Brighter Days

It seems Mum is aware that my wedding is next weekend, as has made noises at my aunts about whether there is a possibility of it being skyped.Turns out it looks likely, so fingers crossed! Even if something happens and it can't be done, a chum will be videoing bits and pieces so we can upload it at some point. I am delighted she and my other relatives, especially the termagent, will be able to see it, even if it means I can look forward to a whole bunch of comments like, 'Well, you would have thought she could lose a bit more weight before she... Why is she wearing a table on her head?...She would have looked better in the pink...' What is important is that Mum is involved and aware. And if it can be done, I may regret it in time to come, but I won't regret it on the day.

Another dream last night.

I was living in a room in a house, and realised I was leaving it. The room was dark and dusty, and I had known for a long time it was haunted by a malign presence, a girl. There was some kind of doll, but also, a much bigger version of the girl made up of the pipes/brickwork/door so it looked as though she dominated the room, coming in through the walls. I shaved the head of the doll to show her that she had no power in the situation, but I didn't throw her hair away; my act wasn't about dissing her but about gently setting her straight as to who had power in the situation.  so I put her hair on the side where she could pick it up and stuff it in a pillow or burn it respectfully, or do whatever she needed to do to recover herself. I checked the backdoor which led out into a dark place; the locks were old fashioned, covered in rust...and in any case, the door had been on the latch the whole time.Anyone could have got in.  I left for good through the front,  to find myself  being flirted at by Richard Hammond. He was a bit full on actually. We went for dinner.

Cos we're stupid... and contagious

Here we are now. Entertain us.

Mirror image between here and the States, the rise of a strange shouty madness on the backs of a demographic described as the dispossessed white working class. Seems clear that a basic point of political commonsense has been lost; democracy is a way of keeping societies stable, adhered to faithfully in the long-term it stops revolution. But the pay-off is that you can't leave anyone behind in a democratic system, or they will turn around and bite you even if it means harming themselves. Keeping a population poor, exhausted and stupified with 24 hour  infomercials selling The Dream  will not stop them getting angry. It means that when they do, they'll go properly nuts.

I don't think Obama did this, but he seems to have been endlessly opposed by those dedicated to it as a principle.  In this country, Cameron came from, and knew, no other way, and God knows what Labour were doing. The rise of the unfettered rich was bound to mean the rise of the unfettered poor. I reckon that's why Jezzah was so lukewarm. He's counting on it.

This runs counter to the whole rationale behind Why the Russian Revolution Worked. It has been said that had there not been  a Russian middle class with nowhere to go, there would have been no revolution, that the real  key to maintaining the old regime was to keep proles as proles who would have lived and died silent. We can never prove that such an immoral approach would really have worked; it doesn't matter how uneducated people are, if they can't survive they will attack. The ruler who starves the people -  or is perceived to starve the people - is headed for the guillotine, figuratively or physically.

Democracy can no more rely on stupidity than autocracy can, a simple truism.  The West has leaned upon a fatted sheep approach and have thoroughly misjudged timing and the temper of the flock. If the people have enough, they won't rise so it  behoves rulers well to understand when people don't have enough; successive governments paid lipservice to this, while pumping up the already monied, expecting trickle-down economics to work a fast magic, but you can't have a society based on extraodinary aspiration and no means of achieving it for the majority. No-one wants to spend their lives in near serfdom in order to have a cooker/send their kids to college. People expect more than that.  And when they don't get it,we get this ascent of the angry stupid.*

What made them stupid though? It's not like we lack information. But we don't really educate with a view to helping people learn. We educate enough to make people  useful to employers.  It is extraordinary that we have allowed something so close to a political monopoly of the Press. We need media outlets dedicated to objective reporting and analysis, and what we have instead are opposing viewpoints, thought the right-wing papers are the ones with the most klaxons.  Such a lack of clarity is useful to a ruling class that wants slogans to replace facts. Well, this time slogans have worked - stupid, offensive slogans. They didn't teach the people how to judge information because they wanted those people to believe any old shit  when useful, and they didn't try to ensure veracity for the same reason. The result is that the people believed the story they like, the one that tells them its all someone else's fault, a vindicatory and vindictive message. It has worked in GB, and may well work in the US.

*Important to note that the 'Angry Stupid,' were not the only Brexit voters, anymore than they are the only Trump voters. There are other arguments in both cases.

Tender hearts

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