From The Mind of Merc - Extinction Rebellion

Sometimes I find my mind wandering over various eclectic topics and occasionally I am inspired to write some of them down. Today I was thinking about Extinction Rebellion.

Let me just say that I have no objection to what they are trying to achieve – I am all for it. The planet is doomed if we don’t stop destroying it – absolutely.
What I don’t understand is the method they have chosen – namely to inconvenience the everyday man in the street.

Yes – I get that they are trying to cause a disturbance in order to be noticed but surely they are causing a disturbance to the wrong people.
Is it the everyday man in the street who is obstructing change and working to actively prevent the necessary ruled and regulation changes that the group is campaigning for? No. So why on earth does it even to the slightest degree compute that the best thing to do is annoy those people? All that will do is cause antagonism, resentment and even greater opposition to what they are trying to achieve.
It’s like saying you want to stop people chopping down trees so you go and inconvenience Greenpeace.
Or saying you want to put an end to veganism and annoying meat eaters. 

Above all, it is fundamentally contradictory to their desired outcome.
What is the key thing they need to make change happen? Support
How do you get support? By winning people over to your side
How do you not get support? By annoying the people you need to support you. And yet what are they doing?

Please can the movement make the decision to turn their efforts towards disrupting the lives of those in power who have the influence and authority to make the change they want to see happen.
If they’re going to inconvenience someone, it should at least be the people to blame for the inaction. These are the people they should be aiming for and not the other people around them - their fellow victims.
Also, given the current catastrophic state of the government and the increasing antipathy being directed towards this would be a practically guaranteed way to garner support – win-win.
They have the drive, they have the method, all they need now is the direction.

From The Mind of Merc - Hypocrisy

Sometimes I find my mind wandering over various eclectic topics and occasionally I am inspired to write some of them down. Today I was thinking about Hypocrisy.

The Tories various failings to fulfil their duty to run the country (instead evidently preferring to run it into the ground) have led numerous people on numerous occasions to query the correct definition of democracy – which struck me as the Tories providing us with a valuable vocabulary lesson. It also occurred to me that they’re teaching us exceptionally well about another word – hypocrisy.

The most glaring and recent example has to be Boris Johnson’s declaration that bullying will not be tolerated in Whitehall… despite refusing to dismiss Home Secretary Priti Patel when an independent investigation found her guilty of exactly that.

But this is far from the only example. There is also the instance of the Tories on the one hand extolling to the public to do their bit to ‘Save the NHS’ and on the other undermining it, underfunding it, and selling bits of it off. They have since compounded their own duplicity with a parliamentary meeting in which 50 people crammed into a room that was only supposed to hold 29.

And let’s not forget the school meals fiasco with the exorbitant sum of free school meals meaning the government was loath to fund them… despite the fact that it’s equivalent to the amount they spent on  PPE contract for face masks (handed without tender to a wealth advisory firm with links to the Tories) that turned out to be unusable.

So if there’s one thing you can say about this government, it’s that they’re educational. Aren’t we lucky!

From the Mind of Merc - Good and Bad Deeds

Sometimes I find my mind wandering over various eclectic topics and occasionally I am inspired to write some of them down. Today I was thinking about the idea that a good deed cancels out a bad deed. Tbh, I think this is to blame for a lot more bad deeds than good deeds.

If this is true, than people who are regularly ‘bad’ can supposedly excuse or justify themselves by committing ‘good deeds’. The person in question is not changed – they just believe they are not bad because they did one ‘good’ thing. Consequently a bad person can convince themselves they are not so because the one ‘good’ thing they did means the ‘bad’ thing, in effect, didn’t happen. For me, this means the whole concept is undeniably flawed. And in more ways than one.

Firstly, it seemingly allows bad deeds to happen so long as good deeds continue to happen as well. How can this be ok?

It makes me wonder if this is how the Tory government sleeps at night and how they can convince themselves they are still good people despite the considerable damage they have done to the country - the most blatant (non-COVID related) example being that, since the Tories came to power, life expectancy in the UK has gone DOWN. Yes, you read that right – DOWN. But all these bad deeds are supposedly ok because of any ‘good deeds’ they’ve done.

This is not how this should work. This is little better than spin – it is not right to allow bad deeds to go unnoticed or to be forgotten or hidden just because of the occasional act that is not ‘bad’. And it certainly is not acceptable behaviour for a country’s leadership or government.

There is also the matter of whether the ‘good deeds’ could actually be viewed as that or if it just seems that way from their perspective because they can see the benefit but that’s a discussion for another day.

Secondly, a good deed does NOT cancel out a bad deed. If someone commits a good deed, that does not mean the bad deed did not happen – it just means they are not a completely bad person.

If someone seriously wishes to atone for their actions then it is not and cannot be a quick fix solution. Years of misdeeds cannot be wiped out by one good one. But one good one is an important and worthwhile start on the path to atonement as, surely, the whole point of the concept itself was that one good deed is the start of turning over a new leaf rather than equating to the eradication of all previous bad deeds. It was a way of recognising what happened in the past was wrong and should not happen again.

Perhaps now, when the country is returning to a new ‘normal’, is the best time to realise this and to start to change our viewpoint – no more excuses, no more delusion, no more denial. Acceptance, acknowledgement, accountability.

After all, when someone’s been wronged, the main thing they want is an apology from the person who’s wronged them. No-one should be exempt from that – not even governments.

The idea might be to avoid showing a sign of weakness but it’s actually not apologising that’s the sign of weakness as it shows a refusal to accept the situation, to acknowledge the wrongdoing and take accountability for what shouldn’t have happened. That can be much more damaging than any apology could ever be.

So, if you’ve committed bad deeds and you’re sorry for them the message shouldn’t be ‘doing good deeds cancels them out’, it should be that doing good deeds starts to help undo the hurt the bad deeds caused. It doesn’t mean the bad deeds didn’t happen – they did and this must be understood - but it does mean you’re not allowing them to continue.

From The Mind of Merc - Motivation

Sometimes I find my mind wandering over various eclectic topics and occasionally I am inspired to write some of them down. Today I was thinking about motivation – specifically relating to the UK government (twice in as many months but can you blame me).

I'm not the best artist so have resorted to clipart and paint once again to create the analogy that occurred to me

From The Mind of Merc - Decision Making

Sometimes I find my mind wandering over various eclectic topics and occasionally I am inspired to write some of them down. Today I was thinking about decision making – specifically those related to the UK government.

I used to think that maybe this was how it works:

But I’m not starting to think it’s like this:

How on earth did we go from the term ‘Prime Minister’ being an insult (Robert Walpole – the first person to technically hold the position from 1721-1742 – objected strongly to being described thus)

to the Prime Minister himself being an insult – referring to black people as ‘picanninies’ with ‘watermelon smiles’ #notmypm

I mean, come on:

Maybe overall it’s a case of:

And until then the best of British to all!

From The Mind of Merc - UK Politics

Sometimes I find my mind wandering over various eclectic topics and occasionally I am inspired to write some of them down. Today, I was thinking about the state of UK politics. This would take way to long to discuss so I thought I'd sum it up with a cartoon that's been buzzing round my head for a while now:

And a topical post for my 500th blog entry - who'd have thunk it?

Simple Economics sketch - Newsreview

An entry from my Newsreview collection today - a sketch I wrote and submitted to Newsrevue at the Canal Café Theatre in London - still waiting to hear if they liked it or not.
It was intended as a visual sketch so it's a bit difficult to write down but I'll do my best - hope you understand and enjoy it.

Simple Economics sketch (with blackboard illustrations
A: Listen to this - apparently the government is loaning money to small businesses in order to help the economy.
B: Yeah. And?
A: Why?
B: Well it’s instead of funding the universities. They give loans to small companies instead – help them start up.
A: I don’t understand how that helps.
B: Ah let me explain - you see it’s very simple:

B: To begin with universities (draw a rectangle building) didn’t charge any tuition fees (draw price tag and put a cross through it) as the government (draw a clock tower for Big Ben) funded them with loans (draw arrow showing money going into the university) which the universities repaid. (draw arrow showing money going back to the government) (Result is image a)

B: Then the government stopped funding them (put cross through money arrow going into the university) and the universities started charging fees (redraw price tag without cross) and the government instead gave loans to students. (draw stick figure and arrow to show money going to student) (Result is image b)

B: Then the universities decided to charge more for their fees (add pound signs to price tag) which meant the students were borrowing more from the government (add pound signs to the money arrow going to the student) but that’s ok because of the interest the government gets (Result is image c)

 
B: Then the universities decided to charge even more for their fees which the government helped them do by raising the cap put on them to limit the fees (draw extension to price tag being held by hand coming from the government)
B: This means that fewer people can afford to go to university (draw cross through stick figure) – with or without a government loan or grant so the government is offering loans to people starting up small companies (draw other stick figure with arrow to show money going to business people) which will result in more trade and more money being put into the economy (draw piggy bank with union flag and arrow pointing towards piggy bank to show money going into the economy) (Result is image d)

 

A: But hang on:

(A takes over and rubs out piggy bank, stick figures and additional pound signs – i.e. go back to image a)
A: When the government funded the universities, the universities always paid them back (circle arrow showing money going back to the government) (Result is image e) 

 

A: But the money the government loans to students (rub out money arrows between university and government and redraw stick figure with arrow to show money going to the student) doesn’t always come back (draw arrow showing money going back to government and add question mark) because there’s a cut-off point after which the debt is wiped out (Result is image f)

A: And loans given to new small businesses are highly risky as the companies might fail meaning the owners are in debt or on benefits (add more money arrows going to stick figure) and therefore worsening the economy (Result is image g)

A: So why, instead of the government giving money to unstable and unsettled small companies (rub out business person and their money arrows), don’t they go back to giving the money to universities (draw arrow showing money going into the university) who will give them their money back (draw arrow showing money going back into government) and if they consequently removed their fees (draw cross through price tag) - which they wouldn’t need any more – they’d be able to educate more people (draw more stick figures) and facilitate them finding valuable employment and would be inputting a greater amount into the economy (draw piggy bank with union jack and large money arrow going into it) (Result is image h)

B: Well you see it’s....What you need to consider is....The problem with that is...You just don’t understand, do you?