Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Eastleigh byelection

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Chris Huhne is gone. Good riddance to Tory Scum. Now to look to the future: There isn't a Green Party candidate standing in the constituency, which is a jaw-droppingly naive move. How can the Party claim they represent anyone if they don't run a candidate? Even though the UK's dismally pseduodemocratic electoral system makes it certain they will lose their deposit they need all the publicity they can get. Not even having a name on the ballot paper is just dumb. 

Anyway, here's some numbers:

Based on the 2010 figures the electorate is 77,417 strong (votes cast / turnout). The LibTards polled 24,966 or 46.5% of votes cast. A classic example of UK 'democracy' there: not even a majority on paper, regardless of the wishes of those in the constituency too disillusioned, not registered or otherwise ineligible to vote, eg. due to being imprisoned for some petty misdemeanour. This is why punkscience advocates compulsory voting and proportional representation.

Anyway, apart from the disenfranchised, the 2010 election left 52,451 people- nearly 68% of eligible voters- without political representation in Westminster. Oh, they had an MP. Yes, one they hadn't voted for. Very 'democratic'.

I don't know if you can tell but I am utterly disillusioned with UK politics. That 68%, that enormous, farting, blarting pachyderm depositing vast piles of dung in the corner of the small, packed room that is UK politics, is such an obvious offence to my sensibilities that I find it hard to muster anything beyond harsh scorn for any political commentary that fails to acknowledge it first and foremost. As this includes pretty much the entirety of political commentary I am left cackling and sneering from my shack here on the edge of Auckland without much of substance to engage people on. But then I'm happy like this. I'm clearly right. You can't argue with the numbers. Can you?

The worst thing is that I now find people I respect and whose opinions I value posting earnest tweets discussing what would be the best outcome in the byelection without considering that the entire affair is blatantly illegitimate and a sham. They consider whether UKIP's explosion of voter share is a good or bad thing. Whether, ultimately, a LibTard hold might be the Best Outcome they can hope for. Its just bizarre! Have they no ambition? Have they no sense of their own role in the perverted satire of this pantomime of public participation? Their own subjection to the agenda of the covert and malevolent authoritarianism that has ruled the UK for decades? 

Apparently not. 

Monday, February 04, 2013

Marx, Rand or Keynes? Fuck all your economic prophets

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A post on Twitter from Derek Wall drew my ire. Up front admission of judgment: I only read the first couple of pages of the preface from the linked document. But just read it for yourself. Regardless of what follows the author (note: not Derek) apparently lives his life from the perspective that all government, i.e. all structured human cooperation (that's what government is, fuckface), is A. Tyrannical and wasteful, and B. Well, I don't know if you need a 'B' after that flight of Angel-Dust inspired fucktardery. 

I mean what the blistering fuck?

Derek Wall had the grace to reply to my accusation of libtard propaganda propagation and admitted he hadn't read the doc but a couple of other Twits chipped in in response and demanded to know how the state is not an evil artifact of the ruling capitalist class and therefore TEH EVILLLLlLLL! To them I offer the  response of Mitch Benn to Clegg's similarly retarded proposal:


Yes, if you think the state is a fundamentally malign concept then why do you remain living under its iron jackboot instead of fleeing these oppressed shores to Somalia, the land of ultimate freedom and liberty?

The most bizarre thing, though, is that these comments seemed to result from Marxists, which is not an equation I've encountered heretofore (Marxism = libtardism). This set me thinking about Marx generally and how he's experiencing some sort of resurgence as a political alternative to fuckyounomics and I began to realise that Marxism is a kind of religion. You see, I've always wondered about Marx and his writings and the writings of those who built upon his ideas. I've always felt slightly intellectually inadequate in that I've never read any of his work, although I've read a lot of people who talk about his work in an interesting light. So I've always felt as if I'm missing a fundamental piece of knowledge which could open me up to a new and profound understanding of this diversely fucked up world. 

Then I drank some beer, had a shower and drank some more beer and realised that this was a rank crock of weasel piss. Marxism is just another fucking religion with a bunch of stories in some magic books telling tales of the great visionary. Crucially, I perceived that Marx died before environmentalism was born. And environmentalism changed everything: If your ideology excludes environmentalism, specifically the limits to growth, the laws of thermodynamics, the fundamental importance of energy to the growth of human civilisation and any of a hundred other subjects that highlight that resources and energy are the fundamental currencies of civilisation, not money, then you're a deluded wanker with no more intellectual credibility than some Hari Krishna selling enlightenment on the corner or any other religious outfit trying to sell you platitudes and mysticism from the mouths of their chosen one (Ayn Rand, anyone?). 

This would be a good point to draw attention to this outstanding and outreaching blog post from the Modern Monetary Theory blog of Bill Mitchell which attempts to rationalise this controversially robust fork of economics ( I don't want to call it that as that seems to sully it but that's the field he claims to work in). The post embraces steady state economics, limits to growth and 'biospheric homeostatic boundary problems' (?). I'm going to read it again because I was drunk the first time I read it but I retain a feeling of deep satisfaction that this represents a further entrenchment of ecological economics as the most robust and evidence-based alternative model to fuckyounomics, or Marx or Randian libtardism or whatever your particular chosen blend of misanthropy, delusion and mysticism is called. 

Here endeth ye sermon. Ye canst nowe all fucke off.