Two of the features of online debate I discovered pretty much from the get-go fifteen years ago are that, first, blinkered Smuggies and Fluffies react to every complaint as “a rant”; and second, they are congenitally incapable of connecting a complaint about corporate commercial behaviour with the increasingly obvious rise of the corporate State.

The syndrome is in itself a reflection of the fact that Smuggies applaud the idea of the State keeping the lower orders in their place, and the ideological green>red>pink>black Fluffies give three cheers for the State forcing “ignorant misguided” people to be free “despite themselves”. Take even a cursory look at the bizarre cultural coalition out to rule the Planet today, and my observation (not entirely original) explains why the “Front” works: the commonality is a detestation of everything individual, natural, creative, entrepreneurial and curious.

To complain is to challenge, perchance to shame.

I wasted almost…