the toad-eater elections

A few weeks ago I got into a dustup with someone on facebook, of all places, about the direction of a facebook group, the Non-Aligned leftists. Beyond the surface of our tactical differences, the deeper one was about the very purpose of a political group. To my mind, the “left” is nothing – the ends are everything. So, I thought that the presentation of a number of issues that the zona has made ultra-important – democratizing antique political entities, knocking down laws that cripple the internationalization of labor unions, a 35 hour week, creating a heavy regulatory regime to limit the speculative market, etc., need to be expressed on all occasions in the Anglo-sphere. My opponent, on the other hand, wanted to find common ground with ‘left” parties so that we would be good campaigners once election time rolled around – while, of course, asserting with gusto that we were going to overthrow the government and seize power from the street.

I must admit, I could give a flying fuck for that kind of babyshit.

And so the toadeater elections have rolled over Europe. The left, which now consists of a bought and paid for set of the political elite who want to “moderate’ neo-liberalism and a set who want to ‘seize power from the street” got entirely and predictably whipped. Instead of viewing the zona as the greatest opportunity to effect radical change in 50 years, the ‘left” has treated it like an annoyance. Just as the two spheres, “moderates” and ‘radicals”, were essential to disenfranchising opposition to the invasion of Iraq, they operate, now, with an evil synergy, to disarm the populace before the machinations of an astonishingly corrupt and vile right wing machine. The party of Berlusconi’s dick.

Berlusconi’s dick romped.

In the sad gray light of Napoleon’s downfall, William Hazlitt wrote a heartfelt essay about the decline of the literary tribe and the rise of the elite – seconded by its victims. The oddity of the poor and working class cheering on the rich and idle class he called toad-eating. He accurately described the way in which the press operates as a sort of projection machine, allowing the poor man to bask in the glory for which he pays with his skin, and the skins of his children.

Today, fat, comfortable, we watch the right work around the margins of the welfare state. They have been doing this long enough that the left’s only real tactic – which is to claim that the right will destroy the welfare state – rings as hollow as it should. In fact, that state is hooked up to the corporate machinery and has long, long been. The right has long ago learned how to use it to make the rich richer. And it is the left’s political destiny, imposed upon them by a political elite that came through the ranks by making sure that there was no untoward discussion of issues – my god, we have to leave that to the leaders and their committees! – is more of the same. So, the party of ditto and diddly squat, the party that righteously separates itself, in the name of all that is good in economics (a la Milton Friedman and Hayek), the Nu-Labour/PS/SPU slug’s orgy, goes down in wholly predictable defeat.

Yes, there's no protection for you from the vampires in the Central Banker’s state.

PS - fans of Infinite Thought should listen to NP on the BBC at 36:52, talking about Orwell. Although she didn't get a chance to say as much as she could have, alas.