A crime against humanity

After a month of getting my daily news from French public TV - as bad and as inward looking as anywhere on the planet; it seems to be the stated goal of the public broadcaster too keep the masses as ignorant as possible - I bought three international (German English and American) newspapers today to get a more global view of the world. The story that was topmost in all the newspapers was the demand governments placed on banks that have been bailed out by public money to cut their bonuses to executives.

 

As can be expected the banking and investment sector are howling in protest, the argument being that the banks will loose their best and most talented people to other companies /countries. And that these talented people must be maintained and very well paid so that they can steer us out of the economic crisis we find ourselves in.

 

Considering that the people we are talking about are the same people who managed to plunge the world into the biggest economic disaster we have ever seen - I believe we have but started on this downward spiral - the sheer arrogance and lack of contrition of these sectors numbs the mind. For more than ten years banks and investment houses have been slowly and stealthy turning to more and more unsustainable if not downright dishonest business practices. In the short term this gave banks fantastic profits out of which they paid themselves astronomical bonuses, bonuses the bankers began to see as only natural in light of their great talent.

• The highest paid investment manager got  almost 4bn USA dollars in 2007 , this confirms something I have always believed about the returns of those investment vehicles for the masses, like the unit trust where you faithfully put your ten cents worth in every month only to discover at the end you hardly made any money. The investment companies always have a thousand excuses don’t they. Well next time you look (actually considering the state of the global economy I suppose this point is mute but anyway for what its worth) at your returns remember the amount 3.7bn per annum for one guy that money has got to come from somewhere, right?   

All along these talented individuals knew they were walking a tightrope and they knew it couldn’t last forever. But like the tightrope walker, once on the wire they had to keep moving forward and have faith in the system they built .That all worked just fine until one bank looked down into the abyss, and getting a little fright at what it saw started wobbling on that slender thread that was keeping everybody aloft. As the first bank took the plunge the stability of the system was lost and that was the end of that. Banks around the world were hanging on by a thread (sorry about this but it is too good to let go ;- )). But , as all the banks knew that they were all trading with fresh air, suddenly no bank wanted to trade with another bank knowing full well how fanciful all their balance sheets were. So there they were, dangling above the chasm with not a safety net in sight.

Okay I think I have worked that metaphor as far as it will go, time to move on.

 

With the collapse of trust in the banking sector the whole gravy train came to a very sudden and messy halt. They all knew you cannot make money from nothing no matter how artistically you arrange those figures on your balance sheet. But gluttony ruled the day and while they continued to drink champagne, governments were forced to intervene and to try to clean up the rather extravert mess the banks had made of the global economy. Not because the governments felt sorry for the banks but in order that all our bank accounts were not suddenly frozen like those of the poor people in Iceland. So governments used our money, that’s right, your and my public money to bail out the bankers and keep the banks open so that our private money was not swallowed into the gluttonous maw of the bankers.

 

And here is the sickening irony of it all. The bankers are now slowly forcing the entire world economy to a stop by refusing to loan our money back to us; this due to the lack of trust in the economy that they (the bankers) created.

 

These exceptionally talented individuals are now having a little hissy fit because they are required, not too forgo their bonuses, but just to cut back a tiny bit so the masses –that would be you and me - don’t get upset when we see our tax money being used to fuel some highly talented individuals jaguar while we stand in a queue to collect the dole because we have lost our jobs. That we don’t revolt at the fact that they go on skiing holiday while we pack our worldly possessions as the banks have repossessed our home. So that we don’t send out a lynching squad because they still eat caviar while a pensioner eats cat food because his entire lifesavings have been wiped out by unscrupulous bankers.

 

While all this is going on it must not be forgotten that there was nothing wrong with the world …well no more than usual. There are no more wars than normal, no great floods, droughts, rampant deceases hell didn’t freeze the sky didn’t fall. The world and all the normal folk on it were going about their business quite happily oblivious to the fact that a few greedy people were about to destroy their lives. Considering this cost and the cost this mess will continue to exact against the normal people of the world I think a more appropriate response to the bankers responsible would be not a little cut in their bonuses but a charge of crimes against humanity.

 

 

Through the looking glass ;capitalism

Yesterday  a male friend sent me an email of a beautiful naked blonde - don’t ask it’s a long story - later the same day another friend showed me an image of a blow up sex doll – I don’t know perhaps they see me as their drinking buddy. A hint to all men reading this ;  showing women images of other women - naked to boot -  is not the way to a girl’s heart. But back to my original thought.

What struck me about these images was the uncanny resemblance between the two representations of the female form. Both were the perfect modern image of female beauty, blonde, thin, big big breasts, wide Californian smile and a skin as perfect as plastic. This perfection in the doll was not surprising, but the photograph of the ‘real‘woman set me thinking about the impossibly high standards we have set for physical beauty as we understand it today, and how this concept of beauty has shifted through the ages as we have become more and more self aware, aided mainly by perfecting the manufacture of the mirror.

While an intimate acquaintance with our personal looks is today considered quite normal and consumes a vast amount of our time and budget, this was not always the case. In the progress of mankind it is only with the invention of the mass produced mirror and perhaps the theories of Freud and his concept of the inner id that the masses stepped onto the path of intimate self discovery. A path that we have trodden into such a deeply worn groove that today almost all of our endeavours are aimed in some way or another at our personal enhancement.

Before the days of the mirror ,when we were obliged to believe the words of others concerning our looks , the concept of beauty must have been far less regimented and severe than today. Diversity in the human perception of beauty would have been completely natural and also linked to animal fundamentals. In women, wide shapely hips, good teeth, strong hair and more flesh than any modern western woman would care to carry were considered the height of female attraction. A man was easily able to determine that he was looking at a healthy, fecund woman able to bear children with ease, a major consideration in the days when large families were essential to the survival of the clan. Woman looked for strong men, tall straight clear eyed and, in the days before mirrors, beauty was not just in the eye of the beholder but in the nose. A well developed sense of smell directly relayed to the human mind that the hormone load of the person in their presence was highly favourable for the procreation of the species.

Then the Phoenicians belly danced- flabby thighs a jigger- onto the world stage and started introducing perfumes into society. These scents were reputed to attract men but succeeded admirably in masking the real aroma of women. Was this advancement in sexual relations or perhaps a subtle form of female of self defence?

Soon the Phoenicians were shunted off centre stage by the Egyptians, who produced the greatest queen of antiquity; Cleopatra. She could not have known that she was actually fairly ugly. Being the ruler of Egypt she probably did not have many people around her willing to tell her ‘hey Cleo what’s with the schnozz and about time to do some squats what.’ But despite her obvious physical shortcomings she happily went forth and conquered the know world mainly by using her sex appeal.  I would like to bet that had she been in possession of a full length modern mirror she would have been somewhat more aware of her physical failings and history would have told different tale.

In the days of Henry the 8th the distorted reflection of a highly polished sheet of metal was our only view onto ourselves. Think of the simple task of the portrait painter whose clients had no intimate knowledge of their own features .To confirm the truth of that which the painter put down on canvas they once again had to rely on the opinion of others. Who was about to tell old Henry8 that actually no he was not quite as tall, muscular and handsome as the court painter had chosen to portray him . With his reputation for beheading people being fairly well known who was about to wager his head on a missing wrinkle or roll of fat. So as long as the court painter was adept at visual flattery his position was secure, but I digress.

 

The role of the mirror in the rise of capitalism.

 

The scourge of the glass mirror only came into being fairly recently and even then mirrors were so extravagantly expensive that only those rivalling Louis the 14th  in wealth could afford one that would reflect the entire body. Getting a total view of ones self was unknown for the bulk of humanity. In the days of tiny mirrors men who liked women still shaped the female ideal - happy days those - think of the robust wenches that inhabited the world of Rubens. Now those lumpy cellulite maidens could tuck into the endless middle age meals with relish ,secure in the knowledge that her man would be only to grateful for her sumptuous flesh into which to sink his fingers. The ideal female form of today would have been considered ugly and rather unhealthy. What the men of days gone by would have made of the exaggerated breasts attached to bony rib cages is anyone’s guess. 

 

By the 19th century the mass produced mirror had arrived and in tandem with the great leap forward of the mirror industry came the advertising industry. Suddenly the ideal image of women was decided by a small handful of men, with which the industry of reshaping the female form was born. With every bedroom, bathroom, lounge and hallway now blessed with the presence of a mirror, modern women were constantly treated to the hard reality of the lump, roll and wrinkle of their bodies .Which on the whole did not fit into the ideal as prescribed by those early advertising moguls. To add to the woes of the modern female, the fashion and advertising industries discovered they where a match made in heaven, or hell, depending on your point of view. These two henchmen to capitalism are today the greatest manipulators of the female and more and more often the male mind. Today a vast economy depends entirely on the ingrained belief of the average female that she is just not good enough. From the roots of her incorrect shade of hair to the laugh lines around her eyes, from her acrylic sculpted fingernails to the removal of every bit of body hair from the nostrils down and fairly recently the rebuilding of eyes, ears, noses and of course the exaggerated breast joined the never ending well of profits the female form represents for those who manipulate our thinking.

 

To keep women forever chasing an impossible dream the corporate world invented the ideal vehicle for the advertising and fashion industry; the woman’s magazine. At first marketed as a helping hand for the harried female who ; no longer was expected to only cook, clean, raise the children, do the laundry, and bring in half the household budget but she was to look like a Stepford wife while she was at it. These quaint women’s magazines have morphed into the ‘glamour magazine’ which under the control of the giant coporates prescribe to the women of the world what they should think and wear, what is in and out, how long how short. These magazines have insidiously convinced the modern woman that the only ideal for the female form is the waif thin, hipless wonder that graces the cats walks of the day, an ideal that the personal mirror belies in every home. This monopoly of the female mind has also has the less obvious effect of setting back the advances of woman’s lib by linking the value of the female directly to her form.

Big brother might be watching you but it’s big sis who is telling you what to think and do.

The advent of Photoshop further distorted the image of real woman. At this point the household mirror became an object of torture as how could anyone possibly live up to the computer enhanced images filling magazines. Linda Evangelista once famously said – no not the getting out of bed thing - but that she was surprised that woman strove to look like the advertising worlds’ image of her, when she herself didn’t even begin to look that good. A make up free un-retouched image of Ms Evangelista appeared some years ago in a tabloid magazine. I remember the dj’s –humans who underwritten by the advertising industry force their own singular class of stupidity down the throats of humanity– having a field day over this image. The overall consensus was; Linda Evangelista is a complete dog. Now there is a ray of light for us all and may all those djs right ears fall into their left pockets. So we see that with Photoshop anything is possible. I have personally discovered a few Photoshop tricks that I apply to images of myself, so don’t believe any images you might see of me on my website they are all half truths and lies- oh what a hypocrite I am!

 

This quest for the modern version of perfection is fantastic for commerce and capitalism. As through the brutal realty of the modern mirror women are caught in a destructive cycle, endlessly spending their hard earned cash on trying to achieve the impossible. Up to now this obsession with self-image and dissatisfaction has been restricted mainly to woman. Men on the whole have been free from this not so subtle tyranny. But changes are afoot as the corporations smile and rub their hands in glee. The aim has shifted. The marketers of capitalism have tapped into a whole new market. As women are slowly discovering that the pursuit of perfection is a short step to madness, men are filling their place with alarming enthusiasm.

 

The worst part of this incessant dissatisfaction with ourselves is the wanton destruction of the planet and the other creatures that share it with us. Furs are back in fashion, animal testing still goes on and chemical gunk floods the oceans. Our throw away society is the direct result of our adherence to fashion - a concept that in its most basic form states that which is perfect today must be discarded tomorrow - as only by this constant cycle of waste can commerce and capitalism as we understand it today be maintained.

 

My two bits of  advice to the world ; Stand in front of your full length mirror - butt naked - take a big  fat permanent market and write on that mirror;  I am beautiful ; I love you ; You look great. So that you will feel good every time you see yourself.

Next send all your glamour magazines to the recycling plant and for the sake of your sanity, personal happiness and the preservation of the planet don’t ever buy another one. Their content is fake, highly addictive and will destroy your soul not to mention the planet. With all the money you will save on not just the magazines but the constant revamping of the wardrobe, makeup drawer and body parts you can work your way out of debt; a debt free existence equals freedom and is a far more satisfying way to enhance your life than though chasing an image of virtual perfection.