The Road To Spring 14: The Pyramid Scam

A couple of days ago, Rishi Sunak, the world's deadliest chef, tweeted that, as a youngster, he aspired to become a Jedi. Presumably not like his, nor anyone else's, father before him, since Jedi are fictional space wizards. He is neither: fictional nor a wizard. Though, probably like his father before him, he is beholden to a financial understanding that is ignorant of how sovereign economies work. A believer in the absence of a magical money tree, except when it comes to him and his class. As demonstrated by the abject wealth within which he is cocooned daily. 

The tweet was nothing more than an advert for the tired notions of hard work and effort. That, within the space of less than two hundred characters, the reader is meant to gain an understanding of how society really works. Particularly when it comes to the lives of the elite. It's simple: work hard and apply yourself and you too can become Chancellor of the Exchequer. Keeper of the illusory magic money tree. Fail to work hard and your much deserved reward is factory work; a lifetime of drudgery and disappointment. That is what the ruling class thinks of you and the work you are raised to do. Essential work, in many cases. Much more essential than one single high profile position. That it is treated and rewarded so contemptibly; that those who do it are so poorly regarded is of greater educational value than the world's deadliest chef's just so story.

Society under capitalism is a pyramid scheme. Or perhaps scam. There is only one position labelled Chancellor. It is not earned either. It is appointed. This means you must earn the favour of not just the ruling class, but the party of the ruling class. The party perennially in power. Consequently you will never get to be appointed if your economics do not align with capitalism. Thus Sunak is a capitalist, an ex banker (of course). There is no way the ruling class will ever pick a Marxist or a progressive to manage their system. What this in turn means is that the capitalist ideology reinforces itself. Replicates itself. 

That is what Sunak is doing in this tweet. Hard work is a cipher for corect ideology. If you start with a view that capitalism is unfair destructive and exploitative, as one objective look around the world will confirm, you have already failed the applicatoin for Chancellor. You will nevber get to the positoin of being a candidate for the ruling class to appoint you. Never mind having to sign up to their ideology, joining their party. If you don't, you wont' be chosen. Boris was never going to pick a Chancellor from outside his own party. Though of course he, and the ruling class, rewards those that ally and support their cause - class traitors (in most cases) - by stuffing them upstairs, in the Lords.

So if you have a desire to follow the Chancellor's example you have to accept their ideology in order to even begin working hard. Anything else is of course laziness. This is the fundamental point of this article: if we try and engage capitalism on these terms we will already lose. We will have to accept the premise that there are no rewards for those that don't work hard. We hear this all the time: "beggars can't be choosers", "nothing comes without hard work", or, my personal favourite, "the world doesn't owe you a living". These trite tropes are trotted out ad nauseum, serving as little more than thought terminating cliches intended to shut down dissent (essentially). They are repeated so often, and with the help of the powerful toxic media, that people now don't question them, but we must.

Of course hard work and effort are important. But they are a natural extension of performing tasks that we are naturally invested in. I work hard when I wash the dishes because I want them to be clean; that is the reward. I don't get paid for it. But it is essential labour that capitalism taints in the form of reproductive labour. What is often called, with derision, women's work. Is it any surprise our society's ingrained misogyny when such work, vital to the survival of capitalism, isn't even deemed worthy of a wage?

But I digress. The world may not 'owe' us anything, in the convention sense, but it is a world that has all we need. The problem isn't abundance, or the lack thereof, it is that, through historic means, a powerful elite has taken control of those resources and the means of producing them. Were that not so, capitalism couldn't exist and thus goods and services, including women's work, could not be reduced to commodities, denuded of creativity and worth. Dish washing then becomes a chore, not a task necessary that can be shared and, even, enjoyed as one working with equals friends and family can enjoy. Such as when a community works together to overcome a problem; build a new farmhouses for example. A little trite perhaps, but even so.

So one doesn't aspire to be Chancellor. It is a job you are given for supporting the ideology of the ruling class. Anyone that genuinely wants the job will end up being a class enemy simply by virtue of what is required to do the job. The position itself is therefore not neutral. Instead, like the rest of the state machine, we should reject and replace it with something direct and non authoritarian. It shouldn't be the job of one person to dictate to us how much we are allowed. Wether kids can eat during a pandemic. Even if one could apply for the job, how many people would you be competing with? Capitalists will argue that process ensures the most qualified person gets the job, but that's a lie. The people that oversee the selection process will simply ensure their ideological preferences are maintained and that is the problem: the hierarchy of capitalism. All Sunak has achieved is to reinforce that.

The Road To Spring 13: Halfway through the February of Shit

Saturday again. Still freezing cold. A week of this has felt like an eternity. I have become preoccupied by it. Hopefully that will change as starting tomorrow milder weather is forecast, at least. 

On the 22nd our useless PM sets out his 'roadmap' for easing restrictions. The most optimistic predictions come from the much maligned professor Ferguson who thinks that, if trends continue, with infections halving every couple of weeks or so, we can have schools open in March. Then, a month later, we can lift other restrictions. That's going to be three months, at best. I'm not remotely anti lockdown; I agree they work. The problem is that they are a blunt instrument that cannot be repeatedly used without consequence. That is the problem here; as reluctant as the Tories have been to shut the economy, putting us into the situation, they cannot just keep relying on them to clear their mess up. Sooner or later something else will have to happen. They cannot keep screwing up like that.

They will of course. It's the only thing they can be relied upon. Already the latest shambles is emerging; the scheme to quarantine people following entry into the country is just a cash cow for Tory hoteliers. The staff managing newcomers have no idea what is to happen, and how many are going to try and pile into the country prior to the scheme's proper launch?

So of course it comes as no surprise to hear that, again, some Tories want pubs reopened by Easter, which I believe (but can't be bothered to check) is at the start of April. These clowns will never understand. They don't want to. All they care about is profit. One of these jackals even thinks we should "suck it and see" when it comes to relaxing restrictions; because it's just like tasting a boiled sweet ffs. Except it isn't, and we know what will happen. It's happened three times before. If they don't get it by now, it's pointless pretending they ever will.

My fear is that there is no infection rate low enough to safely open up anywhere near where the governmorons would like. That, when things do open, during Spring, the virus will pick up, once again. I just can't see how we can avoid that. We might be ok with shops, but the hospitality industry, as far as I'm concerned, is a goner. How can it possibly return with what happened before? I take no pleasure in that, but how can it not be so?

The Road To Spring 12: A Difference of A Few Degrees

Could it be? The weather getting marginally less cold? Seemed so, as I went walking in a two shirts, a hoodie, a hat, a hooded winter coat, a scarf, assorted underwear and two pairs of trews. You think it might be tough to tell, so attired. But I feel the cold even under all that. Never have I felt quite so cold as I have this week. To be sure it's been this cold before, probably quite a lot, but my resilience has tumbled since the start of the pandemic. 

The autistic spectrum service has gotten back in touch, asking if I would still like an appointment. I don't think much of their service and I doubt I'm ever going to get a fair hearing from them. They will stick with their inappropriate testing system. However they are not to blame for the effect the pandemic is having on provision. Consequently I think I would rather wait until a proper appointment is available. I don't think remote viewing is going to be satisfactory. Better to wait than be diagnosed poorly I think. 

When, if not during a crisis, is it not a good time for another top down reform of the NHS? Apparently the new top down reforms are going to undo (some of) what came before, following the Tories' winning in 2010. We all know what this really means: further privatisation. They are going to shrug their shoulders and say that, because of the effect of the pandemic, that it can't be avoided. That, in order to survive, the NHS must undergo this change. No one will care enough to stop this until it's too late, or even then. Here we go again; our health is just a political football. A product they can offer up in the grubby marketplace of capitalism. This of course will be tragically exacerbated by staff resining after their harrowing experiences on the frontline this past season. I can't blame people for that, but it should never have come to that.

In other news, Priti Patel is still a thoroughly unpleasant far right loon. A hateful authoritarian dripping contempt from every corrupt pore. Of course she hates protest. Why can't people just go along with whatever unpleasant shit the Tories come up with? How dare they question their betters? She has a massive inferiority complex it seems to me. To be clear, she defends, as the status quo, the right of racist memorabilia to stand. This itself is racist. There is no neutral space: if you think that statues of racists should remain intact you are defending racism. She either refuses to or cannot see this. I don't know which is worse.

Lots of people, ignoring government advice, have "rushed" to book their summer holidays. Of course the tour operators were all too happy to take their money. Someone somewhere will be getting disappointed later i the year, while someone somewhere else will be making a lot of money out of them, and keeping it.

The Road To Spring 11: Swabbing the Deck

I will never understand why wearing a mask is so troubling for some. Like all the tradesblokes and manual workers who pile into the local bakery for their pies and pasties. Or the old boy behind me in the shop coughing while his mask straddles his chin. Or the lad that works in the same shop who only seems to wear his as a fashion accessory and never practically. I find all of this desperately frustrating. It's a situation wherein nothing can be done. Either you'll provoke antagonism, potentially of the violent kind, or you'll be told they have a health reason and be left with no choice but to leave it at that. Who wants to bully people who may well have a genuine exemption (other than Tory politicians).

Today may well prove the coldest day on record. Certainly if my old bones are to be any witness. Yet there are still people, in the midst of this pandemic, forced to live outside. They are forced; it's never a choice. You wouldn't choose these conditions. Yet the Tories and their scummy ilk have to believe tht in order to avoid the even greater realisation that their system doesn't work for everybody. Sure it works for the few, but that's not just ignorant of the many, it's at their expense. You don't get rich under capitalism, and have power within it, alone. You become that powerful through exploiting others. No matter how much responsibility the capitalists appeal to, no matter how ethical they try to appear, capitalism always wins out. They are its slaves, never its masters, and we are theirs. If there was such a thing as responsible or ethical capitalism, where tycoons did things like use their profits to help employees or society on a rainy day, don't you think that would be happening right now? It isn't, they don't, they won't. They can't.

My test kit came today, I was invited to participate in the REACT study. I'm doing my bit for queen and country. Neither in fact, those two are outdated anachronisms, but if participation helps then all good. I certainly don't think I have Covid, but if I do, and it would certainly be asymptomatically, then knowing is probably a good thing. My mother still hasn't had the second, and thus complete, dose of the vaccine. It's taken them a week to send the package to me, but the turnaround is very fast. I have to complete the test in the morning ready for same day collection. Oddly I'm nervous about it; I don't like gagging so swabbing the back of my throat won't be fun. Still I'd rather do it than Nurse Ratchet I guess. It's strange, but when it comes to medical matters I am actually very squeamish. They will email me the results about a week later. This means a fortnight will have passed which, if I were (or am!) infections, would be a problem. I presume some latitude is being allowed for this specific process, and they probably don't expect everyone participating ot be infected, as it's a study, not test and trace per se. But even so, if they do turn up active cases they would have to act quickly.

It is impressive how the machinery of state has marshalled together these resources. I get the test kick, the packaging, an instruction booklet, and even an online video to watch to walk me through all this. It's presented reasonably simply taking great pains to make sure you do it right, for obvious reasons. If only this degree of effort could have been made by the government throughout all this. But that's expecting too much.

Oh how I wish people would just wear their damn masks. 

The Road To Spring 10: Keep Your Back Straight While Lifting

There is no doubt I am losing it. Aren't we all? No? Just me then. Well, probably not.

I'm not about to don a straitjacket, but I'd be lying if I said this situation hasn't affected me. I'm less resilient, never was to begin with. I frustrate easier now, and things are more of a chore than they have any right to be. I think the fundamental problem is this period, winter. Enduring it through the medium of lockdown has narrowed the opportunities available for coping or even preparing for it. Now we just have to live with it, bruised and battered to one degree or another. 

Unfortunately, when we coume out of, not just this lockdown but the pandemic in general, there won't be an investment in support. I sincerely doubt the Tories will invest in a renewed mental health system. Certainly they could have been doing that already, but instead they piss it all away on Brexit and crony contracts. All of which have proven disastrous. They could even have invested in providing greater degrees of youth support, although the kids around here seem to be out playing as normal. Though it would be gross and naive to assume none of them have suffered. I can only hope not, but when I see signs of what could be vandalism, broken fencing, for example, or an uprooted church message board, I wonder. I have no idea, could just be the wind. I sincerely hope it's not frustrated kids. 

One of the most depressing aspects, interacting in the socially distanced world, is when people jump out of the way when you walk past. Or just conspicuously give you a wide berth. If I'm in a shop, browsing the aisle, there could be someone who, ordinarily, would just walk past, but now they (not always) stand there. It's unsettling, I can't lie. Just walk past me, I think. I may end up saying it. Just like I may end up saying something to the idiots who, still,  don't wear masks. That wouldn't be a good idea, it's liable to gift me a smack in the gob. No one wants that. Least of all me. But that's the tension I now feel. Just walk past me. Is that the right attitude? 

I'm not against social distancing, certainly not against wearing masks, but the abnormality of it all is tiring. That's the problem right now. It's all just exhausting. It's not helped by the presence of our shambolic government, one that, despite everything, sseems perenially popular. There just isn't opposition. Every day I observe them: reading the headlines to see what fresh hell awaits us. This isn't healthy, and it is also tiring. Life right now is exhausting. I simply can't wait for the weather to ease, and for spring to arrive. I'm like a crackhead for the season. I need my fix of mild, pleasant, warm weather. Where I can go out without having to dress up like an astronaut preoparing a spacewalk. Hopefully then I will feel better, we all will.

The Road To Sprin 9: Yep, Still Bloody Freezing

The weather has broken me. I'm sure, before, I've coped with this degree of blustery cold, but not now. During better days I enjoyed freewheeling throughout the countryside. Now the arctic wind is against me. I don't even like going outside, it's just that I enjoy staying inside even less. I require a break.

My next appointment with Fedcap Employment is next Friday. I have heard nothing from them since the last appointment. It's a joke, frankly. If they are meant to be operating in this pandemic then they are doing a piss poor job. If the pandemic is a problem, and that's understandable, then they should have the integrity to come out and say so. Anything else is just profiting: despite being unable (or unwilling) to help, they are still profiting from our relationship. This is still an active case.

I think it unlikely I will continue past that appointment, depending on how it goes. I have only remained thus far because I was assuming an impending Work Focused Interview. That may still happen; the DWP will write to me whenever. I have no control over that, which is one of the most frustrating aspects of dealing with them. You simply don't know where you stand, making it impossible to plan ahead as you don't then know where you'll be financially. This is wasteful and inefficient.

So the government has finally announced it's plans for international travellers. Let's get the obvious out of the way: the rich will be allowed to circumvent these rules at every turn. All it takes is one person to disregard a quarantine and become a super spreader. They have contracted 500 odd hotels, which ones they are not, reasonably i guess, saying. Weirdly people being quarantined will have to fork out nearly two grand for the privilege. Thus no impediment to the rich, and only to the poor. You may wonder why anyone should be travelling, but that doesn't justify this classist approach. Corona doesn't discriminate on the basis of wealth. This is the problem with our government, we need to manage borders right now because of the pandemic, and I say that as an open borders person, but doing so on the basis of class and wealth is wrong headed. It's also indicative of where the government wants to take us afterwards. Although it's nothing new: it's just the poor doors for international travel.

Oh, and if you break the rules, you could go to jail for ten years. What a joke. That just points to how shit our system is. How inadequate it is at responding to this crisis. Prison? Solves nothing. I suppose it's intended as a deterrent, but are they really going to use it? Why would you even allow the possibility of breaking the rules in the first place? Would it not be best to just shut down non essential travel (and by non essential I mean even oligarch's checking their property portfolio in Whitechapel, etc) entirely? Again, it's just loopholes. There is zero chance anyone wealthy will be in prison for being a covid chancer.

The Road To Spring 8: Inclement Weather of our Times

Winter's here for another week, that's for sure. I don't remember how I felt last time we had this weather, which I'm sure was a year ago. This isn't unseasonal or abnormal weather. I've gotten 'soft', though that's the language of toxic masculinity, the same culture that compels white van man (and it's only him that I see) to forego masks (and trousers). It's the pandemic. There is going to be a vast culture shock when this is all over and whatever passes for normality rushes in, filling the vacuum like air escaping a baloon.

Let's be clear; the government's bizarre heel-dragging over the issue of borders is because they don't want to stop oligarchs and their lackeys. They want their money. Buy up working class properties, all at the behest of people claiming to care about the working class, like the Labour mayor of London. Despite all the racist shit he has to put up with, he's just another crony capitalist. London needs that money, it's in a permanent state of financial transfusion. 

I'm not the first to say it, but say it I must. To add my voice to the chorus: if you want to honour the memory of Captain Sir Tom (or is it Sir Captain?), then fund the NHS. If. Of course they don't, anymore than they want to honour the memory of an old fella whom no one had even heard of (especially the Tories) prior to his perambulations. In fact they only learned who he was because of their failings: he felt compelled to act because the NHS was, is, in dire straits. That it remains so shows how his and their ideology fail alike, though for different reasons.

He failed because he bought into the state supported notion that one must act within the system, thereby serving as a pressure valve. Taking the focus away from where it should be: government inaction. His intentions were beyond reproach, but the dismal spectacle of an old boy wandering around his garden for charity evoked sympathy which more than the cause itself compelled a response. If the cause was the primary motivator for donations then people would have acted directly. They haven't, and won't, and that is the problem with acting within the system. This isn't to castigate Tom, but he's a product of this system and its culture, even more intensely given he was a soldier. Don't question things.

Now he's a hero. Ok, why? He's a hero to the ruling class for precisely the reason I've just said. As far as I'm oncerned he's a well meaning decent old guy who's life was stolen by him by the people he ended up supporting. It's tragic beyond words. His effort didn't protect and it didn't help save the NHS. There's no doubt it will do some good, which is commendable, but this is an all or nothing deal: either support the NHS properly, campaign directly and fight the Tories, somehow, or be co opted through the system by them. Now they lionised him. If he was truly effective then he'd have been a threat to this system, and thus a real asset. Such people don't get statues or the praises of the confused and the little Englanders on Twitter and in the Daily Mail.

It's sad that his last days weren't spent in luxury and comfort (in whatever way he would have wanted). Instead, the government his actions unwittingly supported put him hospital from where he never returned.