http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rrtuo4NcV8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5bfvvL-3JE
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/photos-from-russia-everyone-needs-to-see
When you have been watching the game play out for as long as we have, it becomes quite clear when something really begins and when something is said to have begun by those doing it. It is true that The Final Solution was made Official in 1942 calling for the Genocide of the Jewish people but it is equally true that over one million Jews were massacred during the war years prior to the decision being officially made. The process to vilify a group of people is actually very simple and does not happen in one great national epiphany. It happens, normally, via the following method:
Pick a minority that is already Culturally different to the majority (Jews, Blacks, Gays, Benefit Claimants)
Then control all information regarding this group (October 1933 all Jews were banned from owning News Media Outlets or being Journalists, June 2013 Russia passes Anti Propaganda Law forbidding the public passing of information regarding Homosexuals)
Now portray this group as different, strange, immoral. Dehumanise them so that the population doesn't empathise with them. (Talliban, Insurgents, The Enemy, Arab, Poly-amorous... anything but nothing that is easily understood)
Now blame them for something (Nazi Germany blamed the Jews for causing the German depression, for causing Germany to lose the First World War, for dragging out the Second World War, for causing WW2, for contaminating German children, etc, etc - Russia is currently blaming the Gay community of damaging the values of Russia and posing as a threat to Russian children)
Now Punish them.
The rest is documented by the volumes of history, from the Genocides in Rwanda and Germany to the Witch hunts and crusades in ancient Israel. This formula is the one being followed by Russia and it is about midway through its completion. Steps three and four tend to last the longest, but sooner or later something always happens that can be used in propaganda against the groups. From a violent protest (never mind who caused the violence, they only focus on those involved in it) to a individuals human error, something always happens because things are happening all the time that can be twisted to fit the desired theme.
The volumes of history also answer for us a question which has recently been hyped up by the press, Will the Winter Olympics be safe for Gay Foreign Athletes? The answer is unequivocally Yes. They will be perfectly safe in the same way that the Berlin Olympics in 1936 were safe for black, Jewish and Disabled Athletes. And in also the same way, the sigh of relief shall be heard by our politicians on a global stage, that the situation is exaggerated, that the rumours of violence and extremist behaviour is nothing more than the reminiscent ramblings of war wishers and conspiracy nuts. Thus the violence shall continue unchallenged.
Fight this now! It is a cancer that spreads slowly by we all know the damage it causes.
Being apathetic, in situation, does real damage. Sitting on the fence is tantamount to endorsement.
Mr Magic
Wednesday, 31 July 2013
Tuesday, 30 July 2013
Mr Magic is back. Ready yourselves...
It has been a long time since my last piece of writing, since this time we have had a whole array of controversies, from SOPA and ACTA threatening the safety and openness of internet content, through to the economic devastations of Greece, Portugal and Italy, through to the mass release of secret government information from the likes of Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden, to the ever increasing cuts to public expenditure by the Coalition Government of the UK including cuts to policing budgets and cuts to local government budgets which in turn have led to almost the complete centralisation of funding for local arts and community projects. We also seem to have forgotten, like so many of the campaigns that came before it, including Make Poverty History and FairTrade, the fight against Joseph Kony, and the fight against Robert Mugabi and the fight against other tyrannical regimes, as if our own financial issues somehow give us the right to forgo our principles on the international stage in regards to the UN Convention on Human Rights. The campaign against Guantánamo Bay, fought so vigilantly by Senator and President-elect Barack Obama, seems to have been forgotten by the now elected second term President of the USA. That we have repeatedly shared the G8 and now G20 platform with countries such as China and Saudi Arabia without any remorse or sign of repulsion for the totalitarian regimes that these countries inflict on their civilians though it were only a few years prior that our liberal minority, which is now part of the UK Government, was calling for those in power to speak out against such regimes. They are now those in power. Where is their voice? Where was the no vote on the replacement of Trident? The no vote on increasing Student Fees? Where was the compassion and fairness when the Church of England was legally forbidden to marry same sex couples though other denominations and other religions are given this freedom?
We seem to live in a world of undulating and cyclical focus whereby we, as an electorate, are so often distracted by fabricated fears and controversies that, when we begin to unravel them, we find are nothing more than superficial exaggerations designed to distract us from some government policy change or some previous, equally hyped up, superficiality. We have been accepting, for far too long, "steps in the right direction" that repeatedly seem to miss their destination. We want to find renewable energy sources and yet we are now debating fracking natural gas from rocks. We want fiscal security and yet we are STILL borrowing money that we cannot afford to pay back. We want a safer, less nuclear world, and yet we are talking about renewing our nuclear program. When, at what point, will we give up this nonsensical approach of doing the wrong thing and yet expecting the right result?
Lets just take a look at Education to highlight this point. Recent changes to the UK Education system have attempted to align it more closely with the Grammar School Model whereby gaining knowledge of large amounts of raw data and remembering vast amounts of this data is deemed the primary purpose of schooling rather than the knowledge of how to interpret/re-encode data or formulate your own data, which is considered the primary purpose of the newer comprehensive model. On the surface this may appear simply to be a difference in approach, two different schools of thought that achieve the same objective, however they are not. One is a draconian system which has already been tried and is opposed not just by those teachers who are new to the profession, but by those teachers who had to follow this prescribed methodology for years and by its previous students who are now the parents of the children for whom this arcane system has once again been prescribed. This system was originally operationalised in 1946 and has since had very little revision. The other method is one of comprehension, whereby focus is put on the understanding of data rather than its retention. This method follows in conjuncture with most modern child psychological theories on learning and behaviour as well as is compatible with other creative learning and phenomenological learning strategies such as the phonetic method of literacy education championed by Montessori and the holistic contemporary methods being developed by Steiner Schools. Sir Ken Robinson has repeatedly spoken about the importance of creativity and innovation in formal educational settings, that in the Grammar model success in examinations relied not on the child's talents and skills but on their regurgitation of trivia. Patrick Awuah goes further to say that creativity and Arts Education in critical to forming the true leaders of tomorrows world, in terms specifically of creative arts and not just the arts history so often excused as art classes under the aforementioned model. Yet is the UK increasing its use and acceptance of the recommended comprehensive model which is advocated by nearly all educators including our own Universities? No. Instead we are blindly following the moronic method condemned by so many because it has been chosen by our own infallible Michael Gove. A man who is not an educator, not a lecturer, not a person for whom any of his decisions affect except maybe the light irritation of the occasional protester. But we must not fret, for whilst he maybe winding the clock back on most mainstream educational institutions to a time of tyrannical cane wielding and the endless recitation of mildly useless information , he is also a great supporter of "free schools" which are schools run by Educators free from the influence of Local government and the National Curriculum, provided they meet the educational standards set by Ofsted. These schools are also advocated by almost all educators provided they are correctly audited and inspected and it is here that we find that over-used cliché "its a step in the right direction"! Really?! Well if you feel that a group of 24 schools, three of whom Ofsted regard as "require improvement" and one of which has been deemed "inadequate", are the saving grace by which the rest of the poorly made educational policies can be counter weighted against it might be worth remembering that there are 3,268 mainstream secondary school institutions in the UK educating 7.2 million students each year that are being plunged back into the dark ages of church-mentality teaching. A "Step in the right direction" is a far cry from arriving at the correct destination and "a miss is as good as a mile".
I now turn my attention to the legal case of Bradley Manning. It is very clearly written in the UN Third Geneva convention that prisoners still have certain rights including the right to adequate food and water, the right to humane treatment including the prohibition of humiliation, public curiosity and intimidation towards them. All of these rights were broken by the US when several members of the Senate, including the speaker of the house, publicly announced Manning as a traitor who should be on trial for treason and killed. By saying "and killed" they had already assumed guilt which people in such legal positions as Senators and House Representatives have no right to do. Furthermore, there are reports from friends with visitation rights to Manning that he was getting thinner and was looking unhealthy. In light of the aforementioned Guantánamo Bay and other prisons such as Abu Ghraib, Bagram Air Base Prison and Shebarghan Prison it is not too much of a stretch of the imagination to assume that Mr Manning may have been subject to some loose form of starvation. If any of these claims are proven to be true (which in the case of public curiosity I hold to be self evidently true) any admissions or confessions are thus null and void because, according to the UN Third Geneva Convention which The US has signed in agreement with, they were coerced from Manning. This is a very clear case, this is not speculative theorising, this is universally recognised law which, if this were in any other country, would have Amnesty International crawling all over it. However, instead, Amnesty is supporting free speech not by defending someone who has used this right in one of its most important and intended forms (whistle-blowing) but is instead supporting "Pussy Riot's" right to stage a punk prayer. Whilst it would be counter-productive for me to condemn Pussy Riot to the pit that Vladimir Putin has destined for them, I do think that Amnesty should prioritise Bradley Manning's case as his current sentence could be as much as 136 years imprisonment, which is quintessentially a death penalty. BUT don't worry, at least he hasn't been actually given THE death penalty... and as such once more that ugly phrase rears its semantic face "its a step in the right direction"...
Mr Magic
We seem to live in a world of undulating and cyclical focus whereby we, as an electorate, are so often distracted by fabricated fears and controversies that, when we begin to unravel them, we find are nothing more than superficial exaggerations designed to distract us from some government policy change or some previous, equally hyped up, superficiality. We have been accepting, for far too long, "steps in the right direction" that repeatedly seem to miss their destination. We want to find renewable energy sources and yet we are now debating fracking natural gas from rocks. We want fiscal security and yet we are STILL borrowing money that we cannot afford to pay back. We want a safer, less nuclear world, and yet we are talking about renewing our nuclear program. When, at what point, will we give up this nonsensical approach of doing the wrong thing and yet expecting the right result?
Lets just take a look at Education to highlight this point. Recent changes to the UK Education system have attempted to align it more closely with the Grammar School Model whereby gaining knowledge of large amounts of raw data and remembering vast amounts of this data is deemed the primary purpose of schooling rather than the knowledge of how to interpret/re-encode data or formulate your own data, which is considered the primary purpose of the newer comprehensive model. On the surface this may appear simply to be a difference in approach, two different schools of thought that achieve the same objective, however they are not. One is a draconian system which has already been tried and is opposed not just by those teachers who are new to the profession, but by those teachers who had to follow this prescribed methodology for years and by its previous students who are now the parents of the children for whom this arcane system has once again been prescribed. This system was originally operationalised in 1946 and has since had very little revision. The other method is one of comprehension, whereby focus is put on the understanding of data rather than its retention. This method follows in conjuncture with most modern child psychological theories on learning and behaviour as well as is compatible with other creative learning and phenomenological learning strategies such as the phonetic method of literacy education championed by Montessori and the holistic contemporary methods being developed by Steiner Schools. Sir Ken Robinson has repeatedly spoken about the importance of creativity and innovation in formal educational settings, that in the Grammar model success in examinations relied not on the child's talents and skills but on their regurgitation of trivia. Patrick Awuah goes further to say that creativity and Arts Education in critical to forming the true leaders of tomorrows world, in terms specifically of creative arts and not just the arts history so often excused as art classes under the aforementioned model. Yet is the UK increasing its use and acceptance of the recommended comprehensive model which is advocated by nearly all educators including our own Universities? No. Instead we are blindly following the moronic method condemned by so many because it has been chosen by our own infallible Michael Gove. A man who is not an educator, not a lecturer, not a person for whom any of his decisions affect except maybe the light irritation of the occasional protester. But we must not fret, for whilst he maybe winding the clock back on most mainstream educational institutions to a time of tyrannical cane wielding and the endless recitation of mildly useless information , he is also a great supporter of "free schools" which are schools run by Educators free from the influence of Local government and the National Curriculum, provided they meet the educational standards set by Ofsted. These schools are also advocated by almost all educators provided they are correctly audited and inspected and it is here that we find that over-used cliché "its a step in the right direction"! Really?! Well if you feel that a group of 24 schools, three of whom Ofsted regard as "require improvement" and one of which has been deemed "inadequate", are the saving grace by which the rest of the poorly made educational policies can be counter weighted against it might be worth remembering that there are 3,268 mainstream secondary school institutions in the UK educating 7.2 million students each year that are being plunged back into the dark ages of church-mentality teaching. A "Step in the right direction" is a far cry from arriving at the correct destination and "a miss is as good as a mile".
I now turn my attention to the legal case of Bradley Manning. It is very clearly written in the UN Third Geneva convention that prisoners still have certain rights including the right to adequate food and water, the right to humane treatment including the prohibition of humiliation, public curiosity and intimidation towards them. All of these rights were broken by the US when several members of the Senate, including the speaker of the house, publicly announced Manning as a traitor who should be on trial for treason and killed. By saying "and killed" they had already assumed guilt which people in such legal positions as Senators and House Representatives have no right to do. Furthermore, there are reports from friends with visitation rights to Manning that he was getting thinner and was looking unhealthy. In light of the aforementioned Guantánamo Bay and other prisons such as Abu Ghraib, Bagram Air Base Prison and Shebarghan Prison it is not too much of a stretch of the imagination to assume that Mr Manning may have been subject to some loose form of starvation. If any of these claims are proven to be true (which in the case of public curiosity I hold to be self evidently true) any admissions or confessions are thus null and void because, according to the UN Third Geneva Convention which The US has signed in agreement with, they were coerced from Manning. This is a very clear case, this is not speculative theorising, this is universally recognised law which, if this were in any other country, would have Amnesty International crawling all over it. However, instead, Amnesty is supporting free speech not by defending someone who has used this right in one of its most important and intended forms (whistle-blowing) but is instead supporting "Pussy Riot's" right to stage a punk prayer. Whilst it would be counter-productive for me to condemn Pussy Riot to the pit that Vladimir Putin has destined for them, I do think that Amnesty should prioritise Bradley Manning's case as his current sentence could be as much as 136 years imprisonment, which is quintessentially a death penalty. BUT don't worry, at least he hasn't been actually given THE death penalty... and as such once more that ugly phrase rears its semantic face "its a step in the right direction"...
Mr Magic
Thursday, 17 May 2012
The Volunteer Performer Scam of The Century!
Warning! This blog entry is more of a rant than anything else...
"Volunteer performers needed!"
And with these words, the biggest scam of the 21st century begins! Now, I know that by the end of this blog post, I am not going to be favourable with alot of people within the "Arts world" however you wouldn't ask for a volunteer barmaid or a volunteer cashier, but by some amazing streak of industrial blagging, employers within the arts industry feel no remorse at refusing to pay people for performing. Furthermore, the victims of this industrial slave mentality are so engulfed by their stockholm syndrome for the arts that they begin to Thank! to Thank! those who have refused to pay them for their services for giving them "the opportunity" and the "experience"!
This is very simply a scam and please don't just take my word for it, lets take a look at the numbers! If I sell tickets to see a show at £8-10 and I get an audience of say 400, that £3200-4000 of income. If I only have to remove say £200 for the rent of a hall for an evening (this is often waved, especially if the venue has a bar as the bar intake is normally enough) and a further £300-500 for props and costume, then I, the very very crafty producer, am walking away with a profit of £2500-3500 for the first show and then a profit of £3000-3800 for every subsequent show! if I paid each of my actors just MINIMUM WAGE and the show lasted one hour, I would need to employ 455 people to make a loss. As it is the average show contains 10-25 actors and this means that, unless the show lasted for more than 18 hours, I am guaranteed a profit. Moreover I could, at these prices, afford to pay my actors £100 each night and still walk away with £500-1300 profit after the second show.
There is no reason why performers should be expected to use their skills for free under these circumstances!
There is also this second ridiculous notion that performers need to perform for free for a certain period at the beginnings of their career to somehow prove their dedication to the arts. This notion is absurd! Plumbers are not expected to plumb for free at the beginnings of their career to prove their dedication to their craft, neither are shop assistants, nor bakers, nor even the armed forces! It is simply part of the indoctrination into this scam.
Simply put, if you are working for someone and making them money, then you should ensure that you are not doing it for free.
Mr Magic
Tuesday, 6 March 2012
Evil has a name and that name is Joseph Kony
The Following is a letter sent to the UK's Foreign Secretary, William Hague, on the 7th of March 2012.
This Email have been reformatted and my real name has been omitted as well as some information changed to hide the number of private subscribers to this Blog (Mentioned in the original only to add some pressure to gain a reply faster).
Dear Mr Hague
This Email have been reformatted and my real name has been omitted as well as some information changed to hide the number of private subscribers to this Blog (Mentioned in the original only to add some pressure to gain a reply faster).
Dear Mr Hague
I am writing to bring to your attention the brilliant work of "Invisible Children", A campaign to stop child abduction, sex slavery and abuse by the Militant African group "The Lords Resistance Army" (more commonly referred to as the LRA) who's crimes against humanity are so vile and shocking as to challenge our very understanding of the ethical paradigm we call Humanity.
The Leader of the LRA is Joseph Kony, he is currently at the top of the International Criminal Courts Most Wanted list above many War lords and Terrorists, not simply because of the number of deaths that he is responsible for, but because of the perversity of his crimes. From forming an Army of child soldiers (who are forced to kill their parents) to selling children as young as eight years of age into prostitution, Kony belongs to the very select group of people who, to define as human, degrades our species. However what separates Kony from this group, is not the crimes which he has committed but the length of time he has been allowed to commit them by the international community.
Kony has been actively committing these crimes against humanity since 1986! That means that he has now generations of soldiers, all of whom started out as child soldiers and many of whom are now Senior Commanders in his 30,000 strong army. We have allowed this atrocity to continue for 26 years and to allow it to continue for a single day longer could only be described as abominable.
How was this situation allowed to develop? Simple, Kony and the LRA were both born in Uganda, Africa. There is no oil in Uganda, it is not part of the EU, NATO or any such body other than the UN. It is a very poor country and its inhabitants are Africans. If they were British, French, American, German, Russian, Chinese, Australian or any other nationality apart from African there would be international uproar but Africa has come to accept that in the eyes of the greater international community, they are simply irrelevant. Please do not mistake this as a claim of racism on behalf of the international community, this has nothing to do with the colour of an Africans skin, only the geography that persons birth.
There is no argument against this point by the way. It is fact that during the last 18 years of Kony's rebellion over 1.6 million Ugandans have become internally displaced and a further 40,000 (over half of whom are children) walk miles each night to the nearest major city to try to avoid abduction in their smaller villages and towns, only to have to walk back to their villages at day-break. If over 20,000 children and their parents were sleeping each night in schools, hospital courtyards and Bus stations around London or Paris (or any city in Europe!) for fear of abduction it would be international news in seconds and it would be mere hours before we would be offered/be offering international aid.
So far the only international aid that has been offered to the Ugandan Government to help stop the LRA is 100 US Military personnel, who are "consultants" to the Ugandan Government but are not going to be conducting any direct or indirect effort to try to bring to justice Joseph Kony, their remit is to "remove Joseph Kony from the battlefield".
This, rather token act, is the socio-political equivalent of giving someone a litre bottle of water to help fight a forest fire. Yes it will help, but a lot more is needed and its needed now!
We need to find a way to limit and stop the activities of the LRA. We need to find a way of counselling these children and adults back into society after, what could have been, years of fear and forced atrocities. We need to find a way of making sure that this never can happen again.
I will not claim to have the answers, I do not know whether removing Kony will just lead to a new leader of the LRA or whether as it was born with him, so it would die with him. What I do know is that Kony must be brought to trial, he must be seen by the world as the vile filth that he is and most importantly we, Europe and the rest of the world must stop ignoring the internal issues of African nations. It was mostly our ignorance which facilitated the growth of the LRA and so it should be mostly our attention which leads to its ultimate end.
I eagerly await your reply as to what you plan to propose in parliament, to aid the plight of the Ugandan people and to bring to justice Joseph Kony.
Yours Sincerely
Mr Magic
Monday, 28 November 2011
The Economy solved... do I have your attention? Good.
At current the economy is a, shall we say, confusing entity. Like the facts surrounding the middle-east conflict, there seems to be just as much misinformation as there is truth and because of this, whenever we hear the words "economy", "fiscal" or "monetary",whilst we may not understand what is being said, but we can be reasonably certain that its not good.
So allow me to simplify the issue with a very brief history of the economic crisis, leaving out all of the hype and ridiculous words such as "fiscal" which means "money", or "monetary" which means... "money"! or "quantative easing" which, though it sounds like it should have something to do with making an obese man's trousers slightly bigger round the waist, simply means printing money.
Basically what happened was that we (and by we I mean bankers) borrowed lots and lots of money at a certain interest rate price (this we will call "loan 1"). This price is paid annually yearly until the borrowed money is returned. What the banks then did was invest lend this borrowed money to businesses and individuals at an even higher interest price (this we will call "loan 2") and in so doing, reaping the profits money left over after paying the first, lower price. Now this sounds like a very clever scheme, and it would have been had they not become over zealous with there lending. Not only were banks lending to other banks (which they assumed were doing all the necessary checks to insure that they could pay back the loans which they were taking out and so often neglected to do the necessary checks themselves, which in and of itself is not that bad because everyone assumes that the one thing banks know how to handle is there own monetary affairs money... or at least back then they did) but they were also lending more and more recklessly to more and more high risk ventures people who may have not been able to pay the money back.
It is often at this point in the explanation that bankers say that it was the borrowers fault for borrowing more than they could pay back. This is not true, if you are loaning out other peoples money then it is your responsibility to ensure that the people whom you loan the money too are reputable and have the income ability to pay it back plus the interest on top price. It is double your responsibility if loaning lending money is your JOB and you are paid to do it!
So then the inevitable happened and people could not pay back the loans ("loan 2") so now banks were accumulating adding on month by month and year by year, the yearly interest price which they had to pay on their loans ("loan 1") which they took out to fund them lending out money in the first place (I know this is a bit confusing but basically the banks are now getting in debt). A lot of these loans ("loan 2") were being secured against properties (if they couldn't pay back the money the back would take the persons home as payment) however because prices of houses were so high, people were not buying them so banks had to keep reducing and reducing the price of the houses which they were selling meaning that they were not getting back the amount of money they were expecting (banks now getting into even more debt). Moreover, the lowering of the house prices at market level meant that house prices in general started to decline and as such the mortgages on them money borrowed to buy them became more than these houses became worth (these "mortgages worth more than the houses" are referred to as "sub-prime mortgages").
To compound the issue even further, bundles of these "sub-prime mortgages" were being sold (yes that's right, they were selling debts, as in "if you buy this off me, then they will owe you the money which they owe me") in a shop called "wall street" (its a shop where you can buy and sell industry specific banking and investment products and ventures stuff that is so detached from reality that it is questionable whether or not it even exists) under the new title "structured Investment Vehicle" (SIV) and these SIV's were being bought and sold as if they were an independent entity from the debt which they are made up of (brings to mind an image of playing pass the parcel with a bomb). Whoever ended up with a SIV which they couldn't sell on, when looking inside it to try and claim the debt money owed, often discovered that it was in fact a lot less money than what they had paid to buy it in the first place. Moreover, the people who owe the money often couldn't pay it back and repossessing selling the house it was secured against would be pointless as the house is worth less than the money owed (are you still following? basically the banks are really really in debt now!)
Now, the question is raised, who do the banks owe? And the answer is us! Its our money which we are putting in current accounts and savings accounts which is being loaned out and gambled on by the bankers. As such, it isn't directly them who are accumulating building up debt, but the company which is the bank. If the bank invests lends poorly, it isn't the bankers who lose their money, but us whose money they have been playing with. It is this knowledge which led the banks the turn to the Government to ask them to pay off the banks debts ("loan 1") on the basis that it would harm the general economy because millions of people would lose lots of money (neglecting the fact that it was entirely the bankers fault that millions of people would lose lots of money, and in so doing ensuring no negative repercussions for the bankers). The Government agreed and used tax money to pay off the banks debts (which basically means we paid money to the Government, to pay money to the banks, to save our money... confused? you should be.). Now this would have been Ok had the Government had enough money to do this... but it didn't, in fact the Government were one of the organisations which had been borrowing money off of the banks in the first place!
This massive climate of debt triggered what is referred to as a "recession" which is basically when people stop spending. This meant that people were not buying products so companies were not making projected profits so there share value was declining on wall street which meant value of the company was declining which mean wages and jobs were being cut which meant people had less money so they stopped spending which meant products weren't being bought... and round and round it went. To end this vicious cycle, the government injected billions of pounds into the economy, which it of course didn't have and so had to borrow, which increased its debt even more.
This recession was not limited to the UK but was a Global recession which affected Europe and US just as much. This is because banks were borrowing and lending internationally meaning that bail-outs (governments saving banks) were being made Globally not just in the UK and all government were borrowing and thus getting in debt.
Because of the annual price put on this debt, for every year that it goes unpaid, its cost increases. In the UK this has got to a point where we now owe 2.2 trillion pounds, which is nearly 5% of all the money that there is in the world!
So how do we solve this horrible situation? The answer is actually very very simple. First you pay bankers by commission with a five year deferred gratification period. If the investment's which they make prove profitable, then after five years (whereby sustained profitability can be determined) they get paid a percentage of the profit of the investment. This means less risk for our money and more incentive for bankers to make cautious and yet profitable decisions with our money. We also need to put in place regulation which states that any investment losses are shared equally amongst the investor (us) and the investing banker (the bankers) this way they are held accountable, in an appropriate manor, for the decisions they make.
secondly, to pay off this massive debt build up we need to do one very simple thing which we should have done a long long long time ago...
LEGALISE CANNABIS!
The cannabis trade in the UK is currently estimated to be worth £85 a week for over 3 million people, thats £255 million a week and £13.26 billion a year! current policing of cannabis costs £50 million a year meaning we could save £13.31 billion a year if we just stopped saying cannabis was illegal and started growing it here instead of farms abroad. More over it would destroy the drug cartels and dealer networks which is estimated to save the police a further £2 billion a year! The regulation of the drug would also meant less dangers to the users and an estimated saving to the NHS of a further £500 million a year! That's a total saving of £15.81 billion! or in other words, £15.81 billion is how much it costs to keep cannabis illegal!
Thirdly, you bring every troop home! Every single troop that is stationed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea, it doesn't matter you bring them back. We can't afford war on a moral or an economic basis. If people choose to attack us then we retaliate but until then why aggravate foreign sovereignties? We can leave america to do that!
These are just two of the very simple things that can be done to help the UK out of this financial crisis. They are not radical, nor are they new ideas... in fact they are very old ideas which have been mentioned countless times by numerous people. I am not radical, nor am I trying to be radical by advocating them. I also advocate having a maximum wage per employee so that if you own a company which employ's only ten people, then you as the owner/CEO can only earn so much until you employ more people. This way it is ensured that where money is being made it is also being distributed in a fair manor. This is not so much socialism as responsible social capitalism.
Remember, the more people earning, the more people spending.
Mr Magic
Friday, 16 September 2011
Israel: Without the history lesson please!
Israel. A small strip of land, about the size of wales, that is claimed to be one of the top 5 worst human rights violators. In fact many claim the west bank as being the worst place to live on the planet... period.
These people are what I like to call "wrong".
Isreal is not amoungst the top 5 worst human rights violaters, in fact its not even amoungst the top 10. If you truely think that the West Bank is the worst place to live on the planet, try spending a weekend in the Sudan or Somalia... or maybe North Korea and see if you still feel that way afterwards.
That's not to say that Israel has a squeaky clean human rights record, because it doesn't, it does violate the basic human rights of hundreds of people every day, most of these people being ethnographically percieved as palestinian, however it does nothing to help the pleight of these genuinely oppressed people by exaggerating the extent of the violations and extrapolating into relms of oppression that simply are not truthful in there representation of the situation in Israel.
This brings up an important question however, seeing as Israel is not actually amoungst the top worst countries in the world, why are we always hearing so much about Israel and so little about all these other countries? The answer to this is three-fold; Geographical, Historical and PR(ical?)
Geographically Israel is situated right in the middle of the Middle East, all reginal policies must consider it and any transport over land or air must negotiate with it. It has a near inpenitrable desert and situated right in the middle of that desert is demona, Israels Nuclear facility. It also has some of the most fertile ground in the whole of the region. This makes it an incrediably important political figure in the region and, taking into consideration the wider region's oil reserves, one of the most important areas in the world.
Historically, Israel (specifically Jerusalem and Bethlehem) is the birth place for many of the world's major religons including all the Abrahamic Faiths (Christianity, Islam and Judaism), Many wars have been fought to maintain its existance, during one of which nuclear bombs were very nearly used. Historically its international secret service MOSSAD is viewed as being the best secret service in the world, not only in capturing escaped nazi officers but also in counter-terrorism. This meant that after the event of 9/11 the US turned to Israel to help it in its "war on terror". Add to all of this the extreme circumstances in central Europe during the 1930's-40's which led to the UN deciding to establish Israel as a Jewish State in the first place and we can see that it is historically very significant.
A point should be made here that it is very easy to get caught up in the religious aspects of Israel and in so doing, ignoring the actual reasons for the conflict. This is not, nor should anyone try to twist it into becoming, a religious war. The conflict in Israel is currently based around land ownership and Human Rights and these are this key issus which need to be resolved.
In terms of public relations, it can simply be said that because Israel is currently under media attention, other media are jumping onto the band wagon and so it will continue to be in the public eye until either something really major happens elsewhere or until the issues are resolved and so stop becoming news worthy (media and good news tend not to mix so much).
So how can we resolve the situation in Israel?
Well many political bodies are advocating a two-state solution whereby a seperate Palestinian state is formed in the West Bank, bordering both Israel and Jordan. However, Many others are advocating a single-state solution and equalting a two-state solution to being the same as the "separate but equal" policy of segregated 1950's US. Those advocating the two-state solution reply by saying that two states would be more equale than the situation at current and so thusly an arguement ensues.
I personally do not advocate either a two-state or the current single state solutions. In fact I do not advocate any solution because all of the current ones being debated are formed from political bodies, each one with their own personal agendas. The Arab League, The UN, The US and even Amnesty International have all demonstrated extreme bias on the issue of the Middle East and so no solution which is designed by any of these bodys can be truely trusted to be based around what is best for the people of the region. Instead I advocate, not a solution but a system whereby, instead of top-down solutions being formed, bottom-up solutions can be formed about how to resolve individual conflicts in individual towns and neigbourhoods. This system can be refered to as local social networking and, due to current technology, doesn't even need a mediator. All solutions to local issues can be discussed by local peoples and then either voted on or decided upon within the same medium. Even better than this, if international expertise is required, that too can be sought within the same medium. Now many of you maybe asking, what is this magical medium of which I speak, where we can vote and learn and discuss with people across the seas? I have a one word answer for you: Facebook.
Facebook, Twitter and I'll go so far as to say basic Email! Any form of communication which can be seen by all local parties and can be made at anytime by anyone within the locality.
We have already seen how effective Facebook can be at organising clean up efforts around London and England, as well as making the world aware of major international events such as the Norway attack. Thus I cannot see a reason why social networking cannot bring about peace in the Middle East.
Please note very clearly that I am not claiming to have found the solution or even a solution to the issues in the Middle East, but I am claiming very strongly that the only place where such solutions can be formed, and be relevant, are from within the region itself, so instead of us" internationals" looking for a solution to the problem, we should instead be focusing on facilitating modes whereby solutions can be internally formed. These modes need to be primarily safe areas of discussion where not only are people allowed to express their opinions but also their naiveitys about the issues affecting their areas and about those whom they have been culturally taught are "the enemy/the other".
It is especially important that these modes be kept clear of external political motives, a prime example of which would be thirsty America (a thirst which seems to only get worse the more oil it drinks).
Mr Magic
These people are what I like to call "wrong".
Isreal is not amoungst the top 5 worst human rights violaters, in fact its not even amoungst the top 10. If you truely think that the West Bank is the worst place to live on the planet, try spending a weekend in the Sudan or Somalia... or maybe North Korea and see if you still feel that way afterwards.
That's not to say that Israel has a squeaky clean human rights record, because it doesn't, it does violate the basic human rights of hundreds of people every day, most of these people being ethnographically percieved as palestinian, however it does nothing to help the pleight of these genuinely oppressed people by exaggerating the extent of the violations and extrapolating into relms of oppression that simply are not truthful in there representation of the situation in Israel.
This brings up an important question however, seeing as Israel is not actually amoungst the top worst countries in the world, why are we always hearing so much about Israel and so little about all these other countries? The answer to this is three-fold; Geographical, Historical and PR(ical?)
Geographically Israel is situated right in the middle of the Middle East, all reginal policies must consider it and any transport over land or air must negotiate with it. It has a near inpenitrable desert and situated right in the middle of that desert is demona, Israels Nuclear facility. It also has some of the most fertile ground in the whole of the region. This makes it an incrediably important political figure in the region and, taking into consideration the wider region's oil reserves, one of the most important areas in the world.
Historically, Israel (specifically Jerusalem and Bethlehem) is the birth place for many of the world's major religons including all the Abrahamic Faiths (Christianity, Islam and Judaism), Many wars have been fought to maintain its existance, during one of which nuclear bombs were very nearly used. Historically its international secret service MOSSAD is viewed as being the best secret service in the world, not only in capturing escaped nazi officers but also in counter-terrorism. This meant that after the event of 9/11 the US turned to Israel to help it in its "war on terror". Add to all of this the extreme circumstances in central Europe during the 1930's-40's which led to the UN deciding to establish Israel as a Jewish State in the first place and we can see that it is historically very significant.
A point should be made here that it is very easy to get caught up in the religious aspects of Israel and in so doing, ignoring the actual reasons for the conflict. This is not, nor should anyone try to twist it into becoming, a religious war. The conflict in Israel is currently based around land ownership and Human Rights and these are this key issus which need to be resolved.
In terms of public relations, it can simply be said that because Israel is currently under media attention, other media are jumping onto the band wagon and so it will continue to be in the public eye until either something really major happens elsewhere or until the issues are resolved and so stop becoming news worthy (media and good news tend not to mix so much).
So how can we resolve the situation in Israel?
Well many political bodies are advocating a two-state solution whereby a seperate Palestinian state is formed in the West Bank, bordering both Israel and Jordan. However, Many others are advocating a single-state solution and equalting a two-state solution to being the same as the "separate but equal" policy of segregated 1950's US. Those advocating the two-state solution reply by saying that two states would be more equale than the situation at current and so thusly an arguement ensues.
I personally do not advocate either a two-state or the current single state solutions. In fact I do not advocate any solution because all of the current ones being debated are formed from political bodies, each one with their own personal agendas. The Arab League, The UN, The US and even Amnesty International have all demonstrated extreme bias on the issue of the Middle East and so no solution which is designed by any of these bodys can be truely trusted to be based around what is best for the people of the region. Instead I advocate, not a solution but a system whereby, instead of top-down solutions being formed, bottom-up solutions can be formed about how to resolve individual conflicts in individual towns and neigbourhoods. This system can be refered to as local social networking and, due to current technology, doesn't even need a mediator. All solutions to local issues can be discussed by local peoples and then either voted on or decided upon within the same medium. Even better than this, if international expertise is required, that too can be sought within the same medium. Now many of you maybe asking, what is this magical medium of which I speak, where we can vote and learn and discuss with people across the seas? I have a one word answer for you: Facebook.
Facebook, Twitter and I'll go so far as to say basic Email! Any form of communication which can be seen by all local parties and can be made at anytime by anyone within the locality.
We have already seen how effective Facebook can be at organising clean up efforts around London and England, as well as making the world aware of major international events such as the Norway attack. Thus I cannot see a reason why social networking cannot bring about peace in the Middle East.
Please note very clearly that I am not claiming to have found the solution or even a solution to the issues in the Middle East, but I am claiming very strongly that the only place where such solutions can be formed, and be relevant, are from within the region itself, so instead of us" internationals" looking for a solution to the problem, we should instead be focusing on facilitating modes whereby solutions can be internally formed. These modes need to be primarily safe areas of discussion where not only are people allowed to express their opinions but also their naiveitys about the issues affecting their areas and about those whom they have been culturally taught are "the enemy/the other".
It is especially important that these modes be kept clear of external political motives, a prime example of which would be thirsty America (a thirst which seems to only get worse the more oil it drinks).
Mr Magic
Sunday, 11 September 2011
The beginning of victory
Whosever said that political activism was folly has thus been proven wrong for it is true indeed that the ban on MSM Blood Donations has now officially been lifted! This has been announced and publisised in several key sources including the BBC and the Metro... however it isn't a complete victory.
The lifting of the ban is conditional, in complex terms the doner must not have engaged in MSM for at least a year before they can donate blood. In simple terms this means that if Mr Magic were to have sex with, oh lets say Mr... Science. We would both have to wait a year after our romantic evening before either of us would be allowed to donate blood, even though neither of us have ever been diagnosed with HIV. In fact even if we both got tested, then had sex, then waited three months and got tested again... with all the tests coming back negative for HIV... we would still need to wait another 9 months without having sex, before we would be allowed to donate blood.
The scientific basis for this is that there is a three month period, after catching HIV, where the virus is undetectable and so this time lapse is to allow the virus to become visible to the tests. Now, I could understand if the rule was that gay men had to wait three months after having sex with a new sexual partner, that would be completely scientifically justified... but twelve months of celebasy is not.
I am also, however, aware of the political context that we are currently in. It was very recently that the House of Lords Released a Study called "No Cure No Vaccine" (or something along thoughs lines) which documented an increase in people catching HIV and though I cannot prove it, I am sure that this study did have some impact on the 12 month rule. This 12 month rule is also applied to people who have injected illegal drugs or had sex with prostitutes (and their sexual partners).
Whilst I do not endorse applying the same rules as we do for prostitutes and drug addicts onto the gay community,I can say proudly that any lifting of the ban is a step in the right direction, not only because for what it means for gay equality, but also because it shows without a shadow of a doubt that direct political activism does actually achieve results.
Let the Doubters Doubt... You Just Need To Keep Campaigning!
Mr Magic
The lifting of the ban is conditional, in complex terms the doner must not have engaged in MSM for at least a year before they can donate blood. In simple terms this means that if Mr Magic were to have sex with, oh lets say Mr... Science. We would both have to wait a year after our romantic evening before either of us would be allowed to donate blood, even though neither of us have ever been diagnosed with HIV. In fact even if we both got tested, then had sex, then waited three months and got tested again... with all the tests coming back negative for HIV... we would still need to wait another 9 months without having sex, before we would be allowed to donate blood.
The scientific basis for this is that there is a three month period, after catching HIV, where the virus is undetectable and so this time lapse is to allow the virus to become visible to the tests. Now, I could understand if the rule was that gay men had to wait three months after having sex with a new sexual partner, that would be completely scientifically justified... but twelve months of celebasy is not.
I am also, however, aware of the political context that we are currently in. It was very recently that the House of Lords Released a Study called "No Cure No Vaccine" (or something along thoughs lines) which documented an increase in people catching HIV and though I cannot prove it, I am sure that this study did have some impact on the 12 month rule. This 12 month rule is also applied to people who have injected illegal drugs or had sex with prostitutes (and their sexual partners).
Whilst I do not endorse applying the same rules as we do for prostitutes and drug addicts onto the gay community,I can say proudly that any lifting of the ban is a step in the right direction, not only because for what it means for gay equality, but also because it shows without a shadow of a doubt that direct political activism does actually achieve results.
Let the Doubters Doubt... You Just Need To Keep Campaigning!
Mr Magic
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)