HD - 'return to core brand values' ?

It's just  been announced that Harley Davidson has struck a deal with the unions - the International Association of Machinists and the United Steelworkers - that will keep open their plant in Kansas City Missouri. 

At a price - under a new seven year agreement the workforce will be cut from 685 full time jobs  to 540 with a further 145 'flexible 'positions - albeit for unionised labour.  

It looks as if the Moco has pulled the same kind of blackmail on the unions there that it did to the workforce after the 2007 strike at the much larger plant in York Pennsylvania - sign up on the company's terms of they will pull out of the city altogether. The same stunt was also  pulled last Autumn  at the historic headquarters plant in Milwaukee Wisconsin.

The financial problems that precipitated the most recent shenanigans - the first losses in a quarter for 16years - resulted largely from problems in the credit and financial services market. And some dumb decisions like the bizarre acquisition of the super luxury performance MV Augusta brand. And maybe just a few too many branded cuff-links and cheque-book covers.

None of this is really news. The HD brand-personality of an iconic union-made product for the American working man has been wearing thin for years with the emphasis on a recreational lifestyle brand with all the branded products that go with this. 

But the fact that this has just happened at the plant where they make the Sportster and Dyna models is particularly telling - and not just because I own a pair of Sportsters.

I would have to say that of all the HD ranges, these two models are the truest to that now largely bullshit brand-personality that has been contrived by the MoCo over the years. They are basic,  no-frills motorcycles simple and accessible to work on and customisable  for the ordinary enthusiast. They are also probably the least glamorous and most neglected models in the HD range - despite the fact that the rest of the range - with the exception of the big tourers  - aren't much more that factory copies of the kind of customised machines that people have been knocking out of their garages at home for years. Only with cringe-worthy silly names like FatBoy, Crossbones, Rocker, Heritage and Streetbob for aspirational types who want a bad-ass accessory of the shelf.

So rather than continuing to push out a plethora of these models with just tiny differences in the paint work or different combinations of parts why not just re-emphasise the 'pure and raw' appeal of the  Sportster and Dyna models backed up with a range of custom-goodies that can keep the owner-enthusiast hooked for a lifetime of ownership ?  Perhaps a return to core brand values for HD might not just have an emotional appeal - it might even make good business sense too.

Commonsense and good humour

Just resurfacing now after a few days feeling very sorry for myself with a dose of man-flu:

I went to the discussion  day / conference of my local anti-cuts campaign at the weekend. After the protest and occupation of the council chamber a week or so before the turnout was a bit disappointing - but I actually went away inspired.

After the more spectacular mass events, the composition of the meeting has returned to the usual(familiar suspects)  Anarchists, SWP, a handful of us SPers, Greens, community activists - and who knows maybe even the occasional Labour Party member although if so they were keeping it quiet. But despite all the fuss about competing  anti-cuts bodies, and despite the differences over attitudes to Labour Councils - there was unanimous support for the opposition to all cuts and a challenge of 'fight or resign' to Labour.  

Maybe the local SWP comrades are not quite 'on message' with the national line, or maybe its a practical realisation that our borough is a one-horse Labour sinecure and that the cuts here are some of the worst in the country with a disproportionate impact on this already royally-fucked up and fucked-over area. Either way I'm not crowing - I'm just genuinely  pleased that we can agree.

Which was pretty much the tone of the whole day. 

And that's my point - sometimes inspiration comes from the spectacular - maybe revolutions in North Africa and the Middle East - or maybe protest on your doorstep where new people are galvanised for the first time. But it also sometimes  comes from  the mundane. Such was the weekend's meeting - a prevalence of commonsense and genuine good humour. Too often scare commodities on the Left and sadly too often missing from our various party programmes.

The (original) February Revolution

I wrote this piece a few weeks ago as a guest spot for On This Deity.  

I never thought that the mechanics of how revolutions unfold would have been so topical ...

Bury the historical hatchet ?

Looks like Kronstadt is being re-fought (online of course) at Socialist Unity and Ian Bone's site.

Bloody hell it's depressing. No - the anarchists are not the enemies of the labour movement. In  terms of actual damage done I'd have to say that New Labour is far better cast in that role - but I'm not even going to go there - we know who the real enemies are - the ConDems and the Far Right. Everything else is infantile sectarian nonsense.

Are some anarchists - especially the 'life-stylists' - irritating  and disruptive pricks ? You bet - but I don't have any more time either for the android party-hacks often found in the 'Trot' ranks either. So let's just accept that all traditions have their own crosses  of embarrassment to carry.

When it comes down to the politics - I have to say that I find much more in common with the anarchists than I do with supposed 'left' Labour councillors who whinge that they have to make cuts -  or with some of their apologists.  Of course there are differences - the whole SP/NSSN thing was evidence of that -  and there are still very clear distances between us on the question of attitudes to trade union structures and the tactics of elections.

But here's a heretical thought: The Left in general often has an unhealthy preoccupation with its own past worthy of the most bigoted Ulsterman. We Trots are accused of being obsessed with dead Russians but I'd have to say that anarchists are often every bit as  pre-occupied with Makhno and Durrati. Now by training I'm a historian and see the need to understand the past more than most -  but isn't it time to move on ?  Actually it's now 145 years since the First International split - 90 years since Kronstadt - 70 years since Trotsky was murdered - and come to that it's now over 20 years since the Soviet Union fell apart. 

So how about a bit of 'truth and reconcilliaton' ? We are living in a post-just-about-everything world these days and yet the political labels we wear  are often references to the defining moments of previous generations.  I have to say that if we left some of the adopted baggage of our various traditions at the door we much actually find that the landscape on the Left  was in fact quite different from the one that many of us assume.  And dare I say it - we might even find that unity - without trying to hide our differences - is strength. 

Now I'll duck for cover - incoming accusations of naivity and revisionism from both sides ...

The embarrassment and dangers of strange bedfellows

Those of us of a certain age will remember the WRP of the 1980's with a mixture of horror and humour:

In many respects it was a nightmarish  parody of a wannabe revolutionary organisation - complete with their  'Marxist College of Education' where its  full-timers could learn the use of small arms and short-wave radios - and the monstrous leader Gerry Healy with his coterie of celeb hangers-on and harem of young female members subjected to a revolutionary 'droit de signeur' - in fact a leadership cult much  like the corrupt gurus of a sixties.

But most of all it brings back memories of the party's  slavish admiration of Gaddafi's regime  and his 'green book'  pseudo-theory of third way Arab radical nationalism. 

To quote a WRP congress resolution of 1980: "the Workers Revolutionary Party salutes the courageous and tireless struggle of Colonel Gaddafi whose Green Book has guided the struggle to introduce workers' control of factories, government offices and the diplomatic service, and in exposing the reactionary maneuvers of Sadat, Beigin and Carter... We stand ready to mobilize the British workers in defense of the Libyan Jamahiriya and explain the teachings of the Green Book as part of the anti-imperialist struggle."

Not surprising at the time the WRP's extraordinary feat of producing a daily colour newspaper - The Newsline - was attributed to funding by Gaddafi. More sinisterly there were also rumours of Newsline photographers sending Libyan security services pictures of dissidents on demonstrations in London.

Partly for this reason, and partly because of the details about the party regime revealed at the time of their very acrimonious and very public split in 1985 the WRP became something of a laughing stock on the  Left.  

But there were all too real dangers too: Healy was a monster and it was simply  good luck that he was only in the position of leading a small political sect - he would have been equally qualified to  head up some horrible regime in a deformed workers' state.

But most importantly the story of the WRP show the  propensity of some so-called Marxists to grasp onto the most unlikely and dangerous sources of inspiration. Theirs' wasn't the first instance of this - and it won't be the last -  Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Saddam  have all fulfilled this role - as has guerillaism,  'third-worldism',  various nationalisms and most recently radical' Islam.. all in the name of anti-imperialism.

Ultimately I can only think that this phenomenon is born of desperation in dark times of political downturn and defeat - and a lack of confidence that the working class has the ability to re-assert itself politically.  But whatever comes out of the current events in Libya is testament to that ability. 

The fetishisation of commodities

Marx was very struck by his visit  to the Great Exhibition of 1851 - the show meant to be a celebration of the progressive and civilising  effects  of Victorian capitalism on the world. But his  views on capitalism sometimes surprise first time readers - the humanist liberal in him  morns the degradation of the human spirit resulting from  the reduction of all relations to the cash nexus and the alienation of people from their own labour.  But the historian in him doesn't flinch from acknowledging, in relative terms, the progressive role of capitalism in developing society. 

Of course in his day capitalism was  quite young and was still playing the role of dragging society out of the last vestiges of the middle ages. But nowadays  capitalism is sickly and creaking. And if Marx visited an industry trade show at the Birmingham NEC - as I did this week - I don't think there would be anything ambivalent about his reaction - there  certainly wasn't about mine:

Forget about faith in a bold progressive future and civilising forces - what I saw amongst the stands, the seminars and most of all the 'netwoking areas' was a display of sad little men and their tedious  little worlds. I say sad  - but actually false joviality is more accurate, and I say little - but bloated and red-faced would be more appropriate; they are however invariably  men.  And so much waste -  if not of talent then certainly of energy -  in getting over-excited about the progress in whatever esoteric  gadgetry they are responsible for . But most of all in the snatches of overheard conversations - endless conspiring and gossiping about the labyrinthine internal politics and jealousies of their companies -  like a strange cross of plotting  Renaissance courtiers and bitching adolescent schoolgirls.

And somehow I seem to have found myself stranded in this world ...

'Break the law not the poor' ?

I've commented before on my amazement at the sometimes bizarre common ground between the SWP and so-called Labour Lefts - and the resulting easy ride that the SWP gets as a result: Look at the column inches (if there is such a thing in cyberspace) devoted to feigned outrage at the NSSN's launch of an anti-cuts campaign at the initiative of the Socialist Party. I'm not re-opening that debate  -but just  compare it to the relative non-controversy of the recent anti-cuts meeting of the  SWP (sorry) Right To Work Camapign (sorry) People's Convention.

The main point of contention there seems to have been the attitude we should take  to Labour councils who make cuts.  It appears that the SWP  are  saying that we must work with Labour councillors who argue that some cuts may be necessary - and that they are better made by people who will try to minimise the damage than  by Tories. 

This is no more than  a re-hash of the 'dented shield' argument put up by some 'Left' councils in the 80's. It was a crock of shit then and it's a cock of shit now - a moral fig-leaf for capitulation  - just as it was when Liverpool and Lambeth councils were left to fight on their own.

In fact history is repeating itself as farce - first time round these Labour Lefts at least started off by talking up a fight - but this time their equivalents have jumped right into defeatism from the off. Ironically changes in the law since the 1980's actually mean that councillors who pass deficit /needs budgets actually do not  risk the same personal penalties that the Poplar councillors did in the 30's of the Liverpool '47 did in the 80's.

So why this bizarre defence of the indefensible by the SWP ?  

I'm not stupid or sectarian enough to  believe that it's because they aren't actually serious about fighting the cuts. I  can only think there are  fundamental political political reasons behind it: They seem to have the   impression that the Labour Party is being /will  be radicalised  again after the post-election  increase in membership. Or maybe they really think that the resources of the Left are so weak - or so finite - that they must make desperate bed-fellows.

In typically python-esque Left fashion accusations of the "Third Period-ism' have been thrown at the SP and of "Popular Frontism' at the SWP.  I'm not going to go there - personal experience of working together locally in TUSC reminded me that there is more that unites us than divides us. So I won't dig up any unhelpful and over-dramatic obscure historical analogies. But how about a simple common sense formula ? - That the anti-cuts movement should be working with any group or party (that isn't fascist or racist)  so long as it refuses  to implement austerity cuts.

One man and his shed .

News from the domestic front:

After a particularly pointless tantrum I had to have my garage door replaced. Not quite sure how I managed it but in throwing it open with an angry flourish I managed to fuck up the 'up and over' doorsbeyond redemption so I've replaced it with the old-fashioned kind - which is much more in keeping with my workshop which was built long before 'garages' were considered a household necessity.

Apart from the outlay for the new doors I also had the floor levelled - and this spurred me to have a thorough clear out. It took me most of the day on Saturday. And then - because I now have a proper workshop that is comfortable,  clean and tidy - I spent a far bit of Sunday buggering about with my bike.

In most aspects of my life I don't consider myself  a hoarder by nature in fact - unless it comes to books and CDs  - I actually get a perverse kick out of throwing things out. Or so I thought. But apart from the inevitable generations of kid's discarded toys - the garage seemed to have collected a ridiculous number of bike parts. 

I made a point of throwing away all the broken bits of bikes that I don't own any more - including some I haven't owned for over ten years. Even so I seem to have an alarming quantity of parts for my current Sportsters - including five exhausts, four seats, three  sets of bars, three carbs and air cleaners, and two trays of miscellaneous spares.

I blame the addictive power of ebay...

The future is plural

Contrary to Cameron's Munich (slightly unfortunate choice of venue) speech - I'd have to suggest that multiculturalism is actually easier in practice  than it looks on paper.

Sometimes it's difficult to take on board that the Tory-boy lives in the same city as I do:  Any time spent  in  an inner city would reveal that multiculturalism is simply the default setting for ordinary people going about the daily business of making lives for themselves and their families. Sometimes there are tensions, often there are misunderstandings, but on street level it works because it has to. 

Just on my own street Polish shops sit cheek by jowl with Kurdish shops. My daughters' anglo-french-jewish-hungarian heritage is probably the least exotic and most ethnically homogeneous of their circle of friends.  Nobody I know even  notices or cares.

So what is the alternative Cameron proposes - monoculturalism ? 

He hankers after a state-defined set of national values taught in schools and  measured by a citizenship test. Examples of country's with such imposed artificial constructs  being the USA and France -  both far less integrated societies in practice than the UK  and with ethnically defined ghettos in their cities the  like of which simply don't exist over here.

Or maybe he just wants to sentimentalise some  non-diverse national heartland - like the parts of this country that are still demographically homogenous. I grew up in one of these  - the London suburbs of  thirty years ago. 'British' values - specifically the values of the affluent working class and the lower middle class  - ruled the roost without challenge - mowed lawns, washed cars, pubs and Sunday roasts.  It was fucking tedious and depressing...fortunately it is dying a natural death.

Scandinavian Crime Wave

I started with Stig Larson - but I seem to have developed a bit of an obsession with Scandinavian crime fiction.  Ive watched all three of the TV versions of Wallander - my favourite being  Rolf Lassgård   - and now I'm starting on the books.  

At the moment though I'm reading the Martin Beck series from Marxist husband-and-wife duo Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. Brilliant noir crime writing and  definitely a cut above Stig Larson and the latest Scandi-crime blockbuster following in his wake -  Jo Nesbø.

At the same time  on TV I'm really enjoying the Danish series 'The Killing' on BBC4.

As far as TV goes it's not just the Scandinavians either - the French series Spiral was excellent too.  In fact with the exception of British produced on-location in Rome TV series  Zen -  which felt like a particularly lightweight   coffee-advert -  it seems that crime with a foreign accent is just that much better than  our homegrown English Tourist Board sponsored efforts - Morse, Lewis or god-forbid Midsummer-fucking-Murders.

History Is Ours ...

I have a poster at home - very similar in style to the one on the left - that I have kept for almost thirty years. I borought it from the Chile Solidariy Campaign when I was an 18year-old member of the YCL (!?!) off to university to read history.

It bears one of my favourite quotes  - from Salvadore Allende in 1973: 'History Is Ours For  It Is Made By The People'. 

For any socialist  there is nothing more inspiring than seeing this history actually unfolding in front of your own eyes. Just as we are at the moment watching the extraordinary scenes from Egypt. 

The quote reminds us - or at least it should do - that history is not made by the mastabatory analysis of radical intellectuals from the safety of meeting rooms far behind the frontline - or in online forums either.

So I'm only going to add three brief  thoughts to what is being said about the situation in Egypt:

1.Those on the left who have been cozying up to reactionary Islamo-mentalists  will have some answering to do - although if they haven't already learnt from the experience of  Iran in 1979 I doubt they will now.

2. The organised working class still remain  the only section of society capable of securing a progressive democratic socialist regime in the region - or any region - not the amorphous 'nation' and certainly not a radical faction of the army.

3. Trotsky's theory of  Permanent Revolution -  far from being past its sell-by date still provides the best framework for understanding what is going on.

But most of  - and my final thought:

4. The revolution will carry on without asking my opinion.

Crime down your way

There's a joke that goes around my neck of the woods that the police round here don't bother taking down those yellow crime scene 'can you help boards' - they just change the wording around. By any standards it is not a good area for crime - especially street crime. 

The recent stabbing of four teenagers - one of them killed - was only a couple of blocks away from my front door. (Incidentally what was originally portrayed as an example of gang-culture now looks to have been  the tragic result of a generation of 'care in the community' policies involving  an outpatient of a local mental health facility). But knife crime here  does seem to an epidemic  and the regular killing of  local kids - usually working class and often black - doesn't even make it beyond the local news.

And that does make me pause for a moment- as a teenager I seem to have found myself in inter-school (pre post-code wars) altercations about once a month. I took a few black eyes and split lips - but there was never for any moment the thought that anyone could die from these incidents. As a parent now  inevitably I feel for my kids growing up with the stakes so much higher. And I'm relieved that I have girls not boys who have to grow up having to  navigate  their way around gang politics.

But generally I don't give it too much thought. And neither I suspect do most other  people here - it is simply a fact of life -  and life goes on. So  I imagine that the police's recent publishing of the UK crime maps, despite painting a pretty damning picture of the area will not have caused much of a ripple locally - or in other areas like mine. 

But I do imagine it is of great interest to those middle classes who discuss house prices at dinner parties, estate agents who use the information as a sales tool, the police themselves trying to manipulate clear-up rates - and of course to politicians trying to play upon fear.   Fear of the unknown - the dark forces that lie only just up the road, and from which they are told they  need to differentiate and protect themselves. 

That's a dangerous phenomenon and one that Micheal Moore explores so effectively in Bowling For Columbine. In the US it's a fear that leads to gun-obsession and white-bread middle class families arming themselves out of fear of invasion from inner-city 'others'. It's different here in the UK  - turning up the heat on fear  is just another step in building up a willingness to extend police powers - like stop and search. And so we become just that little bit more willing to incrementally sacrifice our civil liberties in the name of safety.

The death of polemics?

I've missed Burn's night - but I've  just realised that one of his quotes expresses much more succinctly what I was trying to grope towards in my last post about some recent squabbles on the Left:

“Oh wad some power the giftie gie us to see oursel's as others see us! It wad frae monie a blunder free us, And foolish notion”

And also from north of the border there is a perfect demonstration of the non-application of this principal in the three-way row between the SSP - Solidarity and George Galloway on Newsnight Scotland. 

I've still not fully resolved what I think about all this. Not so much on the specific  dark corners of the Tommy-gate affair  - but on  the more general question of when the best tactic is to sit on your hands and shut up in the interests of unity.

At home I have bookshelves of Marxist classics. Many, if not the majority, are written as polemics. The first passages of these are often  filled with  scathing but generally tedious  demolishings of political opponents who are now long-forgotten. These passages invariably generate a need for footnotes and historical introductions that  I skim over as quickly as possible: Engel's 'Anti-Duhring' is probably the most coherent summary of the Marxist approach to philosophy that you can find in a single source but frankly I'm not sure that anyone these days gives a toss about who Duhring was or what he said. Engels ' polemics against him may serve as a jumping off point for the development of his own arguments but are actually now more of a hindrance than a help to the modern reader.

Many of the Left would argue that these jumping off points are still needed and that polemics remain an essential part of the political process. The trouble with that argument though is that Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky didn't live in a mass media age with a literate and informed working class. The Left and its milieu  of their time was a closed and intimate little world often on the edge of what they would call 'civil society'. I wonder how these founding fathers would have come across in panel debates or online forums: If they stuck to the same styles they used in their written work then I suspect  they would be perceived as sectarian loons. 

But I also suspect that they were far too smart not to have modified their style to be effective in the society in which they found themselves.  Just a thought.

NSSN - two cheers not three

I went to the NSSN conference today and witnessed the overwhelming (3to1?) victory of the majority position to launch an all Britain anti-cuts campaign. I'm a member of the Socialist Party - who makes up most of that majority -  but still I can only feel that the decision was a necessary one to get past an obstacle - and not a cause for jubilation. 

So why my hesitation ?

Not because I had any reservations that the conference was a sectarian stitch-up. Doubtless some will be getting ready to claim this. But from what I saw the conference was scrupulously fair - almost painfully so; bending over-double to facilitate an even-handed two and three quarter hour debate from the floor. Having watched their antics over the years  in the ANL, the Socialist Alliance, Stop The War and Respect, I find any complaints from the SWP - frankly a bit fucking rich.

And not because I think there 'isn't room' for another organisation. We need a proper mass organisation that is campaigning and democratic. Not an unaccountable think-tank of the Left's great and good that claims to be 'one big tent' but has no democratic structure (CoR). Nor one that really is a blatant front organisation from a long lineage of  many previous front organisations (RTW).

The arguments from the syndicalist opposition lack the hypocrisy of the SWP,  and  so carry more weight - Essentially they argued that being a campaign is effectively beyond the remit of the original intent of an activist network, and  that the campaign will become dominated by one current at the expense of all others. The trouble with this is that it is in the nature of any discussion at a conference  that someone has got to win the argument. I  think the way the argument was conducted is proof enough that the SP is not the same as the SWP - and that there is still room for other currents. I genuinely hope they stick around and don't now take their ball home as some of them threatened to - but this threat cannot be used to hold the majority to ransom.

Actually my hesitation is based on something one of the minority delegates said about the wider pereption of the campaign's launch:

One advantage of being a parent is that you are forced to reconsider politics through the eyes of a new generation.  And I have to ask myself what relevance does the NSSN's decision have to my daughter and her friends from the student-kettles ? Or the under 30 year olds  in my own workplace where the union is a distant memory ? I suspect their reaction - however angry they are about the ConDems or worried about their futures - will probably be - 'wot?' And that's why I think that the conference was necessary - but really only a start. This isn't the 1980's and however proud we may be about the poll tax movement and Liverpool City Council, there's a whole new landscape to navigate and a new generation to be won. 

The King's Speech

I detect a monarchist conspiracy behind the 14 BAFTA nominations fof 'The King's Speech':

It was always going to be a winning  combination. Colin Firth the darling of the quintessentially English Sunday evening period costume drama; posh-totty Helena Bonham-Carter; George VI - it was him and the queen mum wot won the war for us; and of course the impending marriage of People's Prince William and the lovely Kate -she's so common just like us- Middleton.

Actually George VI may have been shy and reluctant to  become king ,and struggled with a little-understood disability - but probably the best thing to be said of him is that he wasn't actually an open Fascist sympathiser like his elder brother Edward VIII. 

He certainly voiced the prevalent attitudes of the  upper classes of that generation - anti-Semitic and favouring appeasement with Nazi Germany in the 1930's.  And despite the myths - he and his family didn't sleep through the Blitz in the tube station alongside his fellow Londoners but in the safety of a bunker under Buckingham Palace.  Which was why he was in fact boo-ed and jeered on his first visit to the East End.

Still I predict street parties next summer and open-air screenings of this palliative nonsense.

Rosa Luxemburg

Another guest spot yesterday over at 'On This Deity' - to mark the anniversary of the murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht and the defeat of the Spartacist Rising in Berlin.  

Thanks again to Dorian for indulging me in a celebration of one of my heroes.

Dangers of living in your past

I like Vikings. It's a bit schoolboy-ish I know: My surname is of Norse derivation. I have quite a few Norse tattoos. I think their culture is fascinating; they were so much more than the hairy thugs in horned helmets of popular myth - explorers, traders and artisans with a political and legal system that has quite a bit to admire even today. And when I've had a shitty day at  work the prospect of a warrior culture that suffered no insult or bullshit without swift and honourable recourse is pretty attractive. But I draw the line at carrying around a bloody big axe and settling my disputes with trial by combat. In other words I know that I'm not really a Viking and this isn't the dark ages.

Why then do many Americans persist in carrying on as if they are in the Old West ? 

I mean, much like the Vikings, I can see the attraction: If I'd had the chance I would have been the first to strap on a six-shooter and after a hard day on the ranch blow away anyone who looked at me a bit funny in the saloon... But this is the 21st Century and that stuff  just doesn't wash anymore.

Although you wouldn't think so to listen to US politicians from both sides of the liberal divide talking about the fall-out of the shootings in Arizona.  Maybe Obama is trying to appear non-partisan. Maybe he doesn't want to antagonise a mythological Middle America.  But  of course Jared Loughner's attack on 'federal government targets' was inextricably connected to the Right's myth of a democracy with frontier values, its obsession with gun ownership and the macho political culture and language of hunting and shooting.

Class expectations

The latest school league tables - and in particular the stats' for the new 'English Baccalaureate' speak volumes -if not about education then certainly about class.

Having  myself been lucky enough to take a very traditional academic path until the age of 22, my views reflect my own  prejudices. I'm inclined to think that the baseline of English-Maths-Science-Humanity-Foreign Langauge is a pretty good summing up of a rounded education. But I'm not an educationalist and and I'll defer to anyone with a more enlightened take on this. These arguments aside though, the fact remains that of the top 100 results of schools in this country measured against the new standard there is not a single comprehensive amongst them nor even an inner city state school of any descripition.

We can debate whether the 'Bacc' is the right way to go: But thanks to the attacks on student funding with raised fees it's clear that we are going back to the days of two - or multi- tier higher education. And the Bacc. will  act as a ready-made indicator for those on a traditional elite academic path. It's probably only a matter of time before Oxbridge and then the Russell Group specify it as requirement much as they do now  with their lists of 'approved' A-Levels.

And so again working class kids in the cities will systematically have their expectataions lowered, their schools will be ill-equipped to meet the standard, and the message will again be 'it's not for the likes of you'.

Touts and agent-provocateurs

My first reaction was hilarity on hearing  that the case against a group of direct action eco-activists  had collapsed because undercover copper Mark Kennedy (pic here for future reference) who infiltrated them for ten years appears to have 'gone native' and offered to testify for the defence.

It's not the first time  that an undercover officer should find  that he's met  a nicer class of person amongst his 'targets' than in the police canteen.  I remember reading the  autobiography  of William McQueen - the ATF agent who went undercover in the notorious Mongols MC California. He recounts how he was overwhelmed at the genuine compassion shown by his MC brothers when his mum died in contrast to his law-enforcement colleagues who barely acknowledged his loss.  And you also can't help but laugh at  the old bill's consistent ability to get it wrong in who and what they target. Undoubtedly there are some terrorist  threats in this country  - but they don't come from vegans armed with nothing more deadly than wire cutters. Ten years infiltration at vast public expense probably prevented no more than a glorified act of vandalism.

But humour rapidly gives way to outrage that unaccountable state forces not only take it upon themselves to target entirely peaceful activists,  but actually use agent provocateurs to incite them to take extreme action. This is a conscious strategy to de-legitimise activism, alienate the 'public' from the activists and provide an excuse for ever-more repressive state powers.

Sounds paranoid ? Consider this - two of the most important 'terrorist' incidents in English history conformed to this strategy:

The original Gunpowder plotters may have been genuine religious fanatics who needed no encouragement but Wallsingham's secret service undoubtedly infiltrated their network and let the conspiracy run its course. With the result that it could be exposed at the eleventh hour and the regime strengthened with an anti-Catholic backlash. And centuries later the Cato Street Conspiracy - the last significant attempt at a coup d'etat in this country - was the result of a government agent providing a group of radical democrats with a plan to blow up the cabinet. This of course was the period of the notorious Six Acts - blanket repressive legislation that was a forerunner of the Anti-Terrorist Act of our own time.

Interestingly it was also  in this period - the first quarter of the nineteenth century - that English radical movements became so infiltrated with government agents that the system collapsed. Juries were reluctant to convict on dubious evidence against activists they were sympathetic with.  This, and outrage at the mis-handling of public order, were the  reasons why unaccountable agents backed by military force were replaced with a civilian police that was supposed to rely on public consent and co-operation.

Seems we're coming full-circle.

Meet the new New Left - same as the old New Left

A couple of times I have started writing to wade in at length  on the whole Laurie Penny / Alex Calinicos online spat.

I was going to write something against Laurie Penny's political dilettantism (New Labour apparachik- to LibDem voter -to angry  anracho-'new' Left). Another time  I was actually going to write something supporting her criticism of the traditional Left's fetishisation of producing and selling newspapers. 

On each occasion however I aborted the mission  because wonderful and democratising though this whole online thing is, it actually provides the masturbatory oxygen that makes possible the whole Laurie Penny phenomenon. A phenomenon that the whole Orwell Prize thing seems to celebrate - and it troubles me. 

It's a phenomenon that  represents a  new take on the very oldest  form of 'vanguardism' - that of the intellectual in the movement. Relatively privileged people who think that have just invented being poor, or being young and angry - and along the way  manage to pick up quite a nice career niche as the tame media-friendly wadicals of a new generation.  In other words I look at her and see Tariq Ali. 

Actually I do Tariq Ali an injustice; he might just be a media-twat these days but there was a time when he actually was an influence in the real world (albeit the student world) , and so for better or worse he  came to represent something.  A genuine moment in the history of the movement - and a bit more substantial than trading on the  experience of being kettled for a few hours.

And meanwhile as -  Though Cowards Flinch  so well describes -  life and struggle  goes on.

My 2011

After the Christmas hiatus - I've actually been in work over the holiday with very little to do and apparently nothing much to say here either - it's time to think about the coming year. 

To coin a cliche -  I expect the best of times and the worst of times:

Politically Cameron has already told us to expect the worst and grit our teeth  in his sanctimonious  state of   the nation podcast. But for those of us who had to endure Blairism and  the market-triumphalism of the 90's and 00's, we are seeing the best of times in the renaissance of activism. Although as one of those who reluctantly has to accept he is now part of the 'old Left', I have to temper my enthusiasm with a wariness that we are up to the task. At the moment Lefty-land is still  full of the usual internecine controversies - most topically the vying of three organisations to be the legitimate voice of the anti-cuts movement - and there is a danger that we will simply be by-passed by the Facebook New Left.

Personally - having AGAIN been fucked over by a big business client at work -  I am tasked in January with sorting out the consequences of redundancies and paring down. I'm not after sympathy here, I'm managing it not suffering it and I won't permit myself the hypocrisy of 'this will hurt me more than them' - but it is unquestionably the worst of times. The best of times is watching my kids coming of age - in every respect - but most of all in questioning and challenging the world into which they are now taking their place.

Watch this space...

Which side are you on ?

Everyone else in the lefty-blog world has an opinion. And although I have no inside information, and probably no original insight, - here's my view on Tommy-gate:  

It's not quite the same as my party - I don't see the need to juxtaposition the caricature of Tommy-the blameless and persecuted  hero to that of Tommy-the evil megalomaniac who destroyed the Scottish Left.  But it's certainly not that either of the Anti-Tommy alliance  from Anarchists to Tories who are rubbing their hands in delight at his downfall.

I don't know - or care that much - if Tommy was technically guilty of the charges against him. But although - as the official party line says he is  'innocent of crimes against the working class' - he is as far as I can see guilty of hubris, weakness and lack of judgement. It seems contradictory that a man strong enough to go to prison for his beliefs should also succumb to the social  pressures of convention in denying his sexual tastes. Tastes that if revealed would undermine a carefully constructed public image of a family man and regular guy. But then again (like myself) he was raised as a Catholic before he became a Marxist.

But contradictions are at the heart of the whole sad Tommy-gate tale - most fundamentally the contradiction that he could be the most charismatic left leader of a generation, the man who perhaps  made the single biggest contribution to a renaissance of a movement, and at the same time the man whose actions did the most to pull it apart.

And the biggest and most shocking contradiction of them all is that people who once called themselves Marxists - who understood that the State is an instrument of the ruling class - should think that a court case could deliver some sort of objective 'justice'  or 'truth' abstracted from its political context - and even worse were willing to collaborate in what can only be described as a conspiracy with those who were openly the enemies of the working class movement.

So, however much I may wish that back in 2004 when confronted with the evidence Tommy had taken a 'published and be damned - I'm kinky deal with it' line  - it is not possible to now  take a neutral stance and hand-wringingly reflect on the sadness of the whole affair. And for that reason alone I'm siding not so much with Tommy -  as against the state, the Murdoch press, embittered former comrades, and the Tories.

Dixie

I watched the Ken Burn's epic documentary series. Twice. I read Shellby Foote's monumental three volume history. And numerous others. I chose to do a paper in it when I was at uni.

It's out of my system now, but I was a bit obsessed with the American Civil War. 

Not as obsessed however as many Americans  - as evident from the 150th anniversary this week of the secession of South Carolina from the Union. This obsession is probably a good thing - it is the skeleton in the closet of the American Dream. It's relatively recent and it still poses unresolved issues - an itch that needs to be scratched - whilst us Brits in typical fashion chose to politely sweep our own - equally defining - civil war under the carpet.

But their obsession seems to be for so many of the wrong reasons: Naivety - the romance of Rhett Butler and crinolined Southern belles and a romantic lost cause. Unabashed racism - and the lie that slavery in  the antebellum South was some sort of benevolent paternalism. Or sheer ignorance of how history works -  individuals and groups may say they are doing something for a stated reason (states-rights or  crusading abolitionism ) - they may  genuinely believe they are acting for these reasons - but it still doesn't make it objectively true.

My favourite Southerner -  Steve Earle -  cuts through this nonsense in a couple of minutes in a song intro that puts many academic analyses to shame. As Steve says 'it never sees to amaze me - the pinko-shit you can sneak in to a bluegrass song':

Aspirational journeys

For a long while one of the main indices of social mobility was how many young people went to university from families where previous generations hadn't done so.  For many post-war working class grammar school kids it was probably the index of mobility.  

I've written before about my own experience of this and how social mobility isn't the same thing as social justice - by a long chalk. But it says something of a society that education - and at the very least a veneer of meritocracy -  is held up as  vehicle for mobility.  So the irony hasn't escaped me that in the same weeks as that  social ladder is being kicked away from a generation of school-leavers , we have the phenomenon of 'The Apprentice'.  It's a telling reflection of our times that brown-nosing, back-stabbing and bullshitting are now the preferred routes to 'betterment'.

This year and as in previous years, the winner was someone -  like Lord SirAlunSugar himself - who was self-made and had experienced a heart-warming 'journey' to get into the corporate world. I've got nothing against winner Stella English. I've been to Thamesmead a couple of times on anti-fascist activities - and can confirm that the estate she is from is every bit as desolate and downright scary as it is portrayed: Fair play to anyone who has managed to get out of it. 

But surely after all that  there are more worthwhile things to aspire to than a middle-management position at Sugar's IT-to-the-public-sector business Viglen Limited ? 

The Decembrist Revolt

Today I've again got a guest piece at 'On This Deity' to mark the Decembrist Revolt; In a senario that sounds horribly topical, the mutinous troops were 'kettled' in St Petersburg's Senate Square before the Czarist authorities let loose with (actual not water) cannons - and killed over a thousand people in less than an hour. The Daily Mail would have been proud.

Wrong priorities

An extraordinary - and rather obscene - juxtapostition in the media fall-out after the 9th December's fees protest:

Whilst it has been reported - although without any particular sense of burning outrage - that Alfie Meadows was truncheoned by the riot police and required brain surgery, focus is still on that incident when the royals found themselves in the middle of the protest and their car got a bit man-handled.

Never mind the outrageous revelation that police at Charing Cross Hospital tried to prevent Alfie from being treated and that he may well have died had it not been for the insistence of an ambulance paramedic. The Home Secretary has confirmed that in the royal incident  'contact' was made by a protester with the Duchess of Cornwall, and she may even - it is said in hushed tones - of been poked with a stick.

Resisting the temptation to crack funny about Camilla and barge-poles, I'm struck by this popular obsession with the sanctity of the royal personage. Touching a royal,  or in certain circumstances looking at one inappropriately, was once sufficient to warrant a death sentence (conversely a royal laying on of hands was thought to have healing powers). Not so long ago Aussie premier Paul Keating caused outrage when he put his arm around the queen. Maybe the divine right of kings is alive and well after all. 

There's  certainly an  obsession with the symbols of authority - notice the emphasis in recording how posh-boy protester Charlie Gilmour didn't just make a prat of himself - he actually swung on the union flag. 

Climbing on the cenotaph and re-decorating Churchill's statue are always going to be PR-home goals, but the real and  lasting damage and offence to society caused is nothing in comparison to what is being done by these cuts. And it's hard to believe that those who died in the war against Fascism ever envisaged that paramilitary police would be kicking shit out of their great grand-children right outside the 'mother of parliaments'.

Slackers at the taxpayers' expense

Here's another  typical layabout who  got pretty mediocre results as a student but still feels the world owes him a living.

With only 5 'O' Levels and a B and a C at 'A Level' - he still somehow managed to blag his way into Trinity College Cambridge. When he was there he didn't study anything socially-useful or practical  but chose a soft subject - Archaeology and Anthropology - with one  of the worst rates of graduate employment. Fortunately  he didn't fancy going  into teaching because his 2.2 degree wouldn't be considered a sufficient qualification in some circles nowadays. 

Still he has undeniable  'street-smarts'  - he's one of the only people who last year managed to increase his income to just under £20million whilst at the same time also reducing his tax bill by 10%.  

The not so strange death of the LibDems ?

Although of course they are 'all in it together', the LibDem end of the coalition has become the particular target for anger at the attacks on education for all. And rightly so - odious though the unashamed defenders of privilege in the Tory party may be -  there is something particularly fucking offensive about the smug sanctimony of the Liberals who wring their hands (rather than gleefully smiling) whilst  putting the boot in on the hopes and ambitions of a generation.

The personification of all that is offensive in the LidDems can be found in the MP for the constituency neighbouring my own -  Lynne Featherstone of Hornsey & Wood Green. 

Of all things, she was the previous LibDem spokesperson for Youth & Equality (!!!) and is now the ConDem Minister for Equality. A quick look at her blog will show how she sees no irony in now being part of a government who with  a single set of measures, will turn back the clock on social mobility and equality of opportunity to before 1976 when student grants were first introduced.

But hey it's not all doom and gloom: George Dangerfield's 'The Strange Death Of Liberal England' described how it took only four years (1910-14) for the previous incarnation of the Liberals to go from the party of government to terminal decline. This time round it might just take a single parliamentary vote to lose its base in the angst-ridden middle classes and misguided Labour protest voters ...

Secrets and lies

The whole WikiLeaks saga is unravelling like the plot of a lost Stig Larson novel. 

I'm not sure whether the diplomatic revelations expose sinister international conspiracies at the highest levels of the world's ruling class, or the petty bitchiness of overgrown-school boys with too much time on their hands. 

From what I have seen  I'm clear that there is an air if unreality about the whole business and very little to do with my life.  I'm reminded of  the Le Carre novels   - and their labyrinthine intrigues  of plots  and counter  plots - and the feeling that the world of diplomacy and epsisionage serves no more purpose other than just to keep going. A self-perpetuating game played in the final analysis for its own sake. 

Does the  diplomacy need to be secret? Within the narrow confines of the 'game' - then probably yes. But as soon as we start questioning whether the game is necessary at all or  if we are content to have a ruling class making decisions behind our backs then the answer has to be -  no. 

At the moment only the usual suspects on the Left and some eccentric right-wing libertarians have ralied to Julian  Assange's defence - Although he does seem to have pissed off all the right people;  from Sarah Plalin proclaiming some sort of fatwah, to the  US federal government banning employees from accessing Wikileaks... to the Colombian goverement telling students that they jeopradise their future job prospects if  they access the website.

Tellingly  though, these  diplomatic  revelations are supposedly just the tip of the iceburg and Assange is holding back dishing the dirt on international  big business until the shit really hits the fan. It speaks volumes that pissing of powerful national governements is one thing but taking on global capital is something else.

'Working from home' ?

The past couple of days I have chickened out  of riding my bike in the snow and have resigned myself to taking the tube to work. Today, looking at the surprisingly empty carriages, and now that I am in work at the half empty studio - I seem to be one of the few who hasn't succumbed to the bullshit of 'working from home'.

The concept of 'working from home' is a telling indicator of our times.

Firstly it shows quite  how far we have become ruled by the corporate culture of work and 'presentee-ism'. The snow is a freak occurrence for fuck's sake - many people can't get into work without ridiculous efforts - others are effectively cut off. But it is still not acceptable to say I'm staying in bed / watching daytime TV or DVDs of old black  and white movies / having a snowball fight / going sledging with the kids / drinking whisky hugging a radiator.  Instead there is the pretense of 'working from home'.

Which leads to the second point - the vast majority of  people with a 'proper job' simply can't work from home. If you actually make something or  provide some practical service you need a workplace to do it in - and usually other people to do it with. In the old days when most jobs were like this working from home would have been  unthinkable.

However if your job consists of gazing blankly into Excel spread sheets, preparing Powerpoint slides for meetings or writing a report of a meeting  you've been to - then working from home will suit you fine. And fucking good riddance too.