Somehow this seems appropriate for these troubled times …
As I promised a few days ago I’ve again dusted off my crystal ball to see what this year could bring. After all it can’t be a lot worse than 2016 — or can it?
What follows is my best interpretation the misty images in the aforesaid crystal ball. I remind you that they are just my ideas of what could happen; they’re based solely on hunches and gut feel; I have no inside knowledge and I haven’t been studying the form — so if you base any decision on any of this I will take no responsibility for your for your wanton act of idiocy.
As before, I’ve divided the predictions into three sections: UK, Worldwide and Personal — the latter are documented but currently redacted.
UK
World
Personal
Personal predictions have been documented but are redacted to protect both the innocent and the guilty.
I wonder if I can do any better than my pathetic 32% score for 2016 — but I wouldn’t advise anyone to put any money on it!
And if you have any good predictions please do share them.
[Updated 7 January 2017]
A year ago I dusted off my crystal ball and made a few predictions about what would happen in 2016. Now the results are in. So how did I do?
UK
World
Personal
Six personal predictions were documented and can now be revealed:
At first sight it looks as if I did a little better than for 2015; 30% hit rate this year compared with just 25% last year. But then as last year sometimes being wrong is actually good.
I’ll bring you my predictions for 2017 in a few days time.
Brexit means what precisely? Or rather Brexit tells us what?
Forget “Brexit means Brexit”, that is no more than pure esoteric-mumbo-jumbo gold.
A few days before Christmas, Mark Easton, the BBC’s Home Affairs Editor, asked What did the Brexit vote reveal about the UK?
The answer was basically that it is a result of our dysfunctional political system and a cry for a return to proper democracy. Here are some key extracts:
The vote for Brexit was a thunderous rumble of national indignation, an outpouring of frustrated fury that shook the foundations of the British state. We misinterpret its meaning at our peril.
… … …
This was much more than a simple referendum about membership of the European Union. Neither Brussels bureaucrats nor Polish plumbers were really the motivation for a popular revolt unparalleled in almost five centuries.
This was an act of extraordinary defiance against a system that does not and will not listen to people’s concerns and anxieties … Our governance, our democracy, does not function properly. It is failing the people of this country. That is the message of Brexit.
… … …
Our politics is still routinely discussed in terms of left and right, workers and bosses, socialism and capitalism.
But look[ing] at the Brexit vote … these historic distinctions simply did not apply … The working class tended to vote Leave and yet most Labour supporters voted Remain. The professional middle-class tended to vote Remain but most Conservatives voted Leave.
… … …
I was very struck by the attitude of people I met in Port Talbot … What I [heard] were people who did not think anyone was listening to them. They felt powerless and ignored.
… Everything in Port Talbot depends on the steelworks and its future is decided by people whose names they do not know in a boardroom in Mumbai. Globalisation has robbed the people … of their voice …
There was a time when people up and down the land believed they had some kind of control over their destiny. But … Trade unionism has been neutered, local government is a shadow of its former self and political activism is … simply shouting into the wind. National elections are all but meaningless …
… … …
Decisions made in Westminster and Brussels resonate down to the supermarket shelves of Gloucestershire and local people do not feel they have had any say in the matter.
The Brexit campaign was centred on the idea of taking back control … a slogan that went far beyond the demand for control of our borders.
… … …
[T]he European Union was one obvious villain … It gives no impression of listening … national politicians are not listening either … Brexit was a cry of pain from a country that no longer believes that traditional democracy offers the answer.
… … …
[T]he challenge of Brexit [is] how to give people their voice … making that happen will require profound courage and imagination from our national political leaders because it necessarily means they give up some of their own power.
… … …
What the British people want … is a democracy honest enough to reveal the trade-offs and the complexities of contemporary politics, responsive enough to reflect nuanced opinions, and convincing enough that people believe they are genuinely connected to the decisions that affect their lives.
When we cut our ties with EU power, we must also reform Britain’s archaic power structures.
I think Easton may well be right. And as so often I couldn’t have expressed it better, hence the extracts.
To quote Robert Kubica, Everything is possible but everything will be difficult.
Interesting times we live in, innit!
The fight to get governments to decriminalise sex work (and sex workers) continues. Here’s a piece which highlights the views of Europe’s sex workers — most of whom are (voluntary, not trafficked) migrants.
major human rights organisations such Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the World Health Organization and several other United Nations agencies such as UN Women and the UNAIDS Advisory Group on HIV and Sex Work are also calling for the decriminalisation of sex work, noting that decriminalisation guarantees better working conditions, and reduces the social vulnerability and marginalisation of sex workers.
And as that implies many are now warning that the basic human rights — as covered, for instance, by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union — are being violated; and that those violations are state sanctioned the world over.
When are people going to wake up to what’s going on around us? It’s being done in our name, and yet how many of us agree with it?
OK, so here’s another nasty, not so little, piece of legislation from the UK government.
The new digital economy bill, which is currently going through parliament, intends to block websites hosting “unconventional” sexual content. So who decides what is conventional, and who will implement and police such a ban?
There’s a piece in yesterday’s Guardian (yes, again!) which tries to explain the What, how and why?
Now whether you like so-called pornography or not, this is worrying. The legislation is ill-conceived and appears to be not just draconian but also potentially arbitrary and ill-defined.
Worse, my personal belief is that it infringes freedom of speech (and belief) and I would agree with critics of the bill who say it is not the government’s place to police what kinds of consenting sex (or indeed anything else) can be watched by adults.
I continue to believe that pornography (unless violent, coercive or involving minors) has a valuable place, just as does the rest of the sex industry. You, personally, may find it distasteful — just as I find the idea of male-male sex distasteful — but that doesn’t mean either should be banned and I would always defend your right to indulge should you choose.
The whole of the English-speaking world has a history of drawing its rules of censorship much more tightly than continental Europe. But that changed with the internet allowing information to be streamed direct to our homes without restriction. And the English-speaking, puritan, nanny state doesn’t like it.
It’s time we started treating people like adults and allowing them to make up their own minds. But to do that requires us to invest in sensible education of our children, and isn’t it easier to keep them in ignorance and subjugated?
So-called pornography is not being forced down people’s throats. It is complete myth that the internet is awash with porn at every turn and it’s being gratuitously feed to every child in the land. Yes, it is there, but you (whatever your age) have to look for it. My systems have every available filter turned OFF and still I do not get a continual stream of emails offering me penis enlargement (surely fairly tame?) nor does every Google search bring up 27,000 pages sex videos and bestiality.
It is worrying enough to have the state control our sexual predilections but the fear is that this will go way beyond pornography; it is the first example of any liberal democratic country creating an internet censor. The fear is what such a framework could go on to be used for.
Yes, this is censorship and as such must be resisted.
Wake up, the coffee pot is bubbling on the stove.
There was a very depressing piece in yesterday’s Guardian from George Monbiot under a headline: The 13 impossible crises that humanity now faces.
Surprising as it may seem, given the frequency with which I refer to Monbiot, I don’t agree with everything he writes. And I don’t agree with all of this.
For instance I don’t buy his item 7: Job-eating automation. Automation never has reduced the demand for people and the number of jobs available. This was said about the industrial revolution and about computerisation. And in my view it has not turned out to be the case. What has happened is that the jobs have changed.
Notwithstanding the article is a worthwhile but sobering read, especially if you feel like you want to be depressed — or feel in need of a paradigm shift.
Kakistocracy
Government by the least qualified or worst persons.
There are no words. Just really there are no words for the mess we’re getting ourselves in.
And really what is this year doing to us?
First, the Great British people vote, in a non-binding referendum, to take the UK out of the EU, and the government treats the result as binding. As someone near me observed the other day, never overestimate the intelligence of the great British public.
Then earlier this week the American people elect Trump — a self-confessed misogynist, racist, bankrupt, megalomaniac bully — to be their next President.
What is it about people that has caused such apparently idiotic choices?
Well it seems to me that it is partly down to the fact that too many people these days feel deeply pissed off, abused and disenfranchised.
Add to that the fact we are tribal — however much we like to think we aren’t. (I wrote briefly about racism and tribalism a while back in my Five Questions series.)
This means that when people’s backs are against the wall they will default to following their tribal instincts: xenophobia, racism, aggression, bullying. And, as a gross generalisation, the less intelligent people are the easier they find it to slip into tribal mode; those who can (and do) think are more able to rationalise and counteract such tendencies (although, of course, not all do as they may give a higher weighting to protecting their vested interests).
Thus, it seems to me, when people are so deeply pissed off, they will tend to vote for the more right-wing (Fascist) choice. This, they think, will satisfy their emotional and tribal needs. Hence another UK Conservative government, hence Brexit and hence Trump. And that’s despite the fact that such situations are so often the ones which will disenfranchise people further.
There is another factor at play here too. It’s “we don’t like what we’ve got so we’ll vote for something different”. We’ll have a change — that’s any change! — as it must be better. In an essentially bipartite democracy (UK, USA) that just means whoever isn’t in power. [Although this doesn’t explain the current UK Conservative government.]
So maybe we shouldn’t find the current mess quite so surprising.
So what next?
Well if, as the old wives tale has it, “things come in threes” and the year isn’t over “until the fat lady sings” we have about 7 weeks to survive. We’ve had Brexit (with its fallout), now Trump. What’s going to be the third almighty cock-up we can inflict on ourselves?
Keeley on Facebook has suggested the third cock-up is the Columbians voting down the proposed deal with FARC. I don’t know — I don’t know enough about this to be able to judge — but it could well be a good contender. We shall see.
Meanwhile just hang on in there and push back against racism, abuse, bullying wherever you can; ‘cos 2017 just has to be a better year.
And 2016: May a thousand monkeys dance sideways on your grave!