David Icke. Alex Jones. Ron Paul. The Zeigeist Movement. President Andrew Jackson. What do all these people have in common? No, they’re unfortunately not the next line up of Celebrity Big Brother. They are however a series of individuals and “movements” who despite having little sway over most political thought in the world today, have made a disturbing encroachment into movements against austerity, cuts and for social justice. This blog has already covered a few of these individuals before. And we’d be lying if we didn’t find the occasional presence of Alex Jones or David Icke amongst the internets a comedy joy we’ve all indulged in frequently.
But there is a time and a place for Alex Jones and David Icke, and that time is 3o’clock in the morning, pished, going on you tube -- NOT inside movements for real, radical social change in the UK or anywhere else. This isn’t a call that everyone inside these movements must be 100% Marxists or Socialists. Far from it, we need to engage with people who are not already activists. It’s about recognising that the ideas promoted by the groups and individuals outlined in the beginning of this post aren’t just misguided and wrong -- they’re actively dangerous to any real success over the economic misrule and capitalism.
David Icke knows Boyzone will destroy the lizard people
The groups and individuals are quite diverse, ranging from a US Democratic President in the 1800’s, a Republican Congressman standing for President and a former Grandstand presenter who thinks he is Jesus and that the world is run by lizards. What could possibly unite such a disparate group? The answer is that they are all people who have argued against the forces of the wealthy and powerful in society -- generally the banks and financial institutions. So how are they any different from socialists?
The difference lies in their analysis of what problems the bankers cause, what should replace them and how they go about trying to enact that change. Their analysis ranges from completely insane to explicitly racist, and their solutions from ineffective to backwards and reactionary. The base of their analysis is that the world economic crisis is a problem inflicted by specific forms of banking (such as fractional reserve banking) and financial management, and that ultimately it is bankers and not capitalism and class society that is to blame.
These individuals obviously don’t agree on everything -- Ron Paul’s not mentioned Lizard control over the Royal Family in the GOP debates, at least not yet -- but what they basically agree on runs something like this; Banks developed their wealth and power at the expense of hardworking people (typically small businesses and artisans). They now use this wealth and power to enslave governments and control culture, media, politics, and social attitudes in a range of countries, as well as initiating wars for their own benefit. Often the phrase “International Bankers” is used interchangeably with Jews, or “Zionists”, alleging that the world is in the thrall of a gigantic Jewish-Banker conspiracy.
Alex Jones rocks out against the globalists
These theories have been able to make some headway on the left because there is a grain of truth in what they say about bankers, if not Jews. Bankers have historically used their economic power to influence society, and have a long history of exploitation of both the developing world and the working class in the West. The problem is that banks are just one part of a system of exploitation called capitalism. In capitalism the work people do to produce commodities is sold on at a profit to the employer. These employers are not just bankers, but range from retailers, oil companies, mines, factories, restaurants and so on. Banks are a fundamental part of that system, as the profit is invested in banks which then use this money to make more money, to invest in other industries and to lend so people can continue to buy products without having to raise wages.
This is the real cause of the economic crisis, and properly identifies what role the bankers played. In the past, if people wanted to buy stuff -- like cars, clothes or houses -- they either had to save up for it, or get a modest loan that was based on their ability to repay it. This meant working class people had to be paid enough so they could buy the things capitalism produced -- whether it was trainers or tellies. Karl Marx identified the problem with this a hundred years ago -- the companies which want to sell the working class trainers at £50 a pop are the same companies who want to pay them 10p an hour. Recessions come and go in capitalism because inevitably companies end up producing goods at the same time they try to keep wages down, so the working class cannot buy their goods and the companies end up going bankrupt.
For the past 30 years capitalism thought it had a way out of this problem -- make it easier for working class people to borrow lots of money, so that way they can still buy the products without having to increase wages. This kept capitalism booming, even though for the past 30 years wages in the USA have been stagnating. It also meant as well as having money to pay for consumer goods, working class people now had to pay money to banks in interest. This is what the banks have done -- lending billions of the profits working people made, so that the same people would keep buying and capitalism would stay afloat. This was not just a system endorsed by the banks, it was in the interests of capitalism as system -- every corporation, company, and business now had a market of indebted workers to sell to, and could continue to depress the wages of their workers safe in the knowledge that they could borrow money to buy their products.
Sensible and accurate version of why capitalism and the banks have collapsed
Eventually this illusion, that people could continue to afford things that were way beyond the wages they earned, came to a dramatic end with the economic crisis in 2008. This crisis began with the collapse of the housing bubble in the USA -- where banks like Freddie Mae had offered loans to people with poor credit ratings, so they could own their own houses and keep capitalism afloat. When it became clear that the Emperor had no clothes, and the housing repayments couldn’t be made, banks in the western world collapsed requiring the bailouts we’ve all heard about. The banks loaned money they couldn’t repay -- using a system called fractional reserve banking -- where they only had a fraction of the deposits people made to the banks in their accounts, while the rest was loaned out. In order to stop people losing billions of their savings, governments stepped in to guarantee these funds.
So there’s plenty of very real criticism to be made of the banks -- the fact they recklessly lent to boost their own profits, and when the shit hit the fan instead of taxing the super-rich to plug the gap, they were bailed out with public money. What should have been done is something similar to what Greg Philo and Glasgow Uni Media Group have argued for -- a one off 10% wealth tax on the richest (who made their money predominantly through the financial bubble) to pay for the mess they caused.
Unfortunately this is not what Alex Jones, Ron Paul et al call for. They won’t argue for wealth redistribution, because by their own admission they aren’t Socialists -- they are paleo-conservative Republicans. They may be Republicans who oppose the War on Terror, the developing attack on civil liberties in the USA or ongoing funding to Israel, but they all absolutely believe in capitalism -- and that the problem with the economic crash of 2008 is not the free market, but bizarrely, “socialism”. Jones says big corporations and big government are the same, in contradiction to everything that the right-wing in the USA and Europe actually rolled back. People like Jones, Ron Paul, Icke etc draw many of their ideas from a very reactionary period of US political history during the 1800’s in which the United States of America was half-feudal and half-industrial -- or as Abraham Lincoln described it “half slave and half free”.
The United States was divided in two -- the North, in which slavery was abolished and an industrial revolution was starting, and the South where the economy was based on slavery, and was backwards and feudal. In this topsy turvy time it was the Democrat Party which was racist and pro-slavery, and it was the Republican Party that wanted to ultimately abolish the institution of slavery. At that time the Republican Party correctly saw that slavery would keep the United States trapped in a backward, medieval economy. The profits made by keeping slavery going would make an industrial revolution impossible. Slavery stopped the development of a paid working class, that is necessary to consume the products of industrialisation. The South was at that time a massive producer of cotton on the backs of slave labour, and was in practice a colony of European powers who wanted to buy cotton for use in their Industrial Revolution.
US Civil War
There were many honest Republicans at that time who found slavery morally abhorrent, but the alterior motivation for Republican opposition to slavery was their backing from the new American capitalist class. This class wanted the abolition of slavery so they could compete against the Southern economy, and so white Southern workers could be paid to do the jobs of the slaves. In short they wanted to develop the United States into a modern capitalist country like Britain or France, knowing that the untapped resources of the North American continent would make them a superpower.
The Democrats position was based on “states rights” -- which meant defending the rights of states to uphold slavery. Their arguments were based on racist opposition to the emancipation of slaves, and the desire to keep large parts of the USA in a feudal state. As part of this outlook, many Democrats had a crude, populist opposition to capitalism. They opposed banks and the expansion of big business, believing it would enslave white Americans. Instead they promoted a vision of the USA as a continent where all whites would be able to own their own farms and businesses as independent artisans, farmers, shop keepers and craftsmen -- with slaves to assist them.
Democrats were hostile to the industrial revolution and the development of modern capitalism because they saw (correctly) that capitalism would eliminate this parochial economic system -- replacing farmers with agrobusiness, shopowners with department stores, gold whittlers with mines etc. This process was no picnic. Capitalism was ruthless in destroying feudal opposition to it’s development, and the working conditions -- most notoriously those of Victorian Britain -- are infamous for their depravity.
BUT… capitalism was a massive improvement on what had preceded it, which was the rule of Kings and Queens, and an economy run along the whims of unelected noblemen. Capitalism produced economic growth on a scale unheard of in human history -- the development of modern industry, the mass production of consumer goods, the move from the country to the city, and most importantly, the rise of the working class. This is the most important part for socialists as now the group of people who produced clothes, dug the mines, ran the railways etc could be organised, and could eventually become the rulers of a new society -- a socialist one.
One Democrat who owned slaves at this time, President Andrew Jackson, became infamous for his opposition to any central bank for the USA using his veto power to overrule it. Jackson today is heralded by many anti-banking Occupy activists for this stance. But Jacksons opposition to banking was not based on any socialist or even progressive desire for the working class to rule society -- it was about defending small businesses and the institution of slavery against this massively powerful and dynamic economic system, that threatened to overpower all religious, nationalist and feudal opposition to it
President Andrew Jackson
Writing at the time Karl Marx identified these kind of “anti-capitalists” as feudal socialists,
“In this way arose feudal Socialism: half lamentation, half lampoon; half an echo of the past, half menace of the future; at times, by its bitter, witty and incisive criticism, striking the bourgeoisie to the very heart’s core; but always ludicrous in its effect, through total incapacity to comprehend the march of modern history”
Put simply, while many anti-banking forces in the 1800’s had legitimate points about the unaccountability of these financial institutions, their opposition fundamentally came from a desire to maintain an unfair, feudal and backward society. At that time Marx identified Capitalism as a brutal, but progressive force -- one of the reasons why he wrote a letter of congratulations to Lincoln during the US Civil War for crushing feudalism and the slave economy of the South.
This radical transformation of society, from feudalism to capitalism terrified and alarmed many people in Europe and the USA. These societies existed during a time when the theories of race were commonly accepted and discussed as a science -- to justify both slavery and the imperial exploitation of Africa and other colonies. As well as racist prejudice one other common bigotry was anti-Semitism, the hatred of Jews. As capitalism developed, producing transnational, global insitutions many racists alarmed at this transformation identified the enemy behind it -- that of the Jew. As part of anti-semitic prejudice throughout Europe, Jews were forced into jobs in the financial sector that Christians deemed immoral -- like banking. So when the industrial revolution was financed by and empowered banks with Jewish owners anti-semites saw a conspiracy by the Jewish race to enslave the white Christian race.
So much wrong in just one picture
The most notorious subject of these anti-Semitic conspiracy theories was the Rothschild Family. The Rothschilds were an extremely wealthy and powerful banking family during the 1800’s, who exercised massive influence over the developing capitalist economies of Europe and North America. This combination of power and Judaism made them the frequent target of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. As a major banking institution there’s no question the Rothschild’s would have been involved in underhand and conspiratorial plans to influence governments and secure their markets -- but the accusations labelled at the Rothschilds go way beyond criticism of bankers influence, and into conspiracy nonsense about world Jewish plots to enslave the world. For example, the Rothschilds were accused of both funding American Capitalism and Russian Bolsheviks, a ridiculous allegation that had it’s base in anti-socialist racist sentiment. Many anti-Semites were disturbed at the challenge global capitalism posed to nation states sovereignty and could not understand the power of the economic system they faced, so instead chose to blame it on conspiratorial groups.
These ideas -- anti-banking sentiment of small business Democrats, and anti-semitic opposition to the Rothschilds -- unfortunately haven’t remained in the past. They continue to be advocated by people like Zeitgeist, Alex Jones and David Icke. This piece by Norfolk Community Action Group criticizes the influence these forces have in the occupy movement,
“The populist narrative is also an integral part of the political views of conspiracy theorists, far right activists, and anti-Semites. For anti-Semites, the elites are the Jews; for David Icke, the elites are the reptilians; for nationalists, they are members of minority ethnic, racial, or religious groups; for others, they are the “globalists,” the Illuminati, the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, the Federal Reserve, etc. All of these various conspiracy theories also tend to blend in and borrow from each other. Additionally, the focus on “Wall Street” also has specific appeal to those who see the elite as represented by finance capital, a particular obsession of the anti-Semites, Larouchites, followers of David Icke, etc. “The Rothschilds” are the favorite stand-in codeword of choice to refer to the supposed Jewish control of the banking system.”
The “Rothschild Zionists” feature in both Alex Jones and Icke’s material -- which blame a 200 year old banking institution for conspiratorial involvement in global capitalism. The reality is that the Rothschilds influence declined by the early 1900s -- blaming them for the financial crisis is like blaming the British East India company for the ongoing exploitation of Asia. The Rothschilds have been surpassed and overtaken by new financial institutions.
So why do they continue to be prevalent in conspiracy theories related to banking? Because in the USA, when people are discontent and angry at the banks instead of looking to socialism -- which has historically been weak in the USA -- they go back to the most prominent anti-banking ideas and figures, which unfortunately are anti-semitic. Likewise many bankers are identified as “Rothschild Zionists” by Icke who clearly have no familial connection to the Rothschild family at all -- like David Miliband and DSK. But it’s ok, as Icke explains:
“I should also stress that when I say ‘Rothschild’, I don’t only mean those called ‘Rothschild’, nor even all of the people who are known by that name. There are many in the Rothschild family and its offshoots who have no idea what the hierarchy is doing and there are many ‘Rothschilds’ who don’t carry the name itself.
When I say ‘Rothschild’, I am referring to the Rothschild bloodline because, as I have detailed in my books, they have long had breeding programmes that produce offspring that are brought up under other names.”
This is effectively an excuse to link all Jewish people in areas of power together, based on racist ideas of “bloodlines”, and using the code “Zionist” instead of what people really mean, which is Jew. Whatever crimes have been committed in the Zionist enterprise of the State of Israel against the Palestinians, the idea a country of five million Israelis control international finance is absurd and only makes sense if you believe in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.
Last year SSY wrote about how an internet documentary called Zeitgeist played upon many of these conspiracy theories around finance, with reference to the banks. As well as the Zeitgeist movement another video has been doing the rounds -- this one was posted by Occupy Glasgow:
The documentary is nowhere near as anti-Semitic as Icke’s rants. But it does have the same disturbing focus on the Rothschilds -- along with lizardesque imagery for bankers -- and puts slaveowner and Native American killer President Jackson in a good light. It makes its focus the inequities of the banking system -- many of its criticisms have a point, such as the fact that the US Federal Reserve isn’t actually publically owned, but controlled by unaccountable and unelected bankers who have the power to control the US currency. However all of it stems from the same Jacksonian fear of big business and banking and not capitalism itself. Taking a look at its website -- called “The American Dream” -- it identifies the “good guys” as Alex Jones, The Cato Institute, The Drudge Report and other right-wing sites. They also link to Ron Paul, a Libertarian Republican who thinks someone dying from lack of medical care is choosing ‘freedom’.
The 99% can fuck off and die if they don’t have health insurance
Elsewhere on its website it calls for less government intervention in medicare, social security and federal spending. In short, a demand that the Government’s debt should be cut so we aren’t slaves to evil bankers -- regardless of the massive job cuts entailed. They also ask you to be more like your grandfather, and not get into debt -- ignoring that consumer debt would not be as massive if peoples wages went up at the same rate as profits in the USA. There’s also consideration to reintroduce the gold standard -- that is link the value of your currency to the amount of gold you have. It’s very popular amongst the headbanger right, particularly with Glenn Beck fans, who like the idea as if you have gold the bankers can’t control you with their easily printed “fiat” money. But why would you want to organise a society’s currency on the value of a base metal, and have it fluctuate depending on mining rates? And why is it people who are demanding a rush to the gold standard are quite happy to sell you lots of precious gold for your useless fiat money?
The new Shitegeist
Jones, Ron Paul and the libertarian US right don’t call for the debt to be paid by taxing the rich, or for the economy to be restructured on need. This is because they’ve picked anti banking sentiment from a time when small scale traders were trying to survive against the onslaught of capitalism -- a hopeless and reactionary struggle. Trying to solve the world economic crisis by trying to resurrect an economic system from 200 years ago is doomed to failure -- it couldn’t withstand the force of capitalism then, in its progressive phase and it can’t stand against it now even if it’s clearly dying. What’s neccessary is a movement which organises not in the interests of small businesses vs banks, but workers and the poor vs all strands of capitalism. Only then will the interests of the 99% genuinely be enforced.
This week, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) fired the latest salvo in the Government’s increasingly farcical response to the manufactured panic around ‘designer drugs’- in other words substances that are created and marketed specifically to get around existing drug laws.
The ‘designer drugs’ story has all the ingredients of the best tabloid moral panics- an external threat to demonise (count how many of the sensationalist news items mentioned ‘South-East Asian laboratories’), an ’insidious’ technology that has changed society (They bought this filth ONLINE?!?!) and, of course, us feckless, wayward young people, simultaneously victim and villain, falling prey to evil Chinese megachemists cos we’d rather get mwi than get a haircut. Or something like that.
It’s a pretty neat package for establishment figures, both in the media and the state- it sells papers, provides an easy way for the government to look TOUGH ON CRIME, and provides a nice ideological smokescreen for increasing police powers. When the establishment stumbles on a win-win situation like that, the truth often gets lost (or callously exploited, depends on your point of view) somewhere in between hyperbolic headlines and self-serving ‘get tough’ schemes. As we’ve reported here before, the whole mephedrone scare was triggered by um, police getting the name of a drug wrong.
However, government have come to realise that, by their very nature, trying to legislate against designer drugs is basically a fuckin nightmare. Take the near-inconceivable chemical complexity of the human brain, throw in millions of people determined to take drugs and willing to pay for it, then add the internet, and you’ll see that it’s just too cheap, easy and profitable to create and sell new drugs for legislators to keep up.
Which brings me to the ACMD’s proposed solution. The chair of the ACMD, Les Iversen, has recommended that we adopt American-style ‘analogue’ laws, which would make any substance ‘substantially similar’ to a banned drug automatically subject to the same penalties. Sound like a neat catch-all solution to a thorny legal problem? Well, not quite.
For one thing, the American analogue law is horribly vague, with literally no grounding in medicine or chemistry. The wording is so ambiguous that some critics
What our artist thinks designer drugs might do.
have suggested that it technically renders naturally occurring neurochemicals illegal- for example dopamine, which plays a crucial function in every human brain and is synthesised as a medicine, is arguably ‘substantially similar’ to speed or meth. In the absence of any actual science, the decision on what counts as an ‘analogue’ falls to subjective and socially-determined factors like the class and status of users, how the drug is marketed, and the ‘perceived’ effects (as both scientists and drug users will tell you, how drug effects are experienced is largely dependent on ‘set and setting’- factors like where and with whom you take the drugs and what you expect from them. In other words, perceived effects are largely determined by the previously mentioned social factors.)
What this means in practice is that police and courts make these decisions based on profiles of users and the reasons they take drugs, leading to increased criminalisation and persecution of already-marginalised groups like young people and the very poor. When examined closely, analogue laws present a picture that pretty much gives the lie to the idea that drug laws exist to reduce harm to society, rather suggesting that they’re drug laws for drug law’s sake, seeking to criminalise certain forms of drug use as part of a moral crusade against the social norms of ‘deviant’ sections of society. One Colorado judge ruled that the Analogue Act was ‘unconstitutionally vague’ and that it ‘provides neither fair warning nor effective safeguards against arbitrary enforcement’. A cynical person might suggest that that’s kind of the point.
Now, I personally think it’s unlikely (though not impossible) that the UK will adopt analogue laws. For one thing, they run contrary to the common law principle that you have the right to know beforehand what is illegal and what isn’t. For another, the vague wording makes them notoriously hard to get a conviction under. However the interesting point is that this profoundly unscientific suggestion came from the ACMD, supposedly the body that advises the government on drug science. So how did the independent academic body that once pressured the Thatcher government into setting up needle exchanges, despite the powerfully anti-drug message of coked-up 80s Tories, become an unscientific front for legitimising the War on Drugs?
Just sayin like...
The process arguably began in 2004 under the Blair government. New Labour, as we know all too well, kind of has a thing for manufacturing evidence to support their policies, and the ACMD’s role as, well, people who’re supposed to tell the truth, represented a bit of an obstacle to that. In the wake of the invasion of Iraq, the massively unpopular Labour Government was searching for a nice headline-grabbing distraction that would cast them in a good light, and they landed on the scourge of people giggling and seeing pretty patterns in wallpaper. At that time, although the active ingredient of magic mushrooms was illegal, the law did not prohibit the sale or possession of mushrooms themselves. Labour decided, bastards that they are, that it would be a good idea to launch a crackdown on mushroom use and unilaterally made them a Class A drug without consulting the ACMD. This decision was, in fact, illegal, as the Misuse of Drugs Act that established the ACMD states that they must be consulted on any changes in drug policy.
Heartened by the positive headlines this gathered them, they next decided to contradict ACMD recommendations again, and whipped up a ridiculous media frenzy about so-called ‘super-skunk’, mad dangerous weed that makes you go mental and die. Having manufactured this public health scare, they then stepped in to appear responsible and public-minded and reversed the earlier decision to downgrade cannabis to a Class-C drug. Again without consulting the ACMD, again illegally. This was accompanied by a police crackdown, sniffer dogs on the London underground, and a massively disproportionate rate of conviction for young black men.
By this time it was becoming clear that there had been a cultural shift in government, and that the independent drugs advisory body was basically considered a bit too independent. When the former chairman of the ACMD, David Nutt, presented extensive scientific evidence to the government that Ecstasy and MDMA don’t do sufficient social or medical harm to warrant Class-A status they went one step further than simply ignoring his recommendations and sacked him for causing them embarrassment. This was followed by mass resignations of most of the experienced scientists on the ACMD, outraged at the way their professional integrity had been compromised.
Those who did not resign were promoted, and the rest replaced with more compliant figures. The process of eroding the ACMD was now complete. First illegally stripped of its role in forming drug policy, it gradually morphed into a useful propaganda tool for shifting debate rightwards, by making unscientific, reactionary, crackpot suggestions such as those of the last week. This means a further step away from real science forming our society’s attitude to drugs, which in turn means more needless drug deaths, more addiction and ruined lives, more costly and pointless imprisonment, more police repression and racial profiling.
But, just as we saw with mephedrone, you shouldn’t let the truth get in the way of a good story.
He lived his life like a candle in the wind. A mad candle, ranting that people on ecstasy were trying to overthrow his regime and replace it with Al Qaeda but a candle nonetheless. With the news that Colonel Gaddafi has died in his hometown of Sirte, who now will fill the shoes of craziest head of state? Whose going to design the uncrashable cars? Call for the abolition of Switzerland? Accuse the H1N1 virus of being an imperialist plot?
Colonel Gaddafi’s death comes as a massive relief to the Libyan rebel National Transitional Council. While it was impossible Gaddafi would ever be able to rule Libya again his continued survival could have provided inspiration and encouragement to Libyan’s opposed to the new council. Only a few days ago a gun battle erupted in Tripoli between the NTC and Gaddafi loyalists. And despite Tripoli falling months ago, Sirte and Bani Walid managed to hold out until today, against both the NTC and NATO bombardment. This suggests Gaddafi has -- or at least had -- a section of the population still willing to fight for him even when his rule was clearly finished. Neutralising that potential insurgency is probably the top priority of the NTC, especially given that the rebel council itself is not homogeneous and has former Gaddafi ministers and Islamists sitting around the same table.
For NATO the bombing campaign of Libya has been a success -- especially when you consider the long weeks of apparent stalemate, and the fact that the bombing campaign was the most unpopular war fought by the United States in recent memory. The push for NATO involvement in Libya was led by the UK and France, who are showing that despite planned defence cuts, they can still wield a big stick to maintain their sphere of influence in North Africa -- and at a cost of £1 Billion, can still find the money to do it in a time of austerity. The reality is that despite the language of human rights and democracy, NATO’s involvement in Libya has been motivated by far less noble and more complex factors.
The root cause of NATO intervention in Libya lies with the rebellion itself in early 2011. Following on from the wave of revolution that toppled Ben Ali in Tunisia, and Mubarak and Egypt Gaddafi’s regime was the next to face a popular uprising. This began in the eastern city of Benghazi -- a stronghold of the opposition to the Colonel, and a Libya’s second largest city -- where Libyan’s took to the streets to protest the pre-emptive arrests of human rights campaigners. What happened next is disputed -- Gaddafi’s loyalists claim the rebels stormed the barracks and staged an armed uprising without provocation, while the protesters claim they were fired upon by soldiers first. This uprising therefore started in quite a different way from that of Tunisia or Egypt -- instead of demonstrators occupying a square and demanding the resignation of a despot, this was more an armed insurrection with attacks on barracks and police stations to secure guns in cities and towns across the country.
The Libyan uprising took this form because the regime in the country is very different from that of Tunisia or Egypt. In Tunisia and Egypt the two strongmen dictators, Ben Ali and Mubarak, were dependent on their power from many other forces in their societies -- that of the army, the business class, western imperialism etc. Ben Ali and Mubarak were the public faces of the regimes -- but they were disposable once they became a liability to those forces. Hence why the Egyptian military was unwilling to risk it’s stake in Egyptian society (as a massive business empire) by shooting demonstrators in a Tienanmen Square-style massacre of the demonstrators to keep Mubarak in power. In these countries when the protest movement became unstoppable, the forces in control of Egyptian and Tunisian society had a quiet word with the strongmen leaders and told them to resign -- so that the business interests of those countries could be preserved, and stability for western imperialism be consolidated.
Libya -- or to give it it’s proper title under Gaddafi, “The Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya” -- was a bit different from those countries as the official name might suggest. If you’ve not heard of the word “Jamahiriya” before it might be because it is a word Colonel Gaddafi made up that means “state of the masses”. Obviously what a country calls itself doesn’t reveal everything about how it is run -- but the fact that the official name of the country was invented by Gaddafi himself suggests he had a much bigger role to play in that regime than Mubarak or Ben Ali did. You might also have noticed the different flags the rebels and Gaddafi supporters have used -- the rebels use the Libyan independence flag, flown under the monarchy which is red, green and black with a crescent moon, while Gaddafi’s supporters use the official Libyan Jamahiriya flag, which is solid green. The flag was picked by Gaddafi to tie in with his book of mad things he wrote -- “The Green Book”.
So when you have a society that’s official organs and symbols are named around the eccentricities of it’s mad ruler, you see how difficult it could be in trying to remove him peacefully. Gaddafi intentionally kept different parts of Libyan society -- most importantly the military -- weak so that they could not be used to remove him in a coup, or force him to stand down the way the Egyptian army did with Mubarak when his time was up. Instead, Gaddafi was able to use armed forces loyal to himself and the Libyan “Jamahiriya” he created to suppress the rebellion with lethal force.
Gaddafi was also able to stay in power thanks to an additional factor that Mubarak and Ben Ali did not have -- a section of support amongst the population. Gaddafi took power in Libya in a bloodless military coup in 1969, with the same program as other Arab nationalist movements like Nasser in Egypt. Under Gaddafi’s rule the oil was nationalised and used to develop the country’s infrastructure, building roads, schools, hospitals -- even a massive irrigation project called the Great Man-Made River -- which transformed Libya from the poorest country in the world to the richest country in Africa, with a Human Development Index comparable to that of Eastern Europe and Portugal. Gaddafi’s success in these social projects shouldn’t be used to whitewash his regime as a socialist paradise -- the unemployment rate in Libya in 2009 was over 20%, and hundreds of thousands still lived in poverty. But the fact that Libya did develop infrastructure and social programs better than most of Africa under Gaddafi allowed him to secure a base for his regime, particularly in the western part of Libya where the rebellion was weaker.
Gaddafi was able to pursue these social policies because despite being no socialist, he took a path independent of western capitalism for most of his reign, able to use oil funds that would have been privatised in other western puppet states to develop the country. While Gaddafi reached an accommodation with the West since dismantling his WMD program and handing over the alleged Lockerbie bomber -- notably culimnating in getting off with Tony Blair in a tent in the desert -- he still maintained policies independent of western imperialism. Jack Ferguson, formerly an SSY columnist here before he got too old outlines a few of these policies in his excellent blog post here.
Gaddafi maintained an independent state-controlled banking system, with the power to issue it’s own money -- different from the other neo-colonies in Africa whose currencies are guaranteed by western powers like France. This meant that the Libyan economy -- unlike so many other African countries -- did not have massive levels of debt to western powers. As Libya was a country independent of western financial control, it was able to use it’s economic power to assist African development in the construction of telecommunication satellites and even more dangerously for western banks, propose an African currency guaranteed with Libya’s gold reserves. The use of a currency not in hoc to the western powers would undermine the financial enslavement of Africa by the European powers. The last person to try something similar was Saddam Hussein, who started selling oil in Euros instead of dollars before he was toppled by the United States. One of the first thing the rebels did was set up a new central bank, which raises questions about what kind of economic program they want to install in Libya now Gaddafi has been toppled.
Gaddafi also repeatedly used racist attitudes in Europe regarding immigration to his favour, warning western leaders that Europe would “turn black” unless he received the aid he demanded. Gaddafi played a cynical game with the lives of thousands of immigrants to Europe, selectively detaining them or letting them emigrate to Europe depending on what suited his interests. Gaddafi has also historically had a lot of influence in Africa -- one of the reasons why the African Union vociferously opposed NATO’s program of regime change in Libya. The nationalized oil wealth has been used in a combination of military assistance and aid packages to bolster the African regimes the Colonel supported.
Libya's influence throughout Africa.
All of these policies -- independent currency for Africa, state control of banks, refusal to play ball on immigration, regional power status in the African continent -- made working with Gaddafi a grudging necessity for western powers. Despite their rapprochement with him, Gaddafi was never a western puppet in the same way Mubarak or Ben Ali was. This doesn’t make Gaddafi a hero -- in fact his response to protests was more brutal than Mubarak or Ali, and his refusal to stand down has brought NATO bombing and civil war to his country -- but it does explain why the West intervened in Libya but will not intervene in a variety of other African conflicts or assist other pro-democracy movements in the Arab world. Gaddafi was bombed by NATO because he pursued a path independent of the west to some degree, and because he refused to step down when his time was up. His refusal to resign like Mubarak made Libya an unstable country, unacceptable to the European countries who purchase Libyan oil.
Gaddafi’s already paid the personal price for his rule -- his firing on demonstrators, repression of students, prison massacres -- with grisly photos of his corpse circulating the internet. But there’s a potentially darker side to the fall of Sirte than just the death of this despot, that may go unreported -- the fate of thousands of Black Libyan African men. In the opening days of the uprising in Benghazi there was footage circulated, alongside rumours, that Gaddafi was using foreign African mercenaries to crush the protesters. Whatever Gaddafi did during the opening days of the uprising, human rights organisations have investigated the claim of mercenaries and can find no evidence to support it. Unfortunately these rumours were circulated by tv stations like Al Jazeera and now as the rebels have taken control of most of Libya, Black Libyans are effectively being lynched by racist forces within the uprising.
The siege on the city of Misurata was widely reported, with a spotlight on Gaddafi’s forces shelling the civilian population. Whats not been reported as widely is the fate of a neighbouring town -- Tawergha, which was accused by the rebels of being pro-Gaddafi and assisting the siege. When the siege of Misrata was lifted, the rebels advanced on Tawergha and to all intents and purposes cleansed it. As one rebel commander said “Tawergha no longer exists, only Misrata”. A city of 10,000 Black Africans has effectively been ethnically cleansed, with racist graffiti declaring the rebels are “the brigade for purging slaves, black skin” being daubed across the city. The rebels themselves say the Tawergha will return to their city “over their dead bodies”. Many of these refugees fled to Sirte, a city that may face a similar fate as Tawergha.
The ghost town of Tawergha, ethnically cleansed by the rebels.
This is not the only human rights abuse the rebels have committed. As the western media entered Tripoli after the fall of Gaddafi, they found corpses with their hands bound behind their back and bullets in their heads in Gaddafi’s Bab Al Azziya compound. Naturally the suspicion fell on a massacre committed by Gaddafi. But many of these victims were Black Africans with foreign passports -- suggesting they were migrant workers who had been summarily executed by the rebels. These crimes against Black Libyans have been committed across the country as the Libyan civil war became a war not just between the East and West, but between African and Arab.
Racist lynching of Black Africans conducted by the rebels in Libya
Not all rebels are motivated by racism -- the Libyan Youth Movement for example has been key in supporting the uprising and is inspired by the youth movements in the wider Arab world. Unfortunately, many of those opposing Gaddafi are not so clean cut. The chairman of the National Transitional Council, Mustafa Abdul Jalil was Colonel Gaddafi’s former Justice Minister. Jalil was happy to act as one of Gaddafi’s lackeys when it suited him -- including the torture and rigged trial of Bulgarian nurses accused of giving Libyans HIV. Alongside Jibril are many other former diplomatic and military staff who happily served under Gaddafi. The highest ranking defector was Abdel Fattah Younis, a Major General in the Libyan army. Despite being described as a defector, privately Younis was captured by the rebels when he tried to crush the uprising in Benghazi. Unsurprisingly many of the rebels were not to keen on receiving military commands from someone who was so pivotal in Gaddafi’s regime -- particularly those who fought a long guerilla war against him.
The uprising in Libya was not a CIA/Al Qaeda plot to remove an anti-imperialist, before anyone suggests that -- it was a genuine popular social movement, taking it’s roots in the poorest cities and towns in Libya, and led by young revolutionaries inspired by the toppling of Arab dictators (that Gaddafi had supported). Who will come out on top is by no means certain. But what is certain is that NATO involvement means that the West now has a massive sway over Libya’s revolution, that they clearly do not have in Egypt or Tunisia, and they are already trying to put their own people in charge. Gaddafi might be dead, but as Iraq shows there is absolutely no guarantee that things will get better when a despot is removed. In fact, they can always get much, much worse.
Being a Socialist is a tricky job. In the 20 years since the Berlin Wall came down, there’s been very little space for the ideas of the radical left to express itself and pro-free market politicians have a variety of swanky PR firms to do work for them that we can only dream of. That’s why it’s always good when a rogue bastard comes along and tactlessly gives the game away to the horror of thousands of stockbrokers.
He is not joking. He would shoot a kitten for money.
One case of this is the BBC interview with Alessio Rastanii. Alessio describes himself as an “independent trader”, which is probably why his answers ranged from “meh” to “fuck you”. When a BBC journalist asked him, with all the sincerity of a small child looking for it’s lost mum, if the Eurozone would be saved he responded that he “didn’t care”, his job was to “make money” and he “dreamed of another recession”. As if this wasn’t enough, he went on to say “Governments don’t rule the world, Goldman Sachs does”.
Fellow honest evil bastard Paul McMullen. I haven’t seen someone this rough and stressed out since I last watched Downfall.
It’s a great example of an evil bastard being so completely honest that you can’t help but admire him -- a bit like crater faced and increasingly-stressed-out with each interview phone hacking bastard Paul McMullen, who repeatedly said he hacked phones, enjoyed it, and who really gives a fuck about Hugh Grant anyway.
Unsurprisingly, the interview went viral as someone finally said what millions of people suspect traders actually believe. As it spread round the internets, rumours flew that Alessio wasn’t actually a trader but was in fact one of the “Yes Men”. The Yes Men are a hilarious bunch o lads that once pretended to be the representatives of Dow Chemicals, and wiped several billions of their stock market value when they falsely announced they would be providing compensation to the hundreds of family members of the folk their company killed in the Bhopal disaster. Had they fooled the BBC again?
This guy is a joker. He doesn’t have the same evil glint in his eye.
Nope, the Yes Men denied that Alessio was their guy and like the IRA or Cheryl Cole, they always take credit for their work. That makes Alessio a genuine evil bastard, not joking, not making things up, not being a spoof, not a Noel Edmonds “Gotcha” sketch and not a comic. He is actually genuinely one of the people the entire political mainstream in the developed world have asked you to trust in for the past 40 years, and have been bailed out to the tune of Trillions.
Talk of deficits, massive debt and brutal public spending cuts are pretty much in the British news 24/7 these days, so if you’ve noticed the recent debt crisis in the USA you’ll have noticed some of the same terms being thrown about, but if you paid close attention you might have noticed that unlike the UK there’s been a standoff between the two main political parties in how to handle the debt crisis.
This crisis started when the US Treasury requested an increase in the amount of money it was able to borrow -- but this amount, known as the debt ceiling has to achieve backing for the US Congress. Unfortunately for Democratic President Barack Obama, the Congress is currently in the control of the Republican Party. Ouch. And many of these Republican Congressmen and women are members of the Tea Party, a political movement that was formed in opposition to public spending and incurring any more government debt. Double ouch.
This standoff between the Republicans -- who wanted no tax increases but massive public spending cuts and the Democrats, who wanted some tax increases, but still some massive cuts as well -- went on for weeks with angry Americans venting their frustration on twitter, as pundits warned that the most powerful superpower in human history was about to follow in the footsteps of Hearts of Midlothian FC. Fortunately, after days of wrangling the politicians managed to sort it all out -- a compromise was reached, and the USA can go back to hopey changey goodness under President Obama -- right?
Unfortunately not -- the Democrats led a full scale surrender to the most extreme Republican demands in Congress. In exchange for extending the debt ceiling, there will be spending cuts of a whopping $2.5 trillion over the next 10 years, made in the very, very limited welfare net of the USA. Just to clarify, $2.5 trillion is how much money you would need to pay Bill Gates for him to shit himself in public with his mum and dad watching. These cuts come a few months after Republican hardliners -- many of them from the Tea Party -- refused to ditch Bush era tax cuts, designed to help the richest 2% of Americans. At the same time as these cuts are made, there will be no new taxes to raise revenue -- not even on the super rich in the USA, who have seen their personal wealth skyrocket in the past 30 years.
“I’ve spent all my money bombing the middle east and bailing out the worst bankers in history, at a time of capitalism in collapse. Can I get credit? AYE!”
The Republicans have pushed for these cuts supposedly to stop “out of control” Government spending, but the reality is that the US debt has been incurred largely due to the bailout of multiple US banks and corporations and maintaining the most powerful army in mankind’s history (currently at war in three countries, with dozens of bases dotted across the globe). The picture painted by Republicans of a Socialist Obama borrowing money recklessly to give to the poor is a complete fantasy . Like in the UK, the political establishment in the USA, both Democrat and Republican, supported massive bail outs of failed private enterprises with virtually no control or direction on how US taxpayers money should be spent.
This combination of no new taxes on the super rich, but also a desire to maintain a massively expensive military industrial complex is a contradiction that the credit ratings agencies of the USA haven’t ignored -- as noted by the US Darpa’s continued research into rocket planes in the same couple of weeks that Bright House came to the White House asking for their telly back. In a historic first these credit agencies downgraded the United State’s credit rating from AAA to AA+. It may not sound so bad -- if you came home with a AA+ mark in a Maths exam you’d probably be quite chuffed -- but when the self-described leader of the free world, the victor of the Cold War and the world’s only Hyperpower has a credit rating lower than those cheese eating surrender monkeys in France, you can see why a lot of the miniature American flag brigade are worried.
This supposed threat of bankruptcy in the USA has been grist to the mill of the Tea Party movement, an organisation which is known internationally for their hilarious placards and obsession with long form birth certificates. The Tea Party came to prominence in the wake of the massive bail out of US Banks at the start of the economic crisis a few years ago, alongside the election of President Barack Obama. Their raison detre is opposition to the US Government incurring any more debt and “big government”. Don’t try to point out to them that the Republican Party also voted for the bail out of Wall Street or that part and parcel of “big government” is the ability to bomb foreign people half the world away with missiles wi cameras attached so you can upload it to your you tube account. You’ll probably just get screamed at that you’re an IslamoMarxist as well.
As hilarious as many of these nutters are, they are dangerous not just to millions of the poorest Americans, but to the billions of people in the world who are intertwined with the USA through it’s domination of finance capital and military power. Right wingers in the USA often go a bit funny when a Democrat gets in, exaggerating things somewhat -- like believing Bill Clinton is a Marxist NWO member cos of Waco, or calling JFK a traitor and arranging for him to drive in an open top car at 5mph through Dallas. But the Tea Party are something special.
The Tea Party are a movement of white, upper middle class wealthy Americans fearful of the world economic crisis and it’s threat to their privilege. Regular slogans at Tea Party rallies and protests talk about how they want to “take back America” -- a declaration that the Tea Party don’t think the votes of African Americans and poor whites should determine who occupies the White House, but rather the organised block vote of Christian Evangelicals across the USA. As well as demanding massive public spending cuts, the Tea Party also gives a platform to racists angry at the first Black President in the USA -- Tea Party placards in Washington declared “The Zoo has an African Lion and the White House has a Lyin’ African”. This is alongside their ongoing campaign to demand Obama’s birth records, to prove he is a Kenyan and not an American citizen.
Mad as a bag of cats
The Tea Party’s biggest prejudice is their naked class hatred towards the poorest in the USA. The Tea Party live in a fantasy world where the unemployed, immigrant, low paid, Hispanic and African American population of the USA live a life of luxury off the back of their tax dollars in free healthcare and benefits. One Tea Party supporter, South Carolina Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer (no relation to Jack we presume said)
This was in reference to a program in his state that allowed students to receive subsided lunches. Tea Party supporters quite literally look upon the working class in the USA like they’re animals. They’re the worst kind of right-wing libertarians who don’t ever stop to consider the link between a massive pool of cheap exploited labour and their personal wealth. Nowhere do the Tea Party try to hold accountable the billionaires in the USA who wrecked the economy with their own rampant greed -- probably because despite the mom and pop apple pie image, the Tea Party are funded by billionaires, happy to have an astroturfed campaign to defend their right to be filthy rich.
Unfortunately there’s been little sustained attack from the Left against the Tea Party. With the exception of the heroic struggle against Republican union-busters in Wisconsin, most of the Left in the USA has fallen back to defending Obama, despite the fact he’s been totally unable to harness the millions involved in his election campaign to push forward a halfway progressive agenda in the states. This means that it’s by no means certain Barack Obama will be re-elected in next years Presidential elections -- and that the door is open for a Republican President influenced and supported by the Tea Party’s ideas.
Perry’s already made moves to court the nutter vote, by saying the Chairman of the federal reserve would be guilty of treason if he printed more money before the 2012 election -- a pretty harsh statement, given treason is more usually associated with trying to undermine or overthrow the democratic process -- possibly by systematically lying about a country’s threat in the build up to a war for example. While opposing any tax increases on the rich, Perry decries that only half of Americans pay tax -- posing towards Tea Party supporters and backing their assertions that they are the dynamic, wealth producing section of American society that keep the country afloat. In reality, in Texas the poorest 20% pay 6% of their income on sales tax while the richest 20% pay only 1.3% -- “Texas is not a low-tax state if you’re low-income” one analyst correctly noted. This is in line with other right-wing “low tax” regimes, like Thatcher in the 80’s -- where the poor ended up paying more in tax, through an increase in regressive taxes and the Poll Tax.
As well as backing Tea Party tax policy, Perry has also called for the use of (unarmed) predator drones to patrol the border between Mexico and the USA. This anti-immigrant rhetoric is justified by the ongoing “War on Drugs” across the border in Mexico, as the cartels and the Mexican Government destroy both each other and Mexican society in the crossfire. Perhaps some slack should be cut for Perry -- he identified the Mexican city of Juarez as the most dangerous city in America. Oops.
Geography lessons for Perry
If Perry’s geography skills are a bit shite his scientific knowledge isn’t better. Perry supports the teaching of intelligent design ie creationism in schools, and also believes global warming is a myth. So far this is all pretty standard fare Evangelical Christian stuff; alongside support for creationism, Perry also responded to a drought in his state with the same policy plan as the ancient babylonians -- with a three day designated “Days of Prayer for Rain in the State of Texas”. Unfortunately, in a shocking victory for athiests in the Republican state, praying for rain did not work and the drought got worse. This might scupper some future Perry Whitehouse initiatives, such as “Praying nobody trades oil in euros instead of dollars week”, “national month of deficit reduction mass” or “Praying the Chinese never want all that money back”.
As well as being fond of the old Christianity a bit much, Perry’s also controversially hinted at support for the secession of Texas from the Union -- a risky policy gambit not tried in a Whitehouse race since pre-Civil War America. Perry said to journalists after a Tea Party rally that, ”Texas is a unique place. When we came into the union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that… My hope is that America and Washington in particular pays attention. We’ve got a great union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, who knows what may come of that.” It’s a pretty bold statement from someone who a) wants to be President of the USA and b) is happy to accuse folk of treason for pursuing different economic policies than his.
Rick Perry supports the use of B-52 bombers to defend the unborn foetus.
It’s easy just to put the blame for extreme right-wingers in the USA like the Tea Partiers and Perry down to stupid Americans voting for mad people with crazy ideas. The problem is that in one sense the Tea Partiers are right -- they are getting support because the USA is in the middle of a crisis, just not the one they think it’s in. The USA is a superpower whose economic power is dependent on a massive military industrial complex -- one big enough to stop anyone trading oil in anything other than dollars, for example -- but free market fundamentalists in the USA are unwilling to call for even slight tax increases on the super rich to fund this military power. This contradiction is what’s forced credit agencies to downgrade the credit rating of the USA, in an attempt to force the political class in the USA to get it’s act together, and run the most powerful capitalist superpower with responsibility to the needs of finance and bankers. Because this system is international -- the US debt crisis has had negative effects on the world’s stock markets -- the far-right in the USA’s total support for complete free market capitalism could help plunge the world into a second recession. Forget George Bush dragging us into Iraq -- the American empire might yet bring the world into a much greater economic disaster if we don’t find a way to declare independence from the mad, mad world of the stock market.
As Britain recovers from the riots, it’s facing the second blow of having to cope with lots of people’s “explanations” for the mass looting. Some of it’s ridiculous – blaming Blackberry Messenger for the chaos – and some of it’s a bit more sinister, like David Starkey blaming black culture for the riots. Unfortunately Starkey isn’t the only one whose using the riots to engage in a bit of casual racism – the admin of the pro-Met police page on facebook was exposed as a racist from his tweeter feed.
Don't know if trolling or just stupid
Now a Tory councillor, Bob Frost has fallen victim to the dangers of social networking, with his racist views exposed in another case of the over 40s not understanding how the internet works. Frost – a 56 year old who is a “right wing libertarian” made reference to the looters being “jungle bunnies” on his facebook. Oh dear. In most cases of public exposure of racist views the individuals concerned put their hands up and apologize, refuse to comment and hope it blows over, or resign in disgrace. There are exceptions to these rules however and Bob Frost’s response has to attract attention for sheer, out and out olympic class fantastical bullshit.
As Bob explains, he was “referring to the urban jungle”, and was originally going to call the rioters animals but picked bunny instead as people might be offended by him “calling fellow humans this so I chose something I thought was innocent and also cuddly.” Later on he received a phone call accusing him of racism, at which point he promptly checked his dictionary which gave him the shocking news that ”it would appear that the term jungle bunnies is pejorative and is a racist slur relating to African-Americans”.
So you see Bob is just a man who has tried to be too politically correct, but in his efforts to placate the EUSSR Harriet Harperson feminazis has gone through the anti-racist time space continuum and ended up as a bigot due to no fault of his own.
Seriously though Bob, this must rank as the biggest pile of bullshit since Baptist Minister George Rekers claimed he took a male prostitute with him on holiday to carry his bags for him. We would be very interested in hearing Bob’s other crazy excuses in life – “Where have all the biscuits gone Bob? Had to eat them all for a Charity Special of Ant and Dec, you just missed them”, “Bob it’s your round mate? No, you bought a pint for my identical twin Bob Tsorf” or “Bob have you got that fiver I leant you last week? Well I would, but with today’s currency fluctuations I’d need to check what it’d be worth the now”.
We are sure with such a fantastic flair for combining casual racism with an ability to engage in extravagant lying and bullshitting Bob will be back in his old job soon enough, with a Tory cabinet post waiting in the wings for him.
Ever feel like you’re being watched? If you’re a politically engaged person in Glasgow you probably are. Every single demo is followed by hordes of cops in uniform, in plain clothes, in mad vans with rotating cameras on top, on horses, in helicopters, on bikes and motor bikes. Sadly Strathy Police recently had their audacious application for a TARDIS unit rejected.
At the heart of this is all round top guy Nelson Telfer, who we first came across as a shining example of humanity after the eviction of the Free Hetherington Occupation at Glasgow Uni. He went on every TV outlet available to him (radio no big enough for good old Nels, straight to the top) saying there was no arrests on the day, no injuries and that the police response was entirely proportionate. That’ll be four arrests, one serious concussion, numerous bumps and bruises, 100 cops, the dog unit and our old pal the helicopter to you and me then.
Big Telf was again involved at Strathclyde the other day when he was the senior officer at another excellent show by his boys. What is not mentioned in LT’s article is the fact that the polis had a ’spotter’ on the demo. Someone who is paid to collate information on activists. We thought we’d do the honourable thing and show ye a wee picture of her. I fail to see the advantage of dressing your spotter to be the most noticeable person there but maybe I’m missing some elaborate plan from T-Unit.
2nd from left in case you were confused
It seems “T” NT wanted to stick his oar of incompetence into the Slutwalk this Saturday, barging in on a meeting with one of the organisers to intimidate and threaten her with conviction if the march was ‘highjacked’ and went off route. Even though the route was adhered to perfectly by the march, at least one organiser has been reported to the Procurator Fiscal for holding an illegal demonstration. This is unheard of despite numerous illegal marches taking place in Glasgowcity centre recently.
True to form they came to George Square with dozens of cops, two vans with Sauron style rotating cameras on top, four undercover CID, 6 horses, loads of motorbikes and… the helicopter. The same helicopter that we aren’t allowed to know how much it costs to put in the air because then the company they rent it off wouldn’t be able to rip-off businesses who want to rent it privately -- fair play on that one chaps.
This was an utterly ridiculous reaction and was no doubt an attempt to scare off the scores of angry young women who were on their first ever demonstration. Personally though the lowest part of the day was when they accosted me on the way to the shop near Glasgow green and took my details because I am ‘a potential witness to a crime.’ This is the second time in a week that an SSYer has been followed to the shops by the cops (lol rhymes) and had their details taken. It takes someone braver and more well versed in their legal rights than me to tell two CID heavies to get tae. You know shit is serious when you can’t toddle off for some Irn-Bru on a hot day.
Nelson Telfer is such a decent outstanding guy we thought he deserved his own wee slice of the internets:
Another scalp for the pro-democracy and workers movement that’s sweeping the middle east – Tunisian Prime Minister Ghannouchi has resigned after thousands took to the street demanding he quit. It’s the second bastard deposed from office by Tunisa’s people, Ghannouchi took over after corrupt President Ben Ali was kicked out a couple of months ago. Ghannouchi was an ally of Ben Ali, and the protesters have not accepted his rule as any more legitimate than that of his corrupt predecessor.
Elections in Tunisia are scheduled for July, and the ruling establishment in Tunisia must have already been bricking it. Now that they have lost their caretaker Prime Minister, it puts them in an even weaker position. This removal of Ghannochi – alongside a massive rally in Tahrir Square held to call for the removal of emergency laws – shows the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia have not stopped or grown complacent just because the old corrupt figureheads have been removed. People are demanding the whole rotten system is torn down as well.
Still, lets provide a quick recap of just who has been chucked out over the past 2 months,
It’s been a bad day for the enemies of SSY.ORG.UK – and today we take part in our ritual of revelling in the demise of BASTARDS. Top of the list (although probably not the most evil, Gaddafi still just squeezes by) is sellout Blairite careerist Aaron Porter. Porty’s announced he will not stand for another term as NUS President, apparently only the second time in over 40 years an NUS President has not done so.
It’s indicative of just how much hatred Porter was able to stoke up as “leader” of students that he doesn’t feel confident he will be re-elected even in the NUS, which is rigged to a very large degree by student Labour Clubs.
To recap on why he’s despised by anti-cuts students, he condemned the occupation of Millbank (whilst being soft on the much more extreme police violence). Secondly he flip flopped, saying he had been “spineless” before and announced support for student occupations and promised he would obtain legal aid for occupiers (which he didn’t do). Then he voted against NUS support for an anti-fees demo, instead choosing to back a useless “candelit vigil”.
Since then emails from Porter to the Government have been leaked, revealing that Aaron was ready to call for cuts of up to £800 million in grants behind the back of students. The NUS have also been calling on student leaders at different universities not to oppose hikes, describing them as “relatively progressive” – completely at odds with what they said publicly and the view of millions of students and young people.
For these reasons Porter hasn’t been able to act as an NUS President to his full capacity – specifically because students have booed him off an anti cuts demo in Manchester, where he had to be escorted away by the Police. After this incident NUS hacks spun it to the press that Porter had been the victim of “anti semitic abuse”. Since then Porter has admitted he didn’t hear any racist chanting, so as well as being a sneaky careerist he was also happy to let people think he was the victim of racist abuse. Classy guy.
Porter was also confronted by anti-cuts protesters from Glasgow Uni two weeks ago when he came to a Young Labour conference. Depending on who you listen to, this protest involved anything from torches and pitchforks to kneecapping. This blog post here goes into the detail of what actually happened, in response to “sensible people” at Glasgow Uni who condemned the protesters. These sensible people were last seen at a rally they had called of 5 people at the Queen Margaret Union with a placard saying “We Love Tommy Gore”.
Unfortunately this probably won’t be the last time we see Porter – he’ll likely end up as a candidate for Labour in one of their safe seats. But it’s good to see the back of one New Labour hack, and his departure will hopefully open the way for real anti-cuts leadership of the NUS.
Nae Bill Aitken in sight...
Our second resigning bastard today is Bill Aitken. Bill’s resigned due to his comments a week ago, where he implied a woman who had been raped was a prostitute. Since then the full transcript has come out, where he also seems to have a fixation on the rape being carried out by “asians” as well as laughing at the woman’s plight. Given those comments it might not be fitting that Bill is the Convener of the Justice Committee, and protests had been called to tell Bill what we thought of him.
Unfortunately when SSY members and others tried to tell Bill what we thought of him, he didn’t turn up to his office. Since then he has stepped down as Convener of the Justice Committee. Unfortunately Bill is still an MSP, but intends to stand down in May. Cheerio you Tory wanker.
Last but by no means least is the continuing troubles of Muammar Gaddafi. News coming out of Libya suggests that anti-Gaddafi protests are now no longer limited to the poorer eastern parts of the country, but have spread into the west – including the capital, Tripoli. Gaddafi’s response has been brutal, making Mubarak look like a Liberal in comparison. He has flown in mercenaries to fire upon his own people and reports from Libya claim there are fleets of cars with AK 47 toting mercenaries roaming the capital.
As if this wasn’t enough, the air force has been allegedly firing upon demonstrators in Tripoli. This appeared to be too much for some pilots who have flown to Malta in their jets to avoid any role in Gaddafi’s brutal repression. This bloodbath comes after one of Muammar Gaddafi’s spoiled weans, Saif Al Islam Gaddafi took to the airwaves and made a bizarre (and probably taped) speech. Saif blamed the uprisings on Islamists, Seperatists, people from Manchester, Canada, Al Jazeera and people who took ecstasy. Unfortunately for Saif, it looks like the people marching on Tripoli don’t have glow sticks, more like Ak’s and tanks from defecting regiments of the armed forces. All in all, a good day – 2 bastards down with 1 to go.
Gaddafi's son, blaming Seperatist Islamists from Manchester on ecstasy.
If you’re a Tory, you’re pretty much already a contemptible little prick. If you’re a Scottish Tory, then you’re up there with Bond villains – you’ve basically chosen to become something EVERYONE AROUND YOU DESPISES. That might explain why Bill Aitken made comments earlier, that a woman who was raped might have been a prostitute.
Little Prick
In an interview with the Sunday Herald, Aitken said of lane rapes (4 of which have occured in Glasgow city centre since Christmas) “I really think we need to know a bit more about these. They are not always as they seem to be, put it that way.”
When he was asked to explain what he meant, he said “Somebody should be asking her what she was doing in Renfrew Lane. Did she go there with somebody? … Now, Renfrew Lane is known as a place where things happen, put it that way.” The “things that happen” are men buying women for sex of course. But instead of condemning this, Bill – after immediately assuming a woman in Glasgow at night in a certain area is a prostitute – condemns the victim, the woman who is bought to be abused.
Of course there is no evidence except Bill’s prejudice to suggest the woman was a prostitute. But even if she was, does it make it any less of a crime? When rich folk get burgled or mugged, Tories don’t blame them for being a victim of crime because they flaunted their wealth. When it comes to rape, there’s a disturbingly high % of people (including young men) who blame women for their ordeal. At the same time it’s prostitutes – and not their abusive consumers – who are persecuted by the police, with many of them currently jailed in the Cornton Vale woman’s prison.
This viewpoint obviously is represented in the corridors of the legal establishment as well – Bill Aitken (currently Tory spokesperson on Law and Order) was formally a District Court Judge and a Justice of the Peace. With people like Aitken in these positions it’s probably unsurprising that Scotland’s rape conviction is shockingly low – less than 4%. While Aitken is no longer a Justice of the Peace or a District Judge, his involvement in legal matters has not ended – disgracefully he is chair of the Justice Committee at the Scottish Parliament. Someone who insults and demeans rape victims has no place in Parliament, let alone a committee that’s meant to be run in the interests of victims.
So why do they continue to be prevalent in conspiracy theories related to banking? Because in the USA, when people are discontent and angry at the banks instead of looking to socialism -- which has historically been weak in the USA -- they go back to the most prominent anti-banking ideas and figures, which unfortunately are anti-semitic. Likewise many bankers are identified as “Rothschild Zionists” by Icke who clearly have no familial connection to the Rothschild family at all -- like David Miliband and DSK. But it’s ok, as Icke explains:
At the heart of this is all round top guy Nelson Telfer, who we first came across as a shining example of humanity after the 
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