I have spent the Easter weekend searching the Bible for the passages that instruct us how to persecute the disabled and reduce their income in order that we can grant even greater benefits and increased wealth for the richest people in our society. I have not come across any yet, but I am sure they must be there given that our noble Prime Minister has been encouraging us to remember that we are a Christian country and that we must be guided by our Christian values during this time of Christian festival. Taking the sage advice of this self-confessed Christian gentleman, I have been searching (so far fruitlessly) for those passages that instruct us how to so impoverish the poor and vulnerable that they are driven to commit suicide out of the despair of daily living without any form of income. I am of course working on the assumption that the public policies promoted by this same gentleman are a reflection of his Christian values. At the moment I am quite confused because what I am led to understand from my reading of the Christian handbook does not appear to support the Prime Minister's views. However, I am supremely confident that I will find enlightenment because the Camoron would not tell me one thing and then proceed to do the exact opposite would he? After all, he is an English gentleman, a Christian, and a member of the British aristocracy.
As disabled people are openly discriminated against and cannot find meaningful employment opportunities in Christian Britain, they are largely dependent on social security benefits (which of course are an instrument of the Devil designed to undermine the noble Christian values of hard work and individual responsibility). As a result, to the majority of the British people they are welfare scroungers who deserve to be demonised and therefore a perfectly legitimate target for scorn, hatred and the justified reduction in their benefits since they obviously don't deserve them in the first place, which of course must also be a reflection of our Christian values which are, of course, all targeted towards that world famous British class of people "the hard-working taxpayer." You see, one of the things I have always understood about the teachings of Jesus Christ is how He warns us not to judge people by what they say, but by what they do. "By their fruits shall ye know them" or words to that effect. That was His response when his followers complained to Him that all sorts of people were claiming to be Christians and they didn't know how to tell the goodies from the baddies. So, how should we judge our good Christian Prime Minister and the rest of our God fearing Christian "hard-working taxpayers"? Well, by their fruits of course! So, since he is claiming to be an authority on Christianity, I feel we should look to the example he sets in promoting his own values. As a result, I feel that if we all want to go to heaven we had better develop an all-consuming contempt for, and hatred of, the poor and disadvantaged, but especially the disabled, as they are the principal targets of this man's hatred. We must also find a plentiful reservoir of hatred and contempt for immigrants and refugees. By the same token we must develop, not only a love for, but a worship of, the rich, as that is what it means to be a modern British Christian. The rich deserve our undying love and gratitude and the poor deserve our undying contempt and hatred, and, in the timeless words of the Westminster pigsty, that is 'the right thing to do.'
I have commented before that one of the principal Christian characteristics it has been my experience to witness is their capacity for hate. If there is one common denominator amongst all religious people it is their hatred. Whilst they all claim that their fundamental message is one of love, what they love most is to hate. Few people have the capacity for hate that religious people exhibit, and, whilst other religions may hate with an intensity that is equal to the Christian, there are none better. However, to be fair to the Christian, whilst he/she is condemning you to hell fire and damnation, they are doing it in the spirit that it is for your own good, and that is another of their admirable characteristics, they know what is good for you better than you do yourself. That is why most Christians are Tories. They are the natural masters and shepherds of the lower orders and the spiritually barren. So, I am afraid I will have to reject the Prime Minister's exhortation to display any Christian values, because, in my opinion the values displayed by this person and his cohorts fill me with disgust and appal me, as I am sure you are now familiar with. If the Camoron and his fellow Tories are genuine representatives of British and/or Christian values then I have no wish to be described as either British or Christian. You have been warned.
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
Wednesday 30 March 2016
Friday 25 March 2016
What would Adam Smith think about Brexit?
I was pondering the arguments that dominate the campaign for Britain leaving the EU and was reminded how Adam Smith warns us against negative attitudes towards other countries and recalled how he rebukes those of us who display a 'savage patriotism of a coarse mind enraged almost to madness against a foreign nation from which his own had suffered so much'. I would ask the Nigel Farages and Boris the Spiders of the world to contemplate Smith's words in a quiet moment. I also realise that some may criticise me for quoting this whilst advocating Scottish Independence, but remind you that my argument is based on a rejection of an ideology, of an economic system, and of a political and economic programme that is founded on open class warfare. There is nothing nationalistic about my argument which is founded, not on negative attitudes of other countries, nor any notion of patriotism, but based on the realisation that this ideology is destroying the United Kingdom. The electorates of both England and Wales appear to be content to embrace this poison, and that is their choice, but Scotland has a chance to escape the ruin that certainly awaits them under the neoliberal dominance. I have a choice and I choose to exercise it. I would like to think that Adam Smith would agree with me. What Smith wrote was
"The love of our own nation often disposes us to view, with the most malignant jealousy and envy, the prosperity and aggrandisement of any other neighbouring nation. Independent and neighbouring nations, having no common superior to decide their disputes, all live in continual dread and suspicion of one another. Each sovereign, expecting little justice from his neighbours, is disposed to treat them with as little as he expects from them. The regard for the laws of nations, or for those rules which independent states profess or pretend to think themselves bound to observe in their dealing with one another, is often little more than mere pretence and profession. From the smallest interest, upon the slightest provocation, we see those rules every day, either evaded or directly violated without shame or remorse. Each nation foresees, or imagines it foresees, its own subjugation in the increasing power and aggrandisement of any of its neighbours; and the mean principle of national prejudice is often founded upon the noble one of the love of our own country. The sentence with which the elder Cato is said to have concluded every speech which he made in the senate, whatever might be the subject, “It is my opinion likewise that Carthage ought to be destroyed” was the natural expression of the savage patriotism of a strong but coarse mind, enraged almost to madness against a foreign nation from which has own had suffered so much. The more humane sentence with which Scipio Nasica is said to have concluded all his speeches “It is my opinion likewise that Carthage ought not to be destroyed” was the liberal expression of a more enlarged and enlightened mind, who felt no aversion to the prosperity even of an old enemy, when reduced to a state which could no longer be formidable to Rome. France and England may each of them have some reason to dread the increase of the naval and military power of the other; but for either of them to envy the internal happiness and prosperity of the other, the cultivation of its lands, the advancements of its manufactures, the increase of its commerce, the security and number of its ports and harbours, its proficiency in all the liberal arts and sciences, is surely beneath the dignity of two such great nations. These are all improvements of the world we live in. Mankind are benefited, human nature is ennobled by them. In such improvements each nation ought, not only to endeavour itself to excel, but from the love of mankind, to promote, instead of obstructing the excellence of its neighbours. These are all proper objects of national emulation, not of national prejudice or envy".
I think that Smith would have approved of the EU as a common superior to our disputes with each nation sharing the prosperity and improvements we see from each nation state. Despite all its failings this cooperative collective of nation states has witnessed peace and prosperity since 1945 and has been the one institution that, whilst adhering to the fraud that is the free market, has at least mitigated its worst excesses, those excesses that the Westminster pigsty wishes to allow to run rampant. In addition, it has been the EU that has stood between Westminster and the complete destruction of British human rights. Should Britain exit the EU this June there will be no single reason left for Scotland to remain part of the UK. You have been warned
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
"The love of our own nation often disposes us to view, with the most malignant jealousy and envy, the prosperity and aggrandisement of any other neighbouring nation. Independent and neighbouring nations, having no common superior to decide their disputes, all live in continual dread and suspicion of one another. Each sovereign, expecting little justice from his neighbours, is disposed to treat them with as little as he expects from them. The regard for the laws of nations, or for those rules which independent states profess or pretend to think themselves bound to observe in their dealing with one another, is often little more than mere pretence and profession. From the smallest interest, upon the slightest provocation, we see those rules every day, either evaded or directly violated without shame or remorse. Each nation foresees, or imagines it foresees, its own subjugation in the increasing power and aggrandisement of any of its neighbours; and the mean principle of national prejudice is often founded upon the noble one of the love of our own country. The sentence with which the elder Cato is said to have concluded every speech which he made in the senate, whatever might be the subject, “It is my opinion likewise that Carthage ought to be destroyed” was the natural expression of the savage patriotism of a strong but coarse mind, enraged almost to madness against a foreign nation from which has own had suffered so much. The more humane sentence with which Scipio Nasica is said to have concluded all his speeches “It is my opinion likewise that Carthage ought not to be destroyed” was the liberal expression of a more enlarged and enlightened mind, who felt no aversion to the prosperity even of an old enemy, when reduced to a state which could no longer be formidable to Rome. France and England may each of them have some reason to dread the increase of the naval and military power of the other; but for either of them to envy the internal happiness and prosperity of the other, the cultivation of its lands, the advancements of its manufactures, the increase of its commerce, the security and number of its ports and harbours, its proficiency in all the liberal arts and sciences, is surely beneath the dignity of two such great nations. These are all improvements of the world we live in. Mankind are benefited, human nature is ennobled by them. In such improvements each nation ought, not only to endeavour itself to excel, but from the love of mankind, to promote, instead of obstructing the excellence of its neighbours. These are all proper objects of national emulation, not of national prejudice or envy".
I think that Smith would have approved of the EU as a common superior to our disputes with each nation sharing the prosperity and improvements we see from each nation state. Despite all its failings this cooperative collective of nation states has witnessed peace and prosperity since 1945 and has been the one institution that, whilst adhering to the fraud that is the free market, has at least mitigated its worst excesses, those excesses that the Westminster pigsty wishes to allow to run rampant. In addition, it has been the EU that has stood between Westminster and the complete destruction of British human rights. Should Britain exit the EU this June there will be no single reason left for Scotland to remain part of the UK. You have been warned
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
Thursday 24 March 2016
What do Thrasymachus, Marx and Clarence Darrow have in common?
When I am asked what I regard as the fundamental starting point for an understanding of politics I reply that, from my experience, in the real everyday world of human interaction, two concepts stand out as self-evident, the first is the observation of the Greek Sophist Thrasymachus in the fifth century BC that justice is the interests of the strongest, and the second is Marx’s observation that the ruling ideas are the ideas of the ruling class. Two thousand years separate these two observations, but they are completely complimentary and seamlessly merge into what I consider the reality of politics throughout those two thousand years. Politics is a living social experience and therefore must be understood within the real social and political world within which they are taking place. Thus, theorising about democracy, morality, justice, the rule of law etc. becomes a sterile pursuit if the two concepts are either neglected, or worse, deliberately ignored, and, if any society graphically illustrates those concepts, it is the British, despite their loftily acclaimed virtues of democracy, fairness and opportunity. Every minute of every day in the United Kingdom demonstrates the truism that justice is the interests of the strongest and that the ruling ideas are the ideas of the ruling class. For example, in 1922, the famous American lawyer, Clarence Darrow, argued that his 40 years experience in the law had led him to the conclusion that civilised society should have a fundamental rethink as to the nature of crime and what it is to be called a criminal. He wrote that
"Judging from the kind of men sent to the State legislatures and to Congress, the fact that certain things are forbidden does not mean that these things are necessarily evil; but rather, that politicians believe there is a demand for such legislation from the class of society that is most powerful in political action. No one who examines the question can be satisfied that a thing is intrinsically wrong because it is forbidden by a legislative body".
This essentially supports the positions taken above by Marx and Thrasymachus. What we have is a situation whereby Thrasymachus, Marx and Clarence Darrow, a Greek, a German and an American all come to the opinion from hugely different eras, cultures and social environments, that the dominant thinking in any society is fundamentally class thinking and is a function of the power structures that prevail in society. Within the tragedy that passes for the United Kingdom at this time we are witnessing this phenomenon being played out daily as the ruling elite are involved in an internal struggle over the future of Britain with respect to the EU and over such matters as immigration. In all of this so-called crisis, the British public are largely spectators who are expected to fall in behind their appointed champions. But if I can use the subject of crime to highlight this matter, it can best show us how we become programmed to follow the ideas and whims of the power elite. Even a casual study of crime shows us that notions of crime never appear to be fixed or universal. Crime is a relative phenomenon and what one society deems criminal behaviour is often morally and lawfully acceptable in another.
Similarly, in any one society what is defined as ‘criminal’ is likely to change over time. For example, witchcraft was one of the most heinous of crimes in medieval England, and while it now may continue to viewed (by some) as morally reprehensible, it is not subject to legal sanction. What counts as crime is therefore subject to historical contingency. It never appears to be immutable, but is contingent on particular social, economic, legal and ideological circumstances. Very few people ever stop to ponder why certain behaviours have come to be subject to criminal sanction and others not. We are therefore entitled to ask the fundamental question of who has the power to decide that certain behaviours and events should be criminalised, whilst others are condoned or ignored, why a teenage boy who steals a bottle of water from a supermarket gets six months in prison whilst the CEO of a major bank who has defrauded his customers and by criminal mismanagement has brought the bank to the point of bankruptcy is awarded a massive bonus and a huge pension for the rest of his life? The identification of ‘crime’ often assumes a consensus of public opinion whereas in reality it simply reflects the position that some sections of society are able to pass laws which protect their own self-interest and to divert attention away from underlying social inequalities and conflicts in the social order. Thus, it is legitimate for us to discuss the relationship between crime and relations of power, and to identify not only those who have the power to criminalise, but also those who have the power to escape criminalisation. In addition, we will find that crime is a feature of the social, political and economic structures and arrangements that prevail in different societies. As early as 1842, the French moral statistician Quetelet wrote that
“Society includes within itself the germs of all crime committed, and at the same time the necessary facilities for their development. It is the social state, in some measure, which prepares these crimes, and the criminal is merely the instrument to execute them. Every social state supposes, then, a certain number and a certain order of crimes, these being merely the necessary consequences of its organisation."
This is of course a massive topic, but my motivation in highlighting it is to show how the ruling elites in both Britain and America are successfully steering the dominant narratives within these societies by demonising certain groups and themes such as the EU, immigrants, Muslims, Mexicans, the disabled, people on benefits etc. and labelling them undesirable and tending towards the criminal for the purpose of deflecting our attention away from the real criminals, the elite themselves. As Lincoln warned us, you can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time. What we must do is try to avoid belonging to either of these groups all of the time. You have been warned.
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
"Judging from the kind of men sent to the State legislatures and to Congress, the fact that certain things are forbidden does not mean that these things are necessarily evil; but rather, that politicians believe there is a demand for such legislation from the class of society that is most powerful in political action. No one who examines the question can be satisfied that a thing is intrinsically wrong because it is forbidden by a legislative body".
This essentially supports the positions taken above by Marx and Thrasymachus. What we have is a situation whereby Thrasymachus, Marx and Clarence Darrow, a Greek, a German and an American all come to the opinion from hugely different eras, cultures and social environments, that the dominant thinking in any society is fundamentally class thinking and is a function of the power structures that prevail in society. Within the tragedy that passes for the United Kingdom at this time we are witnessing this phenomenon being played out daily as the ruling elite are involved in an internal struggle over the future of Britain with respect to the EU and over such matters as immigration. In all of this so-called crisis, the British public are largely spectators who are expected to fall in behind their appointed champions. But if I can use the subject of crime to highlight this matter, it can best show us how we become programmed to follow the ideas and whims of the power elite. Even a casual study of crime shows us that notions of crime never appear to be fixed or universal. Crime is a relative phenomenon and what one society deems criminal behaviour is often morally and lawfully acceptable in another.
Similarly, in any one society what is defined as ‘criminal’ is likely to change over time. For example, witchcraft was one of the most heinous of crimes in medieval England, and while it now may continue to viewed (by some) as morally reprehensible, it is not subject to legal sanction. What counts as crime is therefore subject to historical contingency. It never appears to be immutable, but is contingent on particular social, economic, legal and ideological circumstances. Very few people ever stop to ponder why certain behaviours have come to be subject to criminal sanction and others not. We are therefore entitled to ask the fundamental question of who has the power to decide that certain behaviours and events should be criminalised, whilst others are condoned or ignored, why a teenage boy who steals a bottle of water from a supermarket gets six months in prison whilst the CEO of a major bank who has defrauded his customers and by criminal mismanagement has brought the bank to the point of bankruptcy is awarded a massive bonus and a huge pension for the rest of his life? The identification of ‘crime’ often assumes a consensus of public opinion whereas in reality it simply reflects the position that some sections of society are able to pass laws which protect their own self-interest and to divert attention away from underlying social inequalities and conflicts in the social order. Thus, it is legitimate for us to discuss the relationship between crime and relations of power, and to identify not only those who have the power to criminalise, but also those who have the power to escape criminalisation. In addition, we will find that crime is a feature of the social, political and economic structures and arrangements that prevail in different societies. As early as 1842, the French moral statistician Quetelet wrote that
“Society includes within itself the germs of all crime committed, and at the same time the necessary facilities for their development. It is the social state, in some measure, which prepares these crimes, and the criminal is merely the instrument to execute them. Every social state supposes, then, a certain number and a certain order of crimes, these being merely the necessary consequences of its organisation."
This is of course a massive topic, but my motivation in highlighting it is to show how the ruling elites in both Britain and America are successfully steering the dominant narratives within these societies by demonising certain groups and themes such as the EU, immigrants, Muslims, Mexicans, the disabled, people on benefits etc. and labelling them undesirable and tending towards the criminal for the purpose of deflecting our attention away from the real criminals, the elite themselves. As Lincoln warned us, you can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time. What we must do is try to avoid belonging to either of these groups all of the time. You have been warned.
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
Sunday 20 March 2016
One monster less is better than nothing
To keep you up to date, the odds on Britain remaining in the EU at the referendum are 4/11 today with leaving at 2/1. Thus, regardless of opinion polls and right-wing media propaganda, the Brexit case is still seriously lagging behind according to the most accurate polling available, the bookies.
What is wonderful news in the UK today is the self-destruction of the Tories. What I have been telling you since I started this blog has now become graphically demonstrated and can no longer be denied. We have a Chancellor and Prime Minister who are simply incompetent and have become exposed as engaging in the most brutal form of class warfare we have witnessed in my lifetime. Thatcher would have been totally proud of these two ghastly excuses for human beings. Their presence in the Westminster pigsty is obscene even by its standards. It would be difficult to attempt to try to make a bigger mess of a budget than Osborne has just produced but his greatest feat was to quite blatantly cut disabled benefits to finance further tax cuts for the richest five percent of the British elite. Even Tory commentators are lining up to condemn this vile policy and the government is facing a rebellion by its own supporters over this measure. So, as I have been telling you for many years, this government is not only incompetent it is also very stupid. The free market neoliberal domination is falling apart as a result of its own contradictions and the imbeciles and sociopaths it has spawned to oversee it.
The most spectacular result of this debacle has been the resignation of one of the most odious politicians imaginable, on grounds which defy any sane explanation, the man who championed the harshest and most controversial measures this country has ever seen. He has resigned because he actually agrees with me that these new measures against the disabled are a step too far, because he claims that all he wants to do is to protect the weakest and most vulnerable in our society, and if you believe that you will believe anything. This is a man who has been described by his fellow MPs as being 'emotionally unavailable.' Recent newspaper reports have highlighted how an estimated 600 people have committed suicide because of the welfare reforms he was responsible for implementing and is now trying to distance himself from. A fabulous quote from him was that he was afraid that the government was in danger of dividing the country because, in his words, we are not all in it together. In danger of dividing the country? Because of the governments that he has been a minister in for the past six years, we had a very divisive referendum on Scottish Independence. We are in the throes of another referendum on our membership of the EU which is tearing the country, and in particular the Tory Party, apart. We have doctors on a rolling programme of strike action. We are divided right down the middle over the situation of the Syrian refugees, we are divided over the very active controversy on the subjects of immigration, the NHS, education, Trident nuclear weapons, etc. I could go on, but if there is one thing for certain, this is not a United Kingdom. The government has just announced its plans to reform the school system in England which will in effect privatise it. It is genuinely painful to watch how out of touch with reality the porcine geniuses in Westminster are. But I am not complaining over this resignation, it is almost enough to make one believe that there just might be a god. The only complaint is that there are still a couple of hundred like him left in the pigsty.
I accept that this post is a bit incoherent and cobbled together, but that is because I have to watch what I say. What is exciting is the departure of a monster, the manner of the Tories misfortunes and how their government is beginning to unravel at the seams. This is classic hubris, you have been warned
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
What is wonderful news in the UK today is the self-destruction of the Tories. What I have been telling you since I started this blog has now become graphically demonstrated and can no longer be denied. We have a Chancellor and Prime Minister who are simply incompetent and have become exposed as engaging in the most brutal form of class warfare we have witnessed in my lifetime. Thatcher would have been totally proud of these two ghastly excuses for human beings. Their presence in the Westminster pigsty is obscene even by its standards. It would be difficult to attempt to try to make a bigger mess of a budget than Osborne has just produced but his greatest feat was to quite blatantly cut disabled benefits to finance further tax cuts for the richest five percent of the British elite. Even Tory commentators are lining up to condemn this vile policy and the government is facing a rebellion by its own supporters over this measure. So, as I have been telling you for many years, this government is not only incompetent it is also very stupid. The free market neoliberal domination is falling apart as a result of its own contradictions and the imbeciles and sociopaths it has spawned to oversee it.
The most spectacular result of this debacle has been the resignation of one of the most odious politicians imaginable, on grounds which defy any sane explanation, the man who championed the harshest and most controversial measures this country has ever seen. He has resigned because he actually agrees with me that these new measures against the disabled are a step too far, because he claims that all he wants to do is to protect the weakest and most vulnerable in our society, and if you believe that you will believe anything. This is a man who has been described by his fellow MPs as being 'emotionally unavailable.' Recent newspaper reports have highlighted how an estimated 600 people have committed suicide because of the welfare reforms he was responsible for implementing and is now trying to distance himself from. A fabulous quote from him was that he was afraid that the government was in danger of dividing the country because, in his words, we are not all in it together. In danger of dividing the country? Because of the governments that he has been a minister in for the past six years, we had a very divisive referendum on Scottish Independence. We are in the throes of another referendum on our membership of the EU which is tearing the country, and in particular the Tory Party, apart. We have doctors on a rolling programme of strike action. We are divided right down the middle over the situation of the Syrian refugees, we are divided over the very active controversy on the subjects of immigration, the NHS, education, Trident nuclear weapons, etc. I could go on, but if there is one thing for certain, this is not a United Kingdom. The government has just announced its plans to reform the school system in England which will in effect privatise it. It is genuinely painful to watch how out of touch with reality the porcine geniuses in Westminster are. But I am not complaining over this resignation, it is almost enough to make one believe that there just might be a god. The only complaint is that there are still a couple of hundred like him left in the pigsty.
I accept that this post is a bit incoherent and cobbled together, but that is because I have to watch what I say. What is exciting is the departure of a monster, the manner of the Tories misfortunes and how their government is beginning to unravel at the seams. This is classic hubris, you have been warned
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
Thursday 10 March 2016
Brexit or Britin, what's not to understand?
I checked the betting this morning and the odds on the EU referendum are still 1/3 on Britain voting to remain and 9/4 to leave. This translates into a 71% odds of Britain voting to remain a member (I am still wrestling with my grammar there, but will leave it as it is). As I am a mathematical imbecile, I confess to you that I got that piece of information from Ladbrokes. Significantly, the odds on Scotland voting to stay have gone from 1/12 as I told you recently to 1/20, further proof of how much more intelligent and civilised the Scots are compared to the rest of this increasingly fascistic nation.
I am continually puzzled and irritated by the constant stream of people on television who say that they do not know how to vote because they don't have enough information. We have been in the EU for 40 years for goodness sake and it is never out of the press and media. I suspect they are waiting for someone to tell them what to do to save them the bothersome problem of having to think. For me the situation is quite simple. On one hand, as I said in an earlier post, I simply look at the people who are wanting us to leave and shudder to think what this poor country would be like under such appalling personnel. Any sane discussion of politics even ten years ago would have treated the possibility of having Boris the Spider as Prime Minister at the same time as having Donald Drumpf as President of the USA as not only ridiculous but impossible. That this is now a possibility, however unlikely, tells you all you want to know about the degeneration of both Britain and the USA into a form of collective madness and the completely destructive nature of the neoliberal political and economic ideology that is dominant in both societies. That people can even contemplate such a scenario highlights the loss of reason and common sense in the political and economic narrative.
On the other hand, I point out to people the unending war that they wage against ordinary people and those who are the most damaged in our society and ask them to contemplate the damage they will do when they are in a position to remove all restraints on their activity. For example, yesterday the government lost a vote on measures to extend Sunday trading. To their credit, 27 Tories voted against the government, showing that this vile collection of gangsters are beginning to disgust their own kind. This measure was presented, as they attempt to present everything, as a measure to extend freedom. I think they actually believe that, however, as I continually remind you, freedom is not an infinite resource and one person's freedom will inevitably be gained at the cost of restricting someone else's freedom and that is something that the denizens of the Westminster pigsty simply cannot understand. That is why I tell you that such people may be well schooled, but they are not well educated and don't begin to understand even the basics of politics. If my freedom to shop on a Sunday is extended, then the freedom of the shop worker is restricted, when does the shop worker shop? This of course then affects many other types of workers, because opening a shop for longer is like dropping a stone in water, it causes a ripple effect. But of course when they use the freedom argument, even if they believe it, it is a lie, because that is not their real motivation.
The SNP MPs voted en bloc to stop this measure because, given the inherent Scottish civility and intelligence, they are fully aware that the real motivation behind such a measure is to attack workers incomes. If Sunday is designated a normal working day, then all extra premiums and overtime rates for working Sundays will cease. This of course is the measure at the heart of the doctors dispute as well. Make seven-day working the norm and you will only pay flat rate for all working hours, thus entrenching the exploitation of working people at all levels and making more money available for managerial profits and bonuses. All the talk about freedom, of choice, of flexibility, of when you can exercise your right to shop etc. is simply a lie. Since Thatcher first polluted Downing Street with her odious presence there has been one, and only one, agenda. Every measure taken by the Westminster pigsty is designed to transfer money from the bottom up. Enhance the ability for profit and excessive salaries at the top and depress the income and life chances of those at the bottom. The excessive inequality in this country has gotten so bad it has now even embarrassed Labour, which is a very difficult thing to do, and, under the leadership of the SNP they helped defeat this latest con trick on working people. The Thatcherite project is starting to seriously come apart, remember who has been consistently warning you that this is an inevitability. The end is nigh for the free market and it can't come quick enough. You have been warned.
Postscript - There is still hope for this sorry nation. I am watching Liverpool vs. Man United and the Liverpool fans are flying large flags telling us not to buy the Sun newspaper. My favourite English team and the one I watch as often as I can is Port Vale, but I carefully follow the fortunes of Liverpool as well because they show an enlightenment that is both refreshing and hopeful. In the event of Scotland getting its Independence, I will invite the city of Liverpool to join the great Scottish federation. As I write this they have just gone ahead 1.0
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
I am continually puzzled and irritated by the constant stream of people on television who say that they do not know how to vote because they don't have enough information. We have been in the EU for 40 years for goodness sake and it is never out of the press and media. I suspect they are waiting for someone to tell them what to do to save them the bothersome problem of having to think. For me the situation is quite simple. On one hand, as I said in an earlier post, I simply look at the people who are wanting us to leave and shudder to think what this poor country would be like under such appalling personnel. Any sane discussion of politics even ten years ago would have treated the possibility of having Boris the Spider as Prime Minister at the same time as having Donald Drumpf as President of the USA as not only ridiculous but impossible. That this is now a possibility, however unlikely, tells you all you want to know about the degeneration of both Britain and the USA into a form of collective madness and the completely destructive nature of the neoliberal political and economic ideology that is dominant in both societies. That people can even contemplate such a scenario highlights the loss of reason and common sense in the political and economic narrative.
On the other hand, I point out to people the unending war that they wage against ordinary people and those who are the most damaged in our society and ask them to contemplate the damage they will do when they are in a position to remove all restraints on their activity. For example, yesterday the government lost a vote on measures to extend Sunday trading. To their credit, 27 Tories voted against the government, showing that this vile collection of gangsters are beginning to disgust their own kind. This measure was presented, as they attempt to present everything, as a measure to extend freedom. I think they actually believe that, however, as I continually remind you, freedom is not an infinite resource and one person's freedom will inevitably be gained at the cost of restricting someone else's freedom and that is something that the denizens of the Westminster pigsty simply cannot understand. That is why I tell you that such people may be well schooled, but they are not well educated and don't begin to understand even the basics of politics. If my freedom to shop on a Sunday is extended, then the freedom of the shop worker is restricted, when does the shop worker shop? This of course then affects many other types of workers, because opening a shop for longer is like dropping a stone in water, it causes a ripple effect. But of course when they use the freedom argument, even if they believe it, it is a lie, because that is not their real motivation.
The SNP MPs voted en bloc to stop this measure because, given the inherent Scottish civility and intelligence, they are fully aware that the real motivation behind such a measure is to attack workers incomes. If Sunday is designated a normal working day, then all extra premiums and overtime rates for working Sundays will cease. This of course is the measure at the heart of the doctors dispute as well. Make seven-day working the norm and you will only pay flat rate for all working hours, thus entrenching the exploitation of working people at all levels and making more money available for managerial profits and bonuses. All the talk about freedom, of choice, of flexibility, of when you can exercise your right to shop etc. is simply a lie. Since Thatcher first polluted Downing Street with her odious presence there has been one, and only one, agenda. Every measure taken by the Westminster pigsty is designed to transfer money from the bottom up. Enhance the ability for profit and excessive salaries at the top and depress the income and life chances of those at the bottom. The excessive inequality in this country has gotten so bad it has now even embarrassed Labour, which is a very difficult thing to do, and, under the leadership of the SNP they helped defeat this latest con trick on working people. The Thatcherite project is starting to seriously come apart, remember who has been consistently warning you that this is an inevitability. The end is nigh for the free market and it can't come quick enough. You have been warned.
Postscript - There is still hope for this sorry nation. I am watching Liverpool vs. Man United and the Liverpool fans are flying large flags telling us not to buy the Sun newspaper. My favourite English team and the one I watch as often as I can is Port Vale, but I carefully follow the fortunes of Liverpool as well because they show an enlightenment that is both refreshing and hopeful. In the event of Scotland getting its Independence, I will invite the city of Liverpool to join the great Scottish federation. As I write this they have just gone ahead 1.0
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
Wednesday 2 March 2016
Trump - the logical outcome of the free market
I have come to the conclusion that in both the USA and Britain, our political situation is deeply irrational and I have pondered this for some time. This irrationality in the US is manifest in the popularity of Donald Trump and in Britain by the campaigns to leave the EU and to blame immigration for every ill in society. In both societies there is a dominant ideology being erected on the scapegoat mentality and a populist call to make the nation great again that is attracting many people. That is, there is a deep seated sense within large sections of the population that the nation, whether it is the US or Britain, is weak, failing and vulnerable. It is in these situations that people, throughout history, have turned to the charismatic leader, the saviour, the messiah. People have a deep sense that something is badly wrong, don't really know what it is, but want it put right as soon as possible, and the saviour appears, tells them what the problem is (which means he/she tells them what they want to hear and gives them something to focus their hatred and anger on), and how he/she will cure it. Unsurprisingly people respond positively to such a scenario. The problem of course is the Mexican, the Muslim, the foreigner, the EU, the immigrant etc. etc. and this appeal to the irrationality of hatred answers all fears and questions and provides obvious solutions without the bothersome problem of having to think any further, or perhaps examine yourself, your own faults, and the faults that lie within your own society.
The problems highlighted by the dominant opinion in both the USA and Britain are of course a barefaced lie, just as the proffered solutions are a lie as well. If you start from a false hypothesis you must inevitably reach a false conclusion. What we have in both societies are predictions of social and economic collapse which of course are none of our own making, followed by pledges to revitalise and rebuild the economic and social world, to make the USA (Britain) great again. This is a message people who are alienated from the dominant order, who feel marginalised and in a sense, to be disenfranchised, are desperate to hear. The Bible tells us that where there is no vision the people perish, and within both the USA and the UK are very many people who have no vision, who see no real solutions. The sociologist Emile Durkheim gave us the concept of anomie to explain this feeling of helplessness, or normlessness.
The political messiah offers dreams of glory and power and in both societies we are witnessing the phenomenon of people emerging whose behaviour and rhetoric demonstrate that they are both quite mad and bad, but nevertheless exert incredible influence by identifying a strong sense of resentment, by exploiting fears about national identity and survival and who encourage the idea that without immediate and drastic remedial action the nation is going to go under. It is fear of the future and the comfort that comes from someone who tells you they will make it all right that is driving the political narrative in both societies. A common denominator with both the Trump and Brexit campaigns is that none of them have as yet told us how they are going to bring about this wonderful transformation they are offering, and both of them are getting away with it. It is simply enough for the moment to pin the blame on the 'others' the outsiders, the skivers and scroungers, the pesky immigrants.
The problem is, however, of our own making and is the result of surrendering to, and failing to challenge, a lie, the lie of the free market, the lie that is individualism, the lie that the problem is an interventionist state and the redistribution of wealth through health, education and social services, with people who poison the mechanisms of market freedom, the unions, people on benefits, economic and social regulation etc. What has caused our problems is not regulation, but deregulation, the deregulation of the financial system, the deregulation of the economic and social structure, which has brought a complete lack of oversight and accountability, allowing a criminal elite to get away with theft, fraud and outright embezzlement, it is the complete failure to manage by the people elected and appointed to manage the affairs of state. It is not trades unions, but deunionisation, which has allowed for the destruction of wages, conditions of service, rights, for the imposition of slave like conditions for millions. Our nations have been poisoned by the very people who offer themselves up as the saviours, the messiahs, a ruling elite that has successfully destroyed the civilised order with the purpose of reshaping it to meet their own anti-social and anti-democratic vision. These are the people who have commodified the whole of society, who have put a price on everything and who have determined that the only thing of any value is that which can make profit, the Donald Trumps of the world, the Nigel Farages, the Iain Duncan Smiths, the Michael Goves, the people who support, maintain and entrench the very economic system that is the fundamental cause of the nation's problems, people who openly spew hatred for unions, working people, the unemployed, the disabled and people on benefits. Just today, the British government announced that it would not be implementing a mass vaccination of British children for meningitis because it was not 'cost effective.' Thus, the British have been reduced to accepting that we can simply put a price on our children's health and expose them to a horrendous disease because we consider the cost isn't worth it, whilst supporting the same government who is going to spend £100billion on renewing Trident nuclear weapons. You genuinely could not make that up.
However, the appeal of the Donald Trumps and Boris the Spiders of this world is in the way they convince all of the unfortunate and disadvantaged that the blame lies with other people for their problems and how the only people who have the answers are those who caused their problems in the first place and who are in the position they are in because of their support for, and exploitation of, free market neoliberalism. I apologise for the length of this post but again remind you that you have been warned.
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
The problems highlighted by the dominant opinion in both the USA and Britain are of course a barefaced lie, just as the proffered solutions are a lie as well. If you start from a false hypothesis you must inevitably reach a false conclusion. What we have in both societies are predictions of social and economic collapse which of course are none of our own making, followed by pledges to revitalise and rebuild the economic and social world, to make the USA (Britain) great again. This is a message people who are alienated from the dominant order, who feel marginalised and in a sense, to be disenfranchised, are desperate to hear. The Bible tells us that where there is no vision the people perish, and within both the USA and the UK are very many people who have no vision, who see no real solutions. The sociologist Emile Durkheim gave us the concept of anomie to explain this feeling of helplessness, or normlessness.
The political messiah offers dreams of glory and power and in both societies we are witnessing the phenomenon of people emerging whose behaviour and rhetoric demonstrate that they are both quite mad and bad, but nevertheless exert incredible influence by identifying a strong sense of resentment, by exploiting fears about national identity and survival and who encourage the idea that without immediate and drastic remedial action the nation is going to go under. It is fear of the future and the comfort that comes from someone who tells you they will make it all right that is driving the political narrative in both societies. A common denominator with both the Trump and Brexit campaigns is that none of them have as yet told us how they are going to bring about this wonderful transformation they are offering, and both of them are getting away with it. It is simply enough for the moment to pin the blame on the 'others' the outsiders, the skivers and scroungers, the pesky immigrants.
The problem is, however, of our own making and is the result of surrendering to, and failing to challenge, a lie, the lie of the free market, the lie that is individualism, the lie that the problem is an interventionist state and the redistribution of wealth through health, education and social services, with people who poison the mechanisms of market freedom, the unions, people on benefits, economic and social regulation etc. What has caused our problems is not regulation, but deregulation, the deregulation of the financial system, the deregulation of the economic and social structure, which has brought a complete lack of oversight and accountability, allowing a criminal elite to get away with theft, fraud and outright embezzlement, it is the complete failure to manage by the people elected and appointed to manage the affairs of state. It is not trades unions, but deunionisation, which has allowed for the destruction of wages, conditions of service, rights, for the imposition of slave like conditions for millions. Our nations have been poisoned by the very people who offer themselves up as the saviours, the messiahs, a ruling elite that has successfully destroyed the civilised order with the purpose of reshaping it to meet their own anti-social and anti-democratic vision. These are the people who have commodified the whole of society, who have put a price on everything and who have determined that the only thing of any value is that which can make profit, the Donald Trumps of the world, the Nigel Farages, the Iain Duncan Smiths, the Michael Goves, the people who support, maintain and entrench the very economic system that is the fundamental cause of the nation's problems, people who openly spew hatred for unions, working people, the unemployed, the disabled and people on benefits. Just today, the British government announced that it would not be implementing a mass vaccination of British children for meningitis because it was not 'cost effective.' Thus, the British have been reduced to accepting that we can simply put a price on our children's health and expose them to a horrendous disease because we consider the cost isn't worth it, whilst supporting the same government who is going to spend £100billion on renewing Trident nuclear weapons. You genuinely could not make that up.
However, the appeal of the Donald Trumps and Boris the Spiders of this world is in the way they convince all of the unfortunate and disadvantaged that the blame lies with other people for their problems and how the only people who have the answers are those who caused their problems in the first place and who are in the position they are in because of their support for, and exploitation of, free market neoliberalism. I apologise for the length of this post but again remind you that you have been warned.
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
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