Hierarchical frameworks are regressive and can only stifle progress

The modern “democratic” systems of state management and organising communities that are used around the world today are almost without exception based on hierarchical frameworks of one type or another. It is worth explaining what I mean by that. I understand a hierarchy as a system of people organising themselves based on different levels and different roles. The hierarchical framework that I am discussing is about political power, and by its very nature about the…

Continue ReadingHierarchical frameworks are regressive and can only stifle progress

We are hanging on, but only just

We are coming to the end of July, and it has been 6 months since the world, billionaires and their neo-liberal apparatchiks excluded, first properly acknowledged that we are all facing an imminent and potentially catastrophic global health disaster. At that time certain governments around the world had the basic human compassion and emotional maturity to put the well-being of their respective populations ahead of the wealth and status of their peers. Others did not.…

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The Constitution was designed to maintain exploitation through legalised state oppression, that system can not save us

While the 25th Amendment to the Constitution is the legal mechanism for removing a mentally unstable psychopath from the White House, there is no democratic mechanism for the people of the USA to initiate that process. Similarly, while Article 2 - Section 4 of the Constitution allows for the removal of a criminal or a traitor from the White House, once again the American electorate has no tangible say in that process either. The fact…

Continue ReadingThe Constitution was designed to maintain exploitation through legalised state oppression, that system can not save us

While class deference is most apparent at times of crisis, it is also at its most vulnerable to public opinion

Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic the cultural mechanisms for maintaining class deference have been at their most apparent in years. While we are told that we are all in this together, time and again the behaviour and the subtle subtexts of the pronouncements of the 1% demonstrate that their true world view is not as egalitarian as they like to pretend. Not only do the rules for the 99% not apply to the…

Continue ReadingWhile class deference is most apparent at times of crisis, it is also at its most vulnerable to public opinion

The question isn’t whether the government should lift the lock-down, it is how many of us have to die before we say enough?

On the 4th May it was reported that an internal UK government document covering their proposed plan for lifting the lock-down had been leaked. How senior members of government, and their civil service advisers had reached the conclusion that their time would be best placed on planning to lift the lock-down is very confusing for most emotionally mature people that have a basic grasp of maths for one key reason. As of the 3rd May,…

Continue ReadingThe question isn’t whether the government should lift the lock-down, it is how many of us have to die before we say enough?

The COVID-19 mortality rate is an interesting measure of government policy

In just over four months between the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in January and the 3rd May, 28,205 people have died in the UK. In that same time in South Korea, a country with a population roughly 4/5ths the size of the UK, only 250 people have died. Trying to understand just how that has come to pass is very difficult because of the lack of consistency in how governments are measuring the impact…

Continue ReadingThe COVID-19 mortality rate is an interesting measure of government policy

Government policies as the variable in the worldwide COVID-19 experiment

While nearly every country on the planet is now fighting the same virus from largely similar starting points, there will over time, be very different outcomes. For instance, less than 3 months into this worldwide disaster, we could already see that the COVID-19 per capita death rate was running at 22 for every 100,000 people in the UK, while in South Korea it was 0.45 per 100,000. Or to put that more simply, for every…

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South Korea is fast becoming the yardstick against which all other governments will be measured

In time there will be an accounting for the response of each government to the COVID-19 pandemic. The UK governments policies will be measured against the policies of other governments and the death tolls their various decisions resulted in. But we really don’t have to wait that long. We are already seeing the different outcomes of differing responses. There are two institutions principally tasked with the health and well-being of the people living in the…

Continue ReadingSouth Korea is fast becoming the yardstick against which all other governments will be measured

COVID-19 and the illusion of meritocratic democracy

We are logistically, culturally and intellectually unprepared for the COVID-19 pandemic. What I mean by that is that the model of society we have accepted, is riddled with fundamental flaws that are only now becoming apparent to the general public. One of the key problems is the illusion of meritocratic democracy on which our lives are now depending. Not least of which is the one that Thomas Paine warned of, arguing that an hereditary ruling…

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Undercover agents of the state are infiltrating the left

In 1947 in Marseilles the dockers went out on strike and were quickly followed by other workers around the country coming out in solidarity. The newly formed CIA, eager to take advantage of the vacuums of authority that had been left around the world in the aftermath of WWII, sent a Psychological Operations team out to France to crush any and all socialist dissent. Undercover agents of the state began arming, training, funding and guiding…

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