I’M IN SEMI-RETIREMENT AND THIS BLOG IS WINDING DOWN. I INTEND CALLING IT A DAY IN THE NEXT FEW MONTHS. POSTINGS WILL PROBABLY BE LESS FREQUENT AND I WILL NOT UNDERTAKE ANY MAJOR NEW INVESTIGATIONS. DIOLCH YN FAWR.
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Here we are again! But with good news to impart. Though we mustn’t get carried away, for the enemy has retreated into the bush to reflect on his next move. Indeed, I hear that in remote valleys, far, far away, the wily Wokie is regrouping and planning a fresh offensive.
And you thought they couldn’t get any more offensive!
Have I got news for you!
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OUT WITH THE OLD
Every man and his dog knows by now that YesCymru’s Central Committee – or what remained of it – resigned last Friday. Here’s the statement they put out. Gettysburg Address, it ain’t, but I’ll take it.
Despite what this destined-for-the-archives document says, speculation abounds as to what really precipitated the decision at that time.
You may recall that in my previous post I quoted a source who’d told me: “The CC meeting to suspend Ben (Gwalchmai) was supposed to have been last Wednesday (Aug 4), then delayed until Thursday, then delayed to today (Monday), and now tomorrow.”
Could it have been that young Benji’s suspension couldn’t be put off any longer, and then, because suspending him would leave the Central Committee inquorate, they decided to go together? Perhaps holding hands and singing Abide With Me, as they jumped overboard into the icy waters of the North Atlantic?
Gwalchmai certainly had one hell of a Twitter rant on Saturday night. He lashed out in all directions. Members of the middle class seemed to particularly irk him. Whether this was an attempt to burnish his working class credentials or an attack on those he felt had betrayed him was difficult to say.
Possibly a bit of both.
Because in that rant Gwalchmai stated that he had not wanted to resign. Suggesting perhaps that he had been outvoted by the other three. (Bourgeois bastards!)
And he hadn’t calmed down by Monday, to judge by this tweet. Though this time the target was, ‘The Groups’.
But the groups, and the members they represent, are YesCymru. How could they mount a coup against themselves? What the groups have executed is a counter-coup. They’ve been fighting to reverse a sly takeover by extremists.
Far left extremists who’d ensured that some people – Secretary Iestyn ap Rhobert and Central Committee member Dilys Davies – could not be re-elected at the May 22 AGM. While also guaranteeing that their choices would be sneaked in by keeping the number of members able to vote at the AGM down to a few hundred.
There were also people involved in the coup who were not on the Central Committee. Most notably, perhaps, Rob Lloyd of Labour for an Independent Wales.
But whether they were on the Central Committee or not it was a Woke-Left takeover involving the Leannista wing of Plaid Cymru, Undod, Momentum, and Labour for an Independent Wales. Using ‘trans rights’ as their trojan horse they sought to silence all critics by labelling them ‘TERFs’, ‘transphobes’ and, of course, ‘fascists’.
Explained here, with main players named, in YesCymru: it must be a clean sweep.
YesCymru is now in the hands of an unnamed firm of accountants. Which is no doubt costing more money. Maybe a lot of money. Who knows?
This expensive period of stasis could have been avoided if the Central Committee had agreed to an EGM as soon as possible after the Vote of No Confidence passed by local groups on July 13.
Instead of accepting that VONC, at a meeting arranged by them – a meeting at which they’d allowed the attendance of supportive non-branches (Maesteg, Bynie) – the Central Committee rejected the vote as being “anti-democratic”.
A complete absence of self-awareness is something that has been remarked on many times in this saga when people look at the Central Committee and its chorus.
Or maybe it’s psychological projection; in which someone attributes their own faults or feelings onto others.
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OUT IN THE FIELD
The High Command may have fled, jodhpurs flapping, but the indefatigable infantryman and infantrywoman carry on the fight, from north to south.
In Rhuthun yesterday they were out showing their colours. (One of my favourite towns, can’t wait to visit again.)
While back in the City of my Dreams the local branch of YesCymru met the very day the Central Committee did a lemming and discussed a statement to submit to the Gweithgor (the working group to organise the EGM).
Note, in particular, the reference I’ve highlighted about not pre-judging ‘what an independent Wales should look like’. How encouraging to read that!
For those involved in the Woke-Left coup were so prescriptive in their vision that they’d even worked on the locations and lay-out of the gulags, and stipulated that bread queues would have agreed percentages of trans, non-binary, etc., etc.
Despite this common sense, one from the ugly lovely town was a member of the takeover gang. This was Rachel Cooze, though her elevation to the Central Committee had little to do with support from her local group.
Cooze’s success was due to her allies within and without the Central Committee. Partly a reward for her enthusiastic involvement in the campaign against Dr Dilys Davies that saw Dr Davies suspended and therefore unable to oppose the elections of Cooze and others like her. A suspension that also helped facilitate the adoption of the Left-Woke motion to set up a Diversity and Inclusivity Sub-committee.
All carefully orchestrated, and beginning with Aled Gwyn Williams’ deliberately provocative visit to Dr Davies’ properties in Ceredigion.
The three who lodged the complaints that got Dr Davies suspended were Cooze, ‘Emrys’ Price-Jones, and Elinor Walters. For a while, Walters even renamed her Twitter account, ‘Dr Dildo Davies’.
Which Aled Gwyn Williams thought was ‘excellent’. Silly boy!
But Cooze went further, offering discounts on her OnlyFans sex site using Dr Davies’ name. That was a new low even for these people. Perhaps worse, was her co-conspirators defending her.
Cooze gets a mention in the next section. Though we may soon be hearing of her in another context.
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A PHOENIX RISES?
After I’d stopped laughing I got round to properly reading what someone sent me on Sunday evening. After reading it properly I laughed a lot more. Here it is.
Aled Gwyn Williams – for it must be him! – has arranged a meeting on Glyndŵr’s Day at Maesteg RFC to launch Cwm Llynfi for Indy, ‘a group advocating inclusive independence for Wales’ . . . but not if you’re Dilys Davies, or Iestyn ap Rhobert, or Niki Jones, or me, or anybody who won’t accept Marxism and women with penises.
You’ve read about Rachel Cooze, so who are the other speakers?
Siwan Clark has not long returned from London, where she was a big fan of Jeremy Corbyn. It should go without saying that she is in Momentum.
Welsh independence seems to have become more attractive to the far left since Corbyn’s hammering in the December 2019 general election. Not because the comrades want Welsh independence – or even care about Wales – but because with the Labour Party under Keir Starmer being less welcoming they must find new platforms for their odious message.
Clark brought Momentum methods with her. One of which is the sock puppet Twitter account. She has run quite a few of these recently.
The other name is ‘Charlotte Williams from Hiraeth Films’. This outfit has been working for about seven years on a film about Capel Celyn, the village drowned to make way for the Tryweryn dam; though apart from a few short videos to be found on Twitter and Facebook it’s difficult to know if it really does anything.
But the point is, Charlotte Williams comes from Welshpool, and who else do we know in that area? The photo below will help. It’s taken on the Montgomeryshire Canal in the town.
Kneeling down, swigging from a bottle, is Charlotte Williams and behind her is Katie Bataille, another trans woman, one who never turns down an opportunity for a social media pile-on. But who is that bearded fellow, sitting there so nonchalantly, about to fall backwards into the murky water?
Why! it’s young Ben Gwalchmai!
And is that a sticking plaster across his knuckles? Has Benji been brawling with the local fascists and transphobes? (Cos I’ve seen them many a time goose-stepping up and down Broad Street.)
Enough levity.
Aled Gwyn Williams has brought together this impressive threesome to launch Cwm Llynfi for Indy. So what is this new venture?
Worth asking because, as I mentioned, Williams represented YesCymru Maesteg in the July 13 meeting at which the vote of no confidence in the CC was passed. (AGW of course supported the Central Committee.)
Though whether YesCymru Maesteg was a legally-constituted group is debatable.
Whether it was or not, this proposed launch of Cwm Llynfi for Indy certainly suggests that Aled has now severed his links with YesCymru. The presence of Cooze, Williams and Clark suggests that they too have burned their bridges.
Worth watching, I suggest. And although I’ll be unable to make it myself on September 16 – unless I go in disguise – I’m sure I’ll get plenty of feedback.
(There’s also a Twitter account.)
UPDATE: An early comment tells us that YesCymru Welshpool has rebranded to Welshpool for Independence. Taken with the plan for Maesteg it looks as if this is the path chosen by the defeated takeover gang. Will there be a national structure?
And do these new groups have access to YesCymru information on members? If so, how does this square with General Data Protection Regulation? And access to YC money?
A source also tells me that Scott Mackay, one of the Woke-Left plotters who failed to be elected to the CC, has left YC Abertawe.
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BEYOND THE FRINGE
In many ways the Woke-Left coup was the work of different groups and individuals that could be viewed as concentric rings.
With the Central Committee serving as the inner ring. Aled Gwyn Williams and his social media pile-on gang as the next ring, but in close contact with the inner ring. Then beyond them, an outer ring, where we find those who can be rallied to support the others and attack the fascisti.
In the hazy outer ring we find the fascinating ‘Alan Reilly’. I’ve put his name in quotes because I’m not sure if he’s a real person.
This name first cropped up towards the end of 2018, soon after the formation of Gwlad. With vicious attacks on me, personally. Also attacks on Cayo Evans and the Free Wales Army – ‘What did you bastards ever do for Wales?’ and more in that vein.
It was strange stuff from someone professing to be a sympathetic Irish Republican and, as I say, it was very personal. With an unhealthy obsession with my bodily functions. A fascination recently exhibited by others.
‘Reilly’ was often in the company of Shane Waters aka Séan Mac Uaitéir and Andrew McDonald aka Andras ap Alun. And despite their claims of support for Wales and Welsh independence, they often slipped up.
Then ‘Reilly’ went quiet. To reappear very recently, when the pressure on the YesCymru Central Committee reached the crescendo that led to the mass resignation.
This time he was commenting to posts on Nation.Cymru. And I’m ‘Nonce o’ the North’.
I complained to N.C about the first comment and it was taken down, so ‘Reilly’ wrote the second comment, and then I had to complain about that. It too was taken down. In an e-mail, Mark Mansfield at Nation.Cymru told me: ‘I’ve banned him and his IP address and disabled comments for the article’.
‘Alan Reilly’ is now back on the Nation.Cymru site posting as ‘Alan Reilly 1’. Presumably from a different IP address. Unless Mark Mansfield was lying about blocking him.
But he’s not using ‘Alan Reilly 1’ to attack me. No, instead, the attack last Saturday came from someone signing ‘Rwân’. (The correct spelling is of course ‘rŵan’.) How do I know it was ‘Reilly’? Because of the references to ‘old incontinent boy, sad Sac o’ the North’.
Someone saw it, drew my attention to it and, again, I had to complain to Nation.Cymru before the comment was taken down.
To express his frustration, ‘Reilly’ then turned his attention to my blog, where he posted this comment at twenty minutes to one on Sunday morning. It’s difficult to know where to start.
He accuses me of hiding behind an alias. Yet he knows my name, everybody does, it’s Royston Jones. As it says in the old Daily Mail report from October 1968. In fact, I was ‘lifted’ by the police more than once. (Lost jobs because of it. Fortunately, I was young, and carefree. And handsome!) I did not make a complaint about Leanne Wood’s ‘arsehole’ remark, that was someone else.
Without thinking too much about ‘Alan Reilly’, there appear to be four possibilities:
1/ He’s a sock puppet of one of the Woke Left fanatics who nearly wrecked YesCymru.
2/ He is what he says he is, an Irish Republican with an interest in Welsh politics.
3/ He’s someone in Wales, possibly even Welsh, hostile to Welsh nationalism. And / or me?
4/ He’s working for some agency hostile to both Irish Republicanism and Welsh nationalism.
I dismiss the first two possibilities because I don’t believe anyone qualifying for those descriptions would be so dismissive of the national movement in Wales.
The third option is plausible because Alan Reilly’ seems to know quite a lot about Wales and the history of the national movement, but is clearly hostile. But if so, why adopt the Irish persona?
Then there’s option 4. Also plausible because ‘Alan Reilly’ first appeared shortly after a new political party was formed, and reappeared when it became clear that the coup to subvert YesCymru was in danger of failing.
I am not suggesting that those behind the coup work for the British state. But the British state would have been delighted to see a growing movement for Welsh independence subverted and side-tracked.
If anyone has any thoughts on ‘Alan Reilly’, then please pass them on.
And by the way, don’t think I’m whining here; I’m an old bastard and this is water off a Jack’s back. Think of it more as a warning.
◊
LOOKING FORWARD
The worst appears to be over, with an EGM in the offing at which all members will be able to vote. YesCymru should in future be more representative of its membership than it has been since May’s rigged AGM.
Whether YesCymru sticks with the old structure of officials and a Central Committee, or whether it becomes more professional, with full-time employees, is something else for the members to decide.
But without I hope sounding vindictive, I would warn YesCymru’s members to be very wary of those who’ve appeared on this blog recently. And think carefully about whether they are made welcome in future.
Because, politics aside, there have been some very weird people involved in recent events. Some of them seriously unhinged. Others, violent. A few, genuinely evil.
Speaking personally, I would not extend a welcome to any of them.
And though he’s a long way from being the worst among them, for God’s sake don’t allow Rantin’, Rovin’ Benji anywhere near the levers of power in YesCymru.
I’m now hoping to take a break from the Woke-Left interlopers who tried to wreck YesCymru and re-acquaint myself with more likeable people. I’m referring now to the grant grabbers, con men, money launderers, mortgage fraudsters, etc., who’ve starred on this blog for so long.
They must be feeling neglected!
♦ end ♦
Good to read that Cymdeithas are doing the job they were set up to undertake :
https://nation.cymru/news/institutions-can-operate-through-welsh-medium-and-be-anti-racist-say-language-campaigners/
This creepy WA-RU body was invited in to produce this crock of shit by a National Institution who are part of what one might regard as the Welsh cultural identity. They appear to have ignored evidence that some BAME citizens motivate themselves to learn Welsh thus ticking one of the ability boxes for getting employment at the Arts Council or the Museums. Instead they make a big hoo-ha about all those lazy types, mostly Anglos, who can’t be bothered to learn, and tough shit can’t get one of those jobs.
Like another critic put it, you don’t get an engineer’s job unless you satisfy certain ability criteria so why should a job in Welsh arts or culture be any different. Ability trumps all, no matter whether you are white black brown or some shade in between.
People at the Arts Council and those Museums need a good clip around their collective earholes for entertaining such wokeish bullshit anyway. Any of them linked by any chance to the nutters who invaded YC ?
There were three reports, the other two are also interesting. All three carry the fingerprints of the ‘Welsh Government’. This was a charade that will be used by WG to justify reducing funding and / or taking greater control. I’ll try to explain it in the next blog piece.
Aled Gwyn Williams, Cooze, Gwalchmai and the rest of this little gang of bullies have done an extraordinary amount of damage in a very short time to YesCymru. For them now to claim that THEY are the targets of harassment is the absolute depths of whiny self indulgent melodrama. Like the laughable accusations of being ‘far right’ (as if they would have any idea what that is) flung at – well, anyone they don’t like. If they do try and regroup elsewhere, I hope whatever unlucky organisation they target is aware of their history, and can politely but firmly shut the door before they get their foot in.
Well spotted. I never noticed the sticking plaster on Ben Gwalchmai’s hand in that photo. He’s a card is Benji. I doubt the plaster is there to cover damage to his hand from hitting something or someone. The People’s Poet is a man of peace, surely? Nothing Benji loves more than to sell his impoverished, working-class hero image to the masses. He’s told us he is an unpaid carer and has to sleep on the floor as the house is too small for even a put-me-up bed. Apparently, he then falls victim to spider bites, I do not jest. Only this week he was saying how he’d been bitten again in the webbing between two of his fingers. I hope he sleeps in a decent set of pants.
A small point about Aled Gwyn Williams’ name and if it’s single or double “L” in the surname. For the record it’s double. The single version has been used in his twitter handle because of limitations to the number of characters you are allowed to use. At least, that’s what he once said.
And there was me thinking it was a silly affectation.
I know that it has been dismissed in the past, but does anyone think that Aled Gwyn Williams is an agent of the British state? He seems to be the sole instigator of all problems related to Welsh independence and Yes Cymru
He’s a shit-stirrer but I think you give him too much influence. He has his little circle of admirers, but that’s it. All they have now is each other.
They’re not all that good at this game really though are they, so it’s just wacky enough that it might be true. Look at the endless amounts of painfully obvious sock puppet accounts all over Twitter that some might say the 77th have a hand in (Russian doll of metaphors there; as was that… it’s hall of mirrors of metaphors… which is one again… Ahhh!). The hubris and oafishness goes right to the top of this shitty state, look at our glorious PM!
Interesring read, thanks Jac. Any thoughts on the rumour the nameless accountancy firm is Kroll, which Llewellyn of black book fames father in law is a partner in?
I hadn’t heard that. But if he’s Ll ap G’s father-in-law then can we assume he’s doing it for nowt?
Not if he’s got targets to hit!
I’m sure he’ll do the YC work on the weekend. 😎
I don’t think Kroll would bother their arses with YC on any terms unless it was of benefit to some UK or other governmental institution or similar agency. The kind of work J.Kroll and colleagues undertook decades ago often overlapped with FBI in USA and CIA almost any where. Now I appreciate that Kroll’s business facade has changed with the Duff & Phelps deal and other preceding ownership changes but it remains well placed inside that very opaque community. Maybe someone’s doing a bit of manipulating on the side ?
I must admit I don’t know this firm. Maybe I’ll do some checking.
They probably did a check on you many years ago. Might even get round to sending you a birthday card as you as self identified as being on the right. There again maybe not “right” enough.
If Kroll Duff &Phelps are involved I suspect it will be enough to give little Aled a terminal fit. Fashies in the camp and all that type of bollocks are anathema to his sensitive little nature, unless they have a cute little ladyboy on the team to ship down to Maesteg to deal with him personally.
Good read as always
Sort of on-topic: is the SNP on a fucking suicide mission with this 4-year-olds trans lunacy?
It may not be intentional, but that will be the outcome.
How could implementing these kinds of bonkers policies, that will alienate all but the most blinkered of followers at such a critical juncture, not be intentional? Unless entryists have almost entirely encompassed the party and now somehow have overall control of its decision making?
I’ve many times likened these loonies to a cult, because they behave like members of a cult. Having convinced themselves of these idiocies many of them believe that they have to explain their belief to convince others. When that doesn’t happen they get a little hysterical.
But in addition to the true believers there are others, more astute and calculating, who used the cultists to take over YesCymru.
Looking at the bigger picture, few people nowadays buy into Marxism. What’s more, the socialist and leftist parties in the West have lost the white working class. So the far left is using three new weapons in the old struggle: Climate change, Race, and Sex/Gender
“Having convinced themselves of these idiocies many of them believe that they have to explain their belief to convince others. When that doesn’t happen they get a little hysterical.”
If only. The canonical view is that others should ‘do their own research’ and keep up. The marginalised are far too exhausted by the terror of their own existence – fascists lurk ready to pounce in every online meeting – to have the energy to educate you. Your ignorance is your fault. Asking them to summon up the brain power to explain is just you abusing your cymrocisheteronormative privilege. Your facts must bow to their righteousness.
Greatly amusing though that AGW thinks YC now “isn’t the organisation we joined, but a safe space for the far-right and conspiracy theorists, which puts LGBTQ people and other minorities in danger”. Only snowflakes have safe spaces. The far Right relish the exact opposite. Fortunately, for AGW as for others, they’ve made no appearance whatsover in this debate. If he wants to know what the far Right is, he’ll have to do his own research. Moving the goalposts, which is what he actually does, reveals only his own ignorance.
You’ve highlighted an important element of their whole strategy – constantly saying they’re in danger, or under threat. And of course it raises a big question – do they really believe it, or are they simply playing it for sympathy?
They are sounding like a bunch of squealing juveniles scared of the mythical bogey man who lurks down the lane after dark. Would be nice if some of them were to bump into said bogey man. Just for a laff.
Here’s Aled replying to someone complaining that the YC Welshpool page has been hijacked by Gwalchmai and re-named. It is absolutely delusional. Who the hell is threatening them?
Oh the irony. Aled Gwyn Williams and the now departed CC were responsible for bullying the only high profile woman of colour out of YesCymru. And let’s not forget the involvement of ‘inclusive’ Mayor Owen Hurcum. I do think they are delusional, though. Like Gwalchmai’s ‘toys out of the pram’ moment when he claimed that the Paypal and Twitter accounts of he and other CC members were being ‘hacked’. Except nothing had happened to anyone’s PayPal account. No one’s Twitter account was ‘hacked’. I’ve forgotten the password to pretty much everything at least once. To err is human. But I don’t start thinking agents of the ‘far right’ and ‘fascist’ cyber-conspirators have any interest in my Tesco Clubcard points.
“You’ve highlighted an important element of their whole strategy – constantly saying they’re in danger, or under threat. And of course it raises a big question – do they really believe it, or are they simply playing it for sympathy?”
It’s both. Theory dictates the unity of feeling and action, as a substitute for thought (which has been delegitimised, being merely a tool of oppression). The roots of ‘living in fear’ lie in the US civil rights movement, where the fear of being lynched was very real. It has spread out from that source because Theory dictates that emotional solidarity matters more than anything else. You must feel not only the pain of the correct others but also their fear. (Intersectionality makes for great angst as to who is, or isn’t, currently ‘correct’ and whose fears are to be deemed valid, or denounced as prejudice.) This is easier to do if you identify as an oppressed minority of your own (not of course as Welsh because that would be fash and the wrong sort of inclusivity). So, for example, if you have blue hair, you can imagine yourself being beaten to a pulp for it. Preferably online. (Being killed for being a Goth though doesn’t count, as it’s not political enough.) Remember that for snowflakes even silence is violence so there’s really no escape from the terror. I compare it to drug addiction: the fix they crave is constantly repeated validation of their fragile fantasy world and all hell breaks loose if it’s withheld or withdrawn.
I remember reading that the BNP is actually quite centrist in its economic policies. Not ‘centrist’ in the vein of the Change UK / Lib Dems / Pro-EU sort of archetype of course, but I’d assume they advocate public ownership of certain industries. I imagine a manifesto no doubt drawing attention to whichever multinational and foreign companies operate said industries. Dial down the overt xenophobia and jingoism, and dial up the public ownership of industries and I bet there wouldn’t be much separating them and Old Labour.
Taken to the Nth degree, logically the “If only they could understand the issue properly they’d be on side” sort of stance, ends up as totalitarianism, via the the junctures of “The greater good” and “I’m right, they’re wrong”.
Viewing Wokeism through this prism, I just thought to myself now, with the term’s subtext of the adherent being (finally) awoken to some great and undeniable truth, it suddenly takes on the feel of something quite chilling. It evokes the sort of in-group vs out-group, recipients of revealed truth sort of ethos of cultism, as you mention.
Still, the path the Left has taken doesn’t explain how its current day fringe elements seem to have poisoned the policymaking of the SNP to such a severe degree.
The economics of far Right and Old Left have always overlapped because national socialism was a riff on the original, one with working-class as well as ruling-class roots. The ‘yellow socialists’ – the earliest fascists – broke with the ‘red socialists’ over the same issue as Old Left / New Left, the failure of revolutionary change to happen. The yellow socialists blamed democracy and the New Left blamed the proles. The idea that if you go far enough in one direction you come out on the other side – ‘horseshoe theory’ – isn’t always true as policy but it is as psychology. The far Left have to denounce it in the most bloodcurdling terms because, of course, it can’t be allowed to be true. Hence the projection: everyone who isn’t them is ‘fascist’ by definition.
Left-wing academics view horseshoe theory as a dated attempt by the Centre to smear the Left while concealing their own affinities with the far Right. I agree only that it’s dated; a more plausible view is that this denunciation is an attempt by the far Left to smear the Right while concealing their own affinities with the Centre, for example, in relaxing immigration controls so as to lower wages. It’s noticeable how many prominent neo-liberals started their political life on the far Left. They were certainly never conservatives. The pressure for public ownership of strategically important assets now seems to be coming mainly from various shades of the Right. The Left can mouth the words about public ownership but in general no longer understand their meaning, because they no longer have a viable theory of the nation and its state.
Left and Right, it’s a bit like the Bohr model of the atom, with electrons wizzing around in orbits. It’s just a model, a crude facsimile for how things really are. The biaxial spectrum of social and economic axes comes a bit closer. But what about a cube, of axes between nationalism and abandonment of nations as axes along a third dimension?
The 3D model has been available for as long as man has been aware that we are all 3D ! My preference is for a spherical model for politics but a cube will do nicely. However most people in politics are so lazy (or thick) they have to have everything reduced to 2D linear.
Flat earthers rule when it comes to politics, and the recent crop of “talent” that invaded YC are proof that some struggle with 2D. Enough to make one despair.
Real life, with billions of actors, hundreds of polities and geography, fauna and flora overlaid on top, cannot be distilled down to facile models. If people would even have the humility to admit their understanding is limited and hold hands up to getting it wrong and making bad calls then we’d be half way to an enlightened populace.
And don’t forget the space in which any model exists is curved and folds back on itself. Consider the libertarians in the States, they are ostensibly all about gay rights, whilst at the same time advocating shrinking the state and leaving everything to markets and enterprise. It’s tricky to reconcile the axing of social programs to reduce government spend, with being the bleeding heart champion of everyone’s rights, to my mind anyway.
Libertarians are the far Centre. Everything is property, the body included (‘I own me’). The extremists advocate for child porn, on the grounds that there’s a market for it. Presumably, once the social programs are cut, selling your children into slavery will be seen as the enterprising solution.
It won’t let me reply to David Robins’s comment so I’ll write a reply to myself, in reply to him instead. Presumably to stop the comment thread
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I guess advocates of libertarianism would never call themselves right wing in the original sense, that of social inequality being natural, desirable or inevitable in society. The case would be made to the poor or the working class along the lines of free markets and unfettered capitalism being a tide that raises all boats, that they spread opportunity and allow everyone the freedom to make something of themselves without the government holding them back or coddling them with social programmes. A sort of neo-American Dream I guess. The thing is, the Dream worked great at spreading prosperity when other people’s land was being grabbed and given to settlers, and there were slaves available to work it. Doesn’t apply quite so much in these days of technological unemployment, ever-increasing population on a planet of finite resources, the gap between income and household costs probably as high as ever, and global capital.
I remember reading that bit about child porn. I wonder if there are links with NAMBLA; I could envisage pathological individualists of these stripes arguing for the child’s ‘rights’ to partake in sex acts with adults, and that the government is oppressing their freedom of action.
Their anti-state argument is shown up in its ridiculousness on two premises: how much of a hellhole Libya has been since the government collapsed, and the fact that for all of us, the government guarantees property rights.
Further to the above, and strange activites in Welshpool area – the ‘YesCymru Welshpool’ Facebook page has been hijaked into a ‘Welshpool for Independence’ page:
https://www.facebook.com/Welshpool4Indy
Are they going the same way as Aled?