Given the current situation, this seemed appropriate. Just change the pronoun’s gender.
Given the current situation, this seemed appropriate. Just change the pronoun’s gender.
Filed under General Election 2017
Think we live in a democracy? Think we live in a ‘free country’? Think again. Protest is increasingly being criminalized by our imperial masters. For the last few days Occupy Democracy has been occupying Parliament Square. This excellent blog by indyrikki explains what happened last night when the Territorial Support Group moved in and tried to force the protesters to give up.
If a progressive movement can gauge the effect it’s having from the response of the State, then the Unions should be ashamed of themselves, and the Occupy movement should be cheering loudly.
Depending on whom you believe, the Unions roused between 50,000 and 100,000 people to march a tiring long course to Hyde Park to listen to the same old speeches from the same list of actors, demanding change but seldom challenging the system.
Policing was hands-off, relatively low key, and generally good-natured.
Meanwhile, globally there is a movement growing that recognises the present system of central banking and corporate power is so out of all public and democratic control, so corrupt, and so destructive that it can’t be ‘changed’ but must be replaced.
Although in the UK the movement appears to be small in numbers, it’s clear it has a growing resonance, and that more and more people are…
View original post 836 more words
Filed under Government & politics, Occupy movement
The occasion of Milton Friedman’s 101st birthday…no, he’s still dead, I just checked… has moved the Lyin’ King to pen this gushing tribute to the man whose economic theories have quite literally turned the world into a toilet. Dan opines:
Today would have been Milton Friedman’s hundred-and-first birthday. The Chicago economist, who died in 2006, is already acquiring that almost Homeric status that normally comes only decades after a man’s life. Perhaps social media have speeded up the process, or perhaps it’s the fact that Friedman’s strongest enthusiasts are often students with no direct memory of their hero.
Friedman, darling of neoliberals everywhere and supporter of Pinochet’s Chile, where his theories were rammed down people’s throats, is given the airbrush treatment… well, that’s not quite true. Friedman’s supporters refuse to see any flaws in the man. In their eyes, he was the very model of economic perfection. So no need for the airbrush.
Yet for someone who talked so movingly about ‘freedom’, Friedman was capable of turning a blind eye to political repression. For him, all that mattered was the functioning of the free market with its insistence that social relations be reduced to financial transactions between actors. Friedman was also fervently against any form of regulation, so in a pure Friedmanite dystopia, surgeons can practice without proper qualifications and driving licenses would be banned. Can you see the dangers? Yes? Well, Dan can’t.
Here, Hannan tells us:
Friedman did not limit himself to academic theories; he had a keen sense of how to translate ideas into action. He understood politics very well, and used to say that his aim was not to get the right people elected, but to create a climate where even the wrong people would do the right thing. Every year I spend in politics I find that insight more brilliant.
Yes, Friedman understood politics so well that in his perfect world, certain kinds of political activity would have been outlawed because they didn’t fit into his perfect model of a rampant capitalist society.
Here we get to the core of the blog:
What mattered to him most of all? Oddly enough, it was nothing to do with monetary policy, or indeed with economics at all. He believed that the single measure that would do most to ameliorate society was school vouchers.
School vouchers, loved by Pinochet’s Chicago Boys and loathed by those who have had to put up with a substandard education, have become a sort of gold standard in the eyes of the Right. Higher education, too, has moved backwards. For the last few years, students have been protesting over the inequalities of the education system. Dan simply ignores this.
He had first suggested the idea as early as 1955 – in an intellectual climate so unfriendly that he might as well have been proposing that children be cooked and eaten.
You can see where this is heading and predictably enough, Dan tells us:
But the climate shifted, not least through Friedman’s own interventions and, by the end of his life, a few places were prepared to give his idea a go. Chile had led the way in the 1980s, followed by Sweden in the early 1990s. Milwaukee became the first city in the US to adopt vouchers 23 years ago, and around a quarter of a million American pupils are now benefiting.
“Chile had led the way in the 1980s” he says. No mention of the oppressive weight of the Chilean ‘small state’ crushing those below. No mention of the thousands rounded up, tortured and executed. No mention of the oligarchical free-for-all ushered in by Pinochet’s ‘hands off’ approach to the economy and its disastrous consequences for ordinary Chileans. He continues:
Though Britain has stopped short of full-blown vouchers, Michael Gove has plainly embraced the idea that governments can fund schools without running them, and the free schools programme is one of the greatest of the Coalition’s achievements.
The truth of the matter is that the Tories have been historically opposed to the state school system and have spent the better part of 60 years talking it down when they’re out of power and running it into the ground when they’re in government. The unspoken dictum here is “some state schools are bad, therefore the state education system is bad”.
The Cat believes that the Tories would prefer it if everyone paid for their schooling and if you can’t find the money, that’s tough. You will die illiterate and ignorant. Why? Because it’s God’s will. That’s why.
Finally Dan tells us:
With his wife, he established the Milton Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, which has helped thousands of students, especially poor students, to get a decent education.
“Choice” has been used as a battering ram since the 1980s. But choice is neither here nor there. You can only have what is available. The Tories believe that if you don’t live in the catchment area of a school that you’ve fetishised, then you should be able to bypass the rules and send your kid there anyway. Better still, set up your own free school where you can be free to inculcate children in any superstitious tosh that occupies your thoughts.
While 75% of free schools were found to be “good” or “outstanding” by OFSTED inspectors, 25% were not. This article from The Guardian says:
One of the first free schools to open has been placed on special measures and given an inadequate rating by Ofsted inspectors, in an untimely blow to the government’s flagship education policy.
Adding:
Inspectors were severe on the primary school’s leadership, saying its governors failed to grasp the school’s “serious shortcomings”, while school leaders “believe the school is far better than it is”.
The inspection team gave the school the lowest grade, of “inadequate”, in three of four categories, for pupil achievement, quality of teaching, leadership and management. “Too many pupils are in danger of leaving the school without being able to read and write properly,” inspectors concluded. “Unless this is put right quickly, pupils are unlikely to flourish in their secondary schools and future lives.”
To borrow from the Tories’ lexicon of smears, I could say that “some free schools are poor, therefore all free schools are poor”. But unlike Dan, I’m not that petty.
When you look at any group of people of similar mind, you will find that they take on a common or group characteristics, and traits. Dare I say a group personality?
Examining the ruling parties here in the UK, the ConDems, we find that they do conform to a common or group personality.
Further examination of this group personality leads us to ask, “Are the Tories sociopaths”? I think they are and if you look at this interesting page on the subject, you can see that most of this ConDem government conforms to type.
This definition of the malignant personality is particularly true,
(3) They scapegoat; they are incapable of either having the insight or willingness to accept responsibility for anything they do. Whatever the problem, it is always someone else’s fault.
This government has scapegoated public sector workers and, rather than look to themselves for answers to the riots, they decided that all rioters were “criminals” or were involved in gangs. They also sought to claim that all of the rioters were under the age of 25 and Black. It wasn’t true.
This also makes interesting reading,
Other Related Qualities:
- Contemptuous of those who seek to understand them
- Does not perceive that anything is wrong with them
- Authoritarian
- Secretive
- Paranoid
- Only rarely in difficulty with the law, but seeks out situations where their tyrannical behavior will be tolerated, condoned, or admired
- Conventional appearance
- Goal of enslavement of their victim(s)
- Exercises despotic control over every aspect of the victim’s life
- Has an emotional need to justify their crimes and therefore needs their victim’s affirmation (respect, gratitude and love)
- Ultimate goal is the creation of a willing victim
- Incapable of real human attachment to another
- Unable to feel remorse or guilt
- Extreme narcissism and grandiose
- May state readily that their goal is to rule the world
My eyes were drawn to point 3. Tories claim to be in favour of freedom but their actions say something different: they are authoritarian and tend to admire other authoritarians (Thatcher’s admiration for Pinochet, for example).
In opposition, the Tories positioned themselves as champions of civil liberties but once in power they quickly reverted to their default position. I, for one, was not taken in by their faux Damascene conversion to civil libertarianism.
Same old Tories. Same old sociopaths.
Filed under Conservative Party, Government & politics
Yesterday, I heard a lot of people calling for the army to be deployed on the streets of London. Some have even demanded that looters (and others) be shot on sight. Such calls are made without a single thought for the consequences and the implications of troop deployment.
In essence, it is the duty of the army to protect citizens from an outside invader. It is not their job to act as police. In countries, like Syria or Bahrain, where the army is routinely used as a an ersatz arm of law enforcement, innocent bystanders are killed and the governments in those countries rule with an iron fist. Civil liberties are curbed or suspended altogether and curfews are imposed. Anyone who disobeys a curfew is shot on sight. Is this what we want? Not even the French government orders the army onto the streets. It has the Compagnies de Républicaines de Sécurité or CRS to deal with serious cases of civil unrest. Anyone who knows the CRS will tell you, they are not to be messed with. However the CRS has come in for a great deal of criticism for their indiscriminate use of force. They have also been accused of institutionalized racism. In addition to the CRS, the French state can call upon the services of the Gendermerie Mobile. Do we want this sort of thing on our streets?
The other issue is that those who have called for the army to be deployed on British streets ignore the fact that the army is currently engaged in Afghanistan, fighting a war with no end. But would troops fire on their own citizens? Those of us who lived through the years of the so-called ‘Troubles’ will know that the army, by and large, saw the Catholics of Northern Ireland, not as citizens, but as enemies. The deployment of troops was initially greeted with relief and even joy. Within a couple of years, that had changed and the army was seen for what it was: an repressive arm of the state. Bloody Sunday on 30 January 1972, saw 26 unarmed civilians and bystanders killed by the trigger-happy soldiers of 1 Para. Is this what those who call for the army to be deployed on our streets want?
There is another dimension to this, those who demand the army be sent on out on the streets are effectively demanding their own oppression. They may as well demand that their civil rights be suspended and internment without trial be introduced. How can soldiers tell who is a looter and who is not? Is there a code?
In 1911 Winston Churchill sent troops to Tonypandy. Striking miners were shot and killed. In the same year, troops appeared on the streets of Liverpool during the transport strike. Innocent bystanders were shot dead.
Those who demand that the army be called in are like turkeys voting for Christmas.
Hammersmith MP, Andy Slaughter’s regular column in the Fulham Chronicle has been censored by Hammersmith & Fulham Council. In an unprecedented move, the Chronicle was effectively bought (for £75,000) by the council so that it may continue to produce its propaganda after the government forced the abolition of so-called council pravdas earlier this year. The paper, a title in the Trinity Mirror Group of newspapers, has effectively lost its independence and is now dancing to the tune of Greenhalgh and his town hall chums.
This latest move to censor what it doesn’t like follows on from an advert placed in the paper by the Parents Alliance for Community Schools, whichwas also censored by the council, simply because the advert didn’t sit comfortably with its embrace of Toby Young’s free school – which has the full support and approval of the council.
The Shepherds Bush blog has the full story here.
Filed under censorship, Hammersmith & Fulham, London, Media, propaganda
The final part of Adam Curtis’s The Trap – What happened to our dream of freedom?
Filed under Ideologies, Society & culture
You can view Part 1 of Adam Curtis’s The Trap – What happened to our dream of freedom? below. Part 1 comes in six parts (confusingly enough).
Part 1/1
Part 1/2
Part 1/3
Part 1/4
Part 1/5
Part 1/6
Filed under Neoliberalism