208. The Cannibal Economy

Syrian refugee children, having escaped the horrors of Apocalypse Syria, are being used in Turkish sweatshops to produce garments for, among others, the UK store Marks & Spencer.

This is just part of the global Cannibal Economy.

I posted a blog a while ago on the Tat Economy (see blog 202.) We also have the Cannibal Economy. Simply put, in the absence of real industry and healthy agriculture, the advantaged feed off the disadvantaged.

Slavery, child pornography and people trafficking, elements of the Cannibal Economy, are in the ascendancy. Social structures implode as short term gain is put before general economic well-being. Here in the UK 1930s style worker exploitation is back in fashion (see blog 174. Zero Hours is not a contract).

Ironic, isn’t it, that the gutter press in Britain spent so little time on the issue of abused refugee children in Turkish sweatshops. Meanwhile they sneer about whether migrant children, belatedly brought here from Calais, are the correct age!

Anyway…

The Cannibal Economy is the dreg end of that thing we grew up with and worship via the TV, now via internet devices, via advertising and which people unconsciously fuel through gambling, multiple cheap holidays abroad that wreck the environment, cars that do the same etc. It is the monster of rampant capitalism.

Out of control capitalism eventually eats itself. In the race to exploit for profit all engines of human existence, all means of production, all natural instincts, there comes a point where the only thing left to devour – economically – is people. Economic Cannibalism.

We should not be surprised that for some, the Syrian Exodus is just another opportunity for personal gain. Just as some people see a vulnerable child and their first thought is their own sexual gratification.

Here in the UK, politicians, like many across the rest of Europe - focus on short term populism because a headline means more to them than the long-term prosperity of the country they are supposed to serve.

Like ‘Sir’ Philip Green (see blog 185. Does Sir Philip Green Kick Disabled Kittens in his spare time?) many running the companies we know on our high-streets do not see age old institutions that employ people. They don’t think of humans like themselves who need to pay bills (or unlike the owners – pay taxes) feed and clothe their families. No. These predators simply see human fodder. People they can feed off. The fact that this may mean trashing the lives of thousands upon thousands of other humans doesn’t enter their equation. They do not care. As long as they get another yacht.

But African farmers growing flowers to be shipped across the globe for western houses when those fields could be used to grow food is also Economic Cannibalism. Ditto tobacco.

Women and children chained to tables in factories with bars on the windows in India to make cheap throw-away items for the West is Economic Cannibalism.

Here in the UK the government is serious about more airport capacity because money is more important than clean air.

Fracking has been given the green (excuse the pun) light because profit is more important than the environment (see blog 194. Beside myself beside the sea)

Pharmaceutical companies making Viagra instead of concentrating on a cure for Malaria is Economic Cannibalism. (see blog 97.)

Zero Hours contracts right here in the UK, allowing employers to by-pass legislation set in place to protect workers’ rights, is Economic Cannibalism.

And so on and so forth.

Counter-intuitively, this barbaric inequality allows the likes of Trump and Farage to flourish. Because when things get desperate, humans have a strange habit of blaming – not the people at the top but folk who – like them – are being exploited. Other struggling families, migrants, black people. Here in the UK many in the Polish community are having a hard time. Anyone who looks or sounds different is a scapegoat. 

But you don’t hear of bankers being abused in the street or being the recipients of nasty comments as I was in the days after the Referendum. And what are the banks doing right now? Decanting out of the UK faster than warm shit off a shovel. Latest figures suggest upcoming 70,000 redundancies as banks exit and that is not counting the related service industry jobs that will also go.

Let’s just remind ourselves – as it’s not such a hot topic as migrants – that the UK treasury bailed out the banks after their criminal activities to the tune of billions of pounds. We were told they were too important to the UK economy to fail. Well now the good times are over they are leaving.

The Cannibal Economy is eating us alive. Vulnerable Syrian refugee children hijacked on their escape from hell, are just the latest manifestation.
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207. Brexit means...

Frankly - months after the referendum no one knows - not the  voters, not the leave campaigners and most certainly not this administration. That is why we are stuck with criminally insane policy distractions and meaningless phrases such as 'Brexit means Brexit'.

Let's see if this helps...

Brexit means Brexit
by amanda baker - your brown girl blogger


Brexit  means Brexit trala trala la
Brexit means Brexit trala trala la

Take the truth bend it and flex it
Lots of Brit firms rush to exit
Take the sterling pound and then hex it
Let UKIP go to Brussels and vex it
Cos Brexit means Brexit means Brexit

Maybe Nandos can help and Tex-mex it
Or we could go to Mars and annex it
Or Dinosaurs come back and T-rex it
We could all understand if we were Dyslexic
Brexit would mean that in fact you got Rex-bit (your dog bit you?)

Brexit means Brexit means Brexit
Take common sense twist it and stretch it cos
Brexit means Brexit means Brexit...

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206. Kristallnacht lite UK?

Following The Home Secretary Amber Rudd’s appalling Tory Party Conference Statement about immigrant workers – I presume the next step is to force non-British-born workers in the UK to wear identifying armbands?

Is this administration on message to sound as racist as possible at all times to maintain popularity? (Let’s face it Trump got the monopoly on misogyny). Certainly she topped even Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s attempts at anti-foreigner gutter populism.

There has been back-pedaling because – fortunately - people with clout in the business community, revolted at the idea. Decent people, generally, were just nauseated.

Sadly, we are not out of the woods. Rudd now claims the information, though collected, will not be made public(!) This reminds me of when the infamous SATs tests for young children were introduced into schools. As a parent of a, then, junior age child, I was told ‘the children won’t even know they are being tested’. SATs quickly became one of the most stressful times in schools for pupils, parents and teachers.

And even if we trust the government on this (and I don’t) do we trust their competence at handling sensitive data?

Do we?

Do you?

I think that’s like trusting a bull in a china shop.

Frankly if this administration is so obsessed with foreigners why don’t they focus on the issue of UK arms sold to Saudi Arabia being used to slaughter Yemeni civilians?

205. Trump - Political Constipation

It’s hard, its impacted, it’s the dump that won’t thump the shit that won’t quit. You’ve got it and so have I. Trump constipation.

And Hillary isn’t turning out to be political syrup of figs…

Now that another US news outlet (USA Today) has broken with tradition and openly slated the Republican candidate we’re really into a raw new era where screaming from the margins at others who are also screaming from their fall-back position is normalising. Once that happens there is no way of moving things through sensibly.

Here I am too, and I’ve tried restraint, I’ve tried to avoid the subject but it keeps just bothering like a scab you’re not supposed to scratch. Each morning I wake up and it’s still there. It’s like going back to my vandalised local park and finding that the play equipment is still burnt. En route trees have branches ripped off for no reason. And it’ll probably be the same tomorrow. For no sensible reason. (Ok – you know I start muddling my metaphors when I get agitated)

To be fare – I’ve not posted about Trump since blog 167. Donald Trump and Katy Hopkins Scientifically Explained.

Trump is one of the best examples out there of just what unearned privilege can do to trash a country. If anyone can give me an argument that he’s not stupid I’d like to hear it. But this man with a string of failed businesses was started on life’s road with significant parental wealth and here he is now, living proof that you can polish a turd.

Entrenched wealth seems to send whole countries down the sewer. Large swathes of the Arab world are run by spoiled brats who squander their country’s resources while infrastructure for ordinary people remains in the dark ages (see blog 183 Is Saudi Arabia the World’s Moral Cesspit?).

Here in the UK we somehow never seem to have shaken off sycophancy and adulation of the rich and powerful – however moronic or dull they may be.

I’ve written many times on this blog about the dangers to society when the upper echelons of rigid hierarchy become clogged with Tim-rich-but-dim. The effects when Trevor-poor-but-clever is not pulled in to freshen up the increasingly stagnant talent pool, can be terminal.

What most of us find hard to fathom is that there are clearly lots of Americans who genuinely think Trump should run America. We hoped he’d be hoist by his own petards (the many many many petards). We hoped that his stupidity, racism, misogyny (did I mention stupidity?) - would do the trick but we just can’t shift him. He’s bulky and thick and stuck.

Many have tried the humour emetic. DT memes must be at a record level – even considering the relatively brief time memes have been a thing. But he’s still there. The whole of America is suffering political anal retention. Where is the laxative of logic when you need it?

Here in the UK we’ve had the lesson of what happens when these turds get their way. (N Farage) They talk crap, mess things up then ride off into the sunset on their delusions leaving the rest of us in the stink.

Furthermore – in terms of any effect the ‘debates’ are having on Trump’s popularity, the results seem to be that they are not. The entrenched Trumpites are just that – entrenched, stuck, blocked, bunged up. As were the Ukippers. The idea that logic or humour or satire or plain obvious facts are going to budge them is dangerous. 

We need something like the political equivalent of a nuclear suppository. Telling folk, pointing out the obvious – the lies, the failed businesses, the racism yada yada yada will not work. It wouldn’t work, any more than telling your teenage daughter that the guy she thinks she’s madly in love with is a druggy, lying shithead with babies sprinkled all over the neighbourhood.

So where can we get the necessary political laxatives to shift this great steaming turd? I mean things are bad here and we didn’t even get a Farage PM he just made the mess and then disappeared like a really badly behaved guest who massacres your toilet then leaves without washing their hands or flushing. Or like those dog walkers who bag up the pooh and then hang it on a bush or fence when no one is looking and walk off.

If you think a nasty little bag of pooh can’t come along and wreck a country with spite and lies, check out Brexit. I don’t wish to seem indelicate but, seriously, when it builds up to this  extent, all that is going to happen if they flush Trump, is he’s going to break the toilet bowel…