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  Sunday, January 31, 2010Reservations About Reservationsa.part.heid noun A system or practice that separates people according to race, caste, etc.It's pretty extraordinary how humans have been treated like animals - worse, in fact: like commodities.Of course, border controls have only been around for barely more than a century, largely concocted to prevent Jewish people from entering countries like mine - Britain - when it was considered merely an inconvenience. Millions of dead Jews later, the feigned concern for them was used as an excuse to stop Hitler's Nazi quest for white-power world domination when, in fact, it was just that this was a capitalist with potentially more might than our capitalists. Lord Kitchener, after all, had already popularised use of the "concentration camp" model long before those pesky Nazis used it. Before that, though, the first examples of a concentration camp were in the United States, where predominantly European invaders slaughtered, tortured, raped, pillaged and plundered Native land, and incarcerated their people in confinement. Not satisfied with that, these "Americans" then found that there weren't enough "Injuns" left over to exploit - so had to try to satiate their greed for slavery by going and kidnapping Africans to bring them back over with them for more capitalist exploitation. Yep, you can't have a rich, fat, elite without an exploited poor huddled masses. Why do you think immigration was considered such a good thing at the time, the French beacon to the world's unwanted positioned at the coast? The fat cats were licking their chops at the sight of all these desperate people as tools for profit. The United States of America became an apparatus of avarice, taking in, chewing up, and spitting out minorities in its American Dream machine. My dad always said, "They can't all be Indians; you have to have Chiefs." The dream was an illusion; in actuality a nightmare. It's been said that in modern America, the concentration camp still exists, but in another form: the ghetto. In these areas, the people with even less chance of realising any kind of "dream" at all have hardly any opportunities, kept at the bottom of the barrel, while U.S. TV shows show the rest of us images of only financially comfortable, perfectly coiffed and manicured African-Americans like Bill Cosby and Damon Wayans in their big suburban homes, while even the aptly-named White House has a token black man placed in it to serve the interests of the privileged class he's surrounded by and harp on with the American DreamTM rhetoric to keep everyone calm. In-keeping with the agenda, the further abuse and use of Judaism for capitalist methods led to the creation of an Israeli state that would forcibly and often illegally encroach on Palestinian land to steal resources, leading to reactionary violence that Western media would label "terrorism" since it wasn't given approval from a rich white man's rubber stamp or seal while wearing a sharp suit, instead using the tales to demonise Islam and Muslims and commence a colonial War on TerrorTM that continues to this day under the present administrations. And last but not least: Down Under, in the nation of Australia often considered comprised of convicts from Europe, the Aboriginal people who were there first suffer their own punishment for no sin besides being in the way of greed. The businessmen bartering for an Olympics show on their turf when taking the International Olympic Committee on a tour of Australia hid the sorry sights of these people from the bigwigs. And don't even get me started on Woomera refugee camp, seen in the closing moments of my film Escape from Doncatraz. But stop the press - there's more! In the same way yet going one step further, the Canadian elite has not only yet again waved its banner and buoyed its image as "accepting" and "tolerant" and, well, "not American" to woo the IOC their way while hiding the horrors of the living conditions of First Nations people there - but even allowed their Olympic projects to help them sweep them under the rug. Oh, what you can get away with in your own backyard when you're juxtaposed against your rowdier, drunken, more violent next-door neighbour. How much longer will the world fall for this pathetic PR attempt from a country with such appalling treatment of First Nations people and a substandard welfare state? Sorry, Canada, you are American: North American, and all that land was native land. But that's for another time and place. Few have reservations about reservations. Few recognise the apartheid that exists all around the world to this day thanks to a voracious elite distracting, dividing and conquering the mass majority in the world who are not white, yet poor. Slavery never ended - we just gave it another name: capitalism. - Jay Baker; South Yorkshire, England Jay Baker's brand-new book is Pissing in the Mainstream. You can read a compilation of his best blogs from the past several years, and a few exclusives, in the book Soon To Be Banned: Musings of a Media Activist, available here. Labels: apartheid, Australia, Canada, Escape from Doncatraz, Israel, Palestine, racism
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Sunday, December 6, 2009Asian is the New Black"White folks ain't trying to keep you down. White folks just don't like to be pushed into a corner. They'll come around. You just got to make it look like it was their idea, like they're the ones that thought of it. They need to feel like they're the great emancipators. Like it was theirs to give in the first place. Let them have it. I mean, if that's all it takes, let them have it." - Laurence Fishburne as Edward Robinson, to a Mexican in the movie Bobby. Is there a racial hierarchy? The African-Americans have seemingly always suffered racism, a part of U.S. society unchanged by the token election of a right-wing capitalist President who just happens to be black. Then - as if nothing had been learned from Ireland or Palestine - Barack Obama's predecessors began the building of a wall to prevent more Mexicans crossing the border. "Now," I heard one African-American tell a Mexican, "you are the niggers." It was a concept represented by that character, Edward Robinson, in Emilio Estevez's film about Robert Kennedy's last hours. There always has to be an "enemy within" for our true enemies to thrive on. It's nothing new. Immigration controls are barely more than a hundred years old, conceived initially with the motivation of restricting movement of the Jews; creating the ability to open and close borders at will, as though part of some kind of Social Darwinist selection. But due to the shortage in workforce in 1950s Britain, the "colonials" were suddenly welcomed into the country over from the Caribbean to fill the void. Later, they were met with disdain, but it soon passed as society progressed and people became enlightened. Soon enough, the soccer hooligans were fighting, but the whites and blacks were joining together in chasing Indians and Pakistanis through the streets; it was their turn, and the blacks were just glad to be able to save their asses and be on the winning team. The Southern Asians in Britain were left to endure the National Front marching through their slums...until the Anti-Nazi League came along, and - taking direct action to another level - ran into those streets and gave the fascist racists a good beating, kicking their cause to the curb. More recently, we've seen South Asia bombed repeatedly and starved through sanctions, killing millions of children and many more adults. The CIA created the Ba'ath Party led by Saddam Hussein, as well as Osama bin Laden's Taliban, all as part of its effort to control the region, resulting in reactionary terrorist attacks from extremists - among them, ironically, Osama bin Laden himself. But the bombings in London, England, on July 7th, 2005, were by lads from West Yorkshire, where racism had risen and the British National Party had gained ground. Asians in Britain are trying to counter Islamophobia rife in the mainstream media through groups like MPACUK, and the rich and powerful are galvanising the issue of immigration that only boosts the single-issue politics of the BNP when there is in fact no issue there at all. As a result, while I was making Escape from Doncatraz on this subject, I even heard British-born Asians talk about the supposed threat of refugees and those who seek asylum. Yep: they're the ones now sitting at the bottom of the barrel in a capitalist system that crushes us from the very top, and depends on divisive distraction to get away with it over and over again. You see, when you've scratched and clawed your way from the bottom of the barrel you, too, fear ever going back there. You'll stand on whoever you can through fear of losing the few things you've gained. Those at the top are so far away, so impossible to reach or even see, it's your only hope of leverage, the only way you feel you can survive. That's capitalism. And until it's gone, the elite will always keep distracting us to "kick the dog" while they continue to enjoy their power, their riches, and that very system that keep them on top at our expense. - Jay Baker; South Yorkshire. Jay Baker's brand-new book is Pissing in the Mainstream. You can read a compilation of his best blogs from the past several years, and a few exclusives, in the book Soon To Be Banned: Musings of a Media Activist, available here. Labels: Barack Obama, Escape from Doncatraz, Immigration, racism, refugees
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Sunday, August 23, 2009Pity ThemThey say there's a first time for everything, and I'm here to offer sympathy for some politicians. I know what you're thinking: "Ah, Jay Baker's caught swine flu, or he'll be blogging while drunk or something - he'll come to his senses later," but I shit you not! Bear with me here. Just after that time, of course, it emerged that - after giving the issue forty years of thought - 57% of the American population did not believe the official version of President John F Kennedy's assassination. No surprise there: the evidence of a conspiracy had been fairly well documented, not just by DA Jim Garrison's case (as adapted for the screen by Oliver Stone), but by the documents released by the CIA showing that an international assassin had been captured in Dallas just 48 hours after JFK had been shot dead, only to be flown out of the country by authorities! Conspiracy "theories" were never necessary with JFK - the facts made it obvious that Lee Harvey Oswald was exactly what he screamed he was not long before he, too, was shot dead: "just a patsy."
If this sounds familiar, it may be because, after the planes hijacked by mostly Saudi Arabian men flew into the World Trade Center's Twin Towers on September 11th, 2001, planes were seemingly grounded for all but the special flights helping Saudi members of the Bin Laden family from the U.S. Sure, it's true no skyscraper in American history had ever collapsed due to fire as a result of impact from a plane, it's true the twin towers were designed specifically to withstand collapse upon being hit by jetliners, it's true there has never been an acceptable explanation for the mysterious and entire collapse of World Trade Center's huge Building 7 later that day - and those are issues worth pursuing. But that doesn't mean it's a conspiracy, and heck, if it was a demolition job, why not openly have a demolition, spare the hijack hassle, collapse the twin towers, and just blame that on the terrorists, like the attack in 1993? And even without the pursuit of such fact-finding crusades, the very fact that the Bush Administration was repeatedly warned about the threat of an attack yet did little to nothing, the fact that the Bushes and Bin Ladens were doing business together, the fact that the former helped the latter flee the country after the attacks, and the fact that this was all used as an excuse to invade Afghanistan and, remarkably, Iraq, killing thousands of innocent civilians, is enough to complain about, by sticking to the facts. The entire government - the entire administration - could be discredited based on those facts alone, facts that have even been acknowledged by both politicians and the mainstream media! And with those facts alone, the Bushes and Blairs of the world could be put on trial, convicted, and imprisoned. Anything else leaves the questioners open to questioning, and even ridicule. When asked about the subject by Alternative Radio founder David Barsamian for the book What We Say Goes, Noam Chomsky said "Of the couple hundred letters I'm getting every day, the flood that's really abusive, which says, 'It's your responsibility to set this as your highest priority and to drop everything else,' is coming from the '9/11 truth' people. It's almost a kind of religious fanaticism." Who are these people, Michael Jackson fans or something? Since Jacko's death, internet forums showing any support of Jarvis Cocker's famous 1996 Brit Awards protest, or acknowledgment of MJ's suspect interactions with children, seem to have been met with flaming abuse. Who knew Jackson fans would turn out to be such tough little bastards baying for blood of anyone with a differing opinion? The 9/11 Truthers are picking on the 80 year-old Chomsky in a similar way, and all because he won't put all his other great work on the back-burner and join their conspiracy cause? "I suspect people in positions of power like it," explained Chomsky. "It's diverting enormous amounts of energy away from the real crimes of the administration, which are far more serious. Suppose they did blow up the World Trade Center? By their standards, that's a minor crime. Increasing the threat of nuclear war and environmental disaster is a far worse crime, which might lead to extinction of the species. Take the invasions of Iraq and Lebanon. Or look at what they're doing to working people in the United States. We can go on and on."
On February 16th, 2008, I took a Greyhound bus with my colleague and friend Lenna into Toronto to attend what was advertised as a protest against the Security & Prosperity Partnership, which is an undemocratic movement amongst North American politicians to open up the continent to adopting the USA's security policies, extending their "no-fly list," and make that beautiful, pure Canadian spring water a communal resource. When we arrived, we found ourselves surrounded by not New Democratic Party activists, but 9/11 Truthers carrying signs against a supposed "North American Union" and standing beside a bus bearing the slogan "Ron Paul Revolution" - referring to the American libertarian Republican who opposes gun control and abortion, wants less public spending by scrapping taxes altogether in addition to less government interference in the market (though despite the presence of that bus, he denies being a 9/11 Truther, saying "the blame goes to bad policy," not a conspiracy). As we wondered what we'd got ourselves into on this "SPP protest," our mouths dropped, and our hearts sank. Nonetheless, Lenna made the most of our day by going up onto the stage, grabbing the microphone, and announcing the imminent arrival of our incorporated social enterprise, SilenceBreaker Media (to which one protester responded - hilariously - by shouting "No! No more corporations!") The NDP people arrived as everyone was leaving, and I asked "Where the heck were you when we needed you?" and they just smiled politely, as usual. I'm guessing they got there late because they take public transit.
The thing is, the military spending and presence around the world can still increase, as it looks set to, and health care plans can still be compromised, as they are being right now. Nothing Obama’s done has been particularly radical. And of course, they never were going to be. The Democrats are Republican Lite™ - they're still right-wing capitalists, despite the Republican cries of "socialist" at the President, which I'm sure he actually loves because it appeases the antsy lefties and progressives who helped him rise to power and now take a break from anti-war activism, while he sends more troops into Afghanistan, stalls on closing Gitmo, and goes easy on the bankers who essentially committed an act of terrorism on the country and its people. They were all so busy believing in Hope™ and Change™ before celebrating the removal of the GOP that they neglected to look at what exactly would really be changed: very little. American politics being as it is, things are not going to get that much better. But I'm not the bearer of bad news, not at all: when I say politics, I'm talking about party politics - because while the race for the White House features a choice of two parties (one more than the Soviet Union, as Jesse Ventura likes to say), Ralph Nader's raiders and the real grassroots activists can still cause real change. Change will come from the bottom-up, not the top-down. As Shami Chakrabarti told me in Escape from Doncatraz, "I don't believe people are any less political than they've ever been - they're just less party political."
As time went by, this - along with his increase of child poverty while increasing the number of billionaires, and introducing unprecedented debt for students while also attacking the health service - made Blair extremely unpopular. Even though it was damaging his party beyond repair, and his refusal to regulate the financial sector threatened to damage the economy beyond realistic recovery, Blair kept hanging on and hanging on, welching on the handshake deal he had with Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown (who refused to challenge him for leadership of the Labour Party in 1994 in return for supposed control over domestic policy and becoming his successor in around 2003). Blair in fact held on for a further four long years, by which time Britain was a mess. You can almost imagine Blair saying to Brown, "Sorry for the delay, old boy, but I've finally got this little country for you," as he holds his hands outwards and offers a clump of dirt, "And apologies for leaving it such a shit state, mate. Goodbye, now - I'm off to convert to Catholicism, write a book, get a tan, and be envoy to those rag-heads in the Middle East. Good luck, and so long, sucker!"
Brown's presided over a mess that Blair left him. As Blair's been tanning, Brown's gone pale with worry. While Blair's almost salvaged a reputation despite being a war criminal, Brown will be the one remembered for leading Britain into its darkest hour. It's not really fair and I, for one, feel sorry for the bloke! Do I agree with him on most things? Not by any stretch of the imagination - come on, I haven't taken complete leave of my senses here! But it's Blair we ought to despise most, not Brown. Blair's been the worst Prime Minister in decades, even worse than Margaret Thatcher because, while Blair was a wolf in sheep's clothing, her disguise was as transparent as the wolf in grandma's bed in front of the Little Red Flag-flying lefties. She chewed us up and spat us out - just like she said she would. No one was there to save us, and no one has been since. While Barack Obama's got some old CIA links, there was no OO7 in Britain able to rescue us from the jaws of recession.
At the end of the day, these politicians are still people. They're part of a system that's rigged to keep the right-wing capitalists in power, and in control. And in accordance with capitalism, they have to play dog-eat-dog, while getting their media mogul friends to create stories encouraging you and I to play kick-the-dog. As a result, we've blamed refugees, immigrants, Muslims, welfare recipients; you name it - anyone at the bottom of the barrel, because it's easier to kick them when they're down than reach the rich and powerful up at the top, especially when the press don't highlight what they're up to much. But of course recently, the papers have been showing what I already exposed over a year ago in my film Escape from Doncatraz: politicians fiddling their expenses to get a bit extra. And while Shami Chakrabarti was right about people being "less party political," it's not necessarily a good thing. We've all heard the conversations in the pub: "Ah, they're all the same, them politicians; they all piss in the same pot." That cynicism was never stronger than in the recent European elections where - just as we did in the 1970s and 80s, allowing Thatcher to take hold of power - the working classes stayed at home, and didn't vote. The percentage of votes for the racist BNP rose as a result, giving the impression that people were, in fact, turning to them (they weren't; the BNP’s votes actually dropped). But this is the danger that comes with cynicism and apathy. We can't afford to sit at home and disconnect from it all - the thing with democracy is, you either use it or lose it. Just vote - even if you have to vote for the "evil of two lessers." When hearing I was writing this, my friend and talented playwright Gary, brilliant as ever, suggested I play the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil in the background, it might help." It did make me think: choosing the evil of the lessers is better than nothing. I mean, the Devil got cast out, and it doesn't look like things improved much around here as a result, did it?
As Neil Young sang, "keep on rockin' in the free world..." - Jay Baker; South Yorkshire You can read a compilation of Jay Baker's best blogs from the past several years, and a few exclusives, in his brand-new book "Soon To Be Banned: Musings of a Media Activist," available here. Labels: Barack Obama, Escape from Doncatraz, Gordon Brown, Iraq, JFK, Tony Blair, War on Terror
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Wednesday, July 22, 2009Who Watches the Watchmen?Four years ago today, a Brazilian electrician by the name of Jean Charles de Menezes was shot dead by police on the London Underground. My documentary, Escape from Doncatraz, relied on facts available at the time to cover the incident as critically as possible by suggesting that, after acting suspiciously, he was killed due to evading police when they tried to apprehend him and question him. Despite using the incident as an example of a looming police state mentality and rising racism in Britain, my film was - yes - wrong. Very wrong. The reality was actually much worse... With nothing about his behaviour suspicious in the slightest, the police followed Menezes onto the platform where he calmly sat before getting onto a tube train. It was there that the police joined him on board and, without warning, simply pumped him full of bullets, leaving him lying dead on the train in front of shocked commuters.  Brazilians were outraged by the incident, but none more than the grieving relatives of the victim himself. The police response? Well, the initial excuse was that they thought he was a terrorist about to detonate a bomb on his person while riding the train - as was the case in the 7/7 attacks in the city. The thing was, those perpetrators were Asian; Menezes was, of course, Brazilian. I guess the Metropolitan Police explanation was based on their own racism I've looked at previously here: after all, how many times have we heard, "Ah, they all look the same to us!"We all know "Blair" is a name we can't trust whenever we see it on the news. But though police commissioner Sir Ian Blair has recently resigned, he didn't quit at the time of the incident - like his namesake, then-Prime Minister Tony Blair, he merely said sorry. Yeah: sorry. Can you believe that? "Oops! We killed an innocent man. Sorry!" Can you imagine some common murderer getting away with that in court? "Yeah, I killed some bloke in the pub 'cause he pissed me off. Uh, sorry." I don't think so. The only difference seems to be that if you're carrying a badge with your gun, it's okay! Understandably, the apologies were not accepted by the Menezes family. They expected more. They deserved more. Was there an investigation, perhaps even a prosecution? No. They had their wrists slapped for breaking health and safety regulations! Oh, and there was a fine involved. Meanwhile, after the Met deleted and selectively censored CCTV evidence on the incident, the operational commander on the day, Cressida Dick, was given a major promotion at Scotland Yard, and it was reported that an officer who killed Menezes shot and killed again. It's like a Police Academy movie, with that cop Tackleberry brandishing his beloved gun and blowing heads off whenever he has the chance. Except the reality is even worse than even one of those bad films, with a Dick and two Blairs to leave us with a bad taste in our mouths.  Now, more recently, during the G20 protests, the Met has killed newspaper vendor Ian Tomlinson. As he was white, they didn't go with an excuse of him being a dark-skinned terrorist suspect, though I'm guessing the Met conversations were along the lines of "Damn, if he'd just been Spanish, or Maltese, or even Italian or something, we could've got away with it!" And they might have, had it not been for those pesky kids, wielding their cameras despite a brand-new law the police are trying to enforce, which essentially bans any photography of the police. How convenient.Footage of the G20 incident was downloaded by Brazilians more than any other people in the world outside the US and UK; they see the connection. A pattern continues to emerge, with Britain in particular subjected to a police state where, frighteningly, they seem to be able to do as they like, regardless of the consequences. As I recently wrote for The Mule, the War on Terror™ has been used as an excuse to give the police unprecedented powers, at a time when they have proven to be completely irresponsible. They say that with power comes responsibility. You don't reward irresponsibility with greater power. Today we have reason to dwell on these things on the anniversary of a man murdered by The Met. Tomorrow, we carry on with our lives here under the British surveillance state, where we are all watched. But I know a few loopholes in the photography laws, and I intend to use such loopholes to hang the police force with, because with a trusty camera, this media activist will be watching them. On every single protest I can get to in the coming months, I'll be on the front lines, capturing footage, shooting back at the armed cops with my own weapon. My camera shoots fascists. - Jay Baker; South Yorkshire You can read a compilation of Jay Baker's best blogs from the past several years, and a few exclusives, in his brand-new book "Soon To Be Banned: Musings of a Media Activist," available here. Labels: Escape from Doncatraz, G20, Jean Charles de Menezes, Tony Blair, War on Terror
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