Everything is God

Having spent the past two blog entries trying to explain why I do not subscribe to a God of organised religion, I thought i’d now make an argument for why I’m not an atheist in the sense that I cannot accept, unequivocally that a God does not or has never existed, on a philosophical level.

As explained in previous blogs, I reject Christianity on the basis that it attempts to explain the unexplainable. It has hijacked the idea of God for it’s own power and wealth needs. (Why would a God use a commandment up telling me to not worship false idols, instead of telling me, say, not to sexually abuse children? Is God jealous, or was it just a design on power by a few people three-four thousand years ago? I’m going to go with the latter) Christianity attempts to use simple language and human knowledge to justify something that is beyond simple language and human knowledge. It then attempts to set out rules and laws that run contrary to many of my own principles. For example, I reject being told that I must “love thy neighbour“. Love and acceptance cannot be willed or forced. Neither can belief in a God of Organised religion. I reject Catholicism because the very reason it is as powerful as it is, has nothing to do with it being ordained by the power of God, and everything to do with the largely ignored evils and atrocities it has committed over the past two thousand years. I reject Protestantism for much the same reason.
Christianity tends to contradict itself by suggesting on the one hand that by revealing certain “laws” set out by God, that the nature of God is therefore knowable by human kind. Yet, the God of Christianity is one of complete perfection whom transcends human understanding, which by definition, means he is unknowable in every way.

But rejecting Organised Religion in no way implies a rejection of the principle of God in its entirety.

The Benedictine Monk, Anselm, both impresses me and infuriates me. He infuriates me because he suggested that belief preceded reasoning, which is a cop-out for me. It can also be quite a dangerous idea. Reasoning should always precede belief when it comes to such important ideas that belong to such a powerful organisation like the Catholic Church. Belief without reasoning is at the very heart of the problems Catholicism has endured over the Centuries. The largely illiterate populations of European States during the 16th Century were content with belief without reasoning, and the 16th Century happened to be rife with religious war and struggle.
“Nor do I seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe that I may understand.” Anselm’s idea of “belief” in the eleventh century was a far cry from our understanding. For Anselm, belief means to resign oneself completely to the obedience of God, and with that obedience will come understanding. This, at first glance, sounds quite loose and unreasoned. But on a deeper level, Anselm is clearly referring to a state of meditation. Meditation is used across the World, spanning Continents and cultures, religions and races. Even Atheists meditate, it helps us gain a better understanding of ourselves and our issues. So, perhaps Anselm is loosely suggesting that to know oneself, is to know God, and since we are all interconnected by matter, by time, by space, by emotional response, by language, therefore to know oneself is to know everything, to know the eternal, and so by definition, everything is God.

Anselm also impresses me with his ontological argument of perfection. Anselm suggests that we all have an understanding of “good” and of “beauty” and of “perfect”. Those understandings, we use to base compare everything in life to. To Anselm, the very height of “good” or “perfect” is God. There must be a perfect perfection. Perfection must have an end point by it’s very nature, and that perfection, is therefore called God, because there is nothing greater than perfection. Anselm argued that to imagine the perfect Good is one thing, but for it to exist in reality would be greater than it existing purely in his mind, therefore, God must exist. It’s a convincing argument. But then, does God also become the perfect imperfection? The perfect evil? And also, surely the greatest creator, would be one that could create the universe, but not actually exist himself? That would be the ultimate perfection. Me painting a great work of art would be amazing, but me not existing, and yet managing to create a great work of art, would be better. And so by that logic, God doesn’t exist. Right?

I would argue that we are debating the idea of God in very much the wrong way. We are trying to prove the existence of a Being much like ourselves; who can consciously communicate and direct from the comfort of his cloud in the sky. That he can listen to prayer and intervene in the World. I think that’s wrong. I blame Organised Religion for that.
I think the idea of God needs to change. To have created a universe out of nothing suggests a creator that we give human attributes too. But, creating out of nothing, means that “nothing” is separate from God, and so that puts humanity at a great distance from God. We are not a part of God, God is not a part of us. Just as if we create a clock, we cannot suddenly become a part of that clock, and direct that clock to be whatever we so wish. But even if a God did create the universe ex nihilo, then, we must ask, who created the creator? If we take the Organised Religion route, we must say that before existence there must have a been non-existence. Which means God must have jumped into existence, at the moment of creation, unless he existed in non-existence, and if he did indeed exist in non-existence (a state in which nothing exists) then by definition, he didn’t exist. So, in order to change from a state of non-existence into a state of existence, something must have started his existence, which means there is something greater than the creator of everything, because something created the creator primarily. Still with me?

But, going with Anselm’s theory, the greatest perfection, in my rather skewed subjective analysis of the situation, would be a Being that could exist when existence itself does not exist. Does this prove the existence of God? No, but it is a far better argument than the one given by most Christians….. “God exists, because the Bible says so”.

What if the universe had no beginning? What if the big bang was simply one in an endless line of big bangs? What if there was no Aristotelian Prime Mover, because there was no need for a Prime Mover? We slowly come to the conclusion, that existence itself is bound together. We are all part of the same conclusion. Matter, energy, time, wisdom, and space, are all interconnected. Which, I think Thomas Aquinas was suggesting, when he noted that God is the immutable, God is the perfection, and God is the infinite. He wasn’t suggesting there is a man in the sky who has all the makings that we traditionally associate with a God of Organised Religion. When he spoke of the nature of Jesus, he wasn’t suggesting that a God one day decided to put his son on Earth. He was suggesting that the “son of God” was simply the result of the hard and desperate times. Humanity created Jesus. In the same way that every generation has a person stand up against the natural order; that person would not have the same influence if the natural order was perfectly acceptable. Therefore, Jesus was simply a man who stood up against the accepted Roman order. The son of God, simply means, the son of everything. It was inevitable, for Aquinas, that eventually a man would want to fight back against Roman powers. Aquinas, the great Philosophy of Christian tradition, was suggesting that because everything is interconnected to everything else, therefore everything is God.

Slavery of the mind

Carrying on from yesterdays blog on Evolution, I thought i’d use this blog to attempt to verbalise my rather ineffable understanding of life.
I do not believe in any organised religion. That much is plainly obvious. However, some of my favourite philosophers throughout history, are the Christian philosophers over time. St Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Rene Descartes, to name a few. “Thinking Christians” as I like to call them. I find that the religion that has come to dominate the Western World – Christianity – has been rather oppressive and dangerous throughout it’s history. I understand that for the individual, spirituality can be an uplifting and comforting experience, which I advocate fully. I cannot though, understand why something that happens to have billions of subscribers, is considered “respectable” simply because it has billions of subscribers. People tend to blindly believe, without question. I find it somewhat arrogant. On a philosophical level, I cannot accept Organised Religion, and here is why…..

Humanity is limited to our very narrow understanding of the Universe. We can never overcome that narrow perspective, because the reason Humanity is limited is not due to an easily corrected ignorance, but instead down to what Descartes in his First Meditation noted as our senses. To see, hear, smell, touch, and taste is all we have. How arrogant of Humanity to think that whatever exists to those five sense is all that exists. We seem to put “God” into the category of the five senses. We give him human characteristics; love, wrath, expectation. All human concepts. How arrogant of us.

What if there is more? And if there is more, we cannot possibly comprehend it, because we are far too limited, and yet Organised Religion believes that the entire nature of life and the Universe, can be explained, in a 2000 year old book; a book that doesn’t actually mention Evolution or dinosaurs (you’d think it would). We are enslaving our own minds by the very nature of Organised Religion. When in actuality, the man who happens to know the Bible by heart, is no more knowledgeable than the man who calls himself Atheist. Both rather dogmatic systems of belief, mean nothing, we are all Agnostic.

It is not just extra sensory limits that hamper our understanding of “everything“, it also extends to our five sense. Closer to home.
A man who I see walking through Leicester City Centre every so often, sits on the bench in the middle of the City Centre, and often talks to himself about how he’s the king of England. Sometimes, he has a trumpet. People stare at him, as if he’s mad. How could a sane commoner actually believe that he’s the King of England? He must be mad right? He is Camus’ Outsider, is he not?
As Descartes points out, whilst we presume to accept everything that our senses perceive as real, to be real, we are daily deceived by our senses. We fall asleep, we dream, and whilst we dream, we believe everything our senses are telling us to be real. If during our dream, we see Elvis riding on the back of a donkey, in Ancient Rome, our dream counterpart does not think “I must be dreaming“, we simply accept it as truth. In fact, there have been times when I’ve woken up from a dream, and it has taken a few seconds for me to realise it was just a dream. For those few seconds, am I considered mad?

So what is to say that we are not dreaming now? Or at the very least, that our senses are not deceiving us in some awful way? Why do we trust our senses when we are “awake“? How do you know for certain that you’re not dreaming right this second? What is the difference between us sleeping and dreaming, and the man in the street calling himself the King, other than the fact that one of us has our eyes closed? Surely there is no real difference? We are both being deceived by our rather devious senses. We are both “mad” at different times. And so with that being said, how can one presume to know anything? To claim to understand the nature of God, and the Universe is to claim an arrogance and a level of knowing far beyond that of Humanity in general. To attempt to understand anything whatsoever in life, we must question everything; every belief, every tradition, every custom, every level of authority, everything anybody has ever told you.

Language plays a gigantic role in limiting human knowledge and experience. Language reflects just how constrained humanity is. We cannot adequately explain feelings, especially given just how personal emotions truly are. I cannot describe the beauty of love, because the beauty of love to me is simply a feeling, whose very aura is deeply ineffable. In the same way that I cannot explain the colour blue. And so language constrains us. Given the obvious constrains of language, how are we to use such a limited medium of communication in order to describe the infinite? It is simply not possible. And yet we arrogantly attempt it; Organised Religion.

Your perceptions and the impressions that your senses give you are yours only. Your experiences and your subsequent system of values and morals, are yours only. If I were to call myself Christian, my system of values would strongly contradict those of Christianity. I have, for example, no problem or issue with homosexuality, gay marriage, gay adoption, or even abortion. No amount of threatening me with a rather bleak and conservative bigoted God is going to change my system of values. And anyway, if God truly is perfect, and “knows all“, he knew before I was born, that I’d have a system of values, due to the experiences my family have had and my natural surroundings that I had no control over, and that seem to contradict everything that the God of Christianity stands for.

The Fact of Evolution

I’m shocked at how many people think that the word “theory” in the “theory of evolution” means somehow, that the entire process of evolutionary biology; arguably the cornerstone of biology and medicine, is in still just an “idea“.

A fact is a collection of infallible data. A theory is a way to explain how that data came into being, and why it came into being.

That being said, let’s take the theory of gravity as a prime example of fact and theory blending together.
Contrary to popular belief, Newton did not come up with the very first theory of Gravity. Aristotle believed and theorised that gravity (which is a fact) existed because the elements (Earth, Water, Air and Fire) needed a way to return to their natural place. Fire shot upwards because it was light. Air was the lightest so was already floating around. Water was next. Earth last, because it was the heaviest. The theory being therefore, that the heavier the element, the faster it would fall. The force pulling it, was gravity. Aristotle’s fifth element was the “ether”, which included the Sun, the Moon and the Stars. These were held into place by the prime-mover (or what we now refer to, as God), according to Aristotle.
That theory held a lot of weight, for a very long time. Galileo proved the Earth was not the centre of the Universe, and everything changed. The idea of the Law of Falling Bodies kept to Aristotle’s basic premise that an invisible force exists, that exerts a pull. But it included the notion of speed, velocity, however it disregarded air resistance, and the affects of gravity outside of Earth’s atmosphere. Until Newton came around.
Eventually, Einstein’s general theory of relativity rendered Newton’s theory of gravity obsolete and gave us a new updated theory, which is the theory behind our understanding of gravitation today. Einstein’s general theory of relativity, is so complex, and so confusing, that I only really understand it’s very fundamental arguments. Beyond those fundamental arguments, the little man in my brain says “erm….okay…what?“

The point is, theory keeps updating, it is like the philosophy behind the fact. It asks why, and how. Once a hypothesis has been proven, it needs a reason, otherwise the hypothesis is rendered useless. It is the opposite of religion. Organised religion sets a theory, and then tries to find a fact, which it fails miserably every time to achieve.
Evolution is the fact. Darwin’s idea of Natural Selection is the currently accepted theory behind evolution. Although, I’d suggest Ronald Fisher’s Genetical Theory of Natural Selection, and contributions to the subject by William Hamilton among others, are just as important. To dismiss the entire study as a mere “idea” or “hypothesis” is just ridiculously ignorant, and quite shameful.

Modern biology rests on the fact that the diversity of life on this planet; the reason we have different coloured eyes and hair; the reason certain species can survive in the most inhospitable environments, is because a process of natural selection over millions of years has quite menacingly destroyed any life form that just wasn’t able to cope.

During Industrial Revolution London, lightly coloured moths were unable to hide. They stood out. And so birds would easily catch and eat them. Darker coloured moths found it far easier to escape being bird food, because they could blend into their surroundings. Over time, the population of light coloured moths decreased tremendously. The population of dark moths increased. Natural selection at work. The life forms suited to change, survive. The rest, don’t. Either that, or God REALLY hates lightly coloured moths. They probably flicker in his curtains at night, when he’s trying to sleep. I hate when that happens. I’d kill them all too, if I could.

The problem lies in the fact that whilst short term effects of natural selection can be measured over time (selective breeding in plants and animals for example, along with the evolutionary regressive notion of inbreeding depression and Genetic mutations like non-disjunction leading to Downs Syndrome also…); long term evolutionary effects cannot be observed. We aren’t likely to see the next stage in human evolution, happen over night. It happens over millions of years. Kids aren’t going to suddenly grow faster legs, to deal with the fact that police cars are getting faster since the 70s. It doesn’t work like that. Which apparently, means, to Christians (who ironically, demand unconditional proof) that it isn’t happening at all.

Of course, to those of us who also quite enjoy the study of Philosophy, the remnants of reading Descartes lead us to the conclusion that nothing can be 100% truthful. Life itself, cannot be 100% truthful. Sartre argues endlessly in Being and Nothingness, that beyond our very limited understanding of the World around us, we can never fully know anything 100%. And so to the relativists among us, evolution can never be 100% proven, but by that logic, neither can the existence of you and I.

The causes of evolution, are contentious issues. It is a matter of philosophical debate almost. One could even attempt to bring God into the situation, and could not be proved either correct or incorrect. But the statement that every species on the planet today has descended with adaptations, through history, from a common ancestor, is as much of a fact as is the force that is currently making sure you don’t float off into space. It would seem that to convince people that evolution is the fact and natural selection the theory, takes more effort than I first imagined. So, this blog is the last i’ll say on the subject.

Viva La Revolucion!

I wonder, just how safe is the Capitalist structure (assuming we’ve actually ever lived in a Capitalist structured society….. because, well, we haven’t), when you get right down to a fundamental level?

Imagine a very rude boss, that you and I have. He talks to us like dirt. He does not know our names. He points when he wants our attention. He once told us, whilst the staff were working pretty damn hard, sweating, to make him money, that he was “losing faith in you lot tonight”. We’re also lugubriously aware constantly, that if the law allowed for it, he would pay us as small as possible whilst keeping as much as possible for himself. It is the reason we’re on minimum wage. That’s the nature of Capitalism.

At that point, I wondered, what is actually stopping me from replying to his “losing faith” comment, with “Okay, you fucking do it yourself” and walking out? Surely it would only take one great orator of the working man to say to a boss like that:

“It may seem to the controlled masses that we rely on people like you to pay our wages and to fund our rather feeble existence. But that isn’t the case. It is the opposite. You rely on people like us. The automatic assumption is that you own the place, and so you’re entitled to the highest share of the revenue. This is quite obviously a social creation of the propertied classes, and I have no idea why that social creation would be protected by law, as if it’s an objective truth. It isn’t. Because without us, making the money in the first place, you’d have nothing. The very reason you and your luxurious lifestyle is continuously funded, is because we work hard for a small chunk of money whilst you’re ‘losing faith’ in us, but driving home in your expensive car, that we’ve financed. Without the surplus value that we create, you’re nothing. We make you what you are. If you were to leave the building now, nothing would change. But if we were all to leave the building now, this place would be economically destroyed. So who is more important, right this moment?
So you either treat us with respect, and understand that we all rely on each other, or we can quickly become your worst fucking nightmare.”

What is there to stop that happening? The “owner” walks a very thin tightrope every time he displays a rude, obnoxious attitude. The worker does not seem to realise the power that he/she actually could yield. He instead, is distracted with promises of consumerist heaven. A brand new 30inch TV that he does not need!!! Or a lovely new car, faster than most, but can only actually stick to 30mph on most roads like every other car. That materialist distraction, that “I may lose my job if I rebel” is the only real reason (political oppression being another reason) that the landed classes have survived for so long.

Why is it a terrible idea that those of us who work the place, couldn’t run the place better than the guy at the top? Why can’t we be in control of the surplus that we have made? Why can’t we be trusted?

And whilst Marx, and Lenin, and Bakunin, and Depestre among others, considered a revolution of the workers to be imminent, i’d suggest that the majority of the workforce, with it’s infinite power, is so distracted with what shit they can own, a revolution of the workers is disastrously unlikely.

By the very fact that workers have such power, that they, collectively, could yield at any moment they so wished (what is stopping us?), it would suggest that Socialism is not dead (nor has it ever actually taken place), merely hidden away, and simply needs one great orator of the working man, to step forward and make the case for the Left, and the deal is done.

Pro-Capitalists saw the problem throughout the 20th Century, that working men could easily be persuaded to stand up for themselves in the face of their rather weak oppressors. It is how battles for Union rights were won; how minimum wage legislation was won (The Conservative Party….. including David Cameron, opposed Minimum wage…… those are the people like our boss, in my scenario); how the NHS was created. Capitalism saw, in the years proceeding the industrial revolution, that workers (both white and black) were sick of their conditions and awful treatment and pay, and so racism was used as a divisive wedge between white and black, so suddenly the rich white capitalist wasn’t the problem for the white working class man, he was angry at the black working class man for “stealing all our jobs”. Despite the fact, and rather ironically, that the white working class man had far more in common with the black working class man, than he ever did with the white rich guy who was fucking them both over.

Then came the Soviets. Capitalism painted the Soviets (and thus, Communism and Socialism) as evil. Despite the fact that the Soviet Union was far from Communist and actually run more as State Capitalism. But fear was used. Evil murderous bastards!!! The population decided it must be true. But conveniently ignored the amount of right winged terror cells the U.S was sponsoring throughout the Cold War period. And suddenly Socialism had the Soviet stigma attached to it, rather pathetically. All of a sudden, you speak like a Socialist, you ask why people are hungry, you question the legitimacy of a system built on desperation by the propertied classes, and you lose all credibility. Well fuck that. This is my reality. It isn’t anyone elses.
Capitalism has done a very good job at masking subjectivity behind a wall of false objectivity.

The Soviet Union died. So now where do we place the wedge? Ah yes. Immigrants. They’re taking all our homes, right? WRONG. The last survey in the UK showed that only 1.8% of social tenants are immigrants of the past five years have been given social housing. Over 85% are UK born. So where are all the houses? White Brits will never accept that their own “kind” are to blame. Like racism of early America, we in the UK should accept that we have far more in common with the Pakistani gentleman living next door to us, than we do with the rich white Brit who owns four or five homes, using only one to live in, whilst the others are used as holiday homes once a year, destroying local economies (Beadnell in Northumberland is a great example). But, that rich white Brit has far more right under the eyes of the law, and Capitalism, than the residents of that small locality have to live in peace and without fear of economic ruin.

Capitalism has took aim at the homeless too. They’re “lazy” so don’t deserve help, apparently. They should “help themselves” (because obviously, we’re all the same). Begging is the “lowest of the low“. And yet, it isn’t considered begging, to see Coca Cola adverts everywhere I go; TV, billboards, sponsoring sporting events, paying abominable sums of money for a sports star to advertise their drink (which actually works, to the shame of us lower classes), whilst trying to save money by dumping toxic waste in a public space in a poor area of India, is fine apparently. That’s perfectly fine. But asking for a few pound change, in order to actually stay alive, is low?

The working man, whether black, white, Asian, British, Spanish, Indian, whatever….. has far more to gain, and far more power, and strikes far more fear into the stone hearts of the propertied class, than they’d ever believe possible. If an insurrection were to occur in my lifetime, i’d fully support the workers.

What good would Warhol be?

Imagine.
The ideal World. MY ideal World actually (subjective as this blog is going to be).
A scene from a child’s book, written by a child perhaps. There is no war. There is no extreme poverty. There is no one living on the street. There is no National pride or any other form of man-made diversion from the reality of the species of humanity. There is no racism. There is no Capitalism or disproportionate spread of wealth. There is no global warming or animal cruelty. There is no violence or hate. There are no natural disasters. There is no disease. There is no crime or abuse. There is no heart break or depression. There is global happiness, harmony, love, respect, hope, admiration. Everyone is fed. Everyone is sheltered. Everyone is safe. Everyone is free. All authority is legitimate. The rain falls when and where it is needed. The sun shines at the perfect moment. People say hello as they ride past one another on bikes, every morning. Black, White, Asian, Gay, Straight, Male, Female, it doesn’t matter.
The ideal World.
I wake up one morning, and I exist in it all of a sudden. Everything is perfect. The very ideals I strove for are no longer questions or theories. They exist. The World is how I think it should be.

I hate it.
Who the fuck am I now? There is nothing for me any more. I don’t need to question anything anymore. My personality doesn’t fit this ideal World.

But then I go back to sleep and the World is now. Capitalism, Poverty, war, disease, hate, Nationalism, racism, homophobia, Religion, crime, abuse, murder, rape, anger, cruelty, heart break, depression……..

I hate it.
It goes against everything I stand for.

So now what? Is “everything I stand for” one huge pretentious paradox? Is it really the end goal of a general utopia the motivation behind my values. Or is it the chase for perfection, rather than the perfect end, that might motivate my values, if it is indeed the latter, then I should reassess my entire World view.
If Plato, or Descartes, or Van Gogh, or Warhol, or Plath had awoken to find their perfect World outside the window. Their genius would have gone unnoticed. What good would Warhol be?

Facebook, the gym, and she….

The local radio station here in Leicester, on December 23rd, started their news broadcast by telling me that “Susan Boyle says she’s never been happier“. Now, whilst the thought of someone being happy is always a nice thing, why are the moods of Susan Boyle, now considered “news“? Then, I realised, we’ve all became obsessed with what people we don’t really give much of a shit about, are doing with their equally as meager lives. Twitter and Facebook are prime examples. By clicking over to my Facebook account right now, I can see that one of my friends (and by “friend“, I mean someone who added me, but hasn’t actually spoken to me) has just joined the group…. “The Risky Naked Trip From The Bathroom To The Bedroom”. It is possible that more people will join that group, than who will vote in the general election. A group of people, who need to discuss and share experiences, of walking to a bathroom naked. If I ever go to the bathroom naked, by the time I get back into bed, the moment has passed. I do not wish to relive it. I certainly don’t wish to bring it up in conversation. And if I did feel the need to talk about it, I’d do it at a wholly inappropriate time….. like at work. Whilst serving someone who wants to know what wine we have….yet quite clearly knows nothing about wine. I would probably say “Okay, whilst you choose between wines you have never tasted before yet pretend to know all about, i’m going to go to the toilet……. which at home, I do whilst naked, nob flailing about and everything…. bye“.
Not one status update over the past few days has mentioned the attempted Downing Street coup lead by Patricia Hewitt and Geoff Hoon…… but, at least 50% of status updates about the recent heavy snow fall, have used the exact same line of comedy gold: “I have seven inches right now“.

I’m not free from this new level of stupidity. In fact, I embraced it full on.
Is it just me who feels an overwhelming sense of disappointment when you haven’t been on the internet for a day or two, and then you sign into Facebook, and you have no new notifications? Not even a friend request from someone who has accidentally added the wrong person as a friend? Not even someone “liking” your last slightly pointless status update?
Does this sense of disappointment prove that perhaps we’ve all became a little too brain dead? I do try to balance out my waste of a life on facebook, with an actual book in the evening. But, i’m always secretly thinking “What if someone has updated their facebook status, and used poor spelling and grammar? I NEED TO CORRECT IT! Or at least leave a witty spelling-nazi remark.”

In 2010, I plan to use my time much more productively than perhaps I did in 2009.
The gym is my first port of call. I put on quite a substantial amount of weight the last time I went to the gym. I became toned! And for the first time ever, not at all self conscious. Now, i’m a pale skinny white English kid again. So I plan to change that. This however, still doesn’t mean I plan to embrace gym life completely….. because to embrace it completely, men have to walk around the locker rooms naked, and talking to each other with cocks flying around everywhere. It’s the only place on the planet that standing talking to another man with my cock out, is considered masculine. Strange.

Secondly, and most importantly…… I will be working more shifts. And I will be saving a lot of money.
There is a reason for this.
I HAVE AN AUSSIE.
Over the New Year period, I met a girl.
She’s a little bit perfect. Ambitious, witty, kind, intelligent, independent, eloquent, and happens to have THE most beautiful smile on the face of the planet.

People often say “when you meet the person for you, you just know it.” I didn’t really pay much attention to those sorts of sentiments. Whilst the idea of there being one person who suits me better than anyone else is a beautiful one, logic suggested the opposite. Since meeting Ashlee, my entire view has changed. A complete 180 degree turn.

It seems to me that everyone has a romanticised ideal of love buried at the back of their minds. But, when they don’t meet that person who happens to fit that romanticised ideal, they, quite masterfully, settle for second best and try to pathologically justify their misery with “Well a relationship is tough in reality!!” They give up on their happy ending, and replace it with a degree of cynicism, and it always made me wonder how anyone can resign themselves to such cynicism, and be truly happy. More often than not, couples to me seem to just not suit, as if they’ve chosen the easy option, but the less happy option. I now know that I have just “settled” for people who aren’t right for me. Until now. The phrase is right. When you meet the person for you, you do just know it. It hit me like a truck. Within seconds of meeting her in fact, I knew that this was the girl I wanted to spend my life with. It just made sense. Thankfully she feels the same. Now, I feel the need to talk about her to everyone. I feel like everyone is missing out, by not knowing her. This kind of feeling, is utterly new to me.

There is a problem.
She was backpacking here in the UK when I met her. She is now back in Australia, and we’re working on an extremely long distance relationship. Dropping her at the airport and watching her leave, was so spectacularly awful, I could quite happily have jumped security for one last hug, and been whisked away by anti-terrorist police, by which time The Daily Mail would have printed a story about me having “visited Mosque once in Istanbul…. blatant extremist“. I will be working twice as hard because I plan to go and stay with her for two months, during the summer. We realise it’s madness, and it’s a long time to wait, but the little man in my mind is saying “She’s the other half of you! Let her go, and you’re quite honestly a fucking idiot“… and that little man is right. She appeared from nowhere, and in a very short space of time, completely turned everything around for me.

2010, is about getting back to her.
You’re all invited to the wedding.

Life, Work, Love and 2010

I haven’t blogged at all recently, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, my computer died, and i’m forced to use a disastrously primitive piece of computing equipment, which could blow up at any given second. And secondly, I don’t really have much to say. So, given that it is fast approaching the end of the year, I thought i’d sum up my year, for those who happen to be interested.

Life:
I discovered a significant amount about myself this year. I appear to be both growing up, and becoming what some would describe as immature. According to the unwritten rule, to be mature means to accept authority without question, to accept the framework on which we are all born, without question, and to give in to a chase for money, without question. To be mature, means to join a race for more, never satisfied with what one already has, we only reach maturity when we have accepted that we are greedy by nature (which, I do not accept). Therefore, I am immature. I would also argue that the most enlightened minds on the planet, exist for those very few seconds after birth, when we see the World as it supposed to be seen, with wonder; untouched and unnamed by humanity.
I like the idea that when a new born baby sees an ocean, he or she has no idea what it is, they do not have a word for it, they do not understand it’s characteristics, they do not know who put it there, what it’s purpose is, they don’t even have a concept of “purpose”….. which, to me, means the new born baby, is the purest and most Worldly form of life, they see the World with a beauty that you and I lost a very long time ago. When we grow up, we concoct these silly little absurd concepts, like “purpose” to suit our economic needs. Along with “purpose” other concepts, that just did not exist before human beings ridiculously invented them to suit certain economic, money making needs, include “race”, “Nationality”, “religion”, “self discipline”, “Sir”, “Boss”, “deserving”, “work ethic” and hundreds more. Who invented these terms?

Anyway, I digressed a little there. As you can probably tell, Philosophy played a huge roll in my 2009. I took a bit of a depressed stage, not understanding the point of me, earlier this year. I struggled to understand why people and friends can live life comfortably, and securely, blindly acquiescing to the notion that those who do not question, or think, or criticise, or employ a sense of reason and logic to the World around them, or even read a book at all in their lives, are able to live an uneventful, secure, blissfully ignorant life. I have no practical skill, no practical skill that is worth anything to the community that I live in interests me in the slightest. I do not want to manage a team, nor do I want to run a bar, or sell houses, or offer legal advice. In fact, I have no real idea what I want from life. I just know that when I’m at work, behind a bar, selling alcohol to rich people, there is a constant voice in the back of my mind saying “what the fuck is the point of all of this? What good is this? Why do you care if someone complains that their coffee isn’t warm enough? Where is the incentive to make money for a socially shielded man who doesn’t know your name and does nothing but criticise you? How fucking absurd is life. ” Yet, those who do not question, and just accept that “that’s just how it is“, will get on just fine throughout their lives. Then, I discovered Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, two beautifully eloquent and logical Existentialist Philosophers, who taught me in 2009 that the little voice in the back of my mind, was searching for meaning and purpose, in a Universe void of meaning or purpose. They taught me that the entire notion that a bigger picture exists, is so horrendously arrogant of humanity, that to embrace it, means we will never be happy, we will always want something more. And so, there is no black and white, no objective realities, just a mix of meaningless, dead, redundant ideas.

Work:
I started University this year. So far, so good. I study Politics and Journalism and Italian language on the side. The one issue I have with University, is it doesn’t seem to be teaching me much. Lecturers appear to be reading out loud, something that someone else has said. They seem to expect our essays, to be full of things someone else has said. Nothing is original, or requires original thought. Even a question titled “What do you understand by the term…….” does not particularly want to know what I understand by a term, instead wanting me to write down what somebody else has said about a specific term. Any form of subjective thinking, and critically analyzing an idea or concept, feels somewhat forbidden.
Despite this slight issue, I do really enjoy University.

Love:
I’ll simply copy exactly what I wrote in my previous blog entry, for those who missed it.
I want to meet someone, who makes me feel like Byron felt when he penned “She Walks in Beauty”. That’s not to say that I haven’t already met her, i’m pretty sure that I have. But, it’s far more complicated than not.
I worked out this year, that my own slightly promiscuous past was the result of my horrendous desire to feel wanted. It wasn’t an attempt to impress friends with my list of “shags“. I’ve never been one to give a shit about impressing people. I have spent the past six months going on date, after date in an attempt to figure out what it is I want. And i’m only human, I have my flaws and my insecurities. One of which, as already mentioned, is my need to feel wanted. Which, I accept is disastrously arrogant of me. But, on a deeper level, feeling wanted does not just resign itself to intimate encounters with nameless blonde haired brown haired black haired blue eyed green eyed tall short thin fat women from nowhere and everywhere, it’s a need to feel that as I person, my existence is not completely pointless, or absurd (blame Camus and Sartre for my assumptions on absurdity).
I do miss having someone to talk about my day with, or to cook with. I miss affection. I miss the feeling of not remembering how life existed without that person. I miss watching a film together, or becoming addicted to a TV show with or play fighting with. I miss planning holidays together. I miss spending weeks before her birthday trying to figure out what she wants and panicking right up until the last minute that she might not like it. I miss it all, especially the bond which certainly doesn’t exist with one nighters. But, in the search for that lasting feeling again, the tendency to let my guard down has crept in, which has never happened before. I discovered in the past couple of months, that I have a fickle heart, in that a simple smile from a beautiful girl gleamed in my direction, has the ability to make me think I’m in some sort of romantic comedy in which we’re going to end up happily married together by the end of the movie.
I do not want to end up like the couple who don’t trust each other. Or the couple who ban each other from talking to exes. Or the couple who claim to love each other within a few days of getting together. It is extraordinarily rare that I meet a couple who appear to actually belong together, often my instant reaction in my mind is quite pessimistically: “they wont last long“. This feeling of rarity affects my own life. It’s incredibly rare for me to see someone, and smile simply because they’re there. I’m constantly dating people I know just don’t suit me, or maybe it’s my fussy nature finding flaws.

Entertainment:
I discovered quite a deep love for poetry this year. Lord Byron, Sylvia Plath, Wordsworth, Keats, Kerouac, Ginsberg and Dylan Thomas, among many more.
Plath, for the way she dealt with turning a tortured mind, into the work of genius, is by far my favourite poet of all. To have the ability to turn ineffable feelings into beautiful language, is something I’m in awe of.
Lord Byron, Wordsworth and Keats, for the ability to romanticise the World on a level that speaks to me quite profoundly.
On January 9th, I intend to make my way down to The Tate Britain in London, to view the Turner and the Masters exhibition. To have works by Turner, Titian, Rubens, Rembrandt and Canaletto in the same place at the same time, is far too good an opportunity to pass up.
On a more superficial level.. I have a horrible addiction to The Sopranos and Lost. Seriously addicted. I could talk about them both, for hours on end. I’m counting down the days until the final Season of Lost begins. I want a Dharma tshirt!

Beliefs:
When two or three Muslim men blow themselves up in England, we suddenly decide that Islam itself, and it’s believers should be viewed with a degree of suspicion. Yet, when two, three, four, five, or more white British middle aged men get convicted for child abuse, we do not practice that very same logic, and decide all white middle aged men should be viewed as potential paedophiles. Why is that?
I’m not entirely sure why the City that I live, is very much more racist and Nationalist than it’s ever been before. The war cry of the stupid: “I’m English! I was born here! I’m a second class citizen in my own Country!” Is more and more common. Why? For what reason? White British, or Pakistani Muslim, it’s all a social construct, it isn’t based on science or fact or anything other than divisive mechanisms that humanity put in place. Cut us open, and we’re all red, the same red. Science has pretty much proven that biological determinism just doesn’t exist. We cannot distinguish intelligence, or work ethic, or a need to be criminally active, with a race. What we consider to be distinctive “races” are simply social constructs that we as humans, have invented. Therefore, racism and nationalism are largely futile, pointless, and fantasy, as well as being moronic, meaningless, useless, and childish.
We now in fact, put working man against working man. The BA strikes have left most working people deciding that the workers are in the wrong. They chose to ignore the fact that greedy incompetent management is solely to blame, instead choosing the blame the workers. Another social construct designed to keep the masses obeying whatever the top guys say.
It’s a new phenomena. For Centuries, the whole concept of white and black, did not exist. It was used as a tool of Capitalism in the early days of the USA and Colonial Africa and India, in order to divide white working class people and black/Asian working class people from forming alliances and challenging the powers that be. Before that, White Brits were killing each other, because one section was Catholic, the other was Protestant. Or one section was Royalist, the other Parliamentarian Republicans. We have always found pathetic excuses to hurt each other. Race, religion, and ethnicity is relatively new in that regard.
The cry of “They’re taking all our jobs!”. For every one Pakistani gentleman that gets a job over you, another ten White Brits will be given a job ahead of you. Are you starting from the rather moronic premise that White Brits deserve first consideration for a job, before any other colour or religious belief purely because they were lucky enough to be born here? If you owned a business, and a Muslim candidate for a job was far more suited than his White counterpart, why on Earth would you chose the White Brit? Why is colour, ethnicity and race even an issue? What the fuck is your problem? There is absolutely nothing British or English about the EDL and the BNP. They are utter scum.

Religiously:
I disregard all organised religion as highly divisive illogical myths filled with flaws, that just would not exist, had an all powerful, all knowning God actually created them.
That said, I do not disregard the idea of spirituality. In fact, I find the essence of humanity to be at odds with the essence of the materialist World that we inhabit, and so spirituality; as a mechanism to take ourselves away from that materialist nightmare, is a wondrous thing.
To find out just who we are, our strengths and weaknesses as human beings rather than good little workers, has been of monumentous importance to me over the past year. I’ve submitted myself to books on Taoism and Buddhism, I fill my bedroom with candles and incense sticks, which have a profound relaxing affect on me, much like the feeling I get, with the mellifluous nature of a serene mind, when sat overlooking an ocean void of all human touch, on a warm summer evening. The feeling of carelessness, unattached from reality for a tiny moment is so incredibly important to me. And so spirituality, and getting to understand myself has worked to both relax me, and paradoxically, make me more conscious of my shortcomings, unable to figure out (as of yet) how to correct them.

2010:
I want a weekend in Paris.
I want a weekend in Venice.
I want to fill my brain with relatively useless information, about Roman history, and Art, and Tudor history, and Political Philosophy.
I want to love someone.
I want to continue to question everything around me.
I want to read more Sartre.
I want to embrace romance much more.
I want to eat healthier and become a bit fitter physically.
I want a better job, that I actually enjoy and involves helping those who need it, rather than those who don’t.
I want to take up Photography again.
I don’t want to turn 24.

Too much to ask? One can dream.

Il Bacio

We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection.
- HH The Dalai Lama

Hanging above my bed is a wide lens poster called “Il Bacio, Venezia, Italia“, which translates to “The Kiss, Venice, Italy“. It struck me as particularly beautiful, in that it captures a moment of perpetual romantic bliss, that seems a World away from where I’m from. Much like Parisian Photographer, Robert Doisneau’s photographs of loved-up couples and passionate moments, I do not know who the two lovers embracing in the centre of the picture are, and that (to me) is irrelevant. Their names and their ages and their birthplaces and everything else that makes up who they are, is unimportant. The subject of the photo, is the beauty of the kiss. The moment itself, must have been fleeting, a second or two, but it has been immortalised on film. Her leg cropped back, as if she has completely submitted herself to the moment. He, wearing black, she wearing white, their arms linked created the image in my head, of the YinYang of Taoist fame; two opposing entities that are forever together and unable to exist without each other. Hot, cold. Day, night. Male, female. Him, her. It exists everywhere. The Trevi Fountain in day is covered in tourists, and businessmen on phones, taking pictures, missing the point of the beauty and sense the fountain is supposed to create. The Trevi Fountain at night is splashed in golden lights, enjoyed by a handful of couples enjoying each others company, and rose sellers completing the experience. Here where I live, that same time of night, around our City centre fountain is either home to a boyfriend holding his girlfriend’s hair back whilst she vomits, or a drunken fight, opposite Maryland Chicken (which is the worst chicken place in the history of life, by the way). The YinYang affect.

The location of the picture; Venice, is also significant. Like Paris, or Rome, or Milan, or Monaco… Venice has a certain intrinsic Continental romance and beauty about it, that seems somewhat elusive to Britain. And like the YinYang… whilst I see in “Il Bacio” an almost film-like fleeting romantic European moment, I must have a sense of the opposite, in order to find it so appealing.

Having just started my Degree, at almost 24 years old, is a rather eye opening experience. I’m studying, because I want to study, I want to learn, rather than satisfying a parents expectation, or because I feel pushed into it. School always felt like I was being taught subjects I had no real interest in, and so I just didn’t care. It’s different now.

On a social level, it’s also different. I have no desire to be out nightly making sure my liver is pushed to the test. I’m very much an introvert as it is, and so a good film and some friendly company is more than enough to make me smile. I seriously can’t keep up in clubs now. I feel like an old man after a couple of hours….. I want to say “Can someone turn that shit down please?” whilst making myself a cup of tea. I’m convinced that the most depressing phrase in the English language, is “Are you coming out tonight? some guy from X Factor is at Zanzibar!!!“.

Similarly, the University life style includes a certain level of promiscuity that as an 18 year old, attracted me like a moth to a flame. Different girls, with quickly forgotten names and faces, to make the nights roll by. That was the seductive nature (from where I come from, anyway) of University. We hated school. Why would we want three more years of it, without the mellifluous promise of evening entertainment.

Being older, and at University, has changed my perspective more than I ever thought it would. The idea of meaningless encounters, having been there and done that, speaks very little to me all of a sudden. Not in the sense that I suddenly look down on that sort of thing. I don’t. My philosophy on sex, has always been……. as long as it’s not hurting anyone, go for it! I certainly will never resort to insulting someone, just because they enjoy casual encounters. It is just that my own personal preference changed quite significantly recently, which has worked only to confuse me magnificently. I worked out that my own slightly promiscuous past was the result of my horrendous desire to feel wanted. I have spent the past six months going on date, after date in an attempt to figure out what it is I want. And i’m only human, I have my flaws and my insecurities. One of which, as already mentioned, is my need to feel wanted. Which, I accept is disastrously arrogant of me. But, on a deeper level, feeling wanted does not just resign itself to intimate encounters with nameless blonde haired brown haired black haired blue eyed green eyed tall short thin fat women from nowhere and everywhere, it’s a need to feel that as I person, my existence is not completely pointless, or absurd (blame Camus and Sartre for my assumptions on absurdity).

I do miss having someone to talk about my day with, or to cook with. I miss affection. I miss the feeling of not remembering how life existed without that person. I miss watching a film together, or becoming addicted to a TV show with or play fighting with. I miss planning holidays together. I miss spending weeks before her birthday trying to figure out what she wants and panicking right up until the last minute that she might not like it. I miss it all, especially the bond which certainly doesn’t exist with one nighters. But, in the search for that lasting feeling again, the tendency to let my guard down has crept in, which has never happened before. I discovered in the past couple of months, that I have a fickle heart, in that a simple smile from a beautiful girl gleamed in my direction, has the ability to make me think I’m in some sort of romantic comedy in which we’re going to end up happily married together by the end of the movie.

My great worry is that I that I’ll end up just settling for the first person who shows interest. I do not want to end up like the couple who don’t trust each other. Or the couple who ban each other from talking to exes. Or the couple who claim to love each other within a few days of getting together. It is extraordinarily rare that I meet a couple who appear to actually belong together, often my instant reaction in my mind is quite pessimistically: “they wont last long“. This feeling of rarity affects my own life. It’s incredibly rare for me to see someone, and smile simply because they’re there. I’m constantly dating people I know just don’t suit me, or maybe it’s my fussy nature finding flaws. Either way, when someone comes along who appears to suit me, I find it relatively incredulous, am taken aback, and not sure how to act. And whilst i’m normally confident (seriously, I love me!) I tend to go quiet in the knowledge that if I say very little, there is very little chance of saying something stupid; although often this backfires and the very little I do say, ends up making the voice in my head tell me “yeah, you probably should have just said nothing….moron!”.

Letting the guard down, and maybe becoming far more attached to someone than I might have hoped, is not necessarily a bad thing. If things don’t turn out how I would have liked, rather than cry, or listen to depressing music about lost loves, I choose to learn from it and move on, making sure I don’t make the same mistake again. But, it’s new to me. It’s rather peculiar and impalpable to me, and yet oddly desirable.

Whether we’re the guarded alpha-male type, or in tune with our emotional desires, we are not all that different. We all desire to be loved. I challenge anyone to see “Il Bacio” and not feel slightly envious.

From Columbus to Reagan

When Christopher Columbus landed on the other side of the Atlantic, in 1492, he encountered a culture of the native population which the West would soon utterly destroy. We came to believe those populations were beneath us, and so we were doing them a favour by Westernising their lands and wiping them out. The Tainos (The natives) were not at all barbaric, or backward, or primitive, as the Europeans first thought. They invented the Canoe, the hammock, their homes were far more spacious and luxurious than the tiny European homes back home. In fact, it could be argued, that given the horrendous religious turmoil that embodied Europe over the next century; the Tainos were far more advanced socially. Columbus commented “They are very gentle and without knowledge of what is evil; nor do they murder or steal”. And yet, we still felt the need to impose our will on those people. It then follows quite neatly, that the lands Columbus is famed for discovering (Latin America) would, in less than five hundred years, be the victim of quite horrific oppression from the Nation that celebrates Columbus day; The USA.

The word “Democracy” is quite a contentious one, when used in the Western sense. It is a by-word for Capitalism.
America was a blank slate in 1776. Direct, deliberative democracy could have been imposed, in a true people’s revolution. But, the “Revolutionaries” weren’t as revolutionary as one might first believe. Much like the Monarchy they wished to free themselves from, the revolutionaries still believed that only a specific class of person was capable of governing. They didn’t believe the general public should have much say in this new “democracy“. It explains the electoral college system. Alexander Hamilton declared the people were a “great beast” desperate to be tamed. One gets the sense that they believed those who were not of the propertied class did not have a right to have a complete say over the way their lives were ruled. James Madison goes one step further and says of Democracy, if elections were “open to all classes of people, the property of landed proprietors would be insecure” echoing the beliefs of Cicero, and Cassius, in the old Roman Republic. It is arguably, why Julius Caesar was murdered…… for giving the people more of a democratic say. Therefore, the object of democracy over the past two thousand years, has been to give added protection to the wealthy few. The protect the minority, from the majority, and therefore has created a system where the minority, control the World.

It then becomes obvious, that when George Bush managed to steal the 2000 election, winning less votes than Al Gore, but winning more of the “elite” vote, the public just didn’t care. They didn’t rebel. They didn’t question the legitimacy of their “democracy“. Of course not. And the reason they didn’t care, was because the public are fully aware that an election in the U.S.A, or England, is simply voting in a different business man.

Over here in England, the 2010 election will be run on “spending cuts“. Cuts to public spending. Cuts, quite drastically, that do not need to happen so sharply. The question of curbing business excesses, or fairer trade agreements, or closing tax loopholes for the rich will not come up, purely because those important issues negatively affect the politicians, who happen to be of that particular elite class. And so spending cuts that negatively affect the poor, is going to be the main topic of discussion, because the poor do not have any say whatsoever in the way the Country is run, they have no power, so they can be manipulated.

The Ancient Greeks noted that true democracy was a Welfare State, using public funds to ensure the basic necessities to life for every citizen, not just the elite few. Modern Democracy is far different because it assumes that if the poor start gaining wealth through a better education system, or a stronger Welfare state that allows them the chance to advance, that the poor will start to influence democracy to suit their own needs, which in turn threatens the elites, which is exactly what Madison feared when he said “the property of landed proprietors would be insecure” if the poorer classes had more of a say.

It is in this line of thought, that allows modern politicians (particularly Conservatives and Republicans) to argue for “less government“. This is me, is quite the paradox. By handing power over, from the State, from elected officials accountable to the public, into the hands of the Private market, they are by definition eroding democracy. These private powers then suddenly have the wealth and the power to influence public policy, which in itself, is not democratic, because….. and this wont shock you……. that public policy has become more and more geared toward the interests of big business.

And then when they seem to have control over our Governments, they spread, across the World, whilst the government call it “spreading freedom and democracy“. Yet, in places like Brazil, in 1964, America didn’t seem to have a problem supplying funds and training, in helping to actually overthrow the democratically elected President Goulart (who was supremely popular with the public), helping to install a new right winged regime that quickly put an end to Democracy, wiped out thousands of people, including singers, painters and anyone who showed any form of left wing mindset. The same pattern of overthrowing democratic regimes and placing harsh, violent, corrupt,yet pro-American dictators in place can be seen across the history of the 20th Century. Nicaragua, Iran, Guatemala and Chile to name a few. Reagan, within eight years, didn’t seem to bothered about the Right Winged bloodbath taking place in Central America. In fact, he was shipping millions of dollars in military aid to the offending governments. 20,000 dead (according to Amnesty Int.) in Nicaragua alone.

UN-sponsored Commission for Historical Clarification, “the American training of the officer corps in counter-insurgency techniques was a key factor in the genocide…Entire Mayan villages were attacked and burned and their inhabitants were slaughtered in an effort to deny the guerillas protection.” Similarly, Reagan provided funds and training to Right winged terrorists in Colombia, which in turn gave Colombia the worst human rights record in the region. And yet, far from being labelled a war criminal, Reagan is hailed as a Conservative hero. By funding the murder of hundreds of thousands of people, he apparently created “freedom“. That “freedom” is a little wishful, given that whilst the U.S supported the right winged government of Somoza in Nicaragua, the Country had a two thirds malnutrition rate for children under five, whilst nine out of ten homes had unsafe drinking water, with the UN estimating that 60% of the population, under right winged rule, lived in dire poverty. If anything, it proves to me, that Reagan, and in fact, every President in the history of America has never been concerned with human rights, or horrendous suffering, and been more concerned with it’s own economic superiority. When you have to kill, and create an environment where genocide is taking place, one cannot seriously claim to have created “freedom” or “democracy“.

At the same time as evil dictators were being placed in charge of Latin American Countries by America; Britain’s equally as shameful Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher said “We support the United States’ aim to promote peaceful change, democracy and economic development”. One wonders what that “economic development” actually entailed given that after Reagan interfered with Guatemala, (according to the Inter-American development bank) by 1990 the per-capita income had fallen to below it’s 1971 levels. Is that economic development? No. Reagan should have spent his final years in prison.

Whilst James Madison quite openly admitted he didn’t want the poorer population to have much of a say in the democratic process; Ronald Reagan simply helped to destroy any poor people who might want a say in the democratic process. By freeing up the Country to the elites, he then labeled it “freedom” and “democracy“. It’s a strange old, American-owned World. From Columbus, to Obama, nothing much has changed. Democracy has not, and will never exist, without the public turning it’s attention away from it’s ridiculous obsession with consumerism, and onto what actually matters; the unjustifiable nature, of who controls the World.

The myth of the death of Socialism

It is easy to talk about inequality, and protection of wealth by those who hold the wealth as a relatively new phenomena. It isn’t. It has always existed. Every system humanity has ever endured, has been designed to protect the wealth of the few. Take Rome, in the second century BC. The elite Senators had eaten up much of the wealth, and acquired a mass of supposedly public lands (which used to be owned by poor soldiers) for themselves. A Senator named Laelius attempted to change that. He failed. The Senators were amazed that anyone would want to take what they believed was theirs by right. Then along came Tiberius Gracchus, a tribune of the people, elected in 133bc, who caused such a problem for the elites, by appealing to the general public in order to get lands taken away from the Senators, and given back to the poor. He failed. He was murdered. Although his attempts at reform toward greater equality, caused a chain reaction that lead to the rise of Sulla, which lead in turn to the rise of Caesar, which of course, brought the entire Roman Republic down, and resulted, in Empire.
Every system that has graced humanity, has been designed to protect the wealth of the wealthy. The Capitalist system is no different.

There is a quite the temptation, when talking about the Capitalist system, to refer to it as a triumph over Socialism. The finger of proof is often pointed toward the collapse of the Soviet Union. The idea being that the Capitalist West, with all it’s “freedoms” defeated the “tyranny” of Russia, and with it; Socialism. It’s an interesting theory.

Firstly, to suggest that America was simply fighting a tyrannical regime that oppressed it’s people, is madness. During the Cold War period alone, the U.S.A supported dictators like Pinochet, on his quest to destroy any form of left wing opposition. Human rights had nothing to do with America’s opposition to Soviet “Socialism”. America simply supported any regime that promised stability and an opportunity for America’s economic interests to flourish. The Soviet Union obviously closed it’s markets to American investment opportunity, and so America stood against it. The Somoza family, who the U.S helped to take control of Nicaragua, and whom ruled the Country ruthlessly for many decades, despite widespread corruption, murders, and torturers, often enjoyed holidays to their property in the United States, and only held onto power because the United States viewed them as an ally against Communism.

The tool of manipulation against the public, was quite simple, and rational really……. make your public believe there is a strong threat to their safety, by inventing a problem that just doesn’t exist. This way, the power’s that be, can get away with anything in “defence” of the Nation. We see the same thing today, with respect to terrorism.

The only attacks on American or British soil, have not come from the sheep herding communities we’re currently blowing to pieces (although, that certainly will exacerbate the problem in the long term). The 9/11 hijacker Khalid al-Mihdhar was born, and primarily received training, in Saudi Arabia….. an ally of the U.S. Ziad Jarrah (another 9/11 hijacker) was born in Lebanon, to a rich family. Marwan al-Shehhi, yet another 9/11 hijacker, was trained in Hamburg. Mohamed Atta, the alleged ring leader of the hijackers, was radicalised around Europe. The 7/7 London bombers were born in Leeds and Bradford…… with the exception of one, who was born in Jamaica. Shehzad Tanweer, one of the bombers in London, had never actually been to Afghanistan. There is no evidence that another 7/7 bomber, Germaine Lindsey had ever actually left England in his life, although he was good friends with Abdullah el-Faisal, an Islamic extremist preacher who was based in the U.K.
The point is, there is no threat from Afghanistan, there never was. Similarly, there was never a threat from the Soviet Union.

The second point that needs to be made, is that that Soviet Union was never “Socialist”. Actually, that’s a bit of a lie. The Soviet Union began life, in February 1917, as what one could consider “on the way to true Socialism“. Any form of Socialism, in which workers had any say over policy, was soon destroyed when Lenin and the Bolsheviks took power, in October 1917. There was no strong leadership, or even a strong will to create a Communist nation (which, just cannot be done when trying to transform directly from a peasant society) in February 1917. There were competing factions continuously undermining each other, but by September 1917, there did appear to be some sort of unity. The Constituent Assembly, which existed to represent Workers via democratic means; like a Socialist Parliament, was created. As were factory Councils, which placed the means of production in the hands of the Workers, again, democratically elected. The Bolsheviks destroyed both, when they took power. And suddenly, workers had absolutely no say in the way the Country was run, the economy included wages and profits again, in a Capitalist system ruled by the State. The State owned the productive forces, the State distributed wages, the State extracted the surplus created by the labour force. The labour force did not own the means of production, the ruling class did. Not, Socialism. In fact, the antithesis of Socialism. In fact, The Soviet Union, had more in common with Capitalism than Socialism.

Thirdly, the U.S often cites the fall of the Soviet Union as representing the fall of Socialism, and the triumph of Capitalism. It therefore insinuates that the Soviet Union was Socialist, which we’ve seen, it wasn’t. Now, the Soviet Union often described itself as a Democracy. Lenin in particular. It then makes me wonder, if the fall of the Soviet Union represents the fall of Socialism, why does it not also represent the fall of Democracy? I’d suggest that Socialism is not a tool the US can use to promote it’s own economy agenda, but Democracy is quite an effective tool in helping the US achieve it’s economic goals (Iraqi democracy, just so happens to coincide with Iraq deciding it’s going to start trading Oil in U.S dollars again).

Fourthly, and finally; the suggestion that Capitalism, and the Free Markets won the ideological war, is almost to suggest that Free Markets actually exist. Much like Socialism in the Soviet Union after the October Revolution; Free Markets (especially in America) have never existed. Whilst middle class Americans are busy trying to prevent their tax money being spent on healthcare for the poor, they neglect the fact that their tax money is being spent by the Pentagon, on research and development, which then gets given away to the Private market, so that someone else, using YOUR money, can make a profit from it. That’s the story of America. The reason the high tech industry in America has not been beaten out of the Global market by Japan, is that the taxpayer subsidises big high tech industry, with millions of dollars wasted every year on either innovations that just don’t actually work or provide any use whatsoever, or innovations that are handed straight over to the private market. I don’t remember that being written into the Constitution. Nor does it represent a “free market“. I don’t see big business, or friedman-ite economists complaining about it either. Big business, American-Capitalism relies on the State. But hey, don’t give that money to people who actually need it! That would be Socialism! And Socialism failed in 1989! When the State interferes even a little, be definition, the market is not free. If America had a free market system, with no protectionist policies, it would have failed miserably.

To conclude.
The argument that Socialism failed, and Capitalism succeeded is weak at best, as already argued. Capitalism has never existed fully. The Soviet Union was merely State Capitalism taken to it’s extreme. Many of the protections that workers who are apparently anti-Socialist (not just in the U.S, but here in the U.K too), are Socialist by nature. Minimum wage, the NHS, the labour force that fought for better working conditions. In fact, the closest we’ve ever been to true Capitalism, was before any legislations in favour of workers rights was ever introduced.

Capitalism hasn’t prevailed. Socialism hasn’t failed. Fear, force, inequality and the protection of the wealth of a minority (which, is undemocratic by it’s very nature) has prevailed.

The Postal Strike

Yesterday, I let our local Postman know he has the full support of our household, in striking. He told us thanks, and that they are going to need all the support they can get.

I’m getting mildly bored of the coverage the Media seems to be giving the Postal strikes. Purely because across the media, including the “impartial” BBC, all I see is small business owners complaining about their invoices not being sent, or regular people in the street complaining that their nephews might not receive their Nintendo DS in time for Christmas. There is very rarely postmen explaining the reasons for the strike action. The first thing that strikes me about both of those arguments, is how utterly selfish they are.

The first (the small business owner), is merely thinking about his or her own wealth prospects. The strikes threaten their wealth. The nature of business, is indeed “I’m more important than everyone else“. The less industrial action, even if the action is justified in bringing about much needed regulations to improve the working conditions of the workforce, the better when it comes to business. It is the reason the CBI opposed minimum wage….. they wanted us for as cheap as possible, so they could make as much as possible. It is the reason why Primark are able to get away with abusing the child populations of Bangledesh. Because it benefits business. It is the reason why Trafigura tried to gag the Guardian, into it’s discovery that they’d knowingly tried to cover up their part in the Côte d’Ivoire toxic waste dump scandal. It threatens their wealth. It’s the reason Insurance Companies in America manage to attract ridiculously naive members of the American public, into opposing Universal Healthcare by using such discourse of the privileged few, manipulative terms as “Socialism” and “Freedom“…… They’ve somehow (quite impressively) managed to convince a large section of the American public, that the ability for a private insurance firm to make a lot of money, is more important than the rights of a poor man to get a decent quality of healthcare. It is the reason why the Conservatives have successfully managed to take the debate away from the fact that their free-market ideology has failed miserably, and onto the fact that they plan to drastically cut public spending. Selfishness. The very basis of business. When in comes to the Postman strike, the rich elites (and their blind, idiotic followers) do not care how badly the postmen are treated, as long as their wealth is secure.

The second, is arguably less intelligent. They aren’t out to protect their own wealth (when living in a system that rewards selfishness, protection of ones own wealth, is the natural reaction, especially from a business class). The “I’m expecting a parcel that hasn’t arrived because of the selfish postmen!!!” argument, isn’t even worth listening to. It’s even more frustrating, that these idiots can vote.

Onto the strike itself, Peter Mandelson (A LABOUR MINISTER!!!!) said of the strikes, that Royal Mail faced “a very poor future” if modernising efforts were not realised. I’m not entirely sure what he means. He sounds very Thatcher-esque, but of course he used the word “modernising” instead of “privatisation“. Are we better off, as a society, with the privatising of British gas? Or BT? Are our bills less expensive than they were? Is the service they provide, much better than it was? Not particularly. Can you actually get through to BT when you need them? No. They’re useless. We all know it. So what are we actually expecting from the “modernising” of Royal Mail? All that privatisation achieved, was handing over democratic institutions that worked for the benefit of the whole of society, to private hands that work for the benefit of enriching shareholders. Suddenly, democracy is very much under attack. Suddenly, key institutions (gas and heating especially) are not working in the interests of society, they exist as money making opportunities and nothing more. Suddenly, the minority (the rich) rule the majority (the rest of us), and that, by definition, is so horrendously undemocratic, it’s unjustifiable. Do we want that to happen to Royal Mail? Because if it does, post will cost far far more than it does now.

Why don’t they start, by improving management? Why attack the workforce first? There is something fundamentally wrong with a system that allows bankers to destroy the economy, yet live out the rest of the days, free from prosecution, on a beautiful beach somewhere exotic….. yet allows public workers to bare the heavy burden of “cost cutting” in order to bring down a debt, caused, by the private market.

Royal Mail said in May 2009, that they needed to impose a pay freeze on 181,000 Postman and other staff. The average Royal Mail worker, takes home £347.61 a week before tax, whereas the UK average worker, takes home £438. The Royal Mail CEO Adam Crozier, whilst freezing the pay of very low paid, below average salaried workers; increased his own salary, to £1,000,000, and took home a bonus of £2,000,000. And people have the fucking nerve to blame the Posties for being “greedy“? If you genuinely believe the workers are making a fuss over nothing, you are not worth debating with.

It isn’t even as if Royal Mail are struggling (When your boss takes home £3,000,000, the company isn’t struggling); in the nine months to December 2008, Royal Mail made £255,000,000…… in profit! That’s up from £162,000,000 in 2007. Showing the biggest profits the company has ever made, and then rewarding your staff who achieved that, with a pay freeze, and pensions that do not follow the rate of inflation, whilst enriching yourself, is pathetic and totally unjustifiable. But, they wear suits and ties, so apparently that makes it okay these days, to be a bit of a crook. Royal Mail are hardly facing a huge struggle weathering this recession, and certainly doesn’t justify huge pay freezes, mass redundancies, increased shifts (sometimes 50% added to their usual round, and given no extra time to complete it, or extra pay), whilst the boss works three times a week, and enriches himself with horrendously large pay packets.

It seems all too convenient, that after the announcement that Mandelson wanted to sell off 30% of Royal Mail and the general public opposing such a move….. that suddenly the service takes a dive. Could it be, that the Government needed to somehow make the service look like it needed “saving”? Because the service suddenly took a downward turn this year, for no obvious reason (Royal Mail made an all time record profit in 2008….. hardly struggling, or needing to cut costs).
The public in general didn’t support the selling off, because Royal Mail was working fine. So, it has been systematically abused, badly, to look like it needs “saving“.
The problem for the Government is….. it doesn’t need modernising, or saving, because it made a huge profit (it’s biggest ever) and far surpassed all it’s targets. The Government, and Royal Mail management, seem to be suggesting that the product isn’t broken at all……. but it needs fixing anyway.

Labour have massively disappointed me over this problem. They have backed management the entire way. A lot of jobs will be lost through “modernising” despite the fact that Royal Mail made it’s biggest profit ever last year. Shouldn’t that money be going to securing jobs? Why aren’t the very Party set up to advance the cause of workers, actually doing that? It’s a little concerning.

We know what we want from Royal Mail. We want a Post Office not too far away, we want a good daily service, and we want a Postie that everyone knows and talks to. We don’t want 30% sold to a private firm who’s main objective is to enrich the boardroom. We want a service that works for the public, not controlled by incompetent, out of touch bosses, or the private market.

I fully support the Posties in this. Because the moment we stop supporting their right to strike, we are giving management the green light, to impose whatever ludicrous working conditions they so wish on the workforce, purely because they know the public, with it’s obsession with consumerism, will oppose the strike.

Is it obvious that I’m a little bit of a Socialist?

The Radical Press – Presentation

I wrote a script for a University Presentation, on “The relevance of the Radical Press today“. I think I may have turned a little bit too Chomsky-esque with the points I was making.
The script itself, is just a guideline for me to rant further when I felt the need. I thought i’d post it on here for two reasons. Firstly, because I haven’t posted anything for quite some time (too much work on my hands) and secondly, because, well, I quite enjoyed writing it.
So here you go……

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The Relevance of the Radical Press in the 21st Century.
The effectiveness of the radical press, is linked in theory, to where the power lies. In the 19th Century, power lay quite firmly with the State. Throughout the 20th century, power transferred from the State, to private hands. And when power lies in private hands, control over that power comes from the top, the rich. There is a little give and take but by definition, private ownership over the mass media, means that any radical ideals are quickly suppressed. And whilst journalists may indeed say that they are not harassed into saying anything they do not wish to say, that they’re free from pressure – they’re right. But, the only reason they’re in a position not to be pressured, or harassed is because they have demonstrated the ability to say the right thing, for the big business that employs them. If a writer for The Mail, suddenly became a radical left wing writer, he’d be out, championing the overthrow of the Capitalist system isn’t in the interests of the big business media. He certainly wouldn’t have been employed in the first place had he shown what the business media would see as threatening to their established power. Where’s the radical press when you need it?

When ultimate power lies with the State, (as it did when the radical media began it’s ascent in the 19th Century) the media is of course expected to be the official mouthpiece of that State’s elites, often censored. The radical press obviously grew out of discontent with that particular media system. Eventually, when taxation failed to drive the radicals out of the media, freeing the markets happened to be fantastically affective. The very rich could afford to now start up a national daily newspaper, whereas the working class papers struggled to produce a weekly paper at local levels. And as the new big business media discovered they had inherited from pro-government publications of the past, the best way to ensure obedient and ignorant, to your system, is to limit debate and opinion, to decide exactly what shouldn’t be propagated and in particular, radical ideas.

Advertising plays a huge part, still, in the suppression of any form of radical press. For example, the Times reported in 2005 that General Motors had pulled it’s advertising for the L.A Times, after the L.A Times called for Rick Wagoner, the CEO of General Motors, to be sacked.
Morgan Stanley went one step further in May 2005 and added threats into it’s advertising contracts with newspapers across America, the following:
“In the event that objectionable editorial coverage is planned, news agency must inform Morgan Stanley, as a last minute change may be necessary. If an issue arises after hours or a call cannot be made, immediately cancel all Morgan Stanley ads for a minimum of 48 hours”. Advertising, big business, has the potential to control what makes the news, and that HAS to be just as worrying as government doing the same in the 19th Century. The press doesn’t challenge this established order. Radicalism dies even more.

Newspaper circulation, became big business very quickly, ruled by a new group of elites, possibly more dangerous than before, given that they were unelected, and very very powerful. Dependence on advertising helped them along beautifully. Radical papers could not attract advertisement, and so were effectively beaten out of the market by the wealthy. And so far from the government distorting the market, advertising quite radically distorted the market in favour of those with money. As the radical press of the 18th and 19th Centuries started to die down, thanks in general to the freeing up of the markets, it kind of created a new monster, in the form of big business. Of course, big business and government then intertwine until they are relatively the same thing. For example, A man named Andy Coulson, who was editor of News Of The World at the time of the phone hacking scandal, was responsible for the many many journalists who were undertaking these criminal activities, in order to get publishable stories……… News Corp, then (because they’re free, and just love transparency) paid to cover up the full scope of their illegal dealings and the problems Coulson was very much responsible for. Which, begs the question, which the mainstream media seem to be ignoring (I’d guess because they all have a few appalling skeletons they’d wish to stay quiet) why is Andy Coulson now in a position of quite intense power, as Director of Communications and Planning for the Conservative Party. Is it then, a stretch to suggest that Cameron, who has agreed to ditch ofcom, may just be a figurehead for people like Murdoch? Ultimate power, rule by the people, it could be argued, is now privately owned. Where is the radical press when you need it?

So it could be suggested that if Government is effectively privatised, bowing to the whim of big business, then the apparent “impartiality” of the BBC is threatened even further. If government and big business interests are one in the same, then we have problems.
For example, in June 2004, BBCs Washington Correspondent Matt Frei spoke with joy at the handing over of sovereignty and freedom to the Iraqi people from coalition forces. The BBC News described it as an “historic day for Iraqi democracy”. Yet, for the next few years at least, thousands of troops remained in Iraq (which be definition, isn’t “freedom” or “handing over sovereignty“), and the government was actually appointed by America, not Iraqi democracy. The BBC seemed to be sucking up to the Government and the Western perspective on the handing over of sovereignty. So it’s clear to see that the whilst the State run BBC does indeed at times show a Governmental bias, the Private media shows a bias toward whatever the owner or the advertisers wish. Both, are dangerous.

American Writer Henry Adams in 1900 said:
“The Press is a hired agent of a moneyed system, set up for no other reason than to tell lies where the interests are concerned.”

Over 100 years later, and I think we’ve finally got to the stage where Adams can be proven wrong. With the advent of Web 2.0, more and more people can become journalists, radical or not, with absolutely no formal qualification, and no duty to enrich shareholders or please advertisers. And there are a few about already. They give their opinion, they offer radical views that have been suppressed for quite some time. They aren’t censored in any way, and have no affiliation. I myself keep my own political opinion blog, and I read a great deal more. They can provide the public with stories that the papers are banned from reporting. For example, Côte d’Ivoire toxic waste dump scandal, involving the shipping Company Trafigura. Trafigura managed to ban the Guardian from reporting the fact that the Guardian had documents proving that Trafigura had effectively covered up their part in the scandal. Not even Parliamentary discussion on the subject was allowed to be published in the Guardian about the subject. But, the story broke on blogs across the World before any Paper was allowed to publish it. This shows the power of this new form of radical press. This new radical press doesn’t pretend to be objective. The Daily Kos, refers to itself as having a liberal bias, and Guido Fawkes blog is very much an anti-Labour leaning blog. The World Socialist Website offers it’s perspective on World events, from a Socialist point of view. A new web based free radical press has unlimited power and scope and could potentially prove to be the catalyst that brings down the power that big business and government seemingly have over the media.

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Thoughts?

The incompatibility of Capitalism and Democracy

“Democracy and Capitalism are like two persons bound in a tempestuous marriage that is riven by conflict and yet endures because neither partner wishes to separate from the other.”
- Robert Dahl

The economist, Friedrich August von Hayek, once suggested that Democracy can only possibly exist within a Capitalist system of the economy. I’d suggest Mr Hayek is contradicting himself with that statement, because by definition, he is offering no room for choice. Democracy exists for the benefit of Capitalism, or…..for the benefit of Capitalism. That isn’t Democracy.

The contrast between the ideals of a Democratic State and the ideals of Capitalism are in fact, so far removed from each other, they come very very close to being entirely incompatible. That very incompatibility is obvious. It isn’t about immigrants flooding the border, it isn’t about National identity or race, or too much public spending, it isn’t about freedom of choice (the freedom to choose whether to watch X-Factor or Strictly Come Dancing, is a pathetically blinded excuse for the word “Freedom“…you have no real choice), it isn’t about Communism vs Capitalism, all of those points are just a smoke screen employed by politicians who are acquiescing to the needs of big business.

My (perhaps naive understanding of Democracy), is that the key institutions that govern our lives, along with the people who are empowered to make the big decisions that ultimately affect our lives, must be accountable to the people. And yet, this Western ideal of Democracy has the opposite affect. If anything, they seem to be in conflict with each other, sometimes quite violently.

On the one hand, we exercise our right to vote in free and fair elections, by choosing a leader who has very little control over our lives. On the other hand, the key institutions of our society (or what I’d define as key institutions) are further and further privatised; and so power over such institutions is therefore concentrated into little Centralised States of their own, known as “Corporations”, in which the CEO has little or no desire to advance or protect the common good, of Humanity. Similarly, the CEO is not accountable to the people, he/she is accountable to the shareholders only. And since shares (and property – the key to Capitalism – in general) is so very limited, it stands to reason that not everyone can participate in it. Those who do participate in the race for property, lose out, to only one winner. It’s competition, a race to the finish. Those who win “deserve” it. Those who lose, well, tough. The majority therefore, lose out. Which i’m pretty sure anyone will tell you, is massively undemocratic.

In fact, a CEO accountable to share holders, is the exact opposite of Democracy, because the majority, have no say. We are therefore, controlled by Corporate interests, with absolutely no direct accountability to the people. This is ultimately proven to be the case, given that it has taken many many years under Capitalist rule, for the vast majority of workers to be paid a decent wage…..and even then, Business had to be forced, by the Government, to pay a wage greater than just enough to keep the worker alive. The Confederation of British Industry opposed the Minimum Wage. As did the Conservative Party. Which brings me neatly onto my next point.

It is no coincidence that as Markets grow ever more free, political parties become ever more right winged in terms of their economic policies. The Thatcher Government destroyed the power of the Unions in the ’80s, and privatised key institutions such as British Gas with the Gas Act of 1986. This of course lead to huge price increases implemented by people who run British Gas (Centrica) and have no direct accountability, other than to share holders. In July 2008 Centrica announced it’s Gas prices would raise by a record 35% and it’s Electricity prices by a record 26%. It blamed the rise on soaring wholesale energy prices. In May 2009, it then cut those prices, both by 10%. That’s still a huge increase in Gas and Electricity prices. Robert Hammond, a Gas and Electricity consumer expert working for Consumer Focus, said of the cuts: “We would have expected much bigger reductions considering that wholesale gas and electricity prices are half what they were at their peak last year“. Between winter 2007 and winter 2008, the number of deaths caused by fuel poverty (20 years after privatisation set out to free up the markets, to flourish wondrously) rose by 7%….. the biggest increase, since records began.

Arguably the most powerful institutions in the World; Banks. For years, banks had campaigned against regulation. They wanted total autonomy. They were in control of our money, they were using our money for their risky and ultimately hellish investments and bets, but they wanted us to be as far away from our money, and ultimate power as possible. Whilst they had our money, and our homes under their control, the guys at the top were enriching themselves (and continue to do so) despite actually losing our money, and our homes. Those people were not democratically elected. Damn right they should be heavily regulated now. The public sector then bailed out the excesses of Capitalism, and now the public sector is going to pay for it, through tax cuts for the rich, and public service cuts for those less wealthy. Why is no one fighting this? Those banks that received public funds, should pay a huge share of their profits, back into the public system.
Perhaps the key principle of democracy – rule by the people, for the people – apparently doesn’t apply to such powerful and essential institutions, such as Banking. But does apply, to when our rubbish bins get collected. Society is a little bit backward.

My point being, that democratically elected Governments of the past, have worked tirelessly to pass key institutions – that existed to protect the people and to provide a safety net, to the people – to very centralised, very concentrated, very greedy private hands, whose jobs rely solely on how much money they make for their shareholders, not at all for how pleased the majority of the public is with the work they are doing. It is only a matter of times, before the World’s water supplies, change from “The Pacific Ocean”, to “Microsoft Ocean”, in which you have to pay an extortionate price to swim in. Or “GE Spring” in which it’ll cost you to drink from, despite the Spring being a natural resource, that no one has the right to own. You may think this is an extreme example, of Democracy being eroded by Capitalist interest, but the World Bank recently adopted a policy of complete Water privatisation across the World, leading to Corporations (again, unelected, having no desire to serve the public good) such as “Monsanto” collecting a net income, of around $68,000,000 last year alone.

Ironically, democratically elected governments, pursuing Capitalist reform of their market place, are helping to almost overthrow the democratic order of power, and place it in the hands of untouchable Kings, in charge of their own little Corporate Nation, free to use whomever they wish, without fear of rebellion. Much like the Kingdoms of old, these Corporations concentrate Wealth at the top of the hierarchy; proven quite self evident with the fact that 33.4% of the total Wealth of the USA in 2001, was owned by 1% of the population. Whilst the bottom 40% of the population of the USA in 2001, owned 0.3% of the Wealth. What good is “Wealth creation” if it doesn’t trickle down? The argument that Democracy has aided Capitalism is weak at best, it thrives on the notion that in all Capitalist States, sporting Democracy as their rule of the land, the GDP has risen sharply. This, is often cited as proof of the two’s compatibility. Of course, it only works if you measure the Wealth of a Nation by the concentrated wealth of the people at the top. If you chose to focus on the plush lifestyles of those at the top, whilst choosing to ignore the miserable conditions of those at the bottom, then yes, Capitalism and Democracy are very much compatible. Which in turn, means you are focusing on the minority rather than the majority, and so by that very logic, your thought pattern, is undemocratic.

What then happens, and it’s the logical next step in the Capitalisation of the World, is that business interests infect the very heart of Government. They become influential characters behind the scenes, and so private money is pumped into political parties, via campaign contributions, in return for favours that aid the wealth and power of Corporations. As pointed out in the my previous blog entry, The Director of Communications and Planning for the Conservative Party, was once the chief editor of the News Of The World…….owned by Rupert Murdoch…..who is currently on a rampage against media regulation in the UK……. of which it just so happens that David Cameron has agreed to ditch the media regulator Ofcom, if he were to become the next Prime Minister of Great Britain. Given that he is accountable to the public, shouldn’t Cameron be asking us if that’s what we want first? Rather than catering to the needs of a businessman? By that very logic, the Businessman’s vote, is more important than the votes of you and I, and therefore, again, Capitalism promotes undemocratic principles.

Perhaps the old Conservative mantra that “less government interference in private affairs” is necessary for the advancement and freedom of society, should be twisted and turned into “less private interference in government affairs” is necessary for the justice, security, and fairness of humanity in the future. I’ll go with that one.

The Man who controls the World

“We’re all in this together” cried Shadow Chancellor George Osbourne during his speech at the Conservative Party Conference yesterday. Which, is slightly insulting given that (according to The New Statesman), Osbourne is worth upwards of £4,000,000. His lovely house in Nottinghill (which explains the Tories obsession with cutting inheritance tax), his beautiful cars, his £5000 fee per article written in the Spectator, and his inherited credentials including the Osbourne Baronetcy of Ballentaylor. So what he meant to say was, the rest of us are in this for the long ride, worrying about jobs and how secure we are in our homes, whilst Osbourne and friends tell us we’re on our own, with no help from the next Government whatsoever…. in fact, they’re even going to cut our help to as less as possible. Nice. Thanks.

The Media, seems to be giving the Conservatives a free pass to Government. One wonders why. It is the deregulation of the financial industry that ultimately lead to this crises (blame Brown if you so wish, but it would not have been any better had the Conservatives been in power). In fact, when statutory regulation was introduced by Labour, the Tories opposed it. Which, in simple terms, means that if the Conservatives had been in power these past twelve years…… we’d be in a far greater mess than we are in now. When William Hague was leader of the Conservative Party, he is quoted as saying:
“As prime minister I will make deregulation one of my top priorities. I will drive deregulation from the centre and I will promote ministers not on the basis of whether they regulate enough but on the basis of how much they deregulate.”
Which, means that he would have left bankers, and mortgage lenders to do as they please, without any oversight whatsoever. Hague could not have been more wrong, if he’d have been George Osbourne making the wrong decision on every aspect of this crises. The crises we’re in today exists, because there was not enough regulation and oversight.

Why haven’t the media picked up on this?

The Sun certainly has a motive for backing the Tories.
The Murdoch’s, owners of News Corporation have recently taken swipes at the BBC, for the fact that it is a non-profit organisation with global reach, meaning it apparently distorts the market, especially given that the BBC’s online content is free….and Murdoch wishes to start changing for Sky’s online content. Apparently the BBC run the risk of becoming a dangerous tool of the State. Nowhere, does Murdoch accept that without the BBC, the Media, and so News in general, will run the risk of becoming a dangerous tool of News Corp, given that News Corp currently runs:
BSkyB, The Sun, 20th Century Fox, Fox News, 17.5% of ITV, Sky Italia, Sky Deutsch land, Myspace, Vogue, The New York Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Australian Daily Telegraph, The Australian Sunday Herald Sun, The Australian Sunday Mail, The Australian, News of the World, The Times, Dow Jones Newswires, BulgarianTV, Israel 10, LNT Latvia, National Geographic Channel; all among many many more holdings.

The Tories, have agreed to revamp the media regulator Ofcom, ditching much of it’s regulatory functions – if they were to come to power, which means Murdoch, The Sun, and Sky can get away with saying just about anything. In simplistic terms, it means Murdoch gets to exert potentially dangerous political power over another Country, much like he does with his American news network, Fox News. We do not want a Fox News in this Country.

During the Summer of 2008, Rupert Murdoch’s son-in-law paid (around £34,000 in total) for the leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron, to fly Santorini (a Greek Island) for private talks on a yacht, with Rupert Murdoch. Also in Santorini for the talks was a lady named Rebekah Wade……………. Editor of The Sun.

It is no coincidence, that a couple of days after Murdoch spoke in the Sun, stating of David Cameron:
“What does he really feel in his stomach? Is he going to be a new Thatcher, which is what the country needs? The UK desperately needs less government and freer markets“
Cameron then made a speech, in which he said of Ofcom:
“So with a Conservative Government, OFCOM as we know it will cease to exist.“

When Murdoch says he wants “freer markets“, what he means is, he wants to control more of as many markets as he can. It also means he’d quite like to get away this time, with phone hacking, to get a story. A man named Andy Coulson, who was editor of News Of The World at the time of the phone hacking scandal, was responsible for the many many journalists who were untaking these criminal activities, in order to get publishable stories……… News Corp, then (because they’re free, and just love transparency) paid to cover up the full scope of their illegal dealings. Which, begs the question, why is Andy Coulson now in a position of quite intense power, as Director of Communications and Planning for the Conservative Party?

Without Ofcom, we in Britain are very much in danger of becoming a media circus, as is America, built on misinformation, bullying, misplaced anger, and an overriding right winged agenda, built around further empowering the Murdoch clan; where responsible journalism is very much a thing of the past. Through Cameron, England is likely to become Murdoch’s bitch.

Simply one more reason, why out of principle, I can never vote Conservative.

The real benefit cheats

“Education must provide the opportunities for self-fulfillment; it can at best provide a rich and challenging environment for the individual to explore, in his own way.“
- Noam Chomsky

Daily, we see adverts on the Television encouraging all of us to tell the Nazi’s authorities if you know a Jew benefit cheat. Suspect everyone. Don’t talk to your neighbours unless you’re questioning them, under an intense light, around a table, with a one sided window. Hide in your attic, writing a diary, if you happen to be Anne Frank a single mum obtaining a few extra pounds in benefits to help feed your kids, because you’re apparently an evil stain on the fabric of British society. The papers are talking about it, the Tories are constantly talking about it, the Welfare state is coming under attack from everywhere. And yet, we’re conveniently encouraged to ignore, just forget, put to the back of our minds, as if it isn’t important, the issue of Corporate tax evasion and avoidance, that cost us all an absolute fortune in lost revenue, but happily enrich those at the top. I wonder who’s behind this little Media scam.

The leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron, today told the BBC that he intends to force those who are out of work, back into work. Whilst the sentiment is indeed welcomed, I cannot help but feel it’s a little short sighted. Firstly, it is my (perhaps flawed) understanding of Conservatism, that only the elites, the wealthy and the well educated deserve jobs they actually desire. It speaks to my anti-Tory side when I hear such simplistic statements from Right Wing stating that they wish to get people back into work as quickly as possible. What these sort of statements suggest, is that a bunch of people who are currently claiming benefits, will be shoved into jobs that completely disintegrate any form of individuality they had left. Forced into largely fatuous jobs in Tesco, or McDonalds, to further enrich the guys at the top, seems to me to be nothing more than transferring dependency from the State, to hugely influential Execs. It is hardly ideal. It certainly isn’t the answer.

Surely a system that allows those at the top to reap massive wealth, hide their taxable wealth in offshore accounts, and keep wages low whilst they themselves reward themselves with huge salaries and bonuses, which in turn seemingly fails to “trickle down” as promised, is merely perpetuating the need for a strong welfare state? If we are truly to tackle unemployment and a State dependency, it would be my (perhaps flawed) suggestion that we start at the top, and revamp the entire system. It may be a great place to start, from a non-Tory perspective (given that they appear to have completely ignored this issue, choosing instead to focus on a full out attack – designed to please those voters who have a home and a car and a safe job – on those on benefits) to bring up the subject of the most costly benefit and tax abuses to the UK economy – Corporate tax avoidance.

According to his interview in The Sun, David Cameron has set out his ten goals for a new Tory Britain. The “Progressive Conservative” (as he previously described himself), has set out plans to drastically cut public spending, give tax breaks to the rich, Corporate tax cuts, and force people to work for whomever the Tories wish them to work for. I’m not sure a Tory politician could be any more regressive than that. So that’s the “progressive Conservative” label dead and buried. It also strikes me as rather punitive, that a man who along with progressive, labelled the Tories “the party for the Environment” has not once mentioned an environmental policy as one of his main policies. Apparently, tax breaks for Corporations is far more important.

He also fails to mention that whilst benefit claimants certainly do impact our economy, it is such a minuscule level in comparison to Corporate tax avoidance schemes. The Commons public accounts committee estimated that Corporate tax loopholes cost the UK up to £13bn a year in lost revenues. The National Audit Office, in 2006 released a document showing that of Britain’s top 700 Companies, 60% paid far less than £10m in Tax, which accounts for less than 2% of what they actually owe. If I started to do the same, I guarantee middle class England would demand I be put straight into prison for cheating the system.
According to The Guardian:
“The UK-based drinks giant Diageo plc has transferred ownership of brands worth billions of pounds, including Johnnie Walker, J&B and Gilbey’s gin, to a subsidiary in the Netherlands where profits accrued virtually tax-free. Despite average profits of £2bn a year, it paid an average of £43m a year in UK tax – little more than 2% of its overall profits.“

Meanwhile, bailed out British Bank, Lloyds Group, after receiving £17bn of taxpayer money, is being investigated for encouraging tax avoidance with an undercover Panorama investigator posing as a wealthy customer. The Lloyds banker refers to income that is paid through Hong Kong, to clients in order to “get around the European Savings Tax Directive” is caught on film saying:
“It’s of no interest to us whether you tell the taxman or not. It is not our business.” It stands to reason then, that when Lloyds (who I bank with) tell me they’re committed to responsible banking, they’re lying, quite pathetically too. Whilst Lloyds Group cut wages, cut jobs, forcing more onto the benefit system in the process; their execs are enjoying hugely inflated salaries and bonuses. The……system…..is……wrong!

Surely if you’re going to punish those who cost the system relatively nothing, you also have to seriously punish those who cost the system an absolute fortune, as is the case with Corporate tax avoidance. Yet, The Tories haven’t said a word on the subject. Not only that, but the end product of extreme tax avoidance across the UK economy, works only to pour extra fuel on the fire of dependency. The more a firm profits and the little it gives back, or “trickles down” the less wealth there is in circulation, the more unemployment rises. Corporate Stalinism, as I like to refer to it as, is the real stain on the fabric of British society. No politician will address it though, because our wondrous democracy relies on these Corporations, to fund it.

For me, the only way to really solve this mess of unemployment, would first be to refuse to cut public spending, until the economy picks up (which it is doing, but would not be doing, if the Tories had their way and just did nothing). Secondly, I would insist on strong penalties toward Companies dedicated to tax avoidance. Close loopholes. Once loopholes are closed, i’d cut our Trident fleet from four Nuclear Subs, to one Nuclear sub. The money saved, would then be used to to slowly ween claimants off such dependency and onto a ladder they actually wish to be climbing, to train them and put them into work they wish to be doing, work they are enthusiastic about, which the state funds for a certain amount of time until they’re employable in the sector they wish to be employed, rather than saying “okay, your benefits are gone, go get a job shovelling shit for the rest of your life”. Eighteen years of Thatcherite economics, “forcing” people back into work, did little but force the homeless rate to triple, whilst suicide rates reached their ultimate peak. It didn’t work. You cannot perpetuate the myth in people’s minds, that they are largely worthless, and only useful when Burger King toilets need cleaning. It will never work. Educating people away from the desire to consume, to out-do your neighbour, or to be a good little Corporate bitch, and toward the desire to be individual, to realise what it is you’re good at, what it is you want to do, how you wish to achieve it, is the course that education needs to take. Educating generation after generation to think the same, act the same, talk the same, like grooming them before a race where the finish line is covered in an illusion of “wants“, is a complete failure. Moreover, it will never solve the debt crises, which will continue to loom over us for decade after decade. It is never going to solve the issue of those who can work, not working. We then get a Tory government who slash benefits, and the homeless rate mysteriously doubles, suicide rates shoot up, riots take place. We then get a Labour government and unemployment sky rockets. No one thinks outside the box. The same tired policies, over and over again. Failed ideologies. We need something new.

Let’s also be clear, it isn’t the public sector that failed us all, it was the private sector. This idea of course, is unheard of, if you’re a Tory.