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Nicholas Chatfort is exasperated by Israel’s latest appallingly timed stunt regarding Arafat
It has often been said of the Palestinians that they never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. It appears that the Israelis have picked up this same bad habit. According to a report in Ha’aretz, the Isreali Defence Force’s (IDF) recent assault on Arafat’s compound in Ramallah prevented the convening of a special meeting of the Fatah Central Committee scheduled for Saturday to pressure Arafat to accept the appointment of a prime minister. Arafat has been resisting the appointment of a prime minister as this would diminish his own power, possibly leading to turning him into a figurehead leader.
While the Israeli desire to retaliate for the recent suicide bombings is understandable, the heavy-handed action may unfortunately have the opposite effect to that which the Israelis apparently intended. Instead of weakening Arafat, it is likely that the demolition of Arafat’s compound will now abort, or at least seriously delay, moves by the Palestinians to pull power away from Arafat as they once again rally around him.
Although Ha’aretz reports that Palestinian requests for committee members to travel to Ramallah for the meeting were known to senior Israeli political and military officials, Israeli cabinet ministers who approved the IDF operation claim that they had not been told of the meeting. If this is true, it appears that senior Israeli officials were negligent in their duty to provide the cabinet with all of the information that they needed to make their decisions.
Nicholas Chatfort
Paul Marks points out the importance of remorselessly pushing out the libertarian memes into a world that does not ‘get it’.
As I write this the results of the German general election are not known. However, there will be few clear lessons to learn even if the Red-Green alliance win (as it could be argued that the Germans voted Red or Green out of hatred of the United States and hatred of Jews [oh sorry, ‘love of the Arab people’] rather than because of support of Red/Green economic policy).
However, the recent election in Sweden teaches us some clear lessons. Promising tax cuts and pretending there will be no cuts in the Welfare State (the policy of the Swedish opposition “Moderate Party”) does not work. People, quite correctly, reject the idea that ‘public-private partnerships’ (or other clever schemes) mean that one can have tax cuts and much the same level of ‘public services’.
The Swedish election also shows us that given the choice of tax cuts at what people believe will be the ‘cost’ of cuts in the public services most people reject tax cuts. Although (it could be argued) that an honest approach “we are going to cut taxes and government spending” would have done better (some people may have voted against the Moderate party because they were seen as liars).
The basic ideology of our age is that government should look after the poor, the weak, the children, the old, the sick (and so on). So are we doomed? Is libertarianism (which runs directly counter to the basic ideology of our age) simply never going to be ‘relevant’ to most people?
I do not think we are doomed. I continue to believe that in a time of economic crisis people are capable of changing their beliefs.
It is a matter of making libertarian ideas known – not so they will be accepted now (they will not be accepted at present), but so that they are available to be turned to in a time of crisis.
Paul Marks
- Would you be willing to tell Miss Piggy she’s unclean?
- What would we do with all the one handed politicians?
- The Budweiser Chameleon. So you think The Birds were nasty?
- We’ve only got virgins for Martyr’s age 8 and under.
- It’s impolite here to throw rocks when someone asks to get stoned.
- Pancakes and a side of camel fat just doesn’t have that ring to it.
- It won’t help crime because toilet paper works in either hand.
- Ham and cheese sandwiches beat goats milk for lunch hands down.
- Bob Evans would sue for loss of livelihood.
- Playboy Magazine just wouldn’t be the same with Burqah gatefolds.
It is with great pride and honour that I can report that I, along with blogger Patrick Crozier and Chris Tame of the Libertarian Alliance took part in the Liberty and Livelihood march in London today. Samizdata contributor Antoine Clarke was also on the march and, although we communicated by text-mail, there were so many marchers that we never actually managed to meet up.
Did I say there were so many marchers? That does not even begin to tell the story. It was HUGE. I cannot recall ever seeing any public demonstration in Britain of this magnitude (and I’ve seen a few). The official figures state over 400,000 marchers but, from where we stood, that would appear to be an underestimate.
It began in from two points in Central London early this morning; two start points being necessary because of the enormous numbers involved. Even so, from our start point at Hyde Park, the throng was so large that it was next to impossible to actually determine where it began or where it ended. Eventually we just melded in where we could.
The atmosphere was one of pure defiance though there was no violence or law-breaking at all. The marchers were loud, proud and spirited, blowing whistles and horns, chanting and waving back to the cheering onlookers. Not once did the palpable grim resolve compromise the joyousness. It felt like a victory parade.
The most telling juxtaposition was provided by a handful (and I do mean a handful) of animal rights protestors, who all looked, well, how can I put this? Have you ever been on your way to an important business meeting and trodden in a dog-turd? That’s what they looked like.
Not being a photography-minded chap, I have no photos to post [Editor: sorted!] but I can recall some of the slogans that stood out from the sea of banners and flags carried along with the march (the Stars and Stripes being very prominent, incidentally).
This one stiffened my back:
“Born to Hunt, ready to Fight”
This one made me smile:
“We’ll keep our cowshit in the country,
you keep your bullshit in the town”
And this one raised the hairs on my neck:
“The Last Peaceful Demonstration”
Having moved among these people today, I am left with the distinct impression that they mean it.
The lack of new articles and comments has been due to a period of server problems…
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It’s Sunday, and since Friday evening I’ve been staying with my older sister Daphne and brother-in-law Denis in western Wales, in the countryside very near the coast, just east of Fishguard, which is where the ferries to southern Ireland sail from. They’ve been living here for the best part of a decade, but this is my first visit to them. They seem very content. That this is a most beautiful part of the world is true, but to be expected. Countryside, especially if next to the sea and viewed in the fine weather I’ve enjoyed, is beautiful.
Many Samizdata readers will also know two other facts about this part of Britain. First, that Daphne and Denis aren’t the only retired English people living in Wales, and second, that in these parts, although they mostly speak English, a substantial minority of the people speak their own local language, Welsh.
But here’s where it gets interesting. Daphne and Denis are both learning Welsh. They are taking it very seriously. From October 1st of this year until March 31st 2003 (at which time the plan will be reassessed) they will be speaking to each other entirely in Welsh, unless third parties who only understand English are present. Daphne has also told all her local acquaintances that she would also like to speak Welsh with all of them who speak it.
They are not the only retired English expats here to do this, in fact Denis tells me that it was meeting another Englishman who had become fluent in Welsh was what first encouraged him. Welsh classes abound.
Why are these people doing this?
Basically, they are learning Welsh because it is there. Welsh is by far the most substantial non-English language spoken in Britain. Eighteen per cent of the Welsh people speak it, so Denis tells me, and although hardly anyone is fluent only in Welsh, many prefer Welsh and speak it whenever they can. In a mere couple of days I have already experience the feeling of exclusion that you get here as a mono-lingual Englishman. Yesterday Denis and I walked to a local tourist site, an ancient Celtic burial mound with a weird looking mini-stonehenge-like structure on the top which looks down on their home across the valley, and he was soon chatting away in Welsh to some of the other visitors. What were they talking about? And exactly which Welsh words on the bilingual signposts that they have everywhere correspond to which English words on the signposts? If you’re an Anglo living here, that question must occur to you pretty well every time you go out.
Denis is saying to me as I type that there is nothing threatening about this, at any rate not in this bit of Wales – which is known as “Little England”. The Welsh, as I have always found, are charming people. But when Denis switches from English to Welsh, politeness turns at once to genuine friendliness. I remember being told that the Japanese get very twitchy if, when in Japan, you try to speak to them in Japanese. It’s as if you had tried to barge your way into a private club. Here it’s the opposite. Yes, join the club. Come on in and be welcome. So once you start to learn Welsh, you get nothing but help and encouragement from the locals to stick with it.
And the other big reason why these people are learning it is that the Welsh language is, like other mountains that people climb because they are there, a challenge. It is not easy. The first letters of words, for instance, fluctuate wildly according to how exactly the words are being used – who owns it, what they’re doing with it, and so on. There are, apparently, about a dozen different ways of saying “yes”, depending on what exactly is being agreed with. So, an intellectual battle. But intellectual battlers is what Daphne and Denis, and many other retired Anglos out here, are. They had tough, intellectually demanding jobs – they were doctors (like Daphne), lawyers, university professors, highish ranking army people, in other words they are the educated upper-middle classes, which is how they earned the money to buy nice places here. Now they don’t have their challenging jobs any more, and they need new challenges. What better than the challenge of learning the one foreign language that you can learn in Britain that you can actually practise using with the locals for real?
That’s it, that’s the end of this. I don’t know what it means. Very little I imagine. But as a little titbit of life in a corner of the Anglosphere, I think it rates a mention.
I’ve just received email notice of the death of Dr. Robert L. Forward. He’s known to some for the wonderful “hardest of the hard” Science Fiction he wrote; to others for his cutting edge work in physics and propulsion systems; and to still others for his loud vests, boyish exuberance, smile and tossled white hair. At any conference his gesticulating presence around the bar of the hospitality suite was certain. He carried all around him on a race through one stunningly creative idea after another.
I last talked to Bob in May when he was of enormous help as I put together a conference track on Novel Propulsion Systems. “Enormous help” from Bob was the rule, not the exception. He’s been of assistance to me so many times over the twenty years in which I have had the good fortune to know him I would be filling pages if I were to itemize.
All I can say is, we’ll miss you Bob. Intellects and personalities wrapped up with warmth and caring like yours are more than few and far between: they are nearly non-existant.
Bob Forward at 1992 National Space Society
conference in Washington, DC. (photo: D. Amon)
Beware the wrath of a patient adversary.
– John C. Calhoun
Kay Pirello from the Carla Howell team has asked for assistance from all and sundry:
NECN informed us that, although WPI invited Carla Howell to be in the gubernatorial debate on October 1st, and although she accepted their invitation, the media consortium covering the debate is now waffling and claiming the decision is up in the air.
Please contact the below people at the bottom of this email ASAP and urge them to stand by WPI’s ecision to include Carla Howell.
Below is a copy of the letter Carla Howell faxed to each of them earlier today.
If they exclude Carla Howell from this debate it will cause Carla Howell for Governor and Carla owell’s Ballot Question 1 grave damages.
Please CALL RIGHT NOW to URGE them to include Carla Howell!
Then any you can’t reach, please email your own personal message to them.
Thank you!
You might want to tell them you read it on a weblog based in Belfast, Northern Ireland – the following being Boston media and all!
→ Continue reading: Urgent! Carla Howell needs you to Phone and Email Right Now!
We have had a few e-mails (plus a couple comment entries) asking how is it that whilst numerous articles on Samizdata.net have bitterly decried farm subsidies of any sort, we are also writing articles in support of tomorrows Countryside Alliance March in London.
The answer is to be found in the slogan of the Countryside Alliance March itself: for Liberty & Livelihood.
Supporting ‘Liberty’ is not exactly unusual for us: we are libertarians! The liberty in question is the right of country people to hunt in Britain as they have done for centuries, without bigoted class warriors using the violence of law to criminalise their way of life. Hunting is an activity not of ‘state’ but of civil society… and the state simply has no business intruding into what goes on across privately owned land (and of course as libertarians, we believe that the only ownership of land that is legitimate is private ownership). That is why we support the Countryside Alliance’s March.
As for ‘Livelihood’… Hunting is also a significant source of jobs in many areas and in that respect we are all in favour of the state not putting those people on the dole queue. The most vexed issue however is that of farm subsidies. It must be clear to all who regularly read Samizdata.net that all of our contributing writers are in favour of true laissez-faire capitalism and therefore resolutely opposed to subsidising any businesses (i.e. farm subsidies or industrial subsidies)… and the great granddaddy of all market distorting, theft based systems of redistribution-by-subsidy is the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
What CAP means is that efficient farms (and by European standards, British farms are indeed efficient) are made to subsidise inefficient farms, and other sectors of the economy are forced to prop up agriculture generally. Moreover, even the way efficient farms are run is distorted by subsidies and directives that have the effect of addicting even the stoutest souls to state handouts like so many heroin addicts. One major result of this being massive overproduction of food and agricultural overcapacity on a truly epic scale.
So for a farmer to remain in business when competing within the massively subsidised and mind-bogglingly regulated British and European agricultural market, clearly just cutting all subsidies to the UK would mean capital intensive UK agriculture more or less drops dead over night.
Thus clearly the most rational solution is a complete Europe-wide ban on all farm subsidies in any form… with no exceptions whatsoever. No doubt many farms would indeed go bust as there is simply no rational economic reason for their existence when detached from the fantasy world of state planning… and that is just too damn bad. Yet business go bust all the time, so why should farms be any different? Food is a colossal interlinked global market and so there is no reason at all for the great trading nations of the world to protect indigenous food production on non-economic grounds.
The fact is socialist and paleo-conservative farm policies are the reason food is so damn expensive in the developed world. The so called ‘friends to the poor’ in the Labour Party in Britain and their friends in the dominant statist wing of the Conservative Party are the self same people who are responsible for poor working men and women in Britain paying vastly more for food, the very stuff of life, than would be the case if free markets decided what things would cost. Not only that, these are the self same people who claim to care about poverty in the Third World whilst at the same time denying the First World consumer access to their cheap agricultural products whose sale would actually improve the economic situation in the Third World.
Of course the situation in the United States is only slightly less subsidy distorted than the EU, so one would hope that eventually taxpayers over there will also decide it is time for some ‘tough love’.
Therefore when we go to the march tomorrow, we will be supporting the liberty of entire communities to not be beggared and persecuted by state sponsored bigots regardless of the sanctification of such tyrannous acts by democratic politics… and we will also be reminding the country folk that if they want to insist the state stop interfering in countryside pursuits, that should logically also mean an end to interference by subsidy and regulation. British agriculture is more than capable of looking after itself, if only it is allowed to play on a level playing, field rather than a CAP distorted one.
Carla Howell seems to have made a major breakthrough. She will be in the Massachusetts Governor’s Debate. It’s going to be awfully hard to ignore her after this (from her press release):
“Carla Howell is in the October 1 Governor’s Debate. ABC, CBS, NBC, and New England Cable News TV. The Boston Globe. The Boston Herald. The Worcester Telegram & Gazette. It will be simulcast on the internet. Moderated by CNN’s Judy Woodruff. Shannon O’Brien, the Democratic nominee for Governor, and Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for Governor, will both debate Carla Howell face-to-face.”
After she’s done with Boston Tea Party II, could we talk her into throwing one over here too?
How very odd that Perry should decide to add a category called ‘How Very Odd’ on exactly the same day when I uncover something that I can only describe as very odd.
Or, to be precise, it was uncovered by a colleague at work when seeking the website of the The Law Society. The Law Society is the professional governing body for solicitors in England and Wales and, as one would expect, it does have a very comprehensive website which is located at www.lawsoc.org.
However, acting largely on instinct, he initially typed www.lawsociety.org into his browser and found something altogether different not to mention wholly unrelated.
Just a coincidence that they chose a similar name for their website? Well, possibly I suppose. On the other hand, is it a deliberate marketing ploy? In either event, one must conclude that it is a very effective, if not altogether transparent, way of getting their messages across to a lot of British lawyers.
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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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