And I watched a video yesterday that perfectly encapsulated everything that is wrong with Britain. The whole thing. A lifetime of systemic failure, of grotesque inequality, of ruling-class contempt disguised as concern, all of it distilled into a single glittering, nauseating image.
There he was. King Charles III. Dressed in his finest robes, the Imperial State Crown on his head (this is a solid gold construction studded with 2,868 diamonds, 17 sapphires, 11 emeralds, 269 pearls, and four rubies). The Sovereign’s Sceptre with Cross contains the largest clear-cut diamond in the world, weighing in at 530 carats…was present but not in the shot. The crown jewels are estimated to be worth up to $8 billion in total. And this man, wearing a hat that could solve homelessness in London, who holds a stick that could fund the NHS for a year, draped in robes worth more than most people will earn in a thousand lifetimes, was telling the British people to ‘weather the storm’ of the cost of living crisis.
Crosspost from https://lemmygrad.ml/post/11612563
Despite having a King, the UK is a pretty good example of democracy. Better than the US ever was, that’s for sure.
Sometimes things just named names for no reason. North korea calls themselves Democratic Republic, a ceremonial clown calls himself King, those things happen
The DPRK is more democratic than the UK and you have no idea how its democratic and political system functions, and are invoking it as an anti-communist canard.
The UK is a democracy for the rich, where any wins that are forced out of them by the working class are slowly reversed back to the status quo.
Like clockwork. If they serve no purpose, get rid of them.
The UK and England in particular has this weird obsession with doing things “the proper way” which means following traditions even when it doesn’t make any sense. So seriously proposing to finally abolishing this monarchical circus is simultaneously an objectively correct thing to do, a not unpopular thing to do, and weirdly, an absolute political suicide. I don’t know how many generations needs to die so this monarchical bug disappears, but I suspect when we will all be underwater from the icecaps melting, and the last 7 Englishmen somewhere in the north will be building their final raft out of soggy newspaper, two of them will be monarchists, and the rest will be too polite to do anything about it, so their raft will have a royal insignia made of biscuit tins, and will be called His Royal Majesty’s Boaty Mc’Boatface The Second.
It’s not about politeness, it’s that the crown have now firmly established themselves as part of the capitalist class, and expropriating them would be the same as expropriating any old capitalist. They have class solidarity and won’t allow that to happen baring outbreaks of war with foreign adversaries.
Britain does rank higher than the USA (but lags Ireland and others) on this democracy ranking.