Tag: Conservatives

Adios Muthafucka

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

It’s about bloody time but according to various news outlets Biden has finally been declared the winner. It has only been about an hour but the internet has gone wild in celebration; memes flying out left, right and centre. The laughter has begun. After four years of jokes tinged with an air of war about them they already feel more fun. People need to let off steam after four years of political bewilderment and horror. The war goes on though. Not only with Trump in the short term as he contests the election but when he refuses to concede. Trump will never concede. He might walk out but he’ll never concede, and likely there will be subtle elements of force at play when he does finally vacate the building. Even then the fight goes on. His legions of fanboys hanging on his every tweet. Waiting on the order to go out and embarrass themselves further in public. It will be interesting to see how quickly people start deserting him though. He’s going to die an embittered lonely old man.

Yet the fight goes on. In America, you now have to deal with the tyranny of centrism. The empty beliefs of people who like everything very much as it is and will withstand any attempts at change. Those foolish enough to not learn the lessons of Trump and what led to him coming to power in the first place. In Britain we won’t stop Brexit but we have to somehow deal with our own version of a government that just does as it feels, one never really held to account despite the glaringly obvious. We have to deal with an entire media incapable of upholding even the most basic tenets of journalism. And we have to deal with an opposition in the image of a centrist like Biden, one also likely unwilling or incapable of dealing with the issues which have allowed for events like Brexit and the extreme fringe wing of a political party now running a country.

This same situation seems to be repeated across the western world. When Emmanuel Macron came to power in France at the expense of the far-right Marie Le Pen, it felt like another short term sticky plaster with nothing to offer but empty charm and words. The sticky plaster can never heal the wounds of a people being left behind by an economic and social ideology that relies on them being behind. All bubbles must burst. Trump was no fluke. Brexit is no accident. Marie Le Pen will return. And then what? More sticky plasters? We celebrate tonight but the evidence will be in what comes next. That’s what it comes down to. With all that in mind though let’s enjoy this moment, that orange prick is finally gone or at least he’s not in power anymore. You know how it goes; “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap…”.

Where Did We Go Wrong?

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Is it possible to talk about anything else right now? Covid-19…Palestine…god forbid people remember Brexit is just around the corner…the spectre of climate change looming around the other. Our newsfeeds have been taken over by the finals of some political sports tournament which has forgotten to include a referee in the rules. The people have been given the honour apparently but we all know the fallacy behind that. It’s ticking along though. Georgia has just swung for Sleepy Joe, others will likely follow. This was always going to happen as the Democratic heavy postal vote count was done. It feeds into The Donald’s narrative but nobody except his support take that or him seriously. Unfortunately his support is seventy million people but lets not think about that. Actually we probably should.

It’s good to start on the point that even though Biden is on something like seventy-three million it doesn’t mean the country is split fifty – fifty. It’s not even my country but it has such a reaching influence we treat it as such in these moments. Of course not everyone with a political opinion votes and voter suppression is very real. Trump himself has been quoted as saying that if the entire country voted it would likely be the end of the Republican party. That doesn’t say much for conservative values, in fact it suggests these values are held by an active minority. The same accusation applies to the UK as we endure our own version of Trump with our departure from the EU. An unknown future of extreme neoliberalism, not that the EU isn’t neoliberal because it very much is, and tax haven UK. Not paying taxes sounds great until public services become underfunded and it’s never the lower or middle earners who ever really benefit from tax cuts.

But seventy million people believe he has done well. That is serious. To break it down some will just not like Biden, some the Democrats, a large number who have simply voted Republican for generations, some through economic hardship are desperate and of course those who see The Donald as some cult like demi-god. Regardless of their reasons, they’re still willing to vote for someone who is perplexing in his corrupt self-serving lies. I don’t think highly of centrist politics, of Democrats like Biden or Clinton, but Trump? How do you get in the head of people willing to support him to understand where the left have gone wrong. Because ultimately it comes down to that. Biden scraping over the line against someone like Trump isn’t a success, it should be the bare minimum. Has it got so bad we’re willing to celebrate the bare minimum as some kind of great success. Is that all we have left?

In the UK working class Labour heartlands are switching to a Conservative party that will only ever look after it’s own. Where have the left gone wrong, because they have. We have Trump and Brexit as proof of that. Yes the media are corrupt and capable of manipulating, think Sanders and Corbyn, and while they have the money to get their message further, maybe we just need a better and new message to counteract that. Something is not working. We need to find out what this is otherwise it will just repeat itself, or likely next time be far worse.

Biden And The Trumpet

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When we – the Brits – had our General Election last December I got excited. I even got caught up in it a little. Deep down I don’t think I ever really expected Corbyn to win, there were just too many things against him such as half his own party, all the other MP’s and the entirety of the mainstream media. But I had hope. He was a man offering something different to this neoliberal shit show we as a people have been enduring since before I was born with the election of Margaret Thatcher. He seemed to actually give a shit about people and that it turns out is an extremely rare quality in a politician, at least a successful one anyway.

I watched some of the debates between him and the Conservative candidate Boris Johnson. There were moments the whole thing frustrated me, mainly Johnson being his buffoonish self but I was also frustrated with Corbyn for not just turning round and calling him a total lying prick. He didn’t even call him a buffoon. Corbyn it turns out was a man of integrity, he refused, even when it could have benefited him. Last night, Joe Biden had no such problems.

I didn’t watch the whole debate because I’m on Greek time and have better things to do than rise at whatever ridiculous time it would have been. I did watch the highlights and I know that makes it seem even more exciting than it really was, but wow, it was exciting and offensive. Trump behaved as everyone expected him to. He behaved as he always has. Biden didn’t seem to expose his aging mind, which is the main accusation levied against him. He also didn’t get a chance to with the constant interruptions, and constant may even be an understatement. That was no debate, it wasn’t even an argument, it was two men shouting at each other.

Trump was clearly bullied when young, probably by his father, about being dumb. His response to the smart jibe was classic “I’m like the smartest President in the history of Presidents” as he convinces nobody but himself. His “Stand back and stand by” message to the far right Proud Boys was concerning. It definitely seemed like an order to mobilise and be ready. But then Biden is awful too, it would be like voting for Keir Starmer and the only thing worse than that would be voting for Boris Johnson.

But this is politics now. Trump is a star of reality television and politics nearly everywhere has already gone down the cult of personality route, why not take it further and turn it into a reality television series. It’s great entertainment though, that is the truth. He get’s good ratings. American politics is going to have to completely reinvent itself after he’s gone because they can’t try and make it even more exciting but it can’t become boring either. Some middle ground respectability just to give everyone a break and a chance to breathe. It even makes our politics and politicians seem credible, and they’re not, not even in the slightest. There are five weeks until the election, the game has now really begun and it’s going to get messy(er).

Brexit Anyone?

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Another government u-turn. There have been more, I know there have, but for the love of me right now I can’t remember what they were. Perhaps they’ll come to me. I wonder what it is that leads politicians into u-turns because they’re renowned for only doing so when forced. Perhaps that is what it was. The government were forced into it. There has been one hell of a public outcry this last week so it was coming. Perhaps one of the reasons they don’t like doing it too often is that it leads to suggestions they don’t quite know what they’re doing. Surely they should be making well researched and thought out proposal, ones which have survived the scrutiny of experts. It does suggest they may be incompetent, although I’ve suggested in the past I’m cautious of giving them that excuse. But they do seem to act either on a whim or in a rather morally repellent way that looks more like an ideological whim. They are arguably a one cause government though so it’s no surprise they are incapable of doing much else. A government for crisis they are not. Saying that they don’t even seem like a government capable of fulfilling their one cause either.

Ah Brexit. Have we forgotten about Brexit as we all die of the sniffles. It does feel a little like it’s been brushed under the carpet and while that may not always be such a bad thing, when it’s something so potentially devastating and something which has a deadline, it’s probably time we started focusing on it again. The ostrich in the sand trick once again won’t work here. It is only slightly over four months away. Only four months I repeat. Renowned negotiators they are not. Shall we just prepare to crash out on World Trade Organisation terms and stumble dazed into the arms of the Americans. It does look suspiciously as if that was the plan all along and they seem to be doing little about preventing it. They have Covid-19 as an excuse for not getting a trade deal, although it’s not an excuse. They’ll also have the virus as an excuse for an economy that will be the ashes Jacob Rees Mogg’s father always dreamt of. To rebuild society in their image. Begone hard fought for rights. The twentieth century never happened. Long live Queen Victoria and the poor house. Now get back to work peasant, know your place, my lawn won’t cut itself.

Bojo The Wildling

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It appears Bojo came north of the wall today. He mingled with those pesky wildlings he ordinarily has no time for. When I say north of the wall, I mean nearly as far north as possible. He went all the way to the Orkney Islands. One suspects this wasn’t because he loves Scotland so much he wants to see as much of it as possible of course, it’s a lot easier to avoid the baying crowds when they consist of Angus and his dog than what they would be were he to brave Edinburgh, Glasgow or just about any place with a population capable of creating an angry mob.

He finally visited Scotland on the one year anniversary of his still slightly inexplicable rise to power. If that was supposed to fill us with some sense of honour that he would bless us with his presence on such an important day, all it did was remind us it’s taken him so long to come north. It took him one whole year despite the fact there was an actual election midway through the year. Perhaps his no show in that time was down to his love of the Union and the damage his presence would do to it.

Undeniably there is truth in that. The latest polls, and there’s more than one of them, puts support for independence at 54%. Nicola Sturgeon may try and take credit for this but when a country votes in droves for anyone but the man elected as leader yet has this very man foisted upon them it’s quite easy to see why opinion polls are only moving in one direction. When you see a country being dragged out of the European Union despite voting to stay in it, then expecting to be forced to endure an inevitable ‘no deal’ Brexit as the zealots in government return us to Year Zero and the ashes they hope to grow a new and glorious society out of, it’s fair to say the Scottish people want nothing to do with it.

Even the coronavirus has played it’s part. Nicola Sturgeon herself is very divisive, usually down the Independence / Unionist line in all fairness, but compared to Boris’ fumbled mumbled approach in confusing an entire nation on what’s expected of them while not actually doing anything himself, she has looked decisive and strong. She didn’t even have to really do anything, just be clear about what she meant when she did make a statement. Clearly there is something dark going on in the corridors of Whitehall and Number Ten, it’s no surprise more and more Scots are wanting out.

As Sturgeon said;

“I welcome the PM to Scotland today. One of the key arguments for independence is the ability of Scotland to take our own decisions, rather than having our future decided by politicians we didn’t vote for, taking us down a path we haven’t chosen. His presence highlights that“

It says a lot for a man that the opposition openly admit he does them more good than they do themselves. There is no way for sure to say one way or another whether Scotland becoming a free state would work in the short, medium or long term, and while it’s dangerous to suggest or believe that happiness is just waiting around the corner, let’s be honest anything has got to be better than this lot right now.

I remember the day after the independence referendum in 2014, I was in France picking grapes and I barely said a word all morning. I was infinitely disappointed that a people had rejected not the opportunity of independence because what is that really, but that they had rejected the chance to even attempt improving their lot. A people chose fear over hope. But who knows, there may just be light at the end of this tunnel of a horror show after all.

A Fine Mob

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Our current version of a government in the UK are a concerning bunch. I have spent these last six months largely unsurprised by their bumbling attempt at government. While it is possible to give them some slack over the coronavirus handling, their response has been slow, inept and ultimately a failure. It is not just Covid-19 though, having taken us out of the EU they seem reasonably content to do absolutely nothing about creating a smooth departure and transition. Apparently negotiations are non-existent to obstinately deadlocked. Of course the EU bares some responsibility for this but you do get the feeling that this is exactly what the government wants and this is playing out perfectly for them. We crash out, become an international tax haven for the wealthy and sell our arse to the Yanks. In that case my accusation of bumbling is inaccurate, they are clearly doing a great job from their perspective.

What grabbed my eye today though and what led to this piece was that they announced there would be fines for parents whose children didn’t return to school in September when they reopen. This is a remarkably aggressive approach to something which should be handled with far more care and which exposes the underlying approach to governance they feel to be right. If you’re unable to persuade people with your argument then bully them into doing it. Telling parents they will be fined for acting potentially against their own health interests is nothing less than bullying and will have disproportionate ramifications for financially poorer sections of society. Headteachers have called them out on it as have elements of the media. This is one more step on their road to handling the return to school issue so terribly. Was it the first of June, or maybe earlier, that schools were supposed to return and teachers unions who were demonised by some, forced the government into a rethink. It’s not impossible to see another Marcus Rashford style u-turn even though governments hate to be seen doing so.

A government which seems incapable of persuading people their arguments are right will eventually have to try a new approach, aggression in the form of fines being the form this time. Whatever happened to us working together. They are merely slipping deeper into their bunker and adopting an ever more aggressive siege mentality. Whether you agree with them ideologically, it is without doubt not a way to run government and while it may help short term survival, if it carries on like this it won’t be another four years until the next election. The problem is by then they can and most likely will have done enough damage that it’ll take decades to reverse it. This is a long war. Perhaps even an indefinite one.

The Final Cries Of Empire

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Let’s be honest you’ll struggle to find many complaints from me about the toppling of a statue in honour of a slave trader in Bristol or the latest vandalism of a statue in honour of Winston Churchill, the aptly entitled ‘complex character’. I was chatting with someone today who seemed to agree with me on those points but who also mentioned that war memorials had been vandalised and that she disagreed with attacks on these as they honour people who fought for our freedom. This exhaustively well worn and manipulative word makes me cringe but I can understand why she felt it unnecessary. To understand why people may damage memorials then we must look beyond the obvious surface rational for these protests.

Clearly black lives do in fact matter and the police are responsible for excessive violence. This violence which comes in many forms only serves to exacerbate a systemic racist imbalance within society. This alone is worth rioting over. It’s abhorrent and urgent change has never not been required. The issue of how we are in this situation though relates to our imperial past as a nation. While the Americans may have been conquering the world for the last eighty years, Britain got there long before those upstarts from over the pond even existed. The statue in Bristol celebrated a slave trader who operated in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. Britain used slavery in the same way modern corporations and their national protectors use Asian sweatshops and cheap African labour in mines. These modern corporate empires are built on the back of the economic descendants who died on the sugar plantations. They also mined the lithium for the battery in this laptop I’m writing on which mustn’t be overlooked even if I inevitably will with any tangible actions beyond sentiment. While war memorials honour those who fought Nazi tyranny or were massacred in the trenches of Verdun, they are also emblems of an imperial past, one which relied upon the extortion of other nations and played upon the notion of a supreme race of white Britons. While they may represent your Grandfathers, as they do for me in many ways, for others they’re nothing more than a constant reminder of the injustice inflicted upon their ancestors which is still being felt in communities across the country and the world today.

There will be narratives pushed on these issues, the Conservative MP’s making an embarrassing self serving show of scrubbing the graffiti from Churchill’s statue doing just that. This concept of freedom means nothing if it doesn’t apply to all, people need more than sentiments. Once you believe, even unconsciously, that there are a deserving free and an undeserving then you’ve already lost the argument. I’ll leave you then with the quote made by the previously mentioned ‘complex character’ in 1937 to the Palestine Royal Commission;

“I do not admit that the dog in the manger has the final right to the manger even though he may lain there for a long time…I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.”

With Crisis Comes Change

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And just like that the attacks have begun. The government has been accused of all things recently, ‘inept‘ being an unfortunately common one when it refers to their response to a pandemic. Generous certainly isn’t one despite their attempts at passing off a £330 billion pledge to businesses and small businesses as some kind of benevolent offering to their subjects. The fact people are going to have to pay it back, and at a higher rate in line with inflation, suggests they vary considerably to the charitable offering made when the banks were bailed out during the last recession. We’re all in this together apparently but don’t forget nothing is for free, unless you’re part of the international banking cartel or have friends in high places.

But back to the attacks which I managed to digress from almost immediately after raising their existence. There has been a lot of talk about governments using current events to push through legislation they would have previously been unable to. Milton Friedman, the father of Neoliberal free-market economics, and the man therefore responsible for this shit show of a world economy, suggested it was. “Only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around”. It appears some of these ideas that have been waiting around are being given their moment to be pushed through. In the US Trump has been suggesting payroll tax cuts which will destroy social security. In Israel proposals have been pushed through to monitor peoples phone much more easily using legislation usually reserved for post terrorist attack hysteria.

And now in the UK the government are attempting to push through the Civil Contingencies bill which will give police and immigration officers more powers to detain suspected carriers of the virus “to take them to a suitable place to enable screening and assessment” for an as yet unspecified amount of time. If someone is clearly ill and a danger to those around then it is fair for them to be taken somewhere they can get help and prevent them from harming others but this bill is dangerously ambiguous. Throw in the rather alarming length of two years that it will be in law, considering very worst case scenarios for this virus stand at eighteen months, and considering it could simply be put up for renewal each month as it’s required and the cocking of your head starts to feel justified.

This bill like everything currently in Parliament is being pushed through without debate and without being voted on. In times of crisis we need to strengthen democracy not weaken it, and certainly not use it as an opportunity to empower and enrich those already holding a disproportionate amount of power and wealth. It may be worth keeping an eye on what isn’t reported or perhaps what is whispered between the hysterical shouting. You may just start to spot a few new ideas that look as if they’ve suspiciously had a layer of dust blown off them. There’s nothing like a little crisis for some change after all.

Election 2019

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Today is the big day then as we decide upon the fate of the world. Hyperbole aside with today being voting day in what has become a highly polarised country there is a sense of enormity in the air. Of course walking down the street in my little town it is just another day but it may be worth it just for twenty four hours to shut out the voices whispering the fearful possibility that nobody actually cares and it’s all in the little microcosm bubble of my facebook feed.

The problem is I’m still undecided who I’m going to vote for bizarrely enough. To vote with my heart and support Labour or with my head and vote for the centrist Scottish National Party who are most likely the only ones capable of defeating the current Conservative incumbent in my constituency. However while Scottish nationalism may be a friendly cuddly version of nationalism, it is still nationalism and that is something I try to steer clear of. Labour say all the things I want to hear at least but in my countryside area they don’t stand much of a chance. The Liberal Democrats who are also centrists, but slightly more to right than the SNP, are the more traditional rivals to the Conservatives but fell to the wayside after their disastrous coalition with the Conservatives at the beginning of the decade. A coalition that was disastrous for the Lib Dems and a raving success for the other side tells you all you need to know about supporters of each. Their votes either went Conservative or more commonly to the SNP however it will be interesting to see how the share is now. Certainly that SNP vote has dropped in the Borders, where I’m still registered, as few want independence and so I suspect tactical voting which recommends SNP may actually be inaccurate in the end. In that case can we expect the traditional Lib Dems to make a revival here? I just don’t know as they’ve failed so miserably in the campaign nationally and seem to appeal to nobody.

It pains me to say it but I doubt there is much other that a Tory victory here, nationally though I think predictions are folly. Despite the news channels pretence of balance they seem to be pushing an agenda, but then both sides say that. In any case why not vote for who I really want, my vote will probably be a waste anyway. Either way this election goes, the best part of it is that it has politicised a whole new generation of voters. They complained the young don’t care about anything, the media pushed the same debasing narrative while ignoring the queue’s and printing pictures of pets at empty poll booths. The world is changing, communication is changing and maybe one day narratives and those fighting instinctive change will also change too. What a ride it promises to be.

Change

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This time next week I’ll most likely be standing in a polling booth. We have our general election next Thursday and it is not too unacceptable to be liberal with the superlatives when describing how massive it is and how it has the potential to shape the future in so many different ways. It is probably also an opportune moment to mention I’ll be putting my theoretical belief in anarchism aside, theoretical because I don’t do enough in life to allow it to become practical, and participate in what is probably a momentary denial of the pointlessness of this whole charade.

This election is massive because we are are standing at a t-junction. Neo-liberalism has done it’s proponents well these last forty years as big business and the wealthy have cemented their authority and wealth but theres not much left to ring out of everyone else who has been left behind. We are faced with the choice between turning right at the junction and electing the Conservatives who wish remove us from the European Union, an organisation I’m not necessarily fond of as it represents the tyranny of centrism, but moves us closer to being a tax haven bent over a table with an American dick up our arse. Turning left and following Labour as together we take a step back to a time before a neoliberal agenda sold everything but which probably should be left in the annuls of a grey and failing 1970s. It does however represent an inclusive compassionate agenda which does actually seem to give a shit about the people of the country and not just as tools to retain power and maybe I am being unfair with the 1970s comment as I agree with many of the policies but perhaps it’s time to look forward, readdress our relationship to capital and left wing notions of full employment and actually revolutionise how we live our lives and exist of a daily basis. We need something radical now more than ever. Something is very wrong, we can all see and feel it and it’s one of the reasons people are going and doing extremes like voting for populists and Brexit. People are rightly pissed off and it’s just unfortunate they don’t realise all they’re doing is voting for the wolf that has already bitten off their legs while convincing them it must have been that racist anti-racist sheep who couldn’t possibly be trusted with his own wool and refuses to give up the self-determining shears as he eyes up your starved withering free arm. The choice of continuing the nightmare that has happened or the fear of one that may happen.

That is why this is such a massive election. Much can and will change because centrism doesn’t work, it just makes everything pretty and people have had enough. However, is that enough and are people really ready and willing for the change in themselves that will be required for anything worthwhile to genuinely actualise. It is unfortunate that people have seemingly lost their sense of direction at this most crucial of moments. It is also debatable whether they ever had it in the first place.