"So I Said to Morrissey"...the Left, the Right, and the Future of "Britishness".

Like many politically-minded people who lean to the right, England, and Europe in general, has been on my mind for the last few years, and even more so in the last few months, and weeks. I expect this is mostly because we, meaning American Conservatives, see Britain as not just our cultural prototype, but more so as a litmus of how many of our shared issues are dealt with effectively or not, as we try to learn from their canary in the coalmine of globalism and intersectionality.

Just recently, from the safety of our cozy stateside armchairs, we watched the state sponsored bureaucratic health care system (NHS) of Britain use the Mercyside police force to stop a sick child's parents from going against their dictum to employ euthanasia on him. We saw a man sent to jail for flipping off an automated traffic camera in the most invasive surveillance state the worldwide. We saw another man (Count Dankula) fined and narrowly avoid jail time for an off-color Youtube video joke, and we have seen numerous people in Great Britain prosecuted for low grade trolling, or even posting their opinions on Twitter and Facebook. Yet, the authorities of Old Blighty walk on eggshells regarding press mentions of Muslim rape gangs in Rotherham, which they can no longer hide by their usual tactic of manipulating statistical descriptions so they appear as something they are not.

England probably thinks she is doing a bang up job, at least when compared to meek little Sweden, or even riot-drenched Paris, but there are a handful of brave souls who have done the unthinkable and have, gasp, crossed the Rubicon and dared to speak out publicly. One noticeable celebrity voice that has been gradually added to the choir of skeptics, Classical Liberals, and true Conservatives, who usually hold down the fort of rebuttal has been the often out-spoken British Alternative Pop-Rock superstar, Morrissey.

Many, many, years ago I briefly met the recently solo former Smith's front man, and intentional provocateur, Stephen Morrissey. I was working in a record store at the time...remember those? And he had come in like any music lover, to browse.

Now, I was, and am, quite the Smith's and Morrissey fan, so I approached him tentatively in order to express my appreciation for his artistry, and to be a bit of a second-hand fanboy, by requesting his autograph for a friend.

We chatted briefly, and at one point I said to Morrissey, "I want to thank you. Your first album with the Smiths got me through a rough period of my life between high school and college." He enigmatically replied in a concoction of self-effacing coyness and pithy condescension saying, "I'm so sorry for you".

At the time I didn't quite know how to respond to what I would view today as an admirable minor trolling, and so, I just muttered something that passed as a grumbling agreement and I let him get on with his music collecting. Oh well...

Regardless, I have to admit that as a card-carrying member of the "anglo-sphere", I've always felt that Morrissey, the personality, somehow summed up modern Britishness. He was ethnically Irish, was a fan of Americana, and was from the working class north. Add to it that his word-smithing leaned, and leans, to that of a 19th century educated gentleman with a penchant for verbosity that rivals Oscar Wilde, he captured a generation of educated malcontents. But perhaps most importantly, Morrissey has always somehow managed to fuse the passive-aggressive / politeness-bluntness speech patterns of British repartee with the Punk ethos of Anarchic dadaism.

He was outspoken on pretty much every subject, and even when I personally disagreed with him, or his statements didn't reflect an issue of interest or importance to me, I still respected his dedication to being an "agent provocateur".

But, in the present climate of the west, caused by a collusion of Marxist Globalists, otherwise known as self-professed "Progressives", and their puppets in the spheres of media and academia, words that don't endorse every bullet point of their dictatorial narrative are deemed "micro-aggressions", or even "hate speech". Ironically, even a chap like Morrissey, who most people would categorize as very liberal, have come under fire by the thought and language police of the far left, and have been labeled, no surprise here, as "fascist".

Given, as an intentional button pusher whose statements often present conflicting extremes of opinion, Morrissey has confounded those on both the left and right, and no more so than in a most recent interview posted to Moz's website with someone named "John Riggers", who may even indeed be a pseudonym for Morrissey himself. In it Morrissey addresses his past, present, and future career moves, his unwavering vegetarianism, and of course his pointed but lackadaisical dislike of the monarchy. But it's his take on other social topics that are relevant to the state of Britain, and the west in general.

So, let's look at a few excerpts from the message.

Morrissey, speaking about Brexit, states:

"That should tell you all you need to know about the outstanding lack of neutrality within the British press. It’s all a pointless argument anyway because, as you’ve surely noticed, Brexit did not happen. The EU wouldn’t allow it to happen. It is now a dead issue. The people said Leave but the EU said no. People wanted to leave the EU because of the complete erosion of freedom under EU rules, and the fair-minded majority now see in even more frightening ways how very much they are hated by the EU, not to mention the British political elite.

...Hungary, Italy, Finland and Poland will leave before the UK is allowed to. A second referendum is muttered about but people don’t realize how a second referendum will see an ever higher percentage of people voting Leave. What then? A third referendum?

...There are local elections but people use their vote with national party figures in mind. UKIP is dead, and Nigel Farage aided their downfall by supporting Henry Bolton. Theresa May was always a Prime Minister uninvited. She is incapable of leadership. She cannot say her own name unless it’s written down on a cue card in front of her."

Well, whether you are on the left or on the right, British or American, there is almost no denying that Morrissey is  absolutely dead on here.

The feckless Theresa May and her shambling Tories have still failed to enact Brexit, against the wishes of the majority of British voters, and one can only assume that it's because they are invested in the bureaucracy of the E.U., and are essentially little different from the Neo-Con Corporatist wing of the American GOP.

After the brutal Manchester bombing of an Ariana Grande concert by a Jihadist, local boy makes good Morrissey went on record stating that it might be time for Britain to re-evaluate her immigration policy, and be more strict about who is being let into the nation.While this seems like a practical suggestion of policy change in light of a bad situation (and the fact that England is peopled by some 23,000 known former ISIS operatives), this is of course absolute blasphemy to the globalists, who don't believe in borders and national sovereignty at all. In league with their radicalized intersectionalist brethren, whose identitarian victim hierarchy categorizes Muslims as sacrosanct, they are compelled to unilaterally forgive 1400 years of Islamic military expansionist Imperialism as well as 250 terror attacks per year.

He continues, expanding on his feelings about May and Islam, saying:

"I recall her speech on Eid al-Adhar, and how she referred to it as a ”joyous celebration”… as millions of animals had their throats slit to mark the occasion. I wondered what kind of compassion she could possibly have. The answer is none. However, the Conservatives conserve nothing in modern Britain. In fact, they are the prime destructors of British heritage. Labour are no different from the Conservatives in that they do not object to FGM, halal slaughter, child marriage, and so on. There is no moral clarity with these people, and you shouldn’t vote in a certain way simply because you always have. Do you have the nerve to vote differently? If you have any concern for animal welfare, for example, you cannot possibly vote for either Conservatives or Labour, because both parties support halal slaughter, which, as we all know, is evil. Furthermore, halal slaughter requires certification that can only be given by supporters of ISIS, and yet in England we have halal meat served in hospitals and schools! UK law is pointless!"

Referring to Jewish kosher slaughter, he adds:

"It, too, must be banned. I am not saying that stunned slaughter is acceptable, because it couldn’t ever be. If you use the term ‘humane slaughter’ then you might as well talk in terms of ‘humane rape’.

Now I personally have no problem with Halal or Kosher slaughter, as I am not an animal rights activist, and I eat meat, and I do view the intention of both to be more humane to the animal by letting it bleed to death rather than just smashing its skull in, so this is moot point for me. But in his statement Morrissey reflects the mounting concern of everyday Brits, who see their government as not only ineffective against Islamic extremist terror, but one that proposes to give Islam special treatment in placement and speech, and even gives slack to Muslim-generated violence, that is not accorded to British Protestants, Catholics, Hindus, Sikhs, Jews, or any other franchise.

Morrissey demonstrably states his feelings about London mayor Sadiq Khan and the increase of street violence in London, saying:

"London is debased. The Mayor of London tells us about ”Neighborhood policin ” - what is ‘policin’? He tells us London is an ”amazin ” city. What is ‘amazin’? This is the Mayor of London! And he cannot talk properly! I saw an interview where he was discussing mental health, and he repeatedly said ”men’el ”… he could not say the words ‘mental health’. The Mayor of London! Civilisation is over!

...London is second only to Bangladesh for acid attacks. All of the attacks are non-white, and so they cannot be truthfully addressed by the British government or the Met Police or the BBC because of political correctness. What this means is that the perpetrator is considered to be as much of a victim as the actual victim. We live in the Age of Atrocity."

I personally feel that Morrissey is well within his rights to state his opinion of Sadiq Khan, and even pose his objections to his "cockneyisms", and call civic / cultural violence out for what it is, because certainly, the British press, the government, and the police will not.

At one point I was going to devote an entire Gauntlet post just to Sadiq Khan, who I feel is one of the worst major city mayors, globally. Luckily, I'm an American, so I can say what I want about him without the fear of the police stopping by my home, or being prosecuted for an on-line offense.

Speaking out against the leftist controlled media and their opinion squelching tactics, he notes:

"They don’t discuss, they insult. If all fails they’ll conclude the interview by calling your grandmother a fat slob. Diverse opinion is banned in England, debate is over. The most offensive thing you can do in modern Britain is to have an opinion and to talk clearly...The tabloids would attack me if I reversed global warming. I once made a comment about China and of course The Guardian  attacked me, but the next day David Cameron said more or less the same thing about China and The Guardian  praised him! So, you see, personal bias is usually at the root.”

Morrissey's strong feelings here about the press - echoed quite clearly in the United States in all-time abysmally low opinion polls regarding the media in general, and President Trump's frequent pithy tirades against "fake news", may not seem very shocking when coming out of the mouth of Tory politicians like Jacob Rees-Mogg, philosophers like Dr. Jordan Peterson, internet skeptics like Sargon of Akkad, media opinion makers such as Tucker Carlson or Laura Ingraham, or as he stated, David Cameron, but for a lifelong celebrity radical such as Morrissey, specifically known for his support of leftist, liberal, and progressive causes, to be attacked as earnestly as Conservatives usually are, betrays not only that the left is more than willing to eat itself, but that England has entered some pretty murky territory.

Sadly, this media morass is just a manifestation of the push and pull of the culture war between globalism and sovereignty that we on this side of the pond have wandered into as well, and share with our older brothers in the mother country.

Fortunately, Americans are far more apt to "get up in each other's faces" at this point (we're rude bastards), and bonus, we're very armed, so the government knows not to throw its weight around as much as they do in Britain. 

In the end the distinction may be that Conservatives in America generally pride themselves on holding to a different set of philosophies than the left, especially and since the Tea Party Libertarian "reformation". In fact, many have gone out of their way to distance themselves from those neo-cons, RINOS and corporatists who have too much in common where the left and the right are on the same page.

Sadly, in England this does not seem to be the case, and it appears that the puritanical streak of the Tories seems for all intensive purposes to have morphed them into serving as willing pawns of intersectionality and the identity politics of the Labour Party and their media.

The bottom line, Britain is now in the business of shutting down discourse and trampling on their citizens rights to express their opinion on-line, in their homes, in the press, or on the street.

Very sad, and I for one hope that this disease does not spread.

Morrissey does offer one end piece of advice here. When asked "How can we be saved?", he simply replies, "Music is your only friend."

I don't know if that will solve all of England's, and Europe's, or America's problems, but, hey, it's a start.

Till next time.