Wake Up Maggie, I Think I've Got Something to Say to You

(C) Agence France-Presse

Originally I was going to write back in April about Margaret Thatcher on account of her recent cessation of life, but the saturation of media coverage covered most of what could be said. I put the post back to November and planned to use some of the non-domestic events of her premiership as jumping off points for some discussion. That schedule slipped as per the pattern of neglecting to write when work is easy, so here I am in the midst of the Christmas workload (you know, that company that even Thatcher wouldn't privatise) writing two posts back to back. Fortuitously (and this is going to sound terrible), Nelson Mandela died last week. Perhaps this is a good time to follow on from my comparison of Zimbabwe and South Africa, Mugabe and Mandela.

The wind of change is blowing through this continent. Whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact.

The Emperors and Kings Curl in the Autumn as the Burning of Leaves

It's a bit odd, don't you think, that even while freedom and equality are the hallmarks of Western democracy (apparently simultaneously unique to all) that some people are living like royalty? I'm not talking about those financially benefiting from austerity and the ideologically-driven shrinking of the state, I mean royalty with a capital R. Of the nineteen monarchies depicted left in 1908 only eight survive.

The first to go was the Portuguese overthrown in 1910. The Qing Empire (of China) was overthrown in 1912, though Puyi was restored in Japanese Manchukuo from 1934 to 1945. The Russian monarchy was famously overthrown in 1917 which directly inspired events in Germany a year later in November 1918. Austria-Hungary ceased to exist earlier in 1918 and the Hungarian throne was vacant until overthrown in 1944. The Ottoman Sultanate was abolished in 1922. The Hellenic (Greek) monarchy was abolished in 1924, restored in 1935, vacated in 1947 and abolished again in 1967. Serbia had become Yugoslavia in 1918 and the monarchy was exiled in 1941 then formally abolished in 1944. Romania and Bulgaria were overthrown under Soviet hegemony in 1947 and 1946 respectively. The Italian monarchy was abolished in 1946. Japan and Thailand remain, while the Spanish crown was vacated in 1931 and only restored in 1978. The other survivors are stable and quite geographically restricted, almost forming an arc: Britain (minus Ireland, 1921), Belgium (not depicted above, probably because Leopold II wasn't welcome in the club at the time), The Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway.

Towers in Sand / From Feudal Serf to Spender

EPILOGUE OF A SERIES.

Abstimmung an der Landsgemeinde, Adrian Sulc, 2006

This series of posts started out three years ago with a reprint of a college essay (so more like eight years ago) on the definition of Marxism and the failure of the Soviet Union. At the time I stated that I had loosely considered myself a Trotskyist if only because I understood it in my teens as in opposition to Stalinist totalitarianism, and in exploring the subject across ten thousand words I have found myself reaching back into the nineteenth century roots of socialism. The value of these essays, and this blog, is basically a personal learning tool - in writing this series I have managed to organise my ideas about political theory into something structured that I can recognise myself and refine. Thus, instead of complain about elements of society and politics, I can present my ideas for their own critique. To do so I must first re-summarise the problems with the Bolshevik revolution.

Orbiting Your Living Room, Cashing in The Bill of Rights

Prism Demo [...], ubiquit23, 2013

Batman: Beautiful, isn't it?
Lucius Fox: Beautiful... unethical... dangerous. You've turned every cellphone in Gotham into a microphone.
Batman: And a high-frequency generator-receiver.
Lucius Fox: You took my sonar concept and applied it to every phone in the city. With half the city feeding you sonar, you can image all of Gotham. This is wrong.
Batman: I've gotta find this man, Lucius.
Lucius Fox: At what cost?
Batman: The database is null-key encrypted. It can only be accessed by one person.
Lucius Fox: This is too much power for one person.
Batman: That's why I gave it to you. Only you can use it.
Lucius Fox: Spying on 30 million people isn't part of my job description.
- The Dark Knight, 2008

Message Oblique Speech

PART THREE OF A SERIES.

Copyright J Michael Haynes, 2008

"the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies [...],
for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching [...], scholarship,
or research, is not an infringement of copyright."

How do you think he'll react to you when you learn what a real revolution is? You don't know what a revolution is. If you did, you wouldn't use that word.
-Malcolm X, Message to the Grassroots, 1963

The previous essay in this series details why we are sold the neoliberal system. This post describes how we are sold it. The first rule of the system we live in is you do not talk about the system we live in. The second rule is you blame the financial crisis on the previous administration. It's oft repeated that it was Huxley, not Orwell, that correctly predicted the future. Arguably Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is better known than Brave New World, perhaps considering its relevance during the cold war; however, rarely is it considered that they were both right about elements of present society. Huxley's nightmare was not that the people would be deprived of freedom and subjugated by a totalitarian state - it's they would be so distracted by a deluge of entertainment they wouldn't care. How ironic a 'reality television' programme brought that vision to life and used an Orwellian term - Big Brother.

I Thought It Was The UK, Or Just Another Country

PART ONE OF A SERIES.

Na Nož, Jaroslav Věšin, 1913

Britain isn't cool you know, it's really not that great / It's not a proper country, doesn't even have a patron saint / It's just an economic union that's past its sell-by date
-Take Down the Union Jack, Billy Bragg, 2002

At the deepest historical time-depths there is a very basic notion of identity between the self-identified civilised peoples and the barbarians. While the concept of being Greek (Hellenes) didn't yet exist, the city states at the base of the Balkan peninsula saw a commonality between themselves but not with others to the uncharted North or in the later conquered territories of Alexander's empire. The genesis of this fraternity also lies in transmission of culture as the Greek alphabet (save for some regional variations) allowed folk culture to be stored. The established alphabet may also have smoothed over the dialects as it only represents the sounds distinguished within a dialect and not the phonlogical distinctions between the dialects. That would not be unlike the unifying force that Hanzi had on the disparate Chinese languages by representing words and not the component sounds of the languages (which are as wildly different though related as French and Romanian). Indeed, language is one of the most prominent pillars of ethnic identity along with religion (historically Slavic, Germanic, Celtic, etc paganism for pre-modern Europe) and, of course, land.

21 Years in Captivity, Shoes Too Small to Fit His Feet

USSR Post stamp, 1988

I've been in jail longer than Nelson Mandela so maybe you want me to run for president.
-John Mason, The Rock

Quite a while back I made a short reference to the electoral troubles in Zimbabwe and the stature of Nelson Mandela. When Mandela was in hospital in December and there was concern the end might be near, I wondered how it was that he had gone from terrorist to globally respected elder while one-time hero of Africa, Robert Mugabe, had revealed himself to be an autocrat. Both were leaders of post-Apartheid states, but only one has overstayed his welcome. Indeed, I think the real reason Mandela is held so reverentially is not because he single-handedly rescued South Africa from racism, poverty, or any of the other ills it suffers from; but because he honoured the democratic system. His term expired and he stood aside. That he didn't go from liberator to dictator was an extraordinary break with the prevailing historical trend. Quoth Harvey Dent: "You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain". Mandela avoided such a fate, but Mugabe has gone down the Ceauşescu route of being cashiered of his international awards and honours. What I suspect is that there is something fundamental in the histories of these two statesmen and their states that has led to such divergent outcomes.

Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family

Arirang Mass Games - North Korea, 2011, Joseph A Ferris III

Six years ago when I had a brief interest in short wave radio I picked up Voice of Korea a few times and was fascinated by this window into the bizarro-land of North Korea (or the People's Democratic Republic of Korea as it likes to be know, a string of words that somehow manage to reflect reality by an astonishing 0%). At the time my general impression of the North was that of an amusingly backward Stalinist state that acted up a bit on the world stage but was otherwise harmless and so I thought about writing into the station to receive a token marking my reception of their broadcast. Seeking the station details led me to a friendship association site which was run by a shady individual with connections to the North and the more I read this about character and the general behaviour of the DPRK outside its own borders the less I thought writing to them was a wise idea.

And The Money Kept Rolling In (And Out)

PART TWO OF A SERIES.

Corporate (red)washing, jonathan mcintosh, 2007

Some have never had it so good. You might be mistaken for thinking there was an economic crash not four years ago and that we are living in a recession, but that's because you aren't the 1%. As we saw abroad and now domestically, a leaderless movement has now come to prominence. If successful in nothing else, Occupy has brought home the message of wealth inequality through the 'We are the 99%' slogan. The extreme inversion of the scales in the economic clout of the top 1% versus the remaining 99% betrays an uncomfortable truth about our egalitarian and meritocratic societies - that we are actually living in plutocracies. The egalitarian and meritocratic principles of western society are what comprise The American Dream, and yet like a dream we think we're awake. Eisenhower may have warned us about relations between the state and private contractors during the heights of the New Deal society, but Franklin D Roosevelt spoke in 1938 of a more elementary danger that "among us today a concentration of private power without equal in history is growing". If some members of society have greater private power than others then it logically follows that others have less power. This is the very basic fact that underpins the subversion of liberal democracy.

The Street Parade (Rock The Casbah)

PART ONE OF A SERIES.

President John F. Kennedy, The COM Library, 2009

Kings were put to death long before 21 January 1793, but regicides of earlier times and their followers were interested in attacking the person, not the principle of the king. They wanted another king, and that was all. It never occurred to them that the throne could remain empty for ever.
- Albert Camus, The Rebel, 1951

2011 was by all accounts the most unpredictable year since 1989. A revolutionary wave began sweeping away the Western puppets, just as the Eastern Europeans sent the Soviet puppets to the ash-heap of history. Stability for stability's sake was once the mantra that subjugated the Middle East until the suicide of one man seemingly instigated what neither international free trade nor exiles or internal opposition could persuade. I originally intended to examine the preconditions of these revolutions, but that continues to be a work in progress if not a mystery for future historians. What I have noted, however, is that this wave that has rippled through the Middle East, and other regions to varying degrees, has for the most part been leaderless. When I last wrote a political post in November 2010, the eve of events in Tunisia, I specifically rejected cadres as essential or desirable to revolution. The absence of commanding individuals in Tahrir Square or elsewhere appears to have shown spontaneous and leaderless movements are possible - though the effectiveness of these versus the militarised rebellion in Libya or Syria is yet to be settled.

London's Burning With Boredom Now / This is England

London riots, Sean MacEntee, August 2011

London's Burning is an exaggeration, of course, but it seems everyone's invoking The Clash these days. So what's happening on the streets down South? Very likely the same thing that happened in France six years ago. It would be easier just to list the problems that exist: mutual hostility between police and youth, economic disparity, high unemployment, political neglect, racism. In return, at provocation the local adolescents take to the streets, burning everything in sight. Sounds a lot like the death of the social contract, but that's really been the case since the 1970s and the destruction of the post-war compromise.

There'll Be No Doubt In Your Mind, You'll Believe Everything I'm Saying

X-Files Title Card (Season 1 DVD)

Contemporary events sometimes create a cinematic zeitgeist. After Hale-Bopp passed, Hollywood simultaneously gave us Armageddon and Deep Impact - both films about large objects from space on collision courses with Earth (but only one was any good, which I'll get to at some point). Looking back at the 70s we see a slew of thrillers about political intrigue, paranoia, and conspiracies all borne from the fallout of the Kennedy assassination, Watergate and the involvement of the military-industrial complex in the Vietnam War. Since the 70s, doubting the official line has never been more popular. The X-Files, inspired by those thrillers, prominently tapped into notions of government cover-up concerning UFOs and the existence of alien life. Today doubt knows no bounds, having mostly transformed into full conspiracy theorism. From 9/11 truthers to the birthers who continue to contest the validity of President Obama's nationality, these doubts form more of a dis-belief system than healthy scepticism. And yet in these incredulous times the incredible is accepted so long as it's from an alternative voice.

Play To Win

No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
-Winston Churchill, House of Commons, 1947

You Won't Have to Follow Me, Only You Can Set You Free

PART TWO OF A PROLOGUE TO A SERIES.

Nelson Mandela, Frames-of-Mind, 2007

The Marxism essay for politics class was a by-the-numbers 'name the core aspects of theory-x' test like most class assignments. There were a few reasons I bothered to finish and hand in that particular essay - setting it apart from all the others due at the same time. I really enjoyed the politics class - the lecturer, the free flow of the classes (compare the rigidly planned psychology class, which I hated) and the subject matter.

The essay was also an opportunity to coherently express my knowledge and ideas on the subject and perhaps gain a greater understanding through arranging it on paper. Though discussing Leninism and identifying the Russian Revolution as a keystone event of the movement were explicit requirements of the essay, I can't recall whether determining an initial cause for the eventual failure of the Soviet Union was part or something I threw in to show off. Based on the conclusion I reached, that the implementation and continuation of War Communism undermined the revolution's own internal support and led to increased centralisation of power, I wonder whether the latter was true. Having stated that Imperial Russia was still a largely feudal state, only to then dismiss the idea that this was why the Soviet Union could not make the transition to socialism by leap-frogging the capitalist epoch, I perhaps wrote myself into a corner and then wrote back out of it in order to increase the word count. The essay also got a straight A!

The Masses Against The Classes

PART ONE OF A PROLOGUE TO A SERIES.

The following was written for the Marxism module of Politics A class in the HNC Social Sciences course. I was up until 6AM writing this five years ago. In fact, this was the only paper I bothered to hand-in before failing/dropping out of the course by early 2006.

I'll Wonder Why We Didn't Try To Do or Die

Porsche Carrera Che Guevara, f650biker, 2008

As Royal Mail heads toward becoming another target of the new depression, I recall where I was when it became apparent we wouldn't be able to afford the future. Funnily enough, I was out on delivery with my pocket radio listening to the Jeremy Vine show on Radio 2. The big news of the week was the ongoing collapse of Northern Rock and the bank runs on their highstreet branches - something out of the past and decidedly out of the ordinary.

However, plenty saw it coming. It was just a matter of time before another big crash. What market goes up must come down. The good times do not continue forever, yet something like the fact that infinite economic growth is impossible is met with Wealth of Nations being thrown at you - as if Adam Smith was a proponent of magic. There are only so many resources on this planet and only so much of them.

Persuading You That Monochrome is Dayglo

NOPE, Tom Edwards, 2010

There is now a new government in Westminster, not that I can tell. I still find myself thinking Blair is Prime Minister and Bush is President. The climactic shift that these brief windows of participatory indirect democracy (elections) are supposed to produce never arise. Round we go, like a zoetrope: Labour in power, Conservatives in power; Democrats in power, Republicans in power. The illusion of movement. It's hypnotic.

I hate to be the cynic, but I guarantee the 'new politics' will come to remind you of the old politics. How many months was it before fresh-faced Tony was caught accepting money from F1 autocrat Bernie Ecclestone? I was ten at the time and I can remember hearing how the Labour landslide was the rebuke of Tory sleaze. Remember the icons of the mid nineties meeting Blair at No. 10? How many of them were in sight of Downing Street ten years later? Politicians have been heralding change more times than the boy who cried wolf, and yet even I was swept along by Obamamania.

Turn On, Turn On, Turn On The News

Tomorrow Never Dies, 1997

For the past few months Rupert Murdoch has been tilting at Google accusing them of stealing his 'content' - that is, linking to it. One gets the impression he hasn't a clue about the interwebs, which has become increasingly apparent since buying MySpace in 2006.

If you look to the Financial Times, it's true that readers will pay for real quality content. Murdoch's best-selling "newspaper", on the other hand, relies on jingoism (Gotcha!), xenophobia (Swan Bake), outright lies (Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster) and tits. If the dead-tree version is worth only 10p to the masses, who are you going to find willing to cross a paywall to access this moronic bullshit online?

If You Tolerate This

For about a decade I've politically identified myself as a Marxist. That happens to coincide with my existential crisis at the age of 14, so naturally I'd find revolutionary upheaval appealing in a world of shit. I read 1984 at roughly the same time, which I understood as a very obvious criticism of Stalinism, which makes me a Trotskyist, though my own thoughts about the failure of the Soviet Union (which I'll be posting later in the year) align me closer to Council Communism than any Leninist strand.

I Wanted to Rub the Human Face in its Own Vomit

Fall of the Damned into Hell

The de rigueur moral outrage is predictable and contemptible. I ask, why is it we send people to prison? People out there consciously debase justice to revenge. Driven by tabloids with their head-on-pike photoshopped front page graphics. Vanguard of morality, continued on page 3 with tits. The eternal shreiking victims are never able to accept that anyone can reform. Did he paint a picture of the rape scene? They will never accept anything less than the death penalty because they cannot reform themselves. An eye for an eye, and still they'll be calling for a second hanging for a one-man murder.

In Scotland this hysteria typically results in yet another outcry against the 'not proven' verdict. Their motivation for its removal has nothing to do with fixing the legal system, but everything to do with gaining closure - regardless of who it's exacted on. Abandon your pretensions of morality. You're really not much better than they are. In the end, there will only be the guilty verdict.

[172]