GRRRR: Sign on, for bullshit

Petition for your freedom to photograph!, originally uploaded by net_efekt.

Sign any petition on petitions.pm.gov.uk by all means, but don’t expect it to inform the governments thinking in any way. From the ‘road pricing’ one to the one pleading for help to stop the dreadful wage slashing in the name of equality that Staffordshire County Council are up to , the responses are a list of reasons why the government will not change its position.

They’re in thrawl to big business and certain pressure groups - ‘the public’ will not influence them one bit.

What is really needed in any case is an organised campaign - a coalition of driven individuals, focused and abale to respond in the media.

I’m off to create a petition to urge the PM to “take notice and act upon one of these petitions, instead of just emailing signatories with a link to a list of excuses.”

Is it a conspiracy theory to suggest that the internet petiton site is one of Tony Blair's great spin masterpieces? It’s so easy to set one up that no actual orgaisation or well thought-through campaign is needed - people don’t have to communicate, organise or form into groups that can pressure government.

Enter your email and we can tell you all, individually, why we’re not listening.

GRRRR: Enviro-guilt

IMG_4060, originally uploaded by 2wichita.

Last week on Radio 4 there was a programme that tasked itself with "counting the environmental cost of football fans traveling away to support their team". What sanctimonious rubbish, symptomatic of the media's deal with the status quo - that is to promote "what you can do to stop global warming" and shy away from "what the government can do" or "what legislation could force industry to do".

Recycle, don't fly off on holiday, use energy efficient lightbulbs, etc, etc. To pick on the 'unnecessary' travel of a tiny proportion of the (mainly) working class such as travel to watch football, is the work of an idiot. How many pointless miles are notched up by business (or even media) travel, to meetings where a phone call, email, or IM would of done?

Just to think about it - there are 48 (around) league football matches a weekend, an average away following might be 500 tops (Prem might get 3,000, division four - er League Two - bight be 50 if they're lucky), so we're talking 20,000 people traveling a minimum of 10 miles (Birmingham away at Wolves) , max maybe 500 (Southampton at Wigan -next season). It's a insignificant number, one which could be cut at a stroke if rail travel was back to it's British Rail best (now did you ever think that you'd hear that?), most people don't yearn to sit in a car when going away, they'd much rather cheap, convenient rail travel. You could solve this with a stoke of a pen Gordon Brown, instead of pissing our future away with Public Private Finance initiatives.

It's with this attitude that the bombardment of how much better for the environment it'd be if we "stopped using supermarkets and bought every thing at our local shops" comes. What absurd middle class nonsense, the free reign of capitalism has left most people without local shops to go to - even if their 'flexible working' (for which read - you work when we tell you, no matter what time it is) gave them time. Supermarkets are cheaper, and unless you have disposable income to chose elsewhere - eco-friendly as a leisure activity - there's not a lot you can do.

We've all got to do our bit, but 'we' isn't just individuals - aren't our leaders meant to lead?