I've avoided the mainstream froth since she carked and don't regret it in the least. I've avoided much of the anti thatch stuff too.
I may have said this before, but I think it's worth keeping in mind:
Frothy behaviour on either "side" such as any tendency to deal in hyperbole or exagerated emotional tones, is probably a function of their separate but large failures. The Thatcherites have next to fuck all to show for their lunatic creed except the advancement of a small elite. There was some kind of revolution of course, but globalisation would have probably pushed us much of that way in any case, and the results have gone very sour. Neoliberalism was first and foremost about a healthy economy. It has fucked the economy. All they can do to explain it away is try and pretend Labour weren't generally neo-liberal in government, only a fool wouldn't see through that. How many fools are exactly out there I won't hazard a guess right now.
But the antis are a depressing failure too. We didn't stop any of that. Though we have disagreements about strategy and solutions that are natural to these situations, it's still a big bad clusterfuck. And the final Labour sell outs didn't work either.
And as the sound and fury, signifying next to fuck all, rages on there is another jaded and screwed entity right in the middle of it - the mainstream media transmitting this endless bilge that will come to have so little actual impact.
In 10 days time they will be back to the normal diet of shit. I can't help think that this period is just a meaningless hiatus. The Thatcherites can gain nothing from it, they have been proved too hopelessly wrong. They can only keep beating the reactionary drum on social issues, hoping we'll blame migrants and the poor for the screw-up. It has appeal, but kind of limited. The real guilty lot are the likes of the BBC and Labour for letting such weak narrative set the pace, but Labour are scared of their own shadow and there's no reason for it to change.
Anti capitalists can gain, not by endlessly re-hashing the same basic rows with tories of the last 30 years, but a sober analysis of why a solid case for genuine (non PFI etc.) social democracy has not been made when it's a perfectly sensible comprimise between the lunatic finance cult and the red menace they invoke to defend themselves. This should not be a party based analysis, at least in the first instance. People's Assemblies are as good a starting point as any, but they are only that and only one of many such options I hope.
Lets take PFI, it's not mega simple, but it's hardly super complex either. How come so few people understand it and the enormous unaccountable rip off that it represents. There's a whole range of other banking and corruption stuff. The dogs in the street know things are very fucked but are murky on detail, which lends them to be dragged into mainstream and fundementally reactionary analysis.
We can't just moan about MSM any more. We know it's complicit, but it aint going away. We have the technology, knowledge and cultural savy to provide decent alternatives. People are walking away from the mainstream, or ready to. But if our alternatives are up, running and good I suspect they are not being promoted fully to the unconverted.
All the above is meant in the best spirit possible. Happy Thursday.
Every day from now until I die, she'll always be dead and I'll be alive. That's a soothing thought.
