Why Anarchy Is Needed 1

Firstly, thanks to the kind peeps that responded to my last post. It's gratifying to know people are interested in what I have to say, even though there are far more informed people out there than myself. All support is muchly appreciate.

So, I came across this the other day:

A serving firefighter, London fire Brigade:

On Friday I went to see my local MP, Crispin Blunt to ask why he thought it appropriate to continue to vote for a 1% pay rise for Public sector workers. He explained to me what austerity meant and why we all had to do our bit. I asked him how he was doing his bit by claiming over £20,000 a year for 5 years on a second home which proved to be his main home given his kids lived there and they went to school round the corner. How did claiming over 2k for airbricks and another few thousand for fireplace repairs was contributing to saving the country money? He seemed at a loss how to explain the 5k he claimed for DFS furniture. He sold the second house, bought a bigger house and claimed the 16k stamp duty thinking it’s acceptable to get those who are struggling to pay their own bills to pay his. He votes the way his party tell him to. Ironically he voted against several gay rights votes then left his wife to come to terms with his homosexuality! I asked how this demonstrates leadership to the people of Surrey? What message did his admittance of using legal highs send out to the youth of Reigate?

His answer was to say he wasn’t going to answer my question and he stood up, starting pointing at me and aggressively told me to leave. When I refused he got security call the police! How ironic, the very people he feels don’t deserve a decent wage he expects to save his hypocritical arse!

This really can't be a surprise to any of us. We know what these filth are like, and I doubt he's the first to call the cops on a constituent, or to evict a pleb for daring to question his betters.

What can we learn from this, aside from the obvious naked disdain our capitalist masters have for us. I wanted to point to the hierarchical relationship apparent here. This is why I prefer the anarchist approach. You could easily substitute socialism or even communism in the title of this piece - anything that opposes the class oppression of capitalism.

That class structure is plainly at work here: what people forget is that politicians are meant to be our employees. If anything, that relationship should be the other way around. The beleaguered fireman should be the one kicking out the corrupt Tory. But our society is so ass backward that it's the latter, in his state funded palace, who gets to feel legitimately affronted. It's not legitimate at all, of course.

Ideally there would be no hierarchy and no capitalist private property rights, which means no system to enforce it, which means no politicians.

Which means no Crispin Blunt.

Instead people would come together as the equals they would be if profit and power didn't get in the way. Issues that one has would be raised in front of the community, or those deemed responsible by the community to represent them in such cases - and if that representative proved derelict in his duty he could immediately be recalled.

Instead we have an upper class built on the stolen labour and land of the community who use their power to make laws, and their exclusive monopoly on force to maintain that relationship, to tell a good man to get stuffed.

We all know this is wrong, I wanted to try and explain why, because this is happening every day.

Anybody Out There?

Just so I can be sure this is being read at all and decide whether it's worth continuing, please shout out in the comments. Even if you think I'm talking barmy bollocks, it'd be helpful to know if there are people reading this and not weird bots from phishing sites or Russian hackers or some weird sentient algorithm.

Apologies if you are none of those things, but I'm considering what to do with this blog.

Thanks

Our Crisis

So that's it; six months of waiting for an appointment, being seen, and receiving absolutely nothing. It was summed up in a phone call. With a voice message I am discharged from the frontline mental health service that has offered nothing in all that time. They tell me they have nothing to offer. I say they haven't even tried.

I was on the verge of tears when I made contact in January. The thought of having to wait 8 weeks to be even put on the list was unbearable. Now it's July and what is there to show for it? All they have done is send me questionnaires asking me my mood and deciding their level of interaction on the basis of a number. Doesn't that just say it all? That a person's mental and emotional well being can be reduced to a number and a number is the difference between what they perceive as well or not.

This is what we have come to. Despite a list of promises as long as Jacob's ladder, there is nothing for people like me. There is no support, just an opportunity for private enterprises, clad in a pretence of caring, to offer the latest in a long line of minor self-driven support, all of which is but a sop. At best it is a sticking plaster over the reality of the lives we lead. It doesn't and cannot address the alienation exploitation and isolation caused in a society dependent on the capitalist mode of production. Where workers are subject to all of these as a necessity for their bosses to survive. Our leaders promise, but they do not deliver.

Instead we are subject to victim blaming or gaslighting: I know full well that, if I go back to my GP it will be tacitly (at least) assumed that the failure of my interaction thus far will be on my part. It will be because I didn't engage, an easy excuse. My GP will imply this because that is the relationship that exists in our hierarchical authoritarian society: she is the authority, a doctor trained and professional, and I'm the patient and thus necessarily compromised and emotional. She may not even believe that is what is happening, but i've seen it so many times. In so doing this will be to deny me the power in the situation, to suggest my story is invalid, that perhaps I'm "making it up" - that is gaslighting.

In this situation how are people to be helped? Where are they to go? The only support seems to be a room in a building where people like me can spend a couple of hours doing...not much, it seems. But it keeps us off the streets - out of sight, out of mind. This is simply not good enough, it is the precise opposite of what is needed: a caring equal society devoid of division where people are cared for because they are people. Instead we have people who either can't help because they are too busy themselves trying to survive, or won't help because it's not profitable.

And that is before considering services such as I have just mentioned are being cut and cut. They aren't even really services as a result, no matter the best intentions of those in charge. Instead it just becomes a barn for us mentally ill 'cattle', herded together without thought or plan and left to our own devices.

The crisis of mental health is the greatest symptom of our age. It is the greatest cause of ill health according to the World Health Organisation. It has always been the runt among the family of problems that affect the health of a society, austerity merely gives that attitude more strength. It is an attitude born precisely of the moral assumptions capitalism inspires: the strive to be a winner and the fear of failure. This dangerous dichotomy has become even more acute in this age of unnecessary austerity where genuine ill health is to be suspected and people to be assumed of lying. It's ok for business to play the system, to avoid taxes and do what they can because that's 'striving', but for someone desperate to avoid oblivion, that's swinging the lead.

So we are subject to scrutiny at the hands of privateers who are not obliged to have any training. We are set into precisely the same kind of divisive relationships as that with my GP. Divisive relationships that shouldn't exist but only do so because of the scarcity politics necessary to capitalism's survival. We cannot support people because it's a burden, but to whom? The rising cost of welfare doesn't seem to have affected the lives of the already successful. The rich have become richer because of austerity, and I cannot think of a single soul who's success has been affected by the existence of DLA, ESA, Incapacity Benefit, JSA, or any other benefit.

We are left with a black hole in our society that cannot be filled by anything capitalism can divide. Our politicians are incapable of addressing these issues. Alienation exploitation and isolation cannot be cured by pills, being sectioned, or victim blamed, but they must be addressed.

Stepping Off

So that's that.

After 6 months, my 'treatment' at the hands of the appalling Positive Step ends with a phone call (missed, thanks to our shitty network coverage). All I have to show for it is a message that amounts to thanks very much, goodbye.

The guy apparently had a pow wow with my GP wherein they both agreed they had nothing to offer and nowhere to offer it. Sure they can agree that it would be great if someone else could offer help - such as signing off on a bus pass - but neither of them will actually do it themselves because...reasons.

That's that. Cut loose.

I've spent more time waiting for appointments than actually in them.

Not once have I been offered any form of scheme, treatment, method or approach. Not a single thing - though I'm sure they would take great umbrage at that, because that's all these people seem to be good for. Even the talk of social phobia was scotched. This was because I was attending a very casual 7 week creative writing course at the Carlton Centre. The assumption being that because I did so, never mind that I found it difficult and considered not bothering to continue on mutliple occassions, then that isn't an issue or a reason at all in any way shape or form. This is lazy thinking, but it's easy for these 'wellness advisors' and their scandalous employers.

Don't forget Positive Step will be getting funding for this, either from the government or from the EU (or both). They aren't doing this for free. In return, I see nothing from that. I have to pay to attend their courses/sessions unless it's over the phone.

And what does that money buy? No treatment or service of any kind.

But the worst part of it is that none of these people will stand up for you. They agreed, for example, that a bus pass would be really helpful. But when it comes to putting 'their' money where their mouths are...notsomuch.

Again the individual is left to his own devices, abandoned by the system once more. Fortunately it's summer and so the weather is pleasant. Come the winter, this will be a different story. But I doubt there will be anything in place by then, and I doubt the GP will take my side. Given how authority works, it will be assumed that their inability to help me was largely down to my own intransigence. In fact I woudln't be at all surprised if that was the meat of the discussion between 'wellness advisor' and GP. Don't forget that 'Wellness Advisor' doesn't even work for Positive Step - he was subcontracted. Positive Step couldn't even be bothered to do the job themselves - and you're paying for that.

Stepping Out part 8

I was supposed to have an appointment last week. The 'wellness advisor', who has yet to advise me of anything wellness-inducing, was supposed to be talking to my GP about my need for an Aspergers diagnosis, or similar. Of course that didn't happen. I rang up Positive Step and was told it was instead scheduled for tomorrow.

More gaslighting; that is not what was arranged. They will swear blind that was the original arrangement so there's no point discussing it.

That's two weeks without any contact or appointment. At this point I'm about ready to make a formal complaint - if I thought doing so would make any difference. Unfortunately there is no alternative; there are no other services. No one is listening.

In six months I have received no support, no help, nothing. This cannot go on.