We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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I recall a conversation I had a couple of years ago with another British libertarian who argued that ‘pundits are the new priests’; they deliver ‘sermons’ from their TV or radio pulpits and minister to a befuddled public about the mysterious ways of our secular lords.
Although I can see the argument, I don’t entirely agree. However, the very fact that this kind of argument can be plausibly advanced at all is because we are all aware of the decline of the ‘old’ priests; a phenomenon which gets little attention but is highlighted by leaders like this in the Telegraph:
“But the Church has many good things to offer and it needs to start marketing them more successfully. Church buildings are testament to the triumph of Christianity. Soaring roofs, intricate stonework and stained glass windows echo a pride in Christianity that the 21st-century Church seems embarrassed to admit to. There’s a feeling that to modernise means stripping out pews, replacing organs with electric pianos, divesting priests of their robes and ignoring altars for Communion. But young people need someone to respect and admire. Today’s celebrity culture demonstrates that. If the Church, in its physical, as well as spiritual nature, is not the demonstration of the ultimate aspiration, what is?”
The leader quoted above is, in fact, an open letter from a twenty-something British Christian woman to the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. It is a plea to the Church to arrest its slide into irrelevence and provide some meaningful spiritual guidance to Britain’s Christians.
Despite not being a member of the Church, I can wholly understand her desperation because I can also see that it has gone quite disastrously off of the rails. The absurd and frantic mission to ‘modernise’ has resulted in just about every senior member of the clergy tripping over each other in the headlong rush to embrace every manifestation of fashionable claptrap from global warming to grievance politics. → Continue reading: The Last Trumpet
History certainly does have a knack of repeating itself here in the UK. Just as we’re about to embark on another war against a mustachioed despot, we’re all set to bring back rationing:
“A ban on marketing fatty, salty and sugary products at youngsters is one of the options supported by the study from the Food Commission campaign group.
It also backs those calling for a nationwide promotion of healthy foods and a possible “fat tax” on junk food advertising.”
But why stop there? Why not compulsory jogging every morning? Followed by an invigorating dip in ice-water? How about mandatory colonic irrigation, too?
Actually the question is redundant, because, whoever the ‘Food Commission Campaign group’ are, we all know that they have not the slightest intention of stopping there. They wll get what they want and then move on to Stage 2 (and Lord alone knows what that consists of). And because this is Britain we can all more-or-less write the script for these campaigns now. It is even becoming mundane.
I don’t know who these campaigners are but perhaps, by some extraordinary stroke of luck, it will transpire that they have some connection with the WTC attacks. Then the Americans can come and drag them all off to Camp X-Ray.
P.S. Don’t forget the hoods!
I have just received this briefing, courtesy of Stratfor. Since a hefty subscription fee is required in order to link to the article, here is an excerpt:
“Former Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, reputed to be a personal friend of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, made a lightning visit to Baghdad on Feb. 23. The purpose and results of the meeting are shrouded in secrecy, apart from a statement by Moscow that Hussein was asked — and agreed — to cooperate fully with U.N. weapons inspectors.
Reliable Stratfor sources within the Russian government say Hussein indeed has promised to cooperate with the inspectors’ demands — including that Baghdad scrap its al Samoud 2 missile program by March 1, an announcement that sources expect to be forthcoming within days.”
It seems that this ’11th hour offer’ also includes an invitation for Western oil companies to recommence business in Iraq and a blanket promise from Hussein to ‘play nicely’. The offer is being heavily sponsored by the French, the Germans and the Russians and is expected to be received warmly by HMG.
But the real test is whether or not it is accepted in Washington. It could be acceptable if it could then be presented as having only be achieved by the credible threat of force. However, the policy goal in Washington is regime change in Iraq and not status-quo.
Rejection of the offer by Washington could see Mr.Primakov flying back to Baghdad to broker yet another offer, although what more Hussein could possibly put on the table is hard to imagine.
Is this the first ‘blogger-marriage’, I wonder?
Regardless of whether it is or not, many congratulations to Andrew Dodge and Sasha Castel who are now Mr. and Mrs. Castel-Dodge.
They weren’t able to save the Taliban, they won’t be able to save Saddam Hussein but, by gum, they’re going to dig their heels in and fight to the last drop of precious blood to save the French film industry:
“French directors and intellectuals say American films are producing a generation of “stupid children” in the country.”
And, to compound matters, they’re now running the place.
“I go very often to schools, and I have found a lot of young kids have difficulties in analysing a concept, an idea, in a film.”
Maybe that’s true but Hollywood would not be my prime suspect here.
“If we look at what the United States is exporting to the world that is creative, it has to do with computer, it has to do with software, it has to do with other kinds of technology – not the ideas.”
Well, you don’t need boring old ideas when you’re inventing new technologies and software and things, do you.
“But Phillipe Rogier, author of L’Enemie Americain, said the French were not willingly accepting the increase in American culture in their society.”
Except for French kids apparently, who can’t get enough of it.
“The French would not call it a culture – it is a non-culture, a non-civilisation, just a way of life,” Rogier contends.”
A merest, meanest existance. A hollow, empty sham. A pointless, soulless skimming over a vast ocean of nothingness. So primitif, so barbare, so SIMPLISME!!!.
“This has been central to French attitudes towards America.”
No kidding!!
“Ultimately, Tavernier insists, the films are the first step of an American takeover of France.”
What’s the second step and when it is scheduled for?
“They always understood that the first way to occupy a country was to impose their films.”
Oh damn!! Somebody call the Pentagon, quick. They’ve gone and spent all these squintillions of dollars on Cruise Missiles and Aircraft Carriers when they could occupy Iraq by just sending in Martin Scorsese.
Note: The linked article on the BBC website is not satirical.
I don’t suppose that anybody outside Britain or Greece has even heard of the Elgin Marbles and in neither country are there a great many people who are likely to be get exercised over them.
That said, these ancient Greek artifacts are something upon which a small number of people have quite robust opinions and I happen to be one of them.
The ‘Elgin Marbles’ are currently housed in the British Museum in London and are made up of 56 sections of the frieze sculpted by Phidias around the Parthenon. They were acquired and brought to London by the British diplomat Lord Elgin early in the 19th Century from their original home in Greece and where, despite their grandeur and beauty, they had been abandoned to the twins corrosions of the elements and indifference.
For many years, the Greek government has been campaigning for the return of the Marbles to their original home in Greece. In this, they are supported by a large section the British arty/literatti/celebrity set who approach the issue with the same kind of fuzzy-headedness and sophistic feel-goodery that they approach everything else.
Much of the left in Britain has also taken the side of the Greeks in this issue, not out of any particular fondness for Greece but because, for them, the Marbles are a rude reminder of British imperial acquisitiveness and arrogance and their continued presence in the British Museum a standing affrontery to the culture of self-abasement and guilt that they have so assiduously fostered on these shores.
However, the entire matter has been off the radar-screen for some time and it may be because the ‘usual suspects’ are otherwise noisily engaged in the matter of preserving Saddam Hussein’s regime, that we have been treated to a rather bold announcement from the British Museum’s director:
“The director of the British Museum has said that the Elgin Marbles should never be returned from Britain to Greece.
In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, Neil MacGregor said the sculptures, which once adorned the Parthenon temple in Athens, should remain in London.
He has also ended discussions with a British campaign group seeking their return to Greece.”
Good for you, Mr.McGregor. I was not only delighted by this announcement but also (pleasantly) surprised, given the recent low-profile of the issue. It has set my mind to wondering whether Mr.McGregor has at all chanced upon a very recent essay on the matter by Sean Gabb:
“Needless to say, I am strongly opposed to returning the Marbles. If I had my way, they would stay in London forever – preferably joined by anything else we might in future be able to bribe out of the Greeks or the other successor states of antiquity. Indeed, if Lord Elgin did anything wrong, it was to leave too much behind when he finished his work in Athens. He should at least have taken all the pediment sculptures and another caryatid. He might also have dug up some of the statues buried after the Persians destroyed the old Acropolis in 480BC. The world of culture would be all the better had he done so. Just compare the Caryatid he took away with those he left behind, and ask if he really did wrong. However, rather than continue with its mere statement, let me try to justify my opinion. I will review the case for returning the Marbles.”
I usually make a point of arguing a given matter from my own bat, but I am not averse to using someone else’s bat in circumstances where their bat is both bigger and wielded with such admirable adroitness. Sean’s tightly argued and highly learned essay is quite the most the comprehensive and definitive case for retaining the Elgin Marbles in Britain and I do not hesitate to strongly recommend it to everyone regardless of whether they are British or not.
Of course, I can only speculate as to whether or not Mr.McGregor has read the essay and was inspired by it in the same way I was. Probably not. More likely it is just coincidence in which case it is a welcome synchronicity and an indication that level-heads are starting to fight back on this issue.
I still cannot say the word ‘blog’ in any non-blogger company without being confronted by blank faces and puzzled expressions. The medium isn’t really ‘out there’ yet.
But gradual recognition in the circles of orthodox journalism gathers apace although I am not, perhaps, as wildly enthusiastic as I ought to be about this BBC editorial:
“Weblogs, for those of you still outside this ever-increasing loop, are personal web sites, updated frequently, and increasingly interlinked and interconnected to such an extent that some people have started to think of them as a kind of “hive mind” for the internet community.
As American technology writer Dan Gilmor, who first reported the Google/Blogger story, has realised and publicly stated many times: with the advent of weblogging, the readers know more than the journalists. And the journalists had better remember that.”
The hook of the editorial is the acquisition of Pyra by Google but I suppose that it’s a good sign that they’ve been interested enough by blogging to write about the medium in fairly glowing terms.
They do mention one or two blogs specifically and, naturally, both are left-wing but then the BBC can hardly be expected to even acknowledge the existance of anyone or anything that isn’t.
Do you think they’ve noticed this one yet?
Yesterday evening I was present at a very interesting gathering that took place in the City of London.
It was, or at least appeared to be, a joint venture between the American NRA and the NRA of Great Britain (yes, we do have one).
I have not attended anything like this before. The format was that of a TV chat show which was hosted by a representative of the American NRA who fielded questions to, and took replies from, an almost entirely British audience. The event was filmed by an American production company and will, in due course, be edited into an info-mercial for distribution in the USA designed to press home to an American audience the folly and dangers of apparently ‘reasonable’ gun control measures.
It was a remarkably well-informed audience. Many of them were former shooters and gun-owners and, without exception, they were able to recount, by reference to both historical data and relevent legislation, the way victim-disarmament had started in the 1920’s as merely sensible measures to remove the ‘most dangerous’ weapons from society and, over the years, chip by chip, step by step, measure by measure, the disarmament programme advanced up to 1997 when all handguns were prohibited along with every other potentially life-saving tool (e.g. pepper sprays). Emphasised too, was the political and legal slippery slope which has resulted in a situation in Britain today where acting in genuine self-defence is classified as serious crime.
On the face of it, this is an exercise which will benefit Americans not Britons but, on a deeper level, it will benefit Brits as well because events like this bring together those too-few Britons who still believe in a right of self-defence and spurs them on to greater levels of mutual education and political activism. That is how things change.
I detected not the merest hint of a defeatist atmosphere last night. Indeed, I think it is fair to say that the self-defence movement in Britain, albeit still small, has been galvanised to an unprecedented degree.
This was posted today to the Libertarian Alliance Forum by Nigel Meek.
“Although generally always pro-War – I accept the case that Islamic Jihadists and bandit states such as Iraq and North Korea might ultimately have to be confronted and put down by relatively large, well-equipped armed forces, and it’s one of the reasons that *in practice* I’m a minarchist rather than an anarchist – like any libertarian with a right to be called by that name I’ve nevertheless always been somewhat hesitant about fully committing my meagre support to the whole thing. Whether it’s the prospect civilian casualties, of increased taxation to pay for it all, or a lasting diminution in domestic civil liberties – in short, a growth of the State’s reach and power – it is not good news for our way of thinking.
And yet the marches in London and elsewhere yesterday have as near as it’s possible so to do obliged me now to side with Bush and Blair effectively unequivocally. I peeked at the TV screen every now and then on Saturday – and thanks, too, to Perry de Havilland and David Carr for their reporting on the event in Samizdata -and even if one knew absolutely nothing about Saddam Hussein, his family, his supporters, the Ba’athist regime, and the actions of all of the forces under their control nationally and internationally over a great many years, simply looking at those who attended ought to be enough to make any sane person opt for Bush and Blair and to support a military invasion of Iraq, not just in the absence of any formal support from the UN but in complete indifference to what the UN says.
For what did we see on Saturday in London and elsewhere? Warmed-over Cold War moral equivalencers and Communist fellow-travellers; various latter-day Marxoid sectarians; geriatric Aldermaston veterans and other one-sided nuclear
disarmers; ‘smash Anglo-Saxon civilisation’ multiculturalists; assorted celebrity egotists; outright pro-Saddamites; anti-globalisation nihilists; re-invigorated public-sector trades unionists; UN-supporting single-world-governancers; full-time protesters-without-a-cause; liars and fantasists; pan-Arab socialists; Green nature worshippers; anti-Semites; ‘nice’ middle-class people who are “worried about their children’s future” and who voted for the Greens in the 1980s and latterly and ironically for Blair and New Labour; insolent purveyors of an alien and wicked Islamic creed; immigrant welfare-spongers; those who simply think that evil is good and vice-versa; and Lord alone knows who else. Saddest of all – however small in number -capitalist-libertarians whose hatred of Statism is so great that they would apparently look with more favour upon a ‘private’ mugger the a State-employed policeman coming to the victim’s aid.
In short: a march-past of Those Who Are Wrong. This is not a black and white issue. No libertarian could think so. But I believe that it’s fair to say that it’s a black and rather-grimy-off-white-grey issue. The very real faults of Bush
and Blair personally, their political views overall, the parties that they lead, and the only semi-free countries that they run simply must not blind us to the demonstrable truths not only of the nature of Saddam Hussain et al but that those who oppose them here in the UK and elsewhere are (at best) mistaken and (at worst) a fairly representative cross-section of every wicked creed to have recently assailed the world, certainly since the end of the Second World War.
What we witnessed was a March for Evil.”
I think that was worth re-printing.
Having managed to wangle a couple of front-row seats, my fellow reviewer Perry de Havilland and I made our way eagerly to Central London to witness the latest production of Lefties Labour’s Lost presented by the Stop The War Theatre Company.
I always enjoy open-air theatre, especially when it’s high farce. But, from the opening curtain, I had the uncomfortable feeling that this effort was not going to live up to my expectations.
I was impressed by the large, ensemble cast made up of a motley collection of old communists, new communists, greens, Islamists, socialists, peaceniks, beatniks, trade unionists, padres, cadres and a troupe of folk dancers from Somerset. As the drama unfolded, I thought I recognised some of the faces in the Chorus and, indeed, upon checking my notes, I was pleased to be able to confirm that much of the cast had been recruited from the highly successful ‘Anti-Globalisation World Tour’.
Doubtless bonded by that experience, the director must have hoped that this cameraderie would add an extra dynamism to this production but, if that was the intention, then I regret to report that it was not achieved. The cast ambled through their paces determinedly but without much in the way of conviction leaving the audience with a sense of spectacle but nothing memorable.
The script was a total let-down. Directors of future productions should take note that drearily familiar lines such ‘No war for oil’ and ‘Drop Bush not bombs’ have to be delivered with pep and brio in order to have any impact at all. As it was, the cast opted for mere dismal repetition. This will not do. I was left with the impression that, perhaps, the best of their energies had been left in rehearsal.
Kudos must be accorded to the costume designer for splendid authenticity. Everywhere we looked there were muddy browns, washed-out blacks, dull greens and quite the most dizzying array of woolly caps imaginable. Many of the costumes were so profoundly soiled that , I do declare, they stood up and marched about on their own. An eye for this kind of detail is always appreciated.
Alas, it was not enough to rescue the piece which from terminal mediocrity. A flat and pedestrian rendition from an institutional cast lacked the oh-so important quality of spine-tingling zest necessary to truly move an audience. The kindest thing I can say about the direction is that is was formulaic; utterly devoid of anything approaching a radical innovation.
By the interval, both Mr.de Havilland and I were hard put to stay awake and, indeed, we both slipped out quietly before the final curtain.
Notwithstanding the plethora of pre-publicity, this performance fails to live up to its billing. There is some sound, surprisingly little fury and, in the final analysis, it signified nothing. I predict a short run.
I have a message for all British cigarette smokers and for those thinking of taking up smoking: when you next pop down to the supermarket or your local tobacconist for a packet of smokes, why not try Richmond Superking Lights for excellent quality and flavour at a very competitive price.
You may also be interested to note that, since I am not making this recommendation in the course of a business, I have not broken the law:
“The government’s long-awaited Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act comes into effect on Friday 14 February.
The Act outlaws ads in magazines, newspapers and on billboards.
Like most other petty prohibitionist tyrranies this one has been foisted on us by Brussels. Inspired and enacted, I daresay, by people who think of themselves as the ‘great and the good’ and believe themselves to have been charged with the task of rescuing us from our own atavistic tendencies towards self-destruction.
I realise that I can do nothing to deflect them from their mission, but I can do my bit to help undermine them.
So you thought that the impending war in the Middle East was about oil? Hah!! Or did you think it was all about zionist aggression? You dolt.
Thanks to Ron Liebermann, Illuminatus and Whistle-blower par excellence, the truth behind America’s plans in the Middle East have been revealed to us: it’s all about Euros:
“Simply put, the dollar has for several decades been positioned as the only way for an industrialized country to pay OPEC for oil. No matter who you were, you had to buy American dollars and then send those dollars to OPEC, who would then use the money to buy American debt, or American weapons.
It was the perfect set-up. Greenspan printed worthless dollars, and gave them to people who gave us free gasoline, and free TV sets, and free wicker furniture.”
No war for wicker furniture, that’s what I say.
“The game changed, however, when the Euro was introduced. Now, many oil-producing nations are accepting the Euro instead of the dollar. Saddam loves the Euro.”
Why only the other day he declared it to be the ‘Mother of all Currencies’.
“This new competition from the Euro makes Uncle Sam very angry. So Uncle Sam came up with a plan; he sent a secret message to all the Arabs: You will only accept American Dollars, or we will kill you.”
And to which the Arabs replied,’Sorry we can only take Mastercard, or we will bill you’. Besides if that message was ‘secret’ how does Mr.Liebermann know about it?
“In spite of the threats, the Euro is continuing to gain in popularity. So what? You might ask. If oil sellers take one kind of worthless note instead of another, that’s no skin off our backs. But the American government can’t print Euros. It can only print dollars.”
Mr.Liebermann, anyone with a packet of wax crayons and a photocopier can print Euros.
Oh but just hark at me quibbling with an analytical giant. Just read through to the end of the article but, a warning to you Americans; Mr.Liebermann has got some seriously bad news:
“No more Petro-Dollar reserve currency; no more free stuff for Americans.”
Don’t say you weren’t warned.
[My thanks to Richard Poe for the link]
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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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