Too Big to Succeed (British Edition)
These days, the standard of newsworthiness in “protest movements,” at least in North America, seems to be “The smaller the bigger.” The news media has taken to shamelessly reporting with the utmost seriousness events that may be represented with headlines such as, “Dozens gather across the country to protest Anti-Asian hate.” The importance of a “protest” or “movement” is now determined, in other words, entirely on the basis of how progressively and aggressively correct (i.e., useful to the totalitarian agenda) the mainstream media believes the event to be.
So imagine how out of step with the times those Brits must seem who are currently walking in a group of obvious thousands through London, as an act of peaceful protest (so far — some of them may turn out to be soccer fans, of course) against totalitarianism, specifically against their government’s Covid-19 tyranny of endless lockdowns, arbitrary mandates, non-stop pro-compliance propaganda, and the rest of the outrage the world has come to regard as normal over the past fifteen months. At first glance, the crowd (viewable live on YouTube, as of this writing), looks like a very ordinary, non-threatening group of citizens, spanning many age groups, walking quickly through London’s lovelier streets in search of little more than a few hours of feeling freer than any of them have likely felt in years, and certainly freer than they are ever likely to be in “real life,” from now on.
I hope they continue to be ruled by their better angels during this protest, and that these hours of psychological liberty, independence, fellow-feeling, and, in a word, humanity, give some of them a renewed sense of rationality to help them struggle through the long, ugly years of genuine oppression awaiting them, like all of us, in this Brave New World.
(Note: As I write this sentence, I am seeing and hearing an impromptu performance by a group of middle-aged black men with hand-held drums and a saxophone, playing some form of African-jazz fusion to enliven the crowd, very entertainingly. My guess, knowing nothing about them, is that they are probably local performers of immigrant origin who have lost their source of income during these lockdowns. Some black lives, as we all know all too well, do not matter to the progressive tyranny and its propaganda wing — specifically those belonging to people who wish to live in a state of freedom, self-reliance, and self-determination.)
