.
Oxzen’s view that the world is full of twats and self-important tossers has been amply reinforced in the past couple of days.
BBC2 last night screened an hour-long documentary about the cringe-makingly awful British contribution to the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics - 8 minutes of tacky, embarrassingly awful rubbish.
I needed to watch it because I’ve been wondering who was responsible for such a pile of complete dross - and now I know. Step forward Martin Green and Stephen Powell - godfathers of garbage, impresarios of shameful bilge that made Britain the laughing-stock of the entire planet.
What made matters worse, of course, was the fact that the Chinese had just mounted what may be regarded as the greatest-ever show on earth, when you consider the opening and closing ceremonies combined.
And in comparison, those 8 minutes of British naffness looked unbelievably horrible, nasty, silly and unworthy. Because this country does have some great artistes and creative geniuses, here and there. So who put these two twats in charge?
And who allowed them to carry through with their insane idea to make a roof-shedding London double-decker bus, a footballer and a bunch of crap choreography the centrepiece of ‘our’ contribution? (See Layer 71 - Goodbye To The Games - August 26th.) Lord Sebastian Coe - that’s who. He listened to the ideas of Green and Powell, looked suitably unimpressed, and nodded his daft little head. Deal done. Idiot.
-------------------------------------------------------
One of the worst aspects of Gordon Brown is how much he resembles David Blunkett. OK, he’s only 50% blind, but still he has eyes that don’t see, that don’t focus, that clearly aren’t working, that are never animated or sparkle or engage with whoever he’s supposed to be talking to. Two dead eyes that convey nothing at all - no emotion, no warmth, no reaching out or taking in.
Watching him on TV with Obama in the White House was just embarrassing. Two different species of human being. One who’s alert and alive and vibrant, and one who’s a burnt-out wreck.
Brown also has the Blunk’s thick-set dour unattractiveness, the same machine-politician’s dull and deadly delivery, an air of having carefully prepared everything he’s about to say with his clique of readers, researchers, advisers and consultants. He’s therefore a mouthpiece for a set of professional political policy-makers - a group of people that are forever in the thick of it, so to speak - trudging from briefing to briefing, from committee meeting to focus group to Whitehall office.
Brown’s speech to Congress was also embarrassing. A mixture of the leaden and the wooden, with cogs grinding and gears clanking. Why was he doing it? PR of course - selling himself and his dodgy, worn out ideas, whose very structure could be heard creaking and groaning with every dull, clunking sentence. Not so much a big clunking fist - more a set of big, clunking, obsolete ideas.
Obama’s been telling America that it’s the disastrous ideology of Chicago-school free-trade market economics that has brought the world’s economy to total ruin. And here was Brown - having the utter gall and the complete idiocy to lecture Congress on the need to press ahead with open markets and non-protectionist free trade, regardless of the consequences for the downfall of national strategic industries and unemployment.
He expects the Americans to allow their motor industry, for example, to go the same way as ours - either down the plug hole completely, or sold off to smarter foreign operators who will asset-strip and relocate it. And to whose benefit? Does he really still cling to the Friedmanite doctrine that everyone eventually benefits from greater ‘efficiency’ and lower prices, which are supposedly the outcomes of globalisation?
Will he never admit that it’s always the little people that get screwed and then tossed crumbs of comfort after the mega-deals and mergers have gone through, commissions pocketed, lawyers paid off, shareholders paid out, the bosses and their consultants and bankers showered with booty?
He can’t even see how sick we all are of politicians like him acting as the mouthpieces of the fat cats and the bankers, desperately trying to make a busted and broken-down system function as it did before. Not that it ever really worked in the way it was supposed to. As even George Soros has had the honesty to admit - unregulated globalised capitalism itself is the problem, not the solution to anything.
And Brown just doesn’t get it.
-------------------------------------------------------
I don’t want to be unfair on Brown. I’m sure he has good intentions, and was as brainwashed as Blair and the others into honestly believing that Chicago-school economics was/is the only game in town, and that it was/is pointless and/or counterproductive to try to regulate Big Finance.
My difficulty in feeling any sense of empathy or caring for him is that he patently failed in the empathy and decency stakes when it came to standing up for principle and what is right. Where was his empathy with the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who were bound to be war victims and bound to suffer homelessness, injury and death? Where was his empathy with the millions of anti-war protestors?
Whereas Obama could see from the outset that the invasion of Iraq and the notion of a war on terr’r was always going to be a ruinous disaster, and had the courage to say so, Brown ranged from staying silent to actively supporting Bush and Blair.
Whereas Will Hutton and other progressive economists & commentators said consistently that NuLabour must re-regulate the City and the money markets, Brown sat in No. 11 Downing Street and paid them no attention - and showed them no respect.
It’s not as if Brown continued to play ball with Bush and the big boys whilst at the same time warning that things had to change, that the party was over, that tax havens had to be closed down, that the bonus culture was no longer acceptable, that the gravy train was about to hit the buffers, as so many predicted it would.
So now he ought to be big enough to deal with the derision and indeed hatred that’s being rained down on him for doing nothing whatsoever to get a grip on the excesses of the City and the bankers, for allowing tax havens and tax avoidance on a huge scale to continue, for allowing industry to flounder, for allowing the bonus culture and naked greed to run rampant, for encouraging oligarchs to prosper and seek refuge in Britain, for allowing the minimum wage to remain so inadequate, for encouraging more and more privatisations and ‘private finance initiatives’. In a word, he ought to apologise, and just say sorry for his pitiful inadequacy as the man in charge of the economy and finance all these years.
-------------------------------------------------
In the Guardian today there’s a piece by one of Blair’s former speechwriters - one Peter Hymen - sorry, Hyman - a callow little twat of the first order if you go by his photograph - whose verdict on the Brown speech was that he “didn’t just give us substance but a little style too”. Substance? Style?!!
Whereas Michael Billington said emphatically that the speech was “low on substance”, and that Brown would do to remember that Mark Anthony’s seemingly triumphant speech was “short-lived and followed by civil commotion, global turmoil, and his own ultimate downfall . . . ”
-----------------------------------
Mando
Someone on Radio 4 yesterday described Lord Peter Mandleson as ‘effectively’ the Deputy Prime Minister. As it happened I’d just been thinking about Harriet Harman, the Deputy Prime Minister, and the attempts by the political establishment to marginalise her and disown her recent statements to the effect that government would ensure that the bankers would not get their fat pensions, regardless of what the current law permits, or insists on.
So let’s think about this. Mandleson, a failed politician and a European Commissioner, a professional bureaucrat, is plucked from Brussels by our Prime Minister and installed as a noble Lord in Parliament, with such duties and status as to make him effectively the Deputy Prime Minister. And we think we live in a democracy?
A man who is regarded by the majority of the population as a scumbag and a toff, a nasty piece of work, and the co-architect of NuLabour, who we therefore hold responsible for the betrayal of the electorate after 1997 and All That, is now someone we should regard as a ‘Lord’, and effectively the Deputy Prime Minister, even though he’d never win any election he now entered.
Not only that, he’s made it his business to press ahead with part-privatisation of the Royal Mail completely against the wishes of the electorate, which is coming round to understanding that nationalised industries, especially where they are also monopolistic and potentially able to benefit from economies of scale, are preferable to privatised businesses which owe no responsibility to the electorate, and operate solely in the interests of shareholders.
It’s clear the man is a megalomaniac and egotist of the first order, with no inclination whatsoever to pay attention to what people actually want, such as radical social change that benefits regular people rather than fat cats. He’s therefore a would-be dictator, with contempt for the masses, and a determination to pursue his own political agendas regardless of the consequences for social justice and democracy.
It’s as though Brown has installed in Parliament as his philosopher’s stone, his business guru and his private mentor, someone with the tendencies of a Hitler, someone who uses every opportunity to use dirty tactics, to smear and ignore opponents, to use disinformation, to do business through cliques and cabals, to empower himself at the expense of everyone else. Which is another very good reason for disliking and reviling Brown, and wanting him to just pack it in and push off.
.
Showing posts with label war on terror. Show all posts
Showing posts with label war on terror. Show all posts
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Layer 115 War Crimes, Ditching Trident, Indiscriminate Slaughter, Civil Servants, Uncivilised Conduct and Progressive Values.
.
Reported on Radio 4 this morning:
The United Nations Relief Agency has for the first time used the term ‘War Crimes’ when referring to Israeli actions in Gaza.
Reported in the Guardian yesterday:
“Trident is a waste of money, say ex-military leaders.”
Britain's nuclear submarines are "completely useless" against modern warfare, and the £20bn spent on renewing them is a waste of money, retired senior military officers said yesterday.
The former head of the armed forces Field Marshal Lord Bramall, backed by two senior generals, argued that the huge sums being spent on replacing the delapidated submarines that carry the Trident ballistic missiles could be better used to buy conventional weapons which are badly needed by the armed forces.
"Nuclear weapons have shown themselves to be completely useless as a deterrent to the threats and scale of violence we currently face or are likely to face, particularly international terrorism," the group said in a letter to the Times. "Our independent deterrent has become virtually irrelevant, except in the context of domestic politics."
Retired army general Lord Ramsbotham, one of the signatories, said he wanted to restart the debate over the renewal of Trident, which was approved by the House of Commons in March 2007, despite a large rebellion by Labour MPs.
Ramsbotham told BBC2's Newsnight programme: "We argue that it is conventional weapons we now need. Their pinpoint accuracy, their ability to help our forces in the sort of conflicts that are taking place is something which means you have to question the huge expense of Trident, which is limiting what we can do."
The fact is that Trident is an inappropriate weapons system. You can't see Trident being used against something like nuclear blackmail by international terrorism. It is a cold war weapon. It is not a weapon for the situation where we are now."
Ramsbotham said he was "quite certain" that some serving members of the military shared his doubts. He added that the government's decision to renew Trident was driven more by political considerations than by the true requirements of national defence.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jan/16/trident-is-20bn-waste-say-generals
Also in the Guardian:
Simon Jenkins has a wonderfully radical and visionary column, headed ‘Indiscriminate slaughter from the air is a barbarism that must be abolished’, in which he proposes that the world should declare air-launched bombs and long-distance shells to be illegal under the 1983 Geneva convention. Extracts:
The tragedy in Gaza surely marks the time when the world declares air-launched bombs and long-distance shells to be illegal under the 1983 Geneva convention. They should be on a par with chemical munitions, white phosphorous, cluster bombs and delayed-action land mines. They pose a threat to non-combatants that should be intolerable even in the miserable context of war.
If gas, landmines, chemical weapons and cluster munitions are now banned - a ban broadly obeyed by most civilised armies - why not aerial bombardment? Instead, bombing is becoming ever more prevalent.
The Israelis have responded to the Hamas bombardment of their towns with a far heavier bombardment of Gaza. Both endanger civilians to a degree that cannot be other than criminal. That human shield tactics may be involved is no excuse: the law does not permit the killing of innocents in the hope of reaching the guilty. The bombing of urban infrastructure is an act of terror.
In an extraordinary article on these pages yesterday, David Miliband declared the title "war on terror" to be "misleading and mistaken".
Did Miliband protest when Tony Blair reportedly pleaded with George Bush to be the first to bomb Kabul in 2001? Is this the same Miliband who sat silent as a member of the government that supported "shock and awe"?
The truth is that the war Miliband is still waging against militant Islam has been conducted largely by weapons of terror, namely bombs and long-distance artillery shells. They have killed untold thousands of non-combatants since the "war" began in 2001 - a violence far more devastating than the Israelis have inflicted on Gaza - destroying unimaginable numbers of homes.
In Afghanistan the American commander, David Petraeus, is said to regard his own side's bombing of villages and wedding parties as utterly counterproductive. Yet once forces are deployed, with ground and air in partnership, they seem beyond all command and control. They illustrate Liddell Hart's comment on military technology, that "the progress of weapons has outstripped the minds of those who wield them".
In the complex politics of war, these weapons are like torture. They numb moral sensibility and do harm beyond all justification of victory. They should be abolished. If we wish to kill other people for whatever reason, we should use only weapons that kill the right ones.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/16/gaza-aerial-bombing-david-miliband
------------------------------------------------------
A Progressive Shock-Doctrine?
Digby Jones has apparently said that half of those employed in the civil service are a waste of space and should be sacked. It’s a pity he didn’t moderate his eye-catching phrases and limit himself to saying that he’s not talking about the thousands of hard-working people in the lower ranks. He only came into contact with the upper reaches when he was a junior minister, and he’d almost certainly be justified in saying that hundreds of those upper ranks are over-paid, time-serving, dull, vision-free, toadying creeps who traipse from meeting to meeting and spend all their time talking round in circles, contributing nothing to the national well-being.
The topmost ranks surround themselves with over-paid and useless yes-men and women, covering their backs and making sure they offload tasks, and outsource the blame when things go wrong. The problem is we don’t have politicians with sufficient calibre and determination to change this state of affairs. What we have is toadying politicians who surround themselves with ‘bright’ young advisers whose main interest is in playing the system that exists for their own comfort and benefit.
There’s probably no way out of this. Our national culture is fragmented and encourages self-promotion and self-interest. There’s no national consensus towards agreed ideals and goals. There’s still a war, and there will continue to be a war, between Thatcherites and the social democratic Left, between neo-conservatives and progressives, between people with money and property and those without, between Mail readers and Guardian readers, between BBC lovers and Sky/Fox lovers, between haves and have-nots, between the stupid and the enlightened.
Since 1979 the Stupid Party and its values has been in the ascendant in this country, thanks to Thatch and NuLabour (Thatch-lite). Which is why our society is increasingly unequal, unfair, violent, exploitative, over-stressed, spiritually barren and unhappy. Its economy is fucked.
I’m almost at the point of being past caring, but not quite. Not quite yet. The next four years are make or break for decency, genuine democracy and enlightened values. Either the Left uses this opportunity to develop a kind of reverse shock-doctrine, or we can all just forget about peace, justice and harmony. At least in Britain.
But then who cares about Britain? Why waste our time trying to fight against the power of the wealthy and the ignorant and the Establishment in a place where the entire national culture is geared towards the stupid values of quiz shows, celebrity, flash, bling, glamour, greed, property, soaps, football, show-biz and fame. Grumpy old man? Moi?
The point is, it’s not quite like this in the rest of the world. And it’s to these other places that progressives need to look for sustenance, hope and optimism. Countries that run decent education systems for the benefit of their pupils, countries with decent public services run by highly motivated professionals, countries with top civil servants whose promotion is due to merit and their proven ability to make a positive difference, countries with sustainable and competently-run economies, financial systems and governments. Countries that haven’t dumbed down to the extent that this one has, thanks to its ignorant media, its shameless politicians, and its brainwashed and grasping, spiritless and soulless citizens.
Thank goodness that standards have continued to rise and enlightenment is still on the agenda in places like Denmark, Finland, Japan, Germany and France, none of which supported the ‘war on terror’, squandered their national budgets pursuing such nonsense, or fell into the orbit of the neo-conservative ascendancy that’s continued to grip the USA and the UK, amongst plenty of other places.
We’re talking here about countries that don’t equate ‘attainment’ in academic timed tests with genuine education, that didn’t allow their financiers to fuck their economies, that don’t squander money on illegal wars, that don’t allow an elite minority to become obscenely wealthy at the expense of an increasingly-impoverished majority.
Thank goodness such countries still exist and form the core of a civilised international community. Thank goodness we can still look elsewhere for models of progressive social-democratic civilised life.
Democratic socialists, social democrats and other pacifist progressives throughout the world must now seize the moment and act collectively to alter the balance of power, nullify the neo-conservative hegemony, take back proper democratic control of our financial, commercial and industrial systems, redistribute wealth, restore peace and order to international relations, and promote enlightened values. We now have every possible reason to do it, so let’s just do it. If not now, when?
-----------------------------------------------
As for the Heathrow expansion - let’s not go there.
-------------------------------------------------
Ken Livingston has on his LBC programme this morning some lunatic right-wing member of the London Assembly, Brian Coleman, who’s a full-time councillor in Barnet, much admired by West London taxi drivers, it seems, who actually says he admires George Bush and his administration and would vote for another four years of Bush and neo-conservatism if he could. See what I mean? Fucked.
This twat also defended what the Israeli forces have been doing in Gaza, and tried to use the usual bullshit about “Well what would you do if Hamas was firing missiles at London?” Thankfully Ken was ready for that and immediately retorted that we DID have the IRA bombing London but we didn’t attack them in their hiding places in Belfast and Derry with Apache gunships, missile-firing drones, F16s, tanks and long-range artillery. We’re not THAT uncivilised. Yet.
Back to the war crimes.
----------------------------------------
A good friend sent me this today:
Interesting quotes from Gerald Kaufman this week:
"My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town . . . a German soldier shot her dead in her bed. My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza. The present Israeli government ruthlessly and cynically exploit the continuing guilt from gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians.”
Kaufman compared the Hamas militants in Gaza to Jewish resistance fighters during the Second World War, saying: "The spokeswoman for the Israeli army, Major Leibovich, was asked about the Israeli killing of, at that time, 800 Palestinians. The total is now 1,000. She replied instantly that '500 of them were militants’. That was the reply of a Nazi. I suppose the Jews fighting for their lives in the Warsaw ghetto could have been dismissed as militants."
------------------------------------------------
There were some more good letters in the Guardian yesterday. Read them at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/16/gaza-israel-petitions
Extract:
Israel must lose. It is not enough to call for another ceasefire, or more humanitarian assistance. It is not enough to urge the renewal of dialogue and to acknowledge the concerns and suffering of both sides. If we believe in the principle of democratic self-determination, if we affirm the right to resist military aggression and colonial occupation, then we are obliged to take sides... against Israel, and with the people of Gaza and the West Bank.
We must do what we can to stop Israel from winning its war. Israel must accept that its security depends on justice and peaceful coexistence with its neighbours, and not upon the criminal use of force.
We believe Israel should immediately and unconditionally end its assault on Gaza, end the occupation of the West Bank, and abandon all claims to possess or control territory beyond its 1967 borders. We call on the British government and the British people to take all feasible steps to oblige Israel to comply with these demands, starting with a programme of boycott, divestment and sanctions.
This is signed by over 300 people, mainly academics.
.
Reported on Radio 4 this morning:
The United Nations Relief Agency has for the first time used the term ‘War Crimes’ when referring to Israeli actions in Gaza.
Reported in the Guardian yesterday:
“Trident is a waste of money, say ex-military leaders.”
Britain's nuclear submarines are "completely useless" against modern warfare, and the £20bn spent on renewing them is a waste of money, retired senior military officers said yesterday.
The former head of the armed forces Field Marshal Lord Bramall, backed by two senior generals, argued that the huge sums being spent on replacing the delapidated submarines that carry the Trident ballistic missiles could be better used to buy conventional weapons which are badly needed by the armed forces.
"Nuclear weapons have shown themselves to be completely useless as a deterrent to the threats and scale of violence we currently face or are likely to face, particularly international terrorism," the group said in a letter to the Times. "Our independent deterrent has become virtually irrelevant, except in the context of domestic politics."
Retired army general Lord Ramsbotham, one of the signatories, said he wanted to restart the debate over the renewal of Trident, which was approved by the House of Commons in March 2007, despite a large rebellion by Labour MPs.
Ramsbotham told BBC2's Newsnight programme: "We argue that it is conventional weapons we now need. Their pinpoint accuracy, their ability to help our forces in the sort of conflicts that are taking place is something which means you have to question the huge expense of Trident, which is limiting what we can do."
The fact is that Trident is an inappropriate weapons system. You can't see Trident being used against something like nuclear blackmail by international terrorism. It is a cold war weapon. It is not a weapon for the situation where we are now."
Ramsbotham said he was "quite certain" that some serving members of the military shared his doubts. He added that the government's decision to renew Trident was driven more by political considerations than by the true requirements of national defence.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jan/16/trident-is-20bn-waste-say-generals
Also in the Guardian:
Simon Jenkins has a wonderfully radical and visionary column, headed ‘Indiscriminate slaughter from the air is a barbarism that must be abolished’, in which he proposes that the world should declare air-launched bombs and long-distance shells to be illegal under the 1983 Geneva convention. Extracts:
The tragedy in Gaza surely marks the time when the world declares air-launched bombs and long-distance shells to be illegal under the 1983 Geneva convention. They should be on a par with chemical munitions, white phosphorous, cluster bombs and delayed-action land mines. They pose a threat to non-combatants that should be intolerable even in the miserable context of war.
If gas, landmines, chemical weapons and cluster munitions are now banned - a ban broadly obeyed by most civilised armies - why not aerial bombardment? Instead, bombing is becoming ever more prevalent.
The Israelis have responded to the Hamas bombardment of their towns with a far heavier bombardment of Gaza. Both endanger civilians to a degree that cannot be other than criminal. That human shield tactics may be involved is no excuse: the law does not permit the killing of innocents in the hope of reaching the guilty. The bombing of urban infrastructure is an act of terror.
In an extraordinary article on these pages yesterday, David Miliband declared the title "war on terror" to be "misleading and mistaken".
Did Miliband protest when Tony Blair reportedly pleaded with George Bush to be the first to bomb Kabul in 2001? Is this the same Miliband who sat silent as a member of the government that supported "shock and awe"?
The truth is that the war Miliband is still waging against militant Islam has been conducted largely by weapons of terror, namely bombs and long-distance artillery shells. They have killed untold thousands of non-combatants since the "war" began in 2001 - a violence far more devastating than the Israelis have inflicted on Gaza - destroying unimaginable numbers of homes.
In Afghanistan the American commander, David Petraeus, is said to regard his own side's bombing of villages and wedding parties as utterly counterproductive. Yet once forces are deployed, with ground and air in partnership, they seem beyond all command and control. They illustrate Liddell Hart's comment on military technology, that "the progress of weapons has outstripped the minds of those who wield them".
In the complex politics of war, these weapons are like torture. They numb moral sensibility and do harm beyond all justification of victory. They should be abolished. If we wish to kill other people for whatever reason, we should use only weapons that kill the right ones.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/16/gaza-aerial-bombing-david-miliband
------------------------------------------------------
A Progressive Shock-Doctrine?
Digby Jones has apparently said that half of those employed in the civil service are a waste of space and should be sacked. It’s a pity he didn’t moderate his eye-catching phrases and limit himself to saying that he’s not talking about the thousands of hard-working people in the lower ranks. He only came into contact with the upper reaches when he was a junior minister, and he’d almost certainly be justified in saying that hundreds of those upper ranks are over-paid, time-serving, dull, vision-free, toadying creeps who traipse from meeting to meeting and spend all their time talking round in circles, contributing nothing to the national well-being.
The topmost ranks surround themselves with over-paid and useless yes-men and women, covering their backs and making sure they offload tasks, and outsource the blame when things go wrong. The problem is we don’t have politicians with sufficient calibre and determination to change this state of affairs. What we have is toadying politicians who surround themselves with ‘bright’ young advisers whose main interest is in playing the system that exists for their own comfort and benefit.
There’s probably no way out of this. Our national culture is fragmented and encourages self-promotion and self-interest. There’s no national consensus towards agreed ideals and goals. There’s still a war, and there will continue to be a war, between Thatcherites and the social democratic Left, between neo-conservatives and progressives, between people with money and property and those without, between Mail readers and Guardian readers, between BBC lovers and Sky/Fox lovers, between haves and have-nots, between the stupid and the enlightened.
Since 1979 the Stupid Party and its values has been in the ascendant in this country, thanks to Thatch and NuLabour (Thatch-lite). Which is why our society is increasingly unequal, unfair, violent, exploitative, over-stressed, spiritually barren and unhappy. Its economy is fucked.
I’m almost at the point of being past caring, but not quite. Not quite yet. The next four years are make or break for decency, genuine democracy and enlightened values. Either the Left uses this opportunity to develop a kind of reverse shock-doctrine, or we can all just forget about peace, justice and harmony. At least in Britain.
But then who cares about Britain? Why waste our time trying to fight against the power of the wealthy and the ignorant and the Establishment in a place where the entire national culture is geared towards the stupid values of quiz shows, celebrity, flash, bling, glamour, greed, property, soaps, football, show-biz and fame. Grumpy old man? Moi?
The point is, it’s not quite like this in the rest of the world. And it’s to these other places that progressives need to look for sustenance, hope and optimism. Countries that run decent education systems for the benefit of their pupils, countries with decent public services run by highly motivated professionals, countries with top civil servants whose promotion is due to merit and their proven ability to make a positive difference, countries with sustainable and competently-run economies, financial systems and governments. Countries that haven’t dumbed down to the extent that this one has, thanks to its ignorant media, its shameless politicians, and its brainwashed and grasping, spiritless and soulless citizens.
Thank goodness that standards have continued to rise and enlightenment is still on the agenda in places like Denmark, Finland, Japan, Germany and France, none of which supported the ‘war on terror’, squandered their national budgets pursuing such nonsense, or fell into the orbit of the neo-conservative ascendancy that’s continued to grip the USA and the UK, amongst plenty of other places.
We’re talking here about countries that don’t equate ‘attainment’ in academic timed tests with genuine education, that didn’t allow their financiers to fuck their economies, that don’t squander money on illegal wars, that don’t allow an elite minority to become obscenely wealthy at the expense of an increasingly-impoverished majority.
Thank goodness such countries still exist and form the core of a civilised international community. Thank goodness we can still look elsewhere for models of progressive social-democratic civilised life.
Democratic socialists, social democrats and other pacifist progressives throughout the world must now seize the moment and act collectively to alter the balance of power, nullify the neo-conservative hegemony, take back proper democratic control of our financial, commercial and industrial systems, redistribute wealth, restore peace and order to international relations, and promote enlightened values. We now have every possible reason to do it, so let’s just do it. If not now, when?
-----------------------------------------------
As for the Heathrow expansion - let’s not go there.
-------------------------------------------------
Ken Livingston has on his LBC programme this morning some lunatic right-wing member of the London Assembly, Brian Coleman, who’s a full-time councillor in Barnet, much admired by West London taxi drivers, it seems, who actually says he admires George Bush and his administration and would vote for another four years of Bush and neo-conservatism if he could. See what I mean? Fucked.
This twat also defended what the Israeli forces have been doing in Gaza, and tried to use the usual bullshit about “Well what would you do if Hamas was firing missiles at London?” Thankfully Ken was ready for that and immediately retorted that we DID have the IRA bombing London but we didn’t attack them in their hiding places in Belfast and Derry with Apache gunships, missile-firing drones, F16s, tanks and long-range artillery. We’re not THAT uncivilised. Yet.
Back to the war crimes.
----------------------------------------
A good friend sent me this today:
Interesting quotes from Gerald Kaufman this week:
"My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town . . . a German soldier shot her dead in her bed. My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza. The present Israeli government ruthlessly and cynically exploit the continuing guilt from gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians.”
Kaufman compared the Hamas militants in Gaza to Jewish resistance fighters during the Second World War, saying: "The spokeswoman for the Israeli army, Major Leibovich, was asked about the Israeli killing of, at that time, 800 Palestinians. The total is now 1,000. She replied instantly that '500 of them were militants’. That was the reply of a Nazi. I suppose the Jews fighting for their lives in the Warsaw ghetto could have been dismissed as militants."
------------------------------------------------
There were some more good letters in the Guardian yesterday. Read them at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/16/gaza-israel-petitions
Extract:
Israel must lose. It is not enough to call for another ceasefire, or more humanitarian assistance. It is not enough to urge the renewal of dialogue and to acknowledge the concerns and suffering of both sides. If we believe in the principle of democratic self-determination, if we affirm the right to resist military aggression and colonial occupation, then we are obliged to take sides... against Israel, and with the people of Gaza and the West Bank.
We must do what we can to stop Israel from winning its war. Israel must accept that its security depends on justice and peaceful coexistence with its neighbours, and not upon the criminal use of force.
We believe Israel should immediately and unconditionally end its assault on Gaza, end the occupation of the West Bank, and abandon all claims to possess or control territory beyond its 1967 borders. We call on the British government and the British people to take all feasible steps to oblige Israel to comply with these demands, starting with a programme of boycott, divestment and sanctions.
This is signed by over 300 people, mainly academics.
.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Layer 114 Miliband and the School Bully, the Dracula Tendency, Results Factories, and Evil Spawn.
.
So our youthful-looking Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, has finally had the nerve to say publicly that Bush’s idea of a “War on Ter’r” is a load of nonsense, extremely unhelpful, counterproductive, etc, and he’s pleased that Obama is going to close Guantanamo Bay. It’s a bit like a child who’s heard that the playground bully has been expelled from the school, who then turns round and starts telling everyone he never really liked George and didn’t really want to be his mate and his henchman when he was going round beating everybody up. He knew it was a bad thing to do. In fact he now wants to talk to everybody and be their friend.
Well maybe it’s true that NuLabour hasn’t actually used the phrase “War on Terror” since 2006, as has been reported on TV and in the press, but it’s a bit late in the day to come out and draw attention to the fact that it was an imbecilic concept, and an excuse for bullying on a global scale. And it’s a bit late in the day to start saying we need to have a proper dialogue with those who take issue with the Shock Doctrine, or those who oppose the voodoo economics known as globalisation, those who reject neo-colonialism, etc.
Yes, of course it’s better late than never to make these statements, but Miliband must surely see that he, and NuLabour Mark II, just look stupid and pathetic, like they’re clinging to the coat tails of, and going along with, whoever’s the current big beast in the jungle.
Obama had the courage to say from the very start that the idea of a War on Terror was wrong-headed, and that invading Iraq was just plain wrong, for a variety of reasons. That took real courage and integrity - speaking truth to power, especially when the vast majority of Americans just went along with their government’s propaganda and their thirst for instant revenge for the Twin Towers. Such a pity that the Blair/Brown axis and NuLabour couldn’t manage it.
And neither could Miliband, at the time it was happening. Having been a close aid to Blair in Downing Street for so many years, and obviously politically very ambitious, he calculated that his political career was best served by deferring to his master and keeping schtum. And now he thinks the time is right to admit that it was a stupid concept and a useless policy. After all, George has already come out and said it was a mistake!
He’s been a silly boy, young David.. He was flattered by Blair’s patronage, and the nepotism he enjoyed, as Blair and then Brown gave him one promotion after another and facilitated his meteoric rise within the government. He should have been more patient, had the courage of his convictions, trusted in his innate ability to give him success in his political career in the long run, and he should have shown that he had the integrity and courage to speak truth to power, because now he can never achieve the stature of an Obama. Never, ever.
He ought to have realised that showing your integrity by speaking the truth will always be a requirement for anyone who aspires to be a true statesman, rather than a party apparatchik. He should have understood that in the long run you forfeit the trust and the support of the people if you even once participate as a member of the dominant mob, the gang of the playground bully, and fail to show that your conscience is your sole master.
He was no conscientious objector. He has the blood and the ruined lives of thousands of innocent people on his hands. Probably hundreds of thousands. And there’s no going back from that. He’s probably a very nice man. But he was a political prat.
Only 4 more days to Obama’s inauguration.
-------------------------------------------
The Dracula Tendency
The Guardian’s science correspondent reports that Victorian novels helped us to evolve into nicer people, according to scientists:
“Their research suggests that classic British novels from the 19th century not only reflect the values of Victorian society, they also shaped them. Archetypal novels from the period extolled the virtues of an egalitarian society and pitted cooperation and affability against individuals' hunger for power and dominance. For example in George Eliot's Middlemarch, Dorothea Brooke turns her back on wealth to help the poor, while Bram Stoker's nocturnal menace, Count Dracula, comes to represent the worst excesses of aristocratic dominance.
They found that leading characters fell into groups that mirrored the cooperative nature of a hunter-gatherer society, where individual urges for power and wealth were suppressed for the good of the community.
The effect of such moralistic literature was to uphold and instil a sense of fairness and altruism in society at large, the researchers claim in the journal Evolutionary Psychology. "By enforcing these norms, humans succeed in controlling 'free riders' or 'cheaters' and they thus make it possible for genuinely altruistic genes to survive within a social group," they write.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/jan/14/victorian-novels-evolution-altruism
In this context I suppose David Miliband could be seen as a sort of miniature and somewhat youthful Heathcliffe, or even a non-charismatic Mr Darcy - a conflicted character, admired by some, but struggling to cope with both good and bad traits.
-------------------------------------------
Results Factories
Meanwhile NuLabour’s mismanagement of education grinds remorselessly onward. Polly Curtis, the Guardian’s education editor, reports that schools have been accused of ‘hot housing’ to get results. Tell us something we didn’t already know, dear Polly.
Apparently figures released yesterday reveal a leap in the numbers of pupils who took their exams early in November, thereby allowing a resit for any failures - “a tactic that is being encouraged increasingly across the country by heads desperate to rise in the league tables.”
"Some pupils have taken the same GCSE exam up to three times in the space of a year, the Guardian has learned.
Teachers' leaders have blamed the government's pressure on headteachers to improve results and move up the school league tables for the increased focus on exams that was putting children under stress and detracting from the depth of their learning.
Last year the government announced that any schools where fewer than 30% of pupils achieved at least five good GCSEs - including in English and maths - faced closure unless there were improvements within three years.
Alan Smithers, professor of education at Buckingham University, said: "League tables have got all out of proportion and schools will now do all they can to improve their place. Early entry is one way they are doing it. Other ways include focusing on the pupils on the C-D border. We're in danger of producing a set of statistics that no longer accurately reflect pupils' progression but the work the schools can do to improve their scores."
Perry Beeches school in Birmingham has adopted early entry for its entire GCSE group, with nearly all of its pupils sitting their English exams a year early and maths six months early. The pupils were allowed to retake, or sit a harder paper to improve their result.
Liam Nolan, the school's head, said: "We are an exam factory, I have no issue with that. However, this is about the students. They've got to pass these exams to give themselves every opportunity in life."
John Bangs, head of education at the National Union of Teachers, said: "Retakes are bad for kids. There's a poisonous combination of parental pressure and league-table pressure to get as high a score as possible. There are kids who are ready to take their exams early but it should be on the basis of their readiness rather than part of a process to get the results.
"What it does is focus on the examination results rather than the use of English and maths across the curriculum - it's for the sake of the exam itself ... examination result-driven decisions to hot-house kids into taking an exam early are damaging."
A DCSF spokesperson said, “We are not aware of widespread issues with students being unduly pushed to take GCSEs early”.
Well now that you ARE aware of it - what ARE you going to do about it, you bastards?
We know what they’ll do about it. Nothing. They don’t give a shit about the wellbeing of pupils What they’re continuing to do is bully and threaten schools with closure if they don’t meet their government-set targets. So why shouldn’t the schools feel comfortable with being branded as results factories? That’s all they are. At least that headteacher had the integrity to admit it, even if he is a total tosser for engaging with the very idea.
Yesterday Ed Balls repeated what his illustrious macho predecessor Blunkett said all those years ago - poverty is no excuse for failure, and failure to reach the government’s targets will result in the closure of schools and the sacking of their staff. Fucking Stalinist. His lapdog Jim Knight, our schools’ minister, predictably yapped on about “the excuses culture”.
I can’t wait to see these arseholes disappear into well-deserved obscurity. There can’t be any excuses now for failure to promote the real interests and the wellbeing of pupils. Hot housing and a failure to understand how to run a decent education system cannot be excused. They’ve had 11 years to learn from the likes of Finland and Denmark how to promote real education and the professionalism of teachers. They’ve learned nothing at all, the dullards. All we have is more Blunkettism, and Stalinist demands to meet production targets. These people are evil spawn of the devil, and no mistake.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/jan/15/schools-tables-exams
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/jan/15/secondaryschools-schooltables
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jan/16/ed-balls-academies-exam-results
------------------------------------------
More Evil Spawn
Talking of which, we learned yesterday that Israel’s armed forces managed to blow up and destroy the one place in Gaza they really didn’t want to hit - a relief warehouse within the United Nations compound in which there was a huge store of humanitarian supplies - mainly food and medicine. There also happened to be 200 refugees within the compound. An Israeli spokesman admitted this was a mistake, but said something along the lines of, “Oh well, these things happen. Our soldiers are under a lot of pressure, you know.”
Actually, they said it was a “grave mistake”. Pity it’s not their own graves they’re talking about. This is actually the only thing the Israeli hard-liners care about - having to dig the graves of their own soldiers. Nothing else impacts on their attitude or their tactics. The recent attack on Lebanon proved this, when heavy casualties caused by well-armed militias forced their withdrawal.
The United Nations are said to be furious about this latest incident. It’s going to be interesting to see what action they take, because some sort of action is surely now inevitable. They’ve already passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire, and Israel’s taken no notice of it, as we knew would happen. So what happens next?
.
So our youthful-looking Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, has finally had the nerve to say publicly that Bush’s idea of a “War on Ter’r” is a load of nonsense, extremely unhelpful, counterproductive, etc, and he’s pleased that Obama is going to close Guantanamo Bay. It’s a bit like a child who’s heard that the playground bully has been expelled from the school, who then turns round and starts telling everyone he never really liked George and didn’t really want to be his mate and his henchman when he was going round beating everybody up. He knew it was a bad thing to do. In fact he now wants to talk to everybody and be their friend.
Well maybe it’s true that NuLabour hasn’t actually used the phrase “War on Terror” since 2006, as has been reported on TV and in the press, but it’s a bit late in the day to come out and draw attention to the fact that it was an imbecilic concept, and an excuse for bullying on a global scale. And it’s a bit late in the day to start saying we need to have a proper dialogue with those who take issue with the Shock Doctrine, or those who oppose the voodoo economics known as globalisation, those who reject neo-colonialism, etc.
Yes, of course it’s better late than never to make these statements, but Miliband must surely see that he, and NuLabour Mark II, just look stupid and pathetic, like they’re clinging to the coat tails of, and going along with, whoever’s the current big beast in the jungle.
Obama had the courage to say from the very start that the idea of a War on Terror was wrong-headed, and that invading Iraq was just plain wrong, for a variety of reasons. That took real courage and integrity - speaking truth to power, especially when the vast majority of Americans just went along with their government’s propaganda and their thirst for instant revenge for the Twin Towers. Such a pity that the Blair/Brown axis and NuLabour couldn’t manage it.
And neither could Miliband, at the time it was happening. Having been a close aid to Blair in Downing Street for so many years, and obviously politically very ambitious, he calculated that his political career was best served by deferring to his master and keeping schtum. And now he thinks the time is right to admit that it was a stupid concept and a useless policy. After all, George has already come out and said it was a mistake!
He’s been a silly boy, young David.. He was flattered by Blair’s patronage, and the nepotism he enjoyed, as Blair and then Brown gave him one promotion after another and facilitated his meteoric rise within the government. He should have been more patient, had the courage of his convictions, trusted in his innate ability to give him success in his political career in the long run, and he should have shown that he had the integrity and courage to speak truth to power, because now he can never achieve the stature of an Obama. Never, ever.
He ought to have realised that showing your integrity by speaking the truth will always be a requirement for anyone who aspires to be a true statesman, rather than a party apparatchik. He should have understood that in the long run you forfeit the trust and the support of the people if you even once participate as a member of the dominant mob, the gang of the playground bully, and fail to show that your conscience is your sole master.
He was no conscientious objector. He has the blood and the ruined lives of thousands of innocent people on his hands. Probably hundreds of thousands. And there’s no going back from that. He’s probably a very nice man. But he was a political prat.
Only 4 more days to Obama’s inauguration.
-------------------------------------------
The Dracula Tendency
The Guardian’s science correspondent reports that Victorian novels helped us to evolve into nicer people, according to scientists:
“Their research suggests that classic British novels from the 19th century not only reflect the values of Victorian society, they also shaped them. Archetypal novels from the period extolled the virtues of an egalitarian society and pitted cooperation and affability against individuals' hunger for power and dominance. For example in George Eliot's Middlemarch, Dorothea Brooke turns her back on wealth to help the poor, while Bram Stoker's nocturnal menace, Count Dracula, comes to represent the worst excesses of aristocratic dominance.
They found that leading characters fell into groups that mirrored the cooperative nature of a hunter-gatherer society, where individual urges for power and wealth were suppressed for the good of the community.
The effect of such moralistic literature was to uphold and instil a sense of fairness and altruism in society at large, the researchers claim in the journal Evolutionary Psychology. "By enforcing these norms, humans succeed in controlling 'free riders' or 'cheaters' and they thus make it possible for genuinely altruistic genes to survive within a social group," they write.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/jan/14/victorian-novels-evolution-altruism
In this context I suppose David Miliband could be seen as a sort of miniature and somewhat youthful Heathcliffe, or even a non-charismatic Mr Darcy - a conflicted character, admired by some, but struggling to cope with both good and bad traits.
-------------------------------------------
Results Factories
Meanwhile NuLabour’s mismanagement of education grinds remorselessly onward. Polly Curtis, the Guardian’s education editor, reports that schools have been accused of ‘hot housing’ to get results. Tell us something we didn’t already know, dear Polly.
Apparently figures released yesterday reveal a leap in the numbers of pupils who took their exams early in November, thereby allowing a resit for any failures - “a tactic that is being encouraged increasingly across the country by heads desperate to rise in the league tables.”
"Some pupils have taken the same GCSE exam up to three times in the space of a year, the Guardian has learned.
Teachers' leaders have blamed the government's pressure on headteachers to improve results and move up the school league tables for the increased focus on exams that was putting children under stress and detracting from the depth of their learning.
Last year the government announced that any schools where fewer than 30% of pupils achieved at least five good GCSEs - including in English and maths - faced closure unless there were improvements within three years.
Alan Smithers, professor of education at Buckingham University, said: "League tables have got all out of proportion and schools will now do all they can to improve their place. Early entry is one way they are doing it. Other ways include focusing on the pupils on the C-D border. We're in danger of producing a set of statistics that no longer accurately reflect pupils' progression but the work the schools can do to improve their scores."
Perry Beeches school in Birmingham has adopted early entry for its entire GCSE group, with nearly all of its pupils sitting their English exams a year early and maths six months early. The pupils were allowed to retake, or sit a harder paper to improve their result.
Liam Nolan, the school's head, said: "We are an exam factory, I have no issue with that. However, this is about the students. They've got to pass these exams to give themselves every opportunity in life."
John Bangs, head of education at the National Union of Teachers, said: "Retakes are bad for kids. There's a poisonous combination of parental pressure and league-table pressure to get as high a score as possible. There are kids who are ready to take their exams early but it should be on the basis of their readiness rather than part of a process to get the results.
"What it does is focus on the examination results rather than the use of English and maths across the curriculum - it's for the sake of the exam itself ... examination result-driven decisions to hot-house kids into taking an exam early are damaging."
A DCSF spokesperson said, “We are not aware of widespread issues with students being unduly pushed to take GCSEs early”.
Well now that you ARE aware of it - what ARE you going to do about it, you bastards?
We know what they’ll do about it. Nothing. They don’t give a shit about the wellbeing of pupils What they’re continuing to do is bully and threaten schools with closure if they don’t meet their government-set targets. So why shouldn’t the schools feel comfortable with being branded as results factories? That’s all they are. At least that headteacher had the integrity to admit it, even if he is a total tosser for engaging with the very idea.
Yesterday Ed Balls repeated what his illustrious macho predecessor Blunkett said all those years ago - poverty is no excuse for failure, and failure to reach the government’s targets will result in the closure of schools and the sacking of their staff. Fucking Stalinist. His lapdog Jim Knight, our schools’ minister, predictably yapped on about “the excuses culture”.
I can’t wait to see these arseholes disappear into well-deserved obscurity. There can’t be any excuses now for failure to promote the real interests and the wellbeing of pupils. Hot housing and a failure to understand how to run a decent education system cannot be excused. They’ve had 11 years to learn from the likes of Finland and Denmark how to promote real education and the professionalism of teachers. They’ve learned nothing at all, the dullards. All we have is more Blunkettism, and Stalinist demands to meet production targets. These people are evil spawn of the devil, and no mistake.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/jan/15/schools-tables-exams
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/jan/15/secondaryschools-schooltables
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jan/16/ed-balls-academies-exam-results
------------------------------------------
More Evil Spawn
Talking of which, we learned yesterday that Israel’s armed forces managed to blow up and destroy the one place in Gaza they really didn’t want to hit - a relief warehouse within the United Nations compound in which there was a huge store of humanitarian supplies - mainly food and medicine. There also happened to be 200 refugees within the compound. An Israeli spokesman admitted this was a mistake, but said something along the lines of, “Oh well, these things happen. Our soldiers are under a lot of pressure, you know.”
Actually, they said it was a “grave mistake”. Pity it’s not their own graves they’re talking about. This is actually the only thing the Israeli hard-liners care about - having to dig the graves of their own soldiers. Nothing else impacts on their attitude or their tactics. The recent attack on Lebanon proved this, when heavy casualties caused by well-armed militias forced their withdrawal.
The United Nations are said to be furious about this latest incident. It’s going to be interesting to see what action they take, because some sort of action is surely now inevitable. They’ve already passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire, and Israel’s taken no notice of it, as we knew would happen. So what happens next?
.
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