'What if?'
It's a short question that's frequently being asked about all manner of things, from the trivial everyday white-noise, the societal minutiae, perhaps, right up to the national and international giants of the age. 'What if?'
What if we painted this wall burgundy and moved the table over to the window?
What if we moved the sound speakers over to that wall and pushed the sofa up against the opposite one?
What if we fled the Genocide and instead tried to join our cousins in the UK?
What if we had broccoli instead of sprouts with the Christmas dinner this year?
What if we attempted to pretend that the growing numbers of homeless people weren't really there and just carried on with an active program of steepling housing inequality?
What if I cut my hair really short and bleached it snowy white?
What if we replaced the Labour Opposition with a bunch of lobbiests who would continue with the same raft of neoliberal policies as the Tories?
What if the oceans rises another foot this decade?
What if we keep on burning oil until all the wells run dry?
What if the mega wealthy elites really don't much care which ills befall the rest of us?
'What if?' What if they really don't care?
Not about the rest of us, anyway?
It's a valid question. A mite over direct and to the point but then, for those who have been taking an interest, it's just one amongst many questions that are not being put to our (so called) democratically elected representatives. Or, should the odd pertinent question manage to squeak through the barricades, then it's one of the more pertinent questions that is not being answered. Not honestly, not with any due attention to detail or seriousness, evasively at best.
What if they really don't care?
What then?
Because- pause for thought- if 'they' really don't much care about the same sort of questions that are beginning to overwhelm the rest of the thinking minions then what? What sort of responses might we then expect from 'them?' Assuming that 'they' even deign to respond? What if 'they' really don't give a damn?
Who would know better than the oil baron, that fossil fuels really are to blame for the coming climate emergency; who would know better than those who have been covering up the evidence for the last fifty years, than those who are in the very best place to have properly accessed all of the available data? If they truly wanted to respond in a manner likely to benefit the majority and the planet they'd have done so long before now. If they were going to tackle the climate crisis they'd ensure that there were fewer lobbiests working hand-in-glove with government. Surely. And, if this is the situation, as absolutely it must be, what else is being allowed to slide?
Precisely how much research into the cancers being wrought, had tobacco baron, Philip Norris, done into the more harmful effects of smoking, decades before Priti Patel broke the Ministerial Code, lobbying for reduced regulations on tobacco sales? Well, that and for the misappropriation of international aid, into Israeli coffers? Ms Patel must be so very proud, in the unlikely event that she is ever given cause for reflection! Just how far ahead of that curve, were the tobacco barons? And, what about the gambling cartels; quite how many lobbiests for this blackened melanoma are still pretending that they serve their constituents?
Finger pointing might vary in intensity, or waver in terms of direction, yet the oft speculated opinion that our globe has become overpopulated with the human species seems never far from the surface. There are too many 'other' people out there, we are regularly reminded. The 'culprits' are either left vague, paley sketched in, or they are non-specifically elsewhere. Never quite precisely 'here!' Although, even the hereness of here bears considerable elasticity so, rather dependent upon precisely how much racism the messenger is currently being permitted. Whatever the wording, whoever the speaker, the surplus is never quite 'us!'
So, when Putin broke with global expectations in February 2022 and actually drove his tanks over the border, the puppet-masters in the US of A must have been beside themselves with joy! They'd poked and they'd poked at the Old Bear and, finally, he'd bitten! Jackpot!
The US of A went into overdrive, organising the severance of Europe's fuel supply, via Nordstream2. Cornering the replacement petro-chemical market. Good ol' US of A! The US arms trade needed no such help, being so well practised at enabling all manner of dubious regimes to unleash their wrath upon other human beings! Good ol' US of A!
So, the same glorious US of A must have been absolutely crestfallen when, in the spring of the same year (2022), Ukraine and Russia were upon the cusp of a peace deal, threatening to cut dead all those glorious arms sales! The US needed a veto and they needed one fast! The UK duly rolled over, almost as if someone-(or someones)-upon-high really didn't much care about the human cost! Other humans, the not-quite-us humans, the elsewhere ones.
There's the Western narrative and then there's an alternative narrative, one that generally comes without a US accent. One that doesn't require a US spokesperson's tale to be spun upon a BBCesque platform. One that fits more credibly with the manner in which events have befallen the globe.
'What if?' What if they really don't care,
we might more informedly muse.
In that clearer light, we move on. In that light, it would be reasonable to contemplate a world in which those with greatest monetary resources are able to garner the greater access to scientific research. Understand then, that, in light of such volumes of greater data coupled with this post's opening premise, access will not necessarily equate to more egalitarian thought or action. Resources, we are told, are limited. Yet, also we are expected to worship the concept of continual growth. Two contentions! They may feature within the very same news update, one may even follow hot on the heels of the other. And yet never are we encouraged to hold one in either hand and then together weight these juxtapositions. Further, neither does any from a selection of characters who would wish to be termed 'journalists' ever seem to make that small extra step. These being 'journalists' who would also have access to significantly greater quantities of the pertinent data than does the average citizen. Curious, maybe! Unless it hints at something far more weighty, far more concerning!
'What if?' What if they really don't care?
If those being routinely murdered by the IDF, in the globe's largest and most well-documented genocide, really are just numbers upon a far larger and covert tally then who's next? The floods, the fires, the rising oceans, will account for some of the non-specific excess populations and yet, if resources really are going to be so very unevenly distributed... well, as the US so loves to instruct,
'you do the math!'
Or rather, 'maths!'
Imagine, for a moment, that we find ourselves upon the greedier side of the divide. We might think to question from whence will the workforce be sourced? Diminishing resources may be marked up for those currently drowning in wealth but there will soon come the need for a change in pace, or trajectory, or valuation... or something...
They may not care, or they may well care for the wrong things and yet, sooner rather than later, even 'they' may find their elected pathway to be structurally compromised. Or blocked! Likely, they'll burn every bit as brightly as will we, should the flames catch in the wrong kinds of winds. Or drown just as readily. Or starve!
An increasingly bankrupted housing market cannot sustain an infinite number of pretended rethinks. When people cannot any longer afford housing what value then for the empty shells? A cost-of-living crisis may only sustain a limited number of rebrands; when costs are too much the black market thrives, citizens simply opt out from those aspects of the 'society' that has left them behind. The streets may only sustain a certain number of tents and sleeping bags, councils and disingenuous politicians may only sweep the canvass to another corner whilst there are corners still available, unless the puppeteers are already contemplating yet more sinister 'solutions' to their problems. Before it becomes clear to enough people that the system is broken, corrupted, bankrupt!
Searching for a more drastic solution!
'They really don't care! They really do not!
Not about us!
Even as we watch and we wonder, another poorly concealed lie has slipped its anchor. Another from the elite side of the tracks has bolted and handed back her CBE, hoping to stay ahead of the curve. Never mind that the correct narrative was freely available before the turn of the century. Watch as the conflagration spreads, watch the pertinent ministers and other miscreants dance their dances! They care no more but now they will need to work out which other ones to thrust into the flames that the flare will dazzle enough that we do not notice also the owner of the dispatching hand.
'They' really do not care!
They cannot. Even if they might once have (half) cared, or cared with certain reservations, neoliberal greed has now seriously impaired their vision. Greed has dazzled them!
War will certainly deplete some of those other-not-us-humans. That's why the arms trade is so very powerful! Wars! But, how to contain the spread? Kill just those other humans, the not-us-ones! Contain the spread! Hate the refugees, whilst creating new refugees! Hate the homeless, whilst creating more homelessness!
'They really don't care! They really do not!
'First they came for somebody else, who wasn't me, and I did not speak out-
Because I was not yet that somebody else...'
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