If you really pushed me to categorise my political point of view, I would probably say I’m a left wing anarcho-surrealist. While you are figuring out what that means, I would like to discuss the state of society, and my personal experiences of living within it.
Anyone paying attention to the news in general, will probably have noticed right wing ideology everywhere. The Tories appear to be managing a vast redistribution of wealth, benefiting the richest, at the expense of everyone else. They seem to be using Orwell’s novel 1984 as a guide to governing (read it, it has everything from the lottery to the eternal war on terror).
The world can be bleak.
My everyday life, however, is far from bleak, in spite of being in constant pain, and at the bottom(ish) of the economic ladder. The stereotypical image of a person with my problems, is not usually a happy one, in the current climate.
What makes the difference in my life are my wife, and my friends. Also, I am not the only beneficiary of this friendship, as all my friends are happy to help each other out. It goes further than that though, as I and loads of my friends are the sort of people who will help out a stranger if they needed it. My friends and I are not unique in the world, we have all been helped by a stranger at one time or another. This led me to the conclusion that there is a secret society of friendly strangers at work in the world.
It turned out to be the Big Monkey Cult (but more about that another day).
Isn’t a society of friendly strangers just socialism by a fluffier name? My friends and I look out for each other, but life can still be a struggle when the rich are stealing from the rest of us. That’s why, when Jeremy Corbyn became Labour leader, a genuine socialist, I decided to give politics one last chance to fix society. I did something I never thought I would do, and joined the Labour Party, but only for as long as Corbyn is leader.
I don’t expect any of you to join the Labour Party, although I know quite a few of you have (if, on the other hand, you want to join, you can do so here; https://join.labour.org.uk), and it has more members than any other UK political party. I would ask you, however, if you are able, and share my point of view, to take every opportunity to vote Labour at tomorrow’s election (and every election up to and including the next general election).
If you like what Jeremy Corbyn has to say, but you believe the propaganda that he is unelectable, then as a favour to me, please go out and vote Labour anyway.
If you think there is no point in voting (a view I shared during the Blair years), then as a personal favour to me, please go out and vote Labour.
If, on the other hand, you are of a more right wing persuasion, then take my word for it, it would be better for us all if you stayed home and didn’t vote at all.
If Corbyn (and Bernie Sanders in the USA), and Labour can’t save us democratically, then I think things could turn very nasty. My wife, friends, and I will probably be ok, looking after each other, surviving until civilisation returns, but we’ll probably have to turn to piracy.
Love & peace,
Zero