President Gas 2008

a contemporary twist on a classic by the Psychedelic Furs;

I found it on Crooks and Liars

Anarchy and Responsibility

 

Anarchists make me mad. Socialist anarchists, I mean – the “real” Anarchists that think capitalism is to blame for all of the world’s woes.

I was over at make/shift the other day and I read that “violence against capital and violence against an individual are not the same thing.” I argued, but no one over there listens to me.

The comment above mine was beautifully written so I followed the link to see what Green Scribe had to say. I read her most recent post, which I agreed with, until I got to this:

We’re too busy running in the hamster wheel of capitalism, making money, paying off debt, racking up more, buying newer and bigger things, watching TV, following the love lives of celebrities and the fictional crimes of court TV. Corporate fortunes weren’t made by accident – credit cards and mortgages have given America no time to think, only time to work for the stuff – they have given us consumer ADD, and then obligated us to pay into it for the rest of our lives. Our consent…

has been manufactured.

I cannot agree with Green Scribe’s perspective. Nothing can make us run in a hamster wheel because we are not hamsters. The Anarchists say “capitalism”, but they may as well say “Satan” or “the dark side”. Capitalism is not actually an abstract evil power.

Credit cards, consumerism, debt – of course I recognise that they are real problems. The fact that credit card companies and banks are not exercising enough corporate responsibility – I agree that is a real problem too. And that the media are intentionally distracting people from the real political and economic issues. And that the economy in The Amerika is shit right now and people are suffering because of it.

Where the Anarchists seem to be missing the mark is that they refuse to put any blame at all on the people themselves. They claim that the people are merely victims. But if Americans are watching 4.5 hours of television every day, that is their own fault. If people are so caught up in consumerism that they cannot tell the difference between want and need, that is their own fault. I have an aunt who is unhappy and tries to relieve her misery by buying things, and her six-figure credit card debt is entirely her own fault.

Dear Anarchists, there is blame on every side. I would like you to stop trying to put 100% of the blame on the evil capitalists and admit that not everyone is forced into debt. I want you to admit that very often people simply act stupidly and irresponsibly. And please realise that if you really want to solve a problem, you must first correctly identify what that problem is.

Another sucky government

feral children of Sri Lanka

The government of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka has perceived a new problem amongst its people: the women are leaving.

Large numbers of women are going abroad – mostly to the Middle East – to work – mostly as domestics. The women can earn more money as maids, cooks and nannies than their men can earn as day labourers, and the placement agency fees are usually less.

The government of Sri Lanka has decided that this trend is hurting their society because children are being left without their mothers. The children are not, however, turning feral and terrorising the country, they are instead being raised by grandmothers and aunts.

I heard all of this on BBC World Service this morning. They interviewed a Sri Lankan woman who had returned home after working in Dubai for 10 years. She had sent money home regularly to support her family, and she also saved enough money to buy a house upon her return. She said that she never would have been able to buy a house for her family without going to work abroad.

They also interviewed a school headmaster. He said that children whose mothers are abroad usually have problems in school. They don’t stay focused, they have behavioural problems, whatever.

The government has decided that this is a national problem and it must do something about it. So the government has proposed legislation to forbid women who have children under the age of 5 from leaving the country to work. That totally offends me for 2 reasons.

1) Civil liberties, personal freedom, etc. More politicians thinking that they need to tell other people how to live their lives. Idiots that think they have the answers to problems they have never faced. And not only that, but this legislation would severely discriminate against women.

2) Politicians always miss the point. Why are they trying to treat a case of pneumonia with a bandage? The problem is not that women are leaving the country. The problem is that women feel the need to leave the country. Politicians need to ask themselves, what is the real problem? And then they need to address that.

I am not an expert on Sri Lanka, but some cursory research has shown me that their economy is shit. In the late 1970s, the government turned slightly from a state-controlled market to a more free market, but they have recently started going back the other way.

Currently, the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party has a more statist economic approach, which seeks to reduce poverty by steering investment to disadvantaged areas, developing small and medium enterprises, promoting agriculture, and expanding the already enormous civil service. The government has halted most privatizations…

About 800,000 Sri Lankans work abroad, 90% in the Middle East. They send home more than $1 billion a year.

– CIA Factbook

I am not an economist, but I reckon that building the economy would provide some new opportunities for the Sri Lankan people to make their living at home. Obviously their government’s current approach is not working. And forcing women to stay at home would not only be a serious human rights issue, but it would also do absolutely nothing to solve the country’s economic problems. The whole proposition is just so stupid that it makes me want to scream.

Have I mentioned lately how much I loathe governments?

 

 

The Police: greedy, or merely ignorant?

 

When I first heard that The Police were re-forming for a worldwide concert tour, I got very excited. They are one of those bands that I had always really liked, but had never got round to seeing in concert. And so before tour dates and locations had been announced, I decided that I would happily travel to see The Police, in case they chose not to stop in Prague.

Early on, Jono sent me a promotional email he had received at work about VIP tickets for the shows at Twickenham in London. Those tickets were going for ₤365 a pop but, I thought, that’s London and they are part of a VIP package. I didn’t imagine that price could be at all indicative of what Prague prices might be.

Before I left for The Amerika at the end of last month, I had heard that The Police would be playing in Prague, but there had not yet been an official announcement (as far as I knew) and tickets had not yet gone on sale. Then last night I was out with Mike and he asked me if I had heard how much tickets were. I had not, so he told me.

The cheapest tickets are 220.

What? 220? That’s amazing!

Euros.

What?!! No way!

Yes.

Really?? 220 euros?

Yes. 220 euros. The cheapest seats.

Those greedy bastards.

To put things into perspective… the average monthly salary in Prague is around €720. And Prague salaries are higher than anywhere else in the country. Now, even though my monthly earnings are quite a bit higher than the average, I still would not pay that kind of money for a concert ticket. The price is simply too obscene.

Contrast: Mike and I bought tickets for the Rolling Stones concert last year – which was cancelled, but that is beside the point. Those tickets were priced at 990 Kč each, or, at today’s exchange rate, about €35. And that was the authentic original half-dead Rolling Stones – not a cover band. Who the hell do The Police think they are?!

And today I did my research. The price in euros is nearly standard across Europe. I did not look at every city, but the shows in Hamburg, Amsterdam, Paris, Antwerp and Vienna all have the same pricing as Prague. The tickets are €220/250/290 + €30 delivery.

And that is where I might be able to give The Police the benefit of the doubt and accuse them of ignorance rather than greed. Perhaps they don’t realise that unlike the other countries where they are playing, the economy of the Czech Republic is still recovering from 40 years of hardcore communism. As an example, even now, 17 years after the fall of communism, average monthly salaries next-door in Austria are 4 times higher than they are in the Czech Republic.

But back to greed…

In England, tickets for Manchester and Twickenham are ₤240 and ₤290 or, at Twickenham only, you can stand for ₤220.

In The Amerika, it seems that the price of tickets is more varied and thus spread over a wider socio-economic range. I looked only at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, where tickets go from $70 to $3080, and Madison Square Garden in New York, where the price range is $160 to $5690.

Mike and I agreed that the most likely scenario for The Police concert in Prague is that not enough tickets will be sold and the concert will be cancelled. Hey ho.

*current exchange: ₤1 = €1.48 = $2.01

Spring

Spring Flowers by Rolf Hicker

 

Prague Spring

I hate spring. Of course, the warmer weather is wonderful and the sunshine and the colours and the flowers are lovely. But I have terrible seasonal allergies and so for three months out of every year I am absolutely miserable. It’s not just a runny nose and watery eyes, it’s congestion and headaches and an irritated phlegmy throat and even nausea, and it gets fucking worse every year.

New York Spring

The British pound has just reached $2. Limeys have been flying over to New York by the thousands just for weekends of shopping. “I say, old chap, everything is so bloody cheap over here in the colonies.” Americans should find that humiliating. It should make Americans angry and it should make Americans question. Why is our currency so weak? Could it be the deficit, financial mismanagement, national debt, financing wars, selling our soul to China, selling our soul to Halliburton…

Wake up, Amerika! The rising price of gasoline is the least of your worries.

Blacksburg Spring

You’d think it was Iraq or Afghanistan or something. 33 dead at a university in The Amerika. The university administration is being criticised for not warning the students about the gunman, even though they had 2 hours between the first and second rounds of shootings. The university is defending itself with the ‘unforeseeable’ argument. Both sides are right. There is no point in pinning blame on anyone except the gunman (or gunmen). It is impossible to defend against an incident like this one. Luckily, very few people ever decide that mass murder is the way they want to go out. (I am excluding governments, of course.)

And I am now thinking of joining the NRA because one of the thoughts I had in relation to the shootings yesterday was that if any of the people in the vicinity of the gunman had been packing, they could have taken him out. It just takes the police too long to get anywhere and we need to be able to defend ourselves.

I asked Jack, “Why do you carry a gun if you never need to use it?”

Jack answered, “Because one day I might.”

And I get that, I absolutely get that.