What I saw at Millbank

For hour after hour the 24 hour media machine ‘reported’ from the foyer of the Milbank building in central London. Although just yards from the headquarters of the British secret service MI5, the assembled crowd or protestors and the accompanying hordes of journalists were largely oblivious to their mysterious neighbours. The angry buzzing of the Police and BBC helicopters that hovered over head occasionally drowned out both Protester and Hack alike, whilst outside and inside a building that houses the headquarters of the British Conservative party, several thousand predominantly young human-beings attempted with their own diverse methodologies, to project their voices into the Great Media Narrative.

Despite the success, at least in terms of numbers, of the largest demonstration against deep education cuts and a threefold increase in tuition fees seen so far. The pre-ordained narrative laid down by the chattering classes so tried and tested, was to be too strong yet again. Just as with the protests of Seattle in 1999 and Copenhagen ten years later, this narrative was not one concerned with the future chances of a generation, or even the masses of human beings that had come from far and wide to voice their outrage; but rather instead, of the ‘violent minority’ of ‘masked’ and ‘hooded Anarchists’, a ‘tense atmosphere’, ‘angry scenes’ ‘disgusting chaos’, ‘arson’ and the failure of the rule of Law. But why exactly are we accepting this narrative? Laid down to us as it is, by the very same people that have the strongest interest in maintaining the status quo.

The instant that the first window was smashed, it was all over for anybody hoping for the long dormant journalistic talent of Fleet Street to maintain some proportion in the coverage of a subject of such national importance. With one or two exceptions, this media narrative was monolithic. The coffin was nailed firmly shut when the cowardly head of the NUS Aaron Porter appeared on the BBC within hours claiming to be: ‘absolutely disgusted’ at those who as he claimed were: ‘in jeopardy of undermining the entire protest’. In that one pithy sentence, the head of the NUS, the man responsible for advocating student rights and mobilizing support against the Tory cuts in the first place, had surrendered an important sound bite to this famished media narrative, a morsel to be regurgitated throughout the syndicated mediascape.

Later in the day, as if to add further insult to injury - men, women and children with real fears for the future educational welfare not of themselves, but of complete strangers, were reduced to no more than ‘loutish thugs’ by Met commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson. Thousands of demonstrators who were not themselves students, but nonetheless spoke both for the future and the past garnered no media attention at all. They too had been ‘undermined’ my the ‘violent minority’. A little detail by the way, which seemed to quickly drop out of the mainstream media coverage, was that whilst the windows of Tory HQ were being torn down, those doing so were cheered on by a crowd of thousands.. This was not a ‘violent minority’, but the tip of the majorities spear plunging deep into the soft underbelly of the Conservative beast. Almost every person in that crowd I would think, would have happily led the charge. To the media and politicians however, this sort of thinking is outside the boundaries of permissible discourse.

Of course the explicit message was always going to be one of condemnation for any and all ‘violence as a legitimate means of protest’. But this only highlights yet again the paradox involved in the corporate media’s reporting of demonstrations in general. Violence is sexy. It sells. It captivates. Once caught by the voyeuristic media lens, scenes of violence are repeated endlessly throughout the news cycle. How many times will we be made to watch and re-watch the scuffles between riot police and ‘criminals’ over the coming days? Jonathon Jones at the Guardian Newspaper offers a mixed analysis of why the media (not all but most) has taken the view that is has, on the one hand asking: “Are the media exercising their nasty arts to make students look like a mob? and answering ‘no’, but then going on to say: “This image has made the front pages because it is exciting. Its violence is liberating to contemplate, in a dangerous, Dionysian way.” For Jones, the violence is not newsworthy in and of itself, but rather precisely because it appeals to our most primitive emotions. Well fine, but is he telling us this is all we have to expect of our journalists today? No more than an extended freak show - a lesson in emotional manipulation. I ask myself.

I also wonder, how exactly one goes about ‘undermining’ a protest anyway? What is a legitimate protest and what is not? To my simple mind, a protest is where an individual, or more likely a group of individuals decides to perform a largely symbolic action in the name of a particular cause, in the hope that this totemic act of resistance could in some way effect actual change. Throughout history there have been many struggles for human dignity, equality and solidarity. Many of these struggles feautured a violent component to their methodolgies. Can we honestly say that when we look back now, we should unequivocally condemn those members of the suffragettes willing to break the law for the dignity of women? Must we condemn in the strongest terms the members of the Nelson Mandela’s ANC for their often violent struggle for equality in South Africa? Must we label as ‘disgusting’ and ‘undermining’ all those that use violence in solidarity with the Palestinians?

I’m not trying to equate the protests over British higher education cuts and fees to any of the historic (and ongoing) struggles I mention above. But don’t be fooled by how the media has framed the issue. My heart beat rose and my adrenaline pumped when I saw the plated glass begin to buckle, not out of any prehistoric blood lust, but because for the first time in my life I was conscious of the roaring voices alongside me, all as alienated from Westminster as I was, who demanded in their own way to be listened to by a giant with no ears. Perhaps I got ahead of myself when I claimed they had cut into the underbelly of the beast. But we certainly stamped on his toes, and ears or not, the giant's gaze is sternly fixed on us, just as it should be. CJL

Theories of Human nature: Biological, Social and Christian perspectives

After a conclusively inconclusive election, I thought it best to avoid politics for a little while. Instead and in keeping with my original remit for this blog, I intend to upload one or two of my own philosophical essays - written during my time in Sweden. This short essay below is an analysis of "The rise and fall of Socio-biology" by Augustine Lawler.

- By Christopher Landau


The subject of this essay is the ongoing debate over the fundamental form of Human Nature and how this manifests itself. There are many differing theories, but for the purpose of this essay I will focus on three of the most prominent concepts. Firstly, the synthesis of scientific disciplines collectively termed “Socio-Biology” which I will compare and contrast with the exponents of the “Social Constructionist” world view. These two schools of thought are both connected to and distinct from a third view. Or rather an overarching project, “Biotechnology”. Not as a belief system, but as a mechanism, one which involves using our knowledge of human biology and our improving technology, to try and improve the quality and length of human life. In “The rise and fall of Socio-Biology” Augustine Lawler starts by examining these three contrasting views of the relationship human beings have with their nature. He begins his essay by briefly laying out the foundational premises of these models.

In summary, Lawler states that socio-biology is the concept that humans have their own intrinsic value, their own nature, and a natural purpose to fulfil. In this world view Lawler says that our nature and purpose makes sense within the context of Darwinian evolution and could lead one to conclude that we are in fact not so different from the other animals. The conflicting Social Constructionist model takes the view that the idea of human nature itself is irrelevant. It is our Society, Culture and Institutions, that are responsible for defining how we perceive ourselves and thus define our nature. Human nature under this view is not already set by biological factors, as all our ideas of Human Nature are open to change at the whim of our society, culture, taught values, upbringing etc.

Lawler says that these contrasting belief systems should be seen as offering us a significant, yet necessarily reductionist account of Human Nature. As Lawler writes: “Each presents part of the truth about being human by disfiguring the whole.” The third part of the picture involves one point of human distinction from the other animals; namely our ability to use scientific knowledge to marshal the forces of nature under human control. Human technology is not a more sophisticated version of primate tool-making, but rather our technology is distinctly human. As Lawler puts it, “it is a response to the dilemmas and possibilities of being the only moral, rational, and death-haunted animal.” The reason that Lawler offers this mechanism as an alternative to the socio-biology and social constructionist concepts is that many see Bio-technology as having the potential to completely re-define what it means to be human. Not as a definition of human nature then, but as a means of changing it.

Any debate about Human Nature is necessarily complex and the scope and range of thought that fall under the headings Socio-biology or Social Constructionism is such that the models outlined above should be seen as a fairly narrow interpretation. This contentious subject is still fiercely debated amongst academics and politicians as it touches many potentially controversial historical and contemporary issues. Lawler writes “Each of these views is more an ideology than a science, more a program for human reform than a truthful account of the way things are”. Without wanting to create a Straw Man, Lawler states that neither of the views outlined above, can give a whole account of human nature. The question does not become cliché; “nature or nurture?”, but to what extent do we have a nature at all? And if we accept that we have some sort of nature, how much of it is formed in our genes and how much in our society?

In his essay Lawler focuses on the rise and fall of socio-biology in terms of a scientific dogma, explaining its usefulness and its weaknesses. Arguing that he application of socio-biology to humans was immediately controversial. The late Stephen Jay Gould for example, said that socio-biology was intrinsically biologically determinist and open to manipulation. Just as similar ideas had been used in the past to justify the status quo, Gould feared a certain understanding of human nature could only further entrench the ruling elites in place in certain societies, thus legitimizing authoritarian political and social programmes. It could be argued that this fear has indeed been realised, manifesting itself in the form of various atrocities, such as the genocide of Jews under the Nazis. The socio-biological account has also been viewed as taking away the ‘meaning’ from life, nature offering us only a short, contingent existence as individuals. Lawler thinks this view “is unlikely to halt or limit our desperate turn to biotechnology in pursuit of the happiness that nature by itself does not seem to give us.” The exact nature of our denied happiness is not elaborated upon by Lawler, however I don’t see why we must assume that a “meaningless” existence is any less important or potentially enjoyable than a “meaningful” one. Can I not be a good person, living a happy and fulfilled life without a purpose? I think so, and I belief so does Lawler, who finds it not at all contradictory when he concedes that it is possible for socio-biology to be consistent with the view that human nature can be created out of nothing (social constructionism) or remoulded to a particular end (biotechnology). If this is true, then it seems there would be little problem taking the socio-biological view to the extent that we accept Darwinian evolution and we accept that we have no pre-determined path, but at the same time we can not only construct our own meaning and purpose in life adaptively if we want to, but can exist just as existentially satisfied without one at all.

Whilst it is Lawler’s opinion that neither the socio-biologists nor the social constructionists give us a complete, or even nearly complete, account of our nature, he accepts that “We have animal natures, which are not fundamentally different from the other animals in being determined to some degree by our evolutionary genetic inheritance”, he calls this the partial truth of socio-biology. What is particularly interesting about this point is made clear later when he also says that: “the truth of socio-biology is an unstable middle position between unscientific ignorance and biotechnological wilfulness. Socio-biology is true until we know it is true.” What he means here is that once we have understood how human nature works on an evolutionary and biological level, we are empowered by this knowledge with a capacity for improvement and change in this very nature itself. This seems to be the paradox of Socio-biology and if true, Lawler is right to look for a more encompassing explanation of our nature than merely, our genetic inheritance.

In “Human Nature after Darwin” Janet Richards contributes to this ongoing debate by focusing on the implications of the Darwinian revolution for understanding our own nature. She explains that although the term Socio-biology represents a coherent set of beliefs it has become a somewhat tainted term in academic discussion. Perhaps due to the earlier alluded to political and social implications of some of its ideas. Many critics make a connection between socio-biology and the biological determinism of the early 20th century. This is still relevant because many believe the Darwinian “revolution” is not yet played out in terms of its potential, especially in combination with the development of bio-technology. The potential of bio-technologies not only raises the value-driven science debate in terms of the driving ideology behind future technology, but if actualised, could raise moral questions previously consigned only to the realm of Science-fiction. Richards asks in this extract, whether there really are serious implications, to the theory of Darwinian evolution, and if so, are they of a biological or perhaps even metaphysical nature. One such implication that scientists, such as Richard Dawkins see; is that Darwinian materialism leaves no room for God. Even as an atheist I tend to believe that this is not the case. At least I have yet to see a convincing argument as to why an understanding and acceptance of evolution is anything other than merely consistent with an atheistic view. If I was to accept consistency as enough evidence for the non existence of God, then conversely I would have to accept that the Fine-tuned universe oft cited as consistent with theism, was evidence for the existence of God, which is clearly nonsense.

Metaphysical questions aside, criticisms of the scientificity and moral/political purpose of socio-biology can and certainly have been made towards various social constructionist projects as well. Lawler takes the examples of the Marxist and Feminist movements, explaining that the Utopian visions of the social constructionists are typically conceived on the premise that we lack a real reason to maintain many of our beliefs. Including that we as humans share certain responsibilities, independent of our society and culture, and that those human responsibilities connect us implicitly with birth, love, and death. These social constructions which we take for granted as part of being empathetic emotional beings have, according to the constructionists, been fitted into the routine of human life without biological mandate and therefore can be removed.

Lawler disagrees with these sentiments when he states: “while social constructionism is right to see that human beings are distinct from the other animals, it errs in believing that our distinct quality is total freedom from nature.” What I believe is starting to become evident as I read more of Lawler, is that he believes in a synthesis of the three views discussed above; building first on the foundation of mechanistic Darwinian evolutionary principles, whilst accepting the need for certain cherry picked, social constructionist concepts that we might use to address the imbalances within our society. A good example of this synthesis can be seen if we look at the Feminist movement I briefly mentioned earlier. Lawler states that they absolutely failed in their radical attempt to remove traditional gender roles from society, but that they succeeded in many parts of the world, to quite an extraordinary degree, in creating a fairer, more egalitarian environment for women. This seems to support the view that the two contrasting ideas of socio-biology and social constructionism can be combined and integrated without contradiction or need to accept one or the other.

So where does this leave us in terms of defining our own nature? Lawler concludes that in the end, although Bio-technology is important, it is not the game-changer that many believe it to be. It is not ever going to satisfy us entirely, because the tantalizing possibilities of progress will always remain in one form or another in our future. We also cannot accept the Ultra Darwinian view of our nature that excludes the importance and need for individual and culturally determined human constructions and excepts merely a crude materialism. Instead Lawler argues, we need a: “richer, more truthful account of human nature, one that comprehends the excellences and passions, the joys and miseries, of being the only animal who knows, loves, and thinks about death”. I think that Lawler’s broader point here is correct. Both the socio-biologists and the social constructionists have described human nature in reductionist terms which should be avoided if possible. We should instead embrace a far more comprehensive view of our nature. Incorporating the great benefits we have gained from a better understanding of evolutionary biology whilst at the same time accepting there limitations and the need for further understanding of our distinctly human characteristics which are often so hard to quantify.

Whilst some will not be convinced by anything other than an all encompassing, materialist understanding of evolution. Those of us that accept our Darwinian ancestry as part of our nature can be even more greatly rewarded, when we realise that there is no destiny that we are being driven towards. We are formed by our genes, but we are not merely a blank slate to write on and we have the capacity to define ourselves by our own actions and beliefs (even if we are only too aware that Darwin was right on the stamp of our lowly origins). Its best I think to accept that we are part of the natural order, that we are not a specially created species with unique privileges. Because bleak as it may seem to some, it doesn’t mean we have to live without irony, humour, solidarity or any other of the things that make human life bearable and indeed possible. C

Attack of the Labour apologists

“Sectors of the doctrinal system serve to divert the unwashed masses and reinforce the basic social values: passivity, submissiveness to authority, the overriding virtue of greed and personal gain, lack of concern for others, fear of real or imagined enemies, etc. The goal is to keep the bewildered herd bewildered. It is unnecessary for them to trouble themselves with what's happening in the world. In fact, it's undesirable -- if they see too much of reality they may set themselves to change it.” – Noam Chomsky


-by Christopher Landau

Can you feel it?

The hot sweats and trembling hands. The furrowed brows and clenched fists. Election fever has most definitely struck the Labour party faithful and they clearly feel it’s not too late to offer us their pathetic revisionism. Like a microcosm of the Westminster stage, Facebook and other social networking sites have rapidly become the political pulpit of choice for the many partisan observers preaching their version of the truth.

Like a mirror held up to the party leadership, die-hard Labour supporters desperately scramble for credibility, increasingly dismayed by the "Clegg effect" that transformed this election after the Liberal Democrat leader won last week’s first televised debate. And in so doing so - moved us one-step closer to ending the undemocratic duopoly maintained by the two biggest parties for decades.

This has inevitably led to the awakening of a prickly, nervous and vocal sect of Labourphiles emerging into the bright light of the Media glare. Seemingly hell bent on defending there party, leaders and the status quo with a cacophony of half-truths, exaggeration, lies and spin. Even in Sweden, even over the Rumble of the Volcano - I can hear the faint sounds of hand wringing and teeth grinding. Which got me to thinking - Why should I actually care if Labour loses this election?

Yes, I do worry about what the Tories will do if they get in. But I also worry about what Labour might do if they win another term. And why anyone who genuinely hails from the political left should ever seek the re-election of arguably the most right wing British government since the Second World War - is beyond my comprehension.

Of course the New Labour apologists will try to convince us of there “core Socialist values”, by pointing to some of the redistributive policies introduced over the past 13 years. Examples such as Sure Start, the national minimum wage, a reduction in child poverty, raising the school leaving age, flexible hours for parents and carers, better conditions for part-time workers, the ‘decent homes’ programme, free museums and increased spending on foreign aid.All of these things are real achievements and deserve to be recognized as such. However the catalogue of failures, duplicity, apostatizing and outright destruction is a far longer and more consequential list.


Under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown Labour discovered a new role to play on the world stage, one that restored power and credibility in the eyes of the electorate. Instead of delivering our dreams - politicians promised to protect us from nightmares. As Britain and America go around the world 'liberating' oppressed people, and as they try to 'liberate' us from the old bureaucracies of the past, they replace what was there before with a strange kind of freedom; a freedom that bears little resemblance to any notion of freedom we knew before. This is the New Labour project and it is mirrors the Neo-Conservative movement in the U.S.

In the past politicians promised to make a better world. They had different ways of achieving this but their power and authority came from the optimistic visions they offered their people. Those dreams failed and people lost faith in ideologies - with politicians increasingly seen as mere managers of public life.

Welcome to the Politics of Fear

“Terrorism doesn't just blow up buildings; it blasts every other issue off the political map. The spectre of terrorism - real and exaggerated - has become a shield of impunity, protecting governments around the world from scrutiny for their human rights abuses.” – Naomi Klein

One thing alone destroys the credibility of a vote for Labour. We have a cabinet full of war criminals. That is of course only if you accept the premise that there is such a thing as International Law and that it should be recognised. It is commonly understood but again, seldom reported, that the British government - like most other major world powers, cares nothing for international law until it serves our own interests. Noam Chomsky famously once quipped: “If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged.”

The same holds true for our beloved leaders. The Nuremberg tribunal by the way defined a war of aggression like that inflicted on Iraq as “the supreme international crime”. But in that particular case, the immorality comes not only from the Labour government’s unprovoked massacre of civilians but because it was Labour itself that sabotaged chances of achieving a peaceful resolution. It had already been decided that Iraq was to be invaded in 2001.(3) After the attacks of 9/11 gave Britain and the US a mandate to realise the full ideological potential of the ‘War on Terror'.

The red white and blue elephant in the room

"Somewhere in the modern British psyche there perhaps still lurks the dreamy figure of a prime minister who might, at least occasionally, tell Washington where to get off" - John Harris

As well as being the most right wing government since the war, this Labour government has also been the most subservient partner of the so called ‘special relationship’, since Churchill first coined the phrase in 1946. The dynamic between the U.S and U.K reached entirely new lows as Labour agreed to meet just about every demand from the Bush administration.

This unequal relationship can be demonstrated simply enough. Take for example the one-sided extradition treaty Tony Blair signed in 2003 allowing the US to extradite British citizens without producing prima facie evidence of an offence. In the same year the defence secretary Geoff Hoon announced that he would “restructure the British armed forces to make them inter-operable with those of the United States”(4) ensuring for the first time in our history that our military became functionally subordinate to that of another sovereign power.

The roll of the U.S in shaping British foreign policy is rarely acknowledged in any Corporate Media that I know of. Yet it is the defining factor that has led us into the blood and horror of Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. (If anybody wants to pipe up at this point and saying something about Kosovo being a ‘good’ intervention”, I recommend Noam Chomsky, Robert Fisk and John Pilger’s excellent reporting on this issue. I could write a whole essay on the Labour propaganda coup that is Kosovo - but it will have to wait).

In 2006 the Labour govenment also helped to block a proposed international moratorium on the use of Cluster bombs. Still resisting an outright ban today, despite the fact that after the 1st of August 2010 Britain will be left as one of the only countries in Europe not to ratify the treaty.(5)

I assert that Labour's foreign policy is as much, or more unethical, than that of Margaret Thatcher's. If we grant that it is possible to say such things at all.
It is the same administration which collaborated with the US programme of torture, extra-judicial kidnapping and targeted assassination. This is the same administration that abandoned our fellow countrymen in Guantánamo Bay and had them tortured in Pakistani prisons and the 'secret' CIA prisons dotted about Eastern Europe and the Middle East - where there may still be many more Britons held in anonymous solitude.

This is the same regime that continues in its resolute support for the Zionist occupation of Palestine. A Labour government which is so infiltrated by Zionist lobbyists they even refused to call for the halt of Israel’s massacre in Gaza at the end of 2008; in which over 1400 Palestinians were slaughtered, over half the dead children, with thousands more were critically wounded and over 6000 homes destroyed. This carnage often inflicted by technology exported from Britain and the U.S. Utilised on the ground by adolescent conscripts who are themselves largely funded by the American and British Military industrial complex.

Confronting Labour mythology head on

“A little rebellion now and then is a good thing”. – Thomas Jefferson

Frustratingly, by its own internal logic New Labour and it supporters actually see themselves as a success. It implemented the project that it set out to implement. Recall that Blair's destruction of Clause 4 was hailed as a masterstroke. And so it was - effectively signalling the end of the party. It was a right-ist coup d'état so successful that by some strange inversion of reason we have Labour sycophants today trying to define the Liberal Democrats as the ‘Right wing’ party and Labour as the party of the people. Neither of them are the party of people, but at least the Lib Dems don’t have to scrub of 13 years of evil taint.

During the past 13 years of Blair and Brown's stewardship, the economic framework laid down by Thatcher has been strengthened. The citizen has been re-regulated and business has been deregulated; as New Labour shifted taxation from the rich to the poor, cutting capital gains tax from 40% to 18%, and corporation tax from 33% to 28%, tried to raise the income tax paid by the poorest earners from 10% to 20% and lifted the inheritance tax threshold from £300,000 to £700,000. Whilst maintaining the cap on the highest rates of council tax, Labour has perversely focused the vast majority of enforcement on prosecuting low level benefits cheats, but has allowed tax avoidance mostly by the very rich, to reach an estimated £41bn.(7) If we look at the ‘Gini coefficient’ which measures inequality, it has increased slightly under Labour –rising from 0.33 to 0.35.

Despite what the Labour hacks would have you think, Gordon Brown was not a competent Chancellor; not if we look at the long-term results from his time at the treasury. It was Brown who notoriously claimed the “End of boom and bust” yet this is the very same man whose short sighted, politically expedient manoeuvres as chancellor have added hugely to our national debt. To take just one example, Gordon Brown was responsible for selling off the national gold reserve at a time when Gold prices reached record lows - cost to the taxpayer £7 Billion. His most damaging action as both chancellor and prime minister however was the forced implementation of the private finance initiative, into almost all of our public services.

PFI’s might not mean much to most people, but this reflects more on the scandalous under-reporting that they have received than their importance. The only real journalist willing to take on such a dry but crucial story it seems - is George Monibot of The Guardian newspaper.

Brown’s privatisation schemes crept into places where previous Conservative governments never dared tread, although they are unlikely to have such qualms today. One example that springs immediately to mind is the recent venue for the Labour Manifesto launch last week. The new hospital used as the venue cost £600 million to build, the final bill to the taxpayer under the PFI scheme will run to £2.5 billion.(8)

A somewhat nihilistic conclusion

What started out as an experiment by a group of young, powerful ideologues in the Labour party - seeking to redefine some sort of shared ‘goal’ for the British people to identify with. Instead became nothing more than the simplistic but powerful notion of the ‘constant war’ that Orwell had foreseen. The Labour government destroyed our hopes. As Monibot writes; “It put into practice Thatcher's dictum that "there is no alternative" to a market fundamentalism that subordinates human welfare to the demands of business. Labour has created a political monoculture that kills voters' enthusiasm, and has delayed electoral reforms that would have given smaller parties an opportunity to be heard. All we are left with is fear: the fear that this awful government might be replaced by something slightly worse. Fear has destroyed the Labour party, but people keep supporting it in trepidation of letting the other side win."(9)

Save this government? I would sooner give my money to a charity that rapes badgers. Of all the causes that leftist thinkers might consider supporting New Labour must be one of the least deserving. I have no problem with a tactical vote for Labour to keep out the Tories by the way, fair enough. But to claim Labour occupies some sort of ideological high ground is gratuitous. If you don’t want to believe me that is of course up to you. As the English theologian Joseph Barber Lightfoot put it: “When I speak to you, I speak to myself. If I seem to warn or to rebuke you, it is not so much you, as myself, to whom the warning or the rebuke is addressed.”

I say that because like many of the Labour apologists peddling their ideological claptrap today, I too came from a family of die-hard leftist Labour supporters. But tribal loyalty to the Labour party in 2010 represents the antithesis of truly left wing values. Of course I imagine most Labour partisans will claim my writing is unfair and dismiss it out of hand. So all that I can do is leave you with the opening paragraph of Thomas Paine’s short but enlightened book 'Common Sense'.

“Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. But tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.” C

References

(1) http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2002/04/16/a-war-against-the-peacemaker
(2)http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2003/11/11/dreamers-and-idiots/
(3)http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2004/apr/04/iraq.iraq
(4)Geoff Hoon, 26th June 2003. Britain’s Armed Forces for Tomorrow’s Defence. Speech to the Royal United Services Institute
(5) http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2006/11/07/asserting-our-right-to-kill-and-maim-civilians/
(6)http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/05/20/nothing-left-to-fight-for/
(7). http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld200708/ldhansrd/text/80327-0002.htm
(8)http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7583433/Manifesto-reveals-the-scale-of-Labours-failure.html
(9) http://www.monbiot.com/

The Independant Newspaper - sold for a quid

- By Christopher Landau

"[The "liberal media"] love to be denounced from the right, and the right loves to denounce them, because that makes them look like courageous defenders of freedom and independence while, in fact, they are imposing all of the presuppositions of the propaganda system." - Noam Chomsky

On the 25th of March 2010, former Russian KGB agent and Billionaire Oligarch Alexander Lebedev bought The Independent and Independent on Sunday newspapers for the princely sum of £1 sterling. The deal was all but inevitable after the Office of Fair Trading declared no further interest in pursuing an investigation into the possible ‘competition issues’ arising from Mr Lebedev’s simultaneous ownership of another British newspaper, The Evening Standard.

What Lebedev’s ownership means for The Independent remains to be seen, but it got me thinking. What should we expect of this kind of corporate media takeover in 2010? As I was unable to find any actual journalists writing about this issue during all the election coverage, I decided to do a little research and try to find some recent historical precedents that might give us a better idea of what to expect from the takeover of the Indy. Ideally I wanted to find another independently funded, widely distributed paper which hitherto to a private takeover had produced high quality fact-based reporting and was considered seriously as an important educator and voice for the people.

What I found was a paper that matched all of my criteria: The Mirror circa 1984. I came across a number of articles and an excellent documentary on the The Mirror's takeover by the notorious business tycoon Robert Maxwell. Maxwell, who incidentally worked with my father very briefly during the eighties and died in mysterious circumstances on his boat, some years after running The Mirror deep into a hole. What the documentary depicts is really the sorry state of the British press today and the anti democratic relationship between our politicians and our journalists. Somthing that is all too relevant looking at the 24hr election coverage which we are forced to endure for the next few weeks.

In June 1988, former editor of The Mirror Sir Hugh Cudlipp, spoke at a memorial service for his late friend and Mirror colleague Sydney Jacobson. The venue at St Bride’s church was packed to the rafters with the journalistic elite of Fleet Street, a testament to Jacobson who had been a highly respected reporter. It must have come as quite a shock to many of those gathered there that day, when Cudlipp used the occasion to describe in visceral and emotive terms the threat to the free press as he saw it in 1988.

An extract from Cudlipp’s speech is featured at the end of the documentary I found: "Breaking the Mirror: The Murdoch effect". Written and presented by journalistic ubermensch John Pilger - one of my personal heroes. I couldn’t find any written transcripts of the memorial speech so I transcribed it from the film:

“In one particular sense, Sydney Jacobson was fortunate to retire from the Fleet Street scene in 1974. It was the dawn of the Dark Age of Tabloid journalism. The decades still with us, when the proprietors and editors, not all but most; decided that playing a continued role in public enlightenment was no longer any business of the popular press. Information about foreign affairs was relegated to three-inch yapping editorials insulting foreigners. It was the age when investigative journalism in the public interest shed its integrity, and became intrusive journalism for the prurient. When nothing, however personal was any longer secret or sacred and the basic human right to privacy was banished in the interests of publishing profit. When significant national and international events were nudged aside by a panting, seven-day and seven-night news service for voyeurs, on the one-night stand’s of pop stars and teenage delinquents. Some of these foolish things are worthy of mention in the popular press, but now its overkill.”

The rest of the documentary (which is posted at the bottom of the page) is very much still relevant today. It shows some of the most anti-democratic changes enacted under both the Tory and Labour governments in bed with the Media and especially Murdoch over the last few decades. Illustrating how after thirty years of ever-increasing hegemony in our media landscape, the mainstream news continues to depoliticise and subdue us into the desired state of non-critical apathy. A state which corrodes the very qualities in all of us most needed to address issues of social change.

An example of the 'apathy machine' in action which the film explores, is the sexualisation of news - now so ubiquitous as to almost seem cliché. We all expect soft-core porn with our ‘news’ in England right? ‘That how it’s always been!’ Wrong. Pilger’s documentary sheds light on just how recent and rapid the period of decline in the British press has been. Focusing on The Mirror primarily; but also on The Sun and the effects stil felt to this day, after Murdoch's alliance with Thatcher in the seventies; an alliance that helped break the Unions and arguably British journalistic standards. The film also shows the extraordinary relationship Murdoch maintained with the British government under Thatcher, which was then reconfirmed and strengthened by Tony Blair and New Labour.

However it is my personal opinion that the flaws we might be able to percieve in the British news media today, are but a prelude to something much worse if the Conservative party is allowed to regain the majority this May. Thats not to say that the cozy relationship Labour has fostered with the captains of Media industry is not similiarly dangerous and anti democratic. But arguably the Conservatives have always seemed more natural bedfellows for Murdoch than New Labour ever were. It seems fair to say that The Sun and the Torys always had more values shared in common. E.g Targeting the working class and trying to pull them to the right.

But perhaps it is time we ruled out both parties completely if we want to see a new relationship forged with the media. It seems a pretty good bet that as none of the newspapers have a meaningful relationship with Nick Clegg going into this election, the Lib Dems might have an opportunity the other parties do not to enact media reform. It is frustrating to see that now Murdoch has switched his allegiance and his treasure to support David Cameron, an actual opportunity for Labour progressives to seriously tackle reform and anti-trust legislation is both revealed and negated. No longer fearing the awesome 'thwak' of the Murdoch or Labour party whip would have gone a long way to help the emergence of a less one sided relationship between our government and the press.

On the other hand, if Cameron does get in; I predict a new crack down on the increasingly panicked and vunerable BBC. Which might of course merely signal the the beginning, of a new wave of massive Thatcherite style deregulation - just at the time when we need the opposite. Thus pushing us incrementally ever closer towards that fetid screeching ideological clusterfuck known as U.S corporate news.

The fact is though, because almost all the papers decided months ago that Cameron was inevitably going to win this election, they are now invested in his victory in the most undemocratic fashion. They have gone after Gordon Brown in such a deeply personal way that until last week they were certain he was as good as shot.

Just imagining all those prospective Tory M.P’s - all gelled hair, thirty somethings with a degree in political science, fresh faced and donning an ill-fitting suit or two and so eager to enact their long held dreams of unleashing Thatcherism 2.0 on us all. ‘The age of Austerity’ was what Cameron called his vision of Britain for the future. Anybody that understands the history of the Conservative party understands which sections of society that austerity would be forced upon. So what about the third alternative?

David Yelland of the Guardian writes in an article today: "Make no mistake, if the Liberal Democrats actually won the election – or held the balance of power – it would be the first time in decades that Murdoch was locked out of British politics. In so many ways, a vote for the Lib Dems is a vote against Murdoch and the media elite." Well I like the sound of that, and to think it only took one leaders debate (and the entire country going to shit) to crack open the two party political system. Whether or not the Lib Dems can actually hope to win the majority of seats in this election of course, very much remains to be seen.

I will leave you with this notorious description of the 'ideal' media system, as described by Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels. We would still do well to heed his words, as long as we recognise them as the antithesis to all our striving. “What you need [in a media system] is ostensible diversity, that masks actual uniformity”. You have been warned. C

John Pilger - Breaking the Mirror (The Murdoch Effect)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5005752483917353600#

American Fascists: The rise of Christian Reconstructionism

Below is posted both parts of a fascinating Democracy Now! interview with Pulitzer Prize winning author Chris Hodges; on the rise of what he and many others are calling - Dominionism or Christian Reconstructionism. As Chris explains knowledgably and succinctly; people often use labels such as ‘fundamentalist’ or ‘evangelical’ to denote that certain type of right wing Christian political block, powerfully influential in U.S politics. Chris argues this label is wrong; in part due to the total lack of anything resembling actual Christian values in the actions of followers and leaders of these so called ‘Mega’ churches. Raking in billions of dollars annually often from the poorest and most vulnerable citizens, Chris goes on to explain the dark side of this cult of personality and the growing power of what is essentially a coalition of despotic, fascist fiefdoms; ran by quasi-dictators such as Pat Roberson, Ted Haggard et al. C

The indefensible War on Marijuana and the urgent need for change.

– By Christopher Landau


As a regular user of Marijuana for close to four years, I have often felt a vested and indeed necessary existential interest in defending my drug of choice. In the last few years in particular this interest has gained more importance as the visibility of the debate has risen in the public discourse. I have come to believe that arguing for the de-criminalisation of marijuana is insufficient and so I intend to argue here for it's complete legalisation - something which I discovered to my relief, is very easy to do.

Who am I arguing against?

All those people that find my initial premise offensive, as they bask in their narcissistic self-serving moral indignation. The long line of shamelessly incompetent, morally bankrupt and hypocritically pietistic cabinet ministers who have forged careers and reputations pontificating on the subject of marijuana prohibition. And the crooning horde of journalistic hackery, that seem simply unable to deal with the huge problems of prohibition rationally.

Marijuana’s detractors (like it's users) hail from all quarters and all walks of life. So it is to their eternal disservice that as the number I have encountered over the years has steadily increased, the sophistication and subtly of their reasoning has never escaped the doldrums. An almost entirely predictable pantomime of the same non-arguments are wheeled out time and time again, with enough self riotousness on display to power Bono for a year. You quickly realise when arguing with these people that it is akin to trying to convince a religious zealot of the illusionary nature of his God. Not much fun for anyone.


Zeitgeist - A truck that the media steers

A shameful example of journalistic hackery springs to mind. In March 2007 one of the Britain’s best loved 'leftist' newspapers The Independent ran the following front-page headline: “Cannabis: An apology” The article stated that:
“In 1997, this newspaper launched a campaign to decriminalise cannabis. If only we had known then what we can reveal today…Record numbers of teenagers are requiring drug treatment as a result of smoking skunk, the highly potent cannabis strain that is 25 times stronger than resin sold a decade ago.”

The Independent had performed an abrupt U-turn on the issue of prohibition, apparently in the light of compelling new evidence. But after Ben Goldacre of The Guardian read the Independent's mea culpa he came to a very different conclusion. Goldacre wrote a counter piece in which he bulldozed the Independant's so called evidence. He concludes his response with this astute observation "The more I see of the world the more it strikes me that people seem to want more science, rather than less, and to deploy it in odd ways: to abrogate responsibility; to validate a hunch; to render a political or cultural prejudice in deceptively objective terms. Because you can prove anything with science, as long as you cherry pick the data and keep one eye half closed."

Was this just an aberration? A cautionary tale of failed journalistic integrity? Or a symptom of an inherent institutional bias? Is the unwillingness of our politicians and our journalists to even have an honest discussion on the issue of marijuana prohibition (let alone regarding harder drugs) affecting our ability to judge fairly, if the policy of prohibition is actually working or not?

Of course even those politicians who do support some sort of drug policy reform keep there mouth’s firmly closed. It has to be said not not solely from fear of the lobbyists in London and the influence of Washington, but the reaction from the public itself. Before we can all jump on the bandwagon and simply blame the powers that be for the lack of serious debate, we have to accept that if public opinion was organised and directed on this issue, we could see more support from other quarters. As it stands at the moment, there seems to be no coherent legalisation movement (Despite numerous high profile advocates) that has succeeded in effectively mobilising public support.

Thinking the unthinkable

For some, the idea of legalising weed is akin to a sort of iconoclasm and the tearing down of a key societal concept of the last century. From “Reefer madness” to “Cops” popular media has long been an effective means of reinforcing negative stereotypes of drugs and their users, it seems to have largely succeeded. The history of the last century is littered with artificially created social paradigms like these that simply defy rationality. Many governments of the world are complicit in the spread of misinformation about marijuana and other illegal drugs it's true, but the American government has really lead from the front.

A pertinent question you might be wondering is “Is this important?” So I tell you even if you don't smoke pot, yes. You forget at your peril the massive financial and human cost of this prohibition. The U.S led war on drugs costs the U.S and U.K taxpayer billions per year, therefore it should surely be just as legitimate an issue for public debate as the “war on terror”, but this is not the case. The true costs of this war are simply not reflected within the mainstream media discourse. Why?

Hypocrisy is my favourite word

The first issue that might strike one as odd when looking at the question of Cannabis is how very legal it once was. Not only was it legal but it also happened to be one of the largest agricultural crops in the world. Cannabis, can also be Hemp, one of the most robust, durable and natural soft fibres on the face of this planet. Up until 1883 and for thousands of years before that, Cannabis was the largest agricultural crop in the world. It had thousands of uses and products, such as fabrics, paper, lighting oil, rope and even the first sail cloth. Fifty percent of medicine marketed in the last half of 19th century was also made from cannabis and in 1938 (the year all forms of cannabis became essentially outlawed) an article in Popular Mechanics stated that cannabis was capable of producing over 5000 textile products from its soft fibre and over 25000 products from its cellulose. Ironically, the first law ever put on the books regarding Marijuana in the U.S was one ordering farmers to grow Hemp, in the Jamestown Colony of Virginia in 1619. Benjamin Franklin used it to start one of his first paper mills, and even the first two pages of the declaration of independence were written on cannabis hemp paper. These sorts of historical anecdotes can of course go on and on, but you get the point.

You cannot get high from hemp as it doesn’t contain enough of the psycho-active compound Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). This makes it all the stranger that hemp was lumped in with other forms of cannabis and cannabis medicines during the drive for prohibition in the 1930’s. This derived in part from the so called “Reefer Madness” depicted in the early 20th century “yellow” journalism, which surfaced with articles depicting Blacks and Mexicans as savage beasts; smoking marijuana and then playing the devils music whilst often insulting the readership - the large majority of which happened to be white. This crude and offensive depiction of blacks and Mexicans as the “other” that must be feared, simultaneously stigmatised marijuana in the eyes of the white American middleclass.

At the same time, an increasingly vocal opposition towards Hemp cultivation emerged out of Washington. With lobbyists recruited by elite interests hailing from within the American industrial complex profoundly afraid that Hemp was essentially “too useful” to be allowed exception from a prohibition. This might seem strange, but it was speculated at the time that hemp would come into direct competition with many other industrial materials. Not to mention that Hemp can be grown by anybody, for very little cost and cannot be patented.

A plant that has been cultivated and refined for thousands of years, Marijuana was made effectively illegal in 1938 (you had to get a tax stamp to cultivate it which they didn't give out) and the prohibition of all forms of cannabis has continued to this day. This situation has only changed once since then, during WW2 - when hemp was deemed so useful to the allied forces they actually produced “hemp for victory” posters.

In the American Congress in 1948 cannabis legislation did come under review once more, but not with intent to change its illegality. Instead the House essentially decided that marijuana was made illegal for the wrong reason. They finally realised that marijuana didn’t in fact make people violent as they had originally argued, but instead made them become more passive or heaven forbid even Pacifist. Congress declared “The communists will use it to weaken are will to fight” and in 1948 voted to keep marijuana illegal for the exact opposite reason that they had done so in the first place. All through the years since then, report after report, commissioned by everybody from the mayor of New York in 1944 to the president of the United States in 1972 has come to the same conclusion, Marijuana should have no criminal penalty attached to it. Yet here we are today with marijuana just as illegal as it was seventy odd years ago.

The arguments for Prohibition and why they fail

If we assume that the ostensible goal of prohibition is to reduce the quantity of cannabis available and to reduce the demand for it in the first place, in both instances prohibition is clearly an abysmal failure. In 1957 there were estimated to be fifty five thousand marijuana users in the U.S. Today conservative estimates put that figure at over fifty million. (It is likely to be significantly higher due to under reporting.) That’s a one hundred thousand percent increase during just fifty years. Below are listed some of the most common arguments used in favour of prohibition today and why they inevitably fail:

1) “Smoking cannabis kills brain cells” – In 1974, the Heath/Tulane study was conducted and the results seized upon by the then President Ronald Reagan. Reagan, who said at the time: “The most reliable scientific sources say brain damage is one of the inevitable results of the use of marijuana.” During the Heath/Tulane study, monkeys were given doses of marijuana, which were initially reported as equivalent to “thirty joints a day”. The study reported that all the monkeys began to atrophy, dieing after only a few days. Brain damage was recorded by taking tissue samples from the dead monkeys that had been given the marijuana and comparing it to brain tissue taken from normal monkeys. This study became the foundation of the Reagan administration and other special interest group’s claim, which is still repeated to this day; that smoking marijuana kills brain cells. However, after six years of requests from journalists and advocates they revealed how it was conducted. Instead of administering thirty joints a day for one year, Dr Heath had devised a method to pump the equivalent of over sixty extra strong joints through a gas mask in five minute bursts, over the course of three months. There was no additional oxygen put into the mix, just pure marijuana. Unfortunately for the monkeys, (but perhaps not us pot smokers) tissue damage is to be expected within minutes of oxygen deprivation to the brain. Subsequent studies have found no link whatsoever.

2) “Smoking cannabis can cause lung cancer” and “Smoking cannabis is just as bad as smoking tobacco” – There has not been one peer reviewed scientific study which has established a link between smoking pure marijuana and developing lung cancer. Not one medical facility or university has ever reported a death directly attributable to marijuana. Despite this, a study conducted in 1999 by the U.S government still tried to insinuate a hidden danger, including sentences such as “Marijuana may cause cancer” and even “Marijuana should cause cancer.” The oft repeated and baseless justification used being: “we haven’t established a link yet, but it surely must exist!” David Malmo-Levine of the Vancouver drug-war history school stated in 2008 “You should smoke marijuana moderately because it can paralyse the Cilia, [microscopic organisms that move fluid over the surface of the lungs] but if it’s not radioactive, you’re not going to get cancer from it.” There is no record of any smokers of marijuana getting brown lung syndrome and there is no record of a marijuana smoker getting emphysema. Of course smoking can be harmful, because of the properties of smoke, but not as a result of the cannabis plant itself. Nicotine on the other hand, contains many elements not found in cannabis, which do cause cancer and do cause these other diseases. Every year in the U.S and U.K, cigarettes kill more people than Aids, Heroin, Crack, Cocaine, Alcohol, car accidents and murder combined. Tobacco as the number one killer is responsible for over four hundred thousand American deaths per year, so it is interesting to note that tobacco farming receives U.S government subsidies and is grown with radioactive fertilizer.

3) “Marijuana is addictive” Asked to rate substances in order of there addictive potential, two researchers in the U.S stated in their findings that - "Nicotine is the most addictive, followed by Alcohol, then Heroin, then Cocaine, then Coffee and then finally Marijuana." Marijuana smokers often combine the drug with tobacco which of course, can increase the addictive potential of smoking a joint; but there are no physically addictive components in weed.

4) “Marijuana today is much stronger than it used to be.” Another commonly used argument is that marijuana today is not comparable to the stuff our parents smoked in the sixties. Claims of “Super” skunk and talk of the ‘perfect plant’ abound. But it is all arrogant, ignorant, bollocks. There has always been a range of THC levels in the different strains of plants available and there has always been very strong cannabis on the market, albeit harder to come by, as it had to be smuggled from Colombia, Thailand, Nepal, Morocco etc. Just because we can now replicate the very best strains of marijuana more easily, we shouldn’t forget that these strains have been cultivated and refined for thousands of years before. It is no more than a stroke of our own ego to think that during 50 years of prohibition we have somehow improved upon varieties of marijuana, that have been cultivated for drug use in places like India for thousands of years. What we can accept is that there are some nuances to this debate; but that shouldn’t mean we have to listen to this gnashing of teeth and hysterical paranoia of some impending strain of deadly super skunk. I call bullshit until they can produce a shred of evidence.

5) “Smoking weed is immoral” The moral question of legalisation for marijuana is a difficult philosophical question. So my philosopher buddys will have to forgive me for saying ultimately, I think we are at a juncture where this question is irrelevant. I'l explain why. A typical liberal argument might sound something like this: “well isn’t it obvious that we shouldn’t make judgments about somebody, based on their private tastes and modes of recreation. They aren’t hurting anybody and we have no right to demonise and indeed criminalise them.” The problem with this argument is that it is essentially an argument for a form of moral relativism; a valid philosophical position to adopt (although I have never met a true moral relativist) but not without difficulties. For instance, if I am not allowed to say somthing like "I believe smoking weed is absolutley immoral, and therfore should be illegal", well what else am I not allowed to say? How about "Watching child porn is immoral and should be illegal"? Of course the antithesis has its own philosophical difficulties; the most obvious one being how to answer the question: “Who decides what is moral?” But my contention is that this sort of debate, at least pertaining to marijuana legislation; just doesn’t get us anywhere useful. We could argue until the end of time and we would still not come up with the 'right' answer. Instead I claim that we need a rational policy debate about the actual results of prohibition.

6) “The gateway theory” Formerly known as the “stepping stone hypothesis” this is an argument as old as marijuana prohibition itself. It is also the argument I hear repeated most often by my various protagonists over the years. It is also the most nonsensical. The theory says that essentially if you smoke marijuana, it makes you in some way more inclined to try ‘harder’ drugs, such as heroin and cocaine. But this is just patently untrue balderdash. Every time it has been studied, every time it has been looked at, they have never found anything that would suggest that there is something in marijuana that would make you want to go and try something else. There is no known, inherent, psychopharmological properties in marijuana that pushes one towards another drug. If there are no inherent components that can be tested scientifically; what are we arguing about here exactly? Does a love of alcohol stem from a childhood fondness for milk? Does a habit for cocaine stem from cherished memories of post bath-time talcum powder? Statistically, only 1 out of every 100 marijuana users uses cocaine and less than one uses heroine.

Unforeseen consequences

By making marijuana illegal, by definition you create a criminal class and a set of circumstances where people have to come into contact with criminals. This is the huge irony of the gateway theory, it is actually because the black market throws together the dealers of both ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ drugs that people are more likely to encounter other substances. Not to mention that when you have an unregulated black market, identification and accountability become redundant concepts. How many dealers for example, give a fuck about how old their buyers are? Prohibition therefore creates the very circumstances that we claim to abhor.

Lessons not learnt

How many of us still remember the prohibition imposed on the U.S throughout the 1920’s and early 1930’s? Alcohol prohibition birthed and gave rise to an unprecedented and massive proliferation of organised criminal groups operating within the United States, and fostered a broader disregard for law and the police. It was a law that right from the beginning the vast majority of American society simply refused to obey. During this time alcohol poisoning went up 600% and ‘speakeasies’ were just as ubiquitous a feature of the neighbourhood as the dope dealer is today. If you prohibit something that people don’t want, such as ammonia nitrate fertilizer for example; you probably won’t hear too many objections and you might even do some good. But the lesson that we need to learn from the prohibition of alcohol is that if you prohibit something in demand, society will reject the rule of law and calamity will surely follow.

Of course alcohol abuse still creates problems for society today; but mass numbers of people are not being killed over the right to distribute it. When alcohol was prohibited people got to see for themselves the visceral and rapid change from a society governed by law, to a society governed by gangsters. A man who knows better than most the difficulties of fighting marijuana is the former mayor of Vancouver and former member of the RCMP drug squad Senator Larry Campbell; who said in 2008: “This [prohibition] brings crime into it, because the benefits and the ability to make money off it is so huge. We have to remember that marijuana is just a weed; and yet it is worth more ounce for ounce than gold.” In Vancouver today it is estimated 1 in 5 houses are illegal grow operations, when you consider that walking ten pounds of marijuana out of Vancouver and across the border to the U.S doubles its value this begins to make sense. By prohibiting marijuana you create an artificially inflated value for that drug which is so huge, even murder becomes justifiable. The use of the criminal law, for the basis of public health is a wholly bad idea, we should not legislate morality.

Why decriminalising marijuana is not enough

There are a number of important distinctions between the ‘legalisation’ and ‘decriminalisation’ of cannabis. Legalisation makes marijuana a product that is legally available to adults. That would mean that there would be no unregulated distribution, sale, or use. The decriminalisation of marijuana creates a situation where you aren’t going to go to jail for using it, but society is still essentially saying “no”. It doesn’t address the issues of organised crime and it doesn’t create a situation where you have retail sales. Decriminalisation is reduced to further absurdity when you realise that it would be legal to possess and use marijuana, but not to produce it or sell it. In fact it is the worst of both worlds and sends out a horribly confused message. Marijuana needs to be treated for what it is, and taxed and regulated precisely as we do with alcohol and tobacco. Michael R. Caputo is associate professor of agricultural economics at the University of California and in his 1991 report, he estimated annual profits from the legal taxation of marijuana ranging from “2.55 to 9.09 billion dollars”, that was almost twenty years ago.


The real obstacles to change

We must make no mistake, the real target of the U.S led war on drugs and its anti drug rhetoric is cannabis and the people that smoke it. As former national administrator of the U.S Government’s marijuana research program, Dr Tod Mikuriya stated, the attitude of the U.S goverment torwards cannabis resembles “a religious jihad”. In the early 1970’s the modern age of drugs prohibition began in earnest. By 1972 the Nixon administration had seized the opportunity prohibition created and set about using marijuana prohibition as a tool, in the systematic persecution of the Vietnam Peace movement. (The plan being to simply arrest all of the anti-war protesters for pot possession.)

Since Nixon things have only got worse, with President Reagan in the 80’s asking us all to give up our “crutch” and both former presidents of the Bush tribe declaring proudly “acceptance of drug use, simply is not an option for this administration.” The underlying logic for these politicians was the same. Marijuana makes people think, it opens up minds to new ideas and opposing points of view - not to mention it has helped people in their creative endeavours, transforming the very cultural landscape we look upon. In short, they thought that it would make people more liberal. Marijuana is now such a politically charged subject exactly because it taps into a fundamental question about conservative identity. When tags such as ‘liberal’ and 'stoner' can be used interchangably by the right as a euphemism for a 'hippy', ‘socialist’ and indeed even ‘fascist'; we see how polarised the debate has become and how unhealthy this is for the purposes of a rational dialogue.

It doesn’t help matters that the issue is simultaneously sensationalised and trivialised by the main stream media, led in America of course by Fox News. We therefore find ourselves in a tricky situation. For serious reform to be possible, we must see a shift in U.S public opinion. Why the U.S? Because any other nation that attempted to legalise cannabis unilaterally would be given short stick by the rest of the international community and serious reasons to return to the status quo anti. Reform has to start with the U.S, but to do that we have to change the minds of people not only at the top of U.S politics, but an unwilling media, a well funded police force and a profitable corporate and military industrial complex. Top that all off with the vocal cries of anti drug conservatives and fundamentalist Christians, it seems we have an up hill struggle.

The war on drugs is a monster of our own creation, but it has out-grown us. The U.S spends an estimated 7.7 billion dollars annually to enforce marijuana prohibition; whilst four fifths of Canada’s annual enforcement budget of 500 million dollars is spent combating marijuana alone. So why is it such a big deal? MONEY. The drug enforcement industry is now a vast and exuberant recipient of taxpayer dollars and the enforcement industries themselves, be they lawyers, police, prison contractors etc. A shadow-shadow industry if you wil, has emerged. The police are now the willing and invested participants in the very prohibition they enforce. It is important to keep in mind that it is in the interests of both the authorities and the criminals to keep marijuana illegal.

We should also not forget the various corporate and elite special interest groups, willing to take up the fight to support prohibition today. For example, over the past decades there has been a rapid growth in the construction of prisons in the U.S almost matched by the rapid growth of prisoners themselves. There are more people held in U.S jail today than there has been at any other time in history. In 2008 U.S jails held well over two million people, which means approximately one in every eighteen men in the United States is behind bars, with seventy percent of those prisoners being non- white. (In Japan they incarcerate thirty eight people for every one hundred thousand population, in the U.S the figure is seven hundred and twenty six people per hundred thousand.)

In fact if it wasn’t for marijuana prohibition, the U.S drug enforcement industries would be unable to justify the vast sums of public subsidy that keeps them all in comfort. The U.S private prison system is now touted as one of the most profitable investment opportunities in the world not to mention ‘recession proof’. Extraordinarily expensive to build and even more expensive to run, prisons present a dream opportunity for those awarded the contracts; as state authorities throw staggering sums of money around. Perhaps then it is no surprise that the U.S prison population has quadrupled since the inception of the war on drugs, and that the U.S now holds over 25% of the entire world's prisoners.

The Pithy Conclusion

I have attempted to show as rationally as I can, the failings of the U.S led prohibition. Watching the U.S from afar is always grim; especially here, where you know that American neo-cons effectively determine large swathes of the U.K domestic policy towards drugs. Nevertheless, the anti-prohibition movement needs to get better organised; petitioning our politicans for parlimentary reform and badgering our journalists to their jobs properly might be a good start. To be perfectly honest though, I’m definitely not the one to lead that fight; in fact, after surveying the situation I can’t help but come to one conclusion - It’s time for a joint.

The Media Lobbying Complex

"I sincerely believe... that banking establishments are more dangerous, than standing armies." -Thomas Jefferson

In his latest piece for The Nation, journalist Sebastian Jones investigates the conflicts of interest surrounding political analysts working on TV for the news networks.

His four-month long investigation, "The media lobbying complex", discovered that since 2007 at least seventy-five registered lobbyists, public relations representatives and corporate officials have appeared on major networks with no mention of their corporate or political ties. Jones says the number may be even higher.

On Democracy Now with Amy Goodman, Jones explains the numerous cases in which a guest will advocate for a certain position while working for a lobbying firm or PR firm that would benefit from what they're pushing. Crucially, these conflicts of interest are not explained to the viewer.

For example: Barry McCaffrey, a "military analyst," appeared on MSNBC claiming the US needed more time to win in Afghanistan. Unmentioned was his tie to DynCorp, a company that just received a "five-year deal worth an estimated $5.9 billion to aid American forces in Afghanistan."

Mark Penn, identified as a Clinton administration pollster and Democratic strategist, pushed to halt healthcare reform. His role as CEO of Burson-Marsteller, a PR firm representing Pfizer and Eli Lilly, went unacknowledged in a CNN interview.

The video below is an interview with journalist Sebastian Jones, who carried out this investigation for The Nation. The video was produced and hosted by the excellent independant American public-service broadcaster, Democracy Now.

Fascinating and as is to be expected, rather disturbing stuff. It made me wonder if the British press might also be harbouring some of these corporate stool pigeons? - Christopher Landau