Follow, follow,..we will follow Rang..eh,...BLM!

The Tale of the Golliwog: Part 1½

 

In considering the second part to the tale of the golliwog, I was gifted by Providence an illustration of the wider point I was hoping to make. Although outside the domain of school education, the example seemed so apposite that it justified the interpolation. And so, I set aside Part 2 temporarily to address this issue with a Part 1½:

A friend was telling me about a recent Rangers game which took place in France to an empty stadium- as per Covid guidelines. Prior to the game the team were obliged to ‘take the knee’ in an act of obeisance to, ostensibly, BLM and their racialist claims. This ‘protest’ was clearly divisive for the players; the Whites mainly ignoring it and the ethnic and mixed-race others enthusiastic, some to the point of raised fists - Black power! A message directed, one can only suppose, to (or against?) in order, football fans, Rangers fans and their fellow players. 

One can imagine how quickly any expression of disagreement between players will segue to the usual accusations and become divisive; thus damaging of team unity.

Many fans objected to this display on social media, arguing that this issue is nothing to do with Rangers or Scottish football. In response, certain Rangers players accused their own fans of racism. The chairman became involved too, but not as a defender of the club whose purpose is football, nor of the fans attempt to distance themselves from the controversy of racialist arguments, but of the apparent principle that underlies the BLM protest.

This issue will run on, but note that the confrontation starts with an insult to fans – who are supposed to accept, as a given; the legitimacy of the BLM movement,  the premise of the racialist assumptions that underlie it, their own complicity in this alleged White racism and the rightness of Rangers’ involvement in it.  Leaving aside the temptation to explore these issues, and not least the various ironies involved in wealthy and privileged ‘black’ sportsmen pretending to be brave and principled at the expense of their own fans’ feelings, we return to our thesis.

What does this tell us with respect to our argument regarding racial justice and school education?

Firstly, by being in a completely different societal domain it reinforces what we already know about the destructive impact of this collective, anti-racism madness. Namely, that no institution is safe from accusations of racism, regardless of the relevance or ridiculousness of such claims, and that the interests of those affected by such claims are ignored. That those who should protect us from such have got no intention of doing so; indeed, so important is it for them to appear on-board with the anti-racism mission, that they will willingly, sometimes gratuitously, alienate shareholders, customers and (in the case of Rangers) those supporters whose loyalty gives life to the institution. Suddenly, the fans find that their club has been repurposed to a political end; and that although they might be the club, they don’t own it, nor enjoy the proper respect of those who do!  Such for Rangers - and the same for any other sports club, organisation, or school!

Secondly, a template is held out to school children, irrespective of their interest in football, of how to behave and think; your favourite team apparently recognising the truth of White systemic racism by kneeling and black fisting for racial justice. And those who query, however slightly, the legitimacy of this movement are cast into darkness by social media, news media, celebrity puppet-activists, even club chairmen.  How could this NOT be seen as operant conditioning?*

Finally, and most importantly, it illustrates the power which lies behind this racialisation of social life. This has largely been invisible within the school context, as it may have seemed to arrive on the back of the citizenship elements of the curriculum. Concerned adults and parents could perhaps dismiss this development as a passing phase or a minor issue.

But when we consider the case of BLM and Rangers as a representative of this racialisation of seemingly everything, we realise that we are dealing with a force much more powerful than a mere foreign protest movement. And that has implications for the development of racial grievance politics in our schools.

How can it be so, that a newly, and supposedly spontaneously, founded foreign, political-activist organisation - predicated on issues that have no connection to us – can arrive in Europe fully-funded and able to instantly exert such influence?  How can it be so, that our native football teams are obliged to do homage to, largely, career-criminal Black Americans repurposed as saintly innocents. Try to get the football league, or your own favourite team, to take the knee as a protest for injustices that concern you or us in Scotland and see how far this gets you? You already know the answer!

In thinking this through we can see the intent and gigantic power behind this phenomenon in its ability to subvert, divide and co-opt accomplices, even to the point of them destroying their own organisations and businesses. We must surely, then, fear its potential within schools, faced with much more innocent minds – not least the already gulled, fem-bot teachers.

If only we could discover which group may be behind this phenomenon; they would have to have international access to massive funding, control of social and news media and have global political leverage. Hmm!,…this does not seem to describe Black people. Perhaps someone will work out the answer?

What think ye?

*  Repeatedly modelling behaviour to the target to get them to copy it without even thinking. By encouraging certain behaviours, this technique also legitimises the associated thoughts or theories behind it -  also without thinking about it.

JOHN GRIEG: RANGERS CAPTAIN

Possessed of too much dignity and respect for the team fans, I can't imagine him taking the knee. Nor allowing the team to openly display, prior to a game!, their division over such an issue. A fun thought - Jock Wallace coming into the Rangers dressing room prior to the cup final against Celtic, " Right lads, I've just spoken to Billy McNeill, and baith teams will be taking the knee for ****** in America."

We’re still here!

 

Commemorating the Day After.

Today, the 23^rd of July, was a day of national reckoning for our ancestors in 1298. For this was the day after Wallace’s Scottish Commons Army* suffered a defeat by their national enemy at the Battle of Falkirk on the 22^nd July. The English, led by their great king, Edward 1, the ‘Hammer of the Scots’ himself, utilised for the first time the irresistible tactical combination of massed archers (the arrow storm) followed by an armoured cavalry charge, then infantry to finish off survivors; it was a set-piece battle we had little chance of winning anyway. The scale of this defeat is hard to know, for then, as now, both sides had an interest in spinning the result for advantage, but regardless it was still a solid defeat. Any Scots who did not escape were not offered the option of surrender; no POWs in the 13^th century! After the triumph at the Battle of Stirling Bridge the year before, this defeat could have been psychologically crushing and politically breaking.

But it wasn’t. Our ancestors picked themselves up, dusted themselves down and started all over again. And this is why I am writing commemorating this, rather than the battle, which I am happy for our English cousins to celebrate if they wish.

Although the examination of this episode makes fascinating history, it is not my intention to do this here, but just to salute the fortitude of our ancestors on this date in holding fast to their identity and independence, as Scots – for this is how they referred to themselves. Without this belief, which they proved to be true in the profoundest sense, I would not have written this, nor you read it.

And I do this too as a reference to the political and cultural chaos that is encroaching ever nearer to our wee corner, with a reminder that we have in our heritage that stuff which will enable us to ride it out and see it off. We need to remind ourselves of this, as no-one else does.

 Dae richt. Fear nocht.  

  *    The commons army, so named because its command and structure was not dependent on the compromised Scotch nobility and their retinues. In other words, it was the common us!

[My Wallace bio covers this topic should you be interested in exploring it further. This can be obtained by clicking the cover at top right which will take you to the Amazon page, or visiting my website where you can buy it directly from me.]

Betraying our Children: School Version. Part 1

An Appalling Example of Prejudice – but whose?

Here is an example of how we unthinkingly betray our children:

This betrayal takes place at the end of a cause and effect sequence that for the most part involves unwitting actors; teachers, education bureaucrats, useful-idiot politicians and the activists formerly known as journalists. However, in contrast to the above litany of dupes, the intelligence behind this betrayal is very strongly focussed on the final effect. As we shall see.

The story starts with a small image of a golliwog, as just one part of a mural which depicts a childhood scene. It was painted over 80 years ago within an Edinburgh primary school and at that time such a rag doll was a nursery commonplace. The mural is a competent work of some artistic merit, proof of which was its receipt of a recent grant for restoration. The golliwog in question is not in chains nor being whuppt by his massa, or in any other way singled out and mistreated by his whiter doll companions; indeed, the image is one of inclusion, a much-favoured goal of education, except when it clashes with the real agenda – as it does here. I know nothing of the artist, but having personally seen the mural I feel secure in affirming that his intent was just to make a cheerful picture for the pupils. And this is what it did for 80 years, unthinkingly.

And then, funnily enough, following on from the weaponisation of racial sensitivities, about five years ago, a female person of colour (yes, a woman – who would’ve guessed?) suddenly found themselves offended by this little figure and naturally called the police – yes, they actually called the police. Although not of the same race as the golliwog, which as a cloth doll does not actually have a race, nevertheless, we can only imagine the extent of her panic and deep trauma in facing alone this terrifying vision of White racial hatred. Luckily, this is the one –the only one! – issue to which the police respond with alacrity and thoroughness. A full investigation took place; or rather, a ‘fool investigation took place’. Unfortunately the culprit artist-bigot had already escaped to the Land of the Leal and, unable to pursue him there and there being no statue to destroy, the poor victim had to be consoled by police chiefs and education chiefs jointly taking the knee before black power and apologising for any offence, etc., etc. You know how this goes, as you hear it every day.

This incident (for want of a better word) took place in what were the early, innocent days of race hustle in Scotland and the issue seemed to slip away. Seemed to; for as we are now finding out, this issue will never leave us –not until we are gone.

Everyone who read of this story at the time understood that the golliwog was just an image that had no intention of demeaning anyone, and actually, honestly, didn’t. They understood that, although context and intent matters in issues of interpretation, they did not matter to the complainer. For she was not actually offended, she was the offender.

Located in her personal psychology of inferiority, she was needful of some way of striking back against White Scotland, as a sort of perverse thank you for her better life here. Her defining quality was resentment and it found its means of revenge in the legislation designed to achieve this end. Arguably, she was among the first race hustlers to cross the line into absurdity.

However, an important point was demonstrated by this event to all other potential race hustlers and random malcontents, and to their puppet-masters, that their society killing infection had taken hold and that institutions nominally charged with defending culture could be ‘turned around’ and used to destroy it; as if a kind of auto-immune disease. Whitey was weak and on the run.

And so, fast forward to the current iteration of racewar which, while we were not looking, became embedded in your primary school. This justifies my commenting on it – to which subject, the context hopefully having now being created,  I will return in the next post. 

What think ye?

The Puppet Dreck-meisters of Global Inc

Delivering Poptrash Garbage to our Children

I recently saw an earphoned child of about seven listening to her i phone. Her unwitting jerks and tics indicated her melding into the global music matrix. Years ago, I would have been puzzled as to what someone so young could possibly be listening to, and would have consoled myself with the thought that, whatever, it is, it's not the soul-destroying dreck of Miley or Ariana et al - alas, I know now not to give this consolation any houseroom. 

The issue for our children is not just the music, for these wholly globalist-owned, puppet fembots are the fronts of a mission to bring precocious sexuality, identity confusion, narcissism and neuroticism to their innocent targets by planted suggestion and their personal example. This is the music-ganda and accompanying vid that welcomes such a little girl as referenced above through the portals into that world we see arriving nearer every day. And this got me thinking; 

It is a tragedy for our children that, arguably the high point of European cultural achievement, our classical music repertoire finds no place in their learning. Likewise, for our great folk traditions, the envy of less blessed lands. The various mood and even neurological benefits that the former confers on the listener have been well catalogued - as have been the deleterious effects of poptrash and rap - but pale in comparison to the wonder and beauty so easily brought into a child’s life. And for our native, post ice-age stock, the immense pride of association; the greatest gift in a child’s upbringing. The scale of this musical achievement,  covering the development of techniques, training, instruments, notation, recording and the creation of the highest standards to carry it forward, can easily be transmitted to children, even infants, who hold no class or other prejudices against this music - at least until the global popworld snares their minds.

Few contemporary teachers, alas, have any knowledge of this tradition, far less interest, as it does not sit nicely with poptart vids and i Tunes. This is an immense loss to our children, and one, moreover, when the early exposure and appreciation is not encouraged, that is not easily recovered. Luckily, a replacement is on hand.

 As rap is the true music of diversity, the Scottish government has spared no expense in employing a consultative committee of their friends (led by GTCS, of course) to replace the primary school music component with something a bit more gangsta and better reflecting Scotland’s vibrant, new multi-C image. The Meenister of Newducation has already contacted the 9mm Bruvvas to develop the music curriculum to be titled F*** da White ******. As a tribute the FM, they even produced a first line free of charge:

 Who dat skanky ho, hangin wi da tartan, Yo!

According to wise Confucius, you can tell the values of a society by the music it listens to. So be it! Well, let them keep Lady Gaga, we’ve got Wagner. Perhaps he will come to our rescue; certainly, if Ride of the Valkyries is playing, you could cut the grass in your soiled underwear and it would still be heroic.

I’m feeling optimistic again. What think ye?

JK Rowling's Real World of Sorcery

Where Lives and Souls are Traded

Following on from my comments on JK Rowling in which I posited an unwholesome connection between the occult worlds of Potter, Twitter and trans-people, I note this issue of how to define a trans-woman continues to entice necromantics to enter the Twitter portal to that dark kingdom. And so, a certain Gillian Philip, an author of children’s books, ‘bravely’ twitted a support for multi-millionairess JK’s stance on trans people (surely hoping for a little JK love coming her way…and some extra sales), only to find that she had entered shadowland. Witchy powers swiftly whirled around her publisher and she found herself just as swiftly sacked. Any doubts about trans issues makes you a hater, you see; say those doubts out loud, makes you unemployed! Any hoodoo protection Gillian was hoping to get from JK, playing the good witch Glenda in this story, alas never arrived. Still, lots of attention as both persecutor and victim in that nether reality– such validation is like oxygen to a woman.

This particular incident, surely one of many connected to JK’s original trans comments, reinforces, I believe, the occult aspect I referred to in my original post. This world really presents as an alternative reality; a darker, manic, trickster version of our living world. One which doesn’t physically exist as such, but still has the sorcery power to drive people mad and result in actual job loss. This point leads me back to my original article and its concern for the effect of the occult world on JK’s young readers.

Unlike, say, Enid Blyton, whose social opinions were invisible and irrelevant to her readers, JK’s are highly visible. Intentionally so! And many of her fans are inevitably fated to become followers of her pronouncements and thusly led into her digital world of opinion, conflict and abuse – and doing so while still children. Here they will find in real form all the dark arts described in JK’s novels; pontificating, real hatreds, secret enemies, implacable opinions and plots to destroy lives. This doesn’t have to be sought out, it is part and parcel of her life as a sorceress-author. And, by extension, the lives of her young fans who follow this.

It is my contention that this association of JK’s young fans and the social media world is not appropriate, far less uplifting. These crazy disputes, in addition to all the other junk content of Twitter and the like, provide a damaging template of how adults conduct themselves. Who would want their child being exposed to this?

JK, of course, did not invent social media and is entitled to her opinions, but I wonder if she has overlooked the responsibility that should come with being an author of children’s books. This should have entailed maintaining a certain distance between this problematic digital world and her young readers. There are ways she could have done this.

She chose not to. And I wonder, then, if in that mystery realm where lives and souls are traded, this was the deal she made. What think ye?

Withheld Advice

Ungiven

The school year is over now. Here is advice that was regretfully withheld, but realistically ungivable.

# Smash your i phone and throw it in the bin. It’s making you stupid.

# You are eating badly, that’s why you are so fat.

# Don’t ever drink that stuff again.

# I’m not going to help you because you don’t deserve it.

# You are being deceived by that charity. Do not support them.

# Everything that the head teacher said at the assembly is not true.

# Don’t worry about understanding this. It doesn’t matter all that much.

# Do you know what privilege means? It is my privilege to be your teacher.

# Here’s what you need to change for the future to be a success; nothing.

# Come with me if you want to live.

 

Perhaps I have missed some; what think ye?

In another, more honest and caring, world, such direct criticism of a child would not be necessary for they would not ever get to the point where it was needed. And compliments could be given as required, without the fear of later adult ( deliberate?) misunderstanding and complaint.

The Hero's Mother

A Suggestion for Encouraging Self-discipline

Not exactly eavesdropping, but I heard two fathers of primary school pupils talking and comparing notes regarding their children’s responses to the lockdown lessons. Both were agreeing that, though it would currently make little difference to their child’s day, they were glad that the summer holidays had started, for they could legitimately back-off from trying to force their kids to do some school work; a pressure whose friction had caused much heat, but little light, apparently. And no school work done anyway! What was missing was discipline, or rather self-discipline. And this got me thinking about it, and the distinction between imposed and composed discipline.  

We all know that discipline is life changing, Genghis Khan showed us that, and left a convenient quote in English to that effect. But how to obtain it in school? Genghis, for all his merits, is perhaps not the best example for pupils in this weak, piping time of peace.

If one has knowledge of schools across cultures and socio-economic class, it is obvious that the biggest factor in success is pupil discipline. This is a simple and eternal truth that stands alone. Where there is strict discipline the children have a chance to learn. Where there is poor discipline, even the best of teachers still struggle and the school becomes a day asylum – and sometimes even feeling like a day lunatic asylum! Our modern schools have lost sight of the truth that discipline is the mother of the hero and heroine, and not their enemy!

As I recall in the olden days, the discipline directly imposed by the teacher in the form of the held back (or not) punishing hand worked to a certain extent.‘Certain extent’ here referencing Ian. Nowadays, though, the coin has flipped and this kind of discipline is an extinct force in the pupil’s school day, although very potent in the teacher’s. The threat of this; sometimes from pupils, often from parents in the form of Sauron-like threats of sacking, Tweet mobs or an actual kicking – see Sandwood Primary, Glasgow - and always from school management. But I digress.

Returning to our task, we ask; if discipline cannot be imposed externally anymore, how can we encourage its development internally? This led me to Disciplina, the goddess worshipped by Roman soldiers. They knew that their success in arms came from their devotion to her, and her to them. Notwithstanding the ‘encouragement’ provided by the centurion’s vine staff, as the legionaries saw it, Disciplina came to them on proper request and gave them self-discipline. They were receivers of a goddess’s grace and favour – and how could that not energise?  

 The circularity of this is psychological genius at work; the humble request, symbolised by your presence at the shrine, in which you admit your weakness, results in the receipt of a gift with which you find in your own mind the means to make the discipline you need to complete your task. No-one is making you do something by threat. The supplicant has recognised within themselves the need for the strength of discipline. They then believe themselves receivers of this numinous power. The power becomes real with the belief.

Centurion Lucius Annaeus recommends a little corner shrine in each class to be used as required by lacking pupils. It need not be in class, of course. The pupils mentioned at the start of this reverie can set up the same in their bedroom. And prove to themselves that the legionaries were right in believing that Disciplina whips the arse of Indulgentia; and not in a nice way! I’m mention this should I see their fathers again, although clearly I’ll have to think about how to phrase this suggestion, as discipline and whips might give the wrong impression.

Those few pupils from Christian family backgrounds are spoiled for choice in selecting a saint as exemplar and conduit for received self-discipline. As a bookish guy, I’m picking Thomas; 8 million words in the Summa written without a word processor or coffee. He didn’t even know how to work an i phone. LOL.

Perhaps it is obvious that I’m being somewhat playful, but I’m also being somewhat serious. It’s not crazier (if indeed, one wishes to consider it so) than almost every new idea incorporated into the primary curriculum and pedagogic practice in the last generation. And it wouldn’t cost anything - although this recommends against it!.

Perhaps, as a female, Disciplina, is just waiting on us asking her out, so to speak.

What think ye?