Category: Zombie Apocalypse

A letter from a revolutionary eco-socialist in pain.

It’s been a very bad month for blue tits, for the poor and for me!

By Gordon Liddle

Zombie Apocalypse, 18th Sept 2021

Blue Tits tend to have only one brood per year. They feed their young on caterpillars and have to gauge when these are freely available to choose when to lay their eggs. If they get it wrong, the brood will starve, or they will only be able to feed one chick. Either way, the risks to getting it wrong are huge. Add in climate change and Insect Armageddon, and the risks just got a lot worse. This year must have been a bad one, as our quota of Blue Tits in the garden at this time of year is a lot less than those of last year. We have had a rubbish summer with ridiculous weather events, flooding and basically crap weather. Our tomatoes are late, the potatoes got blight and our onions are not worth lifting. On the swing side we have our largest ever apple crop and the late carrots seem to be doing OK. But all is not right in the garden. As the Blue Tits have shown, the insects are leaving us.

On the political front our Selfservative government goes from bad to worse. Whilst the Zombie Apocalypse grinds on and into another wave, they seem to blindly stagger from one bad policy decision to another. As the rich have managed to storm ahead and are making the biggest fortunes in history, the poor and sick are being punished for simply being. In the current dystopia here in the UK, the poor are marginalised and lined up for a punishment beating to allow a narrative to exist that we have somehow to ‘pay for the pandemic’, or that ‘we are all in it together’ and the punishment is part of ‘levelling up!’ They are about to remove the £20 uplift for UC at a time of rising prices for basics, food, electricity, rents, and the only thing the minister in charge can mutter is that they can easily make it up by working a couple of hours extra per week. Disregarding the fact this is a lie, as the average worker will have to put in about seven to nine hours to make up the loss due to the way the credits are worked, many are already working at two or three jobs just to keep their heads above water. On top of that, the Chancellor has decided the poorest will contribute the most with new tax rises via National Insurance. At a time when prices are rising and the economy is struggling, it makes no sense to take money out of the economy, but they seem determined to do so. Fiscal responsibility is the key phrase sung by Sunak, the jug eared idiot with the crocodile smile, as he hurls more key workers onto the bonfire of poverty and despair. One could think of his as an economic illiterate until one understands the conscious cruelty of these decisions.

As the rich have managed to storm ahead and are making the biggest fortunes in history, the poor and sick are being punished for simply being.

Don’t forget, the government is not just taxing the poor with these new NI taxes (10% rise), it is gaslighting us as well. It could easily order the Bank of England to buy some government issued bonds. There was no need to tax at all for social care, nor for funding the NHS. The debt is rolled on and sometime in the future will be cancelled. But to do this, it would undermine the absolute message that we can’t ‘afford’ the public services that we need. There are a lot of rich people who control the politicians and the government with the argument that there is no ‘Magic Money Tree!’ This debt narrative is why we are having this NI increase of ten percent now. It is criminally and consciously cruel on those most in need and will for instance, instantly give nurses, and health care ‘essential’ workers a pay cut. The real purpose of this chance is to ring fence the wealthy and allow them to pass on their inheritance to their children. In essence, it, as Richard Murphy has pointed out, transfers money from the poor to the wealthy. This should be an open goal for Labour, but Sir Rodney Woodentop is too busy purging socialists and left-wing Jews out of the Party. During this zombie apocalypse, the rich have seen their wealth grow by 35% whist foodbank usage has risen 33%. This latest poll tax type is just another insult to ordinary workers. The Unions should be calling for a general strike, but I suppose we will just roll over and remember when we were affronted when a politician called for communist broadband during the election.’ Maybe we deserve these bastards?

During this zombie apocalypse, the rich have seen their wealth grow by 35% whist foodbank usage has risen 33%.

The NHS is struggling, and the new wave of infections is going to put it under more pressure, perhaps terminal. Ten years of engineered decline by the Tories, waiting lists becoming longer and longer, even before the pandemic, has put it in a terrible state. Capita, Serco, Interserve and other parasites of the public purse have thrived, sucking billions out of the economy and making their shareholders rich, whilst the Tories are chopping off the limbs of our treasured NHS. The steady drip, drip, drip, of recent comments in the media of how the service is failing is meant to leave us with a bad taste in our mouths, a desire for a new shiny, efficient, privatised health care system, to allow their American and Corporate Healthcare Companies to ride to the rescue, an all-insurance new health service, that will eviscerate and other the poor, disabled and chronically sick. On top of this the disinformation and conspiracy theories about the virus are still rife and complicating vaccination take-up, particularly in the US, where, according to Fox News and others, people are sticking keys to their foreheads and pushing their swollen gonads around in wheelbarrows.

Capita, Serco, Interserve and other parasites of the public purse have thrived, sucking billions out of the economy and making their shareholders rich, whilst the Tories are chopping off the limbs of our treasured NHS.

The recent cabinet reshuffle has been in the news for the last couple of days, as one incompetent minister is shown the door only for another equally incompetent one to come in, one of which has the claim to fame of having eaten an Ostrich anus on live TV. It makes the news cycle excited for a few days, but it will make no discernible difference to any of us. One has to understand that the current PM is not interested in governance, nor in any real policy decisions. He wants to be in power. There will be no levelling up, to do so would upset his base. If the North were to be given a helping hand, it would be at the expense of the South, and they wouldn’t contemplate that. Shops are running out of products due to the shortage of HGV drivers and broken supply chains from Brexit. Will they do anything meaningful? Don’t be ridiculous. Just more gaslighting and lies. Our client journalists are all over the front pages spouting nonsense about bringing back Imperial weights and measures now we are free from the ‘shackles’ of the EU, with the great British pint crown back on our beer glasses. Meanwhile, due to the lack of foresight, or as it should be called, criminal negligence, the water industry cannot obtain the chemicals needed to treat our water and sewage, the results of which are huge measures of sewage and waste being pumped into almost every river in England at extraordinary rates, poisoning our rivers and fish, killing the vegetation and wildlife. Another example, if one were needed, of privatisation of public commons and basic life necessaries for private profit. Capitalism is literally poisoning our waters. Fines by a toothless watchdog are just passed off an ‘industry expenses’, a small price to pay for huge renumeration for the executives and shareholders.

the water industry cannot obtain the chemicals needed to treat our water and sewage, the results of which are huge measures of sewage and waste being pumped into almost every river in England

Meanwhile, we are hurling toward the COP26 Earth Summit in November. Over the last fortnight I have been suffering from a back injury that has left me in great pain and the resulting take-up of painkillers has made my sleepy and out of kilter. Taking a couple of Tramadol last week as the pain got really bad led to me hallucinating. It was like a very bad LSD trip. It was very depressing and very visual and more frightening that I was awake the whole time, the scenes visualising on the back of my eyelids like an arthouse film. The one thing I realised is that I have for months been suffering from what Srecko Horvat calls Post Apocalypse Melancholy. And I’m not talking about the pandemic.

I’m talking the actual Apocalypse, of which this past two years has been a highlighted symptom. My Christian friend is convinced we are nearing the end times, and to him the Apocalypse is the Revelation, the revealing of a new world, where those which are chosen are saved. The Apocalypse, as Horvat explains, is to them a great revealing, something to be welcomed, a transformation, a release. But it isn’t. My friend is deluded. He bought into a simple story, from more ignorant times, where an understanding of the biosphere was in its infancy, from which we have barely matured. The Apocalypse is extinction. The end of everything. The end of humanity, of human experience, of culture, language, of the arts, architecture, science, of love and shared empathy, of understanding of nature, of our place in it.

The Apocalypse is extinction. The end of everything. The end of humanity, of human experience, of culture, language, of the arts, architecture, science, of love and shared empathy, of understanding of nature, of our place in it.

The only ‘revelation’ I have experienced over the last few years, as I have researched a manifesto (and failed in real terms), is that we are in a very bad place. I am already mourning from the Post Apocalypse. Not only are our ‘leaders’ psychopaths and sociopaths, almost to a man (and they are mainly men), but that they believe that permanent growth invasive and extractive Capitalism is the only game in town. No other approach to how we live within our system is allowed nor contemplated. The controllers of Capitalism decided, some time ago, and with absolute certainty, that they were just going to endure and allow the impacts of climate change and ecological collapse for the following reasons. Firstly, they cannot and will not contemplate the taming or elimination of a system that has made them extremely wealthy and powerful. Secondly, they are psychologically unable to contemplate any other system that allows empathy and understanding, or even love of the natural world to displace their idea that we are ‘above’ nature, and we have to rule. That we are somehow unique and not part of the ecological cascades that make up life on earth, and possibly elsewhere. To tame is and conquer it like any other colony in the name of their Imperialism is ingrained into their being. Thirdly, they believe no-one will challenge this system as we have become too weak and subjugated ourselves to their dominance, and thus, as we go over the cliff with them, we are partly to blame for being so dumb and subservient. I this they are correct.

Not only are our ‘leaders’ psychopaths and sociopaths, almost to a man (and they are mainly men), but that they believe that permanent growth invasive and extractive Capitalism is the only game in town.

Only this week our government here in the UK decided to strip out the environmental portion (which met the very soft Paris Climate Change provisions) from a Trade Deal with Australia to make it easier to agree, but in the same week the US, Australia and the UK agree a pact to confront by force if necessary, the alleged threat of China. To supply new Nuclear submarines to Australia and make it the new base for a second Cold War. To my knowledge China has never invaded another country in recent times, and, since being co-opted into the Capitalist system, has acted as the World Factory for goods, then using the wealth created, has lifted its people out of poverty and is now using such wealth to trade and invest in other countries. I make no great case for the Leadership of China, authoritarian that it is, but, comparing China to the US or past Imperial Britain, Belgium or Germany, they look positively innocent. The determination of the US to provoke a conflict with someone, as it’s Empire fades is as Thucydides laid out. Possibly the end game will end with China after a practice on Iran.

And it is not just the right that are laying the paving to the Apocalypse, the left too has capitulated. Many believe they can tweak Capitalism into a less destructive model, or they can control it better and with magnanimity. They can’t. At the Labour conference here in the UK, the leadership has stopped a motion to discuss Climate Change, and instead has committed itself to purging what remains of the left as the number one priority for the Party. Anyone left in Labour who believes it can be a part of the future is delusional or has taken the same painkillers that sent me hallucinating last week. It’s over. It is part of the problem, not part of a solution. In the US, we saw this week that great left firebrand AOC turning up for an establishment evet wearing an expensive evening dress with ‘Tax The Rich’ on the back. It made me sick. This virtue signalling was accepted at the evening even directly because the establishment see her as no threat whatsoever. A jolly good joke and a good titter among the thieves and crooks at the event. Meanwhile, outside, a real demonstrator was arrested for being an actual threat. As AOC capitulated in full view of the media, the protester outside, out of view, was the real deal, not a sell-out. 

At the Labour conference here in the UK, the leadership has stopped a motion to discuss Climate Change, and instead has committed itself to purging what remains of the left as the number one priority for the Party.

Over the last year as I have researched for a realistic Green New Deal, one of the things I have realised is that it cannot be done by the rich North. Their proposals involve more of the same, or a reliance in technology, tweaks to Capitalism, more appropriation of the poor South, more colonialism and more theft of resources. The Green New Deal has to be one which allows Indigenous Peoples to have an equal say, has to involve the relief of debt and has to involve Land Back, decolonialisation. It also has to allow them to catch up, real CO2 relief for them, they didn’t do this tragedy, we did. It isn’t their eating of meat which has denuded soils and aquifers. It wasn’t their farming practices that has destroyed the earth, it was ours. It isn’t them playing with nuclear annihilation, it is us. I have also realised I am no longer just a socialist. Our democracies are a sham. I am now a revolutionary eco-socialist. The fight back is outside our democratic systems. I’ve seen the Apocalypse. It’s here already. There is no going back to normal. That time has passed.

Gordon Liddle in the Yemen in the 1990s

Gordon Liddle was born 1956, Horden, County Durham, United Kingdom Married, lives and works at his Derbyshire studio. BA Hons, Sheffield Psalter Lane Art College Gordon has had numerous positions and travelled extensively through the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Yemen, Lebanon, Bahrain, Africa and Europe, with particular interests in religion, democracy, politics, economics, MMT, and culture. The results of these studies form the basis of the series of works now under way. Numerous works bought by private collectors #Madonna Victorian Mood Bought by Andrew Cavendish the 11th Duke of Devonshire is owned by the Chatsworth Collection. ‘Celestial Teapot’ was exhibited at La Galleria Pall Mall in London for one week in 2013, 4 days at Art Basel in 2014. Currently working on Gaia, The Sixth Extinction Series, of paintings, woodcuts and hopefully etchings soon. Also writing two books and a book of poems and rants. Gordon is on Twitter @sutongirotcip and his website is pictorignotus.com 

Capitalism is what happens when the psychopaths and gangsters are running the neighbourhood. Our only chance is to wrestle the wheel from them.

… and create a National Forest the length and breadth of the UK.

Zombie Apocalypse, 16th Aug 2021

by Gordon Liddle

Time to pause. Stop. Time to take stock. We are drifting toward war and ecological collapse like drunks seeking the next open bar. Staggering along, bouncing off lampposts and cars, desperate for the next drink to avoid reality. And the reality isn’t pretty.

            It’s been quite a week hasn’t it? IPCC report all doom and gloom, quickly whisked off the front pages of every newspaper, Ken Loach removed from the Labour Party, along with thousands of other socialists, as Sir Rodney Woodentop continues the purges, and the end game in Afghanistan, which we all new was coming. Apparently, some journalists and politicians are shocked at the events unfolding, which is quite a thing. Where have they been for the last twenty years and what were they thinking was going to be the result? These are well paid, supposedly intelligent and well read, what goes on in their heads? To be a journalist in the West and specifically in the US and UK it seems the only qualification is to turn up, don’t write anything untoward or probing, keep your head down and recycle the double speak handed to you by your line manager. Astonishing.

‘Spaffer’ Johnson in Morrisons

Brexit, the gift that keeps on giving, has, together with the zombies, left us short of lorry drivers, according to the press. This is bullshit. Our government has made the UK a place where any ‘forinners’ aren’t welcome, so ‘forrin’ drivers have stayed away. Many companies in the EU can’t be bothered with all the red tape which is now involved to export goods to the UK, so they gave up exporting here, so no return drivers to take goods back to the EU. On top of that the UK government classed lorry drivers as ‘unskilled’ so no free movement of drivers from abroad to keep driving here. Add to this that drivers have been leaving the profession for years because the pay and conditions are dire, and you have the perfect storm. You don’t become a heavy goods vehicle driver overnight, and the training is expensive, so this is a problem that isn’t going away anytime soon. It’s what happens when you have a government of idiots. So, we have the armed forces stepping in to deliver goods to supermarkets. Join the army and meet people, in Morrison’s warehouse. The Queens Own Broccoli Regiment step forward please!

Join the army and meet people, in Morrison’s warehouse. The Queens Own Broccoli Regiment step forward please!

            The Dark Knight has been continuing his purge of the Labour Party, an extra shove as conference draws near. You are five time more likely to be purged for antisemitism if you are a Jewish member than a non-Jewish member. Let that sink in. This week was the turn of the world-renowned film director and humanitarian Ken Loach. Apparently, he was in a group proscribed by Labour and refused to disassociate himself from the others and wouldn’t name them to save himself. The director of Cathy Come Home and I Daniel Blake is now outside the Party again whilst Islamophobes and downright racists adorn the PLP and Labour councillors across the country. Remember, this man, Sir Rodney Woodentop, pledged to unite the Party and follow on from the 2019 manifesto commitments. He lied. From the very start he was a plant, an establishment shill brought in to make Labour a toothless lapdog of the established order.

You are five time more likely to be purged for antisemitism if you are a Jewish member than a non-Jewish member. Let that sink in.

Remember rent-a-gob James O’ Brien muttering into his mike that ‘any other leader and Labour would be twenty points ahead in the polls?’ Well, they certainly aren’t that, with the worst Tory government in living memory. Whoever does the promotions for his utterances online is also an idiot, which we saw this week with him coming up with the line that he could sanction the killing of an Alpaca. That made all the wrong headlines. Who was he trying to recruit to vote Labour? Harold Shipman? The Dark Knight is destroying Labour as a political force and destroying the Party into the bargain. He is an utter disgrace, and what’s worse, as we desperately need an alternative government to take up the challenge of global warming and ecological collapse, he is wasting the time of the only Party in the UK at least of making the case for drastic changes, and for that most of all I shall never forgive him. His screech back to Blairite neoliberalism in the face of what is looking on the horizon is unforgiveable. I expect it from the Tories, we all know their indifference to suffering and ecology, but the glimmer of hope we had under Labour’s GND manifesto commitments at least offered that, hope. Now we probably have another term of Tories in power, with all the time wasting on reform that entails, and that to me is Labour’s biggest crime.

Remember rent-a-gob James O’ Brien muttering into his mike that ‘any other leader and Labour would be twenty points ahead in the polls?’

            The IPCC report came and went this last week. Although the report is of course conservative in its approach, not surprising as it has to accommodate many governments and bodies who are to say the least rather sceptical, it was still a damning citation of where we have allowed ourselves to drift. The situation is dire. The horse hasn’t quite bolted yet, but the stable door is wide open, and the groom is asleep on the job. Ten million acres are burning out of control across Siberia as I write this. Italy, Turkey and other parts of Europe are still ablaze, meanwhile billionaires are talking about putting billboards into space and opening up space tours. It’s madness. Starting from the base point of reference that all our political leaders and corporate billionaires are for the most part psychopaths, it wasn’t long before they trotted out the usual platitudes in response to the report. Biden gave a presser in which he waxed lyrical about the $1 Trillion GND package he was getting through the House and then, just at the end, the Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm announced in reply to a press question that she ‘had made it clear to OPEC countries that she expected them to increase oil production to reduce the cost of fuel to boost the economy.’ This on top of Biden giving another 2000 fracking and drilling permits on Federal Land as well as confirming the Line 3 Tar Sands pipeline. Talk about cognitive dissonance.

Capitalism is literally burning all our planetary resources to accumulate vast sums of wealth for a very few people and we are just observers.

Capitalism is literally burning all our planetary resources to accumulate vast sums of wealth for a very few people and we are just observers. When people ask me, what is the biggest driver of global warming and ecological collapse I am always temped to mutter, ‘it’s the economy, stupid!’ Our so called ‘leaders’ are like gangsters, they move into the neighbourhood, give all sorts of false promises, then, in no time at all they are running criminal rackets and demanding protection money. The real time gangsters are no different but at least they are honest, the don’t pretend to be anything but gangsters. The Tories have made themselves, their hedge fund and big Pharma buddy’s colossal amounts of money from this pandemic, whilst the rest of us have to get by, prices rising across the board from food to building supplies. And yet we do nothing. More people are vexed about Abi and Dale being chucked out of Love Island.

The Tories have made themselves, their hedge fund and big Pharma buddy’s colossal amounts of money from this pandemic, whilst the rest of us have to get by

            By this weekend of course, the media had moved on from the upcoming Extinction Event and had the Premiership football to tout, as well as other mind-numbing bits of trivia to keep the ignorant occupied.  The BBC had even de-listed the IPCC report from its hot news list. Then we had the debacle in Afghanistan.

Saigon 1975, Kabul 2021

           

Knowing the oncoming storm of troop departure and chaos that would follow, the PM and Foreign Secretary, as well as the rest of the Cabinet went on their holidays. As events followed their logical course during the week and then this weekend, our government was conspicuously missing in action. Twenty years, where the end result was always inevitable and still, they couldn’t prepare to leave in an orderly manner, nor protect the hundreds of thousands of women and children who, along with anyone who participated with the occupying forces, will be subject to the most horrifying crimes. Only weeks ago, Spaffer went before Parliament and said, ‘there was no military route to power for the Taliban!’ Either he was badly advised by intelligence services that don’t deserve the title or he was lying again. Either way the ordinary people of the area are the ones to suffer once again. Both Biden and Johnson should resign but we know that leaders don’t do honour anymore.

Only weeks ago, Spaffer went before Parliament and said, ‘there was no military route to power for the Taliban!’

As the rest of the World looks on in shock, we are resigned to the fact that our government will do all it can to stop refugees from Afghanistan from reaching our shores. The Mail and Telegraph, Sun and Express will be soon pumping our more bile about migrants in the Channel and scroungers coming here to get free hotel stay and access to our health service (if it still exists by then). All over social media we had pictures of thousands on the runway in Kabul trying to board planes, even as they were taking off, falling helplessly to their deaths as they gained height. Shocking.

            This is what happens when the psychopaths and gangsters are running the neighbourhood. Our only chance is to wrestle the wheel from them.  Then pause! Stop and think.

Let’s plan a route away from the suicidal path we are on.

Start with some very obvious things, immediately cut to a four-day week.

Stop promoting the consuming of endless rubbish.

Start taxing the commons and make companies place a deposit before mining to cover the costs of reparations when they have finished.

Write off the debt of the Global South so they can prepare for the coming ecological onslaught that they had no part in engineering.

Ban tax havens and then tax billionaires till they squeal.

Nationalise all water Companies and Power Companies and Grids.

Pay a decent state pension so oldies can actually retire instead of taking jobs which younger people could do, the money is a multiplier and just goes straight back into the economy.

Close all Public (private) Schools and educate our citizens properly (it will never happen whilst the elite can opt out).

Promote the arts, sciences, things that make life worth living.

Teach kids ecology and how to have a social relationship with the natural world, let them do some gardening, kids actually love it.

Start rewilding parts of the UK, we could start with Grouse Moors. Upland sheep farmers could be made countryside stewards with the same subsidies we give them to allow sheep to keep the uplands denuded of trees and wild areas.

Create a National Forest the length and breadth of the UK.

Ban all external funding for MP’s and remove the House of Lords replacing it with a people’s assembly.

Ban deep sea trawling, remove our nuclear weapons, we don’t need them.

Set up a doughnut economy with doughnut cities.

Link executive pay to the pay of the lowest worker in the organisation.

The list of what we could do is endless, it just needs vision. Draw up a Marshal type plan to work with other governments toward a common goal, which is now, survival.

We cannot afford Capitalism anymore. Until we realise that, we are heading to oblivion. The upcoming COP26 will be lots of hot air and happy clapping, then Biden will go home and announce more drilling, Putin will start to mine in Siberia and the Chinese will still be our offshore factory churning out more tat, whilst Bolsanaro lays waste to the Amazon. You know they will. Then as the power of the US wanes, and that of China grows, the receding power will want to start a war. Possibly a little trial run with Iran first but then inevitable with China. And it will be the last one. The gangsters are insane. It’s time to change them

            On Sunday, Joan and I went for a walk along a local nature trail. In the hour and a half walk we saw only four butterflies, a few bees and a couple of hoverflies. Hardly any birds and no mammals. It is a dessert. We are already in deep, deep shit. Keep washing your hands.

Gordon Liddle was born 1956, Horden, County Durham, United Kingdom Married, lives and works at his Derbyshire studio. BA Hons, Sheffield Psalter Lane Art College Gordon has had numerous positions and travelled extensively through the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Yemen, Lebanon, Bahrain, Africa and Europe, with particular interests in religion, democracy, politics, economics, MMT, and culture. The results of these studies form the basis of the series of works now under way. Numerous works bought by private collectors #Madonna Victorian Mood Bought by Andrew Cavendish the 11th Duke of Devonshire is owned by the Chatsworth Collection. ‘Celestial Teapot’ was exhibited at La Galleria Pall Mall in London for one week in 2013, 4 days at Art Basel in 2014. Currently working on Gaia, The Sixth Extinction Series, of paintings, woodcuts and hopefully etchings soon. Also writing two books and a book of poems and rants. Gordon is on Twitter @sutongirotcip and his website is pictorignotus.com 

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