And the smoke from the fire is still rising

For years it's been creeping up on us, not by loony right-wing landslide wins, but the inch-by-inch but nevertheless solid shift from left to center, where even treehuggers who should look under every stone for any and all solution to this troubled Earth's problems cling to one Holy Writ and proclaim all other freethinkers heretics. Too much energy spent on climbing up to the next level, instead of pulling others less fortunate up to ours.

1984 and other horrendous mirrors were all the buzz last decade (another decade already? oh, how time flies!), and we've had a good laugh and patted ourselves on the back: look, with such messages abound in our culture we've staved off the dangers for sure.

But all the time it's been creeping, lads, not in our faces like 1984, but inch-by-inch like it always goes. And one day we'll wake up to find ourselves arrived at that next level, staring out our window at the "blessed" Morec spire and gathering each morning at the apartment block's warden unit to submit to the routine social check government demands of us. Are our shoes neat and shiny? Do we make enough money to live where we live? Do we toe the government's line?

Inch-by-inch, is that how the 80s happened? Reign of fear and apathy, rule of propriety and hypocrite cleanliness? Then where are those who'd protect our rights, every thing our ancestors obtained, remind those idiots of their promises, hold them to the law? I search the left for signs of renewal, but only find career opportunists, nobody willing to rock the boat.

I live in a little peanut country not exempt from riots, on that line where businesses seek cheap rent only to poke their leased C300s in the faces of families of at least 5 trying to survive on 2 paychecks (and lo and behold they are surprised when they get mugged and need to hire bodyguards!). I look out from this little peanut country into the world and hope people so hurt by the system, so insulted by the unabashed flaunting of riches*, find the energy not only to lift a brick from the pavement, but in the end to be the source of something new, a left to the left-which-is-now-center. Doubt we'll find many Caucasian faces amongst them, but that's okay. You don't need to be pasty-faced to jape, to blow up Parliament.

And look it has already begun...


*as if all bling comes with the guarantee of invulnerability and unstealability. When exactly did Modesty crawl into the corner of the room to die?

P.S.: Did you see that lot, how the other flinched but spoke no less honest of the flatscreens he pinched; did you see how he timidly glanced at his 16-year-old fellow who pinched nappies and a whole set of Johnson's for his kid? Ha, and they say there's no honour among thieves. In all that violence and destruction, all the yelling of pro and con, of Law please protect our Greed, of opportunists grabbing a quick buck (what and we don't cheat the hell out of taxes?), of bricks flying from one side to the other's glass house, there at least one blinding flash of sense: she lives and breathes yet, Modesty, hoorah!