Congratulations to the New Statesman on ruining 20 careers by profiling 20 MPs under 40 and calling them "the best of their generation".
It is not about the Staggers: wherever this had appeared, that would have done for them. Which is a pity, because several of them are impressive, even if several of them are anything but. And even if at least eight of them (exact dates of birth are not given) are younger than I am, which is always a bad sign.
Supposedly complimentary references to being a former speechwriter for John Reid (anyone who needs a speechwriter shouldn't be in politics), or to having been handpicked by John Hutton, or to being a protégé of George Osborne, are quite beyond parody, though no less amusing for that.
But other things are decidedly more pernicious, and really not funny at all. Most of these people could just as easily have been members of either of the other parties, and can reasonably be suspected of having pulled off the old Denis Healey and Virginia Bottomley: applying to all three parties while promising to join the first one to offer them a safe seat. Most of them have hardly or never worked outside politics.
Rachel Reeves is affecting a working-class accent if, Lewisham or no Lewisham, her parents were schoolteachers who sent her to Oxford and the LSE. People as middle-class as that have local and regional accents in the North, but not where she is from. Her much-trumpeted "state school" also deserves further investigation, there being, to say the least, state schools and state schools, above all in London.
I mean this a compliment when I ask exactly what political difference there is between Rushanara Ali and the moderate Left, pro-life anti-warrior whom she removed from Parliament? But, and I only ask, is she as good a speaker as George Galloway? And has she ever been anything like a milkman?
But it was Rehman Chishti who really jumped out of the page. "He ran unsuccessfully against Francis Maude as a Labour candidate in 2005 while working as an adviser to Benazir Bhutto [a close friend of George Galloway's], then leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party, a role he played from 1991 - aged just 21 - until Bhutto's assassination. He defected to the Conservatives in 2006 and became an aide to Maude as Tory chairman." He is now MP for Gillingham and Rainham. All together now: "Islam is our Faith, Democracy is our Policy, Socialism is our Economy, All Power to the People." As they say, Respect.
Sunday, 18 September 2011
The Midnight Train Going Anywhere
Nick Cohen uses his Observer column, not only to engage in his ritual denunciation of everyone who was right when he was wrong about Iraq, but also to damn Julian Assange, not the most attractive of characters, for daring to want to be "the centre of attention" (not a fault in newspaper columnists, obviously) despite having been born and raised neither in London nor in New York.
There will be those who say that that is a coded, though not a very coded, way of saying that only Jews are entitled to be heard on any subject. The allegation of anti-Semitism is worthless when it comes from the people who screamed it daily for years against anyone who questioned the war in Iraq, which is now hilariously being presented as having been opposed by the Israeli Government all along, as if we really will believe absolutely anything, even the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, even a link between Iraq and 11th September 2001, and even that. But those who present this as Cohen's meaning will have missed the point.
It is in reality a coded, though not a very coded, way of saying that the only people entitled to be heard on any subject are those who have lived their entire lives in the tiny world of upper-middle-class sectarian Leftism that has followed, or which has simply been, the trend in academic Marxism away from economic concerns towards a ferocious support of unbridled capitalism precisely because it entrenches unbridled social liberalism and is irreconcilably secular in general and anti-Christian in particular.
Many of them, including Cohen, and even more so David Aaronovitch, once looked to the Soviet Union, seen as the embodiment of their aspirations, to spread their revolution throughout the world by means of limitless armed force and with a total disregard for innocent life. No less surely, all of them, though few as outspokenly as Cohen, now look to the United States, seen as the embodiment of their aspirations, to spread their revolution throughout the world by means of limitless armed force and with a total disregard for innocent life.
Cohen thinks that that whole way of thinking is incomprehensible to anyone who has ever stepped outside his own metropolitan, stinking rich, sectarian Leftist and, yes, largely Jewish (though very aggressively atheistic) milieu. He is right. It is.
There will be those who say that that is a coded, though not a very coded, way of saying that only Jews are entitled to be heard on any subject. The allegation of anti-Semitism is worthless when it comes from the people who screamed it daily for years against anyone who questioned the war in Iraq, which is now hilariously being presented as having been opposed by the Israeli Government all along, as if we really will believe absolutely anything, even the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, even a link between Iraq and 11th September 2001, and even that. But those who present this as Cohen's meaning will have missed the point.
It is in reality a coded, though not a very coded, way of saying that the only people entitled to be heard on any subject are those who have lived their entire lives in the tiny world of upper-middle-class sectarian Leftism that has followed, or which has simply been, the trend in academic Marxism away from economic concerns towards a ferocious support of unbridled capitalism precisely because it entrenches unbridled social liberalism and is irreconcilably secular in general and anti-Christian in particular.
Many of them, including Cohen, and even more so David Aaronovitch, once looked to the Soviet Union, seen as the embodiment of their aspirations, to spread their revolution throughout the world by means of limitless armed force and with a total disregard for innocent life. No less surely, all of them, though few as outspokenly as Cohen, now look to the United States, seen as the embodiment of their aspirations, to spread their revolution throughout the world by means of limitless armed force and with a total disregard for innocent life.
Cohen thinks that that whole way of thinking is incomprehensible to anyone who has ever stepped outside his own metropolitan, stinking rich, sectarian Leftist and, yes, largely Jewish (though very aggressively atheistic) milieu. He is right. It is.
Nothing Special
Peter Hitchens writes:
It is funny that many other countries have a more special relationship with the USA than we do. If you fly to the USA from Dublin airport, you can go through U.S. immigration before you board your plane (a service also available in Canada).
This saves you getting stuck behind 500 suspected Colombian drug smugglers at Miami or JFK. If we’re so special, why can’t we have this too?
Well, since you ask...
It is funny that many other countries have a more special relationship with the USA than we do. If you fly to the USA from Dublin airport, you can go through U.S. immigration before you board your plane (a service also available in Canada).
This saves you getting stuck behind 500 suspected Colombian drug smugglers at Miami or JFK. If we’re so special, why can’t we have this too?
Well, since you ask...
Perception Management
As even Barack Obama (his supporters were always better than he was, and they certainly did not include the likes of AIPAC and the ADL) prepares to confirm every stereotype about America's only existing in order to give the Israelis whatever they want no matter what the consequences for the security of mere Americans, console yourselves by attending instead to the voice of an older and wiser America. He may be a member of the Libertarian Party, but he lists his religion on Facebook as "Latin Mass Catholic". For both of which reasons, it is no wonder that Philip Giraldi writes:
Shamai Leibowitz, an FBI Hebrew translator, was arrested in May 2010 for revealing restricted information consisting of five reports classified “secret” to an unidentified blogger. He confessed—explaining that he had been trying to reveal illegal activity—repented, and was sentenced to a minimum term of 20 months in prison. He has now been released. There was considerable speculation over what Leibowitz, a left-wing, Israel-born dual national, had actually revealed. A New York newspaper claimed that the information had gone to a “pro-Palestinian Arab group.”
In reality, Leibowitz, who had top-secret clearance, was working as the translator for an undercover FBI counterintelligence team operating out of Calverton, Maryland. The FBI was tapping into all the telephone lines and cell phone numbers associated with diplomats and intelligence officers working out of the Israeli Embassy in Washington and the United Nations in New York. The Israelis practiced good communications security when they were on their phones speaking English, but they were reportedly extremely reckless when speaking Hebrew because they believed that they could not be understood. The FBI compiled a thick dossier on Israeli diplomats and spies and was able to establish linkages to a number of other targets of interest. Analyzing the Hebrew recordings, Leibowitz identified a number of hidden relationships with U.S. government officials and the media, as well as advocacy groups like AIPAC and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
What the FBI uncovered was a massive and highly focused campaign referred to by the Israelis as “perception management,” but which the CIA would refer to as a covert action. Much of the activity was illegal or incompatible with the role of foreign diplomats in the United States, which is why Leibowitz took action after his supervisors refused to proceed with prosecution. The focus was on Iran, with Israeli officials intent on preparing the American public for war against the mullahs. They were spreading disinformation on Iran’s nuclear program, promoting international sanctions, and trying to obtain Washington’s support for an ultimatum on the nuclear program as a final diplomatic gesture that would be turned down by Iran, leading to war with the U.S. playing the lead role. The Israeli Embassy’s activities consisted of drafting articles and editorials that were placed with an accommodating media, paying journalists to write pieces making the same points, and working closely with groups like WINEP and AIPAC to present policymakers with a coordinated list of arguments for war. At least one congressman from Indiana was approached directly by Israeli intelligence and agreed to host an anti-Iran conference as well as to introduce legislation tightening Iran sanctions. The recorded telephone conversation between an Israeli intelligence officer and Rep. Jane Harman in April 2009, in which she agreed to intervene on behalf of accused AIPAC spies Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman in exchange for chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee, was also part of the special FBI counterintelligence operation.
Leibowitz’s concern that the illegal activity would not be prosecuted by the Justice Department proved correct. No Israeli or American named in the extensive FBI investigative dossier has been in any way punished.
Shamai Leibowitz, an FBI Hebrew translator, was arrested in May 2010 for revealing restricted information consisting of five reports classified “secret” to an unidentified blogger. He confessed—explaining that he had been trying to reveal illegal activity—repented, and was sentenced to a minimum term of 20 months in prison. He has now been released. There was considerable speculation over what Leibowitz, a left-wing, Israel-born dual national, had actually revealed. A New York newspaper claimed that the information had gone to a “pro-Palestinian Arab group.”
In reality, Leibowitz, who had top-secret clearance, was working as the translator for an undercover FBI counterintelligence team operating out of Calverton, Maryland. The FBI was tapping into all the telephone lines and cell phone numbers associated with diplomats and intelligence officers working out of the Israeli Embassy in Washington and the United Nations in New York. The Israelis practiced good communications security when they were on their phones speaking English, but they were reportedly extremely reckless when speaking Hebrew because they believed that they could not be understood. The FBI compiled a thick dossier on Israeli diplomats and spies and was able to establish linkages to a number of other targets of interest. Analyzing the Hebrew recordings, Leibowitz identified a number of hidden relationships with U.S. government officials and the media, as well as advocacy groups like AIPAC and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
What the FBI uncovered was a massive and highly focused campaign referred to by the Israelis as “perception management,” but which the CIA would refer to as a covert action. Much of the activity was illegal or incompatible with the role of foreign diplomats in the United States, which is why Leibowitz took action after his supervisors refused to proceed with prosecution. The focus was on Iran, with Israeli officials intent on preparing the American public for war against the mullahs. They were spreading disinformation on Iran’s nuclear program, promoting international sanctions, and trying to obtain Washington’s support for an ultimatum on the nuclear program as a final diplomatic gesture that would be turned down by Iran, leading to war with the U.S. playing the lead role. The Israeli Embassy’s activities consisted of drafting articles and editorials that were placed with an accommodating media, paying journalists to write pieces making the same points, and working closely with groups like WINEP and AIPAC to present policymakers with a coordinated list of arguments for war. At least one congressman from Indiana was approached directly by Israeli intelligence and agreed to host an anti-Iran conference as well as to introduce legislation tightening Iran sanctions. The recorded telephone conversation between an Israeli intelligence officer and Rep. Jane Harman in April 2009, in which she agreed to intervene on behalf of accused AIPAC spies Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman in exchange for chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee, was also part of the special FBI counterintelligence operation.
Leibowitz’s concern that the illegal activity would not be prosecuted by the Justice Department proved correct. No Israeli or American named in the extensive FBI investigative dossier has been in any way punished.
Friday, 16 September 2011
Mortifying
A warm welcome to the return of Friday abstinence. I am off now for my lobster thermidor with two wine sauces.
Read Aright
Synthetic phonics. As taught to me in an old pit village under the headship of an erstwhile Labour Councillor from the Seventies, and under the aegis of the first local authority that Labour ever won, which it had never lost in eighty years even then, or in well over a hundred now. "Trendy" teaching methods were as unknown in these parts as the abolition of school uniform would have been, or would be.
The pseudo-Right is as metro-myopic as the pseudo-Left, and assumes the latter's oddities to be typical, a task now made a lot easier by the pseudo-Left's overthrow of the Labour Movement that was still going strong the best part of thirty years ago, and which remains strong enough in parts of local government to be able to keep the phonics and the school uniforms going, insofar as there is even a question mark over them in the areas in question.
The pseudo-Right is as metro-myopic as the pseudo-Left, and assumes the latter's oddities to be typical, a task now made a lot easier by the pseudo-Left's overthrow of the Labour Movement that was still going strong the best part of thirty years ago, and which remains strong enough in parts of local government to be able to keep the phonics and the school uniforms going, insofar as there is even a question mark over them in the areas in question.
The Proxy President
In the run-up to the tremendously successful 2011 State Visit, at least one Fianna Fáil branch raised funds, both for itself and for its local hurling team, by raffling tickets to meet the Queen, whom it described simply as “the Queen”. Of course Dublin governments have always been, in Sinn Féin’s words, “British governments by proxy”. That much has always been obvious. By adhering to the British proxy parties rather than to Sinn Féin, the voters of the 26 Counties have always made it clear that it was what they wanted. They continue to make that clear.
And who are the British proxies now? Sinn Féin has accepted that the constitutional status of Northern Ireland cannot be changed without the consent, not only of the majority of voters there, but also of the majority of those who define themselves by their opposition to any such change. In other words, the majority of those voting No would have to vote Yes. Since that is impossible, change is impossible. Sinn Féin has signed up to this. Ted Kennedy’s knighthood was an obvious dry run for that of someone from Sinn Féin, almost certainly Gerry Adams, who would thus have become the Jan Smuts de nos jours if sad revelations about his family had not intervened.
Sinn Féin’s sell-out, which is what it is, is almost universally popular. “Dissident” paramilitary activity raises the question of what we are paying for; Fianna Fáil hanged the IRA, as we had set it up to do. But no “dissident Republican” contested the 2010 General Election, and the Workers’ Party failed to contest West Belfast for the first time in living memory. Northern Nationalism as a political, rather than a cultural, phenomenon is now manifestly minimal. Any statement of such aspiration is, on any objective criterion, the very last thing made by means of a vote for Sinn Féin.
Almost never does anyone else now seem to wish to seek election on that basis, either. Those of that mind may set off bombs, or engage annually in an almost ritual example of drunken teenage rampaging. But they know that they no one would vote for them, and that quite possibly so few people would sign their nomination papers that they could not present themselves in search of votes in the first place. Beyond those under the combined influence of alcohol or other intoxicants and adolescent levels of testosterone, everyone now concedes, by deed even if not necessarily by word, that the Catholic, left-wing and all-Ireland cases are all for the Union. They regret only, in all three of those terms, the 1922 partition of the United Kingdom and of the Irish Catholic ethnic group throughout these Islands. So must we all.
And who are the British proxies now? Sinn Féin has accepted that the constitutional status of Northern Ireland cannot be changed without the consent, not only of the majority of voters there, but also of the majority of those who define themselves by their opposition to any such change. In other words, the majority of those voting No would have to vote Yes. Since that is impossible, change is impossible. Sinn Féin has signed up to this. Ted Kennedy’s knighthood was an obvious dry run for that of someone from Sinn Féin, almost certainly Gerry Adams, who would thus have become the Jan Smuts de nos jours if sad revelations about his family had not intervened.
Sinn Féin’s sell-out, which is what it is, is almost universally popular. “Dissident” paramilitary activity raises the question of what we are paying for; Fianna Fáil hanged the IRA, as we had set it up to do. But no “dissident Republican” contested the 2010 General Election, and the Workers’ Party failed to contest West Belfast for the first time in living memory. Northern Nationalism as a political, rather than a cultural, phenomenon is now manifestly minimal. Any statement of such aspiration is, on any objective criterion, the very last thing made by means of a vote for Sinn Féin.
Almost never does anyone else now seem to wish to seek election on that basis, either. Those of that mind may set off bombs, or engage annually in an almost ritual example of drunken teenage rampaging. But they know that they no one would vote for them, and that quite possibly so few people would sign their nomination papers that they could not present themselves in search of votes in the first place. Beyond those under the combined influence of alcohol or other intoxicants and adolescent levels of testosterone, everyone now concedes, by deed even if not necessarily by word, that the Catholic, left-wing and all-Ireland cases are all for the Union. They regret only, in all three of those terms, the 1922 partition of the United Kingdom and of the Irish Catholic ethnic group throughout these Islands. So must we all.
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