Wee Johnny wouldn’t be fooled

I have talked about GULLIBILITY and the next step forward, becoming INFORMED.

So, what does it mean to be informed.  Why is that important.  Many years ago I had an expression that I put on my mobile.  It said, ‘the man who knows nothing is impressed by everything’.

This is a actually a very dangerous concept.  As humans we tend to follow or support people who impress us.  This starts at a very early age, usually in comics – we used to call them heroes.  If we were into sport, we idolised football stars.  Pop stars usually look better and sound better than us, so we are impressed by them and we follow them.  And so is borne, the celebrity culture and a stereotypical image of what we should admire.  If a tall handsome, well dressed guy with a very posh voice tells us something, many people are more persuaded than an opposing view from a wee fat ugly guy in an anorak.

If that was all it was then it is probably fairly harmless; oh! and pathetic as well.

In a bizarre way, the people who impress us are actually manufactured that way.  For example, we might be impressed by an international footballer. We see him on the tele and he is portrayed in a certain way – packaged if you will.  But, are you impressed by Logie-Baird?  If it was not for Logie-Baird you would not be watching your favourite footballer?  There probably wouldn’t be any TV.  You see, Logie-Baird was not branded.  We were not being coerced into buying his marketing paraphernalia.

So, let’s rewind.  We are told who should impress us.  Then we follow them.  On the other hand, I might be a bit more savvy and question why I should be impressed by a guy who can kick a ball, but other than that he is a thick head, his tastes are vulgar, he’s a misogynist and earns £10 million a year.  He doesn’t impress me.  I might be a bit more informed about who the person really is.  A hell of a lot of people are not in the least impressed by celebrity or image.

Maybe we should pay a lot more heed to all those cynics.  One of the best known cynics of his day, Lenny Bruce, was driven to commit suicide, although it was never officially admitted, because he was set upon by the establishment, and left many of his gigs in a police van.  He has very many famous contemporaries and imitators; for me, Frankie Boyle is Glasgow’s own Lenny Bruce.  The establishment would not tolerate what Lenny was saying – but, they did not condemn him for telling lies!

If I know very little about anything, I am fair game for anyone who wants to impress me to ultimately control me.  That may sound like a very sweeping statement, but it is horribly true.

I don’t think people are naturally led.  I don’t think people really want to be led.  However, if we are not informed, never been informed and have no means of becoming informed we are fair game for anyone who wants to ‘owns’ us.

OK, so we know nothing.  We are not important.  We don’t matter.  Why bother?  Actually, we do matter.  Every so often we matter a hell of a lot.  How many votes does the Prime Minister get? ONE.  How many votes does Joe public get? ONE.  When it comes to politics and electing our leaders, they are up against an annoying little concept – democracy.  One man (or woman) one vote.  So, for that little moment in time, you are very important to the politicians.

So how do they get our vote?  They impress us.  They tell us what we want to hear.  They tells us how much they will do for us and how much better they will make our lives.  All we have to do is be impressed and we will vote for them.  Of course, if we were better informed and knew what they were up to, we would not trust them and tell them to p*ss off.

It is absolutely essential to the politicians that we are not informed – we are kept in the dark.  If we are happy to be treated in this manner then be it on our own heads.

Many people in Scotland are becoming informed.  They are seeing how we are be used, abused and ripped off by the established powers.  Our only means of combating this is to become INFORMED.

This may all seem a bit obvious.  Sure, we know all this.  Is it.  So, why did we lose the referendum.  Something about not seeing the wood for the trees?

If there was only one goal in life it has to be the quest to become INFORMED.  And it’s no use being the only one who is informed.  We must spread it about, spread it everywhere.  We must make it a quest to ensure that,

EVERYONE MUST BE AS INFORMED AS THEY CAN POSSIBLY BE

So now let’s get down to the business of understanding what informed is.

First of all, it all goes wrong at the start of our education.  We get informed about history in school.  I learned that the battle of Hastings was 1066 AD.  So what is that telling me?  Absolutely nothing.  They can tell me it was fought between the the Normans led by William the Conqueror and King Harold.  They can tell me it was on 14th October.  How much more do I know now?  Nothing.

I’m in a school in Glasgow.  I don’t know where Hastings is.  I have no idea what they were fighting about.  I saw a picture that suggested Harold got poked in the eye.  Frankly, I don’t care about any of this.  I want to know why they are telling me, in Glasgow, about a battle between France and England in the far south of England 1,000 years ago.  Why are they telling me this?  What are they filling up my brain capacity with this nonsense.  Unless, they expect the class to go on to run pub quizzes in later life.

I don’t want all this tripe unless they can tell me, why they are teaching me this, why is it relevant, how will it be used and how does it fit into the bigger picture of a kid in a Glasgow school.

On a slightly lighter note, although it is actually really serious.  If wee Johnny said to the teacher, ‘Sir, why the f*ck do I need to know that?’.  Wee Johnny, would be laughed at outrageously, then given a workmanlike thrashing in front of the class for their amusement, then marched up to the headmaster’s office for his next systematic beating.  But, here’s the thing ..

WEE JOHNNY WAS DISPLAYING PROFOUND INTELLIGENCE AND COURAGE AND THE WHOLE CLASS SHOULD HAVE RECOGNISED HIM AS A GREAT THINKER.

All I can say is, ‘Wee Johnny, I hope you are out there.  I am so sorry I was one of the numptys who laughed at you.  Now I know that you were the smartest guy in the class’.

So, when we are presented with information we must take in the ‘what’, and the ‘when’ and the ‘how’ and the ‘who’.  But then we must get to the really important questions like, ‘why?’,  ‘why is that relevant’, ‘what was behind it’, ‘what was the outcome’ and ‘what happened next?’.  ‘Was that what was expected?’.  We must get at the DYNAMIC questions and not the mind numbing ‘university challenge’ type of questions.  Put it another way,

WE MUST LEARN TO ENGAGE OUR BRAINS NOT JUST OUR MEMORIES – AND WE MUST BE RELENTLESS

If we can get ourselves into this mindset, perhaps they will stop wasting our time with all the bullshit!

I don’t want to labour all the points – that is really for us all to work on.  However, I would  like to deal with just one example to see this approach in action.

Lord Ashcroft presented a survey that suggested around 70% of the undecided voters made their minds up on the basis of the currency question.  Alex Salmond was told categorically that he would not be able to share the pound, there would be no currency union and they wanted to know his plan B.  This is actually a great example, so let’s see how wee Johnny would have handled it?

Wee Johnny:  Why are you telling that to Alex Salmond.  He is the leader of the SNP.  You should be telling that to the leadership of the YES campaign.

Wee Johnny:  So, there won’t be any currency union for us.  OK, tells us about the CURRENT currency union.  Explain it for us.  What do we have at the moment, how does it work, who is involved in Scotland?

Wee Johnny:  And on the plan B, we are going in to a negotiation where we are one of the richest countries in the world, with the western worlds nuclear capability and the greatest amount of renewable energy resources and the best people in the world, and you want to hear my plan B, are you off your feckin skull or what?

Wee Johnny:  And while I am on the subject, why the feck did I not hear Alex saying that?  I love him to bits, but he needed to grow a pair that day!!

Wee Johnny:  OK, so you can’t take the argument to me, so I’ll take it to you.  Just a few questions on the currency union.  Is there such a thing?  yes or no?  I didn’t think you could answer that one.  OK then, how many Scots are on the Monetary Policy Committee at the Bank of England?  Let me see?  I make that NONE, EVER.  Next question, which bank got the biggest bail out.  No, it doesn’t have a ‘Scotland’ in the name – because it was Barclays.  RBS got £80Bn from the TREASURY, not the BoE.  Barclays got something in the region of £600Bn ++ from the US Fed; also known as the LENDER OF LAST RESORT.  Let’s hear that again, the BoE was NOT the LENDER OF LAST RESORT and it did not bail out the banks.  And finally, how high does inflation have to rise in Scotland before the BoE has to inform the Chancellor and perhaps alter the base lending rate in the UK?  Well over 20%, because of the disparity between our GDPs.

Wee Johnny:  Look, I am happy to keep talking about the ‘what did you call it, currency union’.  I haven’t kicked so much butt for years.  You can put that white flag down now – I accept your surrender.

Wee Johnny:  By the way, tell ‘Lord’ Brown if he doesn’t key his snib out of Scotland’s referendum I will get started on him.  He doesn’t want to go there – really, he doesn’t.  Tell him, I know where the bodies are buried!

I don’t know about you, but I like the way that Wee Johnny’s mind works!

ALL OUR MINDS CAN WORK LIKE THAT – WE JUST NEED TO ENGAGE THEM