A lot of hot air

Doing my food shopping at Asda last week - yes, I am so rock n' roll it hurts - I witnessed a bizarre phenomenon which nonetheless did not really surprise me but rather induced a sort of weary, sardonic resignation.

The contents of the tobacco counter - yes, the tobacco, which you might surmise to be such a counter's raison d'etre - are now to be covered, presumably to shield us delicate souls from the deadly glamour of the evil weed.  Further, if you request, say, Lambert and Butler, and they are out of stock, and you then enquire as to the availability of other brands, staff are not allowed to give you this information!  To my mind, this conjures up images of a nightmarish mixture of bemused customer playing a considerably less fun version of deal or no deal - what's in the box, ten Mayfair or a disposable lighter?  wow, the extra frisson it'll add to your shopping! - and staff trying the generation game conveyor belt as they attempt to remember what's behind the big fibreglass board.  Of course, some staff will not remember and may thus lie, if they are not tempted to lie to start with to enliven the existential despair of their wage slave working day.

Now, the arguments about the smoking ban have all been done to death and it's not my purpose to rehash them, although astute readers may be able to hazard a guess as to which side I came down - particularly when the silly season opened and we were banned from smoking in our own homes for two hours before the arrival of a work person, presumably to allow for full clearance of the biohazard area, and such pearls of wisdom were heard on the radio as smoking not around your children, but when they have gone to bed, will induce childhood cancers despite your responsible actions, due to residual nicotine.  (Because of course that's the only dangerous pollutant children are at risk from).  Now as I say, I won't comment on my own stance, but here's a clue: last time I looked, an English man's home was still his castle.

Neither is it my purpose to repudiate medical evidence on the dangers of smoking.  Seeing as it is plastered all over our cig packets and baccy pouches and putting us all off our breakfast, you'd have had to be living in a cave not to know this.  What I do object to is the mass moral blackmail of small children on my TV, in my living room, in my home saying Mummy, please don't die.  The hypocrisy sickens me, apart from anything else - war, pollution, mass poverty, I could go on and on and yet who gets scapegoated again, who gets the big finger of disapproval and exclusion?

However, I have been distracted from my main purpose here again, and it may be evident I find this an emotive issue.  Those who think it is trivial are missing an important point.  This attempted micromanagement of behaviour not only ignores the fact that adults who smoke are well aware of the risks, but choose to anyway - but it's also a timehonoured way for government to distract people from their wholesale incompetence, blame others, and look like they are at least doing something in one fell swoop.  And it won't work.  Here's why.

If the trajectory of my smoking career had gone something like this, then covering tobacco products might be a way forward: Growing up, from an early age I was seduced by the fatal and pernicious allure of the tobacco products seeming to call to me from the newsagent's shelf.  I determined to experiment with them at the first opportunity.  Clearly, seeing the products was the only factor in why I started smoking and the reason I continued, for every time I tried to stop, dammit!  I'd go into a shop, and see the cigarettes on the shelves, and be reminded how much I loved smoking!  Whereas if they had been hidden, I would have completely forgotten they existed and this would somehow have taken care of the nicotine withdrawals as well, and I'd have been a happy and fully reformed ex smoker!

On the other hand, here's how my smoking career, and that of everyone else I know, panned out in the real world.  First, and importantly, I became a teenager.  (Perhaps the only legislation which would actually stop people lighting up for the first time would be if the government somehow found a way to ban the teenage years.  Which it would if it could, given that "feral youth" are another modern persecuted minority, and middle England's perennial obsession.  But I better stop there, if I get started on the social construction of the hoodie menace I'll go wildly off topic and be typing all night to boot).  I wanted to kick against the pricks and look cool, and all my mates were smoking.  I started smoking and enjoyed it.  I carried on.  The smoking ban came along and merely annoyed me into smoking more, because the government is not the boss of me.  The End.

This type of legislation is not only useless, but in these troubled times it also smacks unforgivably of fiddling whilst Rome burns.*  Not to mention passing the buck, once again, to smokers, who have now been cast as the deviants responsible for all social ills, if you believe the legislation and the hype.

And just one more thing, on a related subject.  Anyone else noticed that most adverts for house rentals these days contain the caveat, "No smokers, no DSS, no pets?"  And anyone else reminded of the old, "No blacks, no Irish, no dogs" signs?  Discrimination against society's poor and the excluded group du jour is alive and well, it seems.  Plus ca change . . .


*  I know "fiddling" in this saying refers to playing the violin, but I prefer to think of it as actual fiddling in times of disaster, for example rearranging the paperclip drawer whilst your whole family is drowning.

And another thing . . .

Just a short postscript to yesterday's piece . . .

I wholeheartedly believe that small acts, whether of kindness or defiance, have great power and value for their own sake.  They keep us human, and they give us courage.  But if you don't also believe that these small acts can move mountains, remember Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her seat to a white person in racially segregated 50s America, sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott and becoming an icon of the Civil Rights movement.  Her act of courage fomented social revolution - you never know when yours could do the same.

Keep the faith, we need it now more than ever

It's easy to think, looking around at all the horror and injustice in the world, that there's nothing we can do.  So easy to feel bewildered, to feel frightened, to feel helpless in the face of the machinations of governments and individuals who seem omnipotent, backed by resources most of us can only dream of.  I felt this way recently, reading Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine" - a wonderfully honest, brave, angry account of disaster capitalism and the "Big Lie" - that is, that free markets and freedom go hand in hand.  It's not the purpose of this piece to review that book, but very briefly, Klein exposes the way neoliberal ideologists have repeatedly exploited the chaos and confusion of disasters such as Hurricane Katrina to impose their vision by the back door, when the traumatised populace is still regrouping, not to mention US government funded adventures in torture and repression - notably the Pinochet regime in Chile, when the developmentalist policies of Latin American governments in the 1970s threatened to cut off profitable markets. 

My point here is, in the face of overwhelming, David and Goliath style odds - militarism, wealth, surveillance, technology, power versus individuals - what can we do?  What have we got, that will work, that will change things?

This blog was named in tribute to my dad, who died in 2000.  By the time I was at primary school I hated Thatcher, the monarchy specifically and hereditary privilege generally, the death penalty and fox hunting (this is a representative but not exhaustive selection.  Though it has to be said, mostly Thatcher) but not because I was mindlessly parroting his views.  My dad told me what he thought, he told me why he thought it, and he let me make up my own mind.  He didn't assume I wouldn't understand because I was a child, and he taught me to ask questions and to believe in social justice.  I'm proud to say I'm still my father's daughter, and as his spirit lives on in me, true red really ain't dead.

It may seem like I just veered off on a wild tangent, but I wrote about my dad for a reason.  Because the answer to what we can do lies, or so I believe, in our own hearts and those of our loved ones.  The magnitude of evil and injustice in the world IS overwhelming.  Yet if we keep asking those questions, keep talking, and above all keep our hearts open and loving in the face of those who have no respect for life, then who knows what the reverberations will be?  Love can move the world, I truly believe that.  So win the hearts and minds of people you love, encourage them when it seems the battle can't be won, tell your children the truth.  You don't know who they'll tell, or what they'll go on to do - something you say to someone today could end up changing things in ways you can't even anticipate.  We have to take care of each other, and we have to keep bearing witness.  The day we all shut down inside because things seem so hopeless, the day we turn for good to the prozac of consumerism and stop caring, is the day the battle is lost.  But that's not today, not for me and not for millions of others.

We have hearts, we have brains, and we have each other.  And that's all we have.  Against war and torture, against poverty and inequality, against abuse and rape, that may seem like nothing at all.  And yet in the face of all that brutality, isn't continuing to care a miracle? 

Keep loving each other.  Keep talking.  Keep doing what you can.  Trust me, it means everything.

And now for something completely different . . .

This is a political blog, but we all need something to make us smile sometimes right?  This makes me smile, and some of you that I hope are reading may remember hearing it when I first wrote it, which also makes me smile.  Although, it is a little heteronormative - perhaps I should write a sequel where Tony plays with gender and becomes a dragon queen?  Hahaha, see what I did there?  I don't know about you, but I'm smiling already . . .

THE KNIGHT, THE PRINCESS AND THE DRAGON

 Some years ago, in days of yore

There lived the princess, Leonore

In her castle, remote and lonely

She dreamed of finding her one and only.

Yet not just any man would do

His heart must be bold, full of valour, and true

He must prove his love to the lady he sought

Only then would she give her heart, Leonore thought.

One day, a handsome knight came to call

But canny Leonore would not yet fall

in love; this knight must be put to the test

So she thought of a suitably difficult quest.

“Brave knight,” she said, “around my fair throat

hangs half of a heart; its twin lies in the moat

of the Castle of Darkness, in the forest of sorrow

guarded by a dragon; bring it back tomorrow.

Because I want my heart unbroken

Please accept my request, and bring back this token.”

The handsome knight (christened Geriwain)

Set out that night, in fierce wind and hard rain

His eye was clear, his heart noble and pure

He would bring back the trinket, and win Leonore.

In the forest of sorrow, he encountered a beast

It cackled: “Young knight, on your flesh I shall feast

The bones scattered all over this lonely track

Came from knights such as you; they’re my favourite snack.”

Said Geriwain, “You’re fearsome, that much is true

Yet I have slain scarier beasts than you

For Leonore, I will be happily tested

And sir, I’m a knight who’s not easily bested.”

The beast roared with anger, attacked Geriwain

Who thought of his princess and ignored the pain

From inside his jacket he drew a long spear

And slayed the beast calmly, without fuss or fear.

 Onward, then, strode Geriwain

Toward the castle, toward his aim

Passing by the Devil’s Lake

He came upon a deadly snake

Who put to him this fiendish riddle,

“What’s in violin, and also in fiddle?

It’s in middle of the moon

And it cometh twice at noon

The answer means a crazy guy

Or type of bird with piercing cry

Answer, fool, and think of this

That I can do much more than hiss.”

The knight, sensibly, did not panic

Although his pacing grew quite manic

And just when he felt to fearfully swoon

The answer came; he cried, “A loon!”

The snake, denied his tasty prey

Drew back, but in a sulky way.

Next flew down a winged boar

Who said, “The liar, Leonore,

Consorts this night with Galahad

Your quest is all in vain, my lad

Better that you turn back now

Than risk your life for such a cow.”

Said Geriwain, “I know you lie

Your slanderous lips offend my eye

Shapeshifter, be gone from here!”

- and slayed him with his trusty spear.

(From the corpse rose axeman, hag and ghost

The shapes the glamour used the most.)

Weary, the knight spied dawn’s first light 

The Castle of Darkness was in sight

The trees first thinned, then disappeared

And there was what he had most feared

A mighty dragon, fast asleep

Breathing fire before castle and keep.

The beast sensed his presence and opened its eyes

Geriwain blinked, feeling great surprise

The poor thing wasn’t fearsome; why, it looked sad!

And a cunning plan made the knight’s heart glad.

 He said, “Dragon, I am your friend

Your lonely life is at an end

Come live with me and my lady fair

For three are much better than a pair.”

The dragon seemed to understand

He bowed his head and licked Geriwain’s hand

While the knight dived the moat, the dragon stood guard

Till Geriwain surfaced with half a gold heart.

Then man and beast flew home together

To be with Leonore forever

“Knight, you have made my heart whole,

So now I give you my heart and soul

I am yours for ever more!”

So said the beauty, Leonore.

They kissed in raptures of delight

And were married at day’s first light

And of their life that was just the start

And the knight, Geriwain, never did break her heart

And the dragon, whose name was Tony

Never again felt sad or lonely

And he was their loyal friend and guard

And his jokes cheered them up when times got hard.

Knight, princess and dragon together grew older

But the love in their hearts never dimmed or got colder

And though she got fatter, and he got dafter

You guessed: they lived happily ever after.

Why Cameron's looking fat: he's feasting on the blood of the poor

David Cameron’s government will have blood on their hands before this is over.

In a recession hate crime against the disabled rises.  This has been proven since the Second World War when Adolf Hitler’s less publicised first victims were disabled and chronically sick people condemned to die in the gas chambers for being a burden. 

This “burden” mentality continues to exist and always has, reinforced by such august providers of totally impartial news (yeah, right) as the Daily Mail and your soaraway Sun.  Those who have committed no worse crime than being born with an impairment or developing a mental illness which renders them unable to work have repeatedly been constructed as scroungers, malingerers, a drain on the decent hardworking taxpayer.  While such blue through and through publications have stopped short of advocating wholesale murder of our society’s sick and vulnerable (so far), is current government policy really so much more humane and progressive?

Consider.  Those unable to work are now forced through a punitive means testing process, carrried out by doctors employed by the state, who receive a bonus for every person they unceremoniously throw off benefits.  Yes, you read that right.  Whither impartiality and the Hippocratic Oath, whose first article, lest we forget, is, “First, do no harm”?  It doesn’t take much of a stretch of the imagination to visualise the consequences.  Some of the neediest and most vulnerable people in society already, many of whom have little or no support in place (and whose existing support is very likely to have been CUT) forced through a humiliating and frightening process which reduces human beings to collections of symptoms and strips away all dignity and compassion, with the very real possibility of being left unable to pay for even the basics of life?  Existing mental health conditions will be exacerbated (although, of course, it’s a lot easier to demonise and dehumanise sufferers of conditions which can’t be visually seen – it’s a sad fact that certain sections of society have always found it difficult to make the empathic leap to understanding that people may show no visible signs but still be cripplingly disabled by conditions such as agoraphobia.)  Desperation and fear will be everywhere, and for the most vulnerable and isolated, suicides are a real possibility. 

Of course, if you are disabled and you fail your medical – which seem on the evidence I have seen to be a hollow performance reminiscent of show trials, something which must be seen to be done but whose meaninglessness resides in the fact the outcome is decided before you even step into the room – you can go on jobseeker’s allowance, and be given a pitiful amount in return for applying for a set number of jobs which you are unable to do.  Or you can appeal – a hugely stressful and slow process during which you must accept a forty per cent cut in benefits.  The cynical might suggest that this is so you will be so beaten down, exhausted and disheartened - with mounting debts and the inability to do the basic things, like eating, that we all take for granted – that you will give up in the face of heartless and faceless bureaucracy, an omnipotent system you will never beat.  I wouldn’t dream of such a thing – nonetheless the process would seem to go against the basic tenet of innocent until proven guilty and turn it on its head.  And guilty of what?  Bringing me neatly back to my initial point – guilty of being a burden.

Then there is the issue of those in early recovery from addiction.  Contrary to populist rhetoric casting addicts as granny-mugging demons in our midst, those who have successfully overcome addictions with the help of treatment are usually courageous individuals who have faced down huge socio-economic and personal barriers – empirical research shows a high correlation between childhood abuse and addiction in later life, for example – to turn their lives around.  Now let’s say you are a bastion of true middle England conservatism and still can’t muster an ounce of compassion for such people, let alone the round of applause they deserve.  Well then, there is still an economic argument to be made.  What is the sense in investing thousands in costly treatment programmes only to then turf still vulnerable adults into penury, exacerbating the risk of relapse, depression, and a return to old and possibly criminal behaviours, all of which will cost the taxpayer far more in the long term?  But don’t worry, Cameron’s got the answer – cut funding for drug treatment so drastically there won’t be any recovering addicts!

It’s the same kind of short-sighted false economy which saw the closure of Sure Start children’s centres, which have been shown in longitudinal studies following children in such programmes to adulthood to produce innumerable societal and economic benefits such as stable employment, lack of involvement in criminality, higher literacy, better health and so forth, saving the taxpayer countless sums for every pound spent – even without moral considerations, such a return on investment is a worthy enterprise, surely?  The same holds true for cutting the benefits of the ill and disabled – health care costs in the long run will totally eclipse any short term savings of a paltry few pounds a week. 

The poor, the vulnerable and the disabled didn’t cause this crisis.  We all know who did, and the fact is that regardless, if the superrich who dodge their taxes, greedily hoarding what would be a drop in the ocean in terms of their billions, were all made to pay up, the country’s deficit would be paid and we’d still be £70 billion in credit!  Tax evasion costs the country billions more than the benefits bill, but you won’t read about that in the Daily Mail.

For those of us who still believe that the mark of a society is how it treats its most vulnerable members, we live in frightening times indeed.