Barbelith Underground > Switchboard > True Futility? Unions, cyclical atmosphere.

The whole concept of futility can be taken as general rather than personal and if we do that than it can be suggested that it is slowly fading away.

Sometime after reading about a new futility in Switchboard it occurred to me that we would not actually be discussing such a thing unless the futility was generally fading away. The political situation concerning terrorism, ethnicity and of course war is particularly tense at the moment but in a way this post concerns the ins and outs of politics, unions and the result of Thatcherism more than anything international.

While watching the coverage of the fire-fighters and possible strike action it was announced that other unions were considering action in support of the fire-fighters union. This kind of action was banned before the miner’s strikes in the ‘80s and it can be assumed that as a result of that ban the miners inevitably lost their battle. Considering the political feeling at that moment in time it is hardly surprising that other unions didn’t support them but it seems to me that the sheer possibility of other unions stepping forward now implies an opposition to that futility.

I was discussing this with someone who is not involved with this board but presents himself with reference to Marxism and he feels that there is a great resurgence in communist/socialist theory at the moment passing through the intellectual world. Particularly among people who are 40+ and were mostly politically active in the 1970’s and the reaction to the fire-fighters among the unions in the UK seem to indicate that this is the case.

So basically what I’m opening up here is the idea that this country in particular is opposing this futility, something that doesn’t appear to be new, we have had the biggest peace protest ever in England in the last few months. The futility that is rife here does seem to be slowly reversing itself. So am I right, wrong, sociopathic?