Why I will not wear a poppy

This an an excellent article by Ian Bell, and one I wholeheartedly agree with.

When they marched the soldiers of France to the front after the slaughter at Verdun, country boys managed a country joke.

A slaughter beyond anything in Britain’s history had just taken place. Young men, rank upon rank, had been put to a wall of cauterising defensive fire, like so much daub stuck to a fracture in a theory.

And one young poilu, dragging his blue coat and his cheap boots through the sucking mud, said this: “Baaa!” Then all the yokels, with all their instinctual back-country meadow loyalty, began to say it, just for a last laugh. “Baaa!” they sang. Thousands then joined in, up and down the lines. The French troops knew, knew precisely, what their sacrifice really meant on the chopping board of policy and patriotism. Peasants are like that.

Remembrance Day started after the carnage and slaughter of World War One. The best way to honour the dead - including those dying today in Afghanistan - is to end wars and bring soldiers home. The current poppy appeal fetishises martyrdom. If you want to remember the dead, wear a white poppy.

in reference to: Why I will not wear a poppy - Herald Scotland | Comment | Ian Bell (view on Google Sidewiki)

Twitter comes into its own at the G20

What is twitter for?

I have always been perplexed by twitter. I have had an account for sometime, but only recently started using it. After all, what's it for, really? What do you post? Why would anyone care? Who do you follow?

This morning, though, I am really beginning to understand its utility. There are massive protests and demonstrations planned in London for the G20, today and over the next few days. Organisers are expecting the biggest turnout since the protests against the Iraq war, police have been warning of chaos, bank workers are dressing down and Lloyds and HBOS are closing their branches for the day.

And a whole lot of the righteaous folks I follow on twitter are on the demonstration. I am getting blow by blow updates, with pictures, like this:

ageofstupid: It transpires that the tube isn't designed for carrying 2 metre giant countdown clocks to climate justice rallies.

RedPeppermag:Spotted: "Polite Notice: Elderly peaceful protester. Please handle with care

RedPeppermag: Walking with Belgian steelworkers on Emankment. Union workers from all over Europe here. G20 week has begun

I am clearly not the only one:

taghioff: This is the first time I have followed a demonstration as it unfolds via Twitter. And from the other side of the world, on a train... #G20

This is raw news, unmediated, as it happens - and this is important, given the state of the media as pointed out in Nick Davies' excellent Flat Earth News.

The fact that I can pick up these messages on my BlackBerry makes me feel involved, where ever I am, and on my laptop I have twitter integrated into Gnome Do (on Linux) so that I get notifications flashed on the screen as they come in. It's really quite exciting! Twitter has never been this busy for me.

As for twitter, you can follow me here, if you're interested.

Changing political perspectives

Yesterday I had a conversation with some one who has been reading my blog for some time. He says that I have 'mellowed out', that I am not as radical as I used to be.

Am I just getting old?

After all, my first ever post was a rant against structure and organised politics in favour of inchoate rage.

I don't think my politics has really changed: essentially, I am still a libertarian communist, though I am not mad about labels. But what has changed is the way I apply my politics.

Firstly, I am a lot more strategic: I have decided that small victories are better than glorious defeats. Victory builds confidence and political skill. Glorious defeat produces narcissistic martyrdom cults.

One definite change is that, unlike my younger self, I now believe very strongly in accountable structures. As Jo Freeman famously points out, if you don't make political structures explicit, implicit ones form, and these are very difficult to challenge. So while meetings might be 'boring', as I argued in Gnostic Liberation Theology, we are unlikely to change the world without them.

I don't discount the importance of magick in politics, but I have realised that there is a lot of hard work that needs to be done too.

Also, I am learning to Open Source my political engagement, and overcome the sectarianism that is so often a feature of the Left. I think libertarian communists ideas are good, but there are plenty of people who don't - many of them passionate, very knowledgeable and committed to social change. I am a democrat, after all, and most people disagree with me.

Maybe I am wrong, and they are right.

But I think we are both right. This might be screamingly obvious to the rest of you, but I have only just noticed that progressive politics is a continuum, rather than an absolute. Anything that pulls the centre towards the Left should be encouraged, so that the hegemony becomes more progressive. An Obama victory is good, because it opens a lot of progressive political space in the US, but its not the end. Anarchist riots on the streets of Athens are good too, though they are unlikely to change anything permanently unless they are able to build coalitions with people less radical than themselves and push a political platform that a majority would find acceptable.

Another change is that I find myself (in my job for a union) actively working with politicians. Some politicians are the absolute scum of the earth, many are mediocrities, but there are a few who are genuine, committed people trying to make things better for their constituents. They are in all parties, and it seems sensible to work with them, especially where there is an ideological or strategic overlap.

A few years ago, I thought that anything that didn't happen on the street or in the workplace was irrelevant, and that voting was a waste of time. I still feel that getting sucked into the electoral circus, as the three big parties triangulate around the same positions, is a distraction from real politics, but I now think that voting is important.

Voting changes the context that other political struggle happens in.

It's not a substitute for hard political work, but it can make a difference, particularly if you actively engage with politicians and remind them that they have a mandate to push progressive policies.

I particularly think European elections are important. I think that a Social Europe is a great Enlightenment project worth fighting for, something that, if achieved, will set a powerful benchmark for the whole world.

It's not glamorous stuff, and there's a lot of boring back room horsetrading that needs to be done, coalitions to be built between trade unions and various political groups. It is important, though, and can improve the lives of millions of people.

Unfortunately not many people vote in EU elections, because they seem so distant, which means that wreckers like UKIP, the BNP (and to be frank, the Tories) gain disproportionate power.

All the above has made me a lot less interested in ideology. I certainly don't think it's that useful for basing a political platform on: if politics is the art of the possible, it needs to be kept practical. This has left me with absolutely no patience for ultra-Leftism, for Judean People's Front stuff, for the squabbling Left sects fighting over Lenin's legacy, for groups too 'pure' to move beyond the margins who call every compromise a sell out.

So what do you think? Have I grown old and soft, and sold out? Has the delicate aroma of petrol bombs finally faded and been replaced with the stale air of boardrooms?

Long absence

I haven't written anything for a while.

There are a lot of reasons for this, to do with my perception of the value of this blog (there are plenty of people blogging similar stuff, and they seem to have more time than me), as well as feeling this blog is pretty old now, and no longer as satisfying as it used to be.

The main reason, though, is time: I started a Masters degree in September, in addition to working full time, so I just have less time to blog.

But yesterday I was accosted by my army of regular readers (Hello Brian), who demanded that I start posting again. So here I am - I promise I will make an effort.

If anyone is interested, I am also on twitter.

Israelis believe their own propaganda

According to a prominent speaker at a World Holocaust Conference in Jerusalem, "The operation in Gaza put an end to the European taboo on equating Jews to Nazis."

Haaretz reports that one of the subjects discussed at the conference held for International Holocaust Remembrance Day was that the Gaza offensive has "legitimized equating Jews with Nazis".

According the Professor Dina Porat - apparently an international authority on anti-Semitism - the comparison is prevalent among leftist Europeans for two reasons:

a) a coordinated propaganda campaign by Muslims - according to Porat, Muslims had

"prepared in advance a public campaign against Jews and Israel, which they see as one and the same. [Muslims] were waiting for a signal or a pretext to launch this campaign and the Nazism comparison."

b) European leftists wanting to displace their own Holocaust guilt:

"Europeans are burdened by the Holocaust, and accusing the victims of being like the Nazis helps distribute some of the burden and guilt."

Since this is a message intended for internal consumption within Zionist circles, it really seems like they believe their own bullshit.

They are paranoid and see an anti-Semite under every bush.They appear to believe that anti-Semitism is the only possible motive for criticising Israel. This isn't just spin - they actually believe it.

I don't see anti-Semitism as different from any other kind of racism. It has its particular characteristics, due to the fact that the Jews were - along with the Roma - a significant minority in Europe for such a long time, but I reject Jewish exceptionalism - the idea that racism against Jews is worse than racism against anyone else.

As for Porat's argument, the conspiracy theory of a coordinated PR offensive by Muslims is just rubbish. Only Israel has that kind of coordinated PR.

More offensive is the suggestion that European leftists are the dupes of Muslim terrorist sympathisers, making the comparison to assuage their own guilt at the Holocaust.

Guilt? For the Holocaust? You've got to be joking.

I certainly don't feel any guilt. I never dunnit, guv. If anything, most European leftists would feel pride in their role in ending the Holocaust. While the behaviour of the Allied governments was hardly exemplary, Allied soldiers were generally much more left wing than their leaders, and many of them saw the war as explicitly a fight against fascism.

Aside from this, the generation implicated in the Holocaust has been replaced by one which is much more sensitised to human rights and the need to prevent suffering elsewhere. In fact, this is probably why Palestinian suffering is such an issue.

Largely because of Israel, we are brought up to associate the Holocaust with Jews (and forget the Roma and everyone else who died). Is it any surprise, then, when we see images that remind us of the Holocaust - of actions taken by the Jewish state - that we see a certain strange irony that is worth drawing attention to?

Look at these images comparing Germany in 1940 to Israel today. The fact that it is even possible to take these pictures and make the comparison is the problem.

How can Gaza not remind us of the Warsaw Ghetto, and Hamas of the Ghetto Fighters? (And remember that the Ghetto Fighters were also brutal with Jewish collaborators, as Hamas are with Fatah).

Clearly, Israel is not Nazi Germany, and nothing on the scale of the Holocaust is happening. But there are a substantial number of people in Israel who are fascist, who do want to see a Final Solution to the Palestinian Question, who openly call for the murder or expulsion of Arabs. The state of Israel is committed to the slow ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

We need to draw attention to this fact. Holocaust analogies are crude, but rather obvious: "Look, Israel, you're behaving like Nazis. Is this what you intended?" Instead of accusing us of anti-Semitism, Israel should look at its behaviour, and ask "is that really how we come across?"

Fortunately some Israelis appear to be waking up to the fact that there are other perspectives on Israel's. Here it dawns on a former media adviser to the prime minister that

The narrative shown in the Western media, especially in Europe, is based on a different world of cultural references than Israel's. It says the era of wars is over, that military force is not the way to solve disputes and that there is a direct link between occupation and violence. The challenge facing Israeli hasbara is not simple - certainly as long as the Palestinians' tragedy is shown to the world. The Western media scrupulously present the Israeli side, but does not accept its narrative."

Well done for noticing.

Why the BBC won't broadcast the Gaza appeal

According to pioneering new work in the field of neuroscience, human beings are hardwired for empathy. The BBC won't show the Gaza appeal because it doesn't want us to empathise with Palestinians. This would start us asking uncomfortable questions about Israel and our leaders' complicity in war and suffering around the world.

It's a can of worms they'd prefer wasn't opened.

"Throughout the world, teachers, sociologists, policymakers and parents are discovering that empathy may be the single most important quality that must be nurtured to give peace a fighting chance." —Arundhati Roy

In a paper called We Empathize, Therefore We Are, Gary Olson writes that pictures showing conditions on slave ships were the most potent weapon in the hands of those fighting slavery. By showing people pictures, campaigners were able to tap directly into a human empathy with the suffering of others, and bypass all the political justifications for the slave trade. This galvanized the anti-slavery movement.

Pioneering work by the neuroscientist Marco Iacoboni into mirror neuron systems shows that human beings are literally "wired for empathy".

Let's make that explicit: we are biologically predisposed to altruism and solidarity. This developed, through evolution, to enhance group cooperation and improve the chances of survival.

So why are we so nasty to each other?

Because we have social systems that breed empathy out of us. Because we live in a class society. Because we have media that is complicit in oppression and imperialism, and keeps the truth from us.

The BBC claims it is safeguarding its impartiality, forgetting that, as Martin Luther King put it,

"The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict. "

The BBC wants us to be passive consumers of its 'impartial' news.

The news story is over, we should forget about suffering Palestinians and move on to the next distraction. It does not want us to empathise with Palestinians. It does not want us to get angry. It does not want us to ask questions of our leaders, to try to change things, to challenge the powers. Because - let's be clear - the BBC serves power, not us, not the people.

In my last post I wrote that Gaza was a watershed, that criticism of Israel has reached new levels, that things will not go back to the way they were before. Despite the fact that a ceasefire was declared, Gaza hasn't disappeared from the news cycle, the protests are ongoing, and the calls for a boycott are growing.

I believe that this is because of the images we have seen come out of Gaza. No amount of explanation can account for dead babies. This is why the Hasbara isn't working: people are not interested in esoteric political justifications, in canards and intellectual sleight of hand, in distraction. People don't care about being smeared. They have seen something that is wrong and must end.

And they know Israel is at fault. Because in addition to dead babies, we have also seen the pictures of Israeli kids writing messages on bombs, and of Israeli war tourists watching the slaughter from a hill above Gaza, with drinks and a barbecue, claiming to be "just a little bit fascist" and expressing their hope that Gaza is turned into a parking lot.

Things will never be the same again.

The Gaza appeal claims to be apolitical, to be about getting aid to the suffering - but suffering is political when it is caused by Israel. We have seen enough to know that we are not getting the whole picture from the mainstream media. The BBC have failed us. We need to shame them and expose them.

"The official directives needn't be explicit to be well understood: Do not let too much empathy move in unauthorized directions." —Norman Solomon

-For more information, read Olson here, here and here, and Iacoboni here.

Gaza was a watershed

I believe the recent assault in Gaza will turn out to be a turning point in the way people in the West see Israel: Israel has had its Sharpeville, the event in South African history that galvanised world opinion against apartheid.

No amount of spin can cancel out the images of dead babies.

Even though I think most of the mainstream media - the BBC included - downplayed a lot of the horror and went easy on Israel, enough filtered through to outrage people. I have also see a lot of activity on the Internet: people are no longer satisfied with the official narratives that Israel has worked so hard to plant in the Western mind, and there is increased interest in understanding what is happening.

Increasingly, people are wise Israel's massively expensive, coordinated propaganda effort - Hasbara - and its tactics, like using software like Megaphone, a program that

"...alerts users to opinion polls and "talkback" features on news sites so they can respond with pro-Israel views. [source]"

And the pro-Israeli activism has been undermined by the fact that it so boringly predictable, such obvious cut and paste following a tired formula:

a) Blame the Palestinians for starting it
b) Lie, knowing that few people will have the chance to fact check, and that if you tell a lie often enough it becomes the truth
c) Deflect criticism (what about Darfur, China, Congo, North Korea etc.)
d) When you are losing the argument, accuse your opponent of anti-Semitism.

Just how far the world has moved is evidenced by the way the anti-Semitic smear just doesn't work any more. For instance, American writer Elizabeth Wurtzel (of Prozac Nation fame) tried to trot out the familiar line in The Guardian:

"It is not Israel's action, but the vitriolic reaction to it that has been disproportionate. There's only one explanation: antisemitism"

People are just not having that anymore. It's anti-Semitic to want to stop Israel killing babies? Within 24 hours, the article had picked up a thousand comments, almost all of them saying something like this one:

Opposing the deliberate killing of civilians makes you an anti-semite?

I disagree.

Revolting article, revolting thesis. Hard to express my disgust with this.

In fact, reading through the comments restores your faith in humanity somewhat: the Hasbara just ain't working, and writers like Wurzel and Thomas Friedman are destroying their reputations with their support for Israel.

Also, the sheer cynicism of the attack - timed for the last weeks of Bush's presidency, and in time to boost the testosterone levels ahead of an election in Israel - has horrified people.

It's also been encouraging to see some prominent people speak out, as the following YouTube videos show. Here is Gerald Kaufman MP - who is Jewish - making a speech in parliament accusing the Israelis of acting like Nazis. Here is Tony Benn, overturning the BBC's ban on broadcasting an appeal for aid for Gaza, and here are thousands of Israelis protesting the war in Tel Aviv.

The climate has changed. The world has had enough. No more blank cheque for Israel.

In fact, I would go as far as to say Israel is finished. The disaster in Lebanon was the beginning of the end; the assault on Gaza consolidated the decline. Israel has become a liability to its closest allies. It will be interesting to see how long it manages to hold on, but unless there is a radical change in policy, I don't expect to be around for more than 10 years.

The world has moved on, and is tired of Israel. It needs to either make peace or lose all the sympathy and support it once enjoyed.