Quote notes (#107)
The mainstream is running out:
In the broadcast media in particular, there is an implied assumption that “the Scotland moment” is something confined to that country. But the reality across the UK suggests something much deeper and wider, and a simple enough fact: that what is happening north of the border is the most spectacular manifestation of a phenomenon taking root all over – indeed, if the splintering of politics and the rise of new forces on both left and right across Europe are anything to go by, a set of developments not defined by specific national circumstances, but profound social and economic ruptures.
Here, Labour and the Conservatives have recently been scoring their lowest combined share of support. Organisationally, they are both hollowed out and increasingly staffed by wet-behind-the-ears apparatchiks who only compound the parties’ distance from the public. Whether justifiably or not, millions of British people have passed through holding politicians in contempt and now treat them with cold indifference. Let’s face it: the only thing keeping all this alive is the electoral system.
(The whole opinion piece is well worth reading, on panic-socialist Colin Crouch’s ‘post-democracy’ observations in particular. You know things are really beginning to get desperate when the Left begins to have interesting thoughts.)
Haven’t missed this have you? http://www.rte.ie/news/world/2014/0911/643111-catalan-independence/
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Posted on September 12th, 2014 at 4:26 pm | QuoteOne word, Catalonia.
Spain is really a handful of countries with different cultures, values and interests in the short to medium run. Catalonia is the second industrial zone in the world after England itself; Bilbao and Navarra are banking centers, while the south has fifth-world unemployment.
It’s going to blow up, sooner than later.
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Posted on September 12th, 2014 at 6:53 pm | QuoteGo Scots. Good for all of us.
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Posted on September 12th, 2014 at 9:55 pm | Quote“Looking at, say, the more deadened aspects of politics in the US, it seemed perfectly plausible to imagine post-democracy taking root in the UK.”
Oh I don’t know.
http://www.krgv.com/news/militia-threatens-to-block-traffic-at-international-bridges/
Militia may try and block ports of entry in Starr county TX, population 60K on 9/20.
We’ll see but our borders are hardly dead politics. I note they pick a small county, 60K population. This may all be nonsense about 9/20 but that border is heating up. It’s certainly in truth a border no longer but a Frontier that is a contested area. In Texas your allowed open carry of weapons. You’ve also had the militia patrolling small but increasing sections usually on private land where the landowners [tired of houses being shot up by passing Mexican smugglers] invite them in for their own safety.
American politics is dead electorally. This doesn’t mean we are.
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Posted on September 12th, 2014 at 10:06 pm | Quote[…] Source: Outside In […]
Posted on September 12th, 2014 at 11:10 pm | Quote