Category Archives: Politics

image-ine that!

Posted on by

The British have the best elections. They have the best political scandals, too. Who could forget the Conservative (at least apparently conservative) morals watchdog who was found dead, wearing nothing more than fishnets, a garter belt, and some lube, having essentially blissed himself to death on the kitchen table during a discreet sexual encounter with a vacuum cleaner? Gotta luv it. Oh, right, the orange was implicated, although never charged. Bigger isn’t always better; remember that, size queens!

They’ve just elected Sir Ming as the leader of the Liberal Democrats.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I’d totally vote for a guy named “Sir Ming.” I mean, it’s that or be enslaved on his secret island lair, right? Well okay, I do have some principles: I’d only vote for him if he wore the outfit.

Sir Ming the Magnificent 

Much better than pudgy Captain America here:

Captain America 

It is true what they say about overweight Americans; he’s got muffin tops!

But if this were a three-way race, one must admit that one would, without hesitation, ditch those two pussies and vote for This Bitch:

Theda Bara

I mean, I dunno who she is. I dunno what she stands for. But I don’t care!

She brings to mind what Mistress Cowfish said about the White Witch of Narnia, to whit: “You’re so evil! And soooooooo cool!”

Remember, Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

But it rocks absolutely, too.

In the meantime, for those of you who care about platforms of moderate liberal parties, we present the musings of Ming the Elected:

We are the real liberals

My party, unlike the others, believes in human rights, social justice and the fight against inequality

Menzies Campbell
Saturday March 4, 2006
The Guardian
Everyone claims to be a liberal these days. Commentators warn that our opponents are crowding us Liberal Democrats out of our traditional ground and allege that we are losing our unique selling point.

I have been a liberal all my adult life, so I know what liberalism represents. It is encouraging that our opponents want to masquerade as liberals. It demonstrates that they realise where the sentiments of the majority of British people lie. The problem is that neither Labour nor the Conservatives have the slightest grasp of what it means to be a liberal. That is why they will fail to match their rhetoric with action.

Much of the agenda of the current government runs directly counter to liberal principles. Liberals believe in international law. The government was prepared to flout it in their support for the war in Iraq. They continue to flout it in their acquiescence in the disturbing practice of rendition.

Liberals believe in human rights. Human rights are being flouted in Guantánamo, where prisoners are denied due process. The prime minister calls the situation an anomaly. Liberals know that it is an outrage.

The government not only tolerates human rights abuse by the US: it is an abuser itself. ID cards are an affront to human rights. So was the treatment of the heckler at the Labour party conference who was arrested as a terror suspect. So was the arrest of the woman who read out the names in Whitehall of British soldiers killed in Iraq.

Liberals believe in creating a fairer society, in which individuals have the opportunity to make the most of their talents. Britain has become a more unequal country since Labour came to power. Income, social origin and educational background determine success more now even than they did during the Conservative years.

Labour has a poor record on social justice. According to the charity Shelter, one in 12 children is likely to develop asthma, TB or bronchitis because of poor housing. Over a million children live in slums. The government has failed to understand the fact that sub-standard housing is the root cause of so much poor health and low educational attainment.

There is less social mobility than there was when I was a child growing up in Glasgow. This is a waste of talent and ability. It is holding back the prosperity of our country. A liberal Britain would not tolerate this state of affairs. A liberal Britain would develop a welfare system which built a society secure against poverty, founded on opportunity, and embracing responsibility and incentives to work and save.

Liberals believe that the environment should be at the centre of our thinking. That means developing proposals to change individual behaviour. It means changing the taxation system so that it rewards environmentally friendly behaviour, and penalises environmentally damaging behaviour. Labour’s contribution is disappointing – hot air, hand wringing and missed targets.

Liberals believe in localism: giving greater responsibility to locally elected representatives and more power to local communities. Under Labour, we have seen the centralisation of public life. Citizens feel increasingly powerless. Public services controlled by officialdom are out of touch and remote.

David Cameron’s claim to the liberal mantle is no more plausible than the government’s. We cannot be forced to believe that it is year zero and that the recent past never happened. Was David Cameron not the author of the 2005 Conservative manifesto, the most reactionary of modern times? Was he not the brains behind Black Wednesday?

Even now, the Conservative outlook runs directly counter to liberal values. The party which supported the Iraq war is now sending its emissaries over to the US to restore its links with the neocon right of the Republican party. Meanwhile in Europe, it is detaching itself from the mainstream Christian Democrat centre-right to seek alliances with a ragbag of extremists.

Britain’s need for a genuine liberal party has never been greater. That is why I am determined to lead the Liberal Democrats towards government, to make Britain a freer, fairer, greener place in which to live. That means that the party has to change. It has to develop new ideas and refine existing ones. The proposals before our conference to separate the Royal Mail from the Post Office and give its employees a stake in the company are a case in point. This is not Thatcherite privatisation. It is a liberal reform. Its innovative approach to ownership is in line with the long-held liberal belief in employee share ownership.

We need to make our party more inclusive. I have proposed a trust fund to provide the resources to enable more women and members of ethnic minorities to become parliamentary candidates. Liberal Democrats now represent urban and rural constituencies of all types in all parts of Britain, unlike the Conservatives who have shrunk to a party of the English shires. We will best represent Britain when we are representative of Britain.

I promise my party anything but a quiet life. With clear vision, commitment, and the talent that we now have in our parliamentary party, there is no limit to what we can achieve.

Ming Martini

· Menzies Campbell is the leader of the Liberal Democrats

Show me a sign!

Posted on by

‘k.

Sign

Smartass. 

Square Office

Posted on by

I’m wondering, in what they themselves call “The CEO Presidency,” if they have those stupid motivational posters up on all the walls. You know the ones: beautifully photographed rowers, eagles, mountain climbers, etc, with some sort of corporately uplifting blahblah about “Empowerment” or “Teamwork” or some such “you are now required not only to sell your labour, but also your heart and soul” taurine scat.

Listening to: “Look at all these idiots” by Mr. Burns, from the album The Simpsons Sing the Blues

Mood: Cranky. Wanna make something of it?

Honestly, if more people went to church or temple or actual mountain-climbing, fewer people would feel the need to find the meaning of life in the business pages. It reminds one of the old saying “Be all you’re told to be.”

Yeah, definitely cranky. And I’m not even hung over.

But one wonders, one does, what kind of posters Cheney has on his wall. I’ve always wanted an office with a waiting room, just so I could mindfuck the people in it; don’t kid yourself, that is what waiting rooms are for. Just ask any receptionist.  I’d hang something plausible-looking from Despair.com on the walls, perhaps my favorite, this one:

Dreams

Scatter around a few books like Bad Postcards, Waiting for Godot, some Philip K. Dick, maybe a few tattered copies of the Journal of Irreproduceable Results, and watch their heads slowly melt under the onslaught. I’m a big meanie.

But What Would Cheney Hang? Besides Democrats?

As I’ve pointed out before, Whittington gave the Republican party $6,500 last year; this is obviously insufficient to protect you against being actually shot by the Vice President. I would suggest setting the floor for donations at about ten k, just to be safe. When faced with a man of such obvious outcome-based orientation, what can we suppose he’d favour to look upon?

Mene, mene, tekel upharsin. 

NAH.

This:

 

Power Corrupts Yay

True Patriotism

Posted on by

TIACongratulations to the Senate of the United States of America, for renewing The Patriot Act and making ten fourteen of its provisions permanent.

As William S. Burroughs said, “It’s the little touches that make a future solid enough to be destroyed.”

“The Thanksgiving Prayer” by William S. Burroughs

Thanks for the wild turkey and the passenger pigeons, destined to be shit out through wholesome American guts.

Thanks for a continent to despoil and poison.

Thanks for Indians to provide a modicum of challenge and danger.

Thanks for vast herds of bison to kill and skin leaving the carcasses to rot.

Thanks for bounties on wolves and coyotes.

Thanks for the American dream,
To vulgarize and to falsify until the bare lies shine through.

Thanks for the KKK.

For nigger-killin’ lawmen, feelin’ their notches.

For decent church-goin’ women, with their mean, pinched, bitter, evil faces.

Thanks for “Kill a Queer for Christ” stickers.

Thanks for laboratory AIDS.

Thanks for Prohibition and the war against drugs.

Thanks for a country where nobody’s allowed to mind their own business.

Thanks for a nation of finks.

Yes, thanks for all the memories– all right let’s see your arms!

You always were a headache and you always were a bore.

Thanks for the last and greatest betrayal of the last and greatest of human dreams.

Proof Positive!

Posted on by

So, I haven’t got a passport. So why don’t I have a passport? Because:

I was born in France, to Canadian parents (13th generation, I am; we go back before the founding of the country, actually, and my ancestors looted and burned the White House, which Macarnie says is good for a drink on him, should I ever get over to the UK, which is doubtful because, as I remind you, I do not have a passport) on a Canadian airforce base, and brought to Canada at the age of 11 months. See? Here I am, entering the country. From left: raincoaster, Mother, Polly, Random Canadian Airforce Guy whom we shall call Sam Browne.

raincoaster enters the country

(Oh yeah, FYI that pic was taken in 1985. Mom was totally New Wave.)

Therein lies the problem. It’s a bit like the-kneebone’s-connected-to-the-shinbone…

I received a Certificate of Foreign Birth, which was what they gave you when you were a Canadian born abroad, obviously. At some point in my travels the card was lost, although Ottawa retains the number and all relevant information. Because I was not born in Canada, I never received a Canadian birth certificate, although when I was sixteen I did get a Social Insurance Number and card; the card was also lost, no doubt thrown out with the wallet when I moved one time and tried to clean up. I should never do that. Clean up. I break things, I lose things, it’s horrible. I should just listen to Quentin Crisp; he says that after the third year the dust never gets any worse, so why bother?

Oh yeah, in the late seventies, apparently, Ottawa decided to discontinue Certificates of Foreign Birth and require all possessors thereof to apply for a newfangled document, Not Quite the Certificate of Foreign Birth or something I think it was called. Naturally, they did not notify us, and naturally after six months they decided to charge money for this newfangled card.

It all makes so much sense. In another universe.

So, right now Ottawa knows who I am, where I was born, and that I am a Canadian citizen. But it will not give me, the person to whom the documents relate, documentation for this. Meanwhile, since I’ve been sick and not working, the government’s left hand is asking for this documentation, and threatening to cut me off unless I provide it. The government’s right hand is happy to provide it, at a cost of ninety dollars. Which, of course, I do not have because I am sick and not generally working and that would represent twenty percent of my monthly income, which income is threatened because I do not have the documentation.

I may distinguish this generation of my family by becoming the first to loot and burn the Peace Tower. I mean, honestly, people. The government, and particularly Libby Davies, my MP, have always been very helpful at assisting refugees from foreign countries in getting their documentation straight, even if they fled in possession of nothing more than a few exotic germs. I contacted Ms. Davies’ office and was informed there was nothing she could do for me, as I am not actually a refugee. “I am considering filing a claim,” I told them.

“From what country?” they asked, not unreasonably.

“From Canada.”