Monday, 23 February 2009

Armless presenters and brainless morons

A number of parents have been campaigning to have Cerrie Bernell, a one-armed TV presenter, removed from CBeebies (Digital Spy: Disabled BBC presenter 'scaring' children). Apart from this being a horribly right-wing disablist campaign, I have a number of other issues with it ...

First of all, I fail to see how pre-school children are 'scared' by a disabled presenter. Young children are not prejudiced, for one simple reason. The Establishment's indoctrination which creates and reinforces prejudice, of any kind, is a slow, gradual, 'drip-drip' process rather than a rapid one. So young children simply haven't yet been exposed to enough of the subtle Establishment propaganda, to yet be brainwashed into oppressive thinking!

Secondly, if they were genuinely interested in stopping kids being scared, they would be far better off campaigning for the complete abolition of corporal punishment, which is still used to instil fear into kids. And the abolition of the SAT tests, which create undue worry among kids who become scared of failure at a very young age. Unlike any TV programme (including the likes of DeadEnders, whose violent storylines are far more scary than any portrayal of disability will ever be!), the belt or the exam result do not have an 'off' switch!

Last but not least, it is not kids who will end up 'having nightmares'. It is disabled people, indeed people of any oppressed minority, when these bigoted gits' campaigns bolster the support of murderous far-right Nazi parties. Indeed, the racist fire whose flames have been fanned by New Labour's increasing attacks on immigration, has led already to the BNP winning a council by-election in Sevenoaks, Kent.

Thankfully, prejudice can be countered and anger redirected against the real enemy. Intervention by the left in recent strikes against foreign labour has successfully won many workers to see that their real enemies are the bosses, not migrant workers who are being exploited while British workers' wages and conditions are undercut. And that the real answer is not to say 'British jobs for British workers', but to instead demand equal and decent pay and conditions for all workers.

It is this message of unity which we must use to counter not only the Nazis' message of hate in the run up to the European elections, but also to counter the capitalist Establishment's divide-and-rule tactics which weaken us all!