Not a royalist

Posted on October 12, 2012 by Antigone1984.com

Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context. 

12 October 2012

“The people will not be truly free until the last king has been strangled in the entrails of the last priests.”

Declaration attributed to Joseph François Laignelot (1752-1829), French revolutionary and playwright. Laignelot, a montagnard (radical republican), voted in the Convention for the execution in 1993 of King Louis XVI.  An opportunist, he switched his allegiance to the reaction after the coup d’état of 9 Thermidor 1794, which toppled the revolutionary leader Maximilien de Robespierre and ended the Reign of Terror. Subsequently, however, Laignelot was charged with supporting the proto-Communist conspirator Gracchus Babeuf (who was guillotined by the Directoire in 1797) but was acquitted. Thereafter he appears to have devoted himself mainly to writing unsuccessful plays.

‪————–

 You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts.  For instance:

1. Why? or How? That is the question (3 Jan 2012)

2. Partitocracy v. Democracy (20 July 2012)

3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices (2 Feb 2012)

4. Capitalism in practice  (4 July 2012) 

5.Ladder  (21 June 2012)

 6. A tale of two cities (1)  (6 June 2012)

 7. A tale of two cities (2)  (7 June 2012)

 8. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat (31 Jan 2012)

Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.

——————

Posted in France, Politics | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Catch-22

Posted on October 11, 2012 by Antigone1984.com

Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context. 

11 October 2012

The policy differences between the two main political parties that alternate in power in so-called western democracies are negligible where they are not non-existent.

This is a fact that Antigone1984 has highlighted repeatedly.

The evidence for it is overwhelming. Take Britain, for instance, where the ruling Tory Party ousted the Labour Party from power in 2010.

Here is a snippet from a political report by Jonathan Freedland in today’s London Guardian:

“[The Labour] party has been hesitant on education and welfare, unsure whether to oppose government reforms or back them as completing a job Blair started.”

The welfare changes referred to involve sending the sick and disabled back to work. The educational changes involve privatising state education.

Both of these changes – they can hardly be described as “reforms” – were initiated by former Labour Prime Minister Anthony Blair (often referred to as “Blurr” by Antigone1984 since he jibbed at straight talking, preferring to use vague and abstract language that was content-free).

So you can see the dilemma for the Labour Party.

Since it is the main opposition party, its role is to oppose the government.

However, how can it oppose the government if the government is simply carrying forward – as is the case  – regressive changes initiated by the egregious Blurr, its former leader.

However, this problem is not limited to welfare and education. There is hardly a government policy that Labour would not itself be implementing were it in power.

Which is why Labour faces an impossible task as it seeks to differentiate itself from the Tory Government in the eyes of the electorate.

[This subject is discussed further in our post “Partitocracy v. Democracy”, which can be accessed by clicking on item 2 below]

————–

You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts.  For instance:

1. Why? or How? That is the question (3 Jan 2012)

2. Partitocracy v. Democracy (20 July 2012)

3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices (2 Feb 2012)

4. Capitalism in practice  (4 July 2012) To view this post, check out:       http://wp.me/p1UeCC-gZ

5.Ladder  (21 June 2012)

 6. A tale of two cities (1)  (6 June 2012) To view this post, check out:       http://wp.me/p1UeCC-f8

 7. A tale of two cities (2)  (7 June 2012) To view this post, check out:       http://wp.me/p1UeCC-ff

 8. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat (31 Jan 2012)

Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.

——————

 

 

Posted in Politics, UK | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Bugsplat

Posted on October 10, 2012 by Antigone1984.com

Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context. 

10 October 2012

BUGSPLAT

Bugsplat: that is the quaint terminology reportedly used by US troops to designate Pakistanis killed by bombs or rockets fired by unmanned remoted-controlled CIA drones at computer-identified heat-emitting targets (ie human beings) in South Waziristan in the country’s northwestern tribal belt. According to western media reports, all military-age males killed by the drones are simply assumed to be enemy combatants, while the women and children killed in the attacks are, well, just “collateral damage”. Pakistan denies giving the US permission to use the drones on its territory, but the US uses them anyway. That’s what you can do if you are the world’s sole superpower. Normally, you need a country’s permission if you go in and bomb part of its territory. Otherwise, well, you’re kind of invading that country. Normally, too, under the rule of law you’re supposed to give suspects a fair trial and only if they’re found guilty can they legitimately be punished. But why bother about legal niceties like that if you’ve infringed the country’s sovereignty anyway? After the atrocious and indefensible slaughter at the World Trade Center in New York on 11 September 2001, for a trillionth of a second bemused Americans asked themselves, “Why do they hate us?” Unfortunately, they didn’t wait to figure out an answer before, shooting from the hip, they invaded the Middle East and Central Asia. And now it’s Pakistan’s turn to be in the firing-line. If they had waited first and sought an answer to that question, they could have saved themselves a lot of money and trouble – and hundreds of thousands of people now dead, including American soldiers, would still be alive. You see, it all comes down to bugsplat, really.  Bugsplat. That’s why they hate you.

Editorial note: Don’t know what bugsplat is? Then you’ve never driven a car.

————–

 You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts.  For instance:

1. Why? or How? That is the question (3 Jan 2012)

2. Partitocracy v. Democracy (20 July 2012)

3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices (2 Feb 2012)

4. Capitalism in practice  (4 July 2012)

5.Ladder  (21 June 2012)

 6. A tale of two cities (1)  (6 June 2012)

 7. A tale of two cities (2)  (7 June 2012)

 8. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat (31 Jan 2012)

Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.

——————

 

 

Posted in Afghanistan, Iraq, Military, Pakistan, USA | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

“Those were the days, my friend….

Posted on October 9, 2012 by Antigone1984.com

Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context. 

9 October 2012

……WE THOUGHT THEY’D NEVER END”

Lyrics from Mary Hopkin’s 1968 single

The following is a trio of extracts from “Loose Change: Three Women of the Sixties” by Sara Davidson (b. 1943), which was published to acclaim in 1977. It charts the real-life experiences of three friends who met up at the Berkeley campus of the University of California – Sara (the author), Tasha and Susie –as they witnessed and took part in the social and political upheavals of the period from 1963 to 1973. It was a decade during which the Youth of America protested against the Vietnam War, then in full swing, and wore flowers in their hair (as Scott McKenzie noted).  Those who summed up the zeitgeist included Simon and Garfunkel (“Bridge over Troubled Water”), Albert Hammond (“The Free Electric Band”) and Don McLean (“American Pie”). This was the decade of communes, marijuana, the sexual revolution and the seminal Woodstock Festival of Peace and Music, which took place in 1969 before an audience of half a million.

I The first extract from “Loose Change” encapsulates the exuberant hopes of youth. “We Shall Overcome,” sang Joan Baez in 1963. The next year, in “The Times They Are a-Changin’ ”, Bob Dylan warned the nation’s old’uns: “Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command.”

“In that time, that decade which belonged to the young, we had thought life was free and would never run out. There were good people and bad people and we could tell them apart by a look or by words spoken in code. We were certain we belonged to a generation that was special. We did not need or care about history because we had sprung from nowhere. We said what we thought and demanded what was right and there was no opposition. Tear gas and bullets, but no authentic moral opposition because what could that be? ‘When you’re older you’ll see things differently’ ?  We had glimpsed a new world where nothing would be the same and we had packed our bags.”

II. In second extract, from the last chapter of the book, these hopes have been dashed. “The Carnival is over,” sang the Seekers.

“We had predicted that the center could not hold but it had, and now we were in pieces. ‘Loose change,’ I told a friend….I felt I had blown it, my generation had blown it, the sixties had blown it, and we would never again see the heights.”

III. The third extract (written in July 1976 at Venice, California) follows immediately on from the second and testifies to a resurgence of hope, albeit this time on a largely personal plane, the political element being considerably weakened.

“And then, one day this summer, I heard myself reciting that line and became aware that I don’t feel that way any more. Not at all….I suppose I could give reasons why I no longer feel despairing or disillusioned. I could talk about the concrete, lasting effects of the decade: the end of the draft; the profound revolution in sexual relationships; the granting of the right to vote to eighteen-year-olds and the right to abortion to women. And so on. But reasons are not what it’s about….What I know is that the world seems interesting this summer….Last week, I learned how to juggle, bought a backpacking tent, read a new novel, wrote twenty pages in my journal and had intense encounters with old and new friends. I could feel a stirring in the air, a quickening impulse, and I thought about moving out again, and on.”

————–

 You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts.  For instance:

1. Why? or How? That is the question (3 Jan 2012)

2. Partitocracy v. Democracy (20 July 2012)

3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices (2 Feb 2012)

4. Capitalism in practice  (4 July 2012)

5.Ladder  (21 June 2012)

 6. A tale of two cities (1)  (6 June 2012)

 7. A tale of two cities (2)  (7 June 2012)

 8. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat (31 Jan 2012)

Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.

——————

Posted in Music, USA | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“It never did me any harm”

Posted on October 8, 2012 by Antigone1984.com

Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context. 

8 October 2012

Thou shalt bruise them with a rod of iron: and break them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.

Psalm 2, verse 9  (Book of Common Prayer text, 1662)

The following is an extract from “A Cab at the Door”, the first volume, published in 1968, of the autobiography of Ipswich-born UK novelist and critic V. S. Pritchett (1900-1997). It concerns Rosendale Road School at Herne Hill, London, which Pritchett joined at the age of 11. The pupils who attended came mainly from working-class and lower middle-class backgrounds.

“In most schools such a crowd [of pupils] was kept in order by the cane. Girls got it as much as the boys and snivelled afterwards. To talk in class was a crime, to leave one’s desk inconceivable. Discipline was meant to encourage subservience, and to squash rebellion – very undesirable in children who would grow up to obey orders from their betters. No child here would enter the ruling classes unless he was very gifted and won scholarship after scholarship. A great many boys from these schools did so and did rise to high places; but they had to slave and crush part of their lives, to machine themselves so that they became brain alone. They ground away at their lessons, and, for all their boyhood and youth and perhaps all their lives, they were in the ingenious torture chamber of the examination halls. They were brilliant, of course, and some when they grew up tended to be obsequious to the ruling class and ruthless to the rest, if they were not tired out. Among them were many who were emotionally infantile.”

————–

 You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts.  For instance:

1. Why? or How? That is the question (3 Jan 2012)

2. Partitocracy v. Democracy (20 July 2012)

3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices (2 Feb 2012)

4. Capitalism in practice  (4 July 2012)

5.Ladder  (21 June 2012)

 6. A tale of two cities (1)  (6 June 2012)

 7. A tale of two cities (2)  (7 June 2012)

 8. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat (31 Jan 2012)

Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.

——————

 

 

Posted in Education, Literature, UK | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Hats off to fat cat

Posted on October 7, 2012 by Antigone1984.com

Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context. 

7 October 2012

Hats off to James Gorman, head honcho of US investment bank Morgan Stanley, for telling it like it is.

It’s not often that Antigone1984 sings a paean of praise to a Wall Street gombeen man.

But Morgan Stanley chief executive Gorman has broken ranks with his fat cat peers to attack stratospheric pay levels – in Wall Street, no less.

The standard downtown line is that high pay is necessary to attract the best talent (presumably they mean the financial whizz kids who engineered the financial crash that triggered the current worldwide recession).

Gorman disagrees.

He told the Financial Times: “Compensation is way too high. As a shareholder I’m sort of sympathetic to the shareholder view that the industry is still overpaid.”

Morgan Stanley itself is shedding jobs and cutting pay.

In a report in the London Guardian on 6 October 2012, Gorman said that in the past bankers’ pay had always increased with revenues, but never came down when revenues fell.

“That’s a classic Wall Street case of ‘heads I win; tails you lose’,” he said.

The Guardian points out that Gorman’s comments follow announcements from a string of European banks ceding to pressure from shareholders over pay. According to the paper, Deutsche Bank said last month that it was cutting bonuses and would spend less of its revenue on pay. UBS reportedly said it was considering capping bonuses and linking them to the bank’s profitability.

————–

 You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts.  For instance:

1. Why? or How? That is the question(3 Jan 2012)

2. Partitocracy v. Democracy (20 July 2012)

3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices(2 Feb 2012)

4. Capitalism in practice  (4 July 2012)

5.Ladder  (21 June 2012)

 6. A tale of two cities (1)  (6 June 2012)

 7. A tale of two cities (2)  (7 June 2012)

 8. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat(31 Jan 2012)

Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.

——————

Posted in Economics, USA | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Circumcision

Posted on October 6, 2012 by Antigone1984.com

Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context. 

6 October 2012

THE MUTILATION OF BABIES

Germany plans shortly to pass a law legalising circumcision.

This follows a ruling by a court in Cologne in June 2012 that the religious practice, which is common among Jews and Muslims, amounts to bodily harm.

The ruling has sparked a sharp reaction, particularly from Jews living in Germany.

Welcoming the Government’s plans to override the Cologne court, Dieter Graumann, President of the Central Council of Jews, said : “It is a clear political signal that Jews and Muslims continue to be welcome in Germany. We are glad that Jewish laws, and with it Jewish life, will not be deemed illegal.”

According to the proposals, with the parents’ consent, a doctor or “someone skilled as a doctor” will be entitled to cut off the prepuce of boys up to six months old.

The story is carried in a dispatch from Berlin by Louise Osborne that is published today in the UK’s Guardian newspaper.

Antigone1984 comments:

The Government of Chancellor Angela Merkel is clearly trapped between the devil and the deep blue sea.

Readers who have checked out our Mission Statement at the top of our Home Page will know that Antigone1984 “believes that the systematic slaughter of 6 million Jews by the Nazis in World War II was the greatest crime in the history of humanity.”

Germany will rightly harbour guilt about the Holocaust till the end of time.

This understandable guilt explains why the German Government is moving so swiftly to quash the Cologne court ruling.

However, readers of this blog will also know that, as far as Antigone1984 is concerned, two wrongs do not make a right.

Circumcision is a barbaric ritual involving the forcible mutilation of the natural body of a defenceless baby that is not of an age to give its assent to the aggression. The consent of the parents is irrelevant. It is the rights of the child that are at stake. The excision of a normal foreskin has no medical justification.

Circumcision as a religious rite is, therefore, in our view, unconditionally wrong.

The German Government is therefore inappellably at fault when it attempts to assuage German war guilt by infringing the human rights of the child. Every child born to woman is entitled to the preservation of its bodily integrity.

The German Government’s intervention reminds us of  Abraham sacrificing Isaac for a supposedly higher end.  Chapter 22 of Genesis makes it crystal-clear that for Abraham to have gone ahead with the sacrifice would have been an abomination.

Readers of our Mission Statement will also be aware that the prism through which Antigone1984 views contemporary politics can be summed up in the following principle, which is applicable at all times and in all circumstances without exception: the end does not justify the means.

————–

  You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts.  For instance:

1. Why? or How? That is the question(3 Jan 2012)

2. Partitocracy v. Democracy (20 July 2012)

3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices(2 Feb 2012)

4. Capitalism in practice  (4 July 2012)

5.Ladder  (21 June 2012)

 6. A tale of two cities (1)  (6 June 2012)

 7. A tale of two cities (2)  (7 June 2012)

 8. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat(31 Jan 2012)

Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.

——————

 

 

Posted in Germany, Israel, Religion | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Land grab

Posted on October 5, 2012 by Antigone1984.com

Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context. 

5 October 2012

International land speculators and biofuel producers have taken over land around the world capable of feeding nearly a billion people, according to the charity Oxfam. The land is either left idle till its value increases or used to grow biofuels for vehicle propulsion in the US or Europe.

In a report published on 4 October 2012 and extensively covered in the UK’s Guardian newspaper, Oxfam says the global land rush is out of control.  It calls on the World Bank to freeze its investments in large-scale land acquisitions to send a strong signal to global investors to stop land grabs.

According to the report, “more than 60% of investments in agricultural land by foreign investors between 2000 and 2010 were in developing countries with serious hunger problems. But two-thirds of those investors plan to export everything they produce on the land. Nearly 60% of the deals have been to grow crops that can be used for biofuels.”

Very few, if any, of these land investments benefit local people or help fight hunger, says Oxfam. “Instead, the land is either being left idle, as speculators wait for its value to increase … or it is predominantly used to grow crops for export, often for use as biofuels.”

The bank is said to have tripled its support for land projects to $6bn-$8bn (£3.7bn-£5bn) a year in the last decade.

Since 2008, according to Oxfam, 21 formal complaints have been brought by communities claiming that World Bank investments have violated their land rights.

Oxfam’s chief executive, Barbara Stocking, said: “The rush for land is out of control and some of the world’s poorest people are suffering hunger, violence and greater poverty as a result. The World Bank is in a unique position to help stop land grabs becoming one of the biggest scandals of the century.”

She added: “Investment should be good news for developing countries – not lead to greater poverty, hunger and hardship.”

According to the International Land Coalition, 106 million hectares (261 million acres) of land in developing countries were acquired by foreign investors between 2000 and 2010, sometimes with disastrous results.

Nearly 30% of Liberia has reportedly been handed out in large-scale concessions in the past five years, and up to 63% of all arable land in Cambodia is said to have been passed over to private companies.

Oxfam dismisses the claim made by the World Bank and others that lots of available land is unused and waiting for development. “It is simply a myth. Most agricultural land deals target quality farmland, particularly land that is irrigated and offers good access to markets. It is clear that much of this land was already being used for small-scale farming, pastoralism and other types of natural resource use.”

A 2010 study by the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) – the World Bank’s official monitoring and evaluation body – stated that about 30% of bank projects involved involuntary resettlement. The IEG estimated that at any one time, more than 1 million people are affected by involuntary resettlement in active World Bank-financed projects.

Oxfam called for a reversal of EU biofuel targets.

In a statement to the Guardian in connection with the Oxfam report, the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank’s private lending arm, said: “IFC does not finance land acquisitions for speculative purposes. We invest in productive agricultural and forestry enterprises that can be land intensive to help provide the food and fibre the world needs. …

“Competition for scarce land resources has spurred rising investment in land. This competition can fuel conflict with existing users. Inevitably, bank group involvement in forestry and agriculture is not without risk, particularly given the fact we are operating in imperfect governance environments….”

 ————–

  You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts.  For instance:

1. Why? or How? That is the question(3 Jan 2012)

2. Partitocracy v. Democracy (20 July 2012)

3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices(2 Feb 2012)

4. Capitalism in practice  (4 July 2012)

5.Ladder  (21 June 2012)

 6. A tale of two cities (1)  (6 June 2012)

 7. A tale of two cities (2)  (7 June 2012)

 8. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat(31 Jan 2012)

Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.

——————

 

 

Posted in Economics, Europe, USA | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A lost decade

Posted on October 5, 2012 by Antigone1984.com

Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context. 

4 October 2012

The current global economic crisis, which began when the  sub-prime mortgage bubble burst in the US in 2008, is likely to last until 2018, according to IMF chief economist Olivier Blanchard.

Interviewed yesterday 3 October by online Hungarian economics magazine “Portfolio.hu”, Blanchard said: “It’s not yet a lost decade…but it will surely take at least a decade from the beginning of the crisis for the world economy to get back to decent shape.”

 

Antigone1984: So only six more years to go! What a relief! Thank goodness for capitalism! Where would we be without it? In any case, there is no alternative…..Or…um…maybe there is. But you won’t find it referred to in the media. There are some subjects that the free press just won’t raise. Too risky. Why the status quo might be threatened. And we don’t want that, do we? It is no job of the free press to question the status quo. At least that’s something we can all agree on.

 ————–

  You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts.  For instance:

1. Why? or How? That is the question(3 Jan 2012)

2. Partitocracy v. Democracy (20 July 2012)

3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices(2 Feb 2012)

4. Capitalism in practice  (4 July 2012)

5.Ladder  (21 June 2012)

 6. A tale of two cities (1)  (6 June 2012)

 7. A tale of two cities (2)  (7 June 2012)

 8. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat(31 Jan 2012)

Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.

——————

 

 

Posted in Economics, Hungary | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Europe isn’t working

Posted on October 3, 2012 by Antigone1984.com

Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context. 

3 October 2012

The number of people out of work in the 27-state European Union (EU) in August 2012 was 25.5 million – 10.5 % of the labour force.  The percentage of young people without a job was 22.7 %.

The 17 states that form the single-currency Eurozone within the EU performed worse than the EU as whole, with total unemployment in August 2012 at 11.4 per cent and youth unemployment at 22.8 per cent.

The state with the highest percentage of its labour force out of work in August 2012 was Spain with 25.1 %. The percentage of jobless young people was 52.9 %.

The Greeks have not yet got around to counting the number of people out of work in August, so the published figures for Greece relate to June 2012, the latest month for which data are available. In Greece in June 2012 total unemployment stood at 24.4 % with youth unemployment at 55.4 %.

Antigone1984: so much for the good times that the European Union promised to provide for the populations of those states which it hoodwinked into joining!

 

—————

 You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts.  For instance:

1. Why? or How? That is the question(3 Jan 2012)

2. Partitocracy v. Democracy (20 July 2012)

3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices(2 Feb 2012)

4. Capitalism in practice  (4 July 2012)

5.Ladder  (21 June 2012)

 6. A tale of two cities (1)  (6 June 2012)

 7. A tale of two cities (2)  (7 June 2012)

 8. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat(31 Jan 2012)

Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.

——————

Posted in Economics, Europe, Greece, Spain | Tagged , | 1 Comment