America’s Closed! Come Back Later

So apparently the USA has closed. And no one noticed.

Ok, ok, that’s not true. Personally I laughed until my sides split.

I’ve made no secret of the fact that America as a nation annoys me immensely, so there’s a fair bit of pettiness and schadenfreude going into my enjoyment of this. However that doesn’t blind me to the fact that this is not a good thing; over 700,000 US government employees are on unpaid leave and national monuments and parks that should be open to the public permanently are closed. More relevantly (to me) this isn’t going to make a dent in the American Exceptionalism-Nationalist Arrogance that so irritates me.

As far as I can tell this shutdown has been caused by the Republican controlled House of Representatives being unwilling to pass a bill that allows the US government to spend money (apparently because they don’t like the Affordable Care Act but that’s a discussion for another time). I’ll repeat that in case you, like me, grew up in a civilised country without all this insanity; the executive administration of the United States of America has to go begging to its legislature for permission to spend money to enforce the laws passed by that self-same legislature. I’ve heard of checks and balances but this is ridiculous. No one branch of government should be able to hold the entire state to ransom like this.

I know why it’s been set up like this, but the American Constitution is over two hundred years old and was written to govern a nation which, in large part, doesn’t exist anymore. The loosely confederated union of independent nation states, for better or for worse, is dead. In those days the central government would need to be limited, but the federal government has overcome those limitations, the USA is a centralised nation and its government needs the authority to act like it.

The Soviet Union could at least control its constituent republics (disclaimer: the preceding sentence was in no sense meant seriously).

This was an incredibly stupid thing for the Republicans to do; the recession is not over, the global economy is still fragile. Let me enumerate the ways this is idiotic:

• Removes confidence in the US Congress – I’ll grant you there wasn’t much to begin with but displaying publicly how fragile you are is not smart if you want to survive.
• Creates anger with the US Congress – not only are people not confident that you can do your job, but they will be resentful with you creating this problem entirely through your own action. Especially since you Congressmen (and it is mainly men; old, white, wealthy, Christian, heterosexual men) still get paid whilst denying pay to others.
• Deals an easily avoidable blow to your (still-recovering) economy – over 700,000 people on unpaid leave; not only are you not reaping the benefit of their work, but they can’t purchase anything either.
• Causes human suffering and upheaval – bills still need to be paid, food needs to be bought, families need to be supported. And they have no way of knowing how long you’ll spin this out.
• Holds US debt to ransom – the American debt ceiling (another symptom of a badly constructed government) is fast approaching, maybe as early as October 17^th, and using that as a political bargaining tool has not become a better idea since the last time you did it. The US defaulting on its debt would deal another easily avoidable blow to confidence in American government and global faith in the dollar. It cannot be overestimated how bad that would be (well obviously it can; I doubt it would cause nuclear war, but it is still something to be avoided).
• Creates resentment against the Republican Party – this isn’t just Republicans putting party before country; this is Republicans putting pride (or sheer obstinacy) before reason. There is no way you can slice this where it isn’t the Republican’s fault; this is not a problem they didn’t solve, this is a problem they created. At best they are well intentioned extremists, at worst they are playing political games with people’s lives and the American (and global) economy. I don’t know how popular the Republican Party was before this shutdown, but I’d be prepared to bet that popularity took a nosedive.

What I’m about to say may sound callous, because it is, but I hope this continues.

Obviously I don’t want any serious damage done; to people or the economy. But if this problem is solved to quickly, or with too little pain, it risks being swept away. There are important structural problems here; this kind of institutional collapse should not be possible! Asking America for governmental reform is like asking Uganda for equal rights for LGBTQA people, but this needs to be fixed.

Hopefully this will result in a serious look at the mechanics of the government of the USA and a diminution, or at least moderation, of the Republican Party. There is the potential for progress to emerge from this mess.

I won’t hold my breath.

The Best Man Won

Hurray, America proved it’s not a nation of complete morons after all.

About half the nation voted against their interests, unless half of America is consisted of male white millionaires, but America’s completely broken Electoral College allowed Obama to convert that into a pretty convincing victory.

Which is fantastic because I had a tenner riding on the guy.

An American Reform, or a Return to Form?

So tonight Americans decide who the most powerful person on the planet will be for the next four years.

Yes it’s the presidential elections, that broken undemocratic system where those citizens of the few swing states who turned out and didn’t vote for some no hope third candidate decide the fate of the most powerful nation on earth.

In case you don’t know, I’m not particularly keen on Americans. The combination of an obscenely large military and what seems to be a wilfully ignorant populace do not inspire confidence, but maybe this time America will prove me wrong as they did four years ago.

I hope they do, I hope I don’t see a return under Romney of the America I despised, rather than an America I merely resent as under Obama.

Because let me be frank here, the prospect of Romney winning scares me. Romney himself doesn’t, oh no, over-privileged corporate puppet he’s merely repulsive, but the Republican Party that pulls his strings, that scares me. Anti-science whether it be evolution or climate change, coupled with an almost fetishistic love for religion makes them open to the worst demands of their rabid base. This is the party that ums and ahs over whether the rapist is the one to condemn, who have trouble noticing that women exist because they’re so concerned with the wellbeing of zygotes. A party that thinks blacks will vote whichever way their pastor tells them because they don’t think for themselves like white Republicans, that decriminalising homosexuality was a mistake and that allowing people to marry who they love will tear American families apart (which now I think about it probably says a fair bit about Republican families).

I can’t believe I’m relying on you, but please America, don’t fuck this one up.

This Month’s Morons

Jesus Non-existent Christ, I seem to have a habit of leaving this blog alone for stupidly long stretches. Ah well, let’s see if I can get caught up in one simple post.

The Guardian has a completely (from what I’ve seen) worthless series on ‘Evil’. I’ve only read the first installment  and that’s all I will read, because as far as I can see it’s a totally vacuous piece of nonsense presenting itself as religiously balanced and even handed while in fact steeped in Christianity right up to the eyeballs. The first in the series, aside from misattributing Epicurus’ Dilemma to Hume, is saturated in the masochistic Christian idea that to consider ‘evil’, a nebulous term the author doesn’t even attempt to nail down, is to contemplate “a darkness in all our hearts”. The simplistic idea that extends the fact that, as humans, we are capable both of extraordinary kindness and extraordinary cruelty and individualises it down to the little angle and the little demon sitting on your shoulders. I don’t have time for it.

The UK is going to elect Police and Crime Commissioners (a new non-job) on November 15^th. Something that I’m sure a lot of people here would be rather surprised about given the amount of fuss being made about it (i.e. none whatsoever). This is so ridiculous I’ll have a full post explaining it later.

The public apparently can’t see the letters Prince Charles sent to the government. Now I’m something of a staunch monarchist, especially when I see the Americans working themselves into a lather with their equivalent, but this is predicated on the royal family not actually doing anything. I’m not going to bore you with my theories about monarchy, but it’s clear that Charles is in a position of quite spectacular unearned privilege. There is absolutely no way anyone in government would pay any attention to the gullible jug-eared chimp if it weren’t for the accident of his birth, exploiting that privilege by getting special attention from the government, even if he doesn’t realise that that’s what he’s doing, is one of the few things that would make me republican (in the anti-monarchy sense, of course).

Giles Fraser has an article which I suspect has been horribly mistitled by the Guardian, since it only mentions utilitarianism in the last paragraph, the rest of which is a rather innocuous piece on the importance of people focused morality. I can only assume from this piece that Giles has no idea what utilitarian moral theory is.

The Pope’s canonised some more saints, a practice I always find amusing since it fills the news articles with nonsense like “certified miracle”.

Hopefully this means I can forget about October now.

A Matter of Freedom

If you’re a dyed-in-the-wool liberal like me I have some good news that you’ve probably already heard: women in Belfast, and the rest of Ireland if they travel, can now get an abortion at the Marie Stopes clinic.

Let’s not get excited though, because the law concerning abortion is a bit convoluted and very strict in Northern Ireland. In fact there is already an investigation into the legality of the clinic by the Irish government. In Northern Ireland abortions can only be performed if the life of the mother is in danger and require the agreement of two doctors. According to the BBC there are between 30 and 40 abortions on the NHS every year in Northern Ireland, more humane at least than the neighbouring Republic of Ireland where there is an absolute ban on abortions. A state of affairs which unsurprisingly results in many Irish women travelling to the UK to get an abortion.

An unfortunately necessary bit of hardship which is just as shameful as the trip many British people take to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland. When such a primary and fundamental right of all people, the right to decide what happens to your own body and your own life, can only be salvaged by travelling to another country then your government has failed. It has failed in the only real responsibility any government has, which is to maintain a decent standard of living for its citizens, basic self-determination is the bare minimum any human should expect.

Why is it Ireland (both Northern and the ROI) that is lagging on this issue? This will surprise nobody, but I blame religion. The same “curdled Christianity”, to quote Terry Pratchett, that values ‘life’ as a concept with no consideration of the conditions into which that life is born. The facile concept of ‘sanctity of life’, ignoring whether the mother (who is hardly ever mentioned I notice) feels capable of raising a child, wants to raise a child, can afford to raise a child or was even raped (I know some American Republicans will contest that rape can result in pregnancy, but I assure you it can).

But all of the above obscures the real issue, any reason or biological realities are irrelevant. Even if someone has what I consider a terrible reason for abortion (think up your own, I know you can) then it is none of my business, it is none of yours. Not your priest, not the government, not your God, no one has the right to make that decision except the one who has to live with the consequences either of abortion or pregnancy.

We are none of us qualified to make that choice except in our own case. But the Irish government, along with the Irish religious, feel they can make this decision for every woman in Ireland. Arrogant fools.

The Welsh Question

Sometimes I tell myself I’m being too hard on Nick Clegg, I mean he’s unused to people taking him seriously, he’s not been in the public eye for very long really of course he’s going to cock it up. He probably has policies of his own I’m just not looking hard enough for them. There must be something that differentiates the Lib Dems from a Conservative whipping boy it’s just not very evident.

Then something like this happens.

You remember the GCSE row and the Coalition’s (I refuse to call that shower a ‘government’) brilliant idea to replace them with the English Baccalaureate (EBac). Well this happened in Wales too, obviously, and they have a slightly different regulatory system there. Instead of the ‘independent’ regulator Ofqual, the Welsh minister has regulatory responsibilities, and he’s decided to exercise them and had the papers in question regarded. Unlike their English neighbours.

Clegg as always is fighting the Conservatives’ corner but this time, if the BBC is to be trusted, all cognitive power left him when the urge to endear himself to the Tories struck.

Clegg apparently thinks that the Welsh are ‘”shifting goalposts” for children in Wales’, forgetting that the main problem with these changes to exams was that they happened in the middle of the academic year; so that those children who (if they could) took the exams in January had an easier time of it that their peers who took the exam in the summer. The goalposts have already been shifted, this year was effectively weighted in favour of those who took the exam in January, the goalposts are being movedback.

Saying “I know what they say but I don’t think it’s right for politicians to be interfering in an independent exam system” Clegg seems to have forgotten that the minister is the regulator of the Welsh exam boards and fully within his rights to act as he has done. He also seems determined to ignore the fact that the issue of examination and assessment is already politicised and it would be naïve to think of the exam boards as independent when Gove’s opinions are so obvious, as I have argued previously.

But the most noticeable sore in this sorry body is the characterisation of the re-grading as a unilateral decision, implying that they shouldn’t have taken this step without, I don’t know, asking permission?

Outrageous isn’t it? But ripping out the entire systemand replacing it with theEbacs, that’s a “sensible” decision, an example “for the Welsh government and the Welsh politicians to decide whether they want to follow”.

The only conclusion I can draw is that the Welsh are showing too much independence. The Welsh should just learn their place goddamnit, and do exactly what daddy Cameron tells them.

Just as Clegg does.

Lib Dem Disaster

So Nick Clegg has finally apologised for the hike in tuition fees.

No wait, let’s be accurate about this. He hasn’t apologised for raising the fees, he hasn’t apologised for being corrupted by the inkling of power. He hasn’t apologised for breaking, not just a promise, but his key election pledge. He has apologised for making a pledge that could not be kept.

Too little, too late. If this promise couldn’t be kept why did you make it? Does no one in the Lib Dem party own a calculator? Is the mathematics too difficult for you? Were you just cynical, this is what people will vote for and once we’re in they can’t do anything to us for five years? Or were you just that desperate for a little bit of attention, a little bit of importance, that you’d promise us the earth then make hollow apologies when you realised you couldn’t deliver?

The Liberal Democrats are an embarrassment.

They’ve thrown away every policy they were elected for, so desperate were they to get into Downing Street and start tonguing the Tory’s boots. All they are good for, and I use the word advisedly, is as a scapegoat for the Conservatives. A little sock-puppet to present the illusion of a government that actually has a popular mandate.

If the Lib Dems had any integrity they’d leave the coalition, call a general election and desperately try to salvage whatever dignity they can. But who am I kidding, politicians with integrity, silly idea, silly idea.

The GCSEs are Dead, Long Live the EBacs

So it’s finally happened, when it comes to examination Gove’s put his money where his mouth is, and his foot on top of both.

Yes the GCSEs are doomed, at least for maths, science and English, and I don’t expect the plans to extend this new English Baccalaureate to be deterred by anything as sordid as results when there is good old fashioned Tory dogma at stake.

Apparently the Baccalaureate will be assessed by one huge exam at the end of the course, which is two years barring future changes.  According to that spineless mass of gibbering jelly, Nick Clegg, these changes will

“raise standards for all our children”, but he added that it would “not exclude any children”

Well that’s very reassuring, because his record on education is just so reliable isn’t it?

But really, isn’t it the whole point that children are going to be left behind? Isn’t that what Gove and the Tory’s have wanted all along?

I may be delusional here, but I was under the impression that the problem with GCSEs, at least in the government’s eyes was that we had too many children passing and that that was devaluing the whole system. Surely then this is Gove’s aim, to reduce the number of children passing so the academically qualified becomes an elite, filled with people like him who can afford good schools and private tuition if the unqualified teachers provided by the academies aren’t up to scratch.

This is my problem with the Conservative and by extension the Coalition (because-really-what’s-the-fucking-difference) approach to education. It isn’t that they’ve chosen the wrong solution to an evident problem, a la the economy; they’ve invented a problem where none exists.

That isn’t to say that our education system is perfect, it really isn’t, but the problem has always been that there is too much importance given to exams. As I’ve said before, students aren’t taught about the subject, their natural curiosity afire with the drive for knowledge, they are taught how to pass exams. What key points to bring up when discussing those poems you don’t care about to tick the boxes in the checklist the examiner has. Show your working, because that will get you marks, doesn’t matter if you don’t know what you’re doing just do this to these numbers and you’ll at least get half marks. Don’t know what cumulative means? Doesn’t matter. Don’t know why algebra is important? Who cares, just get all the Xs on one side and the Ys on the other because that’s what the examiner is looking for.

Ah those magic words, the answer to every schoolboy question.

“Sir, why should we do it this way?”

“Because that’s what the examiner will look for.”

Education shouldn’t be like that, it should be about awakening a desire for more and better knowledge. Channelled curiosity. But according to the Conservatives it is in fact a market, the economy of grades.

Because you see, your knowledge only has value in the light of other people’s ignorance. To the Tories the fact that most people don’t fail suggests that it is impossible to fail, and if there is no failure then success is meaningless.

Actually this is a pretty good window onto Tory thinking.

For being rich to mean anything others must be penniless.

For being well fed to mean anything others must be starving.

For your nice house to mean anything others must be living under bridges [link].

For your voice to matter others must shut up and do what they’re told.

FUCK THAT!

The Great GCSE Slump

So, the proportion of students getting A* to C grades in GCSEs this summer has fallen for the first time in the twenty four years since this systems inception. And people are rather upset by this.

Ok let’s unpack this a bit; how far did the grades fall by? Well not much as it happens, according to the BBC 69.4% gained A* to C grades this year compared with 69.8% in the summer of 2011. A fall of 0.4% is not particularly significant a change, indeed the fact that there has been no fluctuation in the proportion of A* to C grades gained, only constant rise, is cause for concern in and of itself.

But leaving aside the question of grade inflation, the fact that this has caused a stir is interesting in and of itself. The most humanitarian, and constantly touted, grudge is that the exams taken in the summer were graded more harshly than those who took exams in the January of this year, breaking any notion of the GCSEs as means for comparison within a peer group with a sickening crack.

Not helped by this is the over emphasis that is constantly put on grades which, so it is said, are the key to every child’s future; from sixth form to university to your eventual career, results are everything. Not whether you enjoyed yourself, not whether you were enthused by the very act of learning, not even if you came out with more skills and wisdom than you went in. No your success is determined completely by your ability to regurgitate a year or two of repetition and rote learning in an hour and a half.

Exams do not asses how students are taught, students are taught to pass exams, and there is the source of this ‘grade inflation’.

Then into this china shop that is the education system comes the wild-eyed orang-utan Michael Gove. Already the education system has been battered by the rise in tuition fees for universities and horrifically crippled by the introduction of unqualified teachers, now Gove is going for the exams.

I should mention that Gove hasn’t been shown to exert any political pressure on exam boards, nor has anyone yet claimed evidence of him doing so, and frankly I doubt there ever will be. But I am sorry, when I can use my fingers and less than thirty seconds of google’s time to find endless examples of Gove as the shadow secretary for education saying that exams in the past have been “devalued” and that there has been a “deliberate lowering of standards” then this issue is already politicised and anyone can see which way the current establishment is blowing. Gove wants things the way they were, when if you couldn’t learn your Latin or hire a tutor you were out of luck and universities were the preserve of the elite while the rest went up chimneys or down t’pit.

Incidentally Gove himself went to Oxford, like so many others in the present government. Also like those in the present government he is rather well off, with wealth of a million pounds in 2009 according to estimates by the New Statesman. I doubt his children will fail exams no matter how inept they may be, not when extra-curricular tuition is so affordable.

This upset about a fall in exam grades is not motivated solely by compassion for those children who waited till the summer to take their exams (though I wish it were that humanitarian), it is a reaction due entirely to the disproportionate importance placed on these exams by all parties in desperate need of a metric to judge their own misguided policies. In this the real essence has been lost, the process of learning, the heart and soul of the education system, has been replace by the end exam result, a relatively unimportant series of statistics.