McBollox

i've recently received a plethora of pr nonsense from mcdonalds through my letterbox. normally i bin or rts any of this kind of marketing rubbish, but this one caught my eye for the breathtaking liberties it was taking with reality. the front cover has obviously been chosen to present an archetypal olde worlde british farm complete with dry stone walls, etc., etc. (you get the picture). inside we are presented with a two-pronged attack. the main sections detail all the lovely things macky-ds are doing for our benefit (like bringing us milk from cows fed only the finest organic buttercups, and making fries from only the finest potatoes lovingly crafted by a bearded yokel, etc.). at the bottom you get attack two: special offers coupons.

mcdonalds have been feeling the pressure recently what with the whole jamie oliver-led crusade for better quality food (yes, even brits won't put up with your muck any more ronald) and the unpleasant truths revealed by films like supersize me. so much so, in fact, that their profits have been falling, which is probably the only thing that has motivated this radical change in marketing strategy. the message is clear: mcdonald's supports organic farming, is heart-warmingly kind to its fluffy animals, and is supporting traditional british farmers too. the farmers picked from locations all around the uk are named to add to the glowing feeling we're meant to get from this tosh. oh yeah, and by the way, we're still dirt cheap.

for those interested in what the true impact of mcdonalds' fast food empire has on our health, planet, and workers' rights, there's no better place to start than the mcspotlight site. based on the evidence unearthed during the damning 'mclibel' case, where two independent activists, helen steel & dave morris, were sued by mcdonalds for libel when they refused to withdraw negative assertions about the corporation from their literature. much to mcdonalds chagrin the two decided to fight their own case and drew it out into a two and half year long trashing for the company. mcspotlight sums up the judges findings thus:-

"The judge ruled that [mcdonalds] 'exploit children' with their advertising, produce 'misleading' advertising, are 'culpably responsible' for cruelty to animals, are 'antipathetic' to unionisation and pay their workers low wages."

not so fluffy now huh. well what about this environmental conscience of theirs? mcspotlight pose a few questions to mull over:-

"They [mcdonalds] annually produce over a million tons of packaging, used for just a few minutes before being discarded. What environmental effect does the production and disposal of all this have? Is their record on recycling and recycled products as green as they make out? Are they responsible for litter on the streets, or is that the fault of the customer who drops it? Can any multinational company operating on McDonald's scale not contribute to global warming, ozone destruction, depletion of mineral resources and the destruction of natural habitats?"

well what about this organic milk malarkey? isn't that a good thing. well yes, but as patrick holden, director of the soil association responded to news of the change:-

"If McDonald's or any other fast food company wants to restore their tarnished image, they will probably have to go much further than that. Only when their core products come from certified organic farms will we be tempted back into these shops."

i don't think it's enough to tempt me to an egg mcmuffin anytime soon.

end the occupation!

a common response encountered when arguing for the withdrawal of occupying forces from iraq is that this is not what the iraqis want. people arguing such a case evidently don't share the views of one third (83 of 275 mps) of the newly-elected iraqi national assembly. according to a report in al-hayat (brought to my attention by znet) this 'independent national block' has asked for a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops from iraq. baha' al-aaraji mp, said that:-

"Iraqi security and military apparatuses are able to take care of the security issue whereas the continuing deployment of foreign troops in Iraq, in a situation where there is an honourable national resistance ["honourable" is the label designating in Iraq resistance forces that attack only foreign troops], is a threat to stability."

so much for the iraqi's 'need' for foreign troops for security then, a common argument often heard from supporters of the occupation. this turns out, under greater scrutiny, to be just another dangerously prejudiced myth, that the iraqis need 'us' for their protection. it's 'our' troops that are causing the problems, according to these mps. it seems highly unlikely that iraqis will be allowed to even ask for the foreigners to leave, which is bitterly ironic considering the 'beacon of democracy' label ubiquitous in press descriptions of elections in iraq earlier this year.

more anti-occupation news: the culminating session of the world tribunal on iraq in istanbul has reached its conclusions after many months of sessions in many cities around the world. a press release detailing the conclusions of the 'jury of conscience' begins:-

"The attack on Iraq is an attack on justice, on liberty, on our safety, on our future, on us all"

you can read the rest of the press release here. the meticulous record of the wrongs of the iraq war that the tribunal has produced will be edited for publication in a book, presumably in the imminent future. in the meantime, we must continue to exert pressure on the powers that be to end the occupation.

zaat

over the past few weeks i've been getting engrossed in zaat, an excellent novel by egyptian author sonallah ibrahim. set in egypt in the '80s zaat is a deeply cynical and humorous look at egyptian society of the time, through the eyes of zaat, the female lead character. zaat is, according to the translator's introduction, a word that is uncommon as a name but means 'essence', 'identity' or 'self', that appears frequently in metaphysical discourse. unfortunately i don't read arabic, so i'm sure i'm missing out on some of the subtler linguistic touches of the book, but it certainly doesn't detract from a great read.

the book has an interesting structure, with alternate chapters of prose (the ongoing sagas of zaat's life) and chapters composed of carefully selected newspaper stories and adverts of the time. zaat's ill-fated attempts to navigate a path through the upheavals of modern egyptian life - the daily battles against her neighbours to obtain the freezer with the largest capacity, her attempts to become the focus of her colleagues' conversation - are written in a wry and perceptive style. the reader ends up feeling a mixture of pity and disdain for her petty struggles. these segments contrast brilliantly with the 'facts' of the time, as collated from newspaper reports. collated in a meticulous manner (ibrahim was a journalist before he became a novelist) they ruthlessly expose the corruption of egypt, its rulers and authorities, and the western governments who stole from it (not least the usa). the headlines unfold multiple tales of predation from foreign companies, embezzlement by egyptian officials and bankers, torture by the security forces, and the general degradation of public services during the period.

it's not surprising that ibrahim is so cynical - his first short story, the smell of it, was the first book to be censored by the nasser regime, and he was imprisoned for five and a half years. existence at the sharp end of egypt's state repression broadened his view:-

I come from an urban petit bourgeois background. In prison it was a chance to meet with workers, peasants, people of different classes. I found it a chance to study people as well as to read underground books. We received newspapers from all over the world and we used to listen to the radio. It was an education-my university, though psychologically it had a long-term negative impact.

the smell of it is also available in translation as part of a collection of short stories of the same name, and i would recommend it's more conventional style, and graphic descriptions of prison life.

sonallah ibrahim is a committed marxist and this shows through in his work, which shows a disdain for power and champions the ordinary human being. he remains involved in political activism, such as organising the cairo conference. there's good reason to check out these books and an author whose work remains little-known in this country.

grow yer own

gor blimey it's been hot! i've been making the most of the weather to spend time tending to our allotment down in radford. we've had it a couple of years and have transformed the space from a mouldy cabbage- and chlorpromazine*-ridden wilderness into a vegetable-ridden wilderness. very tasty, and we don't use chemicals and try to look after the soil. more about that later but for now i'll let the pics do the talking...

the allotment

here's our spinach, with parsnips behind

rows of tatties

californian poppies

salad bed with lettuce, herbs, and beetroot

pumpkins and courgettes

herb bed, containing rosemary, parsley, thyme, mint and chives

* chlorpromazine is an anti-psychotic drug. we found unused blister packs of it strewn about when we got the place!

discipline and punish (with an asbo or 2)

currently reading (for pleasure, much to the horror of some!), michel foucault's 'discipline and punish', a philosophical study of the birth of the prison in france. foucault's tireless analysis of power certainly has resonance in today's world, and i couldn't help but feel a little sense of timelessness when confronted with the following quote from 18th century writer servan:-

A stupid despot mat constrain his slaves with iron chains; but a true politician binds them ever more strongly by the chain of their own ideas; it is at the stable point of reason that he secures the end of the chain; this link is all the stronger in that we do not know of what it is made, and we believe it to be our own work; despair and time eat away the bonds of iron and steel, but they are powerless against the habitual union of ideas, they can only tighten it still more; and on the soft fibres of the brain is founded the unshakeable base of the soundest of Empires

it seems like an apt description of the mentality driving the current government's approach to anti-social behaviour and political protest. by making possible the criminalisation of anyone acting "in an anti-social manner that caused or was likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress" the state has extended its domain far beyond any pretense of protecting its citizens, and instead seeks to modulate our behaviour in an increasingly invasive manner. as chris quayle writes in red pepper:-

...while they are civil measures they can be backed up by the full weight of the criminal law. This means that to obtain an order legal niceties like a defence counsel can be done away with. It also means that the evidence necessary for an Asbo to be granted is tested not under the ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ criteria that apply in criminal law but the far less exacting calculus of the civil law. Effectively, something as flimsy as hearsay evidence, or gossip, will suffice

no wonder there are a plethora of outraged writers and organisations, such as asbo concern, pitting themselves against these attempts to curtail our liberties.

other laws, such as the recent serious and organised crime bill, make the law further open to the interpretation of its enforcers. as george monbiot notes:-

Section 121 of the bill prohibits people from “pursuing a course of conduct which involves harassment of two or more persons”, in order “to persuade any person … not to do something that he is entitled or required to do, or to do something that he is not under any obligation to do.” Harassment, the bill explains, can involve “conduct on at least one occasion”, “in relation to two or more persons”. In other words, you need only approach someone once to be considered to be harassing them, as long as you have also approached someone else in the same manner.

that's pretty handy if you're part of a business or government body tired of protestors pointing out the unpleasant realities behind your glossy facade. you accuse them of harassing you and get them arrested, preferably with the courts imposing an injunction on them. this was the case for brighton bomb makers edo/mbm, who have managed to obtain an injunction against the anti-war campaigners who have, in the past, campaigned so effectively against their dirty business. the terms were summed up by schnews thus: "[protestors] will only be able to protest for two and a half hours on Thursday afternoons, providing there are less than ten of them and they make no 'artificial or musical noise or use anything to amplify sound'". so nothing that will any way disrupt the business of bomb making then. the injunction has already lead to the arrest of a photographer for photographing one of edo's private security guards, and he now faces a possible maximum penalty of five years imprisonment.

certainly, the use of imprisonment may be considered similar to servan's "iron chains", which are necessarily transient, but the effect on society at large is more subtle and insiduous. but by making the definition of what falls within the categories of anti-social behaviour and harassment so vague, and so open to interpretation, the effect of these laws is to activate the 'policeman within' to ever higher levels of censorship, and make us wary of our every move: to make us complicit in our own implicit disciplining. by making us all much more wary about getting involved in protests with an anti-business or anti-state element we are being led to found the "unshakeable base" of our the evil empire of our times, at the level of the "soft fibres" of our brains.

divide and conquer

there's so much in the media (mainstream & alternative) about the g8, from so many different angles, that it's impossible for me to know what's actually going to happen once they set up shop behind the vast barricades in a few weeks' time. certainly there's a concerted attempt by politicians keen to be let off the hook (erm... well that'd be all of them then) to divert any dissenting individuals into the 'white band' camp of make poverty history. why? to divide protestors into 'good' (mph) and 'bad' (anyone else) camps (see david miller's excellent article for a detailed analysis) which makes it a lot easier to spin public perceptions of the protests that are going to happen. any effective direct action will be labelled 'violent' and attributed to 'anarchists' and other baby-eating bogeymen. these will of course be carried out by people wearing black not like the virginal white-clad make poverty history types. these bad protestors must be contained by the police of course, by any means necessary, to protect the 'rights' of the 'public' (read the heads of the g8 here). nothing new about this of course, but nothing to say that it won't be pushed heavily by the embedded press during the course of events.

so, to the good camp, or 'glo-bono-phonies and trojan horse ngos' as they are described in a nice counterpunch article i read today. well, they are permitted their protests of course as they are so close to those in power as to be nicely controllable. their ethics are obviously fairly flexible, hence the manufacture of the fabled fashion accessory white bands in sweat shops in china. they don't propose any alternatives to the current system, they make their demands on the g8 leaders, which, as schnews inimitably dubs the action, "is a bit like asking paedophiles to take charge of a playgroup". also, these demands focus on debt relief whilst glossing over the whole catalogue of other western interventions and stipulations that drain africa's wealth into the pockets of those in power, such as mandatory privatisation and trade liberalisation. as george monbiot aptly describes it:-

Attaching conditions like these to aid is bad enough: it amounts to saying “we will give you a trickle of money if you give us the Crown Jewels.” Attaching them to debt relief is in a different moral league: “we will stop punching you in the face if you give us the Crown Jewels.” The G8’s plan for saving Africa is little better than an extortion racket.

in all this battling by the radical left to somehow worm our messages into the vast tide of government, media and ngo propaganda about eradicating poverty, climate change has 'mysteriously' slipped out of sight. handy that, as even the hopelessly superficial measures to tackle that (e.g. kyoto) aren't even being considered by some rich nations. a linked issue is that of declining oil reserves, and i recently had the pleasure of meeting some nice people from power switch, an organisation aiming to raise awareness about the end of oil, and oil-rich society. thinking that the g8 protests would be the ideal place to be out doing just that i wondered if they had anything planned. it would seem not. people, where is your sense of urgency!

this, i would argue, is the ultimate effect of all the g8 spin. a general lack of urgency about tackling these huge problems. combine this with the general public's seeming ignorance on the issues and we are left with a pretty neutered political climate. when you say you're going to the g8 to protest, people often murmur sentiments about how they hope some people 'don't spoil it for the rest of us'. wouldn't those people be the g8 in their current actions? or the riot cops that let them get away with it? isn't anger an understandable reaction to injustice? what i really hope happens is that 'bad' and 'good' protestors stop letting themselves be defined in this way, and form a formidable force against the g8.

blogging: why bother?

i must admit, i held out for some time before launching into the blogosphere. the whole process of having something there that was a public and (semi-)permanent records of my thoughts, actions and processes was a) a little scary and b) had a bit of a narcissistic feel. i suppose i didn't particularly like the thought that people from all corners of the globe (he he!) could verbally abuse me via the comments box. then i realised that b) was probably correct, and it didn't matter because probably only a handful of people were actually going to read this anyway. hooray!

bit more seriously tho, i like the idea of being part of a swarming interconnected mass of information and comment. sure, i probably don't have any particularly unique insights to share with the world, but it's nice to have a place to store your own reactions, thoughts and musings on stuff. it's a form of sharing, of communicating, both things that i'm pretty in favour of. and as long as i don't turn it into the d.r. vanity showcase extravaganza, and ensure that the stuff i put on here is stuff that there is a reason to communicate (damn: there goes my seminal 'why the nottingham uni psychology coffee bar sucks' pamphlet) i don't see why i shouldn't pontificate at length (and be brutally slagged off for it).

the name, that was a tricky one. in the end i settled for the title (slightly adjusted) of billy burroughs' book. unfortunately i can't find the complete quote, and i haven't got the book any more (a.f. if you're reading this, you know what you need to do, otherwise it's the steely dan treatment for you my lad), but i've always been attracted to the idea of this grim moment, when you become aware that something you've always fed yourself is some hideous substance. the naked lunch, the unpleasant reality about reality, is something i feel we have to expose, so we can move onto the vegetable tagine of inner contentment.

having said all that about not turning it into a vanity project, i did enjoy getting a silly photo for 'my' profile. ok, he's wearing a black mask and has anarchist slogans penned all over his chest (which is way too radical to be me, i'm sad to admit) he's skinny and is wearing glasses. people who know the real me will appreciate (perhaps).