So over the weekend I replied to the below tweet for a blog by Politically Enraged on 'mediocrity in British politics', asking "how did we let our standards for politicians decline so steeply?"
The tweet in question from @PoliticalRagers on Twitter, to a blog by @Daviemoo titled "Mediocrity in British politics", with the question "how did we let our standards for politicians decline so steeply?"
Firstly, I want to make it clear that despite this being the second time in just six blog posts that I've responded to one of Daviemoo's blogs, I will categorically deny we are secretly dating. It's simply on Twitter that I follow few people who blog themselves, and have responded to replies on a regular basis, so it's a self-fulfilling result, if I choose to reply to anyone's blog. I will try to mix it up more though.
And secondly, I'm not going to really even respond to the content of the blog here - you can go and read that too (or instead of this one) if you want to - but instead the question that appears in the tweet. So yes, I am just a leech.
So with the explanations out of the way, "how did we let our standards for politicians decline so steeply"?
I think it's pretty obvious.
We're all submissive to our true masters in this world - the ruling class. For those unaware who I'm referring to, I mean those with the real power in this society - the wealthy, along with their foot-soldiers and shield, the media and 'politicians'.
We have 'accepted' that they have the right to rule us however they want to, over many centuries of suppression, oppression and then indoctrination from those at the top, and then 'decided' that our main 'role' in life is to be subservient to them and their wishes.
That doesn't mean people like individual 'politicians'. Far from it, they hate many, if not most of them - excepting some that people have decided are 'on their side' (as they play the game of the rulers, without them having to get 'dirty' themselves). But absolutely they've accepted the group existing and the overall hierarchical structure, for its supposed 'safety' and 'security'.
And of course we don't have the class consciousness and antagonism that other countries still have, despite the great efforts of our rulers. France are the obvious one, where right now we have mass protests and direct action against Emmanuel Macron's decrée absolute to raise the pension age, without any further 'democratic' approval. A decision that will impinge almost solely on those who are already being beaten down in this system, whilst those who want this brought in having designed it to be implemented, can keep quaffing champagne and caviar.
Instead we'd all rather play this faux 'team sports' game that has been constructed to divide us up, which allows them to get away with all they do to us, whilst we are looking at each other rather than the real cause of our malaise.
And I don't necessarily blame anyone who has not 'broken the Matrix' yet, and sees how the enforced systems actively promote this outcome. It is centuries since the masses have had any power, influence and wealth stripped by the now 1%. They have all the time and tools of propaganda on their side. I am though sad that we continue to fall into the traps that have been laid for us, for the sole purpose of distraction from the real causes of our lives and future being made worse every day.
I have heard other people - and nearly fell into using it as a further example in my original Twitter reply - argue another reason for this subservience, is that this happens in countries where there has not been a successful people's revolution.
Yet that is not true. Look at the USA. They had multiple revolutions and civil wars in the past centuries, and yet they have no class consciousness, no antagonism, and are just as deep in this 'team sports' 'culture war' as the UK is. Motherfuckers even tried to overthrow the elected members of Congress to install the 'anti-elite', 'man of the people' multi-millionaire Donald J. Trump as dictator for life. Because 'he's just like me, for real'. They had their revolutions, yet are now as cucked by the ruling class as we are, and are taking part in the same majoritarian infighting (as most of it originated there).
So how do we change it? Well, 'revolutions' don't guarantee a better future - see Sri Lanka, where they got rid of one alleged corrupted dynasty through a popular uprising, only to see the state-approved replacement not change the material conditions like the protesters demanded, but instead continued down the same state hegemony as before, including rounding up the protesters involved.
Instead we first need to grow understanding of the situation we are in - especially directed towards those currently 'unawake' who are at least 'open' to hearing the possibility of system change - the reasons we are in the mess we are in the first place, and how instead of it being a corruption of the system, this fate was, if not guaranteed, expressly encouraged by the system itself.
That seems a preposterous idea, that the ruling class would want idiots in charge of the system. But as I said at the beginning, 'politicians' are not there for the commonly stated reasons - to 'run the country' and 'make the world a better place' as 'representatives of the people' - but are there to act as a shield so the wealthy can keep making their money unopposed, unrestricted (as much as they can get past the masses, because there are still some 'limits' when they really go extreme), and unchallenged.
So if they're idiots? That's great! The masses are attacking them as the shield, along with all of ourselves in the ruling class's highly crafted, concocted 'culture war' games that I mentioned above. Like when a Black man wants to actually live instead of being summarily executed, or a trans woman is simply recognised in public. We're fighting over basic human rights, because our favourite media pundit or politician shouted 'squirrel!'. As all this goes on, the wealthy continue to make off with yet more 'profit' from increasing prices on basic necessities for humans to live in this society.
And although I mentioned class a few times in this post, I don't want you to think that I am myself, or am promoting here class consciousness and warfare in a reductionist sense. It must be part of collective intersectionality. Because if it's not, even if we do get to a 'better' system out of all of this new-found consciousness, if we haven't dealt with the inherent biases and oppression from this system, it will just move on into the 'new world'. Humans won't just switch their brains off from the power structures they have believed in because our masters no longer exist. There will still be 'conservatives' and 'liberals', even if, as I believe, most people have no real logical reason to be one of them, or hold a coherent value system.
We've all been told to take part in this system, by making it required to push down others who could help you to overpower those in charged, because even if your life and situation is shit, if you're making someone else's even more shit, you're at least doing better off than someone. And you should both revel in that, as well as accept that it's morally justified and needed. Because you won't get - or deserve - anything better in actual terms, as it's all already been taken from you by the capitalist class, even before the sperm reached the egg, let alone born. So you may as well get more relatively than someone else of 'your people'.
Why do you think that conservatives in the chattering classes constantly tell you that intersectionality is bad to believe in and strive to connect with other like-minded people? Because we might start to organise around our shared experiences and discover our true humanitarian values, which have been suppressed and twisted by the capitalist system and the hierarchies of power that underpin both social and economic society. By telling you instead that you're individually unique with your identity, it keeps you separated from possible comrades, and into smaller groups around relatively niche interests or 'beliefs' - outside of the created 'political' tribes, of course. Because that false 'intersectionality' is in service of the wealthy.
So the path to a better 'political' future is possible, but it can only begin once we all realise what games are really going on in this world we have found ourselves entered in, who are actually the games master in charge of creating and promoting the games to us, to play amongst ourselves on their behalf, and what those who hold power are really there to do, and for who. And it isn't for me or you, or 'for a better world'. At least not for us to enjoy.
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