Same New Same New - Future Shocks Part 16

As I had this one as a work in progress I see Big John has beaten me to it.  However John and I are coming from a very similar perspective and I find his post lends weight to my assumptions as he has a little more life experience of the days before ‘the man’ took over than I do.

I find it interesting that one of the principle criticisms of what many see as having been the embodiment of Communism is that everything is required to be the same, no variation because all is dictated by the State.  Leaving aside for the moment whether what they are basing this on is a valid system of comparison or whether this idea of a uniform-requiring State is correct to any left-wing ideology I wanted to try to see just how the alternatives to anything left of centre manufacture this difference, if they do so at all.

If one looks across the Western world and in particular the United States the reach of the corporations is practically all-pervasive across the board.  From one town to the next there is a worrying homogeneity that renders each town devoid of any singular identity.  Much of this can be seen most graphically in comedian and broadcaster Dave Gorman’s Unchained America in which Gorman seeks to travel from Los Angeles to New York without paying any money to ‘the Man’ ie the chain corporations of America.

Gorman’s choice of vehicle may be more in keeping with the romantic wooly ideals that one starts any such road trip rather than to do with any practical study as to what sort of vehicle one might actually need in order to safely conduct a trip but this in a way is part of the charm, along with his tendency to veer off at tangents that make interesting broadcasting if not fiscally or physically prudent.

Gorman’s presumption is that the trip will be relatively straightforward but this proves to be far from the case.  On his trips into towns called Independence across America, he finds either that the faceless corporations have rendered the town utterly indistinguishable or that the few places of character and individualism are in terminal decline, one particular gem closes on the very day he is there having served as a diner for the community for over 60 years.  It will not be replaced and is unlikely to be revived.

Interestingly the smaller independent places whilst ‘economically unstable’ do sometimes fulfil more one of the fundamental points attributed to Marx and Engels namely to provide workers with more of a stake in things and therefore an interest into their success.  There were numerous examples of multi-generational working through the family business.  It is not surprising that in this situation these people care about the business in which they work and the community feel of such places can lend itself to a belief that one is providing a service to the wider inhabitants and not merely in the pursuit of profit.  Of course this is not always going to be the case and standard employees may feel no more empowered than were they to be working at K-Mart or Wall-Mart or AN Other-Mart.

The people running these independent premises tend to be those with a sense of family tradition or occasionally a sense of the absurd or the non-conformist as embodied in the dog-shaped hotel that Gorman stayed in en route.  These are people, generally 50 and older who have lived through times where the homogeneity was not so pervasive, the 1950s with smaller more intimate shops outside and even often inside the cities, the 1960s with its social changes and cohesive ideals.  These are perhaps the few people that didn’t grow out of such intentions and sought to continue to live by their principles in one form or another.

What the corporate premises cannot provide the same is the value-added service that the independents can, it’s just that this is not appreciated in today’s world as it once was.  Everything now comes down to the bottom line price.  No longer is it important for the cashier to know your name, or what your usual order or to have a specialist expertise in their field and this means not only are we offered merely the selection due to the pile ‘em high, sell ‘em cheap philosophy but we are also given homogenous staff who have no field of expertise and cannot give any depth to the shopping experience.

Even the few places holding out like a Gaulish village against the invaders are having to make sacrifices, butchers are forced to buy in much of their stock wholesale in order to compete with the supermarkets on the prices of staples such as sausages and mince restricting themselves to the more premium speciality items.  Bakers are now usually chains producing the same items daily in one shop as another, and could the young today tell the difference between a Grocer’s and a Greengrocer’s let alone cite any place that they might have seen one?

I find as I get older that I look forward to the chat at the butcher’s on a Saturday morning as I pick up my meat for the weekend.  I know many who make the monthly trip to the farmer’s market in town mainly because they .  When even the local pubs in many towns are run by national companies serving the same beer at the same price and keeping it badly in the same way

This trend is not set to stem in its tide.  As the time in our lives as well as the budget gets steadily ever more squeezed people are understandably feeling that they are forced to count the cost above all other concerns, choosing to shop in the huge monolith one-stop supermarkets and their partners online and this is a service that can generally only be provided by the big guns and a token smattering of a select few enterprising farmers.

Gorman’s conclusion is that whilst he just about managed coast to coast with only one corporate petrol station payment and one burger that only made a brief foray into his stomach before rejection his journey was far from easy and like as not would be impossible in ten years time.  Big John’s idea of doing a similar thing in Britain I suspect would be beset with many similar problems especially through the more industrialised sections of the country, however owing to the smaller distances I imagine the refuelling would be less of a problem.  This should not make us be complacent about it, what has happened in America has frequently over the last 50 years translated itself over here in time as the culture melds itself into the hegemony and the businesses seek greater influences in the market.  Most of the time the smaller independent businesses survive now where there is far less economic viability as the great corporate entities are uninterested in the service ethos unless it carries a hefty profit worth their while.

There is therefore a real danger of Britain becoming awash with such uniformity, it already reminds me of the America in which I lived 18 years ago and not in a good way.  But can we really be surprised?  One cannot expect businesses to reign themselves in because they have become too successful.  Whilst the marketeers may talk about competition and freedom of choice being the ideal these do not make good business sense as much as having a monopoly on the market and the ability to keep overheads low and profits high, it is as if the competition phase is the fiscal capitalist revolutionary stage necessary to facilitate the vultures from picking off the corpses of the dead and the dying in order to facilitate their subsequent dominance.

Ironically when one looks at which ideology demands pureity and uniformity both racially, culturally and socially I think these are normally things associated with the right rather than the left so why is it still the perception that capitalism provides for a wealth of choice whilst any alternatives are the road to guaranteed totalitarian adherence and conformity?  For this one has to look at the great propaganda victory of the multi-nationals who now have us thinking that we have a mass of choice when actually we merely have a variety of ways to have the same thing and these are dictated by the middle men themselves.  The providers are squeezed in order that corporations can buy their raw materials for as low a price as possible and we are forced to pay the prices they want us to, whilst led to believe they are doing us a favour in doing so.

Go back to your shopping lists people and prepare for markets and local shops and local produce, it is the only way to make the stand.

Song Of The Day ~ Squeeze - Pulling Mussels (From The Shell)

Political Compass

I’ve done the Political Compass a couple of times before, I like to return to it as it’s been some years since I first did it and it’s interesting to chart whether or not one’s perception has changed over time.  I thought this time as I read through the questions that perhaps I was becoming a little more authoritarian if not any less economically left.  Both Longrider and Big John have done the compass this month so it prompted me to do it again.  And I’ve barely moved, my economic score is I believe consistent every time, whilst I believe I’m back to my more Libertarian principles having strayed to an Authoritarian -7.69 last time!  Strangely there don’t appear to be any ‘famous’ figures in my section of the graph, it’s a bit lonely down there.

And no I don’t manipulate my answers, what would be the point, nor do I remember the questions - if I had suddenly become right-wing in my old age, I just wouldn’t tell anyone!

That being said having now just posted this I am awaiting a visit from MI5 and perhaps a nice orange jumpsuit for my trouble!

Song Of The Day ~ The Wombats - Moving To New York

Advances In Automotive Technology

I like this, this is very good.  Not quite flying penguins but made up for a vicious crossword in The Guardian today!

 

Song Of The Day ~ SixNationState - Caught The Sun  

Aesthetics And Social Cohesion

I have always rather presumptuously regarded myself as something of an aesthete.  I like to look or hear or experience things that seem to have depth and soul, I suppose in a way we all do however we choose to express it.

It is not important to me what source the aesthetic comes from and therefore I may not draw a distinction between the beauty that is inherent in nature around us from that which is created by those of us here.  I do not see one as being the product of an omnipotent creator whilst the other is the mere triflings of ‘its’ creations.  We are a product of the earth and just as anything that is beautiful here so anything we fashion is by extension a form of natural aesthetic.

Some people see that which is aesthetic and appreciate it, others seek to possess it and here the left-wing must stand against such action.  To own an item that has aesthetic value is to deprive it of much of that aesthetic for you confine the circumstances by which its beauty may manifest.  Something that is not only aesthetic but accessible by many is far greater in its power to influence and bring happiness than that which is locked away only for the dubious pleasure of the selfish individual.  To feel one must possess in order to enjoy is a product of the avaricious society in which many of us have been brought up and the hegemony of greed is camouflaged by the notion that such action is inherent in human nature.  It isn’t.

The removal of an item of aesthetic beauty from its environment may not seem per se make the item itself less beautiful but it may remove it from a part of the aesthetic makeup that may come from, or be in contrast to its surroundings.

Poppies are a pretty flower in themselves but the poppies that grew in the fields of Flanders were especially poignant precisely because of their contrast to all the killing that had gone on in the area before, their beauty showed that in spite of what had gone before an area could be reclaimed by nature and that the beauty nature had to offer transcended the deeds in that location that had gone before it.  If people were to wear poppies on their lapels all year round it would rob them of their symbolism as the antithesis of war and death.  If one were to pick the ones in Flanders and put them in a vase they would be no different from ones picked at the roadside anywhere.

We all have the ability to experience the aesthetic and the subjectivity of what we consider of beauty is something that marks out our individuality as people but in turn can bring much cohesion in common ground with those whom we might otherwise think we share nothing.  The appreciation of beauty transcends class, geography, race, religion and gender it is a unifying force like scarcely any other.

The artist that creates and does so as a form of expression may not initially be seen first hand to be providing anything to society as say a skilled labourer or professional but one must take this in the context that society is all of us, each one a constituent and equal part of it.  Much of creative expression comes from the exorcism of negative emotions and without this form of venting these feelings may fester inside and deprive the artist of their ability to be active and engaged.  The loss of one person is of detriment to us all, but by extension the victory of one person over the negativity of their lives can provide us not only with the joy of seeing another reborn but something of a beacon of hope as to the fact that this can happen and to some who are like-minded a template of how this might be done.  The re-emergence of that person into society renders them more likely to be a proactive and productive member of it and this in turn benefits both individual and society in which they may participate.

 

Song Of The Day ~ Supertramp - Take The Long Way Home 

 

Premature Obituary Of The British Music Scene

 

For some time now I have been eulogising about the current British music scene in response to people who have only been looking at the very mainstream or pop market.  There is a vibrancy about it and a great deal of good bands playing their instruments well, writing good lyrics and tunes, influenced by real music be it from the 60’s 70’s or even the 80’s and 90’s.  However it interests me now that parallels have been drawn with the Britpop era in the mid 1990’s and others who have been looking at things from only the point of view of what is out there in the mainstream who have lost faith entirely in the music scene that may be going on.

There is now in the mainstream an even more factory-based approach than we have seen before.  Stock, Aitken and Waterman are usually trotted out and derided but the standardisation of music was first talked identified by Theodor Adorno in The Culture Industry in the 1930s.  Adorno identified the standard blocks that were used and shifted around in a formulaic way to create the semblance of new music whilst only ever using components that had been tried and tested.  Stock, Aitken and Waterman merely adapted the same technique that had been going on for many decades, the only difference being that they were so successful at it that it became itself the over-arching mainstream.

It is said that mainstream music is a constant battle ground of art and commerce.  I cannot see the forces of art as anything more than the heroic but often naive rearguard action.  Their survival is based on the occasional modicum of success and yet that is always its very downfall for that is what brings it to the attention of the commercial and therein lies the inherent paradox.  Art does not need to be successful to be art, in fact if it is merely trying to be successful there is a question mark over its validity as an artistic medium.  However to reach a wider audience and influence and inform the next generation it is necessary to spread its net at least beyond its own comfort zone so as not to stagnate.  

The Arctic Monkeys were the first to really come through, in a commercial way, an avenue that had not been exploited, namely the internet, but their emergence already signified the beginning of the demise of the internet as an independent medium for music, myspace itself having been but one online medium for the promulgation of music that did not specifically crave commercial success as its raison d’etre.  Such a process is never immediate and at present it is easy for those fans of regional bands forming organically in the schools and colleges of the country and playing their music from their influences and in their own words and accents.

In recent times The Arctic Monkeys were the first to really come through an avenue that had not been exploited, namely the internet, but their very emergence already signified the beginning of the demise of the internet as an independent medium for music.  Such a process is never immediate and at present it is easy for those fans of regional bands forming organically in the schools and colleges of the country and playing their music from their influences and in their own words and accents.  It is an almost golden age for lovers of Indie, Punk and Rock music as there is a huge selection of such music being played in the smaller venues around the country.

 

However for every Kate Nash who slips through the net with a little more grit in her voice and realism in her song-writing there is a Lily Allen who embodies the establishment with her faux emotion, bogus Working Class background and accent and a penchant for designer dresses with a smattering of just enough bad behaviour to make her seem a “rebel” the new enfant terrible  The establishment has always sought to capitalise on the underground, the anti-establishment and as soon as there is any consistency in the it, a degree of order amongst the chaos, it gives the chance to be consumed and exploited. As soon as the underground scene exhibits a popularity that can be milked for profit so the A&R men move in.  It starts off with groups being championed a little more and then the production and advertising becomes almost propaganda-like.  One can see at the moment with the marketing for groups like The Hoosiers and Dragonette whose relatively cult following would not normally precipitate much media interest at this stage but now are part of widescale advertising campaigns and pseudo ‘rockumentaries’ which are little more than infomercials.

 

This has been necessary for the record industry who have been losing revenue hand over fist due to downloads and an increasing dissatisfaction with their formula stage school pop.  The constant influx of reality popstars which served generally only to act as another method for the Italia Conti and the like graduates to obtain exposure.  On the rare occasions that the “right” candidate did not win, such as Michelle McManus or Will Young beating Gareth Gates the difference in subsequent marketing strategy was clear, with the one being marginalised to obscurity whilst the other was foisted on viewers and listeners at seemingly every opportunity.  This continued domination of mainstream music by the banal led to a backlash which took the form of the myspace and online music.  Myspace was of course very quickly bought up by News International thus to a point negating its ability to be an independent source of music distribution.

 

Music does of course go around in loops, to an extent this is organically-driven probably due to those influenced by the music of their parents, inadvertantly or not, creating music of similar genre.  In the early part of the 2000s there was a thriving neo-post-punk scene and a great deal of Clash and Ska-influenced music reminiscent of the anti-prog rock Punk scene of the late 1970s.  Now there is a great deal more early electro influenced music very emblematic of the Joy Division and beyond 1980-3.  If this means that we must endure the somewhat creatively bankrupt late 1980s then heaven help us all!  It will however be interesting to see just how much the music shapes the time and vice versa since it looks likely that the hedonistic commercial excesses of the mid-1980s are very much not on the cards over the next 5 years.

 

Song Of The Day ~ Vampire Weekend - M79 

 

As Used By Extremists Everywhere

 

The holocaust is an emotive subject for many. It still has the power to shock and cause controversy like few other things across the 20th century. It marked one of the darkest spots in human history, some may say the darkest, but it is, sadly, by no means the only example of man’s inhumanity to man.

I have always found a strange curious interest in those like ‘historian’ David Irving who deny the holocaust, more out of a certain incredulity than anything else.  Having been to Auschwitz and Dachau myself I wonder what these people make of what was otherwise going on here.  What is their explanation for the vast tanks filled with human hair or spectacles or children’s toys or shoes?  And the sheer scale of buildings with their evidence of dense human habitation, how could this have happened across the country using the national railways and all if not part of a concerted, co-ordinated policy?  What could those involved on the German side have to gain from admitting that it took place, surely they should all seek to deny it, furthermore, if extreme right-wing Hitler sympathisers deny it, do they claim that it was never on the agenda at all? I am interested in what the arguments are for such a denial of what appears to be an unequivocal event. 

 

Is it a matter of personnel, a question of who knew and how systematic was the policy of death?  Here the Wannsee Conference would appear to suggest that it was both fairly widespread and went up to the top.  Furthermore the promotion of Auschwitz commandant SS-Obersturmbannführer Rudolf Höß would appear to corroborate this, Höß was no ordinary Wehrmacht pawn, an associate of Heinrich Himmler, member of the Waffen-SS and recipient of both the SS Honour Ring and SS Honour Sword. He was also the first commandant to use Zyklon-B as a method of mass extermination following extensive trials on Soviet PoWs in the Auschwitz camp. 

 

I am however also interested in why this episode of genocide is afforded such particular historical significance.  It will doubtless remain a major part of 20th century historical teaching for many decades, even centuries to come, which I do not necessarily see as a bad thing, just an inconsistent one if taken in comparison to other such events and their legacy.  It is estimated that 6 million Jews were killed in the Nazi death camps and there are memorials around the world to their memory, as there indeed should be.  But what of the 3 million Soviet PoWs were also murdered along with 500,000 gypsies, 250,000 mentally and physically handicapped and countless tens of thousands of trade unionists, communists, socialists, homosexuals and other ‘undesirable elements’.  These groups are given scant mention and are certainly not commemorated widely outside their own communities.  Where is their monument, where is the recognition that under a tyrannical regime whatever guise it choses to hide under the fine line between what constitutes a state normality and what constitutes a threat to security is arbitrary and changeable?  

 

The denial of the holocaust though is in some countries a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment and I am deeply uncomfortable with this because it smacks of the zenith of political correctness.  Any such brushing under the carpet of views is to give them an ill-deserved credence in the consequent interest it generates.  Yet no other event in history is afforded such protection, it would be unthinkable for legislation to exist to prevent historical revisionism for other dark events in human history such as a denial of the Rwandan genocide, ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia, Stalin’s purges, the Crusades, the Irish Potato Famine even the pogroms against the Jews across Europe through the centuries, the systematic extermination of the indigenous populations of North and South America; Australia and many parts of colonial Africa. 

 

The fact is that this is a case of history viewed from the victor’s perspective.  Whilst I agree it smacks of poor taste to classify the Jews as in any way victors in the Second World War, I mean it in contrast to the German position and the ideals that the Nazis stood for.  Directly after the defeat of Germany the Soviet Union went from friend to enemy and the groups of the handicapped and the gypsies have been for a long time too marginalised and disenfranchised to wield any real influence. 

 

If one takes Russia under Stalin’s reign from 1924-1953 estimates vary widely as to how many died as a result of the regime ranging at the lower end from 6.5 million right up to estimates of 60 million by people like Solzhenitsyn.  The general consensus is settling at around a staggering 20 million deaths around 3-4 times more than Jews killed under the Nazis.  In fact it is estimated that between 10 and 20 million Soviets died as a result of the Second World War and undisputed that the Soviet Union suffered multiple times more casualties as a result of WWII than any other nation. In fact the 20 million figure would mean that the Soviet Union suffered as many casualties as all the other nations combined. 

 

The Soviet Union is but one example, directly comparable because it was at the same time in history, I could choose to look at Rwanda where between 500 000 and 1 million were slaughtered in 100 days in 1994 by the Interahamwe. This is systematic extermination far in excess of even what the Nazis or Stalin were able to achieve. And yet in the example of the Soviet Union and the Interahamwe in Rwanda we have not seen worldwide searches to bring the perpetrators to justice, we have not had the International Criminal Court being able to use figures of the nature of Simon Wiesenthal and the like.  And yet the US mounted a widespread manhunt to bring Osama Bin Laden in a man responsible for a fraction of the deaths that say Henry Kissinger directly caused due to the acquiescence to a criminally interventionist foreign policy in Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos etc.  Far from hiding in the mountains somewhere in the Middle East Kissinger tours the lecture circuit earning money and respect.  Presumably because to have got away with such assassination squad diplomacy one must admire his sheer audacity and ability to still be able to sleep at night.

 

On the flip side we hear a great deal of the genocide attributable to Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia’s killing fields and yet far less of the deaths attributable to US foreign policy in the years preceding the Khmer take-over.  The US media had in fact already started decribing the genocide before it had even taken place as Chomsky has shown in Manufacturing Consent.

 

The number of casualties of the September the 11th disaster stands at 2,752 and this event will be taught across the Western world at least as an event of extreme historical significance, and yet how many people know of the Armenian Genocide (Death toll 1-1.5 million), the Assyrian Genocide (Death toll 500,000-750,000), the Burundi Genocide (Death Toll 50,000-100,000), or the Pontic Greek Genocide (Death Toll 300,000-360,000)? How much about the Bosnian ethnic cleansing is likely to be taught in the decades to come? Outside Ireland how much of the English culpability is looked at regarding the “Great” Potato Famine (Death Toll approximately 1 million +, or 20% of Ireland’s population)?  As John Mitchell wrote, “The Almighty sent the potato blight… but the English created the famine.” 

 

Obviously it would be true to say that the number of deaths in these events was not numerically as high as the Holocaust, however ”Fascism is not defined by the number of its victims, but by the way it kills them.” - Jean-Paul Satre, and as a proportion of the population or when measured as an impact study on the demographics and subsequent effect on populations it could be argued that, at the very least for the communities concerned, these events were equally catastrophic and in all cases without question the international reaction to these events has been one of relative ambivalence.  It would be as dangerous precedent a if we merely based somethings newsworthiness or impact for history on the number of casualties alone as it would were we not to look at all such events in an effort to learn from them.  After all the Bosnian conflict and the Rwandan genocide would appear to suggest that far from learning the lessons of history so as not to repeat them humans have in fact learnt the lessons of history so as to hone and perfect the means of further atrocity.

 

Song Of The Day ~ Joe Jackson - It’s Different For Girls

 

Mediawatch - Getting The Shakes!

Well bugger me if last night we didn’t have an Earthquake!

 

I know for the readers across the world outside Europe the fact that something of 5.3 on the Richter scale happened here is something of a non-event, however it was the largest one I remember and although only 0.2 higher than the one in 1990 it appeared more severe this time and yet I was about the same distance away from the epicentre as then. In 1990 I remember the toy parrot I had hanging from the ceiling swinging backwards and forwards. In 2002 I came out into the garden and nonchalantly lit up.

 

This one seemed bigger. It started quite benignly, a little shaking and a rumble and I thought, shit, earthquake and carried on watching the telly. Then the rumbling got a lot deeper and more violent and seemed a little more menacing when the crockery and stuff started to shake. There is something quite eerie about that noise, perhaps because it reminds me of the exhibit in the Natural History Museum that had a replica supermarket of the Kobe earthquake with CCTV footage from the event and you could stand in it and be shaken about.

 

It appeared to go on for longer than the others I have known as well, there is something primevally discomforting about the Earth moving, it sickens the stomach a little when it goes beyond that sense of something one can shrug off. The body seems to feel little after ripples as well, and it isn’t just me who’s felt that. Whether or not that was a seismic or a psychological thing I cannot say.

 

There was apparently an aftershock at 4am, I didn’t notice, I’d had enough excitement for one night!

 

Song Of The Day ~ Led Zeppelin - You Shook Me

 

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