Wichita Lineman Was A Song I Once Heard

Allowing this blog to become too current affairs centric makes it more boring than it usually is, and depressing, for me and anyone who has the misfortune to happen upon it.

Still, certain topics reach such enormity that it’s cowardly to avoid them. I was working on posting something else (I’ve shelved it for next month) when Israel decided to “pre-emptively” attack some of Iran’s military installations and its nuclear enrichment facilities.

Amid this chaos those of a certain vintage will be reminded of the shambolic pre-amble that led up to the invasion of Iraq. The differences in the casualness of the discourse surrounding a mooted ground war between 2003 and 2025 are quite stark. This time there’s no 9/11 attacks looming in the rear-view mirror to help justify it, plus back then the threat of Islamic terrorism was somewhat new. Nobody knew how to deal with it.

The mainstream media largely avoiding critiquing why this Israeli attack was happening was jarring. We went straight to the ratified narratives and assumed processes – should other Western countries get involved? This was posited in a glib “let’s get the gang back together” manner. Then Iran’s retaliation became an “opportunity” to initiate a regime change. Given the West’s catastrophic track record of geopolitical invasions, coups and wars post WW2, that this was approached so matter-of-factly beggared belief.

My naivety, perhaps? Are the mainstream media now despondent at their waning influence? They mattered more in 2003, as useful idiots “45 minutes from attack” to help justify a decision that had already been made to invade. The deranged Tony Blair and your favourite centrist dad Alastair Campbell confected or embellished lies about WMDs and then Sadaam that were just plausible enough that most politicians could back them without feeling embarrassed. The purpose was to create the illusion of a consensus, at least politically, and to convey a conviction that this was a moral cause.

I’d argue that misguided foray helped embolden the headbanging lunatics that populate public life today. They and the right-wing political commentators and politicians are not even concealing their intent and have largely dispensed with elaborately contrived psyop alarms, myths or propaganda to convince us this is necessary – it’s a hard sell anyway, the threat that Iran’s attempting to make a nuke is hollow now that it’s in its fourth decade. The tone is also different – demented and dismissively condescending rather than seeking affirmation; “We’re in charge. What you plebs think is fucking irrelevant”.

Sadly, that’s true. This is a consequence of the widening stratification in society. There’s always been elites, but even in the digital age, they’ve never been as sequestered from public scrutiny as they are now; the rich and lobbying class, plus those politicians and client hacks who do their bidding. The key to embedding this neo-liberalist project was populating politics with feckless, timid middle-managerial types, who lack any nous, gumption or authority. Various hues of ineffectual neo-liberalism must be all that’s offered. Maintaining this requires the illusion of choice for the electorate, and any dissenting voices attempting to challenge this paradigm are demonised, ridiculed or ostracised, see Corbynism.

Another example is the destruction of Gaza, its overwhelming unpopularity among the UK public is completely irrelevant to what benefits those in power. The government is completely unwilling to change its position despite the death toll. Apparently, we, the public, are in the wrong on this, but they can’t, won’t, or don’t have to explain why. Selling arms to Israel and running spy flights from Cyprus? Totally fine. Protestors “attacking” an RAF base with paint? Kneecap shouting “Free Palestine” and Bob Vylan chanting “Death to the IDF” at Glastonbury? That’s beyond the pale, “hate speech” according to Keir Starmer, and subject to a crackdown.

That perverse juxtaposition of inverted morality partly explains why trust in politics has been completely eroded. We know the Labour cabinet is capable of deducing that what’s happening in Gaza is depraved, but have chosen to lie explicitly to place self-interest above public opinion and any moral imperative to do the right thing.

Social media makes it’s easier for them to bluff their way through contentious issues and spread mistruths, and most of the political class simply aren’t good enough to resist the temptation to weaponize it. Just look, we’re bound to become apathetic, or confounded, as we’re being saturated with their bullshit on every topic. Be it obscure culture war dross, immigration bogeyman fables, small boats, grooming gangs, demonising the most poor and vulnerable groups, Nigel fucking Farage, spending cuts for local services while we provide military hardware and assistance for Israel, exhausting debates surrounding government wastage, inefficiency and perpetual welfare and taxation reform that are designed to never solve the problem and misdirect us from the causes.

For politicians, Trumpian style denial and obfuscation, even bluster is the essence of political power in 2025, where it was sanctimony, earnestness, at times hubris in 2003. The bigger difference comes in messaging. Backing down, no matter how unpopular your position is or the dubious motivations for holding that position, is viewed as capitulation, and if it’s to truth, to popular opinion, to common sense, as a form of weakness.

That the sinister ban on foreign journalists in Gaza is accepted in 2025 is a scandal, and a huge shift from 2003. Most troublingly it is the clearest indication that this is what the those in power in the UK and other countries aligned with Israel consider to be the acceptable behaviour of an ally. They’ve learned the lessons from 2003. You don’t have to excuse what isn’t seen or conceded.

When you’re prepared to accept the killing of a group targeted as inferior, as vermin, as disposable in the name of colonialism, you’ve crossed a Rubicon. We hear constantly that Iran is a deplorable regime, fundamentalist Islam breeds terrorist groups such as Hamas, but what’s happening in Gaza is equally extreme and the malignant ideology motivating it is couched as “self-defence”. That’s a problem, and if you’ve allowed them to get away with this, what incentive does the Israeli government have to stop there? Is it possible that the inert, feeble attempts to end the destruction of Gaza, and the laughable response of calling for de-escalation with Iran, will only further embolden Netanyahu’s unhinged bloodthirst. What craven response to more bombing or mass killing comes next? And how many people will die as a result?

Neo-liberal uniformity has developed an apathetic individualism, weakened democratic processes and with a captured, insipidly diminished media, has allowed those who truly own and run the country to pursue an increasingly aggressive and authoritarian campaign, economically and culturally, against the masses. Where and what’s the recourse? That’s what’s so concerning, we’ve reached a collective agreed capitulation from all sides that anything goes, for them.

Maybe we’re so mediocre, so discombobulated, so cucked, that we’re getting close to War truly meaning Peace. Freedom is Slavery? Well, inequality keeps increasing, but I’ve nearly paid off my mortgage! Then I’ll be free, from…that. How about Ignorance is Strength? Where do we sign up, or have we already?