What comes out to me from the “Black Spider letter” correspondence of Prince Charles published today is how utterly obsequious Tony Blair and New Labour ministers were to him. No sign whatsoever of radicalism from the former “People’s Party” as they fell over to ingratiate themselves with the heir to the throne. I rather enjoyed Charles quite sharp tone to Blair.
I am fundamentally opposed to the existence of the monarchy. It will hopefully be replaced by a better system, but no human system is perfect. Given that we have a monarchy at present, you will perhaps be surprised to learn that I do not see anything wrong in Charles’ letters, which put forward views which are much what we would have expected him to hold. Of course there is interaction between the monarchy and government, and of course we should get rid of this hereditary element. But Charles’ lobbying is hugely less damaging and pernicious than the corporate lobbying I witnessed throughout my Whitehall career. At least Charles is not lobbying them for corporate advantage and giving large political donations at the same time.
While in my view he did nothing wrong in writing the letters, he and government are both very wrong in arguing they should be private. It is when it is secret that such attempts to wield influence between two branches of government – and monarchy is a branch of government – can be most simply perverted to ill ends. That such publication will not occur again because government has legislated to keep it secret, is an example of the privileged arrogance that prevents this from being a genuine democracy.
Altogether not that big a story and it gives Rusbridger and the Guardian the chance to pose as radical. I find the fact that what is published is so anodyne and unobjectionable rather suspicious – what has not been published? Rusbridger is of course the editor who complied enthusiastically with a GCHQ instruction to smash the Snowden hard drives. The existence of other copies does not justify this any more than it justifies book-burning.
By coincidence, a very worthwhile article by Michael Gillard that had been excised from the net has recently been republished, setting out how Rusbridger in 2002 conspired with Andy Hayman of the Met to bury an investigation into police corruption, including the burglary of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry. By a further coincidence I was having a pint with Laurie Flynn in Sandy Bell’s four days ago.
Hayman went on to be the promoter of the stream of lies about the murder of Jean Charles De Menezes and the publicist of numerous fake terrorist plots, before having to resign in a scandal involving nubile police officers at public expense in tropical islands.
Rusbridger and his extraordinary wig go on and on as a pretend opposition outlet, their reputation much dented by recent hysterical unionist output which exceeds the Daily Express. But Rusbridger’s continued usefulness to the establishment is not in doubt. The pose of publishing the most harmless of Prince Charles’ letters does little to help a threadbare disguise.
PS. It would be a good idea for Israel to go further; helping the Palestinians to develop a working economy could absorb the energies of young people and help to prevent them being attracted to terrorism. A Palestinian state that could achieve such an end could be a good thing. I leave it to others to work out where the boundaries should be, and whether there would be a need for “international” territories for such an arrangement to work.
@RepublicofScotland: I agree that I don’t see such adverts doing any good. One possible solution might be a counter-ad, but formulating it would need support from the saner quarters of all the communities concerned.
@RepublicofScotland: I agree that I don’t see such adverts doing any good. One possible solution might be a counter-ad, but formulating it would need support from the saner quarters of all the communities concerned.”
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Abe Rene.
I don’t see a counter ad as being productive,it would only been seen by many as divisive.
This particular scenario is down to the courts in the US allowing such discriminatory material which could incite racial hatred,to be used on public transport.
It would appear in the US court circuit that certain sections of society are primus inter pares.
“PS. It would be a good idea for Israel to go further; helping the Palestinians to develop a working economy could absorb the energies of young people and help to prevent them being attracted to terrorism.”
Better still would be that the rogue terrorist state abide by the international legal obligations it is a signatory to. No occupation=no resistance to occupation.
Daniel, Phil, Ba’al – Bemolution
Agree about the overblown style Daniel – Orwell would be squirming, but hey what’s a spot of hyperbole amongst friends and you didn’t fall asleep did you?
And you mentioned Bolshevism Phil – before reading a word I was struck by the quaint style of the backdrop: “Forward comrades shoulder your shovels” – the only thing missing was the martial music.
I wonder if it’s the language we’re lumbered with to describe these ideas that’s the trouble; terms like bolshevism and anarchism convey nothing meaningful now.
What I took from the article is the idea of disengagement from powerful interests rather than strident opposition: refuse to read their papers, buy their stuff, discuss their soaps, watch their “movies”, take any notice of their celebrations of ancient battles – Gallipoli, Waterloo! – and redouble efforts to acknowledge each other and interact courteously. Speaking to and smiling at check-out operators works wonders and costs nothing; and as Ba’al said there’s always somebody round the corner who’d be glad of a hand – even if it’s only the offer to fetch their paper. Forget organising just do.
A “sociable society” is where I want to live.Of course it will be dismissed as daft lunacy as the writer suggests – but it’s all some of us can do. For me it’s a balance between not tolerating injustice whilst recognising our common humanity and this includes people whose behaviour and ideas are repugnant to me. And I can only do this in my limited way by challenging in various ways these attitudes whenever I’m confronted with them.
But don’t call this loose, necessarily vague collection of ideas an ism of any kind and for Dog’s sake don’t anoint a charismatic figurehead.
See what you’ve started Ba’al – a germ of a half decent conversation – go to the top of the class.
What is needed is some research on how the never ending stream of rabid zionist jewesses comes to the fore. The pamela gellers,melanie phillips,katie hopkins,jeanine pirros,etc – the Palestinians have only replied with a Hanan Ashrawi so far !!
Baal
There’s a young group of christian nutters in London who I much admire. They talk endless nonsense if you’re daft enough to listen but when push comes to shove in anti arms trade actions these kids don’t blink under attack. It’s action that counts. In alliances I don’t so much care why someone does the right thing.
I have also happily worked with christians on street kitchens. So I’m pretty sure I would have no qualms aligning with some local priest advocating insurrection for land reform. If I’m correct in thinking that’s the type of thing liberation theologists did/do. I am very unknowledgable about South America.
Even in my ignorance I can confidently say my local clergy are not liberation theologists. They do not want nor need me involved in their outreach. I wouldn’t want to be involved. Everyone’s happy*.
Were you making a wider point that I missed?
How far apart though? Lots of people can consider an egalitarian, state free society as an abstract dream. The differences, that can seem insignificant but really are not, can be in how we get there.
I do not consider it a pipe dream. I believe it is an attainable dream. I argue the cooperation needed already exists, it is a human behaviour we ignore at the alter of competition (which is of course also pervasive). I argue man has organised along anarchic lines much more than most people realise. Our leaderless histories are vehemently suppressed. For example do you know there are a group of peoples of between 300,000-500,000 number living in an egalitarian, leaderless, war free, basically anarchic society right now**?
*I have to make clear that I loath the institutions of the church and distrust all priests as perverts until I know otherwise.
**Obviously comes with big caveats but this is at it’s core sort of true.
Abe – “On Israel, I just noticed in the news that Israel’s PM overturned an attempt at introducing segregation on buses travelling to the West Bank.”
Bwahahahahaha, these shameless devils, when the truth is so bloody SIMPLE !
@Phil
But they tried Neo Liberalism with the financial markets, freed them from state control and let them regulate themselves. The rest is history.
Phil
” *I have to make clear that I……. distrust all priests as perverts until I know otherwise.”
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You spoil a good post with that ending.
Anyway, at what point do you know a particular priest’s not a pervert? Isn’t what you say a bit like asking someone to prove a negative?
Sochi 2.0
“The pamela gellers,melanie phillips,katie hopkins,jeanine pirros,etc – the Palestinians have only replied with a Hanan Ashrawi so far !!”
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I read somewhere that Mother Theresa’s mother was Jewish.
What do you think?
And once you’ve thought, fuck off, troll!!
Re offensive ads perhaps the Putinistas might wish to explain these
http://www.eurweb.com/2014/08/russians-beam-racist-image-of-obama-in-moscow-watch/
Brilliant one Habby @ 20h03 and good evening to you!
Btw, did you notice something unusual about ‘Sochi’s’ punctuation? I have to draw on my forensic experience here. The other indicator here is the timing of Sochi’s comments which seem to coincide with the sign-off of another regular afternoon commenter here. I’ll leave it to the moderator to investigate the probability of this sock-puppet. As you well know I got Sofia so-called Kibo noh’s scalp for her sock-pupetry here.
I have a feeling Sochi will be heeding your advice to be off!
Btw, I have one more clue as to why I am fairly confident but I shall keep that to myself, in discretion. For the time being.
“The distance between the Labour Party/unions and the mass of working people and activists on the ground has therefore become wider and wider over time. The vacuum is thus being filled by others who are better placed to resist the privatisation of the public sphere through direct action and mass civil disobedience which circumvents the need for union-led interventions. This is the way forward in my view.”
Why – where is the evidence that “direct action and mass civil disobedience” actually produces better more permanent results than activism based upon achieving democratic consent to changes? More than happy to question which democratic techniques are better than others and the role of trade unions in such activism – but the ineffectiveness of some present techniques doesn’t justify a quantum switch to street theatre politics and what would be minority civil disobedience.
When you look at some of the nonsense posted here, I begin to think the comments section has reached peak-troll.
When a new post doesn’t arrive every other day then the comments are 70% dedicated to the chief trolls and responsing to them.
The best answer is more posts please Mr Murray, dilutes the distraction.
“You spoil a good post with that ending.
Anyway, at what point do you know a particular priest’s not a pervert? Isn’t what you say a bit like asking someone to prove a negative?”
—-
Habby/Phil
Yes I thought so too that Phil’s comment was a good effort. I think he is sincere and he has in his thoughts has gone into the subject of the games that are played in the realm of the ‘isms and that people like our pedestrian Mary get caught up in.
Further I think some of these lines of thought are very compatible with the proposition that for a human being to go very far (and I don’t mean ambition or success here), one needs to start very near, i.e.our inner world. So in its broadest sense it is possible to argue that all priests, whether they are Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, whatever are perverts by virtue of having been ordained. Still, I accept that pervert as used latterly is a strong word.
While reading the conversation, I was reminded of this dialogue between K and Dr Eugene Schallert, a Jesuit priest professor in Sociology then at the University of San Francisco. In case anyone is interested, it is entitled “Jiddu Krishnamurti : Conversations with Jesuit Priest – Goodness Only Flowers in Freedom”, and in youtube here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQsLtCYAdgg
PS Phil you’ve made some good comments recently and you laid it on Ganglion Node earlier in pointing out how in The Bigger Picture he was caught in the game. But then if you’re a node don’t expect to see the wood for the trees.
Villager cannot resist making his silly little school yard taunts. So puerile.
Still proselytising for the ridiculous Krishnamurti cult I see.
@habbs – so, any profiling thoughts on these rabid zionist jewesses pamela gellers,melanie phillips,katie hopkins,jeanine pirros,etc, kindly lets have your thoughts. As I said before, its a no contest, the Palestinians have only replied with one relative pussycat Hanan Ashrawi all these years?
And please we are not talking about golda meir, its just these very loud she-devils taking center stage in the murdoch MSM.
Chris, care to share your personal philosophy of how to create a better world than the Type Zero Global Civilisation we live in?
Welcome and the stage is yours….
You are assured of a fairly cerebral audience.
Just making sure that the lady from Berkhamsted is there. And unfortunately in the morning she’ll still be as disdainful as usual.
Elevate your sights Mary while you still have the breath.
“Surprisingly, Tony Blair’s ally Lord Falconer says the anti-war march did change things: “If a million people come out on the streets in the future, then what government is going to say they are wrong now? When the last time the public expressed their opposition in that way, history said the people on the street were right and not the people in the government.” That’s quite an admission from a man who still believes going to war was the right thing to do.
Dr Eliza Filby, a lecturer in modern British history at King’s College London, says he is right but such an admission is rare. “Yes, protesting does have an effect, but politicians don’t admit it. They can’t.”
History tells us there are three main ways of making an impact with a protest, she says. “You can have huge numbers, as they did in 2003. You can have prominent people – that works.” The third option is to smash things.
“You’ve got to have lots of violence against property and destruction of property, because that breeds chaos. Governments don’t like chaos, it undermines their authority. They won’t admit this, but they will do anything to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
One example is the race riots under Margaret Thatcher. “The riots all over in the summer of 1981 scared the hell out of a cabinet that was divided and weak. There was the Scarman report, the government did start putting money into the inner cities. Thatcherism was not stopped in its tracks but it did change,” says Dr Filby.
“The more chaotic a protest looks, the more a government will condemn it publicly and the more fearful it will be privately, and so liable to make changes.”
These can happen in secret over a period of time and are rarely exactly what the protesters want, she says: the protests in 2003 did not stop the invasion of Iraq but they did create a climate in which no prime minister can now go to war without the support of the Commons. “That is a direct consequence of the march.”
How many protests achieve anything at all? About a third is the answer, according a remarkable piece of work from the Initiative for Policy Dialogue at Columbia University. Researchers studied 843 protests in 84 countries between January 2006 and July 2013, from Occupy Wall Street to mining strikes in South Africa and rallies in Brazil.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/we-are-many-the-new-movie-teaching-us-lessons-to-learn-from-the-2003-iraq-war-protests-10255512.html
Were you making a wider point that I missed?
No.
“We don’t seem to be that far apart, even.”
How far apart though? Lots of people can consider an egalitarian, state free society as an abstract dream. The differences, that can seem insignificant but really are not, can be in how we get there.
Fact. Now I have a better idea of how you want to get there, I can agree with you as to at least part of the means. Your experience with the Christians you mention would suggest that doctrinal differences are best submerged if there is an agreed practical objective. Perhaps this can be extended even to conventional clergy. I’m certainly going to sound out my local druid, absent any strong liberation theologists in my rural neck of the woods. I reckon 90% of Anglican priests are atheists in any case.
“Since we’re dreaming…”
I didn’t say it was a pipe dream, but was referring to your own use of the word earlier. It stops being a dream when you wake up and smell the coffee. 😉
Thanks for the discussion.
Had the misfortune to see a copy of the Daily Express today. A truly dreadful chip wrapper with contributions from the likes of Stephen Pollard and Ann Widdecombe. Her entries have a strange similarity to Habbakuk/Habbabkuk’s here!
Pollard is the editor of the Jewish Chronicle. Only a rag like Desmond’s would take his stuff presumably.
Fred
“But they tried Neo Liberalism with the financial markets”
I just don’t understand how what I described equates to neo-liberalism.
Habbabkuk
“at what point do you know a particular priest’s not a pervert”
Ok, a poorly made irrelevent point. Shame you didn’t respond about the subject though.
RD
“but the ineffectiveness of some present techniques doesn’t justify a quantum switch to street theatre politics and what would be minority civil disobedience.”
There’s no would be about it. It is minority civil disobedience. But it is happening. I’m guessing your objection is not to mass civil disbedience in itself. Is it that you think it a failure before we start or that it is not currently warranted?
Your “street theatre politics” is actually a huge compliment. Did you intend that?
“Still proselytising for the ridiculous Krishnamurti cult I see.”
Well at least its less ridiculous and larger than your cult.
@Villager – even the largely cerebral Jidu lost it completely at his 18th lecture at Pune on 911 when shown this video – leading him to exclaim, “well I never, if one picture is worth a thousand vindaloos, this one video is worth a million bhut jolokias!!”
Cheers Baal. My egalitarian optimism gently invokes the spirit of reciprocity to one day hear where our differences lie. 🙂
‘Israeli government suspends Palestinian bus ‘segregation’ trial
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-32807783
May 20n 2015
As ‘our correspondent’ puts it –
‘Our correspondent says it appears Mr Netanyahu over-ruled Mr Yaalon after detecting the danger of damage to Israel’s international reputation.’
Worth reading to the end for the sobering post-script which describes the shooting dead by Israeli police of a Palestinian.
‘In a separate development on Wednesday, Israeli police said they had shot dead a Palestinian man in East Jerusalem after he swerved his vehicle towards a group of police officers. Two officers were slightly injured, and taken to hospital.
Following the shooting in the al-Tur district, Palestinians threw rocks at police. One eyewitness said the driver had tried to swerve to avoid hitting pedestrians.’
Finally, note this sentence in the Israel friendly piece.
“Twenty Arabs on a bus with a Jewish driver, two or three passengers and one soldier with a gun is a set-up for an attack.”
So Arabs are ‘Arabs’ and are not ‘passengers’ being sub-human untermenschen with brown skins unlike the ‘passengers’ – European Ashkenazi immigrant settlers.
.
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1432119055.html