Down Again 179

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Sorry for the hiatus. I am suffering one of my periodic periods of self-doubt and depression. This was caused in part by my being very disappointed at the number of people who listened to my talk at Occupy London, and subsequently by my inability to get anyone mainstream to publish a major piece I have been working on. That has never happened to me before.

A little niche on the web helps you forget how insignificant you are; try to step outside that niche and you are brutally reminded.

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179 thoughts on “Down Again”

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  • Rose

    Craig – I am sorry you are down in the dumps at the mo and have no advice to offer other than what has already been said about the benefits of fresh air and a good walk. But just to say, having come recently to your blog, I very much appreciate your principled and passionate insights and the comments and links they provoke. Thank you.

  • mike

    Telling the truth is seldom very easy Craig. But it needs to be heard. I reckon as the economic shitstorm intensifies, and the Malabar Front expands, you’ll find a more receptive audience…

  • ingo

    Thanks for that lovely piece from truth out Mary. I shall have a butchers what she’s wearing today, I reckon it will be black, not for her mood, but her vanity.

    Here is some really good news from our hooligan cllr., he has finally fallen on his sword. Cllr. Law who all the while supported him, so the Cons won’t loose power, should really take his hat as well. I’m so glad that this ex con is not besmirching the good name of Independents any longer. Enjoy, dare I say comment…
    http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/politics/update_more_details_on_worlingham_councillor_resigning_from_waveney_district_council_1_1119062

  • nuid

    Moving along nicely in the direction of the USA, and an eventual police state?
    Plastic bullets have caused a lot of harm (like tasers — supposedly non-lethal) including blindness and even death.
    .
    “Plastic bullets available to police for Wednesday’s student protests”
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/nov/07/plastic-bullets-available-student-protests
    .
    Plastic bullets in Northern Ireland
    {http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_bullet#Use_in_Northern_Ireland}
    Fourteen people were killed by plastic bullet impacts, including nine children.

  • John Goss

    Voila, I don’t normally have sympathy for members of the secret services. The fact that Yakubov chose to drive on a fake driving licence shows that he has not reformed since he became a member of the secret services. However, to send him back to Uzbekistan to be tortured and, in his case, most likely to death, is not in anyone’s interests, certainly not in the interests of those who believe in human rights.

  • galois

    Hope you come through it soon Craig. I, and I’m sure thousands more who read but don’t usually post, have come to rely on your ability to put into words of wit reason and a bit of well-deserved venom the inchoate rage the bastards drive us to

  • Voila

    john goss
    Not any sound asylum seeker from uzbekistan will say openly who he is, where he worked etc. This is equal to his or her relatives being terrorised and even families destroyed back home. This man was too open and too proud of having worked for intelligence services. I am sure he will be ok if he sent back, but if he stays he may cause damage to those dissidents who are in this country or even other countries in Europe. Please be aware, ordinary uzbeks have many relatives and they keep close relationship with each other. Many uzbeks who are in this country will definitely move back to their home country as soon as bloody regime is finished. The problem is that bloody regime is being backed by wrong politicians in the west and america.

  • mary

    She, the sainted Theresa, is so prim and so correct. Flashed the odd smile at persistent old Winnick hoping to disarm him. I bet she has a temper and uses a stream of four letter words to her civil servants.

  • Jamie

    Your writing has had a profound effect on how I see the world. You’ve helped me peer through the propaganda layers concealing the bitter realities of Britain’s behaviour overseas. Please keep writing and public speaking!

  • T Payne

    Keep going, Craig because, as so many people here have said, no one is really so significant that they can change things alone. But even the greatest fire takes only one spark to begin.

    Bear in mind, too, that many of the people supporting you here, including me, are English (as opposed to British – a defunct adjective if ever there was one) We’re not so bad after all, are we.

  • ingo

    Guess what Mary, the EDP just has taken all the comments off the Cllr. Draper thread, they are embarrased that he was an ex Conservative who evaded the due process of the law.

    Thank you Lowestoft Magistrates, for letting this man get away with Hooliganism when elsewhere young rioters are jailed for stealing a bottle of water.

  • christoph

    A 21st century prayer:

    Those who resist—the doubters, outcasts, renegades, skeptics and rebels—rarely come from the elite. They ask different questions. They seek something else—a life of meaning. They have grasped Immanuel Kant’s dictum, “If justice perishes, human life on Earth has lost its meaning.” And in their search they come to the conclusion that, as Socrates said, it is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong. This conclusion is rational, yet cannot be rationally defended. It makes a leap into the moral, which is beyond rational thought. It refuses to place a monetary value on human life. It acknowledges human life, indeed all life, as sacred. And this is why, as Arendt points out, the only morally reliable people when the chips are down are not those who say “this is wrong,” or “this should not be done,” but those who say “I can’t.”
    “The greatest evildoers are those who don’t remember because they have never given thought to the matter, and, without remembrance, nothing can hold them back,” Arendt writes. “For human beings, thinking of past matters means moving in the dimension of depth, striking roots and thus stabilizing ourselves, so as not to be swept away by whatever may occur—the Zeitgeist or History or simple temptation. The greatest evil is not radical, it has no roots, and because it has no roots it has no limitations, it can go to unthinkable extremes and sweep over the whole world.”
    There are streaks in my lungs, traces of the tuberculosis that I picked up around hundreds of dying Sudanese during the famine I covered as a foreign correspondent. I was strong and privileged and fought off the disease. They were not and did not. The bodies, most of them children, were dumped into hastily dug mass graves. The scars I carry within me are the whispers of these dead. They are the faint marks of those who never had a chance to become men or women, to fall in love and have children of their own. I carried these scars to the doors of Goldman Sachs. I had returned to living. Those whose last breaths had marked my lungs had not. I placed myself at the feet of these commodity traders to call for justice because the dead, and those who are dying in slums and refugee camps across the planet, could not make this journey. I see their faces. They haunt me in the day and come to me in the dark. They force me to remember. They make me choose sides. As the metal handcuffs were fastened around my wrists I thought of them, as I often think of them, and I said to myself: “Free at last. Free at last. Thank God almighty I am free at last.”
    ________________________________________
    ________________________________________
    Chris Hedges

  • Peter

    Even though I may not always agree with you, I am always interested to hear your perspective or insight on an issue. Keep going. There are a lot of people who value you

  • Etienne French

    Cheer up, Craig!
    Your recent comments have been wonderfully incisive. Especially with regards to the ‘smoke and mirrors’ charade being played out at the EU bailout summit, the regrettable evictions at Dale Farm (the “ethnic cleansing” aspect), the then ensuing London riots and, above all, Palestine’s admittance to UNESCO with the fourteen nations voting against, being deservedly ‘named and shamed’.
    The Iona London Forum are interested in having you as a future speaker.
    Best Wishes,
    Etienne (French for Stephen)

  • John Goss

    Voila, I take your point, but I would not like to see anyone sent back to the present Uzbekistan against their will. Do you suspect him of working yet for the SNB?

  • Komodo

    Is it because my previous three posts referenced far-right Israel-supporting organisations that they disappeared?
    Spelling them backwards:
    peniw
    asnij
    Rightweb has details.

  • mary

    Anyone in NY, Hull, Bradford, Salisbury, London??

    .
    The Maddening Rain hits NYC
    .
    Critics and public alike are full of praise for Upstart and Darbourne Luff’s production of The Maddening Rain by Nicholas Pierpan. This darkly comic story of one man’s journey through the financial crisis sold out its run at the Bike Shed Theatre in Exeter and is now tearing up Theater C at 59E59 Theaters, New York City.
    .
    “A dynamic performance that is brimming with life…under Matthew Dunster’s crisp direction, Felix Scott imbues the play with an energy that never flags.” Backstage
    “Compelling in the extreme…a production that will stay with you long after you leave the theatre” UsherNonsense.com
    .
    And on Twitter:

    “absolutely amazing” @ pollyannanoonan
    “AWESOME” @ bs_scratch
    “so good it hurts” @ bikeshedtheatre
    “Felix Scott is marvelous as he goes through the whole gamut of emotions. He can move you to tears in a snap.” @roninnewyork
    .
    How to book

    The Maddening Rain is playing as part of the Brits off Broadway festival at 59E59 Theaters until 20 November. To see times and buy tickets click here.

    Back in the UK, we’re visiting the following venues:

    Salisbury Playhouse | 24-26 November
    Theatre in the Mill, Bradford | 29-30 November
    Hull Truck Theatre | 1-3 December
    Soho Theatre | 6-10 December

    Click on the venue names to visit their websites and book ticket
    http://twitter.com/#!/upstarttheatre

  • mary

    http://www.melaniephillips.com/the-sanctification-of-public-nuisance
    .
    ‘When the Archbishop of Canterbury backed the ‘Occupy’ campers and bashed the bankers for taking high bonuses while City practices remained unchanged, the Prime Minister said Dr Williams
    .
    ‘speaks, frankly, for the whole country’.
    .
    Well, he does not speak for the many who understand that the encampment at St Paul’s signifies the descent of the nation into a culture of ideological bullying, an inability to think straight and the substitution of sentimentality for morality and law.’
    .
    No words.

  • Abe Rene

    If you want fame outside your blog, you may have to do some more creative work. I believe you may already have written a script or two for films based on your books.

    Here’s another idea: there may be things that you could not put into your books because they were too sensitive. But you might be able to fictionalise them. I remember Jeffrey Archer saying on TV that good fiction has the reader wanting to know what happens next. Why not write a thriller involving the moral compromises that fictional leaders of ostensibly democratic countries make in the pursuit of their ends?

  • mary

    Here we go, Breaking News. The others will be following.

    .
    UN nuclear agency: Iran ‘studying nuclear weapons’
    .
    The UN’s nuclear watchdog says it has information indicating Iran has carried out tests “relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device”.
    .
    In its latest report on Iran, the IAEA says the research includes computer models that could only be used to develop a nuclear bomb trigger.
    .
    Correspondents say this is the International Atomic Energy Agency’s toughest report on Iran to date.
    .
    Iran says its nuclear programme is solely to generate civilian power.
    .
    The BBC’s Bethany Bell, in Geneva, has examined the IAEA’s latest quarterly report on Iran’s nuclear programme.
    .
    She says the report gives detailed information – some new – suggesting that Iran conducted computer modelling of a kind that would only be relevant to a nuclear weapon.
    .
    The report notes that some of this research, conducted in 2008-09, is of “particular concern”, our correspondent says.
    .
    “The application of such studies to anything other than a nuclear explosive is unclear to the agency,” the report says.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15643460
    .
    Correspondents this is the International Atomic Energy Agency’s toughest report on Iran to date. … which correspondents would that be?

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