That was my comment on Guardian cif.
How long before it is moderated out?
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brrilliant, an excuse to post Mitchell & Webb’s ‘Homeopathic A&E’:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMGIbOGu8q0
Ingo,
predictably no reply to Craig or to the UK Youth Parliament.
aLAN cAMPBELL
When I had a psychedelic patterned kipper tie and Tony Opmoc was 17, The Guardian and Panorama were investigative and interesting. They are now not so much infiltrated as infatuated by New-Labour-Alistair-Cambell-dead-spin, which is so trite and past its sell-by date that even product-of-the-genre, Ed Miliband, is about to jettison the complete consignement to the garbage bin.
Why do you object to Muslim children being taught the patent truth, that the country they live in is controlled by Zionists who have, not just in theory from the verses of the Qur’an, but in practise in front of our very eyes, launched attack after vicious attack on the Muslim world?
Why don’t you investigate your own navel and get your troll friend Larry to do a laparostomy operation on your brain? The English elite and their Zioshit partners have been jackhammering Islam for a thousand years. Using feminism too in our generation. Children’s clean, keen understanding can see the obvious truth, while panorangatans like you just sit on the ethernet and self-groom.
iraq was a secular state. the US are in league with karzai. both saudi arabia and israel are ‘allies’. i object to children being taught simplified and divisive clap trap, of whatever brand.
anno, you had a psychedelic kipper tie, like the ones in ‘Yellow Submarine’?!! Did you keep it, by any chnace? It might protect us all against the Blue Meanies. And we do need protection.
What’s a “laparostomy”, btw? Lapa-anything (laparotomy/laparoscopy, etc.) refers only to abdominal/ pelvic operations, so unless you’re suggesting that Alan’s brain is in his abdomen – one suspects that even the strongest aguardiente would have trouble effecting such a bizarre metamorphosis – perhaps the term, ‘craniotomy’ would be more appropriate in this context. Though, even though I often (not always)disagree in whole or in part with him, I am not suggesting for one moment that he requires one! Far better, surely, to lend him your kipper ties!
I agree with technicolour at 2:46pm. I think that most kids are cleverer than to accept most forms of claptrap in any case. Kids are often far more open-minded than adults, in my experience!
and to the disguise of politics as religion also
Hi Craig – just an observation about your blog which I’ve followed for a few years now. At the risk of being flamed by everyone here, I hate to say this but your blog has really gone downhill. You’ve had a very tough time of it, no doubt. Your stand against torture has been heroic and has been vindicated completely. And maybe you’re going through a really bad patch. But I used to come here regularly for incisive, well-informed analysis with lashings of your usual trenchant wit. I don’t come here much anymore. Your last two posts are emblematic of a very bitter, miserable streak that has tainted your blog. I don’t want to come here for whiny gossip and bitchiness. I can get that anywhere. I’ll keep on popping in now and then but this is no longer a blog; it’s more of a forum, I suppose. I hope that you get on top of your blog again and become more constructive with it, because it feels to me like it’s dying on its feet. I’m only posting this because I miss what I used to love so much about this blog. All the best.
“it’s more of a forum”
Seconded. I think we should all be on to some sort of fee for keeping dancing while our host is off throwing up in the bathroom, or whatever. But good on you, Carlisle, for saying you’ll get back occasionally to see if the party is any more lively. It’s not a great party, I suppose – but we have the best gatecrashers.
tinyurl.com/2ujnot4
A chance, perhaps, for those of you in London, peacefully and sincerely to ask Hain in person about his arguably systemic hypocrisy wrt many things but esp. Palestine/Israel (vis a vis eg. Desmond Tutu’s comment about apartheid) and Iraq, etc.? Feel free to disseminate widely.
Peter Hain at Bookmarks
This Thursday (25 November) at 6.30pm, come and hear Peter Hain talk about his book on the life of Mandela. FREE.
Mandela’s anti-apartheid campaigning, his outspoken social criticism, and his values of freedom, have made him a hero of our time. “Mandela” follows the extraordinary path of this man’s journey to become a living legend. With in-depth chapters on his tribal roots, his revolutionary ANC activities that led to his notorious 27-year imprisonment, and his career after his momentous release in 1990.
Peter Hain MP is renowned for his three decades of anti-apartheid campaigning. Born to anti-apartheid activists with links to Mandela that go back to the 1960s, he grew up in South Africa where his parents were jailed and then banned by the regime. At just 15, Hain made his first anti-apartheid speech at the funeral of an activist, a year before his parents were forced to leave South Africa , taking him to London . Hain’s fervent campaigning throughout the 1970s made apartheid a national issue in Britain , whilst making him a target of the regime’s security services.
Places at the event are free, but please call or email to reserve. 020 7637 1848 [email protected]
Liberate Your Mind
Bookmarks the Socialist Bookshop
1 Bloomsbury Street
London
WC1B 3QE
Twitter: @bookmarks_books
“Peter Hain MP is renowned for his three decades of anti-apartheid campaigning.”
Haven’t we been here before, Suhayl? Whatever Hain might once have appeared to be it certainly isn’t what he is now. The question: was he always an arsehole, or was he corrupted? Did the prince turn to a toad given the kiss of power, or was he always a toad?
This is a pattern we should be trying to understand – it must be meaningful. So many of our princes have turned out, on very short order, to be toads. All of ’em, really.
from what i know, from people who knew him, he changed. jack straw, too. blair, on the other hand…
It’s a press release, Vronsky, they are not my words. I should have put it in quotes. Frog-princes, good question.
Interesting, technicolour. So, then, power often corrupts… and even relative power can corrupt absolutely.
occurs to me we should be paying the piper, if we’re going to complain about the tune. otherwise yes, a point to this other than selfishly swapping thoughts with a net community.
i was thinking that, since no-one will ever believe the lib dem party again, at least for 100 years or so, potential independent politicians should be preparing for the next election *now*; not scrambling around mere months beforehand. I guess it’s the idea that some of us may not be around in 5 years time? But they could always nominate a second.
Vronsky, hadn’t seen that clip, thank you. Was rather hoping he’d break into ‘Putting on the Ritz’, but it was spine chilling.
Carlisle, yes, this column has often been absolutely necessary, I think.
U.S. Support for Aggressive Zionism, the Real Problem in the Middle East
“A passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favourite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification…”
“Real patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favorite, are liable to become suspected and odious; while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and con- fidence of the people, to surrender their interests.”
George Washington’s Farewell Address, September 19, 1796
The slaughter in Iraq and the destruction of Iraq was the result of the long-standing US support for Zionism. This ‘blind’ support resulted in the United States administration bowing to and taking onboard the idea of a premptive attack. In September 2002 the Bush administration unveiled a novel doctrine articulating a right to take preemptive military action against threats arising from possession or development of weapons of mass destruction and from links to terrorism. Neither WMD or links to terrorism existed in the case of Iraq.
In the current administration the doctrine still stands and the civilians of Iran, the mothers and those with babies in their wombs, the new born, suckling from the mother’s breasts, the toddlers, taking their first steps and the teenages, experiencing their first love are in danger of mutilation and death from an unjustified preemptive attack.
Only we, the people can prevent such a catastrophe, by turning our backs and covering our ears and eyes, we, the people, are deserting them, leaving their existance and destiny to fate.
Under international law. Article 2, Section 4 of the U.N. Charter is generally considered to be ‘jus cogens’, or a peremptory norm which cannot be violated. It bars the threat or use of force against any state in the absence of an acute and imminent actual threat. At the same time, however, Article 51 clearly permits self defense. The tension between these two principles is evident in the doctrine of preemptive war, which claims to be defensive, yet does not come in response to an attack. Article 51 is not a blank check for the use of force in self defense.
my god, this word ‘Zionism’. As if the anti-semitic conservative power-mongers in this country wouldn’t be cackling up their sleeves at the thought of their opponents blaming everything on ‘Zionism’. One could despair.
time to go: I’m sounding dangerously like larry.
by the way, i first got very involved with this board after generally supporting Craig & his drive for truth & sanity, and finding that in his absence, a couple of years ago, the site was being overrun by blatantly anti-semitic trolls, with whose views I doubted he’d agree. Also, I’d recommended his work to several people who happened to be Jewish and felt responsible.
But at the moment, apart from chatting to many grand netpeople I’ve met along the way, I don’t have much to add.
“So, then, power often corrupts… and even relative power can corrupt absolutely.”
I think we have to analyse this most carefully. I’m astonished at the vaults that have been made by some people – angrysoba mentioned Mad Mel, transitting from Marxism to fascism without a pause for breath. How can a person leap from one edge of the political spectrum to the other? In individual cases it’s perhaps unremarkable (I once changed my mind about something) but when it is such an overall and pervasive pattern it’s baffling, and not adequately explained by appeals to the corrupting influence of power (look out angrysoba, I feel another conspiracy theory coming on).
A little personal history. The best man at my wedding was a close friend through school, university and rugby club. Blood brothers. We saw eye to eye on most things. But he it was who christened me ‘Vronsky’ from the character in Anna Karenina (Vronsky is vapid, irresponsible, selfish, superficial) against his ‘Levin’ (who is rational, moral, ascetic, idealistic). Kids back then read all the Russian novels (yes we did! Well, mostly Sholokhov, maybe, to tell the truth).
I never could forage as far left as my friend Levin could go. He was utterly out there where few could follow. But now, when Vronsky is a small, sick, intermittently sober, forcibly retired IT technician in Lanarkshire, the drily moral Levin is CEO of a Russian gas company.
I met Levin for a pint of beer recently. He assured me that he was still a socialist, and went on to tell me of his lunch date with Veronica Berlusconi.
@Suhayl
My apologies for interpreting a quotation as a personal opinion.
sorry, didn’t mean to post that, was thinking aloud. of course am still supportive of the board & people in general – would be very ungrateful not to be.
How can a person leap from one edge of the political spectrum to the other?
because the extremes meet full circle. it’s obvious.
“because the extremes meet full circle”
No they don’t – that’s the thing. One extreme is about not giving a fuck, and the other worries that perhaps a fuck ought to be given. Eat more yoghurt, and try to understand this.
one extreme tries to impose well-eaning extremes by force, if necessary, and one tries to impose cynical extremes by force, if necessary; and the pigs turn into man. read more and talk to more people and try and understand this.
(damn) well-meaning
Technicolour, I’m always glad to see your comments here. Carlisle may be unhappy with the content, but didn’t have anything much to contribute.
These people who leap across the political spectrum as they age. I’m sort of guessing that leaping from Left to Right is much more common than from Right to Left. My guess is that they’re authoritarians, control freaks. Socialism was just a means unto an end for them, a lifestyle they could preach about, how it should be inflicted upon all because of its moral correctness. Of course, it’s not nearly so attractive once some *real* power and wealth have been secured.
technicolour
The anti-semitic conservative powermongers and the Zionist bankers is another example of extremes meeting full circle, whether they laugh up their sleeves behind each others’ backs or no.
lenin thought it was OK to let his family’s peasants starve (although he could have done something about it) because it furthered his general (‘well-meaning’) cause. yipeekyeyay, what a leader.
anno, thanks, yes – and it’s why no religion, or political philosophy, can honestly blame one group per se. never mind all the other interested parties: that group itself will have all sorts of shades and meanings and internal complications. it’s the attractive ‘fallacy of the single cause’; as someone I know well puts it.
Clark, thanks too – left to right-wing libertarian is another one (see PJ O’Rourke) but at least he is still quite funny.
Vronsky, sorry, you obviously do read, and talk to people, and I was grateful for your defence of anarchists recently. I agree, what to do with this anger? I recommend KRS 1 at the moment. And meditation, and plans for action.
Otherwise, yoghurt, mmm. Do you know there are official guidelines as to the permissable levels of pus in cow’s milk?
actually, i read that in a biog of lenin. who knows. still: ‘we are going to violently kill these violent killers’ never cuts it for me. amazing what’s been done in the guise of ‘morality’, clark’s right,
will shut up now.
“My guess is that they’re authoritarians”
Sounds like a good guess. Most of those at the top or near the top in Labour are either recently acquired apolitical droids, or former authoritarian socialists. When I was young I tried to join a variety of socialist organisations. It was never possible. I couldn’t pass any of their tests. My best run was when I was briefly a member of the International Socialists, but they discovered on the Tuesday that I was wrong about something, and I had to leave.
It was why I posted a link a wee while ago to some stuff about libertarian socialism (watch the Bella Caledonia site).
Monty Python could be so terribly wise.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb_qHP7VaZE
Re: Goldacre and the scientific method, more in the same vein:
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/Book%20reviews.htm
Though the ailing Professor rarely posts these days, the numberwatch site is a good place.