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Christian Horner Controversy: Another Case Of Victim Blaming?
Christian Horner, Principal of the Red Bull Formula One Racing team has been in the news this week after reports made against him in February by a female employer came to light. The reports were related to ‘coercive behaviour’, allegations which Horner has vehemently denied, and an investigation launched by Red Bull has conceded in his favor*…
*‘Conceded in his favor’ despite evidence in the form of a Google Drive folder containing hundreds of leaked messages, many of them of a sexually explicit nature, suggesting otherwise… In the seedy WhatsApp messages, Horner is seen pestering a woman for photos, commenting on her choice of clothing, and repeatedly asking her to delete their chat history. At one point, the female employee asked her boss (Christian Horner) how he would feel if Geri (Horner’s wife) were to message someone in the way he was. Yet it is the woman (of course, it’s always the woman) who is being reprimanded after her complaints were dismissed.
Horner has refused to say if the leaked messages are genuine, which says a lot. If someone had leaked fake messages claiming to be from me, then I would be the first person to say; ‘Hold on a minute, these are fake…’ The fact that Horner hasn’t done this speaks volumes. He just wants to ‘brush it under the carpet’/’forget about it and move on’, a sentiment which he keeps reiterating when asked by the media to comment on the matter.
“An awful lot has been made out of this,” said Horner.
Speaking at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, he added: “The time now is to draw a line under it.”
Horner emphasised that Red Bull’s board dismissed the complaint last week.
He said: “The reality is that there was a grievance raised, and it was dealt with in the most professional manner by the group, that appointed an independent* KC, one of the most reputable in the land. He took time to investigate all the facts. He looked at everything and he came to a conclusion where he dismissed the grievance. As far as I’m concerned, as far as Red Bull is concerned, we move on.”
*Yet Red Bull has refused to name the lawyer involved/give any insight into the report compiled, or explain why the decision to dismiss the complaint was made. It all just sounds very… sketchy? to me. Even more so given Horner’s power within the Formula One circuit. Having been presidant of Red Bull racing since 2005, a career spanning just short of two decades which has seen his worth skyrocket to a staggering £50 million, he is highly respected and, unsurprisingly, has many (many) contacts.
One such contact is Jos Verstappen, former racing driver and father of Horner’s star driver/Red Bull’s three-time world champion, Max Verstappen. A rarity though, Jos does not stand in support of Horner, as his recent comments to the Daily Mail highlight;
Asked to comment on his father’s statement against Horner, Max simply said; ‘he [Jos] is not a liar, that is for sure.’
?
Make of that what you will, but the fact that Max, who of course knows Horner very well, having joined the Red Bull racing team eight years ago (2016), is supporting his father’s comments regarding Horner ‘causing the problems’ is telling…
Someone who is showing Horner unwavering support, however, is his wife, Geri Halliwell, as photographed together below at a Grand Prix on Saturday.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/26328654/geri-halliwell-christian-horner-cut-contact-colleagues-sext/ A source told The Sun that Halliwell wants the female colleague “out of the picture” and “has laid down some strict ground rules”.
“One is that Christian cuts or reduces contact with the woman,” the source told the news outlet.
And, well… Geri’s wishes came true on Thursday (07/03) when Red Bull announced that the woman who accused Horner had been suspended. Approached by the media to explain the rationale behind their decision, all they have had to say on the matter is that it would be “inappropriate” to comment.
‘Inappropriate?’, I’d say that the only ‘inappropriate’ thing here is Red Bull’s actions. What message does it send to other women? Report a powerful man and get suspended?
Why wasn’t Horner suspended while the investigation took place, as would have been the protocol in any other situation like this?
Why was Horner allowed to continue working alongside his accuser?
Why was the accusor suspended?
The double standards that exist are staggeringly evident and we must not sit back and let this become the norm.
Powerful men should not get a free pass to do whatever they want knowing that their power will see them being excused.
Women should not be made to fear retribution for reporting inappropriate behaviour.
Red Bull: Sort it out.
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Is JK Rowling Transphobic? Why She’s In The News AGAIN…
J.K. Rowling, British Author and the brains behind the best-selling book series of all time, Harry Potter, is no stranger to the limelight of fame. Having sold over 600 million books worldwide, Rowling is regarded as the richest author in the world, worth a whopping £875m. Recently however, she has been in the media, not for her penning of bestselling novels, but for her writing of incredibly transphobic, bigoted tweets on social media.
Rowling first came under fire in early June 2020 for controversial tweets she posted about the transgender community. The tweet that ‘sparked’ it all, the so called ‘terf’ war, was in response to an article titled:
‘Opinion: Creating a more equal post-COVID-19 world for people who menstruate.’
Written to raise awareness of the oppressed- ‘An estimated 1.8 billion girls, women, and gender non-binary persons menstruate’, the headline ‘people who menstruate’ was used as an all encompassing term to include non binary people who these issues also effect. Yet, through her hateful comments, Rowling only served to uphold/further contribute to oppression via her targetting of trans people.
‘People who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?’ she wrote.
Facing backlash from this (unsurprisingly, it’s a blatant dig at trans people and a total disregard of what the article was actually about- fighting oppression), Rowling then went on to say;
‘I respect every trans person’s right to live any way that feels authentic and comfortable to them. I’d march with you if you were discriminated against on the basis of being trans.’
(June 2020).^ (Well, that aged badly)…
‘I would rather go to jail than refer to a trans person by their preferred pronouns.’
(October 2023).Is Rowling going to march with trans people against her own discrimination, for which her prejudice (see also: bigotry) seemingly worsens with each passing day?…
On Sunday (03/03/24), Rowling posted several comments on X complaining about trans women being allowed in female locker rooms after a man who was caught secretly filming women told police, upon being arrested, that he ‘identifies as a woman.’
‘It’s happened again’, Rowling wrote on X. ‘That thing only evil, nasty bigots claim happens, and that never, ever happens, has happened. Again.’
Again.
That evil, nasty bigot (Rowling) is at it again… Stereotyping all transgender people as predators based on the actions of a minority within a minority.
Kurtis Mawson (the man arrested for filming in women’s toilets) was not transgender. Caught red handed, he used being trans as a ‘get out of jail free’ card (a get out of jail free card which didn’t work, because he is not trans). Any excuse to take aim at transgender people though, Rowling has ran with this story to deliberately* spread further hate against trans people…
*Because it is deliberate, don’t be mistaken. Rowling knows exactly what she’s doing, and has been contacted by several charities to inform her of this in the off chance that she didn’t… No excuses, she is spreading hate for the sake of being hateful.
A post from Kerry Kennedy, president of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights group;
‘I have spoken with J.K. Rowling to express my profound disappointment that she has chosen to use her remarkable gifts to create a narrative that diminishes the identity of trans and nonbinary people, undermining the validity and integrity of the entire transgender community — one that disproportionately suffers from violence, discrimination, harassment, and exclusion and, as a result, experiences high rates of suicide, suicide attempts, homelessness, and mental and bodily harm. Trans rights are human rights.’
And Mermaids, a charity advocating for transgender rights;
‘We are aware through our work with families that there have been cases of self-harm and even attempted suicide following J.K.Rowling’s statements. If standing beside trans young people and their families is radical, then please J.K. Rowling, be radical.’
In response to her evident scapegoating (again), in which Rowling insinuated that trans women shouldn’t be allowed in women’s toilets because of the actions of a man claiming to be trans, an X user asked Rowling if she thought ‘this lady should use the men’s locker room?’, with footage of British newsreader India Willoughby attached.
JK Rowling (left), India Willoughby (Right) ‘You’ve sent me the wrong video’, Rowling replied. ‘There isn’t a lady in this one, just a man revelling in his misogynistic performance of what he thinks ‘woman’ means: narcissistic, shallow and exhibitionist. India didn’t become a woman. India is cosplaying a male fantasy of what a woman is.’
How someone who claims to be the victim of oppression- a domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor- can be so nonchalant about deliberately hurling abuse at the oppressed is beyond me…
Even after India responded, ‘Genuinely disgusted by this. Grotesque transphobia. I am every bit as much a woman as JK Rowling. Recognised in law, and by everyone I interact with every day’, Rowling still went on to attack trans identies. Referring to India she said, ‘this is the individual whose precious feelings are more important than truth, according to some of his fellow men.’
She wasn’t lying in her tweet back in October;
‘I would rather go to jail than refer to a trans person by their preferred pronouns…’
India, now 58, talks of knowing at just five years old that ‘something wasn’t right’ in terms of her gender, yet Rowling still refuses to credit her as a woman; ‘HIS fellow men’ (‘his’ meaning India, and ‘fellow men’ meaning transgender women)…
So much hatred does Rowling have towards trans women (always trans women, by the way, never trans men, for biological women transitioning to men don’t fit her narrative of; ‘all trans people are predators’/ ‘they’re all just men claiming a trans identity to access female spaces), that she won’t stop at ‘just’ hating on trans people herself online, if her friends don’t do the same, consider them blocked…
Stephen King, a fellow author, retweeted a tweet from Rowling’s account in 2020, ‘It isn’t hateful for women to speak about their own experiences, nor do they deserve shaming for doing so.’
In response, Rowling sent a now-deleted tweet praising the best-selling author. ‘I’ve always revered @StephenKing, but today my love reached new heights.’
However, when a fan asked King to respond to Rowling’s transgender statements, the author replied that, ‘Trans women are women.’
Wrong answer (according to Rowling, the biggest openly transphobic celebrity there is).
*Blocked.*
Rowlings shameless transphobia doesn’t stop at posting to her 14 million followers on social media either, with her bigotry having even seeped into her work…
What used to be a safe place, a place of comfort for people to get lost within, a different world, is now tinged with the hate that she so vehemently harbours towards the trans community. So much so, in fact, that she has made it [transphobia] the subject of two of her latest books; ‘Trouble Blood’ (2020), in which a cis male serial killer dresses as a woman in order to hunt and murder cis women, and ‘The Ink Black Heart’ (2022), in which a celebrity whose work is accused of being transphobic is threatened with rape and murder and then ultimately stabbed to death in a cemetery.
The same theme runs throughout both of these books, depicting the oppressed (transwomen) as the oppressor, and the oppressor (JK Rowling) as the oppressed. Shifting the blame, (to use Rowlings own, highly uncalled for descriptors of India Willoughby as above, ‘narcissistic, shallow’), Rowlings inability to accept people who are different to herself: a prime example of HER narcissim at play…
Responding to someone asking how she sleeps at night she replied ‘I read my most recent royalty cheques and find the pain goes away pretty quickly.’
‘Dreadful news, which I feel duty bound to share. Activists in my mentions are trying to organise yet another boycott of my work, this time of the Harry Potter TV show. As forewarned is forearmed, I’ve taken the precaution of laying in a large stock of champagne.’
Her ignorance is jarring.
And unfortunately for anyone with an ounce of decency/morals (aka. not J.K. Rowling and her fellow bigots), Rowling is showing no signs of stopping her vile comment spreading anytime soon either, as a Glamour article ‘A Complete Breakdown of the J.K. Rowling Transgender-Comments Controversy’ concludes;
‘This post may be updated as new information is available.’
Sorry to say that I think it may…
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Aaron Bushnell: Dying In The Name Of Social Justice
On Sunday (25/02), 25 year old Aaron Bushnell, a serving member of the US Air Force, engaged in one of the most extreme acts of protest possible- self-immolation (that’s the less forward way of saying, he burned himself alive)…
‘Many of us like to ask ourselves, “What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?”
The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.’Emailing several left-leaning websites, Aaron alerted people to his “highly disturbing” final act on Sunday morning.
“Today, I am planning to engage in an extreme act of protest against the genocide of the Palestinian people,” read the email.
And that he did…
Walking towards the Israeli embassy in Washington at 1pm on Sunday the 25th February, Bushnell live streamed the whole thing.
‘My name is Aaron Bushnell, I am an active-duty member of the United States Air Force and I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I’m about to engage in an extreme act of protest but, compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.’
Aaron’s last words (screams) of ‘free Palestine’ (as well as screams from the police, ‘get on the ground’) will be etched into the minds of all those who watched the video. The quote ‘I wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire’ coming to mind…
Us VS them, they just don’t care.
‘I don’t need guns, I need fire extinguishers.’
When cries are falling on deaf ears, sometimes it takes screams to get people to listen.
Written about in the media as though he were mentally ill, the headline of the first article I clicked on about Aaron read:
‘Airman who set self on fire grew up on religious compound, had anarchist past.’
‘Bushnell was raised in a religious compound. Former students called it a “charismatic sect” and alleged that it “created an environment of control, intimidation and humiliation that fostered and inflicted enduring harm on its students’, the article goes on to say.
What relevance does this have to anything?
Painting the picture of a troubled past to suggest what, exactly? That this was just a bit of young adulthood angst?
Trying to determine, ‘what could cause someone to do such a drastic thing?!’, as though to live through a genocide isn’t (more than) enough of a reason…
I would suggest that it is the people who are complicit in the genocide who are mentally ill, for how could any ‘well’ human being sit by and watch what is happening to innocent Palestinians and do nothing?
It’s inhumane.When our world leaders refuse to so much as open their mouths to call for a ceasefire in fear of losing votes, Sunak and Starma navigating a genocide with the same party politics tactics they used to navigate Brexit, meanwhile people are sacrificing themselves, a 25 year old with his whole life ahead of him setting himself alight because of the injustice of it all, dying in the name of social justice, we realise just how fucked up society really is…
With the power hungry elite doing whatever it takes to stay at the top, the people at the bottom do whatever it takes just to get the people at the top to so much as look at them…
‘Will you look at us when we’re dying?’
‘Yes, we’ll look at your burning body through the barrel of a gun’,
shouting ‘on the ground’, like you’ve ever been anywhere but…Our world leaders can add Aaron Bushnell’s name to the 29,000 Palestinian lives they have, already, been complicit in the eradication of. With so much blood on their hands, how do they get to sleep at night?
Aaron Bushnell:
Remember his name,
not ‘mentally ill’, as is the picture the media are trying to paint
but arguably the most sane amongst a culture that refuses to call a genocide by its name.FREE PALESTINE.
don’t let Bushnell’s death be in vain.
FREE PALESTINE.
Photo by Muaaz on Pexels.com -
Being Queer Is A Political Statement
Queer (adjective):
‘Having or relating to a gender identity or a sexuality that does not fit society’s traditional ideas about gender or sexuality.’As perfectly described in the Queer Nation Manifesto;
‘Being queer means leading a different sort of life. It’s not about the mainstream, profit-margins, patriotism, patriarchy or being assimilated. It’s not about executive directors, privilege and elitism. It’s about being on the margins, defining ourselves; it’s about gender-fuck and secrets, what’s beneath the belt and deep inside the heart; it’s about the night. Being queer is “grass roots” because we know that everyone of us, every body, every cunt, every heart and ass and dick is a world of pleasure waiting to be explored. Everyone of us is a world of infinite possibility.’
It is the concept of queerness, the ‘not fitting into society’s traditional ideas’, which scares people and defines homophobia itself- an irrational fear* that has seen our very existence be politicised for decades.
*(Although, as Morgan Freeman so eloquently put it in a tweet in 2012:
‘I hate the word homophobia. It’s not a phobia. You’re not scared. You’re an asshole).’
In a society which is structured on forced compliance, people fear (/are ‘assholes’ about) a diversion away from the systems which are designed to uphold the ‘ideal’ heteronormative lifestyle. Where to be queer by definition is to rebel from the system, this is what triggers homophobia, this is what has made our right to love an act of rebellion, our right to live a political act…
Whereas love is purposed to be ‘the purest act’, the concept of ‘finding your other half’/the person who makes you complete, when love is between two people of the same gender, it’s not considered ‘pure’, but a sin, an act of rebellion.
So much so has same-sex love been considered sinful/immoral, that it wasn’t until 2005 that same-sex couples could adopt children, for it was always assumed, and again, still is in many cases, that the only ‘healthy’ family type is that of the traditional nuclear family consisting of a mum and a dad, with the concept of a family headed by two mums or two dads seemingly too far-fetched for people to comprehend, let alone allow. And, it still blows my mind that same-sex marriage wasn’t legalised until 2014. We’ve only had that right for ten years which is crazy to me. When heterosexual couples have been marrying since 1837, why did it take over a lifetime, two lifetimes, in fact- 177 years, for homosexual couples to be afforded the same right as heterosexual couples? For it to have to go through parliament, ‘the personal is political’ n’ all that…a debate taking place regarding whether we should or should not be afforded equal rights?…
It all boils down to religion, that’s why- religion, and the stories which we are told in order to keep us in our place/to uphold the system/to keep us trapped in the system…
In the case of the patriarchy, where man is dominant and woman submissive, woman firmly knowing her place in the bedroom as in society at large (the subordinate, reliant on what man can give her), queerness encourages an exploration of power dynamics which throws all such patriarchal standards out of the window…
Women, men, ‘they/them’s’ free to do whatever (whoever) they want to do/free to be whatever (/whoever) they want to be, being and doing it all on their terms, because they want to, not because they have been told by society that they must act in a certain way in order to appease.
Intimidated, the people in power (i.e., men) view this, our ability to reconstruct pleasure for ourselves, as a ‘threat’. A ‘threat’, not only to sexuality but also to gender roles-
(closed) minds blown…And it is this, close-mindedness, which underpins all of this, all of the (wholly irrational) fear that is associated with going against the norm when it comes to sexuality and gender…
The people in power fearing the overhauling of their power, this is ultimately what all bigotry boils down to.
Racism, misogyny, homophobia- what do all of the people within these marginalised groups have in common? Their historical lack of power, as enforced by those in power to keep the system of oppression in place…
But, it’s 2024, and I think we’re all ready for an overhaul of the system now, don’t you?…
I think we’re all ready for the chains of oppression to finally be broken,
for them to stop telling us that we are ‘broken.’
For them to stop making us fight for our right to exist.
For change- real change, change that constitutes more than just a ‘box ticking’ exercise to take place…
For us to be able to hold hands and kiss in public without being lauded as ‘sick.’
To not have to pretend that we don’t notice the diversion of eyes when we do go out in public, as though it’s ‘catching’, as though, as queer people, we are single-handedly responsible for societies demise…Although, on the latter point- to be responsible for societies ‘demise’, would that be such a bad thing? To be responsible for, not so much a demise but a revolution when, to turn it on it’s head, let us be the ones to dish out the insults instead, it is our society that is sick in the head… Sick in the head for making love something that, if we’re queer, we have to keep close to our chests, out of fear, STILL, in some places, of ending up dead. Too much of a ‘threat’ to the system, for which unconditional love is a concept they just cannot comprehend…
Now that? ^
That is what is sick in the head;
When our right to love,
our right to exist,
is something which they, STILL, cannot comprehend…Photo by Michał Franczak on Unsplash QUEER REVOLUTION INCOMING.
(You heard it here first).
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The Forbidden Fruit: Why Is Fruit Associated With Immorality?
From the dawn of time, or at least, from the dawn of humanity, since humans have been around to make up stories, fruit has been a symbol of (im)morality.
Consider the bible, one of these ‘stories’ I’m referring to, and how an apple was used to explain the downfall of man, no less. A symbol of temptation and morality, ‘Eat the apple, the ‘forbidden fruit’, and be condemned to a lifetime of sin’, the bible blames all our struggles today, poverty and misogyny, and racism and fascism, and all the divisions that exist in our society, on Adam and Eve and their lack of willpower at withholding themselves from taking a bite of an apple in the Garden of Eden…
Eve the instigator, of course, it’s always the woman’s fault, taking a bite of the forbidden fruit, passing it on to Adam- woman responsible for the downfall of man. Woman the instigator of sin. Woman the sinner, as we have lived our whole lives being told…
When religion is but a source of control, a fairy-tale to force people to act in a certain way/to follow a ‘moral code’, who determines these morals? The same power structures that determine morals when it comes to gender roles;
Femininity VS Masculinity,
Heterosexuality VS Homosexuality,
to enforce division, to keep the masses compliant,
‘Do as we say or you’ll go to hell’,
is who…Is it a coincidence that the very thing that women resemble has been lauded as the symbolism for sin and immorality?
In the bible, the forbidden fruit is lauded as the ‘catalyst for the fall of man.’ Where women have historically been kept one rung below men on the ‘ladder’ that constitutes society, always second-best/the inferior sex, the metaphors all add up…
Furthermore, the fact that fruit is the universal symbol of sin, fruit literally being the ‘ripened ovary’ of a flower, with the seeds for reproduction being enclosed, the resemblances between fruit and women, ‘sin and sin’, are blindingly obvious…
Look at a grapefruit, peel back an orange, and tell me that it doesn’t resemble us…
In fact, so much are women like fruit that American multimedia artist, Stephanie Sarley, has had her account suspended several times on Instagram for posting ‘sexual imagery.’ The so called ‘sexual imagery’ being, wait for it… fruit. Because ‘it looked too much like a vagina.’ And, where virginity equals purity, sexuality equals immorality- ‘no sex before marriage’, and as for masturbation… Don’t even get me started on female masturbation: the devil’s work. The opening of fruit for our pleasure, this is what men hate/why they tell us it’s ‘wrong’/’dirty’, because it’s for OUR pleasure, not to be observed by the male gaze, but for us alone. This, our desire to feel pleasure, to ‘take a bite from the apple’, viewed as being ‘immoral’ through the eyes of men with a superiority complex over women- ‘how dare she express her sexuality without my involvement!!’
Feminism and Fruit: An Interview with Stephanie Sarley | Berlin Art Link It’s not all about fingering fruit though, just consider how fruit is sexualised in the use of innuendos/’flirty’ texting via emoji’s, and in language/common turn of phrases (e.g., ‘pop the cherry’ being an idiom for losing your virginity), and even in body types- apple vs pear vs hourglass.*
*(Granted, the latter is not a fruit but ironic that the body type that women so fervently aspire to have is symbolised by the passing of time, the time that we waste in our pursuit of unrealistic beauty standards set by men to ‘keep us in our place.’ Men are intimidated by women, because they recognise our power- ‘the downfall of man’, as in the bible- ‘don’t eat the forbidden fruit.’ Men have to stay in power in order to restrict our power as women)…
Men don’t want to be associated with fruit, hence why the term ‘fruity’ was historically used as a derogatory term against gay men to point to their ‘effeminate’ nature… Because fruits resemble women/women resemble fruits- the very thing that we are told to be ‘cautious’ of/that is brandished as being ‘sinful’ in the fairy-tale of religion, why would men want that association thrust upon them?
They wouldn’t.
They don’t.
Save it for the ‘inferior’ gender-
women.Where fruit resembles women, where gay people are referred to as ‘fruity’, a term which has now been reclaimed but was once a homophobic slur, where fruit is the universally recognised symbol of sin and immorality, I don’t know, maybe I’m reaching here, but the connection between fruit and women, forced compliance, the idea of female pleasure equating to ‘sin’, it’s something to think about, if nothing else.
Something to think about whilst remembering that the forbidden fruit cannot spoil.
When we are already ‘sinners’ in the eyes of God, what’s one more sin gonna hurt?
(note: I’m talking ‘sin’ in the sense of eroticism/having autonomy over our bodies here, not like murder, just to be clear).
A crude dad joke to end:
Why are gay people called fruity?
Because they cantaloupe in 132 countries.( ^ ur welcome x )
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Art Is The Antidote To Capitalism
It’s no secret that the creative industry has consistently received less support, less funding, less respect, than other industries in the UK. But the question is;
Why?
Just cast your mind back to the start of the Pandemic, 2020, when the government were under fire for an advertising campaign they released whereby they encouraged people in the arts to retrain.
The government’s attitude to Fatima and the arts will put them on the wrong side of history — they just don’t know it yet | The Independent The advert (as above), depicts a ballet dancer tying her shoes, with the caption “Fatima’s next job could be in tech.’ There were many ‘memes’ created off the back of this, ‘Fatima’ being swapped for Boris Johnson; ‘’Boris’s next job could be anywhere else (and we’d all be better off)’, for which he/they (the Tories), had it coming… For, why was the creative industry targeted specifically? We know that the pandemic was a hard time for all businesses (in fact, figures suggest that nearly 400,000 UK businesses disappeared during the first year of covid), but, when the creative industry contributed £108 billion to the UK economy last year, why use the arts as a scapegoat?…
Because the arts/the creative industry is perceived as posing a ‘threat’ to capitalist ideals, this is why…
Art is based, not so much on logic but rather on feeling, serving to remind us of what really matters in life- humanity, connection, love. Serving to remind us of what it means to be human, not a wage-earning robot.
When art encourages people to look at the world differently, to imagine a different way of life, and to pass on what they find, artist to audience- that there IS a different way of life, this is evidently counterintuitive to the capitalist system within which we are all forced to live…
Art = Power
Can you imagine if everyone started producing art about anarchism and feminism and dismantling institutional racism and all the ‘isms?’ Challenging the status quo, there would be an overhaul of everything we know…
Great (for us),
a nightmare (for them).And so, the government are hardly going to fund what would trigger their inevitable downfall, are they?, when they recognise the power that art holds. The power to transform society, this being an eventuality which terrifies them, posing too much of a threat.
What the government will do, however, is just neglect it. By neglecting the arts, cutting funding and ultimately making it impossible to live, artists are forced to quit before they reach their potential. Forever being dismissed/never taken seriously;
‘Yes, you might be working 12+ hour days, but when are you going to get a REAL job? (i.e. ‘When are you going to conform like the rest of us/stop pursuing this ‘woo woo’ hobby and become a wage slave/uphold capitalism like the ‘best’ of us)?’
Unfortunately for us creatives, all the preaching of anti-capitalism in the world cannot change the fact that we do live in a capitalist world, for which we have no choice but to earn money if we want to stay alive. And where money and creativity so often do not go hand-in-hand, especially since funding has been cut, pursuing creative careers is simply becoming less and less feasible, with people who do ‘stick at it’ perceived as being more and more delusional (with the exception of the lucky few, the artists who become famous, who are taken seriously. But that very much is [an exception].
With our desire for change alone being unable to pay the bills, many artists are forced to give up before they even turn 25, forced to contribute to the very economy which they despise…
So much wasted potential.
And this ^ is how capitalism gets upheld…
The people who do rebel, who want to promote change through art, fall short, every time. Because, ultimately, they are rebelling against a society which we are all a part of, and as much as we might hate it, if we want to stay alive, then we have to go along with it, becoming the very thing which we fight against in our art- blindly conforming wage slaves…
Where creativity is the antidote to capitalism, and doesn’t the system know it- funding cut, capitalism upheld- on and on the cycle goes, until we get a government* in who care more about people than profit.
*If such a government exists, for which, arguably, it doesn’t, hence the push for anarchism- the antidote to the antidote to the antidote of capitalism, and a system/an environment within which creativity is allowed to flourish.
People over profit,
a desire for change over a desire for greed,
ART;~ the antidote to capitalism,
the healer of a sick society ~Photo by Dan Farrell on Unsplash Keep creating, and strive to be the change you want to see in the world, even (especially) in the face of capitalism.
❤
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Rise With Your Class, Not Out Of It
The concept of social mobility places great emphasis on individual effort- being told that if you work hard then you will earn more money and thus ‘climb up’ the social ladder. ‘You’, not ‘we’, and this is the problem. In our efforts to move up in society, we neglect our roots, we neglect each other. You might go to university and land a graduate role that sees you moving out of your small working-class town into a bustling city in which Pret is the new Cooplands, Harrods the new Debenhams, oat milk lattes the new builders brew (i.e., middle-class)… But, what about all the kids who don’t ‘make it?’
While you’re making Oxbridge ‘look good’-the tokenistic working-class student serving to ease their conscience regarding accusations of being elitist- ‘Look, we are inclusive! Here is one working-class girl in this room of 100 cis-het men’, what about all the people who are left behind because they cannot afford to move away?
The issue with social mobility is this: although a lucky few will move up the social ladder, when they get there, there will still be people in their droves at the bottom, still being looked down upon by those at the top. Too individualistic, rather than aiming for individual people to move up the social ladder, we need a collective approach to social mobility.
We should be aiming to abolish the ladder/abolish class divide all together, so that we genuinely do all have equal opportunities in life to succeed/so that working hard to succeed is actually based on working hard, not doing the bare minimum because our great grandparents worked hard/ because we are born into it.
Money talks
It’s not fair that our access to opportunities in life is based on, despite what the Tory government like to tell us- ‘work hard and you will succeed’- what we are born into, circumstances that all the hard work in the world cannot change, when everything boils down to money.
When it comes to our prospects in life, money is very much the ‘be all and end all’ in terms of determining our access to opportunities:
- Our chances of going to university and, in turn, chances of securing a lucrative career.
- Our ability to move away/to relocate for work.
- Our ability to go travelling and see the world past that of our hometown.
It all boils down to money. If we (or rather, our parents) have it, then great, we can do all of these things and move ‘up’ in the world. If we don’t, well, then we’re stuck.
‘Stuck’ when, in order to access those opportunities, we need money, but in order to acquire money, we need to be able to access those opportunities- a glass ceiling situation whereby we can see everything that’s above us, everything that we want, but we’re stuck below it, unable to break through the glass, money being the hammer that we need in order to smash through the glass, the hammer that we can see but cannot reach, hence why we’re stuck.
And this ^, unfortunately, is what social mobility ultimately all boils down to- how much money we have/whether or not we can ‘buy our way out’*of our working-class status…
*(Ironic that we try to buy our way out of the inequalities that money brings with the very source of inequality itself- money, thus only serving to contribute to the upholding of the class divide).
‘It’s not what you know it’s who you know.’
When you are already in a privileged space, your access to people who can help you to progress even further in that space is high, hence the concept of ‘Nepotism’/ ‘Nepo Babies’…
Where one is born into wealth, their parents connections can (and often do) give their children a ‘leg up’ in terms of their own careers. An aspiring actor whose father is a respected screenplay writer, for example, will have a far greater chance of being accepted into the top drama schools than someone without the ability to name drop, even if they have less talent, purely for the connections they have… Their success therefore being, not based on personal hard work, but on their parents hard work. And, the same concept applies to wealth.
In a society which is anything but meritocratic, where class divide is stark, the line between privilege and poverty unmistakable, it can be concluded, in no uncertain terms, that we are most definitely not born on a ‘level playing field.’ In reality, we’re born into either wealth, poverty or, for most of us, somewhere in between whereby we’re just ‘getting by.’ Note the phrasing here: ‘born into.’ The unfortunate fact being that no matter how hard we work/how aspirational we are, who we know counts for everything (hence the popularity of the phrase; ‘it’s not what you know, it’s who you know’- because nothing is truer than this). If our parents are wealthy, we have a head start in life with the opportunities that money brings (remember that money itself is worthless- nothing but scraps of paper and figures on a screen, it’s what we do with that money that informs our wealth)…
A wealthy family that can afford the fees of private schooling (in the UK the average annual cost to send a child to a private school is £14,940 per school year), will, in doing so, set their child up for massively increased chances of getting into a prestigious university ( 31.4% of students at Oxbridge universities in 2023 were from private schools, despite privately educated students accounting for just 5.9% of school age children in the UK), and thus increase their chances of securing a higher paid profession. This is in direct contrast to a working-class family whose education isn’t prioritised, a lack of money seeing instant gratification favouring work over grades.
If your parents are wealthy, you’re more likely to go to a private school. If you go to a private school, you’re more likely to go to Oxbridge. If you go to Oxbridge, you’re more likely to secure a top paying profession, and thus, when (if) you have kids yourself, the privilege continues, hence why the rich keep getting richer whilst the poor keep getting poorer… A case of ‘It’s not what you know, it’s who you know…’
Based on this then, based on the fact that we’re undoubtedly NOT on a level playing field/ that some people are born several steps ahead of other people, how is it fair that we are all competing for the same opportunities?
(Disclaimer: it’s not).Where there are two 18 year olds- one from a shitty comp in the roughest part of Northern England, one fresh from Eton in London, the privately educated kid is going to have the upper hand every time. Why? Because the system is based on lesser than and greater than, with the working-class being kept at the very bottom of the ladder while the middle and upper-classes sit at the top…
For the (very small) minority who do move up the ladder from working-class to middle-class, they are brandished as ‘proof’ that success in life is all about aspiration and hard work, and that anyone can achieve anything they want to achieve based on this. I believe that this is why, to use Britain’s most prestigious universities as an example here, Oxford and Cambridge, accept (a very select few) students from working-class backgrounds (one in 10), and why you will see, in many job ad descriptions, companies encouraging people from minority groups to apply, because it makes them look good/is a token of their ‘social consciousness.’ A ‘box ticking’ exercise, it allows them to point to the one working-class person amongst the 100 middle-class people and keep stringing the working-class along…
‘Just keep working in that minimum wage job where you’re treated like shit on the bottom of someone’s shoe, and in a few years you could find yourself here’
(leaving out the part where they reveal that they are in fact more likely to transform into literal shit on the bottom of someone’s shoe than they are to move up the social ladder).The working-class should not go along with these games of tokenism. Having a few working-class people become lawyers does not counter balance the low pay, poor working conditions, exploitation that working-class people as a whole face.
When someone from a working-class background lands a career which sees them now being perceived as ‘middle-class’, someone from a mining village becoming a lawyer, for example, we applaud them for having managed to ‘escape’ and ‘make something of themselves’, forgetting about all the people who are left behind.
The working-class cleaner in the hospital whom, without, the middle-class doctor would be unable to ensure his patients safety…
The working-class cashier in the supermarket whom, without, the middle-class lawyer would be unable to eat (to ensure his survival)…
Whilst the working-class turned middle-class lawyer is lauded with respect in the form of money, the working-class cleaners and cashiers who are literally running society, their jobs just as important as the lawyers, are looked down upon, pitied, almost
(‘almost’, but not quite, the low pay and lack of respect proving hard to resurrect).Asking the cleaners and the cashiers ‘what’s next’, ‘ ‘when are you going to escape?’, as though their job isn’t one to be taken seriously, but just a stop gap until they magically*come into money that will change their access to opportunities.
*(‘Magically’ because, to reiterate again, in order to access those opportunities, we need money, but in order to acquire money, we need to be able to access those opportunities- stuck under a glass ceiling for which the hammer we need to break through it just isn’t there)…
Rather than making class something which we need to escape from (‘need to’ but can’t, owing to the glass ceiling and lack of hammer), with working-class jobs being seen as the devils work for which we need to move up and out of them into the middle-classes, we should be making working-class jobs as respectable as middle-class jobs, starting with fair pay.
Only when classism is abolished will we truly be a country for the many, not the few. But, until then, the rich will keep getting richer while the poor will keep getting poorer (and increasingly unhappier)…
‘Rise with your class, not out of it’
~ John Maclean.Let’s make class something that doesn’t need to be ‘escaped’ from.
Photo by Vladislav Murashko on Pexels.com -
Queerness & Creativity: Are Poets More Likely To Be Queer?
Consider some of the world’s greatest poets:
- Virginia Woolf
- Vita Sackville-West
- Lord Byron
- Oscar Wilde
- Emily Dickinson
- Langston Hughes
- Rudyard Kipling
- Ralph Waldo Emmerson
- Sappho (The word lesbian is derived from Sappho herself who was born on the island of Lesbos. A poet responsible for the word lesbian?? Does it get any more iconic)
- Wilfred Owen
- Audre Lorde
- William Shakespeare
Aside from them all being literary geniuses, what’s one thing that also ties them all together?
Homosexuality.
The evidence of homoeroticism that runs through their, oftentimes sexually charged poetry, is rife.
Some poets were openly queer such as Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West who made no attempts to hide their enthralment with each other, whilst others remained ‘closeted’, perhaps unsurprisingly when it was still a criminal offense to be gay…
Walt Whitman, for example, a 19th-century poet who is lauded as being ‘one of the most influential poets in American history’, never outright declared his sexuality, however much of his writing was a clear nod to his homosexuality, his appreciation of men, particularly young men, being the giveaway.
When I Heard at the Close of the Day
Walt Whitman (1860)And when I thought how
my friend, my lover, was
coming, then O I was happy;Each breath tasted
sweeter — and all that day my
food nourished me more — And
the beautiful day passed well,And the next came with equal
joy — And with the next at
evening, came my friend,I heard the hissing rustle of
the liquid and sands, as directed
to me, whispering, to congratulate
me, — For the friend I love lay
sleeping by my side,In the stillness his face was in-
clined towards me, while the
moon’s clear beams shone,And his arm lay lightly over my
breast — And that night I was happy.
^ An undeniable nod to male lust in this poem, but to ask the question posed in the title of this article…
Why are so many poets, whether openly or not, homosexual?
Where writing, especially via the form of poetry, offers an unrivalled outlet for self-expression, allowing us to bring forth our, oftentimes suppressed desires out into the world (whether openly or through metaphors for which we do not have to say something outright in order for it to be received),
and where poets/creatives of any kind are generally more open-minded*, it makes sense that there would be a high prominence of queerness amongst poets.[*On creative people being more open-minded, where queerness is a type of ‘political awakening’, many people, in recognising their queerness, want to share what they have learnt from the process of emerging from a state of sleep (i.e. from diverging away from a state of unquestionable compliance). And when both queerness and anarchism have historically been seen as ‘radical’, and art is also often seen as ‘radical’, they naturally fit well together. What better medium to express the supposedly ‘radical’ than through the supposedly ‘radical’- what a match, eh?]…
As David Wojnarowicz, openly gay writer/poet/creative wrote in his memoir, Close to the knives, ‘My queerness was a wedge that was slowly separating me from a sick society.’
As empaths, surely when we find a cure for a disease that’s killing people in their droves, we want to share that- we want to be a part of helping to heal a sick society. And where art is our medium, our vehicle for self-expression, artists/writers/creatives choose to share the ‘cure’ (the ‘cure’ which is essentially freedom- to become awakened to the fact that we are all free to determine our own lives), via art… With this (art) being something which was even more invaluable when the likes of Walt Whitman were writing, in the 19th century, when homosexuality was still illegal/decriminalisation still around 100 years away- a form of activism, almost.
With many people understandably not wanting to run the risk of outright disclosing their queerness for the potential prison sentence that doing so could bring back then, they had to find alternative, more subtle ways of doing so, one such way being through poetry…
Sharing the joy of laying with your lover, of waking up happy- the reality that an alternative exists outside of the socially constructed constraints of heteronormativity, while not incriminating oneself.
Yes, Walt Whitman referenced his lover as ‘he’- ‘his face’- but where poetry is open to interpretation, define ‘lover.’
Where poetry is often filled with metaphors, define ‘he.’
Nothing is black and white in poetry, and this is the point.
Poetry allows for hidden meanings to be planted that only people who are open minded enough to appreciate an alternative from the ‘status quo’ will likely understand, and such people will be unlikely to brandish same sex desire as being ‘at the root of all evil.’ In fact, people who appreciate the courage it takes to divert from the status quo are more likely to be queer themselves, not necessarily in terms of their sexual orientation, but where to be queer, in it’s most basic definition, means to ‘differ in some way from what is usual or normal’, anyone who isn’t scared to go against the mainstream is arguably ‘queer’, in that they are open-minded enough to do so…
Evidently then, queerness and creativity tend to co-exist. Perhaps the question we should be asking is…
‘What came first- the poet or the queer?’
Did queer people turn to poetry as a way to express their suppressed desires, or did poets turn to queerness (as in, realise their queerness, not suddenly wake up one day deciding to be queer. That’s not *quite* how sexuality works) when the open-mindedness that being a poet demands materialised? (i.e., when people realised their ability to look beyond the surface of what we are told is ‘just the way things are’, in order to find a new way of doing things, in their own way, for themselves)…
When poetry celebrates the often overlooked aspects of humanity,
utilising the senses-
touch,
taste,
sight,
smell,
sound,
to describe the senseless-
what it means to be human,
what it means to be alive,
as poets, we realise the fact that everything is ultimately socially constructed,
that nothing is as simple as black and white.When we realise that where to be in love
is to experience the dissolution of ones self,
the coming together of flesh and bones,
love and soul-
transcending beyond language,
beyond anything we can attach labels to
(including gender),
the lines between sexuality don’t become blurred
so much as they become non-existent.Intimacy,
whether male on male,
female on female,
male on female,
is intimacy.Soul on soul.
Where love is viewed not through ‘gay’ or ‘straight’ eyes,
but through human eyes*.[*To realise this though demands that we leave our ego behind
and forget what we are told is ‘just the way things have always been…’]This is why queerness thrives in creatives
because we do leave it behind…When it is the creatives job to create,
we understand that it is our mission in life to create our own lives-
independent of the government
and patriarchal institutions
that try to deny us of that right.We recognise that everything we are governed by/
everything we are told we ‘should’ be living our lives by-
the ‘mainstream’,
is based on lies…For this is our life,
the decisions we make in it, for us ourselves to decide,
not a corrupt government
or a perverse religious leader with a God complex
(pardon the pun),
and a very unhinged obsession with trying to dictate our sex lives
(ew).Where love is love
and light is light,
put us in the dark and we’ll make our own light,
for, again, I’ll say it again:It is our job, as creatives, to create our own lives.
(and, if that includes same sex desire, then so be it).And so this is why
queerness thrives
because…‘So be it.’
Live your life,
and I’ll live mine-
the best motto to go by in life.~ Just let it be.
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Addiction: What Are people Trying To Escape?
Walking through the centre of Doncaster:
Thursday morning,
men sat in Weatherspoon’s drinking on their own.
9:23AM.
In the UK, we have a massive drinking culture whereby alcoholism is essentially celebrated, with people who don’t drink being questioned/’looked down upon’, almost, more so than people who drink to excess.
As of 2023, an estimated 10 million people in England were said to regularly exceed the Chief Medical Officers’ low-risk drinking guidelines (no more than 14 units per week), including 1.7 million people who were said to drink at ‘higher risk’, and around 600,000 people who were deemed to be ‘alcohol dependent.’
Having been a huge issue for decades, the impact of alcoholism in the UK is rife, and only getting worse, with the number of people addicted to alcohol continuing to rise year on year…
According to NHS figures, over 7.5 million people in the UK show signs of alcohol dependence.
During the pandemic, already dangerous levels of alcohol consumption went on to increase.
Figures based on YouGov surveys highlight how 18.1% of adults in England were drinking at “increasing or higher risk” in the three months to the end of October 2021, which equates to 8 million people. This is significantly higher than that of February 2020, before the pandemic, when 12.4% (about 6 million people) drank at these levels, and even higher still than in October 2019, when 11.9% (about 5 million people), were drinking at this level…
When ‘self soothing’ becomes ‘self-annihilation.’
Alcoholism is the third leading (preventable) cause of death in the UK after smoking and obesity related diseases. It’s sad when the vices we turn to in order to ‘help us’ to get through life end up taking our lives.
There are ten million trips to the doctor each year due to drinking, with 2.1% of all hospital admissions in the UK being for alcohol-related conditions, something which costs the NHS an estimated £3.5 billion per year…
Not just a British problem but a worldwide problem- 3 million deaths (5.3% of all deaths) are recorded every year as a direct result of alcohol.
And it’s not just alcohol either, but drug use too. In the year ending March 2023, an estimated 2.3% of people in the UK aged 16 to 59 years were frequent drug users (approximately 770,000 people)…
A Gender Divide?
Men are more likely to overuse both drugs and alcohol than women, twice as likely, in fact (for alcohol at least, where 20% of women compared to 40% of men, in 2019, were drinking at a level that would pose a risk to their health).
With men being less likely to speak out when they’re struggling, largely due to the stereotype of men being ‘tough’, and admitting to having mental health issues seen to ‘take away from their masculinity’ in some way, it’s unsurprising that men are disproportionately impacted by addiction, where addiction offers a, albeit false, sense of release from ones responsibilities- a source of escapism from the struggles that often constitute day-to-day life in a stressful society.
The reason why it is a ‘false’ sense of escapism though is highlighted in statistics released by lead addiction centre, The Priory, which states that 60% of people in alcohol treatment also need mental health treatment… For, what starts off as a ‘solution’ to a problem often spirals, gaining more tract than the initial problem (i.e., the solution to the problem becomes the problem)…
While drink and drugs are the most obvious forms of addiction, people can, and do, become addicted to several things, including…
- Gambling
There are an estimated 1.44 million adults addicted to gambling in the UK and, tragically, 496 gambling-related suicides every year, with this figure aided by the fact that people who are addicted to gambling are 15 times more likely to take their own life… Similarly to drink and drugs, gambling addiction is also more prevalent in men than women (men are 5 times more likely to become addicted to gambling compared to women).
- Food (Eating Disorders)
Between 1.25 and 3.4 million people in the UK are affected by an eating disorder- a psychiatric illness that has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric illness. Not necessarily through undereating though, as one would associate when hearing the phrase ‘eating disorder’ (only 10% of people affected by an eating disorder suffer from anorexia nervosa), eating disorders can also see people overeating, something which could offer an explanation regarding statistics relating to obesity…
In 2021 to 2022, 63.8% of adults aged 18 years and over in England were declared to be overweight or living with obesity, with men being more likely than women to be overweight/obese (68.6% of men VS 59% of women). Women are, however, more likely than men to be anorexic (75% of women VS 25% of men). Ironic, when the pressures that society imposes on us is why many of us turn to food, drugs, alcohol, gambling, whatever it may be to ‘escape’ in the first place, yet those very pressures determine our ‘addiction of choice.’
Unfortunately, like every addiction, the prevalence of eating disorders is only getting worse, with UK hospital admissions for eating disorders having risen by 84% in the last 5 years…
Again, not just a British problem though, but a global one.
According to the National Eating Disorder Association, approximately 70 million people worldwide currently struggle with disordered eating. Rates are significantly higher in Western countries, with the UK coming in second highest behind the US (the US which amounts for almost half- 30 million– of all eating disorder cases worldwide).
- Sex
Notice how every addiction starts off as something ‘fun’, it’s how one becomes addicted (through the high that it provides), and sex is no different.
When addiction is characterised by one feeling unable to go about their daily life without being impacted by the ‘pull’ to do whatever it is that they are addicted to, sex is a prominent addiction in the 21st century, with statistics suggesting that an estimated 6% of UK adults (over 4 million people) are addicted to sex. Again, running theme here, another addiction which is more likely to impact men than women (80% VS 20%)…
So, evidently then, we’re a country, a world, of addicts. Whether we become addicted to more ‘traditional’ things such as drugs and alcohol, or to more ‘subtle’, supposedly ‘harmless’, often even praised things, like work and sex, we’re seeking escapism in any way we can…
But why?
Why are we running?
What are we so desperate to escape from?
It’s no coincidence that rates of addiction, of any type, have increased dramatically since the turn of the century, and that it is countries in the West, the most ‘well off’ (financially, evidently not psychologically), that are the worst impacted by addiction…
With the advent of technology/social media, and the subsequent disconnectedness that came with that/where virtual interaction replaced face-to-face human interaction, we are the most affluent that we have ever been, yet simultaneously, we are also the most unhappiest that we have ever been…
In a constant state of wanting to consume more, we are ignorant, oblivious, to the fact that it is this very thing-
consumption,
capitalism,
egoism-
that is the source of humanity’s collective unhappiness in the first place…We’ve all become so disconnected, not just from each other, but from Mother Earth herself.
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Anarchism Is The Only True Form Of Democracy
In a speech at an armoured vehicle conference on Wednesday (24/01), UK army chief General Sir Patrick Sanders sent the British media into a frenzy when he alluded to the very real prospect of world war three breaking out.
Where power and greed is concerned (Putin’s trademarks), if Russia ‘wins’ the invasion of Ukraine, the concern is that Putin won’t stop there, hence the worry that a war is coming.
Referring to us as the “pre-war generation”, in Sander’s speech it was made clear that we are under threat of a large scale war for which we are in no way prepared, owing to cuts to the armed forces (the British army stands at 73,000, vs the Russian military which comes in at 1.15 million)…
Because of how poorly equipped we are in the UK, Sanders, and this is the part of his speech which really got people scared, suggested that the UK should train a “citizen army” (i.e., regular people) ready to fight a war on land in the future.
One only has to scroll on TikTok to see all the memes off the back of this suggestion, Gen Zers poking fun at themselves- the sensitive, ‘snowflake’ generation, ‘and you expect us to go to war?! No chance.’
Behind all the jokes and ‘memes’ regarding the comments made on Wednesday though, is frustration, anger (at least, from me there is), towards the state of society- the fact that we are being told that we should be prepared to fight in the army for a war which we don’t even want… The fact that our lives will be sacrificed, whether we join the army or not (as civilians in a war on land country, we will be at risk either way), all because of the greed of a few* power hungry people.
*32 people, to be exact- the 31 leaders of NATO countries, and Vladimir Putin, the leader of Russia. 32 people deciding the fate of the 746.4 million people who reside in Europe… How is this fair? When a few people have the resources, and even more scarily, the greed, to obliterate us all if they wanted to, (a nuclear war could be declared tomorrow and there would be absolutely nothing we could do about it), our very existence rests in their hands.
And it’s the same with the climate crisis. This too is a war, albeit, not a war against countries, but a war against the world…
The Power hungry elite
Our lives are sacrificed for the ever-elusive thing that is power. ‘Ever elusive’ because the fact is that power is nothing more than a social construct… With no reality to any of it, power is merely an illusion designed to control and invoke fear and thus compliance from people.
If Russia were to ‘win’ the war against Ukraine, for example, whilst they could claim to now have control, they wouldn’t really have any, for everyone- every person, every country- is one and the same, and you can’t be lesser than or better than, or in control of or being controlled by, something that is universal- one and the same.
Like trying to roll a six on a dice with a one on each side, defying the laws of the universe, it just wouldn’t work. We could draw dots on each side to give us the illusion that some sides are of a higher value than the others, but it wouldn’t be real, for if we rubbed the dots, reverting the dice back to it’s natural state, there would still be a one on each side, every side of the same value- one (pardon the pun) and the same.
And the same is true of us.
Our natural state, that of our souls, is oneness. It is only when we get caught up in the rat race of society where money and power and greed clouds our judgement that we forget this, and start believing in better than/less than, superiority/inferiority (social constructs which divide and serve to, as we are seeing in Russia/Ukraine, Gaza/Israel, exasperate conflict).
If only our world leaders recognised the illusionary nature of power and control then we would at least have a shot at securing world peace but, whilst ever the physical is prioritised over the metaphysical, surface over depth, hate over love, conflict over peace, we* will continue to suffer.
*’We’ because, where one person suffers, we all suffer, for we are all one and the same… Separation an illusion, power a delusion, one and the same.
It’s frustrating when people are ignorant to this but the fact is that we live in different levels of consciousness where some people are awakened to the fact of our oneness, while others are still blindsided to it, the latter unfortunately being quite evidently the case with our world leaders-
blindsided.How worrying that the people who are ignorant and blind to reality are in charge of our lives (and not even under a system of democracy, I wish to add)… Where the definition of democracy is, ‘the belief in freedom and equality between people’, yet the government control our lives/there is no freedom and equality between people, where is the democracy?…
I would argue that the only real democratic system in the world is anarchism, where power is decentralised to prevent the ‘hauling’ of power by a tiny minority who make decisions affecting the lives of the overwhelming majority.
When the government can create laws that restrict us simply because they ‘don’t like’ something- remember that homosexuality in the UK was a crime less than 60 years ago… When they can decide to go to war simply because they ‘feel like it’… When they can turn a blind eye to the destruction of the planet simply because it’s ‘too much hassle’, is democracy an illusion? Is everything that has a power dynamic at play (religion and class and money and any and all authority) an illusion where all is one?…
Just cast your mind back to 2020/2021 when the covid pandemic struck and the world all but stopped to see the lack of freedom we have over our own lives in our so called ‘democratic’ society… With laws being imposed during the pandemic to restrict our lives, (in the UK we were only allowed out of our homes once a day for exercise, and if we were found to be breaching those laws, we would be liable to a hefty fine of up to £10,000), I can remember being pulled over by the police on my way home from dropping some shopping off at my Grandmas house, ‘just to check where you’re going.’ Showing the officer the receipt to prove that we had in fact been to the supermarket, all the while the people who were imposing these very rules were at Downing Street ‘living it up’, using us as pawn pieces, saying all the right things (lies) to make us believe that they cared-, when all they really cared about (/care about- the same still applies) is power… Proof that where power dynamics are concerned, corruption rules (as is inevitable when power itself is a source of corruption/non-existent where all is one)…
The only way that we can move away from all the corruption is through the abolition of power structures, something which can only be achieved through anarchism, the abolition of authority. Despite the stereotypes of anarchism being all about chaos and crime, violence and disorder, anarchism is the most peaceful system there is/the greatest way to organise society under direct democracy.
Providing an alternative way of life whereby, instead of having our lives governed by (fake) authority, we govern our own lives, anarchism gives power to the people, not people to the power.
Getting rid of all the power-hungry leaders who trigger all the wars and conflict in the world and giving the ‘power’ (freedom) to the people, this is how we can achieve world peace.
One can but dream.
Portfolio of Hope 