Tag Archives: tipping-point

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Diary Blog, 24 June 2023

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Morning music

(but what is now happening in Rostov and elsewhere right now strikes me as more like the rebellion of the Streltsy in the 17thC than the opening of a second Russian Civil War; we shall see). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streltsy_uprising.

Battles past

When I was a victim of a malicious Zionist complaint…
The Slide of the English Bar and UK Society Continues and Accelerates
Diary Blog, 15 January 2022, including an outline of the failure of the latest Jew-Zionist attempt to prosecute me

Saturday quiz

Well, this week brings another victory over political journal John Rentoul. I scored 7/10 as against his 4/10. I did not know the answers to question 5 (actually, I “hit the post” with the name), or questions 6 and 9, and I pretty much guessed numbers 3 and 7, if truth be known.

From the newspapers

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12227635/Border-Force-intercepts-3-000-migrants-month.html

“The Home Office is planning to house hundreds of migrants in marquees across the country.

The government’s plans come as today it was revealed that the number of Channel crossings by people in small boats so far this month is now higher than the number for June last year.

According to official figures, 312 asylum seekers were intercepted in eight boats by UK officials yesterday.

[“Intercepted“? You mean “ferried to the UK”].

This brings the official number of migrant crossings this month to 3,303 in 68 boats – an average of 49 people crammed into each inflatable dinghy or other small craft.

More people thought to be migrants arrived in Dover earlier today as people smugglers took advantage of the weather of low winds and no rainfall.

Border Force vessel Ranger was spotted this afternoon patrolling the 21-mile Dover Straits after dropping a group of migrants at the port.“

[Daily Mail]

Get that— the “Border Farce” vessel (taxi service for migrant invaders) dropped off a group of invaders at Dover, then went out looking for more “customers”…

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/21/iceland-suspends-annual-whale-hunt-in-move-that-likely-spells-end-to-controversial-practice

“Iceland suspends annual whale hunt in move that likely spells end to controversial practice.

Decision comes after a government report found the hunt does not comply with Iceland’s Animal Welfare Act.

Iceland’s government has said it is suspending this year’s whale hunt until the end of August due to animal welfare concerns, a move that is likely to bring the controversial practice to an end.

Animal rights groups and environmentalists hailed the decision, with the Humane Society International calling it “a major milestone in compassionate whale conservation”.

Shocking video clips broadcast by the veterinary authority showed a whale’s agony as it was hunted for five hours.

The country has only one remaining whaling company, Hvalur, and its licence to hunt fin whales expires in 2023. Another company stopped for good in 2020, saying it was no longer profitable.

Iceland’s whaling season runs from mid-June to mid-September, and it is doubtful Hvalur would head out to sea that late in the season.

Annual quotas authorise the killing of 209 fin whales – the second-longest marine mammal after the blue whale – and 217 minke whales, one of the smallest species. But catches have fallen drastically in recent years due to a dwindling market for whale meat.

[The Guardian].

At last. Good news.

Tweets seen

More music

More tweets seen

https://twitter.com/MattieDerbish/status/1672549906962079747?s=20

…but why call her (“Jack Monroe”, alias Melissa Hadjicostas) “they“? It’s not “their silence” but “her silence”. Proper English.

Jack Monroe is an out and out fraud.

Is that so? Truth or speculation? I do not know at present.

Thinking ahead, what happens if the present Russian Government is toppled? What replaces it? Would that be one willing to (in effect) surrender to the NWO/ZOG cabals, or one willing to really take the fight to Zelensky in Kiev?

Nothing firm is known as yet.

Truth is, of course, the first casualty. Speculation abounds, and of course the “usual suspects” are stirring everything, as are other pro-Zelensky tweeters.

I imagine that even the Russian overseas diplomatic missions do not know what is going on, not even the SVR and GRU.

Again, who he? I have no idea. Is he a Wagner operator, or merely someone pretending to be one? If it is true (as claimed by many on Twitter) that official checkpoints are merely waving Wagner units through without check or opposition, then that mirrors what happened in previous Russian upheavals, from the Yeltsin and Gorbachev eras right back to the two Russian revolutions of 1917.

What now? Is there time (and the requisite high-level military support) for Putin to order a massive and unrestrained strategic missile attack (a last-ditch and bitter action to achieve battlefield victory) on Kiev, regardless of the Wagner Group situation? We have to just sit and wait to see.

Well, if Prigozhin actually topples Putin, then he follows in the tradition of Russian revolutionary leaders (and others) having (in the Russian word) “sat” in prison. Stalin, Lenin, Trotsky etc. They were there mainly for political crimes, though, whereas Prigozhin was imprisoned for crimes of acquisition: fraud, theft, robbery, burglary. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#Early_life. He did 9 years altogether.

Also, the conditions of confinement for the Bolshevik leaders were comfortable, once they arrived in Siberian exile. Houses in remote villages, not much restraint on their liberty, and Lenin was even allowed a hunting rifle with ammunition, as was, I think, Stalin!

Prigozhin’s 9 years of Soviet-era prison must have been far less easy. He’s a tough ex-con, among other things.

https://twitter.com/PartyWurmple/status/1672561907683713026?s=20

At any rate, it looks at present as if PMC Wagner is the Praetorian Guard of Russia now. Tomorrow? Maybe, maybe not— “tomorrow is another day“…

More tweets

(the “FMs” refers to “flying monkeys“, the term used by “grifter”/fraudster “Jack Monroe” for her fanatical supporters, many of which have mental problems).

Ha. If “Jack Monroe” were to eat glue, at least she might be unable to utter more lies. Well, it’s a thought…

“Jack Monroe” is still, as of today, being sent between £3.50 and £44 a month by each of 414 utter mugs. Thousands of pounds being sent to her monthly, in cash, and for absolutely nothing.

An old blog post

I just noticed that one of my first few blog posts, from late 2016, got a couple of hits today. I still think that the topic, the “tipping-point”, is one well-worth examination: https://ianrobertmillard.org/2016/12/27/tipping-points-in-politics-and-life/.

More tweets seen

Are they wrong about Rachel Reeves? I think not. I have examined and assessed her briefly a few times on the blog: https://ianrobertmillard.org/2021/05/10/diary-blog-10-may-2021-with-thoughts-about-rachel-reeves-and-the-floundering-labour-party/; https://ianrobertmillard.org/2023/05/23/diary-blog-23-may-2023/.

If the opinion polls are correct, Labour may form the next government, but when people vote “Labour”, they are actually getting pro-Israel careerists and money-grubbers such as Rachel Reeves, who is little different, though possibly better-educated, than the likes of Iain Duncan Dunce Smith.

Labour is now just a label; some of its own MPs have said as much.

Lower-case “h”, please…

https://twitter.com/DriverStan7740/status/1671446234152706052?s=20

“Senior Lecturer in Law, Sheffield Hallam University“, says the Twitter profile. Seems not to be on the general list of staff: https://www.shu.ac.uk/about-us/our-people/staff-profiles?letter=K. However, see https://www.shu.ac.uk/myhallam/support-at-hallam/multifaith-chaplaincy/chaplains-and-faith-advisors/lesley-klaff. “Faith adviser“.

Alarming.

Slightly reminiscent of the staged “popular uprising” against Ceausescu in 1989. Not that it was not popular in the sense of many, probably most, Romanians liking it, but it was not popular in the sense that the “plebs” took an active part. It was a stage-managed thing, and many of those on the streets were aware of that. They knew that they were just “spear-carriers” in a show put on for the overseas and domestic TV audience.

Late tweets seen

It really is incredible how many people (at least on Twitter) think that saying “effing Tories” and making the right noises about the cost of living under them (with the assumption that fake “Labour” would be much much better, of course) constitutes something massive. As for those “recipes”, have you seen them? I should prefer bread and cheese, or just bread…

“Jack Monroe” is not the only one making a fairly good living out of Twitter “activism” of that sort. There are a number of others, e.g. “@supertanskiii”. Completely useless pseudo-activists who are basically “grifters” (at best).

That useless NIgerian parasite, “@FemiSorry”, is another one.

https://twitter.com/Travis_in_Flint/status/1672641934991474693?s=20

True or bluff? I have no information (reliable information) at all.

The lack of real ideology (going beyond vague nationalism and fawning over replicas of pre-1917 Russianism such as the Orthodox Church) in Putin’s Russia worked only so long as there was relative peace and prosperity. Now, the peace and much of the prosperity has gone or is going, and hope with it, and that leaves a vacuum. Russians need more than bread alone.

Looks as though a deal has been struck somewhere behind the scenes.

Late music

[Tiger tanks on the Ostfront, 1943]

elections, historical, Party Politics, Reminiscences and Musings, Russia and Russian relations, society, Uncategorized

Tipping Points in Politics and Life

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We have all heard of the theatrical cliche of the actor who achieves “overnight success”, having in fact worked hard against all the odds for years. The same is often true of writers, painters and other artists. Not forgetting scientists. It was Edison who, on the failure of his (supposedly) 2,000th lightbulb experiment, is said to have said: “I have not failed. I have just discovered the 2,000th way not to invent the incandescent lightbulb.” At a later time, he of course succeeded. Many things follow the pattern: a long period of non-movement, then sudden success (or sudden failure of something, often after long stagnation).

One can call this a tipping-point, or characterize it by some other metaphor. The aircraft which suddenly fails by reason of metal fatigue, the ship which finally turns over after ice has built up on its external structure in Arctic waters, the huge empire which “suddenly” staggers and falls. On the other hand, there is that actor with his “overnight” success, that composer whose works suddenly find favour, the small political group which “suddenly” rises to prominence and power.

The Bolsheviks were a small group of societal rejects mostly living in internal or external exile, or in prison. Many were not even Russian. Jews predominated in their higher councils (despite forming only 10% of the entire membership), but there were also Georgians and others. In fact, the Bolshevik Party only had 8,400 members in 1905 and, though that increased to 46,100 by 1907, by 1910 the numbers had slipped back to about 5,000. Few would then have imagined either that the mighty Russian Empire would collapse or that the tiny faction of Bolsheviks could seize control of what was left. We know the rest: a failing war and an impoverished population, an initial attempt by others at “moderate” revolution and then a coup d’etat by one small group in one corner of a vast empire.

The lesson: a small and marginalized group, disciplined ideologically and practically, can both seize power and institute an entirely new form of society, once that tipping point or crisis point has been reached.

In post-WW1 Bavaria, Adolf Hitler became the 7th member of the German Workers’ Party [DAP], which may also have had an unknown number (estimates vary from mere dozens to as many as 15,000) of loose supporters in the beerhalls of 1919 Munich.

By 1923, this tiny and marginalized group was able to attempt the Beer Hall Putsch [aka Hitler-Ludendorff-Putsch], but it is important to note that, despite the support of Ludendorff and a few other notables, the actual number of putschists involved was small: the main march headed by Hitler was only 2,000-strong (immediately after the putsch failed, 3,000 students from the university also marched in support and to lay wreaths). Indeed, even had the putsch succeeded, Hitler would only have taken power in one city of one region within the German state as a whole.

The membership of the NSDAP grew steadily, reaching 108,000 by 1928. Electorally, however, the NSDAP was doing worse in 1928 (receiving only 2.6% of the national vote) than it had done in 1924, no doubt a reflection of the growing prosperity in the intervening years (i.e. since the infamous hyperinflation finished in 1924). Despite that poor showing, once the Great Depression started to affect Germany after 1929, the NSDAP was able to gain the trust of ever-more voters: the vote in 1932 was 37% and then 33% (in the two elections of that year), growing to 44% in 1933. Adolf Hitler then took full power, having been appointed Chancellor in 1932.

A different example: UKIP grew from a few people in a pub in 1991 to a peak in the 2012-2015 period, but has not the ideological discipline or revolutionary intent to “seize power” even by electoral means. It missed its chance and will probably not get any further. Still, its growth, in the UK context, is interesting. Its founder, Alan Sked, was a former Liberal candidate who stood as “Anti-Federalist” candidate for the seat of Bath in 1992 (i.e. after UKIP had been formed), receiving 117 votes [0.2%].

UKIP had virtually no members until the late 1990s, though by 2015 the membership had grown to nearly 50,000 (now 30,000). As for its vote share, that grew to nearly 13% by 2015, but the UK’s unfair “First Past The Post” [FPTP] electoral system meant no gains.

FPTP voting itself illustrates the “tipping point” idea, as happened in Scotland: the SNP had fairly good support for decades, but few MPs until the tipping point was reached. Now it has 50% support, but almost 100% of Westminster seats. Why was the tipping point reached? Cultural identity rising, living standards falling, entrenched Labour failing. The point was reached–and the Labour vote collapsed.

UKIP has the same problem. So long as it has only 10% or even 15% of votes, it cannot get more than one or two MPs. Were it to get to 25% support, the situation would tip and UKIP would have perhaps 100 MPs. Except that that will probably not happen…

In fact, the Bath constituency mentioned above is instructive: Alan Sked got only 117 votes (0.2%) in 1992; in 2015 the UKIP candidate received nearly 3,000 votes (over 6%), but was still only 5th (Sked came in 6th in 1992)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2010s

The difference between UKIP’s situation and that of the Bolsheviks or NSDAP is that UKIP has no really firm ideological or organizational structure. Even if society came to a political tipping point, UKIP might well be unable to take advantage of that.

A new and properly-run social nationalist party could take most of the votes of UKIP as well as those which formerly went to the BNP and others. That however, could only ever be a foundation for electoral success. That success itself would depend on the rising star of the new party meeting the fading star of the old parties. It is a question of timing and of Fate. The tipping point for the whole society would be key.