Monday, 3 December 2007
Venezuela: A Functioning Democracy
In a dictatorship, a referendum does not go the wire, and the dictator certainly does not lose. Rather, he gets ninety-nine per cent of the vote, or something like that. So Venezuela is not a dictatorship. She is a functioning democracy. And she would have remained so if the referendum had gone the other way: Chávez could only have "stayed for life" if the People had kept voting for him until he died.
And Why Not?
Clinton and Giuliani should be each other's running mates. Like the Labour-Tory merger, I'm not saying that it's going to happen, but I can't see any reason why it shouldn't.
Sunday, 2 December 2007
What Is Really Going On
The present party funding scandal may be precisely that, but it is no worse than several others in the recent past. The Tories and the Lib Dems are making such a song and dance, and Labour is letting them, because at last they all have the serious chance of getting their bills paid by the taxpayer for ever hereafter, and thus of being saved from the oblivion on the brink of which they all otherwise find themselves and each other.
The attitude of such figures as Harriet Harman and Wendy Alexander is wholly understandable, and that of Tories or Lib Dems in the same position would be, and has been, exactly the same: the laws in question were never designed for them, and they consequently do not feel subject to those laws.
So the Electoral Commission (for ours is now the sort of country that requires political parties’ names, constitutions, aims and objectives, Leaders, and sources of funding to be State-approved) will undoubtedly do what it was set up to do and find that nothing wrong was done (though not until State funding is already in place). It will then go back to persecuting UKIP out of existence, just as George Galloway has been subjected to parliamentary strictures such as would never be employed against any other MP. (I suppose that we are going to have to deal with this wretched Commission. Be in no doubt that we know what we are going to do if and when it refuses us registration...)
Meanwhile, in by far the most important political development of the last week, the BBC has swapped sides completely, running and running with this story after simply killing off so many previous ones, and lavishing attention on David Cameron’s mediocre parliamentary performances after simply ignoring the much better efforts of his predecessors.
This has nothing to do with thinking that he is going to win: that sort of thing has never bothered the Beeb in the past. Rather, as Peter Hitchens writes this morning, it can see very clearly who is the Blair-like (except, I have to say, real rather than wishfully affected) candidate of sex, drugs and rock‘n’roll. And it isn’t Gordon Brown.
The attitude of such figures as Harriet Harman and Wendy Alexander is wholly understandable, and that of Tories or Lib Dems in the same position would be, and has been, exactly the same: the laws in question were never designed for them, and they consequently do not feel subject to those laws.
So the Electoral Commission (for ours is now the sort of country that requires political parties’ names, constitutions, aims and objectives, Leaders, and sources of funding to be State-approved) will undoubtedly do what it was set up to do and find that nothing wrong was done (though not until State funding is already in place). It will then go back to persecuting UKIP out of existence, just as George Galloway has been subjected to parliamentary strictures such as would never be employed against any other MP. (I suppose that we are going to have to deal with this wretched Commission. Be in no doubt that we know what we are going to do if and when it refuses us registration...)
Meanwhile, in by far the most important political development of the last week, the BBC has swapped sides completely, running and running with this story after simply killing off so many previous ones, and lavishing attention on David Cameron’s mediocre parliamentary performances after simply ignoring the much better efforts of his predecessors.
This has nothing to do with thinking that he is going to win: that sort of thing has never bothered the Beeb in the past. Rather, as Peter Hitchens writes this morning, it can see very clearly who is the Blair-like (except, I have to say, real rather than wishfully affected) candidate of sex, drugs and rock‘n’roll. And it isn’t Gordon Brown.
The Axis of Hope, The Axis of Peace
Let joy be unconfined! Blair is gone. John Howard is gone. A Paul-Kucinich ticket, or (less preferably) a Kucinich-Paul ticket, looks increasingly plausible regardless of whom either party nominates. And not only is Putin is easily victorious, but the neocons can only object by siding with the Communist Party. At the time of writing, Andrei Lugovoi, victim of the neocon lynch mob and so quite unable to receive a fair trial, is almost certain to enjoy parliamentary immunity.
So roll on the result of the referendum in Venezuela. If Tony Blair didn’t need a term limit, then nor does a man who has never launched a war against anywhere, never mind on a wholly false prospectus and on the orders of a clique of deranged old Trots on both sides of the Atlantic, joined on this side by deranged old Stalinists.
Speaking of whom, following Fidel Castro’s nomination to contest next month’s National Assembly elections, when is anyone going to ask why Bolivarians in Venezuela and elsewhere feel any need for an alliance with Cuba?
There is exceedingly little common ground between Castro and people who, in British terms, are just Old Labour Left if that, complete with an essentially paleoconservative motivation when it is properly analysed: they just want to harness the full power of the State in order conserve their national sovereignty and their distinctive (Catholic-derived) culture, in close connection with other good conservative things such as family life, against the utterly anti-conservative ravages of global capitalism and against the systems towards which capitalism drives its despairing victims. And within that, they want every household to enjoy the base of real property from which to resist both over-mighty commercial interests and an over-mighty State.
The ridiculous American blockade of Cuba has made the regime there an object of the sympathy of numerous people who should know better. And, due to that blockade’s combination with the neocon attitude to Bolivarianism (as to other humane, inclusive, Christian-based ideologies such as pan-Slavism and pan-Arabism), those people are being made to include the Bolivarians (like the pan-Slavists and the pan-Arabists).
There need be no expanding “Axis of Evil”, no new Cold War as dreamt of by the neocons so that their lives can make sense again. Instead, there must be an Axis of Hope, an Axis of Peace, from Moscow to Minsk, to Belgrade, to Tehran, to Damascus, to Caracas and other Latin American capitals, to London, Paris, Berlin and all the capitals of Europe and of the old Commonwealth, and to Ron Paul’s Washington.
So roll on the result of the referendum in Venezuela. If Tony Blair didn’t need a term limit, then nor does a man who has never launched a war against anywhere, never mind on a wholly false prospectus and on the orders of a clique of deranged old Trots on both sides of the Atlantic, joined on this side by deranged old Stalinists.
Speaking of whom, following Fidel Castro’s nomination to contest next month’s National Assembly elections, when is anyone going to ask why Bolivarians in Venezuela and elsewhere feel any need for an alliance with Cuba?
There is exceedingly little common ground between Castro and people who, in British terms, are just Old Labour Left if that, complete with an essentially paleoconservative motivation when it is properly analysed: they just want to harness the full power of the State in order conserve their national sovereignty and their distinctive (Catholic-derived) culture, in close connection with other good conservative things such as family life, against the utterly anti-conservative ravages of global capitalism and against the systems towards which capitalism drives its despairing victims. And within that, they want every household to enjoy the base of real property from which to resist both over-mighty commercial interests and an over-mighty State.
The ridiculous American blockade of Cuba has made the regime there an object of the sympathy of numerous people who should know better. And, due to that blockade’s combination with the neocon attitude to Bolivarianism (as to other humane, inclusive, Christian-based ideologies such as pan-Slavism and pan-Arabism), those people are being made to include the Bolivarians (like the pan-Slavists and the pan-Arabists).
There need be no expanding “Axis of Evil”, no new Cold War as dreamt of by the neocons so that their lives can make sense again. Instead, there must be an Axis of Hope, an Axis of Peace, from Moscow to Minsk, to Belgrade, to Tehran, to Damascus, to Caracas and other Latin American capitals, to London, Paris, Berlin and all the capitals of Europe and of the old Commonwealth, and to Ron Paul’s Washington.
Walter Abrahams?
Is David Abrahams the Walter Mitty being alleged by the New Labour media? Not if he gave Labour quite that much money, he isn’t. Not if he was on the Northern Regional Executive while the Prime Minister and a host of other senior figures sat for seats here, he isn’t (Hilary Armstrong’s um-ing and ah-ing on this subject during the local part of The Politics Show was absolutely hilarious). And not if he had a front row seat for Tony Blair’s farewell speech, he isn’t. He’s a major player, and he’s telling the truth.
Auntie Has Her Finger On The Pulse
The Westminster Hour (I can’t be bothered to watch the Aaronovitch-Blair rubbish) is pleased to inform the grateful nation, not only that it can be difficult to find an NHS dentist, but also that “young people” use the Internet to “engage with politics” in ways undreamed of before this medium was invented. There’s not much gets past you, is there, Auntie?
Revival For Survival
Are we on course for the sort of religious revival not seen since the eighteenth century? I suspect so, and that Islam will be the major force.
After all, what else could be? Much of the Evangelical-Charismatic-Pentecostal movement has gone the way of the mighty Nonconformity of old, merely baptising the presuppositions of the middle middle class. That way lies oblivion.
If Anglo-Catholic or Anglican Evangelical missionary bishops under African or other developing world authority were indeed to be set up in these islands as they have begun to be in North America, then they and theirs might have some influence. (Indeed, it is a wonder that no such thing has already happened in Scotland, in particular; and at letter from 101 clergy to this week’s Church Times leads one to assume that it might well happen in Wales before too long.)
But the only really significant alternative to Islam will be the full-blooded Catholicism of structured daily prayer, of setting aside one day in seven, of fasting, of almsgiving, of pilgrimage, of the global community of faith as the primary focus of personal allegiance and locus of personal identity, of the lesser outward and greater inward struggle, of the need for a comprehensive and coherent critique both of capitalism and of Marxism, of the coherence between faith and reason, of a consequent integrated view of art and science, of Sacred Tradition, of the Petrine Office, and of mysticism and monasticism.
And the restoration of that full-blooded Catholicism to this land can be done only by both the hierarchic-charismatic ecclesial apostolates (the “new movements”) either arising out of or anticipating the actual texts of the documents of Vatican II, and those attached to the Immemorial Roman Rite recently set free at last by Pope Benedict XVI.
After all, what else could be? Much of the Evangelical-Charismatic-Pentecostal movement has gone the way of the mighty Nonconformity of old, merely baptising the presuppositions of the middle middle class. That way lies oblivion.
If Anglo-Catholic or Anglican Evangelical missionary bishops under African or other developing world authority were indeed to be set up in these islands as they have begun to be in North America, then they and theirs might have some influence. (Indeed, it is a wonder that no such thing has already happened in Scotland, in particular; and at letter from 101 clergy to this week’s Church Times leads one to assume that it might well happen in Wales before too long.)
But the only really significant alternative to Islam will be the full-blooded Catholicism of structured daily prayer, of setting aside one day in seven, of fasting, of almsgiving, of pilgrimage, of the global community of faith as the primary focus of personal allegiance and locus of personal identity, of the lesser outward and greater inward struggle, of the need for a comprehensive and coherent critique both of capitalism and of Marxism, of the coherence between faith and reason, of a consequent integrated view of art and science, of Sacred Tradition, of the Petrine Office, and of mysticism and monasticism.
And the restoration of that full-blooded Catholicism to this land can be done only by both the hierarchic-charismatic ecclesial apostolates (the “new movements”) either arising out of or anticipating the actual texts of the documents of Vatican II, and those attached to the Immemorial Roman Rite recently set free at last by Pope Benedict XVI.
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