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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Fidel Castro, in a speech to the masses, has announced that he will not accept any more aid from the European Union as people connected with this organization have made critical comments about some of the policies of his regime.
Now if Fidel Castro actually keeps his word (I admit that this a dodgy assumption) his regime may soon fall.
Cuba has various sources of income. Some are not that important – for example the Castro regime’s drug dealing has long been limited by the desire to maintain plausible deniability (cocaine dealing having a negative public relations aspect in modern times – although at one time it was considered a respectable trade, and may one day be so considered again). Also there is little point for Latin American cocaine sellers to work via Cuba (when they can sell direct) – although some groups (such as the F.A.R.C. and the E.L.N. in Colombia) have an ideological interest in working with Cuba.
Other sources of finance are important, but also vulnerable. For example the cheap oil from Venezuela depends on the President there continuing to hold power. Now whilst it is true that large sections of the population continue to be part of the ‘Chavez cult’ (the President is consided a sort of God – who is to be worshipped no matter how much harm he causes his worshippers), the majority of the population are not part of the cult and the President may feel it sensible to sell oil at market prices to whoever wishes to buy it – or the President may lose power.
Then there is the nickel mining in Cuba. Nickel is a good source of money, however the mining depends on western companies and both the E.U. and Canada seem to be getting tired of encouraging private companies to operate in Cuba (considering the way these companies tend to get treated there). The belief that Castro should be supported because he is a ‘progressive’ (and also as a good way of twisting the tail of the United States) is finally slipping away. Also the fad of Cuba tourism seems to be losing its shine. Pre Castro musicians are dying off and pre Castro buildings are decaying (in spite of all the aid sent to prevent their decay).
This leaves Cuba with the income sent home by Cubans living overseas.
It is ironic that such an important source of income for Cuba (perhaps more important than tourism) is from people in the United States sending money back to their families.
A regime that depends on the population being supported by people living in the ‘great enemy’ can hardly be considered a strong one.
My guess (it can be no more than that) is that Fidel Castro will be out (or dead) within a year.
Samizdata hasn’t done all that much reporting of or commentary on the Kelly Affair and related matters, so the least we can do is nod humbly towards those who have done more, such as these persons in interesting posts like this, and this guy, David Steven. I’ve no time for more now as I am soon to be out socialising, but this piece, about Andrew Gilligan‘s track record during the Iraq War, is a classic example of the power of the blogosphere, first because the material which David Steven is analysing itself first appeared on a BBC Blog, and second, because of how good an influential this particular piece has been.
Did the BBC realise quite what a hostage to fortune it would be to allow their foreign correspondents to just say whatever they liked, and have it all up there permanently on the record? They already know that if they tamper retrospectively with more stuff, that only gets them into more trouble.
(Someone recently blogged about a case of the BBC surreptitiously adding some distancing quotes to some outrageous piece of Stalinoid nonsense which it had presented as straight fact, after a blogger had already quoted it as an example of their bias, but I can’t remember who tells this story. Helpful comment please.)
We’ve been, as I say, a bit behind the story here, but I think I can feel a feeding frenzy beginning to develop about the BBC, not unlike the one that did such serious things not so long ago to the New York Times.
I think the vital change has not been the complaining that’s long been going on here. What has changed is the American attitude. 9/11 did so many things, and one of them was to cause Americans to pay more attention not just to the big wide world out there, but also to the most influential organisations, theirs and other peoples’, that have for decades been reporting it.
And I wonder if the BBC saw that one coming on 9/12.
It would not surprise me in the least if an internal memo had been circulated around all departments of HMG reminding staff to spend at least some part of their day rummaging down the backs of sofas and armchairs and remitting all and any recovered coinage to the Treasury. I honestly think they must be getting that desperate for money.
From the UK Times (so no link):
THE home secretary wants to add a £35 surcharge to fixed penalty notices, such as parking tickets and speeding fines, to boost the state compensation fund for victims of crime, leaked cabinet papers reveal.
The controversial move, approved by Gordon Brown, the chancellor, will be seen as another Labour stealth tax.
The “victims’ surcharge” would apply to a range of misdemeanours, including motoring offences, littering, dog fouling and graffiti as well as yobbish or drunken behaviour. The extra £35 would be added to the fixed penalty.
It won’t be ‘seen’ as another ‘stealth tax, it is another bloody stealth tax and one that will, as per usual, fall almost entirely onto the shoulders of the middle-classes, the property owning, the business-running and the law-abiding. But they are precisely the people HMG wants to target because, simply, they are the people who actually have something to take. The threat to exact the ‘surcharge’ from petty criminals is pure fantasy as such people seldom pay the fines that are already imposed on them and typically do not have the means to do so.
The promise to use this money for ‘victims of crime’ is, I’m afraid, yet another howler. Just as with the Road Fund Licence (which was introduced on the promise that the collected revenue was going to go solely to road construction and maintenance) the extra revenue will quickly get swept into the general tax take where it is urgently needed to prop up the failing public sector.
However there is something apposite about calling this a ‘victims of crime’ fund because, in a way, it is chillingly accurate. The ‘victims’ being anybody in this country with something to lose and the criminals being their own government.
Only the BBC could possibly publish a full-page editorial about the 50th anniversary of Castro’s revolution in Cuba without once mentioning the word ‘communism’. Not overlooked, however, is a bit of fawning over the Beard himself:
Mr Castro, then a 26-year-old revolutionary, led about 120 fighters in a raid on the Moncada barracks – with a garrison of about 800 soldiers – on 26 July 1953.
So brave! So dashing! So bold! Our hero! (swoon).
Still there are some brief, grudging but nonetheless damning admissions:
His country has gone from being the third-richest in Latin America to one of the poorest.
Its economy now relies heavily on funds sent from Cubans abroad and on tourism.
Untold numbers of Cubans flee the island every year, trying to cross to nearby Florida – including via a truck turned into a raft this week.
Grim reading indeed but completey overshadowed, of course, by Castro’s laudable ‘humanitarian achievements’:
Cuba boasts the highest life expectancy in Latin America and one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world.
It has one doctor per 166 people and one of the most extensive free public health systems in the world.
It also has one of the highest literacy rates in the world, with just over 95% of the population being able to read.
Makes you wonder why so many Cubans are so hell-bent on getting the flock out of Cuba. Perhaps they are all ‘extreme right-wingers’.
In any event, I wonder if those oft-touted statistics actually bear any resemblance to reality? Or are they, like Soviet grain harvesting figures, a mere device to provide Western leftists with a tool of apologia. The ‘best healthcare in the world’ schtick is now such familiar copybook mummery that it is even accepted by people who should know better. Perhaps somebody should ask those fleeing Cubans what life is really like.
I did a posting yesterday at my Education Blog about a suggestion for a more “free market” approach to Britain’s examination system. It is of course not a suggestion for a real free market, merely for a centrally licensed franchise system.
Anyway, this comment appeared today about this, which gives an excellent if anecdotal feel for the state of education in Britain now:
A friend of mine (source protection here) was asked to mark double the usual amount of scripts this year because that particular exam did not have enough markers. That’s 400 scripts in about 4 weeks.
Reasons for the lack of recruits: a) the markers are paid peanuts b) it’s just at the beginning of the summer holidays, and most teachers would rather have a rest than do even more marking c) teaching is such a depressing business to be in at the moment that many of the sparkiest – who would make competent examiners – are getting the hell out.
Exam board solutions:
This year they offered to pay schools for supply cover so that instead of teaching, examiner-teachers could spend school time marking scripts. Not surprisingly, the take-up was small.
Gossip from my anonymous friend: exam boards are considering making a deal with schools whereby if the school wants to sit that board’s exams, they’ll have to supply n teachers to mark them.
I can’t wait to see it all implode, necessitating some market solutions rather than this government-sponsored-shoe-string job.
My worry is that the “market solutions” they resort to will, like that proposed “free market” exam franchising system, not be real market solutions. The government will stay totally in command of the curriculum, and the “free market” will just be another more complicated way to pay state hirelings.
A real free market in exams would mean competing curricula, competing exams to examine mastery of said curricula, and teachers, parents, pupils and employers organising, advising and choosing at will, to suit themselves and their various ambitions and purposes. The government’s job would be to stay out of it all, while every so often making the occasional discouraging remark about how education is over-rated and that it prefers ignorance, especially for children, thereby giving the adults who are organising everything the confidence that the government would continue to stay out of everything, and thereby getting the kids all excited about it.
Dream on Brian. Which is what I am for, I suppose.
Tony Martin has no shortage of supporters. Unfortunately, he has no shortage of sworn enemies either:
Relatives of Fred Barras, the burglar shot dead by Tony Martin, last night warned that the Norfolk farmer will be murdered after his release tomorrow.
One cousin of Barras said Martin was “going to get it”, while another said a hitman would be hired if the dead teenager’s associates failed to carry out a retaliatory attack.
I do believe that threatening to murder someone is a criminal offence. Since these would-be assassins have already revealed themselves to a newspaper, identification should not be a problem and I therefore assume that the police will be rounding these people up.
Or do they only spring into action when otherwise law-abiding people ‘threaten’ to defend themselves?
I disagree with those people who claim that Tony Blair is delusional or psychotic. I think he might have a better grip on reality than many of his detractors claim. For example, he appears to be under no illusions about how unpopular both he and his wretched government have become:
Tony Blair has put off the launch of a plan to compel every Briton to hold an ID card in response to fears that it will turn into an expensive and frustrating assault on liberty.
But why should this exercise prove either ‘expensive’ or ‘frustrating’ if, as Mr.Blunkett assures us, the ‘vast majority’ of the public are in favour of the scheme?
I suspect that the truth is grubbier but no less welcome. A weakened and frightened Tony Blair realises that if Blunkett is allowed to press ahead with his despotic little plans the result will be widespread civil disobedience and a PR disaster.
Maybe we can still win this.
How exactly did the Cold War end, and who exactly won it, and lost it?
I like this summary, provided by someone or something called “The Friendly Ghost”, which he (it) wrote in response to the accusation that the current President of the US has also been telling the occasional untruth.
When Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, he was briefed on the military capabilities of the U.S. and the Soviet Union. At the end of the briefing, Reagan asked, “Is that all the forces we can afford?” The answer was yes. The president then asked, “Then how can the Soviet Union afford such a huge military?” He was told they couldn’t. At that point, Reagan decided to see the Soviet Union’s 20-year military build-up, and raised them Star Wars.
Now, President Reagan couldn’t just say he was building a shield to shoot down ICBMs. He had to demonstrate that the technology actually worked. But it didn’t really work. So the decision was made to rig the tests, so that it looked like the system worked. In other words, HE LIED. But the Soviets believed the lie, and bankrupted themselves trying to catch up to the Americans. Gorbachev eventually came to power, and shouted “glasnost!” A few years later, the Soviet Union dissolved.
The moral of the story? By telling a lie, Ronald Reagan helped bring down the United States’ biggest, most powerful enemy, without firing a shot. Sun Tsu would be proud.
I’m not exactly sure what the provenance of the above is. It seems to be a summary of things that the Friendly Ghost guy got from this guy.
The Friendly Ghost then continues, in his own voice, so to speak.
Yes, the story is a simplification of events. But a couple of months ago, I watched a documentary on the History Channel about Star Wars. The Soviets really were that paranoid about SDI, at least for a few years. Although by the time of the Reykjavik Summit, there was some suspicion about the effectiveness of SDI, Reagan’s actions in not giving it up helped sustain the illusion in many minds in the Soviet leadership. But the most telling statistic? When the Soviet Union fell, it was discovered that the CIA had woefully underestimated Soviet military spending. The Soviets were spending 25% of their GNP on their military. Yes Virginia, there was a reason the Soviet Union fell. The military spending killed the economy. And why were the Soviets spending so much on their military? Two words: Ronald Reagan.
I was always of and remain of the opinion that the proper percentage figure for Soviet “defence” spending was one hundred.
A lot of my libertarian friends, acquaintances and competitors believe that the USSR would have collapsed anyway, a victim of its own “internal contradictions” – i.e. its useless economy, inability to make PCs or washing machines or jeans or decent cars, or make sensible use of fax machines and photocopiers.
My feeling about that is, maybe it would, but how might it have collapsed? Had the old USSR not been faced by a weapon-wielding USA breathing fire, brimstone and Tom Cruise movies all over it, and flashing cool photos of stealth bombers all over the place, might the USSR not have collapsed outwards, so to speak? Might it perhaps have attacked lazy, fat, pre-occupied Western Europe, in order to get more plunder, and to divert its domestic population from its domestic griefs with foreign glories, Henry V style – and because it preferred going out with a bang to going out with the whimper that it actually did go out with?
My favourite end-of-Cold-War moment came in the late eighties when, on a British TV show, a Dimbleby asked Caspar Weinberger what defence spending was being “prioritised”. Said Weinberger, after a thoughtful pause: “Well, pretty much everything.” I knew then that it was over.
I know, I’m a libertarian and I’m not supposed to enjoy stuff like that, but I did and I do. Given what Reagan could do with the buttons he had on his desk, and did not have, I think he did very well.
Broken news, from whenever, but I didn’t know. Paul Johnson has written a book about Art. Thanks to Michael Blowhard for the news.
Its American publication date is October, which means it should be available in early-to-mid September. The publisher compares the book to Gombrich, and describes it as a comprehensive history of art that covers everything from rock painting up the present. I seem to remember that Johnson himself is a serious watercolorist and art fanatic, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the art-crit part of the book is as good as the history-telling will no doubt be. I’m also betting that the view he delivers of art history won’t be the standard one, to say the least. I’m especially curious to see how he treats the 20th century — a little birdy has already told me that Warhol gets not much more than one sentence in the book.
Can I wait until it piles up in the remainder shops? No, I don’t think that will happen.
It is a central plank of federast propoganda that the European Union is the only way to stop conflagrations like WWI and WWII from happening again. I have always regarded such pronouncements as specious self-delusion. Indeed, certain features of life in wartime Europe are beginning to re-appear, such as austerity, rationing and empty shelves:
Gardeners were banned from buying dozens of pesticides from yesterday under new European rules. The 80 gardening products, mostly lawn treatments, have been withdrawn from the shelves. They can be used until the end of December.
They include many sold by major retailers including B&Q, Asda and Do It All, and are being banned alongside 135 agricultural products.
Thus we are saved from the cataclysmic horror of law treatments. Household cleaning products are probably next.
Nor is this the end but merely the beginning for what we are seeing is the EU’s ‘precautionary principle’ in action. As a result, thousands of chemicals used everyday, domestically and commercially, now have to be subjected to an exhaustive and expensive testing procedure to ensure that they post not the even the merest smidgeon of a hint of a suggestion of a risk to health. This is despite that face that, in most cases, these chemical products have been used for years, even decades, without anyone growing three heads as a consequence.
For many, particularly smaller scale, producers the cost of compliance means bankruptcy so they simply withdraw the products from sale. Result: a gradual emptying of shelves.
And who, exactly, is behind it? As if we couldn’t guess:
Friends of the Earth welcomed the move but raised doubts as to whether the outlawed pesticides would be disposed of properly. The environmental pressure group also claimed some products were not covered by the ban despite being proven to damage human health.
Yes, the enviro-mentalists. Europe’s ‘jihadis’; they may be self-righteous creeps with faces one can never can tired of punching but they have managed to secure themselves a svengali-like grip on the minds of Europe’s Cardinals.
By this time next year, Samizata articles will be written on papyrus scrolls and distributed to our readers by mule-train.
Big Blunkett appears to be taking the Campbell approach: when caught out, bluster and shoot the messenger.
Blunkett has attacked the BBC’s “Asylum Day” reporting for being Powellite and racist.
John Ware of Panorama has refuted Blunkett’s claims in this letter to the Guardian.
The Panorama programme showed that the asylum system – for which Blunkett is responsible – is a mess. Whether you want tighter or looser rules, the current ones are not being enforced. Human and systemic error is rife despite the use of fingerprints.
Big Blunkett wants to introduce compulsory National Identity Cards. Programmes like this edition of Panorama show once again that any system is only as good as its weakest link – the human element.
If the Home Office can’t manage the records of a few thousand asylum seekers, what chance do they have of maintaining a national database on every one of us? Error and corruption will be rife, privacy will vanish.
This Panorama programme proved that Big Blunkett’s plans to watch us all will not achieve their stated aims. Was that the real reason he was so upset?
Cross-posted from An It Harm None
What with termination of the Iraqi regime, George Bush in the Whitehouse, Bersluconi bestriding Europe and internecine war between the Labour government and the BBC, the editors of the Guardian must be scratching around urgently for some news they can celebrate.
They have finally found some: the emergence of the next generation of guardianistas:
The public sector is now the most popular choice of employer for graduates, new research revealed today.
In a Mori poll, 32% of students said they would like to work for a public sector organisation – ahead of blue chip companies and small to medium enterprises.
On the face of it, the revelation that nearly a third of graduates want to devote their lives to consuming taxes and finding ever-more bizarre ways to spend other people’s money, should be somewhat alarming. But maybe it is simply a doleful recognition that the private sector has little use for people who have spent three or four years immersed in ‘Gay Studies’ or the ‘History of Yoghurt’.
I suspect the real culprit here is the addle-brained article of faith for our political elites that lack of personal achievement is inextricably linked to feelings of self-esteem, especially the self-esteem that grows from having ‘qualifications’ regardless of how bogus they might actually be. It was this conviction that led to an explosion of state-backed ‘universities’ which tossed out potemkin qualifications like Palestinian candy.
The result, however, is no an upgrading of people but rather a downgrading of education to the point where image of a ‘graduate’ as a steely-witted young go-getter has been reduced to a laughable myth.
Graduate Prospects’ chief executive, Mike Hill, said: “The public sector has a great deal to offer young graduates looking for their first job, not least working conditions that often mean a better balanced life. This can include flexible hours, home-working, job-share and better holidays.
And that, for me, is the ‘money’ quote. Isn’t the term ‘better balanced life’ really a polite euphamsim for ‘easy ride’? Perhaps these prospective graduates have lost none of the survival instincts they were born with and are unwilling to undergo the rigours of the private sector that they know will shred their fragile intellects. Hence, find me a sinecure and find it quick.
“In addition, many graduates want to feel they are doing something good for society in their work. Research by the audit commission found that wanting to have a positive effect on people’s lives was the main reason why staff chose the public sector. That makes it an attractive option for graduates.”
As if we need a bigger army of Diversity Development Outreach Co-ordinators in order to set off the harmful effects on society of all those greedy people who devote their lives to the selfish pursuits of trade, innovation and enterprise.
I am willing to wager that it is the highly selfish pursuit of soft options and not sham altruism which is lying at the root of this new trend. But, let’s face it, the alleged desire to ‘do good for society’ sounds a lot more like the kind of thing that the paladins of the education establishment want to hear. But that is still a problem because clearly the education establishment is committed to pushing this message to its charges and, for as long as that is still happening, then the assembled forced of reason have a long march ahead of them.
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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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