Culture and Life

by Rob Gowland

The privileged and the persecuted

Well, I see Britain's feudal remnants have decided to give US 
voters the benefit of their long years of coping with the 
vagaries of democracy. Democratic Party candidate John Kerry, 
according to them, has "royal connections".

In fact, Kerry has more "royal connections" than seems reasonable 
for one man. According to Burke's Peerage, the who's who of 
Britain's landed nabobs, Kerry is related to all the royal houses 
of Europe.

Not only that, but he can claim kinship with Tsar Ivan the 
Terrible, a Byzantine Emperor and the Shahs of Persia. Should he 
want to, that is.

Burke's have apparently spent months on researching Kerry's 
antecedents. The bible of the Best People considers the matter to 
be of some importance, you see.

According to Burke's publishing director, the predictably 
hyphenated Harold Brooks-Baker, royal blood has mystical powers, 
at least in US elections. "Every Presidential candidate with the 
most royal genes and chromosomes has always won".

Let's leave aside the intriguing question of what exactly a 
"royal chromosome" might be, and the worrying thought that having 
lots of them would presumably produce Downe's Syndrome (mongolism 
— caused by having 47 instead of the normal 46 chromosomes).

Assuming Brooks-Baker's statistic to be true — and how would 
such a bizarre claim be checked anyway? — he probably believes 
that candidates of blue blood win because they are superior 
people by virtue of their breeding.

Burke's is, after all, dedicated to chronicling the wedding and 
bedding of the landed aristocracy of Britain. Its clientele is as 
much an anachronism as Burke's attitude towards democracy.

Snobby attitudes to that anachronism, specifically a letter from 
Ross Barlow in the Sydney Morning Herald calling for Mary 
Donaldson (who married the Crown Prince of Denmark) to be 
referred to by her proper title, provoked some pungent 
correspondence in that paper just last week.

Chris Mangan of Singapore wrote on August 17: "I've nothing 
against the former Mary Donaldson, Ross Barlow. I just don't see 
why marrying someone she loves leads to her having a title 'she 
deserves'.

"Some of us do not accept the concept that there are monarchs, 
together with their legions of hangers-on, and subjects. 
Hopefully this century will see the extinction of all these regal 
entities around the world."

I hope the staff of Burke's didn't see that; sort of thing likely 
to provoke heart attacks all round the office.

Debby O'Brien, who signed herself Empress Debby, was even blunter 
in dismissing Mary Donaldson's royal title.

"The Crown Princess of Denmark or the Double-Dutch Blue-Blood of 
Wagga Wagga — both just as meaningless to those of us who 
believe in the equality of all humans, Ross Barlow.

"She no more deserves that title than you or me."

"Wacko Jacko"

The bourgeois media treats the 45-year-old singer Michael Jackson 
with undisguised hostility, deriding him routinely as "Wacko 
Jacko". There treatment of him is remarkably similar to the 
snearing way they used to treat Libya's leader Colonel Gadaffi.

His screwed up life as an extravagantly paid child star, a 
classic case of "too much too soon", may explain his reclusive 
lifestyle, his infantilist foibles, and his clear preference for 
the company of children to that of adults.

However, his apparent preference for cuddling up in bed with 13-
old-boys, however innocent it might be, must raise disquieting 
questions.

Late last year, Leslie Feinberg wrote in US paper Workers' 
World, "Since the late 1980s, Michael Jackson has been the 
brunt of public ridicule in the media for having an increasingly 
'womanly' appearance and complex gender expression".

Despite his curious skin colour these days, Jackson is none-the-
less an African American. His vague sexual definition means that 
he is now a high profile target for both racists and anti-gay 
elements.

Left-wing activists in the US tend to identify among the bigots 
the Santa Barba district attorney, Tom Sneddon, who has made a 
career of pursuing Jackson in the media and in court.

Sneddon first tried to bring charges against Jackson in 1993, 
acting on a complaint by the family of a young teenage boy. 
Perhaps significantly, the family dropped their complaint when 
offered money.

As DA running the investigation, Sneddon went out of his way to 
demean Jackson. "The singer was reportedly stripped naked and 
photographed as part of the investigation" (Agence France 
Presse).

On November 18 last year, US gay activists rejoiced when the 
Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled in favour of same-sex marriage. 
It may have been only coincidence, but the very next day, Sneddon 
acted on another complaint against Jackson, this time from a 13-
year-old boy.

Typically, Sneddon sent more than 70 police — some in flak 
jackets, no less — accompanied by doctors and an ambulance to 
carry out a 12-hour raid on Jackson's ranch and amusement park.

Jackson was released after posting bail and will come up for 
trial in January. Activists and the bourgeois media alike 
anticipate a glorious media circus.

In a statement by the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, the Reverend Jesse 
Jackson (no relation to the singer) expressed "grave concerns" 
about Sneddon's handling the case, describing anti-gay jokes made 
by Sneddon at a news conference on November 19 as "completely 
inappropriate".

American activists are concerned at both the thrust of both the 
media and the authorities in the case.

"The plight and suffering of children and teenagers who are 
subjected to sexual and other forms of abuse cannot be relieved 
by a reactionary campaign to foment racism, anti-gay bigotry and 
hatred of gender and sex variance.

"Progressive people need to deny the right wing an opportunity to 
use the high-profile coverage of the Jackson case as a propaganda 
weapon against the right of lesbian, gay, bisexual and 
transgender people to teach school, coach sports teams, adopt or 
gain custody of their children." (Workers' World)