When Jesus saves everyone gets screwed over

I have to giggle and groan sympathetically at this (see http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/give_up_bags_for_lent_1_4273789 ) for several reasons.
Firstly, because it nicely illustrates the difficulties faced by a non-religious person trying to do something right on the Isle of Man. All a self-congratulatory Christian chancer has to do to get branded a ‘good person’ is wave a cross about a bit and mention Jesus. Anyone else actually has to do good work, and without the obligatory nod to Jesus Freakery it never gets recognised as good anyway.
But also because it is a prime example of the dangers of government-run pseudo-charities, slave labour schemes and co-operating with evangelical bigots in order to get your message across.
Just to ‘deconstruct’ things and make it all a little clearer….
Muriel was one of the founder members of Isle of Man Freethinkers, so having to link the campaign to a smug religious orgy of ‘self-denial’ must make her grit her teeth. Though on the other hand, as ‘unfashionable’ class warriors point out, for all the worthiness and common sense behind them green campaigns and campaigners can also be fuelled by a smugness and tendency to perpetuate prejudices of class, (perhaps less consciously) race and the legacies of colonialism which have never gone away. Attitudes and prejudices whose most common exponents are evangelical Christians.
Then there is the problem of government run pseudo-charities. Having a dialogue with government is one thing, allowing your charity or community campaign to be used as a career springboard for chancers looking for a cosy government contract, or for civil servants to dictate your local policies in return for a seat at the table with them (which is way too common in a Manx ’Third Sector’ chiefly administrated by civil servants), or just allowing your charity to be used as ‘proof’ of the forward thinking of the Manx government in return for a government grant to your UK parent…?
Can any member of the public take your campaigns seriously if even you don’t?
Prison slave labour schemes – another bugbear of mine. See the Campaign Against Prison Slavery link to the right for a fuller picture, but the simple fact is this. The ‘punishment’ of a prisoner is to be deprived of liberty. End of.
Rehabilitation which involves work schemes – especially on the Isle of Man – is a sick joke. If you want to teach somebody to have some dignity by holding down a job and paying their way in society instead of robbing – fine. But the point is that employment is based on an exchange of ‘goods’, so if you ‘work’ you get paid.
Well informed prison charities (i.e. none that can operate on the Isle of Man) have suggested schemes whereby a prisoner works for a ‘proper’ company and is paid a reasonable wage. As it’s unhelpful or undesirable for them to have that much cash in prison, the money can then be banked in an account used to address practical problems when they get out – for example to set them up with accommodation. Alternatively, it could go straight to their family so the prisoner has the self-respect of knowing they are supporting them – legitimately – while inside.
Curiously, neither large companies nor the faith-based hypocritical wowsers who run ‘rehabilitation’ on the Isle of Man want to know about that. No short term profit for them, you see. Better, like Shoprite, to get a product (which only benefits you) made free (and even with public donations), then latch on to the publicity generated by a Department of Home Affairs which rather than preventing crime perpetuates it – even to the extent of nurturing the next generation of criminals.
Co-operating with evangelical bigots? St Thomas’s, by virtue of having the ‘right’ to appoint deluded loons (sorry ‘practicing Christians’) as staff which the current Diocesan representatives on the school board insist on exercising, has a head teacher who takes flat-earth superstition seriously. His predecessor was a decent middle-of-the-road Anglican, but when he retired no Anglican teacher wanted the job so rather than give it to a reputable professional the Diocese picked a Broadway Baptist punter, reputedly a creationist with equally startling views on most things. Given that some of that tribe are millenarians (a Christian subculture that thinks Armageddon is imminent and you should do nothing to stop it) he may even believe environmentalism is a distraction of the Devil.
Fair play to any non-religious person who wants a better island and world and engages with this cretinous, deep-rooted bigotry and nonsense to try and get it. Personally though, my nod to a ridiculous Christian tradition is to give up self-flagellation for Lent.
And after Easter? Well, long time until Saturnalia in December, but, with some effort, I am sure I can find ways to knock out my inner policeman and actually enjoy the process of bringing misanthropic vacuity to its knees – while simultaneously encouraging everyone else to get off them.

MEA management - dimmer switch fitted as standard

Ever wondered how serious a publicly run agency with responsibility for energy supplies is on the Isle of Man?
On the evidence of a short encounter with one yesterday, the answer is ‘not very’. In fact, while I used to think 25 watt was just a rating on a light bulb I now think it is a warning that should be tattooed across the foreheads of MEA (Manx Electricity Authority) management.
While in Douglas yesterday we looked for something fairly simple – an energy efficient lightbulb to use in a lamp with a dimmer switch. And on Strand Street there’s a shop called ‘Bright Ideas’, supposedly the MEA advice point for those trying to do the right environmental thing around the home.
They didn’t have any. In fact, they didn’t have many low energy light bulbs or other energy-efficient devices at all, and neither do any of the local branches of the MEA, which is why we had to ask at this ‘specialist advice centre’ in the first place.
Their sole suggestions for stockists were a home improvement centre hated by environmentalists in an out of town retail park only reachable by car, and one private shop 15 miles further south from Douglas. As my wife said, the Manx government seriously expects that, in order to save the energy from one standard light bulb, people should make a private car round trip of up to sixty miles.

Less wasted paper, less sermons

I’m intrigued by the new coalition between two local longwinded sermonisers, Sentamu’s Apprentice Robert Paterson and FOE’s Ffinlo Costain.
Is the latter now also working as quietly for the former as he has for the DLGE, or is there some strange marriage of convenience? Alternatively, as greens and godbotherers could both put someone with Attention Deficit Disorder to sleep in seconds with their prose, does it matter anyway?
Whatever, the first evidence came to light at http://www.manx.net/default.asp?id=18&articleid=9565, where it could be excused as just FOE giving another unelected klingon a bit of a leg-up. Because greens and godbotherers do have something else odd in common.
They both seem to prefer to push their case behind closed doors with unelected politicians. One would almost think they don’t trust the public to back their policies; they certainly have a marked disinterest in testing them at the ballot box.
By Saturday the story had spread to Radio Cowshed (see http://www.manxradio.com/newsread.aspx?id=41227), which is unsurprising as by Saturday evening the newsdesk is being run by the religious team, and by today it was in the Excrement too.
So, maybe I could put forward a few green savings of my own.
Firstly, Christians could bury their petty feuds and arrange to meet in groups of, say, a dozen on Sundays, instead of heating 12 different premises in any island town, each occupied by an odd couple and maybe a passing stray dog if it’s raining. Snake-charmers and holy rollers could do the public an extra favour and make a double saving too by not using schools for their bizarre goings on.
Then there’s that unending stream of local colour supplements that flows through our letterboxes. In my case, as part of our strict anti-junkmail policy, my daughter bungs them straight into the bag to go to the recycling bins.
I doubt anyone else reads them either. In fact I’ve tested this idea and have yet to find anyone who can remember one item (or even the name of the publications) except those who arranged for the item to be there.
Overcome your nausea and try reading one and you soon discover why.
Firstly, examine the ‘editorial’ against the ‘advertising’ and check the juxtaposition of one against the other and you might wonder which is which. The odd gaps where the relationship isn’t so obvious, you’ll note, favour woo-woo merchants, neo-colonial racism and exploitation (I think the PC term is ‘faith-based help for the developing world’), or greens shouting at working people for using supermarkets.
So, logically, if the message was so important, and paper waste such a sin, shouldn’t such articles appear online where somebody might read them, rather than in the least recyclable paper form where nobody does?
Most of us would still bin them as spam, but we wouldn’t have to cart them off to the recycling bins next time we’re…well, at the supermarket actually, as the supposedly sin-free retail ‘alternatives’ are nowhere near a recycling bin.

Not so cheap tricks

Well, could you be bothered taking part in a totally pointless climate change 'demonstration’ yesterday? I couldn’t either.
If you’re not clear what I mean, then I won’t refer you to the reports on a government underwritten radio station, or those in a newspaper which receives £700,000 per year alone for running government notices, so try the relatively independent Energy FM at http://www.energyfm.net/cms/news_story_80212.html instead.
And it gets worse next week, when a notable waste of space fills time in the Keys on similar questions (see http://www.manxradio.com/newsread.aspx?id=41060). Considering that these matters are also being ‘independently’ raised by an FOE activist who received £15,600 from the Department of Local Government and the Environment “to carry out a news co-ordinating service between November 2008 and May 2009” (see http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/Cost-of-PR-in-spotlight.5795622.jp) I’m at a loss to understand how the relevant government departments aren’t aware or considering it. By the way, would that ‘news co-ordinating service’ include a series of articles purporting to be ‘independent opinion’ on environmental matters from an FOE perspective in Manx Tails – which doesn’t get direct government funding so has to rely on free copy even more than other local media?
The sheer futility of it all was demonstrated on the BBC news reports last night, where a few thousand blue-painted MOR types ambled through the streets of London acompanied by obliging rozzers. Prominent amongst the banners were those of homophobic fuckwits Tear Fund, Greenpeace (cause celebre of non-doms and landed inbreeds everywhere) and the only slightly less picky Christian Aid – who, I suppose, at least have the decency to advertise their Christocentric agenda in their name. Then a smug Gordon Brown was seen greeting said sad-acts. Crikey, bet he was terrified!
Similarly, every time such events kick off over here the most prominent supporters are right wing fundamentalists and nationalists, and the whole show is stage managed and publicised by folk who receive government funding to publicise the island. And that’s on top of the underwriting by corporate elements who make it a condition of their funding that the role of the free market, and the relationship between international corporations and specific national governments, is never questioned. The one thing never talked about is democracy, because it’s the last thing any of the interested parties want.
So, what’s the point, and who exactly is the message directed at if everyone supposedly involved in delivering it is being sponsored and stage-directed by the very parties common sense tells us are most guilty?
The answer, I would say, can be found in predictions made by those anarchist jokers the Situationists over 30 years ago. Both Guy Debord’s Society of The Spectacle and Raoul Vanneigm’s Revolution of Everyday Life foresaw that as capitalism reacted against the apparent social ‘revolution’ of the 1960’s it would find ways to commodify protest and revolution themselves. And sure enough, what we have now is a situation (be it globally or right here on the Isle of Man) where the most reactionary and powerful forces in society not only direct our ‘protest’ against them, but sponsor it and extract our time and money for permission to do so.
That is a long way from democracy. But then, as I and other awkward sods here have known for years, the Isle of Man is not a democratic country or a self-governing one, and the last thing those who run the place want is anyone drawing attention to that.
Climate change ‘protests’? No problem, and will you be paying by cash or card?

Burn resources and stop honour killings

It's no secret that I am contemptuous of the increasingly evangelical tone of environmentalists.
This is fundamentalism by the back door. No problem with proper scientific evidence and debates, but nagging, finger-pointing, tokenistic crap like this Friday's big switch-off doesn't impress me.
I'd be far more impressed with an approach that recognises the ability of science and human ingenuity to get us out of this alleged mess instead of cheap Frankenstein comparisons and, in general, frankly anti-scientific, anti-human twaddle that rants, eyes glazed, about a future Dies Irae like Fred Phelps on crack.
So never mind self-righteously and pointlessly switching your lights off this Friday: do something useful instead.
Unreported World (Channel 4, 7.30 PM) will carry a vital report on Honour Killings in Turkey - reportedly 200 this year already and rising. It gets worse too. Seems the outside chance of getting prosecuted for murdering your own daughters and sisters has Turkish fundies so worried they're 'persuading' their kin to commit suicide instead.
Scum!!
You should watch this programme. You could even read up on it in advance by following the link in the sidebar here to the International Campaign Against Honour Killings website.
I don't care how many lightbulbs you then burn actually doing the right thing for another human being instead of wittering about recycling nappies either. Because I live in a human-centred world, and I'd rather burn out than be 120 in any world run by evangelical halfwits, whatever green label they hide their misogynism behind.