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Seasons change. The solemn promises made by politicians change. But the one thing you can guarantee won't ever change is human nature. Technology has made us almost god-like these days. We can cure disease and hurl nuclear death across whole continents, but inside we're still the same quarelsome little apes who hit each other on the heads with clubs, aren't we ?

What prompted this blindingly obvious thought was reading that the Dutch company which created the gut-wrenchingly tacky 'Big Brother' TV show is supposedly planning to screen a new 'reality' show in which three people with serious kidney failure will plead for their lives to a terminally ill cancer patient who has the power to grant the lucky winner one of her kidneys after he dies. Apparently the audience will be able to participate fully, sending in texts and advice to the terminally ill cancer patient to influence the decision. Great entertainment, eh ? Just when you think that TV reality shows can't sink any lower, they come up with a doozy like this. Now common sense tells you that the whole thing is most likely just some cheap stunt perpetrated by the Dutch TV company to generate controversy and grab publicity and that the program itself is never going to make it to air, but these days you can never be too sure. And if by any chance something so truly bizarre were ever broadcast then whats the betting that the program would pull in huge viewing figures ? People would kid themselves they were just switching on with an enquiring mind 'to see what all the fuss was about' but really it would be just the same dirty little voyeuristic itch that makes you slow down when you pass a car-wreck, hoping to see something shocking.

In recent years we've seen the inexorable rise of the 'reality' tv show, from 'Big Brother' to 'Castaway' to 'Pop Idol' to 'Jerry Springer' to .. oh hell, the list is endless and sadly growing by the day. Sometimes its in the format of a game-show, or a chat-show, or a 'competition', but its always cheap and nasty. 'Reality' tv is, of course, anything but reality. It takes gullible, often dumb or damaged, 'ordinary' people desperate for their 15 minutes of fame and puts them into highly unreal situations where they can be broken down, humiliated, and made to behave badly for the voyeuristic pleasure of the viewing audience. Any notion of 'reality' is made even more laughable as what happens is manipulated through editing and other post-production techniques to make it as shocking as possible. Do people want to see happy, intelligent, well-adjusted people getting along ? Hell no, they want to see tears, heartbreak, anger, tension, bloody-minded bigotry. They want to be shocked. They want to watch the fly having its wings pulled off. They want to feel superior. Who'd have thought it would go this far, eh ? Can you remember years ago when we all used to shudder or laugh nervously at the crazy clips of those old sadistic Japanese game shows ? What a strange people, we used to think smugly to ourselves, to make such truly weird and degrading shit. Yet here we all are a few years down the line glued to the same sadistic rubbish on home-grown, prime-time tv. Just goes to show, folks (and this is kind of comforting in a way) that bad taste is truly universal.

It serves its purpose though, I guess. Around 2000 years ago the Roman emperors came up with a way of keeping the masses in line. Entertainment. They built the Colosseum, a huge 50,000 seat amphitheatre where they staged bloody gladiatorial contests and other 'entertainments' that pitted men against wild animals. Throwing Christians to the lions went down quite well, apparently. These regular gore-fests for the masses were a winning idea. Give the masses some cheap, nasty entertainment and they'll be so titillated that they'll forget their grievances and they won't think too hard about the shortcomings of their rulers or the political system (note: these days the same function is served in the USA by television). Anyway what those old romans had done, knowingly or otherwise, was to tap into our age-old desire to see your fellow man suffer as nastily as possible. The same basic human instinct that had people in medieval times watching their fellows being burnt as witches in Spain, or which drew crowds of family picknickers to see the public hangings at Tyburn or Newgate in England, or which had old ladies knitting cosily in the front row as the guillotine did its bloody work in revolutionary France, or which still sees crowds attending public stonings in some Muslim countries. Human nature does *not* change. Today we may pretend to be civilized but that nasty old streak inside us has to find some outlet, so we sublimate it by watching ritual humiliations on tv 'reality' gameshows and chat-shows .

Which you could, of course, argue is a good thing. Willing 'victims' may be harmed mentally and spiritually for the entertainment of others, but at least they don't get disembowelled. Thats progress, right ? But what happens when boredom sets in, as it inevitably will ? What happens when the ratings start to slip ? The profit motive has absolutely no conscience. So will we start to see the tv companies getting ever harder and more extreme as they strive to shock and titillate ? Are we going to see the electric chair dragged out again and dusted off for public pay-per-view TV executions ? Do you really think there *wouldn't* be a huge audience if they did that ? Or should we maybe have poor people whose kids need operations but who aren't covered by medical insurance having to make their pitch on TV so the viewers can text or call-in votes ? There'd be some tears and heart-warming moments there, I bet. And how long, I wonder, before some bright TV exec comes up with the idea of throwing Christians to the lions on prime time TV ? Hey, it worked before, didn't it ?

Joe Hack

Show Joe Some Love

To listen to the vicious war of words that always breaks out come election time you'd be forgiven for thinking some mighty big principles were at stake, some genuine divide between right and left, some real choice between capitalism and a socialist alternative, or between 'small' government or ''big' government, or whether the country is run for the benefit of the few or the many. But is that so ? Is it hell ! To people in America the dirty, bitch-slapping, slug-fest that passes for electioneering may seem to be about big differences but to any objective observer looking in from outside thats just plain, unadulterated rubbish ! By any normal political standards, you can't pass a cigarette paper between the two big parties. The great American political debate is being fought out by pygmies dancing on the head of a pin, squabbling over the same tiny inch of right-of-center ground. Both parties, Republicans and Democrats, believe in almost exactly the same things. You think not ? Ok, well does either one offer a radical alernative to the status quo ? Of course not. Whichever party controls the country, you know that things always stay pretty much the same. The agenda of no-change is largely dictated by the big business interests that control the politicians. Did you really think it was any other way ? Oh come on ….

Perhaps you think I'm being too cynical ? Well ask yourself this. In this great democracy where is the poor but honest presidential candidate whose pockets are empty but whose heart is pure ? Answer.. he's out scrabbling around for at least $30 million if he's to have even a remote shot at ever becoming president, which means that unless the good fairy turns his pumpkins into gold bullion, he will have to put himself into hock to big business interests who will undoubtedly expect a payback in some form or other after he's elected. Have we all observed this very thing happening recently folks ? The post-presidential election payback to big business, I mean ? Oh, I think we have. And whichever party a compromised, bought-and-paid-for president represents, will it really make any difference to you or yours ? Of course not. Will you be offered a genuinely more liberal or socially conscious alternative by either party ? Will you see any real change in the way society is structured so that the colossal wealth of the richest nation on earth begins to be used for the benefit of the majority of the people who live in it ? Free access to health care for all ? Better welfare and pension plans for old age ? Higher minimum wages ? Better schools ? A genuine commitment to fight climate change ? A promise to stop meddling in foreign countries and to start addressing the real problems at home ? A genuine undertaking to finally introduce sane gun laws ? The banishing of big business interests and its sleazy paid lobbyists from the corridors of power ? All of the other things that would make the USA stronger and happier and more at ease with itself ? All of the things that would make it more respected in the wider world ? Do you think you'll be given the chance to vote for any of that ? Hell no, buddy .. dream on. It'll never happen with the present system where self-interest perpetuates self-interest.

Sure there are sometimes temporary aberrations in this cosy little club, as when Bush and the loony-toon neo-cons got delusions of invincibility and started throwing their weight around in the world, trashing constitutional freedoms at home, and trying to turn the USA into a police state, but we all know that those neo-crazies are already dead-men walking and after the next election you can bet that shell-shocked politicians in all parties will be scrambling back to the safe right-of-center concensus so they can return to business as usual. However heated and bitter the next election gets, however many millions of dollars that could be spent on doing real good they waste on infantile, vicious TV campaign adverts, you have to remember that its all just candy-floss. Its theatre. An elaborate entertainment put on to con you, the voter, and fool you into thinking you enjoy something called democracy. No big conspiracy, though, just a lot of trusting folks and some sleazy politicians pulling together as if by instinct towards that same old trough.

Does it have to be this way ? Well no. In France they recently had a national election where there was a genuine choice for the voters between a right-of-centre conservative moderniser and a traditional left-of-center socialist. The voters knew the result would fundamentally change the way the country was run, one way or the other, so they turned out to vote in record numbers. In some other european countries too (with the exception of the UK which has sadly followed the US model of two indistinguishable right-of-center parties) there is still a real battle of ideas comes election time between different political philosophies. I'm not saying any system is perfect. Far from it, but at least in some places you still get a genuine choice. Its up to you which way you go, right or left, and thats what democracy is all about. For democracy to flourish there must be a real contest of ideas and a genuine choice for the voters. Not just an illusion of choice. Of course it is perfectly possible to reclaim democracy in the USA. You just take the money and big-business interests out of politics, deny undue influence to the special interest groups and media moguls, regulate the electioneering process to ensure equality of exposure and spending for all candidates, and insist on a genuine, honourable contest between different political visions for the betterment of the country. You demand a system where ideas talk louder than money. Its not rocket science, is it ? But its not in the interests of self-serving politicians to make that happen, so I guess it won't.

Sure you *could* have the democracy that the founding fathers dreamed of all those years ago, but you won't. Not here in the good old US of A. Here, my friends, you'll only get a choice between Pepsi and Coke .. so enjoy ..

Joe Hack

Bookmarking is the bomb

Some things happen with an inexorable inevitability, like the changing seasons or the tides of the sea or Britney doing something else weird, but perhaps the most predictable of all is otherwise normal Americans shooting holes in each other. Every year in excess of 30,000 Americans die because of guns and many thousands more are horribly injured. Every single day eight children lose their lives because of guns. Every year, sometimes several times a year, some deranged loony will take his gun down to the local mall or high-school and kill indiscriminately. Since President J F Kennedy was assasinated (with a gun) more Americans have died from guns in the USA than in all of Americas wars in the 20th century put together. Think about it. Osama Bin Laden would need to launch nine successful 'twin-towers' terrorist attacks just to equal what Americans do to themselves every single year with guns. Crazy or what ?

If you were a man from mars who'd suddenly landed your little spaceeship in the USA and you heard people agonising over the causes of the recent Virginia Tech shootings you might be forgiven for thinking .. " Its the Guns Stupid !!" I mean, lets face if, if you don't have a gun you can't shoot anyone. Right ? But this is the big elephant squatting in the American living room. The blindingly obvious concept that no american politician dare acknowledge. Get rid of the guns. Why daren't they touch this ? Because it would be political suicide, thats why. There is a hugely rich and powerful gun-manufacturing industry ready and willing to pour millions of dollars into countering any tentative moves towards gun control. They see the problem not as being that theres too many guns. Oh no, if there were *more* guns in private hands then that would be the necesary deterrant. Am I missing something ? The United States has the largest number of guns in private hands of any country in the world, with 60 million people owning a combined arsenal of over 200 million firearms. Read that again slowly. 200 million guns . More than enough for every man, woman, child and baby in the USA to be armed to the teeth. Fer chrissakes , how many more guns do the gun manufacturers think are needed (answer: as many as they can sell)

The arguments put forward, often by those interested in profiting from death and misery, seem facile and self serving, but lets examine them briefly:

- They plug into a fuzzy feeling of patriotism by asserting that the second amendment of the constitution enshrines a citizens right to 'bear arms'. Well kind of, but even that 200 year-old document, written in a totally different world, said only that .. "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed". Got that ? A 'well regulated militia', like .. oh .. lets say the modern day local police forces ? Hmmm ? Certainly not every sad-sack psycho or inadequate who feels like a big man just because he's got a bunch of killer automatic weapons stashed in his bedroom closet.

- They say that putting guns in the hands of private citizens allows them to defend themselves against the bad-guys. Bullshit! The number of times a gun-toting citizen shoots and kills a criminal who is threatening his life with a gun is *tiny*. Its the exception, rather than the rule. The vast majority of deaths by shooting are accidents or suicides or domestic arguments or drunken saturday night brawls. The exact situations where people would have probably lived if there'd been no guns.

- They say that its not guns that kill, but people. Well duh ! The blindingly obvious fact is that if those people didn't have guns their ability to kill would be seriously curtailed. Sure you can beat someone to death with your fists, but how much easier is it to just pull a trigger ? Sure people behave badly all the time. They yell and get drunk and have fist fights. They get cuts and lumps and bruises. But where guns are available, they kill each other.

- They say that gun control would be an 'infringement of civil liberties'. Hmmm .. yeah right. An infringement on the right to make money from selling guns, more like. Lets be serious. We all live in a society in which we accept certain constraints in exchange for certain benefits. Some people, for example, might think the free trafficking of Heroin is desirable, but society as a whole disagrees. Society says that its so dangerous to us all that its sale must be illegal. Quite right too. The point is that we do, as a society, make decisions like that all the time. So theres nothing to stop us deciding that guns do more harm than good and make them as illegal as heroin. Right ? And remember, guns kill far more citizens every year than heroin does.

- They say that gun control would leave only the bad guys with guns. Oh Boy. Well firstly, if it did, it wouldn't be very successful gun control, would it ? Secondly, thats what we pay the police for isn't it ?. They're the 'well-ordered-militia' that carries guns on our behalf and protects society. Thirdly, slap a mandatory life sentance on *anyone* (other than an authorised officer of the law) found with a gun, no exceptions, and that would pretty quickly take the gun-owners off the streets. And fourthly, Oh but this is just too dumb .. you really know the arguments for guns are tripe …don't you ?

Frankly I don't care much one way or the other. If a bunch of gullible people have been brainwashed by the propoganda of those who want to make money out of gun sales then I guess I'm not going to be able to dissuade them. If someone has been brought up on a steady diet of hollywood movies and shoot-outs and cowboy myths then any injection of reality into their over-heated vigilante fantasies isn't going to be welcome. As long as they stay well away from me and mine, then they can pick up their 200 million guns and blow holes in each other all day long. At least thats what I feel like saying when faced with such destructive and irrational behaviour. But the humanitarian in me (and he's down in there somewhere, the irritating little bugger) says don't give up on them just yet..

So hey folks, let me ask you this before I go. When will it be enough, do you think ? When will there be enough guns ? When everyone has two, three, five, a hundred ? When will there be enough gun-deaths ? When it rises to 40,000 a year, 50,000 ? More ? When will the price in human misery become too high to stomach ? When someone you love, your child or father of brother or sister gets killed senselessly by a gun ? When will you demand that your spineless, self-serving political representative finally *do* something to eradicate this modern day plague ? Its going to happen, you know. Its inevitable. A situation as crazy as this one is can't go on forever. Someday, and lets all hope its soon, our collective disgust is going to blow the cowardly politicians who allow this carnage right out of their cosy feathered nests. And you can tell them Joe Hack said that …

Bang Bang Bookmark

I was thinking as I sucked down my jolt of caffeine this morning, and flicked idly through the fairy stories that make up most of the mainstream 'news', that there are two kinds of people in the world; those who say with certainty things like 'there are two kinds of people in the world' and everyone else. I believe I must fall into the latter category because I'm finding it increasingly difficult to be deal with certainty. I can handle moral ambiguity all day long but Lord preserve us all from people who are certain. Those flushed with certainty and its close-companion, self importance, are just plain trouble. They can't stop themselves from meddling and trying to control the lives of others and, in doing so, they make everyone else miserable. The harsh truth is that zealots of all pursuasions, in their childlike moral certainty, have caused more suffering and death through history than any number of evil dictators or nuclear bombs or serial killers. Lives are still being blighted on a daily basis by sometimes well-intentioned people who are absolutely sure that their way of living is the best and only way. Just as dangerous, and infinitely more disgusting, are the sleazy politicians and tv evangelists and newspaper columnists who cynically wrap fake moral certainty around themselves like a flag to excuse the inexcusable. The fact is, life is very rarely black and white. Don't believe anyone who pretends otherwise and always look for the shades of grey.

I guess what prompted these ruminations was the news about the 'Reverend' Jerry Falwells death. What a guy ! I've read some of his Christian fundamentalist rantings and, frankly, he reminded me of nobody so much as the Taliban. I guess that fundamentalists of all pursuasions, Christian and Islamic, must share the same basic DNA. They're programmed to destroy. That was never really a problem as long as the Islamic fundamentalists just limited themselves to blowing each other up and the Christian fundamentalists simmered away angrily, largely unseen and unloved, somewhere south of the bible belt. What changed was when George Bush's brain, Karl Rove, came up with the unholy idea of forging an alliance between the extreme-right neo-con wing of the republican party and the even extremer-right Christian fundamentalists. It was a marriage made in hell but, for a short tawdry time, it served its purpose. Bush and the neo-cons got into the Whitehouse on the back of the fundamentalist vote and the likes of Jerry Falwell got exposure and influence at a level unwarranted by their loony-tune beliefs. As a great man once said though, you can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cant fool all of the people all of the time. So gradually the unholy alliance of the Bush neo-cons and the Christian fundamentalists has dissolved into internecine bickering as the sleaze of the former and bigotry of the latter have collided like two nasty old tom-cats fighting in a sack. Someone asked Jimmy Carter in an interview the other day how he dealt with his very strong Christian faith while he was President of the USA. You know what he said ? He said that he built a wall between the two because the constitution of the United States was very carefully and wisely set up to ensure a separation between church and state. Good for you Jimmy ! If only some other politicians had been as honourable. So lets make a deal, shall we ? A deal to be more patriotic in future. To really honour the constitution and treat with distrust and contempt any politician who tries to use his 'Christian certainty' as a 'get-out-of-jail-free' card in the game of politics ? Because you just know anyone who does that is likely to be a scoundrel, don't you ?.

Want to hear my thought for the day ? It's ' Don't Follow Leaders'. Seems to me like the very act of putting yourself forward as a political or spiritual leader is deeply suspicious and should automatically debar anyone from being taken seriously. Remember, moral uncertainty is unlikely to kill you. Dogmatic belief has a fine track record of doing just that. And you can tell anyone who says different that Joe Hack told you so..

Tell Them Fred Hack Sent Ya

Anyway today I thought we could have a little chat about 'weasel words'. Words that set out to deceive. Victims of violent crime, they say, feel traumatised and shocked but if thats true them God knows what the English language is feeling like these days because its certainly taking a beating from those who cynically want to manipulate public perception. And who's doing it ? The politicians and news media you should be able to trust, thats who. Remember a while back when the papers were full today of the merciless pounding Israel, bristling with sophisticated war technology, was giving dirt-poor and relatively defenceless Lebanon ? What would be amusing, if it wasn't so tragic, is that the mainstream media, TV and newspapers, routinely called that agression 'defence'. Strange use of the English language, eh ? Lets break it down, folks. Israel sent warplanes to fire rockets into densely populated areas, with the expected loss of civiilan life. Result, dead men, women and children. The Lebanese (or the hizbollah element) fired katusha rockets into densely populated Israeli areas. Result, dead men, women and children. Equally reprehensible acts, most reasonable people would agree. In both cases designed simply to terrorise the population. Both sides were indulging in terrorism as a tactic. In the first case though, we were told on the mainstream news that Israels use of force was legitimate 'defence'. The Lebanese response however was just 'terrorism'. See the weaselly misuse of the English language to manipulate your perception ? Say it long enough and loud enough and lots of people actually believe what they're told rather than what they see. Thats the idea. And what about that old bogeyman word, 'terrorist' ? Well in reality a terrorist is simply someone who uses tactics designed to terrorise. Its a tactic, not an ideology (which is why the idea of a 'war against terror' is a laughable nonsense .. you can't fight a noun). If your family and friends are being blown to pieces then I guess you're justified in thinking whoever is doing it is a 'terrorist', regardless of their stated motives or nationality or whether its a guy in a turban or a soldiers uniform. Sadly the word 'terrororist' has been stripped of all real meaning. Its become the modern-day equivalent of what the word 'communist' was in 1950s America. Its the word you can't argue back against. Its a word to be thrown cynically at someone like a bucket of shit to smear them. No need for any reasoned argument or justification. Just call someone a 'terrorist' and it justifies whatever bad things you want to do to them. Suspend habeus corpus ? Fine! Illegal detention and kidnapping ? Why not ! A little torture ? Cool. Slaughter a few hundred thousand people who never engaged in a 'terrorist' act in their lives ? Ok, if you say so. After all, whatever you do to a 'terrorist' is OK, isn't it ?

And what about the really big words like 'Freedom and Democracy' ? Well its mostly GW Bush's spin-doctors who bang on about this so much. Sadly they don't mean 'real' freedom and democracy as you or I or any normal person would understand it. Their 'Freedom' is only ever permissable up to the point where it opposes US commercial interests and their 'democracy' is only allowed in a form that doesn't make the US feel insecure. If it does, then the CIA will pump in money and mercenaries to overthrow a democratically elected government and replace it with a US-puppet. Don't believe me ? Don't stick your head in the sand. Just read your history. Read about Iran. Read about the CIA dirty tricks in Latin America. So the words 'Freedom and Democracy', as used by the Bush spin-doctors and their predecessors, really mean anything but. And while we're on the subject of 'Weasel Words' how about the discredited Bush/Blair doctrine of 'pre-emptive strikes' on foreign sovereign countries (in other words 'do it to them before they do it to you') ? Try telling a judge that you punched a guy in the face because you believed he was thinking about attacking you, and hear his hoots of derision all the way to jail. In the real world 'pre-emptive strike' = unprovoked agression. Heres another one that was in a newspaper I read today… 'Collateral Damage'. Thats a doozy of a Weasel Word. Its become military and politician-speak for indiscriminate slaughter, where innocent fathers, mothers, and children are 'accidentally' shot, maimed or blown to pieces with bombs. Don't show the corpses on prime-time TV, just report another incident of 'Collateral Damage' and thats OK. You've gotta love those little spin-doctors. They must sit up at nights thinking of new ways to screw with the publics mind.

However you slice it, folks, the English language is being pretty cynically screwed-with these days just to fool you. In fact I'd say its suffering more than a bit of 'collateral damage' itself, wouldn't you ? So next time you hear some puffed-up little jerk of a poltician on TV yakking about spreading 'freedom' or 'democracy' or 'defensive action' or 'pre-emptive strikes' or 'terrorism', just take a minute and try to work out what he's 'really' talking about. Because its sure as hell not going to be what he 'seems' to be talking about. Let me ask you a question. Is it too much to expect the politicians we employ and the news media we pay for to use words honestly, to say what they really mean and mean what they say? Well if it is, then at least we can call them what they really are. No weasel words here. They're liars, plain and simple. And you can tell them Joe Hack said that.

Joe Don't Lie!