Layer 513 . . . Radical Movements, Global Protests, Visiting Japan, Occupy London and Banning Bonuses

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In yesterday's G2 Paul Mason had a two-page article - very sober and measured, as you'd expect from such a senior and serious journalist - reflecting on the future of the radical movements that came to prominence in 2011.

Global protests: where does the revolution go from here?

2011's anti-capitalist protests and Arab spring made everything seem possible. But will 2012 bring real change? The key is turning rebellion into coherent political vision

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/31/where-revolution-goes-from-here

If 2011 felt, at times, like a rerun of 1848 with stereo headphones, 2012 is already exhibiting some of the features that made 1849 a byword for reaction.

In Greece, the euphoria one could sense among the indignados camped in Syntagma Square last June has given way to an angry silence; to fragmented, anomic acts and the struggle to survive.

And the fundamental economic problems remain unsolved . . . 

As a revolutionary wave breaks, historically, it also breaks up. During the Arab spring and the winter of occupying public spaces, it was impossible to ignore the similarities between the youth across borders: the way they spoke and dressed, the social media they used, the music they listened to.

So what remains of the revolution? As the events recede and solidify it becomes clear that 2011 was, above all, a cultural revolution: a loss of fear in the dictatorships of north Africa; a loss of apathy among educated youth in Europe, Latin America and the US. And the revolution consisted of this: a mass rejection of the values dominant during 20 years of freemarket capitalism.

Freemarket patterns of wealth distribution created the most potent political meme of 2011 – which was not the Egyptian slogan "Bread, freedom, social justice" but "We are the 99%".

Today, among the activists who made 25 January happen in Egypt – and among those who turned Occupy Wall Street or UK Uncut into global brandnames – you find a common reluctance to engage in the dirty business of power; of the actual, the specific, the non-exhilarating work of community organising, of elections.

In short, 2012 may be the year the counter-culture accumulated by young people in the good years, and deployed in what one has called "the senseless beauty of rebellion" in 2011, finally has to concretise into a programme, a coherent vision. If it doesn't – as is obvious from Budapest to Cairo – there are plenty of other forces with coherence. And in times of economic crisis people turn to them.

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Charlie Brooker in Tokyo

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2012/feb/01/charlie-brooker-tokyo-japan-games?intcmp=122

Another fairly serious and measured piece of journalism. Good one Charlie.

I'm looking forward to hearing about the culture shock Charlie experiences when he gets back to London. Everyone should visit Japan, at least once in their lifetime. Beg and borrow money if necessary in order to do it. It'll change your way of thinking - and in a good way.

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The salaryman's guide to Tokyo

Salaryman Kuzuhara-san leads Chris Michael on a tour of the hidden Tokyo where an army of office workers get to let off steam at the end of the working day

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2012/feb/01/salarymans-guide-to-tokyo-city?intcmp=122

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Tokyo: a walk down Memory Lane - video

Omoide Yokochō - Memory Lane - developed as the eating quarter after the second world war. David Levene checks out old school Japanese delicacies such as salamander, loach and viper wine. It's all good for the stamina

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/video/2012/feb/01/tokyo-memory-lane-strange-eats?intcmp=122

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10 of the most unusual hotels in Tokyo

Tokyo has an unusual hotel to suit every taste, whether you want to spend a night in a pod hotel, at an urban onsen, or stay with a Japanese family, says Richard Smart

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2012/feb/01/top-10-unusual-hotels-onsen-pods-tokyo

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10 of the best budget hotels in Tokyo

Tokyo has a good spread of hotels at great-value rates, from traditional ryokans to cheap and cheerful business hotels in the heart of Shinjuku, says Richard Smart

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2012/feb/01/10-best-budget-hotels-tokyo
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Occupy London's eviction is a failure for the church, not the camp

The protesters about to be removed from the steps of St Paul's could have helped the cathedral find a compelling new narrative

by  Giles Fraser

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/31/occupy-eviction-st-pauls-cathedral

It's time for all good people to decide where they stand - with the bankers and the Establishment, or with the protestors. There's NO middle way in this.

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With a ban on bonuses, Fred Goodwin could even have kept his knighthood

Even bankers want the bonus culture outlawed. It's a conspiracy to extract money from firms that properly belongs to others

By Simon Jenkins

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/31/ban-bonuses-fred-goodwin-knighthood

Very well said, Simon. This whole fucked-up bonus culture is a massive scam, and needs to be made illegal - at least for 'bonuses' above, say, £2,000, whether in cash or shares. Better to get rid of the whole of this nasty nonsense.

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Layer 431 . . . Meditation, Mindfulness, Miliband, Zen, Soros, Davos, Bankers, Bonuses, Boris, Posh Rock and Egypt

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It's interesting to observe the awesomely mega-rich as they go about their everyday business, especially if they owe their wealth and status to their own intellectual and creative efforts and not to inheritance, theft, corruption or the corporate gravy train.

Bill and Melinda Gates, for example, these days spend all their time and energy running the Gates Foundation and handing out their billions to good causes - most of them working on health issues in the poorest parts of the planet. Bill is a clever, lucky and somewhat enlightened individual who happened to find himself in the right place at the right time at the birth of the (micro)computer age. He's clearly a decent as well as a powerful man who has no need to connive or talk bullshit with anyone.

You can say pretty much the same thing about George Soros, the billionaire financier.

George Soros is a Hungarian-American financier, businessman and notable philanthropist focused on supporting liberal ideals and causes. He became known as "the Man Who Broke the Bank of England" after he made a reported $1 billion during the 1992 Black Wednesday UK currency crises. Soros correctly anticipated that the British government would have to devalue the pound sterling. - Wikipedia

When Soros says something on the subject of finance and economics we do well to listen. He's been speaking about British monetary policy.

George Soros tells David Cameron: change direction or face recession

Mix of tax increases and spending cuts unsustainable, speculator says, as World Economic Forum gets under way

by Larry Elliott

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/jan/26/george-soros-david-cameron-recession

The international speculator George Soros warned David Cameron tonight that the government would push the British economy back into recession unless it modified its hardline austerity package.

Speaking in Davos, Switzerland, the hedge fund owner who famously wrecked the reputation for financial competence of the last Conservative administration on Black Wednesday said the mix of tax increases and spending cuts planned by the coalition was unsustainable.

Soros's suggestion that the UK needed a plan B came only hours after Cameron insisted in fierce Commons exchanges with the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, that there would be no change of government policy following the unexpected news yesterday that the economy contracted by 0.5% in the final three months of 2010.

"They will have to modify it when the effects are felt," Soros said. "I don't think it can possibly be implemented without pushing the economy into a recession." Noting that the initial market reaction to the government's tough stance had been positive, Soros added: "We will have to see it unfold. My expectation is that it will prove to be unsustainable."

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Meditation
It's interesting how the use of meditation is becoming more and more mainstream. The Guardian's guide is worth looking at.

An introduction to easy meditation

These three short animations by Headspace will introduce you to the concept
of 'mindful' meditation.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/video/2011/jan/20/health-and-wellbeing-fitness

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How to meditate: Overcoming potential obstacles

Everyone who learns to meditate encounters obstacles. Here are some of the most common ones and a few tips on how to deal with them

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jan/22/how-to-meditate-tips-overcoming-obstacles

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The Headspace meditation podcasts: Day-to-day mindfulness - audio

First of a series of podcasts explaining how to use meditation and mindfulness to reduce stress and increase concentration

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/audio/2011/jan/24/headspace-mindfulness

Have you ever wondered how you could live your life with a greater sense of calm and clarity? Perhaps a greater sense of emotional stability?

When it comes to practicing the skill of mindfulness it's all about repetition and being familiar with what it means to be in the present moment.

This short exercise from Headspace will show you how you can use everyday activities to help learn this invaluable skill.

It's all very well using meditation as a means of relaxation, to increase concentration, to decrease stress, to improve emotional stability, etc, but there's no sense here, in these articles, that the ultimate purpose of meditation, or Zen, is to move the individual towards states of greater spiritual awareness and intelligence, and towards experiences of satori and enlightenment.

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Is He A Zen Master?

Ed Miliband is right to keep silent

There are good reasons for Miliband to step back and work on renewing Labour – rather than seek a high profile

by Sunny Hundal

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/27/ed-miliband-labour

A frenzy of speculation surrounds Labour leader Ed Miliband. Is his brother coming back? Is Ed Balls planning to move in for the kill? Is he moving too much – or not enough – to the left? Why don't voters rate him more highly?

Lefties complain he isn't doing enough to oppose the government's ruinous agenda, while on the Labour right the usual voices say he isn't doing enough to occupy Tory territory. Is he a Zen master? Does he need more spinners and strategists?

It's absurd. There are at least five good reasons why he should stick to playing the long, waiting game . . .

As I was saying yesterday,

People are starting to understand that we don't want government to be our rulers - we should expect them to do things on our behalf. But first we have to articulate what we really want. It's stupid to just vote for parties on the basis of what they offer in their manifestos. WE have to make demands and expect our elected representatives to act on our behalf.

Sunny Hundal says,

This is the important point. The fightback against the Conservative agenda doesn't necessarily need to be led by Labour . . .

If you're angry about the Tory cuts, as I am, then get organised and mobilise ordinary people to fight back. That will grab attention and will force government ministers to listen, especially if the coalition against the cuts is broad enough (worth noting that the high profile campaign to save UK forests is partly run by Boris's sister Rachel Johnson). There is no reason why the fight against the government's cuts has to be led by Labour; it would be better led by local people from across the country. Don't get angry, get organised.

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Egypt

In North Africa the people have begun to take to the streets to make their needs and demands clearly known. These are 'popular' movements - and nothing to do with organised political parties or religious groups.

Egypt's Day of Rage goes on. Is the world watching?

The scale of protests in Egypt has shaken a regime that has long relied on citizens' passivity to retain power

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/27/egypt-protests-regime-citizens

Tens of thousands of Egyptian demonstrators took to the streets on 25 January, young and old, Muslim and Christian, rich and poor, educated and not so-educated. They all chanted "Long live Egypt", "Life, liberty and human dignity" and "Down with the Mubarak regime".

The day marked for the celebration of Police Day was dubbed the Day of Rage. The protests, which continued through a second day in almost every part of the country, are showing no signs of abating on the third day, with a million-strong march scheduled for Friday. These demonstrations are sending shivers down the spine not only of the regime but of its friends and allies as well.

For three decades now, Egyptians have been kept on a tight leash, fed more with promises than with bread. They were cajoled into compliance by a media that has the interests of the regime at heart and a religious establishment that owes its allegiance and existence to the state, but were often threatened into submission by the force of the baton if they refused to comply.

Egyptian grievances are numerous. They have seen neither the fruits of peace nor of the huge economic growth that Egypt is reported to be making in international economic indices. What they experience on a daily basis is endless queuing for inedible bread and suffocating traffic congestion as the police force is increasingly burdened with the task of protecting the regime and its men.

There were also demonstrations last month calling for a minimum monthly wage of 1,200 Egyptian pounds (roughly £130). Too much, said the government. It could only promise to institute a minimum wage of 400LE (£43). This is hardly surprising from a government made up of businesspeople who no doubt have a vested interest in keeping wages as low as possible. The spokesmen of the regime shamelessly argued that it was a fair wage to expect.

For some years now, the Mubarak regime has been heading for disaster. With rampant unemployment, soaring prices and a 30-year long state of emergency, its popularity has dropped to an all-time low. But more importantly, it has repeatedly shown its total disregard for public opinion, a disregard that would have amounted to political suicide under any other system.

An obvious example is the rigged parliamentary elections of November 2010, which were perhaps the worst in Egypt's history. The ruling National Democratic party had the audacity to announce that these elections were one of the fairest in Egypt's history. Ahmed Ezz, the iron-tycoon-turned-politician and one of the new guard at the NDP, who is known to have masterminded the electoral operation, triumphantly announced the results. He stated that the landslide victory that secured 98% of the parliamentary seats for the ruling party was the result of its popularity on the streets and the fruit of the hard work of its members.

The initial call for the Day of Rage was made by young Facebook activists inspired by the success of Tunisians in overthrowing Ben Ali. The Facebook invitation for the protests received 95,000 positive responses. Other forces and opposition groups later responded to the call, including the Muslim Brotherhood, whose participation has so far been quite low-key.

For the first time in decades, Egyptian protesters went out in unprecedented numbers across the whole country with one slogan: "People want the regime to fall". They made their demands clear. Mubarak should step down, the illegal parliament be dissolved and emergency law be suspended. The call was for the whole country to rally and unite, and there were no religious chants or slogans.

The reaction of the regime to the protests so far has been pathetically inadequate. It shows that this regime is still in denial. While Mubarak kept his silence, the interior ministry took on the task of communicating with the people, in the only way it knows how to. As it cracked down on demonstrators, it issued statements, banning any further protests and repeating the same old excuses. It blamed the Muslim Brotherhood for what it called riots on the streets and blamed their members for infiltrating the crowds in order to wreak havoc. This is supposed to do the trick of scaring the world about the propsect of an imminent Islamist takeover of Egypt – a fear that the regime has painstakingly been fostering. The interior ministry also blamed the ill-defined but frequently invoked "foreign hands" that are always bent on fomenting trouble and inciting people against their loving and God-fearing rulers. 

I found myself wondering yesterday whether there's a whiff of '68 in the air. It's been a long time since there were worldwide popular protests led by workers, young people and students - primarily against corrupt power elites, warmongering and injustice.

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Davos Watch

It's time for the annual gathering of international the power elites in Switzerland. The whole world's watching, as they said in Chicago, all those years ago. Even more so in the age of 24 hour satellite TV, the Internet and mobile phones.

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Boris

Having gone in for a fair bit of Tory-bashing recently (!) I have to draw attention to some of Boris's opinions about bankers' bonuses.

Boris Johnson plans bank message at World Economic Forum

http://www.docklands24.co.uk/news/boris_johnson_plans_bank_message_at_world_economic_forum_1_784549

LONDON Mayor Boris Johnson says he will remind banks of their responsibilities when he meets leaders at this week’s World Economic Forum.

“Last year I told them it was time for the masters of the universe to become servants of the people. That is absolutely right and it’s a message I will be repeating this year,” he said.

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Cut 'excessive' bonuses, Boris Johnson tells bank chiefs

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23796385-cut-excessive-bonuses-boris-johnson-tells-bank-chiefs.do

Boris Johnson today wrote to global banking chiefs urging them to scale back “excessive” bankers' bonuses.

The Mayor said he was “shocked and baffled” the banks had failed to acknowledge public outrage over the multi-billion-pound payouts.

In his strongest criticism to date, he urged the bank chiefs to show “much stronger leadership” on the issue. He told the Standard: “Nobody can possibly defend the huge sums of bonuses being awarded. The banks should not be paying out huge bonuses as though it was business as usual. They have to show they recognise the game changed when the taxpayer bailed them out.”

Mr Johnson suggested the banks should skim money off bonuses to set up a fund to help small and medium-sized businesses in the capital.

“In order for me to champion and support successful financial services, it is crucial that the sector itself demonstrates much stronger leadership.

“Collectively, financial services firms must take much greater account of public opinion and set justifiable remuneration packages accordingly, in the light of the unprecedented support given to the financial system over the last two years.”

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Rock's Gone Posh
There was a feature on R4 this morning about most pop and rock musicians these days having had a private school or stage school education. Very different to the rock rebels of yesteryear. Rick Wakeman spoke about a 'snobbish culture'.

See Layer 367 re Clegg, Cameron and Radiohead.

http://oxzen.blogspot.com/search/label/Radiohead

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Layer 419 . . . Mental Health, Women (and Men, and Children) in Crisis, Education, Pills, League Tables, Bankers, Giffords, Palin and the Tea Party

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Time to get back to the newspapers for a dose of harsh reality . . .  for a top-up of disgust at the state of the world.

If anyone happened to read Layers 412 and 417  and thought I was over the top with my comments about miserable, burnt-out young people and the amount of mental health issues in our society, then think again.

"Is it any wonder that so many children, and so many adults, are borderline insane? And so many of them are . . . literally . . . driven insane. Or become morose, depressed, angry and resentful."

This week the Guardian carried this report:

Mental health of women in crisis

According to survey of 2,000 girls and women, around two-thirds have had mild to moderate mental health problems

by Amelia Hill

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jan/11/mental-health-women-crisis

Almost a third of women aged over 18 have taken antidepressants, according to research published today which its authors claim reveals "generations of women in crisis" with mental health problems.

According to a survey of more than 2,000 girls and women in England and Wales, around two-thirds have had mild to moderate mental health problems, equivalent to 15.2 million girls and women.

Penny Newman, chief executive of Platform 51 (formerly the Young Women's Christian Association), said: "Millions of girls and women are facing mental health problems and they are telling us that they are not getting the support they need."

At least 13% of women experiencing mental health problems had quit a job while 44% had taken some time off work; more than a quarter had been off work for at least a week, the research showed.

The findings into the extent of mental health problems experienced by girls as young as 12 were reached after the group expanded the medical definition of "common mental health disorders" as defined by the Department of Health.

The definition of mental health problems used in the new study includes low self-esteem, poor self-confidence, and stress.

"This term captures the range of feelings and symptoms which negatively impact on girls' and women's mental health and which can have more serious consequences if undetected or unaddressed," said Newman.

"What is most striking about these behaviours is that they are often self-destructive and hidden."

About 20% of adult women in England suffered from a common mental disorder – typically depression or anxiety – compared with about 12% of men, according to an NHS report last year.

Professor Louise Howard, head of women's mental health at King's College London, said the figures were "very interesting and relevant". She said: "There is evidence that there is under-identification of people with mental health problems that need treatment."

The research includes women with emotional difficulties as well as those with mental health problems, she added. "But any of the stresses that these women are reporting can lead to mental health problems. Depressive symptoms can persist and need treatment but some women will feel that they have to keep on coping because they have all these people depending on them."

Platform 51 works with 11,000 girls and women in schools, community centres, youth clubs, mother and baby units, and prisons across England and Wales. Its study found those they identified as having mental health problems attempt to cope with their distress in damaging ways. More than a quarter regularly drink too much and many isolate themselves from friends and family: almost a half had not left their homes for a long period and more than a quarter had lost friends.

One in five had built up debt. One in 10 had self-harmed – a figure that rises to 35% for women aged 18 to 24.

"Many women appear to be functioning normally or coping adequately with particularly difficult situations when in fact they are struggling to cope," said Newman. "But we identified many risky behaviours that girls and women engaged in as a result of mental health problems, including promiscuity, drug-taking and crime."

Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of the mental health charity SANE, said: "This survey is shocking and covers a myriad of distress."

Colin Walker, policy and campaigns manager at mental health charity Mind, welcomed the report but said his organisation's research showed men and women experienced mental health problems such as depression and anxiety in roughly equal numbers.

"But men are less likely to speak out or ask for help," he said. "This tendency to suffer in silence is reflected by the fact that men account for 75% of all suicides."

Around one in three women with low-level mental health problems have never sought professional help, the report, "Women Like Me: supporting wellbeing in girls and women", found. Of those who did seek help, almost two thirds felt doctors were too ready to prescribe drugs.

So here's more evidence that huge numbers of people have mental, emotional, social and spiritual afflictions, who also know that getting drugs from doctors is NOT the answer to their problems.

How and why do these afflictions occur in the first place? What can possibly be done about them?

Why do so many of us suffer from  low self-esteem, poor self-confidence, and stress? Why haven't we learned how to overcome these problems? Why don't schools and other agencies do more to prevent these problems occurring in the first place?

Well - nobody asked them to. Not in this country. On the whole. Nowhere is it a requirement to ensure that pupils acquire more resilience, self confidence, and high self-esteem. Nowhere are these things prioritised any more. Maybe in some schools here and there, where the leadership is more enlightened, but there's no expectations - not seriously - from government, bureaucrats or Ofsted, whose sole concern is with academic success and test results. It's an appalling situation.

We all let our hearts bleed about the poor sods who are cracking up all around us, in so many ways, and all we do about it is send these people to get their anti-depressant drugs to help them 'cope'. These are people who ought to have been able to develop their emotional intelligence, social intelligence and spiritual intelligence whilst at school, in order to prepare them for living in the big wide world, and all they got was pressure to achieve in exams - in order that the schools could do well in the league tables and deal with the Ofsted inquisition.

Look at these schools squealing today, as the government shifts the goal posts once again, and they suddenly find themselves failing to meet the arbitrary targets again. Not so smug now, eh? So why haven't they been doing more to fight the very idea of targets, league tables and so on? Surely not because they thought they were doing pretty well . . .

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/jan/12/1-in-6-get-english-baccalaureate

Notice how the schools are now being accused of "failing to prepare pupils for the workplace". NOT 'prepare them for living in a challenging and complex world'. Not ' prepare them for managing complex relationships'. No - we just want them to be able to satisfy the demands of employers. That'll do nicely.

Meanwhile lives are wasted and ruined, kids are getting burnt out by the age of eighteen, and they'll very likely end up stressed out, depressed and lacking in self-esteem even if they get a pocketful of exam passes.

This all makes me beyond anger.

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A good comment from Winhill:

It isn't just women, although they might be more up for admitting it. Our society is fundamentally sick.

I don't think most people realise anything else is possible. Try travelling and you find otherwise. Try going to sub-Saharan Africa for example. They may be poor, but they have a general culture which is far more kind and supportive, and they don't spend their whole time being terrified of each other like the British do.

But then, why should it be a surprise that we are sick? Values of brutal competition, insecurity and the-weak-go-to-the-wall have been deliberately inculcated by neoliberalism. As Thatcher said "economics are the method. The object is to change the heart and soul". She changed it alright.

Some people can cope with living in a brutal, insecure environment, but many can't. They just crumble.

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Our world, our society, doesn't have to be like this - relentlessly, competitively materialistic; full of greedy arsehole bankers whose stupidity and selfishness is already well-established; where mental ill-health is the norm rather than the exception.

Banks given go-ahead to pay unlimited bonuses


Ministers cave in to City and reject calls to tackle highest earners as No 10 seeks face-saving deal

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/jan/10/banks-unlimited-bonuses-ministers

Britain's banks have been given the go-ahead to pay unlimited bonuses, drawing to a close a two-year political battle to rein in the City.

After months in which a series of government ministers of all parties have threatened a toughening in the stance over City bonuses, Downing Street said the government did not intend to intervene in the pay of the UK's top bankers.

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How insane is this - Sarah Palin has accused her opponents of inciting hatred and violence . . .

Fucking insane.

In the US, where hate rules at the ballot box, this tragedy has been coming for a long time

The shooting of Gabrielle Giffords may lead to the temporary hibernation of rightwing rage, but it is encoded in conservative DNA

by Michael Tomasky

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jan/09/us-shooting-republicans-giffords-loughner

Gabrielle Giffords shooting reignites row over rightwing rhetoric in US

Sarah Palin at centre of storm over political vitriol after spree leaves six dead and congresswoman in critical condition

by Ewen MacAskill

The US was tonight seized by a fierce debate over whether inflammatory rightwing rhetoric was to blame for a shooting spree in Tucson, Arizona, that targeted congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and left six dead, including a nine-year-old child.

Giffords, 40, who remains critically ill in hospital after being shot through the head but is expected to live, criticised Sarah Palin last year for putting her and 19 other Democrats on a hitlist of districts, each shown as being in crosshairs.

"When people do that, they have got to realise there are consequences to that action," Giffords said. Palin today distanced herself from the shooting, as did leading figures of the Tea Party movement. Conservative bloggers accused liberals of seeking to exploit the attack.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/09/gabrielle-giffords-shooting-rightwing-rhetoric

Insanity Rules. OK?

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Layer 219 Bonuses, Private Enterprise, Wall Street, 1989, Alternative Economics and Tough Love

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Listening to Question Time and the question of squillions of pounds being handed over to MoD civil servants by way of 'bonuses'. Can this really be true? How? It makes you wonder whether the poor bloody troops are getting bonuses. I think not. For the number of kills? Shots fired? Overtime? Night shifts? Danger money?

Can this government get any worse? When did civil servants become part of the bonus culture? It's outrageous.
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Why is Will Self trying to look like a psychotic Freddie Mercury lookalike?
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Seamas Milne had a very good 'big picture' column in the Guardian:

The real lesson of 1989 is that nothing is ever settled

The fall of the wall brought freedoms, but also war and crisis. Now that is creating the basis for a new alternative

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/11/lessons-of-1989-new-alternative

From the point of view of western self-esteem, 1989 is a year to die for: a tale of the triumph of individual freedom and the defeat of an ideological competitor, all captured live on television in the ritual destruction of a reviled enemy symbol in the heart of Europe. So the blanket coverage of the anniversary of the fall of the wall, and the parade of platitude-mouthing politicians in Berlin to mark the implosion of European communism it symbolised, was only to be expected.

What has been more striking, though, has been the lack of ideological confidence and enthusiasm that would have been expected only a few years ago. In the rest of what was eastern Europe, there have been barely any high-profile celebrations of the wider collapse of the old regimes. Given the eruption of wars, global insecurity and now economic crisis that have marked the 20 years since the end of the cold war, the larger narrative of peace, capitalist prosperity and the end of history peddled in the wake of 1989 just seems ridiculous.

But the question in 1989 wasn't whether the old system had to change; it was how it would change. The political force that had turned the Soviet Union into a superpower, industrialised half of Europe and sent the first human being into space had exhausted itself. There were, however, alternative routes out of its crisis. What the protesters in first Gdansk and then Leipzig were mostly demanding was not capitalism, of course, but a different kind of socialism. Even given a restoration of capitalism, there were softer landings that could have been negotiated by Mikhail Gorbachev and guaranteed by the United States and its allies.

Instead, 1989 unleashed across the region and then the former Soviet Union free-market shock therapy, mass robbery as privatisation, vast increases in inequality, and poverty and joblessness for tens of millions. Reunification in Germany in fact meant annexation, the takeover and closure of most of its industry, a political purge of more than a million teachers and other white-collar workers, a loss of women's rights, closure of free nurseries and mass unemployment – still double western Germany's rate after 20 years.

And east Germany has done far better than the rest. Elsewhere in eastern Europe, the crisis created under western tutelage and nomenklatura capitalism was comparable to the Great Depression in the US, and national income took more than a decade to recover. In Russia itself, post-communist catastroika produced the greatest economic collapse in peacetime in modern history. Mortality rates rose steeply across the region in the 1990s – in Russia, the market experiment produced more orphans in the 1990s than the country's 20m wartime deaths, while Gorbachev's democratisation went into reverse.

Now, after a decade of profoundly unequal economic recovery, eastern Europe has once again been plunged into deep crisis by the west's own meltdown, with ethnic violence spreading and public sector workers facing wage cuts of up to 40%.

The German Democratic Republic was home to the Stasi, shortages and the wall, but it was also a country of full employment, social equality, cheap housing, transport and culture, one of the best childcare systems in the world, and greater freedom in the workplace than most employees enjoy in today's Germany.

Along with the humiliation of the takeover, that's why Der Spiegel this year found that 57% of eastern Germans believed the GDR had "more good sides than bad sides", and even younger people rejected the idea that the state had been a dictatorship. Just as only one in five Hungarians believes that the country has changed for the better since 1989, only 11% of Bulgarians think ordinary people have benefited from the changes and most Russians and Ukrainians regret the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

By destroying its main ideological competitor, 1989 opened the door to a deregulated model of capitalism that has wreaked social and economic havoc across the world for two decades. That, in turn, led to the economic crisis of 2009, which has so palpably discredited the neoliberal model. It also created the conditions for the wave of progressive change in Latin America that has challenged the post-89 social order and raised the possibility of a new form of socialism for the 21st century.

Only 11% of those questioned in a BBC poll across 27 countries this week said they think free-market capitalism is working well, nearly a quarter believe it is fatally flawed and most want more public ownership and intervention in the economy.

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Almost missed this excellent letter from Helena Kennedy in the Observer:

The big issue: EU presidency. Tony Blair is the last leader Europe needs

The presidency of Europe will be highly symbolic and Tony Blair is a wholly inappropriate person to hold the role ("Is Tony Blair the right man to be president of Europe?", Observer Debate, Comment). He misled our country – to secure support for a decision he had already made to join George Bush in the Iraq war. In doing so, he showed total disrespect for international law, the United Nations and the views of his European partners; he destabilised the world and was naively cavalier as to the cost in human lives.

Domestically, he was disrespectful of the rule of law and civil liberties, hollowed out the Labour party and deepened the divide between rich and poor. He cravenly bowed to the demands of Rupert Murdoch, the neoconservatives in America, the extreme pro-Israeli lobby and his friends in the City. He showed poor judgment in his choice of associates. His freeloading was shameful. Indeed, his lifestyle epitomises the worst values of a materialistic age. He does not have the qualities of a leader, but would be an excellent television presenter.

Helena Kennedy

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2009/nov/01/the-big-issue-tony-blair

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Will Hutton

These money-grubbing companies make the public sector look good

The simple equation that the private sector is good and the public sector bad has blighted our lives for decades

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/01/will-hutton-nimrod-afghanistan-raf

This is, I know, a question that defines me as a maverick; everyone knows that the public sector is a slough of inefficiency while the private sector is the home of innovation, enterprise and customer service. All I can say is: not in my recent experience.

Yet public service reformers remain animated by a desire to follow private sector examples. One fashionable wheeze is that local authority services are to be organised like low-cost airlines.

The best in the private sector can, of course, be exemplary – but to be great there has to be a culture that says the firm is more than merely an engine to deliver goods and services as cheaply as possible. Sure, cost effectiveness counts. But great firms – just like great parts of the public sector – are animated by a sense of purpose.

What has been wrong with too much of the public sector is not the fact of being owned by the state, or bureaucracy. It is a loss of a sense of purpose. Too many dumb, clunky targets; too much preoccupation with narrow cost saving and too little concern with greater purpose – from which poor leadership and management derive, and of which the MoD is an exemplar. To look to the private sector for quick-fix solutions, just because it is private, is to draw the wrong conclusion.

What the best in the private sector shows is the result of rigorous implementation of purpose. If Virgin.net felt passionately that it wanted to be a great server provider, I doubt it would collapse so much. Equally, what went wrong in the City was a complete loss of purpose, so the only point of banking became to make bonuses. If Charles Haddon-Cave wrote a report on either, I'm sure he would find the same lackadaisical approach he found in the Nimrod saga – if only with much less deadly results. The private sector never offered the magic bullet that New Labour or Thatcherites imagined. Efficiency and innovation are tough to deliver – and too much of Britain has failed in that mission.

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Making Wall Street pay

Wall Street's irresponsible bankers caused this economic crisis. It's only fair that they pay to clean up their mess

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/nov/09/us-wall-street-financial-transactions-tax

While we may need additional revenue at some point, it makes far more sense to impose a financial transactions tax, which would primarily hit the Wall Street banks that gave us this disaster, than to tax the consumption of ordinary working families. We can raise large amounts of money by taxing the speculation of the Wall Street high-flyers while barely affecting the sort of financial dealings that most of us do in our daily lives.

Since the financial sector is the source of the country's current economic and budget problems it also makes sense to have this sector bear the brunt of any new taxes that may be needed. The economic collapse caused by Wall Street's irrational exuberance has led to a huge increase in the country debt burden. It seems only fair that Wall Street bear the brunt of the clean-up costs. A financial transactions tax is the way to make sure that this happens.

In short, we have to tell the deficit hawk crew, many of whom earned their fortune on Wall Street, to slow down. The country does face serious budget problems, even if they may not be as bad as this crew claims. However, if we need taxes to address a budget shortfall, then Wall Street is the place to start. After we have put in place a tax on Wall Street speculation, if we still need additional money, we can talk about a tax that will primarily affect the middle class.

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Paul Moore, the bank whistleblower whose revelations forced the resignation of a senior Government adviser, has called for Prime Minister Gordon Brown to go for his part in creating the financial crisis.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/4629670/Gordon-Brown-must-go-says-HBOS-whistleblower-Paul-Moore.html

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The iconoclastic wisdom of David Nutt

This is not the first time Professor Nutt has challenged dearly held beliefs – as many sufferers of depression will gladly testify

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/03/david-nutt-depression-drugs

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How tough love breeds smart children

Report says that parents who use mixture of discipline and warmth are most likely to produce well-rounded individuals

by Anushka Asthana

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/nov/08/tough-love-smart-children

Children brought up by parents practising "tough love" are more likely to become rounded personalities with well-developed characters than those who face either authoritarian or laissez-faire approaches, research reveals today.

The study, by the thinktank Demos, tracked the lives of 9,000 families and found that 13% used a "tough love" approach, combining warmth and discipline. It did not matter whether the parents were rich or poor – those that adopted the approach brought up children who were more likely to be empathetic, more able to control their emotions and bounce back from disappointment, and more capable of concentrating and completing tasks.

The research found that it was the style of parenting, rather than income or social background, that developed the strength of character.

It claimed that such "character capabilities" had become increasingly important in life. Skills such as empathy, self-regulation and application were 33 times more important in determining income for those who turned 30 in 2000 than for those 12 years older, it said.

Richard Reeves, director of Demos, argued that "tough love" was successful because it built up a child's self-esteem but also taught them to be restrained and respectful.

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Layer 214 . . . Part Three . . . Mel's Journey into Darkness and Ignorance, Obama and City Bonuses

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Well done The Guardian for giving Ed Hussain space in the paper to lambast the appalling Melanie Phillips.

The personal jihad of Melanie Phillips

In her McCarthy-style paranoid parallel universe, the Spectator columnist views every Muslim a potential Islamist terrorist

Melanie Philips's zealotry and ignorance frighten me. How did we produce a public commentator filled with such anger, venom and hatred?

I believe in the human ability to change and, in that hope of helping Melanie see the the flaws in her analysis, I met with her several times in private and appealed to her to stop blaming Islam and Muslim scripture for (the decidedly un-Islamic phenomenon of) terrorism. Why would she and her acolyte Douglas Murray not cease attacks on Muslim scripture that were based on bin Laden's understanding of Islam? And why would they not support Islam's inherent pluralism and recognise that Islam per se is not the problem, but iconoclastic interpretations of it.

With Melanie and Douglas, I probably failed. Just as humans can travel to enlightenment, they can also journey into darkness and ignorance.

Melanie has gone from being a tree-hugger during her Guardian days to ranter about climate change "totalitarians". And worse, seeing conspiracies and dangerous links where there are none. What else explains her suggestion in last October's Spectator magazine that President Barack Obama "adopts the agenda of the Islamists" and is "firmly in the Islamists' camp"?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/oct/31/melanie-phillips-islamism-spectator

Lots of good comments on CiF after this article, like this one from royj68 -

The reason i can't listen to the moral maze anymore.Taking lessons in morality from Melanie Phillips:hilarious.

And from notsuperstitious -

Don't forget the Melanie Phillips definition of 'anti-semitism' i.e. anyone who dares question that maybe, just maybe, the Palestinians have a right to their own state, perhaps should not be subject to apartheid restrictions in their own land with their resources and land stolen from them, and in fact deserve to be treated and viewed as human beings rather than the unpleasant brown stuff you sometimes tread in.

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Talking of Obama -

Much remains for Obama to do – but what's remarkable is how much he has achieved in the face of financial crisis – by Ian Williams
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/oct/30/barack-obama-usforeignpolicy

After Obama's election I wrote here: "It may not be the second coming, but to use the eschatological phraseology of the Palins of this world, it is certainly the end of the reign of the Antichrist." I also recalled what I'd said during the campaign: "The world looked upon these elections as an IQ test for the American public. The electorate has aced the test. It has put centuries of racism behind it and elected a president who shows signs of knowing where the rest of the world is."

Frankly, while still far from euphoric, I feel vindicated. The coalition of not-so-covert racists, teabaggers, birthers and defenders of Medicare against the state should be a reminder to the purist Obama-detractors of the left just who could instead be staffing the US government now.

....................................

There's talk today about how Obama seems to have failed to create any positive change in the Middle East and Israel. It looks to me as though having appointed Hilary Clinton he's more or less had to allow her to go softly softly into the region and more or less be led round in circles by the various parties there.

However, there will surely come a point when he'll have to say in a big speech what he expects to see happening henceforward, and what the consequences will be as far as America is concerned if the Israelis continue to take the American billions and give nothing in return except piss-taking and a contemptuous refusal to cooperate in any enlightened way.
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Time for a windfall tax on bonuses

We need to transform the banking sector by reasserting democracy and bringing the business elite to account

by Jon Cruddas and Jonathan Rutherford

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/31/bank-bonus-windfall-tax

The Christmas bonus pay-out by the City is forecast to rise to £6bn. This excessive reward for market failure is morally and politically unacceptable. So today Compass is calling for a windfall tax on bankers' bonuses.
A minimum tax of 25% on banks' bonus funds could net £1.5bn to create jobs for young people and help to develop the future green economy. The government must show political leadership and act decisively because there are larger issues of democracy and economic development at stake.

Britain is now the only major economy still in recession. Three decades of the ascendancy of financial capital and the dismantling of the welfare state, employment regulation and workers' rights has removed many of the economic stabilisers that act as buffers to deflationary pressure – secure jobs, decent wages and proper benefits. With our capacity to weather the economic storm weakened, millions will pay for the bankers dynastic levels of wealth by facing a sub-poverty line Christmas on the £69-a-week Job Seeker's Allowance.

Lord Griffiths, vice-chairman of Goldman Sachs, says the British public should tolerate this kind of inequality because it will lead to "greater prosperity for all". The evidence proves him wrong. A decade of booming bank profits has left the incomes of middle Britain stagnant. Between 2005 and 2006, when the financial services share of the UK's GDP increased from 8.8% to 9.4%, income poverty began to rise again.

The business model of the financial sector does not spread wealth and it does not create a significant number of jobs. It established a collusion between shareholder value and the business elite which engineered a massive transfer of wealth to the rich.

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Layer 214 . . . Vince Cable, Bankers, Berlusconi and Wankers

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It must be obvious to anyone who pays any attention to these matters that Vince Cable is the one politician who has any real understanding of what's happened and what's continuing to happen in finance and banking - and a man  who can speak with real authority on financial matters. When he writes about the continuing crisis, therefore, we need to pay attention to what he says if we have any pretentions at all to being knowledgeable and informed, and therefore to being active citizens rather than bystanders and helpless pawns in the political game.

In yesterday's Guardian he wrote the following column -

We rage at bankers, and the state-backed casino rolls on

Rough justice could backfire. But as long as unconditional guarantees remain, bankers can take wild risks with impunity

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/29/bonus-windfall-tax-bank-crisis

The public currently sees bankers and their bonuses through a red mist. Punches are being thrown, like one-off windfall taxes on profits or bonuses, which may feel satisfying but don't connect with the underlying problems. These relate to having a banking system where profit – and bonus – maximisation occurs on the back of state guarantees, for institutions that are deemed too big or important to fail. As long as the guarantees exist, the key issue becomes one of how best to make banks pay a fair fee for the privileges they enjoy.

The anger has had several causes. Even before the crisis, customers resented the capricious and unreasonable charges, the incompetence and the impersonal nature of modern retail banking. Then, highly paid whizz kids managed to destroy their industry through recklessness – the taxpayer then being called upon to rescue them. Then we had rewards for failure (Sir Fred). And latterly there have been bonuses in institutions on state life support. It is like a building contractor who made a fortune putting up unsafe dwellings and, when they collapsed, made another fortune clearing up the debris.

Of course people are angry, and they have every right to be, especially when so many are losing their jobs in a recession triggered by a banking collapse.

The immediate political question is what to do about bonuses. There will be a crescendo of indignation as bank profits and bonuses are announced in coming months. There is some force in the argument that governments should act collectively through the G20 or the EU, since the bits of banking that generate the biggest bonuses are global. But this can be a cop-out, like those pious calls for "general and complete disarmament" which signal an unwillingness to do anything much about reduction. A policy of unilateral bonus disarmament is less risky, not least because other governments are already decommissioning.

One option is to use nationalised and semi-nationalised banks to set a standard of behaviour, stopping or restricting bonuses. Some of us thought such an agreement was reached a year ago by the government for RBS and Lloyds, but it does not appear to have been implemented.

It's obvious that the government intends to restore banking to the status quo as soon as it possibly can, since it's only ideology is that of neo-conservatism and it can't bring itself to think creatively and seriously about real structural changes to the banking system, imcluding keeping the failed banks in public ownership in order to provide proper competition to the baking cartel by setting fair charges and rates of interest.


Don't reward risky business
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/oct/30/obama-executive-pay-aig-goldman-sachs

by Pat Garofalo

Banks are still looking to get rich quick. Reckless risk-taking should be discouraged by limiting executive pay

Kenneth Feinberg, the US Treasury department's special master for compensation, delivered the highest-profile rebuke to Wall Street's excess last week, slapping the seven companies under his office's purview with a 50% cut in compensation for their top 25 employees, including a 90% average reduction in salary. Feinberg also curtailed many corporate perks for these executives, including the use of corporate jets and reimbursements for country club fees.

Feinberg assuredly made the right call, as these companies – AIG, Citigroup, Bank of America, General Motors and Chrysler, plus GM and Chrysler's financing arms – have swallowed billions in taxpayer money and should not be regressing back to pre-crisis levels of compensation. AIG reportedly proposed pay packages worth millions, and full of perks, that Feinberg correctly quashed.

However, reining in these seven firms doesn't help to address compensation at the Wall Street firms that have paid back their bailout funding, and are thus immune from Feinberg's oversight. And the rest of the Street is where the real problems lie.

As Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz wrote:"[Wall Street bankers] did what their incentive structures were designed to do: focusing on short-term profits and encouraging excessive risk-taking." And according to an analysis by the Wall Street Journal, compensation at Wall Street banks is on pace to reach record heights this year, to the tune of a combined $140bn at the 23 largest firms. This would eclipse the previous high of $130bn in 2007, the last year before the crash.

Goldman Sachs alone has already set aside $16.7bn for compensation (with one more quarter of earnings still to come). And Goldman Sachs adviser Brian Griffiths actually said last week that we must "tolerate" income inequality, "as a way to achieve greater prosperity and opportunity for all", revealing that some on Wall Street haven't learned any lessons at all.

If we want a financial system that serves a function beyond creating private profits with socialised risk, regulators need to step in and ensure that Wall Street's pay packages don't incentivise short-term gains over long-term viability. But will any besides Feinberg actually take that step?

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Silvio Berlusconi, neo-fascist billionaire and politician, is the one European leader (apart from Gordo) who supports Blair's canditature for the European presidency. Say no more?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/31/silvio-berlusconi-profile

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Charlie Brooker in the Guardian today -

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2009/oct/31/charlie-brooker-screen-burn

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Sir David Nutt and New Labour

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/29/cannabis-david-nutt-drug-classification
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8335126.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8335207.stm
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/sacked-ndash-for-telling-the-truth-about-drugs-1812255.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/oct/30/drugs-adviser-david-nutt-sacked


This is SO New Labour. Appoint a scientific advisor, ask him to find evidence to support what you think is politically expedient, and sack him when he tells you the opposite of what you've asked him to say.

They never had this problem with Chris Woodhead, Michael Barber, Andrew Adonis et al - because education's not . . . scientific.
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Layer 205 . . . The Alexander Enquiry, and More Banker's Bonuses

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The Alexander Enquiry

Alexander's report is published today, and our New Labour government has already rubbished it (again), calling it “out of date” and “a backward step.”

Whereas the Daily Mail has spoken out against our Stalinist schools system.

What we need is an alternative term of abuse to “Stalinist”, since this is a bit . . . inappropriate? . . . and I'd suggest Blairist, which is a term I'm convinced is almost as vile as Stalinist these days, and of course absolutely appropriate since Blair (with Mandelson and Brown) was the chief architect of the type of State command and control system we're used to seeing in this country – a system that's gone way beyond what even Thatch attempted to do to us.

If my mind wasn't made up before it sure is now – there's NO WAY I could consider voting for Labour at the next election. The sheer stupidity and philistinism of their response to Alexander's inquiry is both breathtaking and appalling.

It should also be noted they've done little substantial for constitutional reform, for reform of the banking and finance system, or for reform of our way of doing politics. They're fucked, the whole lot of them.

Please read the report itself and also these commentaries.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/6338700/Primary-review-start-formal-lessons-at-six.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1220741/Stalinist-schools-Labours-centralised-control-primary-education-driving-standards.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/oct/16/schools-report-critical-of-labour?CMP=AFCYAH

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Bonuses Are Back – Thanks To OUR Money

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/16/goldman-sachs-bankers-bonuses

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1220506/Gravy-train-bankers-JP-Morgan-plans-bonus-bonanza-quarterly-2-3bn-profit.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/15/paying-price-myth-banks-fail

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/15/goldman-sachs-banking-bonuses

…..........................................

I Am The Walrus

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/15/humpty-dumpty-children-rhymes
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Layer 192 A New World Order, Economics, Defeatism, and the Future Tory Distopia.

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Right now there is nothing more important on this planet than making sure there's a swift transition to a new economic and political order. The Guardian has launched a campaign called 10:10 which is aimed at getting people to take climate change seriously, and to reduce their consumption of fossil fuels and their carbon emissions by 10% in 2010. However, there's no chance at all that attitudes to consumption and climate change will shift dramatically unless there's a preceding shift in the way we do politics and economics.

Can it happen? It seems pretty much in the balance, in spite of the overwhelming evidence that capitalism as we've known it, and globalisation, are busted flushes. Why might it not happen? Because America is pretty much impossible to shift in its ideology, in spite of having some very intelligent and astute people now in charge of the country, much to everyone's amazement. And because in Britain we still have New Labour, with the New Conservatives waiting in the wings to take over, and a lingering mentality that greed is good, and equality and social justice are bad or unachievable.

We also have enormous amounts of ignorance about the way in which economics and finance operate, and a tendency to switch off when these subjects come up, hoping that the clever bastards that got us into this mess will also get us out. Some hope.

Thus we have a situation whereby, having been pre-eminent in the world's financial 'markets' in the period leading up to the meltdown of 2008, America and Britain (not you and me – the people who run these things) are dancing around the issues and the need to take action because they want to ensure that whatever action is taken is not going to disturb their pre-eminence. Woe betide us if other countries, as a result of greater regulation, become more important in terms of currency markets, investment funds, insurance markets, etc.

In 2009 we have a similar situation to 1979 in that Britain's economy is fucked up, as a result of the inequities of capitalism and the stupidities of politicians, people are blaming the Labour party, and there's a Conservative party waiting to take over with a lot of right-wing radical policies they can't wait to implement in order to reduce government spending, cut back on public services and privatise everything in sight, including education and health. As in 1979 the Tories deny they'll do any such thing, or do anything that could shift wealth from the less well-off to the already wealthy and downright rich.

In a sense none of this matters, insofar as New Labour has never been nor will ever be a party of  of socialism or even social democracy. Does anyone seriously see them as anything other than Tory Lite? But it matters very much if we aspire to being a better and a fairer society, and if we aspire to creating a more enlightened and more cohesive, more sustainable planet.

So as Naomi Klein says, we have to get out there and force the politicians to do what's right. We also have to do it in ways that model a non-violent, non-coercive, intelligent, moral and enlightened approach to doing things in the public and well as the private realm. I for one have no interest in working with people whose attitudes are violently aggressive and likely to remain so if they ever achievedany measure of power and influence.

The new movement has to be about all of us working together and acting together, and not about a clique or a cabal of pushy, egocentric would-be leaders. It has to be about linking arms and minds and going forward as a non-violent mass movement, not manning barricades and using weapons on the instructions of those who can shout loudest or exude the most charisma.

----------------------------------------------------

This is going to be a short blog because I'd rather readers use their time to read a couple of excellent columns which have appeared in the papers in the past few days, and if necessary re-read them in order to fully appreciate and internalise what these authors have written about so well.

These pieces are so well written, so well argued, and so full of important ideas that I find it hard to extract paragraphs from them as mere summaries. They really do need to be read in full. Having said that, I can't NOT give a flavour of their main points.

First, Will Hutton's page in the Observer:

The G20 has saved us, but it's failing to rein in those who caused the crisis

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/06/g20-financial-crisis-banking-bonuses

“It must rank as one of the least fair deals in economic history. Over the last 12 months, western governments have taken unprecedented and extraordinary action to avoid what undoubtedly would have been a global slump. The good news is that they have succeeded. The bad news is that what caused the crisis – the stranglehold of a new financial oligarchy upon public policy – has hardly been touched. And not only is this grossly unfair, but unless there is change, a second and more serious crisis potentially awaits.

What to do about the banking system and its bonuses, the excesses that created the credit crunch and division among the great nations? Banks are exploiting this vacuum to return to business as usual. It is hard to believe that only 12 months ago their recklessly overstretched balance sheets threatened an implosion of the western banking system.

Governments have got to reform the entire structure of western finance –bonuses, credit rating agencies, capital adequacy requirements, banks that are too big to fail, the use of offshore tax havens, the role of derivatives – from top to bottom.

Yesterday's communique was disappointingly minimalist – a lowest common denominator between Europe and the US, with Britain sitting unhappily in the middle. Too little is happening and what is being done is so slow that it is imperceptible.

The whole debate is extraordinary. Right-of-centre European politicians – President Sarkozy and his finance minister, Christine Lagarde, supported by the right-of-centre Swedish prime minister, who is currently president of the EU, and German Christian Democrats – believe that western governments should challenge the bank bonus culture head on. It is offensive, they think, that a banking system that owes its continued existence to massive government intervention should pay itself extravagant salaries and bonuses that are massively out of line with the top of business, let alone the ordinary taxpayer. They are right. France proposes a mandatory cap and the outlawing of guaranteed bonuses.

In opposition, there is allegedly left-of-centre Britain and the US – liberal politicians defending the indefensible. The bonus culture works on a London/New York axis, with financiers having a sense of entitlement to astonishing earnings that have no economic justification in terms of value creation or relation to profitability.

90% of investment bank profits is not directed to strengthen balance sheets or to shareholders in dividends, nor to customers in lower fees, nor to taxpayers – it goes as bankers' bonuses. Our role is to bail them out when things go wrong.

We know it is a scam . . . If G20 governments demanded limits and made continued liquidity provision dependent upon compliance, no bank could refuse. The threat of an exodus of bankers is nonsense. No bank trading outside the G20 in financial centres such as Dubai, Hong Kong or Dublin could muster the capital or scale to pay mega bonuses. The issue would be dead.

Obama and Brown are right to press for continuing the aggressive economic stimulation. They should show the same determination in confronting the powerful financial oligarchs who have so rigged the system in their favour – and their rewards. After all, they did very nearly bring the world down and could do so again.”

The comments posted after Will's column are an interesting mixed bag, and largely sane and sensible, though I haven't read them all yet.

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In yesterday's Guardian economics correspondent Ashley Seager wrote a superb column that should be required reading for every adult with the capacity to understand words of three syllables and above.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/sep/07/financial-crisis-happen-again

In the paper it appears under the headline, “Will Brown stop the drift back to the casino?”
On the website the headline is, “Have we learned nothing from the financial crisis?”

“Rescued banks are returning to the 'casino-style' speculation that brought us trouble in the first place”

 Have we learned nothing from the financial crisis of the past two years? Very little, it appears.

The investment bankers are out there making money again, popping the champagne corks and telling themselves how clever they are – after all, they have managed to pass a good proportion of their huge losses on to us, the taxpayers, and are sitting at the roulette table again.

There is a danger that in spite of all the talk among the G20 finance ministers at their weekend summit about the need to do something about bankers' bonuses and banks' capital ratios, the drive to reform could fade as the economic crisis recedes.

Hence the recent call by Adair Turner, chairman of the Financial Services Authority, for some sort of action against the excess profits banks make on some of their casino activities, which he correctly labelled "socially useless".

Later today we will have the launch of the annual trade and development report from the analysts at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad). It will put the case for far-reaching reform of the world's financial system and foreign exchange markets so that they serve the people and productive economic investment, rather than the other way around.

"All these rises in markets are said to reflect economic recovery but it is just another bubble," Heiner Flassbeck, Unctad's chief economist, told the Guardian. "These markets are reflecting a recovery that is not there. Wage deflation is a huge danger everywhere and this is not being recognised.

"Banks have been rescued by the taxpayer and are just returning to casino-style speculation that brought us trouble in the first place. We need to focus banking on supporting investment in productive businesses."

Unctad comprehensively rebuts the arguments of parties such as Boris Johnson and the British Bankers' Association that what's good for the Square Mile is good for the country.

"Financial markets in many developed countries have come to resemble giant casinos; which almost always win and when they lose they get bailed out, while everybody else loses.

"A large segment of their activities is entirely detached from real sector activities. The crisis has made it abundantly clear that more finance and more financial products are not always better, and a more sophisticated financial system does not necessarily make a greater contribution to social welfare."

The point is we are all going to pay higher taxes and see cuts to public spending for at least a decade as a result of this mess and many people may never get another job. Therefore we have a right to cut the City down to size if we want to. It's our money, remember.

[Unctad] points out that the financial services industry managed to "capture" policymaking in a number of important countries (certainly Britain) into believing the myth that what was good for the sector was good for the economy.

But Unctad is no less scornful of academic economists who, it argues, should have known better than to believe the argument for free markets.

"In view of the vast literature and rich empirical evidence on financial markets' proneness to excesses and crises, it is surprising that there was so little challenging of the popular belief in the supposedly unchallengeable wisdom of unfettered market forces."

The report lays out a prescription of how supervision of markets can be hugely improved and how the foreign exchange markets could be reformed to prevent speculative, damaging swings in exchange rates in many countries that bear no relation to the underlying economic health of a country.

We cannot let the chaos of the past two years happen again. We have to change the current system and make it work for us. Our policymakers seem too tired to do much about it. But failure to do so will leave the clock ticking down towards the next crisis.

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Talking of policymakers being too tired to do anything about the system and the fat cats that run it, Jackie Ashley, also writing in yesterday's paper, said, 

A Tory dystopia looms, yet ministers meekly sit and wait

We're months away from a government the left will hate. But Labour, gripped by defeatism, is just going through the motions.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/06/election-conservatives-labour-recession-brown

“Let me take you by the hand and lead you to a very different Britain, one that's perhaps not more than half a year away. It's a country convulsed over its future in the European Union, one in which welfare is being slashed and new prisons are the only public investment still growing. Bodies set up to make life fairer and safer are disappearing in a "bonfire of the quangos".The BBC is being dismantled and a Fox News-style Murdoch broadcasting agenda is ripping ahead. A rightwing Conservative parliamentary party is in power and sees little chance of opposition for a decade. Labour is a shattered shell of a party – nobody cares about who becomes its leader – and the future of opposition politics seems to lie with the Lib Dems.

The country will be seen to have taken a strong and decisive move to the right. David Cameron's period of soft-Blairite reassurance will be a half-forgotten footnote. Look at the most powerful thinking among today's Tories on the alleged iniquity of the EU, or the need to slash the size of the state.

After the failures and disappointments of recent years, many people will be pleased. Democracy requires, from time to time, a major clearout and a fresh start. What is baffling is that the Labour government itself appears to be quietly reconciled to a change that may destroy the party as a major player for 10 or 20 years – perhaps forever.

Jon Cruddas will tell the Compass pressure group tomorrow that the party seems paralysed, afraid and "meekly accepting defeat, unable to show what we believe in".

If so, things are worse for Labour now than they were for John Major's Conservatives before 1997. It should not be this way.

Where has the current government gone? Let's not talk about Brown. Let's talk about the rest of them – David and Ed Miliband, Ed Balls, Jack Straw, Alan Johnson, Andy Burnham, Douglas Alexander, Ben Bradshaw, Yvette Cooper?

It is as if ministers have gone on a collective go-slow . . . Where's the fire? The enthusiasm for the big picture? The aggression? How many of them are fighting to get onto the Today programme or Newsnight to make the case for Labour's record, and to attack the increasingly rightwing Conservative agenda? The effect will be to drive Labour's vote down to somewhere so appalling that there may be no coming back.

Even now, there is an alternative. Labour politicians do have a story to tell. It's the story of underfunded public services being built up again, of health workers being paid decently, of a big expansion in further education, public investment in transport and of success in containing terrorism. It's about the emergence of a more tolerant country. It's about relative peace in Northern Ireland and democracy in Scotland and Wales.

Even if unemployment is bad now, and house prices lower, millions did very well for a long time. It wasn't all an accident. It wasn't all wasted or meaningless just because the thunderclouds rolled back again.

For every positive one can find a negative – failures, mistaken wars, breaches of faith. But it isn't all black. A Tory government will do things people on the centre left will hate. If ministers and other Labour MPs have an ounce of spirit, or even self-interest, it's time to point these things out. They can't prevent defeat. They could halt catastrophe.

.................................................

I'm going to have to stop reading Jackie Ashley because she pisses me off so much. She writes quite a lot of sensible things, and then she says things that show she has no real understanding whatsoever.

The reason the bunch of twats and political pillocks she mentions can't and won't do or say anything is because they have no alternative beliefs or vision. They've fully subscribed to everything that the Blair and his Bitch project has ever said and done, everything the City Boys and the Chicago Boys wanted them to say and do, and they know full well they've been finally shown up as fucking arrogant arseholes with no economic literacy, no alternative vision and nothing else to say. They're not about to apologise for wasting huge landslides and mandates for radical change from Thatcherism, from selling off and privatising, from deregulation, from casino banking systems, etc. They're fucked, and they know it.

They can't espouse an alternative political philosophy because they don't know what one might look like. They can't embrace MPs to the left of them, and what they have to say, because they've spent so much time slagging them off and they know they're not welcome, especially as rats leaving a sinking ship and mere opportunists.  They fully deserve to go down.

The big issue for the rest of us, is indeed, as Jackie Ashley says – do we deserve a Conservative government? Well perhaps most people do deserve one – for their failure to protest about what NuLabour has been up to, for their going along with the casino and bonus culture, etc. I'm talking here about the people who read the Times, the Telegraph, the Mail, the Sun and all the other shit that supports the current political consensus about unfettered capitalism and trickle-down economics. As far as those people are concerned, I say fuck the lot of them.

Unfortunately, under a Tory government, it's the poor, the ignorant, the sick and the young who will continue to suffer, to be exploited and to remain ignorant of the real causes of their suffering. That's true in this country, and it's true globally.Not that the affluent Right aren't also ignorant, in their way. Not that they aren't also poor in many ways - in spirit, in time for enjoying life, in emotional wellbeing, etc.

The world's only hope is going to lie with the likes of Obama, assuming he's able to grow stronger as well as wiser and more experienced, the new progressive government in Japan, the intelligent wing of the EU, especially Scandinavia, some of the South American countries, possibly China, and perhaps the United Nations.

As for Jackie Ashley claiming, “Millions did very well for a long time. It wasn't all an accident. It wasn't all wasted or meaningless . . .” all I can say is that the millions who did very well weren't the poor, who have got poorer, and it wasn't children, whose lives have become increasingly stressful and miserable. And these are the very people that progressive governments are supposed to support, protect and make stronger.

In a sense it was indeed all “an accident”, as Jackie says, in that NuLabour merely channeled more money to public services - they didn't care about where the money came from, or how it was generated, or whether such generation was sustainable. As it turns out it was our money all along - none of it came out of the pockets of the tax avoiders, the tax evaders, and the offshore bankers.

New Labour did nothing to restructure British industry, ensure long-term investment and long-term employment, or regulate the UK's financial system so that it served and met the needs of our people. They deprofessionalised hundreds of thousands of public sector professionals, and they messed up and distorted the quality of health care and education with their culture of targets, payment by results (akin to old-fashioned factory piecework) and league tables.

All of this, plus Iraq and Afghanistan and support for Bushism, is a  shameful blot on Labour Party history that will be impossible to expunge. With any luck the little tosspots and carpet-baggers that supported “the project” will now quietly disappear and get on with making loadsamoney on the gravy train they tolerated and encouraged. Fuck all of them.

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Here's an interesting selection of readers' responses to what Will Hutton wrote about the BBC and the Murdoch empire.

The big issue | Murdoch and the media

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2009/sep/06/big-issue-james-murdoch
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Layer 187 Persuading, Whining, Remuneration, Education, the Shock Doctrine, C4 and the BBC.

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The Guardian today carries a report on what General Stanley McChrystal has been saying about the war in Afghanistan. In it they actually use the phrase 'winning hearts and minds', but for some reason fail to point out the exact parallels with what happened in Vietnam. It then goes on to say,

The basis of McChrystal's assessment is contained in guidelines he sent to troops last week in which he said: "The conflict will be won by persuading the population, not by destroying the enemy."

Does this mean he's guiding his troops towards less shooting and killing and rather more engagement with the Afghans in Socratic dialogue? Less blowing to smithereens and more dialectical debate over a cup of tea or coffee?

It's really incredible that serious people can still speak as though they're dealing with a bunch of stupid people who simply need to be 'persuaded'. In any case, how on earth can he say they need to be persuaded without saying what they need to be persuaded towards – presumably the American Way, a neo-conservative world view, an anti-Taliban ideology, etc. Good luck with all of that, McC. Though it's hardly the job of a mere soldier to do what politicians obviously cannot do, for all their efforts, and all the billions spent on propaganda.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/31/afghanistan-mcchrystal-strategy?CMP=AFCYAH

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The new Yahoo front page has a news panel that enables readers to click on the headline stories for The Guardian, The Telegraph and The Mail, as well as Yahoo. I'm now tempted to just click and find out what the Mail is publishing. Here's what my first click brings up:

'I've been treated like the Bulger murderers': Baby P social worker whines about her sacking

What do we make of this? Well, it's a bit rich to describe Sharon Shoesmith, ex-director of Haringey's Children's Services department, as a social worker, especially when it was her lack of experience and expertise in social services and child protection that caused a lot of her difficulties in the first place. A social worker was what she was NOT. Not ever. Sloppy journalism there.

Secondly, is this what we'd call objective reporting - to say that she's “whining”? It sounds very much like she probably is, whether or not she has cause to. But this is supposed to be objective reporting, in a 'serious' newspaper?

What her solicitors are saying is that she's been unfairly dismissed, and that Ed Balls had no more right to 'interfere' in her employment situation following the death of Baby P than Michael Howard (remember him?) had to 'interfere' in the sentences given to the murderers of James Bulger.

Excuse me? Is this supposed to be helpful to Shoesmith, I wonder – to liken her position to that of proven baby killers? The Mail then goes on to say -

Ronnie Fox, an employment law specialist with City firm Fox, said she could expect a payout of more than £1million if the unfair dismissal and sexual discrimination claims claim are successful.
He said: 'The starting point is what she would have expected to earn during the balance of her career.'

As Mrs Shoesmith earned £133,000 a year when she was sacked, she could have earned another £1.3million before retiring at 65. Her pension entitlements could potentially add another £1.5million.

She is claiming £133,000 - a year's notice - in the breach of contract High Court case.

Presumably we can expect Ms Shoesmith, if she wins her case, to then begin campaigning on behalf of the hundreds of headteachers that bureaucrats like her have squeezed out of their jobs and careers, following harsh judgements made by Ofsted inspections in which various data and statistics have been used which purported to show that what had seemed to be good or at least satisfactory schools were somehow failing to reach government and LA targets.

She's surely had lots of time these past months to reflect on how governments policies, a draconian inspection regime and unjustifiable knee-jerk reactions by senior officers like herself  have ruined the careers and sometimes the lives of many lifelong dedicated public servants whose only 'crime' was to try their best to run schools for the benefit of their pupils.

At the very least she might campaign for proper compensation for headteachers and teachers that have been crushed by the current regime, even if such compensation might seem like peanuts relative to her claim for millions.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1210265/Baby-P-boss-Sharon-Shoesmith-claims-like-Bulger-killers-blames-Balls-disgraceful-sacking.html?ITO=1490

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Bankers' Bonuses

Meanwhile, back at the Guardian:

UK to seek global action on bankers' bonuses, says Gordon Brown 

He does make you smile, does Gord.

“Gordon Brown declares today that Britain will push for tough global action to crack down on excessive bonuses for bankers. 

In an interview to mark the start of the political season, the prime minister calls for a "clawback system" to confiscate bonuses based on failed speculative deals. "Remuneration has got to be based on long-term success, not short-term speculative deals," Brown tells today's Financial Times. "There's got to be a clawback system in remuneration itself … if things are not working in year two." 

So - if there's a case to be made for clawing back unjustifiable bonuses, why isn't he going to legislate to tax and claw back all the loot that's been filched from our financial system these past several years – the years that led up to the massive financial meltdown, which could only be addressed by our government by handing over untold billions of OUR money to the banks?

Secondly, this “if things are not working in year two” - Gordo thinks that TWO years is long term!! This is a man who's supposed to be some kind of financial and political genius. I know that a week is considered a long time in politics, but this is insane.

It's a fact that many bankers job-hop and don't ever stay in one place for longer than a year or two – and why would they, after all, stick around to face the long-term consequences of their short-term actions? Any fool can parachute into a top job, do all kinds of cost-cutting, job restructuring, deckchair rearranging and policy changing and then piss off smartly before the actual shit hits the fan. Why hang about and deal with long-term consequences of short-term business-school inspired 'solutions' to hitting targets? Targets, incidentally, that have been agreed with people on remuneration committees who are long-term friends of friends and friends of families, if not actual friends.

Many of these people who've been getting the millions in bonuses didn't even . . . . fuck it – why bother. Nobody's listening anyway, as Len would say.

But . . . but . . . thirdly – and finally – what's implicit in Gordo's acceptance that bonuses are justifiable if awarded for performance over the LONG TERM (of two years) is the idea that fucking huge bonuses are actually morally acceptable - on the grounds that the people getting them would otherwise fuck off elsewhere.

Whereas most of us just want these people to fuck off anyway. Yes- we'd prefer their junior colleagues to step up and show us what they can do in the top jobs on sensible salaries. And if they're massively successful and are offered huge bonuses to go and work abroad, well they can fuck off as well. And so on. Until all those other countries have all the greedy bastards they can possibly use.

Maybe we could just start seeing this country as a kind of incubation facility for the world's financial system. That might be good. And if it meant that our financial system made less money than it otherwise might – well maybe that might just be a price worth paying for a more egalitarian, more harmonious and more contented society in which social and economic justice prevails.

And I'll say this again – a fucking trained monkey could make millions working in an industry where money is the 'product' that's being made, in a casino where the casino owners make their own rules, simply by taking risks and getting lucky, at the expense of rival operators or punters who are slightly less smart and/or slightly less lucky. And in any event the casino owners get rich, regardless of who's placing the bets.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/sep/01/gordon-brown-bank-bonuses?CMP=AFCYAH

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Education

I'm somewhat sorry to bang on about the purposes of education but I can't NOT say something in response to the discussions on the Today programme today.

“The government is working with the former Conservative education secretary Lord Baker to set up a new generation of technical schools to train teenagers to become builders, technicians and engineers. Lord Baker discusses the change in education policy which will revive dedicated training schools not seen since the 1950s.” -  Radio 4, Today website.

In Germany their Technical Schools are more popular than their 'grammar schools'. Baker talked on the programme about lifting the status of 'skills', and continuing to teach literacy skills, maths and science alongside technical and practical skills. He emphasised that the new technical colleges he's proposing will be self-selecting – they should be there for kids to opt into, just as they do in Germany. He also believes, apparently, that Britain's failure to offer proper technical education to young people, as an alternative to the 'academic', is our biggest educational failure since the second world war.

It's incredible that such schemes and courses, and indeed colleges, haven't been available to kids all these years – when all that's been happening is more and more emphasis has been put on getting the fucking magical '5 A – C's' and 'academic' attainment. Of course our 'non-academic' kids would have opted into them, given a chance, instead of being forced into classes where nothing meaningful to them has been on offer.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/listen_again/default.stm

"The number of vocational Diploma courses available to students in England has doubled from five to 10. The government wants the Diploma to become a core qualification in the education system, viewed to be as valid as A-levels and GCSEs. Sir Alan Jones, chairman emeritus of Toyota in the UK and Professor Alan Smithers, director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research, debate the need for the proposed Diplomas."  - Radio 4, Today website.

“Bringing Learning To Life, is the slogan”. Indeed it should be. “Five new subjects are on offer from today, to add to the five launched last year, from hair & beauty to hospitality.”

Diplomas are meant to be a vocational alternative to exiting GCSEs and A Levels.

Prof Alan Smithers, of the 'University of Buckingham' – privately owned of course - is of course anti-Diplomas. Prior to their introduction he apparently said they were 'a disaster waiting to happen'. He said there didn't seem to be any pent-up demand for this qualification. (!!!) No doubt he'd feel concerned that technical colleges might divert potential punters away from his university, and reduce the demand for 'higher' education as we know it, as well as his uni's income stream.

The professor asked Sir Alan Jones how many 'diplomats' will be recruited by TIE-YOOTA. He can't even pronounce the bloody word. It's TOY - O – TA, you moron.

S'Rallan emphasised that young people need a good balance between theory and practical skills. He rejects the distinction between and the separation of academic and vocational. He stressed that the world is fast-changing and that young people need to be flexible, innovative, entrepreneurial, creative, imaginative, self-managing, good communicators and good at teamwork. He also pointed out that currently young people are not coming into business and industry with this kind of skillset and with these attitudes – from wherever they're currently educated. Er, no. You can't easily test that stuff.

S'Rallan pointed out, in response to the interviewer saying that we surely still need to provide an academic type of education for many of our young people, that the needs of employers and businesses should be prioritised over the needs of universities, since without profitable businesses the country can't afford to run universities anyway. He insisted we need 'well-rounded' young people if the country is to prosper and thereby generate the funds we need for public services, including universities.

He also mentioned that we need those 'well-rounded' young people to 'challenge the way the world is'. Blimey. Whatever next? Schools for revolutionaries?

As for the needs of young people themselves – who gives a fuck. Nowhere in this discussion were young people's actual developmental needs even mentioned. Though it's implicit in what Alan Jones was saying that they need social skills and emotional literacy, as well as spiritual intelligence. They need thinking skills, vocational skills, teamwork skills and communication skills.

But let's be honest, this is all just fucking COMMON SENSE! So how come we're still arguing about the need for common sense in this stupid country?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/listen_again/default.stm

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True Stories: The Shock Doctrine

 Naomi Klein

Tonight on More Four 10.00pm – 11.45pm – watch it, record it, share it.

The Guardian's 'Pick of the Day' says:

“Cinematic rendering of Naomi Klein's typically thoughtful and provocative book. The Shock Doctrine chronicles the rise of what Klein terms Disaster Capitalism – the rampant and rapacious profiteering from catastrophe, whether natural (the New Orleans flood) or deliberately orchestrated (Iraq). This is the sort of reasoned, coherent argument that the left should have spent more of the 21st Century making.”

Elsewhere in the Guardian it says,

Digital channel More4 will give Michael Winterbottom's polemical documentary The Shock Doctrine, based on Naomi Klein's book of the same name, its UK TV premiere.

The Shock Doctrine is to be the first programme broadcast as part of a new series of More4's international documentary strand, True Stories, on 1 September at 10pm.

Like Canadian activist and author Klein's book, the film is a critique of America's free market policies, and argues that the US, along with other western countries, has exploited natural and man-made disasters in developing countries to push through free market reforms from which they stand to benefit. In her book, Klein has branded this "disaster capitalism".

Co-directed by Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross, the film also analyses the global financial crisis, which took place after the book was published, and seeks to explain its origins.
The Shock Doctrine argues that big corporations in search of new markets benefit when governments import the neo-liberal economic system, often as a result of pressure from the US, but that this often has catastrophic consequences for "ordinary people". Political leaders have turned to "brutality and repression" it contends, to crush protests against their ideologically inspired programmes of privatisation, deregulation and tax cuts.

The Shock Doctrine was commissioned by More4 from Revolution Films/Renegade Pictures. Winterbottom's previous work includes 24 Hour Party People and Welcome to Sarajevo.

Winterbottom and Whitecross also made The Road to Guantanamo, the award-winning docudrama about British prisoners held at the US detention centre, which was co-financed by Channel 4.

Three hundred cheers for Channel 4, say I.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvG0gbvZ4tY&feature=related

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/aug/19/more4-shock-doctrine-naomi-klein

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-shock-doctrine 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JG9CM_J00bw&feature=fvw



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And three hundred more for the BBC.

The BBC was attacked at the weekend by that son of a bitch James Murdoch. He was speaking – lecturing if you like – in Edinburgh, at a media festival. He's clearly just a mouthpiece for not only his father but the whole of the Chicago School and business school neo-liberal right wing Shock Doctrine nut house that thinks it rules the planet, or has a right to.

Everything he had to say was summed up in his weedy little closing sentence – a Gordon Gekko-like spiel about profits being the sole criterion for what is good and valid in this world. It's market fundamentalism that's in his genes and in his blood, and no amount of argument about the virtues of public-service broadcasting a la BBC could ever shift his perspective from the Lear Jet global capitalist one he's blinkered by.

Have a look at these sweet words, his closing sentence, his paean to capitalism:

"There is an inescapable conclusion that we must reach if we are to have a better society. The only reliable, durable, and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit."

Here endeth the sermon. What is this independence? Who, within the Murdoch empire, is 'independent'? Of what? Or whom?

The doctrine of deregulation is what crashed the world financial system, and it's also what's turned the American media into such a shit house. But that's what he wants us to have – a deregulated media and a pruned-down, castrated and emaciated BBC. Bastard.

Not that the BBC is perfect, or tremendously well managed. It's just that it happens to be the best model for our public service/public subscription broadcasting system, however well or poorly managed it happens to be. So WE have to stand up and defend it, and not leave an open field for the Murdoch empire to take over and thereby get even richer, fatter and stronger.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/31/james-murdoch-media-bbc-regulators

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/james-murdoch-launches-attack-on-the-bbc-1778797.html
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