What I wrote

we sar a littall lef gro

2005-09-07T22:30:00.000+01:00

My six year old son's "Plant Diaree" us reproduced below:

My Plant Diaree

Be Ethan

Ritide and ilstrated

Conteens

1 Wat yooy need
2 Choosday
3 Wensday
4 Therthday
5 Fridday
6 Munday

What yow need to grow a sunflowa.

Plant
Pot and
Saucer

Sunflow seed
soil

twowl
worthwing can

On Tuesday we plrntid some sunflowor seds in a pot. Finlee we warted the sunflowers seeds.

On Wensday we sor a stem and mor levs.

On Chousday we sar a littall lef gro.

On Friday I sare my plarnt wilting.

On Munday my plrnt did.

When is a war not a war?

2005-07-29T20:13:00.000+01:00

Answer: When The Spectator* says that it isn't.

In an edition that displays all the virtues of this great publication (that is, it contains completely contradictory opinion) The Spectator comes down firmly on the side of the comforting line: "There is no war - what you have here is a radical Islamic crime scene."

The Spectator asserts that we are not at war, mainly because if we were at war, then the government would be right to seek emergency powers. But we don't want the government to seek emergency powers. So we can't be at war:

"To call this (Islamic violence against the West) war may send a surge of adrenalin through the neocon bloodstream...but the worst single consequence of allowing governments to prosecute a nebulous "war on terror"...is that it encourages them to think that they may behave like all governments in time of war, not just by eroding the liberty of the citizenry, but also by lying to them."

I've read tightly written editorials by The Spectator before, but this is not one of them. You know a writer is all over the place when, rather than coming to his point, he wastes time lashing out at imagined adversaries - in this case, the proverbial "neo-cons" so beloved of the liberal left.

The editor doesn't bother to examine the widespread scale of Islamic violence, its indiscriminate targeting of civilians of every creed and colour, its impact on Western politics and culture, it's ideological aspect. The fact that the United States, Great Britain, and the Iraqi democrats may, indeed, be defeated by the Islamic fanatics, doesn't get a mention. Instead, The Spectator worries that if you call it a war, the government might seek the powers that would help to win it. The war, according to the Spectator (remarkably similar to the line taken by the American Democrats), is something got up by the government to destroy our civil liberties.

Has Cherie Blair joined the Spectator's editorial board?

A couple pages into the magazine, after the excellent article by Peter Sookhdeo who explains that a "moderate" Islam is a myth constructed by Western multi-culturalists, Peter Oborne returns to his tired theme - Islamic violence is "all about Iraq."

Peter has been regurgitating this line for so long that he only has to change the first paragraph to make his latest essay timely. It still reads like spit-up. This one bemoans the fact that after Muslim fanatics bombed London, British politicians have rallied to defend the country and are trying to present a united front. Oh, the shame of it.

Oborne warns, gravely, of the dangers of such a political consensus. He conter-intuitively warns that the British elite, in finally finding a collective political backbone, is suffering from too much consensus, not too little. Peter remembers, fretfully, the consensus of British politics "before the first world war, the economic depression of the 1930's, the appeasement of Hitler." No mention of the Welfare State consensus here.

I'm not exactly clear how the sight of the three leaders of the main democratic parties in Britain, standing outside Downing Street to condemn suicide bombers, compares to any of the three examples of consensus politics that Oborne cites. Is it not just possible that the timid, fragile, consensus of the democrats, is the first sign of a reply to the Islamist challenge, and to the appeasing of it, as exemplified by the Oborne's of this country?

Peter can't imagine why a suicide bomber might encourage political consensus among his victims. But he's very good at imagining how reasonable are the political aims of the Islamists. Here is just one quote that is worth dissecting:

"Al Qa'eda and its associates may indeed be deeply disturbed by aspects of Western civilisation - who isn't? - but they have no interest at all in changing Western society either for good or ill. Their objective is far more specific: to change US policy towards the Islamic world, and in particular to remove US and allied forces from Arab soil."

Note the way Oborne dismisses the stated aims of the Islamists - that they are fighting a war of religion against a decadent culture. Hey, they may be disturbed by aspects of Western civilisation, but no more than is a toffy-nosed tory at the sight of an over-weight woman wearing pink lycra in a shopping centre. I'm deeply disturbed every time I see that (or even think about it). But I would never even dream of blowing her up.

Why concede that the Islamists are right to be "deeply disturbed" by Western civilisation anyway? What a loathsome culture we are: Super-rich, super-tolerant, intelligent, fair-minded, open, interested, non-racist, engaged, productive, offering almost unlimited potential to the individual, concerned for the world, troubled by what it is to be human. Oborne thinks that a mention of the excesses and foolishness of Western culture must always appear alongside any analysis of Islamic inspired violence. This is the ubiquitous cultural cringe. If Oborne was still in university one might overlook it. But he's not. He's a grown-up, this is a war, and he is writing for The Spectator.

But that's not the end of my quoted paragraph. The next sentence comes from a place so safe, and so comfortable, that one wonders which club Oborne was in on July 7, and whether someone had to call him a taxi:

...they (Al Qa'eda and it's associates) have no interest at all in changing Western society either for good or ill.

Now that is comforting. I suppose this explains why so many of the three million Muslims who live in Britain are not interested in integrating with British society. They're just biding their time 'til they can return to an emancipated Arabia. But I think it is Oborne's statement: "they have no interest at all in changing Western society" that takes the biscuit. I've written things that have embarrassed me - I've deleted posts that weren't up to scratch and hoped that no one noticed. But I have never, in all my life, written anything that stupid.

In Oborne's world, we are confronted with an enemy of reasonable political demands - the Islamists want to free their homeland from Western imperialism:

Their objective is far more specific: to change US policy towards the Islamic world, and in particular to remove US and allied forces from Arab soil."

Notice how Oborne pulls together two very distinct political aims and pretends that his readers won't notice. The Islamist objective it to "change US policy toward the Islamic world" and to remove the infidel from Arab soil. If we remove the infidel from Arab soil, the Islamists still will have a problem with the US. The Islamists will always have a problem with democratic nations.

That apology for Islamic terror and violence was written by an Englishman in a magazine that pretends to carry mainstream conservative opinion in Britain. And you wondered how civilised Europe watched as six million Jews died? Oborne thinks that the policy of the Islamists is to "change US policy toward the Islamic world." So this must explain their global strategy. It explains why Islamists are killing Hindus and Bhuddists in Malaysia and Indonesia. That would explain why Muslims are blowing Africans to smithereens in Dar Es Salaam. Or killing Muslim Turks in Turkey. Or massacring Ossetian children in Beslan. Or killing Shiite children in Iraq. Or Phillipinos in the Phillipines. Or Londoners in Russell Square. Or Kurds in Northern Iraq. Or Hindus in India. Or Christains in northern Nigeria. Or Africans in Darfur. Or Jews in Israel (Oops, that one isn't allowed.)

I don't think I've read a more inept sentence in a political journal for many years. The above paragraph simply falls below acceptable standards. Oborne has just asserted that the Islamist have no ambition beyond the purity of the house of Arabia, an assertion that is in itself obnoxious and implicitely hateful of the non-Muslim inhabitants of that region. This charlatan of a writer then dares to invoke the appeasement of Hitler in the same essay...well...

...I am shocked, and dismayed, of Hertfordshire.

________________________

*The Spectator won't let you read these articles online unless you are a subscriber. It won't let you read them online, even weeks after the magazine is out of print. But if you want to read them, buy The Spectator. It is very good.

******

Mark Steyne, of course, buries Oborne's arguements, and that of the Spectator's editorial line, in the same edition of the magazine (which is why it is such a great magazine).

Madrid and London - along with the other events such as the murder of Theo Van Gogh - are, in essence, the opeining shots of a European civil war. You can laugh at that if you wish, but the Islamists' often-stated goal is not infidel withdrawal from Iraq (or Arabia) but the re-establishment of a Muslim caliphate living under Sharia that extends into Europre: and there's a lot to be said for taking these chaps at their word...

He has also decided that the British taxpayer, who's housing benefit pays the rent for the young Muslims who are trying to kill them, is now being taxed under a new P.A.Y.E scheme - Pay As You Explode. Unmissable - at your local newstand, now.

Denial

2005-07-27T23:52:00.000+01:00

Britain has suffered the most deadly attack against civilians in the homeland since the Blitz. We now know that British society has produced at least eight men who were willing to kill themselves while trying to murder their fellow citizens.

Three weeks have now passed. Not one hate preacher has been expelled from the country. New laws are promised, but the old ones are scrupulously ignored. No immigrant is supposed to get a passport if they have a criminal record. Muktar Mohammed-Said got one. (In fact, everyone gets one - being British is nothing special).

The Prime Minister's wife, on her family fundraiser to Malaysia, urges Britain to do nothing to harm civil liberties. But the civil liberties of the commuting public are already rather harmed. The country is not safe - at least four suidical men are at large - the police, so long concerned with being inoffensive to everyone, including criminals, have not a clue who these people are. They shoot panicky Brazilians instead, and then offer long, drawn out and contradictory excuses. The one about tracking the poor sucker from his flat is typical British public service claptrap. They did no such thing. They were chewing on their bacon rolls and panicked at the tube station, just like everyone else.

The fanatics aren't stupid. They can sense the cultural and political insecurity of the British elite. And they know how deep the cringing culture of apology runs in Britain. I had dinner with a Guardianista couple tonight. He said, in reference to the London bombings and the part played by Iraq in this: "They're not bombing Helsinki, are they?"

In that one sentence lies the Islamists' hope of success. The implication is that there are blameless populations, like those in Helsinki, who the Islamists will not target. This is a deeply immoral and frankly offensive belief (and one I wouldn't rely on if I lived in Helsinki). It certainly implies that the victims of 9/11 were not blameless - but most Brits believe this anyway. It implies that the Hindus and Bhuddists in Bali helped to bring the carnage on themselves, even if only for offering package holidays to Australians. And we know that the Islamists will bomb East Africans because they are relatively easy to bomb, and anyway, Africa is the continent of suffering. And I guess they bombed the UN out of Iraq because they didn't want the wonderful UN to be associated with American imperialism. They bomb Turks because the Turks have, almost uniquely in the Muslim world, secular democratic tendencies. And they bomb Londoners trying to go to work because Tony backed George.

"They don't bomb Helsinki." This statement is a perfect summary of a widespread assumption in British culture that makes appeasement of terror a very definite policy option for the government.

The British are so infected with a culture of self-loathing that some continue to explain the tactics of suicide bombing in rational political terms - even after they are victims of this terror. Everyone is guilty. The Islamists hate us. I guess we'll just have to learn to live with it.

British liberalism backed up by cultural cringing. I'm still trying to be an optimist. But it's a lethal combination in fighting a cultural war.

A British national identity

2005-07-15T23:38:00.000+01:00

My best English friend happens to be Irish. There is nothing wrong in this. This same Irish friend happens to be English, on his father's side, but he may just as easily be Irish by way of his mother from Galway. He doesn't get confused about who he is (except perhaps on St. Partick's Day), because he is British.

The British have one of the least self-conscious national identities of any modern people. They are as racially mixed and immigrant a people as any country in the world. This sense of identity has been so taken for granted, that the ideology of multi-culturalism has grown unchallenged, and not been perceived as the threat that it is.

The Yorkshire suicide bombers have pushed national identity back into the national conscience. If the British people manage to rediscover their national identity, they will make mince-meat of the provocation of the Islamic radicals.

British national identity is not determined by ethnicity. Even at the height of supposed English ascendency - the Victorian age - it was Scottish Celts who advanced the interests of this nation most enthusiastically. A rediscovery of Britishness will not lead to racism. But a failure to redicover a sense of Britishness will lead to communal violence.

A British national identity recognises heroes of both left and right. A national identity that fails to embrace such mutually agreed, and sometimes contradictory, heroes, will not be durable when put under pressure.

In British history, for every Tolpuddle Martyr, there is a Robert Owen, building decent housing for the first industrial workforce. For every Cromwell, there is a Wilberforce, shaming the nation to repent its racist ways. For every warrior Churchill, there is a struggling, miserable, Indian law student, studying away in a damp, cold London in the 1920's, learning the skills to peacefully unpick the locks of Empire. At one time, the notion of "Britishness" was so great as to encompass its enemies. Now, the British are so lacking in cultural confidence, that the appeal of a British identity does not extend to Beeston.

The British national identity is one of the richest, and most inclusive, in the world. It's more than a match for Islamic fanatics. But it will not prevail if those who are British fail to celebrate it, or even to recognise it.

An end to Islamic violence

2005-07-11T23:10:00.000+01:00

David Frum, former speech-writer to President Bush, and co-author of An End to Evil, was exceptional on BBC's Newsnight, tonight. He kept returning to the question: Why is Arab and Muslim society so ready to use violence to deal with political problems?

This question does not, at all, suggest that the political problems of the Arab and Muslim world are not severe. But it asks how four bombs planted in London are the answer to those problems.

Opposing Frum was an Egyptian commentator who once "met Osama Bin Laden." He asserted that the root cause of Islamic violence was the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. Frum refused to defend the Israeli occupation, but asked why such a political problem results, in the Arab world, in an enthusiasm for blowing the arms and legs off of fellow human beings.

Frum asked why a country such as India, with a massive population of Hindus and Muslims (and a million other faiths) is managing to wrestle with the problems produced by rapid modernisation, gross inequality, and ethnic diversity, without producing a lethal political culture. Frum's conclusion is that India is achieving this because it is a democracy. India is not a perfect society, and not without violence - no where on earth is. But India's experience stands in stark contrast to the experience of the Arab and Islamist world.

No doubt Lefties, anti-Semites and Islamists will join tonight's Egyptian commentator in condemning Frum's analysis as "very simplistic." But explain to me, you political sophisticates: How is a craven reaction to Islamic violence - the one that always seems to blame the victims - going to lead to the development of an Islamic culture that is no longer psychotic? How, but through the development of a democratic culture, will Islamic societies stop locating the source of all their grievances in the failures of others.

In the glorification of violence, modern Islamic fanaticism is akin to the murderous ideologies that democracy has defeated in this century. Its kinship to these ideologies should give all democrats hope, for it, too, will be defeated.

I wish Frum's thoughts on this subject would get an airing every evening on my tele. Unfortunately, his moderate voice is only invited on the screen when the Islamists do their worst. Check out his site, hopefully, he will post a transcript of his Newsnight piece there. And if he doesn't, his other essays are worth a read.

Old time religion

2005-06-24T09:21:00.000+01:00

I see that the Yankees are going to replace their stadium.

When I was a boy, travelling down from Vermont in the back of my Dad’s busted-up station wagon, we would cross into the foreign land of NYC at Yonkers, and I’d start my look-out for Yankee Stadium. It was a big, round, ugly thing; easy to spot, and impressive to a small mind. But I never once considered it to be a "real" ball park.

I hear the Yankees are to build a “retro-stadium” in the Bronx. They know that the no matter how grand the new stadium, the template for Baseball is still found at Fenway Park.

The soufflé collapses

2005-06-02T18:49:00.000+01:00

I wrote this in November, last year:

Given the chance, I have to hope that the British people would reject a European Union whose motivating force was anti-Americanism. There is every reason to be nervous at the steady undermining of British independence by the EU. But I still think the most likely outcome of the French President's blustering aspirations for Europe is that his hopes will collapse like an undercooked soufflé.

Today I realise that far from being undermined by the EU, Britain is poised to redirect Europe, once more, upon the path of political and economic righteousness.

I am so often wrong in my political predictions that I must celebrate my success at punditry when it happens to happen. And in the past week, it as happened for me.

In "The Withdrawal Method" last June, I wrote:

"If Britain were to leave the EU there would be no civil war in Europe. In fact, the effects of such a decision would be almost completely benign. Germany and France would continue their mutual love feast until such time as Germany began to complain about paying for every meal. The “two speed” Europe would not happen – Britain would have redefined the future of an enlarged Europe, as it has done many times in the past. Intellectuals in Paris would splutter into their coffees, but French, German and other European peoples, on the whole, would breathe a sigh of relief that they could retain their national identity and customs. There might be the risk of a Euro collapse, but it is more likely the currencies would return to their national homes, only now they would be called “Euro-Marks” and “Euro-Liras.”

Last year, a friend argued that the single European currency amounted to no more than a bureaucratic rationalisation of exchange value in a Europe where the national economies were already united. I thought this attitude toward the Euro was a bit glib at the time, but I did not have the arguements to refute it. And, frankly, I still don't.

What I knew instinctively, along with millions of other European people, is that the Euro represented political overstretch by a European Union that was out of touch with its presumed supporters.

Whether the Euro survives depends on the pig-headedness of the EU elite. Listening to Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European commission, instructing national referendums to continue for a Constitution that has been rejected by two founding nations, I fear that they are stupid enough to administer a revolution.

It appears that France has succeeded in exporting political fantasy and economic inflexibility to the very heart of Europe. The EU is likely to dissolve into French inspired bloodshed, before it finally is refashioned by British-led reform.

This week, I have experienced the satisfaction of being proved not wrong. This is as much as one who is frequently wrong can hope for. I credit my few successes as a pundit to the observation of this little Island's shrewdness and pragmatism. The best defense against the foolishness of the French, is the pragmatism of the British. I'll be annoyed with myself if I ever forget this, again.

Kamikaze editorials

2005-05-17T14:25:00.000+01:00

Oops, I did it again. I clicked the link to my old town newspaper, the Rutland Herald and read an editorial.

Today's editorial is about Iraq (again):

"The closest relative to the suicide bomber in Iraq, psychologically speaking, is the kamikaze pilot off the coast of Japan in the final months of World War II. Perhaps another example would be the monks who set fire to themselves in Vietnam.

"There is a strong need on the part of the public in the United States to understand this sort of psychology — not just to realize that it exists within the Iraqi mind-set, but to understand why it exists, and encourage action to offset it. So far the Bush administration and the Pentagon have come nowhere near approaching that sort of realization."

Did I really just read that? The Herald editorialist has managed to put the self-immolating Vietnamese priest in the same moral category as the suicide bomber.

Is the editorialist morally confused, or just confused? You choose. The Vietnamese priest kills himself to prove his devotion to the cause and to protest the world's injustice. The suicide bomber kills himself and innocent people to prove his devotion to the cause and add to the storehouse of the world's injustice.

The Herald editorialist helpfully informs us that unlike "normal" people who kill themselves, suicide bombers are usually not "depressives." That should cheer everyone up. In fact, in an editorial devoid of practical advice, the editorialist offers Bush and the Pentagon what every New York liberal reaches for in times of personal stress - psychiatry.

But is there really a "stong need on the part of the public in the United States to understand this sort of psychology?" Is it really that difficult to understand the psychology of suicide bombing? (As a dimwitted member of the public, not as a cerebral Herald journalist, I mean.) I grant that with editorialists wringing their hands in response to the bombings, the tactics of the bombers are more easily comprehended than is their psychology.

In fact, the "strong need...to understand" is in the editorialist's own mind. Psychologist call this sort of thing "transference." There is a strong need on the part of the editorialist to wring his hands in the face of the unnerving violence of the suicide bomber. The editorialist then transfers his hand-wringing to the American public.

And who has not wrung his hands in the past couple of years? Yet, on reflection, The Herald's comparison of Iraqi suicide bombers with Japanese kamikaze pilots is rather comforting. The mostly non-Iraqi Arab men (be they depressed or euphoric) who are blowing themselves up in Iraq in a desperate attempt to score a victory against their enemy are not unlike the Japanese kamikaze. At least on this I can agree with the Herald.

But I don't remember reading that General McArthur spent too much time trying to understand the "mindset" of suicidal Japanese pilots.

I do remember this:

To their victims, the kamikaze were terrifying. But equally, their terror was inconsequential to the War's outcome.

Dear Rutland Herald editorialist: Find your backbone. Failing that, borrow one from somebody else.

Those "horrid" Christians

2005-04-05T22:08:00.000+01:00

Anglicanism is fast becoming the last refuge for English liberals who are unable to cope with the fact that some human beings continue to believe in something.

In this week's Spectator, Matthew Parris tries to explain "Why the Church of England is our best defence against religious enthusiasm."

Like many well educated Englishmen, Matthew Parris can be an amusing writer. But when he is in earnest, he turns into a provincial bore. Take this introductory paragraph:

"It couldn't happen here, they say. We are unlike the Americans. The English are viscerally sceptical of religious enthusiasm - always have been. Waves of evangelism in our history - the Nonconformist movemement for example - have been comparatively mild affairs, broadly benevolent. It is inconceivable that a religious Right in Britain could ever coordinate the muscle and confidence to bully prime ministers in the way its American counterparts bully presidents."

Oh dear. Where to start?

First of all, Parris is most definitely not a historian. What on earth did Parris study at Cambridge that would allow him to utter the breathtaking sentence: "The English are viscerally sceptical of religious enthusiasm - always have been." Along with Empire, most English elitists have long accepted that Cromwell was a bad joke. But whatever Cromwell was, even an irreligious Parris presumably still believes that God's Englishman once existed.

At the very least, Parris might acknowledge that when England did eventually reject Cromwell's religious enthusiasm, it exported the religious nutters to the New World as Mayflower Pilgrims and Quaker Pennsylvanians. It's difficult to take Parris's writing on religion and culture seriously when he misses such a cheap, but relevant, potshot at American religiousity.

Instead, Parris mentions the Noncomformists, though he is quick to dismiss them as both mild and "broadly benevolent." Notice how this sentence implies that modern Christians in America are neither mild or benevolent. This unsubstantiated slander then sets up the sentence about the "religious Right" bullying American Presidents.

Only an Englishman who has buzzed around the Westminster village most of his adult life would presume that the president of a continent-sized country such as the United States, with a complex federal government, an independent judiciary, and a restless and ever changing society, could be bullied by a religious clique.

At the very least, Parris can't deal with the fact that the President he refers to is, in his own view, a religious nutter himself. So who is bullying whom in America? This is silly writing and goofy political analysis, though very popular among Europeans at the moment.

Parris is lazy and glib in his political analysis, but also amazingly clumsy when using the English language to express his horror of religious faith.

For those who don't know the Matthew Parris story, here's brief summary via Wikipedia. His autobiography, Chance Witness, is a jolly good read. For the purposes of this analysis, and for the sales of his autobiography, it is important to note that Matthew Parris is gay.

Here is how a gay Matthew Parris, who has written rather well about his own experience of overcoming prejudice, writes about Christians:

"Some time ago I was part of a skiing holiday in Switzerland in which a couple of our group were those Alpha people. They were not among Nietsche's distressed: they were young, they were rich, they were confident and pretty; they had careers and sports cars. They were a perfectly sophisticated young couple - and pleasant company with it. They were genuinely nice people.

"But they were Saved. Something had gone wrong in a small part of their brains, and it made their demeanor slightly yet potentially odd..."

Is Parris writing about a Christian couple or an American Christian couple here? I'm confused, as I suspect Parris is. But if I were uncharitable (and a fabricator of anecdotes) I might write something like:

"Some time ago, I met the charming Matthew Parris by chance at a Conservative Party Conference. Matthew was articulate and passionate about the direction the Conservative Party needs to take to regain public support.

"But I found Matthew unnervingly overgroomed. He seemed just too nice. Something seems to have gone wrong in some small part of Matthew's brain. He is gay."

How quickly do the formerly oppressed embrace oppression.

The Pope's death is smoking out the secular fanatics. You won't find a better statement of cultural bewilderment and panic as the one that issued forth from Parris's pen this week. Let's leave the last adjective to Parris:

"Faith unchained is a horrid thing."

"Horrid." What a sweetie.

*****

Welcome Expat Yank readers and thank you Robert for the link.

In his latest post, Robert points out that politics is now going on in Iraq and that this is something new and it's "a good thing."

I find it amusing that the tone of Western reporting on Iraq is now shifting to how the political parties in the Iraqi Parliament are "horse trading" and how different groups are "jockeying for position." Oh dear, where did we go wrong?

Helloooo! This is called politics. The alternative is... well, it's what went on befor.

Growing Stones

2005-03-14T22:48:00.000Z

With some relief I have turned away from the Rutland Herald's editorial pages and instead found this item among the letters (If you're a new visitor to this site, Rutland, Vermont was my childhood town, and I can't stay away from the Rutland Herald's website):

C. J. Frankiewicz of East Clarendon asks whether the field he tills will ever stop producing a spring crop of stones.

Mr. Frankiewicz theorises that if frost heave brings these rocks to the surface, by removing the smaller rocks diligently each year, and burying the really big boulders below the frost line, he'll eventually cure his spring backache.

Chuck Wooster explains why Vermont's most reliable crop is stones, and I think he implies that Mr. Frankiewicz may be actually encouraging his stones to crop by digging big holes in his field and disturbing the bedrock:

The...reason we harvest so many stones in New England is because of winter's frost. Without frost, all those stones would stay right where the glaciers left them, safely tucked in the ground. Instead, the freezing and thawing of winter works the stones loose and brings them to the surface, meaning that, no matter how well you cleaned the fields last spring, you're likely to have a fresh crop waiting this year.

"If your pitchfork brings up a stone that's in any way rounded or smoothed, chances are good that it was left there by the glaciers. If your fork hits something sharp and angular, you're probably digging up a piece of the bedrock itself, and you can thank the glaciers for that, too, since they scraped off everything else."

Read the whole thing. You'll be glad that you did.

Latter-Day Liberals

2005-03-13T23:47:00.000Z

The more I read the Rutland Herald's editorials, the more obvious it is that they are written by one, recently-graduated, male. The style is unmistakable - reminding me of my own rants written for a Texas student newspaper, all of 20 years ago.

Being a preacher's son and having grown up listening to the sermons of Martin Luther King Jr., I'm a sucker for the soap-box style of writing featured below..

The Herald's prophet is still bemoaning the failure of Senator Kerry to defend himself against the "liberal" label. (How satisfying to see Democrats return, again and again, to the battlefields of their recent defeat). This, according to the editorialist, is how the Senator should have replied:

"If by liberal you mean a belief that government must secure our freedom by protecting us from the capricious cruelties of unemployment, illness and old age, then I am a liberal.

"If by liberal you mean a belief that people must have the opportunity to work for fair compensation, then I am a liberal.

"If by liberal you mean a belief that people ought to do their share without special breaks and loopholes, then I am a liberal.

"If by liberal you mean a belief that government must be a strong enforcer of lawful behavior by our corporate citizens, then I am a liberal.

"If by liberal you mean a belief that the Constitution guarantees equal rights for all without regard to race, gender, religion, sexual orientation or ethnic origin, then I am a liberal.

"If by liberal you mean a belief that government ought to take a leadership role in addressing threats to the natural world, including the climate, and in protecting our health and environment, then I am a liberal."

As I read this charge sheet, I composed a reply to each sentence in my head: "Yes, you are a liberal because you believe in big government; Yes, you are a liberal because you indulge in envy politics; Yes. you are a liberal because you try to fly the flag of social experimentation under the banner of social progress." Interestingly, the only statement I stumbled over was the environmental one. Once a Vermonter, always a Vermonter, I say.

But it's always more interesting to listen to what the preacher does not say, than what he does say. Why, amongst all these fine reasons for being a liberal, is there not the slightest mention of the historical conflict that we are living through? Why does this editorialist, who cannot write a paragraph elsewhere without mentioning Iraq, fail to mention the war?

The Herald editorialist can refer to President Franklin Roosevelt as often as he likes. But he will never be able to assume that great liberal's political mantle. Today's liberal is not a liberal that my father's generation would recognise.

Should the Herald editorialist ever wish to compose a simple sentence extolling the virtues of national allegience for himself and his Party, this is how he would have to finish his sermon on the modern liberal:

"If by liberal you mean someone who won't defend democratic values against murderous enemies because he's so busy promoting a frivilous political agenda that he can't recognise a national emergency, then yes, I am a latter day liberal."

Expat Yank sees the future - and it is good

2005-03-10T23:46:00.000Z

Robert Tumminello, the Expat Yank, has time-travelled to the year 2043. Once there, he met U.S. President Susan Fernandez and Britain's Prime Minister Harold Singh. They were dedicating the "Ayad Allawi Institute for the Study of Democracy at Baghdad University."

Time travel has had an unfortunate side-effect on Robert. In 2043, he is no longer a blogger, but a CNN reporter. But it seems that in 2043, even CNN has changed. The network has finally stopped reporting that Iraq is a "quagmire." The Network stopped reporting this in 2025 - 15 years after the last US troops departed Iraq.

Here's an excerpt from Robert's report (If you want to study the future in much more detail, and hear it from a man who's been there, visit Expat Yank. (You need to scroll down to find the entry: "What Might Be:")

Updated: 05:14 a.m. EST (10:14 GMT) March 20, 2043

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- U.S. President Susan Fernandez joined Britain's Prime Minister Harold Singh and Iraq's newly elected prime minister at the dedication ceremony yesterday of the Ayad Allawi Institute for the Study of Democracy at Baghdad University.

The newly opened research center is named in honor of the man scholars have often termed the Hubert Humphrey of Iraq. The post-war Iraqi interim prime minister spent over two decades in parliament. Although he never won the top job, it is widely acknowledged Allawi's political courage was instrumental in the creation of today's democratic Iraq.

The Tooth Fairy

2005-03-09T21:06:00.000Z

I nearly blew it with my daughter, yesterday. She finally lost the wobbly tooth that had been dangling in the front of her mouth for the past two weeks. I suggested tying a string to it and slamming the door, but this didn't go down too well. Today, a friend dislodged it in the playground. Apparently, they spent fifteen minutes searching for it on the ground.

At bedtime, as she retrieved the tooth from her school bag, she suggested that she wash it before wrapping it in a note she had written to the tooth fairy. Her note thanked the fairy for the money and asked "What do you do with all the teeth?"

Fearing that in washing the tooth, she would lose it down the sink, I blurted out: "Oh, mommy won't care about whether it's washed."

I realised my blunder at once. She gave me a knowing smile. But the damage was done. Despite my assurances that mommy had nothing to do with the pound coin under the pillow, she quickly got to the heart of the matter:

"If mommy is the one who takes the tooth, what does she do with it? Does she just throw it away?"

"Of course, not," I replied consolingly. "If it is mommy, and I'm not saying it is, she would keep it in a special place." But there were tears at bedtime.

When mom returned home, I confessed my parenting incompetence. My wife salvaged the situation by writing a note, in tiny writing, as if from the tooth fairy:

"Can you keep a secret? I give the teeth to someone who thinks they are precious, but she doesn't know that you know, so don't tell her."

There are people who think this kind of thing is ridiculous, and some think it's actually harmful to the child. I'm not sure if my clever little girl, aged 8, really does believe in the tooth fairy. But she wants to believe. In the morning when asked if the tooth fairy had visited, she said yes, but she didn't mention the letter.

This is called childhood, and it should last as long as it can.

Vermont and Iraq

2005-03-06T01:57:00.000Z

I borrowed the above headline from the Rutland Herald. At first glance, the headline seemed to confirm the Lilliputian self-regard of my home town's newspaper. But one would not wish to argue or belittle this statement:

"Vermont has lost more service men per capita than any other state, and the present mobilization is the most extensive since World War II."

This does not surprise me. The National Guard and the Reserve draw their ranks from men and women from working class communities who have born the burden of military service disproportionately for generations.

The Herald reports that "Vermonters on Town Meeting Day sent a message that they remain deeply skeptical of the war in Iraq." I can't find this story in the Herald's news section, but I presume the editorial is referring to a real event. But rather than report anti-war feelings in Vermont, the Herald picks up a theme beloved of the anti-war brigade:

"Abu Ghraib prison occurred in part because the prison was inadequately staffed by Reserve personnel."

The implication is that these distinguished Vermont reservists are also intellectually subnormal sadists and rapists; as are most US Army volunteers. And if this isn't the implication, why bring up the Abu Ghraib scandal when writing an editorial that pretends to salute the brave and blameless volunteers of Vermont?

Iranian teenagers behave like teenagers: Shock report!

2005-03-04T22:32:00.000Z

Apparently, the Muslim clerics of Iran are having trouble controlling the teenagers.

Via Discarded Lies.

"Outraged by scenes of young boys and girls using Shi'ite Islam's most sacred mourning day as an opportunity to flirt in public, Iran's religious hard-liners are calling on authorities to stamp out such "vulgar displays." Failure to do so, some newspaper commentators said, would force pious citizens to take matters into their own hands."

This reminds me of my own childhood growing up in Vermont. I used to catch the school bus to summer camp. On that bus a religious minder would apply a "six inch rule" to the girls and boys. This pious citizen would walk up and down the bus with his little ruler, making sure that no boy or girl was sitting less than six inches from eachother.

This was happening on a schoolbus taking us to an evangelical Christain summer camp in 1970's New England. The madness of the Iranian Mullahs is not that far removed from American culture.

But I do wonder how the Mullahs of Iran expect to retain authority over a youthful population when the religious minders of New England could barely control a school bus. I don't think they can.

My home town

2005-02-22T13:08:00.000Z

My home town is the best home town in the world. But it really is. Nestled in the Green Mountains of Vermont, balanced finely between being a small town and a small city, Rutland, Vermont has called me back periodically for short, nostalgic, visits ever since I left it, aged 13.

Throughout the years, I've made many more cyber-visits to Rutland's newspaper website: The Rutland Herald. It's taken the Paper some time to produce a decent online edition, but they're getting there.

The Herald displays all its editorials going back a full month. The editorial line follows the liberal slant of Northeastern politics - and it's enough to make an ex-Vermonter groan into his blog.

In this one, the writer is hopeful for a breakthrough in the Middle East peace process, applauding the Iraqi election, and the recent meeting between the Palestinian and Israeli leaders. President Bush merits a mention only to score a political point:

"Bush...has an insurgency on his hands that far exceeds the insurgency of Hamas or the other Palestinian groups...ultimately there is no solution except the exit of American troops."

The positive developments in the Middle East are listed, but the editorial suggests that they have all come about because of chance events, such as the death of Arafat. Bush's role in history is merely to "have an insurgency on his hands." American troops aren't fighting murderous anti-democratic ideologues in the Arab world: Bush is fighting a war in Iraq, while at the same time chasing peace in the Middle East.

According to the Herald, the only solution to "Bush's insurgency" is the "exit of American troops." But in the next sentence, the Herald argues that the US must build a viable Iraqi security force. So which is it? Withdraw now to save the troops, or fight on to win the war?

The Herald, like the Democrats, continues to hedge its bets on Iraq, even when it is obvious that all democrats should be supporting the free people of Iraq. And as soon as Iraq is a success, the Herald and the Democrats will stop calling the freedom struggle there "Bush's war."

This editorial concludes with the line: "It's worth hoping that we have reached a historic turning point." The Democrats have become practiced at watching the world turn around them. To paraphrase Rumsfeld: "Things happen." But would it be so difficult for the Herald to acknowledge that one of history's agents might be a Republican President? Apparently so.

The Herald has an even more delusional take on the Democratic Party's recent sorry history. They enthusiatically endorse Howard Dean as Democratic National Committee chairman.

The Herald wants more of Dean, despite the voters' verdict in the last election. The Herald acknowledges that Dean has his critics, but the Paper suggests that it is Republicans, rather than fellow Democrats, who would most like to see the back of him:

"Republicans will chortle, dusting off jokes about The Scream, and trying to portray the Democrats as captive of latte-drinking, Volvo-driving elitists from the Northeast. But those jokes will wear thin if Dean succeeds in bringing new life to the Democratic Party."

They will indeed, but it's an awfully big "if."

According to the Herald, the new DNC chairman merely needs to be "enthusiastic" to rebuild the shattered Democratic Party:

"Of all the things that the Democrats need at the moment, enthusiasm is at the top of the list."

And I thought the Democrats needed to figure out why a majority of Americans regard them as an anti-American party. And I also thought that the Republicans rather enjoy Dean as a Democratic Party bogey-man. The lazy political introspection of the Rutland Herald will make Republicans chortle all the way to the next victory.

At times, the Herald seems to suggest that it is the Republicans that have most to fear from the results of the last election - it was, after all, a pretty close call.

"Since the defeat of John Kerry and their losses in Congress, centrist elements in the party have been consumed with the idea that they needed to create an image that would appeal to Southerners. Maybe they needed to soften their stance on abortion. Maybe they needed to talk about moral values."

This is just crazy talk, writes the Herald:

"That view is based on the erroneous notion that the Democrats now exist at the margins. But the Democrats almost won; their strength in the Northeast, Midwest and West is a strength, not a weakness. The Republicans' reliance on the South and the interior West came close to losing."

Would someone send the Herald one of those Red/Blue maps and remind them that the red districts keep filling up with people fleeing from the blue districts. I reckon Republicans would rather be "close to losing" than "close to winning."

I realise that neither the appointment of a hysterical left-wing Vermonter to the chairmanship of the DNC, nor the opinions of the Rutland Herald, matter much,nationally. But I'll continue to read my local paper, and to comment on it from time to time. It's fun to go home once in a while, even if via the Internet.

And even if you don't agree with my politics, check out this classified ad via the Herald.

Can you believe that you can purchase a beautiful Victorian home in Vermont for less than 129,000? This one looks like the house I grew up in. But keep quiet about it, or more of those New Yorkers will hear and want a piece of it.

Those New Yorkers are the ones either writing the Herald's editorials, or nodding their liberal-addled heads in agreement. Let's keep Vermont cheap for those poor ex-Vermonters who might want to buy a piece of it one day.

Songs in the Key of Life

2005-01-20T23:10:00.000Z

Can you remember when you first heard a lyric that made you shiver? Perhaps you never have. You might not be a lyric person. I am sad about that, but please carry on reading anyway as I try to explain my own obsession.

I can carry a tune quite nicely, even if the people closest to me beg to differ. But for me, music has always been the scaffolding for hanging lyrics on. I like lyrics and I like thinking about them. The only poetry I enjoy has a lyrical tone. I am aware that I lack both musical appreciation and a classical education. Poems that allude to Greek mythology pass me by. That's not to say that I don't admire Greek literature. But my exposure to the classics is rather limited. In Amarillo College, Texas I read five Greek plays (in English, of course) in a world literature class. Since then, I have read and reread Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus and each time, arriving at the closing line "Oh holy Mother Earth, O air and sun, behold me. I am wronged," I experience one of those shivers that I just mentioned.

As a teenager, I rather typically got excited by lyrics that evoked loss or despair, like Dylan's folk hymn: Hard times (come again no more); and Neil Young's Helpless, a song that millions of self-absorbed teenagers have enjoyed wallowing in.

Such a dreamy way of bumbling through life is easy to mock - I get plenty of eye-rolling from the wife. She is most definitely not a lyric lover. She likes songs that she can dance to - preferably from the period 1980 to 88. My wife's idea of a great lyric is "Ole, Ole, Ole, Ole ...Feeling HOT, HOT, HOT" and she'll start jumping around the room to "Oops uside your head, said, Oops upside your head." I can just about hear the attraction of these songs, though my biggest failure in my wife's eyes is that I usually resist all encouragement to get on the dance floor and shake it all about.

I'm not so musically deaf as not to realise that unlike poetry, lyrics without music, lie lifeless on the page. Yet, I've always thought it rather odd that poetry purists hold this against songs. It seems to me that the talent to combine a tune with a lyric is at least as great as it is to compose a decent poem. We all know songs that fail, musically, to convey the meaning of their words. If I can pick on a hymn as an example, does "Count Your Blessings," actually encourage anyone to count their blessings? Am I the only one whose mind wanders to suicidal ideation when I hear this hymn sung?

A poem that doesn't work is soon forgotten. A bad song lingers in the mind. Perhaps this is one reason why the poets are sniffy about songs.

As a dreamy young man, I narrated my daily existence through lyrics. I would compose a da-ti-da-ti da, do-ti-do-ti-do, lyric to describe a morning coffee. Thankfully, those days have now passed. Either the muse has left me or I have grown tired of her inablility to articulate my thoughts in iambic meter. Yet, lately I've been thinking about where my love of lyrics comes from, and whether this passion is something I should continue to be embarrassed about.

I was (almost literally) raised in a church. So I've heard hymns all my life. But I only started to pay attention to the lyrical power of hymns once I discovered other, less reverent, songs.

My first religious experience with a piece of music was Stevie Wonder's double album Music of My Mind and Talking Book. (For the lyrics to one of Stevie's great love songs from this album, go here.) Stevie Wonder opened my eyes to pop music. And Stevie's songs from the 70's and 80's still stand up.

After Stevie Wonder I discovered Bob Dylan through an evangelical back door. The first time I listened to Bob he was singing Slow Train Coming, Covenant Woman and Saved. It amuses me now, after I have spent years obsessing over every scrap of song the Minnesota Bard ever wrote, to remember that Every Grain of Sand first opened my eyes to Dylan's lyrical prowess. (It's a gem, by the way.)

Looking back on Dylan's career, I'm tempted to think that he made a personal visit to my cultural backwater to pick me up as a fan. I'm grateful for his "Christian phase" and as predictable as it was that he would move on, he left behind some pretty good material for the evangelical guitar strummers to unpick around the campfire (Do they do that kind of thing anymore, and is Kumbaya still the wearysome favourite?)

I'm not trying to tie a lyricist as dexterious as Dylan to a biblical anchor. Anyone with a lyrical range as wide as his won't be boxed in for long. That's why, despite what was a brief, if deeply-felt, conversion experience, his music and lyrics moved on.

In any case, Dylan didn't discover biblical imagery through his "born again" experience. He had already picked this up much earlier. As his recently published autobiography, Chronicles, reveals, he was a voracious reader as a young man. Instead, when Dylan found religion, it was I who discovered his wide-ranging imagery, including his career-long use of Old Testament imagery in his lyrics.

Dylan's intense period of religious introspection, through the "born again" albums to Infidels, has been treated by some critics as a hiatus before he resumed normal service. Apparently, by going religious on us, Dylan became more confused than normal.

But what I thought at the time was that the intensity of Dylan's "born again" experience was evidence of his lack of exposure to the cultural treasures of the New Testament. I sensed that Dylan was discovering New Testemant scripture for the first time. I may be wrong about this. But I think Dylan probably missed out on Sunday School.

And after Dylan, an American Jew, passed through Christian evangelicalism, he embarked on a personal revival in which he explored "Jewish" themes in his songs. On Dylan's Infidels album, the Old Testament reasserts itself. If Dylan was a confused Christian evangelical, he does not seem confused when describing the modern state of Israel in the song "Neighbourhood Bully." (As a polemical poem, it reads rather well without the music.)

The greatest lyrical artist of my generation to include whole passages of the Bible in his songs was Bob Marley (excellent site that links Marley's lyrics to bible passages).

Marley's songs allowed me to be both a teenager and to enjoy my cultural canon. As a mildly rebellious youth, I smoked pieces of floor-lino passed off as Lebanese ganga and sung along to Marley's Exodus as if I shared the West Indian slave history and its affinity to the Jewish story of the escape from Egypt. Marley, Peter Tosh, Gregory Isaacs, and many more West Indian artists unknown to me, revisited the Old Testament stories in their music, and in doing so revived the West Indian cult of Rastafarianism sufficiently to entice young white middle-class potheads to a renewed interest in at least some passages of the Bible.

The inverted cultural snobbery of white European and American youth found it easy to respect and enjoy Judeo-Christian imagery when used by a West Indian artist. Their widespread ignorance of this cultural legacy merely made the West Indian artists' mastery of its symbolism more exotic.

At the same time I was discovering these artists, I was introduced to biblical lyricism through a British textbook entitled Literature and Criticism. This textbook made the unstartling point that poetry exists in the Bible. I say it is unstartling, but it was a new concept to me at the time.

In my religious tradition, the poetic power of the Bible was not much to the fore. Reading the text, and then complying with it, was the main point. I don't denigrate this view, though I do think that the doctrinally obsessive overlook the emotional and intellectual impact of Biblical passages, and forget that the words often make converts of the casual listener.

Before reading my textbook, I was of course aware that poetry formally exists in the biblical canon - the Song of Solomon was the most interesting example to a schoolboy. But my textbook was referring to examples of poetry (and specifically poetic rhythm) found throughout the King James Version of the Bible. The examples it cited were as follows:

"And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they toil not, neither do they spin;
And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these."
(Matthew 6. 28,29).

And, from Job, 41:1-4,

Canst thou draw out Leviathan with an hook?
or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down?

Canst thou put a hook into his nose?
or bore his jaw through with a thorn?

Will he make many supplications unto thee?
will he speak soft words unto thee?

And the passage continues, gently mocking human frailty.

The reason I remember these textbook examples so well is that they were the doorway into a rediscovery of the biblical passages that I had spent most of my childhood reading.

Year in, year out, my family plodded through the Good Book: Leviticus and Dueteronomy were given as thorough a going over as David's exploits in the much more exciting history books. Around the room we went, each family member reading ten to 15 versus, until that night's quota was filled. By the time I studied Shakespeare's Julius Caeser and King Lear as a teenager in an English high school, I had such a natural advantage in reading Elizabethan English that I once overheard my teacher excitedly discussing my essay with another teacher. Yes, this gave me a big head, and it earned me an "A" in English Lit, but I've long since realised that every essay I wrote on Shakespeare was co-written by King James.

Do I think, now, that this family Bible reading was a worthwhile pastime? That's like asking me if I enjoyed the air I breathed as a child.

Later on, bored by the sermons, I sat in church leafing through the Bible discovering countless examples of lyric poetry. No-one complained. I was, after all, reading the Bible. I absorbed the tender passages of Ruth, the Proverbs, the Psalms of course, Isaiah's spine-tingling pre-figuring of the Christ, Ecclesiastes' unarguable truths, the Revelation's apocalyptic grandeur, and by way of an example that you can read here, David's "How are the mighty fallen" lament for Saul and Jonathon.

Until the secular world pointed it out to me, I didn't recognise that this writing was great literature. My parents had rejected the cultural mainstream - so I presumed that the literature they were forcing me to read was culturally peripheral, too. And of course, this literature was and is, increasingly culturally peripheral in modern Europe. But a child's mind is apt to mistake this unpopularity for a lack of value and import.

This could not have been my parent's intention. Nevertheless, the consequence of small church evangelicalism when reinforced by a post-Christian state education, was to increase my feelings of cultural isolation. So in this sense my parents achieved what they presumably set out to do: They taught me to be uncomfortably disconnected from mainstream culture.

Yet they did not quite succeed in driving out the profane. For another practical consequence of my lyrical obsessiveness and cultural background is that when, for example, I'm filling the dishwasher, I am likely to suddenly burst into a rendition of:

I woke up on the roadside, daydreamin' 'bout the way things sometimes are
Visions of your chestnut mare shoot through my head and are makin' me see stars.
You hurt the ones that I love best and cover up the truth with lies.
One day you'll be in the ditch, flies buzzin' around your eyes,
Blood on your saddle.

And as I rinse the pans, my daughter is looking at me even more quizzically than usual. So I switch to singing:

These are the words of my master
Keep on tellin' me,
no weak heart shall prosper.

And whosoever diggeth a pit,
Shall fall in it - fall in it.
Whosoever diggeth a pit
Shall bury in it - bury in it.

By now, my daughter is leaving the room. But I rescue my reputation (at least in my own ears) with a baritone:

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Why do I inflict such torture on my family? Why couldn't I sing Nat King Cole songs like my father-in-law does (very loudly) on Christmas day?

Well...I suppose I could stop singing entirely. But, so far, I have managed to resist this temptation, despite many polite requests that I do so.

My inadequate answer is simply that I did not choose my culture. These are the songs that I know.

Believers should be banned from politics

2005-01-18T13:23:00.001Z

The usually sensible Anthony Howard, writing in the Times, questions Tony Blair's political judgement in appointing Ruth Kelly as Secretary of State for Education and Skills. Kelly is the mother of four school-age children, and she happens to be a Catholic. She is also, as reported by Howard, connected to the Opus Dei sect.

Howard worries that, as a Catholic, Kelly will be incapable of properly overseeing a state-funded budget for stem cell research, as her new duties require. Howard wonders whether Kelly will be able to "disregard the Church’s teaching and decide her attitude purely in the public interest." (No mention of Opus Dei in this sentence. It's Catholicism itself, that Howard distrusts.)

Howard reports that: "By some accounts, she has already told the Prime Minister that one of the things she could never personally sanction is the use of public money to fund stem-cell research."

In mainstream-journalist fashion, Howard won't tell us who has provided this "account" of the new Minister's views on stem cell research. But even if this "account" is true, what does it amount to? Blair has appointed a believing Catholic to a Department where, as Minister, she will have to make judgments on stem cell research funding. The choices she makes will be influenced by her religious faith. People of personal integrity and religious faith have always faced this quandry when acting politically. It's the old Thomas More dilemma. When and if Kelly faces a personal crisis in choosing between political expediency and her faith, she will be faced with the modern version of the More dilemma: She may resign her office; or she may renounce her faith.

What Howard really dislikes is that Kelly brings to her office a certain kind of ethical baggage. Kelly takes seriously mainstream Catholic teaching about the sanctity of human life. She has a view on stem cell research that she relates to her own beliefs. Is Howard suggesting that he somehow knows what is "purely in the public interest" regarding stem cell research? Does anyone? Is the public interest merely what the scientific community says it is? Aren't scientists an interest group, too? Isn't the democratic process supposed to discover the public interest by allowing human beings with different points of view to contest such questions peaceably?

Howard's attack on Kelly's Catholicism extends beyond her views on stem cell research to a general suggestion that her religious beliefs clash with her responsibilities as education minister. Howard questions Blair's judgement in appointing her, and suggests she might only be fit for a lesser office:

"There were all sorts of jobs she could have done in the Government that would not have presented her with this sort of personal dilemma. But Education does precisely that — and it is Blair’s decision to place so zealous a Catholic there that has to raise questions about his judgment."

So a Catholic can be a Minister for Sport, but not a Minister for Education. For Howard, it is religious faith itself that is the problem He is not troubled to debate whether the Minister's political views are popular, or whether they can be supported by argument, or whether they produce effective education policies.

My guess is that a Catholic such as Kelly will be equally disturbed by her Department's "just say yes to sex" campaign that has contributed to the explosion of teenage pregnancy and abortion. If Kelly decides to challenge the failed social and educational policies of the 1960's, will this also be politically illegitimate, because Kelly is a Catholic?

To Howard and other secularist ideologues, religious freedom is fine as long as one's beliefs do not challenge the aggressive secularist values of the political and cultural elite. This is the drift of modern European secularism as I have described it before. Howard attacks Kelly's (unsubstantiated) views on stem cell research because she is a Catholic. Why stop there? Why not challenge the Minister's views on fostering discipline in Britain's chaotic secondary schools on the grounds that, as a Catholic, she will have a faith-based belief in an orderly society?

In fact, the new minister has been quiet about her religious views, unlike the aggressive secularists who have, like Howard, attacked her personal beliefs. All Howard can come up with is an unattributed "account" of Kelly's views on stem cell research. His reference to the Minister's connection with Opus Dei is a cover for an attack on religious faith in general.

In the modern world, more and more people have religious faith. If believers are banned from serving secular democracy, then why should they be expected to support secular democracy?

Where's the Global Blogger?

2004-12-15T23:36:00.000Z

I check in with Instapundit most days, and I never leave Glenn Reynold's blog without finding a link to something that is new and interesting.

But where is the global blogger?

Today, in Britain, one of Tony Blair's first ministers has resigned. David Blunkett is both an interesting man and a fascinating politician. His resignation weakens Blair's pro-American government. I suspect that Glenn Reynolds is interested in that. But with so much to cover, the story fails to get a mention.

Perhaps I misunderstand what blogging is. Maybe all of us have the time to stumble around the Internet looking for something interesting to read. But does no one else find it tedious to scroll down a list of 200 blogroll entries? Nice people like Michelle Malkin put a little star against London Calling, to alert her readers to new post on my site. I'm grateful for the exposure. But that little star does not reveal what my post is about, or tell the browser why he or she should be remotely interested in it.

Instapundit is more sophisticated. Glenn Reynolds knows how to write a simple sentence with a link that hooks the browser. But Glenn is busy blogging the United States. He carries stories about the world, when he can. But when he does, his audience isn't really that interested in following him, is it?

I like the Tennessee blogger and I'm grateful for the 6000 hits his three-word-link gave me last year. But blogging is starting to catch on around the world. I'm looking forward to Britapundit, Francopundit, Europundit, Russopundit, Afropundit, and Asiapundit. And I hope someday there will be a Globalpundit who will provide a link to all those blogs that none of us have the time to read.

Homelessness and Immigration

2004-12-13T19:30:00.000Z

With Christmas coming, the British media turns its attention, briefly, to the "homeless." Figures show that there are 100,000 families living in temporary accommodation in Britain.

The Labour Government has been quick to point out that more than three quarters of these families are living in decent temporary accommodation, though the other quarter are still stuck in grotty "hotel" rooms.

At the same time, mass immigration to Britain will create more than 1.2 million new households in the next 20 years, according to Migrationwatch UK. Britain is adding a quarter of a million new residents every year (or more than 150,000 taking account of emigration figures). The government if finally having to admit that there is a link between increased competition for housing and mass immigration.

The government can't blame immigration for the homeless figures because the government's own "open door" immigration policy has contributed to the pressure on housing. The Home Secretary, David Blunkett, famously declared last year that he could see "no obvious limit" to the number of immigrants who could settle in the UK. The "obvious limit" was always the limited number of homes in this crowded country.

For a traditional special interest response to the homeless issue, you can rely on that "leading homeless charity," Shelter to sound suitably indignant. A spokesman, Adam Sampson, describes the number of homeless households as a "damning indictment" of the fourth richest country in the world.

Adam is right. One hundred thousand homeless households is a damning indictment of the government's policy - but of the government's "open door" immigration policy, not its housing policy. In fact, only 100,000 homeless families in temporary accommodation is a rather good record for a country that has experienced six years of unmanaged mass immigration. The wonder is that the figures of homeless households has remained more or less constant in the past five years. If anything, the standard of temporary housing that families are being placed in, has improved slightly.

Last week a YouGov survey for The Economist found that 75% of British people believe that the country has taken in too many immigrants. Public disquiet with mass immigration crosses party lines, and perhaps more importantly, crosses racial lines.

So the Shelter spokesman shouldn't be surprised if his compatriots respond to his outrage over the homelessness figures with a bit of a shrug. More and more fair-minded Britains seem to be thinking: "What did the government think would happen when they allowed millions of newcomers into a country that doesn't have enough houses in the first place?"

I salute your indefatigullibility

2004-12-02T20:25:00.000Z

George Galloway has won his libel case against the Daily Telegraph. They had accused him of being in the pocket of Saddam Hussein. The judge has declared that the worst thing they could find against him is that his knees knocked together when he stood before the great Iraqi dictator.

Everyone knows that George Galloway saluted Saddam's "indefatigability." Now they know it afresh, and know that he is 150,000 quid richer and forever Saddam's stooge.

The Telegraph has failed to prove that George was in the pocket of Saddam Hussein. George has won a great victory. He has proved that he supports Saddam, even though he was not directly in his pay. How sad is that - to have supported Saddam without receiving any benefits. Even Kofi Anan's family did better than this.

The most discomforting thing about Galloway's fascist antics is the level of support he can count on in Britain. Having been thrown out of the Labour Party he now intends to stand as a candidate for something called the Respect (For Tyrants) Party in an East London constituency. He's not likely to win, but he might help Labour to lose the seat.

He's kicked off his campaign by calling the sitting Labour MP a "stooge" of Tony Blair. I think I can see a way to counter this spectacularly clumsy attack. Perhaps a slogan something like: "Choose Tony's stooge over Saddam's stooge."

Despite being "cleared" by a high court judge of personally taking money from Saddam, the word "indefatigability" will forever define George Galloway. Last night the BBC ran the clip of the Scotland's premier fascist windbag curtseying before Saddam. (Galloway's pronounciation of the tongue-twisting word was syllable perfect. One can see him in front of his hotel mirror in Baghdad, rehearsing his speech, preparing for his proud moment before the great Iraqi leader.)

I would expect to see a campaign leaflet or two featuring this Galloway performance in the coming weeks.

Israelis are Nazis

2004-11-26T11:27:00.001Z

This in The Daily Telegraph today:

“A young Palestinian was forced to play his violin to pass through an army roadblock in the West Bank as Israeli soldiers laughed, according to Israeli human rights activists yesterday.

The man arrived at the roadblock north of the West Bank city of Nablus carrying a violin case. An officer ordered him to take out the violin and play as part of a security check.

Horit Herman-Peled, a volunteer for the Israeli human rights group Machsom Watch, took a video of the Nov 9 incident and posted it on her website.

“She said the scene reminded her of images from the Holocaust when Jews were forced to play for Nazi officers to save their lives.”

"Anyone who has lived here and is part of the Jewish cultural landscape can't escape the allusion (to the Holocaust)," she said.”

What’s wrong with this sentence?:

“She said the scene reminded her of images from the Holocaust when Jews were forced to play for Nazi officers to save their lives.”

Answer: The Palestinian was not playing the violin in order to save his life.

As much as Horit Herman-Peled would like us to think so, Israeli border guards are not Nazi officers.

The Palestinian was playing the violin to prove he was who he said he was. He was trying to get through a checkpoint, not to save himself from the gas chamber.

Am I under whelmed by this “human rights” violation? Yes. Do I think the Israeli border guards were behaving badly and seeking to embarrass or even humiliate the Palestinian. Yes, again. Prolonged occupation is debasing to both the occupied and the occupier. There should be no occupied territories. The Palestinians should have their own state.

But to return to Horit's image of the German Jew playing his violin for the Camp Kommandant. Unlike Horit, I find myself unable to complete the historical analogy. Where are the suicide Jewish bombers slipping into the centre of Berlin to blow the arms and legs off German shoppers? Where are the Jewish ideologues, the year 1939, hysterically threatening to drive the Germans into the sea?

Put another way, instead of the image of Jewish people forced onto cattle trucks for transport to the death camps, we have the image of a Palestinian, at an Israeli road block, playing a violin.

As wearisome as it is to say it again and again, there is no comparison between the State of Israel and German Nazis.

Wildly inaccurate, not to say glib, historical comparisons like the one made by the befuddled Horit are evidence of something worse than liberal stupidity. Horit’s analogy is morally perverse. Asserting moral equivalence between Israeli border guards, under the fear of attack, with German Nazi officers, ordering Jews to their death at their leisure, reveals a one-sided analysis of the conflict that infects the thinking of Western liberals.

Does it matter that Western liberals like Horit have lost their moral compass and perhaps related to this, are incompetent at drawing historical analogies?

I think it does. Not only does Horit’s analogy, in some indeterminable way, give encouragement to terror by excusing the moral culpability of the terrorists; it attacks the very hope that there can ever be peace between the two peoples. For if self-defence (and bad behaviour by Israeli border guards) is equivalent to systematic genocide, then how can we condemn Palestinians who walk on to buses and blow the arms and legs off themselves, and fathers, mothers and children who ride on them? Only evil as great as that of the Nazi’s could justify such a terror strategy.

There is a perfectly moral response to the actions of the border guards and it is provided in the same article and comes from the mouth of a left-wing Israeli MP.

"I am shocked beyond words," said Zahava Galon, a legislator for the Left-wing Yahad party. "On the face of it, it is a bizarre, incomprehensible incident. Yet it is a blatant example of the harsh reality of the Israeli occupation."

It is pointless to argue with this – it is a statement of fact. While not seeking to justify inexcusable behaviour by Israeli soldiers, one can pose the following, essentially political, questions: Will the occupation cease while Palestinians continue to embrace an ideology that demands that Israel is driven into the sea? Will checkpoints come down while suicide bombers blow up civilians in Israeli cities? How can Israel support the creation of a Palestinian state and at the same time ensure its own survival?

If securing Israel is equated with Nazi genocide then why should there be any limits to the terror strategies adopted by the Palestinians? If Palestine is the Warsaw Ghetto, then every Israeli is a Nazi pig. This is the dead end of Horit’s historical analogy.

Americans don't want to be Europeans

2004-11-25T14:42:00.002Z

I came across a rant about American society published on the Time Magazine site in January 2003. It was written by Brian Eno, whom I rediscovered today because he is currently trying to impeach Tony Blair, a plan that is some way short of succeeding. Mr. Eno is a singer songwriter. His website declares that he is also an "artist, professor and thinker."

As an American resident in the UK, with a certain ambivalence about where I belong, I find myself almost unconsciously monitoring the stereotypes that I hear about both Americans and Europeans.

On occasion, for example, I have had some sympathy for the European view of "American Way capitalism." The Europeans assert that they have chosen to protect the weak and poor in society, compared to the let-it-rip capitalism of the United States which abandons life's losers to their fate. I'm aware that Americans can and do reply to this stereotype with: "How are you European's going to carry on paying for this ever-growing welfare bill (now that we aren't willing to pay for your defense)?"

I had always presumed that this debate between the European and American economic and social models was a fairly academic one. Comparing the two approaches was useful only in terms of studying the healthy and inevitable convergence of the European and American systems as they wrestled with the contradictions of managing a modern economy.

But the ball of doubt about whether Europe or America has the right answers, or attitudes, to meet the challenges of the modern world, is now firmly in the European court.

A glance at Mr. Eno's fairly typical Euro-centric rant about America helps to explain why:

"Europeans tend to regard free national health services, unemployment benefits, social housing and so on as pretty good models of human progress. We think it's important — civilized, in fact — to help people who fall through society's cracks. This isn't just altruism, but an understanding that having too many losers in society hurts everyone. It's better for everybody to have a stake in society than to have a resentful underclass bent on wrecking things. To many Americans, this sounds like socialism, big government, the nanny state. But so what? The result is: Europe has less gun crime and homicide, less poverty and arguably a higher quality of life than the U.S., which makes a lot of us wonder why America doesn't want some of what we've got."

Mr. Eno wrote this in January 2003. Just a year on, these statements look even sillier than they did then. Europe's civil tranquility looks rather less stable than America's urban mayhem. Would Mr. Eno still write this today? Probably. Mr. Eno isn't troubled by reality, that's why he is indulging in the student-level "impeachment" politics (as are a number of Tory MP, incidently, to their shame and to their Party's growing reputation for not being serious.)

Given that it's not difficult to recognise the fault lines of the next European civil war, let's lob one of Mr. Eno's lines back to his "European" side of the court:

"It's better for everybody to have a stake in society than to have a resentful underclass bent on wrecking things.

I'll take America's shrinking underclass over Europe's growing underclass, any day. You can keep your "free" health service with its queue of patients longer than a Soviet breadline, your unemployment benefit which in France and Germany has replaced waged employment, and your social housing that no one can get into because there aren't enough houses to provide shelter for the massive number of new arrivals to Europe.

Which of the two continents currently has the most "resentful underclass bent on wrecking things," Mr Eno? Which of the two continents offers a way for this underclass to participate politically whilst retaining their religious values, and has a history of successfully assimilated minorities? Which continent has a history of dissolving into civil war at the drop of a hat? You really shouldn't be surprised, Mr. Eno, that the people of the United States don't want what you've got.

Thanksgiving

2004-11-24T16:50:00.000Z

Thanks to James S. Robbins for explaining the origins of the national observance of Thanksgiving.

American liberals are self-righteous racists

2004-11-19T18:42:00.000Z

Quite a few bloggers have noticed the latent and blatant racism of liberals who have criticised the appointment of Condoleeza Rice as Secretary of State. Countrystore has a couple of good examples of this. But Michelle Malkin has the best essay I've read so far on the hypocrisy of liberals when they confront black politicians who refuse to conform to Left-wing stereotypes.

Now a radio host has called Rice an "Aunt Jemima." I was naive enough to presume that this kind of labelling of a black politician in the United States could only be made by another black person. I can't even remember who "Aunt Jemima" is, and why Condi might be insulted by being associated with her. I presumed that this was a "black on black" political insult.

Imagine my surpise when I discovered that the radio man who made this remark is a white guy. His name is John Sylvester and he has also called the outgoing Secretary of State, Colon Powell, an "Uncle Tom."

What most surprises me about this is not that Lefties are racists - I've understood this for some time. But I grew up in the United States in the 1970's, and one of the lessons that I learnt was that commentary by white America on the social and political life of black America was neither sought nor appreciated. I think this was a sad state of affairs and evidence of a racially polarised society. I am glad this is beginning to break down. Yet I am bewildered by the assumption of today's Lefties that they can decide for black Americans who that community's "Uncle Tom's" are.

In my generation, whites learnt that they could not speak for blacks, having persisted in this paternalistic habit for generations. And a fine lesson in political equality this was, too. So how, in 2004, can white liberals still presume to label black politicians according to terminology that owes its vehemence and poison to the experience of black people? How come American liberals are now the ones who are labelling black people, whilst those backward middle-Americans have learnt both political correctness and good manners?

My headline: "American liberals are self-righteous racists," is entirely accurate.

Chirac's Sagging Soufflé

2004-11-18T11:30:00.000Z

Anatole Kaletsky, writing in the London Times explains why Blair's vision of Britain as a bridge between the Unites States and Europe was always a non-starter:

"For many Europeans, America is now an alien, even hostile, civilisation. Especially after George Bush’s re-election, the next phase of European integration may well be driven by opposition to American power. The desire to create a multipolar balance of power, in which Europe acts as a counter-weight to America is indeed Jacques Chirac’s most explicit diplomatic goal. Constraining America is an objective which many people in Britain would strongly support. But Tony Blair is definitely not one of them, which is why the Prime Minister’s transatlantic and European policies have ended building a bridge to nowhere."

The French President has spent the week telling Britain that Britain's national interests is, basically, to be French. Kaletsky explains, for reasons of history and trade, why British interests differ from the French. But the fact that Kaletsky feels it necessary to remind the British that they are not French is rather worrying.

In the past couple of years, I've realised that anti-American sentiment crosses party lines in Britain. Conservative leader Michael Howard is trying his best to present the Tories as the anti-American party, outdoing Blair's rabid Labour backbenchers in ineffectual Bush-bashing. I believe (hope?) there is still a cross-party majority who share a friendly disposition toward the United States. And by a "friendly disposition," I don't mean the amused condescension toward American people expressed by nearly everyone, including polite anti-Americans. I mean British people who retain a sympathy for the political culture of the United States and who support the exercise of American power. Put this way, there are about three such people left in Britain: My friend Del is one of them, and the other one is Prime Minister Blair.

I may wish that there was less anti-Americanism in Britain, but wishing doesn't make it so. The disappointed Kerry supporters learnt this earlier in the month. They wished the United States was not a conservative, religious country, but woke up to discover that it is. Similarly, one can shake one's head about the European love of welfarism, the loss of global competitiveness, and the head-in-the-sand attitude to Islamic terror, but one is likely to be disappointed waiting for the French to stop being French and Europeans to stop being Europeans. Nevertheless, I haven't relinquished the hope that many anti-American Britons are merely striking a pose. They are far too polite to tell the French President to his face that he is a fantasist, but at the same time they are eager to remind America that in terms of being hated and powerful in the world, Britain got there first.

But even if I have misread British public opinion, and Britain was to abandon its historic policy of refusing to follow the Continent down every political cul-de-sac, Chirac's belief that his European partners share his vision of Europe as a counterweight to the United States, invites derision. As an unashamed American democrat and a simple-minded Anglo-Saxon, my somewhat hurt response to Chirac's policy is: "Why on earth would France want to counter-balance democracy?"

I realise this statement is less an argument than an affirmation of my beliefs. But equally, what does the French President's policy amount to other than an expression of French frustration at being marginalised in world affairs. I can see why a Frenchman might wallow in the hurt feelings that accompany a loss of self-esteem, but it isn't obvious why anyone else should want to do so. When Chirac goes on about how Britain and France share an eternal bond of blah, blah, blah, or whatever, and one sees the strained smile of a Francophile British PM at the cringe-inducing press conference yesterday, it does seem that the French President protests too much.

Surely one would only join a power bloc to counter-balance the United States if one actually felt threatened by the United States. Time will tell whether the professed fears of the European Bush-haters or the grievous imposition of more and more McDonald restaurants in Europe is a strong enough foundation on which to construct an enduring anti-American policy, especially when more immediate dangers threaten. Do the Dutch, for example, whose tolerant political tradition is reeling from Islamist violence, feel menaced by the United States?

The French President cannot answer, with any great confidence, the questions: Who will be the allies of France in its counter-balancing mission? Who else feels threatened by the United States? It's not obvious that Germany does, still less Russia, which faces a large Islamist population within and just outside its southern borders, not to mention its troubled relations with China. Why would Italy want to help the French curtail American power? Will Turkey support French anti-Americanism as the price for entry into Europe? Might France find that its only allies in this historic mission are African and Arab dicators?

I concede that this French weakness is mirrored, if not matched, by the inability of the Anglo-American alliance to confidently answer the question: Can democracy and stability be established in Iraq, much less elsewhere in the Arab world? When history happens, things hang in the balance. Yet it's a reckless gamble by France to develop a policy that sees the defeat of democratic values in Iraq as the means by which French prestige is enhanced in the world and American power is curtailed.

As Chirac said yesterday, history will tell whether the decision to invade Iraq was the right one, and he might have added, history will also judge the position France has taken. Not that we should expect this historical judgement to be "internalised" by the French. The French have found themselves on the wrong side of tyranny many times before, but always manage to retain the highest regard for themselves.

France continues to refuse every request to assist in the effort to set Iraq on a better course. Yesterday Chirac said he could not foresee the circumstances in which French troops could serve in Iraq. This is a continuation of the French position before the invasion.

The excuse for this lack of commitment to stability in Iraq is that the UN did not legitimise the invasion (a dubious accusation in itself.) What goes unsaid is that French support for Saddam and its complicity in his tyranny, most recently and most pathetically revealed in the financial kickbacks enjoyed by the French elite from the Oil-for-Food programme, is the reason France opposed the American invasion in the first place. This is another one of those judgements of history, but Chirac cannot pretend that many observors of French foreign policy have concluded that the behaviour of France is what has destroyed the credibility of the UN, not the United States.

If France did succeed in making anti-Americanism the motivating force for European union, then Britain would be forced to choose. Not that Britain would rush into making this choice. Britain historically blows hot and cold over Europe. The pro-Europeans hate this, but in fact, this pragmatic approach to the Continent is a natural response to geo-political reality. Britain is a free, stable and independent island nation engaged in global trade, sitting next to a large, frequently unstable, Continent that has a tendency toward protectionism and the habit of inhaling heavily on every ideological pipe-dream that comes along.

Of course, British anti-Europeans say the country has already gone too far into Europe, and more and more Britons tend to agree. But pessimists should take heart in the continued resistance to the European Project by the British State. Despite having the most pro-European PM since Ted Heath, Britain is still not in the common currency and doesn't seriously look like joining. Britain reserves (ever diminishing) social and economic opt-outs from Euro-law. Most importantly, and most irksome to the pro-Europeanists, British soldiers are fighting and dying with the United States in Iraq, pursuing a future in that country at odds with both the EU vision of a common European defence policy, and in opposition to the French distaste for defending democratic values.

Given the chance, I have to hope that the British people would reject a European Union whose motivating force was anti-Americanism. There is every reason to be nervous at the steady undermining of British independence by the EU. But I still think the most likely outcome of the French President's blustering aspirations for Europe (and you can't trust me on this because I want it too badly) is that his hopes will collapse like an undercooked soufflé.

Teach peace to the conquered

2004-11-08T21:16:00.000Z

On the night that the United States and the Iraqi national army teach peace to the conquered in Fallujah, Mark Steyn reminds us what is significant about the moral choice made by Americans last week:

"What does it mean when 22 percent of the electorate say their main concern was "moral issues"? Gay marriage? Abortion? Or is it something broader? For many of us, the war is also a moral issue, and the Democrats are on the wrong side of it, standing not with the women voting proudly in Afghanistan's first election but with the amoral and corrupt U.N., the amoral and cynical Jacques Chirac, the amoral and revolting head-hackers whom Democratic Convention guest of honor Michael Moore described as Iraq's ''minutemen.''"

Perhaps being moral means behaving with both intelligence and responsibility. Is it possible that democratic morality resides in the choices a free people make: the choice of rejecting childish self-indulgence in favour of a reluctant acceptence of painful responsibilities?

Ouch!

2004-11-07T13:22:00.000Z

From the German blog, Davids Medienkritick:

"Germans have died for many causes but democracy is not one of them. It is understandable that their attachment to it is not as strong as in other countries. But I imagine the conversation that will take place next year between Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi and Chancellor Schroeder. Allawi will observe that fifty years ago the German people were given the gift of democracy after a terrible war. He will then ask the Chancellor why Germany did not help Iraq when it was Iraq’s turn. And Schroeder will answer, “Because we are Germans and we are afraid.”"

I guess a German is allowed to say that.

Continental Drift

2004-11-05T09:56:00.000Z

For evidence that the political cultures of Europe and the United States are drifting apart, today's Telegraph provides an excellent example.

Islington Council has demanded that a local school drop the word "saint" from its name lest it cause offense to non-Christians. If the "evangelicals" are ascendent in America's heartland, the multiculturalists are pursuing de-Christianization as fast as they can in Europe.

Islington is a mismanaged Left-wing London Borough. Islington Education Authority's performance was so dreadful that a couple of years ago it was stripped of its responsibility for overseeing education. That hasn't stopped the Council from interfering in the Borough's schools. Saint Mary Magdalene Church of England Primary School is being told that it should change its name to something else - anything else - as long as there is no "Saint" in the name.

Where does one begin in trying to analyse this stupidity? First of all, the Local Authority failed as an education provider largely because it embraced 1960's left-wing educational quackery, yet it continues to try to impose its failed values on a Church of England school. Secondly, would Islington ask a school that was run by a (non-Christian) religious group to change a name that indicated the religious ethos of that school? Of course it would not. To do so would be contrary to the values of "multi-culturalism."

However, respect for culture in Europe does not extend to the Christian one. Islington is merely following the cultural drift of the European continent. The European Union is consciously choosing to suppress any evidence that Europe was once a Christian continent. The new EU Constitution is particularly careful to minimalise any reference to this cultural heritage. Whether you think this is a good thing or not, it is undoubtedly what the EU political elite is committed to.

This policy owes something to the fact that the Europeanists have looked to America for a federal model for Europe. The EU envies the strong secular institutions of the United States, but considers Americans themselves to be bizarrely religious. The Europeans want to reduce the divisions in European society in order to promote high levels of "solidarity" amonst Europeans. But the Europeanists completely misunderstand the nature of democratic politics, and the political culture of the United States.

The United States has developed secular, and durable, political institutions, because it is not, and never has been, a secular society. The United States needed secular government in order to become a unified state. It did not develop this secular political culture despite religious diversity, but because of it. And in doing so, it has not sought to suppress religious belief, as Europe is doing.

The EU insists that not only must European institutions be secular, but society itself must be secularised. But even as Europe insists that its politicians and citizens embrace the correct version of Euro-morality, there remains a large and growing constituency in Europe that rejects secularism entirely, in both society and in politics.

The practical result of the EU's policy of social secularisation is that while Europe de-Christianises itself, Muslims become more, not less, committed to their religious and cultural values. And why shouldn't they? Why should the State seek to diminish religious observance in society at all?

In democratic political systems, one doesn't try to make everyone believe or think the same way. One agrees a set of practical arrangements to negotiate conflicting demands peacefully. The moral choice underlying democratic politics is the choice to act politically - to put away the suicide bomb and other forms of violence and intimidation, and instead to engage in a political process. Democratic morality is demonstrated in the commitment to the process itself, not by conforming to an ideological standard imposed by the state.

Don't gloat in front of the children

2004-11-04T14:35:00.000Z

A 20-something student and Kerry supporter is quoted in The Daily Telegraph wailing, "I just don't understand," as the reality of Bush's win sank in on Wednesday morning.

I don't mock this response, and not only because I believe political activism and commitment in our democracy is a positive thing. No, I refuse to mock because one night in 1987, I was a 20-something student, wailing "how could they have voted for her?" as Thatcher won her third election victory.

I refuse to gloat in front of the children. Most of them will answer the question for themselves as they grow up. I'm saving my gloating for people who are 30 years old or older.

If the pollsters had listened to me...

2004-11-04T13:42:00.000Z

Before the election, I wrote that many people who told pollsters that they were Kerry supporters would punch the chad next to Bush's name in the privacy of the voting booth. They would do this because no one wants to be seen as a "warmonger" and a "selfish" person - that is, a Bush supporter.

In July I wrote:

"I happen to believe that Bush will benefit from a "Thatcher effect" in this election. This is what happens when voters back a candidate in the privacy of the voting booth, while doing the candidate down to the media outside the polling station. Most voters do not want to appear to be un-cool, pollution-loving, warmongers. And this more or less describes Bush supporters, doesn't it?

"British voters used to tell the pollsters that they hated Mrs. Thatcher. But in the voting booth they put the cross next to her name. By the time Thatcher won her third election, the pollsters had introduced a statistical tweak to try to factor in this desire by all mankind to appear to be cool and cuddly."

In today's Daily Telegraph, Harry Mount says more or less the same thing about US media exit polls which were so out of line with voter behaviour:

"For years, British pollsters have had to deal with the Shy Tory factor, where conservatives are too cowardly to admit their ruthless conservatism to pollsters and so they pretend they are voting for nice New Labour or the Lib Dems. Some pollsters actually build in a Shy Tory factor into their research and add on a few points to the Tories as a matter of course.

"By the time of the 1992 election, Shy Toryism was endemic: the polls pointed to a clear Neil Kinnock victory, but the Shy Tories crept into the polling booths in their millions, recording the greatest amount of Conservative votes ever."

Of course, the other explanation for inaccurate exit polls is that people rather like their ballot to be secret. They resent the media announcing the election result before the polls close and they tell little lies just to be difficult. The people who are likely to have these feelings are likely to be conservative.

Trying to make sense of Bush II

2004-11-03T21:36:00.000Z

The BBC has helpfully compiled a list of advice and demands from Britain's political leaders to the newly elected President Bush.

Tory leader Michael Howard has sent Mr Bush his "warmest congratulations", saying: "We look to the president to be a unifying force for those all over the world who share our determination to defend freedom."

That's nice. Would Mr. Howard like to repeat his speech about Tony Blair's "lies" about the reasons for invading Iraq? This doesn't seem to be the right time for that.

Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy welcomed the fact there had been a quick conclusion to the election, unlike in 2000.

"His first task obviously is to rebuild a sense of domestic purpose within the United States," he said.

Bush's first task was to win the election decisively, and in doing so, he has rebuilt "a sense of domestic purpose." I don't think Mr. Kennedy has ever experienced this sort of thing.

The BBC continues:

Predictions that it would be a close-fought race came true but Mr Bush took a small but decisive lead in the state of Ohio - enough to bring him enough electoral college votes to secure the presidency.

That "small decisive lead" refers to 130,000 votes. There's no mention that Bush won the popular vote, and, in the end, easily won the electoral college.

There were fears the count could have lasted hours, if not days, but in the end Mr Kerry made clear he intends to concede the race.

How magnanimous of Kerry - he lost.

Lib Dem foreign affairs spokesman Menzies Campbell said a win by Mr Kerry would have given Mr Blair the chance of a fresh start, adding it was almost as if there was an "umbilical cord" between Mr Bush and the UK premier.

Oh dear, Blair doesn't get a fresh start. Just a relationship born of trust earned in war-time.

Meanwhile, Liberal Democrat environment spokesman Norman Baker informs us that climate change is the greatest threat to our planet and that the Bush administration has completely ignored the situation.

"Tony Blair must now make it an urgent priority to press for American action on climate change.

His first telephone call... should start, 'Congratulations on your victory Mr President. Can I talk to you about climate change?'"

Tell him yourself, Norman. You can get the telephone number from Tony.

Gloating for beginners

2004-11-03T15:47:00.000Z

I'm trying to gloat, surrounded as I am by my Guardian and Independent reading colleagues. But I'm not very good at it, though I can do smiling smugly quite well.

John Derbyshire, on the other hand, is a professional gloater. He runs through a target list of gloatees:

"Then there's the foreigners: the Guardian and Independent newspapers and the BBC in England, the French and the Greeks, Kofi Annan and Mohammed El Baradei...and of course that Friendly Giant to the North. How incredible it must seem to them, to these self-styled sophisticates, that a crude, swaggering boor like George W. Bush should retain the affections of his countrymen after all his crimes and blunders! Well, deal. You're stuck with an honest to God (literally) American conservative — and a conservative America — for another four years. Get used to it."

Discover his other victims, at the National Review Online.

Glad to be shown up as a pessimist

2004-11-03T14:43:00.000Z

Ok, I admit it. I was preparing for a Kerry win. I put it down to the BBC and ITV coverage in Britain that couldn't conceal its Kerry-for-president bias.

But my brother in Atlanta kept feeding me texts telling me it looked good for Bush. I wouldn't listen. I was watching the dreadful Maureen Dowd on Newsnight. I've never seen the woman on tele and now I understand from whence comes the visceral derision for her that I read among bloggers.

Maureen did her "wrong war" and "Bush is wrong about everything" speech, and then indulged in some premature gloating (this was at around 11 pm GMT). The thing is, whoever it was that Newsnight had on for the Republican view, he was in a right funk and had also bought the line that all was lost.

I went to bed expecting to lose and woke up to a glad, happy morning. Hooray!

Are we at war?

2004-11-02T21:02:00.000Z

Exchanging emails with a friend in Atlanta today, I tried to explain away the possibility of a Kerry win by referring to the fact that the "war on terror" has not really touched the lives of many Americans (even granted the 1000 dead in Iraq and the 3000 dead on 9/11.) The continued use of the phrase "war on terror," criticised elsewhere for being a war on a concept, reveals the limited impact of the "war" on suburban America. Like the "war on drugs," the "war on terror" is something that happens in other, less fortunate, communities.

The United States is a big country and it cannot be said that the average citizen has, in any meaningful way, been mobilised for this "war." For Bush to win this election as a "war-time" President, he had to effectively communicate two mutually dependent concepts to the famously pre-occupied American voter: He had to convince a majority in the country that the country was indeed at war, and second, he had to convince them that he was the leader with the greater aptitude to prevail in the conflict.

Republican supporters (myself included) tried to see in the Osama tape the "good news" that we now had the proof that your "average" American voter was still under the terrorist threat. By last night, trying to convince myself of a Bush win, I felt as nuanced as a Kerry supporter trying to explain the challenger's Iraq policy.

A vote for Kerry may be a vote for a quiet life, but I don't say that it is a vote for "appeasement." I don't think the American electorate actually feels threatened enough to want to appease anyone. Again, I think if Bush loses it's because more than half the country does not "believe" in the war.

My Atlanta friend's response to all this was: That's ok for the US, but what about the Europeans? Surely the Europeans understand the threat they face?

European nations have, for good historical reasons, embraced the ideology of multi-culturalism. The European Union is credited with providing peace between previously warring European nations since the Second World War. The EU does everything it can to play down the extra-European dimension of this peace settlement, and is especially loathe to recognise the role played by the United States.

In any case, the softly, softly approach to Islamic immigration is testing the political cultures of some European countries to breaking point. Dutch politics, for example, has now surely passed into an era of open intimidation and violence. (For a summary of European Islamic immigration and its impact go here.)

First, the anti-immigration politician Pym Fortuyn was assassinated in 2002 by an "environmental" activist. Pym was presumably not killed because of his opinions on global warming. Instead, he became a target of political violence because he defended traditional Dutch liberalism from the intolerance of Islamic immigrants. Today, a Dutch filmmaker has been murdered in Amsterdam by a Morrocan immigrant. (See previous posts) His crime: To produce a television film that portrayed the degradation of women in Islamic society.

Holland, the most tolerant of European societies, is now a country in which speaking about certain subjects risks death. European "tolerance" looks less and less like a broad-minded approach to cultural difference and more and more like that traditional European toleration of political thuggery and violence.

Kerry fought the US election denying any link between 9/11 and Iraq, much less any link to a politician and a filmmaker murdered by fanatics on the streets of a European democracy. Not for Kerry to mention the Madrid Massacre this spring. For Kerry, the election was all about the economy, and getting out of Iraq. It has nothing much to do with America's role in defending democratic politics in the world. Nevertheless, Kerry may well have called this election right. He has shown real political skill.

In such a close election, I see absolutely no reason to be more generous than this to the winning side (if that is what they are). It's not like either side has vanquished the other (though it should never have been this damn close!) If Kerry wins tonight, I think, for what it's worth, the country has made the wrong choice. But I also think that, at least for the medium term, it's unlikely that Americans will suffer from this choice - in fact, Americans have rarely suffered grievously from their political choices, going back, (I'm happy to stand corrected) to the Civil War. No, it's other people's and nations which look to the US for help, who suffer most when the United States takes one of its holidays from the world.

If he wins, it will be up to Kerry to show that he has some idea of the hopes invested in the United States around the world. It's up to Kerry to prove that he is aware that there are other demands on the United States than those made by the corrupt French President, the hypocrite Anan, or the terrorist Arafat. It's up to Kerry to discover that he is, if elected President, the leader of the democratic world.

As America votes...

2004-11-02T19:32:00.000Z

The Sudan begins another round of ethnic cleansing in Darfur. (UN standing by to watch).

North Korea threatens South Korea.

A Dutch filmaker who dared criticise Islam is gunned down on the streets of Amsterdam. (See previous post, below).

And the "freedom fighter" insurgents of Iraq blow up the Ministry of Education (an improvement on targeting schoolchildren, to be sure.)

I hope, tomorrow, whoever it is we've elected, the President will be able to handle these "nuisances." I hope France and Germany and the UN will respect us again. I hope the troops will be back home by Christmas. I hope the terrorists will leave us alone. I hope peace will break out in the world. I'd like to buy the world a Coke...

Whoever wins the US election, democracy remains under seige

2004-11-02T11:02:00.002Z

A Dutch filmmaker who dared to produced a flim critical of Islamic culture has been assassinated today in Holland.

The European states cannot protect their citizens from Muslim fanatics.

There are three possible responses to this murder and intimidation: to fight the murderers and their evil ideology at home and abroad; to ignore the fanatics and pretend that they are not engaged in an organised and effective assault on democracy; or to capitulate to their demands and criticise those who criticise them as "racists" and "warmongerers."

Europe is already well down the road of capitulation. The United States has the opportunity to take a giant step down that road today. If the head-in-the sand crowd win, it does not mean that the US will lose the war against the Islamic fascists. But it does mean that a global catastrophe is more likely and more people will die than would have died, had we remained resolute.

The irony is that the countries who will be over-run by the Islamists are, as in the last global catastrophe, the countries of Europe, while the US will make it through (I hope and believe) relatively unscathed physically, if not economically.

***

Read the incredible story of ex-Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somalian refugee to the Netherlands who has launched a campaign against the oppression of women in the Muslim world. Ali was collaborating with the Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh who was murdered today. Her life is also in danger.

More reasons to vote Bush

2004-11-01T14:05:00.000Z

Catherine Elsworth, writing in The Telegraph reports:

Left leaning Californians say they would rather leave America than stay with George W. Bush as President.

"Do you think Great Britain would give us political asylum?" the woman in Starbucks asked. "It's just...I don't think I can stay if Bush wins again."

Catherine points out that these threats are often heard from Lefties around election time, but unfortunately, they are very rarely acted upon. Britain used to have washed-up theatrical types like this who would threaten to fly away to southern California, or to Barbados or to some other sunny clime, if Thatcher were to win her second, or third, election. These threats were never very impressive to fellow Brits who had no option but to stay behind in the rain.

The same Telegraph article states that Robert Redford has theatened to move to Ireland if Bush is re-elected. My first reaction was to think: "What a sacrifice." But on reflection, this would be a sacrifice for an elderly man from the sun drenched American southwest. Does Robert have any idea just how cold and wet is an Irish winter? I would have thought a commitment to live in Ireland for a month would have been more prudent. Perhaps he can delay his exile until the Spring.

Besides the fact that such pronouncements make fools of these would-be exiles, they send three messages to the rest of us:

First, the obvious one: "You are a bunch of dupes for supporting Bush. I despair for my country and of my countrymen."

Second, Redford reminds everyone that he has a second home in Ireland (and you don't).

Third, Redford and the Lefty Californians are telling us that if we want to see the back of them, we should vote for Bush.

Who would not get out of bed and down to the polling booth to vote Bush if, as a side benefit, they could guarantee that the day after the President is re-elected, airplanes full of Robert Redford types and Lefty Californians would be winging their way out of the country?

While on the subject of getting out of bed, in anotherTelegraph feature, Sarah Sands writes:

One Democrat said that she won't get up on November 3 if Bush wins.

Given that Michael Moore has advised Kerry supporters to "sleep 'til noon, drink beer and vote Kerry," one would have to ask whether this woman is refusing to get out of bed, or making excuses for her daily schedule. Whatever the motivation, I hope that she, the Lefty Californians, and Robert Redford will, for once, be true to their word.

Reality hits the fan

2004-10-28T22:40:00.000+01:00

Mark Steyn bets on reality in The Spectator, predicting a clear Bush win on Tuesday and saying he'll "resign" if he's wrong about the outcome. I am thinking about purchasing The Spectator tomorrow. But now they've let me read Steyn on their website, I will probably not bother to.

Can I really face reading writers like the hapless Simon Jenkins? On the day of the Madrid bombings, he published a column mocking the widespread fear of terror amongst politicians and the public. Like the poor BBC weatherman who, on the night of the worst storm in 300 years, tucked the British people into bed with a "don't worry madam, there is no hurricane on the way," Jenkins told his compatriots that the war on terror was largely a Bush/Blair fantasy. His spectacularly mis-timed complacency did nothing to dent his credibility in the eyes of his denial-eager readers and it certainly didn't cause Jenkins to pause for breath before continuing on in his self-satisfied way. Steyn's promise to get out of the punditry business if he's wrong about the upcoming election, is not the sort of thing a serious writer like Jenkins would ever consider doing.

Here's another blogger who is troubled by The Spectator - this time because of the anti-Semetic asides of one of its writers. I'm afraid this sort of rubbish is unavoidable among the "elites" of Europe. Where two or three aristocratic Europeans are gathered together, there will you find the Jew-joke. And if you have the misfortune to read The Spectator's columns, you will soon discover that maintaining class and cultural distinction is far more important than the silly little matter of whether the country wins the war against Islamic fascists.

Perhaps Steyn will be pulled from the pages of The Spectator next, like he was from the pages of The Telegraph two weeks ago. Steyn had written about the mawkishness of the Liverpudlian response to Ken Bigley's kidnap and murder. The following week, The Spectator weighed in on the same theme, telling the British people what they already know - that Scousers are the vanguard of Britain's victim culture. "Victims of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your dignity."

Now, everyone except Steyn seems to be apologising to Scousers. What greater evidence of the supremacy of the victim culture could there be than the the sight of the hitherto gloriously politically incorrect Boris Johnson, offering an indiscrimate apology to "the people of Liverpool" for the perfectly reasonable mocking of that City's response to Bigley's beheading. So much for the Scousers' famous sense of humour.

If Steyn does suffer further indignity at the hands of an increasingly wet British press, and if, God forbid, he's wrong about the outcome on Tuesday, then perhaps he can resign from these MSM publications and become a subscription blogger.

Maybe this is Steyn's strategy. Perhaps he has grown tired of those less-than-lucrative contracts that he signed with MSM publications before he made his name as the leading political columnist of the day. Perhaps Steyn is trying to provoke these publications to sever their contracts with him. I do hope this is the case, as I'd rather not have to log on to either of these papers' sites, or indeed, to purchase them. I'd much rather pay a subscription direct to the writer.

Guardian call to assassinate Bush was an "ironic joke"

2004-10-25T16:56:00.000+01:00

Those Guardian readers who don't "get" irony have apparently taken offence at Charlie Brooker's column yesterday. As I pointed out in my previous post, this is the column in which Charlie appealed for a volunteer to step forward and assassinate President Bush. The Guardian has now pulled Charlie's rant from its website, but you can still read it here. And the paper's editors have now helped Charlie to issue an apology, explaining that Charlie's incitement to murder was meant as "an ironic joke."

I've reproduced, in full, the Guardian's "apology" below, and you can read it here at the high-school rag, itself.

"The final sentence of a column in The Guide on Saturday caused offence to some readers. The Guardian associates itself with the following statement from the writer.
"Charlie Brooker apologises for any offence caused by his comments relating to President Bush in his TV column, Screen Burn. The views expressed in this column are not those of the Guardian. Although flippant and tasteless, his closing comments were intended as an ironic joke, not as a call to action - an intention he believed regular readers of his humorous column would understand. He deplores violence of any kind."

Notice, Charlie or the Guardian don't bother apologising for calling President Bush "a tool." That's normal playground rhetoric for the intellectual Guardian reader and writer.

Charlie's Guardian editors sound like surrogate parents apologising for their out-of-control toddler. "All Charlie wanted to do was to share his inner child with others. His tantrum was harmless. Sure, he bit little Sarah on the back, he threw his food over Jack and he pulled Amy's hair. But he was just playing. Charlie's not a bad boy. When he says he's going to "kill" little Justin, he does cause us some embarrassment. But our closest friends really like Charlie. They don't complain when Charlie throws his tantrums. Why don't you like our Charlie?."

Charlie deplores violence. He doesn't really mean what he writes. He's not sure what he means. It isn't his fault other people will interpret his words to mean what the words say. For Charlie is above such earthly considerations. Charlie is an intellectual. He understands irony. And Charlie knows what he hates; and what he hates is George Bush.

Charlie is a child. He and his lefty editors can't be bothered to articulate what it is they hate about Bush. They just hate, and they're so sure that you hate, too, that they think you will overlook the fact that they have incited murder in their "quality" newspaper.

A Guardian "teenager" calls for Bush's assassination

2004-10-24T10:08:00.000+01:00

That barometer of UK intellectual life, The Guardian, has just allowed one of its "journalists" to call for the assassination of President Bush. Remember, this is the newspaper that tried to launch a campaign to help Ohio voters make the "right" choice in the Presidential election. It took weeks for The Guardian intellectuals to figure out that every time an Ohio voter received a letter from a Guardian reader telling them to vote Kerry, the voter not only decided not to vote for Kerry, but began actively campaigning for Bush. The Telegraph reports the collapse of the brilliant scheme here and The Guardian publishes some American responses here.

Guardian writer Charlie Brooker writes that Bush is a...

"lying, sniggering, drink-driving, selfish, reckless, ignorant, dangerous, backward, drooling, twitching, blinking, mouse-faced little cheat. And besides, in a fight between a tree and a bush, I know who I'd favour."

In another paragraph, Charlie calls Bush "a tool." This up-and-coming master of the quality press writes:

"Forgive me for employing the language of the playground, but the man's a tool."

Now I don't claim to keep abreast of developments in high-school rhetoric, but I do believe Charlie just called President Bush a "penis." Perhaps this is not what a "tool" means. Perhaps Charlie called the Prez a screwdriver. As I said, this level of political analysis is beyond me.

Anyway, Charlie should not apologise for using such juvenile language. For Charlie's "analysis" of Bush comes straight from the schoolyard.

Charlie's brings his self-revealing tirade to a close with an appeal to a would-be assassin to dispose of the President. If Bush wins, Charlie writes:

"The world will endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted bloodshed, with no benevolent deity to watch over and save us. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr - where are you now that we need you?"

Charlie is so blissfully self-absorbed in his high-school hatred of Bush, that he doesn't realise that in evoking the memory of John Wilkes Booth, he has managed to conjure in the minds of his readers the image of the assassinated Lincoln (and of two other well-regarded Presidents for good measure. And all three Presidents are well regarded, if not on the pages of The Guardian.)

This is only the most spectacular evidence of Charlie's troubled "teenager" feelings toward Bush. Charlie is unable to deride Bush without at the same time encouraging his readers to make a mental connection with Lincoln. Another example of Charlie's inability to surpress his true feelings for bush can be found in his accusation that Bush is a "tool." This is not an effective term of abuse - most people have a healthy regard for tools.

Just as a hysterical teenager often retains a frustrated regard for his own parents, Charlie reveals in his writing a sneaking admiration for President Bush. He doesn't mean to, any more than a teenager means to break down in tears and give Daddy a hug after behaving outrageously toward his father. Whilst there is virtually no political analysis to be found in Charlie's writing, there is plenty of "acting out" for the psychologist to analyse.

The Guardian often publishes stupid articles, as every paper does. But it now seems to have handed over its editorial responsibilities to teenagers like Charlie. Earlier this month, the paper completely failed to realise how silly and counter productive was its Ohio voter-drive.

The Guardian's publication of this teenage rant continues the tradition of the inconsequential critique of Bush by the Left in Britain and America. Charlie is about at effective in hurting Bush as is the teenager who is hysterical after being "grounded" by Big Bad Dad. During his tirade, Charlie admits that Bush will probably win on November 2. Dad is still "Dad" even when I hate him so.

The Guardian has confirmed its status as a high school newspaper for "adult" readers who are still shouting at mom and dad.

Can you abide this woman?

2004-10-21T13:13:00.000+01:00

The main reason to not vote Kerry on November 2 is to avoid four more years of Ms. Heinz Kerry. Here's her latest comments on her erroneous claim that Laura Bush has never had a "proper" job:

"So [Laura Bush's] experience and her validation comes from important things, but different things."

Can you abide the psuedo social-worker, 1960's feminist-speak language of "validation?" If you can, you're a European, not an American.

November Nerves

2004-10-18T23:03:00.000+01:00

My brother just sent me this. It captures the nervous concern of those who know how the country should vote on Nov 2, but who are not confident that their fellow citizens are going to do the right thing. It's a well written essay and I share the writer's sense of exasperation. But I also think he should be more stoical in his outlook (more like Bush, for example). After quoting the piece at length, I try to calm myself down:

Election Determines Fate of Nation

Mathew Manweller,
Central Washington University political science professor
Ellensburg Daily Record, Oct 6, 2004 (Ellensburg, Washington)

"This November we will vote in the only election during our lifetime that will truly matter. Because America is at a once-in-a-generation crossroads, more than an election hangs in the balance. Down one path lies retreat, abdication and a reign of ambivalence. Down the other lies a nation that is aware of its past and accepts the daunting obligation its future demands...If we, in a spasm of frustration, turn out the current occupant of the White House, the message to the world and ourselves will be two-fold.

First, we will reject the notion that America can do big things. Once a nation that tamed a frontier, stood down the Nazis and stood upon the moon, we will announce to the world that bringing democracy to the Middle East is too big of a task for us. But more significantly, we will signal to future presidents that as voters, we are unwilling to tackle difficult challenges, preferring caution to boldness, embracing the mediocrity that has characterized other civilizations. The defeat of President Bush will send a chilling message to future presidents who may need to make difficult, yet unpopular decisions. America has always been a nation that rises to the demands of history regardless of the costs or appeal...

Second, we inform every terrorist organization on the globe that the lesson of Somalia was well learned. In Somalia we showed terrorists that you don't need to defeat America on the battlefield when you can defeat them in the newsroom. They learned that a wounded America can become a defeated America. Twenty-four-hour news stations and daily tracing polls will do the heavy lifting, turning a cut into a fatal blow. Except that Iraq is Somalia times 10. The election of John Kerry will serve notice to every terrorist in every cave that the soft underbelly of American power is the timidity of American voters. Terrorists will know that a steady stream of grizzly photos for CNN is all you need to break the will of the American people. Our own self-doubt will take it from there. Bin Laden will recognize that he can topple any American administration without setting foot on the homeland.

It is said that America's W.W.II generation is its 'greatest generation'. But my greatest fear is that it will become known as America's 'last generation.' Born in the bleakness of the Great Depression and hardened in the fire of WW II, they may be the last American generation that understands the meaning of duty, honor and sacrifice. It is difficult to admit, but I know these terms are spoken with only hollow detachment by many (but not all) in my generation. Too many citizens today mistake 'living in America' as 'being an American.' But America has always been more of an idea than a place. When you sign on, you do more than buy real estate. You accept a set of values and responsibilities. This November, my generation, which has been absent too long, must grasp the obligation that comes with being an American, or fade into the oblivion they may deserve. I believe that 100 years from now historians will look back at the election of 2004 and see it as the decisive election of our century. Depending on the outcome, they will describe it as the moment America joined the ranks of ordinary nations; or they will describe it as the moment the prodigal sons and daughters of the greatest generation accepted their burden as caretakers of the "City on the Hill.""

I have now reread this piece at least three times, and each time I find myself in near total sympathy with the writer. First, because it is rather well written. Second, because I share the writer's exasperation with the political culture that seems incapable of focusing on a problem for more than five minutes. And third, because I agree that it is very important that President Bush is still the President on November 3.

But I find myself surprisingly less frantic than this writer sounds, even as the "election of our lifetime" approaches. This is not because I am preparing myself for the disappointment of defeat. I have $20 riding on a Bush win and I plan to collect this bet from my brother on November 3. So the stakes are high in my house, even without the global "war on terror."

Mr. Manweller believes the stakes are high, too. But are his arguements capable of convincing those who do not recognise the peril? And furthermore, shouldn't we be alarmed at the strength of our political institutions if a single election can be said to determine the fate of a nation?

If Mr. Manweller's essay has anything wrong with it, it is that he is overly concerned with this Presidential election and with this moment in history. He writes that if the US does not show proper resolve, "Bin Laden will recognize that he can topple any American administration without setting foot on the homeland." But Bin Laden is probably dead, and if he is not, he is at least not kicking. Bin Ladin has already taught the Unites States a lesson. Kerry may fail to learn it, and his supporters may deny it, but there is very little that the US can now teach Bin Ladin, even were his brain disposed to learn it.

This reference to a phantom political enemy is what makes me wonder whether Mr. Manweller understands what the "greatest generation" actually faced, or achieved, and what we are also up against.

Mr. Manweller fears that the "greatest generation" might become known as the "last generation" because "they may be the last American generation that understands the meaning of duty, honor and sacrifice." He may be forgetting that the "greatest generation" was not born great. That generation was certainly not "great" before Pearl Harbour. The greatest generation became great in France, and on the beaches of the Pacific. They suffered and they died and became "great."

To see how the "war on terror" has so far failed to bestow "greatness" on our generation, one only has to ask: How has this "war" touched the lives of the average American (or European for that matter)?

Apart from the very real suffering of the friends and family of the (relatively few) victims of terror; it hasn't. It has touched us all through the television screen. And how touching this is. But has any of us gone on short rations yet? Has anyone even changed his lifestyle as a result of this "war?" I suppose we are all much more nervous now. We have to take our shoes off at the airport. But it is rather characteristic of our generation to draw comparisons between our fear of terror and the real suffering of the previous generation.

I'm not convinced that when Dubya wins, the American people will be culturally, morally, and politically vindicated by this outcome, anymore than they would be condemned by an unlikely Kerry win.

A single election does not determine the Republic's fate. To say that one election could undo the Republic is not unlike Bin Ladin's fantasy that a mass terror attack would make the US retreat from global affairs. History seldom does what it's manipulators want it to do, especially when they are fantasists.

I say: Vote Bush on Nov 2. But I don't say, "A vote for Kerry is a vote for Bin Laden."

The Politics of Rock

2004-10-12T13:38:00.000+01:00

Aging British rock star Peter Frampton has joined the long list of of has-been rockers who sing for Kerry. According to CNN:

Frampton, who said he was motivated to become an American citizen by the September 11 attacks, also has become active in national politics.

He volunteered to perform at a private fund-raising concert in Cincinnati this summer for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and appeared on stage in Toledo, Ohio, recently with rock musicians Neil Young (say it ain’t so, Neil) and Pearl Jam as part of the "Vote For Change" tour.

"I was pretty naive about American politics," he said.

Sounds like you still are, Pete.

Mr. Islam

2004-09-24T01:39:00.000+01:00

Mr. Yusuf Islam, aka Cat Stevens, has been refused entry into the United States by the immigration authorities. Mr. Islam is "shocked" that his name appears on a US Immigration watch-list. He's consulting his lawyers.

Mr. Islam is a convert to the religion of Islam. Before that he was a fairly successful British pop star, with such songs as Moonshadow and Morning Has Broken.

In my mind, Mr. Islam's name is linked to the controversy surrounding the fatwa issued by Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989 on Salman Rushdie, the author of The Satanic Verses. Mr. Rushdie has lived for the past 15 years in fear for his life. I remembered that Mr. Islam had been criticised for supporting the death sentence on his fellow countryman.

My initial reaction to news of his troubles with US Immigration was to think, "So what?"

But the reports I was reading on his refused entry to the US stated that, in fact, Mr. Islam denies ever supporting the fatwa. Having a very poor memory, and not wanting to unfairly pigeon-hole the man, I ran a Google search on the subject.

I discovered that if Mr. Islam ever made a straightforward statement supporting the fatwa, I can’t find an actual quote of what he said. That doesn't mean he did not make such a statement, but if he did, he qualified his support for the fatwa soon afterward.

If you read Mr. Islam’s website, he comes over as a thoughtful and rather anguished English liberal who is trying to be a good Muslim. He seems somewhat depressed that he happened to join the great religion of Islam just as a large part of its followers became psychotic.

Mr. Islam is forthright in his condemnation of current Islamic terror tactics and refers to such outrages as a tragedy because Islam is being hijacked by extremists. He utterly condemns the attack on New York, and other atrocities, and only repeats the apologists’ mantra: “but you have to remember, Muslims have suffered too,” on one occasion and after a straightforward denunciation of terror.

On the whole, his website achieves what I imagine he wanted it to. It reminded me that there is an alternative Islam to the bloodthirsty, angry religion we are currently seeing.

Mr. Islam maintains that as a new convert to Islam, the media ambushed him with questions about the fatwa and he admits that he may have responded inappropriately, at least initially. But the manner in which Mr. Islam qualifies his view on the fatwa is revealing of the problem a "moderate" Muslim has in condemning incitement to murder.

Mr. Islam explains:

"The media tried linking me to supporting Iran's Fatwa on Salman Rushdie. The fact is that I never did support the Fatwa. Such is the irony. You wouldn't ask a Christian to deny one of the Ten Commandments; equally, as a new Muslim, I couldn't deny that the Quran, just like Leviticus in the Bible, forbade blasphemy and if there is no repentance, made it a capital offence.”

As a follower of the Quran, (or of the Old Testement, for that matter) Mr. Islam found it difficult, if not impossible, to ignore the passages demanding death to blasphemers. He does not seem to have noticed that very few, if any, modern believers in the Hebrew scriptures support the execution of blasphemers. A small minority of Orthodox Jews aspire to maintain such theological rigour, but the (secular) Israeli State won't allow them to.

You’ll be relieved to know that Mr. Islam doesn’t want fellow Muslims in Britain to murder Mr. Rushdie. Instead, Mr. Islam believes that the death sentence can only be carried out by a court in an Islamic country.

In an interview with Mr. Islam in 2000, Paul Cantin offers further insights into the convert's views on the death sentence passed on his fellow citizen:

"Yusuf was approached during a speaking engagement that year (2000) and was asked about the "fatwah," or death sentence, that Islamic religious leaders had pronounced against Rushdie…

...he issued a press release stating that he had simply reiterated that, under Islamic laws, blasphemy is punishable by death, but the same laws state that Muslims must also obey the rules of the country in which they live. Predictably, his comments were taken as an endorsement of the death order against Rushdie and encouragement to anyone who might attempt to assassinate the writer. His denial of that interpretation was swift, but went largely unheeded."

One wonders why this reporter finds it “predictable” that Mr. Islam's words would be interpreted as “endorsing the death order against Rushdie?” Could it be that the responses of other Muslim's to the fatwa are not quite as thoughtful or restrained as Mr. Islam's?

I’m confident that Mr. Islam could attend a book launch with Rushdie and refrain from attacking him physically. But some of his co-religionist have had trouble maintaining such equanamity in relation to the fatwa.

In fact, enthusiastic fatwa agents have already partially carried out the Iranian decree. “In 1991 the Japanese translator [of the Satanic Verses} was murdered and in 1993 Rushdie's Norwegian publisher was wounded in an attack outside his house.” (Wikipedia)

Furthermore, Mr. Islam’s qualification that Rushdie could only ever be put to death at the order of an Islamic court in a Muslim country is more disturbing than it first appears. It implies that so long as Rushdie stays out of Iran and other Islamic countries, he may live. Should Britain ever become a Muslim country, or Rushdie stray into a “Muslim” country (it is not clear how one defines this status - is Northern Nigeria off limits, or those parts of Canada that allow Sharia law?), the death sentence on Rushdie can (and should?) be legally carried out.

Mr. Islam's qualifications are of little comfort to Mr. Rushdie. He is at risk of being assassinated where ever he goes.

Indeed, the fatwa was renewed by the Iranian regime in 2003. Iranian clerics have repeated the advice that any Muslim who has the capability to carry out the death sentence against Rushdie should do so and besides receiving a heavenly reward, can expect a generous bounty on earth should they get away with the murder.

So I am afraid that my initial reaction to Mr. Islam’s inconvenient treatment at the hands of American Immigration officials remains. I’m still more sorry for Mr. Rushdie's plight than I am for Mr. Islam's inconvenience.

In case Mr. Islam might want to incorporate real moderation onto his website, I have written out a sentence of unqualified condemnation of the fatwa against Rushdie so he can cut and paste it to his site:

“Muslims do not have the right to kill other human beings because they have “blasphemed” the Islamic religion.”

If Muslims continue to demand the right to sentence blasphemers to death, they might at least be gracious enough to accept that they may occasionally appear on government “watch lists” as potential murderers. And yes, they may occasionally be detained at the airport.

They should not be “shocked” by this treatment, anymore than I am no longer shocked that people who support incitement to murder enjoy a life of peace and tranquility within our liberal democracy.

Counting on a moderate Iran

2004-09-22T16:07:00.000+01:00

I have a friend who persists in telling me that Iran is a “moderate” State. I usually guffaw and refer him to Michael Leeden’s columns in the National Review. But my friend considers Leeden to be a “neo-con” and that label allows for no further discussion. In fact, to my friend’s ears, all warnings about Iran are suspect if made by western commentators. So it is probably better to allow the Iranian regime to speak for itself.

The following slogans were seen on banners displayed at a military parade in Teheran yesterday (the report is from The Telegraph, as suspicious a source for information as there ever was):

"Israel must be wiped off the map"

"We will crush America under our feet"

These slogans follow on from the words of a leading cleric in the Iranian regime, Mr. Hashemi-Rafsanjani, who last year proposed that Iran could annihilate Israel with nuclear weapons and only suffer limited damage when Israel counter attacked.

The United Nations is unable to contain Iran’s nuclear programme. Israel and the United States have no choice but to try to do so. Israel has today announced the purchase of a new bunker-busting missile and has informed Iran the new weapon may be used against Iran’s nuclear programme. Only those with a secret (and not so secret) wish to see the Iranian regime’s slogans fulfilled, could fault Israel for acquiring these weapons.

My friend is unwilling to accept the murderous character of the Iranian regime, even when the regime helpfully publishes its intentions for him to read. He is more comfortable believing that the regime’s slogans are political hyperbole, than in troubling himself with the implications of Iran’s threats. The Iranian regime is making its genocidal intentions as clear as Hitler did when he outlined his political philosophy in Mein Kampf. Beyond actively supporting terror groups in the Middle East and broadcasting its intention to wage war on Israel and the United States, one wonders what exactly the Iranian regime would have to do to earn the adjective "extreme."

I do not believe that there is a deep ideological impasse between my “hawkish” view on Iran and my friend’s “see no evil” attitude. I presume that my friend would not like to see Israel “wiped off the map,” though one can never be sure these days, (and he's even less clear on whether knocking the front teeth out of Manhatten was, or was not, an excusable act).

Before you tell me to stop hanging around the wrong sort of "friend" let me add that the main argument my friend uses to justify his contention that Iran is "moderate" is that there are millions of “moderate” people in Iran. So I have a confused friend, not a bad one. My friend confuses the Iranian people with the Iranian regime.

There exists a lively historical debate about the German peoples’ level of complicity in the Nazi horrors. How much or how little the average German citizen admired and assisted Hitler’s regime in its crimes is an interesting moral and historical question. But such soul searching was incapable, at the time, of stopping the global catastrophe unleashed by the Third Reich.

The limitations of the Iranian regime's ideological appeal to its own people is obvious to outside observors. The youthful population of Iran appears to be more interested in making and watching great cinema, and in blogging, than in supporting the Mullahs as they scapegoat others for their own failings and corruptions.

We can debate how limited or widespread the appeal of Islamic theocratic ideology is, just as we can debate the degree to which Germany’s national socialists coerced or enticed the German people to support their mad vision. But the weakness of the regime’s ideological foundation makes it more dangerous, not less. The theocracy cannot reform itself without losing power, and the ideology of the Iranian Revolution is as implacable and full of self-justifying hatred as German national socialism ever was.

So my friend may be right to say the the Iranian people are moderate. And the Iranian people may yet overthrow the clerics and prevent the Iranian regime from unleashing a catastrophe on themselves and on that region and the world. But we can no more count on this outcome, than Britain could take comfort from the fact that there were an awful lot of good and decent people living in Germany in 1939.

CBS discovers "the truth"

2004-09-20T14:31:00.000+01:00

The New York Times reports that CBS is about to announce that it was "misled" by the fake memos. They were not "misled". They were misleading.

The Times reporter, careful not to betray his sources, continues:

"Several people familiar with the situation said they were girding for a particularly tough week for Mr. Rather and the news division should the network announce its new doubts."

The only reason things are "tough" for CBS is that Rather won't resign after being exposed as a liar. The doubts are not "new" to anyone but CBS.

I wonder if the "several people familiar with the situation" as cited by the Times' reporter, includes half a million bloggers?

The Times reports on the mighty search for truth that is about to break out at CBS:

"In the coming days CBS News officials plan to focus on how the network moved ahead with the report when there were warning signs that the memorandums were not genuine."

But it was Mr. Rather himself who assured the network that his memos were genuine. And it was CBS that was so defensive of its newsman that it would not even question whether the memos were fakes until bloggers proved them to be. It sounds as if CBS is almost ready to say: "It's all Mr. Rather's fault."

We would all like to know why Rather persisted in defending the fake memos so long, and why CBS stood behind him. But I'm afraid CBS will now declare that Dan has been duped, ignore the question of who initiated the memo conspiracy, and hope we all forget that the network vehemently supported the hoax.

Some consider that Rather's inability to acknowledge that the memos are fake, and his insistence that the fake memos are nevertheless somehow still true, is due to a liberal's post-modern problem with truthfulness. "Several people familiar with the situation" have pointed out that a sort of Oliver Stone docu-drama "truth" has now invaded the newsroom. But even a post-modern liberal would have to admit that with the fake Bush memo report, CBS has failed to achieve even relative truth. Not enough people believe the story.

Since everyone is allowed to have their own version of the truth, "my truth" is that Dan Rather is bonkers. "My truth" is also that CBS was so eager to assist the Kerry Campaign that they were either duped by or wilfully promoted a fraud, and then denied the scandal because they realise that a story that was supposed to lead to a Kerry comeback, was in fact the straw that sunk the Kerry campaign (if I may mix my metaphores).

This is "my truth." But "my truth" would not matter one jot unless millions of other people also believed in it.

Even if one holds to a post-modern notion of the truth, one is left scratching one's head at Rather's justification for the fake memos. If anyone was ever convinced of the "higher truth" behind the memos, once it became obvious the memos were fake, the "true" story about Bush "falsifying" his record in Texas was no longer the story. You'd think even a dishonest journalist would understand this.

If a truth is only truthful relative to someone's viewpoint, then in the post-modern view of truth, Rather and CBS lost control of the number of viewers who came to "believe" that the memos were fakes. I've no doubt that the post-modernists are on to something when they say that "truth" is no more than aggregated opinions and beliefs. But in this case, bloggers made more people interested and informed about the memos' status, than about Bush's service record. Dan Rather and CBS lost control of "the truth" to bloggers who don't claim to know what the truth is, but have that old-fashioned journalistic drive to mercilessly look for it anyway.

Most human beings enjoy watching an arrogant windbag deflate. But we are also observing the emergence of a new and powerful tool for truth-telling and truth-finding in our society, and that is rather more important than CBS's quest to discover the truth.

Those who have not gone over to the dark side know that truth is not a relative concept, but that it is sometimes very hard to find, especially when people will tell lies. The new internet journalists have covered themselves with glory in this episode and the old media has further revealed its chronic deficiencies.

Most important to our post-modern but insistently moral universe, we have had a reminder that it is not only immoral, but also very stupid, to persist in a proven lie.

Patting my own back, shamelessly

2004-09-16T22:18:00.000+01:00

The opinions I expressed in yesterday's post regarding the Labour Government's anti-hunting bill have been affirmed by a real columnist from the London Times. His name is Anatole Kaletsky and he's so good that he has me buying two papers these days: The Telegraph and The Times.

Kaletsky's writing demonstrates why he has a job with The Times and why I blog. While my post drew a direct comparison between the Thatcher Government's poll tax legislation and the Blair Goverment's hunting bill (and did so at least six hours before Kaletsky did, I might add), I managed to muddle up my argument with too many words. Here's what Kaletsky has to say on the subject, in an essay headlined: "Labour revives class war." (My headline was: "Labour Incites Disorder," but I wrote it myself.):

While it has not been in the interest of either side to acknowledge the class origins of the struggle over hunting, this nasty reality is going to emerge with a vengeance in the coming months. Viewed in isolation, the poll tax was also a small and eccentric issue. But it sparked a wave of protest which helped to bring down Margaret Thatcher because it seemed to condense in one symbol the injustice and arrogance of Thatcherism, which the country had started to hate.

What Kaletsky sees better than I did is that the anti-hunting bill isn't merely a sop to Labour's far-left backbenchers, but the openning shot in a resurgent class war. His column asks whether Blair is really willing to re-ignite class war in Britain over the issue of fox hunting. I'm afraid, he concludes, Blair already has. You can read the whole thing here.

Same paper, different subject

On the subject of blogging and mainstream journalism, across the page from Kaletsky's column, Gerard Baker writes such a neat summary of the Rathergate story (Sorry, I don't know how to force my pc to make those cute litte superscript th's) that he demonstrates, through his lucid writing, why blogging has less space to develop here, than it has in the States.

Blogging hasn't really arrived in Britain, and one reason is that there exists in the UK a vibrant and diversified press. Baker explains blogging's spectacular recent success in the States, and embraces the implications for the British media with enthusiasm (competent writers and journalists have nothing to fear, do they?):

"In the past the traditional news machines in New York could purvey their world view — generally elitist left-leaning and arrogant — to their readers and viewers without much challenge. If Mr Rather said something, Americans had not much choice but to accept it. With the growth of alternatives to the TV news and especially with the internet, American news is much more open to examination and challenge.

"This ought to be a global phenomenon. Greg Dyke’s departure from the BBC in similar circumstances this year suggests that it might be so. But it is striking that it was government intervention and a judicial inquiry and not individuals with personal computers that brought down the BBC. Not for the first time, the world could learn a lot from the dynamic American democracy."

(Wow, did I really hear a cynical British hack just say that!!?)

And just to prove how the internet is improving journalistic standards all around the world:

The headline running across Mr. Baker's column in the The Times newspaper reads (rather clumsily, if you ask me): "Has the internet killed the TV star?" But if you follow the above link to Mr. Baker's online column, you will find an altogether more pleasing headline. It reads: "A fount of wisdom undone by the wrong font." And that rather prettily describes Mr. Rather's story, doesn't it? I'd like to think Mr. Baker wrote that himself, later in the evening, after he got home from his day job at The Times.

Labour Incites Disorder

2004-09-15T20:28:00.000+01:00

Britain isn't an easy country to govern. That's why British society and Government have developed a tolerant disposition. To be sure, there is a certain grindingly oppressive quality to British officialdom (and society), but it is a truism that Britain enjoys a live-and-let-live attitude to all manner of eccentricity in individual behaviour and in social activity.

But not anymore. The Government has decided that it is worth the risk of a violent confrontation to put an end to hunting foxes with dogs. Tonight, pro-hunt protesters (or "countryside defenders," depending on your point of view) have been on television displaying their bloodied brows. At the same time, five protesters exposed the incredible amateurism of Britain's security by breaking into the House of Commons chamber.

I'm not interested in making a personal contribution to the most pressing debate of our times: fox hunting. Such sarcasm will do for now. What I'm more interested in is the political risk Blair is taking by indulging his Party rabble. And, as a rather worrying aside, I'm beginning to wonder just how secure are Britain's amateur-looking security arrangements.

In security terms, this is the second major blunder in a week. First, a man who has experienced wife-trouble broke into the Queen's house at Buckingham Palace. He stood on the ledge in a batman suit for several hours. After being served with tea and biscuits, the police coaxed him down and let him go. Janet Daley does a far better job than I can asking the question: What the hell are the police for, in modern Britain? (You have to register to read it).

I learn tonight that the police can't be blamed for the security fiasco in Parliament. The police have nothing to do with House of Commons' security! I believe someone called the "Master of the Rolls," (or is it the "Mistress of the Tea Trollies?"), is in charge. Anyway, there's going to be full-scale security review. Oh well, I hope no bad guys are watching this Keystone Cops stuff. (Editors Note: In fact, the person in charge of security at the Palace of Westminster is the "Serjeant at Arms." Though an impressive martial title, his conspicuous absence yesterday is no cause for comfort.)

But to return to the hunt: In terms of a policy, the Fox Hunting Bill is a scrap of red meat thrown to rabid Lefty Labour MPs who aren't allowed to have their way with any other government policy because Father Blair and Uncle Brown won't let them. So they are allowed to lord-it-over country people and feel morally smug while doing so (which comes naturally to Lefties).

Tonight, the British people have witnessed their fellow subjects being clubbed by policemen in front of Parliament. The police were just doing their job and defending the Parliament building from invasion. As usual, the police play piggy in the middle, and I'm not critical of their actions. But what one couldn't help but notice, and what will have been noticed by millions in Britain, is that the men and women with blood pouring down their faces were, for once, not the rent-a-mob, never-had-a-job or paid-a-penny-of-tax, state-sponsored welfare-groupies who regularly beat up British coppers in an annual programme of pubic riots. No; these were people with jobs, with families; people with "livelihoods," as the current phrase seems to be.

The Government seems to believe that because it has a Parliamentary majority it will have its way in this matter. It is going to use the Parliament Act to drive the legislation through, if the House of Lords gets in the way. Blair seems to have forgotten how easy it is to bring Britain to a standstill when a large enough group of subjects feel especially aggrieved.

To be fair to Labour, they have faced down two revolts in their past seven years in Government - one in 1999/2000 over the price of fuel, when widespread road blocks by lorry drivers were successful at shutting down the country's main roads and ports, for a time. The public were outraged at the rocketing price of fuel, and the British finally seemed to realise that most of their fuel costs consists of taxes paid to the Treasury, but the protest fizzled out as prices eased off, somewhat.

In the winter of 2002/03, the Labour Government faced down a firemens' strike, when it became obvious that the public had little sympathy for the strike, having learned the details of firemens' pay and their perks and condtions (alongside a rejected 16% pay offer!). This strike was spectacularly mismanaged by the Fire Brigades Union leadership. Imagine how inept a strike leader needs to be to lose the sympathy of the public for firemen, and in a contest with a "Labour" government.

Similarly, the Fox Hunters' bugle-call does not resonate very loudly with the British Public, at least not yet. But the sight of truncheon-inspired wounds on the heads of men and women who are recognisably fellow citizens and not unwashed eternal-student types from another planet, doesn't help the Labour Government's cause.

The fox hunting legislation looks more and more like Blair's Poll Tax. It's an ideologically driven piece of legislation, and, like the Poll Tax, it has some ideological merit. The desire to reduce animal suffering (even if this legislation may actually increase that suffering) is not a ignoble one. Nor was Maggie's desire to reform local government taxation so that it was not only property owners who bore the full weight of local government taxation.

Maggie pressed on with the Poll Tax even as pragmatic Tories warned her it was a reform too far. Despite its intentions, the proposed tax scared many moderate and previously apathetic people and was successfully portrayed by its opponents as a punitive and class-based measure to be imposed on the poor. (This link to a leaflet that was widely circulated at the time, provides a good flavour of the class war language of British politics in the 1980s.)

At a huge demonstration on a spring day in 1990, central London became a battlefield. I remember standing at the top of Trafalger Square as the police lost control of the crowd. The horses charged and trampled and the police truncheoned anyone in the way. I now realise there were many in the crowd intent on violence, but that isn't what I, or thousands of others, saw or felt, that day. The violence became indiscriminate, as it presumably always does, when a demonstration turns into a riot.

I remember naively saying something like: "That's the end of Thatcher, now," and then feeling embarrassed for having drawn such a global conclusion from one day's mayhem. An older and wiser man, who overheard me, guffawed and said something like: "Not bloody likely." But in fact, I was right. Though the riot may have only tipped the scales, by the autumn, Thatcher and the Poll Tax legislation, were gone.

Ironically, we have ended up with a system of local government taxation that is not greatly different from what the Poll Tax legislation proposed. But we got to this (still muddled) local government tax system through years of half-measures and compromise. That is the British way with such things.

Similarly, one could imagine that a Government not seeking a stage-managed victory over an opponent it believes it can bully, could also achieve its animal welfare objectives in a more consensual and pragmatic, way. One is allowed to ask why an issue so far down the British Peoples' "to-do" list looks like the one most likely to draw first blood in Blair's Britain.

In a country as crowded and complicated as Britain, confrontation is inevitable. A government may decide that it must have a confrontation with an element or section of society. A government will even get away with provoking such a confrontation at a time of its choosing, as Thatcher did with the miners in the mid 1980's. But the country must be convinced that a showdown was inevitable.

The public is not likely to be sympathetic to a goverment that imposes a policy that stokes anger, resentment and violence, AND this incitement appears to have been unnecessary, or worse, the product of class-war ideology. This is precisely what Blair has chosen to do with the hunting bill, and it is what the Left accused Maggie of doing with the Poll Tax. Tonight's trouble was not yet the countryside equivalent of the Poll Tax Riot, but that revolt is brewing, as surely as this Government digs its heels in and prefers an ideological victory over a pragmatic compromise.

Blair built his Prime Ministerial career on being publically dismissive of his left-wing Party. Now he wants to throw his Party a bone. But he has picked a fight with a huge and law-abiding constituency in the country, and it's a fight he could have avoided. Playing politics with public disorder is not likely to be judged as one of Blair's finer political decisions.

That's alright, then...

2004-09-12T10:37:00.000+01:00

From the BBC:

"An explosion in a remote part of North Korea last week created a mushroom cloud and left a crater visible from space, South Korean media report...

"In Washington, a state department official who asked not to be named told Reuters news agency that reports of a nuclear test appeared to be 'completely unfounded.'

"People are pretty sure it's not a mushroom cloud and not a test of any kind," the official said."

I'm pretty sure I'm reassured.

Sentence of the Day

2004-09-11T11:16:00.000+01:00

"Our enemies underestimate American courage, forgetting that American democracy has ever been a fighting faith."

From Charles R. Kesler in the NRO, written on the day.

And if you have time, marvel at how spot on Mark Steyn was. I would have saved myself a lot of the time blathering about Islam's "moral critique of the West," had I read that piece on the day. Steyn's list of what he got wrong in his 911 column only serves to highlight how much he got right. The confusion and panic I experienced on the day led to rather sillier pronouncements.

I actually called the attack a "critique" in an email to friends and family shortly after the atrocity. I was still using psuedo-academic language to describe murder and war. I'm embarrassed about that, but at least I got my head around it, eventually.

The Kerrys and the "common people"

2004-09-10T13:10:00.000+01:00

From Mrs. Heinz Kerry's lofty heights, she looks down on two kinds of people. She sees "idiots" and "the common man."

The "idiots" are opposed to her husband's health care plan.

The "comman man" admires Mrs. Kerry as a straight shooter. America's very own Mary Antoinette explains (Fox News):

"The common man doesn't look at me as some rich witch. I talk about what I see. It has always been so. You judge people not by their pocketbook but by their actions. Walk the walk."

I love it when she talks the talk. She has the knack of getting right down to my level. Maybe she really is on "our" side.

What a blessing to have a friend of the common people in such high places.

How to insult your friends and influence nobody, Part 2

2004-09-06T13:37:00.000+01:00

A couple months ago I wrote about Jacques Chirac's habit of insulting nations that he might hope to influence, if only he would address them with a bit of respect, and in tones that better reflected France's status as a second-rate power. Now the Dutch foreign minister, Bernard Bot, has caught Chirac's disease, and managed to sound both arrogant and immoral, this time in the face of an atrocity. Following the massacre of the innocents in Beslan, Bot asked the Russians, (on behalf of all Europe, apparently): "How could this have happened?"

Mr. Bot is now backpeddling furiously and trying to pretend that what he was trying to say to the Russians was not, "Explain how you caused this atrocity to happen to you?" to something more like: "You need to figure out how this could have happened." In any case, he is multiplying the insult of his crass question with his apology, and layering on arrogance and insensitivity as only one schooled by the French masters, could.

Bot's question is not unlike the Leftist refrain that asks "Why do they hate us," and finds the answer in the political and social failings of our own culture; as if any political failing would justify the torture and murder of children.

This BBC story provides further offensive quotes from Eurocrats who are trying to project a "united European foreign policy." According to an Andreas Gross, whose job title is "the Council of Europe's rapporteur on Chechnya," the bungling Dutch foreign minister was making a valid point:

"The Dutch minister was totally right because what we just heard on the news, that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin wants to enforce more security troops, he wants to have a new crisis management, that's not the point," he said.

"They have to understand what the people are who do not share their own point of view. And this is a political task they have to learn."

In other words, if only the Russians would understand the "point of view" of people who torture children and then shoot them in the back, then peace would soon follow. To the Eurocrats, it is just madness to send more troops into the region. Don't those Russians know that this will only provoke the terrorists? Heaven forbid, they might do something worse than Beslan if we provoke them!

I'm not really a big fan of Britain's Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. He's a humourless fellow who seems to constantly pop up in Iran or Syria on empathy missions. Yet even Straw realised the game is up in trying to rationally explain the terror inflation that followers of "the religion of peace" are indulging in. In marked contrast with the Dutch minister, Straw said:

"Sometimes we are too swift to move away from the original and fundamental causes of such terrorism, namely the terrorists who perpetrated such an act, and shift away to other things - in a sense taking for granted their culpability.

"There are some things which happen amongst human kind which are almost inexplicable according to any basic moral norms - Nazism was and this is.

"This is almost beyond belief, that any group of human beings could conceivably have thought that any cause whatsoever could be advanced by taking hostage these innocent, young children and subjecting them to this kind of terror and then ensuring the death of so many of them."

Straw made this statement two days after the slaughter. His words compare rather well with the gibberish of the Dutch minister, who made his pronouncements before the blood had dried. The reason Straw comes over as a human being and the Dutch minister comes over as an apologist for child killing, is because the British are seriously engaged in fighting the war on terror, while Europe is busy excusing fanatics or worse, actively supporting them.

Straw further offered "whatever assistance the Russians needed," without being specific about what this could be. At least it was offered. The Europeans can offer nothing but insulting questions as the Russians bury their children. The Europeans don't have any military resources they could offer the Russians, and their political resources are engaged in excusing, if not directly funding, Islamic groups that slaughter civilians.

Through outrages such as this, a nation discovers who its friends are, and which nations are enemies or irrelevant distractions to its security. Russia today knows that Britain is a friend, and that the Dutch (and the Euro-fanatics) are unable to contribute anything but bluster in the war against Islamic psychosis.

Bot's question is not merely an insult to the Russians, it is evidence of an extreme and growing arrogance by Europeans who believe that the peace and prosperity they have enjoyed is somehow their invention, and thus their gift to humanity (when, in fact, European peace was secured by the intervention of a foreign power).

And if you think this is an over-the-top reaction to Bot's question, ask yourself this. Would you tell a father who's son had been murdered by a psychotic killer that he should show regard for the feelings of the killer, and tell the father this on the day of his son's funeral? Would you also remind the father that the killer had had a difficult childhood?

And if you did have the audacity and stupidity to say such a thing, would it be unreasonable for the father and his family to look on you with a derision that was at least equal to the hatred they felt for the killer?

Kerry has made this an historic election

2004-09-01T14:52:00.000+01:00

The Kerry camp is in panic. Senior campaign strategist may be sacked.

The Democrats response to Kerry's campaign troubles is to hope that running a tighter campaign will save them. But it’s far too late for the Democrats to shift the focus of their campaign from Kerry’s Vietnam record and his post-war activism. The best the Dems can do is to continue to parade celebrities in front of the electorate in the hope that voters are distracted by the stars.

Instead of addressing the challenges that will come in the next four years, the Democratic Party has been busy celebrating the endorsement it has always enjoyed from American celebrities. Democrats seem to think that they can alleviate the electorate’s anxiety in this election through entertainment.

Americans are starting to view Republicans as “normal” people. And, no, this "normal" status is not a code for "straight." Republicans are in fact drawn from a broader social and political coalition than are today's Democrats. Democratic Party support seems to draw most heavily from hysterical teenagers, celebrities, New Yorkers, and those who are weird in some other way.

When Republicans boast a celebrity supporter, that celebrity will either be embarrassingly unknown to the public, or be a Schwarzenegger, the Governor of the largest state in the Union. The fact that Republicans cannot produce a decent list of celebrity endorsements is anything but a campaign failure. The Republican disconnect with the most frivilous parts of America's culture is rather well received by a sober electorate. And Bush's down-to-earth virtues are being masterfully displayed by placing the President in the heart of New York, amongst an army of ineffectual protesters.

If the Democrats are not running a serious Presidential campaign, they have, nevertheless, in choosing Kerry, performed a valuable service. Kerry’s candidacy has forced a debate about the Vietnam legacy on a country that has always preferred to forget about that tragedy and had accepted a fairly consensual history of the conflict.

Had Kerry not run for President, the Swift Boat Veterans would not have spoken, or, had they tried to raise their allegations, their audience would have remained very small. By exposing inconsistencies in Kerry's four-month stint in Vietnam, the Vets have probably succeeded in destroying his presidential ambition. But the Democrats might have retained control over the politics of the Vietnam legacy, had Kerry let the sleeping dog of Vietnam lie.

How galling it must be for Kerry, as one of the principal authors of the received version of that war, to have instigated a national reappraisal of Vietnam. He could not win the Presidency without reference to his war-time heroism, but he will not win the Presidency because American's have been forced to revisit his past and in doing so, rediscover some disturbing truths about his role in that defeat.

How painful for the Democrats to have to engage in a debate about this earlier conflict, when they had hoped to destroy Bush for his handling of the current war. The Democrats had hoped that by now the "Bush Lied" slogans would be ringing in the ears of the electorate. Instead, they are losing the debate about the war on terror, at the same time they have lost control of the historical consensus on Vietnam.

This reappraisal of the disaster in Vietnam is long overdue and good for the United States. Given the current tone of the national security debate, with its tendency to violent media-inspired mood swings in response to each momentary setback, it serves the country well to remember the role of, among other things, media and celebrity in the loss of the previous conflict.

It is fitting that we are seeing the antics of yesterday's celebrities, like Jane Fonda, derided alongside the rediscovery of Kerry's ambition-inspired slander on his brothers-in-arms. How long before some of the more thoughtful of today’s celebrity endorsers begin to distance themselves from the Kerry disaster?

The veterans who have rebuked Kerry served their country well in Vietnam as they have in this presidential contest. Democracy looks to be working rather well in the United States. A hard-fought presidential race is delivering a purgative remedy to the body politic.

Americans are "idiots," but what is Canada?

2004-08-27T13:10:00.000+01:00

I suppose we should react with magnanimity to the latest outburst by Canandian MP Carolyn Parrish who says Americans are "idiots."

Canadians aren't "idiots," but nor may they be "Canadians" for much longer. According to Canadian Mark Steyn, the Unites States should be pursuing the break up of Canada, and in particular, it should welcome an independent Quebec and an independent Alberta.

If one accepts the common Canadian view that Americans are arrogant imperialists who always get their own way, then there's not much Canada can do to avoid this future (apart from calling Americans "idiots").

You might want to know if there is anything you can do, as a concerned American citizen, to speed up Canadian disintegration. My advice is to keep doing what you have been doing. Ignore them. Every teenager knows that petulance gives way to despair because being ignored is so much worse than being either hated or loved.

On the other hand, if Canadian politicians keep calling Americans "idiots," they might finally catch Uncle Sam's eye. Canada needs to hope that the United States continues to ignore it. As soon as the US starts asking how Canadian national unity is helping the US to meet its security challenges, then Steyn's secessionist future for Canada will become an American foreign policy objective.

Brave Bishop Battles Nazis

2004-08-12T13:35:00.000+01:00

When English football fans flew the flag of St. George from their Ford Fiestas this summer to celebrate Euro 2004 they were indulging in an English nationalism that has echoes of Nazi Germany, so says the Bishop of Hulme, the Rt. Rev Stephen Lowe.

The Bishop thinks the flag-wavers are evidence of an emerging fascism among the English. He is concerned that a hymn written in 1918 is nationalistic and heretical. Here are the offending words he wants banned:

I vow to thee my country, all earthly things above,
Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love:
The love that asks no question, the love that stands the test,
That lays upon the altar the dearest and the best;
The love that never falters, the love that pays the price,
The love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice.

I admit that this is rather strong stuff, and especially so given that it was written in 1918. The British had just buried a generation of young men in the fields of France and quite a few people were asking questions about whether this was either necessary or sensible. But the hymn’s words record rather well the actual history of what that generation did in the trenches of the Great War. Millions of young men went to their deaths like lambs to the slaughter, and in the main they asked few questions, they stood the test, and laid their lives on the alter of their country’s cause. The Bishop recognises that the hymn sought to sanctify, in retrospect, the senseless slaughter and to comfort the bereaved.

Had our good Bishop been around in 1918, and questioned the hymn’s dubious sentiments, his intervention would have been both brave and timely. But does the Bishop really believe that such loyalty to the State exists in modern Britain? Does this hymn encourage nationalist sentiment among the English, today? If English nationalism is a serious threat, one would expect the Bishop to come up with better symptoms of the disease than flag-waving football fans or an unsung hymn from yesteryear.

The Bishop’s statement is what we have come to expect from an irrelevant Church whose main purpose in modern Britain is to achieve a weekly headline by sucking up to what it sees as popular sentiment.

There are rather a lot of timely moral issues that could be addressed by a Bishop of England. Here are a few the come to mind:

The State has just agreed to allow human cloning. Not a word from the Bishops.

Margaret Hodge, the minister for children and former child-abuse enablement officer in Islington Council, has proposed that the State teaches parenting skills to all parents, because the State has such a proud history of looking after children. Not a word from the Bishops.

Girls under 16 can be given abortions and their parents will not be informed. Not a word from the Bishops.

Licensing Laws are being relaxed so that more public drunkenness and disorder can be unleashed on our streets and the law-abiding citizens further pushed to the margins. Not a word from the Bishops.

But a hymn that no one sings anymore, and one whose sentiments do not resonate in any serious way in society - this is a pressing issue for our blessed Bishop.

Real protestants have always known that the Church of England is a sham political-fix got up by an adulterous wife-killing King. Any adherent to the Church of England who retains an iota of Christian faith has long since abandoned this sham church for either the mother Church or for another protestant sect. When this sham finally falls apart, as it inevitably must, how will the Bishop explain the loss of a national church that owes its very establishment to the demands of English nationalism? Will the unemployed Bishop view this future, too, as evidence of rising English nationalism?

Who is in charge of hymn banning in England? Amongst the numerous regulatory quango’s spawned by the Blair government, I must have overlooked the one that inspects hymns - OffHymn or somesuch. Or perhaps the Church of England Synod will this year suspend its riveting discussions on whether priests should be actively bonking gay parishioners or women should be priests, in order to debate and pass, by overwhelming majority, a ban on this offensive hymn?

And could the Bishop tell us what is the penalty for singing a banned hymn? Is it excommunication? Would anyone excommunicated from the Church of England actually notice it had happened?

Is your navel really that interesting, my dear Bishop? Could you have made your irrelevance to the problems besetting English society any more obvious, if you had set out to do so?

****

Robert Tumminello, a New Yorker living in Britain, got so annoyed at the abuse heaped on English flag-wavers back in June that he waved the Flag of St. George on England's behalf on his site, explaining:

"Since you aren't supposed to wave it yourselves, and because you have a beautiful country, are decent people, and above all you have a damn right to be proud of your flag and your country, please allow me to wave it here on behalf of you all -- as so many of you waved mine, nearly three years ago, after the most awful, single event in my country's history."

Read the rest here at Expat Yank.

The Boss takes a dive

2004-08-10T20:35:00.000+01:00

Bruce Springsteen has agreed to front a series of anti-Bush concerts sponsored by Moveon.org.

"I've got 25 years of credibility built up, and this isn't something I've moved into lightly," Springsteen says. It’s good to know that Bruce at least understands what he is risking by identifying himself so closely with the Bush-haters.

Here’s the roll-call of the other rockers who have decided that singing for Kerry is marginally more helpful to their careers than not bothering to: Dave Matthews, James Taylor, the Dixie Chicks, Pearl Jam, R.E.M, John Mellencamp, Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt.

Had Bruce continued to ignore this particular artistic cul-de-sac, he might have had more time to work on his handsome collection of grown-up musical commentary on the American experience. He might have come up with something as blistering as Born in the USA, to describe his current unease at the United States’ domestic and foreign policy. (Though the fact that he can’t, and no one else can either, says something about how the anti-Bush crowds’ hysteria fails to resonate, culturally, and how disconnected much of the artistic elite is from popular opinion.)

If Bruce had stuck to the wise path of declining to put his art to direct use in a political campaign, he might have been able to influence, through his music, both the Bush-respecters and the Bush-haters. As it is, he has joined the noisy, irresponsible, thoughtless, and culturally asinine Bush-haters whose political discourse rarely rises above paranoid accusations and infantile name calling. He has marginalised himself, culturally, in the American culture war.

It’s one thing for a washed-up liberal folk-hippy like James Taylor, who hasn’t written a song worth listening to since 1976 (Carolina in my Mind), or the boringly self-reverential "artist" Mellencamp, to try to revitalise their teenage fan bases by singing for the Senator. But an artist with Bruce's reputation, in chasing the adoration of the paranoid teenager Kerry-groupies, risks losing his reputation as a serious commentator on his culture.

I’ve been a Springsteen fan since the 1980’s and I renewed my fanaticism listening to his post-9/11 album “The Rising.” Apart from the embarrassingly forced song World’s Apart, nearly every tune rang true. This album spoke directly to Americans and offered both comfort and inspiration after the attack. In the song, City of Ruins, Springsteen attained nobility and profound emotional depth in his songwriting.

Last year, Bruce came out in support of the Dixie Chicks
who got into a spot of music-marketing bother when they made stupid political comments when they should have been singing. Even though the “censorship” that the Chicks suffered was the result of their fans turning away in annoyance, and of radio stations responding to the same fan's outrage by not playing their records, I gave Bruce credit at the time for defending a group of pretty Texan airheads. It demonstrated a certain gallantry on his part. But it’s one thing to defend fellow artists, quite another to sign over your art to a politician.

I look forward to the day when the Boss sings his last song for the Great Nuanced-One’s campaign and resumes his own nuanced commentary on American culture. My derision of Bruce’s fashion-chasing may not be shared by many, and I won’t pretend the fact that a businessman as clever as Bruce is joining the Bush-haters’ campaign doesn't undermine my semi-confident expectation that Kerry is going to be comprehensively rejected in November. But I do think Bruce may discover that being idolized by the Deaniacs means that a similar number of fans (those who do not foam at the mouth), will turn away from him in disgust and despair.

I'm not at all saying that Bruce shouldn't write an overtly Bush-bashing song. That's artistic freedom, as is his mistaken decision to tie his art to the Bush-haters' bandwagon. But can you imagine iconic artists like Bob Dylan or Neil Young singing for Kerry (or for Bush, for that matter)? Nor can I. Such antics are for second-rate artists and artists whose material can't stand proudly on its own, in American popular culture.

When you’re finished rediscovering your teenage roots, Bruce, come back and sing for the grown-ups. We’ll be waiting for you, along with millions of teenagers who are struggling to learn how to become adults, and were learning how to do this from your music, before you started chasing the politics of teenage posing.

Reasons to be Cheerful

2004-08-01T20:51:00.000+01:00

My wife is always complaining that I complain too much. My response is that there is an awful lot to complain about. But in the interest of achieving marital harmony, I have agreed that every time I complain, I will also praise something. So here are three complaints about modern Britain, followed by three happy praises. I’ll start with the complaints, so we can end on a high note.

Three Complaints

Complaint 1. The weather

Take all the irritations of modern Britain: the ubiquitous dog mess, the speeding cars, the speed traps, the foul-mouthed kids, the graffiti covered walls; place them in sunshine and they seem to disappear. A good British summer is the only defence against a British winter. Without a decent summer, one finds oneself becoming hysterical as temperatures plunge to the 40’s in the middle of July. The British weather lowers expectation. It is the source of the national characteristics of tolerance and resignation.

Complaint 2. Litter

I know I am being predictable. But let’s face it, litter is a national disgrace. No forest glade, no city park, no street or alleyway, is without it. I live near a large secondary school that has pleasant green pastureland alongside it. The students use this area at lunchtimes. It is covered in litter. Up the road there is an alleyway into the centre of town. It is used by everyone, including the school children. We have thought about writing to the school to ask if they could encourage the students to drop less litter – but when we see the disgraceful school grounds, right under the headmaster’s nose, we think, why bother?

I’m such a nit-picking bore, aren’t I? So what. I’m a grown-up. I’m allowed to be boring. Britain once had a “Keep Britain Tidy” campaign. That went away because New Labour mocks such things. They love initiatives, but they fear being seen as “out-of-touch” even more. Reminding young people and irresponsible adults to clean up after themselves in just not cool. But politicians aren’t supposed to be cool, any more than grown-ups are. They are supposed to act like adults. One doesn’t stop cleaning the house today because Mrs. Thatcher reminded us to keep it tidy yesterday. And please don’t start banging on about the lack of tax-payer funded street-sweepers. I don’t have a street-sweeper in my house. Do you? (At this point my wife hits me with a pillow and says – “when was the last time you got the hoover out?!”)

3. Emotional Incontinence

This is the saddest failing of British culture and one that is, perhaps, the most difficult to repair. There is no such thing as the stiff-upper-lip in Britain anymore. Well, there is, but it is slowly disappearing from the face of Britain as the previous generations pass on. A people once renowned for their emotional reticence now blubber at the drop of a hat.

Of course I blame Diana. But she merely reflected the values of her generation. This is a good example of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The British needed to lighten up after the War and its aftermath. They needed to move beyond a braced-for-danger-and-disappointment position, to a posture more at ease with affluence. But that’s not where the culture has gone. Instead, Britain is a culture where no one dares say anything offensive, but where anyone angry enough to break this rule has the floor. And everyone cries easily, but no one can figure out what they are crying about.

Our generation has rejected the previous generation’s emotional constipation and embraced emotional incontinence. We are much more at ease with our children than they were. But by embracing social ease and child-centred playtime, we have forgotten what it is to be the grown up. We are allowing our society to be defined by kids.

There. Is that grumpy enough for you?

Three Praises

Praise 1. The British countryside and the right to roam

Emerson said: "For walking, you must have a broken country." Writing in Massachusetts, he was describing Britain. Driving in a car, this country loses its charm. Walking or, if in a hurry, riding a bike, it is so packed with tiny delights and dramatic surprises that the mystery of where Lewis found his Narnia or Tolkien discovered Middle Earth is completely solved.

In George Orwell's 1984 there is a moving passage in which Winston Smith takes a day trip to the British countryside and briefly escapes the totalitarian eye of Big Brother. In the film version of the book, the one in which John Hurt plays Winston Smith, the Somerset countryside is viewed through a door swinging open from the grim black-and-white reality of Winston's daily life, to reveal a paradise of deep-green tranquility. The reason the passage written by Orwell and the scene in the film are so evocative is that one does not need to wait for some awful totalitarian future to recognise the stark contrast between urban Britain and the British countryside - this contrast has been experienced by the people of Britain since the Industrial Revolution.

Without the right to roam, Britain would be unendurable. It is so laced with rat runs and so constrained by urban sprawl that freedom consists of being able to cross that field and not get shot. In the United States, there are probably more acres of state and national park where the public is allowed to roam than exist in the entire British landmass. But heaven forbid, in America, if you stray out of these areas on to private land. Rights of access to the few hiking trails that do cross private land in the United States have been long and hard fought over and the trails often have to be re-routed. The Ramblers Association is right to be vigilant for these rights in Britain. But it is quite amazing how much access there is and how little interference and hostility one meets from landowners.

Praise 2. The British seaside

For families with young children there is no finer day-trip than to the British seaside. Carefully or carelessly planned, and with only a few hours of rain, it is the perfect break. When my kids make their teenage years, they will hate me for my addiction to these holidays. Right now they are more than willing to come along for the ride.

My Father, a man who would preach against gambling from the pulpit, could not resist the penny machines. When we visited Brighton, he would return to his Coney Island childhood. When I take my children to Walton-on-the-Naze, I am with my father in Brighton. There is nothing more to say.

Praise 3: Quiet service

I’m about to get emotionally incontinent myself. There is a man at my childrens’ school whose wife died a few years ago. Instead of retiring indoors, he has become the centre of the community. He is the school crossing guard. He is not merely the lollipop man, he is the cheerful shepherd who remembers everyone’s name.

After tending his flock, he is also a school governor. And he is there, every day, doing a hundred other things for the school, and for good causes. He has found his calling. His fellow governors are quietly putting his name forward for an MBE.

Americans are practiced at civic activism, and its not all about picketing abortion clinics, is it? What I’m trying to describe here is the quietness of service in Britain. The good people of Britain are not Pharisees. As Boris Johnson wrote recently in The Telegraph, it might be better if charitable giving was more loudly trumpeted in Britain, as it tends to be by the wealthy in the States. But I admire the quietness of service in Britain and how many serve without expecting (or often receiving) a pat on the back.

I am a grumpy man who is entering middle age. I’ve just managed to talk myself into optimism. I wonder if my wife had anything to do with this?

All in the same Boat

2004-08-01T03:04:00.000+01:00

I have a good British friend who has asked me to blog an explanation about why Americans are so religious. I thought about trying to do this for him, and I even started to compose a couple of draft paragraphs. But then I thought: "No, why should I?."

Instead, I am asking my British friend to explain to me why Europeans are so irreligious, and at the same time to explain how the lack of any sort of popular ideological belief is beneficial to European society and to its cultural viability.

If he comes back with an answer, I'm rather concerned that I may have to confess that there ain't, in fact, a whole lot of diffence between European and American culture.

The man who would not be president

2004-07-30T12:15:00.000+01:00

From the fake Irishman last night:

"I know what we have to do in Iraq. We need a president who has the credibility to bring our allies to our side and share the burden, reduce the cost to American taxpayers, and reduce the risk to American soldiers. That's the right way to get the job done and bring our troops home."

(You can read the rest of this dreary nonsense here.)

The sum total of what Kerry knows about "what we have to do in Iraq" amounts to no more than this: Kerry would be nicer to "allies" who try to thwart the democratisation of the Arab world and he would cut costs and get the troops home as soon as possible. Kerry might have more foreign policy ideas up his sleeve, but these were the only words he had to say on Iraq in his entire speech last night.

Kerry was unable to actually articulate what the "job" in Iraq is. He wants to talk about strategy while leaving the objectives nice and fuzzy. It's not difficult to understand why he must do this - look at the rabble he was speaking to. Sure, the honorable Senator Joe Lieberman was in the crowd, but so were the Deaniacs. Kerry can't even make the simple verbal commitment to stay the course in Iraq (no matter what other "allies" choose to do) until there is a viable State in that country.

Notice, I don't insist that Kerry promise "democracy" in Iraq as President Bush does. While it's strange that a liberal democrat like Kerry should find it so difficult to articulate a vision that included the spread of democratic values, I'd be content for him to demonstrate "realism" and simply promise to stay the course in Iraq until there was an administration at least as viable as Saddam's, if hopefully a little less brutal.

You might argue that Kerry does believe all this, he just didn't say so last night. Yet Kerry did find time to say "we are a nation at war." He's happy enough to use the wartime context to explain his exceptional experience in these matters. But if we are at war, then one would expect a man who would be President to explain how he would wage war. After all, whatever decisions a "President Kerry" makes, there will be some cost to pay, and probably in blood. There is no cost-free future for the United States, and there never has been. Kerry has to at least provide a flash of foreign policy insight here, or a detail or suggestion there. With nothing but "I will be more diplomatic" to cover up his foreign policy nakedness, Americans will have three more months to discover the warts-and-all of this vacuous candidate.

What are Kerry's hopes for Iraq? Is he committed to seeing a functioning democracy established there? Will he leave Iraq if the insurgents continue to blow the arms and legs off Iraqi civilians and to decapitate foreign workers?

If he is not able to make this basic commitment to Iraq, why on earth wouldn't the insurgents redouble their terror to drive the United States out of Iraq? "President Kerry" is a provocation to terrorists.

In fact, "we are a nation at war" was one of the few phrases Kerry uttered that was addressed to an audience outside the Convention Hall. Most Democrats do not think that "we are a nation at war" at all. They think we are fighting in Iraq to finish George Bush Senior's private quarrel with Saddam and to win contracts for Dick Cheney.

Kerry's passages about good ol' mom and dad were ok as such things go. But it will be interesting to compare Kerry's fuzzy family-feelings speech next to the words of the "inarticulate" George Bush in a few weeks' time. Since 9/11, President Bush has pretty much outlined his intentions and actions to the American people, and to the world. Then he went and did what he said he would do. This seems a laudable trait, especially in wartime. In his Convention speech, I expect Bush to give the American people a peek at his strategic intentions in the next four years and to restate the objectives of his Presidency.

A candidate that tells you how he would be unlike the current President, but only offers examples relating to "nuance" and "style," is a candidate that doesn't actually have any clear objectives for the next four years. This lack of direction is just about tolerable in peacetime. If you think this is peacetime, vote Kerry. If you know the country is at war, I suspect you'll stick with the guy who is fighting it.

Bushwacked

2004-07-29T16:02:00.000+01:00

A Telegraph headline today reports that a vote for Kerry “will not change foreign policy.”

I suppose there is something in this headline for everyone. Those of us nervously biting our nails and wondering whether we are going to lose our Bush-win-bets can at least take solace in the hope that a vote for the teenagers’ candidate doesn’t mean the US will cut-and-run in Iraq or call for a UN peace summit with Al Qaeda.

For the Kerry supporters, the headline allows them to pretend that Kerry has a foreign policy, even if it happens to have been written by President Bush.

But some of us are looking forward to winning our election bet. I happen to believe that Bush will benefit from a "Thatcher effect" in this election. This is what happens when voters back a candidate in the privacy of the voting booth, while doing the candidate down to the media outside the polling station. Most voters do not want to appear to be un-cool, pollution-loving, warmongers. And this more or less describes Bush supporters, doesn't it?

British voters used to tell the pollsters that they hated Mrs. Thatcher. But in the voting booth they put the cross next to her name. By the time Thatcher won her third election, the pollsters had introduced a statistical tweak to try to factor in this desire by all mankind to appear to be cool and cuddly.

That the “Kerry adopts Bush’s foreign policy” headline is now appearing in European newspapers means it is becoming difficult to sustain the silly accusation that Bush is an extremist President. Bush is obviously not so extreme that Kerry doesn’t feel the need to veneer his air-bubble of a foreign policy in Bushwood.

Kerry’s single contribution to foreign policy appears to be that he is going to be more polite when he speaks to foreign leaders. Whether Kerry's less than obvious diplomatic skills will become more apparent in the coming weeks remains to be seen. Perhaps Kerry intends to send his charming wife on the diplomatic errands. One wonders how many ways French idiom can express the sentiment "get lost." At least Kerry will be able to deliver this unavoidable message to our erstwhile "allies" in delicately pronounced French. Come to think of it, speaking fluent French is Kerry’s single advantage over Bush. Why, then, don't the Democrats make much more of this wonderful skill?

But the real problem with promising the electorate that you will be more charming than Bush is that during the campaign you have to demonstrate, if even fleetingly, that you can be charming. In a Clinton, such social skill is unmistakable. Will the charmer Kerry please stand up? Perhaps tonight would be a good time?

Wouldn’t it be nice if we had a candidate that let his appearance and demeanor reflect pretty candidly the way he was actually thinking or feeling? – Oh, I forgot. We already have a guy like that as the President.

The Europeans appear to finally be waking up to the fact that in terms of extremism, Bush is the moderate. Kerry’s Party is the extreme one, and more importantly, the more unpredictable. David Frum described this yesterday in a column in the T. He wrote:

“Today's Democratic Party is the party of America's most politically radical people and also its most politically conservative: the party of the anti-globalisation, bicycle-courier Left, and also of the retired generals, diplomats and oil executives who sign petitions denouncing Mr Bush's rejection of five decades' worth of inherited wisdom on the Middle East.

Today's Democratic Party is the party both of America's freest traders (such as Robert Rubin) and its fiercest protectionists (such as Richard Gephardt); of the ultra-secularists of Harvard, Columbia, and Berkeley and of fervently devout African-American churchgoers; of America's staunchest Zionists (such as Joe Lieberman) and its most conspiracy-minded anti-Semites.”

Of course American administrations are all grand coalitions, but Frum certainly has a fruity tree to pick from in Kerry's Democratic coalition.

With President Bush, if the past four years is anything to go by, you can bet that the actions taken to maintain US security will be carefully pre-broadcast and subject to the same level of, mainly European, derision. There will be more Bush Administration self-flagellation in front of entirely discredited bodies like the UN, because Bush, like any reasonable man, would like to think that there are reasonable people still abroad in the world.

With Kerry, on the other hand, one day we’ll be preparing to take out North Korea’s nuclear facilities in a pre-emptive strike, and the next day we’ll be attending a UN summit that legitimises the evil North Korean Regime (wait a minute, that’s what a second term Bush administration would do, too.)

In Europe, the grown-ups are at least starting to discuss some rather disconcerting Kerry policy possibilities. President Kerry, like Bush, is likely to start demanding that the Europeans make a small contribution to their own defense. But Kerry, unlike Bush, will also be toying with clobbering global trade with trade restrictions. Or perhaps he won't. No-one quite knows. Either policy has champions in the Democratic Coalition, one policy might see the light of day, or perhaps both policies will. Confused? You will be, if Kerry wins in November.

On some days I think a Kerry win would be disastrous for the States. But on other occasions, I’m just about calm enough to realise that the great Republic will survive even a Kerry Presidency. I've often hoped a certain candidate would win a presidential election. I can honestly say that I have never been this nervous that my candidate succeeds. This feels like the most important election of my life so far – and I’ve actually registered to vote as an expat – something I have never done before.

If you’re an American citizen abroad and are interested in having your ballot paper lost in the post this November, you can go to this site and get the (relatively simple) advice on how to register. Apparently expat registrations are up strongly this year – a reflection of the politicisation of expat life through daily experience of ”host country” anti-Americanism, I would suggest.

It is therefore amusing that the promoters of this voter registration site seem to believe that by helping expats to register to vote, they are doing Bush a disservice. They suggest that you can “change the world” by voting in this election because Bush only won the election by 537 votes last time (the Florida margin, presumably). But this information spurred me into registering to help to ensure that Bush’s margin improves this time round. Now all I need to do is to convince the State of Florida that my week-long holiday in Cocoa Beach this April constitutes my last known residence in the United States.

I reckon expats will back Bush by a significant margin. I have no way to scientifically support this belief , beyond the fact that the expat vote is overwhelmingly a military vote and despite the best efforts of Kerry (did he serve in Nam?), it isn't obvious that a soldier would vote for him.

This report by Expatica predicts just the opposite of my perhaps hopeful outlook. I do think Expatica, like the aforementioned website, makes too much of the expat vote. The expat vote is only really important if the electoral college vote is very close and a marginal State is in play. I am determined to refuse to believe the election result is going to be really close and I'm sticking to my belief right up to ABC News’ final, final ballot result.

During the present election, it's difficult for expats in Europe not to adopt a kind of auto-pilot response to anti-American sentiment. This obviously doesn't apply to those Americans who have a well developed cravenness toward popular European political posturing. Better adjusted individuals find themselves, on hearing another spectacularly unfunny Bush joke, adopting as meaningless a look as it is possible for a face to hold. Such an approach allows daily relationships to proceed undisturbed by frankly soul-destroying conversations in which one patiently explains (again) that all the evil in the world did not begin in Florida, November 2000.

Though I admit to a certain enjoyment in this kind of debate in the past few years, at this late stage, involving oneself in such a conversation runs the risk that one will become as boring and hysterical as the European teenager-pundits themselves. And that really would not be cool.

But I like the Greeks...

2004-07-29T01:57:00.000+01:00

I keep arguing with Greek people. I think we're arguing over United States' support for Turkish EU membership. This is not very popular among Greeks, and for very good historical reasons. But I can't help thinking that the Greek perspective on this is not caused by US policy in the region, but is the product of a European dilemma that goes to the heart of the issue of national independence in Europe.

Below is my last reply to a post on Ambrosia Ephemeris. I spent some time trying to argue my piece so I feel entirely justified in cutting and pasting from their site - there will be some payback, I promise you. If you want to see how a Greek flays an American, and to see the original post that sparked me off, have a look at the source. I quote a couple of his paragraphs below, to put my subsequent comments in perspective:

"Oh, here we go again, it's the American favorite....[criticising} Europe [for] saying "No" to Turkey being equivalent to declaring the Third World War on Islamdom (not a bad thought, overall), which we must avoid at all costs.

This American "logic" never ceases to amaze me...this "logic," in effect, suggests that we better reconcile ourselves to the fact of opening the gates to the horse tail banners(?) in the name of some sick "multiculturalism" and, I might add, "multireligionism;" appease the mullahs by admitting Turkey, ... and, perhaps, escape being sold into slavery on the Barbary Coast by your eventual Muslimite overlords.

I know the writing is very much like "English as a second language," but to be fair, I can't read or write Greek, either. What he appears to be saying is that the United States is appeasing the Islamists. That's right folks. A plucky little Christian country with zero troops in Iraq is criticising the Great Satan for the fact that it isn't standing up to the Islamists. How many Greek dead in Iraq? None? Go figure.

What I wrote:

I want to try to sympathise with your perspective on the Turks, but your persistence in characterising the possibility of Turkish EU membership as something invented by the United States is simply rubbish.

The Americans may be as naive as it is possible to be about Europe (or any other part of the world, for that matter), and they might be walking over Greek interests to try to draw in Turkey, but that doesn't make the issue of what the EU should do about Turkey disappear.

Your angst over the American view of Turkish EU membership seems to be a cover for a frustrated realisation that your own European partners are about to sell you down the river. It is not obvious that the EU will keep the Turks at bay, anymore than it is obvious that the United States has any real influence over decisions made in Brussels. The fact is, much of the EU is not violently opposed to Turkish membership and it still seems more likely to happen than to not.

I happen to think that there is everything to play for in defining the kind of EU that Turkey does eventually join, and in so doing, lessening the political and cultural impact such a development has on a free nation state such as Greece.

Explain to me why citizens of a small independent state like Greece, do not want a looser confederation of free nation states in Europe - as Britain does, and as the United States does? How are your Turkophobias becalmed by European membership?

Your cheap shot at the United States for viewing any European resistence to Turkish EU membership as "being equivalent to declaring the Third World War on Islamdom," was particularly misplaced. Many Americans view the struggle with Islam in a very straightforwardly ideological way - they believe that we are in a state of war with Islam. They may not be as visceral in their hatred as a Greek must be, but they understand this issue better than your average European multiculturalist and certainly much better than the Eurocrats.

If Greek soldiers were in Iraq today, and dying at the hands of Islamic fanatics, your sentences in this regard might allow for more respect.

The United States is well aware of how sensitive the issue of Turkish EU membership is. Like the British, the US backs Turkish membership knowing that if it ever were to happen, then the EU would not be able to achieve the united federation that the Brussels dreamers seek.

I know this failure to achieve superpower status will be most disappointing for the Eurocrats. I have more trouble understanding how a Greek would be unhappy at this failure. A people who take pride in their special cultural and historical status should welcome the opportunity to escape subjugaton to any superpower. The trouble is, the Greeks who write on this site seem to be a bit confused as to which superpower threatens their national independence.

****

You can read two nicely argued responses to this at Ambrosia Ephemeris. They were most polite and unhysterical in their rebuttal. Why is this such a rarity in blogs?

The World Through a Prism

2004-07-20T00:52:00.000+01:00

Apparently more than half of the British people think Tony Blair "lied" over the weapons of mass destruction fiasco. This allegation seems wide of the mark, for one simple reason.

If Blair knew there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, then he lied to the faces of those who bitterly opposed the invasion, knowing when Saddam was deposed, his lie would be exposed. If Blair lied, he is either very stupid, very brave or very bad. The lying allegation does not ring true.

"Blair Lied” is a teenager’s political slogan. “Blair has poor judgement,” is not. Blair is accused of reading too much into the intelligence on WMD. Some of the intelligence was actually quite strong, but it was always qualified. As no weapons have been found, it is easy enough to argue that Blair deluded himself.

One step on from this accusation is to try to explain why Blair might have done this. British television enjoyed trying to figure this out this weekend. On his Sunday ITV programme, Jonathan Dimbleby, in an interview with Hans Blix, suggested that the reason Blair accepted the qualified WMD advice as a fact was because he read it through a "prism of fear" and not through the "cool eye of reason."

I think I have been fair to this argument. Why then, does my blood not boil? Why am I, and many others around me, ready to excuse Blair's misjudgement?

One reason Blair continues to have support is that many of us are having trouble removing Dimbleby’s prism from our eyes. I too, see the world through a prism of fear. I think many people do, even those blessed with the cool eye of reason.

But rather than only a prism of fear, Blair may well have viewed the evidence presented by the intelligence services through a prism of ideology.

The prism I look through sees the invasion of Iraq as part of a wider struggle. It accepts the argument that Saddam had the will and the means to assist Islamic fanatics in attacking us with chemical and biological weapons. If it is now “proven” that he could not do this, I am slightly less nervous than I was before, though no less sure that Iraq and our world is better off without Saddam. We "prism" people also fear that in the struggle with the Islamists, the invasion of Iraq may one day appear as an opening skirmish in a much longer, more violent, and culturally disruptive, war.

On some sunny days, my prism recedes, though never for very long. It returns, either violently, as on March 11 when the bombs exploded in Madrid, or more subtly and unnervingly, as last week, when Yusuf Al Qaradawi, an Egyptian Muslim cleric who supports suicide bombing and the killing of Jews, arrived in London to be warmly embraced by the London Mayor Ken Livingstone. It reappears in the British Home Secretary's outrageous attempt to make words such as these subject to legal scrutiny lest I offend against Islam, and then sell this erosion of my freedom to me as being to society’s benefit, when the unspoken truth is that the only religion that preaches hate in Britain today is Islam. My prism infects my view of Canada's adoption of Sharia Law. Most of all, I read the words of the Islamists themselves and their vision of a global caliphate, through my prism. In places such as Iowa this continues to seem like a pie-in-the-sky fantasy. In Europe, the world through my prism is altogether more menacing.

Occasionally, Blair's ideological prism erupts into his speeches. Cast your mind back to the "kaleidoscope speech" of 2001. Many people said self-revealing things in the days after 9/11. Blair said things like "it is time to heal the scar of Africa," and "the kaleidoscope has been shaken." The point is, Blair definitely has an ideological, if not a messianic, side to his character. This is anathema to many in Britain and we are right to be suspicious of it in politicians. But I happen to believe such a way of looking at the world is at least as important to our long-term survival as is the cool eye of reason.

I came across this passage in the History of the World, by J.M. Roberts (I've only got time to read potted histories these days). Robert's summary is full of enlightening passages. This one deals with the confrontation of the Cold War and touches on its ideological dimension:

"In retrospect...the Cold War now looks somewhat like the complex struggles of religion in sixteenth and seventeenth-century Europe, when ideology could provoke violence, passion, and even, at times conviction, but could never wholly accommodate the complexities and cross-currents of the day."

Though the comparison is insightful, such a passage could only have been written in the 1990's after the collapse of the Soviet Union (in fact, the book was updated in 1997). In that brief decade, ideology, like religion, seemed to have become a relic of history and the Cold War could be safely consigned to it.

Like all of us, Roberts witnessed the collapse of a powerful anti-democratic ideology at first hand, and supposed that this was the end of ideology itself. Francis Fukuyama helpfully informed us that history had reached the terminus of liberal democracy. Of course ideology never went away, though men with the cool eyes of reason continue to underestimate its relevance today.

Roberts' contention that ideology can never accommodate the complexities of real life reminds us of the limitations of holding rigid worldviews. Nevertheless, one of the basic mistakes liberal democratic leaders are making today is to imagine that Islam can be accommodated by our political culture at no fundamental cost to either our ideology or to Islam's.

Western rationalists either dismiss Islam as hocus-pocus or view it through a soft-focus lens. Neither of these views of Islam will make any difference whatever to that religion's power and tenacious hold on its followers. In fact, the dismissal of religion is counterproductive as it tends to confirm the sanctity and rightness of the believer's worldview.

The dream of an Islamic caliphate will not die out among Muslims simply because Iraq has a semblance of democratic government. But if a new, non-theocratic future fails there, the Islamists who reside among us will be so emboldened that I am not at all confident our secular democracies will not be balkanised and dismantled.

Some say this kind of thinking and talking will precipitate such violence. They argue that such beliefs will themselves create a conflict. I wish it were true that by being quiet, Islam would go away. Merely holding a world view that resists Islam, can hardly, by any sense of justice, be considered the cause of the conflict.

Islam is not allowing us the luxury of a life free of ideology. Ronald Reagan's recent death brought back to centre stage how a man's ideology (dare I use the word "faith?") could impart self-belief and motivational power to a society. The cool-eyed rationalist try to overlook this, for it reminds them they are not in the driver's seat when it comes to cultural development and cultural conflict. The beliefs that people hold, their faith or ideology, is as important in deciding the outcome of this clash with Islam, as is any military action, if not more so. The question I can't answer is whether the ideological roots that support liberal democracy in Western Europe are deep enough to resist Islam's insistent demands?

The purpose of these musings was to try to understand why Blair's "lie" does not make my blood boil with rage, as seems to be expected of me. I have, perhaps foolishly, strayed into deeper waters.

Perhaps I cut Blair too much slack. Maybe I am being manipulated by a political master. But I believe Blair erred on the side of caution.

Perhaps a cooler eye might have understood how threatening is the ideology of Islam, but also have decided, for tactical reasons, to leave Saddam alone. I think Blair's ideological prism would not allow him to gamble on the good faith of a known madman at the same time that liberal democracy itself is under such pressure from Islamic fanatics. I cannot fault him for his caution or his boldness.

Feeble

2004-07-19T20:51:00.000+01:00

My wife is the treasurer for the Parent/Teacher Association at our childrens’ school. The Association is very active, running a summer fair, a summer disco, a Guy Fawkes night, a Christmas Party and other events during the year. Last year they raised more than £5,500. This money paid for playground equipment, new computer software, new pathways and landscaping, and other improvements. Without this fundraising, the school grounds and facilities would be drab and basic.

I helped out at the summer fair last week. The cleanup operation afterwards took more than three hours – I left, exhausted, after two. My name is in the PTA black book. The couples that stayed to the bitter end have full-time jobs and children of their own.

The two most active couples are now leaving, their children have moved on to the next school. The remaining members are desperate for parent volunteers. The prospect of getting replacement parents does not look good. The response from one mum illustrates why.

When my wife approached her about volunteering her time in the autumn term, the mum replied: “you must be joking, they (the school) are taking the piss.”

It was only later my wife realized this woman thinks that it is the school that organizes the fundraising activities. She thinks the lazy teachers are trying to get parents to do things that the school should be doing. She’s having none of it.

Her attitude is quite commonplace in a society that has become accustomed to services that are free and impose no obligations whatsoever on the user (apart from showing up on time). Even if it were true that the school needs her help to cover the cost of school activities because the government, or some other cosmic force, hasn’t provided enough money, you might think her sympathies would still lie with the school. Not only is she dismissive of the (excellent) schooling her child is receiving at no cost to herself, but she also has no idea that many of the things that are nice about the school are the result of voluntary work by people like herself.

People with this mentality also think men and women become doctors for the salary, that vets care for animals for the pay cheque and that teachers teach because they need a job. This woman expects someone else to provide for all her needs, but she is also certain that she is not getting her fair share of the handouts. This is what an enfeebled society looks like.

Attention Seeking

2004-07-16T20:18:00.000+01:00

I just stuck another essay into a brown envelope and sent it off to the Daily Telegraph. I tried real hard to spell all the words correctly in my short and snappy introductory letter. I say without bitterness that nothing will come of it.

I'd prefer to email my essays to The Telegraph. It would save on waste paper.  I wouldn't like to deprive the editor of the sadistic satisfaction of crumpling up my submission and practicing his hoop skills with the waste bin. But, in any case, The Telegraph doesn’t let you send your submissions by email. It retains the quaint “Letter to the Editor,” but if you try to actually contact an editor directly, its website leads you into a corporate contacts cul-de-sac.

The internet continues to stretch the established newspapers and some of their websites are better than others at exploring a new relationship with their readers. As might be expected, the Americans have gone down the more open-access route.   But interesting developments are happening in Britain, too.

The Guardian newspaper now has a "reader’s editor" and a "feedback" editor. The reader's editor is Iain Mayes and he writes about the innovative "corrections column" that is now a standard item in the Guardian. Mayes argues that there needs to be a change in culture in terms of newspaper responsiveness to reader complaints.

The feedback editor, Ros Taylor, explains why The Guardian is providing a feedback site, and why The Guardian Unlimited has become a popular website for Americans interested in the British perspective:

"following September 11, 2001. Britain and America have twice gone to war together...and the British media have devoted hundreds of thousands of words to trying to understand our allies. Judging from your emails, many of you first came here out of curiosity: intrigued to find out what the British think, be it positive or negative."

Mostly negative, I would suggest. But good for The Guardian for trying to engage in a conversation with their readers. It's just possible readers might have something valid to say, and an interesting way of saying it.

The BBC's website feedback service is what you would expect from state-funded media. They're quite happy for you to post a comment, as long as they can decide the topic and then edit the submissions.

The Spectator is no more accessible than The Telegraph. They want submissions double spaced and sent in a brown envelop, arriving preferably after the subject you want to write about is old hat. This approach suits a weekly like the Spectator rather well - it encourages writers to compose essays that are more than daily blogs. I'm not so sure newspaper can any longer afford to be so pedestrian.

Across the Atlantic, there's a different internet culture emerging.    The National Review is particularly open faced about providing email contact information. I have a friendly little message from David Frum in my Outlook folder. I corrected a spelling mistake in his excellent review of the autobiograhpy of Ulster Unionist politician David Trimble by Dean Godson. I received a friendly thank you note for my trouble. Jeff Babbage did the same a couple months ago – he tried to cheer me up about the prospects of the latest Tory leader, Michael Howard. These writers seem to welcome contact with their readers.

Ann Coulter employs a guy named Mark @ to guard her in-tray . I can’t blame Ann, she must get a lot of emails from fat middle-aged men like me.

I’m aware all these writers must receive hundreds of messages from illiterate ranters and timewasters. I send many of these myself. But they rightly judge that the contact is valuable and popular with their readers. If publications are afraid of cranks and crackpots swamping their email server, they might offer some trainee positions to new graduates as email screeners. A rookie newspaper person who did this job for a week would receive an excellent tuition in how to sort literate gold from garbage. In short, they woud experience what it is to be an editor.

The Butler didn't do it

2004-07-15T13:08:00.000+01:00

Lord Butler has now spoken and the British anti-war brigade is in uproar. The Independent has splashed the damning words of the Butler report across it’s tabloid face, and colour-coded them unless we failed to show a proper interest. The paper is most annoyed that Blair has evaded the Butler’s knife.

Blair overstated the dangers of weapons of mass destruction to win support for his case for war. It is legitimate to criticise him for this. But Conservative Leader Michael Howard’s question yesterday in the Commons regarding Blair’s hyping of the intelligence indicates that he doesn’t really believe that he will one day govern Britain and have to make impossibly difficult decisions. How else can one explain the line of questioning Howard put to Blair concerning the intelligence service's caveats and reservations about Iraq’s WMD programme?

“Their qualified judgements became your unqualified certainties. The question you must answer is why?"

If Howard can’t imagine the answer to this question then he is completely out of touch with at least half the people of Britain. As my wife says: “Everyone knows that WMD was just an excuse to invade Iraq.”

This is overstating things a bit. Everyone did not know what Saddam Hussein was up to. There were countless reasons to suspect him of secret weapons' programmes and I seem to remember the anti-war brigade arguing that we needed to be careful or we would provoke him to use them.

But let’s take this argument at face value. Lets pretend that we were lied to by our political master. Why would Blair lie about or overstate a thing that he did not really know?

Is it possible that Blair suffered a loss of faith in the British people, and by implication, that he has shown a lack of confidence in our democracy. Would he have won the argument to back the Americans if he had said (more in the manner of President Bush): “we don’t really know if these weapons exist, but after September 11 and the proven terrorist threat, we can’t really take the chance. Furthermore, the West has a credibility problem with these fanatics that it has tried to ignore for the past decade. We must make an example of Saddam Hussein.” Blair did say some things similar to this, but he judged that he needed extra ammunition to win the argument with his own backbenchers. As someone rather skilled in politics, he probably judged correctly.

Would the House of Commons have rallied to support such a brave argument, with no intelligence hyping? Blair, educated as a schoolboy in the lessons of the last great War, would probably have compared his situation, not to Churchill’s in 1939, but to the Churchill of the preceding decade who was ignored and vilified as a crank and doomsday merchant when he warned of the dangers of Hitlerism.

What if Blair calculated that overthrowing Saddam was more important to the country’s long-term well-being than it was to his short-term political advantage? As the anti-war brigade tries to press home its advantage, it needs to explain why a politician as canny as Blair should have walked this lonesome highway.

It is just about acceptable for a priest to ascend to the moral high ground and criticise a politician. But the Bishop of York’s recent warning to Blair that he will face the judgement of God over his decision to go to war is what one has come to expect from a silly church with an irrelevant agenda. Blair’s many faults are obvious to the British people. Does the Bishop really think that the Prime Minister, an avowed Christian, suffered no long-night-of-the-soul in making his momentous decision? The Bishop would have been on firmer ground to have simply called Blair a hypocrite. But then he would have had to develop an argument that explained how Blair had failed morally, in his decision to go to war. Instead the Bishop chose moral posturing in an effort to curry favour with a derisively anti-Christian population.

I recently engaged in a discussion with a friend about the humiliation of British troops by Iran in the Shatt-al-Arab waterway. In among my friend’s “Halliburton” and “Cheney’s oil friends” gibes (no “Bin Laden/Bush alliance” theories, thankfully) he made a straightforward and valid point.

My friend argued that the British Government’s quiet diplomacy with Iran is the more intelligent strategy. American bullying and aggression might simply unite forces in a part of the world that otherwise would not come together. This is Aesop’s fable about the contest between the sun and the wind, applied to international diplomacy. As such it demands respect as an argument.

I happen to think the waterway incident was a lesser-Munich moment. But I can pause to consider my friend's argument for it implies that he actually recognises the challenge of the Islamic fanatics, and he is not merely pretending that there is no danger posed by the Iranian theocracy. This is where our argument needs to be. We do not need to defend morally absolute positions where evil dictators who say they want to harm us can only be dealt with once they have caused us injury. Or where pre-emptive action to prevent disaster is not merely seen as over-zealous, but is parodied as the private intrigue of some (Jewish) clique. I suspect some of the hysteria in the anti-invasionists’ argument is because they know that many of the people sitting right next to them are quietly supportive of the invasion, and on this issue anyway, quietly impressed with Tony Blair. They realise they are being quietly ignored, so they shout all the louder.

We need to defend our democracies and leave moral posturing to the French and the Bishops. We need to measure the question of going to war with Iraq by a politically pragmatic yardstick. By all means we need to question whether George Bush is a better strategist than John Kerry. We need to ask whether Blair’s spinning isn’t corrosive of trust in government itself. But we also need to stop acting like teenagers and remember that one of the signs of adulthood is an ability to discern between the lesser of two evils.

Bells and Whistles

2004-07-14T14:10:00.000+01:00

I manage a team of people who help former rough-sleepers move from grim hostels to more secure housing.

They have a difficult job. The “clients” lack motivation having been kicked in the teeth by life, usually from a very young age. Many are heavy drinkers or have mental health problems. Quite a few are crack addicts.

I am in the happy position of managing workers whom I respect.

Yesterday, we had a managers' meeting. I was delighted to be able to announce that our Team had recorded the hightest number of successful moves of homeless individuals in the Team's history. This is a satisfying achievement. Each number on the stats report represents a person who has escaped from the very bottom of existence in modern Britain. It was also satisfying because our Team doubled in size a year ago, but it has taken until now for this growth to be reflected in the Team’s outputs.

The senior manager who attended our meeting, (a man, I hasten to add, that I have much respect for), congratulated the management team on this success and asked that his compliments be passed on to the front-line staff. He then proceeded to say something like:

“Now that we’ve achieved these solid outputs, we can start putting on the bells and whistles of the service." He requested more “user involvement,” a more "holistic service," and a "progressive programme of client empowerment." And so on.

But I couldn’t help thinking that this is exactly what the workers who are delivering this service do not need. They do not need more distractions from their already difficult job. We need to find out why this month’s outputs were so good, and keep doing whatever we did last month, next month and every month until our work is done.

I suspect our outputs are up because our management team have stuck to a strategy that insists on clarity of purpose, simplicity of process, the sharing and seeking of information specifically about rehousing options, and careful recruitment.

We have tried to protect front-line workers from the ever-increasing demand that they must demonstrate that they do their work. We would much rather they actually did their jobs. We have not achieved these outcomes by paying undue attention to the latest local authority edict or studying the tea leaves to decipher our role in the latest Blairite initiative. We have been concentrating on doing the thing that the Team takes taxpayers’ money to do: move people from squalid hostel rooms to more secure and better properties.

In Paul Johnson's book, A History of the American People, there is a wonderful three-page essay on the often under-rated US president Calvin Coolidge. That Coolidge happens to be the only US president who hails from my home state of Vermont, is but the icing on the cake (and how dissimilar he is to the politicians coming out of that state these days).

Johnson admires Coolidge because he embodied a strategy of public administration that seeks a simple, if largely unattainable, goal. Coolidge believed in leaving a thing to sort itself out and he ignored the clamour for legislation here, an initiative there, and government action everywhere. Coolidge was a suprisingly effective administrator.

In provision addicted Britain, this is not a recipe that is likely to be followed. But even in the bloated sector I work in, there is room for the Coolidge approach to administration. If it works, don't fix it and don't go putting bells and whistles on it.

O Solo Mio

2004-07-14T13:55:00.000+01:00

This from a young mum we know:

When an ice cream van drives by playing O Solo Mio, she tells her little boy the man plays the tune to tell everyone that the ice cream is all gone and that he is going home. Seems to work a treat.

You don't have to beat your wife...

2004-07-13T20:37:00.000+01:00

Women of the world can breath a collective sigh of relief this evening. Islamic cleric Yusuf Al-Qaradawi has just informed Jon Snow on Channel 4 News that according to the Koran, wife beating, while a possibility allowed by Islam, is not a requirement.

Snow’s introduction to this most enlightening of interviews included an attack on the vicious British tabloids that have pointed out that this “moderate” Islamic scholar also approves of the killing of Jews and homosexuals and supports suicide bombers. I expect Iqbal Sacranie, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, will tomorrow claim that the cleric has been misinterpreted.

Jon Snow, who can’t interview a democratically elected leader without sneering, managed to maintain an air of solemn respect as Al-Qaradawi revealed the attractive side of Islam to British viewers.

Special No More

2004-07-12T23:30:00.000+01:00

Before we moved to England, my parents would not have a television in the house. My Dad changed his mind and bought a set shortly after we arrived. This act reflected the relative merit of British, as compared to American, television. At that time it was quite easy for my Dad to justify (to my mother) the cultural benefits of television viewing in Britain.

After all, we had a lot to learn. We had left rural Vermont and arrived in a city of culture. Not only did we have David Attenborough and the colour-test girl to ponder, but we sat mesmerised in front of Ronnie Barker, amazed that so many words even existed, much less that they could be spat out, correctly enunciated, with such machine-gun rapidity.

We watched each episode of Yes, Minister with a growing admiration for a culture that could mock itself while fostering respect for political sophistication.

Most of all, I watched the news. I had left a culture where information about the world was difficult to come by, and had arrived in a place where I could switch on the television and view, for an entire evening, news and current events programmes from around the world, with The Two Ronnies sandwiched, happily, in between. I became a TV news junkie, and remained one until the end of the 1990’s when I began to disconnect from mainstream UK culture.

I recently sent an email to the BBC complimenting them on the excellent programme by Robert Hughes: The New Shock of the New. I asked the BBC whether the original eight-part series on art from 25 years ago was available on DVD or video. It is not.

BBC 4 is now showing the series in its entirety. I don’t have BBC 4 – I don’t even get good reception for Channel 5. I’m aware that I am behind the times. I’m also aware that my interest in modern television output is, to put it mildly, ambivalent. I suspect that many viewers who stick with the five “terrestrial” channels do so out of inertia, disinterest and a righteous anger that they should have to shell out even more money to see programmes that they do not like.

The BBC wants to be popular and it is required by charter to produce quality programmes. Putting aside the more recent wreck of its reputation for fairness and objectivity in news production, it has a decent history of achieving these two objectives.

But it’s a strange decision that puts the iconic series The Shock of the New, out of the reach of the very people who are most likely to want to watch it. It’s as if the BBC wants to encourage people who enjoy quality television to abandon the two terrestrial channels and watch their “special interest” programmes on the new “extra” channels. This will then, presumably, free up BBC 1 and BBC 2 for more “popular” programmes. A cynic might think that the BBC has already spied the end of its charter and is busy repositioning itself as a dumber version of Channel 4 (though just how stupid they will have to become we will soon know when Channel 4 launches a reality TV show that puts five guys in a house with five porn stars and waits to see what happens.)

Politicians are sharpening their knives in the back rooms of Westminster, preparing to cut the BBC’s umbilical chord to the taxpayer. The BBC continues to act as if its charter is a gift from the Almighty. Those who, like me, remember BBC TV with nostalgia, are watching less and less television these days. If the BBC is no longer special, then why on earth does it have a special status?

***

Fun site for The Two Ronnies fans. In all the ages of television, has anyone else ever achieved this level of cultural sophistication? See the essay by the PBS induced fan, especially.

A Schoolboy's Guide to French Revolutions

2004-07-08T23:23:00.000+01:00

A couple of weeks ago, writing about France, I composed a sentence that gravely warned that if Europe wasn’t careful, the French would export their revolutionary tradition to the entire Continent. But on second thought, I deleted it. Such a statement seemed a bit over-the-top, even for me.

Now a real writer who has been living in Paris has made a similar point about France's revolutionary tradition. Philip Delves Broughton has written in The Telegraph’s "Notebook" on June 8, this verdict on the fragility of France:

“I can’t help thinking we’re due another eruption, a 1789 or a 1968. At the moment, France is simply internalizing its anxieties, ulcerating its innards.”

Neither Philip Delves Broughton or George William Miller need a degree in history to have discovered this thought. Any high school diploma will do. France’s revolutionary tradition is the spectator sport of historians – it has kept thousands of academics in gainful employment for generations. I can still reel off the years of revolution without doing a websearch to confirm that I have remembered correctly (pundits feel free to point out my mistakes and add additional revolutions as you discover them).

The tradition starts in 1789. This year kicks off such a glorious period of political and social instability that the bloodshed up to Waterloo becomes the reservoir for subsequent revolutions. By July 1830, France was in revolt again. In 1848, France joined the rest of Europe in a year of revolution. Twenty-three years later, in 1871, Napoleon III's empire collapsed with the Paris Commune. The Great War of 1914–18 and the alliance with the fascists, 1940-44, must be considered revolutions as France was so turned on its head that no further revolt occurred until 1968.

The revolution of 1968 was, by all accounts, a disappointment. The revolting students could not entice the workers to their banners. There is something of playing at a revolution in this year, as if the French had already realized that history was being made elsewhere. I was only four years old, so cannot offer any personal comments on this revolution. I live not so much in the hope, as in the expectation, that one day I will have this opportunity.

Besides the anecdote provided by Mr. Broughton, what further evidence is there that France is in a pre-revolutionary phase? One might cite the persistence of high unemployment in France and the "let them eat cake" response from a political elite that includes the trade union guilds. One might refer to the social and cultural chasm between immigrant France and the natives. One could mention the 10,000 dead in last year's heatwave because the holiday culture has grown so inflexible that not enough workers remained behind to care for grandma. One might describe a political elite that cannot be turned out by any known voting practices and a media that makes a virtue of its collusion with this political class (the French are so above a scandal, you see, unlike the prurient Anglo-Saxons who humiliate their betters with those dreadful tabloid headlines).

But I prefer the revolutionary science of direct experience and anecdote. Can I mention the ostentatious baby-carriages I saw in the wealthy west of Paris in the summer of 2002, each pushed by a middle-aged African woman with a little fat French baby inside? This is no big deal, except that a country that doesn’t mind looking like the European equivalent of the slave-owning Saudi’s, may also be missing other, rather more important, signs-of-the-times. Am I allowed to comment on the jarring physical contrast between the golden citadel of central Paris and the dreadful suburbs of the banlieue beyond the peripherique?

It’s not merely that the last time I asked for assistance from a department store attendant in Paris I received the “you’ve just farted in my handbag” look that Bill Bryson describes. It’s that this aggressive arrogance exists within, or perhaps because of, a failing economy and a failing society.

Revolutions don’t happen on any schedule known to sociologists or historians. But let me stick my neck out here. I’ll have Mr. Broughton’s head for company if we both land in the basket: France is overdue for another social and political revolution.

If you count the loss of the country to the Germans from 1941 to 1945 as a revolutionary event (which of course, the French refuse to acknowledge as it reminds them that some of their revolutions are not of their own making) France has experienced an almost unprecedented 60 revolutionary-free years. Even if you consider the events of 1968 to have been a revolution, France has still had 36 years in which to ossify and grow angry.

On my reckoning (and my maths isn’t great) I would put the periodic occurrence of revolution in France at approximately 29 years (please consult the methodology below). This means that France is well overdue for a revolution and every day that passes without one merely suggests that the next one will be really big.

Methodology

French revolutionary timeline commencing 1789/2 to date:

The French Revolution: 1789/92 > The July Revolution: 1830 > The Year of European Revolution: 1848 > The Paris Commune: 1871 > The Great War: 1914/18 > The Alliance with Fascism: 1940/44 > The Days of Wine and Roses: 1968 >>>>

????The Revolution of 2010?????

Periods between the revolutionary episodes (from last year of an episode to first year of subsequent episode), in years:

38 – 18 – 23 – 42 – 22 – 24 = average 27.8 years

If we factor in plus 5% to take account of the long lunches, France can be expected to have a revolution every 29 years or so. Of course, this is only the average. The longest revolutionary-free period on record in France since 1789 is 42 years (between the Paris Commune and the Great War). Accepting 1968 as the year of the last revolutionary episode in France, then the latest possible date for the next revolution in France is a tidy 2010.

My methodology is conservative because the revolutionary epoch that began in 1789 did not actually end until 1799 (Napoleon's coup), if not, as far as everyone else in Europe was concerned, in 1815 (Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo).

Furthermore, my study disregards all the times that France nearly had a revolution. Indeed, I make no reference to the frequent times in which a number of French people were convinced that they had had a revolution, but the rest of the country was not so sure. My method insists that for each revolutionary episode, at least ten French post-graduate students must have verifiably sat in a café in the Left Bank and discussed the meaning of the revolution until at least three o’clock in the morning. This conversation must have been concurrent with the revolution that was being discussed, and the revolution must have occurred in France. I have not allowed for the vicarious revolutionary tradition of France, in this particular study.

Missing the Story

2004-07-08T11:47:00.000+01:00

Here’s a little story that helps to explain why I never made it as a journalist.

Before I commenced my degree studies in Manchester University, I studied print journalism at Amarillo College in Texas from 1984 to 1986. The College's newspaper, The Ranger, is an award winning student newspaper. I managed to not completely destroy its reputation in my year as its editor.

One day, Gary Hart came through Amarillo. Gary was a contender for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination before he was photographed with Donna Rice on his lap on board the yacht, Monkey Business. (Read about what Donna Rice is doing these days.) I went downtown to listen to his speech.

Growing weary of Hart's oration, I looked around the small crowd and immediately recognised a face. It was David Steel; Sir David now, but then the leader of the British Liberal Party.

I strolled over and introduced myself. I’ll always have a good word to say for Mr. Steel because he seemed genuinely interested in me and eager to engage in conversation. I am aware that "people" skills are the mark of a politician, but if Sir David was pretending to be friendly, he was a great actor who should have gone further in politics.

I explained to him that I had lived in England and so knew who he was, and he told me he was shadowing Hart’s campaign in order to pick up some campaign tips for the Liberals. This, in itself, probably explains the Party's subsequent lack of success as a political force.

I can no longer remember everything we talked about, but I do remember that when I returned to The Ranger newsroom, my saintly journalism professor, Winston Odom, asked me what had happened. I told him, excitedly, that I had met and chatted with a senior British politician.

Winston suggested my meeting with Mr. Steel might make a good column for the newspaper. I couldn’t see how. I sat down and began churning out another rant against Big Business or some other teenage topic.

Winston, with a sigh, a puff on his cigarette and a shrug of his shoulders, shuffled back to his office with the renewed despondency of a man who has seen another pupil completely miss the point of everything he has been taught.

Rejection

2004-07-07T22:36:00.001+01:00

The feature’s editor of The Daily Telegraph wrote to me today. You might call it a rejection letter. I call it “private correspondence with a newspaper editor.”

The rejection was worded in the politest possible way. He informed my that my submission was “not quite suitable for our newspaper’s feature page” though he had read my piece “with interest.”

What a nice man. It’s not his fault that his newspaper’s feature page is not suitable for my style of writing.

Maybe The Sunday Telegraph would be more receptive. A couple of months ago they splashed an interview with an unfortunate woman across two or three of their broadsheet pages. It must have been 6000 words long. This lady was bemoaning the fact that she has followed the teachings of her church and refrained from sexual activity before marriage. Having now reached middle age and never received so much as a marriage offer, she is terrified she may live her entire life without ever experiencing the joys of sex.

The Sunday Telegraph feature’s editor must have known that he was helping this lady make a fool of herself. Maybe he’d be willing to help me do the same thing.

Then again, maybe The Sunday Telegraph feature’s editor is also The Daily Telegraph feature’s editor. Maybe, having published the sexless woman’s lament, he has repented of his ways and is now looking for grave and serious essays on important issues of our time.

I know my essay was muddle-headed, contradictory, hysterical and dogmatic. But I read that kind of thing in newspapers all the time. Perhaps I’ve sent my essay to the wrong paper.

If I could only find a paper that is dogmatic, hysterical, contradictory, and muddle-headed.

Better run a Google search for The Independent’s postal address.

Shockingly Good Art

2004-07-05T14:17:00.000+01:00

Last Saturday on BBC 2, Robert Hughes single-handedly rescued the reputation of BBC television as a producer of quality programmes. Twenty-five years after producing the eight-part series, The Shock of the New, (I have never seen this series but will seek it out now) he returned for a one-episode review of the current state of modern art.

Like many cultural reviews these days, Hughes began with a reference to September 11. This initially worried me as the atrocity is sometimes referred to rather lazily. But Hughes' straightforward point was that modern artists find it difficult to compete in shock value with the image of the collapsing towers. What angers Hughes is that so many artists should continue to gamble away their artistry trying to shock when they have been so comprehensively trumped by an image that is now seared on the retinas of most human beings.

Building to his theme, Hughes reminded the viewer that Western art, until recently, dealt directly in portraying political and historical events. The last great example is Picasso’s Guernica. Picasso’s painting, says Hughes, was explicitly trying to change the attitudes and thinking of millions of people toward war. Hughes claims that the iconic images of 20th Century history: the mushroom cloud over Hiroshima, the German death camps, and the collapsing towers; have undermined the artist’s confidence in producing such ambitious work and has encouraged many to withdraw into an art that deals mainly with the artist’s private angst. Hughes wants more from art than this and if I understood his documentary’s theme correctly, he believes that the artists who continue to attempt to connect their art with the world of politics and history are the more important artists.

Hughes recognizes Andy Warhol as an artistic pioneer, but is completely dissatisfied with Warhol’s mimicry of the commercial image. Toward the end of the documentary, in an interview with the abstract artist Sean Scully, the artist carefully explained what he claims are diametrically opposed views of art's function in the world. Scully argued that art needs to be created and viewed in a special sphere – it is a sanctuary from which one escapes the depersonalization of the commercial world. He utterly rejects the mimicking of commercial images by the artist and argued, with words as spare as his paintings are at first glance, that a piece of art should work on the viewer over a long period of time. I have to agree that one faces the choice of either meditating for a long time on Scully’s paintings or dismissing them as a collection of rectangular shapes. It is to Hughes’ credit that by the time he gets to Scully, he has built up such credibility as a critic that I was at least willing to stop and stare at Scully’s work and I promise to summon the energy to engage with one of his paintings in the real world, should I ever get the chance.

In the four interviews Hughes arranged with living artists: Scully, Jeff Koons, Paula Rego, and David Hockney; the artists spoke with refreshing straightforwardness about their styles and approaches to producing art. Only Koons came across as somewhat vague and clichéd when discussing his sculpture, and Hughes allowed him to make, on camera, the foolish assertion that his work is a continuation of the sculptural tradition of Michelangelo. The documentary then cut to Hughes and Koons standing over Koons’ sculpture of a naked lady in the bath with a sliced off head who is being surprised by someone in a snorkel. Later, we were shown Michael Jackson and Bubbles, a sculpture that, to my eyes, does seem to have some of that cultural resonance that Hughes admires. But by now Hughes was enjoying himself at Koon’s expense, commenting that if an artist keeps comparing himself to Michelangelo eventually someone is going to compare him with Michelangelo.

Later on, Hughes is scathing about Tracy Emin’s ummade bed, and in British public schoolboy fashion he simply could not overlook that Tracey has stuck an extra “l” on the word “beautifull” in her wall hanging Automatic Orgasm, 2001.

But Hughes is by no means a grumpy old man who is convinced that there is nothing good being produced by any modern artist. He jumps from the cultural frivolousness of Koons to the work of German artist Anselm Kiefer. This is somewhat unfair on Koons, for Kiefer’s work is ambitious to the point of foolhardiness. When an artist is brave enough to call a painting Twilight of the West, he had better possess the ability to create a resounding image. Kiefer undoubtedly has this skill in abundance.

In the 1960’s, Kiefer stormed straight into Germany’s holocaust debate by producing a photo album in which he is seen giving the “Heil Hitler” salute in front of famous European monuments such as the Coliseum in Rome. I did something similar on my first trip to Berlin aged 13, in 1980. During a pit stop on the autobahn, I emerged from the van goose stepping and saluting. I thought it hilarious at the time. One of the adults in our group bundled me back into the van.

For a German to be doing something like this in the 1960’s reveals a person who is, shall we say, troubled by his nation’s history. Kiefer’s art has progressed somewhat since then.

The documentary filmed a couple of Keifer’s paintings in what can only be described as a loving manner. Hughes’ camera didn’t allow the viewer to see the whole of either Twilight of the West or another painting that I haven’t been able to identify in my internet searches. This unidentified painting was of bone coloured lines alternating with an earthier strata, descending to the image of a single corpse figure at the bottom of the painting. Like the railway lines disappearing under the leaden sky in Twilight of The West, Kiefer manages to convey in a single image more about the German past than many filmmakers achieve over two hours of storytelling.

Hughes’ interview with David Hockney was relaxed and informative as the great artist spoke plainly about his current painting practices. Hockney is now painting in mostly watercolour, and painting directly on to paper with no underlying drawing at all. He’s been down in southern Spain painting the Alhambra and back to the landscapes of his Yorkshire childhood. Watercolour painting, without those cartoon like sketches as a guide, is difficult. Some of the sketches in Hockney’s workbooks looked like the sketchbooks from my Greek holidays. Only kidding.

Hockney seems to have lost none of the enthusiasm for painting that he had when he started out more than 50 years ago. An artist friend once said to me: “Don’t worry about producing the perfect image – produce an image. Produce something.” It reminded me of my Dad’s instruction about painting houses: “Get the paint out of the bucket, and on to the wall.” Hockney seems to have the same drive, and his enthusiasm for production makes you want to pick up a paintbrush.

David Hockney, A Bigger Splash, 1967

In one of his most lucid narrations about a painting, Hughes returns to Hockney’s A Bigger Splash. Hughes is surely right to describe this painting as containing one of the finest stylizations of splashing water ever achieved by an artist. Hockney achieves a graphical image that is every bit as impressive as Katsushika Hokusai's, The Great Wave Off Kanagawa. But Hockney's splash explodes in a swimming pool in front of a man-made landscape that resonates in the eye of anyone who has travelled in the American southwest or, for that matter, watched Hollywood films. Hockney’s splash erupts in the middle of the sterile standardization of America’s urban landscape.

Robert Hughes has provided a delightful introduction to some of the best work in contemporary art. To someone like myself who knows so little about what is going on in the arts, his documentary was absorbing. I haven’t mentioned Hughes’ interview with the cheeky Paula Rego or his commentary on Lucien Freud’s portraits. Experienced art critics may unpick some of Hughes’ artistic judgments and may have many other artists on their favourites list. But I'm grateful for this introduction to these modern masters and a little less dismissive of the hitherto downwardly mobile BBC.

Taking Stock

2004-07-03T10:43:00.001+01:00

One month into this blogging thing and I am increasingly musing on its usefulness and its impact on me, personally. If you wondered how much time it takes to spew forth 20,000 words, the answer is “plenty.”

In a previous post, I wondered where blogging might lead me. I find this is now rather embarrassingly self-revealing. Blogging doesn’t lead anywhere, except that in the act itself, one is thinking and writing. I’ve decided, because I don’t have an editor, that I am going to allow a week for revisions of my posts, after that they will stand (or fall) as they were written. (I’ve been going back and revising pieces from time to time.) I’m going to try to follow my one-week rule from now on. After all, a journalist whose words appear in print can’t rush out and buy up all the papers in order to correct the misspellings and errors. If leaving these former posts alone reveals a tendency toward shallow thought, over-the-top generalization and plain bad writing, then these mistakes will sit on my blog as an exhortation to do better next time.

In writing my blog I am thinking again. I have realized for some time that writing is, in fact, how I learn. Someone in Britain figured this out long ago, for my experience of British education was of filling in notebook after notebook and composing essay after essay until the callous on my right hand grew so big it could order its own beer.

Thinking through writing is an end in itself. The side benefit is that at work and in my private business I have become more articulate. The drawback is that I have my head in the clouds and the sound of my name being called ever more insistently whilst I ignore it, is ringing in my ears. As a semi-autistic male, writing exaggerates the tendency toward self-absorption and has made me more aware of the need to draw a line between meditation and living life itself.

As to the blogging medium, I remain dubious about its potential for me, personally. My cousin, Bill Hobbs, of HobbsOnline recently did me the favour of sending one of my pieces to Instapundit. Thousands click on that site every day, so when Instapundit referred to my blog in a single sentence, I experienced the thrill of 6000 hits in one day. (I think Bill could tell I needed some cheering up). The graph at StatCounter couldn’t really cope with this instant success – the peak for June 29 is impressive indeed, but I can no longer even see, graphically, whether my 20 to 30 readers are still tuning in.

The post that Bill and Instapundit featured was my obligatory anti-France rant that I knew would be popular in bloggerdom. But unexpectedly to me, this piece drew me into a discussion with some (mostly) polite Greek bloggers at Ambrosia Ephemeris. They reminded me about the Greek perspective on Turkish EU membership and picked apart some of my glibness toward this, probably inevitable, development. In other words, I learned something.

I came across a more questionable example of blogging’s social utility on Not a Cowboy the other day. Not one to hang back, Tex posed the question: Is there logic to homosexuality? His main point, if I understood it correctly, is that gayness is not about reproduction, so logically, if everyone practiced this lifestyle there would be no more breeding and no way to make more gay people. I know this argument is better suited to a Pub, but this fine institution doesn’t really exist in Texas, so Tex had to blog his thought instead.

I applaud him for doing so. In among the (predictably) numerous comments such as: "I think we're all just trying to get by in the world," some decent points were made. Tex has used his website to raise a discussion that, before the blog, has been mainly suppressed in public.

I don’t happen to agree that it is homosexual behaviour that threatens our society’s reproductive capability. It is the inaction of the heterosexuals that is the cause of falling birthrates in Europe, at least. We are moving toward a brave new world where human reproduction happens, if not yet without the womb, then without male involvement, anyway. This isn’t the doing of the gays, but of our science and technology. Gayness is just one expression of the unmooring of sexuality from reproduction that has transformed the whole of our culture in the past couple of generations.

How did I get on to that? This is the main failure of blogging – there is no editor. My blog has a tendency to follow my whim, no matter how silly or immature my latest thoughts are. It might be better to be given an assignment to write about, as I was in my schooldays or as a reporter.

Good blogs usually push a single issue or a couple of themes at the most. They summarise what is going on in that subject area and point you in the direction that the blogger has already gone. I haven’t been very good at doing this. My hit count suffers as a result. My advice, if you want it, is that you'll find really good writing in thus week’s Spectator. Read how Anthony Daniels demolishes Germaine Greer's rant against her Australian homeland. Daniels exposes the pretentions of Western intellectuals as they try to mimic the importance of the Russian intelligentsia to that country's history whilst living in societies that are affluent and free. They become irrelevant, silly and angry, like Miss Greer (page 35). Or cast your eye on the notes by Charles Moore and his comments on Michael Moore. (I’ve reproduced his paragraph below - am I allowed to do that? - because The Spectator won’t allow you access to it on their site unless you are a subscriber.

In my blog, I am essentially just writing essays as I was instructed to do as a schoolboy. I’m enjoying being back at school. I’m going to keep blogging.

***
Charles Moore, The Spectator’s Notes, The Spectator, July 3, 2004

“I’m no expert on Michael Moore, but he looks to me like a left-wing version of Bernard Manning [a British “comedian.”] You only find Manning funny if you think it axiomatic that black men are stupid; the same is true of Moore, so long as you delete ‘black men are’ and insert ‘George Bush is.’ This isn’t really any other joke. In the Moore-Manning view of life, it was obviously brilliant of [BBC newsman] Jeremy Paxman to ask Tony Blair whether he and Mr. Bush prayed together. But though I admit the comic possibilities, I don’t see why they shouldn’t have. Religious people are supposed to pray, and sometimes it helps if they pray with one another. No doubt if Paxo had been around in August 1941 he would have tried to rouse the nation to mirth or outrage over the fact that Churchill and Roosevelt sang ‘Onward Christain Soldiers’ together in Placentia Bay.”

Democratic Morality

2004-06-30T14:42:00.000+01:00

Any politician who strikes a moral pose in our diverse and subversive democracies may see his career end in tears. But occasionally it becomes impossible for a politician to avoid a reference to morality.

Yesterday, President Bush explicitly referred to the moral failings of Western culture as a hindrance to the spread of freedom and democracy in the Muslim world. Addressing remarks to Muslims while in Turkey, Bush assured Muslims that the US was not trying to peddle pornography while embarked on its mission of spreading liberty.

Bush was forced to directly confront this issue because that is precisely what mainstream Islamic opinion accuses the West of doing. The Great Satan is accused of promoting a chaotic culture of individualism that undermines those aspects of society that provide for the future and that are durable.

Islamic militants who blow the arms and legs off babies are as depraved as it is possible for human beings to become. The failings of Islamic societies are well known. The Islamists damn themselves with their own words and their own deeds. Yet whether we like it or not, Islamic fanatics enjoy the sympathy of many non-militant Muslims who accuse the West of decadence and immorality. Such a perception will not be deflected by an invitation to Muslims to embrace the social license that we enjoy. We will never be able to bully a people out of a world view that insists that its forms of social organisation are superior to the social disintegration evident in Western culture.

Many Muslims ask themselves whether Western society has a future. They can see the dead ends of our culture approaching, most easily in the falling birthrate among Europeans. While we might scoff at Arab Muslims for being camel herders, their children may still be herding camels 1000 years hence, while we no longer exist as a people.

The Telegraph leader today eloquently expresses the sorry pass to which Britain has come regarding abortion and reproductive issues:

“There is something amiss in a society where abortion is too easy and adoption too difficult; in which conception, frowned on in fertile youth, is postponed until the onset of infertile middle age; in which reproduction is entrusted to doctors; in which old age is prolonged by embryonic stem cells. Such a society will be blighted by its own sterility. It will sustain itself only through immigration. Is that the society we want?”

I used to sneer at American politics because an issue like abortion is the subject of national debate and the stance taken by political candidates on this issue can determine voter choice. A common accusation from the Left is that such issues are “obscurantist” attempts to dissuade working people from voting for their economic interests and instead supporting right-wing politicians.

I am no longer certain that the citizen who casts his vote for the anti-abortionist candidate is not, in fact, seeing the wood for the trees. Such a voter may have discovered in this issue something rather more important than whether taxes should be raised or social spending cut.

But I still have a nagging respect for the British attempt to take party politics out of issues like abortion. In Britain, historically, Members of Parliament are allowed a free vote on ethical issues such as abortion and capital punishment. There is no enforced Party line. The House of Commons comes alive with human beings on these occasions, as robotic MP's emerge from beneath the Party machines. It is sometimes genuinely surprising to discover how individual MPs cast their vote.

But I am no longer confident that this reticence for a political party to engage in open debate about issues like abortion does not simply hand the floor to the pro-abortionists.

Last year, a young Church of England vicar was given leave to mount a judicial challenge to an abortion carried out on a baby with a cleft palate. The Abortion Act allows for the abortion of an unborn baby after six months if that baby has a “serious handicap.” A cleft palate is easily operable and even if not corrected is in no way life-threatening. It clearly does not fit the description of a "serious handicap." Yet abortion legislation has allowed a culture to develop in which any foetus, at any time during a pregnancy, can be dispatched if not considered physically perfect.

Beyond a repugnance for such a perfection-obsessed culture, abortion is still, a decade after the Soviet Union’s barbaric death rates were exposed, a primary form of contraception in Britain.

As The Telegraph pointed out, a society that kills 185,000 babies a year also makes it very difficult for a childless couple to adopt. Yet the pro-choicers appear to be upset that there are not enough abortions, not that there are too many. Pro-choice groups in Britain actually bemoan the fact that young girls from poorer households are not opting for abortion because, horror of horrors, there is still a social stigma against abortion within their communities.

With all the targets so beloved of the Blair Government, why is there not a target to, say, reduce the abortion figure by one per cent a year? Labour will argue that they are addressing the abortion rate by trying to tackle teenage pregnancy. These policies are failing to have a major impact. Nevertheless, they are used by Labour to conceal their lack of attention to the high incidence of abortion.

Despite using abortion as an example of our society’s moral glibness, I’m not jihadist on this issue. Abortion, like every human failing, will always be with us. But a civilised society would not forever tolerate such a high death rate and pretend that what is happening in our society is not demoralising. A civilised society would want to get this figure down.

More to my point: Abortion, teenage pregnancy, family breakdown and public disorder, to name a few topical British social problems, are all issues that define the health of our culture. The freedom that we enjoy in a democracy is the freedom to struggle for the soul of our society within the political arena. This struggle is not a cultural sideshow in the struggle with Islam. It's the same war.

How to insult your friends and influence nobody

2004-06-29T12:17:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, the French President, Jacques Chirac, told President Bush to get his nose out of European business. Bush had told Turkish leaders that the United States is supportive of Turkey’s application to join the European Union.

Chirac lectured Bush: “He (Bush) has nothing to say on this subject. It is as if I were to tell the United States how it should conduct its relations with Mexico.”

Erm…No, it isn’t quite the same thing, Chirac. The United States is a continent-sized country of 300 million citizens sharing a border with a smaller Republic to the south. Both countries are sovereign states but with highly developed economic and demographic ties. It would be very surprising if either of these countries didn’t sometimes comment on the policies of the other. It would be absurd for France to do so.

France, on the other hand, is an economically stagnant country of 60 million. Turkey is an emerging democracy of 70 million dynamic and energetic people. France does not share a border with Turkey. Germany is by far Turkey's largest export market, followed by the US. Next comes Britain. France is sixth on the list. If France doesn't much like the look of Turkey, the Turks aren't much looking at France.

Only if one accepts the French conceit that they lead in Europe, does Chirac’s comparison with the US/Mexican relationship make sense. Chirac speaks for France, not for Europe, when he resists Turkish EU membership.

As long as the single State of Europe does not yet exist, the US, as a friendly democratic State, has every right to encourage another free and democratic nation to seek the benefits and prosperity in membership of the European economy.

Chirac's reaction to Bush’s statement is revealing of the French assumption that the Continent is its private sphere of influence. Someone really ought to tell the free nations of Europe that this is how the French see them. On second thought, there’s no need for anyone to tell them. The French President is doing a very good job of telling them himself.

Chirac has become a master of insulting the free nations of Europe. But this outburst, like the one last year in which he told those European nations who supported the Allied invasion of Iraq to “shut up,” reveals France’s growing weakness in the enlarged Europe.

If any country in Europe might have cause to feel annoyed at the US President’s comments in support of Turkish EU membership, it is Germany. Millions of Turks live and work there. But Chancellor Schroeder seems perfectly relaxed about Bush’s comments. Perhaps the Germans are not quite as afraid of the modern world as is France? Perhaps, despite their desperation to be tail to the French dog, the German’s would quite welcome Turkish membership?

France has much to lose over Turkish membership. The kind of Europe that could accommodate Turkey cannot be highly centralised politically and rigid and bureaucratic economically, as the French political establishment would like. The Europe that is emerging does not willingly wish to become a fortress that protects France from the modern world and the global economy.

Chirac’s increasingly hysterical and personalised bluster is a diversionary tactic for the benefit of the bewildered French people. Such public tantrums cannot forever delay the realisation that France has become isolated and ineffectual in both Europe and the world.

***

Amir Taheri argued this even better earlier this month:

Turkey's entry into the EU will re-emphasize the Continent's diversity, thus making it more difficult for the advocates of the European super-state to convince the voters to give up their national identities. Those who want Europe to stay European must support Turkey's membership in the union.

Road to Nowhere

2004-06-26T08:43:00.000+01:00

Mark Steyn lays into the ship of fools that is consensual modern Canada, specifically regarding their ruinously expensive and inefficient healthcare system.

"With Canadian healthcare sliding toward its logical conclusion – a ten-month waiting list for the maternity ward – here’s a question to ask your Liberal chums: Do you seriously think your $9 billion “plan” will make two cents’ worth of difference? Anymore than did your $21 billion “plan” to save heath care back in 2000? And, whether it’s $9 billion or $21 billion or a hundred billion trillion gazillion, won’t most of it just get sucked up in the maw of bureaucracy?...

...the problem with health care is that its costs grow faster than anything else in society. And an unaccountable government-run bureaucracy-heavy unionized monopoly is the least equipped model to control those costs. Indeed, it’s barely under any requirement to keep meaningful ledgers. In other words, the gap between the demands on the system and its ability to satisfy them will only widen, and widen, with every passing year."

Steyn's criticisms could as easily be applied to the British NHS, and to the British Conservative Party that is pledged to try to outspend Labour on health care thereby denying British voters a choice between reform and throwing more money on the healthcare bonfire.

Great piece, as usual, that nicely suggests that the rough and tumble of politics is a feature of a healthy society, whereas the quiet, consensual, refusal-to-debate-certain-issues style of Canadian (and EU) politics, is the road to oblivion.

The Book Burners

2004-06-23T15:12:00.000+01:00

Various bloggers have noted the exciting impact of this medium on mainstream print journalism, and some have also pointed to the possibility of webTV blogs in the near future.

Technological developments are reducing the cost of media production. WebTV technology will cut the cost of TV production in the same way that blogging has allowed individuals to produce presentable electronic publications at low cost.

This doesn’t mean that everyone will be able to do it, or to do it well. Just as the best blogs are published by people who are conversant with new technology and who know how to write (or, at least, how to amuse), so one cannot expect webTV programmes to be any good unless skilled and talented people produce them. But it isn't difficult to imagine a group of TV presenters and production engineers spotting a gap in the market and seeking to exploit it by producing a webTV show.

In countries like the USA, where media ownership is diversified and where there are strong cable and satellite sectors, the advent of webTV might not be as revolutionary as it may be in more restricted media environments. For example, in Britain, where satellite and cable have already made the State-owned and taxpayer-sponsored BBC appear anachronistic, webTV might be the straw that breaks the Corporation’s back. Many TV viewers never watch the BBC, yet all are commanded to pay for this cultural icon. When the talented people of this little island take to new webTV technology I, for one, will eagerly tune in to watch their productions. I certainly am more eagerly awaiting such programming than I look forward to watching the patronising BBC every day.

Much more importantly, webTV would allow a small group of dissidents to produce popular programmes that undermine State propaganda. In Iran, the impact of the Internet and of blogging has been much noted, as has the contradiction between the mad Mullahs' desire to promote economic development while keeping tight control of the people’s thoughts. This article on the rise of blogging in Iran suggests that the Mullah's will have to increase their restrictions on the Internet if they wish to prevent the Iranian people from creating an alternative and virtual online culture.

All societies are struggling with how to license and control the Internet. The choice seems to be to prohibit access altogether, as in North Korea, or to attempt to police a narrow band of criminalised activity and concentrate detection on certain areas. That this is difficult to do is obvious in the liberal West where criminal depravity is impossible to eradicate. How much more difficult, then, is this task for a despot who, besides wanting to supress sexual deviancy, is also concerned to prohibit certan subjects and discussions.

When barred from any site, the Internet browser is forced to ask whether the prohibition has legitimacy and whether it is reasonable. Most people, being semi-socialised, are willing to put up with quite a lot of sexual repression and prohibition. Such prohibitions are not completely alien to social taboos experienced in everyday life. But when your government is cutting your link to a site because you have entered into a discussion on the relationship between modern Arab anti-semitism and the ideology of Nazi Germany, while at the same time your employer is funding your German language training, then the limitations of prohibition and thought policing become obvious.

As the Internet becomes popularised through blogging and potentially, through webTV, these access restrictions, when perceived as illegitimate and prohibitive, will become ever more antagonistic and provocative.

The modern day book burners of Iran have no choice but to try to limit the influence of the Internet on their subject populations. At the same time, their clumsy attempts to control information reveals the illegitimacy of their politics and the poverty of their theocratic ideology.

Something Must Be Done

2004-06-23T10:15:00.000+01:00

Most people are aware of the dreadful child murders that took place in a village in the east of England a couple of years ago. It transpires that the police knew all about the predatory sexual history of the man responsible, but they kept losing his notes behind the filing cabinet. Worse than this, they actually deleted his records from their computer in the mistaken belief that they were following data-protection guidelines as issued by central government.

For this police incompetence and central government meddling, we all must pay. In my daughter’s school, anyone who volunteers to provide support activities to the school must now undergo police checks. This applies to anyone at all, even the young mom who goes in for an hour at lunchtime to stop the food fights.

That this measure will have no effect whatsoever in deterring the Ian Huntley’s of this world seems not to matter to the “we must be seen to be doing something” brigade. The police knew all about child-rapist Huntley, they just didn’t bother to dig behind the filing cabinet when the school contacted them for a background check when he applied for the caretaker position.

As my seven-year-old daughter piped up while my wife and I were discussing the new police-check requirement: “Don’t they know these people have their own children?”

Come to think of it, police checks for parents will be coming along next.

Blair Bats for France

2004-06-21T21:57:00.001+01:00

Just days after British voters registered a deep scepticism toward a United Europe, Tony Blair travelled to Brussels and signed the new European Constitution.

He got into a blistering argument with French President Jacques Chirac before he signed. But as The Telegraph explains, there is something staged about these Euro-rows and no one is fooled by them anymore.

Blair returned to Britain vowing to overturn the many “myths” that the British people cling to regarding the EU. Blair continues to portray anti-EU sentiment in Britain as either the product of ignorance, or of a last-gasp British nationalism.

To win the British people over, Blair will have to do more than soothe the injured pride of a once sovereign people. He will have to convince the British that joining a federal Europe dominated by the unreformed economies of France and Germany, will be good for the British economy.

The countries that are most resistant to the onward march of the European project are the same countries that have done the most to liberalise their economies in order to face the challenges of the global market. Britain led the process of economic liberalisation in the 1980’s, and Silvio Berlusconi’s Italy followed a decade later. Now the new republics of Eastern Europe have thrown off the shackles of state run economies, but only to find themselves wrestling with a new regulatory straightjacket sewn up in Brussels.

These countries look to Britain and the United States as the champions of freedom and of free trade. Because they are economically weak, their resistance to the protectionist and bureaucratic model of Europe has taken a political form. So Poland, for example, argued unsuccessfully for the reform of that icon of French protectionism, the Common Agricultural Policy. Receiving nothing but a Gallic shrug, it sent its troops to Iraq. This act did not merely display Polish loyalty to one of the author's of its national liberation: the United States; It also registered Polish defiance toward France and demonstrated that Poland was an independent nation with its own foreign policy.

This defiance helps to explain the savagery of French President Chirac when he turned on the new Europeans who had offered support for the American invasion of Iraq. When Chirac told these upstarts to "shut up," he was trying to close down an anti-EU rebellion that threatened to reveal that this internal debate among "partners" was really an old-style Continental power grab.

If France now succeeds in imposing on Europe its model of a federal Union, with a foreign policy dictated by Brussels, then not only will Poland's economic independence have been curtailed, but its brief period of political freedom will cease, as well.

The economies of France and Germany are both groaning under the burden of overly regulated business and industry, with entrenched state-owned monopolies and trade unions blocking economic reform. France and Germany are both so wedded to social solidarity, that they’ve built an economy too solid to absorb new workers or adapt to challenges in the global economy.

Last summer, France’s resistance to the modern world collided with reality. More than ten thousand elderly French people died in a heat-wave. Most of those who died were living in care homes without air conditioning. More importantly, the French habit of everyone going on holiday for the same two weeks meant that no one stayed at work to mop granny's brow. This squalid death toll is an indictment of modern France.

Another image of modern France is thousands of immigrants lined up along the English Channel desperate to cross to Britain. These camps were cleared only when Britain agreed to take all the inmates.

Many commentators have blamed this immigration on Britain’s generous welfare benefits. This is, at best, a partial explanation. Just as attractive to immigrants are the job opportunities and the social freedom found in Britain.

And while the British have worried about the impact of mass immigration on their own Island, few have noticed that they have made an important contribution to the stability of an increasingly brittle France. By maintaining more or less open borders, Britain has allowed hundreds of thousands of immigrants to leave a country of economic stagnation, cultural paralysis, and ethnic tension and to enter a more tolerant society offering social and economic opportunity.

France is the most enthusiastic proponent of a federal Europe, not just because it wants to build a counterweight to the Yanquis. France needs a protectionist European Union with a large market so that it can avoid the painful reforms that are necessary to make it competitive in the global economy. It seeks to avoid this reckoning by constructing a block of countries to be a buffer between itself and the modern world. Or put another way, it seeks to build an alliance against free trade. We have seen this thing before, if a bit farther to the east.

This policy may save France from having to make economic and social changes, but it is difficult to see how it benefits those European nations that are reforming their economies, even in the short term. In the longer term, French protectionism will be ruinous for the economy of Europe. And the French political model of bureaucratic centralism will breed an explosive reaction when it is backed up by the full force of a unified State.

France has managed to convince Europe's largest economy, Germany, that this is the road to travel down. The wonder is that it seems to be convincing Britain as well. The first anti-European "myth" that Tony Blair must overturn among his countrymen is the one that asks: When has it ever been Britain's role to help France achieve its foreign policy objectives?

Gulliver's Land

2004-06-21T08:18:00.000+01:00

No, this is not an essay comparing French anti-American posturing to the ridiculous antics of Swift's tiny Lilliputians. My boy turned 5 yesterday and to celebrate, we took the family to an amusement park in central England called Gulliver's Land.

This family-owned theme park is heavily influenced by Disney's Magic Kingdom - but about a quarter the size. It has a Main Street, a central castle, a steam train that runs around the perimeter, and zoned areas with rides and attractions.

In some ways Gulliver's Land is better than Disney. There were virtually no queues at the rides - and this on a Saturday in summer. One of the Park staff told me it only ever gets crowded on bank holiday Mondays.

There were also places to wander that did not involve shopping. There was less evidence of pester-power placement strategy here, than one finds at Disney.

Sensibly, given the British climate, the Park has many indoor activities and rides so that customers can escape the rain and cold. It rained while we were there but we still had plenty to do and see. There are various animatronic displays to walk through with buttons for a child to press and set in motion. Disappointingly, there was no Hall of the Prime Ministers, but the kids didn't seem to mind.

You get to walk around the turrets of the castle; something Disney's castle doesn't allow (and for the crowds, probably couldn't).

Best of all for Dad, the Park cost about a third as much as the Magic Kingdom.

The Park has a monorail, as the Magic Kingdom does. But you get round this monorail under your own pedal-power. Not only does this conserve electricity, it gives the visitor some exercise. Three or four such "exercise-rides" were scattered around the Park.

I couldn't help but think that Disney should incorporate rides like this in its Parks. Like McDonald's recent discovery of fresh salad, the Corporation could make its own contribution to fighting American obesity. They could post notices at the entrance to these rides, like the height-restriction signs, saying: "We recommend this ride to persons wider than this."

We visited the Magic Kingdom in Florida in the Spring. I asked the kids to rate the two theme parks from a choice of "not as fun," "as fun," and "more fun." They chose "as fun." Perhaps they were just being polite.

The Park was clean, uncrowded and the staff friendly. For a while (until it rained) I forgot that I was in England.

When I first arrived in the UK in the late 1970's, family entertainment consisted of a clapped-out travelling funfair in a muddy park. The arrival of quality family amusements, at a reasonable price, is a sign of progress. In fact, I think Disney should send some reps over to remind themselves how to do it.

Freeing the Serfs

2004-06-17T15:17:00.000+01:00

Maggie Thatcher freed the council tenant serfs of Britain. In the early 1980's, her first administration introduced the Right-to-Buy policy. Since that time almost 2 million former council tenants have bought their own homes. Britain’s home ownership level stands at nearly 70 percent, most of them freeholders.

Labour hasn’t yet dared to reverse this popular policy. It was one of the foundations of Thatcher’s electoral success and the reason she gained so much support from aspiring working people who had traditionally voted Labour.

Nevertheless, Labour blames Right-to-Buy for the current housing shortage. As usual, they want to destroy a success rather than fix a problem. Britain has a housing shortage because planning law is so complex and restricted that it is very difficult to get any houses built.

Labour complains that some of the ex-council properties are now being bought by private landlords. This is no doubt true in some areas and of certain types of properties. But it is just as likely that the new buyers will be a family like mine who want a nice big house but can’t afford a sought-after Victorian property. This seems like a good way to achieve those “mixed communities” that Labour’s always banging on about.

In any case, this antagonism to private landlords is another Labour prejudice. These ex-council properties rent for less than those nice Victorian houses or conversions. They are decent and affordable properties that are available to working people who aren’t “entitled” to a council flat.

When such property becomes vacant, the private landlord is much quicker than the council at getting the property re-let, as it’s his pocket, not the taxpayer’s, that’s being hit by the void.

In my neighbourhood, people are still buying their council houses. In fact, the houses they are buying are no longer owned by the Council. Last year, the Local Authority, with a huge sigh of relief, handed over its entire housing stock to a housing association. Housing associations are another Tory innovation, along with tenancy reform and Right-to-Buy, that encouraged Local Government to get out of the housing business. Housing association’s, too, have their critics. But the proof of their superiority to Council ownership can be seen in the better-maintained and nicer-looking housing stock all around us.

“Hold on a minute,” I hear Labour shout. "Housing associations are only better housing managers because they are allowed to invest in housing in ways that councils are not." The Tories did curtail the powers of Local Authorities to borrow money and to tax. But try to remember what Thatcher’s government was up against. Local Authorities had made a pigs-ear of housing management and were financially unaccountable. While councils were busy sending ten men to fix a street light, leaving the dead unburied, the rubbish uncollected, and declaring their patch of Britain a “Nuclear Free Zone,” their houses were falling down.

In my neighbourhood, the new HA is completely renovating the housing stock. The ugly pre-caste concrete houses that had been painted a piss-coloured yellow have been done up in handsome brick with little porches added to break up the 1950’s architectural monotony.

Prior to this investment you couldn’t get a mortgage on these houses. Lenders classified them as of substandard construction. As soon as mortgages were available and before the mortar dried, three of my neighbours have applied to buy. A few more are thinking about buying. There’s not much to think about. The houses have been valued at more than £150,000 and they are being offered to tenants for around £110,000.

There are individual reasons why some neighbours might not buy. One neighbour is about to retire and he questions whether there is really any point in buying now. He has no one to pass the house on to. He thinks it might be better to remain a tenant and let the HA worry about maintenance, especially as the new owners are so much more responsive to repair requests than the Council ever was. It’s his choice to make.

But to the younger families, and those with children, the decision to buy is a no-brainer. This isn’t just because, as Labour likes to point out, these people are hoping to get on the housing ladder, wait for prices to rise, cash in and move on. It’s because the children of these tenants have no automatic right to take over the property when mom and dad dies.

When that day comes, not only will they have to organise a funeral, they may also have to move. Many local authorities and HA’s have humane policies to deal with these eventualities, and if the property is deemed to be of a suitable size, they may allow the tenancy to be signed over to the child before the parent’s death. The point is, however, that the house does not belong to the family, its disposal will be in accordance with the Council's policy and procedure.

I’ve worked with numerous rough-sleepers in central London who were the victims of this situation. They were commonly single men in their 50’s and 60’s who had lived with mom in a council house all of their lives. Their story goes that Mom died and a few weeks later the Council sent a letter to the bewildered son telling him he was “under-occupying” and had to move. The Council offered “every assistance in finding suitable accommodation.” The man went down to the local office as directed and was greeted (or grunted at) by an official who pulled out a multi-coloured form of astonishing length and asked the man to start filling it in. At this point, my rough sleeper wandered off. Or he stuck with the bureaucratic process a bit longer, moved into the grungy bed-sit offered by the Council, but abandoned it a few weeks later because he couldn’t settle.

One might argue in some of these cases that it is the man’s social isolation that led him to wander off, not his insecure housing. Stronger individuals, like most women and people who have friends and family in the community, fight like hell to get the best they can from the Council or HA. But before Right-to-Buy, these people faced the prospect of fighting these battles with the council from generation to generation, in a dance of dependency with their modern Lord - the Local Authority. Millions gladly rejected this future in favour of home ownership.

Maggie freed the serfs but she was careful to protect the vulnerable. Under the Right-to-Buy legislation, housing for the elderly and for the disabled is exempt. It cannot be bought by tenants and then lost to the private sector when the owner sells the property to someone who doesn't need the adaptations. A few years ago, as a “Special Needs Officer” in a district council, I oversaw the complete adaptation of several homes to make them suitable for a person in a wheelchair.

These flats and houses are now available to severely disabled people for generations to come. I’m proud of my small contribution to the "special needs" housing stock in Bedfordshire. This is a fine example of "Tory" law. Perhaps the Labour Party suggested this amendment; I don't remember. But it’s an intelligent exemption and a civilised one. Such measured public policy and reform contrasts starkly with these Blairite years of frenetic, ineffectual and contradictory policies.

Labour is now busy rebuilding it’s lost council tenant voting base. This time its clients are public sector workers whose numbers are approaching six million. We will know that the Tories are back with a chance of power when Michael Howard and his shadow cabinet colleagues announce a policy that is as sound and liberating for the public sector as Right-to-Buy was for Britain’s tenant-serfs.

"Selective Renegotiation" or "Dude, where's my country?"

2004-06-15T12:27:00.000+01:00

The UK Independence Party did well in the Euro elections, winning third place in share of the vote and gaining 12 MEPs (Members of the European Parliament). The UKIP calls for Britain to withdraw from Europe. Across the Continent, rejectionist parties made substantial gains.

In Birmingham and the Midlands, 40% of the voters backed minority parties rather than Labour, Conservative or Social Democratic candidates. These “mainstream” parties favour further European integration. Polls consistently show that at least half of the British people is either in favour of withdrawal from Europe, or extremely sceptical of the benefits of further integration.

I waited eagerly for Mark Steyn’s analysis of these elections and, as ever, he did not disappoint. ("Pim Fortuyn got gunned down by a crazed vegetarian, the first fruitarian to kill a fruit Aryan.")

The UKIP’s success wasn’t really surprising. It had been assumed that while Labour would be hit by an anti-war vote, the Tories would lose out to the UKIP. The surprise is that the UKIP took millions of votes from all three of the "mainstream" parties.

The Europhiles suppose that opposition to Europe is evidence of a nationalism bordering on racism and is most prevalant among middle and upper-class Tories. In fact, the opponents of the European superstate are democrats. Democracy is not a class or race issue. Only Marxists and Euro-ideologues think that it is.

The Tory Leader Michael Howard has responded to the election result by slapping down a couple of his MP’s for debating whether Britain should withdraw from Europe. The last Tory government was wrecked by the European issue and Michael is trying to put a lid on the debate. Michael says that the Tory position on Europe is well known and has been carefully developed over nine years. He wants to "selectively renegotiate" with Europe on things like fishing rights.

But while Michael, should he ever be Prime Minister, is renogatiating fishing rights, the Europeans will continue to build a United Europe. The next step to further integration is that Europe becomes a country with its own Consitution, and thus Britain becomes a region of a new State. Does Michael really think the 30-year-old policy of Euro-deception by Britain's two main political parties can continue past this point?

If you selectively try to renegotiate the European Constitution, not only will you die of boredom as you read through its 265 pages, but in your willingness to engage in debate on its articles, you would have accepted its legitimacy. The British people do not accept it.

The threat of withdrawal is the necessary starting point in a negotiation with Brussels over the future of the EU. Brussels will happily have Michael over for a summit on fishing rights and allow him to loudly announce another major concession by the EU. This kind of charade is how Britain got to this point in the first place.

The British people have rumbled that the State of Europe is not up for negotiation and that the two leading parties are willing to surrender Britain to the EU. Having stumbled down the road of European integration for 30 years, the British have finally reached the border of the United States of Europe. They do not like the look of this new country. It does not look like a democracy.

A little prediction:

In the coming weeks I expect to see a British Europhile newspaper (that's most of them), print photos of one of the 12 UKIP representatives eating, laughing and perhaps drinking in a restaurant in Brussels. The headline will be something like: “No to Europe, But I’ll Have Another Beer.” This will “prove” how hypocritical is this Party that calls for withdrawal while enjoying the perks of being MEPs. They will have to behave like the New Puritans to avoid this.

***

If you're interested in this topic, and want to see how a grown-up columnist does it, have a look at this article by Robin Harris in The Telegraph. An extract below:

"Even before (Conservative) Central Office denounced UKIP as gadflies, and before Mr Howard smeared them as extremists, it was clear that the Tory party risked mortally offending its own supporters. UKIP voters were always likely to return to the Conservative fold at the general election, as long as they were not enraged into a lasting shift of allegiance.

Moreover, the latest opinion polls were already showing that 57 per cent of Tory voters wanted to leave the EU - a policy that the Tory leadership now branded as extreme. Mr Howard thus knowingly belittled the majority of his own party. The interesting question is, "Why?" The answer is that the leadership remains more interested in papering over cracks within the elite than it is in echoing the views of members or the feelings of the electorate. This is bad politics."

Roundabouts

2004-06-13T09:13:00.000+01:00

Is the British Army Corps of Royal Engineers building any roads in southern Iraq? I’m aware that the British and American armies are overseeing the building of hospitals and schools and other valuable infrastructure projects.

It’s just that, if the British are building roads, they will also be designing roundabouts. And if they are installing roundabouts in southern Iraq, I do hope someone has thought about providing Roundabout Awareness Training to the US allies.

Americans don’t do roundabouts. They do computer-programmed traffic light sequences where every lane in every direction is allocated its 5 seconds of green-light time. They have some circles in the road that look a bit like roundabouts, but they operate on completely different principles. First of all, you are allowed to go round them in both directions. This sounds alarming, and it is. Second, you usually have to pull up at a Stop sign before entering one, thus completely defeating the purpose of a roundabout.

Fortunately, for American accident statistics, most of the roundabouts I have seen are in leafy suburban streets where the 30 mph speed limit is strictly enforced and universally observed. And when two American drivers approach a roundabout at the same time, their mutual bewilderment encourages caution and an accident is usually avoided, though neither car is likely to move for a while.

Roundabouts are a British invention and as such, they reflect British culture and temperament. Roundabouts are a pragmatic approach to conflicting driver interests. And they have a proven track record of increasing traffic flow and reducing accidents. They do not require a traffic policeman or traffic lights to make them work. They do require that everyone observe a few simple rules.

Roundabouts work best when the majority of the drivers know where they are going. But they are quite wonderful at accommodating the minority who do not. Some people make several circuits before driving off on the wrong road, but they do so without stopping everyone else from getting around.

A civil engineer tried to improve on the roundabout design in a nearby town. He thought that by linking a chain of mini-roundabouts in a big circle, he would improve traffic flow. It looks good on paper, but is confusing as hell on the ground. He broke the first rule of roundabout design – keep it simple. A roundabout should be the same in London as it is in Delhi (though you might go round in the opposite direction). The humble British roundabout is an icon of effectiveness and simplicity. I hope they are popping up all over southern Iraq.

Why I Blog

2004-06-12T09:13:00.000+01:00

One of my wife’s friends paid us a visit yesterday. She asked me what I was doing as I typed away on my pc. So I gave her a brief run-down on the wonders of blogging.

“You should be a writer,” she said encouragingly, as I thumped away on my keyboard.

I’ve always wanted to be a writer. I have a two-year degree in journalism and as a young man, I made a number of unsuccessful attempts to break into newspaper work in the USA. I never seemed to make it past the Advertising Departments located on the ground floor of most US newspaper offices.

Now I thank my lucky stars I did not succeed. I admit there is an element of sour grapes in this, but I’d hate to see what ten years of objectivity training in a typical American newspaper would have done to my writing style, such as it is.

With the advent of blogging, I can sit at home and happily type away for hours. I may not have a readership, but hey, my dream is half-way fulfilled.

But what is the relationship of an amateur blogger to a grown up journalist who’s words appear in print or are transmitted on TV?

Well, in my brief time composing my blogs, I have come to suspect that what I am doing is almost exactly what the journalist at the NY Times or The Guardian do. Both of us get an idea, start typing and when a point is raised and memory fails, we do a quick Google search or check the online dictionary and away we go. Neither of us, at least when writing opinion columns, is likely to get on the 'phone and we’re even less likely to leave the office. There remains the honourable tradition of investigative journalism, and I do not belittle the energy and tenacity it must take to be a good beat reporter. But Jayson Blair has proved that the blogger and the newspaper writer are both susceptible to cutting corners or to indulging in sheer fabrication. The difference with the blog is that the NY Times decides whether it will publish the readers’ letter pointing out the inaccuracy of the article and this will happen days after the dishonest, lazy or merely incompetent journo has done his damage in print.

There’s nothing like the brutal peer review of a blog. Some of the comments could benefit from an edit, and I do wish people wouldn’t SHOUT so. But that’s democracy. And whatever else the NY Times is, it ain’t democracy and it ain’t the future.

Writers don’t write in order to make money. They write to be read. The programmers at the excellent blog service where my posts are made know this and they play up to it. After you have composed your blog, they let you push a little button marked “Publish” and, hey presto, you are a published writer.

But where’s the pay cheque, you ask? I ask myself the same question. A writer needs money so that instead of doing a real job, he can wander around the house bumping into things while composing sentences in his head. I’ll either figure out a way to leave my day job, or I’ll lose my wife and kids. I’m not giving up this keyboard now I’ve rediscovered it.

So I keep on thumping away and checking in with the excellent hits counter service at StatCounter to see if anybody other than Aunt Harriet has read my stuff (please keep reading Harriet.) Maybe one day a grown up journalist will post a comment. Then I’ll know that I have taken another small step toward the fulfillment of the other half of my writer’s dream.

A Killing Contest

2004-06-11T11:25:00.000+01:00

In The Spectator Diary this week, Sir Max Hastings takes a swipe at “Anglo-American triumphalists,” whom he fears may have developed a certain smugness during last week's D-Day anniversary ceremonies. He makes the point that the Russian Army was the hammer that smashed the Wehrmacht, and sympathises with the Russians' contemptuous view of the Allied contribution to the Nazi's defeat. Then he rather spoils his thesis by comparing the kill rates of the Red Army and the Allied forces:

“Consider a statistic: in the second world war British and US ground troops killed about 200,000 German soldiers. The Russians killed more than 3 million.”

Max's statistic highlights the barbarous nature of the war between Hitler and Stalin. He quotes a Russian Major saying "We never felt any weakening of German pressure because of what the Western Allies were doing." This is no doubt true, but the German Army resisted the Red Army so ferociously because they rightly feared the deadly Russian counter attack. The German Army's genocidal attack on Eastern Europe provoked a ruthless response from the Red Army. I think Antony Beevor allocates the blame for the horror that was the Eastern Front more or less fairly in his excellent book Berlin: The Downfall 1945.

The Red Army's relative success in killing German soldiers is no reproach to the Allies. One could say that per mile of territory won, the Allies kill rate was remarkably low, while the Russian's was particularly high. That the war between the Fascists and the Stalinists was more bloody than the war between the democracies and the Fascists tells us something about the different ways democracies and dictatorships wage war.

For a democracy, an overriding consideration in military strategy is to limit the suffering of the enemy to a minimum commensurate with winning the war. A democracy at war carries with it the hope that today’s enemy will become tomorrow’s democratic ally.

The Western Front, with its lower death rate, reflects well on the Allies, just as the remarkably low death rate in Iraq today reflects well on these same two democracies. To equate the war of liberation in the West with the war of conquest and enslavement in the East, helps to explain why great minds like those of Sir Max are unable to offer a fair-minded critique of the actions being taken today in defence of the democratic world.

I like The Spectator, though the aforementioned contribution doesn't even merit space on a blog. Having said that, the magazine’s leader column on optimism is so good that I, an eternal pessimist, am going to cut it out and carry it with me in my breast pocket.

The Withdrawal Method

2004-06-10T23:23:00.000+01:00

Britain’s withdrawal from the EU is still a political fantasy, but it is no longer a fantasy that can be supressed. The UK Independence Party has, at the very least, provided a democratic means for the many Britons who do not want to become citizens of a country called Europe to register a protest. I agree this new Party does have a strange secessionist strategy – to send new European Members off to Brussels to partake of the delicious beer. But withdrawal can now be mentioned in polite company, and for that, the UKIP deserves credit.

The withdrawal fantasy has been considered improper in polite circles, because, as the pro-Europeans would have it, the benefits of EU membership are too obvious to be open to debate. One only has to look across the Atlantic at the Americans to see the benefits of federation. I, for one, am always happy to hear that Europeans want to emulate America.

The other reason that withdrawal is a dirty word is that "ever closer union" is the path by which Europe will ensure that "nation shall no longer make war against nation.”

One cannot simply dismiss this European fear of conflict. I have a die-hard anti-European friend, who, when I get carried away about Brussels, gently reminds me that, for Europe, the historical alternative to endless jaw-jaw and red tape is not a pretty sight.

But this negative reason for forming a country called Europe can only take one so far. The United States wasn’t formed because the state of Georgia thought that unless it threw its lot in with New York, it would, instead, attack it. There was a unity of purpose between the two very different colonies to begin with. However, it is true that it was Great Britain that, as an external enemy, helped to forge the Republic’s unity. There is also truth in the argument that some American rebels actually incited Britain into a crisis with the Colonies. In the same way, it is hard not to see in the French anti-American pose, a strategy to rally the Europeans to embrace political unity, today.

But if, as the pro-Europeans hysterically remind us, the EU is the only thing saving the Continent from another outbreak of murderous Euro-nationalism, or, on the other hand, political Union is the only counterweight to those dreadful Americans, then Britain is, at least, entitled to pause and try to figure out where its vital interests lie.

If the EU's purpose is to save Europeans from their racist selves, then Britain would do well to walk away from such an unstable continent. If this is Europe's fate but for a bureaucratic dictatorship from Brussels, then Britain's history of standing aloof from the quagmire of Europe while trying to carry on economic trade with it, will be its future as it has been its past.

And if the European superstate is to be a counterweight to the United States of America, it is not at all obvious why Britain would support such a project. I know instinctively that such thinking is a non-starter for Britain. This isn't because I am an Anglo-Saxon American and have an instinctive cultural affinity with the British people. It is because Europe as counterweight to America is not a British policy and never has been. The counterweight policy is a product of French history and foreign policy. And there's nothing wrong in that. But it would be odd, to say the least, for Britain to adopt France's foreign policy.

But these "ifs" and "buts" are all red herrings. If Britain were to leave the EU there would be no civil war in Europe. In fact, the effects of such a decision would be almost completely benign. Germany and France would continue their mutual love feast until such time as Germany began to complain about paying for every meal. The “two speed” Europe would not happen – Britain would have redefined the future of an enlarged Europe, as it has done many times in the past. Intellectuals in Paris would splutter into their coffees, but French, German and other European peoples, on the whole, would breathe a sigh of relief that they could retain their national identity and customs. There might be the risk of a Euro collapse, but it is more likely the currencies would return to their national homes, only now they would be called “Euro-Marks” and “Euro-Liras.” This would help Prodi and his Eurocrats save face. There would doubtless be some economic pain in this reversal, but not much more than the pain caused by the general inflation that swept Europe with the arrival of the single currency or the economic straightjacket that the smaller European nations have had to wear, ever since.

Not becoming a European superstate will be good for Europe. When this Rubicon is crossed, it will not be a day of mourning or foreboding. The EU is such a corrupt and clumsily bureaucratic entity that the final demise of the superstate dream will feel like a liberation. The only force that is resisting the re-assertion of national democratic legitimacy and that could provoke bloodshed in Europe is the EU itself. The nations of Europe are at peace with each other because they are democracies and they are free. Peace in Europe exists despite the EU, not because of it.

The enlargement of the EU has reinstated Britain’s age-old role as a builder of European alliances in the face of flamboyant pan-nationalist dreamers like Napolean and Hitler. Is it too much to hope that Britain will encourage Germany to walk down the road of (Thatcherite) economic reform and leave it’s Gallic lover in a dirigiste cul de sac of high unemployment and social and cultural decay? There are signs from Germany that that country’s political elite is at last starting to embrace reform. In France, the debate has barely begun – they’ll follow along in their own time.

"An ever closer union" is the real fantasy of Europe and the question the Continent faces is actually one from the Century just gone: How well rooted and secure are the democratic institutions of Germany and of France and can both or either country withstand what will be a protracted and difficult period of economic, and at least in France’s case, political and social, reform?

George Miller
London
June 10, 2004

Ducking and Diving

2004-06-10T16:39:00.000+01:00

Britain is rediscovering ducking and diving. I presume this cockney phrase originates from the image of a thief ducking and diving around the corner - someone will correct me if I’m wrong. It’s true that the country has always had these types. They rose to prominence before the Thatcher era when, you might remember, it was impossible to get anything done without developing your ducking and diving skills. So most small businessmen, from window cleaners on up, did a bit of ducking and diving and these skills became associated with the working man and with tax avoidence.

Thatcher devalued the ducking and diving currency by reducing regulation and privatising nationalised industries whose main purpose was to serve their workforce and thwart the public. But in Blair’s Britain, the ducker and diver is making a comeback, and it's not just working class geezers that are doing it. A recent report conducted by the TV Licensing Agency (another fine example of a quango expanding its sphere of activity, this time into academic study) found that, in fact, it is the middle and upper classes that do the most cheating in society. Now, this is probably not fair – the study might have made this finding because the middle classes, being basically honest, are most likely to admit that they cheat.

But there are good examples of middle class cheating. Everyone knows about paying cash for services and avoiding Value Added Tax (VAT). It’s done all the time. It’s so commonplace that the middle classes don’t even feel awkward doing it anymore. VAT-free skip hire is a good example. Where there was once a wink from the driver and an embarrassed grin from the homeowner, the driver now arrives expecting cash and can never find the pen when you take out your cheque book. This really is no big deal and even Gordon Brown is probably sanguine about it. But it is the growth in the number of regulations and fees that beg to be flouted, that is probably at the root of the increased cheating.

A friend tells me that in the London Borough of Haringey, the Council now charges people 50 quid for the right to put a skip in front of their house. I lived in Haringey a few years back, and paid nothing to park a skip there, at the time. I merely registered with the Council and was given a free license. I thought this licensing system was sensible. It allowed the Council to know where obstructions were on the roads and I imagine it meant they were better able to deal with complaints from neighbours. But now, in a Borough with its fair share of dilapidated houses, the fix-it-upper family or developer has to pay out 50 quid for the mere parking of a receptacle that is essential to property regeneration. This is on top of the 150 quid he is going to pay, half of which is made up of European-inspired "green" taxation, to have the skip taken away. You might think Haringey would do everything it could to encourage the redevelopment of their crappy housing infrastructure. At the least, they might only impose a fee that reflects the admin costs of the licensing scheme. But no, they place yet another tax on development and regeneration in a deprived area.

But the point of all this is that very few people pay this charge. Instead they duck and dive. It’s all cash in hand and builders make sure the skip goes in and out on the same day. No one leaves a skip hanging about on the street for weeks piling up with old mattresses until an environmental officer sees it and tickets you for the permit fee. Come to think of it, this is the unintended benefit of this stupid policy. So develops a culture of non-compliance and tax avoidance.

Nanny Returns

One of the most depressing things about Blair’s Britain is that the nanny state has come roaring back to life. Chancellor Gordon Brown has been midwife to it. Gordon loves playing with your money so much that he introduced a second annual budget so that he could fiddle away at double time. Gordon has made anyone who has children a welfare benefit claimant. You can apply for some of your tax money back – and you’ll get something back even if you’re earning more than 60k, apparently. My wife and I have had a nice whack every month and, for this, I am grateful to Uncle Gordon. He might have kept his hand out of my wallet in the first place.

This money is supposed to cover childcare cost, ‘cause Gordan’s female friends in Government have also decided that in order to discourage parenting, all moms should go out to work. Every woman must work, you see, even if she’d really rather take little Johnny to the park. It’s all about female emancipation, innit?

On Gordon’s application form, you have to prove to the government that you are actually paying money to an approved childminder (Gordon provides the list). It’s no good telling the Treasury that Johnny goes to grandma’s in the mornings – Gordon won’t give you any of your money back for that. It’s his money, he’ll decide how you spend it.

When the approved childcare costs stop, Gordon turns off the tap. You have to tell him about this change of circumstance, otherwise he’ll demand backpayment when his minions phone the nursery to check the register.

My wife has now submitted the forms and confessed that the day care payments have stopped. I have no idea how deep will be the cut that Gordon now makes to my tax rebate. I have no earthly idea how he arrived at the rebate figure in the first place. But the joy we felt on receiving Gordon’s cheque is now replaced by contempt as he whips it away. We’ve grown used to the money, it was an important addition to our monthly income and, surprise, surprise, raising a child didn’t all of a sudden become free when my little boy started “big” school.

More gauling than my temporary cash flow problems, is the pervasive feeling that I am becoming, step by step, less in control of my own financial life and a bit more part of the great corporation that is Gordon’s Britain. So tip your cap to the greatest ducker and diver of them all. And ask yourself if it is not beginning to smell, faintly, like Britain in the 70’s.

Election Day UK

2004-06-10T08:51:00.000+01:00

Last week I was discussing something about the European Union with my brother who lives in the United States, when he asked me whether the UK was in the EU. Imagine me asking him whether Texas was a constituent part of the United States.

I don’t think my brother is particularly ill-read. He is a little busy at the moment, having recently become a father while at the same time completing his tax return and annual billing round. Maybe he got confused because the UK has not joined the European currency. I don’t blame him for being confused. I live in the UK and I am confused about the EU.

But, I’m afraid, the UK is most definitely in the EU, though for how long, and how this unhappy relationship is going to develop, is increasingly open to question.

Britons go to the polls today for an election that drives home to everyone just how bureaucratic and undemocratic Europe and, for that matter, Britain, has become. In fact, many won’t be going to the polls because the Labour government has launched a typically muddled and bureaucratic postal ballot system that has apparently led to massive fraud and may undermine the integrity of the election itself. Keep an eye on the news because the political fallout if this happens will make the Florida hanging-chads spat look as trivial a process-issue as it was.

For a more articulate analysis of this election, have a look at Janet Daley’s piece in the Telegraph yesterday. Janet is another American ex-pat, an Anglophile, whose thinking and writing displays a wonderful, instinctive, conservativism. I like everything she writes.

Basically, the British are today going to vote for two sorts of representatives – local government councillors and EU members. As neither of the institutions that these candidates will join are remotely interested in the day-to-day concerns of the electorate, it would seem that a new party calling for British withdrawal from the EU - the UK Independence Party - is going to do well and especially damage the Conservatives. I should rephrase that: The local government councillors are very interested in what the electorate thinks, but they control neither their budgets, nor have the power, to do anything about it. And EU members? They are pigs traveling to the Brussels trough. In fact, the EU is so obviously a corrupt, incompetent, and outrageously bureaucratic entity, that the UKIP must be considered faintly ridiculous to be putting up candidates to join a body it wants to secede from. When, and if, they get to Brussels – will UKIP members really walk away from that scrumptious Belgian beer?

Despite the high hopes (I still have them) invested in the newish Conservative leader, Michael Howard has blown an uncertain trumpet in this campaign, and, again, as Janet has pointed out, it is not at all clear what a vote for the Conservatives means, at the present time. On the main questions of the day – Immigration/terrorism/Europe and taxation/public sector reform, the Conservatives continue to be all over the place. It’s not clear that they want Britain to remain an independent nation or become part of a country called Europe, and it isn’t even clear that they understand why and how they need to cut taxes and reform the bloated, and parasitical, public services.

If I see any ballot papers blowing in the wind today, I’d still be inclined to tick the box marked “Conservative.” But only just.

George Miller
London
June 10, 2004

My Little Brother

2004-06-10T01:01:00.000+01:00

My little brother got me going on a blog. He's a good brother.

Reagan the Revolutionary

2004-06-08T20:30:00.000+01:00

This article by Jim Geraghty argues that certain aspects of former President Ronald Reagan’s political achievements, such as his contribution to the collapse of Soviet Communism, have attained an historical finality and are beyond dispute to all but the most willfully blind. Geraghty cites numerous examples of Western "intellectuals" who grossly exaggerated the strength of the Soviet Bloc economies and societies prior to their spectacular collapse. These examples reminded me of my university days spent in Manchester, England. I finished my degree (history and politics) in 1987 after reading and regurgitating numerous essays on the strength of Communist society relative to Western democracy (I remember the German Democratic Republic, in particular, was held up as a shining example). Of course, this is the same year Reagan went to Berlin and challenged Gorbachev to "tear down this wall!" Two years later, millions joyfully clambered over the ruined wall to breathe freedom for the first time.

I was so indoctrinated about the superiority of all things Soviet and the invincibility of the Soviet Union that I remember sharing the derision of my academic colleagues that the jellybean-eating Dr. Strangelove in the White House would actually think that saying such a corny thing could have any effect. So, after 1989, when the Wall was torn down, and for several years following, I went around saying: "Communism is collapsing in Eastern Europe." I repeated this phrase like a mantra in order to get the concept to stick in a mind brainwashed by a British university. I repeat the phrase, occasionally, even now, to remind myself of those days of breathtaking political revolution and so as not to forget that the deceit and/or willful ignorance on the part of many in the academic establishment, is an unfortunate feature of the Western world.

Before the Revolutions of 1989, what looked like a distant dream or, even, an impossibility, afterwards has come to appear as somehow inevitable. But those events did not seem inevitable at the time. I remember, in those weeks, waiting and expecting the Empire to Strike Back, as it had in 1956 against Hungarian democrats and against the Czechs in the Prague Spring of 1968. But the Empire folded. It was, as Reagan had seen many years earlier, a hollowed out shell of an ideology and a broken down political, social and economic system.

The Western world's Soviet apologists who played up the supposed invincibility of Soviet Communism, will now look anywhere but to the Western democracies for the revolutionary ideas and inspiration that collapsed the Evil Empire. Today, like Time Magazine in 1989, who proclaimed the reformer Gorbachev “Man of the Decade,” they insist that the revolutions were inevitable, something to do with the reassertion of national identity, and, occasionally, the Pope may get a deserved mention. But Ronald Reagan's role? You must be joking. And these are the same critics who currently disparage President Bush for his witless suggestion that democracy and freedom are the driving force that will undermine and eventually destroy the ideology of theocratic and militant Islam.

The Soviet Union collapsed under the force of its own contradictions (as the Marxists would say) and this collapse was precipitated by relentless political, economic, military and moral pressure applied by the United States. This policy of confronting the Soviet Empire on all levels was developed and applied with boldness by the visionary President Reagan. As the humiliating August 1991 coup against Gorbachev demonstrated, the Russian President was the servant and eventually, the victim, of events. On the other hand, by 1991, former President Reagan was kicking his heels on his California ranch, watching the sun rise to a new dawn of freedom that he had predicted decades earlier.

The events leading up to the 1989 Revolutions are complicated, as are all revolutionary epochs, and arguments about who did what and why will soon fill up libraries everywhere, knocking treatises on 1789, 1848 and 1917 off the shelves. And professors will tell a new generation a pack of half-truths and distortions, belittling the role of Western values and of democratic leaders and spending hours in seminars on Iran/contra while their students are forced to rediscover Reagan’s Berlin speech on the internet. However, we have the evidence, on video, of the President of the American Republic standing in Berlin in 1987, appealing directly to the subjugated people of Eastern Europe to throw off their chains. Who would have thought that the most effective revolutionary visionary and strategist of the late 20th Century would be a conservative president of a democratic republic? Certainly I, indoctrinated to believe that radicalism was the preserve of the Left, did not think it remotely possible - hence my mantra and hence the realization, in his death, that Reagan, already a figure of immense importance to people who love liberty, will be regarded as one of history’s great democratic leaders.

Before I die I hope, if God is willing, to be able to say something like: "Democracy has taken root in the Muslim world." When that day comes I expect I will have to repeat this phrase over and over again, until, as the saying goes, I internalize it. But after Reagan’s legacy of optimism and his confidence in the revolutionary potential of democracy and freedom, I do not think I will be quite as surprised as I was on the day that Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe.