Slouching Onwards

Tomorrow it's another trip to the GP to probably waste my time on the fruitless quest to get a diagnosis for a condition that I don't even really understand. There seem to be so many 'neuro diverse' (and I'm probably misusing that term) conditions that diagnosis is impossible; I suspect most such people probably have bits of all different conditions - different being the issue. These, like me, I feel, are people that just feel permanently and detrimentally out of sorts. It's difficult to explain, like trying to imagine what it's like to be a cat for instance, but it's been there throughout my entire life. Unfortunately the one time I try to get this recognised I'm forced to deal with a system that is prejudiced against recognising anything that might be seen to inhibit one's productivity; one's ability to fit into the mainstream mass production line.

I don't really think I have the energy to get into it with her tomorrow. She'll most likely keep me waiting; this GP has a habit of keeping people waiting for at least 90 minutes if not longer. I'm sure that can't be permissible, but, despite complaining, they never do anything about it. "She likes to take her time with her patients", that's commendable in principle, but it's not her time, is it.

I haven't heard a damned thing from the Work Psychologist since before Christmas, if I recall correctly (I probably don't, to be fair, but it feels that long). I've emailed her twice to no avail. Where could she be? Perhaps she's been moved on, shunted to a different department, or a different office elsewhere in the country. The emails didn't provoke an automated response of any kind so I assume it's still active. She could be dead, or abducted by aliens for all I know. More likely is that the department has been shrunk to the point of (even more) uselessness. Regardless I'm on my own now. There's no real interest in providing any support, and in this new era of dispassionate conservatism, I don't imagine mental health services are going to be bolstered any.

I have other issues as well, equally ignored; a metabolic problem that is labelled as 'functional hypoglycemia', but I don't think it is. It could be a simple allergy, but there's no real interest in finding out. I would have thought, having participated in a number of blood tests to find out over the years, they would have found out. I have been repeatedly, alarmingly so in fact, told I'm NOT diabetic. Maybe I am, maybe they are wrong, though that would be a staggering level of incompetence. All I know is that I have a short fuse when it comes to hunger and that, when I get hungry, it needs to be sated or I feel very dodgy. The frequency with which this happens during the day can vary quite considerably. The upshot is that, in the workplace, I would struggle. If I were my own boss or working for home in some capacity (no help with that of course) it would be easier. These subtle realities are lost on all concerned. 

Short Sighted

It's frightening how brainwashed people are.

I hate to use that word, 'brainwashed', because it makes me sound like a conspiracy theorist. I'm not. Capitalism isn't so much a conspiracy as a system that powerful people endorse out of simple self interest. The tragedy is how that self interest causes misery for everyone else - and people don't care.

But people refuse to believe that this system is as broken as it is - yet the Tories have a majority government with only 24% of the electorate. Yet nobody really complains because nobody likes a sore loser and capitalism promotes the winner/loser mentality in everything it does. This is essential because it's easier to marginalise dissent by branding such voices as belonging to losers - people who have some character flaw of their own making (also important - everyone is the author of their own misfortune).

People have also been conditioned to believe that negative thinking - criticism - is to be denied. No one wants to hear someone who feels sorry for themselves; self pity is for losers and one must pick oneself up by one's bootstraps, no matter how miserable their lot. Of course this is absurd, the misfortune of someone like Donald Trump, who made his 'fortune' off the back of hundreds of millions inherited from his dad, are quite different from someone facing eviction because of the Bedroom Tax. Yet the former will be among the first to advocate the bootstrap mentality to the latter, despite having no clue as to the reality of the latter's struggle. Sickening really.

This feeds into the idea of low wages. If you want the most obvious example of how capitalism is so pernicious and so broken then consider how it uses the state, via welfare, to subsidise wages. The fact that people are seemingly content to put up with this situation is telling, and yet the idea of living wage should be the very heart of all social contracts. If one cannot afford to live a decent standard of living on their income then something has gone, and is, very wrong. Not only this, but by allowing

the state to subsidise employers you are subverting your own winner/loser (aka striver/skiver) mentality.

A society where it is the norm to earn less than it costs to live. That is the ideology of capitalism.

Even worse it feeds into the idea that everyone can be an entrepreneur. This is the age of dragons - capital D. The five predators sat in a gangster's hideout with conspicuous piles of money sat next to them. Now the DWP (capital D) are in on the act, advising people to become self employed without telling them that doing so could jeopardise them financially if they start claiming tax credits without a credible business.

But the capitalists don't care about that. Instead they get to make claims regarding a rise in the number of businesses starting up (they won't of course report how many failed nor the personal consequences of failure). This all looks great for the system and the government who can say Britain is booming. Look at how free people are to chart their own course in these difficult (boo! Labour! Boo) times. But this apparent freedom is deceptive; we don't have a strong economic foundation - why else is Cameron issuing forth another 'emergency' budget in July? That's unprecedented, although one of the reasons is to catch Labour on the hop while they are still rudderless. These are not fertile times, even for experienced business types, and you can hear people in discussions talking about how they can't pay their staff a living wage and about how they are themselves, as directors and owners, having to live on the breadline. 

This affects the whole world; capitalism has allowed the population to increase where reasonable considerations would have prohibited this. I don't want to be telling people they can or can't have kids, that isn't the point. But people, particularly women, are sold the idea that having children is part of the complete human experience, part of being successfully; like buying a house or a car. One must have a family. Capitalism doesn't seem to care how many people are on the planet, and, as with self employment and the love of business, it doesn't care if it's sustainable. This is the fast route to poverty, just look at places like India where squalor seems to surround rich enclaves in cities.

This is a house of cards and sooner or later the wind is going to blow hard.

Shit

What the hell happened?

I woke up Friday morning hoping the exit polls were just speculation. In fact I was up at 5-30 remembering that was the time they announce the results for Wirral. That turned out to be the only real light (along with Farage) in this black night descending. The first voice I hear is the capitulating tones of Ed Miliband as Labour's rescue boat crashed onto the rocks with a great many casualties. 

We are now looking at a Tory majority in the house of about 330 give or take. I suppose that isn't huge, but they have around 90 seats over Labour. As far as I can tell any vote where we need the opposition to win (in other words all of them) we are likely to lose - that is after all the point of having a majority.

This is shit. I have never been so scared in my life. I have spent the last two days in a daze, bereft. It's been a funeral for the soul where the only comfort is that I'm not alone. Yet now we are all more alone than ever before given what is likely at stake that I cannot even bring myself to mention. It's too much to consider what we stand to lose - and with very little political opposition as Labour are now looking to move even further into the Tory shadow. This will be confirmed if their choice for the next leader is someone like pro-capitalist Chuka Umuna.

It is clear that a combination of five years of toxic propaganda, lies and media manipulation has brought us to this point. The average Tory will not admit they voted for a party that supports the persecution of the poorest and the weakest - despite that being exactly what happened from 2010 (and I'm sure will again as Duncan Smith is hardly likely to shift post). They instead will point to how Cameron has led a recovery out of Labour-created doldrums and economic depravity. However there is and has never been any evidence that Labour were profligate, or that they spent all the money - despite Cameron desperately waving that note around. In fact that image says it all: a child waving around a lollipop stick with a funny joke, because that's all that note was. And anyone could have written it, but isntead the faithful saw the image of a piece of paper with some scrawl on it and a Parliamentary header and thought "yes, that's clear proof of Labour's financial incompetence", despite all evidence to the contrary. (hint: Paul Krugman wins nobel prizes for his knowledge of economics, David Cameron, to date, hasn't).

Unfortunately Labour comprehensively failed to get that fact across. Like startled rabbits, caught in the headlights, they found themselves suddenly unsure of where to go and what to say. For five years they floundered under a man who, to all intents and purposes may well have been a reasonable sort, but couldn't and wouldn't defend himself. A man without the charisma and presence and message necessary to counter the Tory onslaught which was backed up by enormous amounts of money (profligate, you might say) and enormous amounts of media. 

Labour, since 1997, had positioned itself further to the right pandering to big business and, through Blair, gaining the approval of the arch-demon, Murdoch, himself. Then that all changed; the banking system fell apart under its own avarice and lack of self control. Everyone turned on Labour who, since then, have been left wondering what the hell happened? Prior to that Osborne had called for lighter touch financial regulation than Brown, and promised even more public spending.Labour has since offered a concessionary version of the Tory austerity, with slightly less pain, yet pain nonetheless. It is bitterly ironic that that was the best alternative in our broken electoral system. A democracy that isn't representative enough and has reinforced the two horse race it always was

The point here isn't to defend the dismal modern iteration of Labour but to recognise that, on their own standards, the Tories fail. Unfortunately they won by spooking the electorate about the SNP - as if the Scottish were somehow terribly alien and dangerous in their values. A week before the election and Labour sought dreadfully to distance themselves from the SNP, and all the media snark, by saying they'd rather a Tory government than ally with the SNP. Well, you got your wish Ed.

In 2010 many people, myself included, were swayed by this newcomer, Nick Clegg, and that he, and amiable Uncle Vince, who seemed economically pure of heart like an avuncular fiscal Merlin, offered a genuine alternative. Sadly that proved to be an illusion as they failed to gain anywhere near the result 'Cleggstasy' conjured as a promise, and they got into bed to prop up a coalition that has wrought havoc on society. This coalition, in reality a Tory government with quisling Libdem legs, has kept the economy in the toilet, stagnated the labour market, rewarded the rich for their failures, turned the NHS from a reasonable prospect (despite the likes of Patricia Hewitt) into a nightmare of waiting times, privatisation, more debt, closures, and an A&E crisis of the like as yet unseen - not to mention the nightmare of catastrophic welfare reforms. Universal Credit ready by 10/13 anyone? Instead we have a regime of willing stormtroopers under Fuhrer Smith's command while he refuses to examine the corpses.

Now the Libdem vote has collapsed. Onlay 7 remain. Perhaps the most telling aspect of all this is that they didn't lose their seats to Labour, but to the Tories! That's the nature of right wing politics: you thought you were all doing the right thing, that you were acting in the national interest? Congratulations, a knife in the dark is your reward. 

So what happened? It seems the Tory vote didn't increase - as you might expect from the surge the results imply. Instead the libdem vote collapsed, as predicted, but with Labour's failing inertia and lack of a leftward message, people remained disillusioned. Consequently the Tories filled this vacuum - but not with an increased share. Instead their numbers, while no different than before, were enough to beat the collapsing opposition result; the bar had lowered.

I won't be sorry to see the back of the likes of Steve Webb, the most Tory of them all who supported the Bedroom Tax as much as his coalition conservative colleagues. But it is a bitter victory indeed when his replacement is another Tory! At least the Witch-in-charge McVey is gone. That's more than schadenfreude, but it's not enough to compensate what I dread is coming.

Now we're on our own. Like the Tories, who now have no excuses and no one to hide behind when their policies continue to fail, it's up to us. True democracy and politics lies within our communities, wherever they may be on or offline. The streets are where things will have to be decided. This country looks set to be more divided than ever; the Tories exist in the rural/small town areas (like here, unfortunately), while Labour is strong in the metropolitan areas that the Tories will simply not care about. This is why many Tory voters do not see the misery their favourites have caused; how many Bedroom Tax cases or benefit sanction victims or WCA veterans reside openly if at all in the wolds and shires? Out of sight out of mind is the mantra as a compliant media simply refuses to report on these stories, furthering the notion that only the loony left believe in these things.

Some have claimed this government's majority is narrow, weak. I'm not so sure; I don't see how, though I'd love to be wrong. 90 odd seats over Labour seems pretty strong to push through all they would want. The coalition managed to use all sorts of Parliamentary necromancy and sorcery to get its way; didn't IDS use such tricks to animate his now-discredited ideas?

Perhaps these 'soft tories', some of whom maybe in Parliament now, will come to see the truth of what they have caused when the effects of what is certain tyo be a vicious government, affect them. A housing and rent bubble (favouring landlords) cannot sustain. Jobs may fall apart as people are forced out due to the iniquities of Universal Credit, foodbanks may finally be overwhelmed, the NHS...and so forth. In fact not two days before the election the Mail ran a front page about the scandal of waiting times for GP appointments. Yet come Friday it was hailing the rejection of 'Red Ed' (a sock puppet image of Miliband created by the press) as the right result. Can this government really survive when it is built on an illusory foundation?

As for Red Ed, I don't know which is worse: that people believe he's a socialist, or that politics has lurched so far to the right that anything to the left is a discredited remnant of an equally disingenuous image of the seventies. 

All I can say for now is that I'm fearful; I'm not even angry, it's more anxiety when I see people around me and I think "are you who I thought you were or seemed to be?". These are people who must be among those, to some degree, that voted Tory. Politically programmed Pod People. This isn't melodrama to say that I feel I've woken up in a different world. It looks, smells, feels, sounds, and even tastes the same, but something has shifted. Beware of Vulcans with goatees, and Tories making promises.

Good Cop Bad Cop?

So i'm walking back from the shop armed with a box of Shreddies (my breakfast of choice currently) and I spy with my little eye the local Tory doing the rounds, accompanied by a couple of goons. Unfortunately for me the road to hell is paved with good intentions and I decide I'd like to try and 'corner' him on the issue of foodbanks and sanctions, albeit briefly because i don't really want to be talking to these people. 

Now I'm worried he'll 'recognise' me, somehow (I've never met him before so why should he) and that, stupidly, I didn't calculate he might come a-knocking later on. I rather hope he doesn't and have put a notice on the door saying, politely, no Tories. 

The problem is that he's all very charming and polite. He tries to explain that, given the Trussell Trust is a relatively recent enterprise, we can't assume that the foodbank crisis (which only a fool would deny) is a product of the current austerity plan and the headbangers in cabinet. He says he is "quietly horrified" by the situation. But he's still a Tory?!? How does he square this with reality? Is it just not on his radar? Is it not an issue locally? I suppose that might be possible, even though Weston super mare has a foodbank and, according to a recent local paper headline, is the debt capital of the country! That can't be good.

You see this is the problem: in Parliament the Tories are headbangers. They are swivel eyed goons who think the right to rule is theirs by blood and that the land is their divine inheritance. Yet I suspect the local Tory, and our sitting MP, is typical of constituency Tories. He says all the right things, is very polite and charming so somewhere there is a disconnect. I asked him about sanctions and he said again it wasn't something people were bringing to him as an issue. Again that may be true - locally. But what about the evidence that's been collected by the likes of the CAB and the Church - and everyone else from the Guardian to even the BBC? There is definitely something happening and sometimes two plus two equals four: a government hell bent on austerity, punitive welfare reforms, and policies as crazy and nasty as the bedroom tax (which I didn't raise) cannot not be prime suspect at least. 

I think these Tories are not part of the inner circle. They may subscribe to the ideals of capitalism and believe that, if the market functioned properly, and if public finances were used responsibly, everything would be fine. But the reality is, despite what they have been led to believe, they are members of a party who's leadership, in government, is deliberately causing untold mayhem. He can be as friendly and as charming as he likes, he is a politician after all, and I've no reason to assume he's a genuinely nasty person (unlike, say, Iain Duncan Smith), but he works for a party that is wrecking people's lives and, presumably, subscribes to an economic system in capitalism that has comprehensively and axiomatically failed. 

The danger is that it is off the backs of people like this that the Tories come to power. The cabinet MP's will be insulated from the problems they cause by their circle of supporters and will have enough votes from among that section of the community they have nothing to worry about. Iain Duncan Smith doesn't even live in his constituency! As an example there is an issue locally with housing developers wanting to build all over the place. It has a lot of people up in arms; the Tory MP is the only politician who has put his face to the campaign. So voters will see in him someone who supports them and listens to local issues - rightly or wrongly. No other party is perceived to be listening. Therein lies the problem: the Tories play good cop on the doorstep, coming across as affable concerned community leaders, but in power it's bad cop all the way.

And no, there's no way in hell I'll be voting Tory. No matter how charming you are. What this society needs you aren't prepared to give.