THE GOOD BUCK

Tag: Politics

  • Hurry up and wait

    I’ve calmed down after my last impotent rant. When I returned to the Independent’s story later on the problem had been cleared and there were several cynical and informed replies posted. The story is getting out, and people are aware that want to be aware. If one chooses to subscribe to the evil Murdoch’s promulgation pawns that is a choice. Less of a choice when you consider how many local radio stations all cut to Sky for their news updates, and the unadulterated propaganda that is Sky telly. Enough!

    Was it one of those ‘use this word in a sentence’ deliberate misunderstandings on the word ‘horticulture’ that ran: you can lead a whore to culture, but you can’t make her think.

    Not independently valid on any level when you break it down, but if you accept that reality is objective, its interpretation subjective, and its reporting selective, it follows that a person who fails to question probably just wants a simple answer.

    As they say of being a biker ‘if I have to explain, you wouldn’t understand.’

    Not you, imagined and implicitly clever reader, but the Sun reading herd. Not even that broad a category, Sun believing herd.

    Anywho, believe it or not I have actually calmed down. All the above was just a way of saying that I probably won’t be writing up my manifesto piecemeal, defining myself by what I oppose. People believe what they want. The evidence that informs my views is equally available to all. To think that only I can extrapolate the truth is verging on megalomania, and is at best patronising. You are all spared. Do your own thinking and don’t blame me when you get it wrong! (Joke!)

    Over myself now.

    Now we’ve thrashed that one out lets move on.

    Potentially good news about my driving, I went in to see the HR chick yet again on Friday (the latest date when everything would be resolved, obviously it wasn’t, again!) but this time the main woman wasn’t there so her minion said she’d go and see her. I waited a few minutes then out came the site manager. I ignored him, thinking he was about his business and it wouldn’t relate to mine. He came up to me, sat me down, and had a five minute chat with me. Perhaps I should mention in passing that the perception is that he is more than just the site manager (although that is at the top of the food chain as far as everyone on site is concerned), the feeling is that he is a troubleshooter. Sent to sort out sites, then move on. He is, it’s felt, a company hit-man.

    Since he took over there have been lots of changes (such as we de-kit lads being chucked out of our department and Eastern European agency lads being given our jobs). So when I say he was talking to me, I mean a chap with some clout.

    He said he was still looking into it, trying to find out why, if Warehouse-to-wheels was a success, it wasn’t an ongoing concern. If it was not a success what was wrong with it, etc.

    He explained that Iceland own the fleet of trucks, but DHL (for whom we work) insure them. That because they are high street stores to which we deliver, the access is often torturous, across car-parks, and into tight yards. He asked how I saw it proceeding. I said that I would like to go out with a driver, me driving, him watching, for a week until I got my confidence up and learned the job.

    He said he would get back to me on Wednesday, with an answer, but in principle how would I feel about night trunking? (Working nights, obviously, picking up a trailer from our big, wagon-friendly yard, driving along one or two major roads, with hardly any traffic on them, straight onto the motorway then the same again at the destination. Drop that trailer off, pick up another, then drive home.) I said that would be ideal.

    All of which implies that he has been taking an interest, no just stringing me along. He’s talked to the transport manager, got an assessment of the difficulties a new driver would face and how to minimise them. This could be for real. He also said that as he would be sending me out with a driver for a week that would cost him £400 wages, how would I feel about staying on my current pay rate until I’d made that back? YES, goddammit! Give me the truck keys and lets go!

    So now we wait, again. Hopefully Wednesday will be the day.

    I’ll be sure to post whatever the outcome, for now I have to get ready for work.

    Later,

    Buck.

  • In the land of the blind…

    …the one-eyed Buck is king.

    I was angered into nearly changing the direction of my blog this week.

    I never used to watch the news when I was young out of rampant apathy, then I became political as I grew older and watched with a critical, analytic eye. Recently, however I have become so disillusioned that I have been too saddened to watch. Everything is either too trivial and inane to be of any but the most superficial of interest or too predictably cynical and evil.

    Everything I watch or read just confirms my world view. Even the knee-jerk idiot-fodder only shows what those in influence want the great (!) unwashed to think. In other words, they confirm my world view by denying it.

    Which is pre-amble to my point, that out of boredom the other day I clicked on the ‘news; heading on my Firefox browser jobby. There upon I saw an article about ‘NATO’ bombing two of it’s own petrol tankers in Afghanistan, killing 90 people. There was no immediate link to The Independent (the quality paper for the tree-hugging, free-thinking, Lib-Dem voting, yoghurt-knitting, sandal-wearing, elbow-patched, be-blazered, beardy-weirdy) so I clicked on The Times article.

    According to their trite propaganda piece the evil Johnny Foreigner scum had stolen two tankers, one of which got stuck. They were then spotted by a ‘NATO’ ‘plane that radioed back to base confirming that all ninety people surrounding the tankers were terrorists, so was given the green light to bomb the hell out of them. The local villagers who claimed to have spotted the stuck tanker and had their relatives rush to get free hand-outs off the hi-jackers were all seriously bereaved, but patently liars and terrorists to man, woman and child. And even if there were a few civilians present, the hi-jackers had started a fire-fight amongst themselves (at the exact moment the got the shit blown out of them by that ‘NATO’ ‘plane presumably) and probably caused the explosion themselves, an official ‘source’ claimed.

    Not being completely stupid, I filled in the comments page. I urged an enquiring mind. I noted that the first rule of authority in cases of error is obfuscation. That in the instance of the police murder of Charles De Menezes, the media was immediately informed that the suspect was wearing a heavy winter coat in summer, that he had wires protruding from it, that uniformed armed police officers shouted ‘Stop! Police!’

    This was allowed to sink into the herd consciousness, only to be found out to be total lies years later.

    (As it turns out eye witnesses saw him stroll onto a tube in normal attire when a bunch of men in civvies ran on to the train, threw him to the floor and put eight rounds through his head. The jury wasn’t even allowed to return a verdict of ‘unlawful killing’ and had to leave it as an open verdict. Justice in a country without the death penalty.)The bit in brackets is my rage filled digression, I didn’t put that in my comment.

    Then I questioned the statement that there were ninety insurgents around the tankers. How many men can they fit in those cabs? I also questioned the validity of their alleged ‘official’ source. I picked up recently that the election could only be held in some of the regions of Afghanistan because the other areas were in insurgents’ control. So the people were allowed to have free and open elections anywhere where they would vote for the puppet government. Kind of takes a shine off the concept of democracy, and therefore the merit of any ‘elected’ official. Then there’s the matter of the small- arms firefight. A military unit, capable of planning and executing a hi-jacking of two military intended tankers that then breaks with discipline and starts shooting at each other. And the clincher, at the exact moment the NATO ‘plane bombs them!  I concluded by saying that it is a sad old world, but try not to make it sadder by believing everything you’re told unquestioningly.

    I clicked the ‘post’ button and it said "your comment will go to a moderator for consideration before posting."

    Did they post it, whole or edited? They did not! Every comment was saying things like "our enemy is stupid, starting a firefight, bet we get blamed for it".

    Then I remembered the evil swine Murdoch owns the Times now. I thought somehow the noble newsmen of the Times would rise above such a partisan owner and continue to make sure the truth set us free. No, in a word.

    I wrote another comment, just for the attention of the moderator really, saying ‘do you only post comments from idiots? I know this is just the Sun with pretensions, but I thought you still had standards.’

    That was not posted either.

    *wipes froth from mouth, takes deep breath*

    I then had an issue trying to post on the thrice blessed Independents’ page! I was not a happy bunny.

    My thinking was, to maybe start applying my cynical and questioning mind to the stories that caught my attention and starting to write up on those.

    I do seem to spot a subtext quicker than the average bear (he says immodestly). For instance, I was well ahead of the game when it came to Maggie making deals with the (Provisional) IRA to end the war/ conflict. Nobody else seemed to think it odd that bombers who had been found guilty because they had semtex traces on their hands were released on technicalities, or that those they couldn’t release were caught on video breaking out of jail while the prison guards held back eager German Shepherd dogs to allow them to escape. Or indeed that Maggie, the career politician, recognised them as ‘soldiers’ or an ‘army’ instead of terrorists in a speech. I added all these facts together and saw the bigger picture. A year or two later, under the leadership of John Major, a ceasefire was announced. The preconditions had been met.

    I may start writing the truth as I see it, or at least questioning the lies. If I do, I’ll preface each one with (News) in the subject/ title box. This will allow any who are as jaded as I to avoid them.

    It would give me more to write about though. Endlessly fascinating as my life is () I feel there must be more I could write about!

    ‘Nuff for now,

    Buck.