My neighbour has a bumper sticker that says, “You make Jesus cry”. My instinctive reaction, as with most of the pronouncements one hears, or reads, from the religious is to ask the question, “And how do you know this, exactly?” More specifically, I’d like to know whether the gentleman with the bummer sticker hasn’t considered the possibility that Jesus isn’t up there crying, thinking to himself, “Why are so many of my followers such candy-ass cry babies?”

Because I think this is a distinct possibility. I’ll take as evidence for the prosecution their whole attitude towards “persecution”. I’ll come to the whole inverted commas thing in due course - here it is appropriate because what your average Christian tries to pass off as this is anything but. Take this, for example, from some American god-botherer commenting on the British scene:

“[T]here is every reason for to speak, as they are in Rimini, of “Christianophobia”. But I am nervous of using the term. Persecuted minorities see themselves as victims, and victims tend to claim a kind of moral superiority which seeks to deny legitimacy to their critics. Attack Israeli security policy, and you are “antisemitic”. Ask why Muslims do not speak out against terrorism, and you are “Islamophobic”.Christians need to identify their persecutors and name the persecution and prejudice for what it is. But they also need to beware the temptations of victimhood. The “unity” that comes from a shared sense of victimhood is just as dangerously seductive as that of the hissing crowd.”

When one considers that what prompted the writer of this piece to claim the status of ‘persecuted minority’ for Christians was a call (people are always ‘calling’ for things these days) for faith schools to stop discriminating against staff and pupils on the basis of religious affiliation, I think it would be fair to say that he succumbed to the temptations of victimhood some time ago.

Here’s the present situation: in England, as in Scotland, the present system discriminates in favour of the religious - controlling more schools than their weight in the population could possibly justify. The merest suggestion that perhaps just maybe, if it’s alright with you, we might suggest this is a little unfair and perhaps you might stop this, amounts to “persecution” these days. This brings me to the whole use of inverted commas thing. From the beeb piece:

“Accord, a new coalition of secular and religious figures, wants the government to stop state-funded schools engaging in what they say is “discrimination”.”

The word being in inverted commas because “they say” it’s “discrimination” but the author of the article wants to make it clear that this is by no means universally accepted. Who, after all, can really say what discrimination is? Hmmm, I’ll have a go - and give you a personal example to illustrate the goddam point here.

Term’s started up here and things are uncharacteristically slow on the supply front. I did get a phone call about one gig going in a Catholic school in Glasgow. Long-term, my subject, me qualified, can do this shit standing on my head - so…cool, except the disqualifying question: “Are you RC approved?”, I was asked.

I said, “I don’t think the Roman Catholic Church knows who I am but if they did, I’m sure they wouldn’t approve of me.”

Ok, I didn’t really.

If you don’t think what I’ve experienced here can be classified as “discrimination” then frankly you need remedial education - and this would be something that I ain’t prepared to give you - unless you pay me for it; then I might consider it.

And apart from this deranged hallucinating about persecution where there is in fact privilege, there’s the utterly pathetic attitude of the ‘religious lobby’ to contend with. It’s all rather unChristian, apart from anything else. Here’s what Jesus had to say about the whole persecution thing:

“Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.”

Say what you like about them apostles but they took this on board:

“And to him they agreed: and when they had called the apostles, and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name.”

Contrast and compare with the whining (often highly-paid) cretins who don’t seem “exceedingly glad” in the least. Instead they clutter up the press and the blogosphere bitching and complaing about stuff that no one with either any understanding of the English language and/or history could reasonably describe as “persecution”.

If I were an all-powerful deity with a sense of fun, I’d be inflicting them with plagues of boils and other really itchy stuff that would teach them not to talk such crap. That this isn’t happening just serves to re-enforce my unbelief.

Just saying like…

So says spiked online’s resident TV critic, Patrick West.

I’ve been intermittently rereading Primo Levi’s If This Is A Man recently, and even though there’s nothing “new” in it, Levi’s descriptions of the pointless cruelty and inhumanity in the camps still bring me close to tears and put me in a foul mood for days at a time. I imagine they always will.

I can see, however, how being reminded of organised mass murder and other massive violations of human rights can get tiresome, especially when you attempt to deny that it’s happening, whether it’s in Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur, Zimbabwe, or anywhere else.

ISLAMABAD–A Pakistani lawmaker defended a decision by southwestern tribesmen to bury five women alive because they wanted to choose their own husbands, telling stunned members of Parliament this week to spare him their outrage.

“These are centuries-old traditions and I will continue to defend them,” Israr Ullah Zehri, who represents Baluchistan province, said Saturday. “Only those who indulge in immoral acts should be afraid.”

The women, three of whom were teenagers, were first shot and then thrown into a ditch. They were still breathing as their bodies were covered with rocks and mud, according media reports and human rights activists.

Anti-war activists, anti-imperialists, UCU chapels and Code Pink members may send their expressions of support directly to Mir Israr Ullah Zehri here: Party: BNP (Awami), 302-E Parliament lodges, Islamabad. Home phone: 051-9207477.

Here’s a Zehri poster you can put up on your wall:

So, tonight the American television windbag Keith Olbermann is chatting with like-minded windbag and serial dissembler Michael Moore, first about Hurricane Gustav, heading just now towards New Orleans, on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. So Moore says, “Gustav is proof that there is a god in heaven.” Which is weird enough, but I think it means, Great, a hurricane, this will be bad for the Republicans because it will be on teevee and everything, and people will have bad memories while the Republican convention is on the teevee.

But could some American possessed of a passing familiarity with the English language please translate for the rest of us the following, so that we might know its meaning?

Moore: “I don’t even want to hear about Iran. I don’t want to hear about weapons of mass destruction or what they’re building or whatever. In fact I’ve got to tell you, and honestly, and if anybody wants to be honest and they asked themselves this question, If the Iranians had invaded Canada and Mexico the way we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, both sides of Iran, if we were under the same situation, I think Keith you and I would join in on building whatever we could to defend ourselves against these two armies that would be on both of our borders. I mean it’s just crazy and I think we’re going to have more of the same.”

Olbermann: “A supreme, a supremely good point.”

Is this about tornadoes?

There you are, minding your own business and then you read this steaming pile of bollocks: The most important change of opinion I’ve ever had … was realizing that ‘anti-imperialism’ … was something highly negative and reactionary, rather than positive and progressive. Can’t spell Vietnam, Laos, Amritsar, Bay of Pigs or Salvador eh? You are welcome to compose your own list of atrocities committed in the name of the ‘West’. And one of those whose historical contribution to human emancipation I most appreciate [is] … Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The emancipation of Armenians was particularly heartwarming.

I answered one of Normski’s questionnaires myself back in the days when I was younger and blogging was new. Time for a reprise:

Why do you blog?> To piss off all the right people.

What would be your main blogging advice to a novice blogger?> Look for a weakness in your enemies, once you find it, keep needling away at it.

What are you reading at the moment?> Stephen Oppenheimer’s The Origins Of The British, a book which puts a stake through the heart of the competing British nationalisms and filthy racist shit.

What is your favourite poem?> John Wilmot’s On King Charles is a magnificent piece of lèse majesté.

What is your favourite song?> I’m a Manics obsessive, but couldn’t begin to name a favourite song … Dusty Springfield - I Close My Eyes And Count To Ten is close to perfect. Bought Duffy’s Rockferry single off iTunes the other week, don’t like the rest of the stuff on the album though. This works.

Can you name a major moral, political or intellectual issue on which you’ve ever changed your mind?> That it’s possible to work politically with liberals or the ‘middle classes’ — especially the ones who pretend they are socialists. Liberals mouth platitudes about ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’, but at the crucial moment, they can always be relied upon to come to an ‘arrangement’ with reaction or counter-revolution to keep the proles in their place.

What philosophical thesis do you think it most important to disseminate?> Kto-Kogo? (Who-Whom?)

What philosophical thesis do you think it most important to combat?> The idiotic belief that capitalism necessarily brings ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ or that bourgeois democracy is the optimum form available for human organisation.

Can you name a work of non-fiction which has had a major and lasting influence on how you think about the world?> Victor Serge — Memoirs of a Revolutionary.

If you could effect one major policy change in the governing of your country, what would it be?> Revolution. Obviously not me alone …

What do you consider to be the main threat to the future peace and security of the world?> Religion, or rather religious people and those who make excuses for religious ignorance and superstition.

Do you think the world (human civilization) has already passed its best point, or is that yet to come?> When the mode of production and the corresponding social relations are based on co-operation, not competition, and we come to terms with the symbiotic relationship between not only all living things on earth, but also between life and the ‘forces of nature’, we might truly begin to realise our potential. Without clean air and water etc, we’re fucked. That’s not ‘green’ — it’s common sense.

What would be your most important piece of advice about life?> This is all there is. Make the best of it. Get up off your knees. Fight.

What do you consider the most important personal quality?> Solidarity.

What personal fault do you most dislike?> Cowardice.

In what circumstances would you be willing to lie?> In any communication with posh people, if it puts me at an advantage and them at a disadvantage.

Do you have any prejudices you’re willing to acknowledge?> I hate the smug middle class ‘born-to-rule’ scum — bosses and the like — who have their boots on my neck and the necks of the rest of the working class. Now of course, class-hatred is ‘politically incorrect’. I couldn’t give a fuck.

What is your favourite proverb?> I’m not a Maoist, however the old bastard was right when he said power comes from the barrel of a gun. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on has a certain resonance. Those who dig their own graves cannot complain when the dirt starts filling in is a good motto.

What commonly enjoyed activities do you regard as a waste of time?> All of that ‘gym’ rubbish, people who run on a treadmill instead of running around the park — lift some boxes and go for a walk. Arguing with fuckwits/liberals (same thing really) in blog comments boxes, I have things to read and Zs to catch.

Preferred curry bread> A good buttery naan.

First against the wall candidate> Thatcher — if she were dead I’d dig her up and display her remains on a gibbet. And even then she wouldn’t be dead enough.

What, if anything, do you worry about?> That I’m too easy going.

Where would you most like to live (other than where you do)?> One or more of Vancouver, Berlin, Chiang Mai.

What do you like doing in your spare time?> Winding people up and spitting on the reputations of ‘professionals’.

What talent would you most like to have?> I’d like to be better at physics … all the better for construction purposes.

Who is your favourite comedian or humorist?> Libertine and dandy, Russell Brand (even though he called his cat Morrissey). Reginald D Hunter s’kay too.

Favourite take away> Fish supper, salt’n’sauce.

Lager brand> Don’t go to pubs, way too expensive. Staropramen or Baltika if available from the offie, otherwise Kronenbourg or Stella.

Biggest celebrity cunt> This week it’s Boris Johnson. Next week it will be Boris Johnson.

Best and worst live band> Best: Manic Street Preachers. Worst: Jamiroquai (and how the fuck I ended up there is another story).

Favourite “best selling” book> Lenin — The State and Revolution and Tressell — The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.

Stupidest twat in the blogosphere> Bloggertarians — all of them.

the Dude strikes again…

All she needs is a dog called Spot. She already has a husband named Todd, a son in the army and four other children one of whom, alas, suffers from what is euphemistically called “developmental difficulties”.

Her parents worked in the local elementary school, one as a teacher and the other as a secretary. Todd is a bit of a fisherman and apparently a champ on the snowmobile racing circuit, and he works in the main industry of America’s whitest state, which is all-American (rather than the dreaded “imported”) oil. She’s mainly been a hockey mom and a pillar of the Parent-Teacher Association.

That leaves only one question: can you picture Sarah Palin as the president of the United States and the commander in chief of the armed forces? And while you ponder that, I have a follow-up question. Does this choice suggest confidence on McCain’s part, or desperation?

It is reasonably clear that he and his advisors took a close look at the Obama-Biden ticket and the choreography of the Democratic convention in Denver and concluded that the Republican party just couldn’t win if it made a conventional choice – in other words if it went with Governors Romney or Pawlenty, or slightly more riskily with the Democratic maverick Senator Joe Lieberman (who McCain is known to have wanted in his heart of hearts).

They have also obviously studied the gender gap, in a year when a huge number of women feel that a female was somehow cheated of her nomination by the Democrats. And it must be said that Governor Palin is a striking-looking young woman, with a very direct and plain style of delivery. (Whether the image-doctors realize this or not, she made McCain look even older than he is – yesterday was his birthday – when she stood next to him.)

But how much use is this crispness going to be in a debate with Joe Biden, who also has a son in Iraq as well as decades of seniority on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee? Eighteen months in a remote governor’s mansion, preceded by being the mayor of town of 8,000 people, is a bit provincial by comparison.

A new devoted site to Dudeness at the Mirror as well? looks like it.

Bonus: Hitchens on radio in Yankland — haven’t listened to myself yet — discusses the Clinton’s relationship with Obama and the Russia/Georgia conflict. Probably goes without saying it will be better commentary than anything seen or heard elsewhere like.

(Thanks John in C for the tip)

Of these, 14,000 are wearing terrible suits, 7,500 aren’t doing anything at all, 4,021 spend their time badmouthing the convention and its delegates, 2,294 are bitching about having only perimeter passes, 1,026 are drunk, “as it should be,” 500 don’t have credentials, 340 are lost, 150 are in the CNN Grill, 62 are enjoying massages, and seven are having their photographs taken with a man dressed as a pirate in a red frock coat and a frilly shirt.

Fifty-seven channels and nothing on.

UPDATE: In anticipation of the upcoming Republican National Convention in Minneapolis - Saint Paul, the locals are helpfully providing journalists with a map showing the location of all the pubs in the area that will be open until 4 a.m. for the duration of the convention.

Sphinx has some more details/background and a few observations on the story posted on here by Terry G.

Also in the same post — on the teachers strike in Gaza … “A working class struggle against fundamentalism and dictatorship.“

From the Scotsman:

“BANKS should treat Scottish customers more favourably than their English counterparts because the housing market in Scotland is more resilient, the SNP housing minister has said.Stewart Maxwell said he would “encourage” any moves by mortgage lenders to take into account the fact Scotland’s housing market has not been hit as hard by the credit crunch as England.”

Here’s the thing. I’ve done some economics. I have to confess the whole experience made my head hurt. But I still think, perhaps wrongly, that I managed to pick up a couple of points. One would be - now correct me if I’m wrong - but if the Scottish market is really more buoyant than the English market, this’ll have something to do with a slightly greater propensity on the part of banks to lend, which in turn is based on a perception of their customers’ ability to repay? This makes the market more ‘buoyant’, by which is meant, one presumes, that house prices are still rising, or falling less quickly, than they are in England.

I’m not quite getting why this means banks should treat Scottish customers  more favourably? For one, the likely future value of one’s property is a separate issue from one’s ability to pay off your loan in the present, no? And none of this can be reduced to a matter of ethnicity or residency - because this would be to commit the ecological fallacy, would it not? Or am I missing something? Alex Salmond used to be an economist for a bank or something. Perhaps either he or one of his supporters could explain this to me.

While they’re at it, they could also do with explaining the whole Saltires on trains, stations not being blue enough thing and shit like that. They think the problem is not that the trains are late, too expensive, dirty, full of fucking neds, infrequent, don’t take you where you want to go. No, they aren’t blue with white crosses on them and the stations aren’t blue enough. Oh how frequently this thought has crossed my mind whilst waiting for a train. “This station”, I often think, “just isn’t blue enough.”

Is this really the shit beyond belief that I think it is and does it not sound like a lowing cow?*

I would just put it out of its misery (forra laff like).

*noise made by contributor at Shiraz Sauce blog.

Watch this and don’t puke — a challenge like…

Cheggers Challenge here…

The use of the internet and telecommunications more generally to establish communication and access information required to make decisions on a global and local scale is truly a wonder to behold. Verily, we have arrived at utopia. And that.

This is a guest post by SP

At one time Harry’s Place was somewhere I regularly went. I often commented there and occasionally guest posted. I have no personal gripe with its founders but it has changed politically to a point where it now infrequently attracts my interest. Neither am I partisan in the dispute between it and this site (I have however had sight of private e-mail traffic involving some of HP’s nouveau posters which is in stark contrast to the ‘raffish, witty and debonaire’ swagger they carefully try to cultivate).

Consequently I ‘get’ the tone behind yesterday’s post here regarding the HP shutdown. This lead a former Drink Soaked Trot (http://sedgemore.com/2008/08/hooray-the-saucy-comrades-return/) to dishonestly and ignorantly conflate this with a piece by Lenny at Stalin’s Tombola (http://leninology.blogspot.com/2008/08/not-free-speech-martyrs.html). Whilst superficially there is some congruence, a (currently too time consuming) thorough fisk would demonstrate that this is really not the case (no need to say that Len’s take on the David Hirsh quote is entirely flawed).

It is possible to paint the issue in any number of ways including the ridiculous hyperbole of this piece of self justification (http://www.hurryupharry.org/2008/08/27/a-line-must-be-drawn/). You could agree with Lenny, for instance, that it involves a Union busting, right-wing blog getting some timely comeuppance. This is less attractive when you realise that the union in question is somewhat blasé about breaching progressive anti-discrimination legislation and one which refuses to address allegations of institutional antisemitism, raised by Jewish activists. Ultimately campaigning against the latter is likely to get my vote ahead of vagaries regarding ‘breach of confidentiality’ on the ‘activists list’ and the union rule book.

You could argue that this is simply the conduct of the pro and anti boycott campaigns by other means. It certainly looks like a bar brawl breaking out onto the street. Most striking is that the original suggestion to utilise reactionary defamation law, against HP, should come from shrill opponents of the ‘legal threat’ posed by an application of progressive anti-discrimination legislation to the proposed boycott.

It can certainly be seen in the context of the application of reactionary slander and libel laws, and how they are used to intimidate political opponents. This is of course something HP is no stranger to. It should be taken as read that these laws are the plaything of the wealthy and powerful — though you may be surprised who said — ‘and [I] also think there is a place for laws on slander and libel. It is often the only recourse that people on the left have to the right wing press…’ in a comment at Shiraz Sauce recently. They are not commonly used as the above commenter asserts. A call for their urgent repeal should be equally uncontroversial, not least to stop the type of knee-jerk reaction from an ISP we have recently witnessed (their replacement — libel laws — is a subject for another day).

This event can be considered as primarily involving any or all of the above, and more besides. This is not however, an issue of ‘freedom of speech’. Even the most vindictive HP opponent would stop short, one would think, of calling for the site to be banned. Nobody has, to my knowledge, done so. As we can now see this was a day or so long hiatus which, one could reasonably surmise, will go no further. Should litigation follow HP they have, in my lay opinion, a simple defence.

The best, and most temperate response is here. The underlying and ongoing issue is that of institutional antisemitism on the left, which Jewish activists, especially in the UCU, have suffered, and continue to oppose, with comparative silence from anyone else.

After bitter debate as to which candidate has the requisite military experience to be Commander in Chief, the Commanders in Chief have decided, as a cost-cutting measure, to forego the cost of elections and cut out the middle man. Bread and circuses at 11.

Radovan Karadzic might be on trial in The Hague, but he can sit back in his Hugo Boss suit, confident that his work is done. His heirs are young, healthy and full of hate. And as far as they are concerned, the war is far from over. Croatian author Dubravka Ugresic dreams of a procession of collective shame and a ritual of repentance.

Not a word on Barack’s potential…

Just like yoghurt.

Tracey Emin | 20 Years is on at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh’s leafy Dean Village until 9 November. Emin is roundly loathed by lowing philistines of bourgeois inclinations, morals and tastes, for whom the function of art is to instruct — most especially to instruct the proles — how to live. Oh, the vulgarity! The degeneracy! That would be £6 well spent then.

When the proles do it or flaunt it it is a sign of collapsing civilisation. When the quality strip off and get down and dirty it is raffish, playful, taboo-busting, daring and ever so sexy.

Kazuya Ito, 31, kidnapped and murdered by the Taliban. Before his body was found, 500 villagers launched a “massive operation” to try and rescue him.

Ito was an agricultural engineer with the Japanese aid agency Peshawar-kai, which employs 250 Pakistanis and Afghans. Its canal and water supply project in the Dara-e-Noor Valley has turned deserts back into lush green fields, allowing 10,000 people to return to their farms.

Ito was looking forward to the results from the construction of a 14-kilometre canal, which began in 2003.

Peshawar-kai: “Go where others dare not go. Do what others dare not do.”

Ito was more precious than ten million of these.

Some background

Sauce is doon.

Boo hoo.

Good.

Tossers. Fuck them all who post there.

That lot don’t know what solidarity is and that like. Stupid stupid tossers.

Thusly they can all go and fuck off and die like the lawyer scum they are like.

Plus — nobody knows who complained like and even if we did like know like then I still wouldn’t link myself to those scumbags and filth like — my hatred for antisemitic scum is completely independent of Sauce tosser ‘thoughts’ and ‘actions’ like.

PS. Is Moralityblog their Fag?

He fucking seems to be. Like.

Enjoy your crumpets dipshits.

Wot they are calling for is empathy — not solidarity (a word of which they know fuck all about and generally piss on). Yes, empathy is wot they mean — the emoting of middle-class-slightly-above-low-brow-dreck cunts. Don’t you also despise these cretins and lice?

Nope — the ’solidarity’ shtick doesn’t work on me. I would have them (Saucebucketfilth) all shot on the spot for drivel peddling to the masses and that. Their empathic gaze that looks upon the subject as emotional shit rather than political or social activity with brains (matter that thinks) can go fuck itself backwards. Drizzle boiling oil on the Sauce. Would do it good and that.

Meaning it like.

Napalm the whole fucking lot.

Malkin and Troofers? Together on the same spot?

They should be run over by tanks prior to the napalm.

An intercontinental ballistic missile strike would have been A Ok with me like.

Meaning it like.

Much and all as it isn’t my usual job to post Hitchensia around here, there’s something about this muppet which suggests he really doesn’t get it. Talking snake alert:

And the mome raths outgrabe …

The United Kingdom is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. All fair and nice cuddly politics. Now the UK has a general reservation against the UN Convention on Rights of the Child. That means the UK can ignore the Convention in pursuit of its border control and immigration targets. That strikes me as being wrong, unjust, unethical, immoral and just an all round bad thing.

The Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture argues

The general reservation states that: “The United Kingdom reserves the right to apply such legislation, in so far as it relates to the entry into, stay in and departure from the UK of those who do not have the right under the law of the UK to enter and remain in the UK, and to the acquisition and possession of citizenship, as it may deem necessary from time to time.”

The question is timely, 2008 being the year that the Committee on the Rights of the Child will scrutinise the UK’s record of compliance with its Children’s Convention obligations.

So how does the reservation affect child survivors of torture? According to the Border and Immigration Agency (BIA), it “allows the UK to apply its immigration laws without having them interpreted in light of the UN Convention”. In other words, it allows blanket discrimination against foreign national children in the interests of so called “effective immigration control”.

So the UK government discriminates, in contravention of the Convention, against children who may be survivors, or witnesses, of torture just so that it can meet its immigration targets That is managerial target-setting entering the door and throwing ethics and morality out of the window. Such is the reign of managerialism in the UK in 2008.

As the Medical Foundation says

It is paramount to send a clear message that the UK finally recognises its full responsibilities by formally and publicly removing the reservation. An act which at least for children would be every bit as important as the coming in to force of the Human Rights Act 1998.

For Medical Foundation clients and all other children who have suffered serious harm, Article 39 of the Convention can then be demonstrably implemented to the fullest effect: “States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to promote physical and psychological recovery and social reintegration of a child victim of: any form of neglect, exploitation, or abuse; torture or any other form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; or armed conflicts. Such recovery and reintegration shall take place in an environment which fosters the health, self-respect and dignity of the child.”

And, as the government keeps telling us, Every Child Matters. So, make it so.

With all the coverage and reminiscences of 1968 and the discussion of the revolutionary moment and the glories of spontaneity, I was surprised to find someone berating the pace and the lack of preparation of the participants.

A correspondent to Peace News, 2497, May 2008 writes

The French are known for their failed revolutions. This time in 1968, having done nothing to educate the people or communicate with the trade unions, they went through a revolutionary charade producing excellent poetry but resulting in the complete defeat of anarchist nonviolent aspiration throughtout the world.

The French activists had no right to spoil years and years of work towards a universal understanding of the tasks in front of us, to create a worldwide peaceful society without rulers.”

Publisher, 77, London

As my old five-a-side captain used to say Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance and Preempts Post Revolutionary Pangs of Passion for a Glorious Failure. And the P’s ran away with it.

Hitchens on it and the menace of Russian imperialism.