Dreams of a united left

In Britain the political left is in a dire way. Save for rape-loving cod-socialist George Galloway smarming his way into the Commons through Bradford North, there is scarce representation across the country. So why, deep into yet another crisis of capitalism, is it this way? Why are the Labour party, dragged centre-right by Blair and Brown, refusing to budge from their new perch? Why, when radical left parties are on the rise in Europe, is Britain remaining fixated on neo-liberalism?

As Marx predicted, the internal contradictions of capitalism would inevitably lead to it self-combusting, not just once, but over and over again. As it has done, as it is currently doing. Greece,Spain, Portugal and Italy are all moving closer to complete collapse, and are in a much worse way to Northern European countries, but Britain is under the threat of a triple-dip recession, zero growth, jobs stagnation etc. – all the signs of economic failure. As a result of this the mistrust of the usual politics and politicians is growing, manifesting itself in a growth spurt for new protest party Ukip.

So where are the British left in all this? Absent, largely. Galloway’s Respect Party is the main force for the British left at the moment, gaining votes in traditionally Labour-dominated inner-cities. A smattering of various socialist and communist cliques can often be found propping up the running order of votes, defeating only the ‘Elvis Pensioner Party’ and the ‘9/11 Was An Inside Job’ candidate. It is strange, because in a time of such economic turmoil, the left should be finding its feet, offering, again, itself as a true alternative to the destruction of capitalism. 

More so, left wing parties offer a sane alternative to the even greater danger of fascist and far-right parties who aim to stoke a climate of fear around asylum seekers and outsiders, both as an outlet for the working class who are baring the brunt of austerity, and capitalism in general; and also, more simplistically, as a protest vote. 

One of the frequent criticisms of radical political movements is their inability to remain as a coherent group. There are schisms and rivalries inside the mainstream political parties, certainly, but it is rare that the tensions emerge as a definite split, and with such dogmatic factionalism, as fringe groups do (the same goes for the far-right as the far-left, as we have seen with the splintering of the BNP and the EDL). In Scotland the SSP was designed with the aim of bringing disparate left-wing groups together. It worked, briefly, until Tommy Sheridan split off to form Solidarity, bringing about the same weaknesses that had existed previously. The SSP’s vote sank from a high of six seats in a few years, and it remains mainly as a protest organising group with one councillor nationwide. Overcoming this factionalism and in-fighting is essential if the left are to regain their standing as a serious political group. It would prevent similar groups from taking votes from each other, and present a clearer alternative to mainstream politics for voters. Various political parties in Europe who have achieved much greater success than expected, such as Jean-Luc Melechon’s Left Front or SYRIZA inGreece, have operated as a rough coalition of parties and independents from across the left spectrum – eurocommunists to greens.
Pooling support and resources in this way is essential, but difficult. The aforementioned SSP/Solidarity split is a wound that is yet to heal. Groups like the SWP have gained a reputation as unlikeable cults, distrusted and mocked as much by the rest of the left as they are by the centre, if not more so.

Plus, looming on the horizon is a bigger problem for the radical left – the Labour party. The Labour party are no longer a left-wing party, no longer a party with the good of the working class at their heart. They are uncomfortable with trade unionism, uncomfortable with the risk of breaking with the Thatcherism, neo-liberal consensus which was established in the 1980s. But, because of the proud history of the party, and it’s undeniable left-wing roots, it continues to draw in well-meaning (but naïve) socialists and left-wingers, who believe that the party can change. The Labour party, as is, is a blockade to getter political representation for real left wing parties, draining voters and high profile supporters who would be better served by a united left front.

I am not naive. I do not believe this is an easy task, one which can be accomplished before the next election. It will take a lot of hard work, from all sides - some gritting of the teeth, some hiding (if not burying) of hatchets. It is also important to remember that politcal action is not, and cannot, be limited to the parliament. It needs to take place on the streets, in the forms of protests, strikes and occupations. It is socialism from the group up, discussing with people their desires and fears - not remaining aloof in a distant parliament, recording 60% attendence and fleecing the expenses system. If this happens, any left-wing politicans would be just as bad as the Labour party, or the Conservatives, or the Lib Dems. It is about making a radical change in the way politics is not only shared, but conducted. Parties are an open forum, and representation in power of the will of the people - could a left bloc be that?

Another school shooting, and America's doomed romance with guns continues

With twenty-eight dead in Connecticut, the logical response would be gun control. America’s latest school shooting is perhaps the most shocking yet, and it is undeniable, no matter the mental state of the gunman, that the easy availability of guns was the main factor. After the Dunblane school shooting in 1996 Scottish and British gun control laws were tightened severely. The same thing happened again when Derrick Bird shot more than twenty people in his home town, targeting some of his ‘enemies’, but mainly killing random people as they walked down the street. The UK, as with most countries, are able to balance mourning for these tragedies with a level-headed and positive approach to gun control. In America, things are different.

It is inevitable, but very little, if anything at all, will happen in the aftermath of the Newtown shooting. Adam Lanza’s identity had been revealed for only a few minutes when the pre-emptive strikes against the gun control campaigners began. Lanza has a mental illness, they said, negating any responsibility that easily-accessible firearms had played in the events. At the same time, old arguments emerge which claim that bringing politics, in the form of a gun control debate, into the aftermath of a massacre is a heartless act in itself.

As someone who lives in a country where the only people who have guns are farmers and particularly determined gangsters the idea of being able to walk into a supermarket and buy a firearm is surreal. There is no call in Britain for lesser gun control, because people seem to know the risks. But Britain, like the rest of Europe, has a different relationship with weapons to America. This relationship was explored, without much in the way of a satisfactory conclusion, by Michael Moore in Bowling For Columbine (in the end this relationship confused and angered him so he ended up chasing an aging Charleton Heston around the latter's home with a picture of a dead schoolgirl).

Ultimately Americans associated guns with 'freedom', and freedom with America - as long as this remains the case, the issue of gun control will never be removed from it's deadly rut. Guns are part of the national character to a significant extent, but, especially in the familiar aftermath of shootings like the one in Newtown, there are growing calls to restrict the sale of firearms. As I said above, nothing will happen.

The political situation in America is at deadlock on almost every issue. Obama may have scrapped past Romney in the presidential election, but he still has to deal with Republicans pouncing on his every move, motivated by the slender mandate the country afforded him. Republicans don't want gun control, and they would be able, with the help of the very rich pro-gun lobbies (like the NRA, whose natural reaction to a news flash about a school shooting is to draft a defensive press release), to make the argument very difficult for the Democrats. Obama and his party know this. I don't know Obama's personal views on gun control, but it's also likely that many people in his own party are against it. It is a hugely damaging and risky argument to have, and therefore, with their partisan nature, the Republicans have been able to shut down any attempt at establishing a discourse on the matter. The same thing has happened, to differing extents, to gay marriage, to climate change, and to solutions to the failings of American capitalism.

Gun control is also not the type of thing that would show improvements overnight, and the public are often hard to convince on measures which require a lot of work now, with no guaranteed outcome. In the event of guns being made illegal to own in America, there would be shootings and suicides as the police attempted to remove firearms from people. A few months in, when the first massacre is committed with an illegal gun, the pro-gun lobby will cart out their usual argument that it would have been prevented if one of the victims owned a gun.

Perhaps Obama, with no need to worry about personal re-election, could be brave, and attempt to move America towards a solution. He would have a number of big city mayors, like Michael Bloomberg, on his side (mayors who have to deal with gun crime in large American cities know first hand that the real tragedy of America's relationship with firearms is not the occasion school shooting but the constant stream of bodies which flow from gang disputes, all aided by a lack of gun control). Obama is already one of the most divisive presidents in American history, and immediate move towards gun control would likly entrench that. But dither, and refuse to move, and he will face a few more tearful press conferences before he walks out of the White House for the last time.

The Polite British Far-Right

It's a tragic fact, that the mechanisms of capitalism swing every-closer to 'disaster' setting, political extremism on the right flares up. In Europe, which is straining most under the weight of the ongoing economic crisis, it has been the most noticable. Greece is the obvious example, where Golden Dawn, an openly violent facist party are currently polling third. In France, in Italy, all across Europe, the ugly head of facism rises, spouting Islamophobia.

What about in Britain? Our premier far-right party, the BNP, have disinegrated, but the individual splinters still protrude; the EDL, the British Freedom Party, the National Front - all offering a slight variation on the same old hatred (the EDL claims to be welcoming to non-whites and non-Christians, so if that ain't your thing, you might what to head by the openly white-supremacist NF).

If you look at the trends in the last few years, the rise of the extreme right-wing in Europe has been marked by parties that do embrace a form of facism, but in Britain, where, despite a flurry of electoral successes a few years ago for the BNP, they have made very little gain. Has the UK been spared, the trend passed it by? Not quite.

In Britain it's currently all about Ukip. They've been slowly building on successes in European and council elections, working towards calling themselves the new 'third party' in British politics, taking the place of the Lib Dems (this despite them never actually having won a seat in parliament - their only representation coming after a defection from the Tory party).

Ukip's rise in popularity has worried the Conservatives. They feared that Cameron was too close to the political middle ground to secure the traditional Tory voter base - he was, and many of them defected right to Ukip. In some places the popularity of Ukip has even been blamed for splitting the Tory vote, causing them to lose an estimated 40 seats at the last election. Michael Fabricant, who does something for the Tory party (he's high up, I don't care any more than that) has proposed an election pact between the two parties, as they increasingly seem like star-crossed lovers, split over a need to appeal to the centre vote.

The problem here is that Ukip represent the same ground as the BNP and their ilk - they just have a greater grasp of political PR. Ukip supporters and BNP supporters largely agree on the parties' main electoral points - immigration, British superiority, anti-Europeanism (unless they want to buy our stuff).

From the Guardian article 'Ukip shares more with the far right than it admits':

While they also appear deeply concerned about immigration and Islam, Ukip supporters are less intense and less hostile than their BNP rivals. They are also far more likely to consider violence as "never justifiable".

At the same time, however, Ukip critics tend to ignore the fact that their party does have considerable policy overlaps with the extreme right. Like the BNP, at the last general election Ukip demanded an end to uncontrolled immigration, tighter border controls, the expulsion of illegal immigrants, the removal of benefits for remaining immigrants and an "end the active promotion of the doctrine of multiculturalism by local and national government and all publicly funded bodies". This radical right pitch to voters included an end to political correctness and a ban on the burqa, and led Ukip to invite Geert Wilders to show an anti-Islam documentary in the House of Lords.

Ukip is not a rightwing extremist party, but on the doorsteps of voters it is often pushing the same message as the extreme right.

 What Ukip are able to do is exploit the British love for decent, honest 'chaps' who have little time for the political establishment (which Ukip claim to be outside, but are earnest supporters of). Their leader Nigel Farage smokes and is known to drink pints at lunch (probably British bitter). He is the walking embodiment of people who are just a little bit tired of political correctness and health and safety, and the liberals who push them on society.

Not mentioned in the article is Ukip's homophobic record - during the recent outcry in Rotherham, when the local council removed foster kids from the care of Ukip members because of the racist views of the party, Ukip were playing the victims. The actions of the council were perfect political fodder for the party, who used it to present a case of them being victimised and attacked by 'liberals' for their beliefs, in exactly the same way any far-right party would. (The BNP used to pull the 'they're trying to silence us because we know The Truth' card on several occasions.) What was hardly mentioned was the views of the Croydon North by-election candidate for Ukip, and the party's culture, media and sport spokesman, who said that it was wrong to allow gay couples to foster children. It was the usual stuff about the destruction of the 'traditional' Christian family, of course. Pinknews.co.uk has a further article it's worth reading about several other cases of homophobia in the party.

  Ukip supporters burn picture of openly-gay Lib Dem politican Brian Paddock

 

Listing the idiotic views of Ukip could be an enternal, Sysiphsian task. The crux of this article is this - Ukip differ from the BNP only in style and media presentation. They are slick, unencumbered by the Doc Martin-ed skinheads which are associated with other far-right movements. This makes them more dangerous. They are able to move, clandestine, into the wider political arena, trading on their created identity as a moderate party to come close to securing a place in government, as part of a Tory-Ukip coalition. They exist under the cloak that all 'protest vote' parties use - no one actually pays attention to their policies, they just want an alternative. An alternative Ukip certainly may be, but they are not even better than the Tories.

Republicanism: the only option for an independent Scotland

Something very exciting happened in Glasgow yesterday: the (first and hopefully annual) meeting of the Radical Independence Conference, (RIC) a meeting of pro-Scottish independence groups and individuals, aimed at out-lining the shape of a future Scotland, should the country vote 'yes' in 2014. Unfortunately I was unable to attend, but over 800 people did, along with speakers from a variety of backgrounds. Jean Urquhart, the MSP who quit the SNP over their pro-NATO policy, spoke, as did Patrick Harvie, of the Scottish Greens. There was representatives from around Europe as well, such as SYRIZA, the Greek left opposition, and Basque separatists from Spain. Overall, it was heartening to see not only a strong turnout, but one which had representation from across the left-wing spectrum, and which was happy to tackle a number of issues, economically and socially. A strong base of support from across a usually-divided political sphere is essential to ensuring a 'yes' vote in two years.

One of the comments that most made me pleased with the outcome of the RIC were those of Dennis Canavan, a former MP and MSP who has been one of the more recent political figureheads to join the pro-independence movement. He said:

The existing Scottish Parliament was based on the Claim of Right, which enshrined the sovereignty of the people of Scotland. That to me makes the principle irreconcilable with the sovereignty of a non-elected hereditary monarchy... If those who think that today’s monarchy has no or little relevance to the big picture in terms of building a fairer Scotland, let me remark that the Westminster parliament passed a bill to take a considerable amount of money from the Crown Estate and hand it back to the Royal Family. There was hardly a murmur of protest at the House of Commons. The Crown ­Estate should be the People’s Estate. And it should be the Scottish Parliament that decides.

The issue of the monarchy raises it's head again - Alex Salmond has put forward the terms of the split, and offered that, even in the event of a yes vote, the Queen would still be the head of the state of Scotland, essentially offering Scotland to be part of the Commonwealth, a system dedicated to keeping antiquated ideas of British Empire jingoism alive in the 21st century. It is part concession to the belief that Britain is better off with the monarchy, part acknowledgement that the Union of the Crowns pre-dates the 1707 Acts of Union by a little over a decade, meaning that Scotland, England and Wales were joined by a collective monarchy well before a collective parliamentary and economic system.

This view is ridiculous - republicanism is the only way forward for an independent Scotland.

Firstly, the view that Scotland, and Britain as a whole, is better off because of the monarchy is a fallacy. This is often seen in purely economic terms, that the tourism generated by the royal family offsets the amount spent on them. It's impossible to accurately measure these respective amounts, as tourism is not motivated solely by wanting to stand outside Buckingham Palace in the rain, and it is difficult to say how much tourism would be lost if the monarchy is abolished. The royal family ranks below Legoland on a list of tourists' reasons for visiting England, so perhaps not that much. In a Scottish context, how much of this money actually benefits the people of Scotland is also negligible. To argue it from a solely financial point of view is, in fact, quite depressing - it negates the role that democracy plays in the choice between monarchy and republic, of the simple self-respect of not having an unelected head of state in the 21st century. To entertain the idea that the monarchy is till suitable to modern life is ridiculous - this is all we will get from Britain, who still holds the Queen close to their chest; a blindfold to their weakened standing as a world power, and to a disintegrating empire.

Futhermore, if the goal of Scottish independence is to work towards a more egalitarian, progressive nation (and it certainly should be - this should be the goal of every country) then the monarchy is a blockade erected as a representative of the ruling class. Every act towards a more equal society is an act against the upper class - more rights and freedom leave them open to questioning, higher wages cut into their profits, more rights for workers make it harder for them to continue their exploitation. As a cornerstone of the ruling class, the monarchy is invaluble to them. It is inherantly British, and manifested in British pop culture to an extent that the vast control it has is largely unchallenged. The Queen still has the right to dissolve parliament, control the army, stop any legislation she desires.

The monarchy, as much as it pains me to say, is still popular in Britain, and in Scotland. People have become too used to it, unaware of the ridiculousness of the whole thing. In the run-up to the 2014 vote, pro-independence voters must not only try to convince people to vote yes, they should argue, as part of a yes vote, against the monarchy. Otherwise it may all have been a waste of time.

 

What is the point of the NUS?

Today saw the first national protest called by the NUS in two years - specifically, the first since the occupation of Millbank Tower on the tenth of November 2010. It was, without wishing to glorify violence, a glorious moment. The student population, long since thought dormant and uninterested, swung into action, staging campus occupations and a series of protests which led to an attempted storming of the Treasury building in Whitehall.

It was also the moment that cleaved the student movement in two. As with any violent demonstrations, many people were turned off, and the large scale street protests which continued throughout the winter of 2010/11 never quite reached the same levels of attendance.

The march today, a 'rainy walk to Surrey' in which the media and police both waited for something big to happen. Nothing did - the most interesting part of the day was when protesters stormed the stage in a Kensington park where NUS president Liam Burns was making a speech. He walked off and continued through a megaphone, and that was that. By that point anyway, the majority of the marchers had left (this isn't first-hand reporting, by the way, all the information I've got comes from the always good Guardian live blog) for the pub, and shelter from the rain. The story will barely scratch the surface of the mass media, an added failure given that the protest was intended to reopen the dialogue about this generation of students and their economic future.

There is growing disquiet in the student movement about the leadership of the NUS. The majority of student unions at universities feed into it, and ones that don't tend to be entirely independent, so it's status is largely unshakable. Therefore, it is placed at the forefront of a movement it helped to kickstart, but has never shown any enthusiasm for. As the wreckage of Millbank was picked over, the NUS immediately distanced itself from the student movement. It never called another national protest in London, until today, and backed away from any support of student occupations - something it had promised beforehand.

Whether the NUS is still suffering a hangover from the one-year reign of Aaron Porter (whose motto seemed to be 'No Fees! Actually, if it causes you a bit of hassle, then perhaps we should get fees! Sorry for the mess!'), or is in a perpetual state of pointlessness. I feel it may be the later, as any hope given to a more radical view of the movement when Liam Burns succeded Porter has all but evaporated.

The real problem with the NUS is that it remains obsessed with the notion of civilised dialogue, of rational, open debate. It exists, however, in a field where these things are dismissed. The coalition government has no will to back down on education cuts, as students do not represent a core voter base for them (or any party). With the help of the Met Police and Territorial Support Group, the government had managed to sideline and nullify any attempt by protesters to take some sort of action. Occupations of any kind are considered illegal, the police are able to arrest people on a whim on a charge of 'aggrivated tresspassing'. The police, ahead of one rally last year, sent letters to attendees threatening them with rubber bullets if there was violence, which helped to drive people away.

The NUS have helped in this, routing their protest away from the Houses of Parliament, and into a posh area of London where nothing important is. They claim they don't want to disrupt anything in central London, which means their march is essentially a large, organised stroll. It is the same as trade unions who say that a proposed strike 'should not cause distruption' - surely removing the exact aim of a strike!

The nadir of the NUS 'fight' again tuition fees arguably came in October 2010, when Aaron Porter secretly met with government ministers to agree a deal with them - a £800 million cut to maintainance grants (which are given to the poorest students to help them afford to live while at uni) to avoid fees. A betrayal of those worst hit in the first place, and an attempt at dialogue which admits the need to austerity and attacks on the welfare of ordinary people.

The antipathy continued today, and will continue as long as the NUS continues it's lacklustre campaign against the cuts. So is there any hope for the student movement? Less than two years ago it was vibrant, alive, straining with activity was rooms and halls were occupied at universities across the country. It even inspired solidarity marches from students in France and Greece at times - yet it has visably withered, falling from public consiousness. The same thing happened with the trade unions, who failed to capitalise of the momentum of the historic 500,000 march in London earlier this year. The problems are the same with both leaderships - a fear of action, a fear of risk taking, a fear of offending the middle ground (the ground on which politics, regretably, is largely fought). The movements to not attempt to reframe the austerity argument.

The advantage that the student movement has is that it is more autonomous than the workers unions. They do not operate under the same strict guidelines as trade unions do (students, for example, can protest about a general political problem, where strikes, under British law, must concern a direct act of government or piece of legislation). Individual branches can also operate with more freedom, holding walkouts and protests seperate from each other if needs be. The rise of alternative groups, such as the NCAFC, which played a large part in organising the later demonstrations, show the way forward for the student movement. As I argued in a previous post, (although concerning mainstream political parties) organisations like the NUS will move with the largest group of the people -  a large scale, independent student movement would either rescue the NUS from centre-ground, inoffensive oblivion, or force it there, leading it to be replaced with a group fitted to the needs and the desires of the student movement as a whole. Again, the fight against austerity must be led by the people who oppose it, not the organisations who do.

Film Review: The Master

The Master is a big film for Joaquin Phoenix. It’s his first appearance since fall-out of his fake documentary I’m Still Here, in which he faked a mental breakdown and aspirations towards a rap career. It was an ultra-dedicated piece of method acting which could have exorcised him from Hollywood. His role as Freddie Quell, a drifter ex-marine who falls in with a religious cult, needed to be fantastic, to re-establish his place as one of his generation’s best actors, and Phoenix does indeed play the role exceedingly well. His Freddie is a tightened coil of a man, constantly hunched, as if crushed by a physical injury sustained during the Second World War (of which he is a veteran), or by deeper emotional toils. His face is constantly contorted into a snarl, and he mumbles most of his lines in a Massachusetts drawl. He is ugly, in every sense of the word.  

The Master is also a big film for Paul Thomas Anderson. Like Phoenix he has been away from the limelight for a few years, emerging now to write, direct and produce the follow up his 2009 masterpiece There Will Be Blood. Regarded as one of the best films of the last decade, it would be a hard act to follow for anyone, but Anderson has a greater weight of a career-long run of excellent films to uphold. Again, like Phoenix, his work on The Master accomplishes this task, directing a film with extraordinary depth, both in content, as well as visually. Unfortunately I was unable to see the film in the intended 90mm version, but even the 'standard' print looks gorgeous. There is a pervasive sense of sadness around the film, as Anderson invites us to pity both of the main characters in turn.   

He again returns to a theme that has become as familiar a trademark of his films as expertly crafted tracking shots –the father-son relationship. The patriarch of The Master is Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman), figurehead of ‘The Cause’, a cult which believes that a person’s current life is pre-determined by past-existences from thousands of years before. Like Phoenix, Hoffman gives a terrific performance (as does Amy Adams, playing Dodd’s wife Peggy). He delivers his solo scenes, the sermons extolling the theories of The Cause, with the magnetic fervour typical of film’s religious zealots (powerful, but not alienating), but his best scenes are those when he is one-on-one with Freddie. Theirs, like many of the father-son relationships in Anderson’s films, is a tense one, based on fear, or need, as much as love. It is an obsession; a need to conquer the other, a conquest which they believe will help the other. Think of the warring relationship between Daniel and Eli in There Will Be Blood. Dodd believes that he can be the saviour of the wayward Freddie, and adopts him with a view to making him a project for The Cause, a test of their true redemptionary powers.

 

Dodd first finds Quell drunk a yacht where the former is hosting his daughter’s wedding (as well as allowing The Cause some time away from the ‘attacks’ detailed by Peggy – dissenters, non-believers, and Lancaster’s ex-wives). Quell has fled from a farmer where he worked briefly as a land labourer. An elderly man drank some of his homemade alcohol (one of several toxic blends Freddie makes throughout the film, using everything from paint thinner to torpedo fuel) as died. Before this Freddie worked in an upper-class department store as a photographer, which gave his access to further chemicals he can use as intoxicants, and offered him teasing glimpses of perfect families captured on film.

As stated above, much of the film focuses on the interactions between Freddie and Lancaster. Some of the most gripping scenes of the film, (the same ones which are the most uncomfortable, for this is an uncomfortable film) are a back-and-forward between the two men. Soon after they first meet Lancaster tapes an interrogation by him of Freddie, where he grills him about his view of life, as well as his sexual relationship with his aunt. Lancaster forces Freddie to undergo a form of past life regression therapy (the practices of The Cause appear to be mainly a cherry picking of this and parts of a Buddhist circle of life theory), but, unlike other characters in the film who take part in this, he asks Freddie to think about Dorris, his pre-war love.

Despite this focus on the paternal relationship, Anderson still devotes time (the film is drenched in detail, and strains to fit in even its two hour-plus running time) to explore The Cause, and the insular workings of a cult. Once Freddie meets them, it films hands itself over completely (flashbacks aside) to the group. Dodd’s biological son Val, for example, at one point denounces his father’s theories, and claims they are made up on the spot. After this scene he disappears from the film, only re-appearing when he returns to the fold once again, at The Causes’ England-based school. This is similar to the way that real-life cults work – when you get in, you are always in. If you leave, you are forgotten about. It is at this point that doubts about Lancaster and The Cause begin to seep in. Freddie begins a flirtation with scepticism, and Lancaster is slowly revealed as a fraud, and as a much weaker man than he imagines himself to be.

Similarly, the theories of The Cause are presented to outsiders (the audience) as nonsense. Anderson refrains from any detailed explanation of Lancaster’s writings, leaving us to pick up odds and ends as they are dropped in front of the camera. What is clear is that it is a theory obsessed with metaphysics, and of the ‘journey’ which a person takes throughout their many lives. Another part of the teachings are important to the role of the cult in the film in general – the clear superiority of men to animals. Men, Lancaster states, are not animals, and animalistic actions – like flatulence – are to be looked down upon.

As a war veteran, Quell has seen some inhumane - some animalistic - things. He suffers from some kind of mental disorder, which is not specified, but inferred it may be some form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This goes some way to explain his often-sociopathic behaviour. In the opening beach scene, for example, he starts dry-humping a woman rendered from sand by his fellow sailors. They laugh, but the scene, and Freddie, drag on, as he becomes more graphic and intense in his pleasuring of the sand-woman. Later he lies down with it, as if enjoying a post-coital hug. His is oblivious to their disgust and confusion, or least does not care (another credit to Phoenix's performance is the way he portrays Freddie's disorder in a way that avoids the typical Hollywood tropes of verbal tics, or being able to count cards). His job as a store cameraman exposes him to family life, and to happiness he cannot attain. His past, be it in the war or before that, haunts him, and has reduced him to a shell of a man, on the run and alcohol dependant. In this scenario, religion becomes a safety net, a shelter, and, as Marx stated, 'the heart of a heartless world'. Marx believed that embracing religion was actually a cry for help, and that religious belief was not a barrier to a socialist society, but a sign that this society was needed, even if the people did not yet know it.

Anderson's films, as obsessed as they are with warped representations of the family unit, often allow themselves to spread out into analysis of a wider situation. There Will Be Blood explores the growth of greed and capitalism in America, Boogie Nights looks at the morality, and the negative effects of, the porn industry. The Master is an exploration of the abandoning of war veterans, and their various coping strategies. The film was apparently inspired by Anderson reading that post-war societies are particularly susceptible to new forms of organised religion. Set in 1950, The Master captures a period of American history where the hangover of the most brutal war in world history remained, albeit below the surface. Around this time, many of the men who were mentally scared by the deaths and bloodshed may have realised that they were not getting any better, and that their PTSD was not subsiding. Destruction on such an epic scale removed the barrier of civilisation between men and animals, reducing life to a dangerously pointless exercise. What The Cause offered Freddie, in this context, is obvious.

Top 5 Limmy's Show Sketches

Limmy's Show, one of the best TV programmes of the last few years, and one of the funniest Scottish shows ever, returns for a third and final series this month. I've selected the choice cuts from the first two series, in no particular order.

Dee Dee Goes To Yoker

One of Limmy's most beloved characters is Dee Dee, the stoner layabout with a hyper-active imagination. In this outing, probably his finest, he takes a bus journey to an area of Glasgow called Yoker - somewhere he knows only from the signage on a bus.

This sketch works well because most people will have their equivalent 'Yoker' - a place on the other side of town from where they live, and which they know nothing about. Mystery breeds an active imagination, and Dee Dee, as per his character, allows himself to be carried away with his thoughts.

"Wrong Way Down A One Way Street!"

Limmy's cry of 'Wrong Way Down A One Way Street!' has, like many of his catchphrases, taken on a cult status in Scotland. When police evicted student protesters from the Free Hetherington occupation in Glasgow Uni last year, a huge number of supporters turned out for the occupiers. At one point, the crowd became so large the police were forced to retreat back up the road that led to building, prompting a chorus of "Wrong way down a one way street!" from the protesters. That alone merits it a place amongst his best sketches, but it's also a great example of a continuing theme of Limmy's comedy - the surreal extension of everyday, mundane life.

Eckied Dad

Eckies are a big part of Glasgow culture. Everyone associates it with heroin, but ecstacy is heroin's likeable cousin. You can make jokes about the affects of ecstacy much easier than you can about the affects of heroin. More than anything, eckies just a funny word. Some of Limmy's best sketches are short ones like this, filmed in front of green screen. It's basically just a man dancing as fast as he can in a club to bring on a heart attack, because he misses his late wife. Bring heroin into the situation, it quickly becomes depressing. Eckies saves it, and this is probably my favourite sketch.

Shout on a bus

In a recent interview with the Scotsman, Limmy said that he found everyday life painfully boring, as a result, he suspects, of having Attention Deficit Disorder. Sketches like this continue the theme seen in above in 'Wrong Way...', but move the action away from fictional characters and to the 'real' Limmy focuses this idea even more. His need to shout on the bus is a literal cry for help, a vain attempt to make things interesting again. As a bonus video, have a watch of 'Piss Yourself,' which continues with the same idea.

"She's Turned the Weans Against Us!"

Not much to say with this one, actually. Just watch it, and remember you can walk down any high street in central Scotland see this happening.

United Europe: Can #14N be the start of something bigger?

Today is a European-wide day of action against austerity. Trade unions across the continent have called strikes and protests against the actions which have been replicated, to varying degrees, by every government in the EU - actions which pointlessly pump blood into the hemorrhaging veins of the neo-liberal economy. The levels of disruption varies by country - for the most part, it is the southern states which have taken part the most, with general strikes called in Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy, Cyprus and Malta.

The actions follow, for some countries (Greece especially) several years of strikes and protests, each challenging the government spending cuts which were all meant to be the last. The message has been, and will continue to be - the people can take no more. And yet, the governments of Europe do not listen, further pulling their economies down into the abyss. Measly job growth figures for Britain, no matter what the coalition government say, cannot hide this fact. Much of the work created is part-time, in an economy geared towards full-time employment (for full-time consuming). We are set, one day, to join Greece and Spain, and Portugal and Italy, and France and Germany, staring to the abyss. With those 700 million European people there, it might actually be a bit cosy.

Britain sees itself as a European rebel, not even really part of the continent. Physically and mentally it sits aloof, an outcast. There is a seam of anti-Europe sentiment in Britain, stereotypically mined by the political right. Far right parties like the BNP push this agenda, but in the mainstream it is carried by the right-wing of the Tory party (which always finds itself at odds with the less-right-wing faction, a rift which threatens to rupture every few years), and, increasingly, Ukip, which has always done well in the European elections (although less so in strictly domestic polling). The standard is: to oppose Europe is right-wing, to welcome Europe is left-wing.

Europe, in this case, does not particuarlly refer to the continent itself, or the countries which comprise it, but the European Union, and the various facets and organisations through which it governs. In this case, is there any reason for the left to support 'Europe'? Owen Jones recently wrote an article lamenting the tendency of the British left to blindly support Europe and the EU, which, as he says, is 'an institution which both threatens democracy and the interests of working people'.

Democratically, the EU is indeed a worrying sight - it is controlled largely by the Council of Ministers, which is undemocractically elected, being picked by the governments of each country rather than by the European people themselves. European interegration also means submitting to the will of the European Central Bank, which 'obsess[es] over inflation while parts of Europe crumble'. Jones also points out various measures which, if implimented, would make the lives of working people in Britain better - the nationalization of the train network, and the introduction of a living wage - which are blocked by a European Union driven only by free trade and privatisation.

In short, the EU has been a sustained attack on both liberty and workers rights, and yet the left sit on their hands, uninterested in trying anything to change this. People across Europe are unhappy with the current functioning of the EU, but they are not far-right xenophobes who don't own passports and are suspicious of all other cultures. European interegration as a concept is not the problem, merely the current method of it. Mainstream centre-left parties across Europe need to wake up to this realisation, and face down the right-wing who do oppose Europe on paranoid xenophobic grounds.

As these parties are, by definition of being mainstream political parties, vote chasers, it must be the people of Europe which drive this change in the anti-EU discourse. Days of continental solidarity like #N14 are examples of this. The general strikes in the south have been complimented by solidarty meetings and protests across Europe, in places too innumerable to mention. Like the Occupy movement, they share a common, international bond while retaining a focus on local matters. They oppose neo-liberalism austerity in whatever shape it appears to them. The Glasgow march, for example, while titled 'From Scotland To Greece: No Justice, No Peace!' and designed solely as a solidarity meeting was altered to focus on the recently-announced privitisation of George Square.

The European Trade Union Confedertation, which called todays day of action, must push for further integration with unions across Europe. Most of the time when general strikes are called in each country the unions go out on their own. No longer - further solidarity must be shown. The concept of a strike is simple - when the workers stand together, they can win. When scabs begin to drift back to work, the strike is weakened, perhaps not in numbers but in spirit. The site of an open workplace is demoralising to a picket line, essentially a failed task in this case, is hovering about outside.

If Europe is really to be 'shut-down', as some blogs claimed it was, then a greater cohesion of the worker's unions must be achieved. A 24- hour general European strike, comprising of all public and private sectors unions from all countries, would be a start. It would do two things - firstly, reclaim the anti-EU dialogue from the political right, who are currently using it to channel their own jingoistic views.

Secondly, stop the ability of the EU and the ruling class to divide us - "it's the Greeks! They only work for about three hours a day over there! And they retire at fifty!", showing the true nature of an integrated Europe which the EU promises, but could never provide. An EU for the people of each and every country, united against greed, profit and neo-liberalism.

Defend George Square

Public areas can be rewarded with icon status in times of dissent. Syntagma Square, Zucotti Park, St Pauls Cathedral - all, in recent years, have become fixtures of protest coverage. Earlier this week Syntagma Square was again swathed in tear gas as Greek protesters attempted to storm parliament, the latest battle in the ongoing war between the people of Greece and the politicians. These spaces become symbolic of struggle and resistance.

Often, the establishment, those on the receiving end of the protests, attempt to reclaim it. On both days of the general strike in Greece earlier this week, the Square, and the roads around it, were flooded with riot police. The second the violence began, people were pushed out of the square, and, from what I can tell from the news reports, the police were more interested in merely clearing the square infront of the parliament than actually arresting people who had been throwing petrol bombs and chunks of marble at them.

The original Occupy camp at Zucotti Park was controlled by the police after the first eviction. They put up barriers and heavily restricted access to the area, not allowing large groups to gather. The most heavily guarded part of New York at the time was Wall Street itself, which the police were careful not to allow protesters access to.

During the Diamond Jubilee this year, the Queen paid a visit to St Paul's Cathedral, symbolically reclaiming the area for the establishment. And so it goes, the battle to occupy public space, and the perception of public space.

If Scotland has an area like this, it is George Square in Glasgow. It has a long history of hosting public dissent. In the last few decades it there have been protests there against South African apartheid, against the poll tax, against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Just last mont the STUC held a rally and march which originated from a packed-full George Square. During the 1910s it was the focalpoint of the 'Red Clydeside' movement, where John McLean made public speeches against the Great War and conscription. The Red Clydeside uprising culminated in the notorius Battle of George Square (also known as Bloody Friday). Glasgow band Mogwai predicted, probably quite rightly, that it would become the setting of the party when Margaret Thatcher, Scotland's Enemy, finally dies. Even the discredited Occupy Glasgow found a home in the Square, which seems only natural.

However, the legacy and importance of George Square is under threat by the most typical of enemies - privatisation. Glasgow City Council have taken the decision to close the square for up to two years, for 're-development' purposes. Hanging like a limpet from this plan is an outright ban on public assemby in the square. The police have been bolstered with extra powers designed to curb rallies and marches, with the aim, presumeably, of driving dissent away from the front of City Chambers, and away from the centre of the city, where it could make an impact on the wider public.

Two points to make here - firstly, the Labour party remains in charge of Glasgow City Council, further showing that it has no intention of continuing it's role as the party of the people, rather than of business and profit.

Secondly, this would shut the Square off for protest during the 2014 Commonwealth Games, which are being held in Glasgow. This is a direct continuation of the undemocratic anti-protest laws which were put in to place in London this summer.

Statues of Sir Walter Scott, Robert Burns and Robert Peel would all be torn down, ripping away symbols of Scotland's national culture from the centre of it's main city, replaced by the hollowness of a revamp shopping area. Is the soul of George Square enough of an exchange for a bit more 'high-end' shopping (which is not even guarantteed)? Of course not.

The closing of George Square would also remove yet more public space from the centre of a major city. Huge amounts of 'public' space in Britain are actually privately owned, meaning that the operaters could turf you out if the feeling took them. If the same were to happen to George Square it would be a travesty - not just for protests or public space, but for Glasgow, and Scotland in general. It would be more history trampled underfoot in the stampede towards empty capitalist growth.

The Glasgow Defense Campaign, along with a variety of local protest groups, are holding series of actions against the George Square plans. You can find out more here.

If you would like to know more about Red Clydeside, I would highly recommend When The Clyde Ran Red by Maggie Craig.

Considering patriotism in the context of anti-establishment politics

Two things happened to me this week that made me consider what it means to be patriotic.

First, I got hold of a copy of the new Titus Andronicus album Local Business. Titus Andronicus, especially on their last two albums, have a strong sense of patriotism and love (sometime begrudging) towards America.

A photo from the lyrics booklet of Local Business

Second, a few days after that, I attended a Yes Scotland meeting/debate in Falkirk, which aimed to continue the spread of grassroots activism which many people say will be the key to Scottish independence.

Throughout my life I have been uncomfortable with the concept of patriotism and, especially, nationalism. Not just uncomfortable, in that I felt these terms could never apply to me, but also struck with a sense that to pride yourself on what imagined community (to use Benedict Anderson’s phrase) you were randomly born in was absurd.

Similarly, although until recently my politics were ill-defined I’ve always desired to be ‘anti-establishment’ in some way. I’ve long idolised punk music and the protests of May ’68. I was enthralled by the anti-globalisation protests in Scotland against the G8 when I was younger, even though I had no real idea what they meant. Patriotism/nationalism – essentially, allegiance to ‘the state’ and its historical, usually conservative context – was against what I scratchily believed in.

Back to Titus Andronicus – one of the reasons I love them is that they are a proper punk-rock band, in ethic more so than aesthetic. They, like all punk should, eschew the mainstream, corporate music industry. And yet they, as I pointed out above, have a strong current of patriotism that runs through their music. Is this compatible? An excellent Stereogum article by Liz Pelly asks this question, framing the attempts of Titus Andronicus to bridge the void between punk and patriotism (a quest made explicit on several occasions by several members of the band, as Pelly notes) in a wider sense of where Americans, of their generation, also belong in this context. Pelly, like TA, believe it is possible to be both and patriotic. In fact, to be both can even be radical - the virtues of the Founding Fathers are so different from the current American values, yet actually similar to the values of punk. Therefore, embracing true' Americanism, and at the same time punk ethics, are a rebellion against contemporary neo-liberal, Christian right America. 

This I find very interesting, mainly because listening to Titus actually makes me feel faintly patriotic for the US (to put this in context, I never been to America and, as befits my radical politics I talked about earlier, have long considered them 'the enemy'). I feel as if I can believe in the early disciplines of America, which were based on liberty and equality. Current America has twisted the 'American Dream' to mean that the only way to be truly free is economically, and this, to some extend, makes me sad. America could - should - be a great country. It is not. It may never be.

So how does this fit into Scottish patriotism? I could not consider myself an American patriot, as I am not American. Can I consider myself a Scottish patriot?

I do not love Scotland - at least, I do not love it unconditionally. There are things I love about Scotland, certainly. The country has a fantastic scientific and cultural legacy for it's size. Two of the greatest novels I've ever read, Alisdair Grey's Lanark and James Hogg's The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner are both particularly Scottish novels, in that they would lose their impact of separated from their national context. Both novels aim to say something about Scottish national identity - Lanark through politics, Confessions... through religious mortality (I'm aware this is a hugely simplistic explanation).

I love that in certain parts of Scotland (Glasgow, and the general Western Scotland area) it's acceptable to use the otherwise offensive word 'cunt' as a term of affection (e.g. "See that cunt over there?" "You're an alright cunt!"). I even love Scottish football, grudgingly. 

On the other hand, combined with a dislike for kilts and bagpipes, I still cannot feel comfortable with patriotism. Therefore, I could never love Scotland in the way that many of the people at the Yes Scotland meeting certainly did.   

In that case, why am I so devoted to the cause of Scottish independence? Other than a hatred for Britain as an entity and identity, I love what Scotland could be. I've written before about the strain of working class pride that is deeply ingrained in parts of Scotland, and that these would come to the forefront of Scottish politics were independence to be achieved. The Scottish Labour party, traditionally the main Scottish party (although heavily defeated by the SNP at the last general election here) are inexcusably tied to the reactionary British Labour party, which is still shrouded by New Labour and ashamed of it's working class, trade union roots. It is hopeless, and the Scottish Labour party is tainted by association*. People on Scotland (including myself, until recently) overwhelmingly voted for Labour as a way to combat the legions of Tories from across the border. We would no longer need to do that in an independent Scotland. At the Yes Scotland meeting, local author Alan Bisset laid out his vision for the future of Scottish politics. It goes:

• Under independence, the centrist SNP would become the party of the establishment
• The current largely pro-union, right of centre Labour party would disintegrate, being reborn as a smaller but left-wing Labour party, comprised of those MSPs who were pro-independence
• The Tories, entirely pro-union, would also wither away to even greater political insignificance than they already have**. The Lib Dems have already done so.
• The Green party, currently with two MSPs and numerous councillors around the country, would be resurgent, as would the SSP (or, even better, a Left Front-type group of the various small 'People's Front of Judea' parties of the Scottish left)
• Therefore, the shape of the Scottish parliament would be overwhelmingly left-leaning to openly left-wing.

This all brings me back to what we can justifiably be proud of - what we are working to. In this context, patriotism could be seen as something to earn. We must build a country to be proud of, not just settle with mild pride for what we have. Independence is just a facet of this. The problems in Scotland will not disappear overnight come a Yes vote in 2014. Years of hard work will follow. What differs from the rest of Britain (I could be a British patriot, but I am vehemently not) is that in Scotland this remains a faint possibility. The nature of Britain, with it's power structure concentrated in the hands of the rich and the privileged, a power solidified through time.

As Alisdair Grey said in my linked article above, "Work as if you live in the earlier days of a better nation". A nation that one day we could concievably be proud of. 


*A month or so ago two incidents concerning these two Labour parties almost motivated me to write a mocking obituary of the party. The first being Ed Miliband admitting in an interview with the Telegraph that he admired Thatcher. The second being Johann Lamont attempting to remove Scottish Labour's dedication to the welfare state. I never wrote it, but I meant it - the Labour party can no longer be seen as the party of social progress.

** I follow the situation of the Scottish Conservative party with some interest, and, given my hatred for all things Tory, a good deal of laughing. They exist in a strange nether-zone - big enough to have a good presence in the Scottish parliament, but not quite big enough to actually have any real impact on the goings-on. The Greens only have two MSPs, but they a fringe party, and so shouldn't be expected to have a huge number. The Tories also have such a toxic reputation in Scotland that no one dare work with them - there are certainly smaller parties with less supporters, but perhaps no major party endures the hatred that the Tories have in here. It's so bad that one of the contenders for the party leadership wanted to disband the entire party and re-brand it as something non-Tory, as to avoid the bad rep.


http://500revolutions.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/album-review-titus-andronicus-local.html

“Writing Matters. Writing always matters”: considering the recent Robert Florence controversy

Although I have no real knowledge of contemporary video games, I’ve been reading with interest about the scandal which has affected Scottish comedian Robert Florence over the past few days, and his reaction to it. Florence writes a column for Eurogamer, and his most recent one looked at a picture of another, fully professional,* games journalist Geoff Keighley sitting beside a table of Mountain Dew and Doritos, and in front of a promo poster for Halo 4. Here is a writer indulging in shameless promotion for the same product he should be critiquing, as well as stuffing his face with garish manufactured foods, as well as the profits of these foods. 

 

Later Florence brings up an example of professional games journalists happily entering a Twitter competition to win a PS3, a competition which involved tweeting about certain games using a certain hashtag. An argument broke out between various writers arguing over whether it was acceptable for people in their profession to enter, and win, these competitions. Two who defended it are named as Lauren Wainwright and Dave Cook (again, I know little about gaming, and I’ve never heard of these two, so I’m quite out of my depth in this way. I only know Robert Florence from his excellent comedy Burniston, which you should definitely watch).

In his article Florence criticises Cook’s response: that a hashtag is not an advert. Which it is, hence why companies pay for sponsored hashtags to trend on Twitter, and companies give away PS3s to people to use their hashtag. Florence also wrote that, after reading Wainwright’s tweets defending this kind of corporate relationship with journalists he was unable to take any sentiments she had about gaming seriously.

This is where everything got out of hand. Enter scandal.

Lauren Wainwright complained the article was libellous, and Eurogamer pulled it. The article, which you can still read in full here, contains nothing libellous, certainly not that I can see. Wainwright is not even Florence’s target, as he takes care to note. His problem is with the system that binds together journalists and corporate PR men. Wainright, Cook and Keighley just happened to enter his field of view at this time. As he says, any other day and it could have been two different journalists. Had it happened even a day later it would not even had made it into his article.

In the first half of the article Florence also tackles the problem of the Games Media Awards, where the PR men of the games industry converge with the writers of the games industry to drink and slap backs. He says:

The GMAs shouldn’t exist. By rights, that room should be full of people who feel uncomfortable in each other’s company. PR people should be looking at games journos and thinking “That person makes my job very challenging.” Why are they all best buddies? What the hell is going on?

On the first read I thought that Florence was making a crass joke about gamers being socially awkward. He’s a better writer than this, obviously, and his greater point, and the point of this article, is that these people shouldn’t be friends, not because of personalities, but because of their jobs. The writers are ‘journalists’. They are intended to be separate from the industry, of which these PR men are very much a part. This fault line should run through all industries. It is expected that politics journalists should stand outside the political world, shining a light into the dimly-light rooms of power and showing the results to the wider world. This should be replicated at all levels of journalism, down to ones which are regarded as the least important, like film and games.

But it’s not the case. As Robert Florence points out in both of the articles I’ve linked to above, journalists and industry men mingle. It benefits both sides, in the short term – journos get rewarded with prizes and exclusives, the PR and marketing men get some help to shift their product, be it a new Michael Bay movie, JLS album, or Call of Duty. In the long term, however, the reputation of the writers are sullied – they are not longer proper journalists, but mouthpieces for companies. They are the new PR men, albeit on likely much lower salaries. The marketing guys, they continue as usual, moving from product to product. It matters not to them.

How does wrong-doing become institutionalised? The police force is institutionally racist not because it is comprised entirely of racists (they’re not, probably). What happens is that the racism of some is overlooked and accepted by those who may be non-racists. A bond is created where racist is accepted. Managers and bosses, who could use their rank to do something in fact do nothing, either because they do not want to risk a mutiny from their troops. New officers join a police force in which racism has been normalised, and the need to conform and fit into a group which may be hostile to newcomers means that they to turn a blind eye. And so it continues, wasting the lives of black and Asian youths with impunity. With the Savile investigation widening by the day, institutionalised child abuse and victim shaming may well be revealed. It will have come about in the same way, with the opinion formers (popular or high ranking police officers in the first example, celebrities and producers in the second) leading the way.

The examples are not on the same scale as writing about games from freebies, but the method is the same - the system adopts a method, the method becomes the system. It becomes so ingrained that to separate the two becomes impossible, and the system, the industry, or the professional, must be torn down and rebuilt, forever noting the lessons of the old.

I made a similar point about football earlier on this blog, and, of course, this is rather drastic. You may ask - is it even worth it for writing reviews of films or games or music? Florence tackles this as well. He said in his reply in the aftermath of the scandal that what he was saying was about writing and journalism on a wider scale, not a positive review of Fifa 13. I touched on this earlier. Writing 'always matters' he says, and it does. It definitely does. Again: journalists are how we mediate the wider world. They channel real life events into news, which is how the vast majority of us consume these events. You may say that writing about music does not matter, but what if every journalist wrote an article about how much of a cock Chris Brown is? Not just the rock/indie critics who hated his music anyway, and have fun with how creative they can get obliterating his album. I people who write about pop music, who's writing is actually read by the fans of Chris Brown.

The fact that Chris Brown attacked his girlfriend and showed no remorse for it would concern no one outside their immediate circle of friends, were Chris Brown and Rihanna not hugely influential and opinion forming for millions of young people. What does it tell pre-teens and teenagers, who are going through a formative stage of their lives, especially where relationships are concerned, that a man can attack his partner, and he will be forgiven, and continue to be successful? The reason Chris Brown continues to be successful is that he receives backing from a music industry with no moral compass, and is not repeatedly slaughtered in the pop press for what he did. Because, ultimately, these pop journalists are part of the same music industry. They continue to support the career of a vile man they could, and should, have ditched ages ago. But Brown turned a profit, something that is increasingly difficult to come by nowadays. Ditch him and you have to find some new singer to mould into a teenage heartthrob.

Of course, the nature of journalism does not always come down to incidents as important as this. At the root of all this is that old saying 'journalistic integrity'. Journalistic integrity is removed as soon as you step within the realm of the industry you claim to critique. As soon as you give something a positive review for a ticket to the Brit Awards. As soon as you prop up the career of a domestic abuser who happens to be a flavour of the month beloved by marketing and PR groups of record labels. As soon as you don't report a politician for wrong-doing because you have drinks together every Friday. As soon as you accept a PS3 for tweeting in support of a company. Without journalistic integrity what are we left with?

Empty words on a page. An industry not dead, but lifeless.      

  

*I use the term ‘fully professional’ here to denote a difference between Florence and Keighley, not as a slight at the former. From my perspective, Florence is a comedian with a sideline in games writing, whereas Keighley earns his wages solely from writing.

Album Review: Titus Andronicus - 'Local Business'

RATING: 8/10

How do you follow an album like The Monitor? It's an album adored by many people (me included), one of the best of the last decade. It sums up the ethos and attitude of Titus Andronicus so competely that it will always be regarded as their calling card.

The first point to make is that Local Business is not The Monitor. Nor is it simply The Monitor: Part Two. To try to top it would be foolish, so Titus Andronicus have shifted their sound to a different plane. The entire album feels less ramshackle. The songs are reined in, the band itself thinned down and refined to a core of five. Singer Patrick Stickles sounds less like he is hauling notes out of his throat from the pit his stomache, and the pace throughout is slower, like an album comprised of the first half of 'Theme From Cheers.' Overall, Titus Andronicus continue to draw from their punk rock background - when I considered this at first, I wanted to draw a comparison to The Clash recording London Calling, embracing a world of different influences as the confines of punk music dawned on them. But, despite adopting a style more suited to classic rock (there's even a hint of country rock at the start of '(I Am The) Electric Man') Titus still stay true to their roots. After all, they expanded a love of punk into a concept album about the American Civil War as a metaphor for a coming of age journey to New Jersey. The boundaries of genre perhaps do not matter here.

Punk or no punk, Stickles' lyrics continue the trend found in both The Monitor and their debut The Airing of Grievances. Albert Camus continues to linger a heavy influence ('Titus Andronicus Vs. The Absurd Universe (3rd Round KO)' being a good example, with it's sole lyric of 'I am going insane'). The opening gambit of Local Business is: 

Okay, I think, by now, we've established that everything is inherantly worthless
And there is nothing in the universe with any kind of objective purpose

Later in the same song:

I heard about my authentic self - what would I say were I ever to meet him?
I guess "Yr guilty of a terrible crime, and I know it was my birth"
I'm doing twenty-six to life now on planet Earth

An obsession with Camus' Absurd prevails, but the most powerful section of the album is when Stickles addresses his eating disorder on the self-explanitory 'My Eating Disorder', (preceded by the ironic 'Food Fight!'). Detailing the 'amorphous monster' that prevents him from consuming food, he moves between the artifical medication of vitamin pills and the self-medication of cigarettes.

Again, like their previous two albums the lyrics are strong, with regular moments of genius.

Your gonna get your chance to be hung
You'll make a great gift to gracious girls
Try to swallow while your still young
That your dick's too short to fuck the world

is an early personal favourite. The only problem is that some the lyrics begin to seem lazy. Both 'Titus Andronicus Vs The Absurd Universe' and 'Food Fight!' are limited to one line each, while the album closer 'Tried To Quit Smoking' has good lines, but makes the mistake of stretching them over ten minutes which begin to drag half way through. The astonishing 'The Battle of Hampton Roads' which closes The Monitor, by comparison, runs for fourteen minutes and flies by, by virtue of cramming in as many ideas as you could find in entire albums by other bands.

And there, the main problem with Local Business raises it's head again - the spectre of The Monitor, in escapable. Simply, Local Business is on no level as good as it's predesessor. We never should have expected it to be. The trouble is not with the album, but with the expectations. As a stand-alone album, Local Business is great - as part of the wider Titus Andronicus canon, not so much.

In an interview to promote The Monitor, Patrick Stickles remarked that the Civil War battleship from which the album took his name from hung over his thoughts, and his experience with New Jersey, that The Monitor, as impressive as it was, began to cloud everything. How right he was. 

Random thoughts on: the American election

Drones

One thing that creeps up in commentaries of the election now and again is that Americans don't really care that much about foreign policy, certainly not much further than advancing American superiority. The last of the three presidential debates, held earlier this week in Florida, focused on foreign policy, and drew the smallest TV audience of them all, the bigger concern of the economy having passed by. I'm not sure whether this has always been the case, but it certainly would explain why so many atrocities carried out by America have gone unpunished by the electorate.

Obama's use of drones in Pakistan, with the aim of tackling al-Qaeda, should be the subject of endless criticism, certainly by his own party. We can expect the Republicans to endorse such measures, but the Democrats have lost any sort of moral highground they may have had. Obama supporter Joe Klein offered a stunningly vile defence of the drone tactics, heavily criticised for the indiscriminate murder of innocent people, killed because they happen to be within half a mile of a suspect (I'd imagine the term 'suspect' in this case is stretching it, slightly). Glenn Greewald offers a brilliant dissection of Klein's comments on the Guardian, but they boil down to the fact that Klein believes, among other things, that the killing of children in the Middle East could be justified if it stopped the killing of American children. Greenwald notes this is the same mentality that many terrorists have - that their killing of American children will, in turn, protect their own. He places the life of an American above that of the life of anyone else, for the sole reason that they are an American.

As I said, coming from a neocon party that also wants to ban abortion and disenfranchise Democrat voters, would be sad, but expected. In the context of the 'liberal' or 'left' side of American politics (if such a thing even exists, it is made even worse. They are the 'good guys' - now, sunk to the level of the classic villains, they have rendered themselves worthless.

Mitt Romney

Obama is lucky to go up against Mitt Romney - Romney, hides Obama's many faults by simply showing off his far greater ones. The man is an idiot, to an astonishing level.  What's even more surprising is that this is somewhat of a trend for America, which is beginning to make a habit of support morons.

With Obama hemorrhaging liberal support, and the economy still suffering, had he gone up against a strong opponent he likely would have lost. Romney is, to use the media term, 'gaffe prone', much in the same way that Larry David is. This, perhaps, is why Obama's put down in the recent debate, where he explained to Mitt that the army doesn't need horses and bayonets anymore, was so popular - people perhaps believed that Romney literally had no idea how the army worked or what it did. It furthered the idea that Obama is more effortlessly comfortable than Romney could ever be. Obama, for all his faults, always has his cool.

Implications worldwide

A recent poll found that 40% of people worldwide would like to vote in the American elections, such is the influence of the country. But would this make a difference? America is not really a democracy - America, the self-regarding superpower functions outwith the poltical sphere of the country. It continues to remove whatever democratically elected governments it feels like. It supports coups, sells weapons to dictators at a profit before claiming they are glad to see them go during the Arab Spring. It launches global campaigns against 'evils' - communism, Islamic fundamentalist terrorism etc., rampaging around the world in pursuit of vaguely defined goals of victory. It will, no matter who is elected, remain run by businesses, and will murder innocent children in pursuit of killing someone who might be a member of al-Qaeda.

The elections surrounding the American machine are nothing more than way to choose the representative of said machine.

The end of the BNP is not the end of racism

Picture taken from politicalscrapbook.net

 

Nick Griffin severed another artery of his already mortally-wounded career earlier, tweeting the private address of a gay couple who had won a ruling against the owners of a B&B who had refused them entry based on their sexuality. The original story emerged a few years ago, if I remember correctly, but the court case only wrapped up today.

 

Griffin's basis for these tweets was apparently that people should be allowed to turn away anyone they want from their house - which is a neat way of disguising your homophobia, I reckon. As is using the phrase 'heterophobia', which has afflicted literally no one in history, except those who think not being about to daub 'fag scum' on a gay neighbour's car is classed as a breach on their human rights, and a breach undertaken solely because they're not gay. To complain about being disadvantaged as a heterosexual - in the same way a person would claim to be disadvantaged because they were a white, western, Christian male - is hugely offensive to those groups who have been genuinely disadvantaged in society, and continue to be at all junctures.

 

So Griffin's career is gone, even more than it was already. His BNP party, which for all intents and purposes he embodies, has limped through a collapse in finances (it couldn't even raise enough money to stand candidates in last Scottish local council elections), in-fighting (Griffin has used party rules to solidify his standing as leader, meaning that disgruntled members leave than attempt reform) a splintering of the far-right in Britain, between both political groups and street-level protest movements, and, as a result of all three, a hemorrhaging of votes at all levels. The surge of support the party experienced as a result of Labour voters leaving their traditional party has subsided as the Tories have regained their 'hatred figures for the working class' throne.

 

The BNP, once the figurehead of the British far-right, have faded from view, and will only keep fading. It didn't even seem that long ago that Griffin was panicking the establishment and provoking swathes of though-pieces with his impending appearance on Question Time. How he sits at home, tweeting angrily into the virtual abyss like the rest of us.

 

I for one, as someone who would proudly call themselves an anti-fascist, am happy to see the BNP go. Thousands, millions of people across the country will cheer their demise, which is becoming clearer even to those with only a casual interest in politics (the initial signs of the death of the BNP came by piecing together the tabloid-style gossip articles of Hope Not Hate). However, I still feel uneasy. 

 

The BNP are not British racism as a whole. As a figurehead they essentially gave a face to the movement - a face to be egged, a face to be despised. But the demise of the BNP does not mean the demise of racism and fascism in this country. Many people who voted for the BNP were disaffected Labour voters looking for a protest vote, and the party were able to fill the void - something that the Lib Dems couldn't do, and the Tories wouldn't even bother trying to do. These people will perhaps not vote for them again, and may go back to Labour, which is fine.

 

But many more voted for the BNP because they genuinely hate and fear immigrants, Muslims, or homosexuals. These people require an outlet. Parties like the English Democrats, the British Freedom Party allow for this, despite their petty squabbles. More worryingly, the EDL, and it's Scottish and Welsh associates (which are, admittedly, less popular) have allowed frustrations with the slow movement of the BNP to develop into a hooligan-based street movement.

 

For example - the BNP promise a break-through at the next election. Months of campaigning follow, but they finished 5th, barely retaining their deposit. Wait another five years, they say, and we'll have another crack at it. For all that the BNP have warned of a current crisis of immigration and Sharia law, they don't seem capable of doing anything quickly.

 

Along come the EDL, which is able to hold flash-mobs just a few hours after they find out that ASDA is selling Muesli, which looks a bit like it says MUSLIM! They have a bad demonstration, they can just try again next weekend, rather than next year, or at some point within the next five. The EDL are a greater threat that the BNP ever were, mainly for this reason - they allow the mobility and physical manifestation of this hatred. We can only bless them for being a disorganised, drunken mess - had they taken on the usual neatness of fascism and all started wearing the same colour shirts the people would have got behind them years ago and the government would have fallen.

 

What has puzzled many people is why significant numbers of the electorate choose Nick Griffin and his BNP as their representatives, and, now, how they can also back the EDL, and their various off-shoots. One answer is the simplest - support for extreme politics always surges in times of economic crisis. It happened, perhaps most notably, in the Weimar Republic, where the vote of the Nazi party directly correlates with the state of the economy. Greece has experienced a rise from both sides, with SYRIZA and Golden Dawn both emerging from electoral obscurity in the past few years.

 

But the real answer is more worrying, and harder to face. The racism which manifests itself directly in the far-right comes from our society as a whole. It comes from the newspapers, like the Daily Mail, the Daily Express, the Sun, the Daily Star, which regularly run negative stories about asylum seekers and Muslims. These institutions would deny that they are racist, and will attack far-right groups (although the Star has, in the past, ran pro-EDL stories) they contribute to the creation of a racist hegemony. They maintain the idea of Britain as a white, Christian, straight country, and their attitude in the stories reflect this. 

 

If the only news you got about Muslims was from The Sun, and the only person you talked to about Muslims got their information from the Daily Star, the allegedly-subconsious pattern of anti-Islam stories would likely forment in your mind - especially if these people are made a scapegoat for your problems*.

 

Celebrating the death of the BNP, and perhaps soon the EDL, is good, and I surely will. But we, as a society, must not only be wary of the other groups that spring up in their place, but of racism as a whole. Racism does not only exist when manifested in a political group. It seeps into every area of society, usually hidden in plain site - on the front page of a national newspaper, for example.

 

*Just thinking aloud here (well, typing aloud, or something) but can there be any correlation between the fact that many people in post-industrialised areas live in deprivation because of the policies of Thatcher, and that the newspapers which run stories claiming that 'immigrants took all our jobs' supported Thatcher?