Comrades!

Real Socialism, you know the one that’s never been tried, has been on my case of late, in the form of a solitary soldier for the cause. This sturdy representative of the Socialist Party of Great Britain was not to be deterred by mere facts, observations of human nature or simple argument. Even their total national vote count in the low hundreds wasn’t a cause for despondence against the shiny-faced optimism of this paragon of the merry, but tiny, band of post-Marx idealists.

Founded in 1904, their single aim is to bring about world socialism, believing that while any form of money exists, those who possess it will always reject the common way and seek to better their own lives. The SPGB mission statement is bold and simple: “The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.” And when I say simple, oh my, relying as it does - and can only do – on the total buy-in of every person on the planet; it’s all or nothing, folks.

Oh, communism, you say, to which the ‘Socies’ will reply, huffily, that they are not communists, no matter how much they stress common ownership, common good and the root word community (from the Latin communis – except Latin is bound to be elitist and thus haram.). But whither the ‘real socialism has never been tried’ malarkey? Try citing the failure of the many so-called socialist regimes and they will denounce them all as ‘state capitalism’, perhaps recognising that without capitalism you have little incentive for progress, yet still rejecting the profit mechanism out of hand..

But while sharing and charity and general philanthropy are very much a part of the human character, being forced to give away what you have hard-earned to those who have done nothing to deserve it is anathema to practically every species on the planet. We compete, we improve, we evolve; under ‘real socialism’ we would presumably revert to an imagined former state, possibly as far back as the Garden of Eden, which makes a belief in the ability to live as true equals without measuring relative merit more like a religious cult than a serious political movement.

In this they have much in common with Corbynism. (Will Corbynism one day join the Moonies and the Branch Davidians as examples of the lunacy of closed communities?) Of course, under True Socialism, our worth will be assessed and our contribution determined, measured and shared out via the mechanism of centralised control of resources and ‘self-defined’ needs. That is, if you decide you need it, you must need it, because nobody would ever cheat, would they?

Even such ideologues as this must recognise the need for organisation and as such would have to convene committees and tribunals, cooperatives and all that entails; selected, elected members of the community who would serve only in the interest of that community and be responsible for ensuring the egalitarian administration of resources. So, ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’ as somebody once wrote. I can’t imagine how that could possibly go wrong.

Feeding Frenzy

President Trump stood alongside Japanese premier Shinzo Abe and ceremonially scattered fish food into a pool of koi carp. He paid attention to his host and copied his actions; when in Rome and all that. For reasons which can only be ascribed to a partisan – or pathological – need to portray Trump in a bad light much of the world press sought to discredit him as having instead just dumped the food dismissively into the pond.

In what sterile, stagnant world of utter tedium could this even begin to masquerade as being of interest to anybody at all? The Fake News phenomena has been easy to write off as a ‘not happening’, understandable partial reporting by people lacking the full picture, or just a bit of fun by would-be satirists, but it’s not just that, is it? This particular piece came about via the release of a video doctored to show what the editor wanted to show and it was lapped up by, among others, the Guardian and the [not] Independent and spread around the world by social media determined to sow mischief.

The Paradise Papers is another non-story designed to fuel outrage and whip up dissent among the perpetually mediocre – the same old envy-driven attack by the usual suspects to whip up sentiment for the nefarious purposes of left wing politics. But it is well documented and plain to see that if you try to squeeze those with the means to put themselves out of your grasp they will do just that. In fact the very tax avoidance employed by those who can – who already pay far more tax than those demanding they pay even more – is exactly as a result of those demands.

But the appalling logic of the socialist narrative actually works. Live off benefits but also work cash in hand and illegally evade tax and you are some sort of folk hero, a Robin Hood doing your bit to snub your nose at the establishment. But seek to minimise your tax bill in accordance with the law and you are some form of capitalist monster. If you are poor Labour vote-cattle you can’t afford the luxury of grasping what hypocrisy is and the truth must play second fiddle to the vicarious pleasure of a vague whiff of scandal

And talking of scandal, over in the Westminster trenches of the sex-war front the feeding frenzy continues as more and more seedy behaviour is forced over the top and into battle. How many political lives must be sacrificed in the no-man’s land of ‘inappropriate behaviour’ while back at headquarters, far behind enemy lines, those orchestrating the outrage quietly bury the real crimes?

The press, yesterday...

If ever there was a time for strong leadership this is surely it. How the Tory party must crave some discipline right now and a Prime Minister they can get behind. Well, they have one, or at least they could pretend they do. Given that nobody of worth is going to come forward until the Brexit business is settled, the best direction for the government is to get behind the general that everybody knows will be sacrificed in the end and go for one last big push. Don't be koi - there's no point in carping on about it. :o)

The Age of Unreason

It is the lot of one generation to bemoan the decline in the next. Since man first started recording such thoughts, the undeserving young have featured highly, teenagers being picked out for special opprobrium even before the term ‘teenagers’ was coined. In parallel, the unequal – some would day simply different - roles of men and women have also provided rich pickings for satirists, activists and ordinary people trying to make sense of the world.

Obviously, if each generation was genuinely less capable than the one which preceded it, mankind’s evolution must surely have taken a backward track; it’s a wonder we haven’t returned to hunting and gathering, gleaning the hedgerows for berries and smearing ourselves in our own shit for warmth. But of course the reality is that those slovenly teenagers become adults, change their attitudes and take their place in the world. And of course not all young people are wide-eyed ingénues, ripe for exploitation by venal adults. Not all.

Bu what the hell is happening to the world at the moment? Since the Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, we have been expanding the life chances for every single one of us. No longer are we born and bound into serfdom, into predictable lives of drudge and early death. The opportunities for all people in the developed world are immense and varied, exciting and rewarding. But are we content with this bounty? Apparently not.

After several centuries of progressively loosening the ties that bind we find our world a confusing maelstrom of strictly defined liberties and vaguely stated restrictions. We seem to have a raft of statutory rights that are as if written in stone and inviolable, yet we can unwittingly commit a crime just by expressing a thought that somebody else chooses to misinterpret and find offensive, often long after the words were uttered. We have the right to live our life exactly as we wish yet to do so might put us on the wrong side of the law.

The current Westminster outrage is but one example, with committees now convening to draft codes of conduct and individuals pondering how to avoid the traps. Surely we know the difference between a clumsy attempt to engage and a wilful effort to dominate and control? If we don’t notice the instance a come-on turns into a no-thank-you is that so horrific? Should all public servants be neutered before entering the profession? Should they wear asexual, ill-fitting uniforms to conceal their attractions? Masks? Burkas?

The Prime Minister holds a cabinet meeting

Maybe the whole notion of men and women together in the same workplace should be subject to legal scrutiny and to preserve safe spaces for all everybody should be isolated, working from monastic cells in silence. Hell, maybe they should all convert to islam and be done with it; this sometimes looks like the direction of travel anyway. But, in reality, none of this will happen. They will hold their inquiries, more rules will be agreed and everybody will get back to work unimpeded by allegations of sexual impropriety... until the next time.

Grape! There was a bunch of them!

What’s the saying? Stick and stones may break my bones and here I am in jail... without ever having hefted a stick or weighed a handy pebble in my hand ready for lobbing. Nope, I am here because a long, long time ago, in an encounter of which I have no recollection, somebody I don’t know reported me for words I might not even have uttered. But had I uttered them they may have caused somebody – not necessarily the complainant - some measure of unease... and that’s enough, these days.

No intent on my part need be proved; the merest possibility of offence being taken is proof enough, it seems, of offence being intended. And offence is now among the most heinous of crimes. All it takes is an accusation and off go the alarms; SWAT teams descend in pre-dawn raids and the bewildered defendants – guilty until proven innocent via the medium of injuriously expensive legal action by thug law squads buying off and possibly intimidating the ‘victims’ - are scooped up and paraded in the press.

Recourse to law is of course only for those of means; not for nothing is it said that Britain has the finest justice you can buy. But what of the rest of us? The latest round of witch hunts sparked off by rumours of impropriety in Westminster is ripe for political exploitation. People of power and influence using power and influence to get laid? Whoever heard of such a thing? But, far more importantly it has to be established, is a briefly fondled knee worth the same amount of outrage as a clumsily worded proposition?

All of the hysteria, the jumped up charges, the ill-recalled and misreported events will do little to alter the human frailty, clumsiness and sheer lack of class at the heart of this new distraction from the pressing affairs of state. Of course rape is rape and must be taken seriously and at least they ‘care’ about the women who work in and for our government. But where was (and is, for that matter) the government outcry over the tens of thousands of victims of systematic rape and trafficking in every part of the land where muslims proliferate?

You might say we expect higher standards from our elected officials, though they’ve rarely shown they deserve such trust, but how low were (and are) the expectations of the morals and behaviour of those who live in such ghettoised ‘communities’? I expect that what we used to proudly call a police ‘force’ must be relieved that now they’ll be able to get stuck into this and put on the back burner all those petty incidents the plebs want them to investigate.

Burglaries, murder, terrorism, muggings, stabbings, acid attacks etc, are all very well, but it’s not like ‘real’ crime, is it? And let’s face it, getting down and dirty with historic drunken fumblings in Westminster could be the making of some keen young direct-entry graduate’s career and what is more important than that? Today, as we wake to the news of the killings in Manhattan and the empty words of solidarity from weak leaders the world over, we should be re-focusing our efforts on the real threats to our very civilisation. I’m not holding my breath.

Sexy Beast

News just in - it’s everywhere; they’re all at it! If there was such a thing as a divine creator he would be banging his head repeatedly on his desk. Why oh why, he/she/it would be asking, did he/she/it create the laws of sheer cussedness? You know them: Sod’s Law, Murphy’s Law, Parkinson’s Law and here, the inevitability going under the monicker of the Law of Unintended Consequences. Who could possibly have predicted – save for an omnipotent, omniscient god – that a design feature that ensured the survival of the species would turn out to be so, er, problematic.

Animals fuck; they can’t help themselves. And when they aren’t fucking, they are thinking about fucking, talking about fucking, trying to create the opportunity to fuck or slagging off somebody else for any or all of the above. The selectively sanctimonious media just love it. Take Gove gate (what a long time ago Saturday seems now). My, what opprobrium was heaped on Michael Gove when he observed that an interview with John Humphrys was akin to entering Harvey Weinstein’s bedroom.

The weak punchline was lost amid the howls of derision and anger, completely ignoring Neil Kinnock’s follow up repetition of the arguably closer to the knuckle comments about groping. As ever, there is a divide between the punishment tariffs for left and right; it took several days for Jeremy Corbyn to approve sanctions against Jared O’Mara’s transgressions, even in the face of petitions from most of the rest of the party, while Gove was hung out to dry before he’d even finished talking about losing his dignity. Maybe Jeremy was reflecting on his own sexual shenanigans before passing judgement?  

And suddenly the entire male population of the planet seems to be getting in pre-emptive apologies for advances, real or imagined, from their dim and distant past. It’s a bloody minefield. In a phone-in radio show I heard a presenter undergoing all sorts of linguistic contortions to try and grasp what was considered acceptable. At which point does a compliment become an unwanted advance? I mean ‘nice bangers’ is probably out in most circumstances, but given the lengths some women go to, ‘your breasts look very attractive in that tee-shirt’ would surely be a welcome observation? ‘Top top’ hardly cuts it.

And having negotiated the unsolicited advance without rejection, at what point of persistence does that morph into sexual harassment and that in turn into sexual assault? If there are indeed rules, then we should be told. Men especially are very good at rules, if only we know what they are. Seriously, if you lay down exactly what is and isn’t acceptable we would behave so much better. But this is just the problem; nobody knows at which point any given woman will switch from interested to repelled and we’ve all seen it happen... or is that just me?

Filth!

Honestly, the world has gone stark, staring bonkers over all this. And it isn’t even particularly recent; negotiating the sexual battle ground has always been fraught with difficulty but it seems to have become increasingly awkward in direct proportion to the amount of sexual freedoms won by groups with ever more diverse proclivities. All we want to know is, how do we ‘know’... you know? In other news it has been reported that up to 300,000 people in the UK leave jobs in the UK every year due to mental health issues. Is it any wonder?