Iron makes a Nation Strong

I've been hearing the sound of tons of metal continuously roaring through the stratosphere this morning. Even though the New Depression  has resulted in a decline of living standards for millions in the United Kingdom, the UK as does America, persists in spending an astronomically high percentage of its GDP on military hardware. Indeed the export and sale of military weapons to whoever can pay the price, regardless of their human rights record, continues to be a big export industry worth billions to the British economy.

In many ways the domestic policies of the UK now differ little from those of pre-World War II Germany. Blaming and scape-goating the dispossessed for the Nation's economic woes, rampant xenophobia and hostility to all who question authority, are traits the UK now shares with pre-World War II Germany. Although the UK likes to imagine it possesses a higher moral stance, the recent  proposal to make the unemployed engage in unpaid work for benefits, differs little from the policies of 'solving' unemployment as implemented in large-scale public works projects in 1930's Germany. 

War and Corpses

I am far from the first to state this - the present-day British government are behaving quite callously by deliberately  targeting those least able to fight back, namely the poor, the disabled, the sick and the elderly, in order to  protect their supporters, the rich. In fact the distribution of wealth of the rich has actually increased during this Recession.

The belief that a fascist government could never come to power here in Britian is quite simply a delusion, for as the  photomontage artist John Heartfield (1891-1968) realized, one reason  why the Nazi party were able to come to power in Germany was a direct consequence of  the Great Depression, along with the self-preserving desire of those with wealth and without any social conscience, to hold onto their wealth at the expense of the poor.  

Propaganda then as now,  manipulates the thinking of  the great majority, who unable to  think for themselves, lazily believe all they are told by the Media; such as, for example, that it's not the Bankers who are to blame, but the previous British government who were responsible for the World-wide recession. However, strangely enough, there's always sufficient funds in the coffers to finance yet another war, except the  present-day involvement in the Libyan conflict, now in its fourth month, is not really a war, but merely assistance to the rebels against the regime of Colonel Gaddafi. As ever, black liquid gold lays at the heart of British military involvement. Under the smoke-screen of establishing democracy the democratic rights of other nations are more important to the present-day British government than the rights of its own people.

Wikilink -  John Heartfield 

General Election called

With the announcement of the date of the General election for May 6th, I recall the one-time Dada artist George Grosz's commentary on the politics of Germany during and after the 'Great 'War'. Okay so things aren't quite so bad in Britain as the returning defeated nation of Germany was with hyper-inflation, social unrest, strikes and failed revolution. But Britain has nothing to be complacent about either. Grosz's satirical picture bluntly states his view of the abilities and crimes of the self-elected and self-serving politicians of the new Weimar Republic. The Banker, the Military General and several headless and therefore brainless, Bureaucrats govern and carve up power for themselves. The blinkered ass standing on a table and eating money in a manager could be a metaphorical message from a medieval morality lesson. Nor forgetting the icon-like presence of the dollar symbol hovering in the background.

Grosz realized that, when push comes to shove, most art serves the bourgeois or increasingly, these days, those that aspire to its values; In Grosz's view most art, especially if with a capital A, unless taking an unambiguous stand-point, maintains the status quo and therefore complicitly accepts social inequality and injustice. Much art even today, continues to serve the purposes of, and upholds the values of consumerism and capitalism.