Eye of the Storm 2: He Card Read Good!

In the midst of a pandemic there appears to be a ripping off of a plaster covering a great wound. Black Lives Matter once again exposes the facade of race relations, exposing the truth of power structures and privilege. Social media appears to be taking some responsibility, at last, and banning scumbags and hatemongers. I have no problem with that, except that by leaving it so late they expose themselves to charges of bias or inconsistency. We wouldn't have half the problem with online agitators and bigots if these companies had cracked down in the first instance - and made it stick.

Perhaps a nightmare has shocked us into waking. The question is can we take this impetus and move forward, or will it fade under pressure of profit making. 

Looking at the data for the virus situation in the UK it is hard not to feel somewhat optimistic. I can only hope that isn't misplaced and that, come the winter, we do not find ourselves back where we started. There is certainly every possibility of that. It could either be a very poignant or very terrifying Christmas. Yet, despite the shops being open for a couple of weeks and the presence of muddled slack lockdown practice, all of which inspired by our insipid venal leaders, cases are dwindling. If this trend continues there's good reason to believe by the Autumn things could be moving much more positively. Of course this doesn't take into account the effects of last weeks' beach insanity nor the upcoming Saturday Soaking when the nation's boozers throw open their doors to the thirsty. While I don't begrudge people a tipple, I really question whether this is the right move right now. Plus beer makes people go dumberer!

Come the end of July we should have a decent picture.

And then Boris gave a speech comprising a torrent of hyperbole and bullshit designed to make his master happy and appease the wobbling capitalists concerned about wolves at the door. That's right fuckers we come for YOU!

He's actually saying we should clap for the people who pay for the NHS:

“My friends, I am not a communist … Yes, of course we clap for our NHS, but under this government we also applaud those who make our NHS possible, our innovators, our wealth creators, our capitalists and financiers.”

As if anyone actually thinks he's a communist! (Other than Peter Hitchens obviously. A man so deranged he thinks everyone in the universe is to the left of him.)

When he says but, what he means is "clap for our (his) NHS, but the capitalists are the real heroes". Contemptible. You can be sure when this moves on he'll be selling the NHS to pay for the bankers he's championing in speeches like this. This is call to arms and we better start tooling up! 

By the way, it's not the "innovators, wealth creators, capitalists or financiers" (he could have just said ERG) that make our NHS possible. Just for the avoidance of doubt it's the following people:

Nurses

Doctors

People working on desks doing the paperwork

Cleaners

Porters

People in retail selling (mostly) food

Migrants

The Working Class

It is NOT:

Capitalists

Financiers

Innovators (a vapid loaded term that means the sum total of nothing)

They work in it saving people like Boris Johnson from his own fatal stupidity. It's the migrants who are tapped for cheap labour (cleaners, porters, etc) as well as filling essential care roles. Finally it's the FUCKING REST OF US because it's our taxes that pay for it. Not YOU. Not your grubby mates, not Trump, not Mogg, not Jackanape Francois nor Mr Big Arron Banks (can't even fucking spell his own name properly, what a cunt). It's US, and it's OURS. 

So fuck off!

It's a class war alright!

Eye of the Storm 1: Sanctions are back!

They plan to fine you if your kids don't go back to school in September.

Will that money be used to help poor kids who can't get a meal? Will it help society in any way? No. This just another revenue stream designed to go only one way. File under Domic Cummings Disaster Fund.

Meanwhile, Jobcentres are to reopen and, with predictable nastiness, sanctions will be reinstated (assuming they ever went away, which I seriously doubt).

We are in the eye of the storm at this point, but there is no calm. Instead only uncertainty. Being called in for a Work Focused Interview, which, in normal times, would be on the horizon over the end of the Summer, isn't something I imagine I can escape. If I cam called in, and the Jobcentres are indeed open, that means i will be obliged to travel. Whether they will make exceptions for people like me I don't know. But then who does; there is no negotiation with these people. The edicts of cruelty come from on high. A privileged denizen of Whitehall with no fucking clue as to what impact her policies hold. Instead it's the usual "sanctions help people" mantra. Never mind that we are staring down the barrel of a collapsing economy and labour market. They may have a hell of a time pushing this through.

Animals tend to live in fear, in nature. Not a comforting thought, but that is what it means to live as prey. Sadly we are that. To live in the working class can be endless stressful precisely because of the nature of that class: lacking the means to self sufficiency because it was historically stolen by capitalists. As if three months of corona lockdown and nationwide hardship (and death) wasn't enough, you now face financial ruin if you don't comply. This could - and should - get very ugly.

How will social distancing work in these places? Will they reopen the WCA centres? The one in town has a waiting room that would preclude social distancing for sure. How easy it would be for belligerent assessors to use the crisis to accuse a client of bad behaviour. Will you be expected to wear a mask? What if you turn up and start coughing? Could be an interesting, if contentious, way of getting out of an appointment?

I cannot imagine a Work Focused Interview being productive given the current climate. Can they mandate people to attend courses? How can they guarantee their safety? There are so many questions that of course the Tories will not have considered. All that matters to them is to see business as usual. Indeed one could argue that it is in their interests to manage claimants more severely so as to keep the predicted unemployment rate from skyrocketing. It is set to mirror levels during the 80's when Thatcher cooked the books, transferring people from the dole to the sick so they didn't count toward the official figures. Now with Universal Credit that can't really work so the alternative would be the micromanage their claim malevolently; essentially cutting people off state support altogether.

Watch this space.

Weekender 15: Test Me Fool!

Boris does a pressup.

Amid an economy in ruins, the effects of which wait impatiently behind the curtain, this oaf, this fucking mental wreckage, does a pressup for a photo op.

And you know what? I bet the readers loved it. I bet they took one look at that inspiring picture, like something Malcolm Tucker would command a scared stupid MP to do, and cried into their Vera Lynn teacups. We don't need the Queen to deliver a Christmas message this year (or indeed ever), we can just replay this bullshit.

I don't even care if it was real. In fact if he did do a set of press ups it would be even more pathetic. Test me, fool, he says! Shouting into the lens of a camera whose only existence is to make him not look weak in the eyes of a dying nation. Sixty thousand deaths and a set of push ups. Fucking hell.

Then, when out for a walk in this insane weather, I passed a house where some neighbours had gathered, at a distance, while one of them (or their kid by the looks of things) was in her porch playing sax along to some easy listening backing track. Truly these are the damnedest of times.

This weather is crazy. I don't remember a Summer so mixed up. In fact the only thing I remember about modern weather is that I don't remember when it was last like it currently is, until the next time it becomes even weirder. This is climate change. There is no other explanation for how we go from the most intense heatwave I can remember (!) at this period (it's still early Summer!) to wearing a coat in gales and squalls.

Do you want to understand how power works? Look at how the Tories defend the corrupt housing minster they've imposed upon us. You would think, having been caught reddest of all the handed, they would just kick him out. That would earn them kudos, right? No, that's not how power actually works. They close ranks, they gaslight: we're in the wrong and the matter's closed. They don't even hide their shame; it's arrogance. How dare we criticise our betters. He's just doing what they normally do. The system is operating as intended, don't worry. Go back to your Covid shelters and listen to the Archers.

Weekender 15: Breakdown

Are we losing our grip?

Recent events, the stabbings in Glasgow, incidents at Bournemouth on the corona-crowded beaches, trouble with more heavy handed policing in the city. I wonder how much more our socity can take. Is the collective unconsciousness screaming for release? Something soon will have to give, but unfortunately because of the catastrophic failure of the Tories to manage this crisis it could manifest a very ugly way. People won't want to go back into lockdown; that could lead to riots.

Last night the local scamps and scalawags were out, as they are a lot now, in the fields. Up till 1am making noise. Obviously it's not the first time kids have make noise while I'm trying to sleep - and it won't be the last. But, along with the increased prevalence of litter and mess, I'm getting a sense they are beginning to struggle with this. I would hope their parents can take charge. This is not the time for what otherwise would be youthful exuberance. Things are different at the moment. You just can't behave like this.

I fear our society is not coping. I suspect, even considering the heatwave, the beaches would have been slightly else busy on a normal summer day. The local spokesplonker tried to blame it on the fact everywhere else was shut so people could only hang out on the beach. What alternative would she have preferred I wonder? Virus in the penny arcade? Covid stick of rock?

Any viral fallout from the Disease Dunkirk of the last couple of days will lead to more class division. An excuse to blame the working class for being characteristically stupid and ignorant. Even the Daily Mail, having spent the last 3 months berating the lockdown, has taken a derisory view to the beach goers. This isn't because they care about the virus. It's because they are offended by "louts". It's the new "hoodie"; another working class bogeyman to sell to the shirefolk that read their rubbish.

In truth the working class, as with austerity, are hit the hardest by the pandemic. Simply because they have less leverage: smaller incomes, less savings, than the ruling rich. They have fewer options and less tolerance for the vicissitudes of the period. While I certainly deplore their behaviour, it has to be taken in context. As much as I despise being kept awake on a hot night by shouty kids, they are the manifestation of a deeper problem. They want to express themselves, they want to get out of an oppressive situation, and this is how it will happen. The Tories have given and will continue to give, no answers. They do not, and cannot, understand.

I am sensing a falling apart. Lockdown has already cracked. It ended a month ago when the Prime Moron adopted the confused "stay alert" approach, and then his selfish narcissist adviser drained the government of any moral credibility whatsoever. That could have been dealt with decisively but doing so would have crippled the PM. Now they are as thieves, as we can see from Boris' refusal to sack his corrupt housing minister, having been caught red handed. Their arrogance spits in our face and infects us with the grubby saliva. They fiddle we burn.

Something is going to give.

Arseholes and Castles 5: The Long Grass

Another day, another antisemitism 'scandal'. The Achilles heel, weaponized by the bad faith actors in the discourse, including political opponents (IE the right wing). Stripped of that fact we are left with a fairly innocuous largely throwaway claim about the training cops in the US received. It is true that they have had training in Israel. It, according to Amnesty, isn't the case with the particular technique of murder employed against George Floyd. Whether that was ever the case or has become the case I don't know and I only mention it because placing your knee on someone's neck is hardly an obscure, if horrendously brutal, thing to practice or endorse. So you can see that this claim, for which Maxine Peak (the interviewee) has corrected herself, is quite reasonable to make. It just happens not to be true.

Ok, so where does that leave Rebecca Long Bailey, apart from in the antisemite doghouse. Comparing her to the likes of Chris Williamson, who willingly retweets actual racists, or some ill informed activist whose stupid enough to peddle silly antisemitic conspiracies? Is it really fair to represent her as peddling antisemitic tropes? No, of course not. The purpose of her tweet, as far as I can tell, was simply to echo Maxine's broader points, not a single incorrect statement. The article talked up staying within the party (a mistake in my view, ironically) to fight capitalism. It was not a discussion of Israel.

The claim of conspiracy seems to revolve around the notion that jews were responsible for Geroge's death. This is clearly racist and wrong. Other people claim that the conspiracy is that Israel was responsible. This is conspiratorial and equally wrong. However there is a difference between those two, equally vapid, claims: the first is clearly antisemitic. It's no better than saying "jews run the banks". The second is itself antisemitic because it conflates all jews, regardless of individual expression culture or politics, with Israel. This very fact was used against the Corbyn project. Critics cannot now use it to criticise Rebecca or Maxine.

To reiterate: it is factually incorrect to say that Israel was responsible for George Floyd's death. It is conspiratorial nonsense. However it is not antisemitic as I've just explained. See also here, point 4:

"Don’t say “the Jews” when you mean Israel.  I think this should be pretty clear.  The people in power in Israel are Jews, but not all Jews are Israelis (let alone Israeli leaders)."

In the end this is a bad faith criticism used to leverage out the remains of the Corbynite/Left project within what is becoming an increasingly homogeneous and heterodox Labour party. They are not diverse nor are they progressive. Starmer is not opposing the Tories. He is clearly trying to appease those same bad faith actors - as we can see by the responses of those turncoats that were quick to defect when things got tough, throwing their party (and leader) under the bus. The Funny Tinge collective. Are they hoping to return given the disastrous (and partly racist) failure of their solo careers?

These bad faith actors, the media largely, are not going to be won over. Appealing to the Red Tories and some mythical moderate Tory voter is also a bad idea. There are also people arguing that RLB should have been sacked, if not for retweeting racist tropes (she didn't), but because  she acted stupidly and potentially bought the party into disrepute. But that ill reputation only exists because of these bad faith actors. Were it not for them this could be seen for what it is. At worst, if Maxine had made the claim that Jews were responsible then RLB should be allowed to correct her mistake and learn. There's no shame in that, but we don't live in honest times.

However that is not what Maxine did. It was an interview conducted by respected journalists in a credible law abiding news organ. It wasn't Nick Griffin interviewing her for Stormfront or some fascist tabloid. Further more, she did not at all say that Israel was responsible. Here's what the article says:

"“Systemic racism is a global issue,” she adds. “The tactics used by the police in America, kneeling on George Floyd’s neck, that was learnt from seminars with Israeli secret services.” (A spokesperson for the Israeli police has denied this, stating that “there is no tactic or protocol that calls to put pressure on the neck or airway”.)"

This does not make the claim Israel/Jews are responsible. It just, incorrectly, says that the technique was taught by Israeli secret services. It doesn't even say that the cop involved (the murderer, that is) was specifically trained there, either.

Just another attempt by those who will never be your allies to poison the well.

I am happy to be corrected on any aspect of this.

Class War

Arseholes and Castles 4: The Bleach Boys

We didn't mean for that to happen! The populist press has spent 3 months berating Britains for being timid. They have opposed the lockdown on spurious grounds, claiming to care about the economy (they don't, if they did they'd oppose capitalism, they don't). Now the Mail has a front page shot of a packed seafront that could be Anytown, Allcoastland. Accompanying it is the comment

Reap the whirlwind fellas, but it's not you, the rich press barons and their ruling class tax dodging owners, that will pay the price.

No one wants to be the Sheriff Brody on the beach, telling everyone to get the hell out of the water. SHARK! But what has changed between then and now? The virus went through the community until we locked down. Now things are relatively calmer (though not compared to the rest of Europe who are light years beyond our shambolic oafish response) what has changed? The shark is still out there! The great white on the beach slapping themselves with covid and sun cream. Or maybe not. It's entirely possible, maybe unlikely but still, that none of these people ramming the beaches like D-Day at Butlins are infected. The problem is, we simply don't know.

As I write, in the sweltering heat sloppy keys under melting fingers, a major incident has been delcared on the south coast because of this. The Covid Coast! Like I say, they could well be clean of infection. Let's hope so. But what credibility does the government have when it's own advisor broke the rules? There is nothing they can say at this point. They cashed that cheque and walked away.

Finally, as it's boiling hot and I'm exceptionally tired, Rebecca Long Bailey got sacked from her role in the shadow cabinet for a tweet supporting an article allegedly propagating antisemitic conspiracy theory. Specifically that Israel was training US cops in technique such as those used against George Floyd. RLB is actually fairly new to the party (compared to the likes of Corbyn), so she is an easy target. I think it might be a bit conspiratorial to argue that this was a masterstroke, but it could be read thus: give a Corbynista within the party a position in the Shadow Cabinet. Then, when they 'inevitably' tweet something we can paint as racist, drum her out saying "we gave them a chance and this is how they behave". Whether that is true or not I cannot know, but I am sure that is how it will be seen. The point being: this is leverage against the Corbyn/socialist contingent that will be used by the new, pro-capital, regime. Already, from the sidelines, the ugly sight of the Funny Tinge rejects: Joan Ryan and the milkman's favourite Gammon, Mike Gapes, along with the grotesque Margaret Hodge, have all applauded this. None of these people have clear consciences and are not covering themselves in glory here.

It is clear, against this backdrop of turmoil and crisis threatening to mutate, the Labour party is a hostile environment for people like her. Whether they will go after Jeremy himself or others that shared his platform and politics remains to be seen. Either way, there is no future in Labour. But that isn't really news. Is it!

Arseholes and Castles 3: Trip to the C-Side

The right depend on the cry of freedom for their narrative to work with ordinary people. Behind it lies the bleeding edge of capitalism: fascism. Authoritarian control and exploitation of a workforce made compliant by this narrative. We all want to be free, right?

The anti lockdown message depends on this bullshit. But at its heart it ignores the reality that the virus exists. How do we free ourselves from it just by playing cricket, getting a haircut or shopping? Being a consumer is the answer, apparently. All these things help spread the virus we are trying to suppress if not eradicate. But in lieu of a proper approach, tracking testing and isolating, we are throwing open the pub on a hot Summer Saturday and expecting people to abide by contradictory rules.

Everyone feels the boot heel of capitalism, even if they cannot articulate it nor are willing to accept the reality for fear of being a 'lefty' or something. We are where we are precisely because of the politics of the right. Johnson isn't simply an idiot who's made stupid decisions. To think that ignores the vast machinery behind him as well as the entirety of the civil service, the scientific and expert community, and everyone else at the command of the Grey Eminence himself.

We are where we are because Johnson is a lazy liar who cannot countenance the necessary socially responsible long term planning that even other countries have shown. He is never going to show it. Neither is Matt Hancock. None of these people are ever going to morph into human beings.

As with so many things from the dissembling government, the sop they throw to open things up serves as a distraction. Look, beer! Drink! Don't consider how we've fucked everything up. That's not all it is, obviously, it just aligns nicely with their desperate need to have any semblance of a functioning economy. This is the only metric they understand, which is why they cannot grasp the damage a virus does to an open economy - that's how we ended up here. We had an open economy into which the proliferated. Not. Rocket. Science.

The question is this: what has changed between March, when this kicked off and we, belatedly, locked down, to now/July? What conditions make it safer now when we have more cases than we did back then? Yes things appear to be trending positively, but that is because we have suppressed social interaction. It thus stands to reason reversing that could likely have profound consequences, and it's clear the scientists agree. They are all but saying this - and of course in public professional discourse their contributions must be muted.

Here's Bournmouth beach today. People led into a mass gathering believing that it's a price worth paying for a nice trip to the seaside. We know who is to blame

Class War

Arseholes and Castles 2: Limbo Time

As far as this government is concerned this isn't a health crisis. It's a financial opportunity. Mos tof them have already made money during this, from their portfolio's and investment funds. In response to the lockdown, we got a financial services advert. Corona virus is met with "attractive" rates of lending and interest. This is the only language they speak. Like they were hawking ISA's and mortgages. Short change for a life.

Locally there's a thing going round. Part of the plans to hold a virtual summer fete (for city dwellers a fete is where local people in villages commune with the spirits of rain and ice cream vans). So outside the odd house there eerie effigies, sometimes with (for reasons I cannot fathom) tins (presumably empty, or otherwise some kind of offering to the aforementioned gods) of Thatcher's cider tucked inside. Like a desperate alcoholics version of Santa Claus. It's like some witch doctor covid related ceremony is taking place. The world is growing ever stranger.

So that was social distancing. Remember that? Remember how we all nervously played Tesco Tetris? How we all stood behind each other impatiently waiting for our turn on the veg aisle? Remember how we inched past each other like we were afraid to come into contact with anyone or anything. Nervously smiling at the toxic insanity of it all. Yes, those were simpler and more horrific times. Well we can bid them goodbye as the whiff whaff overlord has allowed "1 meter plus" as the new normal.

This isn't social distancing. It's just social; it's how people behave normally. With the pubs and restaurants being allowed to open in a couple of weeks it will all be completely ignored. Do you really think landlords are going to police social distancing amongst their regulars? People already stupid enough to drink and drive (if the car park of my lcoal is any indicator) aren't going to behave responsibly. Besides the landlord and bar staff will be ensconced in their perspex panic booths, dispensing drinks and washing the shit out of pots and pans. I predict a rise in the sale of pub cleaning products. Someone's going to make a killing!

Will this lead to a second wave? If anything could, it's the great British public piling into pubs and beer gardens for the remainder of the Summer - and they will. So I guess this is as severe a test as anything else. The alternative is that this will just become so much background noise to which people will become gruesomely accustomed. People will die and no one will care even though all it will take is a lack of vigilance (stay alert!) and corona comeback!

It's pretty clear that the scientists aren't really on board with this. But who cares what experts think anyway. Dominic Cummings will just replace those that aren't on message. I think the taste of beer is going to override what stuffy old science boffins say, right?

It's not really rocket science to draw a reasonable correlation between easing lockdown and rising infections. The real problem is the delay between. For cases to be confirmed and thus reported will take a couple of weeks at least. Not helped by the shambolic tracing that's in operation. We still do not have this sorted out. I despair of this. By the time they get their act together, and they won't, it is going to be too late to be useful. But all track and trace turned out to be was an opportunity for cronyism. I suppose we can all be grateful that at least Grayling wasn't in charge of handing out contracts. He'd have given it to a corrupt diamond mine or something (Arron Banks?)

So, in short, we are in limbo right now. We do not know what will happen, if it's happening, or already happened. By the time we do, it'll be too late. Like an alien invasion!
Class War

Arseholes and Castles 1: I thought that was a cool phrase, I'm running out of things to says

At first lockdown was a novelty. There was a tangible purpose, grimly reinforced by the terrible death count. People felt good about working together and, at least IME, clapping for nearly 3 months on Thursday evenings felt genuine. Of course for many it was an opportunity to virtue signal. Those people being Tories of course.

Now where are we? Arseholes and castles.

The government has lost all authority, but maintains its stranglehold on our lives. Meanwhile idiots call for lockdown to be ended on the dubious basis of a perceived lack of evidence, while providing none for the alternative.

The death count is diminishing. Things seem to be progressing in the rigt direction, but as we can see from Germany and, sadly, New Zealand, that can change in an instant. Hopefully they will get a grip on these outbreaks, but I fear this is the new normal; we will have to live our lvies navigating a viral minefield. Facemasks and hand gel, overpriced of course, will be our minesweepers. Inevitably there will be spikes, and commensurate stress. Anxiety will take a hold.

And then, come the winter, the seasonal flu returns. Hopefully that has not been ignored by the global health community. I'm sure it hasn't. There will also be Brexit. Our government throwing us off a cliff, apparently blind to the reality of a world in which we have no trading relationships at all. America has already promised to exploit us all the way to the bank. Well done.

I simply don't believe the government will ever get a handle on this. I'm not even sure they want to. They don't know how and can't. They don't speak 'Corona'. If a whole bunch of us die, then oh dear how sad for us. This reality is exacting a high psychic cost. I'm certainly feeling restless. One day might be ok, the next? After that? We don't know. Uncertainty is followed by banality. A nice trip out to town is still largely out of the question - and we don't know when that will be? There is nothing in our government and it's conduct that ever indicates that will change?

We are a failed state. Failed by the state.

Class War

Weekender XIV: Because I Can't Say Enough Shit About Capitalism

It would be naive to believe our government will ever get a grip on this crisis. No more than it would be to expect Boris Johnson to change skin colour. They cannot save us. There will be no point, between now and the winter, when the flu season returns, that will see this change. There is not going to be a time when things will suddenly 'click'. This is us, now, as it will be.

The government were told, even prior to lockdown, they needed to test track and trace. They didn't. They still aren't. Not in any meaningful way. What they do is interpret all the advice and warnings from the expert community through the lens of capitalism, their ideology. Consequently they give Serco, a dismal useless private firm, the contract to trace. We know how this goes. The PPE contract appears to have gone to a pest control firm with less than twenty grand in the bank. No doubt a quid pro quo.

These are not smart decisions. They are capitalist decisions. One could argue that it isn't capitalism that's the problem; that our leaders are just stupid and could make more informed, yet still capitalist, decisions. Objectively that's possible, but that isn't what happened. To be a little arcane about it: what happened is what happened and could not have been different. It is the natural chain of events that follow from voting in arrogant self aggrandising capitalist rulers like Johnson. It's not just capitalism; Britain combines that with neofeudalism. So while it's possible  to have better but still capitalist decision making, it was never going to be the case. Not here. For the most part not across the world either.

Pretty much all the capitalist world has been struck dumb by this because capitalist society is intrinsically incapable of planning an economy in preparation for this. For our part, we shut down such systems, just like Trump. Capitalism promotes short term thinking. There's no profit in preparing. But there is profit in giving a contract to a private firm. All of that is wrong: contracts? Private profits? This is a health crisis. But to the government, it's just an opportunity.

And so they will continue to struggle and we will continue to be frustrated until something gives. Hopefully we will realise the only answer to this is going to come from revolutionary activity. Labour won't have any answers. They will still make similar decisions, they just might be more decisive about it.

Weekender XIV: Status Report

And so, normality?

Not quite. The shadow remains. Everything seems to appear right. The shops are, somewhat, open. Some of them. The buses are running, but half empty. We're almost there, back through the looking glass into the world that was.

Not quite.

I feel it keener than ever now. If I'm not alone in this - and not in that "pro business" Tory bullshit way either, safety first obviously - then the centre cannot hold. Something has to give. Will we habg on in quiet desperation? That is, to further quote Pink Floyd, the English way.

I fear we will be living with Covid one way or another for a very long time. That's not a whlly original statement, of course, but it is the truth. Does this mean we're in for a second spike? It's entirely possible. My feeling is that, if that happens, it won't be until the weather turns cold again. Then it will compete for our lungs with the usual winter bugs, including seasonal flu. God only knows how that would diabolically synergise!

Are we sleepwalking into that scenario? Are we laying the groundwork for it now by opening everything up? Already they are almost certainly going to cut social distancing to a level where it functionally no longer exists. 1m isn't social distancing, it's just social. Then what? How do we put the genetic genie back in the bottle if we have to lockdown for a second time?

The other scenario, IMO, is that it will just remain, kept in the background by the efforts of political suppression. Let a few people die - wasn't that always the Tories plan? Hope that some form of herd immunity appears, which will do us no good when the people the herd are meant to be protecting will have died in the process. Life will drag on as it has but in the background a terrible static, broadcast in the media, telling us the daily death toll. The antiloxxer lunatics will dismiss that, in their fascist eugenics fashion, as 'normal'. People die every day they say, so it's OK if we just let people die. They were going to die anyway, so what does it matter to rob them of their last breath undignified?

This is the callous way our society has gone. Profit turns otherwise rationally minded people, those using science to justify their anti lockdown narrative, into the heartless. Nothing seems to challenge them, other than projecting fear onto others. They tell me I should "flatten the fear" (as opposed to the curve) oblivious to the effects of a rampant virus unchecked on an economy. BE SCARED ABOUT ECONOMIC ARMAGEDDON AND MENTAL HEALTH BREAKDOWN! They cry while telling me not to be frightened of a virus they misrepresent about which practical steps can be taken.

No pandemic is an excuse to turn into a Nazi.

When Journalism Died 5: Awful Autopsy

A report into Labour's electoral demise is scathing. It says Labour has a mountain to climb to attain power and that a 'toxic culture' of dysfunction contributed to its defeat. On the face of it both of these things are true. Labour are now irrelevant, they have chosen not to embrace socialist policies, regardless of who they choose as leader. Those policies, that rising tendency supported by an unprecedented membership surge, was what their enemies feared. With the aid of the media they won. That and, of course, Brexit. "Get Brexit Done", got the Labour party done.

Of course blame for all this will not be properly portioned out. It will not be shared by the likes of Jess Philips who, even now it baffles me, was happy to be filmed driving through the shires with Jacob Rees Fucking Mogg! All the while badmouthing her own leader. Mogg isn't a bright lad, but evne he must have thought he'd been given an early Christmas present: here, on national television, ius a useful idiot utterly willing to trash her own party in public.

That should have been a sackable offence. Corbyn isn't blame free either; one of his 'crimes' was failing to kick her out. More broadly he comprehensively failed to deal with the red Tories, the Blairites, who weren't willing to show him the same courtesy. As amply demonstrated by Jess's unbelievable indiscretion. I suspect the counter argument would be that to try and remove her (which could have been done through creating a proper deselection process) would have been a horrible public bunfight. Is that worse than where Labour is right now?

Four years as leader saw a fairly mild mannered, community spirited, generally decent guy get trashed and splashed all over a hostile media. Coupled with that same Blairite rump's unwillingness to accept the result of the Brexit referendum, and its inability to see how arrogant that made them, it is no surprise what has happened. In fact for many, it was entirely, dismally, predictable. This isn't a fault of 'Corbynism' (a vacuous yet haunting tag) nor socialism. We simply do not have an objective media and a unified party. Say what you like about the scum in power, the Tories know how to stick together. Even to the detriment of individual members.

This is hwat it takes to turn a fundamentally decent guy - not perfect by any means - who was broadly on the right side of issues into a figure both ineffectual and dangerous. Such was the propaganda that no one saw the irony of that contradiction. A meek useless man who doesn't do or say X, and a dangerous terrorist who must not get anywhere near the levers of power.

This is why our media is so dangerous. I would concede certainly that Corbyn has a bit of a blind spot when it comes to talking to certain people. But I do not believe for one moment that is because he's secretly a jew hater or wants to destroy the western world or bomb the British mainland like the IRA. That is palpably nonsensical and completely out of character. But by comparison what does the media say about the Tories? Johnson writes published racist bullshit in that very media. The Tories sell guns and bombs to murderous regimes willingly. Who's the real terrorist?

Consider Grenfell. Corbyn's opponent in power, Theresa May, couldn't handle - as prime fucking minister - appearing before the shell-shocked victims without a vast police escort. Compared to the dangerous terrorist, Jeremy, who was welcomed and welcoming. Genuinely looking like he cared, showing real empathy. By contrast May just looked like an awkward skeleton, uncomfortable and not at all pleased to be there, as if human contact (he said presciently) was somehow contagious. If only she'd known!

Over Christmas innocent shots of Corbyn helping out at a homeless shelter got posted on social media. Nothing special - in fact that's the telling part of it all; he just does this stuff. It isn't a photo op (it may become one), it's not for sleazy reasons, like Trump waving a bible over the heads of tear gassed peaceful protesters. It's just who he is, and the real fucking tragedy of it all is that is seen as something to fear and jeer, to mock and ridicule. To the extent that a four year hate campaign is waged by a media so transparently biased just to cause him to fail. A good man is attacked.

I think that's disgusting. I'm not here to idolise the guy. He's just an ordinary (membership of a rotten institution aside) bloke who gives a shit about his community. That is way more dangerous than a spoilt Etonian buffoon; a racist bully who uses people to commit thuggery, who cares naugt about facts or lives, and has no clue what he's doing while shielding a dangerous ideological advisor and hypocrite.

There is no future in Labour. We must look to ourselves, tear down the systems of power and rebuild them for ourselves. Not for the benefit of an unjustified egregious profligate and wholly corrupt ruling class.

Class War

When Journalism Died 4: Afterthought

Some people think white people don't have privilege. This is bizarre when you consider that we are the dominant group in countries like the UK. Whiteys like me control the levers of power and have engineered government - made laws - to their advantage. Not always, nor explicitly, on racial lines. That's just how it plays out. The ruling class of capital has traditionally been white. The ruling class looks after its own.

So it stands to reason that white folk have, as a group, privilege. In fact, it ought to be a fairly trivial claim to make. Why wouldn't we? If, as was once the case, we can create laws and economies that enable and profit from enslaving people of colour, whom we viewed as lesser people, then we have privilege and power.  Ought we not, now, as a group, address that?

But no, the angry reactionaries, supported by their furious street acolyte base, would have you believe that is surrender. Dominic Raab calls it subjugation. This is the language they like to use, never mind that our forebears, perhaps even direct ancestors, practised exactly that. What is slavery if not subjugation. A little humility here would go a long way and it diminishes us not at all to do so. In return we get a better world.

That, for the fascists, is a price too high. What are they afraid of?

Most of these 'statue defender' types are just the victims of media manipulation. I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again: the biggest threat in this country comes from the media. You even had Julia Hartley Brewer, a toxic shriek-merchant, on twitter defending the guy who pissed on the memorial of the murdered copper. I'm not going to pearl clutch over his actions, he'd still be a massive racist prick even if he hand't. He'd still be an uncouth lager lout even if that memorial hadn't been there. But defending him? No thanks.

Except in the sense that he is a working class victim of fascist propaganda. I've spent the last three days on this blog tearing into Peter Hitchens because it's people like him whose dangerous napalm rhetoric is what gets through to these people. It's designed to. He doesn't use nuance or subtlety, and neither do the statue defenders. It'd be easy to dismiss them all as ill educated, but that's the trope. In truth it doesn't matter their qualifications; it matters that they have, likely for years, been programmed by these blunt inflammatory words. So they get angry, but don't know why. They aren't given evidence, these churnalists provide none. This is highly reckless. Unfocused rage builds up so who to blame: oh look a black man is taking a knee, he's not singing God Save The Queen. He's not saluting the flag. That's what should happen - and we know that, in difficult times (which is all the times under capitalism for the working class) nationalism grows. Communities hunker down under such sigils. This is where fascism breeds.

These journalists resit all such accusations. They think it's hysterical nonsense, emblematic of left wing arguments. That's a dodge. A deflection. The claim is true. Saying things like "the abolition of Britain" without definition and without supporting evidence is throwing a live hand grenade into the minds of these people. An instant threat that must be dealt with: the left are coming for you! RIGHT NOW!

What they cannot see is that capitalism has been coming for them throughout their lives. They just don't see it. It's coming for them through those very words. They see the after effects, diminished public services, divided communities, racist policing, exploited wage labour, but without an understanding of capitalism's mechanisms or any kind of class analysis - the lack of which is what makes the media such a threat - they have no one else to blame. Into that is the live hand grenade I just mentioned.

Boom

Class War

When Journalism Died 3: The Final Madness of Peter Hitchens

I'm done with this moron at this point. The rest of his article is just more piss poor argumentation. 

He keeps laying the boot in to Neil Ferguson. While we can all agree he didn't do the right thing (and chose to step down), it is utterly fallacious to take that as evidence he was wrong. Hitchens keeps doing it, I suspect because of the nature of that indiscretion. It's prudish censorious monitors of the public good like Hitchens that thrive on this nonsense. The sort of loser that think s sex education is best when there isn't any. Despite all evidence ot the contrary.

In the end it is simply a litany of excessive ranting hyperbole. That it's delivered by a poe faced meek little Englander who longs for the days of cricket at the vicarage and permanent Sunday school changes nothing. His words carry influence and they are heard loud and clear by some of the most socially regressive, even destructive, forces imaginable. Of course he will abrogate all responsibility for that influence. This is just as disingenuous as anything else he says. He can't be blamed for winding up the ignorant and feeding them a diet of unfocused outrage precisely because it is unfocused: he isn't pointing the gun.  He just loads it and hands it over.

His comments on the BLM protests are equally incoherent (and revealing):

"As it happens, it was the death in Minneapolis, a city most British people will never even see, of George Floyd. Seeing the surging crowds, the rioting and the looting in the USA, the British radical Left grew jealous. 

They imported the protest, converted it into outrage against some mouldering statues, and set the streets alight. Last week I attended one of these demonstrations, against the statue of Cecil Rhodes in Oxford. I have lived in Oxford for more than 50 years and I went out of interest, not because I care especially about this mediocre sculpture of a questionable man. "

What does it matter if Minneapolis is unfamiliar to protesters over here? Does it possess special qualities that, to outsiders, mean the experience of George Floyd was unique? What nonsense. It's precisely that police racial murders aren't unique that's the problem. But he cannot, and will not see this. Hitchens claims to be anti authoritarian (in some bizarre sense), but he isn't. He craves authority; a queasy little bootlicker that needs someone or something (God) to tell him how to live his miserable little life.

The accusation of jealousy is just that; a puerile little jab. The experience of people over here isn't that different and neither is our society. We also experience racial based policing and have long campaigned to fight it. This isn't a fad but the likes of Hitchens, a comfortable old white boomer, will never understand. How can he? He doesn't even want to.

His comment about a mediocre sculpture is telling. It's intended to devalue it. To trivialise the power such sculptures wield: this power is demonstrated by the response to Edward Colston. They are gatekeepers of the legacy of white colonial power; attempts to valourise or lionise. To make the man a role model, a philanthropist, to whitewash his horrendous behaviour. Rhodes was no different. Just saying the statue is (hopefully was) mediocre deflects from addressing this. Hitchens won't engage in the substantive issue he just assumes all people believe slavery was wrong, therefore there's no institutional racism or structural privilege. He is of course wrong.

It's a tired argument; he accuses the "Radical Left" of needing Empire to give them a purpose. This is nonsensical unless you accept the notion Hitchens doesn't believe in systemic racism etc. I've just demonstrated that isn't true and this proves it. We don't need Empire, that is our entire argument and the "radical left" fights to bring down its legacy so that everyone can be free, black or white. 

"Anyone, as she learned last week, can now be ‘cancelled’ – the new radicals’ chilling word for the obliteration they like to visit on their victims. She has been pursued for saying the wrong thing about the transgender issue. In fact, there is no right thing. I have known for years it was futile to try to respond with fairness and reason to the new orthodoxy. "

Here Hitchens shifts to JK Rowling and her ridiculous transphobic scribblings, which were also factually incorrect (you can look that up here). Of course he defends her, he's a religious transphobe. There is a right thing: to support a community that is marginalised and suffers daily abuse and violence for it. Rowlings comments were unnecessary and hurtful. But Hitchens would have you believe they, too, are another shadowy leftist agency with an "agenda". Part of his regime change conspiracy theory. He is simply a very British Alex Jones.

"No actual debate can take place in these conditions. And where there is no debate there is no freedom. I have also pointed out for years – without effect – that the police were long ago infiltrated with radical Left-wing thought."

So he asserts. But what debate does he want? Why should we give in to the notion that these issues aren't settled. Trans people are human beings and trans rights are human rights. You can either agree with that or be wrong. It's like the creationist argument (an analogy I use deliberately); they continue to push for legitimacy by asserting that they are being shut out from debate. That their opponents are mean and controlling. The reality is that we've had the debate, the science is settled. Creationism is superstition and myth; evolution is fact. 

There must come a point, in all debate, when the discussion is over and truth arrived at. You would not debate the existence of the sky or that the earth is round. You would amply shake your head at fools asserting otherwise. But this is Hitchens last, desperate, play. He wants that legitimacy, provided by a platform in a debate that no longer exists. The discussion is over, you lost. Decrying your opponents because you refuse to amend your thinking isn't our problem and levelling accusations of totalitarianism just makes you look egregious and hysterical.

Just like Alex Jones.

There is no evidence for regime change any more than there is for the left being in control of the major social institutions of Britain. All that does exist is a desperate cry for help from a man stuck in the past refusing to change or move forward. If I didn't find him such an objectionable bigot I might be sympathetic.

And finally, Class War

When Journalism Died 2: Yet More of the Madness of Peter Hitchens

Forgot to post Class War from yesterday
And here's today's

So we continue with my hate vomit against Britain's most professional and tedious pub bore. The thinking man's anachronism. The fact denier's friend: Peter Hitchens. A professional liar, obfuscator, and intellectual lightweight. A man that revels in dishonesty and cowardice while resorting to fascist grade rhetoric, all to sell papers. I find him utterly repellent. Squalid human carrion incapable of neither argument nor reason. 

Still doesn't stop me from calling him out on his fact free bullshit.

Yesterday Peter was regaling us with tales of how Britain, whatever he means by that (he doesn't say) is going to be abolished, whatever he means by that (he doesn't say! HE NEVER SAYS!). Let us continue. Peter has some instincts, you see...

"I have learned over many years to trust my instincts, to take that train, to make that phone call, to turn that corner. When I have heeded them I have either benefited or been saved from bad things. When I have ignored them I have been hurt. It may be inherited from our forebears, or learned by decades of experience. It may be a mixture of the two."

So this is just magic thinking. But then Hitchens is a god botherer. Perhaps he thinks the Lord informed him of all the horrible things and he feels compelled, like some prophet of doom, Job for the Daily Fail, to warn us all. To shriek about how awful everything he cannot control is. But he knew he knew! Like all good people, he could see it coming and he invites you, implicitly, to agree. Like when audiences in megachurches, hearing the pastor get all fired up, believe!

The next section descends into an excuse for him to blurt out his bold (IE false) assertion about the current situation. None of which, over the last 3 months, he has ever EVER been willing to prove. Why? Because he can't. He goes on to liken it to both the death of Princess Diana and the Twin Towers. Bizarre. He seems to think that there is an authoritarian streak behind all of it.

"The Diana episode had been a Dictatorship of Grief, in which even the most revered parts of the establishment had bowed to the mob. ‘Show us you care!’ shouted the headlines. And woe betide those who did not. 

Then came September 11, 2001, and a Dictatorship of Security. No argument could withstand the claim that safety was paramount, and we willingly made a bonfire of our freedoms, wrongly persuaded that we could trust our governments not to take advantage. "

This is just a complete and utter overreaction. Of course there were authoritarian measures, but this kind of language, again, is used in place of evidence. It's simpleton outrage for the gammon masses who read this bollocks, nuance be damned. It's telling that, during the NHS clapping, he was asked if he participated; quite politely and calmly. His response, predictably, was that he wouldn't be dictated to and so of course he doesn't. I mean he could choose to. But not, that would capitulation...dictatorship! We must never surrender! Argh!

"And now we have the Dictatorship of Fear. It is not the largely fictional ‘R’ number which governs the behaviour of our feeble Government, which is only just beginning to grasp how much damage it has done and how hard it will be to repair. It is the ‘F’ number, the number of people scared into pathetic timidity by the slick but false claim we were all at risk from a terrible and devastating disease. 

The numbers of dead are grossly inflated by an incredibly lax recording system, which does not distinguish between those who died of Covid-19 and those who died of other things but may have been infected by it. Many who have died of Covid-19 are almost certainly victims of the Government’s failure to protect those who were in fact most vulnerable – the residents of care homes. "

Again, it's simpleton thinking. To reduce concern about public health and the spread of an incurable highly transmissible virus that can present asymptomatically, to just "fear" is asinine. As is having to point this out. It isn't about "fear", it is about a proportionate response, difficult admittedly in the capitalist environment. The alternative is sheer, possibly deadly, ignorance. 60,000 people have died! Does Peter imagine this is false?

No he makes all sorts of stupid accusations. "Incredibly lax recording", can he prove this? No. Does he have any basis upon which to make this claim? No. Does it suit his own fear-based narrative? Of course!

But notice how he has to acquiesce on the issue of care home deaths - where, if I may be so bold, a great many of his readers (his generation) live. Of course he's concerned about them, he won't want to be seen to disregard those deaths. Despicable.

"The sad but unavoidable fact, that the disease is little danger to most young and healthy people but is especially deadly to the old and ill, is also now beyond dispute. "

This is beyond ignorance. Young and healthy people may indeed have a greater resilience (which also ignores the after effects), but they are still carriers. Since we don't know who's vulnerable and who isn't, and we don't know who has it and who doesn't, there's only one viable alternative....

"The initial claims of Imperial College London, that half a million might die if strict shutdown measures were not taken, have been devastatingly dismantled by other experts, who believe its methods and codes are, to put it mildly, hopelessly wrong." 

No, they haven't. What Peter does is engage in confirmation bias: he finds the, inevitably outlier, voice that supports his assertion, arrived at prior to examining the evidence (because he has none). You're always going to find some fringe conspiracy thinking nutcase that supports any outlier position, no matter what the evidence says. The problem is that, without evidence, this also becomes an appeal to authority. I don't care if you find a Lord or Lady, a Doctor or a Professor, I care that these people you cite can support their claims. They can't, he can't.

And again the hyperhole "devastatingly", "hopelessly". Not even close.

Much of the rest of his article is him railing against lockdown. Yet no alternative has ever been forthcoming. He offers no alternative other than to side with right wing cranks and the few useful science-idiots that the likes of the Mail and the Spectator also pick up on, creating an echo chamber. So much for critical thinking eh!

He describes the lived experience of lockdown in the most lurid and ridiculous terms. If you take that view a walk in the park becomes an oppressive journey through Eastern Europe under the Stasi. It's so reductionist and transparently biased it cannot pososiby be taken seriously - or so you would believe. The really troubling part about it all is that there are a great many people that do; he has a lot of craven followers on Twitter. Gullible fools who spout this rubbish, regurgitating it thoughtlessly. The kind of cry foul about "woke" culture when they perceive their ideological opponents getting offended, but are the most thin skinned of all. They whine like hungry pups when called on to provide the merest scintiall of evidence. If they do you can guess the source.

This is how Peter views wearing face masks on public transport:

It isn't remotely comparable to a muzzle. They are two entirely different things. At the very least you can still talk wearing a facemask (otherwise shopping and alighting buses wouldn't work!). No one is curtailing your freedom through the use of a facemask. It just helps stem the spread of a virus. But Peter doesn't care about that - although if you accuse him of it, he'll just dodge by claiming he never said it. A simple dishonest trick people like this always use: because we have to infer it (easily done) it can't be true. You have to specifically say a thing outright in order to hold that view you see. 

I think that's enough Hitchens related bullshit for today. Certainly enough for me. I shall endeavour to finish the rest of his insane long winded lunatic diatribe tomorrow, but honestly? Why am I doing this to myself!?!?

When Journalism Died 1: The Madness Of Peter Hitchens

I'd like to think journalism is when you write a piece that reveals a truth or exposes a lie and does so with citations and credible sources. If those sources can't be named then at leas the journalist ought have some credibility earned through years of hard work. Not so today. This is the age of the rampant propagandist. People spouting utter raving delusion like Peter Hitchens. Never have I read anything as insane as this, and it is going to be hard to talk about how wrong headed offensive and toxic it is without resorting to language that's not particularly positive in terms of mental health. But, that said, it is my contention that Hitchens is not just a ludicrous anachronism who refuses to engage with intellectual honesty, but a fucking lunatic.

Read this utter bollocks from his Mail on Sunday (ugh) blog. If it doesn't sound like something a political prisoner would write, having been convicted for burning down a synagogue or something (and no I haven't accused him of doing so), I don't know what does. This is the sort of inflammatory screed you would expect to find in the writings of Anders Breivik or the Christchurch shooter. In fact the former did quote the equally vile Melanie Philips. Is Peter that different? I dn't think so. Both are toxic doom merchants intent on little more than peddling hysteria while refusing to engag with the consequences of their provocative utterances. 

"As the Left now controls every lever of power, we face nothing less than Regime Change

What we now face is regime change. That is why these strange crowds have begun to gather round ancient and forgotten monuments, demanding their removal and destruction"

What part of this is true? Why use such incendiary language: "regime change"? Yes, every political group wants to govern. He makes it sound, intentionally fo course, as a military coup in a banana republic. He wants you to associate 'the left' (whatever that is) to the likes of Castro because...communism! Yet he doesn't ever explain what he means when he uses this language. The left is far from an amorphous blob, faceless and powerful. Like a mob. Any fool knows this. He certainly does. His initial claim is so obviously bollocks it's not worth discussing but the implication is that, were it the case, it would be bad. To him anything less than, for example, locking up a kid who smoked a spliff once for a thousand years in a dank dungeon, is 'the left' or hard-line Marxism.

As for strange crowds. They're people. Individuals that share the quite reasonable view we should stop using statues to obfuscate the historical record. Bristolians have been trying to get rid of the legacy of Colston, including the statue, for years. They have been ignored. This apparently is a 'strange crows'. The monument in question was not forgotten (nor ancient). Why should it not be removed? In doing so the legacy and history of Edward Colston has been laid bare. People now know, if they didn't (I didn't until even relatively recently and I've heard the name for years and years), that Edward Colson wasn't a philanthropist. A facade constructed in the form of a statue; to whitewash a legacy of profiting from human misery. It is an utter lie to claim that pulling down or smashing a statue devalues or erases history. Quite the opposite. That is just the voice of the status quo crying,

"They do not know what they want, or understand what they are destroying. But that no longer matters. They think their moment has come, and they may well be right. 

This is why the memorial to Winston Churchill, and the Cenotaph itself, were shamefully boarded up on Thursday night – an act of appeasement if ever there truly was one. 

That is why police chiefs kneel like conquered slaves to the new gods of woke, and the leaders of the Labour Party do likewise. I have seen it happen before, but only when things were moving in the opposite direction. "

"Shamefully boarded up". Why is it shameful? But not the monument itself? Why is it right to immortalise these people? Al it does is reduce them to simple tropes. Churchill the war hero. How? He gave orders from the relative comfort of a downing street/MOD bunker? He didn't scale Omaha beach, or brave the Nazi occupation as a resistance courier? Even so, this trope blithely ignores the rest of him. The more relevant aspects as a racist lever of imperialist ruling power. The famine in India, calling soldiers against striking miners. The legacy of the Black and Tans. No, war hero because he has a statue. Again history is eluded. That is the only thing shamefully boarded up here. Of course Hitchens isn't interested in nuance or depth. Only the fascist rhetoric he uses to make a living.

Who or what are the "new gods of woke"? I don't even really know what half of these stupid phrases mean, though of course on a visceral level I understand and that's the point. Each of these statements is meant as a gut punch. To make you feel something; to get angry about something. That's what the Daily Mail does. Look at your neighbour, he's got an Xbox but his curtains are drawn. He's probably one of them coloureds as well, right?Bloody gypsies! Right?

It's an appeal to the tired old cliche of "political correctness gone mad". The idea that conceding part of the social space to those historically marginalised is to be diminished. It is, of course, nonsense. The people who argue "All lives matter" think they are being inclusive when all they are really doing is crying at the perceived loss of unearned privilege. All lives should matter. But they don't, that's amply demonstrated by cases of police racial brutality. Black Lives Matter does not, and explicitly never was intended to, mean that only black people matter, but that black lives currently don't matter. Not as much as white lives. We lose nothing and gain everything when we accept this and share our lot in life. This is the birthing pains of social change on a level more profound than these fusty old anachronisms are comfortable with. One ought be sad for them, but reading the likes of Hitchens robs me of any sympathy. He has a lot of followers and his provocative screeds are the sort that inspire dangerous behaviour.

The comment about kneeling like slaves is just stupid and offensive. In truth most of these cops taking a knee are engaging in a tactical decision. Some may have gotten caught up in the movement (for which I'm sure they received a dressing down in the locker room later). But it's a ploy: these people are not our friends. The uniform prevents that. 

Peter then launches into a paragraph of bullshit about the Soviet Union. Of course he has to get a few licks in by drawing or implying a connection. It's communism/Marxism. It's reds under the bed. His entire shtick would make Joe McCarthy blush. Do we really want society to go back to that kind of paranoia and bigotry?

"This time, as ignorant armies seek the final abolition of Britain, it is very frightening. I would not like to say where it will end. I cannot claim to have known this would happen but I will say that I had an instinctive fear of very bad things to come when the country began its mad, wild shutdown in March"

The use of military language is yet more fuel for the fire. What army? The protesters? How are they an army? Were they carrying guns or weapons? Was anyone hurt or anything else damaged when Colston got dunked? I don't believe so. That is literally non violent protest! 

Peter is frightened though, and that's the nub of it. Were I a compassionate soul I'd feel sorry for him. A dying breed; his time and his generation are passed. That is how things should be. It shouldn't be frightening, but ultimate this is an existential terror. Sad.

But to call this the "abolition of Britain"? Here we go again; when you get to the bottom you go back to top of the ride. (That was either Charles Manson or the Beatles or U2.) How is Britain being abolished? Who is doing it and how do they have the power? It's nonsnese? What does it even mean: well what you're meant to think is that all the things you enjoy about traditional Britain are being brutally massacred by the "woke gods". Those who want change and change is bad. Tolerance is bad. Tolerance is political correctness. Political correctness is bad. 

This is unreason. It is devoid of explanation, accompanied by no evidence, and entirely vapid. Circular reasoning intent only on provoking a reaction. What even is Britain in this context? Is the land going to be smashed up to make way for a galactic hyperspace bypass by the Vogons? Are the borders being redrawn? 

Hitchens will never explain nor answer. In fact to invite him to do so is to find yourself proving, to him, his very point. Of course he's right, so much so that to even question it is to demonstrate your own dishonesty. It reveals to him your ideological position: only a leftist/Marxist would call him out. Except no, this is how critical thinking works and to traduce that is to play a very dangerous game. This is the essence of why I liken his egregious hyperbole, his deliberate attempt to appeal to some primal ideological fight or flight, as fascist. He will be listened to not be a few statue dunking protesters who cause no damage or harm, but by the sort who kill children on behalf of crazed Christianity (it's no coincidence Peter is also a god believer), who murder abortion doctors. Yes that's a strong statement, perhaps a slippery slope. But I deny accusations of fallacy: we've seen it happen. Breivik, as I said, quoted Melanie Philips. I ask again: is he so different? 

TBC

Weekender the 13th: Facts in the time of Covid

What value is truth when you deal with people whose conviction is equalled only by their ignorance? Somehow it becomes an inconvenience; a burden.

Some people are too stupid to know how stupid they are. Which is an easy way of dismissing the ignorant. Normally I would be opposed to such behaviour. It plays all too easily into the divide and rule narrative of the ruling class. We can't all know everything; access to good education is a privilege, cuts to teaching services (including libraries) have impacted, and people lead busy lives working just to live.

But there are those that are just too stupid, and I'm afraid my sympathy reaches its limits with fascists revelling in their thuggery. I hope they can be reached, I just don't agree it's possible.

What makes it worse is how convinced they are of their position. Even to challenge them is to prove you are "one of them"; the intellectual elite. The Marxists, the commies, the socialists etc - antifa. The intelligentsia they've been programmed to fear. The worst part about it all is that trying to insert facts only proves their argument, in their eyes. Facts don't matter to them because they can't readily be proven. This is how the culture war was primed.

All that remains is to man the barricades. That, then, is the purpose of antifa. Not to win arguments, not to look good on Instagram, but to man the barricades: to defend communities from actual fascists. People who are so screwed over by the toxicity they are fed daily from our horrific media that they believe saluting like Hitler is a way to show respect to the man they believe defeated him - and was right in doing so. They defend the statue of Churchill, a racist member of the British Imperialist ruling class, by sig heiling! How screwed up ist that? Where is the cognitive dissonance? It's all around is, infecting the parts of us yet to bear Covid. How do we live like this?

To defend a statue against those that have genuinely fought against fascism in recent years, and against the oppression fascism brings. Now those guys are the villains.

I don't know how we win this. But if we allow antifa and the various street based grassroots organisations to be erased, legislated against, shot, strangled and choked out of existence, we will all suffer.

We're - you and me dear reader - will continue this theme (unless more world exploding craziness abounds) tomorrow as I've just read Peter Hitchens' latest inchoate screed. It's...madness

Weekender the 13th: Sick Old Man

The argument against lockdown is pernicious. It's evolved somewhat. Now it's about social distance. All the experts say that 2m makes a significant difference to transmission over 1m. You'll note the antiloxxers have conceded that we need something. They say "we aren't against social distancing (they mean lockdown), but 2m is economic madness!"

This is pernicious for the following reasons:
1. They shouldn't be allowed to get away with trying to change their argument. Lockdown is important.
2. If we give in to their attempt to force a dangerous compromise it will simply mean there is no social distancing.

At 1m life is essentially normal. Most people stand at this distance anyway. In social gatherings, places like pubs and clubs, people will very quickly forget to staty 1m apart - and that is the intention. It won't be enforced; how can it be? Do you think bar staff and waitresses are going to want the hassle of keeping people apart, especially if they're drinking (the patrons, not the staff - although who can blame them). The staff will be behind their screens, venturing out only to collect glasses (suddenly a very dangerous profession - at no extra pay).

It is unworkable and to give in to the 1m is to give in on the whole thing. We cannot socially distance at that level. It's like saying to an alcoholic he'll be ok if he just has a sip of wine. It's a slippery slope toward unfettered social movement. We'd all like to live like that again, but we can't. The R rate is rising, the disease hasn't found a cure nor has it left. These peopoe are not interested in your health, only your bank balance. They don't even seem to graps how risky it will be for them; if corona invaes their pub or bar then they're done. End of.

Just take a look at the likes of those making this argument, that should tell you all you need to know!

Furthermore, the extension of the anti lockdown view is borderline (I'm being generous here) eugenics. It is the notion that we can happily let the virus, which we know to be fatal, wash through the community. These people know some will die, they just don't care. This is Nazi level propaganda. Even if we accept this, and we shouldn't because it's callous, we don't know who will die and we are denying the rights of those who might survive from living the end of their days as they perhaps would choose. It isn't for the great and the good to dismiss the frail so dreadfully. This ins't will to power it's real life. We can't even assume herd immunity will be reached and what good will it do if those herd immunity is intended to protect are dead.

Meanwhile the lockdown is essentially done. The only thing left is to open the high street, that's supposed to be next week. I gather shops will be cautious, which is good. But the high street is going to be unmanageable. How can it be policed? How can you ensure people will stay 2m apart and weark masks? Are bus drivers going to have to police irate would-be passengers who didn't bring a mask with them when they try and board?

This is a mess, and it's fertile breeding ground for a second spike. If nothing else the virus will simply linger. Britain will remain like a smoker after the winter, his lungs all tarred up and unable to deal with winter viruses, ending up coughing and spluttering until summer. That's where we are. No one is coming to help us. We shoved two fingers up at the EU, we're continuing to shove two fingers up at the EU while we make ready to leap into the abyss at years end all the while coughing and spluttering into the next winter virus season.

And nobody will care.

Slouching Towards Blue Skies 5: Restless

Felt restless today. Off I went to the shops and I felt compelled to catch a bus, go to town as once, back in the cleansing mists of time. I didn't of course. What would be the point, the shops won't be open till at least Monday, except obviously the supermarket and I don't fancy queuing for ages. I also don't currently have a mask due to elastic band dysfunction. I am going to have to fashion something or use my winter scarf.

I did notice kids on the swings, despite the play are officially still being off limits, and a number of parent (I assume) having a picnic of sorts in the recreation field. Quite a lot actually. Not sure how wise that is but none of them looked like Dominic Cummings. It's all so tantalisingly normal. Meanwhile the R rate is rising here. The southwest is said to be between 0.8 and 1.1. That doesn't sound good. I don't know why that is; tourists out on the beach perhaps? The recent outbreak in Weston General Hospital. It's reassuring to know the test and trace system is being presided over by the town's MP's (John Penrose is married to Dido Harding, who also ran Talk Talk while it was not giving a shit about customers' account security). This'll work out well then.

There's no way they are testing enough. They aren't going to be testing enough. We will continue to lag behind on this; months to late. Meanwhile the arrogance of this pitiful government and its slovenly leader will simply wish for things to get better or at least not get worse. Maybe they will get lucky, although several hundred a week certainly won't. That figure I think will persist for the foreseeable; background noise. A sad muzak we will have to live with.

And the chief nurse has been removed from the daily briefing schedule for not backing the eminence grise, the aforementioned Mr Cummings. Shouldn't he be self isolating in Transylvania? This is how they will deal with this crisis moving forward. Silence dissent.

Anyway, we're all looking at economic wipe out: the economy has contracted, like a choking baby, by 20%. If only there were alternatives to this dreadful system and politicians willing to embrace it. Unfortunately we don't and that's the real tragedy. I look forward to, a year from now (if there is one), our NHS being further gutted; sold off by the crooks whose crocodile tears will be ash in our mouths. That's how they sell austerity: tell us it's for our own good, appeal to the workign class' well bred sense of self sacrifice and then enforce divide and rule. Of course this will accompany Brexit, and we are staring hard down the barrel of a no deal. If you thought toilet paper shortages were fun...

Class War

Slouching Toward Blue Skies 4: Going Gently Into That Good Night

Are things normalising?

Hoepfully - and yet hopefully not. I don't want a return to the old capitalist shitshow with what seems to be the Tories Eternal. But yet I do (not that latter part). I seem to be stuck in a limbo of covid dimensions. That's how it all feels right now. The security of lockdown, despite the grim reasons, was reassuring to someone that needs that kind of structure. I knew where I was and what I could do, even though the spectre of the virus could have been near or far (i will never know).

That has gone now. People are out and about, doing all sorts of things as they would normally. No one else in the shop wears a mask. The one I use makes me feel silly, even if it's (hopefully) safe(r), that I'm the only one in the shop (other than the odd staffperson) so attired makes it worse. Childish, really. A bit like being a kid at school wearing the wrong brand of uniform (not the one that the cool kids wore that you didn't realise at the time was horrifically expensive and your parents couldn't afford).

Ah the halcyon days of the toilet roll panic. Good times my friends, good times. Not really, but it feels like an absurd memory, like remembering last Christmas in the middle of summer. Certainly compared to the yawning gap of uncertainty where the only sure thing is that the Tories will not take responsibility as they continue to make everything shit. We have barely even started: how will a second spike play out, what about Brexit?

I'm not convinced a second spike will happen. Of course it's a possibility, and one I have little power over (despite the governments terrible PSA campaign "stay alert", keep your eyes peeled for bacteria, they gets everywhere). But at this point I think the disease will dismally fade into the background. It will become a kind of deadly TV static. The white noise at the end of channels, back in the days before overmedia. It will sit there exuding noise, the sound of the newscasts reporting with increasing banality the daily death toll. We will limp on like a three legged horse until someone with pity takes Boris round the back and puts him out our misery.

Behaviour isn't going to change. The chances of getting a second lockdown, never mind enforcing  it, are nada. Not when you have a government of headbangers keen to reduce social distancing to a meter. At that level it's as good as zero. That's just how it will work. People normally keep that kind of distance anyway so well done!

Class War