A Parable For Our Times: with apologies to real sharks

Just so we are all on the same page - this is a parable based on the Kim Dot-Com situation


Once upon a time there was a little shark who wanted to be a Great White when he grew up. Because he was a clever and devious hunter he grew to be a very big little shark.  He was not content to dominate the sharks in his part of the ocean and set off towards the zone of the Great Whites – the shark elite whose ranks he thought he was big enough and vicious enough to join. 

This elite of Great Whites allows certain other smaller sharks to scavenge the edges of their kill zone and if they are well fed, they may even let an enterprising little shark dart in to seize some prey for itself, but if a little shark starts to act like one of the Great Whites, or threatens their interests, they'll turn on him.  

The big little shark desperately wanted to be a part of the Great White elite but to them he was just a scavenging pest. When he started to muscle in on their kill zones, they decided to destroy him. He managed to escape and fled south but they were in a blood frenzy and pursued him across the oceans as far as the great southern ocean where he found some quiet waters in which to rest and gather his strength. 

The local sharks seemed a pretty dopey bunch and were easily bribed with a few fish to let him take up residence in their waters. Once rested, he took to his usual tactic of scattering around large amounts of fish offal to boost his reputation as the biggest predator in the neighbourhood and managed to gather a number of scavengers around him.  

But, unbeknownst to him, there was a Great White in residence – cleverly disguised as a dolphin. This shark in a dolphin suit alerted the Great White elite to the big little shark's presence in his waters, and a kill squad was sent to finish him off.

Using all his skills, the big little shark managed to escape the kill squads and found himself a spot where he could defend himself.  He thought that if the Great White elite was never going to let him become one of them he would be as much of a nuisance to them as he could – especially to the resident Great White.  

He looked around for allies. There weren't many as the waters had been so depleted of fish they could not support much in the way of predators, but he managed to find some prey species which were swimming around in an agitated and fearful state. 

He devised a cunning plan. He also disguised himself as a dolphin (a very large one it must be said) and persuaded the prey fish that he and his dolphin school would protect them from the Great White and its gang of scavengers if the prey fish would act as a diversion. They were to present themselves as a target while he and his school would sneak up behind the Great White and ram him – that being the way dolphins attack sharks.  Once deprived of their devious leader, the scavenger gang could be chased away by the dolphins and all would be well. 

The fish were so anxious for some leadership they totally forgot to question how come this particular dolphin had such huge teeth, not to mention the fact that dolphins also eat fish. 

After a lot of discussion, the prey fish agreed to band together to create a big enough shoal to attract the resident Great White's attention. The Great White duly sniffed out the prey and headed in for the kill. To the horror of the fish there was no sign of their dolphin protector.  Once the Great White had killed and eaten as many of the fish as he could catch and his scavengers had finished off the rest, he turned and found himself confronting the big-little shark.

"That was my gift to you," the big little shark said. "Proof of my good intentions. I want to stay here in these waters and if you let me I can promise you more prey, especially lots of tasty young juveniles. They can see right through your disguise because frankly it's wearing a bit thin, but they think I'm a real dolphin."

The Great White thought a while and being a very pragmatic sort of shark who didn't get to where he was by useless displays of overt aggression, agreed to let the big little shark stay, as long as he delivered a regular tribute of the tasty young prey he'd promised. 

And if he became too much of a nuisance, the resident Great White thought, there is more than one way to kill a shark.

The End.

Project Persephone - an exercise in futility

I was very diverted by a story I read in dePress on Tuesday about the Persephone Project. 

An international group of scientists is working on the development of the bio-technologies necessary to create a self-sustaining space ship which will save some people if (when) the greedheads and their minions manage to make Earth a "no-go zone for human beings due to..." – wait for it – "climate change or nuclear or biological warfare."

The team's sociologist, who made the above breath-taking statement, seems oblivious to the fact that investment in the sort of bio-technologies necessary to create a mini planet is the sort of investment which, multiplied many fold, might just save the big planet we evolved on.  

The idea is that, within a 100 years, Earth will be uninhabitable for humans – and by logical extension – most other species. In order to preserve the species which brought about this dreadful state of affairs, a few thousand select humans will be launched into space aboard a "Space Ark" to find another planet to colonise.

Given the sort of people who would be selected for such an Ark – the greedheads' "flower of humanity" would be my noxious weeds  – one can surmise they'd pretty soon ruin that planet as well.

The people involved in the project are clearly incapable of comprehending the enormity of the insult inherent in their acceptance of the inevitability of the Earth's demise and the pipe dream of building a self-sustaining "life raft".  They can dream about as yet impossible bio-technologies to save a few thousand of the elite but are unable to envisage the comparatively simple reorganisation of the relations of production and reproduction in sustainable and equitable ways so that we can save the planet we all live on. 

One accepts this from the greedheads; such is the narcissistic hubris of the forces which govern us, they would rather destroy the planet and most of what lives on it than admit their miserable life-negating philosophy is wrong.

But, scientists signing up for the bullshit is a reminder that of all that trickles down from the elite, it's that life negating, narcissistic hubris which is the most prolific and toxic.

Polemic or propaganda?

A polemic is a strongly worded expression of controversial views. I make no apology for this being a leftwing polemic because we are drowning in a morass of rightwing polemic disguised as news. Every time there is a headline which squawks about '"benefit cheats'" – that's a rightwing polemic disguised as neutral commentary. If you find the strong statement of political views to be upsetting, I suggest you stop reading now.

The thing is, we need something to fight for; there's not much value in fighting against something if we don't know or agree on what to replace it with. The right wing all over the developed world have all but destroyed both the belief that there is a better way to organise society and what are the best means by which to achieve it. They have convinced people that a "free market" driven by the profit motive is the only or is the best engine of progress; that creativity, productivity and innovation need the spark provided by the profit motive, i.e. that without the profit motive we would still be living in caves or mud huts. 

They obscure the fact that the market is not and never can be truly free because an uncontrolled drive for privatised profit is completely incompatible with balanced, sustainable production. I'd also argue that it's incompatible with balanced, sustainable reproduction.

Too many people in the developed world have accepted the bribe of increased consumer "choice" in the form of masses of cheap, intrinsically obsolete products. They close their eyes to the fact that these products are made cheap by the relocation of capital to parts of the world where labour and life have been kept or made cheap.  

The first action of all the governments which implemented monetarist economic theory was to remove all controls on the export of capital. This undermined organised labour at home, and allowed the free movement of capital to places where wages and working conditions were already low or could easily be forced down – i.e. where labour was not organised and could be kept that way. 

We forget, choose to ignore, or have never been taught that, the first victims of industrial capitalism were pauper women and children in the mines and mills of the industrial heartlands of Great Britain; that industrial capitalism was funded by industrialised slavery and the theft of other peoples' lands, and that domestic paupers were created by the misappropriation of common land and the callous eviction of millions of its occupants. 

Because of pressure from workers and other progressive elements, industrial capitalism had to yield concessions – to ameliorate its worst excesses. These concessions reached a peak in the decades following WW2 but since corporate and finance capitalism regained the ascendancy in the 1980s, the economic predators have had increasing freedom to sniff out sources of new high-yield victims in the form of the paupers of the Third World. 

These workers often labour for a pittance in appalling conditions to produce the commodities which are sold to (and used to mesmerise) the increasingly unproductive consumers of the First World. The tragic irony is that many of these First World consumers are either already paupers, about to become paupers, or are kept afloat by using their credit cards as flotation aids and paying obscene interest rates to the banksters for the privilege.

How ironic is it, that we, in the relatively privileged zones of the world, are conned and diverted by the very technology that enables the banksters and all their collaborators and supporters in business and government, to create the vast VIRTUAL wealth that buys and wields REAL power and the surveillance systems which allow them target that power. 

Ask yourself, whose interests do the masked men in the identikit uniforms protect? We are told they are there to fight crime and terrorism but that is more right wing polemic; the militarisation and homogeneity of the world's police is a calculated strategy – they are there to fight the inevitable insurgency as the contradictions widen and deepen. 

Anyone with sense, with any shred of understanding must realise that the way things are currently organised is unsustainable; that the people running the world are the most wilfully destructive predators the planet has ever seen.  Their philosophy, or rather the soulless strategising that passes for a philosophy, is, if they can't have it all, no one shall have any.  

Fortunately for the planet, not all humans are wilfully destructive predators but if the majority of us leave the power in the hands of the minority of sociopathic predators – we're all toast.  

We simply have to ask ourselves, do we want a world in which millions of children die for want of basic food, medicine and clean water? Where millions of small children are forced to work in sweat shops, trafficked as domestic and sex slaves, denied the basic human rights of shelter, security and education? 

Can we live with the obscenity of the children of the world's elite possessing wardrobes of thousands of high price items manufactured in countries which permit the hyper-exploitation of poor labourers and their children? 

Can we live with the obscenity of a world which is squandering precious and irreplaceable natural resources on the production of consumables with built-in obsolescence that are used mainly for the exchange of vain and useless information, the substitution of nostalgic banalities for knowledge and insight, and the masking of the indescribably awful with cyber-floss and smiley faces?  

Can we live with the obscenity of a world in which the poor of the developed zones are suffering and dying from a constellation of metabolic disorders created by eating and drinking the products of mad experiments in food production, while the children of the less developed world die of starvation?  

I know it sounds like hyperbole, but both the social and natural worlds are on the cusp of becoming chaotic. 

All organisms and communities of organisms strive for homeostasis – which is a state of relative equilibrium between interdependent elements. Too far out of equilibrium and/or for too long, and the organism/s will suffer irreparable damage, i.e. there is a point at which chaos ensues – and all bets are off because we simply do not know for certain how any given organism or collectivity of organisms may react once the tipping point is reached. 

How hopelessly inadequate are we in predicting how the planet and the totality of the organisms that live on it will react as homeostasis is more and more difficult to achieve?  

Okay, so this is all very misery-inducing and we all need light relief, I get that, even old serious socks like me need to lighten up and laugh. But we need to know that we have been herded into a virtual corral. We're like horses behind electric tape – once zapped by an electric fence most horses will stay penned behind a thin piece of wire, some may even die of starvation behind it. Pigs are different – give them a gap big enough and they will often barge under or through knowing they'll get zapped but also knowing that it's a momentary discomfort and it's a price worth paying for the freedom on the other side.

So, it's over to each person to make a decision. As individuals we cannot change the world but in combination with other people we can change our own towns, cities and countries. Each small progressive change supports other small progressive changes. Quite literally the world depends on it.

Sticks and stones .....

There was a story here a while back doing the media rounds about a video that was posted on Facebook which showed some teenage girls fighting over a boy. Basically, a group of trying-to-be-very-tough girls, some of whom had black hair and olive skins, ganged up on a girl with white skin and blue hair.  It was unpleasant for all sorts of reasons but it was nothing more than a silly little fight between silly teenage girls and involved a few desultory slaps and punches and a total loss of dignity.  

The most significant thing about it is that, like the Roastbusters situation, it unleashed a wave of outrage on social media. 

On the Facebook site which posted the video – and thereby promoted itself – there were in excess of 8000 responses. Of the ones I read, a very small number were thoughtful, articulate and reasoned but the vast majority were hysterical, inarticulate and full of the most appalling mysogynistic and racist malevolence. 

I read a few hundred of the comments – in the spirit of inquiry – enough to make me feel very worried about the mental health and general intelligence of the majority of the responders. The language of some people is truly repellent; it is infused with a malevolent rage that is in no way justified by the actions of the young girls it's aimed at.  Just as worrying, in light of the fact that these people can vote, is their incredible stupidity – most obvious in the idiots who put their employment details on their FB pages. Do they really want their current or future employers to read what they've written?  

Here's a little taste of some of the more offensive efforts. The spelling and grammar are original – anyone offended by swearing should stop reading now:

Allan Riley if I ever come across this sort of thing in my travels the lot of the low lifes will need medical attention especially the low life fat bitch she wouldn't have the IQ of an enamel piss pot. I hope the girl who received the bashing is okay.

Emma Jayne Sparks I bet they'll drop out of school, and live off the government for the rest of their lives... They're good for nothing, little bitches. With nothing better to do with their time, than be fucking mongrel whores, creating drama and thinking it's "funny". These girls give woman a bad name, fucking disgraceful.

Benson Hedges Scum bag pieces of shit. It's disgusting acts from a small minority like this and that of the "Roastbusters" going unpunished that tarnish the reputation of a nation full of kind, friendly, welcoming people. I hope your daughter knows she has the backing of a nation

Andrew Claxton Fuck the fat one is an ugly cunt. Pathetic bitches. Those are some girls ill gladly smash 4 on 1. Dont care that im a male. Scum like that deserve a face kicking

Dwayne Kennett fat bitch is my neighbour and now that i know it is her if i see her in a hurry she better not come near my fucking family filthy fucking bitch. hope you get done big time

 Howard Pedersen What is that fat big mouthed piece of shit. It's not even human.

Roscoe Pettigrew Im in new Plymouth... bring all them little cunts up here and I'll smash all their fucking heads in. Poor little chicky. Hope your daughter is okay honey.

Katherine Harris Sam Nowacki you ugly huck mole bitch. You are just a bullie you fat slapper, you and your bundy friends. All tough in a group aye you gutless cowards

Dana Barr Niggas for ya .

Nick Coulam You fat whale cunt potatoe peeling poaka piece of shit hukmuk

Nick Coulam fuckn filthycunts cook should have wiped you all out

Nick Coulam fuckn monkey cunts ae

Mathieu Vandevelde This ugly spook shouldn't be laughing with other people. Where can we find this fat cunt?!

Greg Thomas I'd shit down there throats

Dave Kennett wata crack hore fat ugly bitch

Ashley Green fucking wat a bunch of fat hairy fucken loosers for those who were beating on that poor girl I hope you all fucking rot in hell especially that fat one I hope u all read this and I hope you all die of something horrible low life peaces of scum

Eliyah Taramy Niotangi how fucking low ! you fucking little cunts ! think of karma you asses what if this had happened to your sister ? your mother ? or to your fucking daughter ?? huh wont be really tough now ae ?? fucking assholes ihope you all fucking get whats coming for yah !!! shit like this really pisses me off !!!

Steven Raaijmakers That's maoris for you…

Frank Power I can't believe how dumb these cunts are. Bash someone up and get it all on film????? Very smart. The whole lot of them need a bullet to the head. The world would be a better place without them.

Terry Bell you fucking ugly trollip's.. hand ya self into the police for that video bashing b4 you get bent over and dealt to you fucking ugly moles..

Caleb Julian What a bunch of hori trash lol. Shoot them all

Ruby Downey Stick the disgusting little wastes of space in prison, they're gonna end up there eventually anyway. I'd rather my taxes went on keeping them locked up than on the benefit.

Tim Cummings Should find these little cunts and give them a fucken hiding! Typical little niggers

Victor Thompson Some one kick that fat bitch in her stink vagina stupid slut

Michael Wigs Wignall You low filthy dirt bags, you fat low cunt will die with 5 hungry low life kids whist you struggle on the dole. I wish slow deaths on you all.

Ben Wiltshire Fucken sick black nigga bitches shoot em all 

Kody Mckenzie Fuk the lot of them fukin nigger mutts my cuz Stephanie Mckenzie has all the backing she needs so run nigger run oi

Treyvon Manuel You girls are what I call dirty little cunts. Even the fat bitch that asks about her phone ! Sorry for the language btw but fuck I would so stomp on your heads for doing this you sad low lifed cunts

Daniel Stocker Fat Maoris what do you expect

Matt Garland Fucking fat whores need to get probed in the ass with a knife shot in the knees tounge choped off ears cut off fingers and toes and the shove them in a dumpster

I hesitated about publishing these comments with links for obvious reasons but I think that these people need to be accountable for their actions. 

I know there are morons who have a sim card for a brain and whose mobile phones have become grafted to their sweaty palms, and that they say things on-line that they wouldn't dream of saying to someone's face. 

I know that blokey men and blokey women spur each other on to demonstrate their "hardness" – seemingly oblivious to the fact that they're demonstrating exactly the same qualities and attitudes they're condemning in the people they are attacking.  

I know that there is a world of difference between what someone thinks or writes on a FB page and what they would actually do.

However, history teaches us that the more of them who are thinking it and saying it, the more likely it is that some of them will go beyond words into action. 

As a society we should be extremely worried about what provokes this sort of response and the speed with which some people descend into a blind rage. It should give us all pause.  So I suggest that people share this – to make a stand for common sense and common decency.