How Bad Does It Have To Get?
Ben Wildsmith
Swimming through the bilge of world politics is becoming increasingly lowering. This week, we found that the UK government managed to endanger thousands of Afghans with a breach of email protocol that would get you or I fired from our jobs. ‘Please find attached the entire list of people who claimed to help us during the Afghan campaign, c.c. The Taliban.’
Closer to home, our First Minister gave an interview saying that an independent Wales would be ‘extremely poor.’ That’s from the Gerald Ratner school of leadership – ‘How can I accept the abject financial settlement offered to Wales by my own party in Westminster? Because Wales is total crap!
The USA continued its journey from preeminent world power to reality TV show as Donald Trump horrified his voters by denying that files on Jeffrey Epstein exist. Having fanned the flames of every batshit conspiracy going, from Obama’s birth certificate to Pizzagate, he’s bottled the big one for reasons upon which we can only speculate.
Bloodsport
Were Trump’s voting base to turn on him, it would truly be a bloodsport to witness, as the befuddled MAGAverse realises it’s betrayal. Praise the Lord and pass the AR15, Betty-Lou-Thelma-Liz, we’ve been fooled again!
Europe and the UK is poised to pour more billions into the Ukraine war, having agreed to buy Patriot defence systems from America. No resolution is in sight, no clear path to victory apparent, we’re to take that on trust.
Most egregiously, the chilling lies that Israel continues to spew about its genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza have become so brazen that, on a governmental level, nobody seems to know how to challenge them, even if the will were there. Day after day innocents are slaughtered as they queue for food and the governments of the world accept Israeli excuses whilst wringing their hands about antisemitism. The abdication of moral leadership, even amongst Muslim states, is so obscene as to amount to collaboration.
History is not going to be kind to this generation of politicians. All over the world, from the potholes in your street to the millions dying in Ukraine and starving in Gaza, the political response to human need is too often a shrug. In a world led by the markets, politicians now fall into two categories. There are those, like Trump, Putin, and Netanyahu who exercise vast political power because they serve market or interests in resources and weaponry.
Weaklings
On the other hand, we have supine weaklings like Starmer and Macron who can exercise next to no real power without permission from the markets. At the very bottom of this totem pole sits the Welsh Government, which now openly accepts that our nation is a charity case.
The pandemic was an opportunity to reset all of this. Everybody said so at the time. We were going to ‘build back better’ and learn the lessons we’d been afforded by taking a break from the inhuman scramble for growth that had dominated our lives prior to lockdown.
That moment has passed without enough mourning. There was never going to be a return to the ‘old normal’, massive government borrowing precluded that.
We could, however, have taken a hard look at how our societies are organised and resolved to direct their energy towards the wellbeing of people first and above the bottom line of corporations. We could have recovered ourselves.
Cruelty
The most despicable lie about how we are governed is that the cruelty of it represents human nature. It doesn’t. I’m not like that, very few of you are like that. In our own lives we don’t turn to the weakest people we know and shake them down for the few pennies we have then pretend we had no choice.
If an independent Wales were to be ‘extremely poor’, and I don’t believe it would be, then it would, I hope, reflect the values of the people here. We would organise our resources according to those values and make it work.
Surveying the results of governance by corrupt psychopaths and those to weak to challenge them, I’d trust a small, accountable administration to deliver for human beings over a status quo that is remote and beholden to rotten interests.
At some point we must ask: how bad does it have to get?
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Blimey Ben, I think you’ve covered all aspects of what is wrong with Wales and the world governance in one opinion piece. I agree, Wales is not poor, net exporter of energy, extensive trade and business connections. With Zion, muslim leaders have just been silent and here in the UK, anyone speaks out, they get arrested, muted and lose their job in the BBC. It is a different world we are growing older into and it looks like life is about to get a lot harder. Brilliant opinion piece Ben, thank you.
Who has been arrested just for speaking out? Or were they – as I suspect – arrested for other reasons?
Brava, Ben!
The people of Cymru can put an end to this arrant nonsense and incompetence.
We must vote for STRONG independence in 2026, and thereafter…
Nothing less will do.
Sefyll ar wahân fel Cymru ond sefyll gyda’n gilydd fel Cymry
Stand apart as Wales but stand together as Welsh
Annibyniaeth is the answer.
Annibyniaeth nawr!
Independence is normal.
Great piece, a pleasure to read
I was actually thinking about this today, that if Wales was to become Independent it would present us with the chance to enshrine in WELSH law the way Government should work rather than how the utterly corrupt Westminster works.
The contempt Welsh & UK Labour has for Wales is pernicious. An independent Wales would be poor, says our lane donkey First Minister Eluned Morgan. What total BS! I’d like to remind our FM that British Unionism has exploited Wales for generations. It they who have caused any poverty not any Welsh Nationalist. In fact. Independence would make Wales prosperous, and she knows it! If independent would cut out cloth accordingly and not live beyond our means like Little Britain. We would benefit finally from our natural resources. Could become a member state of the EU, or just follow our… Read more »
Well said!
Really good article Ben. I think our people need to undertake some deep thinking on many of these topics. What do we want a future Cymru to look like, and how will it act, is a question that should be discussed across our nation. I thought that the seminal work of Evans and Sandry on a proposed Welsh Constitution started to give us some food for thought: 022021-Wales-constitution.pdf Perhaps the politicos and economists should take this, analyse each section, and start to envisage how Independence could operate. Unless we openly engage on these matters, and try to find pathways out… Read more »
Totally agree Christine. Ben’s article was spot on. We definitely need our people to do some medium to long term strategic thinking and planning. The excellent proposed constitution you cite is certainly a place to start. Don’t let London set the agenda again and again. Otherwise, Cymru will be whatever GB News determines it shall be.
The sort of speech the Leader of Plaid should be making from the rooftops, with earth shaking anger…
But you know never will.
Why? Because …”more tea Vicar, we are really quite sensible you know!”
Because if Plaid goes any further, they will be crucified by the right-wing press and the sort of fools who think Reform are anything other than self-serving idiots and grifters.
Maybe; but politicians not having the courage of their convictions and saying anything/nothing to get elected is a big part of why we are in this mess.
So, say goodbye to “Independence” now then, because you ain’t seen nothing like the right wing press onslaught to that should it appear remotely realisable!
Plaid’s electoral “politics” play to be all things to all people and all demographics, and as questions sharpen and public anger grows, that is NO LONGER possible. You just encourage the very “they’re all the same” reaction and cynicism you fear.
I agree with every word, enough is enough, people being routinely murdered waiting for food in Gaza is beyond words. Ben our Senedd needs people like you.
Re: “how bad does it have to get?” The answer is in plain sight for everyone who honestly looks at the history of ‘advanced’ people and the horrific state we’re in now which shows the perpetual activities of an insane species — see “The 2 Married Pink Elephants In The Historical Room” … https://www.rolf-hefti.com/covid-19-coronavirus.html Yet… “The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduces them. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their… Read more »