an essay concernin Jews

I was once in the presence of a young man who could have been no older than thirty. As for as I could see, he appeared to be well-mannered, pleasant, dignified and thoughtful. It came to my attention this person viewed some harrowing footage of children, Jewish children in concentration camps in that dreadful period in history. His only remark was that ‘they deserved it’. Then he justified his reasons for saying such a monstrous thing. His reason was this: because they had murdered millions over the centuries.’ When asked further about this, he gave no response, and this was the end of the matter. This can only come down to miseducation and no doubt his family, were anti-Semitic, was he? Certainly not. His idiocy got the better of him.

The Jews have emerged since this rapacious bloodbath in history. This essay is not concerning itself with religious Jews, idealism or even politics. It is Jews as people that are of interest. If somebody belongs to a working class district, they should set themselves the task of looking for Jews. Without being grotesque about the matter when searching for Jews people should ask themselves what do they look like if we must follow them out of curiosity, out of intrigue, of interest. Then when we have followed them for so many miles, we can say what we did that day; that we followed a Jew, or at least somebody that resembled one. It would be interesting to observe their mannerisms, how they behave, how they eat, how they dress, and so on. The day's events can be written in a diary. There is nothing strange or odd about doing such a thing. In order to observe the Jewish way of life, something must be done.

There is a vibrant culture amongst Jewish communities. They write books, good ones, there are an array of Jewish writers who have won the Nobel Prize for literature. There are others that may have won it. In the world, there are well over one billion Christians and one billion Muslims yet ‘Jewish’ writers appear to have a Jewish identity. Christians lack the cultural fibre Jews possess, as do Muslims. The Christian writer, in any case, sounds a little odd. Judaism is a way of life for many. Norman Mailer, himself a Jew, in his masterpiece the Naked and the Dead, says Judaism is a way of life and nothing to do with the fact they believe in God. Most Jews, if they are honest with themselves, do not believe in God; any God. instead, they celebrate the Jewish traditions. People convert to Judaism but that is an entirely different matter.

There is a mysterious air concerning these people. They emerged in 1945 and beyond with tremendous spirit and resolve. It is not just an array of literary writers which they can boast of but there are many intellectual ones also. When we put this fact forward, people may reply well, what is so impressive about that? When they become aware just how many Jews there are in the world, they are backed into a corner. It is then that they concede that this is not only impressive but almost inconceivable that they achieve this status. Look at the intellectual and philosophical writers they can boast of in the twentieth century alone: Hannah Arendt, Alexander Berkman, Emma Goldman, Rudolf Rocker, Sigmund Freud, Joseph Stiglitz, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Ilan Pappe, Avi Shlaim. Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, Paul Avrich, Aaron Baron, Abu Bluestein, Murray Bookchin, Paul Goodman and of course there are many more. Then there are the literary writers: Franz Kafka, Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Nadine Gordimer, primo Levy, Amoz Oz, Norman Mailer, John Updike, Aharon Appelfeld and of course many others.

When we see a Jew, we know we see a Jew. It is entirely evident. A Christian may have a cross or crucifix around their necks, the Muslim wears the traditional dress but without these we do not know if they are Christians or Muslims nor do we recognise it elsewhere. It is only Jews we can distinguish. It is unfathomable but lots of Jews have very large noses. Observing a Jew from a non-Jewish perspective, from a secular point of view is interesting because it is alien to us. The interest is learning of a different culture; a different way of life. Some of us do not know how to live our lives, we are  lost as we attempt to find our identity. The Jews do not need to find their identity. It is there. Jewishness is their identity. That is something people ought to be envious of.

‘Where are the damned Jews today?’ say some. They live in the local village but cannot be seen. They are everywhere yet they are nowhere. They are a mysterious group of people. Take somebody like Noam Chomsky. His father was a Hebrew teacher, as was his mother. They were both Jewish of course. Noam looks Jewish, speaks Hebrew. But for some he will always be Jewish because his father was, and after all that is his heritage. That suggests that is little to do with the belief in a higher being. It is about culture, identity and heritage. Speaking as a secular thinker and not as a Jew or even one that knows a great deal about them, they appear, to be from a good upbringing, they are successful, cultural, intelligent, ambitious and all these traits of course are obvious.

We have the ‘cultural Jew’ but we seldom hear of the cultural Buddhist, cultural Christian, Muslim and so on. Leo Tolstoy rejected the Nobel Prize for Literature on cultural grounds but he was not a Jew. In fact, he rejected culture entirely and based his entire existence on his peculiar religion which he placed a great deal of emphasis on. He even attacked the greatest writer of them all, William Shakespeare. Mr. Tolstoy only rejected these things and only came to this conclusion because of his idle fantasies with God. It is perhaps odd for a man of such a high intellect to think such frivolous things. But with the Jew, none of this infantilism would ever materialise in this first place with the cultural Jew. Because, for Tolstoy, everything was concerning God, nothing else mattered. High culture went in the garbage bin of history.

Disreputable people often lament the existence of the Jews. This, of course, is for a number of reasons. The obvious reason which is racist and fascist fanaticism. Jews, not all of them, refer to non-Jews as ‘gentiles’. This is offensive and suggests the Jews believe themselves better than anybody else. The atheist does not saunter around calling everybody else a fraud who believes in god, of course the atheist would be right to say this but it is rather a bit coarse to publicly examine it.

Franz Kafka was Jewish but he was by no means a ‘Jewish’ writer. We may read Kafka over and over again until we can read no more and we would still have little clue he was in fact Jewish because indeed he does not indeed advertise the fact. On one occasion he walking down the street and a schoolgirl was shouting something to him when he looked over to see what pleasantries she was shouting, she was yelling ‘Jew’. This is quite comical, one may add but what is not comical is the fate that awaited his own family after he had died in 1924. Many of them were gassed at the now notorious gas chambers and death camps, other Jews of course had to flee like Freud, Mann and countless others. What is remarkable is how these Jews have emerged from that time and one must assume there is something quite remarkable in that. There is little wonder why so many are so thankful, envious and scornful towards them.

If one goes into a Kosher shop, one will observe Jews in conversation. To ensure you know you will be following a Jew this is the best practice. A plan must be concocted. Not to deceive somebody but merely for somebody’s self-interest. Because of this Jew-following activity an effort must be made to enter the shop as if a worthwhile and enjoyable purchase was about to be made: for the sake of common decency and to prevent wasting the time of the shop workers, a purchase must be made. Now, it is evident not everybody enjoys kosher food, indeed people dismiss it for ethical reasons. If this is the case then one can always throw this food to their dog or somebody but be advised to cook it first. If the dog refuses the food then they are surely an anti-Semite. But no matter. After the purchase is made you must vacate the premises and follow a Jew. Most importantly it will be an educational experience.

The reader may or not be as the case may be-relieved to find the writer of this essay has not spent his time following Jews from one place to another, or followed them at all. On one occasion however, I was sitting in a cafe reading André Gide, not a Jew, some moments later, four or five people arrive and they order whatever they are having and as they sit behind me I try to eavesdrop in on their conversation. I was growing irate because the barista kept putting the noisy coffee machine on and I was unable to hear the conversation behind me taking place. I soon became aware the people were Jewish and that delighted me very much. I heard one saying how one must never compare the holocaust; meaning the Jewish holocaust with others because that was a special one. They also spoke about how members of parliament berated the state of Israel for their utter barbarism against the natives, although they did not use those words, they went on to describe a member of parliament as an anti-Semite and how a popular journalist referred to him as a ‘fascist’. Then they spoke about popular culture, which of course is when I lost interest and left.

That is evidence, first-hand evidence that one not need follow a Jew to observe their absurdities, eavesdrop on their conversations and whatever else but I would have preferred it if they had not discussed popular culture. That was disappointing. I did find it somewhat frustrating that they talked and refused to stop because it took me a silly amount of time to read André Gide. The event of course was not organised, it was an accident of history. To be candid I found most of their conversation an absolute bore. Maybe Jews are not so interesting after all.

It is the case that Jews can be quite ridiculous people. One only needs to read Kafka. Emma Goldman failed in her attempts to become a prostitute on 42nd street in New York. She told her potential ‘client’ how terrible it is that women have to lower themselves to do such a thing, her friend and sometime boyfriend Alexander Berkman failed to murder a man, but instead shot him and for his troubles earned himself a 22-year prison sentence in one of the world’s toughest jails. One only needs to read the novels of Philip Roth to realise what a strange person he is. The film director Woody Allen, had Ingmar Bergman as his favourite director, but Bergman, as is well known, deals with issues such as atheism and existentialism, he also had sexual relations with his teenage step daughter, an irregular thing to do. Roman Polanski went further and caused a scandal with a thirteen-year-old child. There are other Jews that are full of absurdities as have been shown.

Christopher Marlowe wrote a play called the Jew of Malta; Shakespeare gives us Shylock in the Merchant of Venice; in Portnoy’s Complaint, young Portnoy is masturbating on a bus using a baseball glove; in Norman Mailer's the Naked and the Dead, there are discussions with the protagonist concerning Jews and Jewishness and what it means to be a Jew; in Gogol, in Pushkin, in Balzac we see Jews from different walks of life; in the film the Lemon Tree, we see good Jews and bad ones; Saul Bellow, Aharon Appelfeld, Amoz Oz and other Jewish writers have portrayed Jews in their works and that is some heritage. The state of Israel may have savagely annihilated Palestinian history, their cultural identity but Judaism and Jewishness is in the history books and nothing shall delete it.

Gramsci was Jewish who suffered terribly, Hannah Arendt wrote painfully and honestly about Judaism and the holocaust, Amira Hass, Gideon Levy, Avi Shlaim, Norman Finkelstein are prominent Jews who speak out against Israeli state violence. There is the Jew that writes wonderful literature, the intellectual Jew, the Jew of compassion,  the cultural Jew and the absurd one. One need not be afraid of Jews. They are human beings like all of us. They are not gods either. If you speak to them surely they will speak back. If they are walking along the street with a newspaper under their arm and drop it, they drop it and you pick it up they will say thank you for this act of kindness. This is the Jewish way and it is just like any other way. The Jew is not a freak show to observe. They will communicate with you and make you tea. This is the way it is. Then you can have  a cultural discussion, an intellectual discussion, even a political one, perhaps a boorish one. Do not be afraid of the Jews stature. They are human beings; that is certain.

People attack Jews for the mere fact they are Jews. They give different reasons, none of it is justified of course, for no act of violence can ever be justified. The Jew is an easy target. People, no doubt have reasons, so they say, for attacking Jews. One bunch say it is because of what Israeli barbarians are doing to the Arab population in Gaza and the West Bank, well this hardly correlates with Jews because it has nothing to do with Judaism and the people that are attacked may or may not agree with Israeli savagery, so that can hardly be a reason for inflicting violence on defenceless people.

Others do it because they claim Jews have too much influence, too much power, too much business and are taking over. People who make these wild claims can not name a single Jew who is part of their own country’s government, who have a voice in their community, own the shops and businesses they frequent. These are the worst bunch of racists who can not tell the difference between a pancake and a brain. They come from the Richard Wagner school of thought but without the intellect, culture and with the violence. They are cowards of course who have nothing better to do with their idle time.

When I was a child and learned about the Jewish holocaust, the question I asked was how did they know the people were Jewish. How did they spot them, I asked. Of course children ask these questions and it is dreadful to think about. Germany has to live with the horror of the past while the Israeli state slaughters the native population. We are told we can never forget the past, more importantly, we must use the present to stop current bloodshed from taking place. If we fail to come to the aid of one group of people but show concern for others we are parasites and spineless. We are who we are as people because of our history; what we have experienced, the friendships we have encountered, the relationships we have been involved in, every conversation, every accidental ‘bump’ into that other person becomes who you are. If, in your teenage years, you beat weaker people to a pulp, if in your twenties you were in prison for such activities, if in your thirties, you begin to live decently and honestly, if in your forties you have a certain status in your community and whatever else, you would be forgiven for the behaviours in your younger days. Time heals, people deserve second and third chances. We, as people are imperfect and at times know not what we do. Bleeding Jews must heal their wounds and prevent similar injury to others. We must act as altruistic humans, without that we all become brutes.

November, 2015

a Drab Existence

On one chilly October morning there was a feeble knock at the door and the knocking continued, just like the porter in Macbeth. I answered the knocking of course and was presented with two aging women. As it turned out the pair were Jehovah’s Witnesses. During the conversation, which I found to be highly amusing, one of the women asked if I wanted to live on this earth in perpetuity albeit she did not use that particular word. I looked at her, and before saying anything reflected on this question. Within a moment I laughed, so much in fact that I began to foam at the mouth. I said to them it would be like hell for me to live for ever. The very idea was gruesome.

People who want to live forever have no talent, said Solzhenitsyn. Perhaps that is true. When most people die, they want to leave something behind for others to cherish. Those who leave nothing behind and have no legacy, are desperate. They want to live until something remarkable happens to them, but, sadly, for them, no such thing will happen and they will continue to live a drab existence. When they walk, they walk with no real purpose and it is the same with everything else. Their own lives have been devastated by their own failures and misfortunes. There is something Bergmanesque and Chekhovian about these people.

Oswald, in Ibsen’s Ghosts, hates the parochial, suburban existence, the man loathes the bigotry in such places. The terrible thing would be for somebody of cultural merit, of ideas, intellect, ambition, to live in a terrible place where everything and everybody that surrounded them were backward and barbaric. This would be worse than a drab existence; a concentration camp of sorts, for there could be no escape. There would be nobody for people to speak to; for everybody in the rotten town would be uneducated and uncultivated. Their perimeter of discussion would be around boorish trivialities. Soon enough the unhappy soul who belonged to this wretched town would die due to unhappiness.

It is not just the artist, the progressive, that leaves a drab existence either; the people are everywhere. They are the homeless, the prostitute, the poor, the disturbed, the mentally ill, tortured souls, the imprisoned, they are all of us. The struggle is finding warmth, food, even shelter. These people are affected by market absurdities. Unhappiness lurks everywhere. The world has been unfaithful to these individuals and they must bear the hardships until this sick, depraved existence ends their lives and are forgotten forever. In a world where there's no hope existence is futile in the first place.

Tom Joad has hope as does the rest of his family in John Steinbeck’s the Grapes of Wrath. Their present existence, some, may argue, is drab, but there is hope; hope of finding permanent work that pays a salary we dream of and the rest follows on from that. Without hope nothing seems worthwhile. Cormac McCarthy of course, another American novelist, offers no such hope, and the characters in his novels are left rather helpless in a desperate quest for survival. In his apocalyptic novel, the Road, only death seems inevitable, for all life has been wiped out. The suffering of modern man, woman and child is inexplicable. It is a horrorshow of an existence.

We have all become existential absurdities in a Kafkaesque world. One nation may be economically viable to another; that is worth the imprisonment and torture of an entire nation; the murder of hundreds of thousands of innocents, even millions perhaps. After all people are expendable. Nothing matters as long as economic growth is visible. Alexander Sokurov, the Russian film director, called all politicians terrorists because they put politics ahead of humanity. He is quite right, of course. We now live in an age where ‘terrorists’ must appear they are concerned for the poor and the oppressed. The plain truth is they are poor and oppressed because of the terrorists themselves.

Noam Chomsky said even to enter a debate on whether the Jewish holocaust took place is to lose one’s humanity. One should add even to enter the parliamentary political arena is to lose one’s humanity because what follows will be a holocaust of sorts. What people are subjected to is no better than a Kafka short story. People that live in misery and helplessness are limited in their scope of action. Some pray to something or somebody that is alien to them, others gamble their lives away and drink themselves to death.

India is a country which is subject to intolerable abuse by more developed countries. This does not generate a great deal of concern from many people today, and sooth it never did. Indians then are just raw cattle and market fodder who are abused and exploited for no other reason than free market perversities. I.E economic growth. This consists of forced labour and child labour. There are rich and wealthy areas of course which makes India such a disgusting country. It is these people who lead a drab existence that make western companies and business happy for the profits to go through the roof given the pittance they pay their workers, and the working conditions they work under is an absolute abomination.

People will always be in the gutter so to speak. There will always be oppression, repression, abuse, coercion and whatever else. Even in more developed countries we still see desperate and miserable people moseying around with little to do. Their entire lives have been emptied of any meaning. A drug addict can not function as a member of society, for they, in some cases, commit unceremonious acts in order to obtain particular substances, and by substances I do not mean the most lethal which is cigarettes and alcohol.

The alcoholic fares no better. The dependency on this drug leaves this person in a permanent state of lethargy and is impossible for them to live a normal or even decent life. This is hardly a life at all. They are literally dying and this is not uncommon either. The reasons for becoming dependent on alcohol can range from anything. It is true by taking vast amounts of alcohol on a regular basis nums emotional and psychological pain, and sometimes even physical pain. Victims of childhood abuse often, through anguish and pain, go through this downward spiral, and it affects the poor and rich alike.

We do not know, when we bump into another in the street, what sort of person they are, what life they have led and so on. We can only surmise. There was a woman I once had the opportunity to speak with and she was a peculiar sort of person. She lived in an apartment block and looked more like a tree than a human being. All through her clothes sticks and branches could be seen sticking out; her body looked like it comprised of nothing but twigs. The woman made it known she did not wish to communicate with any person and suggested that if any of her neighbours wished to communicate with her they should post a message under her door. This person led a drab existence and spent most of her time sitting on park benches getting drenched in the rain, when she had  a flat to go home to.

People are not happy and they attempt to deny this fact. Some will always be happy and be content with life; others will not.  Some people when they enter a prison or their deathbed will not change their demeanor or attitude towards life. Their smile is unable to be broken and their optimism unable to be reversed. These are the strong willed and nothing can break their spirit. Then there are people that will always have a black cloud hanging over them, no matter what happens in their lives. Depression of all kinds lurks in all corners of their mind. This cannot be helped. It is some kind of sick and rotten condition. They cannot go on, but they must.

 If we turn towards Anton Chekhov and his characters on stage we see they are far more remarkable in their melancholy and misery in the lives they have led. Uncle Vanya, one of Chekhov’s greatest creations, after attempting to shoot the old retired professor-a man he despises- bemoans his own existence:

Oh my God I’m forty-seven. Suppose I live to be sixty, that still means I have thirteen years to go. It’s too long. How am I to get through these thirteen years? What am I to do? How do I fill the time? Oh, can you think-? Can you think what it would be like to live your new life a new way? Oh, to wake up some fine, clear morning feeling as if you’ve started living all over again, as if the past was all forgotten, gone like a puff of smoke.

   

When people have led this drab existence for so long they no longer regard their lives as a drab existence at all.. This is because there appears to be little thought about anything at all. It is only survival they are concerned with. Yes it is true their lives, just like Vanya’s, are awful and desperate but often do not think about these things. This is hardly surprising. This has become the norm; the usual way. Their family and friends are often in the same position as themselves. This woeful situation then becomes normalised and it is no different from getting up in the morning and eating breakfast. Then the rest of their lives pine sway and they are forgotten forever.

The workplace is a good example. The structure of the labour market is a criminal disgrace. Once a ‘worker’ enters the workplace they are stripped of their rights, humanity and even civility and this only adds to the misery of their own lives. Work only adds to the burden. It is also the case, when entering the workplace, they are no longer a living organism; a human being, they have become a mere worker, a bondman, a slave to their exploiters, a prostitute no doubt. Physical labour at least leads to a premature death and creates all sorts of illness and diseases for the individual. Therefore people ought to free themselves from the hideous shackles and retain their freedom. There then exists a possibility for a better life; a better existence. ‘Work’ only makes a drab existence more inevitable.

Often desperate individuals are so downtrodden and despised that they turn to that awful thing, religion. This, of course, is because they are totally desperate. They hope for a better life in the next world. There is no use in trying in this one any longer. Instead the life’s unfortunates of this world must turn to something far more perverse. The interest is no longer in this world but elsewhere. It extends even beyond religion. These Kafkaesque nonentities, as they are often known being of their deprived social position, seek hope and salvation in visiting cunning and deceitful psychics and clairvoyants. Of course, like religious apologists they seek to prey on the vulnerable. It is easy to target the poor, the miserable, the downtrodden, the abused, the exploited, the unperson. This is the current state of affairs in the world.

The world is a desperate place for many, but what else is there? There is no escape-there is only alcohol and drugs to relieve the suffering, as discussed. Their lives are imperfect to say the least and there is no escape. They have no hidden talent that can save them from the terrible, perpetual nightmare. Often they wake up in the morning or afternoon wishing to speak, think, even breath. Life has let them down. They were born dying and that fact has never gone away and that along with everything else is inescapable. Their lives have become as insignificant as Estragan’s and Vladimir’s. Only their lives are real, and when they die, other people born into this world replace their misery. There is always somebody else to take their place. It is a drab existence.

8th-10th November, 2014

Prison Essays (10). As Barbaric Institutions

 

 

“The law is an ass”, Charles Dickens once said, and quite correctly too. There are two sorts of laws that exist in the world at large: state law and natural law. I would like, very briefly to discuss these two terms. State law is the set of laws we are coerced into abiding by. These, of course, are man-made laws, and many are rather obscene, but must not be challenged no matter how wild and backward they may appear. Refusal to abide by these “laws” and break them could end in quite catastrophic circumstances for the individual concerned. They, will, depending on the “crime” almost certainly be convicted and given a criminal record and even sent to prison. They will be affected with this torturous affair for the rest of their lives. On the other hand, natural law is rather different. For such things as murder, rape, assault, armed robbery and so forth we all know to be wrong and unacceptable so some form of detainment may be even justified to prevent the individual or individuals from repeating those acts. For the argument is that we do not need the state to inform us that murdering, assaulting and raping people is wrong.

“Every law is a crime”, wrote the libertarian thinker, Marquis de Sade. Whether that statement is true or not it does not matter a great deal for the people currently residing in these insipid prisons. The frightening scenario is that prisons of various kinds exist in almost every country in the world. Every state, which is a criminal state of a certain variety, keeps these prisons and locks people up for lengthy periods of time. They lock up these people like a savage locks up his slaves. This institution is cut off from the outside world and all this from progressive, liberal states. “The degree of civilisation in a society can be judged by entering its prisons”, wrote Fyodor Dostoevsky. That is quite true. What do we have in these Kafkaesque monstrosities? Officers in uniform, jangling their keys, dark, sombre, black corridors, mouldy cells and this is our “humanity”, “progress”, “enlightenment”, “decency”. These places are justified by the criminal class by saying we are protecting our well-behaved citizens by locking all the criminals up. But that makes little sense, for if all criminals were locked up there would be a shortage of military personnel, the police, members of Parliament, journalists, doctors, journalists, social workers, probation officers, church Ministers, company executives, because they would be filling the prisons up.

This talk about locking up the bad people is complete nonsense, in fact it is a complete fabrication. There are a group of people in these prisons, and only this group of people ought to be removed from society, not indefinitely, but for an amount of time until they pose no danger once again. Punishment ought to have no role in a progressive society and people who pose such arguments, and there are many of them, are driven by ideology. That is the minority of people who are in favour of regressive practices. The majority are often well-intentioned but they lament their protestations under high-level indoctrination. Why torture and murder people when a more beneficial tool is brainwashing then under media freedom? It is rather unusual for a great many people to believe in punishment of this this kind in a single other country in Europe. The framework of the prison system has already been set in the human psyche. The media and statesmen alike must never deviate from this. The argument is never “prisons ought to exist”, instead it varies on “tougher sentences”, “making prisons tougher”, and other lunacies are also expressed, which happen under a free state under brainwashing lunacies.

The very existence of a single functioning prison bears the hallmark of a rogue society; a criminal state. But it must be emphasised that Britain is not a criminal state, that is totally false. Britain is not a criminal state, it is an elite criminal state. When an elite criminal state lives and breathes do not be too surprised in finding this same state committing crimes every day of week. The very idea of prison is a very Kafkaesque notion. That is of the “dehumanised” individual. A “nightmare” existence. But this Kafkaesque existence has become more and more terrifying in modern Britain. This, to many, sounds preposterous; it is not. The Hobbesian dystopia extends beyond the prison gates. In reality the real prison sentence takes place when the prisoner, so we are told, is a free man or woman, as the case may be.

Yet this is not a nightmare; it is reality. For these people, or rather unpeople, as Orwell would have it, liberty and freedom are unattainable goals in the most loathsome prison of all, Britain. It is a nightmare society that has been created and it has been created by almost everyone because they are classed as “criminals”, for Britain is a prison state and police state rolled into one, with the limited, necessary freedoms, for without such freedoms, even the greatest brainwashing state would fail to convince its people in calling it a “free state”. It is still a very disturbing and unceremonious thing that prisons exist at all in the 21st century, but the most shocking aspect of this is that people appear to accept it. But it has been tolerated because we belong to the most debased society imaginable. It is, in essence, a nightmare existence. The more free a people become the more the autocratic a government becomes. This has been shown in many societies and the vicious battle is still being fought.

Yet why are these inhumane institutions still open? That is not such a difficult question to answer. Part of that question, has, in part, been answered already. That is, of the rampant indoctrinating mechanisms and the marginalisation of dissident debate about the issue. The other reason is the role of state capitalism, or rather, a variation of it. It amounts to class warfare; aristocrats dressed up as democrats, waging a class war on its biggest enemies of all, the electorate. There are no privileged classes in prisons, these people are far too busy committing major crimes in their chosen profession, with maximum protection from the government. Now this same state, of consecutive oppressive governments has succeeded in putting barriers between different kinds of prisoners, so prisoners are waging a war against each other. The poor are waging war against themselves, against poor refugees, benefit claimants, the disabled, it is a war being waged against all of us by all of us.

3rd-4th February, 2014

 

 

Prison Essays (9): Indeterminate Sentences

IPPs (Imprisonment For Public Protection) was introduced by a right wing Labour government and this new law was introduced for a variety of reasons. There are three reasons and I shall briefly discuss them all individually. (1). Control. Control in prison and most importantly outside of this establishment. People subject to an IPP sentence are placed on licence, once leaving prison, for at least ten years, and up to life. So, in effect a life sentence. So for the rest of these people’s lives they are subjected to a sort of mental terror, knowing that doing something wrong, especially in a bail hostel, face the prospect of spending many years in prison. So many aspects of their lives are dominated. They must ask if they want to work in a particular job, move into a flat, even form a relationship. This is, so we are told, a democracy and not totalitarian state.

(2). Induce the prisoner to admit “offences” they have not committed. This was savagely successful, and it had many sides to it. For example, people were utterly mortified at the prospect of being found guilty of anything. By pleading guilty there was less chance of receiving an IPP sentence and for the ones that did receive one it was a far more frightening prospect. For example they were, as they still are, forced to go on infantile courses and refusal would see them in prison for many more years, possibly for the rest of their lives. But it goes even further than this. These courses sought to change people's attitudes and tacitly encourage them to become more docile and favourable to authority, to reognise their incorrigible behaviour, and that it is perfectly acceptable for them to be removed entirely from society when they serve their life sentence, once they are out of prison. It is vicious brainwashing, and it goes much further than that. The sessions (they are group sessions), are filmed, their verbal introduction, views and thoughts on relevant topics, are noted down, this information is passed on to their probation officer and other agencies. Again, this, so we are told, is not a totalitarian state but a democracy.

(3). Deceive the public. With the IPP system now in place the government were able to make perverse claims, saying the most dangerous people are now in prison and will not be released until they reach certain conditions, these conditions is obedience to their tormentors. Many who were given this “death sentence”, as prisoners describe it, are not and never were the slightest bit dangerous. The judges were giving them out so frequently that the government had to vary the law, so fewer would receive the “death sentence”. All it required was an unfavourable report from their probation officer in their presentence report and that alone made the chance of receiving an IPP sentence more inevitable. One man, at the time he was sentenced, was still a “young offender”. According to his own barrister, was expecting, perhaps a suspended sentence; he spent some months on remand. His crime: he had a relationship with a thirteen-year-old child and this relationship included carrying out awful abuses such as holding hands with the boy and the occasional kiss on the cheeks. It should come as no great surprise that this young man had the mental capacity of a child, and no doubt thought and acted like one. When he was sentenced he received a three-and-half-year IPP. There are hundreds of more people, having committed small misdemeanours, who are in this same position.

In fact there are tens of reasons why the government introduced these barbaric IPP sentences. A more detailed essay could deal with these points and it is not difficult to understand why these harsh draconian policies are implemented. If that was not perverse enough there are another bunch of helpless prisoners who are subject to a sort of psychological terror and they are what we refer to as “lifers”, and most are set a “tariff”, that is that they must serve a number of years in prison before they are suitable for release, so in many ways similar to IPP sentences.

John Podmore is a former Governor, Chief Inspector of Prisons and author of Out of Sight Out of Mind, a book. In it he discusses Britain’s obsessive nature with handing out mandatory life sentences for convicted murderers. But it is not just for murder either but for many other “offences” considered to be less serious but this means nothing to the criminal classes and inevitably these unfortunate people who spend many years in prison will forever be in bondage to the state. Their release can only be made possible when they relinquish disobedience, independence and resistance to authorities. They must, in essence, think like their jailors, think like their leaders and think like a controlled machine, in other words not to think independently at all but do what they are told. Upon release from prison this hideous terror takes on the form of something far greater.

The state apparatus expects the prisoner to be “stable”, “stability here is the key word, stability is doublespeak to mean control. If we are not able to control individuals then they must perish in prison until they conform and obey. Any resistance to this is not tolerated by the criminal class but why would people outside the prison industrial complex care? These prisoners may have murdered, raped or tortured, so therefore why should such people deserve our sympathy, support or even acknowledgement of their existence? This is an interesting argument because the soldier kills, we are told for his country, the police shoot unarmed civilians and this is met with total impunity, the Social Services, Doctors and other professionals make decisions which amount to “gross negligence” and “manslaughter”, yet these professionals are seldom charged with these things, let alone spend years in jail. Members of Parliament are responsible for mass murder abroad, yet are free to continue their hideous practices. Major concentrated power commit heinous crimes: BP, Trafigura, Shell, Apple, Adidas, Nike, Gap and so on but they always get state protection, and in comparison, their crimes are too terrible to contemplate. In actual fact their crimes are more criminal than the entire prison population combined, but people tend not to treat them the same way as convicted prisoners.

1st-2nd February, 2014

For previous prison essays check recent posts. The last of my prison essays will be posted soon.

Prison Essays (8): Prison officers

Prison officers in England and Wales are central to a hideous, foul, punitive system which is corrupt, barbaric and clandestinely criminal. It is in these unnatural institutions where these brutes in authority create their own constitution and often subject prisoners to unjust punishment. The prisoner officer is the soldier fighting a war abroad; a police officer in the police cell; criminal gangs who inhabit pitiful slums.  All these commit crimes with impunity.  But more particularly, the prisoner officer  engaging in physical violence, verbal bullying and generally terrorising prisoners are more likely to escape without even a caution because the environment is their constitution and nobody is aware of such menacing practices.

 

This appears like a scandalous thing to say, and it would be if it was false.  Before being outraged by such remarks one must ponder the following: that prisoners, have every inch of their lives, during incarceration, of being dictated to, terrorised, manipulated, bullied by lunatics in uniform.  

 

But even if officers patrolling a particular prison were the most amicable and congenial people that ever mosied the earth, what then? No matter. The prison population would still be subject to harsh practices from the state. The benevolent officers would only “implement” such things and in not doing so they would not be doing their job at all, so the culpability is not theirs.  For example, if a prisoner decided to go on a strike of some kind, a hunger strike perhaps and persuaded others to follow the same course of action, and was discovered by these benign officers and duly reported, the prisoner would be charged with “starting a mutiny” and/or starting a riot, thus rendering many more years in prison for nothing more than organising, perhaps like trade unions would do and  indeed do.  This would be the equivalent of banning every trade union in the country and every protest group.  Quite unthinkable.

 

 For the prisoner who is subject to an indefinite sentence, this amounts to psychological torture or even warfare. The reason is rather simple. An indefinite sentence, of course, in prison terms, is when the prisoner does not know when they are going to be released, and they have to rely on their jailors to write pleasant reports, and not to make things hard or difficult for them.  So often these prisoners spend their whole time in jail, treading on eggshells, and ultimately are terrified when they come into contact with officers of any description.  What if the officer lies in writing up a report or many reports?  What then?  Bad reports translate into many years in prison, and this is the ultimate nightmare people face day-in, day-out.  It is worthy of an Edgar Allen Poe tale.

 

Prisons in Britain have strong parallels with U.S post-war hegemonic imperialism, in that it attempts to thwart independent actions, and in this case, thinking.  None of this is really permitted in prisons, and it attempts to take the individuality out of the prisoner and render them all Winston Smith's.  This amounts to gentle brainwashing and thought-control.  It is a system of vengeance, which in many cases breeds contempt, and is all rather hazardous.  

 

The prison officer has no independence of any sort; they are not free men and women, in fact they are far less freer than prisoners themselves, on this face of it this may appear foolish; but it is far from foolish. These officers who stroll around their constitution, jangling their keys, are in total bondage to the state, and their minds are totally disabled, disabled of any liberty, freedom and freethinking. They only echo idiocies that are lectured from the criminal class. They are in no danger of thinking anymore, because they are given orders and they obey these without questioning the abhorrent criminal system they are part of. It is fortunate for the current prison population that these people are not ordered to rape, torture and murder victims in prison.

 

Most prison officers discriminate against their victims and their bias is as clear as anything. Yet there are officers who possess favourable characteristics, and ought to be applauded. These are the types of jailors who are often male and over fifty. They regurgitate advice and philosophise on the future of the prisoner, and encourage them to lead a good life and induce them to be good citizens and improve their character, their lives and their future. These sorts of officers are perhaps the most important people these prisoners will ever meet on their miserable journey in prison.  They may tell the prisoner, man is not born evil, but that you make your own decisions and sometimes they are not the correct ones and ultimately leads him into all sorts of trouble. They do not judge or condemn but only wish them a good life and to prove to their community people have the ability to change.  These prison officers ought to be saluted as heroes.  It is the best advice a prisoner could ever receive.  

 

Some words ought to be said about the role of the Governor in prisons.  Governors in all prisons, head Governors, are living in a fantasy world.  They have little idea how prisons are run, and their job title, in my view is a crypt-criminal one, because the conditions of that prison is largely down to them and they have a totalitarian control over their vast constitution. These Governors have obscene authority and power over their dominions, as they would have it.  The Governor is not too dissimilar to an imperial Monarch.  They are seldom seen; when they are they are surrounded by their protectors and they implement measures which subject their population to unjust hardships.  In all, authority in prisons is not something to be proud of, it is rather a thing to be ashamed of.

31st January, 2014

 

 

 

Prison Essays (7): Illiteracy

 

 

Well over half the population in England and Wales are illiterate. That statistic alone paints a story of the current state of modern Britain. It suggests certain people are thrown into jail, and they are the most disadvantaged and oppressed in society. For those people who have not been taught basic reading and writing skills for whatever reason, are denied attending education classes of any sort, their working lives are limited and many will find it difficult to find work of any kind, it is therefore logical to deduce from this that some people will inevitably end up behind bars. The more poor and uneducated a person is  the more chance there is of finding themselves in prison. When they are released, the same circle they are ensnared in continues, and so such people will spend most of their lives in prison.

 

For those that are unable to read the more real is the threat of abuse and bullying. This happens everywhere while these oppressed, bewildered and tortured are sent to prison. This comes in the form of other prisoners, officers, and they are often manipulated and  deceived by the police in the process of being interviewed by them, betrayed by their solicitors and barristers and so on.  But all this has not happened by chance, this war against unpeople has been raging for many years, and now it is deemed acceptable by working adults in prisons. But it does appear, on the face of it at least, the government is doing something to tackle this problem.  For illiterate men and women, they have the opportunity to read in prison.  This is done through what is known as Toe by Toe. Toe by Toe is an ingenious way that teaches people to read. The Shannon trust, founded in 1997 by  farmer, Christopher Morgan.  In the early 1990s he was corresponding with a prisoner, Tom Shannon, the trust is named after him.  There, Morgan learned about the appalling illiteracy rates in prison, and people must be eternally grateful for his services.  Toe by Toe mentors are not professional teachers who teach prisoners how to read, but by unpaid prisoners. So much for the government helping these people.  

 

The government prattle on about getting people back into work but people with little or no formal education that is when the crime of poverty materialises.  This is when men and women steal, rob, mug, sell illegal substances and so forth. They are using their skills,  because often it is the only skills they have. The weak and disadvantaged will always be brutalised and marginalised in a capitalist society, because capitalism is synonymous with greed, avarice and plutocracy. The persecution of these people is perfectly simple. But something much worse is hiding. It is because of their vulnerability they are quite likely to be sent to prison for committing no crime and thus rendering them innocent victims.  

 

When over half the prison population is unable to read and write that shows how rapacious class war has become. There is no democracy in a society where there is no freedom of opportunity. Weakness will always be targeted in prison, so far example they will sign important documents they are unable to read, they will ask fellow prisoners to receive their meals, have visits and send out mail.  Some prisoners will use methods of blackmail to enact this service. They, also, are unable to attend education, as education in prison is for people that are literate to some degree at least.  So it is left to the unpaid Toe by Toe mentors.

 

But it need not be this way and we know it.  It is a pathetic state of affairs but we now live in a fiscal-fascist world, only the people that have the nefarious desire to make money and outlandish profits will receive state protection and the rest of society are left to fend for themselves. It is a sick and perverse ideology, but it is an ideology that sets the global framework, and that framework is called the free market.  

 

Only in a globally fascist-designed economic system, i.e the free market would you get such victims rotting in prison for the biggest crime of all: being poor. Yet who must be culpable? These working class societies, or rather concentration camp environments, are designed, not an act of god or made up of some random accident.  It is through successive governments that have persecuted the poor and have had a hugely successful clandestine war against them and the result is seeing these people in excessively high numbers coming into the British punitive system.  Being poor is a crime in itself, but to attempt to better yourself that is rather unacceptable; the only way for these people to create a better life for themselves is to commit crimes.  

 

The prison industrial prison complex is the most barbaric of all institutions.  It is largely the weak and persecuted that find themselves there. It is akin to T.S Eliot’s Waste Land. These people, we are led to believe, are expendable. Not being able to read in contemporary Britain is itself a disability. What a tragedy and scandal it is that somebody is unable to read a newspaper, the works of classic authors, their local history, the tombstones of their parents, the ingredients on packaged food and so on.  This is overlooked by almost everybody, as people have other interests and agendas. It is all rather deplorable.

 

But many see illiteracy as only being a problem in the developing world. We have seen this is false. Perhaps one could argue certain sections of British society are subject to third-world conditions; this is plausible. What people fail to recognise is that in every country in the world a two-tier “justice” system exists. That is those that have state protection seldom find themselves in prison and those that do not have this protection do find themselves incarcerated and in many instances they have done no wrong.

 See my previous blogs for my other prison essays. My next prison essay will be posted shortly

31st January, 2014

 

Prison Essays (6): Mental Health

Britain is one of those benevolent countries which likes to lock people up who are mentally disturbed. It is estimated in Britain that around eighty percent of the prison population have mental health issues. Nevertheless, this savage incarceration of unwell men, women, and even children should come as no surprise to many of us. It is a nation that is obsessed with locking people up and shouting infantile platitudes such as “justice”. In fact, there is no justice where this matter is concerned. For the authorities presiding over criminal law and over people with mental illnesses, their incarceration should be held in no great esteem. To put the mentally ill in prison is itself a criminal act, but few seem to share this view.

There is a spectre haunting Britain. It is a morbid disease which seeks to lock up a large number of people for long periods - and this - to foolish and unwise people is “justice”, “right” and “fair.” If the “crime” is committed the “offender” must go to prison, so we are told. This person can be a child, suffering from psychosis, no matter what the condition is of the individual, they must go to prison and rejoice in the misery in which they are subject to. The state, that pernicious, nefarious autocratic authority which talks puerile idiocies at every opportunity, ought not to preside over such things. They prefer to rub the sore when they should bring the plaster, thus endangering every woman, man and child in the community. Indeed those that believe in punishment ought not to be taken seriously.

If we were to take Hannah Arendt’s advice and execute all the brutes Britain would be without judges, the House of Commons would be without members of Parliament, police stations would be empty, prisons would be without officers and governors and so on. Let us, for example take a man who has the thinking capacity of an eight-year-old child who has violently attacked a child. If that individual is placed in prison then the state to which he belongs are responsible for putting children in prison, and it is also the case that such a person would fail to grasp the reasons for being incarcerated in the first place. This is not punishment but obscene mental retardation. Because, upon release, there is nothing to stop him from repeating his wild act because he has not been taught that it is wrong. There is little morality in such affairs, and those who refrain from speaking out about such abysmal practices are just as immoral.

I would now like to pose a polemical argument. All punitive institutions ought to be dismantled, and more humanitarian and caring practices ought to be erected. If a “crime” is committed by someone who is considered to be suffering from a mental sickness, first it is important to determine and understand why this person did such a thing. Throwing an individual into jail will be severely detrimental to the individual involved, as well as to others. It is best to cure the illness within their mind, and relinquish their demons. However, evidently, we do not live in a caring society, and such protestations are in vain. If a more sane society was created it would put an end to governments everywhere, but that is impossible.

There appears, quite marginally, to be some concern from people in different parts of this corrosive society, but this gentle empathy does indeed have its limits. This stops short at the prison gates, and those hapless victims suffering a sickness of the mind, are left alone in this dark, dank, cold and devastating world. It is a little peculiar even by the governments’ standards by incarcerating these people because it does little to serve their interests and ventures. Throwing people in prison is not just a matter of barbarian practices by the criminal class; it goes much further than that. Presently Britain houses more prisoners than any other European counterpart. This is because these people languishing in these institutions are acting as financial profit for the state and private power, but those that do not have the ability to work that is something else.

Those that are incapable of working in prison still serve the state’s interest just by being in prison. Many of us are so ridiculous that an abnormally large number of us believe prisons to be places of rehabilitation. This “rehabilitation” is a profiteering practice for the government and the like. Crime does pay but not for the “offender” or “”victim” but to a more insidious throng. Why does the crypto-fascist government take immense pleasure in locking up such people? This is a question which is not too difficult to answer.

A new sort of society has been created before our very eyes, it is, what we may call a dystopian nightmare envisioned by vicious plutocrats. This new society is, in essence, social Darwinism, aimed at benefitting those who are wealthy enough to pay their taxes in millions, as for the rest of society they are marginalised without knowing it. The state gains nothing in helping those with mental health conditions; it does not benefit the government, therefore they are an unnecessary burden and the lower element. That is why they are shoved in prison and offered no help before getting there, and nothing while they are there and even after they leave. Nevertheless, the treatment of people suffering from mental illness is seldom discussed in polite society. Prison works, so said the former Home Secretary, Michael Howard. Prison does not work; it did not work then, it does not work now and it never shall in the future, certainly not in this society. Michael Howard was fond of locking people up with all kinds of mental problems, yet, so it appears, his conscience was never pricked. In fact, mental health is ridiculed in the television system, on reality shows of various sorts they act as entertainment programmes, tormenting and ridiculing people with clear disabilities of the mind, and the viewers laugh as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Contrastingly, those with physical disabilities on these same abominable television programmes are met with sympathy and often admiration. Such polarity is striking.

The same happens in punitive institutions. Those suffering from mental health problems are often met with mockery and brutality, not only from the prisoners but from the prison officers as well. For them it is prison of the very worst kind.

26th January 2014.

For my other prison essays see previous posts. The next essay on prisons will be posted shortly.