On Parks, Museums and Other Things

A few days ago I visited Parc Glynllifon, which is on the other side of Caenarfon from Bangor. It was essentially a feudal manor and grounds that was eventually sold to the local council in the late 1940’s and now, in addition to grounds which people can walk in, it houses an FE College.
The point I wish to muse upon was the entrance fee. It cost £4 each to enter the park! Given there are plenty of other places I’ve visited before that are similar to this that have been free (only charging for something like going inside a manor on the grounds or a petting zoo or for parking a car) such charging seems a little daft. Surely we’d want to be encouraging people to go walking in places like this or for family days out etc.
Which brings me onto the rest of my thoughts. In Gwynedd at the moment there seems to be a scheme of the council cutting funding for things for people to do. For example, the threats to pull funding to Gwynedd Museum and Art Gallery in Bangor. A few years ago the local cinema was closed and demolished to make for yet another privately owned block of student accommodation. It is very easy to get bored here when your possibilities for entertainment are so limited.
Obviously as Socialists we are opposed to cuts of public services, but we should be for the expansion of cultural facilities and public ownership of historic monuments (off all kinds) and parks so they can be opened up to everyone’s enjoyment. Alongside this these facilities should be made as cheap as possible to use (or free if possible) to promote accesibility. As Trotsky concludes his ‘testament’, “Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression, and violence and enjoy it to the full.”

Some Thoughts On My Blog

Now my exams are over and I have a little more time I am hoping to renovate the blog a little. Firstly by updating the blog archive and updating the list of blogs I link to. Secondly I'm wanting to personalise the blog a little, so expect some posts on things that I am personally interested in. Thirdly, I'm going to steal an idea from The Daily (maybe) and invite readers of this blog to request a topic they would like me to post on.

PS. There is a new article just below this one on the harassment of young people by the police in Essex which has been in the news a lot recently.

Am I An Intellectual?

On the link to this blog on the Tired Man of Teaching Blog (http://tiredmanteaching.blogspot.com/) I'm referred to as a 'lefty-intellectual type'. I have never thought of myself as this.
Partially I guess as I've never really got over stopping been a teenager - I still tend to think of myself as being in the first years of uni. Rather than being 22 and doing a masters. I guess sticking around to do a masters is a bit intellectual though?
But then I really hate books that are written in too academic a style, and I don't watch all that many continental films (Pan's Labyrinth and Battleship potemkin is about it) or read that many novels (and the ones I do tend to be sci-fi/comedy - or both!). And I don't like drinking in coffee shops (mostly cos I don;t drink hot drinks) or wine bars.
I've never published any journal articles or given any actual lectures (Of course I've written for the Socialist and student newspapers and spoken at SP meetings).
The jobs I've had consist of
1) Working in a pub kitchen
2) Working in a builders merchants
3) Working in a mail order catalogue warehouse
4) Working in a small shop
5) Working as a councillor's admin assistant
6) Working as an invigilator during GCSE exams
7) Working in a call centre
I suppose too of them could be a bit intellectually, but I don;t think they are.

I think I may be heading in the direction of intellectualism, but I don't think I'm there yet.

Dead...

Yes, not me but the comments part of the website. But so seems to be many of the comments boxes of websites I have been visiting.
Is there a lot fo activity people are being engaged in? Can people just not be bothered commenting at the moment? I feel I have to say, some of the posts of the last week haven't been the most criminologically focussed, but i think the student ones were quite good, and the report from NUS Wales Conference I think is important. Any please below see a post on the history of police trade unions - something for people to get stuck into

Anyways, I feel i should introduce a few new blogs, they are Campaign for a New Workers' Party blog, Ten Percent and Classroom Teacher.

Birthday Blogging - A Year in Review

Today marks the 1st birthday of this blog, which saw the double post of Socialist Alternative Radio and Reading Materials at Uni.
Back then, the blog was a little more personal I would say. The vast amount of activity I get up to these days, particularly in building a Socialist party branch from pretty much scratch has seen to that, meaning that many posts these days are reports of activity or articles written for the Socialist. The blog has also come more to focus on my study of criminology and putting forward a marxist criminology which has seen me put forward two drafts of The Principles of a Marxist Criminology, as well as many other pieces on crime in variosu times and places (including a series on Venezuela and the popular Crime in Revolutionary Russia.
I've also set up a post archive of some of my posts (which needs updating again), as well as participated in the short lived Militant blog. Anyways, I thought I'd finish up this reminiscence with a post that i did for that blog.

Friday, 13 April 2007:
Elections and the 'Law and Order' cards - How Should Marxists Oppose This

In elections we often hear about the main political parties playing the 'law and order' card of setting out tougher and tougher policies to tackle crime rates. Last years local elections saw the 'foreign prisoners scandal' that led to the replacement of then Home Secretary Charles Clarke by John Reid.'Law and order' ideology arose in the late 70's promoted in this country by Thatcher and the Tories who made crime an electoral issue. It arose as a response to the re-habilitative ideal that collapsed in the 60's and 70's where the penal system (prisons, police etc.) focussed on trying to re-integrate offenders back into society by treating them as if something was wrong with them (like in medicine). The problem wasn't that something was wrong with all offenders, however, it was the capitalist system that can never provide for everyone, as it requires ever increasing concentration of wealth (which underlies many property crimes). Not only this the whole nature of intense competition and struggle for survival under such a system places huge strains and stresses on individuals (which underlies all crime and things such as drug abuse and alchoholism). No matter how much you treat some individuals you are fighting a losing battle as the system is the big problem that causes the others.

As such crime rates were rising and the old rehabilitative system was seen as falling apart. Taking the quasi-religious notion that offenders are evil or somehow implicitly wrong no matter what and also the idea that if you make the penal system scary enough nobody will offend (even though as I've explained the nature of the system means that people will commit criminal offences regardless of this), 'law and order' ideology took the position that one had to have heavy sanctions for offenders and and lots of police officers to appear threatening.

Of course marxists should point out that any bulking up of the penal system is a bulking up of the state of forces that can be used against the working class in struggle, indeed Thatcher used her extra 'coppers' to batter the 1984-85 miners strike. Demands should be posed to counter the grip of the ruling classes on the state forces (such as more openness, democratisation etc.), although ultimately the tops of these forces will side with the ruling class and indecision will help workers struggles.

We also have to understand why 'law and order' ideology appeal to some workers and continues to do so. The reason was that the rehabilitative ideal was failing to reduce or even control crime which threatens working class people. No-one wants to be the victim of a rape, burglary or assault, workers and other people are afraid of crime, they don't want to become victims to it. In this situation saying that you could immediately reduce the crime rate by scaring people out of doing it presents itself as an easy solution to the problem. However, it is a solution that was never going to work and hasn't as is shown by the huge increase in crime and prison population that has occured for the last almost thirty years.

We need to not pose a return to the rehabilitative ideal (although some elements such as giving people the opportunity to access decent education will still be relevant), but to rid ourselves of the capitalist system that breeds mass crime and fight for a socialist world.

Why do people only read the first post on this blog?

Over the last few weeks i've noticed that people only seem to comment on the top post on this blog, which suggests to me that they only read that article when they visit this site.
I find this a little disappointing if it's true as i'd like to think people read all my posts if they're visiting, i certainly think they're quite interesting. Not only that, but i would really like to know what people think of what i've posted. Take for example the last review i posted Review - Losing the Fight Against Crime by Richard Kinsey, John Lea & Jock Young (1986) it did take me a while to do, and i would really appreciate knowing what my readers think of my criticisms, i appreciate few people may have read it but you never know.

Anyways I'm going on holiday for a week soon and then i'm moving house (yet again) so i probably won't post again for a while (maybe there might be one when i get off holiday), but tomorrow before I leave I am leaving you all with a review of Law and Order: Arguements for Socialism (1982) by Ian Taylor, in my opinion the best book ever written by a criminologist which is a book i'd definitely recommend everyone getting hold of. And when I get back i will definitely write the post on riots that i've been promising, i've just been holding back on it until i've read a book on prison riots which hopefully i'll do whilst away.

The Internet

i know i've posted a lot of things related to the socialist party recently, so i thought i'd give that a break this evening. instead i'm going to post about what i'm doing at the moment.
You see, although i use the internet quite a bit, I like many other working class people do not have access to the internet at my home, instead I have to trek for a half hour or so to Huddersfield Uni to go on the internet there. all in all it's very time consuming. The internet is a rich source of information on various issues, and allows lots of people to discuss with each other from the other side of the earth, it could be a huge resource for people.
Capitalism squanders this, it can't do such a simple thing as providing internet access for everybody from somewhere convenient to them. It's a bit like digital tv, if it wasn't for the fact that they want the bandwith from switching off analog they won't do anything to provide people with it (and as far as i know they haven't done much in this respect anyway). Currently it is mostly middle class families that have access to the internet, with some working class families having to cut into other spending areas to be able to afford to get the internet.
For a socialist world, ensuring adequate access to information, be it newspapers, radio, tv or the internet would be vital. it would be imperative that everyone was kept informed as everyone would have to run society. A socialist government would plan to give eveyone adequate internet as quickly as practical, by upgrading telephoen systems across the country and providing internet access for free, along with an adequate computer for people to 'surf' with.