In the Western world, democracy faces a far more serious crisis than either the quasi-religious Left or the neoliberal Right would have you believe. The news now is like observing the drivel that emerges from a brain where the two hemispheres can no longer communicate.
As the days pass this year, for some reason I find myself noticing more and more examples of a complete absence of reality beyond our small commune here: in government, in the media, on social networks….and especially during elections and geopolitical ‘negotiations’.
But after those elective negotiations, selective truths bring despair to those who discover their vote went unheeded.
Today’s corker for me was the ‘discovery’ (long overdue among those who’ve spent time in Tower Hamlets) that Muslim Mayor Lutfur Rahman is a crook who got into power through ballot-stuffing, vote rigging, dead electors, harassment, extreme peer pressure – in fact, pretty much the complete gambit of corrupt politics.
This shot down Rahman defender and allround Leninist Richard Seymour, whose Guardian piece a year ago insisted that Lucky Lutfur was being “smeared” by the endemically and institutionally racist British Hestablishment, bruvvers. An overwhelming mountain range of evidence having found this unpleasant Mayor (a close friend of George Galloway) to be guilty on 3 zillion charges, the ever open-minded Seymour tweeted this morning to say he didn’t retract a word of the 2014 piece, but he was far too busy studying for his PhD to dismiss f**witted obervations about Lutfur Rahman from bigoted fascists.
Seymour’s twitter site proclaims him to be ‘planning a life of crime’ once the PhD is finished. Prizes are offered for the best expectation of what this bloke’s further degree will be about. My starter for 10 would be ‘An analysis of the dialectical gender-crushing ramifications of racist scum in a fascist police state’.
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Other examples of denialism right across the political spectrum include the entirely unsurprising further confirmation that Grant Shapps is a depraved fraudster; the IFS data – the IFS being a right wing consultancy part-founded by Baroness Thatcher – clearly showing what massive cuts the Conservatives will make if they are returned to office; the alarming number of fruitcakes standing for Parliament under the UKip banner, literally 99.5% of whom will NOT be elected to Parliament; and of course the tragic case of Jeremy Rhyminge-Slang, whose very early onset dementia condition has led him to believe that he never once wished the NHS burnt to the ground with all hands:
Jeremy seen here with his dementia friend
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Meanwhile, according to Reuters, the eurozone economy is on a sustainable recovery path, according to all but a handful of forecasters polled by Reuters who also gave a slightly more than one-in-four chance of Greece leaving the currency union.
Doncha love it when the deranged can get jobs in journalism? Forecasters unnamed were polled by Reuters, and they said the eurozone will survive and prosper. Sounds to me like what happens when the neoliths put questions to the neoloonies on behalf of the neoliberals.
But here’s the best bit: 75% of the respondents thought Greece would remain in the euro. A little odd in the context of Reuters peddling a different ‘Grexit’ window for Athens with every day.
Let’s just summarise again: Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece are on the verge of fiscal collapse, and 60% of their joint population want an end to austerity. But the nonexistent recovery path is sustainable: even though the author of the research says Greece alone is a problem.
Further research also reveals that roughly 0% of those polled live either (a) in ClubMed or (b) in the temporal zone of existence. But 100% of them thought the US State Department was doing a dandy job.
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And yet, and yet…..is there still hope? Over the last ten days of the UK General Election, the Conservative dominated coalition has had almost every rug pulled from under its policy rationale – ranging from renegotiation of the EU treaties through to its performance on migration numbers, balanced economic recovery, and fiscal discipline.
Today – in that context – a new poll has emerged showing that Labour has opened up a 3-point lead over the Tories, despite being led by Ed and his Miliband of Hope.
Alas, the chances are there is no hope at all: the survey concerned has a 3% margin of error.
Thus are the fluffies once again forced to face empirical reality: the election will be a dead-heat, and every Party involved in the aftermath will be tossing principles out of every window in a bad to have the only thing they care about: power.
Before election, apparent inability to tell sky from carpet. After election, disgustingly apparent willingness to grab the illusion of power…..long ago donated by their forebears to others unwilling to face election.
Perhaps, my friends, this is the difference between naive voting intention, and cynical perversion of that intention once the votes are counted.
The Slog 