Layer 532 . . . The Guardian, Banks of Ideas and a Progressive Counterculture

For years I've put up with people going on about my apparent obsession with the Guardian. This has nothing to do with the political stance of the paper. It's more the fact that I have piles of old copies lying around, some of them half or a quarter read, some with articles highlighted in various shades of green, yellow, blue and magenta. (And no - I'm not organised enough to use any thought-out colour-coding  scheme as such - the shades are random depending on which highlighter is closest to hand.)

The point I'm getting to is this. I don't have an obsession with the Guardian - I get enormous enjoyment and stimulation from reading the paper. Every day is like the Saturday and Sunday of the Guardian's "Open Weekend" - there's an amazing feast of brilliant brain food on offer. What's not to like, and to want to keep in a collection? [OK - you can go online and 'clip' favourite articles to a virtual file - and I do that as well - but it's not the same thing at all as having real bits of hard copy. Don't ask why - it just isn't.]

As for throwing away brilliant articles - I've never understood why people would throw away or give away brilliant books, or brilliant DVDs for that matter. Life of Brian? Oh yes - I watched that last week. Threw it away yesterday. Shakespeare? Read it already. Thrown it away. What's not to like about having a fantastic library, or libraries, at home?

And you don't have to be 'an intellectual' to enjoy the Guardian, any more than you needed to be an intellectual to enjoy the Guardian Open Weekend. All you need is to allow good stuff to enter your brain. Take yesterday's paper, for example.

* A front-page story about the latest Tory party funding scandal and cash-for-access to Cameron and Osborne - "Two hundred grand to 250 is premier league - the first thing we want to do is get you at the Cameron/Osborne dinners."
* Four pages on the Open Weekend at Guardian HQ.
* An article on Obama's healthcare reforms being challenged by more than half of the states in the Supreme Court.
* An article on the latest moves to privatise education and to make it 'for profit'.

Plus a wealth of 'Comment' articles by the usual array of brilliant and not so brilliant columnists, plus the editorials, plus the letters page. So what is not to bloody like?

And then there's the sports section, and of course there's G2, which yesterday featured

* A four page Decca Aitkenhead interview with Grayson Perry
* A two page feature on Julian Baggini's 'Heathen Manifesto'
* A column by Ian Martin, who's a writer for 'The Thick of It:

Life under the Tories: don't say you weren't warned

Some of us saw it coming – but it doesn't have to be this way

by Ian Martin

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/25/tory-nightmare-dont-say-werent-warned

The anxiety of living under a Tory government is that you're only ever a few days from the next national bad luck lottery draw. You know something spectacularly horrible will be announced next week. You just don't know whose unlucky balls they'll be holding.

Don't say you weren't warned. We told you what the Tories were like, we of the wilted generation, two years ago. We'd seen it all before. We were struggling young parents ourselves in the 80s when Thatcher's deregulation of the market led to class war, video nasties and Bananarama. We told you. You wouldn't listen.

Come on, you simpered, the Tories can't be any worse than that other crate of soft fruit, with the Britpop on their iPods and their impenetrable jargon. And, OK, I too froze in horror when I heard Labour's schools minister Jim Knight announce through his trimmed facial ladygarden that the challenge was "not simply how to divide the cake, but how to grow the cake". They've made him a Lord now, by the way. Presumably for services to advanced metaphor.

This is why we warned you about the Tories. We knew it would be easier for them to deconstruct the welfare state this time round as they spent much of their last time in office loosening the bolts. The print unions and the miners were defeated early on. The rest of the Tory era was spent dismantling a working class power base it had taken a century and a half to build. They had plenty of time. My son was born in 1979, the year Thatcher became prime minister. He was 18 before the Tories were turfed out again.

Local authorities were humiliated, their stock of affordable housing sold in a right-to-buy fire sale, their powers gradually whittled down to bins and dog waste. The Public Finance Initiative, greatly expanded under the auspices of Blair, was originally introduced as a buccaneering Tory programme, an innovative way of "synergising" public and private sectors. In much the same way that partnerships are forged between a desperately broke family and a loan shark.

Look, the reason this government's moving so quickly to divide the NHS into privatised contractual fiefdoms for its mates, and to divert education budgets into "free" schools for its mates' children, is because it can. Resistance has been atomised. Working-class rage, once articulated by powerful unions representing people doing proper jobs, has dissipated. 

There's no hope of reunionising the country is there? You might as well try to unionise comedy writing, and … oh, wait.

I'm a member of two writers unions. One here, and one in the US I had to join for an American gig last year.

If you can unionise joke-writing you can unionise anything. People who do "silly" jobs of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains.

It would be interesting to see how long Westminster could function if the Amalgamated Union of Baristas and Sandwich Fillers called a strike. And the civil servants came out in sympathy. And the drivers and the cleaners and the couriers and the receptionists and the child-minders and, now I come to think of it, the grandparents.

All this guff the government's spinning about choice and the individual: that's what they want. The last thing they want is collective action. They're always sneering about "Guardian readers". Well, we pay our daily sub of £1.20, let's call ourselves a union. Comrades, to the barricades! Or if you're a Times reader, the paywall!

http://writing.ie/meet-the-authors/special-guests/358-ian-martin-and-the-coalition-chronicles-.html

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Coincidentally I'd spent time at the Open Weekend thinking about the cumulative benefits of all those people at the event taking part in all those discussions on such a wide range of subjects - political, social, cultural, educational, psychological, scientific, economic, etc.

In the early part of the last century - pre-television - people used to go in large numbers to meetings of political parties, trade unions and other interest groups. There was true citizenship in action - direct participation in discussion, debate and policy-making. People listened to speakers giving out information and opinions, and had a chance to ask questions for clarification, as well as give direct feedback with their own opinions.

Our politics and our party system is busted, and everyone knows it. There's very little difference between three dinosaur parties full of young and middle aged prats who represent the political spectrum from the centre right to the hard right. There is NO coherent progressive or alternative opinion. And of course there's little or no actual participation by regular citizens. No wonder those of us who wanted to see the back of New Labour had no-one credible or coherent to vote for. No wonder we're stuck with a government of the rich, by the rich, for the rich.

The Guardian HAS to become even more of a focal point for the positive energy of all those who took part in the weekend gathering of the tribes, plus all those who couldn't get there or didn't know it was happening. Back in the 60's - fully 50 years ago - we built a counterculture and a movement. This has to happen again. Glastonbury's fine, but it's not enough. Music isn't enough. We need ideas to shift a moribund culture and kick it into new life. We now have the Internet, email, Skype, Facebook and Twitter to help build links. We are the many - and the one percent are the few. We need a government that's genuinely of the people, by the people, for the people. We've had enough of rule by Westminster and the City.

We need regular gatherings and debates all over the country. We need young people and old people to be involved in them. We need to make connections and we need to form affiliations. The Open Weekend had no particular agenda and no identifiable leaders. It had organisers. It was led by ideas and opinions. Thank goodness.

Television and radio are more or less closed shops - run by professionals for professionals. We need organised gatherings and spontaneous gatherings where people actually talk to one another, learn from one another and enlighten one another. We need to learn the arts of participation and discussion. The Bank of Ideas needs to have branches in all our towns and cities, and the Guardian can surely help with this.

Love Me Do was released on 5 October 1962. This was the first record released by The Beatles, and was more or less the beginning of the Sixties. By the 5th October 2012 at the latest we need to make sure we've organised a 50th anniversary party, which will recognise the beginning of a whole new era and a whole new way of running a vibrant and progressive culture, one in which progressive ideas are as important as they were back in the Sixties. Get on the bus, tune in and turn on.

Knowledge is power. Watch this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_fIjX1_gLw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/user/freedominfonetwork

http://www.freedominfonetwork.org/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf5nVk5MU70

*  "Love Me Do" with its stark "blunt working class northerness" rang "the first faint chime of a revolutionary bell" compared to the standard tin pan alley productions occupying the charts at the time. - Wikipedia

Layer 518 . . . Feminism, Burchill, Friendship, Pampering, Whining, and Masters of the Media Universe

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Julie Burchill has always been a loose cannon - a kind of anarcho-feminist. Recently she popped up (again) in the Observer with this interesting column on women, men and friendship:

Spare me from the whining women who are giving feminism a bad name

The 'girls' night in' antics on Celebrity Big Brother highlighted all that is wrong with female friendship

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/29/julie-burchill-female-friendship-feminism

I have experienced jealousy, possessiveness, verbal abuse and violence from men, but I have also experienced jealousy, possessiveness, verbal abuse and violence from women, usually when I failed to respond to their advances. 

There are aspects to broad-bonding that make me feel I'd rather be a surrendered wife for an evening than have a girls' night in. At least you'd get some proper sex out of it.

"Pampering", for a start. When did women whose looks are not their living start conducting themselves like the simpering inmates of an Ottoman empire seraglio? Tellingly, spending a huge proportion of one's income on preening oneself for men's approval ("I'm doing it for me, not for men" – oh, give it a rest, you lying cow!) as a leisure option has gone hand in hand with the rise of ceaseless recreational moaning about men, and if I thought that I had to spend three-quarters of my time and money turning myself into a hairless, poreless living doll in order to get someone's affection, I'd probably resent them too. 

But the cult of pampering – like fashion – is not a thing that straight men make women do. Straight men couldn't care less – they generally just want women to have a wash, bring beer, show up and strip off. Women do it to themselves.

Sadly, a lot of what passes for feminism these days is just moaning about men, congratulating ourselves on nothing in particular, and mocking them for being big kids while doing everything we can to keep them that way.

But moaning about men doesn't make you a feminist – it just makes you a moaner who can't get along with men for reasons that are probably at least as much to do with your failings, flaws and foibles as they are with some imagined horridness on the part of men. 

Lots of women love to accuse men of being immature when the fellow in question displays a reluctance to "commit" – though what is childish about being self-sufficient and showing understandable reluctance to throw oneself into a smothery relationship with an obviously unhappy fellow human being (because surely only extremely unhappy people look to others for salvation) escapes me somewhat.

As a kid, I grew to define what I didn't want my life to be like by sitting behind moaning women on the bus, hearing them bang on about their aches and pains, both real and imagined. Too many allegedly smart women these days have merely substituted males for maladies and seem hellbent on moaning their lives away rather than changing them.

Einstein said that a definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, and I think of this when I hear a friend describing men – yet again – as fuckwits. Look, hon, I want to say, if men don't suit you, go celibate. Go lesbo (but not with me, thanks) but stop moaning!

The older I get, the more I find that the friendships I treasure, which leave me wanting more, are those based around doing specific things – from the living hell of kettlebell classes to the transcendent bliss of learning Hebrew – rather than just sitting around shooting the breeze in a gender-specific environment. Because even the most well-moisturised girls' night in tends to trickle down to a pity party as the years take their toll.

Still, it's just a bit of fun, right? All girls together! Put on the Adele records, break out the cava and let's pamper ourselves stupid. But there will be tears before bedtime, more likely than not, and men for once won't be to blame. The party's over and we did it to ourselves.

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Over the past few years Oxzen has banged on somewhat about economics, finance and banking - subjects not exactly guaranteed to thrill or even interest the average blog reader. Paul Mason, Newsnight's economics editor, has become a particular favourite of this blog for his work on BBC2 and for his articles in the Guardian. How interesting, therefore, to come across this excellent 3-page spread in the Observer Review:

New masters of the media universe

Before the global meltdown, financial news was strictly for geeks and struggled to get on the news. Now, financial correspondents have become celebrities

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jan/29/business-economics-journalists-reporting-celebrities

by Elizabeth Day

Over the last four years, since the global financial crisis was triggered by the bursting of the US housing bubble and the domino-like fall of a series of over-leveraged, under-regulated banks, something curious has happened to business coverage. Where once it was the preserve of financial policy wonks and secretive, high-powered bankers who liked to discuss credit default swaps over breakfast, now it has emerged, blinking, into the mainstream.

We are, it seems, a nation now obsessed by business and economics. In March, the writer John Lanchester publishes Capital, an epic novel examining the fall-out from the economic crash. A six-part docudrama about the city, produced by the team behind the psychological crime drama Luther, is being developed by the BBC.

Paul Mason, Newsnight's economics editor, says: "Our audience research has shown that despite the fact that we've massively upped our coverage of the economy, the audience wants even more. For our audience, who are very professional, Volvo-driving types, they want to see the big business people grilled."

Stories about the economy – the bailouts, the losses, the bankers' bonuses – have jumped to the top of the news agenda, replacing the slots previously occupied by political, sport or showbiz scoops.

For the first time in living memory, business correspondents are basking in the warm glow of the limelight. Every one of them I speak to recounts their own anecdote about the moment they realised their specialism had suddenly become cool.

What has driven this upsurge in interest? There have, after all, been recessions and bank collapses before (albeit not on the same scale). But the current financial crisis seems to have captured the public imagination in a particularly potent fashion.

According to Peston, the answer lies in the fact that we are now faced with an economic implosion . . .

"Suddenly it became clear in 2007, when the markets were closing down and then Northern Rock collapsed, that what was happening in these funny organisations called 'banks' mattered to all of us because, as taxpayers, we're bailing them out," he says. "We're getting poorer as a result of their actions. People just got it overnight, about how important understanding business is."

People have realised that the way money goes round the world really matters.

"As journalists, we had the immediate short-term issue, which was that people needed to understand the recession. But I like to think there is a wider civic issue too, because it's outrageous how long the public at large have been so laidback about understanding what goes on."

"It's like food: we used not to care so much about how it was produced but now we want to know what goes in it. In the same way, people need to understand that finance is about understanding how the world operates."

The desire of vast swathes of the television audience to get a grip on what is happening means there is an ever-more pressing need for a communicator to act as go-between. In the conjoined spheres of business and economics, the role of the correspondent is paramount.

Faisal Islam agrees: "At the heart of the financial crisis is complexity and people are looking for ways in which that complexity can be decoded. It poses a challenge for journalists because, essentially, complexity has been used and abused by financiers and politicians to mask what they didn't know and we, as journalists, have to explain that.

"We have to get to the bottom of what really happened at RBS or HBOS because the people who caused it really haven't been held to account."

It helps, of course, that many of the disgraced financiers are such extraordinary characters – there is nothing better designed to leaven a dry discussion of off-balance sheet securitisation than a Bonfire of the Vanities-style tale of excess, ego and self-destruction. In the UK, there is Sir Fred Goodwin, the disgraced Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive, who lavished £350m on new office headquarters, enjoyed the use of a private jet and admitted having an affair with a senior colleague in the run-up to the bank's collapse. After RBS's £45bn taxpayer-funded rescue, Goodwin left with a £342,500 annual pension.

In America, there is Dick Fuld, the former CEO of Lehman Brothers, modern art enthusiast, real-estate millionaire and a man with a manner so gruff and brutal, he was nicknamed "the Gorilla" on Wall Street.

"It's almost like a soap opera you get locked into," says Jeff Randall. "If I tell the story with dividends and yields, I've lost you, but if I tell the story of Fred Goodwin, it becomes more engaging… There are all these characters who can be power-mad, slightly crazy, venal, weak – all the human foibles – and that would make a good drama, except these people were playing for real and for higher stakes."

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With friends like Facebook…

Facebook's reaction to proposals to tighten up on privacy rights shows its lack of respect for others

by John Naughton

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jan/29/facebook-data-privacy-rights-regulation

Facebook made this announcement on its official blog: "Last year we introduced timeline, a new kind of profile that lets you highlight the photos, posts and life events that help you tell your story. Over the next few weeks, everyone will get timeline. When you get timeline, you'll have seven days to preview what's there now. This gives you a chance to add or hide whatever you want before anyone else sees it." Note the authoritarian tone: "Everyone will get timeline." Translation: you'll get it whether you like it or not. We will return to this later.

The truth is that companies such as Facebook are basically the corporate world's equivalent of sociopaths, that is to say individuals who are completely lacking in conscience and respect for others. In her book The Sociopath Next Door, Martha Stout of Harvard medical school tries to convey what goes on in the mind of such an individual. "Imagine," she writes, "not having a conscience, none at all, no feelings of guilt or remorse no matter what you do, no limiting sense of concern of the wellbeing of strangers, friends, or even family members. Imagine no struggles with shame, not a single one in your whole life, no matter what kind of selfish, lazy, harmful, or immoral action you had taken. And pretend that the concept of responsibility is unknown to you, except as a burden others seem to accept without question, like gullible fools."

Welcome to the Facebook mindset.

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Layer 491 . . . The Churches of England, A Debate, The Media, Rowan Williams, John Sentamu, the Moral Agenda, Taxes on Bankers and Jarrow Marchers

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I went to church last night - and I've never before seen a church so packed, with every pew taken and with extra seats needing to be brought in. A very lovely church it is too - St Peter's has been the parish church of De Beauvoir Town since 1841.

No need to worry - Oxzen hasn't had a moment of revelation and decided to follow The Lord. Indeed not. The Church of England is going through some interesting times, with its two archbishops saying some very enlightened things these past few days, but Oxzen still sees no reason to convert to a belief in God.

Last night St Peter's hosted the third "Hackney Debate":

"George Alagiah chairs a discussion on media regulation and ownership, phone hacking and journalistic ethics, and public responsibility."

The speakers were Nick Higham, James Anslow and Suzanne Moore - all of them (and George) residents of Hackney.

George Alagiah strikes me as a lovely man and someone with enormous intelligence, together with superb communication skills.

The three speakers all seemed very inclined to accept the status quo with regard to media regulation and the Press Council - i.e. no more regulation, no more control on media ownership, no statutory body to monitor the activities of the press and media. None of them seemed to speak with any great passion about the appalling British media and its collusion with governments to keep our politics, our economics and our financial system going along the same old track. There was even praise for Murdoch and the tabloids generally.

Even Suzanne Moore oozed complacency - telling us that if we don't like the tabloids and the right-wing press then we can find better news reporting and comment elsewhere on the Internet. Maybe she's right - maybe it's not even worth complaining about the power of the right-wing press to dominate the national conversation, since there's nothing we can effectively do about it.

Personally I'd have preferred to listen to platform speakers who could show similar outrage to that expressed by several members of the audience. Maybe if you have a regular column in the Mail on Sunday AND a column in The Guardian, as Suzanne does, you're a bit beyond outrage.

http://stpeterdebeauvoir.moonfruit.com/#/debate/4556340694

Respect to the Reverend Julia Porter-Pryce, who's the driving force behind making this particular church relevant to its community, and has opened up her church to be a venue for these public debates. It's a great venue, and even had wine on sale before and during the debate.

Have a look at the St Peter's website to find out more about what they're doing for the community -

"transforming its Crypt into a real community asset - a thriving centre for social interaction, creativity, cultural expression and community support. We're making the space fully accessible, flexible, practical and welcoming. It's home to the cold-weather night shelter, a thriving community cafe and many groups promoting creativity and healthy living." 

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During the first phase of the St Paul's site occupation, the head of the Church of England very wisely kept out of the debate about the camp, the occupation and LSX. He's now speaking out.

Oxzen has previously commented very favourably on Archbish Rowan Williams -


http://oxzen.blogspot.com/2011/06/layer-471-essays-rowan-williams-new.html

http://oxzen.blogspot.com/2011/06/layer-472-alfie-bowe-songs-and-singers.html


Occupy London: archbishop of Canterbury backs new tax on banking


Rowan Williams says the protest at St Paul's shows 'widespread and deep exasperation with the financial establishment'


http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/nov/02/occupy-london-archbishop-canterbury-tax?


The archbishop of Canterbury has outlined a package of political and financial measures needed to take forward the "moral agenda" of Occupy London campaigners encamped outside St Paul's Cathedral.


Backing a new tax on banking, Rowan Williams said the protest against financial inequality and banking excesses had been seen "by an unexpectedly large number of people as the expression of a widespread and deep exasperation with the financial establishment that shows no sign of diminishing".


Endorsing the idea of a "Robin Hood" tax on financial transactions, he said: "There is still a powerful sense around – fair or not – of a whole society paying for the errors and irresponsibility of bankers; of impatience with a return to 'business as usual' – represented by still-soaring bonuses and little visible change in banking practices."


Williams stepped into the debate as another senior figure in the Church of England, the bishop of London, Richard Chartres, told the Guardian that the protesters' voices chimed in with "alarm bells ringing around the world about the connection between finance and ethics and human flourishing".

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Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams calls for new tax on bankers


The Archbishop of Canterbury has thrown his weight behind the St Paul’s Cathedral anti-capitalist protesters as he called for a new tax on banks.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/8863794/Archbishop-of-Canterbury-Rowan-Williams-calls-for-new-tax-on-bankers.html


“The demands of the protesters have been vague. Many people are frustrated beyond measure at what they see as the disastrous effects of global capitalism; but it isn’t easy to say what we should do differently. It is time we tried to be more specific,” Dr Williams said.
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Archbishop Sentamu targets City greed

He suggests denying honours and the Queen's Awards for Industry to fat cat firms; and an interesting way of embarrassing tax avoiders

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/the-northerner/2011/nov/05/sentamu-archbishop-of-york-st-paul-s-camp-corporate-greed-city-of-london?

The Archbishop of York, Dr. John Sentamu, has spoken out about the greed which provoked the St Paul's camp. Typically, he makes two practical suggestions [which can be read here - http://www.archbishopofyork.org/articles.php/2238/archbishops-call-to-re-establish-a-fairer-society]

Changes in public attitudes can take place quite quickly.  Over the last few decades racism has lost its respectability and is seen as unacceptable.  The same applies to homophobia (the irrational fear of homosexuals) and discrimination against women.  My belief and trust is that a society which has shown itself capable of making such rapid changes to attitudes in these areas will also prove capable of recognising that our society will work best when we recognise that as human beings we are all, fundamentally of equal worth and members of one society. 

Let us do it. Let us do it now.

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Archbishop of York attacks high-paid executives


Dr John Sentamu has attacked the salaries of top executives saying that huge differences between the rich and poor "weaken community life and make societies less cohesive".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/8871631/Archbishop-of-York-attacks-high-paid-executives.html


Archbishop of York John Sentamu attacks executive pay

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-15605385

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Jarrow marchers complete journey


A group of activists who have recreated the famous 1936 Jarrow March for Jobs will complete their 330-mile journey by highlighting the growing "crisis" of youth unemployment.


Dozens of people have taken part in the trek from the North East to London, where a rally on Saturday afternoon will be addressed by politicians and union leaders.


Youth Fight for Jobs, which organised the march, will hand in a petition to 10 Downing Street calling for a huge Government job scheme, apprenticeships, the reinstatement of the Education Maintenance Allowance, the reopening of axed youth services and action on tuition fees.


Spokeswoman Claire Laker Mansfield said: "Young people have shown that far from being lazy or scroungers, they want a future with decent jobs and education. The marchers have received huge support up and down the country. People have fed them, put them up and made it clear they back our demands.


"We think it is unfair that in the 21st century young people are facing long-term unemployment. There are almost a million young people out of work, and the jobs market is not getting any better."


Great-grandchildren of those who took part in the original march 75 years ago were among those taking part in the protest march, which started on October 1.


In 1936, 200 jobless men marched from Jarrow in north east England to London with a 12,000-name petition calling for government action to create jobs.

- UK Press Association

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5i0bboHKNDe1XKO4DBFEe5hD6JJTg?docId=N0466781320418717584A

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