Ed Miliband, class traitor

Ed Miliband also likes cuts, and won't promise them reversed. He uses the exact same rhetorical strategy of divide-and-rule as his toady Balls (and if you're a toady to Ed Miliband, I feel sorry for you) by presenting it as a choice between 'protecting jobs or... pay rises'.

Wherefore see my earlier post on Balls, substituting Miliband's name where appropriate.

Ed Balls, class traitor

Ed Balls is a class traitor. He's accepting that 'we are going to have keep all these cuts'. He's using the government's language of 'pay restraint' when discussing the effective public sector pay cuts in addition to job losses that the Tories are imposing. He's attempting to play workers against each other by creating a false dichotomy between 'higher pay and bringing unemployment down'. In the conflict between the government and the working class, he's positioned the Labour Party firmly in the enemy camp.

Some people don't get upset with Labour anymore because they've come to expect this. I think the reason this sort of betrayal still angers me - the reason it still feels like betrayal at all - is that the Labour Party was founded to be the political arm of the working class, to fight capital and get a fair deal for the great majority, whereas both the Liberals and the Tories have always been bourgeois parties. In capturing Labour, the odious neoliberal flunkeys of the Balls-Miliband variety have turned a weapon of the working class against it.

There are many among the Labour rank and file who are actively fighting cuts and working within the movement against austerity. Balls is betraying them, too. The old Blairite instincts of the party oligarchy are alive and well. We can't count on the Labour Party leadership - and if not now, will they ever be on the right side? There is no parliamentary opposition, and that means there isn't actually any politics left within parliament. But there have been, and will be, marches, strikes and occupations. We will fight, and we will win.

As for Balls, don't say that he's hypocritical - say rather that he's apolitical.

Observing the hypocrites: Tesco and the wrath of God

Today the Guardian reported that 'fringe Christian pressure group' Christian Voice had attributed Tesco's falling profits to divine retribution for the supermarket giant's decision to sponsor a gay pride festival.* First of all, kudos to the folks at the Guardian who used 'fringe' as the very first adjective to describe Christian Voice. But even though the group makes a lot of noise for a bunch of people who wield little influence within British Christianity, their culture-war obsessions are unfortunately more widespread (as shown by Anglican Mainstream and the Catholic Herald on the same subject).

Christian Voice consider gay pride events 'divisive' and 'depraved', and have engaged in prayer that God would 'humble proud Tesco' through 'confusion in the Tesco boardroom' (says their chairman). What's so astonishing here is the total loss of perspective. There are three passages in the Bible that unambiguously discuss homosexuality - Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13, and Romans 1:26-27. (That's three more than we have about abortion, incidentally.)

There's little there to suggest the idea of a dire homosexual threat - the Big Gay Menace - presaging the imminent downfall of western civilisation. What's so odd and hypocritical is that Tesco is indeed engaged in sinful practices, of a kind the Bible condemns hundreds of times. I don't just mean their strange failure to distribute all their assets to the poor, as demanded by Jesus.

No, as an international business Tesco routinely, systemically engage in exploiting and expropriating farmers at home and, more significantly, in the Global South, blackmailing them into accepting low prices and forcing them into chronic dependency by the threat of starvation (as exhaustively documented in Joanna Blythman's Shopped). They overwork and underpay their employees to secure fat profits for their shareholders. And while of course capitalism didn't exist in biblical times, the apparent ability of oppressors to live healthy, wealthy lives caused even the prophet Habakkuk to doubt God:

You who are of purer eyes than to see evil
   and cannot look at wrong,
why do you idly look at traitors
   and remain silent when the wicked swallows up
   the man more righteous than he?
You make mankind like the fish of the sea,
   like crawling things that have no ruler.
He brings all of them up with a hook;
   he drags them out with his net;
he gathers them in his dragnet;
   so he rejoices and is glad.
Therefore he sacrifices to his net
   and makes offerings to his dragnet;
for by them he lives in luxury,
   and his food is rich.
Is he then to keep on emptying his net
   and mercilessly killing nations forever? (Habakkuk 1:13-17)**

It wasn't God's failure to punish gay people that caused the prophet's despair: it was the fact that cruel empires apparently enjoyed the fruits of their depredations, living in wealth, luxury and security while a good God, supposedly the protector of the lowly, seemed to do nothing. (Similarly, Jesus had exactly nothing to say about homosexuality, but quite a lot about those exploiting religious sentiment for their own ends.)

Where is Christian Voice's anguished cry over the misery of the wretched of the earth that Tesco preys on? Why do so few modern evangelical leaders see fit to echo Habakkuk? His confusion showed his humanity. Rather than rejecting his honest enquiry, God answered that the oppressor would not live in security forever, that the apparent triumph of the wicked was an illusion:

Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house,
   to set his nest on high,
   to be safe from the reach of harm!
You have devised shame for your house
   by cutting off many peoples;
   you have forfeited your life.
For the stone will cry out from the wall,
   and the beam from the woodwork respond.
Woe to him who builds a town with blood
   and founds a city on iniquity!
Behold, is it not from the LORD of hosts
   that peoples labor merely for fire,
   and nations weary themselves for nothing?
For the earth will be filled
   with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD
   as the waters cover the sea. (Habakkuk 2:9-14)

Christian Voice's obsession with homosexuality and indifference to Tesco's real inhumanity is thrown in sharper relief by their other campaign: their Islamophobic attempt to brand halal meat as 'ritually slaughtered'. Despite their protestations - which they almost certainly believe themselves: the religious right are nothing if not good at convincing themselves they're reading the Bible literally - Christian Voice don't care much about what the Bible actually says.

Their hateful rhetoric is not biblical but plainly reactionary: they want a society in which we can all pretend all those gays and Muslamics don't exist. The call to love one's neighbour implies that that neighbour is different, seemingly alien, perhaps upsetting to your personal sensibilities: else the commandment would be unnecessary. God's wrath is reserved not for oppressed minorities (which Muslims and LGBTQ people most certainly are, whether we agree with them or not) but for the powerful exploiters, and it takes a degree of moral perversity to read the Bible any other way.  

*A decision which, for the record, was achieved by grassroots pressure from LGBTQ employees.
**See also, for example, Psalm. 10, 12, 14...

Concrete jungles

My recent journey from Nottingham back to Germany was a little less fun than I'd anticipated. This was very largely my own fault. I'd left booking my coach until quite late, and in consequence it turned out to be fully booked. After some hasty brainstorming with friends, we finally settled on Plan E: turn up for the coach and hope there'd be a no-show and thus a free seat.

Astonishingly, this worked. Thanks to a kindly driver, I got to Milton Keynes, where the influx of more passengers forced me to get out and share a taxi to Luton Airport with a lovely Spanish lady; thence I took another coach to Stansted. It was a madcap odyssey, but it was actually cheaper than just taking the coach normally would have been.

Stansted was busier than usual - Christmas, you know. I got through all right, though. I spent some time in the chapel praying and then joined the longest security queue I've ever been in. The Muslim family in front of me - wife, husband, and a girl perhaps six years of age - were, of course, subjected to a 'random' search. There were a good number of people in danger of missing their plane, and their naked fear was palpable.

Ryanair did the usual in forcing us to queue for absolute ages. (I never understand why some people pay extra for 'priority boarding': they're treated just as badly as the rest of us and have to wait for almost as long.) Eventually, they took us through the gate and into a narrow corridor, where we then had to wait for another fifteen minutes - no exits, no windows, surrounded by HSBC advertising. I'm glad I'm not claustrophobic, but even so I came to reconsider the relative merits of the previous, slightly less horrid queue: would we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt! I fought down the urge to start punching the walls - which, incidentally, someone is bound to do at some point.

The experience led me to reconsider my previous assertion that the problem with Ryanair is their total refusal to pretend you're anything more than cattle. That's not quite right. Sure, it's how Ryanair treat you in practice; but there is an ideological veneer to it. Other companies will dissemble class; Ryanair feigns an oppressive and omnipresent cheer with their wacky Irish accents, annual calendar of flight attendants in their knickers, and the in-flight magazine's joyous celebration of environmental destruction.

It's not so much the nakedness of commodification, then, but the radical cognitive dissonance between reality and ideology: flying with Ryanair is an extraordinarily mirthless experience, but the 'Turn that frown upside down!' mania makes it that much worse, like Ned Flanders's totalitarian regime in that Simpsons Halloween episode.

Obviously, I'm not a fan of the concrete jungles we inhabit. It's the air in no small part, that nauseating smell of metal, grime, and despair; but more than the bare facts it's the branding of all space, the impossibility of escape. That's an airport, anyway: there's still plenty of free space out there - occupations, collectives, parks - and it's deeply refreshing. A free space is an image of the world to be - one day, perhaps.

Stansted at night: dispatches from late capitalism

An artist's impression of Stansted Airport

My recent journey back to Germany was unpleasant. It began with a taxi driver who insisted on telling me that the Jews controlled the world's financial system, while the Vatican ruled the spiritual part of the new world order. From there, it was an uncomfortable four-hour coach ride to the airport. National Express has automated announcements now. In the good old days, the driver would tell us once, at the beginning of the journey, where we could find emergency exits and such; but there was a tacit agreement that nobody was listening, and the announcement was therefore not repeated. Now, however, the pleasantly voiced electronic lady will tell us to wear our seatbelts at every stop, over and over again. The machine is pitiless.

And so, at around four a.m., we arrived at last at Stansted Airport. I'd like to claim Stansted by night is pandaemonium, a wretched hive of scum and villainy, but sadly it's a collection of exhausted people just passing through, trying to minimise the unpleasantness of the experience. The villainy is systemic and thus much less colourful. For example, one of the first things you see as you enter the airport is a large illuminated poster advertising courses in Grenoble. Beneath the slogan, 'Stand out from the crowd', there is a large number of people, some of whom are in focus, while the majority are pixelled. Learn this, passerby: unless you acquire the desired human capital by studying for a flexible part-time MBA in 'the Silicon Valley of France', you're not even human.

Stansted Airport is an ugly box in the middle of the beautiful Essex countryside. It's hated by the locals, who campaigned successfully against a proposed second runway. So, why do I fly, from Stansted or anywhere else? I shouldn't, really: compared to taking the train, flying releases far more carbon, is not much quicker and far more unpleasant to boot. But while the EU maintains frankly insane tax legislation, flying is that much cheaper, and that matters to a penniless student. I dislike it and I fly with a guilty conscience. So do most people, but for the time being I have little choice if I want to see my family.

One might think an airport would be somewhat empty in the middle of the night, but since budget airlines fly either very early or very late, it's actually quite crowded. Tired people queue endlessly before Ryanair counters, desperately hoping their luggage will not incur the wrath of the company's regulations. (Ryanair employees are victims in this just like everyone else, and there's little as pitiful as seeing an employee and a passenger haggle over the size of carry-on baggage.) The vanquished customers tend to suffer what they must silently, so there was something deeply refreshing about the person who walked past five or six queues, exclaiming 'Fuck Ryanair. Fuck Ryanair. Fuck Ryanair' all the way.

Long I wondered why Ryanair irked me so. Now I believe it is the company's total refusal to lie to me. Like most things, Marx had something to say on this in the Communist Manifesto:

The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his "natural superiors", and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous "cash payment". It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom — Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.

Human beings can't live this way: they struggle to reconcile themselves to their own commodification. Making people feel like things is bad for business, and so companies had to reinsert 'feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations'. They had to introduce the notion that Nike (Apple, BMW, ExxonMobil) loves you and wants good things for you. Processed foods must pretend to be made Grandma's way, politicians must see you as someone worth listening to rather than just another vote, and airlines must make a show and dance of caring about you as a human being to conceal the fact that really you're just another piece of cargo, if a particularly capricious one.

Well, Ryanair won't create that illusion for you. At Ryanair your personal worth is quite obviously resolved into exchange value. They'll cheerfully try to cheat you out of as much money as possible, creating blatantly fraudulent surcharges for card payment and luggage, thinking little of inconveniencing you with pop-up windows advertising car rental and hotels. They'll treat you as cattle in the most obvious way. They plaster advertising all over their planes and plague you with sales pitches for soft drinks, scratch cards and overpriced foodstuffs over the loudspeakers so you can't even sleep.

All that is quite horrible, and I cannot find Ryanair's honesty at all refreshing. I like my illusions. I don't need to try very hard to convince myself that Lufthansa cares about me: although obviously untrue, it's preferable to knowing you're just another commodity. Ryanair disrupts the smooth workings of capitalist exchange by being so obviously mercenary; its 'naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation' pushes you right into the reality of the way we live. It's a flying, kerosene-guzzling disturbance in the Force.

Stansted is a place where the dispiriting cheapness of reality and the sparkling dreamworld of advertising coexist in the 24/7 Spar and the billboards. It's noisy and awful, and I admire the people (a great many people, perpetually giving the place the appearance of being in the aftermath of some catastrophe) who manage to sleep on their luggage while waiting. It's not that it's soulless: it's that all signs of human use, of the history of the thousands passing through, is obliterated with industrial cleaner. Its small chapel (in reality, a broom closet with a couple of holy books and a prayer mat) is the only place that provides some quiet, and even there the noise of the airport can be heard through the walls, barely muffled.

Last but not least, it's a violent place. Airport police have now switched from the Heckler & Koch MP5, a submachine gun using pistol rounds, to the G36C (pictured left), a compact version of a popular assault rifle. As the magazines are made of a transparent polymer, you can see the rounds as you walk past - and 2¼ inch length rifle rounds are terrifying. The government tells me they're there to keep me safe and wants me to be grateful that several groups of Middle Eastern people were subjected to 'random' searches as I walked past, but I don't quite believe them. When I was a child, military lorries going past us on the motorway terrified me: I always thought they might kill us. That feeling, however irrational, hasn't quite left me.

Stansted by night, then: a place where the glittering fantasy world of consumer capitalism dissolves into sheer exhaustion, a place people want to leave as quickly as they can. There's quite a lot of shopping at Stansted at five in the morning, fuelled by sheer boredom. No-one wants or needs the things they purchase there. Perhaps we're past that: maybe we've reached the stage where, if we're still lucky enough to have any disposable cash, we buy just because we're supposed to, not because we desire things anymore. Well, at least we're doing our patriotic duty.

Ed Miliband: cowardly man trapped between two different forms of cowardice

Ed Miliband spoke at TUC Congress today. While much of his speech was crowd-pleasing, Miliband refused to budge on a central point. 'While negotiations were going on, I do believe it was a mistake for strikes to happen [he said in reference to the 30 June walkouts]. I continue to believe that. But what we need now is meaningful negotiation to prevent further confrontation over the autumn.'

Well, that sounds familiar, since it's the only statement available to Miliband in recent months. Apparently he's still not impressed by the argument, eloquently made by Mark Serwotka back in June, that the 'negotiations' are a sham. Mary Bousted reiterated the basic point: 'Just for information, the government are not prepared to negotiate. All they are prepared to do is negotiate how to implement the changes they have decided. There are no real negotiations going on. We can give you chapter and verse about that.' This sort of fake 'consultation' favoured by managerial types is well known to anyone who's ever been involved in conflict with our rulers.

The real kick, however, came during questions, when Miliband outlined his idea of what trade unions should be. Highlighting the need to increase unionisation in the private sector, he said:

Unions can offer businesses the prospect of better management, better relationships, as you did during the recession. Of course the right to industrial action will be necessary, as a last resort. But in truth, strikes are always the consequence of failure. Failure on all sides. Failure we cannot afford as a nation. Instead, your real role is as partners in the new economy.

This phony 'vision' for trade unions is quite familiar to me. I've been involved in negotiations with employers, and that's what they want unions to be: 'partners' helping them realise their aims. Channels of communication. Enablers. Miliband is parroting the rhetoric of Thatcherism, but in nicer-sounding New Labour packaging. Unions aren't useless relics, they can help the capitalists realise their profits! Let's all pull together! Unions should reject Miliband's patronising notion that they can be 'partners in the new economy'. To reiterate a basic point New Labour has always pretended not to grasp, workers and employers are locked in an antagonistic relationship, and a refusal to recognise that means surrender to the business owners.

Miliband topped it off with the beautiful reassurance that trade unions were a 'huge asset' to the Labour movement, adding that '[t]hey should never ever feel like passive or unwanted members of our movement. I want them to feel part of it.' Well, that's nice of you, Ed, if a little patronising. But the Labour party was founded to be the political arm of the working class - nothing more, nothing less. Unions are not an 'asset' to Labour: they are what Labour is about, or else the party is nothing. Despite his assurances to the contrary, it hardly seems that Miliband has any plans to reverse New Labour's efforts to subjugate the unions.

You might say that Miliband is caught between a rock and a hard place. He must at least pay lip service to trade union struggles; at the same time he's afraid of what the gutter press will do to him if he appears to openly challenge the neoliberal settlement. (And maybe there are actual political convictions in there somewhere: he never appears to believe what he says, but who really knows?) But this is not the time to be concerned with popularity. Miliband's fear reveals that he is not interested in the wellbeing of the working class, but in his political fortunes and, more broadly, those of his party: and that points to a politician who has seriously lost his way.

I, for one, welcome our Tory overlords

Lord Mandelson famously said that Labour was relaxed about people 'getting filthy rich'. Ed Miliband went further, declaring that 'I'm not just relaxed about you getting rich, I applaud you' and excising that nasty world 'filthy'. That's all very well, but there's one problem: it doesn't go far enough. So here's my humble attempt at an ode that does justice to the glory of the rich.

Miliband praised those who 'generate wealth [and] create jobs'. Indeed. Where would we be without the rich? How would we procure the basic necessities of life? I daresay there would be no wealth, no food, no resources: I fear we should starve to death. Society would fall into ruins. Anarchy would reign. Think of Africa, for example. As the admired British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper put it, Africa had no history, only 'the unedifying gyrations of barbarous tribes in picturesque but irrelevant corners of the globe'. It was the rich that brought Africa into world history and sacrificed much to civilise the natives. But did they show proper gratitude? Far from it. It is no wonder Africa has fallen back into barbarity.

For delivering us from this fate we owe a debt of gratitude to the wealthy. They labour day and night doing God's work, and that for very little reward: for what are the baubles the rich are content with compared to the dignity of spirit, that inner light possessed by the poor? What's more, when they have worked hard as entrepreneurs, many go on to sacrifice their twilight years selflessly serving the community as politicians and lobbyists, while the rest of us enjoy our gold-plated pensions.

But that's not all. The Good Book says that the meek will inherit the earth, that a man may lose his soul yet gain the whole world, and that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. That means that the rich are freely forfeiting their salvation and giving up their place in the Kingdom for you, willing that none that believe in them should perish but have flat screen TVs. Greater love hath no-one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

 Yes, it's true. Our Tory overlords love us. David Cameron loves you. George Osborne loves you. Nick Clegg loves you most of all, and his heart bleeds when he sees you weary and heavy laden under national debt. That's why they're removing benefits: they love you too much to let you waste your life watching daytime television. We have relied on their generosity too much, and their cross has become too heavy to bear. The financial crisis is nothing but the wealthy stumbling under the weight of their work for us. They only ask that we help them a little, take some of their heavy load, as Simon of Cyrene did for Our Lord. Is that too much to ask?

Think about this the next time you wrongfully covet the goods of the rich. David Cameron was raised for this moment. Since childhood he was prepared to see his life poured out for us. When you grumble, when you kick against the pricks, you are only hurting yourself. Not for me wanton rebellion and lawlessness. I love our government.

The bounty of Nottingham's bins

A few nights ago a friend and I went skipping (or dumpster-diving, as they'd say across the pond) in Lenton. It was my first time, so I was grateful to have a veteran with me. Rummaging through various bins is a bit scary to begin with, not least because some people will look at you strangely as you debate Marx, veganism and the student life while searching their rubbish for fun and profit. But they're more afraid of you than you are of them.

It was an immensely rewarding experience. Beyond the desire for free food and stuff, dumpster-divers seek to show up our society for its wastefulness, and do their part in recycling. Of course it's fun: you find the strangest things. And, last but not least, it's apparently a great way of making friends: an inebriated but lovely gentleman stopped by as we were searching a skip and engaged us in a drawn-out conversation about his children and his dog, while expressing approval of our actions.

We knew the rubbish would be collected the following morning, so this was the perfect time to nick everything the students had seen fit to throw away. Incidentally, students: shred your documents before you bin them! Identity theft would be jolly easy for anyone so inclined. We did well, though my friend, who has experience, determination and a keen eye for the useful, bagged rather more than I did. (Meanwhile I, in a fit of detestable madness, decided it would be very funny to spray-tan a part of my arm from a fake-tan bottle. Not so funny now.)

The things I salvaged included:

- a working alarm clock
- a half-full tube of after-shave emulsion
- six china mugs of acceptable loveliness, one of them in masculinity-affirming pink, with a saucer
- a plastic England mug, which I pretend to like ironically
- a Coca-Cola glass, which is now a trophy from the Man
- two unopened bottles of generic continental lager
- a pair of 3D glasses
- a leatherbound Belle & Jerome menu
- a  mostly-empty bottle of a brand-name men's fragrance, which smells twice as good when free
- One pack each of children's and grown-ups' drinking chocolate
- a Co-op linen shopping bag
- a lovely white shirt in my size, which I put on immediately.

I should point out all these items are in pristine condition (after a wash, anyway). It's incredible just how much people throw away rather than giving to charity or distributing it to neighbours. But I'm not one to talk, I've done much the same. Whenever I move, please feel free to come and take some of my stuff. You won't have to pick it out from the bin - just ask.

Fleischhauer schlägt wieder zu!

Daß ich regelmäßig die Spiegel Online-Kolumne des Herrn Fleischhauer lese, mag auf Persönlichkeitsprobleme hindeuten. Fleischhauer liest man am besten in kleinen Dosen, sonst erschöpft sich der eigene Zorn an der schieren Gemeinheit und Dummheit seiner Polemik. Der feine Herr ist die Abteilung Attacke einer gewissen Art rechten Bürgers, der sich bestens frisiert und in edle Anzüge gekleidet über den realitätsfernen Pöbel lustig macht. Der nämlich - man glaubt es kaum! - verlangt Dinge wie Atomausstieg, Frieden, ein Ende des Klassenkampfes von oben. Der Linke als Träumer ist der Mittelpunkt der Rhetorik Fleischhauers, der sich selbst als Bewahrer der Aufklärung sieht. Politik ist die Herrschaft der aufgeklärten Elite über den unwissenden und nichts wissenwollenden Gefühlsmenschen.

So in seiner neuesten Kolumne, in der Herr F. den Kirchentag in Dresden kritisiert. Für mich als Christen und Sozialisten ist das Thema doppelt interessant. Daß Fleischhauer die EKD nur als eine der "Vorfeldorganisationen" der ihm verhaßten Grünen ansieht, ist kurios, entspricht aber seiner kämpferischen Grundhaltung. Die von ihm zitierten Resolutionen - "Alternativen zum Wirtschaftswachstum", Schutz der Roma vor Ausweisung und das "Recht auf ein Leben ohne Bedrohung durch atomare Strahlen" sind vernünftig; allein den Antrag an die Kirchenleitung, das Schicksal der "der als Hexen hingerichteten Bürger und Bürgerinnen" aufzuarbeiten, scheint mir ein bißchen lächerlich. Was wendet nun Fleischhauer gegen besagte Resolutionen ein?

Vor allem dies: die Anträge zeigten einen "Stolz auf das unbedarfte Denken" auf.

Mit dem Herzen zu denken beziehungsweise mit dem Kopf zu fühlen... gilt auf dieser Art von Veranstaltung als besondere Tugend. Mit der Aufklärung hat sich der Sentimentalismus nie wirklich anfreunden können, Rationalität muss seit langem mit dem Vorwurf leben, zynisch, kalt, ja irgendwie männlich zu sein. Der Stolz auf das unbedarfte Denken ist geradezu Signum der Gefühlstheologie: "Präreflektierte Unmittelbarkeit" sei doch "eigentlich ganz schön", verkündete Margot Käßmann zum Auftakt der grünen Tage in Dresden, womit sie zweifellos vielen Zuhörern aus dem - ja: Herzen - sprach.

 Und ganz unrecht hat Herr Fleischhauer hier gar nicht: tatsächlich hat sich "der Sentimentalismus" mit "der Aufklärung" nicht abfinden können. Hat nicht die Bourgeoisie "die heiligen Schauer der frommen Schwärmerei, der ritterlichen Begeisterung, der spießbürgerlichen Wehmut in dem eiskalten Wasser egoistischer Berechnung ertränkt" (Marx/Engels)? Aber der selbsternannte Hüter aufklärerischer Vernunft ist der eigentlich Unvernünftige.

Stimmt es, daß "es auf Dauer schwierig sein dürfte, ein Industrieland ganz ohne verlässliche Energiequellen am Laufen zu halten"? Was heißt "verläßlich"? Verläßlich ist bei fossiler Energie nur die zunehmende Umweltzerstörung nebst ständig drohender Katastrophen, d.h. die Vernichtung unseres Lebensraumes. Damit ist "ein Industrieland" vielleicht "am Laufen zu halten", die Menschen aber nicht. Das ist durchaus logisch: der Bourgeois setzt die Reproduktion seiner Macht gleich mit dem Wohlergehen der Gesellschaft und arbeitete darum im Namen des Fortschritts einst Kinder zu Tode (was nun angenehmerweise größtenteils anderswo geschieht - zum Glück gibt es ja die räumliche Distanz).

Marcuse charakterisiert das als eindimensionales Denken, die Anwendung tadelloser Logik und Rationalität, die sich beim kritischen Hinsehen als katastrophal unvernünftig erweist. Ständiges explosives Wirtschaftswachstum mag den Herren Wirtschaftsweisen vernünftig erscheinen, ja vielleicht sogar eine Existenzbedingung des heutigen Kapitalismus sein. Weil die Ressourcen der Erde aber endlich sind, wird die Forderung nach größerem Wirtschaftswachstum zur Forderung nach der beschleunigten Selbstvernichtung der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft - was so schlimm nicht wäre, wenn sie uns allesamt nicht mit ins Grab risse. Nichts ist unvernünftiger als die Position der Kanzlerin, die uns schnellstens in die Vorkrisenzeit zurückversetzen will, als wir eben vor der Krise standen.

Auch das brutale Absenken des allgemeinen Lebensstandards, die wir gerade in Großbritannien und anderen Ländern erleben, die gewaltsame Umverteilung von unten nach oben scheint sinnvoll, will man den stotternden Motor des Kapitalismus wieder in Fahrt zu bringen (vorausgesetzt, man hält Binnennachfrage für unwichtig). Wer aber am Wohlergehen des Menschen und nicht am Kontostand der Herrscher ansetzt, wird diese "Vernunft" höchst unvernünftig finden. Dazu muß man keineswegs nur mit dem Herzen denken. Die Logik des Kapitalismus läßt sich verteidigen, aber nur "by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties". Darum die beispiellose Propagandaoffensive der letzten Jahre.

So löst sich Fleischhauers Kritik an "sentimentalem" Wunschdenken letztlich auf in Kritik alles Denkens, das beim Menschen statt beim Gewinn des Kapitalisten ansetzt. Wer den Menschen als Subjekt und nicht nur als Instrument wahrnimmt, kann Fleischhauer nicht folgen.

Gegen Ende seines Auswurfs aber gelingt es Fleischhauer dann doch, eine interessante Debatte anzustoßen. Er sieht das kirchliche Interesse an weltlichen Themen als fatale Selbstschwächung:

Die Folgen der Selbstsäkularisierung sind heute an vielen Gottesdiensten ablesbar. Kaum ein Pastor traut sich noch, ungeniert von Himmel und Hölle zu sprechen, und wenn, dann ist das nur allegorisch gemeint, wie er sich hinzuzufügen beeilt. Stattdessen findet sich in jeder guten Sonntagspredigt die Litanei über den Kriegstreiber Amerika, die Schrecken der Globalisierung, das Elend der Hartz-IV-Empfänger.

Diese Diesseitsfixierung hat einen für die Kirche unschönen Nebeneffekt: Mit der Verschiebung des Erlösungshorizonts, der sich ganz aufs Heute richtet, setzt sie sich der Konkurrenz zu weltlichen Glaubensorganisationen aus, die dem Bedürfnis nach entschiedenem Handeln sehr viel besser nachkommen können. Warum nicht gleich Mitglied bei Greenpeace, Peta oder Amnesty werden?

 Fleischhauers Argument liegen zwei falsche Annahmen zugrunde.

Erstens hat es niemals ein Zeitalter gegeben, in dem Kirchen sich unpolitisch verhalten hätten - und das nicht nur, weil Politik zwangsläufig alle Lebensbereiche durchdringt. Kirchen sind immer politisch positioniert. Die Kirchen des Kaiserreichs lehrten statt der Subversion, die Fleischhauer mißfällt, eben Ruhe, Gehorsam und Ordnung als Christenpflicht und halfen damit dem status quo in Deutschland. Luther verfaßte neben der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen auch An den christlichen Adel deutscher Nation und griff damit religiös-politische Zustände an. Eine Art politische Neutralität der Kirche ist nur durch Staatsterror zu erreichen.

Zweitens ist die Trennung zwischen "Religion" und "Politik" fiktiv. Es gibt keine religiöse Sphäre, in der es nur um Engelein und Abendmahl ginge, die Gesellschaft insgesamt aber fein säuberlich außen vor bliebe. In der Gottesherrschaft des Alten Testaments ist das unübersehbar, aber auch das Evangelium ist zutiefst politisch. Die Werte, die Gläubige ihrer Religion entnehmen, beeinflussen ihr politisches Engagement, und die Gesellschaftskonstellation durchdringt umgekehrt die Kirche. Die scheinbare Trennung von Religion und Politik, Staat und Kirche ist dafür sogar das beste Beispiel, denn sie ist das unmittelbare Produkt der kapitalistischen gesellschaftlichen Revolution (wozu siehe Marx, Zur Judenfrage).

Stimmt es nun, daß "[k]aum ein Pastor [sich noch] traut..., ungeniert von Himmel und Hölle zu sprechen"? Damit hat Fleischhauer in meiner Erfahrung allerdings recht. Und wenn die Kirche also zur Gruppentherapie und Ethikstunde verkommt, in der man sich der Bibel schämt, wie vielerorts geschehen, macht sie sich tatsächlich selbst überflüssig. Aber daraus läßt sich keineswegs schließen, daß die Kirche gesellschaftliches Engagement aufgeben und nur noch von Kreuzigung und Höllenfeuer zu erzählen hätte. Ein solcher Rückzug wäre wie schon gesagt ohnehin unmöglich. Vielmehr gibt das Evangelium der Kirche eine einzigartige Perspektive auf gesellschaftliche Fragen und kann einen Dialog zwischen Gott und Welt anstoßen, der beide bereichert.

Jesus' Spruch, wonach ein Kamel leichter durch ein Nadelöhr als ein Reicher ins Himmelreich gehe, ist wenig tröstlich für die Herrschaft. Jesaja 58 zerlegt die zurschaugestellte Frömmigkeit jener Elite, die zugleich die Armen auspreßt. Das Evangelium - daß alle Menschen in ihrem Wert, aber auch ihrer Schuld vor Gott gleich sind und Christus als Mensch lebte, hungerte, litt und für uns starb - gehört keineswegs jenen, die aus ihm Akzeptanz der Gesellschaftsordnung ablesen wollen. Vielmehr leitet es zur Kritik an. Diese Kritik - den Dialog zwischen Wort und Welt - kann die Kirche führen. Daß sie sich in Dresden in die großen Gesellschaftsfragen einmischt, ist gut für die Kirche und gut für die Gesellschaft.

Why we shouldn't celebrate Osama's death

At 1am on May 2, 2011, Osama bin Laden was attacked at his compound in Pakistan by 20 to 25 helicopter-borne Navy SEALs. In a forty-minute operation Osama was shot in the face twice, killing him. The body was quickly dropped into the Arabian Sea.

The reaction in the West was euphoric. Celebrations broke out in the United States. The media were hardly more reticent and celebrated anything from the end of the 'War on Terror' to Obama's now allegedly guaranteed re-election. Osama bin Laden, that incarnation of evil, was finally gone.

I feel personally deeply uncomfortable with the cheering on of the targeted killing of a human being - any human being. At the risk of preaching: breaking forth in joy should never be our reaction to death. That we live in a world in which it may sometimes be necessary to kill other human beings is a terrible fact, one that ought to occasion a fundamental critique of the way we live on this earth. Joy at death is never justified, merely a symptom of our sickness. To gloat over the bodies of our dead enemies, of someone who has been hunted for years, is the opposite of humanity. Osama bin Laden, like Saddam Hussein before him, has been hounded to his grave and beyond, and that should lead to some deep soul-searching in a society that professes to be civilised.

That much is, I hope, uncontroversial; controversy follows. Osama bin Laden was not a demon, not evil incarnate. Fighting him was not some sort of historic challenge the West had to pass. He was a human being with hopes, dreams, fears and aspirations. His millennial outlook stemmed from an understanding of the history of the Middle East - specifically, the history of Western imperialism in the region. As he said in 2004, in the video address in which he first admitted to planning the 9/11 attacks:

Security is an important foundation of human life and free people do not squander their security, contrary to Bush's claims that we hate freedom. Let him tell us why we did not attack Sweden for example...
God knows it did not cross our minds to attack the towers but after the situation became unbearable and we witnessed the injustice and tyranny of the American-Israeli alliance against our people in Palestine and Lebanon, I thought about it. And the events that affected me directly were that of 1982 and the events that followed - when America allowed the Israelis to invade Lebanon, helped by the US sixth fleet.
In those difficult moments many emotions came over me which are hard to describe, but which produced an overwhelming feeling to reject injustice and a strong determination to punish the unjust.
As I watched the destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me punish the unjust the same way [and] to destroy towers in America so it could taste some of what we are tasting and to stop killing our children and women.

 Of course this is propaganda. But at its bottom is undoubtedly a real situation: namely, the Western partition of the Middle East that followed the First World War ('Our Islamic nation has been tasting the same for more than 80 years of humiliation and disgrace, its sons killed and their blood spilled, its sanctities desecrated', Osama said in 2001), and the sordid history of imperialism (first predominantly British, then chiefly American) that continues to this day. Osama's analysis is flawed: he assumes imperialism constitutes a 'crusading' assault on Islam, when it is really a question of economic interests and strategic paramountcy. From this incorrect analysis stems the viciousness and futility of al-Qaida's struggle. That real Western domination and subjugation of Muslims lay at the bottom of the Jihadist attacks was of course never acknowledged by the United States and its allies, who preferred to ascribe their enemies' determination to blind fanaticism. All this, of course, while massively adding to the grievances with the hundreds of thousands killed and millions displaced from Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries.

So here's my second reason for rejecting the joy at Osama bin Laden's death: it is another act of silencing the voices crying out in protest against the violent and continued suppression of the people of the Middle East. Osama bin Laden was never worthy of our respect. He was a ruthless mass murderer, but he became so in reaction to real injustices. We should feel uneasy about joining in the celebrations when the world's greatest power - the power that turned Iraq into a graveyard and even now aids in the suppression of pro-democracy uprisings in the region - kills one of its enemies. Osama was never a threat to 'the world'. Throughout the 'War on Terror' Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida were always the weaker party, hunted with the most modern weaponry. al-Qaida's weakening was always the likely outcome.

There is, however, hope in all this. As al-Qaida is becoming less relevant, the Middle East is being overtaken by democratic uprisings. Terrorism was the political and military expression of Middle Easterners' impotence and oppressed state; Tahrir Square is the expression of their coming to freedom - real popular freedom, not 'governance' at gunpoint, almost everywhere in defiance of the United States' wishes. It is good that Jihadism is taking a back seat; it is better that democracy has a chance of taking its place.

Economic apotheosis, with reference to South Park

In the South Park episode ‘Margaritaville’, Randy becomes a preacher, explaining the Great Money Disappearing Event to a rapt audience:

We have become lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of the Economy! There are those who will say that the Economy has forsaken us! Nay! You have forsaken the Economy! And now you know the Economy's wrath! O thoust can shop at a sporting goods store, but knowest thou that the Economy will take away thy Broncos' cap from thine head! Mock the Economy without fear! Thine own stockbrokers... now lie dead by their own hand and thou knowest that thy stockbrokers did not fear the Economy! Well here we are, my friends! You have brought the Economy's vengeance upon yourselves! … We must all wear sheets instead of buying clothes that need detergent! Instead of cars that take gasoline we can get around on llamas from Drake's farm! Instead of video games that take batteries and software, our kids will play with squirrels! We must let the Economy know that we are capable of respecting it! No more needless spending! The Economy is our shepherd. We shall not want.

Modern society, whose elites pride themselves on their rationality, has made ‘the economy’ into a god. Not an ever-kind and smiling one, mind you: this one puts the Greek gods to shame in its fickleness. Economists, who are its priests, cannot predict its actions; governments cannot tame it; its victims must bear its wrath cheerfully as the vengeance of a power beyond comprehension. And yet ‘the economy’ is fundamentally a set of relationships between human beings: it is man-made. Where does this mystification come from?

According to Nicos Poulantzas, the concept of the ‘free labourer’, who owns nothing but his labour power,

generates the relative separation of the State and the economic sphere… a separation which underlies the characteristic institutional framework of the capitalist State, since it maps out the new spaces and respective fields of the State and the economy. This separation of the State and the space of the reproduction of capital is therefore specific to capitalism: it must not be understood as a particular effect of essentially autonomous instances composed of elements that remain constant whatever the mode of production. (State, Power, Socialism, p. 18.)

In feudal society, by contrast, producers owned (that is, lived on and tilled) the land and the tools, so extracting their product involved the direct application of legitimate state violence; and the guy who took away your produce was quite obviously the same person that ruled you politically. I want to suggest, however, that there is a different approach to the question of why ‘the economy’ appears as a thing capable of action in capitalism. The explanation, I think, lies in capitalism’s capacity to produce periodic crises.

We tend to accept as given that economic crises happen; despite the protestations of bankers and politicians, everyone knows that the next crisis is certain. In that environment, it is difficult to remember that internal crisis was simply unknown in feudal society. Since commodity production was only a tiny proportion of overall economic activity, there could be no crisis of overproduction; since finance in the modern sense hardly existed and was only employed by a narrow sector of society, financial crises were also impossible. Crises of confidence could not occur where economic activity was not based on investment and information travelled very slowly, preventing panic. The feudal economy’s need for natural resources was insignificant compared to the enormous appetite of today’s productive sector, and hence no supply crises could occur. Thus internal systemic crisis was impossible as long as capitalism as a mode of production was restricted to a small part of the urban population. The feudal economy was not based on explosive growth, but could exist in equilibrium.

Not, of course, that feudal society was incapable of crisis per se. External crisis not only existed, but could have harrowing consequences. Droughts, floods, excessively cold winters and other natural disasters easily led to famine. The low productive surplus feudalism generated often resulted in large loss of life in such crises. External crises could profoundly affect social relations, of course. The Black Death of the mid-fourteenth century killed so many English peasants that the position of the remaining peasants vis-à-vis the nobility was immediately strengthened by the shortage of labour power. King Edward III cracked down in 1351, laying down laws to limit peasants’ gains. The Black Death led to a wave of migration to the cities and the creation of opportunities for women, as economic sectors previously monopolised by men opened up because of mass death.

Such crises have much in common with capitalist crises. Both strike suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, and destroy livelihoods and fortunes, leading to a decline in living standards and in many cases to starvation and death (be it directly or indirectly, through ‘structural adjustment’). Both tend to lead to political polarisation and a rise in tension and. Both, in short, rapidly destroy the lives their stunned victims were accustomed to and create a new, much more unpleasant reality. But of course there is a key difference between the two. The sort of crisis that could ravage medieval society was caused by acts of God. Capitalist crisis is man-made: indeed natural disasters tend to create wonderful opportunities for capitalists rather than impoverish them. The former sort of crisis was caused by the mode of production’s vulnerability to external events; the latter kind is inherent in the mode of production itself.

That difference, it seems to me, neatly explains how ‘the economy’ became a sphere of life quite distinct from others – politics and everyday life. The inexplicable natural disasters that befell medieval society were attributed to God; but since, at least officially, economic life is man-made and God has no hand in it, he cannot be held responsible. The system can inflict punishment all by itself. Thus begins ‘the economy’s’ reign of terror as it smites its terrified victims. We must propitiate the economy and treat it well, or expect awesome vengeance.

Of course, in reality ‘the economy’ is an abstraction from sets of social relations, productive and commercial. Mystification, the elevation of the abstraction into a godlike being (alienation), serves dominant interests because it denies individuals’ and classes’ specific roles and responsibilities. Blame the bankers? Not if Bob Diamond has anything to do with it. Failure is an orphan, and when crisis strikes it can only be ‘the economy’ that somehow malfunctioned. Economic crises become as natural as the seasons rather than being, as they should be, associated with a particular form of society – one that can be overcome.

The non-existence of ‘the economy’ in pre-modern society also points us to what will happen to this strange god if an alternative form of life is attempted. For, as people begin to take control of their own lives, as the profit motive is removed, production is for use rather than profit and crisis disappears, ‘the economy’ will lose its dreadful power and, like all false gods, will wither away.