Political Broadcasts in 'spin' shocker!

On the off chance you were watching ITV news yesterday (10.04.2012), you probably saw this Conservative Election Broadcast (rage warning; it's a Conservative election broadcast), which is the first of two I've decided to look at today because I'm a total masochist. Apparently, ALL the Labour councils are trying to get a ton of money, whereas no Tory council would ever do that. It's an election broadcast, so of course they're going to lie. And if Labour aren't crap in comparison to the Tories, then its because the Tories are truly exceptionally crap - and even then Labour suck. However I'm already narked at my own (Tory) council for probably cutting my school transport subsidy*. And they're also cutting the hours elderly and disabled people will be able to use their bus passes as well.

And, since Pickles and Cameron express such ire for council barons, I'd like to introduce you to David Parsons, the Tory leader of Leicestershire County Council who's spent £210,000 on the council car since April 2006, or, rounding it to 6 years, roughly £35,000 per year. His office in general cost more than £1 million in the past 5 years. Or £200,000 per year on average (peaking at £384,000). Admittedly, some of that is hiring people, but it's still ungood to say the least. His salary, admittedly, at 'only' £56,000 isn't obscene, but it's also thought he might have hired a personal PR guy back in 2010, you know, when they were deciding the cuts.  There's probably a reason he's facing a vote of no confidence.

That aside, the Telegraph has found that Chief Executive pay was functionally rising as of August 2011, despite the video claiming the exact inverse to be the case. In fact, the top paid chief executive is head of Essex and Brentwood councils, on £260,000 a year. They're both, to my knowledge, Conservative. In fact, Brentwood is none other than Eric Pickle's own constituency! Things are slightly better than the worst of 2007/8, but Pickles' claims are still laughable.  Especially considering that, her aside, the top five has a lot of Tory council Chief Execs. Hammersmith and Fulham Borough Council? Conservative. Buckinghamshire County Council? Conservative. Norfolk County Council? Probably Conservative.  Surrey Country Council? Guess what? Actually every single one of the top 5 council executives in terms of pay work for Tory councils, as did the chief executive of Kent county council (excepted from the Telegraph's top 5 due to special circumstances (explained in a note there)). So yeah. Unless there was a revision (which there could have been), the Tories are massive hypocrites.Which actually isn't a shock, come to think of it.

In addition to this stuff, the £186,877 Camden spent on 7 Trade Union activists? £186,877/7= roughly £26,700 per person, or roughly £500 above average salary in 2011 (Telegraph link). And just over 1/10th of the aforementioned head of Essex and Brentwood councils's pay.

Of course, egregious spin is a feature of Party Election broadcasts. Case in point, this post's other sporkee: last month's (March 2012's) "Delivering on our promises".  I'm not going into depth, but after 20 seconds of wooly stuff about what they've done, there's this real gem from Cameron: "the most important part of accountability is politicians being judged on whether they keep their promises". A few seconds later there's a shot of him signing a pledge to stop Labour's 'tax on jobs' (a boost in National Insurance). Which is of course, precisely what the Tories did. Or not (scroll down to the bottom). I could use now to pick on Nick Clegg, but it's just too easy an opportunity to do more than this.  The rest is just Cameron boasting about how he's going to force his values onto us, wrecking people's lives with the benefits cap, repeating Mail-rhetoric on immigration, and lying about the NHS. It's probably fairly standard fare.

There's this glurge as well, but that's enough for today and it's not as recent. Althought here is some definite irony in them declaring that Labour ruled during peak youth unemployment.

Of course, like I said before, if Labour doesn't look crap in comparison, it's because the Tories are ridiculously bad. The main reasons why my examples are all Tory is because it's their broadcasts I'm focussing on. And they did preside over the start of the recession, although I doubt they inherently caused it (like the broadcasts imply) and the post-war Labour government was in surplus from 1948-51 (contrary to Tory claims that every Labour government hasn't done that, it was also when the NHS was first set up, funnily enough). Plus, they're utterly ineffective as opposition. And we all know about the Lib Dems.


It's a good thing I can't vote, cause I'd have to pick revolution (which comes under 'spoiling the ballot', but whatever)**.

* Full disclosure: I'll be in 16+ if/when it comes into effect, and, whilst not having access to the school bus is merely inconvenient for me (I'm a twin, there's no way my family can afford £980 (£490 each)), I can't imagine it'd do much good for others' prospects at attending 16+.

**Well, maybe the Greens. I have little faith in the electoral process as it is though.

Wanted: Free Labour for Tesco

Edit: It would appear that the "permanent" part was some sort of error on Tesco's or the JobCentre's part. They aren't forcing us into permanent posts yet. The whole thing is still bullshit though.


Edit 2: Tesco have pulled out and started their own scheme.Tesco still suck, but at least they're paying their work experience bods. And pissing off the Torygraph to boot (it "undermine[s] the Coalitions own efforts", apparently).
 
Tesco, and anyone complicit in this, should go fuck themselves. There are several more articulate ways that I could have phrased that sentence, but none of them would have quite had the impact appropriate for a response to a call for someone to work in a permanent post 6 week stint for their Job Seekers' Allowance (back up link in case the actual advert has since been removed, (credit to @latentexistence for the screenshot)) The title of this post was only mildly hyperbolic, if that.


Did I mention that the post was permanent? (it turns out it isn't, it was just a mistake)

Of course, this is only a particularly egregious development (although probably not a unique one) in the ongoing attacks on what Tory rhetoric calls a "something for nothing culture" on the part of people. meanwhile, they're sweeping the fact that "something for nothing" probably applies more to companies under the metaphorical rug.

For instance, from May to November 2011, 24,010 people were forced into unpaid placements for a month. On pain of losing benefits for 1/4 of a year. Because, y'know, it's not like the placements at, say, "high-street chains" would have been suitable for anything other than government-subsidised unpaid labour or anything like that. (charity work is also an option (still a rather dodgy one considering it's forced), but charities aren't the ones getting the contracts).

In addition to this, there are cases such as the one of Cait Rielley, who ended up on a two week placement at Poundland stacking shelves (for 'training'). Of course, Poundland could have really needed the help, for example their Christmas sales went up by 25% last year. You can't expect them to actually pay their workers, can you? Anyway, why's she moaning when some people have placements of six months. That was sarcasm in case you haven't guessed.

It might be worth making a note of the 'logic' behind forcing people to work for well below minimum wage. The idea is that paying companies to take on free labour will get the people forced to work into the habit of working again, as "a sanction" for 'sabotaging' attempts to get them jobs (warning: Mail link, and it's one of their really dodgy ones as well). Sometime down the line, this will magically get them an actual paid job (of which there are, of course, no shortages). 

Actually, the point the 'Coalition source' made to the Mail about workfare being a "sanction" ("But is it meant as a sanction? Yes – and we are convinced it will have an effect") may well be hitting straight to the point about why the Government is doing this. The idea of people getting jobs at the ends of it is secondary to a vindictive rage at those who have the misfortune to be unable to find a job (when there are 6 people looking for every vacancy, it's not exactly fair to ay that unemployment's down to being 'workshy'). There's this twisted logic that trying hard enough will cause a job to materialise.

The really ironic thing being that, if anyone's sabotaging people's attempts to find work, it's the Government giving companies free workers. Why the hell would a company hire someone (even for under a living wage), when they can get someone to work for them for free? I'm not some sort of economics expert (my knowledge runs to Freakonomics and intuition for the most part), but I don't think you have to be one to realise that - if workfare was ever really intended to get people into work without a great deal of doublethink being applied - something, somewhere has gone horribly wrong. Unless there's some fancy counter-intuitive economics thing I don't know about (which I'll concede as being a possibility).

Of course, to answer my rhetorical question, public outcry could force companies to at least vastly reduce their 'employment' of people on workfare (it worked on Sainsbury's and Waterstones), and there's a day of action on the 3rd of March. Because, seriously, this whole thing is bullshit.

See also:
Boycott Workfare
A Latent Existence: Who benefits from the Work Programme
A Latent Existence: Government work placement schemes little more than slave labour
Edingburgh Eye: The ideology of workfare

Dear Nadine Dorries

 This is something I've written for A Thing @Stavvers is doing. I sort of ended up severely digressing and probably missing the point of the Thing, but here it is (note: I wholly intend to send this to Nadine Dorries, hence the first paragraph although I'll remove the footnote at the end for obvious reasons This is now an open letter since I'm a coward and I've realised that this probably won't sway her and will probably just  cause her to be annoyed, (I'm not really into annoying people who aren't my brother)). I am aware that Downing Street has apparently forced a u-turn, but that's just The Guardian going for Mail-style headline.

Dear Nadine Dorries,  

For starters, I'd like to apologise for writing to you as a non-constituent, but since this letter is about an amendment to an important bill you're involved with I suppose it's best you let this slide (well, it certainly is from my perspective).

I'm not going to bore you with the details about what my uterus is doing. Mostly because aside from the monthly bleed, which isn't even happening right now (stopped two days ago thank God, I swear it goes on an unreasonable amount of time...) it isn't doing a lot at all. This being a state of affairs I'm fairly content with, although periods are a right pain (literally) at times.

Let's face it, this whole Thing (with the capital “T” since it's really that important) is about your amendments to the Health Bill. I'm not really sure I agree with this Thing, but it has to be said you certainly have an undue interest in what my uterus is doing, especially since I'm a teenager, and thus the target of whole other bill, that being one I'm fairly certain you're behind (you'll note that I'm a lot less civil there, possibly due to me probably having a case of PMS at the time, sorry about that, although the general gist of it does actually kind of fit with this as well (a revelation, you'll be interested to learn, which came courtesy of a high-rated comment on... your Daily Mail article from today of all places)).

But back to the Amendment. Given that, until you and the Labour MP Frank Field - who I suppose we should all be having far more truck with, since he really will never be in a position to have to consider abortion (whereas you do, I assume, possess an uterus) not to mention it stops us being able to blame your party (Not that I mind having a go at Labour (they are really just as bad as the Tories) or anything, but things are a lot easier when it's only one party doing it) – added it the Bill had precisely naff all to do with abortion, it's not clear that this will be getting the debate it needs, and if it does it will simply detract from discussion about the biggest changes to our healthcare system since the NHS was set up. Not cool, Nadine. Not cool at all. Or democratic really. Mind you, I'd argue that the political system is inherently undemocratic, but this is just plain egregious.

Of course, I probably wouldn't mind this that much if I agreed with the Amendment. I'm not sure I do; the BPA is a non-profit organisation, I'm willing to assume the best and that there is, despite their function as an abortion-provider, actually no vested interest in them getting women to have abortions, heck something like 20% of women chose not to have an abortion following advice from there. It is probably mostly balanced, which is more than I can say if, say, a Christian pro-life group was doing the counselling (it is ostensibly a pro-life organisation). And that is a possibility since there is precisely naff-all in your amendment to guarantee that stuff like that won't happen.

Admittedly, you probably don't view that as a bad thing. But if someone can regret an abortion, what happens if they regret not having an abortion having been pressured out of it? I know from personal experience that mothers can be abusive even if they want a child, I imagine an unwanted child would get even worse. And, as I'm sure you'll agree, every child deserves to be wanted. And your own experience with a relatively late-term abortion should make you understand why it is perhaps best that women do not put off the decision, especially since, if they're seeking counselling, they may well have put a lot of thought into it. People won't make that sort of choice lightly.

So your amendment to a Bill which has naff-all to do with it has naff-all to stop it from doing something which you said it wouldn't do. Really not cool, not cool at all.

Also, neither is the obsession with what happens to my uterus. I'm 15, I am mature enough to know what it does, and what I want it to do (naff-all), most, if not all, women who seek an abortion are. It's not really your place to decree who we ask for advice. From what I can gather, there isn't anything stopping women from seeking advice from “independent sources”, they can go to them if they choose to. You say you're pro-choice, well, that's probably one of the choices you should support.

Yours sincerely,

Alicia*

*Side note: referring to myself using my full first name feels really weird. 

EDIT: Corrected a couple of typos ("I f" and a missing ")", thanks to @latentexistence for pointing that last one out). Also, looks like I dropped a "u" at the end of "you", now fixed.

I don't think Gove 'gets' GCSEs

The Coalition's Education secretary, Michael Gove, has recently given an interview to the Times in which he bashes GCSEs for being too easy and a bit crap (my words, not his). Due to the pay-wall I haven't read the interview in the Times, but the Guardian has got some of the stuff he said on their site.

He's said some, erm, interesting things, unfortunately they're almost all wrong and boil down to “things were better in my day” conservatism, but I'm going to focus more on the 'wrong' bit since I don't know what things were like back in Gove's day. I happen to be studying GCSEs (I'm in Year 10 in the state education system) at this moment, so I think I'm qualified to say if they're actually hard or not. Let's see what he said (in italics, my commentary will be underneath every sentence or so in crimson)

(NB: I've omitted t start of the article since it isn't the part I'm focusing on. I'm also relying on a probably biased source since, y'know, pay-wall.)

“"It has become easier to get an A at A-level or GCSE than it used to be, and that's a problem”

A. More people achieving something is not indicative that it's getting any easier to do it, chances are there are other factors behind the rise in As. As far as I know, the percentage of possible marks gained is how grade boundaries are determined (although I will concede that some questions may have their values reduced according to the percentage of people which could answer the question (I'm not certain how this would work but I am hoping it will happen with the astonishingly badly worded AQA GCSE Humanities exams I took earlier this year ("Describe 2 agents of Primary socialisation" Primary really? (the family counts as a single agency of socialisation as far as I know))), so I'm going to guess that your argument is that exams are getting easier.

Which is weird because I don't think they are, for my year group, at least, think they've actually gotten harder (but this may be due to the “things were worse in my day” effect). Incidentally, if anyone reading this can tell me what AQA meant by any of the 12 mark questions in the exams mentioned earlier I'd be very grateful.
[EDIT: Never mind, I did really well in it. God only knows how, turns out I'm really good at coming up with clever-sounding stuff (and they probably ignored the second bit of the answer of the primary source question since it made no sense). Way to undermine my own point...]

“… If you are doing art or geography, you've got to have a work of art or a field trip. But if you're doing mathematics or English or French then the logical thing is to have a proper rigorous exam at the end of year 11”

The ellipses at the start of this bit does indicate that the Graun missed out a bit, which could have helped people reading it know what he meant by this, but I'm not certain Gove knows what we actually study in GCSE (WJEC) Geography (I'm not certain we can go on a field trip to, say, an urban area in an LEDC, or even an MEDC since we live near one making it pretty pointless,likewise with rural areas, and here's the small matter of getting funding for these field trips, since they're trying to make 'savings' (cuts)). Also, going off what context the Guardian has given for this quote, we should be marked... based off a field trip? Seriously? WJEC Geography is examined in the very way the Tories advocate (actually, I think there's an 8 hour controlled assessment, but that's probably one of the ones which is a weird hybrid between exams and coursework (1^st part probably coursework, 2nd part exams) in a classroom since 8 hours is too long for a standard exam).

Also, I don't think that a single rigorous exam at the end of year 11 is the fully logical conclusion for assessing maths, English or French, especially not for French. I suppose there is a logic behind the maths one, but it should probably be split in two as to allow assessments of mental mathematic capability (calculators aren't that ubiquitous, and I imagine it'd be a pain to have to get your calculator out for everything (plus, I kind of find mental maths fun) and more comprehensive assessment of techniques... I sounded like a Tory there, didn't I? Moving on, there is the small matter of English and French being languages which are both spoken and written in practical applications. A single exam simply wouldn't be a suitable medium for assessing both these things. This not even getting into comprehension and (in English more so than French since it's the lingua franca of this country) analysis.

Also, exams are stressful enough as is, and it's human nature to goof off and procrastinate until something important is staring you in the face (I think, this is armchair psychology at best though), guess what modular exams do! Seriously, those things are bloody stressful...Also, I could've sworn Tories were against 'teaching to the test' (I read the Daily Mail for 2 years, I know this stuff), how does this tie in with that at all?

The Guardian then reports that “Gove said there had been previous attempts to make science relevant, by linking it to contemporary concerns such as climate change or food scares. But he said: "What [students] need is a rooting in the basic scientific principles, Newton's laws of thermodynamics and Boyle's law."”

First things first, Newton most certainly did not come up with the laws of thermodynamics. Secondly, linking stuff to contemporary issues? I'm not an expert, but it provides a practical case study which shows the application of... basic scientific principles (kind of).

Actually, I don't think I'm qualified to comment on this, since I've only got up to year 10 science to go off, and I don't know what the Year 11 syllabus involves (beyond the stuff for Biology Unit 3, but I think that, for Gove, biology doesn't really count as a science (to be fair, it is a pretty boring one IMO, physics is more interesting since it's mathematically based)), but I know that f=ma (Newton's 2nd law of motion) and p=Vk is on there (there's a few other equations I don't recognise on the walls of one of my science classrooms, and I'd be willing to bet that us not learning them is what he is complaining about)

This said “Cold stuff does not make hot stuff hotter”(which is what the 2^nd law of thermodynamics boils down to) is pretty much common sense, and Newton's 3^rd law is also a common saying (“for each and every action, there is an equal and opposite re-action”).

“His daughter did not understand the way history was taught, Gove said, because it was not chronological: "My daughter does toys through the ages, then she does the Vikings, then the Greeks; and she gets confused."”

I don't think basing the education system (which I think this interview may well have generally been about, not just GCSEs and A-levels being too easy <glares at The Guardian>) off any one person is a good idea, and I'm not certain that history not being taught chronologically is the problem, but I suppose it's unfair to assume that Gove's wrong about his daughter's needs. I can't see how it's confusing as long as the time transitions are explained properly though (but this could just be me). I think in this case, it comes down to what time periods are suitable. E.G. The details of the Roman era aren't suitable for kids really (Gove, as a Tory, should probably be able to get behind this aspect of it).

He added: "We are now seeing with the new exams regulator how we can make GCSEs tougher. Exam boards need to sharpen up their act. We are also saying in GCSEs that you need to award marks for spelling, punctuation and grammar. We need to have stretching exams which compare with the world's most rigorous."

A. We're already marked on spelling, punctuation and grammar! (“Quality of written communication”) Heck, that's what the marks for French consist of! This being despite it making GCSEs biased against people with dyslexia. 

B. Why do we? The improvement in GCSE results could be due to any number of factors other than the stuff about “dumbing down”, like better teaching. Also, we're talking about general exams for 14-16 year olds for the most part. Having exam's which “compare with the world's most rigorous” (at God knows what level) probably isn't suitable for this purpose (especially since they are mostly compulsory). It's a general exam. Due to the nature of it almost everyone should be passing.

Having a 69.1% pass rate (A*-C, which is all employers care about anyway, and what passes for a pass in the BBC reportage, I actually couldn't get any information for A*-G) isn't too high. Especially considering that this is just for GCSEs (I think, trying to find information on this stuff makes my head hurt) and probably skewed towards the people who get high numbers of passes (and probably take more exams). I'm not even going to try to tell you what the rate for the 5 A*-C GCSE or equivalent baseline is - really, information on this is impossible to get, the best I've got is 35% from The Daily Mail of all places, and they're reporting that Gove's complaining because it's too... low, um yeah, not sure how that works, but going off this 5 A*-C rate is a bit crap. If anything, it kind of totally renders Gove's point irrelevant. It does raise the question of why it's so bad, but that's a whole other blog post.  EDIT: Tried to track down the article, turns out I misread it. Considering this has over 350 views, that's slightly worrying. As an aside, yeah, this shit's impossible to track down. I was right!.

Like the omitted start of the article, most of the remainder of what Gove has to say involves his stance on the academies thing and the like (which is probably a whole other other blog post), but The Guardian leaves us with this:

“The education secretary also thinks that, in A-levels, state schools are suffering at the expense of private schools, which are opting for a more traditional-style exam, the Pre-U.

He said: "If private schools are having an elite qualification and state schools are being left with a qualification that can't match it, that is of profound concern to me, so we do need to do something to strengthen confidence in A-levels."

And I have to say I have a little suggestion for him (and the rest of the Government, going off his use of the plural 1^st person): STOP UNDERMINING THEM!!!! Really, you can't say you're surprised that employers and universities have no confidence in them when you spend the rest of the time going on about how they're useless. It. Doesn't. Work. That. Way.

The article quoted throughout this can be found here on The Guardian's site and was written by Jonathan Paige. 

EDIT: Have fixed the font, credit goes to @IdioticInuit for pointing this out. Also added tags. 

EDIT: Updated to boast about my marks in the Humanities exam I mentioned and to try to rework a paragraph since I apparently borked the grammar on it, or I accidentally used the selecty-draggy-texty thing when making said edit and borked it up that way. I'm not sure. 
EDIT: Finally capitalised "Times" in its second instance, and realised an epic mistake I made. Which no one picked up on, but still...

Old Post: F**k The Coalition

The following was posted originally on my old LiveJournal here on the 22nd of November 2010, it has been edited for spelling, grammar, and spacing, but the original hasn't, I've also tried to clarify a few points in square brackets. I'm also reposting this here because, if I can remember my password, I'm probably going to only use my LJ for fangirling over mainstream rock/emo bands. And I really doubt you're interested in my thoughts on Hayley Williams's latest hair colour (not that I've ever posted about that, it's just nice to have the option to).

"The phrase which makes the title of this post has turned into a catchphrase of sorts on twitter (alongside "Hooray #not"), seeing as I've had good call to say it at least 4 times today (well, yesterday as of alone. Admittedly it was over 3 things which I used it, but I think I need to explain WHY I need to say this in more detail. Or just write it repeatedly going by the rather disorganized nature of my thought process and the fact that, to be frank, I am PISSED right now. 

There were various things which made me angry, although most of my anger is still directed at tuition fees rising (I'm a twin and there's no way my parents can afford £18,000 a year [am now aware that this might not work that way, still irritated at the fees rise], plus living costs, so I'd need to work; which, in this day and age, is easier said than done, and I'm not the most emotionally competent of people (I may or may not have mentioned this before, but according to an internet test my EIQ is probably in the 50's [for self-actualization, the site claimed its tests had been scientifically tested, and it was presumably set so that 100 was the average], so yeah)) and, in my opinion, more importantly are the revelations in this article in the Guardian/Observer concerning the response to the Millibank protests (which, incidentally, I mostly agree with, but that guy who threw the fire extinguisher off the roof was a plonker, like Paul O'Grady said, he should have used it to smash a few more windows/doors [this was a joke, this was also, I think, before Edward Woolard handed himself in, I definitely don’t agree with his sentence]).

Apparently the police are planning on working with defence firms to 'militarise' their response to stuff like this, disregarding the fact that they're privatising yet another thing, there is something mildly disturbing about this, especially when you realise what they're working with the defence firms for: "armoured vehicles, body scanners and better surveillance equipment". Basically they want to be better able to observe us/keep an eye on us and at the rate we're going it'll probably turn out that George Orwell was only off by 30 years in 1984 in my opinion. Then again, I may be being alarmist, and he was behind with the technology too, seeing as I don't think that the Party in 1984 had 'unmanned spy drones' to get intelligence on demonstrations, which is what the Tories are planning on using (I seriously wish I was exaggerating here).

They're also planning to counter "threats of civil disobedience from 'political extremists'", which is a rather vague term (for starters define 'civil disobedience', I have a horrible feeling that the Government's definition is one that dictates that anything less tame than the protests by the 'peaceful majority' of students counts, not to mention the definition of 'Political Extremists', which I have a hunch to be more Socialist Worker's Party than EDL , if only due to the former, in my opinion, having far more sympathetic aims and being left-wing [yeah, not sue where I stand on the SWP now, and I’m not even sure that my statement concerning the EDL is accurate]), and "monitoring “extreme leftwing activity”", which is another vague term, does it mean the activity of people who are extreme leftists (like the non-media definition of anarchist, according to my interpretation of the term [not sure what I mean here, probably the same definition by which I consider myself an anarcho-syndicalist or Libertarian Socialist]) or extremist activity from leftists (like the media definition of anarchist [people who smash things up/actually do anything outside of march from A to B]), not to mention that it's only focused on left-wing activity, which actually does make sense as the right-wingers are probably pretty chuffed with the Coalition government,. And we're supposed to think that the Tories aren't being ideological, yeah [though they’re actually being more factional and authoritarian here, the stuff they’re pulling off is ideological though].

Honestly, I'm 14, so I can't vote, but if I was 18 I probably would have voted Tory in the election (admittedly they always get in where I live, but this is still an incredibly embarrassing fact), or probably Lib Dem, so yes, I would have voted in the coalition. But it is worth bearing in mind that all I've experienced is Nu Labour and the press was largely supportive of them [the Tories, not Nu Labour, also I think I still thought of the Grauniad as a paper for ‘posh’ people (ironic for someone who used to read the Mail, I know)], and back then I believed pretty much every opinion voiced there (including <shudder> the Daily Mail). This was because, if I'm being honest, all of those changes were happening to 'Benefit Scrounging Scum' who were, to me at the time, pretty much that [scrounging scum].

I can't even relate to the person I was a few months ago politically apart from the disagreeing with banker's bonuses. Really, I wish I was kidding. So basically seeing this stuff going on (especially since I think the Tories criticised Labour for using too much surveillance) made me feel betrayed. And it isn't just this, I've now realised that the stereotyped portrayal of people on benefits as 'Benefit Scrounging Scum' is just plain wrong, and for the life of me I can't help but wonder why the state lets these lies continue for any reason other than this stereotype suiting their ideological aims, of course they probably don't care. Heck, I can't even get my head round the logic behind some of the coalition's policies (like the whole 'forcing long-term unemployed to work below minimum wage in the private sector' to make less people claim JSA thing), so yeah: F**K The Coalition.

The quotes are from the Guardian/Observer article I linked to at the start, with the emphasis mine."

Also, I really need to start saying the stuff I said would be my catchphrase more...

 

On the EDL

"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."-Article 19 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This quote pretty much sums up my whole mentality towards freedom of expression. 

There are people who hold views which, to be frank, are reprehensible, the infamous twit wearethebritish being just one example (of many, he was literally the first person I came up with (it was going to be the EDL, but I'm inclined to believe at least some of the membership believe the line that it is against radical Islamism), not even necessarily the best example (maybe crutchbender would have been better...))), however I believe that they have the right to mouth off whatever views they may have, and protest (peacefully) to that effect (I think the pressure of being out in public tends to deter people from not doing so (largely due to accountability/social norms; hence why the police tend to be rather violent), and that any law against protesting is probably more to do with governments being scared of people realising that there's an alternative to what's going on, which is another reason why freedom of expression and thought is important). I believe this regardless of their views, although I do believe that anyone who spouts bile about how people who don't adhere to a certain thing should be killed also should have an eye kept on them (largely because the other rights are also pretty damn important).

Discriminatory and fascistic views are reprehensible, but banning them -in my opinion- isn't the answer, even from a non-moral standpoint; banning people from expressing such views only breeds resentment, it won't stop people having them and may very well result in racists/sexists/homophobes/islamophobes/any other type of discriminator I may have missed claiming the moral high horse. Considering what we're dealing with, this is probably not a good thing. Furthermore, whilst the Right to freedom of Expression is a right, being listened to is rather less so*. This said, I don't necessarily think that ignoring them is the best policy, since I think that quite often people listen to them simply because it seems like the speaker is on their side when no one else is. I'm technically just re-saying what has already been said of this subject, but demonising the EDL and the like, whilst it does make us feel oh so very morally superior and may be justified, will do nothing but enforce the (mistaken) belief that groups like the EDL are the only ones who are sticking up for them (the 'chav' stereotype, as pointed out by Lisa Ansell, and the nose-look-downery that results not helping here (this also being pointed out by Lisa)). This is also why the (popular, mainstream) media has such a right-wing bias, and the despite such politics not being good for humanity (this being in my opinion, and I'm not arguing that the right-wing media needs to be banned), and especially the sort of people who said media is aimed at; they manage to keep up a plausible pretence of supporting the working-class, whilst the mainstream left has the image of being a bunch of detached posh people (or 'Guardian readers' as it were (and I speak as a Guardian reader), and the far left are just 'anarchists' (media definition, basically people who want to ruin this fine country). Just like how 'we' (as in lefties, and I'm making another gross generalisation here) demonise the working-class as 'chavs' and thugs, thus alienating them from both the mainstream political discourse (which focuses entirely one the 'squeezed middle' class of Daily Mail readers (and there's another generalisation)) and left-wing politics (to paraphrase the Wikipedia page for fascism, liberalism is bourgeoisie (or, at least is seen that way), and (not paraphrasing the Wikipedia) socialism (and, as mentioned before, anarchism) is treated pretty badly by the popular media) so along comes the EDL claiming to stand for the working class against the Islamist threat (and indeed I think that a sizable chunk of the people who clicked 'like' on the page for them believe this) and of course people follow them. Then the EDL is demonised, which results in an almost reflexive response of defence and further alienation, especially when you consider that the EDL is basically just spouting off what the right-wing press says in response to immigration, results. The crux of the issue is not the beliefs of the far-right, but the social attitudes and structures which lead to people joining up with the far-right (and quite possibly religious extremism (right down to the demonization, although please note that this is pure conjecture here)), and, more critically, the belief that no one is sticking up for the white working-class. 

Marginalisation, division, and demonization don't help anybody, except maybe those who want us divided. Countering fascism is very good, but going on about how all members of the far-right are scum is not the best way to go about it, consider how the press (and the right) treats us and bear this in mind. Mass tarring of people with the same metaphorical brush may make us (again a generalisation) feel good (and, admittedly, is convenient), but it won't get us anywhere.

I sincerely hope the preceding post makes sense, Lissy.

tl;dr: Yes, racists are bad, no we shouldn't take away their rights. Yes the EDL are not good, but the reasons behind its low-grade popularity are what we should be targeting, not the members. So we should probably stop trolling them (I'm including myself in this) and focus on targeting the factors which (indirectly) caused  its formation. And this has probably been said in a better way before.

*note: I'd like to take this opportunity to say that, apart from suspected spam-bots (and even then, with spam followers, I have a mini argument with myself), I've decided that I don't actually believe in blocking (not that I've really had anyone worth blocking (I've only interacted with wearethebritish, and he blocked me (presumably on the basis of me being a teenage girl and my opinions therefore not counting), and bodderick), so I might very well change my mind on this) even if they're idiot and/or insult you (although I do tend to get rather indignant when I'm told that I'm stupid, trolls be warned.).

Little Brother

The United States Department of Justice has given twitter a subpoena asking for the details of 'customer or subscriber accounts for each account registered to or associated with WikiLeaks', from November 1 2009, or over a year ago. You can read the subpoena in more detail here. The reason: it [the information] is 'relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation'.

I'm unclear as to what precisely 'associated with WikiLeaks' means, but I'm under the impression that the subpoena applies to every single one of WikiLeaks's, as of me writing this, in the region of 635,000 followers (although, presumably, there are SpamBot followers).

Although I'm not an expert on US law I am under the impression that only the stealing of state secrets is actually illegal, making the criminal investigation either tangentially towards Julian Assange or towards Private Bradley Manning, who is believed to be the one who provided WikiLeaks with the material for the Iraq War Logs and Cables leaks, as well as the 2007 video taken on an Apache helicopter which showed (I think) civilians being shot dead by it. I doubt that the data would be material to the allegations against Julian Assange (which he may actually be guilty of, but he may also be innocent and it is the latter which would normally be assumed (most likely for the worse, but there is little doubt that who Julian Assange is is the main motivation for the efforts to charge him, not the crime itself (this being a sad reflection of our time))) due to them being unrelated with WikiLeaks except for the man these allegations are towards, nor would knowing these details be material in any investigation towards Private Bradley Manning (who is presently being held in solitary confinement) especially considering that he has spent most of the last year imprisoned.

In fact this is likely just another stage in the US Government's attacks on the organisation; making people afraid to support it, to quote @Nick4Glengate "They don't need to charge us with anything - they are relying on fear.". Of course there is one other advantage I can think of that the US government would have; the information on more people, people with whom they may not agree politically. Knowing that the US know who you are is actually terrifying, meaning that they get two advantages which enable them to better control us; knowledge of who we are an us being afraid of them. I believe that this can be classified as tyranny and almost certainly violates the US's own Constitution (though whether this is viewed as an issue by the government remains to be seen).

This brings me onto the second part of this post; yesterday, by some coincidence, I was reading a 'book' (well, a PDF version of a book) by Cory Doctorow called "Little Brother", I won't spoil the details of the plot here (although, if you want to read it, it's available free to download off the official website, I personally picked the fan-made PDF), but a blog is started in the book called 'Abuses of Authority' which details the 'Big Brother' actions of the Department of Homeland Security, and abuses of power. I'm thinking that we need something like the the one in 'Little Brother' to keep an eye on not only the 'Big Brother' circumstances which can arise in this country, like as detailed by Police State UK amongst others, but the ones in other countries, such as the US, all in one place; I'm of the belief that, if dots can be connected (to use a term similar to that used in the 'about' section of Police State UK) between the various attack on our civil liberties by the ruling class in the UK then those same links can be made with other countries, and if we are going to tackle the 'Big Brother' complex in which many countries have settled then it must be a more international co-ordinated effort which stops it, if we're being oppressed then it's our right to stand up to our oppressors, and we should stand up against all oppression, not just that which effects us.
Incidents like this abuse of power by the US DoJ are precisely why I think we need a collaborative effort to detail abuses of power wherever they happen, not just in places such as China (which would almost certainly be lambasted for pulling a similar move), but in ostensibly 'free' countries, such as the UK and the US, where civil liberties are being excessively curbed in the name of security.

We need to show our governments (as, to paraphrase the Constitution, Government comes from the consent of the people) that we won't stand for this sort of thing, regardless of whether it occurs in the place we live or overseas, whether it serves the interest of our countries or not; isolation between peoples of different nationalities serves only the interests of those in power, enabling them to get away with things they ordinarily wouldn't by stirring up fear of people in those countries and making us feel that, for our safety, our liberty, and the liberty of others has to be taken away. We need to collectively make a stand against and spread awareness of these abuses of power, otherwise they'll keep happening.