Let's start off with Estonia: Today I discovered that Koos ala goop a goop translated into Estonian means 'a site with goop goop'. Good eh? Estonia was, of course, part of the old Soviet Union along with this here stamp:
It's a little small but then it is a stamp. It's picture of Harry Pollitt who was the General Secretary of the British Communist Party from 1929-1956. There's a plaque dedicated to him on the door of Droylsden library where I went today and got out some nice books. They always sell a few old books there and I managed to get a copy of 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' for 25p which I'm not sure old Harry Pollitt would appreciate. He's actually mentioned in a book I borrowed from there once (though he's probably in loads in the local section) which was 'Mao: The Unknown Story' by
Jung Chang and Jon Halliday. That's not too pro-Communism either but having Pollitt on the door should reminds us that these books are available for me and all my fellow citizens thanks to the collective ownership of them. Under a purely capitalist system I might not be able to afford to buy and keep 'Mao: The Unknown Story' so I might not find out how bad Communism was. Unless of course some kindly rich philanphropist scumbag takes pity on his lessers and indulges us with gift of a library, if he feels like it.
It's no surprise Librarys are dissappearing at a rapid rate from the face of England during a Conservative Government. Council leaders have critisised the pro-libary campaigners like Philip Pullman and Mark Haddon saying that keeping Libraries would mean having to squeeze further services for vulnerable in the community. The elderly and the mentally ill etc. It really shouldn't be either one or the other. Not in a civilisation. Well a decent one anyway. Like lots of other fiscal-tightening related issues at the moment, you have wonder what happened to our society. It is a bummer paying taxes, no 2 ways about it, but in terms of a stable, healthy, prosperous and optimistic society, I really believe you get back more than you put in. I'll admit you need to constantly be vigilant against creating vast inefficient bureaucracys but it's still less of a risk than letting services get done on the cheap. A good example is the superbug scare of a few years ago that highlighted the lowering of standards in hospital cleaning thanks to the hiving off to the private sector of that area of the NHS. Not that publicly-run services are immune to corner-cutting and corruption but at least you know who's supposed to be in charge. The chain always leads back to an elected official rather than a faceless conglomerate. It's not like this is a terribly poor country either. It's just that the population generally thinks it's more important to spend their resources on toys like the endless mobiles phones and giant motor cars and all sorts of lifestyle crap to help them forget whatever boredom or fear or discontent rules their short short lives. Instead of investing our surplas back into society it's given to tax-dodging scandinavian technology firms, pissed against walls, burned away in adrenalin-generating pollution machines or shoved up our noses as powder. It's turned into plastic dolls of Doctor Who from a factory in China or given to owners of French Nuclear power plants so I can sit and type this. It's frittered away on individual distractrion instead of creating collective dignity.
I see our Prime Minister Mr Cameron has today informed that multi-culturalism hasn't worked. How chilling is that? Personally I think it's working out ok. I like the idea of being in a country where an Algerian is free to act like an Algerian or an eskimo is free to act like an Eskimo. Heaven help them becoming like nothing more than tanned or bleached versions of normal British people. There's plenty of them already. It's not like they're under any threat, no matter what shady Stephen Lennon thinks. We have laws for everyone who lives in this country and people of every community break them , including me sometimes. Honestly! A couple of angry, unhinged Muslims blow themselves up 6 years ago and now that means diversity is some kind of problem. Perhaps like the poor old libraries, multi-culturalism isn't generating enough profit for Cameron and Clegg and all those posh fucks in slick suits down there in that London. Maybe Harry Pollitt was on to something after all.
As I've said before our individual perspectives cannot comprehend what's happened on this planet and what is continuing to happen. Perhaps it's one of those great paradoxes that while as individuals we're capitalistic and playing out our own little versions of game theory, on a epoch-civilisation scale we're actually something more socialistic, gradually marching this thing called HUMANITY, hopefully this thing called ORGANIC LIFE into a future of both unity, diversity and most of all possibility. Harry Pollitt's dream. Goop goop.
No comments:
Post a Comment