The government's legal aid 'reforms' - i.e. effective destruction of the system as a public service - represent a triumph of rightist thought. The Tories have seldom been so blatant in their contempt for this 'society' nonsense. Even Thatcher wouldn't have tried this.
Firstly, they'll channel legal aid cash away from small, local law firms to huge corporations, a standard righty thing to do. They talk about personal freedom and the plucky little shopkeeper, inventor etc., but in fact these guys are all about the money, and we know where the biggest of the big money is. Multinational corporations are the future, and the Tories are their willing bumsuckers allies.
Secondly, they'll clobber the poor, and much of the middle class. Clobbering the poor goes without saying - they're Tories, it's what they do. The point is that the papers won't tell white, professional Middle Englanders that the Tories are clobbering them too till after it happens. When the unholy row finally breaks out it will all be declared a fait accompli that can only be tinkered with, not reversed. Bear in mind that anyone with a disposable income of more than £37,500 a year will be ineligible for any legal aid subsidy, at all. That's not a huge income.
Thirdly, it will further discredit the legal system, because providing shitty bargain-basement representation means a lot more people will be found guilty. Indeed, since a 'one fee fits all' approach is being introduced, it's in the interests of the big McLawfirms to urge clients to plead guilty, get it over quickly, and move on to the next human cashpoint British citizen accused of a criminal offence. Some verdicts will be so blatant an affront to reason and morality that there'll be appeals, leading to acquittals, though many will inevitably take years to get justice and some innocents will die in jail. A system that often jails the innocent cannot be held in high esteem. It's far worse than letting the guilty go free.
“Dimly, for he was not accustomed to thinking along these lines, he perceived the numbing truth that we human beings are merely as many pieces in a jig-saw puzzle and that our every movement affects the fortunes of some other piece. Just so, faintly at first and taking shape by degrees, must the germ of civic spirit have come to Prehistoric Man. We are all individualists till we wake up.”
Now there's a fine quote. One I agree with wholeheartedly. Most of the so-called 'libertarian' thinking of our time comes from people who are white, male, wealthy, have had it very easy thanks to Daddy's money and connections or similar private-sector safety net. For all their chat about history and such, libertarians seem to lack the imagination to visualise what can happen to supposedly smart, resourceful individuals when society breaks down. Oh, and they're also narcissistic little wankers with no moral compass, obviously.
But, insults aside, who was the author of the above? You can, I think, narrow it down. Obviously an elegant prose stylist - 'numbing truth' is a clever use of two commonplace words, far more effective than some bit of polysyllabic obscurity. The same goes for the commonplace term 'wake up', recruited here to perform an uncommon task. To me it suggests a person born maybe a hundred years ago, or not much less. 'Prehistoric Man' is more of a pre-war expression. Also a lightweight one - a more intellectual author might have said Neolithic Man or something along those lines.
Well, Google can reveal the truth, if you're interested.
Well, ladies, you've certainly got it made here in the woolly liberal West, haven't you? I mean, you're allowed to vote, you can actually talk without permission, some of you even have jobs. It's almost as if we've achieved a kind of feminist Utopia that...
Second-grade teacher Carie Charlesworth is out of a job, but not for anything she did in the classroom. Her school district considers her a liability and too unsafe to have around following a domestic violence dispute that happened earlier this year. A letter sent to Charlesworth said that school officials are concerned about her ex-husband's "threatening and menacing behavior," and as a result they "cannot allow" her to continue teaching at the Holy Trinity School.
"They’ve taken away my ability to care for my kids,” said Charlesworth. “It’s not like I can go out and find a teaching job anywhere.”
The mother of four children didn’t think this would ever be her story to tell, but she is using her name and showing her face in hopes of bringing attention to a larger problem.
It’s a story that has domestic violence advocates outraged, fearing it will only reinforce an age-old problem where victims stay silent — but equally concerned are the school's parents, not wanting their kids in the middle of it.
A classic instance of Victim Blaming by a Roman Catholic institution. It's easy to forget that religion is, by and large, about oppressing women, and the weakening of religious power in the West has probably done more to help liberate women than academic theorising or political campaigning.
Not much consolation to women, like Carie Charlesworth, who find themselves beating beaten up by a man, and then punished for it by a misogynist system. As she remarked: “I have not been back to a Catholic church since this happened”. I'm sure they're praying for you, Carie. Prayers are so good at putting meals on the table and a roof over your kids' heads.
It's been a good week for George Orwell, considering that Eric Arthur Blair has been dead for a long while. Firstly, there's a campaign to send 100,000 copies of his most famous book to Washington DC, which hasn't done publishing revenues any harm.
Then there's the determined attempts by both the US and UK regimes governments to pay tribute to 1984 by taking us there in a kind of securocratic time machine.
In Britain we've seen the pre-emptive arrest of would-be protesters on the grounds that they might have been about to commit crimes. I wonder why the same principle can't be applied to, say, members of parliament? I'm sure there's a good reason. I'm not a huge fan of anti-capitalist squatter anarchists, because a lot of them do seem to enjoy smashing stuff up. But I am a huge fan of giving everyone the right to peaceful protest and arresting them if and when they break the law.
And in case you think - as I'm sure many do - that all this fuss about state surveillance doesn't apply to normal people, think again. In Britain there is a thing called RIPA (presumably pronounced 'Reaper' - never let it be said these people have no sense of humour, grim thought it may be). Under RIPA various government departments, plus MI5 and other agencies, can obtain phone data i.e. who you've called, when, how long you talked etc. They can't actually listen in to your calls, but of course they can instantly build up a picture of all your phone contacts and - depending on how much you use your phone - a picture of your life at work and play. 'Under RIPA, various organs of the UK State can obtain from telecoms company data about users. This can range from a registered user’s name to every piece of information on a customer held by the telecoms company.' Every piece of information. Hold that thought.
How many times a year do you think UK state agencies obtain phone data on individuals? 15,000 times? 150,000? Try nearly half a million. With that level of info, working on the 'six degrees' principle, it might be possible to build up a rather nifty database on tens of millions of people. Of course, there almost certainly isn't one. Now.
As Jack of Kent (linked to above) puts it:
The only limits to the State’s desire to obtain data on its own citizens are probably only practicality, competence, and expense.
There is a debate to be had as to the correct limits are to this intrusion (and those officials who say that “if you’ve nothing to hide, you’ve nothing to fear” are usually most reluctant to tell you what they are doing); but we will not get that debate unless it is demanded. The State certainly does not want to discuss its intentions with us and get our prior approval.
It may well be that the wider claims made this week about Prism are “baseless” – and even false.
But it would not be because the State does not want to have such powers, if they were to become available.
Oh, and there's this absurd old principle that someone charged with a criminal offence has certain rights. Nonsense, of course. The US are charging inmates at Guantanamo with the most heinous crimes. Fair enough, you may say. But some are not allowed to know the crimes they are charged with...
(...) what makes the no-name government motion so intriguing is that those who've read it can't say what it's about, and those who haven't don't have a clue. Not even the accused, who, unless the judge rules for the defense, is not allowed to get an unclassified explanation of it - and cannot sit in on the court session when it's argued in secret.
Well, at least we can turn off our telescreens. It's just that we don't want to...
