No Hope in Hagen

It's been a long week.

After an arduous, uncomfortable bus journey on a coach with no toilet or any leg room to speak of, arriving in Copenhagen should have felt like freedom but instead I have returned home feeling like I was more trapped in the city than I was on the Bus.

It could have been so very wonderful. World leaders could have stood in the Scandinavian snow announcing a progressive climate change agenda, a fair deal for poor countries and a legally binding agreement. Protesters on the streets could have put their point across peacefully, built links with each other and come up with joint solutions to offer to those meeting at the Bella Centre. Thousands of activists, after a week of productive direct action, demonstrations and inspiring events could have spread back across the world carrying with them news of a new movement built in Copenhagen that has promised to follow these leaders wherever they go, pressing them every time they appear to be failing on their promises.

To understand the repression of protest that took place outside the Bella Centre is to catch a glimpse of the decision making process that world leaders take part in. From the start of the week of action the Danish Police made it quite clear that dissent, whether peaceful or otherwise, would not be tolerated. In just 5 days I personally witnessed the ferocious police raid on Christiana, the surrounding and arresting of the entirety of a peaceful demonstration, the beating and pepper spraying of protesters who were entirely non-violent and the creation of a permanent state of fear among activists.

The police, if they had been paid by the IMF and WTO, would have made them proud. Rather than focusing on fair solutions to counter the blatant neoliberal doctrine of the summit activists were forced to discuss tactics on how to avoid police harassment and arrest. Rather than promoting the interests of those most affected by climate change, protesters were locked in cages, had their sleeping spaces raided, and were violently stopped from making their voices heard.

The situation at the summit itself was, even more worryingly, just as bad. Delegates from NGO's, journalists, developing nations representatives and others were, in effect, locked out of the Bella Centre for much of the week. Some queued for 10 hours on Monday only to be told they wouldn't be allowed in. Some never made it in all week as the allocation for 'civil society' shrunk with each day, finally to only 90 people on the final day of the talk.

If they had let the NGO's in, it probably wouldn't have made a difference. As the rich nations met in private and made the decisions, the poorest were forced to accept what they presented them. The final deal is everything we didn't want. It is weak, not legally binding and does far too little to help developing nations with climate change adaption and clean development. To clarify, the 'accord' signed by Britain, France, The USA and others makes no specific commitments in terms of time or levels of CO2 emissions, it makes a passing reference to keeping temperatures from rising above 2 degrees but no commitment to stop this from happening and, though it commits $100 billion a year this is not until 2020 and it is not clear who will distribute the cash. The deal is nothing short of criminal.

We trusted government to get us out of this mess and they have ultimately failed, we thought that at least on the streets we could get our voices heard but we have failed in that. The future is looking bleak. Not for us in the Global North, we'll cope, but for the hundreds of millions of people who have just witnessed the land that they live off, the rivers they drink from and the food they eat signed away.

Photos Courtesy of Max Wakefield: maxwak@gmail.com

I wish it was me

some one thourgh a fence through a starbucks window
and I wish it had been me
someone went and took the sandwiches
and I wish it was me.

someone else sat at home
and called us thugs
i'm happy that wasn't me.

Barack Obama...

The tears are rolling down the faces. Crowds are hissing and booing, shrieking and singing, hugging and kissing. I'm sitting on a sofa, in Nottingham, connected through cyberspace and satellite to the most significant election that I have ever and possibly will ever see.

John McCain is losing gracefully (because there is always a next time) and thanking the Lord, who didn't turn up for him today, and making verbal love with America because nothing means more to him than being an American. The failure is his, not his supporters apparently. Doubtless members of the audience are cursing today, the day that a man they would still like to refer to as a slave, is just about to enter the White House.

He may have just lost his mind, he just called Sarah Palin 'one the best campaigners he has ever seen'. I truly hope I never see her botox stretched face on a publication or TV screen ever again. The fact is, the republicans have had their time, they can boo and hiss all they want but the time for blatant free-market economics mixed with a lust for war and appetite for oil has come to an end.

'Americans never quit, never surrender and never hide from history'. Wise Words by Senator McCain. They don't quit of course, not in Vietnam, not in Iraq. They don't surrender, to the will of the rich, no not at all. And hide from history, of course not, they always talk about the Bay of Pigs, about supporting General Pinochet, about arming Osama Bin Laden, nothing to be ashamed of, nothing at all.

They're expecting a million on the street of Chicago tonight. A million on a general election night. That wouldn't happen here and I wonder why. Because our politics is about real issues or because our politics offers no real change. Who knows?
We just don't do sexy and loud. The Americans are good at least at one of those.

4.34. McCain 48% Obama 51%. No noticeable third party. Does everyone only believe in one of two frighteningly similar viewpoints? That. Is. Fucking. Scary. Why do less than 1% of the 'most free country in the world' manage to see more than two options? I wonder if party funding has anything to do with it?

1 in 3 black American boys born in 2001 will go to prison. 1 in 5 black men in the USA today have been to prison. He has a lot to do. He needs to close Guantanamo Bay as well. So stop black boys fucking up their lives and close the most high profil illegal detention centre in the world. It's a start isn't it. Can he also get out of the middle east? Stop supporting the Israeli state with Nuclear weopans? Provide socialised healthcare, free at the point of use? Make America drive less? Get rid of the death penalty? Stop the CIA undermiming nations that have a political system to the left of centre? Provide proper aid to developing nations? Spend less on the military and more on social services?

No. He. Can't.

Gore Vidal: 'They love war, they love money' The Republicans. Nice.

I want more pictures of republicans crying, hopefully wrapped in American Flags. I'd also like to see someone speak, just one person who doesn't feel proud of their country. Proud of what? Taking 8 years to work out that cutting taxes for the rich, waging war on the poor and creating more and more instability in the world? Why don't people realise how moronic, base and immature blind patriotism can be? How do so many people have the allout nerve to suggest that America is a place where those who work hard for what they want will succeed? If that's the case why, in a country of 40% non-white, do we see so few black and hispanic people with power and money? Because they don't work hard enough, don't fucking insult us.

Sen. Obama has just dragged his poor children and wife onto a stage in Chicago. They'll all develop horrible drug habits.

'Hello Chicago, if there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible?...'
'Communism Barack?'
He speaks so well, it pisses me off. He's listing all the people who have voted. The 'United States of America'. How long until god gets a shout out? He is spewing garbage, it sounds pretty though. Thousands of flags are waving. He's being nice about McCain, a man he clealy hates but who has been in a POW camp, can't criticise him then. Thanking his wife and kids, who he has just promised a puppy. Ok here goes, his dead grandmother is watching, that's odd because she's..erm...dead.

This is dull. Thanking the whole fucking world. Let me guess, he's gonna thank us soon, or them, the people who went out and voted. Yep. 'IT belongs to you'.
10 American flags waving behind him.

A new spirit of patriotism. Fuck this. It's ten past 5.

Climate Camp. No Reflection. Just Pictures. Thanks Max

The other fight

It was always going to be a stressful week. Eleven different events over 5 days, meeting speakers, renting staging, publicising, sitting through long talks that you leave knowing no more than when you went in. The stress however, is not entirely because of One World Week. It is all to easy to forget sometimes, when you're in the office until late at night, that a life exists outside of fighting for a better world.
Then it hits you, and you have to take stock, other things do matter. You're in love, your mind is stuck on repeat and it isn't dwelling on global warming or freeing tibet.
I'm forcing myself to write tonight- i'm tired, it's late and tomorrow beckons. I don't want it to come too soon.

Foregone conclusion

They look so different. One a good-looking, smiling, tall black man. The other short, old, white and seemingly without the ability to smile without scaring children. The differences between them are not just superficial, they come from different parts the USA, they have grown up differently, they have joined political parties who see themselves as on opposite sides of the spectrum. Yett, despite the tussles, the millions of hard earned dollars they have spent insulting each other, the apparent disparities, they are not such a world apart.

Subscribing to capitalism is to be expected in a country that has spent the best part of the last century locking up, torturing and waging wars upon those who oppose it. Barack Obama's tax rise for the rich is seen as radical, but as he keeps insisting 95% of people will not see a rise. The logical inadequacies are there for all to see. In a country where there is widespread poverty, inadequate healthcare for 30m, a crumbling education system and racial inequality like almost no other place on earth, noone is talking about redistributing the wealth of the 'poor over taxed middle class' and sending it the lowest earners in society. Politics needn't bother itself with the working class: They don't vote, they don't pay much tax and there aren't enough of them anymore. The United States could look no further than its European allies to realise the benefits of progressive taxation.
Why in a country that has such high expecations of the services they use is there not a mass movement for a truly fair health system that is free at the point of use?

Capitalism is not the only subscription that the three hundred million Americans are exposed to. In a world with increasingly little resource for more and more people it seems only too obvious that we must try and use less, buy less and conserve what we have. Not in American. Less is bad. More is good. Why buy less when you can buy something else? Why drive less when you can buy a car which is slightly less harmful to the environment? In fact why not buy two? Why not invest in coal and oil technology and blindly sign up to nuclear power instead of trying to curb your embarrassing appaetite for energy? Why not, when you have 3% of the worlds population, use 25% of it's oil? Why don't they wake up? I don't think anyone's realise that they are sleeping yet.

I want to look forward to a bushless world. A world without aggressive neo-liberalism, without post-colonial war projects, without a neo-conservative christian crusade but that is what we are signing up to when we hold our new, black, young hero aloft. We are signing up to god-driven, nationalistic, war supporting, free market capitalism with just a few tweaks. I don't resent you America but we're all fucked.

I have been institutionalised

Time has dissapeared without my knowledge or consent and I shall not attempt a retrospective roundup of what has been or what I have become because neither have much interest or value to them. To summarise though my life- personal, political, private and public has taken a turn. My age is no longer tied down to the number of years that I have existed for, I have responsibilities that, only 9 months ago, were not even close to my imagination.

Without being too downbeat about all of this blog malarky, or simply being innacurate, I don't expect anyone to ever read this except maybe me, just like I have done in the last few minutes- it amused and entertained me to look back on my thoughts about things metamorphise over the last few years and I want that to continue. I want to feel my cheeks burn red as I sit in a room by myself as I face my own naivety and for that reason I shall try and bring some more of me into to this, because afterall I am a thrilling person. Proof of that can be found in my mental lifestyle: I work until well past dark, most days. I wake up early for meetings. I eat the same packaged sandwhich about 4 days a week. There is a distinct possibility that I have fallen in love with my bike.

But why do I fight?

I want to say this ' I fight because I feel, no I know, that I will make a difference to those who are less fortunate than me. I will stand up for those who are weak, make rich those who are poor and defend our planet for future generations'.

But why do I fight?

I fight because without the fight I am one of many. I fight because I am well-off, I am middle-class and I need to feel needed. I genuinely do fight because injustice, like nothing else, makes me fucking angry, and that is enough.

And what am I fighting?

Bureacracy mostly and laziness and apathy and my own habits that give no example at all to those who I spend my life preaching to. I fight my friends who believe that sexism is natural or who think that the free market will fix our problems. I fight myself when, at the end of the day I want to curl up and cry rather than face the next day answering emails or justifying myself in an increasingly ill informed and close minded world. I fight those who think that there is a 'time and place for protests' and that time and place is far away from anyone who can hear. I fight those who think they can't make a difference or who have tried and failed. I fight my mind when it wants to miss the next meeting and ring my girlfriend and talk idly about this and that. I fight the urge to get drunk and dance when I have to go to a lecture.

I have been institutionalised.

A letter to my MP(s)

Dear Nick Palmer,

As another year passes and we begin to look forward to a fresh one I thought it would be a good time to write to you and tell you how I see the world and how I, as a young student, would like to see it changed. The following is not a comprehensive list of all of the problems that we face and neither is it offering any fully researched solutions but I believe that it is my right and indeed my duty to tell my democratically elected representative how I feel about politics, about Britain and about the world in which we live.
Let us start with politics. Britain is a democracy and a relatively successful one at that. We live in a country where every man and woman over 18 who is a resident can vote and this is a blessing. We also live in a country where a 16 year old can join the armed forces, get married, have sex and pay tax but they cannot vote. I believe that it is time that we trust younger people to vote. After all surely we all believe there should be ‘no taxation without representation’. Should anyone have to give money to a government who they had no say in electing. I do not think so. Young people, even at university, feel totally and utterly detached from the political process and I believe that along with educating people in their political rights we should allow them to access the process they learn about from an earlier age. The low turnout in elections (see graph below) in Britain is shameful and a good way to address this problem would be to get people more involved from an early age. Furthermore I believe that the age limit to be an elected representative should also be lowered.
Voter Turnout in British General Elections
http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/area/uk/turnout.htm
Voter turnout in 2007 Scottish Parliament elections

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/vli/education/resources/learningResources/election.htm
A way of further increasing voter turnout would be to implement a system of proportional representation across all elections in the United Kingdom. People do not feel represented, especially- as is my experience- in the student community. Proportional representation has its downsides (extremist parties) but as believers in democracy must we not agree that it is better to have intelligent debate about different ideas rather than push minority views out altogether? Personally I believe that a hole has been left in the British political spectrum by Labours shift to the right and I also believe that proportional representation may give those voters who feel only apathy a chance to be represented.
Devolution was a very positive move by our government and it is time that they follow up on their promises to make important constitutional change. I do not believe in monarchy and I shall leave this rather uncomfortable issue aside (lest we realise that we do not in fact live in a constitutional democracy). More urgent is the failed reform of the House of Lords. I support the full removal of hereditary peers and the abolition of peerages altogether to allow for a democratically elected second chamber (as all other developed democracies have as far as I know). Having an elected second chamber would strengthen and enliven the voting process and, importantly, give people a chance to show disapproval of a current government more regularly. I believe it is a shame on our nation that there seems to be a lack of trust by those in power to allow all of our representatives to be accountable to the people. Britain as part of the ‘war on terror’ has been quick to criticise other countries lack of democracy but we are stained by an archaic second chamber that simply does not represent the demographics of the country. It has been 96 years since the Parliament Act (1911) committed our government to elect "a Second Chamber constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis" and I believe that 2011 is the year that we must set for an elected Lords to take control, 100 years after the Parliament Act. ‘[The] House of Commons and the Government have now firmly committed themselves to an 80% to 100% elected second chamber. The Commons voted for this in March.’ 63% of the public support reform while just 26% disapprove- the time has come for our government to follow up on their promises and make the change.

A pressing issue on the domestic front is the curtailment of civil liberties by our government since they were elected in 1997. In ten years over 3000 new criminal offences have been created . The creation of laws is not in itself a bad thing, it is what a government is for but when laws begin to infringe on our basic civil liberties I believe we must stand up and take action. The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (sections 132-7) bans unplanned protest on Parliament Square and contradicts article 12 of the Human Rights Act. Gordon Brown has commissioned a report, which I have read, and he must now act on this and get this terrible piece of legislation changed.
The introduction of ID cards will not help this country protect its citizens and I oppose the introduction completely. In all, the Identity Cards Act 2006 provides for 49 items of data pertaining only to you to be stored on the register, and all of this will have to be handed over when you go for your compulsory ID session. According to the BBC ‘Identity cards could cost £18bn over 10 years, triple the government's estimate.’ It is unacceptable for our government to spend billions of pounds on Identity Cards when we still have people waiting hours at casualty, teachers being underpaid and one in ten British children are living in severe poverty. Identity cards would not have stopped the bombings in London, they didn’t stop the Madrid bombings, they are an infringement of our basic right to privacy and they are a waste of desperately needed taxpayers money.
Terrorism is certainly a threat to be taken seriously but the extension of detention of suspects is disproportionate and a serious threat to our right to being ‘innocent unless proven guilty’. An extension beyond 28 days is unnecessary and worrying. Let us not forget that these are people like you or me who are locked up without charge because there is not enough evidence to convict them, this is simply wrong. Not only is this law ‘wrong’ but it is dreadfully misjudged as well. If we want to let the terrorists think they are winning we are playing into their hands, if we want to set an example to them we are failing, if we want to be forced into the removal of liberty for all because we are scared then we should extend the limit- if not I urge you to vote against it.

The link between a ‘terrorist threat’ to the United Kingdom and our foreign policy is too often ignored by those in power and it is time for politicians, especially those who supported the war on Iraq to realise that the reason we are all now at risk is partly because of the actions of our government in international affairs and defence. It is clear and has been widely reported that our actions in the Middle East, and especially in Iraq have boosted terrorist support worldwide and indeed in our own country. At least 80 000 innocent civilians have died in Iraq and according to some sources this number can be multiplied by 6 times. Is it any wonder that there is an element of resentment against us when we have killed thousands in a foreign country that we waged an illegal war upon? We must never allow ourselves to go to war without good reason and UN backing again because the results would absolutely disastrous. For this reason I support a diplomatic and peaceful end to the Iran nuclear crisis and hope that all politicians urge our own and the American government to refrain from taking military action in the area ever again.
Our position on the Iran situation is hypocritical beyond belief. We are asking a government to refrain from developing nuclear power and nuclear weapons, both of which we continue to have in our own country. I do not believe that we have the right or the need to possess nuclear weapons and I believe that our possession of them is illegal under the non-proliferation treaty. We have no right to deny others nuclear weapons when we have them ourselves and it is no excuse to say we need them as a ‘deterrent’. Plenty of western nations do not have nuclear weapons and enjoy peace. Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Spain, Italy, Finland, New Zealand and more have no nukes and are certainly under no more threat than us, in fact, not surprisingly, they are under less of a threat. We must now take action on nuclear weapons and ensure every country in the world is nuclear free as soon as possible. Could we not spend some of the possible £100 billion on taking early action on climate change as suggested in the Stern Report or could we not build more hospitals, employ more teachers or possibly increase our aid spending to the long ago promised 0.7% to try and bring peace and prosperity to everyone in the world?
A major reason that people begin to feel disconnected with politics is the feeling that there is a greater power than them, which they cannot control. For the British public this ‘greater power’ is the USA. Although the list of times Britain has bowed to American pressure is long there is one particular issue that haunts me. Why do we continue to stay silent about Guantanamo Bay? It is illegal and immoral and must be shut down and yet where is the public criticism from our leaders that we would hear if people were being locked up in say Burma. There is none and it is time we tell America openly and publicly that Guantanamo Bay detention centre must be shut down. The British public would be proud of a government who stood up to America when they were doing something wrong and this is one issue that it is urgent that we act upon.

After reading the most recent IPCC report (which I will not quote but am sure you are aware of) I am convinced that the time has come for us to act swiftly on climate change. I applaud the action of the government in pledging an emissions cut but I cannot fail to see hypocrisy in their words. Our government seems committed to airport and road expansion and has failed to provide cheap and reliable public transport. Building a new runway at Heathrow is just one move that seems to fully contradict our government’s positive rhetoric on climate change. I believe that our government should take fast and decisive action on climate change that includes a massive taxation increase on domestic flights, a gradual and progressive increase in tax for international flights, a fully funded and subsidised public transport network from local buses to long distance coaches and internationally linked rail and coach services. I am sure you agree that action needs to be taken but all I ask is this: please make sure that our promises are kept and we take the positive action that is desperately needed.

The final and possibly most urgent issue that I would like to discuss is the vast inequality that we face in the world. Inequality exists at all levels, between the North and South of Britain, between developed nations and developing nations, between men and women and in almost all areas of society. Please can we not forget that a child still dies of poverty in Africa every 5 seconds, that women around the world still lack power and representation and that 1 in 3 has suffered sexual abuse of some kind, the gap between rich and poor in Britain is widening and that politicians have the power to change all this but never seem to do enough. The changes that are needed are too many to detail at this stage but may I make a few suggestions.
· Let’s meet our Aid target of 0.7% quickly.
· Let’s make trade truly fair and stop forcing developing nations to liberalise their markets
· Lets make drugs available to everyone, at an affordable price, not just the rich by internationalising drugs companies.
· Let’s meet our promise to provide access to AIDS treatment for all by 2010, we are way behind.
· Let’s make the IMF and World Bank and WTO representative of the world.
· Let’s support women’s rights all over the globe.
· Let’s get every child in education, no matter where they are born.
· Let’s redistribute money where it is needed, from the rich to the poor.
· Let’s imagine a world where the ‘accident of birth’ does not dictate the rest of your life.

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter, it is greatly appreciated. I have detailed my opinions and do not expect you to agree to all the solutions that I offer but I urge you to do what is right this year and make the world a fairer and better place for the many, not just the few. I want to live in a country where I can say I am proud of those who represent me because they try to do what is right, because they stand up for what they believe and most importantly because they listen to those who they represent.

Many Thanks

Matthew Butcher