LEFT, RIGHT AND CENTRE

LEFT, RIGHT AND CENTRE

It continues to amaze me that the archaic and obsolete terms left-wing and right-wing are in continued use as barriers to perception when it comes to any form of politics or cultural progress.

Whether the metaphor originated from the rugby field or aeronautics, it loses any relevance or value when there is no defined centre.

The expression initially hinted at a sane middle ground over which various schools of political thought would seek to gain the greater influence. If there was a party of the sane middle ground, it would probably have to be called the Social Democrats, but politics is stiff with weasel words whose definitions and connotations have been distorted out of all proportion.

The socialist party for most of the twentieth century was the party of the working classes, hence the branded name, Labour. It is no more. Unless Jeremy Corbyn manages to pull off a miracle, almost singlehandedly against the forces of industrial media and the members of his ‘own’ party, it’s unlikely to be again.

So called ‘New Labour’, a vacuous sloganising exercise that came into being when Blair oiled his way into number ten, is simply badge engineering using all the components of Thatcherite parasitism, but with no socialist ideals, no vision and the same lame-brained economics  that had dreamers jumping out of windows in 1929.

In the minds of the people who think in terms of left and right, socialism is rigidly linked with communism and conservatism with capitalism.

The old guard of conservatives may have been that, in the senses of conserving the way of life, the monuments and the landscape. They included industrialists, people of vision, who, while no doubt exploiting the workers, created, manufactured and produced things that made life liveable and viable. Those using the name these days mostly produce nothing other than inflation, are more likely to flog off the scenery to frackers and other worthless plunderers and mostly seem to live the life of the worst of the profligate scions of old without even having any of their own money.

Capitalism is a nonsense. It’s not the only nonsense in common use, but one of the most obvious ones. Only the desperate delusions of the money people and fiduciary skulduggery have kept it going until now. You can’t go on asset stripping when there are no assets to strip.

If the ‘value’ of a house, simply by it sitting there, is (according to current news stories) increasing by a thousand pounds a day, it can only do this if the value of money is decreasing by that amount - not the paper, not the notes - but the actual worth of the money is decreasing by that much per house.

While it briefly held the upper hand and before it was purposely undermined by propaganda linking it to Soviet totalitarianism, Socialism brought us the Health Service, pensions, subsistence payments and other actual services to the populace. It also nationalised transport, the post office and other universal responsibilities of government or administration.

In only a few generations, most of these have suffered from a combination of parasitism and staggering administrative incompetence with just as much responsibility resting with both parties.

Hello? It is not just who does the wrong things. It’s who doesn’t do the right things.

I’ve been called a loony lefty by some and a neo-fascist by others. Not because I am either, but mainly because I don’t censor the views propounded by people anywhere across the so-called political spectrum. The more viewpoints you place before people, the better they are equipped to analyse and understand - including me.

You don’t make an idea or a viewpoint go away by bluster and insults alone. I like to use the analogy that, if it’s Tuesday and Tony Blair says it’s Tuesday, double-check with the calendar by all means, but he might be telling the truth.

You don’t become contaminated by reading rubbish as long as you can evaluate it as rubbish. To dismiss all independent thought as ‘conspiracy theory’, or anything that the Sun, the Daily Mail or the BBC says as propaganda without inspection ultimately closes down the ability to judge and think lucidly, while also shrinking your sources.

Just like the concepts of ‘left’ and ‘right’, it precludes the possibility of resolution or understanding by the purely mechanical one-dimensional process of taking sides and inventing enemies.