Barely 3 weeks into the Smug Alliance, and Chief Axe-Wielder David Laws takes us back to the good old days.
David Laws has resigned from the Coalition Cabinet after revelations that he claimed £40,000 of taxpayers’ money to pay rent to his boyfriend. Too late now to say: One Laws For The Rich... he's gone. And him looking such a natural Tory too. I'l say one thing. The Condems are off to a flying start.
So who will the tories use now to take the flak for the cuts in public services?
The idea was that the tories in general could escape the old Nasty Party image, and the leadership outmanoevre its right-wing by using the nice LibDems as a human shield. Step forward self-made millionaire Slim Laws with his lean and hungry look.
But he now goes into the Guiness Book Of Records as the briefest cabinet post ever.
Who's next?
And who will be the first card-carrying tory to drop a clanger? Who has the most outside business deals which could go wrong?
Peter Tatchell rightly accuses Laws of a lack of solidarity, and of benefiting from the struggle of others. But this is missing the point. In spite of the achievements in taking society out of the 'dark ages' of the fifties, a prominent liberal-democrat still felt too intimidated to reveal his sexuality. He felt career aspirations would be compromised by doing so, presumably. The entire story is a sad reflection on the society we still live in, and on the decrepit culture of the Westminster political machine. But it also shows that you don't get to be a millionaire by passing by the odd £40,ooo when it's going begging, even if it is taxpayer's money, the same taxpayers you were about to make even poorer.
5/26/2010
Symbol Of Brown The Terrible Destroyed
2 weeks in, and the new Lovely Cuddly Condems are bulldozing a protest which stood throughout the reign of Gordon The Terrible, and has arrested the dissenter on unspecified charges. Free at Last! Free at Last!
Apparently, people thought it looked terrible in a place that so many overseas visitors come to. They naturally agree we need the right to peaceful protest but the tents and signs were just ridiculous. If they have to be so tiresome, why can't they go and be ugly somewhere just as ugly and leave respectable people to ignore everything as they always do. Protesting against war is just too inconvenient and too untidy to be allowed. And then there are the property values to consider.
The sensitivities of the genteel classes have always been wheeled out to defend suppressions of all kinds, and their willingness to sacrifice freedom for order is a characteristic of their class and the part it played in the nastier parts of C20th history. But today's Marie Antoinettes must be told to get back to their ornamental cows and pastoral idylls and leave real life to the grownups.
As for tourists, they presumably come just to see such free expressions of dissent. Otherwise, there is nothing in Parliament Square but a shabby patch of clods and trampled turf. For eye of toad and adder to watch, as the poet says.
Apparently, people thought it looked terrible in a place that so many overseas visitors come to. They naturally agree we need the right to peaceful protest but the tents and signs were just ridiculous. If they have to be so tiresome, why can't they go and be ugly somewhere just as ugly and leave respectable people to ignore everything as they always do. Protesting against war is just too inconvenient and too untidy to be allowed. And then there are the property values to consider.
The sensitivities of the genteel classes have always been wheeled out to defend suppressions of all kinds, and their willingness to sacrifice freedom for order is a characteristic of their class and the part it played in the nastier parts of C20th history. But today's Marie Antoinettes must be told to get back to their ornamental cows and pastoral idylls and leave real life to the grownups.
As for tourists, they presumably come just to see such free expressions of dissent. Otherwise, there is nothing in Parliament Square but a shabby patch of clods and trampled turf. For eye of toad and adder to watch, as the poet says.
Stephen Fry and the Schmaltz of Gotterdammerung
Stephen Fry on Wagner. BBC4. 25/5/2010
I don't understand Fry's bewilderment at his admiration for the antisemitic Wagner. He believes that his Jewishness must rebel against anything produced by anyone so genuinely racist. If it doesn't, something is wrong, either with him or with the music he loves, or with his Jewishness and his respect for the Holocaust dead.
But it isn't at all surprising that he should be moved by Wagner, however detestable his racial opinions. Wagner's intensely nostalgic nationalism can be expected to appeal to the rootlessness within Jewish culture. The yearning for a divine homeland in a godless time. It is nationalism calling to Zionism, in the nicest possible way.
Fry also misses the point in blaming the nazis for besmirching the memory of Wagner, so that we only see him through the keyhole of the locked fascist door.
Nazism is in a direct line from the romantic nationalistic re-invention of political mythology during the industrial chaos of the C19th. The reinvention of the Holy Roman Empire of Charlemagne, and the entire NeoGothic and pantheistic fantasies which swept the newly industrialised world in response to mass-production and the emergence of a dangerous army of discontented, de-skilled, disobedient workers. And anti-semitism was also a natural product of that process.
Fry would like to warn Wagner that his single putrid essay would compromise his memory forever. The converse might also be true. If he had not conformed to the conventional racism, Wagner might never have acquired the respectability and wealthy patrons he did, and we might never have heard of him at all, much, since his greatest works would never have happened.
It is sadly clear that even Stephen Fry has gaps in his education. He might like to consult Orwell's classic text on enjoying the work of the despicable, 'Politics Vs Literature'.
I don't understand Fry's bewilderment at his admiration for the antisemitic Wagner. He believes that his Jewishness must rebel against anything produced by anyone so genuinely racist. If it doesn't, something is wrong, either with him or with the music he loves, or with his Jewishness and his respect for the Holocaust dead.
But it isn't at all surprising that he should be moved by Wagner, however detestable his racial opinions. Wagner's intensely nostalgic nationalism can be expected to appeal to the rootlessness within Jewish culture. The yearning for a divine homeland in a godless time. It is nationalism calling to Zionism, in the nicest possible way.
Fry also misses the point in blaming the nazis for besmirching the memory of Wagner, so that we only see him through the keyhole of the locked fascist door.
Nazism is in a direct line from the romantic nationalistic re-invention of political mythology during the industrial chaos of the C19th. The reinvention of the Holy Roman Empire of Charlemagne, and the entire NeoGothic and pantheistic fantasies which swept the newly industrialised world in response to mass-production and the emergence of a dangerous army of discontented, de-skilled, disobedient workers. And anti-semitism was also a natural product of that process.
Fry would like to warn Wagner that his single putrid essay would compromise his memory forever. The converse might also be true. If he had not conformed to the conventional racism, Wagner might never have acquired the respectability and wealthy patrons he did, and we might never have heard of him at all, much, since his greatest works would never have happened.
It is sadly clear that even Stephen Fry has gaps in his education. He might like to consult Orwell's classic text on enjoying the work of the despicable, 'Politics Vs Literature'.
5/13/2010
ConDemNation Day 2. Jolly Hockey Sticks.
The trouble for NuLab now is that they are discredited and dis-trousered. Between them ConDem have bought up the electoral stage set, just as NuLab did to the tories all that time ago. Once the liberals are shed in a year or two, the tories only have to employ the right PR company to be in power for ten years, unless Labour can resurrect its ideas and principles. The theory that the party that won this election will never rule again, due to the cuts it will have to enforce, is wild fancy-pants speculation. Most governments are elected by their opponents, not their policies, or even their well-moisturised frontmen.
It really is no good the party whining, from Bigot-Gate it was all over, and even without that monumental stupidity, the best Brown could have hoped for was another day or two in Downing Street.
It really is no good the party whining, from Bigot-Gate it was all over, and even without that monumental stupidity, the best Brown could have hoped for was another day or two in Downing Street.
5/12/2010
ConDemNation
Clamday 1. Mood of the day: Smugg.
Warm bath of columnist approval - Valiant exploits ahead - Deficit Monster Quest - New Age of co-operation and consensus - Dave Disraeli? Why not Good Queen Bess?
- Evil Crookback Gordon well and truly Martson Moor'd - NuLabour delusion dead.
The lesson of NuLabour is that the markets just won't agree to play nice. That if you mess with them, you will eventually wake up one fine morning-after in the bloodstained bed of a dead hooker.
But the ConDems will soon find out that compromise is not co-operation, which the world is crying out for. And Cameron will soon find that his Big Society is co-operating to survive his cuts in public services, and eventually to get him out of Downing Street as soon as possible.
But at the same time, they won't want to replace him with anything resembling NuLabour. Which again leaves room for a genuine alternative to the current poodle-politics. Whether people choose the dark warm burrow of hatred and fascism, or something which celebrates and enables human potential will be largely a matter of presentation. And the message which needs to be delivered is that those who support the BNP are people making a choice according to their lights, not evil mental-defectives. And that they have exactly the same natural needs and enemies as everyone else in their class. That this is not a war among the working classes, but for genuine social justice, with no utopian lies on either side.
Sadly, at present, there are too many so-called socialists who indulge in this kind of Daily Mail language. Who slip into football terrace tribalism whenever the BNP achieve some squalid gain in a windswept Essex estate. The slogan All BNP Supporters are Idiots is as divisive and alienating as the BNP could want. It supports their myth that socialism is just another sneering exploitation of the working classes.
What makes them think that Nye Bevan would have stood on the steps of Dagenham town hall and denounced BNP supporters as being too stupid to have the vote? As being beyond the persuasive power of progressive politics.
To fill the political hole of the future, progressive politicians have to reject completely the language and vocabulary of reaction. Politics are a matter of the words used as much as the policies advanced. It is not possible to advance radical policies with fascist rhetoric. Which doesn't mean simply not insulting natural allies who happen to have found themselves supporting the political enemies of their own class. As we saw with Bigotgate. It means having enough confidence in the ideas to express them clearly and unapologeticaly. This was the failure of NuLabour. The only thing they communicated with their daily drizzle of ungrammatic grunts and mumbles was their political emptiness. They abandoned their principles to get market approval, but had nothing to put in their place.
ConDem have something new and shiny to have faith in. A palpable lie. So they sound convincing. It's just a shame that they have nothing to offer but another compromise with market forces, one even more craven than NuLabour's.
So when the next crash happens, will they be able even to repeat Gordon Brown's goalmouth heroics of autumn 2008? Or even match his part in the negotiations to prevent the collapse of the Euro-Zone? His last act in office, taken when he knew he was an ex-prime minister. Bereft of life, resting in peace.
It is interesting that the period of deepest Brown-Hatred was book-ended by two achievements any politician would be proud of, and which may yet be what he is remembered for.
Cameron and Clegg will definitely be remembered for the embraces of today's fragrant opening ceremony. And for their accidental arranged marriage. But unless Clegg is even more of a sycophant to Cameron than Brown was to The City, and prepared to surrender all principles, and work with corpses like David Davis, Duncan-Smith and Michael Howard, the alliance won't have much time to achieve greatness. It's all hearts and flowers today. But when the looting begins, who will take the blame?
Right through the hard winter, and the long election campaign, and right until yesterday lunchtime, my bird-table was a busy little trattoria for dozens of perky little visitors. Today, nothing. The birds have all gone.
Warm bath of columnist approval - Valiant exploits ahead - Deficit Monster Quest - New Age of co-operation and consensus - Dave Disraeli? Why not Good Queen Bess?
- Evil Crookback Gordon well and truly Martson Moor'd - NuLabour delusion dead.
The lesson of NuLabour is that the markets just won't agree to play nice. That if you mess with them, you will eventually wake up one fine morning-after in the bloodstained bed of a dead hooker.
But the ConDems will soon find out that compromise is not co-operation, which the world is crying out for. And Cameron will soon find that his Big Society is co-operating to survive his cuts in public services, and eventually to get him out of Downing Street as soon as possible.
But at the same time, they won't want to replace him with anything resembling NuLabour. Which again leaves room for a genuine alternative to the current poodle-politics. Whether people choose the dark warm burrow of hatred and fascism, or something which celebrates and enables human potential will be largely a matter of presentation. And the message which needs to be delivered is that those who support the BNP are people making a choice according to their lights, not evil mental-defectives. And that they have exactly the same natural needs and enemies as everyone else in their class. That this is not a war among the working classes, but for genuine social justice, with no utopian lies on either side.
Sadly, at present, there are too many so-called socialists who indulge in this kind of Daily Mail language. Who slip into football terrace tribalism whenever the BNP achieve some squalid gain in a windswept Essex estate. The slogan All BNP Supporters are Idiots is as divisive and alienating as the BNP could want. It supports their myth that socialism is just another sneering exploitation of the working classes.
What makes them think that Nye Bevan would have stood on the steps of Dagenham town hall and denounced BNP supporters as being too stupid to have the vote? As being beyond the persuasive power of progressive politics.
To fill the political hole of the future, progressive politicians have to reject completely the language and vocabulary of reaction. Politics are a matter of the words used as much as the policies advanced. It is not possible to advance radical policies with fascist rhetoric. Which doesn't mean simply not insulting natural allies who happen to have found themselves supporting the political enemies of their own class. As we saw with Bigotgate. It means having enough confidence in the ideas to express them clearly and unapologeticaly. This was the failure of NuLabour. The only thing they communicated with their daily drizzle of ungrammatic grunts and mumbles was their political emptiness. They abandoned their principles to get market approval, but had nothing to put in their place.
ConDem have something new and shiny to have faith in. A palpable lie. So they sound convincing. It's just a shame that they have nothing to offer but another compromise with market forces, one even more craven than NuLabour's.
So when the next crash happens, will they be able even to repeat Gordon Brown's goalmouth heroics of autumn 2008? Or even match his part in the negotiations to prevent the collapse of the Euro-Zone? His last act in office, taken when he knew he was an ex-prime minister. Bereft of life, resting in peace.
It is interesting that the period of deepest Brown-Hatred was book-ended by two achievements any politician would be proud of, and which may yet be what he is remembered for.
Cameron and Clegg will definitely be remembered for the embraces of today's fragrant opening ceremony. And for their accidental arranged marriage. But unless Clegg is even more of a sycophant to Cameron than Brown was to The City, and prepared to surrender all principles, and work with corpses like David Davis, Duncan-Smith and Michael Howard, the alliance won't have much time to achieve greatness. It's all hearts and flowers today. But when the looting begins, who will take the blame?
Right through the hard winter, and the long election campaign, and right until yesterday lunchtime, my bird-table was a busy little trattoria for dozens of perky little visitors. Today, nothing. The birds have all gone.
5/10/2010
SUN BUGS CLEGG PHONE
Is one possible twist left in this coiled snake of British history. And would not only destroy the Cameron tilt at fame and fortune, but also put some NewsCorp executives in prison and raise a strom of demand for overseas media magnates to pay their taxes like everyone else.
So let this be a warning to Wapping. We know what you're thinking, but forget it, if there's still time.
So let this be a warning to Wapping. We know what you're thinking, but forget it, if there's still time.
5/08/2010
Britain Votes for Labour Policy
Whatever happens in today's backstairs deals, there will be an election within 18 months, at the latest. Everyone seems agreed on that.
The key issue of this election was whether to Tame the Deficit with cuts now or cuts in a year's time.
The result of this election was that cuts will be postponed for a year. In fact, everyone might just as well have voted Labour.
The key issue of this election was whether to Tame the Deficit with cuts now or cuts in a year's time.
The result of this election was that cuts will be postponed for a year. In fact, everyone might just as well have voted Labour.
5/06/2010
Obama Wins British Election
While Blair was operating at the same time as a democrat president in America, he was on the rails. Northen Ireland. Minimum Wage. Kosovo. Sierra Leone - all that. When the warmongering nutter Bush got in it all went pants.
Now it looks like The Shrimp Cameron will be Prime Minister alongside Obama. Another cross-political Special-Relationship era.
But which works best and for who? Conservative America with Social Democrat Britain, or the other way around, or an ideological consensus, as with Clinton and Blair, and Reagan and Thatcher?
What influence will the next 6 years of an Obama administration have on British politics, whoever ends up in Number 10 tomorrow? And how much does Cameron breath a sigh of relief that he isn't having to deal with John McCain?
Now it looks like The Shrimp Cameron will be Prime Minister alongside Obama. Another cross-political Special-Relationship era.
But which works best and for who? Conservative America with Social Democrat Britain, or the other way around, or an ideological consensus, as with Clinton and Blair, and Reagan and Thatcher?
What influence will the next 6 years of an Obama administration have on British politics, whoever ends up in Number 10 tomorrow? And how much does Cameron breath a sigh of relief that he isn't having to deal with John McCain?
5/05/2010
Too Much Democracy, Says Cameron
In a blatant invitation to Gerrymandering, the tories are planning to cut the number of MP's by at least 50.
They don't explain how MPs will cope with the extra workload, or which section of the electorate will be allocated to which new constituency.
The democratic representation of hundreds of thousands of people, possibly millions, depends on how their consituencies are restructured. It would be a very simple matter for a government to rig the process and create a massive false majority.
It will be interesting to see how this feeding frenzy for votes develops, and which party comes out ahead, and how much it will cost. The backstairs deals and infighting and political resentment should keep the media happy for years.
They don't explain how MPs will cope with the extra workload, or which section of the electorate will be allocated to which new constituency.
The democratic representation of hundreds of thousands of people, possibly millions, depends on how their consituencies are restructured. It would be a very simple matter for a government to rig the process and create a massive false majority.
It will be interesting to see how this feeding frenzy for votes develops, and which party comes out ahead, and how much it will cost. The backstairs deals and infighting and political resentment should keep the media happy for years.
4/29/2010
Racism Is Natural Says Another Nutty Professor
Writing in the Journal Experimental Social Psychology, Dr Michael Inzlicht said he believed people are born with a tendency to group with others on how like themselves they are. He has tested the brains of several people, he says.
Tripe. This research doesn't suggest that racism is in any way genetic or hard-wired or natural or inevitable or in any other sense a practical, necessary aspect of human perception. And anyone spinning it that way is merely indulging in wishful thinking.
It merely records how a brain works now, in response to a series of contemporary stimuli,with all the cultural baggage it carries. And after centuries of systemic racism, the fact that some people's brains have learned racist responses is hardly surprising.
During Apartheid, little children were subjected to sustained aversion therapy to the colour black, and to thick lips and frizzy hair.
It worked fine, as all conditioning does.
If the brains of the adults those children grew up to be were tested in the same way, they would undoubtedly produce the same results.
Tripe. This research doesn't suggest that racism is in any way genetic or hard-wired or natural or inevitable or in any other sense a practical, necessary aspect of human perception. And anyone spinning it that way is merely indulging in wishful thinking.
It merely records how a brain works now, in response to a series of contemporary stimuli,with all the cultural baggage it carries. And after centuries of systemic racism, the fact that some people's brains have learned racist responses is hardly surprising.
During Apartheid, little children were subjected to sustained aversion therapy to the colour black, and to thick lips and frizzy hair.
It worked fine, as all conditioning does.
If the brains of the adults those children grew up to be were tested in the same way, they would undoubtedly produce the same results.
TinTin In The Congo Banned Again
Would the publishers of this sad racist trash be prepared to include a preface briefly outlining the genocidal Belgian exploitation of the Congo for its rubber by King Leopold the Demented?
What's that you say? Too political? No place for such a thing in children's literature? Kids should be protected from these unpalatable truths?
But I thought that was good for them...
The fact is that kids do get their preconceptions from fiction, far more so than from the newspapers or Newsnight.. Many have grown up to kill and be killed in Afghanistan as a result.
What's that you say? Too political? No place for such a thing in children's literature? Kids should be protected from these unpalatable truths?
But I thought that was good for them...
The fact is that kids do get their preconceptions from fiction, far more so than from the newspapers or Newsnight.. Many have grown up to kill and be killed in Afghanistan as a result.
Botox Politics
BIGOT-GATE
The most disappointing aspect of all was probably the fact that the Guardian, of all outlets, chose to run the apparently damning image of Brown with his head in his hand, listening to the playback on the Jeremy Vine show for the BBC.
Anyone who actually watched and listened to the footage from which this was decontextualised will know that in fact, Brown leant forward before the tape started playing. He was adopting a fairly standard position many people use when concentrating on anything, and one which seems characteristic of him. He was not collapsed in despair at his gaff as he hadn't yet heard it.
In fact, I seem to remember similar frozen footage from earlier in the campaign, and that was also briefly spun against him.
Appearance is now much more important than reality. Every single frame from a video can now be used at print resolution, which increases the ability to lie by a factor of 125 frames per second. Which means that no politician will be able to be a normal human being again. Every second of footage will be scrutinised for the killer moneyshot of him gurning, sneering, squinting or drooling. If we wanted a generation of Botox politics, that's what we've got.
The most disappointing aspect of all was probably the fact that the Guardian, of all outlets, chose to run the apparently damning image of Brown with his head in his hand, listening to the playback on the Jeremy Vine show for the BBC.
Anyone who actually watched and listened to the footage from which this was decontextualised will know that in fact, Brown leant forward before the tape started playing. He was adopting a fairly standard position many people use when concentrating on anything, and one which seems characteristic of him. He was not collapsed in despair at his gaff as he hadn't yet heard it.
In fact, I seem to remember similar frozen footage from earlier in the campaign, and that was also briefly spun against him.
Appearance is now much more important than reality. Every single frame from a video can now be used at print resolution, which increases the ability to lie by a factor of 125 frames per second. Which means that no politician will be able to be a normal human being again. Every second of footage will be scrutinised for the killer moneyshot of him gurning, sneering, squinting or drooling. If we wanted a generation of Botox politics, that's what we've got.
4/28/2010
Bye Bye Gordon
You simply can't insult little old ladies and win elections. It doesn't matter if they are bigots, you have to schmooze them til it hurts, and remember to turn your mike off.
So that's the end of that chapter. It means a Cameron government of some sort, and a hung parliament is a lot less likely now.
The only interesting question left is who makes the most from this? Clegg or Cameron?
How exactly will the tory and libdem party machines cash in on Brown's disaster?
The overriding lesson to all members of double acts is, don't try the solo career. It never works. It means the boarding house in Rhyl for you. And as for the straight stage - only if you want to play a tragic clown to patronising reviews. And that this massive flop should happen in Rochdale, as in the Rochdale Pioneers, the Godfathers of the English co-operative movement, is surely some sort of revenge by the gods of socialism at Brown's heresies. His presence there was a little like flaunting the Golden Calf at the foot of Mt Sinai.
As far as tomorrow night's planned appearance in Leaders Got Talent, he might as well turn up drunk and punch out cameron's lights on national TV. That would get him more votes than anything else which might happen. And would be much more fun for everyone, except toryboy, of course.
But he'll have a new trainset to play with in a couple of weeks.
We will all have to be very understanding about the massive tax hikes he is forced to introduce by the back door, as Thatcher and Major both did as soon as they took office. After all. We're all in this together, y'know. Rich and Poor in patriotic union. Dunkirk Spirit and all that.
Sun headline tomorrow?
GOTCHA!
So that's the end of that chapter. It means a Cameron government of some sort, and a hung parliament is a lot less likely now.
The only interesting question left is who makes the most from this? Clegg or Cameron?
How exactly will the tory and libdem party machines cash in on Brown's disaster?
The overriding lesson to all members of double acts is, don't try the solo career. It never works. It means the boarding house in Rhyl for you. And as for the straight stage - only if you want to play a tragic clown to patronising reviews. And that this massive flop should happen in Rochdale, as in the Rochdale Pioneers, the Godfathers of the English co-operative movement, is surely some sort of revenge by the gods of socialism at Brown's heresies. His presence there was a little like flaunting the Golden Calf at the foot of Mt Sinai.
As far as tomorrow night's planned appearance in Leaders Got Talent, he might as well turn up drunk and punch out cameron's lights on national TV. That would get him more votes than anything else which might happen. And would be much more fun for everyone, except toryboy, of course.
But he'll have a new trainset to play with in a couple of weeks.
We will all have to be very understanding about the massive tax hikes he is forced to introduce by the back door, as Thatcher and Major both did as soon as they took office. After all. We're all in this together, y'know. Rich and Poor in patriotic union. Dunkirk Spirit and all that.
Sun headline tomorrow?
GOTCHA!
4/23/2010
The Triangle of Talent. Round 2
Last night was Spudface Cameron's best chance to tickle all the core tory nerve centres. The war, immigration, europe... And he blew it. He still has all the charisma of a John McCain who's had an accident in his pants.
Brown was obviously on Garland-strength doses of benzedrine, until he met Gracie, when he slowed down to carehome speed.
And Clegg didn't implode, and even consolidated LibDem occupation of the soft-left vote, shielding Labour from any of the traditional bogeyman attacks.
This idiotic Talentshow, however superficial and bogus, has at least bypassed 50 years of newspaper-manipulated democracy. But from now on, any political party hoping to get elected will have to choose the sort of leader who will perform best in the triangular TV bearpit.
That is the real legacy of this experiment, not the rise of the LibDems as a credible political force.
Brown was obviously on Garland-strength doses of benzedrine, until he met Gracie, when he slowed down to carehome speed.
And Clegg didn't implode, and even consolidated LibDem occupation of the soft-left vote, shielding Labour from any of the traditional bogeyman attacks.
This idiotic Talentshow, however superficial and bogus, has at least bypassed 50 years of newspaper-manipulated democracy. But from now on, any political party hoping to get elected will have to choose the sort of leader who will perform best in the triangular TV bearpit.
That is the real legacy of this experiment, not the rise of the LibDems as a credible political force.
Humiliated and Embarrassed
For decades The Sun has paid its rent by demonising the unemployed. Whenever it feels the need, it labels them as layabouts, scroungers, and generally does what it can to ensure that anyone not in work feels humiliated and embarrassed by their misfortune.
So it is hardly surprising that someone raised in that culture, and unable to find work, should feel like a worthless loser. Especially if they were a sensitive, intelligent young person who had worked hard at school, and who expected some return for that effort and commitment.
And today the Sun splashes that one young woman felt humiliated and embarrassed enough to kill herself. On the day after official figures report a rise in unemployment, which naturally makes the government look bad - in the middle of an election campaign which has seen the shine taken off the Sun's candidate.
So what looks like an expression of sympathy for a bereaved family is in fact nothing more than a cynical exploitation of her tragedy for political ends. 'Brainy girl' Vicky Harrison will not have died in vain if she can help get David Cameron elected. What parent could wish for a fitter memorial for their child?
It would be an interesting exercise to wade through the Sun's archive to find a similar report on one of the many suicides caused directly by Margaret Thatcher's sabotage of the mining industry. Or even among the 3 million dumped on the dole by her mad Utopian experiment. And especially today, it would be very interesting to have access to the Wapping darkroom store for images of the police thugs who killed Blair Peach.
Every government deserves a kicking for rises in unemployment. But the unemployed do not deserve to be made to feel like scum and blamed for economic forces beyond their control. This does not make them Get On Their Bikes, but it definitely drives some of them to kill themselves.
But this suits the Sun perfectly. It humiliates and embarrasses the unemployed and stigmatises unemployment itself as a personal failing. The Sun demonises the unemployed and benefits from every unemployed person it drives to suicide , just as it benefits from every gullible recruit to the army it kills by glorifying war.
It makes money from generating contempt, then is rewarded by the resulting tragic stories. And if those accounts can be used to further Rupert Murdoch's political ambitions, so much the better.
So it is hardly surprising that someone raised in that culture, and unable to find work, should feel like a worthless loser. Especially if they were a sensitive, intelligent young person who had worked hard at school, and who expected some return for that effort and commitment.
And today the Sun splashes that one young woman felt humiliated and embarrassed enough to kill herself. On the day after official figures report a rise in unemployment, which naturally makes the government look bad - in the middle of an election campaign which has seen the shine taken off the Sun's candidate.
So what looks like an expression of sympathy for a bereaved family is in fact nothing more than a cynical exploitation of her tragedy for political ends. 'Brainy girl' Vicky Harrison will not have died in vain if she can help get David Cameron elected. What parent could wish for a fitter memorial for their child?
It would be an interesting exercise to wade through the Sun's archive to find a similar report on one of the many suicides caused directly by Margaret Thatcher's sabotage of the mining industry. Or even among the 3 million dumped on the dole by her mad Utopian experiment. And especially today, it would be very interesting to have access to the Wapping darkroom store for images of the police thugs who killed Blair Peach.
Every government deserves a kicking for rises in unemployment. But the unemployed do not deserve to be made to feel like scum and blamed for economic forces beyond their control. This does not make them Get On Their Bikes, but it definitely drives some of them to kill themselves.
But this suits the Sun perfectly. It humiliates and embarrasses the unemployed and stigmatises unemployment itself as a personal failing. The Sun demonises the unemployed and benefits from every unemployed person it drives to suicide , just as it benefits from every gullible recruit to the army it kills by glorifying war.
It makes money from generating contempt, then is rewarded by the resulting tragic stories. And if those accounts can be used to further Rupert Murdoch's political ambitions, so much the better.
4/22/2010
NAZI CLEGG THIEF SWINDLER SHOCK TRICK SMEAR
The Telegraph jumped the gun a bit with this lame piece of muckraking. Not only is it completely harmless, but also exquisitely badly timed. Now Cameron looks like the pampered poodle of press bullyboys. Which is of course true.
All Clegg has to do is turn casually to Spudface, flicking a speck of dust from his immaculate cuffs, and ask:
As for the Mail conflating CLEGG and NAZI all over their front page, that is hardly surprising. In the dark columns patrolled by its hitmen, Clarkson and Littlejohn, almost everybody, including cyclists, vegetarians and council workers are routinely referred to as NAZIS. And now almost everyone loves Click. And if he's a nazi and they are nazis, someone is either lying about them and Clegg, or lying about the nazis. The trick was bound to backfire sometime, and this is probably it. It has confirmed everything Click has been saying about both tories and Labour, but Labour can sit in the shade again and let Cameron take the heat.
You have to say, well played Peter Mandelson. Hot favourite for the Bernard Ingham Spindoctor of The Year Award at this years' press bash.
Cleggmania aside, last week's show was dominated by Cameron's Deflation. He looked like a fretful Maris Piper most of the time. Like Wayne Rooney's bank-clerk older brother when opening his winter gasbill.. And by failing miserably to outperform the Ultra-Lite Clegg, he showed his true worth.
The fact that Click Negg beat Spudface in the beauty contest means that Brown won on the night. If Cameron was the tories' Great White Hope, he wouldn't have been outsmarted by the no-hoper. Gathered around their screen in the Carlton Club, tory grandees must have been crying in their Asti Spumante.
Tonight, the leader who manages to properly pronounce Eyjafjallajökull first will see his digital approval worm will hit the roof. And if Click gives it its new name - E15 - the Cleggometer will blow a fuse. Mt Stratford would be even better.
If the election is decided by this farce, there will be demands for proportional representation to replace the current system.
It won't make any difference. All we need is a fixed term, and a total ban on any electioneering during the month before the poll. In fact, all politicians should be locked into the Palace of Westminster, and the election fought purely on the basis of the real experience of the electorate during the term of office. That would make us pay attention a bit more. And not just for a week or two every four years.
The first 'debate' saw Clegg clouding the political sky, grounding Cameron Air, but leaving Gordon Brown sipping Pina Coladas on his Barbados holiday beach for an extra week.
What kind of freak political devastation we can expect out of tonight's Sky is still unclear. Something to do with helicopters, presumably.
All Clegg has to do is turn casually to Spudface, flicking a speck of dust from his immaculate cuffs, and ask:
'Is this the best your bosses can do to get you elected?'By launching this pathetic dirty Nick trick in a blatant attempt to scupper tonights debate, the Telegraph has panicked like Corporal Jones, and fired its musket long before it could see the whites of their eyes.
As for the Mail conflating CLEGG and NAZI all over their front page, that is hardly surprising. In the dark columns patrolled by its hitmen, Clarkson and Littlejohn, almost everybody, including cyclists, vegetarians and council workers are routinely referred to as NAZIS. And now almost everyone loves Click. And if he's a nazi and they are nazis, someone is either lying about them and Clegg, or lying about the nazis. The trick was bound to backfire sometime, and this is probably it. It has confirmed everything Click has been saying about both tories and Labour, but Labour can sit in the shade again and let Cameron take the heat.
You have to say, well played Peter Mandelson. Hot favourite for the Bernard Ingham Spindoctor of The Year Award at this years' press bash.
Cleggmania aside, last week's show was dominated by Cameron's Deflation. He looked like a fretful Maris Piper most of the time. Like Wayne Rooney's bank-clerk older brother when opening his winter gasbill.. And by failing miserably to outperform the Ultra-Lite Clegg, he showed his true worth.
The fact that Click Negg beat Spudface in the beauty contest means that Brown won on the night. If Cameron was the tories' Great White Hope, he wouldn't have been outsmarted by the no-hoper. Gathered around their screen in the Carlton Club, tory grandees must have been crying in their Asti Spumante.
Tonight, the leader who manages to properly pronounce Eyjafjallajökull first will see his digital approval worm will hit the roof. And if Click gives it its new name - E15 - the Cleggometer will blow a fuse. Mt Stratford would be even better.
If the election is decided by this farce, there will be demands for proportional representation to replace the current system.
It won't make any difference. All we need is a fixed term, and a total ban on any electioneering during the month before the poll. In fact, all politicians should be locked into the Palace of Westminster, and the election fought purely on the basis of the real experience of the electorate during the term of office. That would make us pay attention a bit more. And not just for a week or two every four years.
The first 'debate' saw Clegg clouding the political sky, grounding Cameron Air, but leaving Gordon Brown sipping Pina Coladas on his Barbados holiday beach for an extra week.
What kind of freak political devastation we can expect out of tonight's Sky is still unclear. Something to do with helicopters, presumably.
4/21/2010
Pope Adolf on Ashmageddon
While we're blaming people, where was His Holiness during the current Armageddon?
Preparing?
You'd have thought that this would have been a golden opportunity to show a bit of something. To show what religion and all that is meant to be good at.
Maybe he was pre-occupied or something. Maybe He's learned that Silence is Golden. That feudal superstition should keep itself to itself and not try to set up global corporations designed to make money and force people to live their lives in imitation of the C13th.
Meanwhile, thousands - if not millions - can breathe a sigh of relief. Eyjafjallajökull has been renamed E15.
Preparing?
You'd have thought that this would have been a golden opportunity to show a bit of something. To show what religion and all that is meant to be good at.
Maybe he was pre-occupied or something. Maybe He's learned that Silence is Golden. That feudal superstition should keep itself to itself and not try to set up global corporations designed to make money and force people to live their lives in imitation of the C13th.
Meanwhile, thousands - if not millions - can breathe a sigh of relief. Eyjafjallajökull has been renamed E15.
4/20/2010
How Will the Ash Cloud of Death Effect the Election?
How will the Ash Cloud of Death Effect the Election? Because it will.
What could the killer volcano question be on Thursday night's debate?
'Can you name the volcano?' That would be a start for Foreign Affairs Nite.
The first to competently pronounce Eyjafjallajökull will gain enormous respect. I suppose they're all practising in front of mirrors now, otherwise the massed Simon Cowells beyond the cameras will shake their heads in tired old-pro resignation, and call:
'Next!'
It might be tempting for the deflated Spudface Cameron to appeal to the Old Duffer vote, who have been ranting online in the last few days about how the country has no guts, and how it's all a sinister conspiracy by the Elf'n'Safety Brigade of the Nanny State.
In the good old days when men were men they'd have just fixed a pair of stout military tights (W.A.A.Fs for the use of) over the engine intakes and barrelled that kite over the White Cliffs of Dover like a partridge in season.
Dammit, all of civilisation runs on someone's blood. Without 1,000s of road deaths a year, there would be no supermarkets, and riots in the streets. And the Nanny State worries about a few hundred possible deaths in the air. This isn't the spirit which beat the Frogs at Waterloo or the krauts on the beaches of Normandy.
etc etc etc.
The professional hacks have moved in on the game, spewing out doublethink by the yard, all amounting to the samne thing. It's the Millenium Bug all over again!
A load of namby-pamby stuff and nonsense. In their day they would have donned their goggles and white scarves and ploughed intrepidly through the bit of dust, while others quivered like white mice in their shadow. Mercenary Onanism of the highest order.
Rightist Nutter extraordinaire Alain de Botton has naturally joined in:
Gimme a break please. Romancifiers like Botton never miss a chance to stuff their version of the past down the throat of the present.
If he were to seriously apply his imagination more to a future without Consumerist Free Market Worship, then he would be doing his job as a philosopher. But as a devotee of the free market, this would make his head explode. Just as it did to those who always condemned powered flight as blasphemous. Botton would have been one of the loudest crying: 'If God had meant us to fly he would have given us wings.'
Ultimately, what he might as well say is 'imagine a world without the vote, where sage old men who had proved themselves in battle, took all the major decisions on behalf of everyone, who were then 'liberated' to enjoy their lives.' Ultimately, like Rabid Littlejohn yesterday, he can go Eyjafjallajökull himself.
Brown, of course, just has to play a straight hand, and he's almost home to a famous draw.
Meanwhile, the conspiracies run to fantasy. The eruption is Iceland's Revenge for losing the credit war. The Icelandic PM on Newsnight was like having a visit from The Boys.
So will that be the tactics of the Browneron on thursday? Blame it on the boy. They could do worse. It won't be the worst joke we hear all campaign, it's just a matter of who gets in first.
Watch this space.
What could the killer volcano question be on Thursday night's debate?
'Can you name the volcano?' That would be a start for Foreign Affairs Nite.
The first to competently pronounce Eyjafjallajökull will gain enormous respect. I suppose they're all practising in front of mirrors now, otherwise the massed Simon Cowells beyond the cameras will shake their heads in tired old-pro resignation, and call:
'Next!'
It might be tempting for the deflated Spudface Cameron to appeal to the Old Duffer vote, who have been ranting online in the last few days about how the country has no guts, and how it's all a sinister conspiracy by the Elf'n'Safety Brigade of the Nanny State.
In the good old days when men were men they'd have just fixed a pair of stout military tights (W.A.A.Fs for the use of) over the engine intakes and barrelled that kite over the White Cliffs of Dover like a partridge in season.
Dammit, all of civilisation runs on someone's blood. Without 1,000s of road deaths a year, there would be no supermarkets, and riots in the streets. And the Nanny State worries about a few hundred possible deaths in the air. This isn't the spirit which beat the Frogs at Waterloo or the krauts on the beaches of Normandy.
etc etc etc.
The professional hacks have moved in on the game, spewing out doublethink by the yard, all amounting to the samne thing. It's the Millenium Bug all over again!
A load of namby-pamby stuff and nonsense. In their day they would have donned their goggles and white scarves and ploughed intrepidly through the bit of dust, while others quivered like white mice in their shadow. Mercenary Onanism of the highest order.
Rightist Nutter extraordinaire Alain de Botton has naturally joined in:
"In a future world without aeroplanes, children would gather at the feet of old men and hear tales of strange flying machines..."and hear tales of Noggin the Nog, and his heroic deeds in the land of the far north.
Gimme a break please. Romancifiers like Botton never miss a chance to stuff their version of the past down the throat of the present.
If he were to seriously apply his imagination more to a future without Consumerist Free Market Worship, then he would be doing his job as a philosopher. But as a devotee of the free market, this would make his head explode. Just as it did to those who always condemned powered flight as blasphemous. Botton would have been one of the loudest crying: 'If God had meant us to fly he would have given us wings.'
Ultimately, what he might as well say is 'imagine a world without the vote, where sage old men who had proved themselves in battle, took all the major decisions on behalf of everyone, who were then 'liberated' to enjoy their lives.' Ultimately, like Rabid Littlejohn yesterday, he can go Eyjafjallajökull himself.
Brown, of course, just has to play a straight hand, and he's almost home to a famous draw.
Meanwhile, the conspiracies run to fantasy. The eruption is Iceland's Revenge for losing the credit war. The Icelandic PM on Newsnight was like having a visit from The Boys.
"Now about our little arrangement over the banks. You have a very nice civil flight industry. Shame if it were to get all clogged up and grounded. Clogged up with - ooThey've never got over losing (or winning) the Cod War. Either way, they want to make us pay for making them pay back what they owe your local council, and the rest of us are left praying to Woden or Odin or Wotan to not plunge us back into recession. I blame that Click Negg. Until he opened his mouth everything was fine. The gods were offended by his overturning the political applecart.
Now can you think of anywhere that might cause that kind of trouble?... If you can, let us know and we'll do our best to see that any problems go away. If you're reasonable about our credit arrangement...." I dunno - some kind of ASH. Maybe even VOLCANIC ash, blown thousands of feet into the air by some huge natural force.
So will that be the tactics of the Browneron on thursday? Blame it on the boy. They could do worse. It won't be the worst joke we hear all campaign, it's just a matter of who gets in first.
Watch this space.
3/27/2010
Pontiff-igate - Pope Adolf In The Bunker
Given a doctrine which demonises natural sexuality as much as the Catholicism does, and which makes eternal damnation the price of involuntary normal, natural sexual feelings, and it is inevitable that custodians of its children will feel duty bound to purify the child of such feelings for as much as their souls are seen to be worth. And since the custodians will also be victims of the same psychological torture, it is also inevitable that there will be a large number of qualified paedophiles installed deeply within the instution, and that the institution should be a magnet for such emotional cripples. Add in the fact that until its first communion, the child is an inferior species, and you have a lethal combination. One that, since it is all in the child's best Eternal interest, is worth any amount of lies and worldy pain to preserve.
The systemic problem reducing the Catholic superstition to ruins is not about the celibacy of priests, that is an easy and silly excuse. Men without sex are not monsters waiting to explode. The deeper cause is the doctrinal phobia of sexuality inflicted on generations of catholics. This self-disgust is what makes it possible for a priest to believe that a child requires torture in order to expel the demons which are causing the sexual attraction he feels. In his mind, the priest is battling the Devil himself, not torturing a child.
The systemic Irish abuse is not an aberration from the practice of organised religion, but a core element of it. And since, to a child, almost anything an adult does is moral and acceptable, even if unpleasant, it is not difficult to keep the vicious cycle of abuse spinning.
Sexual reactions are involuntary. You cannot control what you find attractive. So to be stimulated by inflicting pain on those too young to understand or consent is not a sexual reflex, but a cross-wiring, which (as in pornography) becomes a demand for power.
This is pathological, and socially intolerable. But the paedophile still persists in spite of social pressure. Not because this is their only way of achieving gratification, but because it is their only identity. Which is a severe disability. Guilt feeding obsessive behaviour in a vicious cycle. How many more definitions of sickness do the popular hate-press need?
Being subject to reflexes which deliver a reward for inflicting pain instead of the natural instinct which is to nurture and protect the vulnerable is sociopathic and diseased. The fact that the diseased mind knows it is despised is incedental, but significant. And even contributory.
Everyone accepts that it is a natural instinct to protect and defend children, I hope. That those who seek to harm them are the opposite, and that in this case, their sexual reflexes have become entangled with their need to harm. It doesn't take a vote to decide when someones neurology is damaged. The evidence is all too clear. And not much will improve until paedophilia is researched dispassionately, without the howlings of the tabloids for vengeance.
The word 'Evil' has been thrown around a lot lately. Only the problem is not real 'Evil', because there is no such thing, but our sloppy dependence on the word itself. We don't need a medieval concept to explain child abuse. It is perfectly explicable through real evidence. No need for metaphysical malevolent intervention. Whatever else it is, the Catholic Church is not the Whore of Babylon. Whatever that is, Dr Paisley. By pandering to medieval models of thought, we are perpetuating the catholic world-view which makes possible both child abuse, and the reduction of women to beasts of burden.
Should the tax-relieved Catholic Church be allowed to traumatise children with threats of eternal torture if they express their sexuality in a natural, healthy way?
If religions want independence, then they should be allowed it, and the relieve the burden on the taxpayer in the process. If the teaching of all religion were made illegal before the age of ten, most organised superstitions would shrivel back to an appropriate size, limping along on the bounty of a few rich eccentrics and the desperate scrapings of the gullible, ill, and old. But at least they would be sincere congregations, and only able to damage their own.
The printing press meant that the delegated authority of the Catholic Church gave way to a personal interpretation and relationship with the godhead, and Protestantism (and the Enlightenment) was born. Today's explosion of personal communications can hardly be expected to defy this precedent.
And now it is entirely likely that the credibility of the Vatican has been fatally undermined. But the blame must not be allowed to rest with the 'rotten apples', or the slipshod selection procedures or even the full blooded corruption.
Child abuse in Catholicism begins in its doctrine that sexual feelings are the Devil at work, and must be bludgeoned out of existence, and any evidence of them mortified without delay. That's 'deadened' in my book. A doctrine of death and desensitisation and perversion. Fine for the Middle Ages, possibly, ludicrous and obscene now. Also, sexual instincts have to be perverted from the norm, or the child will go to Hell for playing with themselves. The historic effects of such insanity can only be guessed at.
The trouble with laws against torture and child abuse is not just that they discriminate against the torturers and child abusers. They also challenge the authority of the church, and its important Friend. So they must be discriminatory against Catholic priests and their beliefs, and therefore a denial of the freedom of worship, and therefore 'hypocritical'. Easy to appreciate if you're a sulky teenager. Not very becoming in a semi-divine 'ex'-Nazi leader of one of the world's leading superstitions.
What next? The Vatican demands its God-given right to burn heretic protestants at the stake? Why not? That was unshakeable orthodoxy once too.
The wider shame is that this country hates children as sytemically as the Catholic Church. It is institutionally paedophobic. How can it be anything else? It has destroyed play by building roads and sub-standard profiteering housing on anywhere children used to play.
The bloodtop media has terrified parents into believing that if they allow their children out of their sight they will never see them again, in spite of the figures, which show that such crimes are falling, as are the figures for child murder in general.
And so we now have more than one generation of adults who have grown up deprived of normal learning and socialisation, and seem doomed to repeat the same suppression with their children.
As if that were not bad enough, we also now see children as a status symbol. A commodity, with all the formal expectations of any other expensive product. And when they do not conform to these stereotypes or model specifications, we are outraged. And demonise them as hoodies, ferals, chavs, and other hate-words.
The nett effect is to dehumanise children, cripple the adults they become, create and intensify another layer of alienation in society (make even more people hate and fear each other) and help to create the ideal Consumerist society in which nobody talks to anyone except via some profitable media, and people become so deraged that only possessing sparkly objects can give their lives any purpose.
It isn't only the best minds of the C13th which have to change. Modern consumerism has to end its ritual abuse of children too.
The systemic problem reducing the Catholic superstition to ruins is not about the celibacy of priests, that is an easy and silly excuse. Men without sex are not monsters waiting to explode. The deeper cause is the doctrinal phobia of sexuality inflicted on generations of catholics. This self-disgust is what makes it possible for a priest to believe that a child requires torture in order to expel the demons which are causing the sexual attraction he feels. In his mind, the priest is battling the Devil himself, not torturing a child.
GIVE ME THE CHILD, AND I WILL MAKE IT SUFFER
Any doctrine which requires lifelong irrational commitment in the face of massive evidence to the contrary (like most organised religions) is going to naturally target children for indoctrination as early as possible. It is their only means of survival. In practice this means scaring the bejasus out of them. Terrifying children into obedience and even 'Love' with threats of infinite torture. This is a form of psychological abuse worthy of Orwell's Room 101, and a permanent distortion of one of the core social concepts we know - Love. In this construction, 'Love' can be demanded with threats. No wonder history is as blood-stained as it is.The systemic Irish abuse is not an aberration from the practice of organised religion, but a core element of it. And since, to a child, almost anything an adult does is moral and acceptable, even if unpleasant, it is not difficult to keep the vicious cycle of abuse spinning.
DON'T WORRY. THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT!
It is deeply diseased to derive involuntary sexual pleasure from torturing the vulnerable. It is, as the tabloids keep saying, SICK. Sickness is not healthy. But in spite of routinely labelling child abusers as sick, they refuse to accept that they are ill. Which is an abuse of the language worthy of Orwell's Room 101. To accept it as a disease would rob the media of the possibility of punishment, and of a topic for another profitable Two Minutes Hate. Which is pretty sick in itself.Sexual reactions are involuntary. You cannot control what you find attractive. So to be stimulated by inflicting pain on those too young to understand or consent is not a sexual reflex, but a cross-wiring, which (as in pornography) becomes a demand for power.
This is pathological, and socially intolerable. But the paedophile still persists in spite of social pressure. Not because this is their only way of achieving gratification, but because it is their only identity. Which is a severe disability. Guilt feeding obsessive behaviour in a vicious cycle. How many more definitions of sickness do the popular hate-press need?
Being subject to reflexes which deliver a reward for inflicting pain instead of the natural instinct which is to nurture and protect the vulnerable is sociopathic and diseased. The fact that the diseased mind knows it is despised is incedental, but significant. And even contributory.
Everyone accepts that it is a natural instinct to protect and defend children, I hope. That those who seek to harm them are the opposite, and that in this case, their sexual reflexes have become entangled with their need to harm. It doesn't take a vote to decide when someones neurology is damaged. The evidence is all too clear. And not much will improve until paedophilia is researched dispassionately, without the howlings of the tabloids for vengeance.
The word 'Evil' has been thrown around a lot lately. Only the problem is not real 'Evil', because there is no such thing, but our sloppy dependence on the word itself. We don't need a medieval concept to explain child abuse. It is perfectly explicable through real evidence. No need for metaphysical malevolent intervention. Whatever else it is, the Catholic Church is not the Whore of Babylon. Whatever that is, Dr Paisley. By pandering to medieval models of thought, we are perpetuating the catholic world-view which makes possible both child abuse, and the reduction of women to beasts of burden.
CATHOLIC SHARIA LAW
On the general point: Should any state-subsidised organisation be allowed to undermine the democratically determined ethics and laws of the society which feeds them?Should the tax-relieved Catholic Church be allowed to traumatise children with threats of eternal torture if they express their sexuality in a natural, healthy way?
If religions want independence, then they should be allowed it, and the relieve the burden on the taxpayer in the process. If the teaching of all religion were made illegal before the age of ten, most organised superstitions would shrivel back to an appropriate size, limping along on the bounty of a few rich eccentrics and the desperate scrapings of the gullible, ill, and old. But at least they would be sincere congregations, and only able to damage their own.
POPE ADOLF SLEEPS WITH THE FISHES
Each technological advance has had deep repercussions on the history of religion.The printing press meant that the delegated authority of the Catholic Church gave way to a personal interpretation and relationship with the godhead, and Protestantism (and the Enlightenment) was born. Today's explosion of personal communications can hardly be expected to defy this precedent.
And now it is entirely likely that the credibility of the Vatican has been fatally undermined. But the blame must not be allowed to rest with the 'rotten apples', or the slipshod selection procedures or even the full blooded corruption.
Child abuse in Catholicism begins in its doctrine that sexual feelings are the Devil at work, and must be bludgeoned out of existence, and any evidence of them mortified without delay. That's 'deadened' in my book. A doctrine of death and desensitisation and perversion. Fine for the Middle Ages, possibly, ludicrous and obscene now. Also, sexual instincts have to be perverted from the norm, or the child will go to Hell for playing with themselves. The historic effects of such insanity can only be guessed at.
IT'S SO UNFAIR!!
The real coverup at work here is the power-struggle between reality and illusion, Between God and Man. The very idea of mere elected governments interfering to protect children from ritual abuse? It's Political Correctness Gone Mad!The trouble with laws against torture and child abuse is not just that they discriminate against the torturers and child abusers. They also challenge the authority of the church, and its important Friend. So they must be discriminatory against Catholic priests and their beliefs, and therefore a denial of the freedom of worship, and therefore 'hypocritical'. Easy to appreciate if you're a sulky teenager. Not very becoming in a semi-divine 'ex'-Nazi leader of one of the world's leading superstitions.
What next? The Vatican demands its God-given right to burn heretic protestants at the stake? Why not? That was unshakeable orthodoxy once too.
CASTING THE LAST STONE
Now that Catholicism's 1500 year Reich appears to have collapsed, like the Walls of Jericho at the blast of the Information Era, where does that leave Islam? Which is hardly any less sexually repressive than Catholicism. The British taxpayer is due to pay for the pope's visit to London in September. The British taxpayer is not known for its Christian tolerance of paedophiles. Their red-eyed wrath can even spill over on to innocent paediatricians, just to make sure. So in practical terms, Rome has until September to do something meaningful. If it doesn't, the spectacle of mass anti-papal demonstrations in London could be as historic as the footage of the demolition of the Berlin Wall.The wider shame is that this country hates children as sytemically as the Catholic Church. It is institutionally paedophobic. How can it be anything else? It has destroyed play by building roads and sub-standard profiteering housing on anywhere children used to play.
The bloodtop media has terrified parents into believing that if they allow their children out of their sight they will never see them again, in spite of the figures, which show that such crimes are falling, as are the figures for child murder in general.
And so we now have more than one generation of adults who have grown up deprived of normal learning and socialisation, and seem doomed to repeat the same suppression with their children.
As if that were not bad enough, we also now see children as a status symbol. A commodity, with all the formal expectations of any other expensive product. And when they do not conform to these stereotypes or model specifications, we are outraged. And demonise them as hoodies, ferals, chavs, and other hate-words.
The nett effect is to dehumanise children, cripple the adults they become, create and intensify another layer of alienation in society (make even more people hate and fear each other) and help to create the ideal Consumerist society in which nobody talks to anyone except via some profitable media, and people become so deraged that only possessing sparkly objects can give their lives any purpose.
It isn't only the best minds of the C13th which have to change. Modern consumerism has to end its ritual abuse of children too.
3/12/2010
Religious Parents Refuse Children Sex Education
November 2009
The only 'choice' for religious maniac parents is between having their 15 year old daughters educated about sex by qualified teachers, or by children a year older than them. Or simply by the practical method, up to and including the highest level - or childbirth, as it's also known.
The argument in favour of preserving sexual ignorance in children is that 'children are not the property of the state', or similar nonsense. Whereas they ARE the 'property' of their parents? Since when? This is typical of the psychotically individualistic attitude of those who to whom consumer 'choice' means 'freedom'. In fact, it is the darkest prison. The fact that they can refer to their children as cattle means they are not qualified to make any choices regarding their welfare.
For primary school children denied professional tutelage because of their parents' paranoia and neuroses, the other source of sex education is, of course, internet porn. This perverted veiw of sex might be even worse than no education at all, especially as far as girls are concerned.
Those who would exclude the state from all influence on education sing a different tune when they are told about a single mother of three claiming benefits and jumping the housing queue. Who's fault is that? Normally The Parents.
Either way, the state has an obligation to take decisions which will benefit the majority. Hordes of sexually-malfunctioning teenagers, spawning unintended dysfunctional state-dependent families onto the taxpayer's bounty is in nobody's interest.
That's why we have an education system in the first place. I'm sure the discombobulated genteel classes think that 'the whole theory of education is radically unsound' but luckily, they also prove that 'in Britain, education has no effect whatever.'
The only 'choice' for religious maniac parents is between having their 15 year old daughters educated about sex by qualified teachers, or by children a year older than them. Or simply by the practical method, up to and including the highest level - or childbirth, as it's also known.
The argument in favour of preserving sexual ignorance in children is that 'children are not the property of the state', or similar nonsense. Whereas they ARE the 'property' of their parents? Since when? This is typical of the psychotically individualistic attitude of those who to whom consumer 'choice' means 'freedom'. In fact, it is the darkest prison. The fact that they can refer to their children as cattle means they are not qualified to make any choices regarding their welfare.
For primary school children denied professional tutelage because of their parents' paranoia and neuroses, the other source of sex education is, of course, internet porn. This perverted veiw of sex might be even worse than no education at all, especially as far as girls are concerned.
Those who would exclude the state from all influence on education sing a different tune when they are told about a single mother of three claiming benefits and jumping the housing queue. Who's fault is that? Normally The Parents.
Either way, the state has an obligation to take decisions which will benefit the majority. Hordes of sexually-malfunctioning teenagers, spawning unintended dysfunctional state-dependent families onto the taxpayer's bounty is in nobody's interest.
That's why we have an education system in the first place. I'm sure the discombobulated genteel classes think that 'the whole theory of education is radically unsound' but luckily, they also prove that 'in Britain, education has no effect whatever.'
2/04/2010
Society Not As Sick Cameron Wants Shock Horror! Social Workers To Blame!
It seems that we are more terrified than we should be. An inconvenient report by the University of Bournemouth, under Prof Colin Pritchard, is very clear.
The number of violent deaths among children in England and Wales has fallen by almost 40% since 1974, research has suggested.
David Cameron, and his raggletaggle band of reactionaries, must be delighted.
Even worse, social workers - of all people - are responsible for a shameless demonstration of the welfare state in action.
'Better monitoring by social workers and improved liaison between health visitors, paediatricians, GPs and police had led to the drop, it said. The US and Germany had the highest violent death rates, the study found.'
But where did this increased fear and loathing of our broken society, with its increasingly bottomless depths of depravity and squalor, come from?
Whoever turns out to be the evil arch-villain responsible, the benefits to some are clear.
If the fear exists that your children will be killed if they set foot out of the house, you will quite naturally keep them under supervision. This clears any traditional open spaces and playgrounds of children, effectively killing the demand for play. At least, for play which cannot be 'monetised' as they say on blogs. This tends to reduce the chances that profitable property developments will be challenged at the planning stages by crank parents and communities which value their children's welfare before the share prices of Barratt and Wimpy.
Keeping children indoors also creates a massive market for consumer goodies to keep them amused and not killing each other. Plus all the supervised activities and recreations with their lucrative added options. For over ten years, society has run on fear. It has been a cash cow, a significant job-creator in this phase of late Consumerism. After all, skipping ropes and skatebords don't need upgrading. And they don't wear out easily. From a business point of view, they're a disaster. As is any play which children invent for themselves out of their imagination and resources available. Because play cannot be weighed and sold by the pound, it is the defacto enemy of industrial consumer society. Just as free air is.
That is the real sickness of society, which Cameron & Cronies are genetically incapable of grasping. But then, he is only following Brown's example. But that is Brown's shame for life, not Cameron's.
The number of violent deaths among children in England and Wales has fallen by almost 40% since 1974, research has suggested.
David Cameron, and his raggletaggle band of reactionaries, must be delighted.
Even worse, social workers - of all people - are responsible for a shameless demonstration of the welfare state in action.
'Better monitoring by social workers and improved liaison between health visitors, paediatricians, GPs and police had led to the drop, it said. The US and Germany had the highest violent death rates, the study found.'
But where did this increased fear and loathing of our broken society, with its increasingly bottomless depths of depravity and squalor, come from?
Whoever turns out to be the evil arch-villain responsible, the benefits to some are clear.
If the fear exists that your children will be killed if they set foot out of the house, you will quite naturally keep them under supervision. This clears any traditional open spaces and playgrounds of children, effectively killing the demand for play. At least, for play which cannot be 'monetised' as they say on blogs. This tends to reduce the chances that profitable property developments will be challenged at the planning stages by crank parents and communities which value their children's welfare before the share prices of Barratt and Wimpy.
Keeping children indoors also creates a massive market for consumer goodies to keep them amused and not killing each other. Plus all the supervised activities and recreations with their lucrative added options. For over ten years, society has run on fear. It has been a cash cow, a significant job-creator in this phase of late Consumerism. After all, skipping ropes and skatebords don't need upgrading. And they don't wear out easily. From a business point of view, they're a disaster. As is any play which children invent for themselves out of their imagination and resources available. Because play cannot be weighed and sold by the pound, it is the defacto enemy of industrial consumer society. Just as free air is.
That is the real sickness of society, which Cameron & Cronies are genetically incapable of grasping. But then, he is only following Brown's example. But that is Brown's shame for life, not Cameron's.
2/02/2010
Pope Adolf Rides Yet Again!
The Vatican demands its God-given right to burn heretic protestants at the stake. Why not? That was also unshakeable orthodoxy once.
The idea of mere elected governments interfering to protect children from ritual abuse? It's Political Correctness Gone Mad!
The trouble with laws against torture and child abuse is that they discriminate against the torturers and child abusers. So they must be discriminatory, and therefore hypocritical.
This kind of logic and morality are easy to appreciate if you're a sulky teenager or degenerate bigot whingeing that nobody is willing to be bullied anymore. Not very becoming in a semi-divine 'ex'-Nazi leader of one of the world's leading Superstitions.
According to Pope benedict XVI, and the current generation of internet liberationists, freedom is the freedom to make someone's life a misery if you want to, or if God tells you to.
It is a truism that all laws which discriminate against child-molesters, thieves, murderers and rapists are discriminatory, and therefore a denial of freedom. And so all attempts to assert the right of the individual to freedom from such abuse are transgressions of the freedoms of the abuser.
And that is against 'natural justice' and the word of God. And so any organisation which advances Human Rights is unmasked as an absurd heretical vanity. And all progress, which is an affront to divine order, is halted in its tracks.
All you need to appreciate that is a lifetime's indoctrination and a degree in Divinity and the mind of a sulky teenager.
The idea of mere elected governments interfering to protect children from ritual abuse? It's Political Correctness Gone Mad!
The trouble with laws against torture and child abuse is that they discriminate against the torturers and child abusers. So they must be discriminatory, and therefore hypocritical.
This kind of logic and morality are easy to appreciate if you're a sulky teenager or degenerate bigot whingeing that nobody is willing to be bullied anymore. Not very becoming in a semi-divine 'ex'-Nazi leader of one of the world's leading Superstitions.
According to Pope benedict XVI, and the current generation of internet liberationists, freedom is the freedom to make someone's life a misery if you want to, or if God tells you to.
It is a truism that all laws which discriminate against child-molesters, thieves, murderers and rapists are discriminatory, and therefore a denial of freedom. And so all attempts to assert the right of the individual to freedom from such abuse are transgressions of the freedoms of the abuser.
And that is against 'natural justice' and the word of God. And so any organisation which advances Human Rights is unmasked as an absurd heretical vanity. And all progress, which is an affront to divine order, is halted in its tracks.
All you need to appreciate that is a lifetime's indoctrination and a degree in Divinity and the mind of a sulky teenager.
1/29/2010
Blair in Chilcot Land
It's a joke. Endless circular arguments and inverted reality. All that incense has obviously liquified any adult intelligence he ever had.
Nice is nicer than nasty, he reveals. And Saddam was nasty. And (get this) nasty people with nasty weapons are nastier than nice people with nice weapons. And 9/11 was the perfect excuse for a war to secure oil prices. 'We had to deal with' Iraq because of 9/11. 'And how were you going to do that?' 'By dealing with it'...
Essentially, Blair took advantage of American panic after 9/11 to look like a Bigshot, end of story.
In a 'connected world' invasions and bombings are fine, he says, on the mere suspicion of attack. So by that logic, Iran had better organise its centrifuges as soon as possible. Then it will be as safe as Israel. And be able to atttack its neighbours with impunity, or even attack the US if it feels it is under threat. The American Way.
The 'connected world' means, in reality, oil prices. Any moral justification is neglible compared with the threat Saddam posed to the cost of energy, which he could control with the turn of a tap. If only Blair would admit that, as Alan Greenspan eventually did, it would be possible to have a shred of respect for him. But wars mustn't be about money, even though they all are.
And so Blair will always be remembered as the murdering liar of Iraq, not the saviour of Kosovo, or the PM whose government introduced the minimum wage and the Freedom of Information Act.
Nice is nicer than nasty, he reveals. And Saddam was nasty. And (get this) nasty people with nasty weapons are nastier than nice people with nice weapons. And 9/11 was the perfect excuse for a war to secure oil prices. 'We had to deal with' Iraq because of 9/11. 'And how were you going to do that?' 'By dealing with it'...
Essentially, Blair took advantage of American panic after 9/11 to look like a Bigshot, end of story.
In a 'connected world' invasions and bombings are fine, he says, on the mere suspicion of attack. So by that logic, Iran had better organise its centrifuges as soon as possible. Then it will be as safe as Israel. And be able to atttack its neighbours with impunity, or even attack the US if it feels it is under threat. The American Way.
The 'connected world' means, in reality, oil prices. Any moral justification is neglible compared with the threat Saddam posed to the cost of energy, which he could control with the turn of a tap. If only Blair would admit that, as Alan Greenspan eventually did, it would be possible to have a shred of respect for him. But wars mustn't be about money, even though they all are.
And so Blair will always be remembered as the murdering liar of Iraq, not the saviour of Kosovo, or the PM whose government introduced the minimum wage and the Freedom of Information Act.
1/27/2010
Stuff Their Rifle Barrels With Gold
At last a glimmer of common sense. But too little and far too late.
Instead of the orginal disastrous invasion, which was lost on the day it was launched, it would have been simpler and quicker and far less bloody to simply have cashed in one or two Tomahawk missiles, minted small denomination gold coins, and parachuted them in family-size portions all over the country.
The creaking economy of the Taliban state would have collapsed overnight, as would any power they had over the peasantry. As would the opium industry. By instantly inflating the middle classes, and giving them instant access to capital, the religious solution to poverty would not have been necessary or attractive any more.
The Al Jazeerah report mentions a paltry billion dollars. When the invasion began, promises were made for a total renovation of Afghanistan. It was to be the ultimate reality makeover show. All lies, of course.
Instead of the orginal disastrous invasion, which was lost on the day it was launched, it would have been simpler and quicker and far less bloody to simply have cashed in one or two Tomahawk missiles, minted small denomination gold coins, and parachuted them in family-size portions all over the country.
The creaking economy of the Taliban state would have collapsed overnight, as would any power they had over the peasantry. As would the opium industry. By instantly inflating the middle classes, and giving them instant access to capital, the religious solution to poverty would not have been necessary or attractive any more.
The Al Jazeerah report mentions a paltry billion dollars. When the invasion began, promises were made for a total renovation of Afghanistan. It was to be the ultimate reality makeover show. All lies, of course.
1/05/2010
Wootton Bassett War-Worship
When the Facebook fascists of Wooton Bassett care as much about the innocent victims as they say they do about their killers, they might be qualified to call themselves British.
Until then, they are just glorifying war and enticing more British teenagers to their deaths. And naturally, for each vainglorious unemployed Brit they kill, several more Afghani women and children will die first. That's war. I wish they would find out a bit more about it before seeking to turn this country into a police state where freedom to demonstrate is totally eliminated, and the crimes of the armed forces are suppressed.
The deaths of Afghani civilians are just as worthy of memorial as those of their killers. And as Wootton Bassett seems to be the place to get maximum publicity, that's where this week's demonstration should happen. The deaths of Afghani civilians are just as worthy of memorial as
those of their killers. And as Wootton Bassett seems to be the place to get maximum publicity, that's where this week's demonstration should happen.
The process of exploiting this war for political purposes (and the tourism helps too, ask the local Rotary Club) was perfected in Wooton Bassett, so for its citizens to whinge about the venue for an anti-war demonstration is rich. In fact it is very revealing. It is an insistence that the death of a British soldier is worth more than the death of an Afghani civilian, which means their lives are held to be worth more too. The lives of the Afghans we are ostensibly fighting for are negligible. We don't even talk about how many die. That is why this demo is essential, and couldn't be held anywhere else, and why talk of disrupting it is symptomatic of the inherent fascism of people who idolise the military and their power of summary death.
The fact that it took an extremist group to bother is no condemnation of them, in fact it is a sad comment on the fact that expressions of common humanity with those we are meant to be fighting for has been crushed by the war-mania of the media and its willing, death-worshipping suckers.
Until then, they are just glorifying war and enticing more British teenagers to their deaths. And naturally, for each vainglorious unemployed Brit they kill, several more Afghani women and children will die first. That's war. I wish they would find out a bit more about it before seeking to turn this country into a police state where freedom to demonstrate is totally eliminated, and the crimes of the armed forces are suppressed.
The deaths of Afghani civilians are just as worthy of memorial as those of their killers. And as Wootton Bassett seems to be the place to get maximum publicity, that's where this week's demonstration should happen. The deaths of Afghani civilians are just as worthy of memorial as
those of their killers. And as Wootton Bassett seems to be the place to get maximum publicity, that's where this week's demonstration should happen.
The process of exploiting this war for political purposes (and the tourism helps too, ask the local Rotary Club) was perfected in Wooton Bassett, so for its citizens to whinge about the venue for an anti-war demonstration is rich. In fact it is very revealing. It is an insistence that the death of a British soldier is worth more than the death of an Afghani civilian, which means their lives are held to be worth more too. The lives of the Afghans we are ostensibly fighting for are negligible. We don't even talk about how many die. That is why this demo is essential, and couldn't be held anywhere else, and why talk of disrupting it is symptomatic of the inherent fascism of people who idolise the military and their power of summary death.
The fact that it took an extremist group to bother is no condemnation of them, in fact it is a sad comment on the fact that expressions of common humanity with those we are meant to be fighting for has been crushed by the war-mania of the media and its willing, death-worshipping suckers.
12/20/2009
A Christmas Carol By Edward de Bono
Act 1.
Scene 1. Antechamber to Scrooge's Office. Bob Cratchet hunched over desk left.
Enter Scrooge's nephew leaving Scrooge's Office right.
Scrooge (concealed inside office)
Bah! Humbug!
Scrooge nephew. (closing door)
Well a merry Christmas anyway Uncle - and a happy New Year!
(turning to Bob)
And how are you Bob? And all the family. How is Tiny Tim?
Bob.
We're hoping he'll see out the winter perhaps God willing but it is so dreadful cold and we are so poor sir.
Scrooge nephew.
Then tell you what Bob, why not bring them all round to our place for Xmas? We're determined to enjoy ourselves with all our nice friends, and we've all got got plenty of money, and you're a nice man, and Tim is very ill, perhaps it would do him good even. What do you say? You and your family can pretend to be nice people for a day.
Bob.
Fine. Sorted.
EXEUNT ARM IN ARM.
CURTAIN.
END.
And Scrooge's nephew was as good as his word. And when it was eventually explained to Old Scrooge that Christmas was, in its pagan origins, naught but a celebration of a positive fourth-quarter projection which augered well for the next fiscal year, his post-Darwinian doubt was justified, and furthermore his Utilitarian pecuniary instincts were reconciled with the prevalent mood of merriment, and his misgivings were mollified.
So much was he intrigued by his revelations that he was among the first to envision the possibilities of the midwinter festival in an age of mass-production, to provide adequate Good Cheer for a growing middle class market. And before long was importing and dispensing all the latest seasonal fashions from Germany and Norway and America, to the delight and joy of all. There was not a glass bauble or recipe book for the turkey fowl which Scrooge & Marley were not interested in. Scrooge himself became particularly partial to turkey breast, cooked with sausage meat and sage stuffing, and the potatoes roasted with a whole onion, which he reserved until his last mouthful.
He did it all, and infinitely more; his efforts were so profound that the entire nature of the celebration became inverted, so that the primitive act of stock-taking became a source of profit in itself. The measure of the midwinter granary floor became a new harvest, almost as large as the real one, and no less essential to the maintenance of the economy. In making us all dependent upon the profligacy and ceremony of the time, Scrooge and his peers can truly be said to have indeed made our time, and all its bounty, charity and peace to all men.
Some people doubted this reversal of cause and effect, but Scrooge let them doubt, and little heeded them; for he was cunning enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for profit, at which some people did not have their fill of doubt in the outset. And took their warnings as a verification of his ways.
Scene 1. Antechamber to Scrooge's Office. Bob Cratchet hunched over desk left.
Enter Scrooge's nephew leaving Scrooge's Office right.
Scrooge (concealed inside office)
Bah! Humbug!
Scrooge nephew. (closing door)
Well a merry Christmas anyway Uncle - and a happy New Year!
(turning to Bob)
And how are you Bob? And all the family. How is Tiny Tim?
Bob.
We're hoping he'll see out the winter perhaps God willing but it is so dreadful cold and we are so poor sir.
Scrooge nephew.
Then tell you what Bob, why not bring them all round to our place for Xmas? We're determined to enjoy ourselves with all our nice friends, and we've all got got plenty of money, and you're a nice man, and Tim is very ill, perhaps it would do him good even. What do you say? You and your family can pretend to be nice people for a day.
Bob.
Fine. Sorted.
EXEUNT ARM IN ARM.
CURTAIN.
END.
And Scrooge's nephew was as good as his word. And when it was eventually explained to Old Scrooge that Christmas was, in its pagan origins, naught but a celebration of a positive fourth-quarter projection which augered well for the next fiscal year, his post-Darwinian doubt was justified, and furthermore his Utilitarian pecuniary instincts were reconciled with the prevalent mood of merriment, and his misgivings were mollified.
So much was he intrigued by his revelations that he was among the first to envision the possibilities of the midwinter festival in an age of mass-production, to provide adequate Good Cheer for a growing middle class market. And before long was importing and dispensing all the latest seasonal fashions from Germany and Norway and America, to the delight and joy of all. There was not a glass bauble or recipe book for the turkey fowl which Scrooge & Marley were not interested in. Scrooge himself became particularly partial to turkey breast, cooked with sausage meat and sage stuffing, and the potatoes roasted with a whole onion, which he reserved until his last mouthful.
He did it all, and infinitely more; his efforts were so profound that the entire nature of the celebration became inverted, so that the primitive act of stock-taking became a source of profit in itself. The measure of the midwinter granary floor became a new harvest, almost as large as the real one, and no less essential to the maintenance of the economy. In making us all dependent upon the profligacy and ceremony of the time, Scrooge and his peers can truly be said to have indeed made our time, and all its bounty, charity and peace to all men.
Some people doubted this reversal of cause and effect, but Scrooge let them doubt, and little heeded them; for he was cunning enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for profit, at which some people did not have their fill of doubt in the outset. And took their warnings as a verification of his ways.
11/22/2009
The Siege of Wapping
It's an old story. An entrenched vested interest is faced with a new technology which threatens its livelihood. It reacts by attempting to contain the advance, which is flowing around it like a river around a shopping trolley. Eventually, innovation always prevails, mainly because it refuses to fight the battle with the same weapons or on the same field. It fights with the weapons it has created. History records who were the losers.
The printers of Wapping in 1984 are definitely now seen as the losers in the technology war with Rupert Murdoch. And he is seen as the visionary liberator, whose victory over the unions ensured a golden future...to some.
It is surely one of the most historically monumental ironies that this same Murdoch is now frantically erecting barricades in defence of his own brand of corporate Spanish Practices. The Murdoch of the Siege of Wapping now under siege again from the same forces of progress he once posed as the champion of.
Peter Preston, in today's Observer, compares him with Lear, railing against the storm. That is to grant him too much grandeur. He is not even Orwell's Tolstoy, disillusioned by the failure of ideology to deliver happiness and therefore resentful of happiness in others.
He is simply a gigantic hypocrite, another corporate gangster able to deny anything and believe his own lies. Anything to make money and protect and enlarge his power.
Luckily, he is almost as insane as Lear on the heath, in that he cannot accept the inevitable, and is in hysterical denial about his emasculation.
Murdoch Vs The Internet can only see one winner. In 1985 Murdoch backed progress because he saw an empire to be built. Naturally he opposes the same progress which now threatensto demolish it, but that does not make him sane, only more desperate. And so the BBC can expect an even greater campaign against it than ever.
The BBC is embracing internet technology, having invented vital parts of it, and is committed to free access. The scrap between News Incorporated and the BBC is where the deciding punches will be thrown in the battle for free content, and from a British point of view, the battle for a keystone of our cultural identity. We should know the general outcome by the beginning of June next year. When a closely fought general election is over.
But in the meantime, the BBC might take a leaf from the Murdoch book, and win.
There is nothing to stop any Laundromat millionaire from setting up as an internet service provider. The BBC should do this as soon as possible and market the service globally. The package would include access to all the BBCs growing archive of comedies, documentaries, drama, wildlife etc... This income would subsidise the loyal British license payers who would have access to the service by right. Eventually, with even moderate global take-up (Flickr charges £15 a year) The British member of the corporation would be paying a peppercorn sum for a service which would meet all their needs. The scope for innovation is vast.
Naturally the boardrooms will squeal in horror and outrage, but all are going to have to face the facts that the age of the ownership of information is over. That the source of their profits and lifestyles has dried up. So the sooner they choose sides the better. The sensible will decide to use the new approach to encourage the democratisation of creativity. To enable as many users as possible to find and be stimulated by material produced by people, not the brands marketed and distributed by the usual showbiz/media conveyor belt.
The diehards will try to sue the BBC, and try to charge the public money to read about the drunken antics of the D-list. It's almost sad.
The printers of Wapping in 1984 are definitely now seen as the losers in the technology war with Rupert Murdoch. And he is seen as the visionary liberator, whose victory over the unions ensured a golden future...to some.
It is surely one of the most historically monumental ironies that this same Murdoch is now frantically erecting barricades in defence of his own brand of corporate Spanish Practices. The Murdoch of the Siege of Wapping now under siege again from the same forces of progress he once posed as the champion of.
Peter Preston, in today's Observer, compares him with Lear, railing against the storm. That is to grant him too much grandeur. He is not even Orwell's Tolstoy, disillusioned by the failure of ideology to deliver happiness and therefore resentful of happiness in others.
He is simply a gigantic hypocrite, another corporate gangster able to deny anything and believe his own lies. Anything to make money and protect and enlarge his power.
Luckily, he is almost as insane as Lear on the heath, in that he cannot accept the inevitable, and is in hysterical denial about his emasculation.
Murdoch Vs The Internet can only see one winner. In 1985 Murdoch backed progress because he saw an empire to be built. Naturally he opposes the same progress which now threatensto demolish it, but that does not make him sane, only more desperate. And so the BBC can expect an even greater campaign against it than ever.
The BBC is embracing internet technology, having invented vital parts of it, and is committed to free access. The scrap between News Incorporated and the BBC is where the deciding punches will be thrown in the battle for free content, and from a British point of view, the battle for a keystone of our cultural identity. We should know the general outcome by the beginning of June next year. When a closely fought general election is over.
But in the meantime, the BBC might take a leaf from the Murdoch book, and win.
There is nothing to stop any Laundromat millionaire from setting up as an internet service provider. The BBC should do this as soon as possible and market the service globally. The package would include access to all the BBCs growing archive of comedies, documentaries, drama, wildlife etc... This income would subsidise the loyal British license payers who would have access to the service by right. Eventually, with even moderate global take-up (Flickr charges £15 a year) The British member of the corporation would be paying a peppercorn sum for a service which would meet all their needs. The scope for innovation is vast.
Naturally the boardrooms will squeal in horror and outrage, but all are going to have to face the facts that the age of the ownership of information is over. That the source of their profits and lifestyles has dried up. So the sooner they choose sides the better. The sensible will decide to use the new approach to encourage the democratisation of creativity. To enable as many users as possible to find and be stimulated by material produced by people, not the brands marketed and distributed by the usual showbiz/media conveyor belt.
The diehards will try to sue the BBC, and try to charge the public money to read about the drunken antics of the D-list. It's almost sad.
11/12/2009
THE SUN SAYS - YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU!
The British army has no conscripts, only volunteers, and the Sun is smart enough to know this. And hypocritical enough to cash in on it. So if the country is under threat from Osama and All His Goats, and the majority are as patriotic as The Sun says, why isn't dying to save it good enough for the children of editors and columnists as well as the children of unemployed ship-builders and miners? In the Red Poppy haze of their patriotic rapture, who will be the first Sun columnist to send their boy off to The Front for Queen and Country?
Why isn't conscription the policy of The Sun? Isn't the glory of this country worth it? After all, history shows that when we fight with volunteers, we generally lose, or never win at least. Which is exactly what AlQaida wants; never-ending war.
As loyal patriots The management and editorial team of The Sun, the Mail and all the other Death-Worshipping rags have no alternative but to call for conscription (1,000,000 young people on the dole!) and urge their sons and daughters in university to do set an example to the lower orders and do their gap year in Helmond.
Unless they want to be seen as the profiteering hypocrites they are, of course. And their sickening abuse of the entire Remembrance industry one of the greatest lies sold to the British people yet - that War is always Glorious and the Dead always sacrifice their lives for a cause called Britain. There is no such cause, there is no such glory.
Why isn't conscription the policy of The Sun? Isn't the glory of this country worth it? After all, history shows that when we fight with volunteers, we generally lose, or never win at least. Which is exactly what AlQaida wants; never-ending war.
As loyal patriots The management and editorial team of The Sun, the Mail and all the other Death-Worshipping rags have no alternative but to call for conscription (1,000,000 young people on the dole!) and urge their sons and daughters in university to do set an example to the lower orders and do their gap year in Helmond.
Unless they want to be seen as the profiteering hypocrites they are, of course. And their sickening abuse of the entire Remembrance industry one of the greatest lies sold to the British people yet - that War is always Glorious and the Dead always sacrifice their lives for a cause called Britain. There is no such cause, there is no such glory.
10/26/2009
Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome!
The release of the album 'Coming Home' by a trio of serving British soldiers is being celebrated in various ways. And as all the proceeds are to go to charity, this is inevitable. But the undeniable objective result of this and all the other staged PR events by Vera Lynn and the rest is to glorify war and killing, encouraging more children to become hired killers and get themselves killed. This will, in turn, be seen on the streets as no less morally bankrupt than the average inner city gang defending its territory, and will justify the actions of those who choose to become soldiers in their own armies.
In other words, glorifying war destroys the society that wages it, even if it wins. 'Easy Listening' is how the hero boys categorise their justification of this futile, squalid slaughter. Which says it all, really. They have become so desensitised that they simply cannot relate on any human level with the suffering they cause, even to what they laughingly call their 'comrades'.
Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome!
Fremde, etranger, stranger.
Meine dammen und herren!
Leave your troubles outside!
So - life is disappointing? Forget it!
We have no troubles here!
Here War is beautiful.
Killing is beautiful.
The guns are beautiful.
The bombs are beautiful.
Even the bullets are beautiful!
And we are beautiful.
Because we are Heroes.
Dame Vera Lynn and Kathryn Jenkins told us so.
And if you want to be a hero too, then come with us.
Only 17 years old? Bored with computer games?
Can't get a job?
We don't care.
We will give you a big gun and let you shoot it at real people!
And if you get killed, then people in country towns will stand and watch your coffin on the way home.
When you Come Home they will play Coming Home for you.
And people will say:
"There goes a hero."
And so other boys will want to be like you.
And the war will go on forever.
And that will be beautiful...
(apologies to Fred Ebb)
"Coming home", "The Soldiers". Sgt Maj Gary Chilton, Sgt Richie Maddocks and L/Cpl Ryan Idzi)
In other words, glorifying war destroys the society that wages it, even if it wins. 'Easy Listening' is how the hero boys categorise their justification of this futile, squalid slaughter. Which says it all, really. They have become so desensitised that they simply cannot relate on any human level with the suffering they cause, even to what they laughingly call their 'comrades'.
Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome!
Fremde, etranger, stranger.
Meine dammen und herren!
Leave your troubles outside!
So - life is disappointing? Forget it!
We have no troubles here!
Here War is beautiful.
Killing is beautiful.
The guns are beautiful.
The bombs are beautiful.
Even the bullets are beautiful!
And we are beautiful.
Because we are Heroes.
Dame Vera Lynn and Kathryn Jenkins told us so.
And if you want to be a hero too, then come with us.
Only 17 years old? Bored with computer games?
Can't get a job?
We don't care.
We will give you a big gun and let you shoot it at real people!
And if you get killed, then people in country towns will stand and watch your coffin on the way home.
When you Come Home they will play Coming Home for you.
And people will say:
"There goes a hero."
And so other boys will want to be like you.
And the war will go on forever.
And that will be beautiful...
(apologies to Fred Ebb)
"Coming home", "The Soldiers". Sgt Maj Gary Chilton, Sgt Richie Maddocks and L/Cpl Ryan Idzi)
10/23/2009
Griffin Gets Stuffed
Just a few points about last night's grotesque performance by the fascist leader on Question Time.
1) Most of his howling madness was no surprise to some. Take his bonkers 2007 defence of racism on Newsnight when he accused the BBC of "Demonising racism". Bewildered presenter Gavin Estler couldn't help blurting out:
"What? There's a good side to racism?"
To which Griffin, aware of his slip, muttered something incoherent about the word very 'racism' being a fiendish Trotskyite plot to do something or other. The BBC being naturally in league with Trotsky.
2) If it wasn't for YouTube, the panel would have been stymied. Thank god for web2, it may live up to its political promise yet. Most panellists used the online archive of Griffin in more candid times to beat him to the ground. He had no hiding place, and could only grin like a teenager caught wanking.
3) Griffin at least did history a service by forcing an examination of the real Churchill as opposed to the myth. His history as an early enthusiast for enforced eugenic sterilisation, and his ordering troops to open fire on striking Welsh miners, and his determination to keep the disgusting, random, health system which almost lost us the war against fascism should all be forced down the throats of those who idolise him. Churchill's political reality is far nearer to fascism than many would like to admit. And his character much closer to the 'petrified adolescent' of Bevan's famous insult.
4) Why does Griffin single out fundamentalist Islam as the only misogynist religious sect? At that level, most religions are. If he was honest about women's rights, he would lead a secular party which highlighted the obscenities of all Bronze Age cosmologies. Just as if he was honest about Britain's 'ethnicity' he would merely come clean and admit that he doesn't like people who don't have white skin.
5) All racists and fascists are pathologically suppressing their true sexuality, so his reaction to two men kissing is not a surprise.
6) Fascism is always result of capitalism in crisis, not immigrants or any other scapegoat, and not the fault of evil or nasty people. The design faults of the capitalist class-system are why the BNP has seats on local councils and the European Parliament they despise, and is on TV now.
The related question from the audience was:
This QT has also been attacked by apologists for fascism as not being a 'normal' edition. That it was a Nick Griffin show. A bearpit, designed to humiliate him.
What these people are in fact saying is that fascism is a normal political opinion, and not a sickness. That is the real measure of the depths of Britain's moral degradation.
Fascism isn't normal, it is disgusting and alien to civilised values. If there has been an Aztec High Priest on QT, it would not have been 'normal' either. So when disgusting values are given airtime, as demanded by theBritish media for the last six months, it is entirely proper that they are not treated as normal, but scrutinised and challenged to everyone's satisfaction.
Griffin had plenty of room to defend his sect, he failed. He should now take the hint and get back to his internet bunker with his Nazi memorabilia before making an even bigger fool of himself. And the disturbed sheep who need his leadership should try choosing life.
The trouble with these sheep is that now their shepherd has been shown up as an idiot, and his lies unmasked, they will completely abandon his nicely-nicely approach, and return to their usual thuggery with relish. The PR spin has failed, so there will be reprisals for their defeat on the BBC, organised attacks in sensistive areas, and random attacks by individuals. The amount of race-hate violence will increase. So the price of the BNPs exposure and subsequent humiliation will be paid by ordinary british black and asian people.
The BNP are a sick, frightened little sect with a paranoid fear of difference. Unfortunately, times like these foster such diseases. That is the design flaw in capitalism.
The electoral reality, given the state of the parties in Westminster, and the transparency of Cameron, and the rise of UKIP, is that the suckers prepared to vote BNP out of adolescent spite will be voting for another 5 years of Gordon Brown.
Is that what they want? Then that's what'll happen.
BNP faces reality.
1) Most of his howling madness was no surprise to some. Take his bonkers 2007 defence of racism on Newsnight when he accused the BBC of "Demonising racism". Bewildered presenter Gavin Estler couldn't help blurting out:
"What? There's a good side to racism?"
To which Griffin, aware of his slip, muttered something incoherent about the word very 'racism' being a fiendish Trotskyite plot to do something or other. The BBC being naturally in league with Trotsky.
2) If it wasn't for YouTube, the panel would have been stymied. Thank god for web2, it may live up to its political promise yet. Most panellists used the online archive of Griffin in more candid times to beat him to the ground. He had no hiding place, and could only grin like a teenager caught wanking.
3) Griffin at least did history a service by forcing an examination of the real Churchill as opposed to the myth. His history as an early enthusiast for enforced eugenic sterilisation, and his ordering troops to open fire on striking Welsh miners, and his determination to keep the disgusting, random, health system which almost lost us the war against fascism should all be forced down the throats of those who idolise him. Churchill's political reality is far nearer to fascism than many would like to admit. And his character much closer to the 'petrified adolescent' of Bevan's famous insult.
4) Why does Griffin single out fundamentalist Islam as the only misogynist religious sect? At that level, most religions are. If he was honest about women's rights, he would lead a secular party which highlighted the obscenities of all Bronze Age cosmologies. Just as if he was honest about Britain's 'ethnicity' he would merely come clean and admit that he doesn't like people who don't have white skin.
5) All racists and fascists are pathologically suppressing their true sexuality, so his reaction to two men kissing is not a surprise.
6) Fascism is always result of capitalism in crisis, not immigrants or any other scapegoat, and not the fault of evil or nasty people. The design faults of the capitalist class-system are why the BNP has seats on local councils and the European Parliament they despise, and is on TV now.
The related question from the audience was:
'Has the BNP benefited from the government's flawed immigration policy?'A leading question which would be allowed in any court. But ignoring the twisted, 'when-did-you-stop-beating-your-wife' nature of the question, the simple answer is,
No, fascism has always benefited by the lies and hatred it has spread about immigrants, which is its job; and from the support it has garnered from the mainstream media in this campaign of fear. So the Daily Mail and the rest of the gutter press are now, just as they were in the 30's, the handmaidens of fascist thuggery.7) The BBC can never win. Two weeks ago, the profit-crazed tabloids were demanding the fascists 'Right' to be on QT. When they granted it, they were reviled for seeking an audience. When it got that audience, it was reviled, but if nobody had watched, it would also be in the dock.
This QT has also been attacked by apologists for fascism as not being a 'normal' edition. That it was a Nick Griffin show. A bearpit, designed to humiliate him.
What these people are in fact saying is that fascism is a normal political opinion, and not a sickness. That is the real measure of the depths of Britain's moral degradation.
Fascism isn't normal, it is disgusting and alien to civilised values. If there has been an Aztec High Priest on QT, it would not have been 'normal' either. So when disgusting values are given airtime, as demanded by theBritish media for the last six months, it is entirely proper that they are not treated as normal, but scrutinised and challenged to everyone's satisfaction.
Griffin had plenty of room to defend his sect, he failed. He should now take the hint and get back to his internet bunker with his Nazi memorabilia before making an even bigger fool of himself. And the disturbed sheep who need his leadership should try choosing life.
The trouble with these sheep is that now their shepherd has been shown up as an idiot, and his lies unmasked, they will completely abandon his nicely-nicely approach, and return to their usual thuggery with relish. The PR spin has failed, so there will be reprisals for their defeat on the BBC, organised attacks in sensistive areas, and random attacks by individuals. The amount of race-hate violence will increase. So the price of the BNPs exposure and subsequent humiliation will be paid by ordinary british black and asian people.
The BNP are a sick, frightened little sect with a paranoid fear of difference. Unfortunately, times like these foster such diseases. That is the design flaw in capitalism.
The electoral reality, given the state of the parties in Westminster, and the transparency of Cameron, and the rise of UKIP, is that the suckers prepared to vote BNP out of adolescent spite will be voting for another 5 years of Gordon Brown.
Is that what they want? Then that's what'll happen.
BNP faces reality.
10/19/2009
Private Parasites on the NHS
In the light of recent interest in the treatment of NHS staff by private clinics, I have a question which someone might be able to answer, and for which I have been seeking an answer for a long time.
How many of its own staff does the private health industry actually train?
The implications are obvious. Training staff is a very expensive business, especially health staff. If BUPA and the rest are allowed to simply poach staff trained at the taxpayers expense, we are subsidising the Gout'n'Bunion trade to an alarming degree, and the NHS patients are suffering real hardhsip to pay for the luxury and profits of a parasitic, profit-driven, exclusive health hotel chain.
Surely the proper policy would be to impose a training levy on every member of staff trained by the taxpayer.
Whether that would cause BUPA to shrivel back to its cave in Harley Street with its core clientelle of ex-majors and 1930's dowager countesses I really couldn't say. But then I couldn't care either.
But as a taxpayer, I care a lot. and as someone who will get sick one day I care even more.
Strangely, those who make the most noise about tax, the redneck tories and other weirdoes, don't care how much of the decent, hard-earned British tax is lavished on these parasites. Why? Because like all elitists, they are prepared to see the majority suffer to preserve, or even enhance the luxury of the few. Their objective is not to reduce the amount of suffering, but to increase the pleasure for those aty the peak of the hierarchy. It is their so-called Doctrine of Excellence, which is always at the expense of decent standards for everyone else.
How many of its own staff does the private health industry actually train?
The implications are obvious. Training staff is a very expensive business, especially health staff. If BUPA and the rest are allowed to simply poach staff trained at the taxpayers expense, we are subsidising the Gout'n'Bunion trade to an alarming degree, and the NHS patients are suffering real hardhsip to pay for the luxury and profits of a parasitic, profit-driven, exclusive health hotel chain.
Surely the proper policy would be to impose a training levy on every member of staff trained by the taxpayer.
Whether that would cause BUPA to shrivel back to its cave in Harley Street with its core clientelle of ex-majors and 1930's dowager countesses I really couldn't say. But then I couldn't care either.
But as a taxpayer, I care a lot. and as someone who will get sick one day I care even more.
Strangely, those who make the most noise about tax, the redneck tories and other weirdoes, don't care how much of the decent, hard-earned British tax is lavished on these parasites. Why? Because like all elitists, they are prepared to see the majority suffer to preserve, or even enhance the luxury of the few. Their objective is not to reduce the amount of suffering, but to increase the pleasure for those aty the peak of the hierarchy. It is their so-called Doctrine of Excellence, which is always at the expense of decent standards for everyone else.
10/11/2009
Cameron's Sanity. Cause For Concern.
When he attacks the state for causing the 2008 Crunch, as he did in his Manchester Conference speech, Diddy David Cameron is either a crook or an idiot. If he knows the truth, that it was the unfettered greed of the markets and the retreat of the state which caused the damage, he is a crook out to decieve the British public for his own reasons, and plunge the recovering economy into a depression. If he doesn't know this basic truth, agreed by all respectable economists and politicians, and believes that politicians ran the banks, he is an idiot.
Either way he is not fit to run a skateboard, let alone a country. In fact, his inversion of the real life raises serious questions about his sanity.
If this is what tory mentality has shrivelled away to, it is not a real surprise, merely their inevitable historic destiny. In the face of the scrutiny of the global information revolution, and the fury of global financialism, their inbred sham species of politics has finally been revealed as the form of anti-social psychosis it always was. Cameron is as Mad as Markets, which burns crops while millions starve.
Either way he is not fit to run a skateboard, let alone a country. In fact, his inversion of the real life raises serious questions about his sanity.
If this is what tory mentality has shrivelled away to, it is not a real surprise, merely their inevitable historic destiny. In the face of the scrutiny of the global information revolution, and the fury of global financialism, their inbred sham species of politics has finally been revealed as the form of anti-social psychosis it always was. Cameron is as Mad as Markets, which burns crops while millions starve.
10/08/2009
The Glorious Bendy Bus
Why do the tories and other fat misanthropists hate the bendy bus? Because it is simply more sociable, more convenient for mothers with prams and other people with burdens to transport, faster, and causes less stress to the people who use it, who are then are less likely to get cars and become part of that atomised, anti-social, polluting sect. People talk to each other on them, which to the Thatcher generation is unthinkable. They might actually start liking each other!
The access and seating arrangements of the articulated bus are better than the routemaster, providing speedier stops, and mixing age-groups together face to face, which is why there are very few school fights on them, unlike the upstairs nightmare world of the double decker - reeling from side to side as it attempts to hurl its bulk around London's streets.
The Bendy Bus is a superior form of social transport to the Routemaster. Those who say it 'has no soul' are obviously afraid of the human face - which the layout of the Bendy encourages contact with -and don't mind waiting for and queueing and shoving to get on to the bottle-neck RM, with its upstairs ghetto for squabbling schoolkids and skating rink floor of greasy chicken remains. Still less have they tried to get a pram or shopping trolley on a bus. In other words, they are merely in hock to a sentimental vision of tourist Designer London and willing to make working Londoners pay for their fantasy.
This is the pug ugly pretender to the classic, 'On The Buses' Routemaster.
Apart from the pumpkin-jowled village-idiot profile, notice how the only view is of the backs of people's heads. There is no chance for casual social interaction whatsoever. The ultimate alienation-mobile. This could be designed as a way of deterring people from using buses. And it will still take longer to complete its route than the bendy, because of its increased loading times.
And who is going to police the upstairs fare-dodging rumpus-room? The conductor will be chasing up and down those stairs after every junction as scallies try to hop on undetected. The wiseguys who, when they get upstairs, play the innocent as the conductor asks:'Any more fares?'
I know, because I was that Boy.
The only bonus will be the thrill of watching people run in vain for the platform, or fall off it.
Again, nothing which would tend to make people nicer in any way, which good design should, and which, believe it or not, in its small way, the Bendy Bus does.
The access and seating arrangements of the articulated bus are better than the routemaster, providing speedier stops, and mixing age-groups together face to face, which is why there are very few school fights on them, unlike the upstairs nightmare world of the double decker - reeling from side to side as it attempts to hurl its bulk around London's streets.
The Bendy Bus is a superior form of social transport to the Routemaster. Those who say it 'has no soul' are obviously afraid of the human face - which the layout of the Bendy encourages contact with -and don't mind waiting for and queueing and shoving to get on to the bottle-neck RM, with its upstairs ghetto for squabbling schoolkids and skating rink floor of greasy chicken remains. Still less have they tried to get a pram or shopping trolley on a bus. In other words, they are merely in hock to a sentimental vision of tourist Designer London and willing to make working Londoners pay for their fantasy.
This is the pug ugly pretender to the classic, 'On The Buses' Routemaster.
Apart from the pumpkin-jowled village-idiot profile, notice how the only view is of the backs of people's heads. There is no chance for casual social interaction whatsoever. The ultimate alienation-mobile. This could be designed as a way of deterring people from using buses. And it will still take longer to complete its route than the bendy, because of its increased loading times.
And who is going to police the upstairs fare-dodging rumpus-room? The conductor will be chasing up and down those stairs after every junction as scallies try to hop on undetected. The wiseguys who, when they get upstairs, play the innocent as the conductor asks:'Any more fares?'
I know, because I was that Boy.
The only bonus will be the thrill of watching people run in vain for the platform, or fall off it.
Again, nothing which would tend to make people nicer in any way, which good design should, and which, believe it or not, in its small way, the Bendy Bus does.
9/24/2009
Photoshop Phascism
I once did some casual imaging for a new magazine targeted at the rapidly emerging hip Asian British middle classes. The worker next me was assiduously transforming a caucasian model into an asian one. Apparently, there were simply not enough Asian models available due to cultural and religious traditions which are not in sympathy with the requirements of the glamour industry. So Photoshop was used to alter the hue and darkness of the skin tone, neatly undermining petty cultural barriers to exploitation and profit, and possibly even altering those cultural norms by exposure.
The manipulation of images for commercial purposes is nothing new, and neither is the industrial exploitation of women. Photoshop makes the process easier and cheaper than ever, and is used for all kinds of remedial work which once would have been done in the darkroom or on the lightbox or layout table. So the boundaries of manipulation are very blurred. The entire mood of a landscape can be altered by darkening the sky, as many film photographers used to do. So my guess is that any legislation to discourage the promotion of fascistic body ideals will end up entangled in miles of legalistic wrangling.
Far better to legislate that all images in which the dimensions of any part of the model have been altered should be credited as an Artwork rather than a photograph.
Better still to tax all pornographic, degrading images of women off our streets and screens entirely. But that's apparently a gross abuse of the human rights of the advertising industry to make fortunes from the humiliation and abuse of many. And they're generally prepared to go to the european Court of Human Rights to prove it. As they did when Sweden banned junk food ads on children's TV.
The manipulation of images for commercial purposes is nothing new, and neither is the industrial exploitation of women. Photoshop makes the process easier and cheaper than ever, and is used for all kinds of remedial work which once would have been done in the darkroom or on the lightbox or layout table. So the boundaries of manipulation are very blurred. The entire mood of a landscape can be altered by darkening the sky, as many film photographers used to do. So my guess is that any legislation to discourage the promotion of fascistic body ideals will end up entangled in miles of legalistic wrangling.
Far better to legislate that all images in which the dimensions of any part of the model have been altered should be credited as an Artwork rather than a photograph.
Better still to tax all pornographic, degrading images of women off our streets and screens entirely. But that's apparently a gross abuse of the human rights of the advertising industry to make fortunes from the humiliation and abuse of many. And they're generally prepared to go to the european Court of Human Rights to prove it. As they did when Sweden banned junk food ads on children's TV.
8/29/2009
Murdoch In Terror
The infantile demand by Rupert Murdoch that the internet play by his rules, and every site charge to read stories of drunken celebrities, is the last gasp in his futile attempt to sabotage the BBC. He realises that sooner or later, the penny will drop among the dimwits at broadcasting house, and they will start charging their overseas audience, just as they charge their British one. When they do that, and make some serious progresses in making their vault of superior content available online, the emperor's clothes of the Sky empire will be obvious.
Murdoch knows that his content is inferior, and that he does not produce any content, unlike the BBC. And that he no longer knows how to make money from newspaper or internet advertising, so mass-subscription is the only model he can think of. He imagines that people will pay to maintain MySpace accounts when there are a dozen other platforms which can do the job as well. He imagines that people will actually pay to read the Sun online... Anyone as deluded as that is clearly agitated about something, and what Murdoch has to be agitated about is the prospect of the BBC beating him at his own game. Namely, by charging a tiny global fee for downloads of all the content it controls. British licence payers would naturally be exempt from this charge, and the revenue would be used to offset and defend the licence fee - which is the cultural bastion Murdoch hates most. It stands between him and total domination by guaranteeing the unprofitable.
Unfortunately, his paranoia is based on a belief that the BBC understands its own power. Sadly, this is still not true. The BBC is still a cowering, weak-kneed cringeing animal, desperate not to offend the Daily Mail, or seem to be treading on the profiteers' toes.
Murdoch knows that his content is inferior, and that he does not produce any content, unlike the BBC. And that he no longer knows how to make money from newspaper or internet advertising, so mass-subscription is the only model he can think of. He imagines that people will pay to maintain MySpace accounts when there are a dozen other platforms which can do the job as well. He imagines that people will actually pay to read the Sun online... Anyone as deluded as that is clearly agitated about something, and what Murdoch has to be agitated about is the prospect of the BBC beating him at his own game. Namely, by charging a tiny global fee for downloads of all the content it controls. British licence payers would naturally be exempt from this charge, and the revenue would be used to offset and defend the licence fee - which is the cultural bastion Murdoch hates most. It stands between him and total domination by guaranteeing the unprofitable.
Unfortunately, his paranoia is based on a belief that the BBC understands its own power. Sadly, this is still not true. The BBC is still a cowering, weak-kneed cringeing animal, desperate not to offend the Daily Mail, or seem to be treading on the profiteers' toes.
8/28/2009
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Children Showing Signs of Rickets?
Need a backstreet abortion?
Can't decide between swallowing bleach and jumping in the canal?
SELL US YOUR GOLD
Send your holy wedding band to
POPTHEWEASEL.CON
NOW
and get an assured cash loan.
We even send you a genuine brassite ring to camouflage your shame that's
YOURS TO KEEP!
Turn off the gas oven - Turn the mocking symbol of your shattered dreams into temporary cash relief from your degradation by contacting
POPTHEWEASEL.CON
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(best prices however pathetically slender the item)
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