.
"Good evening! We're expecting disturbances in many parts of the UK this week."
So said Richard the Met Office weatherman, at 1.00am this morning. Tongue in cheek? Surely not.
Thank you Richard. You're not wrong either.
But as Bob Dylan said, back in the Sixties - you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
All evening and all night long there's been chaos and violence on the streets of London. Yesterday it was Enfield. The night before Tottenham. Last night there was anarchy in Hackney, Camden, Southwark, Lewisham, Clapham, Brixton, Woolwich, Ealing . . . and Croydon. Yes, Croydon. Several shops and other premises ablaze.
Buildings set alight, barricades erected, mobs roaming the streets - looting shops and attacking inadequate deployments of riot police.
Many of us expected this to happen last summer, and when it didn't we began to wonder just what it would take to provoke public anger and riots in this country. MPs stealing public money? Bankers' salaries and bonuses? Unemployment? Falling incomes? Rising prices? Student fees? Deep cuts to public services? Hacking scandals? Police corruption?
Well now we know. A squad of armed police surrounded a suspect and blew his brains out with handguns. The police claimed the guy had shot at them. A police officer apparently claimed that the radio clipped to his chest had saved his life by deflecting a bullet. A day later it turned out that the bullet in question was of a type that's used by the police . . .
On Saturday the family and friends of the dead man organised a peaceful protest and a demonstration outside Tottenham police station. It took four hours for the police to see them. (Were they invisible?) Somehow the demo turned into a riot . . .
On Sunday morning Nick Cohen's column in the Observer had this headline -
No Riots in Britian. Just quiet, ever-deeper anxiety.
Hmmmmmmm
What we are witnessing in this recession is not abrupt catastrophe but the slow erosion of the hopes and aspirations of so many
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/07/nick-cohen-recession-misery
'When will there be riots?" eager journalists ask thinktanks, sociologists and anyone else who monitors Britain's unravelling social fabric. "When are the British going to imitate the Greeks and the Spanish and snap?"
On the face of it, their questions are reasonable. Contrary to the predictions of nearly every expert, inflation roared ahead of wage increases after the crash of 2008, squeezing the living standards of all but the most fortunate harder than at any time since the 1920s. The asinine George Osborne tightened the vice further by raising VAT in the middle of an outbreak of stagflation. Meanwhile his coalition's austerity programme is ensuring that public services will begin a long slow decline into shabby inefficiency, as public-sector workers start to lose their jobs en masse. Working- and middle-class families have already lost tax credits. The poor have already lost benefits.
To cap it all, the distribution of the pain is so monumentally unjust it cries to high heaven for a reaction. The banking crisis and the flooding of the market with easy credit were the City's follies.
But it is not London and the south-east which are suffering but the Britain north and west of the line from Severn to the Wash. [????] While the state bailed out the City so the bars could carry on heaving and the banks could carry on delivering fantastic rewards to their "stars", it has allowed the provinces to sink.
So complete has been the capture of the coalition by the moneyed interest that Osborne says in all seriousness that the one fiscal measure he simply must have at any price is not the relief of poverty or an easing of the burden on middle England, but a tax cut for the wealthiest 1% of earners.
These arrant insults ought to push the most mild-mannered people into revolt. Yet in Britain they provoke only students to riot. The wider public remains resigned rather than enraged; indifferent rather than incandescent.
[Not any more. Oh no, not any more.]
If insecurity continues to grow, our old assumptions will have to change. Imagine that Margaret Thatcher had died before the crash. Even her toughest critics would have had to accept that many of her reforms had succeeded and she had allowed the private sector to flourish. Now the world she left us has fallen apart, and her deregulation of finance in particular seems like a ruinous blunder. . . Now that the financial system Labour relied on to provide the tax revenues for social reform has crashed, the centre-left's old maps are useless as well.
Thatcher's Enterprise Society and Blair's Cool Britannia are lost worlds The promises both parties offered to those who "worked hard and played by the rules" of rising living standards, a secure retirement and a better life for their children sound empty. Millions are living thwarted lives of quiet desperation, and cannot see a way to escape them.
..................................................
This morning John McDonnell MP said this -
Reaping what has been sown over 3 decades of creating grotesquely unequal society,with alienated young copying ethos of looting bankers.
Many people will question his rhetoric - since it was all quite legal for the bankers to do what they did. But the point is that morally and ethically the bankers behaved, and are still being allowed to behave, like fucking gangsters. Their so-called financial 'products' were always designed to be toxic - to the poor sods who became victims of mis-selling, and the rest of us who still suffer from the consequences of the derivatives, the mis-selling, the sub-prime mortgages, etc.
Imagine if the law was changed to make it legal to go out and carry out smash and grab raids, loot shops, break into homes and torch businesses. Well that's what happened when banking and finance was "deregulated" by Thatcher. We used to have laws that prevented banks and financiers from doing what they've done to individuals, communities and the economy in general. Those laws were abolished. We live with the consequences - and what's happening on the streets is one of the consequences. Either you believe that or you don't. Make up your minds time. There's no grey area in this argument. No walls to sit on. Not any more.
We await Cameron's next statement, now that he's back from his holiday, now that he's back in charge, with great interest.
It was interesting to see Clegg on TV yesterday - our Acting Prime Minister! Now there's a young man who had completely lost his bottle, as well as the plot. Not that he ever had a plot, or any bottle.
It's worth having a look at John McConnell's Twitter this morning: http://twitter.com/#!/johnmcdonnellMP . He's a proper politician who's been consistent in his approach to political and financial issues. Compare him with the publicity-crazed Dianne Abbot, whose wisdom extends to popping up on Sky and BBC 24 to demand curfews. What next Dianne - call in the army?
What we actually need is people on the streets showing the way with peaceful protests - following the example of people in Cairo - reclaiming their city from the political thugs and their followers, reclaiming it from the rioters, determined to have non-violent change and a better, fairer, more democratic society.
...............................................
What's intriguing me is what will happen next - since I'm old enough to remember the Watts riots in Los Angeles, and the fact that everything just went back to 'normal' after the fires had burned out and the politicians simply condemned the whole thing as mere criminality.
The difference this time around is the Internet - citizen journalism, chat rooms, blogging, twittering, discussion forums and so on - none of them under the direct control of the mainstream media, business, politicians, etc. This time there's the opportunity to take things a step further and higher - to reflect online, to analyse, to reason, to exchange opinions with non-establshment thinkers and reporters. This is not a time for bullshit, complacency, or going backwards.
And it's not a time for simply increasing the power of the police state. This is what was established in Cairo. There ARE limits to state power. There ARE limits to people's tolerance, inertia, fear, indifference and unwillingness to protest and demand justice.
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Showing posts with label police. Show all posts
Showing posts with label police. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Layer 435 . . . The Power of the State, Britain, Egypt, Beyond Mubarak, Democracy, Policing and CS Gas
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My son made the point some days ago that the British State is far too powerful to allow a people's movement or uprising to topple the government. Leaving aside questions of the legitimacy of a government that's attempting a rapid, radical and irreversible (shock doctrine) change in the health service and the education service without ANY warning in a manifesto that they intended to do such things - it's easy to see what he means when you consider the situation in Egypt.
It's one thing to try to topple a prime minister, or a particular government, or even a head of state, but the dominant groups whose will and whose power prevail in any society can normally expect to retain power, whatever people on the street demand by way of change in the leadership.
The Guardian's editorial on Egypt yesterday makes this point with reference to the particular situation in Cairo.
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My son made the point some days ago that the British State is far too powerful to allow a people's movement or uprising to topple the government. Leaving aside questions of the legitimacy of a government that's attempting a rapid, radical and irreversible (shock doctrine) change in the health service and the education service without ANY warning in a manifesto that they intended to do such things - it's easy to see what he means when you consider the situation in Egypt.
It's one thing to try to topple a prime minister, or a particular government, or even a head of state, but the dominant groups whose will and whose power prevail in any society can normally expect to retain power, whatever people on the street demand by way of change in the leadership.
The Guardian's editorial on Egypt yesterday makes this point with reference to the particular situation in Cairo.
Egypt: Beyond Mubarak
The country's most important issue is not when the leader goes, but whether the regime will go with him
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/02/egypt-beyond-mubarak-editorial
President Mubarak's announcement, under American pressure, that he will not seek re-election in September marks an end to one phase of the Egyptian crisis. But it does not resolve it.
First, it is far from clear that Egyptians will accept him remaining in even nominal control.
Secondly, the real struggle in Egypt is not between Mr Mubarak and the bulk of the Egyptian people. It is between the entrenched political, military and economic elites who have come to dominate Egyptian society in the years since independence and the classes they have increasingly excluded, coerced and manipulated.
These elites have worked for Mr Mubarak, fought for his favour, and been controlled by him while at the same time using him to defend their collective interests. A dictator never stands alone. "Irhal!" ("Go!") the protesters cry, but the most important issue is not when Mr Mubarak goes but what goes with him.
Mr Mubarak's main personal concern may well be to withdraw from the scene in what he deems to be an honourable way.
But those who have constituted the pillars of his regime are interested in survival, not withdrawal.
The officer corps wants to preserve its power and privileges. Yet the Egyptian army is oversized and over-armed, and ought, in any sensible reordering of Egypt's political system, to be reduced and depoliticised.
The older leaders of the ruling National Democratic party, where some remnants of the original Free Officers' idealism may still just be discerned, also want a place in any new order, and may have a sort of constituency in Egypt's enormous bureaucracy. Yet that, too, should be reduced.
The Egyptian business class, particularly that section of it which gravitated toward Gamal Mubarak, the president's son, will plead that its capital, competence and contacts are vital if Egypt's economy is to be restored, and threaten dire consequences if the deals and depredations of the past are unearthed. Yet that class is properly seen as part of the problem and not part of the solution.
The police, lowest of the low on the regime totem pole, will be calculating that sooner or later their brutal skills will once again be needed. Yet they must be curbed if Egypt is to make a genuine new start.
The demonstrators in the square say they have only one demand, that Mr Mubarak step down. In the euphoria of the moment some of them see his departure as the answer to everything that is wrong in the land of Egypt. But whether that departure comes sooner or later, it will not be that.
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Jaywise
An amusing side-effect of this delightful sight of people standing up for themselves - images that will hopefully rub off on people everywhere in the troubled times to come - is that it really forces the bigoted, racist and anti-democratic right out into the open and forces them to show their true colours.
cecile
I hear on the radio that Mubarak's fortune is estimated at $56bn. What's the salary of an Egyptian president, I wonder?
This looks like robbery on an industrial scale. Time to freeze his assets worldwide.
Sidebar
Evidently Mr. Cameron has advised President Mubarak to ,"..... listen to the aspirations of the people".
It is indeed a prudent ruler who listens to the aspirations of the people. Thus enabling him to evaluate the potential for conflict arising from aspirational dissonance. He can then anticipate any contingencies which may arise.
But the prudent and wise ruler not only listens to the aspirations of the people but distills their essence and subtly blends it with his own. Such a ruler finds favour with the people so that they willingly bear the burdens placed upon them by the ruler, believing them to represent their own best interests.
Innit, David!?
cecile
The Telegraph yesterday described the movement for democracy in Egypt as a "contagion" which might spread across the Arab world,
No surprise there, then. I visit their website from time to time and it's a bit of a freakshow, to be frank - frightful and entertaining in equal measure.
delphinia
If he goes, what then? A popular uprising in Romania got rid of Ceaucescu, but when the dust settled, the same bunch were in power with a different figurehead, and then the persecution of the protesters started.
There is no such thing as democracy. Power is held by the big landowners, industrialists and money men. Elections everywhere are a sham.
SUMWON
Clearly, not just Mubarak but also his repressive cronies in his stooge cabinet such as the Top Secret Policeman and Torturer Omar Suleiman and his army of spies, agents provocateurs, finger-nail pullers, eye-gougers and penis slicers. But it's not these US stooges which must go, but also the repressive constitution and the whole rotten, corrupt system.
From this morning's news, it appears that Mubarak is trying to wear down and mollify the protesters so that he can then set his usual thugs and torturers loose to weed out the prominent protesters. Committed Muslims will then be tortured in the rendition chambers. He's even started his own anti-protest movement. He can then use his American tanks and planes to further initimidate the Egyptians, because he certainly will not use them against his pal Netanyahu.
If Mubarak is able to tough this out, then it will be more of the same. He's no intention of listening to Egyptians - it's what the Zio-Cons of Washington instruct him which is important.
Jaywise
Elections afford the Iranians a path to interference in Egypt's internal affairs through the Muslim Brotherhood-Hamas connection
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Oh, we better not have any then, those filthy foreigners aren't to be trusted.
Egypt and the credibility of the Middle East peace process
America's credibility problem has become acute. It claims to support democracy in the Middle East, but at any time in the last 30 years it could have used pressure to guide Mubarak's regime towards at least minimal reforms. On the other hand, it slapped crippling sanctions on the Palestinians when they voted, in free and fair elections, for a party the US and Israel disliked.
Hilary Wise
London
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/02/egypt-middle-east-peace-process
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Call for an inquiry into use of CS spray
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/feb/02/inquiry-into-use-of-cs
At a time when public service cuts are starting to bite, campaigners from UK Uncut were on Sunday once again taking direct action on our high streets (Police use CS spray on tax protesters, 31 January).
They were targeting Boots, which has moved to Switzerland, allowing the company to avoid paying millions in tax. Outside the Oxford Street branch of Boots, a police officer, without warning, used CS spray against demonstrators, three of whom were taken to hospital. When tax injustice enjoyed by the rich is combined so starkly with cuts in vital public services for the poor, and the government refuses to listen or act, people have the moral and legal right to protest.
The state is the collective democratic vehicle to serve the interests of all people of this country. And when acting through the police force, it has to be incredibly careful about not being perceived to be acting politically – to serve the interests of the rich against the poor.
We deplore the use of such aggressive policing techniques and call for a public inquiry to investigate and report on the use of CS spray against protesters on Sunday. They should also provide guidance on how they plan to police the many, widespread and popular protests that are bound to feature across society in the months and years to come.
Neal Lawson Compass
Mark Serwotka PCS
John Christensen Tax Justice Network
Deborah Doane World Development Movement
Ruth Tanner War on Want
Lisa Nandy MP Labour, Wigan
Caroline Lucas MP Green, Brighton Pavilion
Peter Tatchell campaigner
The current formulation [of CS gas] was the subject of an investigation in 2004 by the medical toxicology unit at Guy's hospital in London and it reported that "it [CS] is more harmful that [sic] has been previously assumed"..
Anyone who believes they were affected by this chemical (and these complaints may relate to the skin, eyes, upper respiratory tract or heart) should contact us as we are setting up a monitoring group.
Hugh Orde, the president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, has commented: "Police could adopt more extreme tactics to counter the growing wave of protests."
Let's take note and act.
Elizabeth Sigmund
Callington, Cornwall
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Layer 316 . . . Cameron, the New Politics, Servant Leaders, The System and The Wire
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There was an interesting news item on the radio just now about Cameron and Osborne who are continuing to live in their own homes - but with the security forces urging them to move into Downing Street immediately so that they can be better protected from potential 'threats'.
If I heard right, Cameron is still insisting on going on foot around Westminster and Whitehall, instead of going everywhere in his armoured car. Respect to Cammo! says I.
This seems to me incredibly refreshing. Firstly, a guy who's determined to be his own man, and not be ordered around by advisers and civil servants. Secondly, someone who is keen to somehow stay in touch with the real world, instead of being constantly screened off from it. Thirdly, someone who's got a certain amount of personal courage, and is prepared to take a risk in order to preserve his humanity and his sense of personal freedom. After all, if the bad guys can force even our political leaders to cringe in fear the whole time then the bad guys have won, haven't they?
There could even be something deeper going on here. Just suppose Cameron were a big enough person to see this behaviour as part of the 'new politics'. Surely a new type of politics ought to be about policies and not personalities? The new politics ought to emphasise the primacy of the electorate and the policies already voted on and agreed on. In this scenario, it doesn't really matter who leads a party or a country - if they fall ill or die then someone else will step in and take forward the wishes of the electorate. A new politics requires political leaders to be servant/leaders, and not the raving egomaniacs we're used to, from Thatcher through Major to Blair to Brown. A servant/leader has the attitude that s/he's there to help enact the wishes of the country, and not bend or steer the country according to his/her individual will or preference. As such s/he is replaceable, so there's no benefit to any bad guy in getting rid of him/her.
As it happens, for the first time ever, the coalition government has drawn up a fairly detailed programme of what it intends to do over the next 5 years. The plan has been published for all to see, and for consultation. This is surely a grown-up way of doing politics. There's a clear coalition agreement firmly in place, subject to responses from public feedback and reaction. So no matter what happens to individual figures within the government from here on in, the programme for the parliament will be taken forward. We may not like the proposals, but at least it's clear what the government is committed to. This can only be a good thing.
What's happened since the election has been perfectly logical and reasonable, but the commentariat seems to be struggling to keep up with it and is puzzled by what to say about it. The very idea of Cameron dragging his party in a more liberal and progressive direction seems to have shocked and angered the true die-hard Tories who presumed he was going to be Thatcher lite, at the very worst, and be Thatcher Mark II at best.
As for the old addage, power corrupts - and absolute power corrupts absolutely, we shall have to wait and see. No doubt Cameron won't feel able to keep up his current behaviour forever. Maybe it is all an exercise in image creation. Perhaps he will be corrupted by power and slide into the expected behaviour of a prime minister. But there's no point in speculating - we need to wait and see. And in the meantime maybe give him the benefit of the doubt and hope he continues to talk the talk and walk the walk - in Whitehall and elsewhere.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7133563.ece
........................................................
Could there be a narrative in Cameron's choice of music for his desert island?
Tangled Up In Blue (Bob Dylan)
Ernie (Benny Hill)
Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd)
On Wings Of Song (Kiri Te Kanawa)
Fake Plastic Trees (Radiohead)
This Charming Man (Smiths)
Perfect Circle (REM)
All These Things I've Done (The Killers)
All credit to him for his choice of a crate of Scottish whisky as his luxury for the desert island..
................................................
This Is America, Man. (And it's also Britain)
In this week's London Review of Books Michael Wood has written a very interesting article that's both a review of The Wire and also a comment on David Simon's latest series, Treme.
As he points out, the uniqueness of The Wire is that it's not a conventional cop show - it's a thorough investigation and exposee of the world of the drug dealers, which operates alongside of and interacts with the world of the police department, and the whole city hall bureaucracy. And it tells the truth about the inability of anyone to change either the psychotic world of the violent criminals, OR the psychotic and sociopathic world of the bureaucrats who run cities, including the police department. There are many good cops who really care about catching the crims, but they're prevented from doing what they need to do by all sorts of factors, including lack of resourcing, petty regulations, indifferent and self-centred colleagues, wrong priorities and bad leadership.
London too, of course.
(Regular readers might already see where we're going with this.)
Of course you don't have to be a psychopath in order to know that the system can't be beaten, and that it will kill you off in the end, and yet still go on working against the system anyway . . . but it helps.
Of course I'm thinking here about the many good teachers and headteachers, and others working in various public services, who have suffered from and finally been beaten by The System, even though they were intelligent, and idealistic, and believers in alternatives, and carried on working for justice and fairness and for the rights of children and other clients, in the face of a faceless and dictatorial bureaucracy driven by half-crazed and over-ambitious politicans and grim-faced Westminster civil service mandarins working to reactionary and regressive, and self-serving, agendas. The suits behind the suits, sitting at the desks behind the desks, the superiors above the superiors, monitoring targets and performance indicators and other statistics, and plotting the downfall of those who stand in their way or who dare to criticise or oppose them.
These are the realities of power.
Welcome to the 21st Century.
.
There was an interesting news item on the radio just now about Cameron and Osborne who are continuing to live in their own homes - but with the security forces urging them to move into Downing Street immediately so that they can be better protected from potential 'threats'.
If I heard right, Cameron is still insisting on going on foot around Westminster and Whitehall, instead of going everywhere in his armoured car. Respect to Cammo! says I.
This seems to me incredibly refreshing. Firstly, a guy who's determined to be his own man, and not be ordered around by advisers and civil servants. Secondly, someone who is keen to somehow stay in touch with the real world, instead of being constantly screened off from it. Thirdly, someone who's got a certain amount of personal courage, and is prepared to take a risk in order to preserve his humanity and his sense of personal freedom. After all, if the bad guys can force even our political leaders to cringe in fear the whole time then the bad guys have won, haven't they?
There could even be something deeper going on here. Just suppose Cameron were a big enough person to see this behaviour as part of the 'new politics'. Surely a new type of politics ought to be about policies and not personalities? The new politics ought to emphasise the primacy of the electorate and the policies already voted on and agreed on. In this scenario, it doesn't really matter who leads a party or a country - if they fall ill or die then someone else will step in and take forward the wishes of the electorate. A new politics requires political leaders to be servant/leaders, and not the raving egomaniacs we're used to, from Thatcher through Major to Blair to Brown. A servant/leader has the attitude that s/he's there to help enact the wishes of the country, and not bend or steer the country according to his/her individual will or preference. As such s/he is replaceable, so there's no benefit to any bad guy in getting rid of him/her.
As it happens, for the first time ever, the coalition government has drawn up a fairly detailed programme of what it intends to do over the next 5 years. The plan has been published for all to see, and for consultation. This is surely a grown-up way of doing politics. There's a clear coalition agreement firmly in place, subject to responses from public feedback and reaction. So no matter what happens to individual figures within the government from here on in, the programme for the parliament will be taken forward. We may not like the proposals, but at least it's clear what the government is committed to. This can only be a good thing.
What's happened since the election has been perfectly logical and reasonable, but the commentariat seems to be struggling to keep up with it and is puzzled by what to say about it. The very idea of Cameron dragging his party in a more liberal and progressive direction seems to have shocked and angered the true die-hard Tories who presumed he was going to be Thatcher lite, at the very worst, and be Thatcher Mark II at best.
As for the old addage, power corrupts - and absolute power corrupts absolutely, we shall have to wait and see. No doubt Cameron won't feel able to keep up his current behaviour forever. Maybe it is all an exercise in image creation. Perhaps he will be corrupted by power and slide into the expected behaviour of a prime minister. But there's no point in speculating - we need to wait and see. And in the meantime maybe give him the benefit of the doubt and hope he continues to talk the talk and walk the walk - in Whitehall and elsewhere.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7133563.ece
Fears for safety of walkabout Cameron
David Cameron is rejecting the advice of top security officials by insisting on walking around Whitehall, refusing police motorcycle escorts and demanding to be allowed to keep his BlackBerry smartphone.
There is increasing nervousness about the protection of the Prime Minister, who officials believe is making himself vulnerable to terrorists, lone obsessives and cyber-criminals.
Ministers, however, are being encouraged to cut back on security by ditching their official cars in favour of public transport, under a new code of conduct aimed at cutting government perks.
........................................................
Could there be a narrative in Cameron's choice of music for his desert island?
Tangled Up In Blue (Bob Dylan)
Ernie (Benny Hill)
Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd)
On Wings Of Song (Kiri Te Kanawa)
Fake Plastic Trees (Radiohead)
This Charming Man (Smiths)
Perfect Circle (REM)
All These Things I've Done (The Killers)
All credit to him for his choice of a crate of Scottish whisky as his luxury for the desert island..
................................................
This Is America, Man. (And it's also Britain)
In this week's London Review of Books Michael Wood has written a very interesting article that's both a review of The Wire and also a comment on David Simon's latest series, Treme.
As he points out, the uniqueness of The Wire is that it's not a conventional cop show - it's a thorough investigation and exposee of the world of the drug dealers, which operates alongside of and interacts with the world of the police department, and the whole city hall bureaucracy. And it tells the truth about the inability of anyone to change either the psychotic world of the violent criminals, OR the psychotic and sociopathic world of the bureaucrats who run cities, including the police department. There are many good cops who really care about catching the crims, but they're prevented from doing what they need to do by all sorts of factors, including lack of resourcing, petty regulations, indifferent and self-centred colleagues, wrong priorities and bad leadership.
"This is America, man" means that power is at the heart of every story, and understanding power is the way to stay alive. The drug lord keeps his men out of jail by threatening witnesses or by having them murdered, and there is nothing the police can do about it.
Indeed for most of the time and for various reasons (hopelessness, habit, the need to massage crime statistics, the internal politics of the police department, the image requirements of elected officials) they supposed to do nothing about it.
David Simon says The Wire is about the City. It is how we in the West live at the millennium, an urbanised species compacted together, sharing a common love, and a common awe and fear, of what we have rendered not only in Baltimore or St Louis or Chicago, but in Manchester or Amsterdam or Mexico City as well.
London too, of course.
All kind of cops . . . tussle with an obstructive superior who sits behind a desk; but the cops in The Wire are faced with desks behind desks, superiors above superiors, each one closer to the local politicans and especially the mayor, who most of the time wants to be governor.
(Regular readers might already see where we're going with this.)
There are many political zones in The Wire, and the mayor's office is an important one. What are cops to do if they want to solve crimes rather than wait comfortably for their retirement?
The killing of Snoop (in Treme) has many resemblances to the killing of Proposition Joe (in (The Wire) . . . the calm, the fatalism, the futility of discussion, the sense of merely reasonable behaviour, an undertone of impersonal courtesy or kindness, even. But there is a difference. Joe was a thinking man who thought he could beat the system. He was wrong - because he was a thinking man, a believer in alternatives. Snoop is a psychopath who knows the system can't be beaten, only lived with for a while before it kills you.
Of course you don't have to be a psychopath in order to know that the system can't be beaten, and that it will kill you off in the end, and yet still go on working against the system anyway . . . but it helps.
Of course I'm thinking here about the many good teachers and headteachers, and others working in various public services, who have suffered from and finally been beaten by The System, even though they were intelligent, and idealistic, and believers in alternatives, and carried on working for justice and fairness and for the rights of children and other clients, in the face of a faceless and dictatorial bureaucracy driven by half-crazed and over-ambitious politicans and grim-faced Westminster civil service mandarins working to reactionary and regressive, and self-serving, agendas. The suits behind the suits, sitting at the desks behind the desks, the superiors above the superiors, monitoring targets and performance indicators and other statistics, and plotting the downfall of those who stand in their way or who dare to criticise or oppose them.
These are the realities of power.
Welcome to the 21st Century.
.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Layer 224 . . . More Bullshit Bingo, Strangling, European Union and Parliamentary Standards
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More synchronicity . . .
Following on from yesterday's musings, I came across this piece about The Stranglers:
He's right of course - Ray Manzarek was one of the best and one of the most well-known keyboards players in the Sixties, and obviously The Doors were one of the very best bands. It always seemed me that those guys had a very similar keyboard style, playing in what were in some ways similar bands – capable of hard rock but also writing great original songs with terrific melodies and good lyrics.
….........................................................
Who's Talking?
More bullshit bingo. Heard on the radio this morning -
“We need to look at how we drive more efficiency out of the business . . . ”
Leaving aside the small point that the correct grammar should be “drive more efficiency INTO the business” - this is still technobullshit. The key word here, of course, is DRIVING. Powerful people have to drive – like they're in a powerful vehicle. And of course they're the one with their hands on the steering wheel, putting the pedal to the metal.
So who is this talking? Obviously a top businessman or woman, or a top civil servant who's in charge of A Business or A System?
No. The guy talking runs the Association of Chief Police Officers. The Top Cop. And I'd put a very large bet on whether he, and most top cops these days, have at some stage been to a business school to get an MBA. Or is this jargon just something he's picked up from his dealings with Home Office officials who've been down that route and therefore habitually talk this bullshit?
He went on to say -
“You can deliver accountability, but you can't deliver policing under direct political control.”
“. . . the savings we need to deliver out of the back end of the business.”
He even talked about “a British brand of policing”!!!
Aaaaarrrrggghhhh!
How does anyone 'deliver' accountability? How does anyone 'deliver' policing? When did people start talking like this?
It's that macho thing again. It's maximum macho. I think the first time I heard this word 'deliver' it was in connection with the local Co-Op bringing a boxful of groceries to our house. The second time must have been at school during prayers - “Deliver us from evil”. So delivering is also something God or gods do. Is that how he sees himself? Or is he seeing himself as some kind of grocer? I think not. It's definitely an all-powerful omnipotence thing.
He went on to say,
“I would not want to lead a police force that was being told how to deliver policing.”
Of course he wouldn't. He wouldn't want to be told how to do anything.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8369000/8369748.stm
Probably quite right too. Maybe the top man at the national association of headteachers should have said many years ago that he would rather resign than bow down to politicians and bureaucrats who thought they had a right to micro-manage schools - people who invariably, by virtue of having climbed to the top of the political or bureaucratic greasy pole, are full of ambition and ego, and are determined to manipulate and maneuver their way to positions of power and authority. Usually ignoramuses who haven't a clue what goes on in schools. Just like the New Labour bastards who are now claiming they will guarantee 'delivery' of this and that in schools from now on.
…..............................................................
European Union
Bloody hell – Lady Ashton has a regional accent! And she was appointed by the Socialist Group in the European Parliament! How many people even knew there was a 'socialist' group!
Grew up near Skelmersdale and Wigan. She didn't go to Oxbridge either.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Ashton,_Baroness_Ashton_of_Upholland
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/19/lady-cathy-ashton
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6923856.ece
............................................
Parliamentary Standards
David Curry's the guy who was appointed to oversee the Parliamentary Standards committee. Yesterday he referred himself to – the Parliamentary Standards Committee.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/6609018/MPs-expenses-David-Curry-quits-as-standards-chief-over-new-Telegraph-disclosures.html
You couldn't make it up.
.
More synchronicity . . .
Following on from yesterday's musings, I came across this piece about The Stranglers:
When did you first realise that The Guildford Stranglers, as you were then called, had the makings of a really good band?http://www.bbc.co.uk/totp2/artists/s/stranglers/located/page1.shtml
JJ Burnel: Well, not for quite a while, because the very few places we could get booked into usually asked us never to return again, or they'd pull the plugs on us! We tried a variety of different musicians, but nothing really clicked. Then we advertised for a keyboard player. We thought that was the extra voice that we needed. Hugh and I had been writing all the songs and they were starting to take shape, but it wasn't until Dave joined us a year later in 1975 that things really clicked. He sounded great and really reminded us of Ray Manzarek from The Doors. But Dave had never heard about them then. It was all down to synchronicity really. From then on, we started writing a lot more.
He's right of course - Ray Manzarek was one of the best and one of the most well-known keyboards players in the Sixties, and obviously The Doors were one of the very best bands. It always seemed me that those guys had a very similar keyboard style, playing in what were in some ways similar bands – capable of hard rock but also writing great original songs with terrific melodies and good lyrics.
….........................................................
Who's Talking?
More bullshit bingo. Heard on the radio this morning -
“We need to look at how we drive more efficiency out of the business . . . ”
Leaving aside the small point that the correct grammar should be “drive more efficiency INTO the business” - this is still technobullshit. The key word here, of course, is DRIVING. Powerful people have to drive – like they're in a powerful vehicle. And of course they're the one with their hands on the steering wheel, putting the pedal to the metal.
So who is this talking? Obviously a top businessman or woman, or a top civil servant who's in charge of A Business or A System?
No. The guy talking runs the Association of Chief Police Officers. The Top Cop. And I'd put a very large bet on whether he, and most top cops these days, have at some stage been to a business school to get an MBA. Or is this jargon just something he's picked up from his dealings with Home Office officials who've been down that route and therefore habitually talk this bullshit?
He went on to say -
“You can deliver accountability, but you can't deliver policing under direct political control.”
“. . . the savings we need to deliver out of the back end of the business.”
He even talked about “a British brand of policing”!!!
Aaaaarrrrggghhhh!
How does anyone 'deliver' accountability? How does anyone 'deliver' policing? When did people start talking like this?
It's that macho thing again. It's maximum macho. I think the first time I heard this word 'deliver' it was in connection with the local Co-Op bringing a boxful of groceries to our house. The second time must have been at school during prayers - “Deliver us from evil”. So delivering is also something God or gods do. Is that how he sees himself? Or is he seeing himself as some kind of grocer? I think not. It's definitely an all-powerful omnipotence thing.
He went on to say,
“I would not want to lead a police force that was being told how to deliver policing.”
Of course he wouldn't. He wouldn't want to be told how to do anything.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8369000/8369748.stm
Probably quite right too. Maybe the top man at the national association of headteachers should have said many years ago that he would rather resign than bow down to politicians and bureaucrats who thought they had a right to micro-manage schools - people who invariably, by virtue of having climbed to the top of the political or bureaucratic greasy pole, are full of ambition and ego, and are determined to manipulate and maneuver their way to positions of power and authority. Usually ignoramuses who haven't a clue what goes on in schools. Just like the New Labour bastards who are now claiming they will guarantee 'delivery' of this and that in schools from now on.
…..............................................................
European Union
Bloody hell – Lady Ashton has a regional accent! And she was appointed by the Socialist Group in the European Parliament! How many people even knew there was a 'socialist' group!
Grew up near Skelmersdale and Wigan. She didn't go to Oxbridge either.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Ashton,_Baroness_Ashton_of_Upholland
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/19/lady-cathy-ashton
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6923856.ece
............................................
Parliamentary Standards
David Curry's the guy who was appointed to oversee the Parliamentary Standards committee. Yesterday he referred himself to – the Parliamentary Standards Committee.
On November 19th, 2009 Curry stood down from his position as chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Standards and Privileges after claims from the Telegraph newspaper regarding his expenses and has reportedly referred himself to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority for investigation.[2] - Wikipedia
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/6609018/MPs-expenses-David-Curry-quits-as-standards-chief-over-new-Telegraph-disclosures.html
You couldn't make it up.
.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Layer 55. Summer In The City III; City Boys, Handcuffs and the Targets Culture.
More news reports.
Hurrah for the USA!
Delightful TV footage this morning of Bear Stearns executives in handcuffs, charged with fraud and misleading investors. Charged with not communicating the true risks of the sub-prime market. They moved their own money to safety whilst keeping everybody else in ignorance of the fact that the economic and financial shit was about to hit the fan.
Will the British authorities now follow this excellent example? Don’t hold your breath. Do keep a clothes peg handy for when the stench gets really bad.
* * *
Jerry Springer, a token American on Question Time last night, was supposed to give his views on the Irish rejection of the new EU treaty. He spoke of the international forces at work in the world, and the power of multi-national corporations and international finance, and the need for greater internationalism.
Presumably he’s very aware of what it feels like to be part of a liberal minority in a country that’s constantly bombarded by strident neo-conservative propaganda, and he sees the need for decent people throughout the world to make common cause in resisting the machinations of the fat cats, the war mongers and the crazed power-mad politicians who currently rule the planet.
* * *
“Software is my primary contribution to the world.” - Bill Gates on his retirement from the chairmanship of Microsoft in order to concentrate on running his charitable foundation and giving away his $60 billion fortune to good causes. Hurrah for Bill and Microsoft!
* * *
17 teenage girls in a high school in the States formed ‘a pact’ to get pregnant. Well it’s better than our teenagers forming pacts to commit suicide, though still pretty worrying from the point of view of their levels of emotional and spiritual intelligence.
The Targets Culture #1
Ken Jones of the Association of Police Officers is calling for the abolition of government targets for the police, and for giving the police more independence so that decisions can be made locally, where priorities and operations ought to be managed.
There is said to be resistance to the move from “officials in Whitehall”. Well of course there is.
Fair enough for Ken Jones to say that those police forces that are doing well should be given ‘foundation status’ and allowed to direct their own efforts, subject to local scrutiny. Why can’t he see that it’s the police forces that are in many cases understandably unable to reach centrally imposed targets - and are having their efforts to fight crime hampered by remote civil servants and politicians and their unreasonable demands - that most need to be free of the targets culture and encouraged to demonstrate their competence to manage themselves and take decisions at the local level?
The Targets Culture #2
“The government has been warned that many of the schools it is threatening to close in England and Wales are actually doing well.” - Lead story on BBC1 and Radio 4 today.
More than a quarter of the schools that are missing their targets and are therefore being threatened with closure by a government that sees them as failing, actually have Ofsted reports that say they are good or outstanding.
What these schools, and teachers’ union officials, are apparently failing to notice is that whilst their last Ofsted report may have been very positive, their next Ofsted inspection team will arrive there and pay little or no attention to what goes on in the school, even if the quality of the teaching has been monitored and assessed as 60% good or better, and will concentrate more or less exclusively on the recent test and exam data and how it matches against the government targets and ‘expectations’.
Christine Blower is the NUT’s acting general secretary. This morning she pointed out that two thirds of the schools on the government’s list of schools facing closure have been graded as satisfactory, and a third of them were actually described by Ofsted as good or outstanding in their last inspection.
She made the point that public humiliation and destabilisation is not the way to improve schools. So the interviewer raised the issue of exam success, and how crucial that is in our society. I was crying out for Christine to point out that the key issues are pupil progress, sometimes from very depressed starting points, and the unreasonableness of arbitrary targets for children aged 11 and 16. These are what really matter.
Ms Blower said that publishing a list of threatened schools is unhelpful and demoralising. Jim Knight (for it was he) said the government had not published a list! “We are determined to tackle failure - we’ve set a benchmark”. What a fuckwit.
The twat blames local newspapers for publishing lists and for branding schools as failures if they get less than 30%! And who is it, Jim, that’s been banging the drum about schools failing if they score less than 30% A -Cs? Not you, by any chance? How fucking dim can you get?
“There’s a whole range of things we can do to help those schools that are persistently stuck”, says Jim. So why haven’t they been doing them these past 10 years?
Jim’s threatening to turn ‘failing’ secondary schools into Academies. 27 of the schools on the list are already ‘Academies’!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Why don’t people feel happy, and more content? So asks Tom Harris MP, in his blog, according to Radio 4. Duh!
http://tomcharris.wordpress.com/about/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
And finally . . .
A police helicopter has been ‘attacked’ by aliens in a UFO, which was described as ‘flying- saucer shaped’. I’d love to be around if and when the arrests are made. How to caution an alien? Finding a translator could be a problem. Oxzen says: Bust These Aliens.
Personally I’m keen to see more police helicopters up there spotting the local crims, running them to ground and bringing them to book. For scratching my car, for starters.
Presumably the Bush response would be to launch a War On Aliens, instead of just setting out to arrest the perpetrators.
Could these aliens be irresponsible teenage joyriding aliens, out of their parents’ control, buzzing helicopters for fun? They probably hot-wired and stole a UFO: I can’t imagine any grown-up adult alien behaving like this. Surely mature aliens who are sophisticated enough to build interplanetary and intergalactic spacecraft can’t have the emotional intelligence of a demented hoodie?
Maybe we need targets for apprehending aliens in unlicensed and uninsured UFOs. For taking and driving UFOs without permission. For the reckless and dangerous driving of UFOs. A target of 1 would be good.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sachs, was on Thought For Today again. I love this man. He was talking about the amazing capacity of humans for inventiveness and self-healing, giving the recent example of a man afflicted by cancer whose body had been able to heal itself, thanks to the inventiveness of scientists who had injected him with millions of clones of his own cancer-fighting cells.
He pointed out that being healthy isn’t freedom from being ill - it’s the ability to recover or heal what’s been harmed. A cure often lies within ourselves, if only we know where to look.
An extension of this thought is that it’s the responsibility of parents, teachers, writers and artists to show young people where to look in order to cure themselves of mental, emotional and spiritual sickness. But is this currently on the school curriculum, or done in any meaningful or determined way within our schools, thanks to the target-setting and academic testing culture?
Another interesting thought of the Rabbi is that Creole is Pidgin English plus grammar, and is a language invented by young people. I’d never really thought about that, any more than I’d thought about the innate, instinctual human ability to create and to learn languages, and the instinctual ability of animals to communicate in various ways. Time to get back to reading Chomsky.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
There was a guy on Radio 4 today talking about his new book which describes the disgusting attitudes and behaviour of City Boys - the scumbags who work in the City of London and manage its citadels. What’s interesting about his book’s ‘revelations’ regarding the total lack of morals and ethics of people like hedge fund managers and their lackeys is that we know this stuff already.
We know very well that the bonus culture, and the greed that drives it, is responsible for the materialism, the casino mentality and the willingness to take massive risks with other people’s money. We know that these people are corrupt and corrupting. We know that these people are drugged up little shits and predatory and drunken hard-faced old bastards.
The only interesting thing here is why we think this is revelatory news, and what might now happen as a result of our awareness of the way our national life is being fucked up by these bastards, by the ‘credit crunch’, the bonus culture, bank runs, insolvency, bankruptcy, government bail-outs and the mountain of debt that so many poor suckers have been conned and nudged into taking on. Answer - nothing at all.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Carey on Desert Island Discs this morning was talking about Bob Dylan, and what a genius he is. Yes indeed. It’s been a privilege to have lived a lifetime in parallel with His Bobness, and to have experienced his incredible musical output as the years rolled by. Rolling Thunder indeed.
Peter chose Thunder On The Mountain from Modern Times, and Idiot Wind from Blood On The Tracks as two of his discs: the first time I’ve heard anyone on DID choose more than one Dylan track.
Coincidentally this week I made myself a CD of Bob tracks from 1990 onwards. There are many compilations of early and middle period Dylan, but none that I know of that are just tracks from the most recent 20 years.
Bob is an artist par excellence. He reflects the world and the human condition as it really is, and doesn’t tell you what to think or to feel. It’s the enlightenment, the insights, the wisdom, the provocation, the iconoclasm and the humour that matter, that can make a difference to millions of people that the man will never even meet.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Whilst the majority of this blog, and indeed most of my blogs, might seem to suggest that this government needs to fuck off and die, I have to say I was impressed with David Miliband on the Today programme, speaking about Europe and foreign affairs - just as I was impressed with him when I heard him speak to a conference a few days after he was rushed into the post of Secretary of State for education. I just hope he never gets to be the party leader, and has to stop being something of a real person, and stop being something of a real thinker.
I’m worried about this man, who, for all his inexperience is clearly very bright and able, and seems to have some measure of understanding of the world and its affairs, and some perspective. So far he’s resisted pressure from people to throw his hat into the leadership ring, but he might still come to feel that to do so at some stage would be a noble pursuit. Don’t do it, David. Stay grounded and stay real.
You’re not a Blair psychopath/android. Carry on enjoying life - you’re still very young. Yes, you’re a lot more able than your half-wit colleagues in the cabinet, but so what? Have a bash at Chancellor and Home Secretary, or shadow those posts, and a decade or so down the road will be time enough to become party leader. Just learn to put up with whoever does it in the meantime.
Your time will surely come, and if you still have your wits and your sense of the absurd, and your energy and commitment, then that will be the right time. And if a twat like Blair can do it, and a man with height issues like Sarkozy, then so can you.
Hurrah for the USA!
Delightful TV footage this morning of Bear Stearns executives in handcuffs, charged with fraud and misleading investors. Charged with not communicating the true risks of the sub-prime market. They moved their own money to safety whilst keeping everybody else in ignorance of the fact that the economic and financial shit was about to hit the fan.
Will the British authorities now follow this excellent example? Don’t hold your breath. Do keep a clothes peg handy for when the stench gets really bad.
* * *
Jerry Springer, a token American on Question Time last night, was supposed to give his views on the Irish rejection of the new EU treaty. He spoke of the international forces at work in the world, and the power of multi-national corporations and international finance, and the need for greater internationalism.
Presumably he’s very aware of what it feels like to be part of a liberal minority in a country that’s constantly bombarded by strident neo-conservative propaganda, and he sees the need for decent people throughout the world to make common cause in resisting the machinations of the fat cats, the war mongers and the crazed power-mad politicians who currently rule the planet.
* * *
“Software is my primary contribution to the world.” - Bill Gates on his retirement from the chairmanship of Microsoft in order to concentrate on running his charitable foundation and giving away his $60 billion fortune to good causes. Hurrah for Bill and Microsoft!
* * *
17 teenage girls in a high school in the States formed ‘a pact’ to get pregnant. Well it’s better than our teenagers forming pacts to commit suicide, though still pretty worrying from the point of view of their levels of emotional and spiritual intelligence.
The Targets Culture #1
Ken Jones of the Association of Police Officers is calling for the abolition of government targets for the police, and for giving the police more independence so that decisions can be made locally, where priorities and operations ought to be managed.
There is said to be resistance to the move from “officials in Whitehall”. Well of course there is.
Fair enough for Ken Jones to say that those police forces that are doing well should be given ‘foundation status’ and allowed to direct their own efforts, subject to local scrutiny. Why can’t he see that it’s the police forces that are in many cases understandably unable to reach centrally imposed targets - and are having their efforts to fight crime hampered by remote civil servants and politicians and their unreasonable demands - that most need to be free of the targets culture and encouraged to demonstrate their competence to manage themselves and take decisions at the local level?
The Targets Culture #2
“The government has been warned that many of the schools it is threatening to close in England and Wales are actually doing well.” - Lead story on BBC1 and Radio 4 today.
More than a quarter of the schools that are missing their targets and are therefore being threatened with closure by a government that sees them as failing, actually have Ofsted reports that say they are good or outstanding.
What these schools, and teachers’ union officials, are apparently failing to notice is that whilst their last Ofsted report may have been very positive, their next Ofsted inspection team will arrive there and pay little or no attention to what goes on in the school, even if the quality of the teaching has been monitored and assessed as 60% good or better, and will concentrate more or less exclusively on the recent test and exam data and how it matches against the government targets and ‘expectations’.
Christine Blower is the NUT’s acting general secretary. This morning she pointed out that two thirds of the schools on the government’s list of schools facing closure have been graded as satisfactory, and a third of them were actually described by Ofsted as good or outstanding in their last inspection.
She made the point that public humiliation and destabilisation is not the way to improve schools. So the interviewer raised the issue of exam success, and how crucial that is in our society. I was crying out for Christine to point out that the key issues are pupil progress, sometimes from very depressed starting points, and the unreasonableness of arbitrary targets for children aged 11 and 16. These are what really matter.
Ms Blower said that publishing a list of threatened schools is unhelpful and demoralising. Jim Knight (for it was he) said the government had not published a list! “We are determined to tackle failure - we’ve set a benchmark”. What a fuckwit.
The twat blames local newspapers for publishing lists and for branding schools as failures if they get less than 30%! And who is it, Jim, that’s been banging the drum about schools failing if they score less than 30% A -Cs? Not you, by any chance? How fucking dim can you get?
“There’s a whole range of things we can do to help those schools that are persistently stuck”, says Jim. So why haven’t they been doing them these past 10 years?
Jim’s threatening to turn ‘failing’ secondary schools into Academies. 27 of the schools on the list are already ‘Academies’!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Why don’t people feel happy, and more content? So asks Tom Harris MP, in his blog, according to Radio 4. Duh!
http://tomcharris.wordpress.com/about/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
And finally . . .
A police helicopter has been ‘attacked’ by aliens in a UFO, which was described as ‘flying- saucer shaped’. I’d love to be around if and when the arrests are made. How to caution an alien? Finding a translator could be a problem. Oxzen says: Bust These Aliens.
Personally I’m keen to see more police helicopters up there spotting the local crims, running them to ground and bringing them to book. For scratching my car, for starters.
Presumably the Bush response would be to launch a War On Aliens, instead of just setting out to arrest the perpetrators.
Could these aliens be irresponsible teenage joyriding aliens, out of their parents’ control, buzzing helicopters for fun? They probably hot-wired and stole a UFO: I can’t imagine any grown-up adult alien behaving like this. Surely mature aliens who are sophisticated enough to build interplanetary and intergalactic spacecraft can’t have the emotional intelligence of a demented hoodie?
Maybe we need targets for apprehending aliens in unlicensed and uninsured UFOs. For taking and driving UFOs without permission. For the reckless and dangerous driving of UFOs. A target of 1 would be good.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sachs, was on Thought For Today again. I love this man. He was talking about the amazing capacity of humans for inventiveness and self-healing, giving the recent example of a man afflicted by cancer whose body had been able to heal itself, thanks to the inventiveness of scientists who had injected him with millions of clones of his own cancer-fighting cells.
He pointed out that being healthy isn’t freedom from being ill - it’s the ability to recover or heal what’s been harmed. A cure often lies within ourselves, if only we know where to look.
An extension of this thought is that it’s the responsibility of parents, teachers, writers and artists to show young people where to look in order to cure themselves of mental, emotional and spiritual sickness. But is this currently on the school curriculum, or done in any meaningful or determined way within our schools, thanks to the target-setting and academic testing culture?
Another interesting thought of the Rabbi is that Creole is Pidgin English plus grammar, and is a language invented by young people. I’d never really thought about that, any more than I’d thought about the innate, instinctual human ability to create and to learn languages, and the instinctual ability of animals to communicate in various ways. Time to get back to reading Chomsky.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
There was a guy on Radio 4 today talking about his new book which describes the disgusting attitudes and behaviour of City Boys - the scumbags who work in the City of London and manage its citadels. What’s interesting about his book’s ‘revelations’ regarding the total lack of morals and ethics of people like hedge fund managers and their lackeys is that we know this stuff already.
We know very well that the bonus culture, and the greed that drives it, is responsible for the materialism, the casino mentality and the willingness to take massive risks with other people’s money. We know that these people are corrupt and corrupting. We know that these people are drugged up little shits and predatory and drunken hard-faced old bastards.
The only interesting thing here is why we think this is revelatory news, and what might now happen as a result of our awareness of the way our national life is being fucked up by these bastards, by the ‘credit crunch’, the bonus culture, bank runs, insolvency, bankruptcy, government bail-outs and the mountain of debt that so many poor suckers have been conned and nudged into taking on. Answer - nothing at all.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Carey on Desert Island Discs this morning was talking about Bob Dylan, and what a genius he is. Yes indeed. It’s been a privilege to have lived a lifetime in parallel with His Bobness, and to have experienced his incredible musical output as the years rolled by. Rolling Thunder indeed.
Peter chose Thunder On The Mountain from Modern Times, and Idiot Wind from Blood On The Tracks as two of his discs: the first time I’ve heard anyone on DID choose more than one Dylan track.
Coincidentally this week I made myself a CD of Bob tracks from 1990 onwards. There are many compilations of early and middle period Dylan, but none that I know of that are just tracks from the most recent 20 years.
Bob is an artist par excellence. He reflects the world and the human condition as it really is, and doesn’t tell you what to think or to feel. It’s the enlightenment, the insights, the wisdom, the provocation, the iconoclasm and the humour that matter, that can make a difference to millions of people that the man will never even meet.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Whilst the majority of this blog, and indeed most of my blogs, might seem to suggest that this government needs to fuck off and die, I have to say I was impressed with David Miliband on the Today programme, speaking about Europe and foreign affairs - just as I was impressed with him when I heard him speak to a conference a few days after he was rushed into the post of Secretary of State for education. I just hope he never gets to be the party leader, and has to stop being something of a real person, and stop being something of a real thinker.
I’m worried about this man, who, for all his inexperience is clearly very bright and able, and seems to have some measure of understanding of the world and its affairs, and some perspective. So far he’s resisted pressure from people to throw his hat into the leadership ring, but he might still come to feel that to do so at some stage would be a noble pursuit. Don’t do it, David. Stay grounded and stay real.
You’re not a Blair psychopath/android. Carry on enjoying life - you’re still very young. Yes, you’re a lot more able than your half-wit colleagues in the cabinet, but so what? Have a bash at Chancellor and Home Secretary, or shadow those posts, and a decade or so down the road will be time enough to become party leader. Just learn to put up with whoever does it in the meantime.
Your time will surely come, and if you still have your wits and your sense of the absurd, and your energy and commitment, then that will be the right time. And if a twat like Blair can do it, and a man with height issues like Sarkozy, then so can you.
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