"Even damnation is poisoned with rainbows"..

...it's very quiet the cafes, the shops and the businesses. Yes it's half term, but as I write I notice that the bus I am on is emptier than usual. It's almost as if the paradise of Brexit and the government of Boris Johnson exists in a way that is yet to be perceived or understood. I feel as if the pages of Hannah Arendts book on totalitarianism and fascism is being acted out. As Kier Starmer bores the Labour into submission with a stream of visionless words and Lisa Nandy has conversations with socially conservative ex Labour voters who are concerned with "anti western" policies and hung up on immigration and the threat of diversity . Yet in the conversation she has she never states what values she has or indeed those she supports. Her history is constantly revised, adapted and reinterpreted .Anti Semetism as Corbyns sin is woven into her narrative tapestry and coloured by ambition as great as Lucifers and as cold as a Lizard she weeps tears for the blue Labour values that she so sadly mourns.

The Left wrestles with the false binary choice between the electable centrism option and the purity and relevance of Socialism. Late capitalism is here and we cannot go back to Blair. 2008 destroyed for ever that world has gone for ever. Neoliberalism has been replaced by benefit capitalism in which large corporations and banks are the recipients . The system has gone and only it's shell remains. The superstructure of the state persuades many that we can go back yet automation, climate change and the change of commodities and their opportunity costs slips by their awareness.

The Left must keep its nerve and battle on. Whatever happens on April 4th is yet another state in a Hegelian process. Blair led Labour to the arms of Bush and war where so would the centrist pragmatists lead us now? Which right wing populist would serve that role? There is no way other than to campaign, educate and empower. Socialism is the only way now. Rosa Luxembourg long ago said the choice was either Socialism or Barbarism. Never has the first three chapters of volume of Das Kapital been more relevant, prophetic and valid. The centre is dead but does not yet know it, the right off Labour has no relevance or value to post industrial society. All that is solid is melting into air and all that was holy is now profane. Socialism calls to us as a faith to those who have lost a faith..keep your nerve ...the dialectic runs on as thesis and antithesis battles it out. Free movement becomes essential as the crisis of late capitalism nears.....it will come in an event, moment or episode that is yet unforseen, unknown and shocking...:to all my architects let me be traitor to those I cannot obey.."

The Old Revolution

Leonard Cohen

I finally broke into the prison,
I found my place in the chain.
Even damnation is poisoned with rainbows,
All the brave young men
They're waiting now to see a signal
Which some killer will be lighting for pay.
Into this furnace I ask you now to venture,
You whom I cannot betray.

I fought in the old revolution
On the side of the ghost and the King.
Of course I was very young
And I thought that we were winning;
I can't pretend I still feel very much like singing
As they carry the bodies away.
Into this furnace I ask you now to venture

Lately you've started to stutter
As though you had nothing to say.
To all of my architects let me be traitor.
Now let me say I myself gave the order
To sleep and to search…

Yes, you who are broken by power,
You who are absent all day,
You who are kings for the sake of your children's story,
The hand of your beggar is burdened down with money,
The hand of your lover is clay.
Into this furnace I ask you now to venture

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Leonard Cohen

The Old Revolution lyrics © BMG Rights Management