Day 5651: The Dark is Rising

Tuesday:


We must turn back the tide.


In the last week there have been two murderous attacks on people who, although not close to me are only a short step away and feel like my people.

In America, my soon-to-be-step brother knows people in Orlando who have lost loved ones in the massacre at the Pulse nightclub – an attack on the gay community, my community.

And then in Birstall, I know people who have campaigned near there and who have campaigned with Jo Cox for better treatment of refugees – an attack on liberal-thinking politics, my tribe of politics.

At the Westminster vigil

These incidents do not come in isolation.

The roots of this poison go deep. Fear, anger, rage have been encouraged, fed by years of austerity. Left and right have encouraged a blame culture and simplistic answers. Our media have traduced politicians as venal and corrupt. The immediacy of social media has unleashed a tidal wave of trolls with the power of abuse. And this referendum has been the ugliest political campaign, fought in the ugliest political climate. To get to this point.

How many tweets calling a person with the opposite view a traitor does it take before some people think it's okay to shout abuse in the streets? How may expletive-laden chants of traitor have to be shouted before some people think it's okay to whisper threats of rape and violence to a young woman as she campaigns? How many whispered threats before some people think it's okay to stop threatening and use violence? How many assaults and beatings does it take before one person thinks that he will do what everyone he reads is saying he should do? To get to this point.

When did it become okay to say we've had enough of experts?

When did it become okay to say that violence would follow if you don't get your own way?

When did it become okay to just lie?

Those on the right need to be held to account for how they have promoted simplistic – and wrong – answers, seeking protectionism and blaming the foreigner, the other, despite the clear historical precedent that these answers do not work – we hear people like Peter Oborne saying the working class are fearful for their jobs but stoking that fear by repeating the falsehood that immigrants "take British people's jobs" when that is simply not how economies work.

Those on the left need to look at how they behaved during the coalition years: all the cries of betrayal and blame, never seeking to promote answers or accepting responsibility, abandoning arguments just as they abandoned the working class vote to the nationalists – the likes of Polly Toynbee who now condemns the toxic climate but never took a week off from denigrating Nick Clegg for trying to make a bad situation work.

Those in the media need to admit to their own faults, and failings and bias, who have given platforms to Farage and his rag tag minority far beyond what they deserved until the prophecy has become self-fulfilling; who have spun news stories – or just plain falsehoods – to the tune of business tycoons whose interests do not in any way correspond with the interests of the British public; and who push the idea that politicians never give a straight answer, but who won't let a politician answer the question without interrupting, and some questions need more than a soundbite to answer, who have earned far more than the MPs they bully while painting politicians as venal and corrupt and deserving of abuse and yes even death.

But I won't accept false equivalence. There are faults on all sides, but they are not the same, and to pretend that there is any sense that the Stronger In campaign mounting piece after piece of evidence that things will not be good outside the EU – dismissed as "Project Fear" by the people scaremongering about immigrant rapists – is in any way similar to the malice and lies of Vote Leave is to give succour to the racists who can hardly even be said to be hiding in plain sight any more, they are out in the open and revelling in their vile views.

There comes a time when you have to ask yourself – as in the Mitchell & Webb sketch – are you the baddies?

UKIP are not the victims here. Nigel Farage, asked about the death of Jo Cox, claimed that he was the victim of hatred. Nigel Farage is not the victim here. If you foment hate and you get hate back, that is not a free pass to go on spewing hate.

Evil exists.

It is a childish thing to think in terms of good and evil. We are more sophisticated than that. Grown up life is so much more complex and nuanced, full of difficult compromise and the best being enemy to the better. But sometimes is really is that simple. Because we have seen this road before and we know the place it ends.

It is a childish thing to think in terms of good and evil. But it is story of my childhood that keeps coming back to me – Susan Cooper's "The Dark is Rising". And that is what I have been feeling, for the last days, weeks, months even.

There is Darkness in all humans. And that Dark is rising.

I'm not immune. I'm not a saint. I've felt anger, fury even, at some of the things that have been said and done in this campaign. I like to tell myself that I've tried to campaign in an honest and optimistic way, that I've tried to stick to the facts and called on people to use fact and reason to build their case, to use the best of British tradition to encourage us to be part of holding together a Europe that for the first time in history has gone not one but two generations without tearing itself apart. But if you scrutinise, I would not be surprised if you found I'd sent a tweet in wrath, or posted an irate put-down on FaceBook.

Many have said that her death was the first they had heard of Jo Cox. Because she'd been working with Tim Farron and Yvette Cooper to urge Britain to do more for refugees I was vaguely aware of her work. But I can hardly say that I knew her.

But I want to try to be a better person, to not give in to that anger, as my way to honour her memory.

We must all strive to do better. And we can be better.

Today I am appalled to hear that a man was planning to assassinate Donald Trump. We cannot defeat Trump – or Farage – by killing him. That way, we only replace him.

The vigils that have been held for Orlando and for Jo Cox, the dignity of the tributes paid in parliament, have shown that there is love and there is a better way. The sudden and very obvious panic in the Vote Leave camp, and in Farage in particular, the way he's desperately trying to turn this around to make the story all about him again, the disrespectful claim that Remain are out to "profit" from the death of one of their strongest voices all tell the tale that they know they've been rumbled.

These vigils are not about any political campaign any more. They are about doing a politics that is Good.

Vote Leave's fear and anger is because they embraced the Darkness months, if not years ago. They lost the argument. All they have is driving people with fear, anger, hate, poison.

There is now the palpable sense that people have awoken to the clear and present danger of allowing free reign to this poison that has festered. There is a sense that I am not alone in wanting to strive to do better.

The Dark is rising.

But the Light is rising to turn back the Dark.


“The hope is always here, always alive, but only your fierce caring can fan it into a fire to warm the world.”
― Susan Cooper, Silver on the Tree

Day 3660: A Culture of Violence

Saturday:


We're all the heroes of our own story; that's how it goes isn't it? Very few people, I should think, in spite of the very bad things that they do, think of themselves as "the baddies".

Hearing about the HORRIBLE shootings in Tucson, Arizona, it was very, very easy to get all scared and angry and say that the right-wing media and commentators and politicians whipping up a culture of HATE are to BLAME.

But I've thought long and hard about this and come to the conclusion that actually… the right-wing media and commentators and politicians ARE to blame!

Ms Sarah Palin, the moose-murdering QUITTER who walked out on governing Americaland's least-populous State, has labelled such blame a "BLOOD LIBEL".

This is pretty much EXACTLY the sort of thing that she is to blame for: using lurid and violent language to portray her political rivals as literally "evil", and yes obviously painting herself as a "persecuted victim" by referring to the scandalous accusation by the more rabid form of Christian people (ironically, people LIKE Ms Palin) that Jewish people murdered children.

This is actually pretty SICK when the situation for which she is denying ANY responsibility involves the murder of a CHILD.

Lady GoreGore argues cogently and wisely that we don't know and CANNOT know what was going through the head (um, bad metaphor) of the assassin.

We DO know that someone tried to murder a Democrat politician and DID murder a number of people who just happened to be standing near to her. We ALSO know that with the rise of Ms Palin and her Tea Party, and the radio and now Faux News "shock jocks" there has been a rise in angry and hateful language. We cannot know that the former was caused by the latter.

But we CAN know that the language of hate is WRONG in and of itself.

Quite simply, Americaland is the richest safest country anywhere on Earth, anywhere in history. They have money, resources, enormous amounts of space, an almost invincible defensive position with no hostile neighbours, and (short of that super-volcano under Yellowstone going off) virtually no threat from nature that they cannot overcome with care and preparation.

And yet, Americans have been wound up into a frenzy of terror and nervous exhaustion by years and years of being told to BE AFRAID. Be afraid of disease, be afraid of foreigners, be afraid of strangers, be afraid of the government, be afraid of each other. And why? To serve the political agenda of one particularly authoritarian and (ironically) centralising faction.

Barry O got elected on HOPE, but HOPE didn't LAST. FEAR, on the other fluffy foot, fear is not just for Christmas…

But to quote superannuated Fozzi-bear-alike, Yoda: Fear leads to anger; anger leads to hate; hate leads to suffering. And I'll come back to "Star Wars" in a bit.

The "War on Drugs", the "War on Terror", the "Culture Wars": the language of violence, and of violence as EXCITEMENT, has been used over and over to justify ever-more rightward policies.

And the language of differences over policy has been escalated first into tribal hostility and then into outright McCarthyite renunciations and THEN up into Nuremburg-level rallies tossing accusations of TREASON, denouceing denouncing political opponents – or even just useful victims: "the gays" "the atheists" "the left" yes or "the right" – as THE ENEMY, up to and including the suggestion that the President is not "really" an American. Or, in extremity, not even a HUMAN. (WARNING: may contain NUTS!)

(Like it MATTERS! For fluff's sake: the man got a popular mandate based on his POLICIES, supposedly, not his DNA. Though of course the fact that a lot of this is code for "not pink enough" should go without saying.)

Ms Palin may NOT have called for the assassination of Representative Gabrielle Giffords, but she certainly DID call for Wikileaks founder Mr Julian Assange to be "hunted down like the leaders of al Qaeda".

(And presumably by "hunted down like the leaders of al Qaeda" she DIDN'T mean "allowed to get away while we conduct an illegal invasion of entirely the wrong country".)

Setting to one side whatever may have happened in Sweden, Mr Assange's only "crime" against Americaland is to have caused ACUTE EMBARRASSMENT to some of their formerly-faceless bureaucrats.

When we've got to the level of threatening DEATH to people who EMBARRASS us we are WAAAAAAAY beyond NUTS. This isn't free speech; this is criminal incitement. And for the record, your right to free speech ENDS right at the point where you start threatening someone else's right to LIFE.


It's one of the things that APPALS me about the post-New Labour trajectory of Britain's most authoritarian, right-wing party: the Labour Party. Their use of "betrayal" and "treason" in their language; the use of intimidation, and violent intimidation on the streets by supporters and "fellow travellers" (can we say that?); the playing of the RACE card… the step from a socialist to a national socialist party ought to be UTTERLY RIDICULOUS… "unite against fascism" ought to be an ironic oxymoron, but somehow I don't think anyone gets it… and yet… and yet… there are people in or around Labour FLIRTING with this behaviour and too many people OVERLOOKING them flirting with this behaviour.

Not that there aren't GOOD people in the Labour Party who would be and are equally appalled by this sort of thing. Let us hope they reassert control over their Party.

So I DO put the blame on Ms Palin and her spokespeople and supporters.

I say to them: you are WRONG.

You are wrong in WHAT you say; and you are wrong in the WAY that you say it.

The language that you use is deliberately chosen to DIVIDE and INFLAME, to ALIENATE and to ANGER. And fundamentally you make the World a LESS HAPPY place by doing it. A less cooperative place, a less friendly place, a less – even – Christian place.

And that is just wrong.
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Day 3157: C.I.A: Compassion In America

Monday:


"This isn't about JUSTICE; it's about COMPASSION. It's not SUPPOSED to make SENSE."*


Let's be clear about one thing: regardless of any doubts about whether he actually did it or not, the release of the man convicted of exploding flight Pan-Am 103 was nothing to do with JUSTICE.

"Justice" seems to mean "people getting what they deserve". You don't need to believe in Mr God to recognise that in THIS world that's QUITE DIFFICULT to achieve.

No one, for example, "deserves" to be exploded. But there's NO WAY of setting it right again; you cannot ever have true "justice".

People in Americaland think that the Pan-Am bomber Mr Addledbastard al Megrahi, ought to have died in his prison cell. Or perhaps Americans are now SO convinced of the EVIL of the NHS that they consider it an intolerable MERCY to spare a person dying of cancer from British healthcare.

Whatever. President Barry O, Secretary of State Hillary-Billary, FBI Director Robert Mueller-Lite have all protested that letting him go was a VERY BAD THING to do.

And they are all WRONG.

They are wrong for TWO reasons: first, because what they want is VENGEANCE not JUSTICE. "You hurt us so we are going to hurt you, and hurt you WORSE". Americaland thinks of itself as the New Roman Empire (just look at all the marble they used building their Capital, or even their Capitol) and Rome was BUILT on vengeance (and marble), vengeance beyond all reason (and quite a lot of marble). If a citizen of Rome was harmed, the Roman legions turned up and OBLITERATED YOUR COUNTRY. A LOT of people think like that, and not just Americans – it's hard not to, it seems to be wired into you monkey people at an evolutionary level – but Americaland has the power to DO IT, and they DO.


And the second reason is because if there WAS any "justice" then Americaland (and I'm aware the Great Britain is not much better) would not hog a quarter of the World's resources nor cause a quarter of the World's pollution.

And then we end up with MORE revelations about the CIA practicing torture on people. Gee, the CIA turned out to be EVIL – who would have thought? But does ANYONE expect "justice" properly to be served? Are we going to see Mr Darth Cheney or Mr Donald Rums-failed even standing TRIAL let alone facing punishment for what they made happen? Is anyone going to send a cruise missile down one of THEIR chimneys? After all, that's the way America deals with torturers, isn't it?

It is the INjustice of Americaland's vast inherited wealth, and the obsessive aggression that they use to defend it, and the double standards by which they are seen judge themselves that breeds a World full of people who WANT to explode aeroplanes!



So what IS this thing called "justice"? It's sort of like "fairness" and it's sort of like "moral rightness" (whatever THAT means).

What sort of things should it be MADE of?

Restitution – giving people back what they have had taken away?

Retribution – punishing people for breaking the law whether because you believe doing badness means they deserve to receive badness or, more practically, as a disincentive against doing it again?

Rehabilitation – to make it so that bad people become good people?

(And this is all getting like 80's Dr Woo Dalek stories – you know: "Remembrance of the Revelation of the Resurrection of the Renaissance of the Retaliation of the Religion of the Daleks".)

But as I say, you cannot give someone their life BACK, so how can there be proper restitution?

The Iranians might say – MIGHT say – that the Americans blew one airliner out of the sky and had one blown out of the sky in return. An eye for an eye; an aeroplane for an aeroplane? Is THAT "justice"? Or is that TWO WRONGS making something very NOT RIGHT indeed?

So if you cannot make restitution, what about retribution?

Well, for retribution to be "just" then it has to be proportionate: the old mantra (or Gilbert & Sullivan song) "let the punishment fit the crime". But again, when a crime is SO awful, how can one person be expected to BEAR any punishment that would be "proportionate"?

So when the former Monkey-in-Chief's Ambassador of Evil, Mr Roger Bolt-thru-neck, whinges that Mr al Megrahi "only served two weeks for each person who died" you have to point out the bloody-minded STUPIDITY of his remark: what does he want? Mr al Megrahi to serve a LIFETIME for each person who died? How are you going to do THAT, then? Even if you want to KILL him, what GOOD will it do? Do you want to execute him two-hundred-and-seventy times? Will that bring a single person back?

So much for retribution, how about rehabilitation then?

Well, Mr al Megrahi is hardly likely to do it again, is he? But that's not really the point. Surely, the REAL rehabilitation is that of LIBYA. And doesn't that seem to have WORKED?

By accepting compensation, or two-point-seven billion dollars worth of "blood money", paid to the families of the victims, America and Britain accepted that we and Libya could move on. Compensation isn't about putting a crude value on someone's life; it's about drawing a line under a vendetta, ending the feud, preventing FUTURE violence and grief.

Listen to the WISE WORDS of Mr Stephen of the Glenn, who seems to have come TERRIFYINGLY close to being EXPLODED himself on several occasions!

"A nation that shows compassion finds it easier to look past the past; one that holds grudges finds it harder to let it go."

Americaland, in spite of having so little history – or perhaps BECAUSE they have so little history – just can't let it go.


So, where in this scheme of "justice" should COMPASSION fit in? Well, the answer is nowhere! SERIOUSLY, theries of justice SAY that justice has to trump compassion. Because "compassion" is giving someone something that they DON'T deserve. It is sympathy for a person in pain REGARDLESS of how deserving they are.

Compassion is about US being better people, not about the goodness or wickedness of the person on the receiving end.

Is it regrettable that people take advantage of that kindness to stage some kind of Hero's Welcome? Yes, of course it is – but that makes THEM bad people, not us. It means that the people who agreed to keep things LOW KEY are the ones who broke their promises, not the people who only did a good thing.

Is it regrettable that people sometimes people DO make behind-the-scenes deals for trade or whatever in exchange for releasing a prisoner? (Not that that DID happen here; not that that DID happen to let President Billary-Hillary rescue those journalists from North Korea; not that that DID happen to get that American nutter who swam out to Aung San Suu Kyi's house out of Burma.) Yes, because it's sordid and it undermines our trust in the people we elect to make these decisions on compassionate grounds.



Justice is usually portrayed as a LADY with a sword to indicate the FORCE of the LAW, a set of scales to indicate WEIGHING up the EVIDENCE and a blindfold to indicate IMPARTIALITY. What we usually end up with is an overburdened blind lady waving a large letter-opener about. As a METAPHOR for a justice system that seems to flail about inflicting stabbing pains on people at random, that's actually depressingly accurate.

But if we can't HAVE justice, then we have to make a choice between vengeance and compassion.

And we should choose compassion.




*Yes, I am misquoting Uncle Enyos from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but the point still stands.



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