You Ought To Be Ashamed!

Here's a fun if brief little anecdote. Today as I want a-walking I noticed some people knocking on doors. Turns out they were the local Conservative party. I think the MP, John "useless" Penrose, was with them. You'd think, as the anti-corruption champion (if not formerly), he'd be busy with other people. Of course not! That's just a title that means nothing.

So I confronted one of his underlings (he was busy on another doorstep at the time). 

"You with the Tory party? You ought to be ashamed of yourselves."

And so it went. Understandably this fellow was defensive, but that's as charitable as it goes. If you're going to be out canvassing on the tail end (hopefully) of a pandemic, the scale of which is on you, then you can damn well take some heat. Anyway it wasn't like I was right up in his grill throwing fists. This was a socially distanced dressing down.

He had nothing. 128 thousand dead. Brexit leaving the economy on its arse. Corruption and lies on top of ten years of austerity, and so on. No answer. He asked me who I voted for. I could have told him that I'm a proud socialist but there's no way he could have coped with that. I'm pretty sure he'd have invoked the 'spectre of Stalin', shook his head, and walked away. I told him his lot were in government, I wasn't going to let him distract or deflect. 

He tried appealing to the vaccine rollout. A poor argument given that the vaccine rollout is necessary because of the scale of the disaster they have caused. Like when confused American Christians energy from the rubble of their Tornado-stricken home and thank god they didn't die in the storm he, presumably, caused or allowed (as per their beliefs). Obviously a vaccine is necessary per se and obviously not all deaths are attributable (and people are still dying of covid) to the Tories, but the majority are as is the scale of it. We have one of the worst outcomes globally. So when you ask me about the vaccine...

I probably should have said that, but instead I said it was down to the NHS. That gnarly old socialist monolith. They have rolled this out. Everything the government has done, including retaining the services of Mrs Penrose, directly has been a failure (i'm talking about the private sector it has thrown money at). The government didn't create the vaccine either. All of the success, as far as it has been sso, that has come from vaccination has been in spite of this government. They don't take credit for it just because they are in charge. Matt Hancock knows no more about creating and distributing vaccines than I or Jeremy Corbyn do. But he is an expert in arrogance and lies.

Left with nothing my desperate interlocutor could only splutter.

"If we're so bad why do people keep voting for us then?"

This is a question that is going to require the kind of analysis that can't really come in a street exchange. Years of conditioning, essentially. People being told and taught by an all encompassing economic system, social model, and the culture that inculcates that there is no alternative. That's why I didn't engage with him on socialism. You can't unpack that in this context. People need to survive, they need an income because that's the system we're in, so invariably they accept its conditions while swallowing lies about any alternative. Despite everything collapsing all around them. Furthermore all of that is reinforced constantly by a willing media in whose interests the Tories serve: Robert Jenrick was quite happy to launder Richard 'dirty' Desmond's tax burden. Desmond is a Tory donor who owns the Express. 

I told the Tory apologist that the media supports what they do. He then retorted some nonsense about the BBC. Views on the BBC are simplistic and polarised; left wingers believe they are right wing and vice versa. However the former is more true when it comes to that aspect most pertinent. The political wing of the BBC. Its journalists are too close to government, they have to be, meanwhile presenters like Andrew Neil are/were right wing attack dogs. Political panels are subtly biased and left wing/alternative positions are rarely given air time. After all how many times was Farage given air time. Right wing lies are rarely challenged. 

It's not quite that simple though, the BBC is more than just politics which is why right wingers believe it's liberal lefty. This is because of the long standing cliche that the arts is the abode of the left wing. Of 'cultural Marxists' (an antisemitic trope he fortunately didn't bring up). Despite that right wingers, like Portillo or the awful Melanie Phillips, are happy to appear in its output.

At this point the exchange had run its course. His response to my claim that the BBC isn't left wing, which I didn't put forward with enough nuance anyway, was to call my mental health into question. 

"Keep taking the medication" he said walking off.

Says it all really. Tories happy to invoke bigotry, even soft bigotry, to avoid taking responsibility. Good job he didn't say anything about cultural Marxism. 

Riots and Violence

A few nights ago in a Swansea street there was a massive riot. It got ugly, very ugly. Apparently a local lad had died. I don't know how, but there was a vigil that went south when, I'm reliably informed, the cops got involved. The community's reaction was depressing and predictable. I don't condone it, sat in the comfort of my own privilege. I'm not even sure I understand it, and I can only shake my head that in stead of a more productive approach we again perpetuate a cycle of violence. All with the help of the state. 

It's decidedly depressing that this is the only choice the state, with all its power privilege and resources, is prepared to make. But, given who our home secretary is, it remains no surprise. Nothing will break the cycle of violence otherwise. Unfortunately, thanks to years of media demonstration, attempts to reach out and help this community will be met with rabid cynicism. We've all seen the disgusting stories, intended to keep the poor in their place and scapegoat them. The kid who, after murdering his entire family, was 'rewarded' with a holiday etc. Of course that's just one side of the story. But facts are a currency capitalism doesn't afford its adherents. Better to trade in outrage and provide no answers. 

It is this same cycle of violence that is being played out in Israel. The most disingenuous aspect is how the media chooses to intervene. It's vituperative when it's Hamas ill-advisedly firing ineffectual rockets (relatively speaking). But when it's Israel stealing land, bulldozing homes, and slaughtering children, they have nothing to say. You don't see the cycle of violence unless you can see the whole picture. But the media, biased to one side, will not show you. So it is or will be with the Mayhill rioters. You will see the pictures of burning cars and smashed windows. You will hear the spluttering outrage of the police. You might even hear the understandable fear of the rest of the community innocently caught up in this. There are no winners in this, when the community turns on itself, but we can choose to make things better. These impoverished communities could receive investment. The kids could be taught real self worth and not forced to look for it in the expensive mirrors of capitalist aspiration. 

But it's more likely that anger will win the day. Seeing no alternative, because the media stifles that discussion, people will give in to their anger and not think a bit more about the situation. I understand the fear and the anger; if it was my property being smashed and torched I'd want resolution, but does that only come from retribution? That's all the cops can offer. Locking up impoverished kids from deprived communities just costs the taxpayer while destroying their lives, and for what? If we cannot answer that, then we have no business doing it. We must turn things around.

Israel

 And so the clock ticks again. The doomsday clock set to permanently spell genocide for those poor fuckers in the world's most infamous open prison. Gaza. Every so often the cage of the Israeli state is rattled and it has to flex its considerable, if foreign funded, muscles. In response those same foreign actors tub thump the same apocalyptic rhetoric. We must support Israel because otherwise it is the end of all things. Never mind that Israel are the aggressors because they are, in the lopsided relationship between prisoner and jailer, the most powerful of the two participants. 

The dismal 'all lives matter' style response is tone deaf. Like its hashtag namesake it pretends to an equality that in reality dismisses the lived experience that defines the relationship. Yes Palestine lives and Israeli lives matter. In practice however only one side is allowed that privilege. No matter what Hamas does the fact they are an occupied people is ignored. So yes, all things being equal, they ought not be firing their feeble rockets. But all things aren't equal, and what would you do if armed fanatics kicked you out of your house, bulldozed it, and left you crying in the rubble? 

This madness has dragged on for seventy years. That's just since the Naqba thereafter those evicted have no right of return. Meanwhile Jewish settlers are entitled to come to Israel regardless of their personal tie to the region. How is that not provocation? Never mind the full scale military assault and the continued genocidal bigotry of the warmongers in Tel Aviv and beyond. 

Whatever happens, the US will be on hand to clear up the mess. The Israeli state is a spoilt brat of the absolute worst kind. It has become a monster. I have no problem with Jewish identity culture or self determination. But the illegal occupations, genocide and torture, including of children, is unjustifiable. Unfortunately it will not end until the US does. Even now, with yet another withered old white wall stree apologist at the helm, nothing will change. Biden shows his true colours with sickening inevitability.

All I have are words. Insufficient and inefficient. They will not save lives nor end a brutal bloody occuptation. I offer them as cautiously and carefully as I can. But I will not be cowed by the machinery of the Israeli state. It's apartheid racist politics have infected our own for too long. There must be an end to this.

Bad Bye Election

The British like the idea of a working class politician. This is why Boris Johnson has tried to present himself as a man of the people, as absurd as it may sound. Labour, consequently, has been completely routed and wrong footed. Their wounds will bleed for sometime because that was the only thing they knew how to do. It's what got Blair elected. Even if both men, Blair and Bozo, are practiced spivs and liars with the media on their side. Despite his attempts to bring the party back under control, Starmer hasn't achieved that. Maybe in time Murdoch will give him his dark blessing. Until then, while he remains intent on fighting the Tories on their own ideological turf, he has no chance.

All I can say is that Starmer's Labour doesn't offer anything I want to vote for. He's just a naive authoritarian. The only reason to vote Labour is tactical, which is an indictment of this rubbish system. We are forced to playing the game because the alternative is worse. Those who argue voting changes nothing are only right insofar as it keeps the game going, but wrong in that even minor changes are better than nothing. It's an uncomfortable choice and what people need to learn is that, stripped away of the propaganda that comes with voting, participation doesn't equal endorsement. That would be like arguing because my local shop sells cigarettes and because I use my local shop it follows that I support cigarette smoking. It doesn't.

Labour will continue to twist itself up in knots because they will be in no hurry to replace Starmer, and if so with whom? Who is left (or right) at this point? Who cares, they are all the same. There is no vision, no platform and no policy. Being technically correct at PMQ's is meaningless in a world dominated by the right wing media. The Overton window has to be pulled back and they aren't even trying to do that, just assuming that people will listen. Yet people still don't trust Labour: a failure of ten years of refusing to stand up for even anything they have achieved. The crash happened, the coalition got voted in (the Tories didn't even get a majority back then) and Labour facilitated the current Tory majority by rolling over and agreeing with being scapegoated - as if a global financial banking meltdown was somehow in the power of a single national political entity or government. It didn't even begin in Britain.

The idea that 'we spent all the money' is such nonsense. It's as vacuous and depressingly malleable as "Corbyn isn't electable" or "woke culture ruined x". The discourse is now choked with this ideological detritus; these thought terminating cliches. Electability is a function of the Overton window. When I hear centrist cunts like James O Brien crying into his bank account, whining furiously on the radio, I wonder who he actually voted for because I'm willing to bet it wasn't Labour. He bemoaned Corbyn the day after the election, calling for his immediate departure even before a replacement was found. An act of the most egregious concern trolling. Yet his defence will be oh I'd love to be able to vote Labour but they won't let me because Corbyn isn't electable. It's a dishonest argument: he's electable if you vote for him. Given the abject failure of Johnson over the last year it is painfully obvious Corbyn would have been better. 

Just so with the bullshit about the nation's finances. Aren't we meant to spend all the money? Government acquires money through taxation (mainly) which we pay in. It's our money they are meant to redistribute for the common good: healthcare, roads, maintenance, etc. We all want those things. So why wouldn't we want them to spend everything we give them on those things? That's its job! To then make this, criminally unchallenged, claim (never mind on the basis of a stupid joke letter) is again nonsensical: it implies everyone has no more money to pay in taxes. Everyone's skint somehow. So there's no more money; the money just stopped! Of course it didn't, never mind that we can print our own or that borrowing has never been cheaper. The counter is always that we should save up for a rainy day. But that again implies the household budget analogy holds. It doesn't. Besides those things we want government to pay for are the rainy day investments! That's what healthcare and roads, etc, are! Now we're living through the rainy day and the government that used this canard to persuade voters isn't just further in debt (debt per se isn't the problem), but that it's refusing to use that money for the rainy day and is instead selling off that infrastructure. The most egregious hypocrisy.

All of which Labour doesn't challenge. Instead it finds ever more grey and bland suit wearing shells. More uninspiring performing seals to offer nothing. What were the people in Hartlepool to think? What were they to vote for? The Tories hold all the cards so Labour needs to cut through, it just assumed it could. This will continue. There is no hope for them because their politics are incapable of recognising a real alternative. The only place you'll find that alternative is on the streets with the real working class. The ones they've ignored for years and years, to their cost.

Goodbye Election

Tomorrow some people will go and vote. Not me, the only election held here is for the Police and Crime Comissioner. Since cops are cunts and the role is a made up non-job I tore up my voting card. I'm also going to have my second jab so fuck you capitalist state controllers.

Labour wants to pretend that Starmer is going to hold Hartlepool. Maybe he will, but doesn't deserve to. Not because the Tories are deserving. They are not. They are malevolent incompetent sleazy scum. But Starmer is a naive bland voiceless fool. His supporters will, and in fact already are, blaming Corbyn and his supporters, whom thye insultingly call Corbynistas while whining about how Corbynistas call them names. This is nothing if not ironic: they have spent five years publicly smashing their own party just to get rid of the twice elected leader. To the point they publicly called for people to vote against them. 

Starmer is already sharpening his excuses in anticipation of the electoral bloodbath by declaring that Labour's 'reconstruction' will take a long time. Yes it will, thanks to your naivete and desire to throw the left under a bus. Anyway I don't care. The Labour party is a capitalist tool. It has willingly complied with austerity, as is happening under the useless Marvin Rees in Bristol. Sadly he will likely win. If not it'll be a Tory. Who can tell the difference these days?

Labour are going to be in the wilderness for a very long time, just when opposition couldn't be more vital. Unfortunately they will never have the vital epiphany they need to smarten themselves up. Now is the time for something different. Lurching ever further to the right is pointless, you can't out-Tory the Tories. Their chums in the media won't stand for it, even if capital finds Starmer - for now - to be a safe pair of hands. Compared to Johnson and his brexpocalypse that is certainly true, but the reality is that.

This is late stage capitalism. A shoring up of ideological positions, a polarisation. The centre cannot hold. There is no actual centre; the idea of a neutral position, politically equidistant from left and right is a myth. Starmer isn't a centrist, that's something people that think themselves reasonable (as opposed to radical) tell themselves. We don't want reasonable, we want change. A better world. It will happen, the inertial makes sure of that. Too many people can see through the curtain now. They just need some help building confidence that fighting for the radical is the only option. Everything else is self destruction.