Wednesday, September 29, 2010

today : tell them to shut up



People don't often say this, but right wing people are almost entirely stupid. I'm not using it in a general insult kind of way - saying, "Oh, people who disagree with me, they must be idiots." What I'm saying is that they actually are stupid, as in feeble minded, unintelligent and shallow of thought.

They are also liars. Maybe their lying springs from the fact that because they are stupid they get confused over things like logic, so they lie accidentally. But it's still lies. Here's a right wing economic lie: "The government should be small and taxes should be lower."
What they mean is, the government shouldn't do anything for anyone apart from me, and taxes should be lower for me.

Did I mention that right wing people are invariably totally selfish?

Here's another lie that right wing people trot out. Immigration is bad. What they mean (in England and America anyway), is that black and brown people are bad. No Daily Mail articles about all those nasty American actors and academics, aussie barmaids or South African Cricketers. It's foreigners who are bad. People who look different, or talk a different language. Which is a childish way of sorting out the world. People who look and talk like me - good: people who look different and talk different - bad.

Right wing people are invariably childish in their view of the world.

This is because they either haven't realised, or can't cope with the idea that things are complex and difficult. Right wingers are always desperate to reduce things to a simple binary level. Often they lie to make the world fit into their simple-minded perceptions. Invariably they are selfish in the way they simplify the world. It always ends up as me/you, us/them.

And most of all they are cowards. Scared to death of change, complexity, difference and reality.

In order to justify their fear they will adopt extreme standpoints that are illogical and dangerous. Yet it never crosses their minds that, for example, you cannot be a Christian and hate everyone else in the world. It says so in the Bible. Perhaps they are too stupid to read it.

Right wingers don't do ideology (the people who exploit them do do ideology - this is a whole new category. Not Right Wing but just evil). Ideology is about 3 syllables too long for right wingers to cope with. In fact they don't even do ideas.

Left thinking people don't point these obvious truths out enough. Left thinkers give right wing people too much credit. We sympathise with them. We imagine they are as intelligent, insightful and sensitive as we are. We defend their right to spout whatever moronic crap they are thinking, in their small, stupid, childish, selfish frightened little minds.

We really should just tell them to shut up.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

today : bad people who do good things

Ok, so Phil Spector is not a nice man. But Be My Baby is possibly the greatest record of all time.

Monday, September 13, 2010

today : Dade in flame


Okay, I know Gainesville ain't Miami but the pun was irresistable
Although all the criticism of Pastor John is totally justified, in that he is clearly one of those egotisical and not overly bright semi-charlatans who need to set up their own church in order to feel important, let us not forget that he only threatened to burn a few books.
What is really stupid is that the very idea of burning some paper ( or drawing a picture, or writing down some words) can be so inflamatory to some people that they will potentially kill innocent bystanders who would no more burn a Qu'ran than eat their own shoes in a sandwich with sliced domestic guinea pig and picallili. So while everyone continues to condemn this silly man in Florida, let's not just accept insane extremism as a given, but point it out and stand up against it.

Tuesday, September 07, 2010

today: bye bye bass





I sold my acoustic bass guitar today. The fourth guitar I've sold in the last few weeks. The old battered 1950s Egmond, the Black Strat and the bowl-back acoustic were fine. I felt no pangs. I never loved them, it seems. But the bass. Well, it was hard to let it go. As the deadline approached and the ebay bidders didn't materialise I grew kind of giddy - hoping that it wouldn't sell. That would be my excuse to keep it. But in the last minute someone offered the reserve price and it was gone forever.

today : the gift that keeps on giving


The good news for the Labour Party is that the Andy Coulson phone hacking story looks like it's got legs. After all, there can be statements of denial aplenty, but the source of the recent accusations isn't some partisan blogger or a Labour spin doctor, but The New York Times. And say what you like about the big US papers but they don't go to print unless they have sources and corroborations.

What's interesting to me is how the broadcasters have treated this story. Trying not to appear anti-Sky (knowing they are facing sustained and vengeful attack from the Tories and their News International cronies when the license settlement arises in 2012), the BBC didn't touch it (and were criticised for it) until politicians and maligned public figures waded in. Sky News has tried to portray the story as an attempt by Labour to attack the government, rather than a story in itself. Funny how the echo chamber suddenly becomes padded and soundless for the news channel that bases much of its content on whatever is being printed in the tabloids or posted on the Web, regardless of provenance or relevance.

And of course, all the other Murdoch papers are treating it as commercial jealousy on behalf of the NYT. Other Tory worshipping press are filing it away on page 10. You couldn't get better evidence that they are worried and probably think (or know) it's a story that won't go away.

The important thing is that it all rings true. Coulson either had to be in the loop as editor of the NOTW, or else he was a shoddy editor who wasn't across the scoops that came from hacked phone messages, didn't talk to his staff and wasn't in any meetings with lawyers. You only have to hear the defensive interventions of coalition cabinet ministers to see how worried they are. Cameron has been careful to offer his support to Coulson in second hand statements and not from his own mouth.

I am personally not even so bothered about 'the dark arts'. If some mindless celebrity or politician or Royal leaves themself open to simple eavesdropping and blabs away on their mobile without securing it as best they can - then maybe they are asking for it.

But that's a side issue. The fact is that what happened was illegal, and Coulson's denials sound as shrill and thin as the Pakistani High Commisioner claiming the videos were shot AFTER the match.

All of which is good news for Labour. If the story breaks open and Coulson has to resign it will damage Cameron big-time. But if the Establishment manages to keep a lid on any investigation it will always swirl around and Labour will be able to turn again time after time to it. It will be the gift that keeps on giving.

If Labour doesn't screw it up (which they might) they have a big chance to damage Cameron. If they don't screw it up then Coulson will remain the story and sooner or later have to go. Once that happens there are endless questions about judgement and the closeness of the Tories and Mr Murdoch.