This is a list of things I’d have blogged if I didn’t have a day job had the heart

5 August

Wish I was writing about Iran more. Also following up on Honduras and Sri Lanka. If I’d only read the New Economic Forum reports, I might understand the economic crisis more. I also wanted to blog about why it is so important for green bloggers to engage readers with green science in all its glory. If we don’t even try to understand, how can we presume to steer?

10 July

How many dead in Sri Lankan camps? How many?

And how many die alone each year, unfound for months, maybe years? A Today Programme item which made me cry as I rounded the Bank of England today. I’d just spent 2 days immersed in talk aboutonline  social networking and uniquitous connectivity, and the idea of somebody that alone was too much to bear.

9th July

Iran, Honduras, the Uigur of China.

Blogging alone makes you feel you betray all you fail to mention.

Two friends – spouses – swapped a kidney between them.

28 June

A definite No to a ban on the burka (a garmet I find deeply depressing and would like to see abandoned voluntarily).

18 June

In Belfast Romanians (also termed Roma by the media) flee their homes after being targeted by racists. The church where they have found temporary sanctuary has had its windows broken.

While rummaging in a bag of leaflets, cards and other promotional materials from BETT, I came across a map of the EU. What is that tiny enclave between Poland and Lithuania which is labelled ‘Russia’? Kaliningrad. What an interesting-looking place.

2 June

20,000 tamil deaths at the hands of the Singalese government, widely ignored by the British Left, who slake their fervour on the Palestinians.

George Tiller RIP – an abortionist at one of only 3 US clinics who carry out abortions beyond 21 weeks. He was murdered in a church by a man who I will always think of as an enemy of women everywhere. I reserve a large portion of blame for the anti-abortion movement which created the circumstances in which the murderer could tell himself he was taking a life to save many more. Foetuses are not lives. Women have the right to choose.

China blocks social networking on the eve of the anniversary of Tianemen Square.

Socialist Unity sticks up for North Korea.

5th May

My trade union is set to act as if Israel is its main enemy at conference this year. They will couch this as a stand against overwheening repressive power (of the Zionists). It is impossible not to think of the way Jews have been used over the years as an amenable proxy for the actual evils of society. Isn’t there a song about it – “Pack up your troubles in an old…” what was it – “an old Jewish community”?

Being somebody inclined to speak up when Israel is maligned (i.e. viciously attacked rather than criticised) reveals what members really mean to UCU – we are so many piece of meat, or dumb animals. When we start to have opinions for ourselves, activists say it’s undemocratic. As well as this persistent singling out of Israel, rather normal Jewish feelings about Israel are vilified. In these respects my union is antisemitic, and a damage. To remain is masochistic. Their loss. But they are a husk hollowed out by the malfunctioning part of the far left, the Socialist Worker Party, so I doubt it will come to their attention.

People who aren’t Zionist, or who bend over backwards to argue that they aren’t when somebody makes an accusation of the term, confuse me. A Zionist is somebody who believes in a Jewish homeland under Jewish political control. Jews won such a thing through politics and, after the end of the mandate, defended it militarily. It became a place where Jews, who had only managed to exist fairly tenuously in any one place, and had been subject to frequent expulsions and persecution, could at least be in charge of their own defence and not exist on sufferance. There is no one state solution, and certainly no safe place for that region’s Jews without an Israel. In an age of continuing ethnic clashes between established communities in single states, I find it astonishing that anybody would think it reasonable to propose dismantling Israel as a Jewish state. It should go without saying that this in no way implies acceptance of the settlements, expansionist Zionist (what little of that there is), or the sealing of Gaza’s borders, or the weird mosaic approach to multiculturalism where Jews, Muslims and Christians  live separate lives from the cradle to the grave, and barely mix – let alone socially, or the downtrodden social status of Israeli Arabs / Israeli Palestinians. But these things are nothing to do with Zionism.

17th April

Got half-finished posts about Sri Lanka, women and the credit crisis, and Stephen Downes’ response to Tim Minchin’s beat poem Storm.

People who, for all the world, seem to be responding to the death of Ian Tomlinson as if it were an appropriate occasion to ostentatiously relive their radical pasts – radicalism which seemed to be based on hating the police.

8th April

Edmund Standing has sniffed out a whites-only pub recently opened in Glasgow by members of Combat 18. My Grandpa grew up in Glasgow’s Gorbals (more). He was slightly younger than Ralph Glasser, but I dare say their paths crossed – my Grandpa worked in garments and was involved with Communists. Had he outlived the heart attack which killed him decades before his time (he was a very assimilated Scot) I reckon he’d have hoped that I would smash any Glasgow fascists who crossed my path, as he himself used to. I wonder why this seems so appropriate, while beating up the SWP would feel so wrong. Maybe it’s because fascists admit they’d like to get rid of me and my Grandpa, whereas the SWP would genuinely think of our death as the inadvertant consequence of not trying hard enough to fit in.

The failure of anti-nationalism to provide anything we need to feel secure; different forms of nationalism (ethnic, state, territorial) Italy’s quake; sympathetic responses to the chiding of David T about the failure of most of the Left to recognise and respond appropriately to Islamism (but this needs work). Thoughts on leaving things until the last minute v. Churchill’s injunction to fight early while there is still a chance of winning.

6th April

My favourite lefties eat meat and commit death by a thousand cuts on the environment and actual death on hundreds or thousands of animals. What does this mean? Dealing with pub fascism. Educating about racism. The right of healthy people to pursue assisted suicide. An intriguing Radio 4 broadcast from maybe 6 weeks about about unilateral nuclear disarmament. G20. Sri Lanka. The suicide bombings of Pakistan. How nationalism can be positive. Turkey and the EU. Twitter. Micropower generation. The generational divide. Why high heels are self-harming for women. More on animal sentience, arising from the work of Compassion in World Farming.

6th Feb

Didn’t they break the law when they offered over half the jobs to British workers? If the unions could only combine across borders to oblige the employers to pay the wage negotiated by local unions, then employers could base their decision on skill-set etc rather than cheapness (so much).

I have a post on the go about Sri Lanka and another on Congo, as well as the strikes. But I’m not so hot on these things, so…

1st Feb

What the hell is going on with that contract in Lyndsey? Heard on the news the Italian company are saying they never ruled out British workers.

Personally I think it’s very important to be able to work where your family and friends live, if you want to. That’s why I don’t have a problem with British jobs for British workers (although Brown is an idiot to have put it like that). And the workers in question are apparently equal to the level of skill these jobs require.

28 Jan

Sri Lanka. More than 70,000 people have died in 25 years. The forgotten conflict. Why so much Gaza on the left when there is so little Sri Lanka on the left?

Unreliable Evidence on Radio 4 about regulating the banks which made me nod off almost as soon as it started, jerking awake at frequent interruptions from the host Clive James of “Could you explain what that means” or “You’re getting a bit ahead of me there”. The sheer scale of the jargon, and the seeming total lack of awareness in the expert panel that they were using it finally brought it home to me why the socialist left is so studiously finding other causes to pursue. Me included. Matt and I talk about it a lot though. Here is Matt tackling one of my enduring questions – if you knew that a hedgie wanted your shares to short sell them, given that the interest the hedgie showed in your shares is a strong signal that the price of said shares is going to fall, why would you lend to her – why wouldn’t you try to sell the shares before they dropped in value?

22 Jan
More about Gaza and my disaffection with the street protesters, and how crap they are. I’d also attempt to lay into the 322 academics who wrote to the Guardian. They faked Israel’s war aims and then declared “Israel must lose”. The letter was so wrong, weaselly and disorientating that the primary impression I got was that the signatories were bonding with each other with Gaza in the background. They got the letter and request to sign on a mailing list, felt a bit nervous about saying no in case their mates called them Zionists. Thought that they could pass it off as standing up to the establishment and militarism. Simple playground forces. What I particularly judge them on is that they couldn’t think of a good reason not to sign. This, in my book, reveals them as wonky thinkers at best. Alternatively, they were delighted to sign, and are pro-war anti-Israel, for their own dodgy reasons. Meanwhile conflicts all around the world flare unmarked. These people make me feel slightly vertiginous. They are supposed to be this country’s top brains, many of them Marxists. There is no justification for what happened in Gaza, in my opinion – but how could these academics have got the conflict so wrong? How could they have omitted to mention the Jew haters? They give me the shudders.

The spike in antisemitism associated with Gaza. Jews held responsible and punished. This phenomenon is epitomised by the attacks on Starbucks. These have not been adequately reported, which I find ominous. If it came down to leaving Britain – my home – I might well be in a desperate enough state of mind to move to Israel and fight anybody who hates Jews. I’d just laugh at anybody who told me to turn the other cheek. Sounds bad, I know, but when Palestinians take this view, it’s known on the left as “radicalisation”. It’s up to us on the left to do things better. How impoverished the British left is. We are on the brink of the biggest plummet of fortunes in most people’s lifetime, and all the British left seems to be able to notice is Zionists. It’s all shaping up for the scapegoating to commence on a grand scale. Formerly Jews, now Israel, the Jew of the world. Neat.

3 Jan 09 onwards

I’d write about Gaza. The reasons I haven’t include being away and having deadlines – this stops me researching it adequately. Without the research I feel paralysed for a response. The condemnation part is easy – I detest most of the things which distinguish Hamas from its political opponents, and I think Israel’s strategy is the strategy of a country which feels under existential threat – a country which feels it has nothing to lose by taking down Gazan civilians along with putative jihadi fighters and their places, and turning Gaza into a bombsite. What makes it easy to condemn Israel’s acts is that it is hitting so many innocent people. On the UN school in which 40 civilians were sheltering it emerges (in a good BBC article about the language of Hamas) that the Hamas fire which led to IDF troops returning fire and killing the civilians did not come from within the school after all. A UN driver was hit today and the UN has now suspended aid to Gazans. Things are truly dire. It’s hard to imagine how they could be worse. It’s impossible to justify the actions of either side, and the response of the international community has been incredibly frustrating.

When it comes to pushing for the political process which is so clearly the only way forward, it’s hard to move beyond the anodyne. As an Israeli friend said today of Israel, surely a country with so much brainpower can come up with an alternative to this destruction. But what? And surely Hamas could abandon its hate, chauvenism, martyrdom and mentality of all or nothing, become a normal modern and wise political party. But how?

Clearly Hamas’s vows to kill Jews corroborate the sense of existential threat and seem certain to tap into old fears in Israeli people. The only questions then remains, what else could Israel do to prevent Hamas, with help from Iran, delivering on their promises, and how then to insulate the people of Gaza from any action against Hamas.

There is nothing worse than loss of life, particularly the lives of non-combatants. And being targetted must leave lasting scars which are more than physical, and a legacy of fear, distrust and hatred. If Israelis are afraid, they must understand that Gazans currently have much more reason to feel afraid and under existential threat. And from what I’ve read, the support Hamas won in the elections didn’t originate in its genocidal or eliminationist pledges – it resided in its social and welfare work, and its stance against corruption. But Gazans can’t get rid of Hamas for the moment. The question is whether they have any more reason to do so now, and part of that is about alternatives. Is Fatah one – can it deliver health, shelter and jobs – normality?

Condemning Israel without also acknowledging the fears of Israeli people which motivate these attacks is also very wrong. Across the political spectrum Israeli citizens have been supportive of the strikes, and they also need alternatives – alternative proposals to stop the fire from Gaza which aren’t so manifestly lethal to Gazans, and alternative ways of responding to the threat of annihilation from Hamas, Hesbollah, Iran and jihadi Islam.

There is so much to lose with the current strategies of Israel and Hamas – in practice Gazan’s lives, and the lives of their loved ones. I would like to hear more from John Strawson.

I’d also write about the antisemitism evident in the response of many international left and Muslim activists. Engage and Harry’s Place are good to read on this.

My hunch is that Israel’s role in the war is much more about antisemitism than most people realise. Israeli Jews feeling hated as Jews by their neighbours. It’s just that few people are addressing the antisemitism because the fact that it is present – and this is very disturbing – has so little traction in any of the arguments about the conflict. But imagine being an average Israeli voter and reading daily what Hamas wants for you (death, cleansing, or at best second class status in a Muslim country). I guess that if the Palestinians can be radicalised, then so can Israelis. Hamas could change, with facilitation.

13 Dec

I’d defend a poem Weggis published which (bluntly but unproblematically, I think) positions soldiers as freedom fighters and principal defenders of freedom. Since I don’t find the word “given” problematic, I don’t find the word “not” problematic either. JimJay had an allergic reaction and wrote a lengthy critique including “It doesn’t necesarily make a soldier my enemy …  but the poem asks me to be thankful to “soldiers” in general as if they are a constant force standing up for my rights, they aren’t.” They are, in fact, a constant force. And we’d have unilaterally disarmed by now if we didn’t believe that our rights might need defending by force.  As it happens, we’ve been defending other people’s rights by force recently. If there were ever two just wars, they were Bosnia and Rwanda. Congo would descend into civil war without troops. And in Afghanistan – if only for a brief time – women could vote because of coalition troops. I’m a dove, but I also accept that some wars are just wars and in the case of these wars that poem has truth. It is also pointed in its choice of comparisons. Haven’t checked but it might be a neo-conservative poem – neo-conservativism arose partly out of revulsion at the kitschness of the Vietnam anti-war movement (prototypical Stop The War – perhaps worse). I also think that in 1945 the poem would have been uncontroversial. For any lawyer, reporter, poet, campus organiser who has known conscription it would also be less problematic. And for a citizen army, too. Anyway, not a poem to posture over.

12 Dec

I’d give the debate between David Hirsh and David T in the comments to recent posts on Kuntzel’s piece on Islamophobia and Truthophobia, and on Harry’s Place a serious going over. It’s about how we should expect people to respond if they are charged with Islamophobia – and it relates to how we should expect people to respond if they are charged with antisemitism. David Hirsh in his public academic role, is principally an anti-racist campaigner against antisemitism. David T, as a defender of liberal democracy and the rights associated with it, is implicitly this. David T also resis This debate is absolutely crucial as far as I’m concerned. Reaching an understanding about the comparisons between the terms Islamophobia, anti-Muslim bigotry, antisemitism, Jew-hatred, racism and xenophobia, and what is commonly understood by them.

10 Dec

Cholera in Zimbabwe. Riots in Greece. Current thinking on Afghanistan. A proper review on Patterson’s Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust. The significance of a bunch of democracies voting to upgrade relations with Israel without tying it to final status negotiations. What “being nice” should really entail (not affability, but politics).

The anniversaries this year are mounting up. Off the top of my head there’s the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, WIZO, Tel Aviv and the State Pension Campaign (written half a post on the latter – really deserves to be understood).

1 Dec

Something good for World AIDS Day  – something which also deals with deniers like Janine Roberts (who also counts Jews in Westminster for the Palestine Chronicle) who cheer Mbeki when he talks of anti-retrovirals as a Western moneyspinner.

Would attempt to find out why I’ve already had over 500 hits on my Bruce Bueno de Mesquita post today and it’s only 11am.

24 Nov

I’d write up some events I attended – Rosemary Hollis’ London Middle East Institute presentation at SOAS on the Israel-Palestine conflict and OneVoice’s Campus Tour which began at the Friends Meeting House. And I’d review the vegan restaurant Saf.

I’d try to get to the bottom of why I consider the British National Party threat to be the same order of magnitude and ultimate significance as the Socialist Worker Party threat, why this makes me feel understanding towards them, and why this may be wrong in one case or the other or both.

I’d blog about why Pullman and Norm are wrong to suppose that a library is necessary for learning, and why they are right that professional staff are necessary – and how it is possible, and desirable, to move away from physical books on physical shelves that only one person can have at once.

22 Nov

I’d give consideration to the BNP’s statement “The human need to belong is best met at a “tribal” level” in the light of the globalising effects of the Internet and the new affinities it enables.

21 Nov

Who controls the border crossing between Egypt and Gaza, and on what grounds.

20 Nov

Come up with (lawful) ways to make the leak of the BNP members and sympathisers list on wikileaks actually count towards the BNP’s downfall.

19 Nov

Made more of Peres’ vision for globalising peace instead of falling into the trap everybody else fell into of only talking about the hecklers. Duh.