Is journalism rotten?

Here's a little anecdote that suggests journalists have completely lost their way. A few days ago, a live microphone picked up Nicolas Sarkozy telling Obama that the Israeli PM is 'a liar', to which the American responded 'I have to deal with him every day'.

Interesting - an insight into the true nature of political relations which are usually hidden behind glib press conferences assurances of respect and accord.

The real story is this:

the reporters agreed not to publicise the remarks because of their sensitive nature

We teach media ethics here. One of the things we discuss is news values, and I have repeatedly made the point (derived from Milton, Mill, Jefferson et al.), that democracy is guaranteed by an independent press. However, if news organisations are suppressing news at the behest of power - and remember, this isn't a matter of life and death at a time of war, for example - then the citizens of France, the US, Israel and Palestine have no way to ascertain the true state of their political affairs. We become passive, excluded drones rather than active citizens, hooked on TOWIE rather than holding our representatives to account.

Red Meat to the Feminists

I'm allergic to PR stunts, and the Cameron-Obama Barbecue for Cannon-Fodder seemed particularly revolting ('We sent you into an illegal war: have a saveloy'). At least Obama opposed the Iraq war, unlike Cameron.

But there was one aspect which undercuts Obama's progressive claims (Cameron doesn't have any). What's wrong with these pictures? Apart from the obvious: a Tory in Downing Street.

It's clearly deliberate: the men do the barbecuing and the women serve the salad. Real Men Don't Do Salad. Men burn meat. It's choreographed to bolster their masculine credentials in a very crude fashion.

 Ah well, blood on their hands again…

Staying with the Irish theme

Following hard on the heels of Elizabeth Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (who at least didn't try to claim Irish ancestry, not having any sort of electorate to please), comes Barack O'Bama. Dinner with the politicos and a grip-and-grin in his great-great-great-grandfather's village and the tourist authorities, government and party machines will all be happy.

There's even a song:

Bin Laden down…

I've been thinking about Osama Bin Laden's death for a few days, and the global response to it. As I posted a few days ago on an American blog, I'm rather uncomfortable with many aspects of it.

I won't pretend that the world's slightly better off without him: he was a mass murderer driven by a mix of religious and nationalist fundamentalism.

However: the test of a civilisation isn't how well it treats the masses: it's how well it treats the worst and most hated elements of society. A confident and proud America would have arrested bin Laden and put him on trial. Perhaps the circumstances required shooting him in self-defence - we'll never know. If not, then this evil man's death smacks more of mob justice.

I'm opposed to the death penalty and to lynch mobs. These are principles which shouldn't be suspended according to the heinous degree of the crime. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, expressed his reservations about the shooting of an unarmed man. I think he's got it right: whoever the individual is, the agents of a state have to adhere to a higher moral code than the person standing in front of them. Bin Laden killed thousands: shooting him dead on the spot is a surrender to his own philosophy, not a termination of it.

The operation to locate bin Laden should count as a masterpiece of planning and operation. However: I can't get rid of the uncomfortable suspicion that bin Laden's death was a pragmatic decision taken by a President who needs the 'tough guy' kudos in an election year. Putting the man on trial would have been the morally and legally right thing to do - but it would have been judicially difficult and politically impossible (especially given that bin Laden and his associates were the creation of the Pakistani, Saudi, American and even British intelligence services, trained and armed as part of the proxy war against the Soviet Union).

Bin Laden's death will increase the likelihood of Obama's re-election. In utilitarian terms, this is probably a good thing. One man died that millions of Americans won't get a Republican president with all the awful consequences of that. In Kantian terms though, Osama's death is an absolute immoral act because consequences shouldn't be taken into consideration. Either bin Laden was a direct threat to the lives of the people in that room or he wasn't. If he was, his death was justified. If not, then shooting him was immoral.

In the real world, nobody is going to mourn bin Laden, least of all the hard-nosed political strategists surrounding Obama and his rivals. But there should be room still to consider the moral implications, and they leave me cold.

Not for all the tea in Boston

In the end even I, a proper political junkie, had to switch off the endless coverage of the US mid-term elections (while observing in passing that the obssessive British coverage marks us as a client state: reckon CNN follows our elections that closely).

I'm sickened by the stupidity, nastiness and hypocrisy of the American political scene. Republican after Republican shouting about Obama's policies as though he had no right to make decisions, despite winning a landslide victory. Calling this morning for 'bipartisanship' after spending the last two years voting against every single Democrat idea: the Healthcare bill was watered down massively to please the Republicans, and still they voted against it unanimously.

It seemed to be such an uninformed debate - people on state medical schemes calling for the abolition of the state, bandying around words like socialist, communist and fascist. The endless calls for smaller government, while insisting that the US maintains itself as the biggest military power in the world (outspending the nearest rival by 40 times). Hysteria about immigrants from a nation founded on immigration (and wiping out the natives). They're voting against even minimal state healthcare because they don't want government deciding how you're treated: they'd rather corporations with an interest in excluding the sick do it! Most awful of all, voting for the party of corporate power, untrammelled banking power and finance capital after these people bankrupted America. The debate has shifted from persuasion to screaming abuse and naked hypocrisy, mixed with a dose of barely concealed racism. I just don't get it. I know the ideological basis of the American Dream is hardy individualism, but this is something far nastier.

Sure, Obama's failed in some ways - mostly, I feel, by not being bold enough, and not being skilled enough at getting his hands dirty. He believes, like a good university teacher should, in rational, calm discussion, while his opponents are smashing him over the head with a cosh. He's a liberal - that's the problem. While he's putting the case, his opponents (quietly funded by companies like BP), are waving things like this:

This morning, I had to switch off my radio, so depressed was I with the fate of a great country.

Well, that about wraps it up for the Republicans

I thought that the Republicans were rebounding in the US, on the back of racism, paranoia, greed and fear: the usual ingredients for rightwing success. Obama and the Democrats seemed to be struggling to make the political weather, despite their huge success in the last elections.

That's all changed, thanks to BP, and to Joe Barton, the Republican Congressman who apologised to the oil company for Obama's 'shakedown'. Never mind the legal status of the compensation fund Obama made BP hand over: Barton must be insane if he thinks that defending a British company which has poisoned the oceans is politically clever.

The surprise at Barton's remarks was heightened after it was revealed the Texas congressman – who once worked as an oilfield engineer – has has received nearly $150,000 in donations from an oil company, Anadarko Petroleum, which is a partner with BP in the Gulf oilfield.

His party isn't impressed either: they made him apologise for his apology - twice!

This clip will feature in every Democrat's election campaign for years:

Honk if you're illiterate

Right - home for cleaning, cooking and MORE WORK!

But I'll leave you with some beautiful photographs. I know it's mean, and that there are plenty of people on the left who can't spell, but someone has taken the time to collect images of all the wrongly-spelled anti-Obama placards, including some proclaiming the superiority of the English language.

This one really confused me for a minute.

Enjoy.

"This is what change looks like" or "armageddon"

Congratulations to my American readers: you're now going to get a healthcare system which may just help the poor and middle-classes. It's still going to be utterly rubbish compared with the Canadian, UK and European systems (it's not universal or funded through taxation) but in American terms, it's an earthquake because it at leasts hints at the idea that we're collectively responsible for each other (Michael Tomasky has a good piece on the philosophical issues).

Shame on the Democrats who opposed it and those who extorted the exclusion of abortion, on the Republicans generally (every single one voted against making affordable healthcare available), and it's a shame that Democrats who supported it will lose their Congressional seats barring a miracle.

Thousands of protesters gathered outside Congress at the weekend, shouting "kill the bill". Some directed racist and other derogatory remarks at African-American members of Congress, including John Lewis, one of the veterans of the 1960s civil rights movement. One congressman was spat on.

Another protester shouted "faggot" at Democratic congressman Barney Frank, who later told the Politico website: "It's like the Salem witch trials, and healthcare is the witches. There is mass hysteria."

The Republican leader in the House, John Boehner, described the bill as armageddon 

I've never considered vaccination and first-aid as 'armageddon'. What a strange man. Still, welcome to civilisation.

How to do real populism

The UK government announced that it would tax the pool of bankers' bonuses above £25,000 at a rate of 50%, a sensible move and one I'd like to see extended past this year. But in political terms, they downplayed it - even suggesting that it would raise only £500m, when it appears that around £2bn will result.

Over in the US, where Obama hasn't even got an election to fight (unlike here), the President is instituting another tax on bankers, but he's taking a very different approach, and one which Brown might learn from if he wants to win power. This is how to do real hardball politics.

He:

told Americans that he was determined to recover "every single dime" of the scheme unveiled in the dying days of the Bush administration.

"My determination to achieve this goal is only heightened when I see reports of massive profits and obscene bonuses at the very firms who owe their continued existence to the American people, who have not been made whole, and who continue to face real hardship in this recession," Obama said.

Instead of setting a phalanx of lobbyists to fight this proposal or employing an army of lawyers and accountants to help evade the fee, I'd suggest you might want to consider simply meeting your responsibility."

"If these companies are in good enough shape to afford massive bonuses, they are surely in good enough shape to afford paying back every penny to taxpayers". 

Godwin's law proved again

The US healthcare debate is becoming stunningly offensive. Thrill! As a woman shouts 'Heil Hitler' at an Israeli who points out that his former country has a good national health service, tells him that Obama hates Jews and Israel, and yells 'Boo Hoo' when he mentions the Holocaust. Thanks to Jadedj for the original post - he also has a clip of her claiming to live by 'biblical values'.

Old Jokes Resurrected

My colleague Steve passed me this gem. I present it to you without further comment.

Barack Obama is visiting a Glasgow hospital.

He enters a ward full of patients with no obvious sign of injury or illness,

He greets one.

The patient replies:

Fair fa your honest sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin race,
Aboon them a ye take yer place,
Painch, tripe or thairm,
As langs my airm.


Obama is confused, so he just grins and moves on to the next patient.


The next patient responds:

Some hae meat an canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it,
But we hae meat an we can eat,
So let the Lord be thankit.


Even more confused, and his grin now rictus-like, the President moves on to the next patient, who immediately begins to chant:


Wee sleekit, cowerin, timorous beasty,
O the panic in thy breasty,
Thou needna start awa sae hastie,
Wi bickering brattle



Now seriously troubled, Obama turns to the accompanying doctor and asks,
'Is this a psychiatric ward?'

'No,' replies the doctor, 'this is the serious Burns unit.'

Healthcare coverage = Holocaust. Discuss.

Yet again, the American healthcare 'debate' reaches a new low. You wouldn't think that Obama won an election and a mandate handsomely…

On the plus side, this definitively proves that the anti-Obama crowd have lost the argument, according to Godwin's law.

Arma virumque cano

We whinge and protest about the NHS a lot - and it certainly gets things wrong - but virtually everyone outside the New Labour bubble and Tory Central Office thinks that a tax-funded, not-for-profit, state-run health service is the only way to provide high quality care fairly to everyone.

It's different in the US. Obama wants to introduce insurance cover so that the 46 MILLION Americans who aren't covered can access healthcare. He isn't (unfortunately) proposing a national health service which would treat everybody - the proposal is to retain private hospitals and reform the insurance system which funds them.

So from this side of the pond, this looks like a slightly kinder version of the capitalist model which has served the US so well (ho ho ho). To many Americans, however, this is communism. Death threats are being made, supporters of healthcare are being beaten up, and now anti-healthcare activists are calling on meeting attendees to bring their guns. What a grown-up way to respond to a weak proposal from a massively endorsed president.

Update:

This is all getting very nasty. American conservatives are spreading lies about the NHS to scare Americans, such as the claim that people over 59 don't get cardiac care, and that Ted Kennedy's brain tumour wouldn't be treated here because he's 77 (well done, Senator Chuck Grassley). Add to this Sarah Palin's description of Obama as 'evil' and her claim that her Down's Syndrome child would face a 'death panel' and we have the makings of a lynch mob. And yes, I'm well aware that that term is racially aligned. There's a nasty undercurrent swirling around Obama which runs 'socialist'-'UnAmerican'-'not born in the US' (untrue)-Muslim (untrue, and who cares anyway)-black-shouldn't be President.

Speak up for the NHS. As Neal points out in the comments, the UK spends less, but spends it better and more fairly. Lots of American pensioners take coach trips to Canada to buy their prescription drugs - pensioners here don't pay a penny (until the Tories get in again) and so don't have to go over to France, Ireland or wherever.

A Good Christian Gentleman

Play this, and wonder why secularism is a growing force! First noted on crooksandliars.com

Obama - the cricket fan?

It seems that Obama is reading Hiberno-Anglo-Dutch author Joseph O'Neill's Netherland: a 9/11 book (sort-of) which examines America through the medium of New York's cricket scene. No, really, it's a brilliant book.

Isn't it great though? An American president who actually reads books!

Scabrous fun

In The Loop, the film version of political comedy The Thick of It, is out next month. There's a clip available at The Guardian, and the poster is an inspired pastiche of the famous Obama one.