Guardian Unlimited | Guardian daily comment | Cause and consequence: "Tony Blair appears to be on the brink of a Brechtian moment, in which he will need to dissolve the people who have lost his confidence and elect another.
Certainly, if he claims that anyone who believes there is a connection between the government's foreign policy - above all, Iraq - and the July 7 massacre in London is a 'fellow traveller of terrorism', then he has his work cut out. Fully 85% of the public do, according to a Daily Mirror/GMTV poll.
Article continues
The government's refusal to associate cause and consequence, which would be child-like were it not so obviously self-serving, is sustained only by hysterical warnings against the new evil of 'root-causism' from the residual pro-empire liberals."
Wednesday, 27 July 2005
Tuesday, 26 July 2005
people know this...
John Pilger in yet another attempt to show the truth as against the strange vacuum which the government has put in place of even argument around the causes of the terror... published in New Statesman and also in Morning Star http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/
t r u t h o u t - John Pilger | Blair Is Unfit to Be Prime Minister: " In all the coverage of the bombing of London, a truth has struggled to be heard. With honourable exceptions, it has been said guardedly, apologetically. Occasionally, a member of the public has broken the silence, as an east Londoner did when he walked in front of a CNN camera crew and reporter in mid-platitude. 'Iraq!' he said. 'We invaded Iraq and what did we expect? Go on, say it.'
Alex Salmond tried to say it on Today on Radio 4. He was told he was speaking 'in poor taste . . . before the bodies are even buried'. George Galloway was lectured on Newsnight (BBC2) that he was being 'crass'. The inimitable Ken Livingstone contradicted his previous statement, which was that the invasion of Iraq would come home to London. With the exception of Galloway, not one so-called anti-war MP spoke out in clear, unequivocal English. The warmongers were allowed to fix the boundaries of public debate; one of the more idiotic, in the Guardian, called Blair 'the world's leading statesman'.
And yet, like the man who interrupted CNN, people understand and know why, just as the majority of Britons oppose the war and believe Blair is a liar. This frightens the British political elite. At a large media party I attended, many of the important guests uttered 'Iraq' and 'Blair' as a kind of catharsis for that which they dared not say professionally and publicly."
t r u t h o u t - John Pilger | Blair Is Unfit to Be Prime Minister: " In all the coverage of the bombing of London, a truth has struggled to be heard. With honourable exceptions, it has been said guardedly, apologetically. Occasionally, a member of the public has broken the silence, as an east Londoner did when he walked in front of a CNN camera crew and reporter in mid-platitude. 'Iraq!' he said. 'We invaded Iraq and what did we expect? Go on, say it.'
Alex Salmond tried to say it on Today on Radio 4. He was told he was speaking 'in poor taste . . . before the bodies are even buried'. George Galloway was lectured on Newsnight (BBC2) that he was being 'crass'. The inimitable Ken Livingstone contradicted his previous statement, which was that the invasion of Iraq would come home to London. With the exception of Galloway, not one so-called anti-war MP spoke out in clear, unequivocal English. The warmongers were allowed to fix the boundaries of public debate; one of the more idiotic, in the Guardian, called Blair 'the world's leading statesman'.
And yet, like the man who interrupted CNN, people understand and know why, just as the majority of Britons oppose the war and believe Blair is a liar. This frightens the British political elite. At a large media party I attended, many of the important guests uttered 'Iraq' and 'Blair' as a kind of catharsis for that which they dared not say professionally and publicly."
Tuesday, 19 July 2005
violence and equivalence - 2 different takes from grauniad today
Hanif Kureishi, writing about religion and war says:
"We like to believe we are free to speak about everything, but we are reluctant to consider our own deaths, as well as the meaning of murder. Terrible acts of violence in our own neighbourhood - not unlike terrible acts of violence which are "outsourced", usually taking place in the poorest parts of the third world - disrupt the smooth idea of "virtual" war that we have adopted to conquer the consideration of death."
Guardian Unlimited | Guardian daily comment | The arduous conversation will continue
This contrasts in its wisdom with the equivalence which Martin Kettle uses to criticise the "useful idiots" who justify domestic violence...
Guardian Unlimited | Columnists | Useful idiots have always apologised for terrorists: "It would be reckless and wrong to say that violence in 1968 was endemic. Yet violence was widespread, not just in the form of American bombing of Vietnam, but in the tactics adopted, and widely celebrated, by significant parts of the counterculture. In the May events, Paris explicitly re-embraced its own tradition of violence. In this country, the prosperous duo of Mick Jagger and Tariq Ali each celebrated not peaceful protest but street fighting. In America, the rhetoric, and even the action, was hotter. 'It's a wonderful feeling to hit a pig,' the student leader Mark Rudd told the Weathermen conference in 1969. 'It must be a really wonderful feeling to kill a pig or blow up a building.'"
"We like to believe we are free to speak about everything, but we are reluctant to consider our own deaths, as well as the meaning of murder. Terrible acts of violence in our own neighbourhood - not unlike terrible acts of violence which are "outsourced", usually taking place in the poorest parts of the third world - disrupt the smooth idea of "virtual" war that we have adopted to conquer the consideration of death."
Guardian Unlimited | Guardian daily comment | The arduous conversation will continue
This contrasts in its wisdom with the equivalence which Martin Kettle uses to criticise the "useful idiots" who justify domestic violence...
Guardian Unlimited | Columnists | Useful idiots have always apologised for terrorists: "It would be reckless and wrong to say that violence in 1968 was endemic. Yet violence was widespread, not just in the form of American bombing of Vietnam, but in the tactics adopted, and widely celebrated, by significant parts of the counterculture. In the May events, Paris explicitly re-embraced its own tradition of violence. In this country, the prosperous duo of Mick Jagger and Tariq Ali each celebrated not peaceful protest but street fighting. In America, the rhetoric, and even the action, was hotter. 'It's a wonderful feeling to hit a pig,' the student leader Mark Rudd told the Weathermen conference in 1969. 'It must be a really wonderful feeling to kill a pig or blow up a building.'"
Wednesday, 6 July 2005
Moral panic
The news since Sunday has been unrelenting in whipping up fear and anxiety across Scotland about how these anarchists ae going to kill everyone. The Edinburgh riots were actually - as well eported by Mark ballard the Green MSP - caused and exacerbated by deliberately heavy policing, for little good reason.
My correspondent on the ground in Stirling tells me that despite breathless reporting of riots in the town, there was no sign on violence - but a very heavy police presence.
The police had cordoned off the eco-vilage - the campsite where some protestors were staying - and none of them could get out to go to Gleneagles. Most of them of course are peacable. Just like you really.
Some of them got a bit annoyed and there was an altercation - but hardly a riot.
In the town centre the police had closed the railway station - but again little actual violence to report. Apart from the damage to the truth.
The local radio and some UK tv were reporting riots even though there were none to see - purely because the police had told them they were taking place.
Obviously, what you can't see can be used by the authorities (police and media) in evidence to make you very frightened.
Meanwhile the cops were driving around in Stirling with sirens wailing - but chasing nothing much.
My correspondent says the atmosphere throughout the day has been weird - like Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, she feels as though she's the only one who can see that there isn't much going on. The shopkeepers are boarding up their windows, but no-one is interested in smashing them.
Oh well.
In the same way as the "Edinburgh riots" - where there was little damage and seemingly no casualties - the event has largely been fabricated so that the police keep the initiative, and can justify any actions including pre-emptive action eg closing routes, and photographing all and sundry.
Meanwhile, the BBC website is giving minute by minute accounts of whats "happening" but there's so little to actually see that their 12 - picture gallery of G8 "protests" http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/4655191.stm starts with a minor face-off at the eco-camp this morning and by image 6 or 7 they're showing Gerhard Schroeder, Paul Martin of Canada and the Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi coming down airliner steps as they arrive in Scotland.
With any luck these guys will protest - hmmm fat chance...
Meanwhile meanwhile, Bob Geldof is slagging eveyone who doesn't do it his way. It's alright for him, he's hot triple-A VIP tickets to meet the bastards within the ring of steel. In some ways you have to admire him - he's certainly operated in a very effective way throughout - sometimes out there, calling on a million to turn up, sometimes infuriatingly praising the peopple who are responsible for the problem because they are speaking to him... the set-up is all set up. The outcome will be hailed as a victory by Blair - a person no-one should trust, because of both his judgment and mendacity - and there will be little that Saint Bob can say to articulate the truth.
The truth being that the G8, the World Bank, the IMF and enforced privatisation won't solve the problem of poverty. Far from it. They are at the root. Even on their own terms. World economic growth has slowed down since the neo-liberal economists have taken over (which happened in the 70s.) The great postwar boom which was actually allowing post colonial countries to develop has stopped and protectionism for the rich means the poor are frozen out.
Ah well, at least we don't actually believe the hype.
malky
x
My correspondent on the ground in Stirling tells me that despite breathless reporting of riots in the town, there was no sign on violence - but a very heavy police presence.
The police had cordoned off the eco-vilage - the campsite where some protestors were staying - and none of them could get out to go to Gleneagles. Most of them of course are peacable. Just like you really.
Some of them got a bit annoyed and there was an altercation - but hardly a riot.
In the town centre the police had closed the railway station - but again little actual violence to report. Apart from the damage to the truth.
The local radio and some UK tv were reporting riots even though there were none to see - purely because the police had told them they were taking place.
Obviously, what you can't see can be used by the authorities (police and media) in evidence to make you very frightened.
Meanwhile the cops were driving around in Stirling with sirens wailing - but chasing nothing much.
My correspondent says the atmosphere throughout the day has been weird - like Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, she feels as though she's the only one who can see that there isn't much going on. The shopkeepers are boarding up their windows, but no-one is interested in smashing them.
Oh well.
In the same way as the "Edinburgh riots" - where there was little damage and seemingly no casualties - the event has largely been fabricated so that the police keep the initiative, and can justify any actions including pre-emptive action eg closing routes, and photographing all and sundry.
Meanwhile, the BBC website is giving minute by minute accounts of whats "happening" but there's so little to actually see that their 12 - picture gallery of G8 "protests" http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/4655191.stm starts with a minor face-off at the eco-camp this morning and by image 6 or 7 they're showing Gerhard Schroeder, Paul Martin of Canada and the Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi coming down airliner steps as they arrive in Scotland.
With any luck these guys will protest - hmmm fat chance...
Meanwhile meanwhile, Bob Geldof is slagging eveyone who doesn't do it his way. It's alright for him, he's hot triple-A VIP tickets to meet the bastards within the ring of steel. In some ways you have to admire him - he's certainly operated in a very effective way throughout - sometimes out there, calling on a million to turn up, sometimes infuriatingly praising the peopple who are responsible for the problem because they are speaking to him... the set-up is all set up. The outcome will be hailed as a victory by Blair - a person no-one should trust, because of both his judgment and mendacity - and there will be little that Saint Bob can say to articulate the truth.
The truth being that the G8, the World Bank, the IMF and enforced privatisation won't solve the problem of poverty. Far from it. They are at the root. Even on their own terms. World economic growth has slowed down since the neo-liberal economists have taken over (which happened in the 70s.) The great postwar boom which was actually allowing post colonial countries to develop has stopped and protectionism for the rich means the poor are frozen out.
Ah well, at least we don't actually believe the hype.
malky
x
Tuesday, 5 July 2005
Monbiot on Africa's new best friends
Guardian Unlimited | Columnists | Africa's new best friends: "Just as Gordon Brown's 'moral crusade' encourages us to forget the armed crusade he financed, the state-sponsored rebranding of the companies working in Africa prompts us to forget what Shell has been doing in Nigeria, what Barclays and Anglo American and De Beers have done in South Africa, and what British American Tobacco has done just about everywhere. From now on, the G8 would like us to believe, these companies will be Africa's best friends. In the name of making poverty history, the G8 has given a new, multi-headed East India Company a mandate to govern the continent.
Without a critique of power, our campaign, so marvellously and so disastrously inclusive, will merely enhance this effort. Debt, unfair terms of trade and poverty are not causes of Africa's problems but symptoms. The cause is power: the ability of the G8 nations and their corporations to run other people's lives."
and again i agree with you George...
Without a critique of power, our campaign, so marvellously and so disastrously inclusive, will merely enhance this effort. Debt, unfair terms of trade and poverty are not causes of Africa's problems but symptoms. The cause is power: the ability of the G8 nations and their corporations to run other people's lives."
and again i agree with you George...
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