The End

I'm not observing a minute's silence today. Or rather, I didn't. Not because I din't care about the dead, but because the government doesn't. This is just a top down authoritarian attempt to divert people's anger which no doubt will be rising at this time, like a possible third wave. A year of corruption, incompetence, and ultimately death. All of which the government will respond to by saying "now isn't the time". That's why I won't be silenced. The best way to mourn is the make sure there aren't more.

The world has changed. There is no return to normality. This is the new normal. Some people struggle to adjust, blaming scientists because...reasons. They are all evil/in the pay of that nefarious mastermind, Bill Gates. He's a billionaire so he's evil - but don't you dare criticise capitalism, the system that put him where he is. That is the real enemy. It's what allows people to gain cruel power over others. Making excuses for that system by blaming individuals (incorrectly, as it happens) is no different than being told to observe the silence, for the same reasons I just gave.

Who knows when this will end. It's highly likely covid19 will remain for a long time in the world. Of course it doesn't have to be that way. A concerted - socialist - effort could address it, but the world's powers are afraid of that. Certainly the US won't. It's legislature is a lost cause; they'd rather have a broken health care system and the freedom to believe masks are antithetical, and so they die.

Our leaders continue to abuse and exploit us. Interviews do not hold them to account, but instead soft soap and fawn while they parade their sickly credentials in the form of flags. Increasingly it has become performative. Meaningless, given their actions clearly belie the values they, erroneously, ascribe to the flag. Values that every self described patriot, in every nation, identifies with such that it becomes meaningless. We aren't special, we are a small, fading, island increasingly ruled by tax despots, cranks, and tyrants. A broken piggy bank, hammered apart by the drug addicted parent. It can only get worse. There is only one direction Brexit can take us, so we will double down on the authoritarianism, the jingoism, and the bigotry. A tiny pathetic little island permanently stuck in some haughty past that was far from ideal. Especially if you aren't a member of its racist sexist elite.

I don't know how we can win the argument. I think it just comes down to numbers, and we'd better hpe ether are more of us than there are of them. Arguments fail in the light of social media which allows people to simply walk away rather than address the failings of their position, Try and explain to people that the riots don't make the case for the policing bill they were intended to fight and they simply double down. Yet there are already laws that deal with smashing windows and assault (if that's what happened). These people, complaining, don't realise that the means by which they'd prefer protest be conducted are threatened by the bill itself. If you fall for the Tories narrative then the only thing left will be illegal means.

Last year a racist's effigy got dunked. It's time the rest of them got a soaking. We cannot let these Tories ruin us, and they will. Democracy means nothing to them, Parliament isn't democratic anyway. It's a giant book of spells; rituals to confound the common will. What else is the House of Lords if an abuse of power. Unelected unaccountable and highly manipulated - just stuff it full of cronies, rewarding them for services rendered. A few of those sitting in power now, making awful decisions, will no doubt end their days within. The rest will want to.

This is the future that awaits us, under the guise of emergency legislation. I have no time for the cranks and their tedious anti scientific nonsense. Backward thinking that only divides. Emergencies such as this may require exceptional measures, but not from sources that we have no power over. Whatever means are put in place must be able to be repealed. Not used as an excuse to assault women for example. 

We have a long road ahead of us and it has just started with 365 steps. Thank you for reading.