Perspective On The Paris Coverage

I wasn't going to blog about this subject. Frankly the prospect of what I have to say on such an emotive subject scared me somewhat. But with recent events, and the lack of equality in reporting, I do feel the need to... Even if it has the potential to smack me a few times around the choppers for doing so.

It has been ten days since the western world sat still, stunned, watching the news come in about the horrific attacks on Paris. The media awash with images and footage offering the audience a safe space in which to peek, voyeuristically, into a world barely seen on our privileged lands. Mouths gaping as if to signal to others of our shared repulsion at the acts of barbarity committed by the murdering thugs in the name of today's villain. ISIS, the foreign invader, had thrusted its savage ideology into modern Europe.

Sections of the population silently, and very secretly, revelled in the moment. Their incoherent and unsupported arguments about the Islamification of Europe was being validated. Their imaginations running wild with images of their great crusade, of a civil war they equally feared and welcomed, a chance to spread their own savage ideology further through the collective European consciousness. Their revulsion at what they have glimpsed via a media complicit in the spreading of this ideological hatred only matched by the warm feeling someone is overwhelmed by when the finally get to utter, through the ground gnashers characterising the hate filled and bile spewing, 'I told you so'.

I also, like anyone with a modicum of compassion within their hearts, was stunned by the scenes depicted in the media. I still am shocked and fearful that someone I know will have to endure the heart-wrenching loss suffered by the families and friends of those killed in Paris. But unlike those I have characterised above, I also have as much compassion for the victims of the other terrorist attacks that have occurred this month.

The ones forgotten by the media and by the masses.

Victims from countries such as Mali, Lebanon, Nigeria, Somalia, Egypt, Iraq, Cameroon, and doubtless many other attacks committed by groups, states, or individuals as acts of terrorism, small scale or large in their devastation.

Let's not act like this attack in Paris is something unique, beyond it taking place in an imperialist, white, western nation. But that is the only reason people care so much. The only reason for the intense level of coverage in the media when compared to the barely recognised, aforementioned, murders. Even the downing of the Russian plane by a bomb on 31st of October, which coincidentally killed more people than died in Paris, barely achieved comparable levels of media interest. I would argue that this is perhaps because they are not quite 'white' enough for the media and us in the west for their lives to equal a Parisians.

I cannot recall post after post of articles based on these terrorist attacks on Facebook. Was there a whole episode Question Time devoted to the terrorist attacks in Beirut that I missed? I did not see anyone choose to press that button to change their profile pictures to have a Lebanese filter. I've yet to see a bunch of white masks declare war on Boko Haram for it's continued war of terror in Nigeria and the surrounding nations. Where were the news reporters tears Iraq?

So let us not pretend we as a society are repulsed by vile terrorists and their savage ideology. For most people they only care that it is now on their doorsteps once more. Yes it is disgusting and tragic, but its proximity to the things we care about has been the catalyst for this outrage and outpouring of emotion. That and good old fashioned British xenophobia.

Boycotting Bacon And The Hateful Eight

Surfing the web this week I stumbled across the latest in a continuous line of hypocritical reactions to truthful assertions made by individuals against the police. Fascists really do not like freedom of speech when it is directed against themselves.

On this occasion Quentin Tarantino, whilst attending a rally organised to highlight police brutality, said "I'm a human being with a conscience, and if you believe there's murder going on, you need to rise up and stand against it. I'm here to say I'm on the side of the murdered. When I see murders, I do not stand by... I have to call a murder a murder and I have to call the murderers the murderers."

This statement, when read alone and out of the context of the rally, could easily be a quote pulled from a handbook named Policing for Dummies. It might as well say "don't support bad people doing bad things." Unfortunately for the police it was not. It was part of Quentin Tarantino's speech at a rally called 'Rise Up October'. 

Unsurprisingly, given the sheer amount of instances of police brutality well documented by now in the media, and given that the protest was aimed at raising awareness of and opposing "police terror", particularly the disproportionate number of murders committed against black individuals by the police, they reacted poorly. 

In fact they acted like MRA's. In fact they even have #notallcops #bluelivesmatter campiangs like their dense counterparts, whom also completely miss the point being argued by their opponents. Just because not all cops are murderers it does not excuse the disproportionate number of incidents of hate crime committed by white officers on black citizens. How hard is that to understand? The Blue Scholars, definitely worth a listen, said it best with the lyrics "I hear them saying that this shit (meaning police brutality and murder) don't ever happen in Seattle, and if it does it's really just a couple bad apples, but if you're keeping count you will see the shit is not the apple, it's the tree, it's rotten underneath"

As with the MRA's outrage over the understandable, and thoroughly justified, #yesallwomen campaign to highlight violence against women committed by men whereby they chose a film to vainly attempt a boycott of,  Mad Max: Fury Road, so too have the Fuzz. A mixture of right-wing and racist morons have criticised Tarantino for highlighting the injustices committed against black citizens and subsequently calling for a boycott of his latest film, The Hateful Eight. 

Fox News' very own Klan member, Bill O'Reilly, said of the Tarantino speech that just last week a police officer was "shot dead by a long-time drug dealer that a judge refused to incinerate" a man who had "28 arrests on his sheet." An argument based upon the assumption that if people, or more accurately black people, were given the death penalty then tragedies against cops would not occur. Now I know like most well educated people that Bill O'Reilly, from what limited exposure to his rantings I get in the UK, is an idiot and a racist bigot. But it is still worth noting that his response to something as unobjectionable as campaigning against systemic abuse of power by some sections of the police is this vitriolic and distasteful. 

They say a picture paints a thousands words, and it so often does, but knowing what to look for in language reveals just as much. Some other commentators, such as Amanda Lozada, revealed their disgusting attitude towards the continued abuse of black people's freedoms in publications such as the New York Post, owned by Rupert Murdock of course. This white woman (shock) reported the legitimate concerns and frustrations of the protesters as a "gripe", the dictionary definition of which is to complain about something in a persistant and irritating way, that the speech by Tarantino was characterised by "complaining", and the cop was a "hero". In an article otherwise devoid of emotive language these three little words paint a vivid picture of the journalists lack of concern for black lives. 

Sentiments such as the above two are echoed all throughout the mainstream media, as would be expected from companies that exist to push a conservative agenda and maintain the white hegemonic position on societal justice matters. Something actively encouraged and maintained through the language employed by what Antonio Gramsci (here is a brief explanation of the theories) would call traditional intellectuals within his description of how hegemony permeates societal interactions. Those working within the mainstream forms of media being one such group of traditional intellectuals. In brief terms they operate in accordance with the prevalent hegemonic position. They are the group in this context seeking to legitimise and maintain force as the sole preserve of the state to dispense at its will when citizens will not do as their betters please.

Support of the black citizens of America, and worldwide, who are suffering at the hands of the (predominantly) white hegemonic class, with movements such as Rise Up October, is support of the organic or specific, depending on your ideological viewpoint, intellectuals seeking to other throw the system that enables one persons life to be viewed, whether subconsciously or otherwise, as more valuable than another. At the very least they are trying to forcibly change the position of the oppressed which is no bad thing. It is a long road but one needing to be walked. One ending in the emancipation of all humanity. 

I'm going to break with my usual position (hopefully just this once) and encourage anyone reading this who was going to see the film and thought twice about due to the boycott being attempted to just see what you wanted to in the first place. I would like to think that my words have been enough to convince you that this boycott is ill thought, irrational, and above all else, a petty reaction to some stinging truths. Hopefully it might even convince a few of you finding my blog in this dark corner of the internet to hop on a bus once in a while and join a protest or two in support something important like the right to life.

Selfish Voter Tearful On Question Time As Selfishness Backfires

Unsurprisingly some sections of Britain are beginning to wake up to the Conservatives ideological war on the working class. A war where the Bourgeois, the aspiring Bourgeois, and their enablers within the structures of state power, are systematically attacking the foundations of a compassionate society. Correction, the bare minimum requirements for any society that even pretends to care about its most unfortunate and downtrodden members. Those unequivocally failed by capitalism, the working class. It is simply a class war.

The moment that has triggered myself to write about this, the moment that has made me realise that people may finally be understanding that the word Conservative could be shortened by sevens letters to Cunts, was a woman on Question Time being visibly upset by the cuts she voted in support of. Admittedly, she did not vote for the cuts to Working Tax Credits, but she did vote for cuts to spending on those in need. Six of one and all that.

The woman affected by the cuts, Michelle Dorrell, confronted the Conservative minister, Amber Rudd, with an emotional response to how the cuts would affect her. She said "I voted Conservatives originally because I thought you were going to be the better for me and my children, you're about the cut Tax Credits after promising you wouldn't. I work bloody hard for my money, to provide for my children, to give them everything they've got, and you're gonna take it away from me and them. I can hardly afford the rent I have to pay, I can hardly afford the bills I've gotta do, and you're gonna take more from me... Shame on you!"

Normally I would enjoy seeing a Conservative minister so flustered, with the exception of the explicitly racist right wing parties, there are few people I despise more in politics than every single Conservative voter and politician. On this occasion, however, I find myself more infuriated by the woman who said she is going to be affected by these changes to Tax Credits. It seems she knew what she was doing when voting for them. A quote from the Torygraph Telegraph reveals that she considers herself to be "politically minded and opinionated", suggesting a knowledge of Conservative ideology. That ideology primarily consisting of the opinion that as long as you are all right then it is okay for everyone else to suffer. That is, undoubtedly, what she knowingly voted for because it has been the essence of Conservative propaganda since time immemorial. It should not have been a surprise. They are called the nasty party for a reason.

The Conservatives did not keep their wish to continue their aggressive campaign of sustained class war secret from the British public. They continuously spouted their Bourgeois propaganda about 'making work pay' and 'getting Britain working' whilst labelling those unfortunate to be on benefits 'Shrikers' and ending the 'something-for-nothing culture' and ignoring the cause of unemployment, namely a lack of secure jobs! 

They were in their first five years relentlessly merciless in their attacks on the poor and underprivileged in Britain. Shockingly so when you consider that they were reigned in, very slightly, by the cuddly Nick 'sorry' Clegg.

Between 2010 and 2015 the Conservative/Conservative coalition oversaw cuts of unthinkable proportions, except by those with the compassion of a serial killer or human rights abuser *cough*, and they were not content with that level of spending cuts alone. 

They made no secret of the cuts they were planning to introduce. On every possible occasion during their election campaign they made a promise to the sociopaths in Britain that they would cut the benefit bill by £18 billion per year until 2018. The Labour party (not that they were much better) even warned the public that Working Tax Credits would be hit, despite David Cameron's assertion that he would not, under any circumstances, think of touching that benefit.

She even alluded to the fact that she could not care less about the effect the class warfare was having upon the rest of those hit by the extremist ideology she knowingly supported. In her short time under the microphone she embodied the key defining characteristic of any statement about economic policy by a Thatcherite. The perpetual deployment of narcissistic language to explain her motivations. Simply put, she did not care about the lives of others when marking X on the ballot, perhaps whilst repeating the neo-liberal mantra that "Greed is Good". She cared only for herself.

By buying into the Conservative rhetoric that she was more deserving of the means to an existence on this island, namely the ability to feed and shelter herself in comfort, than the poorer sections of society she has shot herself in the foot. Countless others are beginning to wake up with that realisation also. Unfortunately, that has come too late for many of the Tories victims and it has probably come too late for her. Unless Hell forecasts snow in the near future I shall not be holding my breath. 

A Reading of Being Human from a Psychoanalytical Perspective (First Year Essay)

Since Being Human is back on our TV screens in the UK I thought there probably wouldn't be a better time to share this essay I produced about the show in my first year at university, for a module titled Popular Culture. The essay is a reading of Being Human done from a psychoanalytical perspective.

It achieved a B+ mark (I think the lecturer was being a bit kind personally) and could be useful as a guide to anyone assigned the task of analysing a piece of Popular Culture (should you somehow stumble upon my blog). As always DO NOT plagiarise the work thinking you could get an easy pass for a first year module that "doesn't really matter because the grades don't go towards anything", you WILL be caught.

There will be plenty of grammatical errors. I were just learnding to spoke proper at the time. Also, I have just spent way too long writing a post for the morning, it's bloody late right now, I've given up, and it is probably time I hit the hay.

Enjoy... or don't if you prefer.

In this essay I will attempt to apply psychoanalysis to the television show Being Human, I will attempt to dissect the meanings behind the actions of the main characters within the show by giving examples of symbolism within the text. I will do this by treating the text as being that of the authors dream, and in doing so the analysis will be centred on the writer and director having chosen the symbolism unconsciously as a way of allowing their own hidden desires originating unconsciously from the id to be expressed in the text that they have produced. This is known as an ‘author-centred’ approach (Storey). I will analyse the meaning behind Mitchell’s thirst for blood and how this can be seen as being a sexual desire rather than a need to feed to sustain their own life, added to this analysis I will produce an argument for George’s subplot within the story as being one that reflects the Oedipus complex and how he must overcome the ‘father’ of Mitchell in order to gain his love.

To be able to produce a piece of psychoanalysis on Being Human I chose to read a variety of books and articles illustrating the key concepts and how psychoanalysis has been used to interpret texts of a similar nature. I used two books to gain a deeper knowledge of Freud’s concept on psychoanalysis; the first book I used was An Introduction to the History of Psychology. This book gave me a brief overview of Freud’s concept of the Oedipus complex and allowed me to apply it to the text that I was going to analyse. The second book, Freud’s Drive: Psychoanalysis, Literature and Film written Lauretis, offered me an understanding of Freudian analysis in film. Chapter one of this book offers an oversight of Freud’s concept of drives which, by making reference to popular films, allows the reader to engage in the process of applying a Freudian analysis to a cinematic text (Lauretis). By concentrating on the concept of drives the reader is given the opportunity to understand what Freud was theorising in a greater detail when he spoke about the relationship between the ego and the drives within humans. For further reading, more specifically examples of authors analysing texts I chose two articles from the Journal of Popular Culture.

The first essay I chose was Spiderman In Love: A Psychoanalytic Interpretation, this articles analysis of Spiderman reveals the film to be centred around the way that Peter Parker has to overcome his enemies, being presented as hyper masculine (Kaplan). In doing so the author believes that Peter Parker is working through the Oedipal complex. This is illustrated by Kaplan in the way that the villains throughout the film interact with Peter's life, “the screen is filled with male villains who live in close proximity, invade Parker's home, and claim blood ties” (Kaplan; 310). Kaplan also writes that the love story between Mary Jane and Spiderman is one that reflects the Oedipus complex, where Peter often finds himself looking into Mary Jane’s home due to their close proximity and sees her father acting violently towards her. Peter then assumes the role of the child in this home, wishing to take on the role of the father and gain the affection of Mary Jane, who could be likened to playing the role of the mother. Parker is said to assume the role of the passive innocent child being part of the relationship in the home between MJ and her father (Kaplan).

The article by Schopp, Cruising the Alternatives: Homoeroticism and the Contemporary Vampire offers an explanation behind the sexual desires that vampires appear to derive from drinking blood. The article’s primary focus is upon the way that vampires can be viewed as homosexual, or at least sexually deviant, “For the fans, vampire entertainment provides an opportunity for sexual deviation” (Schopp; 233). The article points to the fact that often novels depict vampires as being homosexual in their desire to drink blood from males, it explains that in Dracula the first person to be seduced and penetrated by Dracula is a male, named Jonathon Harker. Schopp, by citing Stoker, offers this up to be a homosexual act by stating that in the novel when Dracula’s daughter’s attempt to feed from Harkers body Dracula scowls at them, exclaiming “How dare you touch him, any of you?... this man belongs to me” (Stoker cited in Schopp; 235). Homoeroticism is focused upon in this article, as Schopp explains, due to the way in which the “vampire has been so embraced by the Gay/Lesbian community” (Schopp; 235), but this does not rule out the possibility for the act of feeding, and therefore, gaining sexual gratification for the vampire being heterosexual. This is echoed in the article when talking about a number of recent novels based on vampires. The article states that vampires may not necessarily adhere to the human desire to ascribe themselves a rigid sexuality based around attraction to a particular sex and therefore can have a fluid definition of their own sexuality. Schopp writes that “these novels usually convey the notion that sexuality, expressed through any act other than feeding, exists solely in the human realm” (Schopp; 237-38).

Both these articles I read have helped me in analysing the cultural text of Being Human, they reflect that of two characters subplots played out across the first series. In the television show, Being Human, one of the main characters is a vampire named Mitchell, his character’s plot centres around his attempts to suppress his desire to feed on blood. Blood in this context, and more specifically the feeding on blood from a living person, can be seen as a sexual act because it is a fluid transmission from one person to another and that represents semen within the context of text. Within the storyline Mitchell is often seen getting the ‘aroused’ whilst having sex and biting the neck of his sexual partners, both human and vampire, perhaps signalling the ejaculation phase of the encounter. This can be linked to the pleasure an infant gets from the parent feeding the child. After the child has stopped relying on its mother for sustenance it derives pleasure from oral stimulation “no longer serving the purpose of survival and having only the aim for pleasure, it is a purely sexual satisfaction” (Lauretis; 28). This analysis of the act of biting as being purely sexual is given further backing by the acknowledgement in Being Human that vampires do not need to drink blood to be able to survive. Mitchell is often seen eating human food for sustenance and goes for long periods of time without ‘feeding’ on anyone. This is seen within the text as being a craving for blood, and can be likened to the id dominating the vampire with the need for sexual gratification. In most texts with vampires as either protagonists or antagonists, and likewise within Being Human, the process of biting a victims neck gains further credence to being a sexual act because as this is the way that vampires ‘recruit’ new members into their ‘family’. This act of drinking blood acts as a symbolic transmission of semen, when writing about the film ‘The Hunger’, Lauretis states that “As is well known in vampire mythology, feeding is also the means to reproduction, as those on whom the vampire feeds may themselves become vampires” (Lauretis; 27). Vampires also feature in the analysis I am now going to offer for George’s motivations in the text of Being Human.

In Being Human George is afflicted with what he describes as a curse, that of being a werewolf. Although the love between him and Mitchell is represented plutonically, a reading of their unconscious romance is very similar to that of an Oedipal complex. The role that Mitchell assumes within the narrative is similar to him being George’s mother. He helps him survive and cares for him in his first couple of years as a werewolf. When he first met Mitchell, whilst working as a waiter in a cafe in London, he was attacked by vampires due to their dislike of Lykens, Mitchell arrived and stopped the attack and despite being a vampire took a liking to George, essentially becoming his ‘mother figure’. This compassion I believe is the basis behind George’s unyielding affection for Mitchell, one which Mitchell shares but is often torn between his compassion and love for George and the bond with his vampire ‘family’ and his 'father'. Mitchell’s ‘father’ in this text is Herrick a vampire who recruited Mitchell in the First World War. George is an innocent man, both genuine and kind towards other people, he does not embrace his affliction unlike the other ‘Supernatural’s’. He is somewhat similar to the child in the Oedipal complex attempting to repress any thought of the inner beasts desires for fear of castration, he blinds himself to the curse, attempting to deny that it’s desires are a part of him. This fear Hergenhahn states is where a child develops castration anxiety, through a fear that the father will cut off his penis if he allows his desires, or aggression towards the father to be seen by him (Hergenhahn; 535). George knows how cruel and manipulative Herrick can be towards Mitchell, coercing him into doing things that Mitchell’s new found morality tells him is wrong, and sees Herrick as the bad ‘father’ and an obstacle to their relationship. As a result of his lack of morals and his willingness to harm others Herrick can be seen in the same way as the villains in the Spiderman analysis, as possessing hyper-masculinity, and as such viewed negatively, where “masculine force embodies an egotism that ignores all social ties, compassion and morality for the sake of its own brutal desires” (Kaplan; 294). Towards the end of the first season George learns of a plot by the vampires to infiltrate all powerful areas within society, and that Mitchell is taking part in this plot, and seeks to save Mitchell from it. My analysis of this leads me to believe that this is similar to when a child realises that the father has a relationship with the mother that he is excluded from and a result of this seeks to take action to change the situation (Weiniger cited in Kaplan; 301). George throughout represses the beasts desire to be like the cruel, murderous ‘father’ figure, but eventually in the final episode, when faced with the possibility of losing Mitchell to Herrick he overcomes this and kills the ‘father’ to gain Mitchell’s love. George therefore symbolically becomes the ‘father’ himself by identifying with Herrick’s willingness to kill, thus removing the barrier in his and Mitchell's relationship and fulfilling his Oedipal desires.

The purpose of this essay was to analyse the television series Being Human within a psychoanalytical framework by evaluating the meaning hidden within the text behind two characters story arcs over the course of the first season. In doing so I believe that Mitchell’s lust for blood, and that generally of the vampires within the text, is one of a sexual desire, manifesting itself in the id being allowed to satisfy itself in a violent manner. Perhaps as a result of vampires in this text being less constrained by the normative sexuality that humanity conforms to. The biting of the neck and subsequent fluid transmission resulting from this could be viewed as simply oral stimulation, or as a metaphor within the text alluding to seminal fluid being transmitted during sexual intercourse. With George I believe that his sub plot in Being Human was based around his unfulfilled desire to be closer to Mitchell, a man whom he respects greatly for what he has done for him, and how he looks after George like a mother figure as a protector from the vampires, who respect Mitchell greatly due to the story’s told about his dark past. I believe the result of this plot was George’s Oedipal desires being realised after the defeat of the threatening ‘father’ figure that stood in the way of his relationship with Mitchell. Through George’s actions at the end of the narrative he resolved the issues surrounding his complex and won Mitchell’s full attention, as a child desires of every mother during his formative years from a psychoanalytical perspective.

Lauretis, T. De. (2008) Freud’s Drive: Psychoanalysis, Literature and Film, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Hergenhahn, B.R. (2008) An Introduction To The History Of Psychology, California: Wadsworth.

Schopp, A. (1997) ‘Cruising the Alternatives: Homoeroticism and the Contemporary Vampire’, The Journal Of Popular Culture, 30, 4, 231-243.

Kaplan, R. L. (2011) ‘Spider-Man in Love: A Psychoanalytic Interpretation’, The Journal Of Popular Culture, 44, 2, 291-313.

Storey, J. (2009) Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction, Harlow: Pearson

£500 per month for a slum and that's considered a bargain!

I have begun searching for a place to live in recently. My temporary solution to having nowhere to live is coming to an end, after much more time has elapsed than I would have liked. It is utterly disgraceful to be living in your parents house closer to 30 years old than 20. Unfortunately, it is becoming increasingly common in the UK these days.

Last year I was forced to move back home after a few years away, a few beautiful years where the borders of my rest time between work wasn't confined to four relatively close walls. Since being back it seems that 80% of my disposable income, which is not that much really when you consider the ridiculously low wages, has been put aside for my impending move. Or so I had mistakenly thought.

It seems that was not nearly enough, or indeed would it be enough to support a half decent life when not living in a house once where the confines of my private space numbers no more than four walls. Previously, at university for example, that would have been acceptable. It is just what is done and, if were are being honest, forced communal areas took away a lot of the monotony of the day. This is not university. Having a space you can call your home, a space you can escape to after work, be alone without having to accommodate others, these are all required to relax from working hard in a stressful environment all bloody day. 

Alas, it seems that is a pipe dream in modern Britain. 

The housing crisis is well known. It is a huge and extremely important topic among the electorate. I may even go as far as to say it is the largest of the issues they choose to completely neglect, mostly because its effects are mostly deemed to be problems of the young. Although this is not strictly true. It is the problem of everyone but home owners and those lucky enough to be working and living in social housing. 

Yesterday I had a degree of optimism about moving back into my own home, albeit a rented one, it was an incredibly naive and uncharacteristic moment of ecstasy I was feeling. The preceding 12 months of saving was about to pay off. I would be a proper adult once more. The feeling lasted until about 30 seconds after my arrival. I am not a picky person, I don't want the world, all I am asking for is a warm house with a bit of space so I do not feel like my refuge from the world is a cell. For the maximum amount of money I can spend on rent I was not even expecting something to meet these expectations perfectly. What I was greeted with was a flat in an appalling state. There was plenty of evidence of damp in the flat that the owner had attempted  to cover up, a disintegrating kitchen with barely enough room to stand in, the bedroom was the smallest room I have ever seen that didn't contain shelves or a toilet, the carpet was terrible and definitely hiding something worrying going on underneath it. It was a dump.

I work in a prison in a department which aims to stop people dying whilst in custody, if one of the prisoners were living in those conditions they would be moved instantly for health reasons and because conditions that bad are only likely to make feelings of self harm worse. That's saying something when conditions in prisons in general are pretty dire for the offenders.

However, with the state of housing in this country, and the appalling wages I earn despite the job I am doing, I think I may have to take it.

70 Years Since Hiroshima; Does Britain Need Nuclear Weapons?

Today marks the 70th anniversary of the mass murder of between 90,000 to 160,000 people in Hiroshima through the dropping of the first atomic bomb on a civilian population, Swiftly followed by a second, larger, bomb being dropped on the city of Nagasaki a couple of days later killing between 39,000 and 80,000 innocents. War crimes which there have been very little remorse for and which has gone unpunished and even celebrated, despite a growing awareness that these are indeed what they were. This glorification of the use of nuclear weaponry on a civilian population is a major factor in why the establishment within the UK, and further afield, refuse to surrender their nuclear arsenal in spite of the knowledge that should two nuclear powers come to a disagreement resulting in war the end result would be that famous cold war solution of mutually assured destruction.

If we have any backing to assertion that we are a civilised species surely a path which resulted in the complete annihilation of two countries, but possibly most if not all of the world, would never be considered a viable solution to any disagreement. Surely now, on the anniversary of the first nuclear war crime, would be a good time for our government and the people to discuss the sensible solution to continually harbouring weapons of unspeakable destruction, complete nuclear disarmament.

The attitude towards our nuclear capabilities does not offer much hope of this coming to pass. As was evidenced by the leaders debates during our recent general election, the idea that Britain could still have a 'positive' effect on the world and maintain its status as an influential force in world politics was continuously framed, by the right, as being eternally tied to our status as a nuclear state. The assertion that renewing our nuclear missile programme, Trident, would be a waste of time and money by the leftist parties present, Plaid Cymru, SNP, and the Greens, was dismissed with that old troupe by the newspapers as being the inane ramblings of the 'loony left', whilst the right wing parties on stage, Labour, Tories, Libs Dems, and UKIP all insisted that it would leave us defenceless. None of this is true.

There are currently between 192 to 196 independent nations in the world today depending on your definition. Of those nations only 8 are officially known to have nuclear weaponry, USA, China, Russia, France, UK, Pakistan, North Korea, and India, with a 9th country possessing a nuclear arsenal but refusing to declare it, Israel. So of the near 200 countries on the world map. Thus, only 9 are rogue states possess a capability to unleash horrendous levels of destruction on the world. The only argument for the continuation of a nuclear programme by these countries is that it is a response to the continued existence of nuclear weaponry by the other 8 states. That any disarmament of the warheads would leave their nation vulnerable to the weapons of the remaining nuclear powers.

If that was true then the world would be infinitely more violent than it currently is, with nations such as Australia, Nigeria or Chile, or many of the others being invaded routinely by the nuclear powers for their land and resources. If it was impossible to walk the path of nuclear disarmament and still protect your citizens from the nuclear bogeymen then South Africa would have never done so in the early 1990's having developed their own capabilities in the 80's. The reason the UK would still be able to protect itself, and as has been the case recently, continue to kill hundreds of thousands around the world is that traditional defence capabilities are all that are required. Any nation that possesses nuclear weapons know that no matter what goal they wish to achieve they cannot use them. If you are invading a country you cannot use it without large swathes of the 'prize' essentially becoming useless to you. If you are being invaded you would have to damage your own country to use it. The are expensive and highly deadly deterrents. A role a traditional army serves just as well.

Another key component of the right wings argument for the continuation of our nuclear programme is that they are required to respond to the ever changing threats in our modern world. This also displays a lack of nuanced reasoning for their defence of the irrationality of nuclear weaponry. Since 1991, where there was at least a degree of support in their argument through the perceived threats to the nation, the UK has been engaged or supported in various ways wars with or within Iraq (twice), Sierra Leone, Nepal, Afghanistan, Kosovo (as part of NATO), Congo (as part of Operation Artemis), Horn of Africa (as part of Operation Enduring Freedom), Somalia, Trans-Sahara region (as part of Operation Enduring Freedom and operations against Boko Haram in parts of the same region), Libya, Syria, Northern Mali (as part of the EU), and intervention against ISIS/ISIL across various Middle Eastern countries, none of which would have ever required the use of nuclear weaponry.

All of the wars since 1991, which Britain has played some role in, have been played out on foreign soil, and with little to no risk to the UK civilian population and have not involved two nuclear powers on opposite sides of the conflict (the only one being a short lived conflict between Pakistan and India). In fact the only real threat the British populace faces from opposing forces are in acts of terrorism on its own soil or abroad, which cannot be countered or deterred with nuclear weaponry. The only realistic threat we face as a nation requires intelligence gathering on groups or individuals who seek to harm our population and, more importantly to preserve the safety of our nation, an end to warring with other nations to further the interests of the ruling class, also achievable without possessing nuclear weapons (although I would prefer their interests not to be met).

As a nation with a huge amount of 'soft power' internationally, warring to further the elites agenda is not as essential as it may be if Britain had not exported its ideology and national hegemony to a global audience. The Committee on Soft Power and the UK's Influence had this to say on the subject  of soft power, "In the context of shared global threats and high economic and political interdependence between states, and because military coercion alone is proving insufficient for defending a nations' interests, being able to build positive international relationships and coalitions-as well as being able to export goods and services-is vital for modern nations' security and prosperity. The degree to which populations now form networks across borders gives this soft power a newly increased impact because it relies to a significant degree on popular perceptions" (page 40).

Due to the increased connectivity of individuals across the globe, a hyper-connectivity, the influence of the West (or capitalist powerhouse nations if you prefer) has never been greater. Every aspect of their dominant culture of the west is penetrating and having influence on other peoples around the globe. The agenda pushed by the Bourgeois class in Britain, America, France, any other global source of 'soft power' on its own populace, for better or worse, is now as easily accessible in countries they otherwise would have had little to no impact upon. Culture has become and is becoming more and more trans-national. With it the need for 'hard power' to further the ruling class agenda becomes significantly lessened. Social media platforms and news sources, mostly on the internet, have become platforms for the spreading of western ideologies. The BBC is a immensely influential source of soft power that Britain wields around the globe and is one of a number of assets Britain has to influence other nations, such as sporting institutions, international NGO's, educational institutions, and other aspects of popular culture, all having the effect of making the nations values and people more desirable in the eyes of other populations. The committee also wrote that "the UK finds itself with a tremendous range of institutions and relationships politics, economics, science and culture, often amassed over generations, which give it a great deal of internationally recognised soft power" (page 20).

They concluded, in the section of the report titled 'Radical Changes to Balances of Power' that "if the UK is still effectively to protect and promote its interests its interests, how it interacts with other nations and communities will need to fundamentally alter.... this demands a radical change in the mindset of those who direct the UK's foreign policy and shape its international role" (page 34). Given that since the dawn of the UK's imperialist ambition, when foreign policy became synonymous with military actions, then surely a lessening on the reliance on 'hard power' to further the nations' (or our Bourgeois class') agenda would be prudent. The removal of our nuclear capabilities would be a clear signal of intent and the beginning of a transition to a UK where we can all be safe, prosperous, and above all proud of. Despite what the right might wrongly assert.

Glass Ceiling, Glass Floor, The Right Class Will Get All They Ask For

In perhaps the least surprising news story since it was revealed that our royal 'betters' were (and probably still are) racist, Nazi loving scumbags in the 1930's. The Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission found that the majority of people who enter into higher paying careers are, rather unsurprisingly, from privileged backgrounds. In fact those from professional backgrounds, with doctors or lawyers as parents, are significantly more likely to enter into professional employment than those from unskilled backgrounds, meaning parents working as labourers or shop-workers.

The report found that, whilst ability played a significant role in shaping people's post-educational opportunities, it was far from a level playing field. When rehashing old, well trodden ground, they acknowledged the "ways and unmeritocratic private school wage premium could come about; for example, if recruitment in to high earning occupations is biased towards people educated in private schools" (page 41). That is a direct quotation from the paper and has been left as it is written, but if you were to replace the word IF with WHEN then you'll find yourself staring at a Britain we recognise from the stories of the bad (good depending on your class) old days when social mobility for the working class was a pipe dream. Not at all similar to today, where it just heavily increases your chances to the point where you're almost guaranteed success if you're a toff, and gives you more obstacles to overcome than a run through the 'tough mudder' course if you're not.

They went on to explain how the system continues to keep the classes in their places, "as a result of shared interests, hobbies, accent, cultural norms, through networks, social circles, and personal networks, to name but a few." What a 'few' they are! It immediately brings to mind a small line written about the growing income inequality in America by Bob Herbert, "it's like chasing a speedboat with a rowboat", which I believe works just as well in this context. In theory you give everyone an equal opportunity to make it, but then you allow one group to continue a practice that equips every advantage to their kind, to the extent that they can exert comparatively little effort compared to the competition and win, and then once all the advantages are in places, you pull the trigger on the start gun and expect some degree of fairness. The commissions paper even goes as far as to point out that what economists call "signalling", the identification of another as belonging to their social class, is beneficial to obtaining a higher paid job (summary page iv) . Do the commission offer up any real solutions to these issues? Yes and no.

Firstly, they suggest fighting too much inequality between private schooling and state schooling by, and this truly is a cracker even for economists pretending to understand social issues, cutting the choice available to parents about which state schools to send their children to. That's not where the problems are at because they'll just move, more on that in the second paragraph, or send them to private schools. In fairness, they do acknowledge that this would have the knock on effect of simply sending more well off brats to private schools and creating even more privately educated toffs. You can hear the collective cries of middle England "oh no we cannot have poor Beatrice and Montague mixing with those oiks named Dillon or Chantelle". However, by stating that this is a risk of limiting the options, then why not offer up any other solutions? What I'd suggest would be an outright ban on private schooling. Do that and watch the quality of state education rapidly rise, I can guarantee it. If the Bourgeois gits decided to object, well, fuck them, there's more of us.

They follow this by mentioning the Grammar school system, which I am more familiar with than private schools, as I was born and raised in one of the last few bastions for this form of inequality in the UK. The report states that "low attaining children from better-off families were more likely to attend a Grammar school" (page 41), something I've witnessed first hand. Of all of the people I knew growing up one kid, ONE among many, many kids, attended a Grammar school. They were out of the way, not local enough, in the posher areas of the town. Yes, you could pass your 11+, but then if it was over-subscribed it would go to admissions criteria which included; children with family members currently there and distance from the school considered to be within the 'safe walking distance'. It is well known that areas with good schools are gentrified rapidly, so in effect, they simply become a state funded method for perpetuating inequality. The economists behind the paper even highlight the likelihood of poorer children attending poorer schools, but as is befitting their lack of understanding of the social causes of inequality, it fails to see the reason for this.

The report then turns it attention to the post-education barriers, such as unpaid internships, which unfairly exclude those from disadvantaged backgrounds, or more precisely non-advantaged backgrounds (because realistically only those on a very good wage could support an internship for however long it lasts in somewhere like London). Suggesting radical ideas such as, stopping unpaid internships and that existing legislation to prevent discrimination actually be enforced. Again, not quite far enough but at least it has fully identified a couple of the problems.

Finally, the report concludes with a challenge to the government in that "if politicians are serious about their expressed desire to increase social mobility in the UK they will need to address barriers that are preventing less advantaged children from reaching their full potential and remove barriers that block downward mobility". Judging by the governments list of educational reform policies, damaging the chances of the working class at all levels of education in this country, I'm going to guess that is not going to be happening. Just have a look at this article about how "some academy sponsors are 'harming' prospects of deprived pupils" or this article showing how much more poorer graduates will owe upon completion of their course than their rich classmates.

Clearly then, this inequality in education and beyond is what it has always been, deliberate and ideologically driven. Expecting this or any other mainstream government to do anything about it is pointless. They like the inequality. Capitalism requires it. It requires the scapegoats it provides. The best way to do this is by leaving the working class as poorly educated as possible. By asking economists of all people to look into the subtleties that lay behind the causes of inequality, rather than those more equipped with the knowledge to offer real solutions, proves what this report is... Governmental lip service to those demanding that they at least be seen to try to bridge the gap between the rich and poor. A gap they are delighting in actively widening. It's a non-story and fog to hide all that inactivity.

Nigerian Cannibal Cafe?

A story has been circulating the social media world over the last couple of days that has shocked many, a "NIGERIAN restaurant shut down for serving HUMAN FLESH", certainly would seem like a worthy thing to be appalled by if there ever was one.

The author of this story, Jay Akbar, writes that "a Nigerian restaurant has reportedly been shut down for serving human flesh to its customers" and that the police discovered "human heads which were still dripping with blood in plastic bags". Normally, I would easily dismiss articles like this as being the racist, fear-mongering, xenophobic nonsense a rag like the Daily Mail produces to cause divisions among the working classes. This story was different. It was linked to an earlier report of the story on the BBC Swahili website. 

So could it be true that a small group of Nigerians have been serving some other Nigerians flesh of their kin? The fact it was first reported on a news source which is not synonymous with lies gives it an air of credibility. 

For once it seemed like a story published by the Daily Mail which sought to expose a specific ethnic minority within our society to prejudice was telling the truth.

Except that it probably wasn't. 

At the very least it certainly was not reporting 'news'.

After typing in to a search engine "Nigerian resurant human flesh" followed crucially - as you should do with all dubious news stories on the internet - by the word "debunked" it revealed something not at all surprising. It was a racist article that seeks to cause a divide and fester suspicion among ethnic groups in our multi-cultural society. 

The search revealed a plethora of articles and web pages dating back a couple of years on the subject. Ranging in scope from relatively decent sources of information, such as the Independant (dated February 2014), to the Nigerian tabloid newspaper Osun Defender (dated September 2013) which I am assuming is the earliest source of the story. The articles are nearly word for word identical. 

I will not even begin to pretend that I know anything about the Nigerian tabloid who published this story, what its motives are, its political or ideological stance is, or if it is indeed a reliable source of information. I will assume, perhaps falsely, that it shares similarities with our tabloids. Similarities including, but not limited to, the falsifying or manipulation of data, outright lying (which they constantly have to edit once caught out), using unreliable or uncorroborated accounts from questionable individuals, and most likely, a penchant for sensationalism. 

If these are indeed characteristics of the original source I would take the whole story with a fist full of salt. 

It is worth noting that the original story went a whole SIX MONTHS before it was first picked up by an English news source and then, rather misleadingly, made to seem like a new discovery and not something which apparently happened six months prior. Then a whole year passed before it was picked up again and packaged as a new and shocking revelation about Nigerian society!

This could easily be dismissed as lazy journalism. A simple case of a journalist net checking on the sources, making sure the facts are correct, and being thorough all around. For many who have discovered this, it probably would be the conclusion they draw from the evidence. However, I know something far more nefarious lies beneath the surface. 

Which brings me neatly to the point of this post, there is nothing new about these allegations against African peoples. It is a long and worn out trope of the imperialist, racist mindset, which sought to label indigenous 'savages' of our colonised lands as qualitatively differing from the superior European people which murdered and displaced millions in a series of 'civilizing missions'. The natives peoples were predominantly imbued with characteristics closer to apes and other species in the natural world than they were 'humans'. They were even used as exhibits in "human zoos". 

It was in these earliest distant European colonies in the Americas, Africa, South East Asia and so forth that the shoots of the cannibal myth emerged. It seeps into every aspect of our Western Eurocentric culture. Connections between savagery, cannibalism and dark skin tones are everywhere, from the historical justifications of slavery, to the modern justifications for suffering and poverty in the often neglected and exploited parts of the world, through to depictions of natives in Hollywood movies. 

That is what I fear is at play here in these articles doing the rounds on social media. They are too easily being used as a justification for the continued racism, social exclusion and material deprivation of a large part of our society - and of the world - by highlighting a perceived 'otherness' that accounts for their position.

Let us not forget for a moment that the same 'group' who benefit most from the extreme exploitation of non-white European ethnic groups, are the same people who own most of the major media sources world wide, the rich white capitalists. It is very much in their collective interests now, as it has been historically, to continue to propagate these myths about the savage peoples of the world and to get the rest of the population to believe them. It's a role (nearly) all media sources play in maintaining existing power-relations, and one in which they revel.


Edit:
After posting this I found a website with a quote from a police stating that there was no such raid on a restaurant serving human flesh. Alongside many others carrying the same or longer quotes.

http://www.oasesnews.com/newsmakers/item/3668-refutation-restaurant-serving-human-flesh-as-meat

The General Election Result, Tories In Government, And The British Love Of Sadomasochism

I've been unable to fully articulate just how I feel in the couple of days since the result of the GE2015. In fact I've been almost inconsolable. Snapping at people over the smallest things. Hell, I've even thought about just flat out severing all connections with the self interested scum who voted for the Tories. The uncaring, unthinking, sadistic, class traitors among my friends, who I know exist but will never admit to it. How or why would people look at the record of their incumbent government, even when being held back to a pathetic extent by the LibDems, and think "yes sir, please may I have more of that?"

I, like many others throughout these shores, feel partially guilty for this. We were repeatedly told to vote Labour to keep them out. We were told "that's the only way to ensure a more caring society". Even when I have belief that so-called 'tactical voting' to ensure the lesser of two evils prevails is what is wrong with our system, with all the polls pointing towards the difference progressive politics offered by the SNP, Plaid, and the Greens could make towards Labour's pathetic attempts to re-balance the inequality in society - even though it still wouldn't be anywhere near enough - I still feel a more than my fair share of guilt over the outcome.

I shouldn't feel guilty, and neither should anyone else who voted against austerity, but I still do. The guilt should be firmly laid at the door of the turkeys who voted for Christmas. The dead directly caused by the politics of the Conservatives should be laid at the feet of the masses among the 37% of Tory voters which do not belong to the top 1-5%. The small minority I'm sure the party will do their very best to improve the lives of, the minority who love to inflict pain on those less fortunate because they are not affected. As long as they don't have to see them from their gated communities, or their mansions in Kensington, or wherever they've chosen to inbreed these days, they are happy. Unlike the class traitors who said "exploitation, pain, and humiliation? Thanks for offering, I'll have more of that please. Oh, I do love a bit of extreme anal knife fucking", who must actively enjoy the Sadism of voting in a heartless Tory elite. I'm not going to say none of them knew what they were voting for, In fact I'm willing to be generous and say they all did. They've voted for more divisions in society, even larger levels of inequality, more scapegoating of the powerless, more tax breaks for millionaires, deeper cuts on the vulnerable, and given an endorsement to the government that gave us our first UN investigation into violations against our own people! Lovely stuff.

In the interest of fairness - a strange courtesy they'll never afford anyone else - I cannot solely blame the Tories and their voters, much of it must be accredited to our poor excuse of a workers party. The Labour party, who are continuously called left wing in some kind of weird joke aimed at true socialists/communists/anarchists, weren't really offering too much different. Both the Tories and Labour had plans to fuck the poor. Labour would have just given them a condescending cuddle after they were done slapping them about a little, rather than the Tory plan of wiping their genitals clean on the curtains, leaving a floater in their toilet, and wandering off to fuck the next person. Their ridiculous adherence to austerity politics and Tory neo-liberal economics is what alienated the true left from continuing their traditional voting plans. The voters Labour relied upon for support in many areas across the country to boost their numbers somewhat. The one's who would begrudgingly put an X next to the Labour candidate because they knew somewhere, deep among the party, there was at least a few decent people. Nowhere was this more evident than in Scotland, which as a nation deserted them in unprecedented numbers and practically wiped Labour off their political map. I am willing to bet was not all down to the pro-independence camp and that a huge proportion of them would have been anti-austerity voters.

It may well be gone forever if they do indeed listen to Alan Johnson and "celebrate our entrepreneurs and wealth creators and not leave the impression they are part of the problem". I fear a shift even further away from where they once belonged is beckoning, and whilst the party may retain its core voters who have it ingrained within them that they are Labour voters and will always vote that way, they will hemorrhage more and more of those who see past their moderate Toryism. As happened in this election.

Instead of voting for Labour and running off home to wash the taste out of their mouths, many in the true left looked for other parties, ones who still believed in reforming the morally bankrupt capitalist system, but had much more leftist credentials. A genuine working wage, plans to give greater voice to communities, a reduction in planetary exploitation for the benefit of profiteering, nuclear disarmament. I could go one for ages about how much more left, the slightly left were, than the phony left. Collectively, they were held up as 'radical' when compared to Labour, dangerously so by our right-wing press. The were anything but radical. In many ways they are simply what Labour used to be. Parties that could see beyond the benefit of the companies, their friends in the city, the interests of corporations. Unlike Labour they were prepared to do more than take small measures (albeit desperately needed ones) to placate the poor, whilst continuing to allow the poor be scapegoated and offering policies that worked against them as a fix for our nations economic ills.

So I will own my guilt for the Tories getting in to power for five years, unchallenged, to systematically make lives so, so, so much worse for every vulnerable person or family in the UK - thankfully at the very least excluding pensioners, they'll never hurt pensioners, they vote for them - because I can think of at least two groups far more guilty.

One last thing, I urge anyone who is reading this and wants a more inclusive, representative politics (to tide us over until the revolution at least) to sign up to this petition, let's make seats match the votes.

Why I Chose Marxism

Perhaps the title would be more accurate if it was why Marxism chose me, but a large number people reading this would probably identify with most of the reasons I give, and would have come to a different ideological understanding of the world. So I will stand by my assertion that I chose Marxism, whether this was a conscious or forced choice is, for the most part, irrelevant. What people may not be able to identify with are the individual milestones in my life that shaped my outlook from a very young age, the questioning of the status quo, the naive understanding that things were just not right, which eventually led to my discovery of an alternative, better ideology. These were all experienced in isolation from my friends, family, and community. This is not to say that this same process of evaluation of the world around us was not simultaneously occurring among my peers, just that I never shared my thoughts with others until recently. There was no sense of the community leading me towards my encounter with Marxist thought, I sought out an explanation and identified with it by myself, albeit with a few small kicks in the right direction.

That rather neatly brings me to the point of this post. I often hear people I am boring to death, with yet another rant about the rich fuckers exploiting the earth/working class/pretty much anything they can extract surplus value from, say, why are you a Marxist?  This question has always been a difficult one for me to answer, not because it is particularly hard, or because I do not have a coherent answer to the question, it has always been because any answer I would give would require a substantial amount of time to provide. Most people simply do not want to devote that amount of time to a question they believe is relatively simple. The truth is that it is anything but simple.

The first time I can remember questioning the way wealth was dispersed among society I was aged seven or eight, it was Christmas day, and as was traditionally the case my rather meagre, but none-the-less appreciated, range of toys was bringing me the usual amount of rather fleeting joy. This was when the invitation to join a friend at his house was extended my way. Until that day I had never been to a friends house on Christmas day, I was not expecting to notice just how much more wealthy he was than I, even though there had always been an acknowledgement by myself that he had more money. Where my clothes had always been tatty, cheap, hand me downs, he was always relatively turned out for the time, wearing all of the latest sports gear that was desired so much during the mid to late nineties, Upon walking in to his house I was shocked by the sheer range of what I would now consider consumerist junk, but at the time thought was among the most important things in the world, he could afford. Playing with each and every one of his gifts for the next couple of hours felt like receiving a kick in the knackers, with every new thing he showed me that sickness and pain I felt grew exponentially. After a few hours I could no longer take it, I felt for the first time in my life like I was worth considerably less than someone. That he had more 'things' proved it to me. I ran home and cried for an hour or so until my father came in to comfort me. Why I remember this is because it was the first, and only time, he had done this. The image is so vivid in my mind because I now come to realise this is something he too suffered from, the knowledge that despite being surrounded by the poor, the working class, we were very much in the underclass, and as I grew older I learned we were suffering the worst effects of poverty at the time.

Life carried on much the same for a while, we were on appallingly inadequate benefits, we had no money, I grew to acknowledge this. Whilst I did not like the strain it put my family under, that it put me under, I did not think I could do anything about it. After a couple of years this changed. As a family we were now in employment, for a while at least, we had a few pennies to our name. These new found earnings were not without a cost for my brother and I. We were also in employment. The nature of the work my family had managed to secure was pay-per-unit work, and the pay was terrible! To make ends meet my brother and I was required to work a couple of hours a day making light fittings during term time, during the school holidays we worked in the factory making them, and on the weekend we delivered them by van. Those were the good times in this period. When the amount of money paid per unit fell it was not uncommon for us to be taken out of school and put to work. Where friends were enjoying their childhood, going to school, and playing football with friends, we were working up to ten hours a day. My education suffered significantly. During the early years of my education I remember being classed among some of the brightest pupils in my year, my parents were proud, but by the time I had finished my primary education I had slipped from the top of the pile to the middle of the pack and I never fully recovered. I cannot fault my parents too much for this, we needed the money, and riding around in that rickety death trap of a van with my brother was fun. I remember with great fondness driving down a road and the doors suddenly blowing open on the back exposing us to the cars behind, we struggled to close the doors whilst holding up boxes of brass connectors and plastic-moulded lights. We still laugh about it occasionally today. We were more than happy to help out, not only because we had an acute knowledge of our economic inequality, but because we knew that was what you had to do when you was as poor as we were. Why the Thatcherite political class, and the uncaring society in which we live, largely ignore the effects of extreme poverty on children is another matter.

Moving into secondary school my memories of what led me to choosing to identify with Marxist ideology become less nostalgic. It was tough. Really, really tough. Most people would identify the period of their life that they are in secondary school as being the hardest part of their life. You are developing a sense of individuality and trying to find a place for yourself. The differences between people, between you and your classmates, become more pronounced than at any point in your life. Hyper-divisions exist everywhere, even between people with very little that marks them apart. You feel alone in almost every sense of the word. When picking my options for secondary education my choices were limited, the grammar schools were now out of the equation, I had fallen too far behind where I once was. This left a few options, but due to the cost of travel this was whittled down to two. The local one with a bad reputation or the village based one, a bit farther out, but with a fairly decent reputation. It served the slightly richer community in the villages and small towns just outside of my own. Having now reverted back to benefits, my parents decided I should go the better option, I could get back to where I once was with a push. Looking back I cannot help but feel this was the worst decision they could have made. There was not many of us at this school on benefits. The difference between myself and my classmates was immediately noticeable, they had access to everything I did not and I quickly found myself slipping from the 'grammar stream' to the bottom/middle once more. The economic disparity between my family and theirs affected me in other ways, in worse ways. My inability to keep up with their 'fads' and other nonsense found me slipping more and more towards the outside of the mainstream, until I was both derided by those I was forced to be around and invisible to the rest. I did not want to be there. My attendance slipped from 100% in year 7 to just over 30% by year 11. It felt pointless to me. I was poor, I was not going to make it in this world. I just wanted to be done with it all and work. I needed the money as fast as possible so that I could no longer be the poor kid, the irrelevant mass in the classroom. Like most of the working class, being in school offered me nothing. You need money to succeed, it buys the freedom to learn. It affords the individual an escape all of the concerns that plague an adolescents mind. Once more I felt like I was worth significantly less than those around me, I was that kid crying on Christmas day again.

Fast forward a few years and I am in low-paid work. It is part-time at a local supermarket. Before that I had been out of work for over two years since leaving school. They had kicked me off benefits for not looking for work, when in truth I was and there was no work, I just did not follow their procedures to prove I had been. The lovely people at the jobcentre annoyed me with their implied accusations that I was simply lazy and so I gave up caring. I had enrolled in college as a way to pass the time. It was here that I first encountered Marxism, and whilst I agreed with much of what was said, I spent far too much time drunk to fully appreciate how relevant it was to me and the working class struggle. My studies at this point followed a familiar pattern, at first I was exceeding expectations, then as I became aware of my inability to afford university, alongside added pressures from home, I simply stopped going and let grades fall away. The main problem was the financial pressures from home after my father had lost his employment once again. It meant I was working near full-time hours in addition to going to college five days a week. I asked myself what the point was if I could not afford to go to university. I was needed at home. So once again, economic pressures and barriers had pulled me away from reaching my potential. I had become a vital part of the economic lifeblood of my household. It was at this point I started questioning everything in much more detail than before. I began reading and searching for an answer that explained why I was unable to achieve anything without being pulled back into deprivation. I remember spending large amounts of time thinking about the Marxist theories we had skimmed over in my Sociology class and decided read into it and to find out more.

Four years later and I was still working for the local supermarket, at just above minimum wage (by about six pence... the gits). I had read quite a bit of Marxist thought and I had found my place. I had found the truth behind the collective struggle experienced by vast swathes of people trying to achieve the great capitalist lie, like I once had, of raising themselves up from the working class to become 'successful'. I found myself constantly banging the war drum against the lazy bastards earning a fortune for walking around inspecting the shop once a month with a stick up their arses. I began to argue about their exploitation of us workers more and more by the day. Why should the owner be earning about a thousand times more than me for doing jack shit everyday? He had not even founded the company, he had just inherited this wealth. I argued about how much profit they were extracting from each hour of work with my fellow employees. It was then that I came to realise that I had chosen Marxism.

Shortly after this revelation the last thing holding me in my home town had been lost to me. Suddenly I had found myself enrolling into the only university willing to take a punt on me. I was going as a mature student, with little to no academic achievement behind me, but I was determined to succeed.
After my three years at university I had (very nearly) repaid the faith whoever decided to accept my application had in me, I missed out on my target of a first class degree by around one percent, it was a good result, far better than I would have predicted going in, but I find the struggle to lift myself from the lower reaches of the working class continues to this day. To date Capitalism has done nothing to help me, and many others like me, and that's why I will continue to choose Marxism.

Cheeky Rape Recipes With The Daily Mail

Wow! Just wow! The Daily Mail have actually gone and done it. The British edition of Der Stürmer have plunged to new inglorious depths the basterds. Incredibly, for that 'news' source, they have taken a different spin on their remit of smashing all sense of taste and human decency. For once they have not plucked a story out of the race hate, class war or casual sexism generators. Instead they have chosen to go for a 'cheeky' promotion on alcohol induced raping.

Just days after publishing these articles, "Two friends jailed for nine years after raping drunk woman, 18, in alleyway just minutes after meeting her for the first time on nightclub dancefloor", "Three guilty of drunken party rape", and "Britain has more rapists in jail than any other EU country thanks to tougher sentencing", all clearly and unarguably anti rape/rapists (despite some of the comments), they decide to publish an article seemingly excusing a form of rape.

Now I know many will read the article, "Fifty shades of booze! Nine clever cocktails (and cheeky ways to drink your date into bed)... inspired by the erotic movie", and argue that it is a harmless piece of journalistic crap trying to cash in on the 'fifty shades' hype through advertisement revenue generated by linking a poorly written article on cocktails to a movie based on a poorly written book about cocks. To many it would be nothing more than the usual click bait that accounts for 90% of the internet alongside porn and cat pictures.

However, to defend the article on the basis that it is about cocktail recipes is to ignore the importance of what lay between the brackets in the headline. 

A test of how important something is to changing the nature of an image or sentence is to simply remove it and see what remains. 

The sentence without the bracketed words reads: "Fifty shades of booze! Nine clever cocktails inspired by the erotic movie" which, whilst still eluding to the throwaway nonsense that the article will contain, tells the prospective reader that it will be a fun little article which may contain 'essential' recipes for anyone interested in drinking cocktails based upon the most talked about movie of the year so far. 

Reading the removed section of the headline alone paints a very different picture. It is not beyond the realms of possibility, in fact it probably does exist, for the self contained element of the headline to be a post/headline/thread on one of the many websites dedicated to the female hating section of the internet populated by the MRA's. 

If a headline, or at least a single but very important element of the headlines message, is the sort of disgusting crap you would be able to read on the sites run by so-called 'alphas' then you know it is rape apologist in its nature. Whilst I am not arguing that the woman who wrote the article is an MRA, the message within the headline is worryingly reminiscent of it. The Daily Mail, by virtue of promoting language like it on their website, alongside their usual repertoire of casual sexism, have just gone and legitimized it to their less critical readers.

The fact that the essential message of the article remains intact when you remove one third of the headline speaks greatly of the nefariousness of the removed sentence, "cheeky ways to drink your date into bed" is meant as a joke, an unfunny joke, and one in very poor taste. It is a product of the 'rape culture' that breeds morons like Dapper Laughs and his ilk. A culture that views the domination and control of another person's body without consent as not a big deal, as funny or "cheeky", and as normal. 

Evidently, it is also culture that the Daily Mail both believes is abhorrent and excusable at the exact same time. 

Do Ethnicity and Gender further compound existing class inequalities? (first year essay)

This is the second of my university essays I will upload, mostly as a safe place to keep them from being lost to me. It's also a slightly better piece of work compared to the travesty I had already uploaded, although a quick read through revealed that there are still plenty of mistakes present.
So once again, if it is useful to you as a tool for what not to do then go ahead and have a read, and whatever you do don't plagarise it... You will be caught due to the way this work was submitted.

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To many social class is no longer relevant in contemporary Britain, they argue that we now live in a classless society and everyone has an equal opportunity in life and that discrimination based on class, ethnicity and gender no longer exist. However, within this essay I will attempt to provide a persuasive argument for both ethnicity and gender still having a significant effect on already existing differences within social classes. By doing so I will attempt to demonstrate how the experiences of working class women would be different from the middle classes and men in general. In doing so I will highlight how this affects areas of their lives ranging from income to opportunities. In addition to gender, my essay will focus on ethnicity being a source of social division, touching upon subjects ranging from the equality movement to employment opportunities. After doing so I will offer an explanation to how both these categories within society exaggerate existing differences with social classes.

I will focus this part of my essay on how women’s experiences of inequalities are intensified as a result of their working-class backgrounds. Working class women can often be the subject of derogatory stereotyping, their behaviour towards both family and others often associated with deviancy from what is expected of feminine behaviour. When writing about class and gender, Beverley Skeggs illustrated how the middle-classes in Britain created themselves by demonstrating ways in which they were different from the ‘other’, the ‘other’ in this case being the working-class (Skeggs). This created the term ‘class’, and this process of distancing the middle-classes from the ‘other’ is still being used to differentiate between the middle and working class today. Examples of this can be seen often within our society such as the focus by political parties on the breakdown of the family unit, with single mothers being the main focus. This focus on single-parent family is important as it is often associated with working-class families. As Skeggs wrote “just think about the contemporary British Conservative government campaigns (at the 1995 party conference) which demonized single parents thereby (re)presenting working class women as degenerate, irresponsible and a threat to the national family” (Skeggs, in Mahoney and Zmroczek 1997: 125) although this example is from sixteen years ago, this attitude in the media and through politicians is something that can often be seen or heard today. This process of demonization stigmatises the working class female leading wider society to believe that single parent families thought of as working class, are the cause of many of the societal problems within everyday life.

It is not just single parent women who as a result of their working class background that can be at a disadvantage within society. Women throughout society are at a disadvantage in most professional occupations, as a result of this disadvantage women in general earn far less than men in work, known as the gender pay gap. Women make up almost 50% of the labour market in the UK, but earn on average far less due to the lower statuses of positions women hold. Meg Maguire writes about this inequality in her chapter in Class Matters: ‘Working-Class’ Women’s Perspective on Social Class. Maguire states that women are at a disadvantage when it comes to being employed within academia, although more than half of the students within higher education are female very few of these move into lecturing. Something she claims makes those that are in employment within this area ‘outsiders’ to the rest of the academy (Maguire 1997). The inequalities within this sector of paid employment do not stop at this Maguire goes on to explain that on top of the fact that fewer women go onto work within higher education those that do work in lower positions within the lecturing staff, something which is echoed generally throughout most organisations. She writes that “They are concentrated in subordinate positions within an occupation which is organised and managed by dominant male workers from the same occupational class and background” (Maguire 1997: 89). This over-representation of male upper and middle class workers in positions of power within organisations such as universities, large companies and banks has a large effect on the potential for progress in employment for females within that profession. This makes it hard for women to move up the company ladder due to the institutionalised sexism, often referred to as the class-ceiling, whereby women can see the way to progress through the company but cannot due to them being female.
This glass-ceiling effect is echoed in Pamela Abbott’s chapter on gender in the book Social Divisions, within she states that gender has a detrimental effect on the type of employment available to women. She states within that women are concentrated in the low paid manual areas of the employment market, often in caring roles or working in non-manual low paid jobs such as secretarial positions or as clerks in offices. These jobs, although many would consider them to be white-collar and therefore middle-class jobs, are low paid and therefore mean that these women are likely to be living on low-incomes close to the minimum wage available. Citing Payne and Abbott, she states that “Despite over 20 years of equal opportunities legislation, there is still clear evidence that the ‘glass ceiling’ (a barrier to women’s upward mobility into higher level positions) and the ‘glass wall’ (a barrier to women entering occupations defined as male) still act as barriers” (Payne and Abbott 1990 cited in Abbott: 88). This illustrates the divisions that are still present in society, and the obstacles that women face in employment if they wish to progress in their careers, or even gain entry into the occupation that they want to have a career in.

Divisions within society take shape not only due to class and gender but also are related to ethnicity; the background of the person can often lead to social exclusion from areas that other people may have an easier time accessing such as health care services, education and employment opportunities. Although social work can be criticised for failing many groups within society such as children under their care, the ethnic minority community it can be argued suffer an even greater level of negligence due to the effect of institutionalised racism or even racism from the individual social worker themselves. For this argument I will only examine the institutional racism that these communities may face when seeking help from social workers. This can lead to forms of social exclusion Dominelli writes that “The dynamics inherent in the racially exclusive tendency result in black people having limited access to the ‘goodies’ or caring services provided through social work intervention” (Dominelli 1992: 166). By this she means that the ethnic minority community often face huge obstacles in receiving state funded social care, such as community workers to help with everyday jobs around the home that they cannot do themselves due to age or disability or state funded accommodation in old age due to health or dependency. This can be linked to class as most of these services are used by working-class people in retirement through either age or disability. Ethnic minorities are vastly over represented in the working class due to the way that employment opportunities are often inaccessible to them due to their ethnic background. This income inequality is what I will now turn my attention to.

Minority ethnic groups within Britain are more likely to suffer from both poverty and unemployment, this inequality in employment is compounded by the fact that even when in employment the types of jobs and positions they hold generally are much lower paid and more disposable, for example low-skilled manual labour. This fact is highlighted by statistics taken from the Office of National Statistics, Annual Local Area Labour Force Survey 2001/02, the worst affected minority ethnic group was Bangladeshi men and women with unemployment rates at 20% for males and 24% for females, compared to the White majority groups at 5% and 4% respectively (Mason in Payne 2006: 112-113). These figures show just how unequal employment opportunities can be for minority ethnic workers in the UK, added to this Mason explains that during times of economic downturn in the economy minority ethnic groups suffer far worse in relation to the white majority with levels of redundancy (Mason). Unemployment is not the only form of discrimination that minority ethnic groups receive in the labour market, although some ethnic minorities are increasingly closing the gap on the white population in high pay jobs such as the Asian community in the UK, most groups are still at a disadvantage when it comes to employment in skilled and professional occupations.
This disadvantage in accessing the higher level jobs within society for some minority ethnic groups features in many studies conducted, Mason states that within the application process there is still a significant level of discrimination against those from minority ethnic backgrounds (Mason in Payne 2006). One study carried out matched two identical applicants, their CV’s were exactly the same in qualifications, and experience in that field of work was sent to companies from the Times 1,000 index. The only difference in the letters inquiring about future employment was the names of the people inquiring, Evans and Patel. The study found that companies were more likely to respond and when responding provided a better quality of response to Evans than their responses to Patel (Mason). This study highlights the institutionalised racism within companies, and the difficulties posed to minority ethnic groups when trying to achieve social mobility, due to the widespread levels of difference in levels of response given to both these fictitious candidates for jobs.

In conclusion, I believe that both gender and ethnicity play a major role in divisions within society. The role gender plays in intensifying social divisions can be seen in the way that public impressions of the working class female through both politics and media demonise the individuals as being deviant. They are stereotyped as having values differentiating from the middle-class norms held by society, and are perceived as being a threat. Added to this gender can act as a barrier in both attaining professional employment and in progressing through the corporate ladder, with both the glass ceiling and perceived male jobs providing potential barriers for women in achieving social mobility. The role ethnicity plays is a similar one to that of women in dividing society, the area of social care provides inadequate care for many ethnic groups in society through institutionalised racism, perceiving those in minority ethnic groups to be somehow less deserving of help provided. The lack of jobs opportunities and high unemployment rates with ethnic minority groups help perpetuate these class divisions based on ethnicity as many companies are either unwilling to employ ethnic minorities in high pay jobs or employ these groups in less stable jobs that are at prone to jobs losses much quicker in times of recession. Overall, I believe that not only do these divisions help to extend the class divisions in society I believe they are actually made much more intense for minority ethnic groups as a result of the class structure in the UK.

References

Skeggs, B. (1997) Classifying Practices: Representations, Capitals and Recognitions, in Mahoney, P. and Zmroczek, C. Class Matters: ‘Working-Class’ Women’s Perspectives on Social Class, London: Taylor and Francis, 123-139.

Maguire, M. (1997) Missing Links: Working-Class Women of Irish Descent, in Mahoney, P. and Zmroczek, C. Class Matters: ‘Working-Class’ Women’s Perspectives on Social Class, London: Taylor and Francis, 87-100.

Abbott, P. (2006) Gender, in Payne, G. Social Divisions, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 65-101.

Dominelli, L. (1992) An Uncaring Profession? An Examination of Racism in Social Work, in Braham, P., Rattansi, A. and Skellington, R. Racism and Antiracism: Inequalities, Opportunities and Policies, London: Sage, 164-178.

Mason, D. (2006) Ethnicity, in Payne, G. Social Divisions, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 102-130.

Do Not Despair Ladies! At Least There Is The Kitten Bowl For You To Watch Tonight

So it is Superbowl Sunday, all over the world people are anticipating one of the most watched sporting events of any calender year. People who haven't watched a single second of football all year will tune in for the one game that encompasses all that I enjoy about the sport. It will be intense, fast, and non-stop entertainment, even the advert breaks (I die a little inside for admitting this) are entertaining (depending on where you watch it). I think most recognise that people of all ages, sexualities, ethnicities, and genders around the globe can be counted among its viewership. Most. Clearly the cretins at the Daily Mail cannot be counted among these as the article "The claws are out! Puppy Bowl gets competition as Kitten Bowl returns for its second year - but which team of furry critters will deflate more balls?" suggests.

Okay, I know what most people would be thinking now, "the only person suggesting women will not be watching the Super Bowl tonight is you matey... Just look at the title to this blog post". The title of this blog post was chosen because that is essentially all they are saying with this article and where they posted it on their website, in short the 'femail' section of that disgusting e-rag. 

The blatant sexism of that 'female focused' section is something I have wrote about before, it trivializes the female, moves them to the outside of the normal readership (males), and undermines any notion that women are interested in anything beyond the family, relationships, fashion and obviously Kittens.

By publishing this article there they are oblivious to the fact that sport is not the preserve of men, and Kittens are not just enjoyed by women. In fact if this article, as poor and pointless as it is, was in the standard part of the Daily Mail's website it would have just been another example of the tabloid trash they publish on a hourly basis. The fluff that is only there to lighten the endless waves of Racism and fear they shove down the throats of their paranoid readership. Just quick, disposable, complete devoid of critical analysis, harmless trash.

In publishing it where they did they have highlighted once again the casual, and sometimes not so casual, sexism that they delight in producing and shown just how out of touch they are with the modern world. The Daily Mail as a source of 'news' are akin to the grumpy, racist, Grandfather we all recognise, unable to see beyond his 1930's upbringing and still believing that men and women cannot share any common interests.

Having played American Football (as we call it over here) at a university that has a female team and seeing how much heart they put into every game, how much work they put in during training, and how much they enjoyed playing the sport, I can categorically confirm that every single female watching the Super Bowl tonight will be enjoying it as much as the male viewers, with scarcely a kitten in sight. Despite what the Daily Mail think about it.