Tag: tyranny

This Way Please

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

Well we’re one step closer to a tyrannical regime. They’ve decided which direction we can now walk up the street. That would be an example of using an exaggerated statement to belittle a potentially legitimate argument on something ridiculous. Of course we’re not one step closer to a tyrannical regime because of this but it is ridiculous. I should probably explain a little more on what I’m talking about. As you can see from the picture they have created a one way system on the pavements. On one side of the road you can walk up the street and on the other you can walk down. Apparently it’s okay to go into shopping centres and queue outside Primark for hours but god forbid you face someone on the street as you walk towards and pass them. I had a similar opinion on having a one way system in the supermarket, all it seemingly did was confuse and stress people as they did huge laps just to pop back one aisle because they forgot something, or lingered behind as they weren’t sure if it was acceptable to pass you. Saying that I’m not dismissing the fact that statistically even if minimal it could probably have help prevent the spread in some way but it seemed like slight overkill. Outside on the street though; give over.

It’s very easy to get excited by something like this and use it as another example of people slowly being controlled, or getting used to being controlled in the most minute way. But all this is is some bureaucrat sitting in an office somewhere trying to justify the existence of their job and people spurring them on because they know they can use it as an example of some kind of action. Make no mistake something like this is for nothing other than appearance sake, a cosmetic little plaster to cover a deep wound. Actual action would be proper testing not just smudged empty figures, it would be actual PPE for nurses, doctors and care home assistant, it would be a contact tracing app that is ready before November not nearly a year after the first official case in the UK.

This nonsense outside on the street is nothing other than a local version of the same thing we have on a national level. Everything, literally everything, the government have done in combating the spread of Covid-19 has lacked even the remotest amount of substance. It has been enforced reactive empty action for nothing other than appearance sake and we have the highest death rate in the world as a result. Now we have a supposedly skint, when it suits them, council taking two days and four workers to put up and spray a few signs on one little street. Three months of nothing and now just as everything is reopening and the two metre distance rule probably dropped, they finally act. If as the Economist described it; “The government played a bad hand, badly”, the local council it appears don’t even know how to play. Or at least not the game they should be playing.

Elizabeth, Victor & Some Contradictions

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

As I stare blankly at the screen I realise I have nothing to say. So why say anything at all. I have to don’t you know. I have to because I decided I have to. The plan had been to write this before I went and made pizzas but I have been having too much of a nice time sitting around in my reading corner I lost track of time. It turns out too that I do actually have enough books for a suitable stack, one which now doubles as my coffee cup stand for extra pleasure. I also bought two plants yesterday and have promptly named them today. They go by Elizabeth and Victor. I’ll leave you work out which book I have been enjoying in my new armchair reading corner. It’s really nice having plants, how I waited this long is beyond me. They add an extra layer of life to a house even if they are from Lidl. I see them as rescue plants. They’re going to recover and grow into something beautiful, in their own right that is, however they see fit to evolve.

The idea then had been to just quickly introduce todays piece which was going to be on one quick idea I had while making pizzas but I seem to have gotten a little carried away and written half of today’s piece. It can be like this with anything though; we use so much energy avoiding starting something because we imagine it’s going to be exhausting or beyond us but the only exhausting bit is the avoidance and it’s only beyond us because we avoid doing it. There was a period in which I decided an approach to completing both tasks and pleasures which involved effort was to do them the moment they entered my mind. I believed that they entered my mind because it was now I had to do them and not wait until later once I had finished procrastinating. I still kind of believe it but only kind of because my attempt only lasted about half an hour on the two separate occasions I tried. Our abilities to put so much effort into avoiding effort is quite remarkable. There really are so many levels to human fallibility, we’re such complex creatures that these simplistic boxes we all stuff ourselves and others into do everybody such a disservice.

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Well I didn’t leave much room for my moment of wisdom and understanding I had while making pizzas. It does mean though I don’t have to write much now I’m back in and it’s late so maybe I’ll have my first early night in a while. Drum roll please….in light of these VE celebrations going on today, why is it people who seem most intent and proud of celebrating the victory of freedom over tyranny as it is described, are also the ones happiest to support people and laws which aim to take away our liberties and take us further down the path towards possible tyranny. It is a generalisation and a stereotype, but it is also an accurate representation of many people. There just seems to be something odd and contradictory about it. That was my thought.

Change

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

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.