Bad cops

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Bad cops Telegraph articleI was looking up some facts and figures about our thin blue line “heroes” when I cam across this article from the Telgraph, which is almost 3 years old now. But I could not have put it any better myself. The facts speak for themselves:

Forces across England and Wales employ policemen and women with convictions including burglary, causing death by careless driving, robbery, supplying drugs, domestic violence, forgery and perverting the course of justice. 

Those with criminal records include senior officers, among them two detective chief inspectors and one chief inspector working for the Metropolitan Police. 

At least 944 currently serving officers and police community support officers (PCSOs) have a conviction, according to figures released by 33 of the 43 forces in England and Wales in response to Freedom of Information requests. 

Many forces could not provide details of criminal records dating from before their staff joined the police, meaning the true figure will be significantly higher. 

The Metropolitan Police, Britain’s largest force, came top with 356 officers and 41 PCSOs with convictions.

The Peshawar school massacre

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When I read accounts of mass killings, like the attack on the military school in Peshwar on 16 December, I experience horror and disgust.

The accounts remind me of watching documentaries about England in the 17th century. I remember recently watching one of those dramatised documentaries in which a royal female (I forget who) had a man executed. In addition to the normal process of hanging, drawing and quartering, the poor victim had his testicles cut off and held before his eyes before they were thrown on a fire in front of him. Then we was hung by the neck, choking and struggling, but only for long enough to make him suffer. He was cut down before he could suffocate, as that would have been too merciful. Then he was disembowelled while still alive so he could see his entrails, before being beheaded and hacked to pieces.

When you watch documentaries on the Tudor period it is not unusual to listen to accounts like that. And however horrifying and disgusting we find the acts of some of the most extreme groups in the world today, it also gives me cause to reflect on how recently such practices were part of the accepted norms of behaviour in England.

My objection to this type of extreme sickening violence is not based on a feeling of moral indignation or superiority. Certainly the indignation and horror are there. There is a difference between the cruelty of killing over a hundred children in a single attack, snd killing hundreds of children in drone strikes and as collateral damage using conventional weapons like bombs and missiles. But the difference is not huge.

It strikes me that often the most atrocious acts are signs of desperation on the part of the perpetrators. In this case even the Afghan Taliban have distanced themselves from the actions of their Pakistani allies. But they are fighting different wars, on different territory. The Afghan Taliban see their long struggle coming to fruition with the “withdrawal” of active foreign troops from their country. Even the decision of Obama to retain 10,000 non-combatant military personnel after his self-imposed Dec 3 deadline has not dampened their hope of eventual victory.

In Pakistan the disparate groups that constitute the Taliban in north-eastern Pakistan face an onslaught by the Pakistani military. They resort to extreme measures to hit back. The fact that the school was run my the military, and a substantial proportioj of the children in the school are the children of Pakistani military personnel does not mitigate the horror of hearing of so many children being massacred.

I can only echo the words of Imran Khan: “Fight with men, not innocent children”.

Blind Justice?

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JusticeIf justice is blind, that may explain why the International Criminal Court (ICC) has failed to notice the skin colour of the only two people it has convicted in its 12 years of existence. What is even more telling is that all 8 of the cases it is currently putting together seek to place an African in the dock.

Perhaps there are no white war criminals, then.

Meanwhile over in the USA the administration releases a redacted summary of the findings of its own enquiries into the CIA’s torture techniques. Not war crimes, of course. Even as the report was being prepared for publication Dick Cheney sprang to the defence of American Imperialisms murder machine. As the New York Times puts it:

‘Dick Cheney, who was one of the Bush administration’s most outspoken champions of this tough approach, said on Monday he had not read the report, but from news reports about it had heard nothing to change his mind about the wisdom or effectiveness of the program. “What I keep hearing out there is they portray this as a rogue operation, and the agency was way out of bounds and then they lied about it,” Mr Cheney said in a telephone interview. “I think that’s all a bunch of hooey. The program was authorized.”

There you have it, ICC. From the horse’s mouth. One of the central figures in the US administration tells you in his own words that the interrogation activities of the CIA were known about, even authorized, at the highest level. So let’s see you act. Not just against the torturers, but aginst their political masters, the ones who gave the orders. The ICC is not afraid to take action against a former head of state in Africa. The failed case against Uhuru Kenyatta, former president of Kenya, is a case in point. So can we expect the even-handed ICC to initiate action against George W. Bush?

Oh no, there is a problem. Surely not just the fact that he is a white guy.

The other problem is that the USA has not signed up to the ICC treaty.

Never mind. The whole of Europe has signed up to the treaty. So let’s go for the USA’s staunch allies who assisted with the rendition and torture of suspects. The British and Polish governments were complicit in the torture practices of the CIA. The Polish government even let them use interrogation centres in Poland.

The ICC is an imperialist court, set up to wreak revenge on the losers in wars against western capital’s interests. If it were truly a court of justice, it would be blind to the nationality of its accused, and it would not kowtow to the powerful and influential countries who provide it with the hundreds of millions of dollars it spends every year.

I hope one day, in the not too distant future, the murderers and torturers of the CIA will be brought to book. But it will not be the ICC that will prosecute them. It will take a revolution and the establishing of truly independent workers’ tribunals, because you can be damned sure the ICC is not up to the job.

Poor Harry

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HarryPoor Harry Windsor. To support an AIDS charity he was asked to reveal a secret. His big secret is that he gets nervous before speaking in public. Well, here’s an idea: get a proper job. Not one where you have the money and the resources to live a playboy lifestyle, just a plain ordinary job. There are millions of people who do not have to worry about “speaking in public” because they are doing ordinary jobs, living on normal incomes. Join the masses, Harry. Save yourself all that stress.

P.S. How many major sporting events have you had front seats for, in the last 5 years? And how much did you pay for them?

P.P.S. Parasite.

They are NOT radicals

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Islamic flagOne of the most common words used in reporting on events in the Middle East is “radicalisation”. And in the UK the current media furore centres on a debate about what to do with “radicals” returning from the Iraq/Syria conflict. The fear is that these “radicalised” people will pose a threat to security in this country.

I do not want to get into that debate in this article. What I want to do is question why people who went to Syria to fight the Assad regime are now being described as “radicals”. The way the word is used has been changed, and the reasons for the change have sinister overtones for those of us who want to see the end of capitalism and the start of a fully democratic socialist society.

A radical is someone who wants to see a fundamental change in society. Until recently the word was always used to describe groups who agitated for the forward movement of society, to a future. When you look at the ideology of Islamist funamentalism, you find a world view based on the outlook of a medieval society. The main thrust of the ideology is of going backwards; it is a “return” to true faith, as interpreted by its adherents. It is a reversion to the fundamental and original teachings of the man they call the Prophet.

But backward movement is not radical. It is reactionary.

I am a radical. I think the capitalist system of production and social control has long since run its course, and the time to move forward to a new, more advanced, rational and equitable society is long overdue. That is radical.

What I do NOT want to see is a return to some form of pre-capitalist economic system. And I definitely do not want to see a return to the strictly hierarchical society that existed in the Middle Ages. I do not want to see the return of an absolute monarchy (or a caliph, or a sultan). I do not want to see the return to dominance of the Church (or of imams, or of religious scholars). That would be a backward step.

And stepping backward is reactionary. So let’s get the terminology correct.

They are not radicals. They are reactionaries.

Food poverty ended at a stroke

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vegetables-fruitsThe growth of food banks and reported cases of malnutrition is a scathing indictment of 21st century British capitalism.

You do not need to be a socialist to see food poverty as a shameful scourge that must be dealt with as a matter of urgency. And as I was fuming quietly to myself about the shame of this happening in my country, a very simple and practical idea to end food poverty at a stroke came to me. Bear with me….

First, we need to raise enough money to fund my programme. The simple way to do this is to tax soft drinks and/or sweet foods. Without carrying out a back-of-the envelope calculation, it should be possible to raise enough money to fund my programme. Let’s say we put a 50p tax on every sweet snack. That is 50p per piece. So every Mars bar now costs an extra 50p. And every Mars Duo bar costs an extra £1. (I know – it needs a little more thought. But it cannot be beyond the wit of the human race to figure out how to raise approximately £20.00 per week from every family in the country (or at least, those of them who consume sweet foods and soft drinks) to eradicate food poverty in the UK. And the people complaining about the imposition of an onerous new tax will get their £20 back in healthy food.

What do we do with the money?

We open a workers’ co-operative shop in every town, village and high street in the country. The aim is to make sure there is an outlet within walking distance of as many homes as possible.

And in those shops we provide free vegetables and free fruit.

That’s it. It is simple, and it is practical.

This country introduced the first and greatest health service in the world. Now let’s introduce a National Food Service (NFS).

What fruit will be available? Any fruit grown in the UK. Apples, pears, plums, cherries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, rhubarb. And similarly vegetables grown in the UK are also available for nothing.

Now any undernourished kid being sent to school by impoverished parents with no money for a nutritious meal can simply send their kids to the NFS shop to pick up an apple or a pear to keep them going. Carrots, celery and other “snacking” vegetables are also available, as well as staples like potatoes, cabbage, cauliflower etc. So the evening meal does not have to be filled with processed packaged cardboard food.

And what happens to the supermarkets? Well, to be honest, I don’t really care what happens to the supermarkets. But let’s follow the scenario through. They have to charge more for those sugary ‘impulse buys’ they dangle in front of us at the checkouts. Tough. And they no longer have any incentive to sell the produce you can get free from your local NFS shop. But they can still sell more exotic fruit and veg: peaches, bananas, mangoes and so on.

In the new food stores there is no reason to sell multi-packs. You are better off just picking up small quantities of what you need, when you need it. No promotion of bulk items to induce you to buy more than you need. So less food waste, fresher foods in the home, and you even reduce the carbon footprint (whatever that is) by sourcing as much of the produce as you can from local growers.

Once you establish the principle that healthy food is a basic right – like air and water – it becomes unthinkable that sections of the population are ever unable to afford a healthy diet. Like the NHS’s free healthcare from the cradle to the grave, we want free healthy food for all.

Are there issues with this programme? Of course there are. But there is no reason why it cannot be done. The human race is not so poor in ideas and ideals that we cannot find a way to put it into practice. And the end result is that we abolish the shameful existence of food banks.

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