Gertsamtkunstwerk

On GFC2

I'm not going to carry out an analysis of the causes or implications of the latest Global Financial Crisis to hit. Don'tcha hate that when people who know eff all about eff all writing as if they are experts and have done some research?

I'm inclined to conclude that we're all doomed. But we were all doomed previously. And the easy availability of cheap credit was just a smokescreen to delude us that we're not doomed.

Coming so swiftly after the tidal wave of revelations and resignations from News International, it only serves to confirm what I knew instinctively as a young activist but conveniently forgot in the years of comfort - democracy is an illusion.

We go through the motions of participatory and representative democracy, discussing subjects that matter enormously to people's lives locally and internationally. But now we know, what we really should have known all along - the power lies with the unelected unaccountable elites, such as Murdoch and other press owners, who themselves are only following the dictates of 'the markets'

The supine state of some parts of the news media is just depressing. I ignore ITV news, and regard Sky News as unreliable, even though it has moments of brilliance. Channel 4 News seems consistently ahead of the curve with good, deep and reflective coverage of these stories,  and more. For example they have sent a British-Somalian journalist into a remote region controlled by Al Shabaab, whereas the BBC had a white public-school-educated reporter based in Mogadishu reduced to interviewing African Union peacekeepers.

Al Jazeera was the station of choice for the Arab Spring and for the Japanese Tsunami. The BBC's main Japanese correspondent (presumably appointed on account of having achieved being the son of a long-standing BBC newsreader) was clearly unable to speak Japanese and had to interview UK and US expats barely affected or reporting what AFP were reporting NHK were saying. Al Jazeera are said to have more reporters in Latin America than BBC and CNN combined, many of them from or connected to the countries they report upon.

Nothing in the main BBC news coverage of the Global Financial Crisis is designed to shed any light. Newsnight would be worth watching except that the reliable and thought-provoking Paul Mason is currently on holiday. So, the other night, in place of reasoned debate, we had a rude shouty American from deep within Wall Street effectively trying to argue that all of civil society should kow-tow to the infinite greed of 'the markets'.

Yet again the stock markets have caused calamity, and the BBC reports on them with the same unquestioning deference as they report on the Royal Family and the Church of England. Seen as supreme and benign, no suggestion that there could be an alternative, or that these are inimical to the decent lives that most ordinary people want to live.

I will never be a revolutionary socialist because I do actually support capitalism, if capitalism be the trading of goods and services for profit. And I suspect that most people would prefer to hang onto the little they still have  rather than risk losing everything, even if it means long-term gain for their descendants. I hate the huge parasitical bottom-feeding panoply that has grown up around trade, most of all the banks, hedge funds etc that have become the tail that wags the dog. 'Buying shares' is seen as 'investing'. Constantly trading shares in one big gambling game is seen as 'adding value'. Neither is true. (And yes, I do understand that the big investors are pension funds and insurance companies, and how that flows back to ordinary individuals).

Most people, when they give it some thought, have at least some attachment to and belief in democracy, some kind of sense that ultimately the will of the people will prevail, even when they appear to have evidence of the opposite occurring in certain cases. Even though it came as no surprise to me, I still found it shocking to learn how so many politicians of all political parties were so submissive to Murdoch. And now we are being told that entire democratic structures should be dismantled  in order to pacify 'the markets'.

The cost of borrowing for the US government, and thus the cost of providing government services will increase, because some unelected, unaccountable, set of commentators, called Standard & Poor have decreed that the US Government is a bad risk to lend to. Their opinion, their judgement, the consequences of which I can only guess. They are effectively dictating to a Government elected on broadly democratic principles, and, almost on a whim, dictating the course of human history for perhaps the next fifty years. 

There are some complex philosophical points that I don't pretend to understand, but I am angry that the mainstream news is reporting this as if it's the betting for the Grand National or something as much beyond human understanding as the latest tweet from CERN

Thanks to recent fine tuning, the LHC has delivered 2 inverse femtobarns of data already this year; peak luminosity is now over 2x10^33.

I don't know what the answer is, I certainly don't think taking to the streets in public show of impotence will help. But I would like the publicly funded BBC main TV news service, for once in their miserable lives, to remember it's the public who actually pays their salaries,  and stop singing the tune of the Murdochs and others who have demonstrably bribed them into compliance.

 

Recount clouds Karzai poll lead

BBC NEWS | World | South Asia | Recount clouds Karzai poll lead.

Why on earth aren't there the protests and outrage over this electoral outrage? The contrast with what happened in Iran is appalling.

I was very cynical about the faux outrage, and thought a lot of this 'turn your avatar green' was posturing; taking a position not because most of them actually cared about democracy in Iran, but because they were playing the game of "My enemy's enemy's enemy is my enemy".

Whereas to cast doubt on the elections in Afghanistan will just raise to many questions about why we have been slaughtering so many civilians for so many years.

Genocide

The Middle East is not a subject I post about very often on this blog. I learned a long time ago that the only result is to get flamed by nut-jobs who believe that everything that the Israeli Government does is right, irrespective of which party dominates the coalition. Such posts just attract haters, mainly from the USA whose world view is based upon an idiotic, shallow and biased Press and TV news.

I haven't recorded my anger at Ariel Sharon's wall that cuts Palestinians off from their olive groves and from water. I haven't recorded my anger at the constant but low level attacks on Palestinian people and the Palestinian way of life.

I never recorded my disgust when I visited Israel to be told on one hand eg Hotels build upwards in Eilat because there is no land whereas they build outwards in Taba because there is so much land that no one wants, and yet to witness coachloads of prosperous American Students and recent Graduates being given free holidays to tempt them to move from the USA to Israel. 

I have read so much that repulses me about the attitudes of the Settlers (West Bank and Golan Heights rather than Gaza), and yet I have failed to comment, because it probably isn't worth it. Also, I haven't written enough about my anger of the bombing of Iraq and Afghanistan, nor my despair at DR Congo and Somalia, both countries that fascinate me. To be honest, I have never fully got to grips with the conflicts in the Former Yugoslavia.

But there comes a time when saying nothing is tantamount to complicity. And yet there isn't a great deal to say, other than anybody who believes that there is any moral  justification whatsoever in shelling a school, for example, really needs to examine their hands but must also know they will never wash the blood off.

Israel's apologists continue to justify Israel's rapacious warmongering as retribution for the Holocaust. I cannot recall any history book ever suggesting that Palestinians were culpable in the Holocaust. I cannot fathom a logic that carries on hating for sixty years and creates new victims and yet fails to understand that their hatred is an inevitable reaction to being hated.

I cannot find any justification for targeting of non-combatants whether in Afghanistan, DR Congo or Palestine. It is wrong. And no amount of trimming and triangulation will make it right.

Change? Maybe...

I realise I have written barely anything on this blog about the US Presidential Elections. That does not reflect the level of interest I have taken in it, reading quite widely in a number of publications. Well, only an idiot would not have noticed that in some ways it was a very interesting election.

Barack Obama won and I think that was probably the result I would have favoured. I am very aware of the symbolism of a black man being elected President of the USA. In my lifetime, black people in the USA were denied the right to vote and were caught up in violence when they tried to exercise that right.  Voting, whilst a fundamental human right, is only the tip of an iceberg; in his lifetime, in some of the Southern States of the USA, it was illegal to have a mixed-race relationship. And, watching from afar, the fiasco of Hurricane Katrina showed to me that racism in the USA is still widespread and runs deep. I am not saying it is worse than other countries; I am merely commenting specifically in the light of this election.

I can't get very excited about the election in political terms, though. I saw very little evidence of actual policies and issues being discussed openly, and voxpops on the TV seemed to indicate that large numbers of random voters had very little clue at about what either candidate stood for, other than 'more of the (Bush) same' or 'Change'.

Some Obama's proposals on domestic policy are fairly radical in USA terms, such as redistribution by taxation and the introduction of universal medical care. I did read a knowledgeable commenter several years ago that in UK or European terms, Bill Clinton was the equivalent of Ken Clarke or a moderate Christian Democrat, except that Ken Clarke and moderate Christian Democrats oppose judicial murder and Clinton happily allowed the state to murder its citizens. I don't see Barack Obama being any more left wing - Clinton also proposed universal healthcare. And indeed, for several months the likes of David "Dave" Cameron and Boris "Buffoon" Johnson, from the British Right,  have been open about their support for Obama.

Another nation's domestic policies are none of my business; my opinion doesn't matter. But the policies and actions of a US President have global impact, especially in economic matters and in times of war.I am simply not convinced that Obama will turn out any different from his bellicose predecessors. Charitably, I would say that US Politicians, just like UK politicians, are at the behest of officials from the Department of State and the Pentagon,  who are adept at tailoring briefings to match a specific agenda, and that agenda is a militaristic one. I know it's a bit pathetic for someone like me whose degree contained a significant amount of American Politics*, but I often think - what would President Bartlett do?  And, of course, the answer is 'bomb the shit out of foreigners and execute Americans'.

My 'favourite' American President is FDR (yeah, I'm the sort of person who has 'favourite' American Presidents). Two programmes on BBC4 on Friday night reminded me of what a great visionary he was, his audacious, intelligent and compassionate New Deal which rescued America, and thus the developed world, from the depth of the Depression**. I don't think Obama faces such an enormous challenge economically, but FDR moved the USA from a position of International Isolation to a very different one indeed, via WWII. I wonder whether Obama has the vision and courage to withdraw from USA's meddling tendency whilst having the wisdom to know when it's right to intervene.

There has been a bit of debate about whether the UK would ever elect an Ethnic Minority PM. The answer of course, is, yes, in 1874. In response to this debate point, I did see someone write, it's not merely about race, would we ever have a disabled PM? To which I reply, er, yeah, like, right now.

I don't think there are any real parallels to be drawn, because, in case people have missed it, and I think that large numbers of the British electorate are in total ignorance - we don't have a system for directly electing a head of government. Constitutionally, the PM is the leader of the largest Parliamentary Party made up of MPs elected in geographical constituencies. However, I have a real sense that the election of Barack Obama is almost certainly a major boost for Streatham CLP

* actually, it didn't. My degree was called Politics but should really have been called Political History, Thought and Institutions. I think I know more of the Classical Greeks than of contemporary issues. But there again, no contemporary issues can be fully understood without a deep knowledge of the relevant history.

** Having seen Dr Atomic at the cinema on Saturday night I was going to make some reference to that,then remembered in time that that happened under Truman

Credit crunch, bailouts and the Robert Peston Show

The sharp-eyed among you will have noticed an almost dearth of incisive comment about the global banking crisis. Although I am an Accountant with a Politics degree, I have a blind spot when it comes to Economics. I did study a bit as part of my Graduate Conversion Course (accountancy training) but I had to squint to decode a demand vs supply graph, and it all got too heavy from there on in.

I wish it were over. No doubt Robert Peston really knows his stuff, but it's getting too much, he's everywhere. I wake up with Robert Peston on the radio, I have my tea with Robert Peston on the TV, my night-time cocoa is brought to me by Robert Peston. I just wish he'd learn to string a sentence together without putting 'you know' between every bloomin' you know phrase.

Despite me knowing nothing about Economics,  it has not come as a surprise that the banking system has collapsed. Too long we have been expected to respect these people who just play with pretend numbers. I could never be an out-and-out full-bloodied socialist because I do believe in real investment and entrepreneurship - venture capital -  but I do feel that Stock Market is a glorified betting shop. It is discussed so often in terms that can only be described as pretentious wank...silly men on the telly getting orgasmic at what the 'Numbers' are doing, and imagining that 'The Market' somehow has the ability of independent thought. (And then you get wimpy weather men in cardigans trying to out-macho the business men by using 'Numbers' to inform of forecast temperatures).

I did have an attitude that anybody with 'shares' is a capitalist who ought to be taken out and shot at dawn, then I remembered I abhor capital punishment, so considered a fine and some community service to be their just reward. Then I learnt that just about everybody (except me) is a share-owner. Many people have occupational pensions that are at least partly invested in shares; I am in the peculiar, unfunded, Civil Service Pension Scheme. Anyone with bank deposits is likely to find that they are at least partly invested in shares - and that also goes for people who save with mutuals such as Building Societies and Credit Unions.

Whereas my savings are in Government Bonds, which is how Government Funds borrowing to purchase banks. Damn, I've become part of the 'share-owning democracy!'. As a good old Clause Four Democratic Socialist,  I am having a good old chuckle as Good Old Clause Four Socialist Gordon Brown and his audacious sidekick known only by the codename of 'Darling' march in and nationalise the Banks. Tony Blair would be turning in his grave, were he dead. So would Thatch*, too.

Remember, I know nothing about Economics so please, you know, correct me on bits what I get wrong. But the way I see it is:

In the short term the Government is going to spend yours and my money to buy shares in these Banks at a time when Bank shares are pretty damn low. In the short term this will cost the Government enormous amounts of money, which they will have to borrow via Government Bonds. In the long term (whatever that is) banking will return to normal (whatever that is), and the Government will be faced with a dilemma - whether to sell these shares at maybe 50% profit - but have to pay Capital Gains Tax(!)- or whether to hang onto them and reap the dividends. They couldn't off-load them all at once because that would depress the Sacred Market, so for several years, surely, they will combine drip-selling shares and drawing the dividends. Either way, surely, that will cause another problem for Brown and his sidekick Darling. Whether to cut taxes or increase spending on schools, hospitals and public transport. I'm sure they will have worked it out by the 2010 budget Insert Big Grin Here. David Cameron would be spinning in his grave, were he dead.

It can't be that simple, can it?

I have noticed quite a lot of talk about gold recently. Apparently, people are getting out of shares and buying gold. Is it just me or is that innumeracy? If I had gold, I'd sell it, now, when the price is shit hot, and buy shares, which are almost certainly bound to go up.

And then we get the Iceland thing...Iceland as a country, reportedly, is bankrupt. Reportedly, several months ago Iceland the country was reported to be the Toxic Waste of the Global Banking System. I don't think I have many , if any, regular Icelandic readers, but for those out there, I'm sorry, it mustn't be nice. I'm told there was a news report this morning that residents of Iceland, concerned about imminent devaluation and possible Zimbabwe-scale inflation,  are stocking up on staples, which is what I would do in the circumstances.  Human nature being what it is, prudent stocking-up becomes panic-buying.

In my imagination, a whole sub-section of British society is right now down at a well-known high street supermarket (which discriminates against the childless), stock-piling against disaster, because they've only heard part of the story and have decided to worry.

Like someone told me last week she is really worried that NatWest Bank will collapse before the end of the month and those who bank with them, like her, and me, won't get paid. I couldn't honestly say it absolutely won't happen, but I don't see any point in worrying about it, because if a major bank did collapse that way leaving millions destitute, Something Would Have To Be Done. So, I see no point in worrying about a hypothetical theoretical, when it's not like I - or she - haven't enough real and imminent problems already.

* champers round my place when she pops her clogs

I sometimes feel...

...that my past is catching up on me.

First I read that Daniel Ortega has been elected President of Nicaragua, then I discover that Jason Donovan will be on I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here*.

And I'm ambivalent about both facts.

In the 1980s I identified in solidarity with the Sandanistas in Nicaragua. My support ranged from attending the marvellous Puerto Cabezas Festival in Manchester - twin cities, natch - to buying and displaying t-shirts and mugs with variations on the theme of "Nicaragua No Paseran!". I kind of regret that I was never adventurous enough to actually go to Nicaragua.

But I read How I woke up and smelt the coffee, which left a bitter taste in my mouth.

Reportedly, Bush was going to impose sanctions on Nicaragua if Ortega was elected, which seems all too reminiscent of the 1980s: we were in solidarity with Nicaragua not because we necessarily thought it was a socialist nirvana, but because we were angry at the overt and covert action by a corrupt US Government determined to destroy a democracy that was of the 'wrong' hue. Just like they are determined to destroy the popularly elected and socialist Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Maybe one day Bush will learn the awkward truth that people are perfectly entitled to vote other than the way he and his bullying cronies want them to...

...Democrats seize control of House, Virginia key to US Senate control...

And I'm not sure that I can bring myself to watch the awfulness that is reality TV. I did try to watch Lee Sharpe on Celebrity Love Island, but I never made it past the first commercial break. I can understand why the celebs do it - easy money and an upturn in name-recognition. But it doesn't mean I am obliged ot watch it, or to acknowledge its existence, or care about what happens, or accord it any importance, even in the relative squalor of low-rent telly. But as a former member of the Jason Donovan Fan Club, as well as the Lee Sharpe Fan Club, it seems a betrayal.

I've heard Donald Rumsfeld has some time on his hands. Maybe he fancies a spot on a celebrity reality TV show. Probably be better if he turned prison visitor, though, go and cheer up his old mate Saddam.

* impressed or what - what other blogger do you know who could write an almost cogent blogpost linking Daniel Ortega and Jason Donovan?

Bomb blast in Dahab

Triple blasts rock Egypt resort

Solipsistically, I get far more upset at carnage in somewhere I've been then in an unfamiliar place.

I really enjoyed my day in Dahab. Most of the top few photos here are there. I bought my gorgeous and unusual scarab necklace there. And the bracelet I dropped down the decking on the ROH terrace.

A Memo

From: Royal Press Secretary
To: His Majesty
Date: 1st February 2006

Subject: Cartoons

As Your Majesty requested recently, in order to divert public attention from the regrettable demise of a small number of pilgrims in Makkah during the last Hajj, Saudi newspapers were instructed to revive the four-month-old story of cartoons about the Prophet (PBUH) in a Danish newspaper, and turn it into an attack on Denmark, together with a "spontaneous demand by the people" for a boycott of Danish goods...

...continue reading The Religious Policeman

An open letter to the Global Caliphate

Anger grows over Muhammad cartoon

Dear Head of Caliphate (or can I call you Caliph? Cal?)

I realise it is presumptious of me to speak on behalf of Europe, but I have a wonderful suggestion to make. I am all for negotiation and compromise, and meeting people in the middle. And I am sure many Europeans will join with me.

If you stop treating women as inferior to men we might consider not satirising your religion.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai also strongly condemned their publication, saying it was "an affront... for hundreds of millions of people".

Coincidentally, the systematic endemic oppression, rape and killing of women throughout the Moslem world - and elsewhere - is an affront for hundreds of millions of people.

Oh dear, your belief system got insulted. Does it not occur to you that if your oppressive mumbo-jumbo is insufficiently robust to withstand criticism it might just be because it's an indefensible heap of mumbo-jumbo?

I know how much you hate the materialism of the West, and, if the truth be told, there are many people in the West who have concerns about the more damaging aspects of undiluted materialism. But we had an Enlightenment a few centuries ago, and we began to develop a capacity to understand that the world isn't binary but nuanced with infinite shades of grey.

We also developed the concept of Free Speech. Imperfect in concept and imperfect in execution, but the key to developing all those technological goodies you seem very keen on, oh you know, those guns with which you surrounded the EU office in Gaza, and all that technology that allowed you to spread your message throughout the entire world. I expect you probably used cars or other motorised vehicles to get to your protests. Were there many women on those protests? I expect not, because you instruct your unthinking followers to grind women into the dust, to subjugate them, to treat them as less worthy of respect than you, to repeatedly rape them, to kill them.

In that context it almost seems embarrassing to be uptight about a couple of cartoons.

After all, people choose whether to follow a religion, and to the extent that they follow it. They don't get to choose their gender. So, while I agree that there is no justification for attacking someone just because they choose to follow a religion, it is rather marvellous that this issue can be raised, in the West, and our elected representatives demonstrate that Free Speech is precious.

So, Great Caliph, what are you doing to protect women from random and repeated hate-filled attacks, in the name of religion?

Scary does Al-Jazeera

Our favourite Duck-like commenter, in his alter ego as Robber Rabbit covers Bush's bombing of Al-Jazeera.

Katrina

I have not blogged Hurricane Katrina. There is a part of me that discounts the British news media obsession with the USA, because I think a lot of it is based upon the accessibility of TV footage and the plethora of English-speaking witnesses, rather than news values eg last year's hurricane was all about Florida, and little about the Caribbean islands, even Jamaica.

But this is something quite different. Madmusings readers who know Megan (you know, the American woman who used to drink in the Trinity and was never allowed to join Streatham CLP), who may or may not know that Megan has just got a new job in New Orleans will be pleased to know I received an email on Monday saying

Dear All. shouldn't that be y'all I sent out a group email a few days ago with my new contact details, but I gave the wrong phone number. My landline number in New Orleans is xxxxxxxxxx. not for a while, dear...

For those of you who have expressed concern, I left New Orleans yesterday and am safe and sound at my mother's house in Lubbock. Hopefully classes will resume before too long...

I suddenly remembered that I have been to New Orleans. I looked through my photo collection,and realised I took very few photos actually in the city, more out in Louisiana, on the bayou and at a plantation. I was too busy having way too good a time; it's probably the only US city I would visit for its own sake; when Megan announced she had got a job there, I was "Wow! We are so going to visit you..."

I have just been horrified at what has been unfolding, glued to news bulletins for hours on end. I could go rationalising about it being no worse than natural disasters that hit, say, Bangladesh on a regular basis, but my expectation is that a country like the US with untold wealth, amazing resources, and a relatively corruption-free system of government, and used to massive logistical exercises could cope with such a situation.

On a newsgroup, someone posted an enquiry about how to donate (there were suggestions of Red Cross). Having watched a couple of hours of news coverage I posted

Hey, did you guys have an appeal to pay to send all the poor black people off to die in Iraq? Or do you just have one to have half-hearted belated search and rescue of the poor black people stranded in Louisiana and Mississippi?

Wisely, perhaps, most people didn't respond, but one person replied

If you pay attention to the newscasts, you'll see that it's mainly White people fighting in Iraq. We take lots of young Black men into our army to keep them off the streets of our cities but when real fighting needs to be done, they're useless; we keep them at bases in Okinawa or Berlin so they don't get in the way.

Many of your "poor Black people stranded in Louisiana" are shooting at the relief helicopters when they're not looting liquor stores; too bad the levees didn't break sooner and wash them into the Gulf.

There's so many answers I'm tempted to give, such as 'where did they get the guns from?' or just to highlight that that person other's post suggested that rather giving to the Red Cross they give to the Southern Baptist Appeal. I had to double-check it wasn't signed George W Bush, but I'm not sure that he, for all his bible-bashing Christianity, would ever be quite that callous. I thought it best to just let it sit there and speak for itself. There hasn't exactly been a rush of Americans leaping to shoot it down, though. Hopefully because they detest Off-Topic Threads rather than because they endorse the views. Good Morning, USA.

Mind you, I have just been watching Fox News and I am appalled. Apparently, this is the news channel of choice of the majority of Americans. It is a shameful. I have watched it for half an hour and they have told me nothing, absolutely nothing, except that Dubya's touring the region (from safe helicopter distance, of course), and that some pastor from California is preparing to give spiritual healing to the victims. Just what they need, on top of everything else, bloody Christian do-gooders.

You know, I was thinking, people in that situation have a moral obligation to loot. A police captain from Small Town, La, said as much on Channel 4 news: if someone is looting food, his police are instructed to do nothing; if it's a TV or whiskey, they're going to jail. Not shot on site, by the way, but going to jail. Although, if I was living beneath the poverty line - what, in the richest country on earth, ruled by Christians, they ought to be ashamed - if I believed the system had let me down, if I believed the system had never given a shit about me, sure, I'd be looting everything I could lay my hands on. The stores will all write it off to insurance anyway, and besides what good is a "Flood Clearance Sale". Not going to happen.

What no one has mentioned yet is whether they are sending in relief supplies of heroin and crack. I appreciate it is entirely unmentionable, and who knows how they could ever organise distribution (when they clearly haven't got a vindaloo as even how to distribute water and food) but if you have ever seen one crack-addict needing a fix, let alone a thousand, or ten thousand, you have some insight into what murderous desperation is.

Of course, no one is to blame for a Hurricane, it's just an Act of God. I wonder how the evil bible-bashers, Bush included, will explain that one away: perhaps as righteous retribution by their God on the indolent poor drug users of Decadence City (who don't matter because they don't vote, and sure as hell don't vote Republican).

I mentioned in a comment on someone's blog a few weeks back that I am currently monitoring the beginning of the end of the US Empire, and would write about its Decline and Fall if I wasn't so lazy. I think another chapter, titled "Acceleration", is just unfolding now. The Americans, in general, will remain oblivious as they are fed the Good News by Fox News, Inc.

I will, of course, recant my post if I hear that one million Americans have traded their SUV for a SmartCar/bicycle/walking-boots combination, but guess that the majority of the residents of 45 states are sleeping comfortably in the knowledge that they live in the Greatest Nation on earth - hey, Fox News has told them this is so. I think we can safely assume Dubya can organise a piss-up brewery, but do his talents go any further than that?

Ratzinger vs Romero

Jeanne at Body and Soul - who researches her blog posts, rather than extemporising looks at the relevance of Ratzinger's membership of the Hitler Youth in The German Shepherd and the Salvadoran Pastor.

I've got a bit bored going round t'internet ticking people off for saying "Don't like that guy, he was in the Hitler Youth". At the age of 14. I do notthink it's relevant, but Jeanne says

he shows that he's still unwilling to face the complexity of moral choice. Whatever understandable lack of physical courage he displayed as a teenager is trumped a thousand times over by moral cowardice today.

I am not sure that I fully understand it, and will have to re-read it. But it's intellectually lazy to say "Don't like that guy, he was in the Hitler Youth" and leave it at that.

All gone hectic

There I was all settling for a nice quiet blogging at work, when I decided it was time to see if I could produce some white smoke. Despite standing outside the building and drawing frantically on a cigarette, the smoke remained resolutely black.

So I went back inside and caught a glimpse of a TV screen in the lift lobby showing a papal chimney. On my floor I looked at the TV screen, where the smoke billowing looked distinctly white. Then black. Then sort of grey, as the BBC explained it might or might not be white, as in 1978, and we'd know if it was white if bells started peeling.

Well, we hung around, I declared "It's Ratzinger, being so early." They all looked at me, I thought, you know, I could be one of these BBC pundits, money for old rope if you ask me. I had to quickly reassure my colleagues that I didn't have a hotline to the Vatican...

Eventually some stern old bloke came out and began addressing us. I could understand the Latin fine. At least, I think it was Latin, it was some language I could understand fine.

"Oh, he's called Joseph," I thought. "That will please Nephew #1." Then the stern looking bloke and the Beeb said it was Ratzinger, so I stormed off for a much needed pee, exchanging glum regrets with a woman in the lift lobby.

I returned and asked "What's he calling himself?"

"Benedict," they said.

"Oh," I thought, "that will please Nephew #2". And explained to my colleagues that six weeks ago my nephew arrived, called Benedict.

So remember, what my family does today, the Vatican does tomorrow

Let's hope he's not burdened with people's assumptions that he was named in Papal honour. That could be tiresome. And if he goes to a Catholic school he could end up with an overload of similarly named classmates.

Both nephews have William as their second name. William, as in the future King.

Matt has assured me that Benedict I is a stern theologian with a rigid attitude to nappies and cots.

Wedding postponed

How many of us, when Royal Nuptials were originally announced, anticipated just what a Comedy of Errors they would become. I've been phoned and txted by my sister (Grand National is also Saturday) and Joe blogs it.

But Rainier seems to be hanging in there - perhaps he is picking his moment carefully.

Update: Mike also posts appositely.

Flight to middle of nowhere

Saint Helena to get first airport

That really is news! One of the reasons they haven't had one thus far is to do with finding alternative airports if that happens to be closed. You know, London is fog or snowbound, planes are diverted to Bournemouth or Paris or Manchester. But with St Helena nowhere was regarded as within range. Obviously they've changed their minds.

I actualy know someone who has been to St Helena, more than once. Via Ascension, but also via Cape Town.

Low key security

Yesterday I stood outside the building (still in Nibelheim) and glanced down the road. There seemed to be a couple of police vans parked outside Westminster Abbey. Must be something going on, I thought.

Didn't think anything more of it until I got home and watched the news. Turns out that Palestinians and Israelis are meeting at QEII together with Condoleezza Rice etc.

I was really surprised at how low key the security was, compared to, say, the State Visit of the President of South Korea.

Boycott cocaine

Plea for boycott of 'unethical' cocaine

There is an irony that the average dinner party will serve up for afters Fairtrade coffee and exploitative cocaine. Their 'coolness' is seen as having moral equivalence.

Thankfully, I have never sought to be 'cool' or fashionable.

The Next Pope?

Time Magazine leads the google rankings for 'next Pope'

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the chief architect of Pope John Paul II's traditionalist moral policy, has long been a bugaboo for liberal Catholics. But they had stopped worrying that the German might one day ascend to St. Peter's throne. His hard-line views and blunt approach had earned him the epithet of panzerkardinal and too many enemies. Well, their worrying may now resume. Sources in Rome tell TIME that Ratzinger has re-emerged as the top papal candidate within the Vatican hierarchy, joining other front runners such as Dionigi Tettamanzi of Milan and Claudio Hummes of Sao Paolo.

My mother spits his name with venom.

Paddy Power currently has Tettamanzi at 5/2, Hummes at 3/1, and Ratzinger a relative outsider at 10/1.

Four years ago, the BBC wrote

Claudio Hummes, 66, is Archbishop of Sao Paulo in Brazil. He is seen as a moderate, and has spoken out on human rights issues.

In theory any adult male Catholic could become Pope, but convention dictates that it's usually someone who is a Cardinal. Certainly a bishop.

Never going to be a woman, though. Because the Catholic Church believes women to be inferior to men. If everything else the Catholic Church did was perfect - which it isn't - it would still be fundamentally wrong because of its attitude to women.

Dead pool certainty

Pope John Paul taken to hospital

Looks like my Dead Pool nomination is finally about to come true. We set this four years ago. Since when the Queen Mother and Cowboy Reagan have shuffled off this mortal coil. But Thatch still remains.

I thought I was onto a sure fire winner with JP2.

And then it will all get exciting as we wait with baited breath for, literally, white smoke to announce the election of another right wing reactionary blood-on-his-hands bastard.

You youngsters (ie anyone under about 35) won't remember this, but I remember the days when it was a different Pope each year.

More thoughts on the Inauguration

It was an interesting exercise in watching the US Inauguration yesterday. Mainly on Fox News, although the core ceremony was carried by BBC News 24 - in general, vastly superior, although Gavin Esler was a very naughty boy when he started giggling whilst saying Dan Quayle's name.

Washington is a deeply impressive city architecturally. I have visited twice and have really liked it. Some splendid buildings, coupled with a remarkable sense of space. By memory, it was designed by Le Corbusier, and there is a law that dictates that no building should be higher than the Washington Memorial. The sight of the Washington Memorial reflected in the Reflecting Pond is impressive.

I've been to the White House but bizarrely have absolutely no memories of it. Perhaps a salutary lesson in how cameras really do preserve memories. One thing I do remember is when we were waiting in line to go in, Bush 1's helicopter - Marine 1? - came into land. He might well have been in it. He was certainly in DC that day.

In a Starbucks at Dupont Circus, the barrista wanted to engage my friend and I in a detailed analysis of British politics. I was up for it. She just wanted a chai latte. Overheard conversations were mainly political.

But outside the center, it is different. We got the subway the wrong way, and within a couple of stations the atmosphere was uncomfortable. Realising what we had done, we got out and it was an uncomfortable and threatening five minutes waiting for one in the right direction - at six o'clock in the evening.

We ordered a cab to take us home from the cinema. In Washington, the rules are you share cabs with total strangers. The other passenger wanted to go to a rough area. The cab driver seemed uncomfortable. Once he had dropped her off, he sped away and told us of his discomfort. In that short period we saw a drugs deal, someone shooting up and a couple having quick perfunctory - presumably bought-and-sold - sex.

This was quite different from the America portrayed, by the politicians, and by the newscasters and pundits yesterday. I got sick to the back teeth hearing about America is the greatest nation on earth, especially in the context of equality and indivisibility. Especially when this was followed by Republicans going on about how 'No Child Left Behind' demonstrates the greatness of the USA, that all children are entitled to an education. Of course they are, but this has been axiomatic in the Social Democratic countries of Europe at least since the Second World War, even when they have been ruled by parties of the right. I can't believe that the USA has taken to the Twenty-First Century to wake up to this.

Dubya made a big thing of being against racism, and, I have to say, despite his many faults, I would never accuse him of racism - heck, he even has an African-American mistress Secretary of State. (although the notorious Florida gerrymandering in 2000 was racist, amongst much else). Yet, the second most astonishing statistic about the November Vote was the extent to which it was ethnicity-based, with an overwhelming majority of African-Americans and Hispanics voting Democrat. And a majority of whites voting Republican. And the culture of 'with us or against us' is not a culture that celebrates diversity.

Most of all, I found it ironic that over-and-again they kept going on about America being the best nation on earth blah-de-blah, and at the same time, presumed that people in other countries watching would take inspiration from this show of democracy. I don't know whether the boasting is based on insecurity, but I know if I was ill-educated and living in a Third World country I would find the boasting offensive and it would sow a seed, or fertilise an already sown seed, of anti-Americanism.

To me, the single greatest thing about the USA is a culture, especially in the cities, especially of the East and West Coasts, and a few others, where, if you want to, you can prosper, regardless of whether you are a woman, or black, or gay, or whatever. Risk taking is encouraged, and rewarded. Pigeonholes are not applicable. That is why the US is a great nation. Yet, it is also a nation that harbours the Blue states, or areas, where bigotry, prejudice and pigeonholing is celebrated.

The rhetoric of Dubya - of walking side-by-side with nations that want to embrace democracy - is fine and noble. The devil, of course, is in the detail - to use a cliché. I suspect my vision differs significantly from Dubya, Condoleeeeeeeezza and Rummy. Although they would not use the word, they want to impose democracy. To me, that isn't possible. I'm not even sure that is philosophically possible to empower people.

To me, the dream of creating a democratic and free world does not lie in enabling and supervising elections. Voting is neither the beginning nor end of democracy. The economics of the First vs the Third World have been thrown into sharp focus this year. A programme on BBC4, 'Don't Watch That Watch This' listed the value of arms sales from the UK alone to Tsunami-hit nations. Which are not the poorest, nor are the UK's arms sales comparable to the US's. Libertarians, especially in the USA, balk at giving so much aid to the Tsunami countries. My concerns are that whilst they are getting this aid, the other needy nations are being forgotten.

I will not pretend at expertise in the economics of Third World Aid, but to me it is just plain wrong that for all that the West gives in aid, we get far more back in interest on debt. I do not know the answer to that, leaving that to Gordon Brown, who has made it his mission. What I do know is that any attempts to democratise nations by imposing elections is doomed to failure. I suppose what I want is a concerted long-term effort to build societies and nations from the bottom up, eradicating poverty, exploitation and ignorance, so that by sheer common sense, the benighted nations of the world take on the best aspects of Western-style democracies.

But it made me sad that it seemed that the best the Americans could say for their political system is that opponents are not poisoned and election results do not cause mass riots - unlike other, inferior, nations. A much more compelling case would have been to demonstrate the synergy between a democratic structure; and wealth, prosperity and freedom.

To be better than the bad and not very good is hardly a noble aspiration. It is barely an aspiration at all.

Bunch of amateurs

Fox News.

What a shower.

I have been watching them on and off during the afternon because they are carrying live pictures of the Presidential inauguration.

Talk about second-rate shonky rubbish.

The presenters are barely capable of stringing sentences together. Actually, the show seems to be mainly about the presenters, all congratulating each other on the fact they've all changed their job titles today, discussing each other's millinery for previous inaugurations. It seems that the very biggest news story in DC is that some reporter suffered some superficial scratching when something fell on her.

Meanwhile, the Inauguration is 'watched by the entire world as a symbol of everything that God has blessed our nation with and is good so help me god the whole world is sitting and asking god to be blessed with all the equality and freedom that we in our great godblessed indivisible united under god equal god blessed nation is hallelujah the rest of the world is jealous so help me god hallelujah'

Well, apart from those in the rest of the world who are pissing themselves laughing at shonky amateurism. Also at how rubbish Fox News is.

You know, they have an 'expert commentator' doodah bloke who clearly knows less about Presidential Inaugurations than I do. I think he knows less about the USA than I do. Money for old rope.

Gissa job.

Wasn't it nice to see 42 and 44 together in the VIP enclosure?

Bush joke

George Bush and Dick Cheney are enjoying a celebration lunch at a fancy
Washington restaurant. Their waitress approaches their table to take
their order; she is young and very attractive.

She asks Cheney what he wants, and he replies, "I'll have the
heart-healthy salad."

"Very good, sir," she replies, and turning to Bush she asks, "And what
do you want, Mr. President?"

Bush answers, "How about a quickie?"

Taken aback, the waitress slaps him and says, "I'm shocked and
disappointed in you. I thought you were committed to high principles and
morality. I'm sorry I voted for you." With that, the waitress departed
in a huff.

via non-blogging Ros

Hmm

You know when you're a kid, and you put your hands over your eyes in the belief that if you don't see it, it will go away?

Well, I spent yesterday in that mentality. When I went to bed Tuesday night, the exit polls were positive, and indications such as turnout in urban areas was up. On the Beeb a Democrat was chirpy, a Republican glum. I went to bed and asked Jimmy to wake me up when he got up. He woke me up and I groaned, so he left and came back a few minutes later to say Bush had won.

I alternated between ignoring it and trying to decide what to say. Then I thought I would wait for the papers, and I find that Brian Reade has said exactly what I would have liked to have said - God Help America

I'm not one of those who believes that the end of the world is nigh. The world has always been a belligerent place. And I don't think it makes a spot of difference which of two conservative parties has charge of the US Presidency.

But I certainly don't have any hope for resolution of problems. I was going to say that the gravest is Palestine, with its treatment by a hawkish-to-the-extreme Israeli government bankrolled by the USA. But I don't think that global poverty, not least AIDS in Africa, and elsewhere is any less of a problem. Nor is Climate Change.

A benign progressive US President with the ability to take his population with him, could make a massive change for good in those areas. George Bush will continue not to do so.

There are issues of domestic policy that it is simply not my business even to comment on.

But in areas like stem-cell research, even if it is primarily a domestic issue, it is one with global significance. Of course stem cell research is going on in progressive countries, but scientific progress happens more quickly with true international co-operation.

I use the word 'progressive', and that really is one of the great dilemmas about the USA. I don't think any other nation on earth manages to combine such a combination of progressive, liberal, innovative, outward-looking populations in the great population centres in the North East and the West Coast, and elsewhere, with such a bunch of neanderthal ignorant and reactionary...rednecks...in the rural and Southern hinterlands.

Accident of birth

Everything he does is a cheat and Queen Maud of Norway may have been impregnated by her doctor, possibly without her knowledge, to cover up for her husband's infertility

I find the Norway story absolutely fascinating, and I am really surprised the British tabloids haven't picked it up. Perhaps because it makes uncomfortable reading.

I am absolutely no expert on the Norwegian Constitution, but I do know that their monarch is hereditary. If this story is true, it makes a total mockery of the hereditary principle. That, of course, is the main point of the news coverage. The other point, and to my mind, the more important, is that this woman was, allegedly, impregnated against her knowledge. I cannot see this as anything other than a grave assault. One of the privileges of being a woman is either knowing for absolute certain who the father of your child is, or, alternatively, knowing that you don't know.

I have read that their were rumours that the Queen and Princess and Margaret were also conceived by artificial insemination. Obviously, I don't know - doubt -if this is true, but my understanding is that there isn't a question about their paternity.

If I were Norwegian, I would view this information as evidence of an utterly corrupt system. I believe it has repercussions outside of Norway, because all the Royal Families of Europe act in concert. And we know the importance of selecting a brood mare for an heir to the throne.

I'm not even in rant mode, but I simply cannot understand the logic of assuming that the ability to be Head of State is something that is passed down in the genes. Perhaps the illegitimate king managed to be king because he was trained for it from birth.

If you look at areas of endeavour, such as politics, sport or arts/entertainment you do not find many examples of a parent and a child both being exemplary in the same field. Three current examples spring to mind. But Frank Lampard Senior was never as respected and as achieving a footballer as Junior; Shaun Wright-Phillips perhaps demonstrates that nurture trounces nature; and George W Bush demonstrates that neither can guarantee ability.

We - all the nations of Europe with monarchs - accept these Royals as Heads of State based upon their genetic inheritance yet not only does the evidence suggest genetics to be unimportant, it also suggests they are irrelevant. Oh, and we're supposed to respect them, as well.

Do me a favour...

Beheading hostages

This is a post where I request careful reading before leaping to flame the comments box.

I feel a degree of empathy for the man held hostage, and for his family. Perhaps the endless waiting and not knowing is literally a fate worse than death. If it were any family, friend or acquaintance of mine, I would be in torment.

There is no moral justification whatsoever for such deadly blackmail.

However. What is he doing in Iraq? He is not a soldier, obliged to take orders. He is a construction worker, who freely and voluntarily made a choice to go to Iraq. One has to assume that he was aware that Iraq is a state of anarchy, with mindless acts of random violence. He must have weighed up the risks. And still decided to go. Or failed to research the risks, which is unbelievable.

In life we weigh up risks and rewards. There is usually a relationship. He chose to take the risks in Iraq. I am guessing the financial rewards are handsome. And that is where my sympathy stops. He is not a soldier, obeying orders. He is not an aid worker. He is a construction worker who chose to take a contract in Iraq. There are a hundred thoudand vacancies in the construction industry in Britain. This is not Auf Weidersehn, Pet. This is sheer materialism.

And meanwhile, very many Iraqi construction workers are jobless.

My sympathy just ran out.

Catholic charity defies Pope on condoms

THE Roman Catholic Church's leading international aid agency, Cafod, has come out in public support of the use of condoms in the fight against Aids, placing it in direct opposition to the Pope.

People of my acquaintance will cite this as further evidence of the enlightened liberalism of CAFOD. But I'm afraid it's too little, too late. It's ambiguous:

Although the agency does not intend to go so far as to distribute condoms in the developing world, where the disease has hit hardest, the charity makes it clear that to deny condoms to potential Aids victims is itself a denial of the Catholic pro-life teachings.

Philosophically and doctrinally a major step; practically, a genocidal fudge.

And nothing about the use of contraception to alleviate endemic poverty.

Thatcher arrested

Thatcher protests coup innocence. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy. Let's hope Mummy-dearest is desperately upset at the plight of Mummy's Boy and suffers a relapse.

Who didn't hope that they'd misheard 'Mark Thatcher'.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favour of the demise of repressive dictators, but I don't suppose for a moment that Thatcher and cronies were (allegedly) carrying out a contract on behalf of Amnesty International.

There was something in the New Statesman a few months ago about how the hawks are circling over Equatorial Guinea, a country rich in reserves of oil that makes petrol, and a population of just half a million.

It will end up being the first nation actually owned by a multi-national, IMO.

Speedblogging

I must get back to this blogging.

Great weekend, thanks for all your kindness. Two lovely meals, one at Sarastro and another at our favourite Chinese, Chuen Cheng Ku, plus a fair amount of drinking, lots of sleeping, and a film Something's Gotta Give. We' seem to be participating in a mini-Jack Nicholson Festival this year, having seen As Good as It Gets on the TV and About Schmidt on Sky Box Office. During the film , my phonenever seemed to stop vibating with text messages so I was surprised, angry and relieved to read that Manchester United won a last-gasp 4-3 after being 3-0 up.

I haven't really being following the news, partly because my back and shoulders seem slightly strained so I'm trying to ease off home computer use, and partly because the internet connection at work was farked, but am I right in saying that Senator John Kerry McFadden has won in the Bush? Psssst, don't tell anyone, but were I to change my name on marriage I would be called Gerry McFadden....good reason not to change my name....

And it seems that my political masters have set up a new agency named after a modern form of Calypso. Oops!

Incidentally, I believe that the deaths of the Morecambe  cocklers to be desperately sad. I do have strong opinions, although, of course, no easy solutions, but this is not the place to air those opinions.

The ethics of execution

When I see articles like this in the BBC Magazine, I know with absolute certainty that if the BBC didn't exist we would have to invent it.

I can't imagine a philosopher exploring the moral dilemma of executing Saddam on Sky, somehow. What, admit that things are often not black and white? Don't want to confuse the readers/viewers now, do we.

They got him

Part of the reason that I didn't post yesterday was the news that Saddam Hussein has been captured.

I wanted to think about what it meant. It seems too easy to celebrate as if it is just a sporting occasion, and say "Ha - post hoc justification for the war." I was quite shocked to hear on the radio that this means that the war is over - it made me want to tear my hair out in despair.

It is merely another chapter in a long and sorry saga. Let's go back to the First World War, when Iraq, a made-up country with a made-up name, was created from the wreck of the Ottoman Empire. The Ba'athists came to power with the support inter alia of the CIA. For many years Saddam was the ally of the West - my enemy's enemy is my friend, and he was at war with Iran. We shipped weapons, overtly and covertly, to Iraq to aid the war against Iran. I was attacked as unpatriotic for saying that in the Southend smoking room during the 1991 Gulf War.

I will confess that the news of the gassing of the Kurds in Halabja in 1988 does not feature in my memory, nor, I suspect, my diary. Perhaps because it occurred the week after my father's death, so I was in no frame of mind to concentrate on world events. But, surely, if it was a big news story, it should have seeped into my consciousness. Perhaps it didn't get sufficient news coverage.

The history of the Nineties is a story of abject failure - the US Government giving Saddam a nod and a wink to invade Kuwait, then the arbitrary decision to go to war to defend Kuwait. The fiasco of the sanctions that had no effect upon the regime but condemned very many ordinary Iraqis to death and disability. I'm not even mentioning the effects of Depleted Uranium.

I am still not convinced of the case for war in Iraq this year. The capture of Saddam will be used in eternity to justify an otherwise disgraceful episode. The errors, blunders and trimming are legion - the lies about Iraq being behind Al-Qaeda (despite all the evidence showing that they were sworn enemies and as ideologically opposed to each other as they are to the West; the hurry to get the weapons inspectors out of Iraq in order to start the invasion; the lies that it would be clinical, with minimal civilian casualties; and most of all, the tissue of lies that attempted to justify a pre-emptive strike, an invasion of a foreign country, against all the principles of International Law.

The war is far from over, and, sadly, I cannot see Iraq finding closure soon. It was interesting reading Paddy Ashdown, High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, saying that the Mistake made in BoH was to insist on establishing democracy before the rule of law. The same mistake is being made in Iraq - the concept of democracy is attractive, but is meaningless without the rule of law.

I appreciate that I am not being eloquent, or particularly insightful, but I just feel this need to record my gut feelings - gut feelings built up over fifteen years.

I also have to say that I am appalled by the thought that he will be executed. I guess it seems the least that can be done in vengeance for the thousands of brutal deaths for which he is responsible. But however evil the crime and the criminal, it still does not justify cold-blooded murder by the state. Those that execute in the name of law-enforcement bring themselves to the level of the genocidist.

Philosophically, is a death sentence a punishment one should relish more or less than life imprisonment? Death is so final, and satisfies the public because it is absolutely conclusive that that person can never do again what he has done before. To be imprisoned for life allows the opportunity to reflect and repent upon what they have done - if they are capable of such reflection, and such repentance. If one believes in the Judaeo-Christian-Moslem god, and the variations of perdition, is to die at the hands of a hated state a means of redemption, becoming, literally, a martyr?