Morning music
On this day a year ago
Jack Monroe
There does not seem much else to say, but the backwash from the storm continues.
“Jack Monroe” herself has gone for the main chance, meaning a general “I’m sort-of sorry but will not/cannot refund anyone“, combined with a plea consisting of “I’m not really guilty of anything, because I am sort-of mentally-disturbed, ex-alcoholic, maybe ex-cocaine abuser, with a huge number of physical and mental problems (self-diagnosed autistic, ADHD, arthritic etc), as well as sort-of lesbian, sort-of ‘trans’, sort-of single mother, as well as a ‘shopaholic’, and anyway have spent all the money I took from people [cheated out of well-meaning mugs]”.
I suppose that the hard-core “Jack Monroe” fans will buy all or some of that, and that the 600+ utter mugs funding her lifestyle via the Patreon website will very likely continue to do that, even as she openly mocks them.
Damage to the septum?
Tweeter “@cashandcarrots” is another one who seems to believe that “Jack Monroe” has done things that “help the poorest and most disadvantaged in society” rather than nothing except help herself (literally).
What? What exactly has she done, when you strip away the virtue-signalling on social media and in the msm? Nothing.
“@cashandcarrots””Michelle” really cannot accept that she and others have been conned by a cunning and manipulative woman entirely out for herself. Even has to pretend that one of the staunchest critics of “Jack Monroe”, “@TruthSignalUK” is somehow part of a [non-existent] “trolling” conspiracy (why would he be, though?).
“@WivFunnyFarm” has evidently bought the “I’m unwell” exculpa.
That Bleasdale person tweets all sorts of rubbish. His tweet about the “Bootstrap Cook” is a good example of entirely false logic, i.e. presenting a false choice.
“Relentless advocacy for people on the breadline“? Not really. She mostly tweets and sends other online messages about herself, mixed with a bit of typical Twitter “I hate the Tories” stuff (I feel similarly about the “Conservatives”, to put it simplistically; but I also “hate” the “Labour” hypocrites). “Jack Monroe” also constantly messages or tweets with a subtext of “please send me money“.
I wonder whether the loonies and mugs sending money regularly to “Jack Monroe” will ever wake up to the fact that she despises them and mocks them?
As for the “Bootstrap Cook” herself, what are her talents? Not cooking, that’s for sure, looking at the swill that seems to be the bulk of her cuisine.
There is nothing wrong with being well-meaning, as tweeter “@PaulOnBooks” seems to be, but that has to go in tandem with an objective outlook. We are enjoined to be “as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves“. Both.
Good advice is never, or only very rarely, to trust a medical doctor who is primarily a socio-political activist.
More “Jack Monroe” lies, it appears.
“Jack Monroe” has a number, perhaps a large number, of Twitter “sock accounts”, many of which tweet “supportive” messages to her main account. Her level of dishonesty is incredible.
Whatever her problems are, they never get in the way of taking people for as much money as possible.
More music
The heavy brigade
More tweets seen
Whatever one may think of Peron and his wives, the fact is that political leadership is only one factor, albeit perhaps the most important, in whether a country is rich or poor (either overall as a country and notionally per capita, or in terms of how much that wealth is actually spread among the population).
Argentina was once a very wealthy country, certainly. Uruguay too. In fact, right up to the 1950s, Uruguay was one of the most prosperous countries in the world. A number of factors changed that.
There again, between 1918 and 1939, Estonia, Latvia and Czechoslovakia were very prosperous, and the citizens were, per head, much better off than the average of those in, say, the UK, France, or most other states. That changed mainly though not solely because of political changes and invasions, notably the Second World War and Soviet invasion (1940, and later 1944, in the case of the Pribaltika states; 1945 in the case of Czechoslovakia), Germany having also effectively occupied them during most of the war years.
Cuba was, economically, once a vibrant economy, albeit suffused with corruption and inequality. Castro’s socialist regime killed the economy. His decision to replace mixed farming with, mostly, a sugar monoculture (in the 1960s) worked up to a point, so long as the Soviet Union paid over the odds for sugar (and whatever else Cuba could export) but resulted in total collapse when the hidden subsidy was removed in the early 1990s.
Likewise, Cuba’s socialist experiment resulted in an end to development in the residential housing sector. Today, Havana and much of Cuba is falling to pieces, and people try to grow their own food if they can.
Some people say that the Cuban system is good re. medicine and education. “Education” in the basic sense perhaps, though obviously rigid in terms of what can and cannot be taught. As to medicine, perhaps so, again in a basic way, though.
The question is whether the supposed advantages of such a system are enough to compensate, both for the poor economy largely the result of that system and also for the harshness of the system politically and in terms of civil rights.
Russia before 1914 was arguably the fastest-growing economy in the world. War (lost war) and then civil war and political upheavals, followed by the socialist system —especially under Stalin from about 1928— weakened, and also distorted the economy. Collectivization, prioritization of heavy industry etc.
I recall reading the memoirs of the self-publicizing Jew Armand Hammer [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armand_Hammer]; Hammer— Witness to History. He operated businesses in agreement with the Soviet Government during the 1920s, including a concession to produce pencils.
Hammer discovered that the best pencils were produced in Bavaria. He imported to Moscow both machines and German technicians.
On returning to the Soviet Union in the 1970s or 1980s (I forget; 1970s, I think), Hammer was taken to the pencil factory, still operating. He discovered that nothing had changed: the machines were still working, a few of the original workers, now in their sixties, were still there; even his own old desk was standing unchanged in the same place.
An example of the lack of dynamic change in a socialist system.
Having said that, that same system put the first satellite into space, and created some products and programmes not seen even in the finance-capitalist West. Priorities? As Goering said in the 1930s, “Guns before butter“. That is, of course, a political choice.
Political direction is the single most important factor governing the prosperity of a country, but there are others. Where would the oil states of the Middle East be without demand for oil (and gas)? Back riding camels, almost certainly.
In their case, they have money in vast amounts despite their political and religious backwardness. There again, Europeans (and Americans, who are basically European in origin) discovered the oil and gas, extracted it, knew how to refine it, and also exported it to European and other markets. The Arabs only profited because they were there, and because they were on the cusp of the two contending Cold War cultures, neither part of the Soviet world nor the Western world.
Perhaps the best way to put it is that political leadership can assist an economy but cannot create it, whereas the wrong political direction can certainly ruin an economy, especially if that direction is too rigid. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_threefolding.
More tweets
Damning…
[https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/author/andylynes]
Peak Twitter? Some “IT bod” from darkest Northamptonshire, one James Drury, tries to trash food blogger Andy Lynes, who is, inter alia, a Masterchef semi-finalist…
Ha. Very good.
From the newspapers
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/jan/08/what-the-love-of-cats-taught-me-about-myself
More tweets
So “Jack Monroe” cannot, by her own admission (or claim) “manage money”, she cannot cook (as far as I can see), certainly not to any kind of professional standard, and she has cheated hundreds, probably thousands, of people out of money that many can ill-afford to lose, yet the msm is still promoting her! As someone who can advise “the poor”, at that! Why?
“If someone like Al Capone can pull themselves up out of difficult times…why would anyone attack that?“
Some people really do not know what day it is…
Incidentally, if any reader is interested in seeing how my opinion of “Jack Monroe” has hardened in the past 3-4 months, take a look at my blog assessment posted on 30 September 2022: https://ianrobertmillard.org/2022/09/30/diary-blog-30-september-2022-including-an-assessment-of-jack-monroe-aka-the-bootstrap-cook/.
“If the facts change, so does my opinion“.
More tweets
…and I mistrust anyone who is referred to as “a national treasure“…
Late music
Ian Robert Millard 
Hello. The article about the huge number of overweight soldiers is terrible. Having said that, nothing should surprise me. What a disgusting mess the UK has become.
LikeLike
Claudius:
Well, your view does not surprise me: “bella figura” etc…
We shall now have to transport our army in tanks with extra-wide hatches.
Ironic, nicht wahr? These days, Argentina would be unable to invade the Falklands/Malvinas but, by the same token, the UK would be unable either to defend them or to retake them…
LikeLike