Fun, fun, fun!

We're all off to Marxism this weekend. The first day of the festival will coincide with the (what's now called J30) public sector strikes. The fact that people outside, as well as inside the unions feel a sense of ownership is a little wonder, a small lesson in hegemony. The moment the organised working class begins to move the rest of the working population, everyone who stands to lose out in David Cameron's alleged Big Society, finds its champion.

The problem looming is that, while the government, employers, the city and the mass media work day-and-night to impoverish and destroy our society, unions have to jump through so many hoops to simply get to the starting block; joint strikes are organised with the same delicacy as Rolling Stones tours. There will be more strikes, large strikes, I am sure. The Left, however you choose to define it, has a job, to bring this conjunction of anti-austerity forces together into a permanent left-wing consensus.

But then you know that already, don't you? So, uh, and finally, the theme for this year's Marxism (apart from Ideas to Change the World) is Hi, I'm... as in:

Hi, I'm Hugh Manatee
Hi, I'm Eamonn Lowe
Hi, I'm Glade Pluggin
Hi, I'm Marshall Plan
Hi, I'm Jerry Mandarin
Hi, I'm Cliff Hanger

etc... Have fun.

Michael Gove: Concern Troll

Michael Gove says he thinks so much of teachers he would be grieved to think of them losing the public's respect by going on strike:

Gove told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show on Sunday: "I do worry that taking industrial action, being on the picket line, being involved in this sort of militancy will actually mean that the respect in which teachers should be held is taken back a little bit".

But he also wants parents to scab on upcoming teachers strike. Leaving aside any questions about training and criminal record checks (piffling little concerns), taking his his proposal at face value, it shows what Michael Gove really thinks of teachers, what comprehensive education really means to him; glorfied babysitting.

The proposal is, of course, overwhelmingly impractical, unworkable, but it has an obvious ideological dimension. Contrary to he stated 'concern', Gove actively wants to set parents against teachers AND teachers against parents. Education is a collective process, teachers and parents have to work together to the best of their ability. Imagine being a teacher giving a report on a child to a parent who scabbed on your strike, who collaborated with this government to sell your future. No doubt you would be professional, but it wouldn't half damage relations and morale. It hardly bears thinking about.

Support the strike on June 30th... Strike if you can, support the pickets if you can't. In the meantime here's a little something for you, tide you over, Michael Gove falling down.

About Stewart Lee's book

There are two relatively new left-wing cultural icons, Charlie Brooker and Stewart Lee. They are icons in both senses of the word. First, that they are generally popular and revered by lefties. Second, their fans/followers/whatever to some degree project their own values onto these characters.

Charlie Brooker denies that he is left-wing. He is left-wing, however he may (or may not) have good reasons for not emphasising this. Stewart Lee's recent biography, How I Escaped My Certain Fate, sort of performs the same function. Stewart Lee's avoidance of fate, his live stand-up comeback has been defined by politically charged material. However, judging by ...Certain Fate, Lee sees his comeback more in terms of personal realisation, which he is, of course, entitled to do. I think we are also entitled to suggest this makes for a less interesting book.

The broader, social axis of the book is a key moment in youth culture. In 1993 Robert Newman and David Baddiel descended from the rafters of Wembley Arena, to perform to 12,000 or so people. Comedy was declared the new rock and roll. But, shortly after that, rock and roll became the new rock and roll, as indie bands (curiously signed to major labels) poured forth into the top ten. Alternative youth culture became big business.

In terms of the typical comedy night things changed, almost to the point of regression. Where once alternative comedy was a particular sub-culture, with its own rules and customs, a sort of miniature global village, it's base broadened and so did average audience expectations. One of the interesting things about Lee's stand up (brought out very well in the biography) is the extent to which his performances are very carefully weighted. For example, his famous (and excellent) routine about vomiting into the gaping anus of Christ has no swearing and almost no coarse language, no easy laughs in other words. The audience has to go along with the premise of the routine for it to work. The spell cannot be broken.

To keep doing this Stewart Lee has had to cultivate his own audience, reduce the numbers to increase the impact. The urge to recreate alternative comedy, which he sees in other, younger, stand up comedians, has revived the old post-punk, cottage industry values, which defined seventies and eighties stand up.

Now, about popular music...?

Liberation, we've got an app for that...

Actually, you don't, not if you're Palestinian:

Apple has removed an application called ThirdIntifada from its App Store following complaints that it encouraged and glorified violence against Israel.

Israeli minister of public affairs Yuli Edelstein sent an email to Apple chief executive Steve Jobs calling for the "immediate removal" of the application.

He described ThirdIntifada as "an anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist application that (...) calls for an uprising against Israel", according to Haaretz.

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre also complained about the app, which it said "contains anti-Israel content – articles, photographs of 'martyrs' and stories – and updates its users on further incitements to protest and violence."

Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr said the app was removed "because it violates the developer guidelines by being offensive to large groups of people."

Now, all of this may be true (as opposed to hysterical, bigoted bullying) and, according to the rights of private property, I suppose Apple can do what it wants with its services; however, this is also the tech company that sold an application called IMussolini... I suppose no one finds fascism offensive?

This is wonderful

As one Youtube commenter puts it underneath, it sounds like the sun coming over the horizon. Wonderful.

Manufacturing consent in an alienated world

The former Republican presidential candidate John McCain has been accused of "scapegoating" Mexicans over comments he made linking wildfires in his home state of Arizona to illegal immigration.

The issue ignited over the weekend when the US senator said there was "substantial evidence that some of these fires have been caused by people who have crossed our border illegally. The answer to that part of the problem is to get a secure border".

Immigants! I knew it was dem, even when it was the bears I knew it was dem! Remember the point about alienation, it naturalises social disaster and personalises natural disaster. Arizona is the neo-con paradise, a white-flight state where life's problems are just a bad dream after a heavy TV dinner. Despite the fact that Arizona is, ahem, dry and prone to fires, nature has let its citizens down.

John McCain's assertion is simply mad. But John McCain isn't mad. The right wing, the ruling class use the intervention of events to continually shift the terms of class struggle in their favour. Recession, declining living standards, joblessness etc, has hit the working class and middle class like a force of nature. People must come to terms with what's happening to them, however; find a root cause.

Consent for capitalism is organised in large part around the idea of supposedly natural competition. Who's to blame for your predicament? Your competitors. Who are your competitors? Who knows, they could be anybody but, oddly enough they rend to be those brown people speaking a funny language, the ones you rarely ever meet. They must be dealt with!

I digress, the point is, our ruling class work night and day to shore up their hegemony, to help their subjects understand the world in a way that guarantees their continued rule. In America this means singling out Mexican immigrants (often identified as a flood or a swamp - natural metaphors) as a unique source of chaos and destruction. McCain is trying to blindside people by attaching a ludicrous assertion to a distressing event.

Plod, plod, plod

In the run up to the recent royal wedding there was an apparent mass suspension of leftwing Facebook profiles, groups assuming an individual identity, as opposed to a page, on Facebook. The following profiles, among others, were suspended:

Open Birkbeck

UWE Occupation

Chesterfield Stopthecuts

Camberwell AntiCuts

IVA Womensrevolution

Tower Hamlets Greens

No Cuts

ArtsAgainst Cuts

London Student Assembly

Beat'n Streets

Roscoe 'Manchester' Occupation

Bristol Bookfair

Newcastle Occupation

Socialist Unity

Whospeaks Forus

Ourland FreeLand

Bristol Ukuncut

Teampalestina Shaf

Notts-Uncut Part-of UKUncut

No Quarter Cutthewar

Bootle Labour

Claimants Fightback

Ecosocialists Unite

Comrade George Orwell

Jason Derrick

Anarchista Rebellionist

BigSociety Leeds

Slade Occupation

Anti-Cuts Across Wigan

Firstof Mayband

Don't Break Britain United

Cockneyreject

SWP Cork

Westiminster Trades Council

York Anarchists

Rock War

Sheffield Occupation

Central London SWP

North London Solidarity

Southwark Sos

Save NHS

Rochdale Law Centre

Goldsmiths Fights Back

A freedom of information request, asking if the Metropolitan Police had any hand in the suspension. This was the reply:

It is likely that other areas, departments and partner agencies within the
Metropolitan area would have been involved in the operational policing of
extremist organisations for the Royal Wedding. To confirm or deny whether
we communicated with Facebook or monitored profiles, would compromise our
ability to continue our policing role, jeopardise police tactics and
reveal police capabilities. In this current environment of an increased
threat of terrorist activity, providing any details that could assist
extremists or criminals of any organisation would undermine the
safeguarding of national security. To enable the criminal fraternity to be
better informed about the intelligence, capabilities, resources and
tactics available to the MPS, would greatly impact on police resources in
planning future operations. There are criminals who would seek to obtain
tactical details to improve on their plans to avoid being detected and
apprehended. To disclosure any information is likely to impact on police
resources, should the MPS continually have to change their actions,
tactics and methodology due to a FOIA disclosure.

You hear that, Rochdale Law Centre? You're part of the 'criminal fraternity'.

The rise and rise of ambience...

Music production: some starting principles. Music was a performing art for hundreds of years, as such it was linked to rituals of some sort or other. An example: going to a music hall to listen to classical music or opera. Partly as a result the emphasis was on the song, not the singer. There was such a thing as a famous singer, but they would be expected to sing popular songs, not a distinct repertoire. These assumptions have been pretty much reversed by recorded sound.

In an advert for a London commercial radio station, a very, very popular singer suggests there is a song on this station(s playlist) for every possible mood. This is an interesting idea, if we take this at face value. Either the audience's moods are so predictable you can base a radio station play list around them, or it's possible to programme mass consciousness.

People go to concerts to see pop stars, not listen to them. There is not the faintest chance of a Rolling Stones gig being relevant or vital, at least not as relevant and vital as once they might have been. You go to a gig to watch The Stones, to be near Mick 'n' Keef in the flesh.

It is nowadays rare for people to put an album on simply to listen to it, like one might read a book. It's so unusual there are now album clubs, where people get together to specifically do this. Music is instead incorporated into everyday life: "it was the soundtrack to our lives", a common form of approval for modern music. The advent of personal listening, walkmen, internet downloading, Ipods etc has accelerated this trend.

Popular music is ambient music unacknowledged, music designed to influence and enhance mood.

Happy Bloomsday

And give three quarks for Muster Mark!

Follow your leader

Shoot yourself like Adolf Hitler...

Meanwhile EDL leader (and small businessman) Stephen Yaxley-Lennon is to be charged with assault. Is he innocent? What fascist is truly innocent? The EDL is the greatest menace to our society today, violent street-fighting nazis. It must be smashed and scattered to the winds. Wherever they march ordinary people must countermarch. They shall not pass.

Hundreds of thousands of teachers vote to strike

83% of the ballot in the ATL, 92% in the NUT. Well done to all those who fought for a yes vote. Now let's get to the picket lines wioth members of the UCU, PCS, RMT and CWU. This must be the beginning, not the end, of the fightback against the Tories. Before long we should be converging on Parliament in our masses, like the Greeks are doing right now.

Those of you not on strike can still help. One way would be to join the strikers on the picket lines, give them support, encouragement and maybe a little bit of food and drink, as UK Uncut will be doing.

Ed Milliband finds a voice!

Unfortunately it's a nasty, rasping cackle. Hey, Ed, there's no votes in promising hope and change (Barack Obama was so 2008, and, anyway, what difference has he made?); but there's plenty of people who want to kick the poor, people, real people... OK, they're swing voters.

"Ed actively celebrates genuine wealth creators", said a source, "He welcomes the contribution of those who generate prosperity for society. But there are others who receive huge bonuses for contributing nothing to their company, their shareholders or the wider economy. Similarly, at the other end of the income ladder there are many hardworking people who play by the rules, and it's right they should be rewarded. But there are some who don't. Who dodge their responsibilities. Who cheat. And they shouldn't be rewarded".

Ed wants to lead a party of grafters. He is succumbing to the Tory agenda, which is, night and day, trying to create the impression of deserving and underserving poor. The Tories are trying to take us back to an age of insecurity and dependence, charity, not welfare, a cold and nasty world.

It is also a divide and rule tactic, as well as a deflection. Party men and ministers may rail against underserving bankers, they still compare them to the undeserving poor, despite the fact the welfare bill is dwarfed by the bank bailout. They will do nothing to attack the powerful in our society, they will always pick on the weak and the poor.

But, there's more. The only people who truly define themselves by how much their work are the out-and-out petty bourgeoisie, small businesspeople, who militantly treasure fantasies about being 'wealth creators'. The Labour Party is playing its part in a sad drama, where democracy and equality are slowly poisoned. What about the people who work for public service, the love of art, or just to get by? What about the unemployed, the sick or the elderly? Who will be their party? Who will speak for them?

Space filled well

I have just finished reading a library copy of Stewart Lee's How I Escaped by Certain Fate and, beware, I probably have opinions about that as well. Meanwhile, I want you to make do with these percipient quotes:

* It really worries me that 84% of this audience agrees with that statement, because the kind of people that say "political correctness gone mad" are usually using that phrase as a kind of cover action to attack minorities or people that they disagree with. I'm of an age that I can see what a difference political correctness has made. When I was four years old, my grandfather drove me around Birmingham, where the Tories had just fought an election campaign saying, "if you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour," and he drove me around saying, "this is where all the niggers and the coons and the jungle bunnies live." And I remember being at school in the early 80s and my teacher, when he read the register, instead of saying the name of the one asian boy in the class, he would say, "is the black spot in," right? And all these things have gradually been eroded by political correctness, which seems to me to be about an institutionalised politeness at its worst. And if there is some fallout from this, which means that someone in an office might get in trouble one day for saying something that someone was a bit unsure about because they couldn't decide whether it was sexist or homophobic or racist, it's a small price to pay for the massive benefits and improvements in the quality of life for millions of people that political correctness has made. It's a complete lie that allows the right, which basically controls media now, and international politics, to make people on the left who are concerned about the way people are represented look like killjoys. And I'm sick, I'm really sick-- 84% of you in this room that have agreed with this phrase, you're like those people who turn around and go, "you know who the most oppressed minorities in Britain are? White, middle-class men." You're a bunch of idiots.
o From "Heresy", BBC Radio 4, 16th May 2007

* The twisting of the idea of 'political correctness' into a soft, one-size-fits-all punchbag for the right-wing media and your nan is a personal bugbear of mine [...] . In 2008, Edward Stourton published It's a PC World, which explained everything I ever wanted to say on the subject far more eloquently than I ever could have, and used actual statistical facts to back it up. Because no one can imagine a remotely pro-political correctness book, Stourton's book was, tellingly, misfiled by bookshops in the humour section, alongside Richard Littlejohn's Hell in a Handcart, those crappy politically correct fairy tales books and Al Murray's Pub Landlord annuals. Pundits on the Right like to imagine we live in a PC dictatorship, but the fact remains that in a high-street bookshop it is assumed that any book with PC in the title must be a hilarious attack on PC, rather than a book in its defence, because the only time you ever see PC mentioned is when people are complaining about PC. For money. And usually on the very publicly funded radio stations that these dicks believe are involved in a politically correct conspiracy to silence them.
o How I Escaped my Certain Fate: the Life and Deaths of a Stand-Up Comedian, p. 82 - 83

Films and opinions

The light of my life and I went to see a film last night, X Men: first class as it happens. We've watched most of the series now, she is a comic buff however, I am not. It is a fairly good action film. Most action films these days not only like to tie up the action relatively coherently (I stress relatively, there were some points in the current X Men film that weren't wholly, satisfactorily explained... and lets leave out the slow slide of Eric's accent, from Low German into High Dublin) and also have a running, edifying theme.

The X Men are, of course, a way of talking about race and racism. First Class is about the relationship (and break) between Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr/Magneto. It may be a little bit of a leap, however I can't help feeling their relationship is a dialogue between a zionist mutant and democratic mutant.

One of the many (many) weaknesses of zionism as a response to racism is it concedes the racist argument. Zionism argues that anti-semitism, racism towards Jewish people, cannot be defeated, politically or ideologically, only militarily. Magneto accepts the fearful, bigoted idea that mutants and humans cannot live together, Charles Xavier continues to strive for that goal. In the context of the film both are right, Magneto is right, frequently, because of the facts, whereas Charles Xavier is right frequently despite them; he represents potential and hope, whereas Magneto is, ultimately, a council of despair. None of this plays out easily, of course. Charles Xavier is born into privilege, while Eric is born into persecution and pain.

Even so, let's not overload things, X Men: first class is mostly just an action film, a fun two hours.

Anthropocene... again

With stuff half-inched from Mike Davis. One of the quirks of basic capitalist alienation is that natural disasters are personalised, almost personified while man-made disasters are treated as natural.

In Ecology of Fear you read about the general indifference to tenement fires in South Central LA, while chaparral fire threatening to engulf Malibu inspires incredible panic. Class bias plays an obvious role, it leads to the strange situation where Malibu residents feel let down by nature doing exactly what it's been doing for millennia.

A more modern example, the recent spate of earthquakes on the Pacific Rim inspired common trepidation, that the planet is somehow righting a wrong, wreaking revenge on its inhabitants. Artful quacks managed to link this to the arrival of comet Elenin in the inner solar system, suggesting we are living through some cursed conjunction.

But the point about the emergence of the anthropocene, where the combined influence of humanity is greater than all natural forces on Earth, human and natural forces are intertwining as never before. For thousands of years cold, dry Aleutian air has done battle over California with occasional jets of warm, wet El Nino air; the result has been tornadoes raging through the valleys of Southern California. Human development has not only disturbed (and possibly enhanced) the El Nino cycle, it has placed giant urban heat islands in Southern California, huge industrial, financial and residential districts, altering the climate in unpredictable ways and placing huge numbers of people right in the dip of a tornado alley.

Despite our best efforts it is still difficult to abstract humankind from nature.

The news

Side view report - the Cameron file

Muslamic radicalists, tekin r jobs an the dole, David Cameroon is coming fer yo:

David Cameron has won a cabinet battle to toughen up the UK's counter-terrorism strategy and take a harder line against Islamic traditions that fail to "reflect British mainstream values".

The successor to Labour's Prevent strategy is likely to redefine extremists as those who hold "un-British" views, such as intolerance of equal rights for women, because ministers believe there is a link between non-violent extremism and violent acts of terrorism.

Un-British...? Very well, let's ignore for a second that Judeo-Christian culture takes a dim view of women's rights (do you sacrifice a turtle dove after every period?), we shall take a quick look at recent government policy and how it has affected women's conditions and rights. Women earn 10% less than men in equivalent jobs. On current statistics this gap is not likely to close until 2067. There are currently around one million unemployed women in Britain. The cuts in public sector services and jobs has hit women proportionally harder than men... No the most scintillating feminism, and this is before we get on to other matters, Ken Clarke for example.

The British government, perhaps by it's own definition is acting in an un-British way. It cannot take the moral highground with regard to equality for women. Of course it can't, but that's not the point. The government professing liberal values in this case is a protective coating, a prophylactic for them to help racism back into mainstream life. This is not new. Empire and colonisation was justified, in part, as a civilising mission. This is about reestablishing racism, stigmatising a community and nothing else; hence the totally spurious link given between terrorism and non-violent extremism. It is a trap. No muslim, public or private can ever condemn extremism enough, not for the government. It is blackmail, support your own persecution or we will persecute you.

We should not give Cameron any ground on this.

Welcome to the Anthropocene...

Actually we've been living through this age for a while, the Graun's just picked up on the argument. Humanity is now, almost certainly, more powerful than all the forces of nature combined:

There have been seven epochs since the dinosaurs died out around 65m years ago. The last time we passed a geological boundary, entering the Holocene around 12,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age, we were an insignificant species, just one of a couple of hominids struggling to survive in a world where so many of our cousins, like Homo erectus, had failed to make it.

Now our effect on the climate and our fellow species is having a global impact. "The fossil record will reveal a massive loss of plant and animal species, and also the scale of invasive species – how we've distributed animals and plants across the globe," [Dr Jan] Zalasiewicz [University of Leicester] says.

Human civilisation is now the dominant force on Earth. Civilisation is, unfortunately, practically out of control. Those who could bring it under control are excluded from all power. As a species we are facing three great crises, economic, military and ecological, which are systemic, linked and often reinforce each other. Socialism, as far as I'm concerned, is workers power through democratic control. If we want to see much more of the Anthropocene we need socialism, urgently. We are tumbling to Earth. Pull the chord!

News and Spews

Greece has a 50:50 chance of defaulting on its debt:

The cost of insuring Greek government bonds rose on Thursday after ratings agency Moody's said there was now a 50% chance of the country defaulting on its debts.

The warning came as Moody's cut Greece's credit rating to Caa1, almost the lowest rating assigned to any country. The move intensified the pressure on European leaders as negotiations over a second rescue package for Greece continued in Vienna.

This "troika review", involving the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank, is also considering what additional measures Greece must take in return for the next instalment of its original bailout plan.

Moody's being a democratically elected body of... it's a privately owned corporation? No way! They have, however, revised Greece economy's credit rating downward, which will make it generally more difficult for the Greek government to borrow money or issue bonds.

Greece is understood to have agreed to €6.4bn (£3.9bn) of fresh austerity measures, including tax increases and accelerated privatisations.

Hold on, "Greece is understood to have agreed..."? The whole of Greece? Surely not. The austerity measures forced on Greece, so much for functioning democracy, have directly contributed to its current predicament. As far as global capitalism is concerned there is no other pill to take, so swallow the one that made you ill. Default will make for a short-term solution. The trouble is defaulting will put the Euro at wider risk. It will also take down the billions of Euros of bailout money, lost forever, from the hat passed around the Union last year. The British government contributed to this bailout as well. By spreading the risk, as the banks did in the run up to the 2008 crisis, Europe's governments are spreading the liability. This will increase the pressure to abrogate democracy in Greece, extend the protectorate, in the name of financial orthodoxy, a dangerous precedent.

The answer? A shift, across the continent, in economic priorities, from profit accumulation to general wellbeing, from a market driven society to a democratically driven society. The mass movement of strikes and occupations on the continent can make this a reality. It must be brought to Britain.

Cut and paste, but not a waste

Support Egyptian activist Hossam el‑Hamalawy.

by Simon Assaf

Hossam el‑Hamalawy, a leading voice in the revolution, was summonsed to appear before a military tribunal. He had appeared on television and named a senior military commander responsible for the torture of activists.

Hossam feared he would be arrested. But instead, in an unprecedented move, the tribunal asked him to provide his evidence of torture so it can be investigated. This appears to be a huge climbdown by the military.

Hossam published pictures of hundreds of Mubarak’s secret police from files seized from the state security buildings following January’s revolution.

He has been gathering testimony of the treatment meted out to those arrested by the military police.

On a recent live TV show Hossam said, “The military trials of civilians must end.

“There have been some 5,000 to 8,000 cases since the army started to rule the country, while Mubarak and his thugs receive civilian trials.”

TV presenter Reem Maged and journalist Nabil Sharaf el-Din were also summonsed.

Send messages of support. Email: menasolidarity@gmail.com