Thursday 11 February 2016

Helping the Enemy : Grey Warfare.


           Decades back there was a British comedy series called “Who dares wins”. It was most famous for its dialogues between Giant Pandas but many of its other sketches were very clever. One in particular springs to mind. It starts with an “aged” film clip of two stereotypical hippie protest singers. Both are long haired and the man is bearded, they wear kaftans and so forth. Switch to a shot of the two actors “now”. They are clean cut. The man is shaved and wearing a blazer and tie, his wife equally conventional. They are laughing self-consciously and good naturedly at the film clip.


           Interviewer: “So, are you still active in politics?”

           Woman: “Oh yes! We have recently become the regional organizers for the National Front.”

           (The National Front is a racist organisation that exploits working class youths as its muscle)

           Interviwer: (pauses) “Ahhh….so, your politics have changed quite a bit?”

           Man: “Oh gosh no! We have always been right wing. Our musical career was to ensure that no one could hear any left-wing ideas without automatically thinking of beads and face painting...”

           This was from a comedy show, but all good satire contains at least a grain of seriousness. You could easily flip this sketch and have the protagonist working so that no right wing idea could be heard without associating Nazism and camouflaged rednecks preaching conspiracy theories! Poe’s law means that many left and right wingers have done a fine job of achieving the above without any influence from the opposition! I have at least one friend whose passion and dogmatism tend to drive more sympathetic people from his causes than towards them.


           Regular readers will know that I tend to avoid political posts. I am, however, interested in perception and consider this relevant to both self-defence and preparedness. So the question I will propose to you today is :- Are you helping what you most despise?

           Think about this after you read this very interesting article on “Grey Warfare”

 
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