Rants Archive 2006
The (K)night Crawler
Well, I did warn you, didn't I? See here (last paragraph).
I have to admit that it didn't take much foresight or imagination
to see this one coming. A government in deep trouble, a Prime Minister
who should be only inches away from the dock of a major court, and
where both have a tabloid-like obsession with celebrity? It was
inevitable that this non-boat-rocker, who thinks that branding is more
important than substance, and that playing meaningless
corporate-sponsored festivals is more significant than getting
onto the streets and kicking some arse; a man who recently moved a
large chunk of his personal fortune out of his native land so as not to
have to pay tax on it: as I say, it was a foregone conclusion that such
a one should be given a bijou baublette to wear on that bloody silly
stetson hat he's just got back off one of his former employees.
So, congratulations Paul Hewson KBE (King of Bollocks for Evermore)!
Oh, and I bet Midge Ure's pissed off at having being forgotten yet again....
Government By Weasel
Perhaps I'm feeling a little low. If so, it could be the
consequence of having spent most of the last week in bed with the 'flu
which I thought I'd been vaccinated against the previous week.
This meant drifting in and out of a state of delirium in which images
recurred time and time again without any possibility of explaining
(even to myself) what they were; augmented by the same two pieces of
music going round and round and round inside my head.
Still, I'm feeling much better now, thank you: at least, I am
physically. Psychically, however, I have seldom been more
depressed at what I see around me. I have never known our political
landscape in a worse state than it is today.
This is quite a sweeping claim, I know. I remember the darkness of
the 1980s and early 90s, when it seemed that the Thatcher-being had
done some sort of deal with Mephistopheles to ensure that she and her
wild-eyed, froth-mouthed City stormtroopers would stay in power forever.
(Actually, the deal was with Murdoch, which should at least ensure that
when the evil old hag finally goes to fill the chair that her chum
Pinochet is now warming up for her down there, she should get an extra
semi-eternity for herself). I remember the wanton and deliberate
destruction of our industries and the communities they supported, all
done in the name of efficiency and with the flashing-eyed zeal
of the True Believer. I remember the selling off of our property to
huge corporations, who then shut them down, or sold them off to outside
interests, or simply slashed the workforce and invited the ministers
who had flogged them off to the pirates on board that same ship
themselves once they had left office.
I had hoped never to see worse than that. But I'm seeing it now.
We now have a government which (on the basis of a small minority of
the electorate's support) has already made us an object of ridicule and
hatred around the world for its slavish, fawning and me-too-istic
adherence to the policies of the most vicious cabal of thugs ever to
hold office in the US. At home, it has continued the policies of
Thatcherism regarding the interference of privateers in the running and
shaping of our most basic public services, even to the extent of
letting the education of millions of our children fall ready prey to
any handy passing millionaire or corporation, even (or perhaps, especially)
if they wish to promote loopy, fact-free daydreams like 'Intelligent
Design' as if it had any possible scientific validity.
This is a government which thunders mightily when it speaks of the
desirability of greater social cohesion, and yet follows that up with a
system of bribes to encourage the creation of even more 'faith-based'
(i.e. sectarian) schools. And then goes on to blame the Muslims for not
integrating.
It is a government, too, which yaps on in tedious formation
rhetoric about how the so-called War On Terror is a war to defend our
freedoms, and then sets out systematically to dismantle those self-same
qualities. Bill after Parliamentary Bill has been passed since 1997
which gives greater and greater power to the State and the Police to
watch us, listen to us, fingerprint us, DNA-sample us, iris-scan us,
have free view of our medical records, our bank accounts and even the
records of what we may have bought on-line. All this ultimately to be
combined in one gargantuan national database, a one-stop shop for the
State snoop, the spook, the nanny and the commissar to track our deeds,
our words, and perhaps ultimately even our thoughts. A database which,
even when obviously and hideously wrong, will still be deemed to be
correct. A government which goes on endlessly about freedom, and then
passes a gigantic Bill with the sole and unvarnished aim of stopping one man
from protesting outside Parliament against that same Government's own
complicity in massive crimes against humanity.
And now, a government which shrieks and howls about 'the rule of
law' while being up to its neck in financial and political sleaze,
deliberately, calculatingly and without any attempt to hide what it is
doing, intervening to stop a supposedly-independent public body (the
Serious Fraud Office) from continuing its investigations into the
corrupt conduct of a major corporation which receives millions in
public handouts every year to produce instruments of mass murder, and
ministers and officials of that shining beacon of democracy, freedom
and justice, the tribal dictators of the Saud family. And seeking to
justify a clear and blatant political interference in our judicial
system by claiming it to be 'in the broader national interest'.
Sorry, this has gone far enough. This government must go. Every
member of it must go, because even the lowliest of its backbench
supports is irremediably tainted by association with it. It would no
longer be enough (if it ever had been) simply to change the leader. All
are guilty, by their passivity.
And the media are guilty, too. In spades. Not only have they been
dazzled by the glamour of New Labour, not only have they treated the
government of a medium-to-high-ranking international power as if it
were either a tacky soap opera or some witless celebrity reality show,
they have allowed themselves (the better to cosy up to The Power) to
become damn all more than a stenography service for that very
government. This was always true of some organs (and how appropriate
that word is, when you consider some of its meanings): The Guardian,
for example, or its sister paper The Observer, a tireless
cheerleader for War. But even in the supposedly-neutral broadcasting
arena, the BBC (post-Hutton) has been a model of studied cowardice. So
much have the media become 'embedded' with the clearly-untrammelled
power of this regime that, for example, when a group of MPs began a campaign
calling for the impeachment of Blair for his lies to Parliament about
the then-forthcoming war on the people of Iraq, the media almost
totally ignored it, and the campaign has only limped on ever since.
They, too, must be called to account. If they cannot be
independent, if they cannot be anything other than poodles accepting
scraps handed to them by their masters, then they are of no use to any
of the rest of us, and should find something to do which is more
morally elevating - rounding up stray dogs for vivisectionists, for
instance.
We, too, are in a mess. We have spent the last decade dazzled by
the beams of holy light shining out from the sphincter of The Good
Shepherd Of Downing Street, and have gambolled happily to the precipice
below which lies nothing but full-strength authoritarianism combined
with sprayed-on piety and the usual side-order of bread and circuses.
And all the time we sit, content to fatten our our bodies, flabbify
our minds and enfeeble our wits, until we are that most precious
commodity to the State and the Corporation alike: the docile consumer,
permanently in hock to our friendly neighbourhood bank (or, at least,
its call-centre in Bangalore).
So get off your arses! Whatever it is that makes you angry about
the world we live in, get out there now!
Campaign!
Organise!
Protest!
Refuse to be silent!
While you still just about can campaign.
While it is still not quite a suspicious act in itself to organise.
While it is still just about legal to protest (in most places).
While you still can refuse to be silent.
Can you hear the clock ticking....?
Hypocrisy Unveiled
It has now been established beyond doubt that the Labour Party has
no notion of history, which is why it has failed miserably to learn any
lessons from it.
This isn't just a failing of Nu Labour, which has sought to
establish (both within the party and outside it) 1997 as a sort of
Blairite Year Zero. Nothing from before may be entertained (unless it
can be utilised for material gain), and nothing prior to that time may
be permitted to inform current thinking (unless it can be rewritten to
make it look like an original idea from the Dear Leader's favourite
policy wonkers).
No, NuLab is only continuing the fine old tradition of Labour in
Wales. The tenth-rate council hacks, unreconstituted Stalinists and
flab-witted Fabians who comprise that ever more rotten corpse have made
it their business for three generations or more to impart the notion
that Wales didn't exist until Aneurin Bevan invented it. The betrayal
of the miners time after time by the Labour establishment (be it during
the General Strike of 1926 or the strike of 1984/5, or by promising
that the miners would run the industry, then handing it over wholesale
to Oxbridge-educated bureaucrats in London) should be sufficient
testimony to Labour's perfidy and hypocrisy.
And hypocrisy in spades is what we had last weekend, when a bronze
bust was unveiled in Aberdare to mark the birth of the party. The bust
was of James Keir Hardie, the founder of the party, who was MP for
Aberdare & Merthyr from 1900 until 1915.
The hypocrisy lies in this:
Keir Hardie stood for Socialism. Labour has spent the last two
decades vigorously and ruthlessly expunging the last remnants of those
principles from its ranks, in order to create the 'business-friendly'
sycophancy machine we all know and love today.
Keir Hardie stood for pacifism: this 'Labour' regime has embroiled
this island in more wars and similar illegalities and outrages (even
against its own citizens) than any government in living memory.
This latter probably wouldn't have come to him as a surprise,
however. In the period leading up to World War I, Keir Hardie tried
harder than just about anyone to prevent the epicene and effete ruling
classes of Europe setting the working people of their respective lands
against each other in brutal warfare. His reward was to be marginalised
within his own party, and the sight of his own 'comrades' being amongst
the first to start singing 'Rule Britannia' and waving the
Union Jack in 1914 clearly sickened him to the heart. He died the next
year, a man broken by the perfidy of the 'official' labour movement.
And thus (plus what we know from far more recent experience), he
probably wouldn't be surprised at who unveiled the bust in Aberdare
either: none less than 'Ms.' Ann Clwyd, NuLab MP for Cynon Valley,
'Chair' of that organism comprising three-hundred-odd bodies and no
spinal column called the Parliamentary Labour Party (*), and one of
Blair's most special friends. For was it not she who was dispatched as
the Liar's 'special envoy' to Iraq, so that she could reassure the
plucky little Kurds (involved - at that time and since - in a little
light 'ethnic cleansing' of Arabs from northern Iraq) that their right
to autonomy would be acceded to (a right she has never bothered herself
with then it came to her own country)?
It's as well that the bust does not stand over Keir Hardie's grave.
It wouldn't be still for long; not with all that rotating going on
beneath it.
(*) Stop Press!
The appalling Clwyd was today (05/12/06) voted out of the
Chairpersonship of the Labour Party (the first time that had happened
since the early 80s), and replaced by anti-war candidate Tony Lloyd.
Clwyd was said to be "extremely upset". Never mind, cariad, just think
of the gratitude of your Kurdish friends, and their chums in
Corporateland!
The Curious Case Of The Inactive Banana, or "E Pericoloso
Sporgersi" (*)
(* Italian: "It is dangerous to LEAN out")
If you haven't heard about this already, please spend a couple of
minutes reading this
story.
We've been in stitches over this for much of the day at the office.
You see our office is one of the ones mentioned in the story.
To be scrupulously fair (something I am decreasingly inclined to be
nowadays, because the same Depratment of Stoat is desperately trying to
centralise the remainder of my job, having
'outsourced' the rest of it earlier this year), what happened in
this particular case was that a local senior manager simply got
somewhat up himself and started embellishing procedure.
It's a shame that this has been allowed to grab the headlines. Not
because it brings HM Revenge and Cussdoms into public disrepute - that
in itself would be a superfluous act nowadays after The Affair Of The
Ballsed-up Tax Credit System - but because this is merely the most
ludicrous outcrop of that iceberg of melting insanity called LEAN.
A quick recap: LEAN is a way of systematising (sorry Steve!)
production first developed by Toyota to improve the way they make cars.
I could go for the cheap laugh and say that, given its origins, it
should be called REAN, but I'll resist the temptation. As this seemed
to work, in that it enhanced Toyota's reputation no end, it has been
taken up as a war banner by that army of fraudsters collectively known
as 'management consultants'. And so, LEAN has been applied to a wide
variety of processes, including (as in this instance) those for which
it was never intended: for how, in the name of The
Boss, could systems designed to produce better widgets faster and
cheaper possibly be adapted for such things as....well....dealing with
people's tax queries (just to give an example off the top of my head,
you understand)?
LEAN first came into the Depratment last year sometime, and its
bright-tailed and bushy-eyed acolytes have been spreading it with a
will (and when I say 'spreading', think agriculture). Oh, this was
going to make everything work! Backlogs of post would become things of
a bygone age!
To this end, a small but expensive army of private consultants was
parachuted behind enemy lines (e.g. our office), with the Secret Plans
which would lay waste to the inefficient ways of the past and lead us
into the sunny uplands of Freedom and Joy. You know, just like Bush
said would happen to Iraq?
And so our colleagues, many of whom had spent years doing the job
and meeting their targets, were treated to the regular sight of
apparently grown-up men and women playing with Stickle Bricks and
drawing perfect straight lines on whiteboards, and to the sound of
people previously regarded as sane (including some managers) using
words like 'diagnostics' and 'baselining' (this last is obviously a
melding together of the words 'basejumping' and 'mainlining', as being
injected with all this junk would make anyone want to find a tall
structure to leap off).
Staff were moved around, sometimes by the day. They were reduced to
doing only one part of a job one day, and a different part the next.
The 1990s fetish of 'whole case working' was abandoned for the tactics
of the assembly line. People are being treated not just as if they were
nine-year-olds, but as if they were retarded nine-year-olds.
And this by people who have never done the job themselves.
The result? Ever increasing backlogs of work. Greater panic among
senior managers as this state of affairs becomes impossible to hide.
And the morale of hard-working staff exhibiting all the characteristics
of The China Syndrome (i.e., it feels like you're in a very bad movie).
All this would be bad enough. But the Depratment, for all its
claims to the contrary, isn't even operating LEAN properly. Indeed, one
of the country's leading authorities on LEAN, John Seddon, has stated
clearly that what HMRC is doing is the very antithesis of what LEAN
is all about.
But still it goes on. And will go on, because no-one in
senior management has the balls to admit to what is bloodily obvious.
They, no doubt, will still get their reward, either in this life or the
next (or 'the private sector', as it's so quaintly known).
In the meantime, more and more of the tax money of Mr., Mrs. and
Ms. UK Taypayer will be spent on trying to prop up this failure. People
who are there to do their jobs will spend increasing amounts of their
time filling in statistical records rather than do what they're
supposed to be there to do. And the people who are, for want of a
better word, 'responsible' for the mess will still claim that
it has been a great success, and would have been moreso but for the
obstructiveness of staff who were, misguidedly, trying to provide a
service to the public who pay their salaries instead of using their
time wisely to stroke the egos of private-sector meddlers and their
all-too-eager little helpers who have swallowed, and who use, the fetid
vocabulary of MBA-speak (MBA = Mostly Bollocks, Actually) with such
evident relish.
Now you know, as Spike Milligan used to say, what's wrong with the
bloody country...
Bungtime For Bonzo
I've just walked along the stretch of pavement ('sidewalk'
for our US reader) which runs along the opposite side of the road to my
house.
In the space of scarcely seventy metres I found ten, yes, ten
piles of dogshit.
OK. I'm not a dog person. Some dogs are OK: my friend Alex had a
dog which used to bark like mad when I knocked on the door, then
disappear into the living room, only to return carrying a sofa cushion
in his mouth. "Sit down and take your ease, friend", was the
clear message there.
Other dogs are not so charming. This includes the group of
hyperactive, neurotic Dachshunds kept by the woman who lives in the
house behind mine. I'm sick of being perpetually yapped and yipped at
by three disturbed novelty draught-excluders every time I open the back
door.
But, well-disposed to pooches or not, it surely can't be
unreasonable to object in the strongest terms to having to dodge
dog-dumps on what is supposed to be a footpath?
Especially as we're not talking just about the curs who run free.
Time after time, I see one of these surrogate children on the end of a
lead, sad human in tow, stopping and making a deposit on the pavement,
while their proud (or, alternatively, resigned) 'owner' stands by and
lets them...and then walks away, leaving it there!
There are notices affixed to the lamp-posts hereabouts, warning of
a fine for all those who let their hounds crap on the pavement. They
might as well be written in Cat for all the difference it makes
to either party.
I have a grass verge by my gate which suffers similar depredations.
One or two 'owners' I am sure bring their animals down here just for
the purposes of placing little surprises in the greenery. Short of
electrification, I can't find any way of stopping this.
So then, whelp fans, it's time to shove a bung up Bonzo's
bum...before someone shoves a bung up yours.
Beat A Blocker!
If you wonder why I have An Attitude towards motorists, consider
this:
I was on my way home from work yesterday. Going through one of the
villages on the way home, the bus turns right into a residential area.
Picture the scene:
On the left-hand side of the road is a Range Rover-type vehicle,
neatly parked (except that in terms of the strict letter of the law
it's facing the 'wrong' way. No matter).
Another car pulls up on the right-hand side of the road,
directly opposite the parked car (there is plenty of room to park on
the left-hand side). This leaves just about enough room between them
for a standard family saloon to get through.
The driver gets out of her car and, despite being able to see the
bus approaching, strolls over to the telephone box about three metres
away.
She spends about four minutes in there making a phone call.
Nothing, but nothing can move her - the tooting of the horn of
a 35-seater Leyland has not the slightest effect on her.
Concluding her chat with her friend/hairdresser/probation
officer/whatever, she casually strolls back out to her car. She then
pulls away, goes about twenty metres down the road, then turns left in
to the cul-de-sac.
Not only has she driven a grand total of about a hundred
metres to the phone box, but she has held up a bus full of passengers
(well, alright, three passengers, but that's hardly the point -
especially when I'm one of them) for five minutes whilst doing
so.
If you happen to read this, sweetie, I think you ought to know
that, on Tuesday last at approximately 16:15 hours, you came very close
to getting your tits plunged into hot Mazola cooking oil for six
minutes at gas Mark 7.
Don't do it again, you anti-social, ignorant bitch!
Stamp It Out!
I think I've remarked before that monarchism seems to unhinge some
people.
I was in Sainsbury's this morning, and saw that one of the tabloid
rags (I think it was the Daily Mail) had as its lead story the
news that the Post Office was now selling postage online, providing a
print-it-out-yourself bar code to stick on your correspondence.
How did the Mule treat this? As a big step forward in
providing customers with the service they need quickly and efficiently?
As an example of how great British enterprise and know-how was in the
forefront of technology?
No.
"The Queen's head removed from postage stamps!", squealed
the Mewl. "There are legitimate questions as to whether the
name 'Royal Mail' can be maintained...", it trembled.
Two rent-a-quote Tory MPs are also featured in the story. Andrew
Rosindell MP quacked, "I am personally outraged over this!".
Nigel Evans, the Swansea newsagent who, recognising the futility of his
politics in his own country, piddled off to a safe seat in Lancashire,
whined thusly: "The people at the top of the Royal Mail have shown
scant regard for tradition and the fact people like stamps to have the
monarch's head on them.".
I've got news for you, Evans mun: people don't give a flying one
whose head is or isn't on the stamps so long as their mail gets to
where it's supposed to go in the proper time.
I speak as one who only uses the self-adhesive stamps, so as to
remove the slight feeling that I have to lick Frau von Battenburg's
arse every time I want to post a letter. I also stick the stamp on upside
down, this being one of the few forms of republican activity which
seems to be possible even today. I'm told this latter act is unlawful,
but I'm still waiting for John Reid's Pre-Crime Squad to smash my door
down (I almost wish they would: that way I might finally get a new
front door from our beloved Council).
And all this was on the front page of a major newspaper. We
have a government which has lied us into two illegal wars and is now
limbering up for a third, our fundamental liberties are being curtailed
by the day, and multinational corporations are funding lobby groups
claiming that global warming doesn't exist (and, even if it does, it's
the best thing that could possibly happen to the planet) (see this
article for details). Nevertheless, the rags lead with an imagined
slight to the Queen Of The Scroungers.
It's scarcely any wonder that the public's ignorance and awareness
of reality is now nearing Kansas proportions.
Don't Teach Them To Think For Themselves!
Some of you may have been aware that the colonial Governor-General
of Airstrip One (or 'Prime Minister', as some insist, archaically, on
calling him) and future International Criminal Court defendant Tony
Blair didn't announce his resignation last Thursday.
He didn't announce his resignation at a school in north London
which he and his followers are lining up to be handed over to another
group of friendly businessmen or religious loonies.
Unfortunately for the B-Liar, news of his visit to the school
leaked out beforehand, and there was a protest organised by anti-war
groups (including that formed by the students) outside the school.
For what happened next, read Lenin's report here.
Please read it before going on to the next bit of this Rant, otherwise
it may not make sense.
The matter doesn't end there, however. The member of staff who let
the public know that Blair was coming has now been suspended, and the
student body in its entirety has been subjected to a tirade of
intimidatory hectoring by the headteacher. This is a woman called Jo
Shuter who, with the chutzpah, effrontery and total lack of
irony-consciousness of the True Believer, also issued the following
statement.
(My comments are in [square brackets and italics])
"I can assure you that this behaviour was not supported by anyone
at the school [Except the hundred or so students and staff members
who took part in it]. Indeed we were horrified that our children
had been exploited and abused by a political organisation [Nasty
thing to say about the Labour Party, but there you go...], members
of which had been outside the school gates since 8am. Somehow details
of the visit, though confidential [which is why the media had no
idea that it was taking place, of course: that's why they didn't turn
up...], had been leaked through a website and a picket and
demonstration had been organised without our knowledge or consent [since
when has one needed to get a headteacher's permission to protest
outside the school grounds?].
"The school had not been closed specifically for the visit [It
was surely just a conincidence that nearly all the students were
ordered to go home, and all who were permitted to remain were a few
'safe' ones who could be relied upon to do as they were told]. We
had a planned half day induction for students followed by staff
training in the afternoon. Organisationally this had been in the school
calendar since before the summer break.
"Our students were put in serious danger physically and emotionally
by the outrageous actions of these political 'rabble rousers' [I
know our police can be a bit biased, but this is really unkind],
who had no concern for them as young people but simply used them as
pawns for their own political ends ["not that I can be
accused of doing anything of the sort, oh dear me, no"].
"I have today held a staff meeting ["it will take a few gallons
of eau-de-nil emulsion to cover up the bloodstains on the walls"]
and will be holding a whole school assembly later to explain to the
students how the actions of 50 out of 1500 have been perceived and how
it clearly reflects so poorly on the school ["what I lack in moral
authority, I will make up for by the coercive force of sheer numbers"].
"We pride ourselves on being one of the most improved schools in
the UK. Our students are always our pride and joy ["except when
they express views contrary to mine"]. It is completely out of
character for them to behave in such an unruly, rude and disrespectful
manner ["How dare they think and act for themselves! How can we
maintain our reputation for churning out commerce-fodder consumer units
like this?"]. However the role played by these activists was
cleverly orchestrated and the children were merely fodder for a
political campaign ["I'm expecting my Damehood in the
Non-Resignation Honours List"].
"I personally remain a big supporter of Tony Blair whose policies I
value and who I personally feel is a man of integrity and honesty [see
previous aside. And this is not remotely political. No, really].
"Many thanks for taking the time to contact me. I hope that this
will help to set the record straight."
Oh, it most certainly does, Ms. Shuter, I can assure you. It shows
you to be yet another of the dangerous ideological hacks who have been
allowed to take over the running of our public services, and turning
them into factories of blind, bland, consumer conformity. Your reward
will surely come.
Dumped On Again
Forty-odd years ago, Liverpool Corporation announced that it
intended to flood the Celyn valley in north Wales to create a reservoir.
It would mean destroying a thriving generations-old Welsh-speaking
community.
People from across Wales and beyond protested at this wanton
destruction. When the people of that valley went to Liverpool to talk
to the Corporation, they were refused a hearing. When they marched
through the streets of Liverpool, the local population swore and spat
at them. Liverpool needed the water, they were told, otherwise
the denizens of that city would go thirsty.
It was a complete lie, of course: Liverpool wanted the water to
supply its factories, not it's people.
Despite every Welsh MP (bar one) voting against the Parliamentary
bill which was necessary to carry out the act, the bill was passed by a
huge majority due to the votes of English MPs. And so the village of
Capel Celyn was wiped from the map, creating a psychic wound from which
our nation may never recover.
Last year, Liverpool City Council (as the Corporation is now
called) issued an unconvincing apology for its vandalism, probably
because it was angling for the National Eisteddfod to go there. A
recent study shows that the Liverpool area uses virtually no
water from the Celyn reservoir nowadays.
From the mid-1970s onwards, Liverpool cheerfully exported the dregs
of its 'culture' to north Wales. In they flooded, the dolies and the
smackheads, the criminals and the scroungers, with the result that
there is now probably a smack dealer in every village from Saltney
Ferry to the far end of the Llyn Peninsula. The holiday resorts of
Prestatyn, Rhyl and Colwyn Bay are full of festering flats and bubonic
bed-sits where these creatures live and breed, adding further to the
social problems of those areas.
No apology has yet been forthcoming from the leaders of Scouseville
for these depredations upon our land.
Instead, they're adding domestic refuse to its human equivalent,
and dumping
their actual rubbish on us. Earlier this week, a company called
Mersey Waste Holdings started a landfill site at Hafod near Wrexham.
This was completely against the wishes of the people near the site (a
former colliery), who had fought courageously every step of the way to
prevent this outrage. Due to planning permission given over a decade
ago by a London bureaucrat, and the knock-kneed cowardice of our
beloved Council (then controlled by a particularly nasty and corrupt
local Labour party), and due also to a convenient 'loophole' in the
regulations which means that what can no longer be dumped in England
can still be dumped in Wales, the people of Johnstown lost their case,
The company was given the green light to dump, and the police were
there this week to make sure that the company's 'rights' were upheld.
Ah yes, the company. 'Mersey Waste Holdings' is an 'arms-length'
(modern euphemism for "nothing to do with us, squire, honest!")
company owned and controlled by the councils of Knowsley, St Helens,
Sefton, Wirral and...Liverpool.
So they're doing it to us again. Perhaps a few tons of
sewage carefully dumped from the air on their wonderful 'City of
Culture' (and who says irony is dead?) would get them to look at it
from another angle. But then again, who'd notice one more pile of shit
in Liverpool?
Footnote: Research from the IPPR, one of
those dreaded 'thick twonks' (sorry, I mean 'think tanks'...I think)
lists the recycling rates of all English local authority areas. Two of
the bottom three are....Wirral and Liverpool. Great! Not only to we get
their crap, but we get more than we need to simply because those
councils and their residents are totally irresponsible).
Rant Round-up
(Although all these stories have emerged today. Timing, huh?)
Item: Racial profiling of airline travellers has
been suggested as yet another panacea in The War Against Terror (or
T.W.A.T. for short). There's been an outcry, of course, with one senior
police officer of Sub-continental descent claiming that it would
effectively create a new offence of 'flying whilst Asian' (does Constable
Savage now advise the Home Office?).
There's no need to waste our money on creating a whole new squadron
of outsourced officials to do this. Just let the other passengers on
the plane decide who's suspicious or not.
It seems to have worked here.
That's right: two men hauled off a plane because the other
passengers said that their behavior was 'suspicious'. And they just
happened to be 'of Asian or Middle Eastern appearance'. They were
dragged from the Airbus and interrogated by Los Polizontes for
hours on end...before being allowed to fly home anyway. And they won't
tell us what the 'suspicious behaviour' actually was.
I've no doubt that their fellow passengers on the Airbus now have
that warm glow that everyone gets when they've grassed up someone they
don't like the look of. I'm also sure that they're all back on
curtain-twitching duty, well refreshed from their achievements.
By a coincidence, my brother told me a story earlier this week
which was told to him by one of our local police officers. They'd heard
one evening that a pack of youths was on its way up from town to one of
the villages looking for trouble. So two squad cars and the dog van
were scrambled to the village. The officers started their patrols from
either end of the village.
They found the youths in one of the pubs. When approached, they
were puzzled by this intense interest in their movements. "Well",
said one of the policemen, "we were told that there was a gang of
you coming up here for a fight."
The youths all looked blank, and then one of them said, "Oh!
That's that nosy sod in the Jockey" [one of the town-centre pubs].
"What do you mean?", asked the rozzer.
"We told him we were coming up here because it was a mate's
birthday, and we were going to give him a fright!"
**********
Item: Stephen Byers, another one of the serial
incompetents to have held ministerial office under Blair, wants to
abolish Inheritance Tax. He says that it's deeply unfair to people who
have estates of more than £285 000 to have to pay tax. The number
of people whose estates fall within the scope of Inheritance Tax has,
apparently, doubled in nine years. However, this is still only 6% of
all estates.
Byers blames rising house prices. Well, who's been in power while
rampant hyperinflation in the property market has gone completely
unchecked?
So, rather than raising the threshold at which it starts to become
payable (which is what the Government says it intends doing anyway),
Byers wants the tax abolished altogether. Even the wretched rump of the
Tory Party has shied away from that. Byers' only allies appear to be a
group of mad rightists calling itself 'The TaxPayers' Alliance'
who, if you look at their website (and if you can navigate around it -
bloody Javascript!) are so-o-o-o typical of oppressed tax
payers in this country that their backers include the chief executives
of a number of enormous corporations. This is what we judges call 'a
clue'.
What they (and Byers) want is for the hyper-wealthy to once again
be able to get out of paying their proper share for the maintenance of
a half-decent society. The tax shortfall resulting from the abolition
of Inheritance Tax would have to be made good either by raising other
taxes or cutting public services, both of which measures would
disproportionately hit those who do not have an MP's salary or pension
to subsist on, or the backing of company directors.
Just as in the huge shift of the tax burden in the early 1980s from
Income Tax to taxes on expenditure, this is a proposal designed to let
the well-off hang on to their loot at the expense of the rest of us
who, no doubt, will be blamed by the beneficiaries of any such policy
change for the decline in the quality and availability of public
services. But, then again, they'd all be able to make private
arrangements with all the extra dosh they'd have.
**********
Item: Speaking of the undeserving, one of the
practicioners of the 'dismal science'
has published an article
claiming that the middle-classes are suffering a far higher rate of
inflation that the rest of us.
Professor Richard Scase of the University of Kent (for it is he),
says that rising fuel costs, Council Tax and school fees mean that, for
these poor unfortunates, the real rate of inflation is
something like 10%, rather than the official figure of 2.something%.
Well, pardon me while I blow my nose.
Look at that list of factors again.
Rising fuel costs? Well, perhaps if so many of them weren't intent
on buying cars which are far larger and more powerful than they need
just to show off (and probably buying more than one car), then they
could cut their costs at a stroke.
Council Tax? They could try 'downsizing' to a house which is more
in keeping with their actual needs. As Council Tax rates are based on
property values, this would mean that not only would they pay less in
the immediate future but that such a move, if widely practised, would
bring about a fall in house prices as well, and hence a reduction in
Council Tax for more people.
School fees? Well, I thought the middle classes say that they would
sacrifice everything to put young Jasper and Jessica through
the very best schooling that money can buy? So why are they whinging
now? They've made their choice like good consumers, and surely they
should have factored things like this into their calculations before
deciding that their local state school was simply not of the right
social cachet for their little darlings, and plump instead for
4x4-ing their progeny halfway across the county every day.
We all have to pay the increased fuel costs passed on to us
with such alacrity by the private energy cartels. We all have
to pay Council Tax which rises out of proportion to the amount and
quality of service provided. And many of us do not have any
choice (either real or illusory) in where our sprogs go to school.
I've no doubt that there is a NuLab 'think'-tank being set up right
now to ameliorate the worries of these over-consuming grabbers.
Because, despite the fact that they are still a minority in this
country, the middle classes have a dispropotionate influence on the
formulation of public policy. This is not only because of who they
know, but because of our thoroughly loopy and discredited electoral
system, whereby a couple of hundred thousand people in less than one
sixth of the parliamentary constituencies determine which party will
hold power. Only when that insult against democracy is erased
will we see govenments which have regard for the needs of everyone,
rather than the greed and cupidity of a small but vociferous group
within it.
In the meantime, if the middle classes feel badly done by, then why
don't they try living within their means, like they've been telling us
groundlings to do for the past twenty-five years, instead of thinking
that not only can they have it all, but have some sort of divine right
to do so?
Digging The Plots
The deep-seated gullibility of my fellow feudal subjects never
ceases to provide material for my generally world-weary (and, at times,
sincerely insulting) attitude towards them.
This morning was a case in point. Screaming TV headlines,
sombre-looking hacks standing outside major public buldings, and the
return of that pointless figure, the 'terrorism expert' to the
limelight.
So, another dastardly plot has been foiled, has it? Well, it must
have been, mustn't it? After all, we were being told so by every news
bulletin on television and radio. And they'd been told by the
Government, so it must be kosher, especially as MI5 and the
Metropolitan Police were also involved.
Consider that last point. The media had been told by:
- The MI5 of "there won't be an attack on public transport in
London" fame
- The Metropolitan Police of "Honest, chief, he was a villain.
We tracked that terrorist all the way from his flat through busy
streets (where he could have blown up dozens of people, the slag!) and
then shot him dead in a crowded train carriage. He might have looked
like a Brazilian electrician to subversive raghead-loving elements, but
we know better".
- The Government of "Iraq's WMDs could hit London in 45
minutes, and why should Israel stop killing children in Lebanon?
They're only defending themselves".
In other words, the media have parrotted, without any sense either
of journalistic rigour or of the ridiculous, the assertions of three
organisations whose credibility and reputation have seldom, if ever,
stood lower.
And still people have fallen for it. In work today, all I seemed to
hear was, "They reckon that...‹foo›...", "They
reckon that...‹bar›...". All mere suggestions,
presented by the goggle-box as fact, and swallowed as same.
For we have been here before, dear reader. Some of you may remember
the 'Ricin Plot' of a couple of years or so ago. The Boys And Girls In
Blue (plus the Unmentionables, of course: those brave and stalwart
souls whose activities must forever be secret, but whose headquarters -
designed, it seems, by the love child of Albert Speer and Nicolae
Ceausescu - nonetheless dominates the Thames riverfront) saved us from
a dastardly conspiracy to use poison to kill thousands of our fellow
consumers...
...Except that there was no plot. Indeed, there was no
Ricin, either. The case ended in acquittals all round, much to the
embarrassment of the Government, who had to whip up some scare about
insanitary bicycle saddles or something in order to deflect attention
away from the fiasco.
And it's the same "They" who "reckon" this time, as
well. I caught a glimpse (more than enough when you're trying to eat
breakfast) of our beloved Home Secretary speaking live on television
this morning about the 'Pop-bottle Plot'. Was there, perhaps, just a
hint of long rehearsal to his performance? Perhaps a touch of the smug
as well? After all, he almost certainly knew of the raids in advance,
and would probably have known the day before, when he made yet another
intemperate attack upon judicial refusal to roll over and play dead in
the face of his agenda.
(At least his colleague, who might go down in history as The
Unknown Transport Minister, did look terrified, though whether
that was from fear of 'terrorists' or of the company he was having to
keep at 7.15 in the morning may only be guessed at).
"We have caught the key players", smirked Reid. Well, I like
the 'we': I know the Homuncule Secretary has donned the flak jacket
before, but he's to be congratulated on his part in the apprehension of
these ne'er-do-wells. What role he may have played in the operation
will no doubt remain forever secret, although I suspect he went along
to fang and hold the family Doberman while its master was being cuffed
by the bizzies.
"We have caught the key players", eh? I would have hoped
that, even in a country where fundamental rights are held to be
conditional on whether the Daily Mail likes the cut of your jib
or not, that would be a matter for the courts. Assuming it ever gets
to the courts, of course. How many 'major terrorist conspiracies' have
we seen 'smashed' in the last couple of years, only for the 'plotters'
to be released without charge only a week or two later or, at worst,
charged with some minor infringment of immigration laws? Enough, I
would suggest, to make one wary of such claims, especially from a
political desperado like Reid, trying to hold on to his job.
In any case, even if the matter should come to court, it
might reasonably be argued that, by opening his big Clydeside yap to
gloat at his success, Reid has irreparably damaged any chance the
defendants might have of a fair trial. A little bit of "They
reckon..." from a few office workers wouldn't do that, but a little
bit of "They did it!" from a senior politician, reported
extensively on TV and radio, should do the trick.
Unless, of course, there won't be a trial at all, and that the
dozen or so arrested this morning will be held at Belmarsh
indefinitely, in that English equivalent of Guantánamo, without
trial or charge. Or that any trial will be held largely in secret
(strictly because of the need not to compromise our security services,
you understand), where the brave corporate media will be reduced to
their proper function, namely parrotting the One True Way, as approved
by the relevant Department of State.
The media have failed us again, by failing to question, by failing
to examine, by treating the statements of senior politicians, top cops,
spook-handlers and 'terrorism experts' as if newly-chiselled on stone
from Mount Sinai.
The calculation has always been a simple one, even more so since
the advent of instant communications:
- The Government is in trouble, due to its slavish adherence to the
policies of a foreign power, its callous disregard for the slaughter of
innocents in Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon and elsewhere, its determination
to undermine basic freedoms at home, and its general air of malevolent
incompetence
- Parliament is in recess, so the Government can't be called to
account
- Create a scare, preferably one which taps in to deep-seated
prejudices against a particular minority
- Make sure the media stay onside so as to maximise the potency of
'The Message'
We have been here before, too:
"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the
bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them
they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of
patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
(J. Goebbels)
"It also gives us a very special, secret pleasure to see how
unaware the people around us are of what is really happening to them."
(A. Hitler)
Not Them Again!?
To follow on from the last Rant, it seems scarcely believable that
this should happen in the same week, in the same town
and at the hands of the same police force:
The local council might launch a promotional campaign on the back
of this:
"Halesowen: We're Nice, But Our Cops Are Morons"
Playing Silly Buggers
There are more and more manifestations of official stupidity with
every passing day.
Take this, for example. In the English town of Halesowen, West
Midlands Police have gone flying in, size 12 boots first, to upbraid a
group of children for 'anti-social behaviour'.
The nature of their hideous offence? Playing hopscotch in the
street, and leaving the grids marked on the pavement in chalk.
Goodness! How positively heinous! I say throw them into
Belmarsh without charge or trial!
I do apologise for the crudity, but what the fuck is going
on here?
I'm sure Halesowen, like many a similar town, has more than its
share of burglaries, muggings and other crimes. I've no doubt also
that, when the perpetrators can't be apprehended, West Midlands Police
plead shortage of resources as the reason why they can't do what
they're supposed to be there to do. And yet they can find the time to
harass a group of children engaged in one of the most innocent and
amusing of pastimes.
I speak with experience, having been a highly proficient player of
hopscotch in my time: indeed, I was holder of the Argoed and Ffordd
Owain All-Comer's Championship for so long that everyone else forgot to
challenge me, and the trophy (a square, red ceramic tile known as 'The
Super Slidey') remains in my possession to this very day.
As we had nowhere else to play, of course we chalked our
battleground out on the pavement. This was usually outside my gate (so
as to gain maximum home-field advantage), and the smooth surface was
ideal for maximum efficiency when wielding the slidey. It was only in
later years, when beastly Progress led our idiot Council to resurface
the pavements with wretched tarmac that our contests were brought to an
enforced end.
It wasn't just hopscotch grids, though. The few square yards of
path between my front gate and the corner by Auntie Ada's also played
host to an ever-changing layout of streets, junctions and roundabouts,
as my chalk (in reality, the broken edge of a piece of sandstone or
similar) traced the most interesting series of lines and circles seen
outside of the world of the Nazca. What possible harm could come to me
as I guided my Dinky and Corgi toys along straight boulevards or
hurtled them, brakes screeching, around ridiculously tight corners? It
was good training for the adult world, as I realised perhaps earlier
than most that Town Planning was something that anyone could do
(I'd confidently pit my designs against those of the so-called
professionals anyday).
This, however, is not a view which the West Midlands Constabulary
seem to share. It has attempted to defend its ludicrous behaviour by
saying that they had to deal with 'low-level crime'.
Crime? It's a crime to play hopscotch now?
The statement went on to compound its offence against intelligence
by saying that, by dealing with 'low-level crime', they could stop more
serious problems developing.
This is interesting. By that reasoning, children playing hopscotch
on the pavement today will inexorably go on to rob the local 'offy'
next week, and they'll no doubt be dealing crack to nine-year-olds by
the time the school holidays are over. If this fascinating
criminological theory is correct, then I should be typing this from a
padded cell in a maximum security psychiatric hospital, where I have
been detained for the rest of my natural for having murdered seventeen
West Midlands Police officers, three town planners and the inventor of
tarmacadam surfaces. The fact that I am not, and that none of my fellow
hoppers or mappers has, to my knowledge, ever committed a serious
offence, shows the silly plods of Halesowen up for what they are.
They claim that the feedback from residents to their actions has
been good, but perhaps that merely points up the true root of the
problem. We have developed into a society which, under the baleful
influence of politicians and the media talking up the extent of crime
in our towns and villages, has become a nation of curtain-twitching,
purse-lipped paranoiacs, willing to take offence at the slightest
intrusion upon the studied dullness of their lives.
(I confess that I've recently been guilty of something similar, but
in my defence I plead that it was in response to a drunken
twenty-something yob pissing all over my front gate in broad daylight.
I contented myself with threatening to cut his knob off if he did it
again, and there the matter rests for now).
And so we live in Asboville, where teenage boys are threatened with
five years' imprisonment if they utter the word 'grass' in public;
where people who wear tops with hoods are treated as criminals before
the fact; and where old men are ordered to remove their caps in pubs so
that the CCTV can get a good look at them. We are walking, indeed we
have run, into the Surveillance State and, just as the most
egregious removal of our fundamental liberties are justified on the
basis of 'keeping the public safe from terrorism', so we have allowed
ourselves to be deluded into thinking that 'keeping us safe from crime'
entails putting the entire civil population under watch.
Truly, we all end up with the type of society that most people
deserve.
Left Cold...
In response to my e-mail (see Myths Of Consumer Capitalism... on 13/07/06 for
what I'm ranting about), Malcolm Walker of Iceland replied to me.
Which was, to be scrupulously fair, good of him.
The content was not very satisfying, however. Much of it was the
standard CEO-speak about how Iceland didn't take the decision to close
the Deeside depot lightly, and about how it was the fault of the unions
for not negotiating worse pay for their members.
So, I have only a few weeks of shopping at Iceland left. Where is
someone with a social conscience to shop in this bloody country
nowadays?
Words Fail Even Me
Now, let's see if I've got this right:
- Two armed state employees run onto an underground train...
- ...they force a young unarmed man back into his seat...
- ...they fire seven shots into his head and neck, killing him
outright...
- ...all this in front of a carriage full of witnesses...
...and the Crown Prosecution
Service decides that there isn't enough evidence to prosecute the
men for murder, or even manslaughter...
...but their employers will be charged with 'breaching
health and safety regulations'?
No, I don't understand it, either.
If this is 'The War On Terror', then we've already lost it.
The terrorists are already here, and they're on the public payroll.
"So Raise The Double Standard High..."
Here's a poser for you, chums.
Country A test-fires a few missiles into the open ocean. No
civilian is targeted, no-one is killed, no-one injured.
Country B invades its neighbour, bombs its main airport out of
action, blockades its coast, and fires missiles into known civilian
areas, killing dozens of unarmed civilians.
Q: which of these two countries is condemned by
the 'international community' and has sanctions applied to it by the UN
Security Council, and which is tacitly allowed to carry on its
activities without a word of censure?
A small clue:
Myths Of Consumer Capitalism #456: "Consumer Choice"
Towards the end of last year, I commented about how difficult
it is to behave ethically and shop at the same time.
(I reached one of those pathetic self-serving 'compromises' on that
one, by the way: I still shop at Sainsbury's, but I've reduced
the number of their own-brand products in my trolley. That way, I
delude myself that I'm decreasing their profit margins: who the hell am
I kidding with this?).
My current problem is going to be thornier to resolve.
Iceland is
a frozen food company which was founded in the early 1970s, and quickly
spread its stores through North-East Wales and the North-West of
England, and then beyond. Its head office is on Deeside (a short train
ride from here).
After the usual 1990s takeover idiocy, the company hit a crisis at
the turn of the century. The end result was the return of one of the
founders, Malcolm Walker.
I've shopped at the Wrexham branch of Iceland for years. They have
provided me with good food and good prices. The company's policy on GM
foods has also been attractive. It's also in the town centre, which
means I can get there during my lunch break (all the major supermarkets
- Sainsbury's excepted - are on the opposite side of town).
Now comes the announcement
that the company intends to close its distribution centre on Deeside in
September, and take the 350 jobs to Warrington.
The company seems to have acted in ill faith in all this. They have
insisted on £2million of savings at the site, or else. The unions
say they have identified where such savings could be made to keep the
depot open. Management (if you'll excuse the obscenity) appear to have
rejected the proposals out-of-hand. Moreover, they appear even to be
refusing to discuss redundancy terms for those who will be kicked out
because they are unable to move to Warrington.
I had expected better, especially with the founder back in charge.
But it seems the spirit of Samurai management (of the sort which
brought the company to its knees a few short years ago) lives on with
its old persistence and virulence.
The following is the text of an e-mail I am about to send to Mr
Walker:
"Dear Mr Walker
"I view with concern your company's stated intention to close
your Flintshire distribution centre in September.
"I had hoped for better from a company which has been based
locally for a quarter of a century or more, and from a company now back
under the management of one of its founders who, I would have hoped,
would have had a better feel for the importance of loyalty than the
corporate asset-strippers who nearly destroyed Iceland just a few years
ago.
"As someone who does a large proportion of his weekly shopping
in one of your stores, it saddens me that local people will be losing
their jobs as a consequence of your decision.
"As a result I'm afraid that, should your company go through
with this plan, I will no longer feel able to shop at Iceland.
"After all, if Iceland is intent on reducing its contribution to
the local economy, I see no reason why I (as a member of that local
community) should not in turn reduce my contribution to your company as
a consequence.
"Yours, with regret."
(If I get a reply worth passing on, I'll try to do so).
I'm under no illusions about this, of course. One of the frauds
which modern consumerism perpetrates upon us is the fairy story that
we, the 'consumer' (and a more degrading term for people can scarcely
be found in general use), have all this power
that will make the corporate oligarchs sit up and take notice.
That is what the late and much-missed Ian Dury would have called "rampant
bollo". We have no power of any consequence in the relationship.
Take supermarkets, for example. Oh sure, there are a number to choose
from, but all of them operate from the basic premise of screwing as
much out of us as possible, and using trickery to gain our loyalty. The
store cards, the 'special offers' (i.e. buy twice as much as
you need, then throw two-thirds of it away), the gimcrack gimmickry.
Even down to the basics: if, as part of my hissy fit with Sainsbury's,
for example, I decide that, rather than buy their own-brand Canadian
salmon, I'll buy John West's instead; and if they then stop stocking
John West's Canadian salmon (only the Alaskan - which I won't buy 'cos
I'm pissed off with Dubya), and stock only their own-brand Canadian
salmon; then I'm up the St. Lawrence without a barge. Unless, of
course, I go to a different supermarket, who will then go and
do something remarkably similar.
And that is where they've really got us. Round and round we
go, as if on a mad carousel, and always ending up in much the same
place as we started from, only feeling more sick to the stomach than we
were when we got on.
And as for the notion of 'ethical consumerism', well,
that's much like the much-vaunted choice which, it is claimed, we all
have in deciding which particular certificate-factory we want to send
our offspring to, or precisely which hospital we choose to have
our boils lanced in. For you can only properly exercise choice if you
have most or all of the following:
- Enough information
- Enough time to make sense of that information
- Enough energy, time and money to be able to devote to being very
pushy about it
- Enough intelligence to be able to see that you are being offered
a 'choice', but not quite enough intelligence to see that it doesn't
make a shred of difference.
This is why 'ethical shopping' will never catch on as it
should. Most of us don't have enough of these resources to be able to
make a real choice, preferring instead simply to grit our teeth
and carry on doing as we have been.
If we think it matters at all, of course: which it does. Otherwise,
we will dwell in Shopping-Cart Hell forever, and corporations will know
this, and much shall be the rejoicing in the boardroom, and in the
wallets thereof.
Something Good
In terms of its tone, this certainly doesn't belong here, but it's
a follow-up to Rants on 08/06/06 and 20/06/06, so I should be consistent.
Over a month after he had his door smashed down and he was hauled
off to a maximum-security prison by the Home Office's thugs, Sakchai
Makao today won
his appeal against deportation. The hearing followed a month of
concerted action by the people of Shetland against the state's clear
abuse of power, and a campaign which has been supported not only
throughout those isles, but also in the rest of Scotland and beyond.
This isn't quite the end, however: it's still perfectly
possible that Home Secretary John Reid (who, like his
equally-lamentable predecessors, never seems to find a hole deep enough
to persuade him to stop digging) will appeal. However, given the fact
that his party has taken an enormous kicking over this, and that there
are elections to the Scottish Parliament coming up next Spring, he
might use what little political nous he has and admit defeat (although
he will never do so gracefully, you may be sure of that).
So, Sakchai Makao has been saved from injustice. Now, let us turn
to other such outrages against justice by this regime, such as the case
of Ernesto
Leal, a refugee from Pinochet's murderous regime, who faces the
same fate.
Remembering What, Exactly?
Tomorrow (Friday) at noon, we will be called upon to take part in a
two-minute silence marking the first anniversary of the London bombings
and to commemorate the 52 fatalities of that day.
I have a problem with this. Well, not with this particular
event, but with such occasions in general.
First off, as someone who tries to adhere quite strictly to William
Carlos Williams' advice, "If they give you lined paper, write the
other way", I deeply resent being told what to think, what to do
and how I should react to events by anyone in a position of real or
self-delusory authority. So when I see that Tessa Jowell, Ken
Livingstone and other semi-entities will be taking part in a series of
specially-choreographed photo-opportunities around central London on
the day, it causes a digestive reaction that bicarb is quite unable to
ward off.
Because you see, dear reader, I don't think you can ever go far
wrong by being deeply sceptical about commemorative events which are
organised by the state. The given reasons are seldom the real
ones - for that you need to dig deeper.
Apart from one-offs like the 'victory parade' after that ridiculous
Malvinas business back in '82 (that was the one where Thatcher took the
salute as if she were the Queen Empress herself, and where none
of the soldiers and sailors who had been maimed in the course of that
mad war was permitted to attend, lest it remind people of what war is actually
about), the starting point for this obsession with commemorative
silences began scarcely a decade ago. For indeed, it was that footling
little tit John Major, desperate for support from the far right of his
party and of the press, who decided that Remembrance Day would not only
be marked with a silence on Remembrance Sunday, but by another
one on the 11th of November itself, irrespective of which day of the
week it was.
This was followed, in due course, by other such officially-approved
events. I think we had one for Princess Clothes-Horse in 1997, we
certainly had one for Elizabeth The Artificially Preserved in 2002.
And then, of course, there were the silences enjoined upon us for
events of what is commonly termed 'terrorism' in the past five
years. We had a whole three minutes after 11/9 (as I insist on calling
it - we're not State #51 yet) to mark the killing of 3000 or so
Americans. We had two minutes (if I recall correctly) to mark the
Madrid bombings. And now, we're to have another 120 seconds for the 52
who were killed in London last year.
Those even more cynical than myself might spend a happy moment or
two doing the calculations on this one: 1000 Americans per minute; 96
Spaniards per minute; 26 Bpm (Brits per minute).
So what exactly is my problem with this? Why should I not wish to
mark the slaughter of innocents?
Who says that I don't? All of those events were outrages: how could
they be regarded otherwise? But what in hell right does any Government
(with the faithful media forever in tow, natch) have to tell me
how I should do so?
"Oh", runs the argument, "you don't have to join in:
this is just your opportunity to do so." And what happens if you visibly
fail to tow the party line? We saw it in the 11/9 event: the reactions
from 'right-minded people' to others who didn't go with the official
recommendation (be it through contrariness or simply not giving a
flying one) varied from outbreaks of tut-tutting in letters to the
press from Disturbed of Dagenham or Concerned of Consett right the way
through to outright physical violence towards those who dared to be
different.
This is why, whenever I and my colleagues are 'invited' to take
part in such unsponsored silences, I take it as in invitation to absent
myself from my desk for a period of some minutes before, during and
after the event. This is, I admit, partly as a pathetic attempt to
demonstrate to my employer and the state (one and the same) that it has
no right to dictate my response or demand my compliance. But
it's also out of a form of warped politeness. I've never spoken to any
of my colleagues on the point, but they may hold very different views
on this matter. My continuing to work normally while they all played
'statues' by government invitation would quite possibly lead to a
debate, which would in turn lead to dispute and friction, and none of
us needs that. So, I either go and sit on the lavvy for five minutes,
or find a reason to go into the rooms housing our IT and telephony
equipment, and stay there until the show is over. Besides which, I just
know I'd find it so funny to see all my colleagues standing to
attention behind their desks, as if they'd been got at by an alien
paralysing ray in a particularly bad SF movie.
There is, however, a more serious reason, which goes back both to
what I wrote above about the real reasons, and what I said
about calculations further on.
We have had silences to commemorate the dead in New York,
Washington, Pennsylvania, Madrid and London. We have not had
silences to mark the mass slaughters in Palestine, Afghanistan or Iraq.
Need we ask the reason? The dead in the first list were nearly all
European, Christian (at least nominally so) and, mostly, white. The
victims in the second section were/are none of these. 'Dead wogs don't
count'. They don't count even when the death toll numbers in the tens
of thousands. This is not what our leaders want us to be
thinking about. Only we civilised Westerners are victims: the others
are just 'collateral damage' even when their existence is acknowledged
at all.
Thus it is that we have a state, a government and media which,
between them, lied us into a murderous and illegal war, continue to lie
to us about how 'well' the war is going, and which (scarcely
surprisingly) does not want us to consider the
true victims of that aggression, even in the form of a silence.
Besides which, on the basis of the formula I outlined earlier on, how
many dead 'others' would be commemorated in one minute? 40000? 100000?
Would that be all the time they would be worth? Were their
lives, their right to life, to be accounted so small a fraction of that
of 'our' people?
This is a naked and blatant politicisation of remembrance, far more
flesh-creeping than John Major's posturings ever could have been.
So at noon tomorrow, if you want to find me, I'll be in the bog.
Sex And Death...
...and the problems our legal system seems to have with them.
Two news reports caught my eye today, and between them they
highlight an issue which has exercised my mind more than once in recent
times.
In Case
No. 1, a 49-year-old woman teacher was convicted of having sex with
a 14/15-year-old pupil at the school where she taught. The boy is
described in the BBC's report as having 'behavioural problems',
although his response to the woman's advances seem to be quite normal
to me, and coercion doesn't seem to have entered into it (if you'll
excuse the phrase) if they went on to have sex ten times, along with
what the report describes only as 'a sex act' and 'indecent touching'
(well, I don't suppose the BBC is allowed to say 'a gobble and a
grope').
The woman's punishment? Four years and three months imprisonment.
In Case
No. 2, a 45-year-old man's case was up before the Court Of Appeal.
He had been convicted of running down and killing a 20-year-old
student, being without insurance and having taken a week to turn
himself in.
His original punishment? Eighteen months in jail. The authorities
appealed, claiming the sentence to be unduly lenient, as well they
might. The Court Of Appeal agreed, and today increased the
sentence...to three years.
Now, there is something odd going on here I think.
Ponder, if you will:
In the first case, a teacher of un certain age takes
advantage of a teenage boy's undoubted (hormones cannot be denied at
that age) eagerness to lose it. There's no suggestion in the report
that the boy had suffered as a consequence (if this had come out in
court, the media could be relied upon to say so), and indeed his
experiences might have been viewed with envy by many of his classmates
(although the photograph accompanying the report doesn't indicate that
this woman is a looker - admittedly, it only shows her from the neck
up). OK, she most certainly shouldn't have done it; she abused her
position for her own gratification, and one can only assume that
whatever the boy got out of it was, from her point of view, a mere
side-effect.
In the second case, a man - out of outright carelessness or not
giving a damn anyway - kills a young woman who had all her best
years ahead of her; then drives off without attempting either to save
her life or even to put his hands up and admit what happened. One life destroyed,
and the lives of her family and friends ruined.
So please tell me why someone who killed got such a short
sentence in the first place, and why the Appeal Court's decision today
is scarcely any less of an insult to the victim's memory, and why
someone who shagged a (in all likelihood) willing teenager gets the
book thrown at her?
I think there are two factors at work here.
In the first case, it is the typical confusion in Anglo-Saxon
society about sex in general. We are surrounded by it: it features on
our television, in films and in music. It is used to sell all sorts of
things, be it a product or an idea. This merits little response of
condemnation from most; nothing much more than a shrug of the
shoulders, perhaps, or maybe a mild outbreak of synchronised tutting
when the ever-elastic boundaries of popular taste are blatantly
breached. It is surely beyond denial that this flooding effect must
have its influence on those who witness it: why else would the tactic
be used otherwise?
However...when it comes to our own sexuality, especially that of
teenagers, nothing may be admitted, nothing permitted, nothing even
talked about in most cases. Still and all, we know that between the
ages of about eleven and seventeen, most people (especially the males)
are a barely-controlled explosion of horniness. Yet any
expression of that is deemed to be so far beyond the pale as to render
those subject to it liable to outright condemnation, abuse, scorn and,
increasingly, the sanction of the courts. Every extreme case is cited
in an attempt to 'clamp down' on it. So, a particuarly egregious case
of the physical abuse of a young adult may be used (actually, no 'may
be' about it: it is used) to justify such a dubious
exercise as the Sex Offenders' Register. Once in place, such measures
tend to suffer from what is termed 'function creep', in that they are
applied to situations where they were never intended to be used. For
instance, there was a case only three or four years ago of a
12-year-old boy, who had felt up a girl in his class at school, being
placed on that Register for life. And there's no easy appeal
against such a decision either.
My point is this: if a mature (for a given value of that word)
woman tries to seduce any remotely physically-normal boy in his
mid-teens, she is likely to succeed irrespective of her motives. This
doesn't make her less culpable any more than it makes her 'victim' into
a naïve innocent: it merely is, and we have to recognise
that fact. Other societies do seem to handle this better. Had a similar
case arisen in France, there would have been a shrug of the shoulders:
in Spain or Italy, it might have merited a small headline. In parts of
Africa, a wry smile of bemusement might have been engendered by the
reaction to the act, rather than to the act itself: the boy may be
considered to be slightly slow off the mark. In the Diyip Saath
of the US, the teacher might have been considered to be the
retard. Punish if you will (and you should), but nearly half a decade
in the jug is a disproportionately prurient response.
In the second case, it seems to me to be a manifestation of another
particular fact about our society: the overlordship of the Great God
Car. It happens time and again that people who kill with a motor
vehicle, either through carelessness, negligence or outright
not-giving-a-flying-one-ness, tend to end up with far lighter sentences
than if they had been homicidal using any other lethal object. If you
commit what is termed 'manslaughter' with, say, a knife or a baseball
bat, you are likely to end with a prison term of five years minimum,
and life sentences can be, and are, given in some cases. Yet, if your
carelessness, etc. with a motor vehicle causes the same outcome, you
can consider yourself somewhat unlucky if you get anywhere near as much
as five years. Indeed, the maximum sentence you could get (unless it
was so obviously deliberate that a murder charge is preferred) is
fourteen years. Our beloved Government, in one of its regular spasms of
populism (another one in which it made more vows than you'd find at a
Moonie wedding), claimed it was being 'tough' on crime by increasing
the maximum from ten years. The sad fact is that the previous maximum
had never been used, even in the cases most obviously suited for it.
For example, I recall a case from Lancashire a year or two back where
some young arsehole had been responsible for killing three people by
driving whilst drunk and stoned. The bastard (who had absolutely no
mitigating circumstances to defend himself with) got only eight years.
That's right: eight years, for killing three people.
Yet this is very much par for the course when it comes to instances
of killer motorists: a far lighter sentence than would otherwise have
been the case.
It's almost as if those victims don't really matter. Why else would
lethal driving attract charges not of 'manslaughter', but of 'causing
death by careless/reckless/dangerous driving'? It's scarcely to be
wondered at that sentences tend to be so low if the offence of which
the perpetrators are accused is phrased in such a touch-me-not,
understated fashion, a verbal formula which suggests a minor infraction
of the regulations rather than outright homicide.
And yet all we hear is motorists squealing on about how terribly oppressed
they are, poor darlings, and about how speed cameras are only there to
put money into the pockets of the Police, and how outrageous the price
of fuel is. OK, here's the deal, petrolheads: no more speed cameras, so
long as you keep within the limits; no more increases in fuel, on
condition that you buy the most economical vehicle which is suitable
for your actual practical needs (as opposed to just desperately showing
off). In return, you agree that any one of you done for killing with
your car will face a charge of 'vehicular homicide', complete
with sentences which properly reflect the seriousness of what you've
done. Agreed?
Reading these two stories side by side reminded me of something.
Some years ago, I bought the CD release of that famous midnight concert
at Carnegie Hall by Lenny Bruce in February 1961. In it, he remarks on
the inconsistent attitude taken by 'all right-thinking people' towards
what teenagers may be permitted to see on film. His two illustrations
were 8mm porn movies and Hitchcock's 'Psycho'. Bruce's
conclusion was that, as far as the Great American Public was concerned
then (and given the Battle Of Janet's Nipple a couple of years ago,
nothing has changed), their rule for what young adults could view could
be summed up by the phrase: "Killing, yes; but shtupping, no!"
Our societies are deeply confused.
Sakchai Makao Update
After being held by the IND ('Immigrants Nicked and Deported')
in a maximum security prison for a whole fortnight, Sakchai Makao has
finally been released on bail by a judge, who has in that one act alone
shown more regard for the facts of the issue and for basic fairness
than the thug Reid's Home Office have been willing to do.
Mr Makao is due back home in Lerwick on Wednesday, to await the
result of his appeal against deportation. This is scheduled for July 7.
The first battle has been won. The campaign
continues.
****URGENT UPDATE!****
The thugs of the Home Office have now served Sakchai Makao
with a deportation order. He has all of five days to appeal against it,
and the authorities seem to be determined to make it as difficult as
possible for his legal advisers to meet him before the appeal period
expires.
Please e-mail John Reid at reidj@parliament.uk to express
your disgust!
**********
The Flak-Jacket Kid Strikes Again
Those of you who follow such things will know that the dear old
Home Office is currently in deep shit over its complete failure to
monitor the whereabouts of foreign nationals who have served prison
terms in the UK and been recommended for deportation.
This may account for the following story:
In 2004, Sachkai Makao, a young man of Thai ethnicity resident in
Lerwick, chief town of Shetland, was sentenced to fifteen months in
prison for fire-raising. Even the prosecution at his trial willingly
conceded that Mr Makao's actions were fuelled by drunkenness and were
utterly out of character. Mr Makao was a noted sportsman, having
represented Shetland in the Island Games, and was a well-respected
member of the staff of the local leisure centre.
Well, Mr Makao served his sentence (deportation was not
recommended, nor even mentioned as a possibility, in his sentencing
hearing), then returned to Lerwick. He got his old job back, and
returned to being a well-liked and valued member of the local community.
Then, at 7am last Tuesday morning, a large group of police officers
from a force other than that of Shetland smashed down the door of Mr
Makao's flat and dragged him into a waiting car. He was then flown off
the island to mainland Scotland, transferred initially to Govan in
Glasgow, and then on to the maximum-security Durham prison in England.
He is being held there indefinitely with a view to deporting him to
Thailand.
A few thoughts:
- Why was Sakchai Makao snatched like this when no recommendation
had ever been made for his deportation?
- What threat is he deemed to constitute to society when he has
already paid the price of his moment of stupidity by getting a criminal
record and being shut up in jail for months?
- What deleterious effects could Mr Makao's presence in Lerwick
possibly have when he has returned to his previous work serving the
locality in which he lives, keeping within the laws and paying his
taxes?
- What sort of state apparatus could possibly consider its
behaviour in this case to be reasonable, proportionate or remotely
justified by the facts?
- Given that Sachkai Makao has lived in Shetland for 13 of his 23
years, has no family in Thailand (his father is dead, his mother and
sister live in England), cannot speak Thai and would face imprisonment
or conscription to the armed forces should he be deported there, what
possible just cause could be served by deporting him?
I suppose the real answer to all of the above questions is
this: that, having failed wretchedly to find the murderers, the
rapists, the gangsters, and the smugglers of drugs and people whom
their incompetence had caused them to lose track of in the first place,
the Home Office is desperately casting around for easy cases to enable
them to meet their publicly-boasted-of and self-appointed targets for
deporting foreign convicts. And so, under John Reid (he who recently
went on such a dawn raid himself, protected only by a flak jacket and a
small brigade of police, Home Office officials and media, and merely
the latest in a long line of egregious, attention-seeking thugs to be
appointed Home Secretary), they jump on a man who had served his time
and got on with his life serving his home town.
Not surprisingly, Sachkai Makao's friends, colleagues and
neighbours are very angry at an action which would be more appropriate
to that of a disreputable regime in Latin America in the old days, and
are vigourously campaigning for him to be returned home as soon as
possible. Local politicians and church people, and people from beyond
the shores of Shetland are now involved.
For more details of the campaign, go to The
Shetlink Forum. Better still, sign the petition.
"English Justice Is The Finest In The World, And Britain Is The
Home Of Democracy": Discuss
Study these two pictures:
The man on the left (on this page, if nowhere else):
- Lied to Parliament and the people about the threat to the U.K.
from Iraq
- Had the 'evidence' concocted in order to back up his claim
- Had agreed to the illegal invasion and occupation of another
sovereign country eight months before it happened
- Lied to Parliament (and everyone else) about that as
well, and then totally ignored massive public opposition to the war
- Has therefore been responsible for the deaths of tens of
thousands of Iraqi men, women and children in the last three years,
plus the deaths of over 100 U.K. military personnel during the same
period.
The man on the right:
- Has staged a one-man peaceful protest outside The Mother Of
Parliaments&174; for five years
- Has protested in all weathers and circumstances
- Has protested not only the current war, but the previous attacks
on Iraq which have left many thousands terminally damaged by chemical
and radiation weapons used against the civilian population
- Has drawn the support of people from all around the world, of all
political characters and beliefs and none
- Has never killed anyone
Bearing this in mind, please answer this quick question:
Which of these two men:
- Has had his actions declared illegal by the State
- Is considered by those in power as being an ally of terrorism, to
be treated accordingly
- Has suffered continual attention by the police regarding his
activities, with harrassment often taking place under cover of darkness
- Is about to be forcibly removed from his place in Westminster?
Congratulations if you answered "the man on the right".
His name is Brian Haw, and he's a carpenter from the English
midlands.
Since early June 2001, he has maintained a one-man vigil outside
the Palace Of Westminster in protest at the complicity of the U.K. in
the American corporate government's continued assaults against Iraq and
other countries. He has highlighted the illegal use of Depleted Uranium
(DU) and chemical weapons against unarmed people (in this war and the
so-called 'Gulf War' of 1991), and the appalling effects of those
weapons on the health of ordinary people with no means of defending
themselves, and no way even of getting the medical treatment they
desperately need.
As a result of his protests (and the resulting awkward questions
asked by an increasing proportion of the population), the government
(led by the man on the left) passed the 'Serious Organised Crime
and Police Act' (SOCPA) which, amongst other things, criminalised
any form of protest within an 'exclusion zone' of at least one
kilometre of the Houses of Parliament without six weeks prior approval
by the Metropolitan Police (the people who brought you, "Oops! We
Shot A Brazilian Electrician Seven Times In The Head Because We Thought
He Was An Arab Terrorist"). The size of the exclusion zone can be
expanded unilaterally by the State at any time and with no reasons
necessary.
The Act is also being used against people peacefully protesting
elsewhere: two ladies of mature years face up to two years in prison if
convicted of the heinous terrorist offence of walking unarmed onto the
land surrounding a U.S. surveillance centre in Yorkshire, to give just
one example amongst an ever-increasing number.
The man on the left is, of course, Anthony Charles Lynton Blair QC
MP, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland.
He remains at large, free to do much as he pleases, be it imposing
a total surveillance system upon every citizen, sending refugees back
to murderous regimes, or simply recategorising everyone who disagrees
with him as a 'terrorist'.
That he remains at liberty (and surely that word doesn't come into
contact with Mr Blair all that often nowadays, unless in the company of
the word 'remove') is due in no small measure to the weakness of our
democractic process, and the invertebrate nature of those set to rule
over us. In any fully-functioning liberal democracy, Mr Blair would
have been impeached for what the Americans call 'high crimes and
misdemeanours'. Here, he can remain unmolested until he leaves office
at a time of his own choosing, whereupon he can make millions on the
U.S. lecture circuit, and remain untouchable by any arm of what might
be called 'justice'. This largely due to the cowardice of that 'Mother
of Parliaments' we've been propagandised to believe we enjoyed
(although a couple of extra syllables on the first word of that epithet
seems increasingly in order).
Given all this, perhaps you now know what is really wrong with this
country.
Little Things Mean A Lot
Little words, for instance. Perhaps they don't mean much of
themselves, but used in certain contexts they can convey a message, or
a desired impression, far above the number of letters in them.
Propagandists, politicians, advertising people and other professional
liars have long understood this. Fortunately for them (and
unfortunately for us), they know that the officially-encouraged
semi-literacy of our times means that enough people can be gulled by
them for long enough to enable them to get the 'message' or the
'product' into enough people's heads for them to get their jobs done
more easily.
It doesn't help when journalists (if you'll pardon the language)
give these peddlers of piffle a huge helping hand by writing articles
which, while seemingly neutral, use these little words in order to
invoke or encourage a particular viewpoint.
Two cases in point come from the last couple of days in the London
newspaper The Independent. Both, uncoincidentally, concern the
visit of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez to England.
Now, the party line on Chavez in what is euphemistically termed 'The
West' is that he is an extremist lunatic, hell-bent on becoming a
vicious Stalinist dictator, and actually having the sheer nerve to try
to put American corporate noses out of joint. After all, aren't these
the terms used to describe him by such luminaries of contemporary
political ethics as Dick 'Bang Bang' Cheney, Tony '45 Minutes' Blair,
and that intellectual Whore Of State, Condoleezza ' High Scrabble
Score' Rice? So it must be true then, mustn't it?
Chavez's crimes are legion: he has managed to get himself
democratically elected to office - twice; he has reduced the illiteracy
rate in Venezuela to a mere fraction of its figure under the benificent
reign of neo-liberal economics; he has brought in thousands of doctors
from Cuba to treat the sick; and, the most horrific crime of all, he
has used Venezuela's oil revenues to pay for all this!
The man is, of course, sick and twisted. How dare a mere leader
purloin profits which Almighty God (that's spelt '$$$', of course)
intended for executives in Texas and New York, and use them for the
benefit of millions of poor people! This menace must be
eradicated!!
Indeed, this is one of the keystones (as in 'Kops') of
current U.S. government policies in the region, and has been for some
time. The attempted coup d'état of a few years ago was
backed with American money, weaponry and know-how. It was only the
intervention of the ungrateful millions which caused the coup to
collapse in ignominy when they reminded the Venezuelan army that they
were there to protect the constitution, not to eliminate it.
Now, there is an important factor to be considered whenever a
government wishes to push a particular line, especially when it comes
to foreign policy: create the 'correct' impression. Now it's quite
likely that in the U.S., and here in its main European colony, a lot of
people who have seen themselves serially screwed by neo-liberal
economic quackery and its concomitant socio-economic authoritarianism
would look upon the policies of the current Venezuelan government as
being worth thinking about, or at least worth keeping a hopeful eye
upon. These delusions must be stamped upon, of course. And that's where
the media can play its part in the defence of Freedom™.
It never ceases to sadden me how ignorant people are about the
nature of the media, both here and in the Land Of Liberty (©
McDisney). The media comprise a number of large corporations,
apparently in competition with one another, but inevitably cheerleading
for the same team.
In the case of broadcasting, at least in this country, there is a
requirement upon all licensed channels to present news which is deemed
to be 'impartial'. This can be a problem, if only from the point of
view of definition: 'impartial' is like 'virtuous'; how it is defined
is always dependent upon who gets to define it, in the same way
that the whole issue of censorship is bound up with the questions, "Who
do you get to do it?" and, all too often, "How do you get them
to stop?".
This may not be so true in the U.S., where the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) is far more likely to get agitated over
a millisecond's flash of black woman singer's nipple than it is over
the blatant partisanship and screaming brattishness of, say for the
sake of argument, Fox News.
All that this supposed advantage we in State 51 enjoy usually
means, however, is that the broadcasters have to be far more subtle in
the way they go about pleasing their masters.
Back in March of this year, Channel Four News, the supposed
choice of evening news programme for the liberals, broadcast a film
report on, yes, that man Chavez again. The report, by one Jonathan
Rugman, contained such examples of 'impartial' reporting as:
- Showing footage of Chavez with Fidel Castro (no footage shown of
him with Tony Blair for some reason)
- Voice-overs such as "Hugo Chavez, in danger of joining a
rogue's gallery of dictators and despots"
- References to what Rugman called a "personality cult" and
to "Soviet-style collectives"
- An interview with a woman called Maria Machado, of a group called
Sùmate, which claims to be a 'civil rights group'. In fact, Sùmate was
behind the failed coup, and it is funded, assisted and advised
by the Washington regime.
And all this in a medium which is bound by law to be
'impartial'!
The press, of course, is not bound by any such limitations. Only
fear of having its arses sued off by millionaires seeking redress for
slights (real or imagained) via England's lunatic libel laws can stay
its inky hands...
...and yet...
...those in the know (such as Roy Greenslade, one time editor of
the Daily Mirror, and so no slouch himself when it comes to
anti-working-class bias when you recall his rag's vicious attack on the
Mineworkers' Union in the mid-80s) have told us that there is a Secret
Service presence in every national newspaper in England. Newspaper
proprietors, too, will always know on which side their lettuce is
oiled. Murdoch bought concessions on media ownership out of the Blair
regime before it had even got into office, and two or three generations
of Australian politicians have recognised that it is never a good idea
to get on one of Rupe's bad sides.
The Independent, despite its title, is owned by Tony
O'Reilly, a former rugby union player turned media magnate, firstly in
his native Ireland and latterly elsewhere. If any class of person is
likely to be dismayed not only by the policies of someone such as Hugo
Chavez, but by the support they gain from the ordinary people of their
countries, it is the owning class. They know they cannot allow
such crazy notions as 'economic fairness' and 'social solidarity' to
get as far as the underperforming, junk-food-addled brains of the
'lower orders'. But at the same time, they know that the peons
are not totally stupid, so a more tangential approach has to be
attempted.
I assume this consideration is what made The Independent
publish pieces on two successive days which, by carefully-aligned
language, created the message most desired by the proprietor and all
that he represents.
Yesterday (Saturday), an article appeared under the by-line of
Daniel Howden, entitled "Hugo Chavez: Venezualean (sic) leader
divides world opinion. But who is he, and what is he up to in Britain?"
Note, firstly, that 'up to'. Good people, people of whom we
approve, do not get 'up to' anything. Only bad, naughty people. After
all, the question "What are you up to?" is always accusatory in
tone, even when used facetiously.
I don't remember The Independent asking a few weeks ago, "Who
is Condi Rice, and what is she up to in Britain?". "Running
away from a group of elderly Muslims in Blackburn" might not have
seemed very flattering to an ally, however, and so the gallant Indy
held its forked tongue.
We go further into Howden's article, and find lines like this:
"Mr Chavez, the high priest of political theatre..."
So unlike, say, George Bush, touching down on an aircraft
carrier conveniently moored just off San Diego in front of a banner
reading 'MISSION ACCOMPLISHED'. This was a few weeks into his
war on Iraq. That was three years ago. I suppose a sequel starring Tom
thingy is in the offing now.
But then, that's not 'political theatre'; that's 'presentation'.
And there's more. A Greenpeace protestor at the Vienna summit, was
treated by Chavez,
"...like a pop star indulging a fan."
So, one moment a dangerous menace, the next a frivolous egotist.
But it doesn't take Howden long to get back 'on message':
"...his critics, who are legion,..."
Given that the critics quoted are Rice, Rumsfeld and John
Negroponte (the 'facilitator' of Central America's death squads in the
1980s), one can only assume that this is the American Legion Howden is
talking about.
But fret not: it's soon back to frivolous again:
"A poster boy for the international left..."
and references to:
"...a political project naturally suited to his talents: getting
under people's skin."
Presumably, only oil barons, neo-conservative politicians and
others who sponge off the current prevailing system are included in the
term 'people' here.
And here again:
"Mr. Chavez has displayed a magpie's eye for the shinier ideas
of revolutionary and social democratic thinking."
Again, how very different to our own delightfully consistent Prime
Minister, whose mantra of 'whatever works' is confined totally to the
narrow confines of globalised neo-liberal voodoo.
But then Howden commits a spectacular gaffe. Referring to other
left-leaning leaders in the region, Howden whinnies:
"...and in Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega. That's right, Ortega. the
veteran of 25 years of left-wing politics who finally seems set to win
democratically this November."
Now, I don't know Howden's age: perhaps he's only a kiddie. But I
seem to remember Ortega winning democratically in 1984. The Sandinistas
were in power for five years, before U.S. interference in its internal
affairs, and its backing of the Contra terrorist gangs and their
sabotage of the Nicaraguan economy scared enough people into voting the
cipher Chamorro into power.
But, then again, when you're smearing an Enemy Of The (Right Sort
Of) People, who needs facts? After all, I'm sure Chavez has weapons
which could reach Miami in 45 minutes...
Then we have this rather bizarre remark:
"At home, Mr Chavez's achievements are equally confused...the
basic staples of life are sold at cost price through subsidised
stores..."
Nothing confusing about that - at least, not to me. He's
making sure that the poor have enough to eat. I'm sure many in the
slums of Washington D.C. would be envious - if the American
corporate media ever allowed them to know about it, of course.
Howden concludes desperately with a quote from a man claiming to be
Chavez's psychiatrist: and even this is a lift from an interview in the
New Yorker. Chavez, he claims, is 'unpredictable', 'disconcerting'
and 'a dreamer'. Quite apart from the breach of patient
confidentiality, are we supposed to take this at face value?
So much for Daniel Howden, then. But then, today (Sunday), up pops
the Indy with another piece, this one claimed not by one but by
two scribblers, Stephen Castle (in Vienna) and Raymond Whitaker
(in London).
First shot off the bat, Chavez is described as 'outspoken'. This,
however, is standard journo-speak, and should neither surprise us nor
detain us further.
We once again get the associations with other people who are 'not
quite our class, dear':
"The Venezuelan leader, an admirer of Cuba's Fidel Castro..."
Again, run-of-the-mill stuff, I suppose. Nice to see that they
spelled 'Venezuelan' right this time, though.
As in Howden's piece, so we once again see a reference to Chavez as:
"a former soldier"
At least that's one epithet Cheney, Rumsfeld, Blair and Rice don't
have to worry about having applied to them. But it is useful in
reinforcing the stereotype of the Latin American leader as being a
military strongman likely to start the mass murder of his opponents at
any moment. Let's leave aside the inconvenient truth that Chavez hasn't
had anyone killed in his time in office: not the leaders of the
failed coup, nor the instigators of the strike at the oil
facilities which crippled Venezuela's economy for months afterwards.
Nor has he sought to rein in the power of his country's privately-owned
television channels, which spew poison into the eyes and ears of the
population 24/7. Not the way for a vicious, totalitarian dictator to go
about things, is it?
In Vienna, says (presumably) Castle, Chavez
"...indulged in a final bout of extravagant rhetoric..."
Ah, well, he's 'unpredictable', see. His shrink told us so.
Chavez then went on to address a rally in Vienna
"...with the daughter of the revolutionary Che Guevara..."
I bet Howden kicked himself when he read that: how could he have
missed Ernesto out of his list of fashionable bogeymen?
We are then told:
"...Mr. Chavez has taken the opportunity to raise taxes on
foreign companies operating in his country."
The jade! Why couldn't he follow the example of those upright
scions of The One True Way like Gordon Brown, and let the likes of
Rupert Murdoch get away with paying virtually no taxes at all in the
U.K., despite his companies' massive profits? And how dare this upstart
use his country's oil revenues to help the poor, rather than doing what
every right-thinking leader should do, namely the economic equivalent
of pissing them against a wall by using them to finance high
unemployment, a low-wage, low-skill, low-prospects economy and
unsustainable hyperinflation in the housing market? I mean, will the
wretched man never learn from his betters?
In Vienna, Chavez once again lambasted the egregious Vicente Fox,
outgoing president of Mexico, whose latest contribution to freedom and
democracy is to turn thousands of police loose on flower sellers trying
to sell their wares in the town square in San Salvador Otenco (see here
for details). Calling the oaf "the puppy-dog of imperialism" is
rather giving Fox the benefit of the doubt, but the first reaction of
the official media was to ask Chavez if he intended to apologise for
his remarks. Chavez, understandably, declined.
Castle (Whitaker having possibly gone off to the bar in disgust at
having little to do other than dredge up suitable demonising phrases
from his newspaper's resident spook) concludes by describing Chavez's
speech to the rally. Chavez, he tells us
"..denounced Mr. Bush in terms reminiscent of Mr. Castro's
four-hour marathons..."
Ah, there's that name once more! Let's not see that photograph of
Rummy shaking hands with Saddam again, then.
Today, as well, The O'Reilly Factor...sorry, I mean The
Independent had a leader about Chavez. I can't read it all - you
have to pay to view the whole thing, and I wouldn't give a used condom
to read what I suspect the rest of it was like. Especially as the
second paragraph began:
"Mr. Chavez has done some good for the people of Venezuela..."
How generous. But you can be absolutely sure that there's a 'but'
lurking behind the subscription offer.
If this is the best we can expect to read in the so-called quality
press, it's scarcely to be boggled at that even the British
intelligentsia is so ignorant of the way the world is going.
When The Independent first appeared in the mid-80s, its
television commercials ended with the voice-over saying:
"The Independent. It is. Are you?"
On the current showing vis-à-vis Hugo Chavez,
perhaps they should repeat the campaign, but with just a slight change
of emphasis in the voice:
"The Independent. It is? Are you?"
Politician In Stinking Hypocrite Shock!
I've written before about the loathsome anti-Europeans of the
self-styled 'UK Independence Party', and their appeal to that
semi-aware sector of the British population which is willing to believe
anything it is told by our (foreign-owned) press, particularly if it is
to the detriment of "nasty, criminal, conniving foreigners out to
do the decent British out of their birthright, take their jobs and
steal their women".
I used to think of them as merely the BNP in suits, except that the
BNP now has its share of snappy dressers (even though it must be a
terrible drain on that party's financial resources to have to
permanently employ someone to tie their candidates' shoelaces), but
it's almost reassuring that UKIP have now proven that they're part of
the political mainstream, in that their leader has been exposed as a
two-faced little tosser.
Roger Knapman (for it is he) has been railing for years against,
amongst other things, the eastward expansion of the European Union, and
the influx of European workers to his idyllic, virginal and virtuous
YooKay.
Now, we find that he's been employing Polish builders to renovate
his mansion in Devon (see this
story for details). The Poles sleep in a dormitory in the attic of
Mr Knaffoff's stately pile, and are paid half of what virtuous
true-bred British workers would expect.
I think UKIP should change the banner on their home page to reflect
this. How about:
I offer this to PUKUP at a reduced cost - say, half of what I would
usually expect.
Called Off
I'm always reluctant to talk about my place of work here. There may
be Dark Forces at work, watching my every
move, hearing my every comment, ready to catapult me into Oblivion.
Well, if there are, they can sod off for once.
I reported here about the
changes being made to the work I do. Well, part of the change was the
setting up of a Help Desk, which people would now phone with their IT
problems, rather than coming to us. We would be left to do whatever the
Help Desk couldn't resolve themselves.
We were given the date for the cutover: 24 April. And so, we sent
out e-mail circulars to all our users, leaflets were put on every desk
and posters were put up. All advising people of the Help Desk number,
and telling them to call them instead.
So in I went to work this morning, happy in the knowledge that I
would no longer get calls from people unable to remember their system
passwords after the weekend's excesses, people whose workstations
didn't work (standard response #1: "Have you tried switching it off
and back on again?"), and people who couldn't tell a data cable
from a date box.
My euphoria lasted about twenty minutes, until a colleague hove
into view. He'd been unable to get his mouse to work, so had done the
right thing and phoned the Help Desk. After giving them all the
information they asked for, Help Desk Bod then said that my colleague
shouldn't have called their number. Our Area hadn't gone live with the
new system yet.
This was slightly mystifying, and we put it down to the usual
miscommunication within our contractor. Until it happened again when
someone phoned them to have their password reset.
(A brief digression here as to how the new, outsourced system is
so much better than the old, hide-bound, inefficient one we used to
run: in the Olden Tymes, if someone needed their password resetting,
they'd phone us, we'd reset it and they'd be back working within a
minute or so. Now, in the Golden Future, if someone needs their
password resetting, they call an 0845 number, get put through to a Help
Desk up to 160 miles away, their details are noted, and then the Help
Desk passes it back to us. Under the Service Level Agreement, we then
have up to four hours to reset their password. I'm sure you'll
agree, boys and girls, that that's a huge improvement!).
Anyway, colleague number two was told much the same thing as the
first one.
Mystery deepening into bafflement, my colleague Chris (being senior
to me in grade if not in years) decided to phone the Help Desk himself.
On enquiring, he too was told that our Area hadn't gone live yet.
Further phone calls were made and, after a space of about three hours,
we were told officially that our 'go-live' date was, in fact, May 2!.
Yes, they'd put the date back a week, and no-one had told us,
told our manager, or told his manager!
Abso-sodding-lutely in-bloody-credible!
I know where the blame lies. I mentioned in my earlier piece
(linked from the third paragraph of this whinge) that the people in the
Depratment who are have been (for want of a more accurate phrase) in
charge of the outsourcing arrangements have been deeply reluctant to
let anyone else in on their little empire. What information (often
vital) which has got out has only done so by chance. Here, I believe,
is where the problem once again lies. And, of course, we didn't
need to know that the date had changed, did we? We just get on with it
and do as we're told (or not told, as the case may be).
Today's events have made us all feel like a right bunch of
wassocks, even though we know that our former clients will be sure that
the blame doesn't lie with us. What sort of impression does this
create? And when will arses be kicked and gonads twisted with monkey
wrenches for such bungling?
I won't hold my breath...
It's Still On The Cards
Some of my friends pull my leg about my obsession with this, but I
don't care because this is bloody important.
The Blair regime is still intent on getting its odious ID card
scheme passed into law. So much so that it is willing to make itself
look completely stupid by throwing it back to the House of Lords to toe
the line every time the upper house amends it to remove the element of
compulsion which the Government claims isn't there anyway.
As to the effect the Bill, if passed in its present state, will
have on the lives of everyone in the UK, I can't improve on the latest
front page from the campaigning group NO2ID:
New Labour's ID card scheme will change YOUR life!
The government claims that 73% of people asked were in
favour of ID cards, but two thirds of those same people were not aware
of what the introduction of the cards actually involved. Here is a
glimpse...
YOU WILL:
ATTEND an appointment to be photographed, have
your fingerprints taken and iris scanned, or be fined up to
£2500. Additional fines of up to £2500 may be levied each
time you fail to comply until you submit to these procedures.
PROMPTLY INFORM the police or Home Office if you
lose your card or it becomes defective, or face a fine of up to
£1000. If you find someone else's card and do not immediately
hand it in, you may have committed a criminal offence punishable by
imprisonment for up to two years or a fine, or both.
PROMPTLY INFORM the National Identity Register of
any change of address or face a fine of up to £1000 (you will
supply evidence of your previous addresses, not just your current
address).
PROMPTLY INFORM the National Identity Register of
significant changes to your personal life or any errors they
have made or face a fine of up to £1000. You may also be obliged
to submit to being re-interviewed, re-photographed, re-fingerprinted
and re-scanned, or face a fine.
PAY between £30 and £93 (or more) to
be registered, with further charges possible to change your details and
to replace a lost or stolen card.
When ID cards were introduced in this country during World War II,
they had three functions. By the time they were abolished in 1952 they
had 39 administrative uses. So what won't we be able to do without an
ID card, according to Government plans? We'll be prevented from renting
or selling a home or staying in a hotel. We won't be able to buy a car
or a mobile phone; open or use a bank account; travel abroad; register
with a doctor; get education; work or run a business; (officially) live
or (officially) die...
**********
Additional!
I knew I had an appropriate quote somewhere. This comes from
Richard Bos, a fellow-habitué of the newsgroup alt.fan.pratchett:
"In fact, if people really want to claim that honest people have
nothing to hide, and nothing to fear, I would entreat these people to
display, on a publicly accessible, permanent web page, the following:
- full name
- address, including postal code and city
- phone numbers, landline and mobile
- social security number
- one representative, clear, passport photograph
- one ditto full-length photograph
- place and date of birth
- employer, work address, and job title
- all bank account numbers
- blood type
- medical history
And ditto for their children. And ditto for their children's
children.
And then publish the web address here, for all to see.
If one of them is not willing to do that, and yet would claim
not to be
a criminal, and maintain the above statement, I'm calling him a
schoolbook example of a hypocrite."
Designed To Bamboozle
In a way, it's nice to find that I'm still shockable.
At work today, I saw the slides of a PoorPint&174; presentation
describing the future reconfiguration of our IT setup.
It used the word "architect"...
...as a verb.
It talked of the system being 're-architected'.
Holy Annoying Animated Paperclip, what's going on here? Goodness
knows, the word 'design' can be bad enough, but this?
The Death Of Freedom?
It's been a bad week or two for Liberty.
First off, the manufactured furore over what are now destined to be
referred to by the shorthand stenographers of history as The Danish
Cartoons. What seems to have gone missing from all of the media
coverage is the fact that the cartoons were originally published five
months ago. So why the fuss now?
Well, basically because a group of Danish imams spent some time
(and, I suspect, their mosques' money) trolling around the Middle East
showing the cartoons to whoever would be most likely to start a riot
over them. What was particularly naughty, though, was that they also
took a number of cartoons which were not amongst those
published, but had been drawn by others (quite probably fellow-Muslims)
which were far more offensive than anything which appeared in
that newspaper in Jutland. These the imams passed off as having come
from the same source. Hence the fuss.
We live in societies which characterise themselves as being 'free'.
Whatever this is usually taken to mean, one definition must surely be a
society where people have the right peacefully to express a
view. On anything. That being so, no-one has the right to be
protected against being offended. The subsequent special pleading that,
far from getting rid of the already odious and risible laws governing
that man-made sin called blasphemy, they should instead be
applied to all organised superstitions to defend them against
adverse comment; this added to the prissy sniffiness of the British
press in refusing to print even a single one of the cartoons, piles the
Pelion of cowardice upon the Ossa of cop-out.
The riots and protests, however, could scarcely have come at a more
helpful time for the liberty-hating Blair regime. It was undoubtedly
the sight of non-white people carrying placards recommending the murder
of cartoonists which stampeded those of the parliamentary Labour Party
yet to grow a permanent spinal column into supporting a measure which
will make it a criminal offense to 'glorify terrorism'.
Whatever that may mean. The Bill is drawn so vaguely and broadly that
it could be used to catch anyone who dares express an opinion of which
the regime of the day may disapprove. This is, almost without doubt,
the way it will be used in practice: just give it a little time.
Just so that critics of my position can't claim that I am not
willing to put myself on the line, I append the following list, and
solemnly declare that I 'glorify' the following:
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela
Pádraig Pearse
James Connolly
Owain Glyndŵr
Ho Chi Minh
Ernesto 'Che' Guevara
all of whom were called 'terrorists' (or their
contemporary equivalents) by those in power at the time.
So, come on then, Chuckie Clarke. Come and get me.
And this brings me back to Monday night's debate in the House of
Commons on the latest stage of the Identity Cards Bill. Never have so
many planted speeches been made by Government backbenchers which so
resolutely avoided the real issues. Special mention must go to the
egregious Martin Linton, Labour MP for Battersea, whose speech will
almost certainly gain him preferment before long, along with the gold
medal in the Olympic Missing-The-Point event.
In the end, despite the evidence, no fewer than 310 MPs voted to
retain the element of underhand compulsion which will see anyone
wishing to leave the country after 2008 forced onto the National
Identity Database against their will. The list of these Enemies Of
Liberty can be found here
(under 'AYES'). If your MP is amongst them, let them know that, as far
as you're concerned, it is not too soon for them to plan for the end of
their parliamentary careers.
Or, better still, get in ahead of the game. Create your own
handy-dandy, all-purpose, track-you-anywhere-even-to-the-shithouse UK
Identity Card! Go to http://www.id-unknown.co.uk/idcardomatic.php
and save yourself the £30 (or is it £83? Or £200? Or
£300? The Government isn't sure which) it'll cost you to put your
most private information in the only database that hackers will ever
need to access.
Where Are We Going?
I was about to write about the latest outrage against our basic
liberties and the end (in the state's eyes) of the presumption of
innocence.
Then I saw that Henry
Porter has said it far better than I could.
Not Waving But Flagging
It would be laughable were it not so pathetic.
On Saturday, Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer and anointed
heir to the throne of King Tony the Terminally Deluded, stood up in
front of the Fabian Society (that natural home for people who like to
think of themselves as progressive, but who think Socialism is too
daring) and demanding that his party's remaining supporters should "embrace
the Union flag".
The reaction has been interesting. Such initiatives have always
been the resort of a government in serious trouble and trying to focus
attention away from its incompetence. Indeed, John Major has supported
Brown's position, having desperately tried something similar a number
of times during his own tortured premiership.
What has been more surprising is the apparent support coming from
Billy Bragg. How the mighty radicals have fallen, eh? About fifteen
years ago, Bragg wrote a song called "The Few", about English
football hooligans. It contains the lines:
"And the society which spawned them
Just cries out, "Who's to blame?"
And then wraps itself in the Union Jack
And just carries on the same."
Nothing has changed. Except, perhaps, that it would be at least as
likely to be the flag of St George nowadays. And that's the other
interesting thing. The BBC's news website has been publishing comments
from viewers upon Brown's speech. It has been fascinating to see how
many of them now claim (loudly in many cases), "I'm not British,
I'm English!!!!". Many of those who profess pride in their
Englishness also seemed worryingly unable to spell, punctuate or
observe the basic rules of grammar of their own language.
They don't stop there, of course. The one thing that the English
seem to love doing nowadays is to whinge on about how oppressed they
are (poor darlings!). They want their own Parliament now, would you
believe?: presumably to take the place of the House of Commons, where a
mere 80% of the MPs represent English constituencies. They want St
George's Day as a national holiday, the insolent jades: after all, it
was their government which told the people of Wales and
Scotland that they couldn't have holidays on their national
days because it would cause inconvenience to businesses.
Most of them missed the point time and again, suggesting that the
proposed British Day should be held on St. George's day, making one
want to hit them over the head with a card saying "England does not
equal Britain!" (you'd have thought they'd have got it right by
now, wouldn't you?).
Among other days suggested were Trafalgar Day, the anniversary of
Waterloo, the anniversary of the Battle of Britain (do you see a
pattern forming here?) and, of course, one of the birthdays of
Elizabeth Saxe-Coburg-Gotha von Battenburg (she has two; presumably
just in case she's disappointed with the presents from the first one).
There's a deep and joyous irony in all this. For generations, the
peoples of the non-English parts of this island were told over and over
again that their petty little identities were of no consequence
compared to the unsurpassable benefits of being part of the British
'nation'. All seems now to have changed, and soon the only people
holding on desperately to a 'British' identity will be the old
Stalinists of the Labour Party in Wales, who traditionally have always
sung "God Save The Queen" with greater fervour than they found
for "Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau" or, indeed, "The Red Flag".
The so-called 'United Kingdom' may, at last, be on its way to the
historical knacker's yard. And not before time, too. Ironically, it may
be the English who kill it off, with their current obsession with how
downtrodden they feel themselves to be. I mean, people have been arrested
for flying or carrying the flag of St. George! Or so they claim. I do
know that, at the time of the last World Cup, one of the minority of
Welsh people living on a housing estate in Welshpool was threatened
with arrest for hanging his country's flag out of his bedroom window
while no action was taken against the English people on the same estate
who had draped theirs across the fronts of their homes.
On a more serious note, Brown draws a comparison with the Fourth Of
July in the US. It seems, at least in the popular imagination, that
every house in America has a flag flying in front of it not only then
but every other day as well. The Pledge of Allegiance is recited in
schools throughout That Great Land Of Theirs, and heaven help you if
you decide that you do not wish to go along with any of this or that
For Which It Stands. A swift phone call, and there are the FBI and the
Department of Homeland Security waiting to ask you some questions about
your political beliefs. 'Patriotism' of that sort has little to do with
actual thought or commitment, and more to do with a combination of
unconscious habit and a sort of sullen conformism which can brook no
reason. Do we really want that over here? Especially when we already
have The Sun?
Whatever day this new excuse for a piss up would be held on, what
form would the celebrations take? It has been suggested that, given the
modern British way of completely cocking up such events, it would most
likely involve Sir Cliff Richard singing "Rule Britannia" while
standing on top of the Millenium Dome, backed by Phil Collins. The
whole thing would be presented live on the BBC by Davina McCall and
Graham Norton, and be sponsored by Sainsbury's.
Perhaps I can suggest an advertising campaign? It would be based
around the reworking of a Pepsi commercial from the 1970s, and would
sum up what Britain means to itself and to the world. You can see a
sneak preview here.
Footnote: Thanks to RSA for spotting that I'd
ballsed up the coding on this piece originally. Viewers in Infernal
Exploiter and its derivatives were getting the second half of it in
Greek script.
