Shiraz Socialist

We've moved to WordPress!

2007-03-04T13:37:00.000-08:00

It was time after all. So our new address will be www.shirazsocialist.wordpress.com, the land of posts that publish properly, templates that look nice, and commenting systems that don't crash every ten minutes. To all of our friends, please alter your links accordingly. I'll re-link to every one of you over the next day or two.

All of the posts are there already, so please continue to bash each other over the head at your leisure, at the new address.

Jim, TWP, Larry, Lala and Mike, you'll all be getting emails inviting you to the new blog as contributors.

Here's to the new and improved Shiraz!

13th Carnival of Socialism

2007-03-04T06:02:00.000-08:00

It's here at last folks!

After a couple of false starts, for which I apologise, here's the 13th Carnival of Socialism, which invited contributions loosely based around the (partly provocative) question "Why is the left obsessed with the Middle East?"

This was a quite deliberately controversial choice on my part, as I think that better debates tend to come from questions where people directly disagree, rather than by inviting semi-consensual discussions around a theme. This did however seem to piss off some people, who were expecting something in a more "write me a post about socialism and art" type of format. Apologies for that, but I think you'll see what I was trying to get at.

I was looking really for commentary on the left (from leftist and ex-leftist perspectives), as opposed to simply expositions of left-wing ideas. My intention with this theme was to try and solicit contributions from outside of the usual circle of left-wing bloggers, and introduce some newer perspectives. It's in that light that I was delighted to receive a contribution from Marxist From Lebanon (don't call him "Lebanese Marxist"), who will be new to many of you. In one amongst many arguments the course of a fascinating post, he posits that parts of the left have fallen into a kind of knee-jerk oppositionalism since 9/11:

"Ever since Bush opened his never ending “War on Terror”, the Middle East was more on the spot light than it used to be. Ariel Sharon compared the Palestinians ( without doing any difference to the civilians) to the Terrorists that Bush was fighting. The Marxists and the Leftists fell in the error of supporting in defecto any movement or rogue nation against the United States, unless if they were al-Qa’eda."

Read it through - whether you come to agree with him or not, you'll certainly find it both thoughtful and insightful.

Next up was the ringmaster himself, John Angliss, whose lighthearted contribution suggests that it's because the Middle East gives the left an unusual opportunity to speak in terms that the general public find interesting and relevant. John, you may be jesting, but I rather think you might have a more serious point than you think.

On an intertwined subject, whilst flicking around a Google Blog Search, I came across this post by Louis Proyect, which I felt to be more than worthy of inclusion. It's a discussion of socialist attitudes to Islam, and in particular attempts to discuss the SWP's attitude to political-religious organisations like the MAB. This blog's doughty SWP commenter, JohnG, engages Louis in a debate underneath.

I also came across a very thoughtful article on a similar issue from disillusioned leftist Josh Strawn, front man for band Blacklist, on his blog. He gives us, perhaps, an view into the psyche of some people on the left (and ex-left) who linger on issues like the Middle East and related areas. Similarly to our periodic commenter Paddy the Puritan, Josh confesses to initial feelings of elation on 9/11:

"I thought it was a victory for our side. I thought it was the beginning of the revolution. I even thought they were part of the whole anti-globalization movement. They had hit at the heart of it all, the symbol of U.S. economic hegemony."

But for him the elation was replaced quickly by revulsion at his own feelings, and a sense of shame which led him to question much of his former worldview. He actually became pro-war, and he chastises those of us who remain on the left for our practice of taking swipes at what he believes to be a liberatory project:

" And now the left chastises the action because rocking the boat is costing lives. Best to have left the wound (that we helped create) to fester, according to them. It costs nothing, save for the well-being of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, Afghans, and Palestinians. It lets the 'radicals' keep their hands clean. They can Bike Against Bush or whatever the nonsense-of-the-day might be and call it compassion."

I think he's badly wrong, but he certainly got me thinking.

On the other side of the equation, I also found this post by this blog's friend Tom of Newer Labour, who finds himself in the not-very-comforable, and many would argue self-contradictory, position of being an anti-war signatory of the Euston Manifesto. Whether you think the lad's confused or not, his article does give an insight into some of the agonising that left-reformists go through when trying to define their stances on the Middle East in the face of Trot "anti-imperialism" on the one side and neocon "pro-war leftism" on the other.

Finally, I have received a contribution from someone called Judeosphere which compares the left's obsession with the Middle East to Evangelicals' obsessing over the same subject. S/he is someone who I'm presuming isn't technically on the left or indeed a disillusioned lefty type either. But I'm including the contribution anyway 'cos it's interesting. So go ahead and moan. See if I care.

Oh, and to the guy who sent me the poem, many thanks. I will use it, but it will need to go in a separate post if that's ok, purely because it doesn't relate to the topic at hand.

So there you have it. Not the usual contributors, and not a normal topic. I've no doubt some of it was inflammatory, and some of it will provoke debate. Good, it was meant to. Because that's how we on the left keep ourselves relevant, our rhetoric sharp and our ideas fresh.

Enjoy.

Free Kareem!

2007-03-04T01:45:00.000-08:00

I'd been meaning to write this for a while, but didn't get around to it. I want to add this blog's voice to those in the movement to free liberal Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer (Abdel Karim Nabil Suleiman) who has been imprisoned for the thought crime of writing opinions critical of Islam, and of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. In doing so, he has earned the wrath of both the corrupt Mubarak regime and the Islamist opposition, the Muslim Brotherhood.

Kareem has been shortlisted for the Index on Censorship/Hugo Young Award for Journalism 2007. His articles included a pledge to defend Arab and Muslim women against discrimination, criticisms of Al-Azhar University where he was a student, and attacks on Mubarak as a "symbol of Tyranny". He was jailed for "incitement to hate Islam” and “defaming the president of the republic", or in other words for uttering opinions with which powerful political forces in Egypt happened to disagree.

Kareem is supported by a wide range of people and organisations, from Muslim bloggers such as Yasmin Amin, to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, even extending as far across the spectrum as the "pro-war lefties" of Harry's Place. Please, add your voice too.

The website for the Free Kareem campaign has more information.

Death threats sent to Iraqi womens' activist

2007-03-03T00:51:00.000-08:00

Nice bunch aren't they, those Ansar Al-Islam people?

Original article is here, along with other material and suggestions as to how you can help.

MADRE Partner Condemned to Death by Jihadist Group

On February 26, 2007, Houzan Mahmoud, an international representative of MADRE's sister organization, the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq, received an e-mail signed by Ansar al-Islam, the notoriously brutal jihadist group based in Kurdistan/Iraq.

The death threat, delivered via e-mail, read, "With the permission of Great God, we will kill you either in Iraq or in London by the middle of March, because you are campaigning against Islam. You should be sent to God for punishment." Houzan Mahmoud, who is currently based in London, is originally from Iraqi Kurdistan, where she recently led a campaign against the imposition of Islamic Sharia law in the proposed constitution.

Ms. Mahmoud, aged 34, is an outspoken Iraqi feminist, secularist, journalist, and human rights activist. She has resolved to persist in her work, despite being targeted by Ansar al-Islam. In a letter to MADRE on February 27, Ms. Mahmoud stated, "I will continue doing what I am doing now, going around the world cultivating support for women in Iraq and Kurdistan as well as exposing the violence and gender apartheid that Islamists are imposing on millions of women in the region."

MADRE denounces the threats made by Islamists against Houzan Mahmoud, and condemns all attacks on human rights defenders and women's rights activists. MADRE notes that for more than two decades, its sister organizations around the world have been targeted with similar violence, from the death squads of El Salvador, to the interahamwe militias of Rwanda. MADRE stands opposed to all those who utilize violence, intimidation, and mass killing in pursuit of reactionary political and social agendas and extends its strongest support to Houzan Mahmoud and all Iraqi women who are fighting for their human rights.

UPDATE: More about the threats, and Houzan's campaigning, here

March for Abortion Rights

2007-03-03T00:35:00.000-08:00

Was emailed this a couple of days ago; if you're up for another demo after the NHS ones (you demo hound, you), then here are the details:

40 YEARS SINCE 1967 - MARCH FOR ABORTION RIGHTS

Meet 6.30pm, Saturday 3 March, outside University of London Union, Malet Street (tube: Goodge Street, Russell Square, Euston)

Confirmed speakers so far are: Katy Clark - Labour MP for North Ayrshire and Arran; Michele Emerson - Communication Workers' Union Equality Officer; Sofie Buckland - National Union of Students NEC; Kate Ahrens - Leicester Health Unison; Debbie Hollingsworth - Ruskin College Women's Officer; Azar Sheibani - Iranian women's liberation activist; Thea Cohen - Students for Choice (USA)

Supporters include:

Education Not for Sale Women

NUS Women's Campaign

University and College Union (UCU)

International Union of Sex Workers

Marge Berger - editor, Reproductive Health Matters journal

Organisation of Women's Freedom in Iraq (UK)

Alliance for Workers' Liberty

Debbie Hollingsworth - Ruskin College students union womens officer

Sussex University Women's Group

Nottingham University Women's Group

Emma Clossick - co-chair, Oxford University Women's Group

RMT Women's Advisory Committee

John McDonnell MP - chair, Labour Representation Committee

Carolyn Leckie MSP - Scottish Socialist Party

Petra Urwin - SOAS Women's Society president

Janine Booth - Hackney TUC president

Kate Ahrens - Leicester Health Unison

Socialist Youth Network

Mary Partington - SYN women's officer and Feminists 4 John McDonnell

Scottish Socialist Youth Women's Network

Louise Gold - Sheffield University, NUS Women's Committee 2004-6

Laura Sterry - Nottingham University

Laura Schwartz - University of East London

Susie Orbach - author of "Fat is a feminist issue"

Teodora Todorova - Nottingham University Women's Officer

York University Women's Committee

British Pregnancy Advisory Service

Respect Coalition

Rhythms of Resistance will be playing.

Ignorant proles

2007-03-01T08:03:00.000-08:00

A truly wonderful letter in today's Morning Star:

"Here in Wandsworth, we have two supermarkets, Waitrose and Sainsburys, where I, as well as my brother, can pick up the Morning Star.

"One criticism that I would make about these mega-food monopolies is the amount of Israeli produce flooding their shelves at the moment.

"Recently, my sister and I have found it impossible in either of these stores to purchase, for example, new potatoes, sweet peppers or mint from any other source except Israel.

"The special preference given to Israel by the EU needs to be scrapped.

"More of a worry is the complete lack of any political consciousness shown by many of its workforce.

"When we enquire where the produce comes from and say that we won't be buying it as it's from Israel, we end up receiving a blank look of bewilderment.

"They probably think we are anti-semitic.

"DAVID MACCINI

"London SW18"

I do so hope that last sentence is correct.

Hypocrite? Coward? No: conciliator!

2007-02-28T14:59:00.000-08:00

I have been accused (and not just on this blog) of being dogmatic, confrontational and unwilling/unable to see the other person's point of view.

I have also been accused (libellously) of being, shall we say, intemperate with regard to alcoholic beverage.

The following should put all these myths and libels to rest:

I live in an area of Birmingham (Bournville) which, thanks to those patronising, religious (Quaker), anti-union scum, the Cadbury family, has long been 'dry'. Those of us who like the occasional social drink have to plan well ahead, because there are no 'offies' in the vacinity.

So I was well pleased to hear that Tesco (who have a pretty rotten "sweetheart" deal with USDAW, by the way), planned to open a store selling - amongst other things - booze -within staggering distance of where I live.

Then I received this, from my local (Tory) councillors:

"Dear Resident,
"You may already be aware that TESCO are currently converting the old petrol station on Linden road into a TESCO Express site. This will be a site that sells a full range of foodstuffs and petrol from 7am intil 10:30pm
"However, TESCO have also recently put in an application to the City Council for permission to sell alcohol once this site is reopened.
"This is something that your local councillors are opposed to. We believe that the selling of alcohol from such a site may lead to underage sales to young people and may lead to an increase in anti social behaviour in the area fuelled by alcohol from this site.
"We have organised a public meeting at the United Reform Church on Beaumont Road to hear the views of local residents.
"We look forward to seeing you on Sunday.
"Yours sincerely,
"Nigel Dawkins
"Councillor Niger Dawkins".

Well, I don't mind telling you, I very nearly went along to tell Cllr. Dawkins and his fellow prohibitionists exactly what I thought of them. But I didn't in the end. Because I was down the pub.

Then, a couple of days ago, my next-door neighbour came knocking at my door. She's a lovely, kindly, public-spirited lady, who takes a great interest in all local matters, especially what's happening on our road....she had a petition in her hand: it was from the Tory councillors, about Tesco's application for an alcohol licence: what do you think I did?

Clue: I'm a natural-born coward : I mean, conciliator.

Tamimi denounces "fundamentalism"!

2007-02-26T15:47:00.000-08:00

Another great moment in journalism from the British Guardian today. Stuart Jeffries (usually one of their less annoying journalists) has a piece on the "vicious and uncompromising battle between believers and non-believers". It is admirably even-handed, in just the same way that, no doubt, a Guardian article discussing the "battle" between followers of Darwin and supporters of creationism would also be even-handed: after all, science and rationality should not be given preference over superstition and belief in the supernatural - that would be judgemental, wouldn't it?

After quoting such profound thinkers as Colin Slee, the Dean of Southwark, saying things like "Atheists like the Richard Dawkins (sic) of this world are just as fundamentalist as the people setting off bombs on the tube"... (think about that statement for a moment, folks)...the article goes on to quote one Azzim Tamimi, billed as "director of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought", saying: "I refer to secular fundamentalism. The problem is that these people believe that they have the absolute truth. That means you have no room to talk to others so you end up having a physical fight". So Mr Tamimi is some kind of peace-loving, liberal, pro-dialogue, anti-fundamentalist opponent of the idea of anyone having "the absolute truth"? Eh, well...perhaps not: what the Guardian article failed to mention is that Mr Tamini isn't just the "director of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought". He's rather better known as the representaive in Britain of Hamas. You know, those peace-loving anti-fundamentalist folk who's charter explicitly rejects "so-called peaceful solutions", who opposed the Oslo accords, who support suicide bombings against civilians and who seek the total destruction of Israel: all in the name of their faith, which they believe to be the absolute, irreducible and uncontestable Truth, and that all who disagree are infidels who should be conquered -or in the case of Jews, wiped off the face of the earth. And Tamini, whose membership of Hamas is not even mentioned by the Gruaniad, is quoted denouncing "secular fundamentalism" on the grounds that it leaves "no room to talk to others"...

What would we do without the good old Graun, eh?

Carnival coming soon...

2007-02-25T08:47:00.000-08:00

I am still doing the 13th Carnival of Socialism, but I'm gonna put it up next weekend rather than this. I just got carried away with the Meacher stuff. Thanks to all who've sent contributions, I promise I haven't forgotten you.

The plus side is that if you still want to send something in that works around the approximate topic area of "Why is the left obsessed with the Middle East?" , then you have a small extension time within which to do so. I'd particularly invite contributions from people who don't come from the same traditions as me or share my gripes about the left. After all, it's intended to be a provocative topic, and I know that some of you who read this blog enjoy a row. So here's your chance to do exactly that, in a medium other than the comments boxes. Although those will doubtless be busy next weekend too!

Contributions and comments, as ever, to voltaire_reincarnate@lycos.com

More on Meacher

2007-02-25T06:04:00.000-08:00

I don't often agree with or endorse stuff written by AA Gill, but this from today's Sunday Times is both to the point and utterly priceless:

"There’s a company trying to find ways of marketing the pristine emptiness of Michael Meacher. So far, all they’ve come up with is having it said by the mechanical voice in lifts when the doors are opening but there’s no one there."

You just know it could so easily be true!

Anyway do your own Google News search on "Meacher" and you'll find about a squillion other mocking stories blossoming from journos both left and right. Meacher is sinking faster than the Titanic, and good riddance to him as well.

(Hat Tip: Dan in the comments)

Whackjob Sunday... Yes, It's Meacher!

2007-02-25T01:28:00.000-08:00

I wonder if his campaign will be using this fascinating video? It's in two parts; watch the top one first. Enjoy.

Remember when we talked about the C-Word?

2007-02-24T15:58:00.000-08:00

... To those of you who felt the word should simply be barred from general discourse (what the right would call "polite society"), I would only say to you that I've heard Michael Meacher is running for leader of the Labour Party. And V has something to say about it.

I don't care what your views are on the word itself. Meacher is vilified by the vast majority of the left. The right think he's a figure of fun. And yet he thinks he's the man to challenge Gordon Brown. If ever any man richly deserved the accolade "Cunt of the Week", 'twould be he.

Back off, Meacher!

2007-02-23T02:46:00.000-08:00

What the hell does Michael Meacher think he's playing at? This fake-left poseur has announced that he's standing for Labour leader on a supposedly "centre-left" platform. He claims to have more support from MP's than the genuine left-winger, John McDonnell who announced his intention to stand months ago. In fact, neither of them has anywhere near the 44 nominations required to get onto the ballot paper, but there is simply no evidence that Meacher has more support than McDonnell, even amongst MP's.

The most likely effect of Meacher's campaign will be to damage John McDonnell sufficiently that neither of them get on the ballot paper, giving Brown a clear run.

As for Meacher's claim that he is somehow "more credible" than McDonnell: well, this comes from someone who voted for the war in Iraq, foundation hospitals, cuts in lone parent benefit, tuition fees, etc, etc. He supports wacky conspiracy theories about 9/11 (the CIA was behind it!) and owns approximately a dozen homes. Crucially, he has virtually no rank and file support anywhere in the labour movement. McDonnell, on the other hand, has been endorsed by ASLEF, the RMT, FBU, Amicus Unity Gazette, the T&G, CWU and Unison Broad Lefts, Welsh Labour Grassroots, Scottish Campaign for Socialism and the Labour Representation Committee - not to mention CLP's and union branches across the country.

What you can do:

1/ Write a letter to the Guardian and/or Mirror, explaining why you're backing McDonnell and calling for Meacher to back off.

2/ Email Meacher at meacherm@parliament.uk - asking him to back off and / or to support McDonnell.

3/ Write to your local Labour MP - go to www.writetothem.com

4/ If you've got a blog, write what you think about Meacher and/or leave comments on other blogs. Do a search for "Michael Meacher" at search.blogger.com to find posts about this.

Meacher's vainglorious act of conscious or unconscious sabotage against McDonnell must be stopped.

Wystan Hugh Auden, 21 February 1907 - 29 September 1973

2007-02-21T07:28:00.000-08:00

He was a rather sad, lonely man and his formal politics - even at their best - were pretty crap (he supported the Stalinist "popular front" movement in the thirties, then became a pacifist and anti-Marxist).

But his heart was in the right place: he was personally kind and generous, and he did his best in the Spanish civil war, despite being (by his own admission), a pretty useless soldier. Above all, he was a humanist.

Here's one of his best:

Musee des Beaux Arts

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how well it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the plowman may
Have heard the splash, the foresaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

...And here are some excerpts (lines 45-46, 89-93) from Spain 1937, about the civil war: he later tried to have this expunged from the record of his work:

And the life, if it answers at all, replies from the heart
And the eyes and the lungs, from the shops and squares of the city:
"O no, I am not the Mover,
not today, not to you. To you I'm the

"Yes-man, the bar-companion, the easily-duped:
I am whatever you do; I am your vow to be
Good, your humourous story;
I am your business voice; I am your marriage.

"What's your proposal? To build the Just City? I will,
I agree. Or is it the suicide pact, the romantic
Death? Very well, I accept, for
I am your choice, your decision: yes, I am Spain."

The stars are dead; the animals will not look:
We are left alone with our day, and the time is short and
History to the defeated
May say Alas but cannot help or pardon.

Eagleton: beyond stupid

2007-02-21T02:28:00.000-08:00

Terry Eagleton (John Edward Taylor Professor of English Literature at Manchester University), used to be a self-proclaimed Marxist of one variety or another. These days, he's a pretentious purvayor of vacuous, dishonest excuses for moral and cultural relativism. His crass denunciation of Richard Dawkins' brilliant "The God Delusion" is but one recent example of this buffoon's ignorance and stupidity. But his offering in today's Guardian takes the proverbial biscuit. In the course of completely misrepresenting the terms of the debate about multiculturalism, the learned Professor appears to call Tony Blair a "cultural supremacist" for objecting to the bombing of tube stations...I'm (nearly) sure that Eagleton doesn't really mean this, but that is, indeed, what he appears to say. As one commentator, "Waltz" (about twenty comments down), says "This is the stupidist article I've ever read in the Guardian. It's...it's...it's beyond stupid".

Considering the pack of idiots and moral degenerates (including Madelaine Bunting, Andrew Murray and Osama bin Laden) that Seumus Milne has published over the years, to call an article "the stupidist" is quite something. But, in this case, I think, justified.

And folks, if you're reading this on Wednesday 21st February, there's still time to go onto the Guardian's "Comment is Free" website and tell the professor exactly what you think of him.

Monbiot Tears the Bastards Apart

2007-02-20T00:54:00.000-08:00

There are few things that raise my ire more than the 9-11 conspiracy crew. Most annoying is seeing them, seemingly getting a hearing, at every anti-war demo I have attended in Britain. They walk around with thier crap signs showing a poorly drawn plane and the towers with "9-11" and "Truth" written somewhere on the signs.

They've approached me, and I've given it to them. I will continue to do so. What is most disturbing is that they seem shocked that I should have such a reaction to them. It is as though they truly believe that they are simply another group with a cause who does no harm by being there. However as Monbiot points out in his article in today's Guardian nothing could be further from the truth. Monbiot makes the point that I have made all along with these people and that is that they discredit the left and the real movements that we are trying to build.

So this weekend, if you're going to the demo, make sure to let them know how much they are not welcome. I usually find that saying "get that shit outta my face" in my best NY accent when they try to hand me a leaflet works. There really isn't much point in an American who was there engaging them in conversation. They'd probably look on with wonder at someone who must be "in on it"......

Whackjob Sunday

2007-02-18T08:29:00.000-08:00

You can't beat a good conspiracy wacko for laugh-out-loud entertainment. Enjoy.

Anti-Imperialism and Waves of Rage

2007-02-18T07:19:00.000-08:00

Brendan O'Neill is editor of Spiked Online, the organ of one of the successor bodies to th Revolutionary Communist Party, an eccentric ultra-left organisation that converted en masse to libertarianism in the 1990s. Still, whoever he is, this post of his (from Comment is Free) is very interesting.

He's commenting on the way that "Muslim Rage" seems to have replaced political analysis at the root of the politics of many in the anti-war movement, and among the self-appointed "community leaders" so beloved of both the government and sections of the left. This has disastrous consequences in terms of a crisis of representation that leads all sorts of people to think they can set themselves up to speak, unelected, for the UK's Muslim communities.

Bizarrely, the prevailing wisdom among liberals and left wingers is simply to buy into this kind of politics as though it were self-evident fact. For instance, many people seem to simply accept that the war in Iraq and/or the Israeli occupation of Palestine were the cause of 7/7, as though the relationship were a direct and causal one. As O'Neill puts it:

"The idea that it somehow 'makes sense' for Khan and his three mates to kill themselves and others in protest at British foreign policy shows the triumph of the narrow and divisive politics of identity. There is also something uncomfortably racial about it. The assumption seems to be that there's something in Muslims' ethnic or religious make-up that makes it more acceptable, or at least more understandable, for them to carry out murderous acts in response to wars abroad, as if they are unthinking automatons driven more by emotion and instinct than rational political thought."

It's uncomfortable terrain, but he has a point. Could you seriously imagine progressives arguing, that David Khoresh or Tim McVeigh were driven by root causes based in unfair US policies towards the white working class, as though that was just the obvious explanation for the former's arming of his followers or of the murderous outrages committed by the latter? I certainly can't imagine a set of circumstances in which that would happen.

Have a look and see what you think. It's food for thought, anyway.

(Hat Tip: Modernity Blog)

Meanwhile, over at the Drink Soaked Trots...

2007-02-17T00:13:00.000-08:00

The Scylla and Charybdis of international politics, Will and JohnG, are just beginning the predictable row about a putative invasion of Iran in the comments on this post. I found the as-yet very short exchange interesting, because it throws into stark relief some of the issues between the so-called "stopper" and "decent" tendencies on the left.

Peculiar discussion, this. Especially when it's held between two people who are both putting arguments with virtually mirror-imaged flaws. Will is by far the politically sharper of the two, and quite rightly berates John's (and most of the left that gravitates around the SWP's) substitution of a simple disidentification with "imperialism" and de facto identification with any forces that oppose it - however reactionary - for actual political innovation, theory and analysis in politics on a global level. The consequence, he argues, is apologism for regimes that are brutally oppressive and/or actually fascist, purely on the grounds that they find themselves ranged against "imperialism". This is true, and can be applied to many people on that spectrum, even those not quite so stupid as to get all jelly-kneed over Muqtada Al-Sadr.

However, where he and his chums, pro-war leftists who happen (unusually for those under that label) to actually be mostly left-wing, go wrong, is that such a critique seems to the translate somehow into backing for ideologically driven offensives against various regimes in one particular region of the world, led by one of the most right-wing US administrations in that nation's history. They seem to have some kind of collective mental block that prevents them from disentangling neo-con rhetoric about spreading democracy in the Middle East from real liberatory goals. In other words, he (and they) would seem to have done a Cohen - ie, allowed legitimate criticism of glaring flaws in the politics of a section of the left, to lead them to have illusions in political initiatives led by a particularly malevolent section of the right.

By way of criticising the SWP-dominated left, Will says:

"The category of 'imperialism' so dominates and negates all other options that the imagination, the faculty of forming new ideas, the ability to be creative or resourceful is made reduntant."

Very sadly, in this political area at least, he would seem to have fallen into exactly the same trap, even if he is led to the opposite set of political conclusions. At least, that's the case if he (and other pro-war lefties such as Transmontanus, who wrote the actual post) is working himself up towards supporting an attack on Iran. Which I rather get the impression he is.

JohnG, on the other hand, manages to come to the right conclusion for all the wrong reasons: he rightly opposes the prospective attack on Iran. But then if the USA started distributing free apples to children the world over, John and his chums in the SWP would find some reason to oppose it. So I guess if you oppose anything and everything that one nation does in the field of foreign policy, then you're guaranteed to be right at least some of the time. And as a little Brucie Bonus, much of the closed and shrinking circle that is the trot/ex-trot left will say you've got "sound anti-imperialist politics". Oh, and you might get on the SWP Central Committee.

You pays your money, you takes your choice, I guess.

Update: Hak Mao has written a response to this post on the Drink-Soaked Trots site. As ever, it's very good - albeit that I'm apparently having a "fit of the vapours" according to Ms Mao. Take a look.

Big Al, Bugs and that massacre

2007-02-14T01:27:00.000-08:00

On this day, 78 years ago, the forces of Big Al rubbed out key members of George 'Bugs' Moran's organisation in a Chicago garage.

This incident has long posed a quandary for principled anti-imperialists: which side would we have supported? On the face of it, the answer is easy: Big Al's mob was the biggest, most powerful outfit in town, whereras the Moran gang were the underlings: plainly, we support Moran (this analysis will have the added appeal, for some, that Moran was a deeply religious man, whose hatred of Big Al was motivated, he claimed, by his moral objection to the Capone mob's involvement in prostitution).

But here comes the problem for us principled folk: Moran's outfit, though predominantly Irish, were Anglophones, and therefore the historic oppressors. The Capone organisation, on the other hand, were Sicilians - long the victims of anti-Italian stereotyping and Siciliaphobia. Their strike against Moran was, therefore an entirely justified symbolic blow against the forces of oppression and racism worldwide, and would have to be supported on that basis, even if their methods were not ours.

Just goes to show, doesn't it, that your initial response to events isn't always the correct one. A little thought and analysis always pays off, especially when dealing with crucial issues like this one.

Cardus...Liebling...Balliett

2007-02-11T13:42:00.000-08:00

"Trying to put music -especially improvisatory music-into words is somewhat like trying to bottle an ocean breeze. Yet it's not entirely impossible, as Whitney Balliett...demonstrates".
-Nat Hentoff

There are some specialist writers who are just so good, that you can appreciate them even if you don't give a damn about their subject. Philip Larkin summed it up well:

"There is a kind of imaginative journalism that one suspects has its roots in Wilde's 'The Critic as Artist'. When Cardus writes 'During his first few overs , Grace's bat was like a stout door bolted against evil', or Liebling reports a boxer throwing a right 'like an old woman throwing a pie', Wilde's sentence about the relationship of the critic to the work of art being precisely that of the artist to the visible world comes irresistably to mind".

What Neville Cardus was to cricket and A.J. Liebling to boxing, Whitney Balliett (who died 1 February 2007), was to jazz. There is a further connection with Liebling: both wrote for the 'New Yorker' magazine, and both -inevitably-came under the influence of the great 'New Yorker' writers James Thurber and S.J. Perelman. Unlike Liebling, Thurber and Perelman, Balliet was not a deliberate humourist, but his jazz writing nevertheless contained the wit and peception of his great predecessors.

Doug Ramsey has commented that jazz writing "generally takes one of two paths, analysis or appreciation. Whitney Balliett was not a musicologist, but one of the field's most gifted appreciators". Ramsay goes on to cite the following example of Balliett's brilliance - a passage about Thelonious Monk:

"His improvisations were attempts to disguise his love of melody. He clothed whatever he played with spindly runs, flatted notes, flatted chords, repeated single notes, yawning silences, and zigzag rhythms. Sometimes he pounded the keyboard with his right elbow. His style protected him not only from his love of melody but from his love of the older pianists he grew out of - Duke Ellington and the stride pianists. All peered out from inside his solos, but he let them escape only as parody".

As Ramsey coments: "Musicians and academic analysts often found more poetry than accuracy in some of Balliett's lyrical descriptions ..."

However, I would defy anyone to fault Balliet's ability to describe the great personalities of jazz - their sounds, and their characters: Billie Holiday, Henry 'Red' Allen, Mary Lou Williams, Pee Wee Russell, the Count Basie rhythm section ("its ball-bearing motion through an almost Oriental casualness and indirection, as if the last thing in the world it wanted was to supply the rhythm for a jazz band), ... right up to Ornette Coleman.

Balliet's ability was to both describe the individual (often in great physical detail), and his/her music. He was especially good with drummers, Big Sid Catlett being a particular favourite. Here's Balliett's description of the man:

"Catlett was nobly constructed. He was six feet three or four inches tall, and everything was in proportion: the massive shoulders, the long arms and giant, tapering fingers, the cannon-ball fists, the barn-door chest and the tidy waist and columnular neck...big men are often more graceful than small men, and Catlett was no exception. He could swim, play football and basketball, and dance beautifully. But he never learned to drive a car".

Now here's Balliett's desciption of a Catlett drum solo:

"There is a section of his long and empyrean solo in "Steak Face" on the Decca "Satchmo at Symphony Hall" album in which he plays a repeated figure with a loose, and then increasingly complex, arrangement of rim shots, and it is astonishing. It makes you want to dance and jig and shake. Its timing and taste and impetus are such that the passage stands at the very heart of rhythm. One of his simpler solos might start with unbroken, surging, snare-drum rolls, whose volume rose and fell sharply, and whose wavelike patterns became more and more intense before suddenly exploding into rim shots. Then a stunning silence-followed by lightening shots delivered all round his set, by another silence and several choked-cymbal beats, and the solo was over"... (this description of Catlett's playing, by Balliett, continues and intensifies - see "American Musicians"- Oxford, 1986).

...If anyone knows of a better written description of a drum solo, I'd like to hear of it.

The only complaint about Balliett that holds any water, IMHO, is that of Philip Larkin (who very much liked Balliett's writing style): " None of the complimentary remarks about Balliett...uses the word 'critic', and that may be significant...(since criticism) is alien to Balliett's purpose".

Larkin had earlier commented;

"His chief characteristic, as a critic, is that he has virtually no characteristics: in a potted biography published in 1959 it was said that Balliet 'professes equal interest in all types of jazz'."

In fact, Balliett did once come close to expressing a clear-cut opinion, about the avant garde jazz of the sixties (and it was an opinion with which Larkin would most certainly have agreed, had he known about it):

"At its worst, then the new thing is long-winded, dull and almost physically abrasive. At its best - in the hands of Ornette Coleman or (Cecil) Taylor - it howls through the mind and heart, filling them with an honest ferocity that is new in jazz and perhaps in any music".

But back to Balliett's amazing ability to capture in words, both the sound of a musician, and their personality. I think the best example of both is his description of the eccentric, alcoholic clarinet genius, Pee Wee Russell. First, Pee Wee's sound:

"In his final chorus, he moves snakily up towards the middle register with a series of tissue-paper notes and placid rests, adopting a legato attack that allows the listener to move back from the edge of his seat".

...Now, Pee Wee's personality:

(From his wife, Mary, describing to Balliet a time when Pee Wee left her and then came crawling back): "Once when Pee Wee had left me and was in Chicago, he came back to New York for a couple of days . He denies it. He doesn' remember it. He went to the night club where I was working as a hat-check girl and asked to see me. I said no. The boss's wife went out and took one look at him and came back and said 'At least go out and talk to him. He's pathetic. Even his feet look sad.'"

That's why I miss you already, Whitney.

Oh fer fuck's sake.

2007-02-11T01:19:00.000-08:00

Just a quick one now.

Some of you may remember that some days ago I wrote another post explaining to the thick and uninspired why Jon Cruddas isn't very left wing. In the course of that I had a less than subtle dig at Dave Osler, who at that time had just written something to the effect that he might vote for Cruddas if no-one better showed up. Predictably, Dave remained splendidly aloof from my barbed words - showing himself to be one of the few political class acts remaining on the left in the process.

However, in the course of the same post I tangentially mentioned some more certain Cruddas supporters, including one Antonia Bance, an ex-student leftie from Oxford University and now Labour councillor, whom I called "allegedly left wing". I'd always thought this was a fairly simple phrase, meaning that someone claims to be left wing, but that I can't see how that claim is justified. Not a big deal, and an opinion that can be retracted on production of some evidence to the contrary.

But no. First in the comments her (presumably) pal Don Paskini took me to task for my "spiteful attack" on her. He was, however, pacified once I explained that this was not a plot on part of "my comrades" (by whom one presumes he meant the AWL) to undermine her by, err, being mean. So all was well.

But now... she's bloody posting about it herself! Apparently my little chiding words count as a "denunciation" in the rarefied atmosphere of Oxfordian politics. All I can say is that politics amid the ivory towers must be fairly Queensbury rules compared to the rest of the country, if "allegedly left wing" is an excessively pejorative thing to say about someone. Perhaps someone should introduce her to Will for a bit of toughening-up...

Antonia, I'm sure you're a jolly nice person, left wing or not. Chin up. Pip-pip. TTFN.

Hehehehehehe....

2007-02-10T14:08:00.000-08:00

Pant-pissingly funny interview of the week can be found in the current Weekly Worker, where Peter Manson interviews Yasir Idris, the recruitment consultant who beat SWP full timer Helen Salmon to the Respect nomination for a seat in the next set of elections to Birmingham City Council. The article reveals a lot about the state of Respect and its internal politics - remember before reading it that Birmingham is one of their better areas, with the politically credible Salma Yaqoob standing an outside chance of taking a parliamentary seat at the next general election.

Idris certainly has a firm social background in the West Midlands:

"My father has been a businessman. Back in 1978, when I was born, my father owned most of the Ladypool Road. It’s known now as ‘Balti junction’ because of the number of restaurants there. He owned various retail units - clothes shops, newsagents, travel agents, restaurants, etc, etc. My father owned a good 20 shops on that stretch."

What's more, the family's prestige may have helped with the (alleged) joiners on voting day who helped put Yasir over the top in the candidate selection ballot:

"It’s probably because of my influence as well. I’m well known among these people and my family are well known. I helped convince these people - hey, we do need members. Respect needs to move forward among the Asian community. We need to join together as a coalition, in unity with everyone else, to show these people that, yes, we can live side by side and we can live united."

He's not entirely au fait with Respect's policies, but is apparently reading up on them. This news will doubtless come as a comfort to the SWP, who were so careful not to allow anything too radical through when writing them. Perhaps they had Yasir in mind?

Anyway, read the rest of it here. It really is incredibly funny. Unless you're Helen Salmon or the SWP, that is.

13th Carnival of Socialism

2007-02-10T05:25:00.000-08:00

Okay then, I've settled on a topic. This came to me via a problem that Stroppy had when she did the last carnival. Namely that in a carnival with a topic as supposedly broad as "liberation politics and the left", she was (dismally but predictably) deluged with posts about Iraq and Palestine.

Now, before you all start going on, I know that they're important issues. I know that the implications for global politics in both cases stretch well beyond the borders of either nation. And I know that most of what is written about them by people on the left is part of a genuine effort to show solidarity.

But... nevertheless I'd argue that the disproportionate coverage of both issues on the left is indicative of biases that we need to address. To read the sheer volume of left-wing writing on those subjects, you would think that nowhere else in the world even existed. Or that if it did, then there's certainly no problem there. Uzbekistan? North Korea? Chad? Western Sahara? Algeria? All minor diversions from the struggle to liberate Palestine, comrade (although we'll allow for a quick "Ooh ah Hezbollah" on the related issue of the Lebanon if we're in a particularly moronic mood). Oh, and let's not forget the struggle of those great progressives in the Mehdi Army, who so carry the banner of anti-imperialism in Iraq!

Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating. But not much. You only have to take a couple of steps backwards to see just how crass and myopic this obsession looks to the wider world.

So, following from that drumroll, the topic for the 13th Carnival of Socialism is "Why is the left obsessed with the Middle East?".

Deadline will be February 24th 2007. You therefore have a fortnight folks - contributions to me either by email to voltaire_reincarnate@lycos.com or if you prefer, via link in the comments. From long posts to acidic one-liners, anything contributed (however mad) will be most welcome.

Watch this space

2007-02-10T02:37:00.000-08:00

Seeing as I faithfully promised Angliss that I'd do the next Carnival of Socialism, I suppose I'd better pull my finger out and do something about it. I shall have a ponder, and by the end of today I'll have a topic and a deadline for all you incisive political bloggers out there. Watch this space for details.

Big man, big voice (Ave Frankie, 1913-2007)

2007-02-08T11:43:00.000-08:00

High Noon ("Oh Don't Forsake Me Oh Mah Dahlin'"), Gunfight at the OK Corral, Rawhide...etc; etc: those of us brought up on cowboy films and television series, will immediately recognise the voice of Big Frankie, (March 30 1913- February 6 2007) which was usually much more memorable than the film or TV series whose opening credits he sang over.

His big-vibratoed, emotive voice (early influences included Bessie Smith and Enrico Caruso) was - perhaps- little over the top, but ideal for horse operas, which are essentially melodramas.

He was a much more sophisticated musician than you might assume. His friend, the late Richard Boston quotes him from a 1974 interview: "In Lucky Old Sun (1957) in the middle of the bridge going into the last eight bars, I come in a fourth higher, which is startling -yet in this song it seems natural. A third higher is more normal.You don't expect a fourth". Boston comments: "When did a singer last say anything like that in an interview?"

Boston closes with: "He was a great singer, and a really nice man".

So it's perhaps not so surprising to learn that Frankie always regarded himself first and foremost as a jazz singer, whose early role model was Nat "King" Cole. And in 1955 he made a truly top-class jazz album with an all-star band organised by trumpeter Buck Clayton, entitled "Jazz Spectacular"; it's well woth obtaining (last I heard, it was available on a' Columbia Legacy' CD CK 65507).

But none of that is intended to disparage his cowboy songs (including the theme for Mel Brooks's Blazing Saddles!): so long pard'ner.

The dishonesty of (some) "independents"

2007-02-07T13:14:00.000-08:00

You probably know the type: the leftist who claims to be completely "independent", a "non-aligned socialist", who just happens, on every issue, to back up the "line" of a particular party (usually the largest and most powerful one on the left). Present day examples to be found on the blogosphere would include one "Sonic" who pops up all over the place, backing the SWP whilst strenuously denying any connection with them; then there's that irritating prat Benjamin (Mackie), who plays much the same role, with the additional twist of adding that none of these arguments matter much anyway (then why bother joining in, Benji?); finally there are a few genuine "useful idiots" like this guy. But on the whole, you can't escape the conclusion that the pig-ignorance of these people is willful.

Anyway, the phenomenon of the predictably partisan "independent" is nothing new, and I must thank the New Statesman (29 January 2007) for reminding me of one of the most craven, dishonest and shameless exponents of the art: Kingsley Martin. It is rather noble of the Statesman to republish a particularly loathsome piece by Martin ("Trotsky in Mexico"), given that he edited the mag between 1932 and 1962.

Martin went to see Trotsky in exile in Mexico, in the house of Diego Rivera ("an exile could scarcely hope to find a lovelier refuge") in 1937. Martin's main purpose, it transpires, was to question Trotsky on the subject of the Moscow trials:

"What possible pressure could have been brought on all these experienced revolutionaries which would make them not only confess, but stand by their confessionswhen they had the opportunity of publicly repudiating them in open trial?" asks Martin, to which Trotsky replies (very reasonably, I'd have thought -JD), that Martin "did not understand the methods of the GPU. He described how they first got hold of a woman and questioned her until she made a confession which incriminated her husband; how this was used to break down her husband's resistance and how he in turn was induced to incriminate his friends...The GPU knew, he said, how to attack each of its victims in his weakest spot, this man signing because of nervous exhaustion, that one because of a threat to his wife and children, and the other in the hope of pardon and release".

But this explanation was not good enough for Martin:

"I still did not understand why none of the prisoners had repudiated his confession in court...the trial itself was free and open...most of them knew they were going to die anyway. Trotsky grew very animated. I was wrong. Even after the example of the first trial these men did not know they were going to die. There was a world of difference between certainty of death and just that much hope of reprieve - here Trotsky made an expressive gesture with his fingers to indicate even a millimetre of hope".

I suppose you've got to give Martin credit for reporting Trotsky's argument so accurately, even though he was plainly unaware of how willfully obtuse it makes him (Martin) appear to any halfway rational reader, especially when Martin concludes as follows:

"Afterwards, turning over this conversation in my mind, I did not find that it had cleared my perplexity about the Moscow trials, and I came away from our talk rather less inclined to scout (ie: scorn, or dismiss -JD) the possibility of Trotsky's complicity than I had been before, because his judgement appeared to me so unstable, and therefore the possibility of his embarking on a crazy plot more credible...I shall not let myself become partisan in this controversy. But I fear this open-minded attitude will have no effect on Trotsky except to convince him that I too am a prostitute in the pay of Moscow".

That reference to being a "prostitute" may have been, subconsciously, what lay behind a bizarre and hilarious episode in 1944, when George Orwell (who'd hated Martin ever since Martin had suppressed his articles denouncing the role of the CP in the Spanish civil war), wrote a piece in Tribune that mentioned no names but concluded thus:

"Don't imagine that for years on end you can make yourself the boot-licking propagandist of the Soviet regime or any other regime, and then suddenly return to mental decency. Once a whore, always a whore".

According to Orwell's biographer Bernard Crick ('George Orwell -A Life, Penguin 1980), "This last unspecified jibe brought Kingsley Martin...shouting down the phone threatening Tribune with a libel action", until it was patiently explained to him that "an action would make him look ridiculous and that Orwell was not the man to retract, but would probably compound the libel and then claim justification in open court. Nothing more was heard..."

Elsewhere in the biography, Crick speculates about the motivation of Martin and people like him in the 1930's and 40's:

"...there were objective reasons to believe that many prominent Left-wing intellectuals were not as dedicated to truth and liberty as they were to the illusion of being close to the future levers of power..."

Well, at least you can't accuse "Sonic", Benji or John Harris of that, I suppose.

America: As I See It

2007-02-05T09:40:00.000-08:00

Since moving to Britain two years ago a number of my experiences have been shaped with the recognition that I am a citizen of what many people here consider to be the worst government in world in our current day and indeed a main cause, if not the cause of many of the world's problems.

I have claimed many times that the hostility to the Bush regime is understandable and indeed it's a hostility that myself and many of my fellow citizens feel very deeply. However, there is a line that is crossed, again and again - and not just on the left - when Bush's foreign policies get applied to me and other Americans and it is we who are considered stupid, dumb and brutal.

I'll never forget the feeling that I had when I saw the cover of the Mirror the day after myself and a number of my friends stayed up all night in NY wishing Bush out of office and hoping he would lose - this after protesting in the searing heat with a couple hundred thousand other New Yorkers against the Republican National Convention earlier that year: "How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?"

I was offended. No, I wasn't one of the people that they were calling "dumb", but this is my country, my home, where my family lives. This was the place I grew up, a place of childhood memories, the country of New York City, San Francisco and Chicago. The home of rock and roll and baseball. The home of the brave civil rights movement. It's also a place of incredible beauty, particularly the deserts of the west.

There was no such headline in Britain after Blair was re-elected, even though his participation in Iraq and constant covering for Bush gave him a massive boost. Most worrying was that in the coverage that I monitored in Britain from the states after the election, time and again the focus was on those who had voted for Bush. There was very little coverage on just how heart achingly close the results were - even if a good deal of us wanting Bush to lose had no faith whatsoever in John Kerry.

What it was that offended me about the Mirror's question was that people like me didn't exist. The people I had met on demos, the people in line to see Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9-11" giving each other high-fives while standing in line or standing up in the theatre after the movie to ask others to support their soldier son's plea for proper body armour - they were all disappeared.

I moved to Britain a month after Bush was re-elected and it is this seeming non-existence that bothers me. People seem surprised that an American born in Idaho and raised in Utah can be against the war, or even left-wing or a Marxist for that matter. I know that Marxists are pretty rare these days anywhere, but I suspect my opposition to the war would be similarly surprising. I find this incredible given the radical and proud tradition of union militancy and activism in the states - yet people in Britain, even on the left, appear to be mostly ignorant of that heritage. (If you want to learn more pick up a copy of Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States").

Further, the context in which many people did vote for Bush extends well beyond Iraq and the idea that everyone was simply mentally inferior is too often taken for good coin. I recognise that it may be difficult for a population which a few generations ago saw very heavy bombardment within its borders to understand fully the significance of an event like 9-11, but it did indeed change entirely how America saw itself in the world and how Americans more generally feel about their personal security.

The dream of working hard enough to get a house and a car and the whole lot shattered instantly in the insecurity of the real world which the majority of the earth's population is a daily reality. This was a massive factor in people voting back in the Bush administration - not because they are moronic or stupid.

There are numerous experiences of anti-Americanism that I could raise - from my friend who was a bartender being harassed by guy who kept making explosion noises at her from behind the counter after asking where she was from, to my visit to a Moroccan restaurant in Paris where the man taking my coat handed me a ticket and when giving it to me smiled and said "don't be afraid" - the ticket read "911". Of course he had no idea I'd actually been there - what are the odds?

Further I realised earlier this week that the SWP in this country refused to condemn 9-11. This was a blatant act of anti-Americanism on the left if ever there was one.

Yet this is a problem that many on the left don't want to talk about. When you raise the issue you either get odd looks or uncomfortable conversation meant to steer you away from the topic - or a contention that it's not deserving of much time given that there are bigger problems. Maybe this is true, but the damage that has been done by anti-Americanism will take many years to be rectified and in its own way is yet another result of the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York over five years ago.

I know I am certainly not ashamed to be from America, although I was for some time after moving here. I had a bit of a crisis of conscience. Would people think I was stupid? Would they think I was racist? I used to not speak on tubes because I was ashamed and knew people would clock my accent. I knew others still who wore Canadian flags on their backpacks so as not to be recognised as an American. If a leftist like me feels this way, you can bet there are people who may not be at all involved in politics and come to Britain who have these experiences. The left should be open and honest about this issue and take a stand. No one should have to be ashamed of where they were born, as much as their government may be despised. That is something that socialists and Marxists must be clear about.

On the wireless right now...

2007-02-04T15:41:00.000-08:00

... I'm listening to James Whale wiping the floor with the bigoted religious-ultra pillock who runs "Revelation TV", over the issue of homosexuality. Ah, if only all talk radio shows exuded such passionately progressive views on the issue...

Carnival Time

2007-02-04T10:43:00.000-08:00

The sadder among you (and I count myself amongst your number, brothers and sisters) will be aware of the phenomenon of "carnivals" among certain political bloggers. They're basically back-slapping fests where someone posts links to blogs that they think people who are like-minded, would enjoy reading. The first of these, unless anyone knows better than I, was the Carnival of Capitalism, of which you can see an example here. In the main, participants would be libertarian right wingers, Guido types, albeit generally lacking his sense of humour. All affable enough, albeit not very interesting; I prefer to get my libertarian anti-PC fix from South Park.

Then, there was the Carnival of Socialism, which was a similar thing, this time coming from the left. If I'm perfectly honest, I didn't pay it the attention that perhaps I should have, until Stroppy did a rather good one on liberation politics recently. This was all the more remarkable because her efforts left a carnival on that subject which, amazingly for the UK left, managed not to just be 20 posts repeating the usual mantras about Palestine and Iraq.

But now a spectre is haunting the world of internet carnivals. Yes, prepare yourselves one and all, for... the Carnival of Denham!

(PS - note to Carnival of Socialism people - I'll do the next one if you like!)

Let us Speak of Cruddas and Credulity

2007-02-03T01:29:00.000-08:00

It never ceases to amaze me the way that Labourite lefties have such short memories. It's as though otherwise intelligent people had this one political achilles heel, an area where try as they might, they couldn't help but be as trusting as a small furry animal that has never met humankind, innocently approaching the trapper as he waves a tasty piece of meat. As surely as night follows day, yet another right-wing candidate learns to "speak socialist", whispers sweet nothings in their ears, and they once again troop off to vote for him/her. Just as inevitably, the right-winger reverts to type, and the left again gets to cry "betrayal". It's like a really old and really, really oft-repeated, hoary old dance routine. Except it's not entertaining. Or comforting.

So it was with no great surprise, albeit also with a sigh of resignation, that I read Dave Osler's latest post on Jon Cruddas. Albeit expressing some (some?!) skepticism about the so-called-left-wing challenger for the Labour deputy leadership's credentials as a genuine socialist, Dave seems to have decided that, at least if Jeremy Corbyn does not stand, he might well vote for the Crudster. In a moment of particularly staggering naivete, Dave says of Cruddas:

"His most interesting comment of the lot is the insistence that Gordon Brown cannot take his support for granted in the race for the prime ministership"

Ooh, exciting. Except of course, as Dave quotes in that very post, what Cruddas actually said was:

"I want to hear what John McDonnell has to say, or anyone else who comes in, like Michael Meacher"

Hardly a passionate declaration of socialist intent, is it? In fact, it sounds rather more like typical political flannel of the sort that a trained journalist like Osler should be able to smell a mile off. I'm not a betting man. However, I think I speak for the sensible majority when I say that if William Hill would give me odds, I'd be putting my entire worldly wealth on Cruddas voting for Brown.

Dave isn't alone in considering voting for Cruddas - although given his political pedigree he's perhaps the most striking example of the folly. The soft-lefties of the Compass group are generally behind Cruddas, as are Kerron Cross, Miranda Grell and the allegedly left-wing (although I can't quite see how) Antonia Bance. Have a good look through the latter three blogs in particular, and you might get more of an idea of where Cruddas is more likely to be coming from.

And just to round off, let's just remind ourselves of what Cruddas really stands for. As previously reported on this blog, Cruddas wants to reduce the voice of the organised labour movement in the Labour Party. In the pamphlet "Fit For Purpose: a Programme for Labour Party Renewal", co-written with John Harris (read the whole thing here if you're desperate, it's a pdf) , Cruddas argues:

"Labour's decision-making bodies - the National Executive Committee (NEC), the National Policy Forum (NPF), the annual conference - should be founded on a model in which a third is given over to the membership, a third to the unions, and a third to a new force made up of MPs, MEPs, Labour representatives in local government, and socialist societies"

One third. Read it again. One third. That's not what left-wing people argue for. I don't know how to put it in simpler terms.

Even for the less sophisticated and/or those who have no interest in internal Labour Party politics, it's still bloody obvious. The man has no record, whatsoever, as a left-winger. He has either voted for, or at least not prominently opposed, every major Blairite piece of legislation bar one (top up fees) since 2001. He voted for the Iraq War. He then had a Damascene conversion to (not very) leftish politics, co-incidentally around the time that it became clear there would be a race for the deputy leadership in the near future.

Even his very honourable record of campaigning against the BNP, which his supporters like to wave around as proof of his left wing credentials, is not actually proof of anything of the sort. Let me be clear - Cruddas does have a good record in this area, certainly better than that of neighbouring MP Margaret Hodge. Indeed, Searchlight's Nick Lowles is the most prominent figure among his campaign staff. But he's far from the only MP in the party with such a record, and he also has the driving incentive that, unlike in most of the country, the BNP are a major electoral threat in his part of London. Furthermore, he has spent most of the past decade as an uncritical supporter of the very government that fostered the sense of hoplessness on working class estates, which allowed the BNP to grow in the first place.

And yet, in spite of all these (easily verifiable) facts, a section of the Labour left continues to troop dutifully through the doors of the Cruddas campaign. They do this even though that campaign is little more than a latter day Barnum & Bailey show, where promised wonders turn out to be cheap illusions. They've been let down before, they'll be let down again, but somehow they can't escape the thrill which comes from the idea that this time, it might just be different.

On Osler's blog, the post above the one which set me off has a heading which calls on people to "Wake up, Smell the Coffee". Couldn't have put it better myself.

My pro-cop shame

2007-01-31T11:32:00.000-08:00

The district where I work was crawling with cops as I arrived this morning. Streets were sealed off with that 'scene of crime' tape you see on the telly. I had no idea what was going on, but it all seemed very exciting.

I later discovered - from workmates - that this was all part of a "swoop" by police, who had reason to believe that a major terror plot was nearing fruition. The plan, apparently, was to kidnap either a random member of the public or a British Muslim soldier, and to behead him/her, film the 'execution', and post it on the internet.

The alleged plot, is said (by the cops) to have "been in the later stages of development", and would have mirrored the kidnappings and 'executions' of people like Margaret Hassan, Ken Bigley and lots of trade unionists, by "insurgents" in Iraq.

Now, bearing in mind the cock-up at Forest Gate , no-one in their right mind would give the cops carte blanche in "anti-terrorism" operations. But I've got an admission to make: when I heard about the alleged "plot" on my doorstep, I was quite shocked and I was also glad that the cops were in attendance.

But the real admission is this: I didn't immediately parade up and down the Stratford Road with a placard proclaiming "Cops Out Of Sparkhill Now". Why not? After all, most of the cops were from outside Sparkhill. And everybody knows that the cops are the enforcers of capitalism and imperialism. So my failure to demand "Cops Out Now" is clear evidence of my support for capitalism, imperialism and general repression. I admit it: you've got me bang to rights, guv.

Total bastards and scumbags...and they nearly got away with it

2007-01-30T14:03:00.000-08:00

From today's (UK) Times:

"7/7 victim wins cash over unfair dismissal

"A traumatised victim of the 7/7 bombings who was dismissed after taking two days' sick leave has been given a substantial out-of-court settlement by her former bosses.

"Nattashar Gittens, 30, of Hackney, East London, was dismissed by James Harvard, a company of recruitment consultants, after she went home in distress last April over the death of a friend's mother.

"Ms Gittens was also in great pain from a back injury and suffering nightmares and flashbacks after being blown off her feetby the Tavistock Square bus bomb in July 2005.

"She was dismissed from her £19,000-a-year job as a receptionist a week before she would have had one year's service and legal protection against unfair dismissal. Her employers sought to have the case thrown out on the ground that she had started as a 'temp' and so had not been employed for a year.

"But the panel at the Central London Employment Tribunal ruled that including the three weeks she was a 'temp' and the week's notice she was denied, her employment amounted to one year and a day and so her claim could proceed".

But note that Ms Gittens was only allowed to proceed with her case because the Tribunal decided that her first three weeks, as a 'temp', plus the week's notice she wasn't given, but should have been, should be included in her length of service. Had it not been for these technicalities (which might not apply in other, similar, cases), she would not have been allowed to pursue her Unfair Dismissal claim, because she would not have had twelve months service. That is clearly what her employers thought when they sacked her a week before her twelve months were up.

Prior to the 1997 general election, Blair and New Labour had promised to abolish the service requirement (then 24 months) for Unfair Dismissal and other employment rights, arguing , quite logically, that an Unfair Dismissal is unfair, regardless of service. Under pressure from the CBI, they backed down and merely reduced it from 24 months to twelve.

Employment Tribunals will never be a substitute for effective union organisation, but we must re-affirm the demand for full legal protection at work from day one, regardless of service.

Too reactionary, even for the SWP

2007-01-30T13:32:00.000-08:00

Ex-'Respect' member Andy Newman brings news that the SWP have expelled Ger Francis, once their Birmingham organiser. Mr Francis is, I can safely state, the most backward and obnoxious asshole I have ever met on the 'left'. The fact that, at one time, this loathsome character was considered fit to be the SWP's Birmingham organiser speaks volumes about the calibre of that degenerate organisation. Still, credit where it's due: having sacked him as their Birmingham organiser a couple of years ago (though he hung around to undermine his successors), they have now expelled him altogether from the Party. According to Newman, the reason was his support for an all-male, all-Muslim slate of 'Respect' candidates for the May local elections in Birmingham.

Back in December, I wrote a piece on this blog suggesting that some very dodgy deals seemed to have been going on over the selection of 'Respect' candidates in Birmingham, and that it was strange that a well-known and quite successful female candidate, Salma Iqbal, had been dropped in the Springfield ward. I may have got some of the details wrong, but it seems I was on the right track. I like to think that I may have contributed to the downfall of Mr Francis.

Meanwhile, those with an unhealthy interest in the strange, reactionary phenomenon that is 'Respect', are recommended to visit Dave Osler's blog (see the sidebar on the right), where SWP'er 'Snowball' vainly attempts to defend this fast-collapsing organisation. The 'comments' are particularly good, as Andy Newman and other ex-'Respect' members take poor 'Snowball' apart over lack of internal democracy, lack of class orientation and the antics of 'Respect''s Member of Parliament.

US Antiwar Movement Grows

2007-01-28T03:29:00.000-08:00

The tide has turned in the US antiwar movement. Having been a participant in this movement since the bombing of Afghanistan in 2001 when it was very small indeed, the protests yesterday which drew tens of thousands of people to Washington DC, Los Angeles and San Francisco were a very positive development.

It hasn't been a steady line of ascent since that time and I distinctly remember standing at a vigil of ten people in Washington Square Park in New York when Falluja was getting bombed to shreds with the occasional cabbie honking in support. I too remember being pressured to wear a red, white and blue ribbon in my office, ostensibly to support the war, and refusing but wearing my peace sign instead. Given that a number of us in the office, including myself, had lived through the horror of 9-11 only five blocks away, this wasn't an easy thing to do.

However, the difference now is that the opposition has been growing steadily and is reaching new heights. While the AP and other news organisations often make comparisons with the anti-Vietnam war movement and claim that the numbers are small, in reality they are not comparing like with like. What they neglect to mention is that this many years into the conflict in Vietnam, the anti-war movement was nowhere near as large as it is in the current stage of this war.

Further, the opposition to the war began in the places which were directly affected by 9-11 and grew weary rather quickly of having their pain and memories dragged through the mud and abused by the US government to justify its every action - but it has now extended to large swathes of the rest of the country. I noted with interest upon visiting my home state of Utah the plethora of yellow ribbons, bumper stickers on cars saying "Never forget" with images of the twin towers - all of which were largely absent in New York a few years after 9-11 - though of course the occasional mural of a local firefighter remained on the sides of bodegas in working class areas of Brooklyn and the Bronx.

But the yellow ribbons in the rest of the country are coming off because it is largely the sons and daughters of those folks who are being sent off to die in an un-winnable war. This is precisely why the Democratic Party, who have a miserable record on the war, are scrambling to be the new "doves" even though their desire for blood and their hawkish jingoism has been clear to anyone who has been paying attention. They've started to join in the protests and even Hillary "Hawk" Clinton has come out saying that she takes "responsibility" for allowing the war to happen.

Along with Democrats joining the protests, one thing that became clear on looking at the photos is the increase in veterans and active duty soldiers participating. When the antiwar movement started, and before 9-11, the anti-capitalist movement was rolling along. In my view, 9-11 resulted in the death of the anti-capitalist movement which has never recovered. The reason I mention this is that the early antiwar movement was largely made up of those of us who had been on these demos - who tended to be concentrated in large cities and largely white, in a lot of cases middle class with a heavy anarchist influence.

The addition to this original core of Iraq war veterans and people from across the country is a massive shot in the arm and will help the movement to grow. This doesn't necessarily mean that everyone protesting is against the war for "left" reasons - a number of those joining see the war as "un-winnable" in a nationalist sense instead of morally wrong - hardly an indication of leftism. However, the make-up of many of these veterans and active servicemen and women is very working class and largely Black and Latino. There have been large groups of Latinos protesting over the last few years for citizenship rights for immigrants and many of these demos were awash with the Stars and Stripes. The nationalist righteous indignation felt by them and many others who are sending their sons and daughters to die will have a massive effect on the current movement but the increase in participation shouldn't necessarily be viewed as an increase in the US left, which remains very small indeed.

MPAC and Holocaust Memorial Day

2007-01-28T02:25:00.000-08:00

I was flicking through the MPAC UK website today - something I do every now and then, largely as a hangover from when as an undergraduate I used to regularly object to the National Union of Students ban on that organisation. I'd always found MPAC a fairly weird bunch, and sometimes what they said wasn't the nicest to hear, but being weird and unpleasant just didn't strike me as grounds for banning someone from a national organisation like NUS.

Anyway, for those of you who don't know (and there can't be that many of you), MPAC stands for "Muslim Public Affairs Committee", although rather like many self-appointed community representative organisations, the grandiose title doesn't quite match the organisation itself. It's in the habit of issuing ranting proclamations on various subjects, which apparently UK Muslims are then supposed to take as guides to action. Some of the on-the-button bulletins in the past year, have included a roar of righteous indignation at Blairite minister Phil Woolas for using the word "crap" to describe the anonymous author's views expressed at a meeting. I'd hazard a guess that the author in question is MPAC front man Asghar Bukhari. He's the guy who gave money to David Irving once upon a time, albeit that he claims not to have known that Irving was a Holocaust denier. More recently, we have a mixture of news/opinion articles with a heavy slant on how if you stand up for the human rights of Palestininans, "The Zionists" will call you anti-semitic. And of course an article telling people that they need to prepare for the "student jihad" by getting elected to this year's NUS conference, by which "jihad" MPAC presumably means voting to end the ban on MPAC. So, nothing remotely wacky about this organisation, as you can see. Which neatly brings me on to my main point.

On the same site is an audiocast about Holocaust Memorial Day. I was in two minds about whether to bother listening to it, but eventually decided to do so, if only to find out whether MPAC would repeat the tired old MCB line about how they weren't attending because genocides happen to many peoples, this shouldn't be exclusive to one event, etc. Or indeed, given MPAC's predeliction for hysterical theatrics as outlined above, possibly worse. In fact, this is what I was expecting to hear. But for 75% of the audiocast, I was pleasantly surprised.

The recording takes the form of an interview by a young man, of a young Muslim woman (and presumably MPAC supporter), who has recently been to Auschwitz. She recounts the horrors that she saw, and gives a good idea of the sheer scale of that particular camp's part in the genocide. She does this by summing up her own journey around the camp, and also by adding facts that give an idea of the magnitiude of what happened there; her description of the thousands of kilos of human hair found at the camp when it was finally taken by Allied troops at the end of World War Two is particularly horrifying and poignant. She also makes clear that she regards the Holocaust as both true in historical fact and staggering in its magnitude, and the the interviewer does not dissent from this.

By this point I was pretty impressed. But then came the downer.

Asked to describe MPAC's position on Holocaust Memorial Day in light of her journey, the woman reverts to that same tired formula that I was expecting in the first place. MPAC will not be attending the Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony, because it's exclusive, many peoples have been subject to genocides, the Palestinians in particular have suffered... all the usual lines that whilst true and and of themselves, don't actually add up to a reason for boycotting Holocaust Memorial Day. In other words, she just doesn't get that attending Holocaust Memorial Day in no way precludes other memorials being set up for other genocides. She and MPAC also don't get that the Armenian community in the UK, who also represent a people who have suffered genocide, have never opposed having a day specifically to commemorate the Holocaust. She also doesn't get just how obnoxious (and for that matter counter-productive) it is therefore, for organisations such as MPAC to make nasty little gestures like this boycott of the commemoration of those who died in one of the most tragic genocides in human history.

To sum it up, MPAC just doesn't get it. Disappointing, but not surprising.

Will Rubbish gets something right!

2007-01-27T17:19:00.000-08:00

Many of you will be aware that Will Rubbish and I disagree about a lot of stuff. In particular we disagree over his support for the Iraq war, which I understand was a decision he took for honourable reasons, even if he is still completely wrong.

But fucking hell, he just might have a point about Grayham from Harry's Place, who appears to believe that not only was the Iraq War the right thing to do, but that it has been won, and that the war going on in Iraq now is different from the one that began in September 2003. I quote Grayham himself, from the comments on this post:

"1) The war we supported has ended and the commander in chief of the opposition has been executed.

2) Several progressive leftist organisations supported itand

3) Despite support from both the BNP and paleo-conservatives such as antiwar.com :not to mention initial support from many ordinary people, the supposedly 'progressive left' organisations who opposed the war failed to either stop it or even to keep a tiny fraction of the supporters they had to begin with. Their stand was (in anyones book) an enormous failure and has led to massive dissapointment and the embracing of right-wing ideas.

So, I'm quite happy with where support for this war has brought me personally, as I have not been forced to sell my beliefs cheaply.

What about you? Still think you are 'on the left?'

Despite the evidence?"

Now Will, at least tell me that you don't share that position?

Further, when challenged about this by my good self, Grayham's response was even better:

"Unfortunately it is the same one as eight weeks ago. It is not however, the same one as three years ago.

Only a lunatic could try and sell the idea that an entity is fighting the same war against a different enemy - and it just goes to show how deluded some anti-war people have become in the face of the massive failure which was their 'mass movement.'

Face it. You NEED it to be the same war don't you?"

Err ok, Mr Ham. It's me who's the nutter, obviously...

I'm not sure whether I'd fully agree with Will's conclusions about linking to Harry's Place; he thinks that any leftist who still links to them should "have their fucking head examined". I can certainly see where he's coming from though. And as for Grayham, if he really believes all that crap about there having been two Iraq wars since 2003, then maybe he's the one who needs the head examination.

"Jelly Baby": patronising swine

2007-01-27T14:34:00.000-08:00

We've all been a bit serious lately. I just thought I'd attempt to lighten the tone a tad, by reproducing the text of a poster that has appeared in my local boozer; I realise that given my near-slapping at the hand of Stroppy Bird recently, I may not be considered best placed to pronounce upon sexism, or to accuse anyone of being a "patronising swine". But here it is, anyway (I don't understand all of it, by the way):

"Top professional pool entertainer David "JELLY BABY" Holt -as seen on TV- presents an evening of entertainment...(here)..."Jelly Baby" is so confident he is offering a four shot start (carry on rule) from the break for £10 per game upwards

"50 shot start for the ladies !

"Including trick shot exhibition.

"'I've seen the rest, but Jelly's the best' - Jimmy White".

Holocaust Memorial Day, 'Perdition', and the shame of the Scottish PSC

2007-01-27T11:26:00.000-08:00

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day. The Scottish Palestininan Solidarity Campaign (SPSC) are marking the occasion by staging readings in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee, of the late Jim Allen's play 'Perdition'.

The SPSC have advertised their readings thus: "Jim Allen's acclaimed play Perdition: a devastating work which reveals the extent of of the collaboration between the victims and the perpetrators of the Holocaust in Hungary towards the end of the 'Final Solution' has been hounded and suppressed for for over 20 years".

Well, the SPSC are simply wrong about the play having been "hounded and suppressed for over 20 years": although it was cancelled at the (London) Royal Court Theatre before its first scheduled performance in 1987, it was performed in Edinburgh later that year; in 1999 a "significantly rewritten version" (Allen participated in the re-writing) was performed by the Gate Theatre, London; In 2004, it was again performed in Edinburgh.

So this play has not been "hounded and suppressed for over 20 years". So why are the SPSC so keen to promote the idea that it has been?

Maybe because the play is an avowedly "anti Zionist" work, and -as we all know - the international Zionist conspiracy not only controls the foreign policies of the USA and the UK , but it also controls the media and the arts, and will suppress any anti-Zionist journalism, academic research or art as when it pleases. Actually, the fact that the Zionist illuminati have allowed the showing of Allen's "devastating" work is merely proof of their fiendish cunning: they realised that outright suppression of the play would be counter-productive, and expose the extent of their power and influence; so better to allow it to be performed occassionally, whilst continuing to denounce and vilify it (OK: I got carried away in that paragraph: to the best of my knowledge, no-one from the SPSC has put forward such an argument; but such is their "anti Zionist" hysteria and hatred that you can well imagine them coming out with that sort of argument. And, anyway, it's as good an argument as any to explain the failure of the all-powerful "Zionist Lobby" to suppress Allen's play).

What, then, does this "devastating" play depict? It is based upon a real-life libel case that took place in Israel in the 1950's, in which Rudolph Kastner, a Zionist leader in Hungary during WW2, had been accused by another Zionist, Malchiel Grunwald, of collaboration with the Nazis. Note that Grunwald, the accusor, was himself a Zionist - a point conveniently omitted from Allen's play, presumably because to acknowledge that fact would be to fatally undermine the central thesis of the play.

Allen himself said the play was "the most lethal attack on Zionism ever written, because it touches at the heart of the most abiding myth of modern history, the Holocaust. Because it says quite plainly that privileged Jewish leaders collaborated in the extermination of their own kind in order to help bring about a Zionist state, Israel, a state which is itself racist".

This ignorant, ahistoric theme derives from Stalinist anti-semitism of the 1960's, and can also be found in the writings of Lenni Brenner and Norman Finkelstein. At one level, it is not surprising that Allen, a leftist who gained his political education in the 1960's, was infected by Stalinist anti-semitism (even though his own political allegiance was to Gerry Healy's nominally "Trotskyist" SLL); but even so, was it really necessary for him to pepper the play with such blatant anti-semitic imagary as "all-poweful American Jewery", "Jews in fur-lined bunkers hurling money" and references to Golgotha and the crucifixion?

When the play was first due to appear at the Royal Court (and the script published), the historian Martin Gilbert (not known for Zionist sympathies) identified 60 factual inaccuracies. And the fact that in 1999 Allen himself agreed to have the play "significantly rewritten", suggests that the original version was far from the incisive critique of Zionism that Allen and his supporters had claimed it to be. Apparently, the re-written version has excised some of the worst overt anti-semitic language. But the anti-semitic theme remains. The fact that the SPSC are performing readings from this disreputable, misguided little play, is a scandal and a disgrace.

It's also, as a matter of fact, a sad memorial to Jim Allen, who at his best (eg: "Days of Hope") was a magnificent socialist playwright and (especially), screen-writer. I prefer to forget about his miserable anti-semitic error. But the SPSC clearly want to glory in it, to bait Jews and sneer at Holocaust Memorial Day.

NB: Much of the material, and all the quotes, for the above, come from Stan Crooke's article 'Not the way to mark Holocaust Memorial Day' in the present issue of the AWL's 'Solidarity' paper, and the slightly longer piece by Crooke here.

Hrant Dink's funeral - where was Erdogan?

2007-01-26T14:15:00.000-08:00

Once again slightly belatedly, I was planning to write a post about the pathetic display from senior members of the Turkish government, who "did a Gordon" by conveniently disappearing from view on the day of assassinated Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink's funeral. But unsurprisingly it seems that Mehmet Ali Birand's beaten me to it, with this article published on Wednesday by the Turkish Daily News. I'd strongly recommend the article, which lacerates the leaders of the ruling, nominally Islamist Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (Justice and Development Party), and the leaders of the other mainstream parties, for their failure to stand up to the ultra-nationalist sentiment that is creeping over Turkey and benefitting the far right. That far right is represented by the Milliyetci Hareket Partisi (Nationalist Movement Party), who are the heirs of the fascist Grey Wolf movement, and who are likely to form the next government in Turkey. Over to you, Mr Birand:

"It was a great opportunity. Remember those slogans they keep repeating about our unity and brotherhood? Those about being against armed groups and the importance of democracy and freedom of expression. Do you remember those politicians who constantly criticized the groups that raid exhibitions, courtrooms and attack people in the name of 'patriotism?' These people are the ones who failed the test. Our leaders just failed."

I couldn't have put it better myself.

A plea for tolerance

2007-01-25T13:36:00.000-08:00

The Weekly Worker (not a publication I generally recommend), carries two excellent letters in its current edition (No 656) - both on the sex industry. One, from T&G member John Perry argues for a class approach to sex workers and for unionisation and protective legislation for all "vulnerable workers", regardless of their legality.

The other letter might, at first glance, seem slightly less serious, but is actually very much to the point (and quite amusing, I think, into the bargain):

"According to the Weekly Worker, George Galloway objects to having strip clubs and lap dancing establishments close to places of worship ('SWP puritanism', January 11).

"In a way I can understand why some customers of these entertainments may not like having worship going on nearby. Worship is a deliberate degradation of the human spirit, by people who imagine there are tyrannical intelligences with power over human beings that people have to grovel to and appease.

"Although it is right that we should campaign to prevent children from being exposed to this "iniquity", in reality worship only damages the people who engage in it, and does not affect others in adjacent buildings. Therefore, customers of lap dancing and strip clubs should be more tolerant of religion going on nearby, however perverted it may seem to them.

"Angela Keene

"Hertfordshire".

Social Attitudes Survey

2007-01-25T00:18:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's report on the results of the social attitudes survey which were printed in the Guardian were very interesting indeed. Most intriguing for me was the figure citing that 57% of the population consider themselves "working class" versus 37% who consider themselves "middle class". While the latter figure has increased, the fact that 57% consider themselves working class in today's climate is to me rather astonishing.

One of the primary reasons I find this surprising is that union density is only 26%. The other is that the postmodernist and Thatcherite legacy of the "classless society" which continues to be propped up by the media and the upper classes has failed to change the percptions of the people on the ground. Further, there is a real disconnect here between the large percentage of the population of those who cosider themselves working class and the lack of support for New Labour. Worryingly, the decline in New Labour and indentification of it as a working class party has led some of the self identified working class to support the far right BNP. In Billy Bragg's new book "Progressive Patriot" he takes up this issue head on and should be compulsory reading for those on the left seeking to offer an alternative to the disillusioned members of our class.

Two additional positive statistics show that despite the fear mongering in the press and the popularity of Gloria Hunniford's Heaven and Earth show (sarcasm), there was a marked "decline in religious identity" according to the Guardian, "with more than two-thirds of people (69%) saying that they do not belong to a religion or have never attended a religious ceremony". This figure was only 24% in the swinging 60's.

Finally, there is a decline in "Britishness" and an increase in "Englishness" with 44% down from 52% considering themselves British and 40% considering themselves English up from 31% under ten years ago. Reading Bragg's book, it becomes clear that the increase in the self-identification as "English", while it may not intrinsically seem so to those on the far left, could actually be a very positive development, not least because it may indicate a distancing of identification with the empire. Bragg's point is that Englishness can be claimed to be progressive and in fact has a progressive history in a way that "Britishness" doesn't. Whether or not one agrees with him - it is worth thinking about.

Sanctimonious twit and hypocrite

2007-01-24T13:19:00.000-08:00

I used to regard Rowan Williams as a particularly irritating, whinnying, sactimonious twit whose half-baked opinions on matters he had no particular authority to pronounce upon, were given far too much coverage by the media. He was, however (I used to think) essentially harmless and perhaps even benign.

In the light of his intervention over the 'gay adoption' row I have revised that opinion. He is, indeed, a whinnying, sanctimonious twit. But he's also exposed himself as a hypocrite of the first water. Together with his C of E sidekick John Sentamu (Archbish of York), he has backed the Catholic campaign to deny gay couples equal rights with heterosexuals when it comes to adoption. Sentamu and Williams have written to Tony Blair:

"In legislating to protect and promote the rights of particular groups, the government is faced with the delicate but important challenge of not thereby creating the conditions within which others feel their rights have been ignored or sacrificed, or in which the dictates of personal conscience are put at risk.

"The rights of conscience cannot be made subject to legislation, however well meaning".

Has Williams - supposedly an erudite and thoughtful man - thought through the implications of that argument? If we are to allow exemptions to anti-discrimination legislation on grounds of "personal conscience", then the very basis and rationale of such legislation is fundamentally undermined. And who's "personal conscience" should be afforded such privilege? Just Christians? What about people who sincerely believe that the Race Relations Act is a threat to their belief in racial purity? Or others (myself included) who have a principled, philosophical objection to the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations? Do we all get exemption from the requirements of the law, if our consciences are sufficiently disturbed?

Unfortunately, Opus Dei supporter Ruth Kelly and her god-bothering boss Mr Blair, seem to be only too willing to appease the Catholic bigots and their C of E fellow-travellers, and are desperately trying to broker a compromise. That Kelly was ever let anywhere near gay rights legislation is a scandal and a disgrace.

Anyway, back to that craven hypocrite Williams: it turns out (according to today's Guardian), that he has a "longstanding friendship with a Welsh gay Anglican priest, the Rev Martin Reynolds, who with his partner has raised a boy with severe learning difficulties".

So where exactly does this preposterous man Williams stand on the issue, beyond claiming (quietly) that some of his best friends are gay adoptive parents?

Social Libertarianism Rules

2007-01-23T16:01:00.000-08:00

Follwing from a variety of complaints, moderation is off. You asked for it, kids.

Brother Hrant is dead, and yet not one of you said a thing

2007-01-23T15:48:00.000-08:00

Hrant Dink was shot this week. And not one of you (yes I mean you Dave, Stroppy, Lenny Lenin, Harry, all of you bloggers) said a word. Wow, did the dead Christian Armenian who didn't fit your "sound line on anti imperialism" also not fit your political model? I mean, all he was, was the last great conciliator from the victim community of the largest genocide in the 20th Century before or since the Holocaust, who was actually willing to make his peace with the host community that perpetrated it?

Call yourselves the "left"?

Get yourselves together. And begin to understand what being on the left is all about.

'Morning Star' forgets its own history

2007-01-22T10:46:00.000-08:00

On this day (January 22) in 1941 the 'Daily Worker' - forerunner of the present 'Morning Star', was banned by the British government. You'd think, wouldn't you. that the 'Star' would wish to commemorate this heroic episode in its history, but - for some reason - there's not a mention of it in today's edition.

Fortunately, the 'Guardian' has a better memory, and even republishes its leader comment of the day. Maybe it explains why the 'Star' is now so coy about the whole episode:

"No one likes the idea of the suppression of a newspaper even during a war, and least of all the suppression of a newspaper that is the sole organ of a legal political party (the British Communist Party - JD).

"Yet no one who has read the 'Daily Worker' and 'The Week' during the war can doubt the extreme provocation they have given and can harshly censure Mr Morrison (Herbert Morrison, a Labour minister in Churchill's National Government-JD) for his action. The 'Daily Worker' began the war as a supporter of resistance to Hitler; it changed its tune when it found that Stalin wanted to be friends with Hitler.

"Day after day since it has vilified the British Government and its leaders to the exclusion of any condemnation of Hitler. Nothing that has happened in this country has been decent and right. Even when the United States increases its aid this is denounced not as something to be welcomed but as a malevolent exercise of Yankee capitalism.

"More recently the paper has largely devoted its columns to derogatory accounts of Service conditions on the one hand and to the encoragement of agitation among munitions workers on the other. This might be excusable if the motive were honest, if it were really desired to help the country in its struggle to keep democracy alive in Europe. But the 'Daily Worker' did not believe either in the war or in democracy; its only aim was to confuse and weaken. We can well spare it".

Democracy: An End or a Means to An End?

2007-01-22T09:10:00.000-08:00

First, I'd like to thank the Shiraz crew for having me on board and I will try to contribute when time allows. I suspect we'll have lots of debates and interesting discussions as well as raucous arguments - but then that's the point of a blog (I think).

Here's my first stab at a contribution:

Democracy: An End or a Means to An End?

One of the courses I am taking this year is political philosophy and I've actually quite enjoyed the philosophy bit of my "politics, philosophy and history" degree. It should be particularly interesting later in the year when my lecturer, who hates Lenin and makes constant references to how great the czar was, covers the topic of "socialism as ideology".

In any case, last week's lecture was on "Democracy" and concerned different types and whether or not people thought it was a truly relevant concept any longer. Of course taking this from the realm of the metaphysical and putting it into concrete day-to-day reality is not what lecturers normally do, so I was left to accomplish this task alone.

Being immersed in the British far-left from varying viewpoints, it became clear to me that whether folks on the left realise it or not, a huge portion of the discussions to be had in politics today pivot on this central issue.

As far as I can discern, there are three types of democracy that people on the far left discuss regularly. These are:

1. Structural or organisational democracy
2. State or governmental democracy
3. Participatory local democracy (as in a socialist society)

The central question concerning these forms of democracy that we discuss is whether each type is an end in itself or a means to an end for a greater "good" - and since I hate terms like "good" and "bad" when speaking of politics, I will substitute the word "progress".

In other words do we support these forms simply because democracy in individual cases leads to human progress in and of itself in that one situation, or do we support it as a means to furthering human progress in the future and as a whole?

Let's look at the types of democracy listed above and examples on the left that are relevant to
them. The first type is characterised in the ongoing debate inside the organisation that I support, Socialist Resistance, about character of Respect. While there are numerous problems with it as an organisation, the primary reason that I oppose Respect (besides Galloway acting like a cat) was that the organisation has a severe lack of internal democracy and no room for debate. I have argued on numerous occassions that there is a tradition on the left of democratic debate, but this would not seem to be the strongest argument in favour of this position. I could alternately argue that democratic functioning in left groups is in and of itself progressive, but this does not seem to have as strong of a weight behind it for enforcing democracy as it could.

So what is the real reason that democratic structures and "organisational democracy" is important? It is because without it, the third type of democracy, "participatory local democracy" or socialism is not realised. Whether or not one believes that this would be in the form of "soviets" and workers' councils or local neighbourhood organisations, our concept for a better world requires a respect of and an adherence to "structural and organisational democracy".

Now let us turn to the second type of democracy, that is "state or governmental democracy". The obvious example here is simply Iraq and the current Iraq war. More specifically, I want to look at reasons why the ruling classes of the US and Britain support the war and contrast that with Nick Cohen's support of the war.

In a sense, the US neo-cons (a number of whom came out of the US Trotskyist movement as odd as that may seem) use the pretence of supporting the same means to an end that those on the far left do - ie that democracy as such is the means to a more progressive future, a better world and so forth. Of course some of them may believe it, but if you visit the Project For a New American Century website, you will find this belief buried under a pile of documents supporting a much more important "end" - that is US dominance, economically and otherwise.

In this sense it would seem that while leftists argue for "structural and organisational democracy" as a means to an end for "participatory local democracy", the neo-cons and US ruling class are using "state or governmental democracy" enforced from above as a means to an end for US dominance, and not "participatory local democracy".

So what does any of this have to do with Nick Cohen's book excerpt in the latest issue of the Observer?

It would seem that Nick Cohen is arguing for "state or governmental democracy", not as a means to any end, but as an end in and of itself. In this sense he differs from the neo-cons and those on the far left. But is he correct? Is the situation in Iraq one in which democracy should be established as an end with no plan for how one could get to "participatory local democracy" even if we believe Cohen when he claims to be opposed US dominance?

Looking at it from the point of view of ends, we can clearly see that if Cohen's concept of democracy for Iraq were implemented, the end desired by the neo-cons - US dominance - could also be achieved. However, it becomes equally clear that the end desired by those on the left - "participatory local democracy" - is an impossibility if US dominance occurs, which is a direct contradiction this type of democracy.

In the end Cohen's views are very simply, liberal. He claims to want a better life for the Iraqi people but he blocks the possiblity of a socialist future for Iraq by supporting the end desired by the neo-cons and having no vision beyond democracy as an end in itself.

Regardless of what one thinks of the views posted here, the subject of democracy remains a vital topic of discussion for socialists.

And now for a bit of sectarian gossip

2007-01-21T14:53:00.000-08:00

Right now I'm listening to the James Whale show - on TalkSport after Radio Galloway, and his guest is one Faria Alam (she of the "I shagged Sven" fame). I'd heard the rumour before, that she is the cousin of AWL student organiser Sacha Ismail. This was something that I was always reasonably prepared to believe, not because Sacha particularly reminds me of Faria, but because I had no reason to disbelieve it.

However, some spod (sounding like a geeky undergrad) has just phoned the show and asked Faria straight out whether she is Sacha's cousin. He also said that the AWL "hate George Galloway more than anything else" or words to that effect, an assertion that may surprise Matgamna and the crew. Apparently there was some tangent about how if Galloway married Faria, he'd then have to see Sacha at the wedding or some such. Ah, the old common room rib-ticklers. I remember them well.

Anyways, not only did Faria deny that Sacha is her cousin, she also appeared to deny knowing him at all. She sounded genuinely perplexed, saying things like "What cousin? I don't have many cousins". She couldn't really have been much more emphatic.

So Sacha, what's the story? Does anyone else know anything? I think we should be told.

Public service broadcasting

2007-01-21T13:07:00.000-08:00

Various self-righteous posturing ninnies, of the Ken Livingstone variety, have been calling for Channel Four to take "Celebrity Big Brother" off the air, in the aftermath of the Jade Goody business. Sunny has been the most sensible commentator so far.

On the contrary, I think "Celebrity Big Brother" should be made compulsory viewing, particularly for the young and impressionable. As my partner says, "they (the participants) always think they'll beat the 'Big Brother' machine, and come out smelling of roses: but they never do". Somehow, this crap show manages to expose the truth about its participants: George Galloway was shown up for the ultra-right-wing bully and poltroon he is; Jade Goody, Danielle Lloyd and Jo O'Meara have been exposed as the racist chavs they are. This is all to the good, and should be applauded by all decent people. I want John Rees and Lindsey German on there next. And, maybe, Ken Livingstone.

'Socialism of fools' alive and well

2007-01-21T10:34:00.000-08:00

Nick Cohen, a journalist who saw through Blair and all his works well before most, has an insightful article, ("The world turned upside down"), plugging a forthcoming book, in today's 'Observer'. Cohen, of course supported the Iraq war, though he now seems to accept that it was, maybe, not such a good idea. Lots of decent people also supported the war, for the best of reasons. Just as lots of fascists, anti-semites, escaped Quakers and little-Englanders opposed it. Cohen quotes the South American playwright Ariel Dorfman's 2003 letter to an 'unknown Iraqi', which sums up my own feelings at the time , much more eloquently than I could:

"What right does anyone have to deny you and your fellow Iraqis that liberation from tyranny? What right do we have to oppose the war the United States is preparing to wage on your country if it could, indeed, result in the ousting of Saddam Hussein?"...

Cohen comments: "His (Dorfman's) reply summed up the fears of tens of millions of people. War would destabilise the Middle East and recruit more fanatics to terrorist groups. It would lead to more despots 'pre-emptively arming themselves with all manner of apocalyptic weapons and , perhaps, to Armageddon'. Dorfman also worried about the casualties - which - I guess, were far higher than he imagined - and convinced himself that the right course was to demand that Bush and Blair pull back. Nevertheless, he retained the breadth of mind and generosity of spirit to sign off with 'heaven help me, I am saying that I care more about the future of this sad world than about the future of your unprotected children'".

There's much more good stuff in Cohen's article, but the most revealing material of all is the readers' comments, where anti-semites assume that Cohen is Jewish (he isn't - as it happens): the socialism of fools is, indeed, alive and well. And it thinks it's "left-wing".

Wankered with some, errr... ahem...

2007-01-21T09:35:00.000-08:00

Yesterday as regular readers will be aware, was the inaugural Socialist Bloggers' Meetup in London. A small and select crowd assembled in the Doric Arch pub (resisting the urge to sign any crappy manifestos that might have been passed around). 'Twas a pleasure to meet for the first time with Dave, Andrew, John A, Jon R, Marsha and TWP, as well as, not for the first time, with Stroppy, Kit, Janine and of course me old mucker Mike, as well as my adopted child for the night, Jim "where's my fucking bag" Denham.

So, what actually happened? I'd arrived a few hours early, so having trundled off to Housman's bookshop to buy some sectariana, I settled in the pub round the corner from the Doric, and nursed a pint whilst reading the CPGB's report on their obsessive-compulsive topic of conversation, the conference of the Socialist Youth Network. This might seem a surreal topic for a double-page spread in a paper, but there again Conrad's gaggle of goons have been up to that sort of thing for years. Anyway, I was soon joined by Mike, and after loitering for a bit we headed for the Doric.

Already quaffing liberally were Kit, John A and in particular Denham, who seemed remarkably loquacious for a man who (according to Kit) was "on his first pint". Was he bollocks, in my humble opinion, but there again I'm more cynical than Kit is. All very amiable - myself, John and the three AWL bloggers merrily chatted and waited for others to arrive.

Stroppy turned up shortly afterwards, although in spite of three of us yelling her name and me gesticulating wildly, it took some time for her to notice us - an impressive feat in a grimy little pub that's about the size of a broom cupboard. Should we take offence? Anyhow, Jim (who was at this stage still manageable) raced off the the bar to get her some booze, and all was well with the world. She appeared to have a thing about dress sense around the table - indeed she's blogged about it in her own report of the event. Some people might think that a woman who dresses like Courtney Love might want to be a little circumspect about handing out sartorial advice, but obviously I wouldn't pass any such comment.

Then we were joined in quick succession (my memory is hazy) by Dave, TWP, and Janine. John A immediately made a bee-line for Dave, and appeared enraptured by Mr Osler's anecdotes about the good old days on the left. Touching, really.

Now, at this point some kind of weird demonic posession seemed to overtake Jim, who began to alternate between thumping his fists on the table and shouting at TWP about Palestine, and doing the same to John A, who he appeared to think was a supporter of mass murder. That's when he wasn't rooting around under the table muttering "where's my fucking bag" or (most amusingly) patting Stroppy on the head and calling her "doll", Sinatra fashion. I did intervene at one point when he appeared to be about to launch himself across the table at John, but thankfully my concerns were unwarranted. Indeed TWP was so struck with him, and he with her, that she's kindly agreed to become one of the team here at Shiraz. The invite is in the post, mate - you were very articulate and intelligent company, and anyone who can go ten rounds with Denham is more than worthy of posting here. Even if you are in that funny group that the SWP like to hang about with.

After several failed attempts to get a photo or video of Jim in table-thumping action, whilst also talking to Janine about whether Kit taking the piss out of Katy Clark MP's trainers is a sexist comment (we decided it isn't) and after an amusing if rather gloomy chat with Osler about how shit the British left is at, well, everything, we were joined by Marsha, Andrew and a (ahem) "tired and emotional" Jon R, who appeared to be trying to rival Jim in the sobriety stakes. He appeared very concerned about the collapse of the Soviet Union, which I had always thought was a fait accomplis, but anyway I was more concerned with the sight of a rather high-spirited Mike kissing the back of Jim's head, presumably in an attempt to distract him and thus preserve the table from further assault. However, Mike was still intact by the end of the night, so all was well. Besides, Jim was preoccupied with buying what appeared to be the world's biggest ever round, one drink at a time, and further frustrating the barman by repeatedly losing his switch card and forgetting his pin number.

I did have some sympathy with the member of bar staff who threatened to throw us out of the pub if we didn't desist from group hugging and singing the Internationale. Quite right sir. The song's as dull as dishwater, and besides I never knew the words when I was a Trot, let alone now.

As things drew to a close, there was talk of going on for a curry but Denham and I resisted, deciding to go home. I was actually quite tempted by the sparky Marsha's alternative suggestion of "more alcohol", but on balance I thought that I might die if I drank any more. And besides, I wasn't too sure if Denham would make it back unassisted. So we said our goodbyes and headed for the train.

The train was an adventure in itself; this being UK railways, there were of course engineering works and enormous delays, further compounded by the fact that we had no idea what was going on, largely because the Virgin Trains staff seemed to be averse to talking to the two paralytic blokes muttering garbage to each other in one of the carriages. Eventually we went our separate ways, and I left Jim on the train, sleeping peacefully whilst face-down on a table. I presume he must have got home eventually, but he'll have to tell you exactly how. If he can remember.

Anyway, it was pleasure folks, and I look forward to seeing you all again soon.

Just one more thing, Ma'am...

2007-01-20T01:25:00.000-08:00

Following on from that last post, I must just point you towards the two newest additions to the Shiraz blogroll. Firstly, A Very Public Sociologist is the blog of a nice lad who is doing his PhD on two particular parties on the Trotskyist left. Which suggests there must be something wrong with the poor chap. But anyway, he's a scholar and a gent so he is, and he links to us.

Secondly, after some delay, Cunt of the Week also joins the permanent blogroll. Yes, I know some of you don't like the word. So don't use it yourselves. See if I care. His (I am only guessing he's a "he") blog sparkles with wit amongst the gratuitous abuse, and he's quite willing to debate out the merits and demerits of his unique style with all comers.

Right, now I really am off to that piss up. Laters!

Referee Me

2007-01-20T00:53:00.000-08:00

Those among you who are slightly more versed in Bloggish will alredy understand about referring links, but for those who don't here's a brief explanation. Your blog has become a referring link if someone clicks through from it to another site, in particular another blog. One of the reasons bloggers tend to have lists of links or "blogrolls" on their front pages, is precisely to ensure that there's click through traffic to other sites, which they hope will be reciprocated by the recipients linking back. This has all sorts of beneficial effects on things like search engine rankings, and is for instance one of the reasons why if you type "Shiraz Socialist" into Google, we emerge as the top-ranked link.

Right, that's enough of the technical shite.

I've been interested of late to see how good a referring link we are. And it seems we're not too bad. Kit has us as his second biggest referring link, ranking behind the Stroppies but, astoundingly, ahead of Dave Osler. Which says something about the intellectual standards of the readerships of our respective sites. On the positive side, it could be that they're so glued to Dave's articulate and interesting writing that they can't be arsed to click onwards to another site... or else they just come away spoiling for more after reading my and Denham's incohate rantings. Either way thanks Kit, that's interesting to know.

Yet even this pales into insignificance compared to our other recent ranking. We're also apparently the second-biggest referring link to Luke Akehurst's Blog (although he says he doesn't know who we are - arsehole). In a beautifully surreal loss of my grip on reality, I found out that among Luke's referring links, we rank just behind a site which appears to be moaning about the Clissold Leisure Centre in Stoke Newington. I kid you not, look for yourself: I've never been there but the place must be a right shithole if it's pissed someone off that much...

In an even more wonderful onset of delirium, Luke has us ranking just ahead of swinging site Touch My Cheeky Bum, whose owner appears to take great offence at being associated with Hackney's answer to Chris Evans:

"I want to make clear that we only surfed your blog by accident because our computer automatically finds ginger people as they are generally what used to be called 'swingers'. Once we realised that the only place you were likely to swing was a gibbet we stopped looking at your site"

And who said the internet was a playground for maladjusted people who just don't fit into the pattern of real life?

I'm off now for the left-wing bloggers' piss up. Will let y'all know if there's anything interesting to report, from shagging to fights to arrests. TTFN.

Interesting...

2007-01-19T15:49:00.000-08:00

... an SWP'er resigns from the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Make of it what you will:

"15 January 2007

Dear SPSC Coordinating Committee,

This letter is my resignation from the positions that I hold in the Campaign, namely secretary of the Dundee branch and membership of the coordinating committee.
I do this with regret but with no rancor against the Campaign, and with every sincere hope that the Campaign's essential work in raising awarenes of the struggle of the Palestinian people for freedom continues.

I resign for two reasons. The first is that, after considerable confusion on my part, discussion with friends and comrades has convinced me that the argument posed by Barry Levine and Henry Maitles in their 6 January letter to Socialist Worker - that the focus during Holocaust Memorial Week should be the fight against fascism, particularly in the light of the Islamophobia- fueled growth of the BNP. I cannot in good conscience continue to serve as secretary for the Dundee SPSC branch or on the Coordinating Committee without fully supporting the campaigns and strategies of the organisation. You deserve a fully committed office holder who can promote your effords with confidence.

My qualms about the staging of Perdition during HMW are tactical. The Zionists have certainly controlled the discourse about Holocaust remembrance for many years, and have aggressively quashed the truth about Zionist collaboration with Nazis. It's unrealistic, though, to think that we can re-open this discourse using events like the Perdition/Brenner tour without building a broad coalition to support them. When area trades union councils, progressive Jewish organisations, mosques and Islamic Societies, political parties and antiwar groups co-sponsor such an event, it will be able to effectively link the lies told by Zionists and the need to fight fascism. Until then, Zionists will be able to marginalise and isolate alternative narratives during HMW and will use such efforts to strengthen their control of the Holocaust discourse.
And this leads to my second reason for resigning: I believe that the occupation is intimately connected to the entire campaign of US-British imperialism in the Middle East that has gone on for many decades, and it is unlikely that the Palestinians will win a true end to the occupation, with a viable economy and nation and the right of return, without a victory of anti-imperialism in Iraq , Lebanon , Syria , Iran , and Afghanistan . I believe that by the vibrant united front built by groups like Stop the War, which features alliances between Muslims, the left, trade unionists, the old anti-war movement, and a growing number of ordinary Britons, are the best way for people in Britain to further anti-imperialists around the world. News of the Time to Go demonstration in Manchester this past September was receieved joyfully in Lebanon, Palestine , Iraq and all over the Middle East , and Stop the War activists who travelled in a Glasgow delegation to Lebanon were presented with medals by Hezbollah in thanks for their support of the resistance.

While I will continue to support the work of the SPSC, I would like to focus my time and resources on building Stop the War, the campaign against Islamophobia, and the broad campaign against imperialism. I pledge to emphasise Palestinian issues within this work, particularly as regards the boycott of Israeli goods and the academic boycott.

Finally, I freely acknowledge that I came to this decision after discussion with fellow activists in the US and the UK , particularly my comrades in the Socialist Workers Party. There is no shame in a decision taken with the advice and support of my comrades, who have freely shared their time and experience with me as I have learned about the movement in Scotland, and I know that many fellow activists will disagree with my decision in good conscience.

There was no pressure for me to resign, official or otherwise, from Party members or from anybody else, and I take full, and solo, responsibility for this decision. No personal rancor against any individual played any part in my decision, and I want to thank all of the activists in the Campaign who have worked with me with humour, patience and profound dedication to justice for Palestine and the world.

I am happy to pass the reservations I have recorded for Dundee 's Perdition on to Alan, Mick or anybody else along with 25 pounds in cash and cheques for tickets that I have received.
I wish the best to everyone and am happy to discuss my decision further with anyone by email.

In solidarity,

Esther Sassaman, Dundee"

(Hat-tip: Harry's Place)

Big Brother: a vindication of the British working class

2007-01-19T12:51:00.000-08:00

I'm writing this at about ten-to-nine on Friday 19 February 2007. My partner (gawd bless' er) is downstairs, glued to the screen, poised to phone or text the Celebrity Big Brother eviction -line, to get rid of the Bigot. She (my partner, not the Bigot) lost interest in "Big Brother" - "Celebrity" or otherwise, some time ago, but has now been mobilised by the Bigot and her Unbelievably Inarticulate and Stupid Chav Friends, to start watching again (which is, no doubt, some comfort to Channel Four and Endomol).

The fact that the Bigot will be evicted for her bullying and racism is to be welcomed; the fact that she will be voted out by an overwhelmingly working class audience should give pause for thought to those "anti-racists" who seem to think that the white, British working class are simply irredeemably racist: they're not, and they react strongly when a racist, bullying bigot brings them into disrepute. Happily, tonight's result will make that clear. And, happily, it will also mark the end of the Bigot's career - and the careers of her equally nasty and talentless friends.

The Greatest...in the foulest 'sport'

2007-01-17T08:38:00.000-08:00

Muhammad Ali is 65 today and suffering from Parkinson's disease - a cruel fate for a man once renowned for his physical and mental speed and agility. Perhaps surprisingly, the most fulsome tribute to Ali I've seen today is from the Daily Telegraph, which devotes five pages of its sports section to a splendidly illustrated tribute, plus part of the main paper's leader column:

"...Who can rival him as a sporting hero? His achievement in a sport of which some disapprove was not just to knock men out. He was an artist, not a pschopath; knocked down by Henry Cooper in 1963, 40 years later he telephoned him to reminisce. Psychic presence and witty self-promotion brought him double success in the ring and as a civil rights champion.

"Ali showed moral as well as physical courage. He refused to serve in Vietnam out of religious principle, he explained, but added 'No Viet Cong ever called me a nigger'. His career seemed at an end, yet he made an amazing comeback in 1974 in the 'Rumble in the Jungle'. More recently, when asked why he thought he would have beaten Mike Tyson, Ali simply tapped his temple: he was always the cleverer fighter.

"We need heroes, and Ali really is the greatest".

Once over the shock of the voice of the retired colonels of Tory middle England praising a black, Muslim, civil rights activist and opponent of the Vietnam war, I have to say that I don't dissent from any of that. Ali most certainly was (and is) a brave, generous and thoroughly admirable human being.

But the "sport" at which he excelled (and that may also be responsible for his Parkinson's) is a foul business. I don't think it should be called a "sport" at all: the object of boxing, unlike any other sport (including dangerous sports), is to render the opponent unconscious by repeated blows to the head and body. Since 1945 there have been 361 deaths in the ring, and the number of boxers reduced to shambling, punch-drunk wrecks by brain damage is uncounted. That's not to mention permanent eye damage (up to and including blindness), ruptured eardrums, broken noses and jaws, smashed teeth, the famous 'cauliflower ear' and renal damage.

It has long amazed me that so few liberals and lefties seem at all concerned about boxing, and some even support it. The main reason for this is, I suspect, because boxing is traditionally a proletarian "sport" and a way for poor young men (often black or from other ethnic minorities) to achieve something in life. But that's exactly the reason that socialists should oppose boxing: we want a society where that sort of barbarism simply isn't required as a way to escape poverty, prejudice and lack of opportunity.

One of the few socialists to write extensively opposing boxing was the American Trotskyist James P. Cannon. Commenting on the death of 20-year-old Georgie Flores in the ring at Madison Square Garden, he wrote:

"It is a commentary on the times and the social environment out of which the boxing business rises like a poisonous flower from the dunghill, that nobody came forward with the simple demand to outlaw prize fighting, as it was outlawed in most states of this country up till the turn of the century. Cock-fighting is illegal; it is considered inhumane to put a couple of roosters in a pit and incite them to spur each other until one of them keels over. It is also against the law to put bulldogs into the pit to fight for a side bet. But our civilisation - which is on the march to be sure - has not yet advanced to the point where law and public opinion forbid men, who have nothing against each other, to fight for money and the amusement of paying spectators. Such spectacles are part of our highly touted way of life".

Jim Denham: Live and Unleashed!

2007-01-14T13:09:00.000-08:00

Yes folks it's true! After long and detailed negotiations with his agent in the bowels of Birmingham's finest real ale emporium, Mr James Denham Esq has finally confirmed his attendance at this coming Saturday's Socialist Bloggers' Meetup. This is obviously a tremendous step forward for the organisers, who are now rumoured to be hiring stewards in anticipation of a mammoth surge in attendees at the event. Further, fears of fainting fits among the inevitable crowds of screaming teenage groupies have caused an alert among local health services, with three local authorities and military back-up services placing teams of ambulancemen armed with smelling salts at the ready should they be needed.

Denham will be holding court on a number of subjects, limited only by the number of real ales he's able to consume before becoming unmanageable. Which is quite a few, if my own recollection of the negotiations leading to his signing on the dotted line for the event are anything to go by...

Seriously though, if any of our readers happens to be in London on Saturday (20 Jan), you'd be more than welcome to come along for a pint or three. Even the SWP'ers and Blairites. Details are on Kit's site.

Heck, if you're extra nice, I might even buy you a beer.

See y'all there!

Lynne Jones: "I now feel it is for others to take up the fight".

2007-01-14T10:21:00.000-08:00

My MP, Dr. Lynne Jones, has sent me (and all other Labour Party members in Birmingham Selly Oak), a letter, "in advance of going public". Now that it has appeared elsewhere on the blogosphere, I feel free to reproduce the highlights:

"Since 1997, there have been great achievements of the Labour Government that make me proud. In many ways, this has been a genuinely re-distributive Government - highlights have included additional funding for public services and equal rights for minority groups. However, these advances have been insufficient to dispel my disappointment in a leadership that has been so timid in applying our socialist principles to the practicalities of government, yet so reckless in taking us to war in Iraq and in laying the foundations for the break-up of the NHS. I feel that I have performed a useful role in opposing the worst excesses of "new" Labour and can point to some considerable successes on the way. But I am weary of the constant battles and I now feel that it is for others to take up the fight. I hope that a new generation of idealists will be encouraged to take stand for public office and drive our Party forward for, whilst it is no secret that I have been unhappy about many of the Government's policies, I have always encouraged those who shared my concerns to stay fighting within the Party for a return to the values that made us join, in my case 33 years ago..."

The first thing I want to say is how sorry I am to be losing an excellent MP: I haven't always agreed with Lynne (and still don't, on certain matters), but I have always respected her integrity, honesty and sheer guts in standing up for her principles within a Parliamentary Labour Party that was (until recently, at least), largely made up of supine, Blairite careerists and craven ex-leftist turncoats. Lynne, who from her days as a Birmingham City councillor, has never claimed to be anything except a left-reformist, at least stuck to her guns, and in doing so probably sacrificed a potential ministerial career.

And who can blame Lynne for feeling "weary" with the labour of Sisyphus that is the battle for elementary reformist principles within the PLP?

But note that Lynne urges everyone to "stay fighting within the Party" (which surely gives the lie to those who have tried to suggest that she would prefer to see a non-Labour female candidate win the seat, than the probable Labour candidate for the constituency, Steve McCabe - a right-winger who has managed to get considerable union backing, mainly because leftist trade unionists haven't been active in the Party ).

The fact that a decent, left-reformist MP like Lynne Jones now feels so isolated and demoralised, is a rebuke to the British "left" that has largely turned its back upon the Labour Party, the labour movement, and the working class.

The SWP's bizarre love for Mr Atzmon

2007-01-14T00:45:00.000-08:00

This blog recently seems to have attracted some commenters from the SWP (preeminient amongst whom is Mr JohnG) and others of a similar political ilk. And most welcome they all are too - Jim and I would get very bored, very quickly, if all we ever did was argue with each other. Anyway, this post is directed to readers from that political millieu.

You may already have read Jim's material on the SWP and Gilad Atzmon, some of which was recently reproduced without accrediting this blog in the AWL's latest paper (naughty AWL, I'll remember that). If you haven't, then you should. Jim and I may differ on a number of issues, but on Atzmon we're in lock-step. Jim has also covered the reaction to the SWP's courting of Atzmon from people who until recently were basically just acting as that group's outriders, and this material is also well worth a look.

I'd also particularly like to direct you to a recent post, delivered in the venom-tipped-rapier style of Hak Mao, on the Drink Soaked Trots website. I really do urge you to read it, because it throws into stark relief the defences of Atzmon in the most recent issue of Socialist Worker, as offered in two letters, one written by Lindsey German, and the other by Hannah Dee and Viv Smith:

"Instead of banning him shouldn’t socialists be celebrating his undeniable musical talent, and at the same time challenging those ideas that he holds that we disagree with?"

Hak reminds us exactly what those "ideas we disagree with" are, and it's not exactly the same as socialists platforming George Monbiot, let me tell ya:

"we must begin to take the accusation that the Jewish people are trying to control the world very seriously ... American Jewry makes any debate on whether the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion' are an authentic document or rather a forgery irrelevant. American Jews do try to control the world, by proxy..."

That's all you're getting here: I'll refer you to Hak's post to read the rest. Now, I meant it when I said in the course of debate with JohnG that I don't think you lot are "bad people" or acting in a deliberately malign way, however much I might disagree with you. So what the bloody hell do you think you're playing at by defending this stinking anti-semite whose connections to far-rightists like Israel Shamir are commonly known?

"Jazz, Racism and Resistance" eh? Well, we know who's providing the Jazz and the Racism, but why aren't you guys providing the Resistance?

Freeway bloggery!

2007-01-13T13:30:00.000-08:00

Have a look at this: total genius, apparently of a leftish/libertarian bent, from the USA. I'm a particular fan of the fact that it gives advice as to how to get on to shitty right-wing talk radio shows, presumably for the purpose of giving the host an earful. I wonder if it works with radio shows belonging to other gobshites too? Answers on a postcard...

The author also has a daily blog here, which is well worth a look as well.

(Hat-tip... *sigh*... Cunt of the Week)

The end of a beautiful friendship?

2007-01-13T09:25:00.000-08:00

Further to my previous comments on SWP-apologist Michael Rosen finally getting it together to criticise (very politely) the comrades' indulgence of anti-semite sax-player Gilad Atzmon: letters in the present issue of Socialist Worker (from SWP hacks, notably the appalling Lindsey German) make it clear that they aren't going to tolerate any criticism of their racist-saxist hero.

I presume while there will be plenty more SWP-sponsored gigs for Atzmon, there will be no more meetings for Rosen (at Marxism, or anywhere else), who will now be be air-brushed out of history by those Stalinists de le jour, the SWP.

But will Rosen learn any lessons, or draw any conclusions? Let's hope so.

Law intolerant of "religious conscience" is passed.

2007-01-12T01:12:00.000-08:00

Good. I like it when right-wing conservatives whinge - it suggests that for once in its miserable existence, the Blair government may have got something right. The new Sexual Orientation Regulations will go some way towards combating institutional homophobia in this country, and any such steps are to be welcomed.

What really annoys me though, is that the new discourse on the part of the bigots who oppose such anti-discriminatory measures is one of "but you're being intolerant to our religious conscience". Of course, when asked to return that tolerance, religious conservatives don't tend to go for it, because theirs is the received truth of God. As discussed here before, this demand for one way tolerance actually gets currency these days on the left and amongst liberals. No one on the left (as far as I am aware) has publicly supported the maniacs who were demonstrating outside the commons as Lord Morrow's motion to wreck the new legislation went down in flames. However logically they really ought to have, especially those who believe that believing in a particular religion is the same thing as coming from an oppressed minority community. The two can coalesce, but they are nevertheless not the same thing.

In terms of the dear old left, I guess it's only a matter of time before the likes of Christian Voice say something that accords with the current project of one or another Trotskyist political party, at which point they'll be welcomed into the fold. And discussion of their views on other things will become taboo - lest those raising the issue be accused of "intolerance".

Now, I wonder if they're offering odds at William Hill?

Another reason not to vote Cruddas

2007-01-10T15:05:00.000-08:00

Below is a quote from the pamphlet "Fit For Purpose: a Programme for Labour Party Renewal", by Jon Cruddas and John Harris, available for your delectation from his website. The quote is from page 4 of the pamphlet, and is also in the summary on Cruddas' site.

"As far as Labour's national organisation is concerned, our proposals include: The settlement of the party's federal structure along lines that have been taking shape for the last two decades. Labour's decision-making bodies - the National Executive Committee (NEC), the National Policy Forum (NPF), the annual conference - should be founded on a model in which a third is given over to the membership, a third to the unions, and a third to a new force made up of MPs, MEPs, Labour representatives in local government, and socialist societies."

So there you are. Vote for Cruddas, the big born-again left winger, if you want to reduce organised labour's voice in the Labour Party. All you "I'm voting for Brown but guess what, I'm voting for Cruddas rather than Harman, gosh aren't I radical" types must be so proud of yourselves.

Interestingly, Cruddas' introductory campaign leaflet (also available on his website) carries a picture of him sitting next to TGWU General Secretary Tony Woodley. Hands up anyone who's actually heard Woodley pledge his union's support to Cruddas' campaign? Or even heard him publicly declare who he personally will be backing in the deputy leader's race? Nobody? What a surprise...

(Hat-tip: Jim for sending me a leaflet, of whose authorship I am unaware, but whose authors I shall credit as soon as I know their names)

Ruth Kelly: everything that's wrong with New Labour

2007-01-10T13:03:00.000-08:00

I'm simply amazed at the easy ride that cabinet minister Ruth Kelly has been given over her decision to pull her son out of a local state school and put him into a £15,000 per year private boarding school. It seems that a lot of people (including Tory-boy David Cameron) sympathise with her because the son has "substantial learning difficulties" (in fact, dyslexia). Another mother of a child with "learning difficulties" comments here.

If Kelly had simply said something like "I know it goes against all my principles as a Labour Party member to buy a private education for my son, but my concern for his well-being and the fact that the state sector cannot cater adequately for his needs, overrides matters of ideology", people like me would at least have had some human sympathy for her. But she didn't: instead she put out a weaseling, disingenuous (OK: I mean DISHONEST) statement suggesting that it is quite common for pupils with learning difficulties to be placed into private education by their local education authorities. This is bollocks! As Fiona Miller (Alistair Campbell's partner, incidentally!) comments in the Guardian of January 9, 2007): "Actually, it's pretty unusual for primary school-aged children with special needs/dyslexia to have a couple of years in a large country house in the home counties enjoying one-on-one tuition and the use of a swimming pool, tennis courts and music rooms".

Of course, we don't begrudge Ruth Kelly's son that sort of treatment: we just say (unlike Kelly) that all children with learning difficulties should have access to such treatment - provided by the state.

Kelly's hypocrisy, combined with her dishonesty and her evident contempt for the local authority where she lives (Tower Hamlets), who insist that they provide "high quality education for all learners, including those with special needs" (Morning Star January 9, 2007), can only leave ordinary people with the impression that Government ministers like Kelly (and, of course, Blair - who sent his son to a highly-selective Catholic grammer school, albeit within the state sector), are special, privileged people who demand higher standards for themselves and their families, than they do for the working class. And that's true, isn't it? And it's also why working class people are fed up with New Labour, and politics as a whole. Thanks Blair and Kelly: you two sum up everything that's wrong with New Labour

Quid pro quo: a proposal to religious bigots

2007-01-10T10:37:00.000-08:00

I have no authority to make this offer and I don't know whether gay rights campaigners would agree with me, but I'd like to make the following proposal to the religious bigots who yesterday lobbied the House of Lords against the Equality Act 2006 that will prohibit discrimination in the provision of goods, facilities and services on grounds of sexual orientation:

You can have your wrecking amendment ("Nothing in these regulations shall force an individual to act against their conscience or strongly held religious beliefs") to the Sexual Orientation Regulations of the Equality Act...just so long as you agree to a similar amendment to the self-same Act that currently gives you, as religious people, protection: something like "Nothing in these Regulations shall prevent an individual with strongly held anti-religious views from discriminating against religious believers".

Does that sound OK to you god-botherers? Have we got a deal?

I suspect that the bigots (mainly Christian in this case, but joined in their homophobic campaign by Jews and Muslims), would not go for it: after all they campaigned for years to have religious belief given the same protection under the law as race and gender, finally succeeding with the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003 and then the Religious Belief Regulations of the Equality Act 2006. Personally, I always considered both those pieces of legislation to be ill-conceived nonsense, giving people's ideological beliefs (but only religious ideological beliefs, mind you) special protection: it's all the more ridiculous when you bear in mind that we're giving temporal privilege to people who believe that they have the Deity on their side, and will be finally vindicated in the after-life... Yet these self-righteous hypocrites now seek to deny gays similar protection!

Polly Toynbee (not a writer I often recommend) was in superb form on this topic a couple of days ago in the Guardian, making the excellent point that, " None of this might matter if it were just about the strange practices in private of religious bigots. But faith groups already run and are bidding to take over many more social services. If they win this debate, free to discriminate as they please, they will prove themselves utterly unfit to provide state services or receive state funding". A lot of of us knew that anyway, but apparently New Labour didn't. No doubt it's too much to hope that this latest outrage by religious bigots will wake up this disgracefully pro-religion administration.

The religious right in the UK

2007-01-07T15:42:00.000-08:00

Having promised to write something about Radio Galloway, I can't be bothered. It's not worth it - it was largely uninteresting stuff, partly consisting of Groundhog Day-style repetitive phone calls about Israel and Iran, and partly about other issues.

But James Whale, now...

I sometimes forget just how many ultra-religious nutters there really still are in this country. And then I listen to a late night radio talk show, and I'm reminded once more. There's a guy on the radio as I speak, blathering on about how homosexuality (or "sodomy") as he calls it, is a "sin", and of course what terrible fates await gay people, the wrath of God etc. It takes some going for someone to make Whale - who is no liberal by most standards - sound like the voice of centre-left reason, but some of his callers tonight are managing to cast him in precisely that light. Impressive, in a rather depressing sort of way.

The religious right continues to struggle to establish itself in the UK, via loveable organisations like Christian Voice, who recently demonstrated their in-touchness with the issues by issuing a press release slamming the Archers for having a show that featured a gay wedding. Oooh, the scandal.

So yes, all very stupid. And yet, at the same time, the liberal press is running articles slamming "secular fundamentalism", as though Richard Dawkins were trying to get religion outlawed and burning pictures of Jesus or Muhammad in the streets. And if Christian Voice and similar organisations were to come out with a "sound anti-imperialist" line on various global conflicts, it doesn't take John McCririck to work out the odds on where the outraged defences of them would start coming from on the left... not too sure if "Christianophobia" is a concept that would fly, but it'd be interesting to see. A few years ago, the very idea would have been so laughable as to be easily dismissed, but now it really does seem that sections of the left will line up behind more or less whoever ticks the relevant boxes for the current cause-du-jour, so perhaps we should never say never.

The rise of political-religious organisations in this country is set to grow, and grow further and faster at that. These organisations (regardless of religion) are not politics-neutral, and are certainly not by and large part of the left. It really comes to something when people who self-define as being on the left have become so deluded by their own introspective and ultimately defeated perspective on the world, so desperate to grasp any any straw, that they will convince themselves that theocrats are really progressives in religious clothing. Pull yourselves together folks, or you'll be in for a rude awakening.

A worm turns

2007-01-07T14:23:00.000-08:00

For several years now, the children's author, broadcaster and poet Michael Rosen has acted as an apologist for the British Socialist Workers' Party (SWP). He appears at their ill-named "Marxism" events and speaks on their platforms on a variety of subjects, including Zionism and the Middle East. He defends them against the charge that their "line" on Israel/Palestine is objectively anti-semitic. He is particularly useful to the SWP ( and their semi-Islamist front organisation "Respect") , because he is Jewish. George Galloway recently had Rosen as a special guest on his radio show.

But even the craven apologist Rosen has his limits: some time ago he began to express unease about the SWP's emrace of the crazed anti-semitic saxophonist Gilad Atzmon, and started posting his objections, under the name "Isakofsky" on various internet discussions, like this.

However, Rosen/ Isakofsky's promises of publicly denouncing Atzmon (including a promise to denounce at Marxism), have come to nothing: it seemed that Rosen/ Isakofsky would rather keep in with his friends in the SWP than risk antagonising them by attacking their favourite anti-semite sax-player...until now:

Rosen, it would seem, has been on a bear-hunt and found a spine:

This letter appears in the first Socialist Worker (paper of the SWP) of 2007:

"Great news about the Cultures of Resistance musical programme, but I have to say that I'm mightily dismayed that you have saxophonist Gilad Atzmon on board.

"He is someone who has frequently expressed racist ideas and surely we have always said you can't fight racism with racism? I fear that the racism he expresses is seen by some in the liberation movements as a racism that doesn't matter very much.

"That's to say, it's said by some that racism towards peoples from countries oppressed and exploited by the West is the main racism we're fighting, but a racism directed toward peoples seen as heavily implicated in the West's oppression matters less.

"Thus anti-semistism in the 21st Century is seen perhaps as "mistaken" within the liberation movement , much as we might say that going on about Rupert Murdoch being Australian is 'mistaken'.

" This is a disastrous route to go down. Anti-semitism imagines the removal or elemination of a group of people from the world system.

"All we have to ask ourselves is: 1) would eliminating that group change the system for the better? 2) What ghastly processes would a state create in order to do the removing and eliminating?

"I think Cultures of Resistance is making a great mistake taking Atzmon on board with them and this will undermine and weaken what we are all trying to do.

"Michael Rosen

"East London".

It may be too much to hope, but perhaps Rosen's belated discovery of a spine will awaken some SWP members (and others on the "left", influenced by them) to the reality of their organisation's institutional anti-semitism.

Sadly, it seems unlikely that the cravenly pro-admirer Rosen, will reason his way through to any more general critique from this single 'mistake', to the understanding that the SWP is an anti-semitic organisation.

Watch this space

2007-01-07T10:32:00.000-08:00

More blogging coming soon, I promise. I can't be arsed right now, and I'm going out for some Turkish food. But have a look later and I'll write you a post about Galloway or summat. Or maybe I'll have a go at the SWP; John G and I are getting fed up of agreeing with each other's comments anyway.

No mourning, but no false sense of justice

2007-01-01T07:40:00.000-08:00

Today I read, and then re-read, Jim's post about Saddam Hussein, trying to work out what I thought of it. In the first instance I couldn't make head nor tail of it, but then it occurred to me that this was perhaps because he hadn't realised what he was really saying either. And it's because of the road that I think his post was going down, that I decided to write this reply.

Where I do agree with Jim, is that I have absolutely no sense of upset at the death of a man who, at the end of the day, was a fascist and a tyrant. I also share his sense of distaste at much of the left's slippage (the example Jim cites being merely one of the most obnoxious) into old-style Stalinist "anti-imperialist" rhetoric, feigning anger and trying to foster a sense of injustice at the execution, whilst bridling when people point out that this line taken to its logical conclusion would seem to suggest some sense of solidarity with the man. By the same logic, people could call for an "anti-imperialist" defence of any tyrant, anywhere, no matter how vile or foul, just as long as that person ticked the single qualifying box of being involved in a military conflict with the USA. That sort of kindergarten politics may satisfy some people, but most of us outgrew it after the first year of higher education.

He then offers five reasons why the conduct of the trial and execution were a bad thing - all of which are true. So yes, insofar as that goes, I agree with him. But he then goes farther than that.
The sticky point comes here:

"Finally, there's the old 'victor's justice' argument. It's true that Saddam's trial and execution are 'victor's justice'. As were the Nuremburg trials... perhaps 'victor's justice' is better than no justice at all."

It seems to me that the entire argument, from that phrase onwards, effectively refutes everything that went before it. Effectively having a line of "the trial was bollocks and the execution makes things worse, but then on the other hand it was better than it could have been", equates to de facto critical support for the process, it seems to me. The comparison with Nuremberg (and therefore of Hussein's position to that of Goering and the other Nazi high-ups who stood trial), merely goes to reinforce that impression. It seems to me that we need to unpack things here.

Firstly, yes Hussein was a fascist. Here I agree with Jim and disagree with other left-wingers such as Louisefeminista from Stroppyblog who (she's free to disagree with me and undoubtedly will!) it seems to me is using a rather overly rigid definition of the term in order to hold the line that it's not appropriate to apply it to Saddam.

Secondly, that particular semantic debate aside (fascist or not, he was a tyrant responsible for the deaths of thousands of his own people), I genuinely don't give a toss that he's dead.

However, that doesn't detract from the truth that the execution and the show-trial that led to it were no kind of "justice" (victor's or otherwise) that anyone tackling the concept seriously, would recognise. A trial where the judges get repeatedly fired, lawyers assasinated and where the whole thing relies on the muscle of an occupying foreign power, is no sort of fair trial at all. Saddam should have been tried - in the Hague, at the International War Crimes Tribunal, or at least under the auspices of some body or other that inspires more confidence than a government dominated by SCIRI and Sadrist religious sectarians, backed up (albeit fractiously) by US military muscle. The revelations in the press today about the "executioners" chanting Sadrist slogans and mocking as the man died, just makes the whole thing look more sordid than it already did.

As to comparisons with Nuremberg, the whole set of circumstances leading to the trials after World War Two, were about as different as they could be from those leading to the arrest of Saddam Hussein. The Nuremberg trials were set up in the aftermath of a world war, by powers that had won after losing quite literally millions of their own citizens in what would become (regardless of the circumstances of the war's start) a desperate war against a global fascist military alliance which threatened the continued existence of nations the world over. Furthermore, those trials came in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust, a crime historically unique in both its scope and in the scale of the horrors which it brought into being.

There is also the obvious implication that a comparison with Nuremberg (a process which no-one outside of the far right fringe would make a point of criticising) somehow legtimates the process by which Saddam Hussein was tried; indeed, that is one of the points where Jim contradicts himself - "It was illegitimate, but it was just like Nuremberg so that's OK". What, Nuremberg was illegitimate? Or illegitimate trials are OK? The point eludes me.

Jim goes on to quote one Professor Fouad Ajami, whom he neglects to mention is both a former advisor to Condoleeza Rice, and a friend and former colleague of Paul Wolfowitz, as though his statements offer some kind of added authority. He is careful to mention, correctly, that Ajami "probably supported the war", whereas Jim didn't. Ajami's increasingly right-wing political tangent has in fact come in for serious criticism from some quarters. Nevertheless, Jim thinks that the sentiments contained in the quote are valid. Highlights from it run thus:

"If it took a foriegn war to bring about this justice, and to introduce into Arab politics the principle of politcal accountability, so be it... Nuremburg, too, was victor's justice. The Iraqis who endured the tyranny while the world averted its gaze from their suffering are owed their moment of satisfaction"

Quite how one could come to the conclusion that endorsing such a statement is compatible with Jim's claims to have "serious misgivings" (as I do) about the trial process, leaves me simply mystified.

Jim, if your stance is essentially to support the execution then I really think you should spell that out, rather than tip-toeing around the issue. Furthermore, I think you need to call into question just how far your endorsement of statements like the one above from Ajami, is actually compatible with an anti-war stance at all.

The floor is yours.

Victor's justice

2006-12-31T09:38:00.000-08:00

Like most civilised people, I have serious misgivings about the execution of Saddam. Not that, morally, the mass-murdering bastard didn't deserve it; just that:
1/ keeping him in permanent captivity seemed a more appropriate and less martyr-like fate;
2/ it seems doubtful that his execution will diminish sectarian tensions in Iraq - and it may even increase them by further alienating the Sunni middle class;
3/ it denied the Kurds the opportunity to have Saddam tried for mass murder/genocide over the Anfal campaign;
4/ it allows people like Kamil Mahdi (Iraqi expatriate, Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, Exeter university, quoted in the Guardian of December 30), to say things like this: "It will be taken as an American decision. The worst thing is that it's an issue which in an ideal situation, should have unified Iraq but the Americans have divided Iraq" (strangely, though, in the same Guardian article, one Toby Dodge, "expert on Iraq at Quenn Mary College London university ", opposes the execution on the grounds that "it completes the Islamicisation of the insurgency");
5/ I am, in principle opposed to capital punishment. Even for Saddam. Even for Hitler. But I'm not going to sign any petitions or go on any marches over the execution of mass murderers, war criminals or other friends of Mr George Galloway, should they be finally brought to justice;
4/ Finally, there's the old "victor's justice" argument. It's true that Saddam's trial and execution are "victor's justice". As were the Nuremburg trials...

But, perhaps "victor's justice" is better than no justice at all.

It's certainly better than this sort of disingenious apologia for Saddam, from his erstwhile supporters in Britain, who now no longer have the guts to come out openly and state where they stand. On balance, I have more sympathy with Sham, whose raw anger is at least honest.

The most thoughtful comment I've read on the execution came from Fouad Ajami (author of The Foreigner's Gift: The Americans, the Arabs, and the Iraqis in Iraq), writing in today's (UK) Sunday Times. I strongly suspect (though I don't know for sure), that Ajami supported the war. That would not, in my view, invalidate the following assessment:

"It will be said on the "Arab street" and by the critics of the Iraq war worldwide, that this verdict, and the entire judicial process that issued the death sentence, were an affair of the American occupation, cut to America's political needs. Iraqis from Kurdistan to Basra will pay these qubbles no heed.

"If it took a foriegn war to bring about this justice, and to introduce into Arab politics the principle of politcal accountability, so be it.

"So much of the political and economic life of the Arabs today - the satellite television channels railing against the West in perfectly good western idiom, the oil industry that sustains practically all that plays out in the region - has its origins in western lands.

"Nuremburg, too, was victor's justice. The Iraqis who endured the tyranny while the world averted its gaze from their suffering are owed their moment of satisfaction".

Geordie Tintin returns!

2006-12-31T02:09:00.000-08:00

Will Rubbish is a bad, bad man. But he does make exceedingly good YouTube videos.

Saddam Hussein executed

2006-12-30T17:14:00.001-08:00

This says it all. Made shortly after he was arrested, it's still just as relevant today.

Have been listening to Radio Galloway on the subject, which has already offered me a number of things to talk about, but if you will indulge me gentle reader, I'll hold off that until tomorrow - just in case he's on again and has anything to add...

Housekeeping

2006-12-27T10:56:00.000-08:00

Just a quick point which I thought I'd make in public (cos it does look a bit dodgy - hat tip to Dave in the comments) with regards to mis amigos Lalamimi and Wanderslore. The more hawk-eyed amongst you will have noticed that they no longer appear in the sidebar as contributors to this site. This isn't because I've suddenly turned all Gerry Healy over Christmas and cast all PSC'ers and ex-Millies into the outer darkness. Nor have I thrown a pathetic hissy fit over a perceived slight like some people I could mention. So fear not.

It's just a technical matter due to this blog having been forced finally (in spite of my valiantly ignoring the prompts for some time) to switch over to new version of Blogger. Mike was already on the new version thanks to his own site having already made the switch. And in spite of a number of false starts, and in spite of much cursing and muttering of "this is all fucking beyond me, this is", I managed to pilot Denham through the process a few days ago. Larry seems to have worked it out sans assistance, resourceful young man that he is.

So Lala and Wanders, just follow the prompts when you log in and you should be sorted. If there's a problem, let me know and we'll try to sort something out. And be quick about it - people are starting to talk...

In, out, in, out... shake it all about...

2006-12-27T10:39:00.000-08:00

At the risk of boring you all with trivia (if you want so see something topical, go look at the BBC; apparently they're gonna hang Saddam Hussein or summat), I thought I'd update you on my ban situation, gentle reader. Since updating my last post on the subject, and even posting kind comments to the SWP Kevin the Teenager bloggers concerned offering praise for their intestinal fortitude upon the reinstatement of my comments and the lifting of my ban, it seems that the lads have had another lapse of confidence. Ergo, out yet again went the comments, and yours truly is once again banned from their site. Perhaps they detected some hint of sarcasm in my praising their courage for allowing me to laugh at them... perhaps they just crapped themselves again like they did the first time.

Either way little fellas, it's a pretty rum show - can't we all just get along? Even if you do name yourselves after kids' cartoon characters, I'm sure you can have a moment of maturity and take the hand of friendship when it's offered to you... here's a gesture. I'm sooorrry that I pissed myself with laughter when you said that the political "Vermin" of last year was the National Union of Students bureaucracy (who in taking the title presumably beat General Pinochet, George Bush, Nick Griffin, Vladimir Putin and Saddam Hussein, amongst others). I really am. And I'll let you all go to the movies next Saturday and I'll un-ground you too. And I'll even let you stay up late to watch Newsnight, but not until John Rees is next on.

You see now what a big hearted guy I can be?

One of the most stupid and over-rated Britons

2006-12-27T06:18:00.000-08:00

Apparently, the Tories - under new, trendy new leader Webcameron - have come up with a list of "12 poeple who made Britain great", who they propose should be studied in schools.

The Independent, quite rightly, is taking the piss out of this moronic concept of history...

Unfortunately, they have (today, 27 December) asked the posh mockney comedian "Mark Steel" to take the piss...out of common decency and working-class solidarity. Ironic, isn't it: because "Mark 'Steel' Steel" claims to be some sort of leftie?

Steel writes the following in today's Independent:

"BOUDICCA

"Or whatever she's called now. Here was a woman who responded to the occupation her peoples' land by attacking the invading forces, and burning down towns, including London. To which the Romans declared: 'But why doesn't anyone look at the positive things that are happening?" and insisted job was done and the insugents defeated".

What exactly does this twat Steel mean by the above?

1/ That all invasions are bad and must be resisted? (ie: that the allies should have got out of Germany in 1945?, and Saddam is right to denounce the "invaders");

2/ That the muderers of trade unionists and democrats in Iraq are a legitimate national liberation movement?

3/ That "comedians" know a lot about politics and should be given columns in national newspapers to spout fucking bollocks?

...actually, Steel's worst sin is... apart from coming out with standard SWP-type anti-working-class crap, is...not being funny: which, given that his politics are rubbish, doesn't leave him with much in his favour, really.

First, catch your skwirl...

2006-12-24T01:10:00.000-08:00

Funny, in a slightly gross way... anyhow, a very merry Christmas to all our readers!

(Hat-Tip: Hak Mao of the Drink Soaked Trots)

Respect: party of the small businessman

2006-12-22T15:39:00.000-08:00

I know that the bastard offspring of fascist-dictator-loving George Galloway and anti-Israel-obsessed Socialist Workers Party's unnatural liaison, "Respect", doesn't claim to be "socialist", or even "social democrat"...but even so:

"Stratford Road residents and traders do not want the Red Route. It will hurt 1000 small businesses that line the Stratford Road, and will only save the motorist a measly few minutes...

"Local traders have delivered to the city council a 3,000 signature petition from local people opposing the Red Route...

"Cllr Salma Yaqoob has been fighting for the rights of local traders and residents

"She challenged the council decision in a City Council meeting on economic and legal grounds and delivered petition (sic) ".

All the above comes from the election leaflet of Mohammed Suleman, "Respect" candidate for Birmingham Springfield next May.

The "red route" issue is a matter that local businesmen in Sparkhill (part of Springfield ward) hae been raising for some time. It is all about their trade and profits. The real issue is about clearing the Stratford Road for ease of traffic and safety of local residents: but "Respect", with their communalistic approach to politics, naturally side with the local businessmen, rather than local working-class people - Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and white: most of whom think the Red Route is a good idea.

By the way: a local Lib Dem tells me that Salma Yaqoob and her people have done a deal with the local Labour Party in Sparkhill, Birmingham: her people have already agreed that the weak candidate Mohammed Suleman (rather than Salma Iqbal, who stood and did quite well at the last local election), will be the 'Respect' candidate in Springfield - thus ensuring that the Labour candidate, Mohammed Fazal, retains his seat.

In exchange, it will be ensured that Roger Godsiff retains his parliamentary nomination for the Labour Party, and "Respect"'s people in the Labour party will all vote for Godsiff. They calculate that Godsiff is the candidate they can most likely defeat at the general election...

The person behind this deal is a long-standing Labour Party and Lib Dem "fixer" within the Mirpuri community: and now "Respect" are part of the communalist equation, dragging Pakistani and Bangladeshi workers down into the mire of communalism and corruption: they didn't start it, but they are all too willing to play the game.

The SWP on the New Union

2006-12-22T14:33:00.000-08:00

Something I forgot to mention in my previous post about the "new union", to be formed (if the members agree in a ballot), by the amalgamation of the T&G and Amicus: the only "left" intervention against the amalgamation at the December 19th recall BDC, was from the Socialist Workers Party (SWP): their leaflet (given out at the conference) stated:

"Does the merger of the T&G and Amicus strengthen workers in their battles in the workplace and in their wider struggles in society? Will this merger strengthen the trade union movement and its ability to take on the bosses and win?

"Socialist Worker supporters in the T&G don't think it will".

However: the only SWP member in any prominent position within the T&G is Jimmy Kelly, the Chair of the union. Jimmy is outspoken in his support for the amalgamation. So what does he think of the SWP leaflet? "Bollocks". How does he reconcile his support for the amalgamation with the SWP's opposition: "I'm a member of the Irish group; they are a completely seperate orgainisation from the British SWP".

Sweet Anita, and other losses

2006-12-22T14:18:00.000-08:00

I promised, a little while back, to give you some film of the great Anita O'Day singing "Sweet Georgia Brown": here it is. Since then, we have heard of the deaths of Jay McShann (Charlie Parker's first boss), Kenny Davern, and (most recently), Mick Mulligan (George Melly's first badleader) : I will have more to tell you about Mulligan in the new year.

In the meanwhile, here's Anita:

Towards the new union! Away with shadows of the past!

2006-12-22T12:19:00.001-08:00

Tuesday 19th December 2006, may go down in history as the day that the trade union movement in Britain began to break down old sectional divisions, and finally got its act together; or it may go down as the day in which bureaucratically-managed decline became the order of the day. The "Vesting Day" of May 1st 2007 will be the date upon which the two great British unions, the T&GWU and Amicus (formerly the AEU, ASTMS and EEPTU), amalgamate, forming a new union (assuming that the members of both unions agree to amalgamation, in a ballot, to be held in January / February of next year).

Naturally, I prefer to believe that this amalgamation is the beginning of a new, vibrant and militant age for British trade unionism. Discussions have been going on between the T&GWU and Amicus about a merger to form a new "super-union", since 2005. At first, the GMB were also involved, but they bailed out at their 2006 conference. The reason that the GMB withdrew (despite their General Secreatry Paul Kenny being, privately, in favour) is worth knowing, from the point of view of T&G and Amicus rank-and-file people assessing the pros and cons of the merger: the reason that the GMB conference rejected the merger was because their regional secretaries and branch secretaries have too much to lose: they make a very good living out of the present arrangements within the GMB - thank you very much - and don't want anyone interferering with it...Paul Kenny knows very well that these people are corrupt, but he can't move against them, because he depended upon them to gain power against his predecessor, Curran. The fact that the GMB is going bankrupt, and will be out of business if present trends continue, in about twenty or thirty years, is of no concern to the regional and branch bureaucrats: they'll be dead and gone before the union goes bankrupt.

What was refreshing about Tuesday 19th's recall BDC (Biennial Delegate Conference) of the Transport and General Workers' Union, was the honesty of the debate, and the seriousness with which the future of trade unionism as a whole, was treated.

There has been a consultation on the question of the amalgamation/"new union" within the T&G, ever since the matter was first raised before the membership, before the 2005 Biennial Delegate Conference (BDC). That conference insisted that there must be a recall BDC to vote on the proposed rule book for the new union, before it was put to a ballot of the membership of the two unions: that is exactly what is being done: for once, a union leadership is carrying out the demands of its membership.

The recall T&G BDC was a very democratic affair. Speeches were taken for and against the resolution to support the Instrument of Amalgamation; of the 34 speeches taken, 4 were against. At one point, I thought I thought no-one would speak against, then up got that old friend of this blog, Rachael Webb, to denounce the amalgamation: Rachael was, and is, completely wrong, but you had to admire her guts and spirit: her case seemed to be based upon the proposition that Derek Simpson and the Amicus leadership are not to be trusted (something that many of had worked out for ourselves many moons ago)...

There were very powerful speeches in favour of amalgamation from the vast majority of speakers from the floor - although it was noticeable that all those who wanted to speak against, were called to speak...in other words, no attempt was made to suppress the opposition, such as it was... I'm sure that Rachael will confirm that.

In the end, the recall BDC voted against fear of the past (repeated evocations of Frank Chapple, Eric Hammond, etc), and in favour of a new future for British trade unionism: the most important aspect of which is £7.05 million guaranteed for unionising, guaranteed to rise to £15 million...to build he new union amonst previously unorganised sectors: of course we have to support it!

Volty gets banned!

2006-12-22T00:07:00.000-08:00

In a moment of pant-wettingly funny hilarity, Volty has been banned by the kevin-the-revolutionary-teenagers of (crap) blog Through the Scary Door, apparently for laughing at their post about "Vermin of the Year". Which is tremendously amusing in itself, but wait gentle reader. A story lies therein.

In case you were wondering who these SWP members thought were the "Vermin of the Year", but can't be arsed to read Morbo's drivelling on the subject, they said... well go on, guess. George Bush? Nope. Tony Blair? No. Ehud Olmert? Not even close. Perhaps the BNP? Well, they did get a mention but nope, they missed out on the top prize.

So who did win, and in doing so spark a wave of hilarity currently doing the rounds of the internet? Why, of course, it's the National Union of Students! "Worms, Vermin and Scabs", so they are, sez the Scary Door, an organisation infected with "Zionist hacks" like... err... Union National President Gemma Tumelty.

Anyway, at this point lots of people (myself included) laughed at the Scary Door folk, and so they crapped themselves, deleted a load of comments, and banned anyone who was nasty to them. They would have done more but their mums called them in for their tea.

Oh my, another day in virtual politics...

Update 23/12/06 - for those of you who were holding your breath for news on this shocking subject, Volty has now been unbanned and the comments all put back! Well done to whichever one of the Scary Door Children decided to have a youthful rebellion, refuse mummy's beans on toast and, like, stick it to the man!

They're baaack...

2006-12-20T00:03:00.000-08:00

Hear ye, hear ye! Those super-spooks at Vigil have returned, ready to fight the Evil-World on your behalf again! You may remember them from such bizarre previous appearances as the BBC Newsnight report on Hizb-ut-Tahrir, where if nothing else they demonstrated that bullshit really does baffle brains (or, well, BBC journalist Richard "Brains" Watson anyway).

Anyways, last time we mentioned Vigil, it was to say that they'd taken their page off the site belonging to the clinically sane IC-HUMINT, home of Christian protectors of Jerusalem from the Mohammedan hordes the world over. Well, they've only gone and got themselves a new site all of their own!

Check it out, and if the first thing that strikes you is how the deeply narcissistic design of the front page reminds you of the style in which popular BBC programme "Spooks" is shot, then you're not alone. But I think the funniest thing about it, is that it proclaims the organisation to be basically neutral on matters ideological, such as religion. OK lads, and the band played believe you if you like.

By the way, the new site is verrrry rickety so if you don't get through to it first time, keep trying. It's well worth it.

More on this soon when anything else amusing comes up. Hat-tip for the new Vigil site URL to "Victor" in the comments on a previous post on this subject. Interestingly, the new Vigil site isn't yet searchable on Google, which makes you think that he might have jumped the gun in mentioning it...

Update: Just to make the point again, the likely lads from Vigil claim not to have any hidden ideological agenda. Take a look at this article about Jenvey's views on the dangers of the holiday season (an article whose author is himself apparently linked to Vigil) and decide for yourselves.

Kenny Davern: RIP

2006-12-18T17:53:00.000-08:00

Kenny Davern is dead - suddenly and unexpectedly. The greatest, and most orgininal jazz clarinetist of his age; also a caustic wit, an iconoclast and a man of strong views on many subjects. At the Brecon Jazz Festival a couple of years ago, the "soundies" (used to rock bands) tried to mike him up: Davern spoke through the mike: "I have spent fifty years developing a sound and a tone on my instrument: and now some bums insist on miking me up...unless that mike is turned off I will go home!"

Davern was a good man. In the tradition of his friend and mentor, Pee Wee Russell. I feel particularlybad because davern was probably the last jazz musician who played my sort of stuff naturally, and not as a deliberate "routine": It's the end of an era.

Keep the Labour-union link!

2006-12-17T14:58:00.000-08:00

Over the past week, that dishonest, congenital liar Blair has been interviewed by the police over 'cash for honours', and - it seems- once again slithered his way out of the situation by claiming (quite falsely), that the honours in question were given for "services to the Labour Party" - which, according to "Downing Street sources" means (to quote the Independent on Sunday of 17 December 2006), "'their willingness to serve as Labour Party peers'. A party spokesman said: "I am not going to get into how may leaflets they have delivered"'. None of the businessmen in question have any record of party activism (beyond large donations/loans), and at least one - Sir David Garrard- is not even a member of the Party. All the businessmen involved, say (quite believably) that they thought they were being put forward for the Lords because of their "contribution to British society", not because of their (non-existant) "services" to the Labour Party.

Obviously, this disgusting business, and the equally neauseating supression of the Serious Fraud Office's's investigation into BAe's dealings with Saudi Arabia, have grabbed the headlines in the bourgeois media, and been the plainest examples of the extraordinary -pathological- dishonesty of Mr Tony "purer than pure" Blair.

However, for working-class socialists, all that is of secondary importance: what is much more significant (but less exciting), is the Hayden Phillips proposal for a £50,000 'cap' on all donations, whether from individuals or organisations, to political parties.

This proposal - vigorously supported by David Cameron- would allow rich individuals to continue to send cheques of up to £50,000 to the Tories, but require the Labour Party to write each year to political levy-payers, asking them if they wish to continue to remain a contributor to party funds. It is, quite clearly, a means of breaking the link between the Labour Party and the unions. It fits in with the plan that the Blairites forged in the 1990's, to break Labour's link with the unions, and to switch over to state funding of political parties. They never followed through on this plan, for two reasons:
1/ They (the Blairites) under-estimated the degree of public hostility there would be towards the idea of state funding of political parties;
2/They (the Blairites) over-estimated the degree of opposition they would receive from the trade union leadership.

...But now, it seems, Blair and his anti-working class clique are going for bust. According to the Guardian, "Sir John McTernan, the prime minister's political secretary, met Sir Hayden last week. It was claimed that he had told him that Tony Blair would support these proposals. Mr McTernan could not be contacted last night".

The Guardian (of December 12 2006), continued:

"Critics believe Tony Blair is intent on seeking a dramatic restructuring of the relationship between Labour and the trade unions, as part of his "legacy". In his first months as Labour leader, Mr Blair stamped his authority on the party by announcing his plan to scap Clause 4 of the Labour Party's constitution":

In reality, the "Clause 4" battle was a phoney war, that Blair and his 'advisers' (ex-student union ballot-riggers) knew they were bound to win. It wasn't a significant matter in terms of working class representation: the present busines - although much less dramatic - is: that's why some of us are calling a meeting at O'Neil's on Broad Street, Birmingham at about 5.00pm (after the T&G special conference on amalgamation with Amicus), with John McDonnell MP and various T&G Executive members, to discuss these matters. If you're in the Birmingham area on tuesday evening, come along!

Ipswich reclaim the night march

2006-12-17T13:43:00.000-08:00

"Shiraz Socialist" has received the following, and we have no hesitation in passing on the information and urging all readers who can, to support this action:

"Friends,

After the bodies of 5 sex workers were found murdered within 10 days of each other and the police advising women to stay at home we call you to...

RECLAIM THE NIGHT - 29 DECEMBER - 7PM ONWARDS - IPSWICH TOWN HALL STEPS

We have comrades arriving from all over the country to show their love and solidarity; if you are able to to offer transport or would like it, please contact us and we we will try our hardest to organise lift shares, etc.

If you require accomodation before or after let us know ASAP and it will be provided (though the quality may not be great!).

Please bring banners , food to share, your thoughts, experiences, love, friends.

*THIS WILL NOT BE RESTRICTED TO A WOMEN ONLY EVENT*

Tell everyone you know!

For more information contact:
ipswichqueers@yahoo.co.uk

(If you are planning on coming: it would be wondersful if you could contact us so that we can get an idea of numbers).

Foe those in the Ipswich area, we DESPERATELY need your help in organising this potentially mammoth event; please meet us at cafe Direct, Suffolk College at 7pm Monday 18th December".

A very civil partnership

2006-12-17T11:50:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I attended a civil partnership ceremony at Islington town hall. My friend and comrade Clive (who comments here from time to time), was doing the decent thing by his partner Elias. I have to say that even my world-weary old eye was moist as the two of them spoke about how they had first met, how Elias had narrowly escaped deportation, and what their love now meant to them. Altogether now: ahhh!

I should add that the registrar and the rest of the officials and staff at the town hall were superb, achieving the perfect balance between suitable formality, and good humour.

But the high-spot of the ceremony was, without doubt Elias's mother, a magnificent prima donna, who sang the Antonious Carlos Jobin song Dindi , accompanied by a piano-bass-and percussion trio. Now, singing mothers can be a bit of a liability - as Tommy Sheridan can confirm. But in this case, the mother really could sing. And no wonder: it turned out that she'd been the vocalist with the Duke Ellington Orchestra between 1972 and the Duke's death in 1974. And Elias's dad was the whisk-broom percussionist in the trio: he'd played drums with the likes of Charles Mingus.

We ended up with a fabulous disco and booze-up in a Hackney pub, where various friends and colleagues of Clive and Elias gave short speeches and/or sang songs, standing on a chair... amazingly (to me; but then, I've had a sheltered life), Elias's ex-partner and mother of his child gave a warm, good-humoured and thoroughly generous speech, wishing him and Clive all the best for the future. Bloody hell! I don't pretend to understand the sophistication of modern relationships; but it was a lesson to me in common decency, friendship and humanity. I was proud to be present.

By the way: my partner is a keen listener to BBC Radio 4's "everyday story of country folk", The Archers, in which there has also been a civil partnership, between two characters called Ian and Adam. Apparently, it's caused quite a stir amongst Archers listeners, with quite a few of them complaining that this sort of carry-on has no place in a programme that is traditionally devoted to tips on when to get your turnips in, and what to do if your pigs get botulism. She throughly approved of the Ian and Adam nuptuals, and even sniffled when Adam's stepfather, the evil capitalist farmer and homophobe Brian Aldridge, belatedly turned up at the ceremony... but, she said, it was nowhere near as good as Clive and Elia's ceremony. Well done, you chaps!

For your victims...

2006-12-10T10:51:00.000-08:00

Pinochet is dead.

Good.

I hope it wasn't easy or painless.

You bastard.

Farewell blues: Anita and Ruth

2006-12-09T19:08:00.000-08:00

Just in case any of you are getting the idea that this is a heavy, political, site with no concern for matters cultural, artistic or musical...

Two bloody good singers died recently, and both deserve to be remembered: Ruth Brown (born January 12 1928; died November 17 2006) and Anita O'Day (born October 18 1919; died October 23 2006).

I will, shortly, be putting a 'UTube' clip of Anita singing "Sweet Georgia Brown" from the film Jazz On A Summer's Day, on this site (once the Priest has explained to me how you do it) and I may even tell you about her famous falling-out with Roy Eldridge.

But as for Ruth Brown: this wonderful R&B singer, who influenced Fats Domino and BB King, with the 'catch' in her voice, is now almost forgotten. She shouldn't be. She was a wonderful singer and a great woman. She played a leading role in the success of Atlantic records (known as "the house that Ruth built"), and wrote to the label's president, Ahmet Ertigun, demanding back royalties. He wrote back, replying that, on the contrary, she owed Atlantic $30,000 in unpaid studio costs, but enclosing a personal cheque for $1,000. Ruth cashed the cheque, but still called it "crumbs from the rich man's table".

After leaving Atlantic, she raised a family, divorced her bigamous first husband, left her abusive second husband and her unsatisfactory third, who opposed her singing career. She worked as a domestic cleaner and a school bus driver before returning to professional singing in 1975.

Many of her songs were, shall we say, full of innuendo. One of her best numbers was about an antique chair: "If I can't sell it, I'll keep on sittin' on it, but I ain't gonna give it away!"

The Iraq quagmire: support the workers!

2006-12-09T11:06:00.000-08:00

All of us here at Shiraz Socialist opposed the Iraq war. But not all of us support the "troops out now" call of the 'Stop the War Coalition' (STWC) - a rotten bloc lead by the (British) Socialist Workers Party, the Muslim Association of Britain and Mr George Galloway MP: this unprincipled alliance gives not a damn about then peoples of Iraq, and certainly not about its trade union movement (whose British representative, Abdullah Muhsin - a communist-, was denounced as a "Quisling" by that piece of pro-fascist scum Galloway).

The STWC is only concerned the British and Ud domestic domestic implications of the Iraq war - they give not a fig about the peoples of Iraq, and not a fig about the courageous trades unionists and democrats of Iraq. In fact ther STWC, who officially don't have any programme whatsoever for Iraq, actually support the fascists and nihilists of the so-called "resistance" / "insurgency": the Ba'athists and the Shi'ite Islamists, and gloat, sickeningly, over the descent of Iraq into chaos and anarchy. They are also led by a creature (George Galloway) who danced like a grovelling supplicant at the feet of Saddam Hussein.

The Iraq Study Group's attempt find a way out of the quagmire is almost certainly doomed to failure. It's also merely an alternative strategy that has long been advocated by that section of the US ruling class who never bought the neo-cons' Bolshevism.

The "Stop the War Coalition"'s ignoring of, and then, Galloway-led attacks upon, the Iraqi trade union movement, lead me and the AWL to break with these people, and to concentrate our support upon the only force that can end the chaos and disaster that the invasion brought about: the Iraqi working class: a group who are not a consideration for either the "anti-imperialists" of the STWC, or the little-Englanders and racists who phone in to "Any Answers".

I think the following (by a comrade who I have not yet consulted about this, so I won't name him/her), is pretty much on the mark:

"It seems to me ...if the result of withdrawal is a three-way partition of Iraq (is) terrible communal slaughter, and a Shi'ite state connected to Iraq, (then) the main point (is):

"We (socialists/internationalists) can't say 'Get out of Iraq and hand over power to national liberation movement X', or even 'get out via negotiations with national liberation movements X,Y and Z.

"Normally, that is what troops out and self-determination means: that there is an obvious alternative to colonial or colonial-style rule, and whatever we think of that alternative politically, we recognise the democratic justice , on one level at least of (their) taking power.

"It's (sometimes) not quite so straightforward, and there are some grey areas. Who did we think would take power in Afghanistan when the USSR withdrew? The difference (between Iraq and) Afghanistan (is) that there was no workers' movement to worry about... this is why we're so concerned about ...Iraq: there is a workers' movement and it's the only thing of its kind in the Arab east since the last time the Iraqi workers' movement was crushed in 1963, before most of our organisation was born.

"But I think this is the gist of the problem: normally (ie: in 'classical' Trotskyist analysis) , the approach to national (liberation) movements and anti-colonial struggles, would (be), we would say, positively, that the workers' movement should fight for the leadership of the national (liberation) movement, aiming for workers' power. That however doesn't have much grip on the current situation in Iraq. You could say 'troops out now and fight for workers' power' - I assume that is what the 57 varieties of would-be Trots say. But only a twit would think it was actually an answer to the problem.

"This is because the movement against the occuspation is not, or not mainly, an anti-colonial-type (movement). It is inexorably mixed up with a communalist, sectarian civil war. It's not just that the national liberation movement which might take power when the occupiers leave, is vile, undemocratic, etc; but that there isn't one.

"'Troops out now' means: 'and actually fuck knows what will fill the void'. You can build a movement for solidarity with the Iraqi (working class and democratic) movement; you can build a movement for for troops out, regardless of what happens afterwards. You can't actaually build a movement for both simultaneously: one or the other is purelya propaganda gesture."

Update: Further pertinent to this debate, here's a clip of prominent IFTU figure Abdullah Muhsin, speaking about the historic and contemporary situation of Trades Unions in Iraq.

Sleep safely in your beds kids, everything's in hand

2006-12-05T04:30:00.000-08:00

Well, you're safe from the attack of the bloggers, anyway. According to Guido Fawkes, the Home Office is employing 12 librarians to... read blogs on a weekly basis and see what they say. Wow... just makes me feel so safe from the terrorist threats. Well done, Home Office - another proof that putting a tough-talking right wing tosser in charge of a Government department merely ensures that it wastes its money in an even more spectacularly dumb fashion than it did under his predecessor.

Fawkes even offers them an alternative strategy:

"Guido uses Google Alerts, Blogpulse and Technorati to track every mention of him on the web. Total cost £0.00."

Heaven only knows what they're paying the 12 spook-o-geeks, but one imagines it's costing you, the British taxpayer, rather more than it's costing Guido (and countless thousands of other people with access to freeware) to do it his way. What's even better, is that it seems at least in part to be for the purposes of spin, as much as for national security. How pathetic can you get:

"Sir! Sir! 004 1/2 is reporting that Osler said something nasty about us on the web!"

"Right Carruthers! This is a job for Agent Akehurst!"

Rest easy tonight folks. And don't have nightmares. Nothing's gonna happen to you. Not on John Reid's watch.

There's a new low in the blogosphere...

2006-12-05T01:18:00.000-08:00

And I'm not quite sure what to make of it.

Looking through this very new blog, it struck even me as being a bit gratuitous on the swearing front. It's a matter of personal taste rather than morals: I have no objection to calling someone a cunt, I just think it's more effective if you only say it once per sentence. The blog owner also clearly needs to work out how to use Blogger's virtually self-explanatory system for posting HTML - after all, if Denham can do it without gobbets of code appearing on screen, then anyone can. So... that's the downside.

But then on the other hand, this week's "cunt" in question is Kelvin MacKenzie, and the author "V" (I am not he, incidentally), really goes to town on someone who, after all, really does cry out for that kind of treatment. And there are some moments of real, biting wit. There's only the one post on the blog so far, so it does of course have plenty of time for fine tuning. What's more, V has a sidebar that links to some old friends of this site. So that's the upside. Have a look and judge for yourselves. Although you might not want to do so at work, unless your boss really doesn't mind seeing the word "cunt" on your screen, many times over.

Hat tip, inevitably, to you know who (and no, it's not him either!)

Too good to miss

2006-12-02T12:54:00.000-08:00

Two ongoing rows that are simply too good to miss;
1/ Dave Osler started a very serious and thoughtful debate on the future of Trotskyism, here, ands why he no longer considers himself a trot.

It gives rise to a very interesting debate in the "comments" boxes; especially when SWP-apologist "Snowball" attacks me for...my misspelling of the name "Shachtman"! He can't come up with any political defence of Cliffism beyond that...

2/The fanatical "anti-Zionist" Mark Elf has had enough of the blatant anti-semitism of Gilad Atzmon, and denounces him... John Game (late of this parish) attempts to defend Atzmon...utilising the usual post-modernist Foulcaultite bollocks about "identity". To his credit, Elf, for once, denounces anti-semitism.

Bringing the union into disrepute

2006-12-02T11:14:00.000-08:00

Trade unions are often accused of corruption: sometimes it's true. But as well as blatant hand-in-the-till corruption, there is also "let's- give- our- friends- some- money" corruption. It's less blatant than simple stealing and bribery, but it's no less dishonest; and it goes on very widely. Unfortunately, the "left" are the worst offenders.

Until 1989, the Soviet Union and other Stalinist states in Eastern Europe subsidised the British Communist Party's paper, the Morning Star. With the collapse of the Stalinist empire, it looked like the Star was finished; but no! It managed to survive, mainly because of massive donations from British trade unions - none of which consulted their members on this matter. The T&GWU was probably the biggest donor.

Now that scion of leading British Communist Party family, Anita Halpern has come into at least £20 million as a result of inheriting art stolen from her family by the Nazis, you might be forgiven for thinking that the Star aught now to be self-sufficient. But no: they are still at their old game of screwing the trade union movement (with no reference to the membership), for funds in order to keep their Stalinist lying-sheet in business.

Motion to the Region 1 (ie: London) Committee of the Transport and General Workers Union from the 1/1148 (ACTS) branch:

"The Morning Star is unique in being the only daily national newspaper published in the UK, which is co-operatively owned by is readers. The Morning Star has been a voice for trade Unions, anti-fascists, progressive causes and peace for seventy-six years and played a vital role in the working class movement and despite set backs continues to be a bright independent beacon in a capitalist dominated press.

"This branch notes the importance of the Morning Star continuing to defend and represent the workers of this country. That it has been the only paper to provide coverage of the Trade Union Freedom Bill and the current attacks on Trade Unions and Shop Stewards. Its articles and news coverage reflect a wide range of progressive views in a non-sectarian way.

"This branch believes that the organisation for defence and advancement of ordinary people's rights is the trade union movement ; therefore Trade Unions should have a voice in the running of the paper. This branch notes that the TGWU Region 1 is a major share holder in the PPPS (Morning Star / People's Press Management Committee - JD) and believes that our union should increase its share holding to be entitled to a seat and be represented on the PPPS and believes that our Union should increase its share holding to be entitled to to a seat and be represented on the PPPS Committee. This Branch notes that FBU (Fire Birgades Union- JD) London and RMT (Rail Maritine Transport union-JD) already have a seat on the PPS Committee.

"Therefore-
* This branch calls upon the Region to increase its shares in the PPPS to £20, 000, which will give entitlement for a seat on the PPPS Committee
* That the Region take-up (sic - JD) the seat and play an active role on the committee.

"In recognition of the vital role that the paper plays for Trade Ubion Rights we call upon the region to
* Send out an appeal to all Region 1 branches for the Morning Star
* request the national Union website has a link to the Morning Star web site.

"PASSED - TGWU 1/1148 branch - 14th November 2004.

...And, as I understand it, the fake-left-dominated Region 1 committee has passed this, so that £20,000 of T&G members' subscriptions wiill be spent on subsidising Stalinism.

What a disgrace! No wonder Trade Unionism in Britain is held in contempt, even by the membership! This is corruption: and we should say so.

These bosses really are bastards

2006-12-02T10:21:00.000-08:00

Regular readers may remember the JJB Sports (Wigan) dispute, that this site, together with the Stroppies and Will Rubbish publicised: The GMB union put in a claim for for an improved basic rate of pay, only to be told by main shareholder Dave Whelan (personal fortune £200 million), "To give everyone the same wage would be barmy. It's the communist way-cuckoo land!". He offered 3% across the board, which the workers rejected, and they then organised a series of strikes, supported by No Sweat.

It looked as though the JJB workers had won, when the GMB released a press statement saying that JJB management had tabled a revised offer dealing with the issue of the basic rate and access to bonuses for all workers.

On the basis of this offer, the GMB called off further strike action.

However, thew bosses then sacked leading GMB representative Chris Bailey.

Chris says:

" I called on you a short while ago to support JJB strikers in their fight for better pay and conditions and the response was overwhelming.

"I am now calling on you again to help us fight to save our union recognition at JJB. As you may have been aware at the time, I was suspended - now I've been SACKED!

This is a vindictive attack upon a union organiser - the bosses' answer to a successful campaign of industrial action. Please send urgent messages of support to:
chrisfluffriley@hotmail.co.uk

Hahahaha oh I shouldn't laugh, but I really did

2006-12-01T08:02:00.000-08:00

The man for whom the words "twisted genius" could have been invented, Mr William Rubbish, has perverted all your childhood memories of a particular cartoon in a deliciously funny video skit here. I laughed, my mates laughed, you'll laugh too. Unless you find rude words offensive, in which case you should make yourself a cocoa and go listen to the shipping forecast.

The Marvellous Mr Dawkins

2006-11-30T06:44:00.000-08:00

Or Professor Dawkins, to put it correctly.

Video here shows the great man laying the smackdown on apologists for religion. I particularly like the line about people who patronisingly talk up the "merits" of religious belief, whilst holding themselves to be above such beliefs. Watch and weep, SWP'ers.

Socialism as hero-worship

2006-11-29T13:32:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I attended a debate entitled "Fidel Castro: Friend of Cuban Workers?". The speakers were Paul Hampton from the Alliance for Workers Liberty (AWL), and Stephen Wilkinson from the Cuba Solidarity Campaign. It was an extraordinary event, that at one point seemed about to collapse into disarray, with the Cuba Solidarity speaker apparently on the verge of walking out.

The reason for Wilkenson's evident rage, bewilderment and disbelief was not that he had been heckled, personally insulted or denied the right to put his case (none of those things happened: he was listened to in silence and applauded politely by the predominantly AWL audience). It was, apparently, that he had never heard anyone "claiming to be from the left" who argued (as Hampton did) that "Fidel Castro is not a friend of the workers...it's just irrational, and I'm not prepared to listen to anyone who says that". The guy was obviously totally furious, and although he finally decided to stay for the rest of the debate, he was still ranting and raving at the end.

Wilkenson's rage and disbelief were clearly the result of a genuine belief that Cuba under Castro represents "socialism", and that anyone who disses Castro is dissing socialism itself: he regaled us with impressive statistics about Cuba's health service and education provision. Hampton did not dispute these statistics, but countered that these were not measures of working class socialism, and that bourgeois-democratic, capitalist Sweden could come up with equally impressive statistics on health and education. The important point about Castroite Cuba, from a Marxist point of view, is the lack of genuine trade unions and the repression of working class democracy. Hampton also made it very clear that his political hostility to Castro and the Stalinist ruling class of Cuba, does not imply any support for the US economic embargo or for the US-backed Miami opposition, even when they take the form of "trade unions".

But none of this was good enough for Wilkinson: "You're either for the revolution or against it", he declared, adding that Castro's Cuba is the "main opposition to the USA in the world", and that that fact alone was sufficient to require unconditional support (I've paraphrased that last bit, but Wilkinson did not demure when I, from the floor, described it as a "my enemy's enemy is my friend" argument).

Clearly, with Castro now on his death bed and brother Raul poised to take over, these arguments are going to become more immediate and more important. IMHO the AWL and Paul Hampton failed to recognise that Wilkinson and the Cuba Solidarity Campaign have majority support within the British trade union movement (their "Latin America 2006" event on 2nd December, for intance, is supported by the T&G, the GMB, Amicus, SERTUC and Tribune) : whereas a the "third camp" position put forward by Hampton is, presently, very much in the minority within the British labour movement.

It is also the case that, unfortunately, a form of left-wing hero-worship has infected large sections of the British left. Apart from the long-established Castro-worship, we now have uncritical adulation for populists like Venezuelian president Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales of Bolivia. This western adulation comes, mainly, from petit bourgeois "leftists" like Tariq Ali (whose latest book, Pirates of the Caribbean, praises not just Castro, Chavez and Morales, but also Ahmadinejad, Muqtada Al-Sadre and Hassan Nasrallah), and the racially-sick, self-hater and groveller Richard Gott, whose racial twist to this whole business adds an additional element of nausea.

Unfortunately, however, it isn't just the likes of Ali and Gott who are now promoting this latter-day "socialism from above" hero-worship of castro and (in particular) Chavez: people who should know better like the Trotskyists of Socialist Appeal now compete with followers of Ken Livingstone and "Respect"/SWP, for the favours of Chavez. The decline (but not disappearance) of the working class seems to have lead these erstwhile "revolutionaries" to look for charismatic leaders to create socialism from above. Ironically, many of those who now subscribe to this new version of Stalinism, still promote Hal Draper's definitive demolition of socialism from above "The Two Souls of Socialism" (currently published by the Chavez-loving, Respect-supporting British SWP!)

For a far more detailed an analytical critique of the new Stalinism, have a look at Paul Hampton's article "The new manana socialism from above", on the Workers liberty website.

Men on the run...

2006-11-29T02:50:00.000-08:00

Just so ya know, within the past few days it has come to my attention, via Joanna, that the Evil-World fighting crusaders of Vigil have removed their page from the bizarre IC-HUMINT website. Furthermore, although it may just be a technical glitch, it would seem today that the IC-HUMINT site itself isn't working either. So much for saving Jerusalem from the Muslim hordes, these goons couldn't even handle moderate amounts of hostile attention stemming from a botched attempt to stitch up two UK-based loony toon theocratic groups. Think about it - it's perfectly possible to do a number on a bunch of nutters like the Hizb-ut-Tahrir or Al-Muhajiroun, merely by telling the truths about them that everybody already knows. But Vigil couldn't even get that right.

Anyway, the slow withdrawal from the public sphere of Jenvey and Whiteman's little band of brothers is something to be applauded, although I very much doubt whether they've gone away altogether. Their online secret-squirrel-cum-boys-own adventuring will undoubtedly continue apace. Remember folks, if that guy chatting to you online seems a bit dodgy, it's probably because he is.

(Hat-tips and a hearty round of back-slapping to Vigil Exposed, The Neurocentric, Anarcho-Muslim and all of the others who have used the means at their disposal to blow the lid on Vigil)

The war of the frogs and the mice

2006-11-28T02:30:00.000-08:00

I opened the Grauniad today (yes, I am a Guardian-reading leftie) only to see yet another article on the national "controversy" about the wearing of conspicuous religious symbols in public. Tony Blair has been the latest to intervene in the debate, telling the CBI that although he is a "fan" of British Airways (he's a fan of all capitalist companies, sadly for the national debt) he thinks they should back down on trying to stop a worker, Nadia Eweida, wearing a small cross over, rather than under, her jacket. BA have already instituted a "review" of their uniform rules.

He's not the only one. Jack Straw said much the same thing in stronger terms last week, saying that he had to be in favour of the right to wear a cross because "he had always defended the right of Muslim women to wear a hijab" (unless, of course, they're talking to him). The Tories have jumped on the "issue", with Ann Widdecombe being her usual rabid self and calling for a boyctt of BA. Even the Liberal Democrats have chipped in with their twopenn'orth. The Archbishop of Canterbury has spoken of the Church of England selling its shares in BA, in the same manner as it disinvested a few years ago in companies mnufacturing torture implements - having been attacked by members of his Church for flying on a BA plane. The racist newspapers like the Mail and the Express say this is part of a huge "politically correct" conspiracy against "English culture" (whatever that is!)

I hardly need to point out how absurd this all is. Were I Ms. Eweida's T&G shop steward I would of course take an interest in minor items of the dress code and have demanded a meeting with the managers to get them to stop being as silly as my fellow worker. But the matter should excite no interest beyond that. However, within a few days of Ms. Eweida, who refused to go to work, losing her tribunal claim for constructive dismissal the Prime Minister of Great Britain spoke about the matter to thye country's bosses' association; and everyone who is anyone in our moth-eaten Parliament has been shooting her or his stupid mouth off to the press.

I repeat, isn't it absurd? Not only religious organisations making such a huge fuss about virtually nothing, but politicians jumping on the bandwagon so enthusiastically. Do people really care? No-one I've met does. Once again we see politicians using religious issues to distract the public's attention from more important things, and thereby encouraging and giving credence to the maddest of religious sectarians. Though Ms. Eweida shouldn't have been excluded from work on the ground of her dress sense, it must be said that she is clearly barmy. She thinks that wearing a cross under rather than over her uniform is to "compromise her faith" so much that it is preferable to become unemployed. She says "I am not politically motivated or minded, I just follow the Biblical truth." Where in the Bible does it say one must wear a small cross above one's clothing? What Christian sect demands that its members werar a cross? Not even the Amish, though they prescribe every other aspect of the dress of the faithful. This whole daft affair is a veritable Batrachomyomachia of the soul!

It is sad, though alas not surprising, that the "debate" on religious dress codes has moved away from the important issue of the veil and the oppression of women and moved on to such trivialities. It is disgraceful that most commentators are militantly in favour of religious dress when is is a Christian who is being attacked, but suddenly turn all secular when Muslims are the subject of the attack. Thus even the most absurd little issue, having been magnified from molehill into mountain by religious nutters with the benefit of their friends in Parliament and the press, becomes a vehicle for racism, religious obscurantism, moral relativism, hypocrisy, political cynicism and all the rest of the old rubbish of the British political system.

Hitch in "rediscovers soul" shocker!

2006-11-27T23:33:00.000-08:00

At the risk of providing a not-insignificant section of my readership on the left with a cheap one-liner, I'd like to draw your attention to an article by Christopher Hitchens in the current issue of "The Liberal". Something remarkable appears to have happened.

Yes, it's a Hitchens tirade, undoubtedly written after a three-bottle lunch, a plate of beef wellington and probably a couple of brandies to finish off. And it's no worse reading for all that. One of the things that always annoyed me about Hitchens was watching his tirades get all the more broadsword and less rapier, as his descent into political lunacy over the war on Iraq proceeded apace.

But this time he seems to have recovered his old lightness of touch. And the really remarkable thing about this particular polemic, is that it is directed at Ann Coulter.

The article itself is a review of Coulter's latest ranting book of right-wing codswallop, which is called "GODLESS: The Church if Liberalism". Coulter is, remember, of that tendency on the US right who think that the centrist milquetoasts of the Democratic Party are one step away from instituting gulags and collective farming. Indeed, as she puts it (quoted by Hitchens), "If Hitler hadn't turned against their beloved Stalin, liberals would have stuck by him too".

In Hitchens' view, "It is remarkable to find so much intellectual and syntactical chaos in an assertion that contains no more than fifteen words". Does she mean that "liberals" loved Hitler? Or that they loved Stalin, so much so in fact that what finally persuaded the likes of Roosevelt to take a stand was watching beloved Uncle Joe's homeland being invaded? It's simple nonsense, whatever your perspective on conservative, liberal or socialist politics. And yet, to Coulter's audience it fulfils a certain need, an itch that they have to scratch, where the real reason why their lives don't feel safe and secure is "the liberal elite" whose sole purpose is to take away their livelihoods, let criminals break into their houses, and allow gay people to get married in their garages. Ann can give all of this to them, and in bite-size form. As Hitchens puts it:

"She emerged as a persona because she has mastered the politics of resentment, and because she can combine the ideology of Human Events (the obscure 'Joe McCarthy was right' magazine) with the demand of the chat-show bookers for a tall blonde with a very rapid delivery on a wide range of subjects"

There follow a number of fascinating diversions, devilish barbs, and even insights into Coulter's likely mentality. Hitchens' anecdote about how genuinely shocked Coulter appeared to be when Paula Jones did not turn out to be the maligned innocent with whom various figures on the right had hoped to pitchfork Bill Clinton, shows almost an innocence which is belied by her venomous, overstatedly angry style of writing.

So has Hitch rediscovered a little of himself? I certainly hope so. He certainly seems now to be wanting to draw lines between himself on the one hand, and the puritan right-wingers like Coulter with whom he was happy enough to line up over the Iraq war. He's also determined to show why, philosophically, a right winger like Coulter will never even be able to offer a proper critique of those aspects of liberalism from which Hitchens would, in fact, like to distance himself.

"If it matters, I am with her on the tepid climate of moral and political relativism which, while it wants all children to do equally well at exam time, also regards the United States as no worse than the Taliban and thus, by an unspoken logic, as no better. But a polemic against this mentality cannot really be written by a McCarthyite"

It remains to be seen whether Hitchens has really done another volte-face, but on this occasion he's done a marvellous job. Well done sir, well done.