We live in a Blame Society now. Except there's a caveat, the blame has to be aimed at anyone but those who deserve it. We live in a world where, for the sake of an argument, a government can take credit for bringing inflation down, but is somehow exempt from scrutiny if inflation sky rockets. We should be asking the question - if a government can bring inflation down, is it responsible for it going up? But we don't, because the narrative we're fed from right wing media - whether that is the press, social media or any of the 'entertainment' mediums - is that there's always someone else who is responsible before those who are actually responsible.
The world is going to crash and burn; if you're not aligned to populist bullshit, you can see it thundering towards us like an express train out of control. The problem the planet has is 25 years ago there were enough conscientious people, governments and media mouthpieces for us to care. However the 21st century has seen the rise of disinformation and belief politics to the point where countries will elect political parties that don't necessarily sit naturally with their political beliefs but are absolutely all over their emotional beliefs like a rash. It's why we're seeing a massive push back against climate change, but actually now it's not just our emotional beliefs that drive this, it's something altogether more selfish...
People are voting for and electing populist governments because the things they believe and disbelieve in are mirrored by that political party, but it's not just that. After many years of struggling, the average person looks at climate change, public services and, sadly in many cases, those who are worse off than themselves as something that is going to cost them. Climate change means making sacrifices and paying more for things like new heating or vehicles and to make it worse they're expected to have wind turbines or pylons in or near their land. The cost of saving the planet is too much for people who see their fuel bills rising all the time and money they believe should be going to them going to asylum seekers, or that well know misnomer 'illegal immigrants'. It was something Margaret Thatcher started, but it has been turned into an art form in the 21st century - hate they neighbour because they might have something you deserve more.
Things are not helped by people seeing renewable energy as something that should be cheaper than existing energy sources, but bills continue to go up and to make matters worse, people see massive dividends being paid to shareholders then energy companies saying they have to raise bills to pay for the new green infrastructure that is needed. No one ever tells Mr Averagely Ignorant that his bills are coming down, always that they need to go up. Why else would people be resistant to change?
The same applies to public services. people don't want to pay higher taxes for things they might not use themselves. Why should they pay for education when they have no children? Why should they pay for social services when they don't use them? Why should they pay for 'illegal immigrants' and asylum seekers when these people should be where they belong, sorting out their own problems? Why pay more for public services if they don't use libraries or go out at night or use buses or want access to a hospital or break the law? The list is probably endless, because if it means someone is not getting what they think they deserve then it's easier to blame others and remarkably these same people never blame a right wing government, but, as we have discovered since Labour was elected, they can blame them and that's largely down to the fact they are trying to fix a broken country, that isn't broken enough in the eyes of many people. These people know what the problem is, it's just all these woke lefties with their aspirations for fixing things that are only broken because of someone else. It is the
wanker paradox.
We learned with Brexit, the first coming of Trump and various other things in the last 10 years that people no longer give a flying fuck about the kind of world their children are going to inherit. For a number of generations who really never had it so good, they seem intent on insuring that today's children are metaphorically butt-fucked as hard as possible to make sure they understand that no one else is entitled to an easy ride because no one now wants to pay for what they have done, or more tragically, what they've ignored because... selfishness. The second coming of Trump might look like some existential nightmare, but really all that is going to happen is loads of federal money will not be spent where it should be and lots of rich people will get richer. people don't want to believe that Trump is likely to be worse than all the evil Democrats, so when he is it will just be left wing press bullshit and yes they might be getting poorer and their health is suffering, but it will probably be the Mexicans' fault.
We're seeing how crazy the world is and how much of its population view things this week with the farmer protests over the inheritance tax. I have a number of friends who are siding with the farmers, but they don't realise what they're doing is siding with millionaires over the good of the economy. I realise this is a contentious issue but if people rooting for the farmers were to actually look at the logistics behind this they would see that out of 108,300 farmers in the UK, this inheritance tax business will only apply to about 500 of them and that will only happen when the head of the farm household dies, and even then it will be only at a rate of 20% not the 40% that will be applied to other
very rich people. 107,800 farmers will not be affected by this and if they get close to the threshold then they have other things they can fall back on such as whether they're married and how much money they have in the bank - many farms that fall close to the £1million level would need to be worth in excess of £2.5million for the owners to pay this tax and only if they die. I'm seeing poor people backing the farmers
without knowing the actual facts - this is how we've got to where we are.
For every person you know that really knows whose fault everything is, there will be ten others that don't. It really is that skewed. So why were Labour elected then? Because regardless of what the press told you, the Tories became so toxic reasonable Tories voted Reform or not at all. It's why the Tories could become Britain's third or even fourth party in 2029, because Reform will replace them. Maybe not enough to have or win power, but enough to ensure that the UK and it's blame culture - the fastest growing in the western world - will move so far off topic that we will come up with newer and more inventive ways to blame others. As climate change destroys the planet, there will be more and more 'illegal migrations' and there will be more attributing blame because there will be less money to solve problems so more things will have to be blamed. The Labour Party could quite easily solve 95% of the 'Small Boats' problem, but it's actually a politically useful excuse to have out there. as long as they can continue to blame the people and not the causes then they'll fuel the ignorant beliefs that make it such a contentious (and useful) thing.
As long as change is going to cost money and as long as ignorant people think they're going to miss out then there will be no change for the good. What will happen is we will start to see, especially in the USA, people blaming the disabled, the severely disabled and the people incapable of looking after themselves. If someone is not contributing to society they become a burden; if someone is removed from contributing to society because of someone else who can't help themselves then they too will become the target of peoples' ire. The old will become fearful - not of freezing or starving to death, but of becoming a burden to society and before long you'll get some populist wag suggesting that there should be a compulsory death age if people haven't got the money or the whereabouts to look after themselves. It sounds crazy, but so have other 'normal' things we have now - that's essentially what 'cancel culture' means. The USA is a country that values life above everything else, but the basis for that life is that an unwanted embryo or foetus is more valuable than a person who can't fend for themselves and the people taken out of the works market because they have to care for someone else.
We're now seeing more and more countries pulling away from doing what is necessary to stave off the impending end of the world as we know it. The current COP29 assembly in Azerbaijan has been written off by many, especially as one of the organisers has been promoting his country as a great place for carbon fuel job creation. It's that stupid. But what else is stupid is populist governments don't solve problems because invariably they address the things that 'the people' want and then the profits from it go into the wrong peoples' pockets. The young are aware of this; many of them are fearful for their own futures or any future their children might have and while the people who run the world give one concession to climate change by saying if there is a problem the younger generation will come up with a way of solving it, they don't care about the damage being done now or the lives that will be lost because of it. I mean, you can just blame the weather.
I wish I had a solution, but I haven't. I'm 62 and don't work, but I live in a country that is better than the UK despite being part of it. I will probably only see the beginning of the end - if I'm not already - by the time the end comes in earnest there's going to be nothing you can do to stop it, so stock up on toilet paper, toothpaste and anything else you think you'll never see again; knit some jumpers and start growing your own food and hope that you don't have to blame the weather when it fails.
