Shiraz Socialist

We've moved to WordPress!

2007-03-04T13:37:00.000-08:00

It was time after all. So our new address will be www.shirazsocialist.wordpress.com, the land of posts that publish properly, templates that look nice, and commenting systems that don't crash every ten minutes. To all of our friends, please alter your links accordingly. I'll re-link to every one of you over the next day or two.

All of the posts are there already, so please continue to bash each other over the head at your leisure, at the new address.

Jim, TWP, Larry, Lala and Mike, you'll all be getting emails inviting you to the new blog as contributors.

Here's to the new and improved Shiraz!

13th Carnival of Socialism

2007-03-04T06:02:00.000-08:00

It's here at last folks!

After a couple of false starts, for which I apologise, here's the 13th Carnival of Socialism, which invited contributions loosely based around the (partly provocative) question "Why is the left obsessed with the Middle East?"

This was a quite deliberately controversial choice on my part, as I think that better debates tend to come from questions where people directly disagree, rather than by inviting semi-consensual discussions around a theme. This did however seem to piss off some people, who were expecting something in a more "write me a post about socialism and art" type of format. Apologies for that, but I think you'll see what I was trying to get at.

I was looking really for commentary on the left (from leftist and ex-leftist perspectives), as opposed to simply expositions of left-wing ideas. My intention with this theme was to try and solicit contributions from outside of the usual circle of left-wing bloggers, and introduce some newer perspectives. It's in that light that I was delighted to receive a contribution from Marxist From Lebanon (don't call him "Lebanese Marxist"), who will be new to many of you. In one amongst many arguments the course of a fascinating post, he posits that parts of the left have fallen into a kind of knee-jerk oppositionalism since 9/11:

"Ever since Bush opened his never ending “War on Terror”, the Middle East was more on the spot light than it used to be. Ariel Sharon compared the Palestinians ( without doing any difference to the civilians) to the Terrorists that Bush was fighting. The Marxists and the Leftists fell in the error of supporting in defecto any movement or rogue nation against the United States, unless if they were al-Qa’eda."

Read it through - whether you come to agree with him or not, you'll certainly find it both thoughtful and insightful.

Next up was the ringmaster himself, John Angliss, whose lighthearted contribution suggests that it's because the Middle East gives the left an unusual opportunity to speak in terms that the general public find interesting and relevant. John, you may be jesting, but I rather think you might have a more serious point than you think.

On an intertwined subject, whilst flicking around a Google Blog Search, I came across this post by Louis Proyect, which I felt to be more than worthy of inclusion. It's a discussion of socialist attitudes to Islam, and in particular attempts to discuss the SWP's attitude to political-religious organisations like the MAB. This blog's doughty SWP commenter, JohnG, engages Louis in a debate underneath.

I also came across a very thoughtful article on a similar issue from disillusioned leftist Josh Strawn, front man for band Blacklist, on his blog. He gives us, perhaps, an view into the psyche of some people on the left (and ex-left) who linger on issues like the Middle East and related areas. Similarly to our periodic commenter Paddy the Puritan, Josh confesses to initial feelings of elation on 9/11:

"I thought it was a victory for our side. I thought it was the beginning of the revolution. I even thought they were part of the whole anti-globalization movement. They had hit at the heart of it all, the symbol of U.S. economic hegemony."

But for him the elation was replaced quickly by revulsion at his own feelings, and a sense of shame which led him to question much of his former worldview. He actually became pro-war, and he chastises those of us who remain on the left for our practice of taking swipes at what he believes to be a liberatory project:

" And now the left chastises the action because rocking the boat is costing lives. Best to have left the wound (that we helped create) to fester, according to them. It costs nothing, save for the well-being of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, Afghans, and Palestinians. It lets the 'radicals' keep their hands clean. They can Bike Against Bush or whatever the nonsense-of-the-day might be and call it compassion."

I think he's badly wrong, but he certainly got me thinking.

On the other side of the equation, I also found this post by this blog's friend Tom of Newer Labour, who finds himself in the not-very-comforable, and many would argue self-contradictory, position of being an anti-war signatory of the Euston Manifesto. Whether you think the lad's confused or not, his article does give an insight into some of the agonising that left-reformists go through when trying to define their stances on the Middle East in the face of Trot "anti-imperialism" on the one side and neocon "pro-war leftism" on the other.

Finally, I have received a contribution from someone called Judeosphere which compares the left's obsession with the Middle East to Evangelicals' obsessing over the same subject. S/he is someone who I'm presuming isn't technically on the left or indeed a disillusioned lefty type either. But I'm including the contribution anyway 'cos it's interesting. So go ahead and moan. See if I care.

Oh, and to the guy who sent me the poem, many thanks. I will use it, but it will need to go in a separate post if that's ok, purely because it doesn't relate to the topic at hand.

So there you have it. Not the usual contributors, and not a normal topic. I've no doubt some of it was inflammatory, and some of it will provoke debate. Good, it was meant to. Because that's how we on the left keep ourselves relevant, our rhetoric sharp and our ideas fresh.

Enjoy.

Free Kareem!

2007-03-04T01:45:00.000-08:00

I'd been meaning to write this for a while, but didn't get around to it. I want to add this blog's voice to those in the movement to free liberal Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer (Abdel Karim Nabil Suleiman) who has been imprisoned for the thought crime of writing opinions critical of Islam, and of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. In doing so, he has earned the wrath of both the corrupt Mubarak regime and the Islamist opposition, the Muslim Brotherhood.

Kareem has been shortlisted for the Index on Censorship/Hugo Young Award for Journalism 2007. His articles included a pledge to defend Arab and Muslim women against discrimination, criticisms of Al-Azhar University where he was a student, and attacks on Mubarak as a "symbol of Tyranny". He was jailed for "incitement to hate Islam” and “defaming the president of the republic", or in other words for uttering opinions with which powerful political forces in Egypt happened to disagree.

Kareem is supported by a wide range of people and organisations, from Muslim bloggers such as Yasmin Amin, to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, even extending as far across the spectrum as the "pro-war lefties" of Harry's Place. Please, add your voice too.

The website for the Free Kareem campaign has more information.

Death threats sent to Iraqi womens' activist

2007-03-03T00:51:00.000-08:00

Nice bunch aren't they, those Ansar Al-Islam people?

Original article is here, along with other material and suggestions as to how you can help.

MADRE Partner Condemned to Death by Jihadist Group

On February 26, 2007, Houzan Mahmoud, an international representative of MADRE's sister organization, the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq, received an e-mail signed by Ansar al-Islam, the notoriously brutal jihadist group based in Kurdistan/Iraq.

The death threat, delivered via e-mail, read, "With the permission of Great God, we will kill you either in Iraq or in London by the middle of March, because you are campaigning against Islam. You should be sent to God for punishment." Houzan Mahmoud, who is currently based in London, is originally from Iraqi Kurdistan, where she recently led a campaign against the imposition of Islamic Sharia law in the proposed constitution.

Ms. Mahmoud, aged 34, is an outspoken Iraqi feminist, secularist, journalist, and human rights activist. She has resolved to persist in her work, despite being targeted by Ansar al-Islam. In a letter to MADRE on February 27, Ms. Mahmoud stated, "I will continue doing what I am doing now, going around the world cultivating support for women in Iraq and Kurdistan as well as exposing the violence and gender apartheid that Islamists are imposing on millions of women in the region."

MADRE denounces the threats made by Islamists against Houzan Mahmoud, and condemns all attacks on human rights defenders and women's rights activists. MADRE notes that for more than two decades, its sister organizations around the world have been targeted with similar violence, from the death squads of El Salvador, to the interahamwe militias of Rwanda. MADRE stands opposed to all those who utilize violence, intimidation, and mass killing in pursuit of reactionary political and social agendas and extends its strongest support to Houzan Mahmoud and all Iraqi women who are fighting for their human rights.

UPDATE: More about the threats, and Houzan's campaigning, here

March for Abortion Rights

2007-03-03T00:35:00.000-08:00

Was emailed this a couple of days ago; if you're up for another demo after the NHS ones (you demo hound, you), then here are the details:

40 YEARS SINCE 1967 - MARCH FOR ABORTION RIGHTS

Meet 6.30pm, Saturday 3 March, outside University of London Union, Malet Street (tube: Goodge Street, Russell Square, Euston)

Confirmed speakers so far are: Katy Clark - Labour MP for North Ayrshire and Arran; Michele Emerson - Communication Workers' Union Equality Officer; Sofie Buckland - National Union of Students NEC; Kate Ahrens - Leicester Health Unison; Debbie Hollingsworth - Ruskin College Women's Officer; Azar Sheibani - Iranian women's liberation activist; Thea Cohen - Students for Choice (USA)

Supporters include:

Education Not for Sale Women

NUS Women's Campaign

University and College Union (UCU)

International Union of Sex Workers

Marge Berger - editor, Reproductive Health Matters journal

Organisation of Women's Freedom in Iraq (UK)

Alliance for Workers' Liberty

Debbie Hollingsworth - Ruskin College students union womens officer

Sussex University Women's Group

Nottingham University Women's Group

Emma Clossick - co-chair, Oxford University Women's Group

RMT Women's Advisory Committee

John McDonnell MP - chair, Labour Representation Committee

Carolyn Leckie MSP - Scottish Socialist Party

Petra Urwin - SOAS Women's Society president

Janine Booth - Hackney TUC president

Kate Ahrens - Leicester Health Unison

Socialist Youth Network

Mary Partington - SYN women's officer and Feminists 4 John McDonnell

Scottish Socialist Youth Women's Network

Louise Gold - Sheffield University, NUS Women's Committee 2004-6

Laura Sterry - Nottingham University

Laura Schwartz - University of East London

Susie Orbach - author of "Fat is a feminist issue"

Teodora Todorova - Nottingham University Women's Officer

York University Women's Committee

British Pregnancy Advisory Service

Respect Coalition

Rhythms of Resistance will be playing.

Ignorant proles

2007-03-01T08:03:00.000-08:00

A truly wonderful letter in today's Morning Star:

"Here in Wandsworth, we have two supermarkets, Waitrose and Sainsburys, where I, as well as my brother, can pick up the Morning Star.

"One criticism that I would make about these mega-food monopolies is the amount of Israeli produce flooding their shelves at the moment.

"Recently, my sister and I have found it impossible in either of these stores to purchase, for example, new potatoes, sweet peppers or mint from any other source except Israel.

"The special preference given to Israel by the EU needs to be scrapped.

"More of a worry is the complete lack of any political consciousness shown by many of its workforce.

"When we enquire where the produce comes from and say that we won't be buying it as it's from Israel, we end up receiving a blank look of bewilderment.

"They probably think we are anti-semitic.

"DAVID MACCINI

"London SW18"

I do so hope that last sentence is correct.

Hypocrite? Coward? No: conciliator!

2007-02-28T14:59:00.000-08:00

I have been accused (and not just on this blog) of being dogmatic, confrontational and unwilling/unable to see the other person's point of view.

I have also been accused (libellously) of being, shall we say, intemperate with regard to alcoholic beverage.

The following should put all these myths and libels to rest:

I live in an area of Birmingham (Bournville) which, thanks to those patronising, religious (Quaker), anti-union scum, the Cadbury family, has long been 'dry'. Those of us who like the occasional social drink have to plan well ahead, because there are no 'offies' in the vacinity.

So I was well pleased to hear that Tesco (who have a pretty rotten "sweetheart" deal with USDAW, by the way), planned to open a store selling - amongst other things - booze -within staggering distance of where I live.

Then I received this, from my local (Tory) councillors:

"Dear Resident,
"You may already be aware that TESCO are currently converting the old petrol station on Linden road into a TESCO Express site. This will be a site that sells a full range of foodstuffs and petrol from 7am intil 10:30pm
"However, TESCO have also recently put in an application to the City Council for permission to sell alcohol once this site is reopened.
"This is something that your local councillors are opposed to. We believe that the selling of alcohol from such a site may lead to underage sales to young people and may lead to an increase in anti social behaviour in the area fuelled by alcohol from this site.
"We have organised a public meeting at the United Reform Church on Beaumont Road to hear the views of local residents.
"We look forward to seeing you on Sunday.
"Yours sincerely,
"Nigel Dawkins
"Councillor Niger Dawkins".

Well, I don't mind telling you, I very nearly went along to tell Cllr. Dawkins and his fellow prohibitionists exactly what I thought of them. But I didn't in the end. Because I was down the pub.

Then, a couple of days ago, my next-door neighbour came knocking at my door. She's a lovely, kindly, public-spirited lady, who takes a great interest in all local matters, especially what's happening on our road....she had a petition in her hand: it was from the Tory councillors, about Tesco's application for an alcohol licence: what do you think I did?

Clue: I'm a natural-born coward : I mean, conciliator.

Tamimi denounces "fundamentalism"!

2007-02-26T15:47:00.000-08:00

Another great moment in journalism from the British Guardian today. Stuart Jeffries (usually one of their less annoying journalists) has a piece on the "vicious and uncompromising battle between believers and non-believers". It is admirably even-handed, in just the same way that, no doubt, a Guardian article discussing the "battle" between followers of Darwin and supporters of creationism would also be even-handed: after all, science and rationality should not be given preference over superstition and belief in the supernatural - that would be judgemental, wouldn't it?

After quoting such profound thinkers as Colin Slee, the Dean of Southwark, saying things like "Atheists like the Richard Dawkins (sic) of this world are just as fundamentalist as the people setting off bombs on the tube"... (think about that statement for a moment, folks)...the article goes on to quote one Azzim Tamimi, billed as "director of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought", saying: "I refer to secular fundamentalism. The problem is that these people believe that they have the absolute truth. That means you have no room to talk to others so you end up having a physical fight". So Mr Tamimi is some kind of peace-loving, liberal, pro-dialogue, anti-fundamentalist opponent of the idea of anyone having "the absolute truth"? Eh, well...perhaps not: what the Guardian article failed to mention is that Mr Tamini isn't just the "director of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought". He's rather better known as the representaive in Britain of Hamas. You know, those peace-loving anti-fundamentalist folk who's charter explicitly rejects "so-called peaceful solutions", who opposed the Oslo accords, who support suicide bombings against civilians and who seek the total destruction of Israel: all in the name of their faith, which they believe to be the absolute, irreducible and uncontestable Truth, and that all who disagree are infidels who should be conquered -or in the case of Jews, wiped off the face of the earth. And Tamini, whose membership of Hamas is not even mentioned by the Gruaniad, is quoted denouncing "secular fundamentalism" on the grounds that it leaves "no room to talk to others"...

What would we do without the good old Graun, eh?

Carnival coming soon...

2007-02-25T08:47:00.000-08:00

I am still doing the 13th Carnival of Socialism, but I'm gonna put it up next weekend rather than this. I just got carried away with the Meacher stuff. Thanks to all who've sent contributions, I promise I haven't forgotten you.

The plus side is that if you still want to send something in that works around the approximate topic area of "Why is the left obsessed with the Middle East?" , then you have a small extension time within which to do so. I'd particularly invite contributions from people who don't come from the same traditions as me or share my gripes about the left. After all, it's intended to be a provocative topic, and I know that some of you who read this blog enjoy a row. So here's your chance to do exactly that, in a medium other than the comments boxes. Although those will doubtless be busy next weekend too!

Contributions and comments, as ever, to voltaire_reincarnate@lycos.com

More on Meacher

2007-02-25T06:04:00.000-08:00

I don't often agree with or endorse stuff written by AA Gill, but this from today's Sunday Times is both to the point and utterly priceless:

"There’s a company trying to find ways of marketing the pristine emptiness of Michael Meacher. So far, all they’ve come up with is having it said by the mechanical voice in lifts when the doors are opening but there’s no one there."

You just know it could so easily be true!

Anyway do your own Google News search on "Meacher" and you'll find about a squillion other mocking stories blossoming from journos both left and right. Meacher is sinking faster than the Titanic, and good riddance to him as well.

(Hat Tip: Dan in the comments)

Whackjob Sunday... Yes, It's Meacher!

2007-02-25T01:28:00.000-08:00

I wonder if his campaign will be using this fascinating video? It's in two parts; watch the top one first. Enjoy.

Remember when we talked about the C-Word?

2007-02-24T15:58:00.000-08:00

... To those of you who felt the word should simply be barred from general discourse (what the right would call "polite society"), I would only say to you that I've heard Michael Meacher is running for leader of the Labour Party. And V has something to say about it.

I don't care what your views are on the word itself. Meacher is vilified by the vast majority of the left. The right think he's a figure of fun. And yet he thinks he's the man to challenge Gordon Brown. If ever any man richly deserved the accolade "Cunt of the Week", 'twould be he.

Back off, Meacher!

2007-02-23T02:46:00.000-08:00

What the hell does Michael Meacher think he's playing at? This fake-left poseur has announced that he's standing for Labour leader on a supposedly "centre-left" platform. He claims to have more support from MP's than the genuine left-winger, John McDonnell who announced his intention to stand months ago. In fact, neither of them has anywhere near the 44 nominations required to get onto the ballot paper, but there is simply no evidence that Meacher has more support than McDonnell, even amongst MP's.

The most likely effect of Meacher's campaign will be to damage John McDonnell sufficiently that neither of them get on the ballot paper, giving Brown a clear run.

As for Meacher's claim that he is somehow "more credible" than McDonnell: well, this comes from someone who voted for the war in Iraq, foundation hospitals, cuts in lone parent benefit, tuition fees, etc, etc. He supports wacky conspiracy theories about 9/11 (the CIA was behind it!) and owns approximately a dozen homes. Crucially, he has virtually no rank and file support anywhere in the labour movement. McDonnell, on the other hand, has been endorsed by ASLEF, the RMT, FBU, Amicus Unity Gazette, the T&G, CWU and Unison Broad Lefts, Welsh Labour Grassroots, Scottish Campaign for Socialism and the Labour Representation Committee - not to mention CLP's and union branches across the country.

What you can do:

1/ Write a letter to the Guardian and/or Mirror, explaining why you're backing McDonnell and calling for Meacher to back off.

2/ Email Meacher at meacherm@parliament.uk - asking him to back off and / or to support McDonnell.

3/ Write to your local Labour MP - go to www.writetothem.com

4/ If you've got a blog, write what you think about Meacher and/or leave comments on other blogs. Do a search for "Michael Meacher" at search.blogger.com to find posts about this.

Meacher's vainglorious act of conscious or unconscious sabotage against McDonnell must be stopped.

Wystan Hugh Auden, 21 February 1907 - 29 September 1973

2007-02-21T07:28:00.000-08:00

He was a rather sad, lonely man and his formal politics - even at their best - were pretty crap (he supported the Stalinist "popular front" movement in the thirties, then became a pacifist and anti-Marxist).

But his heart was in the right place: he was personally kind and generous, and he did his best in the Spanish civil war, despite being (by his own admission), a pretty useless soldier. Above all, he was a humanist.

Here's one of his best:

Musee des Beaux Arts

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how well it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the plowman may
Have heard the splash, the foresaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

...And here are some excerpts (lines 45-46, 89-93) from Spain 1937, about the civil war: he later tried to have this expunged from the record of his work:

And the life, if it answers at all, replies from the heart
And the eyes and the lungs, from the shops and squares of the city:
"O no, I am not the Mover,
not today, not to you. To you I'm the

"Yes-man, the bar-companion, the easily-duped:
I am whatever you do; I am your vow to be
Good, your humourous story;
I am your business voice; I am your marriage.

"What's your proposal? To build the Just City? I will,
I agree. Or is it the suicide pact, the romantic
Death? Very well, I accept, for
I am your choice, your decision: yes, I am Spain."

The stars are dead; the animals will not look:
We are left alone with our day, and the time is short and
History to the defeated
May say Alas but cannot help or pardon.

Eagleton: beyond stupid

2007-02-21T02:28:00.000-08:00

Terry Eagleton (John Edward Taylor Professor of English Literature at Manchester University), used to be a self-proclaimed Marxist of one variety or another. These days, he's a pretentious purvayor of vacuous, dishonest excuses for moral and cultural relativism. His crass denunciation of Richard Dawkins' brilliant "The God Delusion" is but one recent example of this buffoon's ignorance and stupidity. But his offering in today's Guardian takes the proverbial biscuit. In the course of completely misrepresenting the terms of the debate about multiculturalism, the learned Professor appears to call Tony Blair a "cultural supremacist" for objecting to the bombing of tube stations...I'm (nearly) sure that Eagleton doesn't really mean this, but that is, indeed, what he appears to say. As one commentator, "Waltz" (about twenty comments down), says "This is the stupidist article I've ever read in the Guardian. It's...it's...it's beyond stupid".

Considering the pack of idiots and moral degenerates (including Madelaine Bunting, Andrew Murray and Osama bin Laden) that Seumus Milne has published over the years, to call an article "the stupidist" is quite something. But, in this case, I think, justified.

And folks, if you're reading this on Wednesday 21st February, there's still time to go onto the Guardian's "Comment is Free" website and tell the professor exactly what you think of him.

Monbiot Tears the Bastards Apart

2007-02-20T00:54:00.000-08:00

There are few things that raise my ire more than the 9-11 conspiracy crew. Most annoying is seeing them, seemingly getting a hearing, at every anti-war demo I have attended in Britain. They walk around with thier crap signs showing a poorly drawn plane and the towers with "9-11" and "Truth" written somewhere on the signs.

They've approached me, and I've given it to them. I will continue to do so. What is most disturbing is that they seem shocked that I should have such a reaction to them. It is as though they truly believe that they are simply another group with a cause who does no harm by being there. However as Monbiot points out in his article in today's Guardian nothing could be further from the truth. Monbiot makes the point that I have made all along with these people and that is that they discredit the left and the real movements that we are trying to build.

So this weekend, if you're going to the demo, make sure to let them know how much they are not welcome. I usually find that saying "get that shit outta my face" in my best NY accent when they try to hand me a leaflet works. There really isn't much point in an American who was there engaging them in conversation. They'd probably look on with wonder at someone who must be "in on it"......

Whackjob Sunday

2007-02-18T08:29:00.000-08:00

You can't beat a good conspiracy wacko for laugh-out-loud entertainment. Enjoy.

Anti-Imperialism and Waves of Rage

2007-02-18T07:19:00.000-08:00

Brendan O'Neill is editor of Spiked Online, the organ of one of the successor bodies to th Revolutionary Communist Party, an eccentric ultra-left organisation that converted en masse to libertarianism in the 1990s. Still, whoever he is, this post of his (from Comment is Free) is very interesting.

He's commenting on the way that "Muslim Rage" seems to have replaced political analysis at the root of the politics of many in the anti-war movement, and among the self-appointed "community leaders" so beloved of both the government and sections of the left. This has disastrous consequences in terms of a crisis of representation that leads all sorts of people to think they can set themselves up to speak, unelected, for the UK's Muslim communities.

Bizarrely, the prevailing wisdom among liberals and left wingers is simply to buy into this kind of politics as though it were self-evident fact. For instance, many people seem to simply accept that the war in Iraq and/or the Israeli occupation of Palestine were the cause of 7/7, as though the relationship were a direct and causal one. As O'Neill puts it:

"The idea that it somehow 'makes sense' for Khan and his three mates to kill themselves and others in protest at British foreign policy shows the triumph of the narrow and divisive politics of identity. There is also something uncomfortably racial about it. The assumption seems to be that there's something in Muslims' ethnic or religious make-up that makes it more acceptable, or at least more understandable, for them to carry out murderous acts in response to wars abroad, as if they are unthinking automatons driven more by emotion and instinct than rational political thought."

It's uncomfortable terrain, but he has a point. Could you seriously imagine progressives arguing, that David Khoresh or Tim McVeigh were driven by root causes based in unfair US policies towards the white working class, as though that was just the obvious explanation for the former's arming of his followers or of the murderous outrages committed by the latter? I certainly can't imagine a set of circumstances in which that would happen.

Have a look and see what you think. It's food for thought, anyway.

(Hat Tip: Modernity Blog)

Meanwhile, over at the Drink Soaked Trots...

2007-02-17T00:13:00.000-08:00

The Scylla and Charybdis of international politics, Will and JohnG, are just beginning the predictable row about a putative invasion of Iran in the comments on this post. I found the as-yet very short exchange interesting, because it throws into stark relief some of the issues between the so-called "stopper" and "decent" tendencies on the left.

Peculiar discussion, this. Especially when it's held between two people who are both putting arguments with virtually mirror-imaged flaws. Will is by far the politically sharper of the two, and quite rightly berates John's (and most of the left that gravitates around the SWP's) substitution of a simple disidentification with "imperialism" and de facto identification with any forces that oppose it - however reactionary - for actual political innovation, theory and analysis in politics on a global level. The consequence, he argues, is apologism for regimes that are brutally oppressive and/or actually fascist, purely on the grounds that they find themselves ranged against "imperialism". This is true, and can be applied to many people on that spectrum, even those not quite so stupid as to get all jelly-kneed over Muqtada Al-Sadr.

However, where he and his chums, pro-war leftists who happen (unusually for those under that label) to actually be mostly left-wing, go wrong, is that such a critique seems to the translate somehow into backing for ideologically driven offensives against various regimes in one particular region of the world, led by one of the most right-wing US administrations in that nation's history. They seem to have some kind of collective mental block that prevents them from disentangling neo-con rhetoric about spreading democracy in the Middle East from real liberatory goals. In other words, he (and they) would seem to have done a Cohen - ie, allowed legitimate criticism of glaring flaws in the politics of a section of the left, to lead them to have illusions in political initiatives led by a particularly malevolent section of the right.

By way of criticising the SWP-dominated left, Will says:

"The category of 'imperialism' so dominates and negates all other options that the imagination, the faculty of forming new ideas, the ability to be creative or resourceful is made reduntant."

Very sadly, in this political area at least, he would seem to have fallen into exactly the same trap, even if he is led to the opposite set of political conclusions. At least, that's the case if he (and other pro-war lefties such as Transmontanus, who wrote the actual post) is working himself up towards supporting an attack on Iran. Which I rather get the impression he is.

JohnG, on the other hand, manages to come to the right conclusion for all the wrong reasons: he rightly opposes the prospective attack on Iran. But then if the USA started distributing free apples to children the world over, John and his chums in the SWP would find some reason to oppose it. So I guess if you oppose anything and everything that one nation does in the field of foreign policy, then you're guaranteed to be right at least some of the time. And as a little Brucie Bonus, much of the closed and shrinking circle that is the trot/ex-trot left will say you've got "sound anti-imperialist politics". Oh, and you might get on the SWP Central Committee.

You pays your money, you takes your choice, I guess.

Update: Hak Mao has written a response to this post on the Drink-Soaked Trots site. As ever, it's very good - albeit that I'm apparently having a "fit of the vapours" according to Ms Mao. Take a look.

Big Al, Bugs and that massacre

2007-02-14T01:27:00.000-08:00

On this day, 78 years ago, the forces of Big Al rubbed out key members of George 'Bugs' Moran's organisation in a Chicago garage.

This incident has long posed a quandary for principled anti-imperialists: which side would we have supported? On the face of it, the answer is easy: Big Al's mob was the biggest, most powerful outfit in town, whereras the Moran gang were the underlings: plainly, we support Moran (this analysis will have the added appeal, for some, that Moran was a deeply religious man, whose hatred of Big Al was motivated, he claimed, by his moral objection to the Capone mob's involvement in prostitution).

But here comes the problem for us principled folk: Moran's outfit, though predominantly Irish, were Anglophones, and therefore the historic oppressors. The Capone organisation, on the other hand, were Sicilians - long the victims of anti-Italian stereotyping and Siciliaphobia. Their strike against Moran was, therefore an entirely justified symbolic blow against the forces of oppression and racism worldwide, and would have to be supported on that basis, even if their methods were not ours.

Just goes to show, doesn't it, that your initial response to events isn't always the correct one. A little thought and analysis always pays off, especially when dealing with crucial issues like this one.

Cardus...Liebling...Balliett

2007-02-11T13:42:00.000-08:00

"Trying to put music -especially improvisatory music-into words is somewhat like trying to bottle an ocean breeze. Yet it's not entirely impossible, as Whitney Balliett...demonstrates".
-Nat Hentoff

There are some specialist writers who are just so good, that you can appreciate them even if you don't give a damn about their subject. Philip Larkin summed it up well:

"There is a kind of imaginative journalism that one suspects has its roots in Wilde's 'The Critic as Artist'. When Cardus writes 'During his first few overs , Grace's bat was like a stout door bolted against evil', or Liebling reports a boxer throwing a right 'like an old woman throwing a pie', Wilde's sentence about the relationship of the critic to the work of art being precisely that of the artist to the visible world comes irresistably to mind".

What Neville Cardus was to cricket and A.J. Liebling to boxing, Whitney Balliett (who died 1 February 2007), was to jazz. There is a further connection with Liebling: both wrote for the 'New Yorker' magazine, and both -inevitably-came under the influence of the great 'New Yorker' writers James Thurber and S.J. Perelman. Unlike Liebling, Thurber and Perelman, Balliet was not a deliberate humourist, but his jazz writing nevertheless contained the wit and peception of his great predecessors.

Doug Ramsey has commented that jazz writing "generally takes one of two paths, analysis or appreciation. Whitney Balliett was not a musicologist, but one of the field's most gifted appreciators". Ramsay goes on to cite the following example of Balliett's brilliance - a passage about Thelonious Monk:

"His improvisations were attempts to disguise his love of melody. He clothed whatever he played with spindly runs, flatted notes, flatted chords, repeated single notes, yawning silences, and zigzag rhythms. Sometimes he pounded the keyboard with his right elbow. His style protected him not only from his love of melody but from his love of the older pianists he grew out of - Duke Ellington and the stride pianists. All peered out from inside his solos, but he let them escape only as parody".

As Ramsey coments: "Musicians and academic analysts often found more poetry than accuracy in some of Balliett's lyrical descriptions ..."

However, I would defy anyone to fault Balliet's ability to describe the great personalities of jazz - their sounds, and their characters: Billie Holiday, Henry 'Red' Allen, Mary Lou Williams, Pee Wee Russell, the Count Basie rhythm section ("its ball-bearing motion through an almost Oriental casualness and indirection, as if the last thing in the world it wanted was to supply the rhythm for a jazz band), ... right up to Ornette Coleman.

Balliet's ability was to both describe the individual (often in great physical detail), and his/her music. He was especially good with drummers, Big Sid Catlett being a particular favourite. Here's Balliett's description of the man:

"Catlett was nobly constructed. He was six feet three or four inches tall, and everything was in proportion: the massive shoulders, the long arms and giant, tapering fingers, the cannon-ball fists, the barn-door chest and the tidy waist and columnular neck...big men are often more graceful than small men, and Catlett was no exception. He could swim, play football and basketball, and dance beautifully. But he never learned to drive a car".

Now here's Balliett's desciption of a Catlett drum solo:

"There is a section of his long and empyrean solo in "Steak Face" on the Decca "Satchmo at Symphony Hall" album in which he plays a repeated figure with a loose, and then increasingly complex, arrangement of rim shots, and it is astonishing. It makes you want to dance and jig and shake. Its timing and taste and impetus are such that the passage stands at the very heart of rhythm. One of his simpler solos might start with unbroken, surging, snare-drum rolls, whose volume rose and fell sharply, and whose wavelike patterns became more and more intense before suddenly exploding into rim shots. Then a stunning silence-followed by lightening shots delivered all round his set, by another silence and several choked-cymbal beats, and the solo was over"... (this description of Catlett's playing, by Balliett, continues and intensifies - see "American Musicians"- Oxford, 1986).

...If anyone knows of a better written description of a drum solo, I'd like to hear of it.

The only complaint about Balliett that holds any water, IMHO, is that of Philip Larkin (who very much liked Balliett's writing style): " None of the complimentary remarks about Balliett...uses the word 'critic', and that may be significant...(since criticism) is alien to Balliett's purpose".

Larkin had earlier commented;

"His chief characteristic, as a critic, is that he has virtually no characteristics: in a potted biography published in 1959 it was said that Balliet 'professes equal interest in all types of jazz'."

In fact, Balliett did once come close to expressing a clear-cut opinion, about the avant garde jazz of the sixties (and it was an opinion with which Larkin would most certainly have agreed, had he known about it):

"At its worst, then the new thing is long-winded, dull and almost physically abrasive. At its best - in the hands of Ornette Coleman or (Cecil) Taylor - it howls through the mind and heart, filling them with an honest ferocity that is new in jazz and perhaps in any music".

But back to Balliett's amazing ability to capture in words, both the sound of a musician, and their personality. I think the best example of both is his description of the eccentric, alcoholic clarinet genius, Pee Wee Russell. First, Pee Wee's sound:

"In his final chorus, he moves snakily up towards the middle register with a series of tissue-paper notes and placid rests, adopting a legato attack that allows the listener to move back from the edge of his seat".

...Now, Pee Wee's personality:

(From his wife, Mary, describing to Balliet a time when Pee Wee left her and then came crawling back): "Once when Pee Wee had left me and was in Chicago, he came back to New York for a couple of days . He denies it. He doesn' remember it. He went to the night club where I was working as a hat-check girl and asked to see me. I said no. The boss's wife went out and took one look at him and came back and said 'At least go out and talk to him. He's pathetic. Even his feet look sad.'"

That's why I miss you already, Whitney.

Oh fer fuck's sake.

2007-02-11T01:19:00.000-08:00

Just a quick one now.

Some of you may remember that some days ago I wrote another post explaining to the thick and uninspired why Jon Cruddas isn't very left wing. In the course of that I had a less than subtle dig at Dave Osler, who at that time had just written something to the effect that he might vote for Cruddas if no-one better showed up. Predictably, Dave remained splendidly aloof from my barbed words - showing himself to be one of the few political class acts remaining on the left in the process.

However, in the course of the same post I tangentially mentioned some more certain Cruddas supporters, including one Antonia Bance, an ex-student leftie from Oxford University and now Labour councillor, whom I called "allegedly left wing". I'd always thought this was a fairly simple phrase, meaning that someone claims to be left wing, but that I can't see how that claim is justified. Not a big deal, and an opinion that can be retracted on production of some evidence to the contrary.

But no. First in the comments her (presumably) pal Don Paskini took me to task for my "spiteful attack" on her. He was, however, pacified once I explained that this was not a plot on part of "my comrades" (by whom one presumes he meant the AWL) to undermine her by, err, being mean. So all was well.

But now... she's bloody posting about it herself! Apparently my little chiding words count as a "denunciation" in the rarefied atmosphere of Oxfordian politics. All I can say is that politics amid the ivory towers must be fairly Queensbury rules compared to the rest of the country, if "allegedly left wing" is an excessively pejorative thing to say about someone. Perhaps someone should introduce her to Will for a bit of toughening-up...

Antonia, I'm sure you're a jolly nice person, left wing or not. Chin up. Pip-pip. TTFN.

Hehehehehehe....

2007-02-10T14:08:00.000-08:00

Pant-pissingly funny interview of the week can be found in the current Weekly Worker, where Peter Manson interviews Yasir Idris, the recruitment consultant who beat SWP full timer Helen Salmon to the Respect nomination for a seat in the next set of elections to Birmingham City Council. The article reveals a lot about the state of Respect and its internal politics - remember before reading it that Birmingham is one of their better areas, with the politically credible Salma Yaqoob standing an outside chance of taking a parliamentary seat at the next general election.

Idris certainly has a firm social background in the West Midlands:

"My father has been a businessman. Back in 1978, when I was born, my father owned most of the Ladypool Road. It’s known now as ‘Balti junction’ because of the number of restaurants there. He owned various retail units - clothes shops, newsagents, travel agents, restaurants, etc, etc. My father owned a good 20 shops on that stretch."

What's more, the family's prestige may have helped with the (alleged) joiners on voting day who helped put Yasir over the top in the candidate selection ballot:

"It’s probably because of my influence as well. I’m well known among these people and my family are well known. I helped convince these people - hey, we do need members. Respect needs to move forward among the Asian community. We need to join together as a coalition, in unity with everyone else, to show these people that, yes, we can live side by side and we can live united."

He's not entirely au fait with Respect's policies, but is apparently reading up on them. This news will doubtless come as a comfort to the SWP, who were so careful not to allow anything too radical through when writing them. Perhaps they had Yasir in mind?

Anyway, read the rest of it here. It really is incredibly funny. Unless you're Helen Salmon or the SWP, that is.

13th Carnival of Socialism

2007-02-10T05:25:00.000-08:00

Okay then, I've settled on a topic. This came to me via a problem that Stroppy had when she did the last carnival. Namely that in a carnival with a topic as supposedly broad as "liberation politics and the left", she was (dismally but predictably) deluged with posts about Iraq and Palestine.

Now, before you all start going on, I know that they're important issues. I know that the implications for global politics in both cases stretch well beyond the borders of either nation. And I know that most of what is written about them by people on the left is part of a genuine effort to show solidarity.

But... nevertheless I'd argue that the disproportionate coverage of both issues on the left is indicative of biases that we need to address. To read the sheer volume of left-wing writing on those subjects, you would think that nowhere else in the world even existed. Or that if it did, then there's certainly no problem there. Uzbekistan? North Korea? Chad? Western Sahara? Algeria? All minor diversions from the struggle to liberate Palestine, comrade (although we'll allow for a quick "Ooh ah Hezbollah" on the related issue of the Lebanon if we're in a particularly moronic mood). Oh, and let's not forget the struggle of those great progressives in the Mehdi Army, who so carry the banner of anti-imperialism in Iraq!

Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating. But not much. You only have to take a couple of steps backwards to see just how crass and myopic this obsession looks to the wider world.

So, following from that drumroll, the topic for the 13th Carnival of Socialism is "Why is the left obsessed with the Middle East?".

Deadline will be February 24th 2007. You therefore have a fortnight folks - contributions to me either by email to voltaire_reincarnate@lycos.com or if you prefer, via link in the comments. From long posts to acidic one-liners, anything contributed (however mad) will be most welcome.

Watch this space

2007-02-10T02:37:00.000-08:00

Seeing as I faithfully promised Angliss that I'd do the next Carnival of Socialism, I suppose I'd better pull my finger out and do something about it. I shall have a ponder, and by the end of today I'll have a topic and a deadline for all you incisive political bloggers out there. Watch this space for details.