Start of Summertime

Today is a nice day. You can tell as much as the incessant breeze isn't as annoyingly cold on your skin, particularly around the neck. What a blessed relief.

Winter is a difficult period at the best of times. Even more so at the worst. Our leaders don't care of course, insulated in their ivory towers they pass the time by burning money and generating energy from laughing at us. What's the latest scandal? The scarlet woman! And she's American, too! Tory voters won't blame Boris, despite philandering and financial irregularity being his MO, they will, through ingrained cultural misogyny, blame her. She led him astray, a married man! The hussy! I have no doubt that will be the narrative played out. A man who wanted, then, to be PM with such a lack of self control he cheated on his wife and paid thousands to keep the mistress sweet. We're back to the days of Tory sleaze once again. Last time it was the PM shagging that Currie creature, now it's Boris' turn. These people are repellent in every way. 

But the Tories stand by each other. It's nothing virtuous; birds of a feather and all that. They only do it to keep in power, a lesson Labour hasn't learned. They won't, we have the dismal, repeated spectacle of Jess Philips bemoaning the state of the nation (correctly) under this government, yet shockingly oblivious to her part in it, as someone who's spent four years carving away at her own leadership. Publicly siding with the enemy to air her hatred, actual hatred, for Jeremy Corbyn. No wonder Mogg thought it was amusing, the sad part is that she clearly doesn't recognise the class warfare being perpetrated. She can't possibly have thought she was winning them over. They ain't your friend Jess, and they never will be. Labour are massively tanking and will do disastrously in the elections. Then, wither Starmer?

Lockdown restrictions somewhat ease today. Meaningless really, how many working class even have access to affordable or free outdoor facilities? I guess it's ok if you're a wealthy enough to pay for access to a tennis court. Besides which, people have been meeting outdoors throughout; this is meaningless. Kids hang around together constantly. No one stops them. People regularly hang around outside the cafe getting their takeouts. All this is just performative. Still it generates some prime middle class copy for the likes of the Guardian. Those struggling with no support continue to get ignored.

End of Wintertime

Aka the start of Summertime. Born in cold wind and rain. I guess the same as it ever was. Now with a backdrop of desperation as police, hapless, turn to violence. As ever. Directed by the state hiding the legislation they fear they need under the hood of pandemic control. Insidious, this forces those of us who care about the health of the community, to question the idea of necessary measures. But the truth is governments always use crises to slip through policies they know to be unpopular. So it is now. 

This isn't just unpopular legislation, it's the means of an increasingly desperate government to retain control in the coming period. Things are falling apart. We've seen them turn to jingoism, an invisible war based around waving the most flag. They compete with each other while slowly dripping this nationalist poison into the public psyche where it will find willing purchase in the minds of their loyal subjects. If only the protesters had a sense of national pride they'd be happy with an authoritarian policing bill preventing dissent. Protesting the right way becomes the wrong way. Then there is no right way.

Just a thought.

Weekender of the Second Year

So far, our vaccine rollout has been stellar. No credit to the government of course, since it's the NHS that is in charge here. Not the dodgy private sector whose pockets the government lined throughout 2020. However have we overreached ourselves? We know the vaccine, the full treatment, requires 2 does. Have we sacrificed the future for short term gain? The EU seems to think so and is, perhaps chillingly, warning we will struggle to make up that shortfall. I hope that's not a threat, but it could just be the stark reality. After all Boris is myopic; looking for popularity in the now.

It feels more and more as if we're on a knife edge. There will be covid present in the community for a long time to come. A live spark always waiting to catch light. The so-called freedom lovers in the anti lockdown movement won't like that truth, because ignoring it is what incites it. Then we have to lockdown, again. This seems to be our only strategy. Bump from pillar to post in the covid pinball machine, like a drunk trying to walk home. No one seems to want to adopt policy to deal with this. As more things threaten to open it is inevitable the spark will flame somewhat. 

Our society is simply incompatible with pandemics. I would certainly agree endless lockdowns aren't the answer. Even the experts agree on that. Lockdown was never meant to be the default. But the government, through its actions, seems to disagree. The fundamental crisis revealed by covid can only be resolved through the removal of the capitalist mode of production and its class system. We need power over our lives at a time like this, but instead we're told greed is good. This is the voice of desperation. A party with no ideas resorting to nationalism and jingoistic dick waving. It's pathetic; the paucity of ideas from the monied elite. 

This crisis isn't going away anytime soon, and certainly not with the heat.

Year 2, Where We Are

With even a small, relatively speaking, amount of Covid in the country any amount of unlocking is going to be problematic. The question is how much can the Tories get away with versus how much they'd like to. We know, from experience last year, that there is a tangible point that comprises "too much". Can that be reached before sufficient people are vaccinated? There is no doubt going to be a ton of pressure from the cranks to unlock as much as possible.

What of the vaccine? Do we know how long it lasts or its efficacy in stemming transmission? Unfortunately the only way to find out is in the grand social petri dish. Finding out the hard way, but that may well end up being too late. But eventually we will vaccine everyone, hopefully. Then it's a case of how long will the vaccine last? It seems agreed that boosters will be needed regularly, applying those will likely take as long as the vaccine initially. That's an assumption, but everyone will have to go through getting a shot again. That is, as we've seen, quite the task. This means those initially protected will find they become vulnerable again, and so it could be a rolling, endless, task of vaccinating people. Can we really keep the virus suppressed in the meantime.

The problem with that is if you give people an inch they will, as the saying goes, take a mile. We know that, as soon as restrictions lift, people will go out en masse, like a violent exhalation. We also know that means an increased number of people not obeying the rules. I've seen it on the bus in the period before this lockdown; people closing the windows because it was cold (not an issue now), taking masks off to scoff, etc.  All of this will happen, no matter how uncomfortable it makes us feel.

Year 2

Another night with protest in Bristol. One has to ask: if not for the presence of the police would there have been trouble? I think not. The only time there has been trouble was in their presence, because of their presence. This isn't the 'thin blue line', protecting us from a great scourge. Keeping us safe in our beds and production units. It's enforcing the will of an increasingly tyrannical state. Yet its defenders are those who appeal to the one thing we stand to lose as the means to show our approval. They also seem to think that, once we've 'had our say', we need to obey. This is sinister. Firstly politicians are meant to be public servants. No one really believes this of course. But they aren't put there to rule us. So if we don't want our rights taken from us, who are they to do so?

There is no mutual concept of rights. These things we call rights are only ever taken. We aren't 'given' them by a government. They sometimes lend them to us, repealing them when it sees fit with no accountability. This is why there is struggle. Rights that secured the means for the one taking them away right now to vote to do so. The real problem is the media and its process off what Chomsky calls manufacturing consent. They even seek to co-opt the protest to this end: "these riots prove exactly why we need the legislation". Why does no one question so transparent a lie? There are already laws to stop smashing windows and punching cops (assuming that happened). If there weren't what then would the problem be? This bill doesn't seek to address that, it just seeks to criminalise protest entirely, leaving it at the whim of a racist institution to decide what working class people can and can't do in their own streets and communities. 

This summer will be decisive. The government pledged to roll back the lockdown; that the direction of travel would be one way. But something has changed in recent days. Not just the heavy handed provocations of the police, but to the virus. Europe faces a serious third wave and where Europe begins, Britain ends. So it is likely that it will strike here, led by a variant created through our government's mishandling of the virus. Turns out it wasn't China that weaponised a world wide plague; it was Britain on Plague Island. Through our own clownish arrogant leaders. Whether or not the vaccine will make a difference is the great unknown, but we stand on a knife edge. Johnson's tone of recent days seems to hint at the inevitability of this third wave. But will he dare to open too much up? Of course he will. THe problem is, whilst the virus is still present - and it is - there will always be the threat of too much. Schools seem for now to be ok, but add to that shops and hospitality, indoor meetings and sports etc. Somewhere along that line there will have to be a limit. What that is only time will tell, but there is no doubt we aren't ready for everything.

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.

This Is (almost) The End

Technically, though I can't be bothered to count, I will now have done 365 blog entries, of varying quality. I started on March 23rd, day of lockdown last year. Tomorrow is the anniversary; the day the world changed. What happens after tomorrow, I do not know.

For now, there have been riots. Not in celebration of my achievement in talking shit every day for a year. But in response to heavy handed policing in Bristol. I had no idea what was going on until I read about it on Twitter. How very 21st century. I don't live in the city. I do support the protest and here's why:

The media response will always be biased and never positive. There is never going to be a successful protest that the media will accept. A few sandwiches in Hyde Park on a summer's day is one thing, but it will achieve nothing. That is the paradox of protest. The fight for women to get the vote, now seen as universally (almost) a good thing, wasn't peaceful. Opinions change over time. Protest shoudl not be concerned with what's popular; the Tories are always going to push this bill through. That isn't made more likely because of last night, no matter how the media wilfully spins it.

It is therefore all the more dismal to see the massed ranks of the capitalist class align on this. From left to right the message was the same; vigorous pearl clutching and pretend shock. As if years of heavy handed policing, austerity, and class war, hadn't and don't exist. We expect this from the Tories, but when Labour hue and cry it shows that they either don't get it or want to be part of the capitalist class and don't recognise the reality.

Some people complain and say that this is just doing the Tories' job for them. This is dangerous and circular reasoning. They argue that it makes the case for the bill, when in fact it doesn't: smashing up cop shops and cars is already illegal. Do people not know this? Why are they arresting people then? What would they charge them with if it wasn't a crime? The problem is that protest is going to be framed negatively no matter what you do. It also conveniently ignores the role of the police in this. The protest had been happening throughout the today, peacefully. Then, when the riot goons wade in the mood changes. So who's to blame? 

This isn't about whether I should condemn or condone the actions. I have no interest in a polarised simpleton discourse. I see what happened as an inevitable expression of an oppressed society, treated like shit by the state and its agents. You won't read about that in the media, you'll just be treated to reportage designed to shock and make you angry. That's all the media exists to do. Billionaire media barons aren't your friend.