Mind readers, cherry pies, and undone deals
Of all the myriad problems involved in working inside the internet as a medium, the biggest of all by some distance is one’s daily interface with The Mind Readers. They’re everywhere these peeps, driven like so many dogs of war by the belief that – with only one’s prose and the expression of an opinion to go on – they know for sure your entire life experience: your background, beliefs, interests, education, sexual preferences, dick size and state of health.
The ESP of these aliens is terrifying. Argue the case against Rolf Harris’s conviction, and you’re a sicko. Suggest that Mark Bilious-Tomtit might just possibly not walk on water and you’re a paedo. Set out the case against neoliberalism, and you’re a tree-hugger. Set out the dubious nature of some atmospheric CO2 extrapolations, and you’re a climate-change denialist. Don’t like the Met Police? Anarchist Occupy nutter. Don’t think socialism is the answer? Nazi. Have doubts about EU’s commitment to liberal democracy? UKip Little Englander. Suggest Nigel Farage is an Establishment wolf in Sheeple clothing? Cynically destructive. Wonder why EU got involved in non-EU Ukraine’s politics? Putin supporter.
It is getting boring beyond belief. And part of me suspects that’s why this tabloidisation of every position into the soundbite of trolling ants has been picked by Camerlot and turned into that most oxymoronic of myths, the non-violent extremist.
“Don’t agree with me, eh? You must be an extremist.”
NB the original USSR version, “then you must be mad”.
And now, the weather…..
We had a stonker of a storm here last night. Today, Sloggers’ Roost has been littered with wooden windfall. But some windfall is more edible than others:
Cherry pie tomorrow, then.
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Well hello there all those wisearses who said eight weeks ago, “HAWhawhaw, of course there will be a deal with Greece”. I wonder what they’re thinking tonight.
The IMF team have taken their ball home, and the Syriza lads have quit Brussels with the two sides “as far apart as ever”. I am truly unable to understand why anyone is surprised by this. Well, apart from the Dutch Gouda human being impersonator, Jeroan Dijesslbleom, of whom we expected little, and got even less.
For what its worth, I left this comment thread at a Maily Barclaygraph finance article this afternoon:
‘The deal is only vital to the eunatics, and I’m bereft here or anywhere else of sound reasons why Greece should ‘spin out of control’. Its medium term economic collapse was caused entirely by austerity of a kind far more vicious than anything in George Osborne’s wettest dream, and its short-term fiscal problems have been manufactured by Mario and his mates at the ECB…with help from the very corrupt fatties who overborrowed in the first place.
Descriptions of Greece as having ‘slipped back into recession’ since Syriza came to power are beneath contempt: what are we to see the previous 4 years as – gradual recovery? What utter tosh
This has not been a negotiation, but rather a deliberately time-wasting humiliation of one nation that merely wants to say one thing: WE DON’T WANT TO BORROW ANY MORE, WE JUST WANT THE DEBT RESTRUCTURED.
Which bit of this do the hackeys not understand?’
But all that said, I cannot believe that – with resistance contagion at stake – the eunatics don’t have one final wild joker card to play.
We shall see. One day. Far into the future, or perhaps tomorrow. Nobody knows: and increasingly, I suspect, nobody cares.
The Slog 