Tag: socialism

Still Counting….

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

It’s close. As I write these words we’re talking 224 for Biden and 213 for Trump with 270 the victory target. It’s very close. Trump has won Florida which is a big moment as well as Ohio which has a habit of picking the Presidents. While California became a Democrat stronghold as the Latino vote in the state increased, Florida is the opposite. With so many Cuban and Venezuelans fleeing their Socialist governments the accusation that Democrats are somehow socialist has pushed them into the hands of the Republicans these last two elections. The concept of socialism is so utterly manipulated and corrupted in America. Ohio being a big rustbelt state is suffering from the effects of neoliberalism as industry is shut down and moved to Asia. Trump played on ideas of nationalism and American jobs here once more. I’m sure these people would be just as happy, if not more so working in the renewable energy sector than down a coal mine.

But as I said it’s close and it’s likely going to depend on the outcome in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Both Biden and Trump have declared themselves victors, with Trump a little more vociferous in doing do. He has already sounded the fraud alarm and been heavily criticised for doing so by both sides. With the election being this close it is inevitably going to be contested by the losing side. We are potentially left with the situation that if Trump loses and contests, the conservative leaning and Trump filled Supreme Court could play a big part. Imagine for a second they found grounds to overturn it and award the election to Trump. Either way this isn’t going to be resolved anytime soon, expect potentially weeks of uncertainty and inevitable unrest.

What we must remember and this is perhaps even more concerning than discussing the actions of a corrupt court, or childish gangster-like President, is that in the previous election over sixty million people voted for him and the figure is likely going to be similar this time around. The fact that despite these last four years the result is going to be close is in itself scary but he may just be elected once more. Over sixty million people believe he has done well these last four years and is a person worth following. That’s one hell of a cult.

If one accusation of Trump is that he’s divisive, and it’s used as a criticism, that means the other side, the accusers, believe they aren’t. Everyone likes to believe they’re better than the other side, you have to otherwise you wouldn’t believe in what you do, but we’re going to have to put that aside. It’s not just the Americans it’s all of us. It takes both sides of course, and that can be the hard part but all we can really do is lead by example, prove we are the bigger people. Until the moment we give up the idea of being morally superior and that the inferior should come to us, or that we can convince them by berating them, this polarised divide will only increase. Some people like Trump and his hardcore following are untouchable, you can put Brexiteer loonies in that group too, but it’s the average person out there who is suffering and scared after forty years of economic devastation. We forget this because they distract us from the truth, but we’re all in this fight together. It is time to come together. This election is proof of that at the very least.

Split Peas & Split People

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This might end up being one of those pieces which becomes a few random thoughts that aren’t related but I feel are worth mentioning. To begin with I’m having a nightmare trying to cook split peas. I was hoping to make a nice soup with sweet potato and carrot but these bloody peas just won’t cook. I soaked them for over twenty-four hours and have now had them boiling away for at least an hour to no avail. I enjoy cooking. I also enjoy eating and this enjoyment of eating and of having no money over the years means I’m not a bad cook. I don’t make enough soups though. A split pea soup sounds just lovely.

I’m a total romantic. I’m listening to Spanish Civil War music and dreaming of what could have been. It was such a glorious and horrific time. We like to imagine antifa and the antifascist as some new phenomenon but it’s been going as long as the fascist gave themselves such a name. I have mentioned this particular war a few times but it really is another example of the people being screwed over by power. Not just power in Spain but through the neutrality of countries like the UK. Franco had Hitler’s Germans and Mussolini’s Italians, the Republic ended up having no choice but relying on the Soviets who took over as best they could and did more damage than help. France may have been a Republic but it was never built on the ideals of decentralisation and the anarcho-collectives. The European powers as ever showed their true colours, for old powers like the British, Fascism was infinitely more palatable than people having true power. These things are contagious, they must be quashed.

The Twentieth Century was just a long list of outside interference with vested interests. Allende, Chile and Pinochet is always an easy one to bring up but let’s not forget Cambodia and Margaret Thatcher’s refusal to recognise the new communist government that replaced the genocidal maniac Pol Pot. She was also a bit of a fan of apartheid South Africa. Let’s not forget the British influence upon the overthrow of a democratically elected government in Iran that wanted to nationalise oil production, the dictatorship of the new Shah, a western puppet, more agreeable. General Suharto in Indonesia who killed a quarter of the population but who provided the Australians, as well as the US and Brits, with cheap access to natural minerals. Yugoslavia, the last Socialist country in Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union was never allowed to exist. It is always easier to control smaller broken up and angry states than one larger one.

Talking of apartheid, Palestine is another obvious one. Obvious because it is still going on not because it is ever really talked about. You wouldn’t know it if you just watched western media but Israel have been bombing the shit out of the Gaza Strip for eight straight days now. Apparently Hamas fired two homemade rockets out and the Israeli’s felt the need to obliterate them in return. Eight days and not a peep.

Anyway my split peas have burnt. I got carried away and forgot to check on them. I give up.

BR#3 – Enemies

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I say book review but this is a play, and which it is a book, maybe I should call it Play Review or PR#1? Despite reading plays at school and studying drama it is only really in the last year I’ve discovered I really enjoy them. Obviously they’re different in how they share a story with the reader but without the descriptive part you take the time to enjoy the language of conversation and the scene set in this way. There is also the added bonus that you can read a play in a couple of hours and feel like you read a book in one day as opposed to one month which is extremely satisfying.

Enemies then is a play by the Russian playwright Maxim Gorky. It is set in 1905 just prior to the 1905 Revolution which was a precursor in a way to events in 1917. The early signs of later events are spread throughout the text, with the workers rebelling against the factory owners and the authoritarian response in return. This was a time of Tsarist oppression, as had always been but also of liberalisation of the country, or attempts at least. Gorky, who himself was involved in events in 1905, does a good job showing there to be little fundamental differences between the more dictatorial bosses and the ones who feign liberal ideals while continuing to depend upon the workers struggles for their vaulted positions. Plays can have a habit of lacking subtlety with characters as they have such a short time to get a message across and this play is no different. The bad guys are buffoons and the good attempting in vain to get across the message that change is on it’s way. Interestingly enough with the knowledge of hindsight, there is something eery in the premonitions about what is to come. This was written in 1906 after the 1905 Revolution was crushed but over ten years before the 1917 one succeeded and we all know what was to come afterwards.

Generally I’m a fanboy of Russian literature and plays, they seem to understand suffering in a way others can only guess at. While this is not grim, it is what it foretells that really makes you stand up and pay attention. You feel like you are watching through a window as the seeds of history are being planted. There is something admirable and courageous in it.

Interestingly enough the text I read was from a Royal Shakespeare Company performance from 1971 and quite remarkably looking at the cast list it included Helen Mirren, Patrick Stewart and Ben Kingsley. The seeds of revolution being planted by the seeds of future cinema. Quite unbelievable. To have been there and not known, can we ever at the time?

To The Ramparts Lads

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

This virus has seemingly thrown everything that we know in a blender and regurgitated nothing but confusion. People have seen what was once sure to them destroyed, panicked and hidden away in fortress’ made of toilet roll. I just read that as a result of an expected lack of applicants universities will be sharing out places equally amongst themselves for next year. Obviously the best will still get the best and so on but importantly none will be left behind and risk closure. This reminded me of a theme that seems to be spreading about how in times of crisis our nation states and governments who once firmly espoused and embraced free market capitalist economics are finding themselves surviving this pandemic not through the free market but through embracing more socialist methodologies. This first arose with governments protecting the wages of people forced to down tools with the help of this mythological eighty percent everyone is talking about but has never seen. The usual ignorant trope about who is going to pay for all the generosity is in normal circumstances bullshit but unfortunately here it becomes relevant; if nobody is working at all eventually the money and produce will run dry. I don’t class this generosity as socialism though, it may be a social support to the people but could equally be seen as a short term injection into the economy so as to protect it in it’s current form.

Regardless clearly free market economics doesn’t work when the perfect circumstances for it are not in place. The moment this happens people start to rely on the state and the state starts to tighten regulations and legislations. If the free market we are led to believe as the only possible existence clearly only works in certain exact circumstances, and even then clearly not for everybody and at the expense of many, then perhaps we’re currently living in the wrong circumstances. Perhaps we should be looking at a more robust economic system that can withstand crisis and not rely on – cough cough – handouts. Some would argue that another system would not work in these societies we’ve created but if we’ve created these societies we can create others. These may support other economic models and not free market economics. Free market capitalism would not be viable just as more equal economic models apparently aren’t now. It all depends upon the prism you view it through and the foundations you rely upon. All that is clear though is that the very economic model that usually vilifies handouts requires them when the perfect conditions for it’s existence are not met. Perhaps it’s time to stop relying on something so flimsy for something so important. If a new society needs to be created, well then, a new society it is.