When will Tim Montgomerie stop beating his wife?

No srsly.

I mean, if we're gonna play that game it would be, lets at least do it properly. Going by the site, pretty much everyone who is not at least centre-right hates America.

And while it would be both amusing, and very easy, to make fun of Montgomerie's almost sycophantic website, instead I am putting on my "Internet Is SRS BUSINESS" had and I'm going to have some fun with his sources. Because his sources for some of the anti-Americanism briefings are some of the most disgusting and divisive Americans in recent history, whose absolute hatred at anyone with a worldview that differs from theirs is far more hateful of the Americans who hold those views than many of the descriptions of anti-Americanism on the site.

Firstly, I'm reading about Anti-Americanism and Hollywood, a delightful little playbook taken from the American right, about how Hollywood is undermining all that is good and true about America. And whose name should I see, but Michael Medved.

Medved is not what I would call a good source. In fact, he is a terrible source. This article here, I think, sums up everything that is wrong with his worldview. Historical inaccuracy and naievete are the hallmarks of his thinking. Taking it apart would be a lengthy work for a historian, there is so much wrong with it. Furthermore, his cultural conservativism shows in his contempt for liberal, homosexual and non Judeo-Christian Americans, which is the main point of pretty much every article he writes.

Medved will go to nearly any length to smear liberal, gay or non-Jewish or Christian Americans (in fact, he will smear them too, if they are too liberal for his liking). Why does Medved's contempt for his fellow citizens not disqualify him as a source? Because Montgomerie's site is not about anti-Americanism, its about using anti-Americanism, the concept, as a foil to attack left-wingers with.

This pattern repeats itself with some of his other non-political/NGO sources, who are invariably the worst examples of right-wing Americans, that conflate everything which isn't in line with their worldview as anti-American. As such, it becomes all too easy to claim that everything except one's own worldview is not filled with secret hatred and disgust for the USA. How convienient.

Next on the list is Michelle Malkin. Ah, the Malkin Monster. Where do we start with her? Ezra Klein probably says it best:

To visit Michelle Malkin’s cave is to see politics at its most savage, its most ferocious, its most rageful. They say they’ve spent the past week smearing a child and his family because that child was fair game — he and his family spoke of their experience receiving health care through the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. For this, right wingers travel to their home to inspect its worth, they insinuate that the family is engaged in large-scale fraud to receive government benefits, they make threatening phone calls to the family.

Lovely, right? There is plenty more to hold against Michelle Malkin as well. Hold on tight, because its a nasty and sordid little trip we will be taking.

Glenn Greenwald of Salon goes one further:

On a daily basis, Michelle Malkin's hate sites promote violence, rank bigotry, jihad against Muslim Americans, imprisonment of Democratic Party leaders. The comments are not deleted and are virtually never opposed. Her hate sites traffic in content which is the hallmark of white supremacism and violent groups targeting Muslims. And once she is done promoting that, she goes on Fox News and demands that corporate sponsors cut their ties with Daily Kos due to the comments left on that site.

And it gets better (or worse):

David Neiwert does a take down of her book, Liberals Unhinged, her pathetic whining about how American liberals are out of control radicals trying to destroy the country and intimidate conservatives. As David points out:

The only people who will find this book useful are blinkered ideologues who just want more grist for their liberal-hating mills, the facts be damned. Certainly, it will be of little to use for any serious-minded person who is concerned about the state of the national dialogue -- except, perhaps, as Exhibit A regarding the source of the problem.

There is also her book on internment, accurately described throughout much of the American media as historical revisionism and little more than a screed to justify racial profiling against American Arabs, and their possible internment without trial. A full takedown, by two historians with expertise in the case of Japanese internment, can be read here.

We could go into her tedious hatred of illegal immigrants. Or how she enables the harassment of people who she disagrees with. Or her conspiracy theorism. But I simply do not have the time to document all of Malkin's insanity.

On Will Anti-Americanism End if Barack Obama becomes President, I see Robert Kagan, of the infamous Kagan family, making an appearance. Robert, like many of his relatives who, inexplicably are listened to by the American media and foreign policy establishment, was one of those pushing most strongly for the Iraq war, and has continued to support it strongly. As Greenwald points out:

No rational person would believe a word Robert Kagan says about anything. He has been spewing out one falsehood after the next for the last four years in order to blind Americans about the real state of affairs concerning the invasion which he and his comrade and writing partner, Bill Kristol, did as much as anyone else to sell to the American public.

In April, 2003, Kagan declared the war over and said we won. Since then, he has continuously claimed that things were getting better in Iraq. He is completely liberated from any obligation to tell the truth and is a highly destructive propagandist whose public record of commentary about Iraq ought to disqualify him from decent company, let alone some sort of pretense to expertise about this war.

And we should take his word on American foreign policy at face value? I think not.

David Frum gets a mention on the topic of Strategies to Combat Anti-Americanism. Frum is of course most well known as the man who helped coin the phrase Axis of Evil, but there is a lot more to him.

For example, we have his (obvious) implication that those who blame Feith and Michael Leeden for forging evidence to help the case for the Iraq war are anti-Semites. Gary Kayima also has an enlightening review of the book he co-wrote with Richard Perle:

Here are some of the authors' policy recommendations:

• Preparing to launch a preemptive attack on North Korea, after moving our troops out of range of their artillery and missiles.
• Taking direct action to topple the regime in Iran, by providing aid to Iranian dissidents.
• Being prepared to invade Syria, of whom the authors write, "Really, there is only one question to ask about Syria: Why have we put up with it as long as we have?"
• Being prepared to invade Libya. "The illusion that Muammar al-Qaddafi is 'moderating' should be treated as what it is: a symptom of the seemingly incurable wishful delusions that afflict the accommodationists in the foreign policy establishment." (Now that those accommodationists in State have been proven right, don't expect an apology from the authors: They'll claim Qaddafi got rid of his WMD programs only because Bush invaded Iraq. All other answers, no matter if they're true, don't fit with their Manichaean, evildoers-respond-only-to-force worldview. Besides, those who are always right must never apologize. It is a sign of weakness, which our evil Muslim terrorist enemies (TM) will exploit with evil terror.)
• Taking a superconfrontational line with Saudi Arabia, including letting them know that if they don't reform we would look with favor upon a Shiite uprising in their oil-rich Eastern Province.
• Abandoning the Israeli-Palestinian peace process altogether. In a radical departure from U.S. policy, they say the Palestinians should not be given a state. Creating a Palestinian state out of the West Bank and Gaza, they write, will not bring peace to the region, because the Palestinians and other Arabs are only interested in vengeance, not justice. Instead, the Palestinians should "let go of the past" and content themselves with becoming citizens of the Arab countries in which they now live. The authors do not say what should happen to the 3.9 million Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories: Presumably they should either agree to become second-class citizens like the other Israeli Arabs, or leave.

Their domestic policies are equally arresting:

• Requiring all residents to carry a national identity card that includes "biometric data, like fingerprints or retinal scans or DNA," and empowering all law enforcement officers to enforce immigration laws. The authors admit that such a card "could be used in abusive ways," but reassure us by saying that victims of "executive branch abuse will be able to sue." Those who have done nothing wrong have nothing to fear!
• Encouraging Americans to "report suspicious activity." Apparently alone among Americans, the authors lament the demise of the TIPS program.
• Changing immigration policy so that the U.S. can bar all would-be visitors who have "terrorist sympathies." The authors define "terrorist sympathies" so broadly that this would rule out a high percentage of visitors from Muslim or Arab countries.
• Reforming the CIA to make it more hard-line on the Middle East.

Fascinating stuff. But should we really be taking advice from frothing militarists on how to make people hate America less?

Here is another insight into Frum's worldview, this time in his own words, quoted handily by John Holbo:

The great, overwhelming fact of a capitalist economy is risk. Everyone is at constant risk of the loss of his job, or of the destruction of his business by a competitor, or of the crash of his investment portfolio. Risk makes people circumspect. It disciplines them and teaches them self-control. Without a safety net, people won’t try to vault across the big top.

In short, capitalism is good because it keeps people in their place. It makes them easily controlled, because they are in constant fear of losing everything. It creates social order, by threatening people with losing their jobs, investments and businesses, and thus making sure they do not try and make it too big. Well I'm certainly feeling the love in that argument.


I'll deal with some of the claims actually made another day. I just wanted to point out that anyone using the above people is probably not the sort of person who wants to make a serious effort, and instead is interesting in shutting down debate with accusations of being an irrational hater.

Amy Alkon, the emails: Part 1

I woke up, feeling like something had crawled into my mouth and died sometime during the night. It was no relief to find out it was tongue. Did I say night? Early morning looked more plausible, the light seemed to be coming from all directions, giving me a splitting headache.

Worse, this wasn't even my flat. My heart sunk as I realized I had spent another booze-induced sleep session at the office. Clearing the sleep from my eyes, I managed to sit up straight, feeling the stiffness in my back. I put the lid on the cheap scotch from last night – Glenmorangie – and finished the half empty glass.

It burned as it went down, but I was feeling more alert, more alive. I rocked back on my chair, and looked out the window. Another soulless day, the too bright sun shining off the reflective, all too familiar buildings.

Oh how I hated it here.

I put my feet up on the desk, pulled my fedora over my eyes, and made myself at home with the silence. It was relaxing, and peaceful. In my office with no work to do, no pressing engagements and half a bottle of low quality single malt to get me through the afternoon.

And then she walked in. Rolling off the streets like some primeval force, a whirlwind of passion and destruction.

“I'm sorry”, I said, “I think you have the wrong room. The drag queen's make up class is three doors down.” It was, too. This was a cheap neighbourhood, and you took office space where you could afford it.

“I'm NOT a drag queen! And anyone who says otherwise, or edits my Wikipedia to say so is nothing more than a filthy and childish liar!”

An American. And either in hysterics or denial, possibly both. This wasn't going to end well, I could tell.

“I'm sorry....ma'am” I answered, cautiously. This met with no outburst, so I continued on, “what can I do for you this, uh, fine day?”

“Are you Cain?” she asked.
I looked around discreetly for any recording devices or other listeners. I saw none.
“Yes”, I replied, in a bored, drawn out yawn. “What's it to you?”
“I hear you're a dick. I need someone to be a dick for me.”
I thought about this momentarily. Her jaw looked like it could crack open a man's skull, and there was something disconcerting about that Adam's Apple...
“I assume you mean a Private Detective, of course. Then you have come to the right place. What exactly can I do for you? In a professional capacity, of course.”

She withdrew a sheet from her handbag, and placed it on my desk. Swinging my legs down, I grabbed the paper and had a look. It was a printout, of a Wikipedia edit history page. Some numbers were circled, and highlighted with a marker pen.

“My name is Amy Alkon, Cain”, she said, “and I need you to find a man for me. I need you track down and bring me Gary Ruppert.”

Drug companies are a boon to stockholders, and those who say otherwise are our enemies

Unfortunately, not a very funny entry for this one, since I can find little humour in someone who so obviously overlooks the role of drug companies in enforcing intellectual copyrights so that they may profit off of human suffering.

Stephen Pollard, on the other hand, has no problem with this. And to do so, he uses the single weakest fucking strawman ever. And I am no stranger to weak strawmen, employing several as useful punching bags when I cannot be bothered to read a ridiculous argument from the BNP before mocking it.

But like I keep pointing out, I am not a serious writer getting paid for my work.

Anyway, back on topic. No Stephen, people don't care about pharmaceutical companies making profits, per se. What they care about is when people like Dr. Yusef Hamied are charged for making affordable generics, because most people in the Third World cannot afford the inflated prices of Western drug companies, and then companies like Dr. Hamied's get dragged over the coals because they violated an intellectual copyright.

Profits over lives. People cannot pay the prices of the best drugs, but hey, who gives a fuck about them, they're poor and foreign, right? Almost not really people, in a way, right? And someone does come along, and does give a fuck, and violates a couple of laws in doing so, and he's suddenly a fucking criminal. Yeah, right. Fuck that noise.

Copyright is the elephant in your article, the thing you dare not mention. Because if intellectual copyright in the arena of drugs research and production was reformed, then these companies wouldn't have such a strangehold over the worldwide production, less people would be dying of perfectly curable illnesses, and more people would be profiting. Admittedly, those profits would not be especially high, being spread out as they are over several companies, but they would still exist.

But that might affect share prices, right? And we couldn't ever have that now, could we?

I gotta start reading The Nation more often

Because if I don't, I'm going to continue to miss out on gems like this.

Corey Robin's piece is a fascinating insight into the intellectual heritage of the American right. However, he also says things that can apply more universally, and those are what really interest me.

For example:

While John Locke, Alexis de Tocqueville and David Hume are sometimes cited by the more genteel defenders of conservatism as the movement's leading lights, their writings cannot account for what is truly bizarre about conservatism: a ruling class resting its claim to power upon its sense of victimhood, arguably for the first time in history. Plato's guardians were wise; Aquinas's king was good; Hobbes's sovereign was, well, sovereign. But the best defense of monarchy that Maistre could muster in Considerations on France (1797) was that his aspiring king had attended the "terrible school of misfortune" and suffered in the "hard school of adversity."

Emphasis mine. As always, I'm eager to point out most of our Tories are quite good in that respect, the majority are most emphatically not wingnuts. However, what we might call the socially conservative populists, those shrill writers who infest the comment pages of many online publications do seem to fall into this category, often making such arguments in order to prop up the socio-economic status quo.

This is the driving force behind ridiculous claims like speeding fines being a stealth tax, or that New Labour are persecuting "the middle class white, hetrosexual male" (I always want to add "sexually frustrated" and "virginal" to that list, for some reason). Its a drive to claim victimhood and wield it as a weapon - cynically or subconsciously carried out by what is usually a fairly privileged class of people.

And it is a somewhat powerful weapon - most people have an inherent sense of fair play, and they do not want to pound on the underdog. Incidentally, the converse also illustrates something important for the British wingnut mindset - the idea of immigrants, foreigners and other groups they disagree with getting "benefits". Usually these benefits are laughably small, but nontheless they justify what would otherwise be the reprehensible attacking of less powerful group in society. Its not the wingnut hates immigrants, so the arument goes, oh no. They just want a level playing field.

Suddenly they're not whiney little pricks, they're valiant freedom fighters and activists, don't you know?

Anyway, moving on:

But how do they convince us that we are one of them? By making privilege democratic and democracy aristocratic. Every man, John Adams claimed, longs "to be observed, considered, esteemed, praised, beloved, and admired." To be praised, one must be seen, and the best way to be seen is to elevate oneself above one's circle. Even the American democrat, Adams reasoned, would rather rule over an inferior than dispossess a superior. His passion is for supremacy, not equality, and so long as he is assured an audience of lessers, he will be content with his lowly status.

And doesn't that hit a few nails on the head? Instead of fighting, say, for greater equality for all, which may result in some of the best off statistical outliers being brought closer in line with the rest of society, but with major benefits, instead the hope is to retain privilege by subordinating oneself to a hierarchical power structure, even though it may not be in one's best interests. One isn't at the top of the hierarchy, but equally one is not at the bottom either. And so it works because the desire to have someone else to kick around, blame and feel superior to is more powerful and addictive than "dispossesing a superior".

Unlike the New Left, however, Goldwater did not reject the affluent society. Instead, he transformed the acquisition of wealth into an act of self-definition through which the "uncommon" man--who could be anybody--distinguished himself from the "undifferentiated mass." To amass wealth was not only to exercise freedom through material means but also a way of lording oneself over others.

This could very well explain the obsession with Glibertarian talking points, such as the aforementioned speed cameras bullshit. The thinking isn't that of "taxation is inherently immoral" that a more usual libertarian or even anarchist may take. Its that taxing me is wrong, because then I cannot use my wealth to lord it over others.

Mannheim also argued that conservatives often champion the group--races or nations--rather than the individual. Races and nations have unique identities, which must, in the name of freedom, be preserved. They are the modern equivalents of feudal estates. They have distinctive, and unequal, characters and functions; they enjoy different, and unequal, privileges. Freedom is the protection of those privileges, which are the outward expression of the group's unique inner genius.

This ties into the previous statement - inequality is bound up in the wingnut concept of freedom. Presumably unaware of the problem of massive inequality being de facto a danger to freedom. In short, positive freedom is entirely ignored - or derided as against freedom, while negative freedom alone is exalted above all (note: I'm not a fan of either being favoured - I believe a balance of the two is necessary for actual freedom). The Feudal analogy is also very interesting, given the Mail article I posted the other day.

And finally, I just wanted to point this out:

Reactionary theologians in eighteenth-century France mobilized against the left by aping its tactics. They funded essay contests, like those in which Rousseau made his name, to reward writers who wrote popular defenses of religion. They ceased producing abstruse disquisitions for one another and instead churned out Catholic agitprop, which they distributed through the very networks that brought enlightenment to the French people.

Tell me that does not sound like the Spectator Coffee House. I defy you to try. I wonder if that is the first recorded case in history of wingnut welfare?

Trolls on the internet! Oh my!

I suppose I better mention it, since people will be wondering why I didn't if I don't.

Yes, I have read the New York Times article on internet trolling. And firstly, is it just me, or is really fucking embarassing when you have someone writing an article when:

a) they really don't have a clue what they are talking about, and
b) the topic is removed entirely from its natural environment and dissected in the sterile lab of the mainstream media?

Its not just me, I hope.

So anyway, yes, I was alerted to this article by a compatriot troll, Ten Ton Mantis. And now I have finally read through it. The above quibbles above, I'd just like to make some minor points:

• Trolls existed before /b/. The first paragraph implies otherwise.
• /b/ is not the be all and end all of trolling. In fact, in the last couple of years, it has been downright embarassing.
• At least you mentioned Usenet. Thank fucking god. However, the naive-noob tactic was just one of many used back in the day, and really only an entry level tactic. alt.syntax.tactical, for example, favour the longer term, infiltration and sockpuppet approach.
• Lulz is not how trolls "keep score". Its an abstract concept, and a massively overused word, when considered against actual instances of lulz. It can be excuse, justification or result, as well.
• The troll got it dead on. Article over, amirite?
• Um...Anonymous and the trolls were one and the same, at least originally. I understand there was a something of a split between the /i/nsurgents and moralfags, but lets be honest, for the most part, its the same people who took part in both.
• The fact that anonymous communications allow for people to be more sociopathic is not new nor interesting. Learn2sociology, plz.
• Jason Fortuny is a fun guy, but he doesn't speak for me.
• You probably got suckered by one troll or another in the course of your research. Live with it son.
• Not all trolls are emotional fuckups. Some of the most extreme ones probably are, but I wouldn't generalize, or imply in the way you did.
• Sometimes trolls are social hackers, its true. And literal ones as well. Anyway, the point is, sometimes they illustrate things people tend to overlook, either in their social interactions online, how they present themselves, the amount of information they give out. Something like that. Better to get burned for it by a jerk with an inappropriate sense of humour than by the next Ted Bundy. Its not always a perfect justification, and sometimes a line should be drawn, yes, but thats a very grey area and another debate.
• Don't take it all so seriously is pretty much the message I try to relate as well. Sometimes the internet is useful for important stuff, but 99% of it is going to leave a very poor and shallow cultural legacy. I like to think I am doing my bit for people who think "OMFG MY MOM WONT BUY ME A FURSUIT FOR MY BIRTHDAY" or having their "artwork" criticized is a crime against humanity. Twits with no perspective and big mouths are far too numerous.
• Weev was trolling you dude. He does have a point though, about certain bloggers. Those few suckup artists who the media like to go crawling to in order to pretend that they are keeping up with the new internet culture and soliciting feedback from voices that would normally be excluded. Like Iain Dale for example. Real fucking excluded, isn't he? Lets try a single mother blogger who is working while trying to raise her three kids. Oh, thats right, people like that don't have time to blog. And even when some people in some part of the world where dangerous and interesting things are happening (such as Iraq) people would rather get their views from the likes of Charles fucking Johnson than someone who actually lives there. Because, God forbid, they may contradict the media narrative.
• I like this Kate chick. She has style. Kate, if you're reading...well, you know how to get in touch, I'm sure.
• Hatred? I wouldn't go that far...of course, I would expect a MSM hack from somewhere like the NYT to give that line. But I wouldn't try to look too deeply into a troll's motivation. Mine, for example, the above aside, comes from my trickster and showy personality. I like to be the centre of the attention, and yet at the same time, display certain ambiguity. There are also certain people I like to upset, and if you've read this blog for any length of time, you can probably guess what type they are.
• I would say trolls are the internet. The interesting parts at least. Just as pirates where the ones who innovated much of our modern world, economy and culture (where would commercial radio be without pirate stations? What about the US government, who stole patented technologies throughout the 18th century?) trolls push the boundaries and in doing so create new online realities. The internet may not be so much the Wild West as a number of armed enclaves among a sea of anarchy. Sure, if you stick to places like Myspace or Facebook or your politically chosen network of blogs you'll be mostly safe...aside from the occasional raider. But in other areas, the only things that exist, from your identity upwards, are those you choose to invent. That anarchy, while terrifying to some, is also a lab for inventing, tampering with and altering all number of social events and processes.
• Those state legislators are idiots. You can't police the net, at least not in the way you hope to. Hell, people cant even stop copyright infringement, and "Spartacus actions" among legally threatened bloggers are frequent. Try it with people who know how to conceal their identity and enjoy games where the roles and characters are not as substansial as they may appear, and you're entering a policing nightmare.
• Precisely. The law is not your hug-box. I am not responsible for your hurt feelings. I'm sure you could do something more productive with money spent on trying to police jerks on the net, such as nearly catching Bin Laden and then letting him go in order to justify the invasion of Iraq Iran.
• Fortuny is right. OpenID and similar schemes for multiple site IDs are doomed to failure because so long as you can get more than one account, you are back where you started. So you either charge for everything, and create a gated community (urgh), or you don't take everything so seriously. Pretty simple, really.
• Fortuny's morals are not everyones. Again, there are different motivations.
• What a delightfully hopeful note to end your article on. It still doesnt change the 99% of the net which is different, however.

I think that is all I really have to say. I probably shouldn't have had a couple of beers while writing this either, but oh well, too late to worry about that now.

Beautify our town

Beautify Our Town!

One of the excellent ideas to come out of this year's KallistiCon is the BOT project. In short, we have chosen a small town in the midwestern United States that we are going to beautify, Discordian style. Discordians have done some excellent concerted jakes in the past, usually aimed at businesses or governmental bodies. We thought, why not a town? Why not up the weirdness quotient for a whole town?

We have chosen a town. We have a specific project. We need your help.

We are in the preparation stage right now, and the project will commence on August 23rd, the Day of Discord.


Who: You! And your friends!

Where: The location will be disclosed to people who join the project via the project mailing list. We are in the process of compiling a database of addresses.

When: Starting August 23rd, and then on the 9th and 23rd of the month for the next six months.

Why: For the lulz. To make the world a weirder place. To find fellowship amongst freaks.

What: This is a letter writing campaign. Write a letter to someone as if you had bought a product from them, and you are writing to express how happy or unhappy you are with it. Please, get creative! You may have purchased a goat harness and found yourself unhappy that the goat didn't come included, or find yourself extremely satisfied with your new dildo cozy since it keeps your dildo so toasty warm. Aim for the ridiculous! Once you've written a letter you're happy with, print out five or ten copies and send them to different people.

For right now, join the mailing list to hear more as the date approaches. We'll send you contact info for residents of Our Town and a few sample letters. You'll also get to read letters other people are sending out, and be in on our other BOT projects.

Join up!

http://lists.discordian.com/listinfo.cgi/bot-discordian.com

Why wont hateful lefties just DIE SCREAMING WITH SHARP OBJECTS IN THEIR EYES?

Say what you like about Quentin Letts, you have to give him credit - he's consistently wrong, no matter the issue.

The Letters page of The Guardian, seldom the sanest of arenas, has this week descended to virulent venom.

Unlike the Daily Mail's comment section, where "virulent venom" (surely a redundant phrase) would in fact be an improvement.

there have appeared several letters which gloated at the prospect of Margaret Thatcher's death

Oh no? Really? How terrible. I bet they even gloated about genocide in typically racist terms.

Their vengeful tone, though hurtful about the still very much alive Lady Thatcher, has been instructive. It was a timely reminder that no one does viciousness quite like the Left. Far from the Conservatives being 'the Nasty Party', Labour's preachy brothers and sisters have long deserved that title.

Yes. I absolutely agree. I remember vividly how that Far Leftist Lord Dixton-Smith was hateful towards black people, as indeed is ex-Colonel Patrick Mercer, a notorious Marxist-Liberalfascist. In fact, one can barely move for the number of hateful leftists out there, being all terribly rude and nasty about people*.

The Guardian letters were sparked by reports that Lady Thatcher will be given the rare honour of a state funeral. Even to discuss such arrangements is, let us be honest, a difficult matter.

Indeed. How dare people suggest that Thatcher may die? We all know she will ascend to the Heavens upon a flaming Chariot, in the manner of the Prophet Elijah, once her time among the mortals is up.

Some Guardian readers have taken a markedly less charitable line towards the former Prime Minister.

In contast to Lady Thatcher, who as I recall was rather keen on charity, so long as it didn't involve rich people having to pay for it.

Typical of the response was that of one Chris Gibson, who said that on seeing the headline about a state funeral for Lady Thatcher: 'I thought that the week had got off to the best possible start.' Charming.

Indeed. I often think the best possible start to the week is one where I don't have to look at the pile of shit which reputedly passes for a Quentin Letts article in the Mail. A little perspective is all I'm asking for here.

But the fact such horrible letters were written, let alone published in a national newspaper, tells us something else.

They have Paul Dacre as their editor as well? OMG!

Why is it that socialists, in contrast to their professed humanity and Methodist origins, are so remarkably malevolent? Why is the Left so mean?

"Why is the Left, which I and my employers villify on a basis as being responsible for every social ill in this country, from paedophilia to knife crime to terrorism to littering, so pissed off and nasty towards right-wingers (the all important, yet left out qualification)? I just can't understand it..."

Left-wingers like to talk of ' progressive politics', by which they suppose they mean open-mindedness, but historically they are far more dogmatic than the Right.

Factionalism and drunken intrigue were rampant in the trades unions of old.
On immigration, Left-wingers have been exceptionally illiberal. Commentators and politicians who questioned the pro-immigration consensus were shouted down as racists.

I had to quote that in full, just so you could get a full flavour of the make-believe world Quentin lives in. Apparently, factionalism (and drunkeness, for some bizzare reason) is proof of the Left's dogmatism. Because nothing says "unthinking follower" quite like...uh, spinning off and creating a new group based on minor political or economic interpretation of certain theories.

Furthermore, when people on the immigration debate are making such enlightened comments as:

The British government hates all things British and especially English. Why are we so surprised at this payout and the far smaller ones for servicemen? It is in line with the secret agenda to eliminate any sign of British/English pride.

Then yes, it seems that perhaps, just a few of them, may not be motivated by a deep and abiding concern about depression of wages and stress on local services quite so much as "ZOMG DARKIES!!212!"

The thoroughly decent former Tory leader Michael Howard was cast as something close to a Nazi for daring to suggest that immigration was becoming a problem. His assailants were not shamed by the fact that Mr Howard is of Jewish émigré stock. He'd had the temerity to oppose the Left. He had to be destroyed.

And crushed him we did, like a huge monolithic Red Army. Of course, that Howard was playing dog-whistle politics with the more extreme and xenophobic elements of the right throughout his entire campaign is of no consequence. Context is just leftist tyranny of...something.

Tony Blair's regime was infamously unpleasant to people who tried to stand in its way. Government scientist David Kelly paid for his independence with his life - suicide, we were told, although he was pushed into any such suicide by Labour-ordered briefings

Ah yes, Tony Blair. That chap who is widely admired on the left and considered by some to be the second coming of Marx himself. His deep devotion to the working class, wealth distribution, weakening of social hierarchies and improving social mobility certainly mark him out as possibly more left-wing than Mao himself.

One of the Left's great propaganda achievements over the years has been the idea that it was somehow kinder to support Labour than to be Conservative.

Yes, gosh, I wonder how people ever thought that not supporting the richest and most privileged in society was somehow kinder than doing so? Ooh, my brain hurts, help me figure out this problem Quentin!

It demands communal conformity rather than independent freedom. It seeks to dictate supply rather than allowing the market to find a level. It places the state above the citizen.

And of course, right-wing politicians would never act in authoritarian ways, nor come up with some big, communal idea that everyone must bow down to. You fucking moron.

Some days, I think I may be a prick. Then I realize, if I didn't have to live in a country where idiots like Quentin Letts are paid for shit like the above, and I'm still unemployed, I'd probably have a better outlook on life.


*I'm going to do a follow-up post along this theme soon, as its something I've seen quite a lot in the American blogosphere, and it fascinates me. Also, I haven't forgotten about my promised book review, if anyone was wondering. It's just The Pirate's Dilemma is fairly long, and in depth, and I'm trying to find a job, which is sucking up lots of my time.

"Statistics is for sissies!"

There are times I really hope knife crime is as out of control and as common as certain tabloids are making it out to be. Because then pricks like Keith Waterhouse might get stabbed in the hand and be unable to write such incredible bollocks.*

We are among sceptics

he says as he goes on to give another pronoucement amount knife crime. Now, remind me again, is scepticism that thing where you've already made up your mind about something and fix the evidence around the policy? No? My mistake then, carry on.

There are lies, damned lies, statistics, figures in a plain brown envelope slipped to Pollyanna Toynbee in an alley round the back of the Home Office, graphs and tables from the British Crime Survey and estimates from the National Guesswork Authority.

What a delightful looking strawman you have there, Mr Waterhouse. May I enquire as to its precise purpose?

Stripped of all its flim-flam, the British Crime Survey is about as informative - for one thing, no one under the age of 16 allowed to give evidence, so that loses a whole stratum of new-type knife victims - as a questionnaire on your favourite shampoo.

Oh? And do you have any figures to support this?

The plain fact is that nobody believes a blind word the Government, or its minders and manipulators, say any more. Truth is not a commodity in which they wish to have further dealings.

I'll take that as a "no" then. What then do you base your assessment on?

A few nights ago, as an 18-year-old stab victim lay in a pool of blood awaiting his statistical turn to become the 21st teenager to die violently in the streets of London this year, we learned that crime statistics are dropping dramatically.

Oh, emotional appeal. Interesting, and obviously tragic for the poor lad. However, it doesn't actually disprove the government's figures. Would you like to try something else?

Addresses of interviewees, we're told, are drawn at random from post office lists.

Which means that if you live in a crime-free area, you're going to give crime-free replies.

Well, yes, that's kind of how it works. You know, if there is no crime around, then of course it won't get reported. As opposed to the Daily Mail's wonderful method of statistical analysis, where they used police reports of knife crime to claim that there had been a 35% rise in some parts of the country - which is true - but also failed to report that these were in fact in the minority as crime had dropped in most of the country. Could you please comment on this discrepancy?

And meanwhile the altogether different police figures, based on whatever they have managed to dig out of their hectares of paperwork, are - how shall I put this? - altogether different.

Yes, you could say that. They show that while 4 police forces have seen a huge rise in knife related crime, 18 have seen a drop. All in all, in 20 forces in the country, knife crime has either stayed level or gotten better, whereas in 14 forces in total, it has gotten worse. Now, which of these numbers is larger 14, or 20, 14, or 20? Take your time.

If I was told by some government agency that tomorrow was Tuesday, I should check it against the calendar. Then I would shake the calendar to make sure it was still working.

Well yes. That's because you're a moron, as the above post so clearly illustrates. For those interested in a more thorough debunking of the knife crime panic, Five Chinese Crackers has the relevant material. Surprisingly, David Aaronovitch also has a good article.


*I don't really wish he'd get stabbed in the hand. Mainly because I know he'd dictate his article to someone else, and would probably never shut up about how he was the victim of a "horrifying knife crime!!212!" What about me, having to read this and be the victim of a horrifying logic crime? Never thinking of the little man, these bloody journalists....

Diplomacy bad!

Aaaahh, only in the world of Mad Mel could the news that America is sending diplomats to Iran, along with a senior official to talk about various nuclear related topics, be taken as a sign of impending doom.

Unless this is all an elaborate bluff, the suspicion must be that what the Bush administration is now focused upon is not safeguarding the survival of Israel and the freedom of the world but on winning the presidency for the Republicans.

Wait, Bush was focused upon safeguarding the freedom of the world? Since when?

Meanwhile Israel is being isolated by America, which is giving Iran a further gift of the thing it most craves –

Chocolate? Also, and maybe this is just the coffee talking, but if Israeli planes are being stationed at US bases in Iraq for an attack, and the deployment of another aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf signal some sort of abandonment and isolation, then I'm not sure how much more support Mad Mel would consider to be acceptable. One of Jordan's presumably titanium reinforced bras?

time to build its nuclear weapons capability.

Oh. Not chocolate then. Also, would this be the nuclear weapons program that was stopped in 2003?

What should be happening now is that the Iranian regime should be under the maximum economic diplomatic and military pressure, treated as a pariah state and kept guessing about the possibility of a US attack, all in order to weaken and destabilise it.

Because that sounds so unlike what is currently being done.

History teaches us, after all, that war is the inevitable outcome of appeasement because, instead of preventing bad people from doing bad things, it galvanises them further to do so. When the Americans talked to the Japanese, the result was Pearl Harbour. When Chamberlain talked to Hitler, the result was the invasion of Poland. And when Britain tried to appease the Arab Nazis in 1930s Palestine by offering to reward them for their terrorist intransigence by giving them half the land promised to the Jews, the result was the Arab war of annihilation against the reborn Jewish state -- a war which continues to this day.

Reminder: The history of diplomacy spans 1930-1945. Kissinger, Metternich, Machiavelli et al can fuck right off.

Moreover, Iran is as strong as it is today only because of the astounding fact that America has refused to fight back in the war that Iran has been prosecuting against it now for almost three decades.

Oh psh. Iran was just another bitchy attention whore looking to bait America, Mel. I mean, geeze, haven't you heard the phrase "Don't feed the trolls"? Look what happened last time we ignored that advice, with Bin Laden. He just won't shut the fuck up anymore. Do you really want us to have to suffer 20,000 video messages from that smirking bastard, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Shit, he annoys me enough as it is.

It is however quite staggering to witness this change in attitude towards Israel by a man who had been arguably the most pro-Israel American president in history. Yet now he is giving the impression that – in the prescient cry of Ariel Sharon – Israel is to play the role of Czechoslovakia in 1938, with William Burns about to join the EU in sealing its fate in a re-run of the Munich agreement.

I totally got that from his speech on the 60th Anniversary of Israel's founding:

Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.

Clearly a deceitful, shify, tree-hugging Chamberlain fan-boi if ever I saw one. You give him hell Melanie! Incidentally, and as an aside, I am loving this current trend of hard-right commentators and politicians tearing each other apart. May it long continue.

It is that systematic accommodation with genocidal terror and the sacrifice of truth and justice on the altar of appeasement which is the single most important reason for the never-ending Middle East impasse -- and why the whole of the free world is now about to be held to ransom.

Let it never be said that Mad Mel is not capable of reasoned, sober and not at all hysterical pronouncements on world events.

But thank God that article is finally over. My penace to the international blogging community is paid for another week.

Oil, "Obama Boys" and Iraq

A very interesting and unfortunately far too brief interview with Naomi Klein on the above topics can be found here. Here are some snippets, so you can get an idea of what its about:

"I just want to add one more point, and I just want to take this opportunity, because I feel like people are being so bombarded with these oil industry talking points, and it really is changing public opinion. I mean, people need to know this. There’s—polls are being commissioned that are finding that 67 percent of Americans support offshore oil drilling, because they think it’s going to lower the price at the pump.

What’s actually going on is the oil companies may not even bother drilling. What they’re doing is they’re stockpiling leases. And what that means is that the oil companies will have a much greater control over the oil supply. When the oil companies have a much larger control over the oil supply, they can turn it on and off. They can control price. They can fix the price. So, in fact, what this is doing is the opposite of what they’re saying. It’s actually giving the oil industry much more power to drive the price of oil up by controlling supply, by just giving them all of these leases. And we keep hearing, well, they have all these leases already, and they’re not using them, and they want more. Why? Why do they want all these leases? Because that is what gives them control over supply. That’s what allows them to fix prices."

[...]

it’s shades of Bill Clinton’s first campaign, where he also campaigned very actively about labor and environmental standards and NAFTA. NAFTA had already been signed, but it hadn’t come into law. And then there was a turnaround, and there was a turnaround in the transition period, after the election but before he took office, where there was a sort of fateful meeting.

And I think the fear is that some of the same people, like Rubin, responsible for, you know, Rubinomics, which turned into Clintonomics, which was, you know, the Democratic full-scale embrace of the ideology of privatization and so-called free trade, that this same sort of group of people are following—are now surrounding Obama. And Jason Furman is a Rubin protégé and worked with him at the Hamilton Project, which is a sort of sub-think tank of the Brookings Institution, which emerged a few years ago to prevent the Democratic Party from embracing what they saw as populist economic policies, the centerpiece of which would have been a reexamine of the ideology of free trade, which is being discredited around the world.

Like I said, a fascinating listen, and highly recommended.

Psychedelics making a comeback as medical treatments

No, really.

Much greater than usual media attention accompanied the most recent World Psychedelic Forum held in March in Basel, Switzerland, the home of Albert Hofmann. A headline in the May issue of the staid British medical journal The Lancet -- known for challenging the Pentagon's Iraq casualty numbers -- read, "Research on Psychedelics Moves into the Mainstream."

The Lancet article identified a number of early-stage clinical trials being conducted on various "anxiety and neurotic disorders" using psychedelic compounds. As previously mentioned, Doblin and MAPS are conducting three parallel studies in Israel, Switzerland and the United States on the use of Ecstasy for treating PTSD. MAPS is also funding the work of controversial Harvard researcher John Halpern and his Yale counterpart Andrew Sewell, who are studying LSD and psilocybin as treatments for cluster headaches. (Information about their research is available on clusterbusters.com and Erowid, an online clearinghouse for reliable data on virtually every psychoactive plant and chemical known to humans.)

Harvard University, which conducted the last legal research on LSD in the mid-1960s and was the site for one of Halpern's studies on the effects of MDMA on dying cancer patients, is once again considering clinical trials to support Halpern's research.

And in a major milestone, on May 13 of this year, Swiss doctor Peter Gasser administered the first legal dose of LSD in more than 36 years. It was for a study of anxiety in palliative care, which helps terminally ill patients transition more peacefully -- and with as little pain as possible -- into death.

Other complexes like addiction and obsessive-compulsive disorder are being treated with what are called the "shamanic plant medicines": ayahuasca, the Amazonian vine preparation whose psychoactive component is dimethyltryptamine (DMT); peyote, the North American cactus whose psychoactive component is mescaline; and iboga, an African rainforest shrub.

Addiction is one of the most important new fields of study, not only because of the sheer numbers of afflicted, which the National Institute on Drug Abuse estimates at 23.6 million persons a year at a cost of $181 billion. According to a newly released report from the World Health Organization, the United States is the world's most addicted society. Of those who are lucky enough to get treatment, half eventually go back to heavy use, and 90 percent suffer brief or episodic relapses for the rest of their lives. This makes the search for an effective and long-lasting new treatment more attractive -- and more pressing -- than ever.

Hey, remember The Family?

As I'm sure you recall, a while back I decided to do a post on Hilary Clinton's religious links with The Family, a rather scary and theocratic organization with what looks like a lot of clout in Washington DC.

Well today, Alternet has a very interesting post on their seeming fascination with Hitler:

Lindsay Beyerstein: In "The Family," a lot of subjects explicitly state their admiration for Hitler and other authoritarian political figures. How much of that is admiring their style, and how much is admiring their substance?

Jeff Sharlet: I'd argue that there isn't a hell of a lot of difference. I spent a lot of time living with these guys, and I remember at one point asking them, "What's the deal with all this Hitler talk?" And they'd say, "Oh, it's not the ends, it's the means." But to most of us, the means seem pretty bad, too. The means are authoritarianism.

Shartlet does go onto argue that they are not Fascist in a traditional sense, that they lack the belief in the redemptive power of violence, but that they do hover around the 80% mark going by Paxton or Umberto Eco's checklists:

Lindsay Beyerstein: So, they don't literally believe in physical conflict when they describe themselves as warriors for Christ?

Jeff Sharlet: Oh, no. (They think) that's fine, but they don't love violence the way that fascism did. Their leader, Doug Coe, says that the Bible is filled with mass murderers. And it is. The difference is that European fascism was based on this idea that you can only become truly human through violence. The Family will say, oh no, we're pursuing peace. Hitler wasn't pursuing peace. The goal was this constant redemptive violence.

The other thing is they differ in the strictness of their nationalism. The Family is an American ideology, and it has a lot of American ideology involved, but still it was founded by a Norwegian immigrant. It's more pluralist than European fascism that was about cleansing the blood. The Family is an imperial ideology, which is why I think it's ultimately worse than fascism. Since the Second World War, fascism hasn't been a very powerful ideology, but imperialism has.

Which is an interesting way of slicing it. I can't say I totally disagree...its likely such a group could attract proto-fascist elements, as David Neiwert describes them, but it lacks a certain racial component and explicitly thuggish bent/exultation of violence which seems to be a core attribute of fascism. Note he did say "(they think) thats fine" which suggests they could help cultivate such an atmosphere, but its not an end in and of itself. Plus there are a number of problems with the idea of an authoritarian Christian empire based around the world's most powerful nation, without getting into the possibility of fascist connotations.

Anyway, the interview goes on for 5 pages and is well worth reading. The book looks fascinating too, and if I wasn't so poor, I'd immediately consider ordering it from Amazon. Another day, perhaps...

Chasing Bush II: Operation Manticore

9/11 conspiracy theorists in retreat (avec assorted musings)

An interesting article from The Skeptic about how the ranks of 9/11 Truthers are thinning out:

Today, the 9/11 conspiracy movement is a shell of what it once was. The website masquerading as an academic journal, Journal of 9/11 Studies, has dropped from a high of six or seven articles published per issue to one....The introduction to the main hub of 9/11 denier activity, 911truth.org, welcomes its visitors with a plea that announces, “we’ve cut to the bare bones, but are still far short of our basic budget needs.” Prominent “truthers” like Mark Dice, Dylan Avery, Jimmy Walter... and Kevin Ryan have dropped into obscurity.

I can't say I'm terribly upset by all this. The 9/11 Truthers were probably the most useless and pointless fringe group in the modern world, whose only real purpose seemed to be deflecting the very real criticisms of Bush's leadership and foreign policy, by retreating into a fantasy world of unprovable and outlandish accusations.

The areas of real interest - how badly was the intelligence managed by the executive and various security organizations before 9/11, has faded into obscurity as people have debated ludicrous theories involving missiles, gold, Reichstag Fire scenarios, entirely fictitious terrorist organizations and insurance scams.

I also found the organic growth of a sceptical counter-movement to oppose the Truther's very interesting:

Staking their fortunes almost solely on Internet-based content may have been the 9/11 deniers’ biggest mistake. What seems like a perfect place for pseudoscience — the Internet is un-edited, without fact-checkers or minimum publishing standards of any kind — also became a perfect place for a rapid-response system of blogs and forums to fight back. Drawing on the freely available technical information from the NIST, FEMA, and academic journals which most colleges let their students access for free, skeptical sites like ScrewLooseChange.blogspot.com and debunking911.com are able to defuse 9/11 denier claims as they arise.

Web 2.0 may be useful after all! Now we need to get this going on the media a little more...maybe even the government as well. Government 2.0 perhaps. Its not very catchy, but instant feedback could be interesting.

This also may help explain the failure of US Presidential Candidate Ron Paul, whose internet support was huge, and yet offline was not worth mentioning. Barack Obama, by contrast, has a powerful grass-roots campaign online, but has anchored himself fairly strongly offline too. In Ron Paul's case, the online communities filtered through his policies and discovered many of the key flaws in them....by contrast, the Obama-supporting web in many cases has been used to debunk several myths and nasty rumours about him. Ron Paul's online support didn't translate into offline success and collapsed....Obama by contrast carried his offline success online and it helped him. A parable here, maybe.

Anyway, back on topic. Recently, I read an interesting little document that goes by the name of "The Creators of Loose Change Speak" by Mark Roberts. Its an interesting 98 page long document which shows the general contempt the people behind Loose Change seem to have for...well, everyone really. It pretty much convinced me that one reason behind the attempted spread of 9/11 conspiracy theories, especially this case, was the financial incentive. Because I am a kind and forgiving blogger (and more importantly, I forgot where it was hosted) I have uploaded this PDF document to Rapidshare, should anyone want to read it. Just follow the link.

Anyway, I think that's all I have to say on the topic for now. Cheers to Blairwatch for the link.

Richard Barnbrook's blog

It seems a little bit of controversy has been sparked in the blogosphere by the discovery of the BNP Cllr and London Assembly member Richard Barnbrook's blog, which is hosted on the Torygraph's site.

I personally am of divided opinion. I've never had any truck with the foolish No Platform policy...I've always felt the batshit insane and hilarious things the BNP wants to do should be publicized far and wide. Some people think that is me having too much faith in the political system and people's ability to think critically, but if its in the open, then its up for debate, and in a Web 2.0 world, its very easy to create a debate. I'm also what some Guardian columnists might call a "free speech cultist" but fuck them. Having principles, as twisted and few though they are was never meant to be easy.

Furthermore, the blogging service is offered to everyone. Unlike say, The Guardian or London Times' websites, where signing up entails a profile that allows you comment, but not add your own articles (relying on invitation for the non-journalists to be given a stage) signing up to the Torygraph service is like signing up to Blogger, in that its not restricted to anyone so long as the Terms of Service are not broken.

On the other hand, I think people have a point when they say that the Torygraph is not like Blogger. It after all, purports to be a news site, and in having an doors open policy (ironically, something the BNP frequently complains this country's immigration policy amounts to), it could easily be abused, while also lending legitimacy to people like Barnbrook, who want to court the Torygraph readers while gaining a degree of respectability for having their logo in the top left corner of the screen. Blogger, unlike the Torygraph, does not have an editorial line, nor does it purport to be a news site, only a blogging service.

Over the past few months especially, I've been reading David Neiwert's excellent blog, Orcinus, and it has helped me clarify some of my own thoughts on fascism in the current context, and especially on the relationship between fascist movments, infiltration of the respectable right and the role of media in all this. His analysis is of course rooted in a US context, but I believe it is still nonetheless useful.

His comments (PDF file, 640 KB) on transmission between the far right and conservatives are interesting

Ideas and agendas began floating from one sector to the other in increasing volume around 1994. I noticed it first in the amazing amount of crossover between between militia types and the anti-Clinton vitriol out of D.C. that eventually built into the impeachment fiasco....This crossover is facilitated by figures I call “transmitters” — ostensibly mainstream conservatives who seem to cull ideas that often have their origins on the far right, strip them of any obviously pernicious content, and present them as “conservative” arguments.

Obviously the most prominent media personalities responsible for such behaviour in the UK would be the likes of Melanie Phillips and Richard Littlejohn, whose rants often hit upon the codewords and phrases of the far right, their fears of an alien outsider plotting to take over the country (whether its the EU or Muslims) and the descent of the country into anarchy because of civil liberties, secularism and liberalism in general and how we are all "going to hell in a handcart" because of it.

And of course, transmissions by their very nature go both ways. The reasons for the likes of the above to do such things are obvious - it widens their audience and gets them a certain about of talked about noteriety. I don't believe such people are fascists - only that they pander to it to increase their reading figures and to appear outrageous without stepping over any definitive lines.

The problem is then, that such ideas get normalized within right-wing discourse and become acceptable - making the mainstream right more radicalized and ripe for infiltration by extremist elements. The memes become talking points which filter back into perception and eventually policy. And that is the role Richard Barnbrook and his "fellow travellers" on the Telegraph will also be taking. While they are not de jure supported by the Telegraph in any way, de facto, their presence on the site will be taken that way by their supporters and, as we have seen already in some of the blogosphere reactions, their detractors too.

You can expect many more thinly veiled rants about the evils of liberalism and immigrants and darkies and homosexuals to come from Richard Barnbrook, and supported by his on-site sycophants (who have already made their presence felt, despite Barnbrook himself only having 3 articles up). The question is, of course, will the Torygraph readers let this slide, or will they actively try to debate and undermine Barnbrook? That is where the focus should be, I believe. I'm still not comfortable with him having a place on the site, for the above reasons, but I'm not against it simply because of the above reasons either. I still believe that his pathetic political views should be combatted by debate, and not censorship, but that doesn't mean I don't think the previously stated worries are not valid, only that I hope they do not turn out to be the case.

And, because I couldn't pass up the chance to showcase some of Barnbrook's frothing at the mouth articles, a few quotes from the good Cllr:

I have no time for these liberals. I despise them.....not for their person, but for their values....for everything that they believe in, although I am not so sure that they even believe it. I am talking about all these dirty politicians and journalists who sit in their homes smoking their drugs and telling themselves they have made Britain better. Well its not. Its a cess-pit and its the young people who have to swim in its filth. Only the dead make the news but there are hundred who are stabbed but only just live. Their lives are wrecked though in many cases. This is liberalism......these are the great values of the left.........they smoke drugs and your children get slaughtered in the streets. It makes me sick. It drags me down into tombstone politics when I would rather be building a better society. It has become so normalised that people think they have to accept it. Well I am going to change it....I am going to clean up the streets, because our society has had enough of their dirty values, their dirty ideas, and their dirty politics.

And:

I have had enough of political correctness. I have had enough of people being afraid to actually say what they really want to say. Yes....It is the immigrants. Labour closed down free speech and criminalised people for telling the truth. Well Labour are in a state of total collapse.

Soon they will be finished and not a moment too soon. Nobody needs to listen to them anymore. The Police chiefs should simply ignore them and not follow orders to boost statistics by criminalising motorists. The real crime is on the streets, and it is the young people who are being attacked every day now by knives and guns.

Well let me tell you that times are changing. This is our city and we are going to take it back. We are going to take all the weapons of the streets even if that means sending in the Army to do it.

The do-gooder liberal human rights lawyers can scream all they want. Human Rights to me, means people being safe to walk down the street. Liberalism to me, means being free from knife and gun attacks. A free society is one where the police can do their job the way they want to do it.

And to think....this moron actually got a lot of votes. *Sigh*...

I always find BNP wingnuts loltastic

It's a bad habit really. Whenever I am bored, or need a laugh, I start surfing around the BNP supporting blogosphere, to find something out of touch with reality, nutty, or just plain hilarious to laugh at.

And it works every time. My faith in the batshit insanity of certain sectors of the British public is restored, I realize I'm actually a fairly good writer when I want to be (current postings are evidence to the contrary, I admit, but I have been busy with finals) and I get a laugh in with the deal.

It's a bad past time, really. Habit forming, almost. But now and again I hit the jackpot, like with Sarah Maid of Albion. Talking of course about my favourite subject....terrorism. In particular, the case of Nicky Reilly, the allegedly failed suicide bomber (I say allegedly for the legal reasons, of course). And its a slow Saturday night, and I have nothing planned, so why not?

Ever since the identity of the man accused of attempting to set off a bomb in an Exeter restaurant was revealed, certain sections of the press have been announcing breathlessly that the suspect, Nicky Reilly, is a white convert to Islam.

Certain sections of the press? Come on, name names! If you've got the goods, don't play coy. As it happens, I did a search on this and found out which media outlets she meant: the BBC, Guardian, Independent and Mirror.

Oh dear gosh, its lining up to be a fiendish left wing conspiracy already. Only, not really. Going by the BBC report, they were reporting a description of Reilly given by the police, which was repeated in the Independent. The Guardian bought up his race in the terms of wider counter-terrorism issues (like Al-Qaeda recruiting white converts to Islam in order to avoid racial profiling measures) and the Mirror didn't even mention it themselves - instead publishing a quote by a member of the public saying he standed out at meetings with a suspicious group of people on a street corner due to his colour.

I hardly think this counts as announcing breathlessly - especially since almost all comments on his race or appearance are well down the pages on all the media outlets that I found reporting it.

The media always get overexcited when they can pretend that white Europeans are as likely to be terrorists as Asians, even if they have to bend the truth into impossible contortions to do so.

So presumably Baader-Meinhof, the Provisional IRA, ETA, Nivelles gang, OAS, Action Directe, National Front for the Liberation of Corsica, The June 2nd Movement, November 17th, Antikratiki Dikaiosini, Hawks of Thrace, Revolutionary Struggle, October 22 Group, the Red Brigades, Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari, Aginter Press, the (admittedly laughable) Canary Islands Independence Movement, the Ordine Nuovo (founded by the odious Stefano Delle Chiaie), Meibion Glyndŵ, the Irish National Liberation Army, Loyalist Volunteer Force, Ulster Defence Association, Ulster Volunteer Force, White Aryan Resistance, Continuity IRA and many other groups I can't be bothered to name had or have no white members whatsoever. You know, despite many of them being neo-fascist in orientation, or else ethno-nationalist and thus "real" Europeans.

And if we include ethnically European Americans into the mix...well, where to start? We could go all the way back to the Klan, or right up to the modern day 'Patriot Movement' members, who intermingle with militia organizations such as the Montana Freemen, but who also had links to individuals like Timothy McVeigh, Army of God, Aryan Nations, The Order and other fun loving neo-fascist/Christian groups, many of whom have very clear ideas on what race it is best to be.

But that was unfair of me, using history like that against you. On the other hand, we could always be thankful I didn't decide to start digging into the Russian anarchist terrorists...that stuff goes on forever. We still count Russians as white Europeans, don't we? Don't we? But yes, terribly unfair using history like that, it's a shame we don't have some examples of more modern terrorism carried out by 'white Europeans'.

Readers may recall how hard they tried to present Andrew Ibrahim, the young terror suspect arrested in Bristol in April as “white”, even after it was revealed that his father wa an Asian doctor called Nassif.

I hate to break this to you, but he look's white. I'll link to a picture, and feel free to dispute it, I know you will anyway, but he doesn't really look very foreign, does he? Or is this one of those things where he'd have to be one-sixteenth "Muslim foreigner" to fifteen-sixteenth's "white European" to count?

Whatever the truth may be in this instance, I don't really know why the press get so excited on the rare occasion that a white convert gets involved in attempted atrocities, it proves nothing other than that radical Islam is a dangerously infectious condition.

Well, apart from the fact no-one was getting excited over the fact that he was a white convert, GREAT POINT! The Guardian mentioned MI5 were considering if this was a change in tactics and recruiting by Al-Qaeda, which some might consider to be a legitimate concern. You know, if you want to catch terrorists and all that. I think you'll find more people were worried that someone attempted to partake in a suicide bomb attack, full stop, to note his colour and go "OH MY GOD, AND HE WAS WHITE TOO!" Just because BNP members have this funny fascination with race does not mean everyone else does. Stop projecting.

Dengue fever does not cease to be a tropical disease if an Englishman catches it, and and neither does the fact that a few vulnerable or weak minded individuals have been seduced into embracing its deadly doctrine make Islam a European faith.

Uh-huh. So what makes, for example, Christianity 'European'? Or Judaism (feel free to ask Nick Griffin if Jews are a European faith or not) for that matter. Or indeed anything that is not laughable NeoPagan Reconstructionism. Are they 'European' by virtue of ethnicity of genesis, geographical location, or practice? Because Jesus sure as hell wasn't white, or located in Europe (depending on whether one considers the Levant Europe, of course. I do, but many do not). Can we expect to see the BNP picketing Christmas celebrations soon? They too, have spread like a virus, after all.

The few small Muslim enclaves in the Balkans and Chechnya are the residue left from earlier attempts by Islam to colonise Europe, not to any European tradition.

Oh? And what European traditions are these? When I last checked, Islamic and Christian thought were both heavily based on Greek Classical thinking - especially the works of Plato and Aristotle, though a few Roman's slipped the barrier too. Given the Greco-Roman culture is the bedrock of modern Western civilization, I would find the exclusion of Islam...intellectually dishonest, shall we say? And of course, St Thomas Aquinas and (arguably) René Descartes owe an influence to Islamic philosophers such as Al-Ghazali. There was a lot of intellectual traffic flowing along Asia Minor back then, let me tell you.

Or this the European tradition of being a white European? I just want to cover all my bases here, you understand.

Islam is an alien philosophy, with its origins in a set of beliefs so different to those at the root of our own culture that most can either not comprehend it or refuse to acknowledge it.

OK, I'll take that as an "I'm an idiot with little or no knowledge of the history of philosophy".

There is no European tradition within Islam, it is a force from outside, which we have let in and the fact that it has captured or beguiled some of our children does not make it native to our land.

It's kinda like the Mysterons, when you think about it...those strange, alien, outside forces....

Like all infectious conditions, some will fall victim to it, as Nicky Reilly appears to have done, but all that tells us is that we need to take preventative measures before more succumb.

Unfortunately, the spread of idiocy will go on unchecked...

Who will rid me of this troublesome politician?

Here is an interesting clip of Mike Huckabee, ex-Presidential nominee for the Republican Party, 'joking' in front of the staunchly right-wing NRA crowd about the possibility of an Obama assassination.

Now, I should first of all point out, for any readers, that I am not especially against gun ownership per se, in the UK or America. Yes, I know I have a reputation as a subversive left wing liberal who hates freedom and loves terrorism etc etc but to a degree, I side more with the right-wing/libertarian view when it comes to firearms. Not to mention I did spend part of my misspent youth in the countryside and have been a member of my University rifle club and so actually enjoy shooting too.

But anyway, that's not the point, so I wanted to dismiss the strawman straight away. The point is noting the spread and even acceptance of the "Obama assassination meme" within mainstream political discourse, especially in circles like the above, where Obama is not seen in an especially friendly light.

Now I know you'll be saying "Oh Huckabee is just joking, I thought you Discordians knew about larking about", but to be honest, that's kind of the point. I'm very used to using humour to mask a point, to say something I wish to be known in an indirect and subtle manner. That's often the function of humour in politics, it gives a veneer of deniability to a statement.

Its also one that has been used to death by the American right, such as Ann "lets assassinate a US Judge, teehee I'm only joking" Coulter, Rush "lets not kill all the liberals, just most of them" Limbaugh and other such 'wits' of American politics, like Michael Savage.

So you'll excuse me a certain degree of scepticism when I see the tactic repeated by others.

We all believe Obama is probably the most likely candidate to be targeted, followed closely by McCain (the Middle Eastern groups tend to not operate much outside their own territory, but when they do they are usually very good at it). It's hardly news. He's a charismatic, black man who appeals to a wide constituency of people, comes from a cosmopolitian, is opposed to favourite ventures of the nutjob-right and has a good chance of becoming the next US President. And we know people like the Aryan Nations are still out there, still exist and have people motivated and trained well enough to attempt something like this.

But repititions of the idea that Obama will inevitably face an assassination attempt seem to be aimed more at the idea of spreading this idea of inevitability far and wide, hoping some far-right nut will decide to take one for the Aryan cause and have a go at killing him. Its one step off encouraging it, when repeated like this.

The entire point of modern day, non-state/terrorist assassination is this - that it takes place within an enabling environment and narrative, and is done in a public place to validate the killer themselves. Making continued references to this happening only increases the chances of someone trying to have a go.

Equally bad is the downplaying of the chances of someone killing him. All three US candidates are at risk, its the nature of the game of politics. Killing the potential next President has long been a route to fame for no-hoper's around the world. Suggesting that Obama is perfectly safe and has nothing to worry about, in the same poisonous media climate which is also telling us he is likely to be killed, as it makes an attempt on him look easy and invites more attempts.

Here are just a few examples of the meme spreading from extremist to more mainstream circles

• Neo Nazi, longtime target of Anonymous and friend of Sean Hannity, Hal Turner threatens Obama.

• The notorious Freerepublic wont allow pro-Obama comments, but will allow posts talking about other people (on the left) raising the possibility of his assassination.

(Just as an aside, I think people on the left who continually raise the prospect of his assassination are just as guilty of perpetuating the meme as everyone else, though I suspect their motivation is more benign. Unless they are Hillary Clinton supporters).

• Sean Hannity of Fox News pops up again, this time with some interesting use of language...

"I just feel that with the more we learn about the racial implications in his past, the more likely it is for sure he will be killed."

He all but left out the *Hint hint, nudge nudge, wink wink* from that statement. We all know the implication is that he is a black supremacist is being spread by the right, which is like a lightning rod to any racists out there.

• Jonah "liberals once called me a fascist, so I call them it back now" Goldberg engages in more than just a bit of projection here when he suggests if Obama loses certain people will become unhinged. Maybe they will, but for the moment, it seems more likely a win will unhinge other 'certain people', as the above comments and Greenwald's own article are showing.

• Halfrican Revolution documents how a Unification Church owned publication practically went out of their way to give tips to any nutters crazy enough to give assassination a shot.

• The hilariously named White Civil Rights website also engages in a degree of projection, when they fantasize about Mossad killing Obama. Because thats no way an excuse to talk freely about an assassination attempt at all, is it?

• Even the bloody Torygraph tries to pooh-pooh the chances of an assassination emanating from the right, instead blaming the idea on a mix of conspiracy theory, wish for martyrdom (nice touch, by the way, the Muslim implication there) and generalized paranoia. Obviously Tony Harden doesn't pay much attention to the lunatic fringe, or he'd know how pumped up on this idea many of them are. While no doubt many of the left wing comments implicating the likes of Blackwater or Clinton are nonsense, there is a real radical threat.

• Again, Vanguard News Network, another far-right US site, is spreading the Obama assassination meme under the cover of "tEh Jo0s DiD iT! (oR aT lEaSt wIlL dO!)".

And on and on it goes. I didn't even bother to go to some of the crazier, less well known sites. I thought this should cover it fairly nicely.

As a commentator at the Seattle PI points out, the best thing the media could do in order to play down these fears is not talk about it all the time. Yes, I do realize that makes me guilty to a degree as well, but I'm trying to introduce a phage here, to undercut the meme. By constantly finding ways to bring up the idea, either in terms of denying it having any possibility at all (all US Presidential candidates are potential targets, get over it) or prophesying it as a certainty, is only doing more damage and poisoning the civil discourse.

More on the Crewe by-election

As is hard to miss, I was pretty pissed off by the Labour party Crewe by-election leaflet, more or less pandering to the xenophobic masses afraid of immigrants coming over here to steal their jobs and wimminz.

Fortunately, it seems like the Guardian has caught up on this story too (which was abley covered by the more Tory-friendly press and blogs, it has to be said) and John Harris has an article up on Comment is Free, where he puts this into the context of a government desperate to remain in power by appealing to "chauvinistic and backward-looking parts of British society" to quote Charles Clarke (who is still an authoritarian thug, in my opinion, but at least gains a smidgeon of respectability with this statement).

Harris pulls few punches showing the increasing role of nationalist rhetoric now the Brown government is up against the wall:

the essential Labour strategy is clear enough: not to concentrate on anything progressive or inspiring but to run instead on a mixture of the Dunwoody bloodline, utterly witless class warfare, and the politics of fear. One wonders what the more shrill aspects of the party's campaign will do for Crewe's community relations - but there again, it's doubtful that such thoughts are troubling many Labour high-ups. Misanthropic nastiness, after all, seems to be a central plank of the government's fightback.

This stuff has a pedigree dating back well into the Blair years but seems to be turning ever more ugly. Among the first announcements in the wake of May 1 was a loud Home Office pledge to try to realise Brown's drive for "British jobs for British workers", by forcing employers to prove no Briton can fill a vacancy before offering it to anyone from outside the EU. Soon after, there came Jacqui Smith's bizarre plans to "harass" badly behaved youths using video cameras and a technique hyped as "frame and shame". Going back a few months, one thinks also of James Purnell's proposed clampdown on the long-term jobless, Caroline Flint's priceless proposal that the workshy should be threatened with homelessness, and the government's increasingly baffling drive on "Britishness", in which fine words about inclusion are often overshadowed by the sense of dog-whistles being desperately sounded.

...

While seizing on fears about immigration, Brown has still made no headway on the issue of agency workers, which underlies so many modern tensions. At the same time as maligning many of the nation's youth as yobs, Labour also wrings its hands about their "unlocked talent". Apparatchiks are encouraged to wage class war for the cameras, but the government refuses to talk about compelling the ultra-wealthy to pay their way, or to make any move on, say, the totemic issue of charitable status for private schools. The impression is of politics at its most dried-up and disingenuous. The result: activists and once-loyal supporters decide to leave the party well alone, and floating voters decide that Cameroonian confidence and optimism is much the better option.

...As Labour lays waste to what remains of its progressive credentials, one thinks immediately of that handful of young(ish) Brownites - Ed Miliband, Douglas Alexander, Ed Balls, Yvette Cooper - who usually go out of their way to talk up the party's supposed soul, and the parts of the government's record that reflect it. Where are they, and why won't they speak up?

Even if what they had to say was couched in the obligatory political code, we'd know it when we heard it. Behind the scenes, they must surely alert Brown to a simple choice: cut this stuff out and rediscover that moral compass - or bequeath them a political husk so robbed of its essential identity that it will take at least a generation to even begin to revive it. David Cameron's recent pronouncements are not nearly as surreal as they sound: right now, the Tories really are sounding more progressive than Labour, and that way lies not just electoral defeat, but the prospect of complete wipe-out.

As Labour's popularity continues to go the way of the sub-prime loan industry, I can only see this sort of shrill and nasty rhetoric increasing.