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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Aftershocks in the networked global economy

· Economics, Business & Globalization

Lloyd’s of London has reported a record loss of £3.1 billion ($4.44 billion) directly related to the 11 September attacks. Similarly Swiss Re reported the largest loss in its 138-year history of 165 million Swiss francs (£69 million/$98.9 million).

This might be interpreted by some as a sign of the vulnerability of global capitalism but in fact it indicates quite the opposite. The fact that the effect of a huge capital loss in the USA can be spread around the world, rather than born entirely by the target of that loss is an impressive demonstration of the ability of modern networked capitalism systems to absorb losses and ‘keep on ticking’.

And just incidentally, it also highlights that it was far more than just the United States which was attacked by the two aircraft which crashed into the WTC.

April 11th, 2002 | Comments are closed

Cool Britannia Rule Britannia

· Monarchy · UK affairs

Is ‘Britain’ still a culture rooted in evolved wisdom and contradictions that stretch back more than a millennium? Do those Anglo-Saxon, Norman, Celtic and Nordic roots still run deep?

Or is Britain in 2002 the product of a transcendent collective moment in 1945, just waiting these years since for the uncluttered minds of New Labour to sweep away the last remitments of the Old Empire and cut the even older entangled thread of yeomanry and gentry, producing the longed for value-neutral tabula rasa of ‘Cool Britannia’? Is this Year Zero, in which all cultural values are equally valid… dancing around the maypole, Guy Fawkes night, religious tolerance and snogging behind the bike shed are not more or less a part of a collective multicultural state-society than burqas, clitoradectomy and enforced arranged marriage?

Well the verdict is in… in excess of one million people lined the 24 mile route of the Queen Mother’s progress to St. George’s chapel to cast their vote on the impromptu referendum on just what ‘Britain’ actually means. Millions understand that a hereditary monarchy that reigns over society without ruling the state is less corrupting than democratically sanctified political patronage. These same millions know what it is to be British and stood up to be counted yesterday. They were not there just to see what was but also to show to each other was still is.

April 10th, 2002 | Comments are closed

Samizdata slogan of the day

· Slogans & Quotations

There are two Englands…and Ted Heath is from the other one
– James Bennett

April 10th, 2002 | Comments are closed

Technical woes and marvels

· Independent sites, Blogging & Bloggers

Recently my computer, a Blue-White G3 PowerMac, gave up the ghost after years of stalwart service and this, plus some rather more harmonious distractions, has been responsible for my suspicious absence from the Samizdata.

However I shall soon return to inflicting my views on the blogosphere. The multi-talented Andrew Dodge proved that he is capable not just of invoking evil spirits, scaring horses, authoring anti-statist tracts and smoking vile smelling cigars but also of helping me drop a cool £2,500 on a juicy new Quick Silver G4 PowerMac and setting it up for me. I am still accelerating up the curve of coming to grips with OS X (which is beyond cool) but I expect to be blogging my heart out soon.

April 10th, 2002 | Comments are closed

Samizdata slogan of the day

· Slogans & Quotations

Men should be what they seem.
– William Shakespeare, “Othello” act III scene III

April 9th, 2002 | Comments are closed

Great American Beauty

· Arts & Entertainment

Like many a Londoner living in the middle of the city, it is all too easy to take the cultural riches of this place for granted, such as its many art galleries. And of course my interest can be all too easily blunted by the mind-erasing trash that goes under the banner of “Modern Art”. So it was great to have seen the American Sublime show at the Tate Britain gallery last weekend.

The exhibition features work from landscape painters such as Thomas Cole, Frederic Edwin Church, Francis Cropsey and Thomas Moran. Some of the pictures were small, some of them were vast canvasses showing the sheer grandeur of the landscape in the early days of Jefferson’s Republic from the early to the middle of the 19th Century.

What these works all had in common was stunning mastery of paint, a razor-sharp eye for detail and an awareness of how to ram home the vastness of the Rockies, the huge waterfall of Niagara or the rough weather found off the coast of Maine. The virtuosity is staggering, and all achieved without the aids of modern technology. Some of the paintings had a melancholy feel, some overtly religious, some were designed merely to revel in the mastery of paint. All left me moved in some way to feel my admission fee was money well spent.

The show also reminded me that all too many of our current so-called artists haven’t the skill to pull off the kind of visual achievement of their 19th century forbears. They cannot be bothered to put in the painstaking effort, and mask their incompetence behind such nonsense as sheep preserved in liquid or bits of dung chucked onto the side of a wall.

The American Sublime exhibition is a demonstration of how great art can be but also that can be no substitutes for effort and practice. If the purpose of art, as the novelist Anthony Burgess once said, is to enhance life, then these painters achieved that goal brilliantly. Or, to take the definition given by Ayn Rand, art is the selective re-creation of reality in the light of certain values. For these painters, they picked out the great, the awe-inspiring, the sheer scale, of what they saw as America was opened up in the rapidly industrialising world of the 19th Century. These were things that mattered to them, and it shows.

I cannot recommend this exhibition highly enough. It continues until May 19. Fellow Londoners have no excuses. Go see it.

April 9th, 2002 | Comments are closed

EU cannot be serious

· European Union · Humour

Scene: EU Commission in Brussels. A urgent meeting of EU Officials.

LOUIS: This is an outrage!!

HANS: It is totally unacceptable.

SVEN: Intolerable.

DIRK: We cannot allow it.

LOUIS: To be scorned by such a shitty little country.

HANS: Don’t they realise who we are?

DIRK: How important we are?

LOUIS: We are World Leaders after all. First it was the Balkans, now the Middle East. We are in danger of not being taken seriously again.

SVEN: You mean, we are taken seriously now?

LOUIS: OF COURSE WE ARE, YOU SWEDISH OAF!!!

DIRK: Okay, okay. Let’s calm down. We must present a united front.

LOUIS: The Americans, the Israelis. Is there anybody else out there who is going to humiliate us?

SVEN: The Russians?

LOUIS: Shut up, Sven! We cannot allow this to stand.

HANS: Absolutely.

DIRK: We must put our foot down.

HANS: For sure.

DIRK: Show that we cannot just be pushed around.

LOUIS: Bravo! We must hit back.

HANS: Retaliate.

SVEN: How about a military response?

LOUIS: What with, Sven, what with?

SVEN: Oh yes. Good point.

DIRK: We must do something.

HANS: To show them we mean business.

LOUIS: I know, I’ve got it……!!

SVEN: What?

LOUIS: We will impose immediate trade sanctions on the Israelis.

HANS: Excellent idea.

SVEN: Louis strikes again.

DIRK: That is perfect, perfect.

HANS: That will teach them a lesson.

SVEN: They will never cross swords with us again.

LOUIS: We will prohibit all movement of goods, all travel and all banking transactions to and from Israel.

DIRK: Will I still be able to buy bagels?

HANS: Dirk, you are being very unharmonious today.

DIRK: Sorry.

LOUIS: One week of this and they will be begging, begging us to intervene and impose a solution on the Middle East.

HANS: So are we all decided?

DIRK: Definitely.

SVEN: I vote yes.

HANS: Good. I will prepare an immediate proposal on behalf of the whole Commission.

[Pause]

DIRK: Er…aren’t we…perhaps, being a bit hasty here?

LOUIS: What do you mean?

DIRK: Well…er…maybe it might make things worse.

SVEN: Oh yes, yes. Dirk has a point here. Maybe it could inflame the situation.

DIRK: Cause all manner of reprecussions.

HANS: Hmmm…well, we must avoid being confrontational I suppose.

LOUIS: But we must appear strong.

SVEN: But the Israelis are rather sensitive, just now.

DIRK: And they have a big army.

LOUIS: They do?

SVEN: And nuclear missiles!

LOUIS: Mon Dieu!! [Presses Intercom] “Francois, book me on a flight to New Zealand…”

HANS: And then of course there is the Americans.

DIRK: Oh yes, the Americans…..

SVEN: There is not telling how they might react.

LOUIS: They are a bunch of cowboys….

HANS: Unsophisticated.

DIRK: Savages, really.

SVEN: They might take this very badly.

HANS: Who knows what they might do?

DIRK: And then, of course, there’s Tony.

LOUIS: Tony won’t like it.

SVEN: No, he definitely won’t like it.

HANS: He’ll make trouble for sure. I have an election this year.

DIRK: I’m very frightened of him, actually.

LOUIS: Oh pull yourself together, Dirk.

DIRK: Sorry (sniffle).

SVEN: Er…maybe…maybe we could put the matter on the agenda for a later date.

LOUIS: Yes.

DIRK: For discussion…

HANS: For debate…..

SVEN: As a way of sharing our concerns.

LOUIS: We will think about it.

DIRK: Consider it as a possibility.

HANS: As an idea….

SVEN: One of a number of options.

LOUIS: We can mention it in passing.

HANS: So, we are all agreed on that then?

ALL: Yes.

HANS: So. The matter is settled.

[Long Pause. Somewhere in the building a door slams. Outside a car backfires. In the distance, a dog is barking]

SVEN: Ahem…clears throat…I…I have some proposals regarding the standardisation of milk cartons.

DIRK: Milk Cartons! Excellent!

HANS: Now you’re talking.

LOUIS: Why didn’t you say so before?

DIRK: We must do something on this burning issue.

HANS: At last, we can address this festering sore in our body politic.

LOUIS: We must give the matter our utmost attention.

DIRK: Now we’re cooking with gas. Three cheers for Sven.

HANS: Louis, order some more white wine and cheese nibbles. We’re in for a long session.

April 8th, 2002 | Comments are closed

Half-remembered Samizdata quote for the day

· Slogans & Quotations

In his book Table Talk Adolf Hitler lamented that German writers had neglected what he saw as their proper business, namely composing paeans of praise of the ancient German kings. He finished off with this comment:

Even Schiller had to glorify that Swiss sniper, Tell.

April 8th, 2002 | Comments are closed

What Wing?

· Arts & Entertainment

I spent an hour this evening having my blood slowly boiled by another of ‘The West Wing’, (Yes, they do show it over in the UK on Channel 4)

When the series first appeared, last year, I thought it was rather promising. Yes, I realise that the premise was a Democrat President but, nonetheless, it was blessed with a good cast, a sharp script and the kind of slick production values we have come to expect from these high-profile American TV dramas. Of course, I had to put up with left bias but it was, for the most part, tut-worthy rather than infuriating. But it is rapidly becoming infuriating. Tonight it almost jumped off the scale.

The whole series seems to be nothing more now than a barely-disguised vehicle for left-wing propoganda and American ‘liberal’ neurosis. The threadbare plotlines are nothing more than emotive appeals on behalf of some chic left-wing canard such as gun-control, the environment, affirmative action and ‘hate’ groups. The President is, apparently, obsessed with these subjects and little else. The rarely-seen (and never heard) Republicans are always portrayed as knuckle-dragging racists who only want to get into power so that they hang homosexuals from lamposts.

The once-sparkling dialogue has debauched into a painfully contrived polemic and the attempt to disguise it as a dialogue makes it all the more embarrassing:

“C.J. we should be going after these hate groups now”

“No, Josh, its an election year. Our priority has to be to save the Alaskan Spotted Beaver”

It really does get that bad. The characters do everything short of making a direct appeal to the camera and, in some ways, it would actually better if they did. The whole thing smacks of an increasingly ham-fisted exercise in getting messages across rather than entertain. If anyone has not seen ‘The West Wing’ yet then I recommend you do so, if only to learn how not to do TV drama.

Still there is one good thing: the actress who plays the character of ‘C.J.’ – Hubba hubba

April 8th, 2002 | Comments are closed

What is the Latin for ‘Just Say No’?

· Opinions on liberty

There are opportunities to enjoy stirring victories in the unlikeliest of places. Take, for example, the continued refusal of the Vatican to relent on the ordination of women priests.

As a Jew (and a secular Jew at that) this is a matter which should be none of my concern but somehow I can’t help getting my shorts in a knot over it. Every time the Vatican issues another refusal, I let out a cheer of the kind I emit when my football team scores at home. It stirs my blood and reinforces my hope that the forces of darkness can be kept at bay.

The reasons for my taking a stand on the issue become abundantly clear once you understand that the campaign to make the Church buckle is motivated not by matters of Catholic doctrine or faith but by a quite different agenda:

“It seems a topic that just will not go away – particularly in North America, where the feminist movement has successfully promoted an end to almost all gender discrimination in commerce, government, industry, and education. Increasingly, adults in North America are viewing gender-based discrimination in the same class as racial discrimination, and are rejecting it as bigotry, profoundly immoral, and irrational. Many criticize the Roman Catholic church for its stance on male-only ordination.”

Sounds familiar? Of course it does. The handprints of the post-modern leftists are all over this campaign and the issue isn’t women at all really, the issue is revolution by stealth. The Catholic Church is in their cross-hairs as being an institution which is ripe for ‘deconstruction’.

I can say this because I have witnessed this kind of ‘deconstruction’ campaign played out to its endgame against the Church of England. Each time it was attacked, it was foolish enough to relent to avoid bad headlines and every time it appeased, its antagonists just smelled the blood in the water and it sent them wild. So it died the Death of a Thousand Cuts and now the exsanguinated giant grovels embarrassingly meak apologies for its own existance to empty pews beneath the baleful glare of an irrationally hostile press.

It didn’t help the Church of England that it was the official religion of the British State and, as that State lost its sense of destiny and moral purpose, so did the Church. But the Church of Rome has not been co-opted by any government anywhere. Membership is voluntary and, consequently, so is abiding by its rules. If you don’t like what the Church is doing then you can always leave. You can go and establish your own Church of PC Drivel and preach it to whomsoever will listen. No-one is stopping you.

It is for that reason that I hope the Vatican continues to stick to its guns on this issue. I hope the Cardinals plant their feet, set their jaws, put up their dukes and fight resolutely. No compromises, no deals, no climbdowns, no retreats, no concessions and no surrender. If they don’t they will regret it. If they do then the dawn will soon come, the sun will rise shimmering over the horizon and send the moral-relativist vampires and their hideous acolytes screeching back to their coffins with nothing to show for their infernal efforts.

Just Say No, Your Holiness.You owe it not just to Roman Catholics but to all the rest of us who live by the doctrine of reason.

April 8th, 2002 | Comments are closed

Or maybe… news from another timeline. 7 Ventose, Year 2 of the New Calendar

· European Union · Humour

“Good evening, this is the news from the EBC.

The Security Commissioner today announced the final destruction of one of the last remaining internet cabals. (Older readers may recall the “internet”; it was a sort of primitive precursor to Maxitel, but being utterly unregulated provided means for various perverts and seditious libellers to conspire against the peace of our Community.) Members of this grouping, the so-called ” [CENSORED] Samizdata [/CENSORED]” were taken into custody. Viewers will be happy to learn that these once-recalcitrant citizens made a full recantation and apology for their crimes before sadly dying of AIDS all on the same day.

Meanwhile at the Hague, the trial for War Crimes of ex-President Bush of the area formerly known as the United States continues. His court appointed defence lawyer (required by the somewhat archaic procedure of the tribunal), Maitre Cherie Booth, while admitting that Bush’s so-called “War on Terror” held back for several years our present happy accommodation with the Protector of the Three Holy Places, did at least pursue in the last years of his presidency economic policies that controlled currency speculation and protected the environment by reversing the selfish phenomenon of economic growth.

Some more good news is that, as part of the widely-popular Drive for Health, the bread ration has been reduced again…

April 7th, 2002 | Comments are closed

News from 2025

· Humour

“Good evening, this is the news from the BBC.

Stars from the world of music and entertainment are converging on London’s Wembley Stadium for this weekend’s charity concert, ‘EuropAid’. The aim of the concert is to raise millions of dollars to provide much-needed food, tents and medical supplies for starving Europeans. Veteran music star, now political activist, Britney Spiers, who is organising the concert, has said she will meet with the French Ambassador to London, Bertrand Maginot to discuss his concerns. Monsieur Maginot has denounced the concert as ‘arrogant American imperialism’ and has warned that money given must have ‘no strings attached’.

Meanwhile, reports are coming in from Germany that six people have been killed in a stampede and riot following attempts by Red Cross officials to distribute parcels of rice and flour in Hamburg.

Israeli Prime Minister Dana International is coming under increasing pressure from Washington to withdraw Israeli troops from Isreali-controlled areas of Tehran. Prime Minister International assured Washington that troops would be withdrawn as soon as what she termed ‘mopping up operations’ had been completed. Speaking from the Whitehouse, President Glenn Reynolds said that it was important that the peace process remained on track but stressed that there could be no question of Israel returning to it’s pre-2010 borders without realistic guarantees of security.

At a press conference in Downing Street, Prime Minister Tony Blair has quashed rumours that he intends to retire on his 75th Birthday. Mr.Blair said that he felt as energetic as ever and still had a great deal to accomplish. Mr.Blair used the opportunity to lend his support to a new campaign being launched by the Clone Rights group Human 2. The campaign follows publication of a damning report which highlighted numerous cases of discrimination against Cloned people in employment, housing and health care. Mr.Blair said that Clonism is a ‘terrible blight on our society’ and had to end

And now for the weather…..”

April 7th, 2002 | Comments are closed
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