BATMAN DOESN'T LOVE ME ANYMORE.

22.2.05:

I can't find a link, but I know Michael Howard professed his disgust at the notion of means-testing and how it is evil and obtrusive (yeh, point. A bit. When he isn't using it. When applied to systems that not only aren't working, but are designed to be moralising fuckbuckets that aren't meant to work and so are, horribly, working) to excuse refusing to target council tax rebate to those who may need it. All the hate got compounded when he said that that was OK, because the 50% off was capped at £500, a fact placed ni interviews to mean that the rich won't be getting too much out of the system. Meaning that the poor really won't.

The whole notion of council tax is disgusting and, surely, proved wrong by now? First you cut services paid for by the state down to local level, in an attempt to atrophy them and free tyhe oppresed peoples of Britain, empowering them to act within a market to get the3se goods for themselves. This is balls because people want the services, so you make up the Poll Tax to force people to see how much these services are costnig them, in the hope that market logic will be applied to voting and local councils who provide too many services will be punished accordingly. No likes you, so you make up the council tax, neglecting to change a single thing.

The reason why this is the stupidest idea in the universe is that people fucking deserve services, and services they should have. On top of this, people are aware of this, and still demand them. Forcing poor people to see that they are expensive is a stupid plan, and its just going to be harder now to get rich people to pay for it all again, even though they should. The very premise of the council tax is repugnant and this is why it must be stopped. It is, essentially, the Poor Law. Only now the poor pay it. Which is even more stupid then the Poor Laws were.

Introducing the Poor Law but attacking means-testing seems a bit rich (but it's OK because surely no one actually thinks he actually dislikes the principles of means-testing?), especially where targetting (and I know I'm quibbling semantics here, but there are important ideological differences in these terms) would actually help.

_chris! // 10:32

______________________

18.2.05:

I've not read the book, but then the only way I can picture this blog in my head is as a reaction to, and expression of, little more then the surface of things. So.

What do I make of Nigel Harris' Thinking the Unthinkable: The Immigration Myth Exposed. I picked it up off the shelf for a raving right-wing twat-bucket of evil lefty pinko faggitarians warping the political discourse with their political correctness, with Harris as the messiah bringing down fiery righteous anger upon our damnable gay-bread lies.

A quick scan of the blurb tells me that the Immigration Myth isn't that, and that somehow the Fuck (this is what we'll be calling the Right from now on. The Left are called the Cunt) have taken over to the point where their narrative is the myth.

I know, ofcourse, that it is the myth. But we're talking public-discourse-context. Do I like this development? Do I like that the evil conspiracy to make the world a bit nicer and more polite and less full of lies apparently no longer exists and that now we are on the outside crying "Heathen" to these people? Their Fuck's endless bleating about how we'er all a nasty perversion of all that is good has never impressed me, and the idea that whatever Political Correctness ever was has lost the ability to set the agenda, to the point where well-worn signifiers of its opposition are now, somehow, the terms of its (let's be honest here) exponents, scares me.

Are we 100 tins of peas and some Socialist Worker backissues away from being the survivalists now?

_chris! // 11:06

______________________

15.2.05:

I'm going to miss these times. When my tutor grinned and said that Carsens' "feudal rights" thesis about the arbitary nature of citizenship was the polite way of refering to his own prefered term "global apartheid" I was all yeah.

We are, obviously, going to win. Apparently, I've become so convinced of this that I am savouring these little moments. The same man's "We on this course [Ethics of Migration]; we're going to love the election campaign"*. Last year's History of the Wlefare State's slipping into happy memories of the Thatcher War years. A million other moments of have-caught smiles and snide remarks in lectures. Deriding trickle-down as bollocks (apparently, I'm the only one in a class of hundreds doing Politial Systems to care and know).

I know my optimism is misplaced. I know I love these times because they feel like jokes other people don't get. I have little to show for my youth but a misplaced feeling that I was there, and I get to play out fantasies that I really I was. I don't even know who I'm fighting, or where to fight them from. Half way through my degree I completely and utterly lack focus, and it isn't just when we win that I'll miss these times.

Anyone else, however, feel like we're in the endgame? The last British and American elections must have been back-to-back, but I never noticed it then. Now it all feels like an end, and I'm excited.


*This particular thrill was shot in the knee moments later when the girl next to me asked the boy next to her "why?" and he told about the health checks. This goes so much further then the health checks. Even just listing the diseases covered in the health checks leaves out the plan to test them in the countries they're coming from, but only those planning to come here. Test all of them? Cure them?

_chris! // 16:41

______________________

29.11.04:

I’m beginning to fear myself. That my first reaction to the Daily Mail’s CAN HE SURVIVE THIS? headline was genuine fear that no, he actually may not survive this is a source of concern for me. It’s pretty clearly not in anyone’s favour for David Blunkett to get out of this one with his Home Office posting intact, and yet my initial reactions to this news, every time it’s come up, has been ‘Good luck.’

I know why this is; the very idea of Michael Howard winning is repugnant. I like that Labour has an enormous majority, because it makes me feel safe. Still. After all this time. Can we really expect marvellous, radical things from Labour? Do we even want to? Shouting ‘Look at Thatcher!’ doesn’t make me think ‘Yes, Thatcher. There’s a Parliamentary model I want the left in this country to follow’ Can we really afford to bequeath the country another Lawson? A set of policies so cripplingly awful that we still, somehow, have to deal with them now?

Maybe there is something to this, as in Joe’s propaganda thesis – which I am also still unsold on. A Left-based destruction of the political environment is appealing, as certainly it is ripe, but do I really want to deal with the fact that I just killed democracy? I’m not sure killing the left is bad simply because now there is no more left – although that’s clearly, facefuckingly awful, - but also because now what does the Left vote for? Where does the Left go? The goal has to be something more then simply putting the Right in a box and sitting on it, laughing. We have to genuinely and completely end the entire mindset, pick apart the raft of false and idiotic ideological assumptions these people have made.

This isn’t going to happen if we leave people like Blunkett in the Labour party. This isn’t going to happen if we leave people like the Labour party in power. My faith in voting Lib Demo at the next election, in a seat that swung from them to the Conservatives by a small margin last time, is still going to be shaken if can’t be sure that Labour will win power with at least the hope of the Conservatives being so weakened by split voting and idiocy that the Lib Demos can become an effective opposition and shove politics, if not even towards a Left, then at least facing it in some form of genuine middle ground.

But it’s thinking like that that got me in to wishing Blunkett the best of luck under my breath, in to silently grinning every time Blair beats Howard at question time. Parliamentary strategising doesn’t help.

_chris! // 15:13

______________________

I’m beginning to fear myself. That my first reaction to the Daily Mail’s CAN HE SURVIVE THIS? headline was genuine fear that no, he actually may not survive this is a source of concern for me. It’s pretty clearly not in anyone’s favour for David Blunkett to get out of this one with his Home Office posting intact, and yet my initial reactions to this news, every time it’s come up, has been ‘Good luck.’

I know why this is; the very idea of Michael Howard winning is repugnant. I like that Labour has an enormous majority, because it makes me feel safe. Still. After all this time. Can we really expect marvellous, radical things from Labour? Do we even want to? Shouting ‘Look at Thatcher!’ doesn’t make me think ‘Yes, Thatcher. There’s a Parliamentary model I want the left in this country to follow’ Can we really afford to bequeath the country another Lawson? A set of policies so cripplingly awful that we still, somehow, have to deal with them now?

Maybe there is something to this, as in Joe’s propaganda thesis – which I am also still unsold on. A Left-based destruction of the political environment is appealing, as certainly it is ripe, but do I really want to deal with the fact that I just killed democracy? I’m not sure killing the left is bad simply because now there is no more left – although that’s clearly, facefuckingly awful, - but also because now what does the Left vote for? Where does the Left go? The goal has to be something more then simply putting the Right in a box and sitting on it, laughing. We have to genuinely and completely end the entire mindset, pick apart the raft of false and idiotic ideological assumptions these people have made.

This isn’t going to happen if we leave people like Blunkett in the Labour party. This isn’t going to happen if we leave people like the Labour party in power. My faith in voting Lib Demo at the next election, in a seat that swung from them to the Conservatives by a small margin last time, is still going to be shaken if can’t be sure that Labour will win power with at least the hope of the Conservatives being so weakened by split voting and idiocy that the Lib Demos can become an effective opposition and shove politics, if not even towards a Left, then at least facing it in some form of genuine middle ground.

But it’s thinking like that that got me in to wishing Blunkett the best of luck under my breath, in to silently grinning every time Blair beats Howard at question time. Parliamentary strategising doesn’t help.

_chris! // 15:13

______________________

17.9.04:

You know what? I'm not done yet. Thanks Anna for this, from Monbiot. I love you, Monbiot, I really do; please put into better words then I can why we can we can clash with police and use direct action and these people can't, for reasons other then that their cause is really stupid. Something about the level of violence in the situation, about how action not only must, but can be taken in the fight against capitalism because the system, as it is, is violent, while the democratic process of enforcing a common and decent morality and righting old, old wrongs isn't, by its nature, violent in its actions against hunters, and as such they're not fucking permitted to fucking let of firecrackers in people's faces! Fuck you, shitheads! Fucking firecrackers?! What are you, nine year old bad scamps?? Grow up! To somehow manage to turn the police, the police against yr cause, you really fucked up. Did you, like, shit yr brain or something?

Also, thank you Toynbee for taking a line with the word "treason" in it.

Why do I care about this all so much? Why did I shout at my radio at a woman who, not only claimed that hunting was the only way to get rid of foxes (OK, they're a pest. Leave out poisoned chicken carcases, or don't run at them really really loudly so the run away. Maybe you'd actually get some, that way... Aren't you all in the army or something? Fucking eight-year-olds on Ritalin with a copy of Metal Gear Sold would be better at this shit then you), but used "distator" like an adjective (or adverbial?) as in "Tony Blair's dictator regime." The English language hates you, madame. Well the fuck done.

I think I just feel violated. Seriously. We should scrap the monarchy for being compromised. We should have scrapped them anyway, but now we have a really good excuse. Having them in there's up with letting perjuring Lord Archer sit in the highest court in the land in the retardo stakes.

And how is this Blair's Poll Tax riot? The Poll Tax riots were against a stupid policy that had no grounding in public opinion. THE ANTI-WAR MARCHES WERE AGAINST A STUPID POLICY THAT HAD NO GROUNDING IN PUBLIC OPINION. Are you getting this? Do you hear me? Are you going away and fucking yrselves now? He isn't going to lose on this, he hasn't underestimated the forces of conservatism, he's not in for it now over this. The forces of conservatism are staffed by shifty, twatish wankers who care about only themselves and, in such a situation, will vote on stuff like who gives them more money. As no one really works in hunting, and those who did don't vote Labour, this whole thing means shit at the polls.

How have you all not gagged on yr bile yet? And really, how have I not either?

_chris! // 20:17

______________________

You know what (you're gonna shit yr colon in shock at this... )? I really hate Otis Ferry.

Would it be OK, Otis Ferry, if I were to break into yr house, violate yr notions of private property and privacy, hit some old people and jump around shouting about death to boring music and capitalist social organising of society? Because I could, quite fucking legitimately, declare that you don't understand what I am doing there, and that drastic times, which these are, call for drastic measures. You wouldn't like that? You want me to stay out of yr house? THEN STAY THE FUCK OUT OF MY DEMOCRACY, YOU LITTLE SHIT!

I hate that fucking Otis has pushed me to thinking about this. That the little prick has somehow managed to force me to know that Bryan Ferry's son rents a four-bed house in a village that begins with "S" (I still don't really care enough to actually know where), and that to make my point wholly legitimate, I'd have to actually do this in his mother's house, which is in London, and owned.

Robin Cooke was wrong this morning, when he asked, leadingly, if we'd really feel better about Parliament and its security if Otis Ferry had been shot. You know what? I would feel better if the little crap had been shot. Maybe in the kneecap, so he couldn't walk anymore. Or the arm. The wanking arm. I hate him for making me think like this.

And I really hate him for the bit in the Daily Express' profile of him today where it said that he became infatuated with the wonders of nature. Yow know, the wonders of how nature doesn't like it when you pull its fucking spine out, and how wonderful nature is, smeared over his face.

Fucking you, Otis Ferry. Fuck you very much.

_chris! // 19:45

______________________