Tories still the nasty racist party

If you are losing ground, the electoral gap is closing and you need a quick right-wing populist fix….then resort to the dog whistle politics by playing the race card. Immigration to be precise. Throw in alarmist racist language like, ‘opened the floodgates’, ‘bogus’, ‘population explosion’ and so on. And this inevitably fans the flames of racism. Andy at Socialist Unity says what the Tories are doing has the ‘uncomfortable echo of that ugly racism’ from the ’64 Tory campaign electoral campaign in Smethwick.

I was brought up in Smethwick and that vile racist piece of history reverberated for many years as one of the orchestrators of that racist campaign was a Tory councillor right up into the late 1980s.

What the Tories are doing is plumbing the depths of desperation and right-wing populism which exposes just how nasty they still are.

Review – Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo + discussion

habeas corpus definition: a legal order which states that a person in prison must appear before and be judged by a court of law before he or she can be forced by law to stay in prison.

A literal interpretation of habeas corpus: ‘I must have the body’.

While we are being told that Tony Blair was haunted by bloodshed and warfare… Yesterday I attended a screening of the documentary, ‘Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo’ by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington that highlighted the realities of the ‘War on Terror’….

Two important cornerstones in British democracy were magna carta (1215) and habeas corpus (1679). Clive Stafford-Smith in the documentary made the point about the American state, in particular, disregarding habeas corpus is that we are returning to a medieval time. Quite. The story of Guantánamo is told through the significant politics events that created the  vengeful conditions called ‘War on Terror’ from the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre to the trawling expedition mounted by the West in Afghanistan and Pakistan in capturing anyone who had a multi-million bounty on their head (again, proof wasn’t an important necessity for the Bush administration) or simply where in the wrong place at the wrong time, all based on …. nothing …just that there’s a helluva amount of money up for grabs). And this led to hundreds of men and boys being rounded up, in the absence of habeas corpus, being subjected to ‘extraordinary rendition’ and becoming ‘illegal enemy combatants’… Based on what?

The Bush administration used the raw and traumatic atmosphere after 9/11 for cynical and vengeful purposes by the re-interpretation of the law from torture to rights. Interpretations of legal definitions that should not have happened as these re-definitions happened without public and legal debate. And the realities of torture were being changed to suit the Bush administration’s pursuit for revenge. Secret prisons, secret flights, ‘extraordinary’ rendition, torture… and this was and still is happening without accountability, responsibility and public debate. In other words, men and boys were kidnapped and taken to prisons like Guantánamo that were established to operate outside the law.

Listening to Moazzam Begg and Omar Deghayes talk about the torture they experienced was shocking and upsetting as it exposed the sheer depths of inhumanity governments were prepared to stoop to get their vengeance. No legal representation, no charges, no hearings… no habeas corpus. I think the scene in the documentary that showed some of the prisoners’ children holding up placards saying, ‘I haven’t seen my father for 7 years’ is harrowing to watch because these men represent the desaparecidos. Their loved ones didn’t know where they were. Alarmingly, neither did the prisoners’ know where they were being sent. Physical, sexual and psychological torture was what they were facing… breaking the mind and the spirit so that they would ‘obey their American masters’..

While watching the documentary I saw the parallels between the ‘war on terror’ and Britain’s other bloody war, north of Ireland. Britain was complicit in torture and the secret services knew what what was going on and were there, Binyam Mohamed, for example, was interrogated by M15 and the British state is desperate to keep this secret. Shaker Aamer has been cleared for release from Guantánamo but he’s  still languishing in that torture chamber of a hell hole… Why???!!!! He has never been charged with any criminal offence nor had his day in court… but has been subjected to torture.

The British state isn’t a novice in complicity to torture and human rights abuses. Britain’s bloody, brutal and violent colonial past. And the more recent illegal bloody war and occupation of the north of Ireland where the British state (both Labour and Tory governments…. it was a Labour government who brought in the Prevention of Terrorism Act…). At the height the illegal occupation of north of Ireland there were attacks on civil liberties, Diplock courts (a member from the audience made the connection between Ireland and the current ‘war on terror’ especially, for example, Lord Hutton headed the inquiry into the death of David Kelly. Hutton was a judge involved in non-jury secret Diplock courts during the 1970s!), assassinations (the shooting down of 3 unarmed IRA suspects in Gibraltar in ’89), miscarriages of justice, hunger strikes, ‘H’ Block, ‘shoot to kill’ policies……the injustice and oppression of the nationalist community in the north of Ireland by the British state.

Historical parallels can be observed. An appalling act of violence committed. Then a ‘vengeance is mine’ reaction where civil liberties are curtailed in the name of ‘national security’. There’s a trawl and round-up which inevitably leads to miscarriages of justice (Guildford 4, Birmingham 6, Judith Ward and so on) based on frame-ups, assertions and ‘at the wrong place at the wrong time’. No evidence is provided but the vengeful atmosphere dictates ‘justice’. Justice based on vengeance not evidence nor rights. The word of the law that protects is run roughshod over for cynical and unjust purposes.

Andy Worthington mentioned that the Control Orders legislation is up for renewal. This legislation, to quote Liberty, is punishment without trial and will be up for renewal in the next few days in Parliament (see Liberty for what you can do to campaign against this unjust law). Gareth Pierce made an important contribution yesterday when she said that British state argues for deference to secrecy in the name of national security. She also made the point that there is apathy in this country (I agree) and that there’s not been any public debate or inquiry into the role of the intelligence services, their powers and secrecy. Again, all hushed up in the name of ‘national secrecy’… And when things are kept secret, hideous, brutal and violent attacks on individuals and rights become invisible and unheard.

Frankly, we need to loudly voice our opposition and demand an open, democratic accountability and responsibility. Otherwise this opression will continue and continue and continue.

So get the message out, order the DVD of this documentary, watch it, organise screenings (TUs and anti-war groups etc.), tell as many people you know about the Shaker Aamer languishing unjustly in Gitmo.

Article in Morning Star regarding Control Orders.

Cry me a river!

So ‘depressed’ Blair told Gordon Brown that he was going to quit after Iraq War. Well, why didn’t he quit before the invasion especially as it was patently and bleeding obvious that NO weapons of mass destruction existed.

It lays bare, for the first time, how Blair was haunted and tormented by the deepening chaos and bloodshed in Iraq at the same time as being worn down by the constant psychological warfare being waged by Brown, his next-door neighbour in Downing Street, who was increasingly desperate to take his job.

Isn’t it bleeding obvious that war = bloodshed and countless needless deaths. And Blair was experiencing two types of warfare. Compared to the realities of warfare and occupation in Iraq this other ‘warfare’ was nothing more than personal dislike. There are countless people in the real world who are crying out of grief, and trauma. People who are depressed because they have witnessed war crimes in their occupied country. And Blair was depressed and in turmoil at the time? I saw no evidence of a man showing genuine remorse or the genuine backbone to admit any culpability at the Chilcot Inquiry.

I mean, what is this story: an attempted rehabilitation of Tony Blair? His legacy as a warmongering criminal (and let’s not forget the proxy wars either) has been seared into the history books. No matter how much rehabilitation or revisionism there is Blair is still a war criminal with blood on his hands and no amount of trying to show the flawed human side is going to change my mind. Blair didn’t have to go to war, he choose to do so based on lies.

My understanding of the practice of Christianity is to be able to confess your sins in order to gain redemption. To gain redemption Blair has to acknowledge and admit his sins in public. In Blair’s position you can’t privately grieve for what you have done while publicly justifying your actions.

Southbank on rainy night

Day on the Southbank

Took me forever and a day to get back from the Southbank, mainly due to transport and especially the tubes or lack of them. And the rain. I attended the screening of Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo + discussion at the BFI. I highly recommend this documentary by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, it is thought-provoking, harrowing, emotional to watch, touching and politically powerful. Former prisoners such as Moazzam Begg and Omar Deghayes are interviewed along with Andy Worthington, Clive Stafford-Smith and Gareth Pierce.

I will give a fuller review tomorrow.

Breastfeeding, decency and Ann Widdecombe

A woman breastfeeding her baby on the bus was chuck off by the bus driver because of a complaint (‘indecent exposure’!). She ended up having to spend money on a cab to get home.

“The driver told me someone had said I was indecently exposing myself and said, ‘stop or get off my bus’. It was like he was suggesting I was doing horrendous things.

“But I was being quite discreet. I explained I was only feeding my baby and the driver said, ‘can you get off my bus, please’. I felt completely humiliated because it was a packed bus.”

Thankfully the bus company is investigating the matter but this incident highlights how repressed and screwed-up people are when it comes to breastfeeding. No wonder the woman felt humiliated. This also shows sexism but also contradictory notions of a woman’s body, sexually provocative one minute disgusting the next especially the basic human functions such as breastfeeding. Harriet Harman said the new Equality Bill would make it an offence to stop a woman breastfeeding a baby up to 6 months whilst Ann Widdecombe has this to say:

I think in this instance the bus driver was within his rights to ask the mother to get off.

I do think the argument that women should be allowed to breastfeed wherever they like has gone a bit too far. It’s a question of decency and other people’s feelings. Our parents’ generation got by perfectly well without needing to breastfeed in public.

Decency? Oh, Ann Widdecombe knows all about decency…. Oh the hypocrisy! Oh yes back in the mists of time when she was prisons minister she defended the policy of pregnant women prisoners being shackled while they gave birth. Degrading, humiliating, brutal, and inhuman…. that’s what Tories like Widdecombe defended…

And there’s a FB group defending breastfeeding.

Dedicated to Lynne

I was reading Laurie Penny’s article in the ES last night travelling home. The piece was honest with a personal insight into anorexia.

Hospital was terrifying: the unfamiliar ward, the endless medical tests, the locks on the doors. The girl in the room next door, Lianne, was once a promising chemist; she used to spend her days cutting out pictures of fashion models for her scrapbook with an intravenous drip hooked to her wrist.

When Laurie wrote the above about going into hospital, it jolted me and touched a nerve which brought back great sadness for me as  it reminded me of meeting a young woman many many years ago who had been labelled with anorexia in a psych hospital. We were the same age and had been abandoned by our respective families, we had a lot in common and bonded as we were the only people of our age range in the hospital. She had at some point fed through a drip as she was severely under weight. With Lynne it wasn’t about being thin, though I think the way women especially perceive their bodies is complex as I don’t think the desire of being thin totally underpins anorexia or indeed any form of eating distress (I use ‘eating distress’ because it humanises as opposed to medicalising same thing with ‘disorder’).

I think other issues are intertwined such as lack of control, power, self-loathing. Indeed the commodification of the perfect body geared towards  women in this consumerist capitalist patriarchical society. Combined with the mass-media saturated with images of the ideal body. All of these combined tensions and pressures have an impact on your whole being.

With Lynne it was about cracking under the strain of ‘O’ Levels, she was a grade A student and there were expectations and so at 15 she fell apart at the emotional seams. And part of her distress involved an ingrained self-loathing and feelings of powerlessness that was part exposed through her anorexia and self-harming. Her parents never believed in her instead they abandoned her at the traumatic time and didn’t visit while she was in hospital nor in the shrink place.

I felt close to Lynne as I had spent some of my teenage years in a state of over-eating and throwing-up, over-eating and throwing-up. It never got that bad (the need to do this always seemed to happen on a Friday or a weekend my distress seemed to reach to a crescendo culminating with me consciously stock up on lots of food…) instead I sought other forms of coping mechanisms. We were two damaged teenagers in desperate need of compassion and the milk of human kindness. Both of us were on various concoctions of chemical coshes that damaged up further.

Certainly these drugs destroyed my capacity to think properly, my brain had been replaced with cotton wool. Though one day something snapped in my head, gave me the confidence which led me to chuck my medication down the toilet (we would all queue up…shuffling to the nurse handing out the pharmas). I told Lynne what I had done and she looked scared for me. My response was for her to give up her drugs ‘cos the psych hospital was a living death for us, I wanted to think properly again, not fall asleep every time I sat down and be in command of me. I was scared that I would end up institutionalised lost in the system and lost inside an emotional void like some of the other people I encountered.

I believed there was something kinda better and alive outside. Lynne, I think, built up good relationships with other users and many of them really cared about her (probably the first she had ever experienced). I didn’t have the same connections as she but I was ready to scarper from the hospital but I didn’t want to leave her behind. She wouldn’t leave.

I walked away from the hospital never returning, never looking over my shoulder. A couple of times I would walk past intentionally usually on the other side of the road, Lynne would usually sit outside sitting on the step basking in the sun. I didn’t see her, I would hover but I couldn’t bring myself to cross the road or indeed enter that damn hell hole again. I felt guilty as it felt like I was abandoning Lynne but at the same that place brought back so many hurtful memories that had left a deep scar seared in my psyche.

I found out she had died due to gangrene in her bowel. She was in immense pain for weeks but nobody, I mean the professionals, did anything neither did they listen. It was fellow users in the hospital who kept voicing their concerns but to no avail. She was ignored and deemed invisible, though the official line from the shrink was that cos of her mental health problems the pain ‘was all in her head’. The hospital covered up their negligence and incompetence regarding her death (and shown with her inquest) nobody listened to the users who had voiced their concerns consistently. Her parents did nothing, letting her down again (one professional did say to me when I was told she had died, ‘Life’s a bitch, Louise, and then you die’… Yeah comforting words from a heartless ‘caring’ professional).

I always wanted to find her grave, nobody was really certain where it was and never found it. I think of Lynne many times wondering what this woman would have done, where she would be now, how wonderful life would be with her around, if she had been given a chance, compassion, love and understanding, things she had never received, things she craved for, when she so deserved them so much. I miss her. I just want to give her visibility and a sense of who she was.

Support the March strike in the civil service

PCS members working in the civil service have voted for a 48 hour strike starting on the 8th March. The reason there has been a vote for strike action is the changes the government made to the Civil Service Compensation Scheme (CSCS).

The changes will see staff robbed of up to a third of their entitlements and see loyal civil and public servants lose tens of thousands of pounds if they are forced out of a job. The government is looking to save £500 million through the changes, based on the number of jobs it has axed over the last three years.

With all the main political parties planning deep spending cuts, the union fears that the cuts to the scheme will lead to tens of thousands of job losses on the cheap.

Mark Serwotka (PCS General Secretary) said:

These cuts, which will see loyal civil and public servants lose tens of thousands of pounds if they are forced out of a job, are more about crude politicking than making savings.

“We have suggested ways in which the government can make these savings whilst protecting the rights of existing members, yet it seems intent on penalising the people who keep this country running.

“With civil and public service jobs increasingly at risk, this is a cynical attempt to cut jobs on the cheap which will ultimately damage the services we all rely on. The government needs to recognise the depth of anger which has been demonstrated by this ballot result and find the political will to negotiate a settlement that avoids a sustained campaign of industrial action.”

Solidarity with PCS members!

Joe Glenton faces court martial – show him your support

From Luna17 blog

I‘ve blogged about Joe Glenton’s campaign a number of times, includingHERE and HERE. The soldier, who refused to serve in Afghanistan because he believes the war is profoundly wrong, faces a court martial next week. For those of us unable to make it to the protest at the court martial hearing, it’s possible to send Joe messages of support. Send to: defendjoeglenton@gmail.com

This comes via Stop the War:

Protest at Joe Glenton’s court martial hearing
Friday 5 March 2010
As a result of Joe’s brave public campaigning against the war and the support he has received from the anti-war movement, the Ministry of Defence has dropped the most serious charge of desertion. However, Joe still faces the possibility of a prison term of up to two years and Stop the War is calling a protest at the court martial when he appears. The court martial will be held in Colchester.

Protest To Defend Joe Glenton
9.30am Friday 5 March
The Military Court Centre
Merville Barracks
Off Butt Rd
Colchester CO2 7UT

Stop the War is asking its supporters to publicise the protest as widely as possible. Anyone wishing to join us and who requires transport from outside London should contact our national office: Call 020 7801 2768 or email office@stopwar.org.uk.

Simon’s Cat

I love Simon’s Cat and was pleased to discover via Twitter that there’s a website now. And you can spend a very long time, whiling away the hours watching the funny and simple yet effective cartoons. My favourite is ‘Snow Business’.