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07 December 2017

Panglossian Wonderland

It's quite maddening to watch as politicians do an obviously bad job of Brexit and then give Panglossian self-reviews to the media. We are required to believe that current disaster is the best possible outcome in the best of worlds.

It's as though we've gone down the rabbit hole to Wonderland. Up is down and sense is nonsense.

But this theme of of disaster being spun as a great victory is nothing new. Remember the Alamo? The Alamo was a failed attempt to withstand a siege. All the US soldiers died. The Charge of the Light Brigade? A suicidal cavalry charge at artillery. Everyone died. The more suicidal some mission is, the easier it is to sell failure as success.

While the news is focussed on the Brexit disaster something weird is going on.

Here in the UK the government tops up earnings for almost every working person in some way. And meanwhile the top 1% of the wealthy are squirrelling more and more wealth away in tax havens.

The government subsidises low wages so that wealthy shareholders can take an ever greater slice of the profits of industry. In-work benefits don't benefit workers struggling on subsistence wages, they benefit employers who have no incentive to pay a living wage.

 Landlords are subsidised to charge rents much higher than most people can afford, because govt meets the difference. Business owners are subsidised to pay low wages, or offer zero-hours contracts knowing that govt will top them up with "benefits".

And this is called "Free Market Economics"? Pull the other one. This is market manipulation to favour the rich. It's welfare that is being targeted at the rich. It is one of the biggest confidence tricks in history.

The really creepy thing is that the turkeys are all voting for Christmas and attacking anyone who suggests they should support the turkeys instead of the farmers.

I'm reminded of Monty Python... "Terrific race the Romans, terrific".



Anyway there's some really fucking evil genius at work here.