The Virtual Stoa

Government playing silly buggers over the ID card consultation exercise [via Nick].

“It has been putrid stuff”: Polly Toynbee in today’s Guardian, on right-wing press coverage of refugees and asylum seekers.

It’s always good to have discussions of the sex life of the elephant seal.

Martin writes [31.1.2003]: “The only other mammal thought to travel such large distances are whales.” Surely some mistake? Or is that Virgin Atlantic plane which takes me from Boston to London a figment of my imagination?

Chris replies: Mammals, Martin, mammals.

Martin, again: Am I not a mammal, Chris? Am I not?

My friend and comrade Leo Zeilig has had the criminal charges against him dropped. As you may know or remember, he was picked up by police recently for being the man with the megaphone on an antiwar demonstration in London, and had up to five years in prison dangled in front of him on a charge of incitement to violent disorder, or somesuch. He writes:

Comrades and friends,

We fought and we won! At 4pm today my solicitor received a fax from the Crown Prosecution Service that stated, “all charges against your client have been dropped”. While no reasons were given we can feel confident that the message of our campaign — the Right to Protest — the anti-war movement and the show of support at the court on 31 December, the work we did raising the profile of the campaign and the absurdity of the charges against a peaceful demonstrator forced their hand. That they didn’t have the confidence to pursue charges against me with all the evidence they claimed to have amassed on the day is proof of the great strength of the anti-war movement. The cost they have wasted in the last three months runs into thousands. We must make sure that demonstration in London on the 15 February will ring out across the world with the message that we can stop the war and we are RIGHT TO PROTEST!

The support of my comrades and friends in the campaign has ensured this victory. We must make sure that Right to Protest organised by the Stop the War Coalition continues to exist, providing support and solidarity to the others still facing charges and anti-war activists that the police will undoubtedly arrest in the protests and demonstrations against the war in the coming weeks and months.

Excellent news: and many thanks to those who were a bit better than me at managing to make it along to the court hearing.

If anyone’s up late at night to listen to W.’s speech tonight, here the State of the Union Drinking Game.

The recent London Review of Books essay, “‘No Bullshit’ Bullshit” by Stefan Collini, discussing Christopher Hitchens’s Orwell’s Victory [aka Why Orwell Matters] is now online.

“The sight of Hitchens view-hallooing across the fields in pursuit of some particularly dislikable quarry has been among the most exhilarating experiences of literary journalism during the last two decades. He’s courageous, fast, tireless and certainly not squeamish about being in at the kill. But after reading this and some of his other recent writings, I begin to imagine that, encountering him, still glowing and red-faced from the pleasures of the chase, in the tap-room of the local inn afterwards, one might begin to see a resemblance not to Trotsky and other members of the European revolutionary intelligentsia whom he once admired, nor to the sophisticated columnists and political commentators of the East Coast among whom he now practises his trade, but to other red-coated, red-faced riders increasingly comfortable in their prejudices and their Englishness - to Kingsley Amis, pop-eyed, spluttering and splenetic; to Philip Larkin, farcing away at the expense of all bien pensants; to Robert Conquest and a hundred other ‘I told you so’s. They would be good company, up to a point, but their brand of saloon-bar finality is only a quick sharpener away from philistinism, and I would be sorry to think of one of the essayists I have most enjoyed reading in recent decades turning into a no-two-ways-about-it-let’s-face-it bore. I just hope he doesn’t go on one hunt too many and find himself, as twilight gathers and the fields fall silent, lying face down in his own bullshit.”

Glen Newey’s essay on the royal family is quite fun, too.

In Memoriam Pierre Bourdieu, died 23 January 2002.

Everybody’s favourite email scam, revisted:

IMMEDIATE ATTENTION NEEDED :
HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL
FROM: GEORGE WALKER BUSH
202.456.1414 / 202.456.1111
FAX: 202.456.2461

DEAR SIR / MADAM,

I AM GEORGE WALKER BUSH, SON OF THE FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA GEORGE HERBERT WALKER BUSH, AND CURRENTLY SERVING AS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THIS LETTER MIGHT SURPRISE YOU BECAUSE WE HAVE NOT MET NEITHER IN PERSON NOR BY CORRESPONDENCE. I CAME TO KNOW OF YOU IN MY SEARCH FOR A RELIABLE AND REPUTABLE PERSON TO HANDLE A VERY CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS TRANSACTION, WHICH INVOLVES THE TRANSFER OF A HUGE SUM OF MONEY TO AN ACCOUNT REQUIRING MAXIMUM CONFIDENCE.

I AM WRITING YOU IN ABSOLUTE CONFIDENCE PRIMARILY TO SEEK YOUR ASSISTANCE IN ACQUIRING OIL FUNDS THAT ARE PRESENTLY TRAPPED IN THE REPUBLIC OF IRAQ. MY PARTNERS AND I SOLICIT YOUR ASSISTANCE IN COMPLETING A TRANSACTION BEGUN BY MY FATHER, WHO HAS LONG BEEN ACTIVELY ENGAGED IN THE EXTRACTION OF PETROLEUM IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND BRAVELY SERVED HIS COUNTRY AS DIRECTOR OF THE UNITED STATES CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY.

IN THE DECADE OF THE NINETEEN-EIGHTIES, MY FATHER, THEN VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, SOUGHT TO WORK WITH THE GOOD OFFICES OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF IRAQ TO REGAIN LOST OIL REVENUE SOURCES IN THE NEIGHBORING ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN. THIS UNSUCCESSFUL VENTURE WAS SOON FOLLOWED BY A FALLING OUT WITH HIS IRAQI PARTNER, WHO SOUGHT TO ACQUIRE ADDITIONAL OIL REVENUE SOURCES IN THE NEIGHBORING EMIRATE OF KUWAIT, A WHOLLY-OWNED U.S.-BRITISH SUBSIDIARY.

MY FATHER RE-SECURED THE PETROLEUM ASSETS OF KUWAIT IN 1991 AT A COST OF SIXTY-ONE BILLION U.S. DOLLARS ($61,000,000,000). OUT OF THAT COST, THIRTY-SIX BILLION DOLLARS ($36,000,000,000) WERE SUPPLIED BY HIS PARTNERS IN THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA
AND OTHER PERSIAN GULF MONARCHIES, AND SIXTEEN BILLION DOLLARS ($16,000,000,000) BY GERMAN AND JAPANESE PARTNERS. BUT MY FATHER’S FORMER IRAQI BUSINESS PARTNER REMAINED IN CONTROL OF THE REPUBLIC OF IRAQ AND ITS PETROLEUM RESERVES.

MY FAMILY IS CALLING FOR YOUR URGENT ASSISTANCE IN FUNDING THE REMOVAL OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF IRAQ AND ACQUIRING THE PETROLEUM ASSETS OF HIS COUNTRY, AS COMPENSATION FOR THE COSTS OF REMOVING HIM FROM POWER. UNFORTUNATELY, OUR PARTNERS FROM 1991 ARE NOT WILLING TO SHOULDER THE BURDEN OF THIS NEW VENTURE, WHICH IN ITS UPCOMING PHASE MAY COST THE SUM OF 100 BILLION TO 200 BILLION DOLLARS ($100,000,000,000 - $200,000,000,000), BOTH IN THE INITIAL ACQUISITION AND IN
LONG-TERM MANAGEMENT.

WITHOUT THE FUNDS FROM OUR 1991 PARTNERS, WE WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO ACQUIRE THE OIL REVENUE TRAPPED WITHIN IRAQ. THAT IS WHY MY FAMILY AND OUR COLLEAGUES ARE URGENTLY SEEKING YOUR GRACIOUS ASSISTANCE. OUR DISTINGUISHED COLLEAGUES IN THIS BUSINESS TRANSACTION INCLUDE THE SITTING VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, RICHARD CHENEY, WHO IS AN ORIGINAL PARTNER IN THE IRAQ VENTURE AND FORMER HEAD OF THE HALLIBURTON OIL COMPANY, AND CONDOLEEZA RICE, WHOSE PROFESSIONAL DEDICATION TO THE VENTURE WAS DEMONSTRATED IN THE NAMING OF A CHEVRON OIL TANKER AFTER HER.

I WOULD BESEECH YOU TO TRANSFER A SUM EQUALING TEN TO TWENTY-FIVE PERCENT (10-25 %) OF YOUR YEARLY INCOME TO OUR ACCOUNT TO AID IN THIS IMPORTANT VENTURE. THE INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL FUNCTION AS OUR TRUSTED INTERMEDIARY. I PROPOSE THAT YOU MAKE THIS TRANSFER BEFORE
THE FIFTEENTH (15TH) OF THE MONTH OF APRIL.

I KNOW THAT A TRANSACTION OF THIS MAGNITUDE WOULD MAKE ANYONE APPREHENSIVE AND WORRIED. BUT I AM ASSURING YOU THAT ALL WILL BE WELL AT THE END OF THE DAY. A BOLD STEP TAKEN SHALL NOT BE REGRETTED, I ASSURE YOU. PLEASE DO BE INFORMED THAT
THIS BUSINESS TRANSACTION IS 100% LEGAL. IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO CO-OPERATE IN THIS TRANSACTION, PLEASE CONTACT OUR INTERMEDIARY REPRESENTATIVES TO FURTHER DISCUSS THE MATTER.

I PRAY THAT YOU UNDERSTAND OUR PLIGHT. MY FAMILY AND OUR COLLEAGUES WILL BE FOREVER GRATEFUL. PLEASE REPLY IN STRICT CONFIDENCE TO THE CONTACT NUMBERS BELOW.

SINCERELY WITH WARM REGARDS,

GEORGE WALKER BUSH

Switchboard: 202.456.1414
Comments: 202.456.1111
Fax: 202.456.2461
Email: president@whitehouse.gov

Via the internet.

Simon writes to know why I didn’t post George Orwell in the Dead Socialist Watch yesterday. He died on 21 January 1953. Well, he was on my list, but sometimes I don’t get round to new postings. So consider him commemorated. And happy birthday, today, Antonio Gramsci, still everyone’s favourite dead Sardinian militant, after all these years (one hundred and twelve of them).

Brad deLong is dumbfounded:

I must say that I had always thought that by the time I reached 40 I would have heard about or thought of every possible kind of sin. But the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston has proved me wrong. I had never thought of:

* “Reaching out” to the victims of sexual abuse by priests, telling them that the church cares about them, suggesting that they get therapy and counseling.

* Offering to pay for the therapy.

* Then subpoenaing the therapists, trying to break the confidentiality of the patient-therapist relationship, in the hope of learning something (a) that will weaken the victim’s case in court, or (b) that would be so embarrassing if it were revealed in court that the plaintiff can be induced to drop or cheaply settle his or her legal case.

I am dumbfounded. This is betrayal of a high order: Dante’s Inferno Tenth-Circle buried-in-ice-for eternity order. Moreover, this is something that I would never have thought of doing in ten-thousand years.

He’s commenting on this article, from the Boston Globe.

The new Harry Potter film is having trouble in Russia… via BBC Monitoring:

Dobby the house-elf could face court for looking like Putin
Source: Ekho Moskvy radio, Moscow, in Russian 1000 gmt 20 Jan 03

[Newsreader] Harry Potter’s Russian fans will have to wait a whole year for the new book. The Rosman publishing house said today that the fifth volume of the young magician’s adventures will appear for sale in the Russian language at the beginning of 2004. Mind you, for those who know English, J.K.Rowling’s new book will come out in the UK in June of this year.

However, Harry Potter could have other problems in Russia - of a legal kind.

Not the book though, but the film. And all because one of the characters in the second film is similar to Vladimir Putin in appearance. It is Dobby the house-elf, who is a nasty green colour and has large ears. Novaya Gazeta [newspaper] reported today that a major law company’s offices in Russia are preparing a lawsuit on this matter, claiming that the film-makers did not have the right to use a face that is known the world over when creating their character. There has been no official comment on the matter yet…

We ask: does President Putin iron his own hands?

Lightly edited and with added hyperlinks:

On Holocaust Memorial Day
Say No to the Daily Mail’s War on Refugees and Immigrants

Demonstrate - 5.30pm - Monday 27th January 2003
Daily Mail Offices - Associated Newspapers Building
Northcliffe House - 2 Derry Street - Kensington
London W8 (near High Street Kensington Underground Station)

Come and show your opposition to racism in the media. Join with us on Monday 27th January from 5.30pm, outside the Daily Mail Offices in Derry Street.

Nearly every day there is an article in the Daily Mail attacking asylum seekers - often on the front page with an inflammatory headline such as “Stop the Asylum Invasion”.� Often in a big centre spread.� Sometimes the leader column.�� Always portraying migrants and refugees as scroungers trying to take advantage and as a threat to the ‘British way of life’.� Sometimes as barely or sub-human.� As one refugee said, seeing a Daily Mail headline - ‘A Door We Can’t Close’ - “it makes me feel like vermin”.� Well, that’s the idea, that is the image that is being presented.� No wonder asylum seekers get beaten up around the country, often sustaining permanent injuries such as losing an eye, and in some cases murdered.� This is a heavy responsibility that lies upon the Daily Mail and other papers such as the Express.

There is nothing new about this.� On Holocaust Memorial Day it is fitting to remember what the Daily Mail said about Jews fleeing from Nazi Germany. “The way stateless Jews from Germany are pouring in from every port of this country is becoming an outrage, the number of aliens entering the country through back door - a problem to which the Daily Mail has repeatedly pointed”. [Daily Mail, 20 August 1938].

Or go back further. “They fought, they jostled to the foremost places at the gangways… When the Relief Committee passed by they hid their gold and fawned and whined in broken English asked for money for their train fare.” This is the Daily Mail, writing about Jewish immigrants, 3 February 1900.

On Holocaust Memorial Day it is worth remembering that the Daily Mail was an enthusiastic supporter of Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists. (“Hurrah for the Black Shirts”).� The Daily Mail sang the praises of Mussolini’s Italy and for Nazi Germany. Lord Rothermere, the proprietor of the newspaper, had regular meetings with Hitler in the mid-1930s.�

Clearly this vicious leopard has not changed its spots in the last century.� This is an opening salvo in our campaign to put an end to its racist filth.� We will not cease, until the Daily Mail ceases its hateful campaign.

If you can’t be there, you can send a message of� solidarity, to be read out at the demo, to Liz Peretz of the Campaign to Close Campsfield.The protest has been called by a bunch of organisations, including Barbed Wire Britain, Bristol Defend the Asylum Seekers Campaign, Close Down Campsfield Campaign, Committee to Defend Asylum Seekers, Jewish Socialist Group, Manchester Committee to Defend Asylum Seekers and the Campaign Against Racism and Fascism (CARF).

Over to the Vatican for the latest words of wisdom from Cardinal Ratzinger…

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Many, alas, will have been disappointed.

R. H. Tawney, born 1880, died 1962.

Protesting May Be Good for Your Health

LONDON (Reuters Health) - Taking part in protests and demonstrations can be good for your physical and mental health, a new British study suggests.

Psychologists at the University of Sussex found that people who get involved in campaigns, strikes and political demonstrations experience an improvement in psychological well-being that can help them overcome stress, pain, anxiety and depression.

The finding fits in with other studies suggesting that positive experiences and feeling part of a group can have beneficial effects on health.

“Collective actions, such as protests, strikes, occupations and demonstrations, are less common in the UK than they were perhaps 20 years ago,” researcher Dr. John Drury said in a statement.

“The take-home message from this research therefore might be that people should get more involved in campaigns, struggles and social movements, not only in the wider interest of social change but also for their own personal good.”

The results emerged from in-depth interviews with nearly 40 activists from a variety of backgrounds. Between them, they had more than 160 experiences of collective action involving groups of demonstrators protesting against a range of issues. These included fox-hunting, environmental damage and industrial matters.

Volunteers were asked to describe what it was about taking part in such collective action that made them feel so good..

“Many published activist accounts refer to feelings of encouragement and confidence emerging from experiences of collective action,” said Drury. “But it is not always clear how and why such empowerment occurs, so we aimed to explain what factors within a collective action event contribute to such feelings.”

He said the interviews revealed that the key factors were that participants felt they had a collective identity with fellow protestors. They also derived a sense of unity and mutual support from taking part.

Such was the strength of the feelings they experienced that the effects appear to be sustained over a period of time.

“Empowering events were almost without exception described as joyous occasions,” said Drury. “Participants experienced a deep sense of happiness and even euphoria in being involved in protest events. Simply recounting the events in the interview brought a smile to the face of the interviewees.”

From the Yahoo news site.

Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, murdered in Berlin, 1919.

In Memoriam James Joyce, died 13 January 1941, Z�rich.

James Joyce isn’t a familiar figure on the list of Dead Socialists, and it took me a long time to realise the extent of Joyce’s socialist politics, given the apolitical pose he liked to strike from time to time. But a useful passage in Vincent Cheng’s Joyce, Race and Empire, pp.129-134 summarises the evidence, which includes the testimony of his brother (”He calls himself a socialist, but attaches himself to no school of socialism”), the contents of his library in Trieste (he owned a great deal of socialist and anarchist literature), and a consistently anti-imperialist politics in his various writings.

Anyone who missed the excellent Latin oration in the Financial Times celebrating the possible candidacy of William Jefferson Clinton for the Chancellorship of Oxford University can find it on the Der Spiegel website.

Other nominations for Chancellor gratefully received.

Last year the BBC World Service authoritatively determined that “A Nation Once Again” was the World’s Favourite Song. Now Time magazine is asking the readers of its website to answer the question, “Which country poses the greatest danger to world peace in 2003?”, giving them a rather limited menu of Iraq, North Korea or the United States.

Voting has been going on for a while now, and with almost 57,000 votes cast, the US is in the lead by 70.3% to Iraq’s 18.9% to North Korea’s 10.8%. And the polls are still open…

Nick provides an update [16.1.2003]: The US now leads with over 80% of the vote; Iraq and North Korea have under 10% apiece.

This just in, from NTK.net [via Nick]:

Into the final days of the government’s Great ID Card Consultation - and the Home Office couldn’t be more excited. Lord Falconer continues to tell everyone who’ll listen that over 1500 people have responded, and the majority of them were extremely positive on the idea.Now, given that they’re proposing a massive IT project to introduce a universal identifier for all citizens, with a centralised database of personal details, kept accurate by making a new crime of withholding your current address from the government - well, we can’t help but think that more people would a bit squeamish on the principle.

And maybe they were. DAN BLANCHARD described what happened when he mailed the HO saying that he didn’t think ID cards were necessary. Back came the reply from the Home Office: “Thank you for your e-mail of 13th December in support of the introduction of an entitlement/identity card scheme.”

Now, we’re not saying that something fishy is going on here. Although, obviously, yes we are *implying* it. So to double-check the government, and test the accuracy of the Lord Falconometer, the STAND folk have set up an easy-to-use web form for those wanting to express their discontent (mild or otherwise) with the Entitlement Card scheme. STAND’ll keep count of the number of contributions (in a giant, centralised database of biometric - nah, just kidding), and then compare that to the results that come from Lord Falconer next time. We’re hoping to get close to the 1500 entries already noted, perhaps even top it (that’s only about 0.1 of a slashdotting after all). Because if the government can’t even keep their database of an simple e-mail consultation straight, maybe they shouldn’t be trusted with a universal database after all.

Now visit stand.org.uk for a user-friendly way of recording your opinion and communicating it to Charlie Falconer. (Over 1000 people have already).