Apocalyptic Politics (by sarah)

Politics and world news is not brilliant at the moment - on seeing that a climate change denier has been appointed to a roll that is ludicrous and in the wake of the Nice attack, the American elections mirroring Stephen Kings The Dead Zone, and how you cook frogs so they are tender - this poem happened in my head. So I am sharing it.

The apocalypse began so slowly
we did not notice it
it was a slow slide
and we thought we were on the upside
Instead we plunged down
And found ourselves at the bottom
of a well of pain.

Dystopia had arrived whilst we slept
Eyes closed to the reality at hand
Televisions glaring
Music blearing
Internets swearing
Masking the sounds of warning
And as we became aware
One at a time
No one would believe our cries
The please
Each of us was afraid and on our own

Tides kept turning
So you were sometimes the good
Sometimes the bad
No one was safe
All and everything the enemy
And the time ticked slowly
Pulling each and every one of us
Down further
Into the mire
Where our feet stuck
Our hearts sunk

Emotions denied
Ripped at the bodies of us
Shredding self and foe alike
The Earth baked and froze
Flooded and crumbled
Useless dust and dank mud
Rotting roots
Blighting leaves
GM could not save us now
masks of annihilation in the crowd

It tore us down
This end of the world
Seeping undetected
Unbidden
but not unwanted
No never that
People crowed for it
in the streets
Washing with blood
Stones that should have been foundations
Sooth sayers entralls
garrotted them all
As they swung from town halls
And winnowing trees

Nothing but skeletal hands
Reached to the sky
Waiting in the half light
Of half lives
Toxic and consumed
Twisted in decadence
Hiding the hunger
Of nutrition and health

Everything decayed
Sprouting moments of agony
The seas over turned
Ice caps melted
Crop fields were salted
By the tears
Everyone was to blame
No one shouldered it
And the world fell
City after town after village
Death consumed them
Ripping flesh from bone
Stringing out the flesh
In sinu-y ribbons
To snag those
Who had managed to hover above

The devastation rose up
Gnawing at the sky
Until it turned black
Burn all the oil
No vaccinations here
Their suffering is not real
Not as real as me and mine
nuke 'em
nuke them all!

And the horizons drew
A line
At the sound of a whip
Super sonic
Boom

It started with small things
The end of the world
Little insignificances
They grew
Each was stoppable
Reversible
Until the tipping point
Cascaded
Medicines stopped working
Or pulled behind the pay walls
Hidden remedies
It began yesterday
It began decades ago
It began with the first thought
It begins tomorrow
It begins right now
It is always happening
Armageddon

That doesn't mean
We should not fight
The hopeless fight
Fight it
In peace and love
For they are our graces
And our only saviours now

Paid-Mockracy (by sarah)

Bricks are being thrown through windows as part of in party fighting, and the leadership contests show us just how bad our democracy is. We need to fix it and not break it further - people are saying they are tired of democracy that they don't want mob rule, well that is an issue with education and access to information not a reason to take votes away. Yes people are actually suggesting IQ test and for people to have to pay to vote so only those "serious" about it can take part.

On top of that we are seeing that those who decide the leaders of our political parties are not the voters, not the supporters but those who have enough money to pay for the right to vote. This is a barrier - this is inequality, it is part of the broken system. I have written this poem as a warning and a reminder of what taking away votes actually means, what happens in countries where that happens. And also that it is not your neighbour who voted different to you that is to blame but our politicians who have mostly slunk off to leave others to sort out the mess.

Paid-Mockracy

Paid-mockracy
Part of the lock and key
Chain and stock
of Slavery
To "counteract" plebiscite democracy
Is this really what you want to see?

An intellectual elite
Is sweet
Like rotting meat
Cos my family are no
dimmer than me
with my degree
I was just lucky
I got to go to university

And that's part of the problem
With no safety net to catch
Futures can be snatched
Pushed back down
Never to bloom
Stunted in the ground
Because its hard
No one hands you
A get out of jail free card
When there's no bank of mum and dad
It doesn't make you bad
but career is a pipe dream
When you are floundering in the stream
Drowning

No buffer to fall back on
Yes if you make it you are strong
But you shouldn't have to be
Exclusion is exclusion
and that is wrong
Like taking the vote
Off of "little scrotes"
Without bothering to ask why
Without checking the stats
On who and how we die
Of socio-economic class
And how getting by
Makes you pass
The chance of better
It's a gamble
Gambling's for tools
When it's not just your future
On the line

You can climb out the poverty pit
Fooled ya!
Can't believe you fell for that shit

So think

When you take the vote away
When you make people pay
That's tyrannies way

Paid-mockracy
Is paid for in blood
Yours and mine
Whilst fat cats dine
On the wine
Of generational wealth
Dynastic stealth
Toast to monarchies health

Violence rocks the boat
Bloated faces gloat
At what they have or have not done
This road is short and a dreadful one
We know the destination
It ends in devastation

Human rights anulled
Sold
To the highest bidder
Who's the winner?
When the masses are sent to war
Because you know who dies?
That's right the poor
In shit and gore

Those with little to loose
Those who don't get to choose
Those powerless against
convincing rouse
Societal's short fuse
Whilst the comfy snooze
And the desperate booze
Their way to an early grave
Which is still later than our young brave

The unknown solider
Who shoulders the blame
Of buildings caved in
Of genocide's sin
Self mutilation
Of nations
Self cannibalism to win

Nothing

Paid-mockracy
Is eating us from within.

Secret Art Project (by sarah)

So I have a Patreon account - the idea is that people can basically sponsor me to create art, poetry, science etc... at the moment I am posting the progress of a secret art project up on there. Though the art work will eventually go live for everyone to see you are looking at a year or so I think but if you are a patreon then you can see how and when the project progresses - this is only fair as it is money from this platform that has allowed me to buy the art supplies I need for said project.

There will be extras for the higher paying patreons as well 🙂

Also it is not the only thing - often my stories and poems appear on there before they go public as well.

One secret art project.

Brex-Shit (by sarah)

I've made a colouring sheet, the first in a series I have planned of political satire. The series is going to lay everything bare and brutal, including both sides' prejudices.

Brex-Shit

I am on the remain "side" but know the horse has bolted revealing horrible maggots of racism, classism and a few other isms which I thought we had mainly vanquished. I feel I no longer belong in my home, rejected by my origin, and yet "my" side mock where I come from.

My home/origin - I am ashamed, Romford, ASHAMED!

Out has ruined my kids future; Remainers did not listen when I said you are alienating the working class. Hell, they were alienating me!

I belong to no one and nothing now - not even Europe with the likely sources of funding for my Science-Art and the outreach I like doing with poetry etc... being scrubbed out I am not hopeful for Cuddly Science nor The Muse Monsters Literary stuff. The government does not have a good track record of funding these things, ie Science and Art; the EU did.

It wouldn't be so bad if they were actually going to give the EU money the NHS as they said they would, but they've already back pedalled on that one.

All I wanted to do was help the next generation see that, regardless of background etc., science was for them, that they had a future. And now I am not even sure they do have a future. So yes I am angry and I am struggling with forgiveness because there was a fight down our street, outside my house, which there has never been before.

Our nearest Tesco's has had racists shouting at the tills, I'm having to explain what is going on to my kids. I am having to assure them it will be fine but I don't know if it will be. I am trying to check my neighbours are ok because they are eastern europeans and there is hate swirling around - they are the best neighbours I've ever had and they are my friends.

I have had arguments I thought I would never have, seen the ugly fascist belly of people I call peeps, people I trusted and love. I feel my country is in ruins, my future, my kids' future dashed, I watch as the people I went to university with face their research - some of it life saving - being axed.

For the first time ever I am thinking of moving out of the country; 52% voted out, that is half the population and out of that half I do not know what proportion are the scary flag-waving fist-punchers and who are the bystanders and who are the secret agreers and enablers of this hatred.

My husband has a non-English sounding name, he speaks what sounds like a foreign language - I almost did not allow him to learn it as I feared a time like this as the warning signs began to appear when I was pregnant with Jean. But we will not be cowered and so I encouraged him with it and he teaches the kids. It is a constructed language, but bigots don't know that, and nor do I think they care. So I now fear we'll get more than a house egging and more than the verbal rant in the chip shop as people mistake him for an immigrant. And he's lucky because he's white so they don't know until he opens his mouth or they see his name in full.

When your eldest asks you worried questions about refugees because the playground talk has been ugly about them being dangerous when you've been collecting clothes for the refugee kids... you know something is wrong, so very very wrong.

I should have been more verbal before the referendum but I did not want to fall out with people, I just told them quietly how our livelihoods were tied into the EU and I stupidly thought they would listen.

No one listened to me, not on either side. So yes I am angry and mainly I am angry at the politicians who took to the public vote something that they should have been brave enough to decide themselves. Now there is a hornets nest shaken and stirred and the hornets are stinging.

It's a mess, a right royal mess or is that sovereignty? What ever it is we now have to exit Europe because to not do so makes a shame of our democracy - whether we can or should go back in is something else.

And I watch the pound drop, I watch the knock on effects across Europe and try to shut out the parallels with world wars and I see trillions wiped off the global economy and think about how we will be really lucky if we are not, all bar the super super rich, a hell of a lot worse off.

As I said I am struggling with forgiveness, I feel my husband is now in danger as well as my neighbours, I am seeing bullying on all sides. The UK is broken, shattered and I can't see how it is going to recover - I hope it's quickly.

I want my country back, not this nazi nightmare.

So I am doing the only things I know how and that is trying to make the world a better place and creating art about these issues.

There are daemons of my own like the knot of feelings over working class and university - and the unique mix of these thing that is me, but that is for another time.

Enjoy the colouring.

Brexit (by alaric)

I think the best analysis of the possible consequences, whichever way the referendum went, was this: Martin Lewis' guide to voting in the EU referendum.

In other words, nobody really had any good arguments as to which was better - in or out. The EU has costs and benefits. The problem is, the referendum wasn't about whether Britain would be better in or out; it was about whether Britain should remain or leave, which is a slightly different point. The differences is: the cost of change also enters the equation. Given that the consequences of being in or out are unclear, the question becomes: Is it worth the costs of leaving?

Personally, I don't think so: Even though the consequences either way were unclear, I suspect that the average outcomes are probably slightly better if we'd stayed in. All the talk of immigration (we still need immigration to afford to look after our ageing population), sovereignty (the British parliament is hardly more accountable to us than the European one), and £350m a week were largely red herrings, spectres summoned to try and mislead the population; the real issues were far subtler and more pedestrian.

But that difference between the best predictions of the impacts of staying or leaving on our quality of live are small compared to the cost of change. Today's drop in the value of the pound and British shares is not a measure of the predicted economic weakness of a non-EU UK; it's a measure of the uncertainty as to how effective British business will be, and how easy it will be for multinational corporations to operate in Britain. The world cannot predict how fiscal and commercial relationships with Britain will be in five years, let alone ten or more, and those are the kinds of periods over which major investments are planned; so that investment will be directed to safer places. Maybe Britain will become a new economic powerhouse without EU regulations - or maybe it will become a dingy backwater. The world doesn't know, so it's moving its money elsewhere. Funnily enough, that reduces the chances of Britain being able to become an economic powerhouse, because we're poorer to begin with.

Another effect that's far larger than any predictions of the effects of being in or out is the effect of the referendum process. We are now in a situation where half the country is furious with the other half for having ruined their country, and possibly the world. Meanwhile, that half is furious with the first half for having nearly prevented them from saving their country, and possibly the world. This is a rather toxic and explosive situation to now be attempting to plan what's going to happen over the next five years. Many decisions will be made based on personal grudges rather than rational consideration. Meanwhile, in the populace at large, a lot of resentment is simmering; if living conditions drop in ways that are attributable to our leaving Europe, the half of the population that voted for it will be considered personally responsible for ruined lives. That could get nasty.

Another effect of the Leave result that probably dwarfs the actual cost of not being in the EU is that the result has emboldened the more right-wing figures in British politics. Folks who have traditionally acted in the interests of big business and the rich, while cynically appealing to the fears of the masses in order to get their way. I'm concerned that their influence - previously more rhetorical than actual - will grow in the political changes coming, which could have negative long-term consequences.

So, I'm sad on many levels about how this referendum turned out; but I wouldn't have been very much happier if we'd voted to remain.