1999: that was the year that was

1999…twas an excellent vintage year for film.

And what a memorable list of films; Fight Club (twisty turny ending, who’d have thunk it?), The Matrix, Orphans, Ratcatcher, Magnolia (best film I had seen Tom Cruise in, though later on, Collateral), The Blair Witch Project, The Sixth Sense, Three Kings, Rushmore, American Psycho (I was disappointed with Mary Harron, I expected so much especially after the brilliant I Shot Andy Warhol)….and Alexander Payne’s Election.

Ah yes, the films that introduced us to Max Fischer, Tracy Flick, Tyler Durden, students getting lost in the woods, a boy who sees dead people, a future world with a simulated reality controlled by machines but never fear the rebellion is being organised….and so on…

I remember watching The Matrix and knowing this was breaking new ground. So fasten your seat belt cos Kansas is going bye-bye for this  rollar coaster sci-fi action-adventure ride, slick, fun, engaging storytelling, innovative, smart, original and creative (Wachowski Brothers inspired use of bullet time)…and cool soundtrack! Shame about the sequels………

I watched The Blair Witch Project and The Sixth Sense within 10 days (I think) of each film. Both kinda gripped me, though Sight and Sound magazine in their synopsis of Sixth Sense included the spoiler regarding the ending…and what a twist? The Blair Witch was atmospheric and creepy along with docu-style DIY camera work (and can understand why the constant juddering camera movements made people feel a tad sick). With the (in)famous, creepy ending though one wag of a film critic argued that they all disappeared last seen laughing all the way to the bank before stopping off to visit king of B-movie horror, Roger Corman! Indeed…..

And the other films….Election..the wonderful satire on student politics which introduced the world to ….the iconic Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon), scarily ambitious while her teacher Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick) plotting her downfall…..Splendid…and have to say one of my favourite films of the ’90s…and talking of iconic characters, Max Fischer, cool geek, from Wes Anderson’s Rushmore, another favourite and a great soundtrack.

Another film that was a hidden gem, totally understated and overlooked, was Peter Mullan’s Orphans. Outstanding debut, poignant,  social realist portrayal of family life with added surrealism. I remember having to scout around London trying to find a cinema that was showing this film….

Anyway, that’s just a brief look at 1999, and it deserves another post reminding us about the global political situation as we were hurtling towards the millennium (ah yes, that waste-of-money creation, Millennium Dome…).

Was it it predictable just how far that Frankenstein monster NL was going to push neo-liberalism, free markets and of course later on the War on Terror..?

Anyhows I can’t wait for 10 years next year… as two of my favourites from 2000 were stylish modern noir thrillers. Christopher Nolan’s Memento (and there is a nice link between this and The Matrix as both starred Carrie-Anne Moss) and Dominik Moll’s Harry un ami qui vous veut du bien.

Oh yeah, I forget Fight Club, a mix of male aggression, fighting, social commentary and testosterone with the immortal lines, The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club…

Charities must not run prisons!

So recent developments have seen an unholy alliance between two charities, Catch 22 (see the interview with the chief executive of youth offending charity, Joyce Moseley, in the latest edition of Third Sector)and Turning Point along with Serco winning a MoJ bid to build and run two prisons in the UK. The two prisons will be based at Belmarsh and Maghull, and the contract will have a combined value of £600 million over 26 1/2 years.

And the ideology of the private sector is about profit, and what’s in the best interests of your share holder.

It is rather mirrors the so-called ‘third sector’ becoming involved as providers for welfare benefits system, along with the private sector (who are the majority).

Kevin Curley, chief executive of NAVCA, has asked the Charities Commission to investigate, as correctly, he is “utterly horrified” at this prospect.

“It’s fine for charities to provide education, training, advice, mentoring and support services within prisons,” Curley said, “but not, in my view, to run them.”

“Whatever is said about using imprisonment to rehabilitate offenders the primary purpose is to incarcerate as a punishment. Event if that is a legal charitable purpose – and it seems most unlikely to me – it cannot be right for charities to do it.”

And surely this is a conflict as interests as these charities provide advocacy services? Again, this has stark parallels with third sector organisations running the benefit systems as some provide advocacy to claimants…so in reality how can they do it without there being a conflict of interests??

Questions, as well, have been raised about the consortium and whether it is an equal bid or whether it will be Serco running the show…

I agree with Curley when he states that democracy is being undermined with charities becoming involved in service provision at a statutory level. They cannot be independent any longer. And who will provide that independent advocacy services as Catch22 and Turning Point surely won’t be able to now.

The underlying point is the way that charities legitimate authoritrian neo-liberalism that these private companies have. Once you are drawn into their net you are obliged to go along with their agenda and it will be their agenda and not yours.

Important though it is that the individual who advises them is as independent as possible from those in authority over them, and this is an extremely important thing, it is more important still that society sees another point of view about how human beings are to be viewed. This is especially so if the people concerned are at the bottom of the social pile, people who are reviled in every way.

The neo-liberals understand that they have got to take away the chances for political opposition and ideas opposed to theirs to take root and grow. This is the reason for Serco’s “partnership” working with charities.

Curley has a set up a Facebook page condemning this move. Chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, Frances Crook, and Richard Garside, director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, have both given their support to the campaign.

Unfortunately Curley’s request to see a copy of bid using the Freedom of Information Act was declined on the basis of the bids being considered as commercial and therefore not disclosed under the FoI Act.

This further erodes transparency and accountability with private companies and charities being shielded by corporate confidentiality, and the likelihood of gagging dissent  by using the bourgeois defamation laws combined with wielding power and control over people.

Again, this is not democracy looks like… though it corresponds to NL’s twisted and distorted understanding of it I suppose.

And it seems like Serco have their grubby paws in countless commercial pies. From  racist immgration removal centres to a private hell-hole of a jail for children known as Hassockfield.

Now they have won contracts to build and run two prisons in the UK. It makes me shudder to thinking about it.

And to reiterate Dexter Whitfield on the erosion of democratic accountability when it comes to privatisation and contracting-out.

The exemptions under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 are likely to maintain high levels of secrecy. Corporate financial reporting requirements are virtually irrelevant to gaining information concerning investment strategies, supply chains, subcontractor relationships, employment practices and contract performance. (New Labour’s Attack on Public Services, Dexter Whitfield).

And that’s what the future holds….

Join the FaceBook group Charities Must Not Run Prisons.

On yer bike, Burnham!

The latest blue sky thinking  from NL is get off incapacity benefits, get on yer bike and look for work… as boy, you will be healthy…so no need to clog up the NHS and be a burden to the tax payer. I think that sums up Andy Burnham’s impersonation of Norman Tebbit.

What I really really loathe about all these attacks by NL is the finger-wagging morality, lecturing people about their lifestyles. But how precisely is Burnham going to help people get fitter and healthier? He spends his time highlighting the cost to the tax payer regarding incapacity benefits and the cost to the NHS about Type 2 diabetes. Where are the proposals for low cost/free access to sport centres, more swimming pools as opposed to closing them down, importance of green spaces (not selling them to make a profit), information and education about food and diet because our relationship to food is utterly distorted under capitalism, just further comodification, eating habits are predicated around a kind of ‘rush rush rush’ mentality, not time to sit down, on the go as capitalism dictates. Burnham, like the rest of the object able NL clones, finds it easier to moralise people rather than look at the underlying reasons why people are on benefits and ill. Also, Burnham makes sweeping assumptions about illnesses and reverts to stereotypes, with this ‘oh they must be ill because they lead a sedentary lifestyle’…. And again, NL reverts to what it knows best, vilifying and stigmatising people with this catch-all, sicknote culture. It is like people are ‘swinging the lead’, not really ill, pulling the wool over their GPs and what is needed is a more draconian system that chucks people off the benefits system. I’m sure as well Burnham is playing to the right-wing populist media by denouncing people who are ill, hoping that it will prove to be a vote winner.

 Burnham, really, should ask himself why Britain is currently in 21st place in Europe on activity levels. This is inevitably intertwined with rising inequalities, widening gap between rich and poor and so on. This level of antagonism will only lead to further feelings of inadequacy, mental distress, lack of self-esteem and confidence. Instead of finger wagging lecturing from Burnham he should think seriously about the impact of NL’s policies driven by neoliberal ideology on working class people…..

Commercial break

Apologies for the lull in blogging but am not feeling that well. Sinus troubles combined with a cold of sorts and my head has a constant ache. So feeling gunked up and miserable.

Ah, c’est la vie!

Hopefully I will feel better soon (sniff, cough…mutter, mutter, cough)

Yesterday’s Vestas day of action – London outside DECC

Vestas worker (part of the occupation)

I was outside the DECC last night as part of the national Vestas day of action.

Andy Hewitt, Green Party actvist is right when he said that DECC should really stand for Dirty Energy Causes Climate Change (just add an extra ‘C’). There were speakers from the RMT, and Cimate Change campaign as well. The first speaker was one of the Vestas occupiers, and spoke about his experiences in occupation and that the campaign is ongoing.

There will be another day of action on the 9th September 2009

Viva Vestas workers!

Solidarity with Vestas workers.

Vestas: day of action

It is the national day of action regarding Vestas. Details of actions can be seen here.

And it seems that Vestas management are re-thinking the issue of redundancy payments to the occupiers.

“The last thing that we wanted was to have this confrontation,” he said. “We will go back and see what it is that we can do going forward and also for all the people affected because we only had one wish and that was to try to do this in the best possible way. Coming back to the 11 people, we will have to revisit, to look at that as well.”

Asked whether this meant that Vestas would consider its decision tomdismiss the 11 men who occupied the plant, and remove their redundancy package, Engel said, “I am not ruling anything out”.

There is a rally tonight outside DECC from 6:30pm onwards. Let us hope there’s no torrential rain like last week’s protest!!

DECC: Department of Energy and Climate Change

3 Whitehall Place
London
SW1A 2AW

Iraqi women’s role in the anti-colonial resistance – public meeting

Iraqi Women’s Role in the

Anti-colonial Resistance

A public meeting to hear what’s gone on – and is still

going on – from HAIFA ZANGANA

Author of CITY OF WIDOWS an Iraqi Woman’s Account of War and Resistance*

Zangana came of age in one of the most open societies in the Middle East until it was gradually deteriorated through dictatorship, wars and sanctions. She joined the struggle against the regime, and, still a young woman, was captured,

imprisoned, and tortured. She was released from Abu Ghreib after six months of detention, and has lived in exile ever since. Today, Haifa Zangana is a novelist, a weekly columnist for al-Quds newpaper, and an occasional commentator for the Guardian, Red Pepper, and al-Ahram Weekly. She lives in London. *Published by Seven Stories Press

What gave these U.S. soldiers the right to arrest this Iraqi woman? Who knows what happened to her?

This Public Meeting, arranged jointly by The Socialist History Society and Women Solidarity for an Independent and Unified Iraq, takes place on Wednesday,16 September, 7-9pm

at The Bishopsgate Institute  230 Bishopsgate, diagonally left opposite Liverpool Street Station.

“The entire Labour party shares blame for Iraq’s horrors…The members may want to pin responsibility on just one man, but they have a moral duty to question their own role.”

“Women’s basic rights are being rapidly eroded in Iraq and occupation forces seem to have forgotten their promises of empowerment.”

“Saddam jailed me but his hanging was a crime. Iraq’s misery is now far worse than under his rule.”

 

It’s all in the face….

Mirror mirror on the wall just how symmetrical is my face after all…..??

I’m thinking of developing a weekly column called, ‘Cod science’… And this week’s inclusion is a cracker. From the sublime to the ridiculous….and this received funding?

 This band of merry scientists has proposed that: the more symmetrical a man’s face is, the less likely he is to suffer mental decline in very old age.

 Based on: “Mental decline accelerates in old ages especially in the four years before death. We found a link between facial symmetry and this decline, but only in men and no link with the overall cognitive decline we see during a lifetime,” Dr Penke said. “Statistically, it’s strongly significant with facial symmetry explaining about 10 per cent of the cognitive differences for that age group. And although we haven’t found the single factor that explains cognitive decline in old age, it’s one of the better predictors of it,” he said.

But the scientists didn’t find the same link between facial symmetry and mental decline in women, as statistically, women live longer than men. Oh, and let’s not forget the importance of the ‘fitness’ of genes.

 Maybe scientists will discover that personality traits are linked to skull shape. Opps, forgot, they ‘discovered’ that one way back in the 19^th century. Phrenology… that’s the name. I mean, why does this 21^st century study make me think I’ve time warped to the 19^th century? And does it make me feel uncomfortable?

Wanted: home for kindly pussycat

Wanted

Home from June 2010 for kindly pussycat

Has had a few owners but seems to land on his paws when trouble happens. Indeed he has surpassed his nine lives.

Utterly disloyal, like all things rich and has expensive tastes. Has a penchant for guacamole. He’ll eat you out of house and home

He sometimes goes by the name Bobby

Toryism: red….in tooth and claw

Reading this post on the F Word blog along with the comment by Jennifer Drew reminded me of the awful, awful, awful……ad nauseam.. Phillip Blond. For example, just read his moralistic anti-abortion clap-trap.

And now we have further reactionary bilge that seeks to corral people into marriage. Hey, you’ll get financially rewarded with tax breaks. The ideology of this ‘broken society’  (and Iain Duncan Smith voted against the removal of the ‘need for a father’ in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill) is the role of the heterosexual nuclear family, with the emphasis placed on the patriarchal father figure at the helm. It is about re-discovering the traditional family, along with rigid and fixed gender roles and the sexual division of labour. So…lets do the time warp and go back to those repressed and straitjacketed times of the 1950s….

I was brought up in a working class hetero nuclear family with mum and dad who were married. They hated each other with a vengence, trapped and isolated though this impacted far far worse on my mum, she couldn’t escape mainly due to financial constraints but also, contradictorily, she felt compelled to stay probably due to the underlying conditioning she had received of what it is to be a mother and wife, and not to be transgressive by leaving, asserting her freedom, breathing freely again without the straitjacketed constraints of being wife and mother. And she was a product of the 1950s stereotypical working class Stepford housewife strung out, later on, on Valium….mother’s little pick-me-up…

My parents stayed to together, announcing it was ‘for the kids’ and I assume that IDS et al would thoroughly approve that some sticking plaster was applied to my family upbringing, and that amounts to a crude temporary cover which is still abusive and destructive but IDS would argue upholding traditional family values. Did my family upbringing instil positive values inside me? No, it wrecked my self-confidence, self-esteem, I felt fragmented as an individual, my mental health was shattered. The one thing I became consciously aware of is the desire of being able to choose freely, without constraints and pressure as well as challenging the dominant ideology and to fight for a more progressive, equal and collective society.

NL invented the mythical culture of dependency which has allowed the Tories to take that ideology one step further. For instance women escaping violent marriages will be forced back into it by family law: if they do manage to get away they will be facing a benefits system that will be even more meagre than the one we have now. Oh, the whiff, the undeniable stench of the Dickensian workhouse is ever closer.

 Forget about being able to get an abortion without permission from the god squad and/or your husband (you will possess one…or rather he will possess you). And forget about improving rape reporting and convictions …. as what the Tories are spouting is one big fat moral crusade! Woman stay at home!

 Oh and  back to spousal immunity anyone?

And if you are experiencing abuse and violence within the family…don’t say a word, or scream quietly as remember these oppressors are entitled to your unconditional respect. Honour and obey the father figure and the  husband….while the woman is well and truly under the patriarchal cosh

Welcome to new dark ages.