Vivat Libertas

So, The Activists sent me a bunch of DMs on Twitter...which I can only find through e-mail. It concerns this post , I think. The general gist of them is that demonising billionaires draws in readers - something which is reflected by their rising number of readers and followers - and that you have to draw a line as to which side you're going to take. Anyway, since you can't send a DM to anyone who's not following you and since my response is just a little too long for Twitter, I'm going to post a reply here. Firstly, I have to apologise. Actually, I have to do a lot of apologising. I have acted like a brat to people who have shown me kindness and courtesy, for a start. I still disagree with them about some practices, but I should have been more civil about it. I should have practised what I preached and tried to reach out to others. I have screwed up a lot and that is not cool. Activists, I'm going to have to concede a point to you and say that yes, you are righ...

I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with The Activists these days. Still, I can't resist going on their blog sometimes, and...well... ...Most of the articles are the usual left-wing stuff I've come to know. Some is good. Some is tolerable. Some is the illogical crap which made me quit in the first place. But I didn't want to write about that - it's ground I've covered before . What I wanted to write about today is the comments section - or rather, the lack of activity in it. I am of the opinion that a thriving comments section is a good thing. If your blog has 15,000 readers, as this tweet claims , it should have at least 1 comment on each article. I doubt whether there are 50 comments on all the articles combined. Those comments that are  published tend to be things like "yeah, I agree" and not much beyond that. Anything which is even slightly out of line is deleted during moderation. I know this from personal experience: I'm a...

The Activists now has its own tag. It's about time I got round to it. Those of you who followed the blog (hi, Mum) probably know about my affair with it, from my initial starry-eyed swooning over its tweets  to my growing doubts, then my cooling towards it...and finally our split. This article was the last straw. I'll wait while you read it - or attempt to. It's very short. As well you know , doubt is a central part of my being . I cannot go a day, an hour, a minute without thinking and doubting and reflecting on things...and, if you'll pardon my language, I'm bloody proud of it. I'm bloody proud of having to think to justify my beliefs, of having enough intellectual fibre not to take things at face value. Here is what the article says about doubt: " Those who doubt the revolution are liars, deceivers, charlatans. Those who doubt the revolution are nothing more than addicts to comforts and material indulgences. " I have a damn  good reaso...

Written for The Activists . As always, if they don't want it, I'll have it. The time has come when we can no longer afford to run on empty rhetoric. The time has come when we cannot - indeed we must not - lash out blindly at people for disagreeing with us. The time has come when we have to stop thinking about moving people by any means necessary and start thinking about where we want to move them. We have inflamed and inspired people's hearts, but that's not enough. Firstly, it has come at the cost of alienating others, particularly others who could be very useful to us - such as doubters and academics. Both of these groups are strong-minded and can think things through - essential for any successful movement - and now we've made potential opponents out of them. Secondly, we've moved people, but have we moved them to do things? Have there been any discussions of what we can or should do to further our goals? If not, we've stirred people up, but now they ...

Activists, left-wingers, revolutionaries and thinkers everywhere, I want you to read this. I don't care if you burn me up in a thousand flames, or if you decry me as being too soft. This is important - for you, for me, for all of us. In fact, it might be one of the most important things I've said to this day. Listen up. You, me, everyone who posts on websites like The Activists , we need to stop demonising everyone who doesn't agree with us - billionaires, Margaret Atwood, doubters, the powerful - basically, anyone Western and rich enough to not starve. I've done it myself, I admit. I'm not proud of that. I did it to score some cheap political points, to help drive my message home, and to help me get my submissions accepted . (Check them out if you have time. See what you think of them.) I regret having done that. I regret even thinking I needed to do it. And you know why I regretted it so much? Because demonising out-groups (people "not like us...

Written for The Activists , hut I don't think I'll post it there; it's turned from a revolutionary speech into an examination of anti-intellectualism. Our world is arguably pervaded by anti-intellectualism. Boys are taught to favour brawn over brains, while girls are raised from the cradle to be pretty and charming rather than intelligent. Politicians and the media push simple, populist views - apparently not thinking that the electorate is capable of understanding anything complex - while education has been steadily dumbed down over the years, to the point where some subjects are basically lessons in how to pass exams. Fewer young people read for pleasure, and even adults are worryingly poorly-read - a recent FDA report stated that most American adults read between seventh- and ninth-grade level. Intellectuals are portrayed as being out of touch with the world, their learning irrelevant. What's worse is that the world of academia does indeed have many failings - fo...

Written for The Activists  and can be found here . (They have also published the two other articles I wrote for them, which they titled " The Capitalist Media Manipulates Information to Serve the Interests of the Ruling Elites " and " The Revolution Will Come When Parents and Children Learn That There is More to Life Than Blind Consumerism ". I titled them " Enter the Media " and " The Revolution ".) Every second of every hour of every day, we are bombarded by advertisements. We cannot click on a link without seeing advertisements for cheap loans; we cannot watch television without adverts telling us about the wonders of this shampoo or that drain cleaner - even our films and TV shows sneak in product placement! Listening to the radio, it sometimes seem as if there are more advertisements than there is music; it is increasingly difficult to tell the difference between the two. Newspapers and magazines are bulked out with adverts, and a worrying...

Written for The Activists  and can be found here . "The revolution" is a phrase I've often seen bandied about. It's as if the revolution is imminent, as if nothing anyone could say or do would stop it from hurtling towards us and giving us our long-deserved dues. That is a pack of lies. The revolution will not come unless we fight and toil and sweat blood for it to come; the revolution will not come if we simply sit here talking about it. The politicians and the media and the corporations who finance them all will make sure of that. No, the revolution will only come if we grasp it with two hands and nurture every little spark of resistance. The revolution will only come if we set aside our differences and reach out to others who share our agenda. As painful as it may be - some would prefer to pull out their own teeth without anaesthetic rather than thrash out a compromise - we must fight the establishment instead of quibbling amongst ourselves. The revolut...

This was originally written for The Activists  and can be found here . We live in an age of much information and little knowledge; facts, figures and events are all around us, but few if any people have the tools to filter and interpret them. Enter the media - and by this I mean old media primarily, such as newspapers and TV. They present the news in a clear, accessible format which anyone can understand, served up with some opinions on the side. All in all, fairly good for people. Except the media frequently misreports things, burying the facts at the bottom of the article (and sometimes getting those  wrong as well). They prefer drama - selling stories and scandals - to cold, hard data. They cast anyone they hate - minorities, the poor, rebels, the government, anyone who isn't white and middle-class - in the worst possible light. They report PR stunts as news and kill with their poor understanding of science. And people fall for it, every time. The media controls a...