rodshaw
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A common reaction, is it not, even in the medical profession, to say that any illness that isn’t understood must be all in the mind.
I am sure the family of Maeve Boothby O’Neill would be relieved to know their daughter died of nothing but, as Chelmsford puts it, a feeling of ‘fedupness’. And the inquest could have been saved a lot of time too.
Such views rightly belong in a previous era, as do the ignoramuses who hold them.I am more interested in what Monbiot has to say about the way this set of tossers helped to spread erroneous and totally unscientific views about ME.
One of our daughters, a mother of two in her early forties, has this condition, which has been getting steadily worse over the last decade. She is now virtually bedbound, can’t tolerate normal daylight or noises, has to be spoken to in a whisper and can only whisper back. For years ignoramuses like these helped to spread the belief that it was all in the mind and the sufferer’s own fault, and that totally inappropriate treatments were the answer, whereas in severe cases they make it worse. My daughter and others like her know different. As if she would willingly withdraw from everyday life and avoid experiencing her children growing up.
As Monbiot pointed out, it’s a physical illness and much more should have been done over the years to find the cause and a possible cure. I’ve written to both Tory and Labour governments about it and had a dialogue with Sean O’Neill, the father of the girl who died. Since her death there are now promises from the government that it will be taken more seriously but there’s always the chance that as long as it doesn’t affect business as usual, and mainly affects women, and long covid recedes, it will be swept under the carpet again.Some of the conversations between the capitalists are hilarious too. They are as thick as two short planks, showing that, despite what some of the workers think, you don’t have to be clever to be rich.
E.g. in a discussion on evolution: “Well, I ses, if it’s true that we’re hall descended from monkeys, I ses, I think your family must ‘ave left orf where mine begun”.
And their childlike views on science: “If it was true that the world is spinnin’ round on its axle so quick as that, if a man started out from Calais to fly to Dover, by the time he got to England he’d find ‘imself in North America, or p’r’aps farther off still”.
“And if it was true that the world goes round the sun at the rate they makes out, when a balloon went up, the earth would run away from it! They’d never be able to get it back again!”
Che Colpa Abbiamo Noi (It’s Not Our Fault) – a sort of young v old protest song from the 60s, blaming an entire generation for the world’s ills. As people still do, of course – witness Brexit.
The Rokes were an English band based in Italy.
Eve of Destruction – a much-banned dystopian protest song from the mid-60s.
What totally passed me by at the time was this yucky conservative response, Dawn of Correction, by a group called The Spokesmen.
“Marlo Venus”? I have always understood this to be “Milo Venus”, as in the Venus de Milo, who does indeed have no arms.
Heritage lines, on the other hand, are well organised, clean, and run almost entirely by volunteers who love what they do. The trains go nowhere and you catch them just to go there and back to see how far it is.
I agree we can’t create a blueprint but it doesn’t mean we can’t speculate in threads like this.
I think there will be a huge difference in sporting and other behaviours between early socialist society (maybe the first generation or two, or maybe just the first few years, when a load of baggage will have been inherited), and a more developed, confident society where more people are born into it and the hangovers from the past are largely forgotten.
The first generation of people to be born into a socialist society will have a totally different outlook on life.Arguably, with concerns about the effects of heading in football and suchlike, and clampdowns on ‘professional’ fouls, sport is becoming less violent even in capitalism. But it has many nasty sides, all a result of its ultra-competitive nature, due to the expectation of profits.
Women’s football has been a breath of fresh air but as it gets milked more and more it will become as cynical and nasty as the men’s game can be.
I think people do have a natural competitiveness, some more than others, and like to pit their skills against one another. In socialism, sport and other games would probably be an ideal outlet. And there’s bound to be the odd fracas in the heat of the moment.
But no VAR please. Or offside.Arguably in a socialist society traffic would be nowhere as near as bad as it is now. Life would be less frenetic. Built-up areas might be a lot less busy. Much more use would be made of ‘public’ (i.e. communal) transport. Instead of multiple cars parked outside every home and on every street doing nothing most of the time there would presumably be local car pools and more taxi-like services.
That’s not to say loonies wouldn’t still exist who liked to travel at irresponsible speeds and generally make nuisances of themselves. In fact with no threat of imprisonment or a fine, this small minority of prats might increase in number.
