I SMELL A RAT

For a few days now there has been am elusive unpleasant odour floating around the kitchen.  Just occasionally I'd get a whiff of something that smelt a bit like an old dirty vacuum bag with cheese in it.  Or was it some festering mouldy food behind the cooker?  Was it the condensed water that sometimes leaks from the fridge onto the carpeted kitchen floor?  I don't like carpets in kitchens - who the hell ever came up with that idea?  For about a week it seemed to be getting worse.  I wondered if it was me.  Were my feet rotting?  Was it in the clothes from the washing machine?  Did I have Coroni and he was messing with my smell?  It was faint but remarkably putrid and disturbing.  I cleaned out several cupboards and checked the vegetable rack.  The olfactory delight continued to linger longer.

I live in an old house with a sewerage system that would be illegal today.  It is simply one underground pipe that runs from the back door down the path and out to the street.  All sinks and plumbing and sewage simply fall into the same pipe.  There is a junction half way down the pathway where the neighbour's sewerage connects to ours.  The junction is known to cause a blockage sometimes and I dutifully swill the sewer out regularly to prevent severe blocking and occasional sewer odours emanating from the plug hole in the kitchen sink.  I thought it was about time to swill out the sewer today and so I set about filling sinks and jugs and buckets and getting prepared to launch a tsunami down the tube.

I went outside and lifted the sewer cover plate.  There was a blockage, which is not uncommon, but this looked weird.  A dark poop, so large it couldn't possibly have vacated anyone's bottom, was blocking the junction.  I don't spend an inordinate amount of time examining the content of the sewer and I went inside and released the tsunami to sluice the sewer and went back outside to make sure it was successful.  That large unidentified object was refusing to budge.  I peered into the sewer opening a little closer and this object seemed to be furry, but it was covered in thousands of tiny flies giving it a slightly wriggling writhing glistening sheen.

I decided to give it a poke with a stick - as one does.  It was heavy and resistant.  I eventually prodded it along the pipe a bit as the backlog of sewage oozed slowly along behind with an increasing level of damned water attempting to leave the premises.  Quite suddenly things began to move.  The large wriggling putrefying biological blob was lifted off the floor of the sewer and rapidly gained momentum as a ton of sewage and water chased it down the pipe with a great gurgling and swilling sound like some alien monster enjoying its lunch.

I replaced the cover plate, returned to the kitchen, turned off the taps, washed my hands (as you do) and enjoyed the delights of a sweet smelling kitchen.  It may sound like a dreadful task but it was a pleasant relief and procrastinant (from the inventor of new words) from having to deal with the still offensively active putrefying remains of the NHS and their genuinely harmful assaults on the health and well being of my daughter and me.  I find this whole experience of a rancid odour from a rotting corpse, polluting and poisoning the atmosphere and destroying the healthy life supporting activities of cooking and eating, a very good analogy for the toxic transformation of the welfare state and the NHS.

I gain some hope that, although the current desecration, stagnation, and evil toxic purification, of British society seems entirely unstoppable and destined to catastrophic unrecoverable disaster, it is possible that one day we might, with enough effort, shift the festering cadaver of neoliberalism and hear the welcome sound of gurgling and belching as the corpse of disaster capitalism and selfish greed is wrenched from this otherwise delightful planet. 

SLOWLY CHOKING TO DEATH

I was trying to get myself to do the right thing and contact a doctor.  I am a bit confused about what one is supposed to do nowadays.  So I started by going to what is euphemistical called "my surgery's" web site.  I'm reading through lots of stuff which sounds like promotional sales talk like "we are working hard to care for you, and to keep our staff and patients safe", and "Your health and wellbeing matters to us".  Then I came across this:

"For your protection and ours, if you are invited to the surgery for an appointment, you MUST provide your own face covering, a mask, scarf or something smilar [sic]. We are no longer in a position to issue face masks to patients."

This is where I stall.  I know some people ridicule and belittle me for getting upset about things like this.  I have to try to understand how to cope with that attitude.  Am I little (meaning a bit pathetic) and stupid?  If that were the case, is it something I can do something about?  I think what they think they mean is that I need to be "brave" and walk into the thing I am frightened of.  That makes sense when working on a ship and you have to do things that hurt or are frightening.  I could, I suppose, ignore what I perceive to be a threat and carry on.  But my experience in life is warning me of something bad here.  So I think some more.

It is ridiculous that they come up with phrases like "Your health and wellbeing matters to us" because they are supposed to be a medical centre and they are stating the obvious.  Maybe they think some people don't know they care and they feel the need to reassure them.  But there are other possible motives such as that they are lying.  I think most people are aware of the problem when someone says "trust me".  It begs the question "Why wouldn't I?"  Some would suggest I am being paranoid but I am not - I am simply trying to understand what is going on.

When their focus of attention goes from the patients' health to their own bank balance that might cause them to perceive the need to reassure their patients that they care about them.  If someone wants me to write some software I negotiate a fee because I cannot go around writing software for no pay.  Once a fee is negotiated I pay full attention to the quality of the software.  If I am "incentivised" to write the software as quickly as possible to maximise my profit then the quality of the software is compromised.  The same applies to medicine.  So the very wording on the surgery's web site does not inspire me with confidence, and actually does the reverse.  People sometimes feel they don't know how to detect scammers and I think herein lies some of the clues.  When someone spends disproportionate time and effort trying to convince you they care about your wellbeing you should get suspicious.  The significant word in the last sentence being "disproportionate".

Having clarified some of what causes my alarm bells to start ringing I then encounter that statement saying I have to provide my own face covering.  That is absurd to the point of being insane.  When I read irrational insanity coming from someone I am relying on to have expertise that I don't posses, it becomes an affront, let alone very worrying.

There are multiple issues at play here.  The first being that they are the medical experts and should know exactly what benefits there are from wearing what sort of masks in what circumstances.  Their expressed requirement indicates no such consideration, awareness, or knowledge.  They are simply mandating "a mask, scarf or something smilar [sic]"  As a complete non-expert it has become clear to me that there are important practical differences between different materials used as masks, let alone other issues such as how they fit.  Can I turn up with a motorcycle helmet on?  If that sounds ridiculous (as it is meant to) then by what criteria am I supposed to judge an efficacious mask.  If I turn up on a warm day like this wearing my lovely woollen winter scarf wrapped around my face and sit in a waiting room I will overheat and risk passing out.  If I could acquire an N95 mask I will suffer breathing difficulties, and I might pass out.  (I have COPD and high anxiety - "For people with COPD, face masks are in fact intolerable to wear as they worsen their breathlessness." [Kyung SY, Kim Y, Hwang H, et al. Risks of N95 Face Mask Use in Subjects With COPD. Respir Care 2020;:respcare.06713.  doi:10.4187/respcare.06713])

Then there is the issue of supply.  Where do I find a mask to purchase?  If there is an outlet with an adequate supply why can the surgery not get a supply for their patients?  It would make more sense, if cost were the issue, to purchase the available supply and to sell masks to patients.  Of course, given that that is not the reason, they would risk instigating an unnecessary problem of dissent and criticism if they charged patients at the door for equipment they were demanding they wear.  All of which should soon illustrate, even to those who haven't considered the issues yet, that any of these possible arguments presented so far, are irrational and vacuous.

Give that we are supposed to believe there is some medical rational for wearing a mask and given the budget for the surgery including the property, staff, equipment, and services, in what way could they possibly justify not supplying masks for patients?  I can't see any other reason except the pretence of cost.  If they presented the justification that it was about the cost then not only is that ridiculous and unacceptable but there is a contradiction in that they say they don't care what sort of face covering you use.  If it doesn't matter what sort of face covering you use then there is no suggestion of any significant cost if they supply cheep paper masks.  Surely no one can make coherent sense of this.  They say "We are no longer in a position to issue face masks to patients."  Why not?  Were they providing masks for patients previously?  That sentence implies they were, so I really want to know what has caused the change.

Then there is the issue of power, control, and hierarchy.  What they are saying really is that, quite regardless of any efficacy, they demand that you wear a mask to symbolise your agreement to do whatever they demand.  They are actually demanding evidence of my subservience to them.  This is exactly what was going on as the Holocaust gained traction in Nazi Germany.  Wear this colour triangle.  I do worry that people may think I am making a mountain out of a mole hill, but actually I am trying to figure out what this is all about.  I am not particularly concerned about this one issue in isolation; I am concerned to put the various pieces of the jigsaw together to begin to understand the bigger picture.

When someone phoned me from the surgery some years ago saying that my daughter needed to come in for her vaccinations I asked which ones.  Their response was "all of them".  I enquired further saying she had had some vaccinations so which ones are they talking about.  It got to the point of me asking the nurse(?) what vaccinations are on her medical records and I was told that was irrelevant because their records were not complete.  I suggested I come in and discuss these (apparently VERY important) issues with the doctor.  The nurse{?) reacted by saying "I can't deal with people like you." and put the phone down.  If no one can deal rationally with the question of vaccines then who is going to tell me, with any real knowledge, authority, and integrity why they can't supply masks?  They have made it explicitly impossible to trust them.  They have created a layered structure of hierarchy where the people at the bottom (you understand that hierarchy of wealth that we have acculturated - it used to be that the doctors and nurses were at the "top of their profession" and the likes of managers were "lower" in the hierarchy) - the medical staff -do not know or understand the reasons for the orders and edicts being handed down to them.

I understand to a significant degree how all this junk happens psychologically and sociologically but I do not know what to do about it, nor why so many people fall so enthusiastically into ridiculous compliance to keep their job when the rules and edicts are evidently stupid even to them.  This situation is declining rapidly and hanging on to notions that things will get better is delusional.

I genuinely believe there is no way out of what is befalling us except via a most terrible holocaust.  Although I could wish people could effectively wake up and begin to push back against the insanity, all the evidence suggests they cannot or will not do that.  It was only six months ago we had a general election and the Labour Party went to the trouble of presenting an exceptional and detailed manifesto and a costing model which clearly outlined highly practical ways to stop the decline.  The majority of people did not read that manifesto.  Instead they preferred to vote for a well known liar and charlatan called Fucko the Clown.  Fucko the Clown and his circus presented no plans of any scope or substance - just "Get Brexit Done".  It was clear to me they were aiming for a dictatorship at the time, and the evidence is unfortunately continuing to support and strengthen that interpretation.

I will not be attempting to steel myself to walk into this particular battery cage today.  I prefer to sit here bleeding and in pain.  I am far too distressed and poorly to attempt to see a doctor today.

Afterthought:  Having re-read this muse I feel a lot of people might summarise it in their mind as a "mask, don't mask" issue related to medical health.  It is not.  The questions and issues around the medical efficacy of masks is a totally different subject and I would like to feel confident in the experience and integrity of experts to advise me on that matter.  The above reveals the utter incoherence of the actions currently being taken by medical centres up and down the land.  It is about the difference between someone informing and helping me, and someone ordering me about for their benefit at my expense.

NO NHS UNDER STARMER

Someone tweeted me with the following message:
"It's quite simple. You claim that we cant have an NHS under Starmer. You must know why you think that's impossible. Im perfectly able to listen & understand."

After several false starts I decided to simply write straight off the top of my head and see how short it might be.  At 1,231 words or 7,295 characters it seemed too big for a tweet.  So I decided to put it on my blog for their perusal and my future reference.

THE BIG TWEET:

For you to say it's simple is really very disingenuous.  I might find it easier to explain object oriented test driven software development or back propagated neural network artificial intelligence feedback systems to you since I am far more of an expert in those fields than politics.  I guess you can understand that I couldn't possibly explain them to you if you start from the position that they are wrong and I have to "explain" them to you to convince you otherwise.  Especially if you think it will be "simple".

I did give you four references which you have not pursued; The Great NHS Heist, The Dirty War on the NHS, Health & Social Care Act 2012, and Neoliberalism.  The deconstruction of the NHS from a collective self funding service to a 'for profit' market began probably back in 1980 with a book entitled "Privatizing the World: A Study of International Privatization in Theory and Practice" written by Oliver Letwin. A reviewer described it as a manual for "how to dismantle the stuff that glues us together and sell it off to corporate cartels".

The next notable document was co-authored by Letwin and John Redwood in 1988 called "Britain's Biggest Enterprise - ideas for radical reform of the NHS" which has proved to be a bit of a blueprint for exactly what has happened.  These papers, the PFI scandal, the Naylor Report, the construction of private NHS trusts, are all part of the process which has been installed piecemeal and by stealth ever since 1980.  The Health and Social Care Act 2012 specifically disconnects government from any responsibility for the population's health and effectively turned the NHS into a complex arrangement of saleable businesses competing in a free market.

If you look into it in detail you will find that people who do understand the complexity frequently refer to the 2012 Act as the kingpin in the privatisation process and call for that Act to be repealed to re-establish government's responsibility for Health Care because without that there is no "National Health Service" as we knew it.  The NHS has already become a corporate infrastructure which can only be funded by Health Insurance in a 'for profit' free market.

Money that the government used to put into the NHS is now paid to corporations to run sectors for profit.  This is an ideology for which there is no evidence of success and much evidence that it does not and cannot work.  Of course it works for those profiteering from it but always at the expense of the detritus at the bottom of society.

Starmer probably doesn't even understand what is happening.  If he does then he is definitely part of it.  If he doesn't then his ignorance indicates he couldn't comprehend what to do.  The only way Labour could carry out their manifesto pledge to repeal the H&SC Act 2012 would be in spite of Starmer not with him.

He was also party to incarcerating Julian Assange which will turn out to be one of the most devastating crimes against democracy.  He shows no signs of considering the matter important let alone seeking proper due process.

His first public act as Leader was to write to a group, smaller than the number of train spotters in the UK (I've done the maths), called the Board of Deputies of British Jews, to concede to fully implement their demands.  The Labour Party has far more important things to do and should not be dictated to by a very small, massively wealthy, self interested right wing club.  It really doesn't matter if they are right or wrong they should not dictate Labour Policy.

He then gets ironically hoist on his own petard when he sacks Rebecca Long-Bailey from the shadow cabinet.  He gives an antisemitic reason.  He claimed the article she re-tweeted contained an "antisemitic conspiracy theory".  The remark in question referred to the "Israeli secret services" training the US police.  This is a fact.  Look up "Israeli Tactical" as one example.  A company in America founded by a high ranking Shin Bet officer offering training to the US police in Krav Maga which is an Israeli secret service developed close contact fighting discipline which explicitly uses the neck hold as seen used on George Floyd.  The IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism specifically describes "Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel" as antisemitic.  So Starmer claimed that a factual statement about the actions of the Israeli secret services was antisemitic.  He conflated Israel's actions with "all Jews".  That is definitively antisemitic according to the IHRA guidelines.

These things are by way of illustrating that he is out of his depth and compulsively supporting the prevalent political Zionist and Neoliberal agendas.  The problem with political Zionism is that it's fundamentally imperialistic and the problem with Neoliberalism is that it's unconstrained capitalism.  I am not aware of him announcing allegiance to these political ideologies by name but everything he does is indicative of his core belief in, or commitment to, them.  He shows no signs of acting for the poor or oppressed and every sign of supporting power and wealth.

He is an establishment man, knighted no less, attempting to appease all power hubs, and, as such, is incapable of addressing the deep core damage which has destroyed the welfare state and the NHS as we thought of it (and some still do).

Look up Dr Bob Gill.  He is easy to find on the internet, on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.  He has spent many years trying to understand and evidence what has been happening inside the NHS.  If you watch some of his videos, and take your lead for further investigation from there, you will understand the subject in much more detail and, hence, more accurately.

Given how you propose it might be easy for me to "explain" I suspect you will be in danger of suffering serious mental meltdown or painful cognitive dissonance.  It is not easy to realise the people you trusted were poisoning your children all along.  They have disembowelled the NHS under the influence of cultural anaesthesia and the population cannot bring themselves to see that they are dead all but the head that is looking at the suction pumped and hollowed out torso.

Starmer cannot and will not revive the NHS.  Corbyn understood (eventually) and even with the intention to repeal the 2012 Act and to get all private profiteering out of the NHS I doubt it could have been achieved because the money and influence involved are far too big.  The privatisation of the NHS is a mega-neoliberal project that has been ongoing for 40 years.

Do you know who is the CEO of NHS England?  It is a man called Simon Stevens and you can start by looking him up on Wikipedia.  One small quote from Wikipedia: "From 2004 to 2014 Stevens was a senior executive at UnitedHealth Group. Initially appointed president of UnitedHealth Europe, he became CEO of UnitedHealthcare's $30 billion Medicare business, and then corporate Executive Vice President and president of its global health businesses spanning the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa. He also was a director of Brazil's largest hospital group AMIL".  Where does anyone imagine the NHS is going?  Primarily to UnitedHealthcare, the biggest Health Care Insurance company on planet Earth.

So, unfortunately, "we can't have an NHS under Starmer".

CLAPPING FOR ATOS

Clapping is the new school star chart.  It is a form of social coercion.  As soon as I heard the first clap for the NHS I knew what was happening.  It has taken ten weeks for NHS workers to begin to combat the collective pathos of the clap and to feel brave enough to attempt to point out that it has some inherent problems.  They need respect and decent working equipment and conditions.  Clapping has been encouraged by the privateers and the neoliberal oligarchs.  It creates a false environment where workers are under more pressure to not complain.  It is putting them on a precarious, and cheap, pedestal.

Until the intentional deconstruction of the NHS, nurses and doctors had serious respect in society.  They worked hard for it too.  It has been a deliberate policy to downgrade them and to create a degree of discontent in the population.  This weakens their position in society and facilitates the narrative of privatisation.  Were there any meaningful appreciation of their role their pay would have immediately risen.  Their working conditions and, significantly, the tools of their trade, would have been upgraded and reinforced.

I understand completely that for many individuals it is like signing a petition - it seems the only thing they can do to show their support.  I don't object to that at all.  It's why I forgive Jeremy Corbyn for joining in - but at least he makes it overtly clear they should be paid better.  Have people learnt nothing from the hijacking of Remembrance Sunday and the social coercion to align with the official authoritarian militarised state by wearing a red poppy.  It took people with guts, genuine insight, and some serious creativity, to come up with the White Poppy initiative to oppose the hijacking of what should be, and is for many, a profound reminder of the sacrifice of so many people and the tragic death and destruction of war.  Seeing the likes of Thatcher and Blair, both overt war mongers, at the Cenotaph should really give most people a clue as to where the problem lies.

If you like war, if you believe in violence as a way to deal with life, that is your prerogative and I am not complaining about that here.  I am complaining about the social coercion which is deliberately fomented and manipulated by nefarious individuals for their own ends.  They are preying on the naive and innocent peace loving people.  It is predatory and oppressive.

This is why I find it so worrying that the next kudos cart is clapping for bin men.  When did we stop knowing they are doing an invaluable job?  We stopped as neoliberalism infected society with Thatcher's selfish ideology.  We stopped when we started respecting stock brokers and bankers as role models for success.  We stopped when we became immersed in a society of individualism and began to aspire to selfishness because it denoted success.

Neoliberal ideology has even usurped charity and turned it into a revenue siphon to extract money from well meaning people into the pockets of offshore privateers.  Charity given to the NHS goes in at the top; part of it goes off shore via secretive corporate trust funds, some of it goes into the pockets of extremely well paid executives like Simon Stevens, what is left is shared out to well paid 'business' managers to keep them on side, and none of it goes to underpaid staff.

Unfortunately the majority in the UK do not appear to understand what these rapacious vultures have been building for the last forty years.  Most people think the NHS is what it once was, and are still being told it is: a collective common resource provided by the people for the people; but it is no longer that.  Of course the people that do the work are valuable and doing a good and important job.  But clapping them in this somewhat mishandled crisis will not improve the NHS.  It will not improve the working conditions - as this government has already shown, if you have been paying attention, by, for example, maintaining the freeze on nurses pay right in the middle of this crisis.
One thing this clapping could achieve is to heighten the population's awareness of the crimes being committed against humanity by these pirates and privateers.  But I see little sign of that, or that it will adversely affect the people and corporations orchestrating this robbery.  Clapping is one thing, but it needs serious anger at the crimes against these invaluable and heroic workers, and it needs real action.

If we are not careful we will find ourselves clapping weakly for the unemployed, the disabled, the homeless, and eventually the suicide victims of the broken welfare state.  It could yet start with clapping for Atos.  You think that sounds ridiculous - just wait and see.  The population is being quite deliberately psychologically manipulated - and you are one of the chickens.

MURDER HORNETS KILL MORE THAN COVID-19

I was going to use the headline:
41 DEAD AS MURDER HORNETS RAMPAGE CHINESE PROVINCE
But having written this perusal around the manipulation of figures I decided "MURDER HORNETS KILL MORE THAN COVID-19" was even more indicative of how ridiculous headlines can be.  It is true, because murder hornets did kill more than Covid-19 in Shaanxi.  It is true, but it is so extraordinarily misleading that it is, effectively, a lie.  These things can be fun to play with, but they are becoming a death knell for humanity due to social media, psyops, asymmetric communication, and an intellectually and emotionally damaged population.

The 'headline' for this blog post was gleaned from the most dramatic single statement I could find in a Wikipedia article about the Asian giant hornet, or vespa mandarinia, which is currently being called the Murder Hornet in Click Bait Press.  The actual statement was "In 2013, stings by Asian giant hornets killed 41 people and injured more than 1,600 people in Shaanxi, China."  The first thing to consider is that that is an extreme case so we can deduce that the situation is probably far better than that.  It is also in a particular location where the wasps are relatively common, and it is likely that people go looking for them because they like to eat their larvae.  The second thing that comes to mind is a comparison with the distorted and dramatised figures relating to Covid-19 deaths.  Covid-19 appears, by all accounts, to be significantly more dangerous and deadly to humans than giant hornets.  But it still remains extremely difficult to get any clear or meaningful idea of the significance and impact of Covid-19 from the persistent click bait headlines distorting the very meaning of the information presented.

Shaanxi province has a population of 37.33 million, so 41 deaths equates to 1.1 deaths per million per year.  That extrapolates to 85,800 deaths in the world population in 10 years or 858,000 deaths per century.  Assuming the human population might rise then one could speculate that over 1 million people could die of killer wasp stings in the 21st century.  Of course with this kind of manipulation of figures one could attempt to reduce the target population to specific named areas where more deaths have occurred.  Maybe 20 of those 41 deaths occurred in a village of 2,000 people raising the 'deaths per million' rate to 10,000.  It's not long before you arrive at a figure of 100% of people killed by killer wasps die.  It is equally true to say that there is a very high probability (not one I am about to work out now) that 0% of people you know will die from a wasp sting.  I wonder what quantum probability wave function collapse might tell us about this - or what this might tell us about probability wave function collapse.

Maybe I could find a way to justify the headline "Quantum physics predicts everyone will die from Killer Wasps".  Or better still "Science predicts everyone will die from Killer Wasps".  All I have to do is write a small article explaining that in multiple universe theory there is one universe where that is true and I can claim the headline is factually correct and get some lucrative advertising revenue from my click bait science article.

Taking this to extremes it is true to say "Murder Hornets kill more than 10 times as many as Covid-19" or maybe "Murder Wasps 10 times more deadly than Covid-19".  I just have to explain in the text that 3 people have been reported to have died in Shaanxi province from Covid-19 whilst vespa mandarinia killed 41 people in the same province in 2013.

Warning: Stay Alert in Click Bait World - It's Dangerous Out There.

LOCKDOWN, DON'T LOCKDOWN?

Somehow the narrative is still distorted.  People are rightly criticising the government for relaxing the lockdown.  But they talk about it in terms of it increasing the spread of the virus and consequently being a threat to people's health.  Those are important factors, but the implication is that the lockdown should continue.  There is something wrong with that assumption, and it is that the lockdown was correct in the first place.  I'm not suggesting there should or shouldn't be a 'lockdown', but it is clear the government's version of 'lockdown' was a complete shambles and a failure.

The idea of a lockdown is part of a bigger plan to test, trace, and isolate (amongst other responsible things).  It is also important, if you want to protect people, not to throw them in front of a bus to prevent them being run down by a bicycle.  Money, for some good reason, is a dirty word in our culture.  People actually need money to live.  It is too often banded about as some sort of superfluous gift from heaven.  But it is absolutely necessary, it is vital, to have money to live in the UK.  Cutting off someone's money supply, or revenue stream, can kill them.

For an individual it is better to take some risk to get money to live than to take no risk and no money and die.  Any lockdown should be planned to provide the resources necessary to survive.  A lockdown can't work successfully without that provision.  That is the equivalent of shovelling people into concentration camps, but in this case into their own homes as opposed to expensive 'concentration' camps.  What can then follow is the perception that the prisoners are expensive and non-productive.  A government that can execute an un-planned lockdown cannot conceive of how to fund it.  This inevitably leads to what the Third Reich called "the final solution".  It wasn't planned, but they had painted themselves into a corner.

The functionality of a lockdown is to mitigate the risk of a high death toll from the virus.  If it causes more death than it prevents then it is clearly a bad idea.  Continuing the lockdown, without the rest of the plan in place, is already proving to be more harmful than the problem it was supposed to mitigate.  The government seem to present an image of being almost hard done by, and elicit the most extraordinary sympathy from some of the least educated people in society.  They appear as if they are ordinary individuals who have been unfortunately presented with a very hard problem.  That is not reality.  The government is a massive organisation with almost unlimited resources to prepare, plan, and execute sophisticated social management.

It should now be clear that the government is populated almost entirely by ministers who were motivated to enter politics because of the rich pickings available.  When confronted with an urgent task they are like a drunk captain in charge of a ship in a storm.  In maritime law it is correct to relieve the captain of his command in those circumstances.  These politicians, motivated by wealth, have occupied their time rearranging laws to dilute their own responsibility and to make their job of acquiring wealth easier.  This is exemplified by how they undermined the fabric of the NHS to channel funds to offshore accounts.  They forgot to maintain the ship, and they casually ignored the navigation charts, whilst they revelled in the opulent benefits of the country's wealth and resources.  They are not looking after their 'customers'; they are robbing the bank.

The members of the current government simply do not have the available neurological pathways to conceive of a way to deal with this crisis for the benefit of all.  They are drunk on their own success, and are incapable of understanding that the way to have people remain at home is to fund that move.  Funding it correctly, so that they can test and trace and eliminate the largest part of the problem quickly, so that people can return to work, is simply not something they can think of.  Their first insane thought is "Who will pay for it?"  Really - that is how stupid they are.

The individuals perpetuating, and even fuelling, the crisis of this pandemic do not have to worry about the devastating consequences to the social condition of the UK.  They have plenty of resources to leave the wasteland or simply live in expensive gated communities protected by intelligent and weaponised aerial drones backed up by militarised private security forces.  Take a look at the favelas in Rio de Janeiro alongside the most opulent communities protected as described above.  Take a look at the city of Hebron and its disconnected society in the occupied West Bank of Palestine and how the poor and unwanted population are handled by the Israeli government and their forces.  Then ask why the British military and police are sent for training to Israel.

Any lockdown is only beneficially functional if it is part of a coherent plan.  Simply locking away the plebs whilst hoping that will stop the virus is completely unserviceable.  Given that the government are incapable of handling this crisis, other than to look after themselves, then perhaps another way to create a lockdown would be as a proactive and organised assault on the government.  A national strike maybe.  Somehow take action that is directed in such a way as to produce the necessary response from the government.  But, in truth, I don't see that happening.  The plutocrats have such powerful control over the medium of communication that they can, and do, distort any communication for their own benefit and to the detriment of the people who want to communicate.

I am a problem solver but I cannot solve this problem.  All I can do is keep examining it and attempting to understand some of the inherent issues and contradictions.  There is one fundamental reason I can't solve this problem, and that is because the solution has to be a collective endeavour.  But the public debate about 'lockdown' or 'don't lockdown' is obscuring the underlying problems that this government is creating, by incompetence or design, of not working effectively to mitigate the problem of the pandemic.

AN EXCERPT FROM 1981

I left the forest and walked along the narrow street between the tall white walls.  A ladder, still wet from the rain, was the only intrusion in the otherwise empty and endless street.  I had no other option, but whether or not that influenced my decision I do not know, and I climbed the ladder.  I entered a large room that was filled with plump working women.  A row of them stood working, with their arms engulfed to their shoulders in sockets in the wall.  The sockets had gloves attached.  A similar arrangement to that used by scientists when handling radioactive material - except that these women could not see what they were doing.  They believed themselves to be cracking large coconut-type fruits and the milk was running into a trough which ran along the wall, where, at the end, the fluid was collected in urns.  There were other women who collected the fluid and others who drank it around a table.  All the women seemed to spend some time doing each activity.  As time went on I began to detect hints of a concept much vaster than the apparent system I observed.  I sensed something monstrous, something devious and malicious.  I listened more and more to the women's chatter and slowly the concept became clearer.  There was some insidious essence behind the wall.  A heinous writhing being.  What the women were cracking was the skulls of their own children to satisfy this hideous monster's appetite.  The fluid was provided in order to support the illusion and to sustain the women.  The monster delighted in being fed the blood of children by their unwitting mothers.  I tried to explain but was rebuked.  I realised that all my knowledge of this situation had come from the women's chatter.  The hidden lie was within their own minds.  I thought on this and began to realise that in order to maintain the flow of food the women could not admit to themselves their activity as they would have to stop, and deep in the unreachable depths of their minds was the imperative defence that they could not possibly cease to perform this ritual and allow their children to live, as it would be a greater tragedy for them to experience such a wretched and debased existence.

NO HOPE FOR HUMANITY

I was talking with my daughter when out of the quiet evening sky I heard the sound of prisoners rattling tin cups against the bars of their cages.  Pots and pans being banged and jeering noises behind the cacophony.  Then it dawned on me.  This was not a prison riot, it was the collective neurosis acting out some bizarre ritual of solidarity with the public display of the collapse of civilisation.  People were stepping outside of their isolation cells to clap and cheer to an audience which was themselves.  Like a distortion of an orchestra playing on the deck of the Titanic or a disturbing inversion of Jewish prisoners singing on their way to the death camps.

This sycophantic pathos, this kowtowing to the angel of death, this obedient display of appreciation for the tortured circus animals, is disturbing in the extreme.  I wondered what the third world war would look like with modern technology and the sixth domain of operations and here it is.

The plutocrats have dissolved the fabric of society, like gallium embrittles aluminium, destroying the inherent strength and integrity, whilst leaving it with all the appearance of being intact.  They tested the system in 2016 with 'Exercise Cygnus' and were completely satisfied that all they had to do was to sit and wait for the next inevitable influenza pandemic.

They had established that there were not enough hospital beds, there were not enough ICU beds, not enough ventilators, not enough testing and tracing capacity, not enough Personal Protection Equipment, not enough trained staff, not enough joined up procedures and protocols, and, pertinently, the health service would collapse.  And incidentally there was no capacity to cope with the cascade of corpses, but that wouldn't matter at that stage.

This was clearly good news for the architects of the controlled demolition of the UK.  So much so, they kept schtum about the findings and, rubbing their bloody hands with glee, proceeded to do nothing but sit and wait.  No wonder they were so keen to stop Corbyn from repealing the Health and Social Care Act 2012, which would put responsibility for the people's health back where it belonged, with the government, with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.  Currently the government is not legally responsible for people's health anymore; it is only responsible for providing a health system - whether it works or not.

The doctors and nurses and porters and cleaning staff are underpaid, undervalued, and the majority are struggling to eke a meagre living whilst many have to resort to debt and food banks.  They are on the front line like soldiers in the First World War.  They are decent people who have been wilfully betrayed by their government and the facade of a National Health Service which is infected with the likes of Simon Stevens.  Stevens, who is the CEO of NHS England, works for private insurance company interests and not for the benefit of either the NHS staff or the population that has been deceived about the ethos and meaning of those three letters which are deceitfully still emblazoned on private ambulances and private hospitals - the NHS.

Clapping like trained seals in the streets for the victims of abuse who are still struggling on because they have no choice, is a bizarre exhibition of delusional madness.  I know 'the people' don't know they are cheering the slaughter of innocents by plutocrats waging their own wars for their own interests and entertainment, but that is the reality.  Of course the fact is we are stuck in our homes attempting to reduce the catastrophe that is befalling the UK.  Of course the health carers and auxiliary staff are heroes under these circumstances.  But to be corralled into vacuous clapping by the architects of this disaster is abhorrent.  It is dim witted and ignorant.

I recall an advert, many years ago on the television, of cartoon pigs skipping with joy as they promoted some brand of sausage.  What I would suggest to these cartoon pigs, these clapping seals, these somnambulised troglodytes, these voluntary anchorites, is go back indoors and read about the intentional and planned privatisation of the NHS "by stealth".  Start with Oliver Letwin's 1980 book "Privatizing the World: A Study of International Privatization in Theory and Practice".  It's a shallow and pernicious self aggrandising pretence of sociopolitical economic theorising, but it appeals to neoliberals who are interested in how to run pyramid marketing scams and corporate scale Ponzi schemes.  He then teamed up with John Redwood to co-author "Britain's Biggest Enterprise: Ideas for Radical Reform of the NHS" in 1988.  A pathetic and appalling piece of economic theorising based on limited and prejudicial anecdotal nonsense.  But highly influential amongst right wing politicians gagging for favour from their plutocratic sugar daddies.  You could then put your feet up with some popcorn and soda and watch "The Great NHS Heist" by Drew McFadyen and Dr Bob Gill.  When you have finished that you might want to extend your education by watching "The Dirty War on the National Health Service" by John Pilger.  Once you get the gist of things you might want to brush up on what neoliberalism is really about by watching the exceptional four part series by BarakalypseNow called "This Is Neoliberalism" on YouTube.

If you do begin to realise the scale of this political manoeuvring, this cynical materialistic manipulation by a bestial cabal of self serving psychopaths, the betrayal of humanity itself by these toxic horsemen of the apocalypse, you may just begin to get angry.  And next time you step outside your door to make your presence known you might weep for the sacrificial lambs who are caught up in this manufactured crisis.  You might scream your fury at this government for an unforgivable crime against humanity.  You might promise each other you will never rest until these criminals are held to account and locked up for life.  You might commit to opposing this materialistic culture and vow to never let it happen again.

Or you might just clap because who wants to be the first to stand out from the crowd.

Joe Glasman: "Happy Chrismukah!" 2019

Joe Glasman

Joe Glasman issued a video message for Christmas 2019.  It is highly 'emotive' but what did Glasman actual say?  By way of attempting to learn more about the highly complex subject of Judaism and antisemitism I transcribed the video.  It is interesting to find out what phrases like "mazal tov"  and "kol hakavod" mean in English.  I also find it interesting to research some of the history of Hanukkah which commemorates the Maccabean Revolt of 167 to 160 BCE against the Seleucid Empire, and to look up the original source of the phrase "to beat swords into plough shares".

The more I looked into what Glasman was saying the more disturbing it became.  He is clearly an ideological fanatic and has all the hall marks of a paranoid megalomaniac.  The suggestion that he and his dedicated army of Maccabees were the main cause of the destruction of Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party is of significant concern.  I am sure a detailed analysis of this speech could uncover all sorts of complex and convoluted insanity, but one of the central puzzles I am left with is to try to understand what Glasman thinks he is promoting.  The only message I got was one of extreme and selective literal interpretations of some obscure texts to fabricate an intense hatred of some "other" to legitimise anger, vitriol, and destruction.  I see no indication of anything positive or useful except, perhaps, the act of destruction.  What is Glasman advocating?  If he achieved what he claims, then the consequences seem to be an extraordinarily right wing government in the UK.

I was not impressed.

Here is the transcription I made for academic purposes.

---------------------------------------------------------
Glasman's eight minute video begins with a still image of him facing the camera and the title words "Happy Chrismukah!" across the screen.  It then cuts to him lighting what appears to be the first candle (other than the helper candle) of a Hanukkah menorah on a box of drawers with a red bus in front of it, all sitting on a sideboard.
The words on the screen are:
"They Tried to Kill Us (Again)"
"We Won (Again)"
"Let's Eat (...even more?)"
He walks from there to his chair facing the camera and the words are replaced by: "How Corbyn Canifinish"
He sits down and the words are replaced by:
"took on British Maccabeans"
and then
"and got finished"
and then
"....and a personal thank-you"

Hey.  Er, my names Joe Glasman.  Some of you know me, but whether you do or not I just wanted to take this moment at Hanukkah to say a purely personal thank you [Screen text - A personal thank you] to every single person out there [Screen text - to everyone out there ...] who actively resisted [Screen text - who actively opposed] the antisemitism of Corbyn and the Labour Party [Screen text - the antisemitism of Corbyn's Labour Party] and say well done, mazal tov [Yiddish phrase meaning "good fortune"].

Um, just to put me into context if you don't know; I'm a volunteer [Screen text - volunteer at Campaign Against Antisemitism] at Campaign Against Antisemitism where I head the political investigations team which, amongst other things was responsible for our successful submissions to the EHCR [Screen text - EHCR...], but today I'm not speaking in that role, I'm just speaking as one more person [Screen text - to all the other volunteers like me .....] who volunteered like you.  Because the Hanukkah miracle has happened [Screen text - Nes gadol hayah shum!!]; the beast is slain [Screen text - slaughtered!] and I have an urge to express my love [Screen text - from me and my family:] and personal gratitude to every single person, [Screen text - THANK YOU!] some of whom I've never met, who've played their part, and wish them Chanukah, or maybe Chrismukah Sameach [Screen text - CHANUKAH SAMEACH - Merry Christmas].

I did think of making a list of everyone to thank, but, well, I noticed a few weeks back that a Twitter account called [sounds like - shaina maidel] tried to compile one which resulted in the longest thread of broigus [meaning - feud] [Screen text - BROIGUS ALERT] over who was left out.  As one activist, David Toum said in it "This is the most Jewish thread ever".  It reminds me that I once thought of creating a Jewish Facebook App that instead of sending you congratulations for staying friends with people would do the opposite like "Congratulations; you haven't spoken to Jessica for fourteen weeks".

This has been a real Jewish gescheft, a business where there are still people out there not talking to each other.  I've loved the fact that we've even made our non-Jewish allies a bit more disputatious.  And yet, despite all that, every single day we rolled up our sleeves and fought for the same cause.  Kol hakavod [meaning - all the honours], I take my hat off to all of you.  You're all people who've had a natural and unshakeable moral understanding of what needed to be done.  And we all know our non-Jewish allies deserve extra thanks.  We stood up for our community - you stood up because it was the right thing to do.  And then there are also the quiet activists, certainly numbered in my amazing team at CAA, who are the modest people who've applied themselves with the same determination as any of us, but who have never sought public plaudits. And, no, Cobynistas, they're not secret Mossad spies; [Screen text - Hey Chris W ...] they're just ordinary people, [Screen text - mossad offices next door ->] fantastic people.

And Hanukkah is the perfect time to celebrate our victory because, to me, Corbyn and Hanukkah are a comedy combo.  The sainted Jeremy is always pictured lighting the Hanukkah candles [Cut to photo of Jeremy Corbyn standing next to a Hanukkah menorah] and you really do wonder if anyone bothered to tell him that this is a two millennium old celebration [Screen text - Maccabean revolt: 167-170 BCE] of a Jewish military victory to re-establish Jewish national and religious sovereignty in Jerusalem.  I wouldn't have thought that was Jezza's favourite party invite but, hey, Jewish studies may not be his forte.

I don't think the miracle of Hanukkah was so much about the oil. [Screen text 'MO MORE WARS FOR OIL']  I think the real miracle was that we were free to be Jews again, and if you've got two more minutes [Screen text including images of alarm lights - TWO-MINUTE DROSHE WARNING] listen to Rabbi Joe's droshe, ['droshe' is Yiddish דראָשע meaning sermon or speech] I'll tell you why.

You see, academic historians of Hanukkah tell a slightly different story.  They tell the story of a dominant power trying to force their universal world view on Jews. [Screen text - Seleucids under Antiochus IV]  Back then it was gyms, the body beautiful, [Screen text - =Hellenists hence 'Greek'] Olympic games, demigodness.  Here's the twist: Up in Jerusalem there were the favoured Jews who were co-opted, who wanted in, learning to wrestle naked in the desecrated Jewish temple.  Writer Dara Horn calls them 'the cool Jews' who wanted to assimilate so badly it's said they even tried to reverse their circumcisions.  Ooooooh [Screen text - Ooooooh.... ...Jeremy Corbyn] Jeremy Corbyn.  This is the type of antisemitism where Jewish culture is attacked first and co-opts Jews as a weapon.  It was replicated by Christianity by Marxism.  In the Soviet version there was Yevsektskiya [Screen text - Yevsektskiya] where atheist Marxist Jews were sent to undermine Jewish communities as well.  Think about as 'Jewish Voice' for Stalin [Screen text - '@JVoiceStalin ...'] because a century later the Labour Party set up a perfect replica in Jewish Voice for Labour to undermine us in the very same way, except now in TV studios.

Yeah, we've had to deal with those 'cool Greeks', [Screen text - (you know exactly who I mean .....)] young Corbynista Jewish outriders desperate de-circumcisers [Screen text - desperate de-circumcisers] who try to cast people like ME, who used to vote Labour [Screen text - casting Jewish (ex-)Labour voters] as some kind of right wing Trump fanatics [Screen text - as 'right-wing' ... 'Trump fanatics'] robbing the poor of a better future [Screen text - - obstacles to 'a better world'].  And just before the election dawn, the Guardian wrote a truly dark editorial saying that despite the 'shameful' antisemitism, that Labour remained indispensable 'to progressive politics'.  As the historian Tom Holland explained, at the together against antisemitism rally, Christianity made it possible to be, both a good Christian and someone who hated Jews.

Now it seems that in modern Britain you can be a good progressive and hate Jews.  So Corbyn was not Haman or Hitler, he was [Screen text - ANTIOCHUS THE EXTREMELY HUMOURLESS] Antiochus the Extremely Humourless, and we defeated him.  And really, if we could see off the might of Ancient Greece it's not surprising we could see off what Stephen Daisley called [Screen text - ".....a rancid Tony Benn revival act"] a rancid Tony Benn revival act. [Screen text - Stephen Daisley]  Inevitably those Greeks, as they did then, will come back for Jerusalem.

So none of us should be ready to beat our swords into plough shares yet.  But Macabees - we did it.  By word and deed, by protest and tweet, by our spies and intel, by our fab celebrities and our anonymous volunteers, by pleading, by rigorous research and gathering of evidence, by incredible video making, by interminable hours combing through tweets, by prayer, by dramatic speeches and street protests, by lorries carrying huge billboards, by writing and shouting and taking the mick out of the most humourless bunch of people this country's politics has ever made us suffer and [Screen cuts to a picture of Jeremy Corbyn looking angry] ... can I finish? by shear bloody mindedness we metaphorically took the temple back.  [Screen text - and if Jerusalem "is builded here ...]  And if Jerusalem is builded here  [added screen text - in England's green and pleasant land....."] in England's green and pleasant land, then just for now at least, we have our Jerusalem back.

Macabees: At ease.  They tried to kill us - we won - let's eat.  And to quote our other Jewish festival of liberation, not leaning too far to the left, l'chaim. [In Hebrew "L'Chaim" is a toast "To Life"]

End titles state:
Joe's Chrismukah thank-you
Hum Music Production
---------------------------------------------------------

Glasman originally made his video private on YouTube with password access only.  The content of his video is clearly of national significance to the UK public, and, as such, must be available to the public.  Glasman has had several copies of his video removed from YouTube, presumably on the grounds of copyright law, and consequentially it can be hard to find a copy.  I have provided some links to sources currently available as I write.  They may also suffer illegitimate interference or censorship.  [I do have a copy in my safe.]

Glasman's video --->
The Electronic Intifada on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/evSj4S4AC4Q

Glasman's video --->
Momentum Barnet on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=781491542317247

Here is an article on The Electronic Intifada citing the video
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/we-slaughtered-jeremy-corbyn-says-israel-lobbyist

And here is an interesting article on the subject of Glasman's video by Deborah Maccoby
http://normanfinkelstein.com/2020/01/05/corbynism-and-chanukah-a-response-to-joe-glasman-guest-post-by-deborah-maccoby/

2019 UK GENERAL ELECTION

I did not vote in the EU referendum.

I generally don't vote because:
a) I don't understand the issues well enough and
b) most voting issues appear to be a set of different reasons for the same concealed agenda.  So you think you are making a choice but you are actually shoring up the same single power structure of the plutocratic elite whichever way you vote.

I would have voted Remain because I saw the US, the UK, Israel, and France as a cabal of rogue states committed to intensifying their petrodollar imperialism across the Middle East and Africa.  There was a clear desire by some to unshackle the UK from any moderating influence of the larger European Union.

I would not have voted to Leave because the Leave narrative was evidently toxic with emotive manipulation and wild unsubstantiated claims.  It was distasteful and worrying to see the lynch mob tactics whipping the population into a frenzy based on fear of catastrophic consequences.  It was dangerous to hand the political power over to what many, including myself, see as the hard right fascist warmongers and oppressors.

But I was quite poorly on the day and didn't vote.

What I didn't know at the time is that I was living in the highest proportional density of Leave voters in the UK.  There is a tragic irony in this.  Lincolnshire, and Boston in particular, is a peculiar collection of swathes of impoverished Tory voters.  I begin to understand the psychology of this which I call cultural Stockholm Syndrome.  But it doesn't need a name because a lot of people recognise the subservient serfs doffing their cap to the overlord for their own security.  The overlords deliberately engender and maintain a level of ignorance to the point that in times of tension or crisis the population tend to rally round the overlords decrying any dissenters with vigour to defend their 'providers' and 'protectors'.

As the whole volatile story of the various pros and cons of the power structures involved in this EU debacle are unravelling it becomes more confusing and more revealing at the same time.

At the outset my opinion was that if the UK had a decent socialist government I would think that the UK should be outside of any tight and constraining union with the European project.  A kind of respected and respectable independent entity cooperating with the rest of Europe.  If the UK had the same kind of hierarchical, authoritarian, capitalist government that it has had since Thatcher got into power in 1979 then the UK would be better inside the EU simply by way of moderating the rampant cruelty of the Tory ethos.

It has always been clear to me that the EU is neoliberal and that the UK government is neoliberal.  The choice seems to be which arrangement most ameliorates or softens the extremes of neoliberalism.  Although Corbyn had been leader of the Labour Party since September 2015 and the EU referendum was in June 2016 it took me some time to realise that he represented a profound change in the political philosophy of the Labour Party.

No one is likely to significantly advance their understanding of the political complexity and machinations that are currently afoot before the 12 December General Election.  The landscape and emotions will be flooded with a kaleidoscopic dizzying array of sound bites to amaze and bewilder the population in true consumer culture advertising style.

Perhaps the General Election date should have been set for 25 December to heighten the profound contradictions and dangers we all face.  Christmas has been turned into a disorientating hedonistic materialist extravaganza and a veritable orgy of consumer delight and drunkenness.  All on the back of a profound story about the birth of an innocent baby human in a corrupt world setting out on a story with a tragic end brought about by greed, prejudice, ignorance, fear, and bigotry.

The NHS is a good example of the problems we are facing in the UK.  The NHS is central to the election.  It is both an important issue and a revealing one.  The health and wellbeing of the UK is the issue.  Back in 1980 Oliver Letwin wrote a book entitled "A Study of International Privatization in Theory and Practice".  In 1988 he and John Redwood produced a book entitled "Britain's Biggest Enterprise - ideas for radical reform of the NHS"  Redwood is a significant influence in the theory and agenda to privatise the social services in the UK too.  Someone may help me here by clarifying the stance these two individuals have regarding the EU but it appears to me that Oliver Letwin is leaning towards Remain whilst John Redwood is leaning towards Leave.  It is interesting since either way doesn't seem to matter to their big ideas about corporate control and free market capitalism.

The Health and Social Care Act 2012 was the keystone legislation that set the bigger plan of privatisation of the NHS on course.  Corbyn's Labour are the only Party to make it clear that they understand what is taking place enough by making an unambiguous statement that they will repeal the Health and Social Care Act 2012.  No other Party either understands what is afoot or is willing to raise the subject in public.  Perhaps they think it is too complicated for the little people to understand.  It is evidently vital that any hope of saving the NHS resides with the Labour Party.  It is also evident that Labour are the only Party committed to reversing austerity and re-establishing the social security that has been decimated in this country (even understanding the significance of changing the Department for Work and Pensions back to the Department for Health and Social Security).

Given that we don't have the option of an entire radical reform of politics in the UK between now and 12 December it seems the issue at hand is who to vote for in the upcoming election.  On that basis I am clear that Labour is the best option at this point.  Of course the neoliberal elites may be grooming Corbyn as their way of extending neoliberalism in a more clandestine manner under the guise of socialism.  We might find, as Labour get into government, that we are faced with the right wing takeover of the Labour Party again.  Given the grass roots surge in Labour support on the back of the more socialist agenda proposed in their 2017 election manifesto it seems reasonable to at least doubt the right wing will have an easy time of overthrowing the left wing.  But what is guaranteed is that every other significant Party is committed to neoliberalism come what may.

Every other significant Party is entirely neoliberal; the only question seems to be what colour you prefer.  You can support free market capitalism which believes corporate rule with as little state control as possible (sounds a little like my understanding of Mussolini's political philosophy) and remain in the EU with the Liberal Democrats, or you can support free market capitalism and Leave the EU with the Tories or the Brexit Party.  I would caution against voting for Leave or Remain in this General Election for two primary reasons; a) there is a real danger of voting on the basis of ideas or feelings initiated by the disastrous campaigns of the EU referendum whilst this is a GE not the EU referendum, and b) this election is about the government we want for the next five years and the leading "Remain/Leave" Parties are committed neoliberals regardless of where we are in relation to the EU.

Labour has made a very clear and difficult stand which is often (almost always) criticised as being indecisive or 'on the fence' whilst in fact it is (as is becoming clear) the most open, clear, consistent, and decisive position by any Party.  First, get rid of the neoliberalism which has devastated the social infrastructure of this country.  Second, to handle the Brexit disaster in the most clear, sensible, open, and respectful way possible under these difficult circumstances.  So the proposition is to negotiate a workable and beneficial deal with the EU to Leave the European Union (they have done a lot of that work already though you would never know it from the neoliberal main stream media).  Then they will have another referendum, tactfully and diplomatically called "A People's Vote", with the details of the arrangements for Leaving the EU out in the open for your perusal.  In a calmer and more informed setting you can then vote for Leave or Remain.

The difficulty for some people is that they will fear they may be in the minority, or if they fail to vote for 'their side' in the GE that the 'other side' will usurp them, and so will attempt to grab at Leave or Remain in the General Election, but that is what neoliberalism relies on ... fear and greed.  So, are you going to act out of fear and desperation and vote for the controlling neoliberal corporate overlords whether we are in or out of Europe, or are you capable of steeling yourself and acting in a more considered and intelligent manner and vote for the socialist agenda to dismantle the neoliberal infrastructure and then vote on Europe?

My own view is clear.  For 40 years I have watched, and suffered the consequences of, the ideologues that believe, or pretend to believe, that unfettered capitalism will find its own equilibrium for the benefit of the majority.  I have had 40 years to ameliorate, amend, or alter my view and I am more convinced than ever that this 'project' is a crime against humanity and can only result in a massive increase in suffering and needless death in this country and abroad.  I'm getting a bit old, and am less interested in the consequences to me, but I know that this materialistic obsession is profoundly against humanity and nature itself.

And I am pleased to be in the good company of people like Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky, Jeremy Corbyn, Yanis Varoufakis, Dr Bob Gill, Roger Waters, Ken Loach and so many more kind hearted, intelligent, insightful people.  In fact it is nice to inhabit the same planet as them.  Let's hope we can continue and nurture even more loving, compassionate, and delightful people in the future.

Priority 1 - Vote Labour - Get Neoliberalism OUT.
Priority 2 - I don't care if we're in or out of the EU at the moment so long as it is serviceable.  And I will reserve judgement until I have read the proposed arrangements.

INVERTING SELF AWARENESS

We are going to have to talk about this 'mental health' issue.  You can't say that; it's anti-Semitic.  Fuck off; all you Brexiteers are fucking mental.  Bastard Libtards; you do my fuckin' 'ed in.  What the fuck, you fucking mother fucking fuckers; I hate the fucking lot of you.

"Ka-ching".

The digital money keeps flowing from your account to the ethereal megabank in the upper echelons of cyberspace.  The degradation of language, the distortion of collective cognition, and the projected landscape of illusion are all part of the fourth industrial revolution and the conversion of individual identity into digital tokens to utilise your brief manifestation as a material biological blob for the benefit of a plutocratic elite.

It is extremely hard to pull it all together and to make coherent sense of the current changes evolving within the context of 'life on this planet'.  It is becoming increasingly clear to me how the advent and progress of  computing is changing what we would, in olden days, have called reality.  When using such labels as 'reality' we assume a great deal and presume upon the collective consensus to afford meaning to such a term.

At a certain scale of observation we mutually agree there is such a thing as material substance.  A good exercise for anyone reading this is to delve into the etymology of the word 'material'.  In short it relates to mother and nature in its Latin origins which were evolved from the ancient Greek term 'hyle' which, although it means 'wood', was a generic reference to the essential substance manifest by form coming into being.  It was not the stuff that was made into a form but more that the form created the substance in order to exist.  In short the word has evolved from a more ethereal origin than the common daily usage implies.  When you pick up your cup of tea to have a drink it is of no concern or consequence to you what the philosophical ramifications of a material substance may be because your cup is solid, its real, and you get to taste your tea in the real world.

Many years ago (perhaps forty) I was actually shocked when I realised that the physical manifestation of the cup was there in order to facilitate the dynamics required to experience life.  I won't attempt to describe slowly and gently how that construct is formed in a mind just here, but it was a shock for me to realise that the 'real' world, as I thought of it then, was only a symbolic representation of the underlying non-material reality.  Coming from my Roman Catholic upbringing it was akin to a realisation that the temporal world is not real and the spiritual world is the real reality.

For the presumptuous sceptics amongst you I have considered at length whether our cultural constructs form, and therefore restrict, our interpretation of the world or whether they are just an arbitrary framework from which to begin to discover the world.  It is a bit of both and varies in different people to different degrees.  For those limited to learning by rote you will never understand why 56x8 gives the same result as 8x56 whilst 56/8 does not give the same result as 8/56.  You will learn by rote, repeat with great skill and finesse, and be highly pragmatic in mathematical exercises.  But you will never 'understand' why it is so.  And why should you?  Pragmatism is a highly desirable characteristic.  For me, however, I seek understanding as a pathological necessity.

So it seems in all my subsequent reading and investigation I am not the first person to encounter this deeper issue of the substance of real life.  During my career developing software it became increasingly clear to me that there was something about algorithms that was more real than the real world they affected.  An algorithm is in some way an ethereal pattern.  It has no material existence except that it needs material in which to be manifest.  A bit like the idea of balance, which Pythagoras was at pains to point out was real and could never be perfectly manifest in the material world but could only be approximated.  This, of course, led to Platonic solids and eventually to our entire Western Scientific philosophy which, ironically, is entirely upside down.  Western Science struggles with Quantum Physics (a profound misnomer which again leads to much misunderstanding) because we collectively believe in the material world whilst Quantum Theory disposes of it completely.

A brief example is that what once took several office clerks, some bits of paper, envelopes, stamps, machines to make stamps, invoices, trips to the post office, more clerks, cheques, bank clerks, postal vans, VAT invoices, delivery vans burning fossil fuels to get a widget onto your desk can now be rendered in algorithms such that you can click on a picture on your smart phone and your 3D printer will belch out the widget onto your desk with all the financial transaction handled electronically.  The algorithms symbolically manifest the erstwhile material dynamics to render the desired result.  A large part of the material world becomes redundant in the algorithmic representation of it.

People think robots will take over the world, they imagine Artificial Intelligence will be dictating to us, and there are endless imaginings of various dystopian futures.  But it isn't happening like that.  Only a few years ago there was an idea that we will all be controlled by our digital devices.  Eventually we would have embedded chips and could walk into a supermarket, take food, walk out and the money would be deducted from our digital accounts without us even having to think about it.  Too many numbskulls cannot even see the inherent dangers in that.  But we don't need to be physically 'chipped'.  With the onset of distant iris scanning and biological identity the supermarket already knows who you are, where you are, what you are taking, what you want, what they can sell you, and what is in your 'account'.  You are being 'identified' simply by walking the streets of London.  Apart from many unanswered questions about 5G the surveillance state is constructing a virtual world with you in it.  As such, it has immense control over you.

Currently the cultural cognitive models suggest that if you are a thief (culturally understood to be a 'baddie') you won't be able to get away with robbing the supermarket because the surveillance state will intercept you.  This is all perfectly fine until you philosophically question what amounts to 'theft'.  In what way, for example, have the supermarkets purloined the goods they are selling you.  If you can't get a job, and you can't get an authorised employer to deposit electronic digits into your account, you can't get food to live.  You literally have to comply with the algorithms in order to operate in the world to live.  Bang goes the 'black market' and any hope of having alternatives to survive without the system.  No safety net makes everyone entirely dependent on compliance with the electronic superstructure in which they exist.

Then comes the conceptual side of things.  It is already happening and is deeply disturbing to see the pathological conformity with cultural narratives.  I saw an interviewer asking people outside a London rail station what they thought about all the surveillance cameras.  No one objected.  Better than that, many people dreamt up justifications on the spot like "I suppose if it makes us all safer it's a good thing".  Literally people's brains are conforming with the inevitable as children conform to their parents.  We get our sense of self, our identity, from our surroundings and most profoundly and inherently from the people we interface with.  As this sense of an all-seeing presence pervades our consciousness we do not see it as a thing but instead we simply respond appropriately.  Marshall McLuhan's reference to the overarching technological brain (a hypothesis in 1962 when he wrote about it) and the way Big Brother would go inside of us is stunningly perceptive.

Through social media, cloud technology, the internet of things, digital money, remote biometric identification, and the ubiquitous surveillance state we are evolving into something akin to a supraorganism like an insect colony where our limited responses, depending upon our perceived environment, are entirely predictable and controllable, and support and maintain the greater good even if it is to our own personal detriment.  And for all of this, the vast majority will still believe they are running their own lives.  We are fast becoming the physical manifestation of the virtual algorithmic world of artificial intelligence.  So we are not going to be taken over by robots in any way that we imagine; we are simply becoming its extension.  Like the little fungus infected ant that just happens to want to climb as high as he can today.

Mental health is transforming into a euphemism for compliance, and mental health problems are simply something for the supraorganism to remedy or remove.  Big Brother is already inside of you.

Thanks to Tookapic & Markus Spiske for original images.

Rob Delaney's short video

I found a Tweet from Bob Gill @drbobgill

"Great video on urgent new threat to NHS, and what you can do, introduced by the brilliant

@robdelaney

It contains some useful bullet points in a video regarding the restructuring of the NHS.

This is the Tweet url:

https://twitter.com/drbobgill/status/1124053942026088454

This is a transcript from the video:

Hi, I'm Rob Delaney [@robdelaney] and I love the NHS.  But it's being privatised by the Tories.  They're breaking it up into businesses so that private companies can run the profitable bits.  And it is all being done by stealth and without a public mandate.  So please watch this video and learn what you can do to help.

- The Tories are turning the NHS into a US-style private health insurance system.

- The latest step in the NHS privatisation plan is to get GPs to sign up to new Primary Care Networks.

- BUT these are the building blocks of new bodies called Integrated Care Providers (ICPs)...

- Which are the foundation of the American private health insurance system.

- GPs are being pressured to sign up before 15th May without debate or a vote.  They're being told that:

- 1. ICPs will integrate health and social care to create one better, joined up service.

- 2. Signing up means more money for GP practices.

- 3. GPs are free not to sign.

- But they're being tricked.  Signing up to these contracts will actually mean:

- 1. Under-qualified staff will be able to examine, diagnose and even treat patients.

- 2. Financial incentives will reward GPs for denying care to patients - fundementally corrupting the doctor-patient relationship.

- 3. Health and social care budgets will be integrated to allow corporate-run ICPs to get their hands on a bigger pot of our money.

- 4. Control of patient care and budgets will be removed from the doctors and given to managers.

- There's a lot of pressure to sign these contracts.  But together we can resist it.

- If you're a GP, DON'T sign the new contract!  And tell your colleagues NOT to sign.

- If you're a patient, tell your GP NOT to sign!  AND DO SO BEFORE 15th MAY!

- For an in-depth explanation, watch this 10 minute video: https://youtu.be/l4wQ577Me30

- For the full story of NHS privatisation, watch 'SELL OFF: THE ABOLITION OF YOUR NHS' http://selloff.org.uk/nhs/

- Please share to protect the NHS.

LETTER TO MATT WARMAN ABOUT GENERAL ELECTION

Matt Warman 63 Wide Bargate Boston Lincolnshire PE21 6SG

16 January 2019

Dear Matt Warman

The defeat of the Government's Withdrawal Agreement on Tuesday 15 January 2019 would have been problematic enough had it been a marginal defeat.  The magnitude of the defeat appears to have shocked all observers across the political spectrum and across Europe.  It is indicative of a far more serious problem in Britain.

The EU referendum has been severely criticised on all levels and it may have been an attempt to consolidate some sort of consensus in the UK but it turned out to be a Pandora's box.  One year later, on account of the turmoil created, Theresa May called a General Election in the vain hope of increasing the Conservative majority.  Quite the opposite occurred and it cost a pretty penny to secure the Confidence and Supply Agreement with the DUP to maintain a tenuous grip on power.

Now the Conservative Government have not only been the first ever Government to be found in Contempt of Parliament they have also suffered the largest defeat of any UK Government in history.  All this is centred around the toxic and divisive issue of our membership of the EU.  The government is spectacularly failing to maintain or even muster the confidence of the population and this in itself is causing serious unrest as well.

As Theresa May has been at pains to emphasise repeatedly, this country needs a "strong and stable" government.  On that point I agree with her.  It is in the interest of the UK as a country and all the individual people in the UK to find some consensus within which the UK can make safe and secure progress in whatever direction it chooses.

On that account, regardless of my views on membership of the EU or my political preferences and as one of your constituents, I request and urge you to vigorously support any moves toward securing a General Election at the earliest possible moment as a matter of highest priority and national security.

Yours sincerely




Sam Spruce

LEAKED: TORY BRIEF FOR TUE 15 JAN 2019

LEAKED: BROADCAST BRIEF FOR TUESDAY 15 JANUARY 2019

Jim Pickard @PickardJE on Twitter:  His profile says "Chief Political Correspondent for the Financial Times" but he is not blue ticked.  He tweeted "someone has leaked me what seems to be the government line for tomorrow, if it’s of any interest "  Looking at the documents I can't imagine why anyone would have invented them.  And they are entirely in character and as incompetent as one would expect from the Tories. [On the first page alone I have found 5 typos.]  Reading this document carefully in order to transcribe it I inevitably paid more attention to it than I would most documents produced on this level from the Government.  In my opinion it is a shoddy, unprofessional, and contradictory rush job with no meaningful substance but a lot of interesting psychological subtext.

This is my transcript of the leaked documents.  The images from which it was transcribed are at the end of the blog post.

BROADCAST BRIEF FOR TUESDAY 15 JANUARY 2019

• Our deal delivers on the referendum, taking back control of our money, borders and laws, whilst protecting jobs and security and providing certainty as we leave the EU.
• We should deliver for the British people and get on with building a brighter future for our country by backing this deal today.
• Voting against the deal would just mean more division, more uncertainty, and a failure to deliver on the decisions of the British people.

We have listened carefully to the concerns that MPs from all sides expressed and secured valuable new assurances from the EU including...

• A commitment to work on our new relationship can begin as soon as possible after signing the Withdrawal Agreement - in advance of the exit day of 29 March - and confirmation that this new relationship does not need to replicate the backstop.
• A commitment to a fast track process to bring our EU trade deal into force - including that it can be implemented before ratification by other EU countries, making it even more likely the backstop will never need to be used.
• An explicit linkage between the Withdrawal Agreement and the Political Declaration - putting it beyond doubt that these come as a package.
• And confirmation that the UK can unilaterally deliver on all the commitments we set out for Northern Ireland last week.

These letters also...

• Confirm the legal standing of the December Council conclusions: that the backstop could only be temporary and both sides would act bring it to an end swiftly.
• And they have legal force and would be used in any further arbitration to interpret the meaning of the Withdrawal Agreement.

They build on wider assurances we have already set out including...

• New commitments for Northern Ireland - including a 'Stormont lock' so no new areas of law can apply to NI under the backstop over the heads of the NI Assembly
• A greater role for Parliament - including supporting an amendment so Parliament has a vote on whether to extend the implementation period or enter the backstop if our future relationship won't be ready the end of 2020.
• A commitment on workers' rights and environmental standards - including to work with MPs on how to implement them, looking at legislation where necessary.

We recognise that these assurances do not go as far as some MPs would like...

• But these documents contain importance assurances from the EU that both sides are committed to avoiding the backstop, and that it would only ever be used for a short time if it did come into force.
• The EU have maintained that they will not re-open the Withdrawal Agreement, and it would be wrong to pretend there are different deals available.
• The exchange of letters do, however, mean the EU has gone further than before in providing assurances and mechanisms to avoid the backstop ever being used, and to swiftly and the backstop if it was ever triggered.
• And we are convinced that MPs now have the clearest assurances that this is the baest deal possible and that it is worthy of their support.

There is broad support for many of the key aspects of the deal:

• We will control our own borders and end free movement once and for all.
• We will protect jobs and security.
• We will no longer send vast sums of money to the EU.
• We will be able to strike free trade deals around the world.
• We will take back control of our laws, ending the jurisdiction of the ECJ in the UK.
• And we will protect the integrity of our United Kingdom.

BREXIT Q&A

'Amendments tabled?'

• The selection of amendments is a matter for the Speaker.
• We will look at all the amendments in the usual way.

'Murrison amendment'

• The assurances published today make clear that both sides remain committed to avoiding the backstop and, if it were ever used, it would only be temporary.

'Benn amendment'

• This amendment shows the Government's plan is the only one on the table.
• As with the Labour frontbench, this amendment rejects our deal without putting forward any alternative.
• It is pure self-interest to try and stop Brexit and overturn the result of the referendum.

'Mann amendment'

• We recognise concerns raised on the protection of workers' rights and environmental standards.
• We have committed to addressing these concerns and will work with MPs from across the House on how best to implement them, looking at legislation where necessary, to deliver the best possible results for workers across the UK.

'Swire amendment'

• We will report in the final half of 2020 on progress made towards the future relationship and make sure Parliament - informed by the Devolved Administrations - will be able to consider whether to extend the Implementation Period.

'Going to win the Meaningful Vote?'

• We're fully focused on winning the vote on the deal - a deal that delivers on the referendum and is in the national interest.
• And as the Prime Minister said yesterday, we should deliver for the British people and get on with building a brighter future for our country by backing this deal today.

'Plan B?'

• We are working to ensure that MPs vote for the deal tomorrow and we deliver on the result of the referendum - with a good deal that protects jobs, security and our union.
• It is important that we don't see a situation where there is a paralysis in Parliament that risks there being no Brexit.

'When will you come back if you lose?'

• Our intention has always been to respond quickly and provide certainty on the way forward in the event that the vote doesn't pass, both in terms of setting out our next steps and any subsequent vote, and that is what we will do.

'Alternative EU Withdrawal Bill from MPs if the vote doesn't pass?'

1. Clearly any attempt to prevent the Government from meeting all the legal conditions for an orderly exit at this moment of historic significance is extremely concerning.
2. There is obviously a lot of talk of what MPs may or may not do in Parliament.
3. But right now the focus is on winning the vote today.

'Why is it important that the Government controls the business?'

• It is a fundamental principle of our democracy that allows MPs to scrutinise Government, whilst allowing the Government to pursue its legislative agenda.
• Any attempt to change how and when business is arranged could threaten the ability of the Government to deliver on the referendum result, its manifesto commitments and entire legislative program, therefore undermining its ability to govern.
• It would also be binding on future governments.

'Why is no Brexit more likely?'

• While no deal remains a serious risk, having observed events at Westminster over the last seven days, we now believe that the more likely outcome is a paralysis in Parliament that risks there being no Brexit.

'DUP says scaremongering over NI in no deal?'

• We will do everything in our power, whatever the circumstances, to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.
• This is about practicality for businesses and people - no border doesn't happen simply because people say 'well, we won't have a border'.

'Rise of far-right extremism if no Brexit?'

• We would enter unchartered territory should the vote on the deal not pass through the House, which would risk dividing the country.
• We're focused on winning the vote that would bring the country back together again.

'Letter from Conservatives ex-Minister says WTO exit better?'

• This deal gives us an unprecedented economic relationship with the EU and keeps us safe with the broadest security partnership in the EU's history.
• We can do better than trading under WTO rules, which would mean tariffs and quotas on British goods going to the EU.