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Feeling down? Capitalism not the cure

January 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The world economic crisis has opened up an era of mass unemployment and poverty not seen for decades. While economists and stockbrokers tinker with their markets, the hidden human cost of rescuing a system based on exploitation and oppression is revealed in the spiralling rates of depression and suicide.

In an age where television is full of shows on teenage sexual health, body image and competitive cookery, mental health remains one of the last medical taboos. Even in the most advanced countries, popular understanding of the issues surrounding mental health remains at a superficial level out of all proportion with its extent and impact on society.

This article will look at why the rise of mental illness during periods of economic crisis shows us that class society, founded on artificial economic and social inequalities, promotes and is strengthened by an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ attitude to depression and suicide.

Diagnosis

If you tell someone you’re ill, their natural impulse is to define it by your physical symptoms. Thousands of people with physical handicaps so severe they cannot work are being forced through humiliating ‘Work Capacity Assessments’ by target-chasing, profit-hoarding privateers like Atos. Opposition to this has been helped by a series of frankly incredible government blunders, like trying to make cancer patients take the tests.

But what if your illness has no external symptoms? What if, like millions of Britons, your illness is not understood by your friends, your family, and least of all your boss?

Depression is one of the most misunderstood of all mental illnesses. More than schizophrenia, autism and related disorders, depression remains shrouded in popular misconceptions about its causes, effects and treatments.

It is well-known that traumatic events such as having a baby or losing your job can trigger depression, but such events are not a precondition. Depression can affect people over short or long periods, can be recurring or isolated episodes and is not necessarily provoked by an obvious catalyst.

Any definition of depression is complicated by the individual circumstances. Different people have different symptoms. The complex social pressures surrounding such illnesses complicates the task of separating cause from effect. Depression affects men and women differently, with a myriad of social institutions reinforcing the view that women are more prone to expressing their emotions, while men prefer to bottle them up.

Whatever the personal circumstances, general symptoms are often shared. These range from trouble sleeping and concentrating, through feelings of guilt and self-hatred to repeated thoughts of death and suicide.

Social attitudes

The idea that depression is something people ‘snap out of’ is common, partly because it is so varied, and partly due to its sheer extent throughout society.

1 in 3 of us will suffer from depression at some point in our lives and will find it hard to talk to family, friends and work colleagues about it. This is because of the stigma attached to mental illness – the notion that ‘if you can’t see it, it’s not real.’

These attitudes form a huge obstacle in the path of those for whom diagnosis is a vital and necessary first step. They mean that acceptance of a problem, let alone treatment, is very often suppressed under the weight of social pressures.

This means that entering treatment for depression carries with it a new weight of worries. Just as nobody asks why they’ve got Flu, the questions from friends and family of sufferers are questions that the sufferer will often not be able to answer themselves.

The consequence is feelings of embarrassment of guilt, particularly if there are no obvious provoking factors. Such feelings serve to raise a further barrier between the sufferer and their family and friends, increasing the isolation and despair associated with depression.

The combination of few resources, and discrimination against the ill and disabled means sufferers are pressured into internalising their illness – convincing themselves that it’s an overreaction, and that they are as ‘normal’ as everyone else. Inevitably, many sufferers will lie about feeling depressed to those closest to them.

This is only encouraged by the likes of Jeremy Clarkson who described people who jump in front of trains as ‘selfish.’ Appropriate material for a tragic, middle-aged caricature like Clarkson, since it does no more than fall in with the establishment line that ‘you’re not really ill, until you’re too ill to work for someone’.

From a certain perspective, this point of view is logical, since your ability to survive under capitalism ultimately comes down to your ability to exchange your labour or live off someone else’s.

Since only a small number of countries are rich enough to provide a welfare state, the majority of people suffering from mental issues are forced to cope in any way they can.

Without a safety net, the capitalist laws of the labour market are unimpeded – if you are too ill to work, you are too poor to eat.

In countries with a developed healthcare system, the ruling class maintains a constant barrage of propaganda promoting the idea that, short of a crippling physical handicap, everyone is equally capable of pulling themselves to the top of the greasy pole by their bootstraps.

Alienation

If we want to understand why so many of us will suffer from depression, which goes beyond simply having ‘a bad day’, we need to understand the social context of the majority of people in the world.

Our conception of society, and our relationship with illness is defined by the way we live our lives. We live in a world where the majority of people are forced to exist on the bare minimum, while the value of their labour is accumulated in unimaginable amounts by the capitalists.

This state of affairs, where almost every aspect of our lives is totally beyond our control or understanding, leads to what Marxists call alienation.

Under capitalism, humanity is alienated from one another and the world around it because we live in a society where we have no real contact with the process of making the things we rely on to survive.

The majority of us get a job, get paid a wage, then go to the shops and spend the money we earn, but we have no idea how it gets there, who made it, or how much they got paid. The operation of the theories of suplus value, labour-power and capitalist accumulation which are fundamental to the functioning of every society seem as obscure as particle physics.

In addition to this we’re alienated from each other because the capitalist system doesn’t teach us to value each other, or treat each other as equal. We can’t understand what other people do in their lives because we are not part of them; we are atomised in the workplace and the home.

This shows us that we cannot separate illness of any kind from the social structures which incubate and exacerbate those illnesses.

Family

In a world in which we are divorced from the basic knowledge underlying so many processes inherent to our lives, it is no surprise that when confronted with the challenges of mental illness. many people look to the apparent stability and security of the family,

Yet in the majority of the world, where there is little-to-no access to support services, the pressure of coping with depression places an intolerable strain on the atomised individual and family unit.

In capitalist society the economic necessity underpinning the social basis of the nuclear family is the fact that it forces women to carry out all the necessary tasks of maintaining a home, cooking, cleaning and caring – for free.

That this is both oppressive and inefficient is a secondary concern. Its value lies in the fact that it also ensures that the majority of humanity is divided into hundreds of millions of tiny family groupings limited to defending their own interests.

This arrangement is integral to class society. Firstly it allows the dominant ideas in society – i.e. the ideas of the ruling class who own the means of distributing information – to be reproduced with each generation. Secondly it ensures that it is the private family which must find the means for caring for sick relatives rather than the state. Finally it ensures that the experience of living with mental illness is not shared – it becomes the private burden of each family, trapped by convention and shame within the walls of the family home.


Cuts aren’t the cure

As unemployment rises, home repossessions rise, the prices of everyday goods soar and benefit cuts drive people into poverty, it is little surprise that divorce, depression and suicide rates jump during economic crises.

Existing services for mental health are put under severe pressure as cuts to ‘red tape’ and ‘efficiency savings’ result in the closure of dozens of day centres and reduced coverage for those who need it most. A survey of Health Trusts and councils found that more than half have cut their budgets for child and young people’s mental health services in the past year.

The research also showed that teams of specialist workers, such as school nurses, who are trained to identify and treat children with emotional problems, are being disbanded. Drop-in and counselling services are also being axed, while nurse and social worker posts are being slashed across the country.

If young people’s problems aren’t identified quickly then they are not just going to vanish, they will simply get worse; intervention and support amongst young people in education and work is key to reversing the tide of lives blighted by depression.

With nothing motivating them beyond a naked desire to put healthcare under the control of millionaire profiteers, these cuts will leave thousands of young people suffering decades of severe illness.

Making cuts in mental health is seen as a ‘soft cut’ as those who use the services are not or do not feel able to speak up about it. More than others, they are ‘invisible’. Since cutting funding for mental health support does not involve closing hospital wards, it is not as immediate, yet there is no benefit or saving in the long term for sufferers and their families.

Waiting times to see a counsellor are incredibly long and the government’s plan to scrap waiting-list targets is both counter-productive and short-sighted.

Capitalism’s recurring crises are periods of massive turmoil and stress for the millions of people who have nothing to live on except their job. We need to be fighting to defend the services that do exist, and arguing for more spending on priorities like our health, and less on government wars and royal vanity projects.


Conclusion

The biological and hereditary roots of mental health problems are well documented, if not necessarily conclusive. As with other illnesses, a fixation on treatment over prevention reflects the power of private, profit-motivated interests against the common interests of those who produce, consume and distribute the medicines.

This is even more true with an illness like Depression. After all, dishing out happy pills to treat the symptoms is easier, and more profitable, than laying bare the selfish, alienating and antagonistic fabric of capitalist society.

In a world divided between a minority of haves and billions of have-nots, the pressure of constant competition for basic human needs is shouldered by the individual and the family, instead of being socialised – planned, organised and shared by society as a whole.

The horrendous toll from military testing, poisonous chemicals and disasters like Bhopal, bear emotive and tragic witness to the dangers of a system which sets the self-interest of a minority against the lives of the masses. Less visible, yet no less destructive, is the impact of an oppressive and exploitative society on our mental health.

The struggle for diagnosis, treatment and cures for illnesses like depression must go hand in hand with the struggle to abolish the social order which sentences millions to a lifetime of financial, social and intellectual poverty.

As socialists we organise everywhere we can to defend the gains of the working class – our healthcare, our education, our pensions, to extend those rights to those denied them, and say that just as we see the bosses privatising the NHS today, so we know that health, education and a decent wage are not rights under capitalism.

Through the struggles to defend what we have, and fight for what we’re owed, we campaign for socialists to build an international, working-class struggle against the capitalist system.

Only the common ownership and democratic management of the worlds’ resources can enable us to lay the basis for achieving a permanent improvement in social relations and mental health.

 

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Exploding breast implants expose logic of capitalism

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Private health company admits its patients will suffer

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The system we live in: capitalism

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Filed Under: Culture, Cuts, News Tagged With: , , ,

Ideas, culture and media under capitalism

December 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The scandal involving News International’s phone-hacking and corrupt deals with world governments was not the exposure of a ‘rogue operator’. Instead it merely exposed, in dramatic style, the underlying basis of the media under capitalism. Run by multi-national corporations, their purpose is to promote the interests of their billionaire owners.

In the 21st century, the links between media and government have consolidated decades of growing co-operation, overlapping into a revolving-door complex which sees spin-doctors shuttle between governments, media outlets and PR agencies.

In the advanced capitalist countries, much is made of the ‘imminent’ collapse of the newspaper. It is true that all the major dailies are loss-making and free media and the internet is hastening this demise. Surely the laws of capitalist competition mean that bosses ought to let loss-making newspapers collapse and be replaced by a higher (more profitable) form of media production?

Whose ideas?

The answer to print media’s longevity lies in the role of ideas in class society. The dominant ideas in any society are the ideas of the ruling class.

The reasons are twofold: firstly, membership of the ruling class and privileged layers allows access to education and the leisure to become immersed in all expressions of culture. The second is that it is the capitalists who control the media, either through outright ownership, or through their control of the means of mass production and dissemination (TV stations, satellites, printing presses, art galleries).

For example, Wal-Mart, the biggest retailer in the USA has a massive impact on popular culture by dictating what it will and won’t stock, forcing artists to tailor their creative expression to what is acceptable to Wal-Mart.

The majority of cultural works such as books, films and art reflect the attitudes and ideas of their creators – predominantly members of the ruling class, who’s cultural output it aimed at alternately masking, justifying and promoting the social form which guarantees their privileges.

But before being exposed to the public consciousness these ideas must be packaged and sanitised by the distribution networks, who are not concerned with such abstract notions as truth or artistic integrity, but the financial impact on the company’s profits and image. The arena of distribution and marketing is where the capitalists’ power really comes into play in terms of commercial control over artistic content.

Just think of all the album covers, books and films which have been censored, replaced or banned outright, as was the case with the sequel to the Human Centipede (google it).

Companies like Wal-Mart refuse to stock certain works because those works contradict what Wal-Mart sees as the social attitudes and values of its customer base. However, since its customer base is hardly a niche market, it is clear that what it is actually concerned about is the power of reactionary lobby groups advocating against abortion, blasphemy and swearing, and in favour of marriage, abstinence and other equally regressive social institutions.

While dominant ideas and popular culture are interlinked in the public consciousness, with the rise and fall of social norms dictated by changing customs, new technology and social movements, capitalist control of production ensures the unchallenged pre-eminence of certain values. The most obvious example of this is in the portrayal of women, and particularly women’s sexuality in popular culture.

The rise of the struggle for sexual liberation with the advent of the Pill and a new wave of feminism in the 1960s and 70s is now reflected by the commodification of this liberation. In the west, women’s bodies are no longer hidden away, but rather exposed, subjected to an unrealistic beauty norm and sold back to men and women on Page 3, in lads’ mags and beauty pageants.

The 21st century has brought us the idea that women should be juggle childcare and cooking with a desire to break through the glass ceiling. Equally racism did not disappear with the US civil rights movement. Now it takes the form of nationalism, Islamophobia and ideas of cultural superiority.

But clearly the task of maintaining a system of ideas which says capitalism is invincible, that there is no alternative, and that ‘we’ve never had it so good’ cannot be left exclusively to artists and intellectuals, whose relation to capital is not based on the direct exploitation of workers. That is, the material privilege of authors, artists and journalists doesn’t depend on their ability to increase exploitation. It is this relative independence from the permanent struggle between classes over the distribution of social wealth which permits intellectuals to promote ideas which undermine or directly challenge the status quo.

This then, is the principal reason for the existence of a loss-making print media. Newspapers provide a further dimension in which to wage the battle of ideas in society. For example, French broadsheet Le Figaro is owned by the same capitalist who also owns the biggest TV station and a company holding huge government contracts in construction and defense.

Needless to say, Le Figaro is a consistent champion of increased military spending, even when this results in contracts worth billions of euros for fighter jets which stand rusting in depots because they are too expensive to be sold on the international market.

Apart from the media, education is the most important battle-ground of ideas in society. The Tories recognise this, which is why they are making pro-marriage relationship education a central plank of the curriculum in their ‘free’ schools and academies.

Certainly, they won’t say that women suffering from domestic violence should remain married at all costs… but if you hammer the supposed benefits of marriage to your health, family and happiness into children for years, then that will do the job of ensuring the growth of utterly reactionary attitudes to divorce and women’s role in the home.

Censorship and the state

Different countries have varying degrees of regulation of the mass media. This regulation can be overt, in the form of state or self-censorship, or through ‘independent’ regulators who use guidelines and fines to enforce some level of neutrality.

Such ‘impartiality’ counts for nothing, however, when the editors who determine content owe their positions to unnaccountable governments and millionaires determined to promote their own world-view.

In the many semi-colonial and dictatorial countries, a government-owned media is the norm. State control over the media is simply the clearest expression of its role in presenting and interpreting the dominant ideas in society. The western media dismisses government-controlled media as biased propaganda – ignoring that it too has its paymasters who pull the editors’ strings.

In countries with high illiteracy and poor access to education, a state-run media achieves the dual tasks of mystification and indoctrination. Mystification is achieved by masking the roots of social and economic oppression, indoctrination is achieved by tight control over content, preventing news of domestic protests and sanitizing international coverage.

The elevated levels of censorship in wartime, through self-censorship and the use of the Official Secrets Act is the most developed expression of the ruling class’s need to control the flow and appearance of ideas in society. The example of Prince Harry’s deployment to Afghanistan where the entire media agreed to the government’s request not to report the fact is just one relatively minor example of how freedom of information is ultimately always subordinated to the ‘national interest’. The national interest in its turn, is defined according to the interests of those with the most power in society.

So we see that we live in a society where control of production and distribution of ideas by a social elite simply results in the reproduction of the same oppressive ideas and social values which maintains that elite; i.e. promoting social attitudes which enforce the oppression of women, and preventing the organisation of the majority against this tyranny by using racism and religious intolerance to stir up artificial divisions.

The rise of social media

The 21st century has thrown up many challenges to the existing means of media control. Many claim that the spread of the internet and particularly social networking has fundamentally shifted the balance of power away from the media barons in favour of the masses,.

This is an illusion. Despite the hype, the Arab Spring was not sparked, mobilized or organized via social networking. In countries with very low internet coverage, the mobilization of millions through a few thousand tweets never looked credible. Certainly the internet can be a powerful tool in the hands of those organizing to defend their rights, but it can never substitute for the living democracy of councils of workers, youth and unemployed.

The idea that social media is somehow empowering the working class, is just another reflection of the private media’s ability to shape our conception of our place in society, and what constitutes power.

The prominence given to the role of social media by the capitalist media reflects its efforts to mask the democratic organization of millions of Egyptian workers in new trade unions, local committees and popular militias. This newfound power drove the revolutionary general strike which brought down Mubarak. Of course, the western media barons are not likely to accurately report the tactics of a revolutionary working class, instead they promote the elite, partial and atomized ‘democracy’ of the internet.

In reality the Arab dictatorships clamped down on internet access within days, while the freedom of internet in the West is tolerated only while it doesn’t challenge the social status quo.

Nevertheless, revolutionaries must use every form of media available to spread socialist ideas and everywhere expose the propaganda behind the ruling class ideologies. The struggle against censorship laws is a permanent task of socialists in order to enable the working class to play its part in the battle of ideas.

Therefore we fight for an end to all forms of censorship in the print, online and broadcast media.

We campaign for the right to organize politically within education and the workplace.

We oppose private ownership of the means of producing and disseminating information.

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The system we live in: Capitalism

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We live in a class society

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The state: what is it and what is it’s role?

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Filed Under: Culture, News Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Clarkson: don’t feed the troll

December 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

A picture of Clarkson looking like a wanker

“I think they should all be shot… I’d take them outside and shoot them in front of their families.”

When Jeremy Clarkson got a prime-time spot on the BBC’s One Show a month before Christmas, he must’ve spent a good 5 minutes thinking up something shocking that would get him in the news, and his latest book in the nation’s christmas stockings.

So it should come as no surprise to anybody that he joined the Daily Mail, and David Cameron in choosing to have a go at 2.5 million public sector workers who went on strike yesterday against a pension tax and welfare cuts.

In the video below, you can see the results of a lifetime of overpaid, underworked privilege at the taxpayer’s expense. Of course, hanging out with Cameron, disgraced News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks and the rest of the Chipping Norton set won’t do much for your anti-establishment credentials.

 

Clarkson is well-known for being an idiot who’ll say anything to get his face in the news – that’s why he wrote a column for the Sun newspaper.

Supporters of Clarkson’s right to demand people be taken out in front of their families and shot claim the above video puts his remark into ‘context’ – him taking the piss out of the BBC’s ‘neutrality’. The BBC and Prime Minister insist his remarks were ‘silly’ or a ‘joke’ taken out of context. His supporters don’t bother with feeble excuses – they merely insist that he’s absolutely right, and declare (on the internet) their total commitment to defending his right to say anything which he thinks he can get away with.

And of course he got away with it. Check out his miserable apology:

“I didn’t for a moment intend these remarks to be taken seriously – as I believe is clear if they’re seen in context. If the BBC and I have caused any offence, I’m quite happy to apologise for it alongside them.”

Clearly he’s not even big enough to take the blame for his own words – instead he apologies on behalf of the BBC. The only way the BBC has caused any offence is continuing to employ a man who’s as famous for his racist bigotry as he is for making a living driving fast cars on taxpayer’s money, but Clarkson’s pathetic attempt to share the blame is a new low.

The furore over the comments has led to more than 5000 complaints to the BBC and Ofcom, and a resurrection of the perennial campaign to get Clarkson sacked everytime he says something offensive. Unison leader Dave Prentis, evidently suffering a bout of ego mania after finally leading a strike against cuts after tens of thousands of his members have lost their jobs, has even said that Unison is considering ‘legal action’.

In this skit where Stewart Lee makes his point about Clarkson’s tidy cash-for-drivel setup, he also says he hopes Clarkson’s three daughters all go blind. He then says ‘it’s just a joke – like on Top Gear… except it’s not a joke is it, you wouldn’t wish it on a child and you wouldn’t say it.’

This is undoubtedly true, but this says more about the poor taste and judgement of Clarkson, his fans and his employers than anything else.

If Clarkson was so influential, and his ideas so popular he wouldn’t need the crutch of a TV show which is so shit that it keeps him on it just to spice up your night with a choice bit of racism.

Many people argue that if we let Clarkson get away with it, then that just encourages people. I’m sure if a homegrown Anders Breivik woke up tomorrow and went on a shooting spree in a hospital, Clarkson would feel pretty fucking stupid.

So no, what he said wasn’t funny. But it was clearly an attempt to combine his non-existent sense of humour with a bloodthirsty contempt for the ordinary working people who keep him in a job.

This shouldn’t be a debate about whether he can be done by the police for inciting hatred against public-sector workers – the government and the media are doing that perfectly well without Jezza’s ill-judged leap onto the bandwagon.

It’s about why the publically-funded BBC has consistently failed to take any action against the presenters of Top Gear who have been single-handedly reponsible for the majority of complaints.

People will point to the two young men who got four years for ‘jokingly’ calling for a riot on facebook, and the man who was jailed for ‘jokingly’ threatening to plant a bomb at Liverpool Airport on Twitter.

The comparisons are fair enough, but the point is that Clarkson won’t face jail in a million years for what he said. Why? Because the government wanted to make an example out of the facebook riots and twitter bomber to teach us a lesson – but dehumanising strikers, ramping up the rhetoric and damn the consequences fits the Tory agenda perfectly.

After all, it’s a class war, and Clarkson isn’t on our side of the barricades.

No it’s not fair, but it’s the name of the game.

 

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Wanker of the Month: Liam Fox

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Wanker of the Month: Prince Andrew

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Wanker of the Month: Joana Lumley

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Filed Under: Culture, News Tagged With: ,

Primal Scream blue murder at Tories using their song

October 5, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Primal Scream are totally disgusted that The Home Secretary Theresa May ended her speech at the Tory party conference with our song Rocks.

How inappropriate. Didn’t they research the political history of our band?

Hasn’t she listened to the words? Does she even know what getting your rocks off means? No. She is a Tory; how could she?

Primal Scream are totally opposed to the coalition government, Cameron, Osborne, Gove, Howard, Clegg etc. They are legalised bullies passing new laws to ensure the wealthy stay wealthy, taking the side of big business while eradicating workers rights and continuing their attacks on young people, single parents and OAP’s by slashing education and social security budgets, and persecuting the poor for being poor.

We would like to distance ourselves from this sick association.

The Tories are waging a war on the disenfranchised, They are the enemy.

Primal Scream

Filed Under: Culture

Broken Dialect at Revolution Summercamp

August 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

 

Broken Dialect played a great set at this year’s Revolution Summercamp 2011. Check them out at brokendialect.bandcamp.com

Filed Under: Culture

Amy Winehouse: 1983-2011

July 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment

16:00 hours. 23rd  July 2011. Emergency services called to a residential street in Camden, North London. Reports of a death of a 27 year old female fill communication devices.
Amy Winehouse has been found dead, alone, in her home. Within minutes it is spread all over the news and all different forms of social media have awoken. The Metropolitan police release a statement, saying that her death, pre-autopsy, is ‘unexplainable’. Well it doesn’t take a genius does it?

While the exact cause of death in these early days may not be certain, one thing is for sure, strip away the world tours and album sales, at her death Amy Winehouse was another lonely statistic; a victim of both the music industry and a drugs culture which turns the sick into pariahs or spectacles.

The 21st century did not bring a musical revolution. In the first decade, contrived pop has reached its pinnacle (or nadir) with manufactured artists setting the next season’s musical fashion and reinforcing the seasonal variations in women’s oppression through the overt marketing of sexism – making that skirt a little shorter, and that top a little lower, maybe even going so far as to remove the material from the right or left arm.

Unlike these other ragdoll artists, Amy wrote her own songs, which is a rarity these days. Insisting on greater control over her appearance than many other artists, she succeeded in turning the unfashionable fashionable, and spawning a slew of imitators.

She chose the path of being a singer from a young age, this was her calling.

She did not choose to become the drug-addicted paparazzi magnet which was all she was portrayed to be by the British and international media. As is always the result when the media sensationalises the person, not the music it was the drugs and not her performance which stole the headlines.

A young life wasted is always a tragedy, and as so many times before, the media has made us witnesses to the drawn-out spectacle of exploitation, mistreatment and callous profiteering resulting in a squalid death.

In June, at the start of a Europe wide tour, Amy performed at the Fortress Festival in Serbia. She slurred her words and appeared drunk or stoned on stage. The crowd jeered and booed her off the stage.

Her management then cancelled the rest of the tour. Given her continuing battle with addiction and emotional problems the question is raised; why was she even performing in the first place?

The financial stake in concerts for management companies is an obvious incentive to wring as much showtime as possible out of the artist.  The cycle of juggling inadequate rehabilitation programmes with the intense pressure to perform had only one inevitable result for someone in Amy’s state of health.

Amy Winehouse joins the 27 club alongside Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain and Janis Joplin. All who died aged 27 and all victims of the pressure that comes as standard at the top levels of the music industry.

However, although Winehouse’s untimely death may cement her musical reputation, it will equally spark  the typical hysteria In the right-wing press we will see sympathy blurring into a backlash against drugs, prompting fresh calls from politicians and charities for a clampdown.

In reality, Amy was a victim of the so-called ‘war on drugs’ which criminalises users, drives rehabilitation into the shadows and lines the pockets of cartels and arms industries.

Aside from the obvious points that legalisation of the drugs industry would permit greater quality control, and limit the sale of drugs to fund prostitution, terrorism and large-scale criminal enterprises – the key point is that taxes from the legalisation of drugs could fund a revolution in education and rehabilitation, providing quality care and information free for those who need it, resulting in a better-informed, healthier drugs culture.

So, ultimately, it wasn’t a case of ‘the drugs don’t work’ but an efficient demonstration of why our government’s drugs policy won’t work. Drug use in an illegal, unregulated market will kill anyone, rich or poor, sooner or later.

Rehabilitation doesn’t always work, but criminalisation will continue fast-tracking young people to the undertaker.

Filed Under: Culture, News Tagged With: , , , , ,

EDL attack Leeds Rage Against Racism gig

June 19, 2011 By 2 Comments

Members of the English Defence League yesterday attempted to attack an anti-racist event at the Well pub in Leeds.

Organised by  local anti-racist activists, hundreds of people turned out for the Rage Against Racism all-dayer.

In a pathetic sequence of events, about a dozen EDL members showed up, and smashed a couple of windows before running off after some of them came off worse when gig-goers defended themselves.

While embarrassing this time, previous attacks on left-wing, anti-racist and trade union meetings have always been a feature of the EDL, and have been growing in number and violence in recent months.

Coming as it does just 3 weeks before the EDL demonstration in Halifax on the 9th July, this  attack is a worrying sign that the fascists’ confidence is increasing, despite the internal divisions and setbacks within the English Defence League.

Wherever the fascists attack us, we have the right to defend ourselves. Moreover, we need to counter the fascist threat wherever it tries to mobilise.

This means opposing – physically when necessary – the ‘right’ of the fascists to spread their poison through demonstrations which regularly end up in mini-pogroms against Asian areas.

The fascists’ propaganda has no purpose except to divide the working class, making it easier for the bosses to set one group of us against another, while they cut the jobs, pay and pensions of millions of working people regardless of race or religion.

Read more:

EDL splinters but fascist threat remains real

The fight against racism

UAF strategy ends in a kettle – can the antifascist movement break out?

 

Filed Under: Anti-Fascism, Anti-Racism, Culture, News Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Grime Daily SHUT DOWN – an attack on reality

June 17, 2011 By 4 Comments

GrimeDaily, an online channel for mostly young, hip-hop and grime artists, including the likes of Lowkey and Akala has been shut down by Youtube for ‘violating community guidelines,’ an artist called Scorcher’s music video apparently sparked the censorship because somebody was holding a knife in it. This is an attack on poor and working-class youth’s rights to express themselves, and an attempt to increase the power of influential record labels and producers on the internet.

The channel played host to a number of videos uploaded by underground and unsigned MC’s and artists, who decided to promote their music for free on the internet rather than sell it.

Although a lot of the videos seemingly glorified violence and gang culture, often they were a brutal reflection of the society that these young people have grown up in, where poverty is rife and set to only get worse under the Tories, and the lack of money, public services, and decent jobs and housing lead to rising crime rates.

But the subject matter of the videos becomes irrelevant when you consider the amount of commercial rappers that Youtube still proudly hosts and profits from through targeted advertising. People celebrating violence, pimping, gun crime and drug dealing is certainly nothing new to Youtube, it only seems to have become a problem if you’re not able to give them money at the same time. Perhaps even worse, Youtube plays host to a range of videos from IDF bombs being dropped over Gaza, to fascists’ attacks on immigrants, and non-coherent theories which celebrate violence and murder of minority and oppressed groups. None of these videos seem to be a problem for the watchful eyes of the Youtube admin.

The only censorship they seem to approve of is when it benefits someone’s commercial interests. This is something which isn’t new to working-class youth trying to express themselves- for example, while Banksy’s stencils are preserved by local councils due to his reputation and integration within the ‘legitimate’ art world, unknown graffiti artists face the threat of massive fines, prison sentences and the constant vandalism of their work with drab grey paint. (Watch Colourful Barz)

Youtube seems to have stepped in to help out their rich friends in the record labels to shut down their rivals and further monopolise the music scene by destroying underground competitors.

Filed Under: Culture, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , ,

Hip-Hop For Who?

March 9, 2011 By

Hip-hop music originated in 1970’s block parties in New York, especially in poorer areas like The Bronx. This genre and culture was born from a sense of community and sharing, people lucky enough to have expensive loud sound systems would throw huge outdoor parties, drawing together the community. Any debate about who owns hip-hop needs to start where the genre started – in the ghettos, musical and physical – of 1970s East Coast USA.

The birth of Hip-hop is well-documented, but as with any emerging musical fashion, some are now asking the question of who owns the genre. Just as the anti-corporate imagery of the grunge era was subverted by MTV and multi-million $ record deals, so people question whether Hip-hop is merely the latest chapter in the commercialisation of Black culture.

There are those who claim that Hip-hop lives in the experiences and lives of the poor and the oppressed. Nevertheless, ‘ownership’ of Hip-hop must be determined by who is able to produce and market it. Therefore to a large extent we must accept that Hip-hop’s material (if not spiritual) home is in the board rooms of EMI, Sony Music, BMG, etc.

This makes it necessary for fans and artists to question whose interests rappers are serving, and why that is. The hip-hop we are being sold through the mainstream, instead of challenging power, is often serving the interests of the rich and powerful elite that maintained the terrible conditions which conditioned the development of Black culture.

It is in the interests of the major record labels to only sell hip-hop that justifies the economic tyranny of a minority over the majority. So when we see images of Jay-Z, one of the biggest rap artists of our time, sat in the White House, we have to question whether these artists interests are compatible with that of the majority of the world’s poor. Of course they aren’t.

How can someone with millions of dollars possibly have similar collective interests to the majority of people in the world who live off the equivalent of a few dollars a week? Artists are certainly subject to exploitative record deals, but income from merchandise, ticket-sales and sponsorship still rests on the exploitative wage-slavery of capitalism.

In the UK we can see the negative influence on youth culture by the romanticised gang-culture in the Hip-hop we’re being sold. The right-wing media claims that a generation of young people are buying into a culture of gang violence. This is clearly an exaggeration, but we shouldn’t underestimate the attraction of the slick, platinum encrusted lottery reflected in mainstream Hip-hop.

It is no wonder that the youth of communities which face demonization in the media, police repression and criminalisation can be attracted to gangs to provide safety initially, and then a potential route out of the life of poverty and alienation which they see all around them.

But fundamentally, this is a culture that stems from the material poverty which many White, but particularly Black and Asian communities in our cities remain mired in. 50% of young Black people are unemployed in Britain, and the cuts to Education and public services will have devastating consequences for those who are already worst-off in our society.

So, latching onto the shared suffering of working-class communities across the world, what we see is a disturbing glorification of the results of poverty and oppression marketed through mainstream hip-hop. This displays the power inherent within the music industry to shape social consciousness, and therefore the awareness and behaviour of its audience. We see this repeated in the printed media too. Newspapers don’t make anybody a profit anymore, but they are so effective at reinforcing the ruling class’s propaganda that billionaires like Rupert Murdoch maintain entire media empires.

From a young age we are taught that if the things we make don’t make the rich richer, then they’re worthless. If it doesn’t make a profit for the bosses then it won’t be played on the radio or TV. Therefore artists are constantly forced to use new alternative methods to promote their material, Youtube, Myspace, etc.

All entertainment, and especially hip-hop, should inspire, stimulate, question and move us as human beings in some way or another, instead the music we are sold is totally un-challenging to human thought, violent, and materialistic – all attributes that benefit the ruling classes. If we are un-educated they can justify controlling our lives, if we are violent we are dividing ourselves instead of uniting against our common enemy, and of course if we are materialistic, the rich stay rich by selling us shit that we don’t need.

Hip-hop used to be a reflection of society and culture, but now those who control the mainstream production, can artificially manufacture the culture it is supposed to be representing. Mainstream hip-hop is a commodity to big corporations, so its motive for production will always be to make money. It is profitable to condition the youth to focus entirely on material possessions and achieving wealth, so rappers who promote a message of human need over corporate greed, like Akala, Immortal Technique, Lowkey etc, aren’t played on the radio. Young people are encouraged to aspire to be known and praised for being famous, instead of for having talent or meaning or helping progress hip-hop as a liberating form of entertainment.

In most rappers’ music videos you will see the glorification of expensive things, selling the idea to young people that ‘you can make it’ and be rich just like your favourite rappers, when in reality, the chances of climbing out of poverty for most people in the world are non-existent. This is similar in films, theatre and video games, but music is considered the most subversive and most consumed form of entertainment.

It is greatly beneficial to the ruling classes to play people against each other, examples of which can be seen throughout history. For example under Slavery, ‘field’ slaves were played against the ‘house’ slaves, through slightly improved conditions for those working in the house, because when people are fighting among themselves, they aren’t fighting the real cause of their poverty and oppression. This kind of rhetoric is prevalent in mainstream hip-hop because as the next generation of working people, we are much weaker when we are divided.

‘Independent’ or ‘underground’ Hip-hop may be starting to shape youth consciousness with no help from major record labels. During the youth resistance against education cuts in 2010/11, artists like Lowkey, Logic, and Crazy-Haze, who are involved in ‘The People’s Army’, have proved that Hip-hop’s rightful place is in the struggle, not just here in the UK, but across the world, from Egypt to Palestine to Afghanistan.

Their lyrics don’t just speak of the need to show tolerance and humility to each other as human beings (although they do this very well). They also show their understanding of the need not just to fight against our governments, but to fight against capitalism and imperialism on an international scale. The need to show solidarity with all those in struggle across the world. These positive and progressive messages will only continue to be more understood and accepted as people learn through struggle that we can only be stronger by uniting against the exploiting class of bankers, bosses and their governments.

The capitalists know that knowledge is our power, so they sell us ignorance; they know that unity is our strength, so they keep us divided. It’s time we reclaim hip-hop, and all forms of entertainment for the benefit of society, not the profit of the capitalist minority.

Filed Under: Culture, News, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Culture under attack! London event 19 March

March 9, 2011 By

• Facebook event

• Leaflet

Cutting education, and raising fees to sky-high levels, the millionaire Con-Dem coalition have shown that they see culture and freedom of expression as a luxury only for the rich.

In this all-day event REVOLUTION explores the impact that the Con-Dem cuts will have on creativity and art, and how we can fight back against the Tory philistines.

MARCH ON MARCH 26

At 1.30pm we will be preparing our banners and materials that will make this huge demonstration one to remember forever, and building the message that we take to the whole anti-cuts movement on that day.

Timetable

11-13:00  Condem attacks on culture

  • Film and capitalism
  • Music and capitalism
  • Commodification of art

Lunch 13:00-13:30

1.30-5pm Our aims and goals, preparation for March 26

  • What we want to achieve
  • Banner and placard making

8pm Social at Peoples Republic Of Disco (PROD), Brixton in the evening

Filed Under: Culture, Events Tagged With:
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