43 days of politics
So for the first 43 days I have avoided politics although I may not have avoided the political. Time to catch up. On the 23rd of October Georg Diez said “it is all true”, he had been reading a biography of John Foster and Allen Dulles, respectively Secretary of State for US President Eisenhower and a director of the CIA. I could empathise with his wish to avoid knee jerk anti-americanism, to avoid sleep walking through the 21st century befuddled by mythical leftist constructions of the 20th century, so I was very interested to read of his deep discomfort wrestling with the prospect that the America of the Dulles brothers quite possibly was as badly behaved on the domestic and world stage as we thought it was viewed from the comfort of our safe European home and its, in retrospect, almost cosy cold war standstill. Troubling and interesting that the cold war has not yet been settled at least in 60pages.
In the UK this past month politics has treated us to corrupt unions fixing elections to the Labour party from their office sited within the Grangemouth oil refinery complex, walls evidently bedecked in Cuban flags; plant closes, global capital able to do the job better and cheaper elsewhere, 800 jobs lost, caving in, plant re opens, resignations, union leaders forget that the public are worried about the price of their energy, union seriously weakened. Old school apparatchiks have been left dazed and confused and fighting for their right to run what they call “Leverage Squads” who visit executives homes to intimidate them and their family. None of this is a pretty sight or gives great hope for future struggles to reshape our economic system.
Shortly after this we have been treated to the Crystal Methodist, a Methodist preacher and participant in the Labour party and the co-operative movement who, as the least worst solution to an internal political dogfight in the co-operative movement, was appointed Chairman of the Co-Operative Bank. Unfortunately for all concerned, including the reputation of liberal social enterprise everywhere, the Crystal Methodist has it would seem been buying both crack and ketamine, stealing expenses from multiple charities and spending large amounts of money on consuming same with two rent boys at once except on those weeks when he could only afford one. (For the record my first thought whenever these kind of excesses come to light is: thank goodness the relevant politician had the sense to find an outlet, who knows what they would have been like if all that desire and angst and delight in risk had been kept pent up inside.). I almost forgot to mention he was also by all accounts a very incompetent banker. While the financial regulatory authorities, the co-operative movement, the banking sector, the government of the day have all tied themselves in knots trying to find ways of condemning the Crystal Methodist while covering their own backs the only organisatiion involved to act decisively and with transparent clarity and dignity has been the escort agency who provided the rent boys- they sacked them with immediate effect for betraying a client confidence on the grounds that what they were paid a premium for was keeping a confidence. Street economics may be based on the law of the jungle but sometimes that seems to be a whole lot more law than there is anywhere else.
This probably wasn’t what Lenin was asking about but you have to ask What Is To Be Done? Although I am sure Lenin wasn’t talking about ketamine coke and rent boys he was if memory serves me well talking about avoiding cack handed parochial blinkered tactics.
All this reminded me of Georg Dietz’s troubles (with politics that is, I’m not suggesting he has troubles with ketamine,rent boys or nostalgia for the Cuban revolution or that he is a retro-Leninist); yes Georg it is all true but its all true everywhere. Then I thought that perhaps the events in the UK were actually the last frames of a very lengthy twentieth century slow motion highway pile up from a Hollywood heist movie- you know the last few frames when the director switches back to real time just as the last bit of mangled steel settles onto the asphalt. Lets hope so anyway, this is what will have to pass for optimism. It would be nice to think there was still open road ahead.
This is what Wikipedia has to say today about white picket fences, an all American icon:
Picket fences are particularly popular in the United States, where the style has been used since America’s earliest colonial era and remains popular today. They are a decorative way to contain pets and children without blocking views, and are used around both front and back yards. Traditionally picket fences were made out of wood and painted white (or whitewashed), but now picket fences are also widely available in polyvinyl chloride (PVC).
I leave you with this picture from Winnipeg which must be the only Communist Party office in the world that has or ever had a white picket fence, I bet it fooled Allen Dulles’s CIA:
