Do You Know What’s Happening?

The Conspiracy Theory has two roles. One, to make people look nuts and gullible, and the other to hide what is really going on behind the accusation of it being a conspiracy theory.

So, what is actually going on in the politics of the UK and the US? And can you believe a word I am going to say?

Well, here’s the thing, there is evidence. Not evidence of a right wing conspiracy, but of actual right wing actions and events that impact on our lives, every day. And to find out what’s going on you have to go to the USA. Becuase the UK has no real political writing any more.

We are inclined to sneer at the level of intellect in the US, mainly due to mainstream politics, but there is another side. Journalists, authors, historians and political writers who have done the hard graft to show us what is happening in the US and that then carries across the Atlantic to impact on our politics.

And core to it all is liberterianism. This was orignially a left wing ideology but has now become the mantra of the hard right. At is core is the idea that there should be next to no government in everyday life. If you can’t manage on your own, well, tough. And it has been adopted by the ultra wealthy in the US as their political philosophy, couched in the ideology of freedom and free will, which is fine if you are rich, and not so hot if you are poor, and unable to buy access freedom in a capitalist society.

I have been investigating the investigators, that is reading the books.

Let’s start with Evil Geniuses by Kurt Andersen. Kurt takes us through the plan. The right wing gathering following the publication of a memo by Michael Horowitz in the early 1970s when the Republican Party and voters were genuinely terrified of the rise of the anti-Vietnam War movement that would translate into a socialist revolution, and take all their money. This led to the establishment of the American Round Table which exists to this day. Have a look at who sits at the table, not too many liberals in there. He goes on to explain how once they got Reagan elected, the rules governing media and Wall Street changed leading to Donald Trump (he wasn’t there at the beginning but became their champion, at the same time he was ranting about draining the swamp).

They have money, and in the US money equals power. So I went on to Kochland by Christopher Leonard. The Kochs are the baddies, along with others like the Coors family (yes, the booze Coors, if you do nothing else, never buy a Coors again.) The Kochs are big oil. They corrupt, and are almost totally responsible for undermining the scientific evidence that climate change is caused by human activity. They replace Representatives and Senators who they don’t like. They fund research that just happens to always prove their case, they then get their lackeys in Congress to read the reasearch out and put it on the record. It is then used by their funded media outlets as news reporting, and hey presto, it has credibility. They are smart and that is why they are so dangerous. Isn’t it interesting that one of Thatcher’s wide boys, Nigel Lawson, got airtime on Radio 4 to undermine renewable energies time after time, with the BBC giving the fake excuse of balance even though 95% of scientists were in the other camp. And who would Nigel know? Not the Kochs? Nooo. I wonder who does find this lot? They are still banging on despite the fact that 42% of the UK energy now comes from renewables. What does Nigel say now? Nothing. He was talking complete and utter nonsense.

So on we go, next stop, Dark Towers by David Enrich (great name for a guy writing about the criminal activities of a bank.) This is a great look at the banking system and how Trump was lent millions of dollars by Deutsche Bank, funneled through Russia and London. Money sloshing around the world, the bank breaking every rule they knew about, and Trump sitting on property empire funded by imaginary cash.

Another cog in the liberterian machine is race. There are two levels of racsim in the US that also travel to the UK. There is the racism of the white working class and there is the racism of the wealthy liberterian political class. The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee is a fascinating look at how the white working class will do themselves harm rahter than accept the leveling up of people of colour. Example after example of how they will put their own economic and social interests aside. Why? Because they work on a zreo sum model, which means if someone is winning, ie the black population getting something akin to equality, then someone must be losing, and that must be them. She talks of draining the pool, and that happened literally. In 1964 following the Civil Rights Act that outlawed segregation, towns and cities in the Southern States of America closed their swimming pools and filled them in rather than share them with African Americans. So they couldn’t go swimming themselves, nor could their children, if they had to share.

The liberterian racists use this politically. They will almost never actually mix with other races, but by maintaining differences in pay and refusing a minimum wage (5 Souther States have no minimum wage, because they don’t want to pay black people that much), they have attracted large businesses who can pay less than in the MidWest. They then use this in pay negotiations in other parts of the country to break up unions and drive down pay levels, all so they can get even richer. They are deliberately keeping the racial pot boiling to make money.

All of this leads us to 2021. Fox News, owned by Rupert Murdoch, built on the fast tracking of the removal of laws that should have stopped him becoming a US citizen, and owning a newspaper and tv station in the same city. Reagan organised that and the American Round Table had its own medfia channel. (This week saw Tucker Carlson endore Q Anon as slightly misguided patriots.) Money funding the Republican Party so they can no loger recognise right from wrong, the only see right.

But what about the UK? WHile all this was going on in the US, Margaret Thatcher and Reagan had a public love affair, based on their right wing politics. Banks were de-regulated, people were duped onto becoming shareholders ( I wonder how many still have their British Gas, British Airways, British Steel and British Telecom shares?) The media ownership was also allowed to become concentrated and Rupert was at the helm of the Times, the Sun, the News of the World and Sky. Guess who he supoprted?

And today we have a 1% pay rise for the nurses.

But, the country is broke I hear the right cry. Everyone is in this together the government Ministers say. Except that this is not economic, it is political and liberterian.

The Tory party does not suppoert the NHS, they want rid of it. They are liberterians, and believe that health should be up to the individual. So they offer 1% to the nurses following the worst pandemic in modern history. There is outrage, nurses will leave the NHS, and that is exactly what the government wants. They will go to agenices, and so the government will no longer be responsible for their pensions and pay. The nurses will earn more, and it will cost the NHS more in the short term, but the long term will be different.

Why?

Waiting lists.

Waiting lists are not economic, they are political. They are forcing more people to take out private health insurance, as they know that the NHS will not be able to keep them healthy. As the insurance industry grows they will open more and more hospitals, and people will see that to get an operation or even to be seen by a Consulatant you need insurance. And so the NHS will become a rump, for emergency care, until that gets wrapped into the private health system too.

So in 2021 we are in a right wing liberterian political system, being supported by the very people that it is harming the most.

And the right are laughing, literally. At us. At you. As they re-introduce a class system based on wealth and health. Again. Back to pre 1946 and the NHS, and they have conned the voters every step of the way.