no contact politics

Poppies and heroes...

2011-11-12T17:13:00.001Z

So it's all poppies and heroes here on the home front, as our death squads spread out across Libya. Which has evaporated from our screens, as our 'journalists' focus on boosting war in Syria and Iran.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/11/11/terror-and-revenge-engulfs-nato%E2%80%99s-libya/

Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-16T13:27:00.000Z

My main concern is that I don't this movement going far without providing an economic analysis, not just comments about greed and croneyism.

And therein lies the problem, the only viable analysis is hedged by vast walls of propaganda ensuring it can't be heard. Even the terminology of objective economic analysis will draw down lightning and much fulmination by pundits, media and politicians. And a well-indoctrinated audience, schooled during the the great 'end of history' and nourished by the mythologies of the Cold War, and Second World War before it, will not easily open its ears.

Not least because they are also the product of generations of aspirational propagandas, ensuring they see their aims and interests as aligned with those of the oligarchy. They will not easily come to a new class consciousness.

In other words, how can you discuss any of this without drawing on Marx, who has proved such reliable guide to recent events? And saying his name.

G20: Protest divorced from politics

2009-04-01T16:48:00.005Z

It does warm my heart to see people prepared to get out there and protest, but it's so formalised, so ritualised. And worse, there's no political programme at all.

What exactly do they expect? That our owners and operators will look down from their comfy eyries and take pity? "Oh look, they're so cute and well-meaning. Let's give them what they want". Reverse the habits of generations, put common good ahead of personal and family wealth? Yeah, right.

It's interesting to see all the middle class and corporate organisational techniques deployed in fine-grained fashion, the details of protest, bullet points, the distribution of information. But to what end? There's no equivalent organised investigation of the processes of political change, of leverage and influence, of the history of resistance and insurrection. So centuries (if not millenia) of thought and experience is discarded.

I suspect the middle class influence at work in the reluctance to look at certain examples, fearing for their respectability. They don't want to threaten the fluffy media image. They seem to think a bit of media coverage is of any value, in and of itself. "We're getting the message out," they might say, "winning hearts and minds". What goddam message? We've gone backwards in the last 35 years by most measures, including climate change. (Except on identity politics issues, and therein hangs a tale...)

So what's left? Insignificant 'violence', shouty emotional people. And cops playing the old propaganda games, and trying out the new toys.

Change you can believe in: rendition

2009-03-08T09:05:00.005Z

Obama's new CIA Director Leon Panetta... said that Obama was keeping rendition as an option in the fight against terrorism.
Reuters

Israel: boycott, disinvestment, sanctions

2009-01-11T11:46:00.004Z

The practical initiatives are summed up in three letters - BDS - boycott, disinvestment, sanctions. Counterpunch.

Also worth a look, a Naomi Klein article on boycotting Israel.

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Obama and Gaza

2009-01-11T09:21:00.003Z

Obama clearly hopes Israel can 'resolve' the Gaza before he comes to power. The lives of how ever many hundreds or thousands (which, we wait to see) of Palestinian women and children clearly for him, a price well worth paying.

The 'audacity of hope', don't make me laugh, don't make me cry...

Anyway, he's wrong in that particular audacious hope. Israel will lose, again, just like in Lebanon, and just like its big stupid sponsor in Afghanistan and Iraq.

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Here we go again, US/Israeli war crimes and a hurricane of lies

2009-01-11T08:50:00.002Z

For those inclined to fall for the lie that the Gaza 'operation' is about Hamas rockets and 'terror' - some little truths by Michel Chossudovsky in a short piece entitled The Invasion of Gaza: "Operation Cast Lead", Part of a Broader Israeli Military-Intelligence Agenda.

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Quote: Stalin

2008-10-26T07:41:00.002Z

The people who cast the votes don't decide an election, the people who count the votes do.
Joseph Stalin

Quote: Year Zero in Afghanistan

2008-06-05T07:30:00.002Z

"Our goal is to rebuild the government and society from the ground up in our model."

An effusive US officer in Naray, from Princess Patricia and the Taliban by Eric Walberg. Every dead Pashtun a 'taliban'.

The audacity of hope? Don't make me laugh/cry....

2008-06-05T07:05:00.003Z

Obama scenarios:

1. Used to knock Hilary out; now media reverts to type, election gets stolen again.

2. Corporate shill - proven - takes lobby money through lawyers, says he doesn't take lobby money. True in only the most legalistic/dishonest sense. See Pam Marten's articles on Counterpunch. So you get a Wall Street lackey, more public money to bail out banks etc.

3. Hope & despair machine for the US people - get 'em hopeful, drop 'em low, have 'em well-primed for more global evil. Worst scenario for the rest of the world. And the most likely.

4. No matter what, no matter who. it's more treasure, blood and war for Israel.

Think that covers it.

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P.S. Can't believe I'm back. Didn't mean to. I just wrote this as a comment somewhere and thought, hell, let's post it, get a marker down for the latest propaganda tidal wave...

Quote: James Petras

2007-05-27T15:13:00.000Z

"The failure of Washington's will to a world empire has led to the shrinking of power relative to its global situation prior to 2001. And in large part that is due to the fighting capacity and organized resistance in Iraq and Afghanistan: both have demonstrated that despite the great store of modern technological warfare and monopolies of media propaganda, wars are decided on the ground, by the popular majorities directly affected."

James Petras, Imperial Rot: Are the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq the Beginning of the End of the American Empire?

Israel, Lebanon, Palestine: more of the same

2007-05-27T13:56:00.000Z

Amazing how little changes. Well, not really surprising, just dispiriting.

In the running dog media, Israel 'detains' and 'strikes' it's enemies with the usual care for civilians. Two dead Israelis, at least 50 Palestinians. At least 50 more will die to maintain Israel's parity formula.

Looks like good ol' kidnapping and murder to me. Still, they got away with it with Arafat, and always ones to exploit their advantages and set precedents, why not hit an entire government this time.

A democratically elected government.

Meanwhile the U.N., jollied along by the States, bangs on about an investigation into Syrian involvement in the Hariri assassination. How do they keep a straight face?

Well, I guess Bush, Cheney and company don't. Some degree of honesty there.

Oh yeah, and the U.S. pours in weapons, ostensibly to fight a group actually set up by the Hariri faction.

Don't be surprised if there's another 'accidental' massacre of Palestinian civilians.

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U.K. Bin Wars: more disguised surveillance

2007-05-27T13:47:00.000Z

[Well, I might be back. We'll see.]

Beyond the obvious fact that it's more taxation, and burdens laid on the peasantry that industry and government continue to avoid, I have only one comment.

Who normally searches rubbish bins? Spies, burglars, fraudsters ('indentity thieves' in the new scarier formulation), that's who. People searching out the details of our lives.

So more disguised surveillance, paid for from the public purse, of course. And justified with some green veneer.

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End of the road?

2006-08-23T15:32:00.000Z

As I've mentioned before, I'm having trouble posting anything but the simplest item (like this) to blogger and don't really have time to sort it out out, since I've just started a new job.

So that may be it. There will, at the very least be an extended hiatus (as they say).

Lebanon disappears (update)

2006-08-11T06:38:00.000Z

'British security sources said that all the main targets had been arrested.

The huge international surveillance operation to monitor the meetings, movements, travel, spending and the aspirations of a large group of people, began in December last year but senior officials only decided to make the raids in the last 24 hours.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, the Metropolitan Police's head of anti-terrorism, said: "Last night the investigation reached a critical point when the decision was taken to take urgent action to disrupt what we believed was being planned" said Mr Clarke.

It is believed that the raids were triggered by intelligence received from abroad.' (link)

From America, more than likely.

So an unexpected, urgent, last minute intervention, triggered by intel from the states. Around the time Bush and Blair had been in extended discussion.

So why the urgency? The suspects are all under surveillance, were easily picked up, except some lower ranking targets. Why such a high profile operation and so much disruption.

Lebanon. The propaganda war's not going Israel's way, so they shunted it right off the news agenda.

Lebanon disappears

2006-08-10T18:00:00.000Z

Literally no mention on UK TV news channels of Lebanon all day, that I've seen, and I've had it on much of the day. Wall to wall terror plot.

And now the Israelis are threatening the rest of Beirut with painful measures. I saw it on Fox News, nowhere else.

A bit of healthy scepticiam is in order regarding the UK security forces' timing with this alleged terrorist plot. I've seen nothing that explains why they moved from long-term surveillance to arrests today.

The latest: "Suspected British suicide bombers were just days away from simultaneous attacks on transatlantic airliners..." (link). Still doesn't do it for me. Why that day in that way?

Why all the chaos and panic when they've watched these guys for months? And after all, the mixed liquid technique they were allegedly going to use has been known to the authorities for a decade.

Blair, Bush & today's alleged terror plot

2006-08-10T13:11:00.000Z

What do we know? Not a lot, but one gem has emerged - Blair and Bush have been discussing this for several weeks.

About the same length of time as Israel's assault on Lebanon, then.

What might they have discussed over these days and weeks? Perhaps, when to release the information for the best propaganda effect. Maybe whether the economic fallout was worth the propaganda cover.

Lebanon has completely disappeared from UK TV news media, and there's not much on the US satellite news channels. Although that process began here yesterday, oddly enough (newspapers too).

Perhaps they discussed what ongoing enquiries were likely candidates for promotion to imminent threat. Certainly, it's not yet clear what triggered this. And this investigation has been ongoing for several months.

Certainly Blair could use some cover right now, what with resignations and discontent amongst backbenchers; as could Israel, which has expanded its bombing into West Beirut today.

Notable is the fact most 'information' about this on the media is coming from the other side of the Atlantic... as are US Air Marshals apparently (according to US media), although what we'd do with a bunch of unqualified, jumped-up security guards, I have no idea.

As for the "mass murder on an unimaginable scale" quote, perhaps we could let Afghans, Palestinians, Iraqis and Lebanese comment on that...

And given the proclivities of the Bush regime and its hangers-on, someone should start looking out for unusual share and option trades today and last night.

Blogger Trouble

2006-08-06T15:26:00.000Z

Sorry, I haven't been able to post for a week and haven't had time to work out what's going on. Big backlog of posts; hopefully I'll resolve it.

Oddly, it let me post this, but none of my actual posts have been accepted.

Update: apparently I can post if I put no links, tags or complex formatting in the posts. We'll try that.

Quote: Yesha Rabbinical Council

2006-08-03T07:44:00.000Z

"according to Jewish law, during a time of battle and war, there is no such term as 'innocents' of the enemy... All of the discussions on Christian morality are weakening the spirit of the army and the nation and are costing us in the blood of our soldiers and civilians" YNET NEWS
Yesha Rabbinical Council announcement in response to the IDF attack in Qana

Previously
The purity of weapons (cont.)
The purity of weapons
Judaism, Zionism and Israel (cont.)
Judaism, Zionism and Israel
A child's garden of Zionism

Welcome to the Arab Street

2006-08-01T09:31:00.000Z

When the latest Israel-American war crime outrages international and Arab opinion, we're constantly informed of the dichotomy between 'the Arab Street', seen demonstrating its anger, and their leadership, who we are assured are more rational, more considered, more able to understand the broader arguments - i.e. they are corrupt enough to sacrifice their people's aspirations and wealth to Israel-American and corporate interests.

Leaving aside the obvious condescending racism in this world view, it should be obvious that this is not a purely Arab phenomenon.

We here in the UK are overwhelmingly opposed to Israel's crimes in Palestine and Lebanon, and to American and UK crimes in Iraq (and Afghanistan and elsewhere). Much good it does us. Our dear leader, the poodle Blair, is as obviously bought and paid for as the most venally corrupt 'third world' leader.

And the tame UK media protects him with the pretence he is a committment politican, braving unpopularity for what he believes to be 'right'.

He is clearly not; every aspect of his career screams opportunist and liar - from the early adventures in glam rock to his clearly shallow religiosity, completely immune to moral guidance from those he claims to recognise as spiritual and moral leaders - including the two Popes he's ignored, while pestering them with his boyish aspirations to join the Catholic Church.

But the depths of the evil he's prepared to accommodate stand against all this - the illegal assaults on civilians, civilian infrastructure and the environment in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq; false flag terrorism in Iran (and probably Syria); support for Israel-American war crimes in Lebanon and Palestine, and implicating the British people in these crimes; domestically, the selling of the UK's health service to American clients of the Bush regime, the transparent military drivers behind his 'discovery' of the 'need' for nuclear power, the sacrifice of an entire generation of children to alcohol addiction... the list is dispiriting long.

So, like other American clients in the Arab world, our leaders, enslaved by fear, greed and ambition, do not represent us.

For them office is just a small part of a career in global exploitation and domination. They look forward to corporate Directorships, lucrative lecture tours, prominent roles in criminal think tanks and NGOs, a shining reputation as statesmen and men of peace delivered by the likes of American academics and NewsCorp - and all the other diverse ways corporate, American and Israeli interests repay their loyal servants.

From the Arab Street, London, UK.

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Quote: William Blackstone

2006-08-01T08:45:00.000Z

"Those rights, then, which God and nature have established, and are therefore called natural rights, such as life and liberty, need not the aid of human laws to be more effectually invested in every man than they are; neither do they receive any additional strength when declared by the municipal laws to be inviolate. On the contrary, no human legislature has power to abridge or destroy them, unless the owner shall himself commit some act that amounts to a forfeiture."
Sir William Blackstone (1723 - 1780) English jurist, author of 'Commentaries on the Laws of England'

A child's garden of Zionism

2006-08-01T07:55:00.000Z

A little florilegium of Zionist delights.

"We have to kill all the Palestinians unless they are resigned to live here as slaves." Chairman Heilbrun of the Committee for the Re-election of General Shlomo Lahat, the mayor of Tel Aviv, October 1983.

"We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population." David Ben-Gurion, May 1948, to the General Staff. (From Ben-Gurion, A Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978.)

"We should prepare to go over to the offensive. Our aim is to smash Lebanon, Trans-Jordan, and Syria. The weak point is Lebanon, for the Moslem regime is artificial and easy for us to undermine. We shall establish a Christian state there, and then we will smash the Arab Legion, eliminate Trans-Jordan; Syria will fall to us. We then bomb and move on and take Port Said, Alexandria and Sinai." David Ben-Gurion, May 1948, to the General Staff. From Ben-Gurion, A Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978.

"It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonialization or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands." Yoram Bar Porath, Yediot Aahronot, of 14 July 1972.

"Everybody has to move, run and grab as many hilltops as they can to enlarge the settlements because everything we take now will stay ours... Everything we don't grab will go to them." Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of militants from the extreme right-wing Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, November 15, 1998.

"Every time we do something you tell me America will do this and will do that . . . I want to tell you something very clear: Don't worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it." Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, October 3, 2001, to Shimon Peres, as reported on Kol Yisrael radio.

"Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but certainly no one has the right to put the Jewish people and the State of Israel on trial." Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, 25 March, 2001 quoted in BBC News Online

Previously
Judaism, Zionism & Israel (cont)
Judaism, Zionism & Israel
The Purity of Weapons
Creative destruction
Heartless in Gaza; thoughtless in America
How many Hitlers is that now?

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The Purity of Weapons (cont)

2006-08-01T07:43:00.000Z

Does the Israel military even recognise the existence of civilan non-combatants as understood in international law? I began to explore this in my recent The Purity of Weapons post, and found quite a bit of evidence suggesting that they do not.

And in the Lebanese case, we now have government statements confirming that interpretation, notably: "Everyone in southern Lebanon is a terrorist and is connected in some way to Hezbollah... In order to prevent casualties among Israeli soldiers battling Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon, villages should be flattened by the Israeli air force before ground troops move in." Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon, July 27, Army Radio

Previously
The Purity of Weapons
Creative destruction
Heartless in Gaza; thoughtless in America
How many Hitlers is that now?

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Qana: American & UK complicity (update)

2006-08-01T07:20:00.000Z

"And there was no doubt of the missile which killed all those children yesterday. It came from the United States, and upon a fragment of it was written: 'For use on MK-84 Guided Bomb BSU-37-B'". (link)

Quote: Mrs McGrath

2006-07-30T18:03:00.000Z

"All foreign wars I do proclaim,
Live on blood and a mother’s pain
I’d rather have my son as he used to be
Than the King of America
And his whole Navy!"

Mrs McGrath, traditional Irish war lament.

Qana: American & UK complicity

2006-07-30T12:24:00.000Z

So perhaps we now see why Israel so urgently needed more bunker buster bombs from the US.

What's the chance the bomb that killed so many Lebanese women and children at Qana was one of those shipped through the UK in recent days?

Quote: James Madison

2006-07-30T12:23:00.000Z

"War... should only be declared by the authority of the people, whose toils and treasures are to support its burdens, instead of the government which is to reap its fruits."
James Madison (fourth President of the United States, 1809-1817)

Judaism, Zionism & Israel (cont)

2006-07-30T12:01:00.000Z

Following on from my post on 'Judaism, Zionism & Israel'; I had forgotten when I wrote it that Counterpunch recently carried a review of Yakov Rabkin's book 'Jewish Opposition to Zionism'.

This is not a book of criticism of Israel and Zionism by liberal, secular Jews, but the views of the anti-Zionist orthodox, for whom Zionism is the antithesis of Judaism and the destroyer of everything properly speaking Jewish:

"God - he reports the orthodox account - did not give the land of Israel to any race or 'people' in our sense of these words. He gave it to those who obeyed him, who lived by the Torah and His commandments, and only so long as they did so.

In this sense alone did He give it to the Jews. And God was no mere stickler for what we may think of as the trivialities of ritual. 'His' people had sinned deeply, and for their sins they were in exile. To undo this exile was to compound the sin. No greater defiance of God and corruption of Jewish religion was conceivable.

The Jews would return to Israel if and when they returned to God's ways, not before. Those who came back under the power of the gun--no matter how religious--were no Jews at all, but apostates and enemies of God.

And this is why Zionism, which preaches redemption without repentance, and which trusts in armies and nation-states rather than God, is the enemy and destroyer of Judaism, of the Jews. Israelis have been known to revel in their pride, even their arrogance. Orthodox Jews preach humility and see strength, not in tanks or missiles, but in the very demanding, very difficult business of accepting suffering and God's will." (link)

Read the review, if not the book. In the words of the reviewer, Michael Neumann: "Rarely does a work on what may seem an esoteric subject offer such urgently important insights. I doubt anyone can read this book without coming out much the wiser for it, and in many different ways".

It should be obvious by now, even to the most rationalist old-style leftist, that today even non-believers must make the effort to understand the religious wellsprings affecting our political lives. Sadly, I doubt many American Christian Zionists will make the effort.

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Quote: Haile Selassie

2006-07-30T11:59:00.000Z

"Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph."
Haile Selassie

Lebanon: the significance of Qana

2006-07-30T10:51:00.000Z

A couple of points worth drawing out.

In April 18, 1996 in Qana (a village southeast of Tyre in Lebanon, probably Biblical Cana), Israel attacked a Fijian UNIFIL compound sheltering more than 800 refugees who had taken refuge there to escape the Israeli artillery and bombing of 'Operation Grapes of Wrath', another indiscriminate assault on Lebanese civilians and civilan infrastructure described, as now, as an attack on Hizbullah.

The attack killed 102 civilians, injured 116 others and seriously injured four UNIFIL soldiers.

Firstly, in the light of Israel's killing of UN observers a few days ago, it highlights that country's long-standing policy of attacks on UN and aid agencies as a weapon of terror and intimidation. This is a story the media is very reluctant to tell.

At the time, Israel offered the usual range of weak excuses and contradictory lies - the Hezbollah position and not the UN compound was the intended target of the shelling, its targetters used out-dated maps, the compound was hit "due to incorrect targeting based on erroneous data". Army Deputy Chief of Staff, Matan Vilnai stated that the shells hit the base not because they were off target, but because Israeli gunners used outdated maps of the area. He also stated that the gunners miscalculated the firing range of the shells.

So plenty of excuses to choose from. And as usual, Israel's supporters can pick or choose depending on the demands of a given polemic; internal consistency rarely worries them. They seem immune to historical consistency or accuracy. Or truth and justice.

Technical analysis by UN military experts disproved Israel's claims. Amnesty International concluded that "the IDF intentionally attacked the UN compound, although the motives for doing so remain unclear. The IDF have failed to substantiate their claim that the attack was a mistake. Even if they were to do so they would still bear responsibility for killing so many civilians by taking the risk to launch an attack so close to the UN compound". Human Rights Watch concluded that "The decision of those who planned the attack to choose a mix of high-explosive artillery shells that included deadly anti-personnel shells designed to maximize injuries on the ground - and the sustained firing of such shells, without warning, in close proximity to a large concentration of civilians - violated a key principle of international humanitarian law".

Amnesty also pointed out the leaflets dropped ostensibly to 'warn' civilians are really designed to terrorise and intimidate. Of course, in the current Qana case, dropping them at 1:00 am achieved neither.

Secondly, the Qana attack/shelling/massacre did undermine Israeli pubic support for 'Operation Grapes of Wrath', and given that resonance, may do so again.

Israel has already lost this conflict. Every day is just another defeat; another victory for Hezbollah.

Not surprising, since there's no obvious military aim to Israel's campaign. Olmert is doing this to look hard enough to be Sharon's inheritor and woo the Israeli right who see him as too weak, too European, too much a politician. And of course, tie America closer. These are political aims, not military.

What's unexpected is the response of international opinion, even among the corporate media (even Fox correspondents) to what's happening. We may be finally viewing weakness in Israel's propaganda machine, although it's too early for optimism.

I'm just trying to explore what might happen next. Since the country is immune to external pressure (except American, but that won't happen, a few hundred dead Arabs won't change that evil symbiosis), the shape of internal Israeli opinion is highly significant.

It's too early to do more than hope that a sea change is occurring in international opinion; and as we Brits know too well, our opinions count for nothing anyway, since Blair was bought and paid for long ago. But a change of emphasis by the media could well have an effect. I'm only hopeful, not optimistic.

Previously
The Purity of Weapons (an attempt to tease out some of the obscurities and contradictions of legal and military advice to Israel's soldiers, and discover whether they even recognise non-combatant status in warfare.)
Creative destruction
Heartless in Gaza; thoughtless in America
How many Hitlers is that now?

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Quote: Pogo

2006-07-30T09:43:00.000Z

"We have met the enemy, and he is us."
Walt Kelly's Pogo

Blair: "I will never apologise for Britain being a strong ally of the US"

2006-07-30T08:35:00.000Z

"Asked by Sky News if he was too close to the White House, he said: 'I will never apologise for Britain being a strong ally of the US.'" (link)

Typical Blairite spin and news agenda thinking.

No one I know cares about 'apologies'.

An accurate and complete explanation of the real reasons for dragging the UK into all these Bush regime crimes and adventures (Afghanistan, Iraq, false flag terrorism in Iraq and Iran, rendition etc), under oath in a courtroom, preferably in the context of a war crimes tribunal, would be more than enough.

In other words, what have you been offered, what do you expect as recompense - what jobs (Murdoch obviously, but what else), what honours, what lecture tours, what directorships, what 'friendships', what future investment opportunities? What assurances about your role in victor's justice and the victor's rewriting of history?

In other words, why? And don't keep hiding behind the argument that you're a 'commitment' politican, doing what you believe to be 'right'. That's clearly not true.

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Quote: Carl Sagan

2006-07-29T11:27:00.000Z

"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: if we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous."
Carl Sagan

Judaism, Zionism & Israel

2006-07-29T11:06:00.000Z

Israel's exceptional status is built on an implicit equation between Jewish suffering in the holocaust of the Second World War and Israel's 'security' today. The logical and historical link between the two is Zionism, a political ideology and movement demanding a home for 'the Jews' in Biblical Israel.

Clearly there is also an implied equation between Judaism and Zionism, Jewish and Zionist. But is this justified?

For decades renowned Rabbinical leaders and scholars have opposed the creation of a 'Jewish State', supporting their opposition with words of the scriptures and of the Torah, as being diametrically opposed to the ideology of Judaism... far from being the saviors of the Jewish people, the Zionists are the true self-hating Jews who have had nothing but contempt and outright hatred for the Jewish people and Judaism. This article proves that anti-Semitism has been the oxygen and lifeblood of the Zionists throughout the ages to the present day." (link)

I'm not going to claim any great knowledge here, but there are some issues worth considering about Judaism, the Jewish peoples and the state of Israel. Certainly the international Jewish community is not united on this subject, and it seems it may be mainly liberal, secular Jews who support Israel, rather than the orthodox.

There are certainly many orthodox deeply opposed to the enterprise for fundamental religious reasons. And many opposed to Zionism's strategies and tactics (including deeply cynical overtures made to the Nazis).

Here's a couple of starting points:
Jews Against Zionism
True Torah Jews Against Zionism
Neturei Karta: Jews United Against Zionism
Why Is World Jewry Opposed To The Zionist State

Some interesting subjects - whether the Zionist state is a fulfilment of prophecy, or a corruption of the Jewish religion; the relationship between the Zionist movement and the Nazis; the appropriation of international Jewry's funding machinery by Zionism and much more.

At a time when our rulers are provoking traditional emnities betweens ethnic and religious groups, you owe it to yourself to know a little more about differences within Judaism relating to Israel.

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Quote: General Wesley Clark

2006-07-29T10:50:00.000Z

"As I went back through the Pentagon in November 2001, one of the senior military staff officers had time for a chat. Yes, we were still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was more. This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there were a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan...

He said it with reproach -- with disbelief, almost -- at the breadth of the vision. I moved the conversation away, for this was not something I wanted to hear."

General Wesley Clark,'Winning Modern Wars' (p.130) (link), demonstrating a number of things, not least the polite moral blindness and discrete self-censorship of the career military man and politican. I think we can asssume similar discretion is required for career media jockeys.

And the obvious fact this conflict has got nothing to do with captured (or, God help us, 'kidnapped') Israeli soldiers - who were clearly mounting an incursion into Lebanon at the time, despite the media's constant parroting of Israeli lies on the subject.

Isn't it strange that...

2006-07-29T10:07:00.000Z

The BBC, Sky, CNN and all the other 'news' outlets never mention the restrictions on what they can say or report from Israel?

I've seen one tangential allusion the whole time, a Sky journalist commenting on restrictive rules on where they can point cameras and what they can say.

And it's difficult to even find a list of these restrictions - this one is painfully incomplete.

a.The Military Censor will not approve reports regarding visits of Israeli Government and IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] officials in the north of Israel until the visits are over due to the clear connection between officials' visits and missile attacks on the area in question.
b.The Military Censor will not approve reports on missile hits at IDF bases and/or strategic facilities.
c.The Military Censor will not approve reports on missiles that fall in the Mediterranean Sea.
d.The Military Censor will not approve reports on time periods when citizens are permitted to leave their shelters. Warnings of such times are utilized by the enemy for timing attacks.
e.Reporting on locations in which there are public defense and organizational difficulties should be avoided as much as possible. (link)

Each and every news crew is accompanied by an Israeli police officer, who strictly monitors what the news crew is broadcasting.

You can add to the list any mention of the illegal weapons Israel is using against Lebanese and Palestinian civilians - white phosporus, cluster and vacuum bombs, weird munitions that leave shrunken charred bodies, or leave wounds but no physical traces. And the ongoing psychological assault of sound and light weapons.

(You could probably add any mention of the latest Gaza 'offensive' to the list, so little is it mentioned lately.)

And then there's the ongoing targeted killing of journalists and destruction of news organisation infrastructure to demonstrate to the others what happens if they don't enthusiastically self-censor.

And of course, the killing of aid workers, aid agency employees and UN observers is another long-running Israeli tactic. And one wholeheartedly adopted by the US in Iraq.

Of course, ours news outlets only pay much attention when it's one of 'ours' killed; the toll of Arab and Muslim reporters and aid workers has been much higher.

You can go to many sites, including this one, to see the pictures our cooperative news media won't show. And the famous shot of Israeli children writing messages of hate on Israeli munitions destined to kill Lebanese civilians that's appeared everywhere but our corporate news media. But of course, in our news world, it's the Arabs, Muslims and Palestinians who live in a culture of hate, whereas Israel is like 'us' - modern, democratic, civilised.

Although in truth none of these things, Israel is indeed like 'us' - providing the clearest mirror we could have of the true nature of our governments, their commercial sponsors and the military adventures they engage in.

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Quote: William S. Lind

2006-07-25T12:33:00.000Z

"Israel is to America what Serbia was to Russia in 1914..."
William S. Lind (link)

Collective Punishment

2006-07-25T12:26:00.000Z

"JERUSALEM - The Israeli air force is under orders to blast 10 buildings in south Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold, for every rocket the Shiite militant group fires at the Israeli port of Haifa, army radio said Monday.

'Army chief of staff Dan Halutz has given the order to the air force to destroy 10 multi-storey buildings in the Dahaya district (of Beirut) in response to every rocket fired on Haifa', a senior air force officer told the station." (link)

Seems pretty clear. It's a policy of collective punishment. Which was obvious, but now there's a formal admission that's the case.

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Quote: H. L. Mencken

2006-07-23T12:57:00.000Z

"The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth."
H. L. Mencken

US rules of engagement in Iraq: "kill all military age males"

2006-07-23T12:52:00.000Z

"Four U.S. soldiers accused of murdering suspected insurgents during a raid in Iraq said they were under orders to 'kill all military age males', according to sworn statements obtained by The Associated Press...

'The ROE (rule of engagement) was to kill all military age males on Objective Murray', Staff Sgt. Raymond L. Girouard told investigators, referring to the target by its code name." (link)

Solzhenitsyn: "We didn't love freedom enough"

2006-07-22T16:02:00.000Z

"And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the down-stairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of a half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand? After all, you knew ahead of time that those bluecaps were out at night for no good purpose. And you could be sure ahead of time that you'd be cracking the skull of a cutthroat. Or what about the Black Maria sitting out there on the street with one lonely chauffeur - what if it had been driven off of or its tires spiked? The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt.

If .... if... We didn't love freedom enough. And even more - we had no awareness of the real situation... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward."

Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, 1973

The purity of weapons

2006-07-22T15:54:00.000Z

"Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass." I Samuel, 15:3.

As I pointed out in a previous post, "the often hateful and murderous discourse of Zionism, Israel and international Jewry on the subject [Palestine and the Arabs] are politely ignored" by the mass media, while every word of the language of the angry, brutalised and dispossessed is culled for propaganda value - for signs of the 'anti-semitic'.

I'm hardly privy to the meetings were such discussions take place, usually as financial and other support for the Zionist state are solicited and put in place, but I've been watching this horror show for over 30 years and I know a few of the key points. I will attempt to outline a few in the coming weeks.

One topic everyone should know about flows from this piece of official religious advice to Israeli military personnel about 'the purity of weapons' (which in theory means that the enemy must be seen to shoot first)::

"when our forces storm the enemy, they are allowed and even enjoined by the Halakhah to kill even good civilians, that is, civilians who are ostensibly good" ('Purity of weapons in the light of the Halakhah', Central Region Command 1973). (link)

This has been a subject of extensive discussion and education in Israel:

According to the commentators of the Tosafot, a distinction must be made between wartime and peace, so that although during peace time it is forbidden to kill Gentiles, in a case that occurs in wartime it is a mitzvah [imperative, religious duty] to kill them...
'And this is the difference between a Jew and a Gentile: although the rule "Whoever comes to kill you, kill him first", applies to a Jew, as was said in Tractate Sanhedrin... still it only applies to him if there is [actual] ground to fear that he is coming to kill you. But a Gentile during wartime is usually to be presumed so, except when it is quite clear that he has no evil intent. This is the rule of "purity of weapons" according to the Halakhah. (link)

The Halakhah (literally "the path that one walks") is the collected body of Jewish law - "the complete body of rules and practices that Jews are bound to follow, including biblical commandments, commandments instituted by the rabbis, and binding customs". (link)

We also have this quote from the Chief Chaplain of the Central Region Command of the Israeli Army (whose area includes the West Bank), again in1973:

"When our forces come across civilians during a war or in hot pursuit or in a raid, so long as there is no certainty that those civilians are incapable of harming our forces, then according to the Halakhah they may and even should be killed ... Under no circumstances should an Arab be trusted, even if he makes an impression of being civilized ... In war, when our forces storm the enemy, they are allowed and even enjoined by the Halakhah to kill even good civilians, that is, civilians who are ostensibly good."(link)

The doctrine is also found in letters published in the yearbook of one of Israel's most prestigious religious colleges, Midrashiyyat No'am, where leaders and thinkers of the National Religious Party and Gush Emunim are educated.

In one letter a soldier, Moshe, seeks advice from a Rabbi: "In one of the discussions in our group, there was a debate about the 'purity of weapons' and we discussed whether it is permitted to kill unarmed men - or women and children? ...I could not arrive at a clear decision, whether Arabs should be treated like the Amalekites, meaning that one is permitted to murder them until their remembrance is blotted out from under heaven, or perhaps one should do as in a just war, in which one kills only the soldiers?."

To which Rabbi Weiser replied: 'On the one hand… we seem to learn that if a Jew murders a Gentile, he is regarded as a murderer and, except for the fact that no court has the right to punish him, the gravity of the deed is like that of any other murder. But we find the very same authorities in another place... that Rabbi Shim'on used to say: "The best of Gentiles - kill him; the best of snakes - dash out its brains"... According to the commentators of the Tosafot, a distinction must be made between wartime and peace, so that although during peace time it is forbidden to kill Gentiles, in a case that occurs in wartime it is a mitzvah (imperative, religious duty) to kill them."

Of course, supporters of Israel will say this was withdrawn from the official advice, but I would contend that a) it provides a telling insight into the way the men now running the Israeli military were trained, and b) it remains the official position, but is now disseminated less publicly. And it's publication or not is irrelevent, since that understanding of the law remains unchanged and widely disseminated. And anyway defining religious law is not within the power of civilian or military leadership.

Amnon Rubinstein ('Who falsifies the Halakhah?' in Ma'ariv, 13 October 1975) reported that the booklet was subsequently withdrawn from circulation by order of the Chief of General Staff, possibly because it encouraged soldiers to disobey his own orders; but he complained that Rabbi Avidan had not been court-martialled, nor has any rabbi -- military or civil -- taken exception to what he had written. Which suggests the removal was cosmetic, rather than a repudiation of the doctrine.

This article seems to make it clear the distinction between 'religious' and 'non-religious' soldiers may be the key to understanding this apparently contradictory advice.

This complex of ideas is also particularly relevent to the concept of 'collateral damage' in war, which depends on ideas about the rights of civilians as distinct from an active military force. Apparently this distinction has no support in the Halakhah or the Talmud. One of the key phrases is "but one may harm him indirectly, for instance by removing a ladder after he had fallen into a crevice".

Here's the quote in context:

"When the victim is a Gentile, the position is quite different. A Jew who murders a Gentile is guilty only of a sin against the laws of Heaven, not punishable by a court. To cause indirectly the death of a Gentile is no sin at all.

Thus, one of the two most important commentators on the Shulhan Arukh explains that when it comes to a Gentile, 'one must not lift one's hand to harm him, but one may harm him indirectly, for instance by removing a ladder after he had fallen into a crevice .., there is no prohibition here, because it was not done directly'. He points out, however, that an act leading indirectly to a Gentile's death is forbidden if it may cause the spread of hostility towards Jews. A Gentile murderer who happens to be under Jewish jurisdiction must be executed whether the victim was Jewish or not. However, if the victim was Gentile and the murderer converts to Judaism, he is not punished.

All this has a direct and practical relevance to the realities of the State of Israel. Although the state's criminal laws make no distinction between Jew and Gentile, such distinction is certainly made by Orthodox rabbis, who in guiding their flock follow the Halakhah. Of special importance is the advice they give to religious soldiers.

Since even the minimal interdiction against murdering a Gentile outright applies only to 'Gentiles with whom we [the Jews] are not at war', various rabbinical commentators in the past drew the logical conclusion that in wartime all Gentiles belonging to a hostile population may, or even should be killed. (link)

So when at 'war', the 'religious' soldier isn't even obliged to distinguish between non-combatant civilians, or even women and children, and the opposing military force. This should be of great concern at a time when the Israelis are engaging in war among non-Jewish civilian populations in Lebanon and Palestine.

And actually, things aren't much better in peacetime:

As for Gentiles, the basic talmudic principle is that their lives must not be saved, although it is also forbidden to murder them outright. The Talmud itself expresses this in the maxim 'Gentiles are neither to be lifted [out of a well] nor hauled down [into it]'. Maimonides explains: "As for Gentiles with whom we are not at war ... their death must not be caused, but it is forbidden to save them if they are at the point of death; if, for example, one of them is seen falling into the sea, he should not be rescued, for it is written: 'neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy fellow'- but [a Gentile] is not thy fellow." (link)

But this is of course part of a much broader set of issues about the Jewish attitude to those who share the planet with them, but who are not part of God's plan (and who are therefore perhaps not fully human).

Certainly there seems enough here to suggest the constant propaganda against Islam as a religion of hate, violence and intolerance is at best, horrifyingly one-sided. And for those who live near to Israel, this is not an academic issue. As the Lebanese and Palestinians can testify.

The doctrine outlined here is not merely a historical curiosity, it is a cornerstone of Israeli understanding, and law, concerning their relationship with the peoples around them - and their military practice.

And something we should make an effort to understand, especially given Israel's enormous hold over American politicans and media. And especially given the media's deep reluctance to even recognise the existence of such issues, let alone discuss them openly.

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Quote: Edmund Burke

2006-07-22T14:30:00.000Z

"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one."
Edmund Burke

Anger

2006-07-22T13:45:00.000Z

Are you angry? I'm almost deranged with anger and frustration, but that's not so uncommon, especially when it comes to the Middle East.

But if you're one of those, generally well-meaning people, maybe with a reasonable grasp of history and politics, who's felt bludgeoned by the absurdist amnesiac propaganda of the war on terror, and now finding yourself astonished and enraged by the one-sided tide of drivel in the media concerning Lebanon - spare a thought for the Palestinians, and now the Lebanese, who have to live in this surreal nightmare amphitheatre.

I've commented before of the use of hypocrisy as a psychological weapon , especially the use of media characterisations and reported statements in stark contrast to observable reality. A current example is this UN resolution 1559 issue regarding Hizbullah - anyone with a cursory knowledge of the region knows that with US support, Israel has ignored at least 65 UN resolutions.

The poor Palestinians, and now Lebanese, have to treat this stuff seriously just to get on the TV news.

They also have to put up with the incredibly shrill and angry character of Israeli discourse on the subject (an approach now adopted by the American right). Ordinary civilans see this stuff on TV while they see cars, ambulances and homes destroyed in flagrant disregard of the Geneva Conventions and UN resolutions.

How angry do you think they get?

And then their every word is culled for propaganda value - signs of the 'anti-semitic' in the language of the angry, brutalised and dispossessed. As are the words of those who try to support them. And of course, the often hateful and murderous discourse of Zionism, Israel and international Jewry on the subject are politely ignored.

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Creative destruction

2006-07-22T13:34:00.000Z

A nice antidote to media yelping about 'mistakes' made by the US in Iraq: The Iraq War is a Huge Success - The Economics of Creative Destruction by Aseem Shrivastava.

Also relevant to Israel's activities in Lebanon; and of course US strategy in the Middle East in general.

Quote: George Orwell

2006-07-22T08:08:00.000Z

"In an age of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
George Orwell

More Israeli war crimes: depleted uranium, chemical weapons & poison gas

2006-07-22T07:37:00.000Z

Caught redhanded?

Well, only if any corporate media outlets or politicians actually mention it. Very unlikely.

The picture shows a chemical weapon delivery device being handled by an Israeli Defense Force soldier. Presumably the poison gas they've been dropping on south Lebanese villages.

Thanks to the waynemadsenreport for this one (you'll find a schematic of the weapon there too). And also some information on Israeli use of depleted uranium shells on civilian targets.

Article 48 of the Geneva Conventions

2006-07-20T18:43:00.000Z

"In order to ensure respect for and protection of the civilian population and civilian objects, the Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives."

Article 48 of the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949. (link)

Quote: John F. Kennedy

2006-07-19T09:30:00.000Z

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
John F. Kennedy

Israel, Lebanon & 'Yo Blair'

2006-07-19T07:30:00.000Z

As with the Gaza invasion, I find it hard to say anything. It's just so obvious. And there is plenty of good information online, saying it better and in more detail than I can. But after a few days silence, I feel the need to make a couple of comments.

The news coverage is appalling, as ever. Israel 'retaliates', or 'trades missile attacks' with Hizbullah - always a strong emphasis on a fictional equivalence easily denied by reference to the casualty figures.

Pictures of bombed streets of houses are regularly overlaid with references to the bombing of Nasrallah's house days before to confuse the inattentive viewer. The Lebanese are said to be 'fleeing the fighting', where there is none - just indiscriminate Israeli bombing. There clearly is some fighting in the South, but that's not Beirut.

And of course uniformed Israeli soldiers are 'kidnapped' and 'held hostage'. Just as Palestinian women and children (obvious hostages) are 'arrested' and 'imprisoned', and often 'die' but are never 'murdered', unlike Israelis, even soldiers on active service. (And then there's the the US 'rendition' (kidnapping) program...)

None of this is new; anything but. Although the lack of balance does seem to be getting more extreme.

It seems to be taken as gospel that Israel has the right to kill Arab civilians and assault civilian infrastructure because it "has the right to defend itself". Equally clearly, Palestinians and the Lebanese don't have this right.

Now all the UK media covers is the evacuation of British citizens, never asking or commenting that the reason it's necessary is Israel's indiscriminate attacks on civilians and its communal punishments (all war crimes of course). To call it double standards is to underestimate the politicians' and media's crimes against peace. Of course all have their eyes on future rewards - gongs, careers in international finance, NGOs, the US lecture circuit etc - which is enough to keep them all parroting the Us/Israeli line. The few others are quickly intimidated by the routine killing of a few journalists who dare to step outside the prescribed media zones.

As for 'Yo Blair', I'd say I was astonished by the infantile, idiotic and generally content-free conversation, but I'm not. We're meant to assume it's incomprehensible to us because of shared knowledge and understanding between the two - but to me it seems likely that Blair is just pretending to have a meaningful conversation with Bush, who will do whatever he was going to do anyway. The pretense suits both of them.

As for Bush's frat boy routine - no surprises there. And he looks and sounds even more medicated, if that's possible.

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Quote: Sam Houston

2006-07-09T09:55:00.000Z

"History teaches us that men composing all denominations of religious faith, when clothed with ecclesiastical and temporal power, have been tyrants."
Sam Houston

Prices worth paying: Poland

2006-07-09T08:12:00.000Z

An occasional look at the absurdities foisted on Europe as the price of supporting America's various mad wars (primarily Iraq and Yugoslavia). And a little German atavism.

Today: Poland and its absurd brownshirt religiosity. And the pretence it's a sane modern society, which it could only appear from the perspective of places like Crawford, Texas.

Here's merely the latest from a constant flow: Polish President's twin joins him in a power double act: In a move likely to outrage liberals, the brothers with plans for 'moral revolution' share the helm...

Identical twins, former child stars, in fact, promoting moral revolution; the League of Polish Families and its vocal support for great dictators like Franco and Salazar... my taxes and the blood of the victims of America's wars of empire and enthusiasm pay for this ruritanian rubbish.

And of course, their proud and vocal participation in America's criminal extraordinary rendition. There's a surprise - America pressure and blackmail is the only reason Poland's not still on the accession list, cleaning up its act and at least paying lip service to liberal democracy.

Let them do it on their own time and money and I won't care. But not on the EU teat. Not in my goddamn name. Not with my money.

Let the Americans pay - they like this sort of garbage anyway.

Previously:
Prices worth paying: slavery in Europe

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Stephen Hawking's question on Yahoo Answers

2006-07-09T08:03:00.000Z

Hawking's question on Yahoo Answers: "In a world that is in chaos politically, socially and environmentally, how can the human race sustain another 100 years?"

The race will likely survive another 100 years - probably reduced in numbers - but the more useful question is "what human race will emerge after another another 100 years?"

And not just because of modern genetic engineering techniques, nanotechnology and the like, but the traditional interplay of politics and eugenics.

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Quote: Lao Tze

2006-07-04T16:23:00.000Z

Beyond the gate of experience flows the Way,
Which is ever greater and more subtle than the world.
Lao Tze, Tao Te Ching / Laozi, Dao De Jing

Software Development & Mimesis

2006-07-04T13:34:00.000Z

Is software development interesting? Most people would say no, I suspect. Certainly most eyes glaze over when I start talking about it with non-developers (which I rarely do).

In fact, it's a very strange and interesting meeting point of diverse ideas, some better suited to literature, others to magic.

In the industry itself, we haven't got a clue what we're doing - we call it software development, software engineering, an art, a craft - what it actually is remains a constant topic of debate. And each term is freighted with meaning, implications and history.

Long before I began as a developer, it interested me in quite abstract terms. Schooled in both historicist and philological, as well as marxian and post-structuralist literary traditions, I was naturally curious what the word 'language' even meant in programming. It seemed to have much in common with the magical languages - inscriptions which effected change in the 'real world', in reality itself. And not just on human behaviour and thought, but on the actual machineries of our lives.

At that point I didn't realise that 'programming' was only part of the puzzle, and that software development is a literary activity, probably most close to drama among the traditional forms. But it's also an interpretive literary critical activity.

What do I mean? When we design a modern software solution, we usually follow the 'object oriented' approach.

You might imagine we write big pieces of management style code which coordinate the loading and and manipulation of data in a chronological fashion (i.e. load data, do this then that to it, save the changes etc). Historically a lot of development has taken this approach, and it is generally known as 'procedural' programming, for reasons which should be obvious.

Under the 'object oriented' approach, we actually try to model the 'problem domain' and create an imitation of reality in software. That means we examine the language of the business problem we're solving, isolate the various actors and their responsibilities, and create software versions of then.

These are software 'objects' - defined as the data required by each and the associated actions, known as 'methods', to operate on that data - and the only way to do anything in a system like this is to ask them to perform the action for us. Common examples are user, account, institution, invoice or payment objects.

There are different types of relationships that can exist between these objects - a customer object can contain, or have a link to, its creditcard and account objects (this is known as 'composition'). There can also be sub-types - perhaps a personalAccount and businessAccount types which share, but customise or add to, the common Account behaviour (this is known as 'inheritance').

So the activity of designing a complex software solution begins with the identification and organisation of all the objects involved. The simplest way to understand it is to think of all the nouns and verbs involved in a business situation - the nouns will be objects, the verbs will be methods. "Purchase a product, pay with a credit card payment" reveals the nouns product, payment, creditcard and the verbs purchase and pay.

We have special languages and visual styles for representing this analysis. The most common is UML (the Unified Modelling Language), which provides a range of diagram types for representing the various actors, relationships and activities.

Now this is clearly an interpretative activity like literary criticism. ButI want to think about the process of mimesis at the core of the activity.

Mimesis is ancient Greek for imitation, representation. For the broader meaning, I'm happy with the definition Erich Auerbach provided in his magisterial Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature): "a lifelike illusion of some 'real' world outside the text by processes of selection, exclusion, description, and manners of addressing the reader". As well as the techniques used to create this literary representation, the conventions required to understand it - the drama and the audience.

Not a small topic. Representation, imitation, similarity, difference - these are core issues in our relationship with the world, our selves and language. Which is why they have preoccupied philosophers from Plato and Aristotle to your favourite (post-) modern thinker.

And this is the proper subject of object-oriented software development. And when we're done modelling reality, we implement in a magical language that can operate on the real world and creates real, actual representations of these things.

A hidden electronic drama, every time you browse the web - a reflection of your actions, yet paradoxically, possibly the more 'real'. After all, if they don't work, neither can you.

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Quote: Once Upon A Time in the West

2006-07-04T12:10:00.000Z

Harmonica: So, you found out you're not a businessman after all.
Frank: Just a man.
Harmonica: An ancient race.

Once Upon A Time in the West (writers: Sergio Donati, Sergio Leone).

Warren Buffett on brand strength

2006-07-02T14:32:00.000Z

Seems he's flavour of the month (fair enough), so some words of wisdom from his 2005 letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders:

"On a daily basis, the effects of our actions are imperceptible; cumulatively, though, their consequences are enormous...

If a management makes bad decisions in order to hit short-term earnings targets, and consequently gets behind the eight-ball in terms of costs, customer satisfaction or brand strength, no amount of subsequent brilliance will overcome the damage that has been inflicted.

Take a look at the dilemmas of managers in the auto and airline industries today as they struggle with the huge problems handed them by their predecessors. Charlie is fond of quoting Ben Franklin's 'an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure'.

But sometimes no amount of cure will overcome the mistakes of the past."

Mmm. So what about the American brand - life, liberty, freedom, democracy, justice and all that apple pie - under its current senior management?

Looking more than a little a bit tarnished. And it was really America's most powerful weapon.

Aaugh! Afghanistan & Guerrilla War 101

2006-07-02T09:13:00.000Z

"Aaugh! The last time a nation's civilian and military leadership was this incapable of learning from experience was under the Ching dynasty.

Perhaps it's time to offer a short refresher course in Guerrilla War 101:

- Air power works against you, not for you. It kills lots of people who weren't your enemy, recruiting their relatives, friends and fellow tribesmen to become your enemies. In this kind of war, bombers are as useful as 42 cm. siege mortars.

- Big, noisy, offensives, launched with lots of warning, achieve nothing. The enemy just goes to ground while you pass on through, and he's still there when you leave. Big Pushes are the opposite of the "ink blot" strategy, which is the only thing that works, when anything can.

- Putting the Big Push together with lots of bombing in Afghanistan 's Pashtun country means we end up fighting most if not all of the Pashtun. In Afghan wars, the Pashtun always win in the end.

- Quisling governments fail because they cannot achieve legitimacy.

- You need closure, but your guerilla enemy doesn't. He not only can fight until Doomsday, he intends to do just that-if not you, then someone else.

- The bigger the operations you have to undertake, the more surely your enemy is winning.

The June 19 Washington Times also reported that: 'The ambassador from Afghanistan traveled to America 's heartland to promote his war-torn country as the "heart of Asia " and a good place to do business.' In his region, 'all roads lead to Afghanistan', he said...

Asia doesn't have any heart, and Afghanistan doesn't have any roads, not even one we can follow to get out."

William Lind, writing on military.com.

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Quote: The Patriot Game

2006-07-01T11:12:00.000Z

"Come all ye young rebels and list while I sing
For the love of one's country is a terrible thing
It banishes fear like the speed of a flame
And it makes us all part of the Patriot Game
...
Now as I lie here my body all holes
I think of those traitors who bartered and sold
I wish that my rifle had given the same
To those bastards who sold out the Patriot Game."

The Patriot Game (Irish rebel song - link)

Israel and apartheid

2006-07-01T11:03:00.000Z

"The apartheid formula is 'control plus territorial confiscation plus separation equals apartheid'.

Through the use of checkpoints, roadblocks, and city-wide curfews, Israel controls the daily movement and freedom of the Palestinian people. Furthermore, its separation wall puts half of the West Bank on the Israeli side. Meanwhile, illegal Jewish settlers in the West Bank face none of the restrictions that Palestinians do. This, by definition, is apartheid.

The Israeli vision of peace is the same as the Afrikaaner's: separation from and subjugation of the natives." (link)

Quote: Samuel Clemens

2006-07-01T11:00:00.000Z

"For in a Republic, who is 'the country'? Is it the Government which is for the moment in the saddle?

Why, the Government is merely a servant - merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn't.

Its function is to obey orders, not originate them. "

Samuel Clemens ('Mark Twain')

More Israeli war crimes

2006-07-01T10:41:00.000Z

"In short, over a million civilians are now trapped, hunkered in their homes listening to Israeli shells, while facing the awful prospect, within days or weeks, of having to give toxic water to their children that may consign them to quick but agonizing deaths....

A country that claims kinship among the western democracies of Europe is behaving like a murderous rogue regime, using any excuse to reduce over a million people to utter human misery and even mass death. Plastering Corporal Shalit's face over this policy is no more convincing that South African newspapers emblazoning the picture of one poor murdered white doctor over their coverage of the 1976 Soweto uprising...

Israel has done many things argued to be war crimes: mass house demolitions, closing whole cities for weeks, indefinite "preventative" detentions, massive land confiscation, the razing of thousands of square miles of Palestinian olive groves and agriculture, systematic physical and mental torture of prisoners, extrajudicial killings, aerial bombardment of civilian areas, collective punishment of every description in defiance of the Geneva Conventions--not to mention the general humiliation and ruin of the indigenous people under its military control. But destroying the only power source for a trapped and defenseless civilian population is an unprecedented step toward barbarity. It reeks, ironically, of the Warsaw Ghetto. As we flutter our hands about tectonic political change, we must take pause: in the eyes of history, what is happening in Gaza may come to eclipse them all."
Virginia Tilley, Starving in the Dark.

But I'd disagree with her 'behaving like a murderous rogue regime'; quite simply it is a 'murderous rogue regime', a crime against humanity.

Much like the Bush regime, except that Israel is both the excuse and the excused, and ever the exemplar.

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Quotes: John Locke & Ron Jacobs

2006-07-01T09:33:00.000Z

"The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything which would be unlawful for them to do themselves."
John Locke

"Also like Washington, this belief in victory has led the military and political forces in Israel to deny their expressed principles and condone murder, torture and terror. In a poor imitation of their gods, these two capitals attempt to reshape these lands in their own image, no matter how many they have to kill and imprison.

The citizens of both Israel and the United States, meanwhile, either support this denial of their nations' principles and even urge for more repression and war; or they vainly struggle against these acts carried out in their name, hoping that someday the great unwashed majorities in both nations will finally become appalled at bloodlust and pillage done in their name.

Done so that they may live in their cities and suburbs in constant denial; secure in their belief that they will never answer for the crimes in which we are all complicit."
Ron Jacobs

Labour and Tories left reeling after by-election disasters

2006-07-01T08:55:00.000Z

[reader alert: vitriol and unrestrained cursing]

Must be a joke. Are they really that dim? Well, yeah, maybe they are...

After all, the other night Jonathon Ross asked the question of Cameron most journalists religiously avoid (and not the one about whether he wanked over Thatcher as a young prick - ha, he'd never needed to have asked Hague that one), and gets a yes.

Yes, he voted for the illegal war in Iraq and would again, at the drop of a fucking Israeli or American hat. And yes, he's just another traditional right wing bastard who'll dismantle the only feeble civil rights protection we have, and sell us all to the corporate war-mongers and environmental vandals - despite his pissant fucking bike with its annoying fucking English flag.

Fucking Israel's murdering Palesitinans with impunity, again, imposing collective punishments, again, and kidnapping big chunks of a democratically elected government. Their excuse, gravely repeated ad nauseam by assholes like Blair, Cameron and the tame media, the capture of a uniformed soldier.

This is of course described in the West as 'kidnap' to disguise the fact it was an attempt to draw attention to the ongoing kidnapping of women and children, then held as hostages, by the Israeli state. A technique, we might add, enthusiastically adopted by the US and UK in Iraq.

And of course, Israel is also publically threatening to murder that government's head of state. And the corrupt western media and pusillanimous politicians just cheer them on.

And Labour's been caught lying, yet again, this time about selling off the NHS, which something that the core constituencies really do care about. And we all know the Tories will do it quick as they can.

What else? Afghanistan's a total disaster, naturally, and the establishment military lobby's a bit pissed. So Blair's throwing more underarmed and under-armoured Brit troops in to spare his bull-fuck pallie Bush more embarassment.

Oh, and he's lying through his teeth about nuclear power. Why, the usual reason, the one we accuse Iran of - to cover another generation of vastly over-priced camoflage for the nuclear war industry and illegal proliferation. In the words of the schoolyard - takes one to know one.

And of course, then there's Iraq...

Need I continue? And they're surprised?

Give me a fucking break. Kill 'em all and let their God sort them out. This is war.

And after all, the last Pope gave us plenty of indication about his view of the state of Blair's soul.

Stinky and corrupt, blackened beyond imagining and headed for hell in a handbasket.

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Israel in Gaza: one question

2006-06-30T17:56:00.000Z

I have little comment - it's so damn obvious, you have to be willfully blind not to see what this is.

And better people than me are offering plenty of information (e.g. Juan Cole, Counterpunch).

But I will ask Americans, who should now be experiencing some sense of the reality of war and of occupation, one question.

Why are the Israelis allowed to do things your own forces are not?

Clearly you both share a war criminal's propensity for violent communal punishments and mass murder of civilians, but even the demented Bush regime wouldn't publically threaten to kill the leader of their occupied territory (and don't bother pretending Gaza's not occupied).

And even America feels the need to lie about its actions, and to hold show trials when caught out - if only to demonstrate what nice people they really are. Delusionally clinging to the tattered threads of their once mighty aspirationalist propaganda.

Not Israel. And the politicans, the media just cheer them on.

Why is that?

(PS You can read an excellent article on the BBC's unimaginably corrupt coverage here.)

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Quote: Albert Einstein

2006-06-27T08:23:00.000Z

"The pioneers of a warless world are the men who refuse military service."
Albert Einstein

Cut and run, never!

2006-06-27T07:54:00.000Z

'Draw down', that's a different matter...

Newbie Press Secretary Tony Snow clarifies: "Let me say this again, slowly and carefully so that you can all understand: We are drawing down the number of troops in the country, but that does not constitute a draw-down." (link)

There's also the related concept of "pull out", again clarified by Snow : "This in no way means that we're pulling out two brigades just because two combat brigades are being pulled out. Those are two completely different ideas." (link)

And just in case you're still confused, more clarity from Snow (or should that be more snow?): "Just because we're reducing the number of American soldiers in Iraq, that doesn't mean that we're cutting back on troop deployments." (link)

I guess they know their core constituency will swallow any number of contradictions (well, they do say they're occupying Iraq for freedom, peace, self-determination and democracy), washed down with a lubricating touch of the absurd. And happily perform dozens of logical backflips, all without disturbing that serene sense of manifest destiny and American exceptionalism.

After all, they want to believe - they just have to be told what to believe. Logic and reason, truth and justice, they just don't enter into the equation.

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Quote: Rousseau on peace and freedom

2006-06-26T14:16:00.000Z

"There is peace in the dungeons, but is that enough to make them desirable?"

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (cited in a Guardian article on Palestine).

Waiting for Godot in Iraq

2006-06-26T14:02:00.000Z

Estragon: Let's go.
Vladimir: We can't.
Estragon: Why not?
Vladimir: We're waiting for the political and security environment to stabilize.
Estragon (despairingly): Ah!

Thanks to needlenose for that absurdist moment.

The picture of Samuel Beckett is one I took of street art in Portobello Road, London. There's more in my flickr account.

Quote: Joe Bageant on American exceptionalism

2006-06-26T13:28:00.000Z

"Most of us born under American extremist capitalism are inured to its sheer brutality. To Americans, it's just the way things are. The world is a tough place. We agree that god has blessed us; we deserve what we have and let it go at that....

"Not many of us can grasp the national hubris involved, thanks to the heady patrio-religious mythology of American exceptionalism in which we were spawned and educated...

"Whatever we think we are as liberals, your nation and mine, the government we are responsible for has always acted on these beliefs, destroying whole nations, peoples and the planet under that exceptionalist banner.

"At some point, liberals and neocons and the apolitical alike, are going to have to own all of America's history, not just the parts we prefer."

Joe Bageant, Thank Heaven for 7-Eleven.

Blogging a hotline to the future

2006-06-26T12:48:00.000Z

Over time, I've come to appreciate the blog form.

I've also come to realise that for me, a very lazy, generally preoccupied individual, it provides a form well suited to my character flaws - I don't have to carefully marshall arguments and footnotes, or constantly polish my prose (as, in honesty, I failed to do as an academic).

I can beat out these short explosions of bile and irritation pretty quickly, while the mood takes me, and with minimal supporting argument.

But I've also come to realise that they provide something I thought I'd lost when I abandoned academia as a career - (limited) access to that dialog across the ages that is the study of history.

When I first started blogging, I wrote a piece called Don't Read this Blog!, where I tried to understand what I was doing in terms of seeking an audience (though blog exchanges etc):

"I think that the main audience for all this lies in the future - graduate researchers, mainly, who given enough time, and desperation for research topics with a decent body of associated research material, will study all traces of the past, no matter how trivial.

I don't expect this blog to have any affect on contemporary current public opinion, I don't even expect to impinge on contemporary consciousness in any way. But at least I'll have recorded my views on the destruction of the hopes of the twentieth century... and left a couple of comments for those future grad students." (link)

On reflection, not so trivial.

I think the post-grads will find a lot of material in these first years of the blog phenomenon. We only have to look at how swiftly mainstream politicans came to woo the blogosphere - for example, at the Daily Kos beanfest in Vegas.

It should be a popular topic for students of history, media, politics and sociology. And literature students should be interested in what is effectively a revival of the venerable epistolary tradition.

So our blogs are a hotline to the future. And we should use it as such.

We may not be able to break through the well-drilled and well-funded choruses of right wingers, neo-cons, religious fundamentalists and enthusiasts, Zionists, corporate flunkies, career politicians and the rest, but at least we can leave a marker for the future - that some of us knew the true nature of the catastrophe.

That it was possible to know. And many of us did.

But that it seems we can never be a majority, for reasons we have yet to understand, apparently related to our collective character and development.

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Quote: Albert Einstein

2006-06-24T14:54:00.000Z

"Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters."
Albert Einstein

Sound & Light Bombs in the Middle East (update)

2006-06-24T14:29:00.000Z

A comment on one of my earlier posts has just alerted me to some more information on sound bombs, and more use of the terminology - this time by CNN.

[Deputy Governor of Salaheddin province, Abdullah Hussein Ajbara] said forces used sound bombs in the hour-long raid in Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam Hussein, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of Baghdad. (link)

Wikipedia continues to have no entries for sound bomb or light bomb. Despite the fact I've been submitting evidence in support of my deleted entries for well over a year.

NPOV (neutral point of view)? Yeah right...

Read my earlier post and draw your own conclusions.

Note:
Some information on other anti-personnel sonic weaponry here and here. And it's use by non-governmental shipping security here.

Previously:
Sound & Light Bombs in the Middle East
Wikipedia & balance (NPOV): sound bombs & light bombs

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Quote: Abraham Lincoln

2006-06-24T10:37:00.000Z

"It is a sin to be silent when it is your duty to protest."
Abraham Lincoln

Iraq and America: the WMD Tango

2006-06-24T10:21:00.000Z

Not wanting to dignify the antics of Fox News, John Gibson, Republican Senator Rick Santorum and Congressman Pete Hoekstra with the slightest attention, I'm reluctant to say anything...

But this is a useful counterweight, and it is first hand evidence: "Former U.S. Army Counterintelligence Agent David DeBatto, is re-releasing his statement, first made two years ago in the spring of 2004, that his tactical human intelligence team or THT, as well as other American intelligence teams in Iraq, found solid evidence of Iraqi chemical WMD is the spring of 2003." (link)

Just an extract here, so read the whole thing:

I can honestly say that I was having a hard time comprehending what I was seeing. Unless my senses were deceiving me, Weichert and I had actually found the mother lode of Operation Iraqi Freedom - actual Iraqi WMD...

The bombs had been purchased in the United States in 1988 from what appeared to be a government contractor called The Carlyle Group. I am almost embarrassed now to say that I had not heard of The Carlyle Group at that time so the name meant nothing to me. The only reason I remember it at all is that I was amazed that the bill was in English and I was stunned to see that a bomb that was used by Iraq in delivering chemical WMD - the only WMD found during the entire Iraq war - was in fact supplied to Saddam Hussein by the United States....

I also personally reported the discovery to the battalion commander of the 223rd MI, CA ARNG, Lt. Col. Timothy Ryan. Ryan seem excited by the news... He seemed genuinely impressed with the authenticity of our find. He commented to me, "You guys have found the real deal."

So we had. Too bad it was ours. (link)

Excerpted from David DeBatto's 'Our Generals Don’t Even Know Who We Are'.

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Quote: Hegel

2006-06-23T07:36:00.000Z

"History teaches us that man learns nothing from history."
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831)

Noticed all the empty seats at the World Cup?

2006-06-23T07:10:00.000Z

So, have you noticed the big blocks of prime seats, completely empty, at pretty well every World Cup game?

Often on the centre line, upper tier. Great seats.

There's not a lot of information about, but I've seen a few explanations; including sponsors who can't be bothered turning up to the games.

"The organisation, however, has struggled to explain why hundreds of seats remained embarrassingly empty during Holland's opening match on Sunday against Serbia-Montenegro. Some 1,682 seats in the 38,898-capacity stadium in Leipzig were not filled - apparently because many sponsors with tickets could not be bothered to turn up." (link)

Of course football's so corrupt, anything's possible. One senior FIFA official (Botswana's Ismail Bhamjee) has already returned home in disgrace, his accreditation revoked, for illegally selling on tickets. (link)

Recently we've had a constant flow of match fixing scandals in countries including Belgium and Germany, as well as today's high profile headlines about Italy. (link)

It's also a mess of competing jurisdictions, FIFA, UEFA, the FA, the Premier League, G14, and all of them awash in vast flows of barely controlled money. And then there's the agents...

As for FIFA itself, check out the excellent work of English muckraker Andrew Jennings, who dished the dirt on corrupt Olympic committee practices a few years ago:

In fact, FIFA'is so worried, it's managed to get a partial ban on his latest book, Foul, which details an international cash-for-contracts scandal revolving around the collapse of FIFA's marketing partner ISL, and how some football officials have been secretly repaying bribes. The book also exposes vote-rigging that ensured Sep Blatter's continued control of FIFA. (link)

He also asks why the FIFA President delayed acting against troubled marketing company ISL, who wrongly withheld £45 million of FIFA's cash, much od which has never been repaid. And He exposes the vote-rigging that went on behind closed doors in the fight for control of FIFA .

Characteristically, Jenning has challenged them to sue:

FIFA tried to stop the book which implies that it is true what I write but I don’t know if they dare take it any further. Blatter knows that I am writing the truth. So I hope he will take me to court where I will demand that he is called as a witness. Then he will be forced to tell the truth. But I don’t think, he dares,” Jennings said. (link)

You can get a sample chapter here.

Links:
Foul!: The Secret World of FIFA: Bribes, Vote Rigging and Ticket Scandals
Dishonored Games: Corruption, Money and Greed at the Olympics

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World Cup: Italian corruption, England strikers & Sven

2006-06-23T06:49:00.001Z

Juventus, Italy’s most successful club, are most likely to bear the brunt of any successful prosecution. Other big clubs, including AC Milan, winners of the Champions League three years ago, Lazio and Fiorentina, both formerly managed by Sven-Göran Eriksson, now the England head coach, also stand accused of attempting to influence match officials. (link)

Hmm, so how would managers and officials fix matches without players' participation? I guess manipulating team sheets and appearances would be one technique...

So, one more time, why was it we left our most prolific striker behind?

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Quote: the most successful tyranny

2006-06-22T08:48:00.000Z

"The most successful tyranny is not the one that uses force to assure uniformity but the one that removes the awareness of other possibilities, that makes it seem inconceivable that other ways are viable, that removes the sense that there is an outside."

Allan Bloom, Closing of the American Mind. (link)

I'd add that among those 'other possibilities' lie our stolen futures.

Good socialism is better than bad capitalism

2006-06-22T08:11:00.000Z

Today's inbox includes a 1996 Jude Wanniski article, 'Economic Growth Part 2', which begins:

"What we should admit to begin with, if we can, is that good socialism is better than bad capitalism. The logic of the statement is really inescapable. It is only when capitalism fails that people and nations resort to alternative forms of political economy.

A socialist system that is working well is one that is fully deploying the nation`s resources through a central plan that has the approval of the people. It would be superior to a capitalist system that is working so poorly that its adherents must find excuses for mass unemployment, widely diverging income classes, and deepening social pathologies." (link)

For those of who locked into right wing American groupthink and the usual concomitant lack of historical knowledge, Jude was no leftie.

Economist, journalist and conservative commentator, Wanniski was associate editor of The Wall Street Journal from 1972 to 1978, he coined the term supply-side economics in 1976, and his 1978 book The Way The World Works initiated a revival in classical economics and was named one of the 100 most influential books of the twentiath century by National Review magazine.

Still not convinced? He was also a key adviser to Ronald Reagan from 1978 to 1981, and designed the Reagan tax cuts during that President's first term in office.

Anyway, he continues his argument quoting a letter to The New York Times by Eli Zaretsky, a visiting professor at New York`s New School:

"Capitalism by itself produces only greed and exploitation. The great successes of the modern epoch are due to social movements like populism, progressivism, new deal liberalism, socialism, feminism, movements for racial equality and even communism, that have insisted that profit be tempered with social concerns."

This sounds harsh, but it is not an unreasonable position. By itself, capitalism could be as savage and Darwinian as Marx supposed it would become.

In this country, however, capitalism is not by itself, but is twinned with the kind of active democracy that even Marx allowed could save it from extinction."

But is that actually the case? In fact America operates a form of state capitalism, where the institutions and mythologies of democracy are subservient to a form of capitalism rooted in the industries of war and are used merely as tools in the perpetuation of inquality. And where the leaders of democracy and capital are one and the same.

The right word is fascism:

But fascism may be a better term than state capitalism, because as Benito Mussolini explained, fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power. (link)

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Quote: Mark Twain

2006-06-20T17:58:00.000Z

"There have been lies, yes. But they were told in a good cause. We have been treacherous, but that was only in order that real good might come out of apparent evil. True, we have crushed a deceived and confiding people, we have turned against the weak and the friendless who trusted us.

We have debauched America's honor, and blackened her face before the world. But each detail was for the best. We know this. The head of every state and sovereignty in Christendom, including our Congress, and our fifty state legislatures are members not only of the church, but also of the blessings of civilization's trust. This world-girdling accumulation of trained morals, high principles, and justice cannot do an unright thing, an unfair thing, an ungenerous thing, an unclean thing. It knows what it is about.

Give yourself no uneasiness. It is all right."

Samuel Clemens ("Mark Twain")

Heartless in Gaza; thoughtless in America

2006-06-20T16:01:00.000Z

If you keep lying long enough and with enough conviction, people start to believe you -- or at least doubt the evidence in front of their own eyes. And so it has been with the Israeli army’s account of how seven members of a Palestinian family were killed, and dozens of other Palestinians injured, during shelling close by a beach in Gaza. (link)

There's an additional point to make.

The Israeli army's account is just providing something for those who already want to believe, they just need to be told what to believe.

Just like all those Americans who still 'believe' that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and that there's WMDs in the sands of Iraq.

This is not about information and rational thought. It's about belonging; the joys of the group.

Previously:
Evolution != Progress (Part 2)
Television & the Hive Mind
You're part of the collective now
Politics, persuasion and authority
Belief & the Politics of Conviction
Politics, eugenics and evolution
How easily we divide

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Quote: Iraqi Deputy Justice Minister Pusho Ibrahim Ali Daza Yei

2006-06-20T07:14:00.000Z

"We cannot control the prisons. It's as simple as that. Our jails are infiltrated by the militias from top to bottom, from Basra to Baghdad."

Iraq's Deputy Justice Minister, Pusho Ibrahim Ali Daza Yei (an ethnic Kurd), describing how Iraq's prison system is overrun with Shiite Muslim militiamen who have executed Sunni Arab inmates and freed fellow militia members convicted of major crimes. (link)

O Canada: true patriot love is commanded

2006-06-20T07:09:00.000Z

The Canadian project continues.

The media has started defining the two types of Canadian citizen: the Canadian-born variety (Muslims, often "brown-skinned") and real Canadians. (link)

And a priceless moment from a Canadian front page - a picture of British policemen standing outside the Bradford home of a Muslim "who may have links to Canada". Aargh, the terror!

In the words of Robert Fisk: "if I were a Canadian Muslim right now, I'd already be checking the airline timetables for a flight out of town".

Which, as he observes, is probably the point. (link)

That and good old fear, of course.

Canada, welcome to Amerika.

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Business as usual: the media and London's latest police shooting (cont.)

2006-06-18T15:39:00.000Z

So it emerges that this critical intelligence source - which could only be investigated by throwing more than 250 armed, armoured and highly excited coppers at a small house in Forest Gate - was "a 22-year-old man, who has an IQ of 69... an utter incompetent". (link)

And who is, I'm not making this up: "serving six years for possessing an old address of a British Army war hero, which police suspected was part of a terror plot".

The old address of some squaddy! So what. And that "suspected" - WTF! Did they bother to present any evidence in court? Probably not.

And what the hell's this intellectually/mentally/behaviourally challenged guy doing in jail anyway?

Rhetorical question; I know the answer.

Propaganda.

Fear.

Previously
Business as usual: the media and London's latest police shooting (update)
Business as usual: the media and London's latest police shooting

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Quote: Russell Brand

2006-06-18T14:09:00.000Z

Yes, we're all in this together. But I don't want to be in this together with you - I'd rather be in this together alone.
Russell Brand, The Guardian (17 June 2006).

He's talking about football, in particular watching World Cup games en masse at the pub. But I like the sentiment (one of the reasons for the name of this blog).

I liked his comment about Peter Crouch too: "Crouch, even in name, seems like a Victorian oddity", and certainly in appearance - those long legs, that tall, lanky, angular aspect. I suspect Russell means Victorian as mediated by Charles Dickens, who has so colonised the English imagination when it comes to the that period.

Of course, Brand has more than a little of the Dickensian oddity about him as well, and certainly his vocal style and delivery has been cultivated as such.

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Quote: Steven Erikson

2006-06-18T09:56:00.000Z

"I have heard the dead, but I could not serve them. Just as I have lived, yet created nothing."

Steven Erikson, The Bonehunters (p.417). The dying words of Heboric, 'Destriant of the Tiger of Summer'.

Football & political partisanship

2006-06-15T14:18:00.000Z

I've never really been a joiner. Too much of a loner, too much the bitter misanthropist.

Brought up in New Zealand in the 60s, where sport was a very blunt instrument used to impose social conformity and conservative social values, I was never much of a sports enthusiast either.

Nonetheless, my recent advancing years have seen me develop a taste for football (soccer, to my trans-Atlantic cousins). They say sport is a microcosm of life, and I've learned a few things lately.

Obviously, given my experience of it, I've always been aware of sport's role as a form of social control - it absorbs enormous energies, loyalties and a lot of supporters' time. So when they pick up the paper, it's the sport coverage they're after, not the latest twisty lies of our murderous political leaderships, which require concentrated attention over a long period if we're to have any chance of discerning the contradictions and working out what they're really doing.

But as a team supporter (Chelsea FC, the mighty blues), I've also noticed it innures people to 'official' injustice. Through a combination of corruption, incompetence and fierce protection of institutional prerogatives (e.g. by the referees), a constant flow of astonishing decicions are handed down to perplex the supporters. Who get very used to it.

Interesting, but what I really want to talk about is partisanship, which is the real killer feature, and what it might teach us about political partisanship.

A few months ago I wrote a small post called Football, Politics and Loyalty:

"So now I'm a Chelsea supporter, even a club member, and I've noticed a few things about club versus country. As a neutral it seemed obvious the most important thing was the national team, but for a supporter the club is the most important. The national team has the supporter's loyalty only to the point it doesn't damage the club (injuries are one of the flashpoint issues).

Anyway, to what extent are political parties like that - what is the balance of loyalties between party and country..." (link)

We have a very clear sports example right now, in the running battle between the English Football Association and Manchester United over the fitness of England's star striker Wayne Rooney. If you don't know, United's manager Alex Ferguson (a Scot, which puts a little wrinkle in my expample) has tried hard to prevent Rooney playing for England in this World Cup. He seems to have failed, but if Rooney is injured in play, the battle will quickly flare up again - in the courts and the media.

We also see similar processes in the area of software, programming and operating systems - platform and language 'religion', vast flame wars like the well-known long-runner between the vehement supporters of Apple or Linux and users of Windows, the more recent niche battle between Ruby enthusiasts and Java developers, and the endless database wars: "once started, these myths are perpetuated because database people are notoriously proud of, and defensive about, their database engine. They are delighted to repeat stories that denigrate the opposition, and so the myths grow." (link)

We can all come up with more examples - Marvel versus DC comics was another; I'm not sure if that one still runs. Ditto independents versus the majors.

But in none of these cases are partisan supporters into elevating the good of their cause above an overriding good like that of the homeland itself - there simply isn't one, except hopeless abstractions like efficient software. But in football (and I'd imagine other team sports) it does happen; team antagonisms and cliques often infect the national team, which we would expect to be the overriding good. It's not a perfect analogy, but there's something there.

So what is going on?

Why do people act like this - for instance vehemently disseminating myths and lies in support of a product choice? Is it a form of groupthink (a term coined in 1952 by William H. Whyte): "a mode of thought whereby individuals intentionally conform to what they perceive to be the consensus of the group. Groupthink may cause the group (typically a committee or large organization) to make bad or irrational decisions which each member might individually consider to be unwise." (link)

Also worth considering is the Abilene paradox, when in a particular situation, a group of people to act in a way that is directly the opposite of their actual preferences i.e. the family in the example takes a long, hot, uncomfortable trip to Abilene even tthough none of them wanted to.

Both are useful counterweights to the often repeated insight, ascribed to the Victorian thinker Francis Galton, that groups of people are superior to individuals in making certain kinds of (quantitative) judgments.

The most common example used is that of guessing the number of jelly beans in a jar. It seems groups will invariably guess the correct number to within a 5% range, even though no individual guess gets as close. I've only ever seen anecdotal evidence for this, but I'd hope some systematic evidence exists. Anyway, it's regularly deloyed as a proof of the efficiency of the economic and financial marketplace. (link)

Of course, most modern trading is complex momentum trading, not concrete value guessing (or fundamental value investment), and we can clearly see the volatility caused by the flows of opinion, 'sentiment' and groupthink.

Anyway, what really interests me here is the possibility that political partisanship wll cause supporters to elevate their partisan cause above what should be the overriding good - that of the broader community, and of the nation itself.

Certainly recent American political history suggests this process is taking place in national politics.

Vehement partisanship is certainly damaging US politics, with what passes for political debate often sounding more like the language of prejudice and hate crime. It is certainly damaging the US national interest, and the nation - constitutional protections stripped away, the 'unitary executive', pre-emption, torture, the enormous economic damage caused by years of concealed inflation, the asset bubbles, the outsourcing of skilled work etc.

And the complete collapse of the ideological advantage that served America so well through the twentieth century. The rest of the world no longer sees America as a beacon or defender of justice and freedom, but increasingly as a clear and present danger to our freedoms - over-armed, deluded, infected with odd religious enthusiams, completely out of control in terms of international law, and controlled by a cavalier elite who manipulate their own people ruthlessly and for who the living seem to have little value and no rights.

Naturally oddities emerge - the fierce conservatism of the right now supporting the transformation of budgetary surplus into bloated deficits (still, they did under Reagan too), unconstitutional accumulation of power by central government and the 'unitary executive' - abandoning longheld principles for nothing but partisanship, the joys of the groupthink, of belonging.

Probably a perfect example of groupthink and the Abilene paradox. I don't believe many of them would have chosen the destination, given the choice as individuals.

Previously:
Evolution != Progress (Part 2)
Jaron Lanier on the hive mind
Hope, magic & meaning
Television & the Hive Mind
You're part of the collective now
Politics, persuasion and authority
Belief & the Politics of Conviction
Politics, eugenics and evolution
How easily we divide

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Quote: Leon Trotsky

2006-06-15T09:39:00.000Z

"You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you."
Leon Trotsky

Evolution != Progress (Part 2)

2006-06-14T10:27:00.000Z

This isn't about the intelligent design debate, although it doesn't posit a driving or guiding force to evolutionary adaptation that I guess some might consider godlike (some mother goddess thing, maybe).

The first post was preamble really; ground rules. It's taken me a while to get to the followup.

The point I really want to make begins with this line from my first post: "Generation after generation making the same dumb mistakes in the same way, in the same place; generation after generation of predators exploiting the fact."

Or in our case, generation after generation of rulers deploying the same techniques to keep generation after generation of the ruled in line.

So how does it work? Is something in the evolutionary process preventing us from progressing, stopping us learning from the past?

Firstly, to address this, I think we have to separate the interests of the species and the individual.

In the adaptive evolution model (which seems to fit the evidence), it is clearly in the interest of the species for generation after generation to make the same mistakes. The interests of species and individual are not congruent here - the species gets individuals who meet the fitness criteria (i.e. they survived), perhaps breeding for luck as much as apparently more obvious criteria like agility and fast learning. Perhaps breeding for traits we can't yet discern.

But the main point is this, not only are the species and individual not congruent, they are diametrically opposed. It actually seems to be in the interests of the species that these individuals die. How does that work for human beings? Generation after generation, who keeps dying in the interests of the 'species'?

Well, in our 'modern' societies, that's pretty easy - it tends to be the young, same as with the birds. Even more, it tends to be young men - through suicide, drugs, war, violence etc.

There are lots of reasons for this, some more obvious than others. In the simplest terms, we are animals with over-developed brains. These brains, and the self and the mind they engender, are not fully survival oriented - they can be hard to live with. Consequently we are afflicted with a range of mental disorders - depression, bipolar, schizophrenia etc.

And unsurprisingingly, adolescence is when these problems can be sharpest - the individual, moulded by the ideals and moral truths of childhood literature, often faces the betrayal of their personality as understood to that point, in the service of animal sexuality. Hormonal drives and competition for partners create very different people of us.

As do the mechanics of lust. Perhaps nowhere else do the the interests of the species assert themselves more clearly over the individual. Do you understand why you find certain types sexually attractive and not others? We can bang on about parental types and Freud, but really we have no idea. And here I think we see some sign of our quarry. This movement from childhood innocence and aspirations to adolescent betrayal is a major theme in our cultures.

I've riffed before on the subject of eusociality - essentially the idea that our species has 'personality' and intent which is nothing to do with our character as individuals, or even groups, and especially not our pretensions to political morality and rationality.

To deploy this idea as metaphor - what do we know about this creature, it's aims and methods?

Nothing reassuring: disdain for individual life, a preference for violent and military solutions, and a apparent preference for the potential over the actual (evidenced in the killing of individuals to serve future generations).

We might even observe more signs of our quarry in Elliot wave theory - the apparent fibonacci ratio between optimists to pessimists. Which in electoral terms suggests a reality-oriented pessimism is unlikely to ever win out over optimists in denial.

Of course it's obvious that optimism is beneficial for species survival and breeding - you have to be optimistic on some level to build for the future, for future generations. And optimism can also favour future potential over current pain.

So for those of us concerned with injustice, this supra-organism revealed in evolution is probably the real problem, not politics - certainly not the farcical decaying credibility of propagandised two party politics. Our problem is not that we are alienated from our animal roots and primitive past, but that we haven't escaped them.

For as long as this creature breeds humans who are viscerally addicted to violent solutions - like all those parents so easily swayed by the witchdoctor's skull on a stick - we are completely doomed to a dark and bloody future, regardless of our achievements in the sciences and material culture. We will continue to breed a core constituency, a majority, able to bear and ignore injustice (including against its own) and its wider implications (even environmental catastrophe), by focussing on the good news and mythical future potential.

Given all this, it's not surprising that intelligent young idealists and pessimists turn to suicide. Especially since adolescence is also the age of social adapation - the transition from the ideals instilled in childhood to the less attractive reality of social existence and competitive economics.

Anyway, just one point to take from this, the interests of the species and individual can be and often are diametrically and violently opposed.

When I get round to it, Part 3 will look at insights and strategies from the past on this subject - including the experience and practices of early Christian ascetics, and the institutions they created to pass their values down to the future.

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Quote: Will Rogers

2006-06-14T10:26:00.000Z

"You can't say civilization don't advance, however, for in every war they kill you in a new way."
Will Rogers

Tony Joe White - 'The Swamp Fox'

2006-06-14T06:47:00.000Z

A break from all this misery and murder, doom and gloom... and one of the few things that lightens my soul is music.

As I pointed out earlier, I've been on a bit of a musical journey the last year or two, mainly triggered by P2P and getting a couple of mp3 players. Ignoring taste and popularity, I just listen to stuff I like or found interesting.

I'm certainly not alone in having enjoyed the Country Got Soul series, standouts for me including Larry Jon Wilson's 'Sheldon Churchyard', Razzy's I Hate Hate and Tony Joe White's songs.

Beyond what's on these albums, I've found nothing else by Larry Jon Wilson so far. Tony Joe White, one the other hand, has been immensely productive: "Tony Joe White, aka the Swamp Fox, has been on a roll these past few years, issuing album after self-released album of quality original material full of deep, dark, blues-flavored Florida vintage roots music." (link)

Just like that - dark, bluesy, swampy and great, at times skirting self-parody ('I Want My Fleetwood Back', 'Old Man Willies', 'High Sherriff') but always redeemed by its sheer quality and coolness.

His back catalog is huge, and the vast majority are eminently listenable. He has a wonderful laid back vocal delivery and guitar style, which may remind you a little of early JJ Cale. If don't know him, he wrote 'Rainy night in Georgia', and his version of the song remains for me the best.

There's so much music that I can only point out landmarks - a very cool version of John Lee Hooker's 'Boom Boom', a swampy Barry White thing on a track called 'That Loving Feeling', rootsy, bluesy tunes like 'Ol' Black Crow', 'Missippi River' and a whole pile of beautiful songs - 'Louisiana Rain', 'Nothing I Would Not Do', 'Cold Fingers', 'Rainy night in Georgia'...

I can't do much justice to here to his 30 plus years career, but well worth a listen is one of his most recent releases is The Heroines, which includes duets with Jessi Colter, Shelby Lynne, Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams and daughter Michelle White. Moody country blues and soul, great songs and delivery - 'Can't Go Back Home' with Shelby Lynne is absolutely massive.

Anyway, check him out.

Also currently enjoying: Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan's 'Ballad Of Broken Seas', a sort of modern Lee and Nancy thing: 'Ramblin' Man' a definite standout.

Previously:
Pure Religion & Bad Company

Amazon:
Country Got Soul Vol.1
Country Got Soul Vol.2
Testifying - The Country Soul Revue
Tony Joe White: the Heroines

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It's an ill wind...the war on drugs meets the war on terror

2006-06-13T18:45:00.000Z

"The Afghanistan province being patrolled by British troops will produce at least one third of the world's heroin this year... a record for the country" (link)

Quote: Kurt Vonnegut

2006-06-13T09:25:00.000Z

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be."
Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night.

State media tactics: Delay, Distract, Discredit, Spotlight and Scapegoat

2006-06-12T15:27:00.000Z

"This is a summary of five most commonly deployed crisis management propaganda tactics which the State and Media combine that we can expect to see in relation to the Haditha Massacre. Listed in a loose chronological order of their deployment, the tactics are: Delay, Distract, Discredit, Spotlight and Scapegoat."

Dahr Jamail and Jeff Pflueger, who discuss these five public relations campaigns in the context of the Haditha Massacre here.

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Quote: Clarence Darrow

2006-06-12T10:16:00.000Z

"True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else."
Clarence Darrow

'Apparent suicides' at Guantanamo Bay: Jumah Abdel Latif Al Dossari's suicide note

2006-06-12T08:54:00.000Z

Best comment so far on Navy Rear Adm. Harry Harris characterisation of the 'apparent suicides' as 'an act of asymmetric warfare against us', from The Sideshow:

"It seems obvious to me that people who believe this should immediately retaliate in kind. That'll show 'em." (link)

As a counterweight to all this 'asymmetric PR war' stuff, here's an extract from the suicide note, declassified earlier this year, of Jumah Abdel Latif Al Dossari, a Gitmo prisoner who has repeatedly tried to kill himself:

"I hope you will always remember that you met and sat with a 'human being' called 'Jumah' who suffered too much and was abused in his belief, self, in his dignity and also in his humanity. He was imprisoned, tortured and deprived from his homeland, his family and his young daughter who is in the most need for him for four years... with no reason or crime committed...

Take some of my blood... take pieces of my death shrouds... take some of my remains... take pictures of my dead body when I am placed in my grave, lonely... send it to the world.. to the judges... to people with live conscious... to people with principles and values, the "fair-minded"...

To make them carry the burden of guilt in front of the world for this soul that was wasted with no guilt it has ever done...

To make them all carry this burden in front of the future generations for this wasted soul that has done no sin...

To make them carry this burden of guilt in front of history for this soul that was wasted with no reason...

After this soul has suffered the worst by the hands of the protectors of peace and the callers for democracy, freedom, equality and justice..." (link)

Nothing I could add to that.

Except I guess, this timely comment from Charlie Stross, quoting from the Executive Summary of the The Guantanamo Detainees: The Government's Story report (prepared by legal academics from Seton Hall Law School who had acted as defense advocates for the detainees) reminding us that:

1. Fifty-five percent of the detainees are not determined to have committed any hostile acts against the United States or its coalition allies.

2. Only 8% of the detainees were characterized as al Qaeda fighters. Of the remaining detainees, 40% have no definitive connection with al Qaeda at all and 18% have no definitive affiliation with either al Qaeda or the Taliban...

4. Only 5% of the detainees were captured by United States forces. 86% of the detainees were arrested by either Pakistan or the Northern Allaiance and turned over to United States custody. This 86% of the detainees captured by Pakistan or the Northern Alliance were handed over to the United States at a time in which the United States offered large bounties for capture of suspected enemies. (link)

Note:
June 26 is is the date that the United Nations has marked as the International Day in Support of Survivors and Victims of Torture. This year a coalition of human rights, civil liberties and faith organizations have joined TASSC International, a leading survivors organization, in declaring June 'Torture Awareness Month'. (link)

Previously:
'Apparent suicides' at Guantanamo Bay update: "a good PR move"
'Apparent suicides' at Guantanamo Bay

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Quote: Jaron Lanier on the hive mind

2006-06-12T07:51:00.000Z

"But the hive mind is for the most part stupid and boring. Why pay attention to it?"
Jaron Lanier, Digital Maoism: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism.

Well, duh, I would have thought that was pretty obvious. Because it might help explain the ridiculous decisions we make as groups - surely a critical issue right now.

Still, I expect little more from the hothouse flowers of capitalism - and we do get predictable yap about the cleverness of Adam Smith's invisible hand, and tendentious connections drawn between liberal economics and information technologies.

But credit where it's due - some interesting comments on various topics, including "the alarming rise of the fallacy of the infallible collective".

Previously:
Television & the Hive Mind
You're part of the collective now
Politics, persuasion and authority
Belief & the Politics of Conviction
Politics, eugenics and evolution
How easily we divide

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Political presdigitation: Ian Blair’s career prospects

2006-06-12T07:24:00.000Z

The Times informs us that "Sir Ian Blair’s position as Metropolitan Police Commissioner looked increasingly fragile after political support for him appeared to fade last night". (link)

Business as usual, in other words - focus on Blair's personal career prospects, his discomfort, allow a little schadenfreude. Meanwhile the organisation rumbles on, its institutional criminality and practices essentially unchanged. Its impunity unchallenged.

Just like the public ritual of politics really. Like political leaders burning away their accrued 'credibility' (not the best word really) in the service of their masters, until replaced by another who will do exactly the same - decade after decade, giving the appearance of accoutability, of change... of progress.

A kind of stage magic really - distraction, misdirection and sleight of hand - the appearance of order, process and justice disguising their complete absence.

Previously:
Two party politics as usual
Bush & Blair: the deceptive allure of schadenfreude
The tide's turning

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Television & the Hive Mind

2006-06-11T18:06:00.000Z

I just read Television & the Hive Mind by Mack White. Worth reading if you're interested in persuasion and propaganda (and you should be).

He begins with the Mercury Radio on the Air began broadcasting Orson Welles' radio adaptation of H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds:

"Later, psychologist Hadley Cantril conducted a study of the effects of the broadcast and published his findings in a book, The Invasion from Mars: A Study in the Psychology of Panic. This study explored the power of broadcast media, particularly as it relates to the suggestibility of human beings under the influence of fear.

Cantril was affiliated with Princeton University's Radio Research Project, which was funded in 1937 by the Rockefeller Foundation... Two years later, with Rockefeller Foundation money, Cantril established the Office of Public Opinion Research (OPOR)...

Among the studies conducted by the OPOR was an analysis of the effectiveness of "psycho-political operations" (propaganda, in plain English) of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Then, during World War II, Cantril÷and Rockefeller money÷assisted CFR member and CBS reporter Edward R. Murrow in setting up the Princeton Listening Center, the purpose of which was to study Nazi radio propaganda with the object of applying Nazi techniques to OSS propaganda. Out of this project came a new government agency, the Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service (FBIS). The FBIS eventually became the United States Information Agency (USIA), which is the propaganda arm of the National Security Council.

Thus, by the end of the 1940s, the basic research had been done and the propaganda apparatus of the national security state had been set up--just in time for the Dawn of Television..."

According to Wikipedia, Texan Mack White is a comic book artist, writer, radio personality, and parapolitical researcher. The second half of the essay tends to focus more on his particular interests, but it's all worth reading; there'all sorts of interesting stuff on the history of television, military disinformation, drug policy, and the physiological and psychological effects of watching television:

"Experiments conducted by researcher Herbert Krugman reveal that, when a person watches television, brain activity switches from the left to the right hemisphere. The left hemisphere is the seat of logical thought. Here, information is broken down into its component parts and critically analyzed. The right brain, however, treats incoming data uncritically, processing information in wholes, leading to emotional, rather than logical, responses. The shift from left to right brain activity also causes the release of endorphins...

This numbing of the brain's cognitive function is compounded by another shift which occurs in the brain when we watch television. Activity in the higher brain regions (such as the neo-cortex) is diminished, while activity in the lower brain regions (such as the limbic system) increases. The latter, commonly referred to as the reptile brain, is associated with more primitive mental functions, such as the "fight or flight" response. The reptile brain is unable to distinguish between reality and the simulated reality of television. To the reptile brain, if it looks real, it is real."

All very useful in its role as a disinformation delivery device. Of course, using fear and death imagery to ensure a pliable audience is a time-honoured technique.

Anyway, well worth a read. A final taste::

"Jack Kerouac once noted, while walking down a residential street at night, glancing into living rooms lit by the gray glare of television sets, that we have become a world of people "thinking the same thoughts at the same time."

Every day, millions upon millions of human beings sit down at the same time to watch the same football game, the same mini-series, the same newscast. And where might all this shared experience and uniformity of thought be taking us?"

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