Sideshow

We compare coats
wear imitations on our feet
and borrow sympathetic voices
for sideshows
until insight is a stranger
and tomorrow but an echo

Brexit Elephants

What do you do when the government of the day is utterly appalling on nearly every level and Her Majesty’s Opposition presents with little more than a highly flammable comfort blanket? What can you do when there is a herd of Brexit elephants – dinosaurs – in the room? Where on earth do you start?

Wisdom = Knowledge + Understanding. Our Dear Leaders have only the vacuous equivocations of ad hoc formulae:

”Most left-wing figures in politics, journalism, academia and trade unionism are very critical of Brexit. But it’s a significant minority view and one that dominates in the Labour leadership.” – Ian Dunt explains ‘The left-wing case for Brexit’

”Putting politics above prosperity is never a smart choice.” Yes, he did actually say that. David Davis’ speech to the Suddeutsche Zeitung Economic Summit, last night and his subsequent interview with BBC’s Political Editor, Laura Kuenssberg

”May and Corbyn, for different reasons, remain committed to EU withdrawal” – Neat summary, by George Eaton, of the current state of play: “In the months following the June 2016 referendum, Brexit was regarded as near-inevitable…”

Where, when and how will this all end? Who knows.. but it isn’t over, yet.

If I were Theresa May…

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As you are aware, it has been fifteen months since the referendum on our membership of the European Union. Fifteen months ago, a little over half of British citizens, who voted that day, expressed a desire to leave the EU. The majority of MPs in the two main parties told you that we recognised and respected the result to leave as representing the democratic “will of the people”. Your tick on the ballot paper: that was just the start of a complex and costly process and, since the day I took over as your prime minister, a little over a year ago, my team and I have been entirely focused on enacting your will. (*cough*)

This past year has been a steep learning curve, not least, for your members of Parliament. You see, we often start with no more understanding of a subject than the rest of you because we are no more or less expert, intelligent, sensible or open-minded, than the rest of you. We are no more or less patriotic or ambitious than you. We are you. Our advantage, however, is that MPs are generally better-placed for access to divers sources in our search for facts, expertise and well-informed opinion and it is our privilege and duty to serve, to our highest ability, your best interests. My duty, right now, is to be straight with you.

Today I have to tell you that this has been a very difficult year. I have charged the very best and most enthusiastic Leave minds available with delivering a good Brexit and, though vigorous in their efforts, they simply cannot reconcile the realities of the choices and consequences with your expectations.

Arguments regarding the real choices and their very serious consequences were not had at the appropriate time. The appropriate time was before the referendum. What was presented to you as a simple choice was disingenuous, at best.

I regret to say that you have been terribly misled. Misled by the enthusiastic wild promises and ill-informed narrative of the Leave campaign; misled by a Remain campaign which failed to acknowledge that your concerns and disaffection were the result of the domestic failings of successive governments.

The lack of affordable housing, work that provides a decent living, rising household bills, the intergenerational unfairness, our underfunded and undermined public services and servants, our disjointed infrastructure… I came into politics to do good. My speech, in Downing Street, a little over a year ago, is why I became an MP and why I was keen to lead my party when David Cameron abandoned his responsibilities. I greatly fear that none of my vision – nor any of Jeremy Corbyn’s vision – is sustainable, perhaps even possible, while we remain on our present course.

You will be aware, I am sure, of the rumours and incidences regarding splits within my Cabinet and my party in general. This is because of the conflict between those who understand and are panicked by the risks and impracticalities and those who feel ideologically certain that leaving is worth any price. The pressure to reconcile such stark difference has been – is – an enormous challenge.

But, quite simply: not a single thing about which advocates of Brexit complain can be adequately solved, if solved at all, by leaving the European Union – the very club that already affords us as great a global and domestic advantage as we could possibly have. Hard Brexit is an abyss and all variations of a Soft Brexit are pale imitations, irrespective of the way you voted.

The world is a confused, frustrated and unstable place, right now. If we continue on our current path, we risk feeling and being quite alone in a precarious and rapidly shifting world. Already we can see that we will be the smallest partner and weakest voice in almost every meaningful circumstance, whether it be trade, technology, environment or foreign conflicts; whether we are acting for ourselves or as part of a collective. The rest of the World understands the dynamics of what we are inviting upon ourselves. They see how we will turn Britain into the country with the most urgent needs and the least leverage. This makes us prey. To allies and foes, alike – from country to corporation. What then of our integrity? What then of our rights, our standards and our ethics? What then for our economy and society? For our prosperity and well-being?

I cannot see how such a reckless course will give this country more sovereignty or strengthen our democracy. My inclination would be to seek to withdraw Article 50 and return to as near the status quo – as a starting point, only – as is now politically, and legally possible. I propose an appeal to the EU for a pause in the current process and to inform them of our intention to hold a fresh public vote.

I do not say this lightly. I do not seek to undermine democracy or ignore your will. On the contrary. I seek to enhance your power through democracy by confirming your will. It will still be your choice. I need you to affirm or withdraw your better-informed consent. To this end, I shall ask the Open University and the BBC to present an objective programme of public information broadcasts.

I am sorry that it has taken so long to be honest with you but Brexit is, perhaps, the greatest act of unnecessary self-harm that this country has ever committed. Yes, of course the European Union is flawed. British democracy is rather flawed, too. Both are best reformed from inside.

There is no deal outside of the EU that can be a real, sustainable and ethical improvement on what we already have. The best place to safeguard and improve our lot is from that established base. I believe that it would be wise to remain and shape our interests as the Union reforms. My most sincere hope is that you will agree.

 

‪

Woods and trees

We are, each, the embodiment of the human condition. Peoples to a person, unique and the same, our imperatives and characteristics overlapping and bumping into each other, relative and subject to a million and one contexts. We hardly know ourselves, even as we presume to categorise others and seek to negate or reshape them to fit our fleeting comfort.

We cherry-pick ‘n mix micro and macro for argument’s sake and we treat them as isolated systems when it comes to, well, systems. We confuse and conflate effects and correlations, assigning their causes according to tribal instincts, narrow, prescriptive framing and emotional whim. And yet how easily we forget that one thing leads to another. And not just the things we chose to pay attention to.

How we fuss. We scrutinise the heart out of each other, fixing on binary reductions of acceptability or threat. We sacrifice nuance and complexity to distortion and banality. We muddle and manipulate moral equivalence and use whataboutery as the first line of defence and conflate the superficial or irrelevant with the most profound. We take simple things and turn them into complex nightmares and get indignant or complacent when extra care and attention is an obvious requirement. We tie ourselves in neurotic knots and project, as though anything and everything might bring the human world to its knees at any moment and then we saunter, blithely on, as though we were either helpless or invincible.

We’re still fighting for universal respect for and application of human rights; still protesting for socio-economic justice and basic civil equalities. We’re still ascribing sub-human status, according to paranoia and political fancy; still elevating dross to celebrity; still coveting what we think exists over our neighbour’s fence. We’re still monopolising and squandering the resources of our one, beautiful planet; still arguing about whose God is greatest… And over and over we produce ego-riven conflicts and make wars in the name of Peace. We are already on our knees.

We think we see things as they really are but, really, we’re only seeing things as we are, whether we are aware of little more than events and selected details or transfixed by the enormity of the bigger picture. We don’t know when to speak up and when to mind our own business. We don’t recognise what we should and need to control or what we are allowing to have control over us. We don’t discriminate appropriately or effectively; we can’t discern wish from truth nor potential from reality. Some of us think it simpler to just try to control everything and everyone while others simply don’t care and others still haven’t even noticed.

And how we faff. We constantly tinker around the edges of problems, addressing the latest symptoms and ignoring their quite evident causes. This doesn’t just allow old symptoms to fester and their causes to become downgraded, over time, to ‘unfortunate’ but it also adds a whole other level of new causes. We seem hell-bent on rose-tinted nostalgia but we refuse to actively retrace our steps. We would rather pretend that we are merely adapting to forces beyond our control than reaping the consequences of so much that should have been avoided.

We don’t really look at the roots and common threads of our problems; not deeply; not wholly. We glimpse with darting, panicked eyes, wring our hands and do what we can with the skim. Just getting through the day. Lurching with our fingers crossed. But the skim has to go somewhere: it becomes another blanket burden to Society, to add to the already suffocating layers and it creates further opportunities for ideological and financial exploitation. Every burden provides another’s comfort blanket. It isn’t ethical or sustainable.

We live under a constant process of inadequate triage. Tinkering and skimming are default management settings. Like bailing out a distressed boat that was never really seaworthy. There is viable land and most of us have spotted it but the crew prefer that we keep bailing, even as the holes increase and the weather worsens. The crew is drunk on the short-term, shortsighted power of profitable crises. The officers and their minions tell us that that land over there is hostile and to bail faster, lest we run aground the only boat available for that long-promised rising tide to lift.

Between us, we have managed to undermine the subtle and make a virtue out of the dross. We’ve managed to fragment history and turn it into a blueprint for all manner of psychopathic algorithms and effectively reduced Imagination, Reason and Empathy to a small, closed circuit.

We are gullible sponges and cynical repellents, by context, by turn, susceptible to wish and self-fulfilling prophecy. We are sands, easily shifted; blades of grass, bending upon a fixed point. And as entrenched as granite.

[November 8, 2015 (with slight editing)]

~*~

Fear creates a feast
to suit the taste
of each invited guest
that takes a seat
and makes request,
to fill the belly of a beast.
We are what we eat.

[February 2016]

Once everybody knows

Once everybody knows, does the poison fade or grow? Where do the pumped-up paranoia and the daft denial go?

Does common knowledge get a welcome in the hillsides and the streets? Enough that moderation wakes to see and win the light of day? Does forgiveness and a sense of humour meet and greet the anger and embarrassment half way? So that vitriol and vengeance dissipate? Does it sweeten up the atmosphere? Does superstition disappear? And do the floodgates spring apart to send a purifying tide to heavy head and fizzy heart or make the distance side to side become a roiling sea? Does the constant churn return us, endlessly, back to the start, where faith and proof demand to function separately? Does some truth unite the factions or divide to further fractions? Will it eat us up or will it set us free?

Natural High

Coursing through Life
Nature’s force
Busy being

Busy being
Nature’s force
Coursing through Life

What Britons want is anybody’s guess

What Britons want
is anybody’s guess.
Do not ask me, for
I am only one;
I did not seek this mess:
not for my gain
not in my name,
was Brexit’s pain begun.

I did not seek this source of stress
that stalks my country,
walks her backwards,
makes her people less
with less.

I did not seek a council of
emboldened third-rate jesters
nor the laissez-disconnect
from fact and intellect that festers;
sends attacks across
my patriotic bows and, even now,
undaunted by reality, does will
a march of muddled expectations.

No, nobody knows
what Britons want,
beyond humiliation
as a glaring guarantee
while glowing Pride
befalls a nation.

let the light pour through

Progress ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Let there be many windows in your soul
That all the glory of the universe
May beautify it. Not the narrow pane
Of one poor creed can catch the radiant rays
That shine from countless sources. Tear away
The blinds of superstition; let the light
Pour through fair windows broad as truth itself
And high as God.

Why should the spirit peer
Through some priest-curtained orifice, and grope
Along dim corridors of doubt, when all
The splendour from unfathomed seas of space
Might bathe it with their golden waves of love?
Sweep up the debris of decaying faiths,
Sweep down the cobwebs of worn-out beliefs,
And throw your soul wide open to the light
Of reason and of knowledge. Tune your ear
To all the wordless music of the stars,
And to the voice of nature, and your heart
Shall turn to truth and goodness, as the plant
Turns to the sun. A thousand unseen hands
Reach down to help you from their peace-crowned heights,
And all the forces of the firmament
Shall fortify your strength. Be not afraid
To thrust aside half-truths and grasp the whole.

                                        *

Merry Solstice xXx 🌻

Labour is, at least, a doorway to better alternatives

Jeremy Corbyn is having a pretty good campaign. Of course, this is the bit he does best so I imagine that, for all that I have criticised Jeremy Corbyn, I shall continue to do so. Still, he and his party have much reason to be pleased with this interactive media performance and the national resonance with his general narrative. Away from his truly dreadful social media fan base, his campaign has been warm, sporting, humorous, relevant and refreshing. It’s good to see some unapologetic confidence without the arrogance of the Tory disposition.

I haven’t changed my mind about what I like and don’t like about him and his team but I still hope for a Labour government. I’m really angry about his lacklustre EU referendum campaign effort and his blind alignment with the government. I worry about his ‘pacifist’ record: I wonder who he would confront and how far he would appease in international matters. I really dislike his us and them-framed punishment populism. I have a natural suspicion of all utopianists. I think there are some massive flaws in some his socio-economic intentions. I’d be anxious about his dithering managerial style and some of the people and advice with which he surrounds himself. But. But, but, but

I could live with Corbyn as the PM (for little while, anyway) because, 1) this binary choice is relative, isn’t it? And Theresa May is having a laugh: she makes Jeremy Corbyn look almost statesmanlike, let alone competent. And 2) as him winning would take a miracle in the first place, I am reassured that his administration would be tempered by the parliamentary make-up of other parties’ numbers.

What Conservatives like to describe as a “coalition of chaos” looks, to me, like several parties who, potentially, have much more in common than divides them. I’d much rather a potentially malleable Labour minority government, bolstered by a load of softBrexit/remainer parties than Theresa May’s Cons.

And if this miracle does not come to pass? I would hope for a hung parliament in which every party but Conservative/UKIP held the weight. Failing that, then May being returned with the smallest possible majority and facing a mighty, multiparty opposition.

As regular readers know, I hate Brexit and I can’t stand this tory government. They also know that, contrary to what’s being framed as popular opinion, I think that having a second referendum reflects my personal sovereignty and is a democratic right. Things I thought Brexit said it wanted more of.

I’m in the south-west and I shall be voting Liberal Democrat – even though I dislike the candidate – because I’m a remainer, wanting a second referendum and it is the best, probably only way that I can do my bit to rid a marginal seat of a Con man, whom I like, even less. If I lived in a different marginal, I’d vote for any party except UKIP that stood the best chance of defeating the Conservatives.

All domestic agendas are hopium until the shape of Brexit is known and in effect. Tories and right-wing press pretending otherwise is insulting and irresponsible and, for all the infuriating muddle-headedness of Labour, at least, even if Corbyn is indifferent, his Brexit team does seem to get the complexity and the potential for harm in a Toryfied deal/no deal.

Anyway, we can’t achieve or sustain a strong economy with an insecure, impoverished, paranoid and divided population and May would continue to inflict damage on the country whether Brexit was happening or not. She and her party have to go. Labour is, now, at least a doorway to better alternatives.

 

Ergot ergo…

Greased slopes
Long rope
Peak poise: ergot
And enough is enough, right?
Vote human, not bot.

 

When is enough?

When is enough enough?
When will it give?
When ornamental plans
And the dead hand of hubris
Berate the precipice?
When is too much?
When the State is who hates?
When fake is the real news
And theocracy an economic startup?
When the individual and collective
Are mutually exclusive?
When is enough enough?
When Overton is the squeaky wheel
And emotion is its grease?
When it takes police with guns
to protect Democracy? And Gina
To remind us who and what it is for?
When the greater mass has barest weight
Yet bears it all
And snake-oil is imposed as fate?
When the coiled springs
Of claustrophobic souls take leap?
Too late.