Rise Like A Weird Beard

         

                                    Now remember what you’re supposed to think

Totalitarian states generally have two faces and the contemporary liberal version is no exception. Just as the Nazis struck a precise psychological balance between the togetherness of the Volksgemeinschaft (Community of the People) on the one hand and the dead-eyed Gestapo on the other, so the modern liberal balances the intimidation of thought criminals with its own Volksgemeinschaft of which weird beard Conchita Wurst is the latest ornament.

Maybe you think I’m overdoing it in my description of our liberal overlords as totalitarian. I’m not. Sure, they’re not pulling out any fingernails yet, but you have to remember that this is the liberal smiley-faced version of fascism. If there’s a single adjective that might sum up their own view of themselves it is “nice”.

And there is no necessary conflict between being totalitarian and feeling that you are nice. In fact, it’s that warm fuzzy feeling that makes all the fingernail pulling possible. After all, the Nazis didn’t see themselves as jack-booted monsters. If you watch even a few Nazi era German films you’ll see that they were pretty confident in their own essential goodness.

If you doubt the soft totalitarian nature of modern Britain just count up those political leaders, academics or media personalities that have openly expressed disagreement with mass immigration or homosexual marriage. There are a few brave examples, but such is the hysteria, petty nastiness, and firings they suffer at the hands of the self-described “tolerant” that the vast majority are kept solidly in line.

There was a trivial example of this in Eurovision 2014 when the Danish crowd took a break from their delirium at the victory of the bearded freak to demonstrate their courage by booing the teenage Russian Tolmachevy sisters.

In 1933 Hitler described the process of overcoming resistance: “belabour people as long as necessary, until they succumb to us.” And this is the stage that we have reached in the creation of liberal heaven.

With one eye on the EU’s recent humiliation by Russia in Ukraine a reporter asked Conchita if he would like to say anything to Putin. Wurst replied that, ”I say we are unstoppable.” And who could disagree. Whoever you vote for in elections the liberal agenda advances relentlessly on. The socialists are turfed out by the electorate in Britain, and the new Conservative prime minister unveils his legislative priority: gay marriage. There had been nothing about it in the Conservative party manifesto and only a small percentage of his voters supported the move. But as those millions of voters discovered, they are not part of the political equation anymore.

Democracy is slipping into a coma. The vital information required to make an informed choice is denied to the voters or perverted by a journalistic cast of an ideological purity that Stalin or Hitler would have envied. And should the people defy the opinion formers and vote right-wing anyway, they soon find that the party they voted for is conservative in name only. And even if by some miracle a real right-wing alternative arose and overcame the propaganda to win victory they would still be paralysed by the liberal elites in control of the civil service, the education establishment and vested interests.

Whoever you vote for the progressives are in power. What a wonderful name “progressive” is. Sounds so much like “progress” but in fact refers to the endless  (progressive) small steps to liberal Nirvana.

“Very disturbing things are happening In Europe which show its decadence and collapse,”, so said the Mr Misery of Polish politics, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, about the victory of the bearded Lady.

But it’s not the weird beard that’s the problem. The very basis of civilisation is tolerance of what we don’t approve. What is disturbing though is the demand for us not to tolerate but to approve.

If Conchita Wurst had been dressed in a tuxedo performing as plain old Thomas Neuwirth the merits of his patchy singing voice and corny ballad would have been all too apparent. What provided the lift that transformed this turkey into a phoenix was the voting panels and impeccably liberal Danish audience receiving the dog whistle loud and clear that this was an opportunity to approve of something progressive.

The two faces of totalitarianism were both very much in evidence at Eurovision 2014. First there was the invitation to join the smiling Volksgemeinschaft and emote along with the rest about how wonderfully liberal and inclusive we are in rejoicing at the victory of the degenerate. Or we could risk expulsion from polite society and most likely any prospect of gainful employment any time soon.

The disturbing thing is that nobody with even the slightest of public profiles risked dissenting from the prevailing fascism.

Welcome to the Volksgemeinschaft.