MEDIA_ACTIVIST JAY BAKER

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Remember, Remember...

Remember, remember, the 5th of November
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot
I know of no reason why the Gunpowder Treason should ever be forgot...

My next book, Pissing in the Mainstream, looks into the history of propaganda powers used to influence the people to endorse politicians who act in opposition to the direct interests of those very people. Whether it be the swastika formerly used by peace-loving Hindus and Buddhists, or the Union Jack flag flown as Nazis were defeated now being waved by Nazis in Britain, symbols have been given power all through history. In the movie masterpiece V For Vendetta the protagonist, V, claims, "A building is a symbol, as is the act of destroying it. Symbols are given power by people. A symbol, in and of itself is powerless, but with enough people behind it, blowing up a building can change the world." Influenced by Guy Fawkes' historic attempt to avenge his persecuted people by trying to blow up Britain's Parliament building, V sets out to do the same after a member of the Conservative Party uses desperation and fear to rise to power and create a fascist regime. The film was based on the book written by Alan Moore, who created the story during "Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher's reign as Prime Minister of the U.K.

Symbols have power, and are often co-opted by fascists. But other right-wing politicians have also co-opted holidays: International Workers' Day (May Day) was changed by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower into "Law Day" - a holiday to acknowledge the importance of laws, far different to the original meanings of the day that used to be about freedom, liberation, and the powers of the people in the face of often-oppressive authority. As Pissing in the Mainstream looks at, corporations also co-opt things to this day, from skater and punk countercultures to the "green-washing" of their products as supposedly ethical.

In the U.K., there are few holidays more "British" than the May Day we still believe in...and Guy Fawkes Night. While the authorities have failed to co-opt and pervert May Day, they have almost succeeded in doing so with Guy Fawkes Night, once an evening of remembrance for freedom against oppressive authority, now often simply referred to as "Bonfire Night," where children create effigies of Guy Fawkes and ask for "a penny for the Guy," before throwing him on a fire and watching him burn. But, of course, Guy Fawkes Night in its original form actually celebrates the freedom fighter from our history, and we should all do so on this night. Not least because, come next May Day, a member of the Conservative Party might very well be coming to power again.

The first British general election in which I was able to vote - in 1997 - the Labour Party exploited the weak, dying, grey Conservatives led by Thatcher's grey successor, John Major, by taking their place in government thanks to a landslide. Gone, claimed party activists, were the days of Labour leader Neil Kinnock and James Callaghan before him, both of whom failed to truly work with and serve the unions that built their party. What actually replaced that and brought Labour to power, though, was its scrapping of its remaining socialist principles (Clause IV, in particular), becoming New Labour, and successfully wooing businessmen such as media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who had his supposedly "fair" national newspaper, The Sun, back New Labour leader Tony Blair in return for promises not to reverse the Conservatives' anti-union laws or deregulation of the media and financial sectors.

With the promise that "things can only get better," New Labour and Tony Blair had Britain buzzing with excitement, despite the fact things couldn't have gotten much bloody worse under John Major and his Tories. With this typically British modesty, the electorate sat back and tolerated a party whose presence in government was almost entirely based on the principle that "it could be worse." It's like being in a Nazi concentration camp saying, "Hey, they've tortured us, but not gassed us yet - it could be worse!" while singing along to "things can only get better..."

Well, they didn't get better for those poor bastards in the concentration camps, and they didn't particularly improve for us British folk, either. Blair's New Labour meant new laws: one created for about every day he resided in 10 Downing Street, with privatised prisons meaning profit per prisoner for such discredited and disgraceful corporations as Wackenhut. It also meant more surveillance, with millions of CCTV cameras that didn't prevent crime, only record it enough to provide footage for entire episodes of Cops! It meant freezing arts funding after they had already delivered an initial promised funding boost. It meant waging an illegal war against Iraq based on a lie perpetuated by Murdoch's media. And, of course, it meant blaming immigrants for everything that was wrong with the country while betraying the working class, lethal ingredients leaving a void filled by the racist, sexist, homophobic Nazi group in suits, the BNP.

On May 1st, 2005, I was one of those calling for the British people to "give Labour a bloody nose" in the general election, and we did, leaving them with a reduced majority in parliament. On May 5th, I predicted Gordon Brown would succeed Tony Blair as Prime Minister, leaving us (like the United States at the time) with an unelected leader. That wasn't the only thing I got right: I also claimed "the end is the beginning is the end," because "The boring uncharismatic corpses are rising from the grave, this time to take Labour back with them into the underworld like they did with the Tories" - due to the fact Brown lacked the personality of Blair but inherited his baggage. I also stated, on March 13th of this year, that Labour's only chance to save itself was to once again embrace the working class, because the more that mass majority stay home (and some of them desperately vote for the BNP), the more Labour will lose. They haven't done that, and unless they do at some point, they're facing a very very long future in "opposition." Even Murdoch's jumped ship, without yet throwing his support back behind the Tories.

Sure enough, as we approach the prospect of a Gordon Brown - David Cameron debate, it's looking worse than ever for Labour. Remember that infamous debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, who was sweating like a hog? Recently, Andrew Marr interviewed Gordon Brown and questioned him about potential painkiller dependency, which made him slowly start to sweat to the extent that the beads of perspiration were clearly visible on his forehead (and Brown - unlike Nixon - had makeup on). Now, of course I'm not comparing David Cameron to JFK. Hell, no! But Brown, like Nixon, comes across as awkward, lumbering, lame, and past his prime, just as every world leader seems to go grey-haired during their term (Reagan, Blair, Bush Sr and Jr...and Clinton no doubt would have too, had he not already been a "silver-haired fox.")

In the end, all politicians show their true colours. And David Cameron isn't just a blue-blooded Eton toff - he's a Tory. Forgotten exactly what a Tory is?

Remember, remember everything the Tories ever did: this is the same elite exclusive club that opposed the abolition of slavery, opposed women's suffrage, attacked workers' rights and smashed unions, slashed funding in the creative industries, sold the railways that 70% of the British population now want back in government control, and aggressively pursued deregulation of media and the financial sector that left us in the economic mess we're in. Oh yes, things can get worse, as I overheard in the newsagents' the other morning: "I can't believe all this talk about the Tories!," said one older woman. "Do people not remember what they did to us?" We must remember. Because just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, it very well could.

We have to brace ourselves now. Because whatever is wrong for us in Britain today, can and will get worse under the Tories - and they'll fire the first shots, so we have to be armed and ready with knowledge. I'm calling on everyone to mobilise themselves, their family, their friends - even people they don't like much - to make sure they take votes away from the Tories at the next general election. I don't even give a damn where the votes go to: we have to vote for anybody but Tories.

The hanging of Guy Fawkes for attempting to destroy the government showed that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Now, a hung parliament might be the answer to all our hopes in these desperate times.

- 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: David Cameron, Margaret Thatcher, New Labour, Rupert Murdoch, Tony Blair

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

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

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Shop a Skiver

shop (verb): to behave treacherously toward; inform on; betray.

skive (colloq.): the practice of avoiding responsibilities, i.e. not paying taxes when you ought to be doing so.

quid (British Informal): one pound sterling.

Rupert Murdoch - in case you didn't know - is the Australian-born media mogul who controls pretty much everything you will read or watch today: The Australian newspaper, the Fox News channel, the New York Post, Sky Television, the Wall Street Journal, 20th Century Fox, The Times, MySpace, and The Sun, amongst many more around the world.

Murdoch's power in dominating the source of our information can not be overstated. Being one of the biggest tycoon tax avoidance icons of all time, he ensures the public are not told about how little he gives back to their societies, or rather how much he robs from them. Instead, he prefers to push stories of the poor who steal to feed their families, of welfare recipients and refugees, even though he and his News Corporation move freely in and out of countries, make profit from their people, and refuse to give back what they owe through taxes. He's the real-life Scrooge, and I'd like to introduce him to the Ghost of Christmas Future.

The Sun's influence in Britain, as the number one tabloid newspaper there, is such that it holds massive influence over who will win the general election. Previously loyal to the Conservative Party and their Thatcherite policy of privatisation and, funnily enough, deregulation of the media (making it easier for Murdoch to dominate), come the late 1990s and the emergence of New Labour and its "Third Way," suddenly Tony Blair was rivalling the Tories on corporate-friendly policy, his Chancellor of the Exchequer Brown-nosing the suits in conflict with his socialist roots. And so, Murdoch had The Sun switch sides, and tell its entire readership to this time, in 1997, vote for New Labour. A decade later, Britain's reeling from its involvement in the illegal invasion of Iraq, and suffering its worst economic crisis for decades, with the emergence of a police state - jam-packed privatised prisons, more CCTV cameras per-capita than any other country, and the largest DNA database in the world. Meanwhile, Murdoch's near-monopoly of the media has commercialised televised sports, bled dry working class families wanting to watch them, and poached much entertainment programming from terrestrial television into the pay-TV spectrum.

Given all the damage done to Britain by the politicians supported and even funded by Murdoch and his minions, you'd think the people would be outraged, right? Nope. And that's because when they pick up their favourite newspaper, they don't read about these issues, because the paper is dominated and defined by, as Dr John Richardson explains in my film Escape from Doncatraz, "propaganda, public relations, pornography - and sport on the back pages."

The Sun focuses the rest of its pages on either entertainment or "news" with a focus on fearmongering and divisive reports of petty crimes and personal vendettas - to paint a picture of a dog-eat-dog society, with a strong emphasis on those seeking asylum or applying for welfare as though they are taking funds from the state at the expense of the readers themselves. It's the "kick the dog" syndrome perpetuated by the Fat Cats in control of the media - if people are angry with someone as poor as - or even poorer than - themselves, then they won't form communities and rise up in anger at the millions lost through the tax avoidance plans of Rupert Murdoch and his mates, or the billions spent on oil wars.

The best example of this divide-and-conquer strategy by The Sun has been their government-acknowledged "Shop-a-Skiver" campaign that has encouraged people to call a special hotline and "shop" anyone they think may be a "skiver," such as someone on the poverty line claiming welfare while taking some cash-in-hand work to better get by and make ends meet. The amount of money these people probably cost the taxpayer is so insignificant, even when added together, it's probably not worth the cost of the hotline maintenance itself! But that's not the point, now, is it?

And when we talk about the cost to The Taxpayer, who is The Taxpayer, anyway? It sounds like one person! Well, you can be sure of one thing: it isn't likely to be Rupert Murdoch. Ten years ago The Economist itself reported that in the previous eleven years, Murdoch had made £1.4 billion but paid nothing back in corporation tax - this would have been enough to provide the country with seven hospitals or fifty secondary schools. Wow! But hey, let's blame Abdul who just arrived here from a country we recently bombed and who costs us about forty quid a week. Damn him!

Murdoch and his kind get away with this thanks to their fancy accountants and their avoidance schemes that Prof Prem Sikka explains in my film Escape from Doncatraz and through his regular articles for The Guardian (not - yet - owned by Murdoch). I've been in Prem's office, and seen how hard he works, and I don't think this guy ever sleeps; he's amazing - a media mogul's nightmare. But he's not a superhero - he needs our help!

So, I've decided to start my own Shop a Skiver campaign! Clearly the skivers we ought to be worried about most - but who aren't, funnily enough, receiving much press - are the Fat Cats. And we already shopped one of the bastards...

Conrad Black gave up his Canadian citizenship in order to accept a "peerage" as recommended to the Queen by his buddy, Tony Blair, calling Canada "an oppressive little world." Well, while the thorns in my side tried to discredit this media activist by claiming I'd committed fraud, and my records came up clean and stood up to scrutiny, Conrad Black was meanwhile found guilty of fraud and sentenced to 78 months in a nasty old American prison - suddenly wanting his Canadian privileges back and wishing he was back in that "oppressive little world." Tough luck, Lord Black.

Even now his lordship gets to spout his spiel via his rags, writing in the National Post "If saintly men like Gandhi could choose to clean latrines, and Thomas More could voluntarily wear a hair shirt, this experience won't kill me." Brilliant roving reporter Robert Fisk responded by saying "Now when Uncle Conrad likens himself to the assassinated Mahatma, the apostle of India, that is mere hubris. But when he compares himself to England's greatest Catholic martyr, a man of saintly honour if ruthless conviction, this is truly weird."

One down, many more to go!

- Jay Baker; Palma, Mallorca

Labels: Fox News, New Labour, Rupert Murdoch, The Sun, Tony Blair

Monday, January 12, 2009

Margaret Thatcher Kills Babies

Doncaster's mayor - and a significant subject of my film Escape from Doncatraz - is Martin Winter. But maybe not for long.

In the film, I look at how he became the county's only democratically-elected mayor, one who promptly spent taxpayers' money on RADA acting lessons to deliver speeches more convincingly - just in case you thought politicians were genuine, as if actors-to-Republicans Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger weren't enough of a giveaway (though to be fair, Arnie doesn't really count as being an actor, does he?)

Since my film was finished, Mayor Martin also came under fierce criticism for failing the occupants of the town's former mining villages that were, with tragic irony, hit hardest as a result of the floods in the region - as the press instead gave us tall tales of "floods of immigrants" endangering our lives. Yeah, right...because refugees, welfare mothers, and chavs are more of a threat to us than climate change or million dollar wars that we pay for through our taxes. Hey, the millionaires are the good guys, right? Yeah - Rupert Murdoch had his media tell us so.

But I'm getting ahead of myself here. Let's go back a little further, to my birthplace, to the time when I was just a mini media activist with a plastic toy camera, driving my three-wheeler into the ankles of businessmen and pretending to film their reactions.

It's a sad fact that since the 1980s, Doncaster and its surrounding areas have continuously hit the headlines, not because it spawned little old me, but because it has come top of the list for drug abuse, spousal abuse, animal abuse, and child abuse - as today's national headlines have shown, with the deaths of seven kids in the news, the children's services of Doncaster Council now subject to inquiry and Martin Winter reportedly on the verge of resigning as mayor.

Yeah, abuse is the name of the game in Donny. I expect, given the high rate of AIDS in the area as well (just to depress the statistic-reading citizens even more), the rate of self-abuse has increased, too. And there's only so long you can get by on rubbing away at yourself and taking a KleenexTM before grabbing another to sob into (God knows I know, these days!)

But why this area? Well, it's not a coincidence that Margaret Thatcher's Conservatives allowed their obsession to attack workers' rights and destroy the unions to lead them into implementing the fiendish Ridley Plan, utilizing often illegal tactics to close unionized industries, have squadrons of police assault striking miners, and decimate entire communities - the key moment in the history of the area being the infamous Battle of Orgreave, ground zero for the miners' strikes. That was the real "economic crisis," back then. Your job used to be long-term, full-time, and unionized; your neighbour used to be your co-worker; your house used to be built by the local industry; your community used to have a sense of itself. All of those things were taken away, because these people dared to protect their rights as workers, as human beings. The audacity!

What's happening in Doncaster today will, sadly, continue - with or without the mayor. Thatcher did the damage, and Winter's only wrongdoing has been failing to follow the nearby city of Sheffield in regeneration through cultural investment. But ultimately, there are no easy solutions to these problems. It takes years for a population to fully recover from this kind of trauma, and if one thing's for sure, it's that a call centre, a major department store, and even a democratically-elected mayor are absolutely no quick-fix for a people working in a Primark sweatshop and relying on credit cards to get by.

It's a powerful message, a warning to other countries who dare to remove the rights of their workers, or even remove the work itself in industries that provide strong jobs and resources, in favor of retail therapy and debt. Beware the Thatchers, the Mulroneys and the Reagans. Beware the Blairs, the Harpers and the Bushes.

And politicians? Beware pushing people further and further, beware beating up on the downtrodden any more. A lot of them are getting their shit together and - far from taking the blame or paying the bill for your Credit CrunchTM you knew was inevitably coming - they're standing up and fighting back.

I'm coming to visit for a while to lend a helping hand to those in my birthplace. Don't ever say I ever forgot about my roots. When you're from South Yorkshire, you carry the scars to remind you constantly of what it's all about. While there, I'm going to eat the Credit CrunchTM for breakfast and deal with the same hardship we've always known in South Yorkshire, even before the "financial crisis" officially hit the news.

- Jay Baker; Palma, Mallorca

Labels: Margaret Thatcher, Rupert Murdoch

Sunday, December 7, 2008

A Winter in Mallorca

"Why travel, unless you must?" - George Sand, 1855

In my film Escape from Doncatraz, I looked at how the British government, under influence from their American counterparts in the Bush Administration, had undertaken bombing campaigns in the Middle East - apparently to "liberate" the innocent civilians there, killing hundreds of thousands of them in the process. As a result, millions more people were displaced, fleeing the destruction and upheaval, and heading all over the world to seek refuge. Britain - having paraded around the planet promoting itself for centuries - seemed an attractive option for these refugees...until they got there and saw the media warning that these people were going to "take jobs," be gifted "free phones," and given "free houses," with votes rising for the Nazi BNP party. Not exactly a warm welcome to someone you just "liberated."

Escape from Doncatraz then showed the British abroad - specifically in Mallorca - where they'd headed to in order to get smashed, throw up, have unprotected sex, and get into fights, before looking for "real British grub," like Kentucky Fried ChickenTM and doner kebabs. "It's quite the contribution, quite the gift," I said in the film. "More British people are arrested and hospitalized here than in any other destination they choose." I interviewed several people who, apparently, had loved these statistics so much that they actually permanently moved to Mallorca, from Britain! And while they certainly couldn't be considered refugees, in their own way they too were seeking asylum - from an oppressive surveillance state back in Britain.

The point my film hinted at, then, was that everyone should have the right to move away and into another country, and no reason is less valid than another. Moving around with freedom is almost as natural an instinct as pushing harder on a remote control button even when we know the batteries are flat. Border controls have been in existence for barely more than a hundred years, created at the time with the racist motivation of stopping "undesirables" entering your country - usually, at the time, Jews. Not a surprise, really, since a Jew was a scapegoat for anything bad back then: Not got a job? It's the Jews! Not got a good home? It's the Jews! Heck, you could probably have killed your own child and still got away with it, so long as you blamed it on the Jews. It's pretty much the same these days - as Escape from Doncatraz showed, you just replace the word "Jews" with the word "Muslims."

Escape from Doncatraz, considered a post-modern, "science-fact" B-movie parodying such hysteria not seen since the 1950s, premiered over in Canada, at the feat of post-modern architecture that is Kitchener City Hall, which looked like a spaceship ready to blast off back to Britain to drop the bombshell that is the film itself. That very same day - May 1st, 2008 - I announced the launch of the brand-new, non-profit, alternative arts and media corporation, SilenceBreaker Media, with my partner Terre Chartrand and the organization's patron, chairman of the board Dr Herbert Pimlott, who delivered a killer speech. However, in the months following - beyond uncovering some disturbing facts about Canada's colonialist, racist treatment of First Nations people that would finally inspire me to work on another film - I too would be subjected to the above-mentioned comparative discomfort of dealing with red-tape and bureaucracy in another country. And to think, it's easier for me - being white, speaking English and learning French, and having a good track record (well, aside from all that, uhm, anti-capitalist stuff...heh...don't lock me up, Mr Harper, please!)

Tony Blair's freeze on arts funding in the UK meant my full-time work there was increasingly difficult to sustain, making it an easier decision to face fresh challenges there in Canada and sporadically return to Britain. But the sabotage and subsequent collapse of my previous company back in Blighty meant my original plans - to return there frequently to work for the organization I myself founded years before - were scuppered, and I had to live with my partner, play househusband, and simply wait patiently, as different branches of Canadian and British government gave us conflicting immigration and visa advice. Life was difficult as a result; I couldn't earn a wage from my own job at either side of the Atlantic, and I had maxed-out my credit cards so much so that I alone could be the sole scapegoat for the Credit CrunchTM.

And so it was that my partner and I made the difficult decision to have me return to the Old World, to the EU, to work there while I waited for my visa to come through, at which point I'd return to Canada to accept payment for my work as Executive Director of SilenceBreaker Media, paying my way, and resuming life as it was supposed to be. The opportunities for me to be independent and to make my own way for a while were simply the rational, reasonable option, and by no means one of the heart. Circumstances aren't always ideal, especially in the world we find ourselves today.

As my partner said at the time of my departure, "SilenceBreaker Media is too important to let go of," and I, for one, will always believe that. This is one company I won't let go of this time. SilenceBreaker Media goes on, and grows, as in the meantime I make new contacts with new possibilities, and review opportunities in Europe - as well as Africa - and my new-found free time has allowed me to spend hours working away on my MacBook, bolstering the business plan, writing funding applications, and devising more projects from afar, with the option of attending meetings of the board of directors via web conferencing; the wonders of modern technology! It'll be like a news broadcast: "And now we go to our Executive Director in Egypt, Jay Baker...Jay, can you tell us the situation there?" "Well Herbert, things are very tense here at the moment, especially since I made the mistake of visiting the city of Memphis and complaining that I couldn't find Graceland anywhere..."

While in the Old World, of course, it also makes it slightly easier for me to move around and visit friends and family, which of course means siblings, aunts, and most importantly my dear old parents. In which place do they happen to be staying these days? None other than the Spanish island of Mallorca! And so here I am, spending a winter in Mallorca, at the time of writing. With my movie doing the rounds, and some ex-pats possibly misinterpreting my portrayal of them in my film, my welcome was anticipated to be about as warm as that for a dark-skinned refugee arriving in Britain! It turned out it wasn't me they were mad at, but instead a different limey.

Lynn Evans, a British ex-pat living in Mallorca, was featured in the Mail's FeMail section where she was at least portrayed as someone who had lost any fondness she had for the island, blasting the mentality that the grass is greener and announcing that she was returning to good old Britain. This, of course, did the rounds in the local bars that buzzed with new-found gossip. In turn, those who remained in Mallorca and needed justification for doing so were livid over Lynn's words. How dare she!

The interesting thing, though, is that so much of the article made a valid point. The credibility of the piece aside, the feeling you get when spending any amount of time in Mallorca is that - aside from the kind of segregation for so long complained about when the South Asians segregate in Britain - this segregation creates circumstantial friendships between people who otherwise have nothing in common, and so conversation remains very safe, and lacking depth - a superficiality that the Mallorcean lifestyle supports: sun, sand, sea, surf, sangria, with a rose-tinted view of this Mediterranean island despite many of its stone cold houses lacking any source of heat, all meals being full of meat, along with dog shit lying all over the place. And the water in Mallorca don't taste the way it oughta - so people buy the plastic bottled stuff either from the naturally pure waters found in Canada via baby-killing Nestle, or France thanks to Evian (which, funnily enough, is "naive" backwards).

There are, of course, plenty of good British people living here in Mallorca. There are, however, some who sit in bars and loudly spout their prejudiced views against gays, against Muslims, and, yes, against immigrants coming into Britain - for some, the very reason they left the UK; the irony of such prejudice completely lost on them. Even when Spain has the highest rate of unemployment in all of the EU (a staggering 11.3%), these British are welcomed with open arms, taking jobs, sticking together, and illegally installing Sky satellite television, stifling the development of the home-grown Spanish media industry as the UK's Labour government turns a blind eye to these violations - presumably as a favour to their major party donor, Sky owner Rupert Murdoch, that infamous and odious poster boy for tax avoidance.

I've been fairly outspoken about my opinions on Mallorca since arriving here. And so, if I wasn't hated before, I might be now! Upon visiting the Valdemossa site that a hundred and seventy years ago was once home to the feminist writer who went by the name of George Sand (along with some music bloke named Frederick Chopin), it seemed amusing that she'd then write the book A Winter in Mallorca and document her ill-fated stay there during, funnily enough, a time of economic strife for that country and others. The area was beautiful, idyllic for sure, but like her I found it funny, because such things can so easily be taken for granted after a while, and you forget what it's like to struggle; you forget the plight of your people; you forget your roots.

For five years I worked in the area in which I grew up, in and around "the Socialist Republic of Sheffield," in brow-beaten towns like Rotherham, and did almost all I could do, building a company and contributing to a cultural community that I'd later leave behind to face fresh challenges over in Kitchener, just outside Toronto. The people there, too, know what it's like to live in a post-industrial era, to struggle to develop a media and arts scene that's so crucial to regeneration. These are the places I belong - fighting the fight and experiencing and contributing to the diverse culture; the circus, the cinema, the concerts, the clubs, cafes and coffee shops full of conversation, diplomatic debate, and dissent; drama, with people dressing in drag and uttering dirty words like "socialism" and "feminism." Scandalous! Friends of mine even successfully completed a burlesque show called "Female Hysteria!" That's one great community; a great lifestyle where you're in the thick of it.

That's the lifestyle George Sand had, as well. She was right there in the so-called developed world, fighting against oppression - and writing about it. If you thought "feminism" was a dirty word today in the wake of Reaganomics and Thatcherism from the regressive 1980s, imagine how it was when George Sand was walking around - often in drag in order to slip almost unnoticed into places usually strictly reserved for men. She was also accustomed to smoking cigarettes and walking around graveyards by moonlight. Suffice to say, this behaviour did not go down well at all in Mallorca when she spent the winter there in 1838/1839.

George Sand - in opposition to oppression, sneaking into gentlemen's places of privilege - wanted a piece of the pie - and I know I sure do, too. I'm not going to be counter-cultural and spite myself; I like the idea of living in the so-called luxury of Toronto. But still, it is not like living in a bubble, spending your working hours at a bar, spending your spare time at a bar, and glancing over at the sea without a care for those who live and struggle beyond it; you're constantly surrounded by massive contradictions, reminders that there are struggles going on, with access to information, activism, and culture, against the backdrop of an incredible and unmistakable skyline.

Yes, Canada's beautiful, too; seasons of both freezing cold winters and red hot summers - with mountains and lakes and bears, oh my! But it's not those things that make Canada such a beautiful country to me - it's the warmth and familiarity, and, yes, the gritty reality, the talk on the street, the movement of movements. There's a struggle going on in Canada, a veneer of political correctness hiding a deep shame - and it's one I'll be looking at in my next movie.

George Sand remains an inspiration, and though Frederick Chopin contributed so much to the world with his compositions, it is - as is often the case - a famous man's lesser-known female partner who truly inspires; whose words and picture warms my heart and makes me want to go back to doing what I do best.

Leave a light on, beautiful. It's almost 2009, and I'm coming home.

- Jay Baker; Valdemossa, Mallorca

Labels: BNP, Nazis, New Labour, Rotherham, Rupert Murdoch, Tony Blair

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

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