The Political Thread

[Professor Bear]

Hey, that's a terrible thing to say about the USSR.  They got the first man-made objects and people into space and say what you like about those stinking inbred commies but they at least contributed to furthering the knowledge and legacy of the human species.

[COMMANDO FORCES]

I did get on the wrong side of it at work a long while ago and the cps tried to do me on three things.
Long story short, massive pothole under flooded road, due to a leak by water company and I hit a buidling. Once I hit the pothole it bounced me onto a kerb and I braked but the path and grass was saturated and I jack-knifed and just kissed the side of a factory on the industrial estate.

When we went to court (after a year of waiting) they tried to pesruade me to accept two charges and they would drop the other one. I declined and then it went to accept the main charge and the other two would be dropped. Again I declined.

We went into court and a fiasco began.

The bods asked what charges were being brought forward and when the prosecution started to announce that the first two were dropped, the Judge said that he would be seeing them in his chambers afterwards for wasting court time, as this was allocated a certain amount of time.

We moved onto their final gambit and that was thrown out, due to lack of evidence and our expert putting my case forward.

Let me say, a few quid popped my way for this.

So when people say the cps are crap, yes they can be but you have to believe in yourself and your case. My lawyer bod told me before we went in court that he thought they would try to make me accept stuff and through other stuff out, as they were buggered and they knew it.

[COMMANDO FORCES]

Throw, not through. That's what I get for rushing as tea was imminent

[M.I.K.]

People get away with crimes all the time, they always have and they always will. Dig deep enough into the past of any large group of people - in this case, 60's and 70's celebrities - and you will find dirt. I find it interesting that of all the crimes that must be there, from drink driving to embezzlement to murder, the government and media are concentrating on sex crimes, specifically paedophilia. This feels to my cynical soul like a co-ordinated attack on our childhoods. Why? Maybe to make us hate one another a little bit more, loathe ourselves a little bit more, distrust strangers and friends a little bit more, drive us all a little further apart, drive us all a little closer to the authority who promises to stop this sort of thing with more laws and powers, and all like that kind of socially toxic negativity.

Don't see how that'd work seeing as how it's mainly folk with strong ties to the government and the media being accused and convicted.

[The Legendary Shark]

Damn, I wish I'd had your lawyer, CF. Mine was largely unequal to the task, sadly.
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I don't blame him, though. Imagine a plump, middle-aged man with prematurely grey hair, a hangdog expression and a hangdog suit. I'll call him Paul Smithers to protect his real identity. He probably started out with fire in his belly and ambition in his heart but now, a minor solicitor working for a minor firm representing whatever minor scumbag the police happen to have locked up, there are nothing but ulcers in his belly and dissatisfaction in his heart. Lawyering has become merely his job and he's sick of it but can't do anything else.
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So, Paul's trapped, like so many people, in a rut of his own making. He spends his time defending criminals, maniacs and idiots against slick CPS lawyers and probably loses 85% or more of his cases.
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Then he gets me. You all know how I can bang on about stuff and have some pretty funky views. He thought I was an idiot, or possibly a maniac, and so his primary concern was making sure he got paid. I should imagine, given his enthusiasm for filling in Legal Aid application forms, that his firm holds regular meetings on the subject. I bet they have spreadsheets and pie charts and reports and everything. Only when the forms were all filled in did he relax and begin listening, half-heartedly at first, to my predicament and my position. Unfortunately, his interest only piqued near the end of the first day of the trial. By the time the proceedings of the first day had drawn to a close, Paul Smithers was a changed man - the fire was rekindled and the ambition stirred.
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A good night's sleep and another Team Meeting cured him of that nonsense.
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He started the second session as he had started the first - brandishing more Legal Aid forms. When I showed him the summary of points I'd condensed from my notes, centred upon the discrepancies in the witness statements, his eyes lit up. He thought my notes were very useful as he couldn't remember much of what happened last week and hadn't been allowed to do any work on my case away from the courthouse due to the inevitable Legal Aid constraints.
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He didn't make a big enough point of the discrepancies, concentrating too much on the missing cctv and reasonable doubt instead. But when the magistrates left to deliberate, Paul was optimistic. He thought he had done well and that we'd get the correct verdict. He'd started to believe me again - but too late to reignite his fire. I think he did about 5% too little which, coupled with my inexperience and naiivity, sunk me.
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Poor Paul was almost as crushed as I was - the only difference is that he was expecting it. I felt quite sorry for him as he walked away, his shoulders a little rounder, his head a little lower and his fat briefcase stuffed now with even more pointless paperwork.
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And back he fades into the world of criminals, maniacs and idiots, spread sheets, pie charts and Team Meetings. Still, he got his Legal Aid payment. Well, some of it, anyway. Apparently, there were certain restrictions he hadn't anticipated.
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I salute you, Paul Smithers - another 5% and we might just have shaved it, another ten and we'd have aced it.

[The Legendary Shark]

M.I.K., I think it's called The Frankfurt School Method of Managed Social Decline, if I remember the theory. The idea was to subdue and conquer countries without war, using such things as a simplified school curriculum, the manufacture of undistinguished and pointless public heroes, bribery and corruption of public figures, the demonization of nationalism, the erosion of family values, the starvation of public services, expansion of restrictive and contradictory laws, the confusion of freedom with freedom of choice, control of the money/debt supply, erosion of faith in public bodies, the installation of repulsive politicians and the demonization of beloved national figures - and all that kind of stuff.
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Of course, there's no way that could be happening to us just because a handful of insane trillionaires wish it so. We're too smart to be fooled in such a manner, I hope.

[Frank]

Not sure if this is the right thread for this, but I can't think of another one for it.

Anyway the whole Rolf Harris thing got me thinking about the past; and though Russell Brand puts it better than I do, it's like a huge chunk of your childhood has crumbled away. Savile always seemed a little bit creepy, but Harris seemed like a source of decency, kindness and trustworthiness.

Similarly, while we've had a couple of decades here in Ireland to get used to the fact that the church that everyone let dictate morality was in fact a festering sewer of corruption and depravity, and still it continues to horrify as more and more of its past crimes come to light - the mass graves of children in the news lately are an example.  The church could, at the time, commit pretty much as many sex crimes and murders as they liked while remaining safe in the knowledge that nobody would prosecute them.

Murders may not have been as common one hundred years ago, but it was perfectly acceptable for governments to wipe out almost a whole generation of young European men in World War 1.

The tabloids like to make us believe that crime is rampant these days; and there's a general feeling that things were safer in the past.  The Rolf Harris has made me think that maybe this is all bullshit - it's just that rape and murder were covered up more in the past; and all that nostalgia that older people feel for the more tranquil life they used to have is just a memory of the lacquer that authority figures painted over the brutality and cruelty that has always been part of being human.

Maybe, in fact, things are safer today than they were - while there may indeed be more criminals on the streets, at least if someone rapes or murders children they can be made accountable for it.

Such a great post it's worth quoting in full. Anecdotal evidence can be just as misleading as the picture of rampant depravity and lawlessness currently painted by the media, but enough members of my extended family have made matter of fact mentions of things everyone knew were going on, and which would have been police matters today, that I came to a similar conclusion as yourself.

[Professor Bear]

the starvation of public services

The current lot have expanded this part to "starving the public" period, so if nothing else you have to admire their initiative.

Me, I subscribe to the simpler theory that they're greedy fuckers who don't care what harm their actions and policies cause, as saying they have an evil long-term conspiracy gives them too much credit that they might actually have some kind of plan or coda.  Sustaining an atmosphere of fear and mining our childhoods to create bogeymen is just another extension of that - scare stories and sensationalist language shifts papers and the bastards want your money.

[Frank]

The individualism and self centred nature of the eighties, and the blame/victim culture which followed, rightly attract a lot of criticism. What they replaced, though, were (now-romanticised) communal values, which meant conceiving of yourself as an unimportant part of a larger whole, and ensured that the people in your family, in your town, and any representative of authority enjoyed your unquestioning compliance and discretion. 

It's not difficult to see how the disintegration of those bonds and that trust in authority, caused by the last few decades of rampant individualism, are at least partly responsible for the way the scales are currently falling from our eyes. That's why I'm sceptical about Russell Brand's spiritual prescription concerning the malady for all our ills, since it's (in part) just the 12 step programme's injunction to accept your powerlessness and place your faith in a higher power - which is what got us, the BBC, and the cops into such trouble with the likes of Savile, Hall, and Harris.

Before Burdis gets all excited, I'm not arguing that Thatcherism or Thatcher were good things - I'd say they were in many ways very bad things - but this is just the latest demonstration of the fascinating way bad things sometimes have unintended and good consequences, and vice versa. I always found Rolf Harris a bit creepy as a kid, but I also spent hours in rapt fascination watching him draw. There's no contradiction in that, for me, because of that potential for virtue to spring from evil - which is a concept that fascinated another pervy sex offender who exercised a hold over my youthful imagination.

[The Legendary Shark]

Yes, they are "greedy fuckers who don't care what harm their actions and policies cause" - but who sponsors their campaigns, donates to their parties, lobbies them incessantly and give them good jobs when they inevitably crash out of office?
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Here's a clue - last year alone, Tony Blair reportedly earned £13M from JP Morgan...

[ZenArcade]

Interesting views on crime on the thread. There is the argument supported by a lot of statistical evidence (you laugh, I know) that Crime is falling year on year. As part of my job, I like to keep abreast of the current theories. One that facinated me was that, so the argument goes, violent crime has actually increased and the only reason society isn't dealing with a murder pandemic is due to the impact of more effective medical treatment, from the initial response through the treatment process. Z

[Frank]

There is the argument supported by a lot of statistical evidence (you laugh, I know) that Crime is falling year on year

Promoted by Steve Pinker, mainly. The Accident and Emergency idea is an interesting counter theory.

[M.I.K.]

but I also spent hours in rapt fascination watching him draw.

I didn't even rate his drawing that much, probably mainly due to his complete inability to draw a recognisable depiction of Bugs Bunny on Cartoon Time, (and his Daffy Duck wasn't much better). I always wanted him to stop the amateurish scrawling and just show the damn cartoons. And then there was his continuing belief that Tweety Pie was female, despite all evidence to the contrary. I'm sure I remember him referring to Jerry, (of Tom and Jerry), as 'she' on at least a couple of occasions as well.

Cartoon Club was a better format, but Rolf's attempts at drawing well-known cartoon characters didn't really get any better.

[ZenArcade]

F**k Rolf Harris and the rest of those unfunny, spooky pricks who 'stole the nations heart' from the 60's onwards.
Agree that Jaysus and sauchie have contributed as elegantly and informatively as ever re this topic. I am staggered as a proud Irish man that finding upwards of 800 dead babies in a sh*t filled midden hasn't provoked national outrage. Those murdering bastards in Iraq machinegunned 1700 surrendered men in a ditch and there has been international shock and disgust. What the f**k is wrong with people on this island. Did the gombeen men steal our hearts and souls along with the monies earned by the sweat of our brows? Z

[Frank]

Russell Brand's spiritual prescription concerning the malady for all our ills

Malady, remedy; all the same.