Doublethinking David Cheerleader Cameron

'I know I am being used,' Bob Geldof is reported as saying, in response to cynical comments about the Conservatives having signed him up as an adviser in their Globalisation and Global Poverty Group.

Zac Goldsmith, editor of The Ecologist magazine is also signed up as an environmental adviser. No doubt he is aware of the limits of his influence as well.

Who has most to gain from this, one wonders; Cameron or Zac 'n' Bob?

First let us consider the great strength of the Make Poverty History campaign and Live8. The organisers recognised the reality that in our consumer society and celebrity culture, they needed the support of popular musicians and celebrities to generate interest from, and capture an international audience of, millions of people. That had been proved by Live Aid.

Similarly, Cameron recognises this fact and sees that if he can attract one or two big names as 'policy advisers' then it will help him capture a certain amount of Labour voters wanting a change from Blair, possibly together with a significant proportion of disaffected Lib Dems.

Furthermore, if Cameron succeeds in convincing a fraction of the millions of British Live8 and Make Poverty History supporters that he genuinely is committed to their cause and they vote for him in the next election, he will be getting a good deal, to be blunt, in political terms.

Make Poverty History and Live8 were not without weaknesses. As tends to be the case with consumerism, they were all about a short-lived climax.

While Live8 rallied support and mobilised the masses, no amount of looking at that positive aspect can detract from the fact that mobilising people to watch or attend a free rock concert is, at its basest level, not the most engaging way to focus on the issues at the heart of the campaign.

In a similar way, the compassionate Conservatives image also fails to focus on the central issues at the heart of issues of global poverty and the environment.

The Tory leader's 'Campaign for Capitalism' essentially outlines how he will fall in line as a business cheerleader.

Given that priority, and much as I admire Zac Goldsmith's magazine, its outstanding journalism, and his willingness to engage with the Conservatives, I remain sceptical about the true impact he will have.

Cameron, not content with the work of the CBI, the WTO, large contingents of the EU, Peter Mandelson, Tony Blair and numerous other PRs, lobbyists, hangers-on and apparatchiks, sets out what he sees as a central problem in Britain:

The second threat to our future prosperity is less direct. It's the growing
cultural hostility to capitalism.

For too many people, profit and free trade are dirty words.

You can see it when our most popular capitalist entrepreneur thinks the
best way to win his bid for the National Lottery is to make it "non-profit."

You can see it in the Christian Aid poster that compares free trade to
a tsunami.

The consequence of this cultural hostility to capitalism has been a
massive rise in risk aversion, a willingness to concede more and more power to
the state to try and take more and more risks out of life.

Still thinking that Zac 'n' Bob can greenwash Cameron and co. and get them on the white band-wagon?

we need to campaign for capitalism.

To promote profit. To fight for free trade. To remind, indeed to educate, our citizens about the facts of economic life.

The message is simple - you cannot win the battle against red tape unless you win the intellectual and cultural battle for open markets.

The third great danger which threatens our competitiveness is the regulatory culture of the European Union.

Note the patronising tone. We must be 'educated' and 'reminded'.

And the 'great danger' that is the EU. That's Murdoch appeased then.

The EU is such a danger that thousands of lobbyists work in Brussels are employed precisely to ensure it doesn't 'threaten' the free market too much.

The media has enough cheerleaders, such as Polly Toynbee's nauseating waste of ink, paper and energy:

And things are getting better all the time, horizons widening, education spreading, everyone living longer, healthier, safer lives. Unimaginable luxuries and choices are now standard - mobile phones sending pictures everywhere, accessing the universe on the internet and iPods with all the world's music in your ear. Barring calamity, there will be better.

That is not journalism, it is spoonfeeding.

To this effect, Cameron is not offering a political vision. He is offering to serve as a new manager. A bit of organisational change here, a few big names there. A few tiny and therefore meaningless offerings of hope in the shape of policy advice on the environment and global poverty.

All the while never quite acknowledging that the fact that the ongoing 'Campaign for Capitalism' might be the source of either of those problems.

Seen in that light, it can only remain for me to leave you with the words of Orwell from his work of genius 1984:

Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

The Party intellectual knows in which direction his memories must be altered; he
therefore knows that he is playing tricks with reality; but by the exercise of
doublethink he also satisfies himself that reality is not violated.

The process has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of
falsity and hence of guilt.

To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies - all this is indispensably necessary.

Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For
by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act
of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie
always one leap ahead of the truth.

'It's all about bucks kid, and the rest is just conversation.' - Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone's film, Wall Street.

How do Creationists teach geography?

While reading an interesting piece on Darwinism recently, I began wondering how Creationists teach geography.

The Independent today reports that Creationism has spread to British schools.

How do Creationists explain the presence of mountains, glacial valleys and the other geological features of our landscape, which are scientifically proven to be thousands or millions of years old?

The problem with Creationism is that it implicitly paves the way for the capitalist approach to exploiting our natural environment.

Darwinism sees nature as the supreme creator, whereas Creationism sees nature as a creation of God, in whose image we are also supposedly made.

Conveniently, in this context, there can be no cause for concern that man should exploit his own world and its natural resources, rather than live within its ecological limits which are defined by the higher force of nature.

Darwinist theory, meanwhile, teaches that we evolved from nature, and from that implication, many might conclude that we should respect nature and live within ecological limits, rather than infinitely exploit the land and its resources.

As one of the unfortunate pupils at a Christian Brothers' school in Ireland, I am only too familiar with the dogmatic nonsense Creationists attempt to ram down pupils' throats.

Surely, kids should be presented with both theories and left to make up their own minds.

Then, their minds would at least have the opportunity to stretch to imagining that a higher force of nature might ultimately be responsible for their existence, rather than the easy, apathetic acceptance of believing in God.



'It's all about bucks kid, and the rest is just conversation.' - Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone's film, Wall Street.

Chomsky on the EU and the Irish PM

Chomsky, who is speaking in Dublin on January 18th, has called Bertie Ahern new Ireland that has embraced consumer capitalism every bit as much as Britain or America did during the 1980s.

American technology companies such as Intel, Microsoft and Google have flocked to the country to take advantage of low corporation tax rates.

Indeed, Sir Anthony O'Reilly, I read recently sits on the board of the holding company through which Microsoft Ireland pays its tax in Ireland.

So perhaps it might be a little too much to expect any substantial criticism from The Irish Independent in its analysis piece.

'It's all about bucks kid, and the rest is just conversation.' - Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone's film, Wall Street.