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  Wednesday, December 23, 2009The Big Red One: Santa Clause IVIt's been an interesting year. I've said before that New Labour is a failed brand: nobody asked for New Labour, nobody wanted New Labour, nobody needed New Labour. Re-branding doesn't work when your head honchos love it, but your target market hate it. In 1997, people were so sick to their stomachs of the Conservatives that, heck, they'd have even voted en masse for my beloved Doncaster Rovers team as the next cabinet, if that was the alternative (and back then, they even sucked at soccer - now they're doing well in the Championship and beating teams like Bristol City, which of course I'm not shouting about as I sit here at Bristol International Airport awaiting a flight...to socialist Spain). Speaking of socialism, I've also said that New Labour are now doomed unless they drop the "New" and return to some of the values they had back when they formed at the turn of the century - a group of trade unionists sitting in the Good Woman pub in St Sepulchre Gate in Doncaster drafting up a proposal to the trade union congress to create a party for the people, a party for the workers: a Labour Party. The Big Red One! Here we are, a century later, and they're almost unrecognizable, and considered virtually unelectable. Yep, after all the damage Thatcher's Tories did to Britain, 1997 finally saw the working classes mobilize and make sure Labour got into power. What they didn't realize, however, was that New Labour meant Tory LiteTM. Tory Tony Blair scrapped his party's Clause IV (devotion to nationalization of industry), which may not have seemed like a big deal, had it not been for the fact that what it actually symbolized was Blair's devotion to the very opposite: privatization - of areas even Thatcher was hesitant to touch. Blair was able to do this, of course, as a wolf in sheep's clothing; a very dangerous man indeed. And now? Well, today we have his successor, Gordon Brown, trying his best at damage control while leading a party his predecessor put towards privatization, leaving Britain ripe for the pickings of a Tory Party salivating at the thought of finally selling off every last little piece of the country to anyone with the money to buy (their pals). Yeah: thanks - ironically - to New Labour, Tories are more excited than John Major in Edwina Curry's bedroom; their wildest dreams now almost a reality. Almost. The thing is, New Labour have faced a backlash because of these policies, and today's Independent published results of a poll showing that a massive amount of British citizens still feel the Tory toffs favour the privileged few. And 2009 has seen the demise of New Labour's best-laid right-wing plans. In 2009, Blair admitted he committed war crimes, compulsory identity cards were essentially abandoned, the plans to privatize the postal service were scrapped, certain banks were taken back into government ownership, and, with an overwhelming 70% of the British public wanting Thatcher's privatized railways back under government control, it actually started to happen. As if the message was not clear enough over the last decade of diminishing votes for the New Labour brand: Britain wanted its working class party back. From the call centre operators to the retail checkout clerks, it wanted a Labour Party again. So, with the coal of my hometown barely a memory, Santa Claus gets to safely land at the bottom of my chimney with a chance of granting my wish of what I - like most of the working class mass majority - want for Christmas: the return of the Labour Party. The New Year will bring us a renewed push from the Tory toffs to re-brand themselves, too, as less posh, more relatable, and a far cry from Thatcher's Milton Friedman economics that led to a devastating economic crisis - but it's more of the same. Incredibly, their solution to the crisis has been to repeat what was the problem in the first place: selling off public services, privatization, and deregulation for their banker buddies. What Gordon Brown and Labour have to do, then, is show us what - if anything - is left of the Labour Party that represented the workers; the working class. They have to show us the Big Red One at its biggest and best! A defining moment in the history of British politics is almost here. Interestingly enough, for Labour to show a shred of integrity means they can still stay in power, while to fail to kick their habit - this new addiction to capitalism - means certain defeat, and a nation wallowing in the mock of avarice. - Jay Baker; Bristol, England Jay Baker's brand-new book is Pissing in the Mainstream. You can read a compilation of his best blogs from the past several years, and a few exclusives, in the book Soon To Be Banned: Musings of a Media Activist, available here. Labels: Conservative Party, Margaret Thatcher, New Labour, Tony Blair
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Wednesday, November 4, 2009Remember, 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 Labels: David Cameron, Margaret Thatcher, New Labour, Rupert Murdoch, Tony Blair
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Sunday, September 20, 2009Those 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 Labels: George W Bush, Gordon Brown, Rupert Murdoch, Tony Blair
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Sunday, August 23, 2009Pity ThemThey say there's a first time for everything, and I'm here to offer sympathy for some politicians. I know what you're thinking: "Ah, Jay Baker's caught swine flu, or he'll be blogging while drunk or something - he'll come to his senses later," but I shit you not! Bear with me here. Just after that time, of course, it emerged that - after giving the issue forty years of thought - 57% of the American population did not believe the official version of President John F Kennedy's assassination. No surprise there: the evidence of a conspiracy had been fairly well documented, not just by DA Jim Garrison's case (as adapted for the screen by Oliver Stone), but by the documents released by the CIA showing that an international assassin had been captured in Dallas just 48 hours after JFK had been shot dead, only to be flown out of the country by authorities! Conspiracy "theories" were never necessary with JFK - the facts made it obvious that Lee Harvey Oswald was exactly what he screamed he was not long before he, too, was shot dead: "just a patsy."
If this sounds familiar, it may be because, after the planes hijacked by mostly Saudi Arabian men flew into the World Trade Center's Twin Towers on September 11th, 2001, planes were seemingly grounded for all but the special flights helping Saudi members of the Bin Laden family from the U.S. Sure, it's true no skyscraper in American history had ever collapsed due to fire as a result of impact from a plane, it's true the twin towers were designed specifically to withstand collapse upon being hit by jetliners, it's true there has never been an acceptable explanation for the mysterious and entire collapse of World Trade Center's huge Building 7 later that day - and those are issues worth pursuing. But that doesn't mean it's a conspiracy, and heck, if it was a demolition job, why not openly have a demolition, spare the hijack hassle, collapse the twin towers, and just blame that on the terrorists, like the attack in 1993? And even without the pursuit of such fact-finding crusades, the very fact that the Bush Administration was repeatedly warned about the threat of an attack yet did little to nothing, the fact that the Bushes and Bin Ladens were doing business together, the fact that the former helped the latter flee the country after the attacks, and the fact that this was all used as an excuse to invade Afghanistan and, remarkably, Iraq, killing thousands of innocent civilians, is enough to complain about, by sticking to the facts. The entire government - the entire administration - could be discredited based on those facts alone, facts that have even been acknowledged by both politicians and the mainstream media! And with those facts alone, the Bushes and Blairs of the world could be put on trial, convicted, and imprisoned. Anything else leaves the questioners open to questioning, and even ridicule. When asked about the subject by Alternative Radio founder David Barsamian for the book What We Say Goes, Noam Chomsky said "Of the couple hundred letters I'm getting every day, the flood that's really abusive, which says, 'It's your responsibility to set this as your highest priority and to drop everything else,' is coming from the '9/11 truth' people. It's almost a kind of religious fanaticism." Who are these people, Michael Jackson fans or something? Since Jacko's death, internet forums showing any support of Jarvis Cocker's famous 1996 Brit Awards protest, or acknowledgment of MJ's suspect interactions with children, seem to have been met with flaming abuse. Who knew Jackson fans would turn out to be such tough little bastards baying for blood of anyone with a differing opinion? The 9/11 Truthers are picking on the 80 year-old Chomsky in a similar way, and all because he won't put all his other great work on the back-burner and join their conspiracy cause? "I suspect people in positions of power like it," explained Chomsky. "It's diverting enormous amounts of energy away from the real crimes of the administration, which are far more serious. Suppose they did blow up the World Trade Center? By their standards, that's a minor crime. Increasing the threat of nuclear war and environmental disaster is a far worse crime, which might lead to extinction of the species. Take the invasions of Iraq and Lebanon. Or look at what they're doing to working people in the United States. We can go on and on."
On February 16th, 2008, I took a Greyhound bus with my colleague and friend Lenna into Toronto to attend what was advertised as a protest against the Security & Prosperity Partnership, which is an undemocratic movement amongst North American politicians to open up the continent to adopting the USA's security policies, extending their "no-fly list," and make that beautiful, pure Canadian spring water a communal resource. When we arrived, we found ourselves surrounded by not New Democratic Party activists, but 9/11 Truthers carrying signs against a supposed "North American Union" and standing beside a bus bearing the slogan "Ron Paul Revolution" - referring to the American libertarian Republican who opposes gun control and abortion, wants less public spending by scrapping taxes altogether in addition to less government interference in the market (though despite the presence of that bus, he denies being a 9/11 Truther, saying "the blame goes to bad policy," not a conspiracy). As we wondered what we'd got ourselves into on this "SPP protest," our mouths dropped, and our hearts sank. Nonetheless, Lenna made the most of our day by going up onto the stage, grabbing the microphone, and announcing the imminent arrival of our incorporated social enterprise, SilenceBreaker Media (to which one protester responded - hilariously - by shouting "No! No more corporations!") The NDP people arrived as everyone was leaving, and I asked "Where the heck were you when we needed you?" and they just smiled politely, as usual. I'm guessing they got there late because they take public transit.
The thing is, the military spending and presence around the world can still increase, as it looks set to, and health care plans can still be compromised, as they are being right now. Nothing Obama’s done has been particularly radical. And of course, they never were going to be. The Democrats are Republican Lite™ - they're still right-wing capitalists, despite the Republican cries of "socialist" at the President, which I'm sure he actually loves because it appeases the antsy lefties and progressives who helped him rise to power and now take a break from anti-war activism, while he sends more troops into Afghanistan, stalls on closing Gitmo, and goes easy on the bankers who essentially committed an act of terrorism on the country and its people. They were all so busy believing in Hope™ and Change™ before celebrating the removal of the GOP that they neglected to look at what exactly would really be changed: very little. American politics being as it is, things are not going to get that much better. But I'm not the bearer of bad news, not at all: when I say politics, I'm talking about party politics - because while the race for the White House features a choice of two parties (one more than the Soviet Union, as Jesse Ventura likes to say), Ralph Nader's raiders and the real grassroots activists can still cause real change. Change will come from the bottom-up, not the top-down. As Shami Chakrabarti told me in Escape from Doncatraz, "I don't believe people are any less political than they've ever been - they're just less party political."
As time went by, this - along with his increase of child poverty while increasing the number of billionaires, and introducing unprecedented debt for students while also attacking the health service - made Blair extremely unpopular. Even though it was damaging his party beyond repair, and his refusal to regulate the financial sector threatened to damage the economy beyond realistic recovery, Blair kept hanging on and hanging on, welching on the handshake deal he had with Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown (who refused to challenge him for leadership of the Labour Party in 1994 in return for supposed control over domestic policy and becoming his successor in around 2003). Blair in fact held on for a further four long years, by which time Britain was a mess. You can almost imagine Blair saying to Brown, "Sorry for the delay, old boy, but I've finally got this little country for you," as he holds his hands outwards and offers a clump of dirt, "And apologies for leaving it such a shit state, mate. Goodbye, now - I'm off to convert to Catholicism, write a book, get a tan, and be envoy to those rag-heads in the Middle East. Good luck, and so long, sucker!"
Brown's presided over a mess that Blair left him. As Blair's been tanning, Brown's gone pale with worry. While Blair's almost salvaged a reputation despite being a war criminal, Brown will be the one remembered for leading Britain into its darkest hour. It's not really fair and I, for one, feel sorry for the bloke! Do I agree with him on most things? Not by any stretch of the imagination - come on, I haven't taken complete leave of my senses here! But it's Blair we ought to despise most, not Brown. Blair's been the worst Prime Minister in decades, even worse than Margaret Thatcher because, while Blair was a wolf in sheep's clothing, her disguise was as transparent as the wolf in grandma's bed in front of the Little Red Flag-flying lefties. She chewed us up and spat us out - just like she said she would. No one was there to save us, and no one has been since. While Barack Obama's got some old CIA links, there was no OO7 in Britain able to rescue us from the jaws of recession.
At the end of the day, these politicians are still people. They're part of a system that's rigged to keep the right-wing capitalists in power, and in control. And in accordance with capitalism, they have to play dog-eat-dog, while getting their media mogul friends to create stories encouraging you and I to play kick-the-dog. As a result, we've blamed refugees, immigrants, Muslims, welfare recipients; you name it - anyone at the bottom of the barrel, because it's easier to kick them when they're down than reach the rich and powerful up at the top, especially when the press don't highlight what they're up to much. But of course recently, the papers have been showing what I already exposed over a year ago in my film Escape from Doncatraz: politicians fiddling their expenses to get a bit extra. And while Shami Chakrabarti was right about people being "less party political," it's not necessarily a good thing. We've all heard the conversations in the pub: "Ah, they're all the same, them politicians; they all piss in the same pot." That cynicism was never stronger than in the recent European elections where - just as we did in the 1970s and 80s, allowing Thatcher to take hold of power - the working classes stayed at home, and didn't vote. The percentage of votes for the racist BNP rose as a result, giving the impression that people were, in fact, turning to them (they weren't; the BNP’s votes actually dropped). But this is the danger that comes with cynicism and apathy. We can't afford to sit at home and disconnect from it all - the thing with democracy is, you either use it or lose it. Just vote - even if you have to vote for the "evil of two lessers." When hearing I was writing this, my friend and talented playwright Gary, brilliant as ever, suggested I play the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil in the background, it might help." It did make me think: choosing the evil of the lessers is better than nothing. I mean, the Devil got cast out, and it doesn't look like things improved much around here as a result, did it?
As Neil Young sang, "keep on rockin' in the free world..." - Jay Baker; South Yorkshire You can read a compilation of Jay Baker's best blogs from the past several years, and a few exclusives, in his brand-new book "Soon To Be Banned: Musings of a Media Activist," available here. Labels: Barack Obama, Escape from Doncatraz, Gordon Brown, Iraq, JFK, Tony Blair, War on Terror
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Wednesday, July 22, 2009Who Watches the Watchmen?Four years ago today, a Brazilian electrician by the name of Jean Charles de Menezes was shot dead by police on the London Underground. My documentary, Escape from Doncatraz, relied on facts available at the time to cover the incident as critically as possible by suggesting that, after acting suspiciously, he was killed due to evading police when they tried to apprehend him and question him. Despite using the incident as an example of a looming police state mentality and rising racism in Britain, my film was - yes - wrong. Very wrong. The reality was actually much worse... With nothing about his behaviour suspicious in the slightest, the police followed Menezes onto the platform where he calmly sat before getting onto a tube train. It was there that the police joined him on board and, without warning, simply pumped him full of bullets, leaving him lying dead on the train in front of shocked commuters.  Brazilians were outraged by the incident, but none more than the grieving relatives of the victim himself. The police response? Well, the initial excuse was that they thought he was a terrorist about to detonate a bomb on his person while riding the train - as was the case in the 7/7 attacks in the city. The thing was, those perpetrators were Asian; Menezes was, of course, Brazilian. I guess the Metropolitan Police explanation was based on their own racism I've looked at previously here: after all, how many times have we heard, "Ah, they all look the same to us!"We all know "Blair" is a name we can't trust whenever we see it on the news. But though police commissioner Sir Ian Blair has recently resigned, he didn't quit at the time of the incident - like his namesake, then-Prime Minister Tony Blair, he merely said sorry. Yeah: sorry. Can you believe that? "Oops! We killed an innocent man. Sorry!" Can you imagine some common murderer getting away with that in court? "Yeah, I killed some bloke in the pub 'cause he pissed me off. Uh, sorry." I don't think so. The only difference seems to be that if you're carrying a badge with your gun, it's okay! Understandably, the apologies were not accepted by the Menezes family. They expected more. They deserved more. Was there an investigation, perhaps even a prosecution? No. They had their wrists slapped for breaking health and safety regulations! Oh, and there was a fine involved. Meanwhile, after the Met deleted and selectively censored CCTV evidence on the incident, the operational commander on the day, Cressida Dick, was given a major promotion at Scotland Yard, and it was reported that an officer who killed Menezes shot and killed again. It's like a Police Academy movie, with that cop Tackleberry brandishing his beloved gun and blowing heads off whenever he has the chance. Except the reality is even worse than even one of those bad films, with a Dick and two Blairs to leave us with a bad taste in our mouths.  Now, more recently, during the G20 protests, the Met has killed newspaper vendor Ian Tomlinson. As he was white, they didn't go with an excuse of him being a dark-skinned terrorist suspect, though I'm guessing the Met conversations were along the lines of "Damn, if he'd just been Spanish, or Maltese, or even Italian or something, we could've got away with it!" And they might have, had it not been for those pesky kids, wielding their cameras despite a brand-new law the police are trying to enforce, which essentially bans any photography of the police. How convenient.Footage of the G20 incident was downloaded by Brazilians more than any other people in the world outside the US and UK; they see the connection. A pattern continues to emerge, with Britain in particular subjected to a police state where, frighteningly, they seem to be able to do as they like, regardless of the consequences. As I recently wrote for The Mule, the War on Terror™ has been used as an excuse to give the police unprecedented powers, at a time when they have proven to be completely irresponsible. They say that with power comes responsibility. You don't reward irresponsibility with greater power. Today we have reason to dwell on these things on the anniversary of a man murdered by The Met. Tomorrow, we carry on with our lives here under the British surveillance state, where we are all watched. But I know a few loopholes in the photography laws, and I intend to use such loopholes to hang the police force with, because with a trusty camera, this media activist will be watching them. On every single protest I can get to in the coming months, I'll be on the front lines, capturing footage, shooting back at the armed cops with my own weapon. My camera shoots fascists. - Jay Baker; South Yorkshire You can read a compilation of Jay Baker's best blogs from the past several years, and a few exclusives, in his brand-new book "Soon To Be Banned: Musings of a Media Activist," available here. Labels: Escape from Doncatraz, G20, Jean Charles de Menezes, Tony Blair, War on Terror
posted by Jay Baker at
6:32 AM
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Friday, March 13, 2009An End to Brown-Nosing"(Milton) Friedman created this crisis! He is dead and, really, it's too bad. I'd like to see him arraigned before the International Court of Justice for crimes against humanity. With his idea that market operation is perfect, he let all greed, all human voracity, express itself openly." - Michel Rocard, former Prime Minister of France Let's go back in time eighty years, before it all began...  The Wall Street crash of 1929 was economically devastating for the United States, and its knock-on effect was felt across the Atlantic, in my homeland of Britain; the reverberations of which would affect my grandfather (and, therefore, my father) to forever fear the "rainy day" and hold onto as much cash as possible at all costs (when my grandfather died - after successfully resisting ever opening a bank account - literally thousands of pounds was found, in cold crisp cash, in hiding places all over his house).On top of the Great Depression, Britain had even greater financial difficulties following the Second World War of 1939-1945, which drained much of its remaining resources in the fight against fascism. By this time, economist John Maynard Keynes had arrived to identify the solutions to these problems, and put in place a series of proposals for measures that were adopted by the British government. While U.S. President Franklin D Roosevelt was enjoying the realisation of his "New Deal" economic stimulus programmes, post-war Prime Minister Clement Attlee (now considered to be the best British premier of the 20th century) utilised the Beveridge Report that nationalised many industries, funded education, provided welfare, and created the National Health Service - all of which were accepted as backbones of British society for decades...until the Conservative Party's Margaret Thatcher came along, breaking its back, and brandishing her own Ridley Report that recommended smashing the strongest unions by brute force in order to reduce workers' rights, which she did by defeating the National Union of Mineworkers in 1985. Along with Republican Ronald Reagan, she then embraced economist Milton Friedman's ideas of privatisation and deregulation and essentially everything that led to our current troubles. On May 6th, 2005, I wrote a blog about the British election titled "The End is the Beginning is the End," in which I predicted Gordon Brown would, indeed, replace Tony Blair as Prime Minister. In that blog, I also called Brown "a darling of the big business Brown-nosing lobbyists." Also predicting that Brown's lack of charisma would lead to Labour's eventual defeat, I suggested this might create an opportunity for the socialist back-benchers and trade unionists to take back control of the party. That's how it unfolded. That's how it began. Blair, discredited largely by his decision to illegally invade Iraq on top of his continuation (and, arguably, extension) of Thatcherism, resigned as Prime Minister, and Gordon Brown, who was the Chancellor of the Exchequer forced to fund such decisions, finally took his place. Brown's since inherited financial shockwaves strong enough to send an economic tsunami across the ocean; the biggest since the original crash, today a "crunch." Hilariously, it's the Tories who are claiming they're the ones to do something different! And while Brown's not totally to blame for this mess, nor is he the Keynesian problem-solver he'd like to believe, and he has to recognise that his lack of popularity is indeed precisely because there's not enough difference between the major parties. Next you'll be telling me that the Liberal Democrats are for tuition fees and war in the Middle East! Wait, they are? Oh, well, there you go. There has to be investment in welfare, in education, in health-care, in transport, in training, and in the cultural sector, which will benefit other sectors, too. Capitalism has failed, and socialism is no longer a dirty word. It's the only option left now, logically. But do Labour have the guts to re-embrace it at this hour? Last night here in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire I attended a meeting called "Re-engaging Citizens in Democratic Politics" with Prof Gerry Stoker (who wrote Why Politics Matters) and Sheffield University's very own Prof Colin Hay (author of Why We Hate Politics). It was an interesting event seeking to look at why people are turned-off by politics, with topics ranging from election reform to the importance of politicians interacting with people more. I think it goes much further, much deeper, and much darker than that. If you're still awake and reading this, I'll tell you what I took from the findings... According to statistics pointed-out by the professors, the working class are less likely to vote than anyone else, and voter turn-out plummeted as soon as New Labour rose to power. Now, these things seem to state something very obvious: once Labour allowed itself to be guided by the twice-disgraced Peter Mandelson, away from social democracy and towards embracing big business, the mass majority of working class people, feeling betrayed, simply stayed at home, or decided to protest. Anyone with a memory not affected by two hundred satellite channels of (un)reality shows and eMpTyV editing knows the Tories won't do better if they get into power; they themselves are at the root cause of the whole situation. But even if Gordon Brown is booted and - as I've been predicting - David Miliband becomes Labour leader, it won't make much difference because the party itself isn't much different so long as it's New Labour. Milliband's ready to receive the Obama treatment, giving the perception of ChangeTM and HopeTM with no tangible substance to go with the style. Sure, his father was a Marxist, but both Blair and Brown were considered to be socialists once, too. He may be referred to as a social democrat, but his voting record is absolutely appalling. No wonder we don't vote, then. Like Obama, Miliband is a slippery fish, only likely to offer very light relief. No, the party needs fundamental across-the-board changes. Here in Britain today, we have all three major political parties on the right. This means that not a single one of them reflects the interests of the mass majority; the working class population. There is no representation whatsoever of any sense of spectrum in politics, of anything other than their own greed and corporate friends.  That is why fewer and fewer people are engaged in the democratic process - it's like going to a supermarket and having a choice between Coke and Pepsi: sure, they're constantly engaged in fierce competition with each other, but both are bad for you; it's just that one is red and the other is blue. That's pretty much it. When we go into a bar and ask for a "Jack Daniels and Coke" and the bartender replies "Is Pepsi okay?" we tell them of course it is, because most sane people really couldn't give a shit - there's no significant difference! It's the same with the major political parties: there's no difference, so we don't give a shit. Thus, low turnout.Labour has to turn back now. They have to stop the foreign policy of aggression, they have to stop privatisation, they have to stop ignoring the unions, they have to stop selling off public housing, they have to stop eroding civil liberties; all of it. They must stop now and turn back, because it's the only way they can save themselves long-term, and save us. Like the anti-heroes of The Italian Job, they're finding themselves in a money-filled bus that's on the edge of a cliff, but with Michael Caine nowhere in sight to offer "a great idea." Sometimes we find ourselves back where we began. But it's inevitable when we go around in circles, in the same place. Now is the time to stick it to New Labour. And the Tories. Heck, the Liberal Democrats, too. Their warmongering corporate interests and their ilk from elsewhere must be held accountable. That's why, on April Fools Day, people are heading to London as the G20 arrive for their little conference. The bailed-out bankers and Brown-nosing lobbyists will be subjected to the wrath of the commoner. This common man, for one, will be there to play the fool. I hope you will, too. - Jay Baker; Doncaster, England Labels: Barack Obama, Gordon Brown, Margaret Thatcher, New Labour, Tony Blair
posted by Jay Baker at
3:27 PM
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Thursday, February 26, 2009Angel 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
posted by Jay Baker at
7:50 AM
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Wednesday, January 21, 2009Shop a Skivershop (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
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7:53 AM
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