Anglocentrism~ The practice of viewing the world from English or Anglo-American perspective, with an implied belief, either consciously or subconsciously, in the preeminence of English or Anglo-American culture.
Liberals, 'leftists' and naive 'anti-war' critics of the USA & other English speaking countries, appear to me to be one side -the negative detracting side- of anglocentrism.
There is no teary eyed, flag waving patriotism behind this antithetical, ideological position, nor any kind of self righteous chauvinism that can be easily discerned in anglocentrism proper, yet I don't think it can be denied that there is a likely unconscious, but nonetheless strong sense of Anglo-American culture's primacy on the global stage.
For instance, this rather varied subgroup within Western societies, usually found in universities or on social media echo chambers of righteous socialist views, are frequently the most vocal critics of any military operations considered by UK or US Governments. All of these planned operations, no matter how benevolent or well intentioned, are described by this subgroup as "Imperialist Wars", which is to say resource grabs to sustain a non-existent Angloamerican Empire. Of course this is patently stupid, the language they're using here is probably a century or more out of date and barely corresponds to the situations they attempt to describe, still, their opposition to "The West"[1] is clearly more important than a genuine appraisal or understanding of modern situations.
The reason I think there is a anglocentrist attitude at work here, is because I catch glimpses of it while in disputation among these people, I will show a few examples, my interest is not in the factual accuracy of the claims, the substance of the arguments or lack thereof, but in the hints each position gives of a stunted, atrophied, simplistically dualistic and myopic view of the world, which represents a flip side, a self flagellating version of anglocentrism.
Firstly Iraq.
I often hear that Saddam Hussein was "put in power" by the West, that he was armed by the West, and supported by the West during his war against Iran. This I think is patently anglocentric, although implicitly so, as though these dark skinned sorts from the desert have neither the capability or desire to establish and run totalitarian State systems on their own behalf, that they couldn't plan or fight a war for their own interests or by their own initiative.
If you ask any average repeater of words to this effect, they will generally be ignorant as to the participation of German and French Governments and private companies, of Soviet Imperialism in arming and supporting the regime of Saddam Hussein, but more tellingly they will 9times out of 10 demonstrate a very tangible ignorance of social and economic conditions within Saddam's Iraq. The typical ignorance expected of a consumer of exclusively English speaking Media information? Or the kind of naivety, comfort and lack of empathy expected from people who grow up coddled in developed and democratic societies, and who assume in typically anglocentric fashion that elsewhere must be more or less the same. Perhaps they should read Kanan Makiya's book "Republic of Fear", maybe they'd begin to understand that fiction has barely yet conceived of a State as brutally sadistic, and arbitrarily violent as that of Saddam's Iraq?
So why do they still so vehemently oppose his removal? Maybe to their mind all 'evil' must originate, all negativity must be attributable to "The West", all examples of the West acting must be a manifestation of this evil acting against the 'poor hapless victims' they portray totalitarian dictators like Assad, Hussein or Qaddafi as?
I accept the West is far from covered in past-glories, but have these people stopped to consider that actually there are worse places, and that some of these might be inhabited by people fundamentally opposed to Western ideals of Liberal Democracy rather than acting on it's behalf?
Syria.
This was the most recent case of the West planning to go to War, sadly for the Syrian people, coming post Iraq and Libya, UK participation was put to a vote and was met with cumulative and most widespread resistance. The situation is familiar, rebellion of an oppressed majority seeking change and democracy, met with brutal repression at the hands of an authoritarian dictatorship, while the UK sits and watches (Kosovo & Bosnia, Yemen), but in this case it was popular sentiment which swayed our non-participation rather than cynical real-politik. The British public decided, and spent much of the week of the vote, demonstrating that Syrian people's lives are less important than the lives of a few hundred underused British military personnel, that it was more important to subsidize Western consumers', than support global aspirations towards democracy. How can British isolationism be anything other than anglocentric, regardless of how well intentioned it's advocates claim they are?
But there is further and similar accusation here to the case of Iraq, perhaps originating in foreign countries or Syria itself but certainly willingly adopted here, namely that the mass uprising of Syrian people was a "Western" intelligence operation, that these rebels and warriors for freedom were merely automatons, acting under the influence of Western Media and various Western seductions proliferated through the digital commons. This view seems to discount the Arab Spring, that this came as part of a series of public uprisings in the region against authoritarian, family dictatorships, in favour of democracy. Why were people reluctant to believe Syrians wanted democracy, if they do believe the mass of Syrians wanted democracy, why were they reluctant for their Government's to support this struggle? I feel that beneath answers to both these questions lies a feeling that maintaining our peace here, is more important than facilitating their peace there, and perhaps the idea, though I've never heard it formulated as such, that Democracy is a European system, and any adoption of it in other lands is evidence of "Western Imperialism"?
ISIS.
A few years in to the conflict in Syria a new force began to distinguish itself by it's brutality and antipathy towards any forms of Western or non-Islamic culture, the now infamous Islamic State. Emerging from the post Ba'athist rubble in both countries IS could draw on a wide base of angry, experienced and driven, anti-Western Jihadists. The emergence of IS, incidentally shows the failure of a non-Imperialistic approach to invasion by the US and UK in Iraq and Libya which is still in a very chaotic state. By destroying the dictatorship and leaving everyone pretty much to their own devices, "the West" loosened the chains of oppression on destructive forces as well as the average freedom loving Iraqi, this inevitably gave rise to the conflicts, sectarianism, power struggles and divisions, which were prevalent throughout the Saddam regime, though strongly repressed by means disavowed in the emerging, western aligned democratic governments.
I've heard many theories, for instance that ISIS is a reasonable response to Western actions in Iraq, Libya and Syria; that ISIS is the inevitable response of a 'War against Islam'; that ISIS is a CIA and Mossad front conducting war games to destabilize Syria and establish "Greater Israel"; or that IS represent the most active force in a fight against "Western Imperialism" in their region.
The conduct genocide, they have conquered land putting it's people to the sword or worse forms of punishment, they have a flag, a currency, extremely vicious and sexually repressive laws, media outlets and are called "a state". They actively seek to cleanse the World of unbelievers, launching pogroms against Zoroastrian Yazidi tribes, Shi'ite Muslims and the Kurdish people of Norther Iraq, yet the accusation of Imperialism is never directed at them? Infact many of the criticisms of them, besides those listed above, are dismissed as Islamophobia or predictable Western propaganda.
Nor is any criticism directed towards Putin's Russia, who's propaganda arm of the State Department; Russia Today, actively works to reinforce these kinds of inverted, self flagellating concepts among those seeking to escape the 'lies' of the Western Media, while the Russian military actively supports their client Dictator in Syria, destroying infrastructure that will require prolonged and extensive participation of Russia's State owned corporations to rebuild,
That many young people in the West are deeply suspicious of State owned media like the BBC, but deeply aligned with the terminology and perspectives offered by foreign State owned media like Iran's Press TV or RT, seems on it's surface very un-anglocentric, but it should be noted that neither of these outlets depart from English language presentations, nor the general format or subject matter of well established Anglo-American media outlets. They seem to operate in order to undermine the West in as most subtle a way as possible, and of course by basing all of their positions in opposition to the 'West', the negative anglocentric view within various political subgroups finds an echo of it's sentiment, and an ally in their productions.
The evidence is, that among those who use the term Imperialism as a slur, the word has lost more or less all value, and instead expresses, on one hand a code for them & those who would deceive them, used to refer to Western Foreign policy, no matter how un-Imperialistic, and on the other the delusion of anti-Imperialist's who watch Russia and ISIS conducting their respective operations, yet struggle to find the adequate word to describe what it is they are engaged in; namely the construction, or reconstruction of former Empires.
______
1. This term "the West" when used in the West, tends to refer exclusively to the US and UK, rather than Mexico, Canada, Spain, Latvia, Italy or the whole of Europe, unlike the General term mid-East or Far-East.
Wednesday, 6 July 2016
Monday, 4 July 2016
A response to Jess Phillips...
It's clear now is not a great time to be a politician, particularly a Labour Politician, so I sympathize with Jess Phillip's current anxieties when attending to her role in public service, but surely she must recognize that now is also not a great time to be Labour member, despite her lack of sympathy for the many thousands of labour members who voted for Jeremy Corbyn to lead the party 10months ago?
Making good use of her public profile by writing a further explanation for the Huffington Post, as to why she decided to quit Jeremy Corbyn's shadow cabinet, Ms Phillips begins in surprisingly confrontational fashion (for somebody complaining about her anxieties over confrontation), ridiculing the object of her ire, and dismissing the general discontent I assume has been directed at her over the past week or two, as coming from; "people who, I can only assume, think that the moon landing was a hoax and that Lord Lucan is currently sunning himself in a mankini sat with Anastasia and Rasputin on at a hedonism resort in Jamaica...."
When arguing or attempting to defend a position, misrepresenting all criticism is a common tactic employed by a party who knows they are on weak ground, in-fact the range of public resignations by Labour Mp's who've quit the shadow cabinet in the last week, demonstrate various attempts to avoid giving any substantial or honest explanation for their actions, from playing for sympathy, to the argument from authority, to the argument ad populum. I doubt the majority of criticisms or critical questions received by Ms Phillips represent a fringe paranoiac mentality as she asserts,but this is what she chooses to focus on when defending her position and perhaps justify her own sense of persecution, and paranoia.
Incase this portrayal of her 'detractors' as paranoiac loons is not enough of an explanation, Ms Phillip's adds rather patronizingly; "It is so easy to think about this whole episode in the Labour Party as binary, where one side is good, another bad." , but is this not a complete misrepresentation of an actual concrete division within the Labour Party? I.e that between radical socialist innovators and radical liberal conformists, or Blairites and assorted Leftists behind Corbyn? And does she not to some extent attempt to institute such a dualistic view as those who have exercised their freedom of speech to her?
I think people can deal with things in a good or bad way, generally the way the PLP have responded to the left turn of the wider party is bad, the way they have dealt with the democratic election of Jeremy Corbyn less than a year ago is appalling, they've essentially broken a Labour leadership which for the first time in decades was seen as being "in touch with people" in this country.
She goes on to say about fighting for the NHS and securing funding for refuges; "you have no chance of achieving those things because the vehicle you are using to do it is faulty."
If this is so, it really begs the question as to whether Jeremy Corbyn has been able to drastically alter the operation of "the vehicle", while maintaining his public schedule over the past 10 months, or whether the vehicle she refers to is not the Labour party but the Parliamentary system itself, overseen by the type of liberal conformist, establishment MP's who currently make up the majority of the Labour back benches and participants in this rebellion.
The kind of people who lost Scotland to the SNP, oversaw the European project and Global banking industry in the decade prior to the last big crash, were wrong about European Union, and who failed in the period of New Labour to institute an attitude of civic pride that would have made defending the institutions currently under attack a lot easier.
If these "rebel's" from conformity insist upon establishing Jeremy Corbyn's unelectability as fact through repetition, at some point they are going to have to explain why it is so, perhaps Jess's "parliamentary democracy is broken" is the closest explanation as to his unelectability we've had yet. If only she had similar concerns about the ideologically charged media outlets that permeate and underpin public discourse, contributing to his unelectability, perhaps she wouldn't be seen as a mediocre, conformist irrelevance, and her resignation would be taken as more than what was expected of just another butthurt, self indulgent liberal.
Making good use of her public profile by writing a further explanation for the Huffington Post, as to why she decided to quit Jeremy Corbyn's shadow cabinet, Ms Phillips begins in surprisingly confrontational fashion (for somebody complaining about her anxieties over confrontation), ridiculing the object of her ire, and dismissing the general discontent I assume has been directed at her over the past week or two, as coming from; "people who, I can only assume, think that the moon landing was a hoax and that Lord Lucan is currently sunning himself in a mankini sat with Anastasia and Rasputin on at a hedonism resort in Jamaica...."
When arguing or attempting to defend a position, misrepresenting all criticism is a common tactic employed by a party who knows they are on weak ground, in-fact the range of public resignations by Labour Mp's who've quit the shadow cabinet in the last week, demonstrate various attempts to avoid giving any substantial or honest explanation for their actions, from playing for sympathy, to the argument from authority, to the argument ad populum. I doubt the majority of criticisms or critical questions received by Ms Phillips represent a fringe paranoiac mentality as she asserts,but this is what she chooses to focus on when defending her position and perhaps justify her own sense of persecution, and paranoia.
Incase this portrayal of her 'detractors' as paranoiac loons is not enough of an explanation, Ms Phillip's adds rather patronizingly; "It is so easy to think about this whole episode in the Labour Party as binary, where one side is good, another bad." , but is this not a complete misrepresentation of an actual concrete division within the Labour Party? I.e that between radical socialist innovators and radical liberal conformists, or Blairites and assorted Leftists behind Corbyn? And does she not to some extent attempt to institute such a dualistic view as those who have exercised their freedom of speech to her?
I think people can deal with things in a good or bad way, generally the way the PLP have responded to the left turn of the wider party is bad, the way they have dealt with the democratic election of Jeremy Corbyn less than a year ago is appalling, they've essentially broken a Labour leadership which for the first time in decades was seen as being "in touch with people" in this country.
She goes on to say about fighting for the NHS and securing funding for refuges; "you have no chance of achieving those things because the vehicle you are using to do it is faulty."
If this is so, it really begs the question as to whether Jeremy Corbyn has been able to drastically alter the operation of "the vehicle", while maintaining his public schedule over the past 10 months, or whether the vehicle she refers to is not the Labour party but the Parliamentary system itself, overseen by the type of liberal conformist, establishment MP's who currently make up the majority of the Labour back benches and participants in this rebellion.
The kind of people who lost Scotland to the SNP, oversaw the European project and Global banking industry in the decade prior to the last big crash, were wrong about European Union, and who failed in the period of New Labour to institute an attitude of civic pride that would have made defending the institutions currently under attack a lot easier.
If these "rebel's" from conformity insist upon establishing Jeremy Corbyn's unelectability as fact through repetition, at some point they are going to have to explain why it is so, perhaps Jess's "parliamentary democracy is broken" is the closest explanation as to his unelectability we've had yet. If only she had similar concerns about the ideologically charged media outlets that permeate and underpin public discourse, contributing to his unelectability, perhaps she wouldn't be seen as a mediocre, conformist irrelevance, and her resignation would be taken as more than what was expected of just another butthurt, self indulgent liberal.
Saturday, 2 April 2016
The mainstream media's pseudo-concern about anti-Semitism...
During the Labour leadership election, it became pretty apparent early on, that the accusation of anti-Semitism would feature heavily in the Right Wing's defense of austerity were Jeremy Corbyn ever elected to lead the party. Many people like me who campaigned for Liz Kendall, could see his links, no matter how spurious, to various anti-Semitic campaigners against the State of Israel, or Stop the War Coalition -which takes an obviously biased and paternalistic position on the question of Palestine- would make Corbyn, "the Left" and therefore the Labour Party an extremely easy target and worrisome distraction, for the ideologically conservative media establishment to use as the predictable effects of austerity and inevitable popular dissatisfaction, began to translate into Labour support.
We knew old Tory mouthpieces like the Spectator, Mail and Telegraph, the likes of Rod Liddle and massive media conglomerates like Sky News would make much political capital out of this specific issue, spreading fear amongst the electorate about Jeremy Corbyn's various meetings with people who's melanin content seems 'suspisciously un-British', but I personally did not believe that certain individuals on the Left would be so happy to make it this easy for them, to help their enemies change the focus of public debate away from Corbyn's valid and valuable criticism's of austerity, towards incessant accusations of anti-Semitism and his apparent sympathy for openly terrorist organizations like Hamas or Hezbollah.
The BBC must have been rubbing their hands with glee when such a clearly unhinged 'spokesman' for 'Socialism' as Gerry Ruddy, agreed to answer charges of anti-Semitism on national TV. The Conservative party have a get out of jail free card to play at any point they fear Corbyn's humane message may be gaining traction, and a large number of opportunistic, self-promoters to draw upon who are willing to say any old bollocks to get their fifteen minutes of fame. Educational standards being what they are in the UK, it should come as no surprise to find a few glaring examples of idiocy among any gathering of a considerable size.
It's no coincidence these 'revelations' come hot on the heels of a number of recent polls, showing a surge in Labour's popularity after numerous favourable media appearances by Corbyn and Mcdonnell. Almost a year in, the suggestible morons who voted for them are waking up to the horrors they helped unleash, as the Conservative party's mask of concern for the state of the Nation begins to slip, and they start to concentrate on the important business of ripping each other to shreds over the UK's membership of the EU. It's unsurprising that the source of these attacks is, among others, tweed suited attack dog of the Conservative Party & wider Right Wing; Paul Staines.
It may be good for Labour to get these accusations out of the way early, though I doubt this will dissuade sections of the establishment from making use of them incessantly, for eternity, but in my view as somebody who has studied anti-Semitism in many forms and engaged with many of it's most rabid proponents, it's actually hindering a genuine and honest undertaking to recognize the mentality which gives rise to it and other forms of racism, while ignoring the problematic fact that it's been a staple of British 'intellectual' life, particularly amongst conservatives, since long before George Orwell wrote about the problem in 1945.
Another source of recent attempts to tarnish popular Left Wing resistance to Conservative austerity, is columnist for the Spectator, author, and Blairite opinion monger Nick Cohen, the poor man's Christopher Hitchens. Cohen's favourite personal axe to grind comes down on anyone identifying themselves politically, as to his Left. Granted he has been rightly attacking the anti-Semitic tendency intermittently for decades, but only in so far as it can be used as evidence to justify his personal position, whether on the invasion of Iraq or in opposition to Leftist students, organizations, critics of Israel, politics and politicians, in short anyone who he, as a pro-Israel; anti-Left centrist, disagrees with.
I actually agree with much of what Nick writes and has written in the past, although I think he's perhaps slightly more morally biased and conformist than he is nuanced. I'm not sure he's ever written a bad word about Israel, or the extreme Nationalist and religious elements within Israel's settler movement, who currently hold the ear of the Nations Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The absence of a Hitchensesque, nuanced criticism of everything currently existing there, has contributed to a polarization between two fairly superficial, emotionally charged sides the pro-Israel and pro-Palestine dialectic, both ignoring the validity of the other sides claims and reinforcing the belief that this ongoing conflict is un-resolvable until one side or the other has been annihilated.
Neither side really seeks truth in the historical records, or analytical, balanced journalism, as much as they seek confirmation in the emotionally charged propaganda and validatory opinions of either side.
Furthermore, in his 'Panglossian' defense of Liberal Democracies you will not hear Mr Cohen criticize the various forms of structural violence inherent to their existence, while he decries various symptoms he defines as anti-Americanism, anti-Semitic, "pro-Fascist Left". Consider the death of numerous disability benefits claimants forced into work assessment programs, or wrongly found fit to work then sanctioned for being unable to attend interviews; the dramatic increase in homelessness since many of the safety nets put in place under New Labour were removed; the encouragement of competition between workers, competition in schools and the National health service, competition between owners, bosses, political factions and countries.
Doesn’t a boss hope for their own benefit to see their competitors die? And don’t all businessmen reciprocally hope to be the only ones to enjoy the advantages that their occupations bring? In order to obtain employment, doesn’t the unemployed worker hope that, for some reason or another, someone who does have a job will be thrown out of his workplace? Those enacting these extremist reforms don't have to walk over the homeless people their policies create, they've never had to live on or below the breadline, nor do they have to live in a resource rich, infrastructure poor country, ravaged by warfare, corruption, industrial pollution and the rape of multinational corporations.
Nor does Mr Cohen seem any longer to want to write about the Iraq War, apparently deserting the Women, ethnic minorities or Christians, he so passionately argued we needed to 'save' through intervention, who arguably suffer there now far more than they did. This is a cause he passionately supported, writing about it's opponents in terms like: "how did the left come to defend fascist regimes". Maybe he knows if there are any Christians left in 'the best of all possible' Iraq's?
That Mr Cohen's writings about anti-Semitism are limited by the position of comfortable alienation that confines his attention to whatever he encounters at trendy dinner parties, on a screen, hears about in print or more accurately wants to hear about [2], is not a personal flaw of his exclusively but part of a wider process affecting more or less everybody in his position.
These various liberal media outlets and their teams of salaried writers, needing to turn a profit while in competition with various free and self produced forms of expression and analysis, are forced by the prevalence of competition to pander to popularity and safe markets or go out of business. The trend of 24hr rolling News is toward superficiality, with the need to cover everything 'Journalists' are not doing journalism, they are merely offering safe opinions which echo the perceived sensibilities and tastes of the potential audiences beneath them, on subjects we are already aware of. In their comfortable separateness from all they write about they can only formulate retrospective explanations and justifications for what has already happened, they can only colour and interpret events everybody is already aware of.
The internet is rendering such hierarchically alienated explanations of events irrelevant, through numerous expositions of lived experience, which sadly in a class ridden society such as the UK include a great deal of paranoia and speculation about powerful and wealthy hidden forces pulling the strings of finance, government and the media.
Of course these individuals and media outlets are right to be worried about anti-Semitism, but misrepresenting the reality of it's existence as confined to one political party or ideology to advance their own political ends, is fueling the cynicism which leads to such ideologies accepting anti-Semitism as a means of explaining their failures, shortcomings or persecution. One might even go so far as to say that the current mainstream discourse, though not unwarranted, by it's limited scope and the elitist, metropolitan political and socio-economic sphere that it comes from, actually serves to reinforce such, already widespread, paranoid fantasies as: "Jews have too much power in the media".
[1]
Didn't the Scottish pro-independence debate consist of doing exactly what the mainstream Political and Media discourse prohibited? The fact of the whole British media and mainstream political parties supporting the in campaign, on account of their perceived past, and ongoing 'transgressions'; their pro-English; pro-conservative biases; corporate favouritism, etc., was one of the foremost motivations many Scots needed to vote for Independence.
Ignoring the rational causes of this irrational conspiracy theory, using the mainstream media to attack and suppress anyone who's theories conflate Israeli policy with the ambiguous term Zionism, or who are critical of Zionist history in regards to Palestine, may have unintended negative consequences, in the same way that David Irving's books never suffered from negative publicity or official censorship.
In the way the current media discourse treats the problem as inherent to, or exclusive to "The Left", I wonder whether they actually are worried about anti-Semitism at all, or are merely feigning interest in the subject while it's easy for them to look up 'twitter leftists' and catch an example or two they can attribute to the critics of austerity & associate with Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party.
The most recent research I can find on the subject [1] implies that there are merely marginal differences between Labour and the Conservatives, unsurprisingly Paul Staines isn't bothered that the Libertarian and Xenophobic Right Wing party UKIP attracted more anti-Semitic voters than the rest. The fact more Conservative voters than Labour answered in agreement with anti-Semitic statements, implies this problem is more common to the political "Right" as we would expect, but where is the media outcry about this? Where is the balance in the media discourse which itself seems to be promoting an anti-Jeremy Corbyn agenda?
Furthermore where is labour journalism in the mainstream media discourse? Why don't we hear about international industrial relations, ongoing disputes over working conditions? Where are the pro-working class voices talking about working class issues? Only by providing the evidence of who is running these tax avoiding multi-national corporations, and what countries they use to avoid taxation; that exploitation is a matter of class and not nationality or ethnic heritage, will you be able to dispel the myth of 'Zionist' over-representation at the highest levels of Capitalism. Only when the actual reasons for national dis-unity, social antagonisms, ever expanding financial inequality and the dominance of capital are sought, will the causes of anti-Semitism be excavated, enabling us to transcend this paranoid and ignorant state.
Until such insightful and worthwhile journalism exists in the MSM discourse, the void will be filled by various online peddlers of the oldest lies in the Western Hemisphere, and people will be drawn to them by their opposition to a worthless, 'co-opted' liberal intelligentsia that treats the lower classes with scorn.
____
[1] Survey report.pdf by Campaign Against anti-Semitism
[2] Anything negative about Jeremy Corbyn, leftist students, trotskyists or whatever Islamic group or pro-Palestine faction has offended the sensibilities of the chattering classes this week.
We knew old Tory mouthpieces like the Spectator, Mail and Telegraph, the likes of Rod Liddle and massive media conglomerates like Sky News would make much political capital out of this specific issue, spreading fear amongst the electorate about Jeremy Corbyn's various meetings with people who's melanin content seems 'suspisciously un-British', but I personally did not believe that certain individuals on the Left would be so happy to make it this easy for them, to help their enemies change the focus of public debate away from Corbyn's valid and valuable criticism's of austerity, towards incessant accusations of anti-Semitism and his apparent sympathy for openly terrorist organizations like Hamas or Hezbollah.
The BBC must have been rubbing their hands with glee when such a clearly unhinged 'spokesman' for 'Socialism' as Gerry Ruddy, agreed to answer charges of anti-Semitism on national TV. The Conservative party have a get out of jail free card to play at any point they fear Corbyn's humane message may be gaining traction, and a large number of opportunistic, self-promoters to draw upon who are willing to say any old bollocks to get their fifteen minutes of fame. Educational standards being what they are in the UK, it should come as no surprise to find a few glaring examples of idiocy among any gathering of a considerable size.
It's no coincidence these 'revelations' come hot on the heels of a number of recent polls, showing a surge in Labour's popularity after numerous favourable media appearances by Corbyn and Mcdonnell. Almost a year in, the suggestible morons who voted for them are waking up to the horrors they helped unleash, as the Conservative party's mask of concern for the state of the Nation begins to slip, and they start to concentrate on the important business of ripping each other to shreds over the UK's membership of the EU. It's unsurprising that the source of these attacks is, among others, tweed suited attack dog of the Conservative Party & wider Right Wing; Paul Staines.
It may be good for Labour to get these accusations out of the way early, though I doubt this will dissuade sections of the establishment from making use of them incessantly, for eternity, but in my view as somebody who has studied anti-Semitism in many forms and engaged with many of it's most rabid proponents, it's actually hindering a genuine and honest undertaking to recognize the mentality which gives rise to it and other forms of racism, while ignoring the problematic fact that it's been a staple of British 'intellectual' life, particularly amongst conservatives, since long before George Orwell wrote about the problem in 1945.
Another source of recent attempts to tarnish popular Left Wing resistance to Conservative austerity, is columnist for the Spectator, author, and Blairite opinion monger Nick Cohen, the poor man's Christopher Hitchens. Cohen's favourite personal axe to grind comes down on anyone identifying themselves politically, as to his Left. Granted he has been rightly attacking the anti-Semitic tendency intermittently for decades, but only in so far as it can be used as evidence to justify his personal position, whether on the invasion of Iraq or in opposition to Leftist students, organizations, critics of Israel, politics and politicians, in short anyone who he, as a pro-Israel; anti-Left centrist, disagrees with.
I actually agree with much of what Nick writes and has written in the past, although I think he's perhaps slightly more morally biased and conformist than he is nuanced. I'm not sure he's ever written a bad word about Israel, or the extreme Nationalist and religious elements within Israel's settler movement, who currently hold the ear of the Nations Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The absence of a Hitchensesque, nuanced criticism of everything currently existing there, has contributed to a polarization between two fairly superficial, emotionally charged sides the pro-Israel and pro-Palestine dialectic, both ignoring the validity of the other sides claims and reinforcing the belief that this ongoing conflict is un-resolvable until one side or the other has been annihilated.
Neither side really seeks truth in the historical records, or analytical, balanced journalism, as much as they seek confirmation in the emotionally charged propaganda and validatory opinions of either side.
Furthermore, in his 'Panglossian' defense of Liberal Democracies you will not hear Mr Cohen criticize the various forms of structural violence inherent to their existence, while he decries various symptoms he defines as anti-Americanism, anti-Semitic, "pro-Fascist Left". Consider the death of numerous disability benefits claimants forced into work assessment programs, or wrongly found fit to work then sanctioned for being unable to attend interviews; the dramatic increase in homelessness since many of the safety nets put in place under New Labour were removed; the encouragement of competition between workers, competition in schools and the National health service, competition between owners, bosses, political factions and countries.
Doesn’t a boss hope for their own benefit to see their competitors die? And don’t all businessmen reciprocally hope to be the only ones to enjoy the advantages that their occupations bring? In order to obtain employment, doesn’t the unemployed worker hope that, for some reason or another, someone who does have a job will be thrown out of his workplace? Those enacting these extremist reforms don't have to walk over the homeless people their policies create, they've never had to live on or below the breadline, nor do they have to live in a resource rich, infrastructure poor country, ravaged by warfare, corruption, industrial pollution and the rape of multinational corporations.
Nor does Mr Cohen seem any longer to want to write about the Iraq War, apparently deserting the Women, ethnic minorities or Christians, he so passionately argued we needed to 'save' through intervention, who arguably suffer there now far more than they did. This is a cause he passionately supported, writing about it's opponents in terms like: "how did the left come to defend fascist regimes". Maybe he knows if there are any Christians left in 'the best of all possible' Iraq's?
That Mr Cohen's writings about anti-Semitism are limited by the position of comfortable alienation that confines his attention to whatever he encounters at trendy dinner parties, on a screen, hears about in print or more accurately wants to hear about [2], is not a personal flaw of his exclusively but part of a wider process affecting more or less everybody in his position.
These various liberal media outlets and their teams of salaried writers, needing to turn a profit while in competition with various free and self produced forms of expression and analysis, are forced by the prevalence of competition to pander to popularity and safe markets or go out of business. The trend of 24hr rolling News is toward superficiality, with the need to cover everything 'Journalists' are not doing journalism, they are merely offering safe opinions which echo the perceived sensibilities and tastes of the potential audiences beneath them, on subjects we are already aware of. In their comfortable separateness from all they write about they can only formulate retrospective explanations and justifications for what has already happened, they can only colour and interpret events everybody is already aware of.
The internet is rendering such hierarchically alienated explanations of events irrelevant, through numerous expositions of lived experience, which sadly in a class ridden society such as the UK include a great deal of paranoia and speculation about powerful and wealthy hidden forces pulling the strings of finance, government and the media.
Of course these individuals and media outlets are right to be worried about anti-Semitism, but misrepresenting the reality of it's existence as confined to one political party or ideology to advance their own political ends, is fueling the cynicism which leads to such ideologies accepting anti-Semitism as a means of explaining their failures, shortcomings or persecution. One might even go so far as to say that the current mainstream discourse, though not unwarranted, by it's limited scope and the elitist, metropolitan political and socio-economic sphere that it comes from, actually serves to reinforce such, already widespread, paranoid fantasies as: "Jews have too much power in the media".
[1]
Ignoring the rational causes of this irrational conspiracy theory, using the mainstream media to attack and suppress anyone who's theories conflate Israeli policy with the ambiguous term Zionism, or who are critical of Zionist history in regards to Palestine, may have unintended negative consequences, in the same way that David Irving's books never suffered from negative publicity or official censorship.
In the way the current media discourse treats the problem as inherent to, or exclusive to "The Left", I wonder whether they actually are worried about anti-Semitism at all, or are merely feigning interest in the subject while it's easy for them to look up 'twitter leftists' and catch an example or two they can attribute to the critics of austerity & associate with Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party.
The most recent research I can find on the subject [1] implies that there are merely marginal differences between Labour and the Conservatives, unsurprisingly Paul Staines isn't bothered that the Libertarian and Xenophobic Right Wing party UKIP attracted more anti-Semitic voters than the rest. The fact more Conservative voters than Labour answered in agreement with anti-Semitic statements, implies this problem is more common to the political "Right" as we would expect, but where is the media outcry about this? Where is the balance in the media discourse which itself seems to be promoting an anti-Jeremy Corbyn agenda?
Furthermore where is labour journalism in the mainstream media discourse? Why don't we hear about international industrial relations, ongoing disputes over working conditions? Where are the pro-working class voices talking about working class issues? Only by providing the evidence of who is running these tax avoiding multi-national corporations, and what countries they use to avoid taxation; that exploitation is a matter of class and not nationality or ethnic heritage, will you be able to dispel the myth of 'Zionist' over-representation at the highest levels of Capitalism. Only when the actual reasons for national dis-unity, social antagonisms, ever expanding financial inequality and the dominance of capital are sought, will the causes of anti-Semitism be excavated, enabling us to transcend this paranoid and ignorant state.
Until such insightful and worthwhile journalism exists in the MSM discourse, the void will be filled by various online peddlers of the oldest lies in the Western Hemisphere, and people will be drawn to them by their opposition to a worthless, 'co-opted' liberal intelligentsia that treats the lower classes with scorn.
____
[1] Survey report.pdf by Campaign Against anti-Semitism
[2] Anything negative about Jeremy Corbyn, leftist students, trotskyists or whatever Islamic group or pro-Palestine faction has offended the sensibilities of the chattering classes this week.
Friday, 1 January 2016
On the Internet and the Real World....
The success of platforms such as 38 Degrees shows how the free association of individuals on the internet can give rise to mass participation in lobbying, petitions and tangible change in the real world, as well as igniting the enthusiasm of huge groups of people for causes and ideas frequently overlooked and ignored in mainstream discourse.
In a social order increasingly devoid of mass action, communication, shows of popular unity or political will, those looking to the internet see a means of reviving democratic ideals lost in an age of social atomization, rampant individualism and the commercial domination of public space.
However if we consider the innovative potential of millions of diverse and creative people with the means of participation at their fingertips, petitions, protest or lobbying groups begin to appear actually rather unambitious.
Global initiatives raising money for good causes through crowdfunding -ensuring those with a desire to work for the common good of humanity aren't financially restrained from doing so- are doing exactly what a Government should do, putting money and resources to use where they are most needed to alleviate hunger, poverty, ignorance and human suffering, but in a superior way which is to say directly, anyone who experiences a lack or observes a need can immediately and independently publicize it and appeal to the human instincts of potentially huge global audiences.
You will notice that real world societies do not treat such examples of lack, poverty and degradation in the same way, sure isolated acts of kindness take place, but they are few and insignificant enough to make no difference whatsoever.
Things were a little different in the past when wealthier inhabitants of regions still felt a degree of communal responsibility, enjoying the freedom, time and concentration of wealth to fund philanthropic initiatives such as Bourneville and New Lanark among other model villages. [1]
It was exposure to the new ideas of Utopian Socialism, the rational application of religious ideals, and the optimistic belief that a new world of peace and prosperity could infact be obtained in this life which served as a catalyst for the great social reformers of the 19th and early 20th century. All information available to us today but apparently shrouded and incomprehensible to the passive voyeurs of the information age.
Today those with a desire to cooperate to improve humanities collective lot are still in a minority, a situation requiring a cultural shift that the Internet as it is increasingly colonized by the brutish banalities of the real world and vapid consumerist culture, becomes less and less able to effect, and which politics and the media appear never to have been able to.
Representing the people as helpless beneath the heel of speculators, profiteers and as slaves to their own self interests, the public's only established means of securing the general interests of all; the Government in their myopia and pandering sycophancy to financial interests, seem more and more to serve only as an obstacle to people responding to and improving the general conditions of their society.
By refusing to alleviate social and individual alienation and the sale of one's labour as a commodity, encouraging dependence on money rather than facilitating freedom from it; the Goverment in allowing the general population to be treated as a prize dairy cow and milked for all they're worth, is complicit in diverting human ingenuity and industry away from the immediate problems which demand our attention, towards the dead end of self absorption, conformity and self obsession that is destroying one of our last free spaces.
Rather than co-opting and exploiting the Internet for their own ends; politics, media and the real world more generally should learn from the horizontal nature of large social media networks, digital public platforms, independent blogs and obviously the internet more generally, by considering the freedom, diversity, creative & democratic potential inherent to them but sorely lacking in the real world.
More or less everybody now has access to the information, software, hardware and means of producing and publishing, even marketing whatever they like, whether artistic, musical, nonsensical, intellectual or materially useful, everybody has the ability to reach the kind of large audiences formerly reserved for television and print media outlets and those able to procure it's use.
Of course this has not gone unnoticed by the media and political establishment, not content with telling us what to think, care about, do, buy and support all day everyday in the real world; exactly where all our problems reside and stem from-- the agents of mainstream mediocrity have ventured forth with their university diplomas, media careers and dedicated followings to colonize, homogenize and reproduce the real world's flaws in our newest public space; the digital commons, using their mundane doctrines in order to distract us all from the project of self realization, autonomous actions, unrestrained artistic creation and borderless, unmediated communication.
In fact it can be worse, now causes utterly disdained in the real world, by the magic of film making, PR and exclusively favourable self promotion; through the freedom of the internet can grow into large potential fifth column's existing subterraneously in modern Democratic societies.
Anti-Semitic, conspiracy theorists, neo-fascism, neo-nazi, white supremacist, terroristic, misogynist and backwards groups of all kinds, use their particular representations of the real world to enthrall and captivate audiences who are primed for passive consumption online.
______
[1]
In 1893, George Cadbury bought 120 acres (0.5 km²) of land and planned, at his own expense, a model village which would 'alleviate the evils of modern, more cramped living conditions'. The Cadburys began to develop their factory in the new suburb. Loyal and hard-working workers were treated with great respect and relatively high wages and good working conditions; Cadbury also pioneered pension schemes, joint works committees and a full staff medical service.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bournville
New Lanark, with its social and welfare programmes, epitomised Robert Owen's utopian socialist principles. In Owen's time some 2,500 people lived at New Lanark, many from the poorhouses of Glasgow and Edinburgh. Although not the grimmest of mills by far, Owen found the conditions unsatisfactory and resolved to improve the workers' lot. He paid particular attention to the needs of the 500 or so children living in the village and working at the mills, and opened the first infants' school in Britain in 1817, although the previous year he had completed the Institute for the Formation of Character. The mills thrived commercially, but Owen's partners were unhappy at the extra expense incurred by his welfare programmes. Unwilling to allow the mills to revert to the old ways of operating, Owen bought out his partners. In 1813 the Board forced an auction, hoping to obtain the town and mills at a low price but Owen and a new board (including the economist Jeremy Bentham) that was sympathetic to his reforming ideas won out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Lanark
In a social order increasingly devoid of mass action, communication, shows of popular unity or political will, those looking to the internet see a means of reviving democratic ideals lost in an age of social atomization, rampant individualism and the commercial domination of public space.
However if we consider the innovative potential of millions of diverse and creative people with the means of participation at their fingertips, petitions, protest or lobbying groups begin to appear actually rather unambitious.
Global initiatives raising money for good causes through crowdfunding -ensuring those with a desire to work for the common good of humanity aren't financially restrained from doing so- are doing exactly what a Government should do, putting money and resources to use where they are most needed to alleviate hunger, poverty, ignorance and human suffering, but in a superior way which is to say directly, anyone who experiences a lack or observes a need can immediately and independently publicize it and appeal to the human instincts of potentially huge global audiences.
You will notice that real world societies do not treat such examples of lack, poverty and degradation in the same way, sure isolated acts of kindness take place, but they are few and insignificant enough to make no difference whatsoever.
Things were a little different in the past when wealthier inhabitants of regions still felt a degree of communal responsibility, enjoying the freedom, time and concentration of wealth to fund philanthropic initiatives such as Bourneville and New Lanark among other model villages. [1]
It was exposure to the new ideas of Utopian Socialism, the rational application of religious ideals, and the optimistic belief that a new world of peace and prosperity could infact be obtained in this life which served as a catalyst for the great social reformers of the 19th and early 20th century. All information available to us today but apparently shrouded and incomprehensible to the passive voyeurs of the information age.
Today those with a desire to cooperate to improve humanities collective lot are still in a minority, a situation requiring a cultural shift that the Internet as it is increasingly colonized by the brutish banalities of the real world and vapid consumerist culture, becomes less and less able to effect, and which politics and the media appear never to have been able to.
Representing the people as helpless beneath the heel of speculators, profiteers and as slaves to their own self interests, the public's only established means of securing the general interests of all; the Government in their myopia and pandering sycophancy to financial interests, seem more and more to serve only as an obstacle to people responding to and improving the general conditions of their society.
By refusing to alleviate social and individual alienation and the sale of one's labour as a commodity, encouraging dependence on money rather than facilitating freedom from it; the Goverment in allowing the general population to be treated as a prize dairy cow and milked for all they're worth, is complicit in diverting human ingenuity and industry away from the immediate problems which demand our attention, towards the dead end of self absorption, conformity and self obsession that is destroying one of our last free spaces.
Rather than co-opting and exploiting the Internet for their own ends; politics, media and the real world more generally should learn from the horizontal nature of large social media networks, digital public platforms, independent blogs and obviously the internet more generally, by considering the freedom, diversity, creative & democratic potential inherent to them but sorely lacking in the real world.
More or less everybody now has access to the information, software, hardware and means of producing and publishing, even marketing whatever they like, whether artistic, musical, nonsensical, intellectual or materially useful, everybody has the ability to reach the kind of large audiences formerly reserved for television and print media outlets and those able to procure it's use.
Of course this has not gone unnoticed by the media and political establishment, not content with telling us what to think, care about, do, buy and support all day everyday in the real world; exactly where all our problems reside and stem from-- the agents of mainstream mediocrity have ventured forth with their university diplomas, media careers and dedicated followings to colonize, homogenize and reproduce the real world's flaws in our newest public space; the digital commons, using their mundane doctrines in order to distract us all from the project of self realization, autonomous actions, unrestrained artistic creation and borderless, unmediated communication.
In fact it can be worse, now causes utterly disdained in the real world, by the magic of film making, PR and exclusively favourable self promotion; through the freedom of the internet can grow into large potential fifth column's existing subterraneously in modern Democratic societies.
Anti-Semitic, conspiracy theorists, neo-fascism, neo-nazi, white supremacist, terroristic, misogynist and backwards groups of all kinds, use their particular representations of the real world to enthrall and captivate audiences who are primed for passive consumption online.
______
[1]
In 1893, George Cadbury bought 120 acres (0.5 km²) of land and planned, at his own expense, a model village which would 'alleviate the evils of modern, more cramped living conditions'. The Cadburys began to develop their factory in the new suburb. Loyal and hard-working workers were treated with great respect and relatively high wages and good working conditions; Cadbury also pioneered pension schemes, joint works committees and a full staff medical service.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bournville
New Lanark, with its social and welfare programmes, epitomised Robert Owen's utopian socialist principles. In Owen's time some 2,500 people lived at New Lanark, many from the poorhouses of Glasgow and Edinburgh. Although not the grimmest of mills by far, Owen found the conditions unsatisfactory and resolved to improve the workers' lot. He paid particular attention to the needs of the 500 or so children living in the village and working at the mills, and opened the first infants' school in Britain in 1817, although the previous year he had completed the Institute for the Formation of Character. The mills thrived commercially, but Owen's partners were unhappy at the extra expense incurred by his welfare programmes. Unwilling to allow the mills to revert to the old ways of operating, Owen bought out his partners. In 1813 the Board forced an auction, hoping to obtain the town and mills at a low price but Owen and a new board (including the economist Jeremy Bentham) that was sympathetic to his reforming ideas won out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Lanark
Saturday, 5 September 2015
On Israel and Gaza...
[July 2014]
An article by moralistic left wing figurehead, media darling and increasingly suspect Owen Jones, uses news of recent events in Israel to convince his readers of the idea: rather than Israel's current ground invasion being a reaction to perpetual provocations and antagonism from Hamas militants in the Gaza strip; that Israeli "colonialism" and the "occupation of Gaza", has "corrupted the occupier", leading Israel to in his words: "dehumanize" the Palestinians, "because otherwise subjugation becomes impossible".
Whether Israel actually does "occupy" this land, formerly belonging to Egypt and annexed following the 1967 war, is a point of debate he seems to have completely overlooked in his portrayal of "the rationale" behind Israel's "occupation".
In 2005 Ariel Sharon withdrew Israeli military bases and dismantled Israeli settlements, uprooting around 10,000 settlers amongst widespread domestic opposition, the moderate government of Fatah took over administration of Gaza, but within 2 years militant Muslim Brotherhood offshoot: Hamas -an Islamist organization which teaches holocaust denial in schools; has vowed to destroy Israel & kill all Jews; trained & glorified suicide bombers; encouraged Jihad against the west; praised Adolf Hitler and likewise Osama Bin Laden- had come to power after a period of bloody conflict with rival Palestinian faction, their own government Fatah.
Hamas is no democratic political party self righteous, paternalistic middle class liberals like Owen, who march on the streets of London with their face-paint and placards would recognize, it is a militant political organization set up with one aim in mind, the destruction of the entirety of the State of Israel.
So the question must be asked why do they do it?
Well in my view it's part of an exercise in propaganda targeting the world at large, and psychological warfare against their own population, cultivating a deep and resounding hatred of Israel making recruitment of angry young Palestinian men alot easier than it might be if they didn't have a list of retaliatory Israeli attacks to mention.
You'll never hear the likes of Owen Jones or any members of the various 'Plebs for Palestine' protest groups that exist in the West ask why Palestinians use schools for storing missiles and weaponry, or hospitals and women and children as shields to launch rocket attacks on Israel, infact you'll never hear them mention a bad word against Hamas' tactics in general, they quite often suggest that under the 'illegal, apartheid occupation of Israel' any actions are justified, though they stop short of openly advocating terrorism they do not denounce it.
And this is where the propaganda takes effect, when Israel inevitably takes action bombing weapon cache's or the places where missiles are being launched from, Western observers immediately take to the media, to the internet and to the streets to condemn the 'heavy-handed response' of the Nation under attack, when hospitals, schools and civilians inevitably suffer from the actions of Hamas, pictures of the civilians caught in the crossfire, of the after effects of Hamas' policy of using human shields and storing weapons in schools are almost immediately dispatched and widely shared, and the idea of arbitrary Israeli destruction, lies and cries of 'genocide' propagated along with them.
It is by these methods that Hamas uses the deaths of it's population to gain credibility and sympathy in the International community, that Israel becomes a pariah state facing condemnation from all corners of the world, and that peace is further precluded, the ease with which people fall into dichotomies of who's right and who's wrong, good verses evil causing irreconcilable divisions.
"As the vilest Writer has his Readers, so the greatest Liar has his Believers; and it often happens, that if a Lie be believ’d only for an Hour, it has done its Work, and there is no farther occasion for it. Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it; so that when Men come to be undeceiv’d, it is too late; the Jest is over, and the Tale has had its Effect"
Johnathan Swift, The Examiner 1710
An article by moralistic left wing figurehead, media darling and increasingly suspect Owen Jones, uses news of recent events in Israel to convince his readers of the idea: rather than Israel's current ground invasion being a reaction to perpetual provocations and antagonism from Hamas militants in the Gaza strip; that Israeli "colonialism" and the "occupation of Gaza", has "corrupted the occupier", leading Israel to in his words: "dehumanize" the Palestinians, "because otherwise subjugation becomes impossible".
Whether Israel actually does "occupy" this land, formerly belonging to Egypt and annexed following the 1967 war, is a point of debate he seems to have completely overlooked in his portrayal of "the rationale" behind Israel's "occupation".
In 2005 Ariel Sharon withdrew Israeli military bases and dismantled Israeli settlements, uprooting around 10,000 settlers amongst widespread domestic opposition, the moderate government of Fatah took over administration of Gaza, but within 2 years militant Muslim Brotherhood offshoot: Hamas -an Islamist organization which teaches holocaust denial in schools; has vowed to destroy Israel & kill all Jews; trained & glorified suicide bombers; encouraged Jihad against the west; praised Adolf Hitler and likewise Osama Bin Laden- had come to power after a period of bloody conflict with rival Palestinian faction, their own government Fatah.
Hamas is no democratic political party self righteous, paternalistic middle class liberals like Owen, who march on the streets of London with their face-paint and placards would recognize, it is a militant political organization set up with one aim in mind, the destruction of the entirety of the State of Israel.
"...the Jewish faith does not wish for peace nor stability, since it is a faith that is based on murder: 'I kill, therefore I am'... Israel is based only on blood and murder in order to exist, and it will disappear, with Allah's will, through blood and Shahids [martyrs]."
Dr. Yussuf Al-Sharafi, Hamas representative, April 12, 2007; as reported by Palestinian Media Watch, April 23, 2007
"The Jews are the most despicable and contemptible nation to crawl upon the face of the Earth, because they have displayed hostility to Allah"By launching unguided rocket attacks it has hit schools, hospitals, people's houses and civilians in attempts to achieve this ridiculous aim, but even the most religiously deluded of Hamas supporters must be aware that they are not going to win a military battle against Israel, no matter how many rockets the Al Qassam Martyr's brigade fire over the border.
'Atallah Abu Al-Subh, former Hamas minister of culture, aired on Al-Aqsa TV, April 8, 2011, translation by MEMRI
So the question must be asked why do they do it?
Well in my view it's part of an exercise in propaganda targeting the world at large, and psychological warfare against their own population, cultivating a deep and resounding hatred of Israel making recruitment of angry young Palestinian men alot easier than it might be if they didn't have a list of retaliatory Israeli attacks to mention.
You'll never hear the likes of Owen Jones or any members of the various 'Plebs for Palestine' protest groups that exist in the West ask why Palestinians use schools for storing missiles and weaponry, or hospitals and women and children as shields to launch rocket attacks on Israel, infact you'll never hear them mention a bad word against Hamas' tactics in general, they quite often suggest that under the 'illegal, apartheid occupation of Israel' any actions are justified, though they stop short of openly advocating terrorism they do not denounce it.
And this is where the propaganda takes effect, when Israel inevitably takes action bombing weapon cache's or the places where missiles are being launched from, Western observers immediately take to the media, to the internet and to the streets to condemn the 'heavy-handed response' of the Nation under attack, when hospitals, schools and civilians inevitably suffer from the actions of Hamas, pictures of the civilians caught in the crossfire, of the after effects of Hamas' policy of using human shields and storing weapons in schools are almost immediately dispatched and widely shared, and the idea of arbitrary Israeli destruction, lies and cries of 'genocide' propagated along with them.
It is by these methods that Hamas uses the deaths of it's population to gain credibility and sympathy in the International community, that Israel becomes a pariah state facing condemnation from all corners of the world, and that peace is further precluded, the ease with which people fall into dichotomies of who's right and who's wrong, good verses evil causing irreconcilable divisions.
"As the vilest Writer has his Readers, so the greatest Liar has his Believers; and it often happens, that if a Lie be believ’d only for an Hour, it has done its Work, and there is no farther occasion for it. Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it; so that when Men come to be undeceiv’d, it is too late; the Jest is over, and the Tale has had its Effect"
Johnathan Swift, The Examiner 1710
Friday, 4 September 2015
On Syrian Refugees... [and the fruits of anti-interventionist idealism]
The War in Syria ongoing since Spring 2011, and consequent suffering of the Syrian people, has at last gripped the public consciousness, but it took dead babies washing up on the shores of Turkey, -as their desperate families try to flee the region- before well meaning middle class Western liberals decided 'something must be done'.
Now we see a myriad of digital petitions aswell as articles in the Independent and Guardian, demanding in their traditional, self-righteous way, that Britain must do more to ease the plight of those fleeing the region, by opening the door to the most desperate and destitute refugees among them, and more importantly writing a message on a piece of plain a4 or preferably a3 paper.
Needless to say a number of Politicians and public personalities have heeded this righteous call. Never wanting to miss a chance to improve their public image they now suggest the moral thing to do is to act! That we can't just sit idly by enjoying our privilege and freedoms while the long suffering people of the Middle East flee in droves. Which is exactly what they've been doing for years, but now they've decided it's the wrong course of action, they're gracious enough to tell everybody else what to do.
Why has it taken so long for the moral outrage and self righteous voice of the liberal middle classes to be heard on this issue, where have they been for the past four years?
Well, perhaps a little paradoxically they have actually been very vocal on the issue of Syria, particularly by opposing and attempting to block any attempts by Western Government's to intervene and assist the Syrian people while their homes were being shelled, chemical and biological bombs being dropped on them and military helicopters were strafing them through the streets of Damascus.
Why were the Syrian people subject to these attempts of annihilation at the hands of the Syrian State?
For merely daring to attempt the overthrow of the nepotist dictatorship of hereditary ruler Bashar Al-Assad's Ba'ath party, for attempting to assert their right to a say in how their country was governed.
Traditional anti-Western, middle class rabble rousers such as Robert Fisk and John Pilger, supporters of anyone who claims to oppose 'American Imperialism'; George Galloway and The SWP and new recruits like Owen Jones and the 'Stop the War' coalition were among the foremost critics of attempts by various Western Governments to help the Syrian people, while they were being shelled, shot, imprisoned and tortured. They were leant credibility (or not depending on your perspective) by the likes of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Russia State Sponsored media outlet Russia Today, whoever the Chinese bureaucrat responsible for Foreign Affairs is, and obviously the autocratic regime of Iran and their State ran Press TV, all interests with a very strong motive for discrediting and destabilizing the West while portraying it as interfering in their own sphere's of influence.
This liberal mediocracy formerly opposed to doing anything for the Syrian people because of their isolationist and idealistic 'anti-war' views, are now the same people saying something must be done, that we must act humanely, that 'we must open our arms and welcome these poor, suffering, fearful and dispossessed people', in all likelihood they'd have never been in this position if Western Governments had ignored the sentimental moralizing of their populace and acted in 2013 or sooner.
Perhaps the greatest argument against democracy in the last 10 years is being provided everyday by the populations of democratic societies, particularly those who dance to the media tune, are they still so proud of their pacifism now it's effects have come to fruition?
I think that's unlikely, they will probably just do what they always do and blame 'the West' for the plight of the refugees from Syria and other assorted war torn countries.
I wonder if this huge clamour to "help" them now that they are dispossessed, robbed of all dignity, security, independence, homeland and heritage, will go some way to assuage the guilty conscience these moralo-idealists should, but likely don't feel, over their insistence that 'the West' leave Al-Assad unhindered in his quest to entirely destroy the Syrian people?
Now we see a myriad of digital petitions aswell as articles in the Independent and Guardian, demanding in their traditional, self-righteous way, that Britain must do more to ease the plight of those fleeing the region, by opening the door to the most desperate and destitute refugees among them, and more importantly writing a message on a piece of plain a4 or preferably a3 paper.
Needless to say a number of Politicians and public personalities have heeded this righteous call. Never wanting to miss a chance to improve their public image they now suggest the moral thing to do is to act! That we can't just sit idly by enjoying our privilege and freedoms while the long suffering people of the Middle East flee in droves. Which is exactly what they've been doing for years, but now they've decided it's the wrong course of action, they're gracious enough to tell everybody else what to do.
Why has it taken so long for the moral outrage and self righteous voice of the liberal middle classes to be heard on this issue, where have they been for the past four years?
Well, perhaps a little paradoxically they have actually been very vocal on the issue of Syria, particularly by opposing and attempting to block any attempts by Western Government's to intervene and assist the Syrian people while their homes were being shelled, chemical and biological bombs being dropped on them and military helicopters were strafing them through the streets of Damascus.
Why were the Syrian people subject to these attempts of annihilation at the hands of the Syrian State?
For merely daring to attempt the overthrow of the nepotist dictatorship of hereditary ruler Bashar Al-Assad's Ba'ath party, for attempting to assert their right to a say in how their country was governed.
Traditional anti-Western, middle class rabble rousers such as Robert Fisk and John Pilger, supporters of anyone who claims to oppose 'American Imperialism'; George Galloway and The SWP and new recruits like Owen Jones and the 'Stop the War' coalition were among the foremost critics of attempts by various Western Governments to help the Syrian people, while they were being shelled, shot, imprisoned and tortured. They were leant credibility (or not depending on your perspective) by the likes of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Russia State Sponsored media outlet Russia Today, whoever the Chinese bureaucrat responsible for Foreign Affairs is, and obviously the autocratic regime of Iran and their State ran Press TV, all interests with a very strong motive for discrediting and destabilizing the West while portraying it as interfering in their own sphere's of influence.This liberal mediocracy formerly opposed to doing anything for the Syrian people because of their isolationist and idealistic 'anti-war' views, are now the same people saying something must be done, that we must act humanely, that 'we must open our arms and welcome these poor, suffering, fearful and dispossessed people', in all likelihood they'd have never been in this position if Western Governments had ignored the sentimental moralizing of their populace and acted in 2013 or sooner.
Perhaps the greatest argument against democracy in the last 10 years is being provided everyday by the populations of democratic societies, particularly those who dance to the media tune, are they still so proud of their pacifism now it's effects have come to fruition?
I think that's unlikely, they will probably just do what they always do and blame 'the West' for the plight of the refugees from Syria and other assorted war torn countries.
I wonder if this huge clamour to "help" them now that they are dispossessed, robbed of all dignity, security, independence, homeland and heritage, will go some way to assuage the guilty conscience these moralo-idealists should, but likely don't feel, over their insistence that 'the West' leave Al-Assad unhindered in his quest to entirely destroy the Syrian people?
Monday, 16 March 2015
Archaic Ritual of Royal Ascension
Despite humanity now having apparently entered the 21st
century, within the next few years what we’re told is a civilized
country, namely the United Kingdom is likely to be confronted by, the
extremely rare spectacle of archaic ritual, traditionally accompanying
the accession and anointing of a Nations new divinely ordained Ruler.
Prince Charles is currently preparing to replace Queen Elizabeth II, and assume his hereditary privilege as the United Kingdom’s Head of State, “Defender of Faith” & “King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and other commonwealth realms”, a mouthful I know, but the British people have been taught to swallow it from a very early age.
Surely this has no significance to our lives today?
We’ve all heard the news: “Britain has progressed from the good old days, now our monarchy is merely symbolic!”.
In fact, far from politicians holding exclusive authority over the state, beyond even the hereditary peers; our lords temporal and spiritual, the British monarch represents the “Alpha and Omega” of the British Parliamentary process.
Without the “State Opening of Parliament” conducted by the monarch, (or agents empowered by her acting in her absence) and without her personal approval closing each individual bill from Parliament, no legislation can be passed. This means the “useless monarch” is actually a political bottleneck through which political decisions are achieved.
If the people were to petition for the dissolution of the monarchy, and it went through the two houses of Parliament, the monarch themselves would have to approve it: figuratively chopping off their own head. Thus it appears we are lumbered with this institutionalized relic for the foreseeable future.
On top of this, the British monarch theoretically has the power to:
Considering the institution of monarchy in the UK retains these
abilities (far in excess of any politician or President of the USA), to
fundamentally rearrange the legal, economic or political landscape and
could, through basic coordination of their resources, “re-balance the
pendulum” in favour of their own personal aristocratic dictatorship, why
are the public, activists, politicians and writers so quiet about the
prospects for their new King’s rule, where is the scrutiny regarding the
process of his ascension?
What do we actually know about our Royal overlords?
Some examples of the kind of causes Prince Charles is passionate about, betray the sort of primitive outlook one might expect to find in somebody whose position in life, is determined by virtue of their genetic link to various self-proclaimed “noble” German bloodlines.
Unsurprisingly, he is a vocal critic of the materialist, scientific worldview, publicly condemning industrialization and the material development of civilisation on numerous occasions in many countries. He advocates departing from technological progress and returning to a more fearful religious servility, to neutralize the potentially destructive nature of “the herd”. This is an attitude the West gladly relinquished in large part centuries ago, but which is still firmly enforced in the Islamic traditions this future King speaks a little too admiringly of.
In a speech at Wilton Park forum for global change on December 13th, 1996, Prince Charles laid out his objections towards the materialist world view, presenting a mischaracterized approximation of it in contrast to a positively enhanced and glowing appraisal of traditional Islamic customs and culture:
"I feel that we in the West could be helped to rediscover the roots of our own understanding by an appreciation of the Islamic tradition’s deep respect for the timeless traditions of the natural order…. Modern materialism is unbalanced and increasingly damaging in its long-term consequences. Yet nearly all the great religions of the world have held an integral view of the sanctity of the world. … I have always felt that tradition is not a man-made element in our lives, but a God-given intuition of natural rhythms."
When not recuperating the proceeds derived from his immense 208.9 square miles of landholdings in the “duchy of Cornwall”, which in it’s 2012 financial statements stated that it is; “not subject to corporation tax as it is not a separate legal entity for tax purposes”1, the heir apparent enjoys a jet-set lifestyle visiting some of the most brutal dictatorships in the world. During his recent visit to Saudi Arabia he even managed to contribute towards BAE System’s latest multi billion weapons deal, so clearly his opposition of technology is highly selective.
These contacts have given him a great insight to the standards of living enjoyed by his counterparts in the Middle East, showing him through direct experience, the quality of life and superiority they derive from the state imposition of religious dogma, and how the laws of an outdated medieval society, in which its forced practice creates the atrophied and superstitious environment imperative for the flourishing of a hereditary monarch.
The patriarchal “holy” doctrines of all mystified religious systems are the refuge centuries of repressive hierarchies thrive upon. It is these doctrines themselves which have taught man violence, persecution, cruelty and murder while claiming to cure him of his original sin.
In 1993, well before the US embassy bombings in Nairobi, for which Islamist militants under Osama Bin Laden claimed direct responsibility, and prior to the devastating attacks launched by Islamist militants against the United States of America in 2001, Prince Charles gave a speech to the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, in which he stated amongst many other outdated, doctrinaire opinions:
"many people in the Islamic world genuinely fear our own Western materialism and mass culture as a deadly challenge to their Islamic culture and way of life. Some of us may think the material trappings of Western society which we have exported to the Islamic world – television, fast-food, and the electronic gadgets of our everyday lifes – are a modernising, self-evidently good, influence. But we fall into the trap of dreadful arrogance if we confuse ‘modernity’ in other countries with their becoming more like us…..Among the many religious, social and political causes of what we might more accurately call the Islamic revival is a powerful feeling of disenchantment, of the realisation that Western technology and material things are insufficient, and that a deeper meaning to life lies elsewhere in the essence of Islamic belief."
Is this healthy?
Aside from his interest in religious ideology, Prince Charles retains an enthusiastic interest in “homeopathy”, the unproven pseudo-science he described to the World Health Assembly in Geneva in 2006 as being, “rooted in ancient traditions that intuitively understood the need to maintain balance and harmony with our minds, bodies and the natural world”.
Never being one to keep his opinions to himself, in 1993 the heir apparent set up a think tank and lobby group called, “the Foundation for Integrated Health” (FIH), the aims of this institution included creating awareness of complimentary therapies within medical schools, and promoting the availability of alternatives to the treatments used within the NHS.
Throughout the 00’s there were countless examples of HRH “meddling in parliament”, he met with then Health Secretary Andy Burnham to secure funding for the drive to standardize alternative therapies, also writing frequently to the MHRA prior to their adoption of a regulatory standard for “Traditional Herbal Medicine”, the result of the lobbying by the Prince’s various institutions has been a divergence from scientific reasoning in medical regulation, therefore greater freedom for snake oil salesmen to profit from people’s naivety. This includes the Prince’s own “Duchy of Cornwall,” which despite being free from corporation tax also mass produces “homeopathic remedies”.
This greater liberalization of standards in healthcare will inevitably lead to an increase in private practitioners, and new and exciting methods of extracting money from the NHS and sick people.
When the FIH closed amidst allegations of fraud in 2010, The College of Medicine emerged from the ashes, immediately attracting scrutiny from medical experts Edzard Ernst, and David Colquhoun over their promotion of potentially unsafe treatments.
In the last few years, despite his increasing responsibilities, the Prince has continued to exercise his unique influence on policy decision in Health, holding secret meetings in July 2013 with the Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, after judges ruled the public has no right to know the contents of 27 letters he had written to ministers over several years. As the “ascension” gathers pace it is likely we will see the popularity of these pseudo-treatments, and pseudo-mystical religious ideologies grow, in unison with the influence and credence granted to Prince Charles.
“O gentlemen, the time of life is short!
An if we live, we live to tread on kings”
Shakespeare, Henry IV
Prince Charles is currently preparing to replace Queen Elizabeth II, and assume his hereditary privilege as the United Kingdom’s Head of State, “Defender of Faith” & “King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and other commonwealth realms”, a mouthful I know, but the British people have been taught to swallow it from a very early age.
Surely this has no significance to our lives today?
We’ve all heard the news: “Britain has progressed from the good old days, now our monarchy is merely symbolic!”.
In fact, far from politicians holding exclusive authority over the state, beyond even the hereditary peers; our lords temporal and spiritual, the British monarch represents the “Alpha and Omega” of the British Parliamentary process.
Without the “State Opening of Parliament” conducted by the monarch, (or agents empowered by her acting in her absence) and without her personal approval closing each individual bill from Parliament, no legislation can be passed. This means the “useless monarch” is actually a political bottleneck through which political decisions are achieved.
If the people were to petition for the dissolution of the monarchy, and it went through the two houses of Parliament, the monarch themselves would have to approve it: figuratively chopping off their own head. Thus it appears we are lumbered with this institutionalized relic for the foreseeable future.
On top of this, the British monarch theoretically has the power to:
-Select the Prime Minister.
-Dismiss ministers and governments.
-Dissolve Parliament.
-Refuse to agree to legislation passed by Parliament.
-Pardon convicted criminals.
-Issue “Royal Proclamations”, ie declaration of war, or state of emergency.
-Command the army, raise a personal militia and even avoid criminal prosecution in English Courts.
-Dismiss ministers and governments.
-Dissolve Parliament.
-Refuse to agree to legislation passed by Parliament.
-Pardon convicted criminals.
-Issue “Royal Proclamations”, ie declaration of war, or state of emergency.
-Command the army, raise a personal militia and even avoid criminal prosecution in English Courts.
What do we actually know about our Royal overlords?
Some examples of the kind of causes Prince Charles is passionate about, betray the sort of primitive outlook one might expect to find in somebody whose position in life, is determined by virtue of their genetic link to various self-proclaimed “noble” German bloodlines.
Unsurprisingly, he is a vocal critic of the materialist, scientific worldview, publicly condemning industrialization and the material development of civilisation on numerous occasions in many countries. He advocates departing from technological progress and returning to a more fearful religious servility, to neutralize the potentially destructive nature of “the herd”. This is an attitude the West gladly relinquished in large part centuries ago, but which is still firmly enforced in the Islamic traditions this future King speaks a little too admiringly of.
In a speech at Wilton Park forum for global change on December 13th, 1996, Prince Charles laid out his objections towards the materialist world view, presenting a mischaracterized approximation of it in contrast to a positively enhanced and glowing appraisal of traditional Islamic customs and culture:
"I feel that we in the West could be helped to rediscover the roots of our own understanding by an appreciation of the Islamic tradition’s deep respect for the timeless traditions of the natural order…. Modern materialism is unbalanced and increasingly damaging in its long-term consequences. Yet nearly all the great religions of the world have held an integral view of the sanctity of the world. … I have always felt that tradition is not a man-made element in our lives, but a God-given intuition of natural rhythms."
When not recuperating the proceeds derived from his immense 208.9 square miles of landholdings in the “duchy of Cornwall”, which in it’s 2012 financial statements stated that it is; “not subject to corporation tax as it is not a separate legal entity for tax purposes”1, the heir apparent enjoys a jet-set lifestyle visiting some of the most brutal dictatorships in the world. During his recent visit to Saudi Arabia he even managed to contribute towards BAE System’s latest multi billion weapons deal, so clearly his opposition of technology is highly selective.
These contacts have given him a great insight to the standards of living enjoyed by his counterparts in the Middle East, showing him through direct experience, the quality of life and superiority they derive from the state imposition of religious dogma, and how the laws of an outdated medieval society, in which its forced practice creates the atrophied and superstitious environment imperative for the flourishing of a hereditary monarch.
The patriarchal “holy” doctrines of all mystified religious systems are the refuge centuries of repressive hierarchies thrive upon. It is these doctrines themselves which have taught man violence, persecution, cruelty and murder while claiming to cure him of his original sin.
In 1993, well before the US embassy bombings in Nairobi, for which Islamist militants under Osama Bin Laden claimed direct responsibility, and prior to the devastating attacks launched by Islamist militants against the United States of America in 2001, Prince Charles gave a speech to the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, in which he stated amongst many other outdated, doctrinaire opinions:
"many people in the Islamic world genuinely fear our own Western materialism and mass culture as a deadly challenge to their Islamic culture and way of life. Some of us may think the material trappings of Western society which we have exported to the Islamic world – television, fast-food, and the electronic gadgets of our everyday lifes – are a modernising, self-evidently good, influence. But we fall into the trap of dreadful arrogance if we confuse ‘modernity’ in other countries with their becoming more like us…..Among the many religious, social and political causes of what we might more accurately call the Islamic revival is a powerful feeling of disenchantment, of the realisation that Western technology and material things are insufficient, and that a deeper meaning to life lies elsewhere in the essence of Islamic belief."
Is this healthy?
Aside from his interest in religious ideology, Prince Charles retains an enthusiastic interest in “homeopathy”, the unproven pseudo-science he described to the World Health Assembly in Geneva in 2006 as being, “rooted in ancient traditions that intuitively understood the need to maintain balance and harmony with our minds, bodies and the natural world”.
Never being one to keep his opinions to himself, in 1993 the heir apparent set up a think tank and lobby group called, “the Foundation for Integrated Health” (FIH), the aims of this institution included creating awareness of complimentary therapies within medical schools, and promoting the availability of alternatives to the treatments used within the NHS.
Throughout the 00’s there were countless examples of HRH “meddling in parliament”, he met with then Health Secretary Andy Burnham to secure funding for the drive to standardize alternative therapies, also writing frequently to the MHRA prior to their adoption of a regulatory standard for “Traditional Herbal Medicine”, the result of the lobbying by the Prince’s various institutions has been a divergence from scientific reasoning in medical regulation, therefore greater freedom for snake oil salesmen to profit from people’s naivety. This includes the Prince’s own “Duchy of Cornwall,” which despite being free from corporation tax also mass produces “homeopathic remedies”.
This greater liberalization of standards in healthcare will inevitably lead to an increase in private practitioners, and new and exciting methods of extracting money from the NHS and sick people.
When the FIH closed amidst allegations of fraud in 2010, The College of Medicine emerged from the ashes, immediately attracting scrutiny from medical experts Edzard Ernst, and David Colquhoun over their promotion of potentially unsafe treatments.
In the last few years, despite his increasing responsibilities, the Prince has continued to exercise his unique influence on policy decision in Health, holding secret meetings in July 2013 with the Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, after judges ruled the public has no right to know the contents of 27 letters he had written to ministers over several years. As the “ascension” gathers pace it is likely we will see the popularity of these pseudo-treatments, and pseudo-mystical religious ideologies grow, in unison with the influence and credence granted to Prince Charles.
“O gentlemen, the time of life is short!
An if we live, we live to tread on kings”
Shakespeare, Henry IV
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