The Legacy

I'm aware that Labour is having its great love in at the moment, a session in which countless stupid phrases like "conference", "colleagues" and "comrades" are likely  to pour forth.  I can't bring myself to watch any of it, but I catch flashes on the news and see denial and lies come forward as they try to reinforce the Pol Potesque year zero narrative about their time in government.  Don't get me wrong, were I sufficiently depressed to watch the other two mainstream parties in their big talking shops, I feel I would be exactly the same.

Because I'm not watching it though I didn't see young Rory Weal's wading in to the coalition on their treatment of young people.  I have however picked up on a line being covered by many in the media such as the Daily Express from his tale of woe in which he points out that:

“Two-and-a-half years ago the home I had lived in since birth was repossessed. I owe my entire well-being and that of my family to the welfare state.

“That very same welfare state is being ruthlessly ripped apart by a vicious, Right-wing Tory-led Government.”

For me the young lad has encapsulated the entire problem.  I'm all for the idea of something to catch the fallen so that they can lift themselves back off their knees and begin to get themselves back into a situation where they can regain their self respect through the fruits of their labour.

But what Weal seemed to be talking about, is far from that.  Jackart has put the problems of the welfare state perfectly over at his place.

For me, the modern welfare state is akin to a national veal calf programme for humans.  The endless benefits, like Jackart points out are akin to a trap in which the recipients are unable to develop the strength to stand on their own.  They become like the mice in the fantastic little book Who Moved My Cheese as they simply return to the same spot time after time, demanding someone start laying cheese out for them again.  The modern welfare state, produces an incapable population bereft of any ability to turn their situation around with government i.e. our cash.

"So what?" you might say.  Well as I saw the report on Rory Weal's speech and his particular phrase, I thought back to the video I posted yesterday involving the trader and his take on the future.

If that trader's words turn out to be even half true, what will we have?  What will those that share the same perspective of Rory Weal do?  What will those who expect the money truck to drive them through life do, when the money is gone?  Will they continue to look to someone else to simply give them what they need?  What will they do when they find there is no money truck anymore and that most people around them no longer care about their problem because they have their own to solve?

I'm not blaming people such as Weal, in fact I think they've been had.  They've been conned into living a life that cannot handle any collapse in the system such as the one we are facing.  When politicians talk about society letting people down, what it really means is politicians have let people down. 

Will there be violence?  Unfortunately, that will be a very real possibility for a variety of reasons.  I presume that in the main, Weal's family wanted something better for themselves and were suckered down the path they took.  They may try to struggle on.  There are others though, who will always fail to grasp the problem they face and will continue to believe someone, somewhere owes them and will simply take.

Will that be the legacy of the welfare state?  A system designed to help the weak that breeds another group that will turn into a nightmare for us all?

Can't think of a title for this one

I stumbled upon this little segment of "news" via ZeroHedge.

In between marvelling at the guest's ability to stun BBC presenters into near silence, I marvelled at how someone with such a message managed to get on the news as well as marvelling at the man's apparent glee at the prospect of the world's descent into a Mad Max / Escape from New York type future.

If his predictions come true I'm still trying to work out how he intends to collect on his winnings as anyone who can pay him will probably have legged it with what passes for cash?

The Irony

A smile crept across my face this morning as I saw images of our beloved PM basking in the appreciation of possibly the majority of the Libyian people what they seem to want.

Shame he can't / won't do it in the country he's supposed to run.

Metal on Metal

A few years ago I had a car, courtesy of my job.  Shortly after it's service I'm driving along and a terrible knocking sound can be heard, the car started rocking violently and I nursed it home.  I called The AA to come take a look.  The AA man told me there was no oil in it and the noise was down to metal components knocking on each other with no oil to lubricate it.  This really buggered things up with a broken piston arm.  I needed a new engine.

Why am I telling you this?  Well, as someone who enjoys writing, I'm particularly drawn to metaphors and parallels.  This one felt very timely given the evolving news over at The Slog.  There are a good few posts covering the emerging problem..

Who knows?  By the time you're finished reading you won't need the man from The AA to tell you the engine may well have broken a piston and blown a gasket. It will be obvious.

And this is why.

According to his column in the Mail Online, James Forsyth tells us that Cameron should pull the kid gloves off and give their coalition partners a fat lip.

The story and the quotations from the sources, if true, tells of a David Cameron being thwarted from being delivering the kind of Conservative government most Tory voters wanted, by the Lib Dem coalition partners.   There are however several schools of thought on Cameron.  The popular views are:

• He's a closet liberal who hates what the Tories stand for and quite likes the current arrangement with the Lib Dems.  Whilst it seemingly runs counter to James Forsyth's column it would certainly marry up with a lot of his actions and this latest little piece that Prodicus covered in his blog recently.
• Cameron believes in nothing save his own place at the trough that has been gilded to look like a seat of power.
• The man is a weak, weak vacilator whose viewpoint it seems can be shaped if anyone on the left even looks at him funny.

To be honest, it matters little which of these is true (and all of them maybe true) as the outcome to the British population remains the same and it is not acceptable.

If Forsyth's column is correct in its description internally, you seriously have to question Cameron's thinking is his kowtowing to them.  One of the main causes of the Lib Dem action is they know they face humiliation at the polls because of their perceived sell out by getting into bed with the Conservatives, so they're trying to ensure they have their hand on the rudder.  They're blustering to cover up their weakness.  That's not rocket science so neither should the conclusion that to call their bluff would probably terrify them.

But here's the rub.  That he won't do it tells us several things.  No one on the Conservative side wants to upset the apple cart.  There is clearly nobody on that side who has said "enough" and laid down the gauntlet to the PM and demanded that he come back to their fold or be dropped on his backside.

Why?

Goodness knows, but one can only conclude that they don't wish the risk of an election either in which they risk losing their seat and all the trappings and loot that it brings.  To continue on that path they would have to feel reassured that the public is disinterested and will not put them under any pressure to get this country moving again by holding them to account.

And this is why I think Britain requires a Tea Party movement, in which local chapters come form and remind their representatives in Parliament that there is work to be done.  Work to lift this country of its knees and to steer a path through the morass that is dragging Britain down.  I think such a movement would form a greater pull on our MP's by laying out the stark future they face away from the trough if they continue to be uninterested in the people they serve.

There is a quote I have often seen that I always interpret as being about the people.  It says that you should take an interest in politics or it will take an interest in you.  I think there should also be one, politicians in a democracy should understand. 

Take an interest in the people, or they will take an interest in you.

What a Loveley Analogy

Taking my morning trip through the digital news, I came across a story in the Mail which possibly gives some insight into why the Home Secretary scuppered Cameron's plans to have former New York Police Chief William Bratton take over at the met

Essentially it seems he had the temerity to tell a politician that through his experience that her ideas were wrong.  It seems debate is not what they want and experience counts for nothing.  I'm going to stop myself  now because this wasn't the point of my post.

In the comments section below is the real point of this post which went like this:

We could blame Theresa May - or we could blame ourselves. The three party system - long ago became a parody of the ' magic roundabout '. You vote for one of the three parties - you get your ticket and step onto the roundabout. It has no destination - it's never going anywhere - and is simply destined for all eternity - to go round in circles. Theresa May is simply - just another passenger - and we paid for her ticket.

Beautiful.  Just Beautiful.  Couldn't have put "Jack Russell's" view of modern politics better myself.

Lucky Deluded B*stards

Bear with me on this one.

I have been fortunate to hold a number of different jobs over the years.  In a past phase, I held a job in health care which included a stint at an old peoples home what was referred to back then as being for the Elderly Mentally Infirm.  I couldn't wait to get out of there because it looked like a living hell.  It was typical of images I'd seen around the care of the elderly.  Wake up, toileting, changing the bed from the incontinence episodes, dressed, breakfast, into the day room to sit until about 11 when it was time to get them all toileted again in time for lunch before going back to the day room.

The day room was like so many others.  A ring of high backed chairs with a TV in the corner.  On the wall was what I always felt a patronising attempt to bring some reality orientation to these people, in the form of a board that said things like "The day is Wednesday.  The Month is November".  That sort of thing.  The reason being was that the home catered for old people who through a range of conditions were no longer in possession of a fully functioning mind.  You could see that in the day room when most of them sat there in the room, mostly silent with a thousand yard stare.  It is quite a haunting sight to behold.

One day I was sat next to one of the residents who looked like the sort of lady you imagine would make a lovely grandmother just by looking at her.  Unfortunately she seemed as lost as everyone else in the room.  What happened next nearly broke my heart yet it was over in a flash.  As we sat there, she raised her head, looked at me and a small flicker of life came into her eyes but soon turned to a look of sadness when she said to me "what am I doing here?  I don't belong here".  She was having a lucid moment where she possessed her faculties again and recognised the hell she was in.  No sooner had she said it though, I saw her eyes lose the spark they had and she dropped her head back into her alternate reality.

The memory of this sprung into my head this morning and was immediately followed by my memory of a movie I saw some months ago.  The film was called Knowing and starred Nicholas Cage.  For those who don't know it is about a maths genius who basically cracks a series of codes that lead to predictions of disasters, all of which come true.  The final code he cracks, points to an event which will result in the end of life on earth. 

These memories came to me as I completed my run this morning.  It was one of those runs where everything was pretty much spot on in which the runner has is experiencing "flow" and as such enters an almost trance like experience and I was looking back on how enjoyable it had been.  It had helped lift me from the dour mood I had experienced on my morning surf of various blogs.

The connection between all of these little anecdotes is knowing and not knowing.  I really enjoy reading the blogs that I do and I enjoy blogging.  I can't speak for my fellow bloggers but my rationale is to try and wake readers up in the hope that they will do something to help turn around the mess that grows around us everyday by exposing what remains hidden either by deliberate design or by lack of attention or ineptitude.

The problem is it comes with a curse.  If we were to take a quick look around the blogsphere today, fellow bloggers are showing some great insights.  But through it all is a thread of inevitability. They, like me are writing but we still press headlong into a future that seems unavoidable, similar to a racing driving still bearing down on a wall despite their efforts on the steering wheel.  We write but yet little changes from it as the majority continue on in their delusional waking coma, like the old lady I mentioned earlier who has long since passed from her torment.

Who are the lucky ones?  We who see what is coming up on us or those who only have the occasional flicker before falling back to sleep with their eyes wide open?