \u2013 and Cymdeithas yr Iaith\u2019s best days were behind it, its victories nearly all won in the first twenty years of its existence. Whatever came to us now would be gifted by our masters without them having to worry about pressure from below. Even the Meibion Glynd\u0175r campaign, which had widespread popular support, did nothing to remove the problem of holiday homes.<\/p>\n TODAY<\/strong><\/p>\n Which brings me to a consideration of Wales today. Plaid Cymru can be discounted entirely. Exposed and discredited. Infiltrated and manipulated. A former leader openly talking about joining the Labour Party. More concerned with socialism and environmentalism than with nationalism. Its ambition limited to being junior partner in a Labour-led coalition. Quite happy to see the Welsh countryside covered with wind turbines and populated with English settlers. Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg, or the wider language-cultural movement, stands exposed as a bunch of weak-kneed charlatans. Deluding themselves that another school in Cardiff is fair exchange for the loss of Ceredigion. Smug and complacent on the moral high ground, as the enemy takes over the land below. Direct action? There is none.<\/p>\n Ah! but we\u2019ve got devolution, you reply. No. What we have is a system in which a bunch of second-rate politicians faff about in a leaky building down Cardiff docks while real power is increasingly exerted by English civil servants and organisations of which most of us have never heard \u2013 Planning Inspectorate<\/a>, Housing Directorate, Wales Rural Observatory<\/a>, countless Third Sector shyster-wagons, etc. \u2013 for which we never voted. So don\u2019t kid yourself that this system fronted by Carwyn and his gang is devolved and democratic government, or that it\u2019s doing anything for us. It is nothing but English colonialism with its repulsive features partly disguised with a Welsh veil.<\/p>\n TOMORROW?<\/strong><\/p>\n The biggest issue facing the Welsh nation is its very survival. Partly due to \u2018Wales\u2019 becoming divorced from \u2018the Welsh\u2019. Allowing politicians and academics, journalists and others, to crow about something being \u2018wonderful for Wales\u2019 when it offers Welsh people nothing, or is even detrimental to their interests. Tourism, for example<\/a>. To the point where people can even bang on about Wales being \u2018a rainbow nation\u2019, with we Welsh nothing more than another exotic component. Hand in hand with this divorce goes the trivialisation of Welsh identity<\/a>, and a careful promotion of what are considered to be acceptable expressions of Welshness. So that some tart on a reality TV show would be an acceptable face of ‘Welshness’, but a dignified patriot rejecting an ‘honour’ from the English Queen would be a narrow bigot, an extremist.<\/p>\n From now on the only issue must be the fight against colonisation and the threat it poses to the survival of Welsh nationhood. Everything else is secondary or irrelevant. Whether it\u2019s \u2018saving the planet\u2019 (as if Wales could make any bloody difference!) or the chimera of extra power for those clowns I mentioned earlier in the leaky building. Because no matter how many lies are told, how imaginative the euphemisms employed, or how many distractions promoted, WE know the truth: England is carrying out a colonisation programme in Wales that is excluding and marginalising the Welsh (apart from those needed to disguise the process) with the intention of destroying Welsh national identity. Fight this evil wherever you find it. It is the biggest threat the Welsh nation has ever faced.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In recent months I have given much thought to my lifestyle. I\u2019m spending far too much time at my computer, writing my blog and other things; reading, watching television, or just filling my head with information I\u2019d be none the poorer for not knowing. Then there\u2019s Twitter, Facebook, texts, e-mails. And so often I\u2019m not … <\/p>\n<\/a>These Orwellian interpretations dominate Welsh life. Exemplified by the approach to colonisation. Wales today has \u2018incomers\u2019 or \u2018in-migrants\u2019, and \u2018people from other parts of Britain\u2019, or even \u2018from over the border\u2019. These can be \u2018retirees\u2019, or people \u2018looking for a better quality of life\u2019 (even \u2018good-lifers\u2019 is acceptable). They can even be, in the memorable phrase of Wyn Roberts<\/a>, \u201cthis beneficent influx\u201d. You can use any bloody euphemism you choose, but they must never be called \u2018English\u2019.<\/i><\/b> To do so would be \u2018racist\u2019. Exposing a pathetic self-censorship, perhaps even self-intimidation. This is the level of debate we have sunk to in Wales; one corrupted by political correctness and poisoned by a variant of socialism that would be ridiculed and rejected from Bilbao to Barcelona to Belfast.<\/p>\n