July 4th – Hypocritical Day

It would be easy for me to suggest that America has completely turned from a Country that prided itself on liberty and freedom of the 18th Century, to a Global tyrant of epic proportions. It would be easy. But it isn’t true. The tyrant of America has always been present, it simply grew and grew and is now at that stage where it surprises no one, and so we let it happen. As terrorists go, the greatest of them all, over the past Century at least, has been America.

It is a tradition in the USA to suffer a strange case of denial. Early Americans pillaged their way across the continent; committing nothing short of a total genocide of the Natives. Between 1850 and 1890, author David E. Stannard concludes that at least 22,000 Natives had been killed. The Indian Removal Act of 1830, which demanded that 17,000 Cherokee Indian’s leave their homes immediately (known as “The Trail of Tears“) purely so Americans could benefit from their lands financially. Elizur Butler, an American missionary estimated that 4000 Cherokees died during the removals. And yet, they managed to pride themselves on being the “land of the free and brave“. It’s a mask of denial, that still exists today.

The destruction of indigenous populations, for resource purposes, for financial gain, is ingrained into the blood of America. When it suits America, they hide behind the concept of spreading Capitalism and Democracy. It is not unreasonable to suggest that millions have died unnecessarily for what the US likes to call “freedom”. It is then, overly ironic that the US has been quite staunch supporters of evil non-democratically elected regimes, who just so happen to fill the pockets, of America, whilst slaying their population.

In 1953, the democratically elected government of Iran, lead by Mohammad Mosaddeq was overthrown by a US and UK backed Coup designed primarily to free up the oil reserves that Mosaddeq had Nationalised earlier in his premiership. Mosaddeq (remember, he was democratically elected, and incredibly popular with the Iranian people) was subsequently put in prison and died under house arrest. America had become what the 1776 revolutionaries fought to destroy; oppressors. Iran became a US colony in all but name. A new leader, a puppet for American interests, the Shah was installed. Thousands of people took to the streets in 1971 after the Shah announced plans to spend upwards of $100,000,000 on an extravagant, pompous tent city for the Iranian rich, and business leaders across the World who had recently enjoyed a more open Iranian market place. Whilst huge sums of money were spent, the nearby villagers continued to starve. And so they protested. The Shah (supported by the US) couldn’t let this happen, which resulted in thousands of people killed in horrendous circumstances, tortured, and political opposition repressed and “disappeared“. Fully supported of course, by America.

Whilst also supporting the dictatorship of Batista in Cuba in the 1950s, America was planning a coup elsewhere. Up until 1951, Guatemala had been opened up to American investment, and thousands upon thousands of miles of the Countryside had been eaten up by American businesses, whilst Guatemalan peasants lived in dire poverty. The new democratically elected President Jacobo Árbenz, proposed the agrarian reform laws of 1952, which proposed to move uncultivated lands from upper middle class land owners (whom consisted primarily of Americans), to the peasantry. Arbenz also opened up voting rights to the peasantry thereby spreading democracy, and gave labour rights to those being dreadfully exploited (again, mainly by American business interests). Apparently America had no problem with the fact that 2.2% of the Guatemalan population owned 70% of arable land. Arbenz then joined the “Caribbean League”, a group of Latin American Democracies who plotted to overthrow evil dictatorship regimes, not for resource gains, but purely for the sake of democracy. The problem was, that these dictatorships, were supported by the USA, and so were not “evil”. And so it leads on to 1953; America sends CIA Director of Central Intelligence Walter B. Smith to investigate opposition to Arbenz, in order to figure out which group of rebels the USA could best fund in order to overthrow Arbenz and install an American backed dictator. Smith came back with no names, because opposition to Arbenz was pretty slim, except with the rich classes. The US cut a deal with Dominican unelected dictator Rafael Trujillo (whose regime is known as one of the most violent and bloody of the 20th Century), in which both the U.S and Dominican Republic provided funds and support to the far right rebel army of Carlos Castillo Armas. The coup succeeded and Armas became the new dictator of Guatemala from 1953 until his assassination in 1957. During his reign, he rolled back voting rights from those who couldn’t read or write, he stripped land away from the peasants, forcing millions out to live on the streets, and he created (with CIA backing) the National Committee of Defense Against Communism, which systematically killed and tortured anyone suspected of having left wing views. He cancelled the elections, but allowed Congressional elections, as long as only his party was allowed to field candidates. President Nixon referred to Armas dictatorship as “…the first instance in history where a Communist government has been replaced by a free one.“

On November 4th, 1970, Chile swore into power, democratically elected Marxist President Salvador Allende. Real democracy in action. President Nixon of America decided that Allende should not be President of Chile because it might affect American business interests in a negative way. Apparently, democracy is only democracy, if it doesn’t include the Left Wing. According to the U.S Department of State, the U.S Government, just before the 1970 election, “directed CIA to carry out “spoiling operations” to prevent an Allende victory“. That sounds like quite the opposite of democracy to me. This follows on, from the same report that “CIA also provided assistance to militant right-wing groups to undermine the President and create a tense environment“. Needless to say, on September 11th 1973 (the first 9/11), Allende, under intense pressure from US business interests (Pepsi-Cola and ITT were the main culprits) was the victim of a coup, that placed perhaps one of the World’s most evil dictators, General Pinochet, in control of Chile. But, Pinochet opened up the Country to foreign (and by “foreign” mean Western and by “opened up” I mean – let America plunder it’s resources) investment. These pro-free market measures didn’t do much good, given that inflation reached 375% by 1978. Wages decreased by 8%. Budgets for education, health and housing had dropped by 20%. Good times!
According to the Rettig report, 2,279 people (mainly left wingers, not necessarily politically active) were killed immediately following the coup, and close to 32,000 were tortured beyond description by the Pinochet regime. Thousands more were tortured and killed between 1973, and the end of Pinochet’s reign of utter terror, nothing short of Hitler-esque in 1990. Quite despicably, the U.S and U.K (especially Reagan and Thatcher) grew close friendships with Pinochet. Thatcher, in defending Pinochet’s human rights record, quite ridiculously and shamefully blamed the left wing, or more specifically, in her own words, an “organised international Left who are bent on revenge“. This then leading to Thatcher, in 1999, claiming that Pinochet should be released from his house arrest. It’d be like President Roosevelt telling Churchill to “go easy on Hitler, he isn’t THAT bad“.
One of my most favourite authors into U.S Foreign Policy, Noam Chomsky had the following to say, about the Chilean 9/11….
“Suppose that on September 11, Al-Qaeda had bombed the White House and killed the President, instituted a murderous, brutal regime which killed maybe 50,000 to 100,000 people and tortured about 700,000, set up a major international terrorist center in Washington, which was overthrowing governments all over the world, and installing brutal vicious neo-Nazi dictatorships, assassinating people. Suppose he called in a bunch of economists, let’s call them the ‘Kandahar Boys’ to run the American economy, who within a couple of years had driven the economy into one of the worst collapses of its history. Suppose this had happened. That would have been worse than 9/11, right? But it did happen. And it happened on 9/11. That happened on September 11, 1973 in Chile. The only thing you have to change is this per capita equivalence, which is the right way to look at it. Well, did that change the world? Yeah, it did but not from our point of view, in fact, who even knows about it? Incidentally, just to finish, because we the U.S. were responsible for that one.”

And then we wonder why half the World hates the West? Is it not plainly obvious?

I could easily talk about Iraq, Iran, the US arming of the Taliban, the assassination of President Diem in South Vietnam leading to the unnecessary deaths of 4 million South East Asians in perhaps the most needless war of the 20th Century, and many more instances when the USA, the light, the beakon of Freedom and Democracy has supported the World’s most evil regimes in order to further its own business interests. Capitalism and what the US calls “Democracy” haven’t been a true success, they’ve been a forced package that the victim Nation’s citizens have had to embrace, or die. The USA therefore, has no right to celebrate “Independence Day” on July 4th. The most hypocritical day in World history. Having said that, Jefferson would be proud that the abolition of slavery in America, didn’t stop the U.S from finding slaves elsewhere.

No to Trident

The situation involving a group of people, holding a gun to each other’s head, is not a sane situation. Nor is it going to prevent one of them from eventually pulling the trigger, which in turn, will set a domino affect rolling, in which all the people involved pull their triggers, and kill each other. The only way to stop that situation developing, is the outright ban on each of those people ever being allowed to own a gun.

Our current crop of Nuclear weaponry, consists of four Trident submarines with the capacity to hold up to 48 Nuclear Warheads, each eight times the power of the warhead that struck Hiroshima in the 1940s, killing 140,000 people. I’m not sure why we are tying in our foreign policy, with a weapon that can kill millions upon millions of people, whilst other nations (Norway for example) who do not wish to own Nuclear weaponry, seem to be coping just fine.

Gordon Brown has announced that he plans to cut the number of Trident Nuclear Submarines, from four to three when the time comes to update them. I’d assume this is some lame attempt to stick to the principles that we’ve seemingly deserted since signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty back in 1968, stating that we intended “to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament“. And whilst this is a step in the right direction for total Nuclear disarmament, it isn’t a big enough step. It is barely a step at all. The Submarines may be on the verge of being cut from four to three, but there is no talk of scaling back the 160 warheads Britain currently keeps locked away. We are still armed, which of course, leads to proliferation elsewhere. A seemingly endless Cold war mentality driven by fear and suspicion, is long out of date. Tident itself, does not need replacing.

We no longer have to worry about the Soviets. The fight we face today, is against an enemy that has no State. There is no Nation. If the largely falsely perceived threat of a unified “Al Qaeda” were to strike us with a Nuclear weapon…. who do we strike in return, especially against an enemy that is prepared to die for their cause? A farm in some obscure corner of Afghanistan? Perhaps we use the Republican American concept of just pointing to a Middle Eastern Country on a map and start to destroy it piece by piece? Or more likely, we aim the Nuclear missile toward their home in Birmingham……… not a bad idea actually.

What of Iran? That Country that poses less threat of a Nuclear attack, than Iraq did in 2002? In the 1970s, when the Shah was running the Country, and was far more evil and dangerous than the current regime in Tehran, the USA supported Iran’s nuclear program publicly. Purely because the West recognised the need, economically, for Iran to rely on Nuclear power. It freed up it’s oil supplies. Suddenly, the war men of the Republican Right have decided Iran poses a threat. In fact, Dafna Linza, writing for the Washington Post in 2005 states: “Ford’s team endorsed Iranian plans to build a massive nuclear energy industry, but also worked hard to complete a multibillion-dollar deal that would have given Tehran control of large quantities of plutonium and enriched uranium – the two pathways to a nuclear bomb.“
Quite coincidentally, the same people who were running National Security back in the President Ford era, supporting the evil Shah, were the same guys behind the immense suspicion and fear aimed toward the current Iranian administration; Wolfowitz, Cheney and Rumsfeld. They were perfectly fine with Iran acquiring Nuclear technology, when it enriched their oil prospects…… but then, suddenly, in December 2007 Iran completely ceased trading oil inU.S dollars and in early 2008, Iran started trading oil primarily in Euros, and so threatened the US economy, which relies on selling mass reserves of the Dollar to other Nations who then buy Oil traditionally with. Not any more. The threat posed by Iran is miniscule when it comes to Nuclear technology. The treat, which goes unreported, comes completely from it’s new Oil-in-Euros venture.

By 2004 the World Bank had made loans worth up to £2.1bn to Iran. The World Bank, funded by the IMF, which in turn gets it’s funds from member States debts and donations; including $37.2bn a year from the USA. And so, some of the money that funds the perceived Iranian Nuclear program, is coming directly from American taxpayers, who are then told by their Politicians who don’t seem to have a problem, let alone mention this to their people, that Iran is a huge threat. YOU FUNDED THE THREAT! Those politicians of course will start wars, but be well hidden away whilst the bombs are dropped.

Now, for the sake of the boring, fatuous Right Winged argument that Iran actually does pose a threat to Global Security (let’s not forget that the biggest threat to Global Security over the past decade….in fact, since World War II… has been the USA…and that the nuclear “deterrent” hasn’t deterred Iraqi’s from killing our troops….and also coincidentally, the only nation to use a Nuclear weapon has been the USA), what do we do if we were to be attacked by an Iranian Nuclear strike? If New York, or London were hit by an Iranian Nuke, what then? If hundreds of thousands of American or British civilians are killed by an Iranian attack, how do we respond? Do we Nuke them? Another waste of hundreds of thousands of lives, living thousands more horribly burned and disfigured? Whilst our leaders who started the whole thing, are locked safely away in an underground bunker? It’s like saying “well, he ran down and killed my family member, so it’s only right that I run down and kill his family member”. If London were nuked (why am I even saying that? I sound like a Cold War fear mongering idiot), Trident submarines would come in no use whatsoever) It’s ridiculous. As seen with Hiroshima, the affects of a Nuclear strike, are horrific. It should never be repeated, or even threatened. And given the US and UK’s policy of using Iran for it’s own benefit over the past sixty years; overthrowing regimes, installing evil dictators like the Shah, referring to it as “evil” when it suits the West – it is largely unsurprising that Iran may attempt to acquire Nuclear weapons, they are obviously suspicious. If the US has the right to possess Nuclear weapons, so does Iran. Despite this, it’s overtly obvious that Iran, like Iraq, has no WMDs, because if it did, Israel would be straight in there, without a second thought. We now need to work toward better relations between States, between the West and the Islamic World, and install into the minds of the next Generation the need for a World completely free from Nuclear proliferation.

And lastly, when we apparently can’t afford decent equipment to protect and aid our troops in Afghanistan, why are we planning to spend close to £100bn, on updating an out-of-date Nuclear deterrent? Trident is an expensive waste of money, built around the Cold War mentality of fear, distrust, out right lies, and profiteering. We do not need it in a modern, civilised World. They are a disgrace to humanity. Japan has managed without them, Norway has managed without them, we can manage without them.

Breaking News: Britney is a bit tanned.

Today, the North Koreans announced they had sent a delegation of diplomats to Beijing. This comes a week after reports surfaced that a cargo of weapons from North Korea had been seized, on it’s way to Iran.
Meanwhile, Iran itself has announced it is ready to sit down and negotiate with World powers over it’s nuclear program.
Over here in the UK, Jack Straw announced plans to release all documents corresponding to the ridiculous release of Abdel Basset al-Megrahi from a Scottish prison for his involvement in the Lockerbie bombing; an attempt to prove the UK government had nothing to do with the release and that no trade deal with made for his release (it still seems a little coincidental that Scotland released a well known terrorist, to a Country that has the biggest oil supply on the African continent, [sarcasm] but if Jack Straw says it didn’t happen…… then who are we to say otherwise [/sarcasm])

To sum up, Newspapers have a lot of material to lead with today. They must have had a field day. So having said that, The Daily Mail website today leads with a story that the rest of the World seems to have quite ignorantly pushed aside for it’s crazy talk about North Korea, Iran, and the release of terrorists. Britney Spears and her sister Jamie Lyn Spears………..are both “toned and tanned“!!! ….. if you could do what I had to do, and take just a second away from feeling like you’ve just been raped by stupidity, that would be nice, The story continues….
“While Britney, 27, had been regularly flaunting her honed physique on stage and in bikinis in recent months, the more low-key Jamie Lynn, 18, is rarely photographed“
Well that’s a load off of my mind. Do you know why the “more low key Jamie Lynn, 18, is rarely photographed“? ……. it’s because nobody cares. Why do I care how tanned the younger sister of a pop star I have absolutely no care in the World for, is? It isn’t like I’ve been sat at home ignoring phone calls, locked in a dark corner, rocking backward and forward chanting “how tanned is Jamie Lynn Spears” over and over. I couldn’t care any less about anything in the World. I’ve never felt this uninterested by any story, ever. It’s a new feeling for me. One of complete disinterest. They say in Heaven, that everything is perfect. I guarantee the perfect feeling of disinterest, will be God handing me the Daily Mail.

There are, six photos on that Daily Mail story, quite clearly taken by a man hidden in bushes, of the kids of Britney and her sister. Is that legal? Because if I go to a park, hide in a bush, and take a photo of some kids, in all likelihood, i’m going to be arrested, after being beaten by the father of the kids, and most probably called “sick and twisted” by the Daily Mail the next day.
“An eyewitness told Us Weekly magazine: ‘They both looked to be in pretty good shape‘”
An eyewitness? As if it was a major Global event. You have eyewitnesses when planes are flown into the side of sky scrapers. You don’t have “eyewitnesses” when a woman is sat by the side of a pool, with her child.

But it isn’t just the Daily Mail that we seem to allow to get away with it. The Sun earlier this month printed a story about Kerry Katona facing questions from Social Workers. As if it’s any of our fucking business. The poor girl faces a constant mauling by the deviously perverted press, who on this occasion chose quite ironically to use the word “shame” when describing her, whilst showing a completely unrelated picture of her topless, taken by a disgusting little shameful paparazzi cock hidden out of sight, purely so the paper can make a bit of money. Which in turn, creates a generation of easily led, misinformed morons into voting the poor woman “worst celebrity mum”. I can’t imagine how horrible one would feel after a frankly despicable poll is conducted, finding you to be a shit mum, by people who don’t know you, have never met you, and yet think they know you enough to call you a shit mum, simply because their boring, pathetic, little ignorant lives revolve around what they read in magazines designed purely to manipulate this stupid generation of white collared drunks into handing over their money for a publication designed to make money for itself, not to tell any form of truth.
The truly vile “Carole Malone” goes one step further in masturbating the finances of the News of the World, without any regard for compassion or human decency, by starting another unintriguing article of utter vomit enducing bullshit, with “Like her mum Sue, Kerry will be a hopeless drug addict, she’ll be living on benefits because she’s fit for nothing except the grubbiest kind of fame and her kids will either be in care or with their dad“. Doesn’t it make you proud to be part of a species dedicated to collectively ruining the lives of as many troubled and depressed people as possible, just because it pays well? Not that Malone is all that surprising in her hatred for Katona. Perhaps if Katona were to contract a deadly disease like Jade Goody did, Malone will suddenly fall in love with her. Because in 2006, Malone referred to Jade as having “tumbleweed for brains” and “all the charm of your average slug“, this was just before an article written also in 2006, in which Malone referred to Goody as “the size of a shed“, and in 2003, referring to the birth of Jade’s son, Malone said “Ex Big Brother inmate Jade Goody has given birth to a bouncing baby boy. One can only hope that little Bobby Jack turns out to be good at sport. With a mum who thinks East Anglia is ‘abroad’ he won’t be going to Oxford” Yet, oddly, in February 2009, Malone is pictured with Jade like a mother and daughter, in an article Malone wrote, in which she seems to have some new found love for Jade. In reality, Malone is a vulture, digging her claws in when it will make her some money, regardless of the consequences of what she says, and then releasing her grip, and serenading us all with flowers and meadows and pretty soft feathers when it will make her some money.
“The truth is, I’m in awe of Jade Goody. I have been since I was in the Big Brother house with her and saw that for all her faults, her unfettered anger, her lack of education, this was a kind girl, a loyal girl, a strong girl.”
Fuck off, you devious fickle little witch.

And whilst we’re on the subject of Media irony, The Sun back in 2004 printed this story about a man who had set up a webcam under a woman’s desk in his office to get upskirt shots. Yes, the man is a pervert. No question. But it strikes me as beautifully poetic that a newspaper that constantly prints pictures of the upskirt of Lindsey Lohan getting out of a car, by a photographer quite obviously laying in the gutter waiting for the door to open to catch that magically intrusive (yet apparently perfectly legal) moment, or photos of women tennis players bending over to pick up a tennis ball, has the nerve to refer to anyone else as a “pervert“.

The amorality of the Tabloids reached it’s pinnacle for me, with it’s apparent new found sense of love for Jade Goody just before her death, and not just from Carole “I have absolutely no shame” Malone. Now obviously it wasn’t real love. It was tabloid love. The type of love that says “oooo a woman who has sold papers in the past for being a bit racist, is now dying of cancer….. we could make a fortune off of that!!” It’s the same love that her dirty excuse for a husband has for her. A greedy love. A golddigging love. I say that, because The Sun, The Mirror and The Mail spent 2008 referring to Jade Goody as much as humanly possible as “racist” (even though it was the other equally as useless “celebrity” on that version of Celebrity Big Brother, who said the most racist nonsense like “I think she should fuck off home“….. but you know, she’s not that famous, so the tabloids ignored it), or comparing her to a pig; anything they could get away with. Much like they are doing with Kerry Katona now. Suddenly, Jade contracted cancer and the tabloids loved her for it. They canonised her. But they falsely canonised her. She didn’t exert any virtues that enrich our life, Jade Goody was a product to be bought and sold, she was no longer a human being by the time she died.

The tabloids are actually quite the logical manifestation of the concept of consumerism and all the shit it brings with it. Nothing is sacred. There is no morality. Every so often, they try to appear moral in their quest to inform us, but they fail miserably. They represent modern life perfectly. They are simply amoral products that certainly do have a place in an amoral marketplace. It would amaze me if humanity, 500 years down the line, looks back at our time with anything but a sense of great antipathy toward a past maligned with this unforgiving, self-driven consumer based World of greed and vanity and nothing much else. And we all buy into it.

Who cares about North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, when Britney Spears is looking a bit tanned.

The BBC and Iran

As part of a ridiculous speech by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei is quoted as referring to the British government as the “most evil” in the Western World. Quite a statement. And quite ironic, given that the people calling us “evil” then went on to chant “death to Britain, death to America, death to Israel” Now, usually, these people dislike The USA; which over the past eight years is quite understandable, but they have much less reason to despise America these days, given it’s lack of Maniac and Vice Maniac. The USA has acted brilliantly, and taken no solid line against the quite obviously rigged election; no reason for Iran to blame America. And so they’ve moved on to hating us. Which is fine, we hate our Government too. But I suspect Iran’s Supreme Leader dislikes us, for different reasons.

The Home Office has recently provided the funds to set up the BBC Persia Television Channel, even though the Iranian Government referred to it’s creation as “against National Security“. The Head of Intelligence within Iran, Gholam Hossein Mohseini Ejehi, stated of the new BBC Persia Channel “We don’t consider this channel to be appropriate for our security. We will take the necessary measures in this regard.” Member of the Iranian Parliament, Mohammad Karim Abedi said that the BBC were planning to recruit spies, through it’s new Persian Channel. In January 2009 The minister of culture and Islamic guidance, Mohammad Hossein Saffar Harandi banned all Iranian journalists from working for the BBC. Harandi went on to say “Considering the BBC’s history of creating chaos in Iran, and its efforts to set the various strata of Iranian society against each other, the presence of the BBC Persian TV in the Islamic Republic is deemed to be illegal“.

During the election, the BBC began to broadcast reports that the election may be rigged. BBC Persia started experiencing problems with it’s broadcast, citing “heavy electronic jamming” as the problem, from Friday through to Sunday. In Tehran, as this “heavy electronic jamming” was taking place, for a brief time on Sunday, BBC World Affairs Editor John Simpson was arrested along with a number of other reporters, after filming anti-Ahmadinejad protests. Iran seems to have taken exception to any form of broadcast showing descent in the Capital. BBC Persia is hugely popular in Iran, and widely influential. It isn’t the first time it has experienced problems within Iran. In January 2006, anyone inside Iran who tried to access the BBC Persia Website, were greeted with a “Access Denied” page. There had been no explanation from Iran for why this happened.

BBC trying to influence the minds of a Nation against it’s government? Far fetched right? Well, not necessarily. In 1953, a covert operation designed to dethrone the democratically-elected Prime Minister of Iran Mohammed Mosaddeq, codenamed “Operation Ajax” was conducted by MI6 of the UK, with CIA involvement also. The plot was undertaken to obtain control of Iran’s oil fields, which they feared would fall into the hands of the Soviets. Churchill, the British Prime Minister at the time, used the BBC to push forward our agenda, and eventually using the BBC to provide the codeword “exactly” into a midnight time check, on BBC Persia Radio Service giving the go ahead from the UK Government for operatives inside Iran, to begin the coup. The coup was successful, and Modaddeq was subsequently replaced by Fazlollah Zahedi. So it isn’t necessarily as far fetched as one may first think, that the World’s largest broadcaster, the BBC could be used for the dirty work of the British Government. Recently, George Galloway referred to the BBC, as the “Bush Blair Corporation” for it’s coverage of the Iraq War.

But the Cold War is over. There is no particular reason why the BBC needs to attack the Iranian government. The British Government, especially given the past couple of months, has far deeper problems on it’s hands, than the Iranian election.
It would seem that in a World without Bush and Cheney, it’s much more difficult to blame America for propaganda’s sake. And so, they appear to have moved on, like propaganda whores jumping from one “enemy” to another, and we’re the target. Britain. Purely because they don’t like the BBC, because the BBC is not constantly masturbating the egos of Ahmadinejad and the Ayatollah.

The World is an odd place.

Iran’s Tiananmen Square

Twenty years after the massacre at Tiananmen, the situation in Iran could soon find itself on the same course. The Republic of Iran, this week appears to be in the midst of quite the civil uproar. The streets of Tehran are on fire. The Iranian people have a crazed dictator, rigging elections, beating protesters, restricting media communications, and making his mission in life the acquisition of nuclear arms; and yet the pro-reformers, who have quite obviously been screwed over, demonstrate on the streets in their thousands, blissfully unafraid. Conflictingly over here in the UK, we have an unelected Prime Minister, whose cabinet fell apart, who helped create a financial mess, who allowed Lloyds Group to employ Andy Hornby for £60,000 a month despite the fact that he lost over £10bn at his previous job, and despite Lloyds group making thousands more jobless. A Prime Minister who the entire Country doesn’t like. And yet, even our Labour MPs backed down from a political fight to oust him, through fear. It’s quite the difference. Perhaps we really have given up on politics entirely.

It is without doubt that Iran needs reform. It cannot survive as it is. It is estimated that by the end of the year, Iran’s fiscal deficit would rise to 18% of GDP. And given that Iran relies heavily on oil revenue, if and when oil prices start to fall, Iran will struggle. That isn’t to say that the Country is completely in ruins. Healthcare in Iran has improved rapidly in the past 20 years. Life expectancy is well above the World average, and above Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Turkmenistan, in the region. It is just a pity, they have a crazed dictator running the show.

The 2009 Election was never going to be free and fair. The members of the Guardian Council along with the Supreme Leader do not want to see Iran in the hands of a reformist urging less State intervention in the media and closer ties with the U.S. And no strict fundamentalist Muslim wants to see their Country fall largely under American influence. For them, this election was between Islam and America. Mousavi never stood a chance. The outcome, showed quite dubiously, that President Ahmadinejad had secured 62.63% of the vote whilst the reformist, Mir-Hossein Mousavi secured just 33.75%. According to secret Iranian polls conducted before the election, by the Revolutionary Guards, showed that Mousavi was set to take the election by quite the landslide, of up to 10 million more votes than Ahmadinejad. Between a ten and twenty point lead. The result came back, and was actually the other way around; Ahmadinejad secured more than 10 million more votes. That’s quite the swing! Not only that, but the President of Iran managed to win Mousavi’s home town of Tabriz, with 57% of the vote, which was so unlikely, one wonders why the Ahmadinejad team wasn’t more subtle in it’s quite obvious election rigging.

Iran has gone further, by arresting leading civil rights activists since Friday’s disputed election, activists who have all called for a complete recount. They have cracked down further on media outlets who suggest election fraud. A camera man for Italian media outlet, RAI was beaten in the Iranian capital on Saturday, and had his equipment confiscated. Iranian State Media, have condemned the demonstrations as the acts of “thugs” and “illegal“. Iranian State newspapers have been told not to report on the violence conducted by State officials against protesters. Text messaging services and internet use have been cracked down to prevent much communication getting to and from the Capital. Over 100 important opposition leaders have been arrested since the protests began, simply for showing opposition to the result. Protesters then gathered outside a military base at Azadi Square, in Tehran, and were seemingly fired on in what appears to be the attempted suppression of the right to protest.

Within moments of the polls closing, The Ministry of Interior announced that of the 25 million votes counted so far, 16 million had been cast for Ahmadinejad. Highly unlikely, given that the highest voter turnout in a very long time, anywhere in the World, had occurred primarily as a protest against Ahmadinejad. Within hours, the Interior had announced that if anyone attempted to approach the Ministry, the police had orders to shoot. Quite the response, given that they’d just announced that the Country absolutely loves Ahmadinejad. The Ministry of Interior is the body that controls how voting is conducted and how the votes are counted. It is also primarily under the control of Ahmadinejad, and The Supreme Leader.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whilst originally claiming that Ahmadinejad’s victory was “divine“, has now called for the Guardian Council to investigate allegations of fraud. The outcome, doubtless, will favour Ahmadinejad. Given that the Supreme Leader was a leading figure in the Islamic revolution, he’s unlikely to favour a reformer like Mousavi, who once claimed he wanted to reduce the influence of the Islamic Clerics in Iran, and supported closer ties with America. It would be quite the political and influential suicide for Khamenei.

I echo the thoughts of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, when he said of the election result; “If Ahmadinejad has really made progress since the last election and if he really represents two thirds of the electorate… why has this violence erupted?”
I cannot imagine, if a candidate is as popular as the results appear to show, that full scale mass protests would ensue. George W Bush was the most unpopular President in history. If he were allowed to stand for a third term, a landslide victory over Obama, would be the Western equivilant to what is currently happening in Iran.

To sum up, Iran has blocked media communication, restricted web and text message services, banned anyone from coming within feet of the Ministry of Interior, put armed guards on the streets with orders to kill, arrested opponents, and released an incredibly illogical election result, and yet they’re still claiming it was free and fair. Islamic Fundamentalist Dictatorship, under the mask of democracy.

The hypocrisy of Freedom

It’s become wildly hypocritical; It’s largely based on out dated tradition; It’s horribly fickle; and it has no coherence or general moral standing. I’m speaking of course, about the Republican idea of “Freedom“. Freedom appears to only apply when it suits Republican America. Republican Freedom is a skewed, manipulated form of the ideals of American Freedom in general. For example, and i’ve spoke about this one before; The Freedom to own a gun whether you’re merely a law abiding huntsman, or whether you’re a 21 year old with an enraged grudge against class mates and teachers; you’re protected by a 2nd Amendment that clearly didn’t expect to be the subject of debate. Although i’m certain Jefferson and Franklin didn’t propose that anyone should be allowed to keep an arsenal of sub machine guns; that the words “well regulated” in the 2nd Amendment shouldn’t be ignored. If I were President, i’d make bullets ten times more expensive than they are now, tax them massively. But what do I know.

Freedom is etched into the American way of thinking. Since the very beginning, the fight that America has undertook has been one dedicated to freeing it’s people from tyranny. “We hold these truths to be self evident; that all men are created equal” cries the Declaration of Independence. There is no mistaking that Thomas Jefferson composed a beautifully written document when he drafted the Declaration. Of course, it hasn’t troubled America that the term “all men are created equal” written at a time when even Jefferson had over 150 slaves of which many received regular beatings may have been slightly ironic. And so the hypocrisy of American Freedom was born. Frederick Douglas speaking in 1852 managed to reconcile America Freedom and the abolition of Slavery quite beautifully. “That which is inhuman cannot be divine.“

In 2009, Republicans appear to take that general level of “Freedom Hypocrisy” to a new level. Freedom today, appears to apply only to economic freedom, for those who already have a significant amount of money. Bloggers like Free America appear to be under the impression that Obama and Pelosi are systematically working to purposely destroy America with their pesky much needed Liberal policies, despite the fact that over the past eight years America has been involved in an unjust illegal war leading to the deaths of over 1,000,000 innocent people; displacement of a further 4.5 million and 5 million orphaned children. Hurricane Katrina striking New Orleans saw the end of the lives of over 1,800 people whilst 80% of the City was flooded, which lead to further deaths of many people who merely couldn’t get to food or shelter because the Republican Government’s response was pathetic at best and ignorantly genocidal at worst. Then of course, you have the worst economic crises in ….well…. ever. When Clinton left the White House, he left a budget surplus of over $230bn. Eight years later, eight years of Republican Government, and America is in the mist of an economic crises. Of course, Republicans like to suggest that Clinton’s surplus was inherited from the Reagan tax cuts. Fine. But then, surely they must admit that Obama therefore inherited a miserable legacy that it will take more than two months to correct. I swear, Obama was in the White House less than a day before Republicans started blaming him.

Anyway, back to “freedom”. Whilst the word itself connotes the ultimate in human existence, it isn’t quite as black and white in Republican America. It suits Republican America to ascribe Freedom to economics. To pay as little in the way of taxation as possible. Whilst a child may inherit a few million dollars, another may be unlucky enough to be one of the 35 million Americans who inherit nothing but the dilapidated and forgotten poverty stricken lifestyles encouraged by poor educational standards and lack of health care, that the Republican Americans are quick to suggest is some sort of perfect system choosing to ignore that “all men are created equally” when it suits them. To this day, at 23 years old, i’m struggling to understand how a system that allows the poverty line for children under 18 to increase from 12.1 million, to 12.9 million between 2001 and 2003; yet at the same time allows those earning over $1,000,000 see their taxes drop with the Bush Tax Cuts, as the mark of a great economic system…. it quite clearly isn’t. I repeat Douglas’ sentiment “That which is inhuman cannot be divine.” Ignoring the plight of those in poverty or dismissing them as “lazy“, whilst simultaneously choosing to ignore the problem of Climate Change despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary – purely because it might affect their “freedom” to exploit resources for business opportunity, is not real “freedom“.

Freedom to claim that universal healthcare, is some evil socialist manifestation that never works, whilst ignoring that you have universal policing and universal fire protection – just adds to the hypocrisy of “freedom” that Republican America only clings to when it threatens them, regardless of the fact that it may actually help other people. A legacy of “self before others” left by Thatcher and Reagan. Forgive me for not buying into it.

I’m not too sure why Republicans chose to draw the line on personal freedom, at the right for Homosexuals to get married. All of a sudden Republicans have decided that Gay people are sexually immoral devils, promiscuous by nature, AIDs ridden, unable to keep a relationship going, and a danger to children. As if that only exists in the homosexual community. They chose often to quote Leviticus 18:22; “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.” As proof that God hates gays and so gays shouldn’t marry. They fail however to acknowledge that if we’re to take the Old Testament into consideration when debating such issues, we must conclude that Leviticus 11:8 with regard to pig skin, stating: “Their flesh you shall not eat, and their dead bodies you shall not touch; they are unclean for you” should mean that anyone who plays American Football, is doomed to hell, a long with gay people. But of course not, because in true Republican fashion, Leviticus 11:8 doesn’t appeal to them because it threatens their life style, and so they pick and chose which areas of the Bible appeal to their prejudices already.

Of course, whilst talking Christianity, it isn’t difficult to come to the conclusion that if God truly did support the Republicans, as ex Senator Norm Coleman suggested, when he told Mike Gallagher; “God wants me to serve“, then you can bet that Jesus would have charged a fortune for all those free EVIL SOCIALIST miracles he supposedly performed.

When you come to the conclusion that Republicans only appear to support ideas like “Freedom” and Religious belief when it suits their prejudices, you have to take a look at the “Pro-life” lobby. “Pro Life” only seems to appeal to Republicans when someone is set to have an abortion. When the Country is destroying a Nation and killing over 1,000,000 of it’s citizens, Republicans don’t seem all that concerned. When stem cell research could lead to the scientists providing mankind with a better understanding of complex cell division, which in turn could lead to life saving treatments and cures…. real pro-life investments….. Republicans tend to oppose it. Minority Leader John Boehner even went so far as to suggest that embryonic stem cells are American lives too, rather than cells. He suggested that Obama lifting the ban on federal funding for Stem Cell research, he had “rolled back important protections for innocent life”. It’s nice to see that Boehner has such deep concern over cells, yet doesn’t seem too fussed about the loss of American military lives, when he stated in 2007 that dead U.S Troops was a “small price” to pay to win the war in Iraq.

The concept of freedom is interestingly two toned, when you contrast the U.S obsession with the word, and how the U.S works across the World, especially with Nations that it disagrees with philosophically.
According to a speech made by Dan Griswold, to Rice University in Houston, in 2005…. “If the goal of U.S. policy toward Cuba is to help its people achieve freedom and a better life, the economic embargo has completely failed. Its economic effect is to make the people of Cuba worse off by depriving them of lower-cost food and other goods that could be bought from the United States. It means less independence for Cuban workers and entrepreneurs, who could be earning dollars from American tourists and fueling private-sector growth. Meanwhile, Castro and his ruling elite enjoy a comfortable, insulated lifestyle by extracting any meager surplus produced by their captive subjects.“
The underlying fact is that whilst America seeks “freedom” (in this case, freedom means the right of American businesses to take over the resources and land of as much of the foreign World as possible) across the World based on it’s own flawed values, it will attempt to achieve it by any means necessary, which explains the disastrous war in Iraq and the inhumane embargo against Cuba. As shown in my last blog, America’s economic dominance may not continue for that much longer, given that Iran have already ceased trading oil in U.S dollars with Russia looking likely to follow.

Economic “freedom” in the guise of pure Capitalism, is not to be considered in the same area as Freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of opinion, freedom to assemble peacefully. Those are the inalienable rights built into the Declaration of Independence, not the idea that over 12 million children below the poverty line who will never benefit from the resources available to the 5% of top earners who own more than 50% of the entire Wealth of the Nation, as being true “freedom”.

American Freedom, whilst a lovely idea, is horribly flawed, ignorant, racist, inhumane, discriminatory, religiously bias, hypocritical, manipulative, and has been twisted into the skewed mess that Republican America holds so dear today. The idea that “all men are created equal” is a sentiment long lost. If you’re gay, want an abortion, demand action on climate change, or support stem cell research……. freedom doesn’t seem to extend as far as you. Sorry.

The Fall of the American Economic Empire

Please excuse the over simplification of the money markets that i’m about to talk about, i’m not an economist.

In June 2003, Iraq, under U.S guidance started trading Oil in U.S Dollars again. Which certainly gives credit to the idea that The Bush Administration, with it’s ties to the Oil business and it’s incessant need to expand it’s supply; invaded Iraq for two reasons Firstly, because they needed to increase supply. And secondly, to revert back to trading in U.S Dollars, something Sadam Hussain put a stop to back in 2000. And although I despise the Bush Administration, and it’s horribly reclusive policies, i’m a little sceptical when my fellow lefties try to find even the slightest shred of evidence that could be used by the Bush Administration as a pretext for war for oil. I just don’t buy it.

As far as i’m aware Iran doesn’t trade Oil in dollars. Hasn’t for a couple of years. And surely if America were so committed to being the dominant force in Global finance, economists must have noticed that promoting Democracy and Capitalism across the Globe, would not help that cause, and in fact, would lead to the growth of foreign currencies that inevitably challenge the dominance of the Dollar?
The Oil Bourse in Iran opened in 2007, trading oil in Euros and not Dollars, with no interference to try to prevent it from the U.S. Surely if they cared that much, something would have been done? And since then, transactions in Euros (among others) on the IOB have been worth well over $1.5bn. Surely the U.S would have intervened if it were THAT concerned? Obviously not militarily, given that the public wouldn’t support it after the debacle surrounding Iraq, and troops are already preoccupied with Iraq and Afghanistan, but even covertly, nothing has been done. Which to me suggests that although the Johnson/Nixon Administrations with the help of Kissinger may have needed the trade deals between the U.S and Persian Gulf States to boost America’s economic standing in the World during the late 60s and 70s, it’s not as important now as it was back then, because no matter how much the US now tries to sustain it’s economic dominance, inevitably it isn’t going to last all that much longer. Especially given that the the Dollar isn’t considered as “risk free” as it has been for decades.

The Euro was created to almost counter the dominance of the Dollar. So why hasn’t the EU been the target of U.S aggression? Given that most countries (Russia has decreased it’s Dollar reserves recently) now have a split reserve, between Dollar and Euro, that isn’t a good sign for the almighty Dollar, and in the long run, is hugely damaging, much more so than Iran’s IOB. And much more so than Sadam and his decision to stop trading in Dollars.

Also, Russia, Saudi Arabia (after refusing to cut interest rates in line with the U.S back in 2007), South Korea (who shifted investment from US currency to other currency in 2005 and fears that it may sell $1bn US Bonds in the not too distant future), China, Sudan (who suggested dumping the Dollar as far back as 1997) and Venezuela are considering doing the same as Iran at the moment.

Surely the more aggressive the U.S is with the World, the less likely other Nations are to feel happy about trading in Dollars? Aggression caused by the U.S need to prevent any challenge to it’s economic Empire is only going to isolate the U.S further.

I can understand the point on Iraq, given that Iraq mysteriously started trying Oil in Dollars again after the invasion, so yes, that was definitely a motive perhaps because the Republicans at the time thought ruling the World through fear was the only way to stay on top of the World. But Iran’s move to open the IOB was a far greater kick in the teeth to America, than Sadam was, and Iran haven’t been the target of such a mass invasion or even threat of invasion. Certainly the Bush Administration had harsh words for Tehran But no more so than Tehran has for Tel Aviv and their allies.

I think Iraq went a lot deeper. Crap intelligence (the U.S is good at that) and personal vendetta. If America were committed to sustaining it’s dominance economically across the Globe, invading one nation because they stopped trading oil in dollars, is pretty insignificant given that there’s half a World willing to do the same in the not too distant future. Iraq wasn’t just about oil.

If devalue of the Dollar were considered enough reason to go to war, then in the next twenty – thirty years, the U.S is going to have to commit to taking on pretty much the entire World, (either that, or creating a brand new common currency with Russia and China) because as the Euro will inevitably start to pick up pace, and nations start to shrink their Dollar reserves even more, and corporations then start to sell their dollar short for financial gain; Iran selling it’s oil in another currency will seem like nothing in comparison.

The problem I foresee for President Obama and President Bush, is that Republicans and Democrats will start to find reasons to blame them both respectively, when America starts losing it’s economic dominance, even though, it’s merely a case of Economic Evolution.

We’re all American now

Am I going mad?
Or am I one of the few sane people left in the Western World?

I sat watching George Bush deliver another speech of bullshit and propaganda in which he metaphorically masturbated Tony Blair. Blair was awarded The Presidential Medal of Freedom for his success in fighting terrorism. I’d assume this refers to the biggest disaster in war history, perhaps worse than Vietnam: Iraq. Currently this doesn’t surprise me. We seem to have become a World dedicated to rewarding failure. When asked why Goldman Sachs’ top guys will still be getting a bonus this year, The Independent was told “you have to pay big money to get the best guys“… such are ‘the best guys’ whose company is guilty of corruption, incompetence and partly responsible for the destruction of the entire free market. And those are the best guys? I’d hate to see the worst guys. Do they just sit in a room throwing faeces at a wall?

At one point, when referring to Blair, Bush used the phrase “Helped to free millions of people in Iraq”. If we must use that dreadful lie, we must also use “Has helped murder 600,000 innocent Iraqi people including many children, along with thousands on our own troops, whose family still don’t know what cause their sons, husbands, brothers, uncles died for.”

It was one of those horribly cringeworthy speeches, that only George Bush appears to deem appropriate. I’m neither casting a negative nor positive judgement on Blair as a Prime Minister. In fact, I quite liked him when it comes to domestic issues, but based on his foreign policy and his ‘special’ friendship with the World’s most villainous Terrorist Bush, his legacy will always be judged in a horribly even if somewhat unfairly negative light.

Bush thanked Blair for his public support for ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty’. Whenever those phrases are used so frequently, I wonder to myself what they mean, what they stand for exactly. Is it that in one breath we support Democracy, and then denounce it the moment a political party that does not like us, wins an election? Is it condemning homosexuality? Is it making flag buring a crime? Is it support for the regimes of dictators like Pinochet, because he’s agreeing to let your companies exploit his people? Is it seeking nuclear proliferation across the globe, yet hypocritically having the largest stock pile of nuclear arms on the planet? Is freedom experienced by the innocent men being held at Guantanamo without representation? Is freedom the love of warantless wiretapping? Experts (according to ‘The Economist’) have said that under the Bush administration, classified documentation has rised from 8.1 million in 2001 to 14.2 million in 2005 and that it is now much more difficult to obtain documents under the freedom of information act than ever before. Is this the Freedom the Bush administration so happily boasts about? Ex-felons (according to the Economist again, one in thirty seven adults in America has spent time behind bars) in some States, are banned from voting.

Bush went on to applaud Blair’s attitude to spreading Democracy across the globe. That Democracy goes hand in hand with freedom. He must be speaking of the failure to export Democracy to countries that just don’t want it, but killing enough people whilst trying? Or perhaps it’s the continued support for Governments like the Eqyption Government, whose President ‘Mumbarak’ has been in power for 28 years? Is it condemning Hamas and cutting off Aid because Hamas’ goal is to destroy Israel, yet standing side by side with Israel when their goal since birth has been to clear it’s region of all Islamic influence? Is it condemning Iran for testing missiles, yet ignoring Israel when they (according to U.S Intelligence – as much as an oxymoron as that is- Officials) “conducted an exercise that simulated a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities”? Or was it the support for the murderous regime of Batista in Cuba, yet (and unsurprisingly) hypocritically condemning every breath Castro takes. Right winged murderous dictators GOOD? Left wing, whether murderous or not, BAD? Freedom is only freedom when it suits American economic interests. Democracy is only democracy when the out come means that McDonalds can poison as many local water supplies as it can get it’s hands on.

Blair should not have been given this medal. He was awarded it in 2003 but has only agreed to collect it this year. Can you imagine the out cry it would cause among the families of dead soldiers who to this day do not understand why their children have died in a war zone, who have been given no reason or explanation, that the man who sent them to their deaths, is being rewarded for doing so? It’s a horrible consequence of a horrible period of history controlled by those who profit from War.

In a loose way, and perhaps this is where Bush feels so strongly about rewarding Blair for his help in achieving, we’re all American now.

The less we care

There appear to be a growing number of WordPress blogs sporting this tshirt design. “Communism killed 100 million people and all I got was this lousy tshirt.” As a Socialist, this instantly grabbed my attention.

Communism has killed no one. Communism, like Capitalism, has never been achieved. Different degrees of Socialism have been achieved, but never the extreme of either wing. Stalin’s Russia, Mao’s China, or Castro’s Cuba are all Totalitarian Dictatorships. Marx talked of a Classless, Stateless system as true Communism. Anything short of this is not Communism. When the Right Wing uses Communism to suggest responsibility for millions of innocent lives lost, they take the blame away from the crazed dictators like Stalin and Mao, and into the hands of an ideology that never existed in the first place.

But if they insist on suggesting that Communism is responsible for millions of deaths, using their very logic, let’s examine the alternative, Capitalism.

Millions die every year in parts of Africa, because parts of Africa don’t have natural resources that the Americans can use as a reason to invade and free the country.

AIDs and other disease victims throughout the third world who are denied access to the much needed treatments and drugs, because the Pharmaceutical companies might lose a bit of money.

Every victim of the Iraq war. Including British and American soldiers.

In fact, every victim of a war waged by America against any nation that isn’t Democratic or isn’t allowing McDonalds to set up shop, since the 1950s.

The miners and the child chimney sweeps of the Industrial Revolution.

The local tribes who were displaced so that Coca Cola and other such companies can use the Water supply, which they then contaminate, causing untold dreadful mutations and deaths.

The wiping out of the left wing of Chile, under Pinochet, supported by America and Britain.

Opposition to Organised Crime backed candidates for Political positions in “liberated” Eastern Bloc nations, who happen to have connections to the US and UK intelligence quarters. Proving that justice and politics is just as much a commodity as the rest of the World.

Famine and extreme poverty victims. We can afford to feed all of these people. But it isn’t profitable, so we don’t. Inexcusable.

Anti-Communist waged wars.

The people who die in fuel poverty every year because E-on and British Gas quite like the idea of giving their bosses huge bonuses.

The forgotten people of the poor undeveloped nations, who are used for profit and then slung out into the mud the moment they aren’t valuable any more.

Over the next century, millions more, due to the frenzied, animal like chase for natural resources, slowly killing the planet. The very essence of an unplanned economy.

It is easy for me to blame all those deaths, on Capitalism. But that isn’t intelligent. Much like blaming Communism itself for millions of deaths, isn’t a well thought out logical argument. Capitalism did not cause the deaths of the people mentioned above. Terrible regimes, and failures of Government caused those deaths. In much the same way as Communism is not responsible for the extreme amount of deaths under the dictatorship of Stalin. In much the same way that Islam is not responsible for 9/11.

There is no justifiable way to explain away the deaths of those under Dictatorships using the cover of “Communism” such as the deaths of….
20 million in the Soviet Union, 65 million in the People’s Republic of China, 1 million in Vietnam, 2 million in North Korea, 2 million in Cambodia, 1 million in the Communist states of Eastern Europe, 150,000 in Latin America, 1.7 million in Africa and 1.5 million in Afghanistan. However, us Left Wingers, can freely and happily denounce the Right Wing propaganda attempts to suggest that the ideology of Communism itself is responsible for those deaths, because it isn’t, any more so than Capitalism is responsible in some part, to the billions of deaths since the early 1900s throughout the World.

Only today, The Observer ran a story about Primark using a range of products from a producer who use illegal immigrants paid at just under half the minimum wage. The workers, who naturally come to the West for a better life, for a better chance for their families, are used for cheap labour (£3 an hour they’re paid, not a living wage) for 12 hours a day, for seven days a week. We all know Primark exploits. We all know the only reason clothes are disturbingly cheap in Primark is because poverty stricken men, women and children throughout the third World are exploited every hour of every day. And the majority of us don’t care. The less we think about it, the less we care. The less we care, the more ignorant, oblivious, greedy and self important we become. This is the result of the Capitalist way of thinking.

Long Live Socialism.

Pope Ahmadinejad the tampon thief

Homosexuality played a key part in Christmas this year.
Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without the murderous middle eastern tyrant of “wanting to wipe Israel off the map” fame telling us all we should hate gays.
Or the nazi pope telling us all that homosexuality is more damaging than Climate Change. Or, more damaging than an idiot in a hat that very much resembles those worn by the Ku Klux Klan, preaching ancient bigoted bullshit to a bunch of brain washed blinded fellow bigots. The Pope needs to stop directing his anger at ordinary people, and direct it at Leona Lewis and Alexandra Burke for metaphorically shitting on the concept of music.
And then of course there was all the gay porn DVDs granny bought me. She says she bought me them, but they were already opened. I suspect they’re the old ones that the family didn’t want any more. I mean, Arse Menace II is so 1999.
Oh and not forgetting the largely ignored fact that Jesus and his twelve disciples were raving homosexuals. Sad times.

Christmas intrigues me. I celebrate it purely for the gifts, the smiles, the family, and of course the food. I care less that it’s the Birth of a man who’s life we know absolutely nothing about (The Bible is not a historical record), than I do for the fact that December 25th is also Dido’s birthday. I genuinely love Christmas, because the mundanity of life becomes amplified and those little pleasures you find in the simple, seem to grow ever so large.

As i’m searching “Boots” on the 23rd, waiting to buy even more last minute cheap gifts, wondering if I could peel the price tag off without ripping the packaging, I don’t want people to know i’ve spent only £2 on them………. even that’s a lie….. it was £1.40, with the VAT cut and the Sale discount. I notice a kid acting suspiciously. He suddenly makes a sprint for the doors. It’s amazing because it’s the first time i’ve ever seen a chav in sports clothes, actually doing an activity other than cider drinking. As he ran for the door the security guard grabbed him. He’d tried to steal two boxes of…… Tampons. I had two questions at this point. 1) What does he need tampons for? Is his arse bleeding? Is that why he made a break for the door, he needed to get home to “plug it in?” and 2) Is he buying those for someone else? A christmas present perhaps? How pissed off would you be if your boyfriend wrapped up some Tampons for you at Christmas? Nonetheless, it was a beautiful moment made all the more beautiful by the fact that the security guard pulling the tampons away from him, was an angry woman. Is there anything more poetic in life than that?

I was standing in the queue at “Boots”, waiting to pay, when out of nowhere I heard the most paradoxical conversation ever spoken by man. It was a disaster of a conversation but oh so beautiful and Melliflous a conversation that when I recount it to you in a second, I will have to end this blog at that point, because I am unable to find the words that can properly emphasise my indelible joy.
So prepare yourselves….

Old man 1 : Ello Dave!
Old man 2 : Oh ello Kev, how you been?
Old man 1 : Yeah not bad, how you been?
Old man 2 : I’ve been top class mate, how’s Edith fairing up these days?
Old man 1 : She….she died.
Old man 2 : Oh Kev I am sorry………………………………………. looking forward to christmas?