John Dillinger took the banks money, bankers take your money

Update: having problems regarding trailers and that embedding disabled message. Anyway, see the imdb for the trailers here.

John Dillinger would apparently tell customers while robbing the bank that he wasn’t interested in their money but the banks.

No wonder he became a folk hero to many people across the USA during the 1930s Depression who saw the banks to blame for the 1929 crash. Dillinger became Public Enemy No. 1 who died in a hail of bullets (rather similar to Bonnie and Clyde) in July 1934 but his legend lives on, emblazoned at a cinema near you come July 2009.

Seventy five years ago both Dillinger and Bonnie and Clyde were shot down after dodging crime enforcers zig-zagging around the States, robbing banks, gaining an idolised status, immortalised in both life and death.

2009 … economy based on debt, boom times for some, bankers gorging themselves on gigantic bonuses, NL idolising the Cityand then the economy went POP… Recession to hit us all. While MPs grabbed what they could from the tills.

Someone once made the observation that you could rob more money from a bank with a briefcase than with a gun. If there are any latter day people dreaming about becoming the next Bonnie and Clyde or John Dillinger then leave your lethal weapons aside and instead:

1. Buy up some third-world debt and charge the same government for it .

2. Sue the government for non-payment

Hence…you are now a grubby vulture capitalist with loadsa money.

Or if that doesn’t suit your palate (though you may be a bit late for this):

1. Become an MP

2. Flip your house

3. Apply for as much cash as possible, from paperclips to moats.

Somehow robbing banks don’t seem so squalid.

One thing, however, is for sure. They don’t make bad guys like Bonnie and Clyde any more. These days if anything, banks and bankers are not victims, but perpetrators, of crimes.

Anyway, the clip is a trailer from Public Enemies ready to hit cinemas in July. Johnny Depp as folk outlaw Dillinger and Marion Cotillard as Dillinger’s girlfriend, Billie Frechette. And Christian Bale as the agent, part of the fledgling FBI, ordered to bring Dillinger down.

And Michael Mann directing (the director who gave us Heat…but frankly L.A.  Takedown was superior…and one of the things I like about Mann is that he uses the physical surroundings to great cinematic effect… his depiction of urban sprawl in Heat, L.A. Takedown and Collateral is impressive).

I will be definitely buying my ticket to see it….

Iraq inquiry: secrets and lies

Tony Blair urged Gordon Brown to hold the independent inquiry into the Iraq war in secret because he feared that he would be subjected to a “show trial” if it were opened to the public, the Observer can reveal.

Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he? These are the words of a former PM who knows he’s up to his neck in it, knows if this inquiry is made public then we will know the level of his complicity in the Iraq war. But Bliar would prefer his dirty squalid secrets to stay secret rather than to explain himself and allow himself open to public scrutiny at an open and accountable inquiry.

Oh, and his chum Alastair Campbell backs the secrecy of this inquiry. Well, he would too, wouldn’t he..? Another one implicated up to his neck in war crimes….

And as Alan Simpson (Chair of Labour Against the War) says:

Neither the public nor parliament will understand how the prime minister’s ‘new era of openness’ can begin with an Iraq inquiry held behind closed doors.

Recession, depression

Now, will anyone out in cyberspace be shocked by this? That there is a positive correlation between recession and increase in meds.

Last year in England there were 2.1m more prescriptions of antidepressants than in 2007, leading to concerns that doctors are increasingly supplying the drugs as a “quick fix” without attempting to address the underlying cause of the problems. In total, 36m prescriptions were given out, an increase of 24% over the past five years.

Recession, unemployment, debt, poverty, repossessions, bailiffs, breakdown in relationships…things spiralling downwards (and I am sure suicide figures will increase). And people will automatically go for the so-called ‘quick fix’ mainly due to the limited choices on offer.

For example, trying to access NHS psychotherapy or counselling is difficult as there’s usually a very long waiting list, though there are an abundance of shrinks out there who charge you to listen. Or alternatives to the medical model of psychiatry are non-existent. Just the usual meds and maybe some CBT if you are lucky…..

The government has already committed £173m to plug gaps in mental health provision.

Compared to the banks getting £50 billion for their bailout.

But no wonder we have an epidemic of depression as the kind of society we live in isolates and alienates. The sticking plaster approach will only be able to look at the surface rather than examining the underlining reasons. We live in a debt-ridden insecure world where the ideology defines human beings in terms of material consumption. A dog-eat-dog society that devalues and demeans human beings.

Capitalism makes you sick!

Which Side Are You On..?

Which Side Are You On

Chorus:
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?

Come all you good people you women and you men
Once more our backs are to the wall we’re being attacked again

We fought a million battles to defend our hard-won rights
And we’re going to have to fight again and I ask you here tonight

Thatcher sent MacGregor to smash the NUM
And break the workers’ unity, and I ask you once again

The Tories rant and tear their hair and shout, Democracy
But the kind the Tories have in mind is not for you or me

And their screaming about ballots is pure hypocrisy
If they care so much for ballots what about the GLC

By bully boys in uniforms and thugs with riot shields
Our comrades’ blood is being shed and still they will not yield

It’s time for a decision and you really have to choose
Support the miners’ struggle, or the next in line is you

Raw, passionate, powerful and political ….these describe aptly the 1984 documentary made by Ken Loach about the Miners’ Strike I am watching tonight. It was originally banned because Loach was accused of being ‘impartial’ in this depiction of the striking miners. It was eventually screened. Loach makes no apologies in which side he’s on.

On the issue of  impartiality, it is funny how the media pretends to be balanced when really it spouts the propaganda of the bourgeoisie.

And talking of media impartiality…..

The Battle of Orgreave

Btw: In the doc Which Side Are You On, there are very graphic accounts of police brutality and violence against striking miners’ (also you can witness the footage). One striking miner recalls seeing police officers beating people without wearing their numbers…

Déjà vu…

History, tragedy, farce…