Racism: what is it:

It's been the topic of the day, along with the ongoing footballer case and in the courts.   These are all very different situations though. Which I think is a big part of getting to the answer of what it means to be racist. You have to look at each case and each person individually.  

Lets start with Diane Abbott's comment. This was most likely just a flippant comment not well though through.

Possibly trying to say more than twitter would let you easily say and losing all the meaning by squeezing it into 140 characters. At worse it's a feeling that all white people will try and put down black people. In this case it's someone who is feeling oppressed lashing out at their perceived oppressor.

Obviously not an ideal characteristic for a high ranking politician. Though it is quite a normal human behavior which is why I have always liked Diane, she always seems quite human. Unlike most of the rest. We need more politicians like her.

After all her remark is not much worse than saying "all bankers are ******s" or "the accountants always come out best" or "people with hoodies cause trouble". It was just a poor over generalisation. Where you are really complaining about a problem by going for the stereotype. 

This leads us nicely on to the footballers who in the heat of the moment said something offensive. Now if someone came up behind me in the street and kicked me as hard as they could in the back of my leg. I would not like to say what would come out of my mouth. If the person then stands in front of me apologizes and says it was an accident... I probably would not believe them but would be heavily stereotyping them.

When talking about it people will ask "where were they from", "how old were they", "what did they look like", "what did they sound like" and similar questions. You would draw on that stereotype and quite probably get everyones 5 minutes rant about the character you describe. Or at least the mental image they have of your description. This may even bring to the front of your mind all the insults you have ever heard that could fit that person. Now if that same person did the same thing again some time later, it's quite possible that something out of character could slip out.

Once again though as a footballer that gets knocked about quite a bit they should be able to control themselves and their language. We all occasionally let our guard down though. This is where you have to look at the person.

Firstly they should be punished. If you are with mates they should tell you thats wrong, if it's from a position of responsibility then there should be some reprimand or punishment. How much should depend on the person. If they are really sorry for what they have said and wish with all their heart they could take back what they said, then it should be a stern telling off and a slap on the wrist. If they can't see anything wrong with what they said and can't see what the fuss is about... Then throw the book at them.

Obviously there is a lot of middle ground here too and how well you know and trust the person. For example one person might be known for shooting their mouth off and saying lots of rubbish things, or maybe someone often stumbles over their words and things come out wrong sometimes, or often uses a bad analogy or even if they are known to be hateful to some people. 

Finally we get onto the two tragic murders both with racist motives and one with police covering up for their clan. This is why it's important to make it unacceptable. Why you should punish yourself and others if you appear racist. Left unchecked in society it has the power of belittling people so much that it can lead to them being abused by authority, wrongly accused or poorly defended and even random killings.

These people that do these crimes are undoubtedly racists and are the ones that should spark debates with calls for punishments for all involved along with deep analysis of how it was allowed to get to that stage.

The people who we catch saying something stupid should just be a reminder to us all that we should maybe think before we speak or write something and not much more.     

European Empires 2011 update

European empires throughout history and how they are doing now…

Empires listed by age.

Greek Empire - Economic crisis - change of leader - protests and riots
Roman Empire (Italy) - Economic crisis - lost referendum - protests and riots
Spanish Empire - Economic crisis and change of government - protests and riots
Portuguese Empire - Economic crisis - change of government - protests
Dutch Colonial Empire - Seem to be doing ok.
British Empire - Economic crisis - riots and protests
French Colonial Empire - Growing economy - protests
German Empire - Growing economy - protests

Check back next year for an update on how our great European Empires are coping with the ever changing world.

This is a short piece about the occupy movement and how I became involved.

Part 1

Let me start of by saying I have not slept in any of the tents at any of the occupations and I have a job too. I do drop into the local Brighton camp when I can and have helped set up the website and some online tools.

When I became politically aware during the 90's recession I became fascinated with the IMF and big money and learnt then what a lot of people are just discovering now through the occupy movement.

The Wall Street occupation caught my attention when it started.
It seemed to highlight all the issues I believe are the root causes of inequality in this world. From this I found out about the London occupation and went up to film what happened on the first day there. Then I went to the first day of the Brighton occupation to film that too. I quickly became sucked into the Brighton community and have spent quite a lot of time there.

The occupations are asked a lot of questions one of the first is usually why are you in this location?

The answer to this is mainly that the ideal targets, e.g. the banks, are surrounded by private land. Try and pitch a tent there and it's trespass, you will be arrested in minutes. Public land gives you a bit more protection from the law. It then becomes a decision for the council, rather than a private company, to try and move the people off the land. Also camping in places with a lot of people passing by has given the camps direct access to the public allowing them to gauge the reaction of the locals and discuss things with them.

What are you fighting for is another question.

This is hard. The simple answer is a fairer world.

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The rich get tax breaks and the poor get taxed more as a percentage of what they earn. That's the way it is and that's the way it will always be, is what we are told.

Well the general feeling in these camps is that there are other ways of running the world, those that have been tried and some that have not. Each local group is trying to get their heads around the issues and the proposed solutions.

We are not just protesting, we are also searching for a workable solution. One of the key points made by many of the people leading the meetings is that they don't have all the answers. It's a joint effort of everyone involved, we need to work together to find a better working system.

Now you may say all well and good but get out of the public space. Go into a pub and talk about it, use the political system or the internet. Well I say a few people inconveniencing you in a public space for a little part of your life is not something to get so worked up about. I think having a dearly needed debate in public spaces seems like a good use of them, after all who said it should only be for walking dogs.

Then there is the access to all types of people we have had from being in these public places. People who have never been online, can't read, don't go into pubs, don't know anything about business or money. We would never have reached these people with an online campaign and pub or government discussions. Along side this we have attracted bankers, lawyers and other professionals who fully understand parts of the system, the problems and potential alternatives. Being in a public space gives you real access to all types of people who make up the general public.

You would probably never have heard about this movement if it had been done any other way. These issues and opinions are not new but you may not have heard them before. This is because the media would not tell you. As the local ITV news guy said at our camp 'that's far to complex for our stupid viewers'.

Did you know there are currently over 2,600 groups supporting the occupy movement all over the world? Over 25 in England alone. Everywhere from Israel to China, London, Paris, New York are engaged in this movement. More being planned and more springing up every day. Change the story to riots happening at this rate and it would be 24hr news coverage. As it does not include violence the media are mostly not interested. Instead the are filling the news programs with stories stating that financial mess can be sorted out with more financial mess.

It reminds me of a story after the recent riots in London when someone was asked why they thought the violence had happened. Their reply was along the lines of, 'well we had a peaceful protest here recently with about 2,000 people marching to complain. That got no media coverage but after the violence you are now talking to me'. One of the big problems is the media will not report most of the big social issues, the government try to hide them and big business tries to silence debate on them. You have to work quite hard to find out how bad things really are and how simple it is to fix some of them.

The other big questions are what is the solution, do you have an agenda, what would you change and the like.

Firstly there is quite a comprehensive 10 point list of what the issues are. It differs a bit from country to country, community to community. Depending on local and national need. This is the London list.

Initial statement

The current system is unsustainable. It is undemocratic and unjust. We need alternatives; this is where we work towards them.

We are of all ethnicities, backgrounds, genders, generations, sexualities dis/abilities and faiths.

We stand together with occupations all over the world.

We refuse to pay for the banks crisis.

We do not accept the cuts as either necessary or inevitable.

We demand an end to global tax injustice and our democracy representing corporations instead of the people.

We want regulators to be genuinely independent of the industries they regulate.

We support the strike on the 30th November and the student action on the 9th November, and actions to defend our health services, welfare, education and employment, and to stop wars and arms dealing.

We want structural change towards authentic global equality. The world's resources must go towards caring for people and the planet, not the military, corporate profits or the rich.

We stand in solidarity with the global oppressed and we call for an end to the actions of our government and others in causing this oppression.


Taking out the statements of solidarity and inclusiveness, the main items deal with how big business and governments are run and controlled. It calls for better rules, checks and balances to them both. Also a better way of dealing with the current crisis, which has highlighted some of the flawed parts of the current financial systems.

Some things are hard to get your head around. Like how money is created [video]. It just sounds to crazy to be true. Others are simple to understand like abolishing all global tax havens. Some are not so cut and dry like tax breaks for big corporations where you will be told you may lose jobs or GDP if you tax them more. They may take their business elsewhere, which I why we need global solutions to these global companies.

This is another one of the big problems. The global corporations have much more power than even the biggest government. For real global solutions a common fair system, which is similar in most countries, would give the corporations less power to move country and avoid paying their dues. This means our governments working more in co-operation with other countries more and less competition with them.

Big business and people with lots of money, power and influence have been pushing the world to single world government. With things like the World Bank, GATT, IMF and the like. Some of these have very secret agendas, are not very transparent and decisions are often made by a few hand pickled people. Now the idea of one governmental system, bank, tax system and set of rules is not a bad idea. Having the people who currently hold the global power running this system without proper rules, checks and balances is not a good idea.

If there is one thing that would be nice to get out of this movement it would be a globally agreed 'peoples charter' that the general population across the world agree are good rules for governments and business to follow.

These are likely to include things like:

Your priority is to make the lives of all the people better, not just the shareholders and stakeholders.

No wars, which can be contentious, at least no unjust wars to obtain resources, power or influence at another peoples expense. Also better monitoring of the whole of the business makeup from mining raw materials to assembly to retail, making sure they do not directly or indirectly support local military groups. Many big business currently get resources from '3rd party' companies that support local gangs or governments who intimidate employees and will even kill people who try and install better working conditions or protection for it's workers.

Protect our planet, environment and resources.

Redistribution of wealth, stopping a small percentage of people controlling most of the wealth, power and resources. This would likely not say you can't be wealthy, just that you will pay more tax back into the system the more wealthy you are.

Openness, let us know exactly what you are doing, don't treat us as too stupid to understand.

The new mass communication tool we have now with the internet will change the world like the printing press did before. The printing press lead to a world where information was expensive to produce and store. A comprehensive encyclopaedia would cost thousands and governments would whittle down vast volumes of data into smaller reports. A few authors influenced most of the worlds knowledge and information.

The internet enables every document ever written to be stored in a few cheap metal boxes, it can be easily copied, updated and information added to it. With information so cheap and easy to store, analyse and transport it should be easy for governments and business to open the floodgates and release all but the most confidential information about everything they do. From who they buy paper from to who they lobby in governments and how much they spend. Then anyone can check their records and highlight any bad items.

The Wikipedia project gathered more information than the largest printed encyclopaedia in about 5 years. Just by pulling together the resources of anyone interested in helping. Other similar projects have built free software and hardware designs that anyone can use freely. Most of these are a few dedicated people in a core group who keep the project going and do most of the work. Then there are people who drop in, have a look around, see something they can do, add their bit and leave. It is quite amazing how much a few people with passion can achieve.
This is a model the governments and business needs to adopt. A recent example would be the government talking about it's "Green Deal" funds where there is talk of funding of hundreds of millions to "install fuel-saving technologies such as insulation and curb energy waste". All well and good but in this day and age why can't we see the full detail of the plan. Like £50 million spent on wind farms that will generate enough money to pay for it's self in 10 years and after that will drop the cost of electricity by 10% (all made up figures). Why is there not better access to the details of the plans then people who understand all the issues can monitor the detail, suggest improvements and double-check they stick to the plan. The internet is a great platform for publishing this sort of information.

The occupation groups are trying to do the same. The core people are trying to pull together the info, formulate this into problems and solutions. It's still in the early days but they are pushing hard to get to the stage where we can start pushing for change. Once everyone is in agreement of a plan that will work I'm sure we will see pressure from lots of places calling for it's implementation.

There are obvious problems like the fact that all groups seem to end up with leaders. The occupations have happened with many people who have never meet before starting them. It does not take long for power struggles to come in and conflicts of ideology to cause problems in the movement. The best ways to protect the movement and weaken the lone voices is by getting more people involved.
Strength in numbers. The larger the group of people, the more likely you are to have a good representation of the general public. I'm sure like most collaborative projects there will develop core groups and individuals locally, nationally and globally who will end up doing most of the hard work in pulling together the proposals to put to our leaders. It is going to take time and we are aware that it seems we have no direction at the moment. Rest assured there is a sub group that is working hard to pull the resources of all groups.

I guess it all depends on the general public. Do you want change? Do you want things to stay the same? Do you want to ignore the big issues? Do you believe things will never change?

From the people I've spoken to most want change but are sceptical it will happen. Though they may change their mind if they realised how many people agree with them.

West African music

http://www.wipo.int//pressroom/en/articles/2011/article_0017.html

West African artists to get an easy way to register their music along with an easy way for everyone to discover west African music.

Win win :)

The Boogie Woogie Troop

Kicking off the Brighton Festival with style.

Rediscovering music

It's funny how life sometime throws you a nice little surprise.

Most of this year I have been working with John Watts to try and help him re-connect with the millions of fans who bought his Fischer-Z music.



This is mainly because his last solo album is a masterpiece of modern pop/rock, which was his aim. Alongside this he is releasing the unusual 'John Watts covers songs from his old band Fischer-Z' album. A contemporary re-working of his favourite songs and to try and connect with the old fans and drag them into what he is doing these days.



Sometime is feels like spamming people, but as there are so many people out there who still have his old music on their playlists or who's ears would prick up if they heard one of his songs that they love, it's not hard to target these people. When you start getting feedback from these people, tripping over their words with excitement at rediscovering an old favourite. Barely being able to put into words the joy the have.

THEN!

A friend posted a up a video...



I liked what I heard, always had a thing for female singers that can really scream down the microphone, especially if they can also sing well quietly.

Queen Adreena, Queen Adreena... Name rings a bell but can't place where from...

A quick search on the internet later.

"Vocalist KatieJane Garside and guitarist Crispin Gray had previously collaborated in the celebrated but short-lived band Daisy Chainsaw" - WiKi.

Now I'm hooked. Love your money by Daisy Chainsaw is one of the song that still get's my feet tapping and regularly get's chucked on my media players.



So I check out their website. Like what I hear there and pop over to Amazon and download their first album Taxidermy made back in 2000.

The album has been on heavy repeat since it downloaded and I have once again fallen in love with KatieJane's gorgeous lyrics and voice.

So now I'm like the fans I've been contacting, trying to find the words to explain how glad I am at finding this music and rediscovering new music from a singer I love.

I must remember, once I have caught up on everything KatieJane has done, to check up on some of those other bands/singers I like and have not heard anything new for decades. See what they are up to nowadays.

<3