Is the Establishment losing its ability to whitewash reality?

 a con, establishment, Internet, offline world, online world, Reality Hunger, Spain, Spanish, Spanish Civil War, stolen babies, United Kingdom  No Responses »
Feb 032013
 

I’m currently suffering at the hands of reality.  Whilst in my wife’s home country, Spain, its (anti-)democratic edifice appears to be tumbling around its people’s wider austerity-located suffering, in Britain and elsewhere little seems very much better.

Let’s take Spain, for starters.  Read and tremble.  It would seem, in my limited understanding of the Bárcenas scandal as it stands, that eventually no politician or party will escape the consequences of what is unreeling.  As Spanish democracy takes a massive battering from the bitter dialectic between independence movements and their centralising counterparts, from widespread corruption in both politics and business and from the awful levels of utterly wasteful unemployment in a hyper-educated society, so there is very little left to do for the Spanish people themselves but bemoan the situation, wring their hands and wonder futilely how they got here.

I suspect the final solution, if anyone has any intelligence, will be to leave off forever perpetuating the intellectual and sociopolitical cover-ups, which took place post-Franco as democracy cemented itself.  The Spanish transition, lauded as an example for young democratic movements everywhere, hid under its shiny and very latterday façade crucial hatreds, miseries and very real cruelty (more here, here and here).

This will, I am pretty sure, even as I admit I am a mere outsider looking in, require a truth and reconciliation process as painful and fierce as that which South Africa had to suffer on its own journey.

*

Meanwhile, I read tonight that the largest police force in the UK used an estimated eighty dead children’s identities in undercover (ie spying) operations over a period of perhaps three decades.  Quite precisely, the Met – for, yet again, it is the force in the eye of the storm – assures us that (the bold is mine):

We can confirm that the practice referred to in the complaint is not something that would currently be authorised in the [Met police].

Which isn’t to say that it mightn’t happen again in the future, right?

So can it get any worse?  Whilst in Spain we apparently have a widespread culture of dirty money at the very highest levels of political practice, a society which is creaking under the weight of never having been through any real process of truth and reconciliation and an economic plan which is anything but democratic, in Britain we are getting drip-fed awful tales of celebrity paedophile rings, hotels and practitioners; of police forces in London and Yorkshire which did anything but follow even the letter of the law, never mind its spirit; of casual phone- and computer-hacking in industrial quantities; of the falsification of evidence on police computers; of party-funding scandals; of public- and private-sector corruption; of sweetheart tax deals between government civil servants and transnational corporations; of the demonisation of the poor, disabled, sick and unemployed to the benefit of the wealthy; and, finally, a total re-engineering of the welfare state in order that the Tory Party’s sponsors and puppet-masters in banking, consultancy and health may become the real benefit claimants of the state.

What exactly is happening?  What exactly is taking place?  Is all this information suddenly revealing itself the result of longer-term social media tendencies perhaps?  Is what we do in our private lives, as we denude ourselves to friends and foe alike, spilling over into more work-related contexts?

Are we actually all becoming terribly – and excessively – honest?

Is this, finally, the true legacy of the Internet as it spills over unstoppably into the offline world – a legacy which for so long the real world has managed to keep at arm’s length?

And is the Establishment – an institutional dinosaur if there ever was one (suited perfectly to its environment whilst its environment remained under its control) – suddenly losing its ability to whitewash reality?

Or – more frighteningly – is this a quite new reality with no whitewash at all?

A quite new reality which the overwhelming hubris of those in charge is now awfully and generously happy to regale us with – perhaps certain in the knowledge that there is nothing anyone honest can do about it any more.

That furious pitter-patter of guilt-ridden establishment brogues

 David Rose, end of a dynasty, End of History, End of Morality, establishment, in a hole, medieval mind, police state, policed state, politicians, unclassifiable  No Responses »
Nov 112012
 

This is clearly what people in the trade call a hatchet job.  It’s written by two journalists: one, unfortunately, called David Rose; the other, rather more identifiably, called Bob Woffinden.  More background to this complex and unclear situation, with corresponding links, can be found at the moment over at Tom’s place.

The only thing I’d add to Tom’s piece, which I don’t think I found included, is this story which came my way via Ally Fogg’s Twitter feed this evening:

Can anyone confirm that the David Rose who wrote the hatchet job on Messham in the Mail today is same DR writing here? newstatesman.com/politics/2007/…

The link and story it directs us to, written indeed in 2007 by a certain David Rose, admits quite openly to the following introduction to a deeper world of editorial collusion:

My secret life began, as if scripted by P G Wodehouse, with an invitation to tea at the Ritz.

The call came at the end of the first week of May 1992. I was the Observer’s home affairs correspondent, and at the other end of the line was a man we shall call Tom Bourgeois, special assistant to “C”, Sir Colin McColl, the then chief of the Secret Intelligence Service. SIS (or MI6, as it is more widely known) was “reaching out” to selected members of the media, Bourgeois explained, and over lunch a few days earlier with McColl, my editor, Donald Trelford, had suggested that I was a reliable chap – not the sort, even years later, to betray a confidence by printing an MI6 man’s real name.

I suggest you read on to get a full flavour of what was about to happen – though I suppose even the most naive of us out here might already realise the essence of the game …

  1. that just over a week ago a man – who most are prepared to admit was seriously and sexually abused in his youth whilst under the care of the state – should speak up in public to the BBC‘s “Newsnight” programme, and then proceed to retract his accusations …
  2. that the “Newsnight” journalists should fail to properly check the story having previously dropped an investigation into Jimmy Savile’s activities in the same organisation …
  3. that another man who was pinpointed by some in the mainstream and social media as having been one of the abusers, Lord McAlpine, should then have to issue this statement, denying – before he had actually been officially named by anyone of repute – that he had done anything of which he could be reasonably accused …
  4. and then that two journalists, one of whom has the same name as a host of other selfless individuals sadly labouring under public suspicion through mere association, should proceed to destroy what little reputation the accuser apparently had in any case …

… well, it does seems all rather weird, to borrow a term going the rounds at the moment.

In fact, there’s far more weirdness in all of this from the establishment side of things than anything a clearly sad and suffering survivor of sexual abuse could ever promulgate.

Just to underline two finally salient points.  Firstly, as Tom reminds us in another piece he posted today:

The fact of the matter is it wasn’t the BBC that wrongly implicated Lord McAlpine in the child abuse scandal.

It was North Wales Police.

Abuse victim Steve Messham – and the widow of another victim – told Channel 4 News that they were shown a photo and wrongly given Lord McAlpine’s name by police when they were interviewed by them in the early 1990s.

Now I’m aware that the McAlpine family tree is fiendishly complicated but it’s an extraordinary mistake to make on the part of the police – which is why it’s even stranger that the harsh, critical light of opprobrium is being concentrated in the direction of the BBC (and on Steve Messham too) and not in the least bit on North Wales Police.

Further to this point, you can find more from a couple of days ago from the BBC itself here:

A victim of sexual abuse while he was a resident of a north Wales care home has apologised for making false allegations against a Conservative politician.

Steve Messham said police had shown him a picture of his abuser but incorrectly told him the man was Lord McAlpine.

Secondly, Lord McAlpine’s own carefully couched statement already linked to above had this revealing sentence in its very first paragraph (the bold is mine):

“Over the last several days it has become apparent to me that a number of ill-or uninformed commentators have been using blogs and other internet media outlets to accuse me of being the senior Conservative Party figure from the days of Margaret Thatcher’s leadership who is guilty of sexually abusing young residents of a children’s home in Wrexham, North Wales in the 1970′s and 1980′s.

In a document I am sure was so obviously parsed and approved by his lawyer, that he should choose to say “the senior Conservative Party figure [...] who is guilty of sexually abusing young residents” and not choose, for example, to say “who it is alleged was guilty of sexually abusing young residents” is surely revealing in itself.

Now I may be reading far more into this than is fair.  It may be true that – under Thatcher – we lived in a policed state and not a police state (more here).  But whilst the least shadow of a doubt remains, it is clear – at least to me – that something feels as wrong now as it did a decade ago during the lead-up to the Iraq War.

That furious pitter-patter of guilt-ridden establishment brogues was never louder or more worrying than today.

From banking to the BBC, from Murdoch to the police, from MPs’ expenses to democratic deficit, from the destruction of public services to the reconstruction of private-sector graft … well, little it now seems is out of the frame of our suspicions.

Little it now seems is too incredible.

Who can we turn to?  Who can we trust?  Who can help clear up this mess?  Who has the moral authority and right?

These are the questions our politicians need to answer.  These are the issues of the day.

Which came first – the Autumn Statement today or the #N30 Strike tomorrow?

 #N30 strike, a con, Coalition capitalism, Coalition cuts, establishment, George Osborne, pensions, public sector  No Responses »
Nov 292011
 

This tweet says it all:

This #Tory #LibDem coalition was so blinded by it’s excitement at the prospect of dismantling the state they’ve wrecked the economy. #Resign

But a thought does come to me.  Which came first – the Autumn Statement today or the #N30 Strike tomorrow?  Did the unions plan with incredible foresight the date of their strike or does the establishment have something quite awful up its sleeve?

And, by positioning all this dreadful economic news right before a massively supported outpouring of public emotion in favour of public sector workers and their labour, will the aforesaid establishment now try and stoke these emotions to their ultimate benefit?  For as another tweet quite wisely pointed out this evening:

It is perfectly fair that public sector wages don’t keep up with inflation whilst bankers pay themselves bonuses from taxpayers’ money.

With that backdrop of communal logic, I don’t which scares me more.  That the establishment have lost control and they don’t realise it – or the establishment are in control and we don’t realise it.

So why can politicos practise the "big tent" strategy where #occupy movements mustn’t?

 #occupy, #occupylsx, a con, anti-establishment, big tent, establishment, government of all the talents, on a high, Rolling Stone  2 Responses »
Nov 132011
 

The “big tent” political strategy has many long-running adepts:

In the United States, during the latter half of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th, the Republican Party boasted membership of big business interests, laborers (both of whom supported the GOP’s tariff strategy) as well as many African-Americans, due to Republican Abraham Lincoln’s abolition of slavery and the party’s stance on civil rights.

Also, in the United States, a very good example of this approach was the New Deal coalition which formed in support of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal policies. This coalition brought together labor unions, southern Dixiecrats, progressives, and others in support of FDR’s economic program, even though these groups strongly disagreed on other issues.

In Canada, the Liberal Party of Canada is not strongly ideological or regional, but is instead open to members with a wide range of views. While some criticize the party for lacking in conviction, supporters argue that compromise is an essential feature of democracy.

In the United States, the Democratic Party has some big-tent features according to the dominant understanding of the US political spectrum. It has liberal and progressive, moderate, social democratic, and conservative wings.

Other famous examples of catch all parties include the Republic of Ireland’s Fianna Fáil, which has variously been categorised as socialist (according to former deputy leader Brian Lenihan)[citation needed] and neo-Thatcherite/neo-Reaganite, a description applied to the economic policies and politics of former Minister for Finance (1997–2004) Charles McCreevy. Fianna Fáil served in the coalition from 1989 to 1992 with the fiscally monetarist yet socially liberal Progressive Democrats, then with the social-democratic Labour Party and yet again with the Progressive Democrats, with Fianna Fáil tailoring its policies accordingly. After the 2007 Irish General Election campaign, Fianna Fáil formed a coalition with the Progressive Democrats, the centre-left Green Party and initially three independent TDs (MPs). The party suffered spectacular losses at the 2011 General election in part due to the current Irish financial crisis, where it lost 57 of its outgoing 77 TD’s being relegated into third place (Behind Fine Gael and Labour).

The Indian National Congress and Italy’s now defunct Christian Democracy both attracted such a broad range of support as to make them catch all parties.

When Gordon Brown became British Prime Minister in 2007, he invited several members from outside the Labour Party in to his government. These included former CBI Director-General Digby Jones who became a Minister of State, and former Liberal Democrats leader Paddy Ashdown who was offered the position of Northern Ireland Secretary (Ashdown turned down the offer).[1][2] The media often refer to Brown’s Ministry as “a government of all the talents” or simply “Brown’s big tent”.[3]

It’s clear that what we’re talking about here is anything but coherent.  But – in many cases – it seems to work.  For a while at least.

So if politicos can successfully practise it, why not the #occupy movements of “rainbow coalitions” across the world?  Why, in fact, do we choose to use this rather hippy-like term for anti-establishment movements which, nevertheless, may be couched in fair and measured reactions to aggressive and unhelpful realities – and yet, when we talk about the actions of establishment professionals, we use containing and inclusive language such as “big tent” and “government of all the talents”?

Compare, for example, the following perception from Rolling Stone (thanks to Patrick for the tweet which brought this to my attention) to the historical description of such strategies which I’ve already quoted from above:

[...] Occupy Wall Street was always about something much bigger than a movement against big banks and modern finance. It’s about providing a forum for people to show how tired they are not just of Wall Street, but everything. This is a visceral, impassioned, deep-seated rejection of the entire direction of our society, a refusal to take even one more step forward into the shallow commercial abyss of phoniness, short-term calculation, withered idealism and intellectual bankruptcy that American mass society has become. If there is such a thing as going on strike from one’s own culture, this is it. And by being so broad in scope and so elemental in its motivation, it’s flown over the heads of many on both the right and the left.

The relationships inscribed by these two texts are really not all that dissimilar.  And if established political parties can legitimately act as catch-alls, can use Third Way strategies to neutralise their oppositions, then I would fairly suggest we should admit the possibility that general movements like these – which are against everything modern society stands for – also deserve at the very least a hearing from the wise in our civilisations.

For it does, in fact, occur to me that much as Cameron is son of Blair and Blair is son of Thatcher, so #occupy instincts across the world are more than likely – in some way – sons and daughters of all these clever and fork-tongued communicators.

And so it is that these “rainbow coalitions” may, in reality, be far less naive than we currently presuppose.  They have, after all, had the very best of teachers …