Friday, June 15, 2007

THE 60s AS A TRIUMPH OF CAPITALISM

Why do we call it the Summer of Love? In the hot months of 1967 there was a military coup in Greece; a war started in Biafra; there were race riots in Newark, Detroit and Boston; Muhummad Ali was stripped of his world title for refusing the draft; Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were jailed on drug charges; Arab attempts to destroy Israel triggered the Six Day War; Kenneth Halliwell murdered his lover, the playwright Joe Orton; the Beatles manager Brian Epstein died of a drug overdose; and the Swedish switched to driving on the right. Doesn't sound much like a Summer of Love to me.

So why the name? On April 5, 1967, in a converted firehouse on Waller Street, San Francisco, a press conference was held, called by assorted members of the hippy scene in the bohemian district of Haight-Ashbury. And they announced their intention to form a Council for a Summer of Love. The title stuck.

The origin of the name is significant. For this summer we are celebrating, if that's the right word, the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love. And the tendency to see this term as the description of an era, rather than of a discreet series of events in a small district in one city, is strong. Does this mistake matter? Yes, because it is a symbol of something bigger - the way in which both Left and Right overestimate the Sixties counterculture. The 40th anniversary, while everybody is printing their cut-out-and-keep guide to the Sgt. Pepper's album cover, is as good a moment as any to challenge this.

Let's start in Haight-Ashbury itself. The creation of the council was a defensive move, designed to reassure local residents. Even the bohemians of the district feared the influx of students once the college vacation began. So some form of rudimentary organisation was put in place - a free store, free food and free love in the parks. But it didn't really work. Haight-Ashbury, which had been a delightful enclave, was left a shadow of itself, a refuge for drug addicts and other damaged people.

Sure, thousands of young people were involved. But this was still a tiny, tiny percentage even of America's youth. At the height of the counterculture's growth, only 10 per cent of young Americans described themselves as "radicals".

Haight's Summer of Love wasn't even cool. Here's the verdict of George Harrison, who visited in early August: "You know, I went to Haight-Ashbury expecting it to be this brilliant place, and it was just full of horrible, spotty, dropout kids on drugs." Far from making him, in Timothy Leary's phrase, want to "turn on, tune in, drop out", Harrison vowed to stop using LSD.

In other words, the Summer of Love was a failure, a distinction it shared with other countercultural "happenings", many of which ended in mayhem and even murder. Why, then, does it loom so large in our imagination so many decades later?

Because of the Sixties. It is even clearer now than it was at the time that this was a watershed decade. Forty years ago, it was thought that the generation gap between teenagers and their parents would be a permanent feature of modern life. Instead, there was just one generation gap, but the gulf yawns between those who grew up in the years before the Beatles and those who grew up after it.

The mistake is to regard this as the consequence of the counterculture. The real cause of the Sixties revolution was something much more powerful and much more widespread - capitalism. In his fine new book The Age of Abundance Brink Lindsey argues persuasively that the most important cultural change of the postwar era was moving from scarcity to abundance. For millions of people, the struggle merely to survive lost its intensity. And this left room for other priorities - the search for identity, the desire to make something of oneself.

This new spirit swept all before it in the Sixties. It produced the demand for political rights by African-Americans, it allowed women to think of themselves as more than drudges and to begin to make their way outside the home, it enriched teenagers and made them a potent economic force. It also produced a consumer society. You want it? Yes, I want it and I want it now. Then you can have it. The mass market burst through class barriers, upturned traditions, made revered customs obsolete.

Lindsey quotes F. Scott Fitzgerald's famous line: "Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me." And Lindsey argues that this is as true of societies as of individuals. The Sixties were different from anything that came before.

Against this dominant, vibrant mass culture, the counterculture was simply a puny protest. Just chill out, man, they bleated, as they were pushed aside by the consumer in a hurry. It is a delicious irony that the biggest impact the hippies made was when they were coopted by the mainstream. Soon Booth's House of Lords gin was being promoted as a way of "taking a stand against conformity" while Clairol took on the slogan "it lets me be me".

And, of course there was the biggest and best mainstream co-option of all - the Beatles masterpiece Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The bourgeois work ethic of Paul McCartney married to the avant-garde art of the counterculture produced an irresistible commercial product.

The story of the Sixties is a story of the triumph of economic freedom, of the power of free markets to change lives and produce a more open, exciting society. So why doesn't the Right embrace it? Why be happy to let the Left colonise memories of that decade?

It is because the change was not all gain, by any means. There has been family breakdown, drug addiction, and a certain coarsening of public debate and deterioration in standards of civility and decency. And it is a dodge to argue that these all came from something quite separate - from an alien counterculture. They didn't. They are in part the downside of the consumer revolution and can only be addressed by the Right if they are understood like that.

Source



Prominent Illinois Abortionist Pays Court Settlement for Trying to Run Over Pro-Lifer

On Friday, Chicago lawyer Jason Braddock and Tom Brejcha, the chief counsel of Chicago's pro-life Thomas More Society, won a case against Yogendra Shah, the chief abortionist of Hope abortion Clinic in Granite City , Illinois. WorldNetDaily reports that Shah paid an unknown settlement to parents Daniel and Angela Michael and their daughter Arielle, for attempting to run over Daniel in his car and for an assault on Arielle by one of the abortion clinic escorts 7 years earlier. By paying the money, Shah will avoid going to court.

Small Victories Ministries, run by the Michael family in Highland, Illinois, has vigorously supported the pro-life cause for 14 years through protesting, sidewalk counseling, maintaining a roving van crisis pregnancy support vancentre and bringing abortion-related issues to the attention of the government. The ministry specifically protests outside the Hope Abortion Clinic of Granite City, IL, the largest Midwest abortion clinic that allows girls to have late-term abortions without parental consent.

Father and daughter were assaulted in 2000 after persuading a woman outside the abortuary to spare her unborn child's life. An escort roughly pushed 10-year old Arielle to the ground, and shortly afterwards one of the clinic guards started beating her father over the head with a baton. (see full coverage http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2000/dec/001213a.html).

Yogendra Shah is the same abortionist who caused enormous scandal in 2000 for being chief of OB/GYN at St. Elizabeth's hospital that is just across the road from Hope Clinic, also run by Shah at the same time. While claiming to be Catholic in name, the hospital was aware of his work as an abortionist and kept him employed even after the news became public.

Angela Michael said that Shah's work in Hope Clinic is highly successful because the surrounding States have age-restrictions for women seeking abortions. WorldNetDaily comments, "That means a rapist can bring an underage victim to Granite City and pay for an abortion, eliminating evidence of his assault."

In March 2006, the Michael family helped the police convict Jeffery Cheshier, 41, for raping his step-daughter. Cheshier had brought his daughter from Arkansas to the Hope Clinic in order to securefor an abortion,. and here the Michael family photographed his car and license plate. and They later gave thise information to the police as evidence.

Source



What's behind the rise of `Tescophobia'? (The British equivalent of Wal-Mart hatred)

Today's Tesco-bashers are a degenerate alliance of blue-blooded conservatives and cynical left-wingers. Their assaults should be resisted

The number of complaints against Tesco seems to grow even faster than the supermarket giant itself. Slamming the opening of new stores, the amount of goods and services they sell and the vast profits the company makes has become a preoccupation of liberal broadsheets, such as the Independent and the Guardian, as well as cranky tabloids like the Daily Mail and the London Evening Standard. There are also numerous websites devoted to `exposing' Tesco's practices. In February 2007 Channel 4 devoted an hour's worth of primetime television to a feeble `investigation' of how Tesco operates (1).

In his new book Tescopoly, Andrew Simms of the New Economics Foundation (a self-proclaimed `think-and-do-tank') attempts to provide a detailed survey of Tesco's high street omnipresence and why it should be stopped. Although Simms specifically targets Tesco, the supermarket chain is merely a canvas through which he reveals all kinds of vile prejudices against modern-day society and, in particular, the modern-day working class. Tescopoly is another unwelcome addition to the growing pile of shrill, phoney anti-capitalist books that use vaguely left-wing credentials to disguise contempt for the masses.

It should be said that Simms is at least more honest about his political ideas and motivations than, say, George Monbiot. He reveals that his `father ran a small business and voted Conservative' and, sure enough, Tescopoly is a rallying cry for the beleaguered petit bourgeoisie and all its conservative preoccupations (2). Unfortunately for Simms, however, he ends up being hamstrung by his flawed methodological approach. While he attempts a social scientific analysis of Tesco's apparent destructiveness, via a smattering of facts and figures, on the whole Tescopoly is an entirely subjective complaint against the `evils' of economic growth and social change.

What is perhaps more significant is that the remains of the radical left now take people like Simms at face value (3). Quite why championing small businesses against big business is progressive is never convincingly explained, by either Simms or his left-wing fans. In fact, Simms' garbled alternative to efficient big business is probably the most reactionary blueprint for a new society this side of an al-Qaeda website. Yet while the rantings of Osama bin Laden et al are generally assumed to be nonsense, the arguments and prejudices put forward in Tescopoly are as mainstream and widespread as Tesco itself.

The purpose of this essay is firstly to dissect Simms' arguments against supermarkets and his proposed alternatives, and secondly to assess why such conservative prejudices have suddenly found favour with leftist radicals.

One of the most familiar complaints against Tesco is that its unstoppable expansion of stores is destroying the fabric of local communities. What Simms means is that Tesco is forcing the closure of small shops and businesses. These claims are central to Simms' overall argument and he repeats them ad nauseam. Ideally, Simms would like a monopoly of small traders via some kind of state protection. However, simply to champion the material self-interest of the petit bourgeoisie would probably be seen as a bit, well, unethical. So Simms promotes the economic, social and moral worth of your `friendly' local trader, and he ties himself in knots in the process.

Firstly, he argues that supermarkets are not as economically viable as local businesses. As an example, he says that big supermarkets do not employ as many people as small traders and small businesses do. He also argues that the wealth generated doesn't `irrigate around a community'. He points out that, according to recent figures, Tesco `employed 250,000 people while small grocery shops. employed double the number of people' (4). That may be so, but Simms ignores the jobs created by Sainsbury's, Asda and Morrison's (supermarkets which he often lumps alongside Tesco in other chapters of the book). Totalled together, the number of jobs created by these supermarkets would be double the small retail sector.

What these figures also reveal, and what Simms ignores, is that the small and large retail sectors can exist side by side. Simms may point out that `specialist stores like butchers and bakers shut at the rate of 50 per week', but he would like the same rate of closure to befall the big four supermarkets. Would the small retail sector be able to absorb the million-plus jobs lost if supermarkets were forced to close down? It's highly unlikely.

Simms' claim of a direct `cause and effect' relationship between big supermarkets opening and small shops going to the wall is also unconvincing. Specialist shops have always been prone to economic failure because the market for the goods on offer is often weak. To be frank, budding entrepreneurs don't always have the best business acumen. Those financial geniuses who insist on opening a shop selling such non-essentials as scuba diving equipment or authentic Victorian fireplaces in a residential area have only themselves to blame when the bailiffs are called in.

Yet Simms is so in awe of small traders that he can't contemplate that local shops might close down simply because they're rubbish. Indeed, the ubiquity of Tesco, Starbucks, Subway and McDonald's on the high street only emerged because Britain's caf,s and small shops have mostly been drab, scruffy and uninviting. Britain might supposedly be a `nation of shopkeepers' but, unlike the Spanish or French, this country hasn't been particularly good at producing small traders.

Ironically enough, one area in which small traders have been successful recently - specialist food - has largely been thanks to the arrival of supermarkets. Although Simms attempts to prove otherwise, the average grocery bill for UK households has dramatically declined thanks to price-busting supermarkets. This frees up more cash for luxury food items, such as specialist cheeses, and pheasant and duck from specialist butchers. On Essex Road in the Islington district of London, long queues often form outside of the local fishmongers and butchers at the weekend, and both of these small shops are within walking distance of a Tesco store. Likewise, the specialist food market in Borough, south London, is always far busier than any Tesco or Sainsbury's. Many Britons now tend to divide their shopping between supermarkets for basics and local shops for specific ingredients. The fact that small stores and specialist shops continue to thrive suggests that they can benefit from the arrival of supermarkets.

Although Simms reckons that Tesco `stifles' retail diversity, in reality he would like the state to deny choice to shoppers and force them to shop at small stores and markets. He forgets that housewives once spent many hours each week on such drudgery, often having to go out and buy some essentials on a daily basis. Yet Simms wants us to do that kind of thing because he reckons there would be greater community spirit and social cohesion. This notion is the most ridiculous and facile part of Tescopoly; at times Simms positively fantasises about village life.

Much more here

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.


For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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