http://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/a rational reaction to events embedding a rigorous scientific approach within the political landscape. the intention is to comment each morning on a topic from the previous day's news stories. if nothing stands out i will raise topics which seem, in any spirit, to appear the most apt by way of a more general essence or just fall back on a previous story.en-UKMokoFeed10http://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/http://data5.blog.de/design/preview/fc/9fb41785dc1f4963c9de22e7ec0eea_160x200.jpghttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/03/09/put_your_own_house_in_order_first~626685/tag:guardedreason.blog.co.uk,2006-03-09:/2006/03/09/put_your_own_house_in_order_first~626685/Thu, 09 Mar 2006 12:58:38 +0100 <p>Saw part of a programme about Childline last night. I didn't want to listen but felt compelled to hear a young man's account of how all the adults he had known as a child abused him. How the justice system had failed him, how he could not trust any adult because he had never been given anything except in return for sex. And the anguish of realising that getting justice meant reinforcing the total absence of love from his family. </p> <p>This isn't in the past. This is now.</p> <p>Instead of de-stabilising the world by launching imperialist crusades our government should be making things better here. Not talking about longer sentences to keep the gutter press happy; sentences punish individual offenders, they <i>don't</i> stop any other children getting abused. We need to find out what causes people to become so de-humanised that they use their own children as sex slaves and work out how to prevent it so that children stop suffering.</p> <p>Isn't that what we elect a <i>Labour</i> government for ? </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/03/09/put_your_own_house_in_order_first~626685/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>imperialismcrusadechild-abusechildlinehttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/03/09/put_your_own_house_in_order_first~626685/#commentshttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/03/08/diagnosing_imperialism_no_5_patient_beli~623144/tag:guardedreason.blog.co.uk,2006-03-08:/2006/03/08/diagnosing_imperialism_no_5_patient_beli~623144/Wed, 08 Mar 2006 11:40:47 +0100 <p>Tony Blair "There is no excuse for Iran or any other country to interfere in Iraq"</p> <p>Quite. When are the British troops leaving, Tony ? </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/03/08/diagnosing_imperialism_no_5_patient_beli~623144/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>iraqimperialismblairiranbritainhttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/03/08/diagnosing_imperialism_no_5_patient_beli~623144/#commentshttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/03/07/playtime~620037/tag:guardedreason.blog.co.uk,2006-03-07:/2006/03/07/playtime~620037/Tue, 07 Mar 2006 11:57:59 +0100 <p>Pakistan made their own, gave out the recipe then said no-one else can use it<br> Israel claims it doesn't have any<br> India pretends its part of the big boys gang<br> No-one's seen North Korea for ages and China's playing on its own<br> Russia discretely helps out the new boy but won't say hello when the big boys are watching<br> Britain and America, their own pockets bulging, strut around enforcing rules</p> <p>Its like watching children in the playground arguing over sweets. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/03/07/playtime~620037/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>irannuclearhttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/03/07/playtime~620037/#commentshttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/03/06/new_labour_mediaeval_decision_making~617017/tag:guardedreason.blog.co.uk,2006-03-06:/2006/03/06/new_labour_mediaeval_decision_making~617017/Mon, 06 Mar 2006 11:39:11 +0100 <p>So now we know why Blair ignored the UN Inspectors, ignored the UN Security Council, ignored the vast majority of the world's leaders, ignored his own legal advice, ignored all those who said it would make terrorism worse, ignored his own foreign secretary and large numbers of his own MP's and ignored the British people:</p> <p>he was listening to the voices in his head. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/03/06/new_labour_mediaeval_decision_making~617017/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/03/06/new_labour_mediaeval_decision_making~617017/#commentshttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/03/03/lying_for_a_living~608741/tag:guardedreason.blog.co.uk,2006-03-03:/2006/03/03/lying_for_a_living~608741/Fri, 03 Mar 2006 09:57:01 +0100 <p>So Jowel didn't know about hundreds of thousands of pounds ? Gurum-Murphy had her banged to rights when he pointed out that the status of previous mortgages would have been clear on the forms she signed for subsequent mortgages. But true to form he didn't press it home and draw blood; she couldn't possibly have thought that the previous mortgages still existed because even people with their income don't usually have three or four simultaneous mortgages on one property.</p> <p>Menzies Campbell, also true to form, is happy to accept a whitewash because he doesn't want to criticise the civil service - so much for an alternative.</p> <p>Like Campbell, Byers and Blunket before her she lied. Straw lied about CIA torture flights, Blair lied about WMD and Bush lied about the New Orleans disaster.</p> <p>Why are we being governed by a bunch of liars ? </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/03/03/lying_for_a_living~608741/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>politiciansliarshttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/03/03/lying_for_a_living~608741/#commentshttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/03/02/british_endorse_iranian_fundamentalist~606395/tag:guardedreason.blog.co.uk,2006-03-02:/2006/03/02/british_endorse_iranian_fundamentalist~606395/Thu, 02 Mar 2006 14:06:16 +0100 <p>OK, you won't see this headline but effectively this is what is going on. The best way to ensure the success and popularity of the Holocaust-denying religious extremist heading up the Iranian state is for the west to threaten and bully the Iranian state.</p> <p>The Iranians have done nothing wrong. Their nuclear industry was inspected at will by the IAEA <i>until</i> the west started to threaten them. There is still no evidence that they intend to build a bomb but it would be understandable if they did, given that Israel already has nuclear weapons. Jack Straw's explanation for this double standard ? Its OK for Israel to have them because they never signed up to the non-proliferation treaty. Iran did so they must be held to account. This moron, on the rare occasions when he makes a public appearance is our face to the world.</p> <p>I'd like to see how the US would react if the IAEA turned up one morning at one of the secret nuclear bases in the Nevada desert and demanded unrestricted access(you can go on a virtual tour of an abandoned US nuclear base <a href="http://triggur.org/silo/site.html">here</a>).</p> <p>Britain has a particular nerve in accusing Iran of hiding a weapons programme behind a civil programme - this is precisely what Britain was doing (see <a href="http://www.cnduk.org/INFORM~1/nukepow.htm">here</a> for instance) when the Queen opened the first nuclear power station at Calder Hall in Cumberland in 1956.</p> <p>I don't want any nuclear weapons or indeed any nuclear fission power plants. We've already got more of both than Iran could even contemplate developing. We need to put our own house in order and stop ressurecting nineteenth century imperialism. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/03/02/british_endorse_iranian_fundamentalist~606395/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>fundamentalismnuclear-weaponsiranimperialismhttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/03/02/british_endorse_iranian_fundamentalist~606395/#commentshttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/03/01/invasions_solve_nothing~604278/tag:guardedreason.blog.co.uk,2006-03-01:/2006/03/01/invasions_solve_nothing~604278/Wed, 01 Mar 2006 19:04:50 +0100 <p>excellent report from the south of Afghanistan on Channel 4 last night. just showed us the facts without telling us what we ought to think about them. a rarity indeed for British journalism. And what we saw was frightening. Schools being burned, teachers reputedly murdered ( I declare an interest) and a totally ineffective police service.</p> <p>Tempting to think that the British Army are the solution.</p> <p>First time I've actually heard the views of Talib fighters and their supporters. The gun men seemed most concerned about the schools imposing non-Muslim values on them. The farmer that economic support for agriculture was needed from the government before eliminating the poppy was an option. Either way they are not going to welcome the British.</p> <p>We've actually been here before. When the Russians entered Afghanistan in 1980 they were invited in by a progressive government that for the first time provided opportunities for women in a secular, democratic society based in the larger urban areas. We all know what happened subsequently; not only did the red army fail to export this secular society to the rest of Afghanistan, it was eventually holed up in Kharbul and crawled back into the USSR in disgrace.</p> <p>Without American help, this time, the Taliban may not fare so well but neither will the British subdue them; it'll drag on and on with neither side gaining the upper hand as it did in the north of Ireland.</p> <p>I don't have a problem criticising the Taliban just because Muslims in general are under threat. I have no respect for men that treat women like cattle but those women are not going to welcome the soldiers with open arms. Its their country, the Talib fighters are their men: their husbands, their brothers, their sons. If a foreign army invaded Britain no section of society would see it as an opportunity to gain advantage, why should anyone expect Afghans to behave differently ?</p> <p>What would undermine the Taliban would be a prosperous, secular alternative that would provide a real pole of attraction to those under their influence. Unfortunately the power installed by the American and British armies, the former warlords of the Northern Alliance are scarcely any better. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/03/01/invasions_solve_nothing~604278/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/03/01/invasions_solve_nothing~604278/#commentshttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/28/our_freedom_and_theirs~600216/tag:guardedreason.blog.co.uk,2006-02-28:/2006/02/28/our_freedom_and_theirs~600216/Tue, 28 Feb 2006 12:32:34 +0100 <p>I'd like to attach a health warning to last night's <i>Dispatches</i>. Peter Hitchins, like other right wing journalists who regularly pitch up on <i>question time</i>, adopts a simple tactic; champion a popular and worthy concern and load it up with right wing garbage.</p> <p>Hitchens told us, for instance, that British police had, until now, been different from those of other countries. Having been on the picket line at Wapping in 1986 and been punched in the face and been dragged to the ground and kicked all the way to the van on a student demo in 1987 I beg to differ. From the miners strike of 1984, the Grunwicks dispute of 1977, the General Strike of 1926, and back to the Peterloo Massacre the British Police have done the government's bidding with whatever violence they deemed necessary.</p> <p>Hitchens told us, with a benign nod to the Victorian ideal, that the Justice system no longer punishes criminals but blames society for their crimes. Probably the most blatantly dishonest right wing fantasy of them all, we lock more people up, per head of population, than any other European country with the exception of Turkey. The Victorians, of course, locked up and executed children for petty theft.</p> <p>Hitchens also had the arrogance to suggest that only we British, unlike our European neighbours,valued and cherished freedom. The man is a right wing loon with no integrity; he belongs in the Labour cabinet which he so despises.</p> <p>Having stripped away all the nonsense, there does remain a substantial point of course and one that has exercised many of us writing these blogs - the undoubted, persistent and frightening removal of our freedoms. I find it particularly loathsome, but not surprising, that this is being done by a Labour government but anyone who thinks Cameron would repeal a single line of legislation would be disappointed. The technology and expertise gradually being brought to bear in Britain was developed in the north of Ireland, at the request of the Tory Government of Margaret Thatcher, where the population has been spied upon for the last 25 years. Hitchens never spoke out against their freedoms being curtailed.</p> <p>To take just one example, the experience of the young man accused of stealing mail. The local plod, not known for their recruitment of the sharpest tools in the box, decided that he must be guilty because they had a positive forensic result. Actually this crass and shoddy use of evidence isn't new. The Birmingham Six, after being beaten to a pulp by those kindly British Police of yesteryear, were convicted in exactly the same way. The police were told that they had traces of Nitro-Glycerine on their hands. This alone was used to convict them. That was over thirty years ago. The danger of introducing more technology is that it allows the Police to make their mistakes more easily and more often. </p> <p>Richard Dawkins has written that people shouldn't worry about a DNA database because its no different from using an identity parade. I respect Dawkin's determination to protect objectivity and therefore to reject religion but he also rejects politics. To a scientist, DNA testing presents no problem. But most of the public and nearly all of the Police are not scientists. We know, intuitively, that an identity parade may or may not produce the truth - we all fail to recognise people sometimes. But presented with a scientific result, with a number, many people would tend to assume it had a greater weight. In fact DNA testing is quite a limited tool. It does tell you that a person was almost certainly present but it says nothing about when and it can't tell that someone wasn't there. It should only ever be used to corroborate over evidence. The police made a crude <i>DNA test positive equals guilty</i> assumption with the young man accused of stealing mail; in fact he was identified because he had posted some letters in the postbox. The Birmingham Six had been playing cards, coated with plastic containing Nitro-Glycerine.</p> <p>We cannot stop technology being introduced. What will make the difference between having a country where a train spotter is assumed to be a terrorist or not will be the nature of the Police and security services. Remember these are people who can't even locate an 8 metre long, 3 metre high bright white lorry. If people continue to swallow the lie that there is a Muslim plot to overthrow our way of life and so accept the need for more and more security we will end up like those awful eastern European countries that the media used to tell us about. You know, where they had house arrest, detention without trial and the police spying on everybody...ah.</p> <p>The alternative is to stop bombing people, find out why so many young people are attracted to terrorism and help them using our vast wealth and technology. But Hitchens would hate that; its not very Victorian. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/28/our_freedom_and_theirs~600216/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>spyingfreedommuslimdna-testpoliceterrorismhttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/28/our_freedom_and_theirs~600216/#commentshttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/27/more_cops_and_robbers~599054/tag:guardedreason.blog.co.uk,2006-02-27:/2006/02/27/more_cops_and_robbers~599054/Mon, 27 Feb 2006 23:19:03 +0100 <p>Inspector slaphead of the Kent Constabulary not quite so chipper now is he ? After revealing that a week after the event they haven't even found the huge white lorry even though they had close-up pictures of it, I think I heard him say<br> "If anyone knows the whereabouts of this money we'd like to hear from them"<br> No-kidding, Sherlock. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/27/more_cops_and_robbers~599054/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>robberytonbridgepolicehttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/27/more_cops_and_robbers~599054/#commentshttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/27/cops_and_robbers~597152/tag:guardedreason.blog.co.uk,2006-02-27:/2006/02/27/cops_and_robbers~597152/Mon, 27 Feb 2006 13:15:01 +0100 <p>Always find it strange that the media make such a fuss about large robberies. Most of us regard a heist as one of the best subjects for an entertaining film judging by the popularity of the genre. Despite the best efforts of Channel 4's reporter on Thursday evening to convince us all that this was some kind of moral affront I found it all rather amusing. When she described the wharehouse as an "anonymous building" you could clearly see the words cash depository on a sign behind her and the ex-robber and ex-cop hauled out of retirement to comment were also laughing by the end of the report.</p> <p>I do have sympathy for the people abducted, a most unpleasant experience no doubt. But the cash ? If its spent the economy benefits. The security company are likely to employ more people not fewer. The local police have an exciting case and an excuse to ask for more funds. Since most of us will never see even a tiny fraction of the amount stolen why should it matter to us who's got it ?</p> <p>On the same day the news broke that it had been proved, though long suspected, that MI5 had witheld intelligence concerning the Omagh bombing which could have prevented the loss of life. Now that was a story, Mr Snow. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/27/cops_and_robbers~597152/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>moralomaghmi5heistchannel-4http://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/27/cops_and_robbers~597152/#commentshttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/26/title~595047/tag:guardedreason.blog.co.uk,2006-02-26:/2006/02/26/title~595047/Sun, 26 Feb 2006 17:43:14 +0100 <p>I'm troubled by what the jailing of David Irving has revealed. There are many comments <a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/index.php/girlincharge/2006/02/22/david_irving_those_cartoons_and_free_spe~583356">here </a>by young people (younger than me anyway) who all broadly agree that free speech is absolute and Irving is a victim. More worrying is the supporting statements being made. Some are just absurd and ignorant - like claiming he has been jailed for thought crime; no. he <i>said</i> it - but others clearly believe that there is doubt about the Nazi Holocaust. This doubt is precisely the aim of the Holocaust denyers. Presumably these views are more widespread than the few I've seen.</p> <p>David Irving has spent his career employing a technique known to academics as <i>reductio ad absurdium</i>. It is a legitimate tool. its used in physics proofs for instance. It has no place in the study of history however. It means that we should not believe in the big picture until every last dot and comma of the constituent details have been proved. In Irving's case it means asserting that we cannot be sure about the approximate number of murders committed by the Nazis because we cannot prove cause of death for every victim. That we cannot believe that victims were gassed at Ausschwitz because we cannot excavate any remains of the chambers. That we cannot hold Hitler responsible because we cannot find a single execution order with his signature on.</p> <p>Following this model we would not accept that during the eighteenth century the urban population of England rose from 20% to 60% because we cannot identify the old and new addresses of every individual involved. We would not accept that slaves were transported from Africa to America because we could not trace each and every African American's family tree back to Africa. We would not accept that Louis the sixteenth was executed by revolutionaries in 1790 because we cannot find any trace of the guillotine with which they accomplished their task.</p> <p>This isn't history. </p> <p>There are serious historians working on the Nazi period who are revising commonly perceived truths. They aren't insulting people by quibbling about the figures they are trying to answer the real question, how did the Holocaust happen ? Many people like to blame it on the madness of Hitler, its simple and neat and avoids any difficult questions. The truth is more complex but well worth investigation because the more we can understand how it happened the more chance we have of preventing it happening again. For instance, the first large scale transportation of Jewish people from Germany was at the local initiative of the Nazi in charge of Hamburg. It wasn't part of some great planned genocide, it just occurred to him at the time. Not popular with some to say so but this is the truth and it is part of the legitimate historical process to reveal it. I actually find it heartening; it means that as late as 1941 the Holocaust could have been prevented if enough people had done the right thing.</p> <p>I suspect this willingness to treat Irving's views as being as legitimate as anyone else's stems partly from a blanket scepticism; part of the disengagement with political parties that is prevalent among younger British people. Of course, like the stopped clock, if you are sceptical about everything you will agree with everyone on something. You make no net political contribution; its just another form of liberalism. But that doesn't make it OK. People who are so atomised that they can entertain the idea of absolute freedoms with no concern for the affect on society are more vulnerable to Irving's poison.</p> <p>Doubt is a powerful weapon. The Nazis began with doubt. They encouraged non-Jewish Germans to doubt that Jews had fought in the Great War for Germany. They encouraged them to doubt that Jews felt themselves to be German. They encouraged them to doubt that Jews were honest. David Irving has never applied his method to the Agrarian Revolution or the Gunpowder Plot. He's not interested. His aim has been to instil doubt about the Holocaust so that Fascist organisations like the National Front and the BNP would face less opposition. I stood three feet from a couple of Nazis in suits in Lewisham police station in 1993. They are frightening people. They are every bit as dangerous as the thugs who daub Synagogues with swastikas, poor petrol through the letter boxes of asians and murder black students. Stop them, as Malcolm X advised "By any means necessary". </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/26/title~595047/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>irvinghistoryfascismnazishttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/26/title~595047/#commentshttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/24/an_attack_on_democracy~590901/tag:guardedreason.blog.co.uk,2006-02-24:/2006/02/24/an_attack_on_democracy~590901/Fri, 24 Feb 2006 23:22:42 +0100 <p>The suspension of Ken Livingstone, the elected London mayor, by an unelected QANGO is nothing short of a scandal. The arrogance and contempt for democracy demonstrated by these self-appointed arbitors of London's collective good is breathtaking.</p> <p>The Prime Minister lied to the country in order to start a war - he remains in office.</p> <p>This has nothing to do with anti-semitism. It has nothing to do with public standards.</p> <p>Livingstone has been a figure on the left all my adult life. In the late 70's and early 80's he was the leader of the Greater London Council, famously introducing a <i>Fair's Fare</i> policy for London's public transport. The GLC was forced by The Tory government to abandon this popular policy. Livingstone also promoted equality for women and campaigned against racism whether it was directed at the Irish, black people, Jews or anybody else. He was instrumental in groups working against discrimination of all kinds receiving funding and in changing the culture of Britain's capital city to help make it the modern, multicultural, cosmopolitan place that it is today.</p> <p>And the press hated him. He was vilified and ridiculed for promoting equality. He was the original target of the <i>Politically Correct</i> slur (a term of abuse invented by the right wing Reaganites in America to attack those promoting equality there. Then, as now, nobody promoting equality actually used it; you only ever hear it as an insult). Over the years I have seen him move to the right but he remains a man of more integrity and decency than may be found collectively in the entire Blair cabinet. And the press have never given up. He was a tough nut to crack because he was both popular and principled.</p> <p>Why was some low-life journalist (and I use the term journalist loosely) hanging around a private party in the middle of the night ? Because they had tried for twenty five years to turn the public against Livingstone because of his politics and just couldn't make it stick. And the more the public refused to condemn him for standing up for his principles the more obsessed the right wing press became with nailing him. Gutter press tactics triumphed where public character assassination had failed.</p> <p>The Jewish Board of Deputies should be ashamed of themselves. The idea that Livingstone is anti-semitic is absurd and, having spent his entire adult life fighting inequality, he will have been personally devastated by this foul assertion. He is, however, a resilient character and he'll no-doubt bounce back. Our democracy may be more badly damaged. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/24/an_attack_on_democracy~590901/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>equalitydemocracylivingstonemulticulturalhttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/24/an_attack_on_democracy~590901/#commentshttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/24/democracy_free_speech_and_fascism~589273/tag:guardedreason.blog.co.uk,2006-02-24:/2006/02/24/democracy_free_speech_and_fascism~589273/Fri, 24 Feb 2006 13:04:50 +0100 <p>Many commentators are content to dismiss David Irving as a fraudulent and ridiculous figure who represents no real threat and believe therefore that jailing him was uneccessary. Others go further and explain that if we want to defend free speech it has to extend to people like Irving as well. Still others accuse the Austrian Government of jailing him for <i>thought crime</i>.</p> <p>I'm happy he was jailed. I'd be equally happy if he'd gone under a bus. Either way he's been stopped.</p> <p>Fascism is a specific political phenomenon. Its goal is to destroy democracy so that capitalism may proceed unhindered. The Nazis in Germany used anti-semitism as a tool to achieve this. Todays British nazis concentrate more on asians. In Chile, where there were no obvious scapegoats, Pinochet adopted a more direct approach, rounding up, torturing and murdering all the trade union activists, socialists and human rights campaigners.</p> <p>David Irving is not some maverick, eccentric, misguided third-rate historian who has simply not towed the line. I'm very much in favour of history being refined. Recent work has shed new light on the <i>Final Solution</i>. It seems now more appropriate to acknowledge a gap between the early persecution of Jews in order to gain power and the later industrial genocide rather than seeing a continuous progression to a planned genocide from 1933 onwards. Some people won't like that. It might seem, to a casual thinker, to be pronouncing the Nazis less guilty. Some just don't want the simple story to be examined at all.</p> <p>Irving, on the other hand, has systematically misused his status as a historian to aid todays neo-nazis. Their goal is to remove the freedom from everyone else which they claim for themselves. He went to Austria, believing wrongly that they wouldn't jail him, in order to discredit that Country's stance against Fascism. In Irving's Britain children as young as five would work in factories and mothers would give birth on the factory floor as they did during the first half of the nineteenth century when capitalism went unchallenged. We have spent the last one hundred and fifty years developing a labour movement and a democratic politics so that we never go back to Irving's world. Let him rot in Austria. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/24/democracy_free_speech_and_fascism~589273/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>holocaustfascismfree-speechirvingnazishttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/24/democracy_free_speech_and_fascism~589273/#commentshttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/23/dictatorships_and_disasters~586304/tag:guardedreason.blog.co.uk,2006-02-23:/2006/02/23/dictatorships_and_disasters~586304/Thu, 23 Feb 2006 13:40:47 +0100 <p>During the 1990's war raged in the Balkans as the Yugoslavian federation broke up. All war is nasty but these produced more than their quota of rape, torture and murder. To understand why this happened you have to go back to the nineteenth century when imperial powers like Britain, Germany, Austria, Russia, Hungary and Turkey were obsessed with solving the <i>Balkan Question</i>. The reason they couldn't solve it was that it wasn't their problem to solve. They wanted to solve it in their own interests and continually ignored the interests of the people who lived there. To understand why these wars happened in the 1990's and not before you have to know about Marshal Tito.</p> <p>Tito was the dictator who molded Yugoslavia at the end of the second world war. As dictators go he wasn't bad (same league as Castro but you'd probably prefer not to live there) but he was local. He was their dictator and he steered a courageous path between the east and the west, becoming the pawn of neither. And thus was he able to keep a lid on nationalism and ethnic division. When he died that lid was removed and centuries old antagonisms filled the gap.</p> <p>What have our leaders learned from this history ? Are they using it to guide their foreign policy ? Are they foreseeing the pitfalls that their predessesors stumbled into ? Are they gathering around them people who can examine the past and advise a less risky course for the future ?</p> <p>Iraq has been blown to pieces. The lid has been removed on an artificial country cobbled together by those same nineteenth century imperialists, joined by the most famous twentieth century imperialist, Winston Churchill. Those gathered around our leaders are experts in removing lids, with ever greater force, ever more quickly. And our leaders have not the slightest idea about what to expect or what to do next. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/23/dictatorships_and_disasters~586304/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>yugoslaviaimperialismhistoryiraqdictatorshiptitohttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/23/dictatorships_and_disasters~586304/#commentshttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/22/a_bunch_of_bankers~583043/tag:guardedreason.blog.co.uk,2006-02-22:/2006/02/22/a_bunch_of_bankers~583043/Wed, 22 Feb 2006 12:12:35 +0100 <p>The most frightening aspect of the headlong and headless rush towards a stalinist style police state is the readiness of the media to aquiess. Once again last night I watched in disbelief as a journalist, who no doubt thinks he is doing a good job, made sure of a balanced debate over torture. Torture is no longer morally wrong in the eyes of the British media, it is up for debate and every view must be equally heard. </p> <p>If he was really good at his job he would be asking why the British and US governments have such a poverty of ideas between them that they have fallen back on a technique for protecting us that does not work. It does not work in the small sense; if you torture someone they will tell you anything to get you to stop. It does not work in the large sense; every person that is tortured is replaced by a hundred others whose hatred of the west is re-invigorated. He might have pointed out that our leaders, not any terrorists, are destroying our values. He might have suggested Jack Straw be tortured until we get the truth about CIA torture flights using our airports.</p> <p>Meanwhile an actual bunch of bankers look set to be transported to the US for trial over alleged crime in Britain. No evidence needed to be produced, the American justice system simply has to ask for British citizens to be handed over. You were probably thinking that all this persecution of muslims is unpleasant but it doesn't actually affect me. Now they can haul off city bankers: still feel as safe ?</p> <p>No reciprocal agreement exists of course. The US government also refused to sign up to the war crimes protocol, allowing their citizens to be tried for war crimes in other countries. They also refuse to apply the Geneva Conventions to citizens of other countries who they detain without charge or trial.</p> <p>In 1984 a chemical disaster at a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India resulted in massive contamination of the city. Twenty thousand people died from the poisoning and over a hundred thousand continue to suffer symptoms, including cancers and brain damage, to this day. The city has never been adequately de-contaminated. When the Indian Government requested the extradition of Warren Anderson, chairman of Union Carbide Corporation at the time of the disaster, to face corporate manslaughter charges, the US government refused. As far as I know the Indian government haven't used this catastrophic loss of life, dwarfing the numbers dying on september the 11th 2001, to invade other countries or kidnap, detain and torture foreign nationals. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/22/a_bunch_of_bankers~583043/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/22/a_bunch_of_bankers~583043/#commentshttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/21/bird_flu~580048/tag:guardedreason.blog.co.uk,2006-02-21:/2006/02/21/bird_flu~580048/Tue, 21 Feb 2006 12:23:18 +0100 <p>The flu approaches ever nearer, the rest of Europe is gathering up its flocks and our Government says we don't need to do anything yet. Why ? Because they are populist, media-obsessed panderers to the lowest common denominator. They worry more about being labelled anti-farmer or anti-business than they do about people's health. </p> <p>I lived in a small village during the Foot and Mouth outbreak. We got sick one day because of the size of the surrounding fires. They are heading for the same crisis management solution this time instead of having the courage to do what is right. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/21/bird_flu~580048/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>populistbird-flumediahttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/21/bird_flu~580048/#commentshttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/17/why_not_try_both_suspects~569370/tag:guardedreason.blog.co.uk,2006-02-17:/2006/02/17/why_not_try_both_suspects~569370/Fri, 17 Feb 2006 11:06:15 +0100 <p>More Americans stepping forward to say Rumsfeld should go. An outbreak of conscience it probably isn't; more likely they now see him as a liability rather than an asset. No-one is saying he did anything wrong, just that he's probably not the best person for the job right now.</p> <p>Also in the news, one Saddam Hussein, on trial accused of murder and torture in 1982. In case you're not sure of whom we speak, here they both are in 1983, shaking hands on a business deal.<a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/srv/media/media_item.php?item_ID=366921"><img src="http://data1.blog.de/media/921/366921_cd0ea51cdc_s.jpeg" align="" alt="RumsfeldHussein1983" vspace="5" hspace="5"></a> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/17/why_not_try_both_suspects~569370/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>trialrumsfeldamericantorturesaddamconsciencehttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/17/why_not_try_both_suspects~569370/#commentshttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/16/new_terror_law~566761/tag:guardedreason.blog.co.uk,2006-02-16:/2006/02/16/new_terror_law~566761/Thu, 16 Feb 2006 11:22:59 +0100 <p>Will it now become illegal to say that Hamas is running a democratically elected government in Palestine and we should respect the decision of the Palestinian people whether or not attacks on Israel continue ?</p> <p>Another new law designed to give the impression that the Government is making us safer while they continue to pursue reckless and immoral policies that in fact make us less safe. </p> <p>If someone is inciting murder - whether through terrorism or not - it is already an offense. This law will make it a crime to support a cause. Its the law the Tories never dared to impose over support for Irish Republicanism. Its political censorship Stalinist style. Once again Labour move the goal posts to the right. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/16/new_terror_law~566761/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>hamaslabourright-winglawpalestinetoriesterrorhttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/16/new_terror_law~566761/#commentshttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/15/smoking_ban~564039/tag:guardedreason.blog.co.uk,2006-02-15:/2006/02/15/smoking_ban~564039/Wed, 15 Feb 2006 11:23:45 +0100 <p>Excellent. We should have done this a long time ago. We should have a government that did what was right as soon as it knew it was right instead of waiting till it felt forced to do it.</p> <p>I have no time for this nonsense about the need to balance people's rights. You don't here that applied to drunk drivers or heroine dealers or paedophiles - why should people who want to give their fellow human beings lung cancer be treated differently ? People do not have the absolute right to do what <i>they</i> want to do regardless of the consequences for others.</p> <p>Ireland, with a higher percentage of smokers than Britain, has a total workplace ban. Apart from a few loud-mouthed publicans who soon shut up when they realised their pubs were still full, no-one complained. Diagio, the Guiness makers, have not reported a drop in sales but smoking is down.</p> <p>No more sob-stories about how the pubs are going to empty. They won't. They will just cease to be cancer factories. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/15/smoking_ban~564039/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>bancancerabsoluterightssmokinghttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/15/smoking_ban~564039/#commentshttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/14/the_man_who_would_be_king~561167/tag:guardedreason.blog.co.uk,2006-02-14:/2006/02/14/the_man_who_would_be_king~561167/Tue, 14 Feb 2006 11:10:17 +0100 <p>What a pathetic spectacle. Brown's been waiting all these years, finds Blair unavoidably detained and seizes the opportunity to demonstrate that he is ... every bit as right wing as Blair. He's moved from vague calls for national celebrations to craven appeals to do more to honour war veterans and revive Bletchley Park. The Tory leadership candidates who attempted to invoke the Dunkirk spirit and have schools fly the Union Jack were rejected as out of step with 21st century Britain. Yet Brown, desperate to prove to business that he carries no shred of genuine Labour about his person, blunders into the sun and hastens along the same path.</p> <p>I've always felt that the best way to honour war veterans is not to start any more wars but none of it will help him; business doesn't vote the government in, the rest of us do. There's already a Blair clone on the block and with such dissilusion in Labour, the more Brown punts Tory values the more likely we are to get a Tory government.</p> <p>Celebrate our Britishness ? Absolutely - keep the NHS public. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/14/the_man_who_would_be_king~561167/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>veteransgordon-brownnationalismcravenflaghttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/14/the_man_who_would_be_king~561167/#commentshttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/13/mad_monks_and_mercenaries~558667/tag:guardedreason.blog.co.uk,2006-02-13:/2006/02/13/mad_monks_and_mercenaries~558667/Mon, 13 Feb 2006 12:03:21 +0100 <p>When the last film of British soldiers beating Iraqi civilians was aired we were told that it was from 2003 and that this doesn't happen any more. Probably even more shocking than the inaction of the troops filing past was the sexual excitement of the soldier filming this latest orgy of violence.</p> <p>Nobody can surely believe now that this sort of abuse is not routine in the British army. But neither should it surprise anyone. A minority of soldiers probably really believe that they are helping to make the world a better place. A minority were violent thugs before they joined up and wanted official sanction for their depravity. Most, however, are poorly educated young people with little self esteem for whom the army offers refuge from life at the bottom of the heap. These people are trained to do what they are told, without question, to foster aggression and to kill people they have never met. They are told when to eat, when to sleep, when to wash, when to walk, when to run, when to talk, when not to talk. And when to kill. If you train intelligent, sensitive, thoughtful human beings to be mindless aggressors they stop behaving like people.</p> <p>Most military historians would trace the origin of the modern British army to Cromwell's New Model Army of the 1640's. But the difference couldn't be more profound. Today's soldier is frequently heard to say <i>At the end of the day we are professionals, we will do whatever job we are asked to do</i>. The men of the NMA would have regarded this statement with dismay and denounced its author as a mercenary. For them, killing could only be justified with personal conviction. Three hundred years prior to Nuremburg the NMA had already decided that <i>just following orders</i> was no excuse; during 1648 they were more concerned with politics than fighting and many refused to go to Ireland in 1649.</p> <p>It will be interesting to note the response of Muslim fundamentalist leaders to this latest outrage. I don't recall them trying to rally a jihad against forces occupying Iraq following the Abu Ghraib revelations. Probably resistance to absolutist power doesn't interest them very much. But an attack on the mumbo-jumbo that they want to use to control people's minds, that's a cause they will ask others to die for. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/13/mad_monks_and_mercenaries~558667/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>mercenaryiraqfundamentalistabusemumbo-jumbobritisharmyhttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/13/mad_monks_and_mercenaries~558667/#commentshttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/12/its_eye_candy_and_we_all_have_a_sweet_to~557146/tag:guardedreason.blog.co.uk,2006-02-12:/2006/02/12/its_eye_candy_and_we_all_have_a_sweet_to~557146/Sun, 12 Feb 2006 18:57:46 +0100 <p>It's Sunday afternoon; enough of the politics, if you really want to court controversy you have to generalise about men and women. So here goes.</p> <p>Heterosexual men are attracted by women's bodies. I mean more so than heterosexual women are by men's. That's not controversial its just a necessary consequence of evolution - we can't co-procreate if we can't get an erection so we have evolved to be stimulated very easily.</p> <p>So why are some women genuinely shocked when the man they are with, who is attracted to them <i>physically</i> because of the shape of their body, is attracted to other women who have essentially the same shaped body ? We all are. Any man who claims to his partner that he doesn't like other women is either gay or a liar. It is just physical, we don't know if all these other women are nice people and we usually don't have any interest in knowing but we can't help being attracted - its biological.</p> <p>There is a serious side to this. Sorry, back to politics, just can't help myself. During the eighties there was a concerted attempt to deny this basic fact of male sexuality; sexism was blamed on men expressing their sexuality. I think this undid the gains of sexual equality made in the 60's and 70's and paved the way for the revival of male/female antagonism, girl-power and new-laddism. Whilst the latter stress an <i>I'm all right</i> mentality, the former was part of the labour movement and sought equality for all, not just a few extra executive bums on seats, however shapely those bums might be.</p> <p>Its never wise to hide the truth. It didn't work for society as a whole. Why do some women feel more secure if they can persuade their partners to lie to them ? </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/12/its_eye_candy_and_we_all_have_a_sweet_to~557146/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>sexualitypoliticstruthsexismsexhttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/12/its_eye_candy_and_we_all_have_a_sweet_to~557146/#commentshttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/12/waiting_for_gordo~556383/tag:guardedreason.blog.co.uk,2006-02-12:/2006/02/12/waiting_for_gordo~556383/Sun, 12 Feb 2006 13:48:30 +0100 <p>Clear from his interview on BBC1 this morning that those expecting some enlightenment when Brown takes over will be short-changed. His solution to our safety ? More security, more police, less freedom but not even a mention of tackling any underlying causes of instability. He has the mind-set of Elizabethan ministers who created a police state in which paranoia, spying and demonisation of an ephemeral, largely imagined enemy coincided with economic stagnation and an increasingly divided socity. That attempt to scapegoat a minority - in their case Catholics - instead of tackling the real problems sowed the seeds of the English Civil War. </p> <p>There is an upside though. From the confusion and poverty of ideas paralising the English ruling class during the 1640's, emerged the radicals who, for the first time in English history, put forward a programme for democracy. For a time in 1648 they came close to winning, forcing Cromwell and Henry Ireton (Cromwell's father in law and chief of staff of the New Model Army) to negotiate.</p> <p>Cromwell and Ireton both explicitly argued against democracy and eventually regained power. It is Cromwell, though, not the men and women who wanted democracy, who is commemorated in a statue outside the Houses of Parliament. Cromwell was the strongest.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/12/waiting_for_gordo~556383/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/12/waiting_for_gordo~556383/#commentshttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/11/dunfermline_by_election~554371/tag:guardedreason.blog.co.uk,2006-02-11:/2006/02/11/dunfermline_by_election~554371/Sat, 11 Feb 2006 14:56:31 +0100 <p>Not surprised. I lived in scotland during the Thatcher era. Scottish people were never duped by her promise of popular capitalism and showed a tenacious loyalty to Labour. A loyalty that was betrayed by a party that treated the whole country as a safe seat and believed they need do nothing to maintain their position.</p> <p>A good kick in the goolies for Gordon Brown. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/11/dunfermline_by_election~554371/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/11/dunfermline_by_election~554371/#commentshttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/10/red_flags_and_retribution~551510/tag:guardedreason.blog.co.uk,2006-02-10:/2006/02/10/red_flags_and_retribution~551510/Fri, 10 Feb 2006 12:50:00 +0100 <p>Can't let Dianne Abbot's revelation from <i> This Week</i> go without comment. The parliamentary Labour Party singing <i> The Red Flag</i> ? In the <i>House of Commons</i> ? Hardly an indication of emerging socialism. The Labour Party never were a socialist party - they even changed the tune of Jim Connell's iconic song, replacing it with that of a German hymn they thought imparted a less radical tone - but they used to justify right wing policies with left wing rhetoric. Blair's achievement has been to make those policies acceptable using right wing rhetoric, a task historically reserved for the Tory party. Still, Gordon Brown must have shit himself.</p> <p>The main story, though, was a perfect illustration of the harm Blair is doing to our society. Sion Jenkins was pronounced innocent of the murder of his step-daughter. Our system of justice relies on us accepting that verdict. Thousands around the country will today be saying that he ought to be strung up or gleefully explaining to their friends what they would do to him if they were in charge. Fortunately they aren't. The jury, having been subject to the intense persuasion of two lawyers and privy to the evidence, were unable to decide. Nobody outside that process can claim that they do know. But many will, simply on their impression of Jenkins, as portrayed via the media. This system isn't perfect, as we all know, but it does maintain the principle, in theory, police corruption asside, that a crime is tried dispassionately on evidence and not on impression. This has given the entire population, in the era of strong, free trade unions and socialist politics, in the last hundred years or so, a right to a fair trial hitherto reserved for the wealthy (forget Magna Carta, a bunch of Norman toffs worried that the King wasn't leaving enough room in the trough for their noble faces).</p> <p>Blair not only wants to dismantle this precious liberty by restricting the right to a jury, he is also nurturing a culture where gut instinct and conviction replace scientific reason. A society where the retribution of a mob who don't know the difference between a paedophile and a pediatrician will be excused because they truly thought that they were right. The woman who attacked Mr Jenkins should have been arrested.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/10/red_flags_and_retribution~551510/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>laboursocialismblairjenkinsjurytrialfairflagredevidencehttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/10/red_flags_and_retribution~551510/#commentshttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/09/dr_strangelove_rides_again~548174/tag:guardedreason.blog.co.uk,2006-02-09:/2006/02/09/dr_strangelove_rides_again~548174/Thu, 09 Feb 2006 10:59:52 +0100 <p>Maybe I dozed off but the only thing I can remember from last night's news is Condoleezza Rice accusing Iran and Syria of encouraging the protests over the cartoons and saying that violence is unacceptable. Was she sitting in a tank, or leaning out of a helicopter gunship or riding bareback on a cruise missile, Dr Strangelove style ? I don't remember. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/09/dr_strangelove_rides_again~548174/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>riceimperialismcartoonsstrangelovehypocracyhttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/09/dr_strangelove_rides_again~548174/#commentshttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/08/hamza_and_griffin~545378/tag:guardedreason.blog.co.uk,2006-02-08:/2006/02/08/hamza_and_griffin~545378/Wed, 08 Feb 2006 12:51:39 +0100 <p>Remarkable how similar the racist thuggery of Abu Hamza and the fascist Nick Griffin. But how dissimilar is the treatment of the two. Whatever the game played by British security over the last ten years the public perception of the cat and mouse style operation of the law as applied to Hamza will be one of inconsistency and incompetence. The wishes and warnings of moderate Muslims in Finsbury Park were ignored, undermining the mutual respect and tolerance in a diverse society that the government claims is its goal. To add insult to injury the Mosk itself was raided by Police; either a deliberate provocation or the most unforgivable ineptitude. Probably the most incompetent of all was to allow Hamza previously to keep the documents now contributing to his conviction - surely a gift for his appeal lawyer.</p> <p>On the other hand the Police have never raided any BNP premises. When I joined the march on their headquarters in south east London some years ago the police defended it, despite its role as a distribution point for literature designed to promote racial violence. The very existence of the BNP flies in the face of the law yet it is allowed to operate freely. This has nothing to do with freedom of speech. The government saw no problem with banning Sinn Fein from speaking on British TV. It is about appeasing the right wing and the racists because the government has no political commitment to taking these arguments head on. Instead of educating people about the causes of poverty, unemployment and poor health - and doing something about it - they prefer to tread a dangerous path between agreeing that immigrants are a problem and promoting an inclusive, diverse, tolerant society.</p> <p>While the Labour Party press the flesh of British Muslims, around the world fundamentalists are recruiting on the slogan "Britain persecutes Muslims and protects Nazis" </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/08/hamza_and_griffin~545378/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>free-speechfundamentalistfascismpolicelabourhamzagriffinhttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/08/hamza_and_griffin~545378/#commentshttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/07/ration_the_military~541864/tag:guardedreason.blog.co.uk,2006-02-07:/2006/02/07/ration_the_military~541864/Tue, 07 Feb 2006 10:56:04 +0100 <p>Herceptin in the news again. Why do media commentators accept that there is rationing - a limited pot as they prefer to call it - in the health service and indeed in education and most spending that benefits the population at large but don't apply this to military spending ?</p> <p>There is an army base in the north of Ireland called Bessbrook. Until recently this was the busiest heliport in Europe. With the recent demilitirisation flights are now down significantly but the barracks at nearby Crossmaglen are still supplied several times a day by helicopter. The police there refuse to come out without soldiers and the army are under orders to stay out of sight so no-one comes in or out of the police station. There is no policing going on but this non-existent service retains full helicopter support at enormous cost. </p> <p>This is a bit like insisting that a hospital maintains more beds than it ever fills, as a contingency. This, we are told, is unrealistic, utopian or frivolous but if the military do it its sensible, prudent and well-planned.</p> <p>There is no shortage of wealth. The cost of the helicopter fleet in the north of Ireland would pay for the treatment of every woman in Britain who could benefit from Herceptin. The obscene cash-pile reserved for replacing our nuclear weapons would pay for a brand new hospital in every city. The money spent on a single jet used to bomb Iraqi civilians could instead have allowed the NHS to develop its own version of Herceptin and save itself most of the future cost. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/07/ration_the_military~541864/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>rationingmilitarynhsherceptinwealthirelandhealthhttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/07/ration_the_military~541864/#commentshttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/06/cartoon_capers~539848/tag:guardedreason.blog.co.uk,2006-02-06:/2006/02/06/cartoon_capers~539848/Mon, 06 Feb 2006 17:29:58 +0100 <p>It was extraordinary to see Jack Straw, having been invisible for months because he was out of his depth over Iraq, chastising newspapers for being insensitive to Muslims. Cartoons don't kill, bombs do. The anger now being channelled in protest over the infamous cartoons is political, not religious. It is another example of how the Bush/Blair crusade to impose their vision of civilisation down the barrel of a gun actually undermines the values they claim to be protecting.</p> <p>I opposed the first invasion of Iraq, I opposed the second invasion of Iraq and I opposed the daily bombing of Iraq in the interum. Blair, Bush and their cronies have killed hundreds of thousands and lied to us about the reasons. They are now preparing the ground, using similar lies, to interfere in the running of another Muslim country. Incredibly, commentators and media lackeys accept that there is a problem with Iran even though they continue to point out - after the event - that the same excuses over Iraq were never valid. I have opposed the double standards applied over UN resolutions; in Muslim countries they must be obeyed but in Israel they are just a reccomendation. I could go on. There are many opponents, like me, of imperialism, whether it be in Ireland, Iraq or Nicarragua. We also oppose the attempt by some media to associate muslims and other immigrants with crime and even terrorism. But now, in a perverse symetry, we are tarred with the bullying brush of intollerance.</p> <p>Because of the criminal actions of Bush and Blair our freedom of expression has been curtailed. The freedom to criticise, lampoon and ridicule the articles of faith of others is a right that has been nurtured, prized and fought for throughout history from Roman plebian satirists, radical pampheteers of the seventeenth century, Samizdat opposition to stalinist police states to the present day. This isn't a culteral artifact, it is a hard-won freedom, like the right to sexual equality, trade union membership, social welfare and universal education.</p> <p>No group is a special case. As an atheist I regard all religion as an afront to human intelligence and dignity and I will say so, insult or no. I am insulted when I hear people offer thanks to a god for accidents or the actions of humans; we disagree and we will argue and sometimes we will offend. And then there is war. Dressed as religious hegemony, whether it has been the catholics and the protestants or the Muslims and the Hindus or, now, the protestants and the Muslims the real cause is economic and the real goal is political. It was interesting to note that the initial response of Hamas, the victors, was to declare protection for westerners whilst Fata, the losers and erstwhile secularists, tried to out-Muslim Hamas by sending gunmen to round up Danes. Realising they might have been outflanked, Hamas then resorted to making threats against westerners. Politics.</p> <p>I have more in common with IRA volunteers defending Irish nationalists from Loyalist pogroms or with Palestinian suicide bombers reacting to the ethnic cleansing of the Zionist state than I do with the right-wing, anti-working class liars who predominate in the british media. But I will always be on the side of the elevation of human intellect over the backward superstition of religious dogma. Thanks to Blair and Bush it is now a dangerous position to take.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/06/cartoon_capers~539848/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>bushhamasiraniraqpoliticalcrusadefree-speechprophetreligiousblairsafetycartoonshttp://guardedreason.blog.co.uk/2006/02/06/cartoon_capers~539848/#comments