The Tormented Mind – 3 – The Party.

I have to write something different. Lockdowns are an affront to my needs and desires. I have many things that I want to do but am limited by the current restrictions.

The Party is famed for its unity. They have some disagreements, but I suspect these are just for public consumption. Political theatre and nothing more than that. The moment they need to be united, they all group together. Like a magnet being dropped into the pot of metal shavings, they all join around a joint force. Unity is strength, after all. Cracks, though, appear both inside The Party and in the world.

Some in The Party are calling for an end to all restrictions. They are masking this behind a forest of lies and half-truths, but they are going against The Party line. They hide the lies, claiming it is about the mental wellbeing of others when really they just want things back to normal. The shops and office spaces they own or have stakes are standing empty. The stores and cafes are haemorrhaging money as they cannot open. The population is kept at home; I think this is their real problem with the lockdown. This is what drives them forward in their attempt to get restrictions lifted. They resent the common man and woman being allowed to sit and do nothing at home. It is all bollocks, many are far from doing nothing, but I think that is the driver.

The nation’s mental health is one of the priorities they shout about; they never cared before. They allege teachers are not working, yet the schools are open for those in need. The teachers not in schools are taking classes over video conferencing software. This is well known, but they go on TV and moan about slacking teachers. Bob the Bigot and Dennis the Dosser sit in the pub – when they could – and moan about lazy teachers. They know it is bullshit! They must do… mustn’t they? The blindness of the tar eats away at what I now think is both their physical self and mental. They only have themselves to blame.

The above is a hypothetical rant about Dennis and Bob, but I have seen this happen. I have seen one thing being reported, and then the gaslighting starts. “What is happening is not really happening. What is happening is exactly what we wanted.” Then, like starving animals who have just found food, the public munch and swallow it whole. A mental brain freeze washes over them, and they only remember what they have been told. What they have been programmed to believe. The gaslighting is complete, the task accomplished, and the job finalised. Bob’s your dentist, and Dennis is ya uncle; jobs a goodun. They are the cowboy builders of lies, the Bodgeit and Leggit that pave your patio and run away before it starts to sink. They turn up a week later, and you hire them to build an extension.

The Party was formed in 1921 and finally rose to power in ‘49. It has had the same leader – Number One – for thirty years now! Nobody seems to want, or are able, to unsettle him. It is hard now to believe that it was initially quite a liberal and even left-leaning group. It supported the right to be gay when it was illegal. They pushed hard for criminals to be rehabilitated and not just locked up for life. Rights for minorities were pursued by them; they really did seem like a change to the status quo. It is about now that I suspect you are thinking, but that was before they got into power. They did what they promised. Hard to believe now, but they did. It had taken them thirty years, but they cracked the system and became the largest party. The NTC was decimated; it was not even close; they crushed the others, and they have been kept buried under that landslide victory ever since.

People did not notice, or perhaps did not care about the long-term effects. But they did do what they promised. That is important and part of their appeal and longevity. Equal rights and criminal rehabilitation were all good; other things were only good until you scratched the surface. It started small, but once you roll it, it soon gathers. Press regulation was next on the agenda. This is where things began to tumble from a snowball into an avalanche. It was almost universally accepted that at the time, the press were a law unto themselves, and they were.

It is challenging to find out anything that you can trust. To gauge the validity of information is next to impossible. I read something and think, ah, that makes sense, but the next thing I read contradicts it. I would read something that said the media were lapse in holding politicians to account. The next thing I read claimed they went after them like starving bloodhounds. The Party wrapped their tendrils of lies around the truths, and they became so intermixed it was impossible to tell the truth from the fiction. If it were not for the lockdowns, I would try speaking to some older people. Not that I know any, but I thought I may be able to bring it up over a pint. I supposed that maybe alcohol would loosen some lips, but it was an option taken from me with all the restrictions. I felt much like a prisoner, only one confined to my own home.

Even with the foreign media, I encountered similar problems. I fired up TOR, and later my VPN, and started to browse sites that would otherwise have been unavailable. It is like swimming in a haystack of shite and trying to find one strand of hay, blindfolded. Is our press, is The Party, really this powerful? Do other countries have the same problems? I found it hard to believe, but the evidence stared back at me. Were we a social experiment? Do the kid’s come home from school and say, “Hey can we watch the UK for a while and see what those loons are up to?” But surely I’d have found references to that online. I found nothing.

It all happened long before I was born, so I can only speculate. I know that in the world today, all the press are on the side of The Party. Yes, we have other political groups, even elections, but The Party controls the media. Every five years, I witness the other parties being savaged by the press. You would think the press would have laid off in the intervening period, but they don’t. If one of the other parties comes up with an idea and the press feels it is gaining traction, they will shoot it down. I’ve seen other media outlets start up and then fail. People have tried, and they still do! I notice the scum, but it is essential to remember that there is good! I forget, I remember the bad, but it is only in writing this that I have remembered some people’s goodness. Was that the point in this exercise of writing my thoughts down? It is not important, but it is a clever technique if that was the thinking.

The annoyance is that it has worked. It has started me thinking about the others out there that are decent, and they do exist. I forget about them. I forget about the politicians who are trying to overturn The Party. These people come and then vanish. I have seen them fall from sight over my lifetime. With our press, I have no idea what has happened to them. Maybe they just gave up; anything is possible, I suppose, though I doubt it. I suspect they have been vanished or maybe re-educated. I have no way of knowing, so I can only speculate. Are they in prison somewhere? Lying dead in an unmarked grave? Turned to ash and then scattered across a field and just forgotten? In the desperation of despair and depression, it is easy to forget that there is good in the world. I bought a gun, and It should be with me any day now. I purchased it at the same time I was researching the press. I was on the dark web, and I thought, why not. I have no clue how to actually use a gun, point and click; I have no idea if it will even work. But I have it coming. I don’t need it now! That is the frustrating thing. I brought it intending to shoot The Party Leader, but my thinking has changed.

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