A message to the Good People of England

Good day to you all. We are on the verge of something momentous. May, has called an election, and it is time to be heard.

This is no joke, nor is it just high-falutin rhetoric. The time really, really is now. We stand on the cusp of a golden opportunity: a chance to reverse the destructive ravages of Brexit, to make England the nation it aught to be.

For a brief time, before power went to his head, life under Blair was really rather good, for many. Life under May, has been hell. The disadvantaged are squeezed and crushed almost out of existence, and the national narrative blurted by the BBC is inward-thinking and egotistical. Even the moderately wealthy, those who own property, are squeezed tighter and tighter. Only the ruling classes, in Britain, do well.

Now don’t mistake me, I’m not saying we should think of everyone else when we vote on the 8th of June. Far from it. I’m saying we should think about the people actually, physically here, in England.

Which is why the younger voters, are crucial. We let ourselves down in the referendum: the youthful English voice chose the stiff upper lip of its elders. Nonsense. Silence in the face of oppression is not British, it is not brave, it is conformity and cowardice.

So when you see, in the coming months, the promises of the Tories, remember, these are people whose hands are truly soaked in blood: the blood of children, the homeless, the elderly and the poor. Aye, some of you, like me, will have little respect for ‘the poor’ because many of them put themselves in their situation (through drink, drugs, so forth.) So forget about them and think about the hardworking.

To our elders who voted Leave, I say this. Did you imagine we would be faced with a sixty billion pound bill for leaving the EU? Did you really want to put that on the shoulders of your children, and grandchildren? I know you are not so callous.

Of course you didn’t, for you are good people. You chose what you thought would grant us the economic freedoms to adapt and evolve but which, on balance, will see us restricted, isolated, and cast out.

So on the 8th of June, don’t vote Conservative. Don’t keep things the same. Don’t let the downhill slide continue. Let’s turn it around. Britain deserve to bloom, and May’s dead government shall be the compost.

Don’t Pay Your Servants

That is what they are, right? Politicians in a democracy, I mean. They are supposed to be the servants of the general public. Well, largely, I have seen them serve themselves. In my short lifetime I’ve seen Blair, Cameron and now May make a brilliant effort of running Britain in economic and social terms towards a conflagration of ancient Athens proportions.

But what is the fuel for this metaphorical fire? One of the fuels, is their money.

According to old data from parliament.uk, politicians get paid somewhere around seventy-five thousand pounds a year. I wrote that out long hand because its a long damn number. 75k, for doing, what precisely? Oh and that’s entirely seperate from paying their staff, or any of the other long list of things for which they can effectively steal money straight from the taxpayer. IPSA, the body apparently responsible for monitoring MP expenses, has not worked. But, at least the media is able to catch hold of stories like this one.

Let me suggest an alternative, then. Don’t pay them. Whisk that extravagant 75k a year away and replace it with the same expenses form they have to use to pay their staff. Let them explain their purchases to the people. Personal privacy in this country is damned anyway, the final nail in its coffin being the Investigatory Powers Act (go look, it lets them keep your internet history, with no other reason than they want to) so lets make sure the damnation is evenly split. Let’s make sure May and friends are accountable to us. Take away their private money. Servants of the public have no  right to privacy, if their public don’t either.

Crack open parliament. I’m certain we’ll see the roaches scatter.

 

 

Daily Prompt: Calm: Open Letter to the World

Dear World,

A status quo. Stagnant water. A sterile dish. A society just going through the motions. All of these are calm, and at least two of them are dead, or unappealing to life. But ‘Calm’ isn’t the problem, it’s stasis. Let me show you.

An elephant on the long walk to water. A jogger, out for their morning run, or Gorillas grooming. All alive, all activities driven by purpose, desire and movement, and all as serene as the swan appears to be. Sure the runner gets hot and sweaty, the elephant thirsty and the Gorilla, bored, but there is calm in repetitive, necessary activities. Unneccessary repetition becomes maddening, maddening, maddening, maddening, maddening maddeningmaddening you get the idea.

So over the festive period, when you are sat still, brooding over debts and decorations, think of that elephant in its long, steady plod. Maybe even admit you admire that bloke or lady that runs past your house every morning.

Stasis brings a destructive calm, the inertia of the corpse. Stable movement, motion, even if only of mind, grants one creative, productive calm. Remember this, and use it.

much love,
The Whisperer

via Daily Prompt: Calm

6 Ideas to move England forward.

by Oliver Thomas

Ok, so I’ve lived in sunny old England for quite a while now. Where I am from is not important to this post, but it is a very English place, and has even more political problems.

I want to suggest a few things that might actually solve England’s economic and social issues, in the tradition of the internet list article, with less snappy images and hopefully more sensible, well spelt words.

1. Make all party manifesto pledges legally binding.
I have seen this appear in a few places and frankly, it’s genius. As long as the punishment that comes with breaking it is severe. Imprisonment for a year sounds good, with no special privileges (if anything politician prisoners should be kept under observation, their powers of persuasion are, after all, professional level.)

2.Deny politicians a salary.
This will cause cries of outrage and dismay no doubt, but indulge me a moment. What do we actually pay most politicians to do? Make decisions, for the sake of all of us. In business, if you make a decision that is actually good for the business, then and only then should you be rewarded. When you can reward yourself, or pay yourself BEFORE you have done anything good, well, you get a financial crisis abit like 2008. Or a political system like the current one in England. Additionally, the salary a politician receives is incentive to achieve the position, without thought to the purpose. A politician should be in power because they have won the hearts of the people and want to help the people. Not because of big money.

3.Legalise and regulate the cannabis industry.
I know I know, typical of a person born in the 1990’s, but again, think about it. Right now, across the UK, millions of jobs are waiting to spring into existence off the back of this industry. Unskilled and skilled labour, admin and so on ready to leap out of the shadows and start adding to the country’s coffers rather than taking away from them. Oh sure, most of the big growers and so on are ruthless profiteers….but that sounds alot like our banking system, right? Point is London had quite a good global reputation as a finance centre for a while. We legalise, regulate and TAX the cannabis industry, and we get into a market that is growing globally, as well as updating the image of England to other countries. In short, we look nicer, smarter and we get abit wealthier.
A counter argument that occured as I edited this, is that cannabis would be hard to tax because it grows so quickly. Well, no. We tax food. Alot of food can be found out in the hedgerows  and fields of Britain, but people trust that bought from a shop because more people have worked on it.

4. Renewable Energy Investment.
Oh no, you groan, another stoner-hippy eco  keyboard warrior. Well, no, actually. It’s quite simply, logical. Concerns about nice views aside for a moment, turbines could produce a sizable chunk of the power we need for our homes. Of course using renewable energy would not be easy, and it would require investment (hey, that means jobs!) in multiple technologies (which means even more jobs!) and R & D (you get the idea) but it does something much more important. It will change how England feels about itself. We can lead the charge on technology. Once, we were hailed as a nation of inventors. Now, we aren’t even hailed at all. We are mentioned, often as an afterthought. If we combine this with….

5. Sustainable living policies
Charging for carrier bags is a good idea. It’s awkward, but it helps. It is the kind of bitter medicine that works best. But this is the merest icicle on the tip of a large iceberg of problems in this regard. English public transport is a joke, and needs a serious overhaul. This means work which is good for the nation and it’s people. Fracking is also massively environmentally damaging, as is excessive sheep farming and bad, profit-hungry farming practices generally. For the sake of those to come, we cannot keep these things up.

6. Proportional Representation.
This is really fundamental to democracy. The current voting system is not democratic. I don’t even need to go into the topic of the current prime minister. In an un-democractic, farcical system such as ours, it is little wonder that so few of the young or the busy bother to vote. Anyone with an eye to see can tell the system is archaic. First past the post representation is sham democracy, and has seen the same two parties stay in power in Britain for far too long. Of course, all systems break, and in time others might improve on Proportional Representation, but for now it appears to be the simplest and most effective democratic system going.

None of the ideas in this list would benefit us right now. Shocker, some would say, silly, but this is about going forward, not remaining static. We can uphold a status quo for so long until it changes, violently, without our consent. Or we can embrace the change, command it and usher in a new and brighter future, for everyone. Not for you, or for me, but for those who will come after.

Right now the people in the street are trudging, because the battle for survival is hard and without incentive. Under polluted skies and over dead concrete and stone people struggle from one job to the next just to survive. Very few people seem to really live anymore in England. This might well be my inner poet talking, but I see this nation bleeding. I see her people weeping, and it breaks my heart. So pass these ideas around. Let some people hear them. Don’t keep to the shadows anymore if you have something good to say. Speak up and speak proud. We will be heard if we are loud.

The Word Is Holy

I sit here
staring my demons in the face
pandemonium’s hordes
crawling ever towards
my face
over my dreams these dark things drool and hiss-
threatening to feast and
inside my head nothing leave-
So-I-panic writing faster-
copying quicker-
editing-swifter-till-comes-a-moment
when it all stops,
listen
go Slowly now
slowly,
the word is holy,
study my church
writing my prayer
solely,
because the word is holy.
the word is
communication
the word, das worde, whatever language or nature or time or place it is the word
the link
that’s,
holy.
The link
in the brain made by words and words alone, words we share a thousand times in a thousand ways in all our days relays
replays and
remakes the links of our ancestors anew
binding us,
uniting us, inspiring us to communicate in ways that drive us onward but,
still,
Left right
Black White
Man Nature
Angels Demons
Devils Gods
binary categories,
inadequate describers
on repeat still defeat the  goal of the species to communicate is to unite
write
dance
Paint
Draw
make Art
be a part
of This World
our world
our society woven
through Words.

Collected Dreams

The following are some of those dreams I can clearly recall. Whether discerning readers believe them so is up to them, but they were, for me, just as I have written them. I will keep adding to this post as and when, but for now I offer you, kind reader, a small window into a mind many have called strange.

Storm in a Hallway

A block of flats, the outsides shifting, an amalgamation of dwellings past and imagined. Now the viewpoint shifts to my dream body, and I am standing in the flat, afraid, bladder tight, unable to still my hands, marching around the place for no particular reason. I know that there is trouble coming. My Mum has mentioned it, who is crying somewhere in the flat. My Dad is here too, which isn’t right, because he and Mum split years ago. The trouble is of the worst possible sort. Thugs, inbound. Bad thugs. Rich thugs, presumably, as my Mum got something off them and now, they want something back. What they want back I do not know, I don’t think my Mum has mentioned it. A flash, a vision of something, a car drive to some distant location, a man handing my Dad a pistol, middle of the range, semi automatic, shoots straight as far as your average corridor. In short, the best tool for the job, within his means. He hasn’t tried to get me out the way. But he has tipped loads of stuff into the hall, creating a rudimentary barricade. I’m in the kitchen now, off to the side.

The thugs arrive, and the first bullets fly. My Dad isn’t a brilliant shot, but the mother of his children, and one of them, are under threat. Every shot is fired with a mixture of gunpowder, grit and mammalian protectiveness. He does damage, but they are many, and experienced. Gunpowder thunder hurling bullet lightning makes a tempest of the hallway, but they manage to force a way in as Dad changes clip, inexpertly. Now they crouch on the other side of the barricade, hard men, some rangy, some bulky, their profiles shifting, but all wearing cheap tracksuits, ready for the nearest bin when their business is done. Another opens fire, another storm ensues. Another two fall, though my Dad’s face is twisted with pain rage and fear. Neither he nor I can hear much of Mum’s screaming anymore, not over the roar of the storm.

The thugs advance, clambering over the barricade, and see me. They start shooting and Dad shoots himself over the barricade, straight into them, screaming at me to get away. I do so, hating myself for it, I barge a door that should lead to my Mum and enter Scene Two.

Girlfriends.

A school science lab. The weather, and the time, is in flux. Outside the square, plastic framed windows, days and nights of every conceivable kind flash by, till I look to my left. There is an ex, sat beside me in a school science lab we never studied in together. We never even knew each other in school. The weather is still now, overcast, grey. The girl before me seems somewhat grey too. Not in colour, in temperament. There is no passion in her. No vibrance to her character. Oh I know she wealthy, I know she can provide for me, I know she desperately wants me. But her every plea only hardens my heart against her, whining and piteous as those pleas are. She’s barely capable of showing any other emotion, I remember. I stand and turn, to face the windows, where the colour is leeching out of everything, little by little. She plucks at my arm, desperate. I keep on facing the window, stone to her pathetic pleading. On she pleads and plucks, and now the plucks are harder. They hurt, on both arms. I look to my right, and there’s her duplicate, plucking, whining, but with each whine more and more teeth appear in some nightmarish mimic of an ingratiating smile.

The last bell rings. Home time.

Her eyes start to rise in her head as another appears over the desk, leaning, stretching toward me. At my hip, a sword’s weight materialises. A warning. Two of them seize my arms as the original sheds her hair with her face, fair skin splitting, eyes sliding back, arms falling away, human shape shrugged off as a grey, whining, wormlike thing goes for a bite. I whirl, sword now in hand, freeing my arms and slashing heads from the horribly mutating, munching ex girlfriends. I don’t want this! Freedom yes, to be single, yes, but not this! Eyes finally slide off the grey worm’s backs as the whining starts to come from thousands of throats. ‘Please’ they whine and hiss at me, some still in her frail, weak-chinned shape, for now. I oblige, with a sword, hacking and slashing, desperate. Alone, amidst uncounted whining, hissing, bloodthirsty ex girlfriends.

Lifescape (or an elemental metaphor for life)

Reasoning is liquid, ever changing and shapeless defining the self in society.
Drive is gaseous, the wind overrider of intellectual tides, or a guide
Social life is a landscape, full of valleys and hills, gorges and mountains and
Passion, which can scatter intellect wide, along with Drive,
Passion burns eternal beneath the landscape of life.

You are the wind and the water. Blow hard enough and your mind is guided,
drive is Will, and if the Will-wind is steady
your reasoning will ripple into eddies-wavelets-waves
tsunami’s of the brain that will reshape your Lifescape
your way.

Teetering on the tall Pedestal

White pride
racial pride
sexual pride
lay it aside-
decide,
what is worth celebration
lest you fall
from your tall, pedestal, of-
pride
why should you ride on the shoulders of those
who spoke out, who changed things
who took the blows delivered by societies dictates
why should anyone be proud of a natural state?
achievement alone is worthy of pride
personal achievment, first hand not third, man-
woman or child, black white or otherwise
straight gay or whatever, if  you win the to fight to survive
or to be recognised
then know pride, otherwise
revise
reconsider your position
consider, for a moment, is your pride
your right?

Nazi Scum

In darkness, in black the come
to the brightest city in Britain (dumb)
some white men with friends few and far between
who would have been paste had the state not intervened
their very existence other’s rights contravene
can anyone tell me what might have been
had Liverpool left them to walk free?

You’ll never walk alone, especially if you’re them
the Nazi scum crammed into scummy places, penned
poor letters and social media lies
look, its Liverpool, the city is alive!
walk alone? Ha! the city didn’t trust you to the jakes
you Nazi Scumbags, cowardly snakes
your members are weak, your numbers few
because freedom is beautiful to many and you,
will be evolved out of Man and out of Liverpool too.

Taboo

Is-

Sex. Incest,
Breastfeeding
financial discussions
the recently Dead
mental health,
genitals-
or asking about:
prison life, from an ex-prisoners lips
war from the warriors
business, from the bosses
drugs, from the junkies.
Or the facts that:
cosmetics kill animals
mobile phones destroy the earth
facebook owns people’s time
some poetry rhymes
most stories are written simply for a good time,
academics invent words to hide their simplicity
there’s something inherently wrong with man’s big cities.

Every one of these subjects is taboo, not talked about,
because no one wants to admit out loud
their mistakes,
no one takes, the longer view-
and sees,
that our biggest mistake is not talking about war or what we did on the loo
our biggest mistake, is, frankly, Taboo.