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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Europhile, n. (pronounced “yew-ro-file”) Person or institution with an enthusiasm about the merging of the European States into a single State, usually regardless of any other considerations. A Europhile is often reluctant to be identified as such, especially when he is a politician.
Urophile, n. (pronounced “yew-ro-file”) Person with an enthusiasm for being subjected to showers of urine. A Urophile is often reluctant to be identified as such, especially when he is a politician.
Now it would be easy and gratuitous of me to imply that both are one and the same, but this is obviously unfair.
One is a harmless pervert who engages in fantasies in private that involve no coercion against other people. The other is a dangerous pervert who conspires in private, and who needs to be exposed and subjected to public embarrassment.
The ‘e’ makes all the difference.
Don’t let’s be beastly to the Germans!
But don’t let’s be beastly to the Hun!
– Noel Coward
Former celebrity brain tumour sufferer and Labour politician Dr Mo Mowlem reportedly believes that we need to “negotiate with Bin Laden”, along the lines of terrorism appeasement in Northern Ireland.
I agree.
In the spirit of reconciliation I propose the following gestures of good faith:
- Remove all British forces from the Middle East and Afghanistan.
- Break off diplomatic relations with all non-Islamic countries.
- Ban women from holding any educational qualifications past primary school.
- Ban women from holding any jobs other than primary school teacher, nurse or doctor in women only clinics. Especially remove all women from political office.
- Ban all Jews from holding political office, working in the public sector, the media and the legal profession.
- Prohibit the sale or consumption of alcohol between 3pm on Fridays and noon on Saturday.
- Release all Moslem terrorist suspects.
- Order the Archbishop of Canterbury to publicly abjure Christianity [Editor’s note: is this not already the case?] and exhalt the supremacy of Islam. Convert the established churches of England, Scotland and Ireland to Islam.
- Prohibit all religious education in schools, except Islam.
- Order the abdication of Her Majesty the Queen in favour of a male relative (her husband perhaps).
Obviously, we should hold back on some Islamist demands until we have some reciprocal agreements from Mr Bin Laden, for instance:
- No mass public executions of homosexuals and female adulterers.
- No public flogging of drug or alcohol addicts.
- No enforcement of the veil for non-Moslem women.
- No declaration of war on Israel and the USA.
- No handing-over of British nuclear, biological and chemical weapons technology to al-Qaeda.
After all, we must have something to bargain with!
Just an after-thought. Am I confused, or did negotiating with the IRA lead to a split with even more violent factions launching even more deadly bomb attacks?
I can only hope that the Americans keep their nerve and use the wide scale of the uprising to not just decapitate the more florid Islamist leadership but also place clear ‘markers’ as to what the response will be to armed uprisings during the de facto ‘protectorate’ phase of Iraq’s post-Ba’athist reconstruction.
As things are developing day by day, it is pointless for me to just reiterate the reports filling the news media as to the current state of the cut and thrust on the ground, but there may indeed be an analogue with the Vietnam war here… and it ain’t a ‘quagmire’… the Tet offensive may have been a political disaster for the USA but it was a military triumph and more or less wiped out the Vietcong as a significant military and political force. If the US can do the same to not just Muqtada al Sadr’s Islamo-fascist militia but also to any the militias of any who make the mistake of supporting him, it will have profoundly useful effects long after the fighting fades into history and the US and UK forces have gone home.
 Translation: Follow my finger and shoot… hereAlthough Ali Sistani is, in the overall scheme of things, someone that the occupying powers can probably do business with (though that remains to be seen), it can only be helpful to his education if Muqtada al Sadr, that heir to the ‘Mad Mahdi’, can be seen to come to a fairly public and messy end surrounded by as many of his supporters as possible. Notions of putting this man on trial are to say the least ‘unhelpful’.
If a successful confederated Iraqi republic is going to come out of this without falling into a democratically sanctified ‘popular Islamic’ tyranny like that which so many in Iran are trying hard to throw off with their own efforts right now, it is going to take some serious stick, and not just carrot, to make things come out more or less the right way. That is, alas, the way the real world works and hopefully the US and UK have the fortitude to see it through to its conclusion without cutting and running prematurely. So far the signs are reasonably good as only the usual suspects are bleating for political defeat to be plucked from the jaws of eventual military victory.
A representative of SMCCDI, an Iranian student freedom movement Samizdata has long supported, will be on the drivetime airwaves in southern California today:
Aryo B. Pirouznia will be speaking, on Monday April 12, 2004, on the widely listened Southern Californian 740 AM Talk Radio. The program is hosted by the famous KBRT’s anchor Paul McGuire and will be of half an hour length starting from 05:00 PM PST.
The SMCCDI Coordinator will be explaining the Movement’s reasons for supporting President George W. Bush and why millions of Iranians are concerned by John Kerry’s controversial position and statements in reference to the Tyrannical and Terrorist Islamic Republic regime.
It is hardly surprising Iranians would feel this way. I have heard similar sentiments expressed by some Iraqi bloggers and commenters. The upshot of this is, the American Iranian and Iraqi communities will be solidly in the Bush camp in the upcoming US elections.
One wonders if presidential hopefuls will in the future have to add two I’s to the traditional ‘three I’s’ voting blocks: Ireland, Italy, Israel… Iran and Iraq?
For more information, you can go here for the SMCCDI press release.
One of my earliest reminiscences is following the adventures of Bill Savage, self-styled resistance fighter and Cockney psychopath, who fought thinly disguised Soviets, called Volgs, in a future Britain that had been conquered by the communist hordes. The comic was that anti-establishment cultural icon, 2000AD, tapping into the punk zietgeist of 1977, and the comic strip was Invasion
British boys’ comics recovered from a rut in the 1970s with a newfound determination to cater for the violent tastes of their teenage market. They differed from their American counterparts as market segmentation led to titles concentrating on specific subject matter: War: Battle, Victor, Warlord and Commando; Football: Roy of the Rovers; Science Fiction: 2000AD, Starlord, Tornado, Eagle and Starblazer. No doubt I have missed out a few, including the weekly reprints of superhero comics by Marvel UK.
Bill Savage was a lorry driver whose exploits appeared in the first issue of 2000AD, spinning into orbit in 1977. This allows an indulgence of nostalgic relish as I recall Birmingham nuked, a clone of Maggie as Prime Minister shot on the steps of St. Paul’s and the new Prime Minister announcing “People of Britain. The Volgans are our Friends! We must not fight them…Hand Over All Your Fire-Arms!” With his handy shotgun and avenging the death of his family, Savage enjoyed taking the war to the occupiers and killing them in a number of diverse ways, followed by a suitable quip. The roadlayer that he gleefully used to ‘level’ a Volg firing squad was a particularly nasty way to go.
Whilst interesting, Invasion was a second world war story, transplanted to the future. The world of 1999 had changed little from the 1940s and there are no dark faces in the comic. A parallel can be made with the film, “Dr Who and the Dalek Invasion of Earth, 2150”, another invasion narrative that symbolised England’s vulnerability by trading on the cultural myths of 1940. Nonetheless, even in 1977, popular culture could encompass a comic that envisioned a Britain where lorry drivers kept shotguns at home and firearms were an accepted part of working class life. It seems like another world.
Savage eventually made it to Canada with Prince John, ending his personal war. But, in his pithy way, Savage said it all…
“My cannon stays with me! Greased and ready…”
One of the problems with governments collecting and controlling data on individuals is their failure to secure this information. As a recent article in The Register demonstrated, the number of incidents involving computer systems in the civil service is high.
There are a number of serious concerns including inappropriate access of personal records, inappropriate alteration of personal records and their appropriation by a third party. This has been a problem for some time with Inland Revenue staff noted for “celebrity browsing” tax returns. These concerns are hidden within general figures for computer misuse that number up to two thousand. As these are the cases where such changes were noted and disciplinary action brought against the civil servant involved, it is impossible to gauge the seriousness if this problem.
Even after the data has been collected by the civil service agency, it is difficult to ensure that the information is accurate, secure and used only for the purposes required. This could be a minor problem or the tip of the iceberg.
The Lesson of This Century
Karl Popper
Routledge, 1996
This collection consists of two interviews with Giancarlo Bosetti in 1991 and 1993, who also supplies Introductions to them, and two earlier talks, given in 1988 and 1989. I assume (though this is not made explicit) that the interviews were conducted as well as published in Italian; the talks must have been originally given in German. Routledge, the publisher, gives information, and a picture, of Popper, but says nothing of Bosetti; if a book can be under-edited, this is it. Interesting as these interviews and articles are, could his publisher not have found more for us?
The title of the book is unexplained, and may not be either Popper’s (this is a posthumous collection; he died in 1994) or Bosetti’s. It may be in the nature of a warning, for Popper reiterates his injunction “Once More Against Historicism” (pp. 40-45), a slippery and subtle concept which as I understand it, goes something like: “Because I know where I am and how I got here, I know where I’m going and how to get there.” This might be all very well as a working idea if confined to the study; unfortunately, with Karl Marx, it got out, to be believed and acted on, even though his prophecies – immiseration of the proletariat and the resulting violent overthrow of capitalism – were falsified in his own lifetime, with many others since. As Popper says: “We can certainly learn from the past, but we can never project it to anticipate the future (p. 41)”. Karl Marx could not foresee the motor-car, and we can’t see the next revolutionary innovation, just as, Popper might have said, nobody foresaw the computer and the Internet. → Continue reading: Karl Popper? Rationality but no blueprint
I believe the events of the past few weeks will be seen, in time, as a major turning point for the better in Iraq. When the dust has all settled, two of the major threats to a peaceful, prosperous, and free(er) Iraq were beaten back.
First, the Baathist bitter-enders invested heavily in Fallujah, where they tried to recreate Mogadishu and failed utterly. Fallujah is over for all practical purposes, and was a complete and crushing victory for the US Marines, and a humiliating and very costly defeat for the Baathists and their Sunni allies. Marine casualties were low (less than 20 killed, I believe), Baathist casualties were extraordinarily high (their body count is likely well into the mid-hundreds so far), plus the Iraqis have been treated to the sight of women and children fleeing from the Sunni/Baathist stronghold into the American-held safe zone, where they will be fed, housed, and not used as hostages or human shields.
What many of the handwringers in the media and elsewhere fail to realize is that the exodus from Fallujah means that the Americans have won there. The Americans have been trying to get non-combatants out of Fallujah all along, as the noncombatants were in Fallujah primarily as hostages and human shields. The fact that they are now fleeing means either (a) their neighborhood has been taken by the Americans or (b) the Baathists have been so weakened that they can no longer stop them from leaving. → Continue reading: Turning point
We do not hate the Americans and British, we hate the ideas they have brought here. We will now fight every person who tries to bring those ideas, including the Iraqi Governing Council. We do not want their capitalism, we do not want communism. We have our own ideas about how we want our country to be run in a Muslim way. We support the Shia leader Muqtada Sadr, not because of his ideas; they are not good or bad. We are supporting him with money, weapons and men because he is against the Americans.
– the commander of the mujahideen’s in Garma in the Sunni Triangle
David Blunkett said (on April 7) that he was pushing on with plan for an ID card, with a draft bill to hit Parliament within months. The ID cards will contain biometrics and may be in the wallets of UK citizens by 2007 at the earliest. Blunkett told Radio Five Live that the introduction is necessary to give the government better control over immigration and prevent terrorists using multiple identities.
Blunkett, however, acknowledged that getting compulsory ID cards into law wouldn’t be an easy process. “It would be very surprising if there were not misgivings,” he said. A number of high-profile Cabinet colleagues have expressed objections to the scheme, including Home Secretary Jack Straw and Trade and Industry Minister Patricia Hewitt.
He also admitted there were practical issues to be overcome before the cards were made compulsory. Among them, that Parliament could only vote on the issue of making the cards compulsory when 80 per cent of UK citizens carried them anyway and that estimates of how much the introduction would cost the taxpayer differ wildly – from around £1bn to around £3bn.
While biometrics are high on the UK government’s love list, the rest of the Europe is taking a step back from the idea.
The civil liberties wing of the European Parliament has delayed proposals for biometric passports until the tail end of this year, after elections to the parliament have taken place. MEP Ole Sørensen said
The European Parliament is [currently] not in a position to endorse the proposals… We need proper democratic scrutiny of this far-reaching legislation, which in the worst case scenario could represent a step towards systematic registration of EU citizens’ personal data.
A few years back I read an essay by some free market activist (whose name escapes me entirely now) about apathy and why it was every politician’s worst nightmare. They can survive hostility and, of course, they bask in adulation but lumpen public indifference is the tar-pit that will gradually delegitimise them and drag them under to irrelevance and obscurity.
A nice theory but wholly untrue. Public indifference is by far the most powerful ally of the political classes. How else can they possibly get away with such a sudden, one hundred and eighty degree volte face?
The Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) is blocking grants to ethnic minority projects that fail to promote “Britishness” and integration.
Last week, CRE chairman Trevor Phillips sparked a debate when he said the term “multiculturalism” should be scrapped.
What is all this? ‘Multiculturalism’ should be scrapped? ‘Britishness’ should be promoted? Do mine eyes deceive me or have the cultural revolutionaries at the CRE suddenly been transmogrified into blue-rinse, little Englander, prehistoric, sexist, facist, racist, Tory types? Does Mr.Phillips not appreciate that Pim Fortuyn was branded a ‘Nazi’ and subsequently assassinated for expressing precisely the same sentiments about his native Holland? Does he merit a posthumous apology now? → Continue reading: We have always been at war with Eastasia
Sometimes a widely-practised custom falls out of use in a way that, looked at with hindsight it seems amazing to us that humans could behave in the ways they did. Consider the Romans’ love of gladiatorial combat, for example. Perhaps in future our descendants will read with amazement about the habit of inhaling tobacco smoke or drinking intoxicating and health-affecting beverages known as wine and beer.
Well, one activity to have disappeared from Western life is the practice of duelling. I thought about this after watching a remarkable film, recently released on DVD, called The Duellists, a film set in Napoleonic France and starring Harvey Keitel and David Carradine. One of the earliest directional efforts of Ridley Scott (who later did stuff like Gladiator and Bladerunner), it is an excellent work. Keitel’s character obsessively pursues his vendetta against his opponent, although the affair ends not in the death of either, but the humiliation of one. → Continue reading: Pistols (or swords) at dawn
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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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