PORTOBELLO REFLECTIONS DEC 20th 2021

 

 

Tucker Carlson/Corbyn and the new Fifth Column

When British citizens were murdered on British soil by Putin’s hit squads it was the far left, from Corbyn and the Stop the War[sic] crowd usual suspects, that came out to exonerate and/or offer apologia for Putin. In the US it has been the far right, from Tucker Carlson and the Trump supporters who have functioned as Putin’s fifth column. Not since the Molotov Ribbentrop pact has the right and far left embraced each other so tightly.

At the heart of this love in has been the hideous 19th century/Cold War concept of ‘spheres of influence,’ which with respect to Putin’s Russia the far left have embraced with a passion that would make Bismarck blush. Of course, this is a doctrine very much at home in the right, from the Monroe doctrine to the present small states forced to bend to the will of their larger neighbours. The interests of these citizens of these states must be ignored and sublimated in the interests of, e.g. Chile in 1973, US national interests. For the far left to embrace such a doctrine is not new, Stalin’s fellow travellers in the 1940’s bent over backwards to support Soviet hegemony from Poland to Bulgaria.

And here we are again, those who rightly condemned US interference in Central and South America, see no hypocrisy in defending the right of Putin to dictate the foreign policy of his neighbours such as Georgia or Ukraine. Hands of Cuba…Ukraine not so much.

Which brings us back to Tucker Carlson. This vile little man has one virtue that Corbyn lacks, consistency. He is quite happy for the US to undermine neighbouring states if in the US national interest and consequently has no objection to Putin exercising the same ‘right.’

Why did it Take so Long?

Being venal, cowardly, inconsistent, puerile, mendacious, and in the pocket of malign actors has never been a barrier to being elected to high office, what is new is the discovery that one doesn’t even need to exert any energy concealing the fact. The public will do all the heavy lifting in covering for you. At worst this can only take the form of the old lie, ‘they’re all the same.’ Well, North Shropshire has indicated that Boris Johnson has reached the point when his shrug of the shoulders bonhomie no longer cuts it, that people are finally growing tired of laughing off his mendacity and corruption. Why did it take so long?

How Strange the Change From Major to Minor

My knowledge of the technical side of producing music would struggle to fill the back of a postage stamp. This is, of course, hardly a bar to my enjoyment of music. There is one mystery that seems wholly magical, and that is the emotional impact of a change in the music affected by, and this is produced literally by Ella Fitzgerald, ‘how strange the change from major to minor.’ 

The Cocteau Twins produce this effect multiple times in a song Cherry-coloured Funk, as does Artie Shaw toward the end of his magnificent instrumental rendition of These Foolish Things, sudden surge of melancholy and a burst of romantic desire is produced in me by this simple shift.

Like much about art I don’t understand why this shift it has this impact on me and don’t really care, I am just glad that it does.


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