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The Spirals of Hatred for the 'Other' My horror stands unabated at the misrepresentation and reprehensible xenophobia rampant in Britain today. Of course, the story is an ancient one, playing on the fear that human stupidity has of 'the other'. The misrepresentation of asylum seekers, and the ease with which politicians desperate for appeal of any sort (i.e. the Tory party leader and Tony Blair) and intellectual-gutter papers like the Daily Mail have in perpetrating ignorance and fear disgusts me to my core. Day after day we have shrill and hysterical announcements about this massive 'wave' of liars and potential terrorists that will engulf the 'culture'[1] of Britain. So major a threat is this onslaught of lying dangerous 'others', that our wise Leader, Tony Blair, has warned that we may have to "withdraw from our obligations under the European convention":http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,11026,882965,00.html?=rss on human rights. The arguments against such empty hysteria are many. The statements of doom based on economic reasons are highly contentious and improbable; many economists are very clear that immigration can be, and is, a positive factor in economic development (walk through London at 5am to see the thousands of invisible cleaners and workers, almost exclusively composed of the 'other'[2]). The suggestions of loss of 'culture' seems weak at best, to quote "David Aaronovitch:":http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/comment/0,11026,882694,00.html bq. "Rowthorn's definition of nation is just piety masquerading as analysis (has he even read Linda Colley?), and his suggestion that mass immigration necessarily undermines a sense of nationhood is completely contradicted by the experience of the United States and Australia. If nationhood is just a series of particularities (eating fish and chips, taking the dog for a walk, knowing who is tenth in line to the throne), then Rowthorn may be right. If it is embodied in values, then he may well be wrong. Let us say that the things that we most value about Britishness are tolerance, free speech, non-violence, a vibrant popular culture, comedy, a belief in fairness, representative democracy and complaining to anyone except the person who has given you offence. Are these necessarily put at risk by high levels of immigration?[3]" It seems clear that if Britain's 'culture' is so fragile that it will break under what is still a vast minority of diverse 'others', then are those supposed core values worth keeping? Finally, I find it hypocrisy of the highest order that politicians and the press can, in one single breath, talk about brutal dictators and regimes like Iraq and Zimbabwe, and then not recognize most asylum seekers come from these very countries. Tony Blair loves to play the game of demonisation, yet he cannot back up his attack that Hussain and Mugabe torture and starve their people when asylum laws are cracking down on those very same people escaping from those tyrants? see also: "Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in the Independant":http://argument.independent.co.uk/regular_columnists/yasmin_alibhai_brown/story.jsp?story=373061

[1] Whatever that 'culture' may be. [2] Those invisible 'others' that are responsible for 'waking' the city up, and keeping it running, who are paid next-to-nothing and who have no working rights because of their status (thus maintaining the low running costs of innumerable businesses). I would love for one of the 'anti-immigrants' to spend 6 months working with the status of one of those invisible 'others', and then try to reflect on their xenophobic ignorance and misrepresentation. [3] Not that I agree with his list of 'Britishness'! Just with the sentiment that it is probably only the superficiality of a 'culture' that may be challenged by the 'other'. In fact, Britain is an [albeit imperfect] example of enrichment of those superficial aspects of the 'culture', as attested to by the great contributions in art, music, food and other aspects of daily life that have made Britain simply much better to live in. See individual entry…

Politics of Farce "Robert Fisk is in fine form in this article":http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=373102 from the Independant. No specific focus, just the passionate railing that Fisk is best at. See individual entry…

Beauty in Beetles p(centre). !http://nontroppo.org/blog/images/jewel1.jpg 344 400!
"Living Jewels":http://living-jewels.com/ (seen in metafilter) See individual entry…

Can we really justify this? Here they go again, The Yanks in their armoured parade Chanting their ballads of joy As they gallop across the big world Praising America's God.
The gutters are clogged with the dead The ones who couldn't join in The others refusing to sing The ones who are losing their voice The ones who've forgotten the tune.
The riders have whips which cut. Your head rolls onto the sand Your head is a pool in the dirt Your head is a stain in the dust Your eyes have gone out and your nose Sniffs only the pong of the dead And all the dead air is alive With the smell of America's God. "words: Harold Pinter":http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,879543,00.html?=rss | "photo: Peter Turnley":http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0212/pt_intro.html | "sentiments: Robert Fisk":http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=372767 See individual entry…

Chicago, my kind of town... "Chicago Council has voted 46-1 in opposition":http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/a/2003/01/16/national1554EST0707.DTL of a pre-emptive assault on Iraq. Apparently, they follow a number of other cities like San Francisco. It is a shame such news of grass roots opposition in the US is so sparcely reported about. In related news, in an informal poll by Time Magazine (Europe) over who is the "greatest threat to world peace,":http://www.time.com/time/europe/gdml/peace2003.html the United States is currently running on 81% percent of the vote! (219,085 votes cast). Drop in and lend your support to stop North Korea or Iraq from being so disgracefully shown up (they ARE evil rogue states after all...) See individual entry…

Do you need some reasons? A nice cynical kick from an article on some more reasons to attack Iraq: bq. "Anxious to get on with the invasion of Iraq, a conflict in which the U.S. president has threatened to use nuclear weapons, Bush last week came up with a new reason to invade. "An attack from (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein or a surrogate of Saddam Hussein would cripple our economy," Bush told reporters at his Texas ranch. "Our economy is strong, it's resilient, we've got to continue to make it strong and resilient. This economy cannot afford to stand an attack". Why rely on the old tools of monetary and fiscal policy to shore up a stagnant economy when pre-emptive nuclear attack is quicker and more reliable?"
"It is one thing to argue that Iraq poses a threat to the survival of the U.S. and its allies (a case that has never been substantiated); but it is quite another to argue that the West has the right to kill tens of thousands of people in another country in order to keep the economy over here resilient."
"Axworthy implies that by invading Iraq, the West would be doing the Iraqi people a favour. But he never explains how he knows this. How can he possibly know what most Iraqis would choose, given the options of continuing to live under Saddam or facing an imminent U.S. military attack in which members of their family might actually die? But then we're getting a little off topic from the real issues - like what impact a U.S. invasion would have on consumer confidence, the turn-out at the mall and the overall resilience of the U.S. economy." "See it here.":http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1035776232182&call_page=TS_News&call_pageid=968332188492&call_pagepath=News/News See individual entry…

US-Rot Will Hutton writing about the state of the US. Interesting mainly because I learned that McDonalds has posted its first quarterly loss (makes me exceedingly happy - I'd love it to implode Enron style). "Will Hutton in the Observer":http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,868777,00.html See individual entry…

Fisk in fighting form p. Although I sometimes have problems with some of Robert Fisk's writing, there is a bullish piece in the Independant that raises a number of important points - particularly relating to Algeria: bq. "But no American or British newspaper has dared to investigate another, almost equally dangerous, relationship that the present US administration is forging behind our backs: with the military-supported regime in Algeria. For 10 years now, one of the world's dirtiest wars has been fought out in this country, supposedly between "Islamists" and "security forces", in which almost 200,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed. But over the past five years there has been growing evidence that elements of those same security forces were involved in some of the bloodiest massacres, including the throat-cutting of babies. The Independent has published the most detailed reports of Algerian police torture and of the extrajudicial executions of women as well as men. Yet the US, as part of its obscene "war on terror", has cosied up to the Algerian regime. It is helping to re-arm Algeria's army and promised more assistance. William Burns, the US Assistant Secretary of State for the Middle East, announced that Washington 'has much to learn from Algeria on ways to fight terrorism'" p. "Get it here...":http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=366199 p. [note: I find the reference to slitting babies throats particularly unsubtle writing - it stands out in the paragraph and seems a clear jouralistic ploy to appeal to the reader. Actually I find any reference to 'children' and 'old people' deeply problematic - as if raping an old woman is somehow more barbaric than raping a 20 year-old. Why do the deaths of children mean more than those of 'normal' adults? These are such stupid and facile sentiments, yet they pervade throughout these kinds of discourses.] See individual entry…

The lies we are told A nice summary article on the posturing and manipulation of the Bush Sr. administration for the gulf war (mk. I): bq. "When Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990, the first President Bush likened it to Nazi Germany's occupation of the Rhineland. "If history teaches us anything, it is that we must resist aggression or it will destroy our freedoms," he declared. The administration leaked reports that tens of thousands of Iraqi troops were massing on the border of Saudi Arabia in preparation for an invasion of the world's major oil fields. The globe's industrial economies would be held hostage if Iraq succeeded.
The reality was different. Two Soviet satellite photos obtained by the St. Petersburg Times raised questions about such a buildup of Iraqi troops. Neither the CIA nor the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency viewed an Iraqi attack on Saudi Arabia as probable. The administration's estimate of Iraqi troop strength was also grossly exaggerated. After the war, Newsday's Susan Sachs called Iraq the "phantom enemy": "The bulk of the mighty Iraqi army, said to number more than 500,000 in Kuwait and southern Iraq, couldn't be found."
Students of the Gulf War largely agree that Hussein's invasion of Kuwait was primarily motivated by specific historical grievances, not by Hitler-style ambitions. Like most Iraqi rulers before him, Hussein refused to accept borders drawn by Britain after World War I that virtually cut Iraq off from the Gulf. Iraq also chafed at Kuwait's demand that Iraq repay loans made to it during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. Administration officials seemed to understand all this. In July 1990, U.S. Ambassador to Baghdad April Glaspie told Hussein that Washington had "no opinion on Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait," a statement she later regretted." "See the full article here.":http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0105-02.htm See individual entry…