Terrified of Socialism!

With the prospect of 'Getting Back to Normal,' seeming to slip further from the UK's and certain other government's grasps, we should all find the time to consider the two bookends of the current global worry. First we should think seriously about what got us to where we are now. Then we should more seriously consider the route that we might take from here on in! Or, we could maybe address the two, as co-dependents of the whole sorry affair! To dust off and use the government's most recent catchphrase, in order ".. to help us to bounce back!"



As a lifelong socialist I've become increasingly morose with regards to humanity's (UK) likelihood of ever turning the corner and electing to tread the more benign route. But dare we just to hope? 

The powers that be are demonstrably desperate, beside themselves, tearing their hair out... to quickly, 'get back to normal.' As every single day currently sets us further from their oft-hailed solution to everything. And, it terrifies them! Them and their thoroughly discredited 'market!' Apply another patch, why don't we?

Boris Johnson's daily 'togetherness'  fudge, Rishi Sunak's splashing of the 'whatever it takes' cash, Skin-deep Patel's manufactured social conscience! Lord alone knows what is being fed to the masses in the US, all are but a plastered on facade! Already, the gypsum has begun to chip, the exposed angry red sinews now visibly straining to turn back the tide!  

Just under seventy-two hours previously we had determined that we would step outside and clap and cheer for our NHS. Even if the local response was lukewarm, we dared to contemplate- there are just so many empty second homes here- we reasoned that our noise alone would draw some sort of attention. But no, rising from our chairs in readiness, already the streets and balconies were full- the occupied ones- the air a-rippling with the sound, the response heartening! It was difficult not to cry, so we did, a little. It was dark, probably nobody noticed, likely others were crying also, crying or cheering, or both, whooping, banging kitchen items! The response was perfect! Exactly as it should have been! Heartening!



Heartening, as has been the response to requests for NHS volunteers, as has been the effort of food manufacturers to feed the overstretched doctors and nurses and other NHS staff. The buses are running reasonably efficiently, although mostly empty... obviously! Schools are staying open for the children of NHS staff, again mostly empty. Supermarket staff and other food distributers are out and facing the invisible threat, constantly compromising their social distancing 'guidelines,' never more so than when the over 70s make the early rounds. Homeless people are being housed. Refuse is being collected. Unemployment allowances have risen! Suspended competition between supermarkets- Socialism- will the puffed-up Cheesy Wotsit ever talk down to us again? Sensibility is screaming out for more Roosevelt and less viral hot air! More Attlee, rather less Churchill! 

Boris Johnson is 'so proud'... sort of... but theatrically so, don't you think? Look into Matt Hancock's eyes, I thought he was simply out of his depth (which he is), but it's a sort of fear! Rumour has it that Dominic Cummings has recognised the fear and has prescribed them both two of the very mildest doses of the virus yet seen, rumour has it!



The UK Government, "so very proud" of the public response, has meanwhile missed the deadline for an EU scheme, to source lifesaving ventilators. Initially, it was an old Empirical call to arms of "going it alone," instead "no longer a member, we were" "making our own efforts," adapting vacuum cleaners! But then the buffoon, upon being accused of "putting Brexit first," quickly reverted to type with the lie of "Owing to an 'initial communication problem,' the UK did not receive an e-mail from the EU, asking it to participate." Boris and Team Deception yet again counting on those certain factions of the country not knowing, or caring really, that Matt Hancock, prior to the deadline, specifically mentioned the scheme during BBC's Question Time. Fill the Cabinet with a bunch of well-practiced liars and it's hardly surprising that all the parts end up on different pages. But the deceit won't slow the Coronavirus. Instead, it'll assist and cost even more lives. 20,000 is the current government 'calculated' loss, in order to save the economy! Perhaps unavoidable now, but one wonders what figures might have been. That's quite a few casualties who won't be bouncing back! 

The nation now has regional Gold Commanders, helping to cooperatively coordinate the fight. Either this is socialism, or we're fighting the virus with prefixes.

The good old United Kingdom has rallied to the call! And it terrifies them! Prince Charles is self isolating in a wing of the Balmoral Estate and, this time, I strongly sense that I'm not the only soul not to give a damn! The national NHS applause warmed the TV screens! But footage of Downing Street and some royal castle, somewhere or other, sort of spoiled the general feel of togetherness, don't you think? Together, for a heartbeat, but eager to get back to differently socially isolating once again.



'Worryingly' it's the socialism issue, again raising it's 'ugly' head! And, we though the Daily Mail, Piers Morgan, the British MSM, and two decades of increasingly spiteful Tory rule had buried it for dead! And yet, here we are again!

The globe is in crisis, variably so. And, the measures that seem to be dealing best with the issue are all socialist measures. Sharing, pulling together, rallying round! We haven't all fought two world wars, that was the generation of our grandparents and great grandparents, as if we need constantly reminding. If we're old enough, just maybe, it was our parents' generation. They were the ones who actually fought the world wars, we didn't!

The threat is very different this time around, but many people are responding similarly, as you might hope of humanity! Just so long as they don't want to 'over respond,' eh Johners? Because, it's all very well the UK gathering at the appointed time, upon their doorsteps and balconies, but heaven forbid that they might also want to ensure that the NHS is better equipped next time round! Whisper it, so Trump upon his golden throne- more orange really- does not hear, "Why, this is socialism!"

Housing the homeless? Ensuring that those without work or too sick or otherwise unable to work are looked after? Volunteers, pulling together to ensure that everyone's chances of survival are enhanced? Socialism! 



Consider a drawn parallel- not the daft and boastful one that we've fought two world wars- instead this one of a potential global annihilation of human life, one that might open people's eyes to the necessity to far better look after one another? When this battle's over- assuming that the virus doesn't attain some sort of more permanent dominion- why shouldn't the people who pulled together want to continue pulling together? Liveable unemployment benefits, sickness pay, shared responsibility for shared rewards, a ready and working NHS for the whole nation, free at the point of delivery! Why not? Socialism, why not? 'All in it together,' for real! Why not? 

Curiously, the contagion is now almost (formerly) biblical! For those, like myself, who are loath to accept such a diagnosis, biblical pertaining to the Bible an' all that- mine was instead more a reference to scale- we might instead think of our planet (almost) as a single living entity. Sometimes, certain marine biologists refer to the Great Barrier Reef as a single living organism, each part thereof highly interdependent of each other part, well, we could think of the earth, that precious shining jewel, as an interdependent single organism (oxymoron), always seeking to balance itself. A greater intelligence might instead reappraise our far too compartmentalised diagnosis. After all, are we not in body, in complexity, a teeming mass of microorganisms, ideally all striving to attain that tenuous balance that equates to a thriving human entity?

Brimming with life, which undoubtedly it is- although not quite so brimming of late- the planet would quite naturally evolve. Wholly alive it might seek out, identify and fight contagion! As a living organism, wanting always to thrive, what might it identify and line up for rectification or cleansing? Over what kind of timescale? Coronavirus? Or humanity? Which is currently causing the greater damage? Humanity or Coronavirus?

If the antibodies, for want of a better analogy, are able to more accurately pinpoint the contagion, where or what would they better target? The human infection is quite widespread, atmospheric pollution, corruption of waterways and oceans, plastic and other pollution, destruction of habitat, extinction of species, disregard and contempt even for its own species, despite it's self proclaimed 'superior intelligence,' resources wars, discrimination, greed! Any greater being might easily draw a very different perspective upon the human species than we appear to have done.



If we acted collectively, and in my analogy, to prioritise greater numbers of our species over the economy- this actually might demonstrate a higher intelligence. We would have to be honest. No longer could we use our MSM to lie or to evade, not to a viral antibody. We would surely have to pinpoint the human contagion element to capitalism, although it has now cancerised in terrifying timescale, into neoliberalism. To save the human planet target instead neoliberalism! Surely every bit as true in real time as it is analogically!

Unless I am the next Messiah, and I know that I am not- heaven yet again help us- surely I cannot have been the only living soul who thought, as the first signs arose in Wuhan, as the virus was identified and recognised as being immune to all current vaccines, why the Hell is the world not treating this as a potential global issue? Why is the globe not locking down and funding the treatment and restriction at source? At the very least think about restricting air travel!

The issue, the answer, was, of course, neoliberalism. The globe was incapable of acting in unison! The globe was busily competing with itself instead to undermine health, to monetise health, to privatise health! Don't let it harm the economy, and the fireside illusion of eternal economic growth! Oh, and perhaps we could save a few lives, give the privatised pseudo-health services some financial justification?

I thought it yet again, why aren't we collectively locking this down and saving more lives, as holidays to Italy, all too frequently adjacent to the newest hotspot, continued to prioritise instead 'the economy!' Save lives, treat the epidemic at its source, now multiple sources, I hoped.

I thought it again, as BJ talked incessantly about protecting the economy, and the first Coronavirus outbreaks began to chickenpox the UK. Even as the space behind his eyes more brightly spoke of the deceit, as the UK's vetted science team were being called upon to field and repurpose the PM's words with ever greater frequency. Treat the damn (now) pandemic cooperatively, fund the fight collectively, I pleaded at the radio or the TV, not always politely!



Now, almost 72 hours since the nation loudly applauded our NHS, the government is again fudging at the fore! Already our gratitude to our health workers has been semantically repurposed, in the words of the latest spokesperson, the Business Secretary, Alok Sharma, elusive as morning mist, "acting on scientific advise," to "save lives by staying at home and social distancing, unless we have to go to work upon crowded tube trains and not social distance." Clear as Johnson! Now we learn that we weren't at our doorways and windows, at our balconies and in our front gardens, cheering the NHS, not exactly. What we were instead doing was helping to, "keep the economy going, readying the nation to bounce back!" Oh, and to perhaps save lives in the process. Who knew, we were there more for Richard Branson and Mike Ashley. Standing together, we minions, and Piers Morgan, for the betterment of the economy. Sharma's words deftly slipping through the net of questions from the likes of The Mail and The Sun. Back on point?

But, properly on point, the nation has again been driven to revert to a socialist ideology and has repurposed The Excel Centre, as the NHS Nightingale Hospital, a 4,000 bed, specifically Coronavirus treatment, facility- adequate ventilators not withstanding. Presumably named in honour of Florence Nightingale? Undoubtedly not referencing the nation's destruction of Kent's premier Nightingale site, at Blean Woods. "Standing shoulder to shoulder," for "our businesses (first mention) and our people (trailing in second)" On point!

This challenge is different though, and the UK government is (almost) palpably fearful of properly addressing the neoliberal contagion with socialist principles. The challenge is no longer 'just' an ostensibly unseen island of plastic whirling out of sight, out of mind. It's not spiralling inequality, pat the island-hugging 'entrepreneurs' on the back and cross our fingers. It's not almost imperceptibly dulling our skies, that slightly grey film, thickening daily and dulling the sun. It's not big-wig smiles and cosy chats about eternal economic growth. It's not the ongoing mass extinction, where we can just switch over to one of the Sky Sports Channels.

Although, think on it, it might just be part of the latter.

Socialism, by any other name!