Public Opinion
When the American Civil War ended in 1865 very few people really believed in racial equality. Slavery was abolished but it was another 144 years before President Barack Obama took the oath of office. Once slavery was abolished it was inevitable that the Blacks would expect everything available to free men and women. And it was also inevitable that some Whites would resent emancipation and try to keep things as they were.
Public Opinion comes from several sources. Left-wing teachers and lecturers undoubtedly influence young minds towards liberalism, but right-wing newspapers and broadcasters act in the opposite direction, and some people actually work things out for themselves.
An article by 'Tarka' in the magazine 'Candour' blames Cultural Marxism for almost everything: "Cultural Marxism has foisted upon us multiculturalism, multi-racialism, miscegenation, single parents, cohabitation, abortion, homosexuality, wards of the state (those who can't survive without state benefits) and drug/alcohol dependency which have all increased massively in the last thirty years. Eroding our culture and tradition and weakening our indigenous folk."
That's a powerful indictment but do we really want to return to the days of racial bigotry, shotgun weddings, unwanted pregnancies, gay-bashing, and workhouses?
Public Opinion has moved on. If 'Tarka' is a young man he might change his mind as he grows older, but he is probably an old man, like me, who is set in his ways.
In 1962, as a young Empire Loyalist with a head full of jingoism, I shouted abuse at prime minister Harold Macmillan as he addressed the Tory Party Conference at Llandudno. I was angry with him for making his famous 'Wind of Change' speech in Capetown. But he was only stating the obvious; that the days of Empire were over and that Africa would be decolonised.
Today, nobody would advocate a British invasion of Africa to restore colonial rule. We have come to accept that we are a European country and no longer a great world power. It seems that Harold Macmillan was right and I was wrong.
There is always a gap between changed circumstances and their acceptance. Britain ceased to be a world power in 1956 when our armed forces were ordered out of Egypt by America. Prime minister Anthony Eden was still living in the days of Empire when we could do as we liked. But the Second World War had changed everything. The reality in 1956 was that the Soviet Union and the United States had overtaken the British Empire. Now, 65 years after the Suez fiasco we have another Tory prime minister who is living in the past and threatening Russia and China.
We can uphold civilization and build a fair society without adopting the worst aspects of liberalism, such as self hatred and inverted racism. But we must recognise that drug taking and alcoholism are illnesses that must be treated, and that homosexuality is part of human nature. Public Opinion is slow to change and often reactionary but once reforms are adopted they are usually supported.
'Tarka' and Sam Dickson have every right to attack Liberalism but we mustn't go too far in the other direction. We need to balance freedom with responsibility.
Sam Dickson on Liberalism
As Madame Roland said, "The Revolution is Eating its Children."
It's truly intriguing how liberals and liberalism quickly, effortlessly and with little notice are morphing into blood-thirsty, unhinged Bolshevik fanatics and ideological crankiness.
Almost everything they claimed they stood for back in the 60s when we were teenagers and first heard their alleged beliefs from biased teachers and history books has been jettisoned.
*They now love American imperialism.
*They want to make war not peace.
*They never see a war they don't like.
*They embrace the military industrial complex.
*They eagerly approve big business censoring public debate and turning the entire country into a company town.
*They are opposed to open civic debate.
*They like censorship.
*They approve of prosecutors railroading defendants into jail.
*They disfavor the rights of the accused beyond any critique the so-called "right" made against the Warren Court.
*They support government snooping and surveillance.
*The want whistleblowers (Snowden, Chelsea Manning, Assange) jailed.
*They have chilled towards the Bill of Rights and regard it as an anachronistic impediment to their doing good.
*They embrace a narrow nationalism, stir up hysteria against foreign countries and support blocking the flow of information across boundaries. (They've already labelled Russia Today as a foreign lobby group. How long before the Soviet style jamming begins?
*They seek to supress freedom of speech by claiming that using a word like "fight" makes you civilly and criminally liable.
*They smear people with a broad brush by "linking" them, use laughable and absurd forms of guilt by association such as geographic guilt by association, audience guilt by association and even quotation guilt by association that is a parody of their parody of Senator McCarthy.
*They set up congressional committees that hold hearings to discuss how to pass legislation to crush opponents. (Much maligned House Un-American Activities Committee can't hold a candle to these people!)
They have no capacity for moral introspection. They have no use for logic or reason. They prefer reasoning by anecdote (George Floyd) to real statistics.
They have become freaks, monsters, creatures from the island of Dr. Moreau.
Sam.
Winston Churchill on Europe
During a parliamentary career lasting more than half a century Winston Churchill had much to say on almost every subject. Brexiteers like to quote him saying that Britain would always choose the open sea. He was a British Imperialist right enough but he envisaged a united Europe in alliance with the British Empire and the USA.
WC was responsible for the disastrous Gallipoli campaign in WW1, and for the Bengal famine of 1943 that killed three million people.. He was a great wartime orator who inspired the nation with his "Fight Them On The Beaches" speech, but he was voted out of office at the first opportunity in the 1945 general election.
The post-war Labour government kept out of the European Coal and Steel Community which was the forerunner of the European Union. Clement Attlee had just nationalized those industries in the UK and wanted to protect them. Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin was a passionate European who said: "My policy is to be able to take a ticket at Victoria Station and go anywhere I damn well please!" Unfortunately, he died in 1951.
When WC was returned as prime minister in 1951 he put Britain's links with the USA and the White Dominions ahead of Europe. He also warned his Cabinet about the dangers of immigration from the West Indies. On 3rd February 1954 he said: "Problems will arise if many coloured people settle here. Are we to saddle ourselves with colour problems in UK? Attracted by Welfare State. Public opinion in UK won't tolerate it once it gets beyond certain limits." But big business looking for cheap labour overruled the prime minister and the influx continued.
The European Economic Community, usually known as The Common Market, was founded by the Treaty of Rome in 1957. Britain applied to join in 1961 under Harold Macmillan but his bid was twice vetoed by General de Gaulle, in 1963 and again in 1967. The general died in 1969 and we eventually joined under Ted Heath in 1973. Following a close run referendum in 2016 we left the European Union under Boris Johnson at the end of 2020, but leading bookmakers are giving odds of 5/1 for the UK to rejoin the EU by 2026.
What We Stand For
The cross and star symbol used by Nation Revisited and European Outlook was designed by John Bean in 1957 for his National Labour Party. The cross represents the Nation and the star represents Socialism.
A young John Tyndall speaking for the National Labour Party in 1959.
I use this symbol with JB's blessing because I believe in a representative political system for the whole of Europe. The NLP stood for Workers Partnership and European Co-Operation; noble principles that live on in Nation Revisited and European Outlook.
John Bean originally favoured Northern Europe but his landmark editorial in 'Combat' No 38, 1966, entitled "Let's Keep Nordicism in Perspective", concluded that we can't afford to discriminate between Europeans of the North and Europeans of the South.
We have left the EU but we are still Europeans by history, geography, race and culture. The petty nationalists now in power can't take away our birthright. Our ancestors all came from mainland Europe; Iberians, Celts, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, and Normans. Our destiny is United Europe.
We stand for immigration control and political reform. Our first-past-the-post electoral system is blatantly unfair to the smaller parties. And the sleaze and corruption epitomised by 'Dodgy Dave' goes from bad to worse. Important decisions are not made in parliament but in the boardrooms of the great corporations. Those who finance the political parties effectively control them. You may put an illiterate cross against your favourite election candidate but the real winner is big business.
Police Powers
Home Secretary Priti Patel's amendment to the Public Order Act gives the police wider powers to control protests and demonstrations. This is a draconian move but with an 80 seat parliamentary majority Boris Johnson is practically an elected dictator who can do as he likes.
The police are supposed to enforce the law without fear or favour and the courts are supposed to be impartial, but both bodies are agents of the State and act accordingly. This is not just a British problem, it applies to all the so-called Western democracies.
It's total hypocrisy for Western politicians to criticise Russia or China for limiting democracy when they do exactly the same thing. We no longer send in the Dragoons with sabres drawn, as we did at Peterloo, but we have created a paramilitary police force dressed for battle and armed with tear gas, tasers, riot shields and batons.
Every government has a duty to protect citizens and property from mob violence. Without an effective police force the gangsters and anarchists would soon take over. But when the police go too far they must be reined in. The Black Lives Matter rioters tore down a statue in Bristol while the police looked the other way, but when a group of outraged women held a vigil for Sarah Everard in Clapham they were arrested and handcuffed. The politicization of the police will destroy public confidence and do nothing to preserve law and order.
Under the present system the public can never find a policeman, the Police are undermanned and underpaid, the courts dispense justice erratically, and our MPs accept regular pay rises.
Every so often a brave judge or senior police officer will challenge the government, but most of them keep their mouths shut for fear of their pensions. This has always been the case and it probably always will be. The British Government locked up over a thousand men and women without charge or trial under Defence Regulation 18B in 1940. That was under wartime conditions but they would do the same thing today if they wanted to. The Tories wave their Union Jacks but their 'treasured democracy' is a confidence trick and British Justice is a lottery.
Alison Chabloz has been sent to prison yet again for singing allegedly anti-Semitic songs. She is a brave woman but she can do nothing about what happened during the war. We can't overturn 76 years of incessant propaganda, but we can report crimes against humanity that are currently being committed by Israel.
Nation Revisited and European Outlook
Nation Revisited and European Outlook seek reform by legal means. All articles are by Bill Baillie unless otherwise stated. The opinions of guest writers are entirely their own. We uphold the United Nations' Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19:
"We all have the right to make up our own minds, to think what we like, to say what we think, and to share our ideas with other people."
