Ye whit?

I was out of it over the weekend. The Chronic Fatigue kicked in big-time, along with the cold virus everybody has or has had - deafness, helluva cough, constant cold symptoms - and when I feel like that I snuggle up with a book in the comfort of my bed.

So when I surfaced this morning, I discovered that the world had moved on without me: Labour had voted for Brexit along with the Tories without so much as a shiver (except Diane Abbott, who got a migraine); the Speaker of the House of Commons had said he didn't want Donald Trump to speak there; a UKIP politician had described the NHS as the biggest waste of money in the UK; Trump had told a federal judge via twitter if there was an atrocity on US soil - and gawd knows, there will be, since there is at least one mass shooting in the USA every day - the judge would be responsible; and Theresa May had gone for a 'hard Brexit,' whatever the hell that is.

And to top it all off, I caught sight of a French politician who was apologising - not to French tax payers whom he has diddled out of millions of Euros - but to his family (who benefited from said diddling) for embarrassing them and I realised:

We're screwed. The loonies have taken over.

Those of us who worked all those years to persuade young people to be honest, decent, fair and moral; to vote, take responsibility for their actions, aim for a better society for future generations - well, we were wasting our time, weren't we? Capitalism has won hands down. If by capitalism you mean greed, 'man-mind-thyself' greed, where everything has a price and very little has any value. John Maynard Keynes is reported to have defined capitalism as “the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all.” He wasn't wrong.

On another page on my Facebook feed, a group is debating whether Thatcher or Churchill was the greatest (Grammar Nerd: they mean greater) UK leader. So the choice is between an aristocratic counter-jumper and a free-market maniac? No chance anyone else could be considered, like Clem Atlee who led the UK out of WW2 and endowed the NHS among many other reforms on behalf of the people of the UK?

There used to be an element in my character that responded to this: Well, b*gger it, bring it on - we'll fight it shoulder to shoulder. Now I think: whatever we do in the 30 years after we get independence in Scotland can't be any worse than this lot.