"There will never be a really free and enlightened State, until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly." On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, Thoreau.
The European Citizens' Consultations website has just gone live. This is our chance to provide some input to our unelected masters in Brussels.
What can the EU do to shape our economic and social future in a globalised world?
Even before the recent global financial crisis, opinion polls showed that rising prices and the risk of unemployment were the public’s top concerns across Europe – and those concerns are growing amid mounting bad news about the state of the economy and its likely impact on people’s lives.
As the EU institutions begin work on a post-2010 successor to the Lisbon Agenda for economic growth and competitiveness, ECC 2009 will also provide timely and relevant input for decision-makers.
So what do you think the EU can – and should - do to shape our economic and social future in a globalised world?
Engage in the debate and make your recommendations.
Well, nice of them to make the gesture, I suppose, but it'll be a fairly meaningless exercise. That quote about the 'post-2010 successor to the Lisbon Agenda' indicates quite clearly, for example, that the Lisbon Constitution is going to be accepted whatever the people of Europe want. Democracy has no part in this project.
Interesting to note: "The website is managed by Involve; the UK national partner in the ECC 2009 process." Involve is another of Geoff Mulgan's little projects. They describe themselves thus:
Involve are public participation specialists, bringing institutions, communities and citizens together accelerating innovation, understanding, discussion and change. breathing new life into institutions and communities in the UK and across the world; working with senior people in government and business as well as community activists.
As soon as you read things like 'public participation', 'communities' and 'innovation' you know you've encountered a bullshit factory (BSF).
Still, worth a go just as a provocation. Where to start...excessive legislation? communications retention? the CAP?
Paxmansticks it to the bitch (Harman) about the Speaker's response to the Green affair. Imagine what it would be like if all our tv interviewers were as persistent as this. And what's going to happen when Paxman and Humphrys are gone?
The European Court of Human Rightsrules against collection of DNA of innocent people. Jackboot Jacqui says "Damn! How am I going to get round this one?"
More frantic scrambling to turn Britain into a police state. What's bizarre, however, is this:
Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe's commissioner for human rights, said he believed Britain had gone too far in helping to bring about a "surveillance society". In a report drawing on personal data infringements across Europe but "inspired" by Britain's plan for a new internet, email and telephone database, he added: "General surveillance raises serious democratic problems which are not answered by the repeated assertion that those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear. This puts the onus in the wrong place: it should be for states to justify the interferences they seek to make on privacy rights."
Is Mr Hammarberg not aware that the plan for the internet, email and telephone database is actually an EU directive rather than a British idea? Although one accepted with alacrity by the fascists in power.
The disgraceful cretin Michael Martin, Speaker of the House of Commons, admits that not only did the police have no warrant to search the office of MP Damian Green but that he couldn't be arsed to ask them if they had one in the first place. Well done.
And he's going to set up a commission to look into the matter. With people appointed by himself. Well done.
As a result of Blair&Brown's munificent incompetence in 2005 Britain's contribution to the EU empire will treble within two years from £2 billion to £6.5 billion, according to the Telegraph. Not the sort of stuff your average punter is likely to hear about or take notice of, but very important nonetheless. Well done.
Is the BBC biassed? Or do they simply display the lack of intellectual rigor and knowledge that typifies the generality of British media?
I have to admit that I think they are biassed in favour of the government. During the David Davis story, for instance, it became obvious to me that BBC tv followed a consistent line both at national and local level. Firstly, they never spent much time discussing the issues or letting Davis go into any detail; secondly they focused on him and his ministerial career (or lack of it); and thirdly they repeatedly asked if the by-election was a waste of tax-payers' money (this latter initiated by New Labour).
They held this line all the way through and after. It became lamentably predictable. Well done.
OK, so Pieter de Crem (above), Belgian Minister of Defence, goes to New York for a (cancelled) meeting and gets himself a little overjuiced in a bar and fails to comport himself appropriately. But he is observed and recorded by the young lady behind the bar who happens to be Flemish. She blogs about it and gets fired. Pieter complains bitterly about dangerous bloggers, despite the fact that it was he who made an arse of himself, in public, at the taxpayers' expense. Oh well, we've all done it. On TechCrunch and Jon Worth's Euroblog.
Meanwhile Barroso continues to demonstrate what an arrogant, self-important little autocrat he is. In the following YouTube clip, having defended the EU with lies and prevarication, he finally admits that it is a sort of 'empire' - unfortunately without realising that empire is the opposite of democracy. Previous empires did indeed work by forceful imposition of diktat: the EU now does it legally, through legislation, because the member states have signed away their sovereignty without telling their people what they have done. The idiocy of these people is only magnified by the comments of the ridiculous woman who pipes up at the end.
Barroso's contempt for ordinary citizens is compounded for us in Britain by his comments on the Euro (in my previous post).
And the ineffable stupidity of clever people continues to amaze. Dan Tapscott, an internet expert, thinks we should change the way we teach and learn because the internet has changed everything; although if his ideas are followed, there'll actually be no such thing as a 'teacher':
"Wikinomics can absolutely be applied to the classroom," Tapscott continues. The opportunity is to change the relationship between the student and the teacher in the learning process, by freeing up teachers from being 'transmitters of data' to doing what only humans can do: creatively develop customized learning experiences.
I'm in total agreement with the idea of using the internet in education: there's no doubt it's the biggest single positive development since the invention of the printing press.
However, I sometimes wonder how much teaching experts such as Dan Tapscott actually do. I suspect they've never had to deal with today's students, who, bright as they are, turn up at university knowing nothing. Either that, or they work only at the best universities.
I've encountered this crap about 'who is the teacher, who is the student' bull before. It may be applicable when you get to postgraduate level, but below then it's perfectly obvious. I am the teacher because I know more about my subject than my students. I've read more of it, I've studied more of it, I've thought more about it, discussed more of it, written more about it and even written more of it than they have. I hope that, for some students at least, I am more than just a 'transmitter of data'. This is a total misunderstanding of the role of a teacher - and a pretty dismissive one as well. Unfortunately one that is shared by by our own government.
I can tell him straight away that today's students are not 'digital natives', despite all the hype; they are not 'digitally immersed' and they don't have the ability to deal more quickly with lots of varied data compared with us oldies.
I have often been amazed at how illiterate and limited students are with regard to the internet and related technology. They can text and email (often without bothering to key in a subject line, however) and they can use Google a bit (though I doubt they know of any other search engine), and they can download illegal music. They use Facebook and sometimes MySpace. Some of them play online games. But that's it.
I have only encountered a couple of students who use their mobiles to make videos or vlogs. I've met none who post their own material on YouTube; who record their own podcasts; or who have their own blog - or indeed, even read blogs. And that's at a university with media and journalism departments.
They do learn how to use the net for gathering information - but it's often a copy and paste approach: they don't often read what they pick up or bother to think about it.
I am truly hacked off with people coming out with these grand sounding theories. There is no proper evidence to back up any of them. And though there are always ways of improving how teachers teach and students learn, there's no way round the fact (yes, the fact) that true education happens when something is difficult. The learning is in the difficulty (and the hard work).
Modern education seems to be posited on a number of nonsenses, one of which is that if something isn't fun or easy, it isn't education. It's the kids who are losing out, because they're being let down by the system; they're being lied to; they're being told they're well-informed and educated, and they're not. I'm sick to death of this shit.
Speakers at the conference urged the government to radically overhaul the benefits system - including making more single parents work, funding universal childcare and providing higher maternity leave payments.
Other plans include giving private firms and charities the right to bid to run more public services.
The organisation is launching policy reports in five different areas - public services, welfare, immigration, crime and justice and foreign policy.
Under the plans, which have been devised by former cabinet minister Alan Milburn, 10-year "franchises" for services such as GPs and colleges would be up for tender.
Others proposals include making grant-funded students who drop out of university pay back part or all the money.
Also, forcing local authorities to spend more money on youth services and the creation of civilian security force consisting of military trainers, civil servants, police officers, judges and other logistical staff.
EU puts pressure on UK government to join the Euro. According to Barroso (our boss):
"I know that the majority in Britain are still opposed, but there is a period of consideration under way and the people who matter in Britain are currently thinking about it", he said.
The 'people who matter', please note - that's not us. Get the bastard out - and get us out of the EU, for God's sake.
The Green Affair rumbles on: some bloggers don't reckon it's important. I do. Even though prime slugs like Denis McShane blather hypocritically on about democracy and parliament, etc. McShane's voting record is a fucking disgrace and he has no right to talk about democracy. If he believed in democracy and liberty he wouldn't have voted to destroy it.
ContactPoint - at last! I've been wondering when this was going to surface in the storm over Baby P. Caught Ed Stourton talking to some clone on Radio 4 this morning about ContactPoint.
Being a typical British media man (and a BBC one, to make it worse) he didn't ask her any really important questions, such as why are the contact details of children of celebrities and violent parents excluded from the database? Or about this:
Government guidelines reveal that other information recorded may include 'family routines', evidence of a 'disorganised/chaotic lifestyle', 'ways in which the family’s income is used', signs of mental illness or alcohol misuse by relatives, and 'any serious difficulties in the parents’ relationship'.
It's a bit much when our highly-paid media folks can't even bother to check Wikipedia for information.
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