The Naton State

Hello everyone, and welcome to the first in a series of blog posts listing my favourite album for each year of my life (so far).

This initial entry is perhaps the most tricky as it’s clearly retrospective. Nonetheless, a rule of this series is that I own and appreciate each of the albums listed.

1970 – Death Walks Behind You by Atomic Rooster

This album was born in the same year as yours truly. Like much music of that time, it anticipates the still-developing prog rock era while also echoing the dying chords of the bold and experimental psychedelic movement. Tracks like Seven Lonely Streets and Vug could easily be mistaken for early Pink Floyd, while the unsettling artwork was perhaps a portent of the turbulent decade to come. Like all great music, it doesn’t beg to be liked, and this uncompromising stance is vindicated with a wonderful classic rock experience.

1971 – Hunky Dory by David Bowie

Never one to follow convention, while popular music was pushing the boundaries of what an album could be, Bowie was already anticipating the post-punk and new romantic movements which weren’t as yet a glint in the record company’s eye. With a track listing boasting the incomparable Life on Mars and the almost sixties sounding Oh you Pretty Things, Hunky Dory is a hint at the creative flexibility and self re-invention which were the enduring hallmarks of Bowie’s long career. It still lifts and gladdens my heart to hear this album more than four decades after its first release.

Politics

North Korea’s A-Team H-Bomb

4 September 20179 May 2020 - by Charles Naton - Leave a Comment

Where the hell did that come from?

North Korea’s alleged H-bomb test seems to have taken the world completely by surprise. Indeed, when it comes to constructing impossible devices with no resources, Big Kim and his boys would surely give the A-Team a run for their money.

There are two possibilities here. Firstly, that a nation instructing its soldiers to “steal corn from the fields” has somehow managed, in complete secrecy, to expedite such a rapid development in its nuclear program that the power of its weapons has increased fivefold in eighteen months.

The second possibility is that they’ve had outside help.

Given that Pyongyang’s gloating publicity pictures immediately made me think that Sean Connery was about to burst in and beat up the bad guys, I’m pretty confident that, as usual, China is the hidden director behind this latest international drama.

Brexit

Labour’s Back to the Future Brexit

27 August 20179 May 2020 - by Charles Naton - Leave a Comment

Roll up, roll up! Get your new and improved Labour Brexit right here! Much softer than brand Tory and guaranteed to preserve the status quo by remaining inside the customs union and the single market. It’s kinder and more moral too, with extra freedom of movement and ECJ oversight baked in for another two years…or maybe that’s four, or maybe, perhaps, possibly even longer than that. But don’t you worry, Britain absolutely will be leaving the European Union in 2019. Oh sure, there are some details to sort out, but apart from the continued jurisdiction of the ECJ, freedom of movement, membership fees and EU trade supremacy, Britain will be completely independent. We are absolutely committed to delivering Brexit.

Seriously, is anyone still buying this snake oil b******t? If they are, then I have a very nice bridge…

If Sir Keir Starmer’s new Brexit formula feels oddly familiar, it’s because we’ve been here before, several times. The Labour Party is taking a well-trodden path to a certain dead end, and it clearly believes its voter base is either too dim or too blindly tribal to notice or care. Labour’s newly unveiled Brexit policy is exactly the kind of cherry picking fantasy the EU has firmly rejected from day one, and with good cause. If the whole Brexit process has proven one indisputable fact, it’s that you’re either in the EU or you’re not. There are no half measures, yet the Labour Party seems to think it can somehow leave and remain at the same time. Good luck with that.

US Politics

Is Rudderless Trump Preparing to Outflank the Establishment?

26 August 20179 May 2020 - by Charles Naton - Leave a Comment

At first glance, that seems like an outrageous question with a self-evident answer, but the last two years should caution us all against taking anything for granted. Received wisdom just ain’t what it used to be.

As I’ve watched the US media establishment abandon any pretence of objectivity to declare war on their elected head of state, it’s been tempting to buy into the narrative that President Trump is indeed an overgrown man-baby who is morally and intellectually incapable of holding high office.

Tune into CNN, MSNBC or ABC; visit the New York Times, the Washington Post or any other mainstream media outlet and we basically hear the same story. This week has been Trump’s worst. It’s a disaster. His White House is ineffective and chaotic. Staff are fighting each other and the leaks just won’t stop. He’s bound to fall at any moment. Stay tuned…here it comes…

Sure, on the face of it that seems like a pretty reasonable assessment, but the normal rules no longer apply and this president is following a different playbook.

Does anyone else think it strange that Trump continually goes out of his way to pick fights with an unashamedly partisan media class?

Why?

US Politics

Why this Statue’s Fall should Concern us all

16 August 201714 May 2020 - by Charles Naton - Leave a Comment

Following the bloody events in Charlottesville over the weekend, the Durham (North Carolina) branch of the Workers World Party (WWP) held a rally of solidarity in support of those “anti-fascist” protesters who clashed with Unite the Right marchers on that tragic day.

The WWP website reports that there were over 100 protesters present at this solidarity rally, during which a statue dedicated to the Confederate soldiers of the Civil War was pulled off its plinth and onto the ground. Video of the incident was uploaded to the internet and has since become worldwide news, clocking up well in excess of 100,000 views.

To the credit of local law enforcement, one of the main instigators of this illegal act has since been arrested and charged with various offences such as incitement to riot and damage to property.

Regardless of anyone’s opinion on the merits of Confederacy monuments, the County Sheriff’s office were absolutely right to take action against the main instigator of this event, WWP member Takiya Fatima Thompson. She remains predictably unrepentant, and she has amassed an army of online cheerleaders to help fight her cause.

This glaring example of highly selective and conditional support for the rule of law is indicative of a growing and disturbing trend within Western civilisation generally and the US in particular.