II

 

trade-union consciousness

the limited, sectionalist, less than revolutionary, social-democratic consciousness which, according to Lenin, the working class spontaneously develops from the narrow ‘conviction that it is necessary to combine in unions, fight employers and strive to compel governments to pass legislation’ (LENIN, 1902). Since these ameliorative objectives serve to impede working-class unity and ensure subservience to bourgeois ideology, the theoretical and philosophical insights of intellectuals are necessary for the development of class consciousness. This thesis has influenced subsequent debates about TRADE UNIONS in capitalist societies. see also CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS.Collins Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd ed.

 

A man is giving a lecture in a small room in a humdrum town in England.
He points to various diagrams on a white board, and talks about forms of resistance he wants to see applied against the "media monopoly on information".
The diagrams look like this.

He explains that the audience is the prize, "if you can reach a wide audience, and really know how to push their buttons, then you increase your influence even to the point where you might begin influencing power!".
He explains the "hundredth monkey syndrome" he uses the term "critical mass".
He doesn't want to be ignored.
"We're in a hole, we're teetering on the edge of the abyss about to plunge into catastrophe"
His audience claps.

A janitor pushes a mop bucket past the door and get's ready to finish his 9 hr shift.
He's looking forward to the pub tonight, and meeting everyone for the football on Saturday. "one of the pups'll have some charlie" he thinks confidently. "charlie, pills, MDMA", it was mostly glue and amphetamines in his day. "I'd fuckin love to shag the arse off that barmaid on pills" he thinks, rearranging his genitalia by thrusting his hand into his pocket. The door to the last room with people in it opens. Those inside file out chatting and smiling with each other enthusiastically.

"a lot of worn denim and soft hands.
...posing cunts.
Woke....
Come on glasses get a move on", he thinks to himself.

"Thanks very much" says "glasses" with a smile.
"cheers" he responds as the door shuts behind 'Glasses' and the people who were in his meeting.
"Fucking trendy little wankers"
He goes into the room, shuts the window, turns of the light, picks up the quarter full rubbish bag and proceeds to his office.
"You up for the crown then?" he texts his friend.
"ask Dan if he's going to columbia before".

Dan grabbed the railings and pulled himself swiftly up the stairs of a huge grey towerblock.
A thousand lives situated within the footprint of two small, one bedroom flats extending hundreds of feet upwards towards the sky. The entire world in a grain of a sand.
His pockets are filled with rolls of twenty pound notes.

A baby is crying on one of the landings, the stairwell smells of piss.
"Everything that was directly lived is now represented" is spray painted on one of the walls.

A leaflet for a political protest blows across the floor.
"Enough is Enough!"
"Campaign to fight the cost of living crisis"
#enoughisenough

In fifty cities around the UK people are preparing. Tomorrow they will have their say, tomorrow they will take to the streets to make things right. Tomorrow they will wave their flags, hold their signs, hear speeches and chant their slogans.

"Fucking Hell you tit get out the way!" screams the janitor out the window of his car to a cyclist.
He punches his horn and spits out the window onto the Lycra adorned man's helmet.
"fucking eco wankers."

Dan reaches a red door, he presses the buzzer twice in quick succession then once for 2 seconds. He already senses the intoxicating aroma of vice and wilful abandon, he checks his pockets.
"got my fucking bags, got this fucking pricks wallet. Got my wallet."
"Dan, come in son."
The door is open and a man with a scarred face completely fills it's frame.
"Alright cunto, let me in i'm fuckin starving here."
"haha come in boy let's fix you up a little meal and send you on yer way"
"hows that cunt terry's cooking this week?"
"well you know how hard it is to satisfy cunto dan...
....and I've got to be fucking honest mate, I'm a happy cunto."
"Haha you sound it you mad cunt."

Cunto stands aside and shows Dan into a smoke filled room with one couch, a coffee table and a tv on the wall.
Dan empties his pockets on the table, sits himself down on the sofa, grabs a card from the table and starts crushing up a white substance on the table. "haha make yourself at home mate" says Cunto following him in. "Tasty bit of fucking skunk that mate". Cunto takes a huge drag from a large cannabis joint, "smell good does it dan? Coz it fucking tastes it too...
....it's called Wet Pussy"
....
" PFFT Ff hahaha fucking what?"
"Wet Pussy hahahah"...."Hahahhahahaha"
"hahaha fuck you!"
"hahahahamy special this week is Wet Pussyhahaha".
"Hahaahahaha fuck off. and why's it called that, cause it's sticky and you can't get enough?"
"hahahhahaHAAAA... haha ... hahuuuu ahhhh, well it's from the breeder. hauhh
it's called W9 but the cunt who gave me the bags is dyspraxic and wrote WP on the fucking thing hahaha"
"hahaha fuck me. You mean dyslexic you cunt"
"That's what i said dyslexic"..... he takes another long pull from the joint.

Dan rolls a twenty and puts it to his nose.
Snnnffffffffffffffffffffkkkkkkkkkk "aaahhhhh.....oh yes mate, thats what i needed.,, Columbia here I cunting Cum!!!"
"nice little appetizer eh?!" "fucking lovely mate, looking forward to mains. gonnna share some of that wet pussy then you greedy cunt". "I'll fuckin drown you in it you cunt come here"

The janitor is parked up outside a 24hr newsagents, he's eating a sandwich from the shop for £2 and drinking a tin of tenants super strength lager. he watches the people as he eats with both hands, and picks his phone up as he chews. "fucking £70 on blow, £30 on pints, hundred on a fucking brass if i feel like it and that barmaid doesn't want to suck me cock. Not bad. Got my ticket already, home game so fuck it i'll walk there. See if them cunts'll join me we can look for any of those Scotch pricks....fucking fighting, football fucking, nothing better than that".
aaaaccccccckkkckckckckckck he clears his throat and throws the sandwich container out of the window.
he makes eye contact with a middle aged woman walking past, she looks disgusted and fixes her gaze downwards.
he spits right in front of her.
"the world's going to hell" she thinks to herself.

In Columbia a socialist democratic political party with a focus on environmental & economic reform, and indigenous rights along with land compensation and reallocation promises.  has become the first socialist political political party to come to power with an Indigenous vice president.

The janitor doesn't know about that. He fucking hates the government, but he quite likes Norris Johnson.

He thinks.....: "his wife is fucking tasty. he's a funny cunt to be fair" and "that Flee Smog prick is alright for a posh cunt...
... he's a cunt but he knows it. can't fault that. ...
wears it like a fucking medal"... as he listens to the radio news.

He takes none of it in as he scrolls through pictures of attractive women on faceboat splatter and instaglam. after five minutes he starts the car, indicates and pulls out into traffic.
He watches a stream of traffic at a junction. Reds. Blue. Green. Blacks. Greys. Endless stream of rubber, metal, leather, grease, fire and motion. Everything is in flux.
"fucking filth" he thinks as a police car passes. "cunts probably off to steal some poor cunts coke for the weekend....Not gonna be me you cunts!" he says as he releases the handbrake and puts the car into gear.
His tyres screech as he pushes his foot down and accelerates.

Glasses get's off his bicycle and walks up the drive of his suburban semi detached cottage.
His backpack is full of books and papers. His trousers and shirt are folded up and his work shoes are positioned toe down with the soles pressing against his back.
He's cycled everywhere for 2 years now.
"I'll never go back" he says to people at dinner parties.
Glasses has a wife.
Glasses and his wife have three children.
"They are very happy." Is what people say about them after they leave dinner parties.
Glasses and his wife have both had affairs that the other doesn't know about.

"Hi baby." he says as he walks through the front door, the house is alive, there is the smell of food and perfume in the air. "i love my life" he says to himself and smiles.

The Janitor is driving up the highstreet now. The students are already drunk. The girls are wearing next to nothing. "Fucking filthy little slags" he thinks to himself, as he slows to let a group of girls cross the road in front of him. "oi oi darling. Open your legs i'll park up". he shouts out the window. "Prick" they respond and make assorted hand gestures in his direction. He laughs out loud and this time does an even louder wheelspin while revving his engine. "showing off like a Dickhead" shout the girls. "COme and give this dick some head you slaaaaags" he shouts while gesturing to his genitals and releasing the clutch.
SCREEEECHH   "Dickhead" shout the girls as he drives off.
"fucking gonna ruin that barmaid tonight" he repeats to himself in various different linguistic and visual abstractions. As he drives he pictures the boy's faces as he fucks her bare arse from behind, bent over the bar. He begins rubbing himself as the car is in third gear. "Dying for a line of coke too".

At the Slipped Crown pub and bar, there is already quite a crowd. A group of young people sit together around a small table in the corner, talking about the protest tomorrow and looking at their phones, they share splats among themselves and others around the country who're planning to participate.

"“If you can’t pay your bills go out there and get a new job”  No,

We don’t need to “get” new jobs, we need the jobs we have to pay us enough to live. #EnoughIsEnough"

"Up and down the country, workers and communities are fighting back against greed, inequality and exploitation. As wages fall while profits soar, our message is clear. We are not here to manage. We are not here to broker. We are here to win."

"Enough is enough. Tomorrow, we turn anger into action."

"There is alot of anger about the cost of living rising,"
"the government has cut the top rate of tax  and uncapped banker salaries."
"Now there are strike actions declared in more than 50 locations around the UK. The fight is on!"

At the bar an older gentleman has been watching them for the past half hour. "fucking kids these days are like zombies. They're barely here." he says to anyone who's listening. "My daughters on it all the time" says another. "You wanna be careful" says one, "there was a girl who killed herself the other day. there was an inquiry into the influence of social media that concluded she self-harmed while suffering from depression and the negative effects of online content."
"what's that mean?" asked the barmaid.
"Basically she was acting under the influence of online content.
they said it was videos on suicide, and pictures relating to suicide.
Reading other people's thoughts who felt the same."
"Pretty fucking stupid if you ask me"
"What?"
"well it's a pretty convenient scapegoat is what I mean"
"You're not wrong" says the Older Gentleman, "people used to have hope, look around now, the best you can hope for is you save enough money in summer to heat your home in winter. I remember watching the moon landing. They say everyone in the World watched that. What a fucking moment that was." he drinks his pint wistfully.
"My point is the world is too hectic, there's no joy anymore, there's not the same freedom as we had. Everything's recorded, replayed, watched and copied
....Like those twats over in the corner on their phones all the time. Liking each others Splats and talking to other zombies on viewtube."
"They live in a fucking dream world".