There Is No Alternative?

When it comes to history the following is a plausible story.

“WW1 started in 1913 with the British invasion of Iraq.  This followed much jostling with Germany, led by Kaiser Wilhelm, the man who would have been King Of Britain under today’s inheritance rules.  The Imperial powers (roughly Britain, Germany, France, Russia, Japan and USA) all had trade interests supported by big armies and navies and had even engage in joint actions, such as that against China in 1906.  Britain, France and Russia had intended to invade the USA in 1861.  The USA had War Plan Red until WW2, which was concerned with invasion by Britain, and even built some air bases near Canada, fearing invasion through Halifax.

Millions protested before WW1 but could safely be ignored.  This war left Germany with reparations it could never pay.  It’s people were generally poor in comparison with the British, though the country was clearly leading in science and culture.  Money poured in under Hitler, with large investments from the USA and banks such as JP Morgan (who had financed much of UK war effort).  The US and UK continued a policy against Japan, starving it of oil and imposing tariffs on its textiles.  WW2 broke the imperialism of France, Germany, Japan, UK and USSR, with the only victors being the USA – who then prevented Franco/British attempts at a ‘come back’ in 1956.”

I’ve always found the American victory difficult.  One can hardly doubt the spirit of its peoples’ war effort – the questions would concern the extent to which the victory was actually the unfolding of a plan and whose plan this was.

In more recent times, Iraq is invaded again, Saudi is controlled by a freak monarchy under US “control” and the invasion of Iran is only an Israeli away.  Bliar is JP Morgan’s bag man out there, and led us into an illegal, unwanted war that has killed in hundreds of thousands, despite being protested by millions.  The excuses for going into the Iraq war look as ludicrous as those for the War of Jenkin’s Ear.  China is now the eastern power with vast manufacturing capacity and a shortage of oil and other commodities.

I’m fairly sure history is repeating itself.  Both Churchill and Bliar may have been plants in our political system to do American bidding – but I doubt ‘American’ is quite the right term.  The increases in productivity in agriculture, manufacturing and even such matters as domestic cleaning should, by now, have produced a world of material plenty for all and much greater freedom from ‘disciplinary government’ and such sanctions as unemployment and poverty.  Instead, we are on the road to serfdom and find we have no democracy ‘because of global competition’.

I can support this historical version and expand on it.  I remain to be convinced of it myself, but the gist of it seems more likely than not.  I’m well aware of the alternatives and the standard model that has WW1 starting because some toffs were shot at by a guy outside a butty shop, or the irreversible German railway play (AJP Taylor).  One should be able to engage in speculation and I’ll even speculate our view of E = MC2 is wrong.

And this is where we have gone wrong as a society – we can’t engage in practical, speculative, scientific dialogue.  The history above may be wrong – but it isn’t as wrong as the political-economic bullshit that holds us in fealty and which just happens to be the only political-economic bull that holds wages down, makes the rich richer and leads to war and planet burning.  How the fuck did we get this stupid? – it must have taken an awful lot of practice and schooling!

The idea of TINA (there is no alternative) is utterly stupid and passed off by ruthless bastards who would do anything to retain their privilege and the means to get their jollies – whether Thatcher through lapping up the Iron Lady adulation or some bwankster flashing out mega-cash on drugs and prostitutes.  If we can create viable alternatives (at least in narrative) to Churchill as our great hero, we can clearly come up with alternative economic-political propositions on how to change things that aren’t either lunatic rich or lunatic leftie.

I don’t care whether Churchill or Bliar were good guys or the most appalling war criminals working at the behest of foreign interests.  I do care we are so dumb we believe in TINA or even organise public dialogue against it.

 

 

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We can’t handle the truth, but it’s catching us up anyway

Coppers was good tonight (C4), at least showing the drunken mile well.  Most of the cops were good, though I don’t think the aggressive one much good in provoking idiots.  I preferred the guy whose description of a cold Stella was so good I went looking in the fridge.  The Chief Constable of Leicestershire predicted these scenes long ago.  I wonder just who has made money from this establishment of booze zones in our town centres, and how many clown politicians used the ‘cafe society’ line against all evidence?

Newsnight was good too; finally some admission this crisis is much worse than being stated and that inflation is the only way out of the debt, pretty much all over.  It struck me there is a lot of commonality between the financial markets hiding everything off-balance sheet (and governments) and what has been stacked up in society – crime figures always falling, yet antisocial behaviour rising faster.

Economics has long been split between the basic decision on whether to generate ‘wealth’  by encouraging money to make money, or by making things (including worthwhile services’.  Even now, this leads to trusting markets (which I doubt we can) or trusting to more power to national governments (which I’m sure is a disaster).  In the Athenian Democracy, Solon got rid of debt by administrative fiat, simply abolishing it after his mates had bought up the land.  Our equivalent now is printing money, and probably devaluations.  Portugal, Greece and Spain may get cheap again.  Deep questions remain as to whether we can work this trick without social upheaval.

In a webcast, the director of Coppers described the drunken mile as infantile, clearly borne out.  He also used the word to describe much of the policing he has witnessed making the series – much as Gadget, in that he meant the cops being forced into more and more bureaucratic action by ever changing regulation and management speak – being made infantile through this rather than able to act in discretion and decent common sense.  We talk of a benefits culture, but we are, in fact, perpetuating childhood all over.

Around here, the BB gun is in vogue.  One of my grandson’s mates is ‘carrying one for protection’.  My lad wants one as a kind of follow-on to Black Ops.  I don’t think I’m getting through on it being illegal to carry one, or possess one off my property etc.  I’ve seen groups of idiots posing like gangsters with them, and they are firing the plastic bullets in the street.  On the Internet, you can see videos of clown kids shooting up old windows with machine gun versions.  You need to be 18 to get one, but it’s obvious kids are getting them.  A twit across the road shot his sister with one a week or so back, and my lad was hit in the mouth by a ricochet yesterday.  Wander 100 yards away and I could start pointing to houses where older, criminal clowns could be locked up at will.  By then you’re on the Everglades.  I’ve seen estates like this for more than 40 years.

I suspect the massive difference over the 40 years is the reduction of manufacturing jobs from 8 million to 3 million.  For work discipline to work, it needs to be a discipline of available work sows’ ears can get without being made into silk purses.  We need to look at this and don’t.

If I could do ‘Secret Millionaire’, I’d have IG and his people up here anytime to show GMP what to do – but as he makes clear, it’s revolving door stuff – we don’t have a post-arrest  system in place worth spit.

We are as far from social answers on crime as we are from economic healing – the two are linked.  Even pensioners are becoming more criminal, even in Japan.  I despair, yet Germany and Japan rose from literal ashes.  As MrG points out there has been a good blame game around for donkeys’ years.  We have known the danger of money making money since Aristotle.  Some of the creeps our local Bobby hauls off are as old as me, but with the same language and attitudes I can place amongst our worst 13 year-olds, and much the same bullying and violence, upped with adult strength.  Much colludes, from street crime to the money markets, against us even describing the truth of what is going on, less ‘confidence’ collapse.

I can’t think of much other than spending more time abroad.  It’s not that I don’t think there are solutions.  I could go ‘learned’ on them.No money in that, I’ve banged my head against enough walls and it’s time to take my family away.  It’s easier to live as an alien outside your own country.  Portugal is impossible to do business in, but the fishing is good, crime is low and I’m exchanging my flat for a bungalow after they devalue.  Two more years in Broken Britain to go.