Gaza

Stormy Weather.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

I’m heavily overdue a political/philosophical rant… so here goes. I’m a profoundly contented man in many ways but some kinda blowout feels inevitable and necessary. The world – as well as being treble-fabulous – gets darker and dumber every day. Wilder.

Gaza is a cruel and obvious stain on all of us. We Brits are culpable, even in our powerlessness, for the appalling support successive governments have lent to the machinery of the Israeli state. For a Labour government to actively assist a world-level butcher and fiend like Netanyahu is acutely, enragingly, grievously painful for a feeble soft-leftie like myself to ‘deal with’. (Poor me). Expected (but was appalled) to see Sunak stand next to the man and say “We want you to win”… but not quite this. On the ground, the murder and spiteful subjugation of the Palestinians (by Israelis in and out of uniform) in plain sight, is an apocalypse for those on the receiving end and for the idea of international law. We shouldn’t need to say it but both matter, yes?

We’re in extremis, here. A patent genocide – the single-most troubling and serious violation of humanity within the lifespans of many of us – and Netanyahu gets feasted and trumpeted (sic) at the White House at New Year’s. Starmer selling weapons and facilitating by providing reconnaissance. Protestors, young and old, becoming terrorists under a *particularly selective* British law, driven-through by Labour. A ‘ceasefire’ that insults us all. Palestinian journalists wiped-out; media excluded from the scene so that killings and clearance can continue.

Now Venezuela. There’s a pattern of sorts, not just centring around a demented president: bigger even than his petty, mendacious lunacy. Around the degradation of international law itself.

Trump is central. He’s stupid and vile and corrupt and probably subject to blackmail or the threat of it from other world powers and by individuals. His gangsterism is almost endless because he sees no boundaries to what he (or those he approves of) can do. There is no law because he is it.

But of course this petulant but dangerous clown facilitates anarchy elsewhere. Probably negotiates towards it – certainly if the historic stories regarding a Venezuela/Ukraine swap-deal-thing with Putin are true, which seems likely. These guys think they can do anything. And in the States and in the UK not enough of us kick up enough of a fuss. ‘Twas always thus.

Okay. That may be more leftie self-pity. But the concern around there being no red lines should be and is cross-party – is beyond the realm of the politically-motivated. Or’nary People know that this is wrong. They know that Starmer and his ministers have embarrassed us all by not calling out the US ‘action’ in Venezuela.

Even Or’nary People recognise that a UK Prime Minister needs to take care around how he or she describes contentious American interventions. But this one is so patently transgressing of international law – and so obviously *all about resources* in any case – that some form of criticism is necessary and right. Take care with your language but draw the red lines. It *may be* that Starmer is discreetly expressing ver-ry different views to colleagues and partners in Europe… but these appearances matter: his; his ministers’. Repeatedly ‘refusing to be drawn’ on matters this evident and this fundamental to national conduct has further damaged his reputation – for lily-livered feebleness and poodledom.

You don’t need to be a top-of-the-range political analyst to see that failing to condemn gross acts of piracy emboldens pirates-in-waiting: in Moscow and Beijing, say. So gather and protest. In our case, gather with Europe, more quickly. Do it clandestinely if it helps. Trump has already effectively cut us loose. Prepare for the moment of No Return – could that be Greenland? Or whatever happens next in Ukraine? – by being profoundly of the European bloc. Do that now. Commit to that, even if it’s only ’til the Trump storm blows over.

pic from The Guardian.

There is hope.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

Intelligence and good faith. And decency and art – or artfulness. It can destroy evil. I believe it.

Braverman is like some icon of dumb, performative, calculated vileness. She *actually has* a brain, of course, but is so lost in poisonous ambition and that all-too-prevalent urge to penalise, to look to strike back by sticking it to The Other, that she allows herself to fall into obviously racist malice.

She’s probably coached there, by Tory shitholes – probably youngish; probably guys ‘following the ‘trends’ – who tell her that it will play well: it’s Route A for the populist. But let’s not excuse, to any degree, her responsibility and her profound immorality. She’s making choices: they stink.

(For her) to be so far from humanity and understanding must be bleak. Actively seeking the approval of the foaming gammon; courting it; stoking it. Dragging that corpse into the light. Weird and soullessly dark.

Question: is there anything lower than the deliberate, cynical exploitation of the cheapest tribal fears we can muster? Probably not. It’s all the tories have had, for years. I think even some of the divs who voted for Brexit realise that, finally. There’s just a sense that everybody knows, now, that the Conservatives aren’t just incompetent and self-serving, they’re corrupt to the core, with hatred and with greed. Even those with a low brain-cell count have ‘concerns around this’, in as much as they can process moral issues. They know, too, or sense summatz iz up.

So the tories are fucked. A series of appalling governments, with heartless and/or entitled ‘leaders’, not just physically and sociologically estranged from everyday needs but actively accumulating through the crises; busy embezzling, in effect; shameless as well as clueless. Single-message puppets for the cheapest of instincts – driven there by convenience and utter absence of goodness.

The result, a kind of vacuum – or worse, a noxious well. Into which the slimeballs and supremacists have been encouraged.

In time we will have to accommodate the Red Wallers and the Out There Racists; despite feeling that their stupidity was and is monstrous. That’s our challenge. A) To git darn off the high horse and b) to be accepting of their right to be wrong and even foul. We have to accept that many have both voted and acted out of fear and yes, ignorance – no choice, we have to make this work! – and that *even they* can and do make important contributions to family and social life. In short they have, in certain respects and areas of their lives, values and value. (We may think we know what’s right but we ain’t always poifect, eh? Move on; co-exist; make this better, in a civilised way).

Testing as this is, striking that balance between righteous and rightful action and tolerance (even) of excruciating prejudice has to be the way forward. Call it out but let the law do its job: and encourage or improve the legal process over time. All tough, all necessary.

Wonderful and revelatory as this is, it barely feeds in to my signature point: that the @MarshSongs contribution to the long and honourable line of intelligent protest is an example of the beautiful slaughter of political depravity. We need that. It restores us.

Beautifully specific and appropriate to the Moment (when Cruella B gets picked apart by glorious silence) and deliciously bang on the philosophical money, the Marsh Family undress this un-suss, unsuspecting populist clown in the same way that the silent protestors did. She gets it worse than she would in a tongue-lashing from an angry-but-righteous activist, or from someone like me, blasting away from a safe distance.

Bless those protestors and bless the Protest Singers. They keep use sane and alive.