Remove Finland from the European Union

I don’t know about the rest of you but I am increasingly sick and tired of the recent carry on of the Finns. I have tried my best to hold my tongue, but I cannot in good conscience keep silent any longer. The treacherous Finns have been causing trouble all over the place. They have even been suggesting that Greece should be kicked out of the euro. Well, I say: kick Finland out of the euro. Finland is barely even a country. It is just a mobile phone company with a few saunas. So let’s see how many mobile phones they can sell when their new currency appreciates by 5 million percent against every other currency. And Nokia is screwed now anyway since they do not make good smart phones. These arrogant Finns need to be taken down a peg or two. Give the so-called “True Finns” what they want and then let’s see how they get on.

Have you ever met a Finn that you liked? Think about it. Seriously. Think hard. Have you ever met a Finn full stop? The other Scandinavians do not even regard Finland as part of Scandinavia. The Finnish language is of uncertain provenance. Where did this mongrel dialect come from? Nobody knows. Are the Finns really even Europeans? Give the Finns back to Russia and see how they like it.

Ever since Lordy won the Eurovision Song Contest the whole tone of that event has lowered to the point now where it can no longer be taken seriously as a music competition. I blame the Finns. The rot started with them.

In the long run what has Finland got to offer Europe? In this definitive list of 66 beautiful towns of Europe, not a single Finnish town appears. What has Finland contributed to European culture? The composer Sibelius, we are frequently told. If I had a euro for every time I have heard a Finn drone on about the “genius of Sibelius” I would be a rich man. But ask yourself this: if Sibelius is really such a great composer, then why have you and I never heard any of his music?

Who has given more to European civilisation, Greece or Finland? Well, for starters, Greece INVENTED European Civilisation. If Greece had never existed, there would be no Europe; if Finland had never existed, no one in Europe would notice its absence.

The overweening Finns have been demanding collateral for the money they are lending Greece in the bailout. Oh puh-lease! If it wasn’t for the likes of Greece, the Finns would have had no one to sell their surplus mobile phones to in the first place. It’s not Greece’s fault that there is nothing to do in Finland except work really hard making lots of mobile phones to sell to Greece. Nor is it Greece’s fault that there are plenty of fun things to do in sunny Greece that make it seem less necessary to spend all of your time working hard to make mobile phones – especially when you can just get the Finns to do it for you and then buy them with money that you have, in effect, “borrowed” from the Finns with no intention of paying back. Why would the Greeks need to work when they can have such a good time lying on the beaches of beautiful islands or having a riot in Athens? The Finns are basically jealous.

Enough! It was not always like this. In years past, Finland was a country you could respect. It was a country you could believe in. It was a land of hopes and dreams. Who can forget the immortal Monthy Python song eulogising Finland?

Finland, Finland, Finland,
The country where I want to be,
Pony trekking or camping,
Or just watching TV.
Finland, Finland, Finland.
It's the country for me.

You're so near to Russia,
So far from Japan,
Quite a long way from Cairo,
Lots of miles from Vietnam.

You're so sadly neglected
And often ignored,
A poor second to Belgium,
When going abroad.

Would Monthy Python take the trouble to write such a complimentary song about Finland now, given that country’s recent disgraceful performance?

I doubt it.

Occupying Wall Street – a New Birth of Freedom?

Previously we discussed the progressive protests and revolutions that are breaking out all over the world and terrifying the hell out of people with power and in positions of authority. One place where such progressive protests and revolutions appeared to be strangely absent was in the United States of America. At the time I thought this might be due to the uniquely docile and obedient nature of the American populace. Well, it turns out that this was just anti-American racism on my part. At the end of the day Americans are just like the rest of us – as is shown by the current Occupation of Wall Street. The protestors may not succeed in conquering Wall Street this time and the occupation may fizzle out, although thus far it appears to be gaining momentum. But if not today, then one day the people will rise up and conquer Wall Street - and history will remember the current protestors as heroes.

In an important way, this attempted revolution in Wall Street is the Big One, in the sense that it is going straight to the heart of the matter – to the epicentre of “the markets”. If it gains traction you would be surprised at just how fragile the current system is, and at just how quickly it could fall to pieces - it is an ideological construct based on a series of myths and fantasies, so it could easily collapse like a house of cards.

Today, we fear and obey “the markets” in the same way that we used to fear and obey God. “The market” is this weird abstract entity that everyone lives in terror of, even though no one has ever seen it – just like God used to be - omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent. Everything must be done in order to appease and satisfy “the markets”, just as things previously needed to be done in order to satisfy and appease God. Our leaders act in order to try and calm the rage of “the markets” in the same way that they used to act to try and calm the rage of God. We must not raise taxes on the wealthy, not because God would disapprove, but because “the markets” would disapprove. We must reduce government expenditure, not because God will throw a hissy-fit if we don’t, but because “the markets” will throw a hissy-fit if we don’t. We must reduce the amount we spend on health and education not because God demands it, but because “the markets” demand it. The poor and the vulnerable must be sacrificed because “the markets” demand it, just as previously the poor and the vulnerable needed to be sacrificed because the gods demanded it.

Of course, in previous eras the power of God did not actually come from God himself, but from people’s belief in the power of God. The same is true of “the market” – its power over us comes, not from the market itself, but from our belief in its power and its omnipotence – and from the belief that this power is inevitable and immutable. “The market” is like the man behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz – if we saw it for what it really is, it would no longer wield its power and people would see that things do not have to be like this. “The markets” can only do what they do because the laws allow them to get away with it – ultimately, because we allow them to get away with it. If Wall Street is to be successfully torn down then first we must tear down the walls in people’s minds that prevent them seeing that things do not have to be like this.

Of course, no one who can think still believes in Capitalist propaganda. Does anyone think financiers deserve the money they get? Only the severely brainwashed still really believe this, because we have all seen financiers being bailed out by the taxpayer and have seen them protected and molly-coddled by the nanny-state. We have seen how our system of socialism for the rich involves vast forced transfers of wealth from the less well off to the better off. People have now stopped believing in this stupid system. And once people stop believing in a system it cannot long endure – it is already dead. The pent up anger and rage of the people towards the system is now literally immense.

Can you hear the fear in the voices of the apologists for power and wealth as they desperately try to fool you into believing their lies and their propaganda? They don’t even believe it themselves. They die with their conceits, and only piteous scorn upon their folly waits.

Who's Afraid of the Internet?

Who is afraid of the Information Revolution? Who is afraid of the Internet?

People who work in media and publishing hate and fear the internet and the Information Revolution. So do politicians. And government armies and the police. It terrifies them. What about doctors? They hate it and despise it – or if not quite yet, they soon will. Lawyers? The same. What about IT professionals? Surely they must be happy about it? Nope. Even people who work in IT hate and fear the information revolution because each new major development renders most of their jobs redundant. So the answer to the question “Who is afraid of the Information Revolution?” would appear to be: everyone. Everyone is afraid of the information revolution. Or at least, everyone who makes their living and who gets their power from controlling access to information.

The absolute material wealth and well-being of the human species has increased hugely over the last couple of centuries because more work has been done by machines, robots and computers. Also, the quality and quantity of information available to people has increased and improved, thus allowing them to act more rationally and more effectively. Life-expectancies have increased, infant mortality has decreased, literacy has rocketed. Not only that, the world has become a much, much safer and more civilised place. The oppression of women, ethnic minorities and homosexuals has decreased and become less and less acceptable. Violence has decreased. Basically, for most people things have been getting better and better in every way. Technological development (particularly since the Industrial Revolution) has allowed us to largely abolish slavery and serfdom and replace them with wage-slavery (or “employment”). The onset of the recent Information Revolution will transform our societies just as dramatically, but as yet most people are only dimly aware of just how dramatic this transformation will be.

For example, as indicated above, professional employment is increasingly going to become a thing of the past. Computers and robots will render most “professional” jobs more-and-more irrelevant. Most of the following professionals will no longer be needed very much and you will not need to pay much or anything for their services even if you do ever want them: surgeons, doctors, dentists, pharmacists, lawyers, judges, professors, journalists, architects, engineers, bankers, stockbrokers, financial advisors, accountants, tax consultants, bureaucrats, intelligence agents, managers, salespeople - as well as information technology professionals. Even at the moment, most professionals spend most of their “working” day surfing the internet, pretending to work, drinking coffee, and going to lunch, simply because there is actually very little for them to do (everyone, that is, except me, since I work incredibly hard myself). And they only get paid what they do because artificial barriers to entry allow them to enjoy monopoly power for the moment. Eventually, this farce will end and the barriers will be torn down. So if your self-respect depends on the status and money you hope to get from paid professional employment then be afraid. Be very afraid. On the other hand, if you are a nice person who is fun to be with then there is no need to be afraid of the Information Revolution – you will have high status in the new world that is coming.

MAny people are fretting about the increase in unemployment due to the recent recessions. But they are looking at this problem from the wrong perspective. Unemployment is only a problem because people’s status in society is currently determined by their job. That may have been feasible in the world of the Industrial Revolution. It is utterly unfeasible in the world of the Information Revolution. The best way to get rid of unemployment is actually to get rid of employment. Employment is a new concept. Until the industrial revolution the concepts of employment and “jobs” scarcely existed. We only imagine this to be the natural order because that is all we have experienced. But it wasn’t like that in the past and it will not be like that in the future.

Currently, the biggest determinant of a person’s status in society is their employment or job. Success in employment chiefly indicates two things about a person
a) a capacity to endure boredom and
b) an ability to suck up to people who are responsible for your “success”.
Why either of these abilities should determine a person’s status in society is beyond me. Nevertheless, that has been the case for some time. Anyway, that will all change now – your status in society will increasingly depend on your moral qualities and your social qualities i.e. it will depend on how nice you are and on how creative and fun you are to be around. That is why the mediocre people who currently thrive in the tedious world of professional employment are so terrified of the Information Revolution.

Personally, I am looking forward immensely to the annihilation of employment and an end to wage-slavery. We managed to get rid of slavery and serfdom. Now for the next (and perhaps final) revolution: the elimination of wage-slavery and employment.