Direct Action #30 Spring 2004
Editorial • Double standards
Regulars:
Actions & comment • Yob Culture; The Party's over; Respect coalition; National shame of deaths from cold; Na-no-futures?; DSEi jailings; Primate change
On the edge • Aslef off the rails; Thanks MA'M; Bribery pays; Still no clampdown on corporate killing; BNRR eco-dumb; GM update; Finger fight; Outsourcing again; Ignorance US-style
International news • Israel/Palestine; Turkey; France; Belguim; Spain; Venezuela; Greece; Argentina; Saipan; Mexico; Poland; Pakistan; Thailand; India; Korea
Globalfocus • Iraq: workers' resistance
Justicepages • 12,000 prisoners proved innocent
Ideas for change • DIY funerals
Notes & letters
Reviews:
CDs/spoken word • The emerging framework of world power - Noam Chomsky; Chile: Promise of freedom - The Chile 30 Collective of the San Fransisco-based Freedom Archives
Books and pamphlets • Around the world in twelve stories - Rani Drew; The almost perfect crime: The misrepresentation of Portuguese anarchism - Julio Carrapato
Periodicals • Abolishing the Borders from Below; Northern Voices: Our urban environment
Theme:
Welcome to the clampdown; Big Brother Britain, 2004; Benefit cheats
Centrespread: Death by clampdown; Britain: A century of suppression; Our direct action roots: The Scottish experience
Closerlook: STILL getting away with murder - Asbestos epidemics 2004-2020
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ISSN 0261-8753
this issue's theme - clampdown
All the world's a stage – well, all of Britain's city centres are anyway. We are the most watched (CCTV'd that is) people in the world, and since the government has decided we don't need any privacy laws to protect us from uniformed voyeurs, as the ‘97 election song should have gone, “things...can only get worser” (Big Brother Britain, 2004, p.6).
The Labour Government, still trying to prove it is more Tory than Thatcher, now has its heart set on watching us, controlling us and telling us what to do and what not. If you want a quick list of current woes they are inflicting on mothers, fathers, workers, drinkers and people who stand in groups of two or more on the street, etc., look no further (Welcome to the Clampdown, p.4). The general idea seems to be that if they keep us angry about how we are being treated at home, we will stop demonstrating about what they are doing in Iraq. They've got us multi-tasking.
Of course, all this clamping down wasn't New Labour's new idea (have they ever had one?). Governments, including British ones, have been doing it for years, and there are flashbacks within these pages (Britain: A century of suppression, p.20; Our direct action past: The Scottish experience, p.23).
But we wouldn't want to give you the impression that New Labour is all about clamping down. Actually, just for examples, there are at least six groups they haven't clamped down on at all; quite the opposite. First, despite promises that they would clamp down on company bosses getting away with murder, we are still no nearer to any meaningful corporate killing legislation. Second, there's the stinking rich, who are still creaming off millions of taxpayers money in subsidies (Benefit cheats, p.7).
Third, there's the gang masters and people smugglers, who they are positively encouraging through their racist immigration laws. To blame the Morecambe Bay tragedy on the gang masters is like blaming turkeys for Christmas: They wouldn't be there if it wasn't for the system that the government set up in the first place (Death by clampdown, p.18).
Then, of course, there's the MPs themselves – still ignoring their election pledges, conniving, conning and bobbing and weaving their way into the bosses pockets for handouts to fight the next election. This brings us to the next group, the lackeys and doublespeakers who keep Tony's buns creamed. They make sure the right number of hospitals go private, jobs get axed, and schools fail. Incidentally, Ofsted inspectors have defined failure in their Inspection Handbook: “Teaching that is generally satisfactory with little that is much better, merits a judgement of unsatisfactory, owing to the lack of aspiration in teaching.” This is, presumably, Blairspeak.
Blairporkies, on the other hand, often involve Iraq. As a demonstrator said outside the Hutton Inquiry: “Hutton only looks at a few of the Government's lies - lies that tragically led to one man's death. But the truth is that the road to war was paved with lies that have resulted in thousands of deaths and that these lies continue to affect the lives of millions of Iraqis. Blair lied - and continues to lie - about WMD and the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. He lied when he said that Iraq's oil revenues would be placed in a trust controlled by the UN. Now he's lying about democracy in Iraq…”
Anyway, for our final example of non-clampdown, it has to be back to big business; this time the asbestos corporates, who have had government silence and smokescreens to rely on for decades, while they made a killing and their workers unwittingly stored up a future full of pain and terminal diseases (STILL getting away with murder: Asbestos epidemics 2004-2020, p.31). The Labour clampdown is not total, it is partial – targeted at working class people, and neatly avoiding the rich and powerful.
So, while Iraqi's suffer an endless military offensive, we are suffering a charm offensive (and offensive just about sums it up). Tony Blair has brought us the dose of humility, the stitched up inquiry, the big conversation… what bollocks will we get next? He really must think we are stupid, if he thinks we are going to be distracted from the Labour ‘class clampdown' by a few mealy-mouthed niceties and half-hearted finger-pointing.
8-11 actions+comment
8; Yob Culture; The Party's over
9; Respect coalition; National shame of deaths from cold
10; Na-no-futures?
11; DSEi jailings; Primate change
On the edge: Aslef off the rails; Thanks MA'M;
Bribery pays; Still no clampdown on corporate killing; BNRR eco-dumb; GM update; Finger fight;
Outsourcing again; Ignorance US-style.
12-16 international news
Israel/Palestine, Turkey, France, Belguim, Spain, Venezuela, Greece, Argentina, Saipan, Mexico, Poland, Pakistan, Thailand, India, Korea.
17 globalfocus:
Iraq: workers' resistance
24 justicepages: 12,000 prisoners proved innocent
There is a saying, all prisoners are political prisoners. What is certainly true is that crime and punishment is a class issue.
26 ideas for change:
DIY funerals
Why green burials make sense.
28 notes+letters
34 DA resources
Info., upcoming events, campaigns, friends & neighbours.
4 Welcome to the clampdown
New Labour are clamping down on laughing, smoking, shagging, drinking ale (not red wine), being fat, not being fit, taking drugs, being old with no money, being disabled, hating school, hating working for some thieving ‘entrepreneur', talking on the street, not cleaning your teeth and farting. I'm dead.
6 Big Brother Britain, 2004
Britain is alone in being without any privacy law to protect people against constant surveillance.
7 Benefit cheats
Read about those nasty folk who are living off the state.
18 Death by clampdown
The media and politicians tried to blame the Morecambe Bay tragedy on gang masters and people smugglers - but the story doesn't match up to reality.
20 Britain: A century of suppression
A quick canter through a century of UK state violence, all in the name of keeping us down.
23 Our direct action roots: The Scottish experience
Focus on the glorious history of struggle in Scotland.
31 STILL getting away with murder:
Asbestos epidemics 2004-2020
If you were in any doubt that capitalism is a brutal system that cares not a jot for human suffering, read on... If you have been telling people this for years, the story of asbestos is more stark evidence for you to use...