Layer 403 . . . Sunlight, Medicine, Music, Piano Red, Dr Feelgood, Billy Bragg, Student Protests, Monbiot, Berlusconi, Italy, Internet Democracy and Intelligent Debate

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I heard this on Radio 4's Book of the Week this morning -

"Sunlight is said to be a beneficial treatment for at least 165 illnesses . . ."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00wmnby

Book of the Week - 'Chasing The Sun'.

Roll on Springtime.

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"Music is medicine." - Piano Red

I'd like to say a personal thank you to Frances Wood for turning me on to the music of Piano Red, aka Dr Feelgood, during her session on Desert Island Discs last week. There's lots of his tracks on Spotify, including Ms Wood's choice, "The Right String Baby, But The Wrong Yo-Yo".

This is the good doctor's spoken spiel that begins a track called "Blues, Blues, Blues":

"Music is medicine. The kind of music you're listening to now is the kind of medicine that the doctors don't recommend. Because they use shots and pills, and I use the straight-out music. Music with feeling. The kind that's good for you, good to you, and good for what ails you. Believe me - you can't go wrong when you listen to music with feeling. Blues was the creation of American music."

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_Red

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More synchronicity. Last week I got round to watching a two-hour documentary on the life and times of the British band called Dr Feelgood.

You can check it out here:

Oil City Confidential

http://www.drfeelgood.org/

A lot of sadness . . . and a lot of badness in the deep south, in the Thames delta.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Feelgood

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One of the best things ever to come out of Essex is Billy Bragg. He wrote this piece for the Guardian:

Student protesters: teaching the left's old guard a thing or two

The new generation seems determined to avoid the ideological nitpicking that has for so long blighted the British left

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/14/student-protesters-british-left

The student protesters of this winter of discontent are my heroes. Instead of giving up on politicians who failed to deliver their promises on tuition fees, the students have been galvanised into action. Their demonstrations and occupations are the antidote to the cynical bile that is spewed out on internet forums against anybody who dares challenge the notion that free-market capitalism is the answer to all our problems.

The ubiquity of the camera phone among the young has turned every protester into a citizen reporter, capable of accessing images that instantly refute the claims of the authorities. Those same handheld devices allow the protesters to communicate so swiftly that they are able to avoid being corralled by the police and unlawfully detained. They know their rights because they can Google them.

This was supposed to be a generation of slacktivists, willing to stop Simon Cowell from getting the Christmas No 1, but not prepared to take things any further. Instead they have taken the initiative, not waiting for the Labour party or the TUC to tell them what to do, making their own connections with others in society facing painful cuts and demanding that tax avoiders take their share of the pain, too.

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I made a comment recently on CiF about being pissed off with right-wing trolls stinking the place out. This week's George Monbiot column deals with the issue head on:

These astroturf libertarians are the real threat to internet democracy

As I see in threads on my articles, the online sabotaging of intelligent debate seems organised. We must fight to save this precious gift

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2010/dec/13/astroturf-libertarians-internet-democracy

Reading comment threads on the Guardian's sites and elsewhere on the web, two patterns jump out at me. The first is that discussions of issues in which there's little money at stake tend to be a lot more civilised than debates about issues where companies stand to lose or gain billions: such as climate change, public health and corporate tax avoidance. These are often characterised by amazing levels of abuse and disruption.

Articles about the environment are hit harder by such tactics than any others. I love debate, and I often wade into the threads beneath my columns. But it's a depressing experience, as instead of contesting the issues I raise, many of those who disagree bombard me with infantile abuse, or just keep repeating a fiction, however often you discredit it. This ensures that an intelligent discussion is almost impossible – which appears to be the point.

The second pattern is the strong association between this tactic and a certain set of views: pro-corporate, anti-tax, anti-regulation. Both traditional conservatives and traditional progressives tend to be more willing to discuss an issue than these rightwing libertarians, many of whom seek to shut down debate.

So what's going on? I'm not suggesting that most of the people trying to derail these discussions are paid to do so, though I would be surprised if none were. I'm suggesting that some of the efforts to prevent intelligence from blooming seem to be organised, and that neither website hosts nor other commenters know how to respond.

For his film (Astro)Turf Wars, Taki Oldham secretly recorded a training session organised by a rightwing libertarian group called American Majority. The trainer, Austin James, was instructing Tea Party members on how to "manipulate the medium". This is what he told them: "Here's what I do. I get on Amazon; I type in 'Liberal books'. I go through and I say 'one star, one star, one star'. The flipside is you go to a conservative/ libertarian whatever, go to their products and give them five stars … This is where your kids get information: Rotten Tomatoes, Flixster. These are places where you can rate movies. So when you type in 'Movies on healthcare', I don't want Michael Moore's to come up, so I always give it bad ratings. I spend about 30 minutes a day, just click, click, click, click … If there's a place to comment, a place to rate, a place to share information, you have to do it. That's how you control the online dialogue and give our ideas a fighting chance."

Over 75% of the funding for American Majority comes from the Sam Adams Alliance. In 2008, the year in which American Majority was founded, 88% of the alliance's money came from a single donation, of $3.7m. A group that trains rightwing libertarians to distort online democratic processes was, in other words, set up with funding from a person or company with a very large wallet.

The internet is a remarkable gift, which has granted us one of the greatest democratic opportunities since universal suffrage. We're in danger of losing this global commons as it comes under assault from an army of trolls and flacks, many of them covertly organised or trained. The question for all of us – the Guardian, other websites, and everyone who benefits from this resource – is what we intend to do about it. It's time we fought back and reclaimed the internet for what it does best: exploring issues, testing ideas, opening the debate.

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Italy's fucked. Berlusconi remains as Prime Minister. Oxzen's boycott continues.

Riots break out in Rome after Silvio Berlusconi survives confidence votes

Hooded protesters set up flaming barricades as police baton-charge demonstrators in several parts of capital's historic centre

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/14/riots-rome-silvio-berlusconi-confidence-votes

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/14/silvio-berlusconi-italy-conflict-too-far
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Layer 323 . . . Italy, Dartington College, Deficit Hawks, Tony Benn, Statistics, the Coalition, Media Cynicism, Gaza and the Flotilla

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Solidarity Needed

Things in Italy are so bad that journalist and researcher Benedetta Brevini felt the need to publish this plea for Europe-wide help:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2010/may/31/europe-must-protect-italy-freedom-speech

"Unpopular ideas can be silenced and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban," wrote George Orwell in his preface to Animal Farm in 1943. And I thought the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, had a tight enough grip on public opinion without the need for any "official ban".

Berlusconi controls roughly 80% of Italian free-to-air television channels, in a country where just 20% of the population reads newspapers. Did he really need to impose any further constraint on freedom of speech? A draft law that is going to be approved by the parliament in the following weeks will gag the last few, daring news outlets that exert oversight on the government.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/may/31/deficit-hawks-social-security-wall-street

Why should we listen to deficit hawks?

Calls to cut social security come from economists who want to line Wall Street pockets with money from ordinary workers

by Dean Baker

If the market had been allowed to run its course Goldman, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and many other major banks would have been bankrupt, leaving their shareholders and creditors out of luck and their top executives walking the unemployment lines. There are reasons that this outcome would have been undesirable for the economy as a whole, but there is a big difference between the Tarp blank check and doing nothing. If the politicians and their accomplices in the economics profession had not overwhelmed the public with fear, we could have ensured that the bankers suffered from the crisis that they had themselves created.

With the banks back on their feet, the Wall Street crew and their accomplices in the economics profession are again feeling their oats. They are insisting that we have to put our hopes for economic recovery on the back burner. Instead, we have to focus on deficit reduction. The reason is that we have to soothe financial markets.

The claim is that if we don't act aggressively now to reduce the budget deficit then the "bond vigilantes" will start a run on US debt just as they have recently done with Greece. This is supposed to make us so scared that we will accept large cuts in social security and in other important programmes.

. . . . .

The third reason not to take the deficit hawks argument seriously is simply that it is bad economics. The country needs deficit spending to sustain demand until private demand recovers from the collapse of the housing bubble. This is basic logic – and the prestigious positions of many of the deficit hawks will not allow them to repeal the rules of logic.

The deficit hawks are not concerned about national insolvency; they are not worried about soaring inflation; they are worried about how to take every last penny from ordinary workers and give it to the Wall Street crew. That is what the Tarp was about and this is what the latest crusade to reduce the deficit is all about. Now they want to go after workers' social security because, as Federal Reserve Board chairman Ben Bernanke said: "That is where the money is." The fact that workers have paid for these benefits doesn't matter at all to the Wall Street crew.

So, if you feel like giving all your money to the Wall Street gang, then you should take the deficit hawks seriously. But, if you think that people who are not Wall Street millionaires have rights too, then get out the pitchforks and send the deficit hawks and their economist accomplices running.

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Letters to my Grandchildren - Tony Benn on Midweek - R4

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Letters-My-Grandchildren-Tony-Benn/dp/0091931266

TB spoke well, as ever, about still being an idealist at the age of 85.

He talked about 2 flames that still burn brightly - Hope, & Anger against injustice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Benn

As a diarist I have chronicled the time through which I have lived in meticulous detail: but all that is history. What matters now is the future for those who will live through it. The past is the past but there may be lessons to be learned which could help the next generation to avoid mistakes their parents and grandparents made. Certainly at my age I have learned an enormous amount from the study of history - not so much from the political leaders of the time but from those who struggled for justice . . .

Every generation has to fight the same battles as their ancestors had to fight, again and again, for there is no final victory and no final defeat. Two flames have burned from the beginning of time - the flame of anger against injustice and the flame of hope. If this book serves its purpose it will fan both flames.

http://thecollectivereview.com/dan-jude/interview-tony-benn.html

http://www.tony-benn.net/

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Dartington College of Arts

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/jun/01/dartington-college-arts-relocation-falmouth

 A threat to its identity?

Will Dartington College's quirky character survive its move to the metropolis of Falmouth?

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Peter Mortimore used to be a number-cruncher and some sort of  researcher in the last days of the ILEA - as head of its research and statistics department. Figures and data are his big thing.

Educational research 'speaks the truth to power' and ministers must listen if their policies are to be effective

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/jun/01/education-research-sound-policy-base

In this crappy little article in this week's education section he states the bleeding obvious about politicians but fails to draw any decent conclusions about the uselessness of academia in general.

Politicians' speeches are peppered with references to research and evidence-based policy. Less often discussed are the details of who commissioned and paid for the research and whether findings have been subjected to peer-review.

It is timely, therefore, that a report, Instinct or Reason: How Education Policy is Made and How we Might Make it Better, has been produced by the CfBT (Centre for British Teachers) Education Trust. It concludes that, since the 1970s, much education policy has been influenced less by the strength of evidence, than by political ideology, prime ministerial likes and dislikes and the views of political advisers.

Based on interviews with, and the memoirs of, former ministers and meetings with civil servants, thinktank policy wonks, academics, and trade union officials, the report explores both the overt and covert reasons for many of the initiatives and frequent changes of policy in education over the last 40 years.

The authors argue that the media, ideology, particularly the belief in the efficacy of the market, and an increasing awareness of international comparison data – have a disproportionate influence on decisions. They suggest this influence has been considerably more powerful than that of academic researchers, who have often been viewed with suspicion. They make the point that, the longer they have been in power, the more governments feel able to disregard evidence.

Well, Pete me old mate, I think we all have good reasons to pay not much attention to academics. Take a look at your inanely grinning photo at the top of your column, for instance. "Why are politicians suspicious of academics?" It's not just the politicians, matey.

Peter says, "Good policymaking needs a sound research base." I think it needs a lot more than that, unless we're just talking about anticipating birth rates, the need for school places, etc.

The only research worth having in education is what people like those from CLPE, for example, do collaboratively by way of action research with practicing teachers. This has nothing to do with number-crunching and is based on painstaking observation of classroom practice, and an understanding of teaching and learning, the needs of children, and clear objectives for educating all of the intelligences. Academics tend not to know about this stuff, any more than politicians do.

Mortimore has no experience or in-depth understanding whatsoever of the difficulties and challenges of running a good school. Fact.

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Jenni Russell wrote a good column this week:

The coalition deserves better than the media's infantilising cynicism

Instead of clear appraisal, the coalition faces the ritual negativity that is an utterly destructive part of our collective life

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/01/coalition-media-cynicism-david-laws

David Cameron and Nick Clegg have been mocked for their talk of the new politics. But the media have been remarkably dense about recognising that this politics really is different from the adversarial, two-party system we have grown accustomed to.

This grudging, myopic approach is bad for all of us. It infantilises and depresses us. It means that the new government isn't getting the credit it should for its sense of energy and purpose, and its many good decisions; taking more of the low-paid out of tax, rolling back the database state, cancelling the third runway, and giving us much more information about how public money is spent. Nor, more importantly, is it getting a constructive engagement from its critics on how to make all the tough decisions, on welfare, revenue and cuts.

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David Grossman, an Israeli writer, published this superb column, translated for the Guardian today. It deserves to be read in full by anyone who gives a shit about the violence, the loss of life, and the stalemate in the Middle East.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/01/gaza-flotilla-attack-isral-declined

The Gaza flotilla attack shows how far Israel has declined

No explanation can justify or whitewash the crime that was committed, and no excuse can explain away the stupid actions of the government and the army. Israel did not send its soldiers to kill civilians in cold blood; this is the last thing it wanted. Yet, a small Turkish organisation, fanatical in its religious views and radically hostile to Israel, recruited to its cause several hundred seekers of peace and justice, and managed to lure Israel into a trap, because it knew how Israel would react, knew how Israel is destined and compelled, like a puppet on a string, to react the way it did.

Israel's actions are but the natural continuation of the shameful, ongoing closure of Gaza, which in turn is the perpetuation of the heavy-handed and condescending approach of the Israeli government, which is prepared to embitter the lives of a million and a half innocent people in the Gaza Strip, in order to obtain the release of one imprisoned soldier, precious and beloved though he may be; and this closure is the all-too-natural consequence of a clumsy and calcified policy, which again and again resorts by default to the use of massive and exaggerated force, at every decisive juncture, where wisdom and sensitivity and creative thinking are called for instead.

Somehow, all these calamities – including Monday's deadly events – seem to be part of a larger corruptive process afflicting Israel. One has the sense that a sullied and bloated political system, fearfully aware of the steaming mess produced over the years by its own actions and malfunctions, and despairing of the possibility to undo the endless tangle it has wrought, becomes ever more inflexible in the face of pressing and complicated challenges, losing in the process the qualities that once typified Israel and its leadership – freshness, originality, creativity.

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These pieces, by Amos Oz, an Israeli novelist and founder of the Peace Now movement, and by Lauren Booth, are also worth a read:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/02/israel-force-impotent-hamas-idea

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/02/palestinian-territories-gaza
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Layer 268 . . . Berlusconi, Bannatyne, Bunting . . . and Catholicism

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The Berlusconi Show
I'm becoming irritated with Sam Wollaston, who's one of the Guardian's TV critics and commentators. I'm getting sick of wanky journos who seem to care mainly about getting easy chuckles and taking cheap shots. I don't mind the odd chuckle or cheap shot, but I also expect more than glib summaries of some pretty important work on TV.

This week we've had a wealth of brilliant documetaries to savour and enjoy on our TV networks - the ones on Detroit, Gaza, and the encounter between Maya Angelou and Dave Chappelle, which Oxzen has already commented on - to name but three.The documentary film is an increasingly important art form.

These three documentaries were anything but straightforward reportage on their subject matter: a great deal of creative thought and energy had gone into their editing, sound, images, and so on. Work of this quality deserves to be taken seriously.

And then we had a documentary called The Berlusconi Show, made by Mark Franchetti, and shown on BBC2 in prime time on Wednesday.

So what does young Wollaston have to say about it?

This fine study of Italy's leader leaves me amazed, says Sam Wollaston. How did he ever get elected?

Mark Franchetti, who's lived away from his native country for 20 years, goes back to find out how the hell this clown came to lead a European democracy in the 21st century. Franchetti  speaks to lots of people on both sides, and looks at the historical context of Berlusconi's rise to power; this is proper, balanced reporting.

For the viewer, though, what stands out is the stuff that makes you wince. It's not as if we didn't know it all before: the media control, the alleged mafia connections and corruption, the links to the extreme right, the trials, the legislative changes, the escorts and young girls, the cosmetic surgery, the parties, the gaffes, the dissing of Angela Merkel, the referring to Barack Obama as "tanned". It's just that, when it's all presented together, you're left with your jaw on the floor. How the frigging frig did that happen? And again. And again. He's been elected three times.

This was extraordinary, fascinating and worrying, all at the same time.

So Sam - which bit of it didn't you understand - when you ask the question: "How did he get elected?"

Francitti in fact did a superb job in examining the Italian psyche and revealing how Berlusconi, ever the populist, very cleverly "triangulates" in ways that Blair and New Labour could only dream of. Slippery Silvio is smart enough to make sure that he speaks TO the working classes, and not ABOUT them or AT them. And he also makes sure that he offers them enough treats to keep them happy, unlike New Labour. He also delivers on his promises and bribes. Unlike New Labour. The programme made all of this perfectly, beautifully, clear.

Of course he also behaves like a tycoon, a megalomaniac, a monopolist, and a smug, self-satisfied would-be tyrant, which appeals to the Italian middle and upper classes, who like their leaders to be "strong", powerful", "decisive", "colourful", "maccho", "bold", wealthy, nationalistic, xenophobic, anti-socialist, anti-communist, anti-trade unionist, Machiavellian and to also have a passing resemblance to Garibaldi.

And not dissimilar to that other Italian guy - what was his name? - oh yes, Mussolini.

"His Excellency Benito Mussolini, Head of Government, Duce of Fascism, and Founder of the Empire", to give him his full title.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2010/mar/18/the-berlusconi-show-the-man-who-ate-everything

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_fascism

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Duncan Bannatyne

Here comes another tycoon with aspirations to be a political big wheel. He was on Desert Island Discs this week. And he's yet another guest of DID who knows nothing (and cares nothing) about music. Or, as he put it himself - "Ah wasnae intae music all tha' much."

How very true. Not at all into it, in fact.

Rod Stewart   — Maggie May
Tom Jones   — Green, Green Grass of Home
Dawn  — Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Ole Oak Tree
Michael Ball   — Love Changes Everything
Beverley Knight   — Shoulda Woulda Coulda
Chesney Hawkes   — The One and Only

Sample lyric -

I can't wear this uniform without some compromises
Because you'll find out that we come
In different shapes and sizes
No one can be myself like I can
For this job I'm the best man
And while this may be true
You are the one and only you

Yuk.

But at least he didn't feel the need to throw in anything classical. Strange though how so many of our 'celebrities' either don't have time for music or are just very fond of wall to wall schmaltz. Or both. Sentimental. Florid. Maudlin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_Bannatyne

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00r8h99#segments

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Chopin was quoted on R4 today as having said, "The aristocracy in Britain are brought up to treat music as background noise."

Hmm. They're not the only ones.

Chopin also wrote, "Scottish people are kind - but such bores. God help me."

It seems Mr Bannatyne is a well-known supporter of charities. Which is nice.

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He was on BBC1 on Friday - dancing for Sport Aid. Incredibly badly. Unsurprisingly for a man who has no taste in music, he shows an abysmal sense of rhythm. I.e. none whatsoever. As one of the judges said - appalling. Cringe-makingly bad.

Still - it's for cheridy. And Mr B would rather be bigging up his "profile" on TV - even if people are basically laughing and cringing at him - than not be on TV at all.

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Madeleine Bunting is right on the ball again with a piece in the Guardian today about Catholicism and child abuse -

An inquiry is vital, but the church's moral authority is lost for ever

There is only one conceivable reaction to the fast-spreading crisis in the Catholic church: horror. Only the most virulent anti-papist could ever have quite envisaged the scale of child abuse and the doggedness of the church's desire to stifle scandal. The rest of us are astonished and appalled. Quite rightly, Angela Merkel saw fit to intervene. After decades – perhaps we should rather be referring to centuries – of obfuscation, the Catholic church has to be called to account for what has happened.

Last summer the Ryan report exposed decades of systematic abuse of thousands of children in Ireland.

Abuse allegations emerge across Europe in Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Italy.

The current issue of the Catholic weekly, the Tablet, carries a thoughtful article by the head of Berlin's Institute of Sexology and Sexual Medicine which acknowledges that the church's celibacy requirement may have appealed – misleadingly appearing to offer a solution – to paedophiles' conflicted sexuality. While the debate about disproportion continues, what is increasingly clear is that the church's determination to preserve its institutional power and authority repeatedly involved suppressing the truth – even when that put children at further risk.

The crisis simply accelerates what is already happening: the drift away from a model of religious experience which younger generations find increasingly unintelligible. Despite all the talk in Ireland and elsewhere of inquiries to ascertain the truth and "rebuild confidence in the church", such initiatives are very unlikely to achieve that outcome. Inquiries prompt more lurid headlines as they expose further the scale and detail of the abuse. They are necessary and important, but they will not save the Catholic church.

There will be plenty celebrating the Catholic church's plight, and it is hard not to agree in some part with MacCulloch, that hubris has played a huge part in this institution's history and its current crisis. But it is also important to acknowledge that this is more tragedy than anything else. For the victims, their families, their congregations – many of whom see no cause for celebration despite their need for truth – and for those causes on which the church has proved a trenchant champion, stirring lazy consciences on the arms race, global inequality and capitalist excess.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/mar/19/catholic-church-child-abuse

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2010/mar/18/catholic-church-abuse-pope

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/17/catholic-church-abuse-germany-ireland

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/17/catholic-sex-abuse-benedict-vatican

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I'm going to bed slightly depressed tonight, having read so many bullshit comments on CIF following Lynsey Hanley's latest column in the Guardian, which was basically a good news story about Newham Council allocating over £1m so that every child in ther borough can have music lessons on an instrument of their choice.

The really depressing thing is that our education system turns out so many people who've been to probably quite decent schools, and even universities, and still end up witless, mean-spirited and up their own arses. What's more these morons have nothing better to do than hang around the Guardian's website ready to spew out their ignorant and reactionary bile, totally incapable of any constructive or even any interesting thoughts.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/19/music-lessons-schools-cultural-learning?

http://www.musicmanifesto.co.uk/news/details/Newham-Council-pledges-to-make-Every-Child-A-Musician/24721

http://www.musicmanifesto.co.uk/

Watch this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43tqQhOTCgQ

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This is great. I just wish we'd been able to keep the one that carried us nearly all the way across Africa.

http://uk.cars.yahoo.com/16032010/36/celebrating-icon-six-decades-vw-camper-0.html
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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 160 None of Our Business, The Main Purpose of Religion, Contrition, Mass Exile, Greedy Pig Fever and Dr. Strangelove.

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At times like this I'm glad we have a left/liberal paper like the Guardian/Observer. Consider these crucial pieces.

1. Despite menacing noises from Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's leading centre-left daily has refused to stop demanding answers to 10 questions put to him over his relationship with a Neapolitan teenager, Noemi Letizia.

Nor has there been any explanation of the latest revelation that the 18-year-old Ms Letizia is the owner of four houses. This is about more than media prurience. His wife has said she can no longer stay with a man who "frequents minors" and that he is "not well".

The press remains one of the few forces of critical appraisal in a society where almost all the television channels are answerable to Mr Berlusconi.

When a reporter from La Repubblica tackled him this week, Mr Berlusconi lost his rag. "What right have you to ask?" he stormed. The answer in a democratic society must be: "All the right in the world." La Repubblica is ploughing a lonely furrow and deserves support.

Guardian Editorial

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/23/silvio-berlusconi-la-repubblica-letizia

Doesn't this piece remind us of Totnes MP Anthony Steen? The South Devon Herald Express said,

“In his interview, broadcast at lunchtime yesterday, Mr Steen insisted his behaviour was 'impeccable' and he had merely been 'caught on the wrong foot'.

"I've done nothing criminal, that's the most awful thing, and do you know what it's about? Jealousy," he told World at One.

"I've got a very, very large house. Some people say it looks like Balmoral. It's a merchant's house of the 19th century. It's not particularly attractive, it just does me nicely."

“What right does the public have to interfere with my private life? None."

Of course he eventually came to his senses and apologised, but not before his party leader, Mr Cameron, told BBC Radio 4 it was "an appalling thing to say".

"I gave him a very clear instruction after that interview - one more squeak like that and he will have the whip taken away from him so fast his feet won't touch the ground," Mr Cameron told BBC Radio 4's the World at One.

"It was a completely unacceptable interview. It was a completely unacceptable thing to say. He's announced his retirement from Parliament."

The problem with Berlusconi, of course, is that he's the leader of his party and the leader of his country.

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2. A wonderful piece in “Face To Faith” in yesterday's paper, by Nitin Mehta, founder of the Indian Cultural Centre:

Faiths that originated in India have a long history of toleration and openness to new ideas, says Nitin Mehta

Religions that have their roots in India – namely, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism – believe all paths to God are valid, and over the centuries this sublime belief has helped avoid violence and strife. There are thousands of sects within Hinduism, and violence between them is unknown.

There is a great parable in Buddhism that describes a blind man touching different parts of an elephant and describing what he thinks it looks like. In his own way he is correct in his description, and the same is true of religions.

According to the time, circumstances and the culture it is born in, a religion will interpret the truth as it sees it. Indic religions believe there is nothing to fight about in these apparent differences. Indeed the whole concept of "my religion" is an extension of my race, my country, all of which the Indic religions call maya or illusion – at death all these attachments are severed.

When the Zoroastrians known as the Parsees came to India having been driven out of Persia for their religious beliefs, the Hindu king welcomed them and not only tolerated but encouraged them to continue practising their faith. Parsees have lived happily in India over the centuries, and there has not been a single incident of confrontation with the majority Hindus. Indeed the Parsees have paid back by excelling in so many fields that have put India on the map as a economic giant. Sikhs have defended other faiths facing persecution.

This unshakable belief in diversity has meant that religions of India have never sought to convert others. The root of cause of violence in the name of religion is the desire to convert – indeed entire civilisations have perished whenever a new ideology believing in the supremacy of its truth has decided to impose its version of truth on others.

The other unique advantage the Indic religions have is that precisely because of their tolerance of ideas they are able to reform whenever negative practices creep in, as they do in any long-­established religion. Mahatma Gandhi and many others in India were able to confront long-established but outdated and corrupt practices which had taken root in Hinduism. Much earlier Lord Buddha and Lord Mahavira had also challenged practices such as animal sacrifices that had crept into some Hindu sects. In many faiths such reformers have faced violent persecution, but Hinduism welcomes valid criticism.

This permanent revolution, to use a Trotskyite term, keeps the faith in touch with the ever-changing world. And this freedom of thought and expression is the reason why democracy is thriving in India. Until the recent Indian elections, the communists had been in power in West Bengal for a long time; in true Indian tradition, they had become integral to the all-encompassing mosaic of Indian life. The significance of this can only be realised when one considers the likelihood of communists running the show in one of the states of America!

New thoughts and new ideas do not frighten the people of Indic religions; neither do they stifle them. As Mahatma Gandhi said: "Let my windows be open to receive new ideas but let me also be strong enough not to be blown away by them." In the heart of New Delhi there is a beautiful Baha'i temple. This new temple sits comfortably in its new home and Indians visit it in large numbers hoping that there will be something new to learn from it which will enrich their lives. Until and unless all faiths around the world acknowledge the unique diversity and the rainbow of different cultures and faiths that God has given us and which so enrich our lives, religions will create strife instead of the peace that is the main purpose of religion.

Brilliant.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/23/face-to-faith-nitin-mehta

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3. “We want real contrition for our abuse.” Some excellent letters in the paper yesterday:

“It is entirely of a piece with the fact that the English Catholic hierarchy have made no statement about, nor set up an independent inquiry into, the possibility of child sex abuse in Catholic institutions in England, despite the fact that it is inconceivable that the church in England should have completely escaped the practices that have been shown to be endemic in the churches in the US and Ireland. I do not believe the church has any concern for the victims of the child sex abuse that has taken place and instead is primarily concerned to limit the damage to itself.”

And so on.

Also:

“Abuse of children was the norm in Catholic educational institutions in Ireland throughout the 50s, 60s and 70s, not the exception. Catholic parents were told suffering would help their children into heaven. I remember the small bumps on the back of my head where nuns would hit me, always leading with the ring finger, I was locked in a cupboard so I would know what the dark hole was like before entering the fires of hell.”

From Richard Lanigan

And:

“As a solicitor representing victims of child abuse, particularly in the Catholic church, I am completely unsurprised by the comments from Vincent Nichols, the new Archbishop of Westminster. As Archbishop of Birmingham he fought legal claims by child abuse victims tooth and nail, delaying justice for many years. Moreover, even when legal claims have succeeded in the courts he has been unwilling to apologise for the archdiocese's failings. His mask may have slipped publicly for the first time, but for Nichols this contempt for victims and unwillingness to learn lessons is par for the course.”

From Richard Scorer.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/23/letters-catholic-abuse

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3. "A reshuffle of these grubby MPs is futile. Try mass exile” - Polly Toynbee

Britain has always held its politicians in low esteem . . .

So will this prove to be the tipping point in which "throw the bastards out" candidates overwhelm the old parties? Pollsters think almost certainly not. Labour may well be thrown out, but probably only a handful of independents will squeeze through the first past the post two-party barrier to uppity citizens.

As that hard reality dawns on people, here is the best opportunity to take electoral reform from the realms of anorak academics into popular politics. If Labour had an ounce of sense left, it would see that radical reform is its last chance to regain a shred of credibility – and the best reason not to hold an election until a constitutional convention draws up propositions for a referendum to be held at the same time.

Only a savage act of House cleaning, with famous faces removed, might persuade voters that Labour is worth listening to again.

It will be for backbenchers and junior ministers to make that happen. I have not a shred of evidence, no wink or nod that she would, but Harriet Harman – again this week declaring herself a non-runner – has a unique authority to galvanise her party to save itself after 5 June. Despite being the one elected minister not dependent on prime ministerial patronage, she may have neither the inclination nor the nerve.

The party may recoil from this cleansing ruthlessness, but after a crushing defeat they will have to do it anyway. So why not now, before disaster strikes?"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/22/mps-expenses-harrietharman

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Two 'cultural commentators' – Mark Lawson and Hadley Freeman – wrote interesting pieces.

4. Westminster greedy pig fever is tearing up the media rulebook. - Mark Lawson

A solemn principle of higher journalism is that writing a cheque before writing a story devalues the information gained; defence counsel in libel cases often discredit witnesses by pointing out that they sold their evidence. And so parliamentarians and disgruntled journalistic rivals tried to direct attention to the money allegedly going out of the Telegraph rather than the cash spilling into constituencies.

Such bleats, however, are now silent because, even if it were to turn out that the paper got the documents by mugging a blind octogenarian nun, the import of the information would justify almost any way it came to light.

The haughtier newspapers and broadcasters have long decried the pack-attack atmosphere of elimination TV shows such as Big Brother, while many articles have argued that the Blair ­government was more or less responsible for the death of Dr David Kelly by exposing him to cruel scrutiny. Yet this last fortnight has produced hundreds of Dr Kellys – anonymous figures suddenly squirming in the searchlights – and the mood of the Question Time audience resembled humiliation shows in the savage desperation to vote the House of Commons mates off their show.

Clearly, parliamentarians who see public office as an opportunity to better the accommodation of their ducks have done more to deserve hostility than either late weapons experts or witless twentysomethings in a TV house.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/22/expenses-chequebook-journalism

5. Mr Cheney, please, tell us about it. - Hadley Freeman

Babbling away like a Speaker's Corner regular, Bush's former guru is doing him a final favour.

I don't want to start any libellous rumours here, but it's hard not to wonder if someone (Rush Limbaugh? Rahm Emanuel? It could work either way) has been putting cocaine in Cheney's morning coffee. The man just will not shut the hell up. Cheney was once the Republican party's mysterious Thomas Pynchon, but in the past two weeks he has become a media slut of Ulrika Jonsson-type proportions, with an accompanying sense of cringing embarrassment, and I would not be surprised if he turned up in the Big Brother house this summer, railing about the benefits of Abu Ghraib to fellow housemates Vanessa Feltz and Marcus Brigstocke.

On Thursday the all new Chatty Cheney gave a talk at the American Enterprise Institute on his favourite subject – Torture: it's Super! – while, as chance would have it, Obama happened to be giving a talk at almost exactly the same time on the proposed closure of Guantánamo Bay.

There is no question that there is something about Cheney that still fascinates people. Last week, a Newsweek reporter claimed that Joe Biden – another talkative VP, coincidentally – revealed at a dinner that he had been shown an underground "bunker-like room" at the National Observatory in Washington, where Cheney lived during his time as vice-president. With its "steel door secured by an elaborate lock" and a "narrow ­connecting hallway lined with shelves filled with ­communications equipment" (neighbours had apparently complained of loud construction work – for some reason that's my favourite detail), it fits in so perfectly with the popular perception of Cheney that not even the Biden office's hastily issued semi-denial (apparently, it was just an "upstairs workplace") could quell the idea that for eight years America was ruled by Dr Strangelove.

But Chatty Cheney may kill that idea himself. The reason for the chat, of course, is that Cheney feels he has a legacy to defend, which says much about who he feels was actually running the country during the past two terms. Yet in defending what little there was left to defend, he has ended up decimating it. The wizard has stepped out from behind the curtain and he has shown himself to be, far from the horrifically fascinating mastermind he occasionally seemed during his time as VP, rather a ranting old man who wouldn't look amiss at Speakers' Corner and who thinks the best way to govern is to incite fear and paranoia.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/22/cheney-bush
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Layer 7 A Long Strange Trip To The Buffers

I’m glad I managed to nip into Italy this year to visit Venice whist Berlusconi was out of power, as it’s looking likely that he’ll be back as president quite soon. Maybe everyone in Europe and elsewhere who regard themselves as progressive, liberal or left-wing should boycott Italy whenever it elects a raving neo-fascist to be its leader. That’s the least we could do by way of protest and to show solidarity with those in Italy who oppose the old bastard.

It seems he recently told a woman who was heckling him about poverty that she should have married a millionaire. He’s also on record as saying that women on the left are all ugly.

There’s an interesting line of enquiry here about good-looking women, and whether they do indeed tend support the rich and famous and fascistic. And an even more interesting issue about why the poor, the downtrodden, the sick and the unemployed often vote for people like Berlusconi, Thatcher, Major, Bush, etc.

It’s often thought that they vote for conservatives, neo-fascists and fat cats out of ignorance and stupidity, but such voters are not all ignorant and stupid. They are, however, victims of the power of a national media and a hegemony that blindly accepts that neo-conservative and right-wing political and economic theories are demonstrably correct, and that the world’s economy ought to be run for the benefit of short-term profit, capitalists, bankers and shareholders.

The poor who vote for parties of the right may well do so because they’re merely brainwashed and convinced that capitalism and its adherents are more likely to run the national and world economy better than the Left, and as such they’re more likely to do better themselves from ‘trickle-down’ - the crumbs that fall from the tables of the wealthy.

Is this not the way it works in the shires and the rural areas which are traditionally Tory: farm workers vote for conservatives because the interests of the farmers and agribusiness are deemed to be their own interests?

Where this falls down, of course, is the supposition that progressive governments are unwilling or unable to manage the economy, including the rural economy, as well as the Right; that they inevitably tax the rich and damage profitability. There’s also the fallacy that poor people do better by doffing the cap to their wealthy masters than they do from progressive tax and welfare policies, and higher investment in well-run public services such as health, housing and education.

The Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sachs was back on Thought For Today this morning talking about how our economy’s pursuit of short-term profit is destroying economic stability and damaging our long-term interests. This is indeed a spiritual issue. I really like this CR. He’s always struck me as a very wise and spiritual leader. I remember him years ago on TFT quoting the old adage that education, more than wealth or power, is the key to human dignity.

The neo-conservative economic model that’s ruled and raped the world economy for so many years has now hit the buffers and everyone’s crapping themselves that the ‘credit-crunch’ is the beginning of a world economic crash. Even the fattest of the fat cats is yowling for government interference and bail out. Everybody fears banks falling like dominos. It’s easy enough to say ‘well fuck them’ but it’s actually the less than fat cats that will be hit the hardest by economic chaos and instability.

There’s good sense in government interference, and there always was. The problem has been that governments in the UK and the USA haven’t interfered enough - that they’ve given the City and Wall Street and the money markets free-reign and largely left unregulated their short-term greed and financial stupidity.

Germany and France by contrast have very sensibly maintained a properly balanced and regulated system and seem to still have a social-democratic concern for making capitalism responsible and effective and operating in their national interests - in the interests of their countries as a whole.

Professor Ulrich Beck had an excellent article in the Guardian yesterday, in which he says, “Even advocates of a global free market now detect that, after the collapse of communism, only one opponent of the free market remains, namely the unbridled free market itself. The market has shrugged off any responsibility for democracy and society in the pursuit of short-term profit maximisation”.

In this context ‘the market’ means the super rich and the financial elite, who clearly have no intention of regulating and restraining themselves and behaving responsibly towards the rest of us. They take the view that fools and their money are easily parted. As are the ignorant and ill-informed.

They have no intention of making themselves responsible in any degree for the well-being of the rest of the nation that supports them and provides them with a base for their activities. They don’t regard themselves as members of any nation. They are simply part of the world elite. They laugh at the idea of a social contract. They don’t need a base. They bank their profits ‘offshore’, and control their financial empires remotely, electronically, digitally.

This is why factories and production and call-centres are relocated to China and India. This is why oil prices are spiralling. This is why we’re seeing the beginning of food riots in many countries, and why fish sellers in places like Naples can’t afford to eat the fish they sell. Who gives a damn about the poor and the wretched of the earth? And will the poor re-elect Berlusconi tomorrow? Will the poor re-elect a Republican president in the USA later this year? Will the poor vote for Cameron and the Tories?

No-one could ever accuse any American president of being a social democrat - even the Democrats have always been on the Right of the political spectrum as we know it. Even the Kennedy’s and Roosevelts. No-one ever accused Harold MacMillan of being a closet left-winger. And yet politicians back in the post-war years all recognised the need for government controls over the economy and government investment in public services.

That was when Keynes was king and Keynesianism was the dominant economic ideology. I remember well the war taking place in universities and in government back in the Sixties and Seventies between the dominant Keynesians and the upwardly-mobile Monetarists led by Milton Friedman. Well, the monetarists won, at least in Britain and the USA, thanks to people like Thatcher and Reagan, thanks to the stupid tendency. And here we are - completely fucked. What a long, strange trip it’s been.

Postscript
A guy on the radio has just described Italy’s political class as the most degenerate in Europe. Come on you Brits - we can do better than that!


Ulrich Beck: This Free-Market Farce Shows How Badly We Need The State :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/apr/10/creditcrunch.economics

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Jack Mapange

I was delighted yesterday when I found out from listening to Front Row on Radio 4 that there’s a Malawian poet, Jack Mapange, who teaches poetry at Newcastle University. He teaches a course called Literatures of Incarceration, and he was probably banged up in prison as a radical or a dissident when I was working as a volunteer in Malawi, supposedly helping the country to ‘develop’, under the leadership of its dictatorial Life President, Hastings (Kamuzu) Banda.

At last I see a way, through Jack Mapange, of re-establishing my links with the family of my dear deceased friend John Mwale, and with Malawi. Like my friend John it seems Jack Mapange came to Britain as a political refugee. John was just an amazing human being, and all these years after his death (during a wisdom tooth removal) I still miss him badly.

Time to get on with writing my Malawi memoires.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/arts/natpoetday/jack_mapange.shtml
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=5495