LONDON LETTER SEPTEMBER 9TH 2012
Glorious morning that
would do late July or early August proud, the weather making up for the way it disgraced
itself in May and June. The Olympic venues winding down, some of the sites
being dismantled. I have however found the new sport of booing the minister
most entertaining, with George Osborne taking gold.
The Paralympics have
been an immense success but as with anything of value the reactionary right
can somehow always manage to devalue it and so it proves, I already here
noises off stating how disabled people should cease to be viewed as necessarily
in need of state support but as possible scroungers who could, if they were
motivated enough, get off their backsides[1] and enter the jobs market.
Indeed so much that is unpleasant is
happening, from Russia to Scotland and Iran that I find myself reluctant to engage with any of it, it feels stomach churning, the common thread, no surprises here, being religion. As
I write a 14 year old girl, possibly with learning difficulties, has been
realeased on bail in Pakistan, though still faces the death penalty, on a charge
of blasphemy, (allegedly burning pages from the Qur'an).
Though granted bail she was taken from the prison in an
armoured vehicle and driven to a waiting helicopter while covered with a sheet
to protect her identity against lynch mobs![2]
Theology has not given the world much by way of
understanding the human condition however in one area I would contend it has, that is in
the concept of evil; in some circumstances no other word will do. My own
definition would be, as in the case above, a malignancy in the human psyche
that transcends utility and takes on a life of its own, religion providing the cover, the cloak of respectability that allows this sadistic genie out of the bottle. To make an otherwise good man do something truly awful it only requires the sanction of ‘God.’
On the radio panel programme Any Questions Roy
Hattersley argued that all religions should be treated equally before the
law, to which Norman Tebbit interjected “including witchcraft?” Hattersley said
that this was a question of reductio ad absurdum. How so, it seems to me
that witchcraft should enjoy the same rights as all the other equally absurd
religions?
Also on Radio 4, on the Today programme this week. John Humphrey’s: “So is there literally such a thing as brainwashing?”
Expert: “No John, it’s a metaphor, people don’t cut people’s heads open and give their brains a good scrubbing!”
Pageviews now exceed over 7,000 with US and Russia running 2nd and 3rd respectively and yet I know nothing about any of you reading this page in either country. Would be nice to hear from, you even if only Что это за дерьмо?[3]
A new season of the TV satire The Thick of It returns. I confess that I have found it funny and it does have some sharp language, but something about it always bothered me and Nick Cohen has, as he so often does, hit the target with an extremely sharp piece in Standpoint.
http://standpointmag.co.uk/node/4578/full
As he says the phony ‘leftism’ of such satires ‘all politicians are either inept or corrupt or a combination of both, with representative democracy a fraud and social change essentially impossible,‘ is in fact extremely reactionary. I will not watch this programme in the same light again.
Talking of serious
politics on the same day as multi millionaires see their tax rates reduced from
50% to 45% some of the poorest people in Britain will see their council tax
benefit reduced or in some cases removed altogether. Currently this storm cloud
is little larger than a mans hand but is growing and has the potential to
create a storm of Poll Tax proportions. Let us see if people are quite as
compliant and sheep like as the writers of The Thick of It imagine them to be.
[1] Those confined to
wheelchairs excepted.
[2]‘ Individuals accused of blasphemy have been killed
by vigilante groups in the past, including one case last year when a mob
descended on a police station in Punjab, pulled out a suspect in a case and
burned him in the street.’ Guardian 9/09/12
[3] ‘What is this shit?’
though would prefer a more considered comment.
