The Fierce Last Stand

A letter to my MP, re: the takeover of BSkyB.

2011-07-11T12:27:00.000+01:00

FOR THE ATTENTION OF:

Maria Eagle MP
Garston and Halewood

Monday 11 July 2011

Dear Maria Eagle,

I would like to know, among other things, how you intend to vote (should there be a vote) on the takeover of BSkyB?

As you know, the last week has seen the Murdoch empire brought into further disrepute. The actions of Mr Murdoch in the last week have seemingly only been taken to protect Ms. Brooks and the potential success of the BSkyB deal. At no point has any contrition been shown towards the victims, nor any apology proffered.

This suggests a blind malevolence that still informs the actions of Mr Murdoch and consequently the actions of his media outlets.

I would like you to acknowledge, regardless of the view one takes about common ownership in the media, that Mr Murdoch and News Corp are not suitable fixing points for what will potentially become an unrivalled degree of concentrated power.

Furthermore, I would like you to acknowledge that any debate over greater regulation of the tabloid press is of secondary importance to ensuring the moral credentials of the organisation to whom we are about to open the floodgates.

Further regulation of criminal behaviour should not be a government objective. In fact it is the complete eradication of such behaviours which should be desired and indeed expected given the evidence which has for many years has been in possession of the police.

It is not enough to allow unfit owners to further contaminate the media whilst using reform of press regulations to paper over a glaring sense of moral bankruptcy. I would like you to lobby the government to immediately block the takeover of BSkyB as a matter of urgency, so as to address the underlying issue of corruption of an individual reputation.

Finally, I would like to know your views on the inertia which has characterised the actions of the Metropolitan police when faced with the need to investigate News International. Are you particularly troubled by this inaction in light of the fact that News International executives have admitted to personally authorising payments to the police?

I hope that the Labour Party and yourself are aware of how unacceptable it would be to allow the Murdoch empire back into bed with the political establishment. The British political elite have for too long thought it necessary to keep Murdoch onside as a means to keep the public onside. This has now been turned on its head, in order to keep the public onside it is necessary for both Labour and the Conservative party to maintain a considerable and permanent distance from Murdoch and his grubby media cabal.

I look forward to your reply.

Yours sincerely,

Adam Grace.

The Royal Wedding & the Need to Shout About It

2011-04-27T00:23:00.001+01:00

In the build up to the day that Commander Christine Jones and the Met have designated as one only for " pageantry and joy", the lack of even the slightest stirring of a republican protest movement is surprising.

The increasingly ferocious anti government protests in the capital and around the country have taken many by surprise in the last 8 months. There are undeniably a burgeoning number of people who have found it necessary to push at the boundaries of political dissent as they hear their democratic voice being reduced to a muffled murmur. An even larger number have been mobilised to attend one of the scores of anti-cuts marches that have taken place in various cities. Of late there has been little talk of 'apathetic Britain'.

On Friday though, all whilst our welfare state and public sector are being slowly bled out, no expense to the public purse will be spared. Despite this, it seems the streets of London will be sadly devoid of Sex Pistols imagery and instead saturated with a depressing mass of union jacks and party hats.

Surely this would have provided the ideal opportunity for high profile, widespread protests? Firstly for those who oppose government cuts, secondly for those latent Republicans, those who can see only vulgarity and blood money in the Windsor clan, those who love democracy more than transmissible titles; I am not so cynical as to believe that these people are a small minority. Why then have the only applications for large scale protests been made by extremist organisations who provide no reflection of wider public opinion? It feels like a rare opportunity is going to terrible waste.

Despite the apparent lack of a credible protest movement for this Friday, the Metropolitan Police have been very careful to tell us all what we should be thinking and doing for the big day.

"
..this is a day of celebration, joy and pageantry. It is a fantastic day for Britain. Any criminals attempting to disrupt it, be that in the guise of protest or otherwise, will be met by a robust, decisive, flexible and proportionate policing response."

It's hard not to notice the less than surreptitious connection that Commander Jones makes between criminality and protest. The Met are seemingly so concerned with spontaneous outbreaks of dissent, that not only are such dissenters pre-ordained as likely criminals but they are furnished with the official police line on what their exact emotions should be, should they be stricken with an improper and unfitting sense of rage.

In the run up to this inglorious celebration of our ingrained democratic chasm, I suppose it is only fitting that the Met are giving increasingly illiberal press conferences. That said, it would be unfair for the Met to shoulder the blame for a very specific form of apathy amongst an otherwise highly engaged political demographic.

What about those who will be sitting, guffawing in front of their televisions on Friday, marvelling at the peculiarity of it all? Will their voices be wilfully silent? What about the victims and soon-to-be victims of economic austerity? Where will they be as millions upon millions of pounds of public money is frittered away on 'Britain's big day'? Where will those who value democracy be whilst the party for hereditary privilege rages? Why not go along with a catchy slogan and diversify the inhabitants of central London? It's not too late.

Republished at LiberalConspiracy.org – 27/04/11

The Libyan Rebels & the Anti-War Left.

2011-04-24T02:22:00.001+01:00

The scepticism of those on the anti-war left in regard to the Libyan intervention, although understandable, has often taken confused and confusing forms.

Those who would have us leave Gaddafi alone will often point out the inconsistency that has watered the roots of western foreign policy for decades. 'Our governments have, after all, sold many stockpiles of heavy artillery to the besieged Colonel, and now we want him removed? What stinking hypocrisy is this?' This argument seems to form part of the foundation of the anti-interventionist line of attack.

The argument goes still; 'Since we have aided Gaddafi by arming him to the teeth, further involvement in Libya is an imperialist step too far. We loaded Gaddafi's weapons caches which he now uses on his own people, in light of this we can't trust our governments to have any positive impact on Libya.'

This I'd contend, is a specious argument. Non-interventionism would not have been a policy of neutrality. Had there been no UN Security Council Resolution, and no 'no fly zone', we'd still have to live with the fact that we have intervened in Libya, although the weight of our intervention would have given advantage only to Gaddafi in his mission to violently defeat the uprisings.

As desperately immoral as arming him indeed was, making no attempt to redress this is allowing for our weapons sales to define our involvement in the conflict.

'The conflict is likely to be long and drawn out, potentially leading to a prolonged stalemate or a civil war.'

The necessity of a plan for victory is highlighted by the elongated and tumultuous engagement in Iraq. But in such efforts to plan for what we determine as a justifiable conflict we ought to be careful not to put too loud a ticking clock on our involvement. Such timescales only provide a date on which the opposition can focus their determination to hold out. Such open desperation to withdraw from Afghanistan has doomed that country to a prolonged misery. The Taliban are encouraged to play the long game, wait for inevitable withdrawal and the reinstatement of their free reign to terrorise and oppress. Our withdrawal from Afghanistan may as well be tomorrow, so deeply inscribed is the writing on the wall. But it need not be this way with Libya.

'But what about all the murderous despots we chum up, or turn a blind eye to for the sake of oil or other economic interests? What about the innocent people who die as a result of unmanned drone attacks in Pakistan?'

I am not here to argue as to the perfection of Western foreign policy. Indeed I would be among the first to acknowledge that there is very rarely any good that comes from our surreptitious or overt involvement in the internal affairs of sovereign nations. But Gaddafi relinquished his country's sovereignty when he instructed the military to fire upon innocents and made our intervention not only mandated but morally prescribed. As it is in Libya, so it is in Syria and Yemen where the UN's collective turning of backs is a moral outrage, as some on the anti-war left are strangely quick to point out.

Also an outrage, as Johann Hari points out, is the Obama administration's killing of thousands of civilians in Pakistan via drone strikes coupled with faulty and imprecise intelligence. This policy draws attention to the blood that manages to lie discretely beneath the fingernails of many Western leaders. But this is not genocide; this is not a direct targeting of civilians because they want to claim for themselves the right to self determination and basic self respect. As grubby as the action of the US Remote Control Corps in Pakistan might be, it does not invalidate the US' responsibility to protect and nurture the sparks of freedom that flicker in eastern Libya. If our leaders are not to be trusted in Libya, then who's are? In the absence of a morally qualified and powerful enough entity, should Gaddafi just be left to get on with it because there's nobody suitably unblemished to oppose him?

Not only do I find confusing the suggestion that since we are so hopelessly malign in the majority of our foreign policy dealings, we must abstain from siding with a just, humanitarian cause, I am also confounded by another logical paradox;

Imagine a utopia in which western foreign policy was virtuous and consistent to the letter, imagine never having to feel conflicted in your support for the operations of our military forces. What a perfect world it would be. But if the absence of such perfection forms a main strand of the anti war argument, by those terms would perfection's presence make our intervention justifiable?

I can see perfectly well the virtues of arguing that our country follows a course of action that would be consistent with its behaviour were our foreign policy morally unimpeachable. Arguing the reverse is to argue that we are far too immoral and contaminated with oil lust to be involved in the prevention of genocide. Such casuistry is not befitting of respected figures of the left.

A vigorous anti-war movement is an ever present in any healthy society, although ironically such vigour is often symptomatic of the unsavoury elements that can pass through the coarse sieve of democracy. Despite their honourable grounding, it seems that some of the anti-war left in Britain is now so blinded by a confused anti-imperialism that all nuance of international responsibility is lost on them. They seem unable to see a Security Council resolution brimming with checks and balances designed to prevent the type of imperial yearnings that eviscerated any hope of a happy ending in Iraq.

Nobody knows what the future holds for the people of Libya. It seems to me though, that when any nation of people calls out to us and our government with an emergent democratic voice, our obligation is to do what we can to amplify that voice. The alternative is to continue the shameful cycle of anti-democratic foreign policy and allow it to be silenced.

Public Disorder & The Real Enemies of Democracy

2010-11-25T22:38:00.001Z

Following this month's student protests in central London and across the country, the left has found itself polarised over the position of the uncross-able line when it comes to political dissent. In every news report, the proposition is put squarely before us that we are obliged to play by the rules of peaceful protest. The received opinion amongst the entirety of the right (and a good proportion of the left too) is that if a protest is to be democratic then it must also be entirely passive.

There is however a sizeable minority that posits an alternative theory, which is that if we are to defend democracy with any success then there should be no obligation to play by the rules of those who flout it.

Where can we conscionably lay the uncross-able line when the electorate is this far marginalised through evaporating promises and pledges? This is not simply a case of protesting against a policy that isn't appealing, or is distasteful and not to our advantage. It's not just a minority interest that wants to influence the government into making a decision one way or another. Rather, it is about making a fuss over the casual repeal of the fundamental ethical columns of our social democracy.

Nick Clegg's Liberal Democrats, as the subtle facilitators of state hostility, have the most to answer for. They directed their election campaign at those who oppose tuition fees and those who oppose public sector cuts. When those votes were won, they used them to help raise tuition fees and to decimate the public sector.

Feast your eyes;

Nick Clegg in April 2010:

"Of course I would vote against cuts which would destroy any chance we would have of having a sustainable recovery."

Nick Clegg in May 2010:

"No-one went into politics to seek to deliver cuts but we all know as a country it is necessary."

What a difference a month makes. A new government can usually hope to live through a honeymoon period in which they retain their idealistic aesthetic, but the actions of Nick Clegg in May of this year has brazenly lain bare the transient nature of those in whom we place our hopes and dreams. Making catchy sound bite pledges is just a tactic, seen as a mere form of political expediency, before the inevitable turning of backs on the arguments that have granted them democratic legitimacy.

If there were to be any doubt with regard to the sincerity of Nick Clegg, it soon became apparent that he had in fact changed his mind about the need for cuts in the months preceding the election, he had just failed to convey that sentiment to the electorate.

A simple question, do the actions of Nick Clegg appear in service of the Athenian ideal, or in fact are they the actions of a man who is prepared to do and say what is necessary to gain elected office and increase his influence?

A line has been crossed. Those who seek office and then immediately abandon their voters are viciously undermining our democracy. This is a truth which seems to remain largely unspoken in the mainstream press, while those who participate in disordered protest are castigated even by those on the left as the great enemies of democratic debate.

In times such as this, a protest which is controlled and limited becomes paradoxical; it becomes the illusion of rebellion. Your every action of defiance must be pre-approved by the authorities. Those in power can not be effectively called to account when police are able to keep people from protesting where they want and from going home when they want. That is an exercise of power rather than a challenge to it. Instead, it is the patience and the will of the protestors that is challenged as their simmering anger is kettled into the shape of cowered resignation.

Our democracy is hijacked.

In such a state of emergency, there is a strong argument for protests which reject the regulations put upon them, as long as they strategically target their disorder upon property and not individuals.

It is not the civil disobedience of those young people who occupied Millbank or those kids who spray painted slogans of revolution on government buildings that undermine democracy; they are amongst those who advocate it most fiercely. They know when they are being denied it and they are not willing to submit to kettling and batons when they go out on the streets to express their rage.

For several small interludes in the past month the manipulated have pulled the strings, briefly, desperately and beautifully. Democracy has peeked through the cloud, unencumbered by relentless obscurantism, and shone on Whitehall in defiance against its enemies.

Tuesday Morning Mass

2010-11-02T17:57:00.001Z

Today, for my sins, I am attending mass.

I stand at the back of the main hall in a secondary school for Catholic boys as some two hundred Year 8 children (12/13 years old) are led in.

Mournful, soaring choir music is piped in through overhead speakers, as though it comes from on high.

As they enter, in single file, their boisterous noise dissolves to reverent silence. Their perpetually aggressive body language dissolves to gracious timidity and the boys are transformed from urchins to angels before my eyes.

Even the most fervent atheist cannot help but notice the effect that only such a ceremony seems able to elicit in these young men. As I observe, I can't escape the feeling that there is something that feels 'right' about this liturgy, despite holding the firm conviction that it is anything but. When I can bring myself to put all thoughts aside and rely entirely on feelings and emotion, there is something which is aesthetically beautiful about the experience of mass. This feeling soon evaporates.

At the crucial moment, the science teachers queue to receive communion and I'm fairly sure that my face is visibly glowing and my silent aspersions might as well be bellowed condemnation. How, I ask myself, have we meandered to a point where educated people can be so given over to solipsism that for five hours each day they can impart empirical science to young minds, yet cannot live without the idea that the universe has been created with them at the centre?

Ritualism appeals to something innate in us, but that doesn't speak to the truth or morality of any religious scripture or doctrine. This is the inherent contradiction of religion, our thoughts and intellects are encouraged to become subdued in favour of feelings and emotions. This is unacceptable in an educational institution. Children should be taught that the development of intellect and rational thinking are the best ways to form emotional intelligence. The transcendent and cerebral can be wholly compatible, but not in the theistic, numinous shape that the transcendent usually takes.

The young priest, with his subtly effeminate idiosyncrasies, earnestly tells his captive audience that they are all made in the image of god. He predictably goes on to say, in so many words, that human sacrifice is inherently a moral and redeeming act and one that we should be grateful and give thanks for. What is the antonym of teacher? If such a word exists it surely does so to describe these shameless pedagogues who make careers from preaching lies to children.

Such lies may invest in these young men a more socially acceptable temperament, but at what cost? Their young brains are shackled with mind forg'd manacles, valuable study time is put aside in favour of solemnly pestering the disinterested heavens. Furthermore they are taught that out of the many hundreds of religions that man has created, Roman Catholicism is the one way to god and by implication everyone else has got it wrong. Is this morality? Is this education? Or is it something to be fought?

Fear inspires order. This is why religion takes such a prominent position in the British education system. Not because of the truth of it, but because of the sketchy moral structure that is garnered from reading it's texts selectively. Celestial authority trumps human authority every time and the convenience of this authority to those tasked with educating Britain's youth seems far from incidental.

The Devastation of the British Left

2010-10-30T12:12:00.001+01:00

Only a few months ago, Vince Cable was a man with answers. He was a man that appeared as though were he invested with just a tiny modicum of power could bring about the sweeping change that would rescue the British economy which had previously been decimated by vested interests. Nick Clegg was the fresh, youthful face of politics who given a chance would radicalise parliament and bring a much needed element of left wing idealism to the Cabinet table. Those of us of the 'St.Vince' persuasion salivated at the prospect of a hung parliament to the degree that if we could have voted for one then we would have. Let the liberal outsiders in and magic will happen, thought I foolishly.

This perception of Liberal vitality was echoed around the nation in the pre-election debates out of which the Liberal Democrats did astoundingly in the polls if not ultimately at the ballot box. People became briefly excited at the prospect of something more than incremental change. This quick firework of Liberal Democrat support scared the shit out of Labour and Conservative 'old heads', and suggested that the British public were not as cowered and entrenched in party loyalty as they in fact are.

Lib Dem disappointment on May 6^th was perhaps inevitable but always irrelevant. Nick Clegg feigned such frustrations on election night, when arriving in his Sheffield Hallam constituency for the results he was careful not to smile. He was careful to present the look of the moderniser in waiting, chomping at the bit to save the country only with the expectation of being left on the outside once more.

Clegg by this point already knew that our strange electoral system was likely to appoint him kingmaker. Such an appointment gave Clegg a power the likes of which no member of the government would ever be able to appropriate for themselves. One might have been forgiven for thinking on May 6^th, that the entirety of the electorate had ticked the box on the ballot paper marked 'I'll just vote for Nick Clegg and let him decide for me."

Decide he did, and here we are.

It's late October and the nights have been drawn in for several weeks. The recently released spending review doubled as a declaration of war on the public sector and the benefits system. This unnecessary war, which in theory should be waged equally on all demographics, is targeting the heavy artillery onto those with little to rely on in defensive manoeuvres. Companies (Vodafone) are allowed to steal billions of pounds worth of taxes from the British public whose tightened belts are starting to leave painful red marks and bruises that will not heal for decades. The ins and outs of the injustices and outrages of this liberally facilitated hostility are widely detailed on countless liberal blogs and can easily be looked up.

The pre-May 6th Liberal Democrats might well have not existed. Certainly their promises did not exist beyond mere visages; their pledges did not exist beyond power hungry incantations and the illusion that these promises and pledges might add up to something in the way of principles has been completely eviscerated. Those on the left feel burgled by the relentless evaporation of Liberal idealism.

Democracy is not served, as Clegg claims, by a centre left Liberal party joining with a sans-majority Conservative party, claiming a mandate and together espousing Conservative small-state politics as though they were one mind and not once political polar opposites. Democracy could have been better served by the Liberal Democrats joining with another party of the centre left and attempting to form a government based on a mandate provided by an electorate that largely voted for parties espousing leftist ideology.

Do the Liberal Democrats dare to imagine their party's future? Do they even have a future beyond the next 5 years of Conservatism? The great betrayal of the liberal left will not be forgiven. If Clegg and his party attempt to make a swift return to idealistic electioneering in 2015, it will be clear that they take their once core voters to be complete morons rather than just useful serfs.

Parliament in October 2010 is as depressing to a liberal as it perhaps has ever been. We look forlornly to the opposition benches to see a Labour party, still decimated and struggling to find cohesion. We look to where the Liberals once sat, seats which now are vestiges of what our politics could achieve should the electorate dare to trust in Liberalism en masse. Then our heads turn to the government front bench, we see Clegg and Cameron in unholy union. We look at the man we foolishly entrusted with our hope for renewal, then we look at our militant Thatcherite Prime Minister. We look back and forth, and find it impossible now, dare I say, to tell which is which.

Religion and Liberty: Uneasy Compromises

2010-08-23T14:19:00.005+01:00

Atheists, agnostics and non-believers of any stripe or sect are very often incredibly passive in their attitudes towards religion. They can't see the sense or the meaning in religious belief and it confuses them, at times bemuses them but ultimately their rested attitude towards religion is often that those who 'believe' should be free to at all times act in accordance with the teachings of their particular scripture. This is a perfectly reasonable point of view, or at least it would be if the holy mandates and those who promulgate them were in any way as benign and good natured as the majority of the faithful.

The freedom of the religious to impose their belief in the developing world is in increasing conflict with the freedoms of the weakest, most put-upon members of the human race to self determination, to standards of health care, to an education without an attached agenda. Do the majority of non-believers honestly think that we would be wrong to limit the freedom of the religious to impose socially damaging religious customs and ideals, even if such ideals increase the states of cultural bondage that shackle millions globally? I hope not, but it sometimes seems that way.

Liberty, obviously, is a principle tenet of any healthy society, but liberty is not the same as blanket permissiveness.

The balance between 'Freedom to' and 'Freedom from' underpins a large majority of democratic debate. A liberal society is one that recognizes that 'freedom to' occasionally needs to be regulated so as to increase 'freedom from'. Similarly we recognize that achieving a greater balance of permissive liberties over imposed restrictions is essential to avoid an authoritarian state. Some of the world's most horrendous regimes fail to recognize the importance of the balance and impose extreme limitations on 'freedom to', such as limiting the ability of women to realize their potential in favour of increasing 'freedom from' supposed celestial condemnation and the dreaded decline of patriarchy.

Our legislators don't always get it right either, the war on the freedom to take drugs being one of the more gratuitous attempts to appropriate legal control over a persons body. CCTV is another constant topic of debate, centering around the conflict between the freedom to privacy and freedom from the crime that the ubiquitous spy-cameras potentially help to limit. Similarly, an important facet of the debates on the right of Muslim women to wear a veil is the conflict between the freedom to wear the veil, and the freedom from being coerced into wearing one. The balancing act of freedom is an ever present and fundamental democratic function.

Many mainstream religions vociferously preach about the largest and (to me) most false imaginary construct in human history: hell, from which they deem it necessary to protect humanity at the cost of some entirely palpable and crucial freedoms. There are a great many examples across the modern world of faiths which are allowed to exempt themselves from the social contract, both when their social obligations clash with their religious ones or simply when a religion wants to avoid embarrassment or a scandal.

Here are some examples that have sprung to mind or at least have sprung from my Google News feed and prompted this blog post;

This week the morally sovereign Vatican deemed it appropriate to award the Papal Cross to several legislators from the Philippine island of Cebu. This prestigious award was given for "their love of the Church and loyalty to the Pope." But how was their love and loyalty to the Vatican demonstrated?

It was demonstrated by their successful opposition to proposed Reproductive Health legislation, which had it passed, would have saved countless Philippine lives and liberated countless subjugated women. No, it was not for their contributions to world peace but rather for their opposition to allowing women access to modern forms of contraception and to take ultimate control of their own uteri. This grand, Church endorsed, restriction of liberty has freedom from expected eternal damnation at its core at the expense of some of the most tangible and crucial of liberties.

Similarly Christian missionaries around the world (such as this one) offer faith infused health care courses, geared up to spitting out missionaries for the dual purposes of prosthelytization and medical provision. But the education, messages and treatments that the recipients of missionary work are most in need of, are the ones to which the missionaries are the most theologically opposed.

Just this week, the Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman released a report which concluded that the Catholic Church, the police and the government conspired to see that a member of the clergy was not investigated for his role in the bombing of Claudy, Londonderry in 1972. The attack claimed nine lives and is one in which the Friar James Chesney was strongly suspected to have been involved. He was moved to the Republic without any attempts being made to eviscerate these suspicions.

All these examples go some way to show the way that religion, particularly the Catholic Church has been allowed to transcend the institutions and values that we rightly cherish. Whether it be our judicial values and institutions or whether it be our humanist values of reproductive health and gender equality, the message is clear; religion is considered above it.

The pope, Ratzinger, will be welcomed into Britain next month. This despite the paper trail leading directly to his desk which strongly suggests that he was complicit in covering up the abuse of children in dioceses all over the world and protecting the abusers. If this was a secular man, fronting a secular institution he would be on bail or on remand right now. But instead he holds the keys to St. Peters and for that reason is not required to answer to the basic standards of justice.

The Vatican and other church leaders consider themselves guardians of a celestial explanation for existence. They want to be seen as transcendent of every other secular institution and yet do not seem able to prove that they have the moral substance to be trusted with such exemptions. Not only do they claim these special rights, but they also reserve special rights over freedom of expression when valid criticisms can so easily be derided, even by the irreligious, as blasphemy or bigotry.

So I have to ask, why is there such general sedation amongst the ever growing throng of non-believers? I have lost count of the number of atheists who tell me that they don't care much for the likes of Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens because of their confrontational style or for the forcefulness with which they state their opinions. This throng needs awakening to the fact that religious leaders are not as benign as most religious followers. They need to realize that the actions and teachings of these leaders can in very many instances lead to an utter degradation in the standards of living for their flock and an erosion of the values which we have come to know as vital to a healthy and happy society.

The freedom to practice a religion is essential, but we should never afford it transcendental worth over the values that we hold as crucial to a modern liberal democracy. We cannot allow the liberties which are granted to religious institutions to in anyway impinge on the freedom from such things as child abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, inequality, oppression and death. This doesn't just leave an imbalance in the 'freedom to'/'freedom from' scales, it is a complete abandonment of our obligation to strike that balance.

When the sedate non-believing masses become unwilling to compromise their values with those of dangerous and archaic religious institutions then I believe society will have the potential to become more healthy, more free and more morally cohesive than it has ever before been.

The sceptic and the bleach...

2010-08-11T15:40:00.001+01:00

An admirably tenacious and smart young Twitter user named Rhys Morgan last night posted a 20 minute video which is currently doing the rounds amongst the sceptic community.

In the video Rhys explains his desperate attempts to spread awareness to the populace of a Crohns Disease support forum, that an 'alternative treatment' known as Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS), has recently been declared dangerous by the FDA.

MMS is made from sodium chlorite solution (NaClO2) and high strength citric acid which the FDA has stated when mixed "produces chlorine dioxide, a potent bleach used for stripping textiles and industrial water treatment". The FDA goes on to recommend that current users of MMS immediately cease their consumption and dispose of any leftover product.

Despite these warnings the MMS website continues to recommend the solution, created by a man named Jim Humble, while at the same time ridiculously, boastfully and (in light of his name) ironically stating; "The answer to AIDS, hepatitis A,B and C, malaria, herpes, TB, most cancer and many more of mankind's worse diseases has been found."

There are obviously those who are easily influenced and desperate enough to believe that MMS can serve as a cure for almost every serious illness known to humanity. Some of these people happen to use MMS as a 'treatment' for Crohns Disease and have posted about their experiences at CrohnsForum.com

On this website, users of MMS who have lost their ability to swallow are encouraged by one member to drink the industrial bleach and are told that their symptoms are simply proof the treatment is working. This advice is dispensed by on-hand 'experts' with no assurance of qualified medical expertise requested or provided.

Rhys who himself is a Crohns patient, tried to bring the FDA warning to the attention of the members of CrohnsForum.com and as he explains in his video, ended up banned from the website. It seems that many of the forum members viewed Rhys' safety warnings as not in keeping with the tone of a 'support' forum.

This is an extreme example of the contempt with which clinical science is treated amongst some in the 'alt-med' community. They seem to consider it unsupportive to inform people that gargling with bleach just might be, y 'know, a bit of a batshit insane thing to do.

What's genuinely unsupportive is deleting warnings that may inform users of the dangers of their treatment. What's genuinely unsupportive is for a websites administrator to wilfully maintain the ignorance of their members whose access to the full facts of their treatment they are deliberately choosing to withhold.

Despite the product clearly being marketed at humans (including testimony from a lady who says that MMS both cured her gum disease and relieved her arthritis), the small print of this UK based site states that MMS; "is not intended for human consumption."

This is not even pseudoscience. The people who market this product are not doing so in the misplaced belief that their product works. They are deliberately misleading people by marketing a highly dangerous product as a cure for every incurable illness out there. They prey on the weak minded and desperately sick and they do so for the simple means of profit.

So I am writing this blog in support of Rhys and in an attempt to further proliferate his message, a task which he is fiercely going about himself. Already, in less than 24 hours he has managed to spread a great deal of awareness.

He suggests that his Twitter followers contact Devon County Council Trading Standards and Consumer Direct with regard to the above UK based website. You could also send an e-mail to the creator of Miracle Mineral Solution, the couldn't be less aptly named Jim Humble, to let him know what you think of his product.

Caroline Lucas and the anti-science motion...

2010-07-30T02:05:00.001+01:00

Caroline Lucas, the member for Brighton and Hove and leader of the Green Party, has put her name to a Parliamentary Early Day Motion (EDM) which "expresses concern" about the following;

".... motions 301a-301f at this year's British Medical Association's (BMA) Annual Representative Meeting, which call for no further commissioning of, nor funding for, homeopathic remedies in the NHS. "

Homeopathy is, to many minds, a perfect exercise in charlatanry. Despite the BMA voting last month "overwhelmingly" in favour of kicking the alleged charlatanry out of public health care, Caroline Lucas and her co-signatories are not happy, claiming that proper consultation did not take place. This wrongly suggests that there is still a public debate to be had on alternative medicine. Perhaps the debate will continue on in the private sphere for a tedious length of time until the last alleged charlatan dies out, but the public debate has been done, done again and paid for. It was investigated by the Parliamentary Commitee for Science and Technology, which published its findings in February of this year in a report which can be found here.

For the sake of brevity and kindness I'll cut to the chase. The section entitled "The evidence check: NHS funding and provision" states the following;

11. In our view, the systematic reviews and meta-analyses conclusively demonstrate that homeopathic products perform no better than placebos (Paragraph 70)

13. We regret that advocates of homeopathy, including in their submissions to our inquiry, choose to rely on, and promulgate, selective approaches to the treatment of the evidence base as this risks confusing or misleading the public, the media and policy-makers. (Paragraph 73)

14. There has been enough testing of homeopathy and plenty of evidence showing that it is not efficacious. Competition for research funding is fierce and we cannot see how further research on the efficacy of homeopathy is justified in the face of competing priorities. (Paragraph 77)

The reports 'Conclusions and Recommendations' section issues the following suggestion;

23. The Government should stop allowing the funding of homeopathy on the NHS.

So that should put an end to it, shouldn't it? No, of course not.

The findings of this committee have been perpetually ignored by Parliament as a whole, the NHS continues to pay lip service to medicine which could be described at best as pseudoscientific and at worst as robbery and quackery rolled into one. The website of one of our country's greatest institutions still proudly declares that..

Despite the lack of clinical evidence, homeopathy remains a popular complementary therapy and it is available on the NHS. In the UK, there are several NHS homeopathic hospitals and some GP practices also offer homeopathic treatment.

So, despite the huge creaking strain that the health service is under, it continues to give a platform of legitimacy for practitioners of what our Parliamentary Committee has discovered, is "inefficacious" and essentially highly dubious medical practice.

"Well at least it's regulated" was one argument put to me this week, "at least some form of standards can be applied to practitioners of homeopathy when they operate under the NHS banner". You'd think so wouldn't you? But the NHS website goes on to say..

Unlike doctors, nurses, and other conventional healthcare professionals, homeopaths do not have to be registered with a regulatory body. The 'Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council' is a voluntary organisation which practitioners can register with, but they do not have to.

Super.

As I see it, the NHS has been entrenched with a brand of shamanism which continues to leech from the increasingly dry teet of the public sector. Huge, swathing cuts are soon to cause the mass degradation of public infrastructure. Inarguably front-line services, such as the Sure Start program and the Future Jobs Fund have been scrapped, deemed not worthy of our tax pennies while parliament refuses to stop letting us foot the bill for acupuncturists and faith healers.

The Early Day Motion ends by calling on the government to

"...maintain its policy of allowing decision-making on individual clinical interventions, including homeopathy, to remain in the hands of local NHS service providers and practitioners who are best placed to know their community's needs."

No community needs medicine that doesn't work. Granted, communities do need diversity, and diversity of culture brings diversity of traditions. But medicine is not a tradition, it is an exact science which is violated when inexact and lazy concepts are given parity to it. I would not deny a traditionalist their right to their customs. I wouldn't deny an eccentric their right to eccentricity, but I would deny the assertion that I should be obligated to fund their houses wrapped entirely in bacofoil, or the whiskers tattooed onto their face.

Acupuncture and faith healing will undeniably cause some relief to the recipient. Perhaps it's even possible for this relief to be down to more than a simple placebo effect and should people wish their acupuncturist to ply them with needles and charge their card for the pleasure, I'd say more power to them. The state shouldn't be funding this, just like they shouldn't fund the teaching of religious dogma alongside empirical science, as though they are both equally plausible concepts. Any institutionalised, tax funded acceptance of homeopathy or creationism is a direct affront to the rigours of science.

The reason I have focused on Caroline Lucas and her recently added signature, is that she is the leader of a party which in some respects recognises the insidiously dangerous nature of the enemies of science more than any other. Climate change deniers largely cling on to conspiracy and half baked, disproved scientific theory in order to further their own agenda or private interests. The amount of damage that these deniers will do to humanity probably won't ever be quantifiable but it's safe to say that Caroline Lucas has some measure of it.

The Green Party's first ever MP has been incredibly refreshing in very many different respects. She speaks earnestly, advocating passionately for party and constituency interests. She has spoken very impressively about the dumping of toxic waste by Trafigura and has recently tabled her own EDM calling for justice for Ian Tomlinson. It might also be fair to say that her position on homeopathy may be some way informed by divides within her party, although their position on the place of alternative medicine within the NHS was plainly stated by press officer, Scott Redding in a pre-election Q+A with the Guardian.

"Our policy is that any medicine or treatment available on the NHS should be backed up by scientific evidence."

Their manifesto is slightly more watered down however (perhaps reflecting party splits) with the removal of that dirty word... evidence. It pledges..

"[to] make available on the NHS complementary medicines that are cost-effective and have been shown to work."

Regardless of party splits, it has been elucidated by a Parliamentary Committee and an entire wealth of research that there is no evidence to suggest that homeopathic medicine works beyond being a placebo. If Caroline Lucas and her Green Party continue with a policy of making room in the NHS for pseudoscience, they create a giant contradiction with their largest policy of environmental protection which relies so much on the unimpeachability of scientific rigour.

-Republished in short at LiberalConspiracy.org on 01/08/10

US financially opposes its own foreign policy objectives..

2010-07-26T00:19:00.001+01:00

WikiLeaks has just announced perhaps their biggest scoop yet. They have released over 90,000 files detailing the ins and outs of day to day existence for coalition troops in war torn Afghanistan. They are being referred to as the 'War Logs' and I am blogging in the relative calm before the inevitable shit storm that they are going to cause.

The war logs will draw up a slew of controversies, the full scale of which perhaps won't be realised for some days or weeks. Straight away however, there is one thing mentioned in the early reports that set alarm bells ringing particularly loudly.

Apparently, the Pakistani Secret Service (ISI) is very heavily suspected of providing assistance to the insurgency. This despite Pakistan being a country in receipt of billion upon billions of dollars worth of US aid. This aid has continued to roll in despite the US government being in possession of reports that suggest the ISI is in fact supporting the Taliban.

Why has this been kept secret? If the US believes Pakistan, a supposed ally, to be aiding their enemies then why has there not been a major diplomatic spat? Why was pressure not put on Pakistan, particularly by the 'with us or against us' Bush administration? This much repeated, totalitarian mantra for gaining support for the war on terror now appears a facade for an administration strangely happy to ply a duplicitous Pakistan with billions of dollars of US money. This is masochism on an international level.

Why was the US happy, considering what it seemed to know, to allow their aid money to flow in the direction of a country that appears to act in polar opposition to their stated foreign policy objectives?

This blatant contradiction has reminded me of an article published recently in the New York Times, which to summarise, explains how tax breaks are given to donations that support the expansion of West Bank settlements. This expansion is opposed by the United States and yet they offer tax exemptions in support of it. Astounding.

This is entirely typical of the complete lack of cohesion that defines US foreign policy. It perhaps goes someway to explain why people guffaw and snigger when their actions abroad are said to serve any interest other than their own.

Instant Corporate Karma

2010-07-24T18:26:00.001+01:00

How is it possible to stop someone from expressing an opinion? In a society that cherishes free speech as a fundamental principle, there are no legal lengths that a person or organisation can go to by way of imposing such a limit. That's obvious, isn't it? Well not exactly...

British libel laws are some of the most abused in the world. Libel reformists have long been campaigning for an end to laws which, amongst their many faults, leave the burden of proof on the defendant. This is a principle that condemns that accused as guilty until such a time as they can prove their innocence.

Yet, even in cases where it's clear that there's no case to answer and that libel has not occurred, the threat of litigation and all the financial perils that a potential defendant would be exposed to is often enough to achieve the desired 'gagging'.

However, in the age of Twitter and pit-bull free speech lawyers such as Jack of Kent, what these mindless legal threats only increasingly serve to achieve is massive damage to the reputation of the company, immeasurably beyond any damage caused had they not attempted to cauterize an individual's right to say what they sodding well like.

Today we have seen the latest in a long line of attempted cauterizations.

Luke Bozier, a Labour blogger, just so happened to post on his Twitter page, a link to his blog post in which he expressed an opinion that Gordon Brown's official website (designed by a company called Tangent PLC) was pretty rubbish. He also summed up his blogpost in a Twitter update which said:

"Gordon Brown's WebCreator website is not befitting of a former Prime Minister. Tangent should be ashamed."

You can make your own mind up on the quality or otherwise of Tangent's web designing, the point is that Mr. Bozier expressed an innocuous opinion which would otherwise have faded into the oblivion of the internet. But, unfortunately for Tangent, this was not to be. This comment was picked up on by one of their employees, resulting in Mr. Bozier receiving the following message.

"I respectfully suggest you delete that tweet, issue no more similar ones and generally try to sell your products in a more professional way. I really don't like the prospect of either a public slanting match or legal action, but if I need to protect my company's business and reputation, I will."

The decision of Tangent to threaten Mr. Bozier with litigation was, I suppose, one that was intended to prevent him expressing his opinion of their professional output by instilling him with the fear of financial ruin.

This was not the outcome.

Within minutes of Mr. Bozier receiving this threat, he had posted it on his original blogpost and linked back to it on Twitter. The aforementioned lawyer Jack of Kent (David Allen Green) was alerted, and the story rapidly began to disseminate through Twitter.

The word on the web is now that Tangent, previously unheard of by most, is an aggressively litigious PLC which employs threats of legal action in attempts to suppress the free expression of opinion. This is the result of the utter folly in believing that spurious controls can be put on the sheer democracy of social media.

Instant, online justice is now served on those heavy handed and mindless enough to attempt to suppress freedom of speech through impotent legal threats.

The fact is... overzealous corporate lawyers will continue to cause massive, irreparable damage to the companies that they are employed to defend as long as they remain so desperately out of touch with the liberation that has been provided by the digital medium.

Here's to the next case of Instant Corporate Karma...

Uzbekistan and the global battle for women’s liberation..

2010-07-17T15:13:00.001+01:00

The mass sterilization of women in Uzbekistan, as reported today by the Associated Press, is a shrieking reminder that the battle for the global liberation of women is being lost.

It was reported by Mansur Mirovalev that Uzbek health officials are "threatened with salary cuts, demotion or dismissal if they do not persuade at least two women a month to be sterilized."

Uzbekistan has a considerable track record for human rights abuses. The most notable of these came in 2005 when at least 180 people, protesting poor economic conditions, were gunned down in the city of Andijan by the National Security Service. 180 is a deeply conservative estimate of the death count, the most liberal of which is gauged at around 5000.

In the bubbling rivers of resentment that flow through these troubled countries, poverty is so often the current that drives them along. This is often not a fact that is alien to their leaders, for which reason solutions are sought, as they are being sought in Uzbekistan.

In February of this year, the Uzbek government led by its president Islam Karimov, issued a decree which ordered health officials to "strengthen control over the medical examination of women of childbearing age." The sinisterly ambiguous use of 'control' aside, this served as a thin veil for what increasingly appears to be a government directed mass sterilization of young Uzbek women for the means of population control.

Mirovalev's article details the story of a young woman, Saodat Rakhimbayeva, who underwent a caesarean section to give birth to her baby son, Ibrohim (who died some days later). Following the procedure she was told that without consultation, the surgeon had performed a full hysterectomy to remove a cyst on her uterus. No tests were performed, no consent was given, to use her words she was simply "mutilated as if [she] were a mute animal".

Mirovalev's article also details health care workers being threatened with pay cuts, demotions and in one reported case, hanging if they fail to sterilize the necessary quota of women a week. Organizations offering employment opportunities to young women are also reportedly being incited by the government to show preference to women who can produce proof that they have undergone sterilization.

This effectively amounts to a campaign of pre-emptive genocide. It is by far the most draconian of population controls found in any country on the planet. The Chinese 'one-child' policy is comparatively humane. The Indian government's offer of cash incentives to have fewer children seems positively benevolent in comparison.

The ideology behind this medieval policy is somewhat predictably, the social attitudes towards women in under developed countries. The sure sign that a state is dysfunctional is when authority over a woman's reproductive organs is taken from her and devolved to husbands or governments. Women are simply seen as vessels for carrying the large families that husbands and cultural norms demand.

Yet again, the liberty of women is the victim of the excess of a male dominated society. Large populations are driven by the demand for the big families that women are forced to provide. Now, in a country which is looking to put limits on its population, the liberty of women over their own uteri is once again the apparently necessary cost.

Let's get this straight. The first stage of emancipation from poverty is the emancipation of women, specifically the emancipation from the cultural, often religious notion that women exist simply to be possessed and to spit out babies. The second stage is to increase female opportunities for education and careers, along with changing male attitudes towards the right for women to have such opportunities.

Western liberal democracies are seen by some as the global bastions of feminism in the 21^st century. Women are entirely free to live as they choose, love as they choose, reproduce as they choose and to determine their own life path. This is not a political issue anymore; it is not an issue up for debate anymore. It is an accepted cultural standard that has been formalised through equality legislation. It is perhaps for this reason that I too often hear the view that feminism's war has been won and that those who campaign for gender equality should pack up and go home. The apparent brutality by the Uzbek authorities should shake them from that particular stupor.

The sinister happenings in Uzbekistan are a full on ideological assault on the secular, humanist view that women are autonomous individuals with complete rights as to the comings and goings of their reproductive systems. As long as there are women in the world who are being told that they can't get a job unless they are sterile, as long as nurses are being threatened with hanging if they fail to sterilize patients then the battle for the rights of the woman is still very much being waged. Those who, in their ignorance or apathy fail to recognise this, serve to condemn billions of people with whom we are meant to share a common sense of human solidarity. I would suggest everyone heads to the battlefields.

-Republished in short at LiberalConspiracy.org on 20/07/10

Is the Afghan army destined to fail?

2010-07-16T13:54:00.001+01:00

The question of Afghanistan hangs more thickly in the air than usual this week. On Tuesday, a soldier for the Afghan army successfully murdered 3 British troops inside the supposedly safe confines of a military base. This is the third such recent attack on British forces by members of the army that they had been tasked to train. The perpetrator of Tuesday's violence is now safely in the arms of the mujahedeen. It should be strongly hoped that these men's actions do not speak for a sizeable number of recruits because simply, they are the lynchpins of what is hoped to be a successful and sovereign Afghan democracy. If NATO forces are going to stand any chance of meeting deadlines for troop withdrawal, they must hope that these young recruits are amiable to the concepts and practises of a liberal democracy rather than the draconian ideology espoused by the Taliban.

They must also remember that the main motivating factor for some (perhaps a lot) of men that join the Afghan army will be lack of alternative employment, rather than an ingrained desire to help an Afghan democracy to succeed. It is no small task to ideologically align these men to the more liberal values that the army and police will be expected to uphold. That said, there may well also be many who find these new institutions to be the stage on which they can release their true identity from the chains that such a failed state can put on political variety. It should be hoped that these recruits consist of mostly conscientious, thinking young citizens and not of those who have been led to believe that murder is their best answer to political difference.

Moreover, we need to hope, and hope again that the Afghan people are themselves amiable to being protected by an Army and a police force that will surely always be seen as the sticky fingerprint of invasion.

In the UK, a citizen finds it to be almost his civic duty to be implicitly or explicitly supportive of the military. This support also often wrongly comes at the expense of due criticism of policy set by elected representatives. In Afghanistan however, this state of affairs has the potential to be turned on its head. Any Afghan who opposes the occupation will perhaps even feel it their civic duty to implicitly or explicitly OPPOSE the military. If this turns out to be the case then the current struggle will surely become an impossibly futile one as the NATO presence begins to draw back.

A necessary, potentially impossible task for senior military officials, if the mission is to be completed to the 2015 deadline, is to foster a support for the Afghan military amongst the Afghan people, similar to the support that the British military enjoys amongst the British people. Obviously, such a support is often heavily concentrated along nationalist lines of thinking which requires a passionate belief in the sovereignty of one's own country. The army will always be NATO's army by parentage, not something that will ever be a source of pride for any Afghan nationalist. Indeed, the average Afghan nationalist might well be far more inclined to join the Taliban for no other reason than it is perceived to be the only vehicle through which to oppose interventionism. The Afghan army and police force will serve as constant reminders that the improving infrastructure has come at the cost of Afghanistan's reputation for resisting the intervention of foreign forces. Some nationalists may not believe that this is a price worth paying.

I therefore predict a model in which NATO's drawn down presence is matched by an increase in presence of Afghan army and police members. This increased level of visibility for members of the Afghan army and police force will provide new and more inexperienced targets for those who resent Afghans being part of an infrastructure that has been installed by the west. This will initiate a whole new spate of violence which will see the decrease in troop numbers indefinitely halted, then reversed and the war will continue to drone on. That is my prediction.

What are the alternatives then? Are there any? If there are then they are extremely limited and the ones that we do have (i.e. maintaining an indefinite NATO presence) are electorally unpalatable for the governments of almost every NATO member state. The terrifying reality of the dead end in which the NATO forces are finding themselves may slowly be starting to dawn. The Obamas and Camerons of this world are now setting dates for withdrawal, let's be clear, because they feel that they have no other choice rather than because they feel it is realistic or correctly timed.

Should they arrive at 2015 and find that their current military strategy has been rejected by the Afghan people and so has failed, what will they then do? Perhaps it will be as simple as facing up to a basic choice. One choice is to hasten the retreat and allow Afghanistan to become a failed state. They would have to accept the huge consequences on the human rights and general liberty of the Afghan people that such a retreat would create.

The other choice is to stay indefinitely and accept that soldiers will die and civilians will be killed by mistake. It would also then be necessary to face up to the notion that the coalition's strategy in Afghanistan has put them in a position from which they find it impossible to successfully and conscientiously extricate themselves.

Sympathy for the Devil

2010-07-14T20:38:00.001+01:00

The following is my comment on this article published on the New Statesman website, reporting Prime Minister David Cameron's suggestion that there is no place for 'any wave of sympathy' for Raoul Moat, the now deceased Northumberland gunman.

"Surely it is possible to discriminate between sympathy and admiration in the case of Raoul Moat. A compassionate society is one that, at the same time as condemning him and showing sympathy for his victims, looks at the reasons why a man finds himself in the position where he is compelled to go on a shooting rampage .

Moat's victims are far more worthy recipients of sympathy, but Mr. Cameron should bear in mind that this is a man who felt he had no option but to shoot himself in the head. That a person can find themselves in such a position in which they see no alternative but to take a shotgun to their temple is, I would suggest, worthy of a measure of sympathy, and saying so does not make less of the contempt that is rightly felt for his actions.

Mr. Cameron has been too general in his dismissal of "any wave of sympathy" for Moat. If we examine the meaning of Mr. Cameron's recommendation against sympathy for someone who felt the need to end their own life, are we saying that it is right that he is now dead?

As Prime Minister, perhaps Mr. Cameron should set a moral tone. He could well have condemned the reference to Moat as a 'legend' and any admiration of him. (Such admiration is nurtured in no small part by an increasingly irresponsible media. He could have mentioned that. But that's another issue entirely.)

Cameron ultimately chose however, to take an authoritarian position. It appears that the new government does not find it coherent to simultaneously show compassion and condemnation. If we follow this thought through to its logical conclusion, at what point does a criminal act become so horrendous as to exempt the perpetrator from any right to sympathy from the public or perhaps even the judicial system?

If this authoritarian tone displayed today by the Prime Minister, leaks down and informs policy, will we see more authoritarian shading to our system of justice? Is this what the majority want for our predominantly liberally populated country?

Might I suggest that perhaps Mr. Cameron's liberal Tory mask is beginning to ever so slightly slip away?"

If I could expand on these thoughts ever so slightly, if we are to say that we have no sympathy for the fact that Moat is dead, what are we then saying by way of implication?

I believe that it is not a 'soft' position to suggest he is a worthy recipient of sympathy. After all this does not compromise the level of condemnation that he rightly receives. In the end he took his own life, but why should we be sorry that he did? What were the practicable alternatives to him lying in the mortuary?

He could be sitting in a police cell, perhaps banging his head against a wall. Perhaps he could be sitting in that cell for another 15-20 years before he is released age 50-60, perhaps rehabilitated. Perhaps he could build a new life for himself, perhaps he could be able and willing to express his regret to his victims and their families, perhaps they'd accept, perhaps not but perhaps it would provide them with a level of closure. Perhaps he could offer some degree of parentage to his 3 children. Perhaps he could have found some level of peace in life, rather than only in death. Instead he is dead and these possibilities are extinguished.

Surely him not shooting himself would have been the preferable outcome to a liberal? To disagree with this position would logically require a support for capital punishment, wouldn't it? That is the logical conclusion of suggesting he is better dead. His death is not to the benefit of the victims, it is a drastic evasion of justice. Surely by this reasoning we should have some sympathy for the fact that his death was the eventual outcome. Some 'wave of sympathy' then does have a place does it not Prime Minister? Perhaps not sympathy incorporating admiration or respect, but sympathy that involves an acknowledgement that the life of Mr. Moat was redeemable, and any chance for such redemption has now gone.

I'd maybe suggest Mr. Cameron should think more carefully in the future about whether or not his comments echo the values of the liberal society over which he presides.

Iraq, the left and being healthy in opposition..

2010-06-11T00:48:00.001+01:00

By Adam Grace

Being at home on the left, I often find myself warding off the impulse to luxuriate in the warm embrace of my beliefs. Often it is too easy to be consoled by the notion that the leftist view is the position synonymous with morality and liberty, and so to risk falling into the abject laziness that is reliance on a belief system. To put it plainly and obviously, a person seems to have a moral obligation to take a sceptical look at their own views and positions on a regular basis and to rigorously check that they are in adherence to their own standards, rather than the standards issued by a belief set. This is what I have been doing recently with regards to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, a war which I opposed in 2003 and continue to oppose. What seems troubling to me however, is the way in which a rightly placed anger against the incompetence of the war often translates to a wrongly placed support for those who stand squarely against the values of liberal democracy that we cherish. This is a position that I have briefly flirted with in the past, simply borne from an unflinching detestation of conflict and a bitter sadness at the sheer number of innocent dead. This is where, I later realised, my system of logic somewhat fell apart

The implication and often explicit conviction found amongst many on the left is that the insurgency is an anti-imperialist wagon to which any of us on the left can hitch our horses. . It is apparently very easy for a liberal such as myself to commit the absurd fallacy of implying that the enemies of the coalition must be in some way worthy of liberal support, or perhaps even liberal in themselves simply by virtue of their opposition to a neo-conservative led invasion.

Perhaps I could grant, that on the face of it all, the enemies of American belligerence could be considered the friends of anyone who opposes the war. This seemingly logical position does not stand up to much examination however. These men who are deemed insurgents are not noble young martyrs, but in fact mirror the values they fight against. The extremist elements of Islam long for a return to the days of the caliphate, they long for the day when every non-believer can be condemned or convicted due to their nature, and every gay and female member of the human race along with them, under Sharia law. They do not only wish to oppress and repress the people living in their countries, but also wish to hasten a return to a form of an Islamic empire. This is the reason that those anti-imperialists with sympathies for those who bomb mosques and market squares have found themselves very unintentionally on the right wing of this discussion, debating all the other righties.

In August of 2003 the United Nations HQ in Baghdad was bombed, and a UN Commissioner for human rights, the highly distinguished Sergio Vieira de Mello, was killed. One of the provocations stated for the blast was that the United Nations had intervened in Kashmir. This intervention took the form of preventing the Pakistani military from expanding the Pakistani 'share' of Kashmir into that of India's. So the UN was bombed by those who resented being stopped in the process of attempting to find a cure from their 14^th century hangover. I find it strange and enraging that many, perhaps even a majority of us on the left can see these people as appropriate and natural recipients of our anti-war support.

I think that the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was wrong. I think it was wrong because it was not mandated by the UN, I think that it was wrong because the planning that went into a post war Iraq was nonexistent and because any such planning would surely have led to the conclusion that a destabilised Iraq would lead to open civil war, as it practically and predictably did. I think that it was wrong because the intentions of the Coalition forces have NEVER at any point been anything more than illusory. WMDs had been used before by Hussein, we perhaps had healthy reason to believe he still had them. That said, Iraq was invaded not on a hunch, or an opinion, but on deeply flawed intelligence that would surely have taken CIA incompetence and Executive malevolence to put into practise.

When this level of malevolence was revealed to the world, the reason for invasion swiftly became stated as the cause to liberate those who lived under the rule of a despotic mad man. Arguably this is a more noble position to take. After all, interventionalism is not the same as imperialism or colonialism if it is done properly and ethically. Of course you do not need me to illuminate the fact that it was not done with any trace of ethical propriety, but there, I did it anyway.

Iraq was annexed to put it concisely, by US multinationals, private military contractors (PMCs) and oil men. The economy of Iraq did not see any reparation for the country's semi destruction in the form of industrial contracts. The decimated Iraqi infrastructure was assailed with the leeches of foreign industry who ensured that as much profit as possible could be sucked out and funnelled back overseas. PMCs such as Blackwater (now Xe) have systematically ensured the lack of accountability for a large number of those engaged in combat in our name, freeing their employees to commit the most horrendous abuses, and escape with protection from facing justice. The Oil fields of Iraq, it had long been argued had been neglected and mismanaged under Hussein, who apparently failed to maximise the output. In this post-invasion world, Iraq is now pumping out 2 million less barrels of oil a day, as reported by USAToday.

This war could have been fought properly and ethically, and then perhaps have aspired to have been a just war. But without considerations of the fractious nature of Iraq's state of religious co-habitation, and with contemptuous disregard for the complexities and nuances of war, it was always destined to end in abject failure.

So if we then must object, one of the linchpins of any morally credulous movement to oppose a war needs to be that totalitarian values should be fought in whatever form they manifest themselves. Hussein was an evil man, who massacred his own people and whose deeds are not to be relativised simply because one is anti-war. It is important to remember that those who strap bombs to themselves do not hate our right wing imperial tendencies any more than they hate our liberal values of freedom of love, religion and expression for all. An oppressed nation of millions of people without a democratic voice, living under the shadow of a maniacal leader is no small thing. To say that this dictator deserved to have been removed from power is certainly, in my view a leftist position. If that removal had been done without the imperial shading, without the corporate annexing, and with a decisive sense of morality behind it then we might have been able to moot that the war itself was a leftist undertaking as well.

The Political Personality War Continues (or how to win an election, Simon Cowell style)

2010-02-25T01:50:00.000Z

For all the many ways in which the Prime Minister has been portrayed by his detractors in recent months, the recent accusations of bullying seem to portray Brown as the sort of menacing playground bully who would attempt to exert his authority through swearing, roughing up the weaklings and perhaps putting his downtrodden Downing Street advisor’s head down the toilet and giving it a bloody good flush.

Isn’t it just a political cartoonist’s wet dream? Very rarely has a Prime Minister been caricatured quite as acutely as Brown has this week.

It began when Christine Pratt, Chief Exec of the Anti Bullying Helpline with alleged incongruous links to the Tory party, went on Sky News to destroy her own reputation in a desperate and clumsy attempt to destroy that of the Prime Minister. With an astonishing lack of grace, Ms. Pratt announced that her charity had received a complaint from someone in the employ of Downing Street, and that the complaint was about the behaviour of the Prime Minister.

This revelation in itself, is not worth dismissing out of hand. Let’s forget for a moment that Ms. Pratt has managed to break her fairly obvious obligation of confidentiality. Let’s also forget for a moment, that her using her role as head of a charity that is meant to serve the put-upon and marginalised members of society for potentially political ends is a fairly large ethical grey area, to say the least. Forget all that for a moment. If this complaint had truly been received (and Ms. Pratt herself was, in the end, not so sure that it had) then perhaps it is something that is newsworthy. Despite breaches of confidentiality, perhaps it could be argued that it is one of many pieces of information that the electorate deserve at their disposal before they head down to the ballot box in a few months time.
What is not understandable is how the issue has been seized upon by the Conservative party leader. Mr. Cameron has behaved like a vulture, and has now become the main player in what has gained the appearance of the dirtiest case of smear politics of the election campaign so far.

In the rat race of a British election campaign, perhaps the odd underhanded trick is something which could be understood if not respected. But God forbid that Mr. Cameron actually attacks Labour policy, and presents drastically alternative ideas of his own to the mainstream press. Rather, this war of personalities has gained the appearance of two men who are desperately trying to hide how downright similar the party of opposition is to the party in government.

The election, as it is becoming increasingly clear, will sadly not be a case of competing ideologies, or competing conceptions of how to further prosperity in Britain. Instead we are being presented with a choice of personalities, or perhaps a choice of jousting public relations campaigns.

Really, how these two men have come to be involved in a war of personality is indicative of the detached way in which many of those at Westminster have come to view the electorate. The truth is that those voters that Mr. Cameron is so desperate to win belong to a generation which participates in democracy (of a sort) more than any other. Reality tv phone ins are determined entirely by personality. People voting on TV talent shows do so based on the likeability of any given contestant, as opposed to their relevant talents. Is this really what Mr. Brown and Mr. Cameron view as the road map to electoral success?

Up to now, there has been little to no effort from either of the two main parties to educate this key portion of the electorate on the issues that really matter. Of primary importance is the economy, so why is so little of either of the campaigns targeting younger demographics based on education about this key matter? Instead they feel the need to revert to behaving like contestants battling it out in the jungle, or in the big brother house, or standing on a stage in front of Simon Cowell et al.

It is insulting to suggest that a younger demographic cannot be educated to make informed decisions on which party to vote for. The constant attempts by those aspiring for power at Westminster to be seen to ‘speak our language’ as opposed to their own is basely offensive, in that it implies that ‘their language’ is something that we could not possibly understand and so we must be spoken to at a level that makes sense in our own little apolitical worlds. That level apparently being based on who has the widest smile, or who can schmooze the greater number of TV chat show hosts.

Perhaps this is just one large exercise in disguising the fact that there is in fact, precious little difference between the two main parties in terms of policy areas that actually matter. New Labour’s shift to the centre to win the 1997 election needs to be matched by a similar shift to the centre by the new breed of Conservatives if they have any hope of electoral success. It is no secret, and has openly been commented on by Cameron’s aides, that the Conservative leader is modelling his path to Downing Street on that of Tony Blair in 1997.

What we have seen over the past 16 years is a convergence of political ideology which has only served to make British politics more superficial, vainglorious and confusing for the electorate. The past 24 hours has given the nation quite an insight into the true state of contemporary British politics. If it is not what it seems, it gives a very good impression of a cesspit of childish point scoring, unhealthy fixations on aesthetic and a base pandering to an electorate that almost everyone at Westminster seems to take for utter fools.

by Adam Grace.

Code Amber! (so... what now?)

2010-01-27T18:19:00.000Z

The announcement last week by the Home Office, of the sudden upward lurch of the terrorist threat is one that should inspire worry, but perhaps not for the immediately obvious reasons. The threat of having one’s life taken away as you travail the path of ever-day existence is a jarring one, and the emotional impact that these kinds of threats have had on the individual and on society is profound.

I ask you, what is the natural reaction upon viewing the news report (ensconced between stories of horrendous suffering in Haiti and the newly deceased young men of the British army) which solemnly warns us that a terrorist attack is ‘highly likely’?

The natural reaction is terror. As the words ‘attack highly likely’ are authoritatively sprung on us, we think of our everyday lives. We think of taking the bus to work, of getting on a plane to go on holiday, of going shopping or out for a night in London. Then, to put it bluntly, we think of a bomb going off.

We might think to modify our behaviour and to find ways to diminish the likelihood of this nightmarish scenario becoming our reality. Regardless though, of whether people choose to change their pattern of living or to carry on as normal, the seeds of terror have been planted in fertile minds. Many of these minds will not have forgotten the sustained threat posed by Irish terrorism over the course of 3 decades. Mortars were thrown through Downing Street windows, shopping centres reduced to broken glass and smoke, the Prime Minister came within metres of losing her life, bomb threats abounded and terror permeated British society. As old threats are replaced by new, the British public is at risk of being conditioned to fear, and our children are at risk of being raised to be suspicious and cynical as we teach through the veil of our own personal sense of terror.

It has been said before, but terrorism works almost as effectively without bombs as it does with. The fear of imminent destruction is an oppressive force on the human condition, and it is such fear with which our spirit can be defeated.

What then, does the British government hope to achieve by making the most veiled, vague announcements on the state of our safety? Are we safer as a result or simply more scared? Some would argue that our fear causes us to act in ways that could increase our safety, by taking further precautions, or by reporting suspicious individuals. Others, like myself, would argue that our fear causes us to compromise our lifestyles and to regard Muslim males (and females if the Daily Express is to be believed ) with broad suspicion. This is the unsaid, but blatant subtext that the Home Offices announcement carries with it (simplified; be more scared.)

I cannot contend that the malign social consequences of entrenched fear and suspicion have not been considered by the government. There must surely then be a greater purpose to this announcement, and more broadly to the colour coded ‘threat scale’. Such vague declarations with no mention of the nature or location of the threat are precisely useless to anyone wanting to maintain a sensible level of vigilance.

What use, for example, would a severe weather warning system be if it said ‘It is highly likely that the UK will see some form of precipitation tomorrow, but we’re not sure where, what kind, or how bad it will be’? (and no..the Met Office isn't quite as bad as that.) Would it be regarded with the same reverence as the news media regards the Home Offices terror threat scale? I somehow think not.

So, in the face of such pointless fear-mongering, what are we to do? Firstly we must remember all of the things of which we are more likely to die of than terrorism (the list is practically endless.) Secondly we should ensure that any messages (be they from Al Qaeda or Alan Johnson) that simply tell us to be afraid, are properly examined and critiqued without simply ceding to their oppressive, life altering demands.