Don't tell me what to think.

We are always being told about consumer choice. It's an interesting notion. It suggests of course that shops and businesses are somehow democratically obliged to fulfil the wishes and desires of its customers. Sounds awfully like a cooperative, of course. Unlike a cooperative however, most shops are only accountable to their shareholders, and only accountable to them in the sense that their shareholders require profits and more profits.

So what then is consumer choice?

Lets look at this by exploring the instance at which you, the consumer, made a choice. Take apples for instance. Presented with a great long shelf of hundreds of apples, and maybe forty different choices, which apples will you pick? You will pick the reddest, shiniest, waxiest apples that you can reach. Why is that? At what point did you take a wonderful red, shiny and waxy apple and compare it with a dull, yellowy apple and decided (indeed choose as a consumer) that the apples the supermarkets tell you are the best, are indeed the best?

Consumer choice is something that is not a choice of a consumer but a label used to shroud the instances where businesses tell you what you want in order to increase their profits. It's a discourse, nothing else. It is the result of this consumer choice that good quality British apples are no longer on our supermarket shelves, replaced with the cheaper, notionally 'better', redder, waxier, shinier options from Europe and New Zealand. The supermarkets tell us that this is because we've chosen to have these apples. The more they tell us it's our choice, the more it becomes our choice.

A corporation is complex. But it is also dangerous. The documentary that partly inspires this piece, the inventively titled The Corporation goes into a great deal of depth not only in exploring the ways that the corporation as the legal entity a 'legal person' shows all the requisite attributes of a psychopath, but also explores the way that a corporation is both the sum of its parts - a total whole made up of owners, directors, shareholders, employees, consumers - but it is also a separate entity which is conveniently and dangerously independent and unaccountable. This separate entity is also however an active part of the make up of the work of the Corporation. It's the bit of BP that Tony Hayward blames, that then makes Hayward seemingly unaccountable and able to get on with his life; and the bit that tells us that decisions they make are 'consumer choices.'

Corporations have the capacity to develop into unaccountable and independent discourse-creating machines. The supermarkets were our first case in point re those red, shiny apples. A second much more worrying case arose on the front page of the Guardian website today, exploring the way that security industries have become deeply embedded in our school system. The biometrics industry have convinced us that it is in our best interests to use fingerprints to dish out school lunches, allowing a neat database of fingerprints to be kept (something that used to be solely kept for criminals and now is used on the under-10s - people too young to even become criminals if they wanted to). The reasons cited for why these systems were in place most often cited the fact that most other schools were also using them. They were clearly the consumer's favourite choice. The reasons given by the biometrics companies cite efficiency. Privacy never seems to come into the equation. I'm sure it has something much more to do with the fact that our current under-secretary of state for children, Tim Loughton, also used to the chairman of Classwatch, a CCTV company that specialised in schools technology. Loughton, like any other member of the corporate machine is accountable to one thing: not privacy, not even efficiency, and certainly not accountable to children or parents, but only to the profits of the ever expanding security industry. This security industry can only exist with a discourse that presents itself as a necessary part of our existence.

Be critical of who tells you what. The next time someone tells you something is the choice of the consumer, remind them not to tell you what to think.

Getting back to its roots: Glasto rekindles its radical twist

Glastonbury in its early days was a hotbed for the radical youth of Britain. Not only was it a place to celebrate music, drugs, poor quality canvas A-frame tents and men in shorts far to short, it was a place to feel connected to those politicised all around.

Over the years, commercialisation has set in, with ticket prices sky-rocketing almost as quickly as its security fences. The days of free love and most importantly, free music are over. All the hippie clothing of this bygone era we so loved, is now sold at stalls with names such as 'Namaste' and 'Ethfunkal trading' selling dubiously traded shirts from Nepal for £20 a piece.

But this year, it looks like we will get a chance to relive those moments from the 1980s when the festival used to be organised in conjunction with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) - when nuclear apocalypse was all the rage. For this year, the festival is to be joined by a new protest movement - UK Uncut. Loved by the Guardian, students and many, many bloggers, UK Uncut have used a quasi-circus sit-in tactic as a valuable tool of protest to highlight those banks, businesses and shops that are really rather good at getting around paying their taxes. Do check them out, they really are cool.

Their targets have really been an eclectic mix. First it was Vodafone, then Barclays, Fortnum and Mason and now, last of all, U2. The Irish band moved their company to Holland in order to avoid paying taxes. The hypocrisy involved in this act, when Bono goes on and on with his chum Bob Geldof about feeding the world, and making sure everyone is aware that it's the winter solstice, now appears to be making as much money as he can out of the summer solstice instead.

So, Glastonbury becomes political once more. It's a nuanced difference, being once a place where everyone on stage would be shouting 'Free Nelson Mandela' and 'No More Vietnam,' Glasto now awaits the politicised heckling itself.

Oh how the Frankenstein analogy never stays long in the cliche cupboard.

Should we be surprised to see this political moment turned on its head? No. We'd be kidding ourselves to say that Glastonbury is any iota of its former self. We should praise UK Uncut, not just for being a fantastic reminder that banks, corporations and indeed rock bands should be accountable to their citizens, but making us really consider what's behind the paint work of the festival movement in the UK.

And Pandora's Box Opens...

A. C. Grayling

A C Grayling's celebrity university (a new Fame Academy perhaps?) hasn't got off to the best of starts. Barely two days old and there are allegations of plagiarism from here there and everywhere. Apparently the syllabus of the 'New college of the Humanities' bears a remarkable word-for-word resemblance to that of the University of London. It seems that all you would get extra at NCH would be the odd guest lecturer from Richard Dawkins or Niall Ferguson. Not that I would want to be lectured at by a militant atheist or a colonial conservative - but that is neither here nor there.

The existence of this piece of news in today's papers is entirely indicative of the Pandora's Box that the introduction of the market into university education this year by the huge increase in tuititon fees has opened. (Oh and by the way, the government now are deeply concerned with the creek they are now trying to paddle up now that the vast majority of universities have given two fingers to the £6000 figure, headed straight to the £9000 and asked the government to foot the bill for a few years).

The fact of the matter is that now all media discourse surrounding university education can do little else than play to this marketisation. To quote from the Guardian today:

"[NCH] will teach exactly the same syllabuses as the University of London, which charges half the price... [teaching the same courses] that are already on offer at Birkbeck, Goldsmiths and Royal Holloway for £9,000 or less."

A false market exists, but again and again we see the barriers to this false market being pressurised and forced, stretched and Grayling's fascinating publicity stunt only suggests that this turgid market may just burst its banks as we get ever closer to that September 2012 zenith.

At the same time as the opportunity to 'go private' for twice the price, much speculation has arisen as to how the UCAS clearing system will react to this new system. Many suggest that universities could do worse than to play the clearing system as you might play a flea market, or an auction - offering students discounts here and there, or even, some suggest material benefits to attend their course instead of their "competitor's" (long gone is the idea that universities are 'in it together' rather than in intense competition with one another). Imagine it:

You've missed your grades. An AAC offer and you got ABC. The phone calls "You'd be very welcome to our university, we can offer you a £500 discount to take our degree, offering great value for money and what's more, how about an iPad to help you in your studies?"

The university is about to transform into a very strange beast. Education for the benefit of society will become a distant utopian memory, a Garden of Eden that one may never reach again. Why did the NUS have to bite the apple of the marketisation tree?

Danger! Danger! High Voltage!

Here's an idea for you - nothing is innately dangerous.

It's perhaps a bit philosophical but perhaps also can be of use when we look at the world. Think about it: nothing that is thought of as 'dangerous' was dangerous unless we said it was. I've been reading Bill Bryson's The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid recently and it's full of stuff that wasn't dangerous until we said it was. Smoking for instance. But it's also not just a matter of science. Some things we know are a risk to us which we thought before were good for us. We progress. But we also construct danger. We ascribe danger to phenomena that could be thought of otherwise.

Today I encountered a danger feared more than most.

I was out shopping with my mother, a wonderful experience that has not happened for a number of years and was without the stress, strain and ultimate sweat for the fact that we both found what we needed in the first two shops we entered - delightful. The afternoon was topped off with a wonderful hot chocolate with more chocolate in a brownie, wonderful - but that's not the point.

The point was, that I went to the loo before heading home, again a comment of anecdotal irrelevance. BUT: as I wandered to the cubicle I noticed to my right was a man at a urinal with his willy in one hand and his child's hand in his other. The man was so conscious of child-snatchers that could seemingly attack at any moment, that he couldn't even leave his child unarmed and vulnerable for the time it took to pee.

Lollipops! 

Child snatchers only exist in reruns of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang around Christmas time. Well, they do exist in 'real life' too, but we must be honest - our fascination is a force multiplier. We are fascinated by them to such an extent that Madeline remains in top spot on the hardback non-fiction bestsellers list for another week. Child snatchers existed as much in a time when children were free to go and build treehouses like dear Bryson in Des Moines in 1950s America, but now in the face of such 'danger' we must go and chain our children to our palms as we urinate in shopping centres instead of letting them have fun.

Being critical of danger, is not itself critically dangerous. Sometimes we have to keep things in perspective. I leave with a closing thought:

More people were killed in the year after 9/11 on the roads chock-a-block with cars for their new fear of flying than were killed in 9/11 itself.

The Arab Spring can teach us a lot about our own leaders

The Arab Spring is amongst us. Yemen, Syria, Bahrain (complete with it's 'not about the money' Grand Prix), Oman, Egypt, Libya and, oh yeah, Palestine.

Yesterday, hundreds were injured and a dozen or so were killed when Palestinian and Syrian protesters held a demonstration on the Israeli border in the hotly contested region, the Golan Heights. Israeli soldiers indiscriminately shot live ammunition at the protesters in a similar fashion to the gunning down of protesters we have seen all over the Middle East. A brief analysis of the responses by Western leaders offers us interesting insights into the state of Middle East politics currently.

According to the BBC News website:

“The US state department said it was 'troubled' by the 'loss of life'” “We call for all sides to exercise restraint... Provocative actions like this should be avoided.”

There are a number of issues here. The first being the fact that the US state department seems to label protest against oppression as a 'provocative action' (a bit like a lady choosing to wear a mini-skirt eh Canadian Policeman??). Protest is not provocative. Protest is not a threat. Protest is a positive element of democratic life, crucial to the collective well-being of all societies.

William Hague certainly didn't regard the protests of Syrian's citizens as provocative when on the 11th April this year he urged the Syrian government to:

“respect its people's right to free speech and peaceful protest.”

And as for exercising restraint on both sides, I wonder how NATO would react if we drew this comment alongside the military barbarism in Libya – killing children in the name of freedom, using UN sanctions to protect human life in order to attempt to overthrow a dictator the West has supported for decades. The West it seems, while calling for restraint from others, are happy to use excessive force in its own interests.

Western leaders condemn the violence of Middle East states and fail to condemn Israeli violence. Western leaders then use violence themselves to achieve their own goals and objectives.

What is more, is the convenient use of pro-protest rhetoric at the same time as the UK government works hard to clamp down on legitimate protest on its own streets. It is beyond doubt that this humanitarian discourse of the UK government helped a great deal in forming a tsunami that washed away the clear appearance of unrest and discomfort on its own streets, during the student protests of late 2010 and early 2011. The more the UK cared about protesters on Egyptian streets, the less it had to worry about the public's perceptions of the protesters in parliament square suffering at the arms of truncheons and under the feet of stampeding horses.

This clever use of foreign policy discourse unveils a number of conclusions that must not go amiss amongst the tidal wave of 24-hour news coverage:

1. The West backs Israel 100% even when it oppresses, tortures and murders civilians every day.
2. The West will use violence when it wants to, and will condemn the use of violence by others when it profits them.
3. The West supports protest when it is in their interest and brutally clamps down on protest in its own streets. The act of demanding that Syria respect the right to free speech and to peaceful protest infers that these rights are respected here – they are not.
4. Protest continues to be perceived as a threat, something which it, by definition, is not.

In the news this week...

In the news this week we've seen the odd contradiction of the worldwide phenomena Slutwalks mixed in with the opening of a new Playboy club in London. The role of gender in our society has never been more blurred and confused and yet so omnipresent.

Where is feminism today?

Arising out of a deep concern that rape victims are often blamed rather than their attackers, Slutwalkers have claimed the right to wear what they like.

Wear a bunny costume, perhaps?

But Playboy has come under attack for the obvious claim that the whole notion of the Playboy brand objectifies women. Not only that, it commodifies women. Women are paid for men to appreciate them for their looks, at least according to the well known feminist Michael Winner. They sell their dignity to drooling men.

The plain matter is: women can wear what they want. A man that rapes a women because she looks 'inviting' has still raped that woman. A woman can decide to dress to impress, but that does not remove her right to say 'yes' or 'no'.

Playboy represents a nostalgic sexism that does not have 'charm' and is not a 'bit of fun' but is indicative of the wider sexism and discrimination that remains in our society, framed in a way that seeks to legitimise its unjustified existence. These examples are not 'bad apples'. These examples exist everywhere. Gendered expectations, stereotypes, roles, images are everywhere and must be countered. Take the Church of England for instance, where women are years away from becoming Bishops.

The media framing these issues as a 'debate' does not help one bit. These are plain and simple issues that need to be dealt with accordingly. Treat women on an equal footing to men: simples.  

Drink becomes the refuge of the middle classes

Once again, another news article attempting to raise the price of drink.

According to the BBC, the Scottish Government wishes to set a fixed minimum price set on each unit of alcohol. The price, fairly irrelevant I guess, is 45p.

What each and every broadcaster and politician seems to have failed to mention, is not the impact this will have on 'responsibile' drinkers, but on the working class drinker.

If agreed, the change would see a two-litre bottle of Tesco brand cider go from £1.32 to £3.80, while Asda whisky would rise from £9.20 to £12.60.

The BBC then goes on to examine how

According to the government's figures, there would be no change in the cost of brands like Bell's, Whyte & Mackay or Johnnie Walker, which all currently retail above £14.

 What really worries me here, is that the government makes the assumption that all irresponsible drinking concerns the cheapest of drinks. This legislation will hit those that can only afford the cheapest of drinks. Irrespective of whether or not they are being 'responsible,' though who's to say what that might be.

This leaves middle and upper class drinkers free to drink away, 'responsibily' no doubt, irrespective of how much the government wishes them to drink or not.

Drinker like this chap:

(http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/48947000/jpg/_48947917_drink.jpg)

Now, according to Tony's autobiography he regularly drank at home - and I'm sure he could afford way and beyond the 45p per unit minimum price.

His circumstances may have been unique, but Dr John Foster, of the University of Greenwich' School of Health & Social Care, says Mr Blair's drinking habit was a "fairly typical" response - particularly among the middle classes - to the pressures of daily life.

"As you go up in social class, issues such as stress and coming down from work are things that were particularly mentioned as a reason," says Dr Foster.

Latest NHS research suggests about 9% of people drink almost every day, with those aged 45 or over the most likely to do so.

So, the middle classes drink a lot. The legislation hits the working class. The working class can no longer afford to drink cheaply - even if they are drinking less than the middle classes.

Government legislation: we're all in it together? I think not.