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- DECEMBER -

Supplementary: Political Observations

The US and UK governments are planning how they might give away vast sums of money to certain sections of the public – who in response they hope will go out and spend spend spend on ANYTHING THEY WOULD OTHERWISE NOT WASTE MONEY ON.

So instead of funding worthwhile and long-needed projects, we (or certain privileged ones amongst us who can afford to buy loads of non-essentials) are to be momentarily enriched. (Yippee – 2½ % less vat).

The purpose: to keep unnecessary businesses solvent and continuing to enrich their shareholders, and (above all) to keep us riff-raff uselessly employed so we don’t start questioning the absurd circumstances politicians have created (and the narrow philosophy they incessantly follow on behalf of their elite masters). It won't work.

All of us in the meantime are requested to CONSUME and CONSUME and CONSUME, more and more and more - while already the planet creaks under the weight of it: deforestation, over-fishing, all kinds of over-consumption of natural resources, pollution, an apparently chronic disposition for war, ever-increasing destruction and waste…

All this give-away money, of course, is exclusively for those wealthy enough not to spend it on essentials like food or fuel, or who might otherwise shove it in a savings account.

Unheard-of, I know, but imagine briefly a financial concession to the poor (esp' the unemployed poor): instead of buying vat-loaded trash, a few might feed themselves properly for once (or would if they knew how), and maybe heat their little homes better too, enjoy some rare comforts for a change. It’s possible. Most likely, though, they’d swell the profits of those notorious dream-peddlers who dazzle their victims with superstore breezers and online poker. Either way, what would any of that do for those useless outfits burning-up the planet? Virtually nowt, that’s what. So they’d expire; and everyone (except the elite's 'economy') would gain - so the planet could for once breathe a sigh of relief.

As things stand, emergency assistance for benefit claimants remains under-funded, while those trapped in claustrophobic studio flats and bed-sits (and who, together with other swindles, are extorted ~£20/week band-A council tax) will doubtless also get zilch. Can it really be true that - excluding mortgages - the UK public owe >£1.4tn?

Can you picture such a concessionary gesture: £10/week, say, off band-A council tax? Not a chance, mate!

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Unemployment and Depression (the myth)

You only have to flip through that little item for November 08 on the work of Studs Terkel to see the great fallacy of connecting Unemployment with Depression. What could be more mutually incompatible than those? If there is a connection, surely it should be inverse. They are concepts that no more belong together than happiness and misery… until you introduce lucre - or that great leveller: the lack of it!

Employment usually means sacrificing one's irreplaceable time to someone else’s (usually worthless) tasks - in return for some pittance in accordance with what that someone-else believes is required for survival in this corporate world.

Depression suggests whatever one interprets as ‘unpleasant entrapment’, and an inability to confront, alter, escape or make the most of and then accept the final reality of one’s situation.

It might be revealing to discover what percentage of wealthy unemployed actually suffer depression (not counting those with ‘clinical’ depression which has no relation to material circumstances). I’d guess virtually none.

But how about the percentage of employed people who suffer depression, wealthy or otherwise (again not counting ‘clinical’)? I believe the answer is around 10 or 20% - at any rate, certainly larger than for the unemployed wealthy.

However one analyses the statistics, though, the whole argument here distils to ‘autonomy versus slavery’. If, like most of us, you’ve been programmed for slavery then the prospect of autonomy will probably appear daunting and scary. On the other hand, if you haven’t been programmed, or have somehow escaped or rejected the usual programming, then the concept of slavery will be daunting and scary - which is a bit how I feel now, having enjoyed (more-or-less) autonomic liberation for a couple of decades. I was once, though, fairly comfortable with the concept of slavery as I experienced it, and became accustomed to and a little oblivious of it - as with most things one takes for granted. Yet, despite our obvious acquiescence to it, would any of us be philosophically comfortable with the concept of slavery as a social norm? I guess not (unless you’re a member of the ‘elite’). So why don’t we revolt? My guess, simply, is that we are both indolent (very much so in my case), and pusillanimous (which, unless under direct physical threat, I most certainly am not).  

 
Internet info-war

As the world continues to ‘shrink’ – and at an amazing rate these days thanks to the internet (so that everyone, wherever they are, knows what everyone else is thinking and doing) – as the world continues to shrink, the struggle between the elite and the rest becomes ever more intense. It is a battle that draws increasing numbers on both sides: obsequious, sycophantic supporters of the elite, usually those whose position depends on continuation of the status quo, on one side - and opposed to them: rebel insurgents whose suffering and indignation has stirred them to rise up against the great injustices and horrors the elite ever more vigorously inflict upon the world.

This ongoing struggle is the new crusade. It is the great challenge of the 21st Century. The whole issue is expanding now like pressure in an over-primed boiler. I’m pretty certain how it will end, and the battle could well be prolonged, becoming increasingly intense and lethal before, in the wake of immense violence, destruction and death, it peters out and is finally resolved. Hence, we will have kept faith with the barbarity of our past, with which the history of our inimical race is solid. Could recent events since the turn of the century, though, be the beginning of the final test of this era of human 'civilisation'?

As I see it, the initial scenario is taking shape right now. One can go back ad infinitum, but it essentially began with Hitler - what a colossal 'indirect' influence that arch-rogue is having these days after the insane setting-up of Israel after ww2. Has there ever been a more blatant case of victims aspiring to emulate their oppressor? This was enabled by Kennedy's massive and devastating support for Israel, and demonstrated in the subsequent 1967 invasion of Palestine. The 9/11 ‘inside job’ of 2001 which led to the take-over of Palestine’s ally, Iraq, and the massacre of thousands of academics and intellectuals there came next. The plan was to erase any chance of formal opposition in Iraq, any chance of Iraq reasserting itself as a regional independently functioning State. Washington, with the same old Nazi philosophy that led to the holocaust – wiped out the opposing intellectual elite! But unlike the Zionists, this elite were wholly innocuous. They were precisely the foundation upon which true civilisations are built: scientists, mathematicians, historians, sociologists, etc. All this horror and conflict, together with Afghanistan (and imminently Pakistan, so it seems), is now spreading globally and building to a Fascist West versus Islamic East showdown - unless, somehow, Obama can release the pressure - though probably now it's beyond anyone's power to stop and will play its course like a chemical reaction. And probably Obama is no more capable than his idiot predecessor?

So-called terrorist acts like in Mumbai recently are as nothing compared with the terrorism inflicted by US bombers on Afghan or Pakistani villages, or Israeli bombers on Palestinian homes, politicians and street kids. We are almost certainly heading for a widespread conflict where traditional large-scale-military forces are ever more useless and counter-productive, and where more and more indiscriminate attacks will become the norm… probably? (Or will Obama have the genius to become a kind-of contemporary version of Hari Seldon?)

Either way, this is the kind-of logical consequence that follows the blind rampant capitalism that has gripped the West like a deadly infectious disease: the incurable psychopathic capitalist elite with their stupendous greed, their insatiable lust for wealth and power combined with colossal military brute-force and economic hubris. In other words: insanity personified, and in its worst, most lethal guise: with its own built-in self-destruction.

 

A Few Centuries From Now

People who bother to will peer back at our circumstances in ~2008 and reflect how fortunate they are to live in a society that has transcended such a hideous, brutal and irrational past - as we do, hypocritically, on events like the French revolution, Hitler and Pol Pot.

There will be no prisons - because there will be no criminals. Ill-treated (or ill-programmed) children will receive empirically based palliative care. There will be fierce controls, though, to protect against exploitation from wayward rogue elements should they emerge. Otherwise no rules or controls at all. Live-and-let-live. Total freedom - the sole restraint will concern making it impossible to fuck-up someone else's life.

Kids will learn the two most important things: How To Look After Themselves, and How To Enjoy - and make the most of - Idleness. After that other issues can be addressed.

As for money - or credits - this will be generously dished-out to EVERYONE while machines do most of the work. Everyone will have access to something approximating the equivalent of what we regard today as a middle-class lifestyle: fine accommodation, etc. Is That Utopia?