Tag: vote

Where Did We Go Wrong?

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

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.

The Big Vote

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

Today is the day. The calm before the storm. It may feel a million miles away from our lives, and in many ways it is, but for the sake of politics as a sport you’ve got to root for something. It always feels a little strange, or like it’s none of my business who votes in another country. I’m not American and doubt I’ll ever live there but with it’s tentacles in a lot of pies worldwide it is something that will have a lasting affect on us all. That isn’t to say one is a good guy who warrants support and the other the bad, this isn’t Hollywood or the Bible, but it’s clear there’s an issue of morality involved. The deeply immoral one versus the one with a politicians sense of morality. It is also unclear whether voting one way will have a beneficial influence upon the politics or economy of my own country. Our government are on their knees begging not to be screwed over too much in a trade deal with the Americans but there’s little reason to suspect the outcome will vary greatly depending on this election. What it will affect though, is who has been emboldened these last four years.

It is clear that around the world we have seen dramatic shifts to the political, cultural and economic right. In some countries they have succeeded, think Trump, Brexit, Viktor Orban in Hungary and Bolsonaro in Brazil. In others they didn’t quite manage it, think Marie Le Pen, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, Matteo Salvini in Italy and following recent elections, Bolivia too. What Trump does is embolden not just the right, American politics in general is right wing already, he gives belief to the previously dismissed fringe elements outside his own borders too. The idea of Brexit had always drifted around the edges of British politics but more like a threat, even those campaigning for it seemed surprised by the outcome. You can’t blame Trump on something that occurred before his election, but it is important not to dismiss the influence his election has had since and on the belief of those who previously believed such things as impossible. There may be differences between Biden and Trump regarding healthcare, renewable energy and foreign policy, or at least on the surface, but Trump must not be elected because his mere existence in politics empowers those who should never even believe themselves capable of power let alone holding it. It may be easy to belittle and ridicule the crazies of the world but their current existence in world politics is having a lasting effect on us all.

This will not be resolved today by voting him out. Likely the election itself will not even be called by this time tomorrow. With Trump spending the last few months convincing his supporters postal voting lacks legitimacy, his approach to the post-election is already clear. The possibility that he has a lead denied him as these votes trickle in is very real and it’s a very believable line for him to take with a support already firmly entrenched in the world of deep state conspiracies. This is set up perfectly and he is not a man to go out with a whimper. Even if he accepts initial defeat, imagine for a second his Twitter feed is currently in someway shackled by those around him, can you imagine how a free unhinged sore loser Trump is likely to start behaving. With the passing of this election he is not going to simply disappear and could in theory become even more dangerous as he desperately tries to court an ever diminishing but increasingly devoted core support. He may be a ridiculous man but he’s dangerous too and stepping further into the unknown with such a person is a worrying prospect for us all.

A Heroes Welcome

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

As I drove through the small village near my home at about five minutes past eight this evening I noticed people had lined the street and started clapping as I approached. It’s good to have my existence celebrated finally. The strange thing is that having stopped their 8pm clap for carers session, some actually clapped in my direction as I drove by. I was in a delivery van so I wonder if they saw me as some kind of hero putting my life on the line to deliver them their bread. Still, I just drove on. I did contemplate hooting the horn as I drove through but I didn’t want to play along with whatever it is they’re doing. To be completely honest, I think the whole things a charade and it’s stupid. Don’t get me wrong I’m sure there are some exhausted and not to mention ill nurses out there and I appreciate and respect them for doing what their doing, there’s just something empty about this whole clapping show. Each Thursday at 8pm people line the streets, clap and bang pots. It’s a lovely gesture but I suspect for many it’s hollow.

It’s worth pointing out that were I live in both Northumberland and the Scottish Borders, Tory MPs were voted in to power recently. Perhaps these people banging pots could instead just not vote for them next time. Who gives a shit about what you think if you clap your hands and then vote for the very people who actively weaken those you’re clapping for. The mind numbing hypocrisy just seems lost and maybe that’s the worst part. I want to hang a banner from my window highlighting this but I’m concerned the attention it might draw to the bakery below me may not be ideal. I just want to slap everyone and point out that they’re idiots. There’s too many idiots.

People talk about ten years of Tory government and their ideological attacks on the NHS as being the reason for it’s current struggles but that’s not accurate. Either people have short memories or they’re just playing party politics. While I would trust Jeremy Corbyn with the NHS, I would be curious to know people’s opinions on Tony Blair’s version of a Labour Government. But really we can go back as far as Thatcher and the first real inroads of a neoliberal movement to destroy something that has helped so many. In truth actually we could go all the way back to Nye Bevan and the Tory government he had to fight against to establish the NHS we all love and cherish now. You see, it’s not just ten years of Tory austerity. Or forty years of neoliberalism. These bastards have had it in for free health care since the very beginning. Don’t believe their lies. And if you vote for them, save your breath, and save your effort each Thursday night. If you truly cared for the carers you wouldn’t be voting for that self-serving mob. It’s not bloody hard to understand.

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.