TALKING POLITICS

Their system is on the verge of collapse.
The mounting debts have made vulnerable.
Its rotten core, unpalatable fact.
The cost of the greed, inestimable.

Importantly, it is incompetent.
It does not work for the majority.
Tax for public good, it seeks to prevent.
Austerity, cause of more poverty.

Many have seen through it, and don’t want it.
Know there is a better way to manage.
Want work, and be properly paid for it.
About rip-offs, scathing and disparage.

The system can’t sustain prosperity.
Urge is for a fairer democracy.

It is fundamentally an untruth
that private businesses will be better
at doing public work. Plenty of proof
that worse, by what matters as a measure.

Quality does. It’s not just about cost.
Cheap price means minimum, then add-ons add.
For many big jobs, competition’s lost,
then, for the taxpayer, the price is bad.

Supposed to take the risk, but walk away.
Function for profit. Bottom line that counts.
Pensions stolen; the workers’ deferred pay.
The burden on the public themselves, mounts.

Production, at expense of public health;
like lead in fuel, kept high oil moguls’ wealth.

Treated as an overseas adventure.
Helping stricken natives in the process.
Being bountiful is what are there for.
So what, then, if privately precocious.

Sent there because there’s been devastation.
Contribution toward recovering.
Non-government, but nation to nation.
Goodwill. Personal chance discovering.

So, keep trade going in prostitution.
Encourage co-workers at sex parties.
Under cover of the institution,
charitable to the children one sees.

Work hard and play hard, with plenty of sex.
Aid is dispensed, with exploitation next.

It is a cultural gender divide,
the separation in institutions.
Overall equality is denied,
despite sometimes greater contributions.

Religions, corporates, at high levels,
administration and military.
Appointments, via man-to-man, revels.
Not even merit. That’s arbitrary.

And pay, of course, ridiculously low
for women given the menial jobs.
Just look and the iniquity will show.
Females’, it’s clear, prevailing system robs.

Womens’ Day focus on what’s mattering.
Billboard held says “Ugh, where do we begin.”

Be better off without the billionaires.
They accrue to themselves far too much wealth.
Distort how life is lived everywhere,
whether it’s done overtly, or by stealth.

These grotesques are massively overpaid.
They provide far less than they are given.
It’s their insatiable greed that’s man-made,
whether they are lazy or are driven.

The money rolls-in, in their interest.
And politics paid-for, for this to stay.
Having to pay their taxes, they detest.
Helping the less well-off, why should they pay?

Accumulators’ notoriety
Billionaires, cankers in society.

Their commonality of interest
is possession of huge amounts of wealth.
By no limit on acquiring, impressed.
Accumulation being for themself.

Rip-off, whilst in power, perpetual.
And near-impossible to shift from it.
Political change just conceptual.
Few new ones let in, as old ones exit.

But, Billionaires Club of America,
Middle East, Britain, Europe and Russia.
Dictator, even if mass murderer,
place in this tribe of gangsters can procure.

It is their private globalisation.
Matters more than peoples’ of own nation.

There are arrangements to buy people off.
Managers, called ‘captains of industry’.
Private or public, get paid such a lot.
Capitalism, for them, made easy.

Privatisation, a public handout
for placemen to determine own rewards;
contract for themselves and not be found out,
as less disclosure the system affords.

Are lots of them in many professions,
but few relative to the populace.
Political cover, the intention,
so the case for greed, many will embrace.

This privilege embedded to secure
inequality only; nothing more.

Deep State actors, hugely influential.
Can embark on a course, unmodified.
For causing trouble, have the potential.
By their role, adverse actions be applied.

Spies, the obvious ones, for a purpose.
But public servants, .. all sorts .., where decide.
Some private interests, introduced first,
political choices may over-ride.

These Deep State elements may set the course.
Claim it’s the rational, sensible, one.
Assume what rulers would want. They’re the source.
So however bad it is, it is done.

Then, on the route to harshness, even war.
Hidden within, rottenness at State’s core.

Anti-Semitism is more widespread
than amongst leftish Labour supporters
who think they are anti Israel instead,
but who’s anti- Jews talk, soils the waters.

Arguing for Palestinian rights,
and against occupation of their land,
is a cause reasonable to excite,
but hostility to Jews, the wrong stand.

Yet, far more dangerous anti-semites
lurk, with their prejudice, in the spectrum.
In place in the mainstream and the far-right.
Stoking blame on scapegoats, the intention,

to boost populist forms of fascism
and block equality, with this schism.

Women are nearly free, I imagine
from them walking in the street and shopping.
It’s surely a freedom of a fashion.
In this mode, it seems have nothing stopping.

But, living problems amass like fetters.
Problems with money and work conditions.
Being short-changed, quite often distresses.
Affected by others’-made decisions.

Parents, partners, children, may cause worry,
and duty of care, too, be burdensome.
Of some men, as well, have to be wary.
The perfect romance simply may not come.

And if it does, may only be short-lived.
Limits on women, more than I’ve perceived.

‘Post-democracy’, a fair description.
Only remnants from past pluralism.
Deceptions in place blur the distinction
with power-elites, but a wide schism.

Have assumed overall ascendancy,
individual and corporate rich.
Theirs, privilege to rule, expectancy.
Extended influence, control and reach.

The trappings remain, manipulated
or left as inconsequential complaint.
Instead, what’s become extrapolated
from politics, is what our rulers paint.

And they’ll be rich-sets’ representatives
usurping choice for their priorities.

Occupation by force, and then enshrined.
Challenge brushed aside as irrelevant.
With the mainland territory, combined.
Fact that, before, free, treated as dissent.

Many cases of this usurpation.
China’s takeover of Tibet, one such.
To Russia, Crimea’s integration.
Palestine’s land, Israel has taken much.

Further back, the U.S. stole Hawaii.
Aggressor countries, this way, expanded.
Gobbled up the neighbour’s land entirely.
Complete integration is demanded.

This, then, localised colonisation.
All rights assumed by the taking nation.

Increase defence spending, the bleat! What for?
To subdue thought-possible aggressors,
repel invasion, deter full-scale war.
Such paranoia meant to impress us.

But enough spent already, and that’s fact.
In order to threaten, then, a purpose.
To ensure terms of trade for us are stacked.
And resources abroad controlled for us.

To occupy. Be based in foreign lands.
To profit from weaponry production.
To glorify military elan;
Institutional means of destruction.

At home, used to maintain peace and quiet,
putting down insurrection and riot.

Addiction is incredibly useful
as a means to maintain subjugation.
For the ruling authority, a tool
to keep distracted most of the nation.

Well known are drugs, tobacco, alcohol.
All sorts of medication, prescription
and over-the-counter. Dependable
for self-examining introspection.

But so much more. Radio and TV.
Entertainment and news and sport; must sees.
Home and its contents, food, shops, and coffee.
Phones, cars and travel, events … goodness me.

Gambling as well, and sex subversively.
Deflect will to change politically.

The latest political phrase, just heard,
“virtue signalling”. Manipulating
the policy. Can’t do it now, inferred,
whilst a ‘good intention’ indicating.

Like clearing-up plastic waste pollution.
Proposals to do it now, minimal.
Does not represent a real solution,
so long-term goal announced. Quite cynical.

The industrial process for profit
holds sway in the political world now,
so even as worsening, won’t stop it;
and future burden may be disavowed.

Wishful thinking, sometime, don’t say ‘never’.
Virtue signalling, though, won’t deliver.

It is myth, the alleged art of the deal.
As if equal parties reach agreement.
May disguise what is, in effect, a steal.
Mutual benefit, not the intent.

Or the outcome, if action beforehand,
which treats one side as an adversary,
causing all manner of trouble to land.
To slant the terms, this thought necessary.

And so, on countries, imposed are sanctions.
Put under the cosh, it is claimed to deal.
Made hostile, economic relations,
for surrender later, as brought to heel.

Sanctions, thereby, are now a pre-war tool.
Call for a new deal, only meant to fool.

Want a say for the billions put-down,
Invested, laundered, … and the fees that earns.
Has influence, as it is spread around.
Bankers, lawyers, politicians, take turns

to secure safely, and yet still be spent,
without examination of the source.
And, evading taxation, an intent.
Their, and their companies, personas false.

And when they feel almost untouchable,
step out of the woodwork with donations
and purchases as though are integral
to the life of their ‘adopted’ nation.

But, it’s symbiotic, … parasitic.
And distorts democracy to fit it.

It is called Brexit. Britain exiting
the European Union. Brexit.
That body, Britain no longer be in.
From that state of states, formally exit.

Except it is not a formality.
Agreement on the going, difficult.
What different sides want, disparity.
Not as simple as initially thought.

The terms for a fair trade much disputed.
Money saved or spent dependant on it.
Trade and more, whether or not included.
Lucky if get out of it a sonnet.

Does not mean have to revert to remain.
Just an awful lot to rhyme and explain.

De-democratisation is rampant.
Going on apace in democracies.
‘Alleged democracies’, is what I meant.
Distorting the result, basically.

Of course, many countries where there’s no votes,
And those where are, the supreme leader stays.
Where ‘shaped’ information makes choice a joke.
Where money disproportionately plays.

Then there are methods to disenfranchise.
Strict rules, to keep off voting register.
Big wins in single seats, but not the prize.
Loaded ‘college’, and judges, deliver.

Lets minority win. A mockery
of what understand as democracy.

Is there a phrase for the situation?
A few words that sum up the pudding mix?
That succinctly give an indication?
A saying that for the time-being, sticks?

How about ‘incomplete, inadequate,
and inconsequential’? That sum it up?
Incompetent, so not immaculate.
One ear cocked to hear the mighty corrupt.

‘Nothing has changed’, the blurt, when failure here.
An expensive, unsatisfactory
morass, that have managed to engineer;
amounting to assault and battery.

Already damaged by austerity,
the country now made to run on empty.