MEDIA_ACTIVIST JAY BAKER

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Those Bloody Scots!

Everyone remembers 9/11, and most people agree it was the defining moment of the "Noughties." It changed everything. The hijackers of the planes flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center were predominantly from Saudi Arabia. It's a testament to the power of propaganda, then, that the U.S. and U.K. politicians got away with using the terrorist attacks to launch their very own - not on Saudi Arabia, no, but Afghanistan and Iraq, where Operation Iraqi Liberation began (later changed to Operation Iraqi Freedom, when White House adviser Karl Rove thought O.I.L. might be a bit too blatant a giveaway as to what they were really after). The War on TerrorTM had begun. Then came mass protests, the resignation of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and American President George W. Bush Jr. seeing his approval ratings to the lowest levels since Harry Truman. And here we are, with HopeTM and ChangeTM as the brand-new brands bought by the general public, and - hey - everything is OK! Hmm.

But what 9/11 also provided was - as one British spin doctor put it - "a good day to get out anything we want to bury." Jo Moore did her job, suggesting that coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks would dominate airtime so much that any other revelations would barely be noticed. Unfortunately for her, she was caught doing her job by the people, when her email suggestion was leaked, and she was fired - as if that sort of thing didn't happen all the time (they even took her advice!)

Blair's chief propagandist, the infamous and odious Alastair Campbell, supported her removal - because, I suppose, it gave spin doctors, y'know, a bad name. Were we to instead believe they never manipulated facts and events to portray a politician more favourably than they deserved? That they had our interests at heart? What exactly did Jo Moore do that was so wrong? I wouldn't be surprised if her contract and job description even included "advise Transport Secretary Stephen Byers...liaise with civil servants...bury bad news." She was just doing her job! (Just like Evening Standard journalists, according to Ken Livingstone)

So, what's dominated the news the last several weeks? The release of the Lockerbie Bomber! You no doubt remembered the bombing of Pan-Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on December 21st, 1988 - and if you hadn't, you will have by now. I was just a kid at the time, and had pretty much forgotten about this horrific yet isolated incident until this summer.

Whereas Colonel Gaddafi looks like a used car salesman, the Libyan named Megrahi - or Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, if you're not into the whole brevity thing - looked like a killer! He had the Evil Staring EyesTM that are a must for any tabloid newspaper showing a guy to be a wrong 'un. He was tried and convicted of being responsible for the bombing of the plane. There has been some doubt as to whether or not he actually did it, but aside from that, this summer, he was suffering from terminal prostate cancer (so he was going to die, basically). That saved anyone calling for a death sentence! He was done; finished; kaput. Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Justice, released Megrahi on compassionate grounds for him to be returned to Libya to spend his last dying days in the desert.

You'd think that would be the end of it, really; even if you were as Old Testament-badass enough to want the guy dead for what he did, he was indeed about to die, anyway. But no, that wasn't good enough! He had to stay in prison and die in Britain! I watched the news and almost expected to see people running through the streets of Scotland carrying flaming torches. They wanted him staying in his British cell, dying there, and - I'm only assuming, here - publicly gutting in front of Scottish children who were then to play with the entrails before burning them to prove their loyalty to the British Commonwealth.

But seriously, every time I was in the pub for a peaceful pint of real ale, I'd glance at the television screen and see yet more coverage of the Lockerbie BomberTM! Days of it. Weeks of it! I was hoping Kanye West would interrupt the whole thing. And I couldn't help but thinking that - with a drawn-out, blown-up story like this one - the spin doctors would be busy burying the bad news that actually affects us all. Thanks, angry mobs! Thanks a bunch. One local chap even suggested this was the fault of the Scots themselves and the devolution of their parliament; "they have too much power!" He went on to suggest that with Gordon Brown as Prime Minister, and the whole line of Scottish blood through New Labour's history - from John Smith, to Tony Blair, to Alastair Campbell - the Scots were taking over Britain, and ruining it! Sabotage? You think? Oh yeah. Because, like, the Scots have really been bad, eh?

Ah, the Scots. I'm from Northern England, but thanks to my Scottish neighbours up there, I'm from the heart of the country of Great Britain. The Scots gave us Robert Burns, Irvine Welsh, Billy Connelly, the Bay City Rollers, a football team called "Hamilton Academical," the Land Reform Act, and Grand Theft Auto. How could they be bad? They wear kilts!

What does a Scotsman wear under his kilt? Why, his shoes, of course! Nah, no one really hated the Scots. They were just pawns in a bigger game here. The racism wasn't directed at them. The friendly rivalry between the English and the Scots was used as an excuse to express the real racism: hatred of Asians and Muslims.

I was in a seminar recently and one guy claimed the reason there weren't many jobs available for an ordinary white working class man like himself was because "the foreigners're takin' all the jobs." Mere minutes later, when prompted to take an opportunity to elaborate on his views, he said "I'm not racist," following it with that immortal word "but," before explaining "there's an Afghan guy moved in on the end of our street, and I know for a fact he's not got a job; I know for a fact he'll never ever work." I had to give it to him: he'd done his homework - he knew for a fact, after all, and was even able to see into the future. I wanted to hire him right there on the spot to work for me.

So, in other words, if they do work, they take our jobs, and if they don't then they're lazy welfare recipients. Wow, and this is the thanks they give us for bombing their country into oblivion and driving them from their homes to all across the globe, eh? And this is what's funny about the case of the Lockerbie BomberTM. To keep him in prison here in Britain would have cost money. That's okay, I guess - but giving money to honest, hard-working Asians who are then free to use it to buy goods and services and boost our economy is wrong.

There is something deeply racist in the fibre of British society, and racism breeds extremism. Such racism surely has to be attributed to all the "positive" images Rupert Murdoch's Sky News and similar channels provide us of Muslims and Asians, eh? Forget the Scots - the Lockerbie BomberTM is not just a good way to bury bad news...he's the best enemy they can give us.

- 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: George W Bush, Gordon Brown, Rupert Murdoch, Tony Blair

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Barack, Iraq and Iran: The One That Got Away

Hilarious news today, as Barack Obama speaks out on the election results and aftermath in Iran, the country known - in the War on Terror™ - as The One That Got Away. The irony is incredible.

Back when the United States were friends with The Butcher of Baghdad, Saddam Hussein (while he was gassing thousands of Kurds, but going along with Western policy), the government helped Iraq fight Iran - but also sold the Iranians some weapons on the side too, to make an extra buck financing their own military campaigns elsewhere.

The Iraqis suddenly stopped playing ball with the Yanks, and then after 9/11, when mostly Saudi terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center (and Building 7 just fell all by itself!), not only was blame placed on the Afghans, who were bombed mercilessly, but then also on Iraq, and Iran, as well as Syria, and even North Korea, which wasn't even in the Middle East! But North Korea had about as much to do with 9/11 as any of its counterparts in the Axis of Evil™! It was good guys against bad guys, with sides chosen seemingly at random like a game of Unreal Tournament (man, I love that frag-fest!) And the likes of NBC - owned by General Electric, who make Tomahawk missiles - made sure that the "war reporting" looked more like a harmless video game than anything horrific.

Where Ronald Reagan, and his own father failed, George W Bush Jr succeeded having risen to power in one of the biggest cases of voter fraud in Western history. "You are either with us, or against us," Bush said. Iraq was destroyed, but Iran remained an annoyance. Well sure enough, contrary to Richard Nixon's claim that the president can bomb anybody he likes, millions protested his bombing campaign, and his popularity level plummeted to the second lowest in recorded presidential history, behind only Harry Truman.

Then came the supposed alternative, offering slogans like Hope™ and Change™ which sure sounded good, didn't they? The Democrats were on course for an electoral onslaught even millions of lost votes wouldn't affect; it was only ever a choice between Democrat #1, Barack Obama, or Democrat #2, Hillary Clinton. Well, the more things change, the more they stay the same, and when it came to the Middle East, we were only offered reminders that the Democrats were not about to piss off the military industrial complex, as John F Kennedy did (bang, bang!) When asked about a potential Iranian threat on the biggest invader of its neighbours in the Middle East - Israel (America's mean ol' nasty kid sister) - Hillary Clinton said that, as president, she would "totally obliterate" Iran.

As independent politician Jesse Ventura said, "our two-party system gives us one more choice than (the Soviet Union)." And it's a choice between red and blue, Coke and Pepsi, corporations and corporations, capitalism and capitalism, right-wing and right-wing.

Despite more election discrepancies and lost votes, Barack Obama became president, and rewarded Hillary Clinton for her, um, diplomatic comments by making her his Secretary of State! He then went on to the summit of G20 as its apparent self-appointed head of twenty nations whose leaders dealt with the global economic crisis by enjoying expensive fine meals and talking amongst themselves, ignoring the thousands of protesters outside the venue in London who wanted their opinions heard, as the Metropolitan Police viciously and mercilessly attacked them, killing one man and injuring hundreds, in one of the worst cases of police brutality in recent history.

Now Iran's had their election, but seemingly chosen the same leader again: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iranians have been protesting about the validity of the voting results, with challenger Hossein Musavi still campaigning. Today, it was reported that Barack Obama responded to these events by saying "The difference between Ahmadinejad and Musavi in terms of their actual policies may not be as great as has been advertised," presumably to reinforce Iran's position as an enemy of the United States, no matter what happens there. He also said, "When I see violence directed at peaceful protesters, when I see peaceful dissent being suppressed...it is of concern to me and it is of concern to the American people."

Even more ironically, his Republican rival John McCain followed up with the comment, "He should speak out that this is a corrupt, fraud, sham of an election."

Oh, yes. It's a brand-new word: Irany.

- Jay Baker; South Yorkshire, England

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, George HW Bush, George W Bush, Hillary Clinton, Iraq, War on Terror

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Angel of the Public Interest

"The night after I was sworn in, I waited for a visit from the angel of the public interest. I waited all night, but she did not come." - Federal Communications Commission chief Michael Powell, an avid deregulation advocate and son of Colin Powell.

Does media matter? That's what I'm asked a lot.

Well, ask yourself how many of your opinions have been formed by something you heard, something you saw; a television show, a magazine, a song, a movie, a newspaper, or even a conversation - which, in turn, was likely largely based on opinions formed from...media! Sorry, but there's really no way around it, honey. Media controls the world. That's just how it is. The more we're informed, the more our opinions are formed.

But who controls the media? I guess that's pretty important, then, eh? Well, unfortunately, it's being left to rich, greedy, white, right-wing men in suits who - funnily enough - have the tendency to tell twisted tales to the people consuming their media, so that they keep hating each other and voting the right-wing political parties into power. That's pretty much how the whole thing works, right there.

In Britain, after boom-and-bust Conservative strategies left the incoming Labour government in economic turmoil - subjected to the (first) Winter of Discontent - Margaret Thatcher led the Tories back to power in 1979 with help from not just the clever, cynical, fake and now-infamous billboard poster designed by advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi, but also Rupert Murdoch's tabloid newspaper The Sun encouraging the population to vote for the Tories, like an evil nanny feeding a starving child arsenic and telling them "It's good for you," and it being trustingly gulped back.

No doubt many working class people - feeling that Labour had already significantly compromised their socialist approach moulded three decades earlier by the great Clement Attlee - felt less enthusiastic about voting for Labour again. That's to be expected. But it was predominantly the less industrial, more middle class, more suburban south of England that provided the push needed to solidify the support necessary to put in - and keep in - a Conservative government, all the way to 1997.

The Tories didn't simply fall from favour in 1997. No, it's no coincidence that Rupert Murdoch had become impressed by Tony Blair's "Third Way" route for New Labour that promised to continue the media deregulation started by Thatcherism - so much so that he had his News Corporation, and indeed The Sun, support them...resulting, of course, in their rise to power. And also resulting in deregulation and near-monopolisation of the media for Mr Murdoch.

Sure enough, Blair's Britain continued along that path, as did Bush's United States. In 2003, Murdoch claimed Bush "will either go down in history as a very great president or he'll crash and burn...I'm optimistic it will be the former." He put his Fox News Network to work on making his hopes a reality, almost always portraying Bush in a good light, discrediting his critics, and - most crucially - omitting certain facts about him and his party, only increasing the role of the channel as being, in actuality, Faux News, while Murdoch bought MySpace two years later, and continued his quest for his right-wing domination of the media world, and the people of the planet showed the propaganda wasn't completely succeeding as millions marched in streets across the globe in opposition to the UK-US led illegal invasion of Iraq.

The Bush administration, of course, didn't let these deeds go without reward. In the spring of that same year, Colin Powell's son, Michael Powell, in his role as chief of the Federal Communications Commission, set about dismissing thirty year-old rules while further loosening restrictions on just how much media could be controlled by a single company like News Corp. These changes threatened to allow a single network to buy stations that, combined, reached as much as a staggering 45% of the American people.

Think about that for a moment: one ideology, one message, one slant - bombarding as many as almost a half of all Americans. Murdoch could control the information of entire cities in the world's most powerful nation. Yep, deregulation was still being attempted in return for propaganda and campaign funds donated to the bigwigs by the media moguls. It was becoming a tired old sick joke.

Speaking of sick jokes, Powell simply stated, "The night after I was sworn in, I waited for a visit from the angel of the public interest...I waited all night, but she did not come." This pissed off a lot of people, with leading media activist Aliza Dichter responding, "Since he had trouble seeing one angel that dreadful night on March 22nd, we shall descend upon him in droves!" and Indy Media announcing "We encourage all Angels such as yourself to come to the gathering dressed in your best Angel garb - halo, wings, glitter, the whole nine yards. (If no angel gear, come anyway!)"

They're still waiting for the droves of angels to descend on the FCC, and I'm very tempted to come to Washington, D.C. myself. There are all kinds of media activist opportunities there, because it's the seat of power, and if I'm allowed there, I'll be helping to kick the legs from under it along with the rest of the people wanting change through responsible, fair media.

Barack Obama's great. The media has pleasantly focused on the fact that, for the first time ever, an African-American now resides in the White House. Why trivialise it? Why reduce it to tokenism? He got where he is today because he wasn't Colin Powell; he represented the wishes and hopes and dreams of America. He made promises he is already struggling to keep while under pressure from the same old system - be it by appeasing the military industrial complex by pulling forces from Iraq and simply putting them into Afghanistan, or by using the economy as an excuse to put progressive policies on the back-burner. Yes, his achievement is historic, yes it's important - but we must not forget the real reason he was put into power, because a black man means nothing unless he represents the people, and nor does a woman.

Deregulation was pushed to unprecedented places by Margaret Thatcher, one of the most devastating Prime Ministers in British history. That's something worth remembering. And with that in mind, it's time to take back control of the airwaves and the printing presses, because once Murdoch and his ilk have had their way, we'll only get their side of the story.

When the media lie, they get sued. So what do they do instead? Omit. It's lies through omission. If someone threatens you and your loved ones, and provokes you into threatening them in return, to then accuse you of threatening behaviour would only be part of the story, and, some might say, as bad as lying. That's what the mainstream media do: they lie through omission. Omitted details about immigration, about Iraq, about Palestine, about Ireland, about everything. There are certain things they'd rather you didn't know about or focus on. Because if you did? You'd be ripping their papers and brand-new asses for their bosses; you'd be organising and forcing change.

Ever noticed how everyone complains about how hard life is, and how much they work, yet things just largely stay the same? Ever wondered how that's even possible? They filter the information; they tell you that the arsenic is good for you! Everything's okay; just blame the immigrants. Everything's alright; blame the benefit frauds. Everything's fine; blame the poor who went into debt. Whatever you do, don't even consider questioning capitalism's free market or why there are just a few privileged people with eight-bedroom mansions, limousines and lear jets, while the mass majority in the world are struggling, and 1.4 billion live in official poverty.

What the media clues you in on is nowhere near as important as what they've left out. It can be quotes, statistics, editorials, and the screaming headlines themselves - overpowering or even replacing a few extra crucial details to the story. Given the fact that more and more of the media is being controlled by fewer and fewer people - with right-wing interests in contrast to the interests of the mass majority - our information is being controlled more and more, as well. It's being filtered. But heck, information is too important to our lives to be left in the hands of the right who are doing us wrong. We have to do something.

Get involved. Be an angel.

- Jay Baker; Doncaster, England

Labels: Aliza Dichter, Barack Obama, Conservative Party, FCC, Fox News, George W Bush, Iraq, Margaret Thatcher, New Labour, Rupert Murdoch, Tony Blair

Monday, February 16, 2009

Drawing the Line

I just had another successful screening of Escape from Doncatraz, in what is arguably the home of the No Borders movement, Manchester.

The interesting thing about Manchester is that, even though it is, of course, inferior to Sheffield in many ways (and, in fact, smaller), the whole world knows about the place because of its international airport (Sheffield's got Loxley's favourite son, Robin Hood, with his name on their airport...which is really in the Doncaster area, anyway - it just doesn't compare).

When you land at Manchester Airport and leave the plane, you walk towards customs and nowadays see a sign stating "UK BORDER."

I find it really weird, because I always thought Manchester was inland - I mean, where's Manchester Beach? Where's the Port of Manchester? Where are the Manchester Docks? How have I grown up in Britain without ever learning of the fact that Manchester itself is situated on the coast?

It isn't, of course. The whole idea behind the over-sized sign declaring the "UK border" is to reinforce the ridiculous concept that people arriving in the country are suddenly supposed to somehow feel privileged to be about to pass through customs and allowed to wander around this "green and pleasant land."

It's bollocks.

Let's face it, it's not just the media that's obsessed with immigration; the government is too. Is airport security today so tight just because of the threat of terrorism? Not at all. The claims that people can use liquids to explode a plane over the ocean are a little ludicrous, considering that - aside from the fact that if you're hellbent on causing chaos and terror, you will anyway, somehow, some way - angry terrorists can kill many more people, and much easier, by simply strolling into the food court in Meadowhall (known as "Meadowhell") and truly turning the shopping experience into a living hell by pulling the chord on their backpack and blowing up not just themselves but potentially hundreds of people before discovering there are no offerings of virgins from Allah (what a bummer that must be). So what next? Security checks at the mall? Or even at the end of every high street? Or X-Ray CCTV in every city? ID cards? Computer chips? Barcodes? Where would we draw the line then?

No, the idea behind the War on TerrorTM and its alerts is immigration-driven, straight and simple. Firstly, it creates a fear of dark-skinned people from different cultures, and, secondly, it provides the perfect excuse to strengthen security at airports and tighten border controls.

The bottom line is, if we really want to reduce the threat of terrorism - which can never be stopped, and can happen anytime, anywhere, anyhow - then we have to stop committing acts of terrorism in violation of international law (*cough*Iraq*cough*).

And the next time you land at Manchester Airport, tell the sour-faced staff there that they're wrong: the border isn't there at all; you just took a trip, you're strolling through an inland airport, and permission isn't appreciated, as you don't feel particularly privileged at all - especially since the white men in suits have sufficiently wrecked the country and its economy without help from a few poor dark-skinned refugees. No, it was the tax-cutting, warmongering American president and all their greedy banker friends who caused it - and both George Bush and the bankers are spelt with a W, by the way.

With a screening free from wankers, and full of passionate, smart young people, it's been great speaking at the University of Manchester. Now, where's the beach party?

- Jay Baker; Manchester, England

Labels: George W Bush, Iraq, War on Terror

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Four Million Americans Over The Top

"Here we go again," you're probably saying. "Another American election; the more things change, the more they stay the same." It's no surprise so many people are cynical. But people are also hopeful - it's just that they've had their hopes dashed so many times they don't like to build them up too much anymore.

Well, this election really does matter, more than any other in American history. Here, I'll explain why. But first, we have to go back to the beginning, to the demise of the left, and to a place at the other side of the Atlantic...

In 1990s Britain, Bill Clinton was seen as an inspiration by Tony Blair, and there's a reason for that: the party of the progressive movement couldn't get elected in the system ruled by money, until the leader used his charm and smarm to trick the left into supporting him while selling-out his party to the same business interests his opponents courted - the Rupert Murdochs of the world that influenced the information people received, as well as the economy. The cynical sell-out strategy worked in the United States, and it worked in the United Kingdom, too.

Bill Clinton said he smoked marijuana but "didn't inhale," still getting into power with the backing of the corporations, the media and its moguls, pushing some progressive policies but also rewarding private interests by throwing ten million people off welfare, bombing Sudanese aspirin factories, and supporting sanctions that led to the deaths of half a million Iraqi children, his Democratic colleague Madeleine Albright explaining that "we think the price is worth it." The seeds had been sown in the Middle East; forget the CIA-funded Ba'ath Party led by Saddam Hussein - it was the CIA training given to the Taliban's Osama bin Laden that was really being used now to plot against America through Al Qaeda. We knew who really had the Weapons of Mass Destruction - those we sold them to!

Al Gore was set to take Clinton's place, which the Democrats welcomed since, despite economic growth, he experienced growth of another kind during his sex scandal with intern Monica Lewinski - over $6,000,000 of taxpayers' money being spent on investigating the affair. However, we all know the next part of the story: Florida's Secretary of State in charge of elections, Katherine Harris, paid $10,000,000 to Database Technologies to remove specific kinds of people from voter rolls, who just happened to be Democrat voters, while she just happened to be co-chairperson for the Republican campaign as well! Technically, the Republicans had fewer votes and lost the election, but the scam worked, and with a media portraying Gore as a sore loser, he stopped protesting to save his party's public image, and the rest is history. Cocaine-user George W Bush Jr was the first man to be sworn-in amongst riots, not allowed to walk the last block to the white house, in a break from tradition. Heck, the whole thing was a break from tradition - back when I was a lad, it used to be that the candidate that got the most votes became President. Not anymore! I feel so old-fashioned now, believing in that "democracy" stuff.

Then came September 11th, 2001 - the day the Middle East struck back at Western aggression with mostly Saudi Arabians hijacking planes and flying them into the World Trade Center's twin towers in suicide attacks. $3,000,000 was spent investigating the 9/11 atrocities, half the amount spent on the Lewinski affair, leaving all kinds of discrepancies unexplained, and suggesting that the deaths of three thousand people was less important than a stain on a dress. The important thing was that Bush's lack of popularity was turned around when he suddenly became a "war president," saying "I go to work with war on my mind," meaning, conveniently, that he didn't have time to pay much mind to social programs - slashing them because his big government needed the funds to build up arms to attack terrorists...wherever they may be.

Bush used the Al Qaeda terrorist attack on 9/11 and the nation's grief and fear to justify passing the Patriot Act - legislation that eroded civil liberties and meant he could control and keep tabs on his own population to check for dissidents. He then ignored international law and, based on inconsistent intelligence, sent poor kids into harm's way in, of all places, Iraq - having them shoot anything that moved, blowing everything to smithereens, and seizing the oil fields, before "liberating" anyone. The "War President" gave Vice-President Dick Cheney's company, Halliburton, a big fat uncontested contract to "rebuild" Iraq - in the midst of 100,000 Iraqi civilian deaths and rising insurgency movements opposed to their country being occupied. But the paranoia, combined with millions more votes lost (not just in Florida, but also Ohio and New Mexico), put Bush Jr back into the White House for a second term, shocking the world, with most peoples citing not terrorists but the United States government itself as the greatest threat to peace on earth. The international community's hatred towards America only grew.

Bush continued with making loose and outlandish connections between Al Qaeda and oil-rich Iraq, in spite of the fact that "Islamic" extremist Osama bin Laden and secular dictator Saddam Hussein hated each other's guts. Presumably the fact that both Al Qaeda and Iraq had the letter Q in their names was enough for Bush's so-called intelligence. The Bush-Blair "Downing Street Minutes" showed that the U.S. and U.K. had almost everything they needed to conquer Iraq: aircraft, tanks, bombs, guns - the only thing missing was an actual legitimate reason. So they did what most war criminals would do, and made up a story about Weapons of Mass Destruction being left lying around there for terrorists to pick up and play with, like kids left with matches.

After entering office with a substantial treasury surplus left by Clinton, War President Bush put the country trillions of dollars into debt, exacerbating extremism and terrorism worldwide - with everyone and their cleric arming themselves to the teeth! Meanwhile, the American people were more over-worked and underpaid than they'd ever been, getting poorer and lacking in welfare and health care, kept afloat by a short-term, unsustainable credit card system. America had caught a cold, and the world was hoping it wouldn't sneeze.

Eventually, though, the American people were starting to spot the incredible illusion of coincidence - the illegal invasion of Iraq, the lack of WMDs there, the oil money, troops dying in huge numbers, people in poverty...and New Orleans, a city full of African-Americans, left to rot with the government ignoring the threat of Hurricane Katrina and the armed forces too busy in the Middle East to fully attend to the clean-up - another city destroyed, another big contract for corporations to "rebuild" and essentially cleanse the place of "undesirables" (what Naomi Klein called Disaster Capitalism). While the media provided us with some disturbingly racist portrayals of "black looters" in New Orleans, the real looting of the devastated Iraq was carried out not by the Iraqi people themselves, but Western corporations. However, even they were realizing that it wasn't going to be easy to set-up shop in Iraq. The popularity of the War President waned when what he'd called a "mission accomplished" became, in essence, another Vietnam, a war of attrition with young troops fighting for years, put to battle against angry Iraqis wanting their country back.

While New Orleans drowned, Bush's approval ratings sank to record levels, eventually hitting 23%, surpassing even those of Richard Nixon at the time of his resignation in the wake of the Watergate scandal (26%), and making him the second most unpopular president in American history, just ahead of Harry Truman's 1952 rating (22%). The American people had finally had enough, along with the rest of the world. America's economic collapse - predicted by Noam Chomsky and echoed in my article 'A Waterfall into the Mainstream' - finally began; it sneezed, and the rest of the world caught that darned cold.

On February 12th, 2007, I wrote that the tide was turning, that things were about to change for the better. I claimed that without Chuck Hagel leading the Republicans, they really didn't have any chance of legitimately winning the next election. I also suggested that Barack Obama might be a good choice to become Democratic leader, citing his ability to resemble wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, joking that he might ask "Do you smell what Barack is cookin'?" Maybe someone saw my blog and told him - because, lo and behold, what does he do? He goes on top professional wrestling show Monday Night Raw itself to parody The Rock and actually asks "Do you smell what Barack is cookin'?" Sometimes the accuracy of my predictions scares even me. I'll have to be more careful in future!

On April 22nd, 2008, I blogged about the Democrats needing to choose Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton not just because of his different approach, but because he represents a change in Washington - not the rhetoric he speaks, but real change from a potential Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton twenty year monarchy of the elite. The Democrats chose him, the most progressive of all the candidates. For the first time in a long time, there was a chance for real change in American politics.

As it happened, Barack Obama - who had massive grassroots support and garnered a staggering estimate of 88% of his campaign funds from ordinary people giving small donations - gave his Democratic leadership acceptance speech on the 45th anniversary of another famous speech; the one by Martin Luther King when he told the world of his "dream."

So many struggles had taken place over the last century, and this was to be another. The civil rights movement gained rights for African-Americans. The suffragettes died to gain women the right to vote. The allies fought fascism in the Second World War, defeating the Nazis who had risen in poverty-stricken Germany after the country was brought to its knees by the First World War. It was in that war that so much human life was sacrificed in record numbers. The soldiers dreaded the moment they were told to go "over the top" - to leave the trenches and head onto the fields, often doomed to be mowed-down by heavy artillery.

The facts suggest as many as four and a half million Democratic votes will be lost in this election. As Greg Palast told buzzflash.com, "four and a half million votes are going to be shoplifted." Palast, the investigative journalist who via the BBC exposed the Florida scam in 2000, and the voter fraud in 2004, went on to explain that "that doesn’t mean that they will own the White House, it just means that they start with a big old thumb on the electoral scale." That gives John McCain a head-start of at least four million votes already. I've always said that there can be no Ralph Nader excuses - Jesse Ventura is right; America needs more than just two capitalist choices. Two choices is not a true democracy. But there can be no excuses about lost votes, either. The American people have to give Barack Obama so much of an overwhelming majority that those four million votes don't even matter, so that four million people go "over the top" first, are sacrificed, and then the other brave troops of democracy stand up and be counted, achieving victory for the Democrats.

Then there are hoax stories of extremists from the Barack Obama camp, and talk of a possible "Bradley-Wilder Effect," where the polls are showing people are voting for the black man, but will do the opposite when in the privacy of the voting booth. I'm not sure about that - while Britain is full of racist media right now and "there ain't no black in the Union Jack," I think Americans are ready to have black represent their flag, and put a black man in the White House.

But ultimately, as Shami Chakrabarti said in the closing scenes of my film Escape from Doncatraz, "people aren't any less political than they've ever been, they're just less party political." In some cases giving him a ten-point lead, it's not just the polls that show Barack Obama with a lead over John McCain, it's the streets - where, for example, in Fort Wayne, Indiana, a friend of mine walked around this traditionally Republican territory and saw nothing but Barack Obama yard signs. There are some stating "Republicans for Obama." Even Republican Colin Powell recently endorsed Barack Obama. Colin freakin' Powell! This is incredible. How did this happen?!

For starters, John McCain insulted the people, his own people, when - in the absence of Hillary Clinton from the election race - he cynically "chose a vagina" (to quote suicidegirls.com) as his running mate in hopes he'd garner some female voters. Alaska governor Sarah Palin, a supposed "soccer mom" who had charged the state for her kids' travel expenses, claimed she had foreign policy experience "because Alaska shares its borders with Russia and Canada," became a complete liability, and had even less major political experience than Barack Obama - who himself chose as his running mate one Joe Biden, one of the least wealthy men in Washington, a man who commutes to work every day.

The Republican voters - even those in the south - have switched sides, fearing "more of the same" from the GOP (even while Bush is essentially kept off TV to distance the campaign from his legacy), fearing 72 year-old John McCain's demise during office, and thus fearing Sarah Palin left in charge of the country. Yep, in Fort Wayne and cities like it all over the United States, people are switching sides.

This is the ultimate slap in the face of the corrupt capitalist mob in the GOP who claimed there was a link between Iraq and Osama, who lied to them for so long, who took their hard-earned money and spent it on war, who drove the country into a financial crisis. These ordinary people slapped those bastards in the face by instead supporting a candidate who opposed the invasion and massive military spending from the start, who wants to open diplomatic dialogue with the Middle East, supports a social safety net and universal health care and investment in education, a man who not only smoked pot but inhaled as well, in addition to sucking up cocaine in school too...and, yes, a man whose name rhymes with "Iraq" and "Osama" and has Hussein as his middle name! Haha! This is a message from the American people that they've had enough of living in fear and paranoia and propaganda, and of being broke. They've had enough of the status quo and the predicament they've been put in.

Republicans are crying about the Democrats' campaign funds being spent on TV commercials when they "could be used to fix the economy." What? The campaign funds are for, um, campaigning, duh; so when he is President, he can fix the economy. What a stupid, imbecilic and idiotic thing to say (though to be fair it did come from Arnold Schwarzenegger). So, when that argument fails - despite the fact that the Republicans control leading network Fox News - they complain about "media bias." Well, the fact is that John McCain's been flying by military jet, while Barack Obama's invited the press on his planes with him. Besides, the media haven't been able to control this machine - and everyone knows they like to back a winner. Nope, not even those stupid voting machines could stop the real machine.

There's still a lot of right-wing media in America, though; almost all of it, and the attacks on Barack Obama have been significant, even at risk of turn-off from American viewers sick of cynicism. They call him a "socialist," as though the existence of their libraries, schools, fire service and police force is not through socialist policy, when in fact it is; those are socialist principles. Obama's said he's a capitalist, a "free marketeer," and it's true; he's about as much of a socialist as John F Kennedy, a man who also faced such accusations when in fact he was a major capitalist himself. However, Barack Obama speaks of Franklin D Roosevelt's "New Deal" policies with admiration, and like JFK knows that all the clever capitalists in the last century have only prevented total socialist revolution by "tweaking the valve" - giving the people just enough to keep them from revolting. That's not such a bad thing, considering that in the United States you only have two capitalist choices, anyway.

Barack Obama and the Democrats answer to different groups than the Republicans. If, like JFK, he is assassinated, Barack Obama will be martyred and the LA riots of 1992 would look like a mere playground fight, so he's untouchable. If, however, he sells-out and betrays the grassroots groups that put him in power, he won't be in power for long. He has to deliver, and he will - just don't expect anything socialist, as the right-wingers are screaming. The capitalists in congress and the media would unanimously assault him, then, for sure.

We already know who the majority of people will be voting for: the Democrats - just like in the last two elections! My predictions may have a good track record, dear readers, but I don't know what the result of this election will be; none of us do. But the change has already begun, regardless of the outcome. If Democratic voters send more than four million of themselves "over the top," then Barack Obama will certainly be the next leader of the most powerful, most influential nation on the planet. But even if that doesn't happen, and the GOP steal yet another election, that nation has already embraced change. The system may be broken, but the power is coming back to the people.

Leave the lights on. As Leonard Cohen once sang, "democracy is coming to the USA."

- Jay Baker; Palma, Mallorca

Labels: Bill Clinton, George W Bush, Naomi Klein, Osama bin Laden, Rupert Murdoch, Saddam Hussein, Shami Chakrabarti, Tony Blair

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Blighty Blighted!

Heard the news from the British media lately? The whole country's in trouble - the waves of immigrants, house prices plummeting at alarming rates, waves of immigrants, Madeleine McCann still missing, waves of immigrants, vermin in the hospitals (probably, in fact, immigrants), and waves of immigrants.

Yep, the news is bleak. There's something terribly wrong with the country, isn't there? But who's to blame? Is it, in fact, the immigrants entering the country, taking our precious jobs such as pizza delivery and driving cabs? Forget the fact that, as documented in my film Escape from Doncatraz, there are barely more people entering Britain than there are leaving it (to get away from foreigners, according to some noted in my film). Marlene Guest, fascist British National Party candidate for Rotherham, was also interviewed in 'catraz and told me the country was "gonna sink" if they let in any more people. Bloody hell! Sink? Really?!

Being from the Socialist Republic of Sheffield, it's even more shocking, then, that the BNP actually gained a foothold in the neighbouring town of Rotherham in this past May's local elections just hours after I held the world premiere for Escape from Doncatraz.

If only I'd been sooner. The BNP had a 28.7% average share of the vote in the town, contesting five seats on Rotherham's council and winning two of them - in the process ousting the sitting mayor, Allan Jackson (from the New Labour Party.) And the key to all this may be in the last three words of that sentence, because when Tony Blair made Labour "New" in his image, the working classes - the masses - were betrayed, and Labour left a void that the BNP are now filling. Hey, it worked for the Nazis in 1930s Germany, right? If people are in poverty, blame the foreigners, blame the immigrants, blame the Jews - just, whatever you do, don't blame capitalism. As singer-songwriter Ray Hearne says in 'catraz, "it's an old, old game."

Other news stories from the May election time included the fact that "Red" Ken Livingstone - who had allowed Londoners on welfare to receive discount-price travel thanks to an oil deal with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez - lost his position as Mayor of London to one Boris Johnson, an absolute buffoon from the Conservative Party and distant relative of King George II (no, not King George Bush II). Ken Livingstone, an independent candidate, had previously represented Labour, booted from the party by leader Tony Blair, who said "Red Ken" would be a "disaster" for London if made Mayor. Blair later admitted he was wrong (for once), and he was - it's Boris Johnson who's the "disaster."

Not the prettiest of people either, Boris Johnson's change of job caused a by-election for Henley, where Louise Cole and Amanda Harrington ran representing the surprisingly feminist "Miss Great Britain Party," whose intention was "to make Westminster sexy, not sleazy." Meanwhile, a model of some fame and reigning Miss Great Britain, Gemma Garrett, ran in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election as well as in the Haltemprice and Howden by-election - which was caused by the resignation of MP David Davis.

So just when we thought it was "Labour/Tory, same old story," things got interesting. David Davis is a name you may find familiar, and this is probably because he was the "other" candidate in the race for leadership of the Conservative Party, against the eventual winner, David Cameron, the molly-coddled Eton boy (and, like Boris Johnson, a "blue-blood" - related to King William IV!) David Davis quit because he was concerned about the rise of the "surveillance state" in Britain, the home of the largest DNA database, the highest concentration of CCTV cameras, and the obsession with compulsory ID cards. Credit to the Tory, then, for his Churchillian principles.

Meanwhile, though, instead of being reminded of all this crap by the corporate media outlets, we get updates on what The Beckhams are doing. Or they get us looking the other way with their stories of "waves of asylum seekers" coming into the country, the two party leaders outgunning each other in election debates over how many people they can deport. Imagine how much better we'd all be if they outgunned each other on, say, how many corporate crooks were captured, or maybe how much they were going to increase corporate tax! "I'm going to deport Rupert Murdoch for tax evasion!" "Yeah? Well I'm going to tighten border controls so companies can't shift factories overseas!"

But that doesn't happen. Instead they have us pointing fingers at each other. Illegal aliens invading our homeland? It's like some kind of 1950s sci-fi B-movie! And even those films were inspired by America's morbid fear of communism that had its people distracted for so long. Art imitates life, and the "Reds under the beds" scares led to the infamous McCarthy witch-hunts that went into Hollywood. It's something still happening to this day in one way or another, with right-wing writers like Cindy Osborne attacking actors against the war.

Those with vested interests get worried when art starts questioning things (I've experienced it myself as a filmmaker). They much prefer to keep us apathetic and ignorant to their ways and what they're doing to our country; they'd much rather we keep watching their programs that don't say anything or question anything. Shockingly, UK voting turnouts had for decades been decreasing, while about forty million votes were registered for the reality television show Big Brother. They nurtured our voyeuristic tendencies to take us to our television sets to watch ordinary people belch, fart, and scratch their arses, becoming famous for doing very little. It's one thing living vicariously through a soap opera, but another thing to make stars from bad next-door neighbours merely literally living on television. It's a TV show that doesn't require us to think, even though I know we're capable of extending our concerns beyond reality TV and celebrities. I know this because Big Brother is getting desperate, adding features to the program as they lose viewers now the novelty is fading and people are starting to realize there's a lot more important stuff going on here - and in 2005 more British people voted than in many elections before. Heck, with the current rise of the "surveillance state," we've seen many protests against Big Brother...and not all of them were about the TV show, if you know what I mean.

So, just how has politics been able to catch up with Big Brother? Well, they tried to garner similar numbers by using media celebrities as politicians! Arnold Schwarzenegger, son of a Nazi and Adolf Hitler sympathizer, ran for Governor of California and won, because of his celebrity. British "Page 3 Girl" Katie "Jordan" Price stood as a candidate in Greater Manchester in 2001, and former porn star Ilona "La Cicciolina" Staller became a member of Italian parliament before attempting to enter Hungarian politics.

The "Miss Great Britain Party" - one step ahead of even Paris Hilton and her own proposed presidential bid in America - was just the next logical step, except this time these well-known yet concerned citizens have used their celebrity to harm the politicians, not help them, or be used by them. Paving the way for celebrities to be accepted in politics has finally caught up with the bastards. And why not go with it? Britain is in so much trouble, with so little hope and so little light at the end of the tunnel (not least for the refugees crawling under the English Channel), its future seems the most bleak of all the Western countries, having had Tony Blair tear up the magna carta, Gordon Brown be blamed for the economy that's simply too tied to America's, and no obvious difference between New Labour and the Conservatives. Britain's desperate, so there's no wonder the electorate are turning back to the tabloids and televisions.

Maybe celebrity culture isn't such a bad thing after all. Now, when are we going to make former Skunk Anansie singer Skin the Prime Minister of Britain?

- Jay Baker; Kitchener, Canada

Labels: BNP, George W Bush, Gordon Brown, McCarthy, Nazis, New Labour, Skin, Tony Blair

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Does It Matter Who's President?

So Pennsylvania today has a key deciding factor in the Democratic Party's choice of a leader in the hopes of breaking the eight-year Republican hold on the White House.

There are two reasons this race is so important.

Firstly, in spite of millions of Democratic votes that will go uncounted in 2008 (just as they had in 2000, and on a larger scale in 2004), the Republicans, as I've said before, are doomed; they never had any realistic candidates, and now the fully face-lifted John McCain is not only seeing through his nostrils these days, he's also already been discredited mere hours after becoming his party's leader.

Secondly, whether we like to admit it or not, the fact is that the decisions made in the United States will affect the whole world in some way. They refer to themselves as the "world's policeman," but it's much more than that. Britain's economy has been affected by America's even more than next-door neighbours, Canada. How messed up is that? But it's something we have to accept. They're the big shots.

Once again, the whole world is watching, but this time the Republican elephant is old and tired and ready to be put out of its misery, while the Democratic donkey never had a chance like this before, because when people joke about one-sided elections by saying "a donkey could run, and still win," this time it's true! Except neither candidate is a donkey; this is the best crop of candidates in decades. Though I realize that's not saying much.

Morrissey once sang that in America, "the President is never black, female, or gay," but two out of three ain't bad, because with the election now the Democrats' for the taking, they have guaranteed us that the brand-new President of the United States will, in fact, be either black or female (let's hope Pee-Wee Herman runs next time!)

Barack Obama hasn't quite taken my previous suggestions that he cut interviews like wrestler-turned-actor The Rock, Dwayne Johnson, but he has, nonetheless, been impressive and charismatic. Sure, there are links to Antoin Rezko and the mob in Chicago. Sure, contrary to popular belief, his campaign has had an abundance of support from the corporations he'll thus become indebted to. And sure, he's still a capitalist. But just like the man himself says, this is about a different kind of politics, a kind of diplomatic politics, one that has no place for trigger-happy Texans or emphasis on religious faith.

Unfortunately, his opponent seems to have a short memory from her days inspiring the book and film Primary Colors, when the Clintons were agonizingly choosing to take the moral high ground against a mud-slinging Republican Party. She's been pretty low throughout the campaign, using tactics you'd expect more from John McCain, who's now lying low himself. It's all about the Democrats, baby. Even when some of them are acting like Republicans.

Hillary Clinton gave up her fight to provide Americans with good health care, which she's now hoping to make up for. But she also supported the attack on Iraq, and whilst, yes, it's an international issue, and it sure is sexy, it's still a pretty important factor, one that has an enormous effect on the world, and also gives us an idea of what kind of people certain politicians are.

But hoping for a Barack Obama win isn't just about Iraq. Do you realise that the alternative option will plunge America into a monarchy? The Presidential list of the last twenty years would be: Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton. That's right: George HW Bush Sr (1988-1992), Bill Clinton (1992-2000), George W Bush Jr (2000-2008), and Hillary Clinton (2008-2012). Is that what America really wants? Because in that case, let's just repeal its independence and put it under the rule of the Queen.

Barack Hussein Obama is a symbol that all is not lost in the United States of America. Choosing him would be proving that it doesn't matter if you have dark skin or even have a name that sounds similar to America's greatest two manufactured enemies from the last twenty years, and it'd also suggest that they're not just going to shoot and ask questions later. What America needs now is a statesman, who will act rational - whether you agree with him or disagree with him. "Barack says he's going to lay the smack down on some roody-poo candy-asses...but only after debating and deliberating first, because war sucks, jabronies." Wouldn't that be nice to hear for a change? The cycle can be broken.

The last time I was in the United States, I took my feet from the ground of Pennsylvania onto a plane across the Atlantic, and never looked back, as the Twin Towers collapsed behind me and with them any sense of rationality, reason, or restraint. That was the last place I set foot. If they make the right choice today, it may well be the first place in the United States I want to set foot next.

- Jay Baker; Kitchener, Canada

Labels: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, George HW Bush, George W Bush, Hillary Clinton, John McCain

Thursday, August 2, 2007

SEND THEM BACK! (Part 2)

You only have to look at the news to see that things don't quite make much sense. It's a topsy-turvy world, all around. We British are not the only ones surrounded by propaganda and hysteria over immigrants; "illegal aliens." Nope - the Americans have caught the Kick the Dog Syndrome, too!

Once, the Statue of Liberty was a beacon for the rest of the world's unwanted, asking for their poor, persecuted, huddled masses. And when they arrived on those shores, they were indeed welcomed with open arms, open legs, and open wallets; the American dream just waiting to be revealed as, in fact, a nightmare and an unlikely realization for the mass majority of dark-skinned immigrants.

Lately, though, the politicians over there, too, have been talking about "solving the problems" in immigration, just when they've bombed even more in the Middle East, therefore creating greater numbers of refugees.

Well, Yanks, immigration is but a problem that's easy to solve, my fat little flag-waving friends. Come on! What part of "SEND THEM BACK" don't you understand?

You've got it! Send back America's immigrants - all of them! Think of all the land Native peoples will have in the United States; the fourth largest country in the world, back in their hands...the hands of a people who respect the planet and believe it "wasn't given to us by our parents but rather loaned to us by our children."

But where do these "immigrants" go then? Well, of course I do realize the governments of Europe might not be ready to cater for such an influx of these sluggish, chubby citizens of The Most Obese People on the Planet. So, I suggest we send them to lands that don't really have an actual government yet; lands that, apparently, are full of people just waiting to welcome these Yanks with open arms! That's right: Afghanistan and Iraq! Or maybe they can go to Saudi Arabia - clearly no Americans care that most of the 9/11 hijackers were from there, and it's a country that's been doing business with the Bushes for years, so they've already got a lot of links in that place, just waiting to be taken to the next level. And when their "friends" the Saudis can attack New York City, it's clear all the "'Murkins" - as Bush calls his people - just do not care about it!

So, under my plan, the Native Americans will take over control of the Big Apple. But it's only fair that they pay for it, in cash. The amount they'll have to pay, though, will be the exact same amount they sold it for: $24. Of course, given inflation and taxation, we'll agree on, say, $24,000. I'm sure the near-two million surviving Native Americans, in spite of many being kept on reservations for years, can rustle up that much between them...especially those who run them casinos! It's a good deal when you consider the fact that their votes, uncounted in New Mexico, will finally be recognized…because they'll be the ones in charge!

If this seems unreasonable, then it's all open to debate. Maybe we can cut a deal here. So let's think of another idea. Let's see... America wasn't just built on the land formerly occupied by the Natives who sold it (or had it stolen); it was built by slaves kidnapped from our international hometown of Africa! But Africa is now a land crippled by poverty and disease which, with financial assistance, could be avoided tomorrow.

So, here's another idea: All the corporations who, particularly under the Bush administration, have enjoyed tax breaks, lobbying and legislation that have helped them get even richer than they already were due to the African-Americans who were kept at the bottom of the barrel? They start repaying! That means that the corporations ought to be taxed, at a higher rate than any other in the world. But as the tax won't only benefit public services (health care, education, welfare - all of which blacks have had a poor deal of), and will also have to go towards helping Africans recover, it won't just have to be the highest in the world, it'll have to be doubled!

And if those clever corporations start relying on offshore accounts or even packing their bags for pastures greener, they'll be disappointed, I'm afraid. Because all those rich tax avoiders like Rupert Murdoch who blamed the blacks, the Hispanics, and the asylum seekers through their corporate tabloids that called for tighter border controls will find that finally the borders are indeed tightened and closed...which means that, as a result of the rejection of my earlier proposal to send back the fat, lazy, stupid white men, they're then not allowed to move themselves or their businesses overseas, especially if their target markets remain in the USA (which they will, what with America being the principle consumers of, well, Everything). Or we can just do what Hugo Chavez did in Venezuela - when the wife of 2004 American election winner- I mean loser, John Kerry, had her Heinz beans company stop production at a factory there, "Shah-vez" simply sent his foot soldiers to reclaim the property, put the people back to work, and carried on producing beans! Crazy, huh? He showed us that - wait a minute! - maybe, just maybe, we don't have to be so afraid of these big, bad corporations after all. Perhaps we don't even need them! Wowwww...

Funny how the Trans-Atlantic governments criticize Hugo Chavez, saying "he was democratically elected, but then so was Adolf Hitler." Uhm, Adolf Hitler was a fascist, and Hugo Chavez is a socialist...they're pret-ty different. Fairly frightening when the politicians don't even understand politics, God bless 'em! But maybe really what they're trying to say is, it's better to have leaders who were not democratically elected - like George W Bush!

So, that's my plan for dealing with "dirty immigrants" - deport and/or tax those that travel the world and suck its riches and resources; the bloody fat cats; the elite who comprise 1% of the planet's population while the vast majority struggle to get food, water, and shelter.

Still think my proposals seem unfair? Maybe even exploitative of a certain kind of people? If so, consider the unfair exploitation of Native Americans and African-Americans that has gone on for decades, and continues to this day through reservations, modern day concentration camps called "ghettos," a blocking and discounting of their votes, and a disgust for the working classes they are almost all entirely a part of. Yeah, now that's something really ridiculous. Just like pointing the finger at asylum seekers.

Sometimes I think the whole world needs turning on its head and shaking until the dirty money falls from its pockets of privilege. Then we can all finally take and share some of it, and stop blaming each other for everything that's wrong in our world.

- Jay Baker; Kitchener, Canada

Labels: George W Bush, Rupert Murdoch

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

A Letter to Canada

Dear Canada,

I miss you already. Truth be told, I first fell in love with you back in 1999, when fear of nuclear warheads flying overhead between the Soviet Union and the United States had long since been replaced by fear of the Y2K Problem. Funny how it often emerges most of our fears were pointless, huh? It makes you wonder who makes us so afraid, and why.

Anyway, I wanted to let you know how things are back here in Britain. Well, we have over four million CCTV cameras, and over four million people have their DNA samples on a government database, stored after arrest whether found guilty or not. We have house arrests, detention centres, ASBOs, and the tearing apart of our magna carta. A couple of years ago, we experienced some terrorist attacks in London as a reaction to our involvement in Iraq.

I'm sorry for what we've done, Canada. We did our best to stop this bombing business overseas, but Tony Blair, our fuhrer, did it anyway. He lost quite a lot of votes at elections, and, as these megalomaniacal dictator types often do, he blamed his cabinet rather than his own actions, words, and choices. It reminds me of Hitler's last days in the bunker. But the fact is, Blair and his party remained because they had such a huge majority for the last ten years. That'll probably change now, but things in general won't, because people here see the Tories as an alternative, which of course is ridiculous. And this brings me onto my reason for writing this letter to you...

There was a bit of corruption there in your Liberal Party for a while there, huh? But you put in your Tories, led by Stephen Harper, who, let's face it, really is a cyborg built by a laboratory run by Halliburton. He's radio controlled by George W Bush Jr. And when a leader says he's close to God, or talks about having God tell him to lead his country to war, don't you find that a bit...well...creepy? I mean, isn't that what Hitler said? "I'm acting as an agent of the Lord, our creator," and all that bollocks? Since when has killing people been a deeply religious, peaceful thing to do? I don't recall the Buddhists who tried to sell me some "monk rock" CDs in the street recently telling me anything about dropping bombs on men, women, and children for ol' Buddha himself. And that dude's a skinhead!

Oh, Canada. You used to be so lovely. Your dollar bills had the Queen's ugly mug on it, sure, but we understood you clinging to the Commonwealth so as to decrease the number of times fellow world travelers confused you with Yanks. Your money also had wildlife and poetry on it, your news was about speed-bumps, collapsed bridges, and, well, the weather. So were your conversations.

But what now? Now, words like "feminism" and "socialism" are dirty words there, too. You switched on your TV set and found your news was full of reports of a serial killer who had hacked up hookers from Vancouver (a pig farmer, no less - always a connection between lack of concern for animals and a lack of concern for humans!) And you got yourself a Prime Minister who, aside from being Mr Roboto, loves oil, loves war, claims he has God on his side, and - wait a moment! - don't we know another world leader like this? If you don't want to be like the United States, then get rid of him. Because if you don't, you can be part of the Commonwealth to comfort yourself of a distinction as long as you like, but you'll also head in the direction Britain's now gone. *cough* police state *cough*

There's still a chance, though. There's a minority government there. And I don't care if Stephane Dion's so "nice" he makes Robert Goulet look like Bret "The Hitman" Hart or has Maher Arar resembling Bill Maher, he still has more charisma and principles than Stephen Harper, so stop being picky! Surely now, after going in to Afghanistan and coming out of the Kyoto Treaty, you know you've got a real tool in charge. Get rid of him, and you can go back to asking each other "How are you doing?" through mere politeness, ending sentences as though you're asking a question, and - most important of all - talking about the weather! In an ideal world, there'd be nothing much more to worry about. You were always as close as it got, Canada. Save yourself. Save yourself now. That is all.

All my love,

Jay Baker, Esq

- Jay Baker; Sheffield, England

Labels: Adolf Hitler, George W Bush, Iraq, Stephen Harper, Tony Blair

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Hot Docs, Hot Dogs, and Hot Blogs

I'm currently in Toronto for the Hot Docs international documentary festival, making contacts, shaking hands, having meetings, selling my film, and catching some of the best documentaries the world has to offer.

When I arrived at my hotel, there was a protest outside, with workers chanting for contracts, presumably directed at the hotel itself since the demonstration was at the entrance-way; I smiled and entered, feeling a little guilty going into what to them was the belly of the beast.

Days later, I'd meet the cleaner as she apologetically entered my room to change the sheets and replace the towels as I sat doing work on my laptop. (I ought to point out that when I say "hotel" and "laptop" it's not meant the same way a true professional jet-setter means it; the room is crusty and musty, and my cheap laptop hums loudly and takes about a half hour to load up.) As I tapped away on my keyboard, I asked the cleaning lady if the protest was about their wages and she said it was, and the hotel bigwigs' meeting was taking place within hours, a decision that'd either make her happy or send her on strike. Most of all, this whole thing seemed lovely and nostalgic to me; back in Britain protesters were being locked up! Wow, what it must be like to live in a real democracy!

So, as I write I'm in a cafe on Bloor Street. The sun is shining, the faces are smiling, and I'm safe and sound in a land that at least seems to have held onto more of the good old post-war values than Britain did. Earlier, I purchased from a vendor outside the Royal Ontario Museum a delicious veggie hot dog, which is like a regular hot dog except it contains no meat and no strange white ball in the sausage (you meat eaters know what I'm talking about!) This veggie hot dog seemed symbolic to me. Just as Canadians largely sound like Americans to the rest of us, so these hot dogs taste just like any other. It's funny how at face value something can be so similar yet in actuality be so less harmful to us all, eh?

Yep, it's an appealing country. It's difficult, though, to consider leaving Britain behind; it feels like abandoning a sinking ship. I'm hoping something can be salvaged, that Britain can embrace a post-imperialist ideology and abandon America's own colonialism.

Great Britain used to be dependent on the good ol' BBC for a more favourable international image. When Dr David Kelly was identified as their informer over Tony Blair's "sexed-up" dodgy dossiers on Iraq, Bliar passed the buck, and though the good doctor dropped dead after killing himself, the BBC itself was the real fall guy, and just as the Prime Minister blamed his cabinet for his party's lack of popularity, in this he blamed the BBC, and the organization never recovered.

And so, Britain's media, like that of the United States, has become monopolized by conglomerates run by businessmen with names like John Ellis and Rupert Murdoch (more on that fellow later). News is no longer news as presented by Lord Reith's BBC years ago, designed to "inform, educate and entertain." From CBS censoring Bill Hicks' stand-up routine on David Letterman's show so as not to offend its sponsors of a religious right-wing persuasion, to ClearChannel ensuring all its radio stations pulled REM for criticizing George W Bush; from NBC diluting its stories of Iraq due to its owners, General Electric, making Tomahawk missiles, to Fox nixing investigative journalism in the interest of public health due to pressure from business partners - the corporate mainstream media has become little more than a tool to manufacture consent, almost a brainwashing device by the powers that be.

So, when I attend these Hot Docs talks and hear documentary filmmakers talk about sitting on the fence, self-righteously using the word "objectivity" as a PR pitch, please forgive me if I squirm. I'm sorry, but with such a huge war being waged by the right-wing news stations, now is not the time for us independents to shove our schnozes in the air and look down upon the Morgan Spurlocks and Michael Moores - we ought to be using the weapons we have, to whack back at the Bushes, Blairs, and Conrad Blacks of the world.

At events like Hot Docs, everyone is trying to sell themselves as something different (yep, me included). These days, though, "objectivity" is the new black. They saw the gap in the market and pitched themselves as "objective" when, let's face it, making movies like Michael Moore Hates America and Manufacturing Dissent are clearly subjective. Again, despite the style and substance of Escape from Doncatraz, I'm trying to avoid coming across as post-modern here; "ooh everything is subjective, ooh there is no truth, blah blah." I don't believe that at all, actually. But I think this brand of ObjectivityTM is failing us, because it comes at a cost.

As a documentary filmmaker - or, as I prefer to call myself, a media activist - I don't think we are supposed to be similar to the subjects of The Sorrow & The Pity; French folk exposed to be far from resistance freedom fighters. We are in an era where, instead of standing in the lovely, liberal, wishy-washy, safe, middle-class middle ground, we ought to be hitting back at the big dogs, joining the underdogs who have been force-fed beef-flavoured dog food with a label stating "1% beef, 99% other ingredients." We have the means. We just have to have the will to join the war. Hey, sign me up. I know which side I'm on. I'll go out on a limb.

Speaking of the new black, while here I had the misfortune of meeting a Liverpudlian turned New York media yuppie named Adam Black - who, after preaching to the Hot Docs delegates about "making media with no (environmental) impact," threw his reality show idea at a couple of Brazilians and myself during a business meeting we were having, and which he invited himself into. Pitching what seemed to be heavily rehearsed lines about his concept of a reality show with an environmental theme (to persuade working class viewers to somehow spend less time at work yet more money on being "eco-friendly"), I realized you can take the lad out of Liverpool and yet, also, the Liverpool out of the lad.

Mr Black stopped talking to me when he figured I wasn't established enough and the Brazilians had more money than I did. When they left, he awkwardly seemed to feel obliged to talk to me again - only to tell me that my "publicity is all wrong" upon glancing at an Escape from Doncatraz postcard, which I might as well take back because, he explained, he'd only throw it in the garbage. How eco-friendly of him. This guy was as obnoxious as his sad, pathetic, Hot Docs name-tag, displaying that he's such an expert and professional that he couldn't even get a decent mug-shot made, instead using what looked like a snapshot from some tacky wedding. He then left to find someone more important to go talk to, and I had my meeting with Current TV's David Schalinge, who was far more fun and extremely supportive of Escape from Doncatraz. We both agreed that environmental responsibility ought to be forced out of the hands of ordinary people and in to the hands of politicians - such as Al Gore, who heads Current TV.

I'm here largely to see what else is on the scene (and I highly recommend the stylised documentary Super Amigos; by far my favourite thus far), and to make contacts that may actually help me with my upcoming release, Escape from Doncatraz, a film in direct response - and indeed opposition - to the British tabloids' obsession with immigrants in a game of "Kick the Dog."

There's a lapdog in 10 Downing Street; a poodle taking his orders not from his employers (we, the British people who pay our taxes and his wages), but instead from the White House and the businessmen who fund his party. Businessmen like Rupert Murdoch - subject of Escape from Doncatraz, and owner of Sky News, The Sun...and MySpace.

In a country where we rely on not the films or young pop stars but bloody George Michael (George Michael, for goodness sakes!) to stand up, speak out, and sing songs like Shoot the Dog (in reference to Tony Blair), that veggie hot dog is becoming more appealing than ever. Come on, Britain! Let's show 'em how it's done: let's use art to strike back.

Before my walk away from the land of fish and chips and mushy peas, I'm going to do my bit in the war. And if I'm finished in Britain, then I'm going to go down fighting...with Escape from Doncatraz.

- Jay Baker; Toronto, Canada

Labels: BBC, George W Bush, Iraq, Rupert Murdoch, Tony Blair

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