Law? What Law.
Disorientating, disarming and disheartening. The break down of global law and order.
I cant quite figure out the word to use to describe how it feels at the moment. Disorientating? Scary? Unsettling? heartbreaking?
Everywhere we look, we are seeing the most egregious acts of harm being committed, and seeing very little accountability or justice. What kind of world are we living in? And more importantly, why are we letting this happen?
Gaza in rubble, and Tehran ablaze.
A conservative estimate, confirmed by the IDF, puts the death toll in Gaza at 72,000 human beings. Almost a third of which (30%) are, or rather were, children (for comparison, Ukraine has 4% of their death toll as children). Now it goes without saying that any death is a tragedy, particularly that of a child, but a paediatric murder rate of 30% is simply evil. I cannot think of another word.
What’s worse, the western world is not simply watching, it is supporting these acts of genocide. the USA has supplied over $20,000,000,000 to Israel since the escalation of the genocide. My own country the UK has supplied 150,000 bullets, 8,630 munitions and parts for tanks and fighter jets, alongside military intelligence and training for the IDF.
Moreover, the British media consistently belittle the death of Palestinians, whilst excusing the leaders of this barbarity. I sincerely hope that those complicit are one day held to account.
Imagine trying to explain to our children and grandchildren as they learn of the Gazan Genocide, how we watched on as our country played its part.
There is no philosophical exploration of morality I can conceive that justifies our active role in this genocide. Our governments have blood on their hands.
What’s more, Trump and Netanyahu, not content with their on-going genocide have now escalated this to all out war in the middle east. However barbaric the Iranian regime was, it does not feel like there are any winners to this escalation. Moreover, the Whitehouse has been live streaming war crimes on X, seemingly unaware of the implications, or more cynically complete aware of the implications but believing that they can get away with it. With every moral or legal law broken, the criminal is further emboldened to act with impunity.
The first major blow on Iran, launched by the USA military, was a strike on an Iranian girls school killing over 160 Iranian school girls. An act of sheer inhumanity that i cannot fathom. The loss of innocent life, let alone the pain it will cause the communities and families, is incomprehensible. This is a blatant war crime, but again, there seems to be no consequences for the perpetrators. Middle eastern eye have recorded the name of the school children murdered by the UAS military, and it can be found here: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/names-and-ages-children-iranian-school-strike.
Moreover, the World Health Organisation have announced that 13 hospitals and healthcare facilities in Iran have been attacked by the USA and Israel - each act a blatant war crime. As a nurse, I cannot comprehend how any country could deem a hospital, or indeed a school, as a legitimate target. But as they got away with it in Gaza, they believe they will also get away with it in Iran.
The USA also launched an attack on an Iranian frigate which was on exercise in international waters, 2000 miles form Iran. Not only was it clearly an illegitimate target, but the USA navy left the sailors to drown, which is a serious breach of the Geneva Convention. Fortunately Sri Lanka rescued the sailors.
So what do we do we the world’s super powers are committing war crimes with impunity?
Domestic Criminality
On Jan 24th, 2006, ICE agents in Minneapolis shot and murdered an ICU Nurse, Alex Pretti, in cold blood live on camera. The world saw it. This was 2 weeks after a mother of a beautiful 6 year old, Renee Good, was also murdered by ICE live on camera.
Not only did these murders go unpunished, in the most Orwellian twist they were flat out denied by Trump and his cronies, despite the world being able to watch the killings for themselves.
How can we expect to instill any sense of justice in our communities, when the law is only applied to those the state wishes to control, and not to others?
Closer to home
Then we look at the UK, where the government illegally proscribed direct action group, Palestine Action, in a cynical and brutal attempt to supress democracy. This led to the arrest of hundred of innocent peaceful protestors, in a act of fascist brutality that will stain the British state for a long time.
In addition we are seeing a worrying rise in racism, bigotry and hate speech enter the political mainstream, spearheaded by a morally repugnant but seemingly bullet proof Nigel Farage. Despite dodgy tax claims, despite acts of electoral fraud, and despite allegations of racist bullying, this man seems to have a ‘get out of jail free’ card permanently in his back pocket, and instead of holding him to account, the press seem to worship the very ground he walks on.
And lets not forget, this is following the years of conservative PPE fraud. These treacherous acts of theft from the tax payer were committed at a time when most of the community were working together to save lives. But what consequences have those responsible had to face? Absolutely none.
Baroness Michelle Moan, Lord Michael Gove, and Matt Hancock remain beneficiaries of the state, and it feels like no further action will be taken against them.
When we will we hold these corrupt elite figures to account?
The Epstein Files
The biggest cloud hanging over the establishment at present is the Epstein Files. Despite countless allegations of sexual violence against children, Donald Trump remains the president of the Untied States of America. Granted the UK has seen a few arrests (The Andrew formally known as prince, and the lord of darkness Peter Mandelson) - we are yet to see any charges. Moreover, the trump administration are holding back on the evidence, to protect those guilty of paedophilia and child sex trafficking.
The we have Elon Musk, who spends half his time peddling far-right conspiracies online, and the other half trying to weasel his way out of his involvement with Epstein. However, he remains the worlds richest man. It really does feel like this world rewards moral depravity.
So what does this mean?
For me, its hard to find any semblance of morality or purpose when the world seems to reward depravity, and punish those who seek justice. However, we cannot accept this as the status quo.
All over the world, people are rising up saying enough is enough and demanding peace and justice, and we must do the same.
Join the political movement, get active, and lets demand peace and justice.
Echoes my feelings in its entirety. But I fear this is what the dominant class is aiming at. They’re aiming at positioning themselves in such a way that we are all scared of them and feel completely helpless to do something about it. And it simply cannot be. That’s why work like yours is so important. Let’s keep pushing.
Spot on. If I may riff tangentially thereon:
The lifeblood of the vampirous malignant narcissist class is neither creativity nor productivity; it’s other people’s flourishing and happiness, which they live off like poisonous, blood-engorged parasites.
People need to somehow push aside the years of brainwashing about prosperity arising from a singularly special investment and business elite, alone capable of generating value and employment through Schumpeterian ‘creative destruction’.
Instead, these vile oligarchs hate ‘capitalism’ proper because it implies genuine competition, and genuine competition is not only too much like hard work, it is an affront to their inherent delusions of superiority. Their real shtick is ‘destructive destruction’ of the sort we are seeing clearer than ever now the veil has been lifted. Trump has mastered control by chaos like many malignants before him; however, lacking all control he has mounted the approach in a giant frame and hung it on the wall of every single living room on the planet.
Of course, that’s why they love grift business areas like fossil fuels and now massive tech platforms, even as they dream of making the latter even bigger and all-encompassing through AI. Such industries enable them to readily bribe corrupt governments and politicians; set prices through cartels and anti-competitive lock-in and network effects; be well-rewarded no matter how poorly they operate or how many externalities they create; and create a dependency that bakes in policy capture for free.
I would love to see a political position develop around real competition; i.e., economic policy, industrial policy, securities law, competition law, education and training, employment law, etc., all geared towards competition as the key metric. We allow firms to talk openly of ’unfair advantage’, as if that’s somehow meritorious. No, it’s inflationary, highly destructive, misery-generating, and in theory already illegal.
That’s not a call to a communism or a socialism; on the contrary, it’s a call to capitalism proper. The most desireable nations on the planet are pretty much all rooted in one or another localised version of the welfare state, the odd small tax haven-like state on the fringes of major economic regions aside. Why? Because clearly that’s the best way we have to date of ensuring more and better competition, and at scale is far more value-creating, disciplining and quality of life-ensuring than delusions about some superior class, which as we now know is little more than a grotesque, muderous, abusing, weirdo cult of sex pests.
If the ba$tards want to leave for a lawless land, let ’em. The clearest and most obvious thing about capitalism is that every single firm and leader is easily and readily replaceable, with a vast swathe of grifting firms little more than economic squatters. Claims to the contrary are the biggest fantasy of them all, holding back much greater prosperity and flourishing.