BlackHat's Journal: She’s gon'na ditch that shining sick machine

Quote:
The disestablishment of the English Church in Ireland was one of the most righteous acts of this reign. Whether the great English Statesman will be equally successful in securing Home Rule for that unhappy land, upon which he has staked the final effort of his life, remains to be seen.

The Irish question is such a tangled web of wrong and injustice complicated by folly and outrage, that the wisest and best-intentioned statesmanship is baffled. Whether the conditions would be improved by giving them their own Parliament, can only be determined by experiment; and that experiment England is not yet willing to try.

History affords few spectacles of its kind more impressive than Mr. Gladstone at 86, with the ardor and energy of youth, battling for a measure he believes so vitally necessary to the Nation. It is a pity that for Americans his greatness is tarnished and belief in the infallibility of his judgment shaken, by the memory that he upheld the attack upon our National life in 1860; and that he, seemingly without regret, prophesied our downfall.

The work of Parliamentary reform commenced in 1832 has moved steadily on through this reign. By successive acts the franchise has extended farther and farther, until a final limit is almost reached; and side by side with this has been a corresponding increase in educational facilities, "because," as a Peer cynically remarked, "we must educate our Masters!"

So many reforms have been accomplished during this reign, the time seems not far distant when there will be little more for Liberals to urge, or for Conservatives and the House of Lords to obstruct. Monarchy is absolutely shorn of its dangers. The House of Commons, which is the actual ruling power of the Kingdom, is only the expression of the popular will.

We are accustomed to regard American freedom as the one supreme type. But it is not. The popular will in England reaches the springs of Government more freely, more swiftly, and more imperiously, than it does in Republican America. It comes as a stern mandate, which must be obeyed on the instant. The Queen of England has less power than the President of the United States. He can form a definite policy, select his own Ministry to carry it out, and to some extent have his own way for four years, whether the people like it or not. The Queen cannot do this for a day. Her Ministry cannot stand an hour, with a policy disapproved by the Commons. Not since Anne has a sovereign refused signature to an Act of Parliament. The Georges, and William IV., continued to exercise the power of dismissing Ministers at their pleasure. But since Victoria, an unwritten law forbids it, and with this vanishes the last remnant of a personal Government. The end long sought is attained.

The history of no other people affords such an illustration of a steadily progressive national development from seed to blossom, compelled by one persistent force. Freedom in England has not been wrought by cataclysm as in France, but has unfolded like a plant from a life within; impeded and arrested sometimes, but patiently biding its time, and then steadily and irresistibly pressing outward; one leaf after another freeing itself from the detaining force. Only a few more remain to be unclosed, and we shall behold the consummate flower of fourteen centuries;--centuries in which the most practical nation in the world has steadily pursued an ideal! The ideal of individual freedom subordinated only to the good of the whole.

The triumph of England has been the triumph not of genius, nor of intellect, but of character. It is those cross-threads of stubborn homely traits, the tenacity of purpose, the reluctance to change, the adherence to habit, usage and tradition, which have toughened the fabric almost to indestructibility. These traits are illustrated in the persistence of the hereditary principle in the royal line. We look in vain for another such instance. The blood of Cerdic, the first Saxon "Ealdorman" (495), flows in the veins of Victoria. She is 38th remove from Egbert, first Saxon King of consolidated England (802), 26th from William the Conqueror (1066), and 9th in descent from that picturesque and lovely criminal, Mary Stuart (1587). There have been wars, and foreign invasions,--a Danish and a Norman conquest, the overturning of dynasties, and Revolutions, and a "Protectorate," and yet--there sits upon the throne to-day a Queen descended by unbroken line from Cerdic the Saxon!

Queen Victoria is undoubtedly indebted to the wise counsel and guidance of the Prince Consort in the early decades of her reign. Not one act of folly has marred its even current. She has held up to the nation a high ideal of wifehood, motherhood, and of domestic virtue. None of her predecessors have bound their people to them with ties so human, her griefs and experiences moving them as their own. We think of her more as an exalted type of Woman, than as Sovereign of the most marvellous Empire the World ever saw;--its area three times that of Europe, representing every zone, all products, and every race!

How long England will be capable of sending out a vital current sufficient to nourish such distant extremities none can tell; or whether the far-off Colonies of Australia, Canada, and New Zealand will increase their independent life, until they become detached Sovereignties like the United States. If that day ever comes, like the Mother of a generation of grown children, with independent homes of their own,--England will sit with folded hands, her life-work done. --Parmele

And turn a blind eye to her sons and daughters out playing with the forklift.
We next head for 1799 and the Isle of Corfu. Until then.

News in verse:
Hire a house, baby/
By the riverside/

But I can't give no aid or take no side/
I just watch them drag each other down/

And they're coming all about/
Can't go east cuz' you gotta go south/

Could somebody help me?/I'm out here all by myself/
Seeing ladies in stores/Baby capones/
Livin wealthy/Pictures of my birth/

A poster on a storefront/
The picture of a wanted man/

Don't know if it's day or night/

One man of seventy whispers not free yet/
Two neighbors who make up knee-deep in their dead/
Three tyrants torn away in the summer's heat/
Four prisoners lost in the fallacy/
Five, on my life/
And six, I'm dead inside/
And seven more days to shake at the great divide/

Sandwich bars, and barbed wire/
Squash every week into a day/

OYAITJ: 42695 -- The U.N. Security Council August 14 [2003] established a "U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq" and welcomed the establishment of the Governing Council of Iraq. The council adopted a resolution setting up the mission by a vote of 14 to 0 with Syria abstaining. The resolution was co-sponsored by the United States, United Kingdom, Spain, Bulgaria, Guinea, Chile, and Angola. U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte said that the council's support for the Governing Council of Iraq "hastens the day when the people of Iraq are in full command of their own affairs -- a condition they have not known for some three decades." "This resolution helps pave the way toward the peace, stability, and democracy that the long-afflicted Iraqi people so richly deserve. It also sends a clear signal to those who oppose the political transformation under way in Iraq that they are out of step with world opinion," the ambassador said. The resolution endorses "the vital role that the United Nations is playing in Iraq," Negroponte told the council.

Texttoon:
Fumetti : Stock photos of; George W Bush, Dick Cheney, John Kerry and John Edwards, all composited into a common stage. Election flags and close-croped crowd overlay frames them as a border. Single speech bubble has them all singing;
"We don't need no trouble/What we need is love/
We don't need no more trouble/We don't need no more trouble/
Weeping for the living/Weeping for the dead/
Weep for one another/ Weep for happiness/
Weeping for the struggle/Weeping for the pain/
Weeping for the children/We must take the blame/
Seek happiness/
It's sad enough without your foes/Come on, you all and speak of love/
It's sad enough without your foes/We don't need no trouble/
What we need is love now..."
Final layer is of a scrolling info-news bar with the text-- "Stay tuned for more of Late-Nite with Evil Cartman."