30.04.2020
The national mood has changed with the weather. It’s gloomy.
I was going to write a whole piece about the dark side of memorials, how the weekly clap for the doctors and nurses frames them as ‘heroes’ when they’re not. They’re professionals who do an amazing, difficult admirable job, I love and respect them, but they didn’t sign up to put their lives on the line. We had a minute silence on Tuesday for the ones who died, now at something like 160. We’re turning them into war dead, and war memorials are always political. Like any ritual, they seek to change consciousness around an issue. And how memorials for past wars legitimise the next, and perpetuate the idea of a ‘just’ war. Pretend the soldiers who died were glorious heroes when really they were just scared boys in muddy holes who didn’t understand why they were there, no disrespect to them, but I’m sure they’d rather not have died for their country.
Every death of a doctor or soldier is our leaders failing us, let’s not fall for the carry on plucky little Brit keep calm and blitz spirit trick. Those doctors don’t want to die doing this. A minute’s silence is cold comfort for their families.
Also imagine this opening an Ursula le Guinn or Margret Atwood novel, or Kazuo Ishiguro -
It was a Thursday evening in March when the clapping started.
Quite ominous, right? There's a reason, it's actually fucking creepy. It's like the flip side of the two minutes hate in 1984.
Noam Chomsky talks about this kind of propaganda "the purpose of public relations slogans, like 'support our troops' is that they don't mean anything." They are conflated to an issue, 'do you support our policy'. It makes people show consent without actually thinking about the issue. The idea is to 'create a slogan no one can be against because it doesn't mean anything.' Think about support the NHS. Noam again, "it's crucial value is it diverts attention from do you support our policy?" It means you're a bad person, you don't support the troops, when you're anti-war. Think about, "blitz spirit," "British values" "flatten the curve" what does any of that shit actually mean? What are you complying with when you agree?
Clap you fucks. Get your bunting out. Be grateful. Support our NHS.
I'm all for magic symbolism and ritual. I recognise its power and am aware it's not always benign. So if you clap, clap for your own reason.
Also imagine this opening an Ursula le Guinn or Margret Atwood novel, or Kazuo Ishiguro -
It was a Thursday evening in March when the clapping started.
Quite ominous, right? There's a reason, it's actually fucking creepy. It's like the flip side of the two minutes hate in 1984.
Noam Chomsky talks about this kind of propaganda "the purpose of public relations slogans, like 'support our troops' is that they don't mean anything." They are conflated to an issue, 'do you support our policy'. It makes people show consent without actually thinking about the issue. The idea is to 'create a slogan no one can be against because it doesn't mean anything.' Think about support the NHS. Noam again, "it's crucial value is it diverts attention from do you support our policy?" It means you're a bad person, you don't support the troops, when you're anti-war. Think about, "blitz spirit," "British values" "flatten the curve" what does any of that shit actually mean? What are you complying with when you agree?
Clap you fucks. Get your bunting out. Be grateful. Support our NHS.
I'm all for magic symbolism and ritual. I recognise its power and am aware it's not always benign. So if you clap, clap for your own reason.
I’m not going to write all that though it’s too depressing.
26,000+ dead.
Meanwhile I’m still waiting to be told when my first day of work at the hospital is. Just waiting.
I’ll clap tonight, and I'll mean it, but I won’t forget NHS workers should not be dying. This is not normal.
One last note, Matt Hancock still thinks we'll get to 100,000 tests a day by tomorrow, even though we're only on 51,000. I can tell you, as someone who is signed up to all the job alerts for these jobs, they are only in the last week, recruiting people to work in most of the testing stations, in places like Cardiff.
One last note, Matt Hancock still thinks we'll get to 100,000 tests a day by tomorrow, even though we're only on 51,000. I can tell you, as someone who is signed up to all the job alerts for these jobs, they are only in the last week, recruiting people to work in most of the testing stations, in places like Cardiff.
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