Are EU sure?

With polling day round the corner, campaigning from both sides is finally reaching a climax prior to tomorrow's monumental vote on whether the UK should remain a member state of the European Union. For the most part the public discourse on the topic has been depressing to say the least, team tactics and post truth politics have left much of the voting public either in the dark or dragged from pillar to post on key issues such as immigration and the economy, and what would happen to either should we choose to leave the Union. Just as was the case in last years election and sadly in much of today's politics, facts have been shunned in favour of catchy soundbites served up with a side of straight up lies and truth distortions.

A key issue throughout the debate, and one that frankly has been treated sickeningly by some of those on the leave side is immigration. On this issue I think our current government is being severely let off the hook, with only a few voices calling them out. The reason the NHS is struggling and there are a lack of school places and houses in this country is down to the ideology of our government. In order to cut the deficit and "live within our means" we have been subject to years of, public service crippling, austerity. This austerity is imposed upon us by our own government because of their blind belief in neoliberal dogma, the belief that shrinking the state and reducing the deficit to eliminate debt will lead to growth, never mind the fact that even the IMF believe austerity is unnecessary in countries as stable as ours, and that austerity policies do "more harm than good". The party are so aligned to this belief that they seem completely oblivious to the fact that it is ruining millions of people's lives. Austerity is the reason for the lack of school places, austerity is the reason for the struggling NHS, austerity is the reason for the lack of housing, austerity is the reason for the closure of local services such as libraries and leisure centres.

I personally think a strong case can easily be made for remaining a member of this important union of countries without having to resort to scaring people, lying to people or trying to win them over with easily regurgitated meaningless catch phrases.

Being in the EU means our country works directly with government officials from other member countries to create legislation throughout, meaning we can create legislation together which twenty eight countries have to adhere to, instead of just our little island. Legislation which actually matters and makes a difference in the world. Legislation to tackle big polluters, reducing their harmful effect on the environment which we all inhabit. Legislation to promote the growth of renewable energy industries to protect the entire planet from the harm that we have so heinously caused over past centuries. Legislation which means people throughout Europe are treated with the same dignity and respect both in and out of work. Legislation that certifies the safety of products that people throughout these countries consume. Legislation that no matter which way the tide is turning in individual countries their government's cannot overrule.

It is an extremely selfish, inward looking thing to only care about the future of our own country and not others around the world, we should be tackling the world's ills together and not in isolation from each other. We should be trying to maintain the beauty of the world and all it's inhabitants. We should be trying to create a future in which people in every country can live a happy and fulfilled life, one where they do not fear for themselves or their children.  We should be trying to fix some of the undoubted wrongs of the EU from within, rather than jumping ship and sticking two fingers up to those that remain on board.

Airstrikes the Answer?

Yesterday British MPs voted in the House of Commons in favour of air strikes on Syria in the war on ISIS/Daesh/ISIL/IS, whatever people are calling them these days, it would appear Prime Minister David Cameron certainly seems to be of the opinion that nomenclature is of significant importance seeing as it is this that he spent most of his speech, which was supposed to be persuading MPs to vote for further war, talking about. After watching the debate amongst politicians, reading articles and blogs from multiple sources and talking to friends and family members on the subject I am still yet to be convinced that air strikes in Syria are either necessary or wise. Nor will they, in my opinion and from the evidence I have seen, lead to the destruction of ISIS and stabilisation of the area. It is a fact repeated by numerous heads of defence and politicians on either side of the argument that air strikes alone cannot and will not lead to the destruction of ISIS. Now I don't profess to having all the answers to such a complicated and multi-faceted conflict but I am clear that I am not in support of Britain joining the bombing over Syria, not least because of the lack of the presence of an actual clear military plan.

No matter how precise weapons are these days, to my knowledge at least, there is no weapon capable of distinguishing the belief system of one target from another and killing accordingly, this poses a significant problem as ISIS members mingle in with regular people going about their business on the streets and in the buildings of Syria (and Iraq). Therefore in order to get rid of every member of ISIS, ground troops would be required, ground troops which the British government have said they will not commit. Instead those voting for air strikes consistently referred to the possibility of using ground forces already in Syria in the form of 'moderate rebels', some 70,000 of them, if you believe the spiel of Cameron. Even if you believe there are this many soldiers willing to fight alongside us against ISIS (a point which has been refuted numerous times, government leaders in the area in fact estimated the numbers at closer to 15,000), there are still major questions about the make-up of these fighters:

• these 'moderate' fighters are from multiple different rebel groups with completely different ideologies and all struggling for power, these groups will be unlikely to want to work together even if it is feasible. Our definition of moderate when defining rebel groups also appears to become less moderate with each utterance.
• it has been noted by multiple sources that many of the fighters willing and able to fight against ISIS are in fact a part of the Syrian al-Qaeda faction, al-Nusra, that's the same al-Qaeda we went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan against in 2003. There are reports that the US has been arming al-Qaeda in the region for some time. 
• another issue is that the majority of rebel factions are currently preoccupied with fighting against their oppressive leader President Assad, and thus by joining 'our' fight they would be weakening their fight with him. And thus may provide a vacuum of power for him to fill (something which John Pilger covers extensively here).
• in order to accept this as a possibility it would require you to completely ignore the fact that it is recent history repeating itself almost identically, see Afghanistan and Iraq. This policy of using and arming 'moderates' is what has led us to the position we are currently in.

It would seem that it would be highly ineffective, and to me at least, highly irresponsible and inhumane to be bombing in areas where innocent Syrian citizens reside (that is not to say this hasn't been going on for years in Iraq and indeed in Syria, see Airwars for details). This therefore leads to the oft made point that in order to stop the organisation in its tracks air strikes could, should, can and will target ISIS oil fields, supply routes and depots in order to cut the available money they have to fund their terrorist acts and push for an Islamic State. And this is indeed what has apparently happened within hours of getting the go-ahead on the first day of Britain's campaign in Syria: RAF Tornados conducted 'strikes against six targets within the extensive oilfield at Omar'. Now it's all well and good targeting the source of revenue of this organisation in an effort to cut their funds, however would it not be much more effective long-term, far less damaging environmentally and also risk far fewer civilians lives to attack this source of income at the purchasing end. Fact is someone is buying the oil that is being pumped from the earth by ISIS and thus these people are directly funding the exploits of a terrorist organisation, multiple sources point to Turkey and Israel as ISIS's main customers. That's right Israel, a significant US and UK world ally, and Turkey a fellow NATO member are according to many directly funding ISIS. Now I am open to being corrected here but if ISIS have nobody to sell their oil to then by my reasoning that would leave them sitting on thousands of barrels of oil but no money to purchase weapons, vehicles, machinery, computers, etc, or to fund acts of terror or their propaganda machine. It is also worth noting how ISIS acquires much of it's weaponry and where from, sources point to Saudi Arabia and Turkey, again two allies of the West. Bombing is completely unnecessary if the quest is to get at the group's funding and munitions sources, instead we should hold these countries to account for their actions, you can bet we would be sure to do so if it was Russia buying the oil as opposed to our buddies. Instead we are completely in the pocket of these countries particularly Saudi Arabia, to whom last year alone we made £1.6bn worth of arms sales. Another issue with bombing in Syria is the heightened risk of retaliation terrorist attacks on British soil that it brings, ISIS released statements explicitly stating after the shooting in Paris and the downing of a Russian passenger plane that these were a direct response to their countries' bombing in Syria. Now this is not to say we should be cowed into not bombing there by threats from ISIS, but if the bombing is purely tokenism surely it begs the question, is it really worth risking the possibility of further significant terrorist attacks for?

What I feel is also important to note about the speeches in the House of Commons yesterday is that many were highly emotional and called upon our nation's 'spirit', 'ideals' or 'principles' in provoking people to join in the vote for a campaign of war within another country. These being reminiscent of President Hollande's impassioned, vitriolic speeches in the wake of the Paris attacks last month and Tony Blair's speech ahead of the war with Iraq in 2003. Now while these made for rousing speeches I feel it is irresponsible to use this tactic when such an important topic is being debated, to me such speeches are not befitting of a Head of State or Member of Parliament, these are people supposedly in charge, or are at least figureheads, of whole countries, they should not be lashing out with knee jerk responses, or playing on people's emotions to promote national pride at a time when the ability to reason and think rationally are the two most important strengths of the human mind. In such a critical debate and when making such important decisions on the behalf of such a large population of people, the people in charge should be expected to be calm, thoughtful and reasoned in their approach to formulating a response. The point of terrorism is to spread fear, many of the speeches, not only yesterday but also whenever ISIS or similar organisations are covered by politicians or the media achieve exactly the same outcome in terms of fear-mongering as the terrorists do when committing heinous acts. We should not respond to these acts in a state of fear, as it is in this state that we are likely to make mistakes. It is with fear/pride that Britain has acted in voting in favour of airstrikes over Syria. The decision seems to have been taken solely so that Britain can appear to be playing some role in the conflict, that's right a face-saving airstrike campaign. 

From what I have seen and heard the airstrikes campaign is a purely a token gesture from Britain to it's allies France and the US, which will achieve little without the help of dangerous rebel groups on the ground in Syria, the perceived aim of which could be achieved more effectively and less dangerously by holding to account some other allies in Turkey, Israel and Saudi Arabia. So, bombing in cities nor oilfields in Syria are likely to be an effective/necessary strategy. A bigger point than all of this though is that you can't bomb, shoot or murder an idea, as much as you try. Sure you can take out leaders (see Bin Laden, Ghandi, MLK) but their ideas will prevail if societal conditions are conducive to them being followed by the people within them and they have been preached strongly enough. And it is for this reason that the cycle of fundamentalism alongside hatred of the West (particularly the US) prevails in the Middle East. This is why we should be doing all we can to halt ISIS propaganda on the internet, television, magazines throughout the world, we also shouldn't be feeding their propaganda against our own country by recklessly bombing in a region where civilian casualties are unavoidable and can be easily used by the organisation to recruit more members. It has been said by many (2) that us bombing in Syria is exactly what ISIS want, it uses images of destroyed houses and hospitals and the innocent lives lost in stylised propaganda videos and magazines to recruit members across the globe, and we are playing right into their hands.

I could write page after page about the pros and cons of joining the conflict but none of this would get me over my main gripe, a gripe which encompass the whole debate, and really renders anything anyone says on the subject fairly pointless. This being the unease with which I am able to believe any reason any politician of any government gives with regards joining any Middle Eastern conflict, or any world conflict for that matter. Are we there purely to fight an evil ideology? are we there to free the people and instil a democratically elected government? are we there as a power play against Russia to prevent them from gaining more control in the region? are we there for access to oil and gas pipelines (as discussed here)? are we there to demolish the region in order to get our private industries in for the clean up job and subsequent customer base? all the above? some other not mentioned reasons? The fact that you can feel seemingly well informed on the subject of a conflict, it's history, all the major players and their ideologies and multiple theories on why and how it is happening and yet still remain as confused about the whole thing as if you knew nothing at all is not only frustrating but also massively dangerous for a general population that is bombarded with propaganda every day from every angle, and this again plays right into the hands of ISIS.

An Unnescesarily Terrible, Terror-Filled Time

The question with ISIS is typically why’s this happening to our civilisation?

but maybe we should also question our ‘civil’ nation,

and what’s being reported by our TV/radio stations as ‘world news’, 
I don’t know if it’s just me that’s a little confused,

are Beirut and Baghdad not part of the world?

should we not pay respects to Syrian and Iraqi boys and girls,

and men and women that have lost their lives?

this is a despicable conflict, but fault lies on both sides,

it’s important to remember that part,

if you do ever consider making remarks,

that the whole Middle East is a cesspit,

or that the ideology of Islam is reflected,

in the acts of a group of fundamentalist murderers,

who think the only way of dealing with their issues is to come here and murder us,

these acts are disgusting, but what’s disgusting too,

are our civilian murdering drones that never make the news,

the West is far from faultless in this series of events,

just like what we did in Iraq was not seriously an act of defence,

those civilians are people too, people like me, people like you,

and these people are living in fear of terrorist acts,

except their’s come in the form of unmanned drone attacks,

by all means change your Facebook pictures,

but more importantly seek the facts and forget the fictions,

even if within those facts there are contradictions,

of the pre existing beliefs that you hold so concrete,

while a veneer of niceness only disguises the prejudices underneath,

so as you’re thinking of those in Paris who lost their lives,

also think of the Syrians praying each day that they, may survive,

and all the other innocent people of the world caught up in the fighting,

just make sure you keep asking what do these fights bring?

Existence

I find it hard to fathom the point of my existence,

if the only point is I exist once.

What's the point in that?

you make your own point perhaps.

You make your mark, but every mark you make,

it feel's like you're doing it for it's own sake.

Taking detours from who you truly are,

in the pursuit of making your mark.

Healthy Pariahs

In today's society, science has led to us being able to explain and understand many of the mysteries of the natural world. Included within this is how our human bodies work and how the food we consume is vitally important to the effective functioning of them. I'm going to save the rant on how poor many adult's grasp of basic nutrition appears to be today for another time and focus instead on a societal issue I myself have all too often encountered. The issue in question is the apparent societal stigma around healthy eaters and healthy eating in general.

There seems to be a social pressure to eat foods that are considered non-boring. If I had a pound for every time someone snidely proclaimed about me, aloud, that I treat my body 'as a temple' upon my choosing not to eat an unhealthy food item, or every time I had been called boring for not partaking in the consumption of another unhealthy food item, I would have a lot of pounds. It is this kind of "banter" (for banter see borderline bullying) that is an all too common demonstration of some weird social stigma around healthy eaters/eating. For some reason it seems that the food you choose to eat (just as arbitrarily as the clothes you choose to wear) can indicate to others how cool/fun you are, and just as with the clothes you choose can be a source of ridicule from others. It should be the norm to eat healthily, those that do shouldn't be made to feel like social misfits, because this social stigmatization leads to these otherwise healthy-eating people feeling pressure to conform and eat "fun" unhealthy foods.

I understand that pleasure is gained from the consumption of certain food items, much research has given evidence for the fact that the consumption of highly palatable fats, sugars, and fat-sugar combinations leads to a drug like response in the brain whereby dopamine (the body's reward/pleasure neurotransmitter) is excessively released. The issue I have here is not with people finding unhealthy foods pleasurable to eat (though my argument would always be that food intake shouldn't be purely pleasure focused, it should be primarily health focused), or even that some people do become legitimately addicted to unhealthy foods, the issue is that socially it is nigh-on unacceptable to turn down a slice of cake or a pizza or a beer or to simply choose to eat healthily most of the time.

I have always found it difficult to understand the fact that people appear to need to come up with excuses for the outlandish behaviour of those that are right minded enough to make a conscious choice to give their body the nutrients it requires to function and avoid nutrient-devoid junk. One of the weirdest inferences I commonly encounter in this phenomenon is that eating certain foods is fun while eating others is not and therefore eating certain foods makes you boring. Interesting to note that the more fun foods are often those with a logo, a cartoon mascot and a slogan (just for clarity it has always been grown adults that have delivered these anti-healthy comments to/regarding me and not six year old children). My struggle to understand the reason for being made to feel like a pariah, albeit a healthy one, over the years has lead me to some possible causes.

Perhaps the explanation for the stigma is in the fact that it is not made easy to veer away from toeing the conventional line and just eating whatever chemically infused crap is colourfully packaged up for them, and then near enough shoved down their throats by intrusive advertisements, product placements and billboards. Our capitalist society is structured on the basis that you succeed by making money any way you can, if this means brainwashing consumers into drinking liquids that would be better served de-rusting cars (ahem, coca-cola) or consuming alarmingly unhealthy food products that will contribute to their ultimate early deaths then so be it. Is it this culture that causes those who don't toe the line to be considered reprobates, heretics who offend the sensibilities of those too hypnotized to see what they are actually putting into their bodies?

Maybe the social stigma is present because people genuinely don't have a good enough grasp of basic human nutrition to understand just how bad certain foods and how important other foods are for them. Or perhaps people are aware that eating healthily is the right thing to do and know how to do so, but they just find it too difficult (see dopamine response earlier) and therefore in order to protect themselves they sneer at those who somehow achieve the unachievable and manage to eat healthily, a sort of defence mechanism. Possibly it is simply another example of people lashing out at the different behaviours of others that they find difficult to understand, rather than taking the time to understand other's perspectives and reasons for doing things nowadays it seems to be the norm to jump to ridiculing that difference instead, again probably out of fear/self preservation. Or maybe it is just "harmless banter" and I am an over-sensitive sap.

Whatever the reason for the healthy eating stigma that is certainly present, and prevalent, throughout society today, it is definitely one of the arbitrary social rules that I struggle to get my head around. It is also certainly one of the most unhealthy for our society. The importance of good nutrition cannot be overstated for leading a healthy, fun and long-lasting life, therefore the institutionalised stigmatising of eating healthily, no matter how banter-filled, is a genuinely dangerous one.

Loony Lefties

Something I have never been able to get my head around is the use of the term 'Left Wing' or 'Lefties' as an insult. When you look at a definition of what being left wing actually entails it seems bizarre that this should be considered a bad thing by anybody.

 Left-wing politics are political positions or activities that accept or support social equality, often in opposition to social hierarchy and social inequality. They typically involve concern for those in society who are perceived as disadvantaged relative to others and a belief that there are unjustified inequalities that need to be reduced or abolished. Left-wingers by definition oppose certain (but not all) particular traditionalist practices they deem to be harmful or dangerous to society and individuals.

Source: Wikipedia

So, a Lefty is defined by their belief in social justice and that all people should have equal rights and opportunities in life. How can it be that holding the belief that the role of government is to create a fair society in which inequality in terms of health, wealth and education is low, is considered something to be ridiculed? The argument of those of the right is often that left wing ideas are 'loony', fanciful or pie in the sky. Surely we should all wish to live in a society, and in fact a world, where everyone has equal opportunities and nobody is left living in poverty so that others can live lavishly. 

In a speech at Western Michigan University in 1963, Martin Luther King said, "...I never intend to adjust myself to economic conditions that will take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few, leave millions of God's children in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society...". I guess he was just a 'Loony Leftie'.

The point of left wing ideas is that a human approach to society should be adopted, one that puts people and nature first. At heart we are all beings who want to love and be loved by others, this should extend to everyone, and should be at the forefront of how we structure the society we live in. However, the neoliberal paradigm we currently find ourselves within, whereby we are told that only selfishness will lead to self fulfilment, is totally unhuman and far more loony in terms of social thinking than any left wing idea. Neoliberalism only leads to greater inequality, those who have been dealt the best cards from birth, due to pure luck of the draw, are the ones who hoard all of the wealth and power, leaving those less fortunate to fight for the scraps.

I am not advocating the total taking over of society with left wing ideology (though that is what appears to have happened with right wing ideas), what would be a start is the ceasing of petty name calling and snide comments about left wing ideas. Ideas that are solely aimed at making society fairer for everybody, in the hope of abolishing the reign of selfishness that appears to have taken hold.

Fat Shaming vs Fat Praising