Hats off to Johann Hari

Johann Hari has done us all a service in his latest polemic. If you believe in living in a free society his argument is simple and irrefutable - no religion is above criticism. Its strange how, in the 21st century, that many people still don't seem to get this. Either they are religionists and can't cope with critical comment about their religion, or they are unable to discriminate between say, criticism of Islam and 'islamophobia'. Islamophobia literally means 'fear of Islam' and I can sympathise totally with people who fear the Islamist fanatics who claim to speak for all Muslims, and seek to impose their reactionary, misogynistic, totalitarian theocracy on all of us. But in the context that is is popularly used it means a prejudice against Islam, and Muslims in general. I've no doubt that there are many people including those who support the BNP who are Islamophobes. However, criticism of Islam and Islamophobia are not one and the same thing.

We need to understand that Muslims are trying to stifle dissent and criticism of Islam on a global scale, through the UN. They demand 'respect' which means that they cannot tolerate unfavorable views on Islam, and seek all such views to be censored . After the Danish cartoons debacle, which was deliberately blown out of all proportion by Islamic extremists, death threats were issued not just against the publishers, but anyone else who dared to print the cartoons. Guess what  - not many people did. The 'free' press caved in.

When Osama Bin Laden threatened to kill westerners for political reasons George W Bush and Tony Blair both spoke out in condemnation, and vowed to bring him to justice. But when Islamic extremists threatened to kill westerners over the cartoons i.e. for religious reasons, Bush and Blair were silent. Why?, is it OK to kill for religious reasons? Of course not, but Bush and Blair are religious themselves, hence the silence. These double standards have given Muslim extremists the confidence to think they can silence dissent  with their bullying  threats. That is why it is so important that  all those who believe in free speech should support what Johann Hari has done.

Don't call it the nanny state, call it what it is...

Great article by Victoria Coren in the Observer last Sunday about the kicking that smokers are getting at the moment. I've often thought the intolerance shown to smokers has crossed the line into persecution. Well worth reading all the piece but here is an extract:

"Since we have a priggish, disapproving, bullying, absolutist government, which refused to bring in a (good, correct) smoking ban by stages, the Farningham smokers were technically breaking the law even by having a crafty snout on an outdoor platform. But why was this Mrs Buchanan's problem? Anyone who didn't like it could have moved further down, in the fresh air. Nobody was getting hurt but the smokers themselves. They weren't breaking the Ten Commandments".

Recently, some old folks were threatened with an ASBO for feeding birds in their garden. The Guardian reports today that local authorities and government bodies will soon be allowed to snoop on your emails, texts, and the websites you visit. Police at the Kingsnorth climate camp have harassed and bullied peaceful protesters. We are being threatened with the introduction of ID cards and a national database that will contain information about every one of us. The New Labour government has created over 3,000 new criminal offences since 1997. The prison population has exceeded 80,000 for the first time. Thirty years ago it was half that. So what is going on?

We are living in an authoritarian society where we are becoming more and more regulated and criminalised. The government has recently used the terrorist 'threat' to introduce a raft of legislation which which criminalities dissent and legitimate protests. This 'threat' was comprehensively debunked by Adam Curtis in his documentary 'The Power of Nightmares' in which he showed that the 'threat' was deliberately exaggerated in order to increase the hold of politicians over the population.

Environmentalists are a particular target because they are a threat to capitalism because the policies they propose to fight climate change would end globalisation and threaten the profits of large corporations.

In addition to all this we have the 'Health Police'. The premise is simple - you can legitimately be banned from doing anything if it is 'harmful to you' - and we decide for you. So, we can stop you from smoking, and soon we will be aiming to stop you from drinking. What this means is that we have ceased to be adults in a 'free' society. The government has decided to take these decisions for us because we can't be trusted to do it ourselves.

But this is unacceptable in a free society. I could decide that its bad for you (and me) to be a Tory. So how about banning conservatism? You may laugh but the government now has such draconian powers at its disposal that it is possible to snoop into every aspect of our lives and ban any kind of dissent. That is a totalitarian police state, something that E P Thompson warned was coming in the 1970s and 1980s. You should read Writing by Candlelight (Merlin Press 1980) for an excellent account of the way the government was, even then, seeking to curb our freedoms.

Don't call it the nanny state, call it what it really is ....... the authoritarian state, one step removed from the totalitarian state.

The end of deference?

As an avid grazer of the internet blog scene, one of the things that really cheers me up amongst all the angst about climate change, the credit crunch etc - is the fact that, politically, we have really got to the end of deference - at last!

The internet is to blame for this. Of course there are plenty of loonies out there, but there is also shed loads of intelligent comment if you choose to look for it. We have suddenly realised through this global community, what we always knew anyway, that the people who run society are usually no better than the rest of us.

Yes, its not just Gordon that is flawed but Vladimir, Barack, Nicolas, Hu, and Andrea. You see, they are just people like us, and some of us might just be better at running things than they are. Or could we run things better for ourselves?

So, now that we know, why should we leave it up to Gordon to decide for us? He is clearly cocking it up on climate change and peak oil - which I mention because they are our pre-eminent global problems.

What do you do in a 'democratic' society when you know that the people running things are taking you to hell in a handcart by failing to tackle these issues? Wait five years, or even eighteen months, for an election?

I don't think so. You do what people have done in the past - you have a revolution. But that's illegal isn't it? Well yes - but that isn't going to matter much longer - despite all the anti terror legislation. Because if what we are being told about climate change is true (see 100 months - below) - we're looking at the breakdown of society in the UK, and that will mean the collapse of the British state anyway. So the sooner we start the better - right?

The revolution we need is one which is going to enable us to make a transition to the post-oil world. And we need to start it now.

Just 100 months.....

According to a report from the New Economics Foundation we have just 100 months to save the planet from climate change. That is 8 1/3 years which takes us to about 2017. Its well worth reading the article by Andrew Simms which explains why we have such a short time left to take effective action. Here is a quote from part of that article:

"The concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere today, the most prevalent greenhouse gas, is the highest it has been for the past 650,000 years. In the space of just 250 years, as a result of the coal-fired Industrial Revolution, and changes to land use such as the growth of cities and the felling of forests, we have released, cumulatively, more than 1,800bn tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. Currently, approximately 1,000 tonnes of CO2 are released into the Earth's atmosphere every second, due to human activity. Greenhouse gases trap incoming solar radiation, warming the atmosphere. When these gases accumulate beyond a certain level - often termed a "tipping point" - global warming will accelerate, potentially beyond control".

In the UK we know that we can save 30% of our energy needs just by having effective insulation in all our homes. What is being done about this - nothing! While politicians prevaricate and appease their chums in the energy industry with promises of coal fired plants and nuclear reactors we are going to hell in a handcart. Even if the 100 months prediction is wrong, in a time where we have passed peak oil, energy conservation measures and greater use of renewables are essential measures, which we need to take to prevent fuel poverty, and to make us all more energy efficient.

If the 100 month prediction is correct be very afraid because at the rate we are going we have no chance of constraining atmospheric CO2 to 400 ppm by 2017 and we are heading for social breakdown. Our politicians are far too wedded to the kind of capitalist solutions that enable the energy industry to make big bucks to take energy conservation measures. The government's policy of shifting to nuclear is bad enough - now we have government support for coal in the form of the proposed Kingsnorth power station in Kent!

The Kingsnorth debacle has attracted the attention of climate change campaigners, who have set up camp near the proposed power station. The camp, which runs from 3-11 August, has already been subject to police harassment. The police have raided the camp, kept the campaigners awake at night and even stolen the campaigner's bicycles! This is typical of the increasing criminalisation of legitimate protest brought about by a New Labour government.

I wish the protesters at the camp every success and I hope that they manage to persuade the government to think again. But I doubt if they will. Energy conservation, de-centralised energy generation (e.g. using your own solar power) all threaten to reduce the massive profits of the energy companies in the long run, or that how they see it, so it can't be allowed to happen.

The energy companies could take a different tack. They could sell us insulation and renewables instead of fossil fuel alternatives,. Enlightened governments might even be able to push them down that road. But not ours - it will still be fiddling with itself while the planet burns.

The war on trade unions

Heard of the war on drugs? You probably have. But have you heard of the war on trade unions? If not, you should have because its going on all over the world. A recent report from Iraq showed that eight trade union leaders were forcibly transferred from Basra to Baghdad, where their lives are thought to be in danger. What is their crime? To oppose the sell-off of Iraq's oil to foreign corporations.

Meanwhile in Korea, top leaders of the Korean Federation of Trade Unions (KCTU) have been arrested by the government. Their crime was to call for a general strike, which the Korean Government has decided is illegal.

As a trade unionist I'm concerned about this but not in the least bit surprised because everywhere trade unions are under threat from global capital and the politicians who do its bidding. After all, we can't have trade unionists affecting profits can we? And all those employment rights and all that social justice just get in the way of making a buck or two. And that's what really matters in a capitalist world - isn't it?

One of the major reasons why there are so many low paid people in the UK, and there is a widening gap between rich and poor is because trade unions have been hobbled by Thatcherite anti-union legislation. Here we don’t lock up trade unionists, we just make sure they can’t defend the livelihoods of their members.

Gordon's Glasgow Kiss

New Labour lose in Glasgow East. Well I am going to say I told you so. New labour will not be re-elected. Its not just Gordon - who has to go if Labour are to have any chance at all - but 'New' has to go as well. Will this sink in? I don't think so. So effective has the Blair/Brown coup been that the upper reaches of the party is stuffed with New Labourites who wouldn't know a centre-left policy if they fell over it. In order to get back to Labour you would have to sack the entire government which just isn't going to happen.

So what will happen? I expect that Brown will go sometime in the next six months - if only because the desire for self preservation amongst New Labour MPs will be outweigh any other considerations. Who will take over is hard to call at the moment. Milliband is the media's pin up boy. I suspect Alan Johnson would be a good bet. Simply because he is a 'regular bloke' who would contrast well with toff Cameron.

Where does this leave the unions? Still looking for a party I'm afraid. There is going to be no swing to the left in the Labour party in the near future. The unions need to make a decision whether to ditch the party and start again or cling on in the hope that things will improve. But as far as New Labour is concerned - the party's over.

Its the environment stupid!

David Cameron is wrong - we don't live in a broken society. We have poverty and pockets of great deprivation but the vast majority of people and families live in neighborhoods which are safe, and not plagued by anti-social behaviour.

One thing that Cameron is right about and that is that people should take responsibility for their own lives - but no one disputes that! The thing is that Tories talk about this as if it was a concept that they have invented and have a copyright on. One of the things the left have to do is slay this myth.

Buts lets talk about the people who Cameron thinks are part of this broken society. He is obviously not referring to his own family and Notting Hill chums. So who does he mean? Er.... well the poor. Except that Tories can't bring themselves to admit that these problems are caused by poverty - because that would be admitting that their rotten economic system not only fails a substantial potion of the population but actually causes the poverty that these people suffer from.

Lets continue by slaying the two great Tory (right wing) myths:

1. The rich are rich because they are talented and they deserve the money they have. Not true. The overwhelming majority of rich people inherit their wealth - a fact which was well known in the 1960's but now has been conveniently forgotten. Not only are the wealthy rich because mummy and daddy were, but the Middle Classes are well off for the same reason. I've used capitals because I'm talking about the real Middle Class here - not you and me. We are the middle class. They commonly earn £100,000 or more. Call them Upper Middle Class if you like. These are the largely Oxbridge educated crew who dominate the media, arts and professions. Some of them are genuinely upwardly mobile but the is only because of the expansion of higher education in the 1960's - a door which has now been firmly shut by New Labour.

2. The poor are poor because they are feckless scroungers: Not true. But it plays very well with the Daily Mail readers and tiny minded Tories who can only feel good by thinking they are better than somebody else. The poor are poor largely because their parents were poor. Notice a pattern here? Poor people live in poor areas. They are deprived compared to their rich compatriots. They are going nowhere. Why? Because its almost impossible to break out of that kind of situation. Its the environment that they live in that determines their future. Of course a few do escape. The lucky ones and the very clever ones. But the rest are stuck in their ghetto. Those that do escape are held up by the right as shining examples - if they can do it anyone can. No, once again, not true.

Socialists have always recognised this. Socialists have tried to improve the environment to help the poor but this has largely failed and there are two main reasons: Firstly most of the attempts have been imposed top down by the state - to help people you have to empower them and that's something that governments (of every hue) hate doing. They like to talk about it but make damn sure it never happens. Secondly to end poverty you have to create some wealth. Governments have really had no answer to this because they rely on capitalism and capitalists to do this. So, companies are bribed to move in, business units are set up and it doesn't work. If people are genuinely going to be empowered they have to create the wealth themselves. Absolutely no point in giving millions to companies that are going to pocket the money and move on as soon as possible. The money needs to go direct to the people. But what kind of capitalist government is ever going to do that?

The only way we can end the curse of poverty in the world is to move away from capitalism to a co-operative economic system which empowers individuals and stresses need not greed. And no this doesn't mean living in communes or 5 year plans. It means doing the kind of things that they did in Argentina recently when, during an economic crisis, the bosses bailed out, leaving their factories behind them. The workers refused to accept unemployment, took over the factories and businesses and ran them themselves. Now that's the way to end poverty - cut out the capitalists.

Nuclear Power? ...no thanks ...yet again!

In a week that we heard of accidents at French nuclear plants its time to make it clear that we don't want more nuclear power. How did we get here? Ever since climate change, and the need to reduce our carbon outputs became accepted, the nuclear industry has cynically jumped on the bandwagon and has been pushing nuclear as a 'green' or even clean option. It hasn't helped that people like James Lovelock have endorsed the use of nuclear power.

But there is nothing green or clean about nuclear power, and in the UK there has been a culture of deception. In 1957 there was a serious accident at Windscale which was hushed up, we were told that nuclear power would be too cheap to meter - yet it has only been viable because of subsidies, and still nobody knows what to do with the high-level radioactive waste. Then there is the cost of nuclear waste disposal which has been estimated recently at £73 billion. Sir Walter Marshall, when he was head of the Atomic Energy Authority and the Central Electricity Generating Board in the 1980s, admitted that the public had been kept in the dark about accidents and the real costs of nuclear power. Should we expect things to have changed?

Of course we shouldn't expect New Labour to do anything other than pander to the wishes of big business. New Labour have dragged their feet over renewables and tried to sabotage the renewables directive on behalf of their chums in the energy companies. The fact is that they don't want sensible green solutions that would enable us to generate our own energy, they want high tech, big business solutions like nuclear because that would enable their chums to make an awful lot of money for a very long time - at the expense of us and the environment.

Free market failures

This blog has followed free market failures which have caused misery to millions. The free market failure known as the 'credit crunch' has been of particular interest because of its effect on he UK. Now we hear that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the two giant corporations providing 50% of mortgages in the US, are in deep trouble. Of course in a free market these corporations should be allowed to go bust.

But we know that won't happen because that would be a disaster, a disaster not because of the misery it would cause to millions - since when has that ever been a concern of the 'market' - but because it would truly expose the dark underbelly of capitalism and the dodgy banking system which underpins it - and it would turn millions in the west against the free market system. That is the real reason why it cannot be allowed to happen.

En vacances

Juste retour d'un grand vacances en France. Nous sommes allés à l'île de Ré et la Vallée de la Loire pendant dix jours. Sur l'île de Ré, qui est reliée à La Rochelle par un pont de 3 km, nous sommes restés à La Flotte. L'île a une histoire intéressante avoir été battu par les Anglais et les Français, et qui ont été bien connue pour son vin et le sel. Il est un superbe XVIIe siècle, ville fortifiée à St Martin de Re et quelques belles plages. Dans le Val de Loire nous sommes restés à Montsoreau, un village sur la Loire, qui se situe entre Samur et Chinon. Nous avons rendu visite à Chinon, l'Abbaye de Fontevraud, le château Montgeoffroy et le village troglodytique de Rochemenier. Juste à côté de Montsoreau est le charmant village de Candes-Saint-Martin qui a une belle église en son centre (voir photo). Nous avons terminé la holday par passer la nuit dans la ville de St Malo et la visite de notre bar favori à l'Hôtel de L 'Univers (voir photo).

And God created.......homosexuals

If you believe in God, and that God is our creator, you must also accept that God created homosexuals. New research has shown that homosexuals are born homosexual. Its not something they grow into, or some kind of lifestyle choice. They are made that way. So that must be what God, the great designer, intended, mustn't it?

As an atheist and a biologist I've never had any doubts that people are born gay and that being gay is natural, not some sort of abberation. Because I'm not encumbered with the baggage of the abrahamic religions, its not difficult for me to see that homosexuality is just part of natural diversity, a thing that you might expect to happen as part of evolutionary development.

Something tells me however, that no amount of research will ever convince many religious people of this fact. That is not because they are christians, jews or musllims but because they are bigots.

Hats off to the Irish!

So - the only EU member state out of 27 allowed a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty (i.e. the EU constitution) rejected it convincingly, thus scuppering the Treaty. How many other countries would have done so if they'd had the chance to vote?

Now we can expect Europe's leaders to show their usual contempt for the people of Europe by fixing it so that the treaty is adopted anyway.

The silence of the lambs

Compass, the group chaired by Neal Lawson claims to provide 'direction for the democratic left'. Neal recently wrote an article which was published in the Guardian. Here's an extract:

"Since 1979 Britain has lived in a Neverland of market fundamentalism that New Labour has mostly failed to challenge and too often sought to embed. From being the problem that social democracy existed to correct, markets were regarded as the cure-all."

Now I wouldn't disagree with this though I might have put it differently. But the issue that it raises is an important one. What have Neal and his fellow Compass Labour MPs been doing for the past 11 years? Why is it that only now when the New Labour project is unraveling that we hear from them?

The reality is that Neal and co. have have been sitting on their hands while Blair and Brown have been imposing reactionary free-market policies such as the privatisation of education and the NHS on the country. Its a bit late to start bleating about it now isn't it Neal! How can anyone who opposes New Labour and their policies take Compass seriously?

As a footnote - Compass are holding a conference today in London. I note that the attendees are the usual suspects - the London set of 'leftwing' luvvies - do they ever leave the capital and try to engage with the rest of us? - and features such well known lefties as Ed Milliband, Harriet Harman and James Purnell. So thats all right then. Our problems will be sorted.........

Capitalism creates poverty - its official!

Capitalism is an economic system, based on greed, which ignores the needs of people. It creates wealth for a tiny minority and poverty for the vast majority. It can never, and will never, eliminate poverty, and it is pointless New Labour pretending that it can. In fact, the New Labour government, which has slavishly followed an socially irresponsible, rapacious free- market capitalist model, has increased the gap between rich and poor and has increased poverty, and reduced equality and social mobility.

So it should come as no surprise to anyone that data released yesterday by the Department of Work and Pensions showed that child poverty and pensioner poverty is increasing - not diminishing. So another New Labour flagship policy bites the dust! Ultimately, we have to judge people by what they do - not what they say. New Labour has claimed to reduced poverty whilst pursuing free-market policies which increase poverty.

But it also has to be asked - why all the fuss about child poverty? Does that mean it is ok for adults to be poor? - I don't think so. Children live in poverty because their parents are poor. Take the adults out of poverty and you take the children out too! The parents of children in poverty are not unemployed. They work for a living. They are poor because they don't get paid enough for the work that they do - it is as simple as that. The people that employ them cream off the wealth for themselves. That is exploitation - the bedrock of free-market capitalism.

Instead of using taxpayers hard earned cash to subsidise the the wealthy and shareholders by paying the poor tax credits the government should be increasing the minimum wage, which at the moment is well below the poverty level, to at least 60% of the median UK wage. We also need a massive increase in pensions to raise the elderly out of poverty - £5 billion of pension credit was left unclaimed last year.

Remember - every time you eat in a restaurant or stay in a hotel your enjoyment is being subsidised by the poverty of the people who work there............ the Sex Pistols said it years ago in Holidays in the Sun - "Cheap holidays in other people's misery".

Suffer the children

Today, a report to the United Nations on the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) condemns the UK for treating children badly. This may come as a surprise to some but not to me. Since the age of about eleven I've been acutely aware of how badly this country treats young people. Since I've become an adult, and traveled more widely, I've noticed how other societies show more respect and love for their children. This is obvious to anybody who has spent time in France, for example.

We like to think we value children, and most modern parents certainly spend vast amounts (relative to their income) on them. But that is not the same as loving children and treating them with respect. The key issues identified in the report were: -

· A punitive juvenile justice system;

· Public attitudes that demonise teenagers;

· Lack of protection against physical punishment in the home;

· One of the highest levels of child poverty in Europe.

This is a very serious indictment of the society we live in. So what can be done about it? Well, we can start with our appalling education system, and I say this as someone who has worked as a teacher in secondary education. Its appalling because it is based on an elitist 19th century academic model which favours the rich and the middle class. All children suffer from this, including those who are educated privately, but the real losers are the working class and the poor. It is a system obsessed with testing and failing school students and one which pays no regard to vocational achievement. Look at countries like France and Germany - they have got it right - no wonder they are more successful economically and produce better adjusted individuals. They have kindergartens where young children learn to co-operate and socialise before they start to learn about other things. Then they have technical education where students can learn practical skills which are really valued.

Here, education is dominated by the malign, class-based influence, of the independent schools and right-wing pundits - the so-called experts. These people want us to return to the 19th century, where the children of gentlemen are sent to public schools and the rest are factory (or should I say free-market) fodder. That is their ambition for our children. It will be their children who are attending the public schools. Its just not possible to see how education in the country can ever be what our children deserve while it remains a political football dominated by reactionary views.

The overwhelming majority of kids and teenagers in this country are decent people. They are not delinquents. Those who are delinquents are overwhelmingly kids who have suffered deprivation. Young people care about the society they live in. Its about time we started to care about them.