The Tories’ Rightful Name

“D’you know where the word Tory comes from?”, the Irishman asks me over a pint or five. “It’s an old Irish word, actually”, he continues, at least a little proud.

Knowing the Irish, and knowing their feelings toward the British, and the parliament in particular, I reckon a guess…

“Cheating cunts?”, the ask and grin, hoping to score myself a point or two with the old Irishman.

“Yes!”, he exclaims jovially. “Yes, exactly!”

I nearly choke on my beer. Snide remarks aside, I never really thought I was right.

“Well, actually, something along the line of money-grubbing thieves”, the Irishman admits, “from the gaelic ‘toruidhe’ or ‘toruighe’ or some such fucken thing… Cunts all the same though, ‘innit?”

I still can’t believe it. It seems too good to be true in a post-Brexit world, with dumbass after dumbass cartwheeling through 10 Downing Street like it was a revolving door, hell bent on fucking up the crumbling remnants of the Empire beyond all recognition. For if it ain’t the wicked witch Theresa May who wanted to re-introduce fox hunting of all the fucking things, it’s the bumbling dolt Boris Johnson, followed by the lightning round bitch queen Liz Truss. And that’s only over the course of the past six years. Vultures circling the body of dying post-Brexit England.

The description certainly felt apt. Too apt for reality. So I consigned myself to look it up.

Turns out that the etymology of the Tory brand isn’t even slightly secret. Harking back to the 16^th century, referring to dispossessed Irish farmers turned Highwaymen, “toruidhe” or “toruighe”, meaning “to pursue” or “to hunt” turned into “mean motherfucker highway robber”. Once the British crushed the outlaw activity in Ireland, the term “tory” entered the English language as meaning “outlaw plunderer”, first used to degrade Catholics. Which was twisted into a badge of pride during the 17^th century religious conflicts. The last time the word “Tory” meant anything other than the British Conservative Party, it meant something akin to “money-chasing plunderer”. Or, as my Irish friend would abbreviate it; “fucken cunts”.

So when the Tory prime minister mocks a Scottish MP for demanding a fairer parcel of British oil revenue, now you know. When the Tories drive the country out of the EU with a campaign of misinformation and deceit, now you know. When the dolt Boris runs up another long list of scandals, now you know. When you put a ballot in the box, addressed to the “money-grubbing plunderers”, now you will know that that is exactly what they are, exactly what it says on the tin, and exactly what you give them a license to do. Because the only difference between a political party and a band of highwaymen is that the political party needs your vote to rob you. And that’s exactly what you keep giving them. So don’t act so fucking shocked when they steal your life from under your feet. It’s right there in the name! “Cheating cunts”.

/Sebastian Lindberg 24/10-2022

The Cautionary Tale of Petrol-less Britain

Turns out that Britain is in a bit of a pickle. For months we’ve heard of a fuel shortage that makes the petrol stations of Britain look like something out of snapshots of the economic crisis in Lebanon. With people queueing for hours just to get a spot of gas in their tanks.

But a fuel crisis is far from the only issue that is plaguing post-Brexit Britain. Empty shelves in the supermarkets, elder care work force shortages, and the meat industry are all staggering from the effects of PM Boris Johnson’s bull-rush toward the EU exit.

Sure, the plague didn’t help matters none. It never does. Unless you take carbon footprint into account, because it briefly helped with that.

So what? Everyone with half a brain between their ears knew that Brexit would be an act of self-mutilation by the proud once-empire. And as it goes, it wasn’t just predictable that the Cobbled Kingdoms would suffer, but it also could serve us as a valuable example.

An example of what? An example of how very fragile this world economy that our lords and evangelistic capitalists are so proud of. And also an example of exactly why our current globalist post-colonial economic system will never serve humanity honestly or, more specifically, evenly.

Allow me to elucidate…

Post-Brexit Britain shows us just how critical a low-paid, foreign work force is to a modern western society. Whatever rise out of poverty that Britain could boast about across the past few hundred years was because it had begun a process of outsourcing its poverty. Whether we’re talking about plantations in the Caribbean or imported labour from lower-income countries. And now that Britain has effectively cut its own legs off in a populist mad dash to score cheap points and unsustainable power for a gaggle of greedy twats, we can see just how absolutely essential that process of “poverty export” is to a western nation.

Britain isn’t alone. Not by a long shot. This self-inflicted curse of exported misery is endemic to western civilization. Or, perhaps, more succinctly, endemic to the free market system that has been projected onto the world as an unassailable status quo.

We can see as much by the example that post-Brexit Britain sets for us. Namely that a “developed nation” cannot exist without subclass humans to perform the dirty maintenance of or resource gathering for that nation. The living standards of any such nation is held up upon the backs of lower bracket nations, who in turn rest their weight on even lower bracket nations. So on and so further all the way to the bottom. The sweat-shops. The slave mines. The child labour yards and the concentration re-education camps.

Our “civilized” way of life in our precious western world requires poverty to deliver unto us our privileges. That’s the bottom line. And the lesson that post-Brexit Britain should make painfully obvious to us. Without people less fortunate, we cannot prosper under the current paradigm.

Much ado has been presented to “fight poverty”. But despite optimistic count-downs to end world poverty, even the World Bank isn’t as optimistic. And it turns out that a frequent tool to project progress in the “war on poverty” is to simply not update or adjust the definitions in accordance to inflation or the rise of the cost of living, et. al.. The same methods, basically, by which the US has been able to motivate not raising the minimum wage, while the costs of living have sky rocketed, relying instead on rocketing personal debt to close the gap.

So, what’s the point? Why am I harping about income disparity like it’s some holy grail rather than a failure of the system. Because income disparity is not a failure of the system,. That’s why. It is a product of the system working as intended. And post-Brexit Britain affords us a snapshot look at that as simple fact. Because it makes it painfully obvious that the standard living conditions that we have come to expect cannot exist without a legion of poorer people to hold out privileges up on stilts.

This isn’t news. It is known. But people seem content to enjoy taking their privileges for granted for as long as they possibly can rather than internalize a grim reality. The reality that it is not in the best interest of our current global economic paradigm to fight poverty, because it is dependant on it. It is not in your best interest to fight poverty, because you and your privileges of petrol stations, elder care, super markets, and cheap chicken are all dependant on it.

And if we’re not willing to fundamentally change our lives and discard our privileges, we should be honest with ourselves about that.

/Sebastian Lindberg 19/10-2021