i have a bad secret to reveal: i didn't vote in the local and European elections.
no, wait, come back.......
yes, i know to some this may invalidate any political statement i make. i don't think it does, though you are right i should feel shameful for not voting.
But, being the mouth that i am, i do have some things to say.
i didn't vote for a combination of reasons: a combination of disillusion and laziness.
i had three choices for my local election:
a Labour candidate (not now, not without serious policy changes)
a Lib Dem candidate (currently shifting to the right, and virtually identical to Labour)
a Tory (well, i'm not dead yet, am i?)
its an interesting question: where does a progressive/socialist sort go with those options? as far as i'm concerned they are all now abhorrent. Obviously i don't want a Tory government, but equally i can be fairly certain i will get one even if Labour or the Lib Dems were to win the next general election.i had no Green candidate; the agreeable Independent wasn't in my ward; there weren't even any other options.maybe i should have turned out, and voted for my least disliked; but i'm fed up of having my vote taken as tacit acceptance of Labour's neo-Tory policies. the Labour Party cannot rely on voters to vote for them when we can't tell any difference between them and the Tories anymore.
the Right is the only game in town at present.
unsurprisingly the Labour vote collapsed. it either didn't turn out, or it voted elsewhere (judging by the stats, mainly the former). Unfortunately large quantities of people seem to have voted BNP again. a slight increase on last time; but they got their seats not because of a real increase in support (as they claim) but because the other parties simply didn't get their voters out. i don't blame them frankly, though some people will have had other party options.
anyhow the near-million people that voted BNP is still disturbing. i heard MPs on the election coverage desperately trying to play down this action: it was a protest, the public were conned by the BNP's presentation, they weren't really racist.
utter balls! there is no excuse for voting BNP. even if you are dissatisfied with how immigration is handled (who isn't??), this is not a reason to vote BNP unless you are stupid enough to be sold the scapegoating of the immigrant community. if you can vote BNP, you are a racist. it isn't something one can slip into by mistake.. i heard lots of talk about how the main parties(particularly Labour) weren't representing the concerns of the (presumably white) working-class people; i certainly wouldn't disagree with this, but in what way do the BNP? the only way the BNP represent working class people is if you buy that immigrants or non-white people are somehow 'stealing' resources/jobs/whatever from some romanticised white "native" populace.
and that is pure offensive shit.
the problem is that for many years we've been sold the idea that some groups are more deserving than others; largely this has mean the scapegoating of poor immigrant communities by poor white working-class communities, when they logically should be on the same side. both are occupying similar (exploited) positions in the economic chain.
recently when the 50% tax band came in we heard loud decrying from the right-wing press anxious to protect their own, not the general public (who, the surveys show, seem largely to support its introduction). this is rather typical of the situation. both the the press and the parties are guilty of protecting and deflecting attention from the wealthy, and scapegoating the immigrant community. the working-classes have been daft enough to take the dummy. thus, exploitative labour practices are fine, super-rich paying themselves huge bonuses and dodging tax responsibilities are fine, the unregulated capitalism that has led to this current economic crisis is fine, but the working-classes and the immigrant communities are left fighting each other for the scraps of what's thrown from the top table.
what i found laughable on Sunday night watching the television coverage was that:
a) no-one was prepared to admit that we have a serious racism/ xenophobia issue (UKIP are a
manifestation of this too, despite their seeming respectability they are part of the more subtle
prejudice of the middle/business classes).
b) all the other parties, especially the Tories, were keen to separate out the BNP as the only
party of racists; when its clear that within the other parties too the race issue is played
regularly. there are racists in the other parties, particularly the Tories. we shouldn't forget the
tacit vilification of the black community in the Eighties by the Tories with their allies in the
press. the racism may be better hid, but its there behind the sharp smiles and the blue-rinses
of the conference crowd. the BNP are merely more open about their disgusting attitudes.
i got this from the BBC website responses to "why i voted BNP":
"ivoted for the BNP for the first time in the European elections. I read the party's policies, they are not racist, they simply want to look after people who are British first, and that includes all races who have a right to be here.
Our elderly citizens are not getting the care they deserve
People who work and contribute to our country and society (irrespective of colour or religion) are welcome and people who come here for our benefits system and the NHS who have never contributed to this country are not so welcome. Neither are bogus asylum seekers and criminals. We have enough of our own. I have every sympathy with people from countries where the system is not so generous, but we can't look after all of them in Britain. We're full up, and our elderly citizens are not getting the care they deserve. It's because we are so generous that everyone wants to come here, to the detriment of people who have lived here all their lives, paid their taxes and deserve to have their place in the queue."
Nick, Oxford
it seemed a fairly representative email, and shows a lot of the daft assumptions made by people. the noticeable underlying thing is that old chestnut about not enough resources to go around. the immigrant community is not really taking that large a share of the resources, its merely that we aren't getting anywhere near the amount of tax revenue (in proportion to population) that we used to. the myth that they take our jobs is in there too, but ,as most people who investigate the lowest reaches of the employment market will tell you, the immigrant communities are frequently doing the worst paid jobs that others are not prepared to do. what's more they are doing this with the minimum of protection and the maximum of exploitation by employers.
our elderly citizens are not getting the care they deserve because of firstly underfunding, and secondly what funding there is is being drained away by the private sector who are contracted to provide this care for government agencies.
the middle section is another recurring theme: the view that the country is "swamped" by bogus asylum seekers, and criminals. if you read the wrong newspapers you'd undoubtedly think this, as they seize on the proportionally uncommon behaviour of a few bad examples and allow it to misrepresent an otherwise law-abiding and friendly group of people in need. note also he says "we have enough of our own". the spurious notion of "our own" somehow being preferable presumably to "the other". the language is one predicated on fear of other groups, who all present some vague threat. i didn't see a single politician on Sunday night who wanted to make the argument that these people are, in most important ways, like you.
i also liked the mention of taxes at the end. again, we're back to funds, and the idea that these people are scrounging by not having paid any taxes. but by that argument, the unemployed or the sick shouldn't get any support either. the point is that when people are doing well they pay taxes proportionate to their earnings, and their wealth; thus, when they aren't , they don't and they receive state support until they can pay again.
we need more taxation; 50% of the country's wealth is owned by 2% of its population. and the myth that they work so much harder for it is sheers balls. even if you are prepared to believe that those that earn £200,000 work harder than those that earn £20,000, do you really believe they work ten times harder??!
the saddest thing in all this is to see unemployed people berating immigrant communities as "undeserving" of state aid in the same way the Tories villainised the poor and unemployed as "undeserving", when they should be standing side by side.
Tuesday, 9 June 2009
Tuesday, 12 May 2009
I honestly cannot face news-based television at present. its overrun by the coverage of the MPs expenses scandal, and every thing you hear is more immoral and perverse than the last.
the expenses system has been deliberately abused on a scale none of us could've predicted; though it seems obvious, as the rules were set up by MP themselves, that they knew exactly what they were doing. it may have been disguised as "well, we can't justify paying ourselves more", but clearly the underlying motive was "we can exploit a laxly enforced expenses system even more to our advantage, an those dim fuckers WON'T KNOW A THING".
what's most galling about the whole affair is the explanations given by guilty MPs, and often just other MPs, that "i have done nothing that contravenes the regulations". as if the regulations define their whole sense of ethics. even when they do admit the rules are clearly wrong, as 'orrible Hazel Blears did, they act as if their taking adavntage of these lax regulations isn't a matter of personal conscience. like the system is there, and they HAD to make these expense claims its like listening to children caught out, "i know its wrong, but i only did it 'cos Lisa did it"
if you want a good example of the disgusting level of self-defence MPs are giving, then check out the clips of Margaret Moran on the BBC website. the sort of person who oozes into chairs.
its also clear that many MPs are using the expenses to make money through property investment, flipping claimed poperties, in Blears' case avoiding paying capital gains tax on sales of property, and generally treating the money as an investment opportunity.
no wonder the parties do nothing about fat-cats and tax avoidance schemes! their whole view is: if we can get away with it, without breaking the law, its fine. some of the suspects are fairly unsurprising: a load of Tory grandees (their ethos has always been that they deserve more), the more dubious Labour politicians like Mandelsohn, Shaun Woodward, and Keith Vaz, but it extends to most of the two main parties,(its pleasing, at least so far, that most of the more genuine old Labour members have remained unscathed).
it remains to be seen how many Lib Dems are similarly guilty.
Furthermore, its shameful to hear the genuine argument for expenses, that they are necessary to allow more people from less affluent backgrounds to be active representatives in democracy, being abused and used by sheer greedy bastards like Barbara Follett or Shaun Woodward, who have fortunes valued in the millions. why on earth are we giving money to these people, whilst we make ever more stress-inducing and unfair tests to genuine public servants like nurses, teachers, and other public sector workers?
frankly, the love of wealth, and awe with which its owners are treated, becomes clear in this case; many MPs, regardless of party, don't see exploitative affluence as wrong. it just doesn't occur to them.their lifestyles are givens and must be kept up at all costs. usually ours.
almost every group in this country, from students to benefit claimants to the elderly to whoever, has spent the last thirty years having what little they could claim from the state whittled away by unfair overly stringent and offputting means-tests. people have been victimised as spongers, layabouts, and workshy; those who do work have had their working rights ruthlessly cut away; genuinely needy groups have been scapegoated; and we now know why:
because it is one rule for the wealthy and successful in this country, and another for everyone else. as every good Leftist of any variety has been pointing out for years, the rich are making the rules for their own benefit. freemarket capitalism DOESN'T work remotely fairly. the fact that it puts greed before ethics is, in this case, made explicit. (the most pointed illustration of this is that, everytime someone suggests remaking/remodeling/properly regulating the financial institutions and businesses in this country, the wise men of economics say "but it will have a negative effect on investment, people won't want to set up business here/we'll lose our talent"; well the recent economic malaise has shown the talent of the the cityboys is a mirage; besides this, should other people's greed be allowed to dictate our distribution of wealth, and the services the state offers its citizens?course it bloody shouldn't).
in all honesty, none of this surprises me, though it does appal me; what truly surprises is that the people in question are so detached from normal living standards, that they actually thought these claims acceptable.
the one excuse i've yet to hear, but know i will soon, is the "if parliament doesn't pay this much/offer these expenses, then the best won't want to work in politics, because the pay will be be too little". well, again, we have to draw the line somewhere, and i think the MPs' basic salary of £64000 a year is no-one's remote idea of poverty. besides, do we really want someone in politics who would consider principles less important that earning more than this amount?? the pay should be fair, and the job is undoubtedly a stressful one. but personal wealth is not the reason to enter politics, and anyone with the idea that it is should be allowed nowhere near the House of Commons.
i fundamentally agree with the need for MPs to claim expenses, but certainly not with this laissez faire attitude to what can be charged to them. travel expenses certainly, maybe eating expenses (within reason), even the second home near parliament is often a necessity. in many cases however, its clear MPs are claiming for unnecessary properties too. the ever-annoying Keith Vaz has been claiming for a second home in London, when he in fact has a third home in Stanmore, North London. considering vast numbers of the country manage to commute from the feeder towns outside London (Luton, Northampton, Barnet, Reading etc) to jobs in London, it doesn't seem unreasonable to expect the same of MPs. To have your family home in Manchester, Nottingham, Edinburgh, even Birmingham, say, and need a second place in London is reasonable. but once you're within the commuter routes, and the Underground network, the need is disputable. Finally, in the cases where the MP is, for example, Oliver Letwin, an MP with a sizable fortune and income from various sources, then the taxpayer can hardly be expected to foot the bill. At the very least, give them a flat-rate housing allowance based on current average London living costs to put towards whatever they choose.
the question now, is whether we can trust Parliament again, when its' members interests are so clearly corrupting their ethics? more immediately, can we trust them to revise the expenses regulations to something fair and reasonable?
and my recommendation for the next election? check yr MPs expenses, if they aren't too bad, vote for them. if not, then try voting for one of the smaller parties. Frankly, most Labour voters could vote Lib Dem and notice little real difference in terms of policy; The Tory right can go back to UKIP or the BNP which they've always wanted to anyway, and the rest with a progressive agenda can try Greens, Socialists, or independents. for one election at least, it might the scare some ethics into the big two.
the expenses system has been deliberately abused on a scale none of us could've predicted; though it seems obvious, as the rules were set up by MP themselves, that they knew exactly what they were doing. it may have been disguised as "well, we can't justify paying ourselves more", but clearly the underlying motive was "we can exploit a laxly enforced expenses system even more to our advantage, an those dim fuckers WON'T KNOW A THING".
what's most galling about the whole affair is the explanations given by guilty MPs, and often just other MPs, that "i have done nothing that contravenes the regulations". as if the regulations define their whole sense of ethics. even when they do admit the rules are clearly wrong, as 'orrible Hazel Blears did, they act as if their taking adavntage of these lax regulations isn't a matter of personal conscience. like the system is there, and they HAD to make these expense claims its like listening to children caught out, "i know its wrong, but i only did it 'cos Lisa did it"
if you want a good example of the disgusting level of self-defence MPs are giving, then check out the clips of Margaret Moran on the BBC website. the sort of person who oozes into chairs.
its also clear that many MPs are using the expenses to make money through property investment, flipping claimed poperties, in Blears' case avoiding paying capital gains tax on sales of property, and generally treating the money as an investment opportunity.
no wonder the parties do nothing about fat-cats and tax avoidance schemes! their whole view is: if we can get away with it, without breaking the law, its fine. some of the suspects are fairly unsurprising: a load of Tory grandees (their ethos has always been that they deserve more), the more dubious Labour politicians like Mandelsohn, Shaun Woodward, and Keith Vaz, but it extends to most of the two main parties,(its pleasing, at least so far, that most of the more genuine old Labour members have remained unscathed).
it remains to be seen how many Lib Dems are similarly guilty.
Furthermore, its shameful to hear the genuine argument for expenses, that they are necessary to allow more people from less affluent backgrounds to be active representatives in democracy, being abused and used by sheer greedy bastards like Barbara Follett or Shaun Woodward, who have fortunes valued in the millions. why on earth are we giving money to these people, whilst we make ever more stress-inducing and unfair tests to genuine public servants like nurses, teachers, and other public sector workers?
frankly, the love of wealth, and awe with which its owners are treated, becomes clear in this case; many MPs, regardless of party, don't see exploitative affluence as wrong. it just doesn't occur to them.their lifestyles are givens and must be kept up at all costs. usually ours.
almost every group in this country, from students to benefit claimants to the elderly to whoever, has spent the last thirty years having what little they could claim from the state whittled away by unfair overly stringent and offputting means-tests. people have been victimised as spongers, layabouts, and workshy; those who do work have had their working rights ruthlessly cut away; genuinely needy groups have been scapegoated; and we now know why:
because it is one rule for the wealthy and successful in this country, and another for everyone else. as every good Leftist of any variety has been pointing out for years, the rich are making the rules for their own benefit. freemarket capitalism DOESN'T work remotely fairly. the fact that it puts greed before ethics is, in this case, made explicit. (the most pointed illustration of this is that, everytime someone suggests remaking/remodeling/properly regulating the financial institutions and businesses in this country, the wise men of economics say "but it will have a negative effect on investment, people won't want to set up business here/we'll lose our talent"; well the recent economic malaise has shown the talent of the the cityboys is a mirage; besides this, should other people's greed be allowed to dictate our distribution of wealth, and the services the state offers its citizens?course it bloody shouldn't).
in all honesty, none of this surprises me, though it does appal me; what truly surprises is that the people in question are so detached from normal living standards, that they actually thought these claims acceptable.
the one excuse i've yet to hear, but know i will soon, is the "if parliament doesn't pay this much/offer these expenses, then the best won't want to work in politics, because the pay will be be too little". well, again, we have to draw the line somewhere, and i think the MPs' basic salary of £64000 a year is no-one's remote idea of poverty. besides, do we really want someone in politics who would consider principles less important that earning more than this amount?? the pay should be fair, and the job is undoubtedly a stressful one. but personal wealth is not the reason to enter politics, and anyone with the idea that it is should be allowed nowhere near the House of Commons.
i fundamentally agree with the need for MPs to claim expenses, but certainly not with this laissez faire attitude to what can be charged to them. travel expenses certainly, maybe eating expenses (within reason), even the second home near parliament is often a necessity. in many cases however, its clear MPs are claiming for unnecessary properties too. the ever-annoying Keith Vaz has been claiming for a second home in London, when he in fact has a third home in Stanmore, North London. considering vast numbers of the country manage to commute from the feeder towns outside London (Luton, Northampton, Barnet, Reading etc) to jobs in London, it doesn't seem unreasonable to expect the same of MPs. To have your family home in Manchester, Nottingham, Edinburgh, even Birmingham, say, and need a second place in London is reasonable. but once you're within the commuter routes, and the Underground network, the need is disputable. Finally, in the cases where the MP is, for example, Oliver Letwin, an MP with a sizable fortune and income from various sources, then the taxpayer can hardly be expected to foot the bill. At the very least, give them a flat-rate housing allowance based on current average London living costs to put towards whatever they choose.
the question now, is whether we can trust Parliament again, when its' members interests are so clearly corrupting their ethics? more immediately, can we trust them to revise the expenses regulations to something fair and reasonable?
and my recommendation for the next election? check yr MPs expenses, if they aren't too bad, vote for them. if not, then try voting for one of the smaller parties. Frankly, most Labour voters could vote Lib Dem and notice little real difference in terms of policy; The Tory right can go back to UKIP or the BNP which they've always wanted to anyway, and the rest with a progressive agenda can try Greens, Socialists, or independents. for one election at least, it might the scare some ethics into the big two.
Sunday, 28 September 2008
are not my pastures so lovely and new?? eh?
well, no not really. its largely stability. but new things are occurring for me, quite big new things. OK, so its nothing to dislodge Obama-McCain from the front pages, or make me a redtop regular like that darn Cheryl Cole (now, am i not more interesting, surely than that racist old moose?), but its a still something in the mundane litany that is life.
my course finally starts this week, and whilst I'm still in the "oooh, its gonna be so great" stage, and I'm also into the "shit, now I'm scared" stage. its not even a conscious thing, just a generally nerviness; i had a bad nights sleep for the first time in a couple of months the other day, all fear, panic etc. part of the usual fear/anxiety attack package. its not surprising, new places, new people, and plenty of opportunity for me to embarrass myself in some way. of course I'm not trying to think like this at all, drawing on the marvellous kind remarks of all and sundry (who seem to think I'm more suited to doing this course than is actually possible), and remember I'm actually entering an area I'm good at, and engaged by. but unlike my first time at uni, this time i have invested a lot of money, and, more importantly, hope into this. i don't think I've ever wanted so desperately to do well at something in my life. the first time round everyone was going, my expectations weren't high (i wasn't the greatest student at school, believe it or not, in spite of people's impressions), my uni wasn't considered great (though i can't speak highly enough of those who taught me, and put me on this course), and i just went with a fairly open mind. this time , a desire for success weighs slightly heavier on my bony little frame. frankly this is as close to ambition as i get; its my cup semi-final, if you will. now, I'm fairly certain of my abilities, and fairly certain of my work being as good as any, but after 6 years out it still feels big. and there's a little man in a quasi-SS uniform saying "zere can be no failure!!"
so its tense. but i should be fine, once i get past the first few days.
on a brighter side, i am still in the gainful employment of Satan's Own Bookseller, but now for the diminished hours of about 16 a week. enough to keep my wallet ticking over nicely, and able to buy the odd drink for the Ammah et al.work is rapidly going down the chute, frankly, so I'm glad to have it in a less prominent place in my life. The company's ability to do whats in its own best commercial interests in our store gets more lamentable every day. despite the masters getting the big bookseller gong, I'm sure on the ground level in many branches it's a mess. i know it is at ours. too many head office edicts that counteract each other and divert us from keeping our most basic services running efficiently (IE customer orders, and books shelved and in the right place etc.). we have an increasing lack of order, and an increasing inability to stay on top of deliveries and duties, that is largely due to staff cuts and new staff being inexperienced. also, head office, and their henchwoman in the form of our regional manager, do not know when to ditch an idea because its impracticable in our particular store; their continued interference in store layout is meaning sections are fitting very badly. fact is, the workers in shop know the capacities of the sections, and the best way to keep them. they've needlessly meddled in the layout to the detriment of organisation, and thus, sales. the other day i counted a loss of £80 sales in a day because i couldn't find the books customers were after; i think this can be a similar figure for each person. its a lot of money. and the main reason is the layout changes and staff cuts. its very silly.
furthermore, good staff are leaving due to dissatisfaction and stress, and the some of the part-timers are not up to the increased responsibility on them. i can think of one specific example in particular, and i have no idea why he's being offered the hours. this Xmas could be the most shambolic in my time there; with less staff,and more inexperienced staff in charge of completely inexperienced Xmas temps.it will not be good. we've over-relied on the ability of replacing key experienced booksellers with weekenders, and now the we're dependent on them. dependent beyond their abilities or experience. it will be interesting, at the very least.
hopefully, for my self at least, less hours will = less caring and the ability to leave knowing I've done my best, and i don't have a come back for 5 days.
apologies, for general earnestness of this whole blog, but you know, if i only wrote when feeling funny, it'd be twice a year. and you REALLY wanna know my progress don'cha? :)
keep you're best end up, my children
my course finally starts this week, and whilst I'm still in the "oooh, its gonna be so great" stage, and I'm also into the "shit, now I'm scared" stage. its not even a conscious thing, just a generally nerviness; i had a bad nights sleep for the first time in a couple of months the other day, all fear, panic etc. part of the usual fear/anxiety attack package. its not surprising, new places, new people, and plenty of opportunity for me to embarrass myself in some way. of course I'm not trying to think like this at all, drawing on the marvellous kind remarks of all and sundry (who seem to think I'm more suited to doing this course than is actually possible), and remember I'm actually entering an area I'm good at, and engaged by. but unlike my first time at uni, this time i have invested a lot of money, and, more importantly, hope into this. i don't think I've ever wanted so desperately to do well at something in my life. the first time round everyone was going, my expectations weren't high (i wasn't the greatest student at school, believe it or not, in spite of people's impressions), my uni wasn't considered great (though i can't speak highly enough of those who taught me, and put me on this course), and i just went with a fairly open mind. this time , a desire for success weighs slightly heavier on my bony little frame. frankly this is as close to ambition as i get; its my cup semi-final, if you will. now, I'm fairly certain of my abilities, and fairly certain of my work being as good as any, but after 6 years out it still feels big. and there's a little man in a quasi-SS uniform saying "zere can be no failure!!"
so its tense. but i should be fine, once i get past the first few days.
on a brighter side, i am still in the gainful employment of Satan's Own Bookseller, but now for the diminished hours of about 16 a week. enough to keep my wallet ticking over nicely, and able to buy the odd drink for the Ammah et al.work is rapidly going down the chute, frankly, so I'm glad to have it in a less prominent place in my life. The company's ability to do whats in its own best commercial interests in our store gets more lamentable every day. despite the masters getting the big bookseller gong, I'm sure on the ground level in many branches it's a mess. i know it is at ours. too many head office edicts that counteract each other and divert us from keeping our most basic services running efficiently (IE customer orders, and books shelved and in the right place etc.). we have an increasing lack of order, and an increasing inability to stay on top of deliveries and duties, that is largely due to staff cuts and new staff being inexperienced. also, head office, and their henchwoman in the form of our regional manager, do not know when to ditch an idea because its impracticable in our particular store; their continued interference in store layout is meaning sections are fitting very badly. fact is, the workers in shop know the capacities of the sections, and the best way to keep them. they've needlessly meddled in the layout to the detriment of organisation, and thus, sales. the other day i counted a loss of £80 sales in a day because i couldn't find the books customers were after; i think this can be a similar figure for each person. its a lot of money. and the main reason is the layout changes and staff cuts. its very silly.
furthermore, good staff are leaving due to dissatisfaction and stress, and the some of the part-timers are not up to the increased responsibility on them. i can think of one specific example in particular, and i have no idea why he's being offered the hours. this Xmas could be the most shambolic in my time there; with less staff,and more inexperienced staff in charge of completely inexperienced Xmas temps.it will not be good. we've over-relied on the ability of replacing key experienced booksellers with weekenders, and now the we're dependent on them. dependent beyond their abilities or experience. it will be interesting, at the very least.
hopefully, for my self at least, less hours will = less caring and the ability to leave knowing I've done my best, and i don't have a come back for 5 days.
apologies, for general earnestness of this whole blog, but you know, if i only wrote when feeling funny, it'd be twice a year. and you REALLY wanna know my progress don'cha? :)
keep you're best end up, my children
Thursday, 7 August 2008
Democracy-government by the people. yay!
A very kind, and politically conscious, friend of mine bought me John Pilger's documentary film The War On Democracy a while back, and I've finally got round to watching it. It's an exceptionally good film, that, without being excessive, hits the real threat the USA is, and has been for half a century, to genuine democracy.
The documentary shows how the USA has for fifty years now been conducting secret wars against Latin American countries and their democratically elected socialist governments. One after another has been removed in coups funded by the United States; in fact often trained and actively participated in by them too (usually through the CIA). The myth is that these are defences of democracy, and national security; they rarely are. They are anything but, and are more to do with the maintenance of US political and economic power in countries in which they have no sovereignty. The list is very long: Guatemala, Cuba, Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Venezuela,...... the list goes on.Most of the regimes the US helped to install were not democratic, and in cases (Pinochet in Chile notably) they were openly fascist military dictatorships.Arguably the most "stable" (meaning free from direct US interference)country in South America is Brazil, and Brazil operates a capitalist "democracy" on the terms the USA likes, ie a wide poverty gap, reliance on America, and free from such distressing ideas as egalitarianism.
Of course the other reason for US interference in these regions, other than the basic ones of political and economic power over their policies, is the fact that a successful socialist country (or even a social democratic one) in Latin America would be a powerful precedent and example to its own disenfranchised minorities. I can't pretend to be utterly anti-American; i love too many American bands, writers, films, and various other products to declare that i am. but most of these cultural products are very much within the oppositional sphere of American culture. They are not the folks in government, in business, they are not the ones with political power. Mind you, not that i have much need to state this. I love sixteenth century English poetry, but I'm not remotely fond of its political system. But, to some unfortunately, to like some aspects of a culture equals tacit approval of its politics. it plainly doesn't.
Democracy for most people in this age seems roughly equatable to a vote every few years. Now I'm not the man to get into a debate on the varieties of democracy and their problems; this isn't the place, and I'm not good enough to do it anyway. But democracy is not just about a vote. it is about the people of the country having control of its government. it is about power, and equality of power. it is about one man/woman having one vote in the wider sense of the word. How powerful is your influence? How powerful is your bosses influence? Are you as politically powerful as the man who owns a local business? Are you as politically powerful as the great Satan Rupert Murdoch himself?
The answer, naturally, is no; its arguable that Murdoch is the most powerful man in Britain, and he doesn't even live here. But he has such financial clout, and media power that his "vote" is worth several million of your own. Not just him, but many many others have this excessive power. A power that corrupts any so-called democracy from day one. so i guess by this reasoning I'm declaring we don't live in a proper democracy? Well, I'd say no, we don't. It has many aspects, but not enough.
The USA (and us by implication, we behave similarly, if not so extreme) is conducting the modern form of what Pilger (and me, for that matter) calls Imperialism. the wielding of economic and political (and cultural) power in a country in which they have no right to interfere. They are distorting what democracy exists in their favour, and for their economic benefit. The current fear is about China and the power it increasingly wields; little mention is made that the USA has held a much greater level of power than China currently has, since the second world war, and with a malign influence almost everywhere they've interfered. Some of the US establishment is open about this: for them Might is Right (just like the playground bully); others hide behind a facade of "democratising" and "progressing" these countries. It isn't new, we did it in Africa and Asia in the 18th and 19th centuries, under the banner of Christianity and progress. what it reality means is the exploitation of others resources for our own benefit. The terms have changed, the motive and outcome has not.
Of course large parts of the USA don't understand this animosity towards them; mainly because the ideology runs so deep in America, the ideology of a specific form of harsh free market capitalism, that to question it is to question your own parentage.
Anyway, i just recommend you watch Pilger's documentary, and you take an opportunity to read about the new forms of democracy being tried in Latin America with Chavez in Venezuela, and Morales in Bolivia. I don't know where they'll lead, or whether they'll prove the genuine emancipation they seem at present. But if the US media opposes them and tells you they are awful, then they're almost certainly doing something good.
i hope you'll take the time to think and read about these things ,and most importantly question who's telling you what and why. Cheers
The documentary shows how the USA has for fifty years now been conducting secret wars against Latin American countries and their democratically elected socialist governments. One after another has been removed in coups funded by the United States; in fact often trained and actively participated in by them too (usually through the CIA). The myth is that these are defences of democracy, and national security; they rarely are. They are anything but, and are more to do with the maintenance of US political and economic power in countries in which they have no sovereignty. The list is very long: Guatemala, Cuba, Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Venezuela,...... the list goes on.Most of the regimes the US helped to install were not democratic, and in cases (Pinochet in Chile notably) they were openly fascist military dictatorships.Arguably the most "stable" (meaning free from direct US interference)country in South America is Brazil, and Brazil operates a capitalist "democracy" on the terms the USA likes, ie a wide poverty gap, reliance on America, and free from such distressing ideas as egalitarianism.
Of course the other reason for US interference in these regions, other than the basic ones of political and economic power over their policies, is the fact that a successful socialist country (or even a social democratic one) in Latin America would be a powerful precedent and example to its own disenfranchised minorities. I can't pretend to be utterly anti-American; i love too many American bands, writers, films, and various other products to declare that i am. but most of these cultural products are very much within the oppositional sphere of American culture. They are not the folks in government, in business, they are not the ones with political power. Mind you, not that i have much need to state this. I love sixteenth century English poetry, but I'm not remotely fond of its political system. But, to some unfortunately, to like some aspects of a culture equals tacit approval of its politics. it plainly doesn't.
Democracy for most people in this age seems roughly equatable to a vote every few years. Now I'm not the man to get into a debate on the varieties of democracy and their problems; this isn't the place, and I'm not good enough to do it anyway. But democracy is not just about a vote. it is about the people of the country having control of its government. it is about power, and equality of power. it is about one man/woman having one vote in the wider sense of the word. How powerful is your influence? How powerful is your bosses influence? Are you as politically powerful as the man who owns a local business? Are you as politically powerful as the great Satan Rupert Murdoch himself?
The answer, naturally, is no; its arguable that Murdoch is the most powerful man in Britain, and he doesn't even live here. But he has such financial clout, and media power that his "vote" is worth several million of your own. Not just him, but many many others have this excessive power. A power that corrupts any so-called democracy from day one. so i guess by this reasoning I'm declaring we don't live in a proper democracy? Well, I'd say no, we don't. It has many aspects, but not enough.
The USA (and us by implication, we behave similarly, if not so extreme) is conducting the modern form of what Pilger (and me, for that matter) calls Imperialism. the wielding of economic and political (and cultural) power in a country in which they have no right to interfere. They are distorting what democracy exists in their favour, and for their economic benefit. The current fear is about China and the power it increasingly wields; little mention is made that the USA has held a much greater level of power than China currently has, since the second world war, and with a malign influence almost everywhere they've interfered. Some of the US establishment is open about this: for them Might is Right (just like the playground bully); others hide behind a facade of "democratising" and "progressing" these countries. It isn't new, we did it in Africa and Asia in the 18th and 19th centuries, under the banner of Christianity and progress. what it reality means is the exploitation of others resources for our own benefit. The terms have changed, the motive and outcome has not.
Of course large parts of the USA don't understand this animosity towards them; mainly because the ideology runs so deep in America, the ideology of a specific form of harsh free market capitalism, that to question it is to question your own parentage.
Anyway, i just recommend you watch Pilger's documentary, and you take an opportunity to read about the new forms of democracy being tried in Latin America with Chavez in Venezuela, and Morales in Bolivia. I don't know where they'll lead, or whether they'll prove the genuine emancipation they seem at present. But if the US media opposes them and tells you they are awful, then they're almost certainly doing something good.
i hope you'll take the time to think and read about these things ,and most importantly question who's telling you what and why. Cheers
Monday, 4 August 2008
Contract For Tender: assassin wanted for hit on bookstore manager
as if it isn't bad enough working with Drusilla, and trust me it isn't easy being in the "command" of an extra from Rentaghost, i also have to put up with the Machiavellian machinations of the Poison Dwarf; now the Poison Dwarf took up her position as manager a while before i arrived, but in the first six months i was there, she managed to get rid of four perfectly good, intelligent members of the full time staff, and several others have gone since then. and anytime she takes on anyone with a brain and a spine intact they're are usually gotten rid of as soon as is expedient (i like expedient, its the sort of word she no doubt loves), not overtly but in the more subtle low-key way: be as inflexible, unhelpful and difficult with them til they leave of their own free will. thus the job has become more difficult as time has gone on: malleability and manipulability are her favoured qualities in staff. I'm unsure why I've lasted so long;maybe its cos she has generally been nice enough to me, or maybe its because I'm endearing (ha!). i suppose she may even see some actual value in my work, but the implausible should probably be left out of it.
anyway, what with the increasing staffing cuts (which i suspect she doesn't fight much, or represent the seriousness of our staffing situation to The Big Folks), she has become more of a pain; she's persistently Pollyanna-ish, and fails to take seriously the stress levels of staff, that are rocketing every time we don't get someone replaced. its a silly situation. i suppose when you're on three times the salary everyone else is, it's not worth caring.
she's a deceptive wee beastie, anyway; looks like a cheery sweet little ball of Next dresses and hippy jewellery, but there's some serious steel underneath.
today we had several weekend staff in to help out; with Drusilla in the stockroom, i was fortunate enough to get a weekender for company on the first floor; makes a change these days not to be on my own. was nice, until t'Poison Dwarf, says "i don't think you need ------- up here , Rabid, its not very busy; so i think we'll send her to help out on ground". i nearly blew, honestly wanted to walk out there and then. i pointed out there were five of them downstairs already, but it buttered no parsnips. (don't you just love that "you know if you have issues, you should talk to me"spiel, when they don't listen to a bloody word you say??). when i started at The Place, the staffing was 3 upstairs, and 4 downstairs, plus the manager and the assistant manager. these days, except for the M and the AM, there are only three full time staff, and the rest of us are part-timers on varying hours. The First Floor nominally has 1 full-timer, and three part-timers. but most of us don't coincide hours-wise, and it ends up being one or two of us manning the floor. while everyone else is pulled into ground. its farcical, really. our floor is treated as little better than an afterthought. doesn't help that certain members of the ground floor staff are less than diligent, and more prone to coordination and delegation than actual work.
i really need to think about whether i need the money and the discount enough to warrant all this crap. and it can only get worse in the run-up to Christmas. bastarding company. you know someone's making millions out of it, but it ain't the people that do the work. heigh ho.
like Gloria, i shall survive. with luck , and a following wind.
anyway, what with the increasing staffing cuts (which i suspect she doesn't fight much, or represent the seriousness of our staffing situation to The Big Folks), she has become more of a pain; she's persistently Pollyanna-ish, and fails to take seriously the stress levels of staff, that are rocketing every time we don't get someone replaced. its a silly situation. i suppose when you're on three times the salary everyone else is, it's not worth caring.
she's a deceptive wee beastie, anyway; looks like a cheery sweet little ball of Next dresses and hippy jewellery, but there's some serious steel underneath.
today we had several weekend staff in to help out; with Drusilla in the stockroom, i was fortunate enough to get a weekender for company on the first floor; makes a change these days not to be on my own. was nice, until t'Poison Dwarf, says "i don't think you need ------- up here , Rabid, its not very busy; so i think we'll send her to help out on ground". i nearly blew, honestly wanted to walk out there and then. i pointed out there were five of them downstairs already, but it buttered no parsnips. (don't you just love that "you know if you have issues, you should talk to me"spiel, when they don't listen to a bloody word you say??). when i started at The Place, the staffing was 3 upstairs, and 4 downstairs, plus the manager and the assistant manager. these days, except for the M and the AM, there are only three full time staff, and the rest of us are part-timers on varying hours. The First Floor nominally has 1 full-timer, and three part-timers. but most of us don't coincide hours-wise, and it ends up being one or two of us manning the floor. while everyone else is pulled into ground. its farcical, really. our floor is treated as little better than an afterthought. doesn't help that certain members of the ground floor staff are less than diligent, and more prone to coordination and delegation than actual work.
i really need to think about whether i need the money and the discount enough to warrant all this crap. and it can only get worse in the run-up to Christmas. bastarding company. you know someone's making millions out of it, but it ain't the people that do the work. heigh ho.
like Gloria, i shall survive. with luck , and a following wind.
Sunday, 27 July 2008
a mere bagatelle
this is a random ("its like soo random", well, no. the proper sense) collection of general musing points, herey goes:
- the Glasgow East by-election was a mixture of the funny and disturbing: Labour losing a solid heartland seat is not such a surprise, as its being so late to come. Labour have abandoned almost every core principle, even the least controversial ones, and given a contest in Scotland where there is another option that is, these days, looking more to the left of Labour (SNP), its not a big shocker. it'll be interesting to see if it occurs in an English constituency, where the alternative is the Tories or Lib Dems, both of whom are concentrated on the centre right now. The truth is that Labour have introduced so many policies that would've been expected of the Tories, they may have lost the heartlands forever. this could be the beginning of the end for the party (or it could be a rebirth. my money is on the former. especially, as the post-defeat analysis has been about them not being right-wing enough (how,exactly? a lack of kinky sex,and jackboots???), or problems with the leadership. but what the defeat has shown is that the party cannot go chasing as far into Thatcherism as it likes without losing the party base. they banked on always being able to rely on them on the basis of fear of the Tories. but when the Tories are indistinguishable from them, and they seem to have no regard for civil liberties, human rights, and egalitarianism(supposedly their core values), and are prepared to increase tax on the poor, but not the rich, then there is no choice. to use, an oft-quoted Orwell example, no-one can distinguish the pigs from the men anymore. it took forty years odd, and a solid, powerful, and increasingly radical trade unionist movement to put Labour into government, it may prove twice as difficult to win back the progressives, and radicals in this country. i can't say I'm sure they'll even try.
- on a connected note, i almost feel sorry for Gordon Brown. he's intellectually superior to Blair, that much is always obvious. Brown could have ideas, Blair needed to hire people for it. but he's become a Blair-mould prime minister (a mould he does not, and could never, fit), and finds himself being swayed backward and forward in the wind by the media, the public and his party. he can't win, if he doesn't change, he's called washed-up and backward, if he asserts a more classical Labourist position he's accused of U-turning. the poor man is scared, and he didn't/doesn't realise that what made him so popular in that first few months was his solidness, his honesty, and the fact he wouldn't be the straw man like Blair. regardless of whether i agreed with him (mainly i don't) i expected him to hold to his position and beliefs unless genuinely convinced. he hasn't, and unlike Blair, he lies very poorly. he's a symptom of all the flaws of the last decade: a government in debt to an ideology, Thatcherism, it should've opposed, and in fear of the media and public to such an extent it could never cling to any values. The difference between the 1945 government (and even the 1960's Labour government) is indicative: everything the Conservatives did from then on, was being pulled by Labour's values, and thinking; since the 1980's everything, including New Labour, has been a direct outgrowth of Thatcher's values. The Tories, along with their media allies, make the agenda. sad. very sad.
- the furore over Max Mosley's victory in the 'Nazi sadomasochism sex' privacy case has been just as "funny" (for want of a better word). the News of the World is screaming its usual "restricting the freedom of the press" line. but what right do they have to interfere in people's private lives? i can imagine how little they'd have to say about Mosley if he was involved in shady business practices, people in glass houses etc, so they give us the spurious news of an F1 big-wig's less orthodox sex life. utter crap. none of their business or ours. these things are only of interest if the party involved is making some claim to moral/sexual normality ( for example the exposure of Tory ministers personal lives when they were standing on a narrow notion of "Family Values"). there is no incursion into press freedom here, other than to say that if the press are to intrude into people's personal lives, they have to justify in terms of wider public need to know. what's most irritating was the sanctimonious balls of seeing the paper that proudly present page three girls, taking the moral high-ground on someone else's sex life.it wasn't the sadomasochism or even the spurious Nazi-link we should be offended by, it was the NotW use of the word "sick" in it's headline. i had rather hoped were past the stage where ANY consensual sexual act was considered sick. are we all so certain of our own proclivities, and likings that we'll condemn others for theirs? god, i hope not. and if the NotW wants to get het up about such things maybe it should consider the extent to which its role as page 3 purveyors plays in the grooming of girls to enter the sex trade.
- on a more personal note, when I'm hitting a periodic downturn (as Gordon would probably phrase it), i try to remember Christmas 2002. now i wouldn't say Christmas 2002 was the worst time in my life, but it had an outstandingly bad convergence of BAD SHIT going on. I'd left uni, and after six months dispiriting unemployment, i was entering into 18 months doubly dispiriting employment. the sort of low level job, with no mental involvement we all end up taking sometimes for purely cash reasons. furthermore, I'd managed to shatter two of my closer friendships (one irreparably, and the other after some time, salvageably). the irreparable one was one i still miss, as they'd been a very close friend who'd helped me through my inaugural and nasty bout of depression. none of this was helped by the fact other friendships were suffering from impermanent and very permanent separations: all my uni friends (with one exception, who I'd only just started to know properly) had gone back to their respective home towns, or new home towns; my school friends had gradually fallen away to the point where they remain (i only have one, who i see rarely, that i consider a proper mate); and a couple of other friends had gone away to their first year at uni too. i had at one point, probably one person was a friend, and actually talking to me. the two friends I'd probably count my closest had yet to become proper friends at all, I'd hardly spoken to them. it was NOT a good Christmas. how i managed to survive it intact, without even medication (which I'd come off six months earlier) or much in the way of career-based engagement, i do not know. i had, like all fools, A Plan; a plan that took me 4 years longer than expected, but a plan all the same. and if i am not a well-regarded novelist at 27, then i am a fairly well-regarded and liked, if over-opinionated, fool at 27, who has some idea where he wants to go. hallelujah for that.
a small secular blessing and a furtive fumble to you all :)
Thursday, 17 July 2008
Chavs
watching the news this morning, who should i see but Guardian writer Zoe Williams, who i usually agree with, and find generally lovely, suggesting the term chav should be avoided as a term of class abuse. now obviously as someone who hates Chavs, but considers themselves on the left politically, i was a bit vexed. i read Zoe's article on the website (link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/16/thinktanks?commentpage=5&commentposted=1), and responded as follows (though i've corrected the odd typo that evaded my censor):
Whilst there is undoubtedly some class prejudice in the term Chav, certainly among myself and my friends it's use is more culturally specific than that. Which would be my argument for it being a suitable term of abuse, if not a nice one (but hey, we're not gonna pretend to be completely without annoyances, are we?). i also see a limited number of middle-class chavs, and most working-class people aren't chavs at all. The term amongst people i know is used for those who are roughly as follows: aggressive; tasteless (culturally, and sartorially; which isn't so much a poverty issue, as most of the clothes worn by them are as expensive as our own); contemptuous of manners, learning, and anything involving bookishness. The Chav is nearer a subculture like the mods or rockers, than a class-based term of abuse. Certainly, to view them as passive, poor, victims is inaccurate; part of the attack is based on them being loud, obnoxious, and unavoidable. Furthermore their attitudes are often tending toward the racist, and homophobic; in this they have more in common with the skinheads of the eighties. Undoubtedly our society is to blame for them, but i wouldn't be too quick to feel sorry for people who're more likely to start a fight from a small offence (ie bumping into them, or looking near them). maybe a nicer society will stop producing people who shout abuse at me for merely reading a book.
Whilst there is undoubtedly some class prejudice in the term Chav, certainly among myself and my friends it's use is more culturally specific than that. Which would be my argument for it being a suitable term of abuse, if not a nice one (but hey, we're not gonna pretend to be completely without annoyances, are we?). i also see a limited number of middle-class chavs, and most working-class people aren't chavs at all. The term amongst people i know is used for those who are roughly as follows: aggressive; tasteless (culturally, and sartorially; which isn't so much a poverty issue, as most of the clothes worn by them are as expensive as our own); contemptuous of manners, learning, and anything involving bookishness. The Chav is nearer a subculture like the mods or rockers, than a class-based term of abuse. Certainly, to view them as passive, poor, victims is inaccurate; part of the attack is based on them being loud, obnoxious, and unavoidable. Furthermore their attitudes are often tending toward the racist, and homophobic; in this they have more in common with the skinheads of the eighties. Undoubtedly our society is to blame for them, but i wouldn't be too quick to feel sorry for people who're more likely to start a fight from a small offence (ie bumping into them, or looking near them). maybe a nicer society will stop producing people who shout abuse at me for merely reading a book.
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