06.05.2020 - a national death cult

*Quick correction, in an earlier post I mentioned George Orwell fought in Spain with the International Brigade. He didn’t, I forgot the point of the book he wrote about it, he opposed the Communist Party who ran the Internationals and supported the Anarchists, and POUM.

I think yesterday probably has claim to the darkest day in British history in my lifetime. I’m thinking of others, Grenfell, the 7/7 bombings, 2003 invasion of Iraq, the bombing of the Admiral Duncan on Old Compton Street, Lehman Brothers collapse and the breakup of One Direction, but none quite seem as bad as 32,000 avoidable deaths caused by government negligence.

I mean 32,000 people. The Great Plague of 1665-1666 killed approximately 100,000 over 18 months. Our first death was on the 5^th of March, so pretty much exactly two months ago, if we multiply our deaths over 18months (this is no way scientific, I know about exponential and parabolic curves, population sizes etc., but it gives us a little perspective), we would have 288,000 deaths. So this outbreak is comparable.

If you think it would be big news, you’d be wrong. One of the scientific advisors who advocated the lockdown which prevented many more people dying, took a lover, you see, which means that, he is very bad indeed, married too, she was, because he met up with her, contrary to his own advice two times, a month ago. So I suppose that discredits all the science the government were following?

32,000 deaths, highest in Europe, or saucy boffin? What’s the bigger story, what’s going to get the mooks* salivating? The sex story of course.

*apparently a term used by porn industry insiders for their audience.

Orwell again, in the Decline of the English Murder.

It is Sunday afternoon, preferably before the war. The wife is already asleep in the armchair, and the children have been sent out for a nice long walk. You put your feet up on the sofa, settle your spectacles on your nose, and open the News of the World. Roast beef and Yorkshire, or roast pork and apple sauce, followed up by suet pudding and driven home, as it were, by a cup of mahogany-brown tea, have put you in just the right mood. Your pipe is drawing sweetly, the sofa cushions are soft underneath you, the fire is well alight, the air is warm and stagnant. In these blissful circumstances, what is it that you want to read about?

Naturally, about a murder. 

If there’s no murder, a sex scandal is the next best thing, we bloody love them. I love the way Orwell talks about News of the World readers like they’re such fucking squares. And this sex scandal is perfect, if you wrangle it just right, you can not only discredit the scientist, but the science too, not only that, the Telegraph sat on it for a month, and released the story at the perfect moment, and gave every other paper something other than our horrific death toll to put on the front cover, and something for Matt Hancock to moralise about. This time they didn’t have to have the scientist killed like they did with David Kelly.

So it is worth asking, whose interest are the Telegraph actually working in with this story? Is this story in the national interest of are they taking direction from government? 

It’s not undemocratic, it’s anti-democratic.

Let’s think for a moment about what ‘following the science’ implies, what does it tell us the about what the government sees its role as?

We looked at the nihilism of neoliberalism a week or so ago, and how it leads us toward fascism. Part of it’s aim is to remove from the state many of the burdens imposed on it during the last century, things like social welfare provision and regulations, safety standards, workers rights etc. It sees the state as something that gets in the way of private progress and growth. So it removes itself, it does things like outsourcing public services to companies like Serco, and monetary policy to independent institutions like the Bank of England, to make us think economics is purely a technical issue, the way things are is the way they have to be. To me, ‘following the science’ does the same thing. It outsources responsibility, partly because they have eroded the state so much there’s very little they can do, but it’s also ideological. They want to take us to a sort of corporate feudalism, replacing the monarchy with CEOs and nobility with shareholders, the rest of us to serfdom.

Just today, Rishi Sunak said the country is ‘getting addicted to the furlough scheme’ a bit like the way Boris Johnson was addicted to the oxygen supply that kept him alive. He is worried people might realise the state can offer support, it just chooses not to.

There must come a point, when, if you keep undermining the things that keep society functioning, the whole thing will come crashing down. Maybe that's now?

As the state abdicates more and more responsibility, you need to ask, what actually is the purpose of it? If it ‘follows the science’ it isn’t responsible four our health and safety. Usually the first responsibility of government is considered to be to protect its citizens, they’re not doing that, they’ve made an unaccountable independent body look after that. Then protecting law and order, well, they’re privatising that, and cutting police budgets to the point they no longer function. It also guarantees the currency, but since that is now outside of democratic control, I’m not sure we can count it. The last one, is to protect the interest of capital and property rights which I suppose is the only thing they actually do now.

So if the state is no longer is no longer providing its most basic functions, what authority does it have? What makes it legitimate?

I suppose the fundamental thing about the state that makes it different to any other group, and where it takes its legitimacy from is its monopoly on violence. It’s an organisation that uses violence, and the pretence of protection, to enforce a huge Ponzi scheme. I don’t see what makes it any different from the mafia.

The Tory party is a death cult, and half the country are necrophiles.

I can’t wait to see the Adam Curtis documentary about this in 25 years.

Around Shadwell it’s the same old shit really. Groups of drug dealers hanging around, still spitting in the street. You can probably tell the outlook isn’t that great at this temporal location by the last couple of posts.

I was going to write about that John and the prostitute, but I can’t right now.

I’m trying to think about the future. If there’s a journalism course I could do, or how to write more, but I don’t know where to start. The nearest I’ve been to journalism is when I delivered some pizzas to the ITN building and met Jon Snow. “Alright Jon? I watch you every night!” “Thank you very much dear boy.” He somehow managed to not be condescending, and actually seemed genuinely pleased.

I’m really depressed, well thankfully, because of my chemical helpers, not depressed exactly, but disheartened, about the job I thought I had. And my hopes this pandemic might expose the country for what it is, and we’d demand better are evaporating. It’s hard to get the energy to get back to job hunting. I thought I could get an ok job, keep my head down, read and write a lot, but I don’t know now. I’m sort of drinking a bit too much too, not getting drunk, but having a couple pretty much every evening. Out of boredom really.

I know a few people read this blog, so if you have any tips, especially about writing, leave a comment.

I think I’m just going to read a couple more novels about goblins and mages, 'reality' is getting a bit much.