June 9, 2007
Comment is Free - But Not That Free
I wondered how the Guardian would react to my criticism of their editorial staff on comment is free. What they appear to have done is attempt to delete the entire article altogether. I tried to do that with a posting on this blog, but found that if you had the exact url it would still appear, no matter how comprehensively off this server. So this link still works -
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/craig_murray/2007/06/reids_new_best_friends.html
The remarks in question come in a comment I added at the end of the thread.
The Guardian has removed any reference to the article from the home page and cif listings, so there is no way anybody visiting the Guardian today knows it is there. I don't know whether it is still possible to post a comment below it.
So I am asking everybody with access to a blog or site to post the above link over the course of the next week, to defeat the Guardian's attempt to cut off dissent at its abandonment of its liberal tradition.
We have now mirrored the Guardian page just in case they do manage to find a way to scrub the original
http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/CiF/reids_new_best_friends.html
People can also, of course, post on other Guardian comment is free threads protesting at the deletion of this article. Then we will see how free comment really is at the Guardian.
Posted by craig on 9:41 AM 09/06/07 under UK Policy | Comments (1)
Showing posts with label authoritarianism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label authoritarianism. Show all posts
Saturday, 9 June 2007
Friday, 8 June 2007
The First Parliamentary Reform is an English Parliament
Parliamentary reform requires a parliament for England. The effrontery of the England of the Regions propaganda compounds the failure of the Union of the United Kingdom within the collapse of democratic representation and its expression in the Westminster Parliament.
Scotland, Wales, and northern Ireland answer to their local electorates on all and any matters of immediate significance to those voters - health, education, housing, infrastructures and, in Scotland's case, some weighting of tax burdens and the facility to initiate legislation.
England is to be governed by an Executive whose leader is unelected in England (and unelected in his own Party), and whose Party has been defeated in Scotland yet uses Westminster MPs from Scotland to maintain control in England.
This Westminster Executive disposes of all the powers of the Crown, which are used without reference to the Westminster Parliament in the case of England, but are ceded to the Scottish Parliament in the case of Scotland and, to a lesser extent, some of which are ceded to the Welsh and northern Irish Assemblies in matters concerning those countries.
The powers of the whips at Westminster are a function of this Executive power (the whips do not derive their control from charm or even force of character), and from the powers of prime ministerial patronage. Any Westminster MP sitting for a Scottish, Welsh or Irish seat can hope for advancement only from the Westminster Executive, so they do precisely what they are told, although what they're ordered to do will apply only to England for anything affecting normal everyday life. They do not represent English voters, nor do they care what they want.
Until this Parliamentary reform is carried out, all other discussion is a waste of time.
Scotland, Wales, and northern Ireland answer to their local electorates on all and any matters of immediate significance to those voters - health, education, housing, infrastructures and, in Scotland's case, some weighting of tax burdens and the facility to initiate legislation.
England is to be governed by an Executive whose leader is unelected in England (and unelected in his own Party), and whose Party has been defeated in Scotland yet uses Westminster MPs from Scotland to maintain control in England.
This Westminster Executive disposes of all the powers of the Crown, which are used without reference to the Westminster Parliament in the case of England, but are ceded to the Scottish Parliament in the case of Scotland and, to a lesser extent, some of which are ceded to the Welsh and northern Irish Assemblies in matters concerning those countries.
The powers of the whips at Westminster are a function of this Executive power (the whips do not derive their control from charm or even force of character), and from the powers of prime ministerial patronage. Any Westminster MP sitting for a Scottish, Welsh or Irish seat can hope for advancement only from the Westminster Executive, so they do precisely what they are told, although what they're ordered to do will apply only to England for anything affecting normal everyday life. They do not represent English voters, nor do they care what they want.
Until this Parliamentary reform is carried out, all other discussion is a waste of time.
Wednesday, 6 June 2007
Burning Books
The minister of Culture in Warsaw has issued a Directive banning certain books from the lists of texts to be studied in Polish schools for the national curriculum.
Witold Gombrowicz is banned for homosexuality; Herling-Grudzinski, who wrote of the gulags long before Solzhenitsyn, too. These are not left intellectual classics, to say the least, but banned they are.
As is Goethe (too German, and immoral for writing of characters entering into pacts with the Devil); Kafka (condemned with a single word, Nihilist); Dostoyevsky (too much attention to a criminal's confessions in Crime and Punishment).
The peculiar twins who run Poland have called in the Directive for 'consideration' after an outburst by Adam Michnik (of Solidarnosc fame), but the Teletubbies (gay) are not offered such distinguished defenders.
The Roman Catholicism that keeps an Index of banned books is alive and vigorous in Blair's favourite European ally.
Witold Gombrowicz is banned for homosexuality; Herling-Grudzinski, who wrote of the gulags long before Solzhenitsyn, too. These are not left intellectual classics, to say the least, but banned they are.
As is Goethe (too German, and immoral for writing of characters entering into pacts with the Devil); Kafka (condemned with a single word, Nihilist); Dostoyevsky (too much attention to a criminal's confessions in Crime and Punishment).
The peculiar twins who run Poland have called in the Directive for 'consideration' after an outburst by Adam Michnik (of Solidarnosc fame), but the Teletubbies (gay) are not offered such distinguished defenders.
The Roman Catholicism that keeps an Index of banned books is alive and vigorous in Blair's favourite European ally.
Tuesday, 5 June 2007
Berlin's Treaty
The Treaty for a European Constitution is going through with all the powers and settlements intact, as ratified and deposited with the Italian government by the vast majority of European Union member states; what has been agreed to be toned down is the the achievement's presentation - no bells and whistles. Even that has been resented by those who eagerly and determinedly are building a united Europe.
What to do about the United Kingdom? Usual problems there, usual response - give them an optout; and the New Order will pass it off in the UK as a responsible and effective defence of Britain's sovereignty. Unfortunately this opting out is all to do with the assertion and guarantees of individual liberties, including rights of movement and settlement, practices and modes of criminal prosecution, and constraints on the use of arbitrary state authority.
Perhaps most of us prefer our own way of acting in these matters, which is a good thing because that's all we're going to be allowed.
And the pretence that Blair is doing this alone, without the New Order imprimatur, is simply silly.
What to do about the United Kingdom? Usual problems there, usual response - give them an optout; and the New Order will pass it off in the UK as a responsible and effective defence of Britain's sovereignty. Unfortunately this opting out is all to do with the assertion and guarantees of individual liberties, including rights of movement and settlement, practices and modes of criminal prosecution, and constraints on the use of arbitrary state authority.
Perhaps most of us prefer our own way of acting in these matters, which is a good thing because that's all we're going to be allowed.
And the pretence that Blair is doing this alone, without the New Order imprimatur, is simply silly.
Monday, 28 May 2007
Bleeding Labour
The Labour party is losing even more members as the bullying arrogance of Gordon Brown's and Jack Straw's exclusion of even a constituency, union and other membership vote sinks in.
The behaviour of the outgoing Executive in this wholly unconstitutional inter-regnum, signing up for the European Constitution (again) if it can, plus the criminalizing of all living beings in England (though not Scotland) who do not 'walk down the street looking neither to right nor left and breathing evenly through their noses', and the locking up as mad for compulsory medical treatment any person communicating settled dislike for the corrupt and criminal Executive, has added further losses, as the disillusioned membership watches the antics of the deputy Leadership sack race.
They should remember that the Labour party knows where they live.
The behaviour of the outgoing Executive in this wholly unconstitutional inter-regnum, signing up for the European Constitution (again) if it can, plus the criminalizing of all living beings in England (though not Scotland) who do not 'walk down the street looking neither to right nor left and breathing evenly through their noses', and the locking up as mad for compulsory medical treatment any person communicating settled dislike for the corrupt and criminal Executive, has added further losses, as the disillusioned membership watches the antics of the deputy Leadership sack race.
They should remember that the Labour party knows where they live.
Labour Executive Lies
The widespread discussion of encroaching state power over civil liberties is admirable and shows we're not accepting the Labour party Executive's behaviour as reasonable.
The silence, on matters so central to the relationship of individuals and the political authority they cede to government, on the part of the Labour party's Leader in waiting (he cannot be called Leader-elect as he's Leader-imposed) is of Holmesian proportions. We must take it that he likes it all, particularly as none of it applies to Scotland.
Peculiarly distasteful is the revelation of measures, backed up by specialised staff and a 'secure' unit, to detain at will and without review or judicial means of intervention, any person indicated as communicating a threat to public figures.
'Persone in vista', coupled with the infamous 'lei non sa chi sono io' (you don't know who I am) is the hallmark of authoritarian attitudes to those who should be regarded as the givers of authority.
Guevara's understanding that a socialist society could never exist without first a socialist conciousness in man, applies equally to authoritarianism of any kind. The condemnatory response to Labour's behaviour, ranging across the political spectrum from far left to far right and taking in all of us except the minority statist conformists of the Labour cadres, illuminates this:
No-one in the United Kingdom accepts the need for any of the so-called 'terrorism' laws. All recognize that the country is more vulnerable than others to targetting (and whose fault is that?) but just as in the years of the Troubles in Ireland, we will keep or vigilance high, and keep our liberties.
The silence, on matters so central to the relationship of individuals and the political authority they cede to government, on the part of the Labour party's Leader in waiting (he cannot be called Leader-elect as he's Leader-imposed) is of Holmesian proportions. We must take it that he likes it all, particularly as none of it applies to Scotland.
Peculiarly distasteful is the revelation of measures, backed up by specialised staff and a 'secure' unit, to detain at will and without review or judicial means of intervention, any person indicated as communicating a threat to public figures.
'Persone in vista', coupled with the infamous 'lei non sa chi sono io' (you don't know who I am) is the hallmark of authoritarian attitudes to those who should be regarded as the givers of authority.
Guevara's understanding that a socialist society could never exist without first a socialist conciousness in man, applies equally to authoritarianism of any kind. The condemnatory response to Labour's behaviour, ranging across the political spectrum from far left to far right and taking in all of us except the minority statist conformists of the Labour cadres, illuminates this:
No-one in the United Kingdom accepts the need for any of the so-called 'terrorism' laws. All recognize that the country is more vulnerable than others to targetting (and whose fault is that?) but just as in the years of the Troubles in Ireland, we will keep or vigilance high, and keep our liberties.
Thursday, 17 May 2007
Mussolini was better looking
Cries of 'Duce, Duce, Duce..' are echoing. Year I begins today, though formally on 24 June. Will it take us until Year XXI for civil war to break out?
Even the post modern imperialism of the Abyssinian invasions is reborn in the post modern imperialist adventures in Iraq.
Even the post modern imperialism of the Abyssinian invasions is reborn in the post modern imperialist adventures in Iraq.
Wednesday, 16 May 2007
Corporatism
Familiarity with Italian political and religious culture has given little insight into British political life, until the last decade. This evening the United Kingdom is on the verge of becoming a fully blown corporatist state. At the close of nominations for the leadership of the Labour party at noon tomorrow a corporatist political party will crown its stalinoid candidate for the office of prime minister, and all the executive powers of Crown prerogative will fall under their control.
It is a truism that history never repeats itself; but the evils associated with authoritarian state corporatism will act, are acting already, even if in a fashion transformed but recognisable from over half a century ago.
Individual liberties have been abolished, even habeas corpus; evidence obtained by torture is readmitted into legal proceedings; the right to be secure from delivery into another criminal jurisdiction has been abrogated; trial by jury limited; the freedom to go about lawful business without a requirement to identify oneself is gone; failure to proffer information on statuses and wealth is criminalised; no one may conduct their life within the law without constantly proving their conformity.
A network of appointed state officials has siphoned off the authority and funding of elected local authority; large sectors of society no longer form their exchanges and relationships with one another in families and familial structures, but with the state as it advances into every aspect of private life by means testing and regulation, the creation of moral hazard.
We never experienced the first round of these systems' establishment - indeed our grandfathers fought them. So they are not recognized for the threat they present to a proper and democratic political system, and a moral way of life.
It is a truism that history never repeats itself; but the evils associated with authoritarian state corporatism will act, are acting already, even if in a fashion transformed but recognisable from over half a century ago.
Individual liberties have been abolished, even habeas corpus; evidence obtained by torture is readmitted into legal proceedings; the right to be secure from delivery into another criminal jurisdiction has been abrogated; trial by jury limited; the freedom to go about lawful business without a requirement to identify oneself is gone; failure to proffer information on statuses and wealth is criminalised; no one may conduct their life within the law without constantly proving their conformity.
A network of appointed state officials has siphoned off the authority and funding of elected local authority; large sectors of society no longer form their exchanges and relationships with one another in families and familial structures, but with the state as it advances into every aspect of private life by means testing and regulation, the creation of moral hazard.
We never experienced the first round of these systems' establishment - indeed our grandfathers fought them. So they are not recognized for the threat they present to a proper and democratic political system, and a moral way of life.
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