Wankered John's Taxonomy of Capitalism

Look guys, when I say "Taxonomy" I'm not talking about stuffing dead animals.

There's an idea floating round the Media Construct right now that drug cartels represent the system of capitalism in its purest form.

A clever guy has introduced this idea in a book. And it's doing very well. So capitalism is working for him at least.

I just wanted to toss my penny's worth into the pot:

Capitalism isn't a system, dude - it's just a bunch of people who've lost their sense of humour:

A PUNTER – who pays for something to happen

A CHIEF – who demands that something happen

A FIXER – who creates the conditions under which something can happen

AN ANALYST – who describes how something might happen

A BLAGGER – who promises that something will happen at some point if only they are given the right amount of cash

A MINION - who actually makes something happen

An ARTIST - who tells the truth about what does happen

A COMEDIAN - who tells the truth about what does happen by describing what might happen

---------------------

The list goes on.  Where do you fit in?  Where do I fit in, man?

I'd like to pretend I'm a Minion. But I'm not going to lie to myself.

I'd say then I was a cross between an Analyst and a Blagger, but that would make me a politician - so throw that idea in a muddy ditch and call it roadkill.

I'll have to settle for being a Nobody.

I'm outside the System.

You can't taxonomize my species, dude.  Let's face it, you can't even tax me.

Who else is digging holes and telling tales?

Good luck to the Association of Reluctant Groundworkers (ARG!) and their plucky ploy to rinse a few quid out of the government with a story they made up in tea-break.

But let's remember one thing:

Its not the fatuous fraudsters from ARG! that are the problem here.  
And nor is it the terrorists for whose prosecution the government are prepared to "do cash", no questions asked.

The problem we have in this country isn't ISIS.

It's how we see ISIS.

And thanks to the government, we're scared of ISIS. We're scared of Syrian refugees.  We're scared of anybody we're told to be scared of.

Its old.

There's "no skool like the old-skool" when it comes to a lot of things - but geo-political strategy isn't one of these things.

Fear is, like, so Twentieth Century.

And if there's a weapon-crazed pack of reactionaries we should be scared of, it is - of course - our own government.

They're digging a hole for us we can do without.

And (unlike our friends from ARG!), they won't stop for anything.

Right now, British bombers are flying half-way round the world to bomb the shit out of people on the off-chance that they might turn up here and bomb us.

We've got the cart before the horse.  If there's one thing likely to make foreign folk take up arms against us, its raining death on their loved ones from the skies.

So let's all chill for a moment.

Let's stop worrying about things that haven't happened yet. 

Let's start accepting that there will always be a bogeyman the politicians can conjure up to camouflage their own failings.

And let's see ARG!'s attempt to secure the ISIS "terror pot" on the basis of palpably false evidence as a work of political art; of elegant, yet unconscious, protest; of dynamic, salt-earth satire - as, above all, a vital repudiation of a fear-mongering foreign policy that should long ago have been dead and buried.

Its the work-shy wits from ARG! who are up to the job.  Well done lads.  You've spoken for us all - whether you know it or not.

May your trenches be forever straight; may your taxes be forever bent; and may your strikes be forever ... well, forever.  

Wankered John plea: "Leave the Police alone"

It is all too easy to lambast the Police.  But making generalisations about any group is dangerous, particularly when that group is authorised to carry batons.  

But batons are not the point.  The point is that the need to condemn, to pass judgement, on any civic body is - although understandable - indicative of insecurity on the part of the condemner.

A friend once told me, "look to thine own shit before you hassle me about mine."  

And he was right.

Leave the Police alone.  They are the necessary enforcement adjunct of most forms of government.  They often deserve criticism.  But they often deserve praise.

Get your own shit together and you won't feel that you need to strike out (often unfairly) at a force you perceive to be more powerful than yourself.