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You are surely aware, dear reader, of how much I rail against out-of-control consumerism—what I like to call "hyperconsumerism"—where people are encouraged to simply junk their old model TVs, fridges, cell phones, washing machines, etc., for new ones, even though the old models still work perfectly well? Do you know how most people, brainwashed-by-advertising sheep that they are, do exactly that: they junk their stuff, knowing that the good little trash fairy will take it all away to a magical place where it's never seen nor heard from again? Out of sight, out of mind, never mind.
Funny that, eh? Most people stopped believing in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy by the age of 10, but they still apparently believe in the Trash Fairy.
Welcome to the "throwaway society." This society pretty much encompasses the enitre Western world. In this "throwaway society," if it no longer dazzles, if it no longer pleases, if it no longer fits, it is tossed away and never worried about.
Why worry? After all, what are you, some kind of commie faggot, with all your fretting over the environment and what kind of planet we're leaving behind for future generations of human beings? Live for the here and now, damnit! Here, take a ride in my SUV: see how fast it goes and how it just tears up the terrain? Tell me that doesn't cheer you up! After we've torn through twenty miles of forest, we'll stop off for takeaway food and carry it home in lots of styrofoam packaging and plastic bags. Don't you see how convenient it all is, you little green poof?
Oops, sorry, I morphed into Mr. Doangivafuk, there ...
This live-for-today society, which cares only about convenience, gets on my nerves at the best of times. But now it's gotten even worse. Animals have been dragged into it. Pets are no longer companions, fellow Earthly lifeforms that we share our homes with which help to keep us at least somewhat grounded in nature.
According to this frightening story from the April 28 issue of The Times, they are simply a commodity, to be junked if they no longer dazzle, please or fit into one's way of life.
In the space of only one year, the number of abandoned pets has risen by 25 percent. Last year, half of the 7,347 animals abandoned were cats (meaning 3,674 cats). This year alone, so far, the number of abandoned animals rescued by the RSPCA overall is 2,621. As the article states, this is very disturbing considering cats are relatively easy to care for. Dogs and rabbits are also in the majority of pets being "thrown away."
So, if your cat no longer matches your carpet, as one woman cited, simply throw the cat away. Just stuff it in a trashbag and throw it by the side of the road. Surely the carpet is much more important. I mean, what would the neighbors or your friends say if your carpet didn't match the cat!
What have people come to where they cannot distinguish a cat from a carpet, a dog from a washing machine, a rabbit from a cell phone? What have people come to that, in the name of convenience, they sacrifice their humanity?
Of course, how surprising is all this really? After all, we're prepared to sentence people in third-world countries to absolute starvation simply to fuel our funky gadgets—which all become "obsolete" in six months' time—with biofuel. Yes, as long as there's enough food for us and enough fuel for us to play Grand Theft Auto and fiddle with our iPhones, let Africans eat cake. Or nothing. Who cares?
Once people themselves become mere throwaways, you know we're in trouble. We are truly passing the point of no return here. I always genuinely try to think that it's not too late. But you sure have to have faith, don't you?
To the "lady" who cited the cat not matching the carpet as a reason for abandoning her feline companion, I say this: Someday you will grow old, and when you do, you will require the sort of care only a nursing home can provide. May that nursing home be staffed with the most argumentative and abusive people you've ever encountered. May you live another ten years with only them for company. May they make you feel like nothing more than a giant pain in the arse, someone who inconveniences them, someone who, as far as they are concerned, should just be "thrown away."
Maybe then you will realize how your cat felt, as well as what a complete fucking retard you are, as are millions of other people just like you.
Did I ever tell you, dear reader, that we now have Oreo cookies here in Britain? (Did you know I'm eating Oreo cookies right now as I'm typing this?)
I remember in 1998, when I first came over here, there was hardly anything American in the shops. You might see the odd Del Monte or Kraft product here and there, but it wasn't impressive enough to write home about. It used to be that you'd have to go to a specialist shop that catered to American ex-pats to find the snack goods you grew up with. In fact, the only American franchises I would see were Blockbusters and McDonald's.
Then, around 2002, shops across Britain would have promotions featuring American snack products, like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Hershey's chocolate bars, and Oreo cookies. These promotions would last a few weeks and then be gone.
But, slowly but surely, it started to grow. The British decided they liked Oreo cookies and Nutrageous candy bars enough to demand more of them. Thus, companies like Hershey's Chocolate and Nabisco gained a foothold here.
I also remember how there wasn't a Starbucks or a Subway to be seen anywhere here in 1998. However, Starbucks was well established by 2001, and Subway has been a successful franchise here since 2006.
We even have Krispy Kreme too, though we're still waiting for Dunkin' Donuts. (Funnily enough, Dunkin' Donuts is to be found in Spain—we know, having been to Barcelona!)
I used to consider it exotic whenever I saw a Hershey's bar or a pack of Oreos in the local convenience store. I'd buy it and rush home, exclaiming "Hon, look at this!" Now, it almost seems passé. Ten years from now, most Brits might be unaware that there never used to be such a thing as Oreo cookies on these shores.
I dunno, I guess I'm trying to say there's something very wonderful but yet very creepy about that. I guess I'd prefer that the Americanization of Britain continued at a small trickly pace rather than a flood.
And it's not because I don't love my country. But I simply remember how wonderful and exciting it was to first find Oreos in the stores. Now that they're much more commonplace, that feeling has been taken away. There's nothing special about it anymore.
I guess I just feel a bit sad and disappointed by that.
I have to say, I'm mightily impressed with Hillary Clinton's assertion that she would bomb the hell out of Iran if the Islamic Republic struck Israel. “In the next ten years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them," Clinton stated on April 22 while campaigning in Pennsylvania.
That's the kind of talk I like to hear! As expected, Obama said such talk wasn't helpful and dialogue was what was needed. Hillary (as well as I) agrees, in theory, of course; she is simply threatening very severe consequences if our close ally is attacked. It's not often I have chance or reason to say this, but: good for you, Mrs. Clinton.
Now then, for a total change of subject matter:
On Friday mornings, I would get an espresso from the coffee stand outside the station where I change trains on my commute home from work. On Fridays, I usually stay up to do the bulk of the housework and work on my music and/or writing.
Well, the inevitable happened: I'm getting espressos every morning, even though I'm supposed to be cooling down after a hard night's work, not revving myself back up. But I can't help it. It smells and tastes so good. I consider it a just reward after a night in the office.
But, hey, people have after-dinner coffees in the evening, don't they? Is it really that dumb to have one single espresso two to three hours before I plan to sleep?
There's no escaping the fact, cependant, that my Friday espresso has evolved into a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday espresso as well. If that's not a sign of addiction, dear reader, I'm at a loss to say what is.
White working-class people are bitter, cling to guns or religion, and express antipathy toward people who aren't like them.
According to Illinois senator and Presidential candidate Barack Obama, white people are disillusioned and paranoid. Maybe that's also why they flood the black community with drugs as Obama's spiritual mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, opined. I don't know. I'm just a brown-haired, blue-eyed white guy, don't mind me.
Earlier this month, Obama gave a speech at a San Francisco fundraising event. He mentioned the down-and-outs of the mostly white working class in small towns in states like Pennsylvania, declaring, "[T]he jobs have been gone now for twenty-five years. They fell through the Clinton administration and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate. And they have not." Which lead Obama to his inevitable conclusion: "And it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
Does this make Obama look like a racist? Not necessarily. Does it make him look aloof and elitist? Definitely. But this attitude is nothing new, and it is quite alive and well here in Britain.
This year, a series of television programs entitled The White Season were produced for the BBC, in which issues of unemployment, immigration and culture as seen through the eyes and experiences of the working class white community were examined. The biggest question The White Season asks is: Is white working class Britain becoming invisible? The ultimate goal was to show how disenfrancished and marginalized the white working class felt. Also, the shows aimed to spotlight how betrayed they felt by a government that they used to enthusiastically support.
Most white working class people were originally Labourites. They were dedicated to social justice and the socialism of a tax system which would force the rich to pay more. How, in only ten years, the producers of The White Season ask, did much of the white working class abandon Labour and even, in some cases, support the scary far-Right whackos of the British National Party?
The answer is that "New" Labour, for ten years, has enforced politically correct laws which encourage diversity and multiculturalism at the expense of the working white communities. "Positive discrimination" in matters of employment, and mass immigration in which foreign workers take jobs for wages lower than white workers would be willing to accept, has left the white community angry enough to deliver a jolt to the political system by shoring up support for the BNP.
In Obama-speak, the working white community of Britain is seriously bitter. The "rivers of blood" due to unchecked mass immigration that Enoch Powell predicted in 1968 has not come to pass, but tensions and strife are to be felt every day in communities that formerly looked after each other but which now are left isolated by massive levels of immigration.
The problem is, anyone who dares to speak of Britain as a small island that can only take in so many people is branded a racist, a BNP supporter or Enoch Powell admirer. Just as you cannot fill a lifeboat meant for 15 people with 25 people and expect it to stay afloat, you cannot displace a native population with a foreign one and expect harmonious communities, but that is lost on those who worship at the multiculti altar.
In Britain, large levels of Asians, Africans and Eastern Europeans have taken jobs for drastically reduced salaries. In small-town, working class America, it's mostly Latinos who've done the displacing. But in both cases, the situation is the same: native whites have been forced out of work, and the country ignores their situation, dismissing them as idle and bitter.
Who then can be surprised at the presence of so many white communities which aren't working class but non-working class, communities in which whites idle away the days with drugs, drink and cigarettes while Poles, Nigerians and Pakistanis stand at the bus stops for their commute into work? Is this a situation where it's understandable to be white "working" class and bitter?
You can say that there is work for these people if only they cared to accept it. You could certainly blame the government for keeping them on state benefits that pay more than a job salary. But then, how did the working class white community find themselves in the sort of situation where they can wear sweat pants every day? Why were they ignored, and why are they continued to get ignored?
Job loss may be an economic reality, but it doesn't help to flood the job market with immigrants either. Immigrants are the life-blood of a nation, but we are talking sustainable, reasonable levels of immigration, not blatant denial over a maximum population that this small island of a country can sustain.
If not only jobs, but green space and nature start to disappear as a result of this government's bullish attitude on mass immigration, I think we shall all be well within our rights to feel bitter.
But the forests surrounding the ivory towers of Barack Obama and Gordon Brown won't ever disappear, so things are unlikely to change anytime soon.
Can I just say to the anti-China demonstrators in London, in Paris and in San Francisco during last week's Olympic torch protests: Well done.
As far as I'm concerned, no actions on behalf of a free and independent Tibet can go too far—excluding terrorism, of course. Some commentators said the torch ceremonies were a farce—and you can't argue with that. They were. But the Olympics themselves are a farce—always have been—and these Olympians miss the much larger point.
The protestors were making an issue of China's appalling human rights abuses, their ever-present threats against Taiwan, and their militant actions in Tibet.
The Dalai Lama may think the pro-Tibet movement has gone too far in whipping up anti-China sentiment, but the Chinese had it coming. This is anger against a brutal regime bubbling to the surface, having welled up over many years. The Chinese are far too arrogant to take any notice of the strident protests, but that doesn't mean that they should not have occurred. This was an important exercise in free speech and the belief that all people have a right to freedom and liberty.
The "free Tibet" movement is nothing new. I remember a pro-Tibet candle-lighting ceremony in Harvard Square in 1994. I took part in it. I supported the Tibetans then; I support them now.
Anytime a people want to be free, I'm behind them. I'm for a united Ireland—an impossible situation, but theoretically it would be wonderful (I hate the IRA, but, like them, I dream of a united Eire). I'm all for Kevin Rudd's Australia breaking with the British Commonwealth. I'm for an independent Kosovo. I'm for an independent Taiwan, an independent Quebec, an independent Faroe Islands and even an independent Scotland, should they decide the United Kingdom no longer serves them.
I even support an independent Palestinian state, but not at Israel's expense. For this to be possible, the Palestinian authorities must completely reject terrorism, bar Hamas as a political entity, and formally recognize Israel in its current form.
The only instance in which I would have been against a breakaway republic—had I been alive back then—would be the during the American Civil War. Lincoln had the right idea to quash the Dixie rebellion and bring the southern states back into the fold. Why? Because the Confederacy was based largely on an evil premise: slavery supported their economy. It's the same reason we would boycott or protest against a country today.
But I really cannot think of another instance—past or present—in which I do not or would not back a people wanting to go their own way. As long as they shun terrorism, they have earned their right as a people to make their own rules.
The torch ceremonies were a great way to make the point that we are not happy with China. It was a great way to very publicly embrace the "Free Tibet" movement. And it was a great way to give China the middle finger, regardless of whether they care to acknowledge it or not.
They're at it again.
Canada may be nowhere near the category China finds itself in with regard to human rights, but both countries are ignorant when it comes to animals, and both are deserving of some kind of boycott. China abuses animals in zoos for stupid people's pleasure, and, every April, Canada's government sponsors drunken Newfie hicks to slaughter hundreds of thousands of seal pups. These Canuck rednecks actually skin the pups alive.
Ottawa replies that it's simply helping the seal population because it otherwise wouldn't survive due to low fish stocks. Way to go, Canada! Overfish your waters and then blame a species of animal. Works for humankind everywhere, you're clearly in on the ages-old game.
Informed people know the truth: Canada is feeding at the trough of the fur trade.
I've written about this several times already (here, here, and here), so I've not got a lot more to say about this barbarity that I haven't said already.
Except this: If you agree with me that this annual seal cull is indefensible and outrageous, then act upon this belief and don't visit Canada. I don't care if you've got friends up there, if it's a great place to get high, or whatever. Don't go, don't contribute to their economy. Boycott Canadian goods. If your local deli is selling Canadian fish, request that they stop doing so.
Many American food suppliers have already refused to stock Canadian fish, and a year ago, Britain backed Belgium, Italy, Mexico and the U.S. in rejecting the cull and any products derived from it. In fact, the European Union is currently considering trade sanctions against Canada.
Of course, Canada reacted angrily to the British move, dismissing it as mere moral posturing and not based on scientific evidence. Evidence of what? That Canadian blood runs cold? The Canadians themselves may be sanguine about this seal cull, but it doesn't mean the rest of the world has to be.
"Bl-oo-dy hell!" I heard Squirrel exclaim this past Sunday morning around 7 a.m. I had not even bothered to look out the window, obsessed with replacing the recently cracked coffee pot as I was. The prospect of going without coffee horrifies me.
"What, hon?" I asked from the bedroom, where the curtains were closed. I thought she'd found a big wasp in the kitchen, just as I had Friday night before work.
"Snow," she said. I dashed to the bathroom and pulled up the mottled-glass window. This is the sight that greeted me:
It is worth recalling that we had gone through the entire months of December, January and February without so much as a flurry. A few flakes fell during a March cold snap. And now this, on April 6.
Late last Friday morning, I went for a run through the park. The sun was strong, not a cloud in the sky; and the temperature hovered around the 65°F mark. The big lawn was a lovely medium green with small white flowers blooming across it; trees in bloom, bees buzzing, birds a-twitter. It was a springtime eden. Snow was the last thing on my—or anyone's—mind. Come Sunday morning, just 48 hours later, that same lawn and everything surrounding it was a winter wonderland. It was beautiful though, and the snow really cleaned up my sneakers.
And I finally got to experience some actual snowfall this year.
Of course, this being sensationalist Britain, the papers were all referring to the "blizzard" the next morning. It was no such thing. It was a light snowstorm. The wind was no more than a stiff breeze, visibility was good for at least 50 feet, accumulation was no more than ½-inch per hour.
Let me put it this way, if I compare a blizzard to a large dragonfly, then the conditions we experienced Sunday morning were an aphid. And speaking of insects, I'm sure even the wasp would agree with me on that point.
But, controlling my raucous New England laughter, I must admit that the snowfall was exciting—in its subdued, subtle, quirky British way.
On a BBC London early-morning radio talk show that I listened to this morning, the ever touchy subject of junkies and deadbeats was brought up. It's all people phoned in to chat about.
The subject commenced when a caller, already well known to the host, phoned in an attempt to remind everyone what a good person he really is despite having watched violent films (such as Reservoir Dogs) all day long while smoking crack. For those not familiar with the caller, to be known for the purposes of this article as J., he lives alone with only a dog for company. He spends just about all of his welfare money on dog food, drink and drugs. He hardly eats, just boozes from sunrise to long after sundown. He hasn't washed in ages. He just sits in his garden, stoned, staring at the sky. About the only thing that could be said in his favor is that he's refreshingly honest about the state of himself.
Some callers rightly expressed outrage. While noting their desire that J. eventually clean himself up, physically, emotionally and spiritually, they wondered why his behavior is tolerated by society. One caller said, "I don't even have a garden like he has. I work my behind off and have to share a second-floor flat with two other people." Another asserted that J., and all others like him, are a drain on the system, that welfare should be used only for those with serious illnesses who are genuinely not able to work.
On the flip side, you aslo had the predictable contingent of callers who called to express their love and condolensces to J., wishing him well and saying that no-one had any right to judge him. In a Britain that has seriously lost its way, it's no surprise to hear some air-headed people defending this J.'s idle and drugged-out way of life. As far as they are concerned, it's J.'s valid choice to waste away on drugs and drink courtesy of the taxpayer—under a roof that's also provided by the taxpayer.
Think about that. In a society where we are encouraged to think of ourselves as our brother's keeper, liberals think it's a sign of enlightenment that we should let people destroy themselves.
You can play the blame game all you want, but it all comes down to one thing: If the benefits we pay to such people were reduced to just below the minimum wage, the addicts and the idle would be much more encouraged to sober up, find work and remain clean. But drug addicts are not the only story. They're just playing the system; and they are just one part of a bigger malaise—the entitlement culture.
The system certainly doesn't do much to discourage it. As it stands, people living on welfare are actually better off than people working a minimum wage job. Billions of pounds of public expenditure are spent on benefits for people assumed to be too incapacitated by mental or physical illness. In reality, the number of people who truly need the helping hand are disproportionate to those who claim welfare to live a lifestyle that would be unsustainable if they worked.
Welfare is being handed out to layabouts who claim that they are too fat or depressed to work. The Department for Work and Pensions has a list of 480 illnesses and complaints under which someone could claim incapacity benefit. A bad case of acne is all you need in order for the Government to feel sorry for you and redistribute the working man's "wealth" your way.
When President Clinton signed into law welfare reform in the States in 1996 (The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act), the liberal doom-and-gloom predictions of a sharp rise in homelessness did not happen. Americans who formerly fed at the public trough shaped up, got jobs and survived. Homelessness and destitution did not dramatically rise, but welfare rolls were significantly cut, by as much as 57 percent. Labour was and still is content to follow the U.S. lead on foreign policy, so why aren't they making good use of lessons learned from American domestic policy?
Indeed, the Government's Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is still committed to a "cohesive and prosperous society with fairness and social justice for all at its core" that will enable Britain to "combat poverty." The socialist language tells you all you need to know about how seriously they take welfare reform. The DWP has crafted a report entitled "In Work, Better Off" which is truly risible when you consider that people on welfare are obviously not poor—go into any layabout's home and I guarantee that you will see LCD televisions with cable, the latest gaming consoles, state-of-the-art hi-fi systems, and the latest make of mobile phones. Again, what incentive for work do these people have when they receive an allowance that's worth more than an entry-level job salary and there is no time limit on how long they can claim said allowance?
I am not optimistic about the prospects for a shake-up in the system. Welfare "reform" in Britain is basically a revolving door. Even when an able-bodied welfare recipient does land work, there's a 40 percent chance he or she will land right back on benefits. This latest round of welfare measures is the 29th time such a package was announced by the Government since Gordon Brown became Prime Minister.
Every nation, every society, needs a welfare state to take care of those genuinely in need. I have no problem helping those who are incapable of helping themselves, through no fault of their own.
What I do have a problem with is that idea that, twenty years from now, working people in Britain may well be a minority. And that the Government will still be stealing from us to fund the lifestyles and habits of the non-working class. Is that social justice?
I cannot think of anything else that so commands one's grasp of morality, of right versus wrong, as the Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill. It represents one of the biggest opportunities for British lawmakers to vote their conscience since the 2003 Iraq War consensus.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown will allow ministers to vote their conscience by allowing a free vote on the bill. Originally, Mr. Brown refused such a vote. However, ministers will still be highly expected to vote the party line, thus supporting the Labour Government in passing the law.
Brown and other Bill supporters assert that it will lead to major advances in medicine and the treatment of fatal diseases. Human-animal hybrid embryos are to be used to this end.
Catholic ministers objected, and they were supported by the Roman Catholic church which attacked the proposed Bill. Many churchmen used their Easter sermons to criticize the legislation.
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor said, "I think Catholics in politics have got to act according to their Catholic convictions ... Certainly, there are some aspects of this Bill on which I believe there ought to be a free vote, because Catholics and others will want to vote according to their conscience. I don't think it should be subject to the party whip."
Facing a rebellion that threatened to escalate into a serious crisis, Brown gave in to the free vote. Refusing a vote of conscience to Catholic ministers (and others who desired a vote of conscience) could have sown a rebellion, with resignations possibly ensuing, thus undermining Brown's authority. Also, with Labour down in the polls, Brown reckoned now was not the time to assert said authority.
Former Labour Cabinet minister Stephen Byers warned of the possible backlash. "The public will look on in disbelief," Byers said, "if a matter as sensitive as the creation of human-animal embryos is made a matter of party policy with the Government instructing its MPs (ministers) how to vote."
The dissension over the Bill has sparked a war of words between its supporters and the Church. Cardinal Keith O'Brien denounced the legislation as "a monstrous attack on human rights, human dignity and human life." O'Brien also asserted that the Bill would allow for experiments of "Frankenstein proportion."
Fertility expert and Labour peer Lord Robert Winston, however, replied "His statements are lying. They are misleading and I'm afraid that when the Church, for good motives, tells untruths, it brings discredit upon itself ... [I]t will be destroying its probity with overblown statements of this kind."
I stand with the Catholics on this matter. The proposed Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill is indeed, in O'Brien's words, a monstrous attack on human dignity. Earth-shattering enough that human DNA would be inserted into animal cells for research, but the legislation would also allow for "spare parts," where a sibling embryo would be created, having been tested for compatibility with a child suffering from a serious medical condition, simply for the purpose of using its tissue to treat the ill child. On the surface, that certainly seems like a marvelous advance. But does this not ultimately treat the child as a commodity rather than a human being?
The Church's—and my—view is that just because mankind can do something awesome doesn't necessarily mean he should do it. What future horrors will science visit upon us, under the placating title of "research," and should we perhaps consider not playing God? Catholic MP Stephen Pound has said, "We seem to be moving into a sphere where we are actually taking on the role of the creation of life." I totally agree. It behooves us to leave the management of life to nature or God, whichever one chooses to believe in.
There is another aspect to the Bill that is troubling. The legislation, to its credit, would reduce the 24-week limit on abortions to 20 weeks. But women being counseled for fertilization would not be asked about the baby's father nor encouraged to seek a father involved in the child's care and upbringing. The "need for a father," which is the current law regarding the approval of patients for fertilization treatment and which the Goverment considers discriminatory, will simply be changed to "the need for supportive parenting." Fatherhood would be enshrined by law as nothing more than a commodity, a father's important role in bringing up a child rendered moot. This Bill would be a victory for militant feminists, but a huge loss to men everywhere. This would have to represent the biggest threat to fatherhood in recent memory.
Cheapening the vital male role in bringing up children and playing God with existing life are both good reasons for ministers to send this Bill to a resounding defeat when it comes to the House of Commons in a couple of months' time.
