The Judge RANTS!
Date: 15/05/05
Nothing Has Changed...
A general, end-of-week whinge round-up for you, chums:
Item: The unrest in Uzbekistan has stirred Jack
Straw, the UK's Foreign Secretary and War-Criminal-In-Waiting to a
hand-wringing response in which he states that it is clear that the
Uzbeks want freedom and democracy.
Well, maybe they do, but if so then it has been obvious for quite some
time. Like, during the time when the UK's ambassador to Tashkent, Craig
Murray, was reporting back to London on the vicious abuses of the
Karimov régime, the torture and killing of dissidents, and the fact
that 'evidence' obtained by the régime's goon squads was being used by
'Her Majesty''s Government as reasons for keeping a whole load of
Muslim men in indefinite imprisonment without trial (or even charge) in
maximum-security prisons and psychiatric hospitals in England.
Craig Murray's reward for speaking out was to be the victim of a
campaign of smear and innuendo by Straw and his department which
eventually forced Mr Murray out of the diplomatic service.
(See his
website for further details).
Furthermore, the US régime has expressed its 'concern' over events in
Andijan. Not 'concern' over the shooting down of unarmed men and women
in the streets, however; just 'concern' that some alleged 'Islamic
terrorists' had been sprung from jail during the unrest. Karimov is, of
course, a trusted ally of the Bush-shites; the US taxpayer subsidises
his terror to the tune of millions of dollars, much of which goes in to
'training' the security services. The US claims that they are teaching
the thugs 'less repressive security techniques', but that's just code
for 'types of torture which don't leave so much of a visible mark'. The
US now have a military base in Uzbekistan, so they are eminently
grateful to Karimov. So much so, in fact, that they will ignore
brutality which, in more convenient circumstances, would lead to
threats of invasion or bombing from the chickenshit White House.
Item: We expect hypocrisy from politicians. That
seems to be the only thing they're capable of producing successfully
nowadays. Here
we have the sight of Hazel Blears, the curiously-named 'Minister For
Antisocial Behaviour' (I would have hoped that she would be against
antisocial behaviour but, quite frankly, nothing surprises me anymore),
wanting young people (specifically young people, note) who are
undertaking community-based sentences to be forced to wear special
uniforms to mark them out to the gawpers who might see them.
Well, that's a great way to reintegrate minor young offenders
into the community, isn't it? And that'll really reduce the
likelihood of them becoming further alienated and reoffending! Way to
go, Hazey baby! After all, they do it in the good ole' Yoo-Ess-Of-Ay,
so it must be worth copying heedlessly over here, mustn't it?
Oh, Dreary Bleary does admit that it's 'very hard' to generalise about
why parents are failing to control their children - and then goes on to
generalise. "Partly, it's time...we have all got less of it".
Tell it like it is, sweetie.
In particular, tell it to those parents who both have to work to ensure
that the family can get by, because this government has overseen the
widening of the gap between the hyper-rich and the rest of us in the
last eight years, and doesn't intend doing a thing to reverse it -
after all, "You can't tax the rich: if you do, they'll leave the
country." (A. Blair, 2001).
Those same parents are often the ones who also have to work long hours
because their employers insist upon it, probably having the condition
written in to their contract of employment. They can do this because
the 'business-friendly' Blairistas are fighting tooth-and-nail to keep
the UK's absurd exemption from the European Union's limitation on
working hours, claiming that such a limit would 'hurt business'. Any
business or enterprise which can only survive because its workforce are
working 50 to 60-hour weeks is almost certainly run by people who can't
run a business. But, then again, this is what they do in America, so it
has to be the way forward, hasn't it?
If parents weren't forced into a long-hours work culture, then they'd
be at home longer (and more effectively) to supervise their children,
wouldn't they? Case, as they say, solved.
Item: Far from 'listening' as he claimed to be
doing when he stood, shell-shocked, before the media the day after his
little empire started to come apart earlier this month, it is quite
clear that Anthony Charles Lynton Blair QC MP, has no intention of
doing so. If he had, he would surely have thought again about
reintroducing the ID Cards Bill to Parliament so soon afterwards. Yet
it seems that, even with a sharply-reduced majority, he is determined
to press
on with a scheme which has already more than surpassed the original
estimates as to its cost, will be a severe threat to our basic
liberties and, moreover, simply won't do the things the government
claims it will.
(Go to No2ID's
website for the full background).
This comes a couple of days or so after a shopping mall in Kent stated
its intention to ban all people of a certain age (i.e. under 25) from
entering their premises if wearing a 'hoodie' or a baseball cap.
Now, I don't have any problem with the principle of such a ban.
But only on the grounds that such garments tend to make their wearer
(especially at that age) look a proper prick. Using people's clothing
as the sole determinant of their likely character or morals, however,
is petty and piddling. What's more, nothing seems be put in place to
stop the shops in that mall from selling those very same items.
Presumably you can buy them, but if you attempt to try them on in the
shop, some hired thug in a uniform the wrong size for him will sling
you out.
But who cares if you can make it seem as if you're doing
something? Yes! Let's have CCTV on every street! Let's all be
scanned! Let's all have bar-codes, without which we are liable to
prosecution and imprisonment! Let's allow half-cock shopping centre
managers to make sweeping judgements on the basis of total ignorance!
After all, it'll make us all feel safer, won't it?
Won't it?
Item: And finally, Esther...For years I've been
buying Green & Black's organic chocolate. OK, as I'm diabetic, you
might say that this is a foolhardy course of action. But I need an
emergency supply of carbohydrate around the place, and why not enjoy
myself at the same time as staving off hypoglycaemic coma? Besides
which, it has a far greater proportion of cocoa fat in it than that
sickly, over-sugared, vegetable-fat-laden mess that the Brits insist is
'real chocolate'.
So it came as very sad news to me to read that Green & Black's have
sold
out. Worse still, they have sold out to Cadbury Schweppes, one of
the prime purveyors of that corrupted abortion which is known by our
European neighbours, euphemistically, as 'English chocolate'.
Not only do I deprecate the very idea of yet another product
being bought up by a huge, multi-national monster (especially one with
close links to the Coca Cola Corporation. Why? See here for why), but it's also
worrying to consider the possibility of Green & Black's ethical
trade policy becoming, sooner or later, the victim of
'rationalisation', 'vertical integration', or whatever the 'in' phrase
of management-speak might be at the time.
The Chief Executive of CS, one Todd Stitzer (an American - can you see
a theme here, boys and girls?), claims that the agreements G&B has
with cocoa farmers in Belize are perfectly safe because, "Our
businesses share a passion for ... ethical values".
These, presumably, are the same ethical values outlined in a letter
Cadbury Schweppes sent to fair-trade campaigners just one year ago,
when it refused to accept the principle of fixing the prices it pays to
cocoa farmers, claiming that, "the best way forward is to
liberalise the market".
Yeah, in the same way that raw material producers in Latin America,
Africa and Asia have all been screwed by the same 'liberalisation' in
recent years, at the behest of such unaccountable bunches of the
terminally corrupt as the World Bank and the IMF.
So, no more Maya Gold for me, alas. I will not contribute to the
profits of such a stupid and selfish company.
Anyone know of any other ethical chocolate producer?
Item: Actually, there's something else as well,
but it relates to an ongoing situation at work. Referring to it even
obliquely here may well lead me in to the same problems as faced a few
months ago by Joe Gordon (see here).
Unlike Joe, however, I lack the contacts to be able to walk into a new
job within a few weeks. So, I must remain silent - if only for the time
being.
