Gandhi: On Victims

"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans & the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy."

Quote For Dorries

"The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit their views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering."
It might be from Doctor Who but it fits.

Quote of the Day

I found this quote from Thucydides, which chimed with the feelings I had post riots:

"...human nature, always ready to offend even where laws exist, showed itself proudly in its true colours, as something incapable of controlling passion, insubordinate to the idea of justice...Men take it upon themselves to begin repealing those general laws of humanity* which are there to give a hope of salvation to all who are in distress...remmebering that there may come a time when they, too, will be in danger & will need their protection." (III, 82-4)

*Our 'human rights' that Dave et al are so keen to give up in the name of security & safety but equally keen to send our armed forces to help other countries get. Is this democracy? A willingness to surrender everything that we have fought to gain as the result of some hoodies & hooligans? People are imprisoned or die trying to get the rights we seem so happy to surrender.

Rant over.

Let Us Face The Future

A quote from the 1945 Labour Manifesto...sourced from Mervyn Jones's biography of Michael Foot. Can you imagine this paragraph getting within twenty miles of the present Labour Party's website:

"The Labour Party is a Socialist Party, and proud of it. Its ultimate purpose at home is the establishment of a Socialist Commonwealth of Great Britain - free, democratic, efficient, progressive, public-spirited, and its material resources organised in the service of the British people."

The past is a different country...

Cyrano de Bergerac

"And what is a kiss, specifically? A pledge properly sealed, a promise seasoned to taste, a vow stamped with the immediacy of a lip, a rosy circle drawn around the verb 'to love.' A kiss is a message too intimate for the ear, infinity captured in the bee's brief visit to a flower, secular communication with an aftertaste of heaven, the pulse rising from the heart to utter its name on a lover's lip: 'Forever.'"
- Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Act 3

Rape is Rape

Ken Clarke, the cuddly face of Conservatism, has spent most of today running round television studios putting his foot in his mouth.

Why?

Well, because as part of the discussions regarding prison over-crowding & whether prison works or not there is the possibility of rapists being able to reduce their sentences by pleading guilty. The idea behind this is - possibly - motivated by sympathy. Get the rapist to plead guilty & victim doesn't have to face a difficult & unpleasent trial but that is a subject for another blog entirely. I will also skip quietly past Ken's apparent confusion about 'statutory rape' & 'date rape', which seems to indicate a certain lack of deep thought on the subject or an understanding of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. Demonstrating that Ken is the very model of a modern Justice Secretary.

Ken's belief that rape is a different offense if carried out by a stranger in a dark alleyway somewhere than if it 'date' rape. The implication being that one is worse than the other. That the latter is somehow deserving of a lesser sentence because it is the lesser crime. It's a surprisingly common belief tied in with two other classics: "No doesn't always mean no" & "She was asking for it". The idea that it is even vaguely possible to decide whether one type of rape is worse than another is a bizzare one. I wouldn't know & I wouldn't pretend to know but it seems to me that both types of rape are simply rape.

And yes, from a male point of view that might sometimes make life difficult. If the woman you stumbled into bed with after a few drinks decides enough is enough then it is enough. If your wife does not want to have sex with you then you do not have the right to take it by force. However 'mild' the force. "One thing led to another" is not a justification for rape. Being drunk is not a justification for rape. Being married is not a justification for rape.

Rape is rape.

Yes, from a man's point of view that means that sometimes it's confusing, uncomfortable and it feels like rejection but a damaged ego is better than two damaged lives.

Ken's comment's are just an echo of that long held male belief that control over the time & place for sex is ours, not theirs. That women don't enjoy sex as much as men do anyway so it doesn't matter if she's not in the mood & any one of a hundred other myths & claims about human sexuality. The truth is that whilst the level of violence involved might differ the basic crime itself is no different.

Rape is rape.

Let's not pretend otherwise.

Confessions of a Gradualist

After the demonstration on Saturday & the silliness that followed from our 'anarchist' friends it dawned on me that I am more of a gradualist than I had previously thought.

It reminded me of a quote that I've noted down but for some reason didn't not down: "The greater the violence, the weaker the revolution".

The comments afterwards from people trying to draw similarites between a few idiots smashing up windows & scuffling with the police & Egypt also made me realise that if there's one thing that we really need it is a fucking sense of perspective. This is not Libya or Egypt. Yes, people die in police custody in this country. Yes, people get whacked about by police & sometimes its more about spite than about self-defence. Yes, the state does have a monopoly of violence but there aren't snipers on the roof or murderous attacks by supporters of Cameron-Clegg.

When you attend a demonstration in this country you do so expecting - at worst - to be kettled unfairly. So comparisons with movements in those countries where you are putting your life on the line in the name of basic democracy is a sad joke.

We are resisting cuts in a democracy. That democracy may have its problems but we have a ballot box we can use. And don't whinge about how 'all political parties are the same' because even if it were true you could get out there & found a party of your own. Or vote for one of the many, many electorally successful left-wing parties, like the SWP.

But apparently people don't feel change will come through the ballot box. Only a revolution will do. I'd ask these revolutionaries to take a look around & ask where the demand is for a left-wing revolution. It seems to me that it is the right that has been benefiting most from the financial crisis, which surely must make us on the left look around & wonder what the hell we're doing wrong.

The biggest crisis in capitalism since the pre-World War Two & the left has achieved...nothing much. If you can't convince people to get off their arses & vote for you then your revolution isn't going to be a popular one is it?

The press & politics might be stacked in favour of oligarchy but it isn't indestructable is it? Businesses might be avoiding tax but the best way to bring a business in to line is to stop buying their stuff.

I actually like UK Uncut. It has kept the issue alive, they're peaceful - whatever the press might have you believe - & they've been imaginative about some of their actions in a way that those people who think the way to get change is to smash a few windows, chuck some paint & try to thump a copper. We should build on their activities by boycotts.

So I believe you win by winning the arguement & through the ballot box. If we don't like our politicians, vote them out. Smashing shit up & hoping that people will rise up in your wake is vanity.

That doesn't make me a Tory.

I come from Buckinghamshire, the Toriest of Tory counties. My Mum & Dad vote Tory. Some of my best friends are Tories. But I'm not.

My dislike of the Tory Party is visceral & instinctive. It stared during the Miner's Strike, when I was 11 or 12. There seemed to be something wrong with a party that could laud Solidarity in Poland one day - that being a movement born from Polish Trade Unionism as much as anything - but treat its own workers like that. (I was a bit of a prig as a child)

My dislike for them has stayed the same ever since & it it influences my politics at a gut level. It's a willful political blindness, which I accept makes having proper political discussions difficult because in the end I don't like the Tory Party or it's policies for emotional reasons that I can't always articulate.

It's a weakness.

Articulating the alternative is essential if we are going to change things for the better & it is our inability to do that which has cost the left since the Berlin Wall fell. The internet gives us a better chance than ever to subvert the traditional media & get our message out there but we have to have an alternative that's more than empty slogans & broken glass.

We win when we win the arguements. Violence only hardens opinion & leads to more violence.

Rant over.

History Repeating Itself

After yesterdays demonstration I dug out this quote from L.S. Bevington, Anarchism & Violence, Liberty Press, Chiswick, 1896


"Of course we know among those who call themselves Anarchists there are a minority of unbalanced enthusiasts who look upon every illegal & sensational act of violence as a matter of hysterical jubilation. Very useful to the police & the press, unsteady in intellect & of weak moral principle, they have repeatedly shown themselves accessible to venal considerations. They, & their violence, & their professional Anarchism are purchasable, & in the last resort they are welcome & efficient partisans of the bourgeoisie in its remorseless war against the deliverers of the people."


115 years later you have to ask whether much has changed in the behaviour & minds of some 'anarchists'.

What's The Alternative

So who is going on the March for the Alternative on Saturday? And who has been asked 'What's the alternative?' or even been told 'There's no alternative?'

Who has been told that they're only marching to protect their own jobs, as if there's something wrong with being a bit fucked off about losing your job.

The question 'what is the alternative' implies that there is none, which is clearly wrong. The problem is that this isn't a March with one voice.

This isn't a March that's going to end with a list of agreed solutions & everyone singing off of the same hymn sheet. Partly because the people marching are not the people in charge & partly because the March contains many different voices: from those who would have cuts, but not front loaded as George Osborne has arranged them; those who would cut differently - especially Trident; those who would tax the wealthy more & cut less; to those wanting some kind of fully-fledged departure from capitalism & a full-scale revolution.

So what are the alternatives? Well, there's a lot. If you're that interested then you can read up what the TUC, what the Labour Party, the Green Party, the SWP & others say. The alternatives are out there you know.

Personally I know why I'm marching. Yes, these reasons might be based on blinkers of ideology but please don't pretend that decisions being made by George & co aren't being made on the basis of their own blinkered ideology rather than in the name of some 'neutral' national interest. If that were the case it wouldn't be nurses, Doctors, teachers, police officers, soliders, sailors & airmen paying the price for a recession created by a worldwide financial crisis caused by gambling bankers would it.

I believe in an alternative that includes focusing on growth before everyone starts going mad with the scissors; in cutting Trident not EMA; in not wasting £2bn on a re-organisation of the NHS that it almost certainly doesn't need; a Tobin tax to wouldn't break the banks would it? Fundamentally I believe in not cutting so deep, so fast.

I'm not saying I'd be proved right but I am saying that there are alternatives.

Priorities & How to Define Them

Osborne's comment about the budget for Libyan bombing coming from the Treasury Reserves reminds me of a quote, from Republican President Dwight Eisenhower of all people:

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger & are not fed, those who are cold & not clothed."

You could have fun paraphrasing that for our present politico-economic situation.

A Valentine's Day Meander

I was going to write a blog about how much I hate the artificialness of Valentine's Day. How it allows people to assume that a one-off gesture on a specially selected national day of lovey-doveyness is the same as being romantic. Then I was going to rant a little about smug couples & their twee messages to each other.

Then I decided that I wasn't going to be that much of a cynical bastard. Love is a wonderful thing, if you get a chance to experience it. Just because for one day of the year we have to put up with treacly nonesense doesn't de-value love & romance. There's another 364 days to have fun with.

Being single on Valentine's Day is always an irritant but only because we're supposed to be unhappy about being single. But I'm not. There are benefits to being single: you get to live your life. You don't have to compromise & you don't have to justify how you live your life. You don't have to be in a couple to be a 'complete' person. I think the whinging of single people on Valentine's Day tends to dilute that. It makes us look bitter & needy when we're often neither.

Maybe one day, in a twist on the words of Bill Hicks, I'll find that special woman (or a bunch of average ones) but in the meantime I shall enjoy all the benefits that come with being single & allow couples to enjoy Valentine's Day.

One Law For Them...One Law For Us To Ignore

Aren't politicians such a barrel of laughs. Whinging about this, demanding we do that. Stuffing their pockets with tax payers money whilst asking us to tighten our belts. All the usual demogogery & hypocriscy that comes with the territory of professional politics.

Yet this week they've gone & done something brilliant. They voted - mostly Tories but pretty much a cross-section of the parties - to stick two fingers up at the European Court of Human Rights by voting against giving prisoners the vote. It's a question of national sovreignty & pride apparently that since the 19th century prisoners have been denied the vote automatically as part of their punishment. We're happy enough with this situation, say a large chunk of our politicians, that we'd like to keep it as it is. Sod the ECHR. Sod the rule of law. It's a law we don't like so we're not going to obey it.

Now this blog isn't about prisoners right to vote. It isn't about the ECHR. It isn't about sovreignty. I'm not going to talk about the pro's & con's of either of these things. It's about hypocriscy.

It's about the fact that if we, as citizens, were to say, "I don't like this law. I'm going to tell them to shove it & carry on before." Then there would be consequences. Trade Unions can't ignore judges who find their ballots to be unexceptable because the law is ridiculously biased in favour of the employer. They'd be found in ccntempt of court & sanction would follow.

However it is OK for our politicians to do so. Judges have ruled. Our politicians don't like it so we carry on as before.

Politicians constantly whinge about obeying the rule of law & yet they have given us a great example to follow: if you think a law is bad, just ignore it. Complain about the court. Carry on as before.

If it is alright for parliament, it's alright for the rest of us.

Let's be AVing you

I'm an agnostic on AV. I've no strong opionions one way or the other on it so my vote is up for grabs. I suspect I'm not the only one.

Whilst I'm tempted to vote No just so I can give that duplicitous diet Tory Nick Clegg a well-deserved bloody nose I know that this is a purely tribal response.

So I would like to listen to what both sides have to say in a reasonably intelligent manner so I can make a properly informed decision.

Instead what we seem to be watching is two sets of children throwing accusations at each other of 'gaffes' & 'nastiness'. Yes to AV & No to AV seem more interested in chucking crap at each other than actually talking to people who will be voting.

Preaching to the converted they don't seem to realise how many people out there either don't give a flying fig about AV or are still to make up their minds.

It would seem to me that on the basis that those people bothered enough to have picked a side aren't going to have their minds changed much by accusations or cock-ups. People don't really do that. So you might what to stop attacking each other & concentrate on building a case for your side of the debate & trying to talk to people who might not have quite made up their minds.

If nothing else a proper intelligent debate might actually get people to actually vote because it is telling that the government is so frightened about turnout that they are actually going to over-turn the Lords amendment making the voiding the vote if turnout is less than 40%.

So we all know that the issue is perceived to be so irrelevant by most of the electorate that the government isn't even confident enough to stick its neck out on a 40% turnout.

So please No to AV & Yes to AV stop sniping at each other's campaigns & get on with making your case to the neutrals & the not bothereds.

A Pragmatic Approach To Romance

In politics, as in many things, I'm a romantic. To steal a slogan from Paris '68 I like to Be Realistic & Demand The Impossible'. So romantic am I politically that I've slipped from being an out & out socialist to some kind of fuzzy anarcho-communist.

As a result there isn't really a political party in this country that comes to close to representing my beliefs that is going to come within a mile of genuine political power. My head tells me this. The regular internecine spats between the harder left of the left-wing confirms it.

We seem to have much more interest in fighting each other than putting together some kind of 'Popular Front' to take on the real enemy.

Ideological purity seems to be more important than actual power.

You'd have thought the almost total failure of the left to actual benefit from the biggest crisis capitalism has faced since the 1930s might have taught us that what the right does better than the left is turn talk into action & action into power.

Which is when horrible pragmatism slaps me around the face. What's the point of politics if it isn't to win. Whether that's winning a campaign or winning an election. If we're not in this to beat our opponents then what's the point. To run this country, with the political system as it now stands, you have to win an election. To win an election you have to appeal to the British people as a whole, not just preach to the coverted. That means you normally have to take the edge off.

So Labour is my party of choice. Even though I know that I'll be disappointed with how middle of the road they are. That they'll do something at some point so odious that I'll find myself banging my head on my desk.

I know I should just jack all this Labour Party stuff in & go join the Green Party or the SWP or the Communist Party of Great Britain. No, I should ignore party politics altogether & get involved in individual causes & protests. Party politics is a dead end I hear my inner Bakunin cry.

Except it isn't.

Does anyone serious expect the British people to rise up in the name of revolution & sweep aside the 'system'? Come on...anyone? I wish I did.

It might happen one day but in the meantime we have to go through the tedious process of winning electoral majorities & I'm afraid to say that only the Labour Party can deliver that.

There you have it. Romance skewered. Let us walk into the future together bitter & cynical about the political system. Angry at the perceived betrayals of the soft left. Let's stick to the romantic & exciting stuff.

The romantic in me would like to see a genuine 'Popular Front' uniting the Labour Party with the harder left & the various protest movements to create a grass roots up movement to change our politics.

The pragmatist in me wants victories. Let's get rid of this Tory led government before it is too damn late. Let's get rid of them before they have a chance to bed themselves in for thirteen years.

Fuck ideological purity. Fuck losing. Losing sucks.

The romantic in me thinks we just need to go out there & sell our beliefs better. That we've done a shit job at explaining what the left stands for & that some of us gave up too easily when the Berlin Wall came down & we were told socialism was dead. Maybe if we do the job well we can move the country towards the left & the Labour Party with it.

Most importantly let's win. Let's win the arguements & win the elections. Let's unit as much as we can & concentrate our fire on the real enemy. We're never going to agree with each other on everything. The gap is too wide but let's at least try.

Perhaps in the end I'm saying do we want to be a 'Popular Front' or 'The People's Front of Judea'? Do we want to win or not?

Gideon Speaks

In this morning's press conference at Number Ten Chancellor of the Exchequer Gideon Osborne announced that the 0.5% drop in growth of the British economy would not push him off his cut deep and cut now course.

After a traditional nod to this all being the Labour Party's fault he pointed out that it had been pretty cold and that this would have an impact on growth not to mention the "big bad dog" that had snuck in from the North Sea and eaten some of the economic growth. The Navy were still searching for the Dog Gideon said but due to cutbacks only one, small rowing boat staffed by Sea Scouts could be spared.

"Everything will be OK" said Gideon "Once spring has sprung"

He dismissed rumours that Vince Cable was to be burnt in a large wicker man outside the House of Commons in order to help bring spring forwards as:

"Typical Labour spin."

Vince Cable was unavailable for comment.

Melanie Phillips - Homophobia as Normal

There's an article by Melanie Phillips today that suggests that Britain is now in the grip of a 'gay agenda'. Sounding like an old school Doctor Who fan with delusions of grandure and a Russell T Davies fixation she claims that gay issues have infiltrated education and that "If it isn’t careful, it risks turning gay people from being the victims of prejudice into Britain’s new McCarthyites."

Dear old Melanie. We can't possibly have gay people rocking the boat can we.

Perhaps they should be content with being victims of prejudice, which I'm sure Melanie would be much more comfortable with. All these troublesome homosexuals demanding to be treated as human beings rather than freaks. All those gay people suggesting that being persecuted by various religions based on whichever bits of their Holy Books suits their prejudice might just be a bit wrong. It's a gay agenda. The next thing you know gayness will be compulsary.

I'd just say this whilst gay peeople are being murdered for being gay; whilst they are being beaten up for being gay; whilst no gay footballer dare come out for being vilified by supporters and ostracised by his team mates; whilst so-called Christians in Africa demand the introduction for the death penalty for being gay; or so-called Christians in the UK and US can call gay people 'abominations' or a man can write a column about an out Tory calling him a 'homosexual-pervert' and whilst people can routinely connect being gay with being a paedophile I'd suggest that there simply is no gay agenda or gay mafia to carry it out. What is happening is that gay people are refusing to be picked on anymore. They won't play the victim. That's what upsets Melanie Phillips and her ilk.

I have said elsewhere that the religous coating given to homophobia allows people to preach hatred and claim God's sanction to do so. Homosexuality is a sin, they say, because the Bible says it was. Well the Bible seems to approve of slavery. Jesus constantly forgets to mention gay people in his ministry. It's almost as if God really doesn't hate gay people. You'd think, if he did, it would be mentioned everywhere in the Bible not just in a couple of short passages in the Old Testament in amongst a bizarre collection of demands from God. Where's Jesus' 'Sermon on The Gays'? Blessed are the peacemakers - unless they're gay - for they shall bring peace....Love thy enemy, unless he's gay in which case I'm quite happy for you to preach hatred & murder in my name.

It's nonesense but it is poisonous nonesense and it allows people like Melanie Phillips to make any attempt to portray gay people as normal look like a hideous attempt to undermine Western Civilisation. What Philip's seems to want is for gay people to put up with being victims & stop making a fuss.

Don't rock the boat gay people please. Just go about your gay lives & don't upset the 'normal' people. One day and I hope it comes soon no one will care whether you are gay or straight. No one will say one is normal and one is abnormal. One day...but unfortunately I suspect there will be a lot more Melanie Phillips columns vomiting an agenda of hate onto the streets.

Just For Jazziful

Written by Hilaire Belloc...I can't remember the title of the poem but it is one of the two I know off by heart. The other being 'The Sick Rose' by William Blake.

On the dangers of doing your own DIY.

Lord Finchley tried to mend the Electric Light
Himself. It struck him dead: And serve him right!
It is the business of the wealthy man
To give employment to the artisan.