By Petr Navovy | Pajiba 10 | June 20, 2017 |
By Petr Navovy | Pajiba 10 | June 20, 2017 |
I look around I look around and I see this year’s Pajiba 10 already brimming with quite ridiculous levels of lion-moistening hotness. The wit and fire of Briga Heelan; the inhuman smoulder of Jason Momoa—what could I possibly be asking you to consider placing alongside those?
Motherfucking socialism, that’s what, son!
Now, I know what you’re thinking, or I can at least take an educated guess. It’ll be something along the lines of:
‘What’re you on about, Knava? The Pajiba 10 is a ritual objectification of celebrities, not abstract political concepts. Why do you defile the ritual, you commie infiltrator?!’
Fair point, well made. But really, this contest is all about desirability. And I don’t know if you noticed, but socialism? She’s like so hot right now. Everybody wants to be seen with her. Because after four decades of the tightening noose of neoliberalism Western societies are realising that perhaps the line we have been sold about the necessity of deregulation and the primacy of capital is actually just a steaming pile of Kushner. The public are waking up, and they are angry and horny for change.
Look: The United States of America got so sick with neoliberal fever that it got to a point that a racist and misogynistic clown businessman ended up as its supreme leader. The French saw off a rising neo-fascist infection, albeit by electing to stick a neoliberal band-aid on a gangrenous foot and hoping that that would solve the underlying problem. It won’t. And over here in Britain, a brief temperature check shows us that the body’s white blood cells are rapidly, though belatedly, kicking into action in an effort to reverse the worse of the damage that has been done.
Socialism is the hot nurse making sure you’re okay as you wake up in the bed, confused and disoriented. You have been out for years; dozing under the Grima Wormtongue-like spell of Milton Freedman. She has the cure for what ails you. I’ve been calling her ‘she’, but that’s just for ease of writing; socialism has no one gender. It is, as a matter of fact, of all genders, because it is all of us. You remember how hot that Sense8 orgy shit was?
No barriers of colour, sex, gender, creed, religion, or sexuality; just a desire to look out for others and to make sure that they’re ok—mmm, socialism.
Representative, progressive taxation designed to fund national infrastructure that is used to give everyone a fair shot, no matter what their initial station in life?
Mmm, socialism.
Free, universal education and healthcare ensuring that no one is left wanting for two of the most fundamental needs in this world?
Mmm, socialism.
A unionised workforce granting its constituent members the power of collective bargaining in its dealings with the bosses and making sure that those whose labour creates wealth actually get to reap the benefits of it?
Mmm, socialism.
A non-imperialist foreign policy built around dialogue and mutual co-operation?
Mmm, socialism.
A deep and instinctive, policy-backed understanding that a true measure of a society is how it treats its weakest and most vulnerable and that the strongest and most powerful should be expected to pay their fair share?
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, goddamn socialism.
I’m sorry, I’m getting all hot an bothered over here. As they say around these parts: I’ll be in my bunk.
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Petr Knava lives in London and plays music