The Rise of Nationalism and the Global Market.

There’s an old adage that history repeats? Maybe similar circumstances arise and human nature reacts in similar ways. I think this is a closer analogy.

Sir James Goldsmith, a self made billionaire and a man who to his own admission purchased his knighthood from a Labour Party Prime Minister and whose son Zak has just resigned as a Conservative Party MP. Yes folks, the world is fundamentally dishonest and the higher echelons of power are filled with devious and greedy people. Well, Sir James said that in years to come, the world will be owned and controlled by seven global multinationals. Because it is within the very nature of things that the larger, most powerful and most influential company, will either irradicate, consume or purchase the smaller competitors. Yes, there are massive amounts of evidence and stats which back up this statement. This is just what happens. Corporations like Sony, Mitsui, Apple and Anglo American do just that and grow stronger as a result. Investors invest in these companies and everyone makes money.

Therefore, the mass exploitation of the cheap labour of the third world, which keeps the rest of us supplied with affordable and comparatively cheap goods, is a direct result of global conglomerates, whose only concern is in the bottom line. I mean, why pay western labour decent liveable wages, when you can exploit and use someone who works for a dollar a day. You make so much more money. Yes, this is what they earn, I’ve experienced this first hand. From sweat shops in India and Thailand to diamond cutters in Gujarat, India. If the one carat diamond solitaire you buy for your beloved was cut in the western world, you’d be paying for this forevermore. Everyone who purchases goods from a high street store or shopping mall which are marked, made in China, Vietnam, Brazil or India along with a host of other 3rd world countries. Then they are guilty of condoning and supporting this system of corporate greed and exploitation. I for one am guilty, I would prefer to buy quality goods made in the U.K. Or Europe and the US, I do so whenever I can, but day to day I just cannot afford to do this every time. 

This very act puts a tremendous burden on the manual workers of the western world. Because all of a sudden their local factory shuts down, their services are no longer required and they have to find work in a buyers market. So, unless they are very lucky or they retrain and possibly move away. Life becomes much harder, they no longer earn the same amount of money they did working in the factory, that’s if they have a job at all. They no longer have a reasonable job, on a reasonable salary, with trade unions negotiating a good wage or salary on their behalf. 

Large corporations now have to make a profit, because they have investors and shareholders who need this. Many investors and pension funds are totally dependent on the companies they invest in to make them a profit, this is why they invest. Because they live off the fruits of their investments. If they don’t make money, they’ll invest elsewhere and these large corporations will be forced into bankruptcy and liquidation. Yes, it’s a dog eat dog world and it’s a jungle out there. Welcome to the real world.

So, you’re uneducated, recently unemployed and your family are suffering. Cheap labour in the form of a Mexican or Middle Eastern migrant is preventing you from earning a decent living wage, that’s if you can get a job at all. Your family are hungry and you’re threatened with homelessness while your kids are eating jam and bread. You’re not alone, half the people you know are like this. Welcome to Germany in the 1930’s or America in 2016. 

Therefore when a man comes along who says he will kick all these migrants out, ensuring you can get work. He will also reopen your old factory so you can get your old job back. You will soon have that salary and lifestyle you used to have, that memory which seems like a distant dream. He will also remake and rebuild new roads, new bridges and a massive wall to prevent this scenario ever happening again. Cheap migrants won’t even be able to get into the country and take away your job. As a bonus he will also reduce income tax from 35% to 15%. So you will vote for this man, after all he is your salvation. Welcome to the worlds of both Adolf Hitler and Donald Trump.

The people who voted for Trump don’t realise that the cheap migrant labour are every bit as exploited as they are, they too are victims of shear poverty and exploitation. They could all stand together and unite against a fundamentally greedy and exploitative corporate system, but that sounds like communism. Also they would all starve and lose their homes. Instead they blame the guy who is different to them and their social group, who is perhaps a different ethnicity, or who doesn’t speak their language properly, whose culture is slightly different and who worships a different god, or even the same god in a different way. Catholics and Protestant Christians or Shia and Sunni Muslims for example.

Racism and xenophobia are both easy to propagate when you’re uneducated, out of work; your family is going without basic essentials and there is someone you can use as a scapegoat for all of this. Does this sound like a familiar scenario? The Nazis used the Jews, the Slavs, the Gypsies and the Russians as scapegoats. Trump uses the Mexicans and Hispanics, the Muslims and whoever else doesn’t figure in his deluded utopian ideal of American society.  In America today, all of this seems so acceptable, it’s as if we’ve learned nothing from the lessons of the past. Strange days indeed.

The rise of Trump, Brexit and the popularity of the right wing nationalist political parties throughout Europe and the US are as a direct result of corporate greed and global expansion. What is the solution to all of this? There is one, but it would mean the fundamental restructuring of the whole of global society and this would never happen. So welcome to the new world order.

Iconic TV: The Walking Dead.

It took me some time to get into this, I mean I’m a relatively new convert to the cause, enough to say that I am now family with Rick Grimes, Michonne, Carol, Daryl and the rest of the crew. I’ve still not emotionally recovered from the bludgeoning to death of Abraham and Glenn, they were also family and it’s a totally heartbreaking situation.

I now have to try and write some kind of critical analysis of this series in the wake of this emotional turmoil, its an emotional moment I find myself in. 

This series is based on the Robert Kirkland comics of the same name and is devised by Frank Darabont, the man most famous for both the screenplays and the film direction in iconic movies like The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. I think it’s fair to say that this man knows a thing or two about cinematic storytelling and how to string together a good narrative and also how to direct a great piece of film. Hence this is the most popular cable TV show in US history. It’s compelling to watch and you become part of this series so quickly and so easily. You relate to the main characters and their struggle and when one dies or is killed or injured, you naturally feel for them, just like they’re real friends and family.

Based and filmed in the United States, Southern State of Georgia, in the aftermath of a Zombie Apocalypse. This whole Zombie genre was virtually entirely invented by George A Romero with his low budget classic, The Night of The Living Dead, back in 1968. Since then this whole flesh eating Zombie genre franchise has spiralled right out of control. Just like an actual Zombie apocalypse would and in fact does during this series. In this series though Zombies are referred to as walkers or biters.

This series is based around the central character of Rick Grimes, played by the excellent RADA trained British Actor, Andrew Lincoln. Who is so convincing in the role that you cannot believe that he is not a former Georgia small town cop. This man in the essence of Daniel Day Lewis, lives the part, he becomes the central character. This man understands the Method Acting principle and I’m sure the likes of Pacino, De Niro, Keitel and the late Marlon Brando would all be impressed with his performances. All the actors in this series give excellent performances, this is the main thing that holds the storyline and narrative together, it’s very well acted and portrayed. All the central characters are well formulated as screen characters, they are also entirely believeable and utterly entertaining. The Zombies or walkers are also amazing in their visual and conceivable realism. The special effects, make up and CGI work on this series is excellent.

The central family of characters are the people Rick meets and collects on his journey. In the first series we have Morgan, Glenn (sadly recently deceased), Daryl, Carol and Rick’s son Carl who have all survived till now. In subsequent series we have added Michonne, Sasha, Maggie, Eugene, Rosita and Tara amongst others to this noble cause. The lucky, strong, versatile and smart survive. If you have any weakness and doubt you don’t; this whole series is constantly living in a life or death situation. This is also a morality tale, evil ruthless and callous people die an accordingly evil death, good people occasionally die also. This shows us that life is not fair and you must survive the best way you can at all costs. 

If you understand the principles of the Tarot you will understand this. In his journey, man starts his life as the fool and then if he learns, survives and evolves as a human being, he can endure life’s journey. Thus 22 cards of the major arcana later, he becomes the Magus or Master in his understanding of life and how to survive it. There are many references to the Tarot and tree of life in this series, it has a semi mystical sub plot.

We don’t know why the Zombie apocalypse plague has started, but we get the impression that it’s a Government weapons experiment gone wrong. That doesn’t matter, what matters now is survival. I mean it’s not like a social or prison population whereby people mix within their own ethnic, social or like minded groups. The survivors come from all ethnic groups and social classes, the thing they all have in common is that they’ve survived, they all have qualities and attributes which make them survivors, it’s that simple. I mean even any semblance of a normal civilised society is now gone. 

They occasionally meet pockets of small communities. Some reasonable and balanced, hunter gatherer, farming communities and some feudal, pirate warrior communities. Some with a bit of both. Rick’s group have all evolved from normal people living their lives into hardened ruthless mercenaries who still retain some elements of their humanity. Money is virtually worthless, what matters now are security, weapons, ammunition and food. These are the new currency of the realm. 

History has shown us that this is exactly how mankind has developed, from nomadic hunter gatherers into small towns and communities and finally into nation states and great cities. You only have to look at the likes of the development of civilisation in the Nile, Indus and Tigris, Euphrates deltas to the emergence of feudal warlords like Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan to see that this is exactly how mankind would revert to and evolve should an Apocalyptic scenario happen. We would revert to small hunter gatherer groups. We would form small communities with like minded people and we would encounter feudal warlords and criminals who would want to steal from us. This is how mankind exists. We are not all civilised, we are in fact nothing more than the pinnacle of the primate species, we are highly evolved and intelligent primates, well some of us are anyway.

The recent villain Negan, played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan is a biker pirate, feudal leader, who prays on those weaker communities who cannot fight back. Just like the government, when you earn over a certain amount, they want half. If you don’t pay, you pay the consequences. This series is ongoing with recent additions and deletions of people in every episode. Recent new additional characters are the dreadlocked urban rasta, King Ezekiel along with his pet CGI Tiger and his small Kingdom of happy people. He seems balanced, jovial and welcoming; the direct antithesis in fact of the feudal biker pirate Negan.

Anyway I’m watching reruns of the series back to back in order to recap and catch up on clues I might just have missed, so I gotta go. This series along with the likes of The Wire offer a new dawn in well written, well produced, great TV entertainment, which is both emotionally compelling and intellectually stimulating.