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Five more years of this
May. 8th, 2015 09:26 amFive. More. Years. Of. THIS.
That's what it's looking like. Forty seats to go, and Labour couldn't find a majority to save their lives. If every seat that the other parties have won had been Labour they would still be trailing Cameron's Tories. If every one of the forty seats to go is solid red, they'll still be a minority. How the press will crow. How the triumphant vindication of the policies of the past five years will be shouted from the housetops. Proof, if proof were needed, that austerity and disenfranchisement, that wealth to the wealthy and death to the poor are the way to go. Who could ever have doubted it? The people have spoken.
I do not believe, never will believe, will always reject to my last breath the smug, self-serving lie that goes "people are stupid, unlike me." That is the pride of Satan. People are not stupid. They have not been fooled by Farage, at least, from the look of things.
The people have spoken, and this is what they have said: We do not want to take any risks. We tried it in 1997 with Tony Blair and he betrayed us, so we do not trust Labour. We tried it with Nick Clegg in 2010 and he betrayed us, so we do not trust anyone else. We learn from experience and we judge by facts. We know where we are with the Tories, and it is hell, but to move is hard and painful, so we will stay where we know we are. And maybe one day, if we are good, this intolerable burden of choice will be taken from our shoulders and we will not have to think about change any more. Maybe voting, which changes things, will be abolished and we can focus on the struggle for survival and on currying favour with our betters, because being a slave is easier than freedom, and we are used to it.
And to me, to those like me, they have said: nothing. They have said: we do not see you. They have said: we do not know you. Go away and die, for you are not even worth hating.
Somewhere in her own private corner of hell, Margaret Thatcher is laughing her quiet, patronising little laugh, because hers was the pride of Satan, and such pride can triumph even over the torments of the damned. She did her work well. She instilled fear into this land's people, who had so recently been fearless, and she made them love their fear and cling to it, and it will drag us to vileness and death.
*
Looking back over this, it occurs to me that I might come over as slightly disappointed. This is the likeliest consequence of holding to a fool's hope; I knew that, and I never discounted it entirely. But let me be clear. I am not at home to the pitying reasonable line. I am not at home to "people are stupid." And the first person who says to me "if voting changed anything it would be illegal" is getting the full nuclear option. Trust me, you will wish I had just banned you.
No, probably not. I don't have the energy to waste on excoriating numskulls. This is not the result I was looking for. It was, of all the possible results, the one I considered least likely, though not the least desirable (that would have been UKIP), but I was wrong. So where do we go from here?
I remain Green. I remain alive, since I have no other option. Somehow I will live through five more years of this, if it's possible, and if I can do anything to make a difference next time, assuming there is a next time, I will do it. The internet, it is clear, is still only a tiny fraction of the world, and one with a separate culture from the rest of the world. The internet is a vast, ongoing student party, where we sit around on beanbags throwing ideas into the air and thinking we are bold pioneers changing the world, while the world outside goes on the way it always has and nothing changes. I'm okay with that; I like student parties, probably rather more than I did when I was actually a student. But I should never have believed that anything on the internet had any real effect on the thinking of the majority of people. It does not.
It's life. We go on. Back to the beginning and try again. And hope. Because it's all we have.
That's what it's looking like. Forty seats to go, and Labour couldn't find a majority to save their lives. If every seat that the other parties have won had been Labour they would still be trailing Cameron's Tories. If every one of the forty seats to go is solid red, they'll still be a minority. How the press will crow. How the triumphant vindication of the policies of the past five years will be shouted from the housetops. Proof, if proof were needed, that austerity and disenfranchisement, that wealth to the wealthy and death to the poor are the way to go. Who could ever have doubted it? The people have spoken.
I do not believe, never will believe, will always reject to my last breath the smug, self-serving lie that goes "people are stupid, unlike me." That is the pride of Satan. People are not stupid. They have not been fooled by Farage, at least, from the look of things.
The people have spoken, and this is what they have said: We do not want to take any risks. We tried it in 1997 with Tony Blair and he betrayed us, so we do not trust Labour. We tried it with Nick Clegg in 2010 and he betrayed us, so we do not trust anyone else. We learn from experience and we judge by facts. We know where we are with the Tories, and it is hell, but to move is hard and painful, so we will stay where we know we are. And maybe one day, if we are good, this intolerable burden of choice will be taken from our shoulders and we will not have to think about change any more. Maybe voting, which changes things, will be abolished and we can focus on the struggle for survival and on currying favour with our betters, because being a slave is easier than freedom, and we are used to it.
And to me, to those like me, they have said: nothing. They have said: we do not see you. They have said: we do not know you. Go away and die, for you are not even worth hating.
Somewhere in her own private corner of hell, Margaret Thatcher is laughing her quiet, patronising little laugh, because hers was the pride of Satan, and such pride can triumph even over the torments of the damned. She did her work well. She instilled fear into this land's people, who had so recently been fearless, and she made them love their fear and cling to it, and it will drag us to vileness and death.
*
Looking back over this, it occurs to me that I might come over as slightly disappointed. This is the likeliest consequence of holding to a fool's hope; I knew that, and I never discounted it entirely. But let me be clear. I am not at home to the pitying reasonable line. I am not at home to "people are stupid." And the first person who says to me "if voting changed anything it would be illegal" is getting the full nuclear option. Trust me, you will wish I had just banned you.
No, probably not. I don't have the energy to waste on excoriating numskulls. This is not the result I was looking for. It was, of all the possible results, the one I considered least likely, though not the least desirable (that would have been UKIP), but I was wrong. So where do we go from here?
I remain Green. I remain alive, since I have no other option. Somehow I will live through five more years of this, if it's possible, and if I can do anything to make a difference next time, assuming there is a next time, I will do it. The internet, it is clear, is still only a tiny fraction of the world, and one with a separate culture from the rest of the world. The internet is a vast, ongoing student party, where we sit around on beanbags throwing ideas into the air and thinking we are bold pioneers changing the world, while the world outside goes on the way it always has and nothing changes. I'm okay with that; I like student parties, probably rather more than I did when I was actually a student. But I should never have believed that anything on the internet had any real effect on the thinking of the majority of people. It does not.
It's life. We go on. Back to the beginning and try again. And hope. Because it's all we have.