Futile Democracy

From Columbus to Reagan

November 8, 2009

When Christopher Columbus landed on the other side of the Atlantic, in 1492, he encountered a culture of the native population which the West would soon utterly destroy. We came to believe those populations were beneath us, and so we were doing them a favour by Westernising their lands and wiping them out. The Tainos (The natives) were not at all barbaric, or backward, or primitive, as the Europeans first thought. They invented the Canoe, the hammock, their homes were far more spacious and luxurious than the tiny European homes back home. In fact, it could be argued, that given the horrendous religious turmoil that embodied Europe over the next century; the Tainos were far more advanced socially. Columbus commented “They are very gentle and without knowledge of what is evil; nor do they murder or steal”. And yet, we still felt the need to impose our will on those people. It then follows quite neatly, that the lands Columbus is famed for discovering (Latin America) would, in less than five hundred years, be the victim of quite horrific oppression from the Nation that celebrates Columbus day; The USA.

The word “Democracy” is quite a contentious one, when used in the Western sense. It is a by-word for Capitalism.
America was a blank slate in 1776. Direct, deliberative democracy could have been imposed, in a true people’s revolution. But, the “Revolutionaries” weren’t as revolutionary as one might first believe. Much like the Monarchy they wished to free themselves from, the revolutionaries still believed that only a specific class of person was capable of governing. They didn’t believe the general public should have much say in this new “democracy“. It explains the electoral college system. Alexander Hamilton declared the people were a “great beast” desperate to be tamed. One gets the sense that they believed those who were not of the propertied class did not have a right to have a complete say over the way their lives were ruled. James Madison goes one step further and says of Democracy, if elections were “open to all classes of people, the property of landed proprietors would be insecure” echoing the beliefs of Cicero, and Cassius, in the old Roman Republic. It is arguably, why Julius Caesar was murdered…… for giving the people more of a democratic say. Therefore, the object of democracy over the past two thousand years, has been to give added protection to the wealthy few. The protect the minority, from the majority, and therefore has created a system where the minority, control the World.

It then becomes obvious, that when George Bush managed to steal the 2000 election, winning less votes than Al Gore, but winning more of the “elite” vote, the public just didn’t care. They didn’t rebel. They didn’t question the legitimacy of their “democracy“. Of course not. And the reason they didn’t care, was because the public are fully aware that an election in the U.S.A, or England, is simply voting in a different business man.

Over here in England, the 2010 election will be run on “spending cuts“. Cuts to public spending. Cuts, quite drastically, that do not need to happen so sharply. The question of curbing business excesses, or fairer trade agreements, or closing tax loopholes for the rich will not come up, purely because those important issues negatively affect the politicians, who happen to be of that particular elite class. And so spending cuts that negatively affect the poor, is going to be the main topic of discussion, because the poor do not have any say whatsoever in the way the Country is run, they have no power, so they can be manipulated.

The Ancient Greeks noted that true democracy was a Welfare State, using public funds to ensure the basic necessities to life for every citizen, not just the elite few. Modern Democracy is far different because it assumes that if the poor start gaining wealth through a better education system, or a stronger Welfare state that allows them the chance to advance, that the poor will start to influence democracy to suit their own needs, which in turn threatens the elites, which is exactly what Madison feared when he said “the property of landed proprietors would be insecure” if the poorer classes had more of a say.

It is in this line of thought, that allows modern politicians (particularly Conservatives and Republicans) to argue for “less government“. This is me, is quite the paradox. By handing power over, from the State, from elected officials accountable to the public, into the hands of the Private market, they are by definition eroding democracy. These private powers then suddenly have the wealth and the power to influence public policy, which in itself, is not democratic, because….. and this wont shock you……. that public policy has become more and more geared toward the interests of big business.

And then when they seem to have control over our Governments, they spread, across the World, whilst the government call it “spreading freedom and democracy“. Yet, in places like Brazil, in 1964, America didn’t seem to have a problem supplying funds and training, in helping to actually overthrow the democratically elected President Goulart (who was supremely popular with the public), helping to install a new right winged regime that quickly put an end to Democracy, wiped out thousands of people, including singers, painters and anyone who showed any form of left wing mindset. The same pattern of overthrowing democratic regimes and placing harsh, violent, corrupt,yet pro-American dictators in place can be seen across the history of the 20th Century. Nicaragua, Iran, Guatemala and Chile to name a few. Reagan, within eight years, didn’t seem to bothered about the Right Winged bloodbath taking place in Central America. In fact, he was shipping millions of dollars in military aid to the offending governments. 20,000 dead (according to Amnesty Int.) in Nicaragua alone.

UN-sponsored Commission for Historical Clarification, “the American training of the officer corps in counter-insurgency techniques was a key factor in the genocide…Entire Mayan villages were attacked and burned and their inhabitants were slaughtered in an effort to deny the guerillas protection.” Similarly, Reagan provided funds and training to Right winged terrorists in Colombia, which in turn gave Colombia the worst human rights record in the region. And yet, far from being labelled a war criminal, Reagan is hailed as a Conservative hero. By funding the murder of hundreds of thousands of people, he apparently created “freedom“. That “freedom” is a little wishful, given that whilst the U.S supported the right winged government of Somoza in Nicaragua, the Country had a two thirds malnutrition rate for children under five, whilst nine out of ten homes had unsafe drinking water, with the UN estimating that 60% of the population, under right winged rule, lived in dire poverty. If anything, it proves to me, that Reagan, and in fact, every President in the history of America has never been concerned with human rights, or horrendous suffering, and been more concerned with it’s own economic superiority. When you have to kill, and create an environment where genocide is taking place, one cannot seriously claim to have created “freedom” or “democracy“.

At the same time as evil dictators were being placed in charge of Latin American Countries by America; Britain’s equally as shameful Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher said “We support the United States’ aim to promote peaceful change, democracy and economic development”. One wonders what that “economic development” actually entailed given that after Reagan interfered with Guatemala, (according to the Inter-American development bank) by 1990 the per-capita income had fallen to below it’s 1971 levels. Is that economic development? No. Reagan should have spent his final years in prison.

Whilst James Madison quite openly admitted he didn’t want the poorer population to have much of a say in the democratic process; Ronald Reagan simply helped to destroy any poor people who might want a say in the democratic process. By freeing up the Country to the elites, he then labeled it “freedom” and “democracy“. It’s a strange old, American-owned World. From Columbus, to Obama, nothing much has changed. Democracy has not, and will never exist, without the public turning it’s attention away from it’s ridiculous obsession with consumerism, and onto what actually matters; the unjustifiable nature, of who controls the World.

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Posted by futiledemocracy

The myth of the death of Socialism

November 4, 2009

It is easy to talk about inequality, and protection of wealth by those who hold the wealth as a relatively new phenomena. It isn’t. It has always existed. Every system humanity has ever endured, has been designed to protect the wealth of the few. Take Rome, in the second century BC. The elite Senators had eaten up much of the wealth, and acquired a mass of supposedly public lands (which used to be owned by poor soldiers) for themselves. A Senator named Laelius attempted to change that. He failed. The Senators were amazed that anyone would want to take what they believed was theirs by right. Then along came Tiberius Gracchus, a tribune of the people, elected in 133bc, who caused such a problem for the elites, by appealing to the general public in order to get lands taken away from the Senators, and given back to the poor. He failed. He was murdered. Although his attempts at reform toward greater equality, caused a chain reaction that lead to the rise of Sulla, which lead in turn to the rise of Caesar, which of course, brought the entire Roman Republic down, and resulted, in Empire.
Every system that has graced humanity, has been designed to protect the wealth of the wealthy. The Capitalist system is no different.

There is a quite the temptation, when talking about the Capitalist system, to refer to it as a triumph over Socialism. The finger of proof is often pointed toward the collapse of the Soviet Union. The idea being that the Capitalist West, with all it’s “freedoms” defeated the “tyranny” of Russia, and with it; Socialism. It’s an interesting theory.

Firstly, to suggest that America was simply fighting a tyrannical regime that oppressed it’s people, is madness. During the Cold War period alone, the U.S.A supported dictators like Pinochet, on his quest to destroy any form of left wing opposition. Human rights had nothing to do with America’s opposition to Soviet “Socialism”. America simply supported any regime that promised stability and an opportunity for America’s economic interests to flourish. The Soviet Union obviously closed it’s markets to American investment opportunity, and so America stood against it. The Somoza family, who the U.S helped to take control of Nicaragua, and whom ruled the Country ruthlessly for many decades, despite widespread corruption, murders, and torturers, often enjoyed holidays to their property in the United States, and only held onto power because the United States viewed them as an ally against Communism.

The tool of manipulation against the public, was quite simple, and rational really……. make your public believe there is a strong threat to their safety, by inventing a problem that just doesn’t exist. This way, the power’s that be, can get away with anything in “defence” of the Nation. We see the same thing today, with respect to terrorism.

The only attacks on American or British soil, have not come from the sheep herding communities we’re currently blowing to pieces (although, that certainly will exacerbate the problem in the long term). The 9/11 hijacker Khalid al-Mihdhar was born, and primarily received training, in Saudi Arabia….. an ally of the U.S. Ziad Jarrah (another 9/11 hijacker) was born in Lebanon, to a rich family. Marwan al-Shehhi, yet another 9/11 hijacker, was trained in Hamburg. Mohamed Atta, the alleged ring leader of the hijackers, was radicalised around Europe. The 7/7 London bombers were born in Leeds and Bradford…… with the exception of one, who was born in Jamaica. Shehzad Tanweer, one of the bombers in London, had never actually been to Afghanistan. There is no evidence that another 7/7 bomber, Germaine Lindsey had ever actually left England in his life, although he was good friends with Abdullah el-Faisal, an Islamic extremist preacher who was based in the U.K.
The point is, there is no threat from Afghanistan, there never was. Similarly, there was never a threat from the Soviet Union.

The second point that needs to be made, is that that Soviet Union was never “Socialist”. Actually, that’s a bit of a lie. The Soviet Union began life, in February 1917, as what one could consider “on the way to true Socialism“. Any form of Socialism, in which workers had any say over policy, was soon destroyed when Lenin and the Bolsheviks took power, in October 1917. There was no strong leadership, or even a strong will to create a Communist nation (which, just cannot be done when trying to transform directly from a peasant society) in February 1917. There were competing factions continuously undermining each other, but by September 1917, there did appear to be some sort of unity. The Constituent Assembly, which existed to represent Workers via democratic means; like a Socialist Parliament, was created. As were factory Councils, which placed the means of production in the hands of the Workers, again, democratically elected. The Bolsheviks destroyed both, when they took power. And suddenly, workers had absolutely no say in the way the Country was run, the economy included wages and profits again, in a Capitalist system ruled by the State. The State owned the productive forces, the State distributed wages, the State extracted the surplus created by the labour force. The labour force did not own the means of production, the ruling class did. Not, Socialism. In fact, the antithesis of Socialism. In fact, The Soviet Union, had more in common with Capitalism than Socialism.

Thirdly, the U.S often cites the fall of the Soviet Union as representing the fall of Socialism, and the triumph of Capitalism. It therefore insinuates that the Soviet Union was Socialist, which we’ve seen, it wasn’t. Now, the Soviet Union often described itself as a Democracy. Lenin in particular. It then makes me wonder, if the fall of the Soviet Union represents the fall of Socialism, why does it not also represent the fall of Democracy? I’d suggest that Socialism is not a tool the US can use to promote it’s own economy agenda, but Democracy is quite an effective tool in helping the US achieve it’s economic goals (Iraqi democracy, just so happens to coincide with Iraq deciding it’s going to start trading Oil in U.S dollars again).

Fourthly, and finally; the suggestion that Capitalism, and the Free Markets won the ideological war, is almost to suggest that Free Markets actually exist. Much like Socialism in the Soviet Union after the October Revolution; Free Markets (especially in America) have never existed. Whilst middle class Americans are busy trying to prevent their tax money being spent on healthcare for the poor, they neglect the fact that their tax money is being spent by the Pentagon, on research and development, which then gets given away to the Private market, so that someone else, using YOUR money, can make a profit from it. That’s the story of America. The reason the high tech industry in America has not been beaten out of the Global market by Japan, is that the taxpayer subsidises big high tech industry, with millions of dollars wasted every year on either innovations that just don’t actually work or provide any use whatsoever, or innovations that are handed straight over to the private market. I don’t remember that being written into the Constitution. Nor does it represent a “free market“. I don’t see big business, or friedman-ite economists complaining about it either. Big business, American-Capitalism relies on the State. But hey, don’t give that money to people who actually need it! That would be Socialism! And Socialism failed in 1989! When the State interferes even a little, be definition, the market is not free. If America had a free market system, with no protectionist policies, it would have failed miserably.

To conclude.
The argument that Socialism failed, and Capitalism succeeded is weak at best, as already argued. Capitalism has never existed fully. The Soviet Union was merely State Capitalism taken to it’s extreme. Many of the protections that workers who are apparently anti-Socialist (not just in the U.S, but here in the U.K too), are Socialist by nature. Minimum wage, the NHS, the labour force that fought for better working conditions. In fact, the closest we’ve ever been to true Capitalism, was before any legislations in favour of workers rights was ever introduced.

Capitalism hasn’t prevailed. Socialism hasn’t failed. Fear, force, inequality and the protection of the wealth of a minority (which, is undemocratic by it’s very nature) has prevailed.

1 Comment | philosophy, political, rant | Tagged: 9/11, afghanistan, america, blog, bolshevik, caesar, capitalism, foreign affairs, iraq, journalism, lenin, politics, roman republic, senate, socialism, soviet union, tiberius gracchus | Permalink
Posted by futiledemocracy

The Postal Strike

October 30, 2009

Yesterday, I let our local Postman know he has the full support of our household, in striking. He told us thanks, and that they are going to need all the support they can get.

I’m getting mildly bored of the coverage the Media seems to be giving the Postal strikes. Purely because across the media, including the “impartial” BBC, all I see is small business owners complaining about their invoices not being sent, or regular people in the street complaining that their nephews might not receive their Nintendo DS in time for Christmas. There is very rarely postmen explaining the reasons for the strike action. The first thing that strikes me about both of those arguments, is how utterly selfish they are.

The first (the small business owner), is merely thinking about his or her own wealth prospects. The strikes threaten their wealth. The nature of business, is indeed “I’m more important than everyone else“. The less industrial action, even if the action is justified in bringing about much needed regulations to improve the working conditions of the workforce, the better when it comes to business. It is the reason the CBI opposed minimum wage….. they wanted us for as cheap as possible, so they could make as much as possible. It is the reason why Primark are able to get away with abusing the child populations of Bangledesh. Because it benefits business. It is the reason why Trafigura tried to gag the Guardian, into it’s discovery that they’d knowingly tried to cover up their part in the Côte d’Ivoire toxic waste dump scandal. It threatens their wealth. It’s the reason Insurance Companies in America manage to attract ridiculously naive members of the American public, into opposing Universal Healthcare by using such discourse of the privileged few, manipulative terms as “Socialism” and “Freedom“…… They’ve somehow (quite impressively) managed to convince a large section of the American public, that the ability for a private insurance firm to make a lot of money, is more important than the rights of a poor man to get a decent quality of healthcare. It is the reason why the Conservatives have successfully managed to take the debate away from the fact that their free-market ideology has failed miserably, and onto the fact that they plan to drastically cut public spending. Selfishness. The very basis of business. When in comes to the Postman strike, the rich elites (and their blind, idiotic followers) do not care how badly the postmen are treated, as long as their wealth is secure.

The second, is arguably less intelligent. They aren’t out to protect their own wealth (when living in a system that rewards selfishness, protection of ones own wealth, is the natural reaction, especially from a business class). The “I’m expecting a parcel that hasn’t arrived because of the selfish postmen!!!” argument, isn’t even worth listening to. It’s even more frustrating, that these idiots can vote.

Onto the strike itself, Peter Mandelson (A LABOUR MINISTER!!!!) said of the strikes, that Royal Mail faced “a very poor future” if modernising efforts were not realised. I’m not entirely sure what he means. He sounds very Thatcher-esque, but of course he used the word “modernising” instead of “privatisation“. Are we better off, as a society, with the privatising of British gas? Or BT? Are our bills less expensive than they were? Is the service they provide, much better than it was? Not particularly. Can you actually get through to BT when you need them? No. They’re useless. We all know it. So what are we actually expecting from the “modernising” of Royal Mail? All that privatisation achieved, was handing over democratic institutions that worked for the benefit of the whole of society, to private hands that work for the benefit of enriching shareholders. Suddenly, democracy is very much under attack. Suddenly, key institutions (gas and heating especially) are not working in the interests of society, they exist as money making opportunities and nothing more. Suddenly, the minority (the rich) rule the majority (the rest of us), and that, by definition, is so horrendously undemocratic, it’s unjustifiable. Do we want that to happen to Royal Mail? Because if it does, post will cost far far more than it does now.

Why don’t they start, by improving management? Why attack the workforce first? There is something fundamentally wrong with a system that allows bankers to destroy the economy, yet live out the rest of the days, free from prosecution, on a beautiful beach somewhere exotic….. yet allows public workers to bare the heavy burden of “cost cutting” in order to bring down a debt, caused, by the private market.

Royal Mail said in May 2009, that they needed to impose a pay freeze on 181,000 Postman and other staff. The average Royal Mail worker, takes home £347.61 a week before tax, whereas the UK average worker, takes home £438. The Royal Mail CEO Adam Crozier, whilst freezing the pay of very low paid, below average salaried workers; increased his own salary, to £1,000,000, and took home a bonus of £2,000,000. And people have the fucking nerve to blame the Posties for being “greedy“? If you genuinely believe the workers are making a fuss over nothing, you are not worth debating with.

It isn’t even as if Royal Mail are struggling (When your boss takes home £3,000,000, the company isn’t struggling); in the nine months to December 2008, Royal Mail made £255,000,000…… in profit! That’s up from £162,000,000 in 2007. Showing the biggest profits the company has ever made, and then rewarding your staff who achieved that, with a pay freeze, and pensions that do not follow the rate of inflation, whilst enriching yourself, is pathetic and totally unjustifiable. But, they wear suits and ties, so apparently that makes it okay these days, to be a bit of a crook. Royal Mail are hardly facing a huge struggle weathering this recession, and certainly doesn’t justify huge pay freezes, mass redundancies, increased shifts (sometimes 50% added to their usual round, and given no extra time to complete it, or extra pay), whilst the boss works three times a week, and enriches himself with horrendously large pay packets.

It seems all too convenient, that after the announcement that Mandelson wanted to sell off 30% of Royal Mail and the general public opposing such a move….. that suddenly the service takes a dive. Could it be, that the Government needed to somehow make the service look like it needed “saving”? Because the service suddenly took a downward turn this year, for no obvious reason (Royal Mail made an all time record profit in 2008….. hardly struggling, or needing to cut costs).
The public in general didn’t support the selling off, because Royal Mail was working fine. So, it has been systematically abused, badly, to look like it needs “saving“.
The problem for the Government is….. it doesn’t need modernising, or saving, because it made a huge profit (it’s biggest ever) and far surpassed all it’s targets. The Government, and Royal Mail management, seem to be suggesting that the product isn’t broken at all……. but it needs fixing anyway.

Labour have massively disappointed me over this problem. They have backed management the entire way. A lot of jobs will be lost through “modernising” despite the fact that Royal Mail made it’s biggest profit ever last year. Shouldn’t that money be going to securing jobs? Why aren’t the very Party set up to advance the cause of workers, actually doing that? It’s a little concerning.

We know what we want from Royal Mail. We want a Post Office not too far away, we want a good daily service, and we want a Postie that everyone knows and talks to. We don’t want 30% sold to a private firm who’s main objective is to enrich the boardroom. We want a service that works for the public, not controlled by incompetent, out of touch bosses, or the private market.

I fully support the Posties in this. Because the moment we stop supporting their right to strike, we are giving management the green light, to impose whatever ludicrous working conditions they so wish on the workforce, purely because they know the public, with it’s obsession with consumerism, will oppose the strike.

Is it obvious that I’m a little bit of a Socialist?

1 Comment | political | Tagged: blog, capitalism, CWU, democracy, labour, mandelson, News, philosophy, politics, poor, post office, privatisation, rich, royal mail, socialism, strike, thatcher, tory | Permalink
Posted by futiledemocracy

The Radical Press – Presentation

October 30, 2009

I wrote a script for a University Presentation, on “The relevance of the Radical Press today“. I think I may have turned a little bit too Chomsky-esque with the points I was making.
The script itself, is just a guideline for me to rant further when I felt the need. I thought i’d post it on here for two reasons. Firstly, because I haven’t posted anything for quite some time (too much work on my hands) and secondly, because, well, I quite enjoyed writing it.
So here you go……

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The Relevance of the Radical Press in the 21st Century.
The effectiveness of the radical press, is linked in theory, to where the power lies. In the 19th Century, power lay quite firmly with the State. Throughout the 20th century, power transferred from the State, to private hands. And when power lies in private hands, control over that power comes from the top, the rich. There is a little give and take but by definition, private ownership over the mass media, means that any radical ideals are quickly suppressed. And whilst journalists may indeed say that they are not harassed into saying anything they do not wish to say, that they’re free from pressure – they’re right. But, the only reason they’re in a position not to be pressured, or harassed is because they have demonstrated the ability to say the right thing, for the big business that employs them. If a writer for The Mail, suddenly became a radical left wing writer, he’d be out, championing the overthrow of the Capitalist system isn’t in the interests of the big business media. He certainly wouldn’t have been employed in the first place had he shown what the business media would see as threatening to their established power. Where’s the radical press when you need it?

When ultimate power lies with the State, (as it did when the radical media began it’s ascent in the 19th Century) the media is of course expected to be the official mouthpiece of that State’s elites, often censored. The radical press obviously grew out of discontent with that particular media system. Eventually, when taxation failed to drive the radicals out of the media, freeing the markets happened to be fantastically affective. The very rich could afford to now start up a national daily newspaper, whereas the working class papers struggled to produce a weekly paper at local levels. And as the new big business media discovered they had inherited from pro-government publications of the past, the best way to ensure obedient and ignorant, to your system, is to limit debate and opinion, to decide exactly what shouldn’t be propagated and in particular, radical ideas.

Advertising plays a huge part, still, in the suppression of any form of radical press. For example, the Times reported in 2005 that General Motors had pulled it’s advertising for the L.A Times, after the L.A Times called for Rick Wagoner, the CEO of General Motors, to be sacked.
Morgan Stanley went one step further in May 2005 and added threats into it’s advertising contracts with newspapers across America, the following:
“In the event that objectionable editorial coverage is planned, news agency must inform Morgan Stanley, as a last minute change may be necessary. If an issue arises after hours or a call cannot be made, immediately cancel all Morgan Stanley ads for a minimum of 48 hours”. Advertising, big business, has the potential to control what makes the news, and that HAS to be just as worrying as government doing the same in the 19th Century. The press doesn’t challenge this established order. Radicalism dies even more.

Newspaper circulation, became big business very quickly, ruled by a new group of elites, possibly more dangerous than before, given that they were unelected, and very very powerful. Dependence on advertising helped them along beautifully. Radical papers could not attract advertisement, and so were effectively beaten out of the market by the wealthy. And so far from the government distorting the market, advertising quite radically distorted the market in favour of those with money. As the radical press of the 18th and 19th Centuries started to die down, thanks in general to the freeing up of the markets, it kind of created a new monster, in the form of big business. Of course, big business and government then intertwine until they are relatively the same thing. For example, A man named Andy Coulson, who was editor of News Of The World at the time of the phone hacking scandal, was responsible for the many many journalists who were undertaking these criminal activities, in order to get publishable stories……… News Corp, then (because they’re free, and just love transparency) paid to cover up the full scope of their illegal dealings and the problems Coulson was very much responsible for. Which, begs the question, which the mainstream media seem to be ignoring (I’d guess because they all have a few appalling skeletons they’d wish to stay quiet) why is Andy Coulson now in a position of quite intense power, as Director of Communications and Planning for the Conservative Party. Is it then, a stretch to suggest that Cameron, who has agreed to ditch ofcom, may just be a figurehead for people like Murdoch? Ultimate power, rule by the people, it could be argued, is now privately owned. Where is the radical press when you need it?

So it could be suggested that if Government is effectively privatised, bowing to the whim of big business, then the apparent “impartiality” of the BBC is threatened even further. If government and big business interests are one in the same, then we have problems.
For example, in June 2004, BBCs Washington Correspondent Matt Frei spoke with joy at the handing over of sovereignty and freedom to the Iraqi people from coalition forces. The BBC News described it as an “historic day for Iraqi democracy”. Yet, for the next few years at least, thousands of troops remained in Iraq (which be definition, isn’t “freedom” or “handing over sovereignty“), and the government was actually appointed by America, not Iraqi democracy. The BBC seemed to be sucking up to the Government and the Western perspective on the handing over of sovereignty. So it’s clear to see that the whilst the State run BBC does indeed at times show a Governmental bias, the Private media shows a bias toward whatever the owner or the advertisers wish. Both, are dangerous.

American Writer Henry Adams in 1900 said:
“The Press is a hired agent of a moneyed system, set up for no other reason than to tell lies where the interests are concerned.”

Over 100 years later, and I think we’ve finally got to the stage where Adams can be proven wrong. With the advent of Web 2.0, more and more people can become journalists, radical or not, with absolutely no formal qualification, and no duty to enrich shareholders or please advertisers. And there are a few about already. They give their opinion, they offer radical views that have been suppressed for quite some time. They aren’t censored in any way, and have no affiliation. I myself keep my own political opinion blog, and I read a great deal more. They can provide the public with stories that the papers are banned from reporting. For example, Côte d’Ivoire toxic waste dump scandal, involving the shipping Company Trafigura. Trafigura managed to ban the Guardian from reporting the fact that the Guardian had documents proving that Trafigura had effectively covered up their part in the scandal. Not even Parliamentary discussion on the subject was allowed to be published in the Guardian about the subject. But, the story broke on blogs across the World before any Paper was allowed to publish it. This shows the power of this new form of radical press. This new radical press doesn’t pretend to be objective. The Daily Kos, refers to itself as having a liberal bias, and Guido Fawkes blog is very much an anti-Labour leaning blog. The World Socialist Website offers it’s perspective on World events, from a Socialist point of view. A new web based free radical press has unlimited power and scope and could potentially prove to be the catalyst that brings down the power that big business and government seemingly have over the media.

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Thoughts?

1 Comment | Uncategorized | Tagged: 19th century, advertising, bbc, big business, free press, iraq, markets, murdoch, news of the world, radical press | Permalink
Posted by futiledemocracy

The incompatibility of Capitalism and Democracy

October 10, 2009

“Democracy and Capitalism are like two persons bound in a tempestuous marriage that is riven by conflict and yet endures because neither partner wishes to separate from the other.”
- Robert Dahl

The economist, Friedrich August von Hayek, once suggested that Democracy can only possibly exist within a Capitalist system of the economy. I’d suggest Mr Hayek is contradicting himself with that statement, because by definition, he is offering no room for choice. Democracy exists for the benefit of Capitalism, or…..for the benefit of Capitalism. That isn’t Democracy.

The contrast between the ideals of a Democratic State and the ideals of Capitalism are in fact, so far removed from each other, they come very very close to being entirely incompatible. That very incompatibility is obvious. It isn’t about immigrants flooding the border, it isn’t about National identity or race, or too much public spending, it isn’t about freedom of choice (the freedom to choose whether to watch X-Factor or Strictly Come Dancing, is a pathetically blinded excuse for the word “Freedom“…you have no real choice), it isn’t about Communism vs Capitalism, all of those points are just a smoke screen employed by politicians who are acquiescing to the needs of big business.

My (perhaps naive understanding of Democracy), is that the key institutions that govern our lives, along with the people who are empowered to make the big decisions that ultimately affect our lives, must be accountable to the people. And yet, this Western ideal of Democracy has the opposite affect. If anything, they seem to be in conflict with each other, sometimes quite violently.

On the one hand, we exercise our right to vote in free and fair elections, by choosing a leader who has very little control over our lives. On the other hand, the key institutions of our society (or what I’d define as key institutions) are further and further privatised; and so power over such institutions is therefore concentrated into little Centralised States of their own, known as “Corporations”, in which the CEO has little or no desire to advance or protect the common good, of Humanity. Similarly, the CEO is not accountable to the people, he/she is accountable to the shareholders only. And since shares (and property – the key to Capitalism – in general) is so very limited, it stands to reason that not everyone can participate in it. Those who do participate in the race for property, lose out, to only one winner. It’s competition, a race to the finish. Those who win “deserve” it. Those who lose, well, tough. The majority therefore, lose out. Which i’m pretty sure anyone will tell you, is massively undemocratic.

In fact, a CEO accountable to share holders, is the exact opposite of Democracy, because the majority, have no say. We are therefore, controlled by Corporate interests, with absolutely no direct accountability to the people. This is ultimately proven to be the case, given that it has taken many many years under Capitalist rule, for the vast majority of workers to be paid a decent wage…..and even then, Business had to be forced, by the Government, to pay a wage greater than just enough to keep the worker alive. The Confederation of British Industry opposed the Minimum Wage. As did the Conservative Party. Which brings me neatly onto my next point.

It is no coincidence that as Markets grow ever more free, political parties become ever more right winged in terms of their economic policies. The Thatcher Government destroyed the power of the Unions in the ’80s, and privatised key institutions such as British Gas with the Gas Act of 1986. This of course lead to huge price increases implemented by people who run British Gas (Centrica) and have no direct accountability, other than to share holders. In July 2008 Centrica announced it’s Gas prices would raise by a record 35% and it’s Electricity prices by a record 26%. It blamed the rise on soaring wholesale energy prices. In May 2009, it then cut those prices, both by 10%. That’s still a huge increase in Gas and Electricity prices. Robert Hammond, a Gas and Electricity consumer expert working for Consumer Focus, said of the cuts: “We would have expected much bigger reductions considering that wholesale gas and electricity prices are half what they were at their peak last year“. Between winter 2007 and winter 2008, the number of deaths caused by fuel poverty (20 years after privatisation set out to free up the markets, to flourish wondrously) rose by 7%….. the biggest increase, since records began.

Arguably the most powerful institutions in the World; Banks. For years, banks had campaigned against regulation. They wanted total autonomy. They were in control of our money, they were using our money for their risky and ultimately hellish investments and bets, but they wanted us to be as far away from our money, and ultimate power as possible. Whilst they had our money, and our homes under their control, the guys at the top were enriching themselves (and continue to do so) despite actually losing our money, and our homes. Those people were not democratically elected. Damn right they should be heavily regulated now. The public sector then bailed out the excesses of Capitalism, and now the public sector is going to pay for it, through tax cuts for the rich, and public service cuts for those less wealthy. Why is no one fighting this? Those banks that received public funds, should pay a huge share of their profits, back into the public system.
Perhaps the key principle of democracy – rule by the people, for the people – apparently doesn’t apply to such powerful and essential institutions, such as Banking. But does apply, to when our rubbish bins get collected. Society is a little bit backward.

My point being, that democratically elected Governments of the past, have worked tirelessly to pass key institutions – that existed to protect the people and to provide a safety net, to the people – to very centralised, very concentrated, very greedy private hands, whose jobs rely solely on how much money they make for their shareholders, not at all for how pleased the majority of the public is with the work they are doing. It is only a matter of times, before the World’s water supplies, change from “The Pacific Ocean”, to “Microsoft Ocean”, in which you have to pay an extortionate price to swim in. Or “GE Spring” in which it’ll cost you to drink from, despite the Spring being a natural resource, that no one has the right to own. You may think this is an extreme example, of Democracy being eroded by Capitalist interest, but the World Bank recently adopted a policy of complete Water privatisation across the World, leading to Corporations (again, unelected, having no desire to serve the public good) such as “Monsanto” collecting a net income, of around $68,000,000 last year alone.

Ironically, democratically elected governments, pursuing Capitalist reform of their market place, are helping to almost overthrow the democratic order of power, and place it in the hands of untouchable Kings, in charge of their own little Corporate Nation, free to use whomever they wish, without fear of rebellion. Much like the Kingdoms of old, these Corporations concentrate Wealth at the top of the hierarchy; proven quite self evident with the fact that 33.4% of the total Wealth of the USA in 2001, was owned by 1% of the population. Whilst the bottom 40% of the population of the USA in 2001, owned 0.3% of the Wealth. What good is “Wealth creation” if it doesn’t trickle down? The argument that Democracy has aided Capitalism is weak at best, it thrives on the notion that in all Capitalist States, sporting Democracy as their rule of the land, the GDP has risen sharply. This, is often cited as proof of the two’s compatibility. Of course, it only works if you measure the Wealth of a Nation by the concentrated wealth of the people at the top. If you chose to focus on the plush lifestyles of those at the top, whilst choosing to ignore the miserable conditions of those at the bottom, then yes, Capitalism and Democracy are very much compatible. Which in turn, means you are focusing on the minority rather than the majority, and so by that very logic, your thought pattern, is undemocratic.

What then happens, and it’s the logical next step in the Capitalisation of the World, is that business interests infect the very heart of Government. They become influential characters behind the scenes, and so private money is pumped into political parties, via campaign contributions, in return for favours that aid the wealth and power of Corporations. As pointed out in the my previous blog entry, The Director of Communications and Planning for the Conservative Party, was once the chief editor of the News Of The World…….owned by Rupert Murdoch…..who is currently on a rampage against media regulation in the UK……. of which it just so happens that David Cameron has agreed to ditch the media regulator Ofcom, if he were to become the next Prime Minister of Great Britain. Given that he is accountable to the public, shouldn’t Cameron be asking us if that’s what we want first? Rather than catering to the needs of a businessman? By that very logic, the Businessman’s vote, is more important than the votes of you and I, and therefore, again, Capitalism promotes undemocratic principles.

Perhaps the old Conservative mantra that “less government interference in private affairs” is necessary for the advancement and freedom of society, should be twisted and turned into “less private interference in government affairs” is necessary for the justice, security, and fairness of humanity in the future. I’ll go with that one.

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Posted by futiledemocracy

The Man who controls the World

October 7, 2009

“We’re all in this together” cried Shadow Chancellor George Osbourne during his speech at the Conservative Party Conference yesterday. Which, is slightly insulting given that (according to The New Statesman), Osbourne is worth upwards of £4,000,000. His lovely house in Nottinghill (which explains the Tories obsession with cutting inheritance tax), his beautiful cars, his £5000 fee per article written in the Spectator, and his inherited credentials including the Osbourne Baronetcy of Ballentaylor. So what he meant to say was, the rest of us are in this for the long ride, worrying about jobs and how secure we are in our homes, whilst Osbourne and friends tell us we’re on our own, with no help from the next Government whatsoever…. in fact, they’re even going to cut our help to as less as possible. Nice. Thanks.

The Media, seems to be giving the Conservatives a free pass to Government. One wonders why. It is the deregulation of the financial industry that ultimately lead to this crises (blame Brown if you so wish, but it would not have been any better had the Conservatives been in power). In fact, when statutory regulation was introduced by Labour, the Tories opposed it. Which, in simple terms, means that if the Conservatives had been in power these past twelve years…… we’d be in a far greater mess than we are in now. When William Hague was leader of the Conservative Party, he is quoted as saying:
“As prime minister I will make deregulation one of my top priorities. I will drive deregulation from the centre and I will promote ministers not on the basis of whether they regulate enough but on the basis of how much they deregulate.”
Which, means that he would have left bankers, and mortgage lenders to do as they please, without any oversight whatsoever. Hague could not have been more wrong, if he’d have been George Osbourne making the wrong decision on every aspect of this crises. The crises we’re in today exists, because there was not enough regulation and oversight.

Why haven’t the media picked up on this?

The Sun certainly has a motive for backing the Tories.
The Murdoch’s, owners of News Corporation have recently taken swipes at the BBC, for the fact that it is a non-profit organisation with global reach, meaning it apparently distorts the market, especially given that the BBC’s online content is free….and Murdoch wishes to start changing for Sky’s online content. Apparently the BBC run the risk of becoming a dangerous tool of the State. Nowhere, does Murdoch accept that without the BBC, the Media, and so News in general, will run the risk of becoming a dangerous tool of News Corp, given that News Corp currently runs:
BSkyB, The Sun, 20th Century Fox, Fox News, 17.5% of ITV, Sky Italia, Sky Deutsch land, Myspace, Vogue, The New York Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Australian Daily Telegraph, The Australian Sunday Herald Sun, The Australian Sunday Mail, The Australian, News of the World, The Times, Dow Jones Newswires, BulgarianTV, Israel 10, LNT Latvia, National Geographic Channel; all among many many more holdings.

The Tories, have agreed to revamp the media regulator Ofcom, ditching much of it’s regulatory functions – if they were to come to power, which means Murdoch, The Sun, and Sky can get away with saying just about anything. In simplistic terms, it means Murdoch gets to exert potentially dangerous political power over another Country, much like he does with his American news network, Fox News. We do not want a Fox News in this Country.

During the Summer of 2008, Rupert Murdoch’s son-in-law paid (around £34,000 in total) for the leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron, to fly Santorini (a Greek Island) for private talks on a yacht, with Rupert Murdoch. Also in Santorini for the talks was a lady named Rebekah Wade……………. Editor of The Sun.

It is no coincidence, that a couple of days after Murdoch spoke in the Sun, stating of David Cameron:
“What does he really feel in his stomach? Is he going to be a new Thatcher, which is what the country needs? The UK desperately needs less government and freer markets“
Cameron then made a speech, in which he said of Ofcom:
“So with a Conservative Government, OFCOM as we know it will cease to exist.“

When Murdoch says he wants “freer markets“, what he means is, he wants to control more of as many markets as he can. It also means he’d quite like to get away this time, with phone hacking, to get a story. A man named Andy Coulson, who was editor of News Of The World at the time of the phone hacking scandal, was responsible for the many many journalists who were untaking these criminal activities, in order to get publishable stories……… News Corp, then (because they’re free, and just love transparency) paid to cover up the full scope of their illegal dealings. Which, begs the question, why is Andy Coulson now in a position of quite intense power, as Director of Communications and Planning for the Conservative Party?

Without Ofcom, we in Britain are very much in danger of becoming a media circus, as is America, built on misinformation, bullying, misplaced anger, and an overriding right winged agenda, built around further empowering the Murdoch clan; where responsible journalism is very much a thing of the past. Through Cameron, England is likely to become Murdoch’s bitch.

Simply one more reason, why out of principle, I can never vote Conservative.

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The real benefit cheats

October 4, 2009

“Education must provide the opportunities for self-fulfillment; it can at best provide a rich and challenging environment for the individual to explore, in his own way.“
- Noam Chomsky

Daily, we see adverts on the Television encouraging all of us to tell the ~~Nazi’s~~ authorities if you know a ~~Jew~~ benefit cheat. Suspect everyone. Don’t talk to your neighbours unless you’re questioning them, under an intense light, around a table, with a one sided window. Hide in your attic, writing a diary, if you happen to be ~~Anne Frank~~ a single mum obtaining a few extra pounds in benefits to help feed your kids, because you’re apparently an evil stain on the fabric of British society. The papers are talking about it, the Tories are constantly talking about it, the Welfare state is coming under attack from everywhere. And yet, we’re conveniently encouraged to ignore, just forget, put to the back of our minds, as if it isn’t important, the issue of Corporate tax evasion and avoidance, that cost us all an absolute fortune in lost revenue, but happily enrich those at the top. I wonder who’s behind this little Media scam.

The leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron, today told the BBC that he intends to force those who are out of work, back into work. Whilst the sentiment is indeed welcomed, I cannot help but feel it’s a little short sighted. Firstly, it is my (perhaps flawed) understanding of Conservatism, that only the elites, the wealthy and the well educated deserve jobs they actually desire. It speaks to my anti-Tory side when I hear such simplistic statements from Right Wing stating that they wish to get people back into work as quickly as possible. What these sort of statements suggest, is that a bunch of people who are currently claiming benefits, will be shoved into jobs that completely disintegrate any form of individuality they had left. Forced into largely fatuous jobs in Tesco, or McDonalds, to further enrich the guys at the top, seems to me to be nothing more than transferring dependency from the State, to hugely influential Execs. It is hardly ideal. It certainly isn’t the answer.

Surely a system that allows those at the top to reap massive wealth, hide their taxable wealth in offshore accounts, and keep wages low whilst they themselves reward themselves with huge salaries and bonuses, which in turn seemingly fails to “trickle down” as promised, is merely perpetuating the need for a strong welfare state? If we are truly to tackle unemployment and a State dependency, it would be my (perhaps flawed) suggestion that we start at the top, and revamp the entire system. It may be a great place to start, from a non-Tory perspective (given that they appear to have completely ignored this issue, choosing instead to focus on a full out attack – designed to please those voters who have a home and a car and a safe job – on those on benefits) to bring up the subject of the most costly benefit and tax abuses to the UK economy – Corporate tax avoidance.

According to his interview in The Sun, David Cameron has set out his ten goals for a new Tory Britain. The “Progressive Conservative” (as he previously described himself), has set out plans to drastically cut public spending, give tax breaks to the rich, Corporate tax cuts, and force people to work for whomever the Tories wish them to work for. I’m not sure a Tory politician could be any more regressive than that. So that’s the “progressive Conservative” label dead and buried. It also strikes me as rather punitive, that a man who along with progressive, labelled the Tories “the party for the Environment” has not once mentioned an environmental policy as one of his main policies. Apparently, tax breaks for Corporations is far more important.

He also fails to mention that whilst benefit claimants certainly do impact our economy, it is such a minuscule level in comparison to Corporate tax avoidance schemes. The Commons public accounts committee estimated that Corporate tax loopholes cost the UK up to £13bn a year in lost revenues. The National Audit Office, in 2006 released a document showing that of Britain’s top 700 Companies, 60% paid far less than £10m in Tax, which accounts for less than 2% of what they actually owe. If I started to do the same, I guarantee middle class England would demand I be put straight into prison for cheating the system.
According to The Guardian:
“The UK-based drinks giant Diageo plc has transferred ownership of brands worth billions of pounds, including Johnnie Walker, J&B and Gilbey’s gin, to a subsidiary in the Netherlands where profits accrued virtually tax-free. Despite average profits of £2bn a year, it paid an average of £43m a year in UK tax – little more than 2% of its overall profits.“

Meanwhile, bailed out British Bank, Lloyds Group, after receiving £17bn of taxpayer money, is being investigated for encouraging tax avoidance with an undercover Panorama investigator posing as a wealthy customer. The Lloyds banker refers to income that is paid through Hong Kong, to clients in order to “get around the European Savings Tax Directive” is caught on film saying:
“It’s of no interest to us whether you tell the taxman or not. It is not our business.” It stands to reason then, that when Lloyds (who I bank with) tell me they’re committed to responsible banking, they’re lying, quite pathetically too. Whilst Lloyds Group cut wages, cut jobs, forcing more onto the benefit system in the process; their execs are enjoying hugely inflated salaries and bonuses. The……system…..is……wrong!

Surely if you’re going to punish those who cost the system relatively nothing, you also have to seriously punish those who cost the system an absolute fortune, as is the case with Corporate tax avoidance. Yet, The Tories haven’t said a word on the subject. Not only that, but the end product of extreme tax avoidance across the UK economy, works only to pour extra fuel on the fire of dependency. The more a firm profits and the little it gives back, or “trickles down” the less wealth there is in circulation, the more unemployment rises. Corporate Stalinism, as I like to refer to it as, is the real stain on the fabric of British society. No politician will address it though, because our wondrous democracy relies on these Corporations, to fund it.

For me, the only way to really solve this mess of unemployment, would first be to refuse to cut public spending, until the economy picks up (which it is doing, but would not be doing, if the Tories had their way and just did nothing). Secondly, I would insist on strong penalties toward Companies dedicated to tax avoidance. Close loopholes. Once loopholes are closed, i’d cut our Trident fleet from four Nuclear Subs, to one Nuclear sub. The money saved, would then be used to to slowly ween claimants off such dependency and onto a ladder they actually wish to be climbing, to train them and put them into work they wish to be doing, work they are enthusiastic about, which the state funds for a certain amount of time until they’re employable in the sector they wish to be employed, rather than saying “okay, your benefits are gone, go get a job shovelling shit for the rest of your life”. Eighteen years of Thatcherite economics, “forcing” people back into work, did little but force the homeless rate to triple, whilst suicide rates reached their ultimate peak. It didn’t work. You cannot perpetuate the myth in people’s minds, that they are largely worthless, and only useful when Burger King toilets need cleaning. It will never work. Educating people away from the desire to consume, to out-do your neighbour, or to be a good little Corporate bitch, and toward the desire to be individual, to realise what it is you’re good at, what it is you want to do, how you wish to achieve it, is the course that education needs to take. Educating generation after generation to think the same, act the same, talk the same, like grooming them before a race where the finish line is covered in an illusion of “wants“, is a complete failure. Moreover, it will never solve the debt crises, which will continue to loom over us for decade after decade. It is never going to solve the issue of those who can work, not working. We then get a Tory government who slash benefits, and the homeless rate mysteriously doubles, suicide rates shoot up, riots take place. We then get a Labour government and unemployment sky rockets. No one thinks outside the box. The same tired policies, over and over again. Failed ideologies. We need something new.

Let’s also be clear, it isn’t the public sector that failed us all, it was the private sector. This idea of course, is unheard of, if you’re a Tory.

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Posted by futiledemocracy

“We own you!!”

September 30, 2009

The Free Market is an interesting concept. Mainly, in that, it doesn’t work. The financial sector recently offered the best evidence into why greed isn’t always good, and why greed doesn’t benefit society, and why short selling and derivative betting isn’t productive in the long run. Banks, don’t seem to have learnt a thing since 2008, when Lehman’s collapsed. In fact, neither do Governments. Surely further regulation is required? Surely protecting the consumer from a continuously shrinking market, dominated by only several huge multinationals, is required more than anything? Because when you deregulate further, the consumer and ultimately society suffers, but it’s hidden away from us, because those with the money and the power benefit.

I, like most people, have store cards. It’s a wondrous way for the consumer to fall into debt, whilst shareholders for the company, make a fortune. Saying that, I knew that store cards are a bit of a con, and I went for it anyway. I was 18, and a little bit hungry for MORE of everything. One of these cards that I own, is for the clothing store River Island. The store cards and payments were controlled through GE Money, a part of GE Capital Bank Limited. On January 7th, 2009, GE Capital Bank Limited was bought out by Banco Santander SA.

Here’s where the free market system starts to play games with consumers.
Whilst with GE Capital Bank, the interest rate on my River Island Card, was sold to me at 16.620%, which in itself, is extortionate. Today, I received a letter informing me that my interest rate, under new management, was now 21.659%. I’m locked into this agreement. I didn’t sign anything to say that’s perfectly acceptable. I was told my interest rate would be at 16.620%. I have no choice now. I have to pay an extra 5%. There is no “choice” in this. I can’t switch to someone other than the increasingly strong and wealthy Santander.

This begs the question, why would Santander put interests rates on store cards up by 5%, when the base rate is so incredibly low? The only reasonable conclusion I can possibly come to, is that they know we’re locked into an agreement, they know base rates are at the lowest they’ve been for a very long time, they know how rich and powerful they are, and they want more wealth and more power.

The letter continues…
“Why has your rate changed“
Ah here should exist the answers to all my questions. Surely this next sentence will just read “Firstyly, because…. we own you! ahahaha. And secondly, because we’re quite greedy, and I want a new Yacht.“
Actually, what it does say, is a much more elaborate version of what I just assumed they’d write…
“We are committed to responsible lending and so we regularly review our customers’ accounts using our own internal data.“
Firstly, I didn’t want Santander to have my internal data, nor did I know they did have it, until almost 9 months after they acquired it.
Secondly, committed to responsible lending, by encouraging forcing me into much more debt than I was originally paying? REALLY?
Thirdly, what they’re trying to say is, over the past couple of months, i’ve been paying less per month, because financial troubles mean I need to save a little bit more…….which they don’t like…….so they increased my interest rate to force me to pay more….. which I can’t afford. Lower rate increases will affect those who have the money to pay more. Higher rate increases will affect those of us who can’t afford it. This will obviously please Conservatives and Republicans everywhere.

So, I decided to give “Tim Woods” the guy who signed my letter, the “Head of Customer Services, Santander Cards” a call. A lady answered and I asked to be put through to a Mr Tim Woods. She said “Oh no we can’t do that“. So I told her I wasn’t happy with this new interest hate hike that I had no say over. She told me she could explain this, and pretty much just said what was already written on the letter. So I asked again, to be put through to Mr Tim Woods, to which she replied “he doesn’t take calls“. The head, of customer services, doesn’t deal with customer services apparently. But he’s more than happy to deal with customer services, when it makes him a lovely bit of extra money, by signing my letter.
Whether it’s legal or not is irrelevant. I’m just not entirely sure how one can justify a 5% interest increase, when base rates are at their very lowest, and your company is making a fortune. At some point, a board of directors must have got together round a table, and agreed that putting their rates up by 5% on accounts that are struggling recently, is a great idea. It is that way of thinking, that bewilders me. It is exactly the reason that free markets do not work.

These are simple things that need to change. We as consumers (including me) need to get out of the habit of “owning” whatever we can. Home ownership causes misery. The culture of “you MUST own your own home!!!” needs to end. It has become an obsession. And if it doesn’t end, this kind of crises will never cease, there will always be problems. Secondly, if you’re “head of customer service” try to provide a service….to customers, rather than to the company. And lastly, the banks, and financial sector, which was deregulated largely in the 1980s by the Thatcher government, needs to be much more heavily regulated. It is the only way these immoral idiots are ever going to contribute a decent service to society, rather than to the board or shareholders.

7 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: banks, capitalism, conservatives, debt, free market, interest rates, mortgage market, republicans, river island, Santander | Permalink
Posted by futiledemocracy

July 4th – Hypocritical Day

September 27, 2009

It would be easy for me to suggest that America has completely turned from a Country that prided itself on liberty and freedom of the 18th Century, to a Global tyrant of epic proportions. It would be easy. But it isn’t true. The tyrant of America has always been present, it simply grew and grew and is now at that stage where it surprises no one, and so we let it happen. As terrorists go, the greatest of them all, over the past Century at least, has been America.

It is a tradition in the USA to suffer a strange case of denial. Early Americans pillaged their way across the continent; committing nothing short of a total genocide of the Natives. Between 1850 and 1890, author David E. Stannard concludes that at least 22,000 Natives had been killed. The Indian Removal Act of 1830, which demanded that 17,000 Cherokee Indian’s leave their homes immediately (known as “The Trail of Tears“) purely so Americans could benefit from their lands financially. Elizur Butler, an American missionary estimated that 4000 Cherokees died during the removals. And yet, they managed to pride themselves on being the “land of the free and brave“. It’s a mask of denial, that still exists today.

The destruction of indigenous populations, for resource purposes, for financial gain, is ingrained into the blood of America. When it suits America, they hide behind the concept of spreading Capitalism and Democracy. It is not unreasonable to suggest that millions have died unnecessarily for what the US likes to call “freedom”. It is then, overly ironic that the US has been quite staunch supporters of evil non-democratically elected regimes, who just so happen to fill the pockets, of America, whilst slaying their population.

In 1953, the democratically elected government of Iran, lead by Mohammad Mosaddeq was overthrown by a US and UK backed Coup designed primarily to free up the oil reserves that Mosaddeq had Nationalised earlier in his premiership. Mosaddeq (remember, he was democratically elected, and incredibly popular with the Iranian people) was subsequently put in prison and died under house arrest. America had become what the 1776 revolutionaries fought to destroy; oppressors. Iran became a US colony in all but name. A new leader, a puppet for American interests, the Shah was installed. Thousands of people took to the streets in 1971 after the Shah announced plans to spend upwards of $100,000,000 on an extravagant, pompous tent city for the Iranian rich, and business leaders across the World who had recently enjoyed a more open Iranian market place. Whilst huge sums of money were spent, the nearby villagers continued to starve. And so they protested. The Shah (supported by the US) couldn’t let this happen, which resulted in thousands of people killed in horrendous circumstances, tortured, and political opposition repressed and “disappeared“. Fully supported of course, by America.

Whilst also supporting the dictatorship of Batista in Cuba in the 1950s, America was planning a coup elsewhere. Up until 1951, Guatemala had been opened up to American investment, and thousands upon thousands of miles of the Countryside had been eaten up by American businesses, whilst Guatemalan peasants lived in dire poverty. The new democratically elected President Jacobo Árbenz, proposed the agrarian reform laws of 1952, which proposed to move uncultivated lands from upper middle class land owners (whom consisted primarily of Americans), to the peasantry. Arbenz also opened up voting rights to the peasantry thereby spreading democracy, and gave labour rights to those being dreadfully exploited (again, mainly by American business interests). Apparently America had no problem with the fact that 2.2% of the Guatemalan population owned 70% of arable land. Arbenz then joined the “Caribbean League”, a group of Latin American Democracies who plotted to overthrow evil dictatorship regimes, not for resource gains, but purely for the sake of democracy. The problem was, that these dictatorships, were supported by the USA, and so were not “evil”. And so it leads on to 1953; America sends CIA Director of Central Intelligence Walter B. Smith to investigate opposition to Arbenz, in order to figure out which group of rebels the USA could best fund in order to overthrow Arbenz and install an American backed dictator. Smith came back with no names, because opposition to Arbenz was pretty slim, except with the rich classes. The US cut a deal with Dominican unelected dictator Rafael Trujillo (whose regime is known as one of the most violent and bloody of the 20th Century), in which both the U.S and Dominican Republic provided funds and support to the far right rebel army of Carlos Castillo Armas. The coup succeeded and Armas became the new dictator of Guatemala from 1953 until his assassination in 1957. During his reign, he rolled back voting rights from those who couldn’t read or write, he stripped land away from the peasants, forcing millions out to live on the streets, and he created (with CIA backing) the National Committee of Defense Against Communism, which systematically killed and tortured anyone suspected of having left wing views. He cancelled the elections, but allowed Congressional elections, as long as only his party was allowed to field candidates. President Nixon referred to Armas dictatorship as “…the first instance in history where a Communist government has been replaced by a free one.“

On November 4th, 1970, Chile swore into power, democratically elected Marxist President Salvador Allende. Real democracy in action. President Nixon of America decided that Allende should not be President of Chile because it might affect American business interests in a negative way. Apparently, democracy is only democracy, if it doesn’t include the Left Wing. According to the U.S Department of State, the U.S Government, just before the 1970 election, “directed CIA to carry out “spoiling operations” to prevent an Allende victory“. That sounds like quite the opposite of democracy to me. This follows on, from the same report that “CIA also provided assistance to militant right-wing groups to undermine the President and create a tense environment“. Needless to say, on September 11th 1973 (the first 9/11), Allende, under intense pressure from US business interests (Pepsi-Cola and ITT were the main culprits) was the victim of a coup, that placed perhaps one of the World’s most evil dictators, General Pinochet, in control of Chile. But, Pinochet opened up the Country to foreign (and by “foreign” mean Western and by “opened up” I mean – let America plunder it’s resources) investment. These pro-free market measures didn’t do much good, given that inflation reached 375% by 1978. Wages decreased by 8%. Budgets for education, health and housing had dropped by 20%. Good times!
According to the Rettig report, 2,279 people (mainly left wingers, not necessarily politically active) were killed immediately following the coup, and close to 32,000 were tortured beyond description by the Pinochet regime. Thousands more were tortured and killed between 1973, and the end of Pinochet’s reign of utter terror, nothing short of Hitler-esque in 1990. Quite despicably, the U.S and U.K (especially Reagan and Thatcher) grew close friendships with Pinochet. Thatcher, in defending Pinochet’s human rights record, quite ridiculously and shamefully blamed the left wing, or more specifically, in her own words, an “organised international Left who are bent on revenge“. This then leading to Thatcher, in 1999, claiming that Pinochet should be released from his house arrest. It’d be like President Roosevelt telling Churchill to “go easy on Hitler, he isn’t THAT bad“.
One of my most favourite authors into U.S Foreign Policy, Noam Chomsky had the following to say, about the Chilean 9/11….
“Suppose that on September 11, Al-Qaeda had bombed the White House and killed the President, instituted a murderous, brutal regime which killed maybe 50,000 to 100,000 people and tortured about 700,000, set up a major international terrorist center in Washington, which was overthrowing governments all over the world, and installing brutal vicious neo-Nazi dictatorships, assassinating people. Suppose he called in a bunch of economists, let’s call them the ‘Kandahar Boys’ to run the American economy, who within a couple of years had driven the economy into one of the worst collapses of its history. Suppose this had happened. That would have been worse than 9/11, right? But it did happen. And it happened on 9/11. That happened on September 11, 1973 in Chile. The only thing you have to change is this per capita equivalence, which is the right way to look at it. Well, did that change the world? Yeah, it did but not from our point of view, in fact, who even knows about it? Incidentally, just to finish, because we the U.S. were responsible for that one.”

And then we wonder why half the World hates the West? Is it not plainly obvious?

I could easily talk about Iraq, Iran, the US arming of the Taliban, the assassination of President Diem in South Vietnam leading to the unnecessary deaths of 4 million South East Asians in perhaps the most needless war of the 20th Century, and many more instances when the USA, the light, the beakon of Freedom and Democracy has supported the World’s most evil regimes in order to further its own business interests. Capitalism and what the US calls “Democracy” haven’t been a true success, they’ve been a forced package that the victim Nation’s citizens have had to embrace, or die. The USA therefore, has no right to celebrate “Independence Day” on July 4th. The most hypocritical day in World history. Having said that, Jefferson would be proud that the abolition of slavery in America, didn’t stop the U.S from finding slaves elsewhere.

10 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: 9/11, chile, chomsky, democracy, foreign policy, freedom, independence day, Iran, iraq, mosaddeq, nixon, pinochet, reagan, thatcher, usa, vietnam, war | Permalink
Posted by futiledemocracy

No to Trident

September 24, 2009

The situation involving a group of people, holding a gun to each other’s head, is not a sane situation. Nor is it going to prevent one of them from eventually pulling the trigger, which in turn, will set a domino affect rolling, in which all the people involved pull their triggers, and kill each other. The only way to stop that situation developing, is the outright ban on each of those people ever being allowed to own a gun.

Our current crop of Nuclear weaponry, consists of four Trident submarines with the capacity to hold up to 48 Nuclear Warheads, each eight times the power of the warhead that struck Hiroshima in the 1940s, killing 140,000 people. I’m not sure why we are tying in our foreign policy, with a weapon that can kill millions upon millions of people, whilst other nations (Norway for example) who do not wish to own Nuclear weaponry, seem to be coping just fine.

Gordon Brown has announced that he plans to cut the number of Trident Nuclear Submarines, from four to three when the time comes to update them. I’d assume this is some lame attempt to stick to the principles that we’ve seemingly deserted since signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty back in 1968, stating that we intended “to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament“. And whilst this is a step in the right direction for total Nuclear disarmament, it isn’t a big enough step. It is barely a step at all. The Submarines may be on the verge of being cut from four to three, but there is no talk of scaling back the 160 warheads Britain currently keeps locked away. We are still armed, which of course, leads to proliferation elsewhere. A seemingly endless Cold war mentality driven by fear and suspicion, is long out of date. Tident itself, does not need replacing.

We no longer have to worry about the Soviets. The fight we face today, is against an enemy that has no State. There is no Nation. If the largely falsely perceived threat of a unified “Al Qaeda” were to strike us with a Nuclear weapon…. who do we strike in return, especially against an enemy that is prepared to die for their cause? A farm in some obscure corner of Afghanistan? Perhaps we use the Republican American concept of just pointing to a Middle Eastern Country on a map and start to destroy it piece by piece? Or more likely, we aim the Nuclear missile toward their home in Birmingham……… not a bad idea actually.

What of Iran? That Country that poses less threat of a Nuclear attack, than Iraq did in 2002? In the 1970s, when the Shah was running the Country, and was far more evil and dangerous than the current regime in Tehran, the USA supported Iran’s nuclear program publicly. Purely because the West recognised the need, economically, for Iran to rely on Nuclear power. It freed up it’s oil supplies. Suddenly, the war men of the Republican Right have decided Iran poses a threat. In fact, Dafna Linza, writing for the Washington Post in 2005 states: “Ford’s team endorsed Iranian plans to build a massive nuclear energy industry, but also worked hard to complete a multibillion-dollar deal that would have given Tehran control of large quantities of plutonium and enriched uranium – the two pathways to a nuclear bomb.“
Quite coincidentally, the same people who were running National Security back in the President Ford era, supporting the evil Shah, were the same guys behind the immense suspicion and fear aimed toward the current Iranian administration; Wolfowitz, Cheney and Rumsfeld. They were perfectly fine with Iran acquiring Nuclear technology, when it enriched their oil prospects…… but then, suddenly, in December 2007 Iran completely ceased trading oil inU.S dollars and in early 2008, Iran started trading oil primarily in Euros, and so threatened the US economy, which relies on selling mass reserves of the Dollar to other Nations who then buy Oil traditionally with. Not any more. The threat posed by Iran is miniscule when it comes to Nuclear technology. The treat, which goes unreported, comes completely from it’s new Oil-in-Euros venture.

By 2004 the World Bank had made loans worth up to £2.1bn to Iran. The World Bank, funded by the IMF, which in turn gets it’s funds from member States debts and donations; including $37.2bn a year from the USA. And so, some of the money that funds the perceived Iranian Nuclear program, is coming directly from American taxpayers, who are then told by their Politicians who don’t seem to have a problem, let alone mention this to their people, that Iran is a huge threat. YOU FUNDED THE THREAT! Those politicians of course will start wars, but be well hidden away whilst the bombs are dropped.

Now, for the sake of the boring, fatuous Right Winged argument that Iran actually does pose a threat to Global Security (let’s not forget that the biggest threat to Global Security over the past decade….in fact, since World War II… has been the USA…and that the nuclear “deterrent” hasn’t deterred Iraqi’s from killing our troops….and also coincidentally, the only nation to use a Nuclear weapon has been the USA), what do we do if we were to be attacked by an Iranian Nuclear strike? If New York, or London were hit by an Iranian Nuke, what then? If hundreds of thousands of American or British civilians are killed by an Iranian attack, how do we respond? Do we Nuke them? Another waste of hundreds of thousands of lives, living thousands more horribly burned and disfigured? Whilst our leaders who started the whole thing, are locked safely away in an underground bunker? It’s like saying “well, he ran down and killed my family member, so it’s only right that I run down and kill his family member”. If London were nuked (why am I even saying that? I sound like a Cold War fear mongering idiot), Trident submarines would come in no use whatsoever) It’s ridiculous. As seen with Hiroshima, the affects of a Nuclear strike, are horrific. It should never be repeated, or even threatened. And given the US and UK’s policy of using Iran for it’s own benefit over the past sixty years; overthrowing regimes, installing evil dictators like the Shah, referring to it as “evil” when it suits the West – it is largely unsurprising that Iran may attempt to acquire Nuclear weapons, they are obviously suspicious. If the US has the right to possess Nuclear weapons, so does Iran. Despite this, it’s overtly obvious that Iran, like Iraq, has no WMDs, because if it did, Israel would be straight in there, without a second thought. We now need to work toward better relations between States, between the West and the Islamic World, and install into the minds of the next Generation the need for a World completely free from Nuclear proliferation.

And lastly, when we apparently can’t afford decent equipment to protect and aid our troops in Afghanistan, why are we planning to spend close to £100bn, on updating an out-of-date Nuclear deterrent? Trident is an expensive waste of money, built around the Cold War mentality of fear, distrust, out right lies, and profiteering. We do not need it in a modern, civilised World. They are a disgrace to humanity. Japan has managed without them, Norway has managed without them, we can manage without them.

Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: america, britain, brown, bush, cheney, cnd, cold war, england, hiroshima, Iran, iranian oil, israel, labour, nuclear, rumsfeld, soviet, trident | Permalink
Posted by futiledemocracy

The Tyranny of Business

September 21, 2009

Often, (especially from America) you will hear that the larger the size of Government, the smaller the freedoms of the Nation’s public. I’d argue that the bigger the size of power of big Business, the smaller the size of freedom for the Nation’s public. The argument presents itself beautifully today.

So according to a report from the Confederation of British Industry (CBI)… the Union of Corporate criminals has decided that Students should be the ones to pay thousands of pounds straight off, for their University education, to help fill the gap created by cuts in public spending. We should have less grants, higher interest on loans, and hugely inflated tuition fees of up to £5000, they have suggested.

Where is their report aimed at cutting Corporate Tax loopholes?
Where is their recommendation to close down tax havens?
Where is their recommendation to cut the pensions of top bosses who earn up to 30 times that of their workers? Or their annual salary being cut from 100 times that of it’s workers?
Where is the idea that the CBI helps to fund certain courses, given that the future of it’s businesses and profitability depend on state funded education of it’s future workers?
Where were their complaints when businesses were receiving emergency injections of cash?
Why are they encouraging further debt? Have we learnt nothing over the past few years?
Students are the future of this Country, we shouldn’t be suggesting the creation of a new generation of elites, with a generation of those who couldn’t afford to go to University and so spend their lives as slaves to the children of CBI members.
Do these people get worse every day, or are they just born without a soul? Just when I thought I didn’t need any more reason to despise big business, they produce this report.

Of course, the CBI haven’t commented on todays report that shows a huge funding deficit in the pensions of top bosses. Whilst millions of workers have seen their pensions slashed over the last few years, the FTSE 100 top employers have hidden the true cost of their own pensions, by sometimes up to £5m. I think the CBI needs to get it’s priorities in order.

It’s the way of thinking, which really annoys me. It’s the rich way of thinking. The Tory way of thinking. The USA Anti-National Healthcare way of thinking. The way of thinking that says “I’m rich, I shouldn’t have to fund the education of others!!!“, and yet their family, somewhere down the line, had a family member who came from nothing, and was funded by other peoples tax money, to be educated, which lead on directly to the success he/she passed down to this generation of selfish idiots.

The Tories, as usual, did not dismiss this matter. Of course not. It isn’t their children who will be affected. In fact, it benefits their children quite handsomely. The Conservatives’ university spokesman, David Willetts, commented on the report, saying it was “a good opportunity to bring this whole issue back to life”. No it isn’t. It’s a good opportunity to smack the arrogance of the CBI, back down to reality.

Another of the CBI’s suggestions, is to cut the number of degrees that they consider to be unneeded economically, and concentrate more on Science, Maths and English degrees. If we’re talking about useless degrees that tax payers have funded over the years, i’d say the biggest waste of public money, has gone on economic and banking degrees. Did my family, help fund the education of Sir Freddy Goodwin, who then went on to destroy the economy? I’m guessing the CBI would say differently. I’m not entirely sure where these people get the nerve to decide what degrees are right for this Country? Is there any other aspect of my life, these arrogant shits want to control? My life does not revolve around getting a job that will serve only to make members of the CBI richer whilst I hate my job. Again, is this the freedom the Free Market proponents talk about? Is freedom only so, if I do whatever big business wants me to do? I’m about to embark on a Journalism Degree, should I email the CBI to ask if that’s okay with them? Or should I change my course to include something I have absolutely no interest in, just to suit a bunch of criminals in suits? As if we don’t pay enough. I’m likely to leave university in three years time, in immense debt…… the interest on which, will far exceed what I borrowed in the first place. We pay our way, to enjoy fair education and opportunity for all, not just the elites. I’m still not entirely sure why a bunch of corrupt middle aged men, think they have the right to make any kind of money saving suggestions. The National Union of Students should retaliate, with a list of money saving techniques business leaders should embrace, including cutting their salaries and pensions, and selling their multitude of cars.

Thankfully, this generation of University Students will not listen to middle aged upper class toffs dedicated to turning us all into good little workers for their benefit. We have much more intelligence and creativity than to fall for that. Unfortunately, if the battle of ideology between this ridiculous “free market” bullshit, and those of us on the Left is not won by us, our children will suffer the most.

In a Tory Toff World, you have the freedom to be whatever you want……. as long as you can afford it, and big businessmen decide it’s okay. I’m surprised the CBI didn’t include a report on the idea of sending children to work long hours, for a piece of bread every day. It’s only a matter of time.

1 Comment | Uncategorized | Tagged: america, britain, business, capitalism, cbi, education, england, free markets, healthcare, labour, nus, socialism, tory | Permalink
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The Conservative smoke screen

September 20, 2009

The leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, was correct when he referred to David Cameron as the biggest conman in British Politics. Cameron, along with Osbourne are a complete disaster. They have said nothing of substance….ever. They are merely riding the tidal wave of anti-Gordon Brown sentiment. They don’t need to say a word, they are destined to become the next PM and Chancellor of Britain. They are Friedmanites in ideology, but why don’t they say so? I’d suggest it’s because people weren’t that keen on Milton Friedman’s experiment here in Britain in the 1980s, and they aren’t likely to have forgotten the misery it caused.

Watching shadow Chancellor George Osbourne on Sky News (which is apparently trying to take over the World at the minute….. unsurprising, given that it’s run by Murdoch) talk about the Country being in financial ruin, whilst stood on the steps of his Notting Hill home, was a little bit cheeky to say the very least. The Conservatives, are certainly up to their old, regular tricks.

What they have rather cleverly managed to achieve, bewilders me, and destroys what little faith I have left in the British public. They have managed to turn the debate toward public spending cuts. The public are now engrossed in talk of public spending cuts, as if it’s going to be the saviour of Britain. One thing is for certain, without investment over the past year in public services, by the Government and opposed by the Tories, we’d be in much deeper mess than we are now.

Now, they don’t ever mention that public spending cuts should only come when the economy improves and we can afford to cut the deficit a little, so as to keep as many in work as possible; the way the Tories speak of spending cuts is in the context of the tough times we’re in today, as if spending needs to be cut immediately! Which, it doesn’t. They are no different. Fight for the Country, put your life on the line when war rears it’s ugly head…..and then work for next to nothing (they opposed the minimum wage) when you return.

It is interesting that they’ve taken this route, but it’s an illusion. It is simply a smoke screen to take our minds off the real problem. The system of economics that the Tories themselves brought into the Country in 1979, failed miserably. Yet they cling to it. They’re anti-Brown, when the Country is anti-Brown, they’re climate change progressives when the Country is climate change progressive, they then hide behind manipulative terms like “progressive Conservatives“, suggesting they are capable of changing their colours. They aren’t capable of changing their colours. How did we get to spending cuts? The real issue is the economic structure. Deregulated, free for all, Capitalism does not work. It failed. It is no surprise that the financial crises we now find ourselves in, came directly from the two epicentres of the neo-liberalist agenda of the 80s; America and Britain. They instilled into the minds of a generation the idea that we must all strive to own our own home by any means necessary. Fast forward thirty years, and the sub-prime market melts down horrifically. It allowed banks to inflate beyond destruction, steal, bribe, corrupt their way through life, and then it brought the entire World down with it. You can be thrown in jail for robbing money, on any street in the World…..apart from Wall Street. The Thatcherite revolution destroyed the power of the unions, yet masturbated the egos and gave power to arguably a bigger threat than the unions….big business and the financial sector. The Thatcher era, lead into the Blair era, which will lead into the Cameron era. There is no real change. It’s the the same tired message. Cameron will not address this. He will carry on, and we’ll hit another financial crises when the next deregulated financial bubble of unsustainable growth bursts. Neo-liberalism, whilst cloaked in manipulative language such as “freedom” is merely the horrendous suggestion that a stable economy is built on immense debt and excessive risk taking.

The Tories have made the wrong call on pretty much everything, since this crises began. They opposed the stimulus. They opposed the bank bailouts. They opposed further regulation of the utterly immoral financial sector. In fact, in early 2007, the produced a report that called for the TOTAL deregulation of the financial sector, which means sub prime would be the least of our problems. They are just a nightmare of a party. They are the problem, not the solution. The idea that regulations that exist to protect consumers against con tricks like sub prime, should be rolled back to allow the free market to flourish, is a Conservative/Republican ideology, an epic failure of an ideology. The idea that markets will deliver respectable services, when unhindered, is simply ridiculous. With the regulations pulled back, the corrupt banks were able to look to short term gain, without assessing the risk of long term Global meltdown. Sub Prime was a scam, the epitome of the heartless unhindered greed of a Conservative ideology, that failed miserably.

It follows then, that those who support the Conservative ideology of less government intervention (I have little faith in government, but I have far more faith in government, than in the private sector) would support Matt Ridley’s ideal, that less government intervention in the financial sector is preferable to sustain a healthy financial industry. That Socialism is a great evil. Of course, Matt Ridley was on the board of Northern Rock when it collapsed, due to it’s ridiculously over risky business model, unethical with it’s saver’s money, leading to Socialism bailing it out (which Ridley didn’t seem to complain about).

Why are we complaining about Government? The market placed failed. And why isn’t Gordon Brown (who is hugely responsible for this mess) saying “okay, I made a mistake, I followed on where Conservatism left off, and it failed, miserably. Time to do it the right way!“?
The Conservatives aren’t offering anything different, the Conservatives are being Conservatives. This is what they do. Tax cuts for the rich, public service cuts, and lack of support for those struggling the most. It’s an ideal time to be a Tory.

I guarantee nothing will change. Banks will go back to excessive risk taking (worse than before, given the roll backs in regulations likely to come from the next Tory government), another bubble will appear, there will be widespread misery, job loss, suicide rates will shoot up, homes repossessed, but those at the top will enjoy greater wealth than ever before, and the bubble and will eventually burst, in 20+ years time, and we will be faced with another round of Socialism having to bail out the miserable failure of Capitalism. They have simply been incredibly clever in turning the debate away from the failures of free market capitalism (I haven’t heard Cameron mention anything like closing Corporate tax loopholes), and onto the role and financing of the public sector.

To sum up, I wont be voting Conservative, ever!

Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: capitalism, conservative, David Cameron, economics, economy, financial crises, george osbourne, labour, liberal democrat, milton friedman, murdoch, neo-liberalist, nick clegg, northern rock, politics, reagan, republican, sky news, socialism, thatcher, tory, wall street | Permalink
Posted by futiledemocracy

Murdoch VS BBC

September 14, 2009

In between spitting at tramps, and kicking orphans, James Murdoch (son of the Devil) has took a swipe at the BBC, calling it “state-sponsored news” and that only free market news organisations can produce “independent news coverage that challenges the consensus“. Murdoch, owns Fox News. Need I say more? Yes, Fox does indeed challenges the consensus; in the sense that Fox challenges intelligent thought and replaces it with Glenn “WE NEED TO TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK (but stay magically quiet when our right winged politicians illegally invade foreign lands, and magnificently destroy the economy in the first place)” Beck, and Bill O’Reilly. They then spend a few hours telling me that Obama (who they’ve referred to as a Fascist a few times recently) is planning a mass communist revolution, in between his efforts to kill your babies and let old age pensioners die in extreme pain. So yes, Murdoch’s idea of independent broadcasting does indeed challenge the consensus, insomuch as it creates a ridiculous parody of the news.

Murdoch’s main worry is that the size and scope of the Beeb, means that competitors are already at a disadvantage and struggle to compete. I’d assume, Murdoch is simply smoothing the path for an attempt to get us all to hate the BBC, whilst he and his devilish father start trying to convince us all that charging for news content, is in the spirit of “freedom” (that nasty little Right Winged word).

Murdoch also owns The Sun, the paper that (referred in to previous blog entry) puts it photographers on the streets to get up skirt shots of female celebrities getting out of a car. Perhaps that’s what the BBC is doing wrong. Perhaps what we need is BBC news to be a frequent Right Winged propaganda showing with the cameramen pointing their cameras up the skirts of the female news readers.
Or perhaps, if Murdoch gets his own way and the Tories after the next general election allow more Press independence by rolling back fairness as defined by the Broadcasting Act, Sky News will become the British version of Fox. I cannot imagine anyone in Britain wants to see that happen. There’s only so much of Glenn Beck crying on screen about how much he loves his Country, I can take. If Sky were to become more like Fox, we’d need new News Anchors. The likes of Adam Boulton are just far too middle of the road, not crazy enough to host a British Fox. Perhaps Richard Littlejohn; columnist for The Daily Mail might strike a chord? Littlejohn is our very own version of Bill O’Reilly. Maniacal, ignorant, unpleasant, despicable with an unhealthy need to be as cruel as humanly possible. Take for example, his article in 2006 about the murders of the five Suffolk prostitutes. Six months after their murders, Littlejohn felt it necessary to say….

“We do not share in the responsibility for either their grubby little existences or their murders. Society isn’t to blame.
It might not be fashionable, or even acceptable in some quarters, to say so, but in their chosen field of “work”, death by strangulation is an occupational hazard.
That doesn’t make it justifiable homicide, but in the scheme of things the deaths of these five women is no great loss.
At Ipswich Town’s home game on Saturday, there was a minute’s silence. We were supposed to believe that this was a true reflection of the community’s sympathy.
I don’t buy it. Most people went along with it in the spirit of emotional correctness and through fear of getting their heads kicked in if they didn’t.”

Ipswich VS Leeds, observing a minutes silence because they felt forced too by evil liberal political correctness? Reeaaally? Have Leeds fans become super sensitive to political correctness recently?
There was a minute silence, because five women had just been killed. People who happen to exert some form of compassion, notice that people should not be defined by how they make money. And i’d argue that being a prostitute, is far less disgusting a profession, than spewing hate filled right winged propaganda, and a rather disturbing attempt to destroy lives with words.
This deeply unpleasant, hateful little insensitive prick would fit in beautifully at a Murdoch run deregulated “news” channel.

“As Orwell foretold, to let the state enjoy a near-monopoly of information is to guarantee manipulation and distortion. The only reliable, durable and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit.“
- If Fox is anything to go by, that statement just there, by James Murdoch, could not be filled to the brim with any more irony, without a disastrous irony spillage.

Sky News isn’t a victim in all of this, as Murdoch seems to be suggesting. IRN recently dropped ITN as it’s content supplier, in favour of Sky News. Which, gives Sky (and Murdoch) pretty much a monopoly over commercial radio news. Sky is the sole news provider, to over 250 radio stations in the UK now. This, along with Channel 5 news (also provided by Sky) suggests that this worry of Orwellian State media monopoly, is disastrously hypocritical of the Murdoch’s.

We need the BBC to provide the balanced reporting that 100% independent broadcasting fails to provide. It is a key resource for Global news, provided to millions across the Planet. The BBC provides sensible coverage, it doesn’t lean too far to the Left, and it doesn’t lean miserably to the Right (which is what Murdoch has a problem with, he’d clearly like to see it lean to the Right as much as possible). Whether Murdoch likes it or not, the BBC works. It is cherished by millions. That is why it’s a threat to Murdoch, because he can’t control it. The Murdoch family seemingly have a deep need to control everything we see, read, and hear, and when it doesn’t go their way, they get all critical and employ typical right winged fear tactics. Nevertheless, the BBC is a national treasure that should not, under any circumstances, become fully independent. We certainly do not need a British Fox News.

Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: bbc, bill o'reilly, Fox, fox news, glenn beck, james murdoch, media, News, richard littlejohn, rupert murdoch, sky news | Permalink
Posted by futiledemocracy

See you all in Copenhagen!

September 13, 2009

In 2008, Royal Bank of Scotland lost £28bn. Their website reads “Everyday banking, extraordinary service“…. so extraordinary, they lose your money, and then get bailed out…with your money. That is certainly out of the ordinary of usual banking. In October 2008, the UK Government saved the bank from collapse after it’s shockingly misinformed takeover of ABN AMRO in 2007. The Treasury took a 57% share of RBS by 2008. The Government in 2009 was then forced to create a State backed security scheme, to inject a sense of confidence into RBS to convince them to start lending again. In March 2009, RBS then decided to close down it’s “Tax avoidance department” (that’s nice of them!) possibly to make it sound less crooked. Oh, and not forgetting the CEO who ran RBS into the ground, taking home £700,000 pension whilst thousands lost their jobs because of him.
All in all, a shit company, run by shit, greedy people (Thatcherites).

So, it will no doubt surprise you that the EuroFinance Conference 2009 to be held in Copenhagen, is chiefly sponsored by…….Royal Bank of Scotland. When you click on “about the conference” you’re greeted with the rather ironic tagline of “Meet economists, futurists and regulators who will be influencing and shaping your world“. You couldn’t make this shit up. Of course, not content to be sponsored by just one failed, corrupt banking group; EuroFinance Conference is also sponsored this year by Citigroup; famed for receiving $28bn bailout by the U.S Government for it’s piss poor attempt at self regulation, fed by greedy bankers obsessed with short term gain apparently unable to assess the risk that the housing boom may not last forever. And Merrill Lynch; whom according to Bloomberg, have lost up to $51.8 billion in mortgage backed securities since this crises began, this was just before they were saved from collapse by Bank of America and paid out $3.6billion (of taxpayers money) in bonuses.
Not forgetting Barclays, another sponsor of the event. In 2008 Barclays refused UK Government bail out money of £6.5bn preferring to go it alone…….. but then decided it couldn’t possibly go it alone, and so quite horrendously received $8.5bn from AIG in America, which was money that came directly from AIG’s bailout. So, taxpayers own RBS, Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, and a chuck of Barclays. Do we get to go along to this big important luxurious weekend in Copenhagen, given that we paid for it?
Ah the joys of Capitalism. It just keeps getting better.

Are these banks really in any place to be sponsoring a luxurious weekend in Copenhagen, with talks about the future of responsible banking? They shouldn’t even exist, let alone be in this position.

It’s like having a Hospital wing named after Harold Shipman.

3 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: AIG, bail out, barclays, capitalism, citigroup, economists, economy, eurofinance conference, financial crises, greed, merrill lynch, rbs, royal bank of scotland, tarp, thatcherite | Permalink
Posted by futiledemocracy

We’re all Sisyphus

September 8, 2009

“The meaningless absurdity of life is the only incontestable knowledge accessible to man.”
Leo Tolstoy

Please excuse me whilst I try – in a particularly weak fashion – to define what I consider to be the meaning of life.

It is entirely pointless. That is the meaning of life. The universe itself is chaotic, without order, it is neither moral nor immoral, happy nor sad, just nor unjust, it simply…is.
I’m not sure how anyone could define a purpose to existence; there can never be a definition. Language itself is far too limited. It is limited to human experience. It cannot transcend human experience, and so any concept (such as ‘meaning’ or ‘purpose’) cannot be an objective reality in itself, it is a man-made version of reality. ‘Meaning’ is a concept, that we have created. ‘Meaning’ and ‘perfection‘ and ’success’ and ‘right‘ and ‘wrong‘ among every other concept we know of, has not been given to us, it did not exist before humanity; we invented it. Their definitions, are ultimately meaningless and absurd.

You’re born, and then you lose yourself. For that very short period, as a baby, you see the World as it really is. You have that sense of wonder, and that sense of unknowing. You do not know happiness, or disappointment, or shame, or anger, or joy, or love, or any other form of emotional response. You do not know what a rainbow is, or why water that you see coming out of the taps, is now falling from the sky. You do not know what clouds are, or the twinkling dots illuminating the night. You’re completely at one with the World because the concept of meaning does not exist to you, much like it doesn’t exist to reality. Your World is chaotic and unrecognisable, no one has attempted to explain it or define it in their own subjective way to you, you haven’t been brainwashed by advertising, your soul hasn’t been sold to Corporations yet. You do not even understand what a flower is (although, I’d argue that a baby looking at a flower for the first time, knows what it is far better than you and I), all you see is a mix of beautiful colours and elegant parts that make up the flower, no word has been taught to you to sum up what you’re looking at. You see the beauty as it’s supposed to be seen, untouched by language and experience. You see the World as it is meant to be; very very chaotic. The meaning of life, the purpose, the nature of being; dies when we’re a child and the human concept of ‘understanding‘ takes over. But it isn’t real understanding, it is our own version of understanding, that just isn’t logical. It is almost as if we have created a halfway point between reality, and our own special little dream World, to try to make sense of something that cannot be made sense out of.

Oddly, after childhood, after knowing just how meaningless the World is, ‘understanding‘ becomes a life long search for meaning, that you can never ever discover. You try and convince yourself that you have a place and a purpose, and you don’t. You’re just as meaningless as everything else. Plato tried to explain this search, as being the search for the ultimate perfection; that we have a concept of perfect in which to compare aspects of life, suggests that the perfect version of that particular aspect must exist, in what Plato deemed the “World of forms“, in other words….heaven. It was a way to explain something that didn’t need explaining. Perfection, as with “meaning” is a man made concept. We have created a definition for a meaningless word, searching for answers in a World that has absolutely no answers, and so we invent them. God, for example. Plato, (and Religion thereafter – so, in fact, humanity) appears to try to create order within Chaos with the creation of heaven. It is the ultimate in perfection, it is the ultimate in justice, it is the ultimate ultimate. There is nothing greater, it has meaning. The man made creation of Heaven is almost an admission by those whom accept it, that this life has absolutely no meaning, or order, or rationale and so is in fact utterly absurd. But then they must accept, that God created an absurd World, an unjust World, an amoral World – which means that God is not a perfect, all loving God.

People often say “you make your own destiny“, which is partly true, but hugely false. We live in a structure. Rules are placed before us from an early age; we’re educated to “fit in” as good little unquestioning citizens. We are increasingly taught that money is everything. We did not have a choice. We weren’t consulted. We have been moulded a certain way by society. Of course it is true that you are (almost) utterly free to be whatever you so wish. If you want to be a baker, you can be, if you want to be a drug addict, you can be; you are no more or less important if you’re the son of a rich business man than if you’re a prostitute. However, your actual freedom, your reality based freedom, your freedom that transcends economics is only possible if you reject all what you have been told, and start again, with a mind that is free from preconceptions and manipulations. Given that we exist on a framework, it is supremely difficult to break free from that framework. Rene Descartes tried it, but ultimately failed. Apparently the Renaissance artist Leonardo, despised education because it taught second hand experience, and so he searched to understand life, for himself, and some would say he succeeded, given that he’s the most famous artist of all time. But ultimately, human life, and it’s fictitious constructed reality exists in a tiny box, on an endless shore.

So in fact, we have two options in front of us. Firstly, we could refuse to accept that we only really transcend the confines of the barriers of humanity when we’re a new born child and go about our lives searching for a meaning that simply doesn’t actually exist. Or, we could accept that we live in a World full of absurdities and inexplicable chaos and create our own version of that man made concept of “the meaning of life” for ourselves as individuals. If we choose the second option, we then have two further choices. We can create our own meaning, safely and securely within societies rules and limits (again, man made, not natural) but accept that we’re never truly free and never truly in control of our own destinies which become controlled by the need to be rational in a space full of irrationality; or we can become the outcast, setting our own rules and our own limits and never accepting what we’re told as objective truth without first analysing the World for ourselves and breaking free from the chains of humanity; the rest is just a futile game.

I’d conclude that you and I can only possibly be free, when we accept, quite morbidly albeit, that we have no meaning whatsoever. We are all Sisyphus, realistically doomed to push that rock up a mountain, for the rest of our lives.

9 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: christianity, existence, god, heaven, life, meaning of life, morality, philosophy, plato, religion, tolstoy | Permalink
Posted by futiledemocracy

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