MediaLens is a response based on our conviction that mainstream newspapers and broadcasters provide a profoundly distorted picture of our world. We are convinced that the increasingly centralised, corporate nature of the media means that it acts as a de facto propaganda system for corporate and other establishment interests. The costs incurred as a result of this propaganda, in terms of human suffering and environmental degradation, are incalculable.I am a reasonably regular contributor, and I certainly will read the postings to their message board most days. Whilst the media is the main focus of attention, many other political matters are examined. The Iraq war, Global Warming, the Global Economy and globalisation would certainly get plenty of attention. But on the message board, users are free to post opinions about many different matters, or links to interesting articles, and I find it an invaluable resource for much that isn't covered in the mainstream media, especially here in New Zealand, and pointing me to news and opinion that I would otherwise miss. I would thoroughly recommend anyone interested in what is actually happening in the world, and not just some media-hack's interpretation of what is happening, to get involved. There are a good number of socialist contributors, but don't let that put you off, the site is well run and and rudeness, abuse or ad hominems are not tolerated. The editors have a very strong ethical commitment to non agression, and this includes verbal non-agression. Contributors are particularly asked to write to publishers and reporters where they see bias, misreporting, jingoism or lack of understanding and many threads will follow the progress being made in trying to get across some point or other.
Most recently for instance, an article appeared on the BBC News website. The original article, as it appeared, seemed merely to be a regurgitation of an American military press release, in regard to a new directed energy weapon using some sort of microwave directed at people, for non-lethal crowd control. This was said to cause, after a few seconds, and intolerable burning pain in the skin, such that you would have to move out of the ray. It was said to be "harmless". On reading this, one of the editors of MediaLens wrote to the reporter, James Westhead,
"Dear James.After some to-ing and fro-ing in correspondence, it was found that the reporter's words "claimed to be harmless" had been edited to "harmless" by the team responsible for the internet site. It was quickly altered to the "claimed to be harmless". You can read this correspondence on the MediaLens site. But even more interestingly, a couple of days later, the original article which, as I said, read like an Pentagon press release, was completely rewritten, and now examines the machine in a much more enquiring manner. You can read the article here.. As the editors subsequently said:
In today's article, 'US military unveils heat-ray gun,' you state that the heat-ray weapon is 'harmless'. But you then go on to report the effects as being 'too painful to bear'. How do you define the word 'harm'?
Best wishes
David Edwards"
For us this was an inspiring example of how a small band of activists with very different skills, talents and interests could combine to challenge and change the mainstream media. To be sure this was a tiny success by a tiny number of people. But the effort was also small - and we are millions.
Anyway, this is all by the way of introducing the subject of this blog, the Manchester Casino. Not living in the UK, I had been unaware of this particular proposed gambling shop, not just a casino but a super-casino. Apparently a super-casino contains 1,250 slot machines, whilst the highly inferior ordinary, plebaean casino , of which eight were approved, have only 150 slot machines. According to this report Tony Blair had originally envisaged allowing 20 to 40 super-casinos to be built, but the consternation this proposal aroused caused the plans to be downscaled, eventually to just one such facility. One local MP, Graham Stringer, was reported to have said that he was "astonished" but delighted that Manchester had won the bid. "It's going to bring a lot of jobs and regeneration to a part of the city that really needs it," The giant casino is expected to generate thousands of jobs on its 5 000 square-metre floor and in surrounding bars, hotels, cinemas and other leisure venues. Elswhere, Steven Bromhead of the Northwest Development Agency said "The creation of a regional casino will allow the ongoing regeneration of East Manchester with the economic benefits felt across the whole of the Northwest.". In Blackpool, the front runner for the casino, the decision was met with shock and dismay "We will not take this lying down" headlines one local Blackpool paper. And in Stranraer, a sleepy ferry backwater of Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland, one of a number of small casinos was approved, "the panel said that Stranraer, a town where income lags 20 per cent behind the Scottish average - would offer "a useful test of social impact in the context of the transformation of a port to a resort".. In Glasgow, who's bid for the super-casino also failed, this is reported in the Scotsman "The idea that the second city of the empire, a town once synonymous with heavy industry and shipyards, could be reborn by sprinkling the glitz of Las Vegas, adding the whisper of high stakes poker games as well as constant chatter of 1,250 "no limit" slot machines, may have once seemed unbelievable, yet today it is a strong possibility. The boiler suit could be replaced by the showgirl's plume".
Now these proposals didn't come without a great deal of opposition, in particular the church has had a strong opposition. The Anglican Bishop of Hulme, Stephen Lowe, told Channel 4 News: "These facilities are alongside some of the poorest communities and there is every evidence to suggest that actually gambling addiction follows the development of casinos - a massive rise in gambling addiction. These communities are already vulnerable. Do we really want people to be going in to the 1,250 slot machines that are going to be in this facility before they go into Asda/Wal-Mart for their weekly shop? Frankly, there is evidence to suggest that people will go hungry because of these sorts of facility and that's not a better Britain." But also welfare groups, psychologists and a few independent economists are also strongly opposed. 
We have had some similar arguments here in New Zealand a few years ago, in connection with casinos being built in some of our larger cities, so reading all this is very much like deja vue. All the same arguments get trotted out - great employment opportunities, regeneration of cities, tourism, economic gains to the area, blah, blah. Then the contrary arguments, the gambling addiction, economic problems for the area etc. But why are there these arguments? The economic effects of casinos has been widely studied academically, particularly in the USA, and the studies all come up with the same conclusion, casinos are bad for the area, are bad for the people of the area and are bad for the economy of the area and the country as a whole. So how is it that promotors of casinos can get away with such nonsense? Where do counsellors and politicians keep their brains? Why are the people at the coal-face of society's ills not taken more notice of? A few minutes idle searching on the internet is all that is required to squash any thoughts about the supposed benefits of casinos. The is much solid, well researched, reproducable information from impeccable sources explaining exactly why casinos are a bad idea.
But wouldn't a few moments of simple reflection be all that is required to understand that casinos can only make a profit for their owners, and that everyone else, but everyone, is a loser? Gambling is a no-win activity - it has no social benefit, no cultural benefit, no infrastructural benefit - it builds nothing, it creates nothing, it improves nothing, it achieves nothing. A casino is hole for money in the community it is built in, it takes its money from the community, mostly the disadvantaged, and it gives the money to the rich people who own the casino. Money that the government pours into deprived regions goes to support the rich people who own the casinos. Money that would have been spent in the supermarkets or the clothes shops goes to support the rich people who own the casinos. Money that would be better spent on family activities and building bonds in the community goes to support rich people who own casinos. Money that could be spent on health care, or education or public amenities, just name it, goes to support the rich people who own casinos. A simple understanding that no casino anywhere, anytime, created or could create any wealth, would prove all these points to any sentient citizen. It is literally crazy to support casinos as wealth creating investments, yet thousands of people in office in local and national government do so, as the reports quote on this page demonstrate. And this brings me back to Media Lens. I hadn't heard about the UK's dicing with casinos until I read this blog in regard to Manchester having been "awarded" the new super-casino. John Lilburne from Yorkshire is the writer, I hope he doesn't mind me copying his thoughts here, as the editors of Media Lens commented "Well said, John"
And the 'winner' is: Manchester - the choice for the country's first las vegas-style super casino.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6312707.stm
Despite the warnings of many concerned groups over increased gambling addiction and related social unhappiness, short-sighted politicians have given their all in facilitating and trying to secure this award.
It's the market's and government's version of happinomics: the 'let's embrace mass-gambling as the solution to local unemployment and needed regeneration' argument.
How misguided they are in hailing these projects as saviour investments. How unhappy their economic and social imaginations to believe in this kind of consumer-deadened enterprise. The whole competition and award process is premised on winners and losers. As if our whole sense of economic well-being - our happiness depends on the arbitrary outcome of a gambling corporation's wishes.
Culture Secretary, Tessa Jowell, has bullied and cajoled opponents to steer Blair's gambling-friendly laws through parliament. Last week, Dispatches (Ch 4, 22 January 2007) exposed the government's own addictive subservience to the gambling industry, how New Labour came to be in the pocket of the big corporate players and how its deregulation agenda will adversely impact on communities.
It's another graphic example of how capitalism, in striving for relentless profit, can only offer an ersatz happiness. Indeed, this whole awarding scenario the bids, campaigns, PR hype and pledges of local politicians is symptomatic of the economics of unhappiness. It's part of the wider market adherence to casino capitalism; from the city stockrooms to how we must view the problems of run-down locales.
How did we ever get to this state of economic and emotional dependency? Again, it's rooted in the false sense of happiness promised by capitalist society.
Best,
John
Now as I stated above, there are a number of anti-capitalists and left-wing socialists that post to this site, and I am sure they must be very nice people. My own politics has become much more socially aware than it used to be, perhaps I am a socialist, but I am very aware how socialism and anti-capitalism then becomes an excuse for tearing everthing down, before the building up begins, and I am extremely wary of people who wish to do this. The French did it, the Russians, and the Chinese and looked what happened to them. The future will not have any room for capitalism vs. socialism, because if that is how human-kind is going to conduct its affairs, faced with the massive problems of oil depletion, global warming and nuclear proliferation, then I will confidently state this now, human-kind will fail. If there is only one thing that I am truly certain of , then it is that we are all in this together. The solutions of problems facing us tomorrow will not be solved by the politics of yesterday, because it was precisely those politics of yesterday that brought us to the pass we are in today. They are no longer of any use to us. Perhaps I will expand my thoughts on future politics later, but to return to casinos, I then wrote my own blog, using some internet information that I had previously accessed in writing letters about casino development in New Zealand.
I am not particularly anti-capitalist, so I don't really want to get into an argument socialism vs capitalism, but if it helps I am against the abuse of power, whether capitalist or socialist. Much of what goes for capitalism nowadays is an abuse - an abuse of fairness, of equity, of logic, of society and of our planet. This push for casinos is this abuse writ pretty large.
There is abundant evidence as to the malignant effect of casinos in the areas in which they operate, at the personal level, at the social level and at the economic level. A brief review in Scientific American, reporting an academic economic analysis of casinos in the USA, reveals that the monetary loss to the community of a casino is generally around twice the supposed gain, representing in the USA a total economic loss of about US$27.4 billion per annum. Up to 80% of gambling revenue comes from just 10% of the population, one in five of who will file for bankruptcy, and nearly one third will loose their jobs. Crime rates increase in the area served by the casino by about 8%.
Another internet article , from an anti-casino site, quotes what appears to be reliable stastics of a similar nature, from good academic studies. A further study is quoted, by John Kindt, professor of commerce in the University of Illinois, in which he quotes a previous study "Legalised gambling acts as a regressive tax on the poor". It is a good article, and lists and explains the many problems associated with casinos, and I can recommend anyone interested in the matter reading it. It ends this way "Increasingly, taxpayers and businesses are beginning to realize that, as Professor Jack Van Der Slik has summarized for much of the academic community, state-sponsored gambling "produces no product, no new wealth, and so it makes no genuine contribution to economic development". I can't help thinking that an informed common-sense, and a healthy scepticism, would have come to exactly the same conclusion, but there you are....
And yet this sort of reliable and unbiased information, widely available on the internet, must be known to councillors, planners and politicians. It is their choice to ignore this information - an ignorant, but deliberate, act of stupidity and folly, fostered by greed and a blind obedience to untrammelled capitalism, a sickening deference to their friends in big business, and a cynical disregard for the communities which they are supposed to serve.
There is deep suspicion in the UK about the government's push to having casinos - Mr Prescott, Deputy Prime Minister, has been entertained a number of times by Philip Anschutz, a very rich entertainment and communications operator in America. According to the UK Telegraph, "Mr Anschutz, described by Fortune magazine as the greediest executive in America, has entertained Mr Prescott at least seven times in the past five years - from drinks to football matches. This is not because he admires the wit and wisdom of the DPM but because he wants to build a lucrative supercasino in London on the site of the Dome and he thinks the Deputy Prime Minister can deliver the goods". Mr Anschutz's backers in London even had the cheek to forward a report to the regulators that the local church groups were supportive, when this was not the case at all, they rather conveniently forgot to ask the church groups about the matter. (Link)
But it looks like Mr Anschtuz might have lost out, but a business colleague of his, Sol Kerzner, an operator as shady one of his croupier's vizors, might have hit the jackpot by backing the Manchester bid. There is a potted biography of this man in today's Independent. Worth reading to reveal the character of the man who is going to be the economic saviour of Manchester; according to this article he is "targeting Britain for his casinos, which no-one else in Europe will have, because Britain is the "soft moral underbelly of Europe"" I can't really top that remark, and I shall stop there.
An earlier period of laissez-faire capitalism
