The killing in Woolwich is horrific because it is an everyday horror, brought to you live by mobile phone cameras. Television brings you close, it constantly puts you inside the action, and it's clear from this that any numpty with a meat cleaver can slaughter somebody in the street and in the process drag the political agenda down to the depths.
There will be a racist backlash. Probably some awful new law will be passed to 'deal' with the problem (there is no dealing, as such, with simple murder). The EDL have already rioted in South East London. The coming lumpen-Kristallnacht has already been prepared by years of Islamophobia. The only thing stopping it from happening is the anti-fascist movement.
Showing posts with label Racism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Racism. Show all posts
It's really very simple...
British Olympian Mo Farah was detained by US customs under suspicion of being a terrorist. All it took for the Sun to offer its solidarity was him winning two gold medals. There's a lesson in that for all of us. If only all Somali refugees could win gold medals we'd all be set and the Sun would be the pillar of civil liberties and anti-racism.
A new series - ACAB of the day - PC Alex McFarlane
Alex McFarlane, the pig who was recorded in August last year racially abusing a black man in back of a police van last year was today discharged after a second jury failed to reach a verdict on a charge of criminal racist abuse.
The recording includes McFarlane saying to Mauro Demetrio "The problem with you is that you will always be a n***er." It also includes one of his colleagues boasting about strangling Demetrio. Even through Demetrio reported the assault, and marks were left on his neck as evidence of it, no charges were brought. The CPS had tried to bring no charges at all. Indeed, when Demetrio handed his phone in to Forest Gate police station, PC Joe Harrington, another of the pigs who had been present at the assault arrested him on a trumped up accusation of theft from an ATM during the London riots. McFarlane was only charged following the publication of the recording on the internet, where it quickly went viral. You can listen to it here.
In case anyone's wondering how a jury can fail to reach a verdict in a case like this, it's worth bearing in mind that 90% of juries in this country are vetted by Special Branch (as revealed by Newsnight some 20 years ago).
The problem with PC Alex McFarlane is, he'll always be a copper. ACAB.
Olympics games bring everyone together... 55% of everyone.
Still a depressing figure :
The entire political class thinks though whimsy and daydreams (Boris Johnson wants state school sports to be just like it was when he was inb Eton - oh how jolly). We have to live with the nightmare.
The warm glow of Team GB's best performance in 104 years and pride in an Olympic Games well received at home and abroad have led a clear majority of the British public to conclude the £9bn they cost is good value for money.Clearly, very few of the respondants to the poll come from East London, where rents have more or less doubled in a year. But it's interesting given the relentless, noisy and often illogical promotion this event has been given. Not everyone loves Seb Coe. The Olympics is a brute festival of corporations and states. Despite the soft-left wishing really wishing hard, you just can't square that with any kind of progressive agenda, and it shows:
Despite the success of minority ethnic Britons such as the Somali-born 10,000m champion, Mo Farah, voters remain inclined to doubt that most newcomers do anything positive for Britain.
By a narrow 53%-47% margin, the survey finds agreement for the suggestion that "More often than not immigrants … do not bring anything positive, and the likes of the Olympic-winning athletes are an exception".
Faith in the contribution of immigrants is much stronger in London, where 62% disagree with this statement, and a majority of respondents aged under 45 likewise disagree, but among pensioners there are particularly marked doubts about newcomers – with 64% of the over-65s describing the Olympians as "exceptions".
Attitudes harden further when the question switches to immigration in general. Only 32% of respondents say the Olympic successes make them "more positive (or less worried)" about it, against just 68% who disagree.This is just one example, albeit the most pointed. This is where nationalistic tubthumping gets you, regardless of your intentions. Everyone in the mainstream wants to graft their own political outlook onto the Olympics, but some philosophies will do better than others. For David Cameron the British team's success at the Olympics proves that there is scandalous lack of competitive sport in schools (as opposed to "Indian dancing or whatever"). By that logic Britain's schools need more inclusive activities, not fewer. This is also something which he has only just noticed as, clearly, his mind was on something else when he got rid of the two-hour a week target, set by the previous Labour government.
The entire political class thinks though whimsy and daydreams (Boris Johnson wants state school sports to be just like it was when he was inb Eton - oh how jolly). We have to live with the nightmare.
Bus strike
It's a wonder Unite, the bus drivers union, still pays the Labour Party so much money, when it undermines its members interests like this, lets them down, so badly... But that's another story. Meanwhile, well done the bus drivers. Don't let the courts get in your way. Don't stop until you win.
Geography lesson with the International Olympic Committee
Airport delays could be solved by "a bit of racism"
But, because it's Jeremy Clarkson saying it, it will be ironic racism, and we'll all laugh heartily, like yuppies pissing on a homeless teenager. I do wonder what it's going to take to bring Clarkson down? Does he need to say something like: "I would like to see sections of the current population shot or gassed based on their skin colour, nationality, political opinions, physical fitness or level of income", before someone who is in charge of something says, "hang on a minute... that's not on". These are mere pipedreams. If he said that the Director General of the BBC would just shrug and reply: "he earns lots of money through DVD sales, what'd you want me to say?"
Because sooner or later everyone is deemed a 'victim'
George Zimmerman has hit the internet. The man who shot Trayvon Martin is trying to raise money for a legal defence. In his preamble he apparently says "On Sunday February 26th [night of the shooting], I was involved in a life altering event which led me to become the subject of intense media coverage". This is as opposed to Trayvon Martin, who was involved in a life ending event. Also Zimmerman wasn't "involved" in the event, that implies it was something that happened to him, he wasn't involved, he initiated the event; shooting an unarmed man is as pro-active as it gets.
Like bad pennies in broken jar
They just keep turning up! "Make sure you do a lot with your 60 grand because you're not gonna get it no more bruv..." Well done the lad for standing up to racist bullies. He is an absolute hero! Take down PC Alex MacFarlane, racist PC Alex MacFarlane, violent racist PC Alex MacFarlane, take him down, all the way. While we're on the subject DISBAND THE MET!
Well good gosh blimey!
Galloway by 10,000 in Bradford West. Who expected that? Obviously he doesn't mean the same to me today as a few years ago and the result probably won't disabuse him of the notion that it's all just him, superstar politician, but this is a good thing. The House of Commons is better for George Galloway being in it (though he's much better use to the cause getting out and about the country, like he did before the Iraq war). This is a good thing.
This, on the other hand is a bad thing:
Virtually everything is 'fundamentalist' according to our overlords these days. Shame on the Guardian for putting out filth like this, for going along with the racist smears.
This, on the other hand is a bad thing:
Virtually everything is 'fundamentalist' according to our overlords these days. Shame on the Guardian for putting out filth like this, for going along with the racist smears.
A fool or a knave?
Immigration and race are right wing wedge issues. The ruling class's wants a stratified and atomised work force in order to up the general rate of exploitation, boosting profits. That's the plan, anyway.
Modern governments are compelled to violently manipulate the working population. That's why, regardless of their political persuasion, a generation of Home Secretaries have tried to outbid their predecessors in obnoxious authoritarianism.
The only trouble is, at least for the Labour Party, is, as (former Home Secretary) David Blunkett has pointed out:
When you play this game you aren't triangulating but helping to shift political discourse to the right.
If Blunkett is sincere there is a degree of irony involved. He was the Minister who introduced the Britishness Test (because nationality can not only be measured but sorted into increments). Blunkett also had the children of asylum seekers segregated from other children to prevent swamping; yes, your children are being swamped by a tiny minority and no it's not to facilitate divide and rule, preventing local families getting dangerously familiar with potential refugees... oh no. Blunkett also did his bit to improve race relations in Britain by describing the young men incarcerated for trying to stop violent nazis from rampaging through their neighbourhoods as whining maniacs.
Erstwhile war-supporters used to say things along the line of "it's all very well making these points with the benefit of hindsight". The obvious answer was that many of us seemed to have the benefit of foresight. If Blunkett knew all this before and during his career in government then he is a deeply cynical man. If he's only just realised this now he's merely a total and utter fool.
Modern governments are compelled to violently manipulate the working population. That's why, regardless of their political persuasion, a generation of Home Secretaries have tried to outbid their predecessors in obnoxious authoritarianism.
The only trouble is, at least for the Labour Party, is, as (former Home Secretary) David Blunkett has pointed out:
You can't outdo the Conservatives in relation to immigration.
When you play this game you aren't triangulating but helping to shift political discourse to the right.
If Blunkett is sincere there is a degree of irony involved. He was the Minister who introduced the Britishness Test (because nationality can not only be measured but sorted into increments). Blunkett also had the children of asylum seekers segregated from other children to prevent swamping; yes, your children are being swamped by a tiny minority and no it's not to facilitate divide and rule, preventing local families getting dangerously familiar with potential refugees... oh no. Blunkett also did his bit to improve race relations in Britain by describing the young men incarcerated for trying to stop violent nazis from rampaging through their neighbourhoods as whining maniacs.
Erstwhile war-supporters used to say things along the line of "it's all very well making these points with the benefit of hindsight". The obvious answer was that many of us seemed to have the benefit of foresight. If Blunkett knew all this before and during his career in government then he is a deeply cynical man. If he's only just realised this now he's merely a total and utter fool.
Jim Crows again...
The state of Alabama has passed a law making immigration all but a crime in itself. The same law also allows private prisons to use prisoners far more extensively for work. A Guardian writer wonders where this is going?
It has been well observed that the American prison industry is huge. The justice system is a racist system, the cutting edge of a racist society, disproportionately punishing ethnic minorities. Work is effectively forced. Slavery has effectively been restored.
But the relation of work to compulsion and control. We are all wage slaves. We don't need a whip, merely an alarm clock to make us fall into line. We don't have to work for anyone in particular, but we have to work for someone. What the capitalist class wants is, in effect, labour like water. It can turn the tap off and on as and when it needs to.
The capitalist class's plan, it's only plan, for dealing with the current depression is to hold down costs, especially wages, and export. Individually this makes sense, as a collective this is madness, but competitive accumulation drives this system, the first point of view must dominate. Racist laws such as the one passed in Alabama are not just an attack on a people but a class, an experiment in setting a new, lower baseline in working class life. A portion of the working class will go from working for next to nothing to all but nothing, a further downward pressure on all working people, at least in Alabama. It is another illustration why the working class, if it is to be a class for itself, for its own interests, must be staunchly anti-racist.
The difference between Alabama and adjoining states is that it is willing to go further down this track. Recently, John McMillan, agriculture commissioner, proposed that the farm work left behind by immigrant workers be supplied with inmate labor. Decatur, a private detention center about 50 miles to the north-west of Alabama, which had been unable to find jobs for inmates, has now witnessed record numbers of requests for labor (for an estimated 150 detainees a day).
So, here is how it goes. First, the state passes a harsh immigration law. Then, it detains large numbers of immigrants. Third, private prisons (LCS, CCA, GEO) receive fresh inmates. And finally, the artificially created labor shortage is supplied by the new inmates. Does this sound like modern-day slavery to anyone?
It has been well observed that the American prison industry is huge. The justice system is a racist system, the cutting edge of a racist society, disproportionately punishing ethnic minorities. Work is effectively forced. Slavery has effectively been restored.
But the relation of work to compulsion and control. We are all wage slaves. We don't need a whip, merely an alarm clock to make us fall into line. We don't have to work for anyone in particular, but we have to work for someone. What the capitalist class wants is, in effect, labour like water. It can turn the tap off and on as and when it needs to.
The capitalist class's plan, it's only plan, for dealing with the current depression is to hold down costs, especially wages, and export. Individually this makes sense, as a collective this is madness, but competitive accumulation drives this system, the first point of view must dominate. Racist laws such as the one passed in Alabama are not just an attack on a people but a class, an experiment in setting a new, lower baseline in working class life. A portion of the working class will go from working for next to nothing to all but nothing, a further downward pressure on all working people, at least in Alabama. It is another illustration why the working class, if it is to be a class for itself, for its own interests, must be staunchly anti-racist.
Margaret Hodge is against the BNP making racist and divisive statements
That's her preogative!
Not so much a problem of whether immigration is a net gain or loss to British society and its working class but whether politicians have been making promises they can keep.
There have been numerous social systems that have given sections of the population preferential access to public resources before. In America they called it Jim Crow, in South Africa they called it Apartheid. Am I being unfair? Hell no! We are not so innocent as Margaret Hodge. Racism is a system and a code. Long-term residents in this case means white people. Indeed, the following sentence in the Grauniad report says:
Grisly nonsense, and not in the slightest bit pro-working class. It is, as Len suggests:
The working class is black, white and every shade inbetween. If there are Alf Garnetts in the working class then there are at least as many Frank Owens, it's about time someone spoke out for latter, instead of pandering to the former.
Margaret Hodge, the MP for Barking who won a hard-fought general election victory over the British National party, has accused Labour and the Conservatives of misleading the public over immigration.
The former children's minister told the Guardian that both parties have been playing a "numbers game" by claiming that they can cut the amount of people entering Britain. She said Labour should argue that the past decade's rise in immigrant numbers is simply a result of globalisation and that "people will come here, one way or another".
Not so much a problem of whether immigration is a net gain or loss to British society and its working class but whether politicians have been making promises they can keep.
In a move that may upset some Labour supporters, she also reiterated calls for resources such as housing to be prioritised for those who have lived in Britain for longer.
There have been numerous social systems that have given sections of the population preferential access to public resources before. In America they called it Jim Crow, in South Africa they called it Apartheid. Am I being unfair? Hell no! We are not so innocent as Margaret Hodge. Racism is a system and a code. Long-term residents in this case means white people. Indeed, the following sentence in the Grauniad report says:
Her comments come as Labour has conceded that it must do more to woo white working class voters.
Grisly nonsense, and not in the slightest bit pro-working class. It is, as Len suggests:
A purely sentimental, pseudo-ethnic model of class, in which a working class person is defined by certain sumptuary and sartorial habits, attributes which make for convenient genre markers but which by themselves yield no sociological insight. It is an object of nostalgia and melancholia, the deus ex machina of reactionary polemic that strictly does not coincide with the working class as it actually lives and reproduces itself.
The working class is black, white and every shade inbetween. If there are Alf Garnetts in the working class then there are at least as many Frank Owens, it's about time someone spoke out for latter, instead of pandering to the former.
Vous avez obtenu les pistolets de rayon muslamic
Yet more evidence, see here. So, in honour of alleged enlightenment values and secularism we've translated (meaning Babelfished) Muslamic Ray Guns into French:
See, it all makes complete sense now, doesn't it?
I m ici à protester bien Je vais sur une marche la cause I veulent que la Grande-Bretagne soit en arrière les Anglais. Je veux que la Grande-Bretagne soit en arrière les Anglais. I' m allant sur une marche la cause i veulent que la Grande-Bretagne soit en arrière les Anglais Je veux que la Grande-Bretagne soit au sujet des Anglais Vous avez obtenu la loi inter-racial et l'infidèle muslamic; essai re d'obtenir leur loi au-dessus de notre pays et son événement, il se produit, it's se produisant dans d'autres pays it' ; s se produisant dans d'autres pays, comme, comme you' ; le obtenu, you' ; le VE a obtenu… Vous avez obtenu les pistolets de rayon muslamic, pistolets de rayon muslamic. Vous avez obtenu les pistolets de rayon muslamic, pistolets de rayon muslamic. Pistolets de rayon, pistolets de rayon. Vous avez obtenu les pistolets de rayon muslamic, pistolets de rayon muslamic. Vous avez obtenu les pistolets de rayon muslamic, pistolets de rayon muslamic. Pistolets de rayon, pistolets de rayon.
See, it all makes complete sense now, doesn't it?
Some not especially original thoughts on the (almost) tenth anniversary of 9/11
In a few weeks time we may well be asked to remember 9/11 - so lets. Observations in no particular order:
1. The event itself was long coming and yet a surprise as well. The organisation Al-Qaeda (sometimes translated as meaning 'the base') is said to have been founded in the late eighties. It was a highly neo-liberal organisation. If it exists today it is more of a devolved franchise than close-knit conspiracy.
In 1993 the World Trade Centre was attacked by a truck bomb. In 1998 several American embassies in Africa were bombed. In 2000 the USS Cole came under attack. There had been several audacious and deadly attacks by people connected to Al-Qaeda before 9/11. It was immediately obvious to everyone not deranged and/or ideologically blind, that the attacks were connected to the sustained and ongoing western imperial intervention in the Middle East.
Yet the event was a shock. Despite the ongoing effects of the fin-de-siecle recession most parts of the world not starving were stupefied. Despite the grand efforts of the anti-capitalist movement (who lets not forget brought the word capitalism back into common use), force, hatred, history and all that seemed an anachronism.
9/11 was a shock, then a stimulus. The global right received a boost, equivalent to a huge dose of political viagra. Following 9/11 every incident around the globe became 'our 9/11'. The American right loved 9/11. If it didn't it wouldn't to this day be trying to recreate that wonderful, priapic rush. I say 'priapic' with just cause. 9/11 let the Republicans unleash all their ultimate fantasies, dramatically extended surveillance, a global system kidnap and torture, and a theory of war based on overwhelming technological superiority. Goodness me, the abiding political verb at the time was 'saddamize'. Clearly someone had been anticipating something like this, some spectacular event, emancipating the Republican libido. The Patriot Act is 342 pages long, the length of an average novel. It was printed and passed on October 24th 2001... not a case of writers block.
The global anti-war movement was a vital and inspiring movement, a reaction to the crazy aggression of the western powers. However it, at best, struggled to a score draw. American and British politicians, especially, fear another Iraq-like war and the effect it would have on the public back home. NATO's apparent triumph in Libya may help it reign in the Arab Spring and revive the notion of humanitarian intervention... then again there may be surprises in store. We shall see. But on the matter of war and humanitarian intervention:
2. You can't fight a war without dehumanising your enemy. War on an abstract noun is a bit difficult; terror is bulletproof. You have to fight some people. Again, it's a bit difficult to fight a decentralised, extra-territorial organisation. Al-Qaeda don't stand in the open yelling "shoot me, shoot me". The Axis of Evil was a useful makeshift. This war was to be a mopping up operation for the End of History. The only problem was the Axis of Evil (as some actually existing alliance of doom) made absolutely no sense.
The consensus on our enemy has settled on muslim extremism. The only problem with that is it frequently is elided into muslims in general. In Britain the EDL have simply taken mainstream consensus a step further, their enemy is brown people in general.
We are living with this toxic politics still. Racists love it. Divide and rule is essential to capitalist government. But what about the strange reaction of several prominent, professed left-wingers? The answer is well known, but lets go over it again. The immediate answer goes back to the soporific decade before 9/11. In such times it is difficult for socialists to differentiate themselves from the well-intentioned amiable rootless drifting social reformers who clog up our world. Once the need arose for definitive answers and decisive action a section of the nominal left split - leaving a trail of bitter and egregious articles in its wake: the left must this, the left should that, we need a decent left (not comprised of "rough train drivers" and "Marxist-Leninists") and so on. The only legitimate political actor is now the state, any attempt to solve the world's problems by a movement from below inevitably ends in gulags (those rough train drivers!). Whereas rightists might assert the superiority Judeo-Christian values or some such, liberals elevate enlightenment values. Forget for a moment that the enlightenment was not necessarily liberal or nice by modern standards; the result is the same, they believe in the superiority of ruling class white westerners. Ugly, isn't it?
A portrait of the fascist as a vain man
Know your enemy, Anders Behring Breivik; look at him. He is out to kill you. He and his associates are out to destroy everyone and everything you hold dear.
Even from these collated pictures you can see he is a walking study in the fascist mindset. Megalomania, self-importance mixed with a dominator complex. The flip side of megalomania is paranoia, hence, for example, his fixation on the alleged 'marxist/multiculturalist' conspiracy. He also has severe logorrhoea.
His manifesto, which is now getting worldwide attention, is supposedly 1,500 pages long; phew! Excerpts appearing in the news, including praise for various people and groups, Mel Philips, Jeremy Clarkson, the English Defence League, have highlighted a crucial point for anti-fascist politics.
The mainstream right, populist right and fascist right are cross-fertilising. Rightists of all kinds are using racism in general, islamophobia in particular, as their wedge issue, their cutting edge. Fascist or not, they are reinforcing each other at every turn, co-ordinating across Europe and America to bring violence and fear to our streets. We need a Europe-wide anti-fascist alliance.
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