Get You

A.C. Grayling galaxial bore and philosopher has a pop at cultural critics in the shape of wild person of the left Slavoj Zizek. Who are the happiest people on earth? Grayling asks, painters the rich, the recluse and critics " the cultural critics, as they are called, the self-selected radical quasi-philosophers (usually trained as sociologists or literary theorists) who enjoy the unaccountable, responsibility-free luxury of being able to criticise everything and everyone, to sneer and accuse, to blame and complain, to analyse, anatomise, judge and condemn, without fear of being asked to do better themselves." So there.

Grayling's target is Zizek's latest book 'Violence' in which the author essentially argues that the capitalist system is inherently violent (uncontroversial enough) but that the appropriate response to it is ... inaction a fairly controversail idea and one with which Grayling takes exception to. Grayling does quote the famous dictum on Marx's tomb against this recipe for inactivity which seems conclusive enough, but given the 'action' of the unions (especially in France) and the Labour party in Britain - maybe a period of inaction from them would be helpful.

It's true that the retort given by the right, "Well what you going to do about it." is infuriating and "Nothing." would be a disarming reply but Zizek'll have to do better than this. In any case, why didn't he follow his own maxim and not bother with his book. Though, perhaps he did and this was a different one.

Union weakness

Union power has always been a myth. They weren't that powerful in the 70's, alas, and couldn't even stand up to the Tories back in 1984, the miners and all that. So when they find themselves poised over New Labour's financial juglular for once they could have actually done something for their members and said - "Look - pay rise or you don't get paid.". Instead they cave in before they're even pushed and only call for ". . ."lifelong learning in the workplace, better protection for young workers, helping parents and carers to balance their home and working lives, and tackling crime..." because "They fear that if they push an agenda focusing exclusively on improved rights for unions, the main beneficiaries will be the Tories."

What the...? How...? whu...? eh?

Soldier fires on civilians

There are strict regulations determining when and where live rounds are distributed. So how the hell can this happen? The thirds prachute regimeny in Carcassonne were giving a demonstration when a soldier fired a round into a crowd. 16 people are seriously wounded. An accident? Really?

The predictable death of Labour England

Who cares about the New Labour Party - but at least if it's coming into being was nothing to do with the grass roots and the actual people it was meant to represent, let its demise be determined by those same, neglected people. But no, the ruling elite is calling the shots still, and pulling the plug on the whole sickening facade. "Sir Gerry [Robinson], a businessman who last gave money to Labour in 2005, told BBC News Mr Brown had put it in "probably an impossible position to come back from". That may well be but these rich fuckers should stay out of it.

"Sir Gerry, a former chairman of Granada television and drinks giant Allied Domecq who last year star starred in BBC TV series "Can Gerry Robinson Fix The NHS?", was among four party backers to speak out against Mr Brown's leadership in the Sunday Times.
They included businessman Sir Maurice Hitter, who told the newspaper Mr Brown did not have the "charisma" to lead the party and Sir Christopher Ondaatje, who attacked Mr Brown over his handling of the Northern Rock crisis.
Another donor, Everton chairman Bill Kenwright, told the newspaper the party had suffered an "energy bypass" and the leadership needed a "quantum change".
On Friday, Lord Levy, Mr Blair's former chief fundraiser, also suggested the party should change its leader, in an interview with BBC2's Newsnight.
But Alan Johnson, who will announce plans to end the "postcode lottery" for drugs in the NHS on Monday, insisted Mr Brown was still the right man to lead the country. "

It's scum like this who infected the party right at the time they knew Labour, anyone, could defeat the Tories. They got fat off the proceeds and now are shifting their ugly snouts and sniffing the Tories arses by distancing themselves from the Labour cadavre. It is a sign, all the same, that the ruling elite are, pleasingly, falling out amongst themselves as their cherished system splits at its bloated seams. Ho ho.


But, honestly, theses unelected upper class bastards almost make you want to support Gordon Brown if you didn't already hate the damned lot of them. It's a sorry terminus for the party but it brought the whole shit shower down on its own head. The illusion of British politics must continue - the people must be given the illusion of democratic change, and hence the Labour Party must be once again consigned to political oblivion. Until the Tories fuck it all up again and the sorry cycle repeats itself. Roll on the revolution.

Unknown riots

"Au milieu de la nuit, déjà, les mêmes adultes avaient essayé d'intervenir alors que le quartier était "en feu". Sans succès. "C'était de la rage, de la haine. Un énorme sentiment d'injustice par rapport à leur copain mort", raconte Mourad Bougueraira, un colosse de 30 ans, pilier du quartier. Une "éruption de colère comme un volcan qui explose", dit le maire, Jean-Pierre Bouquet (PS) : "Il s'agissait d'un déchaînement de violence, extrêmement brutal, très difficile à contrôler. Le signe, aussi, qu'on fait face, en France, dans notre société, à une violence latente qui peut surgir n'importe quand." "

[Surely you can translate this? - REL editorial team]

It's a familiar story. The member of a 'minority' group in society gets killed (this time by an drug dealing ex-soldier). The man, Mohamed D was in the wrong place at the wrong time (according to reports cited in Humanité) and gets shot in the head. Immediately, riots break out throughout Rome-Saint-Charles. The neighbourhood itself is disadvantaged, isolated from the rest of Vitry-le-François, with a 32% unemployment and 33% poverty rate and the local political situation is described as one of a "social and ethnic apartheid".


Three things about this episode stand out. Firstly, that social tensions in France remain extremely high. True, this was a horrible incident and people are right to be angry about it. However, the scale and ferocity of the rioting reveals the profound political, social and economic problems of inner-city life, not just in France but in the rest of Europe (riots and shootings have been part of the English social landscape for a number of years now, for example - eg the riots in Oldham and Bradford, and the recent bout of poor working class people gunning down other poor working class people in London this year). People are bitter about deeply entrenched inequalities that grind into their faces every minute of every day. They get harassed by the police, they feel they have failed in advance for that job interview and get bored and frustrated. It's not rocket science. Add to that the glitzy showbiz politics continuum that surrounds them/us, with its emphasis its boring boring emphasis on 'success' 'profit' winning money wealth all epitomised by the lizard politicians and their corporate backers and its relatively straightforward to see from whence the nihilism originates. For these lonely deaths in roads and streets and ambulances are definite signs of the political nihilism that has grown and festered in the mechanism of neoliberal politics for the last thirty years.

Secondly, and relatedly, the media response to this incident shows where its true concerns lie. Sure, if you get your car torched you're going to be upset, even taking into account the price of petrol these days. However, the standard response in the news articles, radio pieces and (rare) TV analysis concentrated exclusively on the damage to cars and police. Poperty is important. The police serve and protect. Supermarket shouldn't get smashed up. What's the problem there you might think. Well you fucking shouldn't. Notice the picture below. That's the image the MSM wants to enforce and reinforce in people's minds. That's what the Interior minister wants to reduce this affair to. She gets to look hard and tough and can mouth off about voyous and yobbos to her glassy heart's content. In doing so, she can minimise the story and criminalise the area (and the social explanations of it) and hence, (in her mind at least) absolve the state's role in producing the toxic social circumstances that create the riot conditions in the first place. Waving the pictures of burnt out cars and trashed trucks (they're only fucking cars for fucks sake - it's not that bloody tragic) is pure diversionary politics. Even (even?!) Humanité got sucked in or tried to suck its readership in with this tactic.

The aftermath and destruction take on an unduly prominent place in the narrative. There is no picture of the Mohamed D. (whose name wasn't even mentioned on the BFM TV bulletin coverning the story) who is erased from the scene for a second time. All that remains for the average viewer is that some yobbos attacked the police and burnt some cars - no story. The media's role is so embedded in the state's political projection that we might have to start studying Sovietology.
Finally, the story contrasts markedly with the fate of another youth on the receiving end of some violence recently.

"A Jewish teenager savagely beaten by a gang wielding metal bars in an apparently anti-Semitic attack in Paris came out of a coma Monday, hospital officials said. The 17-year-old had been in a coma after the attack Saturday evening by youths in Paris' multi-ethnic 19th district. The hospital treating him said Monday his condition was "improving." President Nicolas Sarkozy, in Israel for a state visit, led condemnation of the attack, expressing his "profound indignation" and reaffirming his "total determination to combat all forms of racism and anti-Semitism." Anti-Semitism is a sensitive issue in France, where the 600,000-strong Jewish community is western Europe's largest, and which is also home to a five-million strong Muslim population."

This story has received a lot of coverage over the last ten days or so even as it became clear that the anti-semitic element was not as clear cut as first appeared and when it came to light that the youth himself was known to police for racial violence himself. What is important though, is that the President himself condemned this act whilst remained silent on the murder of Mohamed D. It is interesting to note too, the nod and the hint contained in the last line of the AFP report and the fact (ok not at all sceintific) that if you hunt fot the Mohamed D story you get about 12000 hits on google but for the anti'semitic beatng, twice as many. This would be true if it was a 'white' boy getting a kicking of Chinese youth or a 'white' gang getting beaten up by 'black' gangs. The reporting shows the hierarchy and the types of social and ethnic apartheid that, as London celebrates Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday, (still) characterise our own inner cities.

Zimbabwe

Private Eye makes the analogy that the in "largely free and fair election" [BBC Today program] in March in Zimbabwe the opposition party only received 47% of the vote and, er, lost. The international condemnation and attacks on the country have been constant ever since - but that in Ireland were the Irish people clearly voted against the despised Lisbon treaty (53%), the people are being urged to vote again and get it right this time. Funny thing democracy. . . .

Our Royals are a bargian!

Stories like this make one sick to one' foi gras and champagne lined stomach. One's heasehold statisticians have found that one only costs the nasty little tax payers 66 pence each. Forfend, what do they complain about? Personally one is not amused about only being the cost of two cigarettes to the heaving masses and frankly the arz I put in one finds that a pay rise would be necessary. If we didn't own half the country in the first place hawahawahaw neigh brrr.