Imagining #JezWeCan

'Imagination is more important than knowledge'

'Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.'

Albert Einstein

'Can you imagine Jeremy Corbyn on the front bench? Can you imagine Jeremy Corbyn at the dispatch box? Can you imagine Jeremy Corbyn as prime minister?'

I feel my imagination is under continuous question? But I'm afraid my self assured imagination has suffered no dent in it's own assurance, it has just been temporarily quietened while trying to workout how to gently and respectful suggest that the problem may be located in the imagination of the questioner.

Yes I can imagine all those things and whats more my rather fertile imagination generally floats around in a much wilder place that I am not going to share here.

But everybody thinks differently and that neurodiversity makes us stronger as a collective. So while I am generally more challenged by the A to B bit, even walking the wrong way home on occasion due to absorption in my own thoughts, I am mighty glad the world contains people good at getting from A to B.

The thing is is that it doesn't actually take much imagination to think of Corbyn as leader. Imagination may help you jump straight there but logic can get you there too and its important we make the journey both ways. 

So here's the logic:

Corbyn's Policies are popular with the electorate.

He is unlikely to be divisive given his history of trying to facilitate talks between opposing groups. He has suggested an elected cabinet and acknowledged that Labor is a broad church and would be willing to listen to a diversity of views. This is in contrast to the behavior and tactics of some other politicians recently.

All of his policies including unilateral disarmament have been successfully implemented in other countries.The vast majority of the criticism hurled at him is dependent on character assassination, mockery and derision of him and a large proportion of Labour party membership - that should tell you something. 

Lastly - look at the wrinkles where are Corbyns wrinkle marks - round his eyes they are the signature of a life of sincerity and smiles. 

Good Housekeeping - What I've learnt from the budget

Learning from the wisdom of the budget my husband and I have sat down and reviewed our household income. We thought it would be helpful to share some of our thoughts so that other people can also apply the chancellors excellent approach to finances to their own personal circumstances.

The child we were fostering has to go. Though this child has been with us three years we have come to see the lack of wisdom in times of austerity of supporting such scroungers. We are sure if she just tried a little harder he could sort out her parents break down or alternatively support herself with a job I mean if she doesn't put any effort into supporting herself then we can't keep propping her up. Plus we just don't have the room anymore the recession has made our house magically shrink.

We may get another lodger. Our current lodger is great and we really need to let him know how much we appreciate him. We are going to invite him to dinner and reduce his rent as a way of thanking him for paying 30% of his rent intermittently. We hope that keeps him happy because we really couldn't afford for him to move out. Plus we lent him several thousand pounds of our savings and if he moves out we might not get it back so we really need to make sure he stay's cause that was meant to be for the kids uni fees. 

We've cut the kids pocket money - there just isn't any room for that at the moment. We've also asked Granny if she could start doing the childcare while were at work because we can't afford nursery fees and Granny loves the kids so I'm sure she'd be happy to do it for free. Then we can go to work for more hours.

We have a family holiday coming up, to keep costs low we're going to leave the kids behind - they don't really need a holiday. We've had a look at what we could sell off and cut out. We don't want to cancel the golf club memberships or stop hosting dinner parties for our richest friends. We do think though we could put the kids on a diet of gruel. They need to stop eating so much of that junk food and piles of sugar they've been consuming anyway, we have told them repeatedly but they keep on eating what's in the cupboard. 

Also they haven't really been contributing much we might send them a bill for their toys, oh and tax them for our efforts in helping keeping the toys safe. Also I think the third one will just have to go, last in first out. 

If we keep making these right choices we should be able to run a surplus by 3010. We are anticipating some resistance from the children so we are going to make sure they hear us ask the lodger to make sure he please pays the rent. We'll let the lodger know beforehand though because we really mustn't lose him it would be so hard to find another lodger I mean there are just so few people looking for accommodation.

There is a Choice: Jeremy for Labor Leader #Jezwecan

Ask the Left questions

'Just because someone was born and raised in Islington does it give them the right to have housing in Islington?'

This question through me slightly it was one of those situations where I felt unease in my gut but have taken a number of weeks to ponder it and unearth the exact reason for my unease.

Islington's house prices are staggering and rents rocket along with them. Overcrowding, poor quality accommodation, isolation and families being moved out of the borough are common problems. There are 1.3 jobs for every resident in Islington yet as a borough we have higher than national average unemployment. It is a borough of huge inequalities.

And the question being asked by someone on the left is loaded in a way that requires the poor to justify themselves. And there is reason for that. It was one incident that got me thinking but it was reflective of a theme. The dominant questions being asked are in the main being asked by the right. But should we be asking them or attempting to answer them at all? When I look at the housing problems in Islington I see a whole load of questions that have been left out of the asking. 

Lets stop answering the rights questions with long convoluted arguments that are straining to move the discussion leftwards at glacial pace -lets just ask the left out questions. Like should a small group of people with no long term commitment to an area be aloud to extract profit from its housing market, contribute nothing to the local community and move out leaving a greater number of its local residents in poverty? 

Perhaps many of us who like to consider ourselves leftist activists cant confront theses things and ask those questions until we have come to turns with our own hypocrisy. I live in an ex-local that I own. 

Perhaps neo-liberalism and capitalism has won out so much that only the fringes and outliers will ever be brave enough to ask questions about private ownership but I hope not. I hope questions about who has the right to own resources and space will become mainstream. Asking the questions doesn't mean we have to offer the answers of the past but it does acknowledge they where good questions to ask.

The Wonderful Co-op.

Co-op are not going to be stocking a number of exploitative magazines aimed at a manipulative and patronising construct of masculinity (my rather long winded avoidance of saying 'lad's mag's!). 

Wahooo!!!!

This is because those companies have refused to provide said magazines in sealed bags which would prevent people being able to see the content unless they actively wanted to and bought them. (Unfortunate that these have been referred to as 'modesty wraps')

The wonderful wonderful thing about this is that no one can call this censorship - it is not. The Co-op is, well a co-operative, and has a membership, a membership today I am very proud to be part of. This decision is a response to listing to that membership. Democracy at work. 

The publishers where given a choice and they made a decision, a decision I would imagine might bring the co-op many more customers and members. 

What I love about what's happened at the Co-op is that it demonstrates how alternative business structures bypass the debates other organisations will inevitably get tangled up in: Freedom of speech (aka I want to wank to whatever I like) vs. the right to live free of oppression and intimidation, everyone needs to be free to chose and we can't possibly do anything to effect our profit margins, etc, etc.

Members of the co-op said um actually no we don't like it so it's going - simple.

I suspect though that the co-op will be miss-understood and accused of censorship. Just as David Cameron fundamentally misunderstood the point of the 'No More Page 3 Campaign' . There seems to be a disconnect between campaigners using collective voicing of issues to challenge and change attitudes and practices and those who should understand democracy and the democratic process seeing calls for censorship everywhere.

There is a co-operative alternative to capitalism. 

Taxes

There have been many terrible terrible thing's that have been said of late about social security and those in receipt of it. And there are many people doing a valiant attempt to refute them in the rhetorical war exploding around us. However there is a phrase that I keep hearing that is not being challenged which is 'Taxpayers money'.

Is it just me or does this phrase not make sense. If I pay taxes then the money that I pay to the treasury is by definition no longer mine but belongs to the nation. Now I have a democratic duty to hold the government to account for how they administer our collective resources, but it is not my money it belongs to all of us as a collective.

The problem with referring to it as taxpayers money implies that as a taxpayer I somehow have greater right to decided how it is spent than those who currently are not paying tax, and by inference the more tax you pay the more decision making power you have. There is something inherently undemocratic in that. 

I am also fed up of being told what upsets me as a tax payer. There are things about social security that upset me, but not the ones the government tell me are upsetting me. It upsets me that there is such a thing as working tax credits and that people can work a 30 -40 hour week and still not earn enough to survive. I fundamentally think the purpose of social security should not be to subsidies the private sector; they should jolly well pay decent wages. 

It upsets me the amount of housing benefit people need to claim. Which is the result, not of too many children or people scrounging of the state, or living in Kensington. It is the result of unscrupulous capitalists, decades of daft housing policy and an obsession with private ownership. It upsets me that the tax system isn't such that it curbs the behavior of such empire builders.

But what upsets me more than any of this is that while friends and love ones are being squeezed to live on what is not possible to live on, while the price of everything is going up and life is getting tougher for almost everyone I know. I take a walk round central London and see wealth oozing out of the city. When I pass 6 Starbucks on a street and get sent links via amazon. When I see an add for a bank that the country bailed out with amounts of money I can't even conceive of, offering me an app to help me budget better. Then I get really really mad. That is what Tax payers are upset about (well this one at least).

"We're all individuals" - "I'm not"

(Lot's of Life of Brian References) 

However nice "always look on the bright side of life" is as a sentiment, the world would rapidly not be a nice place at all if we only ever spent our time looking at the nice sides. Unfortunately we need to look head on at the nasty bits, call them out and seek to change them. 'Cause sometimes life is "a pile of shit when you look at it", and someone needs to say it.

I feel I have been getting into many different arguments recently, about the Olympic closing ceremony, 50 shades of grey, whether its ok to say female commentators voices are 'grating', whether free market economics will solve all the worlds problems, etc. etc. 

Often I feel like I'm in that crowd of people all chanting 'we are individuals' and being the loan little voice suggesting that maybe we're not. 

The tyranny of western 'freedom' is starting to get me down :(

Let's take 50 shades of grey as an example. The reason I and many others are publicly and loudly stating that this book is about and condones abuse and we suggest people shouldn't buy it, is because we understand the normalising power of popular culture. 

You're reading 50 shades of grey on the tube - now you identify the behaviours of Christian Grey as abusive and would never tolerate it. But the 17 year old girl next to you, whose boyfriend makes her watch porn and who's just seen 50 shades prominently displayed in a bookshop and is now reading a bit over your shoulder, she now feels less able to say no to abuse and coercion. As Gail Dines points out the decision for many young women has come to be 'be a sexual object or be invisible'. 

Now you could say that's not your problem, that a person's right to read what they want shouldn't be infringed, that a book can't cause abuse, that someone else should do something to support this young woman, after all you're an individual, she's an individual, you don't know each other and have nothing to do with each other.

Or you could recognise that every choice you make, from where you keep your money, to what tea you buy, to who you give a platform, to what jokes you laugh at, to what you chose to market and sell, impacts on the degree of constraint or freedom of other people's choices. Now here's a choice: you could choose to let that be important data in your decision making process. 

So you can choose to continue to be in a crowd of individuals making individual choices, and strangely still all heading in the same direction, or you could join the little crowd of people who recognise their need for, and responsibility towards each other.

'What has individualism ever done for us?' Well it's brought us creative freedom, freedom of expression, individual rights etc. etc.  - But I still don't think it should get to be an occupying force. 

ROMANES EUNT DOMUS

Uni-tube

I've just been watching a TED talk and it made me think - wouldn't it be amazing if we used the internet to democratise learning especially higher education. 

Higher education as it is at the minute is pretty expensive - whoever is paying. It's also designed for an elitist system. 3+ years hidden away from the rest of the world living apart from your family and community. And at the most 'elitist' universities structures that make it very difficult to engage in economically productive work. 

What about if we filmed and made available ALL higher education lectures to anybody and made uni lectures free to whoever wanted to go and people would just go to there local uni but when studying a subject you could watch lectures on that subject from any uni. It would massively increase the quality of teaching. We could call it unitub!

Then academic papers would have to be freely available - maybe through local library or cost reasonable amounts like say 50p a paper - seriously if you wrote a good paper and charged 50p and had a nation that had a culture of lifelong learning - you'd make a lot more than you do currently by writing a paper.

Lectures would have to be publicly funded - but it would be worth the investment because you would have one of the most educated populations in the world and that would be an enormousness resource.

You could have pop up study groups; people who want to talk about a certain lecture or paper or question could put an event on unitube and all meet at a coffee shop or library or something. This also would fundementely shift understandings of learning from ones where the teacher imparts knowledge to the student to one where we all learn from each other and all learning and knowledge is valuable. It would change attitudes to problem solving and stratergising in the work place because we'd have a culture of collective discussion and interrogation. 

If you really want to insist on the tyranny of exams - which are no sensible way to assess peoples ability. You could still run exams and people could pay to do them  rather than paying for the learning. 

And people could still pay to 'go to uni' if they really want - charge them a fortune to spend 3 years getting pissed and the rest of us can get on with life and take part in continuous learning. 

I have a list of about 4 or 5 Masters I'd like to do - mostly because I think they would hugely benefit the work I do with young people. There's a lot of research I can't access cause its just to expensive - what's the point in doing research into better ways of working with young people if practitioners are never going to read it? 

In summary I think what I'm trying to say is knowledge should not be privately owned. So I haven't got the time or the know how (writing a blog is about the most technical advanced thing I'm capable of) for this idea so if anyone wants to run with it please do. And a plea to lecturers, academics and universities out there if you want to do something really subversive in response to tuition fees why not make lectures and papers publicly available?