WARNING: Minds at Work

 Wordpress is having one of its Strange Interludes this morning, so this post may turn up in an odd typeface. It’s hard to say.

I want to write a few lines to kick off today on the subject of how minds work.

Take the German Führerin Angela Merkel von Hönnecker-Mitlieb. On October 14th 2010 she gave a speech saying that multiculturalism in Germany had been “a complete failure”. Nine years later almost to the day (Oct 16th last week) she gave another speech calling multiculturalism “an utter failure”. Utter not being much better than complete, I am left concluding that she hasn’t changed her mind.

It’s the bit in between those two Octobers I’m wrestling with from a philosophical perspective. As the unelected de facto Queen bee of Europe, Geli spent those years presiding over a disastrous mass invasion of the EU by people of a culture about as different to that of Europeans as it’s possible to get. When I say mass – and before the liberal Groupthinkers jump past my larynx – let me just give you the numbers: 4.6 million legal entrants, and 7.7 million illegals.

Frau Doktor Merkel clearly has issues with the belief >> reality of action equation. It is of course perfectly possible that hallucigenic sausages are available in the Bundesrepublik, but I’m not aware of it. So for the purposes of this piece, I shall assume that the problem lies in her brain rather than her diet.

The general view on the 7.7 million illegals (and why are they still here if they’re “illegal”?) is a general amnesty. This is clearly what Macron thinks, although you can bet the farm that the unfortunate residents of Calais don’t agree with him re this one. Anyway, Emmanuel parked 35,000 of them in a “temporary” camp slap bang in the middle of a very posh Parisian arondissement, which I’d imagine is going to make for a rich social engineering experience. Over two days last July, several hundred migrant activists stormed the Pantheon, resulting in 57 arrests. I was last in Paris in the Spring, and was, I have to say, somewhat wary of the large knots of workless migrants hanging about in groups pretty much everywhere. Just in case you think this is my scumracistbigotfascist side coming out, I would point out that last week the Paris authorities recorded the number of illegals in Paris had swollen tenfold to 450,000.

In 2018, there was a 20% rise in expulsions of migrants from France, and this year to date that is running, in compound terms, closer to 30%.

Meanwhile in Italy, the pressure on a country already full enough of its own workless citizens has resulted in the election via a Coalition of the most right wing Party in the country. In the southern Spanish region of Andalucia, knife crime has trebled, and Vox (another extremely right wing Party) has made enormous gains there. There is now a mass movement in the province in support of mass deportation.

Merkel does not (naturally) accept one iota of responsibility for the chaos, and neither do the corporacrats happy to let Africans flood in: the reality is that illegals will work for almost nothing, and that tends to look good on the average bottom line. And as we know, “wage-crushing” is a central plank of Mario Draghi’s strategy for making Europe competitive.

But when Hungary (a small country of just 9.77 million) said no way was it going to get involved in this nonsense, all Hell broke loose in Brussels. Viktor Orban joined the growing list of practical politicians vilified by the foam-spittled facial orifice of Guy Verhofstadt, whose outburst gained the full support of….yes, you guessed – She Who Must be Obeyed in the Berlin Chancellery. The liberal press in both Britain and the US jumped on the bandwagon, ever since when Orban has been branded a racist.

What are we to conclude from all this?

Probably two things. First, a reiteration of one of The Slog’s life mantras: “Harken not unto what they say, but instead keep an eye on what the buggers do”. And second, dot-joining is not the strong suit of liberals, Revokers, Brussels, Whitehall, civil police forces….and, oh sod it, gigantic lumbering superstates as a whole.

The human mind on the shoulders of the wise is a marvel to behold. On those shoulders that refuse to shoulder responsibility, however, it is a deranged blunderbuss.

***

How wise, for example, are those who continue to hold Jeremy Corbyn in high regard, despite the brutally obvious fact that he is a dyed-in-the-wool lifetime member of the Hard Brexit Club….but pretends otherwise purely as a means to the end of Power?

“Not very” is about the nicest thing one can say in answer to that. SPA Reform victims continue to believe he will deliver them from pension penury, but he has flatly refused to offer any such thing. Others insist he will romp triumphantly into Downing Street, despite the opinion polls, constituency maths and inevitable leakage to the Brexit Party that mean he cannot possibly do so.

Nevertheless, in a more general sense, the biggest single bonkersweirdtonto capability of the human mind remains the capacity for denial. This has never been truer than it is today. Despite the endless torrent of evidence showing how bureaucracies, surveillance agencies, cops, judges, social media, multinational database collectors, unthinking liberals, banker crooks, rigged markets and giant blocs interfere in every element of our lives – while lying to us round the clock – there are still millions of folks who give one that patronising “there, there” smile whenever you point it out, adding “Frankly, it really doesn’t interest me” as if this might be a valid defence.

For some reason, British expats seem to suffer more than most from the illusion of being safe from State interference “just so long as I don’t break the law”. What happens, I ask them, when they pass a Law that effectively tells you what to think? The facial expression this evokes – an odd mélange of condescension, pity and confusion – usually makes me grin in turn. It’s probably a nervous tic on my part.

A few weeks back I tried to suggest to some Anglos in Portugal that, probably, one explanation for Parliament’s determination to reverse the referendum result was that – taking both Houses together – 37% of members have a financial relationship with the EU under which they stood to lose money if Brexit ever does happen. Blank looks.

Yesterday afternoon I opined to another acquaintance that we will not leave on October 31st – for various reasons including emerging geopolitics, fears of global economic meltdown, and the total determination of the fascist chatterati in the UK to revoke Article 50.

“Nah,” he said, “Boris’ll deliver for us….jus’ wait and see”. He hadn’t read WA2.

Enjoy the day ahead.