There's something very heartening about listening to someone rant their head off sometimes.

driving lessons in Wallasey?

9 days to the collapse of capitalism?

I guess if Norwegian nutters hadn't claimed all the column inches for today, this would have made a bigger splash.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14258888

Presumably, this is all brinkmanship. The republicans want the poor to take the hit. The democrats want to share the burden a little more progressively, and at some point, an agreement will be reached. The article goes on to say,

The negotiations are aimed at avoiding what analysts say would be an economically catastrophic US debt default on 2 August.

Forget about minnows like Greece or Eire. The mighty US of A could default on it's debts in just over a week. Of course, it's bound to happen at some point. The unsustainable has only been sustained for so long by the use of financial smoke and mirrors.

I'm not a financial expert by any means, but as I understand things, the whole damn world now depends upon pretending not to notice that there is no longer any ground beneath our feet (cue Wyle E Coyote stylee antigravity moment)

It's been interesting to watch the political process over the last year or so. In a sense, the political right are correct. Cuts do have to be made, and those on the left demanding that business should continue as usual are deluding themselves.

To me, the real issue is one of social justice. If cuts (really the first stages of powerdown?) are inevitable, the burden should be shouldered by those best able to shoulder it. There are pragmatic as well as moral arguments for this. People with a sense of injustice fly aeroplanes into tall buildings, and shoot children on summer camps.

So the Right may be right, but in moral and practical terms, they are also utterly wrong.

Still, there is little of the mainstream political spectrum that makes much sense when you look at politics and economics from the point of view of sustainability. I don't think the politicians really know what to do, or if they do, they lack the courage to do it, or if they have the courage, no bugger will vote for them.

9 days. I predict that the democrats will cave in and fuck over their pensioners and unemployed in order to keep the wheels of the meatgrinder turning just a bit longer. The fucked over will have less money to spend, and so the wheels will come off anyway.

That's great, it starts with an earthquake...

Marxist Magic!

Back in the day, I was a "supporter" (they didn't have members for technical reasons) of the Militant Tendancy. Unfortunately, Trotskyist entryist groups never stood a chance against the headlong rush to capture the "centre" ground, but for a while, they became a real pole of attraction for anyone wanting to fight the good fight.

Apart from the campaigns and the MPs and what have you, we also had some fun along the way.

One memorable bit was at a rally in London (I can't remember if it was at Alexandra Palace or the Royal Albert Hall). Amidst the stirring speeches and calls for donations was a magic act. A guy called Ian Saville.

The funniest bits of his act were a socialist rope trick, and Karl Marx ventriloquism act. You can sort of see them in the videos below, although it's all broken up into bits.



Class system rope trick!



Karl Marx sings!

An eerie silence!

You'd think the left wing blogs in my blogroll would be fizzing with indignation right now.

Not a peep!

The News of The World's actions over the last decade are so blindingly crass and downright ghoulish, that any comment, no matter how vitriolic, is just stating the bleeding obvious.

Sad thing is, nothing will change because of it. News International intend to do an in-house investigation. No changes will be made to the IPCC. Murdoch will be allowed to take over BSkyB.

And in a few months, people will have generally forgotten about it. I'm told that a couple of years after the Hillsborough tragedy, The Sun and The NOTW's percentage share in the North West had pretty much recovered.

Some Kenneth Clarkes are worse than others

The world is full of Kenneth Clarkes. Just do a google search and you'll find plenty of them. Short ones. Tall ones. Black ones. Bearded ones. Fat tory ones that flog cigarettes to third world nations.

I think I can say, pretty unequivocoally, I do not want to be raped by any of them.



Actually, some rapes are worse than others, and those aiming a big hefty kick at Clarke are making cheap political capital.

Certainly the "justice" system will give out sentences of varying lengths according to the circumstances surrounding each case. Someone that drags a woman into the bushes and holds a knife to her throat will rightly get a longer sentense than someone who couldn't take "no" for an answer after a night spent drinking with his victim.

There are plenty of reasons for wanting to see Clarke removed from a position of power - reasons that apply to a whole lot of other MPs, but stating the bleeding obvious isn't one of them.

The "All rape is rape" mantra doesn't sit comfortably with me. It has the effect of placing any discussion of the subject out of bounds.





Also in the news today, Film Director, Lars Von Trierhas been kicked out of the Cannes film festival for saying he could understand Hitler. He struggled to coherently elaborate on this statement.



Again, I find the assumption that certain things must not be said to be unhealthy.

The Lib Dems - What were they for anyway?

I don't have a crystal ball, but based on the recent council elections, I predict that if a General Election were to be held next week, the Liberal Democrats would lose the vast majority of their MPs.

I've heard people say that those who feel betrayed by the broken promises of Clegg & Co. had the wrong idea about what they stood for in the first place, but I reckon part of the reason the Lib Dems did so badly, while the Tories emerged with nary a scratch, is because you expect the tories to screw the nation.

So what did they stand for?

If they've been pretty much eliminated as a force in British politics, then we're back to essentially a two party state. One of which could be described as a Keynesian, Centre Right party, with a progressive attitude to social issues. The other of which could be described as a Monetarist, Centre Right party with a reactionary attitude to social issues.

The Lib Dems were in the "middle". Between the two.

All seems a bit pointless somehow. A Keynesian, Monetarist Centre Right party with a progressively reactionary attitude on social issues, or something? I mean, you've got Coke, and you've got Pepsi. Why bother making Virrgin Cola?

Anyway, they turned out to be another bunch of tossers. The only difference between now and twelve months ago is back then we could only guess, but now we know.

If the Lib Dems stood for anything they could have ended the coalition. Stood firm on tuition fees. Put their foot down with a firm hand and said "We choose principles over the simple fact that we've managed to get a hand on the reins of power."

But they didn't, so to hell with them. They're about as much use as a chocolate teapot.

Just a shame that so many squandered the chance of some kind of electoral reform, just to make a point.

An Alternative to Voting....

This is an idea that I heard a long time ago. Probably from a radical socialist. I forget precisely who.

So, in the spirit of "The Mark Steel Solution", I proffer you this:

MP's should be selected in the same way as jurors.

The first thing to say about this is that this would mean the end of elections. It would mean, at least in some ways, a no-party state. Here's how it works..

• Every year/ two years/ five years/ whatever, a load of names are selected at random from an enormous hat that contains the details, scribbled on rizlas, of everyone in the country who is sane and over 18. (or lots of hats, one in each constituency)
• Each person selected must be a member of parliament for that period, unless they can give a good reason why they shouldn't. (doctor's note, death certificate, etc)
• While serving as MPs, they should not be paid, but they should be compensated for loss of earnings. This would mean paying them the same amount they recieved for doing their day job.

Government of the people, by the people, for the people? Or a recipe for disaster, as the Murdochs of this world exploit the naive MP's?

Feel free to comment.

Alternative voting.

I voted libdem in the general election.

I didn't do so because I thought they'd be anything other than a bunch of centre-right tossers, although the enthusiasm with which they embraced the chance to fuck over the nation surprised me.

I voted for them because they were alone out of the mainstream parties in calling for electoral reform. (Mainly anyway. I just couldn't bring myself to vote for New Labour this time round.)

I haven't got a clue which way the referendum is likely to fall, as I've seen no opinion polls or anything. Presumably now that the Royals have done their bit to spread a bit of cheer, the YES/NO campaigns will take a bigger share of the media's attention.

So it's pretty obvious that I'll be voting Yes on the 5th of May.

WIll it make a huge change? Probably not, but keeping the exisiting system certainly means nothing will change.

One of life's little ironies is that the LibDems unpopularity is likely to have an effect on what was one of their flagship policies.

Fuck Clegg, vote no.

Bloody stupid argument when you come to think of it. Fuck Cameron, Vote yes. Fuck both of them, vote yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no... Like a cat with a buttered piece of toast strapped to it's back.

Throw away the only chance you'll get in a generation to make a point? Talk about cutting of your nose to spite your face...

Anyway, the Tories don't want it. Most of the right wing media, including News International, don't want it. The BNP don't want it either, for whatever that's worth.

Just to be clear, AV does not mean you have to vote for the tories. You can vote for whoever you want to. Even just one party if that's all you agree with.

Here are some cats, that may be able to explain it a bit better.



I mentioned earlier that part of the reason I voted LibDem was because I didn't want to vote Labour. That's a pretty negative position to take, and I'd like to put a more positive slant on things.

The Labour party is comprised of many well meaning and left leaning folks, yet it occupies almost exactly the same part of the political spectrum as the other two big parties. Except for certain - mainly social justice - issues anyway.

And this is down to FPTP. Core Labour seats will remain Labour, even if Labour decides it's policy wil be to make the lives of traditional Labour voters worse. Same with the other parties. Elections are decided by a relatively small percentage of "swing" voters, and they occupy the centre right of the demographic. So either you pander to them or you don't get elected. So FPTP corrupts those well meaning left leaning politicians and activists. I think adobting AV would allow New Labour to adopt a far more left wing position. Hell, I might even vote for them again. Perhaps just behind the greens.

Finally, according to some that have spoken out against AV, "AV will lead to extremist parties getting a share of the vote"

Well first of all, it tends to be the Greens that do well in western democracies with some form of proportional representation. Secondly, the current coalition seems to be a pretty extremist entity right now. So was the 1945 Lavour Government by any sensible modern yardstick. The idea that we should be scared of extreme right parties gaining power when the current way of doing thins has skewed the entire political gamut in this country to the right seems nonsensical.

Anyway, there you go. I will be voting "YES" on May the 5th, and I recommend that you do too.

Could Google Earth cause a revolution in Bahrain?

Seems a bit far-fetched doesn't it? Yet an opinion piece in the New York Times suggests exactly this.

Essentially, people crammed into tiny apartments have looked at their country on Google Earth, and seen just how much land is owned and used just by a tiny minority of super wealthy. - Google Earth as a visible manifestation of a social injustice. And they're not happy.

Here's what the article has to say:

While Facebook has gotten all the face time in Egypt, Tunisia and Bahrain, don’t forget Google Earth, which began roiling Bahraini politics in 2006. A big issue in Bahrain, particularly among Shiite men who want to get married and build homes, is the unequal distribution of land.

On Nov. 27, 2006, on the eve of parliamentary elections in Bahrain, The Washington Post ran this report from there: “Mahmood, who lives in a house with his parents, four siblings and their children, said he became even more frustrated when he looked up Bahrain on Google Earth and saw vast tracts of empty land, while tens of thousands of mainly poor Shiites were squashed together in small, dense areas. ‘We are 17 people crowded in one small house, like many people in the southern district,’ he said. ‘And you see on Google how many palaces there are and how the al-Khalifas [the Sunni ruling family] have the rest of the country to themselves.’

Bahraini activists have encouraged people to take a look at the country on Google Earth, and they have set up a special user group whose members have access to more than 40 images of royal palaces.”

Meet the new boss...

Tunisia. Egypt. Libya. Algeria. Bahrain.

A wave of unrest has swept the middle East! Entrenched dictators have toppled! Power to the people!

It is of course to be applauded. That vicious shits like Mubharrak have been forced to relinquish the rei(g)ns must be a good thing. Even Qaddhafi looks like he might be on his way out, after using heavy battle weapons against his own people.

But why do I feel that an opportunity has been missed? That they could have used the space they'd created to do things differently. Instead, power is being transferred from one elite to another, while the apparatus of the state remains essentially unchanged.

Old old story

"As Owen thought of his child's future there sprung up within him a
feeling of hatred and fury against the majority of his fellow workmen.

THEY WERE THE ENEMY.  Those who not only quietly submitted like so
many cattle to the existing state of things, but defended it, and
opposed and ridiculed any suggestion to alter it.

THEY WERE THE REAL OPPRESSORS - the men who spoke of themselves as
`The likes of us,' who, having lived in poverty and degradation all
their lives considered that what had been good enough for them was
good enough for the children they had been the cause of bringing into
existence.

He hated and despised them because the calmly saw their children
condemned to hard labour and poverty for life, and deliberately
refused to make any effort to secure for them better conditions than
those they had themselves.

It was because they were indifferent to the fate of THEIR children
that he would be unable to secure a natural and human life for HIS.
It was their apathy or active opposition that made it impossible to
establish a better system of society under which those who did their
fair share of the world's work would be honoured and rewarded.
Instead of helping to do this, they abased themselves, and grovelled
before their oppressors, and compelled and taught their children to do
the same.  THEY were the people who were really responsible for the
continuance of the present system.

Owen laughed bitterly to himself.  What a very comical system it was.

Those who worked were looked upon with contempt, and subjected to
every possible indignity.  Nearly everything they produced was taken
away from them and enjoyed by the people who did nothing.  And then
the workers bowed down and grovelled before those who had robbed them
of the fruits of their labour and were childishly grateful to them for
leaving anything at all.

No wonder the rich despised them and looked upon them as dirt.  They
WERE despicable.  They WERE dirt.  They admitted it and gloried in it."

This was written in 1903, by Robert Tressell. From what I've been reading recently, it's clear that nothing has changed. For every tyrant or careerist politician, there are a million well meaning people who are sure that everything will be ok if only we vote for that nice Mr Xxxxxxxx.

The issues are different to some degree, at least here in the affluent West. And ultimately, I suppose, the motivations are different.

It's extremely rare for anyone in this country to starve. For now at least we have a safety net that ensures that the old and unemployed get at least a bare minimum. It's flawed, and is under attack, particularly at the moment, but things are better than they were a century ago, by far.

The increase in the standard of living is not because of capitalism. It's because of the massively increased supply of energy and raw materials. Capitalism has merely squandered much of the benefits on a mountain of shit. But as the limits to such fossil fueled growth near, who knows? How long will such a safety net survive?

But for now, we're doing fine, thank you very much, with our wide screen tellies and maxed out credit cards. Sure, we're concerned about the starving millions in Turkmenistan. If we give £2 a month that will make it all ok.

If the starving drudges of Tressell's book were prepared to defend the system, it should be no surprise that the well fed workers of today see no need for a revolution.
I suspect that by the time they do, it will be far too late.

Edit:

Things have moved on a little overnight, but hardly at all. To me one side keeps on misrepresenting the other, despite that other's attempts to explain, clarify, add detail, provide alternatives.

It's like it's just too alien an idea for him to comprehend. I can understand this. When I first got involved in politics, I felt the same way. It's only that I got involved with a bunch of Trots, who's insistance upon a revolutionary transformation of society trumped all my reformist arguments that I don't feel the same way now.

We are immersed in the Big Bad System from the day that we're born. It's like a room with no windows. It takes a certain type of eye to see beyond it.

Its an illusion

This is an incredibly important video. It took me a couple of watches before I really started to understand it. The first time, I thought it was getting bogged down in semantics, particularly near the start. The second time around, I reaslised just how important the words and their meanings actually are. This is not tinfoil hat stuff. It all checks out, and you can check it out for yourself quite easily, but how this information can be interpreted, and to what ends, is something that requires a lot of thought.

( tried to upload it to here, but it's too big)

You can watch the original HERE

I can't help thinking that although the analysis is an absolute eye-opener, the conclusions leave something to be desired. If nobody paid their taxes, there'd be no schools or hospitals, except for those that could afford it, for example.

The forthcoming general election...

Decisions decisions...

Here are my options:

1. Vote Conservative
2. Vote Labour
3. Vote LibDem
4. Vote Green or some other minor party
5. Spoil my ballot paper
6. Don't bother voting

Option 1: Vote Conservative.

No. If it came to a choice between voting conservative and eating dogshit, I'd ask for a fork and a side serving of cauliflower. I haven't forgotten what they did last time they were in power, and I see that little has changed. Agressively monetarist, without even a social agenda to redeem them. No. For all the evils perpetrated by the current shower of cack, there's nothing that the Tories wouldn't have done differently.

Option 2: Vote Labour.

This is a slightly harder one. They have done some good things. But only sort of. for example, they introduced a national minimum wage, then set it too low and with exceptions for under 21's, etc. They equalised the age of consent for same sex relationships, but couldn't quite go as far as granting marriage rights to gays and lesbians. My Current MP is Angela Eagle. At the last election, she had a majority of just over 9000 votes. That's not an unassailable lead by any means. I'm not a huge Fan of Angela Eagle. In particular, she was happy to vote in favour of the Iraq invasion. But not voting for her could mean a Conservative MP in my constituency. The Labour Party themselves? Well, another centre-right monetarist party, locked into the idea that growth is the only meaningful good. Lackeys of Big Business. PFI. Privatisation of anything the Tories couldn't unscrew from the floor when they were in power. Why not give another £778,372,878,327.22p of taxpayers money to investment bankers? Vive la fucking system! As sleazy and careerist as the others. They do have a more progressive social agenda. Unless you take drugs or are an immigrant or a demonstrator of course.

Nah. Fuck 'em. After 17 years of the same old shit, given a choice between tactical voting and principled voting, there's no contest. If they stood for something different to the other guys, then there might be some point, but they don't so there isn't. Back in 1997 I hoped for something better. I didn't expect anything better, but I did hope.

Option 3: Vote Liberal Democrat.

Why? They're also a centre right party with a more progressive social agenda. On some issues, they're to the left of the other main parties, but all three of them occupy the same ideological space on the political compass. For all the big words, I doubt if they'd have done anything that differently either, plus there's absolutely no point using the Lib Dems as a means of keeping some other group out. They have no chance of winning in Wallasey.

So having ruled out a vote for the status quo, I have a choice of wasting my vote on a minor party, or voicing my disillusionment by telling them all to go hang, or I can boycott the entire process.

But if I don't bother to vote, then I have no right to criticise whatever government gets in. So my only choice lies in voting for some left wing party like Respect (remember them?) or voting for the Greens. Or in exercising my democratic right to say "none of the above"

Of those, I suspect I won't be able to make up my mind until I'm there in the polling booth with a pencil poised obve my ballot paper.

Michael Foot RIP

Michael Foot, Labour's most disastrous leader, marched for peace all his life. Tony Blair, Labour's most succesful leader...(finish it yourself) - Mark Steel

I became politicised as I got towards my mid teens. Firstly with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament when I was around 14, then with the Labour Party a couple of years later. Foot marked the end of a period, and his replacement heralded in a succession of leaders intent on making Labour more electable by shifting to the right.

I find it hard to imagine that I'll feel any real sorrow when the Browns and Blairs of this world turn up their toes, but along with Tony Benn, Michael Foot represents something we've now lost in British politics.

As someone else remarked, A little bit of integrity goes a long, long way.