Everyday Crapitalism returns to the buses!

Bonus feature!

In other words, I got short shrift on the buses again and it's all capitalism's fault.

Sad thing is, though, I'm not wrong!

Why is it always the buses? That's easy; they are a vital public service that is still held in private ownership. Of course you could say that about any number of 'commons' - food for instance. That's why I spoke about the sight of security guards in private owned profit driven supermarkets. Folks gotta eat!

So one of the very few things I can praise First Bus for is their adopting technology to allow people to buy tickets using cards rather than coins. The problem is they have no answer when these systems go wrong, so ultimately you still need to carry coins with you because, if they machine (or your card) craps out...

This is problem number one: people need transport in a modern society. You have to go to the shops to buy food to avoid starving. You need to get to appointments to see doctors, or sign on, or whatever. Duh. Capitalism has no answer for this; if you can't pay the ferryman you don't go anywhere.

Problem number two; if you're poor these issues are amplified. This is because poverty deprives people of options and flexibility. When things go wrong authority will assert itself (problem number three, in actual fact). The driver is programmed - literally - to refuse you passage. So if the fault lies with the machine shouldn't that be the company's responsibility? In reality it'll be your responsibility. You have to offer the alternative because they sure as hell won't countenance offering you a free ride in lieu of meeting their responsibility.

So that's why I had to catch a later bus a couple of weeks ago. I didn't have the change on me.

This is the power of the capitalist; it completely undermines all progress that can be made because their need for profit trumps any reasonable alternative. I'm offering to make a payment, I have the means. Yet your systems are at fault - but I have to lose out?

That, my friends, is the nature of the authority that private property rights, a key component of capitalism (the rights over the public transport system in this case). I reject this authority because I find it cannot be justified in a decent society. It is antithetical to it's optimal functioning.

It's also unnecessary.

I wish the drivers could see that. But they aren't paid enough to have that luxury. Again, crapitalism.

These are the Solutions on offer

I haven't heard from my advisor since March. Each time I've tried to get in touch the mail seems to mysteriously end up in her boss' inbox. Why is this? I can only assume she's dliberately passing it on, which means she doesn't want to talk to me at all. Why might this be? I cannot say.

When I first met these people, almst exactly a year ago, they seemed a refreshing change from the usual behaviour of these types of organisation. But then, they all do, at first. They'll sweet talk you to be your friend and then, sooner or later, they change. They all revert to type.

At this point the only thing they are willing to offer is something called 'Solutions'. To put it simply, and you can see from the screenshots I've taken of their paraphenalia, it's just another example of the magic thinking 'let's go on a journey' self help guru rubbish this industry peddles. It does not - cannot - address the structural issues that surround unemployment and why one might not be 'succeeding' in life. In fact it offers no definition of what one shoudl consider success beyond getting a job. Nor does it offer any realisation that simply getting a job isn't always synonymous with success - as we can see from the scale of in work poverty that now exists, baked into the system.

Here we go (click for screenshots)

I'm posting this, as I've always tried, to show what's happening in this sector. I believe this course represents courses like it across the country. There are many groups like this, especially those that are connected to whatever schemes the DWP inflicts on people. To be clear, this group are not, as far as I know. Though I'm sure claimants will be referred or 'recommended' to them when they sign on, so it matters not. They are, iirc, funded by the Lottery. This expires next year. That's what I was told. What happens then? Who knows. I'm sure there will be another cookie cutter outfit ready to step into the breach, probably funded by another iteration of the same kind of funding model, ready to offer much the same thing.

You can see their attempt to deal with mental health issues that a participant might have is a perfunctory referral to counselling. I don't believe counselling is bad and I've no idea of the quality of the people you'd see, but I can tell you that counselling is far from ideal in all situations. But this is indicative of the dismissal of mental health; just refer people to 'talking' therapies which don't require lots of moving parts just a counsellor. This is naive at best; talking things through again does not address structural problems. I know this from personal experience; the counsellor I saw 18 months ago gave up after three sessions. Gave up! She was saying I should present to Bristol council and that they would give me somewhere to live, instead of being stuck out in the sticks. Utter nonsense! As if there aren't loads of homeless people/crisis cases already, as if there isn't a massive housing crisis the council has to contend with. This is their approach; they'll sell you down the river with simplistic solutions that don't help and when you refuse, rightly, you are told YOU are the problem.

So if your problems are of a complex mental health nature, likely to be societal in nature, specifically as a result of structural poverty caused by the dominant failing economics of our age, just speak to your counsellor. Meanwhile let's do all these insipid activities like "colour personality profiling".

How insidious does that sound?

Is this really as good as it gets? I'll let you judge for yourself. I'd also appreciate if anyone out there reading this (thanks!) lets me know what they think. It'd be nice to have a dialogue about this.

Cheers.

Everyday Crapitalism Goes to the Library

Last week I went to the library for the first time in ages. Nothing terribly significant about that, I just tend not to bother these days. There stock is limited thanks to cuts. That they are open at all is however impressive, and so I support libraries in principle. I've also spent the first half of the year buying a LOT of books that I am still wading through!

What I don't support are fines. This is an iniquitous principle that only serves to punish the poorest for wanting to take advantage of the vital service libraries provide. Clearly if you're wealthy enough being fined for a late return is no punishment at all and thus the idea of enforcing correct library behaviour - fair use of books - is not the issue.

But people, by which I mean me, forget to return stuff. It happens. If you're me you take a lot of books out at a time - because going to the library requires a trip into town and so not worth it for just one or two books. So if you forget to return one thing, you forget to return all. Fines increase on a daily basis, so if you don't get the opportunity to return before long you end up with a significant enough penalty that you can't take out more books.

Now a lot of people are going to have no problem with this. The argument will be that it's not fair for me to keep books and that it's my fault for not returning them.

This is true, but it isn't actually the point.

Firstly I don't seek to keep books unfairly, but - and this is key - our system tells people that's what's happening because our system can't process this any other way. It cannot accept that I haven't returned the books due to common human oversight. I don't intend for the books to be kept, but this happens in life. Why should it be an issue?

Secondly yes of course it's my fault. Why does that require scapegoating and punishment? If something gets returned late, well, quite frankly, so what? Again it's not intentional. Books get returned early (and late) all the time. People borrow, others don't. That's how this works.

These fines are also unnecessary; it's a paradigm not a requirement for the maintenance of the service. Think about it: if the library's income depended on fines and fees it would fail because the service would require people broke the rules. Does that make sense as a way to run things?

It's like the congestion charge. The stated aim - to try and reduce traffic and gridlock and ease pollution - is great. But in practise that's not really the aim because that's not what the charge actually does. Without an alternative it just penalises people who have no choice and need to make those journeys. It might encourage a few, in the same way that bedroom tax victims might actually find somewhere (if they are lucky) better suited to live. In reality those outcomes are a happy accident of a punitive principle that is applied to situations because capitalism cannot address the needs of the situation. In many cases it's the cause: we have environment-warping pollution because we have profit driven industry.

In the end it would be better to have a society where libraries - communal troves of mass media - could be accessed by members whenever. It would be better if we raised people just to be responsible and so return the book in their own good time. If they need a couple weeks longer to finish reading, so what. If they return it early, so what. We only assume people will be greedy and lazy (which is not the same as forgetful) because that's what capitalism, ultimately, teaches us. I hear this argument all the time, we need capitalism because our nature as humans is such. It's tedious and unfounded. Let's stop infantilising ourselves

Another Pointless DWP Interview

Which, truth to tell, has left me angry and upset. I don't need wankers from the DWP to feel bad about my life. I have plenty of signs all around me to remind me of how far short I've fallen of the accepted standards. I'm not marriyoued, I don't own a nice home, and I don't have a successful career. I certainly don't need to be probed - with the same fucking questions - by the DWP again.

Why do they ask me how long I've been claiming? They have this information in front of them. they know this. Yet every time they ask me this; they do the guilt dance where you have to explain again how long you've been out of the labour market and what shitty useless jobs you did before. It feels like I'm having to justify myself to them - and in return what do I get? Nothing. No help is offered, none will ever be forthcoming from this system. It cannot help; it is structurally incapable of doing so.

But the worst aspect was the five minute inquisition at the start where I had to justify why I should be favoured with a telephone interview - unlike all the other people who also suffer from stress but still manage to turn up in person.

Like this is some physical contest.

This language; the use of argument by comparison is horseshit. It has no relevance nor validity other than to shame you. What makes YOU so special? But I'm not arguing that I am special, and I don't consider a reasonable degree of flexibility, a meeting of the minds halfway as a compromise, to be remotely privileged. They demand of you, but you cannot ask for concessions. You are given them where and when without question and the notion that you, the subject they are supposed to be helping, should maybe want to make things a little bit easier; well we can't have that can we. There are a million ways to compromise. None of them are unreasonable.

And I'm not asking in ignorance of anyone else. I can only speak for myself. If other people, when they deal with the DWP, feel they need to ask for concessions then that's a matter for them. Why use that against me - or indeed anyone? It's childish. Yet he tried to imply (very heavily) that he couldn't properly help me without my presence physically across the desk. What difference does it make? A phone conversation serves exactly the same purpose: we are having a conversation. My physical presence isn't required, we aren't getting married ffs!

So it just feels like tactics intended to wear you down, to force you into submission.

But the stupidest part of all is, at the end, he conceded that, because I'd already tried all the resources he could suggest, that he had nothing to offer anyway! So the whole thing, which comprised of nothing more than him asking me details about my claim to which he already knew the answer, was a a waste of time!

The problem with these resources, I maintain, is that they are separate; they are apart from the society we live in. What mental health requires is integrated services that don't just deal with a narrow purview or focus and then expect you to function. That's like expecting a recovering alcoholic, after keeping himself clean and away from beer for six months, to be OK with popping down the pub with his mates.

Our whole problem is that society creates mental distress and marginalises the methods of treatment. You are expected to journey to the fringe of society, down a long lonely path, where the treatment resources are kept, and then, after a suitable time, return and pick up as you were. This does not address the structural causes of mental distress (of course some mental health issues arise from different means, to be clear) and, like the alcoholic, will only serve to reinvigorate those pressures.

I find the alcoholic analogy to be relevant because I believe that this kind of mental distress is not a temporary thing, like a cut or a broken bone. Alcoholism (I'm given to believe) is viewed by many sufferers as something they will have to live with forever. I feel the same way about mental health.

Unfortunately society, with its focus on production and subsequent alienation (work is alienating, see under Marx), isn't changing fast enough to not just integrate better ways of coping and dealing with mental health and, particularly, neuro-diversity, but to fundamentally change so as to prevent these problems in the first place. Cure society, cure the people in it.

In the meantime expect more pointless phone conversations from people who lack the resources to offer, paid to gaslight the people they talk to.

Summons

Blah blah blah, I had started rambling about capitalism again. It's all a boy can do in these times of excessive control. Once upon a time people were (they weren't) happy to get a good (it wasn't) job and have enough to fund home and hearth.

Those days are gone. Now it's not even enough to aspire to your Dre Beats, your 'sweet kicks', or a coat with a tick on the back. Now you have to become someone else. You have to live a life you couldn't possibly. This is self destruction sold to us with sugar coated profit driven nihilism. The end of the world will be the taste of ice cream, and the sound will be artificial crunch of the Magnum lolly model as she cracks the choco-crust in the advert world. Have you seen the price of those things? The joke's not on the stick, it's on the viewer. The fucking price of those things!

Ahem.

On Saturday the latest directive from the office of Meine Herren McVey, Fuhrer, for now, of the Ministry of Misery we otherwise disingenuously call the DWP. Another work focused interview has been scheduled for yours truly lunchtime on the 6th of July. How kind. Oh what it is to be remembered.

Meanwhile my email of 11 days ago to the useless advisers at Team North Somerset (I name thee!) has merited no response as yet. These are exactly the sort of people the DWP will no doubt recommend as a positive influence. Should I point out that the truth is otherwise? That won't go down well. The failings can't be theirs, they are professionals. They are here to help ergo it must be...YOU (that is, me).

That is how class works. They are the experts, I am not. I am the patient. I am impatient.

We don't have a free and equal society, we have a rigid hierarchy that asserts itself everywhere. In this case I will not be taken seriously, much as I wasn't by the mental health 'experts' I had relied on to offer a diagnosis. An outcome that, whenever I mention it to people like Team North Somerset, I'm told that it would be pointless anyway.

How helpful.

So once again the fear appears. The thought of a journey to the DWP's latest Mountain of Doom (the last one was of course shut by the government), having to be in that place, to sit and wait in some oppressive cloister, is palpable.

Keep the ring Frodo, you'll need it to pawn for food money. Sauron runs a charity shop or a Pound store these days. He doesn't have time for world domination. There's no money in jewellery these days.

It is a unique fear; to others who don't understand they will point to people in worse situations (of which there are sadly many, it's no comfort). They do this because society conditions us to dismiss the problems of others lest they remind us of our own and show us a common cause. That we might work together against them, because that is the only real and lasting solution to this wrecked society.

It is about the loss of control, the loss of self; the curtailment of the right to live through economic force. Numbers are swung like swords, against themselves. Numbers are also the only shield. Whether you would live or die sans food clothing shelter....medicine!...that is of no consequence to the master of coin and digit. Am I a productive little boy? Am I prepared to tug the forelock to the unwise and the unqualified who, by deign of birth, enact a system of oppression and invisible violence. Do I not matter? I'm only good for taking the x7 to Mordor; the ticket might be redeemable at the Black Gate.

If that sounds convoluted then you might just understand the nature of that fear. It is the screaming sound a soul makes when it sees the chains that come for it. The intrinsic ineffable quality of what makes life worthwhile being shackled by so mundane a thing as economics. We have no intrinsic value. How many times do you hear people say: you must pay your way - no such thing as a free lunch - beggars can't be choosers? 

These aren't axioms but they are treated as such. They are the norms we take for granted, but they only have power because the working class are divided.

And yet the truth is the bluster of coercion is all this system can offer. Between the implied threats, buried like the dead with a smile under the foundations, is..? They can't manufacture work, never mind anything of value. Their databases open like Russian dolls; fractal job opportunities that unfold into each other to reveal only endless data fishing scams dressed as agencies. A hall of mirrors that reflect the ugliness of the corporate world that demands of you more than you can give. It wants not just your time, but your soul: you must give of yourself willingly in the worst way - you must be a team player. It's almost pornographic.

I can't do this. I can't fit into the shape of that world. If I do not attend I starve. If I do attend I struggle. This is Britain in 2018. It has no room for people with mental health issues. It has no capacity to understand why that dichotomy is true and unacceptable. Help given - forced - on those terms is not help. It is bullying.

Voluntary?

I feel like I'm probably repeating myself. In fact I'm entirely sure I have anything to talk about, which is, sort of, the problem.

Once again the lack of support is just deafening. Blinding.

In fact this situation is normalised to such an extent that the people who have undertaken (largely for profit) the responsibility to provide support are so ill equipped and so bereft that instead of addressing why, the client is held responsible.

As I've said before: gaslighting. Likely not intentionally, does it matter?

In fact, intent is important because it tells us those committing that behaviour just don't know better. That's a problem.

If they don't know why things are as they are (hint: capitalism) how can they possibly help? That's why gaslighting exists: they know they can't help, they know they have precious little to offer. Consequently their only recourse is to impugn the client. Intransigence: you don't want to be helped, you are resistant, you are "not engaging". You, not them. Never them, no matter how charmingly put.

I could understand if I had refused to take up services (colour therapy for instance), or if my ambitions were hopelessly outlandish - I want to be a premier league footballer or an astronaut!

Last time we spoke, now months ago (I've had just two appointments this year), I told to the adviser I was interested in writing; that I also liked music (which can encompass many things, not just some X Factor fantasy bollocks). She already knew of my interest in social justice/politics and that being involved in a good cause with good people (admittedly hopelessly vague, but important) would be positive. All a waste of time. They have nothing to offer other than a room full of computers.

So far the only thing that they have had to offer was to use the local voluntary work database. But what good is unpaid work? There is such a thing as Permitted Work: Under DWP rules, one can work a certain amount and keep one's earnings while still claiming sickness benefits.

Fat chance. Once you sign that form you surely sabotage any claim for ESA. The DWP will have a record (literally) stating that you are working. How can that square with a claim otherwise? An appeal to people who look for any reason to deny that claim. Another example of the perverse counter-intuitive incentives that exist in this ridiculous system. Who would dare take that chance?

While voluntary work is great and wonderful, people shouldn't be compelled into anything they are not comfortable with - just because it's voluntary. Quite honestly I feel that voluntary work is used as a stick - do it or else. Maybe because it seems 'easier', to find voluntary work - and of course the unemployed (for whatever reason) should be doing something. So by refusing such a 'noble' way to spend your time, you are doubly feckless!

All part of the current neoliberal paradigm: regardless how you actually occupy your time, you are still idling if it's not earning a wage. That is to say, if it isn't producing profit (since that is how profit is created).

Where once voluntary work might have been a genuinely social positive, for those so inclined. It's now another tool to be used against us - and the third sector is far from unprofitable!

They don't care about what you might actually be doing, or about finding something genuinely positive. Just get your arse down to your local charity shop and sort someone's old clobber and castoffs. Then you'd be doing something useful and we can forget about you, ticking the 'support' box.

Is this really good enough? You aren't being paid for it. How then do you live? You are being compelled for the sake of 'idle hands' yet you are no better off in any practical way at least. Sure it may have a more ephemeral benefit, but then it may not. Also, it has to be said, within a capitalist economy, there is no ethical consumerism; working in a charity shop, for example, is going to enable that charity - as a business - to profit. Rightly or wrongly, and regardless of the ethics of the cause, that is what is happening.

That's how capitalism works. A charity shop to can't survive unless it makes a profit. So the only staff getting paid are the managers the rest are volunteers. A whole culture has been built around this - for better or worse - and the danger is that it blinds people to the reality. Why is this a problem: because it distracts from the real problem.... the prevailing economics.

Capitalism.

I've worked in a charity shop before, it wasn't a glamorous job. It shouldn't be romanticised. It was somewhat boring - isn't most retail? Is charity a justification? We shouldn't need charity - we live in a world of plenty.

The staff were good people, including the manager. But the experience was largely meaningless: shopping that around on my CV was worthless. Prospective employers never never seemed to value that kind of experience; not compared to 'genuine' experience held by rival candidates.

Do voluntary work because you care about the cause and want to help out, or for a genuine personal reason.

Don't do it because you fell pressured by systemic propaganda from agents of a system who should know better.

Don't do it because the alternative is to make you feel worthless or even more so. This is wrong.

The agency I'm a client of (a terrible word) should know better. They weren't forced into this role. They set themselves up, with public (EU - ho ho Brexit!) funding. They should have the resources, and - frankly - the talent. That the best they can do is guilt trip you into using a freely available voluntary work website is pretty pathetic I think.

Saturday Bonus: The Gentleman's Guide To Free Speech and Pug Etiquette

If you say something that is unarguably contentious or provocative you must accept the consequences for that.

If you cannot justify a context for such speech then by default that speech is intended to offend and I question the value of such vacuous speech.

If you are simply out to cause offence then you are sowing division, particularly in the case of a racially motivated call to genocidal violence.

Therefore I assert that a community should have the right to rule on issues of free speech. This authority should come from the community and be directly answerable to the community, and not come from a top down hierarchical structure - i.e. a state.

The notion of free speech, per se, is meaningless. Humans exist socially, cheek by jowl, as communal animals. What we say is broadcast, whether directly or electronically, and thus impacts our neighbours and their neighbours. Thus to argue that speech should be free is no different than arguing I should be able to slap or punch you without consequence.

A case must be made for the speech in question. As communal animals our morals and rights are arrived at continuously through sustained conversation dialogue and agreement. This conversation cannot be maintained in the presence of unjustified hierarchical structures and authorities. If you assert the right to speak freely, I assert the right to impose consequences: to be offended and to impose or impart the consequences thereof (shame, for instance) upon you.

The idea that one cannot ever offend, that offensiveness is only perceived or taken, is arrant nonsense. Clearly I can intend offence with a particular statement: I can make a call for racial genocide to a person of said race and intend that person to be hurt or affected and traduced as a result. In response is he not free to give form to his displeasure? If not then we give up all pretence of rights laws and justice. Words, like actions, have consequences. Words give rise to actions.

"Free Speech" has become a shrill flag waved by a desperate, mainly online, community who wants to be taken seriously in public discourse. They appeal to a reductionist social dynamic that contends everyone is entitled to a seat at the table. What they actually advocate, surreptitiously flown in under the radar of "freeze peach", is enough to disqualify them. Why?

Because fascism - white supremacy, misogyny, homophobia and racism in general - is anathema to a functioning society. This is the paradox of freedom: there is no universal freedom for all. Where we bump shoulders against each other, as a communal beast, we must negotiate what's right. The idea of free speech is important, the reality of granting it to fascists is unreasonable.

They argue that everyone should be heard because they want a seat at the table, all the while advocating views that, are not only repugnant and destructive, but have already been defeated.

The conversation with and about fascists has already been had - including at gunpoint. There is no good argument for white supremacy, misogyny, homophobia and racism in general. We've had this conversation and we must not let those who think these things are acceptable take an inch on this.

But the internet makes this difficult. Now any keyboard warrior can be the equal of Chomsky by learning how and uploading basement invective with the merest nod to facts evidence or understanding. Then they can appeal to the confused bedraggled and misunderstood of this world who will fund their program of easy answers and simple explanations by giving them a monthly stipend in the thousands (if they're lucky) on Patreon. Those who administer that service seem to care little who they are enabling. Fascism is ok if it follows the rules? That's just an appeal to authority.

So when some wingnut from Scotland uploads a 'comedy' video where he repeatedly says "gas the jews" to a dog, we are meant to laugh, not be disgusted that someone thinks reaching for, of all things, that phrase, is acceptable. Because free speech innit. Comedy knows no bounds. Bollocks. Good comedy makes a point.

I refer to the case of Mark "Count Dankula" Meechan and his comedy racist dog.

And when you aren't a million miles away from people who do genuinely hold that view, you can't be surprised when people impugn your character.

It isn't a free speech issue when you seek, however misguidedly, to abuse it, and then claim it was meant as a private joke (uploaded on a private platform then later defended as a deliberate attempt to shock or offend).

There is no positive aspect to the phrase "gas the jews". It has only one connotation and only one, gruesome, historical context. To say it once might be forgivable - I don't think this guy should spend the rest of his days staring through bars - but to repeatedly say it with abandon and then argue, in his defence, that he should be able to say this consequence free is so childish as to be laughable.

But don't worry, gentle reader, those same people, the ones he isn't a million miles away from are happy to pay his legal bill in appealing a fine (a fine that, given what he's accrued thus far from said donors, he could have paid ten times over and just gotten on with his ridiculous life).

What these far right scumbags want isn't free speech, it's legitimisation. This is not a slippery slope fallacy to say: giving them that is the first step in the real curtailment of freedom. Maybe not for you, or me, right now, but in time. But certainly, initially, for a significant number of human beings, targets of their persecution based on ignorance sown by their ability to proliferate their views online.