Political Conference season has arrived in Britain, and with it comes the flatulence of ideologies being digested in the intestines of neoliberalism.
Yesterday, in Manchester, the Tory Party wrapped up their conference by shivving the North with the cancellation of HS2. Judging from the speeches, the conference's theme was "Fight to say the quiet parts out loud about our hate for the vulnerable."
Rishi Sunak, Prime Minister of Britain shoehorned into his leader's speech anti Trans rhetoric laden with disgust, disdain and dismissal of individuals whose only crime is wanting to be who they are.
Suella Braverman the day before in dyspeptic banality, evoked Enoch Powell, the National Front, and if not Hitler, one of his functionaries, when she said a "Hurricane of Migrants would soon storm across the UK. The only reason why she or her successor will get refugees sent to concentration camps in Rwanda is because the establishment want refugees in concentration camps in Rwanda.
At the conference, the conservatives made it official doctrine that Wokeness in science would be eradicated. It means today’s Tories are what the Papacy was in the 17th century when they put Galileo on trial for his woke theory where the earth orbited the sun. The Church of Rome could deny as much as it wanted that the earth didn’t go around the Sun but it was ever thus. For us, the conservatives will make sure there is more Covid denialism leading to the needless deaths of thousands. They guarantee Britain’s societal breakdown from the chaos created from having no contingency plan for the climate emergency. But on both of those counts, I don’t think Britain will be any luckier under a Keir Starmer government considering he has done more U-turns on Covid and the Environment, as leader of the opposition, than the Bismarck after its rudder was shot off by British guns.
Evil has insomnia in the 21st century. It's not that it can't sleep, it mustn't sleep. Neoliberalism needs it- turned on 24/7 to eradicate what's left of the Social Welfare State constructed after WW2. Once that goes, so goes the threadbare democracy Western nations like to show off to other parts of the world to prove their virtue. It is a bit like when an elderly Christian shows a Christmas tree Jesus ornament from a hundred years ago which has no shine or design left to it. It could have been Jesus in his manger on that bulb or it could have been the Bisto kid, but you just can't tell anymore.
Neoliberalism innovates technology at breakneck speed whilst retrograding democracy for a reason. You can have 5G mobile phone coverage in 2023. But when it comes to voting in General Elections in Britain. You do it like it was in 1888, with the first past the post system that ensures the same entitled class of people govern.
It's all the more insulting when rich politicians from- either Labour or the Tory Party convince voters my dad and his generation fought Hitler for our present democracy.
Neither my dad nor his working-class mates fought Hitler for a democracy that had food banks, homelessness, a public healthcare system that will be privatised- regardless of the political party in government, a million kids without a proper bed to sleep in, refugees criminalised, millions paying more than half their salary to keep a roof over their heads and blind support for any fucking war that profits British armaments makers.
The establishment made Julian Assange evil, deserving of the worst punishment rather than the countries he exposed as committing war crimes. The corporate news media with a straight face, gives Tony Blair a massive platform to tell society who he believes is evil. Labour and Tory Grandees team up for podcasts with large paying listenership's, while they weave propaganda that Soviet politburo members would have envied for their ability to corrupt history and present reality. These podcasts portray all those who keep the engines of neoliberalism running as honourable players on the pitch of politics despite their involvement in austerity, privatisation of state infrastructure, illegal wars and torture. This months flavour is Theresa May and her efforts to stop modern day slavery. That’s right the woman who brought Britain “Go Home,” Vans, suddenly cares if vulnerable people are trapped in human bondage. Pull the other one, as my father would have said.
I am tired of individualising evil among the 1% or their well-paid servants. Doing so perpetuates the growth of malevolence and corruption in politics and business. The eternal Punch and Judy Show that corporate news and well-paid pundits employ to keep themselves relevant and wealthy must end. The 1% are all equally guilty and they have condemned our lives to an early end. Never forget evil maybe banal, but so is neoliberalism because they are one and the same.
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Take care, John
The comparison to Galileo is just perfect, cuts right through! Excellent piece, thanks xx