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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What caused the economic crises?
“Greedy bankers” says some people.
There is certainly a lot of greed about. For example, the people who trampled a part time Security Guard to death at a Walmart on Long Island (as he shielded a fallen pregnant women from them) were certainly greedy. Even after it was announced they had killed a man they still did not want to give up shopping for bargains in the sale and were very angry at being removed from the store. But I doubt there were any bankers in the Walmart sale crowd – although I am open to being proved wrong.
And the lawyers who are talking about “going after Walmart” over the death are greedy also – they are targeting Walmart, rather than the mob of shoppers, because Walmart has “deep pockets”. But these lawyers are not bankers.
In fact I rather doubt that bankers are either more greedy than other people or more greedy than they used to be. Someone does not tend to go into banking as a vocation – it has always been a “for the money” job. Although (and this may shock people) I suspect a lot of bankers are rather more innocent minded than bankers, at least in Britain, were in the past. Many (although far from all) British bankers in past decades were very aware that banking (as practised in the modern world) was based on very “dodgy” foundations and limited themselves with some care – not out of lack of greed, but because they did not have a university education in progressive ideas of “economics” telling them there was nothing dangerous (for example) in lending out money that was not 100% from real savings – indeed modern bankers are taught, as students, that “savings” and “lending” (or “investment” – as all lending is considered “investment”) are automatically the same whatever they do.
A certain Scotsman (an historian who does not thinks that fractional reserve banking in England came from copying Holland – even though the main bank in Holland, the Bank of Amsterdam, was famous at that time for not being a fractional reserve bank) blames the present crises on “Enron style practices” even though Enron was not a bank, and most of the bankers in trouble have not committed fraud in the way the Enron management did – whether fractional reserve banking is itself fraud is something the Scotsman does not consider.
No doubt some bankers were corrupt. Indeed on the board of Citigroup sat (indeed still sits) the disgusting Robert Rubin – one of the very people who was paid to help Enron cover up its debts, and who was listened to because of his high place in the Clinton Administration. Mr Rubin advised Citigroup to “invest” in securities based, credit bubble pyramid style, on home loans granted to people of whom Citigroup knew nothing – and by this advice and other advice Mr Rubin has helped Citigroup build up two trillion Dollars of “toxic assets”.
Mr Rubin has now secured Citigroup a vast government bailout which will support politically connected shareholders and managers and which has so far allowed Citigroup to go on doing things like paying about half a billion Dollars to name the Mets new baseball field “Citifield” and to pay ten billion Dollars (as of Monday) to buy a road building company in Spain – a country where the construction boom went bust some time ago.
One could then talk about the corruption in the (Democrat dominated) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and their political cooperation with people in Congress (such as Senator Chris Countrywide Dodd and Congressman Barney I-was-just-helping-the-young-boys-out Frank) and the work on the ground of such organizations as ACORN (an alliance of groups specializing in extortion and election fraud, whose most powerful section appears to be in Chicago) and how it used the Communities Reinvestment Act to get banks and other such to make loans to people who could not pay them back – when these people really existed at all.
However, all the above could not have produced the present level of crises… → Continue reading: If this is Capitalism then I am a Communist
The ‘Paul Marks Plan’ to save the world economy is inspired by President Bush and Tim Congdon. I can save the world economy on my own, all I need is the cooperation of the public authorities!
First interest rates must be reduced to a negative level (quite a moderate level, say -0.5% although I would settle for -0.1%) then I will borrow huge sums of money and use some of it to “buy cars” as President Bush has suggested. I will also “buy up every decent security in sight” every time the banks get into trouble – as Tim Congdon has pointed out must be done. But it is the “buy cars” suggestion that has really inspired me, and for a special reason. You see I can not drive – and so I would smash up the cars I bought in car crashes, thus meaning not only would I buy more cars, but the drivers of the cars I smashed into would buy more as well.
It would be a wonderful example of stimulating the economy via consumption. A point that the school of thought led by the late Lord Keynes and the school of thought led by the “monetarist” Tim Congdon are in full agreement upon. And whilst such Chicago School people as the late Milton Friedman might not be wildly happy with the direction of ever greater subsidies for the banks that Tim Congdon has taken “monetarism”, the great Tim would be quick to point out that Milton Friedman would not be able to present clear economic principles showing any error in his conception of money and banking – so it must be okay then.
In case anyone think the above is, er, insane… I would point out that it is more moderate than what the British government has already announced, such as one third of the entire British economy (not the government budget – the entire economy) being pledged to back up the banks.
This goes beyond even what President Bush and Congress have done in the United States. Surely we are moving towards the glorious day, worked for so hard by Tim Congdon, when the entire economy (not just the government budget, but everything) is devoted to subsidising the financial services industry. Let us reject such reactionary nonsense as the principle that every Pound of lending must be from a Pound of real savings. And let us also reject the reactionary principle that if a business goes bust it goes bust – and that a bank is no more entitled to protection from “bankruptcy” than a coal mine is. And, most important of all, let us reject the rigid dogma that once money is lent out the lender does not have it any more – till when, and if, it is paid back.
With ‘advanced banking methods’, backed by government of course, one hundred Pounds of physical savings can be multiplied to vastly more than that in loans. One plus one need not equal two – it can equal any number clever people want it to. And with credit money expansion by the public authorities any problem can be overcome. Credit money expansion, under the control of wise and well paid ‘experts’ of course, can achieve anything and no petty thing like either logic or physical reality can stand in its way.
We can achieve a perpetual motion machine – accept that it will speed up.
Of course scientists might claim both that such a thing was ‘impossible’, and that even if it was not that it would destroy the universe. But so what? If we destroy the universe we can create other universes – by an act of will. After all the physical distance between Chicago and Cambridge already seems to have collapsed.
As President Bush and Tim Congdon have explained – prosperity will return, as long as we pump out enough credit money!
Both candidates supported the contemptible bailout. Indeed Senator McCain made a special point of supporting a Federal buy up of mortgages so that “people could pay at the new values and stay in their homes”. As the securities which the United States government is buying up are based on mortgages this is at least “logical” I suppose.
However, there were economic policy differences:
Senator Obama told some truly absurd lies, for example he claimed he would cut more spending than he would increase (in reality he would increase Federal government spending by close to a trillion Dollars on top of the various bailouts), and Senator Obama also repeated his lie about cutting taxes for 95% of the population – a lie because he treats welfare payments as ‘tax cuts’.
But I found the differences on health care policy most interesting.
Senator Obama denounced the very idea of buying health cover over State lines – competition is evil and would allow wicked places to attract business by having less regulation “as Delaware does with insurance and credit cards” perhaps Senator Obama should tell Senator Biden how evil the State of Delaware is.
Clearly the chance of competition being allowed to reduced health costs under a President Obama is zero.
Instead there are to be mandates and regulations. given the absurd notion that lack of regulation, rather than credit bubble finance and the government backing of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and ACORN, is the source of all of America’s problems… with fines to make small business enterprises give health cover to their employees. Senator Obama refused to say what size these fines on individuals and business enterprises would be.
Giving Bear Stearns Bank a bailout was vital – otherwise the financial system and the thing that unkind people call the “credit/money bubble”, would have collapsed.
Bailing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was also vital – otherwise the financial system would have collapsed. Senator Dodd and and Senator Obama were not paid a fortune by Fannie and Freddie for nothing.
And bailing out AIG was vital to – otherwise, again, the financial system would have collapsed.
And now all the “bad housing debt” of all the financial services companies must be taken up by the government – otherwise the financial system will collapse.
And Paul Marks must be bailed out too. After all once one has spent a trillion Dollars, more Dollars than there are stars in the sky or cells in your hands, what is a few Dollars more? His judgements were no worse than that of the bankers and other such. In fact they were better – after all he did not take on a lot of housing loans without even knowing who the money had been loaned to or which people had a chance of paying the money back.
And Paul Marks did not play complex games with the housing loans – treating a debt as an “asset” (“normal banking practice” of course) on which a vast castle-in-the-air could be built. The endless “lower interest rates” by the Federal Reserve system and the Bank of England, i.e. the endless flow of new credit/money that created the mad lending and manipulation in the first place, are not enough. Paul Marks must have a proper bailout – and he must have it now. If Paul Marks does not have a bailout I can assure you that the credit bubble financial system will come to grief.
Of course a “bitter and cynical” person would say that the credit bubble financial system will come to grief even if Paul Marks gets his bail out.
But that did not stop all the other bailouts. Each bailout was supposed to “save the financial system” and clearly did not, but that did not stop all the other bailouts.
Now everyone is going to get a bailout, so Paul Marks must have one too!
I find myself wondering if Britain is a Communist country.
“If the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland were a Communist country you would not be allowed to ask that question.”
I think I might be. If Britain was under Marxist rule (which is what is normally meant by “a Communist country”) I think the rulers might allow me to ask how long we were going to be under socialism before we reached the end state of advanced communist equality – they might even give me a date when the new society would be achieved. The Soviet rulers did this from time to time – normally many decades in the future.
“The means of production, distribution and exchange are not under public control – so we have not even reached the socialist stage yet”.
That would be a better reply. However, almost half of the economy is taken by government spending alone (if one takes account of Mr Brown’s smoke and mirrors), and the rest of the economy is so controlled by endless regulations that it is at least close to be under “public” (if by this we mean state) control.
But it is really the near universal propaganda that got me wondering if was living under Communist rule.
This site is not called ‘samizdata’ without reason. In Britain there are many sources of information – books, magazines, newspapers, television and radio broadcasters. But on many matter they all say the same thing.
Take the example of the bailout/takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the United States.
In America Fox News, so denounced as statists by so many libertarians, had many critical voices on Monday September 8th. On Neil Cavuto’s “Your World” show both M. Malkin and Bob Barr (who are very different from each other on so many political issues) both laid in to the corrupt statism. And Mr Cavuto also did so. The next day (Tuesday 9th September) Ron Paul was on the show – continuing the attack. Later on the 8th of September the Brit Hume show (although Mr Hume himself was away) Ed Crane of the Cato Institute was on denouncing the bailout/takeover. There were, of course, other voices and perhaps to let Fannie and Freddie go bankrupt would have been even worse than what the government did – but this is not my point.
My point is that there was no dissent in Britain – from any media source. The BBC did not even report in its main news shows that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were created by the government and run by political cronies. The leftist Independent newspaper gloatingly declared that President Bush had “torn up years of lassez faire polices”. The claim that there has ever even been a “lassez faire” policy in the United States under President wild spending Bush is such a blatant bit of agitprop that it is hard to know how to respond to it.
And the so-called ‘Conservative’ newspapers? No dissent anywhere – at least none I could find. In fact the Daily Mail was demanding something similar for Britain.
It must be remembered that in Britain ‘Conservative’ means ‘Conservative party’, it does not mean conservative in any philosophical sense.
And it is not true that in Communist countries there was only one legal party – often there were several political parties (organized into a ‘front’), as long as they all supported the regime.
But it is not just this one example.
Take another incident on Monday September 8th – the Fox News refutation of “the Americans killed lots of innocent kids” lie that was going round the world.
Fox News had reporters actually on the raid in question, who had filmed the raid and openly denounced the “killed these kids” claims as lies.
This would simply not happen in Britain. Even if a British television crew had been on a raid with special forces – it would never call the crying and screaming “relatives of the murdered children” (who can cry and scream on que whenever they are told to – and can produce pictures of dead bodies) liars.
“We are libertarians, we are anti-war” – I am saying be “pro-war” (perhaps the Afghan war is all wrong), I am saying tell the truth. Something that does not happen here – on any television or radio station. If you were with someone and know they did not kill kids then it is your duty to say so. And, if dead kids are produced, to ask who really killed them. That would not be done by any British network.
But it goes a lot further than this. For example, today I went round the bookshops in my home town of Kettering Northamptonshire – a typical British town if there ever was one. In every shop there were Senator Obama’s books, and so there should be – he may be elected to a very powerful position, so what he has to say is of interest.
But in no shop was there any book that was critical of Senator Obama.
No “Obama Nation“, or “The Case Against Barack Obama“, or “Audacity of Deceit” or “Obama Unmasked“.
Perhaps these books are useless (although the first two are best sellers in the United States), but why were they not on the shelves?
“Because they would not sell” – how does anyone know, if they are not put on the shelves?
And why are the same leftist propaganda books on the shelves for ever – even though people do not buy them?
For example, in the local “W.H. Smith” there is copy of “What’s wrong with America?” (what is wrong with America seems to be that it is not yet sufficiently Marxist) – and it has been the same copy for at least two years (I know that because there is a bend in the cover).
Does this sound like commercial behaviour by a profit maximising private company? American libertarians often complain that the United States is capitalist in name, but semi-socialist in reality.
Actually that is rather more true of Britain.
The BBC is running a television series called The Tudors, I believe that the show is in its second series. They seem to think that the Tudor dynasty started with Henry VIII as there were no episodes on his father Henry VII, and the show still seems to be stuck on Henry VIII. Indeed his second wife, Ann Boleyn, has not even been executed yet – sorry if this is a ‘spoiler’ to people who think the fate of Ann is a cliff hanger.
“Sneer as much as you like about how slow paced this series is,” I hear you say, “the BBC is concentrating on telling the story correctly”.
Really?
Today I channel hopped and came upon the point in the show where the actor playing Thomas Cromwell was introducing a new invention – a secret weapon that would win the propaganda war with the Roman Catholics. The printing press (spoken with special stress) – introduced to the show with cries of “by God, what is that?”, and other such, from the actors.
Sadly the printing press was introduced to England during the reign of Edward IV – some sixty years before the time the scene was set, so everyone would have known exactly what a printing press was.
The excuse for the special tax that funds the BBC is that the organization ‘educates’ the population. This excuse just does not stand up.
“Vetted for fifteen minutes”
So runs the subheading in the “Lexington” article about Sarah Palin in this week’s Economist magazine. A choice, the Economist says, which raises serious questions about John McCain’s judgement… and the rest of the normal left media establishment spin.
The line is a lie, as Governor Palin was closely vetted by the McCain campaign over an extended period of time.
No doubt some clever-clever person will come up with the excuse that if I read the small print of the article (or read it up side down and in a mirror) then… However, I am not interested in excuses, the intention of the article is plain. The intention is to use lies and distortions to undermine any challenge to the “liberal” left power elite.
As for the source of the “Vetted for fifteen minutes” lie. The New York Times of course (Joe Stalin’s best friend in the Western World). A cynic might question how close the New York Times is to the McCain campaign, but the Economist would denounce such evil right wing cynics.
I do not bother to write articles attacking leftist stuff from openly leftist publications or broadcasters.
For example, it may irritate me that the BBC sneer at Sarah Palin as “close to the oil industry” when, in fact, the lady exposed corrupt links between oil and Alaska politics. And it may be annoying that the BBC sneers that Governor Palin made her speech with “her husband and children in tow”, when it did not say that Senator Obama had “his wife and children in tow” when he made his speech. But the BBC is the BBC… it is a leftist broadcaster and its job is to present a leftist view of the world – although it is irritating that people are forced to pay for the BBC.
However, the Economist is different, it claims to be a free market magazine (sorry “newspaper”) dedicated to rolling back the state – and it simply is not.
The latest example is the front cover story “Bring back the real McCain“. When one turns to the article it turns out to be yet another Economist attack on the “irresponsible” policy of John McCain – the policy of trying to keep tax rates from being increased, and even reducing some of the absurdly high tax rates presently in place. The general tone of the article was both that tax cuts for “the rich” are immoral and that, on top of this, they must be “paid for”.
Contrary to what the Economist seems to believe, it was not the reduction of top rates of tax that was the problem under President Bush – on the contrary the revenue from the top rates of tax increased. It was the wild increase in government spending that has been the problem under President Bush.
Not just the mis-management of the Iraq war, although whatever one thinks of the judgement to go into Iraq in the first place the lack of planning for an insurgency meant a lot more blood and treasure being spent in the long run than would have been spent if more troops had been sent in the first place. There has also been all the subsidies, new entitlement programs and other wild spending and, again contrary to what the Economist thinks, the “earmarks” have been very important – for often Congressmen and Senators only vote for a spending bill because of the little earmark for some special interest buried on page…
And who in the Senate has been the most important voice of opposition to all this wild spending over the last few years – for all his faults, it has been John McCain. So for the Economist to claim he is not tough enough on spending to “pay for” his desire to make taxation less heavy is absurd, anti-earmark McCain is but it does not stop there – and, as stated above, the earmarks grease the wheels for the rest of the spending.
As for the idea that higher rates of tax at the top end will mean more revenue, the basis of the Economist claim that not ending the Bush tax rate reductions will cost X vast amount of revenue, this claim does not just ignore the reality of higher revenue from the reductions in the top rates of certain taxes under Bush, it ignores what happened under both Reagan and Thatcher, and under President Kennedy, and under every government that has reduced high top rates of tax since at least the Grand Duke Leopold II of Tuscany in the 18th century. Perhaps Grand Duke Leopold is too recent for the Economist writers, but to the horror of collectivists, “tax cuts for the rich” really do “pay for themselves”.
However, there is also another factor. On the very day the Economist hit the shelves, its sister publication the Financial Times reported that yet more companies were leaving the United Kingdom because of our very high rate of Corporation Tax.
Yes, you guessed it, the American combined State and Federal Corporation Tax burden is actually worse than that of the United Kingdom. “But lots of American corporations do not pay Corporation Tax” – the ones that make losses do not pay for they have no profits to pay tax out of (hint – this is not a good thing for the corporations concerned), other companies do not pay because they are not “corporations” at all – they are privately owned companies whose owners pay income tax on their profits.
Sadly ignorant of all of the above, the Economist specifically targeted John McCain’s proposal to reduced the rate of Corporation Tax as one of his “irresponsible” policies.
John McCain is no economic genius, but has shown the ability to learn. The Economist writers show no such ability, all they can do is to trot out the moronic collectivism they were taught at school and university. I know I have said this before, but it needs saying whilst the Economist still pretends to be a “free market” publication.
Comrades! – and revisionist Hillary supporting scum. Only a little joke, Hillary comrades – your support is really most welcome.
I stand before you today to tell you that Now is Our Time. The pathetic remnants of Western Civilization are ripe for destruction, and we will be the generation of revolutionaries that will finally achieve the goal of creating the new society. Outmoded institutions like private property will be swept away, and a new progressive order created.
And this will be achieved without once mentioning such words as “socialism” or “Marxism” in public. Indeed it is our very care to avoid scaring those mislead by capitalism, the ignorant who still cling to their guns and religion, that will help us achieve total victory. Ultimate power is within our grasp.
No longer we will have to pretend to be “proud of our country”, for as the Intellectual Vanguard of the Revolution our country is the whole planet.
We have the children and young people already. It is true that most children are still given such outmoded and old fashioned things as birthday and even “Christmas” presents. Few children are given the intense political education that these two children receive [at this point Comrade Speaker is to wave the two girl props], or that the Great One himself received – the three hours of political education per day that our Beloved Leader was given by his mother, the untypical white person, from his most early years.
However, such intense political education is only needed for the leaders, for the Community Organisers – for the Intellectual Vanguard of the Revolution. For the masses the level of conditioning provided by the progressive media and by the public collective schools and even some of the “private” schools, is enough. With minds clear of experience or information, the young can be taught that all problems are due to the greed of big businessmen (we need not even use word “capitalists” ) and can be solved by enlightened collective power.
It is true that we have made compromises and sacrifices, but look at things have turned out:
For example, only forty years ago our Comrade Revolutionaries were fighting on the streets with the corrupt Chicago Machine. We decided not to fight that Machine – but to cooperate with it, using our family ties to the Machine when we had them. And look at the results.
Now the machine is ours. It is our instrument – the instrument of the Revolution!
Today many of the largest corporations fund our organizations – just as Saul Alinksy predicted they one day would. But it is more than fear – the infiltration and, more importantly, the permeation of ideas (as Gramsci taught) means that many of the largest corporations are managed by people who are in whole or part in sympathy with us. The transition will be easy -for the managers of such corporations as General Electric hate the whole concept of share OWNERS already.
This is what pragmatism has given us – power, ultimate power. And soon this whole stinking Imperialist country will fall to us. And when this place falls, so will the whole world!
This is the secret of our success – our flexibility. If the “liberals” with their bourgeois humanitarianism are against the death penalty then we are against the death penalty – whilst they are useful to us.
But as soon as it is more useful to be in favour of the death penalty then we are in favour of it – indeed more in favour of it than anyone else. Indeed we truly are in favour of the death penalty, although not for the offenses the deluded reactionaries are – pause for laughter and shouts of “kill them all”.
Comrades, Comrades – we must remember Comrade Lenin’s teachings.
If it is for the good of the Revolution we should kill off nine tenths of the population of the whole Earth, but if it is for the good of the Revolution to resist our urges and kill no one at all – then that is the policy we should follow.
The only morality is the Revolution – the new society. There must be no more self indulgence in killing than in anything else.
Just as living children may be used as props to attract the votes of sentimental idiots – the kind of people who give “Christmas” presents [pause for more laughter], so they may be killed out of hand after they are born, or used for experiments [pause for laughter]- experiments the capitalists and their dupes are so weak as to be forced to fund with their taxes – pause for wild laughter.
There is no contradiction – for the only truth is the Revolution and its needs. For this end we may even set up Churches to take over the “God” nonsense.
Of course this is more than “we may” – for we already have, this is what Liberation Theology is about.
For whilst religion is the opium of capitalism – it can also be the energy of the Revolution!
When the new society is achieved, and it will be soon comrades, we will get rid of this “God” concept for the only true God is the Collective – not some mythical individual. Just as we will get rid of other things we pretend to hold in high regard, such as the “family” [wave prop children again – to wild laughter] – but till then these absurdities are of use. We will even use the idea of the pathetic Bush of capitalist taxes to subsidize religous groups – our religious groups. Indeed we have so ordered things that we get most of this money already!
Wild laughter – and shouts of “the capitalists fund the rope with which we will hang them”, other shouts of such things as “Warren Buffet and …… do this without being forced to” more laughter.
Comrades, Comrades we must not indulge ourselves even by too much talk – there is still much to do in the campaign.
So I will conclude by telling you that I think that our traditional private chant of “Death-to-America” is too narrow – too much in the spirit of narrow bourgeois nationalism and counter nationalism. Indeed it is has even been taken up by Islamic radicals, although of the more anti imperialist and useful kind, and they are even stupid enough to chant it in public.
So I propose a new chant. I was inspired by some of our more weak minded, but useful, comrades at Stamford University – with their “Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho – Western Civilization has got to go”. But I propose something that is shorter and less flippant.
[At this point the speaker leads the crowd in the new private chant].
Death-to-the-West! Death-to-the-West! Death-to-the-West! Death-to-the-West!……….
Firstly the many people who signed up for the ‘special’ text message announcement of Senator Obama choice for “running mate” were treated with great disrespect. Democrats were out singing the praises of Senator Biden (for example on Fox News) on Friday morning. Then an aircraft was sent to pick up Senator Biden from Delaware and take him to Chicago (this was first spotted by a blogger I believe) – so that he could appear with Senator Obama in the Saturday event.
This was duly noted (by both American and international media) as confirmation that Senator Obama had picked Senator Biden.
Everyone paying even slight attention knew.
Everyone from evil ‘rightwing’ foes of all that is ‘socially just’ in Britain (people like me), to casual watchers of, for example, Indian English language television.
Everyone knew – accept those activists who had trusted the Obama campaign to send them a text message and were away from the broadcast media or the internet. The texts were not sent out till this morning.
As for Senator Biden himself: a totally pro-union (i.e. supportive of government special pro-union laws) politician. And someone who is ardently in favour of expanding the size and scope of American government health, education and welfare programs – a Welfare Statist.
Almost needless to say Senator Biden is also a ‘gun control’ man and so on.
However: Senator Biden’s son will be off to serve in Iraq this October – which will show patriotism. And Senator Biden himself is strongly anti Castro – and is clearly from the non-communist left. Perhaps this is what Senator Obama meant when he promised (on CBS) that he would pick someone with very different opinions from his own, who would “challenge my thinking”.
Well the 4th of August came and went again, without comment from anyone else – so I will belatedly comment upon it myself.
This day is more than the 47th birthday of the Windy City Marxist (sorry “liberal”) – spiritual grandchild of Saul Alinsky, it is also the date of the only good day in the French Revolution.
I refer not so much to the “Declaration of the Rights of Man”, a document whose wording makes it rather less useful in defending people (as opposed to ‘the people’) against the power of the state than the American Bill of Rights. I refer to the practical things that were done on the Fourth of August 1789… The abolition of so many taxes, monopolies and restrictions…and the ending of serfdom.
Certainly ‘only’ half a million French people (out of a population of some 30 million) were serfs and the courts had not been in the habit of enforcing serfdom, but the legal status still existed – till the 4th of August 1789.
And certainly the ending of the so many taxes on the 4th of August was followed, only a few months later, by new taxes and by the theft of vast amounts of land from the Roman Catholic Church and others, supposedly to “back” the newly issued fiat money “Assignats” that collapsed into hyperinflation anyway – in spite of all the stealing and all the murders that the Revolutionaries committed.
However, the 4th of August was still a good day, the one good day of the French Revolution, and it should not be forgotten.
I am getting used to finding nonsense in the Daily Telegraph – when I still look at it.
Whether it is an absurd claim that the Rosenbergs were innocent – a claim made in an obituary of someone who was involved with them, and based upon the sainted authority of the New York Times of all people. Or a claim that Fox News (amongst other wicked things) characterizes Mrs Obama as a “golliwog”, a claim based on a far left smear site – as actually watching Fox News before writing about it would be beneath the dignity of the correspondents the Daily Telegraph sends to the United States.
And, of course, the endless favourable coverage for Comrade Senator Obama himself.
However, I am still capable of being shocked and I was shocked by Andrew O’Hagan’s despicable article on Solzhenitsyn in the same issue of the Daily Telegraph (Tuesday, August 5th) that carried Solzhenitsyn’s obituary – indeed on the very page before the obituary.
No doubt O’Hagan would defend his article (if he bothered to defend it) as light-hearted and basically supportive.
“Light-hearted” being English in this part of the world for “I can get away with being a swine, if I pretend it is all a joke” and “basically supportive” meaning kicking someone when he is down. The reader is told that Solzhenitsyn was not a great writer. Well Mr O’Hagan is entitled to his opinion, although it was odd day to choose to state it – with the man not even being buried yet. But the article went a lot further than that.
The reader is told that it is impossible to read the works of Solzhenitsyn – not just the very late works, but any of them. And then there is weird rant that trying to read Solzhenitsyn drives people to “banjo playing, feeling sympathy for Stalin” and various other stuff. No doubt this would be defended as being “amusing”.
Almost needless to say there was no mention of the tens of millions of people murdered by the Marxist/Leninists in what was then the Soviet Union, or the tens of millions of people the Marxists (the side of such people as the Rosenbergs and Saul Alinsky and his modern followers) have murdered in other parts of the world.
Instead Mr Andrew O’Hagan says that “We didn’t read him, but his thinking changed ours”.
Who “we” might be is not explained (although I think I know), as for “his thinking changed ours”, I have seen no sign of that in Mr O’Hagan himself.
Solzhenitsyn had flaws (as all human beings do), but he had a great respect for truth and Mr O’Hagan has no respect for truth at all. He, like so many at the Telegraph group now, sees his role as pushing ‘progressive’ propaganda at a once conservative newspaper – and if the truth does not fit the propaganda line, too bad for the truth.
I remember well him waxing with rage about how the wicked rightwing Bush and his evil cronies had denied New Orleans money after Katrina. One can rightly attack all layers of government for their messing up at the time of Katrina, and readers of this blog will know how much I despise George Walker Bush. But the O’Hagan picture of a skinflint Bush denying people money years after the event, did not fit well with my knowledge of President Bush as a spendthrift – so I checked. In reality, the Federal government had thrown billions of taxpayer Dollars at New Orleans and much of the money had vanished – as anyone who knows much about the place would have expected.
But O’Hagan had visited the place and so facts were not important – only his empathy with the suffering masses.
Solzhenitsyn would not have had the same opinion. He was no ardent friend of the West – but he was no lover of criminals either. Neither the ‘honest thieves’ (the open criminals with their ‘thieves law’ of the gang) or the ‘bitches’ – the trusties, or local government people and ‘community activists’.
“But the majority of the population are not thieves” – quite so, they are victims and will continue to be so whilst the criminals, both open criminals and government and community activists, continue to rule so many cities.
Lastly I apologize for any slight errors there may be in my account of Mr O’Hagan’s article – I am writing from memory [good thing you have an editor to embed the links for you, Ed.]. After looking at his article in the library I could not bring myself to buy the Daily Telegraph even to get the obituary of Solzhenitsyn – so I bought a copy of The Times instead.
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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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