Tag Archives: media

Politics by shockjockery

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by Media, politics • Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

The horrible lot (Bachmann, Perry, Cain and the rest) seeking the Republican nomination in the states, and the equally horrible lot trying to overthrow the government by bombast in Australia, have more in common with radio shock jocks than with the politicians of the past like Eisenhower and Kennedy, Menzies and Whitlam. It is politics by empty slogans, meaningless stunts, abuse of dissenters, invented “facts”, ideology. It is appeals to nationalism, religion, exceptionalism, xenophobia, class warfare, misogyny, racism, anti-environmentalism, and delusions of future riches.

It is a personal style characterised by aggression, refusal (and inability) to discuss issues, nastiness, lack of knowledge, bullying, stubborn repetition of a “fact” disproved, take no prisoners rhetoric, and a supreme confidence in one’s own self-worth.

Both shock jocks and these politicians of the new age are there to get people angry every morning and stay angry all day, and to consequently build audience share/voter numbers. If/when they are successful in doing this their competitors/political rivals will be obliged to push their own shockjockery to even lower levels, down down where the voters/listeners occur in numbers.

They could be called on their behaviour by other media outlets, more civilised politicians, intelligent members of the community, but they rarely are, perhaps because people are aware of the following they are generating, and scared that the wrath of those followers will be turned on them (for example climate scientists most recently).

There will be tears before bedtime I’m afraid. We have a number of examples of countries that have followed this spiral to the bottom. Takes a long time to recover.

That’s Entertainment

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by Media, politics • Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Long long ago, as the oldest of my Watermelon friends may just remember, there used to be talent competitions in community and media. At Eisteddfords performers performed, judges judged, winners grinned, losers were praised and encouraged, audiences applauded loudly in appreciation.

Then the geniuses who produce tv programs decided this was all wrong. In the same way as they changed motor sport broadcasts from reporting winners to reporting crashes, they changed talent shows from having the winners being the entertainment to having the losers providing it.

In order to do this the losers would be increasingly humiliated, disparaged, brought into public contempt, driven to despair, driven, if at all possible, to tears, a human car crash. As long as every possible human emotion could be wrung from the losers, the actual “winners” of a competition were essentially irrelevant.

As time has gone by networks have competed against each other to make the humiliation of losers more extreme and more protracted in each successive show. The public demand for such spectacles is, it seems, as strong now as when the Roman public were given opportunity, thumbs up or down, to decide on life and death in the arena. Not so much circuses that marked entertainment, and decline, of the Roman Empire, but loser shows.

And so it is with us, as ritual psychological disembowelling becomes the standard tv entertainment in all “reality” and “talent” shows that fill broadcast hours on all networks.

But that left all the political stuff that the networks had some kind of public obligation to report. People would, after all, probably want to know who was going to govern them after an election. But it was all so boring, like an old-fashioned Eisteddford. Grinning winners about to form government, losers with stiff upper lips ready to form a “loyal opposition”. “Loyal Opposition” indeed, what sort of television did that make?

Hard to stump tv executives for long. If politics wouldn’t come to reality tv, then reality tv would have to come to politics, or, more exactly be brought into politics. And so it began.

Began with the destabilisation of an existing leader. Unflattering photos, odd pieces of film, some past “scandal” uncovered, carefully edited bits of an interview played again and again. Then we might find a disgruntled and very junior member of the party to make a criticism, anonymously of course, and describe this as “voices”. A former leader may be called on to prove they are still relevant by voicing an opinion, pretending to inside knowledge they no longer have. Opposing politicians may be asked for their objective views on the leadership of the other party.

Then in stage two we go into full scale rumour creation, where two people having coffee are photographed through a long range lens in sinister fashion; where an innocent glance is scrutinised by “body language experts”; where some policy debate (a good thing, right?) is turned into a signal of raging dissent and rebellion. Phoney opinion polls are sought and presented in the most damaging light possible. “Numbers” are said to be counted. Soon all this has an effect. The party decides the instability created by the media has to stop (believing that firm action will end it, ha ha) and there is a change of leadership. The media will milk this for all it is worth, close up images of tears on faces (family gathered around, hopefully also with tears), interviews where questions are asked not for answers but for emotional response, families of defeated leaders followed to school or shops hoping for angry reactions.

And then suddenly all that good television is over. Time to start again, and the whole cycle is repeated with new leader, the political party discovering, belatedly, that changing leader doesn’t stop instability (a media creation in fact), the instability having nothing to do with who the actual leader is, but merely being the signal for the media to begin a new round of destabilisation. Sometimes, and this is a bonus, the media may decide to bring a former expelled contestant (sorry, leader) back into the Big Brother (sorry, Parliament) House, and the twist will be that they may be able to gain full reinstatement, deposing the one who deposed them. Human emotion in spades. Hours, days, weeks of good television.

Neither the contestants (sorry politicians) themselves, nor the viewing audience (sorry, voters) have any more control over this process than the contestants and viewers of Survivor or Greatest Race or Beauty and the Geek or the X Factor. All are puppets, manipulated at the whims of directors and producers.

A lot of contestants and politicians, will be damaged mentally and professionally in the process, and democracy itself is the Biggest Loser. But Hey.

That’s Entertainment.

The loaded hot dog

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by Economics, Media • Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Did you see where Denmark has placed an extra tax on fatty foods to try to begin reducing obesity problems in their society? Don’t know why the Scandinavians are so much better at this kind of thing than we are. Yes I do. The other day an expert suggested raising the tax on soft drinks, noting that these had no nutritional value at all to even partly compensate for the masses of pure sugar they contained. Immediate outrage from the food and grocery council, and you could sense a media campaign coming on, politicians being lobbied, small children weeping in tv interviews, legal cases underway. A similar pattern in response to attempts to increase tax on alcopops, prevent fast food companies marketing to children, introduce plain packaging for cigarettes, reduce pub opening hours.

We are an odd people. One class of chemicals – cocaine, cannabis, heroin, ecstasy – we say are bad for our children, bad for health, bad for society, and we throw enormous resources at trying to stop their distribution and sale to anyone. Another chemical, found in tobacco, we recognise is extremely harmful but we don’t ban it, just stop it being directly advertised, and try to warn people of its ill effects. And we are unsurprised when the tobacco industry fight every step of the way and manages to delay meaningful actions for years and decades.

Another chemical, alcohol, is also very damaging to individuals, families, society. We impose some restrictions on its advertising and sale to juveniles while simultaneously promoting it in the media, allowing sale of products aimed at juveniles, increasing its general retail availability, and allowing places that sell it to stay open all night. We deal with the resulting mess by increasing the number of police and their powers to clean up afterwards. Any attempt to reduce opening hours to those of a few years ago is met with a massive political campaign.

Finally a group of chemicals – fat and sugar – which we know is doing great harm to our health, are freely added to foods, promoted with massive advertising campaigns, freely sold to anyone young and old. Any attempts to suggest that we should even try the softly softly approaches of reducing consumption by increasing tax on such products and reducing their advertising reach is met with instant outrage and political capitulation. All continues as before.

There are huge profits to be made from all these products, which is why on the one hand the drug smugglers and pedlars continue to risk long jail sentences or even death from their competitors, and why on the other hand powerful political lobbies work very hard to prevent any action that would further decrease tobacco use or significantly decrease alcohol and junk food consumption.

There must come a time, surely, when we recognise the inconsistency and tell the various lobbyists to shut up?

You may say I’m a dreamer

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by Climate Change, Media, politics • Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Imagine how different the last four years would have been if the mainstream media had enthusiastically supported the idea of providing a massive increase in school infrastructure, and a big boost to insulating homes to reduce energy costs? If they had got behind the programs, explained their purposes, published anecdotes about happy customers. Imagine if they had explained the seriousness of the GFC in simple terms and the reasons for providing a stimulus. Imagine if they had ignored the phony “protests” of the mining billionaires and explained to the public the reasons for the mining tax and its benefits.

Imagine how different the last year would have been if the mainstream media had got behind the idea of putting a price on carbon. Explained to the public in a series of documentaries, morning shows, talkback radio, the reality of global warming, the measures beginning around the world, the urgency, the need for us to play a part, the benefits of doing so. Imagine if they had promoted the health benefits of plain packaging of cigarettes and the tax on alcopops. Imagine if they had gone into bat against the self-interest of the clubs, and explained the damage of problem gambling and examined the situation in WA. Imagine if they had seriously hammered the cattle industry on animal cruelty and the need to halt exports until resolved.

Imagine if they had been positive about the great breakthrough that having a female prime minister represented. Imagine if they had written positive stories about her rise from humble beginnings and her intelligence, hard work, charm, warmth. Her ability to work with colleagues and independents, the enormous raft of legislation that has been passed in spite of the opposition tactics against a minority government.

Imagine if they had been positive about how well the Labor-Green coalition was working, and compared it to Liberal-National coalitions of the past. Imagine if they had run positive stories about the independents Windsor and Oakeshott and Wilkie, praised their strength of character and independence of mind under great pressure.

Imagine if they had ignored most or all of the foolish publicity stunts by Tony Abbott. If they had seriously examined the policies being pushed by the opposition. Imagine if they had paid attention to the unprecedented damage that opposition tactics were doing to our parliamentary democracy. Imagine if they had turned the spotlight on Tony Abbott Action Man and found out what kind of a person he really is. And the rest of his front bench.

Wonder why they didn’t do any of those things.

Wonder why they did precisely the opposite.

Odds on

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by Media, politics • Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

There is a curious political narrative (I could write a book on curious political narratives) beloved not just of journalists but of political commentators, supposedly a much more serious breed of political observer. A discussion will be under way about, say, leadership questions, or the date of next election, or the winner of a bye-election, or the winner of a general election. Opinion polls will be perused, entrails of goats examined, ghosts of former prime ministers interviewed, oracles appealed to, pundits given the chance to endlessly punditify, with hindsight, on past political events.

At the end of all that, baffled and frustrated by the inability of commentators to do even such a simple thing as foretell the future, the compere/presenter/personality will speak in the tones of Socrates settling an argument among his students on the meaning of life. “What do the bookies say? They always know. What are the bookmaker’s odds on a [xxxx] win?”

Around the table, or on the comfortable lounge chairs, the faces of the assembled pundits will light up. “Ah yes” one will remark, with the air of someone discovering a great truth for the first time in history, “the bookies always know because they are responding to people putting real money on the outcome”. The others will nod wisely, one or two repeating the words “real money” with satisfaction.

It is always at this point that I am faced with a choice between running screaming from the room, hands over my ears to avoid hearing any more of this nonsense, or throwing a convenient house brick right through the tv screen. Which occasions another thought – if psychics and evangelists and faith healers and all the other charlatans can cure people through the tv by speaking into a microphone and looking at a camera 1000km from the target audience, then presumably I can have an effect on them by either cursing at or kicking the television set in my front room? Must try it – would be nice to see them cowering back on stage, or running around clutching their goolies in pain. Politicians and pundits too.

But I digress. The reason this “Let’s ask the bookies, real money” narrative is bullshit is that the people who are betting the “real money” are people who would bet on two flies crawling up a wall to use an old observation. The gamblers have no information you and I (or indeed the pundits) don’t have. They are making their bets on the stuff they read (perhaps) or watch on tv. They (and the bookies) have no special insights, no skills, no ability to predict the future, they are just betting money. Gambling. In the sense that their bets are equivalent to a poll, it is a very inaccurate poll, being an uncontrolled sample of a particular segment of the population.

But, I hear you say, bookies don’t go broke, so the odds that they post must represent something accurate. No. They make their money from racing and (more recently) football, cricket and other sporting events. They set the odds there initially on a record – number of previous wins, at a particular speed, on these tracks, against this opposition and so on. The gamblers (the smart ones anyway) are laying their bets on the same information. Favourites generally win, so do bookies.

No such information is available on political contests. So opinion polls represent a much more accurate assessment of likely outcomes, and political commentators a much more accurate assessment than bookies. Opinion polls because they are (or should be, it ain’t necessarily so) based on carefully taken and analysed samples. But political commentators? Well, you should always listen to them because, unlike your average punter, there is real money involved. The pundits, either directly or indirectly, and the media outlets and think tanks they represent, all have a big financial stake in ensuring that right wing governments are elected over and over again to infinity. That if, by some fluke of history, an even nominally left of centre government does happen to get elected they will be destroyed within one term or less. Big money involved for interested parties in lower taxes, access to markets, unions smashed, infrastructure availability, no regulation, business subsidies, no gambling or packaging restrictions, financial policies, under the right government (the Right government). So when the pundits speak they are indulging in self-fulfilling prophecy. By predicting a particular result they will help make it happen. A bit like a crooked bookmaker really, nobbling the favourite, or knowing people who do.

An honest bookmaker may or may not have the odds right on the next election. The pundits know that the fix is in. Listen to them. If you have backed a different horse might as well tear up your tickets now. Or fight back.

Hundred years war

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by Economics • Tags: , , , , , , ,

Annoyingly can’t find my copy to check (why is it that you can always find all the other books except the precise one you want, whichever that one is?) but there is a moment in “The Longest Day” which is relevant to the politics of the day. All day on June 6 1944 fighting has raged on the beaches of Normandy, and up the frighteningly steep cliffs. By the end of that long day a few of the allied troops have got past the last line of German coastal defences and have emerged on to the farm land at the top of the cliffs. They pause, exhausted, and then an officer calls them to move on out and into France. The battle in effect is over, and what comes now is the consolidation, the digging of defensive positions, the establishment of infrastructure to get the heavy equipment moving, planes landing, communications working.

Was reminded of this the other day when Obama, some three years late, gave a speech in which he suggested that since America’s budget problems were in no small part the result of the slashing of taxes for the rich begun by Reagan and continued by his disciples, it would be good if, pretty please, the rich could begin paying just a little bit more of their obscenely bloated wealth for the common good of the country. Just a little bit you understand, nowhere near what they had been happily paying in Reagan’s time.

The response was both outraged and depressingly predictable, Obama, said the mouthpieces of the super rich, was engaging in “class warfare” …

… Had to pause at that point, get my breath back, taken away by the astonishing audacity and hypocrisy of that response.

Right, back now.

The period since that June day has been marked by new battles in two phases. In the first phase the kind of world that the American, British and Canadian soldiers; and, on other battlefields, Australian and New Zealand soldiers, had fought for, was gradually brought into being. As I’ve written before, there were moves to better support the old and the poor, provide better health and education services for all, do something about the degrading environment, develop a society in which the disparities of wealth were not as great as they had been.

Think of it, if you can (since I am forced into a topsy turvy world here by my stubbornness in sticking with my original, poorly chosen, metaphor), as the German Army invading France, introducing good German customs into a country needing social reform. The German Army, in this Looking Class (sorry, Glass) War, being the good guys.

But now the Allies (bad guys remember) have landed on the beaches. Have brutally pushed back social, economic reforms in America, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. Forced the progressive back up the cliffs pushed through the last defences, emerged triumphant on the cliff tops. Now for the digging in and consolidation of their gains.

So now we see nonsense like the “class warfare” tag, applied by the super rich 1% against the poorer 99% and accepted, unquestioningly, as a valid talking point by the media, their heavy equipment rolling across the countryside in support. We see court cases to destroy plain packaging in cigarettes, deposits on bottles; we see massive advertising campaigns to prevent action on coal seam gas, poker machines, mining resource taxes, carbon price; we see push back on progressive taxation, club opening hours, labelling of alcohol, national parks, workplace laws, public education and health, voting rights, and so on. The rich officer class and their willing foot soldiers are trying to make sure that they will hold this ground forever, make it impossible for progressives to fight back, lock in place the most regressive policies seen in 100 years.

It’s been a long day, but they seem to have won.

You give me fever

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by Media, politics • Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

When you have a fever your perception of the world gets distorted, your brain cells manipulated by virus and high temperature to see all kinds of things that are not there.

Chemotherapy is similar. After you have it you are left not knowing what changes to your body are the result of the illness, which are the result of the treatment, which are just ordinary everyday ailments that you normally would have ignored.

The media is having the effect of fever or vencristin on the body politic. Reading, seeing, hearing the news now I have no idea whether the events being described are real or fake, meaningful or meaningless, deserving of outrage or approbation. Video and photographic images may (or may not) be faked; descriptions of events true or false; reporters may (or more likely may not) be anywhere near the scene they are apparently describing; both witnesses and reporters may (or may not) have a vested interest (or an ideological purpose) in presenting a story in a certain way; politicians and soldiers and economists may be telling the truth or lying.

Bodies may or may not have been buried, shots may or may not have been fired, money may or may not have been stolen, people may or may not be terrorists or freedom fighters, heroes or villains. Conversely the Earth is warming, the poor are getting poorer, religion is damaging society, taxes are too low, science is essential to society, in spite of narratives that pretend these things are debatable.

The media were once meant to fling open the curtains of the sick room, let the light in, diagnose the symptoms of society, treat ills. Now they bring new and virulent diseases, raise temperatures, manipulate our brains, create illusions, prevent us perceiving the real world.

How do we cure that?

Eyes … Left

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by politics • Tags: , , , , , ,

It is one of my many half-remembered things (there are also things I remember well, and some I don’t remember at all). A movie, or a book perhaps, a squad of soldiers disguised in enemy uniform. Were they British commandos in German uniforms in occupied France? Americans in Japanese uniforms in the Pacific? A Hornblower crew in the garb of the Frenchies? Never mind.

All I can really remember is that at some point things go wrong, the enemy identify them as imposters, and they are trapped with backs to the wall, last cartridges in the breach, drum playing. The Sergeant, Captain, Lootenant, whoever, says bravely “To hell with this men, if we must die here we will die in our own uniforms”. There is a cheer, the men strip off the outer disguise, revealing their true colours beneath, and set about to do or die, inspired by their gallant leader and their glorious uniforms. Did they win? Of course they did, though I can’t be certain of the fate of the little drummer boy.

Well, you can see where this is going – the Australian Labor Party, American Democratic Party, and British Labour Party have all spent many years, behind enemy lines, wearing the uniform of their opponents so as to remain undetected and occasionally win elections as pseudoneoconservatives.

But in Australia at least the ruse is discovered, and the enemy of all three raiding parties, the Murdoch Press Gang, is closing in, guns blazing, backing our intrepid infiltrators into a dead end alley, blocked off, as we speak, by a great big tank.

So time for Julia Gillard to make the patriotic speech, fling off the uniform of the oppressors and vow to die, one for all and all for one, in the thin red line of true believers, band of brothers and sisters, the socialist army of Australia. Would they escape the trap? Possibly not, but at least they would die with their clogs on, remembering who they really were, what they were fighting for.

Wouldn’t work in America or Britain, there the “progressives” would fling off the disguise only to find an identical conservative uniform underneath (Obama is clearly a conservative in the disguise of a conservative). Wouldn’t save them from the final massacre, wouldn’t make sense of the sacrifice.

But just a slim chance, still, that in Australia Gillard’s Gang hasn’t been behind enemy lines so long that they have forgotten who they are, forgotten what their own uniform looks like.

Come on Julia, make the speech “once more unto the breach”.

Things we don’t know we don’t know

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by Media, politics • Tags: , , , , ,

Oh I have been slack. Do I need an alibi? I do. Well, a sense of unreality as I approach final treatment (after 6 months) on Wednesday. Time has seemed suspended. But I have, in alibi number two, been getting minor, but unpleasant side effects which are just easing now. Hope there is no repeat after this week. And, alibi number three, I planted two fruit trees.

That phrase doesn’t quite conjure up reality. These events are nothing like the occasions when royalty, or celebrity (and no, thank you, but I have not quite achieved Charlie Sheen’s importance), “plants ” a tree by putting a spadeful of dirt on a silver spade into a hole dug by an underling in which a tree already resides. Nor does it resemble those gardening shows where someone photogenic in clean overalls puts hands into soft rich soil and “digs” a hole deep enough for a tree with a few hand movements, quickly returning soil to cover the tree roots in the same way.

No, planting trees (indeed anything down to the smallest seedling) here involves furiously attacking, with frequent rests in my prematurely (well, not that premature but you know what I mean) aged condition, solid rocky ground with mattock and spade. Chipping out small slivers of rock in the way a woodpecker chips out wood. Eventually I achieve, just, a hole big enough (carefully measured, not a chip more, not a chip less) to take the root bundle. Gasping for air, and being careful with my now tender back muscles, I plonk tree into hole fill up, water, protect from rabbits and parrots, and then collapse in heap while contemplating the second tree.

Strange thing that gap between imagination, what you pictured when I said “planting a tree”, and reality, on this rocky hill top

That gap seems to be getting wider all round the world. Last week there were photos of Steve Jobs looking, as my grandmother used to say, like death warmed over. People were already sympathetic, given his sudden retirement, and here was proof of our worst fears of what a terrible state he was in. Except the photos had been photoshopped to make him look much worse than he actually is. Why? A good question.

Over the weekend New York waited to be pounded or lashed (depending on the preference of the reporter) by cyclone Irene, and the world waited with her. How bad was it going to be? And suddenly there were the pictures we had all been dreading, flood waters rising on the streets of New York. Oh no. Well, that’s right, oh no they were faked images.

Then came the images of the “rebels” flooding into Green Square in Tripoli, the war, it seemed, as good as over. But hang on a moment, says Hugo Chavez (managing to lose any remaining admiration I had for him, which he has frittered away in the last few years), those images are faked, must be, propaganda, my good friend Ghadaffi is still in control, defeating this rag bag bunch of terrorists supported by the oil hungry countries of Europe.

Well, it wasn’t that silly a guess. A few weeks ago we had faked video (from the Lebanese civil war) being used for propaganda in Syria. We all remember the faked images (no doubt what Chavez was remembering) created by America in pulling down Saddam Hussein’s statue, the fake story of the kidnapped female American soldier, the contradictory stories about the killing of bin Laden.

Except in the case of Tripoli it wasn’t a fake, indeed given the number of western reporters around (not always insurance, I know), it would have been impossible to fake this particular event. But who is to know? Obama is dead. No he isn’t. In that case he can appear in person to misquote Mark Twain, but the more insidious cases of photoshopping, fake videos, facebook rumours, are impossible to get to the bottom, take on a life of their own among the conspiracy theorists.

In fact the belief that nothing is real, things ain’t necessarily so, is so pervasive now that we can have fake fakeries, as it were. The classic case being the hacking of emails from the climate research unit of the University of East Anglia, and the pretence that these demonstrated a conspiracy to deceive the world about climate change. The people who believe this fake conspiracy continue to do so, in spite of a number of enquiries, and the application of a modicum of common sense.

Now I know you are waiting for me to wrap this up with a dollop of good advice hard-earned from my years of education in the school of hard knocks. But I remain as baffled as you. How do you tell a photoshopped model from a non-photoshopped model on the cover of Vogue? All I can suggest is to take what you are told, especially but not only by politicians and business interests, with a grain of salt. But not a spoonful of salt. Even conspiracy theorists occasionally find a real conspiracy, but on the other hand Elvis remains dead. So tread warily these days, seeing isn’t always believing, nor is hearing or reading – remember my trees. And Hey!

Be careful out there.

London Bridge is falling down

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by Economics, Media • Tags: , , , , , , ,

A few years ago the governing body of an Australian city closed down a major hospital and the action met with strong public protest. In response they declared that the hospital building was to be demolished and that as a public service they would turn the demolition into a public spectacle to which all the people were invited. Thousands of people turned up on the day to watch in a carnival atmosphere, but some kind of mistake was made, the controlled implosion turned into an explosion which showered the crowd, hundreds of metres away, with lumps of metal and concrete, and a poor teenage girl, out for the day with her family, was struck and killed in an awful tragedy.

Her death is what people remember, rightly, about this awful day, but the other thing I want to remember here is the astonishing (to me) fact that “thousands of people turned up on the day to watch”. Now I can’t imagine wanting to go to watch a fine old building being demolished, but I am faced with the fact that large numbers of my fellow citizens did want to. That people I passed in the street, apparently ordinary everyday people, could well have been among the people who were attracted to go and see this destruction.

As if to confirm this, an Australian tv network has recently been advertising a stunning line up of new reality shows which involve blowing up buildings, cutting down big old trees, car and plane crashes, dangerous roads, and more blowing up of buildings with lots of explosives. They have, I presume, done their homework and decided that there is indeed a big audience for destruction.

An audience they have helped to create, hell, totally created? Dunno, but it seems to me that in the past (both my own, and the historical past) people were more interested in building up than knocking down, took more pride in creation than destruction. Can remember indeed considerable protest about the demolition derbies that the state governments of the 60s and 70s unleashed on Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.

Things have changed, and now while I still can’t imagine taking pleasure in the demolition of a building, in London, right there on my TV, are young people taking pleasure in carrying out the destruction themselves – burning fine old buildings (including homes), kicking in windows, trashing shop contents, setting fire to cars and buses, preventing fire brigades from putting out fires. A great deal of what was going on in London this week seemed to be just the desire to destroy, and to take pleasure purely in the act of destruction. We need to ask where that desire and pleasure has come from.

But we need to ask something else. The media commentary has focused largely on the question “What kind of people do this?” The answer seems to me ordinary people you might pass in the street on another occasion. A more important question is “What kind of country has England become so that people want to do this?”

A few weeks ago we might have asked the question “What kind of country has Greece become that people are destructively rioting in the streets?” But the answer was obvious – a country in which the rich were going to stay rich while tens of thousands of ordinary workers lost their jobs and many others lost their community support services and in which every public asset and function was going to be privatised, sold off to giant corporations. Every crisis, as Naomi Klein noted some time ago, is used by the ruling corporations to enhance their control and wealth at the expense of the public in country after country.

Britain is no exception – the advent of Cameron’s conservative government led immediately to the slashing of all kinds of public programs in the name of fiscal prudence. I don’t think these young nihilist thugs are in any real sense the ideological descendants of the ragged trousered philanthropists, or the Jarrow marchers, or the coal miners of the Thatcher era, but they are reacting, unknowingly to the same kind of social and economic forces. The slash-and-burn drown-society-in-a-bath-tub trickle-down-economics of Margaret Thatcher has left succeeding generations of young Britons undereducated untrained and often unemployable, while at the same time reducing the public services that would support them in a safety net. Leaving them to watch from the economic sidelines as the gap in wealth between rich and poor, the main (perhaps only) performance indicator of the thatcherites, grew wider and wider.

Same factors in play in America of course, Obama providing no obstacle to the destruction of the middle and working classes, in fact enabling the obscene American wealth gap to grow and acquiescing in the coming slashing of social services while keeping the taxes of the wealthy low to non-existent. In Australia Tony Abbott’s thatcherites in waiting are ready to complete the job John Howard started.

I guess the next question is not why are there riots in London, but when will the riots come in New York and Sydney? Same television programs, same economic programs.

[Excellent piece from Van Badham with much more detail on the class war I sketch above - we must have been writing simultaneously in London and here!]