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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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The BBC has a great, big monkey on it’s back and that monkey is America. The nabobs who run that state broadcast organisation just don’t understand how a country that (in their eyes) does everything wrong can end up so supremely dominant in terms of power, wealth and influence, while a country that does everything right (such as France) seethes and whines impotently about the unfairness of it all.
You can see the tension in their news reportage, torn as it is between a horrified revlusion of America and, at the same time, an unquenchable fascination. That was very much on display tonight in a 90-minute TV special run on BBC2 and called ‘What the World Thinks of America’.
Despite all the negative polling data that was apparently gathered from all around the world and a studio in London that consisted of people like firebrand British leftie Claire Short and former French Culture Minister Jack Lang, it was not the belligerent anti-American hate-fest that I thought it was going to be. What amused me most was general agreement that the USA was rich because of its economic model and, at the same time, a complete rejection of the idea of copying it.
In fact, it was rather dull, equivocal and not quite sure of itself. The underlying theme was largely one of self-pity and petty jealousy culminating in a morose admission that America was the unchallengable world superpower and there isn’t much the likes of France can do about it except whine and bitch. They may as well have called it ‘Inferiority Complex – The Movie’.
Over on the BBC website (and doubtless in anticipation of forthcoming EU regulations) they have provided a forum for Americans to answer back, hosted jointly by the respective Chairmen of Democrats and Republicans Abroad.
Perhaps some Americans might waggishly suggest an US TV special called ‘What Americans Think of the EU’. Now that I would pay to see.
We have received a number of e-mails from our readers in the past couple of days asking for our views on the decision (or, at least, attempt) by Tony Blair to abolish the office of the Lord Chancellor which he announced as a part of his cabinet reshuffle at the end of last week.
The Office of Lord Chancellor has been around for some 1400 years. He is the head and the overseer of the Judiciary and he is responsible for appointing Judges and running the Courts. But, he is also a member of the Executive as he sits in the Cabinet. He is, if you will, the interface between the Executive and the Judiciary. Some have suggested that this is a less than ideal method for ensuring judicial independence but, in fact, rigourous observance of custom has served to maintain judicial independence very effectively for a very long time.
Blair intends to abolish the Chancellor and replace him with a independent committee to appoint Judges and an ‘Office of the Constitution’ to advice the government on constitutional matters. This has all presented (to the extent that it has been explained at all) as merely the latest stage of the Blair ‘modernisation’ agenda which is intended to provide us with more accountable, responsive government…yadda, yadda, yadda.
What is not being said (but which, fortunately, is not being overlooked) is that Blair is trying to eradicate Britain’s remaining constitutional arrangements so as to render us more EU-compatible. Not to mention, of course, that the new offices are highly likely to be staffed with manipulable Blairite cronies.
However, this is not quite all going to plan. There is a hubbub from senior Judges and much of the press and Blair has been forced to give a statement explaining his actions in the House of Commons on Wednesday. Added to which, there is the possibility of a legal challenge because nobody seems quite sure whether the Prime Minister actually has the power to abolish the Lord Chancellor. As best as I can tell, the power may exist but, by custom, it has never been exercised so nobody is entirely sure if it does, in fact, exist and, if so, under what circumstances it may be exercised.
Oh it’s all a big mess and it is for that reason that we have not yet (as some or our readers inquired) plunged in with our usual robust denunciations and insights. This is just one of a whole batch of country-altering measures that the executive seems to be rushing into enactment with unseemly haste. In fact, the hits are coming so thick and so fast that it is difficult to keep up to date with it all, even for a group effort like this blog.
My take, for what it’s worth, is that all this chaos is the result of Blair’s fawning promises to Brussels. Suddenly, he has realised that we are not ‘Europeanised’ enough to be swallowed whole and hence the frantic, sweaty haste to disassemble our constitutional arrangements and render us fit to be served up to new masters. A fitting metaphor I reckon for Blair and his minsters seem as nothing more than harrassed waiters working frenetically to prepare the banquet table prior to the imminent swarm of hungry VIPs.
The day soon cometh, methinks.
There appears to be no end in sight yet to the rioting and civil disorder in Iran which is now entering its fifth day:
“This is just like it was before the revolution,” she added, recalling months of unrest that toppled the U.S.-backed shah in 1979.
How very interesting. Meanwhile, and strictly in keeping with Western press policy, Islamofascist nutjobs are referred to as ‘Conservatives’:
Conservatives blamed unrest on a U.S. plot.
Times must indeed be bad for the Mullahs. Their tin-foil hats are starting to slip.
I don’t know whether we have just signed up to a new EU Constitution or not. Strange as it sounds, I truly have no idea. Judging from the opening paragraphs of this Telegraph report, it’s already a done deal:
To the strains of Beethoven’s Ode To Joy, the Convention on the Future of Europe proclaimed agreement yesterday on a written constitution for a vast European Union of 450 million citizens bringing together East and West.
Valery Giscard d’Estaing, the chair of the 105-strong body, held up a text that he said could be offered proudly to prime ministers next week as a permanent settlement for a free and democratic family of nations.
So is that it then? Are we now all Euro-serfs? Has the knot been tied, the deal been struck and all the irons shoved deeply into the fire? If so, well that was pretty sneaky of them, wasn’t it.
On the other hand, further down in the same article, there is room for doubt:
EU governments will have their chance to chip away at the 224-page text in an intergovernmental conference running from October to next spring, although Mr Hain said the essential architecture is now written in stone.
That sounds like there’s still room for an argument, doesn’t it? Though perhaps not much argument. More like wiggle room.
Well, I must confess I’m stumped. Like every other Euro-project it’s all camouflaged in double-speak and drenched in high-concept gobbledegook. Maybe salvation lies in the hope that possibly the EUnuchs don’t understand it either.
When I happened upon this website campaign, my first reaction was to dismiss it as a hoax. After all, in an age when political and civil discourse has been so debased by post-modern neurosis, the art of parody must respond by vaulting the high water-mark of absurdity in order to be at all effective.
But, because we live in such strange and discordant times, I have, upon further reflection, decided that the people behind reFlag are probably deadly serious. In their opinion, our Union Jack is too arcane, vulgar and embarrassing to be tolerated:
A number of countries around the globe have black in their flags to represent the colour of their people. It makes sense for the UK to have black and white in our flag, to represent the different races and cultures which make up the country at the beginning of the third millennium.
We haven’t conquered racism, nor many other forms of prejudice, but by changing the nation’s main emblem, we can reclaim the union flag from those who have hijacked it for their own ends, so that our flag reflects the diversity of the people of the UK.
So it’s out with the racist, old standard and in with the new symbol of ‘diversity’:
I don’t like it. And it certainly is not a flag to which I am going to rally any time soon or at all. Of course, one might argue that flag design is not an issue that should matter to any libertarian and that all national flags are constructs which can, and indeed do, change from time to time.
But that is to miss the point. The cause of my revulsion lies not in the symbol but in the creepy deconstructionist impulse that lies behind it (much of which is dressed up in corporate ‘re-branding’ jargon). The depths of this psychosis can perhaps best be judged by the breath-takingly hypocritical claim that the Union Jack has been ‘hijacked’ and they need to take it back. Take it back from whom, I wonder? From various obnoxious national socialists? From football hooligans? Or from the increasing numbers of quite reasonable and decent Britons who defiantly fly the flag in response to the sordid and sustained attempts of much of the establishment left to demonise it?
It is that latter group who are really taking the flag back and perhaps that is what the people behind ‘reFlag’ really fear the most. Maybe the trend they are so clearly desperate to stem is the growing general contempt for the dangerously balkanising agenda of the cultural marxists and an increased willingness to resist the tools of manipulation and social engineering through which it operates.
I cannot say for sure because there appears to be no indication on their website as to who these people are, who or what is behind them or how they are funded. So maybe it is a hoax and an elaborate one at that. Right now there may be some gang of wags guffawing in ‘ha ha gotcha’ hoots of laughter. But if it is not a hoax then perhaps these people should be flushed out into the open so that we can tell them, face-to-face, that what they are trying to do is not just silly it is dangerous. I think we should leave them in no doubt that they are vigourously fanning the very flames of conflagration that they purport to be seeking to avoid.
Or, maybe, they know full well what they are doing and conflagration is precisely what they want. Who can say?
I am sick to death of the BBC, I really am. How anybody can even try to suggest that it is an objective news source is beyond me. The paranoid, ranting, ‘Little Englander’, anti-EU, xenophobic mentality is clear for all to see:
The 12-nation eurozone is in even worse economic trouble than previously thought.
How can this be anything but complete garbage? It is high time that the BBC was exposed as the extreme right-wing, capitalistic, Bushista, warmongering propoganda tool that it really is!
Well, that didn’t last too long. Hot on the heels of yesterday’s moderately good news comes today’s customary bad news.
Again, I was sort of expecting this to happen and now that it has happened it proves that my ‘Glumness Meter’ is actually quite reliable:
Burglar Brendon Fearon who was shot and injured by Tony Martin has won the right to sue the jailed farmer for damages.
A judge at Nottingham County Court on Friday overturned an earlier decision which threw out his claim.
Fearon, 33, hopes to sue Martin for a reported £15,000 following his wounding during a break-in at the farmer’s home in Emneth Hungate, Norfolk, in August 1999.
Which goes to prove I suppose that you just can’t keep a bad man down and that the word ‘absurd’ is fast becoming redundant in this corner of the world.
An earlier hearing was told that Fearon, of Newark, Nottinghamshire, claimed that his injuries, which included a leg wound, had affected his ability to enjoy sex and martial arts.
Which he doubtless enjoys best when practised simultaneously. Still, I’d best temper my comments regarding Mr.Fearon lest he ‘win the right’ to come after us with a defamation suit.
“I have to take the view that there are important issues here that need to be determined and that it would be wrong, subject to other considerations, to deprive the claimant from airing his claim and having a full trial,” said District Judge Oliver.
He said that to deny Fearon the right to his claim could contravene the burglar’s rights under Section 6 of the Human Rights Convention.
I must be honest, when I first heard the term ‘burglar’s rights’ being bandied about I thought it must be some kind of blogosphere joke or a bit of British tabloid ribbing. Turns out they actually mean it. I should have known better than to assume that parody could actually be a match for reality these days.
I suppose some clarification of this decision is required. Please note that Fearon has won the ‘right’ to sue Mr.Martin. That does necessarily mean that his claim will succeed. However, as regards that latter prospect, my ‘Glumness Meter’ is already twitching ominously up in the high eighties.
When I first heard about this case, a few days ago, I was glumly convinced that this man would be convicted of manslaughter and sent to prison.
I was wrong:
A company director accused of killing a burglar who had sneaked into his business to steal a lorry has been cleared of manslaughter.
Steven Parkin, 46, of Derby Road, Nottingham, was alleged to have battered Mark Brealey with a pickaxe handle and slashed him with a knife as he fled the site.
It remains to be seen whether or not the Crown intends to pursue any other charges against Mr.Parkin but there is no mention of this either way in the story. All I can say is that I certainly hope not.
Judge Richard Pollard directed the jury to return a verdict of not guilty after a pathologist told the court he could not rule out the possibility death was caused by an accident.
Given the Judge’s direction, I think it is a little premature to assess whether or not this marks any sort of change in the judiciary’s institutional anti-self-defence culture. Probably not. But at least this man is not languishing in prison for defending his property and that is good news.
HMG is being high-handed, undemocratic and arrogant. That is the view of the British tabloid newspaper The Daily Mail on the refusal by the government to put the issues of the EU constitution and joining the single currency to the British public in a referendum.
In response, they have been running a campaign in the form of a ‘People’s Referendum’ which gives members of the public an opportunity to let HMG know how they feel and demand a formal, legally-binding referendum of these issues. The campaign ends at midnight tonight.
Whilst I can wholly sympathise with the sense of outrage and injustice that has driven this ‘voxpop’ campaign, I have chosen not to participate because, strange as it may sound, I do not want a referendum.
I do not wish to be too harsh on the organisers of this campaign or the proprietors of the Daily Mail. They are being far more proactive in advancing the debate in this country than just about any other organ of the fourth estate and, to the extent that the eventual result provides a bellweather of public opinion, it may prove useful in terms of boosting moral. But, tactically, to demand a referendum on these issues is to play right into the hands of the enemy.
I say this because with a government which is committed to the EU project, coupled with the ability to write out a blank cheque to enable them to realise their vision, a referendum is anything but the level playing-field that too many people fondly imagine it to be. There are loads of ways that the result can be pre-determined and HMG is almost certain to employ every single one them.
First off, the ‘yes’ campaign will have access to unlimited tax-payer funds while the ‘no’ campaign will have to rely on voluntary donations from their supporters. The (state-owned) BBC propoganda machine will be put into overdrive and current sceptical non-state media sources will be bought off or bullied into switching sides. Organised indepenence campaigns will be infiltrated with people who will start making nazi-type noises to the press at the right moment, thus giving the impression that the ‘no’ campaign is merely a fig-leaf for a scarey national socialist movement and, every day of the campaign will see dark, ominous op-eds in various established media outlets warning of the ‘dire economic consequences’ of a ‘no’ vote.
Added to all this, of course, is the distinct possibility that the actual voting figures themselves will be diddled. I wouldn’t put it past them. Even if that were not the case and, by some miracle, the ‘no’ campaign won a slim majority, we all know what happens next. Yes, that’s right, just as in Denmark and Ireland, we would have to endure another referendum in order to get the ‘right’ result.
In short, the referendum on the Euro and the Constitution will be as rigged as an 18th Century tea clipper. If the independence movement has put all its eggs in the referendum basket, then where does it go from there? The answer is nowhere. Having been spiked by the appearance of a ‘democratic consensus’ we will have no choice but to watch helplessly while Mr.Blair abolishes our country with a flourish of moral authority.
That is why I will not join in the voices calling for a referendum. I choose, intead, to demand complete British withdrawal from the EU and not to settle for any less. It is the only position which cannot be bargained away, compromised or outflanked.
Neither this nor any other government has the right to sign away the sovereignty of the British people and I do not accept as legitimate any show of hands which purports to provide it with the authority to do so. I demand independence and I will accept no substitutes.
Unlike the British press, we at the Samizdata are keeping our eyes on what appears to be the increasingly deteriorating situation in France. Because, say what you like about France (and, let’s face it, who doesn’t?) but it is still a major and important country and also one that happens to be but 26 miles away from us.
If the stream of reports from Claire Berlinski (who lives in Paris) are anything to go by then that country is in the process of meltdown. I am not sure whether anything can or will be done to reverse or halt this process but at least this Frontpage Symposium may go some way to shedding light on the context of this disintegration:
France behaves more and more as if she does [sic] belong to the West anymore and as though she is the leader of the third world. Doing this, France has nothing to win, maybe just second-rate contracts and an ephemeral popularity among all the frustrated in the world. France will win only one thing, and for a short time, peace inside France: it will avoid riots among Muslims living in France now.
The opinions and prognoses range from melancholy to apocolyptic but this is still well worth reading because it is not just another familiar orgy of Anglospheric Frog-bashing; the symposium participants are all French.
[My thanks to reader ‘Rich’ for the link to the Frontpage article.]
The mainstream news outlets in Britain are abuzz tonight following today’s statement from Chancellor Gordon Brown that now is not the right time for Britain to abandon sterling and adopt the Euro. Dressed up in the mawkish tinsel of lovey-dovey Euro-warmth, Mr.Brown told the nation that, with great reluctance, he must rule out adoption of the Euro because his ‘economic tests’ have not been met.
Cue shrugs, eyeball-rolls and ‘whaddaygonnado?’ sighs from Mr.Brown and a chorus of booing, hissing, spitting and puppy-kicking from an assembled throng of federasts in both Parliament and the nations newsrooms. It is all a pantomime, of course. Blair and the rest of the executive want to the Euro with the kind of slavering intensity with which an alcoholic needs a shot of gin. The so-called ‘economic tests’ that must be met beforehand are purely a fig-leaf to mask the fact that they cannot convince an increasingly skeptical and surly British public to go along with them. The very nano-second the government thinks it can win a referendum on the issue the ‘economic tests’ will have miraculously been met.
But let no-one be fooled into thinking that Euro-geddon has been postponed. Beneath the blizzard of high-falutin’ fiscal gobbledegook being whipped up by the ‘meeja’ talking heads, an even more sinister tentacle of the Belgian Empire is slowly and quietly coiling around us. → Continue reading: The real EU threat
Right now, in the Middle East, Palestinian Arabs are being driven from their homes at gunpoint and forced into refugee camps. Only it is not the Israeli Army doing the driving, nor is this happening in Judea, Samaria or Gaza.
Actually, it is happening in Iraq:
The gardens of Baghdad’s Haifa Club have been turned into Middle East’s newest refugee camp as hundreds of Palestinians are driven out of their homes at gunpoint by their Iraqi neighbours.
The Haifa Club, where Palestinians came to meet, drink coffee and play table tennis, is now packed with more than 250 tents, housing 2,000 people forced to flee.
In the climate of fear and reprisals that persists in the Iraqi capital, however, Palestinians’ association with Saddam Hussein has made them easy targets.
While the Palestinian cause may stir the passions of Arabs across the Middle East, Palestinians themselves are often regarded with suspicion.
What a curious and disturbing example of the duality of the Middle Eastern mind. We are constantly assured that the plight of the Palestinians is the ‘root cause’ of the rage and anger evident in the Arab (and wider Muslim) world. Yet, as in Kuwait and now Iraq, it is a plight which their fellow Arabs appear only to eager to exacerbate.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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