Saturday 24 December 2011

Sexy Rexy strikes back.

Only days after the reappearance of Solicitors from Hell an article about Liverpool Solicitor, E Rex Makin appeared.  Rex had at one point been the most mentioned Solicitor on SfH but due to a legal action had been removed. Now after only days on the site the new Rex story has disappeared.
The new site has addressed some of the concerns expressed by various courts but is substantially the same as the original. In some ways very perhaps too close, I haven't read the last judgement, but I wonder if the separation between new and old is big enough?

Wednesday 21 December 2011

The long road to the future.

It's often said "we get the government we deserve", which may bee a statement with far more truth in it than first appears. The reality is the governments and society are emergent systems they are not the product of  someone's decision or hard and fast rules, they emerge from the interactions of people. Whilst occasionally there may be sharp transitions in the names, faces and rhetoric. When all said and done it is not unusual to find the the new boss is very much like the old boss.
In the past various organisation and groups have sought to impose new ways of doing things on society with it's been communism, fascism or whatever the French revolution was about. The reality is usually very similar to the system that it replaced though with some jarring and violent attempts to force some new way of thinking on society. These attempts have universally failed.
About us now we can see various groups trying to do similar things from the Occupy movement through to the Freemen of the land, up to the libertarians. The common idea throughout is that if we change these system we will somehow be nicer people but then problem is the system doesn't actually exist accept as groups of people, there is no corporate machine running governments their are only people.
It has been observed since at least the 4 century BCE by people such as Zhuangzi that people will organise themselves and quiet often different groups will organise themselves in the same way without any knowledge of the other, when in similar situations. It is no accident that no matter what names they are given tribes, kingdoms and priesthoods existed throughout the world long before people could communicate with across the globe.
If we want a better world we have to construct better people and from them will emerge the better system. The attempts to foist better system on the world will not work. The ideas of Leninist and Trotskyite to have a vanguard group is a vain flawed idea, which is diametrically opposed to the view of Marx that the revolution will happen with sufficiently well educated people. You cannot force the issue and groups like the SWP and Militant(Socialist Party) and the corresponding parties of the right such as the BNP as well as all the prescriptive organisations will cause nothing but trouble in trying to force the issue.
We cannot make a better future for our child or grandchildren or even great grandchildren but we can continue on the road for future generations by sticking to two key activities. Democracy and education with those a better future may build itself, without them it defiantly will not.

Wednesday 14 December 2011

Back from Hell

After court actions which must have cost the Law Society, and hence solicitors, a significant sum. The first of several replacement site for Solicitors from Hell has come on line. This time based beyond the grasp of the high court in sunny California and protected by some properly written disclaimers. It begs the question was the Law Societies money well spent.
In the process of taking action they gave Solicitors from Hell significant publicity and while a lot of Solicitors may have breathed easy with the judgement, the site will have garnered quite a bit of sympathy for the brand.
What does it say of the Law Society that it engaged in a costly fight, the result of which was and always was going to be a pyrrhic victory. Often you here claims that they advised there client not to take action as it was pointless but the client didn't listen. What was the advice here? In public every one from Solicitors to Journalists was advising it was a bad idea. They didn't listen.

New SfH here.

Sunday 11 December 2011

30 Years later!

30 years ago when I was granted the right to vote despite what everyone says today, neither I nor my mates were waiting for hover boots to be invented. I know what interested me as I was band by my school from building liquid fueled rockets. I'd stood next to my dad on the drive looking up at the moon in 1969 and realised they there were people up there. Fuelling a lifelong interest in space and more precisely rockets.
In January 1986 standing on another drive in the snow I learnt of the Challenger disaster, and was shaken. I was still as naive about technology as the rest of the population, how could an organisation like NASA, which had put men on the moon have such a failure. Still to this day I'm angry at the lack of integrity of the engineers who said fly, I have never put on my management hat. Though I never been in a position where I not doing so has had the slightest effect on peoples' lives.
I had hoped to see Moon and Mars bases by now. I knew even then that that would only come with easy access to space and on orbit construction, before the end of the 70s, I see Apollo as a smash and grab raid for the political kudos not for the benefit of man. The entire job of a politician, as far as they are concerned, is to get themselves elected and once elected to get themselves elected next time. Cameroon capitulation to the Xenophobic part of the country and his back benchers is not the act of a leader. We cannot rely on politicians for anything other than dealing with other politicians, but on the other hand, we cannot rely on capitalism of private industry to take a longer view. Our future will have to be put together by visionaries who can in a piecemeal fashion produce the tools to take us forward. We cannot plan it, we can only go along for the ride, and find ways of letting people explore their futures and then let history whittle them down. It is a task beyond man to see or predict his future except in the most general terms and even the best predictions will only be a range of options.
When it comes to managing the day to day running of society which have little choice but to leave that to the democratic process as it is the worst except for all the rest.
It isn't small government we need, but an appropriately sized and enabling government not one that wishes to claims societies victories for itself and its apparatchiks.
The various political movements of the moment from the Free men to the hard left have failed to understand that the future is emergent. They have a Newtonian world view, one that has no place for Chaos theory, and its uncertainty.
I didn't expect the 1 Farad capacitor BTW, that was impossible according to Mr Stacy my Physics teacher.

Wednesday 7 December 2011

Unholy Alliance

As I have noted earlier the hard left is on the rise matched on the otherwise by the English Defence League and the BNP. The Militant Tendency with it avoid Trotskyite agenda, and agenda which would have horrified Trotsky. This will be familiar to anyone who has engaged in students politics since the 1950s or lived through the 1980s, especially those who lived in Liverpool through the rule of Derek Hatton and co.
Militant if pressed blame there reputation on the right wing press, but they have change there name in a effort to run away from peoples memory.
The one thing that has changed is the rise of movements like the "Freeman of the Land" groupings. They form a block along with the Libertarians and conspiracy theorists, together the represent a collection of people who are more politically naive and ill educated than even the BNP.
They are less rational then either the hard left or right, the are often functional illiterate, they can form sentences but have no idea of the meaning of those sentences. They along with the Euro-sceptics are not a political movement but a religion. Complexity is their major enemy they simply do not realise the complexity of the world or accept that things happen by accident. Some that I have spoke to doubt the existence of a subconscious, with an ability to subtle alter the way people react in the form of body language.
There points of view are similar to the pre-enlightenment views but with a new set of superstitions imposed. They seem destined to occupy the position held by the religious right in the US.

Friday 2 December 2011

Militant's ugly head

I suppose I should have looked at this before but the Militant Tendency has transformed itself to the Socialist Party, which explains why they and there follow travellers the SWP can be seen trying to attach themselves to any political entity in there usual attempt to make themselves seem bigger than they are.
Apparently the members are quote proud of their work as Militant, you'd have to ask why they changed their name. Could it be that the population caught on to what they where up to under their last name.
Lets face they where a dishonest bunch of shits last time, they intended to get power buy hiding within another organisation, get themselves in to positions of power and only really reveal themselves when they got into power.
They knew the the people would reject them if they where honest and up front, so they lied to them, because the patronising gits thought they knew better. Now they hope to fool populous by changing names. The plan still seems to be the same, use the workers as cannon fodder to achieve their aims.
The aim is still to subvert democracy, they still haven't learnt lessons of history, they still haven't grown up.
If you go on a march and you see an SWP or SW flag tell them to out the flags away or fuck off. If your in an organisation who's rallies they attend, remember they aren't there to for your benefit there there to be see with all your supporters and claim them as their.
One demo, one cause.

Thursday 1 December 2011

Economic end of the world number 3 or 4 + war

This is I think the 3rd major economic collapse I've lived through or perhaps it's the fourth, I've lost count. Unfortunate even if we ignore this, I seem to have missed out on several booms. In part just through incompetence and in part through because where I was living missed out on them.
This one started I believe in 2008 so we must be at least 3 years into it and are apparently expecting another 3 years. However there is more building going on in Liverpool than happened in the entire period from about 1980 to 2000. It is not quite at the heady levels of the mid 2000 but it is still going on. Sure shops and clubs are closing but others are actually opening, and it's not just discount shops apparently. The is increased turnover in restaurants that's true but the ones that fail are usually reopened a month later with a different specialty. I don't know why Mexigo failed by its replacement serving Arabic cuisine seem to be doing better.
I am to say the least confused. I can't say it hasn't personally affected me because it has, but perhaps it's a sign of my age that dropping a couple of years of development just puts me nearer my peak in the past. I find myself thinking Liverpool's in a better place when this recession actually ends but then the little voice say's "if it ends".
It is a lot selfish of me but the last thing we need is a war, not because of the lives lost but because of the economic disaster that would bring. The problem is that while I'm not that good enough an economist to know whether the Tories are doing as well as can be expected on the economic front. I know it looks like they're doing really well on the start a war with Iran front, which will truly screw the economy. Can we stop the Tories going to war by pointing out how economically disastrous it will be? It got more chance of working the appealing to their human side.