Something Michael Moore said (10:00 minutes):
“I can say that from my end of the political spectrum, we don’t forget people. We’re actually about remembering the people who are forgotten, and fighting for them… The real forgotten people, the people who still don’t have the power, that don’t have the voice: women, people of colour, young people. These are the forgotten people”
Are those really the forgotten people?
Is there any way that they can possibly be the forgotten people?
The very fact that people like Michael Moore are remembering them means that they’re not forgotten. They’re really the unforgotten people.
We have lots and lots of these unforgotten people. Women. Blacks. Jews. Gays and lesbians. Etc, etc. There’s an entire literature attached to each of them. We’re never allowed to forget them for a moment.
It’s true that they once were forgotten. But the forgotten women got the vote a century ago. And the forgotten blacks got civil rights 60 years ago. And forgotten homosexuality was decriminalised 40 or 50 years ago. These are all people who’ve been remembered for a very long time. So how can anyone say that they’re forgotten? If anything they’ve been remembered for far too long.
I think there are lots of better candidates for the truly forgotten. They’re the people who really are forgotten and ignored and despised like women and blacks and gays once were. They’re the people that the likes of Michael Moore never remember.
For just when women and blacks and gays were being given the vote, given new rights, and stopped being persecuted, other people started being excluded and persecuted instead.
For example: smokers.
A century ago smokers could smoke everywhere. Now those rights have been taken away. They can hardly smoke anywhere. And they are robbed with punitive taxation. And nobody listens to them. Nobody pays any attention to them.
Another example: fat people.
Twiggy
A century ago fat people were held in high esteem. Santa Claus or Father Christmas was a beaming fat guy who brought everyone presents on Christmas Day. But over the past century the admired body type has become thin. Remember Twiggy from the 1960s? Fat people are now pressured to lose weight. Fat people are despised. Fat people have told me that it’s much worse for them than it is for smokers. And I can believe them. In my experience some people are just naturally fat, and some naturally thin, just like some people are naturally short and some naturally tall. I’m naturally thin. My mother used to implore me to eat more. But I stayed thin however much I ate. Don’t ask me why.
There’s an odd relationship between smoking and obesity. Smokers tend not to get fat. Maybe that’s because smoking suppresses appetite. But a century or so ago, particularly during wartime, when everyone was thin and wiry, more or less everyone smoked. It’s really only been over the past 60 years, while people have been stopping smoking, that people have started getting fat. You either smoke and stay thin, or you stop smoking and get fat: you’ll be disapproved of either way.
Smokers are despised and excluded, and fat people are despised and excluded too (although I’ve yet to see any No Fat People signs. Why not?). And both are forgotten. They’re the forgotten forgotten. And there are probably plenty more forgotten forgotten people: I forget who.
The persecution of both smokers and fat people has been carried out in the name of Health – Public Health. The UK National Health Service was created in 1948. The UK government Department of Health was created in 1988. Public Health is a tyrannical new invention. Somehow or other us Brits survived for thousands or years without Public Health. It’s a new religion. In the old religion you died and then went to heaven (or hell): in the new religion you never die. Or you’ll never die if you eat a Healthy Diet, don’t touch Junk Food, get plenty of Exercise, and breathe Smoke-Free Air.
The old religion was run by bishops and priests and monks in monasteries and cathedrals. The new religion is run by doctors and nurses and health experts in hospitals. True believers in the old religion are now regarded as being gullible, believing everything they were told unquestioningly. True believers in the new religion are equally gullible: they believe everything they’re told by doctors.
The old religion ended when the monasteries were closed down, and monks evicted onto the streets. It’ll be the same with the new religion. The hospitals will be closed down, and the doctors and nurses evicted from them. It’ll happen when Public Health becomes even more completely insufferable than it already is. It’ll happen when Public Health has succeeded in excluding and demonising not just smokers and fat people, but everybody else as well.
And with the UK about be locked down yet again because of the current crazy coronavirus panic, we might be approaching the point where absolutely everybody is completely sick and tired of bullying and blackmailing Public Health zealots.
And when they’ve all been swept away, people will be encouraged to enjoy their lives, stop trying to live forever. They’ll be encouraged to eat and drink and smoke. It’ll be a new Restoration after years of oppression by the pinch-faced killjoys of Public Health. And then all the forgotten will be remembered, and all the too-long-remembered will be forgotten.
Frank Davis 