The Manifesto of Corinth Starr: Starr the elder. Continued…

“We have almost as far to go as we have come.
And we have come a great distance.”The book of Shadrack: part the third

Editor’s note: These extracts which follow [and which have prefaced our herstory so far] are taken from the so-called “Testimonies of an enumerator”, which were discovered on an archaeological expedition to the “Abandomentei” zones of the ancient Azanian Konfederacy, about which much was published on Internet news casts when the discoveries were made.

Readers will remember that when the “Testimonies” were discovered the excitement triggered a wave of new investigations that have enabled us to gain a unique perspective, on a time and a place, which, previously, we had not known to exist.

According to the special investigation team assembled to evaluate and translate the documents, the evidence produced indicates that the Transformation period of ourstory started much earlier than we had previously believed, and certainly earlier than the time of the planet wide, “Flooding”. There are even indications that the Floods, with which we are now so familiar, were not the first. There is evidence to indicate that they have apparently occurred more than once during the physical era of proto-human history.

Leofric

The Manifesto: Part two.

“….This means that the way in which we calculate Gross National Product (our region’s income) is as flawed as the statistical data on which we base our conclusions. We may as well be Romans reading the entrails of goats.”

This was the opening full frontal thrust in Starr the elder’s assault on the ruling order.

Her party had come into existence early in the opening decade of that fateful century and she had languished for a time on the sidelines. Equally, during that time she moved fearlessly through the streets and shanty villages that were swarming into existence all over Zone One and beyond. She had travelled too, to the older liberated territories of Azania and encountered people who represented the best of a generation; and who were sliding deeper and deeper into destitution and mutual savagery, while the shining walls of the wealthy parts of the Zones seemed more elusive than ever imagined. Rage was steadily manifesting and that rage, deflected now from power, took the form of more and more violence, between the two species of humans that lived at that time in that place.

These two species, known as genders, (as we now know) existed to mate and produce more offspring, to mate and produce more, frequently identical, offspring in an endless cycle of incremental development, extending over an immense time* (See glossary notes to be published later, regarding abstract terminologies such as ‘time’. For convenience however time is taken as the space between the coming into existence of an average peeple, and their ceasing to exist. This space is then divided up by the number of times the planet turns upon itself, and /or turns about its sun. While it is in fact a mere flicker against the vastness of eternity at a nano level this flicker can seem to be an extensive period… Notes: Koz see ibid.).

This reproductive process involved the interpenetration of one by the other. The original terms for these genders do not make much sense so for convenience we have dubbed them the “Penetrators” and the “Penetratees”. It is also noted that these activities were not exclusively reproductive; in fact ultimately they were exclusively recreational after the reproductive function was modified and simplified. But here we are getting ahead of ourselves. As a further extension to the complexity of this interaction some penetrators could simultaneously be a penetratee, and some penetratees would make use of a prophylactic to consummate the act to mimic a penetrator.

For a variety of reasons, with which it is not our purpose to deal, these relationships had evolved, at the time of this, part one of the testimonies, into a ‘property’ dimension. Humans as we now know had an immense propensity to possess things exclusively. This was known as an Ownership right, and both of these genders believed that they had a ‘right’ to own the other.

For most of the period of advanced proto-human development the bigger, bulkier, penetratively designed gender (the penetrators), dominated the receiving, accepting, possessing gender (penetratees). This had something to do with the length of time needed during the post-gestation period to nurture the reproduced human product. The testimonies cover, in part, the time when that relationship altered.

To return to the words of Starr the elder.
“The true measure of wealth is no longer the production of goods, since we now have the capacity to produce infinitely expanding volumes of commoditising* goods at ever diminishing cost…”

“What we do not have is consumption of goods and services in sufficient volume to sustain all that production and whereas, in the past, excess of demand over supply led to the condition called inflation, with the present excess of supply over demand what we have is a debilitating deflation. Our world is stagnating into despair and violent confrontation between the genders”

… The crowd receives this in bemused silence.

“What happened?” She asked before answering her own question.

“The world has become a global marketplace.

A marketplace can only survive if there are reasonable numbers of buyers.”

The crowd were still puzzled but waited politely, drawn by the magnetic pull of the hyped up pre-publicity.

“The marketplace is awash with oversupply; the system of production is so efficient it’s imploding into stagnation and deflation. And this simply accelerates the plunge of the poor into greater, greater and greater, misery. Indeed,” she added, not quite as an afterthought, her voice rising imperiously through the word itself. “…Everything we have done since we liberated ourselves from the Koloniste and the time of our Dispossession has simply accelerated the vast numbers of poor into a greater condition of misery, made worse by this pestilential mating plague that has come to curse us.

The crowd had responded positively to the negative comments on the Koloniste. Such, ‘them are the peril’ related strategies always provided useful point scoring tactics. But it was the curse of the terrible wasting diseases that had plagued the closing years of the preceding century, turning into pandemics, killing millions by the time of the testimonies that really began to move the crowd. Years of seemingly neglectful measures to combat the scourge had reaped a bitter harvest, and many millions of grieving disaffected citizens; and citizens were also voters. Overwhelmingly the victims of the new age were those who were raped* and beaten by members of the ruling gender. Starr the elder tapped into that well of discontent and began to draw the waters of power to within drinking distance.

[Editor’s note: *This comment on “plagues” appears to be a reference to the so called ‘plague wars’ about which more shall be revealed when those parts of the Testimonies known as the Yonka Memorandum© that are to be published on the Internet Forum some time from now.
*The word ‘raped’ referred to a form of violent penetration assault on a penetratee, without the happy consent of the human being “raped”. As we shall see this rape issue, itself something of a pandemic apparently, played a significant role in precipitating the change that took place during the rule of Starr the elder.]

“There are certain truths that we must now accept,” Starr the elder was a large and formidable specimen of a penetratee gender (referred to as “her” or ‘she”). Her voice had been specially modulated by vocal experts to work on the dream mode of the human brain and was alternately soft and insinuating; rising to crescendo’s of suppressed rage, as she railed against the injustice of violence against her kind. However in this famous Constitution Hill manifesto she chose then to move to a different target.

For many of you however the reason you are all hear is to hear my party’s strategy with respect to Jobs, aren’t you?

And the crowd roared its approval even though they had been lied to for at least forever, it seemed, by ruling party politicians making promises about jobs. Secretly most of those present didn’t believe much would happen in the business iof job provision.

“The most important truth is that there are no more JOBS, and there never will be any ever again!”

She let that statement hang in the air until it gently rained down on her sobering audience. They weren’t too sure that they wanted their suspicions confirmed.

“You all know that for more than two decades now, the popular cry to call in the masses…You out there … at election time, is the ultimate promise of “more jobs”. We remember the “more jobs” party in the last election who gained six seats on the promise and defected to the ruling party on the first ‘window’* opportunity. They were the only ones who got jobs.”

Perhaps there were some in the mob out there who wondered if she wouldn’t just do the same. This right that politicians had to change parties in mid stream notwithstanding that they were not personally elected by the voter had effectively changed the basic compact denoting representative government; and the practice had become a thorn in the prickly hide of the system.

The effect had been to dilute the multiplicity of parties that had peppered the early years of the new Republic and had tended to favour the development of oligarchies; and had in turn ultimately mired down the pace of transformation in an eclectic wash of self-interest.

“It is my belief that those amongst our leaders who have made those promises were sincere in their belief that their actions would lead to more jobs. They have been doing and saying the same things, like some doctrinal mantras over and over again in the bland expectation that suddenly the outcome will alter.

However we keep ‘knowing’ that there are no jobs, that all our conferences have created no jobs other than for a lucky few. We know that jobs have not happened and we keep refusing to believe that they have become extinct. Jobs belong to an age that has gone forever. We have legislated jobs out of existence, haven’t we?”

She could see the first beginnings of movements, the first stirring of heads nodding in affirmation. She held her pause with infinite, studied, care. The crowd hovered in expectation, sensing that she was building to a momentous declaration.

“Most irrationally, we aggressively insist on believing that although we have passed thousands of laws that have made jobs extinct, these ridiculous “jobs” will keep coming back to life because of some curious ‘rules’ of ‘human nature’: whatever they are!”

At this point she paused; let the words sink in upon the now completely silent crowd. She had their total attention, not to mention that of the millions, around the world, who later saw the remarkable speech on television and through Internet podcasting on UTube and elsewhere..

“We must accept another truth, too.” she said eventually, her voice dropping, possibly by as much as an octave.

“It is this…the poor have always been supported by those who had plenty.” The crowd roared its approval. Someone had to pay and ‘they’ were always the favourite target. “They” who haditall: how dare they! Starr the elder raised her hand.

“In the far distant past this support would be in the form of voluntary bondage, later evolving into the hated institution of slavery!” The crowd roared its disapproval of the evil word, they were however concerned at the talk of voluntary bondage and the crowd had looked around at each other wondering about the strangeness of this statement. Fortunately that moment of question was immediately obliterated with the use of the S word. Slave was a word that obliterated reason..

“Therefore the wealth of society has always encompassed the needs of all, no matter how slight these needs are, have they not?”

“Yes, Yes, Yes.” The crowd roared its approval for after all, their needs were slight compared with those of the newly wealthy elites, who had come to dominate Southern Azania since the revolution and who, together with collaborationist remnants of the former Koloniste business class, now quaked at the thought of the new revolution; and would set out to limit it were they free to do so.

Starr the elder’s true genius lay in recognising where the lever was placed, which according to the ancient Archimedes, would “move the world”, and she had assiduously studied how to apply it. Brought up as a scion of a Party main person, she first exerted her influence in the rough and tumble world of construction and construction engineering, before moving into the political mainstream firstly as a hotshot party apparatchik, and then later, becoming disillusioned at the escalating dimensions of patronage, and its dulling effects on the tenacity with which the revolution was being pursued she had spoken out and been expelled from the party. She had taken it personally: others had been caught with their hands in the till and were not expelled!

She could have returned to her own corporation, which had, under her development become the most powerful company of its era, having gobbled up many of her long established competition in the meantime. It was a multi-billion-credit operation and she milked it now for her purpose as so she did what every ambitious person with the aim of ruling the world does. She started her own party and went off in pursuit of glory.

Then, starting softly in one corner of the crowded precinct that extends so spectacularly from the Constitutional Court of the Azanian Konfederasy, the now famous chant began, accompanied by the equally famous Toi Toi. Those who were there that day spoke of the hairs at the backs of their necks curling at the sound.

“Bee Pee, Bee Pee, Bee Pee…. Woza” and then again and again until the entire audience was worked up into a frenzy that even enveloped the gathered dignitaries- who seemed themselves undignified, primly, sitting, observing – until they too broke under peer pressure [to be seen later on television cavorting and toi toi ing with the best of the rest, as they say, and in some cases to their own, considerable, later embarrassment]

“In a world increasingly run by machines… large scale labour has become unnecessary! The exploitation of worker citizens by corporations has ended, but so has the work that humans did.”

The crowd had gone silent again with an aching anxiety. They didn’t really want to hear that jobs had become extinct.

With a nose for the correct instant Starr opened up for her climax.

“Human beings today have now got a new task, having been liberated from the task of toiling at the production lines it is the task of each and every citizen to go forth and consume goods and services, and soak up the excess capacity in our system!!”

She roared it out and the crowd picking up their earlier mood cheered lustily; all the while looking around in confusion, understanding only that there was a plan, embodied in the slogan B…P…, being chanted again and again: cascading around the precinct like a wild Mexican* wave. [Editor’s note: * we do not know what that word means.]
Corinth Starr stood almost bravely to attention throughout the tumult; catching it eventually on its crest. With a wave of her arms she lifted the sound and then gradually brought it down: rooting the energy, until the place was once again silent with expectancy.

“To enable this task of consumption to take place I decree… the payment of “Basic Pay”!
The crowd went delirious, as would any rational riotous mob hearing the most wonderful news ever to have been heard. They leapt up and down, hugged each other with anticipated pleasure and felt the glorious nub of hope burst effervescently through their normal mask of cowed cynicism.

“Yes you heard correctly, this is not some hearing defect you just got…a vote for the Gender Party means “Basic Pay for all”….
When elected, I shall, I decree now, that I shall legislate for the payment of a basic wage to each and every citizen of the land.

Each citizen shall receive one hundred credits each month paid directly into their own electronic account accessible only through their own unique individualised identity logo.

The news headlines that day were …BASIC PAY! WHO’S A GONNA PAY? …

Who indeed…

To be continued

Extracted from the Testimonies of an enumerator.