This must be a Thursday...

[glenatron]

I never could get the hang of Thursdays.

I don't know about anyone else, but from every possible angle today has been an absolute heap of crap. Completely rubbish. It would have been rubbish even without our country being attacked for the first time in years, but that gave it a massive extra depth of shiteyness. For some reason we always think about the number of deaths in these attacks and discount the number of serious injuries- the number of people who are likely to be permenantly disbled and whose lives (and their families lives) will be utterly smashed by it. It occasionally strikes me that they are the forgotten losers in any catastrophe like this. The only thing hate and destruction create is more hate and destruction so I suppose today must have been good news for people who like hate and destruction.

Now it seems likely that more innocent people will be hurt in revenge attacks by misguided halfwits because xenophobic stupidity can happen anywhere and the government will take the opportunity to seize more power to itself (I expect the ID card bill to be rushed through as quickly as possible) like the US administration did with the PATRIOT act. That sounds very cynical, which is probably in part because it has been such a shitty day, but there is another element to it. I have always tended to think that our government is broadly good and generally interested in trying to do things for the best but the account of Craig Murray, our former ambassador to Uzbekistan I heard on the radio a day or two back has shaken that image severely. I recommend listening to it (probably it will stay there til Tuesday) if you have not already done so and you don't want to keep any cosy illusions about our international policy or the good intentions of our government. I have a lot of faith in the british people but I am losing what little faith I had in the administration we have chosen for ourselves, although I am very clear that of two evils we were offered it was by far the lesser. I increasingly understand why people choose not to vote- if you went to a restaurant whose menu consisted only of plates of excrement in different stages of decay I don't think you would go back.

Comments

[life-of-tom.livejournal.com]

I think the situation of politicians in society is one of utter powerlessness, actually. I think people get into politics out of a state of self-delusion about their own force of personality, and their own incorruptibility, so long as they just stay true to what they believe in, that their destiny is unstoppable. As time goes on, they realise that they cannot do all they want to, and that if they try to acheive these great things, they will be crushed. So they stray from the path, telling themselves that what they are doing is gaining leverage for themselves, until they look around and find themselves lost in the woods.

Blair's the classic example; his obsession with Africa and poverty is his like a forty-five year-old man buying a motorcycle or going base-jumping to fend off a mid-life crisis. hopefully, however, it will actually have a beneficial effect. if he doesn't end up getting splattered all over the ground...

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

I agree, but there is power out there- someone is running the place and if it's not the politicians then there is no accountability to it at all.

Come to think of it, I'm not really worried about politicians as a whole- I think the average backbencher of most parties does a pretty good job, there is a lot to be said for the old-fashioned good constituency MP. It's the people at the top who seem to be so constantly afraid of raising any kind of controversy. They don't dare to say or do anything for fear of awakening the rage of the elderly gentlemen who own the media. That is what really makes me angry.

Before the last US election I saw a great quote from Adam Duritz (http://adam.countingcrows.com):

"I am not one of those people who believes President Bush is an evil man. I think that's silly. I just think he views the world in terms too simplistic to combat the actual problems we are facing. And I think he puts his trust in men who view politics as a means of retaining power rather than actually solving problems. I don't think we need people who "act tough" and project themselves as "leadership types". Leadership is not about aping John Wayne. When did it become a presidential quality to be a "regular guy"? When did intellectualism become a dirty word? I want a president who's smarter than me."

[(Anonymous)]

I think the glenatron machine will be reassured of my "limitless wisdom" (http://www.livejournal.com/users/life_of_tom/13132.html) when I reveal that I was in bed until about 10.30am on the morning of the 7th July. Only after breakfast did I wonder why lots of people were texting "r u ok?" to me... sometime later someone texted "have you seen the news? r u ok?" which provided the clue I needed...

And remarkably, I'm unaware of anyone I know being involved, which is a relief.

Anyway, having got over the immediate horror, i was interested by the immediacy with which Blair(etc) said things to the media like "We won't change our way of life because of this". Which is a sensible and reassuring thing to say, and so I'm glad he said it. But it was interesting because of how Blair et al were right in the middle of not-changing-our-way-of-life at all at the G8, even though millions of nice people without bombs were using um, the power of wearing wristbands to suggest that perhaps there is some need to change-our-way-of-life, at least a little bit. And whilst the bombers were probably beyond wanting people to change-their-way-of-life, (preferring to kill them in horrible ways instead), and the nice people with wristbands were perhaps(cynic) more interested in a nice day out in the park (/cynic) than in changing-their-way-of-life, I wonder if all these events have made people who are nervously returning to the tube consider whether there is a need for a bit of changing-our-way-of-life, not just for the benefits that having an environment, or sorting out fair trade offer in themselves, but for the hope and optimism that they offer, and perhaps a world in which people didn't need to blow things up, at least so often, and in which traveling by tube could again be "not scary".

This is somewhat brought about by my having read a fascinating book, which I recommend: "Age of Consent" (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0007150431/qid=1121448160/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/026-4000782-8258035) by George Monbiot. It's a manifesto for a new world order(!) it even says this on the cover. It's provovative, intelligent, and compelling to read, imparting with clarity lots of useful insights about how the world works, and "who is running the place" (http://www.livejournal.com/users/glenatron/23183.html) etc (the kinds of things that you feel embarrassed not to have noticed whilst "studying" these subjects at university) and puts forward some sensible ideas, which don't require a commitment to anarchy/beards/bloody revolution-for-the-sake-of-it as he is basically arguing for effective, rather than ineffective (G8 etc), checks-and-balances to be brought to bear on the world.

Wow, that took ages. Sorry if I've not been communicative of late. Take this as some kind of "hello" if you will. I'm mostly busy not-changing-my-way-of-life myself (apart from the inevitable thinking twice about using the tube, then using it as how the hell else can i get there), so apologies if you feel hectored.

Ben

ps - reassuringly, if you are reading this I have successfully convinced the livejournal computer that i am human.

[(Anonymous)]

well, i convinced it I was human, but it ate my carefully constructed and tested links in the process.

bum. (my wheelbarrow hurts).

i imagine you'll get the idea though.

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

I did indeed. Funny stuff html- you never know where it's going to lead you. What it looks like is that you are human but, being anonymous, not to be trusted with an A tag.

Glad to hear you still exist in safety and security. I had forgotten about the positive powers of wristbands. I think the world would generally be a better place if terrorists just wore wristbands instead of blowing stuff up.

I hate Marxists. Marx should never have won that "best philosopher ever" poll.

[life-of-tom.livejournal.com]

I did hear somewhere that those Make Poverty History wristbands were produced in a sweatshop, which I'm not sure I believe, but would be like finding a load of spoons in your knife drawer, and so forth, and symptomatic of the laziness of saying 'I've done this one thing, so the world will be better', when the only way that any kind of change is ever acheived is not through grand gestures, but through changing habits and practices in the long term.

And it's good to know you're ok. I kind of assumed that with what you do, you'ld have less general cause to get onto tube trains in rush hour, but it's nice to be assured of that.

[(Anonymous)]

I do quite often get on tube trains at rush hour, which is unfortunate in itself, but not always, and usually to differnt places.

Change your routes, vary your schedule, much more difficult to follow. Keep the snipers guessing.