Roo-Neh

So as the majority of people are sat around wondering what the fuck is going to happen to them, spare a thought for poor old Wayne, having his agent haggle his way out of a club that made him into an icon, preparing for a birthday party that will no doubt make the pages of the weeklies, snide comments about his sexual appetite and attendant lack of impulse control even as they write cheques for access. Poor old Wayne Rooney.

I have actually read his autobiography, and found on paper, he seems quietly pleasant - loves his missus, good at a sport that people revere as much as religion - someone you could probably have a drink with and not want to glass him, but why do we revere these people so much?

Not in terms of their talent, I think that we all are drawn to the the work, the expression of a great talent in a way that goes to our subconscious but are you not a little bit fatigued with the football coverage in certain parts of the media?

The sport leaves me cold - in comparision with something like MMA, which is all sports boiled down to the essential conflict, and populated by far less gang rape and drunk driving, football is cossetted and overly effete. If we are going to have conflict, make it real instead of private boxes and subscription - although the thing I do like about football is the love it gets at the lowest levels, my brother coaches his stepson's team and his enthusiasm is palpable.

Still, if and when Rooney bags a good deal, he'll be scorned by all the United fans and former team mates, the press will tear even more chunks out of his hide and I cannot see him at a foreign club - imagine Rooney eating at an Italian restaurant and his disappointed childs face that his spag bol isn't made with Ragu, eh?

Cuts

This won't be a forensic assessment of the numbers because, although I do dazzle myself a bit, its dry and heavy-handed. Ultimately, we need to discuss the impact of the cuts in terms of people, which goes to my first point.

1. Do not make the mistake of assuming that everyone is exactly like you. If someone hasn't worked for twenty years, and you have been fortunate to have remained or thrived in the job sector, and your judgement is based entirely on your subjective experiences, both good and bad then the mistake is yours and you are paddling in the shallow waters of stereotypes.

You project your own experiences onto others and assume that were you in that particular circumstance, that you would behave differently from everyone else in that environment, when your experiences were shaped in a different environment and therefore would not accurately reflect a life lived in said environs. You make the best choices that you have available to you, in any given situation.

2. Now, as you are sat there reading this, let me point out that most of the deficit came from bailing out the banks, bailing them out of a situation that they created in order to make massive profits without any regard for the consequences, and yet it is ordinary people that will suffer for it - policemen and nurses, soldiers and council workers. The financial industry threaten to move business elsewhere if punitive measures are enacted, well call them on it.

3. Disability is something that can happen to anyone of us -either an inherited progressive condition or by an accident. Removing DLA, which is actually paid to people who work as well as who cannot, and goes some way to helping with costs attendant to their disability actually makes it harder for some people to continue working. In addition these cuts ignore the stigma that exists against the disabled.

4. Work should pay more than benefits, but the trick here is that rather than attempt to regulate or insist on a living wage, they are cutting benefits. One side of the equation serves the interest of ordinary people, the other allows the private sector to do what they want. We demonise those who are seen to sacrifice their earning potential to be of service, that somehow they are giving something up when the truth is, is that maybe they are trading temporal gain for something more substantial. When you look at the people who appear in the business pages, the parodies of achievement that populate The Apprentice, and then you look at a nurse or a fireman, who do you think is happier?

5. Do not just take on one opinion, the perseverance of belief can be strengthened in the face of contrary evidence but never take one opinion, even as it might hurt to do so. I have, and still I remain unconvinced that this has done anything than hurt those who have the least and allow those who have the most to keep on living as though nothing has happened - although they will have to fake some sense of propriety.

http://www.redpepper.org.uk/Countering-the-cuts-myths

I come from a place of compassion, there are alternatives and I wish that there had fairer, more progressive procedures to reshape the economy into something ethical and sustainable. We live in a world that allows the bankers to pay themselves billions in bonuses whilst millions of people live on less than a pound a day and that to me, is nothing less than a tragedy. There are enough resources for all of us to live comfortably, despite what we have been led to believe - I am more sad than angry, but still angry enough to care.

Single parents, the disabled, the poor, the public servants and the young - these are who will bear the burden financially but socially the cost to us all will be immeasurable. Poverty is corrosive in ways that do not show up on a balance sheet, mental illness caused by stress and deprivation, crime and drug abuse(which I characterise as entirely different from drug use) these are the children of the cuts to come, and we all lose out in real terms when we forget the simple truth of our humanity - that we are all connected on some level and that we all share the same planet. That our perceptions differ is recognised, in that there are those who refuse to recognise this common connection and some of those people are in government, cheering at the potential loss of half a million public service workers - denying that those people are much like them, in their ambitions and dreams.

I could respect conservative ideas more if they were genuinely about offering the least some form of opportunity, but the free market fundamentalism has allowed them to reap the fruits of madness and claim them as something holy.

Strategic Defense Review

When the Coalition of the Willing won Iraq, one of the many fundamental errors of the transition process from occupation to functioning democracy was the en mass sacking of the Iraq Army and police force, allowing trained men to fall under the influence of the insurgency bringing with them the skills and discipline to wage urban warfare.

I remind you of this as we go into the Age of Austerity.

A grim sort of humour has captured my imagination of late, the Army is planning on losing an entire deployable brigade out of six which if it maintains current operations, will be achieved through the terrible process of waging a war to save a land that cannot be saved by force of arms, only engineering, education and incentive all of which undermine the tribal structure that keeps Afghanistan in constant chaos.

Why is it more expensive to go through with a contract than to cancel it? Does this say something about the balance of power between the private and public sector? I think that we are seeing our military being reorganised around the principles of maximising the profits of the defence industry rather than true flexibility and strategic jurisprudence, happening in degrees that escape the notice of most.

I personally believe that our military would be more effective serving as a compromise between a deterrent to adventurism and with an increased element of rescue and engineering service - more mobile, assistance to disasters, immediate and ongoing relief in any situation than in a traditional militaristic sense - more of an emphasis on special elite units with tradecraft for the militaristic operations and training indigenous allies to police themselves. By this, the bulk of military personnel would move to this new role with the incentive of qualifications that will directly transfer to civilian occupations. Imagine a military that people were glad to see?

The Big Society

I feel an increasing sense of unease with the encroaching cuts, all in the service of 'The Big Society' and 'Cutting The Deficit'. It is going to mean that the simple covenant that we all had a reasonable expectation of seeing a doctor, posting a letter, calling on the emergency services, educating your child and providing them with the opportunities to make something of themselves - all now going to be available to those who can afford it.

I really wish I was joking, that I could believe that these are going to be the socio-political equivalent of ripping off a plaster -painful and instantaneous but ultimately relief and healing set in afterwards but I cannot. This is, as Naomi Klein wrote about, disaster capitalism - setting up in the ruins to build a world that will better suit their ideology.

The government are acting under the auspice of sharing the pain around, but the fundamental changes that would actually redress the deficit - a Tobin Tax, a higher banking levy, the scrapping of Trident, addressing tax evasion and avoidance -shit even legalising or decriminalising some of the softer drugs would bring in huge amounts of revenue. But no, these cuts are about reducing the state to a point where the private sector will turn everything into a race to profit fastest and first.

Oh yes, the expertise of the private sector - ok, I want you to watch the Apprentice. That is the expertise of the private sector right here, arrogant soulless cunts who exist on the personality scale from fragile defence of obvious personality flaws through to sociopath who dresses in the skins of children - people who actually have conversations that could be randomly generated from a computer programme. Imagine being diagnosed with schizophrenia and having to go some of the people you see in suits on shopfloors and in offices to request their assistance, or wondering if you can raise the money for chemotherapy, go on that is what some of you voted for - oh well you could work harder -but jobs don't exist, so fuck you.

Fuck you. That is the true message of the Big Society right there, they will never address the gross excesses of private industry or government, the true hypocrisy that we all sense on a subconscious level but is wholly acknowledged. Me, I am preparing for the worst and will try to negotiate this sick new world we all live in - I stopped blogging because I wanted to not be so angry, but I cannot help how I feel and I know I want to talk about it. I only hope that someone listens