Layer 457 . . . No Mandate, Supporting the Protests, Waltz With Bashir, and Woody Guthrie

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I like this comment from CiF:

mwhite


Why do the protesters deserve support? Firstly because the Conservatives have no mandate for their policies, secondly because they were elected by the votes of only 25% of the electorate, and thirdly because of the 20 big, fat lies they have been peddling for the last 18 months:




Lie 1: Three days before the election, David Cameron: "Any cabinet minister … who comes to me and says 'Here are my plans' and they involve frontline reductions, they'll be sent straight back to their department to go away and think again".


Lie 2: A month before the election, David Cameron: "Our plans involve cutting wasteful spending … our plans don't involve an increase in VAT."


Lie 3: The coalition agreement: "We will stop top-down reorganisations of the NHS."


Lie 4: The coalition agreement: “We will guarantee that health spending increases in real terms."


Lie 5: Two months before the election, from David Cameron: "I wouldn't change child benefit, I wouldn't means test it. I don't think that's a good idea."


Lie 6: Michael Gove, just before the election: "Ed Balls keeps saying that we are committed to scrapping EMA. I have never said this. We won't."


Lie7: Liam Fox: "a bigger army for a safer Britain", but it now loses 7,000 soldiers.


Lie 8: In October 2009 George Osborne said: “..........retail banks should stop paying out significant cash bonuses.” A year later, he opposed an updated EU Capital Requirement Directive intended to limit them.


Lie 9: David Cameron: "Yes, we back Sure Start. It's a disgrace that Gordon Brown has been trying to frighten people about this." Yet the government’s Early Intervention Grant means a reduction of £1.4 billion in the amount given to early intervention programmes. As a result, 250 will shut and the rest will suffer cuts in the services they offer.


Lies 10-16: No cuts in tax credits for families with an income of less than £50,000; prison for anyone carrying a knife; no cuts to the navy; keeping the child trust fund for the poorest third of families; no hospital closures; 3000 more midwives; a two-year council tax freeze.


Lie 17: “We cannot afford our bloated public sector workforce.” Yet ONS figures show that average annual public sector employment as a proportion of the UK workforce was 21% in 2010. When Thatcher resigned in 1992, 23% of the work force was employed in the public sector. Compare this with other European countries: France 25%, Holland 22%, Denmark 30%, Sweden 28%, Norway 40%, Finland 27%. 


Lie 18: Although Osborne has called the PFI model “failed and discredited”, the private sector is due to spend some £16.2bn under PFI deals signed between 2010 and 2012 according to the OBR – and last June the Treasury approved several new PFI projects. 


Lie 19: David Cameron, June 5th 2010: "You have to address the massive welfare bills.....” Yet average welfare spending as a % of GDP was 10.4% in the years 1979-1997 compared to 6.4% in the years 1997-2010. In 1997 welfare spending as a % of GDP, 1997 was 7.8%. In 2010 it was 7.1% (www.ukpublicspending.co.uk).


Lie 20: George Osborne, 20th October, 2010: "Today is the day when Britain steps back from the brink, when we confront the bills from a decade of debt.” Yet national debt was lower as a proportion of GDP at the start of the financial crisis in 2008 (36%) than in 1997, the last year of John Major’s government. (42%), and in 2010 the UK’s national debt as a proportion of GDP (52%) was the second lowest of the G7 countries (www.ukpublicspending.co.uk).


But it is not surprising that the Tories did not make their intentions clear before the election since, had they done so, the 2010 Conservative Party Manifesto would have replaced Michael Foot’s 1983 document as “the longest suicide note in history”.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/25/london-march-for-alternative

Ignore the sneers. This march is a real alarm-clock moment

by Polly Toynbee

There is an alternative to the brutal cuts agenda, and thousands of people from all walks of life will demonstrate that in London

Brother J is very sniffy about bloggers and CiF commenters, and of course there are 10 crap comments (and I dare say 10 crap blogs) to every worthwhile one, but I still say it's better for us all to try at least to make some kind of contribution to ongoing debates and arguments than just keep schtum because we can't be bothered or because we think our own little voice isn't important. After all, nobody is forced to read what we have to say.   


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Channel 4 this week screened the TV premier of "Waltz With Bashir".

Oxzen wrote about it in 2008, in Layer 38: Licence To Kill

Do soldiers have a license to kill?


“Waltz With Bashir” is “a daring new animated documentary that follows Israeli director Ari Folman as he tries to piece together memories of the 1982 massacre of Palestinians in Beirut's Sabra and Shatila refugee camps“.


It’s in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. Folman was on the radio this morning explaining how he intends to do everything he can to persuade his sons never to take part in any violence whatsoever, regardless of any demands that the State or the Army may make of them. He wants his work to persuade everyone that violence can never be a solution to conflict.


“Folman was a soldier in the Israeli army when it invaded Lebanon earlier that year. It allowed Christian militiamen into the refugee camps and stood by as they went on a killing spree shortly after the assassination of their leader, Bashir Gemayel.”


Well there’s still hope for the Middle East, and for the world, when artists like Folman are able to release powerful films that highlight State and military atrocities, and make the case for shunning violent solutions to problems in all circumstances.

http://oxzen.blogspot.com/2008/05/layer-38-license-to-kill.html

Oh Well . . .

At least we seem to be making progress when the United Nations is able to pass an unopposed resolution to try to prevent Gadhaffi slaughtering those sections of his population who have rebelled against his dictatorship, just as it was progress when the Egyptian army resolved NOT to take any aggressive action against the brave people who came out and demanded that Mubarak should resign.

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Thinking about our own domestic demonstrations, George Monbiot this week wrote this illuminating column on the UK's civil liberties legislation -

Free to protest? I can still be arrested if my placard reads: 'Nick Clegg, oh dear'

Even Tony Blair's most illiberal measures have survived Clegg's promise to repeal all the laws that inhibit our freedom

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/28/free-protest-clegg-oh-dear

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Woody Sez

http://www.woodysez.co.uk/

Thanks to Brother P's recent recommendation I managed to catch a wonderful show at the Arts Theatre last night, just ahead of the end of its run this weekend. A fabulous evening  - enjoying  4 talented multi-instrumentalists/vocalists playing and singing the great songs of the sublime Woody Guthrie.

Plenty of seats still available for both remaining evenings, and also the Saturday matinee.

"It stirringly captures the rebellious spirit of Guthrie's times, and of our own, too."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2011/jan/19/woody-sez-review

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/theatre/review-23918576-woody-sez-is-a-a-true-folk-hero.do

http://www.whatsonstage.com/reviews/theatre/london/E8831295439330/Woody+Sez+.html

Layer 377 . . . Protests, Political Activism, Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan

Take a look at Dylan's amazing poem - "Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie":

http://oxzen.blogspot.com/2010/11/layer-377-protests-political-activism.html

http://oxzen.blogspot.com/2009/07/layer-177-bruce-pete-seeger-tom-joad.html

More on Woody:

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

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Layer 356 . . . Cocks, Roosters, Ed Miliband and the New Leader's Speech . . .

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Hazel Bleeding Blears was on the Daily Politics show panel today, chatting with the Neil Scotsperson. I've no idea why.

In the leadership contest it seems she voted for the other three guys in the contest ahead of Ed Mili. Interesting. Clearly, for Hazel, New Labour isn't 'over'.

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Cocking It Up

Boost for Ed Miliband as new poll puts Labour ahead of the Conservatives

As Ed Miliband prepares to give his first major speech as party leader, a new poll shows support for Labour on 40% compared with 39% for the Conservatives

Hmmmm. So who is this Ed Miliband? Does anybody really know him? Oxzen's exclusive research has come up the following personality profile.

Ed is a Cock. Or Rooster if you prefer. Such people are found in professions where security is assured without excessive risk-taking. Deep down they are extremely conservative. Oh dear.

It seems Roosters are dandies who feel that appearance is everything in life.

What's more, Ed, being born in 1969, is an Earth Rooster. This means that this particular Cock is egotistical, and preoccupied with his own success, security and appearance. He's happy to profit from other people's work, and is not overly imaginative. And he's realistic, pragmatic and shrewd rather than creatively intelligent, insightful, enlightened, visionary, radical or imaginative . So much for Red Ed.

So far, so New Labour. So very Blair/Brown.

And it goes on. Due to his egotism, he's not burdened with too many principles. Earth Roosters rapidly climb to the top in their profession, especially in politics, property and banking, not hesitating to elbow others out of the way. These people need activities that flatter their pride while assuring them of fame and comfort. They need to be seen and admired.

As it happens, Ed is also a Capricorn, and all of the above can also be said of most Capricorns. So now we know. You read it here first, folks!

I'll continue.

The Rooster is the incarnation of the forces of youth, hope and clarity. "With his mixture of conformity and eccentricity, aggressive impulses and meditative leanings, the Rooster is a rather strange and paradoxical animal. This captive king is a bizarre and contraDicTory creature (my emphasis), a ruler and a slave whose bravery and despotism are confined by the narrow limits of his farmyard. In this sense the Rooster is an analogy for the frailties of prestige and power, confined within the inevitable enclosure of time and death."

Honest, frank, obliging, courageous, vain, thoughtless, preoccupied with appearance.

Hates any attempt to probe his private being or expose his motives.

"Sooner or later one begins to question whether the Rooster superficiality is real or a game. The answer is that they conceal their inner selves with near desperation, obstinately camouflaging their lack of inner confidence the fact that, at bottom, they are only fragile birds. What remains of a Rooster when one takes away his feathers and his cock-a-doodle-do?"

We shall see.

On the positive side - "Rooster/Capricorn is just and full of integrity. he is also the most hard-working and clear-sighted of all the Roosters."

Which is all very well, but the likes of Thatcher, Blair and Brown were also hard-working. The question is - to what ends?

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The Big Speech

Ed walked into the conference hall hand in hand with his partner - with her bump, and her tragic haircut. A purple tie day.

More boring displays of brotherly love. More silly grins from his bro. Hello Ed! - We don't fucking care about your family and your sibling history! You've said too much already!

Tedious tributes to Darling and Straw. Dullards and hacks. Visionaries - not.

"The new generation of Labour is different."

"Why I'm here. It starts with my dad. His escape from the Nazis. His family arrived in Britain with nothing. They worked hard and got on. My dad learnt English. He joined the navy to fight for Britain.

Secure and loving homes. The aspiration to succeed. People of courage and conviction can make a huge difference. We do not have to accept the world as we find it. Never walk by on the other side of injustice.

Freedom and opportunity are precious gifts. My values are my anchor. My sense of right and wrong. Dedication, energy and the determination of activists makes the difference.

But we had a very bad election result. Now we're out of power and we cannot change our country for the better. We must make sure this is a one-term government.

But we need humility. We should blame ourselves, not the electorate. This will require strong leadership. And lead I will.

Tony and Gordon took on conventional wisdom. They were reforming, restless and radical. They lifted hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty. Newly-built schools and modernised hospitals. Saviours of the National Health Service. We helped deliver peace in Northern Ireland.

Development spending around the world. Working for malaria eradication.

Tony and Gordon had the courage to take on Establishment attitudes. But where did we go wrong - how did we lose so many votes.?

Trapped by our own certainties? Over time we looked more and more like an old Establishment. Failure to re-regulate the City. Immigration. Personal debt. Tuition fees. Claims of having ended boom and bust. The scandal of MP's expenses. Our style of politics and our remoteness from the people.

We cannot claim we know all the answers. But we have to set a new direction. We know there's more to life than work and money. Foreign policy must be based on our values.

To change Britain we need a new politics. We need to build a new economy. We need to reduce the deficit. We need to win back fiscal credibility.

We were too exposed to financial services. We should take responsibility for not building a more resilient economy. Growth should now be our priority. We should go on rebuilding schools. We need to lead the world in new technology. No plan for growth means no credible plan for deficit reduction.

We need a higher banking levy to protect the services that people rely on. We need an economy and a society fit for our kids to live in.

My ambition is for us to learn deeper lessons about changing our economy for the future. There are too many people stuck in low pay. We must redistribute prosperity. Labour must be the party of enterprise and small businesses.

We did not do enough to address the concerns about globalisation and its consequences - wages driven down by immigration. Those consequences should have been dealt with. Migrant labour should never have been allowed to undercut people's wages. We need proper protection for agency workers. Workers need to make their voices heard. Basic standards of decency and fairness. Trade unions are part of a decent society.

But we need to win the public to our cause - not alienate them through irresponsible strikes.

And we also need responsibility from business. Decent wages. Living wages. Fair pay. Not just a 'minimum'. A living wage must be the foundation of our economy in the future.

High quality apprenticeships.

The gap between rich and poor DOES matter. What does it say about the values of our society? Excessive salaries must be challenged. The lives of the poor can be transformed. Those in need must be protected.

Work is central to life - but it's not all that matters. Strong families, love and compassion, time with our families. Do we just know the price of everything and the value of nothing? We must shed old thinking.

Post Office closures? Identikit high streets? We believe in community and social solidarity. How do we protect families? People working 60 - 70 hours a week - how does this help kids?

How do we think about the State, and what it can achieve? Government must be accountable and responsive.

Flannel flannel comprehensive schools flannel flannel failing schools flannel flannel.

Civil liberties must never be given away lightly. Protecting freedoms.

The new generation must challenge old thinking in foreign policy.

Our boys in Afghanistan . . . thanks. Stabilising the country. Supporting our mission.

But Iraq! I criticise nobody - but I do believe we were wrong. War was not a LAST resort.

Our alliance with America . . . Our values . . . International support for the problems in the Middle East. Israel must accept and recognise the Palestinian right to statehood. The attack on the Gaza flotilla was wrong!

We must change our politics - its practice, its workings, and its reputation. Vote yes to AV! Fully elect the House of Lords! More local democracy and decision-making.

Protecting the environment.

Working with the other parties. Praise for Liberals like Keynes and Beveridge. And  Ken Clark on prisons. Teresa May on stop and search.

Let's have a grown up debate about ourselves and our country - not silly name calling.

A difference in attitudes and ideals to the Tories. Optimism! Let's be humble about the past, and inspire people with our vision.

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He spoke well. His delivery was good. His voice is not unpleasant. Infinitely better than Blair or Brown. A decent effort. And he might well get better.


He deserves support AT LEAST for what he said about inequality, the gap between rich and poor,  re-regulating the City and financial services, values, work-life balance, civil liberties, Palestine, Iraq, support for the Alternative Vote, creating new businesses and industries, and above all redistributing prosperity, tackling low pay, and introducing a living wage.

This is indeed a new beginning. Bye bye New Labour. Well done Ed.
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