Private Eyelines : Have I Got Fake Brexit News for EU is just released. Humour is one of the few weapons this Government cannot take away from us. It’s a historical and hysterical record of #Brexit and one that holds this #fascist government to account in ways that spreadsheets and graphs do not. The book helps us deconstruct the fake news of populist media from “The Son” to “The Daily Maul” “Excess” and “Telegravda”. Grab copies for yourself and your Brexity friends now on Amazon or order discount copies direct from the author by e-mailing us at reboot@academy-of-rock.co.uk Here is the book blurb below:
Satire reaches the parts that spreadsheets, graphs and logic do not. Brexit provides a rich dark seam of tragicomedy in a Kafkaesque world of gaslighting, shapeshifting and shameless lies. We live in desperately sad times. But simply drowning in the sadness of Brexit does not help us deal with paranoid populist politicians. Bittersweet levity cuts through people’s minds to their visceral core. Simply stated, satire heals.
Populist media brainwashed leave voters to believe in Brexit unicorns. I tried my hand at parodying these media to expose the lies on which the Brexit hydra reared its many ugly heads. I found that people rather liked my gutterpress pages. Some even believed that they were real!
To change minds on Brexit, it is not sufficient to break the parliamentary paralysis which continues to enable the slow-motion destruction of Britain. Nor is demographic change, aka death, a success recipe. We must actively work on the huddled masses. People almost literally eat lies for breakfast from a biased populist media, owned by people who seem just a little bit too friendly with Vladimir Putin. Private Eyelines opens up the conversation anew with Brexiteers with buyers’ remorse, or Remainers numbed into submission by six years of bullshit and bullying from our so-called political leaders.
Peter Cook is a unique combination of scientist, business consultant and musician. As a 60’s child, his mum made him watch Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, saying “it would be good for him”. It wasn’t! Instead, Peter built a solid career bringing life-saving treatments for diabetes and HIV / AIDS to the world, 18 years tutoring MBAs in academia, writing books and 28 years running a business. His early exposure to Cook and Moore suddenly came to the fore after 24 June 2016, as satire met real life through Brexit. His mis-spent youth and creativity have been rejuvenated through campaigning, writing, music, film making and speaking about our rightful place in Europe. It was good for him after all. Mum was right!
Available to order direct from Amazon – click to view. Discounted copies available direct from the author.
Turn despair into action. Join us every Monday at 8pm on ZOOM via Reboot Britain.
It’s Europe Day … a brief reminder, lest we forget.
It cost each of us 37 pence a day (or half a Mars bar) to belong to the World’s greatest peace project. I can think of nothing one could buy with 37 pence that would amount to what we got by being part of the EU, faults and all.
Now we left via Brexit, Putin’s plan to create war in Europe continues and our Government plan to restart the troubles in Northern Ireland.
What did we leave for? I’m still waiting for answers beyond mythical notions of freedom. Answers on a postcard.
Footnote : I watched The Killing Fields yesterday afternoon for a reminder of how far we have travelled and just how easy it is to return to a world of violence inspired by ideology.
Finally it’s out !! The new book on Changing minds on Europe and Brexit is here. Click to buy on Amazon or contact me by e-mail via peter@academy-of-rock.co.uk for your personal copy. If you are a sponsor of Re-Boot Britain, you can get a heavily discounted copy to just cover costs.
To find out what it’s all about, join me on Thursday 7 April at 7.00 pm GMT via ZOOM. Here’s the book blurb to give you an insight as to why you will want to buy a copy.
Brexit has broken Britain, economically, socially, culturally, politically and environmentally. Quite simply, Brexit has not delivered what was promised on the tin in 2016, for anyone in our DisUnited Kingdom. This book explains how we may join anew for a better Britain in a better Europe for a better world.
Strategies and scenarios to join anew 2021 – 2031.
Brexit freedoms, unicorns, ghosts and fantasy stories laid to rest.
The influence of Russia and Vladimir Putin on Brexit and the Johnson Junta.
The psychology of ‘Brexorcism’ and the anatomy of the Brexit psyche.
Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) applied to the task of softening hardened minds on Brexit.
How to hold difficult conversations with Leavers in regret and Remainers in remission.
How does Brexorcism differ in real life from online conversations and what can you do about it?
Strategies to put forward a positive vision of a united Europe and heal rifts from the ‘dialogue of the deaf’ over 6 years.
Stories to motivate you and show how these strategies work in practice. Alongside this we explore a number of ‘glorious failures’ as they offer even better insights to success.
A resource section on how to break ‘parliamentary paralysis’, how to make progress in advocacy to MPs and how to engage mainstream media (MSM).
How to multiply your impact and pro-Europe / anti-Brexit influence in real life conversations, lobbying and in mainstream and / or social media.
A ‘Brexorcism’ requires time, patience, unconditional positive regard and skill. This book provides these elements, drawing on a range of approaches to change management from psychology, sociology and therapeutic approaches.
Events of the last week have shown that forecasts can be wrong, however we have learnt that Putin is determined to remove Zelensky and install a puppet regime in Ukraine. Such is his determination that direct conflict with the EU or NATO seems more like ‘when’ not ‘if’ with escalation unavoidable. There are a couple of things that could de-escalate current tensions and I discuss them below by the names given by others: The Palace Coup and The Chinese gambit:
The Palace coup – envisages Putin being removed by Russian politicians who consider his attempt to subjugate Ukraine is damaging Russia as a credible world power. He has an inner circle of eight ‘securocrat’ officers or Siloviki, profiled by Paul Kirby on the BBC website– with no evident dissent among them. He also has a 30-member security council that unanimously endorsed his decision to invade Ukraine and was televised doing so. Finally, he has a lower house of 409 Russian MPs all of whom supported the vote to restrict news reporting to the state broadcaster. No objections or abstentions on that vote televised yesterday.
Any political opposition is either in jail like Alexei Navalny or already murdered like Boris Nemtsov, so it is fair to say that after 23 years in power Putin is as secure from defenestration as Stalin was right up his death on 5 March 1953, exactly 69 years ago.
The Chinese gambit envisages Putin being offered a face-saving exit or ‘exit ramp’ by a third party he respects. At the moment Putin is only likely to halt his armies if President Xi Jinping suggests it or offers to mediate a peace deal with NATO. Putin has shown that he will listen to other leaders like President Macron of France but rejects any request to halt his military advance on humanitarian grounds.
Threats from the United Nations carry no weight because it is headquartered in New York, and because Russia has a veto as one of the five permanent members of the UN security council.
Putin would not recognise President Biden as an independent mediator, he believes the US is still his greatest adversary. Although he respects the US military arsenal, he suspects Biden is reluctant to get involved in any new European war. He’s happy to provoke NATO but not yet attack a member.
Putin agreed to delay his invasion until the Peking games concluded on 20 February so as not to distract media attention away from the games. If Xi could extract some advantage he would step in as a mediator, but the longer the war goes on the more he learns about the West’s resolve.
History shows that a tyrant or despot usually meets a violent end, either at the hands of his own people or at the hands of his enemies. For now, the West, or liberal democracy, must balance two distinct risks – the risk of action versus the risk of inaction. See also Action on Ukraine. As well as Gary’s fine analysis of Putin Power Plays, we must also consider disruptive interventions such as the surgical removal of Putin or a gradual realisation on the part of the West that inaction may well lead to World War III. Here are Garry’s 10 lessons from the first 10 days of Putin Power Plays:
1.The Ukrainian people resolutely do not want to be liberated by Russians.
2.NATO and the EU have been played by Putin for years and woken up to it too late.
3.Putin is prepared to use brutality in Ukraine as he did in Grosny and Aleppo.
4.Counter-action is needed but fear of escalation results only in paralysing inaction.
5.Sanctions are neither fast acting nor effective – ‘banks don’t stop tanks’.
6.Putin didn’t just want Ukraine to keep out of NATO, he wanted subjugation.
7.Rolling up other former soviet domains will inevitably mean conflict with NATO.
8.The UN was created in 1945 by world leaders who had experienced Hiroshima.
9.Those, like Gordon Brown, who have dealt with Putin say he only respects force.
10. China will only step in if Chinese citizens stuck in Kyev are endangered.
Surgical removal may just mean another of the inner Securocrat or Security Council members steps in to continue the barrage on Ukraine and possibly further. Inaction by NATO to implement a no fly zone also seems at odds with the reality of the situation. The bit about the Beijing Olympics is interesting, but how could President Zu be convinced to stick China’s neck out for the sake of the West? And what of the destabilisation of Europe’s western flank, which started long before Brexit was a hot topic? Was that just a distraction, to keep European eyes looking westwards while to Europe’s east, shenanigans were in play? It appears Russian control and command lines to its troops on the ground in Ukraine are shaky at best, and the tabletop chats with Aeroflot employees are not what they seem to be… Unless every transmission contains codes orders to various Russian-controlled military units… That the UK shows huge monetary values of sanctions, but less than perhaps 30 individuals targeted, says more for how successfully the Russian dictator has inveigled himself into the British Cabinet and Government – 30 days’ notice is so all the Tory recipients of Russian donations, in a numbered Dollar or Euro or Sterling account in a Russian bank (no doubt!) can extricate their ill-gotten gains to the relative safety of offshore British Dependent Territories, isn’t it? Meanwhile, a war and movement of people (women and children, mainly, note!) the likes of which has not been seen in Europe for decades is happening – and nobody seems willing to lift a finger to help stop the cause. World War III, yes, it does look that way.
NEW: Banning Facebook & criminalising journalism are not just the actions of a desperate man, they’re the equivalent of putting on a pair of bell-bottoms & dad-dancing across the internet.
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