That’s enough non-violent extremism, thank you

I wonder if enough people have paid more than cursory attention to what David Cameron actually said at the UN on September 25th last. The speech’s high (or low depending on your preference) point was to define non-violent extremists as “responsible for the existence of ISIS”. As Mr Cameron has a First from Oxford, it seems unlikely he can claim ignorance for making such an idiotic remark. He lauded Recep Erdogan as a great man four years ago of course, but that was based on an FCO briefing, and the FCO has been wrong about everything since 1926. This is rather different: maybe MI6 thought it was a good line to float out there, I don’t know. But that a man of Cameron’s educational background wants a clampdown on non-violent extremists gives a lot away about what the Camerlot Coalition is really about.

At every opportunity over the last four or more years, the Government has demonstrated several attempts to try and slip censorious, anti-libertarian legislation under the radar. At the centre of this at Justice is Chris Grayling, a chap with no style in his presentation, and zero awareness when it comes to things constitutional. In 2012 he tried to make suing bloggers win-or-lose free, until the Law Society kicked him in the seat about it. Leveson’s summation of his ‘enquiry’ trod the same furrow, despite his little baby having been born as a result of proven National press criminality and the invasion of personal liberty on a national scale. But also key to the process is the truly astonishing Theresa May at the Home Office…of which more anon. Let us first of all look at what Cameron actually said.

The Prime Minister kicked off with his usual Freudian cliche to urge the following:

“We must be clear: to defeat the ideology of extremism we need to deal with all forms of extremism – not just violent extremism.”

The meaning of those words seems obvious: we must fight fire with fire. The obvious point to make here is that one man’s non-violent extremist (nve) is another man’s freedom fighter, even saint. Into this category, for example we could put Thomas More, Galileo, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela in later life, Margaret Thatcher, Tony Benn, Nigel Farage, Paul Dacre, Jesse Jackson, and the entire Saudi Royal family…the additional consideration there being that they are also extremely violent. But we seem very happy to sell arms to them, and bow and scrape at the altar of the repressive wealth they use to chop off limbs and heads – or stone women to death.

Repression is what comes fairly rapidly to mind as the PM expands on his theme:

‘For governments, there are some obvious ways we can do this. We must ban preachers of hate from coming to our countries. We must proscribe organisations that incite terrorism against people at home and abroad. We must work together to take down illegal online material like the recent videos of ISIL murdering hostages. And we must stop the so called non-violent extremists from inciting hatred and intolerance in our schools, our universities and yes, even our prisons.’

So, we must ban Geert Wilders? He is a preacher of hate in many ways (and not very bright overall) but he has been warning Western Europe about violent and undemocratic Islamism for over a decade. As his fears appear now to be empirically based, do we let him in or not? I would say let him in.

MI6 is an organisation (like the CIA, the KGB et al) which has and still does incite terrorism abroad. Is it therefore to be closed down? Well, I’d like to see it better controlled – but I wouldn’t close it down. I’d also like to close John McCain down with extreme prejudice, but that would be wrong.

The next point Dave made, however, put me in the unenviable nve sector…and him firmly in the Dock. The videos from ISIS (1) do not show any murdering of anyone (2) are not illegal and (3) have considerably more to teach citizens than the marketing lies, obscene Asian spam and money-scams that flood our inboxes every day….but against which the ISPs say they are powerless. This is rubbish: but the Oranges of this world (like Newscorp) get away with serial gangsterism because they’re hand in glove with repression.

I don’t buy the 9/11 or 7/7 conspiracy: I don’t find the evidence compelling, and I don’t accept the motives suggested. But I do believe that the ISIS videos are suspicious. And that makes me an nve. Still, at least it doesn’t make me a liar.

But son of tax-evading stockbroker continues: we must –

“….support representative and accountable governments, working with them at their requests, not going in over their heads….”

So if people stray from those paths of righteousness, they’re nve’s, right? OK, then David Cameron is an nve: he supports both the Saudi and (at the moment, this week) Assad regimes in the fight against ISIS, but in no way could either of them be called representative and accountable.

Waxing lyrical in the next passage, the Prime Minister describes a la-la land in the West that hasn’t been a reality since Frank Capra was making movies:

“Communism wasn’t defeated simply by pointing out its flaws – but by showing that the alternative of economic freedoms, democracy and the rule of law, these things could build a better society and a better world. Young people need to see the power of a different, better, more open, more democratic path. The twentieth century taught us the vital role of representative and accountable governments in offering their people opportunity, hope and dignity.”

Communism defeated itself by being dictatorial, overspending on arms without an efficient economy to pay for it, and never listening to what real people wanted. Rather like New Labour and Camerlot Tories, in fact. As for the last three lines above, the hypocrisy of false aspiration is there for anyone to see.

The really telling point I want to make today, however, is what measures Cameron, May and Grayling hope will be opened up for discussion by the invention of this Orwellian term non-violent extremist.

This is what Dave ended by saying:

“Finally, when the safety and security of our people is at stake, we must be uncompromising in our response. That starts at home. For our part, in the United Kingdom, we are introducing new powers.”

Yes, oddly enough I had a feeling you might be.

“…To strengthen our ability to seize passports and stop suspects travelling. To allow us to strip British identity from dual nationals, and temporarily prevent some British nationals getting back into our country….And to enable our police and our security services to apply for stronger locational constraints on those in the UK who pose a risk.”

Gosh: seizing passports, restricting freedom of movement, banning those legally allowed to enter the country from doing so, and letting the police and MI5 decide what a “risk” is. To return briefly to Mr Cameron’s sunny Western Uplands of earlier, I can’t see this sort of legislation illustrating ‘the power of a different, better, more open, more democratic path. The twentieth century taught us the vital role of representative and accountable governments in offering their people opportunity, hope and dignity.’ But there I go again….being an nve for suggesting that the PM just might be an incorrigible dissembler.

Afterwards, the slippery fish-eyed Grayling at the MoJ came out of the blocks at top speed. People found guilty of Internet “trolling” in Britain “could be jailed for up to two years” for dishing out abuse on Twitter, Grayling told the Mail on Sunday newspaper last weekend, “This is a law to combat cruelty — and marks our determination to take a stand against a baying cyber-mobs”.

No it isn’t chum, it’s a law to let you decide what represents abuse, and use it to censor opposition. James Delingpole’s brother Dick, for example, is serially abusive and generally unpleasant…but should he go to jail for two years? Of course not….any more than those who get abusive about James’s nve climate change ideas should. Tell you what Chris – let’s ban all of the buggers: that should do it.

Elsewhere in that MoS edition, by the way, David Rose and prominent blogger Anna Raccoon were putting right some of the abusive nonsense written about BBC DJs over the last three years by Daily Telegraph hacks, and Murdoch newspapers. So while we’re at it, let’s bang all of them up too.

This is what seems to be in Tonto Theresa’s mind too: four days after Dave’s UN macho act, she announced measures as part of a widely drawn counter-extremism strategy aimed at those who undertake activities “for the purpose of overthrowing democracy” – a wide-ranging definition that could also catch a far wider range of political activists.

It could indeed – and that’s the idea.

This is nothing new in the Conservative Party. When Ken Livingstone got in the way over London matters, the Mad Handbag abolished him. Then she bullied the BBC into blanking out what IRA leaders were saying. Similarly, Blair, Campbell and Straw trod further along that road, venturing further still into illegality by perverting the course of Justice over Middle East arms corruption charges and declarations of War.

What Camerlot wants to do is shut people up. At the Tory Conference of 2013, the ghastly Fallon was openly calling for this in fringe meetings. Boris Johnson does the same during Mayoral attendance at City Hall open sessions. The last time someone gave him a hard time, BoJo went out and bought himself a large consignment of water cannon.

Anyone with even a scintilla of constitutional understanding should be opposing these measures at every turn. This will, of course, make all of them nves, and thus suitable cases for imprisonment. Ultimately, the interpretation of nveism can be used to declare, “As you don’t agree with these entirely reasonable policies, you must be an extremist, and we’ll have non of that extremist opposition thank you very much.

Moving on to the Capital O Opposition, as fellow members of the oligarchy, Labour is already immune from any nve legislation, because it obviously doesn’t oppose any of it.

Ed Miliband approved the ISIS bombing with these words: “This is multilateral action prompted by a legitimate, democratic state. And a world order governed by rules, if it is about anything, must be about protecting a democratic state.”

Well actually Ed, I don’t want a World Order. But that makes me an nve, so I better keep quiet, eh? Also, what’s the point of protecting a democratic State that’s getting less democratic and increasingly lawless with every month?

I realise that sounds extreme, but consider: three months ago, Parliament told Cameron where to stick his intervention. Then ISIS began beheading folks, and lots of fact-changing and changing of sides and changing of versions of events took place….and then he got his vote. I have some very serious questions about that ‘turn of events’. Why doesn’t the Labour leadership share any of those doubts?

I repeat what I’ve been saying for three years now: the Government wants the Truth (offered by a reasonable proportion of internet writers) to be turned off, because it is real opposition. When it comes to the true evils of Britain today, Ed Miliband doesn’t have a radical approach to, or in many cases even oppose, any of it.

Just read the list: local and national political child abuse, the EU’s attack on ClubMed, the Special Relationship with an American elite that lives in the sewers, continuing taxpayer support for insanely anti-social banking, and climate change/ecological rules that fly in the face of a great deal of evidence. Where are either of the Eds?

The short answer is “Tweeting bromides”. No extremists to be seen here. Everything normal. Nothing to worry about. We have an alternative economic plan, but there is no alternative to grubby, monied national Two Party State government morphing into Globalist Corporatocracy.

Creeping corporatism continues on its mercilessly destructive way. Ignore it at your peril.

Yesterday at The Slog: Why we must stop these disembodied references to ‘poverty’