I’m sure many Leftfield readers will have been watching the latest series of Charlie Brooker’s Newswipe, pretty much the best satire on telly.
I loved the second series of this vital show, taking down the lies and fantasies of the media at every turn. But I didn’t love most of the bits featuring “US comic and drunk [big woop] Doug Stanhope.”
This guy has a persona of an absolute misanthrope: he hates the world and everyone in it. His most objectionable bit was the one embedded above, talking about overpopulation.
In this little rant, Stanhope tries to make out like he’s telling the world a hidden truth, something hidden by the media because it doesn’t fit with the mainstream environmentalist agenda. This supposed truth is that there are too many people in the world, using up too many resources, and the only way we can really save the environment is to stop having kids.
But the reality is that this idea is a very powerful one, and it’s been used by the ruling class as an excuse for nearly 200 years now.
In 1798 English cleric and economist Thomas Malthus published his Essay on the Principle of Population. He argued that population growth would always outstrip the expansion of the food supply, and that as more workers became available wages would be driven down, leading to poverty.
2.Many.Malthuses.
In other words, the working class in Britain were to blame for their own poverty. It had nothing to do with the exploitation they suffered at the hands of the capitalists, who owned the places where they worked, and got rich on the back of their labour.
The thing is, he was wrong. Food production has grown faster in the last 200 years than at any other time in history, and has rapidly outstripped population growth. Famines aren’t caused by food shortages, but by unequal distribution of food.
But blaming the poor for poverty and hunger was a convenient solution for the people who were really responsible-the rich.
In the 1960s Malthus’ arguments were revived by environmentalists, who argued that population growth in the third world was causing an ecological crisis and must be stopped.
These people never however stopped to think about the centuries of looting that the third world has suffered at the hands of European empires. Nor did they consider that many people in poor countries have many children to ensure that some of them survive the harsh realities of an impoverished childhood.
In fact, the rate of world population growth is slowing. It peaked in the 1960s, and ever since the rate of increase has been getting slower.
The population theorists thought that if the world’s resources were a pie, reducing the number of people who wanted a slice would mean everyone gets more. But what about the 1 or 2 people that are eating three-quarters of the pie, leaving the rest of us fighting over the crumbs?
Delicious pie: Time to fight for a bigger slice
Most mainstream environmentalists don’t want to confront the realities of inequality, caused by capitalism. It’s much easier to tell everyone that they have to play their part, change their lightbulbs etc., than to say “A tiny minority of the world’s population are fucking everything up to make themselves rich.” The reason it’s easier is that rich people are very powerful, and taking them on is a hard fight. But if we’re really going to prevent the worst of climate change, and save the global environment, then we’ll have to take them on and beat them.
As a system, capitalism is based on economic growth. Every year we must produce more products, consume more, and make more money. But growth is unequal-the economy is constantly funneling more and more wealth from the hands of the majority into the those of the rich.
Right now, 10% of the world’s population own 54% of the world’s wealth. The richest 50 humans on Earth make more money than the poorest 416 million put together. In their unceasing quest to get richer, these people are trashing the Earth, by pulling out everything of value from the ground, the sea, and the soil, and by pumping back the toxic waste left over. These are the people who are really responsible for climate change, and must be defeated.
The best way to reduce population growth is to start ending the poverty afflicting most of the world’s population. For decades the world’s rich countries and financial institutions have forced poorer countries to cut their public spending, preventing them from having decent health services. If more poor countries were able to follow the example of Cuba, and set up world beating health services, then less babies would die and parents would have less children. Another key issue is women’s access to proper sex education, and reproductive rights to control their own bodies.
If we’re really going to save human civilisation from the potential catastrophes on the horizon, we can’t be human-haters. We need to change our society to be more eco-friendly, and at the same time more people-friendly. It’s more than possible to meet all the basic needs (clean water, housing, enough to eat, a fulfilling life) for all the people in the world.
The people in the way of us achieving this would much rather believe that all humans are equally responsible. I’m sorry to disappoint them, but with unequal wealth and power comes unequal responsibility. So Doug Stanhope isn’t bringing us a radical message that they don’t want you to hear. His hatred of humanity (which conceals a real misogyny-see his comments about “a tired old whore” and women’s wombs) actually suits the mainstream agenda just fine. Because it lets the people who’s fault it really is off the hook.
This map uses colour and distortion to show two different things. The extent to which a country is squeezed or inflated shows the extent to which countries are consuming their fair share, based on population, of the world’s resources. Starved-looking countries consume less than their fair share (most of Africa), whereas stuffed-looking countries consume far more than their share (most of Europe and North America). The colour of the countries shows the balance between whether a country has, within its borders, can generate enough resources and cope with its own waste within its environment (green, like environmentally rich Brazil and Canada) or not (like the Middle East and, yes, the United States). (via www.pthbb.org)
At some point in the next couple of months there’s going to be a General Election.
It’s looking frighteningly possible that we’ll be under the rule of Dave “I’m just an ordinary bloke” Cameron and his gang of merry buffoons.
Scared yet?
You should be.
Leftfield presents the Top 10 Tory Terrors…
1. They want to strip back women’s abortion rights, piece by piece, until we’re left with no choice and nowhere to go.
2. They want to force people on Jobseeker’s Allowance for more than 12 months to do community service. That is, effectively creating a slave workforce of the unemployed.
3. They want to cut benefits to single mothers in order to ‘encourage marriage’ – or just punish women stupid enough to get pregnant to men who’ll leave them with the wean.
4. The Conservatives plan to repeal the fox hunting ban, making it perfectly acceptable to rip an animal to shreds just for a laugh.
5. Their determination to stop immigration has caused them to come up with some crazy ideas – not only are they going to set up a Border Police Force, but they’re going to force any woman entering the country with a man other than her father or husband to a private interrogation. WTF?!?
The Tories on a YBF school trip.
6. They plan to allow anyone to open up a school, in the ridiculous belief that exposing schools to the capitalist free market and competition will improve standards, in a move criticised by the Association of School and College Leaders.
7. Tory candidates and activists are trained by the terrifying Young Britons’ Foundation, who want to scrap the NHS and shoot environmentalists. The YBF took the young Tories to meet scary American right-wingers and shoot machine guns. Sounds like one of those terrorist training grounds they’re so worried about…
8. The Tories have promised to bring us a new age of austerity, slashing public spending, freezing pay for public sector workers and putting thousands of people out of work.
9. They want to completely privatise the Royal Mail, and have already been in talks with some private vultures bidders who are up for buying it. This will lead to a crappy service, posties out of work, and those kept getting shite pay and conditions.
10. In return for the support of the right wing papers he owns, the Tories have basically offered to let Rupert Murdoch and family write their media policy. This means major cuts to the BBC, weakening of regulation of his media empire, and generally much less good telly and media, as Rupert expands his stranglehold with government support.
Young David and chums in their uni days. Cameron is second from the left in the back row, Boris Johnson is sitting on the right
So apparently the original press statement Glasgow’s Labour Council were going to release regarding Stephen Purcell’s resignation described a “chemical dependency” of his as being the reason for his standing down. Of course, SSY is in no position to make any informed comment regarding such accusations. We can however, make informed speculation as to what the chemical dependency may or may not be. Of course we have to make clear that the chemical dependency could be one, many, all or none of these things.
1) Stephen Purcell is obsessed with making model volcanoes.
We all know someone who has fallen into volcano addiction. First it begins with small models, perhaps only the size of a molehill but eventually expands to the size of a back garden, swamping friends and loved ones in baking soda. The process of lies begins with an excessive amount of bicarbonate soda – all to be used in “baking cakes” which never seem to materialise.
But was Purcell a Volcanolic? Was his abscence during the Save our Schools campaign due to an obsessive desire to recreate Krakatoa in the bathroom of central chambers? Labour sources have revealed nothing.
2. Bunsen Burner fetishes.
Most times a bunsen burner is a vital piece of scientific equipment which should be dealt with caution in youth as a source of burny flames. However in the hands of a hardened bunsenaholic like Purcell the burner becomes an altogether more sinister piece of equipment.
Purcell could have spent literally days locked in his office burning various transitional elements, alkali metals and, given the correct equipment various noble gases. There is a time and a place for science but when the leader of Scotland’s largest council spends days conducting scientific experiments already extensively confirmed by various scientific institutions it is time for concerned families to ask questions.
3) Mentos and Coca Cola.
It begins as a joke – perhaps dropping one mento into a bottle of Diet Coke in someones front room at a house party, and watching as the room is covered with fizzy shite. But even this simple pastime can drag someone down the dark, souless road of an addict.
Did Stephen Purcell amass gigantic quantities of Diet Cola – up to 3 metric tonnes according to some sources – and subject it to mentos? Despite a lack of evidence, we can say with confidence almost certainly yes.
4. Fabric softener.
Take a look at Stephen Purcell. I think we can all agree he’s a well dressed man, ready to go out and do his best for the people of Glasgow. But did certain cleaning substances go beyond the realms of appropriate hygiene and into a murky world of fabric softener obsession? Did Purcell take regular half hour breaks from important council meetings to plunge his head into baskets of freshly laundered clothes, to get off on the smell of febreeze? Certainly not on taxpayers time and money, SSY hopes.
5. Distillation.
Distillation is essential for separating crude oil into various fractions which can be used for various purposes – fuels etc. But Stephen Purcells interest in this chemical process is rumoured to go far beyond either an amateur or even higher chemistry student interest.
Sources at Grangemouth say someone matching Stephen Purcell’s description has been secretly infiltrating the plant to oversee important chemical processes. Sources say that so far it has only been due to Purcell’s extensive obsession with safety that a major disaster at Grangemouth and several other plants has been avoided.
***
Of course we have no idea which of these chemical dependencies could be accurate or not, hopefully this has simply been an error made by Glasgow City Council and it has in fact been Stephen Purcells tireless fight against schools, binmen, and trade unions across the city which has got him so tired and exhausted.
After all, whenever SSY is exhausted there’s nothing we like better than having a sit down, cup o tea, watch a dvd and tell a high profile legal team to absolutely cut the shit out of anyone who even suggests weve been up to anything dodgy whatsoever like.
Jacob Zuma, the President of South Africa, has been in the UK meeting the Queen and causing a stir.
The Daily Mail has whipped itself into a frenzy, calling Zuma a “vile buffoon” and a “sex-obsessed bigot”, as well as repeatedly calling him “Zulu Boy”.
The Telegraph is appalled that he has been invited after describing the British as “condescending imperialists” and think Her Maj ought to teach him some manners.
The Guardian’s front page pictured the Queen next to Zuma’s wife Thobeka Stacey Madiba, as if to contrast liberated white womanhood against Mrs Zuma as chattel.
But most Heads of State and people of power are pretty distasteful, if you look in to it. The Queen has hosted Mugabe and Ceauşescu, for goodness sake, as well as being big buddies with George W Bush.
So how come the media aren’t reporting on Zuma’s corruption, or his politics, or what he’s done in his role as President? How come they’re not using his actions to talk about issues of rape, women’s rights, gay rights, and equality in South Africa and the rest of the world today?
All we’ve learnt from the media coverage of Zuma’s visit is that we can all point and laugh at the crazy brown man, mock him and his culture and call him ‘Zulu Boy’ and get away with it. It all stinks of racism and white supremacy.
If the British media wants to criticize Zuma, maybe they could have reported on the South African feminists fighting for equality under Zuma’s regime, such as Pumla Gqola, whose wonderful myth-busting article on polygamy cuts right to the chase:
The point of the matter is not whether in a feminist republic we’d force Zuma to choose one wife or banish him… We’d probably banish Zuma for many more reasons, least of which his preference for multiple partners.
How come the white ruling class only give a shit about women’s rights when they’re trying to justify their own racism?
This man harbours ambitions to be the leader of the Liberal Democrats, and one day Prime Minister. Is it any wonder no one takes the Liberal Democrats seriously?
He’s mainly known for three things: being convinced that one day VERY SOON an asteroid is going to destroy the earth, his ridicularse expenses claims as an MP at Westminster, and a confounding ability to get good looking women to go out with him.
Leftfield finds membership of the Liberal Democrats weird in and of itself – this is a party that seems to have no ideological grounding, floating between latching themselves on to populist campaigns (such as the odious Katy Gordon, candidate for Glasgow North this upcoming election, sending me countless newsletters through my door urging me that ONLY SHE CAN SAVE OTAGO LANE), and an enshrined tendency to prop up the ruling governments at their worst. They flip flop on life or death issues like war depending on which way public opinion seems to be turning. They claim to be ’social liberals’ AND ‘market liberals’, a fundamental contradiction which prevents their policy from progressing beyond the populist and ineffectual. They’re laughably shit, and they don’t even have the conviction of the justness of their ideology to take the sting out of that shitness.
Lembit Öpik is possibly the physical embodiment of the political joke that is the Lib Dems. The sad thing is that he genuinely thinks that asking a Cheeky Girl to marry him on a reality show is good stage management of his political career. Future Prime Minister material he ain’t.
What really puts a strain in his groin is the idea that an asteroid hitting the earth is imminent. He’s been giving that same tired shtick for over a decade now. Leftfield isn’t saying that that wouldn’t be like, totally shit, if it happened, and that a space exploration/study program isn’t a worthwhile thing for governments to be investing in. But Lembit seems a bit… obsessed, even in the face of people who actually know what they’re talking about telling him he’s talking baws. He often claimed that the chances that an asteroid identified in 2002 by actual space investigatory people rather than oddball Members of Parliament would devastate the earth were “100%”, and then neatly backtracked and admitted it would actually miss the earth by 600,000 miles. This tendency to sensationalize only serves to make him look like a ranting idiot, and does nothing to help the reputation of those of us out there who are actually interested in the idea of space exploration, and indeed science fiction nerds in general. Lembit Öpik is basically the Daily Mail of space geeks, making grandiose claims about what’s going to kill you that you’re not quite sure whether to laugh at or be scared by.
He’s a bit of a moneygrabbing wanker as well. Not content with the £64,766 salary he receives each year from Westminster, on top of the £5000 he earns from his column in that bastion of political integrity, the Daily Sport, as well as countless thousands he has made from daft public appearances, magazine deals with the Cheeky Girls and TV spots, good old Lemsip Opalfruit felt that he was entitled to claim £111,880 in parliamentary expenses over the last 7 years. With this he paid for his second home which he never used, a plasma TV, and a £40 fine he’d received for not paying his Council Tax. But he offered to pay back the £40, so at least he’s not a TOTAL bastard, eh?
Jennifer Aniston runs from Lembit's advances
Not only is Mr Ö a massive self-centred chump of an MP, he also thinks he’s god’s gift to women. Of his high profile romances, he recently said “There’s been a weathergirl, a Cheeky Girl and a Wonderbra girl, so where do you go next? Then again, I do hear Jennifer Aniston is still available”. Oh, he’s so cool. I wish I were more like him. To all the PURE MILLIONS of Lib Dems out there who are clearly avid readers of our humble blog – this misogynistic, attention grabbing idiot isn’t doing your already silly reputation any favours. And Lembit, the day Jennifer Aniston wants your squinty face anywhere near her we’ll be sure to tell Angelina Jolie she can finally rest easy.
(This article was brought to you by someone who gets really annoyed when she wakes up to 3 Lib Dem newsletters that say precisely FUCK ALL every morning. Quit wasting your paper on me!)
It was announced this week that the BBC is planning to make sweeping cuts, including shutting down BBC 6 Music and the Asian Network.
Anyone who’s been paying attention knows that whoever gets into government after the general election is going to try and slash public services of all kind. Both Labour and the Tories are obsessed with getting back the money the government has spent on bailing out banks, and they intend to get it back from you and me.
In the case of the BBC, it’s no secret that the Tories have done a major deal with Rupert Murdoch’s News International. The Murdoch family control Sky TV, The Sun and a host of the UK’s most powerful media outlets. In return for their support, the Tories have effectively let the Murdochs write their media policy. Part of this agenda is cutting the funding of the BBC, so that it can compete less effectively with their products.
But what’s shocking about the cuts announced by BBC Director General Mark Thompson is that they are trying to pre-empt these cuts by making their own. It’s an approach that will fail in any kind of public service that tries it. The only way to stop cuts is to fight them from day one, not try and make them more acceptable.
The National Union of Journalists understands this, and has pledged resistance. Their General Secretary Jeremy Dear said: “Mark Thompson has put BBC management on a collision course – not just with us and the hundreds of BBC staff who face losing their jobs, but with licence fee payers up and down the country.
“BBC management’s strategy of desperate, hopeful self-sacrifice is fundamentally flawed. Far from convincing an incoming government or commercial rivals that the BBC should now be left well alone, their self-harming approach will only encourage commercial media operations to demand more cuts. Public outrage at the proposed cuts has been overwhelming. A ‘Save BBC6 Music’ Facebook group has gained almost 90,000 members in just a few days and group members have appealed to us and other BBC unions to organise a joint demonstration. We’ve seen an increase in requests for membership from BBC staff right across the UK.”
Vaizey: Posh Wank trying to look cool
The closure of 6 Music has attracted the biggest outcry, including a lot of support from music celebrities like David Bowie, Jarvis Cocker and Lily Allen. One of our favourites was Adam Buxton, of the Adam and Joe Show, inviting Mark Thompson out for a fight. Some have even suggested that it may well be a deliberate headline grabber, with the BBC manufacturing a controversy so that it can demonstrate how much public support there is for BBC output. This theory was given a boost when Tory culture spokesman Ed Vaizey (who, as a the son of a life peer, in fact bears the title ‘The Honourable Edward Vaizey’), tried depserately to prove how in-touch, cool and not posh he was by changing his mind to support 6 Music. He initially came out in support of the proposals. But once he saw this might make him fall foul of the Facebook/Twitter cool vanguard he quickly changed his mind and declared himself a fan of the station.
Whether in fact it is true that the closure of 6 Music is some kind of conspiracy double-bluff by the BBC remains to be seen-it’s certainly the service with the most public (and celebrity) support, and may well get saved. But as several presenters have pointed out, Asian Network listeners are less likely to be able to mobilise famous people in support, and are also less likely to be Facebook or Twitter users able to generate a huge campaign online. The majority of listeners get the Asian Network via AM rather than digital radio.
The BBC argues that the Asian community in the UK is made up of many different groups, from different places, with different languages and religions. This is absolutely right, Asians in the UK are not a homogeneous group. Where they get it wrong is then going on to say that the idea of a national network that can serve this whole community was never going to work. As one presenter argues, the network brings the communities together, as well as allowing discussion of controversial issues without the racism and ignorance in much of the rest of the mainstream media. Although there are other Asian-based radio stations throughout the country, there is no comparable UK-wide media outlet for the Asian community (and indeed the many white listeners, like me, that enjoy its programmes too!)
The other part of the cuts package is slashing the BBC website, especially the brands aimed at teenagers BBC Switch and Blast! The reasoning behind this is that the teenage audience is already being served by Channel 4. But the whole point of the BBC is that everyone pays for it, and everyone gets something out of it. Once we start accepting that teenagers are better served elsewhere, well let’s not forget that there’s Sky News or ITN to cover the news too. Where does it end? With the BBC providing only niche programming which others don’t do because it isn’t profitable. Teenagers have as much right to expect some service in return for the licence fee which either they or their parents pay as anyone else does.
If it is the case that the BBC needs to save money, then Leftfield has come up with a few ways this could be done with no impact on the quality of programmes. Currently, the BBC pisses gigantic sums of money into the bank accounts of a few people who really don’t need it. This is money paid in by the public via the licence fee. Let’s start with the top:
-BBC Director General Mark Thompson is on a salary of £834, 000. This is several-hundreds-of-grands more than Gordon Brown gets paid, and enough to pay for more than 7 months of 6 Music’s total costs.
Moyles' world record attempt for most amount of chins on air
-Or Jeremy Clarkson, who earns an unbelievable £2 million a year, and on top of that gets another £200, 000 through merchandise, and then receives another £117, ooo in “payment as services” i.e. freebies.
-Or Anne Robinson, who is getting £3 million a year from the BBC, after having said “what are Welsh people for?”. She also made old Blue Peter presenter John Noakes cry by asking about Blue Peter dog Shep “Did he die or just run away?” (hope you felt big and clever after that one!) Just how much is a wink worth?
The BBC would of course argue that these salaries are justified, because there is no other way it can compete to get “top talent” to stick with themand not go to other networks. Clearly there’s a very wide definition of talent being used. We suggest that the BBC immediately slash the salaries of all the above to make sure they’re not earning more than £70 an hour. If they say they can’t survive onthat, or they don’t want to, then fuck them. The UK is full of talented people who only want a decent living
Jeremy having fun: you're paying
wage and could produce amazing and innovative programming that benefits everyone. Some of them work for 6 Music and Asian Network!
After the resignation of the leader of Glasgow City Council Steven Purcell on Tuesday, it’s hard to find someone with a bad word to say about him.
Even SNP First Minister Alex Salmond, who once told Purcell to grow up, has been being nice about him.
So where do you go if you want to see someone be critical of this knobhead? Most of the media are, today at least, keeping cautious about the rumours about his resignation, since it was announced by his expensive high-powered solicitors. We wonder why that could be?
The official reason for Purcell standing down is that he is “exhausted and stressed”. But last week he seemed to be on good enough form to go to a fancy dinner at the Hilton with Gordon ‘Citric Idiot‘ Brown and Rangers manager Walter Smith to raise money for the Labour Party. But over the course of the weekend, things changed, and word started to come out on Monday he was standing down.
It’s easy to see why he would be stressed, following a major scandal at Strathclyde Passenger Transport, the public body responsible for running the subway and other public transport in Glasgow. Labour councillors have been in the top posts at this body for a long time, but recently it began to emerge that despite SPT bosses’ huge salaries, they’ve been making ridiculous expense claims, which added up to £520, 000. Free junkets enjoyed by top managers included trips to football games, expensive restaurants, £117,573 in foreign trips around the world, and even a Neil Diamond concert (where they undoubtedly had a few bottles of Red Red Wine).
Back of an SPT train
When this all started to come out several top managers were forced to resign. How this is linked to Purcell’s resignation remains to be revealed. Relations between the council and SPT have been severely strained by the affair. Tensions haven’t been helped by the slow pace of building up transport links needed for the Commonwealth Games in 2014.
Almost everyone who has commented on Purcell’s resignation has been quick to praise his role in bringing the Commonweath Games to Glasgow. But was the successful bid such great news for Glasgow as all the mainstream parties would like us to believe?
The current budget for the cost of the games is £288 million, but of course nobody believes such huge projects will ever stay inside their budget. Meanwhile, the race is on to for property developers and lazy rich people everywhere to get their hands on land in the East End and other extremely poor parts of Glasgow. Many know that if they own land they will get huge payouts from public funds for them. And after the Commonwealth Games, the long term effect is likely to be a wave of gentrification. That means that new housing and investment will mean that poor people can’t afford to live in areas they grew up any more.
It shouldn’t surprise us that this took place under Purcell’s leadership. Before he was leader of the council he was responsible for Development and Regeneration Services. What that really means is that he was at the head of efforts to use capitalist economics to transform Glasgow, and make sure it has no future as a working class city.
Purcell’s other greatest achievement was completely pissing off parents across the city when he decided to close 25 schools and nurseries, many of them in less well off areas like the Wyndford. This idiotic decision has been fought all the way by the city-wide Save Our Schools campaign. The fight included parents going into their children’s schools to occupy them.
Many were asking themselves why there was a bottomless pit of cash for the one-off Commonwealth Games, but nothing for the long term educational needs of Glaswegian pupils.
The full story behind Purcell’s resignation will take some time to come out. The announcement that today he came out of a drugs and drink rehab clinic may be the first sniff of the truth, but it’s still unclear why he was there. We do hope however that his recent experience in rehab, surrounded by people with serious addiction problems, will open his mind on the issues surrounding drugs in Glasgow.
Say hello to our new leader, Glasgow.
Glasgow urgently needs more support services for those with addiction problems. But Scotland as a whole needs to take a radical new approach, and recognise that the war on drugs has been lost. It’s time to stop treating people with problems like criminals, and give them the help they need through the NHS.
Unfortunately there seems to be little sign of the Labour Party as a whole taking this on board. The interim leader replacing Purcell is Jim Coleman, a man who has made a career out of being anti-drugs, and opposed several different education and support organisations. Whether this stance has any bearing on his selection as city leader remains to be seen.
It seems that Fearne ‘talent vacuum’ Cotton got herself into a little bit of bother yesterday morning, with a slightly careless reference to cotton pickin’ in an interview with Morgan Freeman, who as The Sun helpfully reminded us, is a ‘black actor’.
Now, in a Leftfield exclusive, we can reveal Freeman’s quick-fire response which listeners to the show may’ve missed, since, attempting to cover up any awkwardness her remark may’ve created, Fearne quickly bursting into a fit of giggles, before cracking a joke about lynch mobs.
Hard on the heels of a previous post poking fun at the idiocies of the organised, evangelical Christian Far Right in Ireland, Leftfield brings you news of another bout of idiocy from a fundamentalist nutjob.
Calling out the offensive madness of Pat Robertson is a bit like shooting fish in a giant barrel with a satellite laser guided super gun, i.e. it’s not very hard. Researching this article I came across the wikipedia page ‘Pat Robertson controversies,’ which has 20 separate entries, such as ‘Chinese abortions,’ ‘Remarks against Muslims and Hindus,’ ‘Remarks against Asians,’ and ‘Financial Ties to Charles Taylor and Mobutu Sese Seko.’* He also famously called Scotland “a dark land overrun with homosexuals,” and advocated the assassination of Hugo Chavez on live TV.
If you don’t know of this guy count yourself very, very lucky you live in a country where such people don’t have national political influence. People in the US are much less fortunate. Robertson is a famous televangelist, known for spouting his virulent right wing views on his own TV station, the Christian Broadcasting Network. In 1988 he campaigned to become the Republican nominee for US President, and retains a huge following and influence on the US right. He’s really a poster boy for the extreme right evangelical political movement that is basically responsible for two terms of George W. Bush.
But what has he done lately to earn the prestigious inclusion in Leftfield’s roster of knobheads? Well, he excelled himself with this latest outburst, in reference to the Richter 7.0 earthquake in Haiti which has killed around 200, 000 people:
… something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it, they were under the heel of the French, uh, you know, Napoleon the third and whatever, and they got together and swore a pact to the devil, they said, we will serve you, if you get us free from the French, true story. And so the devil said, ‘OK, it’s a deal.’ And they kicked the French out, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free, and ever since they have been cursed by one thing after the other, desperately poor. . . That island of Hispaniola is one island. It is cut down the middle; on the one side is Haiti on the other is the Dominican Republic. Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island. They need to have and we need to pray for them a great turning to God and out of this tragedy I’m optimistic something good may come. But right now we are helping the suffering people and the suffering is unimaginable.
Most people who can be bothered to try and work out what is going on in his fevered mind interpret his comments as relating to the role of Dutty Boukman, a slave in colonial Haiti when the country was still controlled by the French. As a priest of the voudun religion, followed by slaves and derived from their traditional beliefs before they were abducted from Africa, he conducted a ceremony in 1791 that helped spark the Haitian revolution.
The movement he helped start is one of the forgotten moments in the long struggle of humans everywhere to free themselves from exploitation, not as well known as the French or Russian revolutions. It was the first successful slave revolt in the history of the Atlantic slave trade, and it allowed Haitians to found the first state not controlled by a white elite in the whole western hemisphere, and the first post-colonial Black-led state in the world. The revolutionaries, in an unabated streak of ass-kicking, not only beat the French, but then went on to drive out the Spanish and British invaders who saw their chance to grab another colony. Then, with racism clearly clouding his ability to recognise hardcore fighters when he saw them, Napoleon Bonaparte sent MORE French troops in an attempt to reconquer the island. I bet you can guess what happened to them.
The existence of Haiti as a revolutionary base later became a key aid to the struggle of Simon Bolivar to end Spanish colonial domination of Latin America, when Haitians provided the rebels with shelter and aid.
The history of the revolution is famously documented in the classic book ‘The Black Jacobins,’ by Caribbean Marxist C. L. R. James. It’s a great read and is one every socialist should try and make the time for at some point.
On one level, you can almost (almost) understand how poor old mad, ignorant Robertson ended up with such wacky views, given the total lack of context that’s been displayed in most coverage of the devastating quake. Most accounts have told us how the infrastructure and government were woefully inadequate, and how unprepared they were for a disaster of this kind. But that’s the end of the story, nobody seems to be interested in how this situation arose.
The fact of the matter is that there is almost never a completely natural disaster, especially in countries like Haiti, the poorest in the Western Hemisphere. Since the revolution Haiti has been under virtually constant assault from imperialism. In 1825 France sent another invasion force, and forced the former slaves to pay reparations for the cost of their freedom, a crippling debt for Haitians. This was the beginning of an almost permanent period of political uncertainty, in a country that has had 32 coups in its 200 year history, virtually all of them backed by foreign imperial powers.
This process came to a head in 1914 when British, German and American troops entered the island to prevent rebellion. The US then went on to occupy the island until 1934, completely re-writing the constitution and imposing a financial system that left Haiti in even more debt, and siphoned off the country’s wealth to US banks.
Following the US occupation the US supported with significant aid the dictatorship of the batshit-insane ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier as a bulwark against a spread of the Cuban revolution. Duvalier was notable for a reign of terror against anyone he didn’t like, including socialists and communists, carried out by his private army, the Tonton Macoutes. Haiti became his private kingdom, and he continued loot the country’s wealth, as well as getting Haiti into massive debt. Haiti today is still paying off debts amassed by Duvalier, which no one had any say on apart from ‘Papa.’ He created a huge personality cult around himself, and claimed that President Kennedy had been assassinated because he had cursed him. He also liked to compare himself to Christ. In other words, he had about as much of a grip on reality as Pat Robertson. When he died in 1971 he was succeeded by his son, known, imaginatively enough, as ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier.
In 1986 Haitians finally managed to get the Duvalier family kicked out and exiled to France. Following this Haiti held its first democratic elections in a long long time, and elected former priest Jean Bertrand Aristide to the Presidency. As a priest he had advocated liberation theology, and as leader of the party Lavalas (which means ‘the flood’ in Haitian creole) he argued for redistribution of wealth and the duty of the state to try and alleviate the massive poverty affecting Haitians. In 1994 he also suffered a coup against his Presidency, but it was defeated and he returned.
Re-elected in 2000, Aristide was finally deposed in a US backed coup, the frontline troops of which were drug-smuggling mercenaries. US troops then kidnapped Aristide and dumped him in the Central African Republic. Since then Haiti has hosted a UN “peacekeeping” force, whose troops have been predictably enough been accused of numerous killings and abuses of the Haitian people. One of the most notable crimes to have occurred during the UN occupation has been the kidnapping of Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine. Lovinsky was a member of Lavalas, and a noted human rights activist who fought for the poorest, particularly single mothers and homeless children. He went missing after a meeting with UN forces in 2007. An international solidarity campaign has fought for his return.
In the first elections since the coup, Haitians overwhelmingly elected Rene Preval, a close ally of Aristide. Despite government committed to (as Aristide put it) “moving from absolute misery to dignified poverty,” Haiti has been the victim of decades of neo-liberal capitalist policies. International institutions like the IMF and World Bank forced the government to relinquish its powers to help their own people from the 70s onwards, and harsh trade agreements made sure the prospect of Haiti developing its economy and resources for its own people was just not happening.
Perhaps most importantly, these policies deliberately forced tens of thousands of poor small farmers off their land and into swelling slums in cities like the capital Port Au Prince. This city has grown immensely, and the vast majority live in poorly built makeshift homes that are in no way equipped to cope with disaster conditions, with no electricity, running water or infrastructure of any kind. Around 75% of the population lives on less than $2 per day, and 56% — four and a half million people — live on less than $1 per day. These are the people who have died in the thousands, as much victims of poverty imposed by imperialism as the earthquake.
As Brian Concannon, the director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, puts it: “Those people got there because they or their parents were intentionally pushed out of the countryside by aid and trade policies specifically designed to create a large captive and therefore exploitable labour force in the cities; by definition they are people who would not be able to afford to build earthquake resistant houses.”
The UN occupation is fantastically expensive, and yet its mission is defined as solely military, in other words keeping the rebellious Haitians in line. The powers that take part, chief among them the US, have consistently voted against any of this money being diverted to help ordinary Haitians.
An important comparison to make if you want to understand what’s happened to Haiti is with neighbouring Cuba, fortunate to have had a socialist revolution in 1959 and so not controlled by the US and its allies. In 2008 storms killed thousands in Haiti, whereas in Cuba they killed only four. A socialist government that is truly in control of the country and its resources is able to take practical steps to protect ordinary people from natural disasters. Meanwhile, refugees leaving Cuba are welcomed with open arms in the US as evidence of how awful socialism is, whilst Haitians fleeing poverty are treated as vermin, kept in detention camps and deported wholesale back to Haiti.
Many places and organisations are raising money for disaster relief in Haiti, and this is of course vitally needed. But socialists reading this could perhaps reflect on how we could best help the Haitians in the long term. What Haiti really needs is imperialism to get off their back so that they can have the kind of pro-poor government that they have consistently voted for. One of the main ways this could happen is if the US and international bodies would forgive some of the huge debt burden, much of which was amassed by a government no Haitian ever voted for. But in fact, quite the opposite is happening right now, as the IMF is actually ADDING to Haiti’s external debt by offering loans for disaster relief!
Perhaps some of this (plus a basic education about geology, and the devil’s non-role in it) could help enlighten Pat Robertson. But then again, it’s unlikely, as he is clearly a knobhead. Inside that knobhead is a brain composed of nothing but 100% pure, weapons grade mentalism.
Bonus: Pat Robertson gets caught saying a caller to the Larry King show is a “homo” when he thinks he’s off air:
*Charles Taylor is the former President of Liberia, currently on trial for war crimes in The Hague, who presided over a reign of terror in his country featuring all kinds of horrors inflicted by conscripted child soldiers. Mobutu Sese Seko was the brutal dictator of the Democratic Republic of Congo, which he renamed Zaire cos he felt like it. When he was kicked out the aftermath caused a war which has killed more people than World War 1. Pat Robertson was in business with them both because he owns diamond mines that use virtual slave labour. What a prick.
First Gerry Adams reveals his father was a child abuser and calls for his brother to come out of hiding and hand himself in to the police. Now it’s been revealed a 19 year old toyboy has been firing into Iris Robinson, the Christian fundamentalist wife of Democratic Unionist Party First Minister Peter Robinson. And this is after the Robinsons were revealed to claim 30k in food costs as MP’s earning them the moniker “Swish Family Robinson”. The north is looking more and more like an episode of Hollyoaks every week, albeit with a couple of dodgy looking guys in the background with balaclavas setting off the odd bomb or two.
Its another fantastic step forward for the peace process. It’s now normalised the political set up in Northern Ireland to the extent that proper political scandals now consist of shagging and dodgy money on expenses instead of being former commanders of paramilitary organisations and trying to decapitate the British Government by blowing up hotels.
While folk on the Left enjoy the Swish Family Robinson’s comeuppance, we should take a look at the political situation in Northern Ireland after the Good Friday Agreement. A lot of people have had a distinct lack of sympathy for Iris’ predicament due to her own moralising in the past. She’s denounced gays not just as an “abomination” but also that said they were worse than child abusers, commenting that “There can be no viler act, apart from homosexuality and sodomy, than sexually abusing innocent children”. Her husband defended her, saying she was just echoing Christian scripture. None of this is that much of a surprise though, it was Ian Paisley who led the “Save Ulster from Sodomy” campaign against the legalisation of homosexuality.
The worst folk in the modern Tory party today can’t get away with anything close to the Robinson’s comments on gays and lesbians. Far from it, now they’re speaking at Stonewall demos and apologising for Clause 28. Even Nick Griffin can only shift uncomfortably in his seat and tell folk the gays make him a bit queasy. So why is it, after the supposed success of the peace process the DUP can not just get away with it, but be popular with it?
Northern Ireland is now the most right-wing part of the UK in terms of the politicians it elects. It’s the only part of the UK where full on Christian fundamentalism, the likes of which you get in the USA, can make hay. The gay bashing is just the tip of the iceberg. The Democratic Unionist Party, who Iris represents also have also called for teaching materials on creationism to be available in schools. Another of their MP’s, not to be outdone by Pete or Iris in the nutter stakes opposed letting Catholics become the Monarch as they owe their first allegiance to the Vatican. Which is of course in the same vein as Ian Paisley denouncing the pope as the antichrist in the European Parliament. If nothing else the DUP should be thanked for reminding Catholics in Scotland how they were treated when they were immigrants.
Alongside this favourable environment for the right is an extremely unfavourable one for the Left. While the SDLP and Sinn Fein have left of centre programmes (and in Sinn Fein’s case, anti-war and anti-imperialism) they make zero headway among the Protestant half of the working class in Ireland. This is in stark contrast to the movement in the Republic, which has seen success for former Socialist TD Joe Higgins in winning a Euro seat and decent votes for other Left groups like People Before Profit and the Unemployed Workers Group. Northern Ireland is also one of the few (if not the only) statelet in Western Europe not to have a mainstream political party which has it’s roots in the trade union movement.
You can see what the lack of a trade union based party means for US politics, and the same goes for Northern Ireland. Even if every party in Western Europe which used to give genuine political representation to Trade Unions has betrayed them, they at least contributed to the development of some basic progressive, Socialist and Left ideas in their countries, which the radical Left has in some cases been able to capitalise on. The lack of a political party representing trade unions in Northern Ireland is largely due to the fact that national and religious divisions are unfortunately much more important than class divisions when people take an interest in politics. Ultimately a political party in the North has to decide whether it is for a United Ireland or for the UK, and whichever decision is made will leave it isolated from one half of working people in the province.
Irish Socialist and Republican James Connolly had it spot on when he said that dividing Ireland “would mean a carnival of reaction both North and South, would set back the wheels of progress, would destroy the oncoming unity of the Irish labour movement and paralyse all advanced movements whilst it endured. To it labour should give the bitterest opposition, against it labour in Ulster should fight even to the death, if necessary, as our fathers fought before us.”
Creating Northern Ireland meant that one half of workers, Catholic and Republican would be pitted against the other Protestant and Loyalist half. Any attempts to foster class unity are made very difficult by an institutionalised sectarianism in Northern Ireland, which the peace process has not changed. Contrast this with the position in the Republic where the voting lines are not broken down between Catholic and Protestant, but where religion is largely irrelevant and left wing politics have an opening.
If Socialists are going to have an impact in Northern Ireland and roll back the power the DUP has it’s not just necessary to argue for a United Ireland so the political environment becomes more similar to that of the Republic. There needs to be some way of working with Protestant workers who the Left has not been able to attract because of its position on a United Ireland.
Connolly called Socialists who didn’t want to talk about the national question in Ireland were “Gas and water Socialists”, who only wanted to fight on issues surrounding the economy and poverty. But there should be some organisation uniting working people from both backgrounds in Northern Ireland even if it is just on those “gas and water” issues . Large sections of Protestants in the North will never agree with a United Ireland but many could support a campaign alongside Catholics for a decent minimum wage, defence of public services and workers rights. If even a small minority of Protestants came round to backing a United Ireland on a platform of workers rights, it would fundamentally change the political situation in the North.
As it is just now the Christian Right parties like the DUP are able to take them for granted largely on the basis that they are fighting for their communities interests against the Catholic community. One example of this was during last years Euro Elections were the DUP faced a challenge from Traditional Unionist Voice, a splinter of the DUP who split because the party went into Government with Sinn Fein. The DUP tried to maximise it’s vote by raising the danger of Sinn Fein topping the polls for the first time in Northern Ireland’s history (which they did). As the TUV pointed out, how could the DUP raise this as a nightmare when they were in Government with them?
The DUP didn’t try to defend their coalition with that argument, they fought to get more votes by raising the fear that the other community’s representatives would benefit. Now there are fears Sinn Fein could nominate a First Minister for Stormont if the DUP vote collapses due to the scandal. Expect the DUP to raise that nightmare a lot more than actually trying to defend the actions of their representatives.
The North is one of the poorest parts of the UK, with the spectacular levels of poverty, unemployment, crime and low pay. The DUP’s Christian fundamentalism do nothing to change or improve the lives of working class Protestants. All they do is keep them locked into a battle with the other half of the people, desperate to hold on to privileges they once held over Catholics – instead of demanding an increase in the quality of living for everyone in the North. As difficult as it is, the Left can improve the lives of working people if it is able to challenge the DUP on these issues without dropping a commitment to a United Ireland.
But most Heads of State and people of power are pretty distasteful, if you look in to it. The Queen has hosted 
It was announced this week that the BBC is 
Purcell’s other greatest achievement was completely pissing off parents across the city when he decided to close 25 schools and nurseries, many of them in less well off areas like the Wyndford. This idiotic decision has been fought all the way by the city-wide 
Most people who can be bothered to try and work out what is going on in his fevered mind interpret his comments as relating to the role of 
Entries (RSS)