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Tuesday, 19 February 2013

SEVENTY YEARS ON: Remember the Germans Who Said No to the Nazis

Sophie Scholl - beheaded by the Nazis, 22 February 1943

It is a commonly held view in Britain and other places, encouraged by some bad historians, that Hitler had the support of most Germans and that during the 12 years of Nazi rule, resistance by Germans to the tyrannical regime was very much the exception.

In truth, Hitler never received the votes of more than 43% of the German voters - about the same as Mrs Thatcher at her peak in Britain (where many resisted and detested her). And it was only the brutal nature of the Nazi regime that managed to stifle dissent so powerfully in subsequent years - under the approving eyes of such noble British supporters as Lord Northcliffe, owner of the Daily Mail, the Duke of Windsor (who was King Edward VIII in 1936) and countless other "well-bred" members of the British aristocracy, who hankered after their own Hitler and some of whom supported Oswald Moseley's brief rise.

Yet in Germany itself, in somewhat less comfortable circumstances than the British sympathisers of the Hitler gang, many, many Germans resisted - passively in some cases by refusing to take part in celebration of Nazism and its values - some refused to use the Hitler salute, for example; but many opposed the Nazis actively. In total, 77,000 Germans were murdered by "Special Courts" for carrying out resistance activities against the Nazi regime. Given the power of the dictatorship, it was not an organised network like resistance movements in occupied countries later became, but rather was a loose movement of small groups and principled individuals.

There were numerous attempts on Hitler's life by ordinary Germans, many of them socialists or communists, but many others members of the army or even the aristocracy - the most prominent being the circle around Beck, Stauffenberg and others who came so close to killing the Fuhrer in the Operation Valkyrie plot of 1944. Georg Elser, a Communist carpenter who worked entirely alone perhaps came the closest to success in 1939 when bad weather led to Hitler leaving a venue in Munich early - just 13 minutes before a bomb planted by Elser exploded directly under the podium where the Nazi leader had been speaking. After years of torture, Elser was killed in Dachau concentration camp days before the arrival of the Allies.

Other active resisters took less violent, possibly naive but certainly very brave paths to resistance: some gave hiding places to Jews and others facing persecution; while some went so far as to try to agitate for protests against Hitler - among them were brother and sister Sophie and Hans Scholl and their friend Christophe Proebst. They were members of the White Rose pacifist movement which circulated anti-Nazi propaganda at huge risk to themselves.

Sophie is perhaps the best known of the movement's members and for her bravery in circulating leaflets at her brother's university, she, Hans and Christophe all paid with their lives, guillotined by the Nazi state on 22 February 1943. If she was alive today, Sophie would be 91 - but instead, for the sake of others, she gave her life to a greater cause, while harming no one herself.

There is more on Sophie, Hans and Christophe, and a recent German dramatisation of their lives, HERE.

We do well to remember that the Nazis were no mere passing phenomenon; nor that their kind were or are confined to Germany. The bloodlust and bigotry, the xenophobia and anger that fed their zeitgeist continue and manifest themselves again and again in so many warped and twisted ways - and it is as much for this reason as many others that, seventy years on from their judicial murders, we should remember these young martyrs to peace.

Pastor Martin Niemoller was a Nazi sympathiser, who initially believed Hitler's assurances, personally given, that he would not harm the Jews: 

 "Hitler promised me on his word of honor, to protect the Church, and not to issue any anti-Church laws. He also agreed not to allow pogroms against the Jews, assuring me as follows: "There will be restrictions against the Jews, but there will be no ghettos, no pogroms, in Germany....(The socialists') hostility toward the Church made me pin my hopes on Hitler for a while. I am paying for that mistake now; and not me alone, but thousands of other persons like me."

 And as he faced the price of his mistake, the Pastor issued a warning as salient now as then, explaining how it is important to stand together against those who would divide groups of people against each other and deny the humanity of some because of their race or religion, or deny liberty of speech or action in the name of public safety:

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

The German Resistance Memorial Centre in Berlin commemorates our brothers and sisters who struggled for a world of peace and humanity.

And so, seventy years on from the killings of Hans, Christophe and Sophie, remember the names of those we know, and the spirit of those we don't: the Germans who said no to the Nazis.


Some of those who resisted (there were many, many others, some known, but many others long lost to history):

The White Rose — 


Operation Valkyrie -

  • Colonel Otto Armster (1891–1957), Head of the counterintelligence ("Abwehr") station in Vienna; arrested on 23 July 1944 and held captive until the end of the war. Liberated but was later arrested and imprisoned by NKVD until 1955.
  • Colonel General Ludwig Beck, Chief of the German General Staff (1880–1944); voluntarily committed suicide when the plot failed. He was to be arrested whilst the other captives were to be executed under the order of Friedrich Fromm.
  • Major General Reinhard Gehlen, Chief of Intelligence-Gathering on the Eastern Front (1902-1979) avoided detection; survived.
  • Captain Ludwig Gehre (1895–1945); executed by hanging 9 April 1945.
  • Major General Rudolf von Gersdorff (1905–1980), Chief of Intelligence for Field Marshal Günther von Kluge, planned suicide bomb attack for 21 March 1943; hid explosives for 20 July 1944 plot. Avoided detection and survived.
  • Eugen Gerstenmaier (1906–1986), Consistory Councillor, subsequently Speaker of the Bundestag; sentenced to 7 years in prison. Survived.
  • Hans Bernd Gisevius (1904–1974), Diplomat, went into hiding, then fled to Switzerland (January 1945). Survived.
  • Erich Gloeden, Architect (born 23 August 1888 in Berlin); guillotined 30 November 1944, Plötzensee Prison
  • Elisabeth Charlotte Gloeden, wife of Erich Gloeden, guillotined 30 November 1944, Plötzensee Prison
  • Dr. Carl Friedrich Goerdeler (1884–1945), Mayor of Leipzig; arrested 12 August 1944 in Konradswalde; hanged 2 February 1945
  • Fritz Goerdeler, Municipal Chamberlain and Treasurer of Königsberg; brother of Carl Goerdeler, hanged 1 March 1945
  • Lieutenant Gereon Karl Goldmann (1916–2003) Franciscan priest, conveyed coded messages to the German delegation in Rome. Capured by British forces in Italy January 1944. Falsely accused and convicted of War Crimes but exonerated.
  • Colonel (General Staff) Helmuth Groscurth
  • Nikolaus Gross, Journalist (1898–1945); excuted by hanging 23 January 1945
  • Baron Karl Ludwig Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg (1902–1945) publisher of the White Pages from 1934, arranged the first meeting of Carl Goerdeler and Ulrich von Hassell in 1939, Counterintelligence under Admiral Canaris, arrested by the Gestapo after 20 July 1944, murdered 23–24 April 1945
  • Colonel Friedrich Gustav Jaeger (1895–1944); executed by hanging 21 August 1944.
  • Max Jennewein, technician
  • Professor Jens-Peter Jessen
  • Hans John, Lawyer (1911-1945); executed by firing squad April 23, 1945
  • Otto John (1909–1997), 20 July 1944 was in Spain, escaped to Britain. Survived.
  • Hermann Kaiser, grammar school teacher
  • Jakob Kaiser, CDU co-founder and Chairmen of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (DDR) (1888–1961), was member of the Resistance and close to the conspirators but was not directly involved in the plot. Went into hiding and survivied.
  • Franz Kempner, Retired Ministry Official (Undersecretary of State)
  • Albrecht von Kessel, Diplomat, Mission Adviser at the Vatican
  • Otto Kiep, Envoy and Chief of the Reich Press Office (1886–1944), executed 23 August 1944, Plötzensee Prison
  • Georg Conrad Kißling, farmer
  • Lieutenant Colonel Bernhard Klamroth, executed 15 August 1944 by hanging, Plötzensee Prison
  • Major Hans Georg Klamroth (1898–1944); executed 26 August 1944 by hanging, Plötzensee Prison
  • Captain Friedrich Karl Klausing (1920–1944)
  • Ewald von Kleist-Schmenzin, Diplomat (1890–1945) Executed 16 April 1945[5]
  • Lieutenant Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist-Schmenzin Born in 1922, the last surviving member of 20 July plot.
  • Major Gerhard Knaack
  • Dr. Hans Koch, lawyer (1893–1945); murdered by a Sonderkommando April 24, 1945.
  • Heinrich Körner, Union Leader
  • Lieutenant Commander Alfred Kranzfelder (1908-1944); executed by hanging 10 August 1944
  • Richard Kuenzer, Councillor
  • Major Joachim Kuhn, (1913–1994)
  • Elise Auguste Kutznitzki, née von Liliencron
  • Elizabeth Kuznitzky, (1878-1944), guillotined 30 November 1944, Plötzensee Prison
  • Hermann Maaß (1897-1944), Leading Social Democrat, executed 20 October 1944, Plötzensee Prison
  • Colonel Count Rudolf Graf von Marogna-Redwitz (1886-1944), executed 12 October 1944, Plötzensee prison
  • Karl Marks, Merchant
  • Michael Graf von Matuschka (1888-1944), District President; executed 14 September 1944, Plötzensee Prison
  • Colonel Joachim Meichßner, (1906-1944); executed 29 September 1944, Plötzensee Prison
  • Lieutenant Colonel (General Staff) Karl Michel
  • Carlo Mierendorff, SPD (1897–1943)
  • Joseph Müller, Catholic Priest, Dissident but not connected to July 1944 Plot. Executed 11 September 1944, Brandenburg-Gőrden prison
  • Dr. Otto Müller, Prelate
  • Herbert Mumm von Schwarzenstein, Legation Councillor
  • Lieutenant Colonel Ernst Munziger
  • Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, lawyer (1907-1945); executed 23 January 1945.
  • Arthur Nebe, Head of the National Police, commanding officer of Einsatzgruppe B (1994-1945); executed 2 March 1945, Plötzensee prison
  • Wilhelm zur Nieden, Local Government Building Officer, shot by Gestapo 23 April 1945
  • Major (General Staff) Hans-Ulrich von Oertzen (1915-1944); committed suicide 21 July 1944
  • General Friedrich Olbricht (1880–1944) Executed on orders of Colonel General Fromm, 20 July 1944[18]
  • Major General Hans Oster (1888-1945); hanged at Flossenburg with Admiral Canaris, 9 April 1945[6]
  • Cuno Raabe, Lawyer (1888–1971)
  • General Friedrich von Rabenau (1884-1945), executed 15 April 1945, Flossenbŭrg concentration camp
  • Lieutenant Colonel (General Staff) Karl Ernst Rathgens
  • Professor Adolf Reichwein (1898-1944) Leading Social Democrat, executed 20 October 1944, Plőtzensee prison
  • Colonel Baron Alexis Freiherr von Roenne, executed 12 October 1944, Plőtzensee prison
  • General Field Marshal (Generalfeldmarschall) Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel (1891-1944), Wermacht's most celebrated commander, forced by Hitler to commit suicide 14 October 1944.
  • Lieutenant Colonel Gustav Tellgmann
  • Elisabeth von Thadden (1890-1944); headmistress of a boarding school, executed 8 September 1944 Plötzensee Prison, not conneted to the 20 July plot.
  • Lieutenant General Fritz Thiele (1894-1944); executed 4 September 1944, Plötzensee prison
  • Major Busso Thoma (1899-1945); executed by hanging 23 January 1945, Plötzensee prison
  • General Georg Thomas (1890-1946); involved in earlier (1938-1939) plots but not 1944 plot. Arrested, sent to concentration camps but survived. Died in Allied custody in 1946.
  • General Karl Freiherr von Thüngen (1993-1944); executed by firing squad 24 October 1944
  • Lieutenant Colonel Gerd von Tresckow
  • Major General Henning von Tresckow (1901–1944), committed suicide 21 July 1944
  • Adam von Trott zu Solz (1909-1944); Legation Councillor, executed 26 August 1944, Plötzensee prison
Carl Wentzel at his trial
Carl Wentzel appearing before theVolksgerichtshof.
  • General quartermaster of the army Eduard Wagner
  • Colonel Siegfried Wagner (1894-1944), supplied a plane for von Stauffenberg; committed suicide 26 August 1944
  • Chaplain Hermann Josef Wehrle (1999-1944); executed 14 September 1944, Plötzensee Prison
  • Carl Wentzel, (1875–1944); executed 20 December 1944, Plötzensee Prison
  • Joachim von Willisen (1900-1983); Public official, arrested but lacking proof of involvement, released; survivied
  • Josef Wirmer (1899-1944); Lawyer, executed 8 September 1944, Plötzensee Prison
  • Oswald Wiersich, Labour Union Leader, executed 1 March 1945, Plötzensee Prison
  • Field Marshal Erwin von Witzleben (1981-1944); The highest ranking general actively involved; executed 8 August 1944, Plötzensee Prison

 OTHER GERMANS WHO RESISTED


 With acknowledgements to Wikipedia for many of these names and links.

Posted by Viridis Lumen at 11:28 1 comments
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Friday, 15 February 2013

GUEST BLOG: The Greens - can they become the main party of the Left?


This guest post, by Josiah Mortimer of the University of York Green Party, originally appeared on the Socialist Unity page, here. 

The Green Party of England and Wales’ Spring Conference looks set to be a radical one. In just a couple of weeks’ time – and on the Greens’ 40th ‘birthday’ – hundreds will gather to determine the direction of the party. The votes of these members could help establish the Greens as the party of the left at a time when the left – or at least large sections of it – is in complete disarray in Britain.
Why will it be a radical conference? The results of the ‘Prioritisation Ballot’ – the vote on how motions get ranked on the conference agenda (determining how likely they are to be debated) – are now in. Sadly few voted – just over 100 people, in fact. But the results are important nonetheless.
Green Left - the socialist group within the Green Party; website here
In policy, the top three motions are telling for how the party has grown to be a real force for progress in the face of a weak and ideologically vacuous Labour Party. The first, ‘Making Social Justice Central’ states ‘Green politics and social justice are fundamentally dependent – without environmentalism, the planet will become uninhabitable; without social justice, the planet isn’t worth living on.’
It proposes to alter the current ‘Philosophical Basis’ – the party’s core values statement, in effect – towards recognising the necessity of social justice as well as environmentalism in our politics, replacing the rather depressing and misanthropic current preamble, which begins: ‘Life on Earth is under immense pressure. It is human activity, more than anything else, which is threatening the well-being of the environment on which we depend.’ -with this:
‘A system based on inequality and exploitation is threatening the future of the planet on which we depend, and encouraging reckless and environmentally damaging consumerism. A world based on cooperation and democracy would prioritise the many, not the few, and would not risk the planet’s future with environmental destruction and unsustainable consumption’
A big shift, on the surface. But it retains the vital ecological focus, while at the same time demanding an alternative to the current economic system. At a time of global financial crisis, such a statement is more necessary than ever. Myself and a large number of other Young Greens proposed and supported this motion, after a similar item was passed at the last Young Greens Convention. Whether it will succeed is unclear – but it will open up an important debate nonetheless, at a time when we need to declare where we stand.
The second top-ranked motion is on pay-day loans – again a particularly prominent subject in this economic climate. Workers’ wages are stagnating while the loan-sharks use this as a chance to make a quick buck. The motion condemns the ‘morally unacceptable and economically imprudent’ pay-day loans system, and puts interest-rate capping and government support to ethical lenders into party policy. I have a feeling this one will be largely uncontroversial.
Next is monetary policy reform – not a hugely stirring topic, perhaps. But the motion is an interesting one, effectively calling for the nationalisation of the money supply, out of private banks’ hands – i.e. ‘control of money supply solely by the state’. The ramifications are significant, and plenty of debate will be vital. Nonetheless, it proposes a turn away from the dominance of multinational finance towards democratic control.
Further motions demand ‘community self-government over corporate rights’ and the anonymisation of job application forms to protect against racial discrimination.
The really radical shifts, though, are organisational.
The first, a motion supported by many in Green Left – the Greens’ eco-socialist wing – calls for the establishment of an anti-cuts councillor conference, and couldn’t come at a more urgent time. Council chambers across the country are currently setting their annual budgets. Following the founding of the new ‘Councillors Against Cuts’ initiative – so far Labour-dominated, but with steadily growing Green support – an anti-cuts councillor conference would enable cross-party discussion of legal challenges to the cuts, opening up the possibility of setting ‘needs budgets’, and encouraging direct action from below.
Building links with the unions has been at the core of Natalie Bennett’s vision since being elected. Her election speech encouraged the party to ask the unions – ‘what can we do for you?’ The motion on Green Party support for trade unionism is therefore a welcome one. In passing it, the party would declare ‘the Trade Union movement plays a vital role in defending the interests of working people’ and encourage ‘all its members to be active Trade Unionists’. Solid stuff.
Finally, G4S – yes, that lot who cocked up during the Olympics – have just been voted the world’s worst company for their role in the privatisation of warfare. This year’s Spring Conference could affirm that, in committing the Greens to oppose and expose G4S for the ‘illegal detention of Palestinians, profiteering from public sector privatisation & the neglect and mistreatment of refugees in the asylum system’ – among other crimes. It’s third on the ‘organisational’ agenda, and the Greens endorsement of the Stop G4S campaign would be cheered by campaigners word-wide, sending a very strong message to anti-war and human rights activists – we’re on your side.
So, this conference is set to be one of the most important Green Party gatherings in years – one which could solidify the party’s status as a party of the left, of social justice, and a party which stands on the side of those opposing austerity and war nationally and internationally. Watch this space.
Green Party Spring Conference will run from the 22nd-25th February. More details here.
Posted by Viridis Lumen at 02:09 0 comments
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Wednesday, 13 February 2013

Atomic Ranch


Liverpool electronic music group, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, also known as OMD, produced a string of mainstream hits back in the 1980s and early 90s. However, alongside their perfect-pop tunes, in many album tracks, they had a darker, edgier experimental side firmly rooted in the German "krautrock" movement of the late 60s and early 70s, largely founded by the prodigies of the Dusseldorf School of Electronic Music by bands like Kraftwerk and Neu!

These groups, prefiguring some of the genres associated with later Punk and Alternative movements, not only focused on the sounds made possible for the first time by emerging synthesiser technology, but they also peered into the bleak nightmare worlds of past futurists such as HG Wells and Orwell and into contemporary fears of societies controlled by computer. From these bleak landscapes emerged Frankenstein-like nightmares of people isolated from each other by both the possibilities and threats of robots, computer systems and corporations. Tracks like The Man-Machine and Computer Love foretold a time where humans become eclipsed by the very technology they create. In a world of increasingly intrusive surveillance via anything from internet spying by the authorities (and by corporations seeking to profit), to tracking systems on mobile phones and supermarket loyalty cards, to the deadly payloads of automated drone aircraft, time is proving their dystopian visions to be far from inaccurate.

OMD re-formed in 2006 and produced a comeback album History of Modern in 2010. This year, returning to their experimental roots, they will release English Electric in the spring. The video below is a taster trailer and shows a return to the themes they started with long ago, when they sang about the cold war, solar energy , genetic engineering and the Hiroshima bombing.

Atomic Ranch is an ode to the supreme dangers of unsustainable consumerism and synthetic lifestyles, underpinned by hopelessly destructive energy sources (and complete with a dash of conservative sexism in the style of The Stepford Wives). Especially relevant given the current crisis in our industrialised food systems and with 1950s retrostyle graphics by German artist Henning M Lederer, it is a short but imposing piece and a welcome return by a group from a more politicised age.

Posted by Viridis Lumen at 10:48 0 comments
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Saturday, 9 February 2013

Skynet is Coming - A Warning from History

Today In History -10 February 1868, Florida
Republican conservatives draft new constitution which concentrates
political power in the hands of the governor and limits the impact        
of the Black vote.  This is made possible by Conservatives, aided by military forces, who seize the convention hall and establish
control over the reconstruction process in Florida.

This violent act to restrict the rights of minority citizens and suspend the operation of normal democracy is by no means an isolated incident in the history of rightwing politics in the USA or elsewhere. Conservatives eschew the ability of the State to do very much at all - whether economics, education, welfare or whatever, private enterprise is favoured. Its definition of democracy is all too often a deeply qualified one and all about defending the elite's privileges in the face of what is termed fanaticism on the part of the democratic majority - that is, anything that in any way challenges the power and wealth of the richest.

The military however is another matter - neoliberals accord military and policing as the key responsibilities of the State, although even there the private profit motive is introduced wherever possible. Whole wars have been found to support the corporate business agenda - Iraq being a major recent case, with Libya following on.
Not all conservatives are blind to the dangers or as unprincipled as the neoliberal wing which dominates the Republicans in the USA and other conservative parties around the world in pursuing ever more vicious and unyielding ideologically-driven policies. It was one of their own, a former military commander, President/General Dwight Eisernhower who, in his farewell address of  January 1961, warned of the growing danger of the then emerging military-industrial complex. Driven by its need for conflict to feed its business needs, he voiced his concerns about the armaments industry taking on a life of its own in needlessly and endlessly fostering conflict and war. In this, it would seek ever more influence over politics and threaten democracy, liberty and freedom.

Eisenhower also warned against the rise of a scientific elite, linked to the military, being allowed to drive public policy in a range of fields, not least the military. In this, the ceaseless development of ever more powerful, devastating and even sinister weaponry has proven him right: from "tactical" nuclear weapons and the neutron bombs of the 1980s to the drones of today and, being developed now, the DNA-seeking, 100% computerised, non-human operated drones of tomorrow. Terminator seems just a few steps away.

Yet his words went unheeded by both Democrats and Republicans, so that now the USA spends nearly as much on weaponry as the rest of the world put together. This in a society where thousands die each year from malnutrition, where tens of millions even now have little effective healthcare and where life expectancy is lower than in many so-called Third World countries. This too in a country where the Patriot Act has done away with many legal safeguards and where progressive political and environmental protesters are officially ranked alongside jihadists as potential terrorists, especially where their views bring them into conflict with the arms industry or the military.

But the neolibs don't care - and in the 145 years since the coup d'etat in Florida, possibly the only thing that has changed is that they would not need to physically seize the convention: they would already have the whole process stitched up and probably outsourced. War, rumours of war and threats are what keep the military-industrial complex going - peace is anathema to it. And so the President's words ring prophetically true, but go unheeded.

Here is Eisenhower's full farewell address to the nation 17 January 1961:

Posted by Viridis Lumen at 17:18 0 comments
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Friday, 8 February 2013

100% Massproduced Horse-sh** - Guaranteed

In the wake of Tescos and a string of other retailers being found to have horse rather than beef meat in a growing number of their beef products, jokes have abounded - photo shopped pictures of cows complaining about horses coming over from France and stealing their jobs; Youtube videos of people in pantomime horse costumes going into supermarkets shouting "Mum! Dad! Where are you?"; and even references to the recently exhumed King Richard III having perished because when he offered up his kingdom for a horse, someone turned up with a Findus lasagne instead.
Great value - but for who exactly?
All very droll. But tonight, making the sickest joke of all, the Prime Minister has told the nation that the issue is that people are being misled about what is in their food. It is not a health and safety issue, Mr Cameron assures us, but a shocking betrayal of cultural sensitivities where British people don't eat horses, preferring instead to slaughter cows - whose inoffensive, perhaps rather dull nature makes them fine for killing and consumption. On the other hand, horses are far too nice to eat it seems, unless you are some nasty French person.

But not for the first time, of course, Mr Cameron is wrong on so many levels.

Firstly, how is it not a health and safety issue when what is in a box of food turns out to be something other than it is meant to be? If someone is flogging untraceable dead horses and calling their carcass offcuts beef, just exactly how careful and hygienic have they been with their sourcing of the meat? Environment Secretary Owen Patterson says he is sure criminals have been involved - so how on earth can the Government be so off-hand about the safety of the material put in these food products? Moreover, many, many horses are frequently given anti-inflammatory phenylbutazone drugs that stay long in their system and are significantly carcinogenic, increasing the risk of cancer in any humans consuming horse meat. The health risks cannot be ruled out so lightly.

Secondly, it is ingenuous to complain that people are being sold a lie if there is horse instead of cow in their Tesco burgers or Findus beef lasagnes. Yes, of course it is deceitful to replace one meat with another; but the real lie is all the other stuff that is quite legally in ready meals and processed "food" sold by our supermarkets. It may be on the label, but nearly no one buying them has a clue what it is - amazingly, they trust the authorities and even the supermarkets to sell them food that is safe. It is perhaps the impact of "horsegate" on this blind trust that worries food retailers and the Government they fund most.

Beef burgers can contain legally as little as 62% beef to bear the name, with a pile of other really cheap and nasty stuff to bind and preserve it making up the rest - bones, gristle and guts. This filler was what the horse meat in Tescos beef burgers was found in . Sometimes, burgers even contain the faecal matter of the dead animals ground up to make the binder substance. And so with nearly every other item of the ready meals and processed foodstuffs peddled by the four huge supermarkets, and the smaller ones too, that have over 90% of our food supply sown up.

Not what it seems?
A current supermarket advert, seemingly rushed out to counter the worries that the public won't eat beef meat because they can't be sure it really is, posits the fantasy of them being so committed to traditional British meat that, gosh, they have their own farm, complete with happy cows licking the celebrities fronting the advert. What they don't tell you is that the public image of  the little idyllic farm is now largely a myth - supermarkets do have farms; lots of them, huge big ones that have turned parts of the country into poor imitations of the American prairies, destroying communities and centuries of farming traditions, industrialising our food on an unprecedented scale. In other cases, they invent farms to trick consumers into buying what they think is premium food harvested from some sort of quality estate, like Tescos non-existent Willow Farm and M&S's equally fictitious "Lochmiur" (try finding it on a map!) And as for the cows, don't be fooled - dairy cows only produce milk because their calves have been taken away and slaughtered while still feeding from their mothers.

As the video below shows, if you can stomach it,the food chain is now on an unbelievable and wholly artificial scale from start to finish.

The current government, as with the previous one, happily colludes with all of this. It is significant that we only know about the horse meat because the Irish Food Agency identified and alerted the UK Government to it. This is because, in spite of their faux claims to be champions of the consumer, the Con Dem Government took responsibility for food safety inspection away from the Food Standards Agency and devolved it to local government and reduced the inspection requirements, supposedly to cut red tape. 

The third lie, though not articulated by Cameron today but rooted deep in the popular psyche, is that supermarkets are cheap and convenient. But in fact, like for like, several surveys have shown that food is cheaper in local markets - and where is the convenience in having to drive sometimes miles to wander round a huge supermarket collecting thickly packaged food?

Yet deceit and duplicity is the whole story of corporate retailed food - exemptions by every Government from the monopoly rules applied to other sectors (so that one in every five pounds spent in the UK on any type of product at all is spent in Tescos); deregulation of planning rules (sometimes after effective blackmail, other times via effective bribery) to allow them to build huge out of town sheds that have sucked the lifeblood out of all too many town centres; and ever-laxer rules on the content and safety of what they sell. All underpinned by cheap and even free labour courtesy of Government "training" schemes.

So we can't expect any genuine action from Cameron and his cronies on this, nor from Labour - both parties have received substantial funding from the supermarkets and will not effectively challenge them. Instead we will be sold the story that action is being taken to ensure the current fiasco can't happen again, while all along the huge corporations that own our food supply continue to bastardise it into standardised gunk and sell us a lie as they keep filling their shareholders' pockets and emptying ours.

And as for us? Well, in the end, by sheer biological fact, you are what you eat.



Further links:Tescopoly website, click here
                       "Eat All You Can" Viridis Lumen post, click here
                        Green Party Food Policy, click here
Posted by Viridis Lumen at 17:10 0 comments
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Monday, 4 February 2013

Hubris Huhne

He lied to his colleagues and constituents; he lied to the police, the papers and the Courts. His former wife is left defending her case on grounds of marital coercion to lie on his behalf when he was caught speeding and she took the blame. His son's texts to him came to light today during the preliminaries to his trial, including one where he told his father "you are the most ghastly man I have ever known." 

And it was only when Chris Huhne, former Energy Secretary, failed to have this evidence excluded from his upcoming trial that, finally, he realised the game was up and changed his plea to guilty, declaring he will shortly resign his seat as an MP - we now face a curious by-election in his Eastleigh constituency where the two Coalition parties are at least the notional main contenders, though time may tell another story.

Huhne has form on changing his story - and not just on speeding fines. Just look at how he changed his tack on nuclear power from when he was in Opposition to Government - it didn't need a court case to alert us to this man's exceedingly dodgy character and the damage he was willing to inflict to further his career.

BEFORE 2010 General Election:

AFTER 2010 General Election, i.e., once he was Energy Secretary:


What a work is he! Hubris Huhne, a man who thought he could get away with anything at all - he just had to be sufficiently brazen. Unique? Certainly not. Among our utterly arrogant political class, his only real crime is that he got caught.



Posted by Viridis Lumen at 17:49 0 comments
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Tuesday, 29 January 2013

The Golden Sands of Mali

How quickly things can change. Harold Wilson is credited with saying a week is a long time in politics. Well, two months is an eternity.

Back in November, a book was published showing that Britain has attacked 90% of the countries of the world at some point in our history. Only 22 countries had escaped our ire.

Now, after the UK Government's declaration that it is sending 240 military "trainers" to war-torn Mali and its neighbours, arguably that total is now down to 21. As if desperate not to miss out on the action, the Cameron Coalition has pledged support to the French-led force that has arrived in the country and is driving northwards, taking the legendary city of Timbuktu just yesterday.

The official narrative, of course, is that the western troops are saving a moderate regime which until their intervention was at the mercy of foaming, bloodthirsty al-Qaeda terrorists - Islamists, the news reporters keep parroting. And yet, as ever, the truth is far more complicated.

The official Mali government is in fact a military dictatorship that seized power in 2013 and whose troops stand accused by international human rights monitors of the same atrocities as its opponents. Its coup d'etat sparked long-oppressed Tuareg tribes in the north to declare their independence and within a short time fighting broke out. Always ready for conflict in the name of religion, there is no doubt that a fair number of mujahadeen turned up to aid the Tuaregs - but to characterise the northern insurgency as some sort of jihad is overstatement of the highest order and indeed northern Mali (renamed Azawad) has also seen heavy conflict between the Tuaregs and the Islamists. Rather, the issue is the declaration of independence being viewed as a threat to the corporate interests of French mining and mineral companies operating in the country - because Mali literally is a gold mine. As well as being the third largest producer of gold in Africa, it additionally has large deposits of uranium, diamonds and other precious metals.

And so, yet again, our troops are being sent off on a dubious mission creep, placing them in harm's way and our nation at risk for the benefit of multinationals under the guise of a war for freedom and faith. Along with a range of other western countries, we are supporting the bombing of towns by French and Malian aircraft - precisely the same tactic we have condemned the Syrian regime for deploying in its bloody civil conflict. But yet again, under cover of nobler aims, we excuse the excess and justify it by anathematizing the other side. So the blood continues to flow - and so do the profits.

21 countries to go (these are the only countries in the world never invaded by Britain):

Andorra
Belarus
Bolivia
Burundi
Central African Republic
Chad
Congo, Republic of
Guatemala
Ivory Coast
Kyrgyzstan
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg
Marshall Islands
Monaco
Mongolia
Paraguay
Sao Tome and Principe
Sweden
Tajikistan
Uzbekistan
Vatican City


Posted by Viridis Lumen at 18:54 0 comments
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Monday, 28 January 2013

Government by Psychopathy


psy·cho·path  (sk-pth)
n.
A person with an antisocial personality disorder, manifested in aggressive, perverted, criminal, or amoral behavior without empathy or remorse.

In the popular imagination, the psychopath is a bloody serial killer, typified by characters like Norman Bates from "Psycho" or Kevin Spacey's character, John Doe, in the film "Seven". Yet, in the real world, such extreme characters are relatively few and far between - rather than stalking and physically slicing a string of victims, most psychopaths find different outlets for their needs: business and politics being major fields for them to live out their psychologies.

Dr Paul Babiak, the psychologist who developed the "psychopath test" popularised by the Guardian's Jon Ronson in his recent book of the same name, has through extensive research estimated that around 1% of the population is psychopathic - broadly in line with the definition above, these are people usually with a massively inflated ego state who function in complete self-interest with no empathy or social constraint beyond doing something self-evidently counter-productive to their ends (although even then, they will sometimes take extreme risks). Adept at smooching and charming their way on the backs of others who they will first befriend, then suck dry and finally discard, their key traits are often confused with positive skills of leadership and decisiveness. It is not a mental illness - it is a psychological state. Scientific American put it this way in 2007:

Superficially charming, psychopaths tend to make a good first impression on others and often strike observers as remarkably normal. Yet they are self-centered, dishonest and undependable, and at times they engage in irresponsible behavior for no apparent reason other than the sheer fun of it... Psychopaths routinely offer excuses for their reckless and often outrageous actions, placing blame on others instead.

In pre-modern societies, often these people found an outlet for their urges in killing - in hunting and in warfare. Their pathology has come particularly to the fore in civil wars which so often, even more than conventional wars, lead to ever more extreme behaviour as, by default, social order and conventions collapse.

In more settled times, other avenues have to be pursued and perverted to their self-centred ends and their superior sense of entitlement. These are the people who, in the workplace, will be quite eager to "make difficult decisions" when it comes to parting others from their livelihoods, chirruping simultaneously that only they understand the real world and rewarding themselves substantially for their hard work. 

Consequently, Babiak and his colleague Hare have found that, among people in senior management roles, the proportion of psychopaths rises from the average of 1% to around 3.5%.  Around the same time, Board and Fritzon identified a higher rate of psychopathy among the very top levels of management than among criminals.

No test exists for politicians, but by default similar traits to those prized in management tend to be promoted positively among successful politics: decisiveness, coupled with charm - the "magnetism" of candidates who promise so much, so sincerely, who go to endless lengths to assure voters of their identification with them, but, once in office, renege so completely on their promises. Or, alternatively, leaders who happily divide society against itself to maintain themselves in power.

Scapegoating, a trait of many individual psychopaths in having others take the responsibility for their own failures, can be transposed to whole groups: the Jews in Hitler's case; more recently, Muslims by rightwingers in many European states; or, in the UK, welfare claimants, whose support is being chopped up and significantly reduced or withdrawn. Through repeated propaganda, this is being done with the apparent approval of large swathes of the populace, who seem to have concluded that they themselves will never be out of work, face homelessness, be sick or grow old. The fearful selfishness at the core of a lot of rightwing thinking - of "man mind thyself", or Thatcher's infamous "there is no such thing as society" - emphasises a lot that is core to psychopathic thinking and, while not all rightwingers are psychopaths and the Left is not immune to or devoid of psychopaths, there can be little doubt where the psychology of an ego that views itself as superior to others sits politically.

It is in this context that, in the last week, a few episodes in British politics have thrown into sharp relief the psychopathic nature of the Coalition Government, which lies easily with its doublespeak of efficiency cuts and "targeting resources where they are really needed" (implying by default that when they are withdrawn, they are not actually needed). Like individual psychopaths, a soothing message is given out to the majority - cuts are necessary for the greater good so that, by default, those in need are  selfish obstacles to common betterment.

So we had these dreadful cases this week:

First, the laughingly titled "Welfare Minister", former banker Lord Freud, has been busy introducing his so called "bedroom tax" on recipients of housing benefit (the majority of whom work but earn so little in low wage Britain that they qualify for help to keep a roof over their heads). Under the new arrangements, if you have a spare room in your home, your housing benefit will be reduced by 14% and by 25% if you have two rooms spare - about 600,000 people are expected to be affected.

The Minister of State for Work & Pensions:
 "Do as I say, not as I do?"
In an instance which shows just how arrogant the regime is, Lord Freud told an Inverness caller on a radio talk show that he needed to move into a smaller house if he wanted to keep his housing benefit because his Lordship reckoned he did not need his spare bedroom. When the man explained his three sons come to stay with him at the weekend and he needs the space for them (he is separated from their mother), Freud told him they should simply share a sofa bed! This from a man born into privilege - he is the grandson of Sigismund Freud - and the owner of an eight bed country mansion and a luxury City flat shared only with his wife. 

 Yet in so many ways much worse was the reaction in the House of Commons of Ian Duncan Smith, the "quiet man" of the Tory Party, who somehow wormed his way into a self-appointed position as some sort of poverty specialist after spending an afternoon dodging pools of vomit on a Glasgow housing estate a decade or so ago. This man, trumpeted as if he is some sort of compassionate genius, has presided over the so-called welfare reforms which have processed hundreds of thousands of disabled people through the dreadful ATOS assessments. Here the doublespeak has been about providing support to lost souls who need a job to regain their self-esteem; while in truth the whole process has been one of mental torture pitched at reducing the disability welfare costs and which has led to hundreds of thousands of perverse decisions and in some cases years of gnawing uncertainty for those affected. Simultaneous to their honeyed words of support, the Con Dems have quietly but relentlessly stoked the fires of hostility against disabled people, leading to growing abusiveness in public and a marked rise in assaults on visibly disabled people.

In the eleven months to November 2011 alone, by the DWP's own figures, over 1,300 people were told by ATOS they did not qualify for disability benefit and needed to find work, only to drop dead within six weeks. In addition, there have been a growing number of suicides by people waiting for or going through assessment: and it was note left by one such person that led to a telling but chilling scene which in so many ways sums up the dark emptiness in the cold heart of the regime.

Ian Lavery, Labour MP for Wansbeck, told David Cameron at PMQs that he had in his hand a letter left by a housebound man who had taken his life after a fruitless battle with the Department of Work and Pensions (headed by  Secretary of State Iain Duncan Smith). Mr Lavery called for future cases to include an impact review to be done before removing someone's payments. An uncomfortable Cameron trundled through the usual hollow hand-wringing about his thoughts being with the man's family before claiming that those still on benefits would be better off (true in only a tiny, tiny number of cases - just enough so the Government can make the claim).

But more telling was the look and reaction from Duncan Smith himself. The "quiet man" found his voice, his angry, snarling face and curling lip more than ample testimony of his fury that anyone would dare raise such an issue. His comments were unrecorded, but just like his shouting down of the political activist Owen Jones on a recent BBC Question Time programme when he similarly started to name deceased victims of ATOS, his utter lack of empathy and disregard for the real, flesh and blood victims of his cold, crass ideological crusade against the weak and vulnerable was more than evident.

It should be enough to show no one should indulge his attempts to stake a claim to anything moral for a single moment. For, regardless of his personal psychology, which this article is not qualified to assess, this is not by his deeds a good man.

But his antics are quite perfectly representative of how this coldest of Coalitions' behaviour manifests itself all too often against the weakest and most vulnerable members of society; Government by Psychopathy.


Posted by Viridis Lumen at 11:50 1 comments
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Wednesday, 16 January 2013

Gideon Osborne - Benefits Scrounger

Financial efficacy - Gideon knows
It is sickening to hear the parade of Government Ministers and their Media Masters in the rightwing gutter-rags parroting endlessly the lies about "benefits scroungers" - the impact of this on some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in our society has been evident in so many ways. From vilification in the news to mental torture via ATOS reassessments and free-to-Tescos workfare programmes, through to a marked rise in violent attacks on disabled people, the Con Dems have wildly exaggerated the level of fraud in the benefits system from the Government's own assessment of 0.7% of total spend to a point where a recent survey showed that on average people think the correct figure is a massive 27%.

Bad enough, but worse follows. Although he has decided to more than double the amount of fees having to be incurred by people before the state will pay for their old age care (from the £35,000 proposed by the Dilnot report to £75,000), Chancellor George Osborne has a bit of form on encouraging those with access to accountants and financial advisers to get free state paid care while avoiding paying their tax. In the video below, he popped up on the BBC to reassure the better off that they don't have to sell off their parents homes to pay for their care. Not at all - here he is on Andrew Neil's show explaining how they can avoid this legally with the help of some "clever financial products". This way they can avoid inheritance tax and get personal care paid for by the state.

So here we have our austerity-fetishist, service-cutting Chancellor helping the rich to get free social care which they are not intended to obtain free: now, isn't that benefits scrounging if ever? Or tax avoidance? Or both?

Oh, my apologies, taxes are only for the little people!

Posted by Viridis Lumen at 10:23 0 comments
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Thursday, 3 January 2013

Marx Reloaded

"I told you so..."
"Somehow it is supposed to be easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism..."

 As we enter another year of neoliberal mayhem, from the fiscal cliff of the USA, to the war on welfare in the UK and the dash for growth of the Chinese kleptocracy, try to see this film if you can - or even organise a showing of it in your community or college.
Don't stay calm - get angry; get active.

Posted by Viridis Lumen at 20:49 0 comments
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