The quarterly waste of paper that is About Leeds, the council’s pathetic effort to convince us that they have a use, has just come through my letterbox.
I guess for many it serves it’s purpose of instilling a sense of civic pride, taming the bewildered herd, as Chomsky (very tongue in cheek, citing Walter Lippmann) puts it. It tells us all the wonderful ways that Leeds City Council are spending our rising council tax, over a million doing up Albion Place so we get more tourists and (the businesses) of Leeds benefit, for example. They even have a family, Dave and Sue (bit of a milf to be fair) Dawson who’s exploits quizzing their local councillors and accepting without question their rhetoric have been noted for the last 2 years.
Now, I have to say that if I was ignorant enough to parade my lack of knowledge about simple things like council tax (why doesn’t it go down ‘cos house prices are dropping) or landfill (I KNOW how to save money, only collect one bin), I guess I would believe everything some councillor said. Apparently her hours have been cut and she has three hungry mouths to feed obviously does indicate she lives a hard life and her fella’s a lazy lump. But hey, she’s a Yorkshire lass and she won’t give up.
But aside from these paragons of salt of the earth Leeds-ness, and the fact that Leeds, like much of the country is going down the pan, we have the best quote ever:
“…everyone can have a say in how the city is run…”
Yes, boys and girls, that bastion of civilisation… Democracy.
Da Da da Daahhh!
Lets return to Chomsky. Chomsky manages to paraphrase Lippmann in such a brilliant way that I am going to type it out verbatim:
…in a properly functioning democracy there are classes of citizens. There is first of all a class of citizens who have to take a role in running general affairs. That’s the specialized class. They are the people who analyze [sic, we will forgive the American spelling] , execute [no pun intended?], make decisions, and run things in the political economic and ideological sphere. That’s a small percentage of the population. Naturally anyone who puts these ideas forth is always a part of that small group and they’re talking about what to do with those others. Those others, who are out of the small group, the big majority of the population, they are what Lippmann called “the bewildered herd”. We have to protect ourselves from “the trampling and roar of a bewildered herd” Now there are two “functions” in a democracy: The specialised class, the responsible men, carry out the executive function which means they do the thinking and planning and understand the common interest. Then there is the bewildered herd, and they have a function in democracy as well. Their function in democracy, he said, is to be “spectators”, not participants in action. But they have more of a function than that, because it’s a democracy. Occasionally they are allowed to say “We want you to be our leader” or “We want you to be our leader.” That’s because it’s a democracy and not a totalitarianism. That’s called an election. But once they’ve lent their weight to one or another member of the specialized class they’re supposed to sink back and become spectators of action, but not participants. That’s in a properly functioning democracy.”
So who are those specialised classes in Leeds..? Lets look at a recent motion in council.
White Paper Motion -Vote of No Confidence in the Administration
“This Council deplores the inefficiencies and ineptitude of the Conservative led coalition.”
B ATHA
Minutes:
It was moved by Councillor Atha seconded by Councillor Taggart
That this Council deplores the inefficiencies and ineptitude of the Conservative led coalition.
An amendment was moved by Councillor Finnigan seconded by Councillor Grayshon
DELETE all after “of the” and replace with “Labour led Government”.
The amendment was carried and upon being put as the substantive motion it was
RESOLVED – That this Council deplores the inefficiencies and ineptitude of the Labour led Government.
If you want to see the whole 50 pages of script and from what I can work out from the minutes the best part of two hours of conversation, have a look at the verbatim report, from about page 38. It’s hilarious. OK, no doubt the Tory Coalition and the Labour Administration both deserve little confidence, but what the fuck does that do for Leeds.
Jack. Shit.
I recently tried to call upon some of these specialised classes after an incident with certain builders. This was mainly because I was pissed off, had consumed 4 double bourbons to calm down and wanted to whine at someone. However if the specialised classes are really executing in Hyde Park they fucking deserve it. I left a message with the office, and on two of their personal numbers as advertised on leeds.gov.uk and so far have heard nothing.
Of course if I was living the other side of Royal Park Road it would be a different story, as Kabeer Hussein obviously cares and looks after his ward residents, even taxi drivers who commit assault. If one wonders if this is part of the great LS6 Asian network I will be called a racist, no doubt, (by the way if you choose to, go fuck off and look up the meaning of the word racism please), so lets go with Hussein’s story that Shafiq Aziz is his friend. So either he is plain stupid, and doesn’t know that his friend had criminal convictions for assault, or he is a bare face liar when he claims he did not. Does he also know that Aziz is reputedly a relative of one of the biggest lot of con artists in Leeds, the very people the council claim to be trying to deal with? It’s not in his declaration of interests.
If we must succumb to the need for this “specialised class in Leeds”, is it not reasonable to ask that they are slightly more than inadequate, ineffectual, blustering, posturing, lying, porn peddling, arrogant, useless idiots?
Obviously not.
—–
Cited:
Chomsky, N (2002) Media Control. New York: Seven Stories Press.
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