Layer 372 . . . Legacy Thoughts, Philosophy, Widdecombe, Strictly, Politics, Obama and Congress

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A Legacy of Thought

Having been a fairly avid listener to the 'legacy tracks' feature on Radio 4 for some time, I started thinking about the legacy of 'ideas' that our parents bequeath us - whether or not we know it.

One thing I've come to understand is that we often misunderstand things our parents say when we're young, especially when we don't have the critical capacity to think about them adequately, let alone challenge them.

We also need to realise that everyone's ideas, including those of our parents, tend to evolve and change over time. I would hope that my parents gained in wisdom over the course of their lives, and I assume they thought differently about certain things when they were, say, 50 or 60, as compared with when they were 30 or 40.

For the sake of clarity it might be an idea to write down the key ideas we'd like to pass on to our children as part of our legacy. Here are my current top 20. Tomorrow I'll list the following 20.

1. Pursue enlightenment rather than material wellbeing. The enrichment of the soul is far more valuable than worldly goods.

2. Accept the help, advice and support of others, but don't be dependent on them for survival and wellbeing. Take responsibility for yourself.

3. Learn the difference between falling in love and enduring love. Don't imagine that the endorphines-induced bliss of being 'in love' is sustainable. Don't overlook the dark side of other people, any more than you should overlook your own.

4. Don't imagine that the 'pursuit of happiness' will provide you with happiness, which tends to occur when you make the wellbeing of others your priority, and possibly make it your life's work. Don't be a martyr, however. Pursue work that's meaningful and fulfilling. Happiness is an indirect consequence rather than a direct goal.

5. Don't sacrifice your own wellbeing for the wellbeing of others. Take care of your own physical, mental, intellectual, emotional, social and spiritual health in order that you can help others with theirs. Become a three-dimensional and self-actualised human being.

6. Understand that the only highs worth having are natural highs. Avoid artificial stimulants and substance abuse. Eat and drink in moderation. Avoid strong doses of religion, and only use it as a temporary crutch if all else fails.

7. Realise that sexual pleasure is not necessarily the same thing as emotional intimacy and intensity. Making love is good, but isn't necessarily the same thing as loving.

8. There's nothing wrong with recreational sex, as long as its participants recognise it for what it is.

9. Learn to meditate, and take time to meditate, as a means of growing in spiritual intelligence, experiencing satori, and controlling destructive emotions. Learn about Zen. Zen is meditation, and a pathway to satori, reality, and oneness.

10. Discover your true self, and become your true self.

11. Learn about philosophy and religion, in order to understand other people - their beliefs and motivations.

12. Familiarise yourself with the works of great thinkers and writers.

13. Familiarise yourself with the uses and abuses of politics, economics and political thought.

14. Develop your capacity for creativity and creative self-expression.

15. Discover your true voice in speech and writing. Also in music and other forms of artistic expression, wherever possible.

16. Enrich your soul and spirit by experiencing and enjoying a wide range of music. Whenever possible learn how to play musical instruments, learn how to sing, and join with others in creating music - for pleasure rather then reward.

17. Pledge yourself to non-violence and the avoidance of harm to others.

18. Learn the arts of self-defence, such as aikido.

19. Learn the value of true friendship and links with others.

20. Learn the value of time on your own.

To be continued . . .

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Widdecombe and 'Strictly'

I've been meaning to write something about Milan Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being", which I'm currently reading - but that's going to have to wait. Instead I just need to mention Ann Widdecombe and Strictly Come Dancing, which seems to have the nation in its thrall.

Widdy made the cover of G2 this week, under large headlines - "This sort of prolonged frivolity I haven't had in years."

It turns out that she's never, ever, enjoyed frivolity, and is only now turning to it in her retirement. And why not? I hear people say. Maybe because there's a problem with "having fun" when it's done through being or becoming an egocentric attention-seeking media whore with no dignity, no shame, and no sense of embarrassment at having no talent whatsover for the thing that she's meant to be doing and is causing people to laugh out loud.

Decca Aitkenhead published a highly sympathetic interview, however, in which she said,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2010/nov/02/ann-widdecombe-strictly-come-dancing-fun

I last met Ann Widdecombe when I interviewed her 13 years ago. Although already out of government, she was still in her Doris Karloff phase – practically boasting about being "short and fat and ugly", and stridently anti-image, anti-celebrity, anti-vanity. But my suspicions were aroused when she got her office to call three times in the following week, to enquire about when the piece would appear. Hmm, I remember thinking. Not quite without vanity after all, then.

The more she talks, the more one can see quite how far she has had to shut down, to protect herself . . .

She will concede a certain sadness at how the career she chose, and for which she sacrificed so much, has lost much of its grandeur and dignity in her eyes. "Parliament was an institution of enormous standing when I was aspiring to go in. It isn't now. When I first went in we had very significant people there. I mean, in our intake there was a brain surgeon on the Labour side, a consultant gynaecologist on our side, we were taking in quite a high level, not a whole load of career politicians. And you look at parliament now and you cannot see the top lawyers, the top medical men, the top businessmen. They are not there."

. . . her basic approach to political life . . . essentially consists of telling people what they should be doing.

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Obama and Congress

I was going to write something about the defeat of the Democrats in the mid-term elections, but the whole thing is just too awful. I can't even raise the energy to think about Obama's problems and his triumphs. The whole American political system is appalling, and even the Democrats are well to the right of European conservatives such as Merkel, Sarkozy, Cameron and Clegg. As for the Tea Party . . .
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Layer 261 . . . Return to Bankers, Reform, Progressive Solutions and Obama's Democrats

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There are lots of things to catch up on this week, and three good pieces in the Guardian today.

Simon Jenkins wrote another superb column -

The bankers lied. And Darling, a mere puppet on their string, knows it

Britain has paid a horrific price for allowing the City to dictate credit policy. Yet there is no inquiry, no questioning, only silence

Still no inquiry. Still no answers.

The lack of accountability, the sheer lack of curiosity from the political community, is amazing.

 Advised by bankers, surrounded by bankers, obsessed with bankers, Darling paid.

I would like to know why. Ask those involved and they go wide-eyed and mutter "Armageddon", rather like Tony Blair explaining the Iraq invasion. To these people, not letting banks fail was not an option but a creed. They cannot explain what is "wrong" with taking hold of a reckless bank in trouble, guaranteeing its deposits (and cash machines) and continuing to lend against a Treasury guarantee, while dumping the casino activities into administration. Shareholders lose out, but that's capitalism. Talk of bank doors closing is rubbish.

So why were RBS and Lloyds/HBOS not fully nationalised, rather than given unconditional largesse?

An Economist headline put it pithily: "Banks fine: pity about the customers."

Darling did not even require banks to curb their extraordinary bonuses, even when they consumed a large share of reported losses. The American financier, Warren Buffett, famously protested that banks were "being run for their employees… with lucrative paydays that enriched people who are not particularly intelligent and add little value". Since he claims to own them, Darling might at least explain why he was further enriching them at public expense.

At a time when consumer demand was collapsing, the government found itself unable to respond with more VAT cuts, pensions bonuses, higher social security and more public projects, in other words a classical Keynesian answer to a slump.

That is what Germany and many far eastern countries did, with benefits rises, tax holidays and consumer scrappage schemes. The British government did the opposite.

Why did Darling not let HBOS or Lloyds fail, merely guaranteeing their deposits? Alternatively, why did he not nationalise and split up the ailing banks in October 2008? Again, if they really were too big to fail, as they alleged, why has he not made them emphatically smaller, so when they fail next time they do not drag the economy down with them?

Gillian Tett's book on the psychology of credit greed, Fool's Gold, shows the corrupting effect of unfettered derivatives trading on the whole financial system. Darling has done nothing to mitigate that effect. The world is alive with talk of curbs on bonuses, hedge funds, short trading, proprietary dealing and transaction taxes. There is talk of stress tests, living wills and higher reserve ratios. In almost all these arguments, Labour ministers are on the side of unregulated banking and against further controls. They are the wildest of free-marketeers. Brown and Darling have gone native and become puppets on a banker's string.

Britain has paid, and will go on paying, a horrific price for this government allowing bankers to dictate credit policy after 2008. To avoid ministers suffering the ideological odium of proper nationalisation (as opposing to bailing-out), Britain is being forced to lose jobs, firms, infrastructure, prosperity and the happiness it brings.

Too big to fail has taken a savage toll on the economy. If it was worth it, I would like to see the account. If not, someone should pay. Yet because the policy was backed by all three main parties, there is no questioning, no inquiry. All is silence.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/11/banks-lied-darling-puppet-city
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Mehdi Hasan wrote this:

It's defeatist nonsense to talk of a crisis of leftwing thinking

Progressives have been vindicated. The public are far ahead, and to the left, of government on the reforms we need

The left never seems to miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Social-democratic political parties across the west are in danger of allowing the financial crisis to "go to waste". Instead of seizing this once-in-a-lifetime chance to promote a radical, progressive and even populist political and economic agenda, much of the left has retreated into a familiar and introspective comfort zone, in which navel-gazing and self-flagellation become substitutes for action.

Eighteen months on, few, if any, of the leading neoliberal ideologues have recanted their belief in the sort of market fundamentalism that unleashed the worst financial crisis in human history.

The irony is that leftist analyses, for example, of the fragility of financial markets and the corrosive effects of inequality, have been vindicated by events. Never before in living memory have such large swathes of public and expert opinion endorsed policies and positions long advanced by the progressive end of the political spectrum. The public is to the left not simply of New Labour, but the political and media classes as a whole.

The reality is that the public are far ahead, and to the left, of the government on financial and economic reform. Polling by YouGov in February, for example, revealed that 76% of those surveyed wanted the government to introduce a law to cap bonus payments; 51% said they backed the so-called Robin Hood tax, or Tobin tax, on financial transactions; and 68% said they supported rules to split retail and investment banking. The latter view is backed by the Trotskyist governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, and the former by "Red" Adair Turner of the Financial Services Authority.

Then there is the role of the state. The right could offer no real alternative to the de facto nationalisation of the banks in 2008 – and the late Michael Foot went to his grave having seen a key section of his 1983 "suicide note" manifesto implemented by a (New) Labour government. But the hankering for state ownership of the so-called commanding heights of the economy is not restricted to the financial sector. Polls show voters in favour of the renationalisation of electricity, gas, water, the railways and the telecommunications industry.

In fact, throughout the Thatcher era, more people voted for high-spending, tax-raising parties than voted for Thatcher. Despite three decades of tacking to the right, under Thatcher, Major, Blair and Brown, the public has remained rather collectivist in its attitudes. Happily, recent events have only served to entrench this British mindset – and Labour's belated semi-conversion to a populist, Keynesian social democracy surely explains the narrowing of the Tory lead since the new year.

To talk therefore of a crisis of leftwing thinking is defeatist nonsense. It is the market-worshipping right that should be in crisis. But there is a serious question as to whether, after a decade-long Faustian pact with the City, Labour, as it is currently constituted, is capable of delivering the radical, progressive agenda voters crave.

The left should be much more confident, triumphalist even; for this is a progressive moment.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/11/defeatist-nonsense-leftwing-thinking
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Michael Tomasky wrote this very depressing piece about the state of the nation in the USA:

A disgrace for the Democrats

Obama's congressmen will sabotage the health bill to keep their seats. It is stomach-churning

The players in this drama are participating in the destruction of their own party. They know this. And they persist.

They live in fear of being tarred by a future Republican opponent of having abetted the march of socialism. So they voted no on the most important piece of social legislation that body has had before it in probably 40 years.

Living in mortal fear that they might lose their seats. But are they thinking about how to fix the bloated mess that is American healthcare, or serve their uninsured and underinsured constituents? Maybe in private, but certainly not in public.

Disgraceful. Virtually all of them have tens of thousands, or sometimes more than 100,000, adult constituents with no private insurance. If they're not in Washington to do something about that, then what are they there to do? Please don't answer that question.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/mar/11/disgrace-democrats-sabotage-health-bill.

Layer 71 Goodbye to the Games; Politicians with Issues.

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The Olympic Games closing ceremony was phenomenal and fabulous, entertaining and enthralling, apart from the 8 minutes that were allocated to London to advertise the 2012 games. This section was truly awful - even more shockingly horrible than anticipated. The Chinese put on a show that was awesome, spectacular, original, majestic, inspirational and uplifting. The Brits, however, brought on a red bus, some tackily dressed dancers doing silly and senseless gyrations, some garish umbrellas, and Beckham doing the only things he can do - grin inanely, and kick a ball. Or as Marina Hyde said in The Guardian, “Behold, world, our Beckham! Look on his works, ye mighty, and despair!”

The centrepiece, the pivotal performance in the London slot, was a rendition of “Whole Lotta Love” featuring Jimmy Page looking like a fat pigtailed grey-haired uncle, and Leona Lewis, admittedly a Hackney girl, warbling away at something that originally was, and still ought to be, belted out by Robert Plant. But not in this context. This was no place for ANY cock rock, let alone a period piece by Led Zep. The Chinese effort at contemporary rock music was colorful, original, up-tempo, uplifting and had a massive feel-good effect. The Brit effort was plodding, dull and hackneyed, and not a good advertisement for Hackney 2012 in any way. Shameful.

Even more horrible was the follow-on programme on BBC1, featuring various events around Britain - supposedly some kind of national launch party for the 2012 games. It was so bad it was impossible to switch off for fear of missing the very worst of what seems to pass for contemporary British ‘culture’.

In London, right outside Buck House, the organisers had built a concert stage that looked like a particularly nightmarish filling station. I think there used to be a petrol company called UK. This one was pumping out BP - British Poop music.

First up were the cast of the Queen musical, doing all the predictable and horrible stuff they do - “We Are The Champions”, “We Will Rock You”, etc. Time does nothing to diminish my hatred of Queen’s stupid, preening, overweening, senseless rubbish. What kind of people like this stuff? Fucking morons. Freddie Mercury, aka Farrokh Bulsara, - RIP. You were a true tosser and an egomaniac without peer, in a world full of egomaniacs and tossers.

How do they decide the running order of these things? In the time-honored manner of bringing on the complete rubbish first, and keeping the ‘best’ of it to ‘top the bill’? If so, it was a ridiculous mistake. To follow the magnificence of the Chinese dancing, playing, singing and performing with such complete dross was to fill one’s heart with despair and shame.

Next on were a bunch of lads called Scouting for Girls. Eh? What? Bring back The Animals, The Searchers, The Rolling Stones, even The Swinging Blue Jeans. What’s the point of having these wet little pillocks with their wet little names and their wet little haircuts performing so bloody wetly? Strangely though, S for G chose to end their slot with “London Calling” - a dark Clash classic.

London calling, see we ain't got no swing
Except for the ring of that truncheon thing
The ice age is coming, the sun's zooming in
Meltdown expected, the wheat is growing thin
Engines stop running but I have no fear
Cuz London is drowning and I live by the river.

http://www.chordie.com/chord.pere/getsome.org/guitar/olga/chordpro/c/The.Clash/LondonCalling.chopro
Did they really mean to bash out the message that London is NOT a good place to be? Or was it similar to Ronnie Reagan’s liking for Springsteen and “Born In The USA” - enthusiasm for a title, a tune, an artist and a performance, without paying the least attention to the meaning of the lyrics.

Down in the shadow of the penitentiary
Out by the gas fires of the refinery
I'm ten years burning down the road
Nowhere to run, ain't got nowhere to go
Born in the U.S.A.

Mystifying.

Even worse than the crap music and the crap dancing were the silly kids they hire as “presenters” and MCs of this rubbish. Ludicrous inane wannabe celebs; fatuous, idiotic, foolish prats. Chattering, bilious fools. It was all so utterly cringe-making I truly worry about the media’s presentation of our national life and culture over the next four years and in 2012, should the world manage to stagger that far.

The Chinese left us all wanting more, and truly appreciating the refinement of their arts, their imagination, their traditions and their culture. God knows what’s going to happen if we let the fools who run our media and our affairs mess it all up with a ridiculous melange of sold-out dinosaurs and daft kids. Sensible rockers like Mick and Keith will stay well away from such rubbish, and so will any truly talented young folk, for fear of being tainted with the sheer crap that’s bound to predominate.

Maybe we should just hire the folk who produced the Chinese shows/ceremonies to come and do it for us - to create something new and brilliant. Or else risk the world seeing the true awfulness of what our mainstream celebrity, star-struck and wannabe culture actually is.

People like ‘Lord’ Coe and Co are already running scared of trying to match the Chinese effort. They’re already copping out by saying ‘our’ games will be more humble and modest, both in budget and ambition. You can already see them getting ready to parade just a few pop idols and national ‘icons’ dressed in pin-stripes and bowlers, riding in buses and black cabs, with a squad of pearly kings and queens for added flavour. If our 8 minutes in the closing ceremony of 2008 is anything to go by, God help us.

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Obama mit Biden

I have a new theory about the US presidential election, which is now starting to shift into overdrive. Most positive and progressive people seem to assume that if there’s any justice on earth then the Democrats and Obama will win the race, and will begin forthwith to right the wrongs that have been perpetrated on America and on the planet since the Republicans stole the presidency from Al Gore and the Democrats back in the dawning of this millenium.

But my theory is that Fate hasn’t yet finished inflicting on America the amount of humiliation and economic catastrophe it feels the country deserves. This isn’t my judgement, I hope you understand. As Obama would say, that sort of decision takes place well above my pay grade. Personally I’m a pretty forgiving type, just as long as the guilty party is sufficiently grovellingly apologetic, and promises to never ever do those bad things again. Like waste 3 billion dollars a year on high-tech weaponry, on a fatuous and counter-productive ‘war on terror‘, and on killing thousands of innocent people, instead of using those incredible amounts of money to rid the planet of illiteracy, ignorance and starvation.

However, I’ve still not heard very much in the way of apology, and I’m beginning to suspect that Fate has taken the view that America still has an awful lot to learn about its racism and misogyny, about the effects of its arrogance and its bullying, and is therefore going to ensure that McCain becomes the next president, with appalling consequences. Only then will people stop and say to themselves - “You know, it really isn’t such a bad idea to elect someone on the basis of their actual policies and programmes, and not on the colour of their skin, their gender, their bellicosity, their affability or even their age. We must learn this lesson well, and resolve never to forget it.”

That’s assuming there’s any country (or world) left to elect another president after McC has finished confronting and facing down the Ruskies, the Iranians and the Islamists.

The hot topic in Britain this week is that 'Lady' Thatcher has dementia, CJD, BSE or whatever, and doesn’t know who’s who or what’s what. To which most people say - we told you so. We knew that already. It took Britain several elections to test Thatcherism to destruction, to discover that 'trickle down' political and economic theory is a pile of poo, and that if you don’t invest in good public services you get, well, bad public services. Which, after all, most people depend on. After 11 more years of neo-Thatcherism (ie New Labour) the poor are still getting poorer, the rich are getting disgustingly rich, and there’s still no sign of any inspiring progressive leaders in waiting who can turn the country around and lead us in a more progressive, more just and more enlightened direction. Cameron? Miliband? Boris? Oh dear.

City Academies to take over Primary Schools.

My handy Penguin dictionary defines Adonis as a strikingly handsome young man. Ah, the irony. Baron Andrew Adonis, age 45, ex-academic and ex-journalist, the scrawny, weasel-like New Labour schools minister, is about as qualified to run schools in England as I am to run a marathon. The bastard didn’t even attend a state secondary school. Wikipedia says his mother ran away and left him when he was a toddler. Good call. There goes a woman who recognizes some evil spawn of the devil when she sees it.

Front page news in the Guardian yesterday was Adonis’s plan to launch “matrix” Academies, which are basically City Academies with feeder Primary schools under their direct control.

Actually, the Guardian’s reporters are idiots. Polly Curtis and Allegra Stratton (who they?) wrote “One in five children start secondary school unable to read, write or do maths at the expected level”. Says who? These people have swallowed the line that 100% of eleven year olds should have reached Level 4 in their Sats by the end of Primary school. Which includes all children with special educational needs, English as a second language, behavioral and attitudinal problems, attendance issues, health issues, parents who suffer from depression, drug addiction, etc, etc.

What these reporters obviously don’t recognise, in common with most of the population, is that most ADULTS operate quite happily at Level 4 in their everyday reading, writing and maths, so if children are already at that level when they enter secondary school WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY GOING TO DO FOR THE NEXT 5 - 7 YEARS?

Who says Primary schools have a duty to do the work of Secondary schools for them? Who says Secondary teachers (as well as parents and poxy politicians) have a right to expect eleven year olds to be writing etc at an adult level by the time they enter Secondary school? So that they can 'access the curriculum'? And when exactly are they meant to learn how to access the curriculum for creativity, for emotional intelligence, for social intelligence, for spiritual intelligence?

There’s a hell of a lot wrong with our education system, including poor management of schools, both Primary and secondary. But can someone please explain how secondary specialists with no understanding of Primary pedagogy are going to benefit primary age children within a school of 2-3,000 pupils? Only an arrogant dimwit like Adonis could come up with this stuff.

What’s more he has the gall to cite Finland as the model of education he’s following. Says Lord Adonis, “Countries like Finland are often cited for their all-through schools which provide one seamless education for children through primary and secondary age".

Yes, you aDonut, and Finland also has NO summative testing of children prior to the age of 16, NO Sats, NO league tables, NO Ofsted regime, and NO micro-management of schools. Education professionals are shown proper respect and given the freedom to run their own professional and pedagogical affairs, including in-service staff development and curriculum development. And THAT’S the way they get to be top of the educational pops.
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