Black and white thinking is one of the greatest dangers to society. It’s why the UK is in the mess that it is. Unfortunately it is due to having too many lazy and ignorant people in the population. People who expect easy answers because anything too difficult or abstract proves impossible for them to digest and comprehend. But, as I’m very fond of saying, nothing is ever black and white. What’s to be done about it? I’m not totally sure. Somehow we need to educate people. And when I say educate I mean help them to be able to think critically and in abstract ways. Education is not about filling peoples’ heads with assorted ‘facts’. Education should be about setting people free. I doubt I’ll live to see an educated populace. I’m not sure it will ever happen. I’m not sure people want to be set free.
Imagine if we let the thick of neck, knuckle dragging, beer bellied, spotty, low IQ, shouty white blokes take over. Think about that. Think it couldn’t happen? Think again. The Brexit vote happened because filthy rich white blokes exploited the intellectually challenged members of society. Those simple souls who can only think in black and white. The filthy rich could take back even more control! Think!
If that were ever to happen what would you do?
Under fascism no one is safe. Not even the fascists. Fascism rules through fear. Fear breeds distrust. Distrust creates purges. People, yes real human beings, are vapourised. A knock on the door in the dead of night, a scuffle, and you are spirited away. Your name erased from history. Think!
Imagine this happening, then imagine having to get out of your house as quickly as possible and fleeing in fear of your life. What would you take with you? What of your most prized possessions would you love into your single solitary suitcase? This is the dilemma that hundreds of thousands have to face each year. Your life in a suitcase.Think!
What would I take? I really couldn't say. A change or two of clothes I guess. But what else? Important financial records/papers perhaps, a small momento or two, relevant medication, travel kettle, iPod and perhaps a travel radio might fit in two. I guess it would also be useful to take small things of high monetary value like jewellery. Things that could be sold to raise some cash. Have I forgotten anything? Probably. Think!
What would you pack in a solitary suitcase? Could you cope with that? You'd have to. It would be cope or die. Think about that!
Being a refugee as far as I can see is no fun. You don't upsticks just because you fancy a change of scenery. Refugees are people. People fleeing persecution. Put yourself in their shoes; you've escaped persecution or death, wouldn't you hope to be welcomed when you reach a safe haven? What if there were no safe havens? Where would you go if you needed to?
I'm angry, angry because a country I actually like living in is being destroyed by fascist tendencies. Fascism is ignorance. That's not arrogance by the way, that's fact. Fascism is irrational; it's not based on any moral philosophy or code, just hatred and stupidity. To consider someone as a lesser being because of their ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or superstitions has no place in a civilised society. Bigotry is destructive, divisive and counterproductive to human progression.
I'm still angry about Brexit, and as a result I lash out sometimes and refer to those that voted for it as idiots. This suggests a certain arrogance on my part. A valid criticism. But in my defence I've yet to hear a non-moronic justification from anyone who voted for it. All I hear is ill informed opinions and gutter press sound bites that crumble in the face of any informed counter argument. There are no sound philosophical arguments to defend the Brexit vote. It is an act of mass-stupidity not seen in this country since Thatcher was elected. And even then she never had the support of even half of those that vote.
My challenge to you Brexit voters out there is to give me one good and credible reason for why Brexit is a sound proposition. Until the day that this happens I shall continue to call you idiots. For idiots you truly are. And to add to the charges of arrogance I will state that I don't believe you can help being idiots. You've been conditioned to be that way. Decades of government policy and manoeuvrings by the elite have created an underclass of Epsilons open to manipulation.
Welcome to our brave new fascist world, or wake up to your ignorance turkeys, and stop voting for Christmas.
I complained to the BBC about their interview on the Andrew Marr programme. This is the reply I received. I am not in the least surprised.
Dear Mr Garrard
Many thanks for getting in touch about The Andrew Marr Show broadcast on Sunday 13 November 2016.
The programme had several prominent items to reflect Remembrance Sunday, as well as an interview with the leader of France’s Front National party, Marine Le Pen MEP.
Andrew acknowledged beforehand that some viewers may have found the timing or content distasteful, but he also fully explained the context and rationale for the interview with Ms Le Pen as follows:
"Now, today we are remembering the fallen, particularly of two World Wars, and we are doing so in a context of a world which feels particularly unstable, even dangerous. Our greatest ally - the United States - has been going through great political change, but what of our other great wartime ally, France?
Since Donald Trump's victory, anything seems possible, and in France they're asking whether Marine Le Pen - the highly controversial leader of the right wing, nationalistic French National Front - will become their next President. She's polling strongly - at least 6 million voters so far - and most predict that she will reach the final round this spring. Now, if she won that would be a huge and significant moment for Europe - Marine Le Pen is hostile to Brussels, she's against NATO, she's against free trade, and she's a vehement supporter of Russia's Vladimir Putin.
Now, I know this morning some people are offended and upset that I have been to interview Marine Le Pen, and that we are showing this interview on Remembrance Sunday. I understand that, but I would say this: Le Pen could - under some circumstances - become the next French President in the spring. This week in the immediate aftermath of the Trump victory, she's declared that the whole world has changed and that her brand of politics is on the march. What does that mean?
In the end, we are a news programme and I don't think the best way to honour the fallen is to fail to report on the next big challenge to western security..."
Many thanks once again for taking the time to get in touch. We acknowledge your personal views on the interview and its timing, but we hope our reply helps to clarify our approach and why we felt it important to hear from Marine Le Pen MEP here.
I think what really grieves me is that they give a disproportional amount of airtime to minority extreme right wing groups, and, never to extreme left wing groups. The BBC is biased heavily towards the right and as a consequence a morally bankrupt organisation.
I like many people have become very alarmed by the way the fascist agenda has appeared to have come to the fore in recent months, and particularly in the last week or so. Hate, which is essentially fascism, is being displayed more and more openly. A worrying trend that has to stop. How do the decent majority stop it? We stand up to be counted, we challenge it whenever we can and we make it known by whatever means available that HATE is not acceptable.
The key is to realise that you, each and every one of you can make a difference. You can help affect change. If we all do small things to counter fascism we will overcome the hate. We can drive it out. We can reaffirm that hate has no place in a decent society.
What can we do?
• Today I have sent postcards to the editors of five of the main culprit newspapers that have been encouraging hate. I've also complained to the BBC about their Marine Le Pen interview on the Andrew Marr Show. Next I shall start contacting those companies that fund adverts to the 'hate monger' newspapers:
• You can do the same
• And you can ask others to help to
• If you're on social media then follow the Stop Funding Hate campaign on Twitter or Facebook
• Follow Unite Against Fascism on Twitter and Facebook
• Print out some of the anti-fascist images on sticky paper. Stick them up in public places
• Print them out on plain paper. Shove them through people doors.
• Spread the word on social media
• Anything to get the message across
Now is a good time to remind you of Martin Niemoeller 'poem':
First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the trade unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.
– Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984)
The title of this blog posting comes from a poster from the Spanish Civil War:
Think!
It inspired this Manic Street Preacher's song:
Think some more
These are seriously troubled times. It's time for all decent tolerant people to get up off their arses and do something, no matter how small.
A few years ago someone I know asked me if I considered myself English or British. Without hesitation I answered neither, I'm European I said. And that's how I have felt for a long time and still feel now.
As you can imagine I feel angry, sad and generally bemused by the incredulity of the referendum result. I've calmed down now so I won't be quite as insulting as I have been in recent days on social media. In fact I had to initiate a self-imposed ban on social media to stop myself from being mega insulting to so many people. I've come to terms now with the result and feel that those who voted for out will mostly be the ones that suffer because of it and because of that don't feel quite so bad.
The only good thing to come out of this is the possible breakup of the United Kingdom. As much as I find nationalism distasteful I do wish the Scots the best of luck with their future in Europe. I have no doubt that this time they will gain their independence and remain in Europe. I also think that an independent Scotland could prosper because of England's idiotic decision to leave the EU. Industry will flock to north of the border because of what the English plebs have decided.
My biggest concern is for the poor people of Northern Ireland. They have been shat on big time and result of this referendum could well reignite the violence that was so successfully subdued in the 90s. I hope they can find a way through but fear that unless a united Ireland is achieved somehow shit will happen again. If only the loyalists could see that England doesn't give a bugger about them.
This referendum has brought out the nastiest of the nasty in some people, particularly white obese racists from Essex and Lincolnshire, but not exclusively.
I shall continue to be blunt and try to shock the idiots back to sort of decency but I doubt my efforts will have much effect.
As much as I like the writing of George Orwell I fear Aldous Huxley has won out. Time will tell.
"If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."*
George Orwell
It's almost a year since I was told that the site I worked at was closing and I was being made redundant. When I first heard the news, which came as very little surprise, I felt a sense of relief. But as the saying goes 'be careful what you wish for'. As the days and weeks passed my future seemed very uncertain. I had everything planned and the rug was pulled from beneath me, or that's how it felt.
Rejection is a terrible thing. It's something that I've feared and had to deal with the fear all my life. Over the last year rejection seems to have been with me most of the time. There are little rays of hope then the way forward is covered up and all goes dark again; the pain in the black moments is unbearable. The constant question rings out 'what have I done to deserve this?'
Rejection wears you down. It saps your strength and will to carry on. I try never to judge, and equally I don't care for being judged by others. You never get over rejection but to survive you have to learn to put it behind you and get on with life. I bear no malice to those that have rejected me.
Thankfully I now have a job, which affords me some stability. It is a job I enjoy. It's been a very long time since I've had a job I enjoyed. I count my blessings. Sometimes we need to do that. It helps to soothe the scars and the residual pain. Forward, there is only forward.
*It's a nightmare, fear on a loop. A bad dream that you never wake up from. A door slamming in your face over and over again. That's rejection.
I’ve been to the job centre again today. Had my first work search review. If I’d have blink I could easily have missed it. So far on two visits I’ve spent more time sitting around waiting than your actually being interviewed and ting. They seem to specialise in keeping people hanging around. It’s a waiting game.
Architecturally they through the rule book out when they built this excuse of a public building in the eighties/nineties. It has windows. But those windows are large but next to useless; one side looks out to a shear concrete wall of another building literally a few feet away; the other side brick and concrete with a hint of daylight. It must be horrible to work in. And that’s without having to deal with the clientele!
There can only surely be one thing worse in the employment stakes than being unemployed and that’s working in a job centre. God that really must be soul-destroying. Apart from a few bewildered folk like myself, who sit wondering what to make of it all and what they have done in a previous life to deserve this, most of the punters are either clinically obese or malnourished and radiating varying shades of miasma/effluvia. A lot of these people seem to have given up all hope of a meaningful life, with or without gainful employment. It makes you want to weep. But it would seem that rather than helping them this evil government of ours just wants to beat people with a stick and generally grind them down.
As far as my future is concerned I feel very up and down about it. Today I feel quite upbeat but Monday and Tuesday I felt very down. What’s changed? I don’t really know. My employment prospects haven’t greatly changed but my attitude towards dealing with it is currently realistic but upbeat. And that’s how it is; you win some you lose some. The emotional roller coaster continues its white knuckle ride. Deep joy!
Passionate is the new awesome. It’s one of those words. Words that superficial people use when they want to put some emphasis into their justifying their existence, their mediocre lives. People claim to be passionate about nebulous stuff, like customer service, vintage wedding jewellery, contemporary dance or cupcakes (whatever the fuck they are). It’s all bollocks really!
The only thing that most people do with anything approaching passion is consume!
This afternoon whilst wandering around my local supermarket, acquiring a few essentials (these things are relative you understand) I returned to my thoughts about happiness and what it might be. I looked around at my fellow shoppers. I may well have been deceived by my perception and it is hard to tell a person’s state of mind by the way they look but the vast majority of my fellow shoppers gave out the distinct vibe of being unhappy with their lot; every man woman and child-thing. Obviously supermarket shopping is not a love of many at the best of times but this time of the year it is most definitely shite in the experience department; more joyless than normal.
This time of year!
Convention, imposed upon us by the ruling classes and then reinforced by the blinkered and brain-washed masses, dictates that as part of the Christmas ‘celebrations’ we must embark on a frenzy, nay orgy of consumption. Consumption designed to rapidly reduce our bank balances and life expectancy simultaneously. And why? What is it all for?* How many people ever really question the whole process and how absolutely unnecessary it actually is?
So many people get stressed and upset over Christmas. It causes friction between loved ones and rarely does it live up to the false expectations that are built upon the myth that is Christmas. So why do so many people persist with it? I can only assume it is perpetuated by peer pressure with people not having the courage to put their heads above the parapet and say, ‘this is all nonsense!’ We don’t have to gorge ourselves and get into debt over some giant commercial confidence trick. Set yourself free. Be happy.
Part of being happy is about to freeing yourself from the restrictive and nonsensical social norm that the sheep want to immerse themselves in. Dare to be different. The world wouldn’t end if you didn’t celebrate Christmas in fact the world would be a better place.
Life is like being on a rollercoaster at the moment; a mixture of a few highs and a great many dramatic lows. Work is so painful now as I know I’m going to be without a job but don’t actually know at the moment when I’ll leave. I am feeling terribly misunderstood.
Emotionally I am more often than not at low ebb. I am finding it hard to concentrate on anything for long.
On the occasions I’m feeling up or optimistic it rarely lasts as something happens or someone does something to put the dampener on life.
Along the lines of ‘let them eat cake’ Cameron and his evil mob have decreed that in face of exorbitant fuel price rises the ‘poor and needy’ should wear jumpers to keep warm. So as a public service I thought I’d scour the jolly old interweb for what the Tories might expect us plebs to wear.
Enjoy:
Despite affecting a confident pose Roger still felt like a
complete dick in his Daily Mail ‘readers offer’ cardy
Betty still couldn’t quite believe that both Wilson and
Keppel were avid fans of Throbbing Gristle
Slightly confused Ronald had decided that
what would really keep him warm on his
zero hours contract would be a gonad cosy
Malcolm had decided that precautionary measures
were necessary when wearing his new cardigan to bingo
Rupert was unstinting in his efforts to try and blend in with the proletariat
Marjorie had concluded that if the poor refused to
wear jumpers that a sound thrashing would be in order
I have black moods. I’ve had them since my teens. They are a very strange place to be. I don’t choose when to have them. I don’t know when they will arrive. They don’t seem to be caused by events or other people. They come without warning. They can confuse other people something rotten, and they don’t do me a lot of good either. Sometimes other people think that they have upset me or that I have been upset by someone. Whilst others do upset me from time to time they are never the cause of the blackness. Thankfully, these days, the slough of despond rarely lasts longer than 24 hours, and often it is much shorter. They have also become less frequent the older I get. In my earlier years they might have gone on for several days, often been a lot deeper and manifesting themselves much more often. Now, I know that they will pass; that the chemical imbalance will wash through my system. Sadly, even though I know this, there is bugger all I can do about it apart from retreat into my shell. It’s almost as if there are two of me in this body. Eventually the storm clouds pass and I am all smiles again. I much prefer the smiley me!
No society can call itself civilised whilst it has poverty in its ranks. We in the UK are not a civilised society. Most of the population seem to tacitly accept poverty, if it is not happening to them. Presumably it is on the grounds of ‘I’m alright Jack’. What is wrong with us? Have we been so ground down that we no longer have the will to fight it? Is it just mass stupidity? Have the capitalists so brainwashed Ms, Mrs and Mr Average that they are incapable of questioning the immorality of the regime we live under? How do we get the message across that it doesn’t have to be like this? How do we get the message across that not only is financial equality desirable on moral and humanitarian grounds but it actually makes a whole heap of sense on purely a financial basis as far as the vast majority of the population is concerned?
Young and old, urban and rural dwellers alike are suffering terrible hardship, and collectively we do nothing, apart from turn a blind eye.
I’m not sure I can answer any of the above questions. Some days my faith in ever building a fair and just society is seriously challenged. I despair at the Great British public and the fuckwhats that they have become.
It’s easy to knock Royal Mail, loads of people do, sometimes it’s justified, sometimes not. I’ve always defended them on the grounds that they are a nationalised industry and that you would never get the universal coverage and delivery service for the price from a private company. Unfortunately the Royal Mail and me* have just fallen out of love.
For years now we’ve put up with receiving letters for other houses around us, our mail being delivered to other houses, days when there appears to be no delivery in our street, and expected post never ever arriving. Towards the end of last year tickets to see Tony Benn were, ironically, lost in the post! I’ve taken all this in good humour, until the other day. A week and a half ago there was a card through my door saying that they’d tried to deliver a parcel, no one was at home and it was too big to go through the letter box. This pissed me off because I knew that it wouldn’t be too big! Never the less I gracefully accepted that I would have to collect it and made arrangements to do so, fitting in with the sorting office’s unhelpful opening times. Guess what? They couldn’t find the bloody parcel. The poor postman came back all apologetic suggesting that it might have been sent back and that he would ‘check on the computer’. The speed it took him to do this would suggest that they do only have the one computer, and that it is probably a Commodore 64! By the time he returned a sizeable queue had been building up behind me, moaning, groaning and turning into a ‘lynching mob’. The unfortunate postman suggested that they would hunt for it and deliver it on Saturday. I left in a grumpy mood, never ever expecting to see the aforementioned package. How wrong I was. It arrived on Saturday as promised. Great service! It contained a couple ink cartridges, and yes they would have gone through the letterbox.
I don’t blame the poor old postmen and women for any of this. They are paid a pittance, ever increasing demands are made on them to do more and more, and as a consequence morale is low. The way that Royal Mail is run needs to change radically it’s a public service bozos and not a profit driven company. Trying to turn it into another DHL or UPS will just kill it as the market is saturated enough.
It could be that the universal postal delivery system is an anachronism and that it will fade as digital technology more and more embraces our lives. But it could still have a long life if it were to find out what its customers wanted. Is that too much to ask?
*yes I know it should be ‘the Royal Mail and I’ but I write colloquially!
